Forthcoming patch final discussion.

[Skully]

2 hours ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

He just did a lot of AI grinding and my 2 slot ship raped him, but that was more player skill than opened slots.

Skill does not equal slots. The best a casual can hope for when he meets a veteran is a good story.

Truly this deserves better and must be rewarded. 

Hard work and skills needs to be rewarded, or is it, hard work or skills needs to be rewarded. My English is so bad...

[Destraex]

Texas the moral of the story just seems to be that the game should give greater rewards as a handicap for going up against an experienced pvp player. Then you can sink and be happy. It's not like you cannot grind PVE to unlock knowledge and avoid the vets. In any multiplayer game you must be prepared. This game is big enough to find a quiet place and avoid or be protected by your nation. That is where the excitement and the cost of losing a ship need to be. In previous versions there was no risk. Ships are now valuable and I like it. Of course the other option for the less skilled or casual is to buy fully upgraded ships.

[Sir Texas Sir]

4 minutes ago, Destraex said:

Texas the moral of the story just seems to be that the game should give greater rewards as a handicap for going up against an experienced pvp player. Then you can sink and be happy. It's not like you cannot grind PVE to unlock knowledge and avoid the vets. In any multiplayer game you must be prepared. This game is big enough to find a quiet place.

How does a game decide who is the experienced player and how is the noob?  No it should not reward on experience of the player, but only the char it self.  If a Rank 5 char kills a rank 10 char than yes he should get more reward, but this is done all ready in game with BR bonus for difference in ships.  I can play a privateer all day long and kill bigger ships and get more rewards. I can roll a new char and play that same ship and slaughter other new players of same rank but with less skill. Seen it happen on games where we would delete a char to keep him in the low rank area.  I did it on Guild Wars and other games to help folk level up and get to the main player area.  

I'll use an example of this.  Last sale I did buy a new account. He's only second rank and I was moving him to Kidds to level up by grinding safely there.  The event popped and I went to it cause I was right there.  Caught a Rear Admiral in a Trader and he did every thing in his power to get me off him, but he couldn't at the end of the battle he asked, "your not a new player are you?"  So the system has no way to tell who is the new player and experience player.  Some games do show stats gained and the level you got most kills at (world of tanks with tier for example).  So you can see if some one is an experienced player or if they just got all those stats from killing noobs, but they don't give you no different reward other than tank tier difference.  If we had a noobie area I could just keep this char in that area and every time he get up to two-three levels delete him and start over. So noobie zones are great either.

 

Now what we do want is to get better rewards for PvP for sure.  Honestly we need xp for damage to help all and make the PvP rewards if we are going to share them x5.  Making them x2 right now is not enough when you have to share the rewards.

 

[Rebrall]

3 minutes ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

How does a game decide who is the experienced player and how is the noob?  No it should not reward on experience of the player, but only the char it self.  If a Rank 5 char kills a rank 10 char than yes he should get more reward, but this is done all ready in game with BR bonus for difference in ships.  I can play a privateer all day long and kill bigger ships and get more rewards. I can roll a new char and play that same ship and slaughter other new players of same rank but with less skill. Seen it happen on games where we would delete a char to keep him in the low rank area.  I did it on Guild Wars and other games to help folk level up and get to the main player area.  

I'll use an example of this.  Last sale I did buy a new account. He's only second rank and I was moving him to Kidds to level up by grinding safely there.  The event popped and I went to it cause I was right there.  Caught a Rear Admiral in a Trader and he did every thing in his power to get me off him, but he couldn't at the end of the battle he asked, "your not a new player are you?"  So the system has no way to tell who is the new player and experience player.  Some games do show stats gained and the level you got most kills at (world of tanks with tier for example).  So you can see if some one is an experienced player or if they just got all those stats from killing noobs, but they don't give you no different reward other than tank tier difference.  If we had a noobie area I could just keep this char in that area and every time he get up to two-three levels delete him and start over. So noobie zones are great either.

 

Now what we do want is to get better rewards for PvP for sure.  Honestly we need xp for damage to help all and make the PvP rewards if we are going to share them x5.  Making them x2 right now is not enough when you have to share the rewards.

 

 

You should get xp for damage in any instance weather its pvp or pvp, 

I'm not sure why did xp for damage even get removed from pvp or pve?

[Skully]

54 minutes ago, Rebrall said:

I'm not sure why did xp for damage even get removed from pvp or pve?

Not properly implemented allowed folks to cry money faucet without thinking about the flip side of the coin.

Thus hard work and skill needs to be reward, but you'll never get a t-shirt.

 

[Destraex]

@Texas The game records how many wins and losses everyone has in pvp. It then does an additional comparison to how many of those pvp wins were against well rated pvp captains. Then the game does an additional calculation for how many of those pvp wins were recent. This gives the game a yardstick to decide how good or bad both players were matched in a battle. Determine a handicap multiplier and give more rewards for any damage done. If the player was outnumbered it could also factor more rewards for that. These stats could be separate from characters and purely based on steam Id

[Skully]

8 minutes ago, Destraex said:

@Texas The game records how many wins and losses everyone has in pvp. It then does an additional comparison to how many of those pvp wins were against well rated pvp captains. Then the game does an additional calculation for how many of those pvp wins were recent. This gives the game a yardstick to decide how good or bad both players were matched in a battle. Determine a handicap multiplier and give more rewards for any damage done. If the player was outnumbered it could also factor more rewards for that.

So because I suck at this game, I clearly deserve a reward and those Frenchies should always be punished. 

(Who is abusing whom? )

Edited August 29, 2017 by Skully

[Slim McSauce]

Just now, Intrepido said:

I really hope you get the combat marks fixed because right now people are selling them at 10k/unit. This is another example of a broken economy.

supply/demand 

[Sir Texas Sir]

21 hours ago, Destraex said:

@Texas The game records how many wins and losses everyone has in pvp. It then does an additional comparison to how many of those pvp wins were against well rated pvp captains. Then the game does an additional calculation for how many of those pvp wins were recent. This gives the game a yardstick to decide how good or bad both players were matched in a battle. Determine a handicap multiplier and give more rewards for any damage done. If the player was outnumbered it could also factor more rewards for that. These stats could be separate from characters and purely based on steam Id

But does it?  And @Skully brought up a good point, if I get ganked all the time than I'm going to have a bad score even if I'm good at the game.  This is why games like WoT and others dropped any concept of doing rewards by skill level.  It doesn't work as you think it does.  If I want to power level a char I'll just make him suck and get xtra rewards and than start playing him good.  Cause some people don't give a dam about Leaderboards stats.  Using WoT as an example I have accounts on ever server and than an extra on NA.   My main has some what crappy score/rating cause of the learning curve and leveling.  My alt which was suppose to be transfer to SEA but missed the only transfer has boarder line Uni PURPLE stats cause I done every thing knowing how to level it up and not the stupid grinds that hurt your stats.  Now my SEA and EU accounts are crappy cause when I have been in Africa/EU or Singapore/AU I normally had pretty bad internet and just played them for the fun of it and neither has anything above tier 6.   So by your means those two accounts would get rewarded way more than my main or the alt cause of bad PUBS and internet they have very crappy scores on the leaderboards.

Leaderboards like that are so easy to abuse as to why WoT did not go that route.  I could baby seal club to get insane stats or in your example farm the crap out of a bad stat char that I use for nothing more to get better rewards when I take him out to fight.   Cause he would be the underdog.

18 hours ago, Intrepido said:

I really hope you get the combat marks fixed because right now people are selling them at 10k/unit. This is another example of a broken economy.

Last I checked we where up to 5K on GLOBAL.  Yah it's folks to lazy to grind things out cause the grinding sucks so they just jack up the price to buy them.  Than folks complain when I post a ship that cost a crap load.  Well bring me the marks and let me build to order if you want it cheaper. It's getting now the marks are the same cost as the mats to build something so it doubles the price.

 

[Farrago]

I'm going to move this here because I believe @admin wants to make the experience better for new players with this patch. (And I originally posted in the wrong thread.)

I took the opportunity of this low population period to play a new character for several different nations on the Euro PVP server. Pop was usually over 300 during these sessions. I've been playing this game for about 9 months. I don't have a lot of PVP experience but I do know how to craft, make money, and kill AI: a benefit brand new players don't have. Here's my experience...

1. I tried Spain, GB, France, Dutch, and Pirates. Only with Pirates and French was a brand new player acknowledged sailing in and out of their capitol. French were friendly and worked to recruit me. One Pirate gave me a ship. Other nations acted like I wasn't there. Experienced players have got to reach out to new players. Some noobs may ask for help but others may be reticent to type "I need help" or "Sail with me and teach me" in Nation chat.

2. I knew that I needed to start with midshipman mission in the Basic Cutter. I already knew that I could get unlimited repairs and how to time and use them. I knew the double charge perk would be a good first choice to give the 4lb-ers a boost. I knew how to loot a ship. Since I knew all that, I quickly advanced a rank and could afford or capture 6lb and some repairs although rather frustratingly I got far more sail repairs than hull which would be preferred for doing missions. Anyway, the lowest mission was easy for me, the next level missions for 7th rates were harder but since I knew repairs and was in a free ship, they usually worked out. I could have relatively quickly afforded a store 7th rate but chose to skip them because I knew I'd be vulnerable to having spent my meager pile of gold and get sunk back to nothing.

3. I knew that at any time I could instead have chosen the Fleet Perk (or by this time had unlocked another perk) and then capped a trader brig and start grinding trade goods. BUT I knew this boring option exists. A new player would not.

4. You see the recurring theme: I knew how to be a new player since I've played the game for 9 months. A noob would just keep sinking in his basic cutter and give up or lose his little savings the first time he sinks in a bought ship.

5. There was a couple of times I joined an existing battle and tried to help others. I died once doing this and a nice pirate I helped replaced my ship. But during none of these battles was I able to do enough damage to get an Assist or Kill = No Battle Reward.

6. Eventually I bought a Snow and tried to do some 6th rate missions. Lower 6th were doable but in higher 6th rate missions I was facing 3 rookie Snows. Now since I had repairs and knew how to use them I was able to survive but rarely complete them because I just couldn't get enough repairs without going backwards and grinding more unfortunate robot Lynx and Pickles.

7. Idea: what about repair kits for 6-7 rates that could be less expensive and produced by AI. Low level missions pay very poorly.

8. I suspect I was just lucky, but I was never ganked or attacked by another player. The only enemy players I saw were either sailing such power that I ran in OW or one time I chased but was not able to catch a trader lynx. Devs seem to be creating safer zones for noobs in the upcoming patch.

I didn't have as much problem being safe as I had problems being productive and having fun.

So the lesson: starting from zero and with no prior knowledge is so frustrating now that I totally understand why noobs don't stay. It takes FAR longer to advance than the fun lasts. If this game is to succeed, each level needs to be enjoyable. I'm not even sure how much it needs to be made easier for a new player but I do know it needs to be explained and taught to a new player.

[Hodo]

23 minutes ago, Farrago said:

 

7. Idea: what about repair kits for 6-7 rates that could be less expensive and produced by AI. Low level missions pay very poorly.

 

Repairs on the 6th and 7th rates are already cheap.   A Lynx requires 2 hull repairs per repair action, and 3 sail per rigging repair.   The Snow takes 4 Hull and 3 Sail.   The Brig is 4 and 3.     Privateer is 3 and 3.   

They dont get much cheaper than that.  

 

[Farrago]

5 minutes ago, Hodo said:

Repairs on the 6th and 7th rates are already cheap.   A Lynx requires 2 hull repairs per repair action, and 3 sail per rigging repair.   The Snow takes 4 Hull and 3 Sail.   The Brig is 4 and 3.     Privateer is 3 and 3.   

They dont get much cheaper than that.  

 

OK. Although there is no way for any new player to know that. Even a player who has played 9 months didn't know that. It's almost as if you are a specialist with small ships so you know exactly how to play them. Right? 

So don't make them cheaper, but make them at least available. Seed the capitol town with AI produced repair kits. If you don't want experienced players to use them, then make them 6-7th rate specific repairs.

[Skully]

58 minutes ago, Farrago said:

1. I tried Spain, GB, France, Dutch, and Pirates. Only with Pirates and French was a brand new player acknowledged sailing in and out of their capitol. French were friendly and worked to recruit me. One Pirate gave me a ship. Other nations acted like I wasn't there. Experienced players have got to reach out to new players. Some noobs may ask for help but others may be reticent to type "I need help" or "Sail with me and teach me" in Nation chat.

Won't happen. It might be better to start a separate discussion on this, because the reasons run deep.

17 minutes ago, Farrago said:

So don't make them cheaper, but make them at least available. Seed the capitol town with AI produced repair kits. If you don't want experienced players to use them, then make them 6-7th rate specific repairs.

I put them up often enough at $1250/p. Cheap, hell no. Needed to fund campaigns, yes.

And as I said before, some suggestions have a dark flip side. Seeding cheap repairs is ruining the market on which new players can make money.

For myself, as Midshipman, I got 50K in 1 play session. Just sailing a bit, trading a bit and working the market. (And I was holding back.)

[Skully]

10 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

More time sinks, less chance of people fighting around.

Traders can be fought as well. 

Clan AI isn't doing a good job at sparking the market with a bit of production.

[Red Dragon 13]

Admin is quite silent lately, maybe we are having news soon...

[Skully]

11 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

Yeah, the trader gets a lot of fun being attacked by a ship that outgunned him.

Last I looked Euro Truck Simulator does not have any gankers. 

[Cmdr RideZ]

On 8/25/2017 at 2:49 PM, admin said:

we are thinking of tweaking cool downs and maybe increasing the weight of repairs - increasing the importance of choice for repairs that you carry with you. 

Repairs are not a bad idea after battles, in BRS or OW.  It decreases the boring part where we have to sail back and forth to port, we can do longer distance sailing, we are not bound to ports.  Adding weight probably means that we are bound to ports.

Issues come if you can use those in battle, especially if you can use those multiple times.  Remember though that this is affecting to battle balance as well.  If you cannot repair, mast raking/sniping will get big role.  I do recommend to remove repair kits or leave 1, but also I recommend that when and if you do so, you check that mast raking/sniping is in balance.

 

Simple example:  Lets say repair kits have weight 0 and you can have 1 of those with you.  You have a fight, you repair after.  Now you have to sail back to port to get more.  You are in danger, as if anyone attacks you, you cannot repair after.  You can be worn down by continuous attacks really fast -> Not fun.

Another simple example: I make a long voyage and I take 20 repair kits so that I can fight and have fun for this evening.  Those are so heavy that I cannot fight, so I will be a sitting duck -> Not fun.

 

Earlier implementation was better.  In the end it was ok to have 20-25 repair kits (weight 0) and have nice long sails and fun (If you did not sink).  The FUN part is pretty damn important here.

Earlier implementation was more arcade, but 10000 times more playable.

[jodgi]

On 29.8.2017 at 3:47 PM, Intrepido said:

I really hope you get the combat marks fixed because right now people are selling them at 10k/unit. This is another example of a broken economy.

Elaborate, please!

[Captain Lust]

4 hours ago, Skully said:

Last I looked Euro Truck Simulator does not have any gankers. 

Haha, yeah makes me cringe every time someone complains about traders being attacked on the PvP server, i mean isn't that the point of the game and the reason they removed the stupid magical resource teleports???

[Hethwill]

1 hour ago, Captain Lust said:

Haha, yeah makes me cringe every time someone complains about traders being attacked on the PvP server, i mean isn't that the point of the game and the reason they removed the stupid magical resource teleports???

The same way the recapture is possible as the commerce raider cannot teleport its way out along with the prize.

Funny how, in this timeframe, historically, there was no real time communications and still, roughly, 2/3 of the captures never reached intended destination. Half of them being recaptured and the rest sunk and lost.

[victor]

1 hour ago, jodgi said:

Elaborate, please!

I'll try with an example: in order to craft a consti you need 75 combat marks (for the permits), so this means that only for marks the price of a consti will be 750.000 gold. Then you shall add the materials, labor hours and a crapton of iron ore for a full set of long cannons .... at the end of a process a consti will be sold on the market more or less with the same price (not less than 1 million gold) of a 1st rate before the patch (and this means that a one dura consti today will cost twice the price of a 4 dura consti before the mega patch, so it will cost - for each dura - eight times more).

Add to the scenario that - after the mega patch - making gold ingame is much more difficult than before and you will get an idea about why so many people are talking about broken economy.

Edited August 30, 2017 by victor

[jodgi]

1 hour ago, Captain Lust said:

Haha, yeah makes me cringe every time someone complains about traders being attacked on the PvP server, i mean isn't that the point of the game and the reason they removed the stupid magical resource teleports???

Not only that but traders were made slow as a class as well. When all is added up I can't really discern if sandboxers want loss or not. They loudly SAY they want loss in here, but at the same time there's a lot of whispers (well, and shouting, to be fair) that people being ganked makes them give up and leave the sandbox. A few even point to pure PvPers as a problem since all they want is to shoot at ships and that makes people sad.

"Playing it smart in a sandbox is only picking fights you can win", they say. Next up is players on the receiving end of such gameplay demanding eternally open instances so they can get help from randoms sitting in port, wherever. They skirt around the issue that lol-ROE takes away the ability to play it smart sandbox-style.

I cling to the hope that decreased upkeep for 5th rates and smaller, bigger rewards and safe zones for everyone those times we don't love PvP will help it come together. I do anticipate cries of "They're printing money!" and "economy is broken!" if people are given a break, though.

 

2 minutes ago, victor said:

you will get an idea about why people talk about broken economy.

I'm with you (I guess). I'd rather have people with too much money than too little.

[Liq]

On 29.8.2017 at 0:28 PM, Destraex said:

@Texas The game records how many wins and losses everyone has in pvp. It then does an additional comparison to how many of those pvp wins were against well rated pvp captains. Then the game does an additional calculation for how many of those pvp wins were recent. This gives the game a yardstick to decide how good or bad both players were matched in a battle. Determine a handicap multiplier and give more rewards for any damage done. If the player was outnumbered it could also factor more rewards for that. These stats could be separate from characters and purely based on steam Id

Is this content for next patch or a suggestion? 
I'd really like to see rewards being based on the BR compostion, an exponential curve. Noone should ever be rewarded for winning a 10v1 zergstomp. "Congrats, you showed up" :thinking:

[Quineloe]

On 8/29/2017 at 5:32 AM, Destraex said:

Are the knowledge books really that powerful? The game I don't think, can offer no progress and no advantage to people. It has to allow some progress.

 

If you think knowledge books aren't powerful, you're using the wrong ones.

[Captain Lust]

9 minutes ago, Quineloe said:

If you think knowledge books aren't powerful, you're using the wrong ones.

Pretty much this.