Hotfix 5 for patch 9.97 - event changes + minor fixes

[Sir Texas Sir]

3 hours ago, Jean Ribault said:

 

So then why are you complaining about the 5 minutes?  What's the difference?  No big deal.  You either fight the hostility battle or fight the battle afterwards with your fresh superior force.  You still get the battle then, so no reason to whine about the 5 minutes.  Or do you want your cake and eat it too?

Because if the window closes in 5 mins we can't join and stop them.  If they see folks comming than they will now just telport home to friendly and you won't get any fights.  It takes the chance of PvP out of the game.   We don't want to have to sit there for 20 mins to wait for them to exit cause our spotter found them.  The regions are big and some times it takes a good while to find some one. I spent a whole night in a rattler/reno more than once going around Grand Turk region trying to find the grind group of Brits while we had guys counter grinding and one group on the hunt.   That was about 3 hours wasted cause you have to be exactly there to find them when they pop out and  move from one mission to the next.  5 mins is way to short to do that and get into the mission to join them.  It should be back at the 15 min mark or put it in the middle at 10 mins.

[Sir Texas Sir]

2 hours ago, Angus McGregor said:

Aside from BR balancing, I still think one of the main griefs with leaving battles (PvE/PvP) open for longer is the way late arrivals 'pop' into the battle at pistol shot range. They should spawn into the instance at the perimeter of the pull circle.

I picture a captain spotting a battle, seeing only crossed swords at extreme range. Clicking on them through telescope does not reveal BR details, just the nations and total number of ships involved. The haze of gunpowder smoke make identification impossible. They approach to investigate. At the perimeter of the pull circle a Battle Info window automatically comes up with details - number of ships involved by each nation and BR totals. The options are 'Attack' and 'Withdraw' and you MUST choose one (or enter port) to make the Battle Info window go away.

• Attack - takes you into the battle instance at the spot on the pull perimeter when the Battle Info window first appeared, NOT where you are when you get around to clicking the attack option.
• Withdraw - makes the the Battle Info window and battle marker (crossed swords) go away, which effectively locks you out of ever joining that battle.

Solves the issue with 'johnny-come-laters' suddenly appearing at <200m with 'prepared' broadsides. New arrivals appearing at the pull circle perimeter gives existing combatants time to prepare or flee (if possible).

Making the spawn point where the Battle Info window first appeared solves the problem with possibly spawning into the battle instance on land.

BR balancing issues are a different topic.

I have to agree that the late commers should be at a distance not right in the middle of the fight. That is my biggest complaint even when you have friends that join in right after you start the fight.  They are actually spawned in closer to the action than the starting group.   We seen this a lot when you have two groups grinding at once and one has a closer mission so all join.  Second group actually spawns between the first group and the NPC's.

[Cmdr RideZ]

They could also just decrease rake damage.  I think this major change of making insane rake damage kinda broke the combat.  And this mast buff without rake nerf -> Unfortunately shows that who ever is making these calls, does not really understand the situation.

 

Yes, I know some just love this insane rake damage.  Happy to disagree with you guys.

[admin]

7 hours ago, Angus McGregor said:

Aside from BR balancing, I still think one of the main griefs with leaving battles (PvE/PvP) open for longer is the way late arrivals 'pop' into the battle at pistol shot range. They should spawn into the instance at the perimeter of the pull circle.

 

It not working like you described for a couple of months. 

Ships can only enter outside initial pull circle. Which is kind of far from the center of combat. 

[Zoky]

19 minutes ago, admin said:

 

Ships can only enter outside initial pull circle. Which is kind of far from the center of combat. 

Not exactly. Those that join battle enter at the edge of first small circle not second one, and that is stupid.

[admin]

Just now, Zoky said:

Not exactly. Those that join battle enter at the edge of first small circle not second one, and that is stupid.

That's not what the original author described. That circle is not small in instance and its definitely NOT pistol shot.

[Zoky]

If by instance you mean mission then you enter on spawn point, and in 99% of my mission raiding that is in pistol range

[Koltes]

1 hour ago, admin said:

It not working like you described for a couple of months. 

Ships can only enter outside initial pull circle. Which is kind of far from the center of combat. 

How the mechanic of ships joining the battle instance works should not be our concern if it works properly.

At the end of the day players describing their experience which I personally 100% backup as I have experienced the same thing all the time. Players that join the battle often end up in the pistol range and this issue needs to be addressed. Whether the mechanics work correctly for some part and not for another or works 100% as intended is all separate issue.
The problem as described, joining in ships should not be in the center of all action as they often appear. We can't tell you what to do with the mechanic as we only know how it works on the surface and only you know the actual calculations.

But the feedback is that its not working for us in its current state.

[admin]

1 minute ago, koltes said:

But the feedback is that its not working for us in its current state.

It is working as intended -  don't sail towards the enemy reinforcement zone if you don't want enemy to be near you. Sail towards your reinforcement zone then enemy will appear far far away. If you both fight in the center enemy will never appear in the pistol shot distance 

[Koltes]

7 minutes ago, admin said:

It is working as intended -  don't sail towards the enemy reinforcement zone if you don't want enemy to be near you. Sail towards your reinforcement zone then enemy will appear far far away. If you both fight in the center enemy will never appear in the pistol shot distance 

Here is the issue. I'm chasing the poor trader. We get into the battle instance. Fight goes on, guns fired, sails flippin.

Option 1. Trader is running and there is possibility that I will not catch him. After a little while my mate joining and magically appears next to the trader who was already sailing away from his initial entry location. He gets tagged and next thing complains in global. I understand his frustration. I have witnessed it personally happening in front of my eyes.
Option 2. I gain on the trader and he is not getting away. All of a sudden his mates joining in and instead of having some distance between us they are right in the middle between us. This time I get upset.

Does this work as intended?

Edited December 29, 2016 by koltes

[admin]

4 minutes ago, koltes said:

Here is the issue. I'm chasing the poor trader. We get into the battle instance. Fight goes on, guns fired, sails flippin.

Option 1. Trader is running and there is possibility that I will not catch him. After a little while my mate joining and magically appears next to the trader who was already sailing away from his initial entry location. He gets tagged and next thing complains in global. I understand his frustration. I have witnessed it personally happening in front of my eyes.
Option 2. I gain on the trader and he is not getting away. All of a sudden his mate joining in and instead of having some distance between us they are right in the middle between us. This time I get upset.

Does this work as intended?

without diagrams hard to say if you are talking about the bug or not but again both 1 and 2 working as intended if 

1) trader sails towards your reinforcement zone (which position is fixed because of land in battles) 
2) you chase trader towards his reinforcement zone (which position is fixed because of land in battles)

so if a player is inside or very near the fixed position reinforcement zone he will see enemy pop near him. 

 

[Koltes]

Just now, admin said:

without diagrams hard to say but again both 1 and 2 working as intended if 

1) trader sails towards your reinforcement zone (which is fixed because of land in battles) 
2) you chase trader towards his reinforcement zone (which is fixed because of land in battles)

 

Sorry mate I dont get this reinforcement zones. What are they? I'm talking about tagging someone in the OW

[Angus McGregor]

2 hours ago, koltes said:

Sorry mate I dont get this reinforcement zones. What are they? I'm talking about tagging someone in the OW

Yes, I 'm pretty sure there's a misunderstanding here. I think admin is talking about the PvP events, we are talking about OW PvP attacks and Hostility Mission battles.

Edited December 29, 2016 by Angus McGregor

[Ned Loe]

Admin, 

Honestly, I don't like PvP Events. I thought it would be more player controlled, but instead it's zerg controlled. What I would like to see is all Players receive Event invitations. Invitations says (bla bla bla, event location is shown on the map, bring this invitation to an Event zone and set up an event). Players can setup an open Event battle (1vs1, 2vs2 and so on...) once setup they click ok and battle is open. If it's 1vs1 only 1 player can join and fight. I don't understand why it's so hard to implement. Let players control events. If I got 6 peple in the group, I open an invitation and set up for 6vs6, that's it. Then I wait or search in chat for people so they can fight us. Invitations vanish after use for the guy who created an event. This means group can be reformed and other guy can set up pvp event. So, it means we can run it 6 times if there are people to fight, 

[Pablo Frias]

13 minutes ago, Wind said:

Admin, 

Honestly, I don't like PvP Events. I thought it would be more player controlled, but instead it's zerg controlled. What I would like to see is all Players receive Event invitations. Invitations says (bla bla bla, event location is shown on the map, bring this invitation to an Event zone and set up an event). Players can setup an open Event battle (1vs1, 2vs2 and so on...) once setup they click ok and battle is open. If it's 1vs1 only 1 player can join and fight. I don't understand why it's so hard to implement. Let players control events. If I got 6 peple in the group, I open an invitation and set up for 6vs6, that's it. Then I wait or search in chat for people so they can fight us. Invitations vanish after use for the guy who created an event. This means group can be reformed and other guy can set up pvp event. So, it means we can run it 6 times if there are people to fight, 

PvP events would be funnier if they were Small and Large Battles

[admin]

3 hours ago, Pablo Frias said:

PvP events would be funnier if they were Small and Large Battles

perhaps  in a separate arena game sea trials style?

[Cmdr RideZ]

2 minutes ago, admin said:

perhaps  in a separate arena game sea trials style?

Small and Large battle like thing would be much better.  Now it is basically just gankfest area.

There was this PvP event run by a player already.  The rewards were not that good, but the system was better.

[Pablo Frias]

6 minutes ago, admin said:

perhaps  in a separate arena game sea trials style?

Yes, that´s what I (we) want.

Edited December 29, 2016 by Pablo Frias

[Prater]

Eh, it is fine how it is now, just make it so BR is looked at for rewards.  If you have overwhelming BR difference (1.5x or more) and you are the attacker, divide the pvp points by 2 + BR difference.  So if you have 1.5x BR and you get a kill on a ship in shallow pvp battles, you will have 200/3.5=57 points instead of 200.  30 points in assists becomes 8 points.

Edited December 29, 2016 by Prater

[Sir Texas Sir]

6 hours ago, Prater said:

Eh, it is fine how it is now, just make it so BR is looked at for rewards.  If you have overwhelming BR difference (1.5x or more) and you are the attacker, divide the pvp points by 2 + BR difference.  So if you have 1.5x BR and you get a kill on a ship in shallow pvp battles, you will have 200/3.5=57 points instead of 200.  30 points in assists becomes 8 points.

I don't want stupid arena style battles to take away more from the OW, but I do think that the events should be locked to Shallow water ships for the Shallow one and the Deep should be 4th rates and below.  Most the time I'm seeing uneven battles it's cause the bigger force on one team or the other is rolling with a bunch of SOL's.   Lets keep those in the PB 's and when your doing major hostility grinding.  Lets make these events more about the fun smaller ships that was really the back bone of the Navy's of the times.   

[Koltes]

8 hours ago, admin said:

perhaps  in a separate arena game sea trials style?

Please do NOT make this a lobby game... Lets put our heads together and sort OW mechanics and enjoy this beauty

Edited December 30, 2016 by koltes

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, koltes said:

Please do NOT make this a lobby game... Lets put our heads together and sort OW mechanics and enjoy this beauty

Hear, Hear!

[Cmdr RideZ]

PvP event is not OW PvP at all, nor it is RvR.  It is just predefined "Come here for gankfest!" area.

We have Port Battles and OW PvP, it is just that these are broken at the moment.  Just focus to FIX things please.  I would not participate these events if you had not broke the core game.

Edited December 30, 2016 by Cmdr RideZ

[Angus McGregor]

13 minutes ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

PvP event is not OW PvP at all, nor it is RvR.  It is just predefined "Come here for gankfest!" area.

We have Port Battles and OW PvP, it is just that these are broken at the moment.  Just focus to FIX things please.  I would not participate these events if you had not broke the core game.

I must admit that it isn't worth trying to go to the PvP events solo. But I figured that as soon as I heard about them. No biggie.

Re: Port Battles. The hostility mechanic needs work but while there's ideas, there's nothing close to a consensus on a best remedy. Screening needs attention too since total PB prevention by mega-Alliance blockade is a real possibility, and I don't see that as good for the game at all. The only sure fire cure is eliminating screening completely and going with a PB entry lobby system. Yuck.

The devs didn't "break the game". They made player suggested changes that didn't work as hoped. Most of us consistently fail to anticipate the worst case scenarios for how these ideas can be twisted and abused. People have pointed fingers at certain parties for "cheating", but all I can say is that they are the better testers. Finding ways to break the game that I didn't even dream of.

[Cmdr RideZ]

 

3 minutes ago, Angus McGregor said:

Re: Port Battles.

Well, they could focus to fix it.

I have to say that the previous flag based mechanism was better than the current one.  This hostility mechanism, full of PvE was probably the biggest reason why people left.  None wants to shoot the bots again and again.

The devs said that most battles fought are vs Bots, so that this is PvE game in the end.  Now they mixed PvE in the end game PvP as well.

They could leave the hostility, but bring back the flags.  The idea of capturing the other towns to create hostility, and open the final battle for the regional capital.  Make regional capitals to be the only places providing regional bonus (I think it is not like this, right?)

 

WOT End Game is selling well, because?

People have limited time to use for games.  It is nice that you see what time you have the fight, it is possible to organize yourself to be there at that time.  Then you fight, and after that you go to do other stuff.  The guys who are more interested, have more time, will do "politics" etc.

 

In Naval Action...

Now you have grind before PvP, like wtf?  Whose idea was this?

People have X amount of time to be online, so the flag based mechanism was working fine.  You let your clan mates know, that we sail from 2100 to 2400.  (Because then the kids are sleeping etc.).  Then you craft the flag and you go in war, you have intensive hours right there.  Now you say that we have to grind bots from 2100 to 2400.  You do not have to be a rocket scientist to understand that this is a fail.

So bring back the organized fun, and remove the grind.

Hostility is ok, but bend it to make PvP, not to remove PvP.

 

...

Well, there were some ideas and most probably already in other threads.  And a lot of new issues were introduced in one patch.  Some of my friends said..  "I thought the game was already good and almost done, wtf just happened!?  Now I do not know what to think about this game.  Why to ruin a good game like this?".

Hostility system killed RvR.

Towers and massive AI fleets killed OW PvP.

Unfortunately, the massive crew damage also killed the game for some. (Even tho some love this feature)

They ruined also the economy, with the trade goods.  Also the trade goods are not good for the game, those create a grind that created insane income.  It was/is uncontrollable income.  Before the products were bought and sold by players mostly, except some few products that were bought by vendor with insane price for no better reason.

They created the massive ROE rings, not going to even start..

etc etc.

The game went down pretty fast, really fast, basically they could just revert back and the game would have less issues than it has now.  We had enough PvP in OW, this whole PvP event really would not be even needed if they had not broke everything.  So, they should focus to FIX instead of inventing new things because old ones are broken.