[Several nations send colonial fleets to West Indies.]

Agree that 3 ships per day is too many. Limit to 1.

[One Server for PVP]

2 hours ago, Kaos said:

Where would that emergent ow pvp gameplay come from if the whole point of OW is to overwhelm your enemy with numbers (because you can) and catch them off-guard because they will most likely flee if they can? If one side is blockading something and perceives an enemy coming with more numbers then they will most likely flee in different directions instead of engaging in some epic fight and risk losing their whole fleet

This is surely just as true of the current system and will quite possibly apply to all aspects of OW pvp now we've moved to one dura, especially given that they seem to have made crafting more time consuming and transportation of materials more risky.

4 hours ago, Aegir said:

I said 'multi-day ordeal'. By the sound of your follow-up statement, that definitely counts as 'so long it becomes painful', so I don't see where the disagreement is.

That's the thing though, by the looks of it it's not nearly as much of a PvE grind as the old system since you can't sit in a corner and run missions, instead you're forced into the OW to scout for enemy fleets, narrowing down your location to the shipping lanes and providing ample opportunity for PvP responses.

The PvE is just there to trigger the PvP. Sure, you could make it a blockade where if no one breaks your blockade in X hours you get the port/trigger a PB, but the only difference then is that instead of shooting AI for a while you have to sit there doing absolutely nothing, which if anything seems even worse just for the sake of calling it a pure PvP mechanic (outside of all the waiting time).

I still feel that having ports flipped in a few hours worth of activity is too quick, more so now that the impact on players of losing a port where they have buildings and assets will be really severe. I agree that the new system is an improvement on what we had before though. You make a fair point regarding activity and pve as the trigger. Personally, if I was designing from teh ground up I'd like to see a system which took all sorts of player activity into account but we're well past the point where that is feasible.

Your last point, regarding nation numbers is also good, although I also always thought there were simply too many nations in this game and that splitting of the player base has been one of the constant issues we've faced. Which kinda brings us back to the op, in that further segmenting the players just doesn't seem wise. Amalgamating nations might actually be a way to lessen the impact of night flipping but people like their little national flags too much.

[One Server for PVP]

1 hour ago, Aegir said:

Isn't that virtually the same as the upcoming changes to the hostility system?

It's closer, but without the npc grind.

1 hour ago, Aegir said:

I guess the main difference that you're suggesting would be what the devs have tinkered with in the past - making hostility generation a multi-day ordeal to bring all timezones into it. Which they now discard so that it doesn't become "PvE grind at X hour countered by PvE grind at Y hour" that you also seem to despise, in favour of having to defend your region immediately to get actual PvP. Which brings us back to direct competition, removing something without offering a replacement, and not resolving timezone issues.

What you claim to be an 'ordeal' I would see as multiple opportunities to generate OW pvp and emergent, player generated content. It does not need to be so long it becomes painful, but should be long enough to allow forces from each side to react and build rather than logging on and thinking 'Shit, Flash.. we've only go 14 minutes to save the region!', 'oh let's not bother and just fight the PB.'

While the new system removes "PvE grind at X hour countered by PvE grind at Y hour" it does not remove PvE grind, which is my whole point. PvE is fine, but pretending it's a good part of PvP I don't buy. The new system also does not resolve timezone issues, at least not entirely so don't believe that. If a group of Russian players decide to grind hostility against a nation largely populated by W. European players while the latter are at work it's pretty much same same.. But nvm, you don't need to bother contesting hostility anyway, just show up for the arena match.

[One Server for PVP]

1 hour ago, Powderhorn said:

I'd be OK with losing port battles for favor of one server, but I just don't see that happening.  Too many people are more interested in the large fleet actions, and conquest lets people "win."

I don't see it happening either, but as I say removing PB does not mean removing conquest or large fleet actions. I love the idea of blockades etc being a part of the game, unlike now. It'd also negate all the sitting in port waiting for port battles to happen stuff. Enemy is blockading your regional capital then you put together a viable fleet and sail out to break the blockade... there's your 'port battle' right there, except now it has a meaningful relationship to what is happening on the OW.

[One Server for PVP]

7 hours ago, Aegir said:

Indirect competition isn't nearly as fun/interesting (multi-day hostility system, grinding progress bars and so on).

And yet this is exactly what the current system demands. Look, I don't really expect them to remove PB, they're way too invested in the concept,so I'm being slightly facetious but I do think they're pretty bad. The fact that they're having to come up with ever more elaborate and gamey arena rules for them is clearly an indicator of this imo.

Personally I've always argued that territorial control based on ships in the water (in OW) + kills for attackers vs kills for defenders would be simpler, lead to more and better pvp and would result in way less bullshit gamey cheesing. The only way to take territory would to be out and exposed to attack, the only way to defend would be to fight. All in OW, no stupid win circles. It would encourage real world tactics such as blockades, defensive patrols etc. Not just a couple of fleets grinding npc like true pve pros.

 

Yeah, you'd still have time zone issues but since everything wouldn't be compacted down to a couple of hours hardcore grinding and a 90min port battle it would be less of an issue. One server would then clearly be the better solution. We're currently heading in teh direction of ever more Byzantine rules and mechanics and ever more localised and divided player groups simply to deny an issue created by the fact that the devs have hinged the entire game around a bad concept.

[One Server for PVP]

1 hour ago, Challenge said:

without rvr/pbs you have a game of smaller battles and trading/sailing in the Caribbean. OW is what makes this different than an arena game, not rvr/pb.

Indeed, and if anything port battles are far closer to the arena game than proper ow pvp. Perhaps it's the PB afficionados who should be holding out for arena mode so that the OW game can have some decent mechanics.

[One Server for PVP]

2 hours ago, Ser_Slack said:

Without rvr/pb's you just have an arena game. That's coming if you want that.

I never said anything about removing RVR.

I've always held that port battles are terrible, unhistorical and simply lead to stupid gamey tactics. It was bad with fantasy flags, it's even worse with magical capture circles and meaningless, abstract war supplies. There must be better ways to encourage OW pvp (pb are rubbish for that.. people grind npc then sit about in port waiting for their oh so bloody important port battle). Territorial control could be done much better and in a way which negates the problems port battles create.

[One Server for PVP]

Get rid of port battles, no more night flipping

[New System Of Marines]

Definitely needs more flexibility. Personally prefer the 2nd option of mutually exclusive groups. Been testing new player experience and as it stands 50% is really a no go if you're sailing a cutter or the likes. In turn that means new captains will be very vulnerable to being boarded as they learn the ropes, even by AI.

[Wipe patch to live servers slightly delayed.]

The biggest myth is that access to teleports creates more 'action'. It's rubbish, it does the opposite. Before t/p came in we knew where the action was. It was on the east coast of Jamaica, around western Hispaniola, the windward passage etc.. clans held areas and fought against other clans for ports that actually mattered to them. Switching operations to a new front was a significant logistical effort... it was an event worth noting in game. In short.. the game worked, rvr worked, locality mattered, holding territory mattered.

Now it's just a homogeneous magiporting gank fest, which is about to get worse. Teleports reduce the game to an arena with slightly differing backdrops. What's the point of Admin saying he wants to bring OW alive again but then ignoring the one thing doing the most harm to that?

[Wipe patch to live servers slightly delayed.]

4 minutes ago, Mrdoomed said:

Ironically revenge ganking fleets where not a big problem BEFORE instant travel.  Back then if a bunch of asshats who "chase pvp" wanted to all 30 or 40 teleport to gank you they where then stuck there for 3 hours or had to sail back.

As a solo hunter that was my favorite trap to spring on the dumb.  I would use my tp before i logged to go to wherever i wanted to trap asshats the next day. Next day i would log in make sure and get spotted,  the sheep would teleport to me, i would go to port then teleport to my real hunting grounds.

If i got to play more than a hour or two i would do the same before I logged off, otherwise i would just rinse and repeat from current port the next day.

Once people could tp all day like munkey likes then they just sat in port playing candy crush till they heard about a real player spotted they could gank.....of course they call this " going to the pvp" but real players know what they are doing.

Indeed, and instant t/p + gps map co-ords makes it a terrible decision to bring them back, especially if players are forced into OW post battle.

The kind of metagaming with teleports that you describe is exactly why I hate them. Teleports screwed up the game in a big way, but the least destructive to gameplay was the tp to port after battle. What's ironic is that Admin is scrapping this but keeping the truly detrimental form of tp.

At the very least teleports need both a cooldown and an activation cost and timer.

[Wipe patch to live servers slightly delayed.]

Hmm, I want tp between outposts removed and only have the one account. On the other hand I think tp to friendly port after battle should remain (unless other changes are implemented) because revenge gank fleets were a terrible part of this game. I consider people who sit in port waiting for revenge gank fleets to form for easy kills 'carebears' but hey, maybe that's just me

[Wipe patch to live servers slightly delayed.]

51 minutes ago, SoulPYTHON said:

there just needs to be a 24-48-72 hour cool down on those teleport so there is some consequence of being stuck in that part of the map if u decide to teleport

That would be better than nothing, what would also be necessary would be an activation timer before it can be used to stop people tping in from all over the map to join revenge ganks.

[Wipe patch to live servers slightly delayed.]

3 hours ago, Nelson Hornblower said:

The cause though is the map is HUGE, which is a awesome, but only if you can get around quickly. 

Wtf is the point of a HUGE map if everybody can hop about it as if it was tiny?

All teleports need to go so that locality actually means something, so that local rivalries can develop and so that small nations can't so easily be bullied by the teleporting, map hopping gank fleets.

[Forthcoming changes in the next testbed patch]

See where you're coming from Wraith but I think Texas is probably right on this. Those who can sink huge amounts of hours into the game will have all their unlocks, it's the casuals who will always be in sub-par ships.

One way around this could be to allow people to declare a 'primary' ship. They would be able to unlock all 5 slots on this ship without any prerequisites. All other ships they would need to unlock as normal. Perhaps the primary choice could be changed for a hefty donation in marks or something.

[Ditch EU Server Idea]

1 hour ago, Christendom said:

Anything goes in the sandbox, including battles at all times.

This is a misconception. A sandbox must have parameters and rules. It's a box, by definition. Otherwise it'd just be a random pile of sand. The fact that somebody may not like some of those rules does not change this.

22 minutes ago, Bach said:

Regrettably you have to separate the true PVE players from the RvR world.  They slowly erode and destroy the RvR world in almost any game that tries to mix them.  It's not a "who is right and who is wrong" thing. It's simply different goals for entertainment that don't mix.

Pure PVE = desires no risk, minimal losses if any and absolutely no non-consensual combat.

All these ideas are antithesis of warfare concepts.  So as time goes by every complaint by the PVE crowd that gets answered erodes the war simulation challenge. As time goes by the RvR PvP game begins to start looking like an arena game or at least a war game with "safe spaces" and computer enforced ROE that make no sense in warfare.  NA pretty much just went through this proven progression last year.

Any pvp mmo has ROE of some sort. It hasn't been the pve players who have driven many of the ROE changes. It was pvp players who were against long battle entry timers and the like and who wanted teleports so they could quickly  'get into the fight' (a euphemism for carebear, risk free teleport their way to a safe port before undocking with their gank fleet).

Anyway this is getting off the OP topic of server splits and nightflips. I'll still hold that the single best way to get rid of the problem, and to make pvp interesting in this game, is not to split the servers but to abolish port battles completely. An interesting 'raid' system combined with dynamic territorial control based on ow pvp would massively change this game for the better.

[Hide opponent upcoming orders during boarding]

7 hours ago, Otto Kohl said:

Just learn the basics of boarding (cost of each action, and how they work) and all will be fine. 90% of captains dont know how to board and its really an easy thing...

Not really a question of easy vs hard. Current system is just horribly tedious.

[Ditch EU Server Idea]

Splitting the population is a bad idea. Tbh port battles should be scrapped and territorial control determined by a dynamic system related to OW kills, weighted towards pvp. That will solve the issue of night flips (if it even persists) and lead to more players out in the OW. It would also be a hell of a lot more interesting.

[Hide opponent upcoming orders during boarding]

Just now, Jon Snow lets go said:

Yeah but why work on a shitty boarding system when they already have a complete new prototype in the making.

True. If it could be done with minimal effort and time then it would, perhaps, be worthwhile. God knows how long it will be until the new system is functional and ready to go, if it ever is. I'd have liked to see them prioritise boarding over certain other elements, it's probably the worst aspect of the game right now.

[Hide opponent upcoming orders during boarding]

21 minutes ago, Jon Snow lets go said:

Boarding is not ping based, you see the action your opponent does in the last second only when you cant change it anymore. That means you have the full second (= 1000ms) to log in your final choice.

One of the biggest skills you can use to outplay your opponent in this boarding system is a good preparation management. If you cant see the actions of your opponent then there is no reason to login your decisions late (= high prep costs), that means preparation becomes trivial and useless.

How about reversing the prep scale? Any commands given early are expensive and hidden, orders given late are cheaper but visible. Maybe you could have a middle 'sector' where there is a % chance of commands being visible with a middling cost. Dunno.. it's late and not thought that through much but almost anything would be more interesting than the boarding we have now.

[If You Care About Realism...]

Can we please have storm battles back, nights that are actually dark for more than half an hour, and variable winds?

[Please Don't remove Global Chat]

On 12/04/2017 at 3:33 PM, Hethwill said:

Think it the other way around, If good natured people actually do their best to root out the gutter talk then the ones left will be the ones that actually make good use of the Chat.

I've seen this said a number of times, by Admin, yourself and others. The question I asked Admin the first time still stands; How? Surely you know as well as anybody that the kind of toxic players we are talking about will respond to civil, reasoned attempts to moderate their behaviour with more toxicity. Politely asking them to cease and desist doesn't work, if anything it has the opposite effect and fuels their behaviour. Most of us have been around long enough to know that arguing with idiots goes nowhere good

Ignore does work, because if everybody ignores them they end up talking to themselves, get bored and go away. Closing chat is less ideal but it is a solution for some which leaves the communications open for others rather than Admin taking the nuclear option.

Basically moderation needs to be much tougher off the bat and bans much more severe.

[Forthcoming changes in the next testbed patch]

11 minutes ago, admin said:

you just don't want to run a pure test (before release) of what the real age of sail experience is without teleports - while we will run this test despite your objections

We already know that the game has 2 audiences that dont mix.
One audience wants to sail and hunt..
another audience wants a happy no time wasting TO BATTLE button sending him straight to balanced combat with no OP ships. 

This game is about sailing on the open world like those captains did in the age of sail. Doing nothing and searching the horizon for enemy gank fleets. 

 

That's an oversimplification. There are those of us who want OW to be vibrant and active, who love sailing and hunting in OW but who also recognise that quality of life features in a game make a great difference in retaining players... something you currently struggle with.

Real sailors were not 'doing nothing and searching the horizon'.. .they were engaged with the day to day running of a ship. We don't have that in this game.. there is literally nothing to do on a long voyage except point in the right direction and look at a mostly empty horizon. Or chat to people.. but there will be less of that as well now lol gg.

If you truly want to get people into OW then you don't do it by removing any kind of quality of life features, you do it by adding interesting features and aspects to sailing in OW. Thing is you seem to have backed away from that... variable winds would have been one such feature but you were scared off by the negative reviews.

The reason OW is lifeless and boring is not because players aren't playing right, it's because you've not given people compelling and interesting reasons to play that way. Your current direction will just lose you more players, not cause a resurgence in OW activity. Get your heads right and start coming up with actual content and mechanics for OW.

[Forthcoming changes in the next testbed patch]

33 minutes ago, Wraith said:

what do you think sets the price of a ship in a port? Undesirable NPC ship builds? Yeah, no one is going to list a ship under those prices so you've effectively broken the one durability experiment through piss poor economic decisions before it has even started... and you'll yet again blame it on the players no doubt.

This point really needs to be hammered home because they quite clearly have not thought it through. Crappy NPC ships will set the baseline, expecting anything else is bizarre.

[Forthcoming changes in the next testbed patch]

Surely the way to get more people into OW is to make OW more interesting, not by removing quality of life features? Don't see how removing PvE events will help either, they are short lived and great for players to do when they perhaps have limited time. Making captured npc ships 'useless' seems counter-intuitive as well. People capping ships are out in the OW, doing OW stuff... that is what you want, no?