Captain Jack Shadow

Depends on what you call small. I am saying rafts, and the smallest ships. I saw many of them doing OK. Know many who said the ghost ships didn't aggro to them. Even then, the small ships thing isn't the point. OK, expand it to all ships. You arrive here early to get the fruits of being early. But then everything you labored for is taken from you. Seriously, had this not been their intention, they would have rolled back to the save before the update, and fixed the update before putting it back in. Or, at a minimum, rolled back to right after the update, and turned off those ships. Make no mistake...this was on purpose as a result of how drastically the restricted the skill tree. It was a big kick in the teeth to those who put up with the bugs, and constant disconnects. We earned a head start.

They don't care if you leave now. They have your money. And, they believe you will be back. You said it yourself You won't be back "until." In other words, you will be back. I won't. We buy early access to enjoy the fruits of being early, only to have it jerked away from you. Was it too easy to get our big ship? No. We busted our butts to get those mats and build that ship. I don't care if new people have it harder. Heck, if they don't put the skill tree back to what it was, I wouldn't play it anyway. I play games to enjoy the content, not have it restricted from me through restrictive skill trees that are designed to lock you out of most of the game play. So, I will stick with other games. Games are about enjoyment. Not proving yourself, and ARK this game is going to be all about the numbers...the zergs. Who needs that. Think it's not about the zergs? After losing our ship, we thought we would try an unofficial server. Sorry but no...not on this one. The freeport is PvP also, so good luck getting a raft our of port. We were lucky on the first one. But we finally found what we thought was a safe harbor. But no, as soon as the others logged off, I was going to try to get a small building made. Never got that far. Saw three people appear and spread out and surround me. I had no chance whatsoever. They had higher levels, armor, and bows. I also had a bow, but one person with a bow on a raft is no match for three people who surrounded you. OK, so I thought I would start over. Tried 3 times to get a raft out of port. Idiots allowed building drydocks in that narrow strip of water leading to sea. First boat got hung up on one of them, and the wind direction would not allow reversing direction. Literally threading a needle. So after that, several people would show up and attack every time you tried to get out port. You couldn't even get away from the dock before they attacked. Frankly, there are so many more games that are actually enjoyable to play. This was a nice idea, but no...just no.

Yes, this was on purpose. Connect the dots. Skill tree is drastically reduced. People would no longer be able to get to a big ship as quickly as some of us did, as a result. WC determines this is unfair, so they set the Ghost ships to ZERG. To the point that they started going after ships in drydock. Now, from WC's perspective, this is a good thing. However, when you buy an early access game, you do so to not be late to the party. Think about this...if you are late to a party, or function of some sort, the best food is gone if you are late. It pays to be early. So this is the carrot devs constantly imply...get here early...you don't want to be late to the party and have to settle for what's left over. But what they did is like giving everyone who arrived early, a door prize, and those prizes get worse as the party goes on, but then, they went to those who arrived early, and demand the prize back, so now, you were actually penalized for arriving early. Think not? It's easy. Had this been a mistake on their part, they could have easily rolled back the servers to the last save before the update. This is how you know this was on purpose. The problem is that those of us who were early, who stuck it out through the worst bugs, and constant server interruptions...got a big kick in the teeth from the devs. Over a week of game play gone in 5 minutes, by their design. This happened to everybody who had a big ship. The smaller ships were OK. It's the big ships that were hit. Anyone who tried to sail a big ship, lost it as several Ghost Ships swarmed you to ensure you did not make it. The rafts and smallest ships went unnoticed by the ghost ships, for the most part. So let this be a lesson. We rush out like a crack addict, thinking it will pay to be first on the scene. This shows you in living color, that this simply is not true. We simply help perpetuate a system where we pay for a game in development, and by the time it is polished, or hopefully close to polished, it is time to move on to the next buggy game in development. I won't do it anymore. Just not worth the hassle. I want my money back.

Well, we let everyone know that this game is nothing but frustration, and that the Devs are locked into ARK thinking, while this is NOT ARK. Many sales lost. I really do believe this was done on purpose to cause early players to lose their ships after the restrictions on the skill tree. At this point, nothing can convince me this was not done on purpose. Watch this...give us back our ship if it wasn't on purpose. I won't hold my breath.

Tired of the EA excuses, and if this was on purpose, which I can totally see, then that was totally wrong. If they think I, or anyone wants to play ARK SHIPBUILDING 2.0, they are wrong. We want to sail ships, not build them. If 90% of your time isn't sailing the ships around, and 10% building, this game is doomed.

Four of them, just in the picture. Not worth my time to rebuild. Have zero motivation to swing a single tool. Goal...10% time to build ship, 90% time sailing it, in worst case scenario. Doubt that will ever happen.

Yep, first time trying to sail our nice new Brigantine out to find a land claim, and we were swarmed by ghost ships. Game is not at all ready for prime time. I'll check back later, if Star Citizen isn't keeping me fully occupied. Ridiculously fast decay rate on the ship out of a claim area. Ridiculous skill tree Ridiculous ghost ships Ridiculous amount of time to build a ship compared to how fast you are going to lose them.

Yes, it is very different. Everyone is going to underestimate how attached people will be to their larger ships. Plus, they take a huge amount of time to create. So let's take a peek into the future. A Tribe of 8 guys struggle to build a good ship over about a week, to 2 weeks. Let's assume that they were not subjected to lot's of PvP as they try to gather mats, and nobody went onto the ship while they are offline, and destroyed the half built ship. So they get the ship built, get cannons built, and armor and personal weapons. Then they go out to see and get sunk first day. So they do this again. And 2 says later, it sinks. So they build a third, and this time it deteriorates on them because they parked it at a Freeport overnight, but nobody was able to log on the next day, so the ship is gone when they try to log on. So they build one more, and try to lay a claim so that the ship doesn't deteriorate, but now they get the zergs coming after them, so they say, "F this" and go find a new game. Welcome to why ARK lost so many player numbers, and this will be worse. People want to get out there and sail on their ship. Explore new places, etc... Not spend 90% of their time building ships. Private servers? Yeah...NO. Not if the rumors are true. Each grid is a server, or so we are told. Rumor has it that when you rent a server, it is one of those grids. Want more of the map, you must rent another server. To me, it is looking like this was a good idea, but not going to be fun. That's sad because what it does well, it does awesomely. The scenery and ambiance is great. Animal animations could be better...looking at you lion. Some specialty building pieces would be great to make the ships look better when you use the standard building parts to fit it out. But overall, it's pretty good. The skill tree is atrocious. When I fully level, I need to have about 90% of all skills unlocked. The 10% left over is what differentiates you from the others. I do not want to be locked out of much of the game, and that's what restrictive skill trees do. I do not enjoy being locked out of a lot of the game. And small Companies need the ability to get the whole skill tree.

NO!

Which is a problem. Risk vs reward doesn't excuse making bad games. If the game isn't going to encourage making the good stuff, then why make it. The problem when this is the case, the armor isn't protecting enough. Ask yourself if you would try to fight somebody in full armor, when you have none. Would you really want to have a weaker weapon in that fight? NO. Even if you have numbers on your side, no you aren't going to do that. With no armor on, one good hit of a sword and you are done. I will likely just put my time into Star Citizen. At least there, there is a time to kill difference with heavy armor, vs light, or no armor. You don't want to go against somebody with a better weapon, and heavy armor, while you are in just a flight suit. Ask yourself this also, what was the crappiest part of ARK? Offline raids. It isn't hard. Just a process, that thanks to steamers and YouTube creators, everybody knew. Soak the turrets...not hard. Or, beer and shields and C4. Not hard. A really good survival game is going to allow harder structures, where the only thing you are going to waste time on, would be knocking down the door. Even better, just killing people as you find them in the open. Look at the ugly bases in PvP compared to the beautiful bases on PvE...especially modded, such as with the CKF mod. Why wouldn't anyone create cool structures on PvP? Because what's the point. Structures are way too easy to destroy. As one guy in an article wrote...this is the same played out mistake over and over in survival games. Too hard to build and to too destroy. So while we are on this...I can assure you that this Brigantine we have built, is far cooler than any ARK PvP base I built. I am not going to be OK with it being easily stolen or destroyed. Takes way too much effort to make it. Not sure I will bother building another one if this one goes down too easy. I like the LTI (Lifetime Insurance) I have on my Star Citizen ships. The game will be about exploring, fighting, etc...not constantly reacquiring my ships.

Specialization is just another way of saying you are restricted from playing a part of the game. While it is fine to do this slightly, but not anywhere near to this point. I WILL not play this game on an official server when I am restricted like this. If it costs too much for a private server where we can boost the heck out of these things, then I will just move on to another game.

First, get rid of the size modifications. Tired of the Meta PvP where everyone runs around with a midget character. Having to set graphics to the crappiest settings, just to compete. No. Really tired of that. How about this. Have a server for those with potatoes that does not allow high graphics settings, and one for those with good PCs, that forces high settings. Finally, really tired of the no skin in the game approach. The Meta players that go out to patrol with nothing on them. It would be great to make the game such that this just isn't a wise choice. So, you go out with armor, weapons, and a few foraging tools, and you run into three guys with nothing but a single weapon. Usually not an overly great weapon. They watched, and waited until you are full of material, and stamina is down some..advantage them. Smart game play, but simply shows a weakness in the game mechanics. In real life, you aren't going to want to fight a man in full armor, when you have nothing on. The game should simply make you have some skin in the game to have a chance of winning. IMHO

The problem is that restricting what you can do, does not make the game interesting. It is simply restricting. It closes off gameplay from you. I want to build my ship, tame creatures, navigate well, pirate well, make good tools weapons and armor, do good hand to hand, melee, firearms and artillery, etc... Being locked into just one or two things I can do for the company is NOT interesting. It's frustrating. Where as, just a day ago, I felt somewhat useful to my Company, now I feel useless, even though I have now added 3 levels to my character.

Gaming has gone in a bad direction. That is, everybody feels they have to rush out and buy an Alpha game. Then every frustrating thing about the game is put down to, "It's an Alpha," or "It's early access." I miss the days when you bought a game that was finished, and maybe only needed a small patch to fix it, at most, after launch.

Congrats, you just sapped my desire to play the game. I do not want to pay for a game where I am restricted from playing the majority of it. At most, when fully leveled, there should only be one tree unused, if you fully level all the others. Right now, I can't do squat. Was actually enjoying the game before this was done. If this tree is going to be so harsh, unlimited respecs need to be a thing. Just have a 24 hour cool down on it or something. I mean seriously...what if you only have a few people in your company? I'm thinking that this game may not be for me.

A new Company member who was not an Admin changed the name of the boat. We had not given it a name yet, and did not expect that it could not be renamed. The person was kicked from the Company. This game really needs more permissions ability. Several groups with abilities the owner/admins assign, are important. I tried to change the name but it would not allow me to do so. This player also moved the ship out of drydock before we were ready. We had purposely not put the helm on the ship to prevent this. Moving a ship out of a real drydock is not a one man operation. Real life, of course, should not be the end of the discussion. One player should not be able to move the ship, just because he could do it in real life. Just because you can lower the sails, and throw everyone off the ship, then man the helm in real life does not mean it should be done in the game. In real life, the ship would have a sentry, who would wake up the crew in the event of these things happening. Can't really do that in the game. This game needs far more groupings with levels of permissions set by the owner and admins. If you do not want the ship name to be changed, it should be a requirement to name it when you start construction.

Bug We are nearing completion of a Brigantine. We have a bed on it. I cannot spawn there. This DOES NOT work. If this is a bug, it is a game killing one. If it is a feature, it is a game killing feature. It does not matter where the ship is located...a bed on that ship should be spawnable at any time. Game Problems Also, I am now getting a message that my home server is full, so it wants me to join another server. Why would I do that? I have nothing on another server. This is an issue that needs to be addressed. It saps the desire to play. I also see an issue with the fact that these ships take far more effort to make than building a base in ARK, and yet they are completely vulnerable when everyone logs off. Some sort of offline raid protection is going to be needed. If not in a drydock, it is vulnerable to one lower hull plank being destroyed and the ship sinking. If in drydock, it is very easy to find and board. In addition, you need to ability to assign permissions. One single person can inside you, toss everyone off the ship while offline, and steal it. This includes the ability to have personal storage. Each person needs the ability to have personal storage.