Is it time to increase OW battle join timers?

[Farrago]

Increased join timers — due to OW travel speeds — gives a chance for everyone to receive reinforcements. It allows battles to grow bigger. Obviously, depending on how that particular battle plays out, that can be a good thing or suck. You’re holding your own right when 6 enemy ships join and turn the tide against you. That sucks. You’re barely hanging on and the cavalry arrives. Hooray!

Numerous good and complex suggestions have been made on how to deal with the whole revenge fleet, gank, or other problems associated with unrealistic OW speeds and battle join times, most of them dealing with circle size and placement, tagging, control perks, and BR limits. I suggest that right now, with the extremely low populations on both servers, we try simply increasing the join timer just to get more players involved in PVP. It would seem like it would be an easy thing for the Devs to implement and adjust. As it is, not only do you have to find a PVP situation on a very big map, you only have 3 minutes to do it. 

[Farrago]

BTW, it might also be helpful if folks describe their play style or why you chose the way you did.

For example, I tend to do all sorts of things in game: hunt alone, hunt in groups, trade runs, RVR, missions, or just moving my stuff around. I realize increased timers will sometimes help, sometimes hurt me, but feel more PVP involvement on the servers will ultimately be good for the game so I chose no timers. Someone who only hunts alone would not want increased timers.

[Stepp636]

1 minute ago, Farrago said:

BTW, it might also be helpful if folks describe their play style or why you chose the way you did.

For example, I tend to do all sorts of things in game: hunt alone, hunt in groups, trade runs, RVR, missions, or just moving my stuff around. I realize increased timers will sometimes help, sometimes hurt me, but feel more PVP involvement on the servers will ultimately be good for the game so I chose no timers. Someone who only hunts alone would not want increased timers.

Longer timer will only help the guys with more friends.

Someone is shouting for help in TS and the others can log into game, jump to port and sail a few minutes to help him. WTF

I'm a fan of WYSIWYG

[Liq]

If we didn't have instanced battles and therefore two dimensions with an extreme difference of speed.. then we wouldn't need battle timers.

But as we DO have instanced battles, battle timers pretty much are a must.

The 3 minute join timer is supposed to simulate only ships in range being able to join and help out, as it should be - Now imagine, you go on a raiding trip with a few clanmates. You are in 5 ships (4th - 5th rates, whatever) - You run into an enemy force, and decide to take fight - Now, at the moment, both sides get 3 minutes to get help in that battle (besides reinforcment zones). Without a timer, anything can join at any time, and there WILL be reinforcments after 20 or more minutes due to the fact that we can communicate and tell the exact location (No way around that).

I fail to understand how this could be enjoyable / acceptable

[Hethwill]

Fan of the previous tested big circle RoE

WYSIWYG.

[Slim McSauce]

We have it at 3 minutes for a reason, everyone would complain if they were increased to let more people from farther away join in.

But I do think changes to the tagging circles should be made. Everything from defensive tagging, to tagging friends, to hiding in battles is a problem with the current 2 circle method.

[Aster]

If we really did want to do away with the two circle joining. I think having a single join circle that gets larger as time goes on could work. That way people just outside the original tag circle can join where they are and don't have to sail back to their circle. Also people who show up say 5 mins after can still join but will be further back. The circle could be split into two half circles and function similarly to what we have now (attackers join on one side defenders on the other). At some point the circle will have to lock but I feel like this is the best way to do the instanced battle joining. Also have a countdown that's visible when you click the cross swords. Nothing is more frustrating then seeing the battle you want to join getting just on the edge of the circle and it closes.

Edited November 29, 2017 by Aster

[TheHaney]

Keep 'em open until the combat is over. There's too much separation between the OW and combat, and I think keeping combat open indefinitely will solve a lot of issues.

The only real argument against it I can think of is that it's unrealistic for ships to sail from far away in time for the battle, but it's also unrealistic for ships to vanish into thin air if they poke each other for 3 minutes.

This would also discourage the current problem with constant flee-repair-fight-flee-repair-fight mentalities since the pressure of impending reinforcements would be ever-present.

Edited November 29, 2017 by TheHaney

[Slim McSauce]

1 hour ago, Aster said:

If we really did want to do away with the two circle joining. I think having a single join circle that gets larger as time goes on could work. That way people just outside the original tag circle can join where they are and don't have to sail back to their circle. Also people who show up say 5 mins after can still join but will be further back. The circle could be split into two half circles and function similarly to what we have now (attackers join on one side defenders on the other). At some point the circle will have to lock but I feel like this is the best way to do the instanced battle joining. Also have a countdown that's visible when you click the cross swords. Nothing is more frustrating then seeing the battle you want to join getting just on the edge of the circle and it closes.

Thinking about this before, full circle cut into 2 halfs growing makes the most sense. Solves the defensive tagging issue that prevents sub par speed ships from catching our pvspeed boats, as well as the time wasted when an 'enemy' tags another to avoid battle. And the timer for the battle marker is a much needed must, can't count how many times I've gotten locked out of battle while trying get into the best position in the circle, so annoying.

1 hour ago, TheHaney said:

Keep 'em open until the combat is over. There's too much separation between the OW and combat, and I think keeping combat open indefinitely will solve a lot of issues.

The only real argument against it I can think of is that it's unrealistic for ships to sail from far away in time for the battle, but it's also unrealistic for ships to vanish into thin air if they poke each other for 3 minutes.

This would also discourage the current problem with constant flee-repair-fight-flee-repair-fight mentalities since the pressure of impending reinforcements would be ever-present.

Pretty sure this was a feature before, and although OW especially on global could use some compression, having battles open indefinitely causes some really cheesy issues. The battles have to lock at some point, or they will be used in unintended ways.

Edited November 29, 2017 by Slim Jimmerson

[Teutonic]

If it was my choice I'd have the battle open longer, if not for the entire duration.

[Vernon Merrill]

#WYSIWYG

[Malachy]

My suggestion has always been that the defender side remain open until BR parity is reached, then battle closes. 

[Farrago]

41 minutes ago, Malachy said:

My suggestion has always been that the defender side remain open until BR parity is reached, then battle closes. 

By “Defender” do you mean the one who is tagged or the side with the initial lower BR?

[TheHaney]

2 hours ago, Farrago said:

By “Defender” do you mean the one who is tagged or the side with the initial lower BR?

I would assume they mean the one who is tagged. If someone assaults a superior force, that's their burden.

[Farrago]

1 hour ago, TheHaney said:

I would assume they mean the one who is tagged. If someone assaults a superior force, that's their burden.

I don’t know if you can make that assumption. Defensive tagging is VERY common.

[Sir Lancelot Holland]

7 hours ago, TheHaney said:

Keep 'em open until the combat is over. There's too much separation between the OW and combat, and I think keeping combat open indefinitely will solve a lot of issues.

The only real argument against it I can think of is that it's unrealistic for ships to sail from far away in time for the battle, but it's also unrealistic for ships to vanish into thin air if they poke each other for 3 minutes.

This would also discourage the current problem with constant flee-repair-fight-flee-repair-fight mentalities since the pressure of impending reinforcements would be ever-present.

Battles at sea where reinforcements actually saved the day were rare, Flamborough Head comes to mind, it is likely HMS Seraphis would have won a pyrrhic victory over USS Bonhomme Richard which was already sinking late in the battle had not US reinforcements arrived forcing the surrender of HMS Seraphis. I think on balance though that unless you were very close to the enemy coast and ports reinforcement is very unlikely, that such fights would still be rare enough not to cause major concern.

The sound of gunfire carries many miles at sea and while it is feasible a battle may be heard over the horizon (and the military maxim of ride to the sound of the guns was as relevant at sea as it was on land) many factors would decide if a ship could even reach the battle, not least being the wind which hampered the head of the Franco-Spanish line in any effort to relieve Villeneuve at Trafalgar, (were it not for the light winds battle would have been joined earlier than it actually was) and they were barely a  few miles from the main fight. In reality reinforcements can be as much a forlorn  hope as a real one, It is said that Napoleon relied on luck as much skill even in some his best fought battles, but then Napoleon was well known for his audacity and unorthodox style of fighting.  

Many of the Vets will remember having to form up and sail against an enemy at the door, reinforcing with Frigates, or anything that floated and had guns, against all rates off of KPR, many of those battles were hard fought and great fun win lose or draw, under very different ROE, It was a time when initiative was displayed, where some Captains even braved the port batteries to try for the win, Kudos to the French Captains who sailed almost to the jetty at KPR to get at a single Vic and a 4th rate, both ships were in a very sorry state before the surviving French Captains had to withdraw! Under todays ROE and Mechanics I fear we are unlikely to see such battles, courage and initiative again.

[Hethwill]

9 hours ago, TheHaney said:

Keep 'em open until the combat is over. There's too much separation between the OW and combat, and I think keeping combat open indefinitely will solve a lot of issues.

The only real argument against it I can think of is that it's unrealistic for ships to sail from far away in time for the battle, but it's also unrealistic for ships to vanish into thin air if they poke each other for 3 minutes.

This would also discourage the current problem with constant flee-repair-fight-flee-repair-fight mentalities since the pressure of impending reinforcements would be ever-present.

The argument is good in the present Repairs mechanics. Granted.

But, the realtime communications will play the biggest part on a always-open scenario. The reinforcements will, hypothetically, and especially given most combat occurs at one or other nation territorial waters ( such is the nature of the wargame ), stay outside the battle instance and receive real-time reports from the inside on the condition of the ships and will jump in when the balance of damage done ensures victory when it would be a defeat.

But, given the viability of the suggestion, a second tier of OW instances could be done to balance the roving kraken squadrons - any battle where one of the sides sums up either 6 ships ( or more ) or 1000 BR at the 1:27:00 timer the battle instance then becomes open all the time. If neither of those conditions are met, then it stays as is ( or reverts to WYSIWYG ).

Further note - Objective of the PvP game is to ensure no fighting captain is sitting in port waiting for something to happen. Exactly what a always open scenario would promote.

[jodgi]

9 hours ago, TheHaney said:

and I think keeping combat open indefinitely will solve a lot of issues.

Oh, my sweet summer child...

I support forever open instances. Post EA players have no way of knowing what will happen (it seems). We would prolly resolve this issue quicker by letting new players experience what eco mindset + ganking inclination + break between OW and instances + open instances did, does and will do.

<whisper> Just do it.

[TrackTerror]

Here we go again...

[Malachy]

4 hours ago, TheHaney said:

I would assume they mean the one who is tagged. If someone assaults a superior force, that's their burden.

Exactly 

[Vernon Merrill]

Yes, I cannot wait to revert back to the days of everyone sitting in port intil the broadcast comes over the airwaves of a battle...  and watching as everyone and their brother sally forth with their Death Stars to ensure the destruction of the player that dared sail too close to a populated area.  

Again, reinforcements are a myth.  Tripping over each other to try and steal a PVP mark from roadkill is real (and what really occurred when this was tried before, for probably the 3rd time).....

[Lz3]

Leaving the battle open for 90 minutes would kill PvP. The attacked player can always call for reinforcements via teamspeak/chat. This is not historical, the historical argument flies out the window in this situation. PvP would become purely defensive. If anyone has an argument to oppose this without ruining gameplay or some historical case of a ship sending out a damn carrier pidgeon or something like that I'd love to hear it.

[fox2run]

20 minutes ago, Lz3 said:

Leaving the battle open for 90 minutes would kill PvP. The attacked player can always call for reinforcements via teamspeak/chat. This is not historical, the historical argument flies out the window in this situation. PvP would become purely defensive. If anyone has an argument to oppose this without ruining gameplay or some historical case of a ship sending out a damn carrier pidgeon or something like that I'd love to hear it.

Now the PvP and game overall is totally DEAD. It cannot be worse than now. Why not try unlimited open battles out? Yes you would be in battles where you are outnumbered and loose but is it different now? Hardly. Except that you cant find any battles nor sail out to help your friends in need. It was so cool when you logged on read the cry for help and sailed out to the rescue!

Now nothing like that in the game no more. So bloody boring now compared to before!

Edited November 29, 2017 by fox2run

[Hethwill]

Combat News say otherwise. Even dismissing the PB casualties the amount of "someone did sink" is very pleasing for the amount of players during the WEST to EAST timezones Euro evening hours.

 

[Malachy]

2 minutes ago, Hethwill said:

Combat News say otherwise. Even dismissing the PB casualties the amount of "someone did sink" is very pleasing for the amount of players during the WEST to EAST timezones Euro evening hours.

 

7 people sank last night in 5 hours. I killed one of them. There were about 150 online. That is pathetic