Fiil

Thanks, i will give that a try!

UPDATE: Yay that actually worked!
I thought i had covered that angle by respeccing.

Context: My character is currently unable to make wood walls. (I can still make any other item, its only wood wall that suddenly stopped working, within minutes from my last production of wooden walls).

How do i go about getting help from the developers/gm's to fix my character?
The ticket system seem limited in scope as they say they won't even consider anything that is not company ownership or merger related...

Any good ideas? I have made a post on the bug forum, but that seems likely to get flooded away.

2 hours ago, Bullet Force said:

Steam is an American company and they follow American laws not European. Also what I am doing is no different to anyone who writes down publicly available information on a piece of paper. Its legitimate and correct.

It doesnt matter if its an amarican company or not, its doing business in europe, and thus subject to european laws. Even Google/Microsoft/Apple/facebook, and more cannot hide behind the fact they are based outside of europe, they can comply/get fined for up to 4% of their annual turnover, or they can stop doing business in europe, they are all complying, so of course the same will be the case regarding steam.

And you as a private person are also liable to legal action if you keep databases of personal information of identifiable individuals.
You will of course be harder to go after, than a company, that for the most part want to do business in europe, but if you are based in europe, you can be charged directly, and if not, you can be charged, if there is a strong enough case against you, and you want to visit europe sometime in your future.

@Bullet Force
For a person clever enough to write a piece of software that logs and presents data about other peoples playing patterns, you, at the same time, seem willfully ignorant towards the viewpoint that the people you log may feel that you are invading their privacy in doing so.
 

In the EU, that can get you into trouble with the GDPR, as any unsanctioned logging of data and publication is against the law as soon as it can be lead back to the person that you are tracking. And since you and battlemetrics are using the steamname you are indeed storing personal information that can tell alot about a persons private life.

On top of that, what you are doing is in its essence cheating, since data that shows online patterns, etc does not exist without your tool (and battlemetrics).


@Jatheish
What are you guys doing to prevent breaches of the GDPR in Europe?
Since the data is mined from your systems, you are enabling logging of private information on individuals, this could make you liable to being fined.

Actually I think that there are something one can do about this problem.
Due to the new GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) in the EU, you can request that any company hand over/delete anything that they have logged in relation to your person, and since these tools, use your steamname, which is (unless you change it to 123), possibly personally identifiable, then they can be forced to hand over, and delete any data they have on you.

The problem is, you have to be a EU citizen to be protected by this legislation, and you have to make them stop tracking you yourself.
They then have 30 days to comply, or you can lodge a complaint against them with your local data protection agency.

Failure to comply is enforceable with hefty fines, that have made even google/microsoft/apple etc comply to such requests, I don't see why the same can not be the case here.
The problem is, the way the data is collected, everytime you shut down one place, another springs up.

2 minutes ago, labatts said:

I like all that except the part where you can look them up later and see who they are affilitated with at that point. That would still make it so you could not really hide at all. 

The intention from the developers of EVE is exactly that, that you cannot hide, you can even pay npc's to get them to locate the player you ask them about, and you will then get an aproximate area that they are in, there is still plenty of ways to "hide" but you cannot, if you really piss someone off, ever think you are completely safe.

Neither should you, if you are a murdering, plundering scoundrel

And, at least in EVE, it doesn't stop people PVP'ing at all. - But it does add consequences!

6 minutes ago, labatts said:

I agree that the log is lacking and needs to show more detail who destroyed what and so on. What does the EVE logs do differently ? 

EVE logs (or killmails), show everyone who participated in killing you (anyone who did damage to you in the event that killed you, or your structures), you can then click on the listed participants and see what corporations they are in, and what corporations they have been in, in the entirety of that characters life).

So what you know in EVE, is who did it, and what groups have they affiliated with, and you can always look them up later, to see who they are affiliating with later, if that changes.

In my opinion, this makes for much more hardcore PVP, as you can always choose to be the villain, but doing so, will follow you, maybe nothing will come of it, but it does make you think twice before going on a killing spree.

I mostly spent my time in EVE as a pirate, so i won't say it outright deters people, but you always know you cant hide from your actions.

This game (and ARK for that matter), is a kiddie version of PVP, where nothing you do will ever really haunt you, and it feels very catered towards 10 year olds, that cant grasp their actions "means something".

The devs should really look towards EVE-Online on this issue, sometimes the log in this game doesnt even show who offline raided you, PVP is great, but i lacks meaningful consequences, if you add a log that works somewhat like in eve, there would be no hiding from your actions.

That doesnt stop you being able to raid, it just gives the victim, who is often the little guy anyway, a chance to respond.
As it is now, you can get raided, and you won't even know if it was your neighbour or someone from 7 grids away randomly sailing by.

8 hours ago, Shintai said:

Client is capped at 60Kb/sec or so as an "epic" setting.

Yeah, forgot about that setting, but really it shouldnt take much bandwidth to tell the client what buildings is around them, its not like its sending a picture of it

3 hours ago, Nutcutt3r said:

As far as I can tell its bandwidth related, or lack thereof

Do you mean the servers bandwidth, or the player?

Because i have 1Gbit internet, and still occasionally crash into stuff because it hasnt loaded yet, mostly when its close to a huge base, but still.

In my experience especially shipyards loads slowly for some reason, so maybe they are not very optimized or something.

3 hours ago, Talono said:

Dear devs,

i thank you so much for the stone nerf ! Before that it was a bit too much efforts to cut through players stone garages they have built around their ships, but now with a 2,5 x damage multiplier its just a few explosive barrels and their ships are mine ! 

Thank you Thank you !

Could you please reduce the cost for barrels a little bit ? Come on, what about 5 fiber and 2 wood for each barrel

Cant wait for your next patches to support us offline raiding trolls a little more, maybe another triple damage versus structures could be an option ? 2 minutes to sink a galleon offline seems a little bit too long for me.

You are the best, just continue on your path ! You are world champions of game balance.

This exactly!

In the stone patch mega thread, much focus have been given to the addition of organic paste and metal to the cost, but to me the worst part was always the reduction in strength, to stone, that wasnt even slightly too strong to begin with.

I sincerely hope they wise up to their mistake in a hurry.

1 minute ago, Hodo said:

Not really that easy to smash...

we spent 9 hours on Sunday firing 3 mortars and over 300 rounds into a fort... it was comical.  

I smashed someones stone base with 1 medium cannon in minutes.

Ofcourse if you are attacking a well defended fort, with active defenders, its gonna take time, but if i recall correct, you did win didnt you? So whats the point, you attacked, you had 9 hours of hopefully great fighting fun, and you ended up winning, so stone wasnt "too tough" ?

Just because its PVP, it doesnt mean every attacker has some divine right to be able to waltz in and smash up everything with no effort put into it.
I guess your opponent put more than 9 hours into the fort, that it took you 9 hours to break?

I feel like their response is an insult straight into our faces.

No communication.
Ridiculous small reduction, in their insane added cost.
Not a single word on the worst part of this patch, the reduction in strength for all stone buildings. (a reduction that was NOT needed, in fact stone was very easy to smash in the first place and would have been much more suited to a buff).

I don't know why i even bother trying to convey to them how bad this change is, i feel disheartened, and just want to quit this shit, which is sad, because this is not generally a bad game, its just being tinkered with by kneejerk devs, who seem to have no sense at all of what is needed, and how it will affect their playerbase.

19 minutes ago, Apokh said:

I did not ask for other opinions, neither do you. So thanks for your reply.

14 minutes ago, Apokh said:

I dont care bout you thinking self-congratulations and insulting does rectify trolling and misbehavior. People are free to have their opinions. Ask Mr Trump... This is not your private playground, Dude. 

You give your opinion on the infamous stone nerf, then somone (funnily enough, the original OP) gives his opinion to yours, and then you go on attacking him and derailing the thread out of the blue.
I would advice taking a step back and consider if this is in any way constructive to the topic of this discussion.

Noone said your opinion was invalid, someone just didnt agree with your view.

And maybe in the future, keep your fingers off your keyboard, if you are not prepared to recieve feedback, when you write your own opinion on a public forum.

38 minutes ago, WhoStoleMyC00kie said:

To be honest, i think one of the main reasons for this change, was to keep the game and the servers stable. It was a way to easy to build gigantic base, even for single player. I build a complex including a giant house, insane giant stable, defence walls, etc easily. When i logg into the game, it often takes some time till every part of my complex is loaded and visible. And imagine, its only me, one part of the whole city of the company.

This patch will defenetly stop people from building such giant structures. And i dont think wood buildings are worth expanding.

Somehow i agree with the devs, because i prefer a stable game, but lower the cost of metal and paste to like 5 or 6 per part and we have a good compromise.

But the weird thing about this argument, that its because of server lag, is; that for it to make sense, they should have strengthened stone, so people did not HAVE TO Build several layers for any kind of defensible base. Instead they made it weaker, forcing people to build even more layers, and thus increasing the lag.

The only way this patch made sense from a lag perspective, is if they wanted to reduce it through falling active player numbers, and though some have vented that idea, I really don't think thats the case.

Also, they could have accomplished what you say, by simply adding a small (smaller than the ridiculous amount added in the patch) metal cost, that would make people build slightly less excessive, while still maintaining that most areas in some way or form can get it done.

And if this was the case "Hey guys we need to limit structurecount, and thus we will increase the cost of buildings", then they could just say so, and we would at least understand WHY this seemingly unneeded, unwanted, stupid change was thought "good".

Just because of the seemingly slim chance the devs would read this thread, I think i'll just restate a few points that i made earlier, but that i've also, while reading the thread, been strengthened in my belief is at least somewhat aligned with other players feelings on the matter.

Stone (double triple) NERF:

Before this patch, very few (almost none) though stone was too strong! In fact, I've been involved with basetakedowns involving 1 medium cannons, that opened someones base in a few minutes, it was NOT hard, and it did NOT require time or planning in any way. In fact my feeling was that it was way too easy.

What did the patch do, it double nerfed it for no reason at all in strength (2.5x + 60%), sapping it of strength it didnt have to begin with!
Then on top of that, it made it cost both a rare commodity, AND a huge amount of metal.
Each of these changes (even seperated) were uncalled for, and unneeded, but together is just utterly insane.

So lets talk a bit about why wood is NOT a viable solution:

Wood cannot keep out animals, animals that because of the state of AI is seemingly happy to chew on foundations/walls whatever for hours, the only thing that made this behavior not gamebreaking, have been them not being able to chew through stone. (My company have even, because of wildlife, had to doublewall, because of them eating away at items inside our base, THROUGH our stonewalls... go figure.
Also, wood is very VERY VERY! easy to break into by players equipped with nothing but common tools in hand. So would offer almost no protection at all.

Possible solutions:

Revert the changes while you reassess the situation, while you keep a post-it on your monitor at all times, with the words "Stone is NOT too strong" and "Stone need to be buffed NOT nerfed" and last but not least "Even IF we still want to add cost to stone, it should still be FUN to build with".

And to end off this little essay, i'll just say, for me, and for my company, the next few days will be vitally important! If we see no changes, we will simply stop, yesterday we all took a break, that break will be prolonged if no changes come, and for now, we will probably at most, check in, so we don't loose what little assets we have to decay.

8 minutes ago, Merpz said:

I can't figure out what the problem was with stone structures to begin with?

 

Horrible change. Please revert back!

If ever there was a problem, it would be that it was too easy to break into...

5 minutes ago, Hodo said:

It is the MIDDLE of the day in the MIDDLE of the week.  

Yes, and so was yesterday, I think wednesday and thursday, are two very comparable days to be honest.

The 10% loss of players was at the exact same time of day, to make it comparable, and still about 2000 less players, out of just over 20 thousand = 10%

Also, this is a gamebreakingly flawed patch, that will take time for people to see for what it is, not everyone is a builder, and not every builder have had time building, but i guess those who have, are logging out, and here on the forums trying to make the devs listen.

Fun fact, according to https://steamcharts.com/app/834910#7d

Atlas has lost just about 10% of its currently playing players since yesterday... I wonder why! (I don't)
Now i'm no genious, but i'd think this would be just about the time I would go about apologizing profusely and undo this tragedy of a patch.

At least I think i know where they found the " - Server optimisations to increase performance by approximately 5% ", they just got people to stay out of their game.

2 minutes ago, Willard said:

And they increased damage to stone structures. Now you need only 9 cannon balls to destroy a wall. Without proper turrets in this game offline raiding will be much worse now People will slice throught your stone honeycombs with ease.  

And it wasnt as if it was hard to raid/destroy stone in the first place, every building in reach from the water on my island, get pounded almost daily.. Regardless of who they are, and now we cant even use stone to at least protect against animals..

So, i'm just wondering, how many are (like me), not playing like they would otherwise have done, and merely checking here, to see if they fixed their patch bug?

3 minutes ago, Bullet Force said:

Not really. It was very slow going and expensive compared to the cost what you were raiding. It was more cost effective just to go around sink the enemies then bother hitting their stone bases.

It really wasnt hard or expensive, where i live, every stonestructure even near water, get full of holes on nearly a daily basis, simply by people sailing by.

It might have been a slight hassle to collect metal, but this change simply makes it way too easy for the attacker.

But this will ofcourse just be fixed by adding 30 gems + 30 organic paste to every cannon ball...

Impressive!

Not only is the cost increase insane, but together with the nerf in strength, its just horrific..
Even if this patch only had one of those changes, it would be a "rage quit" worthy event for most smaller company's, but together its like the perfect storm.

And what is our alternative to stone?
Wood is not protected against animals, and with many aggressive animals tendency to just chew away on structures for long periods of time, its just not a viable alternative.
And that is even before you take into consideration of PVP, where anyone can, and often do, hack through wood in a very short time.

If the devs thought honeycomp 2/3 layer stone bases was bad, wait till they see 10layer wood, if they see it, and people doesnt just stop playing..


And on top of all this, did I just read the notes right?.. did they make Galleons able to just ram everyones ships (anchored or not), and be able to sink them with no cannons fired, and no damage taken?

Hi, have anyone else noticed extreme temperatures after v15?

On my island, i've seen it reach nearly 80c, before the patch it never got this high, and even with 50 fortitude, and cloth armor, and while being under water, i am losing health at an alarming rate, every second day.. surely this must be a bug? right? right?!!!

4 minutes ago, Caldrin said:

There is a mod on steam that installa the global font.. you can use that.

You will no longer see squares but the Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean or whatever language it is.

Tbh, i had seen the mod, but i'm not gonna mod my game with any third party stuff, that might mess up my game.

I think the responsability is on the developers, to either bar nonestandard letters on the servers, or make the game at least capable of showing them to all.