Periodic Resets

[Prince of Wales]

After seeing the recent lack of action on the PvP server, I think the best way to refresh the game would be a similar way of Rust's method of frequent levelling of the playing field. I would suggest a near full wipe, people lose, Books (I don't feel too strongly on this point either way), Ships, Ports, Resources, Money. But keep their Ship xp and their Rank.

Having periodic resets would allow:

• Clans to change nation without needing DLC, lets be real a clan can not at the moment leave a nation without giving up huge stockpiles of resources, ships and ports
  • As a sub point to this we have heard some clans wish to leave a certain zerg nation but feel too compelled to stay due to the amount of lost resources and players if there were to be a move. having these resets means that people can delete and remake a character on a reset without the same loss
• Would allow new clans a chance to compete with the "old guard" who have managed at this current state to gather unimaginable levels of wealth and resources
• Would help to cause more RvR as people will repeatedly struggle each reset for significant ports like cartagena, san juan, nassu which right now are, in RvR terms, stale parts of the map and with the exception of SJ have been for a very long time.
• Would allow the game to more flexibly make big changes to the game since each reset could be considered a "season", similar to other games the devs could use these season changes to roll out big changes without people getting as annoyed, for example:
• I believe this patch would also make alt's in other nations from their mains less prevalent(At least in the early stages of each reset) due to people wanting to purely focus their efforts into growing their nations economy and the fact that strategic resources would also be up for grabs
• Admin's new RARE woods would actually be SUPER rare like he wants them to be due to it being a late game thing for people to achieve.
• It would give those who ragequit the game a good chance to come back and try it again after a reset or those who played in a nation that gets effectively killed have a good chance to come back and give it another try

"port point investments being a big new feature for the next season of naval action" or even being able to add port bonus's

Having seasons would help admin justifiably make big changes to a fully released game, we already see a system like this work in MOBA's I don't see why this couldn't work for us.

 

First counter point I imagine, You are circumventing the forger DLC:

• There will still be clans and players who change nations to either follow the current zerg or to leave drama

Second counter point, People will just stay with same zerg nations:

• Then the situation would be no better than we have now but at least their huge stockpiles of resources would be wiped giving a counter alliance a chance to form

Third counter point, But muh super grinders will still get things first:

• Deservedly so in my opinion, but anyway these grinders will always be in the game and there is not much you can do to balance them, they put in the time they deserve the reward, it would be similar to the point above, sure they will still have the best stuff but at least at some point they will lose it and start from the same point as everyone else and there will be more time that you will be effectively viable against them

 

As an addition to this I personally believe part of the stagnation of RvR is also related to the Port Bonus investments as it makes ANY war incredibly risky as if you lose you could lose your crafting port which is essentially game over for that nation unless you have alts to craft from within another nation but this is another point irrelevant to this suggestion. I think these two idea's have to go hand in hand to work, since the grind to upgrade ports is the largest in the game, I think to have resets work Port Bonus's would have to go, the other investments are fine and can be achieved by pretty much any nation in a reasonable time frame.

An alternative to still have port bonus's in the game and make more ports interesting to take is to have port bonus's spawn naturally in a port, for example Santo Domingo could be G1 | M2 | S3 | C1. and those bonus's can't be invested in and other ports could have a variety of builds making some ports more interesting to take without people risking losing a huge grind every time they want a little bit of RvR content

 

A way to reward a "winning nation" is to give them access to some cosmetic item, such as a gold flag(with their nations normal flag in top right) or something of that theme, eg "Winner of season 2020" on some kind of background(Or some fancy special 1 time flags that that account can keep), not sure how you would stop people swapping last minute to get these flags would work though so perhaps this idea could be worked on more thoroughly by creating requirements of RvR participation to be eligible for it

Edited July 21, 2020 by Prince of Wales

[Prince of Wales]

4 minutes ago, Mannow said:

I agree with the sentiment, but at the same time, I dont want to lose literal hundreds of hours of Grind. 
I would agree if I could keep Books, Ships, and Money.

Keeping money and ships would defeat the point of the reset's advantages, books however is debateable(I don't feel strongly either way since at some point the majority of RvR players have all of them anyway, it just means that those who swap nation without DLC will have to race to regrind them), the point is to allow big clans to move nations to help rebalance the game without needing every member to buy the DLC

Edited July 21, 2020 by Prince of Wales

[Prince of Wales]

1 minute ago, RepairyMcRepairous said:

""No, I like people hoarding tons of the best stuff and the RvR slowly getting stale after a nation has already effectively won the map""

****No, I don't like loosing stuff I put time into getting for the same result later

Fixed it for you

sure you can have all the best stuff but it is ultimately pointless when it is clear to see a nation has already won and there is no foreseeable feasible way to actually hurt that nation considering their allies and their position on the map pertaining to opposing nations crafting ports

[Farrago]

I understand the frustration, but we know from what happens to population every time we await a big announced change: population drops as people don't know where invest their time and effort. The game gets frozen by inaction. How soon before such a wipe do you think players will start not bothering to do stuff? A wipe is just not the answer. The answer is negative pressures on nation growth. It should more and more difficult to own an empire the bigger it becomes.

[Tac]

Look on the brightside,when everyone is bored of AI PBs the map will be mostly neutral anyway.

[Prince of Wales]

Just now, Farrago said:

I understand the frustration, but we know from what happens to population every time we await a big announced change: population drops as people don't know where invest their time and effort. The game gets frozen by inaction. How soon before such a wipe do you think players will start not bothering to do stuff? A wipe is just not the answer. The answer is negative pressures on nation growth. It should more and more difficult to own an empire the bigger it becomes.

If the wipes were at regular planned points then people would be rushing to lose their nice ships they have been saving for an occassion that never came, as there has been before every reset every takes all their best shit and tries to lose it, people stop grinding but if there is a clear defined reset period then everyone is well aware of it and I think players would be more inclined to play and use up all their resources before not playing until after reset, i think there would be an inactive time maybe a week before the reset when people have used all the stuff they wanted to lose but post reset gives people a chance to return to the game and try it again while being on a level playing field, and it would give a chance for clans to shake up the diplomacy. either 6 months or a year would be ideal time, most likely 6 months as it means people wouldnt lose "too much grind" compared to annual resets.

[Prince of Wales]

1 minute ago, Tac said:

Look on the brightside,when everyone is bored of AI PBs the map will be mostly neutral anyway.

There are PvE'rs in all nations willing to do them 😁, and besides are you happy with the current map, do you think it really allows for fluid RvR play?

There is pretty much a single alliance chain that owns all the ports that border freetowns and the alliances in game are VERY static

Edited July 21, 2020 by Prince of Wales

[Slim McSauce]

1 hour ago, Mannow said:

I agree with the sentiment, but at the same time, I dont want to lose literal hundreds of hours of Grind. 
I would agree if I could keep Books, Ships, and Money.

What if they were made to be acquired easier every season, or rather campaign?
Would I give up thousand of hours of nose to the stone for a thousand hours of new game? 
I like the idea, but I fear the execution and don't really trust the developers to deliver.

Edited July 21, 2020 by Slim McSauce

[Tac]

16 minutes ago, Prince of Wales said:

There are PvE'rs in all nations willing to do them 😁, and besides are you happy with the current map, do you think it really allows for fluid RvR play?

There is pretty much a single alliance chain that owns all the ports that border freetowns and the alliances in game are VERY static

Oh it is indeed as stale as year old loaf of bread however getting people to give up power and possessions is extremely difficult especially when you have to work so hard to gain such power and possessions in this game.

I guess that's just the way it is. A wipe is a big risk with 700 player pop especially if on the flip side the result is the same.

Edited July 21, 2020 by Tac

[Prince of Wales]

6 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

What if they were made to be acquired easier every season, or ladder?
Would I give up thousand of hours of nose to the stone for a thousand hours of new game? 
I like the idea, but I fear the execution and don't really trust the developers to deliver.

Yeah, this change would need an overhaul to go along with it, such as changes to the grind for books etc, maybe make encyclopedia parts cost like 500 CMs or the usual luck chance so that even if you are super unlucky there is a clear way to get the best stuff in the game. Ships and Money are easy to get a reasonable amount of, doubs are kinda useless in this patch beyond the basic books and port investments.

Another change that I feel would compliment reset's would be the removal of build able port bonus's, like i said in OP is to have pre designated setups in some ports to give them strategic value but don't give any ports amazing bonus's so its not game over without them

4 minutes ago, Tac said:

Oh it is indeed as stale as year old loaf of bread however getting people to give up power and possessions is extremely difficult especially when you have to work so hard to gain such power and possessions in this game.

I guess that's just the way it is. A wipe is a big risk with 700 player pop especially if on the flip side the result is the same.

Yeah it is but I think there is a clear end in sight for RvR if some results fall certain ways in the ongoing conflicts, the game in its current state does not encourage flexible RvR alliances, which is what is needed for a more fluid game, this to me is a good way to potentially entice players who Rage quit for RvR related reasons a good chance to come back, these are the players who would actually stick around and play. The good thing with this suggestion is I am not living in some fantasy where I want to increase the 1.5% rentention rate of player accounts(Source estimated from qw's total account stats divided by a roughly 700 peak player count)

 

Edited July 21, 2020 by Prince of Wales

[Prince of Wales]

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Edited July 21, 2020 by Prince of Wales
compressing to single post

[Raf Van Boom]

Let's say you have a strong group of people who do nothing but play NA 24 hours a day, and win every single port battle no matter what.  Getting the Russians out of the gulf would take roughly what 7-8 months? 115 ports, let's say 2 days between PBs to acquire flags and move supplies. Of course RvR is stale.

Also, port upgrades, doing RvR is a bad idea to being with, you lose your upgraded port and what? Regrind all that crap?  Uhh, I don't think your idea will have many takers.

Edited July 21, 2020 by Raf Van Boom

[Prince of Wales]

6 minutes ago, Raf Van Boom said:

Let's say you have a strong group of people who do nothing but play NA 24 hours a day, and win every single port battle no matter what.  Getting the Russians out of the gulf would take roughly what 7-8 months? 115 ports, let's say 2 days between PBs to acquire flags and move supplies. Of course RvR is stale.

Also, port upgrades, doing RvR is a bad idea to being with, you lose your upgraded port and what? Regrind all that crap?  Uhh, I don't think your idea will have many takers.

Read what I said about port bonus's I said there should be default bonus's on some ports that aren't too wild. This suggestion would probably require too much change, both technically and in peoples attitudes. However, If implemented has the potential to help NA last a long time since RvR and PvP content would be very dynamic and would mean people have things to do in game which makes them sail, and more people on open world generally trends with more activity in the playerbase

1 hour ago, Prince of Wales said:

As an addition to this I personally believe part of the stagnation of RvR is also related to the Port Bonus investments as it makes ANY war incredibly risky as if you lose you could lose your crafting port which is essentially game over for that nation unless you have alts to craft from within another nation but this is another point irrelevant to this suggestion. I think these two idea's have to go hand in hand to work, since the grind to upgrade ports is the largest in the game, I think to have resets work Port Bonus's would have to go, the other investments are fine and can be achieved by pretty much any nation in a reasonable time frame.

An alternative to still have port bonus's in the game and make more ports interesting to take is to have port bonus's spawn naturally in a port, for example Santo Domingo could be G1 | M2 | S3 | C1. and those bonus's can't be invested in and other ports could have a variety of builds making some ports more interesting to take without people risking losing a huge grind every time they want a little bit of RvR content

Edited July 21, 2020 by Prince of Wales

[erelkivtuadrater]

A reset every 6th month would be great imo, give unique reward in therms of flags or title to the winner in certain classed (highest kd, minimum 100 PvP battles, holding port x the longest time, most 1st places on PvP leaderboard, most pve kills, highest accumulated gold, longest distance traveled) so all grind wouldnt be in vain

[Prince of Wales]

16 minutes ago, Raf Van Boom said:

Let's say you have a strong group of people who do nothing but play NA 24 hours a day, and win every single port battle no matter what.  Getting the Russians out of the gulf would take roughly what 7-8 months? 115 ports, let's say 2 days between PBs to acquire flags and move supplies. Of course RvR is stale.

Also, port upgrades, doing RvR is a bad idea to being with, you lose your upgraded port and what? Regrind all that crap?  Uhh, I don't think your idea will have many takers.

Lets say for example then that port investments stay as they are now, if someone loses their crafting port now and leaves the game(which is very likely or at a minimum only a portion will stay and of that most will swap nations) they will not come back. If there are resets they are more likely to give the game a try again on the next reset since everyone will be in the same boat again, so to speak.

Edited July 21, 2020 by Prince of Wales

[Nixolai]

3 minutes ago, Prince of Wales said:

Lets say for example then that port investments stay as they are now, if someone loses their crafting port now and leaves the game(which is very likely or at a minimum only a portion will stay and of that most will swap nations) they will not come back. 

Or you will have most of the current clans stay where they are, and you can bring convo up again in 6 months

[Prince of Wales]

1 minute ago, Nixolai said:

Or you will have most of the current clans stay where they are, and you can bring convo up again in 6 months

Perhaps, but from the talk that a lot of clan leaders put out they feel trapped in their current nations with clans they would rather not be with, due to them having to give up so much to swap, so I doubt you would see the same clan setup in at least GB, Pirates, US and Russia

Edited July 21, 2020 by Prince of Wales

[Slim McSauce]

1 hour ago, Prince of Wales said:

If there are resets they are more likely to give the game a try again on the next reset since everyone will be in the same boat again, so to speak.

Not only that, you can remove reduce the grind and retain the luck. A season long enough for each person to collect a handful of super uniques,
but ends before one side can collect everything. When that happens the game ends, no running up the score.
 

Edited July 22, 2020 by Slim McSauce

[erelkivtuadrater]

But considering we're still sitting with only 4 uncustomisable clan member tanks, i wont have any high hopes for your idea unfortunately

[Slim McSauce]

10 minutes ago, erelkivtuadrater said:

But considering we're still sitting with only 4 uncustomisable clan member tanks, i wont have any high hopes for your idea unfortunately

the best thing would be for these clans to disband their current nation and spread out, they won't though because it requires DLC and towing hundred of items.
there's too many separate factions for each to get their own good clan, it requires the weaker nations to band together but only if alliances are recognized.
even then 

[Je maintiendrai]

If admins start wiping ships and/or books/collectibles im gonna delete for good

[Prince of Wales]

7 hours ago, Je maintiendrai said:

If admins start wiping ships and/or books/collectibles im gonna delete for good

Whats the point in having all the books and collectibles when there are dwindling numbers of people on open sea 

Edited July 22, 2020 by Prince of Wales

[Frosty]

Prince of Wales, perhaps if you joined a nation that is actually doing something/trying to do something in the game, your opinion would be different. You've been in Prussia for an year... they did nothing for a long time till KRAKE joined the nation, and now you're in France... they haven't done any RvR since release. How can you pretend to be having fun in the game if you're in dead nations? 

Reset? Big NO. 
Mechanics to encourage leaving the zerg and the swerg to join smaller nations? Big YES.

[DesPerdicio]

Map reset after getting 70% of ports would be a great idea!

[Prince of Wales]

3 minutes ago, Frosty said:

Prince of Wales, perhaps if you joined a nation that is actually doing something/trying to do something in the game, your opinion would be different. You've been in Prussia for an year... they did nothing for a long time till KRAKE joined the nation, and now you're in France... they haven't done any RvR since release. How can you pretend to be having fun in the game if you're in dead nations? 

Reset? Big NO. 
Mechanics to encourage leaving the zerg and the swerg to join smaller nations? Big YES.

I mean France has had some RvR recently and the fact that a nation like France can be considered "Dead" in the game is kind of proof in the pudding that how few nations have "active" populations, and as I said, this wouldn't be an easy pill to swallow but in my opinon having the game go through cycles would mean more players in the long run, and I don't see anyway to encourage people to leave zergs without admin giving some kind of special treatment to some clans which would open up a can of worms of forum whining that I am sure admin could do without

Edited July 22, 2020 by Prince of Wales