My views on PVP and the lack of it/too much realism

[Fastidius]

So rather than go down a completely realistic line lets have a look at how we can actually encourage PVP and keep an active testing base

 

So basically there are 2 problems in my view, Density and Funneling

 

So here is my idea of what i think the devs should be doing to make things better faster.

 

1.  Just turn pirates into a nation and remove the anyone can turn pirate option.   Deal with it in a focused and smart way but ignore it for now until you actuall get a game that is going to hold attention. There is too much unknown and arguing about what ships they can sail and what ever.  when you do a wipe remove pirates as a nation and create a new style for thembut for now just disable the ever expanding option.

 

2.  Give ships that win fights a buff.  give them 1.2 strength and 1.5 open world speed. for 30 mintues if they re enter openworld within 5 minutes.  This way of you sail a fleet into enemy waters you get a battle hardened crew boost for winning your first fight which encourages a fleet to take on revenge fleets rather than trying to hightail it and split the enemy up again.  if they are outnumbered they can choose to run but it isn't a long drawn out process.  Suck it and see if people hate it or like it but it is an easy way to get people to re engage if they think they have a chance.

 

3 MOVE DUROS - KEEP NON PERMANENT UPGRADES - PVP CAPTURES KEEP PERMANENTS - I can't stress this enough because of 2 reasons.  The economy is fubar. Gold spews from the ships in fleets, crafters cant sell ships or charge too much.     Removing duros increases permanent mod sales, Gives crafters the ability to actually sell ships.

 

4 Economy - Remove all baseline pricing and any port supply and consumption...just make the places buildings can be built. let the world balance it for you. TRADERS will make money and create trade fleets.  Make fleeting less lucrative to make combat and trading VALID options for cash earning.

 

5 Make Jump zones. Rather than having a massive open world, take the little islands out and create a hyperspace type zone with entry and exit points toward each area of a nation.  Give PVP zones as a area between jump zones and friendly ports so that you have a free fire zone but when you enter an enemy waters there is an announcement to the local ports and players that there is PVP in your area.  Takes the stupid AFK Sailing aspect away, funnels people to areas of PVP.  and allows an escape paths if you capture ships and want to remove open world teleport.  As population increases move the size of that jump zone smaller if needed but the vacant water is a waste of time. content does not equal afk sailing

 

6 Fix the chat UI a little.....not a lot, i understand the reworking of the whole thing is a massive thing but,  add a few channels Nation trade, Nation Announcements.  Nation Hourly Message with the nations war stances.

 

7 Fix crafting a little - Just remove sliders make everything an entry box so the number of clicks is reduced and the database updates are not stupid.  Remove BP drops and expand the crafting levels to say 100 but make it so you dont have 5 ships all open to you at one moment make it more progressive.  Most current crafters wont be affected but new crafters wont get stuck in the stupid ' need to build 25 gold frigates box.   Add bonuses instead of BPs like build a 4 or 5 upgrade permanent ship (5% chance masterpiece).     

 

8 ADD SCOREBOARDS AND CARROTS

So the funny thing about PVP is that people need to know how good they are in what ships etc.  World of tanks style stat tracking is essential

give them scoreboards fame.

 

You can on sail ships you are rated to sail

 

Batlles won give you a + battles lost give you a -

pvp battles give you a multiplier to that based on BR

Number of times you sink 3+ ships in a battle

Number of assists

Number of battle escaped - neg to fame but not a big hit

Fame = crew capability  (this willgive you your undercrewing mechanic)

 

 

Distance traveled

KG/lsbs traded

Shipsbuilt of each type(increases the chance of a better pemanent slot number)

 

Number of ports visited (smuggler ranks)

Tader ranks allow you to sail bigger traders

 

 

You can make any number of acheivments and ranks that give fame but make it a fluctuating system so that all the rear admirals are ranked.

 

 

Basically start fleshing out the Ranking system so it has an impact not so its just a grind number.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ObiQuiet]

Nvm.

[Shark Aumakua]

I got to say, "I like your thoughts."

[Anolytic]

I'm not sure about everything, but on the whole you're onto something. I want to keep the big open world though. And in Denmark-Norway we've never had to travel far to PVP. Despite this, or maybe because of this, we have been struggling with player number losses a lot longer and a lot worse than most if not all other nation.

Edited June 6, 2016 by Anolytic

[SeamanStaines]

This is original thinking.

[mikawa]

Not bad. I like your way of thinking to take out too much realism for the sake of gameplay and playability. I'm not sure about all the points, but it's well worth to take an elaborate look at it.

[Hethwill]

Some of the ideas are okay to work with, I would dismiss the buffs, the statistics and pvp zones though.

 

Ships buffs are totally arcadish. Would be the same as giving my Spitfire in Cliffs a buff because... (?)... The victory and reward are there already to promote it. If anything I would decidedly penalize number differences in pvp. Equal numbers normal 2 times as it is, double the numbers 0.5, triple numbers nothing at all, being in this last case the only reward the subtracting a ship from the enemy.

 

Statistics. Hmmm. I'd rather see a Navy Board akin to Storm of War for CLoD. You get the victories listed. When you lose it resets to zero. No more stats are needed.

 

PvP zones will funnel a lot and upcoming Conquest update already will give days in advance for fleets to organize. Open World free pvp is quite well accepted for those who do it for the love of the sailing, the chase, the fight; raiding in different Nations territories, coming from different direction, and so forth. I maybe did not understand correctly what you mean as teleports from Outpost to Outpost are instant already (?).

 

I like a lot the ranking idea to be reworked, in a Admiralty fashion though. But I fear it may become too harsh. Remember that the ideas must take into account everyone with no rank, no assets, no nothing. We are privileged at the moment, having rank, ships, and absurd amounts of money.

[Fastidius]

With open world,  I'm all for having 10 minute sails to a jumpzone and 10 miniuts from them.  and being able to sail for hours along the coast lines.   I't just the stupid ones accross the dead sea...or accross the sea that only has ports for historical reasons not because its needed in this game...   alacranes labemeja.    the only reason they exist is for flag pulling and hostorical nonsense. it is clutter and sailing across those big open areas should be faster by a a significant magnitude if not by teleport.    think of the map as a giant circle.  make everything fit into a band around the outside edge, anything in the center gets cleared away....once you leave the band you can jump to any entry.   the band is big enough to screen in but small enough that AFK sailing is not a thing

[Hethwill]

They might be useful down the development road, as much as big towns might be less useful. Who knows.

 

 

BTW flags will become obsolete with the update, they are a legacy mechanic. Please, forget they exist for a moment and rethink and suggest why Towns must exist.

 

Some towns existed back in the day simply because there was a gold mine nearby. If the gold mine wasn't there the town would probably did not exist.

The same way Naval Bases turned into ports. Maybe some Ports will exist simply for that purpose ?

Ports need a revamp and given importance, that is true. It will provide targets, specific objectives and a purpose to wars and localized conflict.

 

What most have at the moment is an abundance of everything which provokes little focus, little spread ( territory means nothing ) and a sense of loss.

It is all good. For testing purposes we must be given everything to make and break what works and what doesn't.

Let's say, for example, that XP and gold would only be awarded for victories. That would change a lot of things. Would make your Rear Admiral rank much more important.

[Fastidius]

Some of the ideas are okay to work with, I would dismiss the buffs, the statistics and pvp zones though.

 

Ships buffs are totally arcadish. Would be the same as giving my Spitfire in Cliffs a buff because... (?)... The victory and reward are there already to promote it. If anything I would decidedly penalize number differences in pvp. Equal numbers normal 2 times as it is, double the numbers 0.5, triple numbers nothing at all, being in this last case the only reward the subtracting a ship from the enemy.

 

Statistics. Hmmm. I'd rather see a Navy Board akin to Storm of War for CLoD. You get the victories listed. When you lose it resets to zero. No more stats are needed.

 

PvP zones will funnel a lot and upcoming Conquest update already will give days in advance for fleets to organize. Open World free pvp is quite well accepted for those who do it for the love of the sailing, the chase, the fight; raiding in different Nations territories, coming from different direction, and so forth. I maybe did not understand correctly what you mean as teleports from Outpost to Outpost are instant already (?).

 

I like a lot the ranking idea to be reworked, in a Admiralty fashion though. But I fear it may become too harsh. Remember that the ideas must take into account everyone with no rank, no assets, no nothing. We are privileged at the moment, having rank, ships, and absurd amounts of money.

i'd rather have statistics and the option to ignore them than not have them and never have a way to compare.  Also it is fundamental to getting an achievement or else your just wasting time.....carrots are there to be eaten.  You don't have to eat them but there is a number to achieve for those that are looking for something to  live for.

 

Debuffs/Buffs. I'm looking for ways to encourage ships to go hunting and do it in small packs of like 1-6....thus creating a psedo-pirate environment.

 

The ranking idea is very much like an admiralty.  screw up and lose a ship get verlooked for promotion, screw up bad and lose a ship against a weaker enemy, demoted only sail lesser ships till you get good.  absurd amounts of money is dependant on the perspective...  Scalingof money for the year is probably not too horrible....we have santis fo 2 mill in clan but 6 Mill in KPR/MT so i think thats the right sort of money.   the fact you can earn 1 mill an hour is a bit wrong but 200K an hour is probably about right if we want to turn over 4th rates the way we used to disposable 3rds.

 

up front notice on battles will have limited affect with low population...i'm hopeful that it will work but i have my reservations and I personally think they should be treated with teleports....screening fleets are bad IMO i want 25 vs 25 battles On schedule and with lots of fun and low risk or losing when you win...ie safe haven for ships home etc.  I'm ok with seeing what comes but i don't want to stop looking for better ways while in alpha. 

 

 

teleports are free already..

 

basically to do stuff with port battles somewhere distant, you basic cutter there, set up an outpost and then go home capture traders/each other to teleport your ships there. This is Standard operating procedure now because we now have 3 different ships needed for areas in some cases.  Basically this cuts out hours of sailing in which we actually dont want to engage targets.

Teleport zones is the best of both world....you have to sail to a jump area but not the whole hour or 2 to get there depending on ship.

 

I know realism is that we wouldnt teleport our ships everywhere but then we also wouldn't have to sail so far to engage in port battles if there was enough population to have a constant front line.   You can currently zerg entire areas without and real defence due to low population.  A grand design would scale the size of the jump area to smaller levels and maybe bring the islands back into play however when your dealing with a population so small compared to the size of the world you can't expect people to accept things like "AFK sailing" being a thing.   noteveryoneis willing to give up their game time to do this and will just jump ship regardless of how pretty it is.

[Hethwill]

Thanks for expanding the ideas and can see that you look for mechanics that encourage more fighting.

[Æthlstan]

Offline travel to an area is a much better option than killing the current open world.

[daHeld]

Well, for me there are already too many concessions to gameplay as it is. I'm a sim player and I want my experience to be a realistic one.

Hyperspace zones? MY ASS!

Having ships go faster because they have won a battle? No way. The crew experience part of that thought is a good one, though. We should have XPs for crews that reflect on how good they are at handling the ship and reloading the guns, for example.

 

But making any more allowances at the expense of realism? Thank you, but NO thank you. 

That would certainly not be my game. 

 

If you like something like that, go play a sci-fi game. This is supposed to be the 18th century - so the 18th century it shall be!

The time acceleration we have in the OW right now is more than enough in my opinion.

[McFatts]

Some very interesting suggestions.  I don't agree with them all but a reputation system might make more sense then our current one.  It could also solve our pirate problem.  

[CaptVonGunn]

   The only Pirate problem we have is the Devs made them a Nation and not pirates. The Problem now is that anything they do will be looked on by the carebears that don't understand what a Alpha Test is as a nerf and they will cry cry cry.. just like the nations have been doing.

 

 I still see national players crying about the advantages the pirates have... of which there are exactly ZERO now. Everything they complained the pirates could do they can no do. All of it..

[jodgi]

2.  Give ships that win fights a buff.  give them 1.2 strength and 1.5 open world speed.

3 MOVE DUROS...

Well, if your goal is to promote PVP this could backfire so badly. I never understood the loss people and it's a long time since I gave up on the issue. We're in a game where almost everyone professes to love the loss mechanic but noone likes to lose their shit. If loss isn't the biggest problem for PVP, what is? I dunno, I have never bought or crafted a ship to replace loss.

8 ADD SCOREBOARDS AND CARROTS...

That stuff works in WoT because you are always a part of a 15 man team against a 15 man team. In the OW of lopsided fights stats won't matter, you could be a mouthbreather and farm stats with friends. A ladder setup in the duel room is the only thing that would have any meaning.