Jump to content
Game-Labs Forum

Taralin Snow

Ensign
  • Posts

    119
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Taralin Snow

  1. The forums are working properly for me again (on both my computer and my phone). I didn't change anything on my end but whatever the issue was seems to be fixed now. This is what it looked like for me while I was having problems (now that the problem is gone I can actually upload this):
  2. to answer my own question: When the same Item ID appears twice in a ResourcesAdded array, then both entries apply. The daemon that processes these lists does not appear to notice or care that it already saw that item in that port previously, when it reaches the duplicate entry.
  3. I've found more duplicate ResourcesAdded values in the Shops API (these are on us2, aka PVP Global): Port=La Habana [38], Item=Iberian Dried Pork [790] Port=Kingston / Port Royal [79], Item=Lancashire Iron [806] Port=Les Gonaïves [93], Item=Fine Fabrics [824] Port=La Tortue [96], Item=Provence Oak [829] Port=Fajardo [116], Item=Iberian Dried Pork [790] Port=Christiansted [129], Item=Norwegian Fox Fur [819] Port=Gustavia [133], Item=Cape Coast Honey [833] Port=La Désirade [139], Item=Languedoc Violins [825] Port=Fort-Royal [156], Item=Corsican Mint [823] Port=Carriacou [163], Item=Textile Machinery [811] Port=Cartagena de Indias [212], Item=Spanish Dried Fruits [796] Port=Atchafalaya [294], Item=Normandy Cider [827] It is unclear what to do when the same item is found in the list twice. Should the correct value be taken as the first one in the list, the last one in the list, or the sum of all the entries with the same item id? (sorry if formatting is bad, I still have that bug that removes all styles from the forum web pages)
  4. Also I just tried using Safari on iPhone. Same result. It's as if the stylesheets for each page aren't loading at all (which maybe they aren't).
  5. Ever since the forum outage all I see now is raw text, without styles. This makes the forum very hard to read and some features (like going directly to unread posts in a thread) don't appear to work at all. I would attach a screenshot showing what I see except the "choose files... Click to choose files" link does nothing. F5, Ctrl-F5 and Shift-F5 did not help. JavaScript is enabled. I tried opening this forum in IE rather than Chrome and got the same result. Anybody know what I need to do to fix this? I assume it's just me seeing this otherwise I'd have expected to see complaints from others posted here already.
  6. I really think this was something special, and more importantly it wasn't an event limited to just a few people in one night, it was nearly the entire French nation (at the time) over a several week period. The defense of Pedernales in particular was glorious, and it became a point of French pride that we refused to allow it to fall without a fight, even if it meant sitting inside the port for 2 hours every night just in case a flag was launched against it. The other 22 hours of each day was packed with PvP, and it mattered -- it wasn't just sinking ships for fun, it was all-out war and it became our moral obligation to Sink All Pirates.
  7. I think Vllad includes traders and crafters in the category of PvP players as long as they're willing to do their trading and crafting in potentially unsafe waters, in support of the greater war effort. This is one of the things that makes this such a good PvP game -- ship combat and logistics both play a role.
  8. I don't think CCCP can afford to treat France as an equal. It would look bad and people might think all that saber-rattling was empty talk and start to re-evaluate their own relationships with the Danes. So they will define a victory condition for themselves ("reduce France to one port!") and if they achieve it they will declare that they have won the war, and they will not be able to understand why we keep sinking their ships and stealing their cargoes even though they have already "won". I suppose the next step would be to demand the devs fix the game because it's obviously broken if people you have already defeated refuse to go away even though you took all their ports, and when the devs do nothing they will just have to quit the game because it's stupid and boring and the devs are stupid to make such a broken game that doesn't even let you win and they're going to go play another game which is way better anyway.
  9. Also, I noticed that while the API indicates which ports are in which counties, it does not actually provide the *name* of the county (only the list of all the ports in the county). I found this a curious omission.
  10. The "ResourcesAdded" array for the La Habana Shops entry has Item ID 790 (Iberian Dried Port) listed twice, once at the beginning of the array with a value of (67, 0.28) and again at the end of the array with a value of (62, 0.28). What does it mean when the same item appears in the ResourcesAdded array twice? Should the final effective value be taken as (62, 0.28), (67, 0.28) or (62+67, 0.28). This was the us2 server data if it matters.
  11. McAfee SiteAdvisor blocks that URL: An unacceptable security risk is posed by this site. McAfee Content Category: Phishing McAfee Security Rating: Red it looks like the loading bar displays, then the security screen comes up, so maybe something is being loaded from somewhere else with a problem?
  12. I don't see how curvature itself would improve the game at all, but I do see how ship visibility due to curvature could add realism tothe game and improve the sense of immersion. And I agree that switching from 2 to 3 coordinates is a huge waste of CPU time and bandwidth. Far easier to simplify it as follows: 1. In a battle instance, the earth is flat. change nothing. 2. On the open sea, ships appear to sail lower in the water the farther away you are. This would be something done client-side without any server involvement. Ships that render near your own ship (or near the camera position if you want to do it that way) appear normally, but ships rendered farther away have increasing amounts of negative Y applied until eventually all you can see is masts sailing through the water like a submarine's periscope. If you did this that would give the illusion of curvature without actually doing much math at all. Most players would never even be able to tell the difference between 'approximated curvature' done this way and 'real curvature'.
  13. The cost to collect a resource from a building (not counting labor) is less than the price you can sell the resource for at a port that consumes it. This makes buildings the equivalent of a money fountain, all you have to do to make money is collect resources then sell them for a profit. A labor hour requirement limits how much free money you can produce this way per day.
  14. the BR limit needs to be surpassed before the battle closes (or the 2 minute join timer needs to elapse). This means that if the current BR ratio is 300:200 (1.5x exactly) the higher side can still add another ship. Any ship they add (from Basic Cutter to Santisima) will then cause the BR to go past 1.5x, which will then prevent further joins on the higher strength side.
  15. I was thinking about the change to the XP curve in Patch 9.7 today, and wondering what tools the developers have to identify the best shape of the XP curve. For example, how many players get stuck at rank 5 for a long time because the required XP for rank 6 is a big jump but their ability to gain XP doesn't go up as much? Is there a way to measure this? If you make an adjustment, how easy is it to measure the effect when you don't reset things? How are the developers going to test whether the new curve is in the right shape if there are no testers left at rank 1 to try the new curve and see? It occurred to me that in order to test how long leveling takes for a new player, you need the ability to reset your XP to 0. Very few players will be willing to do this for their entire account, but you could reasonably expect some players to do this if they could do it on a specific server only. So my suggestion is this: On character creation, allow a player to specify that for that character, XP (and crafting XP) should be stored in the server database and not synced to their Steam account. If the flag is set for that character on that server, XP is 'local' to that server and doesn't sync from/to Steam. If the flag is not set for that character on that server then XP is synced to/from Steam as before. This would allow players to keep their XP on their 'main' characters and still make new rank 1 players on other servers for testing purposes. Or they could even delete their main and start from scratch, knowing that they can regain their 'parked' XP by making another character with Steam sync enabled. And perhaps more importantly, it would allow players to do this via self-service rather than requiring admin intervention.
  16. moderator color change should be considered interim because the best color in the existing gray/blue UI might not be good later when the UI is redone possibly in a different color. red and purple are terrible colors in the current UI but yellow and green are readable. if colors are being adjusted I recommend also adjusting the purple color for mastercraft upgrades because it is very hard to read on the gray background (find a purple ship in the shop for an example). for battle markers, depending on the weather and time of day sometimes the dark shadow of the marker is more visible than the marker itself. orange would contrast well and make the marker highly visible (especially useful for mission markers which you need to be able to see from far away). for battles in progress white is fine because you should be close to be able to see it clearly (within 2 minutes sail). if technical limitations require both markers to be the same color then I am fine with orange or yellow for both.
  17. Yes, exactly. This is a game that is still under development, so there is still time to make it not like Monopoly. A sandbox game without comeback mechanics will devolve into a "play to crush" game where the smaller teams eventually quit or join the biggest team. If the game were to release today in its current state, I predict that within 3 years the meta will be for the majority of players to reroll to the same nation, then see how fast they can repaint the map. Then reroll to a new nation and repeat. There will still be die-hards playing the "right" way and of course for econ purposes there will be agreements that certain ports are off-limits so that shipbuilders can continue to produce (they will not want to reroll and lose their blueprints, die-hard crafters will have permanent crafter mains that never change nations, and conquest alts that reroll as needed (if they're interested in conquest at all), and possibly a dozen alt accounts for resource harvesting).
  18. The end goal is to have fun playing the game, that is why we are here. Yes, winning is fun. But winning by figuring out a way to prevent your opponent from fighting gives you the fun of winning by robbing your opponent of the fun of playing. Because this is a game it needs to be fun for both sides, which means removing or limiting mechanics that are only fun for one side. Taken to the extreme, this style of conquest becomes a PVE contest -- a question of which team can PVT the most ports the fastest. This is why Monopoly is hated by so many people. It is very rare for a game to be close enough that the loser has fun losing. Compare this to games like Ticket To Ride where the outcome may be in doubt until the final move.
  19. Ok, this is good. We are making some progress in identifying the issues. It does not help to call them names, "horror show" tells me you don't like it but it doesn't clarify for me the reason why. You are very clear about communicating your dislike but you rush ahead to the conclusion without giving us the reasoning that got you there. So, regarding the problem of busywork. What we have now isn't good either. When a flag is launched a notification appears on your screen for only a few moments, if you weren't watching you could miss it. You could check the map every few minutes to check for missed conquest announcements. This is busy work too, albeit a pretty low amount. So what we need is a system that requires no more than this small amount of effort. So remove the idea that you must go to a port to look at the conquest tab, make it a window you can open at any time (just like the map). And remove the need to click on nations and ports, just show a list of the upcoming attacks and the number of attackers registered for each. Since they are automatically scheduled the game will always know when the next several are due so they will be easy to display. This is much easier that what we have now, gives more information with less effort. Regarding the problem of player control and strategy. There is still plenty of room for this but the strategy will revolve around choosing which NPC attacks to reinforce with player attackers, and which ones not to. There needs to be a large enough total number of NPC flag launches to give lots of choices to players about which ones to join and which to ignore. There can also be some meta-gaming around having players register for attacks and then not show up for them, to exhaust the enemy. I am not sure this meta-gaming aspect is good so we might want to have a cooldown on registering for attacks, or maybe just a cooldown for registering but then not showing up. Something to discuss further later. Yes, there are some strategies that will no longer be possible, like simultaneously attacking 4 important ports knowing that the defenders cannot defend them all. I consider this a benefit because this kind of strategy hurts smaller teams. I think it would help the game to have fewer port attacks (more infrequent), but to have more players involved (on both sides) for each. Perhaps there can be preparation tasks, for example missions to deliver supplies from one port to another, and if enough supplies are sent the NPCs get upgraded. This gives low-level players and traders who enjoy hauling cargo a way to contribute without requiring them to actually fight in the port battle itself. Regarding coordinated defense, I do not see why this becomes impossible. Can you explain further why you believe this? Also I do not see why this is any more monotonous or "hitting your head on the wall" than what we currently have. If no players register for an attack you don't need to show up to defend. This is no different than what we have now. Really the only difference is now you will at least know how many players have registered so you'll know whether to send 6 defenders or 25 (if it's a very valuable port, such as your last Iron port you might send 25 regardless of the number of attackers). Which reminds me of another problem with the current port battle mechanic: because you have no idea how many attackers are coming, you must always bring as many defenders as possible. This leads to un-fun battles where one side has much higher BR than the other. We had this problem fighting the British on PVP2. They would bring large fleets of high-BR ships and we would have less than half the BR so the port battle would end as soon as the last tower was destroyed without a single ship getting sunk. Then we would bring a lot of BR to the next port battle but they would bring fewer players and it would be lopsided the other way. What we have now is already monotonous. We have our port defense windows set to the time we are on, so for 2 hours every night we are restricted in what we can do because we must be prepared to defend against a possible attack (which on most nights never happens). With a rotating schedule we don't have to be on guard duty every night, only at the time periods when an attack is possible against ports that we actually want to defend (we will not care about possible attacks against ports we aren't interested in keeping). So maybe we can have some nights off to do other things instead. This idea sounds like an improvement to me.
  20. Galileus, you're not taking any time to think of refinements to make the idea better. How about this: Players who want to join the attack must gather at the regional capital where the flag launches from, and register for the port battle. This allows them to join that battle as attackers. There is no cost to register (or only a very low token cost, maybe 2k-10k gold or a variable amount that depends on whether the target is shallow medium or deep). Players may register as attackers up to 30 minutes before the flag is launched, and any time after that until the battle ends (Players may register after the battle has started if they think they can then sail there and join before it's over). Players may not register for more than one attack at a time (they attack where they said they would, or not at all. this reduces feints but does not eliminate them). There is no limit on the number of players who register, but only 25 of them will be able to join the attack once it begins. If the attackers expect heavy screening by the defenders, they should have extra attackers to ensure they can get a full 25 into the battle. Attackers may escort the flag carrier NPCs (a good idea since the attack will be ended if these NPCs get sunk on the way) or not as they choose. Defenders may join the battle at any time (once it has actually been started by the NPCs at their destination). They do not need to register, they only need to show up. Only the first 25 can get in. Players can find out how many attackers registered by looking on the Conquest tab in any port. This will tell you in advance whether an attack is "real" (i.e. whether it will be more than just NPCs). Even if there are no registered attackers players can still defend just for the XP/gold/loot rewards. It is probably a good idea to reduce rewards if there are no attackers. Regarding feints, this mechanic reduces them by requiring active player participation. The current game allows 1 player with a lot of gold to create a feint, and this idea would still allow that 1 player to register for an attack they don't intend to go to (perhaps they instead plan to screen for the 'real' attack) but it will be clear to the defenders that only 1 player is registered. For a true feint the attacker will need to have a lot of players register for the attack (then not show up) but they will only be able to screen -- they won't be eligible to hit the 'real' target unless the feint ends very quickly (at which point they can register for the real attack, if they think they can sail to the regional capital, register, then sail back to the battle and join before it's over). But if you had so many players that you felt the need to screen your team probably had enough to fill the PB anyway.
  21. There might need to be some adjustments. Scale rewards based on number of players. Maybe you should never get Compass Wood or Exceptional upgrades as a reward for fighting NPCs (this should probably apply to open world as well). 7 hours may not be a big enough delay between attacks. But these are things that can be tuned and do not necessarily mean that the idea is fundamentally flawed. An idea that needs refinement is not the same thing as a bad idea. It's possible that this is a bad idea but so far I'm not seeing why. Personally I think 7 hours is much too fast given the number of regional capitals we have, but maybe with a sliding scale where the frequency of flags is based on how many ports you have (a nation with fewer ports launches flags more frequently, while nations with more ports launch flags less frequently) this would work. It would also slow down the rate of expansion of overpopulated teams. We do see a lot of bad ideas posted on this forum but many are good ideas that just aren't completely polished yet. This is how development happens. Somebody comes up with an idea and instead of "will this work" the question is "can this be made to work?". Just because something isn't polished is not a reason to shoot it down. First imagine refinements to make it as good as possible, and then if it's still a bad idea say why you think so. Sometimes coming up with the refinements requires sharing the idea and discussing it.
  22. Here is how it would actually go: - Hey, Frank, go check if this time it's a real attack - It was just NPCs. I sank them (with the towers helping) and got 120K gold and some Lignum Vitae 7 hours later - Hey, Frank, go check if this time it's a real attack - NPCs again. This time I got purple Marines. My hold was still full of Lignum Vitae from before so I dumped all the Coal I got this time. 7 hours later - Hey, Frank, go check if this time it's a real attack - Just NPCs again. I think I might open an outpost here to collect all my loot. I got Compass Wood this time. 7 hours later - Hey, Frank, go check if this time it's a real attack - NPCs again, but jackpot this time. Exceptional Steel Toolbox, plus some Silver ore. And 100K+ gold of course. A couple other guys also showed up to defend, rewards are good so you should come down too. 7 hours later - Hey, Frank, go check if this time it's a real attack - Sorry, was busy doing something else (I can't be online all the time). But I checked afterwards and we still own the port so it was probably just NPCs. 7 hours later - Hey, Frank, go check if this time it's a real attack - Yes it is. Started with just the NPCs and 3 of us defending, but 4 enemy players just joined in. Ask in nation chat for others to join, there is still time to get here.
  23. The key thing to remember related to battle timers is that open world time is not the same as battle time. When you enter a battle, time slows down. You can spend 90 minutes inside a battle and find that several days have passed in the open world. This is important to keep in mind because of reinforcements. when somebody joins your battle 2 minutes after it began, that means that 2.4 hours have passed in the open world. In 2.4 hours the fight would already be over, there would be no point in joining. Extending the battle timer effectively means that people farther away can join the fight. a 10 minute battle timer means that people who are a 12-hour sail away in the open world can get to you in time to help you (because 10 minutes of real-life time translates to 12 hours of sailing time in the open world). This is not realistic. The map is as large as it is, and game time flows at the speed it does, in order to create this sense of realism (while still keeping things fun by speeding up the boring long-distance sailing). If you have sailed 12 hours away from the nearest help, then if you are attacked you are on your own. Sail alone at your own risk. This may not seem like an important feature, but it has a large impact on the 'feel' of the game. Change it one direction to make the game feel more like an arcade game, change it the other to make it feel more like a simulation. It's very subjective and non-obvious but it is also a very real effect. Once you have that notion firmly in mind, we can turn our attention to the problem of ganks. To a certain extent, if you are sailing alone you are sailing at your own risk. But of course there is such a thing as too much realism, when the game stops being fun. So the game gives you some tools to avoid ganks, such as the ability to see players on the open sea who are within range to join a battle (including the ability to know their true nationality and exactly what kind of ship even when they are a tiny dot you can barely click). But the key tool that we are missing is the ability to see players hiding in battle who can pop out at any time. So you can never be sure that there aren't 25 players who are about to leave a battle and appear on top of you. The invulnerable timer will give you some time to react before they can attack, but sometimes if you are unlucky there will be nothing you can do. If you want to further reduce ganks, I think the best way is to have some kind of option to let you see closed battles if you choose (perhaps a key you can press that allows normally-hidden battle markers to appear). You should always have the ability to sail into danger if that's what you want to do. The key difference between a gank and a fun fight isn't the numbers, it's the difference between the numbers you expected versus the numbers you got. If you expected to be outnumbered 3v1 and you got outnumbered 3v1 that's not a gank, that's the fight you were expecting (and wanting, if you let yourself get into that situation to begin with). If you expected a 1v1 and got an 8v1 due to 7 extra players arriving from a hidden battle, that's a gank. And if you leave your capital in a Traders Snow and sail right by 3 clearly visible enemy players who then attack you, that's not a gank, that's you being stupid. (Or it's them falling for a trap because you have Exceptional Marines, Boarding Parties, etc.)
  24. When I am away from home I play the game on a Dell Precision M6700 (Intel Core i7 3740QM, 16GB DDR3-1600, Quadro K3000M 2GB, 17.3" 1920x1080). Runs fine.
  25. Something we've been seeing more of lately is when one enemy rams another enemy in order to sink their ship, in order to prevent it from being captured (i.e. it is better for your Victory to get sunk than to allow it to be captured by the enemy, even if getting sunk means getting rammed by a friendly). Technically this is green-on-green damage but I don't imagine it ever gets reported because it's desired (even requested I think) by the player getting sunk. I suppose there is still risk for the captain doing the ramming, if the ramming damage is enough to give him kill credit then he might get an automatic XP reset, which puts the other side in the odd situation of wanting to do high enough damage to mast / sails / crew in order to be able to board, but still low enough that if the ship gets rammed the green player will get kill credit (and corresponding XP reset). Can players on the opposing side report someone for green-on-green damage or must the report come from the player who received the damage? If this is an intended mechanic then perhaps make it so that if Survival is turned off then the sinking is always considered a "scuttle" no matter which side got the "kill".
×
×
  • Create New...