Reinforcements update

[Cmdr RideZ]

1 minute ago, Anne Wildcat said:

I haven't seen @Pagan Pete in ages.

If you are attacked by max X amount of 7th rates none will come to help you

Pirates were sailing mostly 7th rates.  This could encourage pirate like action.

[Archaos]

3 minutes ago, Anne Wildcat said:

But what about those that role play as privateers/trader hunters? Their play style has been killed. I haven't seen @Pagan Pete in ages. With a better UI and more content, the population should raise so traders can find escorts. Add to that coast guard missions to help those under attack. 

Camping outside a capital or a safe zone is not hunting. Hunting is going looking for your prey by working out where they are likely to be travelling. Some hunters do it properly and they are the ones you do not find moaning on the forums, its the campers that complain.

[Archaos]

2 minutes ago, Wraith said:

If you remember, post OW launch this was the easiest way to level and make gold. And subsequently was removed from the game.  How the circle goes round, eh?

Yes I remember being jumped a few times when I used to operate solo around English harbour and quite often they said they would let me escape as long as I called reinforcements for them to farm.

[Sir Texas Sir]

6 minutes ago, Archaos said:

It looks like enemy green zones will be the place to safely carry out AI fleet farming safely now as long as you can get together a fleet of 25. Gather together your fleet of 25 and gank some poor trader in the green zone, he calls reinforcements and hey presto you have your AI fleet to battle and due to the numbers the battle is not open to any other interference.

Now if they will give epic rewards....speakign of which epic missions been a pain to find, they really need a better way to find them...lol

[Guest]

 

36 minutes ago, rediii said:

the need to protect a safezone also creates content.

Lets see though how buffed the ai is

 

29 minutes ago, Cornelius Trash said:

This. 

Every time a change is made favoring the PVp hunters, the population drops, they complain about a lack of targets and leave as well. 

Time will prove me right.

The problem isn't PvP'ing around the capital.. And at the moment it makes no sense to talk about "ganks" - battles inside the safezone is open forever which is a bad idea since the organized teams can easily dispose of the ragtag ganking teams that tries to counter them.. When people talk about ganks - please remember that it is not a gank just because you loose. In a 25v7 it is not the 7 that ganks the 25.. they might be better at PvP, they might be better coordinated and organized and they most definately is in better ships, has better upgrades and better books - but they are not ganking the 25 opponents.

The problem is the exclusivity of some woods, some books, some upgrades and above all the "5/5" ships. They get OP because of the unbalanced upgrades, the max caps that are way too generous and the average casual player don't want to sink endless hours into the game in order to get competitive in PvP.

PvP: players doesn't want to PvP in what they consider inferior ships. No matter how irrational this perception might be. The players want to feel that their ship is at least competitive with anything the opponent might have. This doesn't mean that it can't be different - but the difference has to be a player made choice. Atm the US has no teak - a huge competitive disadvantage to the US.. Do I believe the US would be better if they had teak? Ofc not, but I do believe they would at the very least have a basis to build experience from. Atm they don't learn anything from sailing inferior ships against more experienced opponents with better upgrades that not only tips the battles slightly in favor of the attacker but massively in favor of the attacker.

Trading should be with risk. Trading HAS to be with a risk. RvR is dependant on - gold, upgrades, ships (of the specific woods) and above all else: gold. Trading has to be a viable target in PvP and RvR considerations. Atm trading rewards the trader with about 2-3x the initial investment and the risk is minimal since all trade only converge at the capital and a few select high BR ports in the carribean. This makes the risk only apparent when either traversing a well known route or when sailing to the capital and then only in the few moments before you reach the reinforcementzones. Solution? - remove the reinforcementzones. Either that or make clans able to create trading hubs of their own which would move some of the trading out of the capital zones.

Missions: Missions should simply close instantaneously - and then make two sets of missions, one inside the capital zone wich closes immediately, low rewards (less xp/less gold/no chance of books/no chance of upgrades), and missions that spawn some distance from the port and yields more xp, more gold, bigger chance for books, bigger chance for upgrades. This would make the reinforcementzones unnecessary.

[Christendom]

RIP our already diminished casual player base.  

[Gregory Rainsborough]

The U.S has a teak port.

The only people that don't are GB, Russians, Dutch and the Poles.

Edited April 5, 2018 by Gregory Rainsborough

[Cabral]

1 minute ago, Gregory Rainsborough said:

The U.S has a teak port.

The only people that don't are GB, Russians, Dutch and the Poles.

 Wrong, russians have all rare woods. They even have one that no one else have, bermuda cedar.

[Cecil Selous]

3 minutes ago, Lars Kjaer said:

Missions: Missions should simply close instantaneously - and then make two sets of missions, one inside the capital zone wich closes immediately, low rewards (less xp/less gold/no chance of books/no chance of upgrades), and missions that spawn some distance from the port and yields more xp, more gold, bigger chance for books, bigger chance for upgrades. This would make the reinforcementzones unnecessary.

I could live with that. Not being able to jump a mission isn't a loss imho. Takes nothing crucial away from the game experience.

4 minutes ago, Lars Kjaer said:

Trading should be with risk. Trading HAS to be with a risk. RvR is dependant on - gold, upgrades, ships (of the specific woods) and above all else: gold. Trading has to be a viable target in PvP and RvR considerations. Atm trading rewards the trader with about 2-3x the initial investment and the risk is minimal since all trade only converge at the capital and a few select high BR ports in the carribean. This makes the risk only apparent when either traversing a well known route or when sailing to the capital and then only in the few moments before you reach the reinforcementzones. Solution? - remove the reinforcementzones. Either that or make clans able to create trading hubs of their own which would move some of the trading out of the capital zones.

When we had the option to deliver goods from free towns, those were somehow used as trade hubs. A place where everybody meets to trade. I honestly would like it more if only free towns had safe zones . Let's face it, they allow everyone to dock there no matter who you are because they want the fine tax money. So they should be interested in a non violent behavior in their waters. Else you lose the right to dock there (maybe just make make tagging impossible). The consequence would be safe waters for traders near free ports. But the way to them is still dangerous. But there are plenty of options and routes to reach them. On the other hand, no easy fights anymore right in the vicinity of a free town. Hm, difficult topic.

Capitals can keep their safe zones but I would make them a bit smaller.

[Archaos]

3 minutes ago, Lars Kjaer said:

The problem isn't PvP'ing around the capital.. And at the moment it makes no sense to talk about "ganks" - battles inside the safezone is open forever which is a bad idea since the organized teams can easily dispose of the ragtag ganking teams that tries to counter them.. When people talk about ganks - please remember that it is not a gank just because you loose. In a 25v7 it is not the 7 that ganks the 25.. they might be better at PvP, they might be better coordinated and organized and they most definately is in better ships, has better upgrades and better books - but they are not ganking the 25 opponents.

I am afraid I have to disagree with you on this, just because they are 25 in number it does not mean they were not ganked by 7 people. The 7 knew what they were doing and went to the zone knowing they could possibly face 25 and thus they are prepared for it with the correct ships, all players on TS following orders, kitted out with the right upgrades for the fight, while the 25 team starts off with some poor player who was just out to capture a AI trader in the safe zone, he gets jumped by possibly a couple of the 7 team and calls for help, a few more of the 25 team join thinking they are only facing 2, then the rest of the 7 join. By now there are frantic calls in nation for help and more random people join, they are disorganised, have no leadership, no comms and are in whatever ships they had on hand. By the time half of them join the battle some of the original members are already sunk or so badly damaged that they will escape at the first chance they get. Some of the people joining are even joining in basic cutters even though people trying to organise a defense are telling people in nation not to join in useless ships. The end result can be called nothing other than a gank. 

Every now and again you will get a proper defense organised that can take the attackers on, but you will find that the attackers have come prepared for this and if things start going that way they very quickly run as they have come prepared for that too. 

[Christendom]

One day we'll realize that reinforcement zones aren't the problem and it's really the fact that this game and it's map were designed for a server population of 2000+ players.  We're barely getting by with 600.  OW PVP is going to be difficult to find when you have 600 players on at max diluted into 11 different nations.  

If the game focused on supporting it's casual players and didn't chase them off with hardcore PVP mechanics and a general lack of content, we might actually have more fish in the sea to catch.  BUUUUUUT we keep tailoring this game to please the 100 or so PVP elite that don't actually fight each other and instead just gank up to sink noobs.  

[Cabral]

2 minutes ago, Christendom said:

BUUUUUUT we keep tailoring this game to please the 100 or so PVP elite

 Don't know if there's so many. From 500 players online, one third is alts, if we have 100 pvp elite players it's being optimistic.

[Hači_CZ]

When I started playing in 2016, there were no nonsense zones and there was an alliance between nations. That was much better. I do not understand meaningless zones when we have defense towers. It's just starting out with PvE from this game, everybody just farmers and the economy goes slowly down.

[Thorka]

So many changes! Time will speak about all this.

[admin]

Captains who are upset about 2 buffed first rates not appearing from thin air should just let it go.
We tried no protection and absolute protection and will settle on the best option.
2 rates was an overkill and while we are preparing tutorial patch for release it will be good to tune some numbers that are long overdue. 

There will be no more increases in protection on the Caribbean server in the future. This is a closed door now. 

[HachiRoku]

1 hour ago, victor said:

and not enough players in the PVP server soon. Then you will be wondering why there will be no OS PVP action, and - at least - you will nolonger be able to put the blame on the carebears.

For someone I have never seen playing and for someone I know for a fact only carebears you sure do have an oppinion about stuff you have no idea about. Play more and complain less please. 

[Busterbloodvessel]

3 minutes ago, admin said:

Captains who are upset about 2 buffed first rates not appearing from thin air should just let it go.
We tried no protection and absolute protection and will settle on the best option.
2 rates was an overkill and while we are preparing tutorial patch for release it will be good to tune some numbers that are long overdue. 

There will be no more increases in protection on the Caribbean server in the future. This is a closed door now. 

Hello Kitty everyone !!

Thanks for the money.

Buster (Broke, well maybe not)

 

 

[Archaos]

2 minutes ago, admin said:

Captains who are upset about 2 buffed first rates not appearing from thin air should just let it go.
We tried no protection and absolute protection and will settle on the best option.
2 rates was an overkill and while we are preparing tutorial patch for release it will be good to tune some numbers that are long overdue. 

There will be no more increases in protection on the Caribbean server in the future. This is a closed door now. 

Can you explain what the reasoning is behind having a safe zone? What is it for? What is it supposed to achieve? Who is it supposed to protect?

The reason I ask is that the recent change of RoE in these zones and the current proposal seem to be at odds with things that were expressed when the green zones were first introduced. So maybe clarifying what the green zones are may help us understand where you are coming from.

[Cmdr RideZ]

8 minutes ago, admin said:

There will be no more increases in protection on the Caribbean server in the future. This is a closed door now. 

It is ok.

Remember still that the main question is...

How and when you make the grass greener outside the green zones?

[Christendom]

11 minutes ago, admin said:

Captains who are upset about 2 buffed first rates not appearing from thin air should just let it go.
We tried no protection and absolute protection and will settle on the best option.
2 rates was an overkill and while we are preparing tutorial patch for release it will be good to tune some numbers that are long overdue. 

There will be no more increases in protection on the Caribbean server in the future. This is a closed door now. 

Any thoughts on actually treating the problem rather than the symptoms and work on creating incentives for players to leave the safe zones? 

The current in-game population very rarely cracks 600 players during a prime time EU evening unless there are a couple of port battles scheduled.  Spread 600 players across 11 nations and you end up with a map that is too large to support 600 players and to find quality content you need to travel to areas where players can be found.  Capitals.  Limiting the amount of protection the safe zones provides will only decrease the amount of players who hang out it them.....and increase the amount of people hunting in them, further killing off an already diminished casual player base to satisfy the elite few.

This game needs more players.  We need more content for your casual joe who logs in a couple hours every evening.  We need mission variety.  We need a functioning economy.  We need more complex crafting.  We need reasons to leave the safe zones.  

This fix is insignificant.  It will only make picking over the bones of the capitals slightly more fun until more people quit out of frustration or boredom.  

 

Edited April 5, 2018 by Christendom

[Sento de Benimaclet]

51 minutes ago, El Presidenté Amplify said:

this will not improve the game. it will only kill the population even more

Effectively. These things cause people to gradually abandon the game, which is to the detriment of the PVP. you will see what they do.

[Hethwill]

Appropriate ruling on the issue using Solomon's law.

 

[RaimundoJoe]

12 minutes ago, admin said:

Captains who are upset about 2 buffed first rates not appearing from thin air should just let it go.
We tried no protection and absolute protection and will settle on the best option.
2 rates was an overkill and while we are preparing tutorial patch for release it will be good to tune some numbers that are long overdue. 

There will be no more increases in protection on the Caribbean server in the future. This is a closed door now. 

I am not upset that changes are made to the game, i am dissapointed that only the "hammers" life gets improved while the "nails" are told to keep quiet.

[Cabral]

5 minutes ago, AxIslander said:

I am not upset that changes are made to the game, i am dissapointed that only the "hammers" life gets improved while the "nails" are told to keep quiet.

 Maybe you should be less "nail" and learn to be a "hammer".

[Wick]

The change is fair. Getting double the amount of super-heavy 1st rates for every ship joining is overkill on the highest level. 

A trader still able to get away if the AIs are buffed up 5th rates. there are many players doing very profitable trading around dangerous waters including me. You make a lot - lose a little - make a lot, that's how it is.  Getting 5th rate escorts should be enough for everyone in my opinion. Maybe program the AI to prefer chaining initially rather than shooting the hull.