Preliminary discussion of the changes to conquest - clan wars are coming

[Bach]

@ the admin and OP

I've been weighing a lot of factors before really forming an opinion on this proposed change.  I think it's got some good potential but I also do not think it will generate the desired results of player retention and increase the fun. I'll keep this short.

It does not appear that players actually play the game mostly for RvR. It also does not appear the majority play for PvP.  Both are simply  various things they can do in game. The best way I can describe it is this. After the wipe players filled the seas leveling ship classes, making money and setting new Econ chains and clans. They also RvR and PvP some while the seas were busy with activity. Then, like most MMO's the max leveled their ships, completed their crafting chains and established their clans. Then they started dropping off. Like it or not it isn't the RvR and PvP that attracts them no matter what they say. It's the building of the characters is some strange way. I think you could simply introduce new ships or areas of the map and attract just as many players for just as long as you would making this whole clan war change.  It simply doesn't address the players real concerns. Which appear to be, again like it or not, new content to explore and build.

i think you could get all the good points of the new system by simply:

Letting nations occasionally green on green in some method of temporary civil war.

Taking port conquest back to one port at a time.

Give each nation an uncapturable port near the center of the map.

Continue having the entire starting county uncapturable for each nations new players.

 

 

Edited August 9, 2017 by Bach

[Vernon Merrill]

1 hour ago, Jon Snow lets go said:

Problem is theres only one place to go when you want to find a fight: infront of enemy capital. But there are most new players and casuals.

So there is no option to fight versus other PvP players reliably. This means its boring for PvE guy getting ganked over and over again and boring for the PvP guy because theres no challenge.

I STILL havent havent heard a good answer as to why there should be ANY PvE component to RvR...    The WHOLE point of RvR hostility was to encourage "front lines"...  At least that was my interpretation. 

"War-supply bombs" should NOT be a thing....

Grinding AI fleets should NOT be a thing....

Setting a port battle should be a HUGE national undertaking.  You should have to have a HUMAN presence in that area the VERY SLOWLY increases hostility...

Literally, it should take a week or more of constant enemy activity to attempt to flip a port...

Nations should NOT be able to grind more than ONE region at a time...

There is a contingent of hardcore players that WILL do ANYTHING to change a dot a different color.  Force them to do more than PvE to achieve.

BOTH play-styles can be involved.

If you are going to give giant safe zones where people can farm in peace, then you really, really need to provide a mechanic where people can find combat...

 

<10% play the RvR game, according to your own numbers.  Why are we devoting >90% of the development of the game to it?  

[Vernon Merrill]

1 hour ago, Flinch said:

Players already have escorts with the fleet perk. You can have multiple escorts in fact for dirt cheap. Do you think anyone will catch your trader if those 2-3 mercury in your fleet are set to demast your persuer? 

Easily.

 

[Farrago]

Okay. Let's try this new proposal.

Here is a more general suggestion to @admin and his team. (Perhaps you are already doing this, but if not, it could very well be worth it.)

You need a serious way to get real feedback on why players are buying the game, why they are quitting, or why they are playing less. Steam reviews and this forums posts are only a limited often a skewed view. Take a page from other types of online businesses. They actually ask you about your experiences. They notice if you have not logged in for a while. They know what products you were interested in. They do things to entice you to return. I don't know if you have tools to implement such customer relationship in your current game admin tools or steam tools but you should investigate it. Get some outside help. You'll probably have to pay for it but that might be money well spent instead of trying to guess where to focus your development team next.

A couple of starter ideas...

Prepare a survey. Keep it simple. Contact a few trusted players to get their feedback and suggestions on the survey questions. Once you have a final copy of the questions, don't post the survey here but use a real survey site. Contact the entire list of registered players -- not just forumites -- asking them to complete the survey.

Look for players who haven't logged on in some time (two weeks?) whatever. Contact them and tell them a 200,000 gold redeemable has been placed in their account. Or a Heavy Rattler. Or a mystery chest. They may come back and use it. They may stay. Either way, enticing someone to return is worth that little bit of Econ inflation.

[Christendom]

23 minutes ago, Vernon Merrill said:

I STILL havent havent heard a good answer as to why there should be ANY PvE component to RvR...    The WHOLE point of RvR hostility was to encourage "front lines"...  At least that was my interpretation. 

"War-supply bombs" should NOT be a thing....

Grinding AI fleets should NOT be a thing....

Setting a port battle should be a HUGE national undertaking.  You should have to have a HUMAN presence in that area the VERY SLOWLY increases hostility...

Literally, it should take a week or more of constant enemy activity to attempt to flip a port...

Nations should NOT be able to grind more than ONE region at a time...

There is a contingent of hardcore players that WILL do ANYTHING to change a dot a different color.  Force them to do more than PvE to achieve.

BOTH play-styles can be involved.

If you are going to give giant safe zones where people can farm in peace, then you really, really need to provide a mechanic where people can find combat...

 

<10% play the RvR game, according to your own numbers.  Why are we devoting >90% of the development of the game to it?  

After having let RVR be a secondary priority and not worrying about ports has made the game 10x more enjoyable than it was a month ago.  I'm not convinced an RVR system is really needed to enjoy this game.

Edited August 9, 2017 by Christendom

[jodgi]

3 hours ago, Hodo said:

Sounds like you are giving up on this project with that last part of the statement.  

And NA Legends will be a meh hit at best.  No offense but the current market for instant action games is flooded.  A slow paced age of sail game will be popular for about a month until the next faster paced more exciting less realistic age of sail game comes out.... then the plague of locusts will jump there.  

 

Oh, I'm saving this for later.

Because you know twitch shooters and are usually right, right?

We'll talk about this further down the line.

[z4ys]

2 hours ago, Sven Silberbart said:

Yes. Wee need green zones and a very good reason (money, and/or goods) to sail out.

I remember an online game having a simple idea. Two realms and at the special times an event to craft goods for selling with good profit. That was a real PvP Hotspot. The players organized themself in the green area start sailing their ships towards there. Much fights on the way to and much more fights at the hotspot. If you could craft some valuable goods without get killed start sailing the dangerous way back to home. A simple design as this:

 

 

Whats the difference to the chest event?

[Christoph]

Please delete the pve missions on the pvp server! Its a PvP Server not a PvE Server! 90% of the guys make everyday only PvE! Thats a big problem

[shaeberle84]

8 minutes ago, Christoph said:

Please delete the pve missions on the pvp server! Its a PvP Server not a PvE Server! 90% of the guys make everyday only PvE! Thats a big problem

If you do that the game is dead with 90% of the guys gone you will never find PVP. Do you even listen to yourself?

[The Ghost of Sir Edward]

On 8/7/2017 at 5:31 AM, admin said:

Devil's advocate question

Wont separating cities into capturable and non capturable just create another rookie zone - changing game for everyone but changing nothing in reality? 

Make every port in every region individually capturable. This will spread activity across the chart, but it will also encourage smaller war companies to form and in the long run encourage more PVP across the OW.

[Rhodry Heidenrich]

51 minutes ago, Vernon Merrill said:

I STILL havent havent heard a good answer as to why there should be ANY PvE component to RvR...    The WHOLE point of RvR hostility was to encourage "front lines"...  At least that was my interpretation. 

"War-supply bombs" should NOT be a thing....

Grinding AI fleets should NOT be a thing....

Setting a port battle should be a HUGE national undertaking.  You should have to have a HUMAN presence in that area the VERY SLOWLY increases hostility...

Literally, it should take a week or more of constant enemy activity to attempt to flip a port...

Nations should NOT be able to grind more than ONE region at a time...

There is a contingent of hardcore players that WILL do ANYTHING to change a dot a different color.  Force them to do more than PvE to achieve.

BOTH play-styles can be involved.

If you are going to give giant safe zones where people can farm in peace, then you really, really need to provide a mechanic where people can find combat...

 

<10% play the RvR game, according to your own numbers.  Why are we devoting >90% of the development of the game to it?  

If I could smash the "like" button for this post a thousand times, I would. A man after my own heart. +1000 internet shekkles to you. 

 

Anyway,

 

Server Merge:

I wonder if one of the reasons why admin kind of dodges that issue is because of being concerned with further playerbase fragmentation, bickering and population loss. 

I'm sure a good chunk of the EU players want EU to be the server that both are rolled into, with the PB windows kept intact. Meanwhile, a good chunk of Global wants Global to become the one server with the 24/7 "server that never sleeps" ruleset kept in tact. That's not including the age old "ping/connection/internet" debate being brought up for the umpteenth time. Wonder what kind of player attrition would be caused by a merge right now. No point in having just one server, either if the population further drops to where it only has 250-300 people playing, because the problem of game world size compared to population would still be present. The same issue of finding PvP would remain, which is part of the problem we're having. I could be completely wrong, but it's just a thought. 

 

PvP Rewards and accessibility:

Yes, there need to be better rewards for PvP. I, too, found it annoying to spend an hour in a group battle and barely getting any reward for my time because I did necessary things (keep opponents in Control, help slow them down, block etc. All things that don't rack up damage and earn even the most paltry of rewards). Tying ship blueprints/permits to PvP was a bad idea. Also feel that the current repair system is damaging to PvP. Fights get too drawn out in an unrealistic fashion. Plus there's the cost of repairs, cannons, etc. Sometimes I think the devs went a hair too far in trying to make the game more difficult in the wrong ways. Again, just my own personal thoughts. 

Plus, as someone who mostly finds amusement in Privateering/commerce raiding, I think there need to be better tools for that. I don't necessarily want to deprive someone of their trade ship. I want to cherry pick the cargo for what may be most valuable to me at the time, though sometimes that might be the ship itself. Would be nice to have the choice, and not have everything be about sinking/capturing. Buuuut, that's not really something totally germane to the topic at hand. 

 

Alts and their effect on the game:

Sadly, I think that those who want to find ways to abuse alts are going to find ways to abuse them. I know some groups have their alts in sub clans, so they'll just put those sub clans into their clan "alliance list". Or, they'll just spend the easy-to-get 100k gold to put an alt in a single player clan etc. I do appreciate the fact that admin realizes there's an issue and is trying to find ways to resolve it, though. 

 

 

 

Edited August 9, 2017 by Rhodry Heidenrich

[The Ghost of Sir Edward]

4 hours ago, admin said:

We never said that. This game was N1 top seller on steam for 2 weeks, we sold 130k copies, it is still in the top 200 top played games on Steam today, online is higher than lot of game done by teams with 1000x more budget. Its a super successful project - players just moved on and you want them back. 
And because players moved on the experience deteriorates for average players who become the target all the time (due to lack of targets). 

 

I would disagree with part of this. As it stands now the game is enjoyable during the initial character buildup, but once you have made your first million in gold, built your outpost and associated buildings, and crafted your first major ship the game becomes somewhat boring and a little tedious. Why? because there is nothing to do and there is no reason to do it. If your an individual or you are in a small clan, you have few options to do anything meaningful in game. The larger clans generally don't discuss their plans in national chat, so RVR is difficult to get involved with unless your in the right place at the right time. PVP is hard to find unless your in the center of the map, and for most players that means they are far from home and any support. Trading is repetitive, risky and and can be an enormous time sink with little to do during the long voyages.  Most ports in the game have nothing to offer as far as trade, materials or combat opportunities and the ones that do are usually so infested with enemy players that you must assume you will lose your ships and any cargo you might have. You've focused the game on PVP, but I wonder if the PVP players will ever be satisfied with anything you do. And in the meantime I think you have lost a substantial portion of the game population who might want something more than just PVP. 

[Sven Silberbart]

Today: Online at 8 PM. Like every day read some reports about enemies in our waters. Think about a try to catch them. I knew it wasnt a good idea but i couldnt accept to let them bring trouble into our waters. So build up a group and sail to the first battle. We organised about 10 players build up a trap in the hope it works. Speed Buff and Invis gave the enemies an out of jail card and we canceled. Some other battle started and repeat the same and the same and the same. So we successfully exile some of the enemies but noone were catched ofc. Current Game Mechanic dont allow that. After the we thought about what can we do now? the result:

• Continue to hunt the enemies in our waters: useless
• Start doing missions: too riskful coz of the enemies (mission jumping)
• Start doing trading with 2 players: too riskful coz of the enemies (slow traders)
• Looking for more players to trade with escort: too less players online and long ways to sail at late time
• Start sailing to the enemy waters and hunt there: YES we could, but thats the same bullshit reverse. But the only option we have. (Maybe tomorrow)

In the end we decided to logoff and start looking TV.

 

Edited August 9, 2017 by Sven Silberbart

[Farrago]

3 hours ago, Quineloe said:

What are extremely profitable trading resources? I've spent half an hour looking at numbers in the trader tool this week, and the best I can come up with are like 75k per trip in an LGV. I can make that kind of money in less time by running rank 4 missions.

Who knows which resources the Devs are talking about not do I know which nation and server you play but I've found that one can make 80-100% profit fairly consistently just buying some goods from the nearest freeport to your nation's capitol. Go for less exotic items like olive oils, nuts, wools, grains. Things that aren't as heavy as stuff like historical artifacts. You probably can't plan this with trader tool before your trip because it's updated only once. You have to go there. You also need to fleet up more than one LGV. 

[Quineloe]

@Farrago stop speaking in percentages and start talking in absolute numbers. If I buy stuff for 150k and get 100% profit on that, that is just 150k. That is *not worth* sailing for an hour.

I do three rank 5 missions in that time, get a total of 100k from that, plus 15 combat marks worth another 60k (guaranteed, as that's the buy contracts right now) plus valuable exp on my Fifth rate. Oh, and I am doing this in a remote port with zero risk of getting gonked.

The risk that you get your shit stomped by some enemy player who happens to undock 30 seconds after you with your triple LGV convoy? Massive.

 

Edited August 9, 2017 by Quineloe

[Hodo]

Just now, Quineloe said:

@Farrago stop speaking in percentages and start talking in absolute numbers. If I buy stuff for 150k and get 100% profit on that, that is just 150k. That is *not worth* sailing for an hour.

A man who understands percentages and math.... thank you.  

It drives me nuts when I see people brag about a 150k profit off of a 150k buy and 2 hours sail.

I can make 100k in an hour hunting NPC trade ships in a Snow.

[Helbent]

6 minutes ago, Quineloe said:

@Farrago stop speaking in percentages and start talking in absolute numbers. If I buy stuff for 150k and get 100% profit on that, that is just 150k. That is *not worth* sailing for an hour.

I do three rank 5 missions in that time, get a total of 100k from that, plus 15 combat marks worth another 60k (guaranteed, as that's the buy contracts right now) plus valuable exp on my Fifth rate. Oh, and I am doing this in a remote port with zero risk of getting gonked.

The risk that you get your shit stomped by some enemy player who happens to undock 30 seconds after you with your triple LGV convoy? Massive.

 

My last trip from Willemstad to Christiansted got me about 350k in profit. Shorter trips from say coqui to WS are usually closer to 75-100k but are pretty short trips. I don't disagree that if you can grind max rank missions they will generally net you better returns for the time investment, but I have no trouble making enough profit via trading to make it worthwhile if you can't do max rank missions due to ship or rank.

[Quineloe]

These trade routes would have never worked a year ago with 1300 players online during prime time. I'm pretty sure they're a huge risk during prime time today.  It must be nice to play at 9am.

What ships do you use for that trip? Crafted LGV? capture farmed trader brigs?

Edited August 9, 2017 by Quineloe

[Helbent]

That trip was an Indiaman and a traders brig. I ran into several players on that trip, but with the agreements we had at the time I had no issues. Had to dodge a few Frenchies on the trip home, but made it back without losing anything.

[Prater]

10 hours ago, admin said:

we will just send reinforcement AI captains to the future to get some tips and training from CONCORD 

Yes, make Concord/Coast Guard godlike.  Essentially unkillable, inescapable, unbeatable.

I suggest looking into ways that limit when Concord/Coast Guard joins a battle.  Base it on location and player rank.  If the player getting attacked is above Master and Commander, Concord/Coast Guard doesn't join.  If the attacking player is equal to or lower than the defending player, Concord/Coast Guard doesn't join.  Please have the distance not be that far.  The max it should be is a 50,000 unit radius around the capital (I.e.  Mortimer to Baracoa).

Also, maybe have it be a button, so the player gets the choice to call in Concord/Coast Guard.  Maybe the player wants to fight it out?

Edited August 9, 2017 by Prater

[Quineloe]

here's a thought... wasn't pirates supposed to be the hard choice? What happened to that?

[Hodo]

14 minutes ago, Quineloe said:

here's a thought... wasn't pirates supposed to be the hard choice? What happened to that?

Pirates in game.

Pirates in real life...

Edited August 9, 2017 by Hodo

[AngryPanCake]

6 hours ago, Hodo said:

My suggestions have been made and I will say them again.

PVE server needs to change to a limited server or (starter server).   Where you are limited to rank 4 max, and it is map size of the Bahamas, the old Rookie zone.   Once a player reaches rank 4 they can choose to take a token and go to either Limited RVR server, or the Global server.  They will get a redeemable on creation on the server of their choice for their XP crafting and captain level.    They should also get a redeemable Brig and Trader Brig.   This way they are not starting over in a cutter.   They should also have guns on both.  6lb mediums, 25 hull repairs and 25 rig repairs, and 100 rum.  As a starting package.  

Why would you change or deprive a whole group of players with a completely different play style of their server?

Edited August 9, 2017 by AngryPanCake

[Malachy]

I don't like the way the game is heading. Honestly, I'm going to try it but this idea is probably the final nail in the NA coffin for me. Excluding players from content and allowing other players to determine who gets access to said content is anathema to a good game.

my suggestion is to roll the game back to October 2016, install the new engine, remove 4 nations, and clean up the UI. Release the game and do micro patches to fix bugs. Every single thing you guys have done since then has driven players away and made the game more and more boring.

[Captain Lust]

21 minutes ago, Hodo said:

Pirates in real life...

Sorry, i had to...