To All Of Those Hunting Around Capital Ports

[beagleplease]

i don't know how much content we can expect 2 devs to produce, increasing speed/shrinking the map a bit is pretty easy to do and provides content in the form of more players on the sea.

I'm curious if you would like to sail around at most at 14 knots on the ow then? 

Edited June 29, 2018 by beagleplease

[beagleplease]

i just think for most people its still takes too long to sail anywhere so they just stay in one place get bored and quit.

you are right about content no one can argue but i do worry that the underlying problem is the time investment.

i came back recently and the game seems to have taken as many backward steps as forward. 

are you sure they didn't just change the numbers lol.  It seems to take just as long as before to sail anywhere to me but i have been away for a while.

If my current trade run took half the time i wouldn't mind doing it at a riskier time as it is i will not risk wasting that much time so no hunters are likely to see my trader.

[beagleplease]

yeah which just makes it even riskier to sail for hours with your cargo hold full.  and then the hunters are all like "wheres muh traders for to gankz"(the dont speak good you see).

i'm not a pure trader though i sail pvp ships around too but ofc we carry repairs which slow us down.... or we don't ands have to sail back to buy more after every fight, thats if you were lucky enough to win without enough reps for a sustained fight.

[Archaos]

1 hour ago, beagleplease said:

yeah which just makes it even riskier to sail for hours with your cargo hold full.  and then the hunters are all like "wheres muh traders for to gankz"(the dont speak good you see).

i'm not a pure trader though i sail pvp ships around too but ofc we carry repairs which slow us down.... or we don't ands have to sail back to buy more after every fight, thats if you were lucky enough to win without enough reps for a sustained fight.

The thing is if OW speed becomes too fast then the trade runs are very short and thus there is less risk. It would get to a point where it would not be worth it to hunt traders as by the time you saw them and identified them as traders they would be in port. Trading without risk is boring.

[Hethwill]

Trade goods are nothing to a corsair. Just change and nowadays I rather sink those goods than sail the prize back to a open port to sell them.

Now all you are is marks. Nothing more than puny little pvp marks and to the fishes with all your trade goods.

A corsair of a small nation with limited Conquest force wants to hit the merchant navy transporting the resources - the iron, the coal, the stuff that builds ships - to deny the enemy nation a new ship and therefore bring those same resources for his own.

That's why so many hours of small groups were used in the past to hit the enemy trade routes.

I do not lie. But we do not see the game in the same way.

We stand in the most and utter concentration of people around "capitals" as never before.

No wonder the wolves sit outside your door.

 

[beagleplease]

The economy is completely screwed a guy can buy a ship for 70k from a port and go fight, get sunk and his 70k merc now gave 1 million in combat rewards to players.

Edited June 30, 2018 by beagleplease

[Teutonic]

I don't think it takes too long to sail. But i agree that some sailing at times can be really boring if you are looking for the enemy.

@beagleplease if your 20 or so friends came back, all joined the same nation, and you did some hostility grinding for a port, you would have pvp if the enemy nation came to counter your hostility or instant pvp for the port battle.

It's garuanteed content that we are all so desparately looking for. While I would change how it's done, at least for the current iteration it's not bad. If you don't want to pay for the port, you could always just drop it and go fight another one.

[beagleplease]

54 minutes ago, Teutonic said:

I don't think it takes too long to sail. But i agree that some sailing at times can be really boring if you are looking for the enemy.

@beagleplease if your 20 or so friends came back, all joined the same nation, and you did some hostility grinding for a port, you would have pvp if the enemy nation came to counter your hostility or instant pvp for the port battle.

It's garuanteed content that we are all so desparately looking for. While I would change how it's done, at least for the current iteration it's not bad. If you don't want to pay for the port, you could always just drop it and go fight another one.

I managed to get 3 of them to try the game again, it's very unlikely any other will come back because everything they disliked about the game seems to be the same...

[Lovec1990]

on this topic:

today i spent 6hours+ hunting players in OW i only found 2 in OW others were at capitals is it bad hunting where new guys spawn?YES , but you do not have a choice if you want pvp

[Sir Texas Sir]

14 hours ago, Intrepido said:

Im one of the guys behind the proposal of increasing ow speed. Before our max speed was 21-22.

Devs must hire new programers and make the content this game desperately is waiting.

Hope with the sale and DLC's they can maybe get a programmer/artist to work on more content while the main guys finish up the core game mechanics to get things more in line to go live.

1 hour ago, rediii said:

but its only 1st rate grinding.

 

That fact alone is pretty boring. In RvR you only sail 1st rates except the PB size demands smaller ships which doesnt happen often because in all ports >=5000 BR the most used ship is 1st rates

In the US we are more running into the problem with ports being under 5K so that you can only get like 5-6 (2500 BR) or 10+ (5K BR) players in it.  We would like to see more 5K+ ports so we can get more players in and more folks can have fun.  Biggest complaint i hear about RvR is, "Why should I come grind or screen if I"m never going to get into the PB cause it's the same 5-7 players that get in every time?"   That and the grind on the bigger parts is so against the attackers.  10 ships only vs 10 AI ships and the defender can jump on so your either fighting 20 ships or your wounded and fighting 10+.   Not to mention the gank you might get afterwards out side if you didn't bring enough screeners.  Than if you loose any ships you loose a lot of your progress fast.  We where at 97% agro a few times to loose it all when the main grind fleet got jumped and sunk by defenders....it gets where folks just give up and leave the fighting cause they don't want to start all over again or it's to close to the 3 hour window to try to finish it off again.  RvR system still needs a lot of work to it.  Another thing would be nice if they limit some ports to say 3rd rate or below or 4th rate and below.  This way you can only have those ships and it's not the meta of stuffing in as many 1st rates as you can.

 

[Lovec1990]

3 minutes ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

Hope with the sale and DLC's they can maybe get a programmer/artist to work on more content while the main guys finish up the core game mechanics to get things more in line to go live.

I agree we need DLC Paints plus more balanced DLC ships. 

[Palatinose]

@William Wade methinks your demand of morally lead gameplay in this game under the current curcumstances is just not realistic. Let's say we blame the hunters and invert their intention to just farm marks to the morally correct way to engage only in proper fights (based on skill/numbers - it's a vague definition - i hope you understand what i try to say). In this case, by the sheer variety of characters and therefore definitions of moral, equal/proper engagements, it is just impossible to make everybody happy. Well basically because one will lose and one will win. So one can't blame human players to behave like humans. Imo in every game, it's the rules that make the game what it is, not the players.

Personally I like the proposals of Christendom - just because logic tells me: the more players we have, the more pvp we (well me at least :P) will have. All the discussions about safe/reinforcement zones, roe, ganks vs non ganks (nonganks are practically non-existant in OW), vets vs newbies are all obsolete if we get enough players. It's a Gaussian distribution: the edges are low, the centre is crowded. But what's fundamental: if we have higher numbers in the centre, numbers on the edges will also rise.

[victor]

35 minutes ago, Palatinose said:

All the discussions about safe/reinforcement zones, roe, ganks vs non ganks (nonganks are practically non-existant in OW), vets vs newbies are all obsolete if we get enough players. It's a Gaussian distribution: the edges are low, the centre is crowded. But what's fundamental: if we have higher numbers in the centre, numbers on the edges will also rise.

Fever is not the disease, but the symptom. The same goes for the number of players

If you do not cure the disease (which is the lack of content for non 100% PVP players and the gank problem for newbies), fever (lack of players) will go on.

And let me tell you that if your proposed cure is FORCING people out of safe zones by taking away any reward in playing there (instead of LURING them out by adding good rewards outside) you will just see the problem grow worse, since some other player will quit and the newbies will stay just for a while (and the fever will just get higher).

Point is that to solve the problem devs need money ... but hey ... do not even allow them to sell good DLCs ... because of P2W creep.

So basically we just go round and round facing the same old problem with the same old (wrong) proposals of solution

Edited June 30, 2018 by victor

[Batman]

7 hours ago, rediii said:

 

 

That fact alone is pretty boring. In RvR you only sail 1st rates except the PB size demands smaller ships which doesnt happen often because in all ports >=5000 BR the most used ship is 1st rates

It's even worse, only the 2.6k ports have some diversity left. Every other deep water port is now full L`Ocean (and the occasional Santi) + small  circle runners. Diversity? Only existing in used skills + upgrades.

[Palatinose]

2 minutes ago, victor said:

Fever is not the disease, but the symptom. The same goes for the number of players

If you do not cure the disease (which is the lack of content for non 100% PVP players and the gank problem for newbies), fever (lack of players) will go on.

And let me tell you that if your proposed cure is FORCING people out of safe zones by taking away any reward in playing there (instead of LURING them out by adding good rewards outside) you will just see the problem grow worse, since some other player will quit and the newbies will stay just for a while (and the fever will just get higher).

Point is that to solve the problem devs need money ... but hey ... do not even allow them to sell good DLCs ... because of P2W creep.

So basically we just go round and round with the same old stories

Sure it's only the symptoms. I referred to @Christendom 's proposals in this thread. Most of them pose a good start. There is plenty in the forums. Btw imo one can only partially blame the devs for listening to the "pew pew only" crowd as you are obviously trying to trigger me a bit. PvPers test the combat mechs and therefore are the loudest on the forums. Now they want to secure their piece of the cake. I only rarely read the forums, but the overall tune of the community seems to shift towards healthy population saving arguments. 

Most DLCs are absolutely fine btw. But as a person really testing/pvping against the new ships I would say some tweaks are needed. 

[beagleplease]

1 hour ago, Intrepido said:

still I think we will keep having issues until the stacking of mods and the live oak bonuses get tweaked.

Would you straight nerf live oak or reduce the tank a bit and compensate elsewhere?

also is teak a problem?

sabicu just seems to be a poor mans white oak?

caguairan wood seems to be very underrated if the stats i've seen are correct?

i've only been back in na for a week or so, so i'm not sure about any of these things.

Is it a bit strange to anyone else that the best woods for fighting are rare but the best would for being a superspeedganker is the cheapest wood type? although it does occur to me that this may be because of sailforce mods/ skills making teak ships do silly speed.

[Guest]

On 6/29/2018 at 1:42 AM, William Wade said:

Especially those using premium or super ships to repeatedly bully new and newly returned players.

This is why the game gets a bad rap in reviews and the player base is f all. Think about what you are doing, take the time to hunt OW instead of looking for easy PVP marks just to get your name in lights on the leaderboard.

Give new guys a chance to actually experience the game, otherwise the player base will be reduced to 50 or so players and their alts.

No risk but high rewards makes for a boring game. The problem is not the map size, nor the "bashing" of rookies around capitals.. The problem is that the game is boring. Any player with just a wee bit of brains can trade, craft and grind with little to no risks - the game gets boring.

[Ruthless4u]

On June 28, 2018 at 7:42 PM, William Wade said:

Especially those using premium or super ships to repeatedly bully new and newly returned players.

This is why the game gets a bad rap in reviews and the player base is f all. Think about what you are doing, take the time to hunt OW instead of looking for easy PVP marks just to get your name in lights on the leaderboard.

Give new guys a chance to actually experience the game, otherwise the player base will be reduced to 50 or so players and their alts.

This game was getting a bad rap in reviews long before the  issues you mentioned.

[Fletch]

Port battles for the most part have always excluded the casual player, if anything the DLC ships  will give casual players a ship that can hold its own and they might get inside one.

People were only ever allowed in with the current meta ship complete with the meta mods in the past. Lost of people saying the new ships kill diversity. Was it any different when battles were 25 V 25 ingas ?   or 25 v 25 Mercs?  then 25 V 25 Heavy rattles?

[Hethwill]

Quoting a veteran from another game

" Survival means not dying, which includes avoiding incoming fire at all costs. Force protection as defense is my last option when all else seems impossible. Yesterday, I avoided death twice by evading my assailants. I "won" because I survived.

When it becomes a real fight, and I win, my victory is righteous."

This line sums up all the skills necessary in a "no protection" enabled sandbox game. It is not automatically granted to the player, but has to be developed by the player itself. It applies to NA from the individual solo play up to the nation "politics". Only difference is scale.

In a multiplayer game based in combat where trade must fuel war, directly or indirectly, and war fuels trade, the rewards must be equivalent to the risk taken. Giving everything any player needs at any given time can seem to be a way to promote more combat, but even with 90% of the server having full docks there's little to show and the vice remains the same.

The easier it gets the easier we want. Get to their zones. No point in Conquest.

[Capn Rocko]

My favorite thing to do is to get tagged by 20 ships and still find a way to get a kill  Thats content that only capitals can provide. I guess I could go to PvP zone, but theres no escaping a huge gank. So yeah, if you don't like it then it is a "blame the developers" thing. 

[Teutonic]

On 6/30/2018 at 9:44 AM, beagleplease said:

I managed to get 3 of them to try the game again, it's very unlikely any other will come back because everything they disliked about the game seems to be the same...

I understand. I used to have a group of 20-30 players when the game came out in 2016.

of all of them I am the only one who still plays. some may come back after release, but rather awful testing changes stopped a lot from coming back.

[RaimundoJoe]

On 6/30/2018 at 11:22 PM, Batman said:

It's even worse, only the 2.6k ports have some diversity left. Every other deep water port is now full L`Ocean (and the occasional Santi) + small  circle runners. Diversity? Only existing in used skills + upgrades.

I have said before, every port should have a defined pb set, in the form of slots, same for the screening fleets. A PB should be a two tier action, both for defence and for attackers. This is what i thing it requires. First we need to define the place were the pb takes place, the algorithm needs to check for active pb and only allow you to chose those of your nation. Once you are here one can get the ability to choose the type of action you want to participate in: screening or port battle.

1. Screening

The screening fleets need to be limited to half of the pb br. meaning that there have to coordinate so it will need two screening fleets to drag a pb fleet in a battle. Or they can just engage the enemy screening fleet and let the pb happen.

2. Port Battle

Lets have a new battle group called pb group wich has a more defined slot set eg. commander slot, this slot is open to all types of ships, one 1th rate slot,  two second rate slot, 6 third rate etc.

There is still required some type of rewards for this type of actions in order for them to be attractive.

 

 

Edited July 3, 2018 by RaimundoJoe

[Guest]

Wow didn't know it was that bad, as new baby seal I'm glad I started off in PvE.

[beagleplease]

On 7/3/2018 at 9:06 AM, RaimundoJoe said:

 

1. Screening

The screening fleets need to be limited to half of the pb br. meaning that there have to coordinate so it will need two screening fleets to drag a pb fleet in a battle. Or they can just engage the enemy screening fleet and let the pb happen.

 

 

I've never liked the idea of screening, 

take the one way to get a great even fight in the form of a 25 vs 25 port battle and ruin it by enabling the zerg.  Not to mention that if we did have more population, the more populated nations could field 2 pb fleets and just engage the enemy outside the port with one while taking the port with the other.  This used to happen back in 2016 when we did have pop. 

Either that or the pb fleet gets held in battle by fast screener with no intention of trying to fight.  Fun engaging gameplay for both sides! 

If you want your open world to work you need to find a way to make more even fights not less.   There may be a few people playing still who find ganging super fun for some reason I can't quite fathom, but the majority of people find both sides of this boring. 

I don't mind being ganked.  And I'm not innocent of ganking either.  The game rewards me for it too much to pass up.  However I do not find it fun. 

In the British navy if you turned down a chance at an even fight you would face court martial.  Perhaps the roe should change so if the BR is close to even you cannot run away like in a patrol zone, unless after 25 minutes, this way honour has been upheld but if you are clearly losing you still have a chance to save your ship.  This would encourage more fair pvp without removing the ability to gank.  If more people join before the battle closes the 25minute timer is triggered early. 

The main problem I see with this is a veteran hitting a newish player with his fully skilled modded ship is not really and even fight but its better than a 8 v 1.  He would have a chance, might actually be able to learn something from it other than how to run and die. 

Edited July 4, 2018 by beagleplease