Some system improvment ideas.

[kiritodw 6]

Alright just with my 50 or so hours i have found some major flaws in some of the system mechanics.. 

Hunger:

Why complicate it further than just hunger? The entire vitamin system is complicated and unnecessary. -simple fix. simplify it. just get hungry.

Bed re-spawning: 

There is a benefit to this system but the execution is a bit poor. There is no drawback to dying and re-spawning. the hunger system is just ignored due to this. Why prep food and water when you can just throw a bed out and constantly re-spawn. 

Another issue with this is that it takes a large part of the risk/reward out of the game. 

Territory claiming: 

Since there is no limit to how many claims you can put down(in total), why wouldn't you just claim everything(which is currently happening)? You are forcing your players to be in large groups to survive or enjoy the game.  It also takes 10 hours to steal a claim. This time restraint is likely due to the lack of supporting systems. 

- a pretty straight forward approach to solving this issue would be having a single claim node that would grow in size depending on the size of the "company" i.e. small companies would could claim land but only in a size to member ratio. Leaving more space on large islands for other small groups. Maybe they don't get along and have small battles. where as a large company could claim an entire island as a main base, but only one per company. Alliances could have permissions on land and structures, leading to bartering or taxes. 

-Seizing territory: pretty simple destroy the node then go through the claiming process. once a new claim is placed the previous one dissapears and is free game. This could lead to power struggles  fighting over better islands. not just killing anyone who steps in the server you claimed at the start of the game. 

 

this also loops back into the supplemental systems. smaller companies offering bounties on larger companies, the need to patrol your area( player or hired NPC). Functioning currency system. What good are pirates without currency to plunder. 

 

Just some ideas I've had while playing.

 

Out of all of these the hardest would probably be writing the AI for the NPC's so that they are not mindless zombies yet not as good as an actual player(good player). 

yea, the supporting systems for Offline protection would be the hardest. By offline protection i don't mean the stupid anti raid from ARK, that is garbage. 

 

Last issue is that of grievers and by that i mean extended grieving. Destroying a base multiple times just to reset a company. holding players captive, stealing new players ships when you have a fleet.  This can be controlled by the community as long as the tools are there to emphasize it. some examples could  bounties, heists, raids, reputation systems faction based free ports that have goods that only spawn in their areas. smuggling. this all can work in both pvp and pve. while most of the issues pointed out are plaguing PVP, they also are plaguing PVE.

The Rep system could also lead to bounties where you have to turn in a players body(since you can pick it up and move it). interesting idea. 

This has been rather long winded. Thanks for reading.

 

“We have another chance to navigate, perhaps in a slightly different way than we did yesterday. We cannot go back. But we can learn.”

lets keep the game moving in a positive direction. 

Edited December 27, 2018 by kiritodw