Captain Jack Shadow

18 hours ago, The D Legacy said:

i have played a lot of games, many of them has the same animals, but they have never been so similar to eachother as to say: "hey, that X animal is identical to the X animal on Y game", so what if one of them jump higher? it still is an asset copy paste. 

That's just it...it's not a copy and paste.  What don't you understand about that?  It's like somebody making a game with the Unreal Engine, and putting a Ford Mustang in it.  Then making a new game where they take that Mustang and convert it into a Chevy Camaro.  Yes, both are cars.  Yes, both are sports cars.  Yes, both are American made cars.  Yet, they aren't the same.   There are a lot of differences between the two.  If you played both games, you would know that.

You said you play 7d2d.  You do know that it's made with the very dated Half Life 2 Engine, right?  Know how I know?  I recognize many of the assets, especially sounds, which are virtually unchanged from Half Life 2.  That doesn't seem to bother you very much.

21 hours ago, PistolWhip said:

Get a Good Sextant Buff going and max out your Sightseeing. Shipwrecks will appear on you MAP long before they come into Render (assuming of course their location on the map isn't broken which happens far too often). Just keep farming shipwrecks and you'll get one eventually, and it's decent gold especially on 2x. I recommend doing a circuit around your home Grid looking for shipwrecks before leaving your zone. For whatever reason my home grid almost always has perfect shipwreck markers on my map, but the moment I move to another grid the accuracy of these markers plummet. Good Luck! 

If you are going to look for shipwrecks, and plan to look in several grids, do yourself a favor and visit your animal pen to pick up some suicide pills, also known as poop.  Put them in a box, or smithy, or anything you can store them in.   Use your sextant, and search for the shipwrecks.  Then, after crossing into a new grid, eat the poop to kill yourself quickly.  Respawn, grab your gear, and redo the sextant buff.

Crossing into a new grid causes a bug.  The wrecks are are not where they appear on the map.  Plus, you can't redo the sextant buff until it has expired.  Respawning resets the buff,  so you can redo it.

Grapeshot needs to stop listening to these guys when it comes to loot and drops in this game.

There could be plenty of things to do.  Make Flotsam better, make the shipwrecks better.  Make cargo hauling better.  Allow us to sell resources at the Freeport, and get gold...sell to the NPCs.  Then buy resources we want, with that gold.  That is something severely lacking in this game.

Create NPC ships to pirate.  Ah, but that would mean they have to make NPC ships with sails.  Something they have yet to do.

Make more things to find on the ocean floor.

Get the focus off of bases, and onto stuff at sea, and going to, and exploring islands.  That is also something severely lacking in this game.  I found exploring to be much more enjoyable in Conan Exiles.  Cities with their NPCs were also more fun.

This is the firm that Grapeshot consulted with for the design of drops and loot, in this game.

When it comes to things like this, Atlas fails hard.  I too have looked for things like that, but the highest wreck I have seen was a 10 quality.  Most are between 3 and 8.  Eventually, you just give up.  Atlas is like that in so many ways.  The good stuff is so rare, you just stop looking.  And even a high level flotsam, for instance, doesn't mean you will get anything good.  The highest level flotsams I have hauled in, have all given me garbage.  Like a Legendary Thatch Wall.  Who the hell wants that?  I get it, you can't have great stuff in every flotsam, but the good stuff is just too rare, to the point of making you feel like you are wasting your time.

I have picked up a lot of map bottles.  Fully 90% are common, and the rest were Fine.  I no longer go out of my way to get map bottles.  Why bother?  It's just going to be disappointing when they end up being garbage.  Everything about Conan is not great, but the drops I got there were far more rewarding.

Fast travel ruins games, more often than not.  For instance, in Conan Exiles, it makes it impossible to avoid being raped by the server Alpha before you can get built up.  They can just make an endurance build, and scour the map, and find your base, every single day, if they want to.  Then, when they want to raid you...super easy..just fast travel with a map.  Thankfully, Star Citizen is not going to have fast travel.

2 hours ago, Whitehawk said:

trouble with a lotta mmo's devs find it easier to make the game grindier than to add content and make the game exciting to play. And yeh I agree about the skill tree, when I started a company I thought we'd all have different skills to offer, but no you all have to have basically the same which just seems daft. If a shipyard is company built then anyone should be able to build any ship on it if the skills have been bought already by an individual in the group, same as tames. alternatively they could give you the chance to open every skill line as an individual player. although there is discovery points atm.

We could do different things, if they allowed us to choose what we want, and only spend points on what we want.  They literally have the worst skill tree I have ever seen in a game.  They should separate occupations, like tamer, breeder, farmer, cook, builder, ship builder, weapons crafter, armor crafter, in a different tree.  These are your occupations.  These are the things where people can specialize.  The other stuff is essential for everyone to have.  Riding, assorted fighting skills, captaineering, vitamins, gathering, etc...all need to be easier to get to.  We all need them.  I'm not saying you need all of the skills, such as every last fighting skill, but I am tired of having to choose between being able to fight with a tame, and being able to use a Sextant, or have fast turning sails, etc...  Really killing my enjoyment of the game.  They promised us that they were going to change the skill tree.  They haven't.  It needs a total rework.  People shouldn't be unable to fight when they are attacked, just because they had skill points into occupations they needed in order to be useful.  And they shouldn't have to sacrifice being useful, just to be ready to fight when attacked.  Then their idiotic solution is to make us go to a freeport to respec.  Yeah, I will just tell the enemy to take a smoke break for an hour, while I take the gold they want to steal, and go to the freeport to respec into fighting skills.  Yeah, I am sure they will accommodate me.  A game like this, they should let us create stat/skill profiles, and have potions on hand, like the alcohols, to respec with.  And don't make them decay.  Just let them be like the alcohol so you can make some, and have them on hand for when you get attacked, and need to respec into fighting.  Having profiles would be helpful so you can drink the potion, and then click a button, and be ready to fight the attackers.

On 11/18/2019 at 3:47 PM, Inigo said:

 all the things most casuals lack.
 

Time is the biggest factor.  It takes a lot of materials to make just one barrel.  How many barrels would it take to get good at dive bombing with them?  A casual Company isn't going to be able to get good with barrels.  It's an absurd concept anyway.  Some people have lives.  They can't spend 8-12 hours in this game, every day, like some people do.  You could have simply said that this is a niche game for people who have time to dedicate to the game, and that means 6+ hours a day, if you want to compete.  Add in that I get a lot of screen freezing in combat.  How the hell am I going to hit anything on the ground with a barrel?  I will be doing everything I can not to crash into the ground.  It really sucks that they turned the most powerful weapon into something that only people with the best computers and internet, can use.  Just one more dumb decision by the Devs.

We have people in our Star Citizen group who are or were competitive gamers..mostly FPS.   They do not have the time to succeed in this game.  They don't have 4 or more hours every single day, to play.  This does not make them casual games.  Somites, KittenNova, xAngeldustx, Lost Ikon, MegaOhms, w4rb0t, prutknund, AJRKiller, Lothain, Sgt.Roberts, and others have all repeatedly topped the leaderboards, and kept us consistently top 3 minimum, out of 46k orgs.  Here, they would be called casuals because of one thing...time.

I just checked the leaderboards.  They have us #3 in Elimination, and #1 in Last Stand.  But that game is all about skill.  1v1 KittenNova.  She will give you new respect for girl gamers.

On 11/21/2019 at 11:05 AM, Gemini Five said:

I have about 2000 hours in. I've lived there a long time. I do understand the basic. That still does nothing for you when a whale renders right in your path when your at top speed and you can't turn to avoid. Resulting in an impact and a full stop, with the second strike takes out 4 planks. Then you get to the side of the whale to start moving again only to get the deathblow.

The post if poorly written is about 1. The time required to get somewhere while requiring continued full awareness just in case (boring). 2. Because you may have something render right in your path at close range.  Rendering range being the key issue, as it has always been.

It could be an easy fix. They could move the SOD and whales 300 meters off the grid border until they fix rendering range. So, those just wanting to get somewhere could travel the border and those wanting to hunt just go inward. That would also fix the problem of crossing a grid just to res/rending in the middle of an SOD fleet.

On 11/21/2019 at 12:52 PM, Dochollyhood said:

Yeah... render distance is boned. I definitely agree there.

Many are not aware of this, but there is a slider for ship render distance.  Slide it all the way to the right.  Also, another setting to set view distance to epic.   It's not much, but it does give you a little bit more time to turn.

On 11/20/2019 at 7:30 AM, Daigari said:

I don't know why a person who doesn't have the proper skills has the task of crossing half the world on a ship.

 

The skills are too limiting.  I fight on a bear, or tiger, so I need to be spec'd fully into beast mastery.  Why?  Why do I have to waste so many points for things I don't need?  We have tamers and breeders, but to fully exploit the tame's abilities, I have to fully spec into taming, breeding, etc...  I also need a personal combat skill.  Spec'ing into one or two takes a huge amount of points.  In the end, even at level 60, I just don't have enough to put into sailing.  Takes too many wasted points to get to the skills I need.  Not to mention that I have to waste points on vitamin depletion.

I wanted to hug the Star Citizen Dev during the Citizen Con demo.  The character wakes up, and goes to make some coffee.  They explained that you will have to eat and drink, but you won't have to do so every hour, like survival games make you do.  You aren't going to run out of water just because you sprinted, and you won't get hungry just because you mined some rocks.  It is simply going to add to immersion, not be something you have to constantly do.  It will just make the game feel more realistic.  You aren't going to suddenly start groaning, and then die if you don't get several steaks into your belly.

On 11/24/2019 at 7:16 PM, The D Legacy said:

sorry, did my statements hurt your feelings?  is not adviced for fragile minds to wander in this forum without the supervision of an adult.

 

This is comedy gold.  You cry about being insulted and humiliated in one post, and then admonishing somebody complaining about you doing it to them.   LOL

On 11/16/2019 at 6:19 AM, The D Legacy said:

you are getting me wrong, using the same engine in different games can give them a similar feeling (wich is what you are talking about), that is well know by any veteran gamer(you dont need to have a phd to know that), what i am talking about is: then you take those generic assets and add your own creativity and that is what makes each game unique. 

 

You used the crab as your example.  It was a horrible example.  The odd thing is that you ignored that the bear is practically identical to the bear in ARK, as is the monkey.  So what?  How different can the bear, or monkey be?  A bear is a bear.  But you used the crab.  Do yourself a favor and look at two side by side pictures of the ARK crab, and the Atlas crab.  Are there some similarities?  Sure.  They are both giant crabs.  And yet, they look totally different.  The ARK crab has 4 claws, though only two work.  The shapes and colors of the head, body and legs are all different.  The Atlas crab has abilities that the ARK crab does not.  The ARK crab does not jump as high as the Atlas Crab, for instance.  You tame it differently.  I mean, how different does it have to be?  It's still a giant crab, so it has to look like a giant crab.  Do yourself a favor and look at the two pictures side by side, before you keep embarrassing yourself.

On 10/17/2019 at 5:50 AM, The D Legacy said:

 if your interests swing to the farming/taming side there are much better game for that than atlas. 

There are also much better games for PvP.  The movements of people are weird and glitchy.  It would be challenging to hit them with an assault rifle, let alone a single shot pistol, carbine, or boy and arrow.

This game is horrible for PvP because the mechanics make it such that many battles are decided by those mechanics, not player skill.

2 hours ago, XxMayhemxX said:

 Im wowed at the number of ppl who just ignore that fact and expect it to work perfect...       

I understand that.  I take that into account.  It's not about EA, it's about the same mistakes being made over and over, and the fact is, these types of games tend to attract a lot of interest in the beginning, but die off very quickly, and that is for multiple reasons.

Why do people buy these games?

1. Something in the trailer made them believe it was going to be a fun enjoyable experience.
2. They greatly overestimate how well they will be able to do in the game.
3. They might not have experience with these kinds of games, but something made them try it.
4. Their friends talked them into it, or their gaming squad decides to try it.

Why do so many people who buy these games, leave the game in a short period of time.

1. They aren't having fun.
2. Their clan is constantly getting kicked around. (Nobody will stick around for that, for long.)
3. They quickly learn that this type of game isn't for them.
4. Their friends weren't having fun, and left.

Why might they not be having fun?  I can write a novel on that.  Suffice it to say that this kind of game attracts a lot of people who also like single player RPGs.  A game like this is trying to mix RPG elements, into a PvP experience, and frankly, that JUST DOES NOT WORK SO WELL.  Many players have this strong sense of entitlement to have advantages because they have been here longer.  But, those advantages equate to the game being so imbalanced that a newer player, or somebody who doesn't have half the hours to game as another guy, will be at an insurmountable disadvantage.  For instance, we got raided.  I play as much as I can, but it's not enough to keep up with the guys playing all the time.  Such that I was mid 40s level when 6 players invaded that were 90s level.  Their time in the game made it such that I had zero chance against them.  Include that I was spec'd for getting things done for the company, but these guys were spec'd for combat.  Add in that when they attacked, they had all the goodies...alcohol, pudding, etc...  They were also carrying an absurd number of grenades.  In short, my defeat is hard coded into the game.  They had many more achievements, giving them more bonuses, and their higher levels gave them far more health, stamina, feats, etc...  A fight with one of them ends just one way for me.  There is no getting around that.   When that raid happened, it took the wind out of my sails.  My thinking?  What's the point.  Why even bother.  All I am doing is providing fun for somebody else, while experiencing nothing but frustration myself.

Meanwhile, two weeks ago, my Star Citizen group did a 25 vs 25 ground combat event with another Organization, and we won both rounds.  The first one was close, but the second one, we literally only lost one guy, but took out the entire opposing team.  The first round was close because we used the same tactics, leaving it up to random chance and shooter skill.  The second round, we made better decisions, which allowed us to get to the objective first, and so we had the defender's advantage.  And yet, everyone on both teams felt like it was a lot of fun, and want to do it again.  But then, the set-up wasn't that we were in heavy armor, with them in light, and us using heavy weapons, while they used SMGs and pistols.  In other words, we had basically the same gear.  It was equal, it was fair, and this allowed the first round to be very close.  Even the second round was fun.  We were getting hit, but had better terrain to work with.  The winner wasn't decided before the event even started, but in Atlas, when you have a Mythical Ship vs a Common, or even a Masterwork, it's decided before the shooting even starts.  When one fighter on the ground runs into another, and one is level 90 and spec'd for combat, and the other is level 45, and not spec'd for combat, the end is decided before the fighting even starts.

Then you add in how you can work for months to get a base built, resources gathered, BPs gathered, maps gathered, ships built, tames tamed and bred, and in one day, a stronger Company can wipe you out, leaving you to start all over again.  I have seen that take the wind out of the sails of many people.  It has come to the point that I realize that our company is still on the island it is on, simply because the bigger companies just haven't decided they want our island yet.

In short, the game just isn't fun.  And when you have to deal with long standing bugs, like putting foundations down, and then one just won't snap, saying it's blocked, or tames disappearing off of ships for no reason, etc...  I could care less about new content.  I want bugs fixed, and better game mechanics.  Mechanics that make the game more fun for everybody and put an emphasis on skill, not time in game.

The good news for me is that Star Citizen 3.8 is very close to being finished and it has a ton of new content and bug fixes.

1 hour ago, Winter Thorne said:

From a PvP perspective, I suppose that's true.  From a PvE perspective, it's the devs that keep wiping you out so you have to rebuild.

Yes, it's EA.  Everybody expects there to be a lot of churn and expects a wipe might happen if there's no way around it.  But in previous EAs, betas, alphas, and other unfinished games, it has always seemed to me that a wipe would happen in order to enable some big new thing everyone was looking forward to, or fix some really rotten thing everyone hated.  Our first one here was to put in a new claim system nobody wanted, and our second was to fiddle around the edges with reconfiguring some of the islands and adding a few more.  Pretty disappointing reasons for wiping everything and everyone out, and the player base has shown their opinion of it by heading for the door.  That's from a PvE perspective.

I see your point, and agree, but I should have been more specific.  I see how my wording could be confusing.  I was actually referring to how you can get raided, and stuff popcorned, but your base remains intact, which is similar to a wipe, but much of your base is left standing.  Then at other times, you might get wiped.  To be honest, if your base is left standing but most of your stuff is gone, it can feel very much like a wipe.  You still know you are starting from scratch.  Many people are going to move to a new base, or island, at that point anyway, if they even stay with the game.  But, I was also trying to distinguish between the raids were you lose everything, and the raids where they wipe you to the point that there is no point in staying where you are.  Nobody really does a total foundation wipe anymore.  They take the island, and then use the game mechanics to wipe the entire island...normally.

This is why I highlighted that this is going to be much different in Star Citizen.  Chris Roberts has made statements, and we already know about the insurance for most things.  Since there will not be separate servers for PvE and PvP, they are not going to allow it to be a winner take all scenario, or they would have to have two Universes, which is not a good thing.  Frankly, this game, Atlas, would be better if so much focus wasn't on base defense.  On official, and some unofficials, I get horrible frame lag.  Why?  Huge amount of structures, and huge amount of NPCs for puckles, and huge amount of tames.

Seeing how this game is playing out, it makes me appreciate the differences that I am seeing in Star Citizen.

Well, to be honest, to travel 14 grids, you don't just have to travel in one direction.  What about going to a Power Stone, and then back to your base?  It's not like your ships are safe on just any old island.  So once you start the trip, you are basically committed.  This can take all day, when you consider getting there, finding the Hydra, defeating the Hydra, running the key to get the power stone, then sailing home.  And it's not like this is going to be smooth sailing in either direction.  This kind of a time commitment makes the game somewhat of a niche game...only for those who can play for long stretches...very long stretches.

I will be honest...if not for others doing the sailing to and from the power stone islands, I wouldn't have half of them.

On 11/14/2019 at 4:27 PM, Winter Thorne said:

I make these mental lists of the things I want to do in the game.  We've been wiped a few times now and each time when I get restart, it seems like an uphill climb to get back to where I was before the wipe so I can continue working on my list.  It really feels like you're making no progress at all when you're doing the same thing for the third time just so you can feel like "Ok, NOW I can restart".

This is a problem with all survival games where raiding and wiping is a thing.  This is exactly why these games get a lot of interest when they are new, but the population dies very quickly.  The population dies, because people feel like they are spinning their wheels.  Farm, build, get raided, farm, rebuild, get raided, farm, rebuild, get wiped, farm rebuild, get raided, farm, rebuild get wiped...quit and move on to a new game.

Conan is really bad.  Only 40 to a server.  You might be getting raided, and can't get on.  People can simply look at the player list, and see how many are on, from a company they want to raid.  The Alphas keep hitting you as soon as you start to get anywhere, so you never get anywhere.  Last one we were on, we had just gotten into a tier 3 structure, and 2 days later, log in to find the Alpha in our base.  So we told them to enjoy their server.  That we wouldn't be back.  And we haven't played that game since.  Was only a month ago.  No point in it.

Quote

In that respect, yeah, sailing for mats to rebuild the same ship and buildings you just had wiped out seems like it would deserve a fast-forward button.  If that's the case Grapeshot CAN control it, using any of the ways I listed previously  in a rant-filled anti-wipe post.

As a general game mechanic?  No.  No way would fast travel with inventories be a good thing for this game.  But as a wipe sweetner, a one-time ticket for a boatload of mats post-wipe wouldn't hurt.

This is where Star Citizen is going to shine.  Pretty much everything will be insured.  Your ship, your cargo, your upgrades, your bases, your inventories at the base...etc...  You might lose everything, but you will just set up someplace else.  Your progress will be delayed a bit, but you don't lose everything.  The winner...the ones that beat you, get their reward in the stuff they stole from you, but you won't be starting over on an impossible-to-win, treadmill.

On 11/14/2019 at 10:26 AM, Gemini Five said:

I understand that but I live in a polar zone. It is easy to out run a whale, but when the first sign of one is its health bar, that has already aggroed on you, right in front of you. Also as someone that lives on 15,  I'm now seeing a whole lot more whales now! I think there may be too many now but I don't hate whales and would not remove whales. Even as recent as a few weeks ago, you might sails many grids without seeing one. Not anymore. It's about the balance of danger. Some danger is good, too much becomes a nuisance.

Nothing more irritating than wanting to go whaling, and not being able to find a whale.  I am happy they changed the amount of whales.  In season 2, we sailed through 20 Grids without seeing a single whale.  This season, I wanted the Monstrous Sperm whale achievement, so I took our whaler, and sailed through 3 or 4 grids without seeing one, and then I found one, and then I found 2 more while sailing through 5 grids.  Only spotted 4 blue whales while sailing through about a dozen grids where they spawn.  Seems just fine to me.

On 11/15/2019 at 3:02 PM, Coldpaws said:

if your seeing your tames off the ship, if your close to the grid line cross over, and they will snap back, if your near an island go in and anchor and they will snap back it happens in ark too stil, with small tames on rafts. also I brought back 6 razor tooths stacked from the stern to the bow with some shield horns and our tames we brought with us, they glitched off the ship, but like I said soon as we cross or anchored they snapped back

 

I had 4 tames on the ship.  Two imprinted and leveled bears, plus two small pets.  All 4 disappeared...only 3 actually snapped back after crossing the grid.  Something has to be done about this.  Some people keep explaining work arounds, etc...but the bottom line is that this is a game breaking bug.

20 hours ago, Atlaneer said:

What tame takes hundreds of hours???

To fully breed, imprint, and then level?  You must not deal with many tames.  Every tame is not going to be used for maps.  Most things you do with a tame, does not earn it much XP.  When you are in a large company, and have hundreds of tames, they aren't going to get leveled overnight.

20 hours ago, The D Legacy said:

Is funny when people try to discuss something by first of all insulting  and discredit the other person opinion calling them ignorants while they didnt even understood the idea being expressed in the first place, you are getting me wrong, using the same engine in different games can give them a similar feeling (wich is what you are talking about), that is well know by any veteran gamer(you dont need to have a phd to know that), what i am talking about is: then you take those generic assets and add your own creativity and that is what makes each game unique.

I dont aggre with the "thats how bussines are done" i would say that how low quality products are done, and its called being cheap. and its very easy to prove, play "satisfactory" is a early acces well rounded factory simulator that used already existing asssets and infused them with a lot of creativity making the game unique, play "7days 2 die" is a alpha state of development zombie survival with low graphical quality that uses their own assets + a lot of creativity wich make it very fun to play even when the physics and the looking of the game is awfull, play "oxygen not included" is a early acces that just recently was launched to its 1.0 version, its a colony management simulation with so much originality that i have never played something that reminds me of it, those games prove that there is still companies that make things right (luckly) so at the end of the day excuses are just excuses.

And there are tooooooons of excuses that people use to defend this game, but they dont get several things:

-their conformism will never help improve nor the game nor the gaming industry it will only help "improvisations" like atlas hit the market and be a failure

-the fact that they like the game doesnt make it a good pproduct and the fact that someone is critic about it doesnt mean they have to stop liking it

-cristicism is not only something desirable rather is something fundamental to improve whatever you want to improve.

people attack and insult here because in today's bland society being delicate with other people's feelings is more imprortant than facts, but i refuse to be a sheep, i will be critic, i will be direct and i will be harsh, because how the hell are we gonna improve anything if we become the defenders of mediocrity.

 

No dude, I asked a legitimate question.  Sorry, there is nothing wrong with being critical, where it is due, and there is PLENTY to be critical of with this game.  Plenty of things that are actually broke as fuck, such as the building system, tames disappearing off your ships, frame lag and stuttering, etc...   Crabs that look nothing like the crab from ARK, is nothing to cry about.  While they may have used some of the ARK code for the Atlas crab, there is a lot different about it, both visually, and the game mechanics side of it.  Stop trying to win this argument, because you already lost it.  You are crying about something that is absolutely ridiculous, when there are actual, legitimate things to complain about.

11 minutes ago, Cap’n Ro said:

Please list all of the gaming studios/companies that don’t use the same assets from other games developed by them.

None

37 minutes ago, Whitehawk said:

Let's be honest though pvp stands for player vs player right? not player vs empty ship or building right?

Not until game makers stop making the games about base defense.  I mean, yes in theory, or by definition, you are right, but that's not how they are making games.  They want to get to a point where it is as sandboxy as possible, but the problem with that is that Meta players then wreck the game.  Meta players do not care about the health of a game community...they care about winning, at all costs, and many will use any exploit or nefarious means to do so.  This is why it is up to Devs to police their communities, and create structure in the game that herds players in the right directions.  Think of it like having a rule in baseball that says you have to touch all the bases, in order, to score a run.  If you don't have that rule, the game would be ruined instantly, because players would make the rules up as they go.  A guy hits a single, and he simply doesn't run.  He just steps on home plate and says he scored.  The rules don't say he has to run the bases, so...    This is what Devs have to do...provide the structure that makes the game fun for everyone, not just the Alphas.

On 11/14/2019 at 9:32 AM, Sydhart said:

Never put tames anywhere but on the top deck of your ship unless you want to lose them. They can glitch out from waves and in shallow water. Also make sure they are on passive. If you are swimming to your ship and get hit by a manta ray or shark they will also glitch off to attack and you may not even notice. 

Also make sure they aren't on the back of the boat. They need to be on the main deck towards the front. If you put them towards the rear, especially on ceilings, they will glitch out.

 

True for the most part.  You are pointing out that the code has problems that need to be fixed.  These are just work around methods that do work sometimes...except that animals on the top deck, can and do, glitch below that deck, often getting caught inside a ship.  We have literally had to pull another ship next to a ship, so you can get the option to make the tame go to the other ship, because it wouldn't follow you off the ship, or come up to the upper deck.

And this is not limited to ships.  In our bases, you can at any time, walk in and find bears below the floor they should be on.  Sometimes you can just make them follow you and they will pop back up on the proper floor, but not always.

Something else I have been noticing lately, when salvaging sunk ships.  I keep glitching through walls and ceilings, or get blocked by walls that aren't there.  Again, something is really wrong with the code.

6 hours ago, DocHolliday said:

When tames start lagging behind the ship walk to where it was and punch. It forces an update and the tame reappears.  Its a synch issue between the client and server.  I do this regularly and have never once lost a tame at sea.  I've had a few attack sharks because I forgot to put them on passive, but thats on me and I whistled them back to the boat or hopped on them and rode them back. 

They should tighten up the code.  Sync issues are still a bug, and in this case, a game killing one.  To just have a tame you spent hundreds of hours on, to just disappear off your ship...that's a problem.  And when you are solo sailing through enemy territory, and SotD are around, and then a storm comes up...you don't always have time to go punch anything.  And where do you punch?  If the tame is off the ship, where to punch?  Oh, somebody has to search online for a work around?  Unacceptable.  I won't make apologies for that kind of problem.  It's bad enough that issues can arise when you cross boundaries, but this is a sailing game.  People shouldn't need to fear taking tames to sea.  The only fear should be getting sunk, and losing them that way.  It would be one thing if this happened rarely, but it happens every time you go to sea...desync every single time.  And now, we have a bug where suddenly your ship starts thinking it's a submarine.  And you get that stuttering that is so irritating.

They need to work on these bugs, not new content.  Allow for building mechanics that aren't fubar, fix the desync issues, etc...  People are getting tired of playing buggy games.

11 hours ago, Sheepshooter said:

It will not be possible to make offline raiding go away... it is the best time to raid...
It will not be possible to make you only raid-able when you are online, especially when it is the island that is protected/raid-able (one man company being always offline would make un-raid-able)...

Sooo, again, if offline raiding cannot be stopped without breaking all PVP... make the defenses so that offline raiding is no longer a walk in the park while shooting fish (puckles and cannons) in barrel...
It does not mean that they cannot wipe you... but if your defenses are toxic enough they will go for an easier target... and if they still want to wipe you, it will cost them...
Right now people are quitting (again) because what ever they try they cannot secure their stuff and don't see how to rebuild (again) to continue...
Same as the small people that see their anchored ships sunk too easy and cannot be bothered to rebuild that (again)...

If they cannot continue your journey in Atlas they quit... that is where the game mechanic is broken...

I want to offer, again, the idea to make every claimed island raid protected, but for the claim flag which is fully raid-able... Only if the island gets de-claimed the rest gets (lawless) raid-able... this would help with all settlers helping to defend before they get their stuff blown up... this would also help with structure spam because there is only one place that needs defense... and as same goes for ships in anchor we save on harbor defense structures as well... 

What you highlight is not that raiding is bad.   What is bad is the wipe.  I've never seen anyone quit if a raid happened, and somebody took a small amount of stuff from you.  What you highlight is that this game could be greater than ARK, or any other game, but they have to get away from the whole mentality of base raiding, and wiping.  They need to find a way to turn it into a pirate game, not a land conquest game.  I have given many suggestions to change the game.  Most they have ignored.  It would require a complete rethink of the game.  The problem is that they seem to think that basing a game around the acquisition of stuff is fun for people.  In other words, they think people find it fun to accumulate a lot of stuff, and get to the point that you are powerful, only to lose it all, and now you have to start over.  They don't seem to understand that when it takes you weeks and months to accumulate it, this isn't like striking out in baseball.  Of course in baseball, you are going to strike out, and come back to the plate, over and over, to take your next at-bat.  Games like this are different.  You spend months building up, and acquiring things such as maps, BPs, ships, quality shipyards, bases, breeding tames, etc...  You lose it in one day, and now you are looking at starting over, knowing that those around you are miles ahead of you...months ahead of you, and it takes the wind out of your sails.  Many people quit.  I've seen people in our company, this season, quit after their ship was sunk, while they were offline.  Just their ship.

This is why I have argued that the game should get completely away from land defense, and make it all about ship combat, and exploration.  Wouldn't it be cool if we had treasure maps that tell us only the island it is on, and we have to explore the island, to find the treasure, and AotD?  Make the pillar much shorter range so you have to get closer to it?  And wouldn't it be better to do more cargo hauling, and pirating of those cargo haulers?  Getting better building components could be about upkeep.  Why not make buildings slowly decay, like ships do at sea?  And make ships slowly decay in port, like 100 times slower than at sea, so you still need to do upkeep once in a while, before going to sea.

Make Freeports more of a hub of activity.  Am I the only one who thinks that it is odd that the place where new people pop in, for their first experience in the game, is almost devoid of life?  Shouldn't it be just the opposite?  Wouldn't this make it even better for recruiting, and thus better for new solo players?

Wouldn't removing the whole wipe thing, make the game suddenly more optimal for solo players, and small companies?  Wouldn't people be able to put more time into sailing, and exploring the map, if they don't have to worry about a wipe?

This way, they could possibly remove the whole raid window, and you would have to always be on the lookout, on land.  You could still be killed.

I do know that things would not be perfect.  Would they ever, so long as you have players who will insist on breaking the game, just because they can?  But imagine how far along we would be had they went this route from the beginning?

This would of course, cause a need for a whole new way of base building...new mechanics.  You would need to limit the size of a company's structure count.  You would need to bring back those land claim flags, but only allow the company to have 1, and 1 sea claim for a port.  Ships anchored in the sea claim can't be damaged.  Any structure built outside of the land claim or sea claim, will decay in 24 hours.  So no pillar spamming, and no griefing other people with structures.  Make it a TOS to use structures to block access.  Make no build zones around the resources that are rare on the island.  Make it a TOS to block them.  No fencing them in, or limiting other's access to them, since they can't destroy your structures.  Make a 72 hour cool down for building on an island when you build anything there, outside of your claim.  In other words, you go to another island, and you build a taming pen.  You can't do so again for 72 hours, after the structure decays, which would be 24 hours.  Or, if you take it down yourself, that starts the time.  But no other structures can be on the island, outside of your claim.  This way, if somebody does use a structure in a bad way, to grief or harass, they can't just keep rebuilding it every day.

You get the point.  Yes things would need to be worked out, but they should go this route, even as an option, like how they tried colonies, and empires, and people made it clear they wanted colonies.  If they created a ship vs ship server...call it the dangerous seas server, or something like that...I'm pretty sure that most people would choose that mode.

Now, they could do like a guy did with his private ARK server.  Allow mutually agreed war.  Two companies decide that they want to battle it out for control of an area...they are tired of the other company being in their area...so they agree to battle it out.  A war window is opened, when they mutually agree to do so.  Maybe options could be put in place to allow for them to agree on a start time, and a duration.  When this happens, the members of these two companies, can cause damage to the structures of the other.  So the winner will get to stay in the area, and the lose will need to move on.  They could even make it such that if you are wiped, you can not settle in that tile, the surrounding tiles, the next ring of tiles, and the ring around that group.  So, you would need to move a minimum of 4 tiles away.

Trade would become more prolific.  You would have several smaller companies on an island, and one guy might be aggressive about mining the metal.  So he puts a lot of it in his store, and people can buy it.  So now you load up ships with the cargo containers, and take them to a port.  You offload it onto a dock, and its contents can now be traded for gold.  The more rare the resource, the more you can charge for it.  resources on that island...you won't pay as much for.  Resources from 6 or 7 tiles away...now you are willing to pay more gold.