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Captain's Log 22: March Milestone & Official Server Wipe

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@Jatheish

 

I dont know if this new system will be good or bad, since there are many weak spots in there too... so what i fear most is that it only changes the way ppl going to exploit that new system. Like having more ppl in different companies to claim more islands and cooperating outside of the games system. this may only lead to another wipe soon...

 

Outside of that i really hate the idea to loose discoveries of my Charakter. I can live with loosing everything else but that doesnt get a point in my logic. it only seems to make more ppl angry and leaving the game wich spend hours in exploring beside the time for all the other things. some of my companys members will definately leaving because of that is beeing wiped too.

 

i can understand that there is need to some changes.. but a full wipe of everything is too much for testing a new system wich may also be exploited in some ways.

 

 

my five cents on that. best regards

 

Kabs

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Full wipe including character wipe is the Nuclear Option.  It's Grapeshot waving the White Flag on their original game design.

This is after all an Early Access game, deployed to assess errors in game design.  They are trying to address some gamebreaking faults, I get that.  However, I don't think they've thought it through.  PvE in particular will probably have even more serious issues to address than it does now.  PvP is by far their strongest focus.  

As a longterm player on one of the key mods Grapeshot used as a kernel for Atlas, I have to tell you devs that "fix" in the case of  the March Update doesn't mean what you think it means.
 

montoya.jpg

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700 hours played here .. And a million things that i would hate to lost . But anyway i agree with the wipe.

But i cant understand why are we going to wait a month till the wipe . Game will only lose players on this month, you will not gain more players than the players you are going to lose. 

I hope you will not , but i think you are killing the game with this decision.

Please, give us one week to have fun with ours appreciated ships and wipe. 

Best regards.

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4 minutes ago, Smb said:

700 hours played here .. And a million things that i would hate to lost . But anyway i agree with the wipe.

But i cant understand why are we going to wait a month till the wipe . Game will only lose players on this month, you will not gain more players than the players you are going to lose. 

I hope you will not , but i think you are killing the game with this decision.

Please, give us one week to have fun with ours appreciated ships and wipe. 

Best regards.

they cant as still developing the new content.

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While I don't like game wipes on principle, it's not too surprising to see in an early access game such as this. And I like the general direction of where these changes are going (nice new tundra biome, btw!)

What I'm not a fan of is removing the claim system from PVE. Why is this?

  •  Looks messy. You don't have your own 'zone' for just your buildings; people are going to come in with a different style (walls of just gates? no thanks!), or worse, spam foundations and pillars everywhere to mess up respawning and you have no way to easily remove these abandoned tracks of land. And random shipyards placed nilly willy.
  • Open to trolling. Along with the afformentioned 'bits and bobs' put everywhere, it's easier for people to try and block off areas of the island with walls/gates to physically control the resources in a zone. While you could do it now with claims, all it takes is the resource spam and you got it.
  • Less ownership to be good stewards of the land

There are a few ways that would be neat to try and fix it rather than just skipping the revamped claim system all together.

  • Allow PVE companies to claim islands, but all that let's them do is set the tax rate and maybe do some zoning on the island (such as setting rules that single items placed without a home will decay quickly, or they can indicate structures they would like to get demo'd or something. Maybe a demo by committee? XD)
  • Try a different claim system, where companies can mark an island as a home island. Companies only get 1 home island, so while you share that with other people, you get less decay time or something. Or all home island companies can contribute to the tax bank for some kind of benefit (demo'ing non-home company stuff if it does not abide by the construction rules, or something)
  • Just... just allow singletons to be more easily demo'd anyway.

I'm sure there are some other solutions that would make PVE folks be able to carve out a bit of land to live on without feeling like Strangers are going to come ruin all their cool stuff, but still allows for new players to find a place to build. Saying that you own an island still sounds fun, even if you're not PVPing.

---

I'm also not a fan of the submarines being tied to large company end-game material. It looks like a lot of cool stuff you'd never be able to see unless you join up with a big company. I'd think it'd be easier to gatekeep submarines/crabs to materials/levels/slightly more solo end-game activities, and maybe do cool cosmetic unlocks for people who fight krakens (in addition to the physical rewards that krakens could drop. Like if a kraken just pops out a submarine per ship involved in the fight or something, that's pretty cool).

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@Jatheish will we get the new islands/trenches on the map editor before/when the patch goes live so we can get unofficial grids updated alongside official with new features?

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  • If you wipe us on Lawless lands, I am done playing this game. This would mean that I have wasted hundreds of hours that I have invested in exploring and playing this game since the beginning. You just screwed your faithful player base that had stuck with Atlas since the beginning through thick and thin. The only allure I had left keeping me in the game was my one-hundred-year-old character,  exploration points, tames, and base locations! And how is this all supposed to help out us solo players?
  • What is stopping all of the mega companies from just using Discord and split up their current mega company into units that will claim their own islands and a consorted effort to control major cluster of islands anyways?
  • A new submarine that only the mega companies can acquire and afford to use and enjoy, gee thanks!
  • Oh and by the way, here come all of the foundation spams...
Edited by vaylain
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6 hours ago, Polar Express said:

Great work devs! I’m very happy with everything you are implementing. This update and wipe will bring back players.

 

 
14

Gee, as long as you will be the only one happy, I guess that is a good thing then...

Edited by vaylain
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12 hours ago, Enki Anunnaki said:

you're trippin balls

Its early access its a beta that you signed up for. This was a long time coming as they cannot fix some of these bugs...

22 minutes ago, vaylain said:
  • If you wipe us on Lawless lands, I am done playing this game. This would mean that I have wasted hundreds of hours that I have invested in exploring and playing this game since the beginning. You just screwed your faithful player base that had stuck with Atlas since the beginning through thick and thin. The only allure I had left keeping me in the game was my one-hundred-year-old character,  exploration points, tames, and base locations! And how is this all supposed to help out us solo players?
  • What is stopping all of the mega companies from just using Discord and split up their current mega company into units that will claim their own islands and a consorted effort to control major cluster of islands anyways?
  • A new submarine that only the mega companies can acquire and afford to use and enjoy, gee thanks!
  • Oh and by the way, here come all of the foundation spams...

Bye...

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1 minute ago, Luxfere said:

Its early access its a beta that you signed up for. This was a long time coming as they cannot fix some of these bugs...

Bye...

Yep, bye bye... 

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36 minutes ago, vaylain said:
  • If you wipe us on Lawless lands, I am done playing this game. This would mean that I have wasted hundreds of hours that I have invested in exploring and playing this game since the beginning. You just screwed your faithful player base that had stuck with Atlas since the beginning through thick and thin. The only allure I had left keeping me in the game was my one-hundred-year-old character,  exploration points, tames, and base locations! And how is this all supposed to help out us solo players?
  • What is stopping all of the mega companies from just using Discord and split up their current mega company into units that will claim their own islands and a consorted effort to control major cluster of islands anyways?
  • A new submarine that only the mega companies can acquire and afford to use and enjoy, gee thanks!
  • Oh and by the way, here come all of the foundation spams...

So how many more times are you going to quit the game ??? If you want to go then just go.

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2 minutes ago, sand man said:

So how many more times are you going to quit the game ??? If you want to go then just go.

Because their last major patched actually made me want to continue so there is hope that they will NOT wipe the servers after all, moron.

Edited by vaylain
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1 minute ago, vaylain said:

Because their last major patched actually made me want to continue so there is hope that they will NOT wipe the servers after all, moron.

Server need to be Wiped and about time too.

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1 minute ago, sand man said:

Server need to be Wiped and about time too.

So says you. Ya dink!

Edited by vaylain
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Just now, vaylain said:

So says you. Ya dink!

So says you. Ya dink!

wipe baby wipe then wipe again says me.

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Just now, sand man said:

wipe baby wipe then wipe again says me.

Looks like you may get your wish to play all by yourself, just like you do nightly with your right hand...

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1 minute ago, vaylain said:

Looks like you may get your wish to play all by yourself, just like you do nightly with your right hand...

Yes !!  my dream has come true.

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Love the initiative, however, it has some flaw.... or it might be just out of specification:
1. Take for example a situation, where an island is taken over. I might be sleeping on the set raid window timer, and when i log on i face a new landlord that can literally bomb my house as they please and i can't do anything because i'm outside of war timer? Suggestion : refugee buff-> some immunity against the new landlord's attacks during a fresh takeover. They have a grace timer against new wars, however, the settlers also need a timer, because they can't retaliate against a tyrant landlord on that timer.
2. Outside of a war period, i'm literally unable to fortify myself, that's fine, because i could just set up an inside raiding possibility against my landlord if i could do that. However, that means i can't do any preparations against invaders either. The war period is choosen by my landlord, and also i'm paying taxes to my landlord to defend me. When the war time starts, they might just sit in their fortress and defend their property from our taxes, while settlers around are burned up for loot.
Suggestion: Under the war time, settler's may choose to go "civilian". This means, that they disable all their bed on the quadrant, so they can't respawn there during the war, and for that, they containers can't be looted, neither the bags that drops from demolished containeers. Their assets can be demolished, or destroyed, but at least they won't be targeted for loot.
Why?
The priority target of a War should be the land owner. Settlers are both nerfed to fight against invaders, they are taxing the landlords, and .... become pinatas after war time for the new landlord anyway (settlers cant pvp, while they can be attacked by the landlord). But it is not fair, to have them become the priority target for looting against a mega-scale attacker company. The first one to be taken out should be the one upholding the law: the landlord, the claim flag. Everything else after that, after the grace period, is literally for the new landlord to take, but the war itself should not be about harrassing civilians for loot.

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I play 500 hours .... And now I have to change my base, animals, things, boats, gold and much more for very ugly cosmetic skin ?? Very sad...

In 3 months of playing, I get this ugly skin. That's all.

I'm going to play DOTA.

This game only takes and does not give anything.

For people who played over all BAGS. Dev has the gift of ugly skin.

I'm sorry, but that's not enough.

Mary Jay. Company of Silver John. D3, PVE Sirena Call 

Edited by Mary Jay

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So, um.....

We all have ZERO reason to keep playing on Official until these changes take effect.

 

Also, Free-For-All building on PvE servers is a HUGE mistake.  Keep the individual claim flags but limit them significantly. Two claims per person.  That way if someone is kicked from a company, they get to keep a small chunk of land.

Please do NOT made the entire PvE server like Lawless.

 

EDIT:  It would seem their answer for the Pillar/Foundation spam is this structure decay damage.  I will have to wait and see how they implement this idea.  However...

 

There is still no reason to play right now.

Edited by Solstar
Additional info

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Just watched the stream and read through the rule changes...

PvP

I think the PvP changes sound interesting. 

  • I can see value in wanting to live on a claimed island. 
    • I like the notion of everybody pitching in to save their homes from the barbarians at the gate.
  • I like that you don't have to be a member of society if you'd rather not be. 
    • This, to me, sounds like it makes sense in a pirate oriented game.  Communities may still sprout up for defensive purposes, but having the dichotomy of two systems sounds interesting.
  • A 9-hour window will still allow quite a bit of offline raiding imho.  However, on an island with a diverse population and a good landlord setting up defenses, it just might work.
    • Plus, if the offender lives on flagless, it's payback time.  If they live on flagged... restitution or war...

Overall, I stopped enjoying PvP in MMO's years ago, but this has me intrigued.

PvE

Uhm... ok.  This doesn't sound like it's very fleshed out.  I understand the role of upkeep, but for PvE to be PvE, it needs more than that.

  • What about including some of the PvP elements but have the 'E' part provide the danger players provide in PvP?
  • What I mean is, if you live on an unclaimed island, SoTD pirate raiding parties sprout up and raid your base from anywhere on the island.  This can happen anytime, online, offline, doesn't matter.
  • If you live on a claimed island, SoTD will attack, but only within a specific 9-hour window of time defined by the landlord company.  You can set your own war with SoTD as an event for your island, bringing people together to defend.
    • The richer your company, the more intensive the warring SoTD.
  • Still have taxes on claimed islands as it will be expected for the landlord company to maintain PvE defenses, maintain player markets, easy to access docks for clients, shipping lanes, etc.
  • If someone wants to challenge the rule of the current landlord company, allow us to vote with our taxes...
    • The competing company's Tax Bank must be placed in a dangerous area and survive repeated SoTD attacks so it requires a team effort over time.
    • The people living on the island have the option to channel their taxes to the new bank instead of the old.
    • Over time, the old decays faster as the new grows richer... OR, the old retains taxpayers and the new fails.
  • If a landlord company wishes to keep their claim over an island, and keep reaping taxes, they have to provide a service of some sorts for those taxes and keep taxpayers happy.

There is WAY more that you guys could do with the PvE side of things, and I really hope you give it more thought.  Now is the time to do it!  Admittedly, what I'm describing above could be added later.  I think it could be phased in without another wipe.

Keep coding the good fight 🙂

PS.  @Jatheish@Dollie  sorry to ping you guys, but not so secretly hoping you find some value or inspiration in the PvE side of the post.  It needs a wee bit more love.  A raison-d'etre of sorts.

Edited by Kveldulf
typo
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I also have to agree with the wipe. I bought the game knowing full well that "Early Access" is new-fangled game talk for "paid beta". I have about 130 hours time currently, most of it solo. I'll be losing quite a bit of progress. I've made friends who have been playing since release. They'll be losing much more. I've been in numerous betas over the years (including WoW and ESO). It is what it is and is a very, very common part of playing beta. One thing you understand going into a beta is that on release (and probably multiple times during beta), your stuff will be wiped. Unfotunatly with the upcoming changes, I do not see a way around the wipe. With changes to islands, likely including island placement, there is no guarantee that a structure, boat, or tames won't be destroyed, bugged to hell, disappear, or fall through the map. While some might get lucky, others will lose everything. It is easier and much fairer to everyone to do a complete reset.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, the real problem is semantics. Early Access is a term that I don't think is widely understood yet (especially among younger players) and certainly rarely disclosed as to what it really means. Much of this is Steam's fault. If you go to an Early Access game page, they rarely explain the truth of what it is, as the text is set by the developer. It's misleading (and borderline advertising fraud). There should be some big red box somewhere that is mandatory on every early access title that explains that you are buying a beta-level game and your play experience will change, including the possibility of losing all progression.

The industry is also changing. It is not the same linear development industry I grew up with. A game's development, oftentimes, wasn't even announced until late alpha testing. Then there were several closed beta stages. Then, oftentimes, open beta or some form of testing sign-up. There was really no feedback or communication with a developer. You tested. You reported bugs. Maybe you'd suggest something. Maybe they'd listen. It probably would never be implemented. This isn't really the case anymore for a couple of reasons. One being it's now much more involved and much more expensive to develop a game and early access provides some relief to that. The other, I think can be linked directly to social media. Grapeshot, and pretty much every other developer on the planet, is trying to navigate a rapidly growing and changing industry. Many are failing. Hell, even the titans are failing. But, despite the fog, I think they're doing a pretty decent job at communicating: listening, weighing options, and deciding what and how to implement and change features.

Can't say I have a problem at all with the new claim system. One flag. One island. Seems pretty reasonable to me. As for the lack thereof for PvE (I play PvE), I don't think the spamming will be quite as extensive as it is now, with the building upkeep being added. And the purpose, they even said, of opening this up right now is to see what happens. Flags may very well be re-implemented on PvE. I personally live in a lawless grid (two, actually). The first, was basically a pitstop. I was doing some recording and ran into a couple of guys who un-foundationed a chunk of waterfront for me to build on, gave me a crapload of stuff (including a shipyard). I wasn't even planning on staying (they were quite insistent... and hilarious) on the island for more than an hour. I stayed and now drop by occasionally to see if they're around and how the very busy little island is doing.

Now I live in the tundra. We really don't have much of a spamming problem. There is one large (lovely, flat) section of shoreline on the big island that's been spammed for no seeable reason (nothing is really nearby and nothing has been built yet). And traveling to other lawless regions in the northeast, I have found plenty of lovely non-spammed areas I could've built. Not the case with the claimable areas. Every claimable island I've been to has been flag spammed and has only a few structures on it (and good god, I have my nose up to a 36" monitor trying to see that little red x). So far, asking for some land has been impossible because they're never around to ask. My experience, so far, on PvE has been pleasant. People have been friendly, even more so in the lawless areas, pretty respectful, and most of all helpful.

I have come across a few gates and a few (really ****ing bizarre) thatch structures of pure hellish obnoxiousness, but nothing I couldn't grapple/climbing pick around. The problem comes when getting a mount around these (pretty much impossible). Hopefully, the structure decay/upkeep will dampen this sadistic and obnoxious behaviour... I fear to think of what these people are like in real life, honestly... they probably park their cars like assholes.

I don't plan on quitting, but I am very likely going to cease building/taming/etc. until after the wipe and focus on just traveling, meeting people, checking stuff out and testing the upcoming features. The grappling hook, in particular, is something I'm looking forward to (because the current one... ugh... so bad).

I don't think some of these changes are going to have the negative impact people are expecting. And if it really turns out to be that bad, I don't doubt Grapeshot will seek another solution. I don't like or agree with everything, but I feel they are actually listening and trying to create something that will be good (and fun... because that's kind of the point of games) for the majority of players. And, remember, we have about two more years of early access to get through. We will very likely have another wipe. And it's pretty much guaranteed that what you or I hate now will change. The key is to express the problem, why it's a problem, and offer some kind of solution or get a discussion going on how to make it better. As a community (and... frankly, society), we need more "constructive bitching", as I call it. And if something is spot-on, we need to say that too.

And with that, some constructive bitching:

Cookie cutter islands. I get it. It's fast, it's rushed, y'all have a crapload of work to do. Please, for the love of all things not boring, look at making every island unique. Save it for the release wipe or whatever, but please do it... and maybe chuck a little of that ISO on offical. It would be a nice nod to her and the community.

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They have essentially added pve to pvp. This is good imo. The landlord system is good too. The pillar spam shouldn’t happen due to upkeep. All these things are good. No solo or small company should own a whole island. That’s ludicrous. If you want your own island I suggest populating one of the dead unofficial servers. You can have 10 islands if you like. Raid windows is a good idea. So you won’t see salty small groups bitching on forums that they were offlined. 

The pve servers will end up with seperate rules and their own updates like what has happened in the past. Pvpve is a good balance to this game. Actual pve players seem to be the only ones in this entire thread complaining about the update as a whole. Chill out guys. It’s not even out yet. There are no real details on anything yet. The way the devs are leading the game is good imo and I’m sure a lot of other people agree. Ask pvp players in general. This sound a little bit like kid gloves but I’m sure most will acknowledge that it will stop small groups and solos complaining because there isn’t really a reason to anymore. 

I like the proposed changes.

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@Jatheish I have to ask you to please consider flags for PVE as I stated earlier in posts, without it PVE will all be like lawless and a person could be building and someone plop a pillar/floor down beside where we would be building causing us to not be able to build anymore.  You will be getting many complaints about so and so is blocking this spawn or has pillared me in.  By allowing us to do claims we are helping you because we whomever owns the claim can demo said pillars etc. 

Allow companies the same as PVP do a flag limit.  Could you give a reason why this would not work for PVE as well as it does for PVP.  I feel you really prefer pvp and could care less on PVE please prove me wrong.  I know you all have a way to make it work better for us.  I was so excited watching the livestream like oh wow that will be nice till I realized nope not for us PVE ppl.  I enjoy having a bank I never hardly get anything but I enjoy the excitement of what I'll find.  I had built a awesome western town well I am biased I loved it and hate to lose it but would really like to do so again.  Make the flags a hard limit heck even like 2 per company that is more than enough even for big companys.  



I have 9k hours on ark and 750 hrs here I've been around with all the wipes from ark and even here I expected it here not so soon but expected it eventually.  I do wish you could allow us to keep our discovery points.  A few of us are pretty high lvl 70+ for some.  

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Please please please, consider implementing the ''Settlement'' rules to PVE aswell. Modify them so there is no possibility of WAR nor 9H raid window. Otherwise PVE will die before its even born.

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