Incarnate

Thats kind of amusing you think that just because of a few dislikes it, then suddenly everyone isn't a fan of it, where there are also people in this thread who're actually in support of it, just not now as the game currently is, which I actually agree with and I also did talk about in the initial post, that this isn't something they should implement until they have things like for instance OP wildlife appropriately balanced. It's kind of funny you think that I'm part of big company and that I want to steamroll small groups, especially since I detest griefers and griefing. I just happen think that it's complete BS that people can just kill themselves to avoid the detrimental effects of starvation, dehydration, vitamin deficiencies and that through making death actually have more lasting detrimental effects and on the other side of the coin have beneficial effects of avoiding death, being something that would be good for the game. Furthermore, what I'm suggesting would also greatly affect the PvP aspect, as suddenly companies couldn't just keep an invasion ongoing when they've sustained major casualties, and if they have been zerging, they would become a lot more easy to deal with. Oh, and in case you don't know, guess how much bigger companies have been exploiting zerging around to claim land, because death matters absolutely zero in this game currently. Where if it actually had detrimental consequences of dying, and beneficial consequences of staying alive, that would completely change warfare tactics on PvP servers. There is great reasoning behind what I'm suggesting. I don't think this would make the game less fun and more frustrating, but it would if implemented as is right now, which isn't what I'm suggesting! I'm suggesting this to be introduced when they've gotten various gameplay and balance issue narrowed down and fixed appropriately.

Armor, weapons & firearms use in the skill trees. I notice that the way the skills try to incentivize armor, weapons & firearms skill by restricting the use of higher quality items unless you have those skills it pertains to, which I think is a bad thing. Instead higher quality items should be free to use, and the detriment comes from not being skilled in it's use, where the progressive skills should reduce core penalties further with each higher level of training. Any armors above cloth armor, melee weapons and ranged weapons should incur various types of penalties specific to the item in question, like reduction in movement speed, reduction in action speed, reduction in accuracy, reduction in reload speed and so on, with each of complexity level of armor/weapon/item these penalties increase. These core penalties can be offset by higher tiers of training with the item in question. If possible minor improvements should be possible from using the item in question for a longer period of time, where death would reset this training. However, there should still be some types of items that cannot be used with the required skill to use it, like for instance more advanced type of artillery. Furthermore, it's NOT good that in order to specialize in the use of armor, weapons, firearms, etc. you have to be able to craft it, and it also disincentivizes trade, because why would you trade for it when you can craft it yourself. Making it so you can specialize using armor, weapons, firearms, etc. without requiring you to be able to craft it, creates more specialized types of careers to persue - like for instance those that don't want to be crafters could for instance become a firearms specialist. You think soldiers or pirates are crafters? I'll let you think on that for a while. Some might, but the majority would not be and should not be, this will diversify Atlas. You're trying to make an MMO, so you need to realize that what you're trying to create is way different from Ark, one should not be able to be a Jack of all trades as one can be in Ark, and if so it has to come at a price, that you can only learn the basics of the majority things but certainly not all and so you will need to make decisions. If the skill trees were more diversified, it would make it much more similar to career or class based system, where each would find it's role within Atlas. Some of the core penalties of not being trained in a particular type of armor above cloth should be, where the higher the tier the higher the base penalty should be. - Reduction in movement speed. - Reduction in action speed. - Reduction in Accuracy. - Reduction in Stamina Regen. - Reduction in damage reduction capabilities. (potentially) - Requires more stamina to move. Some of the core penalties of not being trained in a particular type of melee weapon should be, where the higher the tier the higher the base penalty should be. - Require more stamina to use. - Slower attack recovery. - Inflicts less damage Some of the core penalties of not being trained in a particular type of ranged weapon should be, where the higher the tier the higher the base penalty should be. - Require more stamina to use. - Slower attack recovery. - Inflicts less damage. - Less accurate - More potential spread. - Precise aiming becomes shaky faster (like aiming down sights or aiming with bow). These are just a few I could think of but I'm sure there are more that would apply for each individual item in question. But in general I think it should be it should distinguish between crafters and those that specialize in it's use, and it would also incentivize and encourage trade a lot more, as people could trade their services just as well as their commodities.

What I'm asking for is a kind of fix for many things, but I agree with you there are several things they need to fix in the department of food, like every type of vitamin should be available on every island you can choose to spawn on, because it's a core part of the survival aspect of the game, where anywhere else you're there because you chose to be there, and thus it shouldn't necessarily be readily available there. But this is where farming would become important, because if you chose to live on an island that did not have all the vitamins, you'd have to be able to at least grow them. But like I said, there are things they need to get in order before applying what I suggested, wildlife was just one of them, and obviously appropriately balacing food and vitamin system, availability and spoil times are another.

I disagree, while you say it will promote zerging, it will also be easier to deal with as the zergers will become easier to deal with the more they die, which in itself would make it less preferable. Furthermore, there should be other things implemented as well that will make the decision to zerg less preferable, where dying much easier would make it less preferable, because the amount of spawns will still be the same, and it could even be tied to health rating, so if your health rating were low you would have less respawns available, to promote staying alive as the most preferable. Like one of the things I've suggested is that they should make claim flags be something you craft, as well as being something that costs gold to place as well costing gold to keep. Because this would force anyone who wants to hold land focus on activities that yield gold, like treasure hunting or building and mainting good infrastructure, this would make zerging even less preferable. So I think it's important to try and see the entire picture and scope of things, as many of them are indirectly tied or affects the other.

This is a topic for a different debate but I do think food spoils way to fast. However my suggestion, isn't what fucks games, because you see it as a nerf, I see it as a fix to many things, including people trying to avoid the detrimental effects to starvation, dehydration and vitamins deficiency. How people recover vitamins is through eating the correct food, which I think they should balance better so that you're able to get the vitamins you need no matter what island you spawn on. People do exploit and abuse the fact that it's easier to die and respawn nearby than suffer the detrimental effects, same goes for just powering them and keep playing as if they weren't there. This is why there needs to be consequences of dying in regards to exploiting the mechanics of dying and respawning nearby without any detrimental effects what so ever. I think death should have more lasting detrimental consequences and likewise should staying alive have more lasting beneficial consequences. So I am asking for fixes, just not the kind of fixes you have in mind. The fix I'm suggesting will have an effect not just to the people dying to respawn to get rid of the negative effects, but it also deals with other kinds of issues. Like for instance players just building ships and going around and claiming flags, where their deaths don't matter and they just keep respawning with no care for starvation, dehydration or vitamin deficiencies, where it would matter if they died couldn't just die and respawn back at their base because now they were needed there, without any kind of consequences. What I'm suggesting would fix a lot of issues, because people are playing around the detrimental effects because death currently does not matter the slightest, the only time where death currently matters is where you cannot get your items on your dead corpse, or where there are other consequences at play. You know, if someone griefs you or anyonelse, you and they can write in the global chat, or local chat the name and company of the griefers, where it's very likely that others will hit them, and they will stand lose more than you did, because these people would probably not just strike once, no they'd keep on striking until they were no more. You could also write the character and company down of the griefers and put them on a KoS list (kill on sight list), so in the even they show up again, you're prepared and will act accordingly, even if it's staying on the defensive and avoiding them. I hate griefing and griefers, but still this fix has nothing to do with griefing or griefers, and could them just as well as it could anyone else.

For the majority of deaths currently people don't lose anything, only occasionally will someone lose items/equipment because of being unable to retrieve it due to animals. As much as griefing sucks, griefers also risk taking hits and getting hit by it. In regards to the OP animals, if you had read the part about OP wildlife in the original post, then you'd know I don't want them to implement it until they got the OP wildlife issues and gameplay under control.

I don't think you understand what I meant with meaningful, even if people just want entertainment, yes it's a game, but a game has an intended gameplay which provides the entertainment, so when the negative elements of the intended gameplay is being avoided through abusing and exploiting various mechanics to avoid those negative effects, they're avoiding something thats part of the intended entertainment, which they need to fix. Let me put it this way, the game needs meaningful entertainment, otherwise it's just bland unimportant entertainment that is waste of peoples time. You may not want that, but that doesn't change the fact that the game does need to have consequences of dying and benefits of staying alive. Maybe so, but players will just power through that, and it doesn't fix other issues where players are exploiting how easy it is to respawn nearby without any detrimental effects, like for instance on PvP servers where people just keep respawning and attack with the weapon that is the most cost and damage efficient, without any armor or clothing for that matter. This is where losing health upon death and gaining a temporary maximum hitpoint buff from staying alive when being healthy, is going to matter a great deal. Dying and staying alive should matter, and it should be preferable to stay alive as opposed to just dying and respawning without any detrimental effects.

Yes it's a game, but what you fail to realize it seems, is that they've implemented the hunger, thirst and vitamin deficiency for a reason, and people are avoiding the detrimental effects, and there are no negative effects of dying, so people abuse & exploit how easy it is to die and conveniently respawn nearby without any negative effects. Where negative lasting effects would make people avoid doing that, and would also make death and staying alive more meaningful. Consider on a PvP server, if this is in effect, certain tactics wouldn't be that efficient any longer, tactics that shouldn't be efficient anyways. It would also mean that if someone were invading but sustaining casualties, they would be less and less efficient and would have to consider to withdraw, where as it is now, they can can just keep on with the assault. Implementing what I'm suggesting would be very meaningful for the game in many ways, not just for hunger, thirst and vitamin deficiency system. The thing is, I never in the OP mentioned anything in regards to permadeath, and I don't think that would be a good thing for Atlas with permadeath, not even on a hardcore server. Being 10% slower or dealing 10% less damage or collect 10% less won't really accomplish anything and will just be a mild nuissance that players will just power through. It has to be something that has an actual impact that will deter players from trying to avoid the detriments of the hunger, thirst and vitamin deficiency, something that will encourage players to try and stay alive, eat and drink as needed to stay alive. The actual values should of course be tweaked, but the negative effects from dying needs to be lasting but recoverable through effort, it should also be possible to get the better end of the stick, which will encourage players to staying alive as it should give more lasting benefits. Some of the benefits could be more maximum hitpoints, better stamina regen, benefits that might even affect combat values, like slightly faster reload, better accuracy, slightly faster animation recovery after melee attacks, etc.

There would be issues with making those values persistent, because if you die due to one value going down, you would keep dying and you might be in situation where you can't do anything to improve the situation, like getting killed by wildlife or environment. Yeah, thats what I pointed out, that they need to fix those issues before even attempting consequences of death. But in a nutshell, they should introduce a health system of sorts that deals with the consequences of dying, not eating right, staying alive and eating right. Basically, where there are more lasting benefits of staying alive and there are more lasting detrimental effects of dying, same deal with eating and drinking "correctly", "incorrectly" or lack of eating and drinking.

Yes because of how the game is now, however but you also have to see the greater picture, because first of all once this game is released all progress is wiped, and in my opinion they should wipe it on several occasions during it's development, especially when it comes to various mechanics being introduced where they cannot accurately pinpoint if what they added was good or not good, but obviously before a wipe they should test it to see how it plays out. Consider what happens if suddenly you have to craft the claiming flag, and placing the flag will actually cost you gold, and will also cost you gold to keep it based on the size of the territory and the landmass you've claimed, how rich it is, and so on. Suddenly, this would cause players/companies to focus on activities that will yield gold, so one can't just go about and spam claim flags, even more importantly, if one cannot afford the claim, then the player/company will lose it. This an aspect that is important on both PvE and PvP, and especially on PvP, it means that now one can't just send at lot of players to claim land because they have the manpower/player count to do so, now they actually need to be able to create the flags and they need to be able to support what they claim. If they were to diversify the skill tree / displines more, so that one would actually have to choose specialization, then they would achieve something that would be closer to a class based system, and it would be good for trade, because trade isn't just trading commodities, it could also be trading your services, for instance you happened to be one who were proficient in for instance the use of firearms. You used an important keyword here - self-sufficient, which is exactly why they need the skill trees to be much more diversified, and even if they're a larger company, they will still need to work on collecting gold, so they can support their land claims, where trade could be an important pillar even for self-sufficient large companies. Because depending on what their company is about, say if they're company that deals with trading their service as mercenaries, then trade would be important for them, even if they're self-sufficient. Trade also means you don't have to rely on the gathering and crafting, because others are and you're just leveraging that through trade.

@Realist - The thing is, what they should realize is that whenever people are playing around / exploiting other mechanics to avoid the intended gameplay, they should focus on how they can make it so that the intended gameplay still will be working as closely as what they intended it to be, they should also try to make it in way where it cannot be exploited. So for instance, when they see players just ignoring the intended gameplay around the starvation, dehydration and vitamin deficiencies, by quickly dying and then respawning nearby with no negative detriments, they should use that information to fix in a way where there intended gameplay still becomes prevailing gameplay in regards to how people try to get around it, by introducing other mechanics, like for instance making death matter through putting consequences of dying in. So obviously, before they make aging matter, they need to have the effects of this gameplay narrowed down, so they can make it in a way that can't be exploited, where especially if they were to make it so death would hasten the need to for a new body, that would be extremely stupid and very much exploitable. UNLESS, they were to make mechanics around it that would make very difficult and very risky to even attempt, but still where the gameplay around it would be fun and where players who're not trying to exploit mechanics around it, are not getting punished for playing. As I said, before they make age matter, they need the rest of gameplay narrowed down - currently they should disable age, and narrow down how to improve the core gameplay in their game, there are so many other things they need to get working properly, like wildlife, like playerdriven trade - and it should work for both PvE and PvP. In terms of them giving up in various aspects of the game, if they can't get them right and stick by them then they shouldn't be making a game in the first place. They should first and foremost make the game as they envision it but gradually make changes and implement things into the game that is HEALTHY and is what the game NEEDS, they should not be catering to those who whines the most or who is the most vocal, what they should do is implement and change things that are HEALTHY and what the game needs. This is first and foremost and MMO game they're trying to make, even despite it being based on Ark. They need to deal with how people are abusing various mechanics, how they exploiting various mechanics to avoid detrimental gameplay mechanics, or to gain an unfair advantage, and especially cheaters, griefers and hackers.

If you read the part about what I think in regards to wildlife and this suggestion, then you'd also know that what you're saying there wouldn't apply if they implemented the consequences of death as I've suggested. Because they should not implement what I've suggested until they've properly balance wildlife, which it currently is very far from. Whether you're level 1 or max level, if you're wearing no armor or the best armor, and you've brought it down to 10% of it's health shouldn't matter - if you die you should receive the penalty for dying - essentially circumstances shouldn't matter. In regards to wild life, I don't think wildlife should be able to replenish their health from eating, that should heal over time, furthermore I don't think wildlife should hunt/be aggressive unless provoked or because they're hungry.

So maybe instead of saying it won't happen, how about trying to convince the devs of the right choices to make, rather than just say this and that won't happen because so and so. In regards to age accelerating faster as a result of death I think is a bad thing, likewise do I think it's a bad idea to make the mating part a player driven aspect, I can see what they're trying to replicate, but their approach should be different. In a single player game it would work, but in an MMO game, most certainly not. If they want mating to be a part of the game they need to make it so it's not forced onto a player, but a core gameplay mechanic that does not require a player to make it work. Because if they do, they're effectively giving both power and responsibility of other players being able to retain their progress, which is a really bad gameplay-wise.

That may very well be so, but they, both players and devs still need to realize, that they're trying to make a different game, so if people want their tough tames back, then they should go play Ark. Tames are not the focus in this game, it makes sense that it's so far Ark, but not Atlas. And in my opinion, I think it's really bad idea for them to make animals good at gathering, since they're not in real life being used that way, and even with this being a game, this is much closer to real life than Ark is. They really should consider the consequences of having tames having this role in this game, especially because they're trying to steer the game in a different direction. In regards to this they also have to be really careful, because the game has been advertised as being something else, if the connection is made that this is really just Ark with a reskin, then it's really just a mod, and guess how many people who can actually claim a refund due to it being advertised as being something else. Both players and devs really need to realize that this is a different game, this isn't Ark, even it's based on Ark, it's still a completely different game, where taking it in the direction of Ark is a really bad idea. It actually is possible to build on ships, and I have personally seen ships that are more like a floating base than a ship. If they add fliers, hopefully they will do so where you can't use it for viable longer transportation. Yes, there is, and that is adding consequences for dying, and in general that should be something players are attempting to avoid. The added consequences of dying would really be impactful on PvP servers, because if suddenly death and staying alive begins to matter, then people will begin to take dying much more serious, and death should be taken serious. Again, this isn't Ark, even it's based on Ark, this is an MMO game and it requires other mechanics to balance and an experience that can be enjoyed. You could even argue that they should do a similar approach in Ark (add consequences of dying) or completely remove that component from the game. Why? Because if the component doesn't do what it's supposed to, add realism and making surviving important to the game, and make death something that actually matters as the consequences of starving or dehydrating ultimately is death, where people just respawn, then it doesn't do what it's supposed to, all it becomes is an annoying gameplay component. What you're talking about in regards to Ark and swamp fever, is really people exploiting a bug in the game, something that wasn't intended. It's the same deal here, it's not really intended for people to just let themselves die and respawn, instead it's intended that people try and survive, by eating correctly. So here again it's a game component that really doesn't achieve what it's supposed to - making surviving matter. So the way they solve that is to make dying having more lasting effects that you do not want, so you will try to avoid dying rather than use whats convenient to avoid the detrimental effects of starving, dehydrating, vitamin deficiencies, etc.

Even if they don't work that way, this ISN'T Ark even though it's based on Ark, it's a completely different game they're trying to make, a MMO game which they do need to realize requires other mechanics to balance. The same goes with that when they want hunger, thirst and vitamins to actually matter, they need to make death matter too, because otherwise it's really nothing more than annoyance. Furthermore, having a hunger/thirst/vitamin system becomes a joke when the consequenses of them doesn't matter, because what people just do is power through them and eventually die and respawn nearby. That is litterally how the players deal with them, die and respawn. How do you solve that, because quite clearly that isn't what they have in mind when they're adding a vitamin system with consequences of defiencies and surplus, where both the deficiency and surplus debuffs the character, something as elaborate as that system, I don't think they just had in mind that it shouldn't matter. Especially when considering that ultimately death comes from starvation, dehydration and vitamin deficiency. It makes sense that death should have consequences, because this is how players are dealing with it, just respawn nearby making that whole system a joke. Where there surplus consequence is just rediculous as the human body just flushes any excess vitamins through urin.

I want the aspects like hunger, thirst, vitamin to taken seriously, especially death. Since you didn't read it all, you probably also missed the point I was making about wildlife, and why they should deal with that first before considering implementing what I am suggesting? I think wildlife in the game is NOT balanced and is very problematic, and really needs to toned down, because it's to the point where it's extremely imbalanced. I don't know if you read what I wrote about wildlife in the game and why they should deal with that first before even considering to implement what I suggested. ---------------- I think they should for now completely remove alphas, or the very least only have them on power node islands. Furthermore, I think they really need to nerf all the animals with an default aggressive behaviour, and they should reduce the number of spawns and their spawnrate, they should reduce their numbers in general, reduce their damage, and above all, remove their capabilities of moving through and attacking through the mesh of the environment, buildings, ships and so on. I'm not saying deadly animals shouldn't be lethal, because I think they should, but they're very problematic because of their spawnrate and the fact you can't actually outrun them, even crocs can catch you when you're injured, and it doesn't take many attacks from a croc to put you into injured state. To the point of moving through and attacking through the mesh, thats not just a problem with animals, but a problem in general - and can even be used to board an enemy ship without the crew noticing it, as you can clip through the mesh of the hull of ANY playermade ship and get stuck, where I don't know about ghostships.

Trade is an absolute necessity in a player driven game such as Atlas, especially player-driven trade, and thus it needs a gameplay environment and infrastructure that will incentivize, encourage and support trade where it works on both PvE and PvP? But how and with what will we achieve this, and why would it work? I don't think it's as hard as it may seem, consider what would happen if all land claims would require a cost and upkeep, a cost in terms of materials used to craft it (possibly a small amount of gold as well), an upkeep paid with gold. It would seem that players/companies would have to focus on activities that would yield gold, one way or the other. Whether that be through hunting, treasure, building and taxating their good infrastructure, trade and piracy, and quite possibly other sorts of venues. But the important part here is that you can't claim more than you can support, and with claim flags being made into a thing you have to craft and with good reasons to support it, it would suddenly be very different and people wouldn't just around and spam-placing flags. Also, there is the question if a land claim should be contestable if its upkeep have been paid for, I do think that land claims that have it upkeep paid for in it's latest upkeep cycle, should NOT be contestable, as this would make it easier to maintain land claims as long as you maintain a steady supply of gold. Did you notice some keywords above that would be important to focus on? ..Treasure Hunting, Building and Taxating Infrastructure, Trade, and Piracy! Exactly why would these be important to the context of creating a gameplay environment and infrastructure that incentivizes, encourages and supports trade? All of these will be able to yield the player/companies with gold, and will be important if one wants to claim and keep land, one way or the other. All of these aspects are aspects that fits nicely into Atlas, and they also will have an actual self-balancing aspect to the game as well. Because, one can only keep as many land claims as one is able to keep paying for with gold, and what the player/company does to obtain the gold, are up to the players. I think this would both encourage, incentivize and to some degree support trade, especially if the food/water/vitamin, health and death system is also implemented as suggested above. Because with this people are forced to play in a more thoughtful and cautios way. It would also make various professions a lot more valuable and desired by other people, like for instance medic, farming and cooking would suddenly be a lot more important. Especially if land owners and owners of certain building could also create jobs and set the wage. With the route of characters being very specialized in terms of skills, Trade would suddenly become even more important for people. It also means there would be a lot of people who're not skilled other types of disciplines, such as beastmastery, building buildings on land, wagon or shipbuild, armors, weapons & firearms, etc. This means that people would trade their skills or their goods, for gold or otherwise. But hey, what about Piracy, that doesn't incentivize, encourage or support trade!? That is to some extent true, however what do you think Pirates do with what their loot they don't need? They trade it for more profit. But it does have another important effect, and that is traders need to be able to protect themselves and their goods, either through hiring people to protect them and their goods or be capable themselves, both on land and sea. So people could also make a living through selling their service as a mercenary. But... Isn't piracy illegal and there are no punishments for it!? I'm glad you brought that up, because there certainly should be some laws against it in the game and it should be punishable through game mechanics and gameplay, but this is a topic for a different time, and likewise with making the piracy skill tree both land, ocean and -shipbased, I have intentions on bringing those up soon, so don't worry about those for now. I am interested in knowing your thoughts on this @Jatheish and the community as well. Perhaps others have ideas similar to this or ideas that will support this even further.

I don't want permadeath, but I do want death to have consequences, because currently as it, it's being exploited, especially on PvP servers. No there aren't actually lasting consequences of dying, only consequences that are result of something else. What I'm suggesting isn't actually extreme and there are survival games that uses similar mechanics in their core gameplay. Notice I'm also suggesting that you can attain a slight health buff if you avoid conflict while being healthy. This would impact a lot more on PvP servers, and would impact every company's decision whether to attack or wait until everyone is ready. Furthermore, this also has impact on how much one side keeps dying, because it would become that much more difficult to stay alive during conflict - which could mean an attacking side would have to pull because they've sustained too many casualties. Currently the hunger/thirst/vitamin isn't being taken serious, and people are finding it to be annoyance, guess why that is? Because death has no consequences, other than those that are a result of other things. This isn't extreme at all, as those reductions aren't permanent, but they should be there to make death actually mean something and have actual consequences. With the above, hunger, thirst and vitamin system would suddenly be taken a lot more serious and it would also have an impact on PvP servers in regards to various other elements. I don't know if you play on a PvP server, but I do, guess what tactics are being employed because death has no consequences?

Death should have consequences... Currently death has no real consequences other than those that are a result of other consequences. I think death should have character consequences, so that players would generally seek to avoid death, and as is it can even be exploited a good deal because it has no consequences what so ever. If one were to lose a certain amount of maximum hit points per death, either based on a static amount or a percentage based on total amount of hit points, down to a maximum hit point reduction cap, which I think should be no more than 25% of the characters total hit points (based on base amount + hit points gained from level). These should be regainable over the course of time, eating healthy, applying remedies (and possibly magic if implemented) and avoiding conflict - the amount of time should be tweaked to find the appropriate amount and should obviously also be tied to the amount one would lose per death, so one should as a minimum recover a base amount equivalent to a day per death, or similar. This way, death is taken alot more serious, and won't be exploited, at least not to the degree it is now. This will also be beneficial to taking hunger, thirst and vitamins seriously, where as now because death has no consequences, it's more of an annoyance than anything else. The consequence of dying could be as much as 5% per death and as little as 0.5%, which will be up to the devs to decide. To clarify: This would essence be a temporary debuff that last at maximum a day per death, up to certain maximum, which sole depends on how severe the consequences of death is going to be, so these should be tied, which basically is just the debuff being stacked and as such should the recovery time. This is something that characters can recover from, through eating healthy, avoiding conflict and death. As it currently is, the hunger, thirst and vitamin system is disliked and not even taken serious, because there is no real downside to it, as you can just let your character die and then respawn without any real and lasting detriment to player's character or the player for that matter. This can be improved to a point where it can both a benefit or a detriment to the player's character. So how could it be achieved that the thirst, hunger and lack of vitamins is taken more serious? For one, by introducing a more lasting detriment to the player character if death to the character incurs, for whatever reason, like for instance reducing the maximum number hit points the character has by a certain amount or percent, although still with a maximum reduction that it can be reduced to. The character would be able to regain these by a certain amount/percent per day, where keeping certain vitamin types in the high area would lead to faster recovery, and it could be considered that certain foods would lead to even faster recovery, various remedies could possibly also be considered to add to this effect, including magic if that becomes a thing in the game. Furthermore, the vitamin surplus debuff really needs to be removed, as having a vitamin surplus has realistically never been a thing, because for humans excess vitamins is flushed from the system and does not become absorbed. The maximum hitpoint should also be able to be increased through the same as above, but only to half amount of what it could be reduced with. Actual values will need to be tweaked to find the appropriate amount, but I think the maximum hit point reduction cap should be around 25% of total hit point, and the maximum it can be increased temporarily to should be 12,5%. Further clarification: The bonus to maximum hitpoints, etc. is the equivalent of a lasting temporary buff that will expire upon death, where this death would put one to 0% in terms of bonus or penalty. It's basically a stackable buff that will stack up to the maximum 12.5%, the increments it will increase with depends on what values the devs decide to go with. However, 2.5% is a fitting number. This is to encourage attempting to stay alive for prolonged periods of time. A note on wildlife & other issues that needs to be fixed I will say this though, there are various things that certainly needs to be fixed before implementing this, like wildlife has to be fixed. Because wildlife currently as is - a great threat and would only be intensified if the above is implemented. But why do I say that wildlife is a great threat? The thing is, most of the wildlife that are aggressive by default can out right kill you, especially if you cannot outrun it, you can outrun snakes, but they can torpor you even after you've outrun them, where it will either attempt to still kill you or some other aggressive animal will. The primary issues with hostile wildlife is that they can attack through the mesh of the environment, including buildings and ships, where they should not be able to, the spawn amount and respawn timers, and that they're way too lethal and you cannot outrun them. Some of the absolute worst in the game currently would be wolves, lions and crocodiles. On the note of crocodiles, they're so bad currently because they can attack characters on smaller ships and can prevent players from getting rid of them, even trying to lure them away from the ship won't work, as they swim faster and only takes 2-3 attacks to outright kill one, they can potentially kill you before you even get a chance to lure them away. And given how respawn mechanics work, it almost litterally impossible to get it away from the ship. So yes, the wildlife is too much of a severe threat and seriously needs to be toned down, especially BEFORE implementing the above. In regards to implementing the above, it also means that bugs, glitches and game imbalances where death can incur needs to be fixed appropriately before implementing the consequences of dying as suggested in this post. I am interested in knowing your thoughts on this @Jatheish and the community as well. Perhaps others have ideas similar to this or ideas that will support this even further.

Hmm... Well there can be at least two reasons, either you have an additional integrated card that is being used for the game instead which isn't good enough, like an intel HD graphics adapter OR it has to be a minimum of 2048 MBs of DEDICATED memory. The reason I'm emphasizing the dedicated is that increasing the memory from bios doesn't actually increase the amount of inbuild dedicated memory on the graphics card. Some of the memory will be dedicated and the rest will be shared memory, allocated to the graphics card by the system from the systems available memory pool. So if I were to draw some kind of conclusion as to why it keeps happening, I would say it's due to lack of dedicated graphics memory. It also sounds like you're running it on a labtop, and if so it greatly limits your chances of upgrading the machine to a point where you could get it working, which is very unfortunate. They really should add an sm4 build, and add the -sm4 startup parameter to utilize that build as that would greatly reduce the requirements needed for the game. That is one that also is in ARK, so it's possible they might add it at some point, since the game is build from ARK, possibly the from the Abberation build.

I have a friend who had this issue too, so out of curiosity, how much video memery does you graphics card have? In my friends case, it turned out that his card only had half the required video memory, which was 1024 GBs of video memory, where unfortunately the only fix for that was and still is to upgrade to a graphics card with the minimum amount of video memory - 2048 GBs, which solved his problem, still with the fix applied.

I've dug a little further using a friends .dmp file, who also were using my fix, but were crashing to desktop without any kind of error message. It turns out that there is an issue with the Atlas.exe and the Kernalbase.dll, which could be due to several things, and very likely compatability issues with the clients current .NET framework and the Atlas.exe. I would recommend that the developers begin to collect .dmp files from players with these kinds of crashes to get more accurate debugging information.

It doesn't really matter where you place the Backup folder, or what you name that folder, it's just a location to place the movie files where the movie files are not.

This sounds like a network/connection issue. 1. Have you been into the game already and created a character? If so then it could be the reason why you're getting the error message, even with the fix. The most likely reason for this is that the server is down or is unresponsive. 2. You can attempt to login into a different server region instead, but you may be prompted to create a new character. The reason for this is that it will still attempt to log you into the server you were recently loaded into, and if that server is down, it will prompt you to create a new character. In regards to this the character creation it will only overwrite your old character once you click create. A note about what happens when you attempt to connection: Basically what happens when you're connecting is that the game attempts to establish the connection to the server, if successful it will begin to load into the game, and once it's done it will check if the connection is still there, and if it's there it will use the connection to complete the loading and spawn you in game, but if not it will give you the "Host Connection Timeout". It basically means the reason why the fix works for a lot of people is that the problem has been too long load times, load times that has been longer than how long the connection stays alive. At least that is what seems to happen and it's my best approximation. Good that it worked, but this seems like a different problem, one unrelated to what the fix deals with. What you can do is go here: ATLAS\ShooterGame\Saved\Logs and see if you have any files with the extension .dmp, if so, you can share it with me and I'll attempt to debug it. Alternatively you can share it with the devs if they would be interested in the .dmp files as that should help them identify the issue. I'm not sure if you can attach the .dmp file here, though I'd recommend it's sent directly to me as more system sensitive information can be in the dump file. @Jatheish Would you or any of the other devs be interested in any of the .dmp files?

First I need to say that this can only fix actual loading and stability issues, it does NOT fix any connection or network issue. If you're getting any of these messages like; "Host Connection Timeout" or "Unable to fetch server data" or similar, this is a connection issue and not a loading/stability issue, which this fix can't do anything about, as thats actual network connection issues. So in order for me to help you further, I need to ask a few questions in order to better understand whats going on with your system when you're attempting to load into the game. 1. What message or messages are being displayed, if any? 2. Are you using any kind of startup parameters, and if so, which ones are you using? 3. What were were your load times before applying the fix? 4. What are your "load times" now? (from you click join until you get a message). I hope this helps in some way and I can be of further help to you to get your game to load properly into the actual game.