Ahoy Pathfinders!
Our commitment to bringing new features to ATLAS continues. ATLAS is still in Early Access, and we’re only in the beginning stages of developing the renewed ATLAS journey. Many changes are incoming and a lot of work is being done behind the scenes. All of your feedback has been very helpful and we’re thankful you’re taking this voyage with us as we shape the ATLAS experience.
Many of you have expressed that you wanted to hear more about our vision as we breathe new life into ATLAS. From the highest level, the main efforts are towards making the ocean fun and cleaning up the code. We are putting equal efforts into fixing bugs and rickety systems while we work on new things for you to do on the water. Apart from that, we feel that ATLAS suffers from a theming problem. In some aspects, the game tries to be almost a simulation, but in others, there are dragons and hydras. Currently, this creates a bit of incongruence which we are working to solve. Unifying the theme is one of the broader arcs within the design team. For example, it's fair to say that we want to edge away from being a high fantasy, "WoW with ships". There are lots of great ideas we are playing with, but nothing that we are able to share at this point. As we get closer to defining our ideas, we’ll bring them out onto the deck for you guys. :)
One of the bigger changes is a new, more optimized system for ships and new types of ships. This includes the mechanic of buying certain types of ships for gold. We’ve seen a lot of excitement and feedback around this topic, with many players hoping to find out more info about its current state. Unfortunately, that's all we can say right now. Please know there is a steady stream of content planned and we're half timing on that and half timing on fixing the bugs and cleaning up the code as we navigate towards a 1.0 release.
A lot of these bigger changes are going to take some time to fully implement, and some of the changes happening now are setting the foundations for that gameplay. Think of them as building blocks. For example, although the Farmhouses are indeed a QoL update, it’s just the first step in a longer scheme for a new system. Now, we’re excited to announce the second step - Warehouses!
Warehouses
Warehouses will be coming to ATLAS next week! Connect Warehouses to Farmhouses to automatically store the resources you gather! How will this system continue to evolve? You’ll have to wait and see. ;)
Please note that Farmhouses and Warehouses are still in their first iteration. We will continue to develop and improve them as we look at gameplay and receive player feedback.
We’re sure you have many questions on how the Warehouse itself will function as well. Leave us your questions in the comments section! We’ll be going more in-depth about Warehouses in the patch notes next week.
In the meantime, we’d like to share some of the concept art for Warehouses below:
Endgame Encounters & EXP
We’ve received a lot of questions about the boss encounters continuing to reward EXP. After careful consideration, we will be leaving it “as is” for the remainder of Season 4.
We appreciate the reports you all have been sending us. Through your feedback, we saw that the problems with the boss encounters were a priority issue that the community wanted addressed. In the process of introducing the fixes, we found that it is a deep rabbit hole of accumulated issues. Unfortunately, it is going to take us some time to fully sort it out. We are a small but dedicated team with big aspirations, and there is a balance that we want to strike when it comes to implementing new features while continuing to work on existing bugs and balance issues. At this time, we currently do not have the resources to properly approach boss encounters and the myriad of issues surrounding the current state of endgame content. We have therefore come to recognize that it would be better to leave the boss encounters as is while we focus on implementing the next steps of the new system we are currently rolling out. We’ll still continue to include other fixes and adjustments as we can, but we will have to apologize for where we have to leave the state of endgame for now. However, please know that adjustments will be made before the next season wipe.
Please note, the zeroing out on some of the endgame exp is temporary. As an Early Access title, many things can and will continue to change during development - and your feedback is an integral part of our approach. We are very grateful for the reports and feedback we’ve received thus far and will continue to look to the community to help guide our actions and improve our processes. Thank you for not only helping us discover these issues, but for the insight you provide us as well. As our First Mate, the community, and the support and dedication we receive from you, means a lot to us.
Happy Sailing,
- ATLAS Crew
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