PvP2: Tales of France

[Lord Roberts]

Post-patch, you can actually reload the broadside of a 3rd rate at 100% speed even with long guns using only 350 crew.

 

It's not a bad option for PvE and port battles. I wouldn't recommend it for open sea PvP, as having to move people in and out of sailing cuts down on maneuverability.

 

 

I'm just trying to help British guildleaders understand basic game mechanics, to help enrich the experience for all. You're welcome!

 

 

Yes but that was a problem of the British simply not showing up (or apparently understanding time zone differences).

 

In Fred, the French had numbers, just not the rank to turn it into a real fight.

 

Arguably, we should have been undercrewing 3rd rates, which would have at least forced a fight. Only loading one broadside is better than simply forfeiting the battle due to lack of BR but then, we couldn't have known you'd show up with that much BR.

 

 

And again, not blaming the British for doing it so much as I am blaming the game itself for creating what amounts to some really stupid, waste-of-time port battle setups that players can't predict or, therefore, accurately work around. In the wider view, Fredericksted is just one example of MANY un-fun port battles created by this game's placeholder port battle system and the flaws inherent in it.

Really at 350? damn I do hope I don't see more Post Captains in 3rd rates...

[Lord_Howe]

Our major issue was not continuing to the 5th tower like we started doing, instead we turned around to go back to the 1st tower... which was against the wind.

 

From my own perspective i would agree. 

 

It is clear that when you changed your minds and headed back to the towers on the right (attackers perspective) you executed a turn to the right... You couldn't turn 180 at this point, as you would have been directly into the wind. A right turn put your line heading approx 315, back towards the second tower (again, from attackers perspective). You were essentially yielding ground at this point. Every minute you kept this heading put you further away from the Brit start, and left the port towers less defended.

 

When WIS defended St John, we started in almost the same way. However, we executed our turn left to 45, engaging you in front of the first towers.

Alas, our numbers were too few.

I suspect a similar turn by the French fleet, being much closer in BR to the attacker, would have forced a full-on battle, though it would have initially allowed the lead elements of the Brit line to shoot at you instead of vice versa.

[Lord Roberts]

I know it was a 25 vs 25 but in all honesty there was no winning that battle as the french, we just had too large of ships for you guys to defend the towers, even if you used the right tactics.

[OMG Lord Lucifer]

I know it was a 25 vs 25 but in all honesty there was no winning that battle as the french, we just had too large of ships for you guys to defend the towers, even if you used the right tactics.

Yeah, we knew we were going to lose the battle, we just wished for more ship to ship fighting.

[Lord Roberts]

Yeah, we knew we were going to lose the battle, we just wished for more ship to ship fighting.

I agree also, but sadly because of the BR difference one ship sunk was all we needed to win that battle =/ Though we brought all those ships cause we thought you guys were going to do the same, we heard reports of a victory and 2 pavels sailing around that area, why I sailed my Victory from PR xD

Edited March 22, 2016 by Lord Roberts

[OMG Lord Lucifer]

I agree also but sadly because of the BR difference one ship sunk was all we needed to win that battle =/ Though we brought all those ships cause we thought you guys were going to do the same, we heard reports of a victory and 2 pavels sailing around that area, why I sailed my Victory from PR xD

... our Victory player went AFK right before the flag was launched.  Saltiness was abound in the following hours.

[Lord Roberts]

... our Victory player went AFK right before the flag was launched.  Saltiness was abound in the following hours.

Oh well, I'm sure the next time we meet there will be a big fight

[OMG Lord Lucifer]

Oh well, I'm sure the next time we meet there will be a big fight

I look forward to it!

[ajffighter86]

Yes, that helps, but there were also things among the French tactically wise that I would like to review.

 

Yes, a video was mentioned, I would appreciate reviewing it, if you have voice communications recorded on it, you can easily strip the audio, it would help us show show newer French players what went wrong, and how to prevent it in the future.

 

I think we were a bit flustered about our Victory being nearby, but AFK in port, when the battle for Frederiksted kicked off. The timing couldn't have been worse. By the time he got finished with his phone call, the battle was already over. There were also errors made on the French side, I think we can admit that.

 

Initially they said run for the 5th tower, so most of our frigates took off full speed with the wind to engage Lord Roberts in the Victory, and then our bigger ships called us back but the wind was blowing straight in our faces and with the changes to the frigate's point-of-sail penalty we had to cut further back to make any headway back to our Pavel and 3rd rates.

 

If I had it to do over again, I would have YOLO'd ahead into the British Victory hoping to catch fire with survival turned off.

Edited March 23, 2016 by ajffighter86

[cainn]

I think we were a bit flustered about our Victory being nearby, but AFK in port, when the battle for Frederiksted kicked off. The timing couldn't have been worse. By the time he got finished with his phone call, the battle was already over. There were also errors made on the French side, I think we can admit that.

Initially they said run for the 5th tower, so most of our frigates took off full speed with the wind to engage Lord Roberts in the Victory, and then our bigger ships called us back but the wind was blowing straight in our faces and with the changes to the frigate's point-of-sail penalty we had to cut further back to make any headway back to our Pavel and 3rd rates.

If I had it to do over again, I would have YOLO'd ahead into the British Victory hoping to catch fire with survival turned off.

Sadly that doesn't work as well as you'd think, been there done that got the t-shirt. I would have been better off putting out the fire and fighting the old fashioned way.

[Slamz]

Sadly that doesn't work as well as you'd think, been there done that got the t-shirt. I would have been better off putting out the fire and fighting the old fashioned way.

 

Yeah, once you enter fire shock you can't turn, change sail configuration, shoot or do anything. And then it's usually some time after that that you'll explode.

 

Fire bombing probably only works against enemies that are somehow stuck.

[Renown]

fire shipping is a valid tactic that should be used as a measure of extreme desperation or last resort. NEVER as a first move in a battle. I believe Lord Roberts himself can explain to us why that's not a good thing. Forever will I remember the day Cristos Grimblade killed Roberts' Conny with ONE cannonball in the first shot of the fight. It helps that most people don't understand how fire in this game works, or when they should or shouldn't "let er burn!".

 

I do find that Fredrick battle to be in poor taste for it's the ONLY battle I've ever been involved in where the opposing force vastly outnumbered us and also then ran from the battle. Seriously, regardless of what everyone else says about that battle I will forever think of every single Brit in that battle as a coward and part of the reason why this game isn't much fun at the moment. In other situations, where I've won a port battle (sometimes with similar odds) I've always stayed to the bitter end. Heck, we even let you guys try to sink one of our Victory's at St Johns. I mean, he was hopeless and got no where near, but we fought it out. That player ran too. (Which I understand given that he lost the port battle and had no hope of killing anyone, everyone in the fredrick's battle on the other hand...)

Edited March 23, 2016 by Renown

[Lord_Howe]

I do find that Fredrick battle to be in poor taste for it's the ONLY battle I've ever been involved in where the opposing force vastly outnumbered us and also then ran from the battle. Seriously, regardless of what everyone else says about that battle I will forever think of every single Brit in that battle as a coward and part of the reason why this game isn't much fun at the moment.

 

I'm sorry you feel the British forces should have stayed after they already won the battle.

Apparently everyone except you knew the game mechanics, and knew there was no reason to stay, since any sinking ship could simply hit the 'Leave Battle' button.

People aren't cowards just because they don't fight the way you want them to.

If you had made some different tactical choices, you probably could have forced more of a ship-to-ship engagement prior to losing the towers.

 

You haven't seen us here complaining about you winning at St.John.... we gave it the best shot we could with what we had available, and you beat us fair and square.

But to childishly claim you "Let" us attack your Victory at St John?....

You didn't expect an enemy that was outnumbered 5:1 to come straight at you at the first tower, and your Victory that had PARKED to cap the tower got taken by surprise and barely got away (with half his crew dead). We tried to get him... we failed. How about instead of trying to make out it was some clever ruse on your part, you simply acknowledge that we were a lot more aggressive than you expected such a small defending force to be? Would that be so difficult?

We were there to defend, and we were ready to fight to the last man to stop you getting it... perhaps if you hadn't speed capped the towers you would have had time to actually fight our seven ships with your 10,000 BR fleet instead of ending the battle? 

[Renown]

We didn't END the battle. We killed the towers and then killed your ships. Sorry that you feel we were obligated to let one of those bastards just sit there and shoot at us while you hide around them. I wasn't being rude, merely factual. I have no qualms about whatever tactics you use or don't use as long as it results in ship-ship engagement. I also wasn't denigrating your defensive tactics, or our response. I was pointing out the huge hypocrisy that is your action at Fredrick. You claim to want battles, but when we give them... you don't know what to do. Whenever you bite, we accept what you bring as long as it results in ship to ship combat. I don't care if it's a victory or a loss at the end of the day (though obviously I do want victories) as long as action is happening and it's fun.

 

Sad fact is all the whining on these forums from players who don't want fights, or to play this game with other people in it (not necessarily YOU guys in this regard, just something I've noticed in general) has resulted in just this. With missions being nigh impossible to raid (or even join friendlies unless you are sailing with them directly) we've ended with a sheer lack of open world pvp and a game that avoids it or enables maneuvers at fredrick to be allowed. As long as the defender keeps fighting, the port simply shouldn't be taken. (I'm not talking trolling/running, I mean FIGHTING). This game is attempting to balance pvp so that no one is ever unfairly put out upon to an absurd degree for an OW pvp game, and is drying up the limited content the game CURRENTLY has to offer.

 

When I started this game as a pirate, I didn't do OMG pvp in the Bahamas, I was leveling and fighting the many british raiders of our mission area near mortimer/la tortue. Me and my friends (who have since quit the game due to a lack of content or reasons to even sail out to sea since acquiring their 3rd rates) used to fight them off daily, not one day went past without multiple engagements. But... people bitched, and for inexplicable reasons they closed missions off to friendly nation members) this led to it being extremely damn easy for enemy nations to raid missions (because no help would be coming) and thus more people bitched about mission raiding... which led to decreased timers and port-hopping combat and people racing to get bigger ships for port battles because port battles might be it's at...

 

to people setting timers specifically to avoid pvp (looking at you brits) to people bringing massive fleets to one of the rare offensive pb's they launch only to avoid to use it at all. It's like everyone is afraid of a little cannon ballitis affecting their ships. It's all pixels and these ships mostly require NO effort to attain.

 

Yet even when I catch people in the OW, the vast majority of them seem to succumb to what I like to call "OMG Syndrome", they are so damn afraid of the tag, or the name, or the ship, or the rank, that no matter what... they set their ship to flee. Now, I have no problem with people fleeing when they want to, I even don't mind it happening when they flee from equal or better than equal odds. What I do mind is when people are obviously screwed, with their sails burnt, and their repairs used... they seem to give up. They don't even try to fight. This is not a rare occurrence. (I have a PVP snow that I've used to raid multiple areas, and I've had FRIGATES flee from me) to date I can only think of three battles where people have actually gone toe to toe with me in the OW (and it was all former BORK members) - which is why I love me some swedes and will forever protect that nation from imperialist british interests.

 

The game is dying (in PVP2), because of the mechanics, and the people that abuse them. Nothing to log in for, other than  to level, and when you level.. you realize there isn't much to do.

 

No room for fun when everything is so damn easy, yet you don't see me bitching about the fact that you outgunned us there, just that you didn't out fight us. You can claim tactics all day long, but nothing that you guys have done as a nation (versus us) has me convinced that you are doing anything other than hiding and making this game more boring. You could very well win as a nation at the end of this game, but only because the rest of us have moved on to better things.

Edited March 24, 2016 by Renown

[ajffighter86]

Sadly that doesn't work as well as you'd think, been there done that got the t-shirt. I would have been better off putting out the fire and fighting the old fashioned way.

 

You can actually blow up without going into fire shock first. It depends on where the fire is located.

 

Yeah, once you enter fire shock you can't turn, change sail configuration, shoot or do anything. And then it's usually some time after that that you'll explode.

 

Fire bombing probably only works against enemies that are somehow stuck.

Or huddled in 3rd rates around a tower, perhaps?

 

In any case, it would have been worth a try had I known we'd lose anyway.

[Slamz]

Here's the real problem with Frederiksted: it was ONE battle.

 

One single solitary port fight.

 

Okay so it didn't go the way you wanted. Do it again. And again. And again. This wasn't the same problem as the pirates where we stood literally no chance of even getting into the port battle to fight them, much less even having a respectable fraction of their BR. This was right on the edge of being a good fight. A few days after Fred we had about 4 new French 3rd rate captains that just made rank. We were wondering when we'd have to defend Aves. When we'd have to defend Deshaies or Terre-de-Bas. Wondering how bad it was going to be for us when we attacked Haiti and you defended or counter-attacked.

 

Instead, it was Aves all over again. ONE fight and your team is like "DATS IT, I'M OUT."

 

What a sorry bunch'a PvPers you guys are.

 

I don't blame all the Brits who are going to PVP1. Maybe they'll find some better leaders over there.

 

[Arbour]

The British on this thread have all been "you're just upset cause you lost Fred" when our real complaint has been that we want to at least fight when we lose (yes we should have lost Fred, no Frenchman has ever said otherwise) but the BR mechanic in port battles doesn't allow for that.  Switch to a few days later, France is back in the fray again, but one thing is missing .... the enemy.  Apparently after losing one day of port battles (perhaps the first time this has happened for Britain) several British clans have jumped ship to the other server.   Makes me think all this "France need to just stop complaining about losing" was just them projecting their own feelings.  I guess they were assuming that losing would make us rage and quit, but turn the tables and look who is nowhere to be found.  Maybe the US will put up a worthy fight that lasts longer than a couple days.  

Edited March 24, 2016 by Arbour

[OMG Lord Lucifer]

The British on this thread have all been "you're just upset cause you lost Fred" when our real complaint has been that we want to at least fight when we lose (yes we should have lost Fred, no Frenchman has ever said otherwise) but the BR mechanic in port battles doesn't allow for that.  Switch to a few days later, France is back in the fray again, but one thing is missing .... the enemy.  Apparently after losing one day of port battles (perhaps the first time this has happened for Britain) several British clans have jumped ship to the other server.   Makes me think all this "France need to just stop complaining about losing" was just them projecting their own feelings.  I guess they were assuming that losing would make us rage and quit, but turn the tables and look who is nowhere to be found.  Maybe the US will put up a worthy fight that lasts longer than a couple days.  

 

Didn't you hear? Roberts and the rest of SOB ran away to PVP 1

Edited March 24, 2016 by OMG Lord Lucifer

[Critique]

Didn't you hear? Roberts and the rest of SOB ran away to PVP 1

Wrong.

[[MCC] Die Antwoord]

Wrong.

PVE 1?

[Critique]

PVE 1?

No, not that either

 

Hasn't Slamz told you? We're busy "Ruining the game" by "literally leveling our way out of PvP"

Edited March 24, 2016 by Critique

[Arbour]

Didn't you hear? Roberts and the rest of SOB ran away to PVP 1

 

Yea, I heard from one of the British defectors last night.  There has been a steady stream of those over the past week.  I just find the whole thing very surprising.  In war, and PvP, you have to be able to take the loses, as well as, the wins.  The pirates imploded after we made our first push back, now the the Brits are imploding after we made our first push back.  My question is are there any nations out there that can take one on the chin and fight back or is all you have to do it get one decisive push and then poof? (or whatever the sound of imploding is)  

 

In both cases they used port windows as their main defensive strategy, setting them to a time when they "thought" no one would be on, thus making it impenetrable.  But instead, as we have proved twice now, the port windows do not protect you, unless you can set it for a time in which you know defenders will be online, not when you think the attackers will not.  

 

Find the whole thing sad TBH.  This game is supposed to be about war, but so far it's been hard to find an enemy that can last past the first counter-attack.  

 

No, not that either

 

Hasn't Slamz told you? We're busy "Ruining the game" by "literally leveling our way out of PvP"

 

If that's what you call running away at the first defeat, then sure. What Slamz was referencing is the leveling for purely BR reasons.  Which is a mechanic that doesn't allow fights to happen in the current state.  If you guys really quit because of one statement about game mechanics from one guy, then wow. 

Edited March 24, 2016 by Arbour

[HMCS Warrior]

Yea, I heard from one of the British defectors last night.  There has been a steady stream of those over the past week.  I just find the whole thing very surprising.  In war, and PvP, you have to be able to take the loses, as well as, the wins.  The pirates imploded after we made our first push back, now the the Brits are imploding after we made our first push back.  My question is are there any nations out there that can take one on the chin and fight back or is all you have to do it get one decisive push and then poof? (or whatever the sound of imploding is)  

 

In both cases they used port windows as their main defensive strategy, setting them to a time when they "thought" no one would be on, thus making it impenetrable.  But instead, as we have proved twice now, the port windows do not protect you, unless you can set it for a time in which you know defenders will be online, not when you think the attackers will not.  

 

Find the whole thing sad TBH.  This game is supposed to be about war, but so far it's been hard to find an enemy that can last past the first counter-attack.  

 

 

If that's what you call running away at the first defeat, then sure. What Slamz was referencing is the leveling for purely BR reasons.  Which is a mechanic that doesn't allow fights to happen in the current state.  If you guys really quit because of one statement about game mechanics from one guy, then wow. 

 

Your assumptions are incorrect. The reason that some of us have moved to pvp1 is out of sheer boredom. I want massive fleet battles every night not just on the weekends. Pvp1 offers us that. My hope is that the servers merge or that there is a huge influx of players that can fill both servers. The issue is lack of population of pvp2. Cya around, I will still pop onto pvp2 once in a while. Cheers.

[Vardin]

Great britain will be losing a lot of land, we've lost two big clans on our eastern flank, one on our west. Only three big clans remain that i know of, with a total of about 120 members between the three.

[Arbour]

Your assumptions are incorrect. The reason that some of us have moved to pvp1 is out of sheer boredom. I want massive fleet battles every night not just on the weekends. Pvp1 offers us that. My hope is that the servers merge or that there is a huge influx of players that can fill both servers. The issue is lack of population of pvp2. Cya around, I will still pop onto pvp2 once in a while. Cheers.

 

You could have had massive fleet battles every night, there were large battles every night when you guys first made your eastward push around Vieques.  You have to live on the front lines, not just TP there when you want to take a port, and set your port timers on your border ports to peak time and defend them.  But. I guess it's purely coincidence that you guys quit immediately after your first series of loses then.  

 

Great britain will be losing a lot of land, we've lost two big clans on our eastern flank, one on our west. Only three big clans remain that i know of, with a total of about 120 members between the three.

 

I am sorry to hear that.  If it makes you feel any better France only has 40 active on a given night.  Hope you can consolidate your leadership and your nation to make it a respectable force again.