CyanicEmber

Actually I don't take issue with anything you said except where you dissed the Dolphins and Sea Horses and said they were a waste of time and effort.

No, all I am saying is that you should let Atlas be Atlas, and if you want a game focused solely around PvP, go play one.

I am delighted with Dolphins and Sea Horses because I don’t play this game to go “brr brr player dead I big manly man.” This game has a diverse audience and not all of them are invested in PvP. If I want really good PvP with primitive firearms and deep tactics I play Hunt: Showdown.

Just give barrels a chance to misfire when used with catapults. That way even if people put them on ships it’s not necessarily a sure fire way to deal a decisive blow and could backfire in a big way.

Without tames Atlas would just be Seas of Thieves.

You're letting me have Dolphins? Okay, I might come back now.

Taming is the best part of Atlas and I don’t want it to fall by the wayside in exchange for “pirate role play.” (Aka PvP) Plenty of games already do that.

I was hoping for major continents in the four cardinal directions. *sigh* Guess I’ll just have to make this game myself when I get my studio going.

I'm confused why everyone is interpreting one PvE server "for the time being" as, one PvE server which will eventually go away and not, one PvE server which will eventually be joined by more PvE servers...?

You know, I am happy to finally have an update of some sort, and kind of excited to see where things go from here... But I’ve been a fan of this studio since Ark launched and I cannot help but feel hurt and frustrated by the lack of communication. I don’t understand why you’re so unwilling to even drop hints on what’s happening. I honestly thought you’d abandoned this project entirely. Does it really have to be this way?

Perhaps they intended to fund further development with the cash from Genesis. Which may have sold a lot... But did not go over well. I suspect Wildcard is genuinely on their way out now. Unless they can really pull a 180 with Atlas...

There's been barely any activity worth noting since you put that (apparently useless) roadmap out. If you're not planning on giving attention to the project, you can at least be forthright about it. Or did Ark: Genesis require you to reallocate too many team members to actually make significant progress?

Personal opinion, take it or leave it, I think the game would benefit from having extremely rare materials in each category which can act as multiple types at the same time. Meaning if you had a blueprint which required 4 types of 4 different materials at 124 each, you could simply supply 496 of the Legendary Material of a given category to satisfy the requirements. Thought up some names for such materials. It would make treasure hunting more interesting and add a new and extremely lucrative resource to player markets. Particularly if it didn't "respawn" like normal nodes do. Heartwood - Wood Prismite - Stone Orichalcum - Metal Spiderweb - Fiber Cintamani - Gem Ichor - Oil Petrichor - Coal Lyngurium - Crystal Sparkstone - Flint Elderhide - Hide Ivory - Keratinoid Sap - Eitr Salt - Alkahest

Um. No. They don't look familiar. Personally I don't think Atlas was ever intended to be a DLC, I think it was a new project from the ground up, which they used Ark as a framework to build-on because reusing code and assets is standard practice for game studios and has been probably since before either of us were born. It saves an amazing amount of time. If anything, you should be impressed with how dedicated they are to NOT reusing models from ARK. Every item or creature in Atlas that they could've borrowed from Ark they instead opted to make a brand new models and animations for, which, in my book, is a class act.

Midget Fight Simulator 2k19! GotY!

Actually if you open Handling Sails at 5% and attempt to turn in place it is MUCH faster than with the other sails types. I have a hard time believing that doesn’t carry over when moving at full speed.

In the original dev diary, they stated that the cards will have different magical effects which can be combined to achieve new ones.

Eastern Hand-Rocket pls... Hydra One-Handed, Hydra Thrown, and Hydra Heavy (aka Katana, Shuriken, Naginata, with unique attacks pls) Cyclops Ranged, Cyclops Blackjack, Cyclops Heavy Thrown (aka Blowgun, Club, and Javelin, with unique attacks pls)

I really enjoy handling sails, but I don’t really range further than a few zones ATM...

This would be cool! I also suggested winches in my Journal II for transporting items over long vertical stretches. Personally I think crew manned structures that passively generate resources would be great for late-game as well. (ala Mineshafts, Lumbermills, Quarries, etc...)

I'll expand this over time, but for now I have three suggestions that I think would benefit the game. Winches: currently, there are a ton of vertical stretches which require some effort to ascend without the use of a crab, which is very late game. Once you get up to these areas, you are fairly regularly rewarded with rare materials that can't be found elsewhere in the grid, or even the surrounding grids. To make getting up and down easier, players have three main options, build and elevator system which is a hefty investment of time and resources, build a ramp system with supports and cliff-platforms, which is an equally heavy investment (if not greater), or build a zipline system (which can't be operated when encumbered). But given the era and technology level that these Pathfinders have access to, there should be a fourth option for those who don't need to build that much infrastructure. If all you need to do is lift and lower items instead of people and animals, a winch system which can be extended by means of a craft able rope would certainly do the trick, it could lower items extremely quickly for off-load, and raise up quickly once it was empty, or slowly if still full. Writs of Cessation: Now for solo/duo / small company player QoL, in many cases, these players will find themselves forging amicable relations with larger companies and have a desire to join them on expeditions for various purposes. Since you cannot spawn on Allied beds or use any allied structures whatsoever, this can prove to be extraordinarily risky. My suggestion is to offer "Writs of Cessation" at Freeport with various price points corresponding to increasing time intervals. The basic premise is that this is a legal document that states that the company is temporarily halting it's business operations, but will remain open as long as the Writ is Returned to a Freeport within the given time frame. Essentially, using a writ you could leave a company with zero members and it will continue to exist until the Writ expires. If you turn it in prior to that expiration you will immediately be returned to your company no worse for the wear. This would make joint ventures much easier to conduct logistically and encourage co-operation between companies. Tame Aggression: Taming QoL, as it stands, there are many easily accessible whistle options for changing your tames aggression level on the fly, but in many cases you are unable to press the button you're looking for before whatever situation your facing gets seriously out of hand. This is particularly true when you're looking to tame something, (which if it's a high level is in inherently high stress situation) often you will be swiped during the feeding process and any tames you have nearby will turn aggressive against the bola'd target, causing you to lose the tame. While whistles have high utility, I have found that having to switch between aggression levels leads to a lot of headdesking, and in some cases you'll even lose tames because you forget to take them off Passive. IMO, this could all be solved simply by making it so that tames NEVER turn aggressive towards bola'd creatures, period. Maybe this would be more complicated to implement than I am thinking, but if it can be done without too too much effort, I think it would be great. More later! Feedback/Discussion welcomed.

Hey all! Just wanted to take a moment to discuss the direction of Beastmastery and offer some suggestions. As I’m sure most of us realize, probably the most important factor in a game like this is staying power. It must have depth and feel continuously rewarding to play or else eventually people will burn out and leave. To shore-up these elements of the game I believe it will be critically important to focus on fleshing out each individual Skill Tree with variety, careful thought, and a level of nuance that rewards dedicated effort over simple dabbling. In light of that, I’d like to present some ideas for the ongoing Development of the Beastmastery Skill Tree and particularly looking towards Phase 4 of the roadmap when it will be overhauled most extensively. No question, what we currently have certainly covers all the initial bases, it creates (mostly) sensible progression tiers, it provides some extra perks in particular areas, and its Skill Point costs are pretty well balanced. I like to think the return is (perhaps over) adequate for the investment. That said, there is much room for growth and improvement. Here are my thoughts on how to make Beastmastery rewarding and fun for long-term players who are willing to invest the time and effort. I. When considering balance with non-Beast Tamers, I believe that having them sit around the effectiveness of Masterwork Tools and being surpassed only by Legendary and Mythical and perhaps specialized structures that can be manned by Crew Members like a Sawmill or Mineshaft seems reasonable to me. If the intent is to balance the game such that no one path is the ONLY optimal path, then tames shouldn’t be nerfed into the ground, but should compete with hand tools into the late game. II. Multiple capture and restraining aids to help with the domestication of various types of animals. Lassos, Muzzles, Corrals, Bird Cages, Cage Carts, and On-Ship and Off-Ship holding pens for transporting wilds would all help to make the process more interesting and improve our range of capabilities, which in turn makes the role of Beastmaster more robust and worthwhile. III. Rare colors for each of the creatures to add cosmetic value to certain entities spawned through the RNG system. IV. Creature Variants that only appear in certain biomes or under certain conditions (such as when the RNG system rolls a max-level for example). These variants could essentially be “copies” of the original, but with a different visual appearance, some stats tweaks, and maybe some new mechanics if you’re feeling generous. An example might be a Polar Variant of the Lion: Snow Leopard, which has a sneak mode that massively reduces enemy aggro radius and adds a pounce attack, or a Max Lvl Variant of the Chicken: Duck, which lays Eggs that provide a different Vitamin type, etc… V. Creature Variants and Traits that can only be acquired through multi-generational breeding. My suggestion would be an A, B, C, D, E, allele system tied to each creature. The RNG system will roll a random letter for each creature it spawns, and you can breed those with certain letters in certain positions to bring out new traits, possibly sub-species, rare cosmetic patterns or colors, or a stat boost. Basically, you would want to line-up five matching letters to bring out a hidden trait in that species, five A’s might bring out a hidden color, five C’s might bring out a new texture pattern, five E’s might bring out an entirely new sub-species, the only way to find out is to do it. And the best part is that Grapeshot can dynamically add new alleles to isolated populations or to the species globally as the game continues to develop. You could also add a Skill Tree that allows you to see what alleles are present up to a point, for example, Tier 1 lets you see one letter, Tier 2 lets you see three, and Tier 3 let’s you see five. If you really wanted to make in interesting, you could even add a sixth invisible allele that can never be seen, but if matched with the other five brings out the rarest and most powerful traits of that creature. Like a horse being born as a Unicorn or something… Basically this system would make Breeding a more fascinating undertaking that requires careful planning, time investment, and deduction to take to its ultimate limit. Being able to breed wolves into Wolf Hounds, or horses into Clydesdales, each with different statistics and abilities would add so much interest and staying power to this aspect of the game. VI. Cross-Breeding between compatible Max Lvl specimens. Example Max Lvl Tiger/Lion to produce a Liger. This would be an extremely high Tier Beastmastery skill that would produce superior off-spring that are more difficult to raise to maturity. VII. Various expensive perks that reward you for heavily investing in Beastmastery such as Primogeniture: the ability for offspring to rarely inherent a leveled stat rather than a base stat (but in exchange the stat is locked), or Thoroughbreds, which allows you to raise offspring with a certain number of level-ups immediately available rather than having to be gained through experience, or perhaps Dominion, which allows you to temporarily tame a wild creature instantly, Wild Whisper, which causes predators to ignore you unless you provoke them, etc… There are a hundred things you could do. VIII. Special Skill Trees, simple, 5-6, node skill trees exclusive to Crossbreeds, Variants, or Sub-Species, which become can be purchased with points obtained by reaching certain levelling milestones, maybe 45, 65, 85, etc… IX. Adjust Shieldhorn and Razortooth abilities to provide them with a reasonable means of surviving and sustaining populations next to the incredibly dangerous Golden Age Magifauna. It makes no sense for them to live there as it is, as they have no adaptations to counteract these vicious creatures and constructs. Perhaps some form of magic/projectile nullification barrier for Shieldhorns, and maybe a Silence effect for Razortooth roars plus a Magifauna Dmg Buff? X. Special Events: Migrations, Mating Seasons, Hibernation (for bears), Red Tide (for seahorses), etc… Special events that affect the behavior of animals, their spawn levels, their spawn locations, perhaps produce wild babies or having a special effect of some other kind, like hibernating bears actually levelling up without being tamed, or seahorses becoming tamable when they come to the surface for Red Tide… Things like that that make the wildlife feel more alive would be fantastic! XI. Breeding Overhaul: I think everyone will agree that considering all that’s happened over the development of both Ark and Atlas and all the feedback you’ve gotten from us players it’s time for some serious adjustments here. It’s simply not right to have a system in place within a video game that requires well-meaning people to dedicate unhealthy amounts of time or make changes to their real-life schedules to accommodate it. It’s supposed to fun, we shouldn’t be losing sleep over it, or losing jobs, or getting divorces just because we care enough about your game to actually dedicate the time you’re asking of us. Wildcard and Grapeshot bear part of the responsibility for every negative outcome that has resulted from this system, and I think it deserves some serious consideration. My suggestions are sweeping, but simple; allow mother animals to nurse their young and provide for all of their needs without exception for the duration of their maturation time. In exchange, the mother receives a debuff that weakens it and prevents it from being ridden until the baby is matured or until it is manually brought out of “nursing mode” via radial menu (which also returns the baby into player care). There is a cooldown to enter nursing mode, and to leave it also requires a short wind-up. Imprinting takes place over the first two hours of the baby’s life, maximum. There is no reason to ask any player to dedicate more time than that. These changes would make breeding accessible to everyone, and it would completely eliminate any requirements for unhealthy dedication of time. Those are my main thoughts on Breeding and Taming for now, I may come back with more later. Let me know what you all think, and if you have any ideas for potential Variants, colors, patterns, or Sub-Species, please share! Edited Thursday at 10:32 PM by CyanicEmber

I would think it would be easier on console...

No, you don't understand, the taming song normally yields a 2x buff on Hard, with six players simultaneously it becomes 3x, the gold buff yields like 1.3x gold, with six players it's 1.4. You can't duplicate those results by having NPCs play.

I've found that the best way to tame is generally not to use pens at all.