Have the NPC ships been turned down or has something broken?

[Cmdr Thrudd]

A group of 6 of us have just spent about 3 hours sailing from Kingston -> Mortimer town -> Bahia Escoesa -> La Mona -> Spanish Town -> Plymouth as we were looking for a new place to set up a base. Along the way we only found 4 fleets worth attacking (one or two 3rd rates + some support) the entire time. Now we're sailing about in the Antilles and it's like a desert. A few weeks ago it was a hive of activity with multiple npcs ships visible at all times. When we sailed from Fort Baai to Plymouth we saw just two npc ships (cutter and a brig). 

 

This cant be right for the PvE server, did something break in the last patch? NPC's seem really thin on the ground, totally changed from a few weeks ago.

[strife1one1]

@Admin  Something definitely changed the npc ships have become rare on the PVE server which makes it kind of pointless to be on the server since we need PVE fleets to engage. We need to have this looked into please and have the spawns for the PVE server increased significantly again. 

Edited February 15, 2016 by strife1one1

[Horashino]

I second that as one of the players that did the sailing..  What good is it for us to travel for 3 hrs and not find a fleet worth fighting in a simple 6 man.

 

What happens when we level up to flag captain and get to our connies.... nothing to fight.

 

 

Please fix and create more spawns for the pve community..

 

[Prater]

The AI ships change locations, always have.  If you kill all the deer in an area, you are less likely to be able to continue to hunt in that area.

[strife1one1]

Read we werent just in one area. We sailed from Kingston all the way to the east islands 2 hours away and only saw 4 fleets and a very few spatterings of a single trader cutter or single pickle or snow. 

[Cmdr Thrudd]

The AI ships change locations, always have.  If you kill all the deer in an area, you are less likely to be able to continue to hunt in that area.

 

Well they seem to have changed location right off the map as there really aren't the spawns anywhere that there were a few weeks ago.

We're sailing for hours across a large chunk of the map and not seeing decent spawns. Visiting the Antillies a few weeks back it was thick with targets now there's literally not a sail on the horizon for minutes at a time.

Edited February 15, 2016 by Cmdr Thrudd

[Stepping_Razor]

Much more fun to hunt fleets open world.  I never did like doing "missions" in a video game.   

 

The feeling of heading out on a voyage to hunt fleets is fun,  it adds a sense of grand scale.  

 

Although......Where did all the NPC's go.  We are starting to believe that we have to hang out in an area for quite some time to start getting fleets that are efficient to attack. My original theory was that, as you raid/attacked fleets in an area that over time they would get more powerful, non one else i talked to really supported this idea.

 

All we need to know from Dev's is how can we get more fleets to fight, are we going about it all wrong?

 

maybe allow ship reports to include npc's

[Vardin]

Look around the Port-au-Prince area for nations near there, on PvP2 there are huge fleets of GB and French ships

[Cmdr Thrudd]

Look around the Port-au-Prince area for nations near there, on PvP2 there are huge fleets of GB and French ships

 

Thanks, but sadly nothing there today on the PvE server. We've been hitting big fleets around there and Saint-Nicolas all last week but it's rubbish last few days. It's one of the reasons we went on the 3+ hour road trip across the map this evening.

[Tindahbawx]

I have a feeling that the AI ships spawn chance is increased the more players are in an area. You'll notice this if you log in at slack hours and also at peak hours, at the slack times what would otherwise be a busy port flowing with NPC's becomes a barren wasteland, but at the opposite end of the clock, at peak hours the NPC ships flow fast and free, despite there being extra players in the area hunting them.

[Purple Ronnie]

A group of 6 of us have just spent about 3 hours sailing from Kingston -> Mortimer town -> Bahia Escoesa -> La Mona -> Spanish Town -> Plymouth as we were looking for a new place to set up a base. Along the way we only found 4 fleets worth attacking (one or two 3rd rates + some support) the entire time. Now we're sailing about in the Antilles and it's like a desert. A few weeks ago it was a hive of activity with multiple npcs ships visible at all times. When we sailed from Fort Baai to Plymouth we saw just two npc ships (cutter and a brig). 

 

This cant be right for the PvE server, did something break in the last patch? NPC's seem really thin on the ground, totally changed from a few weeks ago.

 

I've noticed this too. No matter where I go, I really have to hunt for NPC traders, and even then I have to make sure I get it before someone else does 

 

Totally unrelated but thanks for building and maintaining the E:D trading tool    It's been super useful.

[Mighty Bouff]

In the area you are is it all owned by one faction? It seems that the fleets set off from one nation port and sail to another (or a free town). On the edge zones between factions I tend to therefore see a lot of fleets, but in the middle of an area I see far fewer, perhaps because they have been tagged before they got there.

[Prater]

This discussion does come up every few months.  The AI seem to change routes.

[Cmdr Thrudd]

Prater its not about routes though. We covered a really large chunk of the map, trace out the route I listed in the original post. They didn't change routes there weren't the fleets from a few days ago anywhere along that 3+ hour trip. If they simply changed routes they would have been targets somewhere along that route.

[Prater]

Just because you took a 3 hour trip doesnt mean anything.  This same exact conversation comes up every few months since April of last year and we typically get the same response from the devs.

[Cmdr Thrudd]

Well if that really is really the case then they need to change it. It's pretty unreasonable to have next to no PvE targets on a 3 hour trip on a PvE server. What do they expect people to do? Solo missions all the time? We don't have port battles or PvP. A group of people should be able to team up and hunt together otherwise what's the point of having a clan and the larger ships? If folks can't find find stuff to do after spending a whole evening covering a large area of the map how are they going to be interested in continuing playing?

 

I'm still convinced that something changed in the last patch because everywhere we've searched in the last few days has got drastically less npc's of all sizes. I sailed right around Jamaica this morning just before downtime and passed three npc ships the whole circumnavigation. A few days ago that would have been 20+

Edited February 15, 2016 by Cmdr Thrudd

[Capt. Rice]

Yea its hard to find any AI ships or fleet now. Even after spending 4 hours looking.

[Hyperion74]

I started playing again on the PvE server and noticed that there are not a lot of sails on the horizon. I sailed to the YUC, Bluefields, and there are more NPC ships there. Let's all up PvE'ers move to the YUC.

[Cmdr Thrudd]

It does seem very slightly better today, I took a trip over to the Antilles again and there were a few fleets about but nothing like a few weeks ago.

In general though there still aren't enough fleets about on the PvE server to support group play in larger ships. In a few weeks when more folks get into Trinc's, Connies and 3rd rates people are going to get bored and frustrated with finding enjoyable targets in a reasonable time frame.