Archaos

Sorry, maybe I am missing something, but if a player in a trader brig gets attacked inside the safe zone then the defenders BR is 10 the attackers BR is lets say that of a surprise, from what you say the attacker does not have anywhere near 3425 BR so does that mean that the player in the trader brig cannot call in reinforcements? Please correct me if I am wrong, but that means that only fleets of ships facing other fleets would have protection. If the trader in this instance can call in reinforcements then it means that the attackers can use alts to tie up the reinforcement fleet. Its alright saying that alts are a thing and cannot be removed from the game, but if a mechanic is brought in that can be easily abused by alts then you just make the alts situation worse.

Problem is it is too easily gamed by people using alts to set up fake battles and keep the reinforcement fleet tied up for full battle time while they raid rest of area.

The thing is from what you say in multiple threads it appears you do not want to hunt, you want to log on and sail from port and instantly find battles and if you get sunk you want to be able to return to continue as soon as possible. All that could be achieved in NAL. Hunters have to spend time stalking their prey (and this does not mean waiting outside the capital port with no safe zone), many times they will spend time hunting with no sight of prey. What you want as a hunter is a turkey shoot with the prey all lined up for you, which is not really hunting.

I have to say reading some of the posts makes me laugh for various reasons. One of them is that a lot of the people posting requesting the return of multiple dura ships are the same ones posting elsewhere asking for hardcore PvP. You want hardcore then accept full loss on defeat, you bring your best and if thats not good enough well you lose all and start again. Stop being such "Carebears" about it, afraid to lose a few pixels. Another thing that makes me laugh is that people are requesting the return of features that were in the game previously, but I am sure if you check back through the same peoples posts you will find at some stage they have criticized the Devs for bringing back things that were previously removed from the game. Personally I agree that certain features of the game that have been removed previously should be brought back if they will work this time, but I do not think multiple duras is one of them. But I will qualify that by saying that I am not a hardcore PvP player that only plays for PvP so I do not risk as many ships as they do.

Well the way I see it is if they divided the servers into three types there would be pure PvE server, a PvP enabled mixed server with safe zones and a pure PvP server with no AI and no safe zones. Which of those three servers would have the least population? And by the way they do have those 3 server types at present, you have the PvE, the current OW game and then you have Legends where you get pure PvP (or will at least when they remove bots). So you have got your wish and can play only against people who are there for PvP.

But with what you are suggesting then players trying to leave those ports to do trade run or to go and do a mission would have no chance to avoid the people camping there, and the net result is they would never leave port and would eventually quit the game. In reality it was very hard to completely blockade a port as you describe as you could not get close enough due to shore batteries and the further out you were the more ships you needed to provide an effective blockade. Effective blockades meant months at sea with little or no action.

And people complain about servers being empty, there would be about 10 people left on the server with this suggestion.

Regarding the circle, you just have to keep an eye on the map at all times and as soon as you see someone breaking off to head to the circle then follow them, especially at the start of a match. I used to hate it when people did that but I have since had some interesting battles when I have broken off from the pack to intercept someone going for the circle. The circle can bring some tactics into the game but when it becomes a chain and chase battle it gets really boring. Most people do not bother going for the circles. but I think as more people join the game you will get a certain group of players to who the win counts more than anything else, especially if they introduce a leaderboard that shows wins vs losses. Regarding the racist talk, well that is the internet for you, as much as you try and stop it people hide behind their anonymity to spout racist and homophobic language and to troll in general. It happens in all games where you have a chat function that is not actively moderated. It will carry on until games start getting shut down by governments for allowing their chat channels be used to propagate hate speech and of course then there will be an uproar about government censorship.

Trading is not the issue as far as I can see, I'm not sure what its like along the US coast but as far as I know there is not much profit to be made trading between ports within the British safe zones around KPR, so the traders have to leave the safe zone to make profit, and this is how it should be. So in terms of piracy all you have to do is work out where they will be departing the safe zone and where they are headed to and intercept them. As I mentioned I have been intercepted by the same pirate player or his alt 4 times in a couple of weeks while doing trade runs and I have made adjustments to my runs to avoid him, which works for a couple of days till he finds me again. I have seen that he catches other traders as well, and this is on Global where the population is very low. People seem to want it laid out on a plate for them, so they can log in and sail from port to do a bit of piracy and within 2 minutes of sailing from port they want to see traders for them to attack. In reality pirates and traders should be a cat and mouse game, sometimes you will go out and never catch a trader. Put it this way if as a trader I got intercepted every time I did a run I would soon pack up trading. But as I say trading is not the issue, at least not round KPR. As for the US coast or anywhere else, if it is possible to make good profit trading purely between ports without ever leaving the safe zone then that needs adjusting. I do not believe the safe zones have increased the numbers of users logged in and the downward trend may still have continued, but I do think it slowed down the rate of losing players because players can level up and grind slots and drops from easy PvE battles in the safe zone. Put it this way it is what has kept me playing, because most members of the clan I am in moved back to EU server so I am usually alone online and thus do not partake in much group action or RvR. The issues with safe zones, as far as I can see is that PvE battles can be done their with no risk, generating more profit than can be made from trading. This issue is what needs rectifying to encourage people doing missions and grinding to leave the safe zone.

You hit the nail on the head there, PvP has to mean something, not just a means to get marks, but its the same with trading it has to mean something, if I lose a trader then it should have some effect on my clan or nation just like winning or losing in PvP should have an effect on a war. But they all need to be interlinked in some way so that a successful nation/clan is one that fosters different aspects of gameplay and they are interdependent.

Totally agree, somewhere for PvP players to find action as well as encouraging more people to head out of safe areas even for PvE is what is needed.

EU is not much better population wise. We will never be using the OW to its fullest without bigger population. A lot of the fun referred to historically happened when the server population was over 1500 at prime time.

Well with the current low population on servers like Global where it hardly gets above 100 people online, you are talking about 10% of the online population in one team looking for PvP, to even that up you would need at least another 10 people, so 20% of the online population just in one battle. Its just not going to happen. If those 10 people are so keen to get PvP why dont they split and join different nations, that way they could at least have 5v5. (BTW I am not seriously suggesting that they do that, but it shows how the population is the problem not the safe zones). There have been numerous other suggestions put forward to increase PvE and trading content in the game to encourage people out of the safe zones, once you get people out of the safe zones then you have your PvP content. The only problem I see with the safe zones right now is that they are to attractive to remain in for PvE missions.

I think the problem with Global is more due to the low population. To take it to the extreme if there were only 5 people online and all were in the same team they would never find PvP no matter what the status was of safe zones. If the servers were full I am sure the safe zones would not be such an issue, especially if they removed rewards and xp from higher ranked players in the safe zone. The thing is I want a server with lots of PvP, I just disagree with your proposal for achieving it.

This is true, but if enough PvP'ers are in these new hardcore nations why are they not managing to find PvP among themselves? Why are they set on camping KPR to get their PvP? It just seems that PvP'ers can only have fun when seal clubbing or fighting someone who does not want to fight.

I was referring to OW kiting where they came in fast ships and just kited the defenders till they got one alone out of position then attacked. It just led to a lot of chasing around the map for hours with the attackers saying that the defenders brought too many ships out to fight, it was not fun, it just became a chase or a gank. If that is your idea of PvP you can keep it.

There was a topic about server being restarted.

But if so many people want PvP then why in this example does it not happen? Are all the PvP'ers on the same team? Maybe the Brits are not a nation of PvP'ers, well then go to another nation that has PvP'ers. I think you look back with rose tinted glasses, because, yes that did used to happen where blockading fleets came out and there was some good fights but it did not take long before the meta became, hit a few easy targets and once the defense fleet started forming the attackers would kite in OW till the defenders got strung out or started to give up then turn and tag the remainder or someone who had got too far ahead of the chasers. I know because I spent many hours patrolling outside KPR and seldom got a fight unless they could get me solo. It was not much fun chasing people round the map knowing you could not catch them till they had the advantage. As someone else mentioned you now have the hardcore nations which have no safe zone, why not go camp there and get plenty of PvP as it seems majority of the PvP'ers have gone to those nations. The effect is the same as if the people who want safe zones went to play on the PvE server. I have no problems with encouraging people to leave the safe zones or making it more attractive to leave the zones, but forcing people only chases people away from the game.

Attacking people that do not want PvP is hardly good PvP, as I said there are a lot of players who only enjoy PvP'ing against unwilling opponents or when odds are stacked in their favor.

What about the freedom for people to just do what they want without being ganked? The safe zones are only a small portion of the map, its just that people are so used to finding their PvP there that they cannot accept the change. It always surprises me that there seem to be so many people who want PvP, yet all of them cannot seem to find it against each other and they want to be able to attack people that are not looking for PvP. I like a good PvP fight as much as the next person but I also enjoy sometimes just killing easy AI's without interruption. Thats the whole point of a sandbox, p[eople can do what they want.

The problem is that if they remove safe zones then the new players will constantly get ganked and it does not matter if they have insurance or not or if you replace their ships for free, eventually they get disheartened by being defeated so many times that they give up. You have to make it a risk vs reward equation so people can decide if it is worth the risk. I trade a lot in dangerous waters and I seldom even carry guns on my traders, if I get caught I know I will lose at least 1 trader, but I also know the chances of getting caught are low, so the risk vs reward makes it worth it as I know I will get away with it most times and when I do get caught my profits from previous runs more than makes up for it. If I knew I would get caught most times then I would stop trading. The same risk vs reward has got to apply to PvE and PvP in the game.

Yes you are correct, but why would anyone risk their SOL when all they want to do is grind up slots or earn combat marks, xp and drops, when they do not have to. If you get rid of the safe zones you bring back seal clubbing, now I know many enjoy that sort of PvP, but in reality it drives people from the game. The solution has to be to not allow people gain xp, drops or combat marks after attaining a certain rank inside safe zones. That way you keep both sides happy, people who just want to have some fun killing AI for no rewards can have their fun and people who want to get rewards and xp have to choose to leave the safe zone and no one can complain about people making loads of money without risk.

I agree but it has to be by encouraging them to leave the safezone rather than throwing them out to the wolves. More would leave the game because they were seal clubbed than because they felt there was no content in the safezone.

Please do not go down this route in NA, instead make it so that at higher ranks you do not get xp or rewards from fighting AI in safe zones, people still love blowing stuff up just for the fun of it without risk.

If the game is struggling to keep people now how will releasing it help? All the people who are now crying out for the game to be launched soon are the same people who will probably moan after launch that the game was released before it was ready. Final release is no magic fix for the game to attract players, you may get an initial influx of players but soon you will be back to where you are now. Until they can start attracting back people who have stopped playing but love the genre, then I think they will struggle.