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

[EL LOCO]

12 hours ago, mikawa said:

I proposed this already earlier. Let new players start as neutral, not attackable by national players and let them sail trade and gain xp by missions. When they have settled in, and wanna have some outposts & shipyard then they must decicde for one specific nation where they stay. Beforehand they can easily scan the map, sail out to all capitals and then stay where they want to. National player can advertise their nation in neutral chat. "Hey newbie, wanna join the swedes? We are nice small nation around gustavia and we help all new players. Been to gustavia already? Just visit us and see ......." Very easy and very promising I think

Good idea.  That will be the Danes , Swedes and Dutch.   All neutrals back then and should be now in game.  

[Hethwill]

5 hours ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

This wouldn't be good cause it can be abused by folks with alts that keep a low level to haul every thing.

Given it was just a thought it can be easily dismissed. Although that's pretty much how Elite does it The captain actions define its allegiance and even make way to carve their own little faction within a power, but is a different beast all together.

Same way I do play open pvp environment ( in all games ) and I have no idea why is this even brought up, has no relevance to the discussion about entry level or conditions for a newcomers.

Yes, everything is abused by folk that do not care about the game and only about "da game". Let's be honest, the same exact thing is done today, everyday, just by other means. 

 

[Hawkwood]

On 9.8.2017 at 3:51 PM, Christendom said:

@admin The size and scope of this game is too large for it's current population levels.  These numbers are very similar to what you had before the wipe, this is the size of your testing base.  It's not gonna get better until drastic changes to the game take place. 

What needs to be done in the meantime:

- merge the servers.  more players = more content.
- Map is too large for so few players.  Merge in PVE and make a "Neutral area" as you discussed months ago.
- Too many nations.  this player base, split between 2 servers....cannot field enough players in all 8 of the nations to make them viable.  Some need to be cut or removed until launch.
- Raids OR something new.  We need something new to do that isn't a rehash of the same old stuff.  Desperately.

You still do not understand that the EU players don`t want merge as long the RVR mechanics aren`t fixed.

Not the governors nor the timers are the solution for now.

Live with that.

[Quineloe]

9 hours ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

No xp for damage was taken out cause of folks exploiting it with alts.

I thought they just banned the people who did this.  So we sacrificed the game because cheaters aren't getting banned anymore?

[Archaos]

11 minutes ago, Quineloe said:

I thought they just banned the people who did this.  So we sacrificed the game because cheaters aren't getting banned anymore?

I guess the problem is proving that people have cheated. XP would not be so much of an issue but gold farming would be. I dont think they have the manpower to investigate the number of cases that would arise.

[Quineloe]

As I said.. it worked for over a year... and now we had one one of the best features removed from the game because of a problem that most likely wasn't even as big as people made it out to be.

[Hodo]

12 hours ago, Rhodry Heidenrich said:

I think the ship Kanay is talking about is the "Pirate Frigate", which for some reason has different XP requirements to unlock upgrade slots than the standard Frigate. As for what makes the Pirate Frigate better than the Frigate in combat, can't say. Is it the increased crew count? Does it still have its built in boarding bonus?  Don't know much about that particular ship since the last time I sailed one was probably 8 months ago. 

 

Actually Kanay is talking about the pirate frigate vs the Essex.  The Essex has a higher BR, but is worse in EVERY aspect than the Pirate Frigate currently.   Thus making the Pirate Frigate OP vs the now useless Essex.

 

[Koltes]

Just now, Hodo said:

Actually Kanay is talking about the pirate frigate vs the Essex.  The Essex has a higher BR, but is worse in EVERY aspect than the Pirate Frigate currently.   Thus making the Pirate Frigate OP vs the now useless Essex.

 

Whatever. The point is nationals have pretty good access to P.Frig and even if they dont, not many pirates sail one because its a crap ship for solo hunting. In the fleet it just dont matter. But to say nationals in disadvantage because they have to get p.frig some mysterious ways and that's why pirates are OP is just hilarious 

[Hodo]

10 hours ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

 

Since your not a Pirate I'll let you know we have not crushed little clans to make them do our will.  The only clan BLACK has crushed was HELL and since most of the suspected members ran off to join TF in US and than follow them to GB  our suspesion of them being US/GB spy's alts was prob true.  Even than when they attacked a none clan trader the rest of the nation jumped in and KOS any members that stayed around until they left the clan (many did the first hour and are still pirates to this day GS6 was formed by one).  We currently have one pirate that is on nation KOS.  BLACK didn't vote this, this was called up and voted on by all the other clans.  We sat back and let them do this cause we want a healthy nation and you have to let the other clans do things too.  There was no nahs in the Nation chat.  You saw nothing but AYE"s about putting him on perm KOS.  He's giving out info in global chat about our numbers and sitting int he safety of the Green zone in front of the capital so even FFA fights can't be used to stop him.  Though we are hopping enough reports will get his chat privileges removed since he's being an open spy for US/GB.  Again this was a vote by the Pirate Republic on the spot just as a pirate Nation should do and not some silly congress or what ever the other nations big clans have that meet once a week and vote on things.   Pirates has all ways been about doing things on the fly.  Yes my clan plans things out but they never go the way they are plan.  Any one who's served in the military knows the best laid out plans goes out the windows when the first shot is fired.

So before you say some one has done something or another you might want to learn what is actually going on instead of just guessing.

 

Since you dont know what I do in game, let me enlighten you.  I know more than you think, and I may have a pirate.   So dont jump to conclusions.  And for the love of all that is holy stop posting that strawman argument. 

[Hodo]

2 minutes ago, koltes said:

Whatever. The point is nationals have pretty good access to P.Frig and even if they dont, not many pirates sail one because its a crap ship for solo hunting. In the fleet it just dont matter. But to say nationals in disadvantage because they have to get p.frig some mysterious ways and that's why pirates are OP is just hilarious 

I dont sail it because I refuse to sail ships that never sailed in the Caribbean like that Russian fantasy boat.

Edited August 11, 2017 by Hodo

[Quineloe]

5 minutes ago, koltes said:

Whatever. The point is nationals have pretty good access to P.Frig and even if they dont, not many pirates sail one because its a crap ship for solo hunting. In the fleet it just dont matter. But to say nationals in disadvantage because they have to get p.frig some mysterious ways and that's why pirates are OP is just hilarious 

When crossteaming is standard, legit players are irrelevant. Where do nationals have access to the pfrig? We can't get the permit, we can't get the blueprint, the ship is not generated in the shop.  Pirates sure as hell aren't selling them in free towns to us.

[Zoky]

18 hours ago, Hodo said:

On 8/11/2017 at 1:56 AM, Rhodry Heidenrich said:

 

Actually Kanay is talking about the pirate frigate vs the Essex.  The Essex has a higher BR, but is worse in EVERY aspect than the Pirate Frigate currently.   Thus making the Pirate Frigate OP vs the now useless Essex.

Every ship is better then essex in solo OW PvP, so then every ship is OP 

Essexs has better firepower, speed, sail strength and more crew then pirate frig

Essex has same armor as pirate frig and same sailing profile

Essex has worse turning rate then pirate frig and has no chasers (pirate frig has only 2 bow chasers and no stern chasers either)

In conclusion essex is great support ship and not solo hunter

Edited August 12, 2017 by Zoky

[Hodo]

5 hours ago, Zoky said:

Every ship is better then essex in solo OW PvP, so then every ship is OP 

Essexs has better firepower, speed, sail strength and more crew then pirate frig

Essex has same armor as pirate frig and same sailing profile

Essex has worse turning rate then pirate frig and has no chasers (pirate frig has only 2 bow chasers and no stern chasers either)

In conclusion essex is great support ship and not solo hunter

It HAD the same sailing profile... before 10.0 patch.  It has been nerfed since then.  It now comes to a stop if you sail it ANYWHERE past 60deg to the wind.  

Seeing as the P-Frigate has roughly the same firepower (broadside weight) and a boarding bonus.  Why choose the Essex over the P-Frigate?

[Zoky]

2 hours ago, Hodo said:

Why choose the Essex over the P-Frigate?

For PvP there is no point in picking Essex over P frig, but for PvE there is no point of picking P frig over Essex. And I think someone said that boarding bonus is gone. Similar i will never use belle poule for  PvP over surp but then again for PvE belle poule all the way 

[Hodo]

5 minutes ago, Zoky said:

For PvP there is no point in picking Essex over P frig, but for PvE there is no point of picking P frig over Essex. And I think someone said that boarding bonus is gone. Similar i will never use belle poule for  PvP over surp but then again for PvE belle poule all the way 

I would use the Belle over the Surprise in PVP.. the Belle is tougher and its masts aren't match sticks.

 

[sounthernrebel78]

National unity is a joke. There is no national unity in some nations as it stands. Nations should be removed and make this  clan v clan. Making it where only clans can PVP and War Companies the alliance system. This would be the simplest thing and would allow people to do PVE safely removing the need for a PVE server. Population rises and there is now no concern with one nation become more powerful then another.  If a clan or War Company becomes to strong people of the server can ban together more easily to fight larger powers. 

I believe this will create more excitement with in the game which in turn will boost server population and bring new players to the game. That is the goal in these changes anyway. 

[Kanay]

It ain't about one ship being better for pvp and the other for pve or support, not that it matters since pirate frigate is better in absolutely all domains anyways, including PVE, frigate due to his superior maneuverability is a lot more efficient in pve too, you deal with your targets faster and easier than with the essex, it ain't about the possibility for Nationals to also have the BP & permit, and thanks for confirming that this isn't a problem, either for pirates or Nationals, just another masquerade from the Dev's so no need to bring this point when you speak about pirates disadvantages, what it is about the difference of treatment the dev's do when it comes to pirates and things related to them.

Both ships were extremely similar before in terms of sailing performances or firepower, the pirate frigate getting chasers and better hp and only one less gun per side, but one was nerfed hard, turning it into a complete turd if it have to go or turn against the wind, yet this one ends up with a way superior battle rating and requires way more xp for slots, 45300xp vs 30150xp while being turned into a pile of crap... Same thickness on both ships, getting a bit more HP, way better flat turn rate and on top of this able to tack against the wind perfectly and keeping high speed doing this when the other almost stops and become a sitting duck, boarding bonus vs "get boarded bonus" for the other if it tries to turn against the wind, better speed, one less gun per side but having chasers, 300 crew vs 315 but one needing 110 on sails vs 130 for the other ....how does that compute for you ? Why the pirate ship is so advantaged ?... Especially when Dev's love the balance things out nerfing/buffing some ships stats...

Green on green is currently an advantage, and while i would love to have it possible to put a few obvious spies on my Nation in battles, even if i don't win them but just make them loose them time and blind for a while, it will turn quickly into a mess for Nations, in the end it's not up to the Nations to play by the same rules as Pirates, it's at Pirates to play by the same rules as Nations since they are nothing more than another Nation in game for now.

Unless 2 full fleets meet each other at or almost the same time the outlaw battle is a great advantage, if a full fleet start an outlaw battle there is no way you can catch them once they start to sail away the time to reunite a fleet able to fight them, jumping in quick enough to catch them if you have only 10-15 ships is doing a collective suicide nothing else, you need to first reunite a fleet that will stand a chance against a full enemies fleet... Not to say that this can also be planned and launched just a few minutes before the server maintenance and give a free ticket to hide for hours, even if a full fleet jumps in at the same time, once server stops for a restart all is over and you can hide there unti lyou decide to log back in all at the same time... Nobody else can do this that easy. If Nationals want to do it easy as pirates do it, where they want, when they want, they need to use an alt ... and if they do the alt will get banned for this unfair use of game mechanics, again how do this compute for you ??

I don't know why you even start to speak of wars or loosing a war and such... I am not referring to wars or Nations current or past situations, it's a global statement, i didn't participated in PB's since wipe anyways ( beside once buying quickly a NPC frigate to be able to try help in screening since i had no ships at all stored nearby or could sail or tp a ship in time ), I'm not involved in politics or decisions or councils or whatever, and not sailing Sol's anymore anyways, limiting myself to 5th's that i enjoy the most and probably won't craft me any SOL in the long term even if i can make me one in a blink having all necessary things to do it. Seriously what war there is when many players disgusted just leave/left the game or don't show up anyways ? The pop numbers dropped down to ridiculous levels, many left disgusted by many aspects of the game or difference of treatments made by the dev's,  what war there is when i go to the server, see barely 100 players on-line and personally know 2 of them having numerous alts that account for 13% of the online players ?  Or when a guy at the same time on global chat claims " I am 8 of the 98" ( 98 players online ). I don't see a war there, just an empty world with very low players numbers and a large percentage of those being alts...

You can call me idiot if it pleases you i don't mind, i might also return you that you are just an hypocrite defending your advantages, like i said earlier pirates are only one Nation in the middle of others, nothing more, same rights and possibilities as others (since BP's and permits are easier and less risky to get than just a few logs of rare wood for a low class ship), so they need to play by the exact same rules as others or preferably and like announced and promised many times become something totally different than the Nations, pirates able to do conquests makes no sense anyways.

In the end the server is empty, just a few players and them numerous alts, many guys left disgusted by the allowed mechanics for some that will be banned for others if they use an alto to get the same exact possibilities, many don't bother anymore with the game as they lost faith in it and his development path, lost faith in the possibility to see it end up in something decent, enjoyable & entertaining to play, from trading, crafting, conquests, pvp aspects...Myself i logged in probably less than 30mn in the last 3 days to finish a few trading trips and check a couple of running contracts only, friends list remain almost empty each time i go in game since a few weeks when those guys used to be hardcore players spending them days in game... I will wait a bit, probably try the conquests changes patch ( if it happens)  and then take another year break from this game after 2855 hours spent waiting for something different than it is now, I'll check back when dev's will finally have made them mind about the direction this game have to take and be released, for now it's ping pong, do - undo- do again, not release promised things, go further away from the historical and hardcore game they claimed so many times ... Took years and dozen of posts in the forums but at least maybe this time they realized that they need to at least seriously protect capitals areas  ... It's something i guess even if AI will not prevent anything, exactly like in the past ... Anyways i will just stop to bother with this game and loose my time with something that have not progressed in more than one year, came back since barely 2 months and in the end it seems that at contrary it had gone backwards in some aspects, like conquests that were going too fast for the Dev's and many players and changed so they go even faster now with up to 7 cities able to flip with a little pve grind and one single PB won, that's the kind of "fixes" that leaves me extremely perplex about this game future...

Now if you allow me i will go download something more interesting to spend my free time until some changes are done, if something change,  will do like many others done before me and were smart enough to not pursue until hitting a wall head first,  I'll probably come back check forums once a week or so, there is a lot of things more entertaining to do than play something broken or play in unfair conditions when some get advantages/features other don't get.

Edited August 13, 2017 by Kanay

[C R E W]

DEVS...CHECK THIS OUT..THIS GUY HAS SOME REALLY GOOD IDEAS

 

[C R E W]

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Posted 58 minutes ago (edited)

the discussion has gone on for a couple years now. The balance of pve and pvp. The options for pvp and pve for players.

If its possible here is my proposed solution

Keeping the current Caribbean map and its ports. No more regions, all ports solo , each one needing to be captured. The map becomes lawless, all out pvp between players. Ports no longer belong to the NPC countries, they are taken over by players, controlled by players, governed by players, joined into player empires BY PLAYERS. Wars fought over them by players. Taxes and shipping tarifs decided by players governing the ports. I think you get the idea, that the current map would be one big player sandbox. Player clans with their own colors taking the ports, NPC nations are gone from this map.

The second map would be a brand new map of europe. The ports of this new map would be owned and always controlled by NPC nations. That means players do not change their ownership there are no wars over those ports they are always NPC ports, stable and without player wars. yes there could be piracy but that would be limited because NPC nations would have defensive ships that protect traders and attack pirates. This european map would be the new high security NOT PVE, just high security map. Its not a PVE map because there is still a small chance for pvp but its greatly limited. this map will not only be a historic breath of fresh air, something new to sail around, trade, gain marginal profits etc. It will be the map where carebears and PVE players can enjoy relative safety to just play the game , trade, craft and not worry so much about losing ports or their stuff. This would also be the map where players who lose at pvp can fall back and rebuild, regroup and replan a pvp strategy then sail their new fleets to try and start a new empire in the Caribbean.

These two maps would be joined via Trade Wind spots . Lets say there are four trade wind spots on the edge of each map marking the entry to the atlantic ocean. Players go to these spots then are teleported to the new map.

These trade wind spots will likely have player pirates lurking looking for easy prey, they may also be a place for players to camp and invite all kinds of pvp battles, like a pvp gathering hole. Players just wishing to cross the Atlantic may need to scout ahead, they may need to form large escort fleets to reach the Caribbean. To balance things i would say the trade wind spots on the europe side would be patrolled by NPC ships that way that side is at least "safer" to allow players to at least scout and have a fighting chance to get back to europe safely. The Caribbean side would be anything goes pvp. Also to allow those players who have lost everything in the Caribbean a way to get back to europe you could allow for trade ship passage so you can just teleport from Caribbean with just you, no ships, to a europe port so you can just start over. Yes on the europe map you could serve under npc nations and MOST IMPORTANTLY there are no wars between NPC that way there is no forced pvp between players on the european map.

 

For a ship based sandbox MMO to survive it needs to give players options for play style. The current one map, everyone forced into npc nations total war is failing because the winners cascade steam roll, the losers have almost no options to regroup and carebear players are stuck in the middle and everyone is frustrated in the long run. The devs are pulling their hair out trying to balance it all and they will never balance it out in the current format.

Try my ideas above it may help this game long term?

Edited 56 minutes ago by Rebel Witch

[Slamz]

On 8/10/2017 at 3:10 PM, Ser_Slack said:

This is also Slamz que to berate these people for not having enough gumption or something.

Do you think lowering ship cost by even 75% would cause more people to PvP?

I don't. It was 80% cheaper in 2016 and servers still died off.

I think the problem is still mainly:
* Tag mechanics encourage "gaming the game". What we need is "WYSIWYG" tagging: if I can't see you when the tag starts because you are invis or in a port then you can't get in. Problem is people get tagged in a WYSIWYG 5v1 and complain that their friends can't come help them. Devs listen to this and change mechanics and all it does is give gankers even easier ways to abuse the system.

* RvR mechanics and the routes to XP do not encourage PvP. People grind and mission outside their capitals (in what should be the "newbie zone") even at max rank, rather than going out and fighting.

It's just not a problem of ship affordability and you can't fix it that way.

It's mechanics, mainly tag abuse that turns people off of the game and XP routes that let people completely avoid RvR/PvP and face almost no risk. (This is why EVE makes you go out into lowsec or nullsec if you want real XP for higher tier ships. Safe zone really only supports basic, newbie tier gameplay.)

Edited August 13, 2017 by Slamz

[Sir Texas Sir]

3 hours ago, Slamz said:

Do you think lowering ship cost by even 75% would cause more people to PvP?

I don't. It was 80% cheaper in 2016 and servers still died off.

I think the problem is still mainly:
* Tag mechanics encourage "gaming the game". What we need is "WYSIWYG" tagging: if I can't see you when the tag starts because you are invis or in a port then you can't get in. Problem is people get tagged in a WYSIWYG 5v1 and complain that their friends can't come help them. Devs listen to this and change mechanics and all it does is give gankers even easier ways to abuse the system.

* RvR mechanics and the routes to XP do not encourage PvP. People grind and mission outside their capitals (in what should be the "newbie zone") even at max rank, rather than going out and fighting.

It's just not a problem of ship affordability and you can't fix it that way.

It's mechanics, mainly tag abuse that turns people off of the game and XP routes that let people completely avoid RvR/PvP and face almost no risk. (This is why EVE makes you go out into lowsec or nullsec if you want real XP for higher tier ships. Safe zone really only supports basic, newbie tier gameplay.)

And you forget the main reason folks don't PvP.....just they refuse to fight unless they have winning odds.   Some folks won't risk pixels unless they have winning odds.  It's the reason when we had all them empty port battles with Spain you say some 50-70 guys show up to fight to get into the port battle and get a slot and the conquest marks, but when you actually had to fight that number dropped big time and when they actually started to loose a lot of ships it dropped even more.

They helped this problem a bit when the conquest mark was only rewarded for those that showed up to the fight, but the problem is they didn't have the active player base enough to keep those fights up.  People lost interest cause you didn't get rewarded by proper screening or bad BR mechanics keep you out of the fight.  I would love to see that system now that the BR mechanics is fixed, but human nation is never going to change when you have folks not willing to fight or risk anything.  Some of the other issues as stated many times is the Risk for Reward.  It's currently not High Risk get High Reward.  I can get more rewards by being lazy and grinding AI fleets and that is a problem with the system.  

[Baptiste Gallouédec]

Ok: my view on conquest as I explain on the french subforum.

 

1-capital protection is applied to the whole capital region waters instead of the ring around the nation capital port. 

 Battles in capital region waters stays open indefinitely on the nation's side

=> help prevent mission jumping and increase chances for players to be assisted around their capital. (No ai reenforcement)

 

2- clan leader have the option to build an headquarter to get acces to rvr

headquarter is used to buy two type of conquest flags: landing operation and naval battle (explained on chapter3) and buy defensive flags.

An rvr clan can also define a diplomat and offer 2 alliances max to other clans: one of them must be of the same nation, the other can be from any nation. This only affect to port battles entrance.

 

3- flags

Flags cost war supplies and must target a specific port. A clan can activate only one flag at a time.

when a flag is set, the defending side is noticed via pop up + mail so it can prepare the defense.

defending side can buy a defensive flag for the port for free. Then, up to two allied rvr clans can buy one too to assist the former defender  ( attacker can be assisted in a same way)

 

4- rvr battles

Flag is an item

The flag carrier is listed as admiral, this allow him to create a port battle group and invite up to 25 clanmates. 

 

• landing operation flag must be brought to the targeted port

Once placed, both sides have 24h to bring any quantity of war supplies. If defender don t bring any, it s the stock already present on port that is taken in account. War supplies define the number of troops and guns for each side of the siege

After this delay, each admiral have the option everyday to set a command for his land troops ala Rock Paper Scissors ( entrenching/ mines/ artillery fire/ assault) Resolution of each day of fight is solved during maintenance.

Troops must be supplied with provisions to continue the fight. They consume provisions each days depending on their numbers.

if a party loose by the lack of supplies or have no more troop able to fight due to combat losses, the port battle is lost.

=> economic war if a clan lack a powerful pb fleet

=> ship movements around targeted ports and increased potential ow pvp against cargo fleets bringing supplies then provisions.

=> open the possibility for merge with global server as those battles allow for contests between clans not playing on the same time zone.

 

• The naval battle flag open for a port battle like we have now after a 22h delay during the time window if set by the defender.

This flag allow the bearer to group up to 25 clans mates in a limit of 25 slots.

Depending on the pb category (shallow, 4th or lineship) each ship model count for one slot or more (for exemple in a lineship port battle, agga count for 1 slot, bello 1.5, pavel2, bucc 2.5, victory 3 and santi 3.5. While in 4th, agga could count for 3, indef 2.5, trinco 2, surprise 1.5, cerb 1) pure exemples values.

The admiral ship (flag bearer) enter the pb with all his group, after that, one or two allied admirals can enter with their groups in the limit of 25 players per sides.

When a naval battle flag offensive or offensive is paid for, only the two rvr clans allied to the bearer can still buy one for this port (if the targeted port is not controlled by their nation) by doing so they don t set a new pb but are allowed to create pbgroups able to join the pb next to their Allie.

=> Naval port battles allow for more ship setup and variety, favoring tactics and less an economic domination tool as we know now, where the one able to produce and gather 25 first rates Rule the pb.

=> mitigate the formation of super clans in nations where one clan regroup the whole rvr players, and favorise working with allied clans

=> assistance in pb from a clan from another nation allow small nation with a smaller player base to remain competitive even in lineship pb. Same for the slots limitations.

 

6- Port ownership

When a rvr clan take control of a port, it must build a kind of local warehouse

local warehouse is used to set taxes

The local warehouse consume warsupplies (when the port is not besieged). if there is no war supplies left in the Local warehouse, the clan loose control over the port and it switch to neutral.

 

My original post suggest a few other tweaks, but I think the core idea remain those two port contests format. Others may be a little off topic here.

 

 

Edited August 13, 2017 by Baptiste Gallouédec

[Rhodry Heidenrich]

5 hours ago, Slamz said:

Do you think lowering ship cost by even 75% would cause more people to PvP?

I don't. It was 80% cheaper in 2016 and servers still died off.

I think the problem is still mainly:
* Tag mechanics encourage "gaming the game". What we need is "WYSIWYG" tagging: if I can't see you when the tag starts because you are invis or in a port then you can't get in. Problem is people get tagged in a WYSIWYG 5v1 and complain that their friends can't come help them. Devs listen to this and change mechanics and all it does is give gankers even easier ways to abuse the system.

* RvR mechanics and the routes to XP do not encourage PvP. People grind and mission outside their capitals (in what should be the "newbie zone") even at max rank, rather than going out and fighting.

It's just not a problem of ship affordability and you can't fix it that way.

It's mechanics, mainly tag abuse that turns people off of the game and XP routes that let people completely avoid RvR/PvP and face almost no risk. (This is why EVE makes you go out into lowsec or nullsec if you want real XP for higher tier ships. Safe zone really only supports basic, newbie tier gameplay.)

 

First, there will always be cowards no matter how cheap PvP becomes. That's not really the issue, though.

I noticed the largest drop off in OW PvP when the Fine Wood/Regional Bonus debacle happened. That's when I finally put the game down and took and extended break. People who would normally have fought, were tucking tail and running because the thought of replacing that now expensive 3/5 Meta Ship™ was too much. Meanwhile I was sailing in something cheap to replace, but got few fights anyway. 

A higher cost (be it real or perceived) has an absolute impact on people's willingness to engage in risky play, and PvP is risky play. Even worse when as the game sits right now, the return of investment on PvP can be abysmal.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 14, 2017 by Rhodry Heidenrich

[Slamz]

15 hours ago, Rhodry Heidenrich said:

A higher cost (be it real or perceived) has an absolute impact on people's willingness to engage in risky play

I still disagree -- remember when we could join PvP battles from the port, and they were just little arena fights, and in early 2016 you didn't even lose your ship when you died in there?

People still ran in those battles. In a way it was worse because who wants to spend 30 minutes chasing some guy down for a ship that won't cost him anything when he finally loses? He was basically trolling you.

So I think ship cost is a red herring -- we would have all the same problems even if ships were free. We might actually cause new problems!

[Celtiberofrog]

If this upcoming update is going to enable PB's in every single ports (not only regional capitals),

then it would be great to assignate different maxi BR's for each ports,

this feature would then allow vareity of fleets fighting into ports.

Today we got

Shallow ports ==> 25 Heavy rattles

4th rate ports ==> 25 Agamemnons

line ship ports ==> 25 1rst rates

it's fine but somehow limited compared to the existing ship's vareity.