Dochollyhood

If they do a Christmas event instead of fixing stuff, expect everyone who supported the idea to get griefed and offline raided the entire time. Because screw your cosmetic loot and colored tames... we want the game fixed.

This is because the ones that are still alive from the first spawn wave have wandered off. They do that... and it's dumb. You basically have to go hunt them down, and the longer it takes you to find them, the farther off they could be since that don't have a wander limit or anchor point. Also... they're UNDER the map wandering around and only come up when you're nearby. And this isn't even a bug... it's by design.

Only takes about 20-30 minutes to tear down a trap wall using a sickle. Probably your best option.

Your "Horse" has been killed by "OP" level 174.

We got Professor Oak'd. "Take this Pokemon and get the hell out of my lab," then becomes an unresponsive NPC for the rest of the game.

I spent a good portion of yesterday in the discord and as it turns out, they hinted at this in the last Captain’s Log. But when you say things like “batten down the hatches” and “hunker down”... your customers don’t take that to mean “fall off the grid”. Despite saying they would be available for crucial fixes and emergency assistance, they never said outright that they would be this inaccessible. And furthermore... NO ONE should ever be this inaccessible. There should be someone who does absolutely nothing but manage these forums, the social media, and other channels of communication.

Eh, I don't meet the "required perquisites". Pretty much guarantees I have no shot.

You mean like the Captain's Log (which is woefully infrequent and doesn't have a forum of its own)?

The problem here is that there aren't that many of those types of people out there. And they probably aren't offering a competitive enough salary to draw people away from the "big ponds". They need to start loosening the criteria and focusing on hard working, skilled employees rather than credentialed ones. Either way, the goal is to get it done right... but the difference is how long it takes. Waiting for that 5%er candidate is costing the player community. Hiring a hobbyist (or 20) who is just as good (if not better) but has never shipped a game could save the game from fizzling out due to lack of response to feedback. To put it simply, they need to stop pretending they need the best candidates for the job... because the best candidates aren't applying to work for them, and start accepting candidates who can improve their product. No one drives their 2002 focus into a Ford dealership and says, "I'm not leaving here without a GT500." No, they buy a Fusion and call it a win.

So I took the time to comb through the Announcements and General discussion forums to find all of the staff that are active on the forums and look at their accounts. Of the five that I found, all of them have viewed the forums in the last 10 days, but only three have been active. Dollie has been extremely active, but seems to be focused on damage control and support ticket elevation. All of the topics that were actually responded to were things with fixes/patches already in the works. Nothing about future developments or any real response to feedback about the direction of the game. This all tells me that there is little focus on customer engagement, likely because as DOOTS2521 said, they are dreadfully understaffed. To me this says that they are over-committed, and it is taking every resource they have to put out the fires they're currently working on. Given that the game is in preview status, that's somewhat understandable, but there is a definite chasm that needs crossed before release. Too bad they are only hiring candidates with shipped titles and stacked resumes... otherwise I'd throw my hat in the ring. Guess modders and hobbyists who make games better (or in my case make better games) don't count as real developers because we didn't do it with a five million dollar bankroll behind us. Sucks that I have to finish my game (by my damn self while still working full time as a mechanical engineer) before any studio will take me seriously... but I can't get a staff because no one wants to work for free until I ship. Catch-22

As a developer (not with this studio) myself, I'm pretty sure that if my PR team, my dev team, or even just my GMs saw a thread decrying the dev team for failure to engage, I wouldn't let it go 12 hours without some kind of response. Just saying...

This has been happening for a while, not just since the last crew limit update. It's not that big a deal... until it's an alpha seagull, lol. There should be something you can do to "shoo" them away. I know the simple solution is to just have creatures not count as crew if they're not tamed, but then companies could have massive amounts of tames on their ships just by temporarily unclaiming them.

The problem here... is that you, and those like you, may be the majority when it comes to those particular battles, but are certainly NOT the majority of players in the game. MOST of us are in 5-12 man companies that don't have night-shifters. Even companies that do have someone up all night to protect from griefers can't expect that one person to hold off an earnest attack. So what is at issue here is that the devs have created an environment with an imbalance of power that allows large groups of trolls and troglodytes like yourself to have fun at the expense of the rest of the population of a server cluster... which is the majority of the players. So the 50 of you have fun, while the hundreds of us rage quit. Rage quitters don't buy DLC, don't buy servers to host their 30-40 friends, and certainly don't buy the next game you put out. In fact, I didn't even buy THIS game because I was so disgusted with how easy it was to grief in ARK. Someone bought it for me because they wanted my logistics expertise in their company... At the end of the day, if they don't do something about the dynamics that force people to join large companies where they are just a number or get rolled by those larger companies... they're going to lose more players than they already have. Then it'll just be a circle jerk between all of you "proper raiders". Something something needs of the many, something something needs of the few.

Anything that can be done to prevent offline raiding is a plus. That's not Player versus Player, that's Player versus Player's schedule. A game should not require you to dump irresponsible amounts of time into in order to prevent the loss of what you accomplished during the time you willingly spent in it. That's basically saying that if you don't have people at your island for your entire combat phase, you might as well give up. So you need allies. And night-shifters. And NPC turrets. That makes the disparity between having the skills and resources to build a base and the ability to actually defend that base HUGE. Diminishing returns kill RPGs.

I also think that you should be able to place crafting stations as integral structures on planks. basically add a snap point that makes the crafting station built into the interior of the hull, with a different graphic representation depending on which part of the hull is being snapped to.

I have been having issues with crew aboard ships anchored at my island dying from lack of food or mutiny from lack of gold, despite the ships being fully anchored, over 100k berries and 4k gold in my silo. Some ships are fine, some are altogether left out, some one side of the ship is taken care of, and others it's random. The same goes for NPCs stationed at defensive structures throughout the island. What gives? I thought the silo was supposed to maintain ALL NPC crew on the island and aboard ships anchored at the island, ESPECIALLY since my company owns the island.

I have been having issues with crew aboard ships anchored at my island dying from lack of food or mutiny from lack of gold, despite the ships being fully anchored, over 100k berries and 4k gold in my silo. Some ships are fine, some are altogether left out, some one side of the ship is taken care of, and others it's random. The same goes for NPCs stationed at defensive structures throughout the island. What gives? I thought the silo was supposed to maintain ALL NPC crew on the island abd aboard ships anchored at the island, ESPECIALLY since my company owns the island. Another thing I have noticed is that Aggressive creatures (specifically lions and yeti) are entirely too fast for the current server (in)stability. They leap at you cause you to lag and when the client catches up you are dead. While I understand that these creatures are supposed to be dangerous, they should not be a huge concern (unless they're alphas). I shouldn't be worried about losing a level 60 tamed bear to a level 7 lion because I can't use the bear's attack or dismount due to lag and the inability to visually track the creature. Make them slower, or make their damage better scaled according to their level. Lastly, make pathing better. I understand that the clipping regions for things that can be harvested are non-static and therefore difficult to path around, and adding a clipping buffer region might result in seemingly open paths being closed, but a simple AI logic upgrade that allows the NPC to pass through a clipping border after failing a path check a set number of times would fix this. Then you just give structures like walls and permanent terrain features the ability to cancel that check, turn the NPC around, and have them walk a bit in that direction before circling back and trying a different point of egress. Tames already do this to some extent (although still not well enough). NPC crew on the other hand... just run smack into stuff. Both need improvement.

I mean.. Conan Exiles did it...

The gangplank WAS used to board enemy ships though... that'd be a nice addition.

Soooo... the farthest you EVER have to sail is 8 grids in any one direction (if you have to go more than 8 grids North, then you should have went south :P). That's not THAT bad, and pretty much anything you really need to get that that's far away is available somewhere closer. Anything that's not... probably shouldn't be that easy to get in the first place. Also... it's a sailing game. Don't like sailing that much? Get some Company members who do and send THEM on the longer runs...

Adding to this: K. Resource buildings staffed by NPCs and/or players. Lumberyard, Mine, Quarry, Butcher, Farm, Tannery, Weaver. These would all basically be scaled up endgame versions of the crafting stations, but with greater production volume, NPCs that speed production and increase quality while providing passive resource collection if placed close enough to a source of materials (or with NPCs on wander *wink wink*). L. NPC buildup in non-Freeports. Tribes, NPC Pirates, Civilized towns, etc. They could have a small chance to pop up after say, 10 game days of no Player activity/structures in a certain radius. Wouldn't disrupt the game much, the AI would be easy to setup, and they could offer trade/fight/tax opportunities. M. Spread the gold sinks around. Instead of having higher gold prices on island upkeep, more than daily wages for NPC crew... find other things for players to routinely spend gold on. Repair NPCs, Vendor equipment, bulk resources, bargain basement tames... there's a lot of stuff people would buy if it were available. N. Ability to stack Maps on the same island into a "book". O. More items to encourage deck combat on Brigs and Galleons. Gangplanks, Ladders that actually reach the water (that shouldn't even be a problem but it is), THE ABILITY TO CLIMB THE RIGGING!!!! P. THE ABILITY TO CLIMB THE RIGGING... Q. It'd be really nice if you could climb the rigging.

The time of pirates on the high seas was late 17th to mid 18th century. Ships were friggin huge then. While it would be great to see this mirrored in the game, it'd be a performance nightmare for a game that's already struggling to deliver a smooth experience. Hate to say it, but I'd rather they work on smoothing out what we have than making it harder to render :(.

In every case, when opening a new skill tree, you have to spend one or more skill points... without anything actually changing about your character. At least one of the introductory skills of that tree should come with that unlock, otherwise it's just a point sink in a system where points are already precious. Additionally, some skills that are essential have multiple unlocks before you get access to them, some of which make sense, and some of which are just poor hierarchies. Meanwhile, ancillary skills are early in the tree and don't require a bunch of branching in order to access. Lastly, the use of Fine items should be basic, especially since they are not directly mentioned in the skill tree (Studies skills open "up to" Journeyman.

That's royal navy, we're talking pirates, who prided themselves on doing more with less

Yeah... render distance is boned. I definitely agree there.