NewLexican

While I don't know precisely what you're planning, I will just say this... When I was a kid, I always wished games could have more to them. Alas, there's only so much devs could fit within the technical limitations of the time. Today, that's changed, and I more frequently find myself wishing developers would try to include less with their games. Watch the tryouts for Master Chef and Gordon Ramsay will often criticize contestants for trying to add components to a dish that, without the addition, had focus and worked well on the plate.

I haven't really played since season one, and the lack of a core theme is one of the primary reasons I haven't come back. I remember one time looking in on the game's progress. I saw a crab jump hundreds of feet into the air with a rider on its back; I NOPE'd right out of there. "I'll check back in another six months." For myself, I hope you settle on a theme that puts realistic-seeming boats (not architectural monstrosities) at its core. Focus on the boat in the same way Star Trek focuses on the Enterprise. There's space and all it contains. There are planets and their inhabitants. Adventure found with both. But everything comes back to the ship. Any feature/mechanic that diminishes the focus or supremacy of the boat should raise a red flag. As for an element of fantasy, I can certainly envision ways it could work. Again... augmenting what matters most rather than becoming what matters most. Have any of you read Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series? The main character, of course, is blown to fantastical heights. But, rather than dominating the experience of the commoners, the fantasy element simply makes it a richer, more interesting experience. I'm not familiar with the proposed Tradewinds feature, so perhaps my concerns have already been addressed. But, in my gaming experience, allowing easy travel commonly leads to some very undesirable outcomes. Dominant factions can project their power over greater distances, and those who choose to harass others are more able to do it without repercussion because they aren't a known quantity to those they harass. I.e., they can easily travel far afield and harass people who don't know who they are or where they come from. Similarly, just as more than traders can take advantage of tradewinds, large companies can take advantage of mechanics intended for small companies unless they are, by design, prohibited or disincentivized from doing so. I wouldn't mind seeing Freeports extended into full-fledged NPC-controlled territory. Companies could lease designated plots of land with strict construction budgets (assets) in exchange for tribute and/or service (e.g. coastal defense). If you live there, you live by their rules (e.g., no piracy). In turn, the government provides some defensive advantages in terms of infrastructure (e.g., protected harbors with "parking spaces" assigned to leases) and automated coastal reconnaissance. Through short-term leases, this territory could provide refuge for those recently displaced as well as long-term leases and a livelihood for those too small or who simply don't care to constantly scrap over territory. These NPC-controlled territories can also be tools in the toolbox of the devs to affect happenings in the world they feel need to be addressed without resorting to a heavy-handed approach. The actions of the governments can be adapted to fit the circumstances. For example, NPC authorities could issue Letters of Marque against specific targets or impose tariffs on trades between residents and specific non-resident companies. Resources, services, and protected sea lanes within these territories are examples of features with the built-in large/small company bias I mention with the previous quotation. These territories would be the Santo Domingo, Havana, and Santiago of the Spanish Main contrasting with the players' efforts to build their various little Tortugas. The life and livelihoods in these territories aren't the same as elsewhere only with an NPC landlord. It's a different piece of the puzzle built to complement and balance the experiences of those who choose to fight for land of their own. I hope you'll take a moment to read my end-of-Season 1 post on creating beachhead mechanics. I elaborate on an idea with what you propose here at its core.

Having dome some additional experimentation, it seems the ambient noises are not tied to the ambient sound setting at all. In fact, I couldn't find any sounds that setting affects at all. Rather, the ambient sounds seem to also be tied to the FX volume setting only at a different, quieter, level. I.e., if I turn the FX volume setting way up I begin to hear the ambient noises (e.g., weather, footsteps, animal sounds). Of course, turning the FX volume setting up that high blows out my ears with the effects I suspect are meant to be tied to this setting (e.g., weapons, hitting rocks, chopping trees, etc.).

Just reinstalled since last playing for Season 1. The ambient sounds are super quiet. I have music off and every other sound at 20-30% with ambient on 100%, but I rarely hear the ambient sounds over the fans of my PC, and it's a pretty quiet PC. I've verified the install files. I manually checked the config file and saw the ambient sound setting is correct (1.0). I'm not sure what else to do.

With our planned changes for March, the game will be heading into a more rule based system, so for the next few weeks we’ll be making some changes to experience what it would be like if we took an alternative route. ... - Claim flags will no longer prevent enemy building. You can now build anywhere, and only structure build radius will prevent it. This is a non-default, which will be enabled on our PvP Networks. Unofficials can also use this as a custom server-side config. Is this something you really believe the community wants to experience? I'll tell how I'm going to respond to this taste of a road not traveled. I'm going to try Apex Legends. I'm going to try The Division 2. I'm going to try all the other alternative activities I've, to date, been foregoing because I've been really enjoying Atlas. I will experience a number of roads not traveled, and to Grapeshot's chagrin, I may find I really, really enjoy one just as I have, to date, been enjoying Atlas.

Press and hold H on a ground spawn resource such as a tree. While continuing to hold H pan the view onto a nearby wild animal within interaction range. You will briefly see a status window for them which includes the numerical value of their health.

Craft a bed. Place a bed. Person spawns on bed. Pick up bed. Place bed again. Another person spawns on bed. Cooldown avoided.

The doubling of harvest rates, which are again doubled on double XP weekend, has highlighted something I consider a problem. As it stands, establishing a beachhead often doesn't require more than a pick, a hatchet, and a momentary lull in the defender's activity. You don't necessarily need any meaningful preparation nor logistical effort. While I do expect non-peak hour invasions to remain the norm (especially on NA where not everyone's peak is the same...), I would like to see mechanics come into play which make establishing a beachhead more of a contested effort. My idea: If an attacker does not yet have any claims on an island (i.e., they have not established a beachhead), rather than simply planting a claim flag they must drop a "beachhead flag." A beachhead flag takes, say 8x as long to capture a piece of land as a normal claim. However, similar to a shipyard, the beachhead flag is a container into which you may place (but not remove) some yet-to-be-named beachhead components. Each component added accelerates the rate of the remaining claim time up to the standard claim rate for a non-beachhead flag. These modifiers would either sit on top of the existing curve affecting claim rate vs number of claims held by the defender or on top of a custom curve to meet the devs' goals regarding the difficulty/ease with which you take land from someone with a lot of land. While inexpensive to produce, beachhead components are crafted in a special workbench which may only be placed on land. I.e., you can't simply harvest resources local to your beachhead and build the components offshore on a ship. The components could come in two sizes: one light enough that strong characters may carry one themselves but will be encumbered regardless of their weight capacity and another larger component requires a beast of burden to transport. The beachhead flag has a maximum capacity, and weight-for-weight, the larger components have a greater impact on the claim rate than smaller components. So a flag filled to capacity with large components will result in a faster claim than a flag filled to capacity with smaller components. So, if you want to make the fastest claim possible, your beachhead will likely be near the actual beach rather than on the highest mountain top. So, you may still attempt to establish a beachhead with minimal preparation, but a rapid assault will require preparation and logistics. How much logistics is a subject of balance, but I'd like to see the maximum capacity of a beachhead flag tuned such that a maximum-effort attack would require many ships to transport enough components to fill a flag in a single run or several runs with fewer ships. I'm not sure if companies without any claims should be required to build components on Lawless (that's going away, isn't it?), or be exempt from the mechanic. If they are exempt, some anti-exploit measures will have to be devised. E.g., a company cannot join a new alliance or be merged with another company within five days of their first claim.

I think the change was a classic case of "oversteering." A change was needed; the problem before was unlucky wind direction could prevent you from doing anything because, for example, you couldn't get your ship out of harbor. But 30% now means you can do anything if you're willing to be inconvenienced a little. I'd prefer something like 5%. Enough to get yourself around an island but not so much that you might choose an inter-island trip against the wind. While I don't want unlucky wind direction to debilitate game play, I still believe it should be a driving force in channeling game play.

I'd like methods of determining wind direction without having to set foot on the deck of a ship. Windsocks and weather vanes at Freeports. Something like the old wet finger or drop-some-dirt method elsewhere.

Has anyone spun up a 2x2 g-portal server which shows a proper map but all boundaries are impassible?

I'd really appreciate if this weren't a game where bunny hopping was a par for the course in PvP. I'd like to see a mechanic such a progressive endurance cost penalty for each jump based on the number of jumps in the past 10 seconds. The value of the penalty could even be a scaled according to the character's max endurance rather than being flat values.

I played my last session on v7.0, logged in today after downloading the v7.32 patch, but it seems my character has become corrupted. Rather than the NA PVP region I was playing on the login screen shows "Server Region: Lawless Region" and clicking rejoin server tells me it could not retrieve current server info.