Winter Thorne

That is really the foundation aura, but I don't know about the rest. A few posts yesterday got me wondering if it was even the same on the NA pve as the EU pve. I guess I should say that this is the NA pve server.

We had a conversation in another thread about what it's like to live on Lawless, what the space buffer was like, etc. We were also guessing about how much space the additional islands would add...stuff like that. Some people actually didn't have bad experiences in Lawless. They had good neighbors, plenty of room to build, sensible rules. Here's what my place in Lawless was like. I put that foundation in front roughly where the corner of my house used to be. (My raft and storage box were still there behind me) That foundation is as close as you can get to the foundations near the rocks ahead of me that belong to someone else. The distance between them is @ 4 tiles. So the build radius keeps "your space" clear roughly to those rocks there. Here's a longer range shot just to show you what the place looks like overall. It's pretty much foundations as far as the eye can see now. The person who put them all down isn't building there. They have a big base built up on another part of the island. They just don't want anyone else building there. About half those foundations used to be a wide variety of buildings - from a small cat-carrier sized stone box to a large take-your-elephant-to-work day stone box. A lot of them had huge thatch walls between them and there were lots of crazy stair to nowhere things going on. They were about as close to each other as the foundations you see there now. Oh yeah, we were livin' the dream back in those days.

So you want more interaction and more things to do on pve and the only thing you can come up with is adding pvp? Game design needs to be done by people with more imagination. A sense of humor wouldn't hurt either.

I've been ignoring all those posts that are just freaking out over the wipe. Have to say, though, that if there are great post-wipe benefits, you wouldn't have seen even half those people being upset over it. But if you wipe the servers and then kick the players in the teeth after...that's just bad. And stupid. My guess as to why this is happening, is that someone at Grapeshot is SO enamored of that basic premise they came up with that the game has to be all about who can conquer the most land, that they are unwilling to recognize that this makes no sense for pve, so they are trying to bend every solution to keep that premise. (Which only works if they start with maybe a 30x30 grid and are ready to expand at a moment's notice) Here's my prediction and you can all make fun of me afterward if it's wrong: They wipe the servers and put this new plan in place. People come back in and start racing for land, and pillar the crap out of entire islands and even entire zones to protect their areas. It is going to seem ok at first because of the enormous player number dropoff and the extra islands added, and some people will be all over the forums saying how happy they are. Some people will be seeing the bad results early and be getting walled in, pillar spammed and resource locked, and will complain, and the happy ones will tell them to shut up. That they are just too lazy and don't want to work hard enough to find an island paradise, and that there are completely empty islands everywhere. Two weeks later, many more people will start to become upset, as the companies that previously held 2000 claims are now holding 25 entire grids worth of islands and expanding by annoying people in neighboring grids until they leave. The pillar and foundation spam will thwart anyone trying to build anything beautiful, and everyone not a member of a big strictly controlled company will be living in a place that looks like shanty town after the tsunami hit, and there will be no resources there. No resources means those people can't participate in player vendors, end game content or the new features locked behind it, and they'll get even more unhappy. The devs will highlight "the haves", and their fabulous screenshots of underwater adventures and interesting architecture in exotic and lovely places, and note how successful the player shops are, while the heat level in the forums starts rising again. After two months there will be no land for new players again, the forums will be exploding, the islands will mostly be a mess, and they'll admit they need to rethink how land works on pve. There will be another server wipe, they still won't listen to anyone's suggestions, and will come up with another "iteration", equally silly. Or maybe they'll just ignore it next time, and count on the big companies to carry them through to release day.

I just want to point out that there are actually legitimate reasons for spamming pillars and foundations, and it's not all griefing. If you have a hog for a neighbor who tries grabbing up every square inch, you have to put them out in self defense. Same for important resources. So this is going to happen with this new design, and the difficult part is telling the good guys from the bad guys with it. (Which is why support is never going to go around banning people over it) Without claims, it's the only way people can claim land, and people want to claim land. They should have just done limits.

Not true. They have said what's happening, Everything will be like lawless. We already know how lawless turns out. You don't need a great deal of imagination to see what the game will be like if all the lands are like lawless. I expect it will be a little better for some in the beginning because they're adding more land. But it won't fix the problem after people grab all that up. They are making a change to pvp restricting the number of flags, so no..it's not the issue that it can't be done. If you watch the livestream and read the Captain's Log you will know what's happening, We're not all just making things up.

I'm not angry losing A flag. I'm angry about nobody getting any more claims ever. You know a simple restricting on number of claims would have fixed it for everyone including you. I lived on lawless for most of this time. I have had one claim flag for a couple weeks now. I don't want to go back to lawless. If the thought of living on lawless was enough to make you quit the game before, then you won't be happy once everything is just like lawless. And it will be just like lawless.

I'm not meaning to argue either, but you've just said that my experience doesn't matter because you personally didn't see it, so that's not a very good start. I don't dispute that you had a nice lawless spot, nor that the ones you've seen looked ok. I expect a lot of that depends on timing and maybe the player attrition as the game goes on. I have seen some that weren't too bad, but I didn't live there, so I don't really know the animosity levels or what happened with resources, etc. I've read nothing that says they are further shrinking buffer size. At one point they DID shrink it on lawless. I wasn't able to get in there immediately to spam foundations around my stuff, and when I got back there were shacks and storage cabinets all around my small place there, all as close as they could possibly get. And I didn't have much space to begin with..probably about 1/4 of a claim. All I can say about these changes is that the majority of pve complaints here had to do with claims and people not wanting to live on lawless. The 2 major suggestions were claim restrictions or upkeep, with virtually nobody at all suggesting everything just be lawless. If you enjoy living there, you're in the minority. If they implement this new system, there's nothing to prevent your lawless looking like my lawless, so I hope you are lucky in that regard.

I lived on lawless for most of the game so far, and it was terrible, especially after they reduced the buffer. People would just slap down ugly stuff 4 tiles away from you until you could barely get through to your spot. They built shipyards that blocked the whole inner harbor and everyone in it. They walled off whole sections of the island, resources, etc. And the people with claims would come there, set up a few bits of ugly crap so they could get back easily with no regard for the people actually trying to have a base there. The reason I asked him the question though, was because he was talking about people leaving the game because they couldn't find claims, so I'm guess they didn't like lawless. Well, the new change makes everything just like lawless..and he seems to be happy about that, which is odd.

The building buffer is so small you can build a barn over your neighbors house and lock the doors. If you make the buffer big enough, congratulations, you've just reinvented claims. With upkeep. And still no limits.

As just another player, you're not entitled to tell anyone to chill out. As a non-pve player, you're even less entitled to do that. I'm glad somebody explained the issue to you in a way that you can understand it. Here's an even simpler explanation. The devs put a lot of thought into pvp and none into pve. The pve solution they came up with is a real wtf moment, because everyone on pve complained there were no claims and they didn't want to live on lawless. Their solution is to wipe all the claims and make everything lawless. And add upkeep. So if pve people want to let the devs know what they think of that brilliant decision, you should consider that it's really none of your business and maybe just go and stay out of it.

Why didn't you go live on lawless?

Yeah, his comment kind of cracked me up. He (I think) was unhappy because he couldn't find land to claim and everything was covered in red circles, cluttering the map and he couldn't see his X. Wait till he comes back in, can't find more than 2 square inches not covered by pillars and can't see anything but thatch.

Did you mean to post that in another thread? Nobody is complaining about wipes here.

Hi, Devs. I know you're out there. I can hear you breathing. MeatSammich is right, and has been the most right of anybody representing the pve reaction to these changes since the announcement. There is also an excellent post from one of the "top companies", Darksea Dawgs https://www.playatlas.com/index.php?/forums/topic/51432-please-re-think-the-flag-system-on-pve/&page=2&tab=comments#comment-286113 It would be really nice if you would listen to your playerbase before making this rotten change and forcing us all to have to do the work to prove to you that it's a mistake. If you consider these changes logically, you should be able to reach the same conclusions we did. We've persisted through the bugs, the network issues, the griefers, and the hackers. I don't think it's too much to ask that you don't make us all waste a lot of time going out to the test server and showing you what a bad decision this would be. There are only so many hoops people are willing to jump through to help you make decisions which would have seemed reasonable and sensible in the first place. If you have information that we don't that indicates these changes are the better way to go, you might do us the favor of explaining that. If not, here's a recap of what you've just told us: You've said you were unhappy with claims, so we are removing them. You don't get to own anything anymore, and everyone can build wherever they want, even if it blocks your resources, your doors, and your ships. We're also adding decay and upkeep so now you have to collect mats and repair everything frequently. Happy yet? But wait, there's more. In order to do this, we're going to wipe the servers. We're also adding a lot of new content, and with our stated goal of helping solos and small companies, we've gated that behind the kraken. But here's a hat. Isn't that great? You're probably not very happy seeing everyone raging on the forums about these changes. But you know what's worse than seeing everyone raging on the forums? Not having anyone on the forums at all.

What we need is a dedicated group of testers to "test out" these new changes. I'm betting 1 week is long enough to demonstrate the ultimate results at least in one map sector. After that one can just extrapolate, even though that requires...math. 1 week with 4 people can produce X, so 2 weeks with 300 people can produce Y.

They don't all do it just for shits and giggles you know. They do it to annoy everyone else off the island, or because they want to be able to choose their own neighbors, or because if they don't somebody else will and it'll be even worse. Some of them do it in self defense to keep somebody else from walling them in. And if that's where their base is, it's no big deal to run around every few days and replace the stuff.

It's worse than I thought then. And you know my OP was not meant to say, "Yay, we didn't really lose claims". SMH

They just changed them. Instead of a flag you get a repair box now. They removed the timer and now you get charged upkeep instead. The upkeep is also a kind of timer, because if the box holds enough mats for 90 days, that's how long your timer is. They didn't limit them either. So if you can collect a ton of mats, you can own so much of everything that nobody else will be able to find resources or move their ships around. If you can't collect a ton of mats, too bad for you. You get a tiny spot squeezed in between two megas who have already blocked all the resources anyway. So in the great debate about what should be done to fix claims in pve, they chose upkeep over limits. That's really what has happened. And they claim to have done this to help small companies. They've covered up the mistake temporarily by making all the islands available for this new "claiming" system, and adding 1 more island per zone, and that will appease some of the people. But it won't be long till the big companies (and the very motivated smaller ones) grab all that up too. Then we'll need another fix for claims again, with probably another wipe to go along with it. I stand by my earlier postings that upkeep not only doesn't achieve that goal it makes things worse, because you haven't stopped the land grabbers, and now the smaller guys have to compete with them on upkeep as well! All they really had to do was limit the number.

Yes, on PvE, all the people that quit because they had to stay in Lawless will come back now. And stay in Lawless.

I found that quote..it was Meatsammich: Just limit the claims to 10 per any company, 20 for a company over 25 members, and 50 for companies with 100+ members. More than enough land for anyone, and seeing as how there is a company with 3000 land claims, that would be land for 59 other companies of 100+ people, or 148 companies with 25 people, or 299 companies with less than 25 people. Thats up to 5000 to 10000 more people having land.. And thats just 1 company being divested of its land. Other companies in the top 10 have ~2000 flags of 1000 flags. Between freeing up claims with that, and 200 new islands, there would be more than enough land to claim for everyone playing now, and damn sure more than enough land for everyone playing after the wipe. Hell, that would be enough room for everyone who's ever played on PVE to have claims, with room to spare for new players. That low limit still seems huge to me..10 claims. And with it, just limiting one company's overclaiming frees up space for almost 300 small companies to have claims. Why didn't they just do that?

You don't get a "base" with this. You get to place objects..wherever you can find a space for them. If you want, you can place a huge wall with a roof all around your neighbor's house and crafting stations and lock the door. If they increase the distance to keep people fro building on top of you, then that will just make the griefer's job easier taking all the land. Instead of having to spam 50 foundations, they can just put 5 and own the whole island. It was terrible when people hoarded flags. At least they had to go visit the place every so often to reset the timers. Now they get a box they can just load up with resources and not have to go back again until it all runs out. You thought the last design was bad? This is just the same thing without the claim mechanic. There are no limits on how many times a person can build something. Resource cost doesn't limit anyone who really wants to go nuts with this, and if they try to hike the cost higher and higher to prevent it, it won't stop it. Guess who gets hurt? People like US who don't have time to just do useless stuff all day. Although I agree with Daemon on nearly everything, I agree with you on this: I don't have time to do that either. Someone pointed out in another thread (that I can't find right now), that all they had to do was limit the claims. They could even give every person 5 claims, and it would still have fixed the problem. You have 2 man companies with 200 claims now. That would free up 190 claims. You have 10 person companies with 800 claims. That would free up 750 claims. It's all they had to do to fix this. I bet both of us could have found something easily if they did that. It doesn't seem like you enjoy living in lawless, because (like me), you complain about how hard it is to find claims. But then you say this - now they have to come out and live with the rest of us. It seems like you are choosing your solution like a petulant kid - if *I* can't have a claim, nobody else should either, so there! So now you're happy everyone has to live on lawless, when you could have supported something better and gotten yourself a nice claim somewhere. You've shot yourself in the foot.

There are better ways to implement that than giving one big company ownership and making everyone else work for them. If you consider that the cooperation levels are Solo -->Alliance -->Company, what they needed to do was add an extra level of cooperation to that - Town. Multiple companies and solos on an island decide to band together for a town. That way everyone is cooperating on the same level and it doesn't start out as boss/servant. After that you could maybe upgrade your town and have a city level of cooperation. For a new player that would look a lot more like going to some island to set up a base and join the town there, rather than going to some island to set up a base and work for the big company who runs everything.

TBH, I wouldn't care at all about a wipe, if I was coming back in to start with some good new improvements. Coming back in after a wipe with those slap-in-the-face pve changes though? Who wants to do that? I'm hoping to find out where to go from here by reading other people's posts about where they're going.

Thanks for all your thoughts and suggestions, Pathfinders! (Especially those of you on PvE who wanted claim limits or upkeep!) You've been very brave little pirates getting through all that spam and griefing with nothing to call your own but that fierce new pirate hat we gave you, so as a reward, here's a 2x to keep you happy until our Great April Update! In this update, we will be removing ships from the pve servers, and replacing them with tricycles. You all seem to be very busy running around doing nothing but collecting thatch and building huge gates, and this should help you get around the island easier. And remember, Pathfinders, we are always looking for your feedback! You might raise attention to some other element game you're actually enjoying so that we can "adjust that design" too. And I almost forgot, we made you a mitten. It's a pirate mitten! I'll be wearing a real one at the next livestream, so be sure to tune in.