Karvala

Abuse of the RoE is rife on both servers and seems to be getting worse. From gank fleets unrelated to either attacker or defender crashing battles 15 minutes in, to loot stealers standing by downwind to grab the loot from someone else's kill, to false flag entry on the wrong side to flout the BR limitation, to "accidental" green on green damage which is not at all accidental. Most of these things are against the RoE but without video evidence, which most players don't have, there is no enforcement and so they have become a daily reality. The goals of the RoE should be:- 1. Ensure a fair fight. 2. Allow reinforcements on either side where this leads to a fair fight. 3. Prevent loot stealing, false flags and green on green damage through game mechanics, not just the Tribunal after it's too late. This can be achieved by one simple modification: allow the primary player on both sides to screen potential entrants to the battle on their side and veto them (preventing entry) if unwanted. This means your friends, allies, trusted neutral parties can still join the battle (and because you can only veto your own side, you can't stop reinforcements for the other side joining), but it also means random gank fleets, griefers, cheats and thieves can be kept out. It's such an easy modification, it doesn't really have any negative consequences for anyone not intending to violate the existing RoE and it will largely solve these growing problems at a stroke.

^ I think that's a great suggestion. Would be quite happy with PvP on that basis, and in fact you could even combine the PvP and PvE servers on that basis, so it might increase the visible player base, rejuvenate the economy and save the devs some running costs.

True, but it's also not stated that it won't be, so until we know one way or another I will keep highlighting the problems with hostile AI in the OW and hope for a good outcome. 🙂

That would be a fair point, except that neither of those things are true. As a test, I just logged into PvP, and sailed from KPR as a member of GB. Two things: (a) none of the available trade missions were for other GB ports, so I can't take missions that go to friendly ports; and (b) the first five ships I tagged were all enemy AI. If I were a new player in my Basic Cutter, I would have no way of advancing. In fact, I wouldn't even make it out of port against an aggressive AI; I'd be dead within minutes. Sure, we could say "let's protect the Capital Zone and make that no-aggression", but I can't actually make any money in the Capital Zone so that doesn't really help much. I agree that being pulled into battle and running from the AI will be possible, but with the laser-guided accuracy of AI distance shooting and its initial loaded cannons, there will always be damage. The extent of the damage and the number of times someone is pulled into battle between ports will determine whether or not they survive. But as you say, it's going to be annoying and it wastes a lot of time sailing out range and waiting for the battle timer. If it happened occasionally, people could probably live with it. If it happened multiple times per trip, it will become intolerable.

No, aggressive NPCs will make you stop doing deliveries because you have a 0% chance of success against aggressive NPCs that are much heavily armed than a trader ship. Players don't play games with 0% chance of success. Mr Trader in his Traders Brig cannot fight corvettes and upwards with any possibility of success and running/dodging/being pulled into a battle you don't intend to fight is (a) pointless; (b) tedious; (c) unlike to succeed against the uber-PBd fast gank fleets. Mr Solo Hunter similarly has zero chance of success against a gank fleet of 1st rates, whether player or NPC. History shows time and again that faced with 0% chance of success, players leave. Just to be clear, nobody is asking for 100% chance of success either; that would be dull. But there has to be a reasonable probability that things will go okay on a given trip, or players won't make them. Unlimited aggression with no negative consequences and no constraints outside of a Capital Zone = no trading and no solo hunting and yet more players leaving.

New players can do the tutorials, sure. They can realistically pass the first four exams with OW practice. So now they're in a Rattlesnake. Your suggestions are that stay in the Capital Zone or search for a quiet place. If they stay in Capital Zone, they can't do missions to earn any Reals or Doubloons and they won't gain much experience. They'll also get extremely bored and probably leave. If they try to search for a quiet place, if such a thing even exists, that means sailing all over the map looking for it = being ganked and going to be square one multiple times. Again, they get bored and frustrated and probably leave. These concerns are real, they have driven players away; they can't just be dismissed. Sure, vets have valid concerns about RvR and alts kill the game for everyone, but first and foremost here needs to be a decent and preferably growing player base and there won't be if vets are only interested in arranging things to suit themselves and viewing new players as food or care bears who need to toughen up.

Which amounts to: (a) the player market will take care of everything; (b) don't bother trying to play solo; (c) any type of ganking is okay. If that's really your view, then fair enough. To me, that's a sadly limited vision of what the game could be; just gangs of vets attacking other gangs of vets, and everyone else long gone. To be clear, people are not asking for safety, they are asking for a reasonably level playing field. If the only way a new player can get any experience of decent equipment is by being protected by existing players, and otherwise is just food, then in my view something is wrong. You might say that this is the way of team-based MMOs and why should it be any different here; I would ask does it actually work, or does it lead to players feeling demoralised and leaving because they have no way of developing in the game?

The problem is fundamental to any PvP game. Where two players fight and one player wins, it means another player loses. The core question is: how do you make it feel like a fair fight for both players? Clearly noob Mr Pickle vs pb'd L'Ocean is not it, and when Mr Pickle gets ganked for the 10th time, he permanently leaves and trashes the game on review sites and social media. The reviews for this game even on Steam are surprisingly negative considering the high quality of large parts of it and the attractive subject matter, and this is doubtless one of the main reasons. To my mind, there are various possible solutions, none of them perfect:- 1. Level limits along the lines proposed by the OP. Problem is any level difference, which normally goes along with an experience difference, will lead to the new player losing every time, so it doesn't really solve it unless you force the level limit to be the same. Then, though, you will get the high level players complaining that they can't find opponents or that they don't have to fight only high level opponents. 2. Safe areas. The shallows are a bit like this, but that only covers up to light 5th rates and it's a single grade, and even within that you still get ganking. More finely graded safe areas, or safe routes, might help a bit. Many games have areas designed for particular levels of experience/skill/equipment and that could be developed here. 3. AI protection. Clearly you can't realistically expect other players to sacrifice themselves to defend new players who they don't know, and there aren't enough players anyway for that to be viable. However, if we're going to have aggressive AI, then one interesting possibility is for the AI to defend new players and attack existing players based on their gank statistics. It would be easy enough to automatically calculate how many other players someone has attacked and the level difference and that could feed into a probability of being attacked by high level AI patrol vehicles. If you want to gank new players, you can still do so, but you're going to have to run the gauntlet of Elite 1st rate patrol craft yourself then. That would even it up a bit, and the high level gankers shouldn't mind since they think players being attacked by stronger opponents is okay. They might even welcome the challenge. 4. PvE carry over into PvP. This one is more controversial and wouldn't work on its own, but in principle some mechanism to allow new players to gain experience and better ships on PvE, and then carry that over into PvP, would mean they don't have to be ganked from the start on the PvP. You could level limit it if you don't want everyone waiting until they have a 1st rate before going to PvP, although I suspect someone people would go earlier anyway. I think a combination of those would go a long way towards addressing the problem.

You still seem to be struggling to understand a few things:- 1. I'm not asking the devs to change the game to favour solo players. In fact, I'm not asking them to change it at all. Quite the contrary, I'm asking NOT to change it. You're the one who is asking for changes to the detriment of a large group of players. 2. Who the game was initially designed for in 2014 is irrelevant anyway; it is who the players are now, how they play and what the current rules of the game are, which are relevant. 3. To say it's the Dev's game and they can make it however they want is begging the question. Sure, they can introduce nuclear weapons on ships if they want, and make the top speed of every ship 2 knots. Just don't expect any players to remain. We're supposed to be having an intelligent discussion on what the changes should be, not just saying "it's up to the Devs so shut up". To just dismiss a large group of players because they don't play like you, and claim that the game isn't for them and they should be disregarded when it comes to design decisions, is self-centred and arrogant in the extreme.

Well you could always play on the "peace" server. Oh, hang on....🙄

One of the key trade-offs in game design is realism vs playability. Players understandably ask for increased realism in behaviour to make the game more immersive, right up until it's implemented and they realise it's not fun anymore and they didn't really want it at all. AI that acts more like a human sounds great, until you ask yourself why there is a PvE server as well as a PvP server. If people want to play against human-like opponents, they already can; they can just login to the PvP server and there are the most realistic human-like opponents you could ever hope to find just waiting for them. The reason many people play on PvE is precisely because they don't want to chase someone all over the map while that person runs, and they don't want to have to run themselves when a fleet of L'Oceans has them in its sights. Most people want to fight, they don't just want to sail chasing or running. The present mechanism (slower AI that doesn't run or chase) is designed to facilitate that and it works well. Lose it at your peril.

I think it's a great idea; it would give solo players and small clans a piece of the action and not relegate them to being permanently second class citizens in second class ships. Clan members still get a benefit, return on their investment and cheaper access to good ships, and everyone's happy A simpler alternative which would achieve a similar thing, but also give players a choice as to when they choose to build with port bonuses and directly relate to the level of investment clans make, would to allow clans to sell consumable port bonus licences for a specified fee. Solo players/small clans can buy these and then apply them when they build a ship to get the port bonuses. They could be priced to balance the improved ship vs the cost, and clans get a revenue stream to reward them for their investment. The price could differ based on the level of port bonus.

It won't be exactly the same, because at the moment nobody else has PBs either. Under the proposed plan, clan members will have PBs so this removes the level playing field. That's a very different situation to now. 1. Solo players, by definition, don't want to be part of a clan. That's what's meant by solo, so telling people to form a clan is no solution at all. That's exactly what people fear; that this is a clear attempt to force them to join clans which they don't want to do. QED. 2. Why shouldn't there by limits? I explained that in my original post. As a solo player I don't own the port and I cannot defend a port against an NPC attack, so the situation is entirely beyond my control. To severely penalise players by removing access to facilities they've spent hours developing through something entirely beyond their control would be a very bad design decision. Solo players don't mind things being harder or taking longer and that's the case now. What they object to is things being completely unavailable to them. Just saying "the game was never made for you" is no excuse at all. It works fine as it is now and solo players paid for it the same as you, so please stop claiming that your way of playing is THE way of playing. All players should be considered when changing a game post-release, not just a subset who happen to play a in certain way regarded as the "proper" way to play.

I would go further than this and say that not only do the proposed changes not give anything to single/solo players (who seem to form the majority of players on PvE), but it actually goes a long way towards killing the game for them (or I should say us, since I'm one). At the moment you can be self-sufficient as a single player and at no fundamental disadvantage. Sure, it will take longer to acquire resources and XP etc., but there is no glass ceiling. I have a top level shipyard, forge, academy, workshop and switch other resources around as needed. I can build my own ships which can match the best ships I can buy. I can build the same upgrades and books. I can fight the AI as and when I choose and the rest of the time do what I want safe in the knowledge that the resources I have spent many long hours accumulating in order to be able to build the ships of my choice are safe. After the new changes come into effect:- 1. I will no longer be able to build the best ships; that privilege will now be exclusively held by clan members who own ports and can invest to give their ships port bonuses. No doubt they will sell some of those ships on the open market, so I might as well give up building ships and just start buying theirs instead. One part of the game has now been closed off to me. 2. If players resources, e.g. workshops, academies etc. will be appropriated by the NPCs who have captured a port (aka destroyed), then all of those resources I have worked hard to accumulate are no longer safe, and even worse, their safety depends not on me as a solo player but on whichever clan owns the port and is responsible for its security. I appreciate @admin hasn't yet stated/decided what will happen here, and I am hoping they will be sensible, but on the other hand, if the resources are not lost, then what's the reason for defending the port? The latter point highlights why this whole idea is flawed; there is a fundamental tension between solo players and clans. An uneven playing field will see the solo players, i.e. the majority of players on PvE, simply leaving. We're solo players for a reason; we can't be coerced into joining clans. An even playing field is not possible if some features are only available to clans or clan members. Most importantly of all, we play on the peace server because we don't want to have to fight except at a time of our choosing against an opponent of our choosing. NPCs attacking our resources and forcing fights at times when people don't want to fight, may not be available etc., totally undermines the whole point of the PvE server. There are so many potential improvement on the PvE server that can and should be made, some of which have been listed elsewhere in the thread. Why just take PvP features and impose them here instead, where they fit so badly?

I agree; in fact I agree so much I've made my first post here just to say so. The once a day restriction for a product people have paid for is utterly pointless; it's just limiting enjoyment for no benefit whatsoever. It doesn't affect other players, it doesn't change game balance in any way. It's like selling someone a car and then telling them they can only drive it for 5 minutes a day. Once an hour would be a lot better, but quite honestly why limit it at all? What next? Limitations on how many times you can change screen resolution? Limitations on key remapping? Seriously, it's a visual change; just remove the limit.