MisterMyztik

..... How to make an MMO.... Increase automation to remove diversity of play style.

I absolutely stand corrected. I came back tonight and tried placing my flag outside of their flag radius which worked. Thank you for the tip

I dont think you understand the system I'm afraid. If there is an NPC (ANY NPC) in the circle of the flag belonging to the current island owner, it will be permanently contested and the flag will NEVER lower. Therefore, if the island owner has npcs within the flag radius, regardless of their activity, it can not be contested until the npcs are removed (mutiny & death). The island needs to run out of gold and berries completely for that to occur. Berries of course will never run out if anyone at all is visiting the island ... so its the island gold upkeep that needs to expire before you can contest if they have npcs in the radius.

Unfortunately that makes no difference. If anyone, NPC or otherwise, is in the radius of the existing flag the flag will not lower. The defending flag works significantly differently to the contesting flag.

I could have sworn at some stage I read that the ability of NPCs to contest a claim was being removed. Does anyone know if this is planned at all? On PvE an inactive crew will retain an island even after the 10day claim expiration due to their NPC crew members being within the radius of the flag as they count as contesting crew for the defending of a flag. If the npcs are secured behind walls and unreachable this results in a relatively permanent island claim as food is being directly placed into the flag via the tax system. Is the only option to claim an island on PvE now (which has NPC crew inside the radius) to wait until a flag runs out of gold upkeep? This system is far far far worse than the original systems were for PvE. First come, first serve. Everyone else be damned.

Definitely still have hope... but the pull back from the MMO concept is really chipping away at this quickly... it's great fun for a bit on private servers... but I just don't need a poor seagoing ark copy. Not to say it couldn't become a great example of a multiplayer survival game... That's just not what I'm looking for.

So I think it's time to share my summary of the game as it currently stands from my personal perspective. The TL;DR - The alpha has a long long way to go and I hope they have a direction in mind MMO or private server seagoing version of Ark. I have had some truly great moments playing this game, from sailing with a mate through the polars, overloaded with little wind narrowly avoiding whales and ships of the damned.. to the early PvE community Kraken events.. to a fantastic auction organised by the community... or simply spending time rping with mates (inevitably leading to bloodshed within the company). But I have spent far too much time playing this game and played well past the point where I felt like i was gaining anything from playing it. I feel like that is the biggest downfall of this game currently; the end point comes very quickly if you are not solo. Sure there is plenty to keep doing and definitely plenty of chores to keep you logging in but once you have the achievement of something there is zero reason to repeat it. Without loot there is no reason to kill anything so on your way to the hydra you park the fire and rock elementals and any Cyclops. You run straight through the powerstone cave naked, holding only the artifact key. You run straight through the polar dungeon trying not to aggro anything until you reach the end. Has anyone explored the powerstone islands without being naked? I would like to see the resources on the islands rebalanced entirely including moving the 5th and 6th resource type to only reside in the powerstons islands. Each powerstone island should have SOME of the 5th resources and ONE of the 6th to encourage exploration. I also think the 5th and 6th resources should not be available from the freeport. Each island should have pure metal nodes. If you don't want crystal and gems to be readily available put them as loot on army of the damned and add a cave to each island... or from treasure chests. We need loot for this to be sustainable and I say this as a crafter so it hurts a little bit... but there is absolutely no reason to do anything in this game more than once... that is terrible design. The kraken doesn't even give loot. Rather than spam us with blueprints from treasure chests meaning we never have to do treasure again or interact with another human once we have compiled our library.. why not make blueprints scarce and instead give loot (uncommon, journeyman, masterwork, legendary, mythical ITEMS). Breeding needs limitation too, 2 breeds per male, 1 per female for example. You need to allow people who love it to specialise in it and be rewarded for their huge efforts rather than sell a single stud and negate all the work they have put in to date. With all of that said I actually don't know that the devs really want to make an MMO and that is the crux of why I am stepping away. All of the changes of late appear to be leaning into making this a seagoing ark clone for small scale multiplayer gaming... I can get more compelling and certainly a million times more polished content through other sources.. 7 days to die, Conan, Rust, Ark. I stuck it out this long because I had a passion for the idea of a seagoing Survival MMO... but this ship is listing... Oh and of course the countless bugs and disappearing ships and structures combined with the above have made it nigh on impossible for me to want to keep going with this alpha. It's been real It's been fun Thanks for the memories. Cheers Myzt

I agree, but i seem to recall reading somewhere that this is a feature of the new system. Spawn in any grid and everything visible on the map. You will still need to make landfall for the name of the island.

? Is this accurate? I seemed to only have the option to contest an enemy's flag within the red radius of their flag?

lmfao

Perhaps that is the underlying goal? Ship living only and Microtransactions for instanced ports/safe harbour?

Having significant memory issues since downloading the PTR client. Also it is very difficult to bug report with a maximum attachment size of 0.03mb..... Task mgr snapshot of CPU/RAM/Disk usage https://imgur.com/a/4MXYxTa

Unlikely that this would be changed IMO, even if the islands are shuffled you'll be able to find your favoured island(s) relatively quickly by scanning the fogless map. PTR is effectively a scouting mission for the major players. I really hope they shuffle the islands and rethink this spawn anywhere, no fog, all details visible thing.

So I was wayyy too late logging onto the PTR to actually test how the placement worked of the flags and would appreciate feedback from those with firsthand experience here. Some things I have seen which cause me to raise an eyebrow: You seem to be able to place your flag anywhere on the island in order to "capture" the island.. This 1 flag anywhere system raises some concerns for me; Terrain blocking: Islands like Kindercour on O9 have peaks where you are able to place a flag that is impossible to contest from ground level due to the spherical nature of the flag radius. These islands could potentially be captured by placing the flag on the highest peak and then secured by stopping anyone from climbing high enough to contest with their own flag Build blocking: Placing a flag anywhere (or more specifically the requirement to contest a flag by placing your own flag within the sphere of the flag radius/influence) will enable clans to deploy significant unassailable defences. Whilst I believe this should be a somewhat viable strategy in terms of fortifications with these changes and the fact that the owning company can attack outside companies at any time 24/7 seems like it will make it impossible for an invading force. I had assumed each island would have, for want of better words... hardpoints or headquarters which would need to be contested and secured by the claiming party, I had also assumed that these hard points would have a radius around them in which nothing (or limited structures) would be able to be built. You would still be able to fortify around the region but you would require towers rather than be able to completely surround the flag radius. Again, would appreciate feedback if I have misinterpreted the functionality and general discussion is always welcome

I have absolutely no problem roaming to get various things particularly for advanced progression, in fact I encourage diversifying the biomes further to increase the reason for trade and exploration. However saps/organic paste are a requirement to standard progression, even if it took 100 fruit for 1 sap or something absurd, we shouldn't be restricted from standard progression by the island's indigenous flora/fauna. Specific items you cannot progress to without sap/organic paste: Fur Armour Saddles Pipes Reservoirs Cliff platform The only negative to being able to make sap/sugars would be the ability to make Copper Ingots (Alloy) more easily, however when Iron and Tin are wood/thatch it doesnt seem to me like this should be game breaking rather it would alleviate some of the discrepancy between islands. At least you can dig for Salt to make Cobalt Ingots (Alloy) It should not be IMPOSSIBLE to effect standard progression without exploration only difficult. I say all this with respect to the new system whereby everyone will start on their "favourite" island and race to be the first to claim it and put it in peace time so that they can remove any unwanted visitors in the first 24 hours of the game. It is going to be an absolute shitstorm. Diversifying the viable islands with a small addition such as cooking fruits into sugars and ensuring that ALL islands have pure metal spawns of some type shouldn't be terribly gamebreaking.

Hudrood Holm (equatorial) had zero metal nodes. Had to sail to get pure metal, the changes to the stone buildings made it completely impossible to build ins tone on such islands.

Rather than adding in sap as they did with the tundra after the changes to the stone buildings. Can we maybe consider cooking fruits and yielding generic sap/sugar? With the ability to start your 3 hour race to bank/island claim on any island (which I really think is a tremendous mistake) the imbalance of resources is really shining through.

nice

Interesting. The replies (or lack of some significant names therein more specifically) are quite telling. I am convinced the alliance/member limit should (and likely will) be removed. It only has the effect of benefiting out of game allegiances/communication. Communications, clan privileges and alliance systems within the actual client of Atlas are worse than in Ultima Online in 1997. In a free for all situation like this it is all about communications and alliances, if you can design an ingame system which is effective for both of these things then the "average" player will be able to compete, if you force them to use out of game means, the nefarious will always prevail

Excellent plans. Keep us appraised

Ships don't take long. On the other hand... docks to accommodate them, townships, meeting halls, trade hubs, taverns, shanty towns, ... the buildings. The sheer weight of the resources or even the crafted pieces makes it a very tiresome effort to build on a scale that matches the landscapes and the scale of the ships.

Its not exactly going to stop this though... Just unofficial alliances through discord. Will just stop smaller/less organised groups from being able to form alliances in-game

I think its likely there will be semi-regular (intended or otherwise) wipes during the pre-release phase. Would love to see at least the PvE servers have some of the crafting requirements lowered in order to allow the builders to complete some of the large scale builds they would like to undertake Semi-regular wipes with the resource requirements in crafting as they are is a little bit painful for PvE.

They truly looks like paid social media trolls to me. Akin to the facebook/twitter political accounts in 2016.

You really need to dial it back a little mate, you can hide behind walls of text but the underpinning argument is "I'm right, you're wrong and so are the devs" Not trying to put words/designs into the devs mouth here but it APPEARS (to me) that the Devs have followed a fairly obvious trend of creating a game in which not everyone is equal. They (to me) appear to be trying to balance it so that even those who are NOT equal are able to obtain enjoyment within the game AROUND the systems and creating systems which encourage those at the top end to share with those at the bottom. I'm not saying the game CANT be the way you want it to be but you're getting pretty rude about insisting that it should be. Unfollowing this thread as it has truly degraded best of luck to you Winter but I truly think you should step back and consider your position in relation to the developmental progression of the game. Unofficial servers can be made any way you want them to be... the officials need to follow along the developers path.