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Sansa Phoenix

The change to PvE claiming...

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I'm done. 

As much as I love Atlas, if I can't claim my own piece of land, free of taxes, to build on, then forget it. This game was advertised as a place a company could claim some land for themselves to build on, and the Devs have taken away that one great selling point. 

I absolutely REFUSE to live on someone else's land, paying some stupid tax rate to them, just so they can play alpha of a whole island. Nope. No way. It means all of us who would be living under someone else's flag will have to grind that much harder to get anything done, and I absolutely refuse. 

Thanks a lot Devs... you really did NOT listen to a damn one of us, did you??

I don't play pvp, but even I don't like what you're doing with the claims there either. Its not right. Your 'new system' promotes Communism and abuse by large/mega companies. If you don't care that smaller companies/lone players could be treated this way, then SHAME ON YOU. 

I absolutely can NOT believe you read all of our comments on the planned changes, and think THIS crap is what we wanted. 

You've ruined your own game by not listening to your player base, AND by catering to large/mega tribes.

And.... before anyone suggests that I could just go hurry and claim my own island, I'll be at work the day this releases. I, nor anyone in my company, will be online for several hours after this release to claim anything. by the time we get home and online, all of the land will be gone. we WORK for a living. 

This new system is not a fair deal for 'everyone'. This new shit will only benefit those who have your favoritism: megas. Thats it. 

 

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Sadly I agree, they came out with a carbon copy system with the PVP solution, that in reality, is even worse then the current system that they already said did not work. So now instead of a small amount of people owning all the land. It will be even fewer people who will now own ot all. 

The remaining player base, once they realize they didnt get the island like they had hoped... will be forced to live under the rule of someone who either exicts them, or be forced to live within the constraints of their new island dictator. 

You will again see posts allow people to rent land from these guys for set prices,  you will need to fill out Tennant forms and be vetted...

It's a horrible solution and an even worse one then thencurrent broken system...

DEVS: 1 large sea size land claim per company,  and one personal claim flag per person. 

Done.

So simple....

Solves every issue.... gives us all land, we can do with as we wish, two biomes for solo groups,  and not enough claim flags to just spam the world. A tribe of 25 deserves a small island if they wish to waste all their claim flags on it... better then that one tribe owning 3 to 5 islands if not more....

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10 minutes ago, Raven Knight said:

You should really read the posts that Jat has been making recently.

Where?

I found 1 post on reddit about shipwrecks, 2 posts on these forums since the announcement of the changes (1 saying they're not merging servers, and another about adding PvE content), and the only thing on his twitter since the captains log was a retweet of some Ark stuff.

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RE: The devs not caring or paying attention
 

Just wanted to chime in here to let you guys know we are actively reading the threads, our discord servers, tweets, reddit posts, etc. We consume feedback from every where and not one place takes a priority over another. Typically we tend to do our big announcement/changes over our Captain's Log, as we're able to funnel people into one location where they can see what we're planning.

As for the PvE specific feedback, we are discussing as a team, based on the feedback and suggestions you've provided about our initial proposal and we're open to making changes. So certainly keep it coming as we do appreciate it 🙂

Edit: Dollie beat me to the punch 😛. I am hoping that we'll be able to share more info with you guys soon, based on what we decide to do but you have all certainly raised some valid concerns over the past few days.

 

We do have plans for more PVE content in the game; from dungeons, quests, missions, the list goes on but right now our focus is on this upcoming mega update and tackling some of our core design problems.

However there are some really good ideas in here, keep them coming folks 🙂

 

 

 

 

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LMAO.. they might have glanced at what we were saying, but they didn't actually read, nor comprehend, what we wrote. In other words, they heard our outcry, but didn't actually HEAR what we said. If they had, then the changes they want to make would NOT be 1 claim flag per island. Thats soooo dumb!

Might I remind you that one of the key selling points of this game was that a company could own their own land? 

Hmmm... seems like a form of 'click bait' for a game, dont you think? And a bit of false advertisement, if you ask me. 

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1 hour ago, Sansa Phoenix said:

LMAO.. they might have glanced at what we were saying, but they didn't actually read, nor comprehend, what we wrote. In other words, they heard our outcry, but didn't actually HEAR what we said. If they had, then the changes they want to make would NOT be 1 claim flag per island. Thats soooo dumb!

Might I remind you that one of the key selling points of this game was that a company could own their own land? 

Hmmm... seems like a form of 'click bait' for a game, dont you think? And a bit of false advertisement, if you ask me. 

What if roughly 40% of the server population wanted the single claim and like 15% wanted the lawless? So they hear you but more people want the 1 claim. What if they took the PvPers into account for this vote and they wanted to remove PvE and make all servers PvP and so then the 2-3x population of PvP got taken into account and now even 100% of the PvE population then gets turned into 25% of the game population. So at some point they have to look at other things. Claims with landlords work for Hardcore + casual. It does not appeal to softcore. Which is another thing that gets taken into account for decision making.

~Lotus

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2 hours ago, Raven Knight said:
RE: The devs not caring or paying attention
 

Just wanted to chime in here to let you guys know we are actively reading the threads, our discord servers, tweets, reddit posts, etc. We consume feedback from every where and not one place takes a priority over another. Typically we tend to do our big announcement/changes over our Captain's Log, as we're able to funnel people into one location where they can see what we're planning.

As for the PvE specific feedback, we are discussing as a team, based on the feedback and suggestions you've provided about our initial proposal and we're open to making changes. So certainly keep it coming as we do appreciate it 🙂

Edit: Dollie beat me to the punch 😛. I am hoping that we'll be able to share more info with you guys soon, based on what we decide to do but you have all certainly raised some valid concerns over the past few days.

I paid attention to your post and here is that pink pirate hat, which I'm sure is what you meant to say and something that would make you happy.

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2 hours ago, Raven Knight said:
RE: The devs not caring or paying attention
 

Just wanted to chime in here to let you guys know we are actively reading the threads, our discord servers, tweets, reddit posts, etc. We consume feedback from every where and not one place takes a priority over another. Typically we tend to do our big announcement/changes over our Captain's Log, as we're able to funnel people into one location where they can see what we're planning.

As for the PvE specific feedback, we are discussing as a team, based on the feedback and suggestions you've provided about our initial proposal and we're open to making changes. So certainly keep it coming as we do appreciate it 🙂

Edit: Dollie beat me to the punch 😛. I am hoping that we'll be able to share more info with you guys soon, based on what we decide to do but you have all certainly raised some valid concerns over the past few days.

Aye, that was before the Captains Log that put in the latest iteration of "Hey, this is the opposite of what you guys want, but, have it anyway"

These latest changes were their interpretation of what we were asking for from their "actively reading the threads,...etc"/

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I'm with the OP (except for that bit about communism, which is weird)

 

25 minutes ago, Lotus said:

What if roughly 40% of the server population wanted the single claim and like 15% wanted the lawless? So they hear you but more people want the 1 claim. What if they took the PvPers into account for this vote and they wanted to remove PvE and make all servers PvP and so then the 2-3x population of PvP got taken into account and now even 100% of the PvE population then gets turned into 25% of the game population. So at some point they have to look at other things. Claims with landlords work for Hardcore + casual. It does not appeal to softcore. Which is another thing that gets taken into account for decision making.

~Lotus

Well, what if they solved the first vote by giving everyone limited claims based on company size and retaining some of lawless?  (And then when they discover to no one's surprise, that people who voted lawless really would prefer to have a claim, they can get rid of them)  Or they could solve it by logging into the game and going around kicking all the players in the ass.  Which is better?

What if they told the pvpers that they had no business voting on things about other players' servers that they never play on?  That would solve the second vote sensibly.  (Or to put it a different way, why the hell would you ask pvpers how the pvp server should work?  Who does that?)

I don't know what definitions you are using for hardcore, casual and softcore, but I think your last statement is wrong.  And truly, we have no freaking idea what gets taken into account for decision making.  Maybe they throw darts at a board.  After all, in the beginning, someone decided people should grab an unlimited number of claims that should last 2 days.  You think that genius is doing sophisticated analysis of player trends and preferences?

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7 hours ago, Winter Thorne said:

I'm with the OP (except for that bit about communism, which is weird)

 

Well, what if they solved the first vote by giving everyone limited claims based on company size and retaining some of lawless?  (And then when they discover to no one's surprise, that people who voted lawless really would prefer to have a claim, they can get rid of them)  Or they could solve it by logging into the game and going around kicking all the players in the ass.  Which is better?

What if they told the pvpers that they had no business voting on things about other players' servers that they never play on?  That would solve the second vote sensibly.  (Or to put it a different way, why the hell would you ask pvpers how the pvp server should work?  Who does that?)

I don't know what definitions you are using for hardcore, casual and softcore, but I think your last statement is wrong.  And truly, we have no freaking idea what gets taken into account for decision making.  Maybe they throw darts at a board.  After all, in the beginning, someone decided people should grab an unlimited number of claims that should last 2 days.  You think that genius is doing sophisticated analysis of player trends and preferences?

Sometimes I think it's a madlibs that determines things -_- on a more serious note 😄

The point I was making about the PvPers is when people say hey change this, the devs  have no clue any stats about the player. A hardcore gamer to me by definition schedules life around gaming. A good example of this would be when we used to set alarms when claims would come off upkeep at 3:00AM 😉. Softcore would be if you have free time you play the game. A casual would be like... (This is not meant to be negative but I can't word it humbly)... a primitive schooner is a substantial investment 😞. With that in mind when I say it's not that bad to find land and somebody else is like it's impossible the devs will get mixed signals. I will throw some pretty rough stats out there. (This is before the wipe was announced) On Official PvP had 2x PvE for online players most of the time. So all the PvP changes that come through and nerf things like explosive barrels which is the best way to kill a rock elemental to my knowledge. Here's where the real fun is... PvP + PvE official is 1/3 the player base... so the majority isn't on official so claims changing for official will also change private. So official PvE is 1/9 or 11% the total player base and we arn't united on the change we want. So roughly 5-6% is arguing on the forums with the other 5-6% over lawless vs claims. Both have pros and cons and neither is clearly preferred.

 

I need to meme at this point 😄

 

I'm gonna pull this all together it's gonna be magic 😄 need full immersion for this magic though so as you read this take off your headset, close netflix, remove all distractions.

Lets go to imagination land.  Clear your thoughts... and pretend

You are Jat's boss. You have your degree in management. You did hard work and now here you are living your dream. You have a whiteboard with all kinds of diagrams and sticky notes on it. Inspirational phrases all over the walls. On your desk is several monitors. You have read the forums and could respond but that is Jat's job, your job is to guide Jat so that he can achieve his potential. You go back to working on the schedule knowing that you are going to put in another 60 hour week as a leader though you want to set the example of putting in the hard work you want to see from your team.

As you continue planning out team building exercises you hear a knock on your door. You look up to see Jat with a worried expression on his face. You invite him in and he takes the seat in front of your desk. Hastily he expresses, "I don't know what to do." Inquisitively you ask, "What do you mean?" with a raised eyebrow. His face changes to panic. "They are upset about the claims being announced for PvE!" he exclaims. You've heard this before from him. His passion for his job causes his emotions to get the best of him. You stand and face the poster to your left. Slowly you walk towards it. "Tell me more about the problem they have with the announcement." you say as you turn to face him.

Jat takes a deep breath to compose himself before explaining the situation. "The plan was to remove claims so that the PvE players did not have to worry about flags anymore. They wanted the claims removed so we announced we were taking them out. This made others angry because they want claims. So after an overwhelming amount of people protested the removal of claims we announced we were going to make it how the PvP system will be." Jat explains as tears begin to well up in his eyes. You slowly walk towards him. "They are now arguing on the forums." he says as he breaks into a full sob.

You kneel down and place your hand on his shoulder reassuringly. "Hey. What is done is done." you say calmly. He stops sobbing and makes eye contact. "You can't make everybody happy. Is there an easy solution to this problem?" You ask firmly. "No." he says in a saddened tone. "What is the most valuable resource you have to make this game extraordinary?" you ask in an empowering manner. "My time." He responds plainly. You smile rising to your feet. "That's right now go use it on something worth using it on." You tell him with encouragement. holding out your fist. Jat's eyes become large and proud as his face lights up with a smile. He bumps fists with you as he leaves to go work on projects with a definite solution.

You return to your seat and continue working on the schedule. You know you lead your people to becoming the best.

 

Alright enough story time. So now with that perspective of being that boss. How do you make it so everybody is happy? The person I have in mind is a tenant we had. She plays every other weekend because her kids go with their father. She could not find land. Lawless her base would disappear. Being a tenant was perfect for her because she knew she could come back and have her stuff where she left it. (Minus tames they would starve to death and she would need more wheat/turnips 😄 ) I offered for her to join but she wanted to remain solo which I had no problem with. So what kind of system works for her that both 1.) Protects her stuff while she is gone for 2 weeks. 2.) Does not require her to farm for an incredible amount of time to maintain her stuff between play times. She paid for the game, does she not get to enjoy it? The current claim system does the same thing to a lot of people. The new one to me fixes it so the more softcore tribes can have land too. To me it is the current meta solution. The way for everybody to win would be super expensive for the game because they will have to rewrite a lot of coding but it would make it so everybody wins.

 

~Lotus

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5 hours ago, Lotus said:

 So now with that perspective of being that boss. How do you make it so everybody is happy? The person I have in mind is a tenant we had. She plays every other weekend because her kids go with their father. She could not find land. Lawless her base would disappear. Being a tenant was perfect for her because she knew she could come back and have her stuff where she left it. (Minus tames they would starve to death and she would need more wheat/turnips 😄 ) I offered for her to join but she wanted to remain solo which I had no problem with. So what kind of system works for her that both 1.) Protects her stuff while she is gone for 2 weeks. 2.) Does not require her to farm for an incredible amount of time to maintain her stuff between play times. She paid for the game, does she not get to enjoy it? The current claim system does the same thing to a lot of people. The new one to me fixes it so the more softcore tribes can have land too. To me it is the current meta solution. The way for everybody to win would be super expensive for the game because they will have to rewrite a lot of coding but it would make it so everybody wins.

 

~Lotus

Ok, let's talk about your tenant and about the people you are describing as casual and softcore.  

Quote

The current claim system does the same thing to a lot of people

Because she doesn't HAVE one!  If she had one, she wouldn't have the problem.

 

Those kinds of players need a reasonable window of stability so they can have a base which is not under threat during their absences.  You make the point that the only way for this player to retain their base is to be a renter.

Quote

Being a tenant was perfect for her because she knew she could come back and have her stuff where she left it.

Not really.  Being YOUR tenant may have been perfect for her.  There are landlords that would grief that player into moving, because she is not generating a lot of income for them, or because they want to give that space to a friend, etc.    This may be a set up that works for her, but you really cannot say it works for casuals as a rule.  I keep remembering the company next to me in Lawless.  They were modeled on a 1940s misinterpretation of New York Mafia.  They griefed everyone's boats, and when I finally got screenshots and reported them, they stopped, but they continued to be nasty in every other way.  Never referred to me as anything other than "Bish".  Oh, they had claims too because they were fast out of the gate.  They'll have claims after the wipe as well.  How happy would your tenant be with them? 

Quote

A casual would be like... (This is not meant to be negative but I can't word it humbly)... a primitive schooner is a substantial investment

There's no need to be shy about saying that.  Hell, I'm sort of that kind of player.  I have tons of hours logged, but get interrupted so much that it's hard to do big things quickly.  If I want a boat, I'll start to gather mats for a shipyard, and oh here comes an alpha cobra, and I stop to kill the cobra and then..oh AFK, back in 20 mins.  and then I gather mats again, and afk again, more mats, some scorpions, and damn the snake just ate the storage box so let me go fix that and then I have to jump up to handle some RL thing, and then the day is gone.  At the end of the next day, maybe I have the shipyard built.  If I come into the game the day after that and some idiot landlord has decided he doesn't like my shipyard and it's gone, do you know how incredibly pissed off I'm going to be?

 

You can't offer these players the kinds of protections they need by putting them at the mercy of other players and hoping the other players are kind to them.  It's a terrible solution.  

 

A number of us here have been pushing a solution of claims with limits, and no upkeep.  This exactly solves the problems these kinds of players have and I know because I'm one of them.      A safe place for my base that nobody else can destroy, where I can come and go and spend 3 weeks building a damn schooner if I want.  If I wanted to be at the mercy of other players, I'd play pvp.

Upkeep is stupid, btw.  There's no need for it.  What problem would you try to solve with upkeep?  The problem that people abandon the claim or the game and the place just sits there forever.  How else could you fix that?  Well you could use a simple timer where if a player has not entered the claim in 21 days it gets removed.  If they just HAD to have upkeep because someone loves the idea so much, then it has to be an "upkeep box" that can hold 21 days worth of stuff, which would do largely the same job, except that now you've given the player the useless task of just running around getting things for the box, which isn't fun, and hurts casuals way more than the hardcore.    It's better without it, but even with it, you've given casuals some place where their things can be safe while they are away from the game that doesn't depend on some random player being nice to them.

 

The only people who think that overlords are going to solve this problem are the people who expect to be overlords.

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2 hours ago, Winter Thorne said:

The only people who think that overlords are going to solve this problem are the people who expect to be overlords.

One hundred percent correct. 

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8 minutes ago, DilBert said:

One hundred percent correct. 

Well, to be very fair, I wouldn't want to be an overlord either.

I thought about starting up a comment thread "What could possibly go wrong?"  listing all the things Landlords have to watch out for and all the things tenants have to watch out for.  Maybe later.

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18 minutes ago, Winter Thorne said:

Well, to be very fair, I wouldn't want to be an overlord either.

I thought about starting up a comment thread "What could possibly go wrong?"  listing all the things Landlords have to watch out for and all the things tenants have to watch out for.  Maybe later.

Yeah... Pretty certain I wouldn't have the time to be an overlord/landlord/mayor.

However, if I did have the time, I know the kind of benevolent shepherd I'd love to be.  My hope is the people who would be awful to others won't be able to sustain holding a large island.  A tiny one, maybe. 

I think with the system they're suggesting/planning, they'd have the ability to play with the numbers (upkeep, etc) and punish anyone who wouldn't have the social skills to hang on to tenants.

SWG had a mayor system of some sorts where the current leader could actually be deposed if need be.  Been a long time so hard to remember the specifics, but I think having a system in place that allows them to have some control over the playerbase is better than not having anything and making it all lawless.

just mho.

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3 minutes ago, Kveldulf said:

Yeah... Pretty certain I wouldn't have the time to be an overlord/landlord/mayor.

However, if I did have the time, I know the kind of benevolent shepherd I'd love to be.  My hope is the people who would be awful to others won't be able to sustain holding a large island.  A tiny one, maybe. 

I think with the system they're suggesting/planning, they'd have the ability to play with the numbers (upkeep, etc) and punish anyone who wouldn't have the social skills to hang on to tenants.

SWG had a mayor system of some sorts where the current leader could actually be deposed if need be.  Been a long time so hard to remember the specifics, but I think having a system in place that allows them to have some control over the playerbase is better than not having anything and making it all lawless.

just mho.

Everybody keeps assuming that landlords have actual control over the island.  When you say "the people who would be awful to others", remember that that can mean the other tenants as well.  Everyone can build anywhere.  Just because you can remove things within 12 or so hours, doesn't mean you won't constantly have things all over the place if someone wants to put them there.  There is no difference to a player seeing 12 foundations that last forever or 12 foundations that only last a day but get replaced within a day.

In some scenarios, everyone is still living with spam, everyone still has others building right close to them, landlords might be tearing people's stuff down, etc.  So this design hasn't really fixed any of that.  It's just counting on the landlords to be like Junior GMs and make everything nice.

In the end, who will be left to go out sailing and having adventures when everyone is so busy putting down pillars, destroying pillars, making rent, paying taxes?  How much farther off track can a game get?

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On 3/10/2019 at 11:39 AM, Winter Thorne said:

Everybody keeps assuming that landlords have actual control over the island.  When you say "the people who would be awful to others", remember that that can mean the other tenants as well.  Everyone can build anywhere.  Just because you can remove things within 12 or so hours, doesn't mean you won't constantly have things all over the place if someone wants to put them there.  There is no difference to a player seeing 12 foundations that last forever or 12 foundations that only last a day but get replaced within a day.

In some scenarios, everyone is still living with spam, everyone still has others building right close to them, landlords might be tearing people's stuff down, etc.  So this design hasn't really fixed any of that.  It's just counting on the landlords to be like Junior GMs and make everything nice.

In the end, who will be left to go out sailing and having adventures when everyone is so busy putting down pillars, destroying pillars, making rent, paying taxes?  How much farther off track can a game get?

Well yeah :classic_biggrin:  Landlords aren't the only ones that can have a negative impact on other players, but they do have the most long-term power to affect others on that island. 

Not sure what happens if an island is just never claimed.  Who gets the 12+hour window to destroy pillars, or anything else?

What if a claim is made after things are already built on the island? 

Could a landlord share island admin rights?  There's no alliances, but could there be a permission system?  Things that are placed are still identified in the database as being owned by a particular company.  There's potential for programming permissions in there right?  Island caretakers, Island defenders, Island citizens, Island criminals?

Having a system in place of some kind does open the window for that system to be improved.  It still seems better than no system present to be improved.

Or... I'm wrong and the whole thing goes to hell in a hand-basket.  If there's anything I've learned over the years it's that hell in a hand-basket is always a risk.

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