Solutions to ports lost to time

[Gregory Rainsborough]

So at the moment we have a rather steep price for the 3 hours window timer which has led to hiding behind timers by multiple clans across all nations for multiple reasons.

Whether this be,

a) To prevent multiflipping

b) Too afraid to fight for fear of losing

c) Port considered too valuable to lose

d) Other reasons

Whatever the reason behind this it's clear why it was introduced *whistles innocently* but it seems that we've gone from one extreme to another.

I would suggest that another timer in introduced that would at least alleviate the problem of an uneven population spread across the server across the various timezones for different nations; which leads to uncontested port battles from night flips because the port is not worth putting a timer on because the population isn't high enough to warrant bothering with it.

A cheaper timer should be introduced that costs 100k-200k a day that creates a 7 hour window from 11-18, 18-01, 01-08 or two timers that mirror the old divide in the servers, 11-22, 22-08 or something like that.

Those borderline (in terms of money) ports currently hidden behind timers might be dropped down down a bit but still allow them to fight, at weekends in particular when these things usually happen.

[Tom Farseer]

Sounds reasonable to me. I'd just make it a moveable 7 hour timer. With fixed numbers it becomes hard to divide the (prime) number of hours on a server day because of maintenance.

Edited October 26, 2018 by Tom Farseer

[Gregory Rainsborough]

Or alternatively increase the length of the current timer window.

[Gregory Rainsborough]

100k for 7 hour timer.

1 million for 3 hour timer.

[Galt]

Why not just make the timer adjustable? the smaller the window, the more expensive it gets. Although, I feel that adding more timers is the opposite way to go, I'd like to see them be either more expensive or something only certain clans/ports would qualify for. Don't be so obsessed with land grabbing, you don't have to own every little dot; or you can bankrupt yourselves instead. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Bobzillah said:

bring the pop back to waiting qeue to log in would fix alot more #releasethegame

If they released the game in its current state with a broken econ, broken RvR system, broken PvP situation and a lack of content - then I'd predict the titanic would be less of a disaster..

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, Galt said:

Why not just make the timer adjustable? the smaller the window, the more expensive it gets. Although, I feel that adding more timers is the opposite way to go, I'd like to see them be either more expensive or something only certain clans/ports would qualify for. Don't be so obsessed with land grabbing, you don't have to own every little dot; or you can bankrupt yourselves instead. 

Right because the nightflips were such and overwhelming succes....

[Teutonic]

There should honestly be multiple options for timers and price, so i agree with the notion to add my variety.

50k base maintenance - no timer

+ 100k - 7 hour window (150k total)

+ 300k - 5 hour window (350k total)

+ 500k - 3 hour window (550k total)

Or it can be an exponential increase based on stricter timers. It could create varying degrees of what clans are willing to pay for more or less safety concerning a time window.

I think the biggest irritation from my perspective is that there are a clear 20 - 30 ports which can cover or pay for their timers through rare goods or trade, then you have the strategically placed ports that have a value based on their position.....annnnnd then the rest which are largely accepted by the community to suck.

Edited October 26, 2018 by Teutonic

[Gregory Rainsborough]

The problem is when a clan own multiple money ports and then hides behind timers at times when no-one ordinarily is online to attack. It's a problem because it removes the financial incentive for port ownership. If it was a bit softer then like a 7 hour window then at least some defence/attack could be mounted. 11-8 is just too long and the 3 hour window, too short.

[Galt]

49 minutes ago, Lars Kjaer said:

Right because the nightflips were such and overwhelming succes....

"All is fair in love and war..." Don't piss off the wrong people. If you can't afford a good timer on the port, then you don't deserve to keep the port. 

Edited October 26, 2018 by Galt

[Guest]

45 minutes ago, Bobzillah said:

nightflip is only a thing when you are small minded and believe only 1timezone exist in a MMO where the entire planet is alloud to connect to 1server.... 

The only thing that is small minded is to ignore the numbers. We have already tested nightflips and the serverpop were depleted.

 

4 minutes ago, Galt said:

"All is fair in love and war..." Don't piss off the wrong people.

Well if you're at war with the game then by all means. Otherwise - look at the numbers and come up with solutions that actually increases playernumbers rather than decreases them.

[Beeekonda]

Just now, Bobzillah said:

we stil got players from all over the world ,its night time somewhere anytime of the day . so yeah lars you are very small minded stil calling nightflips like youre timezone is only one that is playing... shame on you for being part of a global human species.

Why cant you already learn?

Lunch flips and after maintenance flip IS BUENO!

Night flips IS NO BUENO!

 

[Guest]

Just now, Bobzillah said:

we stil got players from all over the world ,its night time somewhere anytime of the day . so yeah lars you are very small minded stil calling nightflips like youre timezone is only one that is playing... shame on you for being part of a global human species.

100-150 ppl in the US TZ, 400-500 in the EU TZ.. Numbers doesn't lie. The real question is - why did the EU server function and the global server fail? - There's been a number of good reasons but as I see it the main reason is that the US playerbase for a very long time were treated like crap, servermaintenance comes to mind, and this has dropped US TZ playerbase below the breaking point. The stats however doesn't lie - EU server worked, global server failed. We have already tested timers, they didn't work. This has nothing to do with narrowmindedness but solely on numbers and functioning mechanics. 

[Beeekonda]

2 minutes ago, Lars Kjaer said:

100-150 ppl in the US TZ, 400-500 in the EU TZ.. Numbers doesn't lie. The real question is - why did the EU server function and the global server fail? - There's been a number of good reasons but as I see it the main reason is that the US playerbase for a very long time were treated like crap, servermaintenance comes to mind, and this has dropped US TZ playerbase below the breaking point. The stats however doesn't lie - EU server worked, global server failed. We have already tested timers, they didn't work. This has nothing to do with narrowmindedness but solely on numbers and functioning mechanics. 

How is this related to the topic?

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Bobzillah said:

he trying to defend using the nighflip term but geuss stupid cant be fixed

Is it the terminology or the numbers you're getting offended by?

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Beeekonda said:

How is this related to the topic?

Because timers are already tested. So was the workaround - a global server with no timers. The problem is that if players lose ports that they've spent days to take, months to maintain and then to lose in a battle where they cannot attend - they quit. If on the other hand we accept timers then clans misuse timers to avoid battles for all the reasons @Gregory Rainsborough listed. There is as far as I can see no workaround that will function without players misusing the mechanics. If that realization, or lack of imagination, makes me narrowminded - well then I'm afraid that I'm narrowminded. I do however have a good memory of the mechanics tested in the game and it makes no real sense to me that we returned to an already tested and rejected mechanic in order to accomodate a global server when regional servers was tested as functioning and stable.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Bobzillah said:

nightflip TERM.. wonder how much stupid your qeustion is... mmkaayyyyy back to kindergarden lars. this is a global community in a global game stop trying to exclude people.

I'm actually trying to increase playerbase in the US TZ.. I just don't believe a global server will work.

The only case where a global server would function is when the impact of RvR was lessened on the playerbase. This would mean that all conceived necessities would have to be available in all ports - which would reduce RvR to merely a question of deniability of access. I'd go along with that, but this would basically make RvR solely a question of the battles and not much else. I'd suspect we'd have a lot of neutral ports in the game then.. Which doesn't necessarily mean a bad thing. Just a different kind of game.

[Teutonic]

I've offered the suggestion to allow some type of raiding or blockading mechanic to allow groups to hit ports and widen that port's time window. I suppose we can make it so it is also done outside the time window too.

Something to the effect that if the said mechanic was successful, you can force the port's timer to be 2 or 4 hours wider for X amount of days, of which after it would then revert back and be invulnerable for Y amount of days.

It would allow for EU, US, and OCEAN players to all disrupt ports at their times and then possibly be allowed to hit a port in a more preferable time period for a short time.

Eve Online has timers and time windows, but in order to get the "good" windows playera have to be active in their systems, or enemy players can disrupt activity and make it easier to attack at a later date. It is used quite effectively during wars between 2 groups that have large blocks in timezones different from each other...although almost every alliance in Eve has time zone coverage.

[Galt]

6 minutes ago, Lars Kjaer said:

100-150 ppl in the US TZ, 400-500 in the EU TZ.. Numbers doesn't lie. The real question is - why did the EU server function and the global server fail? - There's been a number of good reasons but as I see it the main reason is that the US playerbase for a very long time were treated like crap, servermaintenance comes to mind, and this has dropped US TZ playerbase below the breaking point. The stats however doesn't lie - EU server worked, global server failed. We have already tested timers, they didn't work. This has nothing to do with narrowmindedness but solely on numbers and functioning mechanics. 

I think you're confusing a correlation with a causation. Global server had no timers and had a lower population. EU server has daytime timers and a high population. I think you're confusing the fact that putting in set timers forced a lot of people out of the game; a lot of people didn't want to start over on the new server and tried resorting to just no more RvR. After the merge to global, the population went up to over 300, but people got bored because now they were playing on a small pop server and just couldn't find content. so people quit. People on the EU server were pushed out of content because of timers, so they quit. I very nearly quit when they merged back because I thought I would have to start all over. 

I would argue that the reason the daytime population is so much higher, is because it's filled mostly by an old guard. Players that join in the pm, tend to go towards GB or the US. GB, to the best of my knowledge is still filled with paranoia when it comes to new players, so they don't stay. The US is a shell of a nation that is filled mostly with new blood and casuals, so people either move on or don't stick with the game. I am not very educated on the dynamics of the day crew, admittedly, but when I see pb results, it's always the same clans for the same nations, with the same names. People that have reliable content for their timezone already, so they assume it's like that for anyone.

The evening crew has a hard time even filling pbs from time to time. I haven't seen a 25v25 in months. We don't have the players, and even if we did we wouldn't be able to fight and take ports because they are all behind day timers. I am all for setting up weekend flips so we can get more ports to our timezone but it can be hard to get people to agree to spend their saturday mornings in a video game to flip it, and then their sunday morning to fight. (North Americans are a superstitious people, it's the lord's day.) What's more, is even if we did get the port flipped, we still don't have the player base to fill a big br pb. We are locked out of RvR from the rest of the server. I'm happy to work from home or call in sick a day or two if it means we can get some good RvR but the Europeans refuse to come down from their horse and mingle. Fights must be in a time convenient for them, or not at all. Even though we are all in the same sandbox, there are basically still two separate communities. I think this is a toxic situation and needs to be resolved. Eliminating timers to EU players are pushed out of their comfort zone is something I am all for, because the evening crew is often up through the night just to find something to do. 

Or you can lay over and not fight, but bitch the whole time. It's all about your dedication. You are not entitled to ports. You are not entitled to timers. You need to earn and maintain the right to have those, just like we do. I feel that making timers a privileged is the correct way to go. Make them very expensive to maintain would mean that only larger clans would be able to have them, which is fair in my opinion. Making them only available for port capitals and maybe one other port, would mean that people aren't able to hide behind them and we would see a lot more map changes, which is a good thing, in my opinion. Set it so that clans can only have one timer slot for their ports, something tied to the clan and not to individual ports. This makes it easier for nations that have more players to take on the nations that have better players, which are currently the ones that hold the most important ports. 

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, Galt said:

1) I think you're confusing a correlation with a causation. Global server had no timers and had a lower population. EU server has daytime timers and a high population. I think you're confusing the fact that putting in set timers forced a lot of people out of the game; a lot of people didn't want to start over on the new server and tried resorting to just no more RvR. After the merge to global, the population went up to over 300, but people got bored because now they were playing on a small pop server and just couldn't find content. so people quit. People on the EU server were pushed out of content because of timers, so they quit. I very nearly quit when they merged back because I thought I would have to start all over. 

2) I would argue that the reason the daytime population is so much higher, is because it's filled mostly by an old guard. Players that join in the pm, tend to go towards GB or the US. GB, to the best of my knowledge is still filled with paranoia when it comes to new players, so they don't stay. The US is a shell of a nation that is filled mostly with new blood and casuals, so people either move on or don't stick with the game. I am not very educated on the dynamics of the day crew, admittedly, but when I see pb results, it's always the same clans for the same nations, with the same names. People that have reliable content for their timezone already, so they assume it's like that for anyone.

3) The evening crew has a hard time even filling pbs from time to time. I haven't seen a 25v25 in months. We don't have the players, and even if we did we wouldn't be able to fight and take ports because they are all behind day timers. I am all for setting up weekend flips so we can get more ports to our timezone but it can be hard to get people to agree to spend their saturday mornings in a video game to flip it, and then their sunday morning to fight. (North Americans are a superstitious people, it's the lord's day.) What's more, is even if we did get the port flipped, we still don't have the player base to fill a big br pb. We are locked out of RvR from the rest of the server. I'm happy to work from home or call in sick a day or two if it means we can get some good RvR but the Europeans refuse to come down from their horse and mingle. Fights must be in a time convenient for them, or not at all. Even though we are all in the same sandbox, there are basically still two separate communities. I think this is a toxic situation and needs to be resolved. Eliminating timers to EU players are pushed out of their comfort zone is something I am all for, because the evening crew is often up through the night just to find something to do. 

4) Or you can lay over and not fight, but bitch the whole time. It's all about your dedication. You are not entitled to ports. You are not entitled to timers. You need to earn and maintain the right to have those, just like we do. I feel that making timers a privileged is the correct way to go. Make them very expensive to maintain would mean that only larger clans would be able to have them, which is fair in my opinion. Making them only available for port capitals and maybe one other port, would mean that people aren't able to hide behind them and we would see a lot more map changes, which is a good thing, in my opinion. Set it so that clans can only have one timer slot for their ports, something tied to the clan and not to individual ports. This makes it easier for nations that have more players to take on the nations that have better players, which are currently the ones that hold the most important ports. 

I've taken the liberty to set a few numbers in your post to make it clear where and what I'm replying to:

1) I agree that the global server was never implemented in a meaningfull manner. This would've rectified itself over time as we all started all over except from crafting xp/crew lvl. (We all remember the great hurricane). Books, ships, gold, materials all had to be grinded all over again on both servers. As to the later part - the numbers affecting gameplay I completely agree. However the globalserver and the EU server started off with serverpops that were much larger than what we have now, so why did players quit? - The EU server dropped from 2500 to about 800 if I recall correctly (peak), with large numbers throughout the day as well, even larger numbers at night. So why did they leave? - The global server started out with 2000 or so (if I recall correctly) and quickly dropped to about 300. Now in the nighttime we see 100-150. Why did they quit? - It cannot only be that they had to start over because the shipknowledge grinding alone would bring a player to max level anyway..

2) agreed

3) Filling PBs is an issue for all smaller nations, as far as I know only Russia, GB and Sweden can regularly field the numbers required for large PBs. The question about timers or no timers however is - how much fun is an empty PB? - the problem is atm that the only interaction the two communities have is through PBs and the effect it has on playerbases. The effect as far as I'm concerned is singularly negative. We've tried eliminating timers all together - the result was the game died for a few months and we still haven't really recovered.

4) And you are not entitled to content. How much content is there in the dark hours of the european night? - none as far as I can tell. This is a sandbox and if ppl don't like the rules of the game they quit and play something else. We've already seen this. Forcing players to lose ports uncontested is the surest way to drop the game dead on arrival.

[TheHaney]

1 minute ago, Lars Kjaer said:

one AUSSIE server.. 

I giggled.

So optimistic.

[Guest]

Just now, TheHaney said:

I giggled.

So optimistic.

Don't rule it out - I do not believe that the game is only interesting to europeans and a small number of americans. The game has potential for so much more..

[TheHaney]

Oh I'm not ruling it out, but hoping the game has so much success as to warrant an aussie server is right up there with me hoping Trump chokes to death on a cheeseburger. Lovely, but not likely.

[Galt]

5 minutes ago, Lars Kjaer said:

I've taken the liberty to set a few numbers in your post to make it clear where and what I'm replying to:

1) I agree that the global server was never implemented in a meaningfull manner. This would've rectified itself over time as we all started all over except from crafting xp/crew lvl. (We all remember the great hurricane). Books, ships, gold, materials all had to be grinded all over again on both servers. As to the later part - the numbers affecting gameplay I completely agree. However the globalserver and the EU server started off with serverpops that were much larger than what we have now, so why did players quit? - The EU server dropped from 2500 to about 800 if I recall correctly (peak), with large numbers throughout the day as well, even larger numbers at night. So why did they leave? - The global server started out with 2000 or so (if I recall correctly) and quickly dropped to about 300. Now in the nighttime we see 100-150. Why did they quit? - It cannot only be that they had to start over because the shipknowledge grinding alone would bring a player to max level anyway..

2) agreed

3) Filling PBs is an issue for all smaller nations, as far as I know only Russia, GB and Sweden can regularly field the numbers required for large PBs. The question about timers or no timers however is - how much fun is an empty PB? - the problem is atm that the only interaction the two communities have is through PBs and the effect it has on playerbases. The effect as far as I'm concerned is singularly negative. We've tried eliminating timers all together - the result was the game died for a few months and we still haven't really recovered.

4) And you are not entitled to content. How much content is there in the dark hours of the european night? - none as far as I can tell. This is a sandbox and if ppl don't like the rules of the game they quit and play something else. We've already seen this. Forcing players to lose ports uncontested is the surest way to drop the game dead on arrival.

1) While I agree and think you are correct, I don't think the issue can be chalked up to timers, specifically. There weren't added until a little latter on the EU server, I don't this can be attributed to any one reason. I believe that it is non-circumstantial that the European population has remained healthier. They have more players, They are spread over fewer timezones which means more people on at the same time, as opposed to the 4/5 we have. People in California are just getting on when the east coast goes to bed. 

3) I remain back and forth on the issues of timers just because there are so many pros and cons. While they have done me a disservice, which gives me bias, objectively I suppose they are better for a larger community. I agree empty pbs aren't fun, but I think the issue is in philosophy here. Where we see instances, like the Spanish, resigned to giving up ports because of the time zone issues, but they don't actually retaliate. They capitulate. I think it's an attitude issue that needs to be addressed. When you get multiflipped/nightflipped/whatever, you get even. The British and Americans tried to do it to the French so the evening French wiped SOL off the map. When the evening French waged a war on Jags, they never retaliated. They accepted defeat, said "have fun in empty battles" and never did anything about it. They got so salty that the couldn't, and wouldn't fight back. then bitched because they got knocked down. If you get nightflipped and can't fight the battle, then hello kittying dayflip. play their game. generate at least some content. 

4) I do not believe I, or anyone, is entitled to content. I think that the game should have the content and that I should work to have it. That, in my mind, makes the pay off so much better. And as I said, this isn't an issue of forcing players to lose ports, this is about being more strategic in how you make alliances. Get some evening people on your side to screen for you, just like we try to have day people on our side to screen for us. And if you do lose the port, get even. Plan a weekend event to take it back. Take another port. Do something. 

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Galt said:

1) While I agree and think you are correct, I don't think the issue can be chalked up to timers, specifically. There weren't added until a little latter on the EU server, I don't this can be attributed to any one reason. I believe that it is non-circumstantial that the European population has remained healthier. They have more players, They are spread over fewer timezones which means more people on at the same time, as opposed to the 4/5 we have. People in California are just getting on when the east coast goes to bed. 

3) I remain back and forth on the issues of timers just because there are so many pros and cons. While they have done me a disservice, which gives me bias, objectively I suppose they are better for a larger community. I agree empty pbs aren't fun, but I think the issue is in philosophy here. Where we see instances, like the Spanish, resigned to giving up ports because of the time zone issues, but they don't actually retaliate. They capitulate. I think it's an attitude issue that needs to be addressed. When you get multiflipped/nightflipped/whatever, you get even. The British and Americans tried to do it to the French so the evening French wiped SOL off the map. When the evening French waged a war on Jags, they never retaliated. They accepted defeat, said "have fun in empty battles" and never did anything about it. They got so salty that the couldn't, and wouldn't fight back. then bitched because they got knocked down. If you get nightflipped and can't fight the battle, then hello kittying dayflip. play their game. generate at least some content. 

4) I do not believe I, or anyone, is entitled to content. I think that the game should have the content and that I should work to have it. That, in my mind, makes the pay off so much better. And as I said, this isn't an issue of forcing players to lose ports, this is about being more strategic in how you make alliances. Get some evening people on your side to screen for you, just like we try to have day people on our side to screen for us. And if you do lose the port, get even. Plan a weekend event to take it back. Take another port. Do something. 

To the first point 1) The European continent stretches over more TZs than the americas.. Europe stretches from Lisbon/Ireland to the Ural mountains. This cannot be the explanation why the global server didn't succeed.

3) We've seen alliances ingame - the spanish cannot retaliate becuase they have no US playerbase and the ports that has daytimers are not capturable because of the zerg that is britain. GB doesn't have to be skilled, they just have to have numbers. Which they do. I'm not saying that Spain should resignate to defeat, I'm just saying that alliances, wether we wants to or not, are culturally defined. What we saw in the days of the first timers were GB/US against EU players. This situation meant that the brits attacked in their primetime, but never defended in it. That was where the americans came into the picture. The current situation is thankfully a bit more diverse, we now have a small contingent of US players in DK/NG, a slightly larger one in Sweden, a medium one in France and a large one of carebears primarily in the GB factions. The pirates ofc has a small contingent as well. This is good for the game as a whole but the key point is that the french clans have been allied for ages (Blanc and WO) and the americans in general have switched to nations that either speak english as their first language or are proficient in english in general. This is not necessarily the case for all carribean nations and this is just the language barrier, then comes the cultural barriers. The answer is not as simple as - make alliances or recruit players from other timezones. The current timers work with the population that we have, but I believe that for a release they have to implement regional servers. Otherwise the numbers will merely drop to the state where we are now again in a timespan of approx six months. - This is my belief mind you, merely based on the tests of mechanics we've had so far.

4) The problem is the ease some nations would have at taking ports and the difficulty others would have to take them back - again we've tested the mechanics before. And taking another port would be ideal - except not all ports are similar. The answer to a global server might very well be to make ports matter less.