cboath

Suddenly you can't build stairs, ramps, or sloped doors...... No option for it when building a roof now. (LOL.... must have gotten a few thatch roofs from some flotsam.. I rarely build them nowadays. Explains that..) Kind of hard to cipher your question. I think you are asking for the updates to occur only on designated days of the week. I'd say yes for any regular updates, but hot fixes and necessary patches should occur when ready. They just need to make sure they don't break something else when doing so.

Thought WPEs were on by default. Flew around looking for them.....didn't see any. Scrolled through the list of launch options....saw the Wild Pirates box unchecked, checked it. Loaded back in.....Wow, they are everywhere. First wild pirate ship I saw didn't have any sails...just a flat deck. Then saw several other with sails. I agree the camp spawn locations might need a little adjusting. Nestled against a cliff side with cannons pointing at the cliff make little sense. Most camps appear to be reachable with cannon from a ship, but haven't even built a bed yet.... Just looking at the scenario they've created. Didn't notice the lack of NPCs on the pirate ships other than the missing sails. Game now kinda reminding me of Salt....if anyone has played that pirate game.

Doesn't matter if the game is beta or not... The arcade crap mechanics are the problem. How the SoD ships spawn is a complete joke to the entire Pirate genre of games. How the storms come, how the plants give resources not related to their models, the heatwaves, the vitamins.... So much crap arcade mechanics that should have been ditched before the game went on Steam. They flocked here to see a pile of crap, and left.

Then a wipe does no harm...… The logic follows both ways.

Sad part is without any ability to sell your loot in game the only thing they have allowed is purchasing..... take away that and the merchant is useless. Rather see the devs go back to gaming school and learn how to make a game rather than a joke of one.

How about a player based economy, that can utilize those Freeport markets. No need to wait if it's in stock. They'd also need the NPC component to ship it. Is the NPC ship hauling goods open to pirating? Where do they originate from? I love the idea the devs have of players being able to tackle this. The problems with it are obvious without being in part of an organized server where those issues can be mitigated. Allowing broader trade options at Freeports would help.

Losing sales is more critical than the player base during ea. During ea the tide of the player base is a natural thing, and rather meaningless. Problems arise that keep players from playing. Doesn't mean they never come back. Since this title is a huge undertaking and a great concept that many like, the passion for it to be as the player invisions it will create a love hate relationship with many. The devs do great work, but their short comings are highly noticable with such an undertaking, but they are a very talented team none the less.

Real maps don't have it. What would be better are blank maps that are updated with the info as you travel. FoW works for that, but it's an old mechanic and not very realistic. Maybe needing a NPC navigator to actually markup the map as you make discoveries, or a skill to do so. The FoW is good enough for its purpose, but old school for the new generation of games. Possibly finding maps to increase the info on your own map. Maps should be a bigger part of the game, and a lootable item from a dead player. Be nice if we could bury or own treasures which would be marked on our own maps. Getting killed by another would allow the Victor to possibly get that info.

Some form of actual AI would probably be needed which they don't have. They should, but they don't. In all of the Unreal based games I've played of late the AI is very rudimentary. They just take orders with imposed limits that act as a replacement for good AI. They probably need to hire someone that knows what they are doing to tackle better AI. I've seen better AI in 20 year old titles, one of which happens to be one of the UT games where you actually also had voice commands instead of a lame command wheel, and you didn't need a 3rd party app to do it.

After hating it, then getting used to it's illogic.... the vitamin thing isn't bad, it just needs a rethink with how it works. Maybe instead of the bar graph a pie is shown with the 4 colors fading onto each other at the center where a dot is when nutrition is balanced. Out of balance the dot moves in the direction of those needed nutrients. When close to the edge you start to have issues. No damage unless you are starving with an empty stomach. Instead you lose stamina more quickly and regain it more slowly. Health Regen is slower along with speed. Your fortitude takes a debuff. Something a little more logical than just taking damage when depleated. Now with no damage there should be debuffs when depleated if not. The recipes with buffs or debuffs I'll probably never like, unless they are logical instead of magical. Being ea I'm sure we will see ongoing changes to these mechanics as they progress.

If the devs are thinking about nerfing their game to a point where the whole concept is gone..... What's the point. It's a sailing game.... I thought.. Geez.. here we go.. Game over taken by those who apparently would rather be playing CoD for their quick fix. Seems in the last few patches they have made it worse already. Now it's like skating on ice when it rains.... not sure why. Pretty soon you'll be able to take out the whole back drop of Pirates and sailing and put any insert lame character and backdrop and have the same cookie cutter game that's been on the market for the last 2 decades.

++1 Not sure what the game is now.... Slowly turning into another arcade joke of game with all the mechanics. They missed a huge opportunity to do some thing special. To add to this...… NPC pirate islands. Prebuilt, lootable if you kill the commander, and then they reset after a certain amount of time. The AI is beyond rudimentary now....and almost a joke for it's purpose. It's 2019.....we had better AI in the 90's doing more things for the player instead of this stuff we see in Ark/Atlas/ or CE......it's a joke by comparison.

LOL...… What was there before the internet......surely not PvP. Guess you weren't around then or probably playing console games instead. MP was a new idea devs didn't want to touch and was a bonus if they did have a MP mode. As the devs have found making MP games is much easier than having to do all the NPC/AI and animations for SP games......so SP and PvE has taken a backseat due to the devs becoming overly lazy greedy coders.

I think that's the ticket for the current square shape, but the hexagonal approach should have been the obvious choice. Then just get rid of the wall. Doesn't need to be there. Detracts from the immersion, but so does all the other arcade blinking mechanics that also detract from the idea of discovery when it guides you by magic lighting effects. Something strange about a game that wants you to explore, but doesn't.......

After playing around with the game for awhile now I'm missing an aspect from previous Pirate games. What this game needs for these small areas, or even the large PvE server clusters is NPC pirate bases/islands you can attack and loot. Like some of the old school SP PC pirate games of the past. Actually it should be a possibility with the current mechanics. One AI boss/commander placed inside a main AI claimed, defended fort area. You sneak past or battle their ships that patrol around the island. If you sneak past you can take out the signal fires before they get a chance to lite them, keeping the patrol ships from being called back to defend. You then make it past the port defenses using your ship cannons on the manned AI cannons/weapons, or sneak in on foot at night(should be a few avenues of approach) and grab what you can avoiding the ship and port defenses. Battling your way hand-to-hand until you reach the main fort where you need to kill the commander. Grab the loot and gold and retreat back to your ship with your booty. After a time period the island resets. The larger and more difficult pirate bases of course would have better booty. This would give some life to the PvE side of the game also. The Fantasy element alone just doesn't cut it for a complete Pirate game IMO....needs more pirate stuff. Probably need the SDK for changing those aspects...unless they eventually build premade islands set up with NPC pirate bases that can be added through the Sever Grid Editor. That would be preferred. Basically with a 1x1 grid you could have a complete game package for a small group of players or for the solo player.

As if the devs never played a pirate game before. The first thing you do after building a ship is wanting to climb up to the crows nest....then it's WTF. You have to add ladders? Seriously.... I can see the rigging already in place for this purpose....why do I need to build additional ladders? Then you look at how they did it....... OK the guy who modeled the ships screwed up..... Make the fix to the models so we can use the rigging designed for that purpose. There should be specified build concepts for all the ship designs and how they should function in regards to some of the obvious mechanics or uses of ship structures. For gameplay purposes obvious considerations will need to be thought about, but the basics should remain. The idea of having to have a skill to do something basic......is lame. For a brief time period after finding out you needed a skill to increase the draw distance (that was LOL) I thought using the rigging might require a skill set I needed to unlock..... glad that wasn't the case.

Too funny. I'm reading trying to figure out what the dealio is. Never played Ark long enough to see or use a crab like this. Then I finally get to the punch line...... It's used to jump over defenses then haul all your loot away with ease. Nothing more than a few crooks complaining about the devs gimping a means to exploit a mechanic. Then the even funnier line of logic with the whole PvP themed analogy being broken by a PvE concept that's not part of the game.... LOL.....LOL.... ROTFL..... The crooks will try anything won't they. Bummer now you got to get through those defenses.............as intended.......like a pirate and not a crab hopper.

Some still could be noob players trying to survive in a desperate attempt not to die again. As I once....still am noobish…. but I can see where others may think this is someone trying to mess up their stuff. Scenario: You haven't gotten the hang of the eating mechanic, and are now slowly meeting death. You need to log off, so you are trying to find a spot to anchor, eat, then log off. But you can't find a spot due to everything being taken..... Now your are on your last bit of health, and have no choice but to head in to land and chance it. Now you got yourself stuck in a sticky situation with a bigger ship and dock, and you can't seem steer your little raft out of the way. Times running out, build a fire, look for food and hope you survive.... But this area is active and the player who owns it is now in his Galleon that you are now wedged against (due to your noobishness)…. Oh woo is mee….. He's backing up and trapping me.... "My bad" would be my response.... I'll take the lashes...:) But how do you know without communication? That's why there is ingame voip. Communication is key.. If you don't communicate...… odds are you are doing something devious, otherwise it might be a complete noob who doesn't even know yet what button toggles voip. Who hasn't been there...? Of course there is the obvious griefing.