SockStink

So these changes just turned a PvP Pirate game with massive potential into a PvE Sailing game with scheduled PvP times? Really? I thought the organic paste stone changes were bad. @JatheishWho is making these awful decisions? My company along with majority of people in this forum will not be returning. Sad to say because of what this concept could have been.

3 minutes ago, FindingNemo said:

Bro first off it does take some skill to track someone, i mean guys i my tribe went so far as to find people's mac address and ip's.  The fact of the point is that battle metrics isn't going any where and arguing over a pointless unchangeable fact is well pointless.  I mean it sucks that florida is going under water... should we say it really sucks a lot maybe write a book about it? OR just realize its going under water and think about ways to work with it? Maybe lower green house emissions. 

But there is a web site and battle metrics isn't the only one.  Top ark or top atlas servers allow some tracking as well. You can either change your steam url and name or get raided. There is gravity we don't project through space at 32 feet per second and the world is not flat. 

The only skill in tracking is doing it the game through sailing and asking neighboring companies. Also, discussing it as a group and reporting it to the devs is how things get changed in early access. Also it’s possible the devs would like to change what was broken on ark when developing their new game right??? Early access is about feedback. Also all of your real life comparisons are terrible and make 0 sense. 

7 minutes ago, FindingNemo said:

Or is the problem there is no offline protection so you can't be around when they show up? Is the pvp you are trying to avoid?

Again, no. I love pvp and that’s why I play the game. Just not when it takes no skill is what I don’t like. If I do the work and spend the time to sail multiple grids away they shouldn’t be able to just use a website for tracking. 

3 minutes ago, FindingNemo said:

You guys are just mad to be mad.  First off its a game not real life.  Second off, you still raided someone.. And even in games we don't live in a world of no consequences.   

Just want to get this straight.. you want to sail a few squares away cause i know you didn't sail across the map.. And then raid a wood hut... And kill some chickens... 

Then you get upset when someone tracks you down and blows up your even smaller shack and your two sloops is that the problem?

Read our posts....NO that is not what anyone of us is saying. We don’t care about getting raid and UNDERSTAND that is part of the game. We just don’t like tracked down with a website that take 0 skill or hard work to find out locations. It’s almost like cheating.... do you like programs at assist your garbage aim so you can headshot anyone? No. Why would you like the same for finding people’s bases 

6 minutes ago, xRDx said:

Battlemetrics has been around for a while and so has 123 names...this was done long ago for this exact reason so yea...if ur worried about being tracked then it's well known in the ark/atlas world u goda run 123(well pretty much any online steam game that has pvp)

Which is the exact reason OP posted to let people know about the tracking for anyone who hasn’t played ark or was unaware about battlemetrics

5 minutes ago, FindingNemo said:

Well i can see you are not letting this go. And i have lots of time on my hands.  If people are upset about the realism of the game its only a compliment to the devs.   We have bounty hunters in real life and face book is the battle metrics of life.  You can hide from battle metrics with a few simple tricks.  If you are going to raid and are unaware of these tricks and get raided back.. Well its not really battle metrics fault is it?  

Also, please tell me how using a website to track someone is realistic whatsoever for a game set in the pirate age? Finding someone by sailing around and asking other company’s would be realism...

2 minutes ago, FindingNemo said:

Didn't know they had computers back in the pirate days either. Should we be playing this game with sticks and rocks?

And you can bet there is a text message that goes off some place if a Russian air craft or boat enters usa territory. 

Woah how can I craft the computer??? You’re logic is really broken man. Take a day or two to think about what you are saying 

1 minute ago, FindingNemo said:

Well i can see you are not letting this go. And i have lots of time on my hands.  If people are upset about the realism of the game its only a compliment to the devs.   We have bounty hunters in real life and face book is the battle metrics of life.  You can hide from battle metrics with a few simple tricks.  If you are going to raid and are unaware of these tricks and get raided back.. Well its not really battle metrics fault is it?  

Man I had no idea they had Facebook back in the pirate days....do you read what you post before posting? Hiring bounty hunters to find who raided you would be awsome as long as they weren’t npcs and it was a quest for a different team. That would be very cool, but using a website/premium service to get text messages when someone enters your grid....that’s clearly broken. 

1 hour ago, FindingNemo said:

I've had about enough of this topic. If you want to go raid others and not be hit back, you are a coward.  Who cares if the same people found you and hit back, as opposed to having a new crew come and attack you?

My squad has whined about  https://www.battlemetrics.com/ all week.  And you know why? Cause they are ruthless raiders, not only that they will belittle your person, your voice, and your way of life.  People that raid are looking to take something that is not farmed by them and make it theirs.

Look raiding is part of the game, but life is life is life. You take something from someone else karma is a bitch, get over it. 

You clearly didn’t read(or understand) OP’s post. We all agree that raiding is part of the game and fun but not when you take the time tactically sail far away from your land (so it’s much harder for enmities to find you) just so they can type in a name and search your location. At that point why not just post everyone’s location.... it’s clearly broken. Do you know how many times my squad has found people who raided us the legit way by asking around. That is a gameplay experience by itself and a lot fun. Of course the attacker should have the advantage because they made the first move. 

Also, for anyone saying battle metrics is part of the game and fair in anyway, how is it fair to be able to not only easily find anyone’s location but also a history of their  time playing. All you have to do is see when they get on and log off and then plan to raid them around that. To me that’s the biggest coward out there....

Haven’t played since this patch came out. As others have said, the trade off is unbalanced now. If it takes 5 hours to build a base and 20 min destroy it completely HOW IS THAT BALANCED. If you want to nerf the gates that’s fine with me but the stone structures were fine as they were. 

On 1/25/2019 at 8:54 PM, Jean Lafitte said:

They mostly likely did do this to get you off land more. The problem I have with it is they turned everyone in the center of the map into kings and queens, sitting on mounds of sap and metal and those of us in the tundra became their bastard step child.   WE are going to be forced to sail and they are going to sit on their ass and watch the tax bank overflow. 

Oh wait... they did give us cotton a while back. I forgot.  I spend 30 minutes on 2x harvest with a bear and I get 5k fiber.  But 2 grids south, I farmed fiber with the same bear for 30 minutes and got 100k and that's paying a 30% tax.  So, it's was more like a, 'oh, you want fiber... har, har... here, you now have fiber.'

And I bet you thought this game was a grind last week, eh?

Thanks for the idea but I don't have that much paste.

It doesn’t waste anything extra. The extra ceiling and foundation are picked up so you can reuse them on the next one.

6 hours ago, Agent53 said:

That's fair to say. However, based on the evidence available to us the majority of people hate the change. There are very few people in the discord who say they like it. The only poll we have is pretty clear. The subreddit isnt full of joy and happiness about the stone change. Across every platform related to this game there is almost nothing but disappointment at this patch. When you look at all of the information available I would say it's a pretty safe bet that most people hate the change. 

 

Also. This is what early access is for. Plenty of people want to be like oh its early access suck it up! Isnt it our responsibility to give feedback about the things we do and don't like? I would argue that if the developers and the minority of players who like the stone change can't handle the criticism maybe it shouldn't have been allowed to go into early access in the first place. 

The community shouldn't be trying to silence feedback from the community. That's counter productive to the entire process of early access. 

Thank you

1 hour ago, Ridia said:

I normally stay far the hell away from forums in general, for what should be obvious reasons, but I felt compelled to make an exception to that policy just this once because of how unfathomably daft this whole debacle is.

There is little I could say that has not been made a point of already. I'm going to swallow my frustration and be as nice as possible here; @Jatheish and his colleagues at Grapeshot need to understand that they have failed to grasp why today's patch is not a solution, or a compromise. It is a complete failure to address the actual problem of why metal and paste is required at all.

It does not matter if it requires 1 paste/metal, or 1,000 paste/metal. Either way, hundreds of players have to waste precious game time on sailing up to 5-6 grids away just so they can build what is essentially a basic necessity for survival, whether it's pve or pvp. 

People value their time, and paste/metal requirements on basic, I repeat, basic stone structure pieces is wasting a ton of everyone's time. It is a waste of people's time because forcing them to spend hours dodging dozens of generally overpowered SoDs on a two way trip that carries a substantial risk to their vessels, so they can craft a basic, once again, basic stone piece is not fun, and it is certainly not fulfilling.

Swallow your pride, admit you messed up, and reverse this change. We will respect you more for it. And if you absolutely must add an increased cost, increase the amount of stone/wood/thatch it costs. Do NOT add component requirements that a large portion of the player base can not realistically get hold of.

Perfect response, I agree with every word.

2 hours ago, Captain Jack Shadow said:

Something else that would help in reducing structures is to allow clipping into terrain.  Often, you have to use a lot more structures to get around the areas where a structure won't snap into place.  A square uses less structures than a rectangle, and often to get the size you need, you have to build a rectangle, because a foundation won't snap in in one direction.

There is a work around I found for this. So lets say you have a foundation next to a sloped hill. Place a second foundation on the current one and then extend a ceiling over the area you want the new foundation. Now the foundation will be able to snap in and will ignore the terrain(clip into it) It is a great method to remove any gaps your base may have otherwise had. After that foundation is down, quickly pick up the ceiling and stacked foundation in order to repeat the process.

5 hours ago, Fiil said:

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.

I’m in the same boat as this guy, agree completely on everything he brought up.

25 minutes ago, Lb9591 said:

Ever crossed your minds that just because you’re loud doesn’t mean you make up the majority? Plenty of people like the recent changes, just because we don’t yell, scream, throw tantrums and insult the devs doesn’t mean we don’t have an opinion. Final note, calling names and acting like a child doesn’t go far in getting people to listen to you. You get more bees with honey than you do with vinegar lol. 

Also who is calling devs names or throwing tantrums? Pretty much every post I’ve seen about this has used either evidence or sound reasoning as to why they are displeased with the recent patch. They give multiple legitimate concerns to back their negative feedback up with.

4 minutes ago, Lb9591 said:

Yeah so did all the pools during the last presidential election 

If you only pool from people with your same views it’s pretty easy to get the result you want. 

That was posted in general discussion?

Just now, Lb9591 said:

Uhh that poll had 181 yes votes from what I saw. 

The biggest post on this site has like 780 comments. 

How many people bought this game? Lol

Ever heard of a sample?

6 minutes ago, BuilderX1 said:

What ever the reason it is true that things are getting worse by the patch. Any developer who puts their head in the sand and believes their way is better than the majority of their player base, is heading for disaster no question. I find it hard to believe that any one would alienate their customers in that manner, read flags start to appear and all the wrong assumptions start to arise, some may be correct and some will not be. Either way it gives the wrong impression. While it was true that this game was fun to play that is fast disappearing, that inevitably means players not playing, reviews going bad (or not recovering) and people not buying. 

The easy solution to this problem is to listen to the MAJORITY of your player base and act accordingly, this would improve your ratings and number of players online, together with word of mouth and more people buying = more revenue.

This is not rocket science it's common sense which at the moment is lacking.

It would also make things a little better if there was a logical reason for some decisions that have been made, although none can be seen.

Yes communication is worth a lot.

Yes taking note of your player base is important.

Unfortunately most posting here on the forums are essentially talking to themselves as no one at Grapeshot seams to read them, or if they do they ignore us.

Please, Please Grapeshot take a few moments and smell the roses!

Agree on everything you said! Does anyone remember what happened to the Culling when the devs decided NOT to listen to the people who BUY and PLAY their games? Turned a Great game into a DEAD game. Grapeshot, the reason we are so upset about this is because we see massive potential for Atlas to be great being throw away by unneeded patchs followed by NO COMMUNICATION responding to the feedback we are giving. LISTEN TO YOUR PLAYERBASE

3 minutes ago, Lb9591 said:

Ever crossed your minds that just because you’re loud doesn’t mean you make up the majority? Plenty of people like the recent changes, just because we don’t yell, scream, throw tantrums and insult the devs doesn’t mean we don’t have an opinion. Final note, calling names and acting like a child doesn’t go far in getting people to listen to you. You get more bees with honey than you do with vinegar lol. 

That did cross my mind until you look at the number of people responding to this thread agreeing, 

As  well as this poll 

AND also take a look at twitter and reddit. After seeing all of that feedback yes I can say the majority of the player base agrees. 

1 hour ago, Spiritwind said:

Sounds like tomorrows 2x event is their apology for the increased cost and that they are hoping we forget about it and move on.

Agreed, What we need to do make sure we all continue to raise hell about this garbage patch. They want us to move on, if they don't revert this one due to community feedback, who knows what other terribly unbalanced changes they will make.

27 minutes ago, Axden1 said:

I'm sure a response will be given on twitter soon.

2 hours ago, Realist said:

The game isn’t built like that. It is built like ark. Eventually you will see the awesome solo guys doing their raids just like ark. But you have to be really good.

but no even though the “devs” you saw in the stream are saying things they want to happen, it is all up to jeremy(the main boss) and he is the one you have to worry about. Like really worry about.

Does Jeremy have a Twitter?

1 minute ago, Realist said:

It might not seem like I am not on your side but I am. I am just taking a realistic view. They did in fact say they eventually wanted one company to rule the globe.

but besides that they have always been mega oriented. That will not change, I promise you that.

I just remember seeing multiple quotes from their live stream about saying how they want this game to have the availability for small groups and company’s to be able to survive. IMO a clever base design or better battle tactics/ strategies should over power sheer numbers of people.

7 hours ago, Vaenix said:

Meh,  if you leave due to a structure being balanced for raiding then that's a you problem.  I disagree with the costs of the structure but from what I've seen of the PvP players the nerf was needed.

Not at all, 90% of the community agrees this turned structures from being balance to extremely UNBALANCED. This patch is a joke 

9 minutes ago, Realist said:

We gotta remember some people aren’t familiar with ark they don’t feel the pain yet. 

When I first played ark I was like WTF! Like every day

That means ark was flawed, shouldn’t be able to easily offline someone with minimal resources. The devs should realize this and change it, especially if they say they don’t want this to be a Mega Clan game....

16 minutes ago, Spiritwind said:

Instead of increased costs, I'd love to see a system where you can invest resources into single tiles to increase their health.  This would lead to smaller base sizes that take just as much time as larger ones, but with the same raid protection for the time invested.  Would both solve the lag, and solve the problem the increased costs create by making raiding much easier than building.

What a fantastic idea, HIRE THIS MAN. 

35 minutes ago, xenobiaa said:

@Jatheish might wanna check that feedback

At this point I’m almost as pissed off at the lack of response from the dev team then the actual change it self. Both are TERRIBLE. If you are going to break the game and piss off 80%+ of your community atleast explain why you thought those changes were good ideas. Needs to be reverted.

4 hours 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.

Define slow going, our 4+ layer wall base got entered in less then 30 minutes. I felt like it was a perfect balance. When you decide to raid a base there should be a trade off. Now it’s WAY too easy to wipe people completely off an island which again just helps the Mega clans.

Revert_Stone_Patch is the error