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Game Wipe and PVE

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6 minutes ago, Luxfere said:

yea its beta its not set in stone thats how you test and qa a game welcome to software dev 101 

I do believe what is being said here is that if that little screenshot is completely accurate, its not going to stop spamming in lawless regions. the stuff will decay over time, sure, but all the griefer has to do is replace it and carry on. 

And trust me, there are asses out there more than willing to do it. 

Edited by Sansa Phoenix
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50 minutes ago, Tinschn said:

Sorry, I wasn't clear - i mean a 9x9 grid server.
 

Yeah, you may have to expect wipes, but in this case only because of some devs who want to have feedback, ignore it and geting things in a complete mess after so much time.
They had more than enough time to change the game in the way the players want it to play. There are enough feedback threads in this forum.

Now dropping a nuclear bomb is simply not right and not necessary, especially if so many players - who obviously playing the game more than the devs do - disagree with those changes.

Well, I think the biggest I've found is 7x7. Considering how stable the game is, 7x7 is quite the feat to keep running, and with a few mods too. There are also a number of 5x5 out there. Not sure of the significance of 9x9, you can fit every biome and resource including the kraken in about 6 grids. So a 7x7 is about 9 times bigger than the minimum needed.

I'd like to see some statistics about what the players want. We need to include everyone that ever bought the game and played on officials. Now assuming that about 3/4 of the players have stopped playing and that they left because they didn't like the current state of the officials, right there, I think you can assume those people do want things changed, many don't like the claim flags for PvE.

Before I ever played Atlas, I thought the claim flags were a great idea, but the way they are currently implemented completely sucks in my opinion. They do not do what they were intended to do (I assume to prevent griefing), but instead they are a griefers wet dream. With absolutely no resources needed, you can block all other players from building in an area. If you have a bank, you don't block resource harvesting but at least get a percentage. Set that tax rate to the maximum, you effectively block it, since people will go somewhere with a lower rate. This is not what I was hoping for, I tried officials, but quickly went to private once I saw what a failure it was. Private servers do not allow spamming the flags. They limit claims and number of bases you can have.

I am going out on a limb, saying the majority of players do want the wipe, that many that left will take a wait and see attitude and will come back if the new system works and when the bugs and problems are worked out.

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15 minutes ago, wildbill said:

I am going out on a limb, saying the majority of players do want the wipe, that many that left will take a wait and see attitude and will come back if the new system works and when the bugs and problems are worked out.

Bill, I don't think you can accurately state that the majority of players want a wipe.  You don't know that, you don't even define what you mean by 'majority' - everyone who ever played? Just those who played in the last week?  Or...?  

Also, when do you expect 'the bugs and problems' to be worked out?  Early Access is forecasted for at least 2 years.  If they take that long to work out the bugs - and they will take at least that long if not longer - then what group are you saying will take a 'wait and see attitude' for the next 2+ years?  People will randomly drift in and out like they do in any game.  You may really be talking more about your own position than anything else, but it's not something you can generalize to the entire player base.

All that said, I believe they intend to wipe the slate clean anyway, just to get a better read on the changes they hope will head off the gamebreaking issues they've already encountered.  It's probably a necessary thing, but that doesn't mean I'll relish it.

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7 minutes ago, Raine said:

All that said, I believe they intend to wipe the slate clean anyway, just to get a better read on the changes they hope will head off the gamebreaking issues they've already encountered.  It's probably a necessary thing, but that doesn't mean I'll relish it.

I absolutely DO NOT like the wipe, but even I can see it might be the only solution at this point. Going through the entire atlas world, server by server, island by island, to remove every claim flag and every pillar or foundation spammed around would be impossible. Since I've been in the Dev kit and played around in making my own map I can honestly say that if you change the current landscape of an island or move it, bases will be destroyed, animals left out in the open, possibly drifting by the dozens if not hundreds in the oceans... not ideal.

So I can see why a wipe is deemed necessary even if I don't like it at all. 

But we DO need claiming in PvE to ensure that when a company or solo player builds a base/shipyards/ships, they aren't griefed and/or forced to abandon what they've worked their asses off for just because some other asshole wants their spot or wants to be a douche. 

Just limit claims to so many per company, or so many per player per company with a hard limit on the max a company can have. Thats more than reasonable, and would prevent a lot of the problems we are now facing after the wipe/update.

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19 minutes ago, wildbill said:

Well, I think the biggest I've found is 7x7. Considering how stable the game is, 7x7 is quite the feat to keep running, and with a few mods too. There are also a number of 5x5 out there. Not sure of the significance of 9x9, you can fit every biome and resource including the kraken in about 6 grids. So a 7x7 is about 9 times bigger than the minimum needed.

I'd like to see some statistics about what the players want. We need to include everyone that ever bought the game and played on officials. Now assuming that about 3/4 of the players have stopped playing and that they left because they didn't like the current state of the officials, right there, I think you can assume those people do want things changed, many don't like the claim flags for PvE.

Before I ever played Atlas, I thought the claim flags were a great idea, but the way they are currently implemented completely sucks in my opinion. They do not do what they were intended to do (I assume to prevent griefing), but instead they are a griefers wet dream. With absolutely no resources needed, you can block all other players from building in an area. If you have a bank, you don't block resource harvesting but at least get a percentage. Set that tax rate to the maximum, you effectively block it, since people will go somewhere with a lower rate. This is not what I was hoping for, I tried officials, but quickly went to private once I saw what a failure it was. Private servers do not allow spamming the flags. They limit claims and number of bases you can have.

I am going out on a limb, saying the majority of players do want the wipe, that many that left will take a wait and see attitude and will come back if the new system works and when the bugs and problems are worked out.

The largest private server I found was 9x9, but how they mixed the PVP and PVE grids was not really my cup of tea, because the grids were so mixed that you really had to keep track constantly if the next grid is now PVP or PVE.

I signed up to the forum on day 1, and since then, the forum was full of people who were complaining about the claiming system, not getting land and stopped playing.
You can also check the reviews on steam, I think every second or third person was not able to get land.

I get it, the claiming system at it's current stage is shit for new players. But why do "I" have to be punished for that? I don't do anything wrong. Even the claim flag where our base is, is set to allow building for everyone. We have 15-20% taxes on our island. It is okay if someone would build near me, but with the claim flag, I have the chance to get rid of griefers if they want to annoy me. And this "right" will be taken from me, even though I really try to be as nice as possible.

As I said before, limitation to the claim flags in combination with 200+ new islands should be more than enough for new players.
A wipe is not necessary and in combination with no claim flags will result in even more griefing.

Maybe I wouldn't be so pissed if the devs would say anything more how the blocking radius of your base will be. For example, how will water pipes work? If you have fresh water on one side of the island, but live on the other, you maybe want to set some pipes. Will they go through the neighbors garden, or will they block building? Both cases will end up in a quarrel.

Maybe if the dev would say "Hey, okay, we are very sorry to wipe the server, everyone who played since the beginning will start with a nice ship, only designed for this manner, not buildable and as a excuse" or something, than maybe I could arrange with that. But we will get a hat. A HAT! We will loose 25+ tames, 9 ships, all ressources, all buildings (I know, some of you will loose even more, but we are only a small company and which will make it maybe even harder to get back to our current stage), our whole progress - which means NOTHING to others in PVE - will be deleted, and we will get a hat. This is simply cheeky.

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6 minutes ago, Sansa Phoenix said:

But we DO need claiming in PvE to ensure that when a company or solo player builds a base/shipyards/ships, they aren't griefed and/or forced to abandon what they've worked their asses off for just because some other asshole wants their spot or wants to be a douche. 

Just limit claims to so many per company, or so many per player per company with a hard limit on the max a company can have. Thats more than reasonable, and would prevent a lot of the problems we are now facing after the wipe/update.

 I can definitely subscribe to this.  

Douchery is a brand of "fun" a small but consistent subset of people engage in.  It's predictable and it needs to be hamstrung as much as possible.  But from what the devs have divulged so far, the surgery here is far from adequate.  Unless they address these concerns specifically, I think we're justified in suspecting their "cure" will create more problems than it solves.

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3 minutes ago, Raine said:

Douchery is a brand of "fun" a small but consistent subset of people engage in.  It's predictable and it needs to be hamstrung as much as possible.  But from what the devs have divulged so far, the surgery here is far from adequate.  Unless they address these concerns specifically, I think we're justified in suspecting their "cure" will create more problems than it solves.

Never better said!

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26 minutes ago, Raine said:

Bill, I don't think you can accurately state that the majority of players want a wipe.  You don't know that, you don't even define what you mean by 'majority' - everyone who ever played? Just those who played in the last week?  Or...?  

Also, when do you expect 'the bugs and problems' to be worked out?  Early Access is forecasted for at least 2 years.  If they take that long to work out the bugs - and they will take at least that long if not longer - then what group are you saying will take a 'wait and see attitude' for the next 2+ years?  People will randomly drift in and out like they do in any game.  You may really be talking more about your own position than anything else, but it's not something you can generalize to the entire player base.

All that said, I believe they intend to wipe the slate clean anyway, just to get a better read on the changes they hope will head off the gamebreaking issues they've already encountered.  It's probably a necessary thing, but that doesn't mean I'll relish it.

You didn't quote the part, where I said by majority of players, I mean all players that have ever played on officials (these all have the potential to go back if the claiming system is fixed).

Yes, I don't know, but I'm totally guessing like everyone else that says the majority don't want a wipe.

By bugs and fixes worked out, I am only talking about the new claim system. Not the entire game.

Actually, not my position, I don't play on officials, although I might go back there if things are fixed, but probably not.

Ya, I don't like wipes either. I do my own wipes, but that is voluntary, not forced.

9 minutes ago, Tinschn said:

As I said before, limitation to the claim flags in combination with 200+ new islands should be more than enough for new players.
A wipe is not necessary and in combination with no claim flags will result in even more griefing.

I can understand why you would be pissed by a wipe, but at the same time you might see why it is needed.

How do you suppose they can add 200+ islands, modify every single grid, and not wipe them all?

Would be very difficult, if not impossible, much simpler to wipe them.

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21 minutes ago, Sansa Phoenix said:

I absolutely DO NOT like the wipe, but even I can see it might be the only solution at this point. Going through the entire atlas world, server by server, island by island, to remove every claim flag and every pillar or foundation spammed around would be impossible. Since I've been in the Dev kit and played around in making my own map I can honestly say that if you change the current landscape of an island or move it, bases will be destroyed, animals left out in the open, possibly drifting by the dozens if not hundreds in the oceans... not ideal.

So I can see why a wipe is deemed necessary even if I don't like it at all. 

But we DO need claiming in PvE to ensure that when a company or solo player builds a base/shipyards/ships, they aren't griefed and/or forced to abandon what they've worked their asses off for just because some other asshole wants their spot or wants to be a douche. 

Just limit claims to so many per company, or so many per player per company with a hard limit on the max a company can have. Thats more than reasonable, and would prevent a lot of the problems we are now facing after the wipe/update.

I played ARK a bit under the conditions we will soon have for Atlas PvE official servers. The way you do it, is pillars. You pillar the entire area you plan to build in. They have a fairly small resource block, but create a no build zone. You completely pillar the entire area, don't leave one spot where anyone else can build. Pillars are cheap to make, the weapon of choice for the griefer, but your weapon against them.

Once you have an area pillared, you then build your base, your shipyards, etc. You can remove some of the pillars when other things are in place to block others (griefers) from building, but you leave most in place, even add more as needed. 

The pillars look like crap, but I guess that is what we are stuck with now.

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I understand why they do wipe. New Islands, removing the claim system from PVE.

What I don't understand why they do a full wipe. Wiping characters. It was a mention of some features in character appearance customisation. Give a choice to the player to customise character at the freeport for some gold price. The game is still in development and is going to be another wipe anyway.

Need to think that not everyone likes to spend hundreds of hours again to build character or buildings. Wiping is not a solution but is more likely to put the player away from the game. During this time until they do wipe player will look at the new game and probably they will hook. The server wipe is a big decision and it can impact how players are going to think about developers.

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I was ok with the wipe and keen for the update until i realized those changes were for PvP only and PvE got a minor change which will change nothing for the better, the claim/tax system proposed for PvP would work for PvE IF it was restricted to a max of 1-2 claims per company and 1 claim per player or you would end up with those 250 strong groups heading out and claiming all islands they could and have the ability to handle the upkeep with other 250 strong allies,

If they looked at Life is Feudal's claim system ( I know any players do not like that game) they would see it can work, if you want to expand your build area then make donations to your bank/claim flag and over time it would grow and shrink if you didn't maintain it, you would have no spam as you could only build in your claim, and bigger claim means more gold for upkeep, over time groups would find a balance between the size they want and the cost to keep it

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18 minutes ago, wildbill said:

I played ARK a bit under the conditions we will soon have for Atlas PvE official servers. The way you do it, is pillars. You pillar the entire area you plan to build in. They have a fairly small resource block, but create a no build zone. You completely pillar the entire area, don't leave one spot where anyone else can build. Pillars are cheap to make, the weapon of choice for the griefer, but your weapon against them.

Once you have an area pillared, you then build your base, your shipyards, etc. You can remove some of the pillars when other things are in place to block others (griefers) from building, but you leave most in place, even add more as needed. 

The pillars look like crap, but I guess that is what we are stuck with now.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we need claim flags! We now know who at least ONE of the pillar-spamming people is!

I absolutely refuse to pillar spam more than where I intend to build, and a very small radius around that. I will NOT be one of those assholes who blocks everything up. 

DEVS... WE NEED CLAIM FLAGS IN PVE..... THIS IS WHY, RIGHT HERE!

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7 minutes ago, Sansa Phoenix said:

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we need claim flags! We now know who at least ONE of the pillar-spamming people is!

I absolutely refuse to pillar spam more than where I intend to build, and a very small radius around that. I will NOT be one of those assholes who blocks everything up. 

DEVS... WE NEED CLAIM FLAGS IN PVE..... THIS IS WHY, RIGHT HERE!

What the heck? Can you read? I described exactly what you just said, but in a bit more detail. And now you are using me as an example of why we need claim flag?

Wow, this is why people just can not play nicely together on official servers. We are both saying exactly the same thing, doing exactly the same thing, but I'm the asshole and you are the great guy that is just doing what is necessary.

This is exactly why I stopped playing on officials.

Edited by wildbill
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31 minutes ago, wildbill said:

I can understand why you would be pissed by a wipe, but at the same time you might see why it is needed.

How do you suppose they can add 200+ islands, modify every single grid, and not wipe them all?

Would be very difficult, if not impossible, much simpler to wipe them.

You said it: I'm at this time not fully familiar with the mapmaking tool of ATLAS, but I think it would be possible to insert new islands without wiping the whole grid. Of course it is more difficult and takes longer, but that would be a nice move and a big excuse for all the ignorance we received for weeks.

And please don't forget: The devs have time to design figureheads for the top companies and so complimented some guys for what? Pressing the E-button for more than 2 seconds and repeating it 499 times? Impressive. Luckily we get a hat -.-

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3 minutes ago, wildbill said:
8 minutes ago, Sansa Phoenix said:

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we need claim flags! We now know who at least ONE of the pillar-spamming people is!

I absolutely refuse to pillar spam more than where I intend to build, and a very small radius around that. I will NOT be one of those assholes who blocks everything up. 

DEVS... WE NEED CLAIM FLAGS IN PVE..... THIS IS WHY, RIGHT HERE!

What the heck? Can you read? I described exactly what you just said, but in a bit more detail. And now you are using me as an example of why we need claim flag?

Wow, this is why people just can not play nicely together on official servers. We are both saying exactly the same thing, doing exactly the same thing, but I'm the asshole and you are the great guy that is just doing what is necessary.

What the heck?? Can't YOU read? This is EXACTLY what people in PvE do NOT want! PILLAR SPAMMING. 

And you post that this is now what we all must do? 

Seriously?? 

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2 minutes ago, Tinschn said:

You said it: I'm at this time not fully familiar with the mapmaking tool of ATLAS, but I think it would be possible to insert new islands without wiping the whole grid. Of course it is more difficult and takes longer, but that would be a nice move and a big excuse for all the ignorance we received for weeks.

And please don't forget: The devs have time to design figureheads for the top companies and so complimented some guys for what? Pressing the E-button for more than 2 seconds and repeating it 499 times? Impressive. Luckily we get a hat -.-

Ya, I agree it sucks. I've read how the map editor works, read lots of forum posts, but not tried it. I think theoretically it is possible to edit a grid and add an island and "maybe" not mess stuff up, but in practice, I think very difficult. To do it properly, you would want to move the existing islands also, and that would not allow it to work without a wipe.

Now the player stats, I've no idea why those can't be kept. If they did though, would they just have to kill everyone, because they can't spawn where they were.

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3 minutes ago, Sansa Phoenix said:

What the heck?? Can't YOU read? This is EXACTLY what people in PvE do NOT want! PILLAR SPAMMING. 

And you post that this is now what we all must do? 

Seriously?? 

Didn't say anyone would want it, but what choice are you going to have?

That was the reality of playing on ARK PVE official servers. EVERYONE did this. If you didn't, some griefer (or just plain asshole), and there are plenty of both there, would completely ruin your day. 

I mean you are welcome to ignore the fact that there are griefers and assholes playing on the same server as you, but you won't be able to forget it when someone builds right on top of you one day.

Yes, we should find a better solution, and I hope there is one, but from what I saw, the flag claim was not that solution.

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2 hours ago, Luxfere said:

It doesnt work that way its still going to be tested its not even on the test server for us to see if it will even be workable. 

 

Did you watch the video they posted no>? You havent go watch it and listen turn up the volume...seriously you guys come on 

I clearly stated from my post "what I get from the stream so far"

 

You have no idea really same as I don't have any real idea. However based on what they have said I stand by my initial statement. Until proven otherwise I see no point in playing at the moment and I have zero faith in the update parameters described for PVE so far.

 

The fact a similar system was apparently used in Ark and was quite crippling with the spam then I base my statement on this also. So maybe don't quote people and tell them to rewatch the stream again. I did and I don't like what I see for PVE.

 

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@Jatheish 1 flag per island to have a settlement? pft in that case just get rid of the claim system altogether, if you are going to ax it that badly. I am not a big fan of the upkeep cost system either. I mean upkeep methods in other games do not seem to work all that well anyway. The purpose of such a system is to make sure active players are playing, now I can log on once a month, load it up and piss off the rest of the month or I can just sit by offline and come on just as a decay timer just about runs out, the point is that it solves nothing. All it does is increase the demand on resources turning a game that is essentially a sandbox into a rule-based grind fest. There really isn't a solution to the pillar spam problem other than the current claim system. The only thing bad about the current claim system is the fact that there are flags out there under 10 different iteration rulesets which break any future flags. I have neighbors who have flags overlapping 10 in the same area my one takes up. Yet I can not place a flag inside my area to extend out toward a bit of free space because it overlaps my own claim and is too close to my flag...that would be the current and new iteration of the flags whereas my neighbor's flags were put down 5 patches before that when you didn't have that pesky min distance rule on flags. Doing a server wipe, restricting claims to 1 per person and leaving everything else the way it is is more than sufficient to fix the problem. I am honestly not even sure I want to play anymore past this release because it completely destroys the intent of the game which is basically a sandbox...now its like a jail cell...no thanks guess Ill find something else to play. Good job, I didn't think you guys could make your game worse but you lot certainly succeeded. 

Edited by Tobias

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11 hours ago, Tinschn said:

Sorry, I wasn't clear - i mean a 9x9 grid server.
 

Yeah, you may have to expect wipes, but in this case only because of some devs who want to have feedback, ignore it and geting things in a complete mess after so much time.
They had more than enough time to change the game in the way the players want it to play. There are enough feedback threads in this forum.

Now dropping a nuclear bomb is simply not right and not necessary, especially if so many players - who obviously playing the game more than the devs do - disagree with those changes.

If u think a wipe is unnecessary u been under a rock. There is nothing they can do to realign distributions of land ect without creating more of a confusing mess.right now there is almost no incentive for new players, new players pay the bills. They need turnover to generate more income. 

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have not made a full restart of the servers (start from 0 again) my character is with everything and level has something happened?

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18 hours ago, LoneXS said:

I can only assume you didn't put many hours into Ark PVE on official at least when there was land to be grabbed. Sansa Phoenix nailed it, if I want your land I will box you in, foundation spam your resources, places pillars in the sea just outside your dock and watch your ships go no where and I can assure you there is NOTHING you can do about it. The Devs have made it pretty clear that punishing griefing isn't a priority right now and using Ark as a template of what to expect, it will likely never be. 

People think it is bad right now but imagine the levels of griefing we can expect when you can build on anyones doorstep.

The claim system makes 90% of that impossible.

I didn't i admit, i played private cause the resource gathering felt awful, but if they are planing to stop pillar spam and foundation spam, would you still see it as a problem then? 

 I feel like this bit is being overlooked and this seem to be the main reason people don't like it. If the system they want to do, from what i read, requires time and effort to maintain, are greifers honestly gonna  bother? The only reason they do it is it costs them nothing,  if it cost them a massive amount of resources to keep those gates up or pillars, etc, would the problem continue? 

Don't get me wrong, i'm up for getting them to revert the choice, but if the main issue people have with the no claim flag seem to be pillar spam, but they said they're putting something in place to stop it, i don't see the issue anymore? I could be wrong.

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7 minutes ago, Herasea said:

I didn't i admit, i played private cause the resource gathering felt awful, but if they are planing to stop pillar spam and foundation spam, would you still see it as a problem then? 

 I feel like this bit is being overlooked and this seem to be the main reason people don't like it. If the system they want to do, from what i read, requires time and effort to maintain, are greifers honestly gonna  bother? The only reason they do it is it costs them nothing,  if it cost them a massive amount of resources to keep those gates up or pillars, etc, would the problem continue? 

Don't get me wrong, i'm up for getting them to revert the choice, but if the main issue people have with the no claim flag seem to be pillar spam, but they said they're putting something in place to stop it, i don't see the issue anymore? I could be wrong.

Its not just pillar spam, spam in general but yes that is a big factor. To give you an idea the beach I live on had several broken traps, 2 huts and a bunch of random foundation all over it. I removed it all when I took ownership.  9 metal nodes, a bunch of trees, rocks and fiber and a lot more animals spawned in. I've now place one public trap at the end of the beach, dropped the tax and people can enjoy it as a stop of point or come tame an elephant or giraffe. That scenario just isn't possible when its a free for all.

Also time and effort is a small price to pay when it comes to griefing. Heck the time consuming process of luring a SOTD to someones base with the sole intention of sinking their ships and destroying their base when grabbing agro with a melee weapon should be the prime example. Now they can just slap a bunch of pillars outside your dock and hold you to ransom. Maybe that would add a new layer of RPing I guess, pay us 20k Gold or we'll foundation spam all your resources and block your boats in.

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