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Captain Jack Shadow

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Captain Jack Shadow last won the day on March 18 2020

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About Captain Jack Shadow

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  1. I won't buy early access games anymore. I hate the whole concept, because yes, what ends up happening is that you never get to enjoy a polished game. Heck, even by the time the game is better fleshed out, and mostly polished, the majority of the player base, has moved on to the next half-baked early access game. Gamers are easily tricked into thinking there's some huge advantage to being in the game on day one, when there really isn't.
  2. It's a shame that this is allowed to go on. It's a shame that gamers...people who are supposed to love games, do things to ruin games. Sounds like a private server is the only answer. A server admin would ban such people, and restore what was taken.
  3. I never minded that stuff. I was in the Navy for 20 years. Have 5 years sea time. So I know what it is like to be at sea. I didn't mind the sailing. I did mind losing shoulder tames, and bears, etc...when transferring between grids. I did mind logging in, only to find that somebody did a Harbor run on us while I was logged off, and sunk the ship I had leveled up, and all the stuff I had on it, was now gone, and I had to start over...simply because I wasn't online. I got tired of everything being about island and base defense. I got tired of islands spammed with structures, causing me massive frame lag...but the animals cause even more frame lag. I learned that in ARK.
  4. It's a PvP game, not a PvE. We have had tons of PvP every single day. We literally had PvP the entire time I was on. And you know why there is PvP every day? Because the game is not focused on base defense. But I get it...PvE players feel left out in the cold, and honestly, without game changing mods, it will never be a PvE game. The mechanics on official make it such that building and decorating a base, is just not feasible. The entire reason for the Walkers is that you must be mobile. The tile you find yourself on today, will burn up soon, so have to constantly move East. Also, the game is still in very early access, where as Atlas is about 1.5 years into its 2 year early access. Last Oasis has been out for 2 months. Atlas has been out for around 18 months. In that 18 months, many major game mechanics changes, new animals, new biomes, new weapons, new islands, new outfits, etc...have been added. Do you think that maybe...just maybe...Last Oasis will add new content also? Oh wait, they already have, and I'm sure that won't stop. If Last Oasis fails, it will be due to lack of content, but they have been adding content. But you know why Last Oasis isn't likely to fail? Because I can pack up my base on my Walker, log it out to the Lobby, and it is safe, forever...until I log in and decide to put it at risk. Honestly, I think that full wipe survival games are going to be a thing of the past. Games that give you reasons to PvP, without having to risk everything you have worked for, will be the games most people gravitate towards, because most people can't devote their life to a game.
  5. having to defend bases is worse. THAT locks everyone down on the island, more than anything. Breeding is typically done by just a small part of a Company...normally a few people. The rest are focused on building ships and gathering for base construction and defense.
  6. 100% agree. I am passionate, but I try not to be toxic. Nobody deserves to be abused, and certainly not over a video game. I also agree that it has to get away from being an ARK dlc. To do that, IMHO, it has to get away from base defense. I know many people feel the same way. It brings so many bad aspects, including having to start all over, and often, while knowing that so many ships you run into will totally outclass your ships for weeks, and months...which twists your mind in the wrong direction. Instead of welcoming PvP, you try to avoid it. Then you simply get angered, when once again, your base gets wiped, because you are nowhere near ready to properly defend it, and once again, you start from scratch. This is the experience most players experience, and why most of them experience a "the honeymoon's over" feeling. Yet, there are many games where people stick with them for decades. WWIIOL has had a two decade long run...and that game was designed from the beginning for the average player to experience a 1:1 success ratio. I had high hopes for Atlas, and would love to come back to it, and see many people come back to it, but I just don't see that happening without a major change to the way the game is played. IMHO, this game is the most well suited to being a game that allows safe areas, while at the same time, offers plenty of incentive to PvP. Did you see my 34 point suggestion in another thread? It offers suggestions on how to create the safe zones...how to create incentives to PvP without wipes...etc...
  7. Also, I have to point out that this might be the worst paragraph ever written on this forum. Periods, and commas are left out, making the majority of it unable to be fully understood. But the part about people leaving Last Oasis...if something BETTER, does come out, I am sure they will. The key word there being, BETTER. This would be 100% normal and expected. The question is, why did they leave Atlas, for Last Oasis? I mean, I am literally running into Atlas Mega, after Atlas Mega, now in Last Oasis. And another question is, would they come back, if Atlas became a BETTER game than it is currently? One reason that Last Oasis isn't likely to lose a large amount of players, is because it is very very attractive to most players that they don't risk what they don't want to risk, in most circumstances. In fact, I can load up my crafting base into my Walker, and upload the Walker, and then go to bed KNOWING that it will be available to me when I log back on. In fact, since I can store an amazing amount of stuff in that base, and it doesn't count against the weight limit of the Walker, I can even keep all my resources safe from thieving clan members. The reality is that Grapeshot didn't pay enough attention to how much people hated their stuff being destroyed while they were offline. Grapeshot should have had a better plan to make the game more focused on ships at sea, and less focused on base defense. I absolutely love that the focus is not on base defense in Last Oasis, and in fact, it makes no sense to invest tons of resources into a base because the tile you would build it on, will eventually burn up. It's not too late for Grapeshot to create an Atlas game that is attractive to a wider audience, but that time is quickly running out. To get a large audience back, they are going to need big news that is appealing to them. A ship vs ship server, would be just what the doctor ordered.
  8. Ah yes, there's always one, "well why are you here, then?" Because I have many many hours in Atlas, on Official, and a lesser amount on unofficial. There are aspects of the game that I love, and aspects that I hate, and many people hate, and it drove them from the game. I am here, because I would like to see changes made that make the game more fun for more people, so that we can once again, have a healthy sized player base in Atlas.
  9. You say it is antithetical, and then you go on to explain why it is not. First, games need balance. Would you pay to go see a sports game between Pros, and children? I mean, would this be considered good competition worth paying to watch? Of course not. Why not? Because there is no competition. Even colleges are divided into divisions, to offer more fair competition. Same for high schools. What makes a game fun for anybody, if one group can just run roughshod over another group? Who is that fun for? It's certainly not a recipe for a healthy game community that will stick around for a while. Honestly, how long do you think most players will stick around for games when they get wiped. How many wipes in a row does it take for the average player to leave a game? I have seen people quit after one. I have seen many more quit after two in a row, and even more after 3 in a row. Why do FPS players log into a game, day after day after day, when they get repeatedly killed in that game? So long as they are experiencing something close to even success and failure, they will continue to log in. If they get killed, but never get kills, they would not log in. The idea that wipes are needed for a PvP game to be fun, is just absurd. That is only fun for the one doing the wiping. If the goal is to drive players from the game, then wipes are a great way to do it. I've seen many people quit because of wipes. The problems you describe, are people trying to avoid the pain of being wiped. In short, it's like speed limits. When you put up radar detector and it shows that everyone is driving 10 mph over the speed limit, people are voting with their foot. They are letting you know they don't like the speed limit. In this game, people are showing that they don't actually like the wipe mechanic, and are doing everything they can to avoid it. Cheaters used under meshing to avoid it. Why not just come up with game mechanics that allow everyone to avoid getting wiped, and yet creates reasons to PvP? Seems a more reasonable solution.
  10. No, here's the real fix. Get rid of island ownership. Bring back claim flags, but in limited numbers. Create two home port flags, one for land, and one for a harbor. Through balance testing, determine how big these need to be for companies of 75 people to build a reasonable sized base, and reasonable harbor. Anything inside those land claims, are invulnerable. Green anchored ships are invulnerable inside the harbor claim. Create smaller claim flags for outposts on other islands. At most, only 1 per island in every grid. Testing my determine that it is better to limit the number to far less. Anything built outside of a claim, can be destroyed, and significant decay timers, similar to freeport timers. You can't build inside somebody else's claim. Limits on how you place the claims could be added, to aid in preventing griefing. In other words, in addition to the limited number of claims, there would be a substantial buffer zone between the claims of different companies. Possibly the radius of the circle, would be the buffer zone created by the circle. So if the radius s 400 meters, the buffer zone would be 400 meters away from the edge of the claim circle. Bases would have a bank as they do now. That bank holds gold, blueprints, and maps. Every ship would need a ship's safe to be attached to the ship before it could be launched. Gold, blueprints, and maps would be transferred between each other by company personal of appropriate level. You would no longer carry gold, maps, or blueprints on your character. When you find gold, it goes to the nearest ship. If more than one ship is eligible, the gold goes to the one you select. When grappling flotsam, the gold goes to the ship you are on, and is stored in the safe. When going to a freeport to purchase things, the gold is drawn from the ship's safe. When doing maps, the map must be in the safe of the ship. Anyone on the ship can then create a copy that goes to their inventory. This would have a decay timer, and does not replace the actual map. The map stays with the ship, and only leaves the safe if you transfer it to another ship, or base bank. You must be within range to do so. Maps decaying would also remove it, or if you dig up the treasure, that will also remove it. All of these actions would also make the copies in your inventory disappear. Blueprints are held in the safe, but just as is the case with maps, you can create a copy to place in your inventory, which you can then put in a crafting station. To use them in a crafting station on a ship, you would need to transfer it to the ship's safe. If a ship is in combat, the ship's safe would start a cooldown timer. This timer prevent's anything from being transferred to another ship, or base within range of transfer. If the ship is sunk, anyone can access the safe, and transfer all contents to a safe/bank within range. If you control the area after a sinking, you can recover your valuables. If the enemy controls the area, they will be able to transfer the valuables to their ship's safe. There should probably be a cooldown timer for the defending company to access a sunken safe. These mechanics prevent people from popcorning their valuables, just to deny the victor the spoils of victory. This also creates a reason to attack other ships, as you might get a good payout when you sink the ship. It might also be possible to make ships carry 7 day's worth of gold, in order to have NPCs man the stations. This would be calculated by multiplying each crew station, times 7, times a specific rate of pay for each day. This simply bumps up the amount of gold on ships, which creates incentive for PvP. Make it such that Captain boosts do not affect player manned positions, only NPC positions, so as to take away an incentive to use human crew, in orderto get around the gold requirement on the ship. Ships at sea (not green anchored in a safe harbor), with all player and NPC crew killed, should be capture-able in a short period of time. Animals lost at sea should be claimable. The safe area for bases and ships, allows the game to be friendly to people who can't devote their life to the game, small companies, and solo players. The limited safe areas remove the need to spam islands with structures, and bases would be less likely to cause lag stuttering. Harbor defense would still be needed, as your ships returning to base would not be green anchored for 30 minutes. These mechanics remove the need for combat timers. Only green anchored ships and structures inside of claims would be invulnerable. Players, NPCs, and tames, could still be killed anywhere, at any time. You will still want defenses at your base, as a result of this. Only crew on green anchored ships, would be invulnerable (possibly). These mechanics also solve the problems of using building structures to grief other players. These mechanics allow a player to log off and have a reasonable expectation that their ship won't sunk while they are logged off. While you can breathe easy inside your green anchored ships and buildings, stepping outside of them would always be a risky proposition. In addition to the above, gold stored in a bank at the Freeport would collect interest. Maps, stored in the bank would not decay, but would disappear if invalidated by building structures blocking the location. Blueprints stored in the Freeport bank would regenerate crafts available. Maybe one craft per day? This creates a reason to go to the Freeport. This creates a reason to hunt ships going to and from Freeports. It creates PvP opportunities. Why would you want to have good tames? Because there would be no safe times to farm islands. You would want protection when farming. You could be PvP'd anywhere, at any time. Create NPC cargo ships that can be sunk, for random loot. That is a game I would come back for.
  11. The Last Oasis Devs understand this. You do build crafting bases, but you pack it into your walker, which is like a land ship on legs. You then upload this to the lobby before logging off. All of your valuable stuff is safe. You can set 5 walkers as "preferred." This means that they automatically get moved to an Oasis to the East, if your Oasis burns up. The concept here is that the Earth stopped rotating, and thus one day is the same as a solar year. It also means that the area in the daytime is burning hot. You live in the area between night and day, and move east as your oasis burns to the west. In real terms, relatable to Atlas, it would be like the Grids on the west side eventually becoming uninhabitable, while new grids appear on the east side of the map. Everyone would be constantly moving to the east. Thus, the walkers are actually your bases. Being able to upload your walkers to the lobby makes the game friendly to casual players, and players that can't devote 10 to 16 hours a day to the game.
  12. Much like the way base raiding and defending ruins the game...along with offline raiding. I lost several ships to harbor runs, the last time I played. Every single time, I wasn't online when it happened. I just logged in and found wrecks in the harbor. Got tired of having to rebuild and level up ships because my ships were sunk while I was offline. This along with the fact that the majority of my time was spend farming mats for base defense building, etc... Not enough time fighting on ships at sea. I play Last Oasis now. Really enjoying it. Know what I did? I packed up my crafting base into my Walker (ship) and drove it out of the Oasis, and uploaded it to the Lobby. It stays there forever, SAFE. I download it from the lobby when I log in. This was my 3rd day playing. We've had a lot of PvP, every single day. No need for raid timers, when you can keep safe what you don't want to fight with, by uploading it to the Lobby. You only risk what you take into battle. Walkers involved in fighting, can't be uploaded until a cool-down timer expires. Also, he has a very valid point with the breeders. Even a Mythical Galleon represents just a fraction of the time it takes to breed very high level tames. The time investment there is literally the highest in the game, and involves a lot of sacrifice. I know, I dabbled in breeding. Having to set timers for every 8 hours is a pain. It would be a great idea to be able to designate a tame as a breeder, which would make it unable to store things in it's inventory, but also not take damage. Games are supposed to be fun. People turn them into penis measuring contests. There is a cost point at which players just won't do it anymore. Tames are one of them. Somebody who is very much into taming and breeding, is very likely to get discouraged when they had worked for many months to get high level babies, but then lose them in a wipe. To start over is like looking up at Mt Everest. Many just can't find the motivation to start that climb all over...knowing that it can all be taken away in a moment. Let me know when there is a Ship vs Ship mode, with limited number of claim flags that give you an area to build safe bases in, and provide safe harbors for anchored ships. Then I might come back.
  13. Incorrect. I played on such a server, that had all 3 modes. PvE grids, PvP grids, and SvS grids. People spread evenly across all 3. They decided to do just one, maybe two modes. So, they took a poll. This was a highly populated unofficial. The poll results had SvS winning by a huge margin. Better than 2/3 of the people voted for that.
  14. You forgot to mention that most of the Megas from Atlas are there. You also failed to mention that Atlas had server issues in the beginning that cost the game way more than 30% of the player base. What MMO hasn't had server issues in the beginning? Also, in your attempt to be sarcastic, you missed the point. I did finally join LO, and it was only my second day last night. We discussed Atlas. The sentiments of my friend were echoed by the other players in the group, and others in the Alliance on Discord. Atlas is a great concept, but poor execution. It is very unfriendly to noobs. The highest level in LO is 60, and in two days, I am already level 35. I am also not forced to create my character to fight, or craft. There, I don't feel like I am at the mercy of those who have 70 hours a week to put into the game. I do wish Atlas would create a Ship vs Ship official server. If they did, I would come back. I personally think the ship battles in Atlas are epic, and this is what the game should be about. Not about defending bases. The Devs said they wanted to take Atlas out of the Shadow of ARK. To do that, you have to make the game about being at sea, and fighting at sea...not putting most of your efforts into building and defending bases. The only thing base defense should be for, is harbor defense, so that if somebody is chased back to home port, they can defend the ship until it is green anchored, and thus invincible. I got tired of logging in to find that somebody had done a harbor run on us, and destroyed my ship while I was offline. Got tired of most of my efforts going to building and defending bases. My second day in Atlas, and already involved in a huge fight involving many Walkers, both large and small (ships). And even the smaller walkers such as a Spider, were useful...very useful. If I had my choice, Atlas would be changed to Ship vs Ship, and that would be my preference.
  15. The game will never thrive. Get used to that. Most former Atlas players are now playing Last Oasis. All of my Atlas friends are there, and they say it was everything they had hoped Atlas would be. They could literally save this game with one simple change. Ship vs Ship servers. Also, reduce the disparity between the high and low end of ships. Common ships vs 200% ships is only going to end one way. People can say, "Just create your own Mega," but that is the dumbest thing anyone could say. Creating a Mega isn't easy, and not something new players can accomplish in a short period of time. Most players are already in a Mega. The simple fact is, this game is extremely hostile to new players, casual players, and players that like to play in small groups. Ship vs Ship servers, with ships ranging from 100% to 125% tops, would save this game. Will that happen? I doubt it. All of the former Atlas players I know said they have no faith at all in Grapeshot ever seeing the light. They note that Last Oasis devs actually care, and police the servers. They have already wiped clans that duped. They also have long cool-down timers so that megas can't swap people in and out of the clan. In short, the Devs listen to the players. There is NO offline raiding, because you upload your walkers to the Lobby before logging off. Your crafting base packs up in the blink of an eye, and is stored on the walker, as are your resources. The game puts the focus on PvP, not grinding...and no grindy base defenses. Atlas, unlike many survival games, could go this route, but they seem to choose not to. As such, the game is dying. These forums are nearly dead also. Those who make survival games have to understand that it is a Game, not a job. Nobody wants to have to spend 10 hours a day playing it, in order to compete. Atlas, ARK, and so many other survival games require you to treat it as your second job, or you will fall to those who do. This is why Last Oasis is going to top all of them. It is extremely popular right now, as a result of the emphasis being on fun, not work.
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