Balwick

Less time spent on RTS Starcraft Pylons and riding weird animals, and more time spent fixing the core experience of piracy/sailing/treasure finding please.

Now we can truly live out the pirate fantasy of *checks notes* riding spiders

Let's have a conversation here Grapeshot. When ATLAS was first announced, the trailer featured a pirate port with pistol duels and gallows. It featured a host of mythical beasts, all deeply unfriendly. It featured epic naval battles on ships that looked like ships. Later, we are told, (in a very obscure way) about the lore and how the Damned and Kraken tie into it all. Most people are either ignorant to the lore, or think "hey that's neat." Some time down the line, we get the Trench. Visually, it's beautiful. Unfortunately, despite being at the sea floor, it's shallow as a puddle. It was also at this point the animals started to become more of a focus. The crabs were a weird choice. They serve no real purpose to players. They're just an ARK boner. Some time later, I don't really remember when, we get the Snow Cave. Fantastic looking dungeon. Terrible choice of occupants. Why the hell is it full of animals, when it could be full of NPC pirates, with a final boss called Frostbeard or something? So let's fast forward to now. It's quite a thing to allow people to tame dolphins and seahorses. I get it, someone on the team REALLY likes Aquaman. So, why then, have you not provided more Atlantis-themed content than the one Trench? Why are none of the buildings in that trench open to exploration? The possibility for story-telling in a sunken lost city is immense. Capitalise on it. Here's some ideas; Open the buildings up to exploration, rewarding Atlantean themed loot. Remove the skins from the vendor. Let people find Atlantean armour down in the trenches. Tridents. Diaries. Food and drink recipes. Skins for cannons. Statues that can be reforged into figureheads. Rare spawn Lost Atlanteans who can be subdued by reducing their health and recruited to crew your ship, stronger than regular crewmen. Doors that lead to mini-dungeons that can only be completed on foot. Quest givers. Maybe a sad, lonely, Atlantean warrior who remembers the war that destroyed the city and asks you to find relics of the past. Or hell, why not have the hecking City of Atlantis be a random encounter at sea. Imagine the spectacle of an entire city of ghosts rising out of the water for your crew to explore. All of those things sound a lot more interesting than using a dolphin or seahorse as an outboard motor. P.S. A cryopod equivalent would be immensely useful, especially with sea tames. And we all know it does wonders for server lag. So hey, there's another; The Atlanteans had Soul Spheres that they used to safely store and transport their aquatic buddies. The Snow Cave. A beautiful dungeon full of opportunity for story telling. Instead, yetis. Why is there an abandoned city under the ice? Who lived here? What did they leave behind? Was it pillaged? By pirates? Where are they? Why is there only one dungeon??? This is ever the problem with the game. NONE of the ideas you have get fleshed out, there is just the bones of an idea. Ships. So recently, we've finally got a new ship. It's a mixed bag. On the one hand, the new damage system is great. More patching holes, less vanishing planks. On the other hand, a massive shield box on the front of it, holding 2 large cannons? On one hand, oars! Yay! Alternative locomotion! (P.S. Where are our paddle wheels and steam engines?) On the other hand, incredibly limited ability to design the ship yourself. If personalised designs are the issue, implement fixes to them rather than trying to circumvent it by killing the system a lot of people enjoy. No walls outside of ship rail bounds. Cannons can't be placed above other cannons on the same deck. Or, let's go full Conan Exiles and require structural stability. The Kraken Ship. So much potential. Could have been a nice ship for those that don't want to spend time building one, fitting in size between sloops and schooners. Torpedoes though? I'm not convinced pirates used many torpedoes, especially ones that have missile guidance. Why not just allow people to put cannons on it? Regarding Torpedoes, if they're needed in the game (spoiler; they're not) why aren't there options for a more basic torp launcher that just fire in a straight line once launched? Torp and launcher itself just made of good ol' brass or something. Similar deal with the submarine. The original single man sub would fit great in the game for salvaging and trench exploration, and was basically a bicycle inside an iron ball with a breathing line. I could go on, but to summarise; stop half-assing things. Whole-ass one thing at a time. Expand on your ideas, rather than constantly adding new flavours to an already very jumbled soup. There are so many good ideas, but none of them are explored even close to their full potential and that is a huge shame. Remember the original direction of the game that got people excited. Expand on that.

The speed penalty and weight limitation need to go. Having the crates already marks you as a floating loot box, which is a fair trade off for carrying more loot. The weight penalty makes it safer and more efficient to do a couple of trips instead of one.

They are, weather is still brutal and fiber will be relatively sparse with no 6x. Pretty sure I could build a fence out of lion corpses, too.

That was added in the latest patch. Allegedly gems were added too, but I've not seen any.

The new biome is exceptionally nice from an aesthetic POV, but it is a frustrating experience because; - No gems, and the primary metal being Silver makes alloy production a massive pain - No sap, and we need the fur gear Resin plants such as found on Western Tundra would fit quite happily aesthetically, as would the inclusion of Rubies, and would solve all the basic living issues. Edit: Oh yeah, it'd be nice if it snowed more often. Only caught fleeting glimpses of it, and that is a huge shame.

Before the individual creatures, I have a couple of suggestions for across the board; First, reduce the overall lethality of animals. Dinosaurs dominated everything in ARK, and in ATLAS they kill players in any kind of number far faster than guns or flame. The PvP in this game will suffer for it if they're not brought to heel as the ongoing weapon balance progresses, and the thematic vision of a pirate world will be lost if guns continue to become less lethal versus a pet bear. Most things should die, or be nearly dead, if shot in the head - with the exception of armoured people and creatures. Secondly, introduce a leash or patrol system. The leash added in Extinction was a good step, to allow certain creatures to move about enough to deal with wild dino attacks. It would be nice if we could allow high level creatures to patrol and deal with alphas (that are still managing to get inside locked buildings). --- Bears would be perfect as they are with the item exclusion system. Chickens, Cows, and Sheep are fine where they are. The male chicken could be more aggressive, like a bull. And make it Cockadoodledoo at 6am Crows, and all shoulder pets, would benefit from wild and domesticated animals being less lethal. Bulls, Elephants, and Horses should have the option to pull cargo wagons for large scale hauling at different tiers. Pig - on wander or follow, it should be able to search for vegetables and things you would find by digging, depending on the climate you're in. Giraffe would be a great candidate for thatch gathering. Ostrich needs to kick with its legs and do more appropriate damage as such. Those would hurt a lot more than being pecked. Rhino could benefit from damage protection from melee sources, to make it dual purpose dealing with wild animals as well as rock gathering. Lion, Tiger, and Wolf - for the love of all that is holy, stop with the obnoxious knockback. Also, our armour needs to have more effect against predators generally. They would be ideal candidates for patrolling/wandering if a leash/patrol system was implemented. Shieldhorn and Razortooth - they're fine IMO. Go easy on adding dinosaurs to this game.