[PVP2] Server "Health"

[Bach]

This thread has become ridiculous, with our British players now the subject of derision because what? We enjoy playing the game? We're now the bad guys for logging on, having a good time, and training up our lower ranks against AI fleets?

You're all just desperately looking for a scapegoat, I don't think it's productive to frame more dedicated players as what's wrong with the game. Power imbalances are ubiquitous in MMOs until players hit the level cap, which will happen soon.

I would have quit this game long ago if all there was to do was to gank traders/ lone noobs. Like I said in my previous post, we have no PVP around Jamaica -- the capturing of ports more distant to Jamaica is just an attempt to move a front line closer to the PVP.

So what are the solutions proposed here? Gank our players then run and play dock games, or complain we brought too much force to bear on those harassing our forces? Stop fighting AI fleets (the only thing that gives our casual players reliable content when they long in)? Cool... Sounds like a lot of fun...

The game needs mechanisms to provide good PVP content to players, I agree. Perhaps this could be achieved with instances popping up on the map. Something like 'Beached Treasure Ship [small]' to give the lower tier players something to fight over. Something like King of the Hill with a passive gold income for being inside the circle.

One thing you don't need to worry about is Britain gong the way of the Pirates (many of whom didn't quit, but joined France and Sweden) we have a really solid base of players who are passionate about the game, the age of sail, and crushing other factions under our bootheel. Don't rely on those factors changing any time soon.

My suggestions for fixing this were in my first post. The biggest of which I think is to simply increase the number of shallow ports to add more RVR potential for new players that come along. We can't very well tell them "sorry but you just can't come to port battles until you can sail a third rate". Some players will never have that kind of time to invest. But if we had more shallows it would help.

Also the rank spread from Tricom to Third rate is a huge BR jump. It also kind makes the Connie somewhat useless. This bracket could use another captains rank in the middle to make the Connie relevant. We could also create a medium rank ports that center on this weight class for when players are centered on this level. Then we can still maintain the deep Dee waters for the big boys.

I think this would eleviate the need for an arms race which in turn eleviate the need for the grind by players that prefer not to or otherwise can't.

Edited March 16, 2016 by Bach

[The Ghost Ship]

No one is complaining about the fact you've chosen to grind.  No one is complaining you are rolling port battles at this point.

"the Pirates and the Brits is what's killing the game: grinding their way up to higher ranks and then simply showing up with so many numbers and so much weight that you can't fight them."

[Lord Roberts]

"the Pirates and the Brits is what's killing the game: grinding their way up to higher ranks and then simply showing up with so many numbers and so much weight that you can't fight them."

I suggest you go read a bit more Arsilon, you seem to have no idea what you are talking about.

[Ci'Ki]

[1] Power imbalances are ubiquitous in MMOs until players hit the level cap, which will happen soon. 

[2] I would have quit this game long ago if all there was to do was to gank traders/ lone noobs. Like I said in my previous post, we have no PVP around Jamaica -- the capturing of ports more distant to Jamaica is just an attempt to move a front line closer to the PVP.

[3] So what are the solutions proposed here? Gank our players then run and play dock games, or complain we brought too much force to bear on those harassing our forces? Stop fighting AI fleets (the only thing that gives our casual players reliable content when they long in)? Cool... Sounds like a lot of fun...

[4] One thing you don't need to worry about is Britain gong the way of the Pirates (many of whom didn't quit, but joined France and Sweden) we have a really solid base of players who are passionate about the game, the age of sail, and crushing other factions under our bootheel. Don't rely on those factors changing any time soon.

[1] Yes they are many maintain that by increasing level caps over time and then more items, this game would not seem to be well suited to a power creep over time, or will it go the way of WT, that was once meant to be a WW2 based game that now has moved so far beyond that. What will happen here once those that race like mad to the cap, will we see CV's eventually because they are desperate to always be ahead of the curve.

 

[2] the danger is atm that the front line as you call it never achieves the desired result, if players cannot defend against the fleets you opt to attack ports with (and that is not throwing blame at you for using large strong fleets) they will not show up to fight no matter where you throw that line so you are left with pve grind and empty port battles, you are not bringing yourselves closer to pvp, willing pvp comes from parity of force, where both sides feel there is a chance to win.

 

[3] I doubt any casual player has pve's themselves into a Victory yet, solutions, well the devs could set a BR cap on port battles so yes you can bring a Victory but you then limit the overall numbers so a fleet of cerbs has a slim chance as defenders, deep water port battles are not 'end game' content you can go from Cerb onwards you seem to want to make them end game tho as fast as you can, alternatively you could reign it in a little and bring a force you know the opposition has a chance to match, yes you risk a loss now and then but the excitement might be better, but that comes down to what individuals see as better, map painters would tend to disagree.

 

[4] Don't be so sure, the USS has 160 members at one point and 50 logged in at prime time, now look, 11 went pirate and the rest are not seen, I only see a half dozen of them at port battles if that, two reasons come to mind, endless AI fleet battles and taking empty ports in the Bahamas. The USA as a whole are not in a good way. Britain got an influx of players, how long will interest remain when you are all fighting over what little scraps of pvp you can find, no nation is immune to that.

 

This thread really has nothing to do with Sons of Britain.  No one is complaining about the fact you've chosen to grind.  No one is complaining you are rolling port battles at this point.  This thread has nothing to do with you.  What it has to do with is whether or not how various parties have chosen to play is healthy for the game in the long run.  What this thread is about is whether or not the mechanics in game and how various nations/clans/individuals have chosen to use them is impacting their ability to maintain interest in the game and can encourage an environment of fun for players that have been around for a while as well as any new ones that come along.

 

Somehow you think comments here are specific attacks on you and your clan when instead its people questioning whether the path you've chosen is in the long run best interest of the game.  Instead of getting defensive and claiming that other people are too lazy to go grind so they can drive as big ships as you, the question really should be, was the grind fun?  Do you think it would be fun for other people?  Not that they should just suck it up and go do it.   By doing it is that really what the game should be about?

 

What does it mean for a new player joining the game now?  What happens to a new player that wants to play Spain or Denmark?  Is this the path that we should be encouraging or will we end up losing players faster than we can add them?

 

Check your ego at the door for a second since this isn't about you.  Its about play styles and game mechanics you may have chosen to use and therefore are an example that can be pointed to.  But it really has nothing to do with you specifically or your clan.

 

could not agree more

[Critique]

That is a quote of desperation. Now I know you're feeling it -- the same thing the pirates felt before they quit.

 

Sons of Britain encountered the pirates at Aves, realized they'd been outleveled, and went off to grind. 4 weeks of grinding later, you are finally ready, only now the pirates are gone and the French aren't up to the levels required to play your game. Whoops?

 

In desperation, you (and especially Roberts) want to taunt us into grinding levels. No doubt you will aim to capture ports rapidly in an effort to spur us on.

 

But most likely the problem is already set. You want us to grind up to a point where we can fight you? Okay, fine, let's say we do that. What are you going to do for the next 4 weeks while we run off and grind up like you did? Will you do the same thing the pirates did? Quit? Are we going to spend the next 4 weeks grinding up only to find out there's nobody to fight again, just like is happening to you, and just like already happened to the pirates? (Is that what happened to the U.S. as well? Where are they?)

 

 

It's bad game design really -- or more charitably it's a side effect of the place-holder port battle system -- but it's also you choosing to play in the manner you do rather than, well, fun stuff, like open sea PvP hunting.

 

I'm sure you and Roberts would say, "lol! That's why we're the best and you can't stop us!" but the pirates said that exact same thing. And then they got bored and quit.

 

We will set up outposts in free ports and gank your teammates and have a great time doing it, and we'll mostly do it in ships like Surprises and Snows (and maybe Trincs, because, you know, Trincs) and we will still be having fun while you guys are conducting your 15th PvT empty port battle and wondering why you even bothered to log on.

 

The reality is you have put yourself into a very boring position where the game simply may not be able to offer you the fun you want and I don't even know where to suggest you go look for it, other than to say "quit and come back in a month or two". You can PvT every port on the map, but learn something from the pirates: it's really not that fun and you will lose members over it and this game will end up with a few more negative Steam reviews, not from us, but from your own terminally bored members.

 

I don't know why I try really. The pirates didn't listen either. My whole experience with enemies in this game is one big long "I told you so".

Quote of desperation? No, I quoted that because I thought it'd be easier to understand how to solve your problems and you would stop your constant complaints about the British, and you still seem concrete about your position of just whining about it, rather than doing something productive.

The pirates are gone? Yes, they went to the french, or quit.

 

I disagree with your point about game design, I believe it's the player's fault, not the dev's. Arguably, there could be a restriction on how many players join a nation if it gets too populated and creates and imbalance, or a reward or such, for joining a smaller populated nation.

 

No, Neither i, or Roberts would say that. That's what the pirates said, not the British.

 

Feel free to conduct the same pvp operations as you did to the pirates, I feel confident that the rest of the players would like it, it seems that you had fun doing it to the pirates, and it would give the British some actual PvP

 

The reality is we haven't put ourselves in a boring position, you just think it is because:

 

"Everything's going south and you're going to say, this is it. This is how I end."

[Sir Lemon Wedges]

I am a new player to this game, only started last week with two of my friends. I think this is an incredibly fun game and have had a number of fun skirmishes with other players. Only one problem, we chose to join Sweden, I don't think we chose poorly, it was enjoyable for the first couple days. Now every time I log in I see that we have lost another port to the British, or more recently the Danes. I have no problem with how open world PvP is right now, but as a new player it is incredibly frustrating to log in to cries of we need help defending (Insert port here) only to realize that even with the mission grinding I have been doing I only just today have the ability to crew a Cerb. That being said, because I am a part of Sweden I have no access to resources to make ships. So I bought a basic Cerb and am outclassed in many fights just because I cant raise my crafting level to make my own Fine Cerb. Now with many of our Swedish players jumping ship to France or just quitting all together, it is hampering my ability to have fun at all. Was just sailing around doing some PvE on traders to help my friend who doesn't get to play much and a British ship joined the fight, sank the trade ship, which I asked him not to, and then proceeded to chase me and my friend back to port. So what I am getting at is, this game is fun till individuals ruin it. Big nations that want to PvP, that's great, just remember if you want the game to stay healthy, you have to make it fun for people to get into. Attacking lower level people who just got their first snow, I can't imagine that is fun for anyone.

 

 

Fair sailing to all captains.

[[MCC] Die Antwoord]

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I would like to remind the Britisb that the amount of pirates that switched to France is very small compared to the pirate player base. OMG is the only clan that went french as far as I know and they said they had 20 members but I only ever saw the same 6-7 guys so I'm guessing they had max 10-12 active players when they made the switch.

To put things in perspective, CF and Invictus combined had 40-50 active players online every night for a good while (not so much by the time OMG jumped ship).

So stop saying the pirates went french... A handfull of them did... CF went dutch (approx 30 of us from the original crew).. Invictus went Brit (not sure on numbers but they were bigger than us when they switched so I'm guessing similar numbers at the very least).

[Arbour]

Yea the Brits responding to this thread need to chill out.  The main complaint about the Fredriksted battle is that it was a 25 v 18 battle, no ships were sunk on either side, and a victor was declared by the game.  Think about it.  What other game pits 10+ players vs 10+ players, in which no one dies but victory is absolute?  None that I can think of.  It really begs the question of "What's the point?" If the enemy can defeat you without even fighting you, that isn't RvR or PvP, and more importantly it is not fun.  

 

The port battle system is broken.  There are clans/nations that have exploited the broken mechanic by out leveling their opponents.  They are not defeating their opponents.  They simply show up, shoot stationary targets (not players), then victory.  PvE missions are more challenging than that.  This is not realistic or fun or healthy for the game at all.  It limits anyone except for the top ranked players of each nation from participating or having any sort of impact.  

 

I know they reduced the BR requirement from 3x to 2x but I have no idea why.  Ports should not be easy to take.  IMO BR should be eliminated as a victory condition as a short term solution, and overall the port battles need to be completely reworked from scratch in the long term, beyond just adding land.  Without that, population will continue to drop.  

 

Made a Suggestion topic thread here, if anyone wants to contribute to that. 

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/12095-remove-br-as-a-requirement-for-victory-in-port-battles/

Edited March 16, 2016 by Arbour

[Vllad]

I am a new player to this game, only started last week with two of my friends. I think this is an incredibly fun game and have had a number of fun skirmishes with other players. Only one problem, we chose to join Sweden, I don't think we chose poorly, it was enjoyable for the first couple days. Now every time I log in I see that we have lost another port to the British, or more recently the Danes. I have no problem with how open world PvP is right now, but as a new player it is incredibly frustrating to log in to cries of we need help defending (Insert port here) only to realize that even with the mission grinding I have been doing I only just today have the ability to crew a Cerb. That being said, because I am a part of Sweden I have no access to resources to make ships. So I bought a basic Cerb and am outclassed in many fights just because I cant raise my crafting level to make my own Fine Cerb. Now with many of our Swedish players jumping ship to France or just quitting all together, it is hampering my ability to have fun at all. Was just sailing around doing some PvE on traders to help my friend who doesn't get to play much and a British ship joined the fight, sank the trade ship, which I asked him not to, and then proceeded to chase me and my friend back to port. So what I am getting at is, this game is fun till individuals ruin it. Big nations that want to PvP, that's great, just remember if you want the game to stay healthy, you have to make it fun for people to get into. Attacking lower level people who just got their first snow, I can't imagine that is fun for anyone.

 

 

Fair sailing to all captains.

 

This is an excellent post that fits this topic well.

 

I would say to Mr. Wedges please contact me via a PM and I will help you out on how to build better ships for a small nation under siege. The French not too long ago was in the same position you are now.

 

There is good news though. I don't think the map is ever going to stay one way for very long. If you stick it out I think their is a pay off there. Their are also some things you can do to increase your enjoyment of the game even if owning ports and port battles aren't one of them.

 

Mr. Wedges post however does present some challenges for Naval Action. How do you keep a Mr. Wedges playing when it would appear at first their is no reason to?

 

We need to keep the Mr. Wedges around in order to make this game fun. Health of the server is important even if the British don't seem to grasp that concept.

Edited March 16, 2016 by Vllad

[[MCC] Die Antwoord]

This is an excellent post that fits this topic well.

 

I would say to Mr. Wedges please contact me via a PM and I will help you out on how to build better ships for a small nation under siege. The French not too long ago was in the same position you are now.

 

There is good news though. I don't think the map is ever going to stay one way for very long. If you stick it out I think their is a pay off there. Their are also some things you can do to increase your enjoyment of the game even if owning ports and port battles aren't one of them.

 

Mr. Wedges post however does present some challenges for Naval Action. How do you keep a Mr. Wedges playing when it would appear at first their is no reason to?

 

We need to keep the Mr. Wedges around in order to make this game fun. Health of the server is important even if the British don't seem to grasp that concept.

 

Agreed.

 

In that regard, I would really like the devs to consider making the difficulty level for nations when new players chose one to be dynamic and based on different factors, like how many ports were won/lost in the last week, how many ports are owned vs other nations, how many PVP sinks were done, average rank in nation, average crafting level in nation, relative number of active players, etc.

 

I don't know how Sweden is listed in terms of difficulty right now, but I would put them pretty high on the list based on that info. I think a lot of nations on PVP evolved from their announced difficulty level.

 

Then again, this would probably make USA the "super easy" nation, just as it is now, and draw in lots of new players trying the game. When I first started playing this game, I went US because it said very easy and I was a total noob to the game, I wanted to learn before I went "hard mode", that's just a natural thing to do for lots of players.

 

Lets just say M. Wedges didn't chose the easiest way to enjoy the game. Not saying he can't, lots of players went French when the odds were stacked against them and really enjoyed that, but it might not be the kind of game play everyone is looking for. Pirates a week ago for example with only Mortimer left would be a terrible choice as a brand new player with fleets of US and Brit players camping their capital day and night...

[Arsilon]

Which brings full around back on topic again.  How do we measure health of a nation and therefore of the server as a whole?

 

Is it who has the biggest ships as some from Britain would suggest?  

 

What factors actaully matter the most and how can we encourage those?  What game mechanics are needed to encourage those factors and discourage less "healthy" ones?

[Lord_Howe]

Yea the Brits responding to this thread need to chill out.  The main complaint about the Fredriksted battle is that it was a 25 v 18 battle, no ships were sunk on either side, and a victor was declared by the game.  Think about it.  What other game pits 10+ players vs 10+ players, in which no one dies but victory is absolute?  None that I can think of.  It really begs the question of "What's the point?" If the enemy can defeat you without even fighting you, that isn't RvR or PvP, and more importantly it is not fun.  

 

The port battle system is broken.  There are clans/nations that have exploited the broken mechanic by out leveling their opponents.  They are not defeating their opponents.  They simply show up, shoot stationary targets (not players), then victory.  PvE missions are more challenging than that.  This is not realistic or fun or healthy for the game at all.  It limits anyone except for the top ranked players of each nation from participating or having any sort of impact.  

 

I know they reduced the BR requirement from 3x to 2x but I have no idea why.  Ports should not be easy to take.  IMO BR should be eliminated as a victory condition as a short term solution, and overall the port battles need to be completely reworked from scratch in the long term, beyond just adding land.  Without that, population will continue to drop.  

 

Made a Suggestion topic thread here, if anyone wants to contribute to that. 

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/12095-remove-br-as-a-requirement-for-victory-in-port-battles/

 

If i recall correctly, the reason for declaring a victory if the attacking force got to 2:1 BP ratio and had destroyed the towers, was that otherwise the defenders would simply run several ships in opposite directions and prevent the attacker ever winning.

I can certainly agree that being on the losing side via the BR ratio might be annoying, but I will also say that in a case where the defender has reasonable ship numbers vs the attackers, there is no reason that the defender couldn't force a fight by simply intercepting the attackers before they get to the towers.

Yes, if the ratio is bad enough, the attackers will break through the line and destroy towers anyway, but they wont do it without losing ships, and any loss by the attacker has to be offset by them killing twice as much to maintain their ratio. A reasonably well defended port can certainly be turned into a ship-to-ship fight.

 

My bigger concern with PBs is how they can ever make them a worthwhile exercise.

Either the port will have an adequate defense, causing most attackers to not waste their ships (since losing because of the presence of NPC guns is not fun), or the port will be barely defended in which case the attackers will simply roll the towers and not bother stopping for the ships. I'm really not sure how they can make something that triggers interesting fights, short of capping the defense at a certain proportion of the attackers in order to balance the battle (which no-one will like, for various reasons). 

 

Of course they have already announced that the upcoming terrain in battles, with forts etc, will make some ports easy and some much harder, so perhaps we should wait and see what it changes?

 

In the case of the French defense cited, the battle was actually only a few seconds from turning into a huge bloody battle. Had the French line been slightly further forward it certainly would not have been a tower cap victory.

I took video of the entire battle, and it was the sinking of a French Cerb that gave the victory to the Brits. My (Brit) 3rd rate was no more than 15 seconds from sinking at the time. Had i gone down first the fight could not have ended, and I know several other high BP Brit ships were also pretty shot up. 

This was one I really don't think the French had to lose, at the very least without many ships on both sides going under.

[Arsilon]

There are several factors that might have swung that battle to a much different series of events (if not the outcome entirely).  How many of those events need to be counted on before a "fun" battle where the brawl is on and an unfun one where the towers are mowed down and the battle is instantly over?

 

What would have happened if our Victory captain wasn't afk and would have actually been able to bring it into battle?

What would have happened if our other captains that were trying to sail from Vieques weren't already too late given the towers going down so quickly?

What would have happened if our Cerberus captain didn't have a RL issue that caused him to have to punch out right at the beginning?

What if France hadn't interpreted your initial moves as attempting to board the towers instead of driving by?  Would that have caused a quicker turn to get a better cut off angle?

 

There are so many factors here that might have changed the course of that battle but none of them really talk to the main point of how that specific mechanic affects the game.  And it really only talks to a very specific instance of it at one point in time between 2 nations?  What are the larger implications when applied to other nations (replace Britain and France with any two other nations in the game right now)?

 

I'm sure there are a lot of other factors that impact it but the conversation at this point seems to be focused on 'the grind' and the implication it has on the overall BR Arms race between nations and what impact that has on a larger nation to roll over a smaller nation regardless of what else happens.  If you want to discuss the merits of forcing PvE grind to be the cost of entry for PB level RvR is that a good thing?  If you want to assume that the grind is indeed appropriate, what does that do to relative server balance when taking population differences into account?

[Enraged Ewok]

Like I said in my previous post, we have no PVP around Jamaica -- the capturing of ports more distant to Jamaica is just an attempt to move a front line closer to the PVP.

So what are the solutions proposed here? Gank our players then run and play dock games, or complain we brought too much force to bear on those harassing our forces? Stop fighting AI fleets (the only thing that gives our casual players reliable content when they long in)? Cool... Sounds like a lot of fun...

The game needs mechanisms to provide good PVP content to players, I agree. Perhaps this could be achieved with instances popping up on the map. Something like 'Beached Treasure Ship [small]' to give the lower tier players something to fight over. Something like King of the Hill with a passive gold income for being inside the circle. 

 

If this is truly the case, then I suggest setting up a base at Bensalem or Bonacca and sailing north. I would love the PVP action, because I'm frankly tired of having to sail from Bonacca to Jamaica just to find a player with a British flag. The quoted complaints sound a lot like what I hear from Charleston players that wonder why there's nothing to do. The answer is right in front of you. Move your main outposts to the front lines and you will get both the PVP to keep you having fun and the PVE AI fleets you so desire for leveling your newbs.

[Lord_Howe]

I dont know that you can ever replace the 'Grind' in these games... as much of the player base likes to spend at least some of their time chilling and fighting NPCs.

 

Perhaps the answer is to better reward those that chose to use ships that aren't the top of the food chain.

 

A real navy would never condone using ships-of-the-line to fight minor skirmishes, they were far too valuable a resource. Maybe reward captains that commit a more appropriate level of resource to an action (fight against enemies that are closer to equal, or even superior BRs)?

 

Maybe they will introduce some form of commendation system that rewards outstanding action (ie not winning simply be having more in the fight), and grants some sort of reward (special ships etc) to the valorous captains?

 

i do think that their characterization of each Nations 'Easiness' was a mistake. As some have already said, the reality is way too fluid for their static descriptions to work, plus they tend to channel certain people to certain nations, leading to more imbalance. They also seem to be primarily based only on starting locations, which ceased to be relevant withing a couple of weeks.

[mueganra]

In my opinion, Ports should be to switched to a 3 port classification, especially since they made the same split in shipyards.

 

- Shallow Ports would stay the same at 6 & 7th rates

- Current Deep Water ports would be 5th rates and below

- Regional Capitals would be unrestricted.

[Æthlstan]

This is an MMO. Grind is the name of the game.

 

Offering an increasingly higher XP and gold reward for ships with BR lower than the average BR in a fight would be a great way to encourage a more historical mix of ships on the seas.

 

Perhaps a reduction in the 2x bonus for ships above the average?

[Dharus]

If you are gonna have to "grind" in a PvP game, it should be PvP.  I'd actually understand if they flip floped the rewards for NPCs with the small/large battles.  Or give normal for that small/large battles, 25% for OW NPCs, and 150% for PvP.

 

I dont know.  You can't create incentives to PvP if players don't want to PvP.  There are plenty of people who'd go to a PvP server and grind PvE ships even if the rewards were 25% of everything else.

[[MCC] Die Antwoord]

If you are gonna have to "grind" in a PvP game, it should be PvP.  I'd actually understand if they flip floped the rewards for NPCs with the small/large battles.  Or give normal for that small/large battles, 25% for OW NPCs, and 150% for PvP.

 

I dont know.  You can't create incentives to PvP if players don't want to PvP.  There are plenty of people who'd go to a PvP server and grind PvE ships even if the rewards were 25% of everything else.

If this game was pvp only there would be less than 250 people playing it. This is a simple fact, a vast majority of gamers have little to no interest in pvp. The fact they are playing a pvp game on a pvp seever does not chanve that fact unfortunately for the hardcore pvp players.

The world is too big, the pop is too low and the alternative gameplay elements, as bland as they may seem are simply removing the focus on pvp. Now wheter this is a good or bad thing thats extremely subjective.

I think the key could be a revamp of the small/large battle system. It needs to be deeper, more personal, nationalized, clan-based even, etc. France and US on both end of the world want to measure epeens? No need tp travel for 4 hours... Just create a large battle where only france and us can join and duke it out...

[Tennessee88]

Yea the Brits responding to this thread need to chill out.  The main complaint about the Fredriksted battle is that it was a 25 v 18 battle, no ships were sunk on either side, and a victor was declared by the game.  Think about it.  What other game pits 10+ players vs 10+ players, in which no one dies but victory is absolute?  None that I can think of.  It really begs the question of "What's the point?" If the enemy can defeat you without even fighting you, that isn't RvR or PvP, and more importantly it is not fun.  

 

The port battle system is broken.  There are clans/nations that have exploited the broken mechanic by out leveling their opponents.  They are not defeating their opponents.  They simply show up, shoot stationary targets (not players), then victory.  PvE missions are more challenging than that.  This is not realistic or fun or healthy for the game at all.  It limits anyone except for the top ranked players of each nation from participating or having any sort of impact.  

 

I know they reduced the BR requirement from 3x to 2x but I have no idea why.  Ports should not be easy to take.  IMO BR should be eliminated as a victory condition as a short term solution, and overall the port battles need to be completely reworked from scratch in the long term, beyond just adding land.  Without that, population will continue to drop.  

 

Made a Suggestion topic thread here, if anyone wants to contribute to that. 

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/12095-remove-br-as-a-requirement-for-victory-in-port-battles/

 

I respond to this admittedly as someone who was assigned to the screening squadrons rather than participating in the actual battle. But from what I have heard, the French fleet never actually tried to engage the British invasion force at anything other than max range, allowing our ships to rush the towers and basically assault them completely unmolested. The second you all allowed every tower to be anchored under by those third rates, where the tower guns couldn't traverse down, you all lost. Is that what happened? 

 

Not disagreeing with the overall post, do think port battles should be handled differently. But I think it is slightly unfair to use this episode as an example. 

[Mrdoomed]

If this game was pvp only there would be less than 250 people playing it. This is a simple fact, a vast majority of gamers have little to no interest in pvp. The fact they are playing a pvp game on a pvp seever does not chanve that fact unfortunately for the hardcore pvp players.

The world is too big, the pop is too low and the alternative gameplay elements, as bland as they may seem are simply removing the focus on pvp. Now wheter this is a good or bad thing thats extremely subjective.

I think the key could be a revamp of the small/large battle system. It needs to be deeper, more personal, nationalized, clan-based even, etc. France and US on both end of the world want to measure epeens? No need tp travel for 4 hours... Just create a large battle where only france and us can join and duke it out...

I believe this game exist already. Its called worl of warships if youre interested. You can even set up your own battles and since its open season on mods /hax you could skin the ships amd make their range less amd bam there ya go.

[Arsilon]

I have operated under the assumption that the devs have said this is intended on being a PvP game first and foremost.  I think the fact that there will be no subscription and the fact that the current server caps are relatively low in comparison to more mainstream MMO's is an accomodation to the fact that the target audience is indeed smaller.

 

So therefore making PvP directed decisions isn't necessarily contrarary to their stated direction and those people here taking the more PvP centric point of view are not out of turn.  Perhaps my charactarization earlier wasn't fair in questioning how appropriate having a 'grind' is as it is indeed true that it is probably impossible to eliminate in any scenario where there are ranks/levels involved.

 

However two questions are probably more appropriate

1)  Should there be a PvE grind or is there a way to enable a PvP centric one?  Or at a minimum can the PvP centric one be just as viable as the PvE one?

2)  What impact should levels really have on the game?  While it certainly is reasonable that Level requirements allow you to drive different ships, is it reasonable that until you are Rank 8 and in a 3rd rate you can't participate in RvR?  Does that put too steep of a hill to climb before you can participate in the primary point of the game?

[Teutonic]

This is an MMO. Grind is the name of the game.

 

Offering an increasingly higher XP and gold reward for ships with BR lower than the average BR in a fight would be a great way to encourage a more historical mix of ships on the seas.

 

Perhaps a reduction in the 2x bonus for ships above the average?

 

I agree completely. I have also considered that the difficulty of a nation or possibly the population of a nation could also determine the xp/gold you get from missions and gold. I'm not saying that a huge pop would get reduced xp/gold from what we already get, rather a small nation like Denmark or Sweden (and to a lesser extent France and Dutch) should have bonuses on top of existing xp/gold gains. An exact number is not something I have, but twice the amount? three times?

 

I think it would greatly encourage players to play the hard nations, or at the very least give incentive to the small nations to be able to go on par with the larger nations. They may have less players, but if you have better ships, it could certainly give some edge to the smaller group.

 

I think others may agree but the fact that you can rush towers and auto win in a port battle to me, is wrong. You need to have some type of fight there for both sides. I understand the reasoning for the 2 to 1 BR since players went to the edge of the map in order to stop the assaulting team from winning, but they also reduced the map size once there is 15? minutes left. What if the map gradually just became smaller? or it was just smaller than an OW battle map? I think there are ways to make a "fight" have to happen in order to properly determine who won. If the attackers come with a force, and the defenders come with a defending force, there should be a fight. If making the map small so defenders can't just run and prolong the battle is the right way to do it, then so be it.

Edited March 16, 2016 by Teutonic

[Æthlstan]

Perhaps as a temporary fix, Minimum time in battle?

[[MCC] Die Antwoord]

However two questions are probably more appropriate

1)  Should there be a PvE grind or is there a way to enable a PvP centric one?  Or at a minimum can the PvP centric one be just as viable as the PvE one?

2)  What impact should levels really have on the game?  While it certainly is reasonable that Level requirements allow you to drive different ships, is it reasonable that until you are Rank 8 and in a 3rd rate you can't participate in RvR?  Does that put too steep of a hill to climb before you can participate in the primary point of the game?

Don't mistake my point of view as an anti-pvp one. I'm with you on both of these, leveling exclusively through pvp should definitely be viable, at the very least equal in time spent vs doing pve. I'd also argue trading and crafting should both be rewarded in some way. Ultimately I would like a game where every player can chose his activities based on his preference and still be relevant, and be able to do all, some or only one of them and not gimp himself in the process.

In a month from now if nothing changes port battles will be 25 Santismas vs 25 Santismas... That ain't good.

Maybe port battles should be like nation battles with a set and equal number of ships and BR. People that join would be assigned to ships, higher ranked players having first picks and any attackers vs defenders diff would be filled by NPC captains.. This way all port battles would be equal BR and skill would determine who wins.