List of ideas.

[Kraker]

Hi. We've prepared with friends a list of things that we considered being not alright, ideas to resolve those, and some ideas of new additions. I'd like to see your opinion about it.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jG_Dyogpq9DzxQDBldq7M9RyLtCJpGguSOOSsHUxnyY/edit?usp=sharing

[Lurler]

Thank you for taking time to write such a detailed list of suggestions.
I've read the document several times and I agree that most of these are very on point.
Some of the things we are already planning, such as making the oil and Li deposits respawnable and depletable.
I also made some changes to a few other things such as skills - now the final skill level decreases number of hits needed to mine/chop by one.
I unfortunately can't commend on each individual point you mentioned, but I've added a good few of them in my todo list and implemented some of them already.

[ai_enabled]

Thanks for reporting the bugs. One of them is fixed for the next update, another one is expected to be fixed with the new NoesisGUI version (will investigate after updating).

[ai_enabled]

6. Weapons right now auto-reload when their clip is empty. Why I canΓÇÖt just burst my double barrel shotgun and swap to pistol for finish off?

That's a convenience feature. Probably we should improve that switching to another item will instantly cancel the reloading. This way we have both a convenience of auto-reloading with the ability to quickly switch to another weapon.

[Warbot]

That's a convenience feature. Probably we should improve that switching to another item will instantly cancel the reloading. This way we have both a convenience of auto-reloading with the ability to quickly switch to another weapon.

That's not necessarily a good feature, imagine someone with 10 double barrel shotguns in their hotbar and some possibly even mod-assisted firing,
or 10 muskets...

[ai_enabled]

@Warbot, the idea is that you cannot fire any weapon until the cooldown of the previously fired weapon is finished. But yes, I agree with the possible exploit.
It could be fixed if we finally implement our initial idea that the item selection takes some time (accompanied by the character animation of removing the previous item and preparing the selected item).

[Kraker]

That's not necessarily a good feature, imagine someone with 10 double barrel shotguns in their hotbar and some possibly even mod-assisted firing,
or 10 muskets...

Still I can have 10 double barrel shotguns and shoot only one bullet each right now. However idea ai_enabled has given will definitely resolve the problem of such weapon swapping.

[Warbot]

BIG LOL @ the OP and his document, I just took a look...

"raiding someone does not return itself in resources spent, so what is the point in it"
Someone definitely not understands the general implications of raiding... and math... if you'd make a plus in most cases by the calculation of mats spent vs mats looted,
then there would be no point in not doing it, and looting every single base every few days.

B...b...b...but why else would I raid then?!?

First off, this is an alpha and there are no actual raid mechanics yet, and many many things have to be implemented yet and then balanced.
Focusing on balancing things before anything is implemented makes no sense btw, and if you even start to change vital things because of balancing to mitigate not-yet-implemented things, you'll end up ruining everything.
Well, main reasons for raiding someone:
- "RP-ing" that you are a "bad guy",
- personally not liking someone,
- cutting down the competition (I'd say this is the main reason right now, with the most return value, just not in an instant gratification way you would like to see it)
- gaining a certain type of mats/items, like, raiding a base that you suspect has a lot of what you currently need
- ...


As to the rest of the "document":
- written in a "I know what ALL the players think" attitude
- nothing substantial except the long known issues around lith/oil and some other, minor, again well known things
- HILLARIOUS "solutions" for various problems
- not even a slight idea of the various weapons, yet another "flint lock" guy -.-
- lots of micro tuning stuff that has not even been properly implemented yet (see above paragraph for why that is bad)

=> Dear devs, if you actually consider these ..."solutions" good, I seriously fear for the future of this game.

[Lurler]

Dear devs, if you actually consider these ..."solutions" good, I seriously fear for the future of this game.

I will say this - we read all ideas and suggestions very carefully. We might agree with some, while disagreeing with others.
But what's important - we see how people think and what people find important. This is the key. Not what people SAY we should do, but what people report as having to be changed/added/removed.
And then we make our own decisions based on all information we have: our own statistics and mathematical models, player feedback through our own lens of understanding, our long term plants on features and content implemented, etc.
We never implement anything as suggested as-is, but we also never ignore the feedback

So, to all: please keep the feedback coming. It's very useful to us in helping understand what's important to the players and seeing if our own assumptions are correct.

[Neoxion]

It's kind of funny that all the problems that were stated before (like 2 months ago) are still there. I remember writing about not being able to claim someones land and that a lot of people left after they realised this. Looks like it's even worse now - 96 slot safe space storage - are you kidding? When I played, 1 large steel crate was enough to save ALL valuable stuff - of course raiding is not profitable, because everything is in a safe storage now. You are worried about newcomers too much or people who never played these types of games before, making your game too safe for a PVP game. Why do you think that they are the majority of your playerbase or target audience? Why do you think casuals will be interested in this game for a long time? People who play this game casually play on PVE servers or leave these type of games in 2 weeks. The majority of PVP players I knew in ARK, Rust and other similar games are quite hardcore to say the least - most of them will not cry over raided base and some of them are complete no-lifers.
I haven't played in latest patch because I was checking server population in prime time and it was 10-20 people on a server even after wipe. When we had 60+ I met other people on the map once per 20-30 mins probably. With 10 it will be a PVE game and in its current state this game has 0 PVE potential - you will get all the stuff and skills in a week or 2 and for what? And I also wonder how is trading going on with 10 people on server? I also stated this population problem and suggested to not split players between a lot of servers (spanish, russian).
I'm not trying to mock anyone here, but I read this whole document and realised that everything was written 2 months ago - even suggestions are the same. I really want this game to succeed, but I cannot do anything for it. I cannot even recommend it to anyone who enjoys these types of games. What can I say to them? "Ok guys, there is a cool PVP/building/crafting game, but PVP is actually dead and you cannot raid anyone or claim their territory and after week of playing you have nothing to do". You can make content for a year of playing, but it's not easy. The longevity comes from PVP playerbase and their interactions. PVP is the core of this game unless you redesign it completely - if you dont fix it, nothing else matters.

[Lurler]

I remember writing about not being able to claim someones land and that a lot of people left after they realised this. Looks like it's even worse now - 96 slot safe space storage - are you kidding?

You have to remember that it is still alpha and we are working on other things at the moment.
We have technical requirements that must be fulfilled first, before we go back to working on game features and content again.
A17 was purely content focused. A18 is a technical update (modding, localization).

I'm not trying to mock anyone here, but I read this whole document and realised that everything was written 2 months ago - even suggestions are the same. I really want this game to succeed, but I cannot do anything for it.

Changes take time. And there are essentially just two people working on the code. You can't expect things to magically change overnight.
We are doing our best, but it still takes time. So, please just be patient and all of the things you mentioned will be addressed

[ai_enabled]

96 slot safe space storage - are you kidding?

In the latest update (A17) where we've introduced this feature (it was released about a month ago) we clearly let people know that we're gathering the feedback (exactly like @Kraker provided) for further balancing as obviously these numbers (T1 land claim provides 12 safe storage item slots, T2 16 slots, T3 20 slots and T4 24 slots) are impossible to set properly instantly. But it was clear that we must introduce something like that otherwise new players were losing all their stuff and after that most of them quit the game. So, this feature is here to stay - the only question is the actual numbers.
Please note that 96 slots number is for 4*T4 land claims which are practically impossible to build if you're playing alone. So 96 slots are shared with teammates on the base and with this perspective, it's not that much.

Meanwhile, the explosives resource costs went much down so it's easier to destroy walls and penetrate the bases. Though, we've done another change by making chests unopenable for non-owners so you might need to spend some explosives after penetrating the base on the regular chests too - but it's not much and overall you will need fewer explosives than before to raid a similar base.

Regarding the Oil/Li land claim claiming - we've let people know that the we're working on a depletable/destroyable/respawnable Oil/Li resources system and (probably only in Discord, not sure about Forums) that we have not enough time to push it into A17 update and it will be postponed as there were multiple reasons preventing us from finishing it in A17. We've settled with another idea for A17 - in addition to claimable Oil/Li deposits we've added public oil and Li "towns" which cannot be claimed by any player - which turns out to be a good idea so we're considering to keep it.
Meanwhile, A17 introduced a new mineral (Pragmium) which have a depletable/destroyable/respawnable mechanic so we've gathered some useful feedback which goes into improving the upcoming depletable/destroyable/respawnable Oil/Li resources system.

Please remember that the updates (with wipe) release rate is roughly 1.5 months and we're fixing urgent issues with patches for a few weeks after each update. Some things cannot be easily patched after the update is already released due to technical limitations (savegame compatibility) and some things simply are not justifying the immediate change as there is no clear feedback yet (as was the case with safe storage on the land claims).

The land claim safe storage size was discussed before A17 release in Discord and players provided their opinions so we've settled with these initial slot numbers as they sounded like a good compromise (there were no clear consensus) - to start with and then iterate upon.

It's important to note that some changes cannot be included into the next update as the scope is already fixed and we cannot push more stuff without cutting something else which we've already scheduled or even started working on. So I completely don't understand complains that "everything was written 2 months ago". Some urgent issues could be patched instantly, but serious features and changes have to planned, designed/specificated, implemented and tested before the release (and could be postponed on each stage further if we're not happy with something and need more time to gather more feedback or simply think about it). With our iteration rate of roughly 1.5 months it's impossible to expect faster delivery. Honestly, I believe our updates rate and scope (as could be seen from the release notes) is pretty decent, even if you don't consider the limited team size.

Regards!

[Neoxion]

Instead of increasing number of free slots with every tier, how about decreasing them instead? People will trade safe slots for base cooldown, build area and reclaim difficulty. If a person has a t3-4 land claim he is not a newbie anymore, if someone thinks it is smart to stay in t1 he/she will be raided pretty easily once someone realises that he has good stuff. But of course it will work if claims are not invincible. But in general with this safe storage you forget about one thing - people can create multiple accounts (even if you need to pay for a game several times) and make as much safe storage as they want which ruins the whole PVP idea (or simply cooperate and even 20 slots per person is a lot in this case). Just make a PVE server with a PVP zone and leave PVP servers free from all of these nonsense, so you will not need to please everyone because it's impossible.

[Warbot]

Instead of increasing number of free slots with every tier, how about decreasing them instead?

How about not changing them?

Have "x" slots in total sum, over all of your claims, do not change them with tier,
so you put "x" items into one claim, you can put zero into another.

Though I'd say it would be reasonable to increase that number with tier unlocks.