Jump to content
Game-Labs Forum

The real reason for pvp failure


Recommended Posts

The reason why pvp has died over the last 3 months was not due to fine wood system, hostility system, or fleets. the reason pvp has died is simple........ FORTS everywhere. I spend over an hour to find a enemy player. when I find that player 90% of the time the player can simply go to the nearest fort and deny any action at all. the other 5% of the time the player can go hug one of these massive AI fleets which consist of more warships than were in the Caribbean at any point in history. This is also the reason that so many people have left the game. Forts and AI fleets in open world have made it to difficult to be able to find action. the current build of the game forces players into grinding hostility to find action. Increasing the durability of first rates wont do crap to help players stay with game. reduce the forts to county capitals. this would be a huge step in the right direction. and then delete 90% of ur open world ai fleets. and make them solo ships. if people want massive ai battles there are epic events.

Edited by King of Crowns
  • Like 16
Link to comment
Share on other sites

hum maybe.

For me one of this reason its the lack of OW content,

no enough fleets and traders , no daily mission with rewards , especialy in friendly coast ( more the nation capture more the hunter need go away for the traders , fleets  etc and thats boring a lot of players,

need more AI fleets ( special gold convoy , war fleets etc )  and loot also

= more players in OW = more possibility of PVP

  • Like 8
Link to comment
Share on other sites

For casuals it's too hard to get organized. It takes too long and it is hard to find players to sail with. We need a lobby to create squadrons in an easy way as a minimum. Sailing alone is almost gg due to OP pirates and broken ROE.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Forts and AI fleets for sure, but also...

Hostility mechanism is more PvE than PvP.

Everyone does not like the current hostility system that much.

Player controlled AI fleets, this is hated by many, I believe some people honestly left because of this.

Crew costs turned to be very expensive for casuals, who sink a lot.  Add massive crew rake damage to this, and new guys have some economical issues.

Regional bonuses, nice that we are now spread out and not just focused to the capital, and ports have some reasons to own -> Now it is super hard to find people, which hit OW PvP really hard.

Devs probably agree that there was some fails.  But where is the next patch?  They could have stopped patching the main server when everything was in a pretty good shape, not when things are cracking from every corner.

 

THERE IS GOING TO BE A WIPE SOON!  Not really, just kidding :lol:

 

Yeah, I probably missed some...

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

To make pvp you need to find other players first. Problem is that many in here are vets and have the time, connections and economics for port battles which is where this game shines. 

Many players simply don't have the time to find action. This is the only game I know of, where you only maybe see some action during hours of gameplay. It's not good enough IMHO. (And don't come with the "it's the players own fault" song.).  

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, fox2run said:

connections and economics for port battles which is where this game shines. 

 

You are totally correct. The game should from now on be focused on proper age of sail trade and the wars resulting from that.

Need a living world full of activity, pve and pvp that may lead to wars and big battles where winning and losing makes sense.

  • Like 12
Link to comment
Share on other sites

When hunting, always have a couple fleet ships with you, at least one. When your prey runs to a fort, send the fleet ship to gain the agro first. Then close in at hit the prey yourself. But yes, some of these AI fleets are way too large.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, van der Decken said:

When hunting, always have a couple fleet ships with you, at least one. When your prey runs to a fort, send the fleet ship to gain the agro first. Then close in at hit the prey yourself. But yes, some of these AI fleets are way too large.

I will never debase myself to use AI ...  Still the only button I have never touched.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Hethwill said:

You are totally correct. The game should from now on be focused on proper age of sail trade and the wars resulting from that.

Need a living world full of activity, pve and pvp that may lead to wars and big battles where winning and losing makes sense.

This X1000....  I've said it before and I'll say it again...  The physics and combat areas of this game should be put on the back burner for now.  What they really need to focus on now is making this great Caribbean world they've created actually have a purpose.  I know they've said they've never promised more than a good age of sail combat game, but honestly they are only a few good additions short of a really epic game.  They need to hire a story teller who can add elements of Civilization and Pirates.  Both of which would keep you engaged for huge amounts of time, despite having nothing as far as graphic beauty.  Give me some goals other than turning dots on a map green.

  • Like 9
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree with KOC,in my opinion there should not be bots or forts at all in a PvP server.They basically turned the PvP server into PvE and we already have a PvE server for those who don't like to fight players.I would prefer  the old formula tho,a player can have a fleet till a certain rank,2 Snow,just to give new players a bit of cover till they make some experience in combat,that's it.The game simply offers too much proctection and that's no good,it also remove motivations from new and old players,why should anybody bother to get good at the game and finally achieve a well deserved victory in battle when most of the time the game does it for you?Or the game mechanics are just a repellent against any PvP activity?

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Hethwill said:

You are totally correct. The game should from now on be focused on proper age of sail trade and the wars resulting from that. Need a living world full of activity, pve and pvp that may lead to wars and big battles where winning and losing makes sense.

2 minutes ago, Vernon Merrill said:

This X1000....  I've said it before and I'll say it again...  The physics and combat areas of this game should be put on the back burner for now.  What they really need to focus on now is making this great Caribbean world they've created actually have a purpose.  I know they've said they've never promised more than a good age of sail combat game, but honestly they are only a few good additions short of a really epic game.  They need to hire a story teller who can add elements of Civilization and Pirates.  Both of which would keep you engaged for huge amounts of time, despite having nothing as far as graphic beauty.  Give me some goals other than turning dots on a map green.

This - omg this!! I have tried to stay positive, but I'm about ready to totally give up and just move on. I haven't played in over a month now because there's been nothing meaningful done since the new PB mechanic. And for the majority of players who don't participate in PB's, that was interesting but of ZERO benefit.

/Rant incoming

This dicking around with the basics is soooo old its painful. You introduced a new whack of damage model code that just needed to be tested and tweaked from the ground up AGAIN. A new damage model that may (or may not) be slightly more realistic? Who the hell cares??!! You're rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic while the lifeboats are being lowered.

If there's no reason to be in OW, no trader or crafter will go to OW. If there's only problems in OW, they will spend as little time there as possible. With only wolves in the OW, it isn't a 'sandbox' by any stretch of the imagination. If GL just wants NA to be a naval combat sim, then get off the crapper and just do away with OW and make it lobby based.

The PvP crowd can moan all they like about any effort being devoted to PvE play. But without meaningful and engaging PvE content, OW is nothing more than the most inefficient and unbalanced combat matchmaker mechanic in the history of combat sims.

FOR CRIPES SAKE LISTEN and cut the size of the freaking AI patrol fleets and reduce the number of coastline defenses anywhere but at capital ports. Are you so unbelievably stubborn that you won't even try this for so much as a month? If actually removing the fortifications is a lot of work (I don't doubt it is), then just spike their cannons and give them a very dark coloration to show they won't fire. Take them out of play any cheap and dirty way you can, clean it up right later if the changes stay.

Try something, try anything to modify the alliance mechanic to break the stalemates currently killing RvR on both PvP servers and only contributing to the off-hours port flip issue.

Some of the changes in the pipe sound interesting. Perks shifting over from officer to captain. Ship crafting simplified and customization expanded. I hope I'm wrong but... why do I have the bad feeling you're going to repeat a mistake made several times in the past, and once again release one big patch with several major changes included all at once? The PB change was rolled out all by itself. It went well. There's a lesson there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Longer joining timers is all you need to make the game living again.

Close to ports: risk of reinforcements coming.

Open sea: on your own.

A lot of stuff replaced reinforcements. It's really like they didn't like it.

AI fleets, forts, PVE grinding.... A lot of stuff came along. I still long for the great times where D-N, NL, F and Swe where making huge, improvised battles at Fort Baai.

The game has really never had the same fun in it since. RvR politics and pressure on devs changed the game from fun to grinding and players left. It was a great success with all those cool battles, but somehow they tried to steer players into time-consuming RvR. 

Well... They left instead.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Exactly, reduce forts to county capitals and reduce the amount of ai fleets. Also ai fleets should never exceed 1000 BR. Right now any coast in the game is a damn save zone and you have no chance to engage anyone if he does not want to. The game is broken at the moment. At least for me because i'm a pure pvp player and not doing any rvr.

Best way to resurrect ow pvp would be to revive capitals. In the past the capitals were the nr.1 spot for pvp. We could add a mechanic to give the capital county a loot increase drop for defenders to encourage players to defend their home waters. We could call it coast guard area or something like that. There are so many ways to get people back on the open world, we just have to implement good mechanics.

Hostility generation needs to get more pvp focused. Add capture circles along the coast. Now players have to stay in this circles to increase hostility and not hide in pve missions. Frigates should generate hostility faster then SOL's to prevent the use of SOL dread fleets in the cap circles.

Raids was one of my big hopes to get more pvp again but it looks like it's going to be another pve mechanic. Let's test it first, when it's finally implemented...I know soon™

Edited by Pada
  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Otto Kohl said:

Broken record as always...

Thanks for this in dept analysis of yours. It's not something I just made up. I remember a guy who on steam tracked the drop in players everytime the the timers got cut. Why? Less action. Less fun. Some luring in ports and in exit screen tried to gank but the exit timers pretty much dealt with this problem.

Now we don't have any interaction with other players as before. I can't help my friends by reinforcing a battle. Hell, I can't even join battles anymore. BR restrictions, timer restrictions, port battle restrictions. Only hard core RvR or gank pirates like this game as it is now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Vernon Merrill said:

This X1000....  I've said it before and I'll say it again...  The physics and combat areas of this game should be put on the back burner for now.  What they really need to focus on now is making this great Caribbean world they've created actually have a purpose.  I know they've said they've never promised more than a good age of sail combat game, but honestly they are only a few good additions short of a really epic game.  They need to hire a story teller who can add elements of Civilization and Pirates.  Both of which would keep you engaged for huge amounts of time, despite having nothing as far as graphic beauty.  Give me some goals other than turning dots on a map green.

AKA, CONTENT!  The game needs content and in a very bad way.  I agree 100%.  It seems we have several posts now on this very subject of lacking content. 

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, fox2run said:

Now we don't have any interaction with other players as before. I can't help my friends by reinforcing a battle. Hell, I can't even join battles anymore.

Well that is the whole problem we have right now. You are sitting in port waiting, doing nothing. You are supposed to sail the seas with your friends, hunting and looking for fights.

SAIL be free :rolleyes:

Edited by Pada
  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, Pada said:

Hostility generation needs to get more pvp focused. Add capture circles along the coast. Now players have to stay in this circles to increase hostility and not hide in pve missions. Frigates should generate hostility faster then SOL's to prevent the use of SOL dread fleets in the cap circles.

I kinda like this circle idea.  The only issue is that you have to wait there.  In NA lot of things are about waiting, but do not have a good idea how to fix it.  But, what if...

We had different kind of PvP hostility missions we can launch.  You have to of course specify target region.

For example we can have blockade mission.  Different ports could have different BR/Rate limits.  For example 4th rates, max BR 1500.  You probably have to sail to this location to start it, what would be right next to that specified port.  Your enemy is informed that there are open hostility activities here, kinda like mission list.  Has to be informed, because what I have experienced, it is impossible to find current PvE hostility missions in the 1st place.  So there has to be some clear indicator that this region, this port is under attack, go and do something about it.

 

Scenarios would be probably nice, as would provide possibility for all players to participate.  n00bs wont be yelled at GTFO of here if you do not have Exceptional LO, BS, SH Agamemnon.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, Rickard said:

NOPE ! forts are just fine as they are, sometimes they are a bit on the wrong place but nothing to blame the games issues for it.

the player base is the problem that escalated everything in the game ,every issue in the game became worse because of it.

ect...

I agree with you for the most part, but you dont need to  ask us to like your post if we agree because we will like it anyway if we agree. 

You are right that forts have little to do with the player decline and forum threads such as this are a symptom of a much larger issue. 

A few things; the players that are active on this forums are the ones that helped steer development decisions, but not entirely to blame for the developers decisions such as the hostility, for example, that many on this forum were vocal about how bad it was along with the terrible player added NPC fleets to accompany them on their ventures.  Today, we still have the terrible hostility grind and the fleets and we are still vocal on these issues on the forums about how terrible they are, but the devs seem to refuse to budge, at least on the fleets.  They did at least promise changes to the hostility system. 

Edited by Yar Matey
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...