My suggestions to fix certain fundamental problems with Atlas

[Widgit 5]

I've been reading through many complaints, and while most of them are warranted, the number of complaints far outweigh the number of constructive suggestions to fix problems.  I'm no game designer, but I feel it's important to keep the dialogue constructive.  That said, here is my small list of suggested changes I feel might help change the game for the better.
 

• Change the ratio of herbivores vs carnivores by about 1.5:1
• Lower overall creature spawns by about 25%
• Investigate overspawn issues in water and on land, eliminate overspawning (this, and the above suggestion, will help server performance considerably).
• Increase harvest rates slightly, 2x base rates would be acceptable (this is pretty much the standard in ARK official now, with their constant events).
• Cut vitamin drain by about 25%, leave hunger and water drain as is.
• More sources of fresh water, or a wider variety of methods earlygame to acquire water other than X+LMB, throughout the islands.
• Allow 1 claim flag per island per player, maybe include a 30 minute cooldown.  Increase claim radius to double current size to compensate.
• Make all crafting stations have a company lock/pin-code function.
• Lower raft durability drain by about 20%.  Other ships are fine, rafts die way too quickly in my opinion.
• Allow beds to function in Lawless territory.  Keep the current decay rate.
• Investigate and eliminate ocean respawn points.  Yesterday I spawned deep in the middle of the ocean several times, surrounded by eels and whales.
• Along with the previous suggestion, add a 'safety' timer to prevent wild creature attacks while players are loading into a zone, so they don't find themselves dead upon loading.  This already exists in ARK.

As I said, I'm no game designer, and I don't think all my suggestions are perfect.  Maybe some aren't even viable solutions.  The goal here is to have a constructive discussion about problems the playerbase is having, and giving solutions/suggestions rather than just rage.  All other suggestions or criticisms are welcome here.
 

[SheepThrillz 4]

- Change the ratio of herbivores vs carnivores by about 1.5:1

Yes, carnivores should be decreased, but then again all animal spawns should be decreased its just too much and too easy to find em.

- Lower overall creature spawns by about 25%

Indeed!

- Investigate overspawn issues in water and on land, eliminate overspawning (this, and the above suggestion, will help server performance considerably).

agree

- Increase harvest rates slightly, 2x base rates would be acceptable (this is pretty much the standard in ARK official now, with their constant events).

Dont agree, the game is survival and harvesting should be a hard aspect of it, tbh i think they should reduce a lot of the plants found in the wild, TO MUCH CLUTTER!

- Cut vitamin drain by about 25%, leave hunger and water drain as is.

Agree

- More sources of fresh water, or a wider variety of methods earlygame to acquire water other than X+LMB, throughout the islands.

Dont agree it really feels like a survival game the way it is atm.

- Allow 1 claim flag per island per player, maybe include a 30 minute cooldown.  Increase claim radius to double current size to compensate.

- Make all crafting stations have a company lock/pin-code function.

What about every lootbox has a key and if you are smart you kill some one and can unlock it? Like for example, you can copy keys at smithy and give em to crew members, but if that member gets killed thats one unaccounted key to the loot.

- Lower raft durability drain by about 20%.  Other ships are fine, rafts die way too quickly in my opinion.

Havent noticed anything

- Allow beds to function in Lawless territory.  Keep the current decay rate.

- Investigate and eliminate ocean respawn points.  Yesterday I spawned deep in the middle of the ocean several times, surrounded by eels and whales.

- Along with the previous suggestion, add a 'safety' timer to prevent wild creature attacks while players are loading into a zone, so they don't find themselves dead upon loading.  This already exists in ARK. 

Very much agree, and if these mobs arent as many as there are atm then it will be useful.

 

i wanna add this:

- A lot of these animals agro and agro reset patterns have an insane range, fix the patterns on spawns so that the animals dont stay stuck in plants and stuff and add a max range based on lvls when it comes to agro, and if you are simply passing by let the animal reset instead of following you for miles.

[MagpieOAO 18]

 

• Increase harvest rates slightly, 2x base rates would be acceptable (this is pretty much the standard in ARK official now, with their constant events).

Imo they could create a bonus like "Well rested" or "Healthy" when high on nutrition (See below) That gives you more resources when gathering to encourage and reward gathering resources but not so much mindless grinding. Ie after sleeping for x hours you get a "rested" buff which gives you double resources for one hour or something. Could be exploited with multiple toons, but it's something.

• Cut vitamin drain by about 25%, leave hunger and water drain as is.

My suggestion on nutrition. In short: Nutrition should be a measure of "Wellness" that decreases with malnutrition, disease and death. Lower nutrition lowers your stats and makes you more vulnerable to disease but doesn't kill you. Nutrition should be available at a shopkeep in Free Ports where players will spawn if they have nowhere else to spawn (to prevent a death spiral). 

• More sources of fresh water, or a wider variety of methods earlygame to acquire water other than X+LMB, throughout the islands.

Imo should be a means to boil water for quick but "expensive" water and a means to slowly, passively collect it via drip tarp which would barely sustain one person but there might be better variants for "moisture farms". Like ice blocks which can be harvested, transported and melted. 

• Allow 1 claim flag per island per player, maybe include a 30 minute cooldown.  Increase claim radius to double current size to compensate.

Someone else had a great suggestion of claim flags having to mature in a sense. You place a flag which gains XP from your activities around it until such a point you can level it up, which starts the initial claim. You cannot place any more claims in that area and you have a build cap. The cap is expanded with more claim flags but they can only be placed within the are of the first, which is limited by that initial radius until you upgrade it again. All flags increase your build cap (but not area) and must be maintained. 

If you exceed build cap, the structures under that flag/s will start to crumble and have to be maintained. If your flag crumbles or is destroyed, ditto. 

• Make all crafting stations have a company lock/pin-code function.

Should be behind a locked door, but we need grates that can be locked on the ship to prevent people from just waltzing in to use them.

• Lower raft durability drain by about 20%.  Other ships are fine, rafts die way too quickly in my opinion.

They should be temporary but it could be tweaked.

• Allow beds to function in Lawless territory.  Keep the current decay rate.

Imo Free port cities are the way to go by allowing people to rent a space or mothball their ship before logging out. Ideally you could rent a room at an inn where you would be protected, for a fee.

• Investigate and eliminate ocean respawn points.  Yesterday I spawned deep in the middle of the ocean several times, surrounded by eels and whales.
• Along with the previous suggestion, add a 'safety' timer to prevent wild creature attacks while players are loading into a zone, so they don't find themselves dead upon loading.  This already exists in ARK.

Imo both could be resolved by spawning in aforementioned port cities if the system cannot determine a valid spawnpoint. 

[HermanSlug 0]

I honestly think the spawn rate on land should be dropped by more like 40% as well as changing the way things spawn. I'm constantly having creatures fall into my base and on my head, 80% of my time playing this game is spent fighting off lions, snakes and wolves during the short run to my shipyard or some trees, a lot of the time it's just easier to die, respawn, lead the 20 creatures away, let them kill me, respawn again and get my stuff back. And that has to happen most short trips. It isn't enjoyable in the slightest.

[reapo 46]

I think the amount of island animals spawns equals to the amount of animal/dino spawns on The Island

[YoBerg 4]

Lions, man. Lions need to be nerfed hard. I put in almost 5 hours last night, and right up until the last 15 minutes everything was nice and calm, other than the occasional wolf, snake, or bear, until all of a sudden a pack of 4 lions and a screaming meemie of giant snakes spawned in right on top of me and insta-killed me by leaping, latching on, and firing me off a cliff like a cannon onto the beach about 280 yards away. They then proceeded to kill every single thing in our area on the island, one- or two-shotting pretty much everything until there was nothing left. If it wasnt for the high spawn rates, the whole place would have been barren and this could be considered an extinction-level event.

[Tempuro 4]

On 12/27/2018 at 12:17 AM, MagpieOAO said:

• Allow 1 claim flag per island per player, maybe include a 30 minute cooldown.  Increase claim radius to double current size to compensate.

Someone else had a great suggestion of claim flags having to mature in a sense. You place a flag which gains XP from your activities around it until such a point you can level it up, which starts the initial claim. You cannot place any more claims in that area and you have a build cap. The cap is expanded with more claim flags but they can only be placed within the are of the first, which is limited by that initial radius until you upgrade it again. All flags increase your build cap (but not area) and must be maintained. 

If you exceed build cap, the structures under that flag/s will start to crumble and have to be maintained. If your flag crumbles or is destroyed, ditto.

I think this is an excellent suggestion; I really struggle with the existing claim system (but also with stealing land). I understand the potential of it, in terms of building forward settlements and trading posta (which i think is very necessary), but the game would need additional systems to make that happen.

[MagpieOAO 18]

4 hours ago, Tempuro said:

I think this is an excellent suggestion; I really struggle with the existing claim system (but also with stealing land). I understand the potential of it, in terms of building forward settlements and trading posta (which i think is very necessary), but the game would need additional systems to make that happen.

I think the ability to set up an NPC as a "trader" is key. In Port towns they'll be selling necessities people can trade for rather than try to hunt down, but for other players it's the core of creating a city that others might actually explore rather than raid. If you can pop an NPC in a special type of building with the job of trading and tweak the values on what's for sale, how much and what you'll buy, players may actually check the trader first rather than trying to loot the place or burn it to the ground. 

Not saying you'll stop players from raiding of course, but it's a step towards incentivizing them not raiding on sight. 

[Tempuro 4]

7 hours ago, MagpieOAO said:

I think the ability to set up an NPC as a "trader" is key. In Port towns they'll be selling necessities people can trade for rather than try to hunt down, but for other players it's the core of creating a city that others might actually explore rather than raid. If you can pop an NPC in a special type of building with the job of trading and tweak the values on what's for sale, how much and what you'll buy, players may actually check the trader first rather than trying to loot the place or burn it to the ground. 

Not saying you'll stop players from raiding of course, but it's a step towards incentivizing them not raiding on sight. 

Well I think this is also where the RPG part needs to come in a bit more. I quite enjoyed the explorer notes in Ark, and the story behind it. I see an excellent opportunity in Atlas for the community to create vibrant towns with a player driven economy (I'm thinking SWG, not sure if you've played?)

[MagpieOAO 18]

1 hour ago, Tempuro said:

Well I think this is also where the RPG part needs to come in a bit more. I quite enjoyed the explorer notes in Ark, and the story behind it. I see an excellent opportunity in Atlas for the community to create vibrant towns with a player driven economy (I'm thinking SWG, not sure if you've played?)

SWG is a good analogue, I never played prior to the patch I'm told screwed over most of the game but now that I think of it, Atlas should be capable of living up to a similar potential. Especially given SWG was...what, a decade ago?