One of my biggest complaints about Atlas is that the Devs don't seem to know what they want this game to be, other than some generic idea of it being "A Pirate Game". Unfortunately what the Devs seem to know about pirates is that they maybe watching 2 1/2 Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
OK, so what did pirates do? (Mostly Golden Age of Pirates in the Caribbean, but other pirates as well).
1) They tried to capture ships intact.
2) The ships they mostly attack merchant shipping.
3) They would raid and loot towns and villages.
4) Pirates were hunted by organized militaries (or by privateers with letters of marque).
What DIDN'T Pirates do?
1) They rarely fought other pirates. (Though privateers did often clash in times of war, but even then Merchants were the main target).
2) They didn't fight mythical monsters.
3) They almost never looted other pirate bases.
4) They didn't spent most of their time fighting the undead.
5) They almost never found buried treasure.
Hmmm, looks like Atlas is 0-for-4 on actual piracy and 5-for-5 on actual non-piracy.
So what does Atlas lack? It lacks merchant shipping (NPC merchant shipping and as all players are supposedly pirates, then it lacks player merchant shipping too). It lacks a place to sell stolen goods. It lacks NPC villages/towns to loot (and as all players are supposedly pirates, then all bases are pirate bases, meaning no player towns). There are also no NPC pirate hunters and as all players are supposedly pirates, there are no militaries, no sovereign entities and no way to be a privateer. It lacks the ability for players to be anything but pirates (sure, you can ROLEPLAY whatever you want, but everyone is the same as game mechanics go).
(It's like none of the game devs watch any pirate documentaries and never player games like Sid Meier's Pirates! or Uncharted Waters).