reapo

Hello, I'm reapo. My OP on my thread was about balancing the raiding scene and generally the cancer that is offline raiding which lead into the idea of NPC port cities for mid to late game players. The biggest resource a player has in this game are the boats. So anyway to exterminate a possibility of it being offline raided the better and I think the best way that balances it from a game perspective are the NPC port cities for mid to late game. Being able to store a boat at the NPC port for gold and having a warehouse to store goods, could be huge for the longevity of this game. I played 7 hours of Atlas last night building a schooner to have it raided while I was offline. I don't want to build a new ship every single day. So I'm sure something like this is in the minds of the devs already, its just getting the game to a point where its stable and working so they can start balancing and introducing new way of playing the game.

Wait wait, why disregard what I just said? I suggested a better way to help players in atlas and the only thing you respond with is "i just wanna hand out armor, tools and weapons". Let me put more spotlight on this idea. Build on an island close to the freeport starter islands. Not only will you be able to help players with weapons, tools, armor, answers for their questions, but you will also be providing them a spot that they can set themselves up on so they can experience the rest of the game. Like I said, it isn't difficult getting items, the difficult part is being able to establish themselves with a base to store those types of items. And both communities are complaining that all islands are claimed. But hey, you are right, we won't see eye to eye. Instead of even posting a response to a great idea, you are dead set on defending what you wanna do. Even if you are doing it, it won't change the fact that other players are just using freeport for their own personal resource gathering of easy free materials. On BOTH the PvP and PvE servers.

Some of the characteristics I've noticed with rocks is that must Metal nodes are more rough and angular. Stone and flint are bigger and more rounded. And things like coal, sulfur, etc. are smaller and have smoother surfaces.

But thats the thing, its not difficult getting those items on the starter island themselves. Especially on a PvE server, if you want to help, the best thing you can do for players is to provide outside of the starter area. I haven't seen the owning territory mechanics that the game boasts about, but if you have a way to provide, the best way is a location where they can maybe setup a house on your territory (or your company's territory) where they or their friends can get help from you guys, the providers, in any number of ways. Giving out clothing, weapons. Teaching them how to play the game even. Working together on projects, etc. yes its a pve server and maybe you should be allowed to do stuff like that on a starter island, but you can also do it on a regular island, and to a greater capacity. I think one of the hardest things in this game that I've seen from both the PvE and PvP community talk about is the fact that every island they go to is claimed by a group or a multitude of groups. And giving whatever items you have to them on a starter island, aint gonna do shit lol and we don't know how claiming is going to change in the future, but what i said above is what you can do now.

Ya, in the trailers the "freeports" that every1 assumed were freeports were a bit of an exaggeration. That first opening scene of just walking through a bustling town (i thought personally) was what a freeport was, not the dinky place with 6 houses in some crappy ruin lol. But ya, i think the game almost needs these ports and three will probably be the max for these ports, unless the expand the map. Another thing me and my friends just came up with are bonuses for raiding, for anyone who decides to online raid. For players who online raid, I think they should get more experience (as a clan) and for additional rewards and this is something that won't come anytime soon, but add a notoriety system where online raiding can be accounted for an added to a leader board. of course you can do anything with that leader board, with different types of rewards, cosmetic items. but anything to promote online raiding more over offline raiding should be a goal the devs need to keep in mind for the future of the game. they consider this a MMO, so I can definitely see something like a pvp leader board for Atlas, with raiding as its core center.

Which is why players are suggesting a bigger port for mid to late game instead of a starter zone island where you can only buy those things.

But thats not the point, the point of the matter is that it can be done and if you choose to go back to a freeport server for longer than an hour, you deserve to lose that shit. Freeport isn't meant for players to come back to, its for players to start and then leave. Doing anything else is a no no and that shouldn't changed. Maybe the only change being a warning to players who do so that their ship is gonna get the delete if they don't leave lol PvE & PvP regardless, doesn't matter.

I think there should be a dock structure that could be built and if a ship, especially a bigger ship is docked at it, it can't be destroyed at all. Like I'm excited and dreading the thought of building the late game ships simply for the fact that if a single player sees it, they are gonna think, how can i get in there. I like the bury stash system, but to balance that, the inventory space and/or weight limit will be low. I also like the chum idea. When you say port cities, i'm not entirely sure if you mean freeport or a different kind of port city that is unique for mid to late game groups where they can safely store their ships in turn for gold. maybe even allow players to purchase small but secure warehouses to store a bit of resources for gold as well.

You new to the internet? There is a group on NA PVP that has a fleet of rafts on the border of the freeport server, who are level 25, they go out to nearby islands where they can raid, they get all the loot, come back to freeport and then cycle the rafts back and forth to reset the timers so they dont disappear. I watched it happen. It was truly amazing at how dedicated they are at exploiting a simple starter zone. And if you think that a majority of players aren't aren't bringing their ships back to farm resources at freeport, you outta your mind homie! I'm sure the devs hand in mind that experienced players coming back to freeport would be for the reason of picking up friends who aren't part of their company or recruiting players/companys into their company/alliance.

Why is someone with a schooner, anchored in freeport anyways. Freeport is a "STARTER" zone. If you have a schooner, you are not a starter. What I know is, that for rafts specifically as soon as they are built, they are put on an 8 hr timer. After 8 hours, they are destroyed (to clean up that particular server of any abandoned stuff). This timer might not apply to the toher ships tho since they are not considered starter ships, so if you bring a schooner into freeport, you might only have an hour (if that) to enter and tehn leave or your shit gonna go bye bye. Freeport is the easiest way to farm a shit ton of resources and if you think the devs are going to let players bring bigger and bigger ships so they can stockpile resources SAFELY without any consequences, you are out of your fakkin minds! and if you think there should be something in game that tells you of this fact, then it does. the first time you made your character and spawned in freeport it says that freeport is a STARTER ZONE! you aint starting shit if you got a damn schooner in freeport, get that shit outta here, move along

Built a pretty big ship today with my company. Took a long time, was a lot of fun, had a blast sailing and discovering new places. Logged off for the night and even though we had a blast and was looking forward to do it again tomorrow, in the back of my mind, I knew I would never see that ship again. Logged in today and noticed my ship was gone. Checked the company logs to see what happened and sure enough, offline raided. Hours of work down the drain and a true let down for the day. Thinking about it, there is no reason for us to build that big of a ship because it isn't worth the time and effort put into it, if a level 13 can stroll on by, not only raid everything in it, but also sink it. Now I'm sure things will change in the coming months in terms of balance with the raiding scene and changes to how certain weapons/items deal damage to structures/boats. I would like to suggest however that there be offline raid protection. I think any game that doesn't have building like Rust, needs to have offline raid protection. Creating a base alone in Atlas/Ark/Citadel whatever game that has this type of building is probably one of the biggest time sinks in the game. So when I say offline protection I don't mean if you're offline you can't be raided. I do mean that all structures that are tied to your company get a HUGE damage resistant buff if all company members are offline. I haven't been able to test cannons on buildings yet, but for hypothetical purposes, if you online raid and it takes 10 cannon shots to destroy a door, if the offline raid protection is active, then the door should take 20 cannon shots (idk how expensive cannon balls are either). And the players getting raided wouldn't be able to exploit it either by logging off. Can put the offline protection at a 1-hr activation window, so after an hour of the last player in the company logs off, the protection will start up.

I believe the freeport islands need to be restricted. If a player has gone past level 8 they should not be allowed to re-enter freeport server, unless all beds are broken. I was sailing out of freeport and ran into like level 25 people with a small fleet of rafts on the edge of the freeport server boarder with what looks to be all their gear. I have no idea how they do it, to where all those rafts don't disappear, but they do it. it seems pretty tedious to me, but whatever.

I remember in ancient times, the romans said bahumbug when their engineers suggested building a frame that could hold a huge wooden log that would break down enemy gates with ease. The roman general scoffed at the engineers and said "HEY! you fucks! have you seen our shields?!?!?! we need no complicated machinery for we have a shield bash! That can break down any door and topple any stone!" and thus the shield was made into legend, a mythical weapon used to break down homes and castles. So, one of my guys is on Atlas playing today and I get a text that 8 people who live in freeport, sailed out on rafts with shields and raided through every door of our stone base with shields. Now, its not the devs fault, i'm sure. like with any pvp survival game, players are going to identify certain exploits of items to bash through anything they can. Rust had it, Conan had it, many more have had it and will have it in the future. The good thing, is that all those stupid, unrealistic, methods of raiding get fixed.

Just so everyone knows, if you make a raft in freeport and it stays for 8 hrs, its gone period, regardless of its health. Rafts last days out in the other regions. If you bring ships into freeport. Same thing, shorter time limit. They don't even get destroyed they get removed. A lot of people are losing like hours worth of work because they bring in multiple sloops or schooners and just spend the day on freeport collecting every resource possible and then heading out to where ever the base is and then losing all of that because they went past the time limit.

Is what I woulda said if this happened to me, but anyways, how are ships protected if you are offline (and your company is offline) and some guy sailing by just wants to be mister popular and sink my ship by whatever means (ramming over and over again, fire arrows, cannon fire, who knows). I log back in and my ship has just disappeared. To put it in perspective, my company has about 12 members I think and we did a moderate amount of farming and it took about 7 hours to complete (it was a schooner build). The resource son the island had everything we needed besides the metal, but we had plenty that we brought from other locations. I'm sure with a big company and plenty of resources, the job could probably done much quicker, but the main point is that for some players, a ton of work is going to disappear like a whisper in the wind. Was wondering if there are any counter measures in place to avoid stuff like this happening.

Haha, I think any island is rough with the amount of alphas that are on it. Seriously its kinda crazy how many alphas I have run into and of course the only one that hasn't killed me is the chickens lol. Anyways, ya bringing an alliance would be the way to go but joining one isn't really an option as my group is already allied with 2 other groups and altogether, all three groups are scouting, trying to find places to make landfall. We aren't entirely sure how the mechanics of the lawless islands work, but I'm guessing players can put the drydocks/shipyards down to build sloops and such right? Just can't place any buildings/claims.

Just picked up the game today and spent 3 hrs doing nothing. Lol We sailed to multiple islands to try to establish ourselves and we constantly got chased back to our dinky little boat. Every time, we go back in the boat, sailed to a new island. Last Island of the night we decide to try our hand at the next island regardless of what happens. Besides constantly dealing with Alpha dickhead wolves for 20 minutes, we just couldn't get established at all until those that were already on the island finally decided to remove us lol. I have no idea how to actually get going in this game when every island you encounter is claimed. It almost feels like there needs to be a new server opened up to deal with the over population of islands or to adjust how claims work. Is anyone else having better luck? And I'm talking about people who are in similar situations, like me and my group, only the ending ends with you guys succeeding lol.