Battle reinforcement timer

[admin]

This is an example when the idea is not thought through properly.

 

 

I kind of agree that the distance to your spawn point should be in relation to the amount of time you took to join the battle and to the direction you are joining from. Then  you could lure the opponent towards your reinforcements in the battle.

 

Because

 

 

 

The flow of time itself is convoluted; with heroes centuries old phasing in and out. The very fabric wavers, and relations shift and obscure

 

Relative direction will make ganks easier not harder. You sail further than swords - and voila you are near the enemy or maybe even ahead of him

Relative direction existed before in early version. It did not work

 

....

short timers reduce gank for me. If the fleet cannot organize themselves the stragglers will be sank.

This actually happened multiple times during napoleonic wars. Short timers teach players to sail as a fleet, not as a disorganized mob.

Losing a station position was a punishable offense. Exactly for the above mentioned reasons (losing station = possible loss of a ship or death) 

[Porpoise]

This is an example when the idea is not thought through properly.

 

 

 

Because

 

 

Relative direction will make ganks easier not harder. You sail further than swords - and voila you are near the enemy or maybe even ahead of him

Relative direction existed before in early version. It did not work

 

....

short timers reduce gank for me. If the fleet cannot organize themselves the stragglers will be sank.

This actually happened multiple times during napoleonic wars. Short timers teach players to sail as a fleet, not as a disorganized mob.

Losing a station position was a punishable offense. Exactly for the above mentioned reasons (losing station = possible loss of a ship or death) 

 

That is true, but I still think there should be an extended timer for the reinforcements to join if there is a big BR difference. It will bring more challenging experience IMO. 

[Powderhorn]

If you're being hit in your own waters, your nation should be patrolling them.  If you're being hit in other nations' waters, they should have whatever people are in that 2 minute range.  Many of us advocate for ONE minute timers.  Two is at least tolerable.

[Xander Tyrann]

Imo ships shouldn't be able to join from further than you can see.

I belive OW conflicts should be largely settled by preparation and communication.

Sailing out in a single slow ship should give you a disadvantage against a well prepared fleet.

This applies to gankers too and are just as vulnerable to a well prepared patrol and good communication.

[victor]

So it ends up with everyone staying at home, because going into enemy waters means sooner or later you're outnumbered 25 to 6. Biggest clans have fun - because they can manage to field 25 people - but everyone else has a terrible time, because you're not allowed to PvP unless you can max the field.

 

Why? You follow the bigger clans guys with some long cannon sniper and join the fest making a crapton on XP and gold!

Edited April 6, 2016 by victor

[Migui]

Instanced battles suck. Well, we get to deal with it.

 

I would only lock down missions to 2 minutes and extend the timer for any other kind of battle.

[Galileus]

Why? You follow the bigger clans guys with some long cannon sniper and join the fest making a crapton on XP and gold!

 

Exactly. Follow the clans or die.

 

I enjoy current meta of small-scale operations a lot. Operating in 3-4 men squads. Often being able to split the enemy chasing after you and separate a single prey - this would be impossible with unlimited timer. You would need to operate in 25 men squads at all time, because any 3v3 or 4v4 battle would sooner or later turn into full stack on one side.

[manuva85]

1 min timer. And this is oppinion of a big clan member

[elite92]

IMHO 2 min timers fit really well in actual gameplay, lots of more fun now that the UNREALISTIC reinforcements from nowere are off

Edited April 6, 2016 by elite92

[Fizzer]

This is an example when the idea is not thought through properly.

 

 

 

Because

 

 

Relative direction will make ganks easier not harder. You sail further than swords - and voila you are near the enemy or maybe even ahead of him

Relative direction existed before in early version. It did not work

 

....

short timers reduce gank for me. If the fleet cannot organize themselves the stragglers will be sank.

This actually happened multiple times during napoleonic wars. Short timers teach players to sail as a fleet, not as a disorganized mob.

Losing a station position was a punishable offense. Exactly for the above mentioned reasons (losing station = possible loss of a ship or death) 

 

There should be no timers.

 

Real naval engagements in these eras took much longer than the current hour and a half time limit - they could be over the course of multiple days.  Given the scale of the open world, this actually lines up pretty well.

 

So you want to sail deep into enemy territory with only 6 ships and not have a heck of a time getting out alive?  Why do we even have territory at all then?

 

These tiny timers erase any feeling of sovereignty, give the advantage only to highly coordinated squads on voice coms (how realistic is that?), and really reduce the purpose of a faction altogether.  

 

No wonder pirates are so popular on PvP1.  If we don't have a good reason for sovereignty or help from the national population, why have nations at all?  Might as well just be a free for all death match - aka pirates.

Edited April 6, 2016 by Fizzer

[Slamz]

the current 2 min timer of battles are killing pvp, gank squads are loving this short time battle timer.

 

remove the battle timers on PVP battles only and always show battle markers

 

Long timers makes ganking worse.

 

1) Hide 10 people in port or inside of a battle

2) Run around with a tackler / bait ship

3) If 20 enemies show up, just stay hidden

4) If you see someone to gank, hit them (or let them hit your bait ship), then pile out of the port or battle instance and join the fight. Gank!

 

The longer you set timers, the easier this will be.

[Galileus]

There should be no timers.

 

(...)

 

So you want to sail deep into enemy territory with only 6 ships and not have a heck of a time getting out alive? 

 

Every time I was in enemy territory, in-between sinking or capping prey there were long times of running away from posses created by these nations.

 

Without timers at all, these posses would come and kill us in 25 v 4. There would be NO deep-strike PvP nor small scale PvP. I cannot imagine why anyone would want that.

[Ledinis]

Every time I was in enemy territory, in-between sinking or capping prey there were long times of running away from posses created by these nations.

 

Without timers at all, these posses would come and kill us in 25 v 4. There would be NO deep-strike PvP nor small scale PvP. I cannot imagine why anyone would want that.

Mostly because you, me and almost everyone knows that its not 4v4 or 3v3 battles that you and most people are looking for but to find a solo new player to seal club him with 4 trincs Though in all honesty i would preffer reinforcements being brought back in the game in the form of calling players in not AI. The gankee gets pulled in to combat against 5 ships, he can call reinforcements to even out the BR of players from close by cities (witch also instantly closes the battle from more players joining) and bingo. You have a fair pvp fight instead of sealclubing on one direction or the other.

[Fizzer]

Mostly because you, me and almost everyone knows that its not 4v4 or 3v3 battles that you and most people are looking for but to find a solo new player to seal club him with 4 trincs Though in all honesty i would preffer reinforcements being brought back in the game in the form of calling players in not AI. The gankee gets pulled in to combat against 5 ships, he can call reinforcements to even out the BR of players from close by cities (witch also instantly closes the battle from more players joining) and bingo. You have a fair pvp fight instead of sealclubing on one direction or the other.

 

Exactly, there should be no such thing as deep-strike PvP with no consequences.  Having territory should mean something.  If you want to deep-strike, organize a sizable fleet to do so.

 

4 man gank squads should not be able to roam freely in enemy territory picking off lone noobs wandering around.

 

I think some kind of BR limitation to keep the fights relatively fair while providing a bit of home-field advantage would do away with join timers.

 

If the battle happens outside of any reinforcement zone, then the battle can only be joined if the side you wish to join has, say a greater than 10% BR disadvantage.  If inside a friendly reinforcement zone, then your side gets, lets say, up to a 15% BR advantage before the battle is closed to new entrants.  Just numbers off the top of my head, the details of the mechanic might need some tweaking.

 

It could allow OW battles to grow organically depending on local player activity while still avoiding the "surprise, here's 20 of my friends" situations and doing away with the very artificial feeling timers.

 

Just an idea to consider.  I see a lot of people getting frustrated when they try to help out some friends and constantly get in range of the instance 30 seconds after the battle closes.  It doesn't promote a natural-feeling or fair open-world PvP experience at all.

[Galileus]

4 man gank squads should not be able to roam freely in enemy territory picking off lone noobs wandering around

Every time I was in enemy territory, in-between sinking or capping prey there were long times of running away from posses created by these nations.

[Slamz]

You have a fair pvp fight instead of sealclubing on one direction or the other.

 

The overpopulated team can. The underpopulated team will have the problem of sometimes needing help and it's simply not available (all available help was already pulled into other fights).

 

The current system actually lets underpopulated teams form small hit squads that can go into an overpopulated enemy's territory and actually get kills.

 

Ganking is just the nature of open world PvP. If you don't like ganks, you pretty much don't like open world PvP as a concept (here or, likely, anywhere).

 

Also, forcing "fair" fights creates additional problems, chief among them being "my friends and I can't play together". You brought 4 people, we brought 6, so....2 of my guys have to sit out? How is that fun? Or their fault that you didn't bring more people?

 

The current system is fine.

 

If you want to deep-strike, organize a sizable fleet to do so.

 

Not a sensible solution. Underpopulated teams will get ganked in their home waters regardless but now you're saying they can't take it to the enemy or realistically get any kills in fighting a guerrilla war, either.

[Prater]

There should be no timers.

 

Real naval engagements in these eras took much longer than the current hour and a half time limit - they could be over the course of multiple days.  Given the scale of the open world, this actually lines up pretty well.

 

So you want to sail deep into enemy territory with only 6 ships and not have a heck of a time getting out alive?  Why do we even have territory at all then?

 

These tiny timers erase any feeling of sovereignty, give the advantage only to highly coordinated squads on voice coms (how realistic is that?), and really reduce the purpose of a faction altogether.  

 

No wonder pirates are so popular on PvP1.  If we don't have a good reason for sovereignty or help from the national population, why have nations at all?  Might as well just be a free for all death match - aka pirates.

 

Many famous engagements were over in 15 minutes or so. 

 

No timers was a gank fest when 100 people were on.  Heck, there was ganking when 18 people were on in the first batch of OW combat testing.  When it was switched to 10 minute timers, it happened along with an population increase, and the game was primarily a gank fest.  You want to see coordination?  TDA's ability to accurately know where all our members were at all times and respond with 10 minute timers.  Now knowing where all your members are exactly at any given time isn't as easy as it was, but it is still doable with work (before it wasn't any work).  The outcry at Plymouth was huge.  Half the Leeward Islands could be reached in 10 minutes.

 

People asking for no timers, or 10 minute timers, or 5 minute timers, typically haven't played OW that much.

[Ledinis]

The overpopulated team can. The underpopulated team will have the problem of sometimes needing help and it's simply not available (all available help was already pulled into other fights).

 

The current system actually lets underpopulated teams form small hit squads that can go into an overpopulated enemy's territory and actually get kills.

 

Ganking is just the nature of open world PvP. If you don't like ganks, you pretty much don't like open world PvP as a concept (here or, likely, anywhere).

 

Also, forcing "fair" fights creates additional problems, chief among them being "my friends and I can't play together". You brought 4 people, we brought 6, so....2 of my guys have to sit out? How is that fun? Or their fault that you didn't bring more people?

 

The current system is fine.

 

 

Not a sensible solution. Underpopulated teams will get ganked in their home waters regardless but now you're saying they can't take it to the enemy or realistically get any kills in fighting a guerrilla war, either.

I have a distinct feeling your playing one of those 200 peak time player servers....

[Slamz]

I have a distinct feeling your playing one of those 200 peak time player servers....

 

Played both.

 

Low pop is actually worse when it comes to ganking because you can form a team of 10 people and probably not run into any group that can really fight you.

 

That said, most gank victims do it to themselves. If you are out solo grinding in a live oak ship, you are basically just a big "FREE KILL" sign.

[Ledinis]

Played both.

 

Low pop is actually worse when it comes to ganking because you can form a team of 10 people and probably not run into any group that can really fight you.

 

That said, most gank victims do it to themselves. If you are out solo grinding in a live oak ship, you are basically just a big "FREE KILL" sign.

The assumption that you play one of the dying low pop servers is because you believe that the "low population" nations couldn't even field a reinforcements. Witch isnt even true for the Dutch and Swedish in pvp one, and no offense but im more interested in the balance of a server that actually has people in it  

 

With the reinforcements being players you would still be able to gank people that are further away from ports or further ports in general. The only difference is that those Ensigns and Midshipman doing missions 20feet away from the capital would be able to call upon help.

[Taralin Snow]

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.)

Edited April 6, 2016 by Taralin Snow

[Mrdoomed]

5 minutes was way to long 2 minutes is livable but seems short....maybe 2.5 or 3 ?

[Blackjack Morgan]

2 minute battle timer has been one of the better changes we have had. I have been on the receiving end of ganks way less than with the 5 minute which was just an absurdly long time. Look if you are sailing by yourself you simply should not expect for people to be able to sail what would be hundreds of miles to join you. People need to start excepting the fact that there are risks in the game and stop expecting to have their hands held all the time. I sail by myself everywhere I go...I don't expect help and I don't cry when none arrives.

[Powderhorn]

Yeah, I hunt the Bahamas alone, and finding PvP has never been better.

[Marcomies]

Couple days ago I made a pretty wide and fairly detailed suggestion about a system that I believe would help with battle timer issues among other problems with the transitions between world map and battle modes in PVP:

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/12762-suggestions-about-the-combat-initiation-deployment-and-post-battle-mechanics/