Patch 9.97 - Events, minor crafting changes and other things

[Lannes]

I am encouraged by the latest patch. I like the Brace command, too.

On another score, what is this CONTROL function that stopped my ship from moving during a PvP with Liquicity? Can someone enlighten me, please?

[Lannes]

9 minutes ago, rediii said:

Control did not stopped your ship from moving in the battle. I guess your rudder was dead or you did not know that you can't turn your rudder while brace is active.

Control is the Area Control officerperk. You can't exit the battle in the control zone

Thank-you rediii.

[The Spud]

Raids would be nice, someone in my clan said something like, make raids flip a port for 1 day. So the enemy can't use it to craft or stage assaults out of.

If a nation would raise the hostility in an area to 100%, they could be given the option to do a port raid, maybe with a 30 minute count down timer or something (to make all people exit ongoing battles). And if they succeed in the raid the port gets flipped or contested until the PB is over. So the defending team can't TP ships or players in to do the PB or to the screening. Which is a prety big disadvantage.

Would also mean that defenders won't be able to rely on PB's & screening only, they need to be on the spot to defend the raid, caus they're prety much screwed when not there.

Could be used for interesting tactics, Brits raise hostility in salamanca region, they win the raid. Spain in return can on the day between the raid and the PB, sail down to Belize and try to raise hostility and win the raid, so the british can't use their staging port for the PB. Putting them in an equal disadvantage.

Maybe timers would be needed to prevent silly o clock raids/PB's.

[stormridersp]

On 12/5/2016 at 9:15 AM, admin said:

20% ow speed buff was applied - lets see how this will affect the travel times

Was this reduced back? Sailing right now feels so slow again.

 

[Fenris]

On 6.12.2016 at 4:15 AM, van der Decken said:

 

Agree on this." the flag was starting PVP point"....

To reduce them ,for example only 2-3 can be bought per day, and make them expensive, perhaps not with money,but goods ? would provide "real" PvP again.

['Sharpe]

Gonna throw something out there...why do we take it for granted that battles should be hidden from the map?

Seems an easy solution to PvE stealth port hostility grinds, in particular.

If me, Vernon Merrill, and another TDA go grind PvE hostility in 1st rates via the mission mechanic, as soon as the battle starts, a marker appears on the map of all players. Hover over to get (estimated) details - "2-3 U.S. players, ships 2nd-1st rates, battle began at 14:27".

Battles initiated via missions in a hostility-raising zone stay open for 10 minutes. This way there's an open invite for enemy players to come - you see hostility being raised, go gather a group and stay beyond visual range, wait for the next battle to start. No BR restrictions. Crash the party. Sometimes the intel on the map is wrong, and you enter to find a surprise in number or rate of the enemy. Sometimes the enemy grinding has left a fleet outside in frigates to intercept potential gankers. There's a lot of possibilities.

Now this is just an example of a limited way (affecting admiralty missions in hostility zones only) to change ROE, but truth of the matter is at the core of this game's PvP problem is that players simply can't find each other. Bringing the map into play can help funnel players towards each other, especially in situations like hostility grinding where PvE is far too risk free and simply not much fun.

[Vernon Merrill]

On a semi-related note.... I used to like the random notes you'd get stating that "X" player was spotted near "Y" location.  The only problem was that the info was badly outdated..... Maybe its time to bring them back with more recent information?

[Armored_Sheep]

Personally in terms of PvP I miss in game UI to inform players about what is happening. I expect to get intel from game about activity of other players. Chat is not working well. People are often not able to report position and enemy activity.

My idea is that when player does something in OW (attack trader, sink some ships, sail in enemy territory and gets spotted) the information with reasonable delay should pass to national channel and players should be able to use this info to crate :mission: on their own. I can also imagine that if player loads valuable cargo there may be "agent" who will spoil that to the enemies. - all this additional info may create enough opportunities for PvP

[The Spud]

23 minutes ago, Armored_Sheep said:

Personally in terms of PvP I miss in game UI to inform players about what is happening. I expect to get intel from game about activity of other players. Chat is not working well. People are often not able to report position and enemy activity.

My idea is that when player does something in OW (attack trader, sink some ships, sail in enemy territory and gets spotted) the information with reasonable delay should pass to national channel and players should be able to use this info to crate :mission: on their own. I can also imagine that if player loads valuable cargo there may be "agent" who will spoil that to the enemies. - all this additional info may create enough opportunities for PvP

 

At the very beginning of early acces, we had these notes, that would drop from capping or sinking enemy/AI ships. If I recal correctly it used to say something like "The Spud was seen sailing a Cerberus near Port Morant 31 minutes ago". Nobody used this, as in 30 minutes he could very well be at george town or bugle cay by that time. So its basicaly pointless information.

What would be a nice addition is for groups looking for PvP to give them the option to make themselves visible on the map. Could be something like need to be at least 6 players, and the total BR must be at least 1000. The leader of the group would be marked on the map for example "British Fleet N°1", and the map would update every 2 minutes. With the symbol dissapearing when the leader of the group is in a battle and reappearing afterwards. Would simmulate enemy fleets being spotted by fishermen/traders/towers/forts.

Maybe the group could even get a small XP and Gold bonus cause the enemy can avoid them (as they are marked on the map) and can easily be counter ganked by the enemy.

[CptEdwardKenway]

On 12/5/2016 at 0:46 PM, admin said:

resource control remained. You still have to own certain regions to have full access to some types of wood or materials. 

fine wood removed for the following reasons. Its goal was to limit the number of rare ships and first rates, the goal was somewhat achieved together with the removal of players :). It was not a good feature and has to be rethought completely.

So the plan was to get rid of players is this cofirmed?

In this case: mission accomplished

Edited December 13, 2016 by CptEdwardKenway

[Mrdoomed]

On 12/10/2016 at 11:27 AM, Vernon Merrill said:

Again, I thought that the whole reason to give regions/ports actual meaning.  I remember reading somewhere about it creating "front lines" so that it would be easier to find PvP.  By making it so that you don't even need to perform any PvP to increase hostility, that thought becomes useless..... it ridiculous to me that you can grind/farm AI to trigger a Port battle.  

I wish the whole "Port battles are the be all/end all of this game" crowd would realize that not everyone is playing the game based on trying to get into a 25v25 with floating bathtubs.  

They may be more interesting in the future if land gets in and you need a more varied fleet, but right now it's dull AF to me. 

Well with no cooldown teleports ,  forts and towers every 20 feet 400 enemy ai per mile, open world mario cart speed boosts , free off the map teleport between ports so NOBODY EVER HAS TO SAIL A SHIP BIGGER THAN A FREE CUTTER on the ow  and all the other bull crap put in this game the last 5 months of course you wont find pvp outside of pb or 25vs25.

This game is a ruins of what it once was. now its either adapt or quit.

[Lannes]

1 hour ago, Mrdoomed said:

Well with no cooldown teleports ,  forts and towers every 20 feet 400 enemy ai per mile, open world mario cart speed boosts , free off the map teleport between ports so NOBODY EVER HAS TO SAIL A SHIP BIGGER THAN A FREE CUTTER on the ow  and all the other bull crap put in this game the last 5 months of course you wont find pvp outside of pb or 25vs25.

This game is a ruins of what it once was. now its either adapt or quit.

This last patch has improved playability. So, there is some listening and backtracking by the Devs.

[Pada]

Just got a battle were a Connie joind the already higher br side. Send an F11 report.

[Koltes]

On 10/12/2016 at 9:36 PM, Borch said:

In my opinion hostility needs to stay. Raids should take PB's spot as main activities when it comes to towns. Taking a region should become a really big thing and should be properly rewarding but in order doing that it cant be happening often. We have to look at whole picture of NA, not just single feature.

I agree with your reasons that regions needs to be more stable and not change hands as easily, however PB should be triggered by players themselves if they want to attack and fight. Taking a region or not after PB is a separate issue of conquest mechanic and needs to be done differently. IMHO players should be allowed to attack regions and do scheduled PBs and those actions would raise the hostility instead of PVE missions. Once players declared war on a region it becomes contested. The fight can be lengthy as all ports in the region needs to be taken in order to attack region capital and then claim the territory. All of the above done through PVP.

The idea that devs had with this system that grinding PVE missions will attract other players to attack and stop grind. Good idea, but in its current state it does not work. Balancing this mechanic will be a hard work as again you trying to force players to do or not to do something.

Instead walking away from forcing mechanics and intro simplified form of step-by-step (port after port) conquest is gonna:
a.) give more pvp to those who wants it;
b.) reduce pve for those who doesn't want it;
c.) bring life back to player interaction in OW PBs mechanics;
d.) make conquest a challenge that doesnt happen over night which is not controlled by timers but rather player's abilities;
e.) give smaller player groups/clans/nations a chance to be competitive with larger clans
 

 

On 10/12/2016 at 10:22 PM, EliteDelta said:

It isn't that bad.. it does take a large group to do it quickly, but it took about 20 brits roughly 1.5 - 2 hours to get full hostility and trigger a pb. Most groups only ended up doing 2-3 missions. It's true the French were slow to respond, but still the system feels good. I don't think regions should be easy to flip, it should take some organization and effort.

Exactly my point when a larger nation of carebears can bring 20 players and grind hostility to 100% in 2 hours while smaller nation of PVPers that can bring max 5-10 at a time will never be able to counter grind. And that is on PVP server? What? This mechanics would work good on PVE server. Brilliant! But on PVP its just killing the game.

Organizational effort yes indeed. But not through means of PVE. The effort needs to be doing PVP only.

The good balance of PVP/PVE in OW would be:
The conquest is triggered and done doing PVP only.
Building/re-building the region, Build forts and paroling fleets, raising influence whatever can be done with both PVP and PVE.

Edited December 14, 2016 by koltes