Reinforcement Zone 'nerf'

[rahzor]

I am really struggling with the R-Zones.

Can´t they be nerfed?

One idea might be:

A relative outcome to everything you are doing regarding your rank up to 1/10th outcome at the highest rank. (or so)

This shall be related to Reals / Doublons / XP / dropping etc.

And maybe a bit smaller, but more rewards for sailing the free waters!

Edited March 13, 2019 by rahzor

[Sir Texas Sir]

 Are you can actually hunt out side of them?  They are suppose to be high risk.  

[rahzor]

High risk means more value to be generated outside these zones?

[LIONOFWALES]

The only reason that I go to reinforcement zones to do battle is to die... to fight hard and die. I learn more when I am forced to survive than when it is easy. This seems self destructive, but it really is not. I only run ships I can replace on a moments notice... that is, if my personal economy cannot support me losing a number of the ship(s) I could potentially be using, then I don't run that ship. I recommend other players to be economic in the way they play this game... half of the wargame is after all... economics, and if its not profitable for me to run a big line ship because I cant replace it easily, then I simply should not run the large ships. 

But there I go... getting all practical again... ok ok, enough tomatoes, stop throwing the tomatoes.

But in all seriousness, the reinforcement zones do seem like a bit much... or maybe silly to me, but I am sure newer players appreciate having them. Lets just have reinforcement zones at the Capitols only... ok ok stop throwing tomatoes again.

My simple point is... we have many different kinds of players, and two select groups come out... those that love protection, and those that don't care about protection at all. I just happen to be one of those players that doesn't care about protection, I win some and lose some, the games I lose I usually learn the most from, the ones I win vindicate my efforts. I naturally would like to see the reinforcement zones shrunk exceedingly, but I am biased and a trader hunter so... yeah. Now the traders are throwing tomatoes at me.

To be perfectly clear... I don't see any real fix all for this reinforcement zone dilemma, but I do believe that shrinking and reducing the number of reinforcement zones would help the situation a bit.

That's my say in this matter, I hope this changes, but it isn't really that big of a game changer for me... especially since my kills happen far away... away from land, where nobody ever goes. Generally when I catch a trader out in the open ocean I have gone days without seeing anyone, I feel like saying boo! to the trader players out there because they seldom expect ships that far out. Many times I catch them AFK too. But after three 24 hour days of not seeing any players I will take their stuff, even if they are AFK. This is my favorite aspect of this game... the hunt.

Three cheers for the frigates and their galante captains!

[rahzor]

i got the point you cannot really do everything in favour for everyone!

Always there are pro´s and con´s.

Nevertheless - i am not sure if there is a reward to take high risk (fight out of reinforcement).

 

On real good step is: trading: the longer the way traveled the higher the reward! very nice. to get more award you must go out of the zone.

if the same is happening with PVE, OK, perfect!

[LIONOFWALES]

Sorry... I was away for a bit, I had an appointment with a chicken.,

I agree that all players should be served somehow to encourage them to stay, many times a good compromise is enough, and a reward as you have noted is a good idea. Higher the risk the higher the rewards.

Thanks for deliberating.

Edited March 13, 2019 by LIONOFWALES

[van der Clam]

I like the idea of nerfing prizes in the RZs. The higher rank we are the less XP we should get for being in our own RZs. But when we are in enemy RZs, ranks shouldn't affect rewards unless we are killing lower rank captains and/or with a bigger ship. I think we just need modifiers based on rank and on rate that affect XP and rewards....and then apply it to RZs.

Anyway, TY @rahzor for kindly bowing out of the battle earlier tonight so it wasn't 2v1.

[Barbancourt]

Reinforcement zones are tiny, and they just got done shrinking a whole lot. 

[admin]

Reinforcements zones will be reduced or removed completely. Capital protected area will remain

RZs are not needed on the war server.
They did not deliver on their goal to increase retention on the war server and the only place where they increase retention is the Peace server (when the whole world is safe). 
In reality the only 2 parameters that affect online growth on the PVP server and they are

• pvp assists - best correlation. If you have pvp assists you stay in the game longest (not longer per day - longer overall - you basically play more)
• pve assists - second best correlation. If you have pve assists you stay in the game longer

Thats why battles are open now for the weaker side and we see un uptick in pvp kills as a result
Thats why doable group missions are coming back en force with great rewards.

Community can help by actively recruiting rookies into their pvp or pve organizations. 

[van Veen]

14 minutes ago, admin said:

pvp assists - best correlation. If you have pvp assists you stay in the game longest (not longer per day - longer overall - you basically play more)

Do you also consider the old PVP marks system to be re-implemented where you received rewards for assists as well? 

[Vizzini]

1 hour ago, van Veen said:

Do you also consider the old PVP marks system to be re-implemented where you received rewards for assists as well? 

do we get any reward for pvp on the ow ?  i think the only way currently to get any combat marks is to sail an hour to the gank zones marked on the map. Why they couldn't utilize Bermuda , 1 free port to teleport to and change the map daily is beyond me.

 

 

 

Edited March 13, 2019 by Vizzini
Clarity

[HachiRoku]

2 hours ago, admin said:

Reinforcements zones will be reduced or removed completely. Capital protected area will remain

RZs are not needed on the war server.
They did not deliver on their goal to increase retention on the war server and the only place where they increase retention is the Peace server (when the whole world is safe). 
In reality the only 2 parameters that affect online growth on the PVP server and they are

• pvp assists - best correlation. If you have pvp assists you stay in the game longest (not longer per day - longer overall - you basically play more)
• pve assists - second best correlation. If you have pve assists you stay in the game longer

Thats why battles are open now for the weaker side and we see un uptick in pvp kills as a result
Thats why doable group missions are coming back en force with great rewards.

Community can help by actively recruiting rookies into their pvp or pve organizations. 

I like that but the thing about roe is that it doesn't feel right. Back when you had the 2 minutes timer for 100% of the battles it made sense. You said it yourself that 2min was view distance of battle. You added patrol and people complained. They did not like the way you could be ganked by a clan 25 minutes into battle. I don't understand why you changed to whole roe of the open sea because of that. You must take time compression into account even if people are ganked because of it. If you continue down this road you might as well keep the open sea for eco and have a combat lobby.  I know it is hard to design a sandbox with instances but at least the 2min timer was a logical compromise and should have been part of patrol since day one. If you want fair pvp then enable small battles. I personally want a lobby game more than a sandbox but if the game is intended to be a sandbox then it should be one. Nothing worse than a game that doesn't know what it is. 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, admin said:

Reinforcements zones will be reduced or removed completely. Capital protected area will remain

RZs are not needed on the war server.
They did not deliver on their goal to increase retention on the war server and the only place where they increase retention is the Peace server (when the whole world is safe). 
In reality the only 2 parameters that affect online growth on the PVP server and they are

• pvp assists - best correlation. If you have pvp assists you stay in the game longest (not longer per day - longer overall - you basically play more)
• pve assists - second best correlation. If you have pve assists you stay in the game longer

Thats why battles are open now for the weaker side and we see un uptick in pvp kills as a result
Thats why doable group missions are coming back en force with great rewards.

Community can help by actively recruiting rookies into their pvp or pve organizations. 

remove the reinforcement zone complete and make the capital area a little bit bigger. the new players can fight 7th rates in that zone and nobody can gang the new players

[Sven Silberbart]

3 hours ago, admin said:

Reinforcements zones will be reduced or removed completely. Capital protected area will remain

RZs are not needed on the war server.

 

Best info ever !!!

Seriously.. really good decision 🙂

[Angus MacDuff]

3 hours ago, admin said:

Thats why battles are open now for the weaker side and we see un uptick in pvp kills as a result

But the 20 minute timer is too long.  5 minutes would be plenty.  I'm finding that I'm hesitant to tag an enemy within sight of ports as the 20 min timer almost guarantees a gank.  Less tagging means less fighting.

[Havelock]

3 hours ago, admin said:

In reality the only 2 parameters that affect online growth on the PVP server and they are

• pvp assists - best correlation. If you have pvp assists you stay in the game longest (not longer per day - longer overall - you basically play more)
• pve assists - second best correlation. If you have pve assists you stay in the game longer

 

Its quite easy: You stay in this game longer if you have a group/clan/community to play with. The best thing to expand on therefore would be clan features, like functionality and clans having more impact on the game. You already announced placable structures and ressource hubs for clans, so i think thats a good way

[Vizzini]

5 minutes ago, Havelock said:

 

Its quite easy: You stay in this game longer if you have a group/clan/community to play with. The best thing to expand on therefore would be clan features, like functionality and clans having more impact on the game. You already announced placable structures and ressource hubs for clans, so i think thats a good way

+1 you can have some control over who you let into your clan.

[Socialism]

4 hours ago, admin said:

Reinforcements zones will be reduced or removed completely. Capital protected area will remain

RZs are not needed on the war server.
They did not deliver on their goal to increase retention on the war server and the only place where they increase retention is the Peace server (when the whole world is safe). 
In reality the only 2 parameters that affect online growth on the PVP server and they are

• pvp assists - best correlation. If you have pvp assists you stay in the game longest (not longer per day - longer overall - you basically play more)
• pve assists - second best correlation. If you have pve assists you stay in the game longer

Thats why battles are open now for the weaker side and we see un uptick in pvp kills as a result
Thats why doable group missions are coming back en force with great rewards.

Community can help by actively recruiting rookies into their pvp or pve organizations. 

Did not have the desired effect.....

Probably because for the longest time AI battles started within the zone could be jumped by other enemy players and then player who created the fight would be in an immediate disadvantage.  You also nerfed AI reinforcements so that similar ship classes would join and this encouraged small ship ganking.  In a requin I personally ignored them and just went after the player.   In essence the safe zones were not safe for months.  

If you were to increase the size of the capital zones to replace the safe zones and allow zero PVP battles you would see the desired effects of increasing PVE.  

Edited March 13, 2019 by Socialism

[Vizzini]

9 minutes ago, Socialism said:

Did not have the desired effect.....

Probably because for the longest time AI battles started within the zone could be jumped by other enemy players and then player who created the fight would be in an immediate disadvantage.  You also nerfed AI reinforcements so that similar ship classes would join and this encouraged small ship ganking.  In a requiem I personally ignored them and just went after the player.   In essence the safe zones were not safe for months.  

If you were to increase the size of the capital zones to replace the safe zones and allow zero PVP battles you would see the desired effects of increasing PVE.  

lets hope we have a swift turnaround with regard to outlaw battles too

 

start allowing clans to operate independently

 

#makepiratesgreatagain

[Socialism]

4 minutes ago, Vizzini said:

lets hope we have a swift turnaround with regard to outlaw battles too

 

start allowing clans to operate independently

 

#makepiratesgreatagain

If only...

[Sir Texas Sir]

No place for casuals and new players to level up and open ships lots. Well there just went most of your population. I 'm sure this will be just as successful as NA:L was when you went pure PvP.  Why don't we just remove all AI too?

Can we get a flag on PvE/Peace server so that if we want to PvP we can with each other?  Cause I'm all ready going to see now one wanting to stick around when they can't level up cause they are getting jumped by vets at the capitals.  I remember how it was without zones.  I was killed in my basic cutter 22 times before I was able to make it to my missions.....22 FREAKING TIMES.  Luckily I took a break and waited until the next patch and three months later moved to a less populated server cause getting gank trying to level up several times a day got old fast.

[victor]

5 hours ago, admin said:

Reinforcements zones will be reduced or removed completely. Capital protected area will remain

RZs are not needed on the war server.
They did not deliver on their goal to increase retention on the war server and the only place where they increase retention is the Peace server (when the whole world is safe). 
In reality the only 2 parameters that affect online growth on the PVP server and they are

• pvp assists - best correlation. If you have pvp assists you stay in the game longest (not longer per day - longer overall - you basically play more)
• pve assists - second best correlation. If you have pve assists you stay in the game longer

Thats why battles are open now for the weaker side and we see un uptick in pvp kills as a result
Thats why doable group missions are coming back en force with great rewards.

Community can help by actively recruiting rookies into their pvp or pve organizations. 

Let me speculate about what it could happen at launch.

Experienced traders and pro carebears (and their clans) will go immediately finding them some remote long-haul-but-in-the-middle-of-nothing-routes or hidden and far away places to kill NPCs.

Newbies - instead - will roam around capitals doing missions and some short range haul.

The usual gankers will also roam there ... you know

Since PVP players of a faction will be busy in roaming around near other factions' capital, newbies will struggle in finding suitable defense

My honest impression is that you basically think that reverting to the no-reinfocement model at launch could bring the same results that it had when, a couple of years ago, there were no safezones at all. The problem is that the game has changed a lot: now we have no easy captured ships, we have no plenty of NPCs around capitals to farm xp and silver, in general now gaining silver is much less easy than once, now we have one life ships (instead of multiple life ships), now a decent ship is much more expensive than before, now access to good woods is restrained for the average players. So I think that things are likely to turn in a different way.

PS: I bet a silver piece that when you will take away reinforcement zones the gank posse will get back camping outside capitals ... basically proving that reinforcement were far from useless.

 

 

 

Edited March 13, 2019 by victor

[Angus MacDuff]

6 minutes ago, victor said:

Let me speculate about what it could happen at launch.

Experienced traders and pro carebears (and their clans) will go immediately finding them some remote long-haul-but-in-the-middle-of-nothing-routes or hidden and far away places to kill NPCs.

Newbies - instead - will roam around capitals doing missions and some short range haul.

The usual gankers will also roam there ... you know

Since PVP players of a faction will be busy in roaming around near other factions' capital, newbies will struggle in finding suitable defense

My honest impression is that you basically think that reverting to the no-reinfocement model at launch could bring the same results that it had when, a couple of years ago, there were no safezones at all. The problem is that the game has changed a lot: now we have no easy captured ships, we have no plenty of NPCs around capitals to farm xp and silver, in general now gaining silver is much less easy than once, now we have one life ships (instead of multiple life ships), now a decent ship is much more expensive than before, now access to good woods is restrained for the average players. So I think that things are likely to turn in a different way.

PS: I bet a silver piece that when you will take away reinforcement zones the gank posse will get back camping outside capitals ... basically proving that reinforcement were far from useless.

 

 

 

The Prussians don't seem to miss the R zone too much.  Dunno about the other two, but Prussian noobs seem to do just fine.

[Vizzini]

5 hours ago, admin said:

In reality the only 2 parameters that affect online growth on the PVP server and they are

• pvp assists - best correlation. If you have pvp assists you stay in the game longest (not longer per day - longer overall - you basically play more)
• pve assists - second best correlation. If you have pve assists you stay in the game longer 

Community can help by actively recruiting rookies into their pvp or pve organizations. 

I'm not arguing, all of these are flawed arguments.

 

Having fun and addiction is the only parameter for people returning day after day.

 

Nobody will attempt to train new players out on the open water if they have no safe place to try and attempt it.

 

 

 

[Socialism]

23 minutes ago, Angus MacDuff said:

The Prussians don't seem to miss the R zone too much.  Dunno about the other two, but Prussian noobs seem to do just fine.

Prussian noobs also use ports out of the way to do their farming (no one goes to the top of haiti), as does the Russian noobs up in their location oriented safe zone.  Poland is a better example and how they were farmed out of the game a couple of times.  In fact as I write this I remember back during the prussia/pirate war we made an effort to go to those ports at the top of haiti and sink HANSA traders.  They were tired of it immediately and it was one of the reasons why we made a peace deal.  

Fact of the matter is that safe zones either need to exist and be 100% safe (no pvp) or need to be removed completed.  Admin has chose to remove them, but I think his reasoning is incorrect.  We have not tested 100% safe reinforcement zones and he is using a flawed system to form his opinions.  Personally I'd like to test the idea of an expanded capital zone that allows for no PVP battles and see what the results would be.

Players left the game for the PVE server because of several factors - 

Lineships are expensive to make and easy to lose
Unsafe Reinforcement zones
Little incentive to PVP outside capital areas
RVR mega zergs that steam roll territory
PVE server won't be wiped. 

To say that safe zones didn't work and people moved over to the peace server because of that reason alone is a fallacy.