McGimp

Fights in this game are pretty mobile. Avoiding aggro will be even harder if theyre moving unpredictably in combat lol.

Yes they are, avoiding them makes a journey across two zones take 2-3 hours lol.. if not more. Cant alt tab or afk during that time, its insanely punishing.

You can never know, but you can make an effort to apply pressure to the devs by voicing your concerns. Rather than constantly excusing it with - "its EA" "everything will probably, maybe, one day be better" I have 60 hours in the game so im also enjoying parts of it. my question is in regard to one point you made. You said "Yes, there are issues but they have made so many improvements already." What improvements to gameplay have been made? Other than fixing SoD which shouldnt have been released this early to begin with considering there were already so many things that needed fixing.

You are not wrong. But before the white knights get here let me qualify my statement. In the zone i am currently in - 70-90 people online generally - nobody is bothering to sail at the moment.

If a game is bad people wont enjoy it. The people who enjoy what you consider a bad game, think that the game is good, or will be good at some point. Thats the dumbest thing ive ever heard. Like saying people enjoy eating food that tastes bad. No... They just feel as though the food tastes good while you dont. And to the majority of players or ex-players at this point, this dish is unpalatable in its current state.

I say again - Balancing is not an excuse when most of the issues complained about are issues that should never even make it live. They are problems that most studios would recognize on paper and would test in house before releasing to the general public. EA is not an excuse to shoot blindly and hope you hit your target at the expense of your players. You still need to have some accountability - even in EA.

"The game is in a bad state, but that doesnt mean people cant enjoy it." Fine, but maybe those people should stop trolling around the forums and attempting(unsuccessfully) to shout down anyone who brings up an issue. You sit on these forums all day talking out both sides of your mouth. "The game is broken and feels unrewarding and tedious, and yes the devs have made bad decisions. But its still a good game and you shouldnt complain about anything." Get real dude.

The content put out by content creators, the sharp drop off in players streaming the game, the startlingly bad reviews, the forums and the discord all indicate that most people are unhappy with the game. There will always be some people who are happy to consume whatever you put in front of them. That cant be the standard for a successful company, or a company which wishes to be successful.

Youre in the minority. Im glad that your low expectations and standards have allowed you to enjoy the game. Youre one of the "lucky" few.

Best the game had to offer is the bottles. Which is essentially no reward for the huge time sink and risk of sailing to hunt them. Cross three zones - hope to not catch a SotD on border cross. Find the right island - Find the right spot on the island. Dig for 45 minutes - be sure to bring about 15 shovels youll likely need them. Collect a meager 100-200 gold that can be used to purchase crew members who can die with you as you sink to the bottom of the ocean or get torn to shreds by a lv154 alpha wolf/tiger/lion/croc/snake.5

Best way to outrun them is to play a different game until they are removed. They cant catch you if youre not online.

EA excuses bugged gameplay. EA does not excuse bad gameplay and bad game design. A lot of this stuff just has to do with piss poor decision making, nothing more nothing less.

I get where youre coming from percie, i do. I think my biggest issue with the game right now, and i really like the concept(60+ hours). My biggest issue is, i feel as though the devs have no sense of structure, they have the foundation but are struggling to come up with what to do with it. It feels to us players, or at least to me, as though theyre just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. With no real purpose or direction other than hoping to create some sort of identity for the game that differentiates it from Ark. Just one quick example of this sense of a lack of direction. The different zone types seem poorly defined - whats the difference between a lawless and an open zone other than land claims? What are lawless zones meant to do, whats their purpose? Define that then decide what to make of them - i.e. in my opinion SoD have no place there ever, even one. Lawless should serve as an area for newer, or more casual players, smaller groups, or solos to jump into the game and learn what its all about. Having these alpha animals and SoD in these zones just makes the game too punishing too early on. It chases people away from the game and takes from those who stick around, any sense of progress or accomplishment they may make. While the challenge does need to exist for those who desire it, it shouldnt be thrust upon those who dont. It should be something to look forward to for those who arent yet there but would like to be. Because having something to look forward to is as important as having something to do in a video game.

Okay.. but the ghost ships in lawless zones are the same as ghost ships elsewhere. So, theyre meant to present the same level of challenge to large companies as they are to solo and smaller group players? Thats some seriously flawed logic. If they were meant to make the game a bit more difficult for the higher end player why were they released across the entire map. The idea is to challenge both your top tier players or larger group players and the more casual or smaller grouped players. Speaking as a person who plays games and doesnt develop them - common sense tells me that those two things are hardly ever the same. So, what gave devs cause to believe that releasing these things in ever grid across the game, with no disparity in power relative to the zone they occupy, was a good idea. Again.. i dont develop games but that seems pretty common sense to me. Now an honest question - What purpose do they serve existing in zones that are only one tile from freeports? Certainly not to give large companies something to contend with.

The point is, when they finally decided to nerf them, the damage had already been done, and that issue was something that could have been recognized in an in house server. They were rushed in to the game for god knows what reason. Then the response to fix them was delayed, not for hours but for days. Three nerfs later and people largely still dont like them. Granted they arent breaking the game as badly as they once were, they are still killing the fun factor for a good number of us.

What about when you change to a new zone and get killed by one before you have even loaded in? Bottom line is SotD are an untested and super powerful addition to a game already riddled with issues. Seems to me some of the shot callers for this game have their priorities screwed up. Sailing in this game isnt the most challenging thing ive ever seen, but given the investment required to build ships - why would something like this be released with the game still being so young. Giving us less progressed players ANOTHER challenge to contend with. Why when they were released - over spawning, over aggroing, camping borders, camping coast lines and just being an all around broken addition - were they allowed to stay in the game. I understand the need for balance in an EA but generally speaking you dont want to further break your, already broken game in an effort to add more "content" that nobody asked for and that very few, if any, people wanted.

I love the merchant/trader idea. I know alot of people, especially on pve servers would love to pursue that route. I would like to see more friendly npc ships sailing around. Things that offer quests and such, it takes so long to get anywhere and with the SotD you could end up sailing for 45 minutes only to not reach you destination and get blown up. Accomplishing nothing.. Right now there is a lot of risk to setting sail, but not much reward.

yeah chinese players in my experience are not averse to using third party "tools" to "enhance" gameplay. they also have a knack for finding exploits and bugs. Fortunately for me i play one pve. I feel for all you pvpers though.

meaning what? sloops are without a purpose in this game? lol wtf... And dont tell me theyre easy to avoid, they STILL camp borders, cant avoid zoning on top of one.

youre such a shill lol. Its a shit mechanic that adds nothing to the game. It is making the game nearly unplayable for the majority of players. we cant test it if we wanted to.. unless you mean sinking our time into sinking our ships to them.

Then why have them aggro at all? Serious question, i may be missing something, an exploit or something.

Cool man, sounds great. But how exactly do you contend with SotD being right on the border of a zone and putting you down to 50% hp before you even fully load in.

I understand your frustration, i had that issue for several hours a few days into release. You arent missing much right now though. Seeing as you paid money to play the game i guess that doesnt help to ease the pain though lol.

Im going to keep this short and sweet. I just lost my second ship to a border crossing. Reducing the aggro radius on these ships doesnt do shit when you can find them sitting on the border of zones. im half dead by the time i fully zone in. This is a great game at its core, but some of the decisions being made are making it really hard to play. I really just cant understand the justification for keeping them in the game in their current state. What are people who are just starting the game supposed to do to deal with these things? I mean for a game that wants to promote exploration you sure are doing everything in your power to prevent people from doing it. Disclaimer: I understand its EA. Thats why i'm on the forums and not a different game right now. Giving the devs the benefit of the doubt, in hopes that they remove these things and allow those of us who are already behind a chance to play the game. I understand they dont attack rafts. Thats not really the point.

I said not realistic meaning, painful, tedious, boring, uninspired, unengaging.. and so on. I never said impossible. And the issue i took with your post was you essentially blaming the player above for voicing a concern, then in the next sentence acknowledging that they have a right to be complaining. Some bullshit double speak made to paint the players as the problem and not the companies poor decision making and poor handling of the aftermath of those poor decisions. maybe you didnt know what you were doing but i hope you see it now.