Jerome
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Posts posted by Jerome
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Here is the problem; we have an OW and the devs keep putting mechanics in place to encourage "arena" fair fights. One or the other, please.
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15 minutes ago, Archaos said:
I do think the Devs do try and cater to the requests of the players and that is why the mechanics swing so much. The problem is that you can not keep everybody happy.
At one stage the ganking in home waters got silly as you could not even step out of port in home waters than you got attacked. You may not have sailed there with the intention to gank but I bet you chose your targets carefully to ensure you had best chance of success and if the odds were stacked against you then you ran. I know from experience how frustrating it was trying to catch the raiders that came to the home waters around Jamaica. As you mention yourself "my group was a collection of aggressive pvpers", and generally the people gathering to engage you would be a pick up group of varying abilities, thus they would have to rely on numbers.
I personally would not usually engage such players on an even basis as I know they had come prepared for such a battle, and then even if I did engage them I knew they had enough skill to usually escape if the battle was turning against them.
I do agree with your points to a certain extent, all battles should not be balanced even fights, but I do think the protection afforded by home waters should be better than open sea or close to foreign ports and I think that is the balance the Devs have to address. Bear in mind that if the game mechanics swing too much in favour of the aggressor and players end up bottled in at their home ports then they will stop playing and you will have even less PvP. The lowly trader needs to see some odds in his favour before he will make a trade run, if he knew each run would be unsuccessful then why bother doing the run.
The home fleets and shore batteries are a powerful ally for the home waters crowd. Also, AI fleets can make it tough on a solo hunter. So there is that.
I just vehemently disagree with using mechanics to restrict pvp. Mechanics mean it will be gamed, it will leave people out, and it will frustrate you.
Sure, being ganked can be frustrating. But being hosed by the game developers is even more frustrating... and you can't go back out and hunt them down!
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I admit, I am confused. The patches seem to see-saw between mechanics that encourage open world no-holds barred PvP and hand holding crutches for PvP.
The biggest population drop that I can recall came with the first implementation of BR tagging rules, resulting in groups being split and people either having to wait out a fight or getting sucked into another one.
Other, in my opinion, pvp killers included the evil twin reinforcements that meant you were punished for hunting. Tag a traders snow with a renomee, and poof he was joined by a renomee. It was worse if you had a large group...
The social perk was hard to fathom unless the devs were favoring the econ and stay at home player over the pvper. It was very frustrating when our group literally sailed 45 minutes to find PvP (we are pirate hunters that used to roam 4-5 Surprises and renomees) to think the cards were stacked against us because we dared to hunt in enemy home waters... It always baffled me, where else would we go? We look for the highest concentration of enemy players.
To be clear, my group was a collection of aggressive pvpers and we attacked anyone we thought we had a chance at, including fights we were outgunned ot outnumbered in. Some of us had played other games together for years and we did quite well. Two points to make here. Rarely did the enemy ever try to fight even or close to even fights. When we were spotted they invariably called out a much larger and heavier force and we either had to move on or play cat and mouse. Second point, for all those looking for "fair" fights, what are the odds that any given player or group of players will randomly encounter their pvp match? Near impossible. Balanced or even fights should not be an expectation in the open world, as it is impossible to do without heavy-handed mechanics restricting players.
We never sailed out with the stated intent to "gank", we just organized so we could tackle groups and of course always hit targets of opportunity. Often we became the hunted as players organized to drive us off, sometimes we got caught. We always made a fight of it. Now I pretty much sail alone, my pals logged in disgust a while ago.
Another baffling thing for me is players that argue against a mechanic (stern rakes) as "unrealistic" and then ask for "balance" in the same post. Look, this is PvP. Invariably certain ships will come out as best for certain roles and certain tactics will also become best practice. If you need them, something else will fill their role at the cost of less variety. Adapt or die.
The biggest draw for me and I believe a lot of people was open world PvP with variety. We could hit fellow pirates (we did), and anything we found. I seek clarification, sometimes the development seems schizoid and I do believe the devs are listening to the wrong players. I think the current population reflects that.
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I don't know, I play only to PvP and am usually successful when I find anyone. I think the biggest issues is finding someone and then the mechanics that 'balance' the game for non pvpers and dock humpers.
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Encourage PvP by having each city increase in wealth based on all crafting or resource mining that occurs there. The more activity, the wealthier the city gets. Make that wealth trackable and make it influence port battle rewards. This will focus warfare and aid nations in developing strategic goals. It will also help pirates and such track down the main econ hubs.
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Yes, most games that are multi-player do favor groups over single players... deal with it?
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Lol, the tribunal. Cleanup on aisle five, someone call the Whaaaaaambulance and get than man to a PvE server!
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2 hours ago, oldcrankyman said:
miss-post, stupid phone
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2 hours ago, oldcrankyman said:
Please note that my suggestions are to remove restrictions and encouraging players to play the game any way they want. The "anti-ganking" mechanics are all artificial rules within open world that restrict people from playing. Remove restrictions and let people fight it out. Less restrictions, more play styles, more players = profit.
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No, it is already too hard for people to catch enemies open sea.
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I like the idea of having the port randomly selected.
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Anything to let us find actual players I'm a PvP game.
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1 minute ago, stormridersp said:
It´s clear at this point that you´re only thinking about yourself: being a hardcore player, with lots of friends, probably a clan member yourself, then yeah, for you ganking will never be a problem cause you are the ganker. But in all your posts, you completely disregard the casual player and worse, the new player who somehow, despite all the complete lack of documentation, found his way into the game.
The main difference between your opinion and mine, is that you accept the fact (and even like it!) that the current PVP is based on Cowardice, while mine opinions are based on Honor and Fairness, disregarding how much freetime the player has on his hand to play the game and grind.
Lol. At this point it is clear you are my intended victim.
Wrong, my opinion is that PvP should not be influenced by mechanics, just players. If players want to play cowardly, they can. If they want to behave in a manner they consider fair or honorable, they can. But to regulate players with mechanics is a no go.
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Awesome idea, the current map is terrible.
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10 minutes ago, Hodo said:
If I see a battle going on and I cant join, or I see it is horribly lopsided I wont join or even wait. I am not into the gank fleet mentality I don't see a point in it. It isn't fun for anyone involved. I don't see the fun in taking 12 4th rates and running down a 6th rate brig. Just kind of stupid and a waste of everyones time.
But I also don't revenge tag either, if someone escapes me, I say "good fight" and let them go.
When I sail with a couple friends in surprises, we are not out looking to gank. We are looking for fights and we have engaged in plenty of fights we were outgunned and won. And we have been ganked, ran from ganks, and ganked players we have come across as opportunity. It is not "gank mentality", it is simply hunting for PvP. We bring what we have and you bring what you have and we meet in the middle, no mechanics balancing it one way or the other.
The other day I jumped an indiaman with an NPC escort of Inger and Essex. I was alone in my surprise. I can within an ace of sinking the indiaman but had to run because his fleet came within an ace of sinking me. Sheesh.
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9 minutes ago, stormridersp said:
What is it that makes you think that Ganking actually makes players stay?
Because unrestricted PvP leads to more action. I personally don't like hunting for an hour and seeing nothing, or in the case when battles had BR restrictions, hunting for an hour and then having your group split by BR mechanics. I had some friends quit then and there. When we got ganked we always wanted vengeance and sailed out for more.
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10 minutes ago, stormridersp said:
That´s your opinion, don´t try to make it universal.
No, it is factual that your mechanic ideas led to players leaving.
No offense mate, there are plenty of threads with your ideas discussed. This ain't one of them.
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47 minutes ago, stormridersp said:
First of all, for me, anything that can be considered a cheat or, in anyway, raises a barrier between OW and Battle is something unwanted. Imo, the transition between OW and Battle, and from Battle to OW should be seamless. Right now there any many barriers like a count down timer for allied forces to join in a battle, there´s this Battle Screen Camping which allows those escapers to hide from sight and log out, there are the many AI fleets everywhere being pulled into PVPs, there´s the "hidden" players fleets that only really show up in-battle and so on.
For one, imagine this situation in a real-life perspective: You´re sailing your Frigate like ship, and get tagged by an enemy gank who´s every so often getting closer and closer to your own nation´s capital. You´re tagged, alone, somewhere in-sight of populated friendly port. You get into battle and notice that there are AI ship, from the ganks fleet everywhere, dozens and you have no chance, so you go into your nations´ chat and type SOS. A lot of friendly comes for your help, but can´t join the battle because of some burocratic game mechanic, I mean, in real-life, if you´re sailing in OW, there is no countdown timer to join a battle cause the battle happens in OW. Then in this battle, you somehow managed to escape, maybe because you´re a coward (the officer perk that is!) and you decide to just sit and hide in the Battle Screen, I mean, in real-life, you don´t escape a battle not until you really escaped and the pursuers gave up the chase! The result of all this is that ganking as it is right now, is an act of cowardice because it uses the game mechanics in the attackers favor. In real life, if you go attack someone near his own port, you´re better be prepared for a decisive type of battle cause there will be reinforcements as long as the battle is going. By shutting it off, you´re allowing ganks to get ever so close and act in such an unrealistic way that ends up being even more frustrating for the ganked. Perhaps introducing a game mechanic that allows players to join in the ganked´s side until the battle ratio is about 1:1, and only then shutting it off.
Some of your suggestions are my main complaints and the main point of my post. If you are sailing alone and get jumped, that's it. I happen to like the new tag system, minus the mega NPC fleets.
The only reason people hunt capital waters is because the chance of finding other players is greater there. Where else would a person seeking PvP go? A remote port where the chances of finding a player is low? Randomly in the middle of the sea? Your point there is asinine, OF COURSE players hunt busy ports! They should not be punished for that like they have. And no, players in port should not get to hop out and help, that is not realistic if you consider time compression nor is it fair. And again, to encourage players to leave battle screens, give them a chance to reorient in the open sea.
Never restrict battles with BR. Are you kidding? The abuse of that plus the resulting group splitting triggered the first major player base loss in this game. It was also a contributing factor to the demise of potbs. Get rid of BR altogether.
Players don't quit over being ganked. They quit because of no action.
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Let's talk about "ganking". What is a gank? For most players it is any fight that they start with any perceived disadvantage.
Let's talk about this game. This is a wide open world, very large. The odds of two fighting forces matching open sea and having a "fair" fight is remote, to say the least. So, intended or not, one side will usually be the "gankers" and the poor victims the "whiners on the forums". There is just no way around it in an open world pvp game.
Or is there? Various mechanics have been tried that have all resulted in loss of playability, and in my experience, player loss (multiple games I have seen it). One of the giant attractions of this game for myself and others players I used to sail with was open world, unrestricted pvp. Then came the mechanics, BR mechanics that resulted in people missing fights or getting split, mechanics that favored the defender (open battles near port with social), forts, npc fleets around capitals, etc. Then personal fleets that intruded on the pvp, making it damn near impossible for a solo pirate to get much done.
Either way, what did we see? People leave the game.
Also, the failure to address a simple thing like battle screen camping. I often log out at battle screen, either because I have to log (usually) or because I know a fleet is waiting outside for me. Don't remove that, just incentive coming back out into the open sea with some help getting out of the immediate area. Long invisibility, even longer cannot join battles? Something so a player can leave a battle with some confidence of escaping a revenge fleet.
Look, you can sail around this damn game for literally hours and never see a single player sometimes. And when you do, of course you and your mates all jump them because hallelujah it's a player to sink or capture. If anything, the game mechanics should favor and encourage those that sail near enemy ports to hunt. Give them a break. Make this game what it once was, cutthroat pvp and disregard the losers whining about ganking. Remember, for every one player crying about ganking, there are at least two more players high-fiving over his pool of tears and shattered timbers.
Give us heat maps to find where the enemy does missions, trades, hides, whatever. Put the "Action" back into "Naval ACTION".
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On 11/10/2016 at 11:39 AM, Jacob Elston said:
This comes part & parcel of PvP and hunting in enemy seas.
I know that this game is not EVE Online, but taking a page from a very harsh PvP environment, there is no safe place in EVE nullsec when you are being hunted.
Never played Eve but not allowing logoffs in battle screen would make this game unplayable. Even potbs allowed you to and they had map magnitude smaller.
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Battles in NA are beautiful, great graphics. But it is a lot like playing a shooter with no gore. Add some things to make it more visceral. When you get rigging shock you should here a bosun roaring for men to grab axes and clear those spars. Crew casualties should be accompanied by cries for the surgeon, crew shock should likewise have audible cues like the sound of a midshipman saying "we must strike sir!". Fires should have the crew fighting desperately to extinguish it. Broadsides should have crew cheering and yelling. As it is, when major damage occurs you don't notice unless you see the white text calmly informing you of "crew shock" because Poopdeck's Surprise just raked you with carronade and your scuppers are full of blood. That would be a nice visual effect too. Basically make combat more intense and add audio or visual cues for significant events.
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Shrink The world.
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I would like to see an option to lock the user interface. It is annoying to have the UI dragged around accidentally while panning the view.
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One of the best part of this game is unrestricted PvP. The worst thing you can do is limit that.
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What is this games intent?
in Patch Feedback and General discussions
Posted
As for PvP, there seems to be two conflicting philosophies. Pure open world, unrestricted pvp, or arena style "fair" fights. What is the point of open world hunting if the game forces balance in the fights?
When you suit up for pvp you have your taggers, chasers, heavies, etc. But some of the mechanics force you to somehow find your opposite, matching, group in OW to have a fair fight. At some point you have to ask, what is the point? Arena fights or open world hunting. I prefer the OW hunting and by the population drop I think I am in the majority, the majority that votes with their "feet" and not in the forums. Bring back unrestricted warfare and see what happens.