Ship duels - feedback needed

[Slamz]

Idea:

 

When making the duel, you can type in X,Z coordinates (as in the F11 reports from the open sea) and the battle map will be taken from there (land in battles).

 

This would help spice up the dueling by bringing land into it and could be a good way to test out different map areas.

 

No doubt some favorite duel X,Z coordinates will start to make the rounds. Maybe in later versions the most popular X,Z coordinates are actually presented in a dropdown of "maps" that can be selected for the duel.

[Ned Loe]

Training Duels and Tournaments. 

 

Add these:

 

Can't loose ship in any Training Duel. (Only in Tournaments).

Training duels are same nation fights with no risk or reward. Call them 'Training duels' because they are meant to train players and prepare them for PvP and Port Battles. 

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Warning! Allowing other nations to fight these Duels will make a significant impact on OS PvP! So, make sure to restrict duels and assign them to same Nation Only. Unless, you want to keep everyone in Ports and make OS empty. 

---------------------------------

This means players from same nation can fight (train) endless times without loosing ships. Once per week Devs will open tournament doors and allow Nation vs Nation duels with rewards. 

 

2 Types of Training Duels:

 

Same BR 1vs1 (only 1vs1)

Multiple BR Duels (1vs1 any ship ,2vs2+ up to PB size any ship)

 

No rewards, no xp. This should be Potbs skirm type training Duel for same nation players. (Training duels)

 

Introduce tournaments every Week within the same system, but lock it for Nation vs Nation after 1 day Event. 

 

Add tournament rewards

Add tournament XP

Add tournament points that can be exchanged for something unique. (To promote participation) 

 

To balance 1st rates and other ship population add the following:

 

4 Tournament Battle types (ships can be lost)

 

Small ship Tournament (Reward x5)

Medium Ship Tournament  (Reward x10)

Huge Ship Tournament  (Reward x20)

Line Ship Tournament  (Reward x30)

 

How to get into the tournament and be qualified?

 

Have 10 kills in Training Duel (same nation, no ship loss) before Tournament doors are open.

 

Introduce Tournament Leader boards

 

This should include tab for Tournament data

Tab for Os PvP

 

Conclusion

 

Add Training Duels for same nations with no XP, rewards or Ship loss. These will prepare players for Weekend Tournaments. Include 4 types of tournaments to Balance ship population once per week for 24 hour period, but should reward gold and xp for participation if killed. Tournaments once per week will be risky and will cause ship loss if killed in a duel. Tournament should reward players with xp, gold and Tournament Points that can be exchanged for cool items. Leaderboards will show leaders and their data. 

 

If found interesting feel free to develop this further.

[Lord Grey]

NO XP

NO money, only bets from participants

NO losing ships

NO statistics anyway

NO rewards

 

all modules player have are non-permanent & can de changed before fight

 

to fight, captains must be in one city

 

Mode for duels, training, tournaments & ship-testing

[eriks]

 

We plan to add ship duel room next large patch. 

 

The design is very simple

You enter a lobby in a ship - if there is another ship of the same BR in the room the duel will start.

If there are no ships of the same class you will wait until someone comes in in the similar vessel.

 

Main rules will be set as for small events (30 min mandatory timer and then 2 min exit timer)

 

Questions to the community

• Should ships be lost in the duel?
• Any suggestions to changes to XP/rewards?
• Leaderboards?

 

 

 

No loss.

No rewards.

 

In fact you don't even bring your own ship. Both players are given identical versions of the highest ship available to the lower ranked player. This isn't about who brings a bigger gun. This is about who brings better skills.

 

Duels are about honor.

 

 

If nothing else this will clean up the unsubstantiated trash talk in the forums and chat.

[Ligatorswe]

On leaderboards.

I want to avoid that the players that can play most hours is on the top. We need to make it skill based. Kill/death ratio for example.

And I agree on duels 1 vs 1 and 2 vs 2. And the duels have to be restricted to one nation. OW has to be the focus.

But with the possibility to have tornaments and such across the nation.

Edited April 4, 2016 by Ligatorswe

[Inigo Balboa aka Ronda]

1) NO

2) how about "duel XP" (not the same as for OW)?

3) may be something like a statistic if no "duel XP"

 

4) based on "duel XP" you can unlock ships to try, like what we had in Sea Trials.

5) other rooms for 2vs2, 3vs3?

 

 

I love Wind's idea about tournaments, but again, loosing ship is not what I would vote for.  Maybe some small amount of money you pay to participate? 

Edited April 4, 2016 by Inigo Balboa

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

If there's going to be XP/Gold rewards - then durabilities should be lost.

If no XP/Gold rewards - then durabilities should NOT be lost.

 

I suppose there's two ways to approach this:

 

1.  As a pure training room where you may train people and practice in a risk free environment.

2.  As a head to head dueling system where things matter.

 

I'd prefer #2.  Make losses matter in the duel rooms, this will help to encourage people not to just sit there and use it all day in lieu of open world.

 

Absolutely no dueling from the Open World - This should be available from port only.

 

Such a feature means any time you wanted to avoid a fight, you just click your mate and duel.  Poof, you're gone, your enemies left sitting on an empty sea.

[LeBoiteux]

If there's going to be XP/Gold rewards - then durabilities should be lost.

If no XP/Gold rewards - then durabilities should NOT be lost.

 

I suppose there's two ways to approach this:

 

1.  As a pure training room where you may train people and practice in a risk free environment.

2.  As a head to head dueling system where things matter.

 

I'd prefer #2.  Make losses matter in the duel rooms, this will help to encourage people not to just sit there and use it all day in lieu of open world.

 

With a leaderboard, option 1 wouldn't be just a training room but would also please Achievers who like pure competition.

Some gift/awards from a shop could also motivate them.

Indeed, ship duels should have to be a different mode from OW/PB to attract additional kinds of players.

 

That's why I'm for :

- no OW-related XP/Gold rewards,

- no loss of durability,

- leaderboard,

- possible rewards such as free ship customization, premium ships...

(thanks to a specific gold/XP system that could decide what class of ships a player can sail in ship duel mode)

[Babble]

i love pvp but this feels like a very bad idea in my opinion.

 

 

All it does is take people who want to fight off of the open ocean.

 

Which turns the open ocean into even more of an empty place where only people hauling goods or grinding missions reside.

 

 

 

I say no duels.  

[Ned Loe]

i love pvp but this feels like a very bad idea in my opinion.

 

 

All it does is take people who want to fight off of the open ocean.

 

Which turns the open ocean into even more of an empty place where only people hauling goods or grinding missions reside.

 

 

 

I say no duels.  

Read what I proposed. It touches this issue, but still brings content. 

[richardphat]

How about make a training room where you can invite any nation player to fight with no xp,sinking lost.

 

The duel should just be allowed for non same faction only. But then people can just arrange battle much more easier since it is 1v1.

[Kaos]

If there's going to be XP/Gold rewards - then durabilities should be lost.

If no XP/Gold rewards - then durabilities should NOT be lost.

 

I suppose there's two ways to approach this:

 

1.  As a pure training room where you may train people and practice in a risk free environment.

2.  As a head to head dueling system where things matter.

 

I'd prefer #2.  Make losses matter in the duel rooms, this will help to encourage people not to just sit there and use it all day in lieu of open world.

What's wrong with staying in duel room if it's possible? Sometimes people don't have time to put up with nature of OS and all the shenanigans it includes and just want to have their fight and call it a day. In theory it should increase player skill level in fights if anything since it's a platform for those who want to practice or have carefree fun.

This loss free / gain nothing skirmish room was available in potbs and it was quite unpopular and didn't take many players out of OS yet it was good tool for practicing and having arranged fights on the go with minimum time sink.

[Likedeeler]

1. Ships should not be lost.

 

2. There should be no rewards.

 

3. A Leaderboard would be cool.

 

4. Add "Skirmish" room (Small Event but with no loss and no rewards).

signed.

Maybe with an duel-Xp that unlock ships, so I can fight with ships that I not own in OW. And maybe some specific duel-ships. Also unlockable by duel-XP.

Differnt duel-types: 1v1, 1V2, 2v2, 3v3 and so on

[Wilson09]

Personally, I believe there are so many other things in need being fixed and improved...SMALL BATTLES matchmaking for instance...

[jodgi]

Oh, beautiful lovely duel room!

no xp

no money

no loss

We should be able to pick who we want to fight, please. Random duel should be optional if at all

Stats and leaderboards are fine, but then we need to muck about with BR ratio equalizer math for it to mean anything. Not priority for me.

---

If we include loss and rewards we'll have so much pain. It will be way less popular with loss and it will be a private grinding room for the best players.

There won't be "real" fighting with loss as players will agree to stop before sinking, like we have done for a year now in the OW, so why bother with a feature we'll disregard and sneak around anyway?

---

Am I allowed to dream? k, then...

What if we, in addition to our own ships, had a full or partial list of basic ships we could pick from? Fun for trying out ships, testing and comparisons.

I know I'd go hard on such a feature and squat out speed profiles like a fiend.

[Puchu]

The question overall is: Is this a fun and a testing room, or is this a new game mode?

 

I'd say we much more need a fun and testing room, than another game mode. For this, we would like the options as they have been described by jodgi above.

 

But if this is a new game mode, then we need to thing a lot and very hard about many many things, like separate progression, pickable ships, leaderboards, br-ratings, pvp-ratings, chooseable mods and cannons, team sizes, and on and on. That's stuff for either the future, or for another game. 

 

Just dont mix those 2 options up. If you mix them up, you will have a compromise that helps noone and does nothing, and everybody will be unhappy with the solution. Do one option clean and properly first, then we can think about the rest.

[Babble]

Read what I proposed. It touches this issue, but still brings content. 

Yeah what you propose makes more sense to me.

 

I think it should be just nation vs same nation though

 

 

Any duels should be held out in the os full of danger.

 

 

This game is doing too much to separate the player base in my opinion.   I saw get rid fo small battles too.  Want to test out a new build.  Cool go find someone to test it on.

 

 

Just dont mix those 2 options up. If you mix them up, you will have a compromise that helps noone and does nothing, and everybody will be unhappy with the solution. Do one option clean and properly first, then we can think about the rest.

I guess my question is what is the problem that this new mode is solving?

 

Why divide the player base more?

 

Can people not find pvp? 

[surfimp]

I've been doing a few Small Battles lately for fun, and noticed that most people use Basic Cutters, outside of a few brave (foolhardy?) souls who bring bigger ships.

 

For my part: Because I focus on small ship PVP (i.e. privateering) in the OW, my rewards are not very high, and because I'm mostly a solo player, even replacing something like a decent Privateer is not exactly a nontrivial undertaking, even if it's just capping one from AI (they aren't always that easy to find). Those factors lead me to the essentially risk free choice of sailing a Basic Cutter in Small Battles. Which is a shame, because I really enjoy the Privateer quite a bit more.

 

So: my vote is for no risk, no reward, and you can sail anything you want up to your rank (but not beyond). That's essentially how Sea Trials worked, and it was great IMHO.

 

This would potentially be a way that people could get more accustomed and confident in their PVP skills, which might spill over to the OW.

 

Also, for those like me on the US West Coast, it would mean I'd have an avenue available for fast action, as sometimes - despite primarily sailing "behind enemy lines" in the OW - it can be rather difficult to find more than 1-2 decent PVP fights per 2-3hr gaming session, due to my timezone and the low player population on PVP1 at that time.

 

EDIT: As to the question of whether or not this is a new game mode, I think the answer is: yes, and it's one that a lot of people are looking for. So long as the only way to rank up and gain gold is in the OW, I don't think this is a problem in the least. In fact, I think the two game modes (OW and Duels) will actually create a positive feedback loop: gain actual player skill development and confidence in the Duel room which can be applied to good effect in the OW, where these will help the player rank up (hopefully via PVP!!) to unlock bigger ships in the OW and, of course, the Duel room, where the player can once again learn to sail their newly unlocked ship to best effect, which they will then unleash in the OW. Rinse Repeat.

Edited April 4, 2016 by surfimp

[Babble]

Bring your cutter to the OS.

 

Bring your Priv to the OS.

 

I have been mostly solo pvping in a snow for months.   Due to the nature of current game mechanics its pretty difficult to be in a fight you dont want to be in.

 

I still have the very first snow my clan's shipwright made me.   A basic grey snow.  If you want to pvp get some friends to help you cap some npc ships or just ask in nation. 

 

As far as finding fights might i suggest sitting outside any nations capital or choke points on the map.  Visiting the largest nation population waters is always a good idea as well.

 

Try the Ba-babble triangle.  (La Tortue, Mo-town, and Baracoa.)  Ships seem to get lost there.

[Eldberg]

I'd much rather that the time and effort of the development team goes towards fixing the broken mechanics and bugs that populate the game before working on new content. You've done a good job so far, why stretch yourself thin?

[Slamz]

 

Warning! Allowing other nations to fight these Duels will make a significant impact on OS PvP! So, make sure to restrict duels and assign them to same Nation Only. Unless, you want to keep everyone in Ports and make OS empty. 

 

 

Actually I think this threat is greatly overblown.

 

Just look at Small Battles. You could make the same warning there but whenever I've checked there have been somewhere between 0 and 1 other players. They were popular for a while but the popularity quickly trailed off.

 

 

I actually predict that duels will be a feature that sees very limited use and the biggest risk is that they are a total waste of developer time. I would still like to see it because it would be a great training/testing feature but a threat to OS PvP? Not based on current evidence.

[Puchu]

Well, it's not stretching thin, (the code is actually alrdy done since over a year now) it's about giving people from the same nation a way to fight each other. 

 

And it's about fun pvp for the endgame. 

 

And it's about testing the game and how it works before putting it out to the public. (For this imo we should have gotten the duel room much much much earlyer)

 

A plain and simple dueling room will not take any players away from the os, certainly not if there is no gain in it. 

 

The 2nd gamemode is a totally different story.

[AKPyrate]

I think that dura should be lost.  Rewards around the same as PvE.  It would also be nice to have specific duels sometimes, such as between friends of the same nation.  Every once in a while it could be fun to sink a friend without becoming a pirate (and maybe have a 'private' duel room in case you want to fight a specific person.

 

That said, I'd like an additional room where no duras would be lost, no rewards, etc. in which you could test out a new vessel or armament.  Heck, maybe just make them vs. AI instead of other players.  Just something to figure out the battle characteristics of your ship before you go into real OW action.

[Wilson09]

Before you "drag" more players out of the Open World (duelling means they cannot play Open World),

I´d recommend to improve the Small / Large Battles first...then think about the next project....

 

Suggestions:

-Skip Large Battles

- improve matchmaking

- introduce games with NO basic cutters

- enable friend-groups (from other nations)

- come up with a solution regarding big groups joining (lately I faced 4 clan mates on 3rd rates /Trinc/Essex), me and 2 cutters

and we got 3 ! AI for compensation....it is just too bad.....

 

regards

W.

[Puchu]

This thread is not about developement plans. The duel room WILL COME. The question was: "how to implement it". Simple question, simple answers. 

 

The Duel room will not take any players out of the ow. I'm wondering why people are even calling this a problem. There are over 1k players around and nations are sailing with 120 ppl at the same spot at the same time. how many more ppl do you want? Those few guys who are testing and dueling will not matter on the ow at all. And for those few guys, e.g. me, the dueling room is very very important, and we want it a no gain no loss room with adjustable teams and chooseable ships.

 

NO autostart, NO random start, NO loss, NO exp, NO gold.