We are PvE/Claim issues and solutions

[MeatSammich 214]

New New Claim Changes:

Okay, once again, Grapeshot manages to take what the players are saying, and mange to almost, but not quite, do the exact opposite.

The first (couple) times, I was willing to chalk it up to misunderstanding, but, at this point its becoming apparent that it it pretty much just pure disdain for the playerbase, and malice in doing things that completely go against what their playerbase is asking for.

Its pretty much turned into a  5 step cycle of 1: Players complain about something and start leaving the game.  2: Tell everyone you heard the complaints, and are going to make changes.  3: Playerbase suggests a metric asston of viable solutions. 4: Decide that the players don't know what they want and announce some changes completely different from what the players want that solve NONE of the issues in the original complaint...and throw in some minor cosmetic object for them to play with. 5: Go to step 1.

 

There have been numerous threads, with an ungodly amount of posts, all asking for the same thing. We want claim flags as exist. We want the number of those flags limited to a reasonable amount. 5-10 per company base, up to 50 for large companies.

Yay. You limited them. 1 per solo, up to 10(?) or so for large companies. But wait, they now claim entire islands?

There have been less than 10 posts out of hundreds, if not a thousand, saying "Oooh, I shore do likes the way PvP sounds, I wants to own me an is-land."

 

How in the bloody hell is island claiming supposed to help people "own" more land?

How is this supposed to prevent griefing? By relying on a landlord? A landlord who may or may not bother deleting the offending objects in the alloted time frame, supposing that they're not the one griefing in the first place, pissed off that they didn't delete your stuff within the timer limit.

Playing a rousing game of "Is this island considered small or not", trying to find one that your company can claim. on launch day is going to suck.

Its going to be lovely when mid and larger companies realize that "Hey, we can claim multiple small islands, and no one else is big enough to claim the bigger islands..." and now there is no islands for smaller/solos to claim.

Variable tax rates - whats to stop an island owner from waiting until multiple companies have built up good sized bases, then jacking the tax up to 30%? What percentage of companies are actually going to go to another island and start building all over again? Just set it to a flat 10% and be done with it.

Whats to stop 50 or so people from banding together on launch day under 1 company name, claiming a large island, then the other 49 people leave the company and form a new company, and repeat this, over and over, to get around the company size for claim points?

 

I'm starting to think that Atlas isn't a game, but more of a social experiment in how much garbage can be shoveled down player's throats, (or shoved up other orifices, if you'd rather) before they give up and quit completely.

[Iaxa DeVaux 28]

At this point I don't even understand what's going on here. Now, I'm just starting to grow tired of it.

I was really looking forward to a new and better claim system. I don't look forward to this.

First the news of the wipe, then no game at all to play right now, then this.

My faith in this project has just about bottomed out.

[krazmuze 120]

Yep I give up no point in trying to see PVE official become a fun place to play.    Everybody was clear they want their own spot and willing to take limits to get that, nobody said they want their own island or a landlord.

Let our actions speak louder than words - do not start a new char on PVE official.

Now I just hope they give us tools on unofficials to work around this mess.   

 

[TheSeer 17]

I agree with what others are saying above me. This new system is worse than the old system or even the lawless idea because even fewer people will get to own land. That is what drove PVE players away because many couldn't get a claim. I don't get why the devs don't get it. The main complaint against lawless was the problems around spamming and I saw some people give great suggestions to how this might be addressed but preferred the claim system as it gave you a small area to control. Simply by removing water claims and limiting the number of claims per player or by company size would have made most people happy. The only answer that I've come up with to why they don't do this is because they don't know how to fix the overlapping and exploits within the claims system itself, that is why they went to one claim per island.  It just sad because I want the game to be great but this system isn't going to be appealing to a large number of people.

[Raine 53]

What if the devs reskinned the PvE islands with a honeycomb pattern of claimable spots, visible only when you activated your claim flag?  There would be no awkward holes or overlaps, the size of the claims would be immediately visible with the claim flag activation, the number of claims easily countable for determining island's points/status.  Hard cap the number of claims per Company or per player using a reasonable metric.  The islands aren't flat, so there will be some visual distortion of the honeycomb pattern.  Something like this: 

[microphobe 72]

7 hours ago, Raine said:

What if the devs reskinned the PvE islands with a honeycomb pattern of claimable spots, visible only when you activated your claim flag?  There would be no awkward holes or overlaps, the size of the claims would be immediately visible with the claim flag activation, the number of claims easily countable for determining island's points/status.  Hard cap the number of claims per Company or per player using a reasonable metric.  The islands aren't flat, so there will be some visual distortion of the honeycomb pattern.

This was probably one of the more common proposals that the pve community came up with but was ignored by the devs, most likely because it is "too hard" for them to do.
It was a popular idea combining the best of both worlds, limited claim number, no overlapping claims, all the best bits.

[Raine 53]

Reskinning is part of  their island-making process from what I understand.  They have a basic inventory of island shapes and they can add separate mineral and flora features on top of it, as well as rock, pillar and ledge features to customize each.  I don't see why they couldn't add a standard hexagonal shape to claim areas, but I'm not a programmer so I can't say how difficult it might be.   No doubt it involves a lot of complicated maths but I suspect those formulae have already been developed for GIS applications.

[Winter Thorne 696]

14 minutes ago, Raine said:

Reskinning is part of  their island-making process from what I understand.  They have a basic inventory of island shapes and they can add separate mineral and flora features on top of it, as well as rock, pillar and ledge features to customize each.  I don't see why they couldn't add a standard hexagonal shape to claim areas, but I'm not a programmer so I can't say how difficult it might be.   No doubt it involves a lot of complicated maths but I suspect those formulae have already been developed for GIS applications.

Given that there are just a limited number of island shapes and the rest are all just copy paste, I don't see why they couldn't sit someone down to draw out hardcoded claim areas for each island, then replicate them across.  If this is something not allowed in the graphics engine, there are procedural ways around that.  Claim architecture exists today.  Put down permanent procedural claims on each island that never expire, then an underlying structure to allow someone to "overclaim" each one.  If you have upkeep on them, it's not a lot different than tenancy.

Ex. -  on Emerald Refuge, draw out the claims and each one is permanently owned by the entity "Emerald Refuge".    A player places a claim flag on one (and under the covers becomes a tenant of Emerald Refuge, owing so much per week...adjustable per island based on area, resources, etc.)  You don't have to show to the player that he is a tenant, it looks just like a claim to him, with whatever claim rules are in place at the time.

[Archsenex 309]

4 hours ago, Winter Thorne said:

Given that there are just a limited number of island shapes and the rest are all just copy paste, I don't see why they couldn't sit someone down to draw out hardcoded claim areas for each island, then replicate them across.  If this is something not allowed in the graphics engine, there are procedural ways around that.  Claim architecture exists today.  Put down permanent procedural claims on each island that never expire, then an underlying structure to allow someone to "overclaim" each one.  If you have upkeep on them, it's not a lot different than tenancy.

Ex. -  on Emerald Refuge, draw out the claims and each one is permanently owned by the entity "Emerald Refuge".    A player places a claim flag on one (and under the covers becomes a tenant of Emerald Refuge, owing so much per week...adjustable per island based on area, resources, etc.)  You don't have to show to the player that he is a tenant, it looks just like a claim to him, with whatever claim rules are in place at the time.

Yup.  There's only about 20 or so base templates.  They then built further templates off those base templates.  The most frequently used second level template was then copied 24 times.  Most were only copied 2 to 4 times.  Each base shows up maybe 30 times.

Very, very few base templates were only used once.  I think 4

[MeatSammich 214]

Part of the problem is the fact that the player base can't come to a consensus on what number  of claims is reasonable, so everything is all over the board.

In the past few weeks, I've seen everything from 1 claim per company, to 5  claims per person.

Any cap would have to ensure that :

 A: There is enough room to build the necessities, and doesn't completely screw over the solo players, which eliminates 1 claim per company, and 1 claim per person.

B: That there is enough land for everyone, which eliminates the highs like 5 claims per person, since a 250 person company would have 1250 claims again.

The system should be based on company size, but not directly tied to the exact number of people in the company which both inhibits small/solo companies, as well as allowing large companies to control vast swaths of the map again.

 

I know most of you have seen the math breakdowns that I've thrown in a this and a couple other threads, (10 claims for companies under 25 members, 25 claims for companies 25-100 members, 50 claims for companies over 100 members) and I've gone over it a few times, and it still makes the most sense, and leaves the most land free for new players.

With a bit more tweaking like 10 claims for under 50 members, 25 claims for companies 50-125 members, and 50 claims for companies 125-250 members, so that every breakdown has a max of 5 company members per claim...or halving the original numbers to 5/15/25 claims per company size, the system could stay balanced, not overly penalize any company size, and leave huge amounts of land open for anyone who wants it, without needing to rent.

 

But, all this is academic, as it seems that Grapeshot is unwilling, or unable, to implement something along these lines. I have no idea which is the case, I just know that the past few weeks of the cycle of Player Complaints / Grapeshot Acknowledgement of Complaint / Player Excitement that Our Voices Are Being Heard / Captains Log with Complete Opposite of Expectations of Fix / Cycle Starts Again...has damn near completely killed any enthusiasm that I, and judging from the dwindling number of different people posting, and the overall tone of the posts, a whole lot of other people had for Atlas.

[MeatSammich 214]

15 hours ago, Raine said:

What if the devs reskinned the PvE islands with a honeycomb pattern of claimable spots, visible only when you activated your claim flag?  There would be no awkward holes or overlaps, the size of the claims would be immediately visible with the claim flag activation, the number of claims easily countable for determining island's points/status.  Hard cap the number of claims per Company or per player using a reasonable metric.  The islands aren't flat, so there will be some visual distortion of the honeycomb pattern.  Something like this: 

They don't even have to go as far as reskinning anything. Just a full hex grid overlay on each sector, ocean and all. With limited claims, no one would bother claiming the ocean in the middle of nowhere.

If tracking each grid would take up too much server overhead, you could just go through and delete all the grid more than 2 or 3 sectors offshore, to ensure that people could claim water deep enough for shipyards, etc.

[trev2000 19]

On 3/8/2019 at 7:18 PM, MeatSammich said:

Okay, once again, Grapeshot manages to take what the players are saying, and mange to almost, but not quite, do the exact opposite.

 

x2

[MeatSammich 214]

So, a couple questions that I have, that have been brought up and no answers given:

With this 'point system', how many points will each island type cost?

How many of each island type will be there? What constitutes small, medium, large, etc.?

What are the cutoffs going to be for points allocated to companies, as related to company size, or is it going to be directly tied to the number of people in the company? ie: 1 point per member?

What are the claim flag limits going to be to stop the bigger companies from just claiming all the small islands, so that no small/solo companies will be able to claim anything, since they won't have the points for bigger islands?

 

It would be nice if Jat and Dollie would set aside an hour or two one day soon, to do an AMA-type thread, to allow the players to get some answers to questions like these, and bring up some of the pitfalls they see, instead of waiting, and dreading, each Captain's Log, and the inevitable backlash each week.

[Raine 53]

Meat, I'm gonna guess you're mostly a PvP player?  Because the questions may be slightly different for your average PvE gamer.

[Winter Thorne 696]

20 minutes ago, Raine said:

Meat, I'm gonna guess you're mostly a PvP player?  Because the questions may be slightly different for your average PvE gamer.

No, he's talking about pve.  There's some kind of point system that says how many islands a company is allowed to have.

[Lotus 593]

11 hours ago, MeatSammich said:

So, a couple questions that I have, that have been brought up and no answers given:

With this 'point system', how many points will each island type cost?

How many of each island type will be there? What constitutes small, medium, large, etc.?

What are the cutoffs going to be for points allocated to companies, as related to company size, or is it going to be directly tied to the number of people in the company? ie: 1 point per member?

What are the claim flag limits going to be to stop the bigger companies from just claiming all the small islands, so that no small/solo companies will be able to claim anything, since they won't have the points for bigger islands?

 

It would be nice if Jat and Dollie would set aside an hour or two one day soon, to do an AMA-type thread, to allow the players to get some answers to questions like these, and bring up some of the pitfalls they see, instead of waiting, and dreading, each Captain's Log, and the inevitable backlash each week.

I honestly believe they don't know the values of what it should be yet. My ideas for what they should do.

~Lotus