Sklex

Too much focus on stuff that doesn't matter. This game doesn't need more things to make it look better. It need core direction in its game play. Tell us the big picture.

You bring tames and cannons and you actually put the effort into destroying them. Chances of 4 taking 100 are very slim. But that's the odds of life. Not impossible. You could offline raid them. Or form an alliance and bring more force.

Honestly this is how it has to be. You took 100 people vs 4. They stood no chance in hell except their intelligent base design and planning allowed them to hold you before you outgunned them. The game needs to make it possible for smaller groups to have fun too and a group of 100 vs 4 is not fun for the 4.

Play the meta game. Recruit people. Join a tribe. Form Alliances. We are in a period where many many many smaller companies are going to cease to exist in the coming weeks and major companies will form. Get on side with one of them. If you want an idea of how this pans out. Go study Eve Online. You can see that game (which is much much larger) is controlled by larger alliances. This game will head in that direction you can be sure.

Sing to the captors. Works every time. I honestly love that this is possible. Captors always get bored and you end up dying. You can speed things up by running (hold shift) around in circles to deplete stamina.

The patch notes and direction of the communication from @Jatheish tells me this version of the game is a test platform. They are releasing game mechanics in a way that allows them to collect the data that they need to balance specific areas of the game. Similar to how multi-player shooter games will run a beta with a single map. They do it to test different elements of the game in an environment that provides the best insights while giving the testers the impression that they are just there for fun. I really hope this is the case which would explain why there has been bugger all communication regarding the significant community out-cry over the current game design issues. Not the individual mechanics, which we are hearing a lot about. The design of the game as a whole. The community is not impressed though; the outcry is noisy and killing future sales already; so it would be greatly appreciated if you can give us some long-term insights into the plan and direction of the over-arching game design. Alleviate our fears that you are just making copies of connected Ark servers and give us an idea of how this game will expand into a living, breathing, connected world. Atlas Needs Less Ark and More Eve

Mate you seem to be ignoring a significant number of people who are asking a clear question. It's a big question, we get that, but need need to know the direction you are going so we can decide if its worth the wait. Game Design... It has flaws right now. What are you doing to address it? What direction are you taking the game? What mechanics are you investigating for offline raid protection? How do you plan to make the game fun for groups who are tiny compared to the zergs? Trade? Whats the plan here? Economy? How will it be implemented? There's so much potential here. But there's also a heap of frustrated players who have already left because the game design is encouraging the type of game play that appeals to the bullies of the community. Oh and please... Why are there no fresh water sources on perfectly lush islands? We want to raise crops, we want to cook. But it's a complete waste of time right now due to the significant work to keep them going. Let us irrigate!

Yup which is everything. You loose the claim you loose the lot.

Hope you are on pve because where you log off seems to be the primary mechanic for offline raid protection.

Isn't this called insiding? This shouldn't be made easier. Not because a coup isn't a cool thing because of the theme but because it becomes a vile abuse mechanic that we know will be abused (see Ark).

Agree with all your points Grodgen. All things I've been thinking are missing. This all comes down to core game design. They need to think bigger where right now it feels like they think they have succeeded due to linking a heap of individual Ark servers together. It's a feat... but this game can be something incredible with a defined long term plan.

This is exactly what we don't need though. That doesn't improve multiplayer game play. It just encourages people to play solo and make a profit. What this game needs is to mimic Eve. Isolated trade hubs where you can place buy and sell orders. Those trade hubs should be defended by the Queens Navy (aka CONCORD) and prices need to be defined by the players and therefore by the market. The games design needs to be made in a way that prices will fluctuate between regions. They also need a merchant system in game that allows you to place transport requests. Let players ask people to transfer X from A to B for Y profit. This will in turn create game play opportunities. People will start to play the market. Buy low, sell high. There is risk involved as they need to actually transport goods to the region where they will make the most profit. Pirates get juicy targets to chase. Merchants get the thrill of trying to avoid being captured. The Queens Navy is a necessary AI mechanic to ensure humans don't ruin the experience. We know they will try so something is needed to ensure that doesn't happen. I believe it should be possible to attack these trade hubs. But it needs to be raid level difficulty. A very large organised attack with incredible risk but amazing reward. On top of this we need some sort of system that defines players are criminals. I have no idea how to make this work as we all know bounty systems get gamed hard and thus ruined. Perhaps just a wanted list that updates with stats of players and their criminal activities so that the players can create their own manual bounties and run our own hangings. This is a hard one but would definitely add a required element to the game. Aka this game needs less Ark and more Eve

Yes please! Anything that can be made on an individual should also be able to be made on a smithy. Moving resources back and forth is really just a waste of time.

Lack off offline raid protection. People have poked holes into the Armed NPC method already. Love PVP but want it to be fair. Game Design. It honestly feels very lazy. This game needs less Ark and move Eve. Auto Closing Doors - yes I'm sick of having to close doors when I go through them. S+ mod spoilt me. Crocodiles able to snipe the Ship Captain directly through ship hulls. The lack of fresh water pools. I really want to explore farming but unable to do so due to lack of fresh water everywhere. There's an irrigation system, let us use it. Even if we can dig a well and pipe it up that would work. The lack of rain in dry areas. I get it, it shouldn't rain, but there needs to be a semi permanent solution that players can build as a work around. Create a well for example. Tap a dig site.

The more I play this game the more the problems with its design become obvious. It's got huge potential but I can't help but feel that they need to make some massive changes in order to correct its path. The Devs announced at the start that they were taking massive inspiration from Eve. Given Eve's massive success it's a logical choice to look at for ideas on how to make this type of game work. Eve is effectively a game about space ships (ships) moving between planets (islands) with everyone harvesting resources to create everything that exists in game. With that in mind... There's a significant different between Atlas and Ark currently from a game design perspective. That is the existence of High Sev vs Null Sec and the existence of very mature player trade. High Sec being the area where approximately 70% of the players live and play. High Sec is safer, CONCORD (the police) rule the area and maintain law. Anyone breaking that law is swiftly dealt with (the police spawn in and blow you to pieces), it is possible however to break the law should you choose (incredibly difficult to do this successfully, near on impossible). The further you go from the safety of Concord the more dangerous and lawless the area becomes. I think it's the Atlas version of CONCORD that's missing. There should not be PVE and PVP servers. Just servers local to your region. It needs an AI controlled Governing force that maintains ownership of primary squares. Those squares become PVE squares. There should be enough to provide adequate space for the PvErs. They should absolutely have Trade Houses that are run by the game. Players should be able to place Buy and Sell orders in the Trade Houses knowing that they are in a relatively safe place. Those places should act as players hubs. Allow companies to have Company Offices if they are acting as trade merchants. Allow the bounties to be placed from these hubs. Ships should be able to be docked in relative safety in these locations with the understanding that they are under the protection of the local government. The PVE players can live safely within the governed regions. The PVP players can try and sneak into those regions and cause chaos if they like, with the knowledge that the AI controlled Government will come down on them swiftly. To make this work you need to create a reason to go out into Null Sec (pretty much all of Atlas is currently Null Sec). Define the resource availability in a way that there is reward for stepping out into the risky waters. Allow the'Pirates' to create their own Trade Hubs. This will encourage players to try and sail to these locations to fulfil trade orders. This gets the trade working. Prices need to be defined by the market. Not by the game. We need the market to fluctuate as this will encourage people becoming traders. Buying low and selling high from one port to the other. The Null Sec areas become serious business. Political borders start to form between some of the largest most feared companies. They may allow smaller companies to operate within their borders as alliances form. Eventually things will no doubt get very interesting. This would be a much better game experience for new players. They can begin the game in relative safety and as they grow more confident in their ability they can set forth into more dangerous waters to seek out glory and fame. If they fail, they can retreat, if they succeed they may very well end up dominating new lands. , This will encourage more mature meta-game. It will encourage better PVP. It will create a better community.

God no. This would be awful and completely break the game. This is a game designed for pvp. That's the honest truth. You give higher levels the ability to dominate the lower levels and you create gank town. It would completely ruin it.

I think we need something different. Would be keen to hear feedback on this.

It's quite clear by now that the land claim system has it's flaws. There are flags everywhere and quite a few people who feel unable to progress because of the lack of unclaimed land. With coming on 80 hours in the game now I've been thinking about ways to improve the game. I would like to see a change where the current land claim system is changed to the following: LAND Land claim exists for a Company to claim governing right over the land where the flags are placed. This entitles them to set a taxation level. This entitles them to set bounties on criminals within their land. Both should require an individual building which is restricted to one per island. The ability to build basic structures is not limited by land claim but instead by the Governing Companies land claim. Companies can configure their land. Define what should and should-not be built within their region of control. The configuration does not stop people from building, instead it defines a set of rules for living within the owning companies territory. It would stop them from creating specific government buildings (tax office, legal office) Building buildings outside of the legal list flags you for criminal activity. Governing companies can decide what to do about the criminal activity. Hunt you and kill you. Put a bounty on your head. Having a claim stolen should not automatically hand over the keys to the stuff that exists within that claim. The aggressors are coming in aggressive. Make them do more than just place a contest flag to get the booty. Each island should have a primary Governing Flag. This should act as the hill in the capture the hill game. If a company wants to come and contest an island, they can start by irritating the island. Taking the smaller claim flags that will reduce the benefit the governing company get from taxes. Beyond that if the attacking company want to take control of the island they need to do a full scale assault and win the primary governing flag for that island. These flags need to be position-able by the owning company as this opens up strategic decisions about choice of placement. This enables new people to build themselves a foot-hold on an island. It's in the best interest for smaller group of people to work within the laws of the governing company. They get to live in harmony, assuming they pay their tax and adhere to the laws of the land. It's in the best interest of the governing company to allow smaller groups to farm their land to ensure they collect the tax. It builds a stronger community. The community can self-manage companies who are over-imposing. If they set the tax too high or limit the buildings too much then the natural reaction will be for people to take up residence on an island with a fairer governing company. This in turn will assist in helping strengthen nicer companies versus the zerg pvp companies who just want to ruin everyone's fun which will in turn improve the game. Would be great to see a Market Place building added to this system. Governing Companies should be able to build a market place where people are encouraged to trade. SEA Boat claiming in the current state is flawed. You should not be able to claim a boat until there is a system in place to allow you to protect the boat in offline mode. Sentry Gun's from ARK played an important role. NPC's should fulfil this role and I suspect this is the future direction. We need this now though because people are giving up on boats knowing that they are a complete waste of time. It's fun to build a boat. It's not fun to loose 3 days of efforts in the first 20 minutes to something you had no control over. There should be some sort of offline protection in that the game should check to see if there are any players from the owning Company online. If not the timer to take the boat should increase to that of a healthy sleep. You should design this game to encourage healthy human behaviour. If the entire company is offline, then make the timer minimum 10 hours. If the company is online make is much shorter. This will encourage active engaging PVP. A MISSING ELEMENT IN THIS GAME - HIDING Something I feel they did wrong in this game is snoring and flags (for a more specific reason than above). Flags and snoring ensure that everyone knows where anyone has built or logged out. It completely removes the element of hiding from the game which further makes it challenging for anyone who is not in a Company that can protect them. Stealth is fun. Let me say that again... stealth is really good fun. If someone wants to go it on their own, hunt down a notorious pirate captain and collect the bounty on them then they should be able to do so without having to advertise their camp and advertise where they log off at night. Pirates didn't always have things go their way and would sometimes need to go on the run and hide. THE ISLANDS ARE BORING I feel like you already made a perfect map and have some really good experience to draw from. Ragnarok was brilliant. Every corner of that world made you want to explore it more. In this game you made a few random land elevations and plonked some trees down. MAKE IT INTERESTING! When was the last time you watched a pirate movie that did not showcase some amazing island terrain? I'm sure we are only seeing the surface of what is planned so far. But what we have so far, while an absolute blast, has it's game disrupting flaws.

Agree that if a creature exists in a location then the resource to tame that creature should exist in that location. Taming is hard enough as it is. It's not something I'm enjoying so far. It needs to be a challenge but it feels like a chore and not an enjoyable one currently.

Was starting to think it was just me! But I have absolutely been dealing with this. Connection 1: This is the one with issues. Fibre Connection > Router > Wireless Adapter > PC Tried with 2x USB Wireless Adapters and via a mobile phone tethering the connection. I could find official servers ok. Unofficial though was a different experience. I could see the primary server and click join but when it tried to find the session server it could not find anything. Interestingly I was searching for specific custom servers and when I got to the session server page i played around with removing the search string which found session but never the session associated with the server I initially connected to. I had absolutely no issues connecting via my phone when it was connected to my mobile 5g network. This led me to believe it was network related. I tested with turning off the firewall in the router which did not work completely. I also had to turn off all of the Windows Firewalls. Once I did this I was able to successfully see the game. I have put both inbound and outbound rules into the Firewall first and that did not work. It's working now but I really want to turn the firewall back on...

Anyone have the latest Google Drive link? Original is broken.

You would need to build a door frame.

1 server = 1 square from what I understand.

This is unplayable.

Yeah I have a rented one but it wont boot up