Qwolf Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 Great patch! Thank you! But I have one very serious concern: PVP marks. What problem was this change designed to fix? PVP is incredibly risky, time consuming, and keeps players in the open world. In order to get players to take these risks and consume this much time, you need to give the proper incentive. That was happening. Thus those that risked everything (ships, cannons) and spent hours sailing and hunting were justly rewarded with very valuable PVP marks. And there were plenty of pirate types raiding shipping, creating drama, forcing defense parties to be set up, and creating awesome PvP all over the map. Now the only incentive is to grab a mission and grind. Easy marks. No risk. Just grind. If there were complaints that certain ships or modules were unattainable, lower the PVP mark requirements for those items. Traders and PvE players have plenty of money to buy marks or ships from their low risk trading and PvE. PvP players need money to fund their loss of ships, cannons, crew, repairs, and lost time hunting and fighting that they could have spent just trading spanish almonds or seville muskets. In my view, the system was working, why change it so dramatically to discourage PvP? 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armored_Sheep Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 (edited) Thanks devs for this patch! From my point of view the changes may help reduce KPR ganking (less PvP farming of noobs that lowers the playerbase). Also like removing ship grind dependencies. This gameplay lead to PvE and I was not sure if such system can survive also possible wipe. I would have just one more wish - Allow players to tow EMPTY ships again, from outpost to outpost after server maintenance. Is there any weakness in this mechanics that may be exploited? Edited June 21, 2017 by Armored_Sheep Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
znôrt Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 3 hours ago, admin said: Knowledge slots previous ships unlock requirements removed from the game, ships still have knowledge slots and require xp on this ship, but don't have pre-requisites i have a brig for sale. almost new, barely a few scratches! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatSwift Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 can't say i'm liking the removal of pvp marks. not that i have gotten any yet post wipe (i've been ship xp grinding like an idiot, apparently), but i just logged on with this new patch and suddenly everything in the admiralty store is within easy purchase. bow figures are no longer a scarce item rewarded to daring captains; hell i can now buy several without breaking a sweat. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Navalus Magnus Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 @adminAlthough it took quite a while: Thank you for removing that ship xp system!!! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armored_Sheep Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 PvP is still much more rewarding as one gets 4x more combat marks and a chance to aquire a ship without need of spending money on it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xaturas Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 1 minute ago, Armored_Sheep said: PvP is still much more rewarding as one gets 4x more combat marks and a chance to aquire a ship without need of spending money on it. You did get pvp marks only for killing a ship. If nothing changed then people won't even sink the enemy ships. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hullabaloo Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 I have to say I fundamentally disagree with this Marks change: PVP Mark worth 2 Combat Marks!!!! They should be worth 50 at least!!! Probably 100.. Eg. Killing an enemy player surprise v surprise a v difficult and high risk undertaking will net you 6 combat marks! You get 14 for a raider combat mission in an indy which my nan could complete! A 1 hour sail there and back to attack an enemy nation, all the risk involved? you may as well use the time grinding 4 or 5 raider missions in an indy: no risk, 10x the combat marks, tons of gold and high value loot drops! The rewards for PVP and PVE were already imbalanced, now there is no incentive to pvp at all, other than boarding and stealing v expensive ships. If your not in a big clan there is no point pvping other than boarding....travelling over the map is a waste of time (and money) now. There's no point in sinking enemy ships.... only option left is to just grind up slots on a fast ship and then use your easily earned pve combat marks to by all the boarding modules you can fit on and anyone can now afford this. If you want to make upgrades cheap and available to all then ok, but PVE rewards need to be heavily nerfed! as it is, this is just a PVE game now, (with Port Battles for the big clans). As for the ship tree: Well the game is in alpha and the devs have changed there minds, I don't know why, annoying but ok. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pr0zac Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 (edited) I think that u can change PvP Mark system if you regard its needed to. But doing it like this is unfair towards peoples who hav it. Yesterday my pvp marks was worth ca 3200000 today its like 320000 i dnt think its fair... I feel robbed from my time. thanks Edited June 21, 2017 by pr0zac dont want to double posting 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hullabaloo Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 I don't care about the money, we will all lose it anyway and the game is in alpha so they have to try stuff out, it's not about that. But this change has made pvp utterly redundant and that's a BIG problem. I have no incentive to play this game now, this has made the game a boring and pointless PVE grind IMO 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capn Rocko Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 Im glad they changed the PvP marks. It was a good system but was too easily alt farmed and thus punished the honest players. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hodo Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 4 hours ago, MerimAh said: why??? Because people HATED them. @admin Best patch in a while thank you for listening. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snoopy Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 This is the right direction. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikawa Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 The changes all sound meaningful, I am eager to test again ... Thanks alot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ole Pinelle Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 (edited) Thank you for the patch. I think that it is good that you take away the incentive to PvP at all costs, but I would have preferred a little less drastic approach for further testing (that is all we currently do). I am convinced that 95% of all PVP marks now in-game achieved by players were gained by group-ganking or abusing new players unaware of the game mechanics. I would have preferred that PVP marks would remain necessary and attractive, but connected to the BR of the battle and that both sides - winning and loosing - would receive PVP marks, to a given ratio. For high gabs in the BR the attacker receives almost no PvP marks, while the defender receives more f.e. Edited June 21, 2017 by Ole Pinelle 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inkompetent Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 Yessss! Now I finally don't have to play ships I don't want to touch with a 100-foot pole (looking at you, Brig and Cerberus!) just to at all be able to play higher-up ships without being super-suicidal! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hullabaloo Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 14 minutes ago, Ole Pinelle said: Thank you for the patch. I think that it is good that you take away the incentive to PvP at all costs, but I would have preferred a little less drastic approach for further testing (that is all we currently do). I am convinced that 95% of all PVP marks now in-game achieved by players were gained by group-ganking or abusing new players unaware of the game mechanics. I would have preferred that PVP marks would remain necessary and attractive, but connected to the BR of the battle and that both sides - winning and loosing - would receive PVP marks, to a given ratio. For high gabs in the BR the attacker receives almost no PvP marks, while the defender receives more f.e. Not 95% no way, I've killed a few players that in retrospect might not have been v experienced but not so many. It was already the case that there were only so many pvp marks available from any kill, based on the BR of the ship killed (I assume). There was no extra reward for group ganking and most people would not get PVP marks in a group gank. But yes, PVP rewards related to the relative BR would be a good idea, I like that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scout Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 5 hours ago, admin said: Knowledge slots previous ships unlock requirements removed from the game, ships still have knowledge slots and require xp on this ship, but don't have pre-requisites This is a thing you should have in game release when or if all accounts start from 0 xp again. Other than that nice patch looking forward to test it out. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akd Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 (edited) Combination of no signal perk and revenge fleet ganks made unbalanced ganking the most efficient and safe way of gaining PvP marks. The change to combat marks doesn't affect that equation, but just further disincentivizes PvP in general. The longer and more fair a battle is, the more likely the victor is to get stomped on exit. Admin, did you look at value of PvP marks in game before making this change, or was this another knee-jerk stab in the dark? Edited June 21, 2017 by akd 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Texas Sir Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 3 hours ago, Iroquois Confederacy said: What are "Rookie Brigs" and "Rookie Snows"? From my testing just now it's Trader Brigs and Trader Snows. I just had a Rookie Snow and it had 65 crew. Still had the side guns, as nothing fired for or aft, but with the smaller crew. My privateer got pretty beat up by it, but I boarded it and won. Kinda interesting way to add a little change to the low level missions. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yowilly Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 PVP marks had value. PVP marks promoted PVP play. At a 2:1 ratio to combat marks u have devalued PVP. Instead of getting rid of PVP marks u should have made shop items have one currency with an exchange rate where PVP marks had the most value. John Bernard Shaw Cable (GB Global) 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armored_Sheep Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 (edited) Exchange rate between PvE and PvP is good IMHO, otherwise some items in the game were limited to one playstyle only. The rate itself can be tweeked during development. You cannot force players to any certain play style, you will just force them out of the game. Edited June 21, 2017 by Armored_Sheep typo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kanay Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 Was doing a few M&C missions last days and they were a bit too easy, only one ship to fight using the redeem balza made Surprise, unless ending vs a Cerberus that melted the surprise easily if not very cautious most were piece of cake with the only challenge to loot in time the sunk ship. Today after patch i tried 2 M&C missions, first it was 2 mercs, dealt with them without much trouble using double load, then a navy brig + a Cerberus, in the redeem surprise with long guns this turned bad quickly and had to flee. Should get a ship not made of balza soon hopefully but this was surprising. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain corn blower Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 So the PVE marks I have are changed to combat marks? And the contracts i have in ports for more are what ? Gone ? Please clarify this .thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Qwolf Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 (edited) 1 hour ago, Ole Pinelle said: Thank you for the patch. I think that it is good that you take away the incentive to PvP at all costs, but I would have preferred a little less drastic approach for further testing (that is all we currently do). I am convinced that 95% of all PVP marks now in-game achieved by players were gained by group-ganking or abusing new players unaware of the game mechanics. I would have preferred that PVP marks would remain necessary and attractive, but connected to the BR of the battle and that both sides - winning and loosing - would receive PVP marks, to a given ratio. For high gabs in the BR the attacker receives almost no PvP marks, while the defender receives more f.e. Historically, pirates and privateers sought out weak prey and pounced. They weren't looking for fair fights. Sometimes, warship defenders brought the fair fights to them. Sailing a slow trader without escorts in a dangerous area is, well, dangerous. I've mostly been trading, crafting, and occasionally hunting player traders. I've also been attacked and lost ships and cargo when I was sailing trader ships. It was painful, but trading without risk is what the PvE server is for. I've also attacked and sank a trader or too. But I've had plenty of fair and unfair (for me) fights when defenders emerged to defend their traders with combat ships. There is already plenty of incentive to grind meaningless missions and to trade both crafting goods and trade goods. PvP needs to be also incentivized. Traders and crafters that didn't want to fight for PvP marks could simply buy or trade for them with the money and ships they made crafting and trading. I've sold marks at a hefty price to justify all the risk and time taken to acquire those marks. More importantly perhaps, is the fact that missions don't really help the nation v nation effort. PvP does. Taking or sinking ships, taking or sinking cargo, and disrupting ship production was historically a part of war and is an important thing to do in game on behalf of the nation. If you don't reward fighting on behalf of the nation, which is very expensive, time consuming, and risky, players won't do it. Players will hide in far away areas and just grind missions to get gold and drops, or trade lucratively trade good routes safely without any pirates or privateers around to fear. Like all things in life, people respond to incentives. Hard, risky, time consuming things must be rewarding or people won't do them. The developers can get players to do whatever they want by incentivizing the behavior they want to occur. If they want players to avoid PvP and just trade and run missions, this is a step in the right direction. If they want PvP, pirates and privateers, defender fleet responses, cat and mouse sailing, nationally organized efforts to raid and defend shipping, lots of players in the open world, and convoys of escorts and combat ships, this is a big step in the wrong direction. There is nothing wrong with being a trader and crafter. Like I said, I do a lot of that. And the games needs that to happen too. But PvP will not happen unless it is as richly rewarding as the trading/mission side of the game. I'll just run risk free missions and trade Bahamian Rubies or Panamanian jugs or whatever. Because that's what the game is incentivizing. Edit: Example: Several French and Pirate players have been terrorizing trade shipping deep in British waters. Several British players have been disrupting trade shipping in Pirate waters. This is amazing, and in my opinion added so much fun, fear, and risk to the game. Defender fleets were organized to hunt those players. Those pirates/privateers were sailing hours into enemy waters and risking their ships because PvP marks were important. Now, why risk all that? Why waste your time? Stay at home and destroy a few overmatched AI ships and earn more money and marks that way. Edited June 21, 2017 by Qwolf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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