One PVP Server

[Drakedge]

First let me preface this with a couple of things:
 

1. I know that this has been discussed a lot.
2. Please keep your responses civil, rational, and with out personal attacks to other people offering their feedback.
3. Ping is not a big issue due to the nature of the game. People can be very competitive with a 100 - 300 ping. 

 

Okay, so, with that said... There's no reason for the community to be split in two anymore. Period. Before the recent wipe I played on PVP 1 (i think, the EU one which ever number that actually was. It's been a while) I live on the East Coast of the USA, and some of the most fun gameplay I have ever had in an 18th century sailing game was had doing pvp there.

It was glorious being able to fight UK, British, French, Spanish, and a host of other nations representing their actual nation. That was beautiful. It was fun, it was engaging and it created a very unique environment unseen in any other MMO like this where pvp is a large focus of the game.

Now, a couple arguments as to why the servers were split in the first place were because the US players would create port battles that happened late night EU time. They claim, or claimed that this was unfair, and unbalanced, or what ever other term they chose to use at the time to argue against doing this. 

They unfortunately did not see though that it works both ways. During EU prime time the US nation saw a lot of port battles while the majority of its player base were at work, unable to get into the game. That's truly no different from EU players being asleep. Top that off though with the fact that even in the US nation we had a lot of German, and UK players playing with us as well. Which was a lot of fun.

I am certain other nations had US players in their ranks as the French, Spanish, and UK fleets are rather attractive to a lot of Americans to sait sail for due to the history of those navies. 

Now, after the wipe I started on the EU pvp server fighting for the British. At peek time during the weekend I saw about 1200 people online. Which is a healthy server population. During non peak times I saw the player base dip down into the 300 - 500 range. 

On the Global PVP Server we see a peak of 400 players maybe 450. However, that being said, I have yet to see it really dip that far below 200. The lowest I have seen was 175 at 0400 EST.

So... What I am getting at is, why not merge the servers again. Please, for the sake of increasing the population and increasing the pvp and conquests going on. With the new pvp token and conquest token system it is only hurting players not to be able to find regular fights.

If you combined the servers, the lowest population might see about 475 people ish. Where as during the peek mutual hours we could see as many as two thousand and all players could be having a great deal of fun fighting each other. I sail with Tattered Flags, and some of the best pvp we have had has been with good mannered Brits, and French players. With good games tossed back and forth to either side. Laughing about people exploding, or sinking slowly, and generally just having a good time.


TL;DR - Don't be lazy, if you have something to say on the topic please read what I had to say. It is only a page in length. 

[HoneyBaddger]

Wow...there is nothing wrong with the current system . There are more EU players than western players so the server would be conquered within weeks if it were just one server. Get a grip!

[qw569😳]

Online for last 7 days. Each column is 2 hour.

[Drakedge]

Conquered in weeks? Come on now. That would not happen and you know it. If there are more players in the game, there are more defenders. 

[Anolytic]

Don't we have enough duplicate topics by now?

Oh, well.

15 minutes ago, Drakedge said:

Ping is not a big issue due to the nature of the game. People can be very competitive with a 100 - 300 ping. 

It is not only US and European players that matter. Some players in other parts of the world get 1500-3000 ping on the EU server, but acceptable (600 ping) on the US server. Likewise for some players in some parts of the world the EU server gives decent pings, while the Global server gives 1000+ ping. 

When bringing up this concern the response from some of the biggest supporters of one unified PvP-server has been dismissive:

Quote

Then those players are going to have to bite the bullet and not be able to play.

With two servers more players are able to play the game than with just one. That alone should be argument enough for having two servers.

45 minutes ago, Drakedge said:

They unfortunately did not see though that it works both ways. During EU prime time the US nation saw a lot of port battles while the majority of its player base were at work, unable to get into the game. That's truly no different from EU players being asleep. Top that off though with the fact that even in the US nation we had a lot of German, and UK players playing with us as well. Which was a lot of fun.

First: During that time US was allied with the two largest EU timezone nations. Second: That is why it was suggested to have two servers with different time-restrictions, one for US/SEA, and one for EU.

57 minutes ago, Drakedge said:

So... What I am getting at is, why not merge the servers again. Please, for the sake of increasing the population and increasing the pvp and conquests going on. With the new pvp token and conquest token system it is only hurting players not to be able to find regular fights.

You would not be increasing the population. A lot of the players who left the game because of night-flips came back to the EU server after the wipe.

[van der Clam]

Being a US player who sometimes plays on the Euro server, I can attest that the 300 ping is not my issue. If it is running smoothly on that day, indeed I can be competitive. However, most days, I experience massive lag spikes during medium to large battles: up to 22,000 for about 30 seconds. When this happens, I am screwing up my mates in battle and I am a sitting target that once the spike drops, I am nearly dead. That is absolutely no fun, and I would not play the game any more if the server were located in Europe.

[Drakedge]

Again comes the argument about time zone flips, and again it is ignored that it worked both ways. I could see the argument about the ping for oceanic players. The problem is that the population of the game is not so large as to be able to support two servers of pvp. 

This would be a wholistically different argument if the "global" server were seeing the same populations as the EU server. Trouble is though it is not. Yet everything still costs the same as on the EU server. Where as on EU you could see enough pvp in a day to snag up 10 - 30 pvp marks, in the global server you would be lucky to claim 1 - 3 in the same length of time.

[Young]

Or we can all just wait for sea trails legends whatever its going to be called and not bother with the RVR nonsense or "night flips" as you call it and actually face some players who are looking for some naval action! 

[Anolytic]

43 minutes ago, Drakedge said:

Again comes the argument about time zone flips, and again it is ignored that it worked both ways.

You say in your OP that people should not be lazy and read your whole post. I'd tell you the same thing. Don't be lazy. Read. Your counterpoint about it going both ways was not ignored. I answered it and pointed out why it did not work the same both ways.

43 minutes ago, Drakedge said:

The problem is that the population of the game is not so large as to be able to support two servers of pvp. 

With the Steam Summer sale hopefully both servers will get a boost to population. Especially the Global server.

Edited June 4, 2017 by Anolytic

[Drakedge]

I did in fact read your post. My fellow gamer, and enthusiast for tall ships. It does indeed work both ways. Like I had mentioned in my original post I know of, and even have been, a part of an American time zone community that plays for the other nations. Most recently so being the British, on the new PVP EU.

The argument that we had EU allies is kind of a moot point. There's nothing stopping other nations from forming alliances as well. There's nothing stopping other nations from trying to recruit and encourage people of other time zones to play for them. 

There's nothing stopping other nations and time zoned players from attacking a port during the middle of the work day in American time zones. Simply attacking at noon EST would eliminate most of the working population of the game from the US side of the house.

It's foolish not to have both communities together, and it is not like that in any other conquest style mmo.

Do you think the players of WWII OL complained constantly about "night flips" and so forth? Yeah, they did, on both sides of the spectrum. They still didn't want to separate the player base. Same thing with EVE, and planet side 2. There's no reason, when the maximum population of a game is seeing numbers of like 1000 people that the game should be split. 

Yes, I know, 1200 people on EU during prime time weekends and sometimes weekdays, but the average would the servers be merged would be more like 600 - 900 people.

[Kloothommel]

But this is not WWII online or EVE.

[Drakedge]

1 minute ago, Cornelis Tromp said:

But this is not WWII online or EVE.

*slow claps*

I never noticed.

The games work the same way. It is a fight for territory.

[HoneyBaddger]

America first

[Kloothommel]

2 minutes ago, Drakedge said:

*slow claps*

I never noticed.

The games work the same way. It is a fight for territory.

And these are not WWII online players on PVP EU. mindsets are different and are hard to unite on 1 server.

[Yar Matey]

2 hours ago, Drakedge said:

There's no reason for the community to be split in two anymore. Period. 

I respectfully disagree 100%.  To understand why, you must go back in time to when the new hostility system was first implemented.  There were nations scheduling port battles in off times for players to which players on the other side of the world had to stay up late at night to defend their ports, and thus the night flip drama began!  It started out with lots of drama in National news, but it blew up into a huge debate between the pro lockout timer camp and the anti lockout timer camp.  Thus, @admin created a poll which you can see linked below.  From this, you can see lots of QQ and drama as the player-base was split down the middle 48% to 51%.  Thus, I came up with the idea to have 2 seperate servers, one server where their were no restrictions.  The devs liked my solution and thus, that is why we have 2 servers 1 global and 1 EU, of which I now play on Global after switching to the EU.  I switched to EU, because the player-base dropped off significantly after the implementation of the lockout system for port battles which made it impossible for some USA and Pacific players to even enjoy the PvP content of port battles on the old PvP2 USA server.

I encourage you to take the time to read through the thread to see why the 2 server solution is an absolutely must have solution.  

 

Edited June 4, 2017 by Yar Matey

[Drakedge]

The only argument that the EU folks are truly making is the time that the US players would make port battles. Which, again, is a moot point that goes literally both ways. 

[Drakedge]

2 minutes ago, Yar Matey said:

I respectfully disagree 100%.  To understand why, you must go back to when the new hostility system was first implemented.  There were nations scheduling port battles in off times for players to which players on the other side of the world had to stay up late at night to defend their ports, and thus the night flip drama began!  It started out with lots of drama in National news, but it blew up into a huge debate between the pro lockout timer camp and the anti lockout timer camp.  Thus, @admin created a poll which you can see linked below.  From this, you can see lots of QQ and drama as the player-base was split down the middle 48% to 51%.  Thus, I came up with the idea to have 2 seperate servers, one server where their were no restrictions.  The devs liked my solution and thus, that is why we have 2 servers 1 global and 1 EU, of which I now play on Global after switching to the EU.  I switched to EU, because the player-base dropped off significantly after the implementation of the lockout system for port battles which made it impossible for some USA and Pacific players to even enjoy the PvP content of port battles.  

I encourage you to take the time to read through the thread to see why the 2 server solution is an absolutely must have solution.  

 

Again and again, there were plenty of times where the EU would attack US ports at our 9 AM on a monday, or Tuesday. That is 6 AM western time, and 9 AM EST. The EST folks would be at work, and the PST folks would be asleep, or getting ready for work and not have time for a port battle. 

It is NO DIFFERENT than the late, to middle of the night for EU. I don't understand how people somehow think that when half of a country is asleep and another half of the country is at work that somehow is not the same as it being late night EU time. This is a fool hardy argument, and the only one that continues to come up to justify the split of the player base.

Why don't the EU players want more people to play the game with? Why is that a bad thing? Get over it, fight the battles, fight back, make allies, and recruit, just as we did before the wipe.

It goes both ways, and always has.

Edited June 4, 2017 by Drakedge

[Yar Matey]

As long as the player-base is split between having lockout timers and not, the 2 server solution is the only option we have.  I will not go back to the EU server with lockout timers, because it was extremely inconvenient for me and many others who missed out on lots of port battles.  

I want a no restrictions server, and 51% of the people who voted in that pole thread I just linked to you agree with me.

[Rhodry Heidenrich]

This poor, poor horse. No peaceful eternal rest for it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[OneEyedSnake]

As you can see at OP, anyone not on Global does not want such a hardcore game, they hate the idea of nightflips, that's their main issue. They don't care if there would be defenders on their side or not (all of them say there won't be and they will all go a different nation, funny how that nation is the same nation someone else said they would go to isn't it?) but anyways, it's clear a majority of players don't want this implemented, a bummer in my opinion, but that's alright, if that makes the game better they were right. If the population declines due to not enough people on global and then don't go to EU because PB timer, then we were right.

[ajffighter86]

I do not think it has been long enough since the wipe for all these theories to have been properly tested.

I live on the east coast USA and I play on the EU server, largely because I am curious to see if there is any real difference with the time frame limitations, or if there was simply a lack of interest in PB's or unwillingness to participate.

The EU server set-up now allows for no-excuses for getting your teeth kicked in. I want to see if it makes a difference. One should not kill the lab rat so early in the experiment, which I've seen happen during this game's development, many times. It's barely been a week since the wipe and I beg the developers not to make rushed changes unless something is utterly game-breaking.

I also do not understand the animosity between the two servers. Players are going to choose which server to stay on based on their preferences. There is no need for Global to harass EU or EU to harass Global.

Time zones are going to be an issue so long as the sun revolves around the earth and ships fall off the edges of the world. I never felt like anyone is 'out to get the other guy' by fighting while they are awake. That's just the way it is, and quite reasonable at that. I do most things when I am awake. I've always assumed that was normal behavior.

So now we have a server with restrictions and one without. Let's just see what happens.

Edited June 4, 2017 by ajffighter86

[Anolytic]

41 minutes ago, Drakedge said:

It does indeed work both ways. Like I had mentioned in my original post I know of, and even have been, a part of an American time zone community that plays for the other nations. Most recently so being the British, on the new PVP EU.

By "the other nations" you mean Britain, the absolutely largest nation in the game. Your statement proves absolutely nothing. It is well known that Britain has always had full timezone coverage. They have a history that draws players from all around the globe. We play a game with historical nations, flags and names. Danmark and Sweden are not going to attract as many new players as Britain, and among US players this problem is magnified. My clan recruited several US players, but never enough for a critical mass or to have a US timezone(s) PB fleet. And you ignore the fact that only a percentage of players are interested in PBs. So 25 US players does not mean having consistently 25 players for PBs in US timezone. Most US players wanting to do RvR choose either US, British or Pirate nations. They probably can't even place tiny Danmark or Sweden on a map.

42 minutes ago, Drakedge said:

The argument that we had EU allies is kind of a moot point. There's nothing stopping other nations from forming alliances as well. There's nothing stopping other nations from trying to recruit and encourage people of other time zones to play for them. 

Alliances were determined by the 2 largest nations grouping together to give themselves the most possible safety. Also add US to that, because birds of a feather flock together. This is how it goes every time, on both the EU and US server.

The remaining nations were pressed together into an alliance simply to survive. You seem to be under the delusion that alliance partners are chosen. That is only true if you are the biggest nation that every other nation wants to ally with in order not to be the one to get eaten. 

3 hours ago, Drakedge said:

It's foolish not to have both communities together, and it is not like that in any other conquest style mmo.

No. By separating the communities, both communities will be stronger.

 

[Drakedge]

Okay in one paragraph you contradict yourself. You say both that Americans' are a problem for denmark and swedish port battle timers, and then you say we are unable to locate the territory on the map. You see the problem with that statement right? How and why would a nation that supposedly can't look at a map be a threat to your nation?

The excuse is a weak one, a very very very weak one. "awh, we don't want more battles and pvp because gosh darn it there could be battles at night!" 

Why does it hurt the game to have more people playing it. Also if there were other good reasons not to bring the very small player base together beside this port battle complaint then maybe it would be worth listening to. Yet it is the only excuse that keeps popping up. 

There's a plethora of games that have global pvp, and some of those games require a greater ping connection and yet there's no issue with global connectivity to those games. 

The excuse is sad, and it's akin to yall asking for your own bathtub to play with your rubber duckies because you don't want to add bubbles to your bath.

[Kloothommel]

1 minute ago, Drakedge said:

Okay in one paragraph you contradict yourself. You say both that Americans' are a problem for denmark and swedish port battle timers, and then you say we are unable to locate the territory on the map. You see the problem with that statement right? How and why would a nation that supposedly can't look at a map be a threat to your nation?

The excuse is a weak one, a very very very weak one. "awh, we don't want more battles and pvp because gosh darn it there could be battles at night!" 

Why does it hurt the game to have more people playing it. Also if there were other good reasons not to bring the very small player base together beside this port battle complaint then maybe it would be worth listening to. Yet it is the only excuse that keeps popping up. 

There's a plethora of games that have global pvp, and some of those games require a greater ping connection and yet there's no issue with global connectivity to those games. 

The excuse is sad, and it's akin to yall asking for your own bathtub to play with your rubber duckies because you don't want to add bubbles to your bath.

What I see here is nitpicking. The nation of Denmark is alien to the average US player, so he wouldn't pick the nation to play in a game when he can choose Brits, US or Pirates. Same reason why we don't get a regular influx from that half of the world. Denmark and Sweden don't have the movie/book popularity boost that US/Brit/Pirates have. Simple as that. John Doe NA player won't pick Denmark or Sweden. Period.

[Drakedge]

Just now, Cornelis Tromp said:

What I see here is nitpicking. The nation of Denmark is alien to the average US player, so he wouldn't pick the nation to play in a game when he can choose Brits, US or Pirates. Same reason why we don't get a regular influx from that half of the world. Denmark and Sweden don't have the movie/book popularity boost that US/Brit/Pirates have. Simple as that. John Doe NA player won't pick Denmark or Sweden. Period.

And considering the distance of Denmark and Sweden from the three nations you just mentioned, Denmark is also on the least threat level from the US player base, so again, no problems seen.