Captain Jack Shadow

Once again, it is about time. When a game is largely about production, and one group can produce fast, while another needs days to get accomplished what the other did in hours, then there is a game breaking imbalance. It would be one thing to classify the resources into groups based on what they are used for, and then make sure that all islands were equally lacking, but to have islands where you can quickly get built up, while another island, you don't even have what is needed to build the basics...that is a game breaking imbalance. Furthermore is how unrealistic the resource distribution is. For instance, why do you need sugar to make fur armor? Absolutely ludicrous. People on Earth, living in arctic areas, would have gone extinct had they had to travel to get sugar to make fur clothing to keep themselves warm. So many weird and wonky things with the game, like animals all over an island, but they can't properly breed and raise babies there? Dumb beyond reason.

Too many missing resources on these islands. Meanwhile, the islands the large Companies will tend to get, have every resource on them, except maybe one. Huge advantage. This game has serious imbalance issues.

I have been playing, and while I agree that there are some bright spots, there is still a lot wrong with this game, and the new rules need some serious fixing. 1. When we were building up, a guy came in full armor, and camped himself by the door to the small building we had crafting stations in. This caused problems because if he gets in he can popcorn all your crafting stations. Our new guys did not know that this was a thing, so they had a couple of stations by the shipyards. They had learned on an unofficial, and those stations locked when you put them down. So a guy simple ran up, took loot, and popcorned the rest. All they could do is grab as much as they could carry. If you can't kill the people, we need to be able to lock our stations. Simple as that. 2. Taming Crows, for instance, is not always easy. Not when doing it solo. You risk killing them, so you have to be somewhat methodical, and you have to punch before you would think. Odd but you get used to it. Problem I find is that just when I get them down to enough health, the delay to bring up a bola is painful, because the crows inevitably end up over your head as you try to pull it out. So then you try to run away a bit, so that you can bola it. But then it flies away, and comes back with half health. So now you punch, and the cycle repeats. Most of the problem here is due to the delays, but also with the fact that the Crow flies off. Now why is this important? Because I was able to get two high level crows...the 2nd one with the help of a friend. But, as we were taking them, plus a monkey, to the base, all three were lost in a transition from one grid to another. Just gone. Sorry, with these kinds of problems, the game is turning into a chore. 3. Island imbalance. This IS a problem. A nice idea for PvE, but PvP needs balance. Is meta gaming really that much of a mystery? People test things out, and find even the smallest advantages. Had nobody ever seen a DPS chart for a game? For those who have not, DPS means Damage Per Second. This is just one tool for figuring out which weapon you should use to do the most damage. This is why you often see games with diverse weapons often end up with just a few of them being used by most people. So the point you need to keep in mind is that this game, as PvP, is largely about production. Producing. How much time does it take you to get things made. Well, when you are on certain islands that have pretty much everything that is needed, you are going to produce a lot faster than those who have to leave their island repeatedly, just for the basics. You try to run these ships heavy, and you are just asking to be sunk. If the SotD don't get you, a random PvPer will. For instance, I have been on an island that had every resource you needed except salt. That you could get all you needed in one run, without overloading your ship. Even had the leaves that bears can pick up as thatch, which gives you tons of it quickly. On the other hand, I have also been on islands that do not have many of the basics. No sap, no metal nodes, no fiber, no salt, no gems, no crystal. These will be the islands that the small tribes are able to claim...as if competing with a large tribe isn't already hard enough. If this is not fixed, I don't see myself sticking with this game. 4. SotD right on the borders of the grid, and when you finally load in, you are already in trouble. This has to go. That is defeat hard coded into the game. 5. Ships get weighed down to easily. I understand that the limiting factor is the need to keep repair resources balanced so that repair does not always win the battle. But ships become too slow, too fast, when trying to gather resources from other islands, and other grids. The new SotD are cool, but we are finding that the new additions, along with the addition of the schooners, causes us to have to keep the ships light. To an extent this was always the case, but now, there seem to be many more SotD, plus the schooner is very fast, and Galleons hit hard enough that smaller ships aren't really the option they used to be. Being fast and maneuverable is more important than ever. The new SotD is great when you are looking for fun fights, but when you are trying to run cargo, it is not fun at all. Plus, it is just one more thing that makes it harder for those on the resource poor islands. 6. Frame rates are better. Some new upgrades in various little things, like the map bottles with their magical sounds, and white lions on the tundra islands. The SotD are cool, I guess. Was never really a fan of them myself.

No

It's definitely a work in progress. I still have high hopes for the game, and I would rather that they delay, and get things right, than push it our the door on time, but wrecked. Remember Mass Effect Andromeda? Rushed out the door. Even though it was late, it needed another 6 months. Of course this is ignoring the horrible writing, and plot concepts that would have sunk it anyway. But I digress. It is far more preferable that they delay and get it right. I never understand people putting so much emphasis on release dates. As if going past a release date is so horrible. No...releasing something that is horribly buggy, and not working, is what is horrible. I would rather my dinner be late, than be on time and under-cooked.

Pretty much. I've seen this happen with a lot of survival games. I've seen a lot of people get excited about a survival game in the beginning, but I've also seen their excitement and interest level drop pretty quickly. Like with 7D2D, I saw people play this, and enjoy it for a short while, but then stopped, and as they started dropping, more stopped. It became like a job. Especially when playing it PvP. You can never take a break, and you have to put in as many hours as possible. And when some people stop playing, you start failing, because one of them was making the food, and one was making the armor, etc... Now it just gets worse, because you were already stressed a bit at having to produce, but now you have to start putting points into the skills that the other people who left, were doing. The point I am getting at here is that the typical mechanics of a survival game end up frustrating most gamers. It becomes a job instead of fun. They tend to be grindy, and the RPG aspect means you can't do everything you need to do. Not only do you need to show up every night, but so do your teammates. Add to this the way these games tend to set you back to zero, when you are raided and lose. You typically lose everything, or almost everything. You didn't just lose, you lost big. Now, you are at an even bigger disadvantage. It becomes too much for most people. They realize they aren't having fun anymore.

Is there one place to go, that details all of the steps to actually do this?

Is there one?

In the time I was playing on a PvE server, to make cool builds, I saw a lot of PvP crews come in and play the game on PvE. You could spot them right away, because they build literal PvP bases, and even more of a clue was the way they acted when you would sell them something like Boss T-Rex's. 3 or 4 guys in flak show up, and one steps forward while the other 2 or 3 are fanned out behind, with guns out. Old habits. lol I might not have noticed this if not for the time in PvP. But I often wondered why they played on the PvE server. I knew why I was there. The ability to build using building mods, like the CKF, and actually push what could be done. I knew better than to try that on a PvP server using those mods...those builds would just beg somebody to come and blow them up. So what I learned, was that some of them just wanted to experience a lot of the end game content, or other content, that they didn't get to do on a PvP server, because there the focus was on raiding, and defending from raids. This I understood. Even something as simple as getting all of the explorer notes could be a challenge on PvP. How do you get all of them when one is in turret range, or inside somebody's base? I remember playing Skyrim, and thinking it would be great if it were multiplayer and PvP. The Civil War Mod would have been great with PvP. But I also realize that, while we think that MMO and PvP would be great, at the same time, some aspects of the game don't work, or are severely limited as a result of PvP. I think something like Skyrim would work best in a multiplayer aspect, if it is Co-Op. To really get the most out of the game, as a multiplayer, you would have to play both Co-Op, and PvP modes.

Which, of this continues, will be why the game will at worst, die, or at best, be a niche game.

You misunderstand. People like me, like PvP. What we don't like is being denied the opportunity to PvP because somebody hit us when we weren't online, meaning we have to PvE for days to get back into a position to PvP...but then somebody hits again, when you weren't on, so it's back to grinding and building. When people want the ability to PvO severely diminished or eliminated, it's not because they don't want to PvP...it's because they want to PvP.

This imbalance isn't limited to character attributes. Imagine this...you decide to take a break from the game...it goes live and there is a reset. You are playing another game with friends, and about 6 months after the game goes live, you and your 100 friends decide to give Atlas a try. You are late to the party. But you are a diligent group, and set about trying to get things done. You get some ships built, and a base built, and are just starting to feel you made some progress, and you get wiped. Others were watching, and waiting for you to get just enough to make it worth their while to attack you. You don't have a lot. You got some BPs, but are still working on getting what you need to make everything. You may have even used some of those BPs. But, there is a lot to do. And you can only do so much each day. So while you are just starting to get somewhere, you are in no position to fend off a concerted attack by a Mega, or Alliance of a few 50 man companies. They have been watching. So they know when to strike, and when they do, they are bringing Legendary and Mythical cannons, armor, Carbines, etc... You have no chance. Their Carbines will one shot you, while yours will take several shots, if not more, since they are also wearing very good armor. This is why games like this die. No new companies. They give it a try, and then leave when they experience nothing but frustration. This game will be even worse than many others, because in this game, you lose everything when people raid you. They kill passive tames, destroy foundations...and your storage was destroyed, so that is gone too, even if they didn't want everything. Because so many people left this game, they need to attract people back to the game. Going to be hard to do without a wipe each time significant changes are made to encourage people back. Who wants to come back just to be the punching bag of the companies that are built up? I would say that the problem is that single player RPG mechanics don't actually translate well to MMOs. People want significant rewards for their time spent in game, and achievements. But this creates a problem for the new players.

OK, so we have vulnerability windows, and war tokens. As I understand it, war tokens will allow a 24 hour window of vulnerability. If this is truly how it is going to work, nothing really changes. If I have to sleep, and then go to work, then get some chores done around the house, then eat, and then I have a few hours to play the game...it doesn't matter if I am notified that I can be attacked. I am not going to be able to log in and defend while I am asleep, or at work. So these changes don't solve the problem. Even the 9 hour window doesn't prevent your stuff from being destroyed while you are offline. Who actually spends 9 hours a day in the game? They should have just instituted the war declaration, but given the defenders to set a 4 hour window of vulnerability within a 72 hour period, after being notified of the declaration. This would allow us to set the time to our primetime, when we can actually be on.

Pretty sure that Empires will not last long. Not enough people want to play a game where their stuff can be wiped while they are asleep, or at work.

yes, and I don't think that changed. However, don't expect anything good to come from that. The alliance limits aren't anywhere near strict enough, so Megas are going to ruin the game, by simply splitting into 50 person companies, and allying together. Nothing will change. Megas will still ruin the game.

I get that, and even in WWIIOL, those who cut supply, would rightly argue that what they were doing, really helped their side, and was smart play. As I said, I'm different. I want pure PvP. Skill being the deciding factor in a fight, not who had the time to farm the supplies for enhanced BPs. This is a failing of the game, not of the players. Just as I would argue that offline raids were smart to do, but a failing of the game when it allowed them to happen. If I make it onto somebody's ship, and fight him, I want the end result to be that the winner was more skilled, not just had drastically better equipment. I see no value in a fight where one guy has 100% cannons, planks and sails, and the other guy has 600% cannons, sails and planks. Why even fight that fight? It is only ever going to go one way. Same if one guy has a 100% pistol, and the other guy has a 500% pistol. It's going to end just one way, so why do it. That's why I never cut supply. The fights only went one way. There was no fight. I tried it a few times, and ended up disagreeing with the guy who suggested I do it. He said it was a whole lot of boredom, punctuated by brief moments of excitement. I responded, "it was a whole lot of boredom, punctuated by brief moments of more boredom." No challenge. But, at the same time, I would not have continuously used the Brit scout car to hunt Tigers. That would be pointless. The biggest problem I have with the game, is that it is not noob friendly. This means it will die fast. Noob friendly doesn't mean easy. WWIIOL, I would classify as noob friendly, but at the same time, very hard. Noob friendly because it didn't take long to get into the best equipment, but hard because it was very easy to die in the game...very easy. One solid hit by a noob, and you were dead, no matter who you were. This game will not be like that at all. I've seen how both this game operate, and the ARK operated. A new tribe/company moves in. People watch them. Once they have built up a little bit, but nowhere near well enough to compete with you, you hit them, and hit them hard. You bring more numbers, and that combined with superior equipment, tames, and knowledge of the game, means that is ending just one way. Seen it happen to people a lot. Eventually they leave.

That's ridiculous, and where there needs to be limiters in place. Like it or not, gamers do not think about the long term health of a game. It's an amazingly short sighted, and selfish attitude, but it is what it is, and so it is up to the Devs to do something about it.

That would be Star Citizen. Grapeshot would need to get over $200 million in funds, somehow, to make it.

I don't consider that to be hard core PvP. I do not PvP to cause pain to other people, or to educate them, or ruin his day. I PvP for the challenge. If not for that challenge, I would only play good single player games, such as the Mass Effect trilogy, Witcher 3, Skyrim, etc... When I played WWIIOL, I went there to play as infantry. I was with a group that had played the Delta Force series. We intended to be a special forces infantry group. That game had a launch more horrible than Atlas. At a time where games released on CDs and DVDs, and were complete and polished, WWIIOL launched in Alpha state. They eventually turned it into an incredible game, but many left before that happened. Our squad broke apart, so I started just playing the game with a couple of friends, as well as lone-wolfing. At some point, I chose to try the tanks. My first experience was less than glorious. WTF killed without a clue how it happened. That inspired me to learn how to use those tanks, and excel with them. I did that. I started finishing campaigns in the top 25. Never finished #1, but some of the Devs, at a convention, made it clear to me that they believed me to be the #1, after following all of the top players. Because it was a subscription game, they had the most aggressive anti-cheat policy I have ever seen. If you were unusually successful, and or, had many accusations of cheating, they followed you to see if you were cheating. They pointed out that I was the only one in the top of the leaderboards who did not cut supply to get there. Cutting supply was basically camping the resupply routes to catch those resupplying. It was near impossible to combat them. You just hoped you didn't run into them. Many of my deaths came to them. The point being that I was, and still am the type that does PvP for the challenge. But there is a huge difference between a challenge, and a lost cause. Frankly, I am losing my passion for this game due to my realization that it isn't really about the PvP. It's about production. I definitely preferred WWIIOL, where everything was about as equal as it could be. Slight differences in equipment, which required different strategies to be successful, but it was possible to be successful no matter what you used. Games like this are different. Some guy with vanilla ship and cannons, has zero chance against somebody who has BPs, and knows how to fight. When you can't even carry enough ammo to defeat him, and his cannons strip your planks in one shot, that fight is only going to end one way, even if he sucks as a captain. That just doesn't excite me either way. Being the guy with vanilla would be frustration, and being the guy with the BP ship would be boring, in that fight. I realize that this attitude makes me much different than most who play games...most for whom winning is the only thing that matters, no matter how that happens.

I have only played PvP in this game.

I wouldn't play Official PvE if you paid me. Bunch of toxic idiots who don't like neighbors, so they spam pillars everywhere, to prevent other people building. The best thing they could do for PvE is allow you one Sea Claim, and one Base claim, with that claim being a little bigger than it is now. Just big enough to put a base inside of it. And limit the number a company can have. If they don't do that, Atlas will be just like ARK PvE ended up. One person, or tribe, taking up way more land than they needed, with pillars. One way or another, Grapeshot is going to have to deal with this...likely with some sort of limiting mechanic. I don't see the upkeep being what does that job.

I am predicting most likely scenario. I understand metagamers. I also heard about the megas telling Grapeshot that they couldn't enforce the limits...that they would still work together. So I am very much predicting the decline of the game, when those Megas act like a Mega on Colonies. Take a hint. We don't want you there.

Or we just go find a new game. If the Megas don't want to play on dead servers, they should disband. If they act like Megas on the Colonies server, it won't be long before they are the only ones left.

Not to mention the fact that they have already started down this road. In the beginning, was there even a limit? I know at some point, it was 500, then went to 250, and now on the Colonies server, it will be 50. The reasonable situation is for there to be two servers, one with limits and one without. They did that, but it seems that the Megas wanted the rules implemented on Colonies, except the member and alliance limits, so the obvious fix is to have the limits even more strict on Colonies, but add the Colonies rules that the Megas want, to the Empires server. This seems obvious...have a meeting with the Megas again, and ask them which of the rules they like, and which they do not like, and make the Empires server to meet their needs. The present course appears to be a fiasco. We know the Megas are coming to the Colonies server, so many are not going to play, and those that do, are going to be hyper sensitive to anything that even smells like a Mega circumventing the rules. Those that wanted Colonies, wanted it to get away from the Megas. When they find themselves in the same situation on the Colonies server, they will leave for good. They will lose any and all faith in the Devs to deliver to them a game that they want to play.

Which is why the Devs should limit the number of people in an Alliance to something like 80, and only allow one Alliance, not two. Think about how this system they are talking about will work. I could literally have an 800 man Company, still working together. So you would divide into groups of 200. You have 50 fighters in each Alliance, and they would all be in one company. So then the 50 man fighter companies would also join together in a 200 man fighting alliance. This group, this Mega will rule just as they ruled before, and people will leave and never come back, no matter what an update promises, because this update, with the Colonies, and Empires was supposed to give the little guy a chance. When it doesn't, he is gone for good.