Bach

I'm part of a group of 40 or so players coming back specifically because of the wipe and that the devs are taking the training wheels back off the game. I'm sure we're not the only ones. I realize this wipe and changes are going to be painful for the 1000 or so people that were left in the game last December and liked it that way. I really do. But you have to understand and I think deep down you do that it was a dying RvR/PvP game. The slow changes of last year did not actually result in improvements that were appealing to the mass of Pvp gamers out there. No matter how good they sounded at the time it just didn't end up working. So it's time to try something new and hope for the best.

The ship knowledge ladder is a very interesting concept. At first I was somewhat shocked as most are. But the more I think about it the more I may be seeing the potential. It's certainly a system with wide ranging pros and cons. Does anyone know if the knowledge trees are all the same or different? example: to unlock slot 3 in any 4th Rate requires = 4 in Endyiomen + 4 in Mercury + 4 in Lynx or is it specific of ship like: 3 Connie = 4 Endy+ 4Mercury +4LynX 3 Ingermanland = 4 Indefatigable+4 NavyBrig + 4Cutter if it's specific to ship this could open up a whole diverse sea of ships typically seen. It might be nice to sail a 2 slot Aggy when they become available to me but if I already have learned a 4 slot Ingermanland I might not change.

Expensive flags will stop small nation progression just as much as abuses. There are and inevitably will be some players that develope more money than entire clans. The best merchants, and these guys seldom get the credit in MMO's they deserve, will amass more wealth than some nations active players combined. I'm not saying I am not open to some form of tweaked flag system. We intercepted many under the old "carry the flag" rules and it was good PvP. But I just think it's a very hard system to balance and wealth between players is so random I don't think it will really work.

Quite a bit. We actually became known for it. So did many Spanish pvp1 clans. Its not hard to find them. There is a very logical and predictable sequence of events in most cases. Of course you aren't going to protect them all. But making a handful of them very hard to flip is entirely possible. The teleport to friendly port is being discussed in other threads. It is one of the "easy mode buttons" that creeped into the game near the end of last year. It is entirely unrealistic and against the war simulation. But in any event, once used they aren't gaining hostility anymore. If single missions exist that can generate a port flip by themselves then either the Devs will remove them from hostility zones or adjust the amounts of hostility. Hardly a difficult problem. You neglected to address the fact that in your preferred method any one player can buy a flag and set a port battle. So let's explore that one a bit. The single biggest problem with that is meta-gamers. If you are playing Britain and attacking the Pirates it might take 25 pirates to defend the port battle. But what if they can't get a 25 man PB fleet? Sucks to be beat down to one region. So they log in British Alts. Brits only get x4 port battles. The simply buy x4 flags and set them against French ports on the other side of the map. Problem solved. The Brits can't attack Pirate ports and unless they want to sail across the Carribean to actually fight the French the get hired and quit the game. Yeah Pirates Win! The single player pulled flag system is so open for abuse it isn't funny. Grinding over time, be it grinding players or NPCs, is the best equalizer to meta gaming shinanigans. But it needs to be tweaked so it becomes favorable for players to meet each other off coasts to OW PvP.

I think you might be looking at this from to narrow a spyglass. Having some amount of grind stops one player from solo flipping undefended ports late a night. Further, if I see hostility going up on a home port I can come sink your ass on the OW and not just in a PB. The open world fights are more dynamic and random. I just see hostility going up. I don't know how many ships you have there and you don't know how many I got coming for you. Even in this scenario the AI are a wild card that mixes it up as they may or may not be in the pvp battles. If you think it's just going to be sailing to a port and grinding NPC unmolested then you were probably already picking on an undefended port anyway. The port battles themselves aren't always good. If you buy a flag and attack a hemp port while these British guys are attacking an iron port guess what. Since we won't be able to teleport between ports. Your probably waiting two days to fight nothing after buying a flag and fighting nothing. At least with hostility gains you get two chances for PvP.

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.

Mercury for me or at least it was. Snow would work well to for PvP back in the day. I leveled from a Mercury to 3rd rates purely in PvP over a year ago. But here is the catch. The game was relatively virgin back then and most all the PVPrs I met were also in brigs or the occasional Cerberus. The Cerb was worthy of ooh and ahhs back then. But here is the problem today. My opponents are no longer in Brigs. They are all in Frigates and bigger. If a new player joins me in his brig it's going to be harder for him to level than it was for me back in the game start. First off, other than the Bahamas there are almost no shallow water PBs any more. He can take a mortar Brig but you kind of have to really be into the mortar thing and it's not teaching him much. Second is the open water combat. He can certainly join in his brig. But today it comes with problems I didn't have to face. He has to score xp generating hits on player made Pvp ships. 6# guns won't do much other than a stern rake. So it's not really teaching him to sail bigger stuff anyway. Third, he is an easy target and easy prey to serious pvp players using penetrating guns meant to fight frigs that will easily leak a brig. Three good leaks with a follow up and most Rattlers are done. His xp gains will be minimal to what I saw fighting other brigs. We would need a dedicated shallow water play area to level him comparably in PvP today. Yes, the Bahamas, but the rest of the population would have to play there with him for it to work. To answer your question. Today the best pvp ship for a relatively new player to learn common pvp tactics in would be a Reno or Surprise IMO.

As a player that came over from POTBS and other sailing games the basics of ship movement are generally the same. Manual sail was a short tutorial to know what buttons to push and then maybe a day of sailing. So for what is probably a large part of the player base that follow the genre learning to sail the ships themselves is a very quick process. Learning the eye coordination and timing for gunnery probably took longer. These players can jump to end game play in short order. For truly new new players to sailing ships there does need to be some sort of tutorial/player skills gain period. Certainly a true newbie just jumping into a port battle in close quarters with 24 other huge ships is going to quite nerve wracking for a few players. So in this case some amount of "non-end game play" would be warranted. Mischievious Alts are fast becoming an unavoidable flaw in mmo RvR gaming. A quick path to the end game tends to attract this kind if bad behavior to a degree. A long heavy grind to end game participation goes a long way to weeding out troublesome Alts. So in this case there is an advantage to team specific end game grinding. This situation gets further complicated because the alt will easily appear as a seasoned sailing ship gamer as per case one above. For the above reasons I like Slamz suggestion. Put in just enough level grind to train true new sailors and deter casual troublemaker Alts. While being less enough of a grind the lovers of the genre and RvR can get into the action faster. What if the grind to 5th rates remained as is. Post 5th rate you still gain ranks for perks and such but you can hire max crew to participate in port battles. Or maybe some other system that accomplishes a similar relief from grind to experienced gamers.

I think this problem may spectacularly solve itself. Currently in game you can smuggle and buy live oak from the USA coast and teleport it to the Dutch home waters if you want to. You can use an alt to pop up factories and also teleport it to you main Dutch builder character. So today if you go into a port battle Live Oak is the standard everywhere. So if you want to PB you need Live Oak to compete. Plus those PB ships have multiple Live Oak dura. So for PBs most other wood types have little to no value. But in the new patch all that live oak has to be sailed out of the USA. No matter if the USA players sell it, an alt logging camps it and allies won't exist. This will slow the market dispersion of live oak and the 1dura system will speed up its removal. This will make Mahogany ships more valuable and with x6 producing ports give everyone something to fight over. Now as Live Oak ships become more rare even a Teak or Oak ship isn't that bad anymore. It's just not perfect. Let's be honest, in a PB if your the chosen alpha strike target live oak wasn't likely saving you anyway. It was the fact that ships next dura will still be live oak. Further, if the Agamemnon BP becomes rare again the 4th rates PBs will become less dependent of live oak Agamemnon's. So stacking live oak armor and structure on top of the Aggy's already exaggerated armor and structure will become less vital to competive contests.

Last week I was playing Sweden. I exited Gustavia but when I appeared in the OW I was next to Key West. I put in a bug report and hit the teleport to capital. Without the Tel to Cap that was a 3 hour sail back to my play area. Now in the upcoming patch if Tel to Cap were removed how would we get out of that? I could just sink the ship off Key West. Ships won't be worth that much when they don't have mods on them. But I'm not sure if that would make me appear in one of my out posts or just the closest Nuetral port still stuck across the map. But then if I had a free outpost slot I could just create an outpost at the Neutral and move myself back just losing the ship. Of course if that ship had been a first rate instead of a Brig it would be a different story. I'm certainly not opposed to removing the Tel to Cap but those game bugs are definetly still there now and after a big patch probably then too for awhile.

What might work better is the new, to me, exit battle instance to friendly port option. If the "I'm stuck" button simply did the same thing it could be less abuseable than the teleport to capital while still un sticking people.

I don't think you can. It's essentially our "I'm stuck" button that accounts for player errors as well as bugs. Just last week I had to use it when my ship somehow got hung up on a piece of land coming out of a battle instance. Once and I guess I'll admit this, I was leaving France to the west to Aves. I went away from the computer and got side tracked in a pet emergency. Forgot all about NA and came home to find my ship nose in on the beach at Panama. I was thankful for the T-Port to capital button that day. ?

They have the item port search in this is game now. It appeared after Purge largely stopped playing. You just can't tell exactly how much the price is and info is only accurate to the hour I think. im not sure about the number of buy/sell orders currently.

Because the guy in the video predicted where the game was going in a year and it went there.

As the real world moves to more and more extreme anti-bullying laws I'm not sure how you can expect gaming companies to continue to absorb the risk. Like it or not this probably the future for all competitive games. On the real life society side of things the less moral of society are not actually held in check by the tiny numbers of policemen scattered in communities. They are actually held in check by whatever acceptance level the general community has. The amoral by nature always test the boundary but to continue being part of the society they have to restrain themselves. This is why your next door neighbor doesn't yell obsinities at your teenage daughter. Because if your not all over his ass for it you or your wife make sure the local police are. It's no different in online games except the police force is smaller and needs more help from the gaming society. But if you do nothing it tells the less moral there is a new lower acceptance level in game society. So they move on to pushing the next lower boundary. Like it or not YOU are what holds them in check.

I like the new additional changes. But I do like a more realistic OW sand box with a good degree of difficulty. I get bored very fast with lobby games. So I think the GL devs are on the right track. The two play styles just don't work well together. For those of you worried about the travel times I urge you to think about what you still can do in the system. I have figured out ways to still be able to play and find action. It will not be any less action once players figure out to create war fronts and stop making alliances with all their nearby neighbors. However, one caution. What nation you choose to play is going to be far more important now to match with your desired play style. USA has the easiest logistics start and its out of the way in the north without any forward bases. So easy logistics but not as quick to find PvP Brit has good logistics but requires a little more sailing. Central located capital with forward bases all around Carribean. So good for both Econ and quick PvP. Pirates has good start location for pvp and great Econ in shallow Bahamas. So good for PvP and some Econ. Spain has HUGE resources but a lot of sailing, somewhat central home base and access to quick PvP. So good start nation for PvP and Econ IF you don't mind the sail time. France has medium Econ potential but does have x2 forward bases. So it more challenging for Econ and PvP but still has both. Dutch is a little bit more challenging than France but should pick up a lot of uncontested ports Spain can't defend. So in reality Dutch hill have good Econ and ok Pvp challenges. Sweden and Denmark are the hardest at start. They very challenging Econ and PvP and start more or less off by themselves with no other forward bases.

As someone contemplating returning this thread is not a very positive thing. Players need the ability to shift play styles inside the same game without having to make new characters and assets. In short you need one game world that offers something for everyone. A player may go to night shift work in real life for 6 months. Maybe he is now playing more solo and wants to PVE. But on the weekend he might get up early enough to PvP or RvR with his old friends. With different servers your really just forcing players into specific cells of specific play styles. PVE players also add a moderating factor to the game atmosphere and genre. They keep it real when Pvp players get out of control. Maybe I don't like to just PVE 24/7. I have role played with SGS for years and found it enjoyable. But at the same time I can still PvP with the best of them. However, Pvp players aren't always the greatest team mates. Inevitably you run into PvP players with names like "French Toast 97" that always just want to ally with the big power teams and hunt the tiny ones. We'll catch a lone Indiamen and French Toast 97 isn't interested in just ransoming the ship. He insists we MUST sink it and all during the chase he verbally taunting the lone merchant captain. Do you think I find that anymore fun than sinking the same AI mob for the 100th time because I don't. Truth is both PVE and pvp players have good and bad players. Neither makes a complete game on their own. Anyway, reading through this thread and contemplating returning it's not looking good. The Devs started with fresh new ideas. Maybe good, maybe bad but certainly some I even saw as potentially brilliant. But here you are at the end of the thread right back where you started. No one even tried out the new ideas. Even with a wipe it will only be 4 months before everything returns to this state. You can pat yourselves on the back and say "the Devs listened to us". Sure they did. They gave up their creativity, new ideas and possibilities. Basically they just gave up. How is that a positive thing? Who would return for that?

PVE servers are a more profitable business model in the twilight of a game. The same players will kill the same AI mob a zillion times and come back for more. It doesn't require GM moderation as there are very few player arguments to resolve. Content doesn't need to be designed to RvR potential, which is very hard and the economy doesn't even need to balance as logistics of a nation dnt really matter. It allows the dev to design content in smaller bundles that don't even need to balance the game. Ultima Online and other models Sony pushes with this concept are almost purely computer moderated. They don't attract huge numbers of player but the same handful will play for years and often buy decorative content. Put in a new cave with blue dragon with a few more hit points and a slightly different attack then the red dragon and the player base is happy for 6 more months. PVP servers can be explosive initially in population and if the design is not only balanced but promotes rivalry competition it can hold high pop for some time. However, as player hit top end competition new challenges have to be developed. The hard part is all new content and challenges must balance player base, skill levels and econ logistics or it unbalances the contest and losses player base. Its much harder to maintain a pvp server over time. Often they degrade into arena style competitions as the population shrinks and true RvR is harder to maintain and design than arena contests. This is tricky. EVE, one of the few long term success stories, does it by using a huge play area that allows player to win player made wars while the losers can move far enough away to rebuild and renew. All while maintaining an high security core world of PVE base in the center that actually grows pvp players that eventually spin out of it. So I guess in truth EVE doesn't actually maintain a PVP server. Their model is a joint PVE/PVP world that uses a realistic econ system to create desire for players to cross the boundaries and re-invent their guilds periodically. Its more player made and controlled content with EVE just providing the back drop atmosphere. Which is what I think NA originally intended and may even have had at one point before all the extra servers split to game population into playstyle specific servers. PVE players here, small world preferred in PVP2 and total anything goes into PvP1. Without these gaming cultures occasionally crossing boundaries all three styles eventually stagnate. If you can figure out a single game world all three can live in at the same time then it would probably repeat EVE successes. Like happened to Ultima Online, the specific server split style will likely eventually lead to a semi-stagnant PVE server and an arena PVP combat server over time as players will not be able to create content on their own that crosses play style boundaries.

Easier solution is to not have war supplies generate hostility. Instead have them modify the rate of hostility gain or reductions. That way they may make it faster for ships to fight and gain but they don't replace it.

Determining anything in an RvR game by BR is just going to destroy logical naval strategy. BR factor is the thing of arena contests and not wars. It simply makes the contestants "think" in different terms. If if two gladiators are to meet in the arena care is only given to matching the contest for a very small number of participants to have a roll in it. Most simply end up observers. So if gladiator A is the smaller contestant and he chooses he will elect lighter armor to neutralize the bigger gladiators advantage. If the bigger gladiator gets to chose he will choose hvy armor to exaggerate his advantage. If both gladiators are equal, forced by BR, then inevitably the will choose the exact same gear no matter how many armor and weapons may be offered. in a war admirals, generals and captains goals are to devise strategies and tactics that exaggerate or neutralize advantages of terrain, numbers and technology. If a port has superior shore batteries then a land raid of some type to neutralize them before the invasion is in order. If the terrain of the port makes it invulnerable then a Seige is set up to weaken the defenders. If the enemy has heavier ships then you want to engage them near the shallows. Anyway, you get the idea. War strategies center on the desire for battles to have more VARIABLES. Not absolutes like BR. If BR was an enforced factor of real life wars the Russians and Brits would all be speaking German now. The USA speaking Japanese. Ghengis Khan's mongol horde wouldn't have been all that dangerous. BR factor has to be THE dumbest idea ever brought into a war simulation game. It's an arena concept. It's best left in arenas.

First impression, it sounds like another arena. Which it essentially is. But if it keeps people happy I don't much care. I can't say I'll bother to participate. I like the old event where you had to solve the puzzle of where, devise a strategy to get a chest and PvP your way in and out. I like events with a bit of mental challenge and goal that could possibly be achieved without having the biggest ships and most men. This new one seems very simplistic. Go here, PvP, collect reward. FYI- Won't take long for players to adopt a tactic of using large groups with several battleships and everyone else assisting. This will concentrate the kill points on the few key players resulting in shifting the odds of getting the rewards for your team. A sort of tweaked Zerg for the win. I am hopeful for more challenging versions of game events in the future.

I think you have to define what the in game effect of the disguise would be. For example: Making a British player appear to be a French player could work. But how would this work for tag circles. The ruse would end as soon as a cautious player test clicked an attack circle. Soon every player would learn to test attack every ship they meet at max range before it gets close. Making a British player look like a French NPC would probably never work. The AI moves differently than player ships. Its an easy spot.

Doesn't matter what they do with the ROE they will never keep everyone happy with it. The best thing is to test, which they have been doing, and pick the one that supported the greatest amount of PvP by data.

It's bad enough our sailing ships have radios and gps. Now you want radar? ?

The current two ring ROE sucks for overall game play. Not because of why you might think it does. it makes the fights to easy. It is way way to much of crutch for easy play and truth be told it reduces the total number of participants in PvP. I generally sail solo or in small groups. I am generally the aggressor. This two circle ROE allows the tagger to control and know all factors of the upcoming fight. There are almost no variables to make the contest interesting. As soon as those circles close most of the fights are already determined. Sure 1v1s might go either way but let's be honest. If I'm the one hunting then I'm probably the one that is prepared and the other guy generally isn't. So it's not like the 1v1s are all that hard either. i actually miss the days when the screen would shudder and suddenly x5 ship enemy patrol appeared on the fringes of the battles inside the instance. Now you mind has to race, weigh new variables, adapt and overcome. Can I still sink this guy before they catch up? Perhaps now a rage board makes more sense than a slow demasting? Maybe it's time to escape but which direction? These battles have far more thrill and excitement than the two ring ROE battles ever will.