Yes, this game has an imbalance problem. So do all other games of this genre. Why? Because it was an idea that seemed better on paper, than in practice.
These games originated from single-player RPG games. In those games, you start with nothing…like being dropped in the desert with nothing, not even clothes. The idea was always the same…find things, harvest things, and kill things, with what you have available, which then lets you get better stuff. In the end, you can go back and cut through the enemies, like a hot knife through butter, the enemies that gave you headaches in the beginning. So then what happens? The game gets stale, and you get bored.
So, we all thought, “You know what would make this game even better? If it were PvP!” Well, turns out that this was short-sighted thinking. You take that formula, and put it into a PvP game and all that happens is the game is wildly imbalanced to the point that time, not skill, is the most important trait a player needs in order to dominate. The Metas are all known. Time is what pushes you over the top. In Atlas, some of the Megas understood this, and would only allow players to join if they played a lot of hours. You had to play every day, and not just for an hour or two.
So, I suspect that the biggest issue is that the OP, like most people, don’t have the time to play every single day. Yes, it takes a lot of hours to get where you need to be, to be competitive. It takes time to level thralls. It takes time to even get a decent one. It takes time to find quality crafting thralls. It takes time to gather enough resources, especially rare resources. And all of these take you into areas where you are likely to run into other players. As a newer player, you are for the most part, at the mercy of the better equipped player.
It sets up this weird dynamic, where you only progress if others show you mercy. If it was full on PvP at all times…player sees you, player attacks you…new players would never get anywhere. When the other player has much better stuff, and great thralls leveled to a high level, you aren’t going to beat them with. It’s about time, not skill.
So, you are on a server where people are leaving you alone, for the most part. You are making progress. Then one day, you log in to find the Alpha in your base. You had gotten too far for their liking. So now you have nothing. You are back to square one. You have to find new quality crafting thralls, gather resources, legendary equipment, etc…
Some have said that there is always something you can do to deal with the Alpha. No, not always. An Alpha of 10 people who all put in a lot of hours, and know the Meta, and can also get onto the server before other people can, will dominate that server…until they no longer care to. Now, that is what I have seen happen more often than anything…the Alpha gets bored, and many, or most of their players stop playing…usually to play a new game.
This happened to our 10 man clan. Joined a server where there was no active Alpha. The Alpha’s clan had largely stopped playing. Just a few players, one of which who insulted us. 2 hours later, they had nothing standing. Same thing happened to us, without the insults. All but 2 of the 10 stopped playing, to play another game. Eventually somebody noticed the drastically reduced numbers, and took advantage. For me, this is not what I look for in PvP. I would rather play a game where you have two very healthy clans fighting it out. Not, just eliminating a gimpy clan that can’t put up a proper fight.
So, later on, the guys got interested again. So we looked for a PvP server. This one, as it turns out, had a very active Alpha. Could the whole server gang up on them? No. They would hit everyone before anyone had enough to pose any real threat. We logged in to find them in our base.
Do I hold it against them for doing this? No. They were doing what the game allows, and doing what they needed to stay on top. I blame the game itself. But, it is my choice to play. But frankly, it has become obvious to me that your defeat is largely hard-coded into these kinds of games. IMHO, they are broken at the core. The idea of taking an RPG game and making it PvP sounds good, but I don’t think anyone has actually figured out how to do it right.
Now, there is one game that did it right…but only on a few unofficial servers. Atlas. Ship vs Ship. These servers made it like Conan PvE-C on land, but but your ships could be sunk, while at sea, and when not green anchored at your home island. It takes 30 minutes to green anchor, so running home to your home island and dropping anchor was not a guaranteed save for you. It also made it such that harbor defenses, were still a necessity. Having some defensive installations around the island also helped with the PvP aspect.
What this allowed, however, was that you didn’t come back to no base, no assets, just because you couldn’t log in the day before, or went on vacation for a week.
I will never understand why Grapeshot doesn’t make that an official server mode. One of the unofficials that had this, as well as grids that were PvP, and PvE, did a poll. They were thinking about making the server all one type. Ship vs Ship was the clear favorite.
This is the kind of game mode most people belong on, because most people do not have 50-100 hours a week to dedicate to a game.
But it’s your choice. Everyone thinks they want PvP, but the reality, most people don’t actually want it. They simply want the fear factor. PvE is boring because there is no danger. PvE is also frustrating because you can’t do anything about people who build in absurd ways.
IMHO, the best way to make these games, is to allow you a home base, that is safe. To do this, they need to give you a flag that you place, and this gives you an area to build within. So long as your structures are within that, they are safe, and decay at a normal rate. Outside of that, for PvE, there needs to be a mechanic that makes things decay, with no chance to repair. This solves griefers building to grief. PvP, you can destroy those structures…just not the ones inside the flag circle. In fact, in PvP, there would be no need to force an auto-decay-no repair function. Those structures outside the circle would simply be destructible. This would solve the problem of logging in to find people in your base, and higher level clans simply denying you the ability to progress. If the game also had something to fight over…a reason to build outside of your homestead…that would be even better. This is why Atlas SvS is so awesome. Your homestead is safe, but your ships at sea, are not. You still have something to lose…you still have skin in the game.
This would allow you to build an outpost to farm an area, but after a week, that structure is gone.