Not gaming feels more like cheating

[Zadira 45]

So the way the game is set up, we just respec to get our character to do what we want at the time, and then respec again.  I really do not like this type of game play. How can we become vested in our character if it is just a temporary type thing we can change on a whim.  In our company, we are constantly respecing.  We have six fairly active members but there is always someone who can't do something because they have to put more points in this in order to do that.  I think I know what the developers are trying to do but it is simply not working.  Well, it may be working but it sure isn't fun.  It almost feels like we are cheating in order to play the game but I don't think it can be called cheating if it is how the devs want us to play.

Another problem is the vitamin/food thing.  Everyone in our company doesn't care anything about all the food stuff because they have all figured out that it is just easier to die and not mess with it.  What kind of game play is that?  I use my precious skill points to fill up the food and vitamin category but I still find it easier to just die than mess with trying to keep my vitamins up without over eating. Every time I go out and die on purpose, I lose what little bit of role play or immersion into the game that I have.  

I think I read that the vitamins are going to be changing a bit with the new mega update so hopefully they will work better but why do devs want to create games that cause so much frustration? After playing Ark for years and now Atlas, I really do think that some devs just really like having a god like control, all the while, laughing through out their day, knowing how miserable they make people feel.  Is that really a thing? 

[Balsafer 1]

respecing prob just for testing purposes

[Sneakydude 143]

Unlimited, Re-spec works on unofficial each level. When you have low numbers you need to be able to spec into it. Sadly the points system, was geared towards having 200 ppl and a ton of resources coming in each day.

Not every crew could build ships, and cook at the same time.

Too many PVE options in PVP makes it difficult to do both.

[Percieval 1,067]

Haha, when there was a bug with the respec you should’ve seen how many people were crying about it in here. No, deleting the respec button is not an option, even though I would like it a lot. 

[Sneakydude 143]

2 minutes ago, Percieval said:

Haha, when there was a bug with the respec you should’ve seen how many people were crying about it in here. No, deleting the respec button is not an option, even though I would like it a lot. 

Explain sorry i might have forgotten what that was?

[DannyUK 308]

I kind of agree yes, since I started playing I was getting this feeling also but learned to live with it.

When your vitamins all get very low together the easiest way is just to kill yourself or I think you could fast travel and it would reset.

I think you have to goto Freeport now  to buy token to reset skill tree, not to sure but it was to easy resetting it on every level up you got.

[Zadira 45]

I am not saying to delete the respec button.  I am saying that things need to be so that we don't feel the need to respec every single time you need to do something different in the game.  I know the devs want us to have certain people be best at certain jobs but that is not fun for most.

All of us in our company want to be able to be amazing Captains of our Ships.  We also want to be able to tame and breed the high end creatures and be able to grow the better foods and be able to dance and play music.  

I know it sounds like a great game that you have to rely on your fellow company members to help out with all the things but that does not mean it is the most fun game that I can play. In fact, it is becoming a game that is more frustrating than fun.

[DannyUK 308]

Well on the island I was on people used to ask in chat if they didn't have a certain skill. Someone had asked if anyone can make large speed sails? as he didn't have the required skill. I made him 2 large speed sails and travelled across the island to deliver it for him, that's what I like about this game helping each other out.

Some companies are just 1 person so I get how frustrating it is, it can only get better as the game progresses though, I'm having fun with it so far. I hope they fix the breeding also, they used to die very fast, never tried it for awhile so not sure if they fixed it or not.

[Kappinski 58]

As far as I undertstood the next patch will change the respec mechanic.

You will have to travel to a freeport and buy a respec with gold.
So no fast travel to respec and fast travel back but you can still do it if you really want or messed up your character.

I think this is fair.

[Zadira 45]

I love hearing stories where if someone needs something, you just ask in chat and that something appears but that does not help for the skills that someone cannot give you.  Right now I am not able to put any points in the music or dancing skills because I don't have the points to spare. I don't think that is fair to take away those fun attributes so that I can be the only one in my company that needs to be able to craft certain things. We all need to skill up our health and food attributes. We need to be able to defend ourselves. There are just too many things that we have to put points in and it limits us for any of the fun things.

Well, I guess if we decide to have a celebration party after destroying the Ghost Ship, we can all take a few moments, respec so that we all have dancing and music skills and party on! Hahaha!

It will be interesting to see the changes that are going to be made, that is for sure. I hope we will hear about the changes before they implement them but I guess we will just have to see them for ourselves when they drop the ptr.

[Jack Shandy 242]

You can do it all, but it takes time.

At lvl 66 my character could make just about everything in the game bar galleons and heavy cannons. And bar mythic can use any tool, weapon, firearm, armour & bow, and tame and command level 3 animals.

Granted a lot of the trees are only dipped into so i can use the items, but I too want to do it all and I know that doing so means I won't be the best at more than others that restrict their builds.

[Rabbitheart 7]

I totally agree that not being able to learn all the skills is very frustrating. As a gamer prefer to do things myself. I like to get things done. I like to play my way.  I don't like having to rely on others for my game play, or my fun in a game. I get really tired of having to respec every single time our company is lacking in something that is needed to play the game.

Just as an example. I had to respec the other day because our company needed sails. No big deal. I thought I will respec make a whole ton of sails and then we will be set. So I respec I start harvesting to get what we need to make the sails, but I can't ride the elephant to get wood because I don't have tier 3 riding and I don't have enough points left to learn it.  I can't ride the bear to get fiber because I don't have tier 2 riding because I don't have enough points left. I can't respec again until I level up. I am at the level where getting levels is much slower and they are far and few between. So I have to grind all the resources myself to make the sails. I am not lazy by any means, I am not saying I minded collecting all the resources but it was super frustrating knowing that if I had enough points I would be able to use our tames, that we tamed for that reason,  to collect those things. Thankfully our company is amazing at team work so we worked together. BUT, I shouldn't have to rely on others to play the game in a way that I enjoy and that is fun.

I should be able to learn what I NEED to learn, what I WANT to learn, and NOT have to respec every single time I, or one of our company member needs something. I really would like to learn medical. I have never learned it because it doesn't seem as important as other things that or more "needed". I love, love, LOVE  the music part of the game. I love music but, again, it doesn't seem important as other things. There is even another job, Tarot reading, that is not even in game yet and if they do decide to go forward with that then I don't know. I certainly won't have the levels or points to put into that.

I don't understand why we can't learn everything we want to learn. I like the mechanic they have in place that gives us points as we level.  I like that we have to  earn those points and learn different skills over time.  But it shouldn't be limited in my opinion. Let us be able to learn all of the skills if we want to.   

[Jack Shandy 242]

I think most of you posting here just need to level up, it takes time and patience and helps if you love exploring.

And before anyone asks, I've done no power stones and only killed 1 whale that gave discovery points.

there are 100 odd levels to be had, and it's going to take months and months to get anywhere near that, long term aspirations and a lot to aim for. Good reason to keep playing if you ask me. And you'll probably have damn near every skill in the game by the time you get there.

[Percieval 1,067]

4 hours ago, Sneakydude said:

Explain sorry i might have forgotten what that was?

When you had to level up a few levels to get back to the respec level. 

[Zadira 45]

Most of us in our company are level 60 to 65.  We are focusing on being able to build battle ships and getting ready to do the power stone islands but we are having trouble.  I know we will be able to do it, in the long run but I really do think we should be able to do it and have fun at the same time.  The frustration of it all is what makes the game not as fun as it could be.

[engraverwilliam 38]

I liked that you had until lvl 50 to decide then you had one last respec to be what you where going to be the rest of your career.

[Zadira 45]

One thing I am very confused about. We had a person who only put points in Intelligence so that she could craft a mastercraft large speed sail from a blueprint. We gathered everything we needed but then found out that she also had to learn large sails to craft them.  We all thought anyone could craft anything from a blueprint.  Are we confused at how it works? You have to learn how to craft an item before you can use the blueprint?  Only people who have learned a certain skill can use the blueprints for that skill? That doesn't make any sense to me at all. 

But this does reaffirm my point.  The game is much more frustrating than fun. 

We can only hope that the devs are truly listening to us and hopefully changing the game so that we can have more fun with this game.  The frustration is real.

[Sneakydude 143]

2 hours ago, Zadira said:

One thing I am very confused about. We had a person who only put points in Intelligence so that she could craft a mastercraft large speed sail from a blueprint. We gathered everything we needed but then found out that she also had to learn large sails to craft them.  We all thought anyone could craft anything from a blueprint.  Are we confused at how it works? You have to learn how to craft an item before you can use the blueprint?  Only people who have learned a certain skill can use the blueprints for that skill? That doesn't make any sense to me at all. 

But this does reaffirm my point.  The game is much more frustrating than fun. 

We can only hope that the devs are truly listening to us and hopefully changing the game so that we can have more fun with this game.  The frustration is real.

Blue prints are bs the way they designed them.... the same with wearing metal gear... you have to know how to make it to wear it? who thought of that, pretty backwards thinking because i am sure King Richard never knew how to make his own armor =D

[Realist 504]

15 minutes ago, Sneakydude said:

Blue prints are bs the way they designed them.... the same with wearing metal gear... you have to know how to make it to wear it? who thought of that, pretty backwards thinking because i am sure King Richard never knew how to make his own armor =D

They will end up changing that as well. It will end up being like ark to where you can give anyone armor. The tried to go the whole tek tier route of having to have them learned way too early in the game. That will definitely get changed

[Jean 7]

I'm level 82 in the game. I am comfortably high in most skill trees. Although I do know I can't do some of the things I would like, I rely upon my company and alliance to help out.  The first thing I noticed about this game was that on official, it is not a solo game.  Build the appropriate social contracts and friendships and anything is possible.

[Martyn 246]

I like the idea of persistant characters, whilst I understand why people want/need to respec, I think it makes the game just too easy.  They should make it so if you respec, you have a very limited timer put on you, if you don't respec close to what you had prior ie if you were a tamer and now an armoursmith.. all your tames should go wild.. even if you've given them to other people.   This would force people to spec specifically down their own unique routes and keep them on them.  Only allowing respec to fix mistakes or where genuine points are wasted.   Or if you really need to change to a different class of character.

As for BPs and requirements to wear items without the skill.  I think it should be part way like this, I don't think you should need an armoursmith skill to wear armour, but you should need it to repair it.  So you could make armour for an entire company.. but only the smiths could repair it.  Bp's similarly, should allow single crafts of any one item, by any player.  However, if you don't have the actual skill, you cannot repair it.

This way a company will have a permenant staff of skilled players.  People will be cooks or tamers, captains or pirates, musicians or shipbuilders etc.  For EA purposes it's fine for people to respec every level or so or via a potion, but after release, the game needs to have an element of balance or everyone will just exploit it. 

There's no doubt that potions can also be exploited tho, doesn't take much to farm/grind the items needed in Ark.  So I'd expect a bigger company to have most of the resources continually available.  Again tho, this will push people to play in companies and larger groups.   I know people prefer sometimes to play solo or just can't trust people to play in a group or team, but the game has to be designed around one or other it can't really be built for both and doing something with a mate is surely the reason why anyone plays mp games.. that said, a large part of pve gameplay is purely socialising, people come to pve purely to talk.. but even so, I think we need to just get to grips with a game that should be multiplayer in all aspects.  And remove as much exploitability as possibly from the gameplay and if people don't like it.. hard luck.  The trick is just to make a game many do like, not one everyone will never like at the same time.

[Rabbitheart 7]

Another frustrating aspect to the point system is that we have company members who are from all different parts of the world and all different time zones. Some of them CAN be on all the time, some work and have families and are NOT able to be on as much, some can only play on the weekends. It's completely understandable, life before game.  However, that being said,  if we were to assign certain skills for each of our company members to learn, and that company member is not able to be online, then we have to put our game play on hold. To me that is super frustrating and not fun at all. If I have to wait around in a game to fully play the game then I will go and play another game.  

Most of our company's characters,  of those that play pretty regularly, are at between levels 60 - 70.  We are at the point to in our game play to start look for the power stones. We want to be able to protect ourselves but every time we need something crafted someone has to respec to be able to learn something that we need.

For example: One of our company members had to respec to be able to learn large cannons even though we already had a company member who had started to learn artillery but had not yet leveled enough to learn the large ones.  In learning the large cannons that company member had to give up other skills that she really enjoyed in order to have the points to put towards cannons. 

When a game mechanic is more frustrating then fun it needs to be changed. We have the opportunity to inform the game devs how a change to a game mechanic could make the game better. It's up to them to decided whether they care enough to make that change. It's to there benefit to listen to their players. By making the game mechanics better, they have happier players, and those players may recommend the game to others, and he game continues to make money and make needed improvements.  

[Ravix MM 1]

I just want to voice my opinion on the issues addressed in this thread, even though I could make my post very short and say "I agree with the previous speaker". 

1. The constant respecing:
   
   In our company we have 7 members. 4 of us are very active and play Atlas every day. Our levels are in the 60ties, so we have picked up quite a few skill points and you would think that between us we should be able to cover what is necessary, but that is not the case. Just last night I had to respec when we were building a new brig and none of us could make medium planks and gun ports. I had to sacrifice my skills in breeding for that.
   
   I do understand that the devs wants us to be in companies and to rely upon each other, but in my opinion it is ridicules that between the 4 of us we can't cover all skills. Another thing, to put it mildly, I very much dislike that fact that the devs forces everybody to be in rather big companies to be able to play a game. That should not be the way it works!
   
   I guess I should be embracing the ability to respec, for now, but I do hope that there will be a change to how the skills and skill points work in the future. Yes, guys, I know that we will get more points as we level, but leveling is harder when you reach a certain level. I'm just saying "make it more balanced".
   
    
2. Blueprints!
   
   OH MY GOSH! It is so ridicules how this works! I thought the whole point of blueprints was that "unskilled" players could craft using blueprints. Yes, I do know that the qualities of the blueprints are better than the basic ones, but still this just doesn't make sense. I'd like to point out that even though I am not a skilled tailor in real life, I can actually sew a coat using a blueprint. So if the devs are trying to copy real life with this, they are failing. LOL!
   
    
3. Food and vitamins!
   
   Oh dear devs, most times when I need to eat I get sick because I have consumed too many vitamins. Then when I need vitamins, I overeat. Why does eating have to be such a big part of a game? I worry more about eating, what I eat and having enough food than staying safe from wildlife. That shouldn't be my main concern, right? Yes, I do know it is a survival game, but even here when you compare to real life this is not realistic. You don't end up with vitamin deficiency in 2-3 days. I sure hope that the huge patch will bring a balance to this, and that I can stop finding something to kill me 3-6 times a day because food/vitamins are messed up.

In general I really hope the huge patch will fix a lot of things that needs fixing, but I am too cynical to belive that will be the case. Right know some of us are for sure struggling with the game, because it is often more frustrating than fun.

I think that every single person connected to developing Atlas should spend 1 week (8 hours per day) on playing the game, maybe then they would realize how many things are wrong with this game currently. I can try to be gullible and believe that they just don't know, but I do wonder if you need to possess a certain degree of cruelty (or even a degree in cruelty) to be a dev.  

Edited March 29, 2019 by Ravix MM