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RenWmn

Big Picture Claim Flag/Land Ownership Issue Analysis

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Among all the suggestions to overhaul the claim system, it is good for us to not loose site of the fundamental issues and core problems.  The core problem seems to be that players are hitting a roadblock in progression in the game when faced with the challenge of finding a base location. 

Written at length each issue that I've seen or others have mentioned in this post:
 

As brief as I have attempted to be on some issues, it is lengthy because of the complexity of the problem. More concisely the main issues seem to fall into these categories: 

  1. Excessive land claims are being encouraged through taxes, idea of land control (claim and control land that others build on, and praising "Top companies" that have the most claims.
  2. Claim system design issues - easy and fast way to claim lots of land, no limit to claims per company,  wasted space between claims, inability to size claims to needs, claims required for bases/beds.
  3. Unused claims persist - claim decay complicated, inactive claims don't go away on their own, challenges to players contesting claims including disruptions 
  4. No tools for company admins/owners to manage claims -  co. owners can't limit who places claims and what types, can't see who is claiming or has placed claims, no detailed list to manage, no way to disrupt or destroy claims from a distance
  5. No good alternative water base options -  no vessels designed  to be floating bases - restrictions to building with weight restrictions, no crop plots, limited creature storage, no building beyond walls of ships
  6. Server owner tools lacking - This is an important component as server owners could provide alternative play styles if given enough customization options (Please see above post for more details.)

It is easy to get caught up in the minutia of solutions and their specifics. Below are some thoughts, questions, and potential solutions: 

  1. Don't encourage land claims - Aren't we supposed to be pirates and adventurers and not feudal lords? Don't just "top companies" on amount of claims, rethink taxes and system of claiming land for others to build on. In real and digital life people want to avoid taxes and own their own land.
  2. Amount of land a company or individual owns should be restricted - Land and system resources are not finite. Neither should claims or the ability to control be.
  3. Is the land claiming system even right for this game? Claims could be redesigned in a lot of different ways, but knowing all the issue they are causing is the claim flag system one that would even be implemented? 
  4. Unused claims should disappear easily. If the concept is kept, code should evaluate company claim use and decay accordingly. Unused claims should simply disappear after a certain period of time after inactivity easily freeing up land. 
  5. Caution against maintenance/ upkeep -grind for coin or resources to maintain something isn't fun. 
  6. Water base alternatives - Is the point of the game becoming feudal lords or to be pirates and adventurers? Water is plentiful.  Land is limited. Think of options so that people can effectively have floating bases.  Ship designed for base and not combat with ability to grow crops, easily store creatures, haul everything needed, be hard to destroy.
  7. Give company owners/admins tools to limit and manage claims
  8. Consider alternatives to big claims to meet the needs of pirates/adventurers - Think about the needs of companies and come up with non-land alternative solutions. Pirate islands/cities where larger ships can be built without land ownership/dock building and other needs met? Banking system and/or way to very safely bury gold.  


Thoughts?

 


 

 

Edited by RenWmn
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Floating bases would be cool. 

The floating base could be a slow moving ship or it could be a structure you build on the water that floats. Like a floating foundation that is anchored to the sea bottom somehow.

If they do add floating bases, I'd like to see a way to dock or tether ships to it. So when the base is not moving, the ship appears to be anchored same as when anchored to shore, but would be anchored to the base. When the base is moving, the ship is pulled along with the base, as if it is on a tow line.

The downside of this is that Altlas is designed to have a lot of water to provide "unuseable space" between islands. This space is there to separate players, but also reduces the load on the servers that host Atlas. If players could place bases there, it could cause server performance issues.

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Limit flags and upkeep with gold . Good ideas that we discuss it before in here , from the very beginning of the game.

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So to start there is good and bad with claims .I appreciate the development wanting to update and change this system however the claims themselves need work first. You work hard find a claim it's over lapped by other flags you claim some but they are all half claims basically that's ok you got land you just won the game right? These claims are not secure. Your neighbor could move that beach flag 5 feet to the water then over lap all your over lapping claims.  The over lapping is an issue then even if the claim system is changed everyone wants beach front property with docking alot of land doesn't have either. Then the water line in alot of places is set with rocks and random hidden land almost like the designer wanted to see how many boats they could beach.the first encounter we get of this is in Freeport you can easily beach a ramshackle let alone a bigger boat no port in the world would exist set up that way. Back to land claims the three week timer is nice but because they didn't give a grace period to cap without sleeping contesters we still have alot of land that hasn't been claimants on pve since launch. The first three week timer since the change is just ending so we haven't even seen the change of the implementation of sleepers not contesting claims. 

 

 

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8 hours ago, Beylerbeyi said:

Limit flags and upkeep with gold . Good ideas that we discuss it before in here , from the very beginning of the game.

I've seen upkeep drive people from survival games before. People don't mind grind so much for building new things or for a goal.  But just to maintain something you already worked hard for? It is a drudge of a system.  I'm not sure why it can't just be tied to inactivity.  That code already exists and has been tested. Limit claims. If people are inactive around specific claims have them loose them.  If it is tied to gold companies could just stash tons of gold in a resource box not loose their claim for a long time even if they aren't around. It is best to have players around and active.

 

 

Edited by RenWmn
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Just one question, and this is PVE oriented.

Knowing the lack of content in this game tell me, if you limit the number of claim flags by person or by company, what will the end goal of this game be?  It's less than 2 months old and the 'end game content' has already been done by some.

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Change the top10 to be the most gold not the most claims.   This is supposed to be a pirate game.   The one with the most gold wins.     Hoarding gold will not win the game, as just like IRL you spend gold to make gold.

Edited by krazmuze
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5 hours ago, Jean Lafitte said:

Just one question, and this is PVE oriented.

Knowing the lack of content in this game tell me, if you limit the number of claim flags by person or by company, what will the end goal of this game be?  It's less than 2 months old and the 'end game content' has already been done by some.

That depends on the imagination of the dev team, I'd guess.    I don't think there should be just one end goal in a sandbox game anyway, and it sure shouldn't be to go kill X, or own the most circles on the map, which are both pretty shallow.  It seems like the devs are also promoting some other aspects with their showcases of really well-built claims and flag designs.

Jat said they had some sort of plan for towns and cities.  I'm hoping there's enough structure behind that to make some serious pve competition in trading, politics, diplomacy, etc.  (None of which have anything to do with claim flags in their current state)

I'm in wait-and-see mode.  On a small scale, they've surprised me already with some little things like the written notes in today's patch.  I've been wishing for something like that for a while, for all of us who play in loosely connected small groups & solo.  Nobody has asked for them with all the bigger stuff happening, but someone thought of it and here they are.  Somebody is thinking about creative things, so fingers crossed for the future.

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17 hours ago, RenWmn said:

Among all the suggestions to overhaul the claim system, it is good for us to not loose site of the fundamental issues and core problems.  The core problem seems to be that players are hitting a roadblock in progression in the game when faced with the challenge of finding a base location. 

Written at length each issue that I've seen or others have mentioned in this post:
 

As brief as I have attempted to be on some issues, it is lengthy because of the complexity of the problem. More concisely the main issues seem to fall into these categories: 

  1. Excessive land claims are being encouraged through taxes, idea of land control (claim and control land that others build on, and praising "Top companies" that have the most claims.
  2. Claim system design issues - easy and fast way to claim lots of land, no limit to claims per company,  wasted space between claims, inability to size claims to needs, claims required for bases/beds.
  3. Unused claims persist - claim decay complicated, inactive claims don't go away on their own, challenges to players contesting claims including disruptions 
  4. No tools for company admins/owners to manage claims -  co. owners can't limit who places claims and what types, can't see who is claiming or has placed claims, no detailed list to manage, no way to disrupt or destroy claims from a distance
  5. No good alternative water base options -  no vessels designed  to be floating bases - restrictions to building with weight restrictions, no crop plots, limited creature storage, no building beyond walls of ships
  6. Server owner tools lacking - This is an important component as server owners could provide alternative play styles if given enough customization options (Please see above post for more details.)

It is easy to get caught up in the minutia of solutions and their specifics. Below are some thoughts, questions, and potential solutions: 

  1. Don't encourage land claims - Aren't we supposed to be pirates and adventurers and not feudal lords? Don't just "top companies" on amount of claims, rethink taxes and system of claiming land for others to build on. In real and digital life people want to avoid taxes and own their own land.
  2. Amount of land a company or individual owns should be restricted - Land and system resources are not finite. Neither should claims or the ability to control be.
  3. Is the land claiming system even right for this game? Claims could be redesigned in a lot of different ways, but knowing all the issue they are causing is the claim flag system one that would even be implemented? 
  4. Unused claims should disappear easily. If the concept is kept, code should evaluate company claim use and decay accordingly. Unused claims should simply disappear after a certain period of time after inactivity easily freeing up land. 
  5. Caution against maintenance/ upkeep -grind for coin or resources to maintain something isn't fun. 
  6. Water base alternatives - Is the point of the game becoming feudal lords or to be pirates and adventurers? Water is plentiful.  Land is limited. Think of options so that people can effectively have floating bases.  Ship designed for base and not combat with ability to grow crops, easily store creatures, haul everything needed, be hard to destroy.
  7. Give company owners/admins tools to limit and manage claims
  8. Consider alternatives to big claims to meet the needs of pirates/adventurers - Think about the needs of companies and come up with non-land alternative solutions. Pirate islands/cities where larger ships can be built without land ownership/dock building and other needs met? Banking system and/or way to very safely bury gold.  


Thoughts?

 


 

 

It would be much better just to go with the ark build anywhere design. Works wonders. Sure there were some pillars around but it is by far a better design 

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18 minutes ago, Realist said:

It would be much better just to go with the ark build anywhere design. Works wonders. Sure there were some pillars around but it is by far a better design 

On 12/27/2018 at 11:33 AM, Realist said:

Oh I am going off of ark as well man. I have 3 years of reasons to think they are bad, not just the few reasons from atlas 

Make up your mind. Did you love or hate Ark?

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1 minute ago, Jean Lafitte said:

Make up your mind. Did you love or hate Ark?

 

2 minutes ago, Jean Lafitte said:

Make up your mind. Did you love or hate Ark?

When did I say I hated ark. My problem was with wildcard. I loved ark. I hated all the stuff wildcard messed up but I loved ark to death. When did I say I hated ark? I mean really, if I hated it why would I want atlas to be more like it. Really think about that for a second 

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On 2/23/2019 at 12:21 AM, Jean Lafitte said:

Just one question, and this is PVE oriented.

Knowing the lack of content in this game tell me, if you limit the number of claim flags by person or by company, what will the end goal of this game be?  It's less than 2 months old and the 'end game content' has already been done by some.

Thankfully this is early access and the "end game" isn't entirely set yet.  There is so much more content in development and planned.  But even if not it is an open world game. The game and its goals are what the player makes of it.  I know some people who greatly enjoy open world games without finishing or even working towards "end game". 

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At this point of 2 to 4 weeks from the new system, we may as was just drop this and see what they release. Then pick up the discussion once we have a look at what is put in place.

They may not have said but I'm sure they know what they want/plan to do if it's only weeks away.

Over all, people want land and they are leaving in part because they can't get it. I'm sure the new plan has this in mind. I'm not even going to look anymore until after the change.

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I'm not a pirate. I am a settler. If we were all pirates...against What we would pirate. If you want be a pirate, you only need a ship, a lot of rum, a Parrot and a lot of gold to get.

Edited by Gorion
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there needs to be large companies with lots of land, the devs need to make these larger groups into content for the smaller ones. Maybe smaller groups can benefit more off pirating supply lines of larger companys in future mechanics added to the game, maybe even have the ability to form pirate coves or something on lawless islands, special land claims that are limited but allow you to do some pirate stuff from lawless. The game has lots of potential the devs just need to expand their imagination and apply some of it.

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