Naviss

They've done this kind of thing with Ark too, Added a whole Tek Tier, all locked behind end game raiding. 

I never understood why any game would lock content behind bosses. The best gear, sure! Making end game content easier to build or use, Sure! But restricting it from most of the player base? Why? What good is it to make content for such a small amount of people.

Staying for now, For sure bye bye after wipe. I wont be playing much up until then, but just like my last weeks of Ark before they wiped me there, I'll mess around until then.

Not complaining at all though. Even without the wipe, I wasn't playing much. This wipe mean's I don't feel bad for not logging in and keeping my stuff.

I had a blast playing the game for my almost 600 hours! It's been a lot of fun, And I personally don't see myself coming back to play after the wipe until the game has cooked a bit for a couple years. But I do think the game needed the wipe. However their new system wont fix anything and within 48 hours of this patch people will be saying WIPE! I still have no land lol. 

I've more then got my monies worth for the game! And I can't wait to buy Ark's next game coming out soon, Outlaws of the old west, It's on Steam if anyone else is interested. 

Hopefully they will get a monthly content release cycle like they did with Ark for so very long. Each month always gave players something to come back to and tame or build for a couple weeks. It wasn't major content drops all the time but great updates none the less.

I too wish sailing wasn't so punishing or such a hassle. I'd do far more of it if it was easier / safer in most areas. In my opinion sailing long distances, something you should be pushed into doing for supplies, trade, or exploring, should be what is the hard part, IE: Time sink. Not raise anchor in your port, move 20 meters, Storm - Cyclones, Have to anchor, Go far more mats for 30 minutes and try again, Only to leave one grid and instantly pounded by SOTD before you even load in. LOL 

It's far more hassle to sail then what it's worth for me. Easier to just dump rafts or sloops with beds all over and port, Then only use a ship when I need to bring stuff back, And that's not what I want to do. It's just what's easiest. 

My Gally, And two brigs planks paint is also gone, My schooner however wasn't affected.

The gun ports on my brigs and gally are still painted.

16 minutes ago, Evir said:

Lol, I guess you didn't read the patch notes where they changed gunports to be the same as planks for crafting and repairs (less metal needed to repair them therefore you ship is lighter) and you missed the 30% damage nerf to large cannons. Also, before the change the meta for PVP was to stack large cannons on the sides, and a few on the back to take care of ships trying to hit the rear. Then have the ship completely stripped outside of that and stack weight so it is as fast as it can go. 

Now literally very PVPer is looking at "are medium cannons worth it now" for many the answer is yes, because they honestly dont do that much less damage to ships now, and fire much faster. Along with the buff to weight on gunport cannons, (it is now 60% reduced weight when the gunports are closed) things have changed.

You should watch Utoast on twitch, he sank brigs all day, the problem is they could never catch him in a brig, because they are so slow, he constantly could out run them, then pick and choose when he wanted to attack. The only way they finally sunk his galleon was because they used a swarm of schooners to catch up to him and whittle him down until he ran out of repair mats, and made a couple mistakes.

Brigs are honestly garbage right now, too slow, too under powered in terms of potential firepower, not enough base crew, weight is decent. They are basically slow schooners with a bit more weight.

I didn't miss it, In fact I felt the change in a big way. I was saying it more based around all the ships I seen just today with the same ol' silly box cannon setup.

I'll have a watch of some streamers though. 

The weight change was great in terms of pushing people to use the gunports, Even less mat's to make them / repair.

To get back on topic though, I still feel like the Gally has to few drops. I wish the ships had more like compartments, Where you could only put so much stuff on each deck. 

1 minute ago, Evir said:

The galleon outclasses the brig in every way, it is faster, has more guns, far more crew, more health, more weight carrying capacity, the only downsides are the size and expense of repairing and operating it with full crew.

I just don't see it. Takes 4 or 5x more mats to build a Gally, Hardly anyone uses gun port planks, Everyone wants to just build a huge tic tac toe box on the front, side or back of a ship for a one hit kill on planks and the turn rate on the Gally is massive. 

A couple brigs would have a field day on a Gally.

It is indeed faster that's for sure. But I find having it full of gunports and cannon's useless with such a horrid turning radius, along with as I mentioned, everyone just using big box designs to mount tons of cannon's in a small area to focus fire.

I'm confused why we have a ship the size of a Galleon even in the game, So many decks, Completely empty and useless. Only there to let people run up and down to repair and that's it. 

I totally understand the server and game have limits. But the Galleon seems massively low compared to the brig. Not to mention the huge advantages you get using a brig anyway.

So... I'm not seeing it. Out of the 3 storms I've had tonight, All 3 spawned Cyclones. lol Seems like 100% chance still..

Has anyone else noticed rain without cyclones?

I still think 33% is to high. Make is 5%, and do 100% more damage then they do now. 

I know they just doubled the damaged, And yes I could feel it in my planks but unless there was a SOTD, I'd be fine just sailing right through them as I did tonight. 

So... Cyclones still aren't scary, only a annoyance in minor damage, and wind changes. And still spawn 100% of the time for me thus far 3/3. 

Max level is 51, You can get another 50 levels by discoveries. Every 24 of those get's you 1 more player level.

Ships max level is 41.

It always sucks to lose something, More so when it wasn't any fault of your own. But just like Ark, You can't get attached to things or expect them to work or always be there. Hell I log in each day wondering if my toon is still there or deleted for some random reason.

Also, I'm very confused how it took you 3 weeks to build a Gally? I built one by myself over the 2x weekend in 3 days, complete with 20 cannons, and other needed items. But I did put in 16 hour days to do so. Still, even casually, 3 weeks?

You should definitely come back in a year or two and see how things are. If I learned anything from Ark, The game only get's stupidly easier as time goes on. I went from 8 hour berry bronto tames for a level 19 a week after EA launch of Ark, to having kibble taming a level 150 in like a half hour lol.

My opinion, And suggestion.

Make cyclones and rain a REAL weather event. Take the time to model these events correctly. It should NOT affect the whole grid. Give us a build up. Maybe the wind shifts prior to a storm, maybe it gets really dark in a area and you can see heat lightening in the clouds. Maybe it's just a slight rain for awhile.

But Cyclones? They should be rare, They should be avoidable and not a mob that you spawn on top of players. They should be off in the distance that maybe pulls you in via wind direction if you get to close. 

Their damage should be tripled or more! They should be something you want to avoid or have risk of heavy damage. 

The weather system in Sea of thieves, is honestly the ONLY thing that game has over Atlas at the moment. How weather and storms are handled in that game was really immersive. It got dark, You could see blackness on the horizon, Lightening and thick fog. You knew there was a storm over there. You knew it would really mess you up, and most importantly you knew to avoid it if all possible.

Atlas is really amazing in my opinion. They have done a fantastic job on the waves and ocean in general. But they could take it to the next level if they just spend some time on a very important aspect of the weather out in the oceans.

Just for the first whale.

I'm just waiting for my ships to be sank by either SOTD, while anchored or people next door come sink my Gally and Brig on PVE. After that I wont rebuild them. And likely not play much. The game is to exploitive right now. I'll revisit in a month or a year after that, Because things will get better. I just wouldn't do what I did with Ark, and keep trying to play a broken game until it's fixed trying to fight to keep what little you have.

Have almost done this too, many times. Demo should only show up when anchored or in a sub menu.

1 minute ago, Hodo said:

According to the youtube videos that have been testing these things...

1 large speed and 1 small speed is the best "speed" build.. and really all around build.  

Handling sail doesn't improve your turning.

weight sail has such a small effect on your overall weight it isnt worth it.  

 

Was going to post this as well. Really great review. Highly recommend him as a fantastic content creator for Atlas and info. Get's right to the point.

Also from those findings, Grapeshot really needs to revisit the handling and weight sails. Handling should definitely turn a ship faster. Making it a huge help on a Gally. While completely changing how weight sails affect cargo. Either by greatly upping the overall weight by each size of sail or by maybe reducing the massive debuff one get's on a ship that has 40/50/60/70/80+ percent of weight aboard slowing the ship to a crawl.

I thought the same, Built my SOTD killer Brig, Hired my 18 NPC's and went on the hunt.

Then after collecting less gold then I would sailing around in a sloop collecting floatsams, I knew then that my reward for killing SOTD was only the joy of seeing them blow up. Then reality set in knowing I have to farm tons of mats to repair my ship, feed my crew, and afterwards do treasure maps to then pay my crew!

All for a lame ass BP that you need to have 1,000 different mats from all over the game to even craft, let alone repair and also already have learned the skill.

Yes my friend, You soon learn that they are worthless and only a in game annoyance to avoid. The investment to hunt them isn't rewarding and the hassle you have to keep that option open far out weighs the fun in doing it.

EDIT: The EXP is nice for the ships to level up, So placing a make shift cannon platform to quickly level a ship is totally worth it if you don't like waiting on the slower EXP to build up for sailing.

1 minute ago, Archsenex said:

This is pretty much it.  I will never agree with the argument that you can't make something faster than it was in the past ("I spent XX Hours, and he only needs to spend half that, it's unfair"), because that's just petty,  but you can't make it so that somebody who did effort in the past has LESS than somebody who didn't.

 

I really hope they figure out a way to make it retroactive, then totally go ahead and make it more.  Requiring ALL discovery points to hit cap is a pretty zany order.

Coming from Ark, I learned one big thing. As time went on they made the game easier. And I fully expect the same within Atlas. And not everybody has time nor patience to do things like this just to keep progressing in the game. So making it easier to gain levels is important.

But yes, You should never punish players who did go through the hard work early on, and now make it even harder for them to continue to progress since they have already completed a good amount of the easier areas.

Since it wasn't retroactive, It heavily punished players like me, who have sailed endlessly for 30+ hours going from one island to another. Currently I have over 252 discoveries, and have sailed a small sloop pretty far from my home grid since attaining most all discoveries around that area. 

I'm a good 10 or so grids away now, And with this change it meant someone that just started or players who did not focus on discoveries for leveling or exploring could now stay close to their home grid and with only a few hours be able to surpass me in discovery points and level with much less time invested and nautical miles traveled. 

It was just not fair for us. And that change not being retroactive would have forced many like me to push further away just to try and stay at the same level as others who didn't explore much at all.

I'm not opposed to the change, But they need to do it in a way that doesn't hurt players like me who did take the time in exploring. Either by resetting our discovery points or something.

I couldn't believe it at first but coming from Ark, I know never to work hard because they will always make whatever is hard now 110% easier later. However I had no idea they'd do this. After putting 30+ hours into mindless sailing all over, collecting 252 points. I can now see that there is no use to work towards anything in this game and just wait alittle bit for them to give it to me.

Hopefully Feb's update will give me 10 points a discovery, so since I now have to sail even further from my home grid to find new points of interest just to keep up with some newbie or player that never cared about exploring, that will now be 3x higher level then me with 3x's less work then I did. Awesome.

Just now, Chickfabulous said:

Agreed.  It's beyond unfair.  Jat tweeted that they couldn't retroactive it, but I'm  sorry you could of figured something out before implementing this.  There's just  no thought going into these changes.  The stone structure was just as bad.  This is by far one of the worst patches.

They should have done something! 

Ya the stone change is just beyond stupid.

WOW I can't believe this. I wasted 30+ hours sailing around getting discoveries for 3 days.... All worthless. I managed to get 232 thus far, And now someone that just starts can sail between a few grids close to home and beat me in discovery points and level with much less time. Wow...…

I always knew from Ark that it pays to just wait, and they will make everything 110% easier in time, But now not only have they made it easy mode, The people like me who have discovered everything close and even mid through the map is found and pushing us to go even further now to keep up.

I'll pass. 60 is a good enough level for me. I'll wait till Feb and they give 10 points a discovery.

I couldn't believe the limit on the Gally. I felt the Brig was fair, You could easily filly the decks to a point, While having a somewhat creative limit on the top deck. However the Gally is just emptiness. I had to redesign mine 3 times, Just to fit on the important parts, and have enough drops left to make it look like there is more then a flat deck. lol

My big problem is the fact you need SO MANY ceilings just to fill in the huge holes within the decks. That alone uses up I'd bet 20% - 30% of your drops right there. Another issue is weight as well. I strongly feel that the Brig and Gally even more is to limited on carry limit. These ships are large, and can barely carry anything weight wise.

Yes, I know their weight got buffed 40%. But geez, These ships should definitely carry a good 50k before levels.

So much of this game is based around lame pvp. So I get it. But dang I wish PVE was it's own balance. That was always the downfall in Ark, and one major reason it killed the game for me. Balanced dino's would be nerfed into the ground cause PVP players had to use them for a exploit out of their intended roles. So PVE got hit too. 

Anyway, I'm just rambling, Point is - I feel like weight on the brig and Gally (More So) need's to go up another big amount. And the Gally's drop limit increased as well. My lower floor is completely empty. Not because I didn't have plans but because I had no more drops!

I really don't know how people using the Gally with max gun ports and cannon's, along with more on the top deck could even move since the crazy weight punishment if you even do use more then 40% of your ships overall weight lol. That's another issue I dislike. Even with the limit we have now, You could no way use 50% of it unless you want to crawl through the water. So dumb.

Over the live stream last week, Jat mentioned there was some unlisted ship keybinds in game that would do a few different things. One was turn on or off all the lights on your ship. Without sitting through all the live stream again to find it, I was wondering if any of you fine folks happened to remember them? 

Jat said something about posting them later, and they will also be listed in game at some point, But after searching, I can't seem to find any mention of these keybinds. 

Thanks!

Sigh