CoopedUp

I agree that having more islands should cost more in the way of upkeep and agree that some islands could use a resource re-balance, but I also think that they need to do a point system rebalance MORE then the resources. There should be a formula for each island where it's starting point value is figured by it's over-all size, slightly adjusted up/down based on resource types, quantities available, and creature spawns, but then also more heavily influenced by the Biome that it's in. Nobody lives in Polar and few live in Tundra or Desert, so why do those islands cost as much or more then several of the islands in Tropics or Temperate zones where more people are likely to want to settle?

Since those structures were placed down more then 24hrs ago then yes, you are stuck with them until their timer runs out in which case anybody can "demolish" OR the owners can return and refresh the timer. Your rights as a landowner is the responsibility to clean and upkeep your island from any NEW settlers or structure builds.

Did you ever manage to figure this out? We've just started doing the Power-Stones and I'm interested in reading the Notes or Book entries as well. But I'm killed immediately after it opens up in the cave.

Even if an officer can let them in, there is no guarantee that and officer will be online. My Company is 11 people with 5 of them being officers, but even with half of us being EST and half being PST we never really see our EU or Australian neighbors. With an auto-demolish system, the owner won't need to knock it down. After 2-days ALL structures would disappear, not just the bit placed down 2-days previous. Could even have a cooldown that after that 2-day period the Company can't build on the island again for 10-days OR they join the alliance.

Yeah, a timed eviction system would be nice but I think it should work in the reverse some too. So when you first sail to an island you can build a thatch hut or get started on a base, but if after 48 hours you haven't joined the island alliance then all your structures auto-demolish. That way the island owner doesn't have to patrol and demolish abandoned traps, discovery point beds, or leftovers from resource farmers ... And new settlers aren't restricted to waiting till the island owner acknowledges them before they can build. Because sometimes the owners and settlers have two completely different playtime schedules.

I completely agree with you that the new claim system works, and that settlers should have a more substantial impact on the upkeep. The increase of the upkeep, I'd debate on some points though. I think it's too cheap, but I don't want to raise it because then it's a bit unfair to the landowner that WANTs settlers but has an island with poor resources or topography that no one wants to settle on. Settlers should have to declare 1-2 islands as "Home" so that basic resource outposts and visitors don't play ping-pong with the settler numbers. Lastly, in PvE the owner should have some way to destroy structures after the 24 hour period but not without any warning and not by waiting 10 days on a timer that can be refreshed in the last hour by someone just passing by.

I don't play PvP but I'm hoping I can help with some insight that I didn't discover until a couple months into the game. The shit part about MAINTAINING a Galleon is the cost of the crew. As a solo or small Company, trying to keep a 58 person crew payed and happy is expensive. But there is a couple things you can do to make this WAY easier on yourself. First take the gunners off their cannons, this will increase their time between payments. Second: Invest some points into Accomadations. Putting the first 6-8 levels/points into this skill will reduce the cost of the crew by a HUGE margin. Playing around with those two items will reduce the cost of your crew to about the same as a loaded and unspecced Brig or Schooner.

Does anyone know the Company "Epic Fails" on the EU - PvE server? Or where they are based out of?

WoW also locks superficial things like faster mounts and such behind raid progression. We're expressing that if the sub is akin to a "diving mount" then so is the diving suit since it allows you to explore and go to the same places that the sub does (and mostly likely the new turtle tame as well). So they aren't locking the ONLY "diving mount" behind the Kraken, they are locking the FASTER "diving mount" behind the Kraken. Same as WoW.

Currently it seems like every ship that is made for any type of combat or whale hunting always needs to have it's first several levels invested into crew, and sometimes to a very hefty degree. I think the starting crew capacity of all the boat types needs to be raised so it's a bit more balanced and not so costly to be able to fully equip the ship with sailors and company members. It should be more like this for a starting crew capability ... Sloop - 5 Crew Schooner - 16 Crew Brigantine - 20 Crew Galleon - 65 Crew I mean even if you fully cannon the Galleon, you don't have enough crew points for all the guns, 6 sails, and the Captain. It's not right that you are required to invest points to even crew up a basic gun-boat Galleon with no "unique" designs.

Sadly I don't believe there is a fix. ATLAS has an issue where it tries to apply too much of the paints to quickly for both players and tames, ending in a "time-out" disconnect. This is also a bug with Tattoos as well, if you "draw" the image/graphic manually it'll be fine. But save that same paint/tattoo and try to load it later, and it may cause consistent crashing.

To be fair they actually have a lot of this in the game, it's just that crafting and exploration has never revolved around a players skill and instead has and probably always will be a TIME investment. I mean do you know how many Discovery Points you need to get the 50% exploration quest done? It's a staggering amount, and I about choked when I looked it up. And the high end food is amazing, but it's a time investment that not many people will bother with.

Yes, but not ALL trading. Both of our crabs were obtained entirely in game with no 3rd party applications. My company is a smaller company, with maybe 7 or so active members and a few in the wings. I get why some people are upset that the sub is locked behind the Kraken wall, but I also get that the sub is not NEEDED to do anything. It's a reward for spending additional time in the game and completing a challenge. It's the same for all the new quests and their reward skills. You don't see anyone complaining about any of them being unobtainable by a solo person. Everything you can do with the sub can be done with a dive suit and the new underwater mount, the sub just makes some of it easier and people want it because it is a showy new toy I think.

Trade. Same way I have two Crabs without a sub or taming skill.

Except that they are adding an underwater mount that will allow even solo and small group players to explore those areas and well. Just with the sub it's smaller, sleeker, more manueverable, and can stay down in those regions longer. Thus, the sub is not needed and is just another means to achieve the same things that others will be able to do with the mount.

I'm wondering what/if anything that new Elephant-Camel tame will do to a Fire Elemental if you spray it in the face with a bunch of water. Would be funny to see someone try it. And I think they need to make it so pickaxes do major critical damage to Rock Elementals, huge risk getting that close to one but they should reward a Pathfinder that's brave enough to try going toe to toe with it.

Very poor reference here. WoW used to and still does lock all it's best gear and Legendaries behind boundaries that require larger raid GROUPS and a higher time investment, none of it's best gear is accessible to a small group of players. It's actually worse then what it was, WoW had MORE players back when raids used to require more coordinated and organized groups before the LFR system. Either way NONE of the best gear or content in WoW is solo/small group based. The sub is NOT required for you to do anything, therefore it does not need to be opened up to every player automatically.

Were you perhaps replacing pieces like going from Thatch -> Wood, if so then the new pieces could be considered under the 24hr period. I do know that that haven't changed the system and it wasn't because the island was unclaimed, because when we claimed our island there were a few abandoned thatch traps spread around the island that were not demolishable and had to wait the entire 10-day period before they could be cleaned up.

I didn't actually SEE them, but I know of 2 instances where a GM was required to delete a couple structures. But this was before the wipe and when the structures were bugged and not responding to 'Demolish' option on the pin-wheel. Both times took several weeks from report till action.

@Gomez Addams That is true, but even on lawless you are still "managed". It's just done by a GM and a less restrictive system and rule set that can lead to 'legal' abuse in the form of trolls and griefers. On claimed islands the landowner "manages" island clean-up and can dictate stricter rules. So for those of us who's playstyles align with those restrictions it means we get to enjoy our playtime and are more protected from those same abuses that is 'legal' on a lawless island.

Any word on the time line for this? There is 3 Sloops floating in our bay from companies that left for NA-PvE and they are all coming up on 2 weeks inactive in the next day or so.

As someone who has played time as both a tenant and a land-owner I can honestly say that there is pros & cons to both. Mind you both of these view come from PvE side of playstyle. TENANT: Definitely feels geared towards smaller companies or the more casual player. Comes with a bit of fear originally that the landowner will break your stuff and run you out, but after some time passes and a little talking with the land-owner to see what they are like the 24hr destruction period becomes a minor after-thought instead of a big worry. With this format you generally get to spend more time playing the game then as a land-owner. You have the initial worry but that goes away after time, and now after the latest changes you no longer have to pay a tax so everything you farm is yours to keep. With a good land-owner you get the security of knowing that all the major resources will always be available and not spawn blocked, and that hopefully your island and beaches won't be cluttered with abandoned traps and giant gate walls. Downside is that your land-owner could be a complete pain that is purposefully trying to run you off the island, constantly destroying your stuff, or just doesn't care about the island or it's tenants leading to the island being spammed with floors, traps, and abandoned garbage. LAND-OWNER: Geared more towards players that play the game every-day and can invest multiple hours or larger companies with many active members because of all the time spent "cleaning" then actually playing. With this format you sacrifice some of your play time every-day to work on moderating your island (at least you are supposed too). You also are required to go out and farm for gold to maintain the upkeep on the island, but to compensate for this loss of time you are rewarded with extra resources from the island tax. I'll admit that the extra resources are a major boon and as someone who never bothered with a tax bank before the wipe I'm amazed at how many berries it can collect. With great power comes great responsibility. With the ownership of the land the company responsible for it has to CONSTANTLY go out on patrols and do circuits of the island checking up on things. We own an island in the TUNDRA which a majority of the player-base avoids and even then we're still having to go out every-day and play janitor to a bunch of teenagers. You wouldn't believe the amount of abandoned thatch traps, random ramps up to cliffs (I assume for treasure maps), and other stupid crap people leave lying around! I can only imagine it's 10 times worse on Temperate islands. Honestly the most annoying things is the coast-line being cluttered up with silly 3x3 "outposts" or running along and finding a single thatch floor with a bed in the middle of the woods so people in their company can just bed/teleport around islands for Discovery Points ... totally defeating the purpose of exploration! I honestly wish I could build a giant Inn somewhere that Companies could rent/buy rooms from and place their beds and resource boxes there. Then hopefully the coastal clutter and random garbage bed would be contained to a more controlled area.

We'll have to agree to dis-agree. The new system still needs some tweaks, but it does what it was intended and allows for all players (both ones that built ships and found spots on server opening and those starting brand new two months from now) to be able to sail around for maybe a couple sectors and find areas in which they can settle. Even putting in limits on flags. In a very short time the servers would be right back to where they started with entire islands being completely claimed and locked with everyone setting the flags to Company build only, because it's the easier to do that then it is to trust someone to not wreck what they view as "theirs". And people by nature are greedy, if every player is given 5 flags then they every player will place 5 flags ... even if all they ever build is a 3x3 shack on the first one and have no use for the other 4.

I believe the FoW was removed because of how the new claim system works. It's meant to give players the ability to "scout" the map for potential islands to claim or settle on by showing players the island information on who has claimed it and what the current tax rates are. If you are run off your island or have differences with the land-owner, you can just look at the map and see if one of your alliances has an island a few sectors over, or what islands have lower tax rates to entice more settlers. Has anyone tried playing with the Atlas settings and just seeing if you can toggle off the claiming "Island Info" but leave on the Discovery texts so that it looks no different then what it did before?

The protection area is the way it always has been, that is the price you pay for choosing to build there. Maybe you should think about relocating to a standard claimed or unclaimed island if your worried about foundation spam or being built on top of.