Patch 9.97 - Events, minor crafting changes and other things

[Black Spawn]

15 minutes ago, Buba Smith said:

PvE Events:

Time challenge – destroy 2 enemy ships in shortest possible time.

Kill challenge – destroy as many enemy ships in 30 mins. (Boarding does not count) - every kill grants +1 repair for the player.

I know you want to make the BPs and paint jobs for those wonderful blue prints challenging but; I have tried very hard many times to do my best to get the best scores possible. I have good working knowledge of sailing (obviously not good enough) and also 2500+ hours invested in this game. I will continue to try but at this point the competition is far to high for me to make top 10 or even top 30... Why do these nice BPs have to depend on some super-human talent I don't possess to aquire them?  Yes I know there are better players and I also know I'm not the best in this game but I do very much enjoy playing and I think my time in game should be worth something?  

Funny thing is - as I understand it - those chests dont even contain the BPs but single ships:

Edit:

Yup just checked back:

Quote

[...]Top 10 players will be rewarded by ship redeemables, upgrades, rare materials and paint customizations.[...]

according to:

So i guess dont put too much efford in it...

Edited December 5, 2016 by Black Spawn

[Angus McGregor]

12 minutes ago, Buba Smith said:

PvE Events:

Time challenge – destroy 2 enemy ships in shortest possible time.

Kill challenge – destroy as many enemy ships in 30 mins. (Boarding does not count) - every kill grants +1 repair for the player.

I know you want to make the BPs and paint jobs for those wonderful blue prints challenging but; I have tried very hard many times to do my best to get the best scores possible. I have good working knowledge of sailing (obviously not good enough) and also 2500+ hours invested in this game. I will continue to try but at this point the competition is far to high for me to make top 10 or even top 30... Why do these nice BPs have to depend on some super-human talent I don't possess to aquire them?  Yes I know there are better players and I also know I'm not the best in this game but I do very much enjoy playing and I think my time in game should be worth something?  

Well, I guess I see the point you're making but I'm afraid it isn't going to get much traction. The reward for normal play is the normal accumulation of xp and gold. Let's not go the route of handing out participation awards just for entering the challenges regardless of how well you do,

The issue that has come to mind for me is that if this is truly a test of skill, then the ship you use (currently a Cerberus) should be stripped of perm and temp upgrades a'la fleet ships during the matches. Otherwise the players with all the nice gold upgrades will get a huge scoring advantage... which doesn't strike me as sporting in a test of skill.

[Bacchreus]

22 minutes ago, Angus McGregor said:

Well, I guess I see the point you're making but I'm afraid it isn't going to get much traction. The reward for normal play is the normal accumulation of xp and gold. Let's not go the route of handing out participation awards just for entering the challenges regardless of how well you do,

The issue that has come to mind for me is that if this is truly a test of skill, then the ship you use (currently a Cerberus) should be stripped of perm and temp upgrades a'la fleet ships during the matches. Otherwise the players with all the nice gold upgrades will get a huge scoring advantage... which doesn't strike me as sporting in a test of skill.

Agree with you about the mods etc and obviously can be done just as with fleet ships.

I also think you should be at least rewarded for participation by getting gold (to at least cover expenses) and xp for this otherwise whats the incentive for someone of mediocre skills in even trying these challenges.

From what i've seen this mode is a money and time sink for average players. Once they've tried it a couple of times and realise they are getting nowhere near the top ten they will stop playing the mode.

Also the timed challenge says destroy 2 enemy ships and is it really intentional that rage boarding and not destroying is the best method to keep your time low. Surely the time mode should also exclude capping.

 

 

Edited December 6, 2016 by Bacchreus
iterate on my thoughts

[Crayon]

ohhhhhh shieet

[Guest]

To be honest I'm a bit disillusioned by the PvE events because it truly makes you realize that 1 on 1, the AI only has two settings - sail in a straight line next to the player or turn, turn, turn for no apparent reason.

[Angus McGregor]

3 minutes ago, Bacchreus said:

I also think you should be at least rewarded for participation by getting gold and xp for this otherwise whats the incentive for someone of mediocre skills in even trying these challenges.

Also the timed challenge says destroy 2 enemy ships and is it really intentional that rage boarding and not destroying is the best method to keep your time low. Surely the time mode should also exclude capping.

I was surprised about the no xp & gold from the challenges, but IMO it's a good thing since it will prevent people from using them as a risk free way to progress instead of entering the OW.

And yes, rage boarding is the *only* way to compete in the time trial unless you can routinely pull off magazine detonation shots,

[Ronald Speirs]

Hmm nothing to exciting to convince me jumping back in the saddle just yet

[Cecil Selous]

22 minutes ago, Aegir said:

To be honest I'm a bit disillusioned by the PvE events because it truly makes you realize that 1 on 1, the AI only has two settings - sail in a straight line next to the player or turn, turn, turn for no apparent reason.

Yeah, really frustrating. They can't sail at all and constantly miss or fuck up their broadside. Yet on the other hand, this type of bad sailing behaviour is sometimes hard to counter and makes it difficult for the player to get a fun experience out of it.

[Ned Loe]

Dear Admin,

 

great job on OS travel speeds. This is a huge improvement and will help you keep players in the game. I would add another 15% on the top of what you have, I think you are almost there. Almost. It is a pleasure to sail now. 

Thank you. 

[akd]

1 hour ago, Wind said:

Dear Admin,

 

great job on OS travel speeds. This is a huge improvement and will help you keep players in the game. I would add another 15% on the top of what you have, I think you are almost there. Almost. It is a pleasure to sail now. 

Thank you. 

As I suspected, anyone who is unhappy with travel times is not going to be happy with 20%.  They will want doubling or tripling.  Meanwhile, interacting with other players and mess of AI fleets on the OS becomes more and more difficult, and less about anything to do with sailing.

Please rollback OS speeds and consider a system that boosts speed only when you are not in interaction range of an enemy player or a port.  Or at least address how you've completely broken tagging.

[Cmdr RideZ]

There has been good posts, but way too many to mention...

Right now it would be so cool to get 1000 players raging that devs are retards because they did A.  Then just skip the word retards, and we would have an answer.  But guys just leave the game without saying what sucks, so ask from your friends what sucks and bring the info here.  Yes, none will listen you anyway, but it is better that someone at least says it than none.

 

I believe that we lost majority because Port Battles are not anymore: Craft a flag -> Sail to PvP

Yes, people want something faster and now they are like..  omfg, I am definitely not going to grind more bots, nor I am going to craft any war supplies, nor I am going to sail empty waters looking for PvP.  Why it has to be so freaking tedious to get PvP in this game?  How freaking hard that is to understand?

The flag was starting PvP and pointing -> The PvP will be here.  ..  Yes, people want easy, we want to find where the other players are.  The flag provided that.

Maybe we could capture normal towns with flags to increase permanent hostility in area, and if the ownership of hostility is tilted for you, it open port battle to the capital.  And once you capture it, it will give you the whole region again and all starts from scratch.

 

Fine Wood forced everyone to plant a forest.  This was not nice.  Even if the drop rate would be increased, this issue would stay.  Add for example 1 million cost for the shipyard and workers to craft a 1st rate.  Everyone gets gold from somewhere, very efficient money sink, easy for the devs to control + directed for end game players.

Edited December 6, 2016 by Cmdr RideZ

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

There has been good posts, but way too many to mention...

Right now it would be so cool to get 1000 players raging that devs are retards because they did A.  Then just skip the word retards, and we would have an answer.  But the guys just leave the game without saying what sucks, so ask from your friends what sucks and bring the info here.  Yes, none will listen you anyway, but it is better that someone at least says it than none.

 

I believe that we lost majority because Port Battles are not anymore: Craft a flag -> Sail to PvP

Yes, people want something faster and now they are like..  omfg, I am definitely not going to grind more bots, nor I am going to craft any war supplies, nor I am going to sail empty waters looking for PvP.  Why it has to be so freaking tedious to get PvP in this game?  How freaking hard that is to understand?

The flag was starting PvP and pointing -> The PvP will be here.  ..  Yes, people want easy, we want to find where the other players are.  The flag provided that.

Maybe we could capture normal towns with flags to increase permanent hostility in area, and if the ownership of hostility is tilted for you, it open port battle to the capital.  And once you capture it, it will give you the whole region again and all starts from scratch.

 

Fine Wood forced everyone to plant a forest.  This was not nice.  Even if the drop rate would be increased, this issue would stay.  Add for example 1 million cost for the shipyard and workers to craft a 1st rate.  Everyone gets gold from somewhere, very efficient money sink, easy for the devs to control + directed for end game players.

I like the suggestion of simply adding a cash requirement for making the large SOL's. Most players are very rich right now, but considering how many ships are lost in PB's, that would indeed be a very effective way to sink money (and to keep things under control when the game is released).

[van der Clam]

6 minutes ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

The flag was starting PvP and pointing -> The PvP will be here.  ..  Yes, people want easy, we want to find where the other players are.  The flag provided that. Um no, it didn't, because ppl just kept buying fake flags. So no PvP would be found because no one wanted to sail to 5 different ports to find which one was real. And then to finally show up and see the Mbrig already destroyed the towers and the battle was over.

Maybe we could capture normal towns with flags to increase permanent hostility in area, and if the ownership of hostility is tilted for you, it open port battle to the capital.  And once you capture it, it will give you the whole region again and all starts from scratch. This sounds interesting.. I definitely agree that all port should be capturable, and that a majority of the ports in that region needs to be captured before it is flipped.

 

[akd]

12 minutes ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

There has been good posts, but way too many to mention...

Right now it would be so cool to get 1000 players raging that devs are retards because they did A.  Then just skip the word retards, and we would have an answer.  But guys just leave the game without saying what sucks, so ask from your friends what sucks and bring the info here.  Yes, none will listen you anyway, but it is better that someone at least says it than none.

 

I believe that we lost majority because Port Battles are not anymore: Craft a flag -> Sail to PvP

Yes, people want something faster and now they are like..  omfg, I am definitely not going to grind more bots, nor I am going to craft any war supplies, nor I am going to sail empty waters looking for PvP.  Why it has to be so freaking tedious to get PvP in this game?  How freaking hard that is to understand?

The flag was starting PvP and pointing -> The PvP will be here.  ..  Yes, people want easy, we want to find where the other players are.  The flag provided that.

Maybe we could capture normal towns with flags to increase permanent hostility in area, and if the ownership of hostility is tilted for you, it open port battle to the capital.  And once you capture it, it will give you the whole region again and all starts from scratch.

 

Fine Wood forced everyone to plant a forest.  This was not nice.  Even if the drop rate would be increased, this issue would stay.  Add for example 1 million cost for the shipyard and workers to craft a 1st rate.  Everyone gets gold from somewhere, very efficient money sink, easy for the devs to control + directed for end game players.

Flags should be used for raids. Raids should be part of hostility generation for regional port battles. Smuggling should involve OS missions along shore that can be interdicted. Ideally, shallow water would be in instances also, and there would be a purpose to shallow water traders in RvR.

[Cmdr RideZ]

Multiflags was a small issue, true.  Also a money sink.  But the flag idea in general is not really that bad, could be used for example like said there.  I said tilt, but I suppose flipped would be the right word.

 

2 minutes ago, akd said:

Flags should be used for raids. Raids should be part of hostility generation for regional port battles. Smuggling should involve OS missions along shore that can be interdicted. Ideally, shallow water would be in instances also, and there would be a purpose to shallow water traders in RvR.

Could be one option as well.  I personally like more from the idea of capturing ports to flip the hostility level to allow port battles.

 

Maybe the defender would need to capture the ports back even if they would win defending the regional capital.  Capturing the capital would only give the region for the attacker.  This way the war will rage on in the region as long as one side is able to actually capture it.  This would create very high rate of Port Battle PvP.

If attacker has 2 ports and defender has the capital + 1.  The defender has to try to attack those 2 ports and be able to capture one of those, or there will be another attack to the capital after 24h hours.  Indeed, could have issues that I do not foresee.

[oldcrankyman]

The bug with the displayed BR of the 25 ship AI fleets has not been fixed.   It's still much lower than the real total should be.  

[Balsafer]

54 minutes ago, akd said:

Flags should be used for raids. Raids should be part of hostility generation for regional port battles. Smuggling should involve OS missions along shore that can be interdicted. Ideally, shallow water would be in instances also, and there would be a purpose to shallow water traders in RvR.

This is a good idea, have players conduct raids on smaller towns and such to begin port battles on the main regional port.

[Hugh Latham]

In my opinion things are taking a turn for the worse. Increasing OW speeds, reducing crafting complexity, Disneyland events, etc. Before too long Game Labs will need to require age verification that players are less than 10 years old or can document brain damage. I am surprised how turned off I am by the game now. I have only played 4050 hours so I don't really have enough experience in testing the game, but this patch has been a great disappointment.

[Potemkin]

I dont see how cutting sailing time is a bad thing (creating more time to actually PLAY the game), if you like staring at open ocean on a computer screen for hours then theres something wrong with you. Creating events to encourage pvp on a consistent basis is a step in the right direction imho. As for the fine woods i think a few more outposts would have alleviated some of the problem but i can roll with the changes. You cant always get what you want and whining about it sure as shit wont get anything done.

Edited December 6, 2016 by Potemkin

[la Touche-Treville]

Definitely like the speed increase in OW. Some people appreciate the fact of turning on NA, setting a route that will take anywhere between 30mn and an hour or more, ALT-TAB into some other game or distraction and checking now and again the progress. I personally found that very boring and a real time sink delivering no game pleasure. I think this tweak isn't the ultimate answer but at least makes that part of the game less painful.

As for crafting, Fine Woods sounded like a good idea initially but at the end, it killed crafting. I am level 50 and since the introduction of fine woods, I haven't crafted a single ship.

For a lot of players, crafting is a solid part of their game experience. Craft an exceptional ship and go measure it against other players.
With Fine Woods, crafting exceptional ships has been reduced to a clan activity. And if a lone crafter can't access that level of ship, then what's the point of crafting a simple, say Surprise, that is going to be outmatched immediately by every other Fine Bermuda Cedar, speed fitting, agile Surprise he'll meet out in OW for PVP?

At the end of the day, I would prefer this game to be back at that 2000 online level we experienced early this year with loads of casual players and being able to measure myself by sailing and shooting skills rather than 400 hardcore players that all invest massive time in game to ensure they are fitted with the very best ship for each occasion.

[Bubba Smith]

3 hours ago, oldcrankyman said:

The bug with the displayed BR of the 25 ship AI fleets has not been fixed.   It's still much lower than the real total should be.  

Nice Popeye. 

[Hugh Latham]

16 minutes ago, Potemkin said:

I dont see how cutting sailing time is a bad thing (creating more time to actually PLAY the game), if you like staring at open ocean on a computer screen for hours then theres something wrong with you.

Why don't we just multiply the speed  ten fold and cross the map in a few minutes?? The size of the map is an important factor and reducing it's effect is not desirable.

 

[Paulus de Boskabouter]

Nice patch!

Some tweeking in tag time ai fleets and forts and maybe all can be happy.

For the next patches i have to agree with people above. Flag system was better for the game because almost every night there was action and fun. I hope one day we get raiding allowing smaller clans and groups to have something they can set up on their own without the need of a big clan.

When land hits PB please add the flag system back for the sake of testing  (and fun). We need alot of PB's to test this feature, maybe even maken a testing lobby. we really need tot optimize this . . .

Imo the pve events are a nice side activity. But maybe its better if we cannot use mods or everybody can choose from a list, making it more challeging and fair. Have not tried pvp yet.

At last gj on getting rid of the fine Woods.  Everybody who does not agree just wait for their final crafting system before complaing. 

 

 

[Vaan De Vries]

10 hours ago, Daguse said:

So all that said, you don't really explain how the speed changes the ganging. 

Also remember new players don't have access to top of the line ships. So they are a sitting target for losing their ships. If you want a challenge pvping then why are saying it's to easy for the traders? 

Creating a game that discourages new players by being extremely difficult will not be a major success, but especially in a nitch market. They simply don't have the infrastructure to create an eve like game. Now once the core of the game is complete, by all means, create end game content that is more difficult. And with the addition of pvp hot zone, they have already started the process. 

Come on! Do you sink I hunt second leutentants in their brigs? Do you think I spent all my time in rookie zone (where new players are supposed to be)? The game is so easy to level and aquire stuff that 80% of players reaching top levels don't no how to sail, don't know about sailing profiles, about how to avoid raking, etc. They sail these SOLs (which now are just a throw away ships without fine woods) and look absolutely disgusting don't knowing how to sail them in battle. 

I don't know about you or most other casuals, but I play (-ed) this game for immersion. Seeing "admirals" sailing SOLs or even 5th rates Frigates without knowing shit kills all the immersion for me. At least with fine woods they knew the rule - sail only what you can afford to lose. Now sinking yet another "admiral" in 1st rate is useless - he will just craft another one. OW PVP is killed. 

Now with all these catering to casuals and being afraid to make the game "too hard" it looks more and more like session based WOWS, where you get PBs (25vs25 instead of 15 vs 15) and special "PVP zones" and the rest of the OW is just unneeded chunk of ocean. Cause you can spent 1 hour to earn 2 mil and then buy all needed resources in capital to build 3-4 exceptional 5-4th rates. 

The concept of special PVP zones on a PVP server is ridiculous to me. Why couldn't they just introduce PVP currency and admiralty store for all PVP? If you are so afraid of ganking new players just setup rank restrictions. But reward any PVP - not setup special zones to which I should sail in PARTICULAR time wasting yet another outpost. Just give me my PVP points when I am sinking and capping enemy frigates and SOLs wherever I deem it necessery - not in some stupid zones during defined timeframes.

Better let go of OW and make just a map with dots to schedule 25 vs 25 PBs. And small battles.

 

How the speed affects hunting? Where easy. With insane amount of forts, AI fleets, towers and 20 seconds tag the success of tag depends on how fast the players are in OW. It was hard before - it is harder now. If they speeded up playes they had to also reduce tag time (from 20 seconds to 10 or at least 15) and the insane amount of AI fleets.

[Potemkin]

14 minutes ago, Hugh Latham said:

 The size of the map is an important factor and reducing it's effect is not desirable.

 

Maybe thats why they didnt multiply it tenfold 

Edited December 6, 2016 by Potemkin