Captain Jack Shadow

I like that idea, and was thinking that this would be a good way for somebody to get started. They gather stuff, and sell it, then get gold, then take that gold to a freeport, and buy stuff, and that stuff arrives on a ship. Would be a cool idea.

2. The idea is to have a system that makes you want to keep a low profile. You want to pirate, but not so much that the Crown decides you need to be taken care of. What this does is create a balance between small Companies and Mega Companies, as the Mega Company wouldn't be able to misbehave anymore than the small companies. It removes their ability to be bullies just because they are big. Their size would only make them more likely to be successful in a raid. But they couldn't just go out and screw with people just because they can. Their leaders would need to keep track of their unlawful deeds, and try to balance it so they don't end up on the most wanted list. 3. I agree that you don't want a mess of ships there, but some ships makes it interesting. So how about this. After 3 days, or after a certain number of ships are there at anchor, some ships start disappearing. They aren't gone. You just have to go to an NPC to have it removed from "drydock." Now it appears in a drydock, and you can sail it out. 5 That's not a bad idea. Why not combine it with the insurance? You get tokens for the materials it took to build and outfit the ship. This is calculated in a save when you place the insurance. So you buy the insurance once you have it built AND outfitted with cannons, larder, water barrel, beds, etc... So when you make you claim, you get tokens that you download into a crafting station. This should be a download. LIke a $ sign you click on, and if you have a claim to cash in, it drops that inventory in your crafting station, or maybe even better, that resource chest that holds a ton of stuff. This would be important because when you lost your ship, you may have lost your base too, so this allows you to safely pull it into your storage. I thought tokens you collect at a Freeport, and then take back to your base, would be good, but that would encourage campers who sit near this NPC, waiting to see people collect, and then follow and attack them once away from the Freeport. Better to just download a claim in the chest. This would allow you to rebuild, but also possibly make changes and improvements. Or, as you suggest, they would have the option to put the resources into a one use blueprint that then creates the exact same ship. 9. I was thinking of something more like each person has a dock, and on that dock is an NPC, and you stock his shop with goods, and others come there to buy what you have. You go to theirs to buy what they have. The rates should be set already, to levels that have been tested by us to work well. All you do is put what you have that you can craft or gather, into the shop, and others buy what is there. You use the gold you collect, to buy from others. I think this would be simple, and predictable, and create a reason to travel to other islands that may have what your island does not. Everything should be for sale. Everything. From simple resources, to fish, to ship parts, to armor, to base structures, to ship structures. Everything could be sold. Made a few too many planks? Sell them. This would make this game come alive. The fact that there is a disincentive to PvP, would mean that while you are never safe, you will make it to and from other ports, more often than not, which is really needed to allow trade to work. I also suggest a new ship type. A Cog, as a Starter ship.

Dumb. People have no problems having a Company but they do not want to have to recruit people they don't know. Not everyone wants to be in a Mega Company. Some people like to roll with just a small handful of friends. How hard is that to understand. If the game can't be fun for them also, it won't survive. We saw the numbers fall fast in ARK because they never addressed the problems that MegaTribes caused. Eve is a niche game because it never addressed the zerg corporations. Games are not about being "hardened," What a foolish notion. Games are about having fun. This isn't a job. It's entertainment. As if that needs to be explained. In those many tribes of 6 to 10 people, some will play a lot, and some will only play a little. The restrictive skill trees, equal frustration for those who play longer hours, when they need something that one of the offline members have the skill for. But in the interest of fun, one day, taming an animal may be fun for me, but the next day, I may feel like building a base, and the next, building a ship, and the next, crafting things, and the next, doing some raiding. A restrictive skill tree prevents me from having fun. If I am not having fun, I want my money back. I did not pay for a game that closes most of itself off to me. It became that after I bought it.

It sucked to be base wiped in ARK, but as much as that sucked, most people were not emotionally attacked to their Square, ugly base. And, it wasn't really hard to have a new base. These ships are NOT square, ugly bases. They are beautiful sailing ships. The phrase, Romance with the Sea, comes to mind. So how do you fix this in a PvP game? Here are some suggestions. 1. Your ship has an amazing buff when near the shore of your home island. This should not be a guess...you should see an icon denoting that you are buffed. This buff should be such that people will not randomly blow up your ship...just because it's there. Too costly. If this is not done, Zerg Companies will just go out on patrol at night, while you are offline, and blow up ships they come across. This will not sit well with most people. Call this mechanic, "Safe Harbor." This should apply to ships being build in a shipyard also, and maybe even be buffed even more to help reduce the times you end up frustrated by your ship being destroyed before it even sails. 2. Have a point system for lawful/unlawful reputation. If you attack somebody, the meter goes toward unlawful. One raid would not make you an outlaw. The idea would be to slow this down so that it isn't constant PvP, just for the sake of PvP. Also, the meter can be affected by "lawful" actions. Too many unlawful actions in a short period of time gets your Company labeled as an Outlaw. Now, a "Royal Navy," comes after you. Reward flyers would also be posted, listing the location of the outlaw company's facilities...not ships. Destroying their claim and buildings would net a large profit. A profit large enough to entice large alliances to carry it out. So this would make Company's think before acting. Yes, you could raid. Yes, you could pirate, but not constantly. Thus, even Mega Companies would only want to raid as much as a small tribe. It creates repercussions for being bullies, just because you are big enough to do so. 3. Get rid of the decay at Freeports. We don't need an incentive to go explore. We DO need a safe harbor to anchor at, when our claim is stolen, and we temporarily have no safe place to anchor. Instead, charge a port fee. This is realistic, as this is actually done in real life. Call it a port tax. You have to pay it in advance, with no limit for how far in advance you want to pay. Allow the selling of resources to get the gold to pay. The reason for no limit is that somebody may lose their base, but be heading out on a vacation for two weeks. An arbitrary 3 day limit would screw them. It's not necessary. People WANT to create their own base. They don't need an incentive to do so. We came here for the sailing, and exploring. Not the taming, fighting lions, etc... We WANT to sail our ships. 4. Rethink the skill tree. Don't make me choose between having combat skills, and taming skills, and ship building skills, etc... I play a game to have fun, not do a job. I do not want an ATLAS job. One day, taming a wolf will sound fun to me. Another day, building a ship will. Another day, building on the base will sound fun. Etc... Every time one of those sound fun to me, and I can't, it will create frustration. We don't play games to be frustrated. We play to be challenged, and for fun...not to be restricted. By the end, you should have at a minimum, you should have 90% of all skills unlocked. Stop with the tangled web also. Make them linear. That is not boring, that is fun because we don't get angry when we have to spend points on crap we don't want, in order to get to the one skill we do want. The current tree is not interesting, it's an abomination. Unrestricting the tree will help us get back on the sea faster, when we do lose our ship. Making the game noob friendly is not achieved by slowing progression. New companies can compete better, when they can quickly get to the same level as the established Companies. 5. Insurance. Allow for an insurance system, to replace large ships that were destroyed. If a lot of the suggestions above are implemented, this would not be as necessary, but if getting back into a ship is a slow painful process, this will save the game. People want to sail ships, not repeatedly build them, over and over. It should not be super expensive, and this could also be used as an incentive not to do too much needless PvP, as it could be made such that your lawful/unlawful rating could affect how much you have to pay for insurance. 6. Offline Raid Protection. This was wildly popular on ARK unofficial servers. 7. Time to build a ship should be in line with how easy it is to lose it. If you want ships to go down fast and often, then make it such that ships can be built fast, and often. Kind of only makes sense. Ships can't go down fast and often, if they aren't being built fast and often. 8. Ships of the Damned should be a rare encounter. Very rare. They are way too OP, since they do not suffer a speed loss when going into the wind. To make them more interesting, however, drastically reduce their aggro range...very reduced, but the longer you are in sight of it, the more the aggro range increases. Thus, when you see one, you want to instantly flee in the opposite direction. So when you see one, you say, "Oh crap, let's get out of here before it spots us." 9. Give a real incentive, and mechanic, for trading. If left up to the community to do on their own, it won't happen. There must be a mechanic, and incentive for it to happen. 10. Create a much more robust permissions system. - Captain - Owner - Officer - Admin - Experienced Deckhand - Deckhand - Recruit Allow us to decide how much trust we want to put in each level. We do not want a Recruit, Deckhand or Experienced Deckhand, to be able to move the ship, for instance. Only an Officer or above should be able to name the ship. Remember the fiasco we had with the new recruit, who named the ship something offensive.

Offline raid protection. It's one of the best things about many unofficial servers. This should be a thing, and likely WILL BE a thing, if they want this game to survive.

So the bug is likely not in the weight, but in the amount of skins it fills. It needs to be realistic...so I am guessing between 50 and 100 times. So let's say a bucket fills 5 skins. It should take at least 10 buckets to fill the barrel. But, I also think that weight it out of line. Even full of water, that barrel should not weigh that much. Wikipedia notes the 42 gal is 35 Imperial Gallons. 35 Imp Gallons of water would be 350 lbs. I would expect that an imperial gallon, being more than a normal gallon, would fill 5 water skins, if those skins are in the neighborhood of a standard quart. Also, these skins should not leak like a sieve. Should they "decay," or leak, if you will? Sure, but not in a real fast manner. That is unrealistic. Skins don't actually leak much. Survival games always seem to overdo the decay of things, to the point that you are always frantically trying to refill these resources. I am so glad that Star Citizen has confirmed that your character will need to eat occasionally, it won't be like a survival game. It's like the devs of these games should decide what they think is a good idea, and then reduce the decay, and hunger speeds, etc..by 3x. The best servers have these things set to about 3x. 3x harvesting, 3x slower decay, 3x slower hunger, etc... Makes the game more enjoyable, while retaining those mechanics.

It doesn't? Why not? It may not be perfect, but it does help, and it is better if most people are offline at the same time, thus reducing, if not eliminating the offline raiding.

The issue is likely that it should fill more than 5 water skins. It needs to fill about 50, or more.

Stupid game mechanic, as I said. People DO NOT need an incentive like that in order to get out and explore, and find someplace to settle. BUT, they need someplace to park their ship when they are trying to find someplace. And, there is no real way to protect these ships when you log off. That WILL kill the game. These are not ugly ARK bases. They are romantic sailing era ships. DO NOT underestimate how attacked people will get to these ships. Not to mention that people want to sail on these ships, not constantly have to rebuild them because they get wrecked every other time they take them out to sea. And what do you do when all you can do is park it near shore, on an island with a 5 dozen other Companies doing the same thing? It's not like you have a secret bat cave to hide them in. Mega Companies are going to wreck your ship while you are off line. Oh, NPC's manning cannons? Cannons don't swivel. Not the big ones. All they have to do is stay towards the bow or stern where the cannons aren't pointing.

Wrong! If they were listening, they would have turned off the ships of the damned as soon as the first reports came in. But that brings up the issue of how stupid the devs are that the ships of the damned would be anything but a rare occurrence. Does it take a rocket scientist to know that having that many ships of doom would be a bad idea? Any idiot should have know that MY Brigantine could not compete with those monsters...even one of them, let alone seven of them, before I even had a chance to get gold to buy a crew to man the cannons, which brings up the point that I don't even believe you would have enough ammo on the ship to deal with one of those. They had about 40K health. I had 6 large cannon on the top deck, 6 medium on the lower deck, and 6 swivel cannons. Each set had 40 ammo. This caused the ship to be fairly heavy, and sluggish. I do not believe that would be enough to deal with those ships of doom, and yet they put so many of them out that that anyone can believe this was a deliberate soft wipe, which is wrong, and so wrong they would never admit to it. So what is it, dishonesty, or stupidity? Soft wipe, or a clueless decision? And THEY are still there. While reduced, still too many. Like WTF are they thinking?

But then the part of realism that is missing is that wild animals have learned to largely avoid human areas, as ONE...ONE arrow could kill them...not 10, or 50, or 100. And humans also meant traps. We don't have traps in this game. Humans also had dogs. We don't have dogs. OK, well you can tame a wolf I suppose. But wait...I don't have skill points to use on taming because I am trying to spec for the inevitable combat, and also some useful skills like ship building, etc... So let's not get into the abomination they call a skill tree.

Bull Crap! Did you even read his post? Obviously not. EA/ALPHA is not an excuse for things like this. This game is an ARK mod whether you like it or not. As the OP said, much of this was already addressed in ARK, so why is it back again here? A lot of these things were simply not well thought out. As if the devs don't even play the games they make. Here's a clue. How long do you think a ship will last in a shipyard, once the Mega tribes get bored? Not long. They will go out hunting and blowing up nearly complete Galleons, Brigantines, and Schooners. How long do you think people will play a pirate game, when it feels more like ARK with no Dinos? How much common sense does it take to understand that they needed to have Safe Harbors to put your ship in while you log off? How much common sense does it take to NOT make ships decay away in one day? It won't do that in your claim area? Well aren't you the genius to point out another ridiculous game mechanic...if that is what you were going to say. The simple fact is, this game is a great idea, with very poor execution. Classify it as WTH were they thinking?

You are assuming it will get fixed. I have no confidence that it will. For instance, that tangled mess they call a skill tree, where they think that lacking linearity makes it interesting. I can guarantee you that even though most people hate it like it is one of the ships of the damned camped right by their shipyard, the Devs won't alter that. I can guarantee you that they are invested in that tree...they think it's a good idea and that people will learn to like it. No...nobody will ever like having to go deep into a skill tree they did not want, to unlock one they did, or the mixing of skills in one linear progression. Like the power shot in archery mixed with armor piercing? What if you didn't want one of them? This makes people frustrated when they have to spend many points on something they did not want, in order to get what they did. Then you get to the issue that you get frustrated with the lack of skills, like when your small company is trying to get stuff done, so you spec into the skills to get stuff done, then a Company of similar size, specs into combat to raid you, and you have no chance because you are spec'd to build and craft. Yes, that happened to us yesterday, when our 4 people online, were trying to get something going, and less than 24 hours after putting down a claim, we are attacked by several people, who all spec'd to combat. This is not fun. I nearly asked for my money back at that point. THIS is why I do not believe it will get fixed. They don't have a clue just how bad this is.

Wrong. We anchored at a Freeport because there were no claims to be had, and the Ships of the Damned were killing everything. This Brigantine almost decayed away in less than 1 day. That is absurd, so don't blame absurd game mechanics on player ignorance.

Completely agree. This is why I quickly went to unofficial ARK serves, where you ended up being able to get all the engrams unlocked. That made the game enjoyable for me. One day, I build on my base. Another day, I forage for resources. Another day, I make some armor and weapons. Another day, I build a greenhouse. Another day, I make saddles for my tames. Etc... I was able to play the whole game. Skill trees are for single player games, where the idea is replay-ability. You can win no matter which way you go, but you just have to do it differently depending on the skills you pick. Basically it was just making the choice of Mage, Thief, Warrior, or Monk, a bit more interesting. The idea being that you beat the game as one of them, then play it again as another. Or, maybe you just prefer one style. In an online MMO, it is dumb. It locks you into a job. I don't want a job. I want to play a game. One day I might want to build a boat. Another day, I might want to tame animals. Another day, I might want to build on the base. Another day, I might want to make tools, weapons, or armor. The game will not be interesting to me if I am locked into one or two skill trees.

I agree. A simple fix would be to revisit some of those islands, and add to them. Make sure everything that is needed, is there. But this is just scratching the surface. I have seen just how easy it is to wreck people in this game. There is too much ARK thinking here, but things you need to have a chance of defending yourself, just aren't there. For instance, you need cannons and NPCs to act as your ARK turrets. But look how long it can take to just get cannon, and then you need ships to go looking for gold. Skills to aid in finding that gold, etc... They really need to get away from their ARK thinking. This is not ARK. This is all about the ships, and exploring. So you need ships. First order of business is that they need to learn that ships need a safe harbor. Totally different than ARK official. More like unofficial with ORP...Offline Raid Protection. And those Shipyards???? OMG, nothing screams, HERE I AM, COME BLOW ME UP, like those things. Sure, right now they work, but what about when some Alpha Tribes have a fleet of Galleons, and they decide that not allowing others to have them, is in their best interests? How long will people play when they log off, only to come back and find their 85% complete Galleon has been destroyed...again, and again and again? I am thinking they will end up having to make the shipyard, and the ship inside of it, invulnerable. That, or they are going to have to institute some system that awards good points for things like doing trade, and bad points for doing lawless actions. The idea is to allow a little bit of lawless stuff, but if you do too much in a short period of time, you become a target for a Royal Navy, that hunts you down and sinks your ships. Also, large rewards would be offered by the system for those who will battle you. In other words, a sufficient reward that would cause alliances to be formed, to go after that reward. On the posted reward, would be the location of the Outlaw's bases...all of them. So Companies would have to moderate their lawless activities. You would not know for sure how close you are to being labeled as most wanted outlaws, so you would always have to keep it in mind that a lawless action could be the one that causes it to happen.

Really? So you want to bring people into your Company that you don't even know, just for the sake of having numbers? Dumb. Especially in a game that has no protection against the recruit who joined to inside you. And no...I don't want to have to rely on somebody else to get something done, especially when they don't have to log in that day. This isn't a job. I don't want a job in game. I want to play the game...play...and not be so restricted. The skill trees as they stand are an abomination. You have to go into several you may not need, to get to the one you do. Meanwhile, there are other things you wanted to do, but you can't because you don't have the skill points to get there. Totally sapped my desire to play.

Yes, while it takes a very long time for you to explore the whole map, that doesn't change the overcrowding aspect. It's like a chess board, and every black space is a spawn location, and every white is an area to settle in. Yes, while YOU only spawn in one of them, and it takes you forever to travel to all the squares, the fact remains that people are in all of them. And they are crowded. Go to any Lawless Island, and you will see drydock after drydock. But this is just scratching the surface of the problems. Let me address the most pressing. If it is so easy to sink something like a Brigantine, than it better be just as easy and fast to build one. How long would you keep playing if it takes you many days to build a ship, but it gets blown out of the water the day you launch it, and sometimes you don't even get that far...it gets destroyed in drydock. You won't do that more than 2 or 3 times before you quit.

The concept is simple. Every ship needs a safe harbor. Without something like a freeport, with AI security and fleet, where you can leave your ship while off line, this game will not survive. Oh, and no decay while there. A game is not advanced by the ability of people being able to destroy your stuff while you are off line. This was the huge failing of ARK. Raiding somebody was simply a process. So long as you did the right steps, which everybody learns from the Streamers, you will succeed in your raid. Ships are just going to be too juicy of a target. AI manning cannons aren't going to be anymore effective than those useless turrets in ARK. How many videos did you need to see that turrets only slowed you down...and never stopped you, unless you were dumb? Will the AI turn your ship for a broadside? Are swivel cannons supposed to be the new turret? The reality is that large cannon don't swivel. How is that going to protect your ship when it's not even pointing in the right direction?

Where's the facepalm emoji when you need it? Monsters? Fight monsters with nothing? Are you daft? Have you even looked at this abomination of a skill tree? To get to what you need, you have to go levels into another skill tree. You have to have many levels before you can actually spec into combat sufficiently. But wait...there's more. Who is going to spec into armor and weapons making? And who is going to do agriculture? And think about this...since you didn't think...do you want to be the last to put that big advertisement on the shoreline that you are building a medium or large ship? Are kidding me? Those with fleets first, will go around destroying half built ships. The whole concept with these ships is not thought out at all. A ship MUST have a safe harbor. Period. Freeports MUST be safe harbors where your ship is safe, and DOES NOT deteriorate out from under you. This game WILL NOT survive without that mechanic.

Facepalm

The map is too small, especially with how small and overcrowded the islands are. Keeping a low profile is not possible. You will not go unnoticed at all. And those drydocks scream for a zerg Company to come and blow you up before you even get going. Those who can afford large fleets, will not let others build large fleets. Those drydocks...think about it. This would be like advertising the location that you are taming a titanosaur, and making it last for days, maybe weeks, depending on many factors, such as how much time you have to play, how many PvP set backs you have while gathering, etc... How long do you think that's going to last? Also, if they want to encourage a realistic trade situation, they would have mechanics to discourage PvP for the sake of PvP. What consequences are there for a MegaCorp what has many ships sailing together, blowing everything out of the water/drydock that they find? None.

Yeah, way too many bad decisions are excused under the blanket of EA. This would be like some racing team shaving the tires to a critical point, and when the driver dies, they say, "Well, we needed the info." No...sometimes math and common sense should have been used first. Math can tell you when the tire is shaved too much. Same with many of these decisions. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that they didn't just go too far...they went WAY too far on the skill tree. And those are fubar from the word go. Does it really take a rocket scientist to know that this was wrong? Many of the unlocks for trees you will need, are buried part way into other trees, and each time it is often expensive to now unlock the new tree. A moron can figure out that this is bad. You cannot force players to group up. Not in a PvP game with no protection from insiding. And with the way there is literally no repercussions for attacking somebody, trade will be non-existent. In the real world, there were dangerous men with a government license to kill you for being a pirate. They didn't have to grow anything, or do anything but be warfighters on a government ship, and hunt you down for being a pirate. That at least gave you a good chance as a merchant. You were far more likely to make it to port without seeing a pirate, than seeing one. So the idea of trying to force reasons for people to have to constantly go on the sea is not well thought out. Hey, Star Citizen is also early access, but they have thought these things through better. There WILL be consequences for ruthless PvP, and with insurance, you get your ship back if it is blown up. The risk vs reward in this game is simply not thought out at all. This game as it sits, would be better as PvE with occasional NPC Pirate encounters. Who wants to spend all their time building ships, only to have it blown up by some zerg Company the first time you sail it? A game like this cannot be full PvP. Not unless you unleash the skill trees, and drastically increase the resource gathering, so people can actually build a ship quickly. Those huge drydocks just scream for a zerg Company to come after you about the time you near completion of the ship...especially if you are building a ship that can actually fight, like a Brigantine, or Galleon. So on a full PvP server, you need to get those mats, and build the ship in one day, or you are screwed. Those with fleets will not let you set sail. This does not require testing, or excuses...just somebody who actually understands Metagamers. Seems most game makers have no clue about Metagamers.

There should only be one ghost ship that appears randomly, and not too frequently, but when it does, you crap bricks and run as best you can, and hope you did this quick enough. Only those with a fleet of warships would want to take one on. One ghost ship on the entire map, at the most. Taking one out would be a feather in the cap of anyone who could do it. But who cares at this point. The game is already proving that it is going to be severely toxic.

We were in that group. But we went to a lawless region, and worked hard to build a ship, kill PvPers trying to destroy it, worked through the bugs, and disconnects. Finally, when it is finished, we set sail to try to make a claim. I warned against this as I had heard that it was bad news to try to go after a claim, and that there were none to be had. My vote was to stay where we were. But as it turns out, that was a no-go as those ghost ships then began wrecking everything, including the ships in drydocks. Sorry, but after working that hard to get that ship, only to lose it like that, and have nothing afterwards, I have zero motivation to now do it on an even harder, ludicrous skill tree. I play games for fun, and to be challenged, not to be frustrated. It is not challenging to hit a rock 10 times to get a small amount of materials. That's tedious. This is one area the unofficial servers tend to be superior. And then there is the frustration when you don't have the skill tree to do what needs done, because the other 5 members of your company all logged off. So there isn't anything you can do. More frustration because you can't get done what needs to get done.