Periodic Wipe with Map Reset

[Angus McGregor]

 

Quote

Sir Texas Sir said:

I think one thing that will help each server would be a region reset so you have to start over every couple months and it doesn't become a stale mate and hardly any one fights any one like on PvP2.   And why they do that reset all alliances should be reset so that there is at least one week with no alliances at all.

Rather than drag that thread off topic...

Beginning to agree that periodic map resets would be a good idea. Picky - but I would suggest every 3 months so it's quarterly.

Also had an epiphany about what a map reset could look like. What about a 'discovery' state at the beginning of each new map reset?. I know this is more work for devs and quite late in the development cycle but think about it...

At map launch, each nation ONLY owns its national capital and rookie capital region. All other regions are known, but unclaimed... 'neutral'. No nation starts off with an advantage in regional bonus's other than by being closer to some than others. 'Neutral' ports are not 'friendly' to any nation.

How are 'neutral' ports claimed? All nations have the first day on the new map to pick their highest priority regions and send captains there. During daily server maintenance, 'neutral' regions are awarded to the nation with the most captains in the capital port. Kind of like a blind auction situation. Screening other nations away from the port you want would be a major strategy since 'Escape to friendly port' will bounce ships right out of the region. 

This is prone to bias in favor of nations with higher player counts, but let's face it. NA will always have that problem. Smaller nations would have to choose their targets carefully.

The strategy of what to do on 'rope drop' and every nation has to decide which regions to prioritize? Your nation may succeed in claiming it first but can you hold it? The port battles that would trigger!! 

 

Edit: changed title to reflect that I was meaning to suggest a complete asset wipe too. Plus the fact that it doesn't *have* to be quarterly. The time interval is certainly open to discussion. That was just my initial thought.

Edited January 31, 2017 by Angus McGregor

[admin]

slow dota?

[Yar Matey]

8 minutes ago, admin said:

slow dota?

Does this mean your going to start talking to us again? 

 

[Angus McGregor]

1 minute ago, Yar Matey said:

Does this mean your going to start talking to us again? 

 

*glares at Yar Matey* "Shush!"

[SteelSandwich]

so... every crafter will have its storage deleted every 3 months? By the time his eco is set up, its wiped? Given that assets have to wipe accordingly as well.

Sounds like a good plan that could be implemented right of the bat. No need for further editing.

Edited January 27, 2017 by SteelSandwich

[Kloothommel]

1 minute ago, SteelSandwich said:

so... every crafter will have its storage deleted every 3 months? By the time his eco is set up, its wiped?

Sounds like a good plan that could be implemented right of the bat. No need for further editing.

Aw, snap! XD XD

[Yar Matey]

22 minutes ago, Angus McGregor said:

*glares at Yar Matey* "Shush!"

If it makes you feel any better, I nullified that 1 star vote with a 5 star vote..........................  Do not understand why people feel the need to 1 star peoples suggestions all the time.

I would be ok with 6 month wipes.  Conquest, ship building and the building of alliance is very slow moving in this game. 

Edited January 27, 2017 by Yar Matey

[Angus McGregor]

LoL - I had to go look for what you were talking about. "Stars??" Geez - I didn't even know those were there. Possibly why the star ratings are so low.

I keep hearing that recovering from a wipe wouldn't be that big of a deal. I agree that it would be difficult for a casual player.

Another effect would be the futility of stockpiling mountains of materials, spurring more production of ships and mods.

Edited January 27, 2017 by Angus McGregor

[Farrago]

While I would prefer never to have a port reset necesary, unless we have highly populated, distributed-across-all-time-zones, player population with a well function player driven economy with ROE, RVR, PVP, crafting, etc humming along like a well oiled machine... it may be necessary. In fact, one could argue that if everything was perfectly natural and balanced at the start, you will still head in the direction of global domination (or stagnation) by a nation or alliance(s) which would hardly be fun for players. So, manipulation is necessary.

Please note that I do realize it would be a pain if all those buildings, outposts, and storage inventory we're working on would have to move but imagine the PVP opportunities as we all have to start moving all our shit around.

If a port reset were to happen:

I agree, it should be on a schedule, not because someone is dominating. Make the Dev promised admiralty points be a running total where nations "win" a port season. Make those points something everyone earns or loses by PVP and PVE.

i like the idea that after a reset, nations only start with their home region. My opinion is it would be fun if those home regions were randomized but I'm sure that would be unpopular with our history buffs. Make the regional bonus random.

All other ports are out there for claiming but a nation needs to work for them by investing time and money. I don't envision these unassigned pots would just be a matter of showing up. They would be hubs for PVP, trade, resource development... conflict 

[Angus McGregor]

On 1/27/2017 at 0:21 PM, admin said:

slow dota?

I think it would take just 1 day for virtually all regions to be claimed. My quick thought was to pick maybe 1-2 high priority ports and send ships in force to claim them. At the same time send small numbers of ships, maybe just 1,  to other ports with lesser but still desirable regional bonuses or resources. This would result in virtually all ports being claimed by somebody after the very first maintenance cycle.

On 1/27/2017 at 0:57 PM, Yar Matey said:

I would be ok with 6 month wipes.  Conquest, ship building and the building of alliance is very slow moving in this game. 

6 month cycles would be long, but perhaps not to the point of RvR stasis/stagnation being a problem yet. Could work.

A fixed duration cycle would also afford an opportunity to transfer to a nation that has chronically low population without penalty as everyone starts over together.

On 1/27/2017 at 3:42 PM, Farrago said:

Make the regional bonus random.

I hadn't thought of placing the regional bonuses randomly. Interesting! It would start the new map with a true discovery phase where nations send out explorers in basic Cutters or possibly Lynx's. They would scout which regions have which bonuses prior to a nationally coordinated effort to send enough ships to claim prized regional capital ports.

But I would not consider doing random resources since some of those (live oak) have firm basis in reality and moving them would seem strange and violate the principle of building on preexisting knowledge. (Love this video - 20 Game Design Lessons - thank you @KrakkenSmacken)

Pro's:

• each new map would be different in a fairly significant way with randomized regional bonuses.
• exciting 'Gold rush' discovery/claim staking phase on day 1.

Con's:

• combinations of fixed resources and random regional bonuses could make for some very overpowered regions. But restrictions in the randomizer code could ensure certain top regional bonuses cannot be paired with valuable resources? IE: Strong Hull never with gold, silver, Live Oak...etc.
• ??

[Prater]

You haven't addressed people losing outposts, resources, and ships.

[Farrago]

34 minutes ago, Prater said:

You haven't addressed people losing outposts, resources, and ships.

In my post I did. It would be a pain in the ass moving outposts and regions BUT imagine the PVP opportunities if all players needed to move their stuff around during a one to two week period: vast escorted player fleets on the water and your raiders trying to take them. I don't know if it would be good or not but something has to be done to break the constant impasse and dwindling player base.

Perhaps the Devs just need to improve marketing and reduce the price temporarily but my suspicion -- since they have not already done so -- is they are facing some big challenge right now and don't want a huge influx of new, potentially unhappy testers. 

[Anne Wildcat]

I'll probably be yelled at for suggesting but it would be nice to maybe have yearly asset wipes. Starting out on the test server brand new was fun. I played that day for a longer period of time than I have done in a long while. Maybe add a few redeemable ships and some redeemable gold every time there is a wipe. 

[Strake]

On 1/29/2017 at 1:19 PM, Anne Wildcat said:

I'll probably be yelled at for suggesting but it would be nice to maybe have yearly asset wipes. Starting out on the test server brand new was fun. I played that day for a longer period of time than I have done in a long while. Maybe add a few redeemable ships and some redeemable gold every time there is a wipe. 

I've come to the same conclusion. I love NA and will continue to play it no matter what, but an annual asset wipe would make the game fresh again, especially if the new map had new content to discover. Maybe alternate the maps between the Caribbean and Europe. At the year-end, top players could receive hall of fame recognition in various categories - kills, gold, etc.

The game needs alot more players in order to make the OW more interesting. I recommend some changes to the gameplay as it currently stands:

• Make alliances bilateral - only one other country can be your ally at a time - provides more enemies to hunt and be hunted by
• Balance the participants in each faction - don't let any one faction get too large
• Need more OW content, both for exploring, trading and PVPing
  • smaller unnamed towns and villages that may provide interactive opportunities for the players who visit them, and the hunters.
  • When in an area with few other players, enable the NPCs to intercept and attack you.
  • Add more eye candy to the OW - fishing villages, lighthouses, shipwrecks.
  • Allow players to buy new ship paint-jobs and sail markings with in-game gold - let us customize our stuff
  • Enable pirates to hide in local coves and inlets - give them some new hunting tools - make them the scourges they want to be.
  •  

Edited January 30, 2017 by Strake

[Angus McGregor]

On 1/29/2017 at 11:33 AM, Prater said:

You haven't addressed people losing outposts, resources, and ships.

So you're buying into "there is no victory condition"??

A nation gets stomped down to just their Nat capital region

1. no access to gold/silver or buff regional bonuses. There is no coming back.

Switch nations? That's an answer? So an entire nation becomes a placeholder with no function whatsoever - new players join that nation, see the situation and hope they can still get a refund.

A whack of players in the crushed nation who don't want to switch nations just leave. If a reset/wipe is scheduled, they at least *might* check back to NA then and try again if they're a big fan of this genre. If no reset - they *never* come back.

People voluntarily join the smaller nation to bolster it's numbers? What for? See point #1.

Other nations voluntarily give up regions to get pauper nation back on its feet? It took PvP2 coming to the brink of extinction to spur that kind of cooperation - you think it'll happen when the rich nations are doing just fine thank you very much?

NA needs a method to keep the national RvR viable or it's screwed. Either the national alliances and politics are taken out of the players hands, or a way to recover from a complete FUBAR map is provided.

The bottom line is this... are pixels more important than a player base to perpetuate the game? When NA releases there will be a big influx of new players... but then what? Either NA has mechanisms to preserve the player base, or it will fade quick as more abandon it than new players buy it.

[Prater]

You are redirecting, you still haven't responded to the questions from two of us.

 

And as for, "no coming back."  Spain and the US (pvp1) have been pushed back to 1 port(now region) multiple times and both of us have come back each time.

Edited January 30, 2017 by Prater

[Angus McGregor]

17 minutes ago, Prater said:

You are redirecting, you still haven't responded to the questions from two of us. 1

And as for, "no coming back."  Spain and the US (pvp1) have been pushed back to 1 port(now region) multiple times and both of us have come back each time. 2

1. You're absolutely right - I didn't realize that I had worded it so it looked so much like I was suggesting *just* a map reset. I even did it the second time around.   Apologies... my bad. I was meaning a complete wipe. Map, ships, resources, outposts.

2. Well that's the point, now there's regions that give major strategic advantages. If you cannot field the ideal PB ship with the ideal regional mod, you aren't likely to win any offensive PB unless you flip it during the defenders low pop time. Even if you do that chances are you'll immediately lose it when facing an attacking fleet comprised entirely of the uber ship-du-jour and you have few, possibly none.

[Prater]

A complete wipe every 3 months?  Hell no.  You are worried about losing players because ports don't reset?  You will lose the vast majority of the population if we lose everything every 3 months.  Hell, every 6 months or a yearly wipe will lose more players.

Edited January 30, 2017 by Prater

[Aventador]

I could see this being an interesting thing to implement. On top of just a map reset there could be the option for a free nation change that would allow you to just transfer your name,gold, ships as redeemables, and whatever is in your capital port storage. 

[Prater]

25 minutes ago, Aventador said:

I could see this being an interesting thing to implement. On top of just a map reset there could be the option for a free nation change that would allow you to just transfer your name,gold, ships as redeemables, and whatever is in your capital port storage. 

He is asking for a complete wipe every 3 months.  So you have no more gold, no more redeemables, etc.

[Jean Ribault]

There are valid points both sides of this argument.  I used to be for a map reset, but I now think that the best method of keeping factions in the game is to make conquest increasingly harder the more a nation colonizes.  Exponentially harder in fact, so that it's near impossible to do what the US/GB alliance is trying to do on PVP2 now.  From what I see, video games are designed on a regular basis to "cheat" against you the better you are, or simply get harder.  Why should NA be any different?  Right now in NA if you are winning then it actually gets easier to win further.  That's completely opposite of what it should be.  If it got exponentially harder for you to expand/win/conquest, then NA would become almost self-balancing, and you would reduce nation-swapping and eliminate faction over-runs.

That would be much better IMO than a map and/or asset reset, and I don't think those would be needed anymore.

Edited January 30, 2017 by Jean Ribault

[van der Clam]

On 1/29/2017 at 0:33 PM, Prater said:

You haven't addressed people losing outposts, resources, and ships.

 

5 minutes ago, Jean Ribault said:

There are valid points both sides of this argument.  I used to be for a map reset, but I now think that the best method of keeping factions in the game is to make conquest increasingly hard the more a nation colonizes.  Exponentially harder, so that it's near impossible to do what the US/GB alliance is trying to do on PVP2 now.  From what I see, video games are designed on a regular basis to "cheat" against you the better you are, or simply get harder.  Why should NA be any different?  Right now in NA if you are winning then it actually gets easier to win further.  That's completely opposite of what it should be.  If it got exponentially harder for you to expand/win/conquest, then NA would become almost self-balancing, and you would reduce nation-swapping and faction over-runs.

That would be much better IMO than a map and/or asset reset, and I don't think those would be needed anymore.

I like the idea of map reset, but imagine if the devs left each nation with only one region and leave all the others unassigned and capturable at reset.
Your nation's first goal after reset would be to recapture the regions where your buildings and OPs are. Maybe those "neutral" ports would still have your buildings and ships and warehouse, but the only way to get your things is to recapture that port before the other nations do. Or, you could choose to just abandon it and move elsewhere. It'd be no different than right now if another nation captures your ports with things in it.
Also, with a reset, there would be rewards given based on rank place, possibly in the form of ships, resources, upgrades, gold, etc. These things would counter whatever is lost at reset.

[Angus McGregor]

39 minutes ago, Prater said:

He is asking for a complete wipe every 3 months.  So you have no more gold, no more redeemables, etc.

Sir Texas Sir suggested every 2 months. I bumped it to 3 months. Yar Matey suggested 6 months. The length of time is open to discussion. If it isn't just after alliances get cast in stone, or a nation gets stomped down to just their Nat capital ports - it didn't come quick enough.

Given that a wipe/reset is scheduled, the whole game changes. The only way a stockpile would make sense then is if it's part of a "win" condition towards Admiralty currency for the next cycle. Otherwise any player or clan that has a huge stockpile of resources or gold at wipe/reset time wasted a bunch of effort and didn't devote enough towards actually engaging the opposition.

[Jean Ribault]

7 minutes ago, Angus McGregor said:

Sir Texas Sir suggested every 2 months. I bumped it to 3 months. Yar Matey suggested 6 months. The length of time is open to discussion. If it isn't just after alliances get cast in stone, or a nation gets stomped down to just their Nat capital ports - it didn't come quick enough.

Given that a wipe/reset is scheduled, the whole game changes. The only way a stockpile would make sense then is if it's part of a "win" condition towards Admiralty currency for the next cycle. Otherwise any player or clan that has a huge stockpile of resources or gold at wipe/reset time wasted a bunch of effort and didn't devote enough towards actually engaging the opposition.

Well in order to preclude players' losing their stuff after the reset, and thus potentially just quitting as was suggested above, you would simply need to implement a redeemable system after reset.  You get a credit towards all your assets that you had before the wipe.  Maybe the Admiralty decides that GB won, for example, and so anyone that played for GB that time around gets the highest credit, and all the other nations an equal percentage of theirs but a little less than the winner.  Redeemable gold to do whatever you like with, buy/craft new ships, trade, buy/setup outposts, whatever.  But not 100%, you'd still have to earn something next time around to prevent storing caches of stuff.

Otherwise, I agree that would get tiresome constantly starting from zero.  Most especially if you like the smaller nations and you wind up also losing the war all the time too.

 

I suggested something like this for NA veterans a while back.

Edited January 30, 2017 by Jean Ribault

[Cmdr RideZ]

I personally do not like wipes that much.  I am lazy with econ.  There should be at least 2-3 slots where you can place a ship that will be transferred to the next "season".  Maybe also X amount of gold.  In general tho, I think many could get bored to start over and over again.

 

Maybe people could vote for capital regional bonus, change once per X time.  So all could have their strong hull bonus, if their nation so votes.  Capital could not be ever captured, you would always have that one.  Materials and resources would be then only things you would need to find.  Also would bring back some of that capital focus that many seem to want.  Would not make other regions completely useless either. (edit. idea would not have wipes/resets)

Edited January 30, 2017 by Cmdr RideZ