Total Wipe at Release - a suggestion

[Njord]

9 hours ago, Intrepido said:

What about the players who sleep in the ship cabins of NA? Wont this proposal give them an advantage about others?

We have some players with game sessions of 5-6 hours every day. Others with dozens of alts so thousands of available LHs.

 

9 hours ago, Christoph said:

When i have to grind the ships again i will Stop playing 

 I had my fair share of NA and could not be bothered to do exactly the same grind a second time, especially with so much PvE and RNG included, for no good reason at all. There may be people with too much time on their hands, who wouldn't mind grinding it all again ( even tho I strongly suspect some simply not being invested in books and slot xp as much and thus trying to push for complete wipe in some zero-sum thinking mindset... easy to cry for total wipe when you don't have much progress to lose ) but my time is fairly limited and instead of chasing bots to unlock books and slots I'd like to play NA for PvP and PvP alone.

Even if I was unemployed or retired and had all this time on my hands, I wouldn't go through the same grind twice unless it was 100% PvP ( and thereby not really a grind but enjoyable ), because there is no good reason as to why I should have to. I completely understand the full asset wipe to reset the economy and remove the exploit and bug currency / ships, because it is EA and there is a good reason. It was broken - now it is fixed and the fallout has to be removed. Understandable. Not the case with ship xp and books however.

[huliotkd]

total wipe has no solution because this is a hard game. you need a lot of playtime to learn the basics and ,meanwhile, you get farmed by vets...so, even if we stop the redeemable for 14 days or 3 years, noobs will ragequit after 2-3 times they get ganked/farmed by same vets.

the only hope to increase population in ''rank protection'' until commodore or flag captain rank, maybe.  each palyer can attack 1 rank above and 1 below his own until he reaches the rank of ''commodore''. he cannot attack 2 ranks above or below but can join battle started by different player's ranks...so he can join a rear admiral battle if he is midshipman...he will die but it was his choice.

delaying the old redeemables don't give time to newbs to learn how to move and how to play PVP in PVP server, they need safe area of equal level to develop skill then venture the ''big boy areas''.

wiping reals and resources it's ok, but don't wipe de xp (craft, rank, slots etc etc)

[Guest]

25 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

You're really that afraid of losing some virtual books? Says a lot about your willingness to fight. No wonder drastic balancing measures are being used on PvP.

There is no fight in fighting AI's - they are dumb as lampposts and always do the same manouvers, which is counter-acted with the same manouvers.. That is not gameplay that is certified stupidity. And for the books? - I got 4 alts, and my main and all my alts has the book collections, they are not that difficult to get, I've even given some of the collections away to more clanmates than I can remember and even af few newbies just because.. Well - I'm the richest man on the server. A wipe won't change that.

[Slim McSauce]

12 minutes ago, Sovereign said:

easy to cry for total wipe when you don't have much progress to lose ) but my time is fairly limited and instead of chasing bots to unlock books and slots I'd like to play NA for PvP and PvP alone.

It's also easy to cry for no wipe, and make new players going through the same painful grind that we ourselves are appose to.

[Christoph]

we need the old system back! all slots open.

 

they can grind slots on pve server. very good content for pve server

 

the war server isnt a pvp server. he is becoming more and more a pve server

Edited January 29, 2019 by Christoph

[Palatinose]

@Anolytic nice proposal. Good thing about it is the first two weeks, when the map gets filled by nations capping ports, really everybody is "equal" (as Monkey said: years of experience is enough, therefore equal is kinda relative again).

The problem I see is: groups like yours or mine or any RvR focussed group aka multiple alt users. For AI pbs no knowledge is necessary, only time. Which is the only real advantage of alts. 

On the other hand there is no solution to this ever reoccuring problem. Therefore I really like your proposal.

[Licinio Chiavari]

31 minutes ago, huliotkd said:

the only hope to increase population in ''rank protection'' until commodore or flag captain rank, maybe.  each palyer can attack 1 rank above and 1 below his own until he reaches the rank of ''commodore''. he cannot attack 2 ranks above or below but can join battle started by different player's ranks...so he can join a rear admiral battle if he is midshipman...he will die but it was his choice.

But, mate, we all know that rank has close to nothing to do with PvP "skill".

Granted there's a bulkload of top ranks dying all the time against the same veterans who simply kill them with the same manouvers and tactics.

There's no protection from own dumbness.

Only a PvP rank could help, but, aside being difficult to balance and to avoid exploits, it's against the sense of any 'sandbox'.

34 minutes ago, huliotkd said:

delaying the old redeemables don't give time to newbs to learn how to move and how to play PVP in PVP server, they need safe area of equal level to develop skill then venture the ''big boy areas''.

Yes.

Not economically viable in mid-end game safe area. Or the old concept of "starting zone".

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

1 hour ago, Banished Privateer said:

On PvE server players compete on a market and in trade. I've heard that Indiaman sell for 500-600k on PvE and on PvP it sells for 50-100k reals.

And spy vs spy gives them away for free on almost daily basis... not even to his compatriots alone.

[Njord]

1 hour ago, Slim McSauce said:

It's also easy to cry for no wipe

That would be true, if total wipe was the current plan and we wanted to change admin's mind but as he confirmed several times, it is not. 

1 hour ago, Slim McSauce said:

make new players going through the same painful grind that we ourselves are appose to

I can't quite follow here... the grind doesn't change ( at least I did not notice any dev comment suggesting that ) so how exactly does it help new players, if all who have been through it, would have to suffer it again?

Also as mentioned countless times by me aswell as admin, there will always be new players, so we would always need repeating book and ship xp wipes. It just doesn't make sense.

The contrary is actually the case, at least for books. The less people have them unlocked the lower the chance of new players being able to buy or get gifted the books from other players.

The 24/7 power gamers would have all their books back within a month pushing any new players and casuals out of the market for the good books.

Edited January 29, 2019 by Sovereign

[Zlatkowar]

17 hours ago, Slim McSauce said:

I don't feel like me as a player is entitled to keeping anything from the testing period of the game.

This is probably the right mindset. We all knew this was an alpha, and we all know what that means. There's even a warning message on Steam for those who don't fully understand what it implies.

However, grinding all of it from scratch will for sure lead to vets calling it quits and even people who already participated and left to never return. I am trying hard to pull my friends back online to test the game in its current state and the first thing they all ask is "Is the XP grind still as unbearable as it was before?". I'm the only one who had enough patience and made it to rear admiral.

For those tempted to sing "good riddance" think twice. At this point, every player is worth keeping.

13 hours ago, Chevalier du Ethuville said:

Think of the newcomers.

How many of them should we expect? What do you think? What's the ratio of newcomers VS dormant Alpha players waiting for release?

9 hours ago, Banished Privateer said:

Servers will be highly populated

Nothing guarantees that people would join en masse at release day. When the game was added on Steam there was a population spike because it was made visible on a large gaming platform. Chances are there's a fair percentage of players potentially interested in the game already there on alpha. And I wonder how much more we could get at release, especially if there is no reset of the satisfaction count on Steam.

[Slim McSauce]

Just now, Sovereign said:

That would be true, if total wipe was the current plan and we wanted to change admin's mind but as he confirmed several times, it is not. 

I can't quite follow here... the grind doesn't change ( at least I did not notice any dev comment suggesting that ) so how exactly does it help new players, if all who have been through it, would have to suffer it again.

The 24/7 power gamers would have all their books back within a month pushing any new players and casuals out of the market for the good books.

Books are the problem. New players have to go through months of grinding just to be at a level to be gear-wise, even with veterans who would buy all their stuff back. Not even someone who knows all the ropes would want to go back and get these books again, so why would you want to in the first place? To be on an even footing in pvp so you can be confident your ship won't fail you 1v1? Skill only goes so far when you're out tanked, out turned and out ran by your enemy. What's the necessary reason for allowing such disparity when ship based on much less stat-influence had better balanced combat?

And now it seems everyone's just now come to realize that the reason we're getting our ROE tied down because stats for our ships have gotten so wild to the point where you can not even almost rely on pure numbers now, the meta is so predictable , someone being ganked and they do a few turns and head up wind that you either ram and stop them before they can do this or thus initiates the longed chase scene where ships are lined up behind one ship and it woopie we're doing very little for the next 10 minutes, then twenty, then at last a wind change, another 10 minutes to take advantage of the situation, cannon fire! tack upwind, sails damaged, pop a repair and we're off to the races again for another 20 or so minutes.

There's a lot you could do to tighten things up again so maybe we don't need ridiculous ROE staps that keep us from certain actions, because I'm not gonna lie I like to run for some battles if I can, but that shouldn't be my very second thought in every combat situation, because that's how it is in NA, at any moment the guy your fighting could decide screw it, pop a rep and head off and even if he's a little bit faster then you, he's gone. You can chase him, sure, tag him down with your cannons, but wow what a waste of time it is to be so committed to pull a ship out for battle and not take on a 1v1 on the spot with someone with a similar rated ship. 

[Njord]

4 minutes ago, Zlatkowar said:

This is probably the right mindset. We all knew this was an alpha, and we all know what that means. There's even a warning message on Steam for those who don't fully understand what it implies.

However, grinding all of it from scratch will for sure lead to vets calling it quits and even people who already participated and left to never return. I am trying hard to pull my friends back online to test the game in its current state and the first thing they all ask is "Is the XP grind still as unbearable as it was before?". I'm the only one who had enough patience and made it to rear admiral.

For those tempted to sing "good riddance" think twice. At this point, every player is worth keeping.

 

4 minutes ago, Zlatkowar said:

How many of them should we expect? What do you think? What's the ratio of newcomers VS dormant Alpha players waiting for release?

I agree and also I still don't see the benefit for new players in wiping ship slot xp and books. The more time and books the veterans have, the more they are able to share those with new players. There is no real competition between new players and veterans - that is nothing but a fallacy. The veterans always wins due to game knowledge and experience, no matter what other advantage you may or may not give them.

If we really get so many new players on release and my ship xp slots would get wiped ( and I was still interested in the game at that point ) you better be sure I would be farming those new players for my slots without any regrets or sympathy, since there would be plenty targets, bonus xp for PvP and I wouldn't have to do the mind numbing bot grind.

Otherwise I would probably focus on more experienced players and RvR - the current endgame.

New players will always come in and how many it will be on release is as questionable as whether or not it is worth pissing off veterans and testers more than actually needed and maybe even lose quite a few in the process.

[Hethwill]

13 minutes ago, Zlatkowar said:

How many of them should we expect? What do you think? What's the ratio of newcomers VS dormant Alpha players waiting for release?

No idea. Is it a important data ? I am sold that the game is under development, non released. I am also sold that there will be a wipe on release. That's what i look for as a early backer..

There's no victims, just volunteers ( during early access development phases );

 

[Slim McSauce]

Just for the record a game releasing from Early Access is treated as a released on Steam and will be put under new release's when you log in and when you first click into the store page. Not only will old players check back in, but tons of new people will see it too, so expect some pretty serious numbers at launch.

Edited January 29, 2019 by Slim McSauce

[Njord]

5 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

Books are the problem. New players have to go through months of grinding just to be at a level to be gear-wise, even with veterans who would buy all their stuff back. Not even someone who knows all the ropes would want to go back and get these books again, so why would you want to in the first place? To be on an even footing in pvp so you can be confident your ship won't fail you 1v1? Skill only goes so far when you're out tanked, out turned and out ran by your enemy. What's the necessary reason for allowing such disparity when ship based on much less stat-influence had better balanced combat?

And now it seems everyone's just now come to realize that the reason we're getting our ROE tied down because stats for our ships have gotten so wild to the point where you can not even almost rely on pure numbers now, the meta is so predictable , someone being ganked and they do a few turns and head up wind that you either ram and stop them before they can do this or thus initiates the longed chase scene where ships are lined up behind one ship and it woopie we're doing very little for the next 10 minutes, then twenty, then at last a wind change, another 10 minutes to take advantage of the situation, cannon fire! tack upwind, sails damaged, pop a repair and we're off to the races again for another 20 or so minutes.

There's a lot you could do to tighten things up again so maybe we don't need ridiculous ROE staps that keep us from certain actions, because I'm not gonna lie I like to run for some battles if I can, but that shouldn't be my very second thought in every combat situation, because that's how it is in NA, at any moment the guy your fighting could decide screw it, pop a rep and head off and even if he's a little bit faster then you, he's gone. You can chase him, sure, tag him down with your cannons, but wow what a waste of time it is to be so committed to pull a ship out for battle and not take on a 1v1 on the spot with someone with a similar rated ship. 

I am all for removing all books and mods completely from the game but what does that have to do with this topic? I don't think it is going to happen.

New players will fail against veterans in 1 vs 1 regardless of mods or books, I think we have established this more than enough and even if that wasn't the case, what about new players joining 1 month after release or 1 year?

 

[Licinio Chiavari]

17 minutes ago, Zlatkowar said:

This is probably the right mindset. We all knew this was an alpha, and we all know what that means. There's even a warning message on Steam for those who don't fully understand what it implies.

Problem: how is this Alpha now? We should remember we are talking about people who already devoted 3/4.000+ hours to the game. Not to speak they already did the painful and mindless farm 1-2+ times.

10 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

Books are the problem. New players have to go through months of grinding just to be at a level to be gear-wise, even with veterans who would buy all their stuff back. Not even someone who knows all the ropes would want to go back and get these books again, so why would you want to in the first place?

So I proposed to go for making even a full wipe, but making book grinding a breeze.

18 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

when ship based on much less stat-influence had better balanced combat?

You keep overrating gear gap. It ends being really relevant with similar experience. Otherwise makes the outcome simply faster or slower for the veteran vs noob depending of the gear gap is in favour of the first or the latter.

22 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

And now it seems everyone's just ... you, he's gone.

Chases are annoying. Only when the result is obvious.

But I agree they are not time efficient.

That leads to "there's not a single metà" but different working solutions for different situations. Still with pros and cons.

25 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

but wow what a waste of time it is to be so committed to pull a ship out for battle and not take on a 1v1 on the spot with someone with a similar rated ship. 

The old problem: loser gains NOTHING.

So losing the 1v1 is full loss.

No sense fighting a probable defeat.

23 minutes ago, Sovereign said:

If we really get so many new players on release and my ship xp slots would get wiped ( and I was still interested in the game at that point ) you better be sure I would be farming those new players for my slots without any regrets or sympathy, since there would be plenty targets, bonus xp for PvP and I wouldn't have to do the mind numbing bot grind.

Correct.

17 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

so expect some pretty serious numbers at launch.

I hope.

So better not obliging them to farm book slots for ages.

13 minutes ago, Sovereign said:

New players will fail against veterans in 1 vs 1 regardless of mods or books, I think we have established this more than enough and even if that wasn't the case, what about new players joining 1 month after release or 1 year?

This.

Again.

[Tiedemann]

I like the OP suggestion, but I would not mind having 30 days where we all started from scratch   
That would give the new players the possibility to catch up and those of us that don't want to do the cutter grind could just take a break.
The real fight in NA after a wipe is the nations capabilities to organize it self. Secure ports for ship production, setup supply chains, level up the crafters to make line ships first and all this just to be competitive in RvR.
Right after wipe I belive it is so competitive between nations/clans that getting ahead by any means possible mentality set in. And in these periods I fear players will try to exploit, to get an advantage. So having the rank, slots and skill books available after a certain amount of time, might be considered a preventive measure to avoid exploiting.    

I personally do not care about rank, but having to grind the knowlege slots on my favorit ships again is seriously not something I'm up for doing.
Regarding the skill books if they where replaceable I would not mind losing them all, but the way loot drop now they are not. There are so many good books you need to be competitive and they are just to hard to get from loot drops. So the thought of losing them scares me! 😥

Edited January 29, 2019 by Tiedemann

[Guest]

30 minutes ago, Tiedemann said:

I like the OP suggestion, but I would not mind having 30 days where we all started from scratch   
That would give the new players the possibility to catch up and those of us that don't want to do the cutter grind could just take a break.
The real fight in NA after a wipe is the nations capabilities to organize it self. Secure ports for ship production, setup supply chains, level up the crafters to make line ships first and all this just to be competitive in RvR.
Right after wipe I belive it is so competitive between nations/clans that getting ahead by any means possible mentality set in. And in these periods I fear players will try to exploit, to get an advantage. So having the rank, slots and skill books available after a certain amount of time, might be considered a preventive measure to avoid exploiting.    

I personally do not care about rank, but having to grind the knowlege slots on my favorit ships again is seriously not something I'm up for doing. AGREED
Regarding the skill books if they where replaceable I would not mind losing them all, but the way loot drop now they are not. There are so many good books you need to be competitive and they are just to hard to get from loot drops. So the thought of losing them scares me! 😥

I don't believe it will make any difference.. And we all know it - the new players won't be on a level footing with the rest of the community, to suggest otherwise is basically to ignore every lesson learned in NA.. the other thing is what about DLC? I can grind host make a PB and win it in my herc and just need an alt to cap circles.. again the AI isn't that bright.. especially not in the circles game..

In regard to the exploiters.. well I don't mind if an exploiter is punished fx. by losing grinded slots on ships along with their rank fx.. or their knowledge books.. That would imo be a preventive measure in general..

[Christoph]

50 minutes ago, Licinio Chiavari said:

 

The old problem: loser gains NOTHING.

 

 

 

yes thats bs. 

example:

2vs5 battle

you sink 2 ships but at the end, you sink. you get nothing! the enemy has the doubloons of his sunken friends

that's total bs. I want to be rewarded for my work, even if I sunk

Edited January 29, 2019 by Christoph

[Angus MacDuff]

Just get rid of the grind.  All slots open all the time (on PVP server).  Make books very easy to acquire also.  Then, no matter what degree of wipe that Devs decide on, the playing field is close to level from the start.  Why do we need for some players to have a material advantage over others?  For me, this poisons the well.  Let the advantages be in the choices you make to set up your ship....not a forced advantage because Player X has all the books that Player Y does not have.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Angus MacDuff said:

Just get rid of the grind.  All slots open all the time (on PVP server).  Make books very easy to acquire also.  Then, no matter what degree of wipe that Devs decide on, the playing field is close to level from the start.  Why do we need for some players to have a material advantage over others?  For me, this poisons the well.  Let the advantages be in the choices you make to set up your ship....not a forced advantage because Player X has all the books that Player Y does not have.

3 days after a total wipe I will be the richest player on the server... again.. It has nothing to do with "leveling" the playing field, in order to do so all mechanics, combat/trading/rvr etc would have to be scratched and rebuild entirely.. Even then, new players can't compete with my intimate knowledge of players, traderoutes and econ in NA.. The entire notion that there will be a lvl playing field or that material advantages might be more balanced by wiping everything is tbh not a very informed opinion. 

I wouldn't mind an RvR wipe every 3-6 or 12 months, making "seasonal" conquests for NA. New players would still be new, but it would atleast allow new clans to organize, test and compete with some of the current clans.. I don't believe for a second that it will change anything, but it would allow some competition that would reward the organized and prepared clans with an early advantage that would be have to be cancelled out during the season.

[Angus MacDuff]

Note that I said "...close to level from the start".  Nothing will change an individual player's skill and knowledge.  Good players will still be good.  I'm just saying that I would like it if it was ONLY our individual skill and knowledge that was the determining factor. 

[St0nkingByte]

A wipe is at best, a temporary thing. It will be neato for a few days, maybe two weeks tops and then whatever balance issues are present in the current version of the game will resurface and stay there. The game would be best balanced for the long term by dealing with the issues as they are present in a mixed playerbase.

Starting over would be fun, but as has been mentioned you can do it at any time through self-service character re-creation if you want to.

I could probably tolerate anything except losing the wicked grind ship upgrade slots, good lord don't make me do the ones I already have over again.

 

[Hethwill]

Lars, is not about level field. Is about same line start.

If you can do everything again with ease, then why the reluctance... ? 

 New comers, early backers, and continuous testers... all starting from scratch on day zero on a new fresh map as well. That's a nice thought  

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, Chevalier du Ethuville said:

Lars, is not about level field. Is about same line start.

If you can do everything again with ease, then why the reluctance... ? 

 New comers, early backers, and continuous testers... all starting from scratch on day zero on a new fresh map as well. That's a nice thought  

I'm not really reluctant - other than the grinding of ship XP, I'm not doing that twice... It's more - I don't see the point? It's a meaningless gesture that will have been cancelled out after 2 weeks at most.. I make 400k at the moment for about 20 mins of work.. That won't change with a wipe..