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MeatSammich

We are PvE/Claim issues and solutions

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18 hours ago, MeatSammich said:

The vast majority of the people DESPISE the land claim changes on PvE. Being unable to protect the resources from griefers, being unable to protect yourself from griefers deciding that they don't want anyone building within a half islands worth of distance, ugly pillars and foundations everywhere, people griefing the hell out of ships and blocking harbors, plus blocking you from ever expanding your base by builkding as close as possible on either side of you - hell, they already did that with the claim overlaps as it was, and now EVERYWHERE is going to be like that?

I definitely sympathize with this concern.  I think removing claims from PvE is the wrong thing to do.  With the upkeep added, I see no reason to remove the claims from PvE.  I didn't really say anything during the stream, but I certainly found that to be an unnecessary change.  I really can't understand the logic behind this decision.

18 hours ago, MeatSammich said:

its also fear that this means wipes on a semi-regular basis

Why?  Nothing has given the indication that this will be happening.  Panicking about it is nothing more than Chicken Little-ing.

And even if it does happen, it's Early Access.  The fact that Wildcard/Grapeshot didn't have more than one wipe with ARK is extremely out of the ordinary.  EA is little more than "paid beta access", so wipes should be expected, not feared.

But, again, there has been no indication, implication, nor expectation set that should cause anyone to think wipes are going to be an ongoing thing.

19 hours ago, MeatSammich said:

Playershops in settlements on PVP, but PVE just gets freeport vendors.

This is a dumb decision.  Kinda makes me wonder if Wild/Grape think PvE means "players don't want to interact at all with other players".  That mentality would certainly explain some of the strange decisions about the PvE servers.

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37 minutes ago, CazzT said:

Why?  Nothing has given the indication that this will be happening.  Panicking about it is nothing more than Chicken Little-ing.

And even if it does happen, it's Early Access.  The fact that Wildcard/Grapeshot didn't have more than one wipe with ARK is extremely out of the ordinary.  EA is little more than "paid beta access", so wipes should be expected, not feared.

But, again, there has been no indication, implication, nor expectation set that should cause anyone to think wipes are going to be an ongoing thing.

Yup, done (more than) my share of Alpha/Beta/EAs, and fully expect wipes to remove gains through exploits, glitches, duping, or if there are huge overarching map changes.

Its more the principle behind it, that because the free-for-all grief fest that is claim removals is more than likely going to fail and will necessitate another solution...which will come with another wipe. A wipe that could be avoided if they'd bother to listen to their player base in the first place.

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11 minutes ago, MeatSammich said:

Yup, done (more than) my share of Alpha/Beta/EAs, and fully expect wipes to remove gains through exploits, glitches, duping, or if there are huge overarching map changes.

Its more the principle behind it, that because the free-for-all grief fest that is claim removals is more than likely going to fail and will necessitate another solution...which will come with another wipe. A wipe that could be avoided if they'd bother to listen to their player base in the first place.

A reasoned, considered response with no hint of Chicken Little in sight.  THIS is what gets change to happen.

I'm not blind to the concerns, but the overwhelming majority of posts panicking about ongoing wipes are typically "omg wipe reeeeeeeee it's gonna happen again and again and again!!!!" with no thought put into it.  Chicken Little didn't get anything accomplished.

 

I doubt we'll see ongoing wipes, though.  Another wipe before full release?  Possibly, but constant ongoing wipes (which is the Chicken Little panic that's currently happening) are highly unlikely.

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3 hours ago, CazzT said:

A reasoned, considered response with no hint of Chicken Little in sight.  THIS is what gets change to happen.

I'm not blind to the concerns, but the overwhelming majority of posts panicking about ongoing wipes are typically "omg wipe reeeeeeeee it's gonna happen again and again and again!!!!" with no thought put into it.  Chicken Little didn't get anything accomplished.

 

I doubt we'll see ongoing wipes, though.  Another wipe before full release?  Possibly, but constant ongoing wipes (which is the Chicken Little panic that's currently happening) are highly unlikely.

Aye, agreed, I should have phrased that part better in the original post.

As much as it hurts everyone to lose 300+ hours. This wipe was 100% necessary to change land, as well as get rid of all the exploited gains that people had gotten. Duping wasn't only a problem on PvP, it was just a whole lot more visible there.

I just wish that I could have more faith in the dev team to do what's right for players on PvE, instead of just the heavy PvP focus that we're seeing once again. Seeing the depth of changes that the PvP servers are getting, and the PvE servers basically get, "Here, no more claims. Now shut the hell up about lack of land already." doesn't seem to bode well for the 50% or so of the playerbase who plays PvE.

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12 hours ago, awakatanka said:

The new PvP claim system will also not work in pve. I do not want a landlord that can wipe my building because he can. I want some sort of protection against grievers. 1 claim would work if I can build house Penn and shipyard in it and all extra buildings like balloonships that will come in the future. But I think they did do the math and see that 1 claim per players will still leave players without land.

 

Here's the thing, I broke down the math on a couple other threads.

if it was set to 10 flags for a company of less than 25 people, 25 flags for a company of 25-100, and 50 flags for a company of 100+, there would be more than enough land for everyone.  You may say that seems like too much land, but, look at the numbers.

Right now, the top 10 companies combined have between 8 and 9000 land claims.  If you go with the conservative estimate of 8000 flags between them, and even if you assume they are all over 100 player companies..and they're not, not by a longshot, changing to the above numbers would free up 7500 claims. Thats just the top 10 companies. Let that sink in. 7500 claims freed up, from only 10 companies lands.

Now, look at the other 75% of the map that the top 10 companies didn't own, and count all the groups under 25 members that have claimed 20, or 40, or 100+ claims, that would now only get 10. Thats a huge amount more freed up. Take out the sea-claim bullshit - thats some more land free'd up - and now people would have to use 1 or 2 of their claims to claim a little bit of water for themselves, their dock, port, etc.

A conservative estimate of the number of claims that would be freed up overall, would be in the 15000 range. That is land for 1500 companies with <25 members. or 600 companies with 25-100 people, or 300 companies with 100+ people. if you figure an average company size of 10 people, that's 15,000 more people that would have land, that didn't have it before. (remember, these are just the claims divested from people who had more than the limit, not the people who already had land)

Now, on top of that, you add in the fact that there are going to be 200+ new islands added? Literally 25% more land available than there is now.

Now, on top of that, set a straight 15 day since last login to that grid timer,  and when the countdown hits 0, the land becomes claimable instantly - none of the declaiming garbage. Timer hits 0 and all your red circles are gone, Poof.

There will be more than enough room for everyone who has ever played on PvE, twice over. If that ever fills, and stays filled, then there will be more than enough players for them to justify opening another server cluster.

Edited by MeatSammich
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I don't think they will be overly concerned about players not wanting to play after the wipe. They had initially said they didn't expect to get the numbers they did at release day near 60k I believe.

People left the game and played something else because of what was happening with it, now there is a wipe some of those people will naturally come back because there is no fighting for land.

We'll have to wait and see how the new changes go, if it isn't working they will more than likely change it again.

Not everyone comes on these forums who plays the game, it's a fraction of the player base, it's the same people who are shouting "I don't like it" a handful compared to the people who play the game.

There is a poll on one of the other threads, out of thousands playing only 65 votes? I don't think they will be to concerned just yet. 

I will give the game a try after the wipe and stick with it, if they find it doesn't work then yes I'm sure they will change it, I just hope it doesn't go back to the original idea if they do.

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6 hours ago, CazzT said:

A reasoned, considered response with no hint of Chicken Little in sight.  THIS is what gets change to happen.

I'm not blind to the concerns, but the overwhelming majority of posts panicking about ongoing wipes are typically "omg wipe reeeeeeeee it's gonna happen again and again and again!!!!" with no thought put into it.  Chicken Little didn't get anything accomplished.

 

I doubt we'll see ongoing wipes, though.  Another wipe before full release?  Possibly, but constant ongoing wipes (which is the Chicken Little panic that's currently happening) are highly unlikely.

I've been ignoring all those posts that are just freaking out over the wipe.  Have to say, though, that if there are great post-wipe benefits, you wouldn't have seen even half those people being upset over it.  But if you wipe the servers and then kick the players in the teeth after...that's just bad.  And stupid.

My guess as to why this is happening, is that someone at Grapeshot is SO enamored of that basic premise they came up with that the game has to be all about who can conquer the most land, that they are unwilling to recognize that this makes no sense for pve, so they are trying to bend every solution to keep that premise.  (Which only works if they start with maybe a 30x30 grid and are ready to expand at a moment's notice)

 

Here's my prediction and you can all make fun of me afterward if it's wrong:

They wipe the servers and put this new plan in place.

People come back in and start racing for land, and pillar the crap out of entire islands and even entire zones to protect their areas.

It is going to seem ok at first because of the enormous player number dropoff and the extra islands added, and some people will be all over the forums saying how happy they are.  Some people will be seeing the bad results early and be getting walled in, pillar spammed and resource locked, and will complain, and the happy ones will tell them to shut up.  That they are just too lazy and don't want to work hard enough to find an island paradise, and that there are completely empty islands everywhere.

Two weeks later, many more people will start to become upset, as the companies that previously held 2000 claims are now holding 25 entire grids worth of islands and expanding by annoying people in neighboring grids until they leave.   The pillar and foundation spam will thwart anyone trying to build anything beautiful, and everyone not a member of a big strictly controlled company will be living in a place that looks like shanty town after the tsunami hit, and there will be no resources there.    No resources means those people can't participate in player vendors, end game content or the new features locked behind it, and they'll get even more unhappy.

The devs will highlight "the haves", and their fabulous screenshots of underwater adventures and interesting architecture in exotic and lovely places, and note how successful the player shops are, while the heat level in the forums starts rising again.

After two months there will be no land for new players again, the forums will be exploding, the islands will mostly be a mess, and they'll admit they need to rethink how land works on pve.  There will be another server wipe, they still won't listen to anyone's suggestions, and will come up with another "iteration", equally silly.  Or maybe they'll just ignore it next time, and count on the big companies to carry them through to release day.

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6 hours ago, DannyUK said:

Not everyone comes on these forums who plays the game, it's a fraction of the player base, it's the same people who are shouting "I don't like it" a handful compared to the people who play the game.

There is a poll on one of the other threads, out of thousands playing only 65 votes? I don't think they will be to concerned just yet.

No, but the people who are on the forums are some of the most invested players, with the most time in the game.

Part of the problem with the polls is that pretty much every one of them is set up with the questions tying the wipe and flag claim system together, you can't agree with the wipe, but disagree with lawless for all, the way people have worded the questions.

We know you didn't like the claim system, because you couldn't find any land. How are you going to feel when you find a choice spot in tropical, start building a base, get a couple foundations laid down, and someone comes along and pillars all 4 side as close as possible to your base so your planned 10x10 house, with detached animal pen and separate garden is now limited to a 6x6 area total because you can't build any closer to their pillars?

6 hours ago, Winter Thorne said:

Bunch of stuff that is spot on.

You forgot to mention that after the first week or two, there will be abandoned ships everywhere, since they still haven't mentioned anything about a fix for them. 😛

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There'll be strategically placed rafts all along the coastline instead of foundation spam.  One way to block players landing boats and building ship yards.

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57 minutes ago, MeatSammich said:

No, but the people who are on the forums are some of the most invested players, with the most time in the game.

Part of the problem with the polls is that pretty much every one of them is set up with the questions tying the wipe and flag claim system together, you can't agree with the wipe, but disagree with lawless for all, the way people have worded the questions.

We know you didn't like the claim system, because you couldn't find any land. How are you going to feel when you find a choice spot in tropical, start building a base, get a couple foundations laid down, and someone comes along and pillars all 4 side as close as possible to your base so your planned 10x10 house, with detached animal pen and separate garden is now limited to a 6x6 area total because you can't build any closer to their pillars?

You forgot to mention that after the first week or two, there will be abandoned ships everywhere, since they still haven't mentioned anything about a fix for them. 😛

Yes I have 600hrs in the game, maybe not as much as others but the point is I'm willing to give it ago (new system) and not just shout about it then throw it to one side.

I always find space on land then map it out with posts anyway to limit this happening. If you start building without mapping it out then yes someone might come close to you and build what they want. I've been living on lawless all the time with very good neighbours and good people on my island, not everyone is like that. I will more than likely give it a week or two before I commit to any decent sized base.

If you want an island with nice people on it it might be worth you planning ahead now and making a Discord for members of where you used to live in the claim flags, that way you can all move to the same area if you know each other, someone else has already done this on another thread.

I'm willing to give it ago, if the system changes again then so be it, as long as it's not back to the original idea of flag spamming. If people want to leave the game then they will, many have left and many will return after the wipe no doubt.

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They still need to wipe even if they retract the PVE change to repaired lawless, because of the mess of bugged overlapped and non retroactive claim flags they need to at least wipe the flags.    The real reason for wipe is exploits, and they do not want to have to fix the flag exploits and maintain a PVE flag system that is different than the PVP flag system.

Set flag limits, set bed teleport limits, set flag decay, remove claim stealing and the flags would be a decent system.   

You still need sea claims though because there are too many shallow harbors, but they could also just allow the land claim to be placed where docks can be but that would require more land claims to reach out to deep water.  So just make the existing land claim the size of the sea claim.

You cannot achieve the same thing as a flag with a structure radius.    Many like to have open farms that are marked no build.   Just because someone did not build there does not mean they are not using it.

 

Edited by krazmuze

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On 3/2/2019 at 8:38 AM, MeatSammich said:

You said a month or so ago, that you guys heard us. With all due respect, you may have heard, but you didn't listen. You HEARD the complaints over land claim, and decided to exercise the nuclear option and got rid of claims entirely, instead of actually LISTENING to people and finding a reasonable way to limit those claims. (even 10 per company with <25 members, 25 for companies of 25-100 members and 50 for companies with 100+ people would have more than enough land for people, and left a huge amount of open areas for new players - especially with the extra 200+ islands coming)

And for me biggest problem its not the wipe, its the new "system" and the lost of the character and all the "progress" done in-game at all...

That and the fact that its pointless to play till they wipe... And and that time i`am probably already playing other game.

 

6.500h of ARK and what i see its that dev's haven't learned anything from ther bad decisions...

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It was a good game while it lasted. Could have been a great game but they chose to make it just another Ark. Thanks for this and its why i and many left Ark.

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5 hours ago, Abysian said:

They responded.
 

 

We shall see if they're actually reading through player feedback and listening to what it is the playerbase likes about the current system, what is wrong with the current system, and what is wrong with the system they proposed. Not just hearing that people are upset and making snap decisions taking the easiest way out, this time.

 

9 hours ago, krazmuze said:

They still need to wipe even if they retract the PVE change to repaired lawless, because of the mess of bugged overlapped and non retroactive claim flags they need to at least wipe the flags.    The real reason for wipe is exploits, and they do not want to have to fix the flag exploits and maintain a PVE flag system that is different than the PVP flag system.

Set flag limits, set bed teleport limits, set flag decay, remove claim stealing and the flags would be a decent system.

 

Yup, wipe was needed 100%, not just for claims, but to get rid of stuff that was gained through exploiting and duping. Plus, if they heard the complaints about the islands, and change up the shorelines a bit, to make them more ship friendly, they'd have to wipe due to structures already in place, plus, the new biomes they talked about.

Honestly, bed fast travel would be a non-issue once if claim limits are set. It mattered when 10 man companies could fast travel around the map to hold 1000 claims, not as much when a 10 man company would have 10 claims (for example). Additionally, if claims would be set to just insta-declaim after 15 days of inactivity, there wouldnt be any claim stealing, instead of the inane wait to declaim....now wait to claim...system we have now.

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3 minutes ago, MeatSammich said:

We shall see if they're actually reading through player feedback and listening to what it is the playerbase likes about the current system, what is wrong with the current system, and what is wrong with the system they proposed. Not just hearing that people are upset and making snap decisions taking the easiest way out, this time.

 

 

lets hope they are listening if they truly are the flags will stay ,but with an added up keep , lets see what happens 

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48 minutes ago, MeatSammich said:

Plus, if they heard the complaints about the islands, and change up the shorelines a bit, to make them more ship friendly, they'd have to wipe due to structures already in place, plus, the new biomes they talked about.

There is no island redo because then unofficials will also have to wipe which they said was not the case.   They are removing copypaste in eastern tundra and replacing those islands (wiping) with ones that missed release, but everywhere else is just more copy paste (not a wipe) .  So outside of tundra there is no map reason to wipe the other servers.  Listen carefully to what was actually said in the VOD

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21 minutes ago, krazmuze said:

There is no island redo because then unofficials will also have to wipe which they said was not the case.   They are removing copypaste in eastern tundra and replacing those islands (wiping) with ones that missed release, but everywhere else is just more copy paste (not a wipe) .  So outside of tundra there is no map reason to wipe the other servers.  Listen carefully to what was actually said in the VOD

If they're adding new islands and making the changes you've said, unofficial would have to wipe for those reasons, too.  Changing the shorelines would be a change just as adding new islands or fixing the copy/paste you mention.  So if they would have to wipe for shoreline changes, they would have to wipe for other island changes.

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9 minutes ago, krazmuze said:

There is no island redo because then unofficials will also have to wipe which they said was not the case.   They are removing copypaste in eastern tundra and replacing those islands (wiping) with ones that missed release, but everywhere else is just more copy paste (not a wipe) .  So outside of tundra there is no map reason to wipe the other servers.  Listen carefully to what was actually said in the VOD

When I ran a private Ark server and the redwood biome released, it didn't update the map automatically. The rest of the update happened, it got all the tree platforms and stuff to go along with it, but didn't get the change to the map until I loaded the new map in seperately. I'll admit that I don't know how unofficials work, for Atlas, haven't attempted to run one as of yet.

I was under the impression that it was the same as Ark, where once you had the map running on your server, it wouldn't update your copy of the map, but the official server could always be running a different version of that map.

Which, now that I think about it makes sense, because else if your server was running the same grids that are the ones that will be changed in eastern tundra, and it changed when the update to official changed it, you would have to wipe.

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11 minutes ago, MeatSammich said:

When I ran a private Ark server and the redwood biome released, it didn't update the map automatically. The rest of the update happened, it got all the tree platforms and stuff to go along with it, but didn't get the change to the map until I loaded the new map in seperately. I'll admit that I don't know how unofficials work, for Atlas, haven't attempted to run one as of yet.

I was under the impression that it was the same as Ark, where once you had the map running on your server, it wouldn't update your copy of the map, but the official server could always be running a different version of that map.

Which, now that I think about it makes sense, because else if your server was running the same grids that are the ones that will be changed in eastern tundra, and it changed when the update to official changed it, you would have to wipe.

our unofficial severs we will need to set up the new maps otherwise as u say we can carry on as we are 

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1 hour ago, UDO said:

lets hope they are listening if they truly are the flags will stay ,but with an added up keep , lets see what happens 

Well, if they are listening, flags will stay with reasonable claim limits, 

Remember, the idea is to go into it with enough land freed up for everyone from the start, to have plenty of leftover for new players. (see the math post upthread for the breakdown on numbers and what it could accomplish)

Reasonable upkeep would be fine, but I think a hard 15 day timer, regardless of number of claims you have, would be adequate, because if there is more than enough land already available, and people can't claim beyond their hard claim limit, it won't be an issue. When a timer runs down, there won't be 4 people who have no land, and 3 of the neighbors, and 2 of the big companies fighting for it. They'll already have land, and more than likely have hit their claim limits.

Just now, uli said:

our unofficial severs we will need to set up the new maps otherwise as u say we can carry on as we are 

Thanks for the clarification on that!

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Atlas islands are shapes placed on the ocean floor using a map editor.  The biomes are local to the island, which makes it different than Ark which had mixed biomes on the same island.   To theme the biomes over the same set of 40 island shapes, the server loads different rocks, flora and fauna. The map editor just loads these variant islands as library references.  Islands can be added to any grid,  and southern/eastern grids can be added live without wiping.

Eastern tundra is not changing existing island library references as that would force unofficials to wipe - and they specifically said unofficials are not being forced to wipe.   This is how eastern/western tropical was already done by expanding the variant set, they just did not do it for tundra at release.   The only islands that exist in eastern tundra right now are copy pasted western tundra and those would get deleted and replaced with eastern tundra islands so that the biome region lives up to its name at the expense of a tundra wipe.   Island additions do not cause a wipe and they clearly said on the video that the additional islands outside tundra will be more copypaste - there are no other new islands and no map based reason to wipe other servers.

The only reason for an unofficial to wipe tundra servers is if they wanted to mimic official and replace western tundra with eastern tundra - but there is no need for them to do that.  Unofficials can put the eastern tundra in with existing western tundra without wiping - many of them do not have enough servers to have massive biome regions and instead prefer more dense grids and much smaller biome regions.  For unofficial it is purely just a different island template they can add into their existing grids without wiping or they can add southern or eastern grids without wiping.   Same as the trench - find some empty ocean and drop it in the map editor.

I say this as the map  creator for our new 5x8 unofficial, we have no intention of wiping.  We will just add eastern tundra and mix it in with western tundras, or expand to a 5x9 and add it as a row depends how many new islands there are.  Unless our players in eastern tundras plead to have their copypasted western tundras wiped so the carefully balanced map is preserved - no need to wipe.

Even if unofficial used the same 15x15 map, they need not update to the new one, otherwise it would wipe tundra.  But there are very few full size unofficials.

Where in the VOD did they say anything about redoing islands for safer harbours, that seems to be just wishful thinking.

The only thing being wiped on unofficials is the flags and I am not sure they want to add a setting to use the same old buggy flags.   Even though they work on unoffical because they have rules and admins that prevent flag abuse.

 

Edited by krazmuze
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8 hours ago, Abysian said:

They responded.
 

 

Yup they are listening... on twitter.

The forums are just for the vocal minority.

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57 minutes ago, krazmuze said:

Lots of words that involve one hell of an explanation on how the maps were set up. Thank you for that education.

I (most likely mistakenly after your explanation) took the "general updates to our current biomes" in the written part of the log, under the World Redesign to mean that they were changing the islands. Wishful thinking, I guess. I bow to your knowledge and experience.

Since you know what the hell you're talking about with the way the maps are laid out, is it possible to lower the current islands about 3-6 feet deeper in the sea, or raise the sea level the same amount?

Because with how you described the islands being plopped onto the seafloor, thats the only thing that makes sense from a design standpoint, with how most islands either have 30 yards of water too shallow for a ship, or instant drop offs to the very bottom just off shore, or straights between island parts that are too shallow for even a raft, but still have a couple inches of water on them. Its like they designed the island shapes with nice sloping seafloors, but when they plopped them in the sea there wasn't enough land above the surface, so they just lowered the sea level a bit, so that like 30' of that seafloor is now more of the beach.

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9 hours ago, Abysian said:

They responded.
 

 

If they continue with the current system of flag spamming then i won't be back and many others won't either when its more of the same.

Give us a flag or two yes but giving us unlimited flags and its goodbye.

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