Hotfix 5 for patch 9.97 - event changes + minor fixes

[akd]

Dedicated PvP players, many with much longer experience in game and under different ROE schemes, have given you the most direct and pointed criticisms of your bad ideas.

[DeRuyter]

21 hours ago, fox2run said:

I logged on tonight for the first time in a month or so... Looked at the new reedemable german ship. Saw a single AI ship. But no-one near the danish capital. Only 300 online. So I logged out again. But nice for you that you have a good time with this game. For me this game died some time ago. PvP server got transfered to a PvE server becourse of players whining when they lost a ship or got outnumbered or anti-ganked. 

Every new suggestion on an exciting ROE is shot down in here before its even discussed. Every new suggestion on how to enhance PvP play is killed instantly. Many of you guys should be playing on the PvE server. Now that you have killed my server and the life in it all you have left is some AI fleets and even BR-fights if you finally can find some humans on the server.

Bring back PvP play or make a new server please!

Have you considered that the Danish capitol may be a quiet area of the map? How long did you sail? Have you even sailed to other areas of the map and set up outposts?

Lots of PVP players have tried giving you advice to get PVP battles but you appear to have ignored it. Set up an outpost at La Navasse and sail 5 minutes north for the start of a PvP event in EU prime time when there are 300 ppl online and you'll get battles.

[fox2run]

1 hour ago, DeRuyter said:

Have you considered that the Danish capitol may be a quiet area of the map? How long did you sail? Have you even sailed to other areas of the map and set up outposts?

Lots of PVP players have tried giving you advice to get PVP battles but you appear to have ignored it. Set up an outpost at La Navasse and sail 5 minutes north for the start of a PvP event in EU prime time when there are 300 ppl online and you'll get battles.

...with outposts all over The map. 200 online is not the same as 2000. Go figure out. 

[DeRuyter]

40 minutes ago, fox2run said:

...with outposts all over The map. 200 online is not the same as 2000. Go figure out. 

You didn't answer my question: Have you set up outposts in other areas of the map?

[fox2run]

I have played the game from february to around october,, where I finally gave up on the project. It was my number one game. But it simply got boring somehow. Im max level on everything but it is the lack of action that drove me away. When I began the game had:

1) 15 min joining timers for each sword - imagine how you could easly find a fight! - help ypur friends or protect your fellow nation-players or aid them in battle!

2) All antions where at war - enemies all over the place!

3) Ships where cheap meaning that pvp was no problem to get

4) 2000 players where online

Now we have none of this left. 

And yes - I have outposts all over the map from east to west and north and south - but hey - I dont play it anymore. Its too boring now.

[Blaatand]

Mast penetration is an issue where computational requirements for computing a round object hitting another round object are way too high! As an engineer I am sure this is the main issue and this is the main reason they have to compensate by means of adjusting penetration and HP.

For those not engineers see illustration.

[DeRuyter]

19 hours ago, fox2run said:

I have played the game from february to around october,, where I finally gave up on the project. It was my number one game. But it simply got boring somehow. Im max level on everything but it is the lack of action that drove me away. When I began the game had:

1) 15 min joining timers for each sword - imagine how you could easly find a fight! - help ypur friends or protect your fellow nation-players or aid them in battle!

2) All antions where at war - enemies all over the place!

3) Ships where cheap meaning that pvp was no problem to get

4) 2000 players where online

Now we have none of this left. 

And yes - I have outposts all over the map from east to west and north and south - but hey - I dont play it anymore. Its too boring now.

Alright great so even with the ability to TP all over the map you still can't find a fight?  Now I am even more at a loss why you have trouble finding battles.

With an outpost at Shroud Cay or La Navasse you could sail 5 minutes to the PVP event circle for a fight, which you should find with 300 online.

Yesterday 2 of my friends fought 10 pvp battles in an evening (2 hours) of gaming in the Windward islands , not too far from the Danish capitol I might add.

1. Countless threads on this - you jump in to help your friends but it turns out they were ambushed by players waiting in port, your nice battle is 3 v10 gank.

2. Not really, informal alliances were made by players before the game mechanics were implemented.

3. ships are still cheap because of money inflation but this is a different issue - open battles won't help here.

4. yes that was good and right after EA release of course. Many of those 2000 spent time grinding AI anyway.

All this gets back to my earlier point which is that based on all your postings it appears that you want instant battles and don't care for any of the trading/crafting/sailing. Hence the World of Sailing Warships is your game, just hit the battle button and enter the queue and spawn right in to the battle.  

 

[Guest]

Hm, would it be possible or too complicated to make two hitboxes out of the masts? E.g. you have a low-health hitbox in the centre and high-health hitbox in the perimeter to differentiate between glancing and penetrating shots.

[DeRuyter]

18 hours ago, Blaatand said:

Mast penetration is an issue where computational requirements for computing a round object hitting another round object are way too high! As an engineer I am sure this is the main issue and this is the main reason they have to compensate by means of adjusting penetration and HP.

For those not engineers see illustration.

snip

Also masts were usually constructed in four sections and bound together. This was to help strength the mast against partial strikes as seen in your diagram.

[fox2run]

47 minutes ago, DeRuyter said:

Alright great so even with the ability to TP all over the map you still can't find a fight?  Now I am even more at a loss why you have trouble finding battles.

With an outpost at Shroud Cay or La Navasse you could sail 5 minutes to the PVP event circle for a fight, which you should find with 300 online.

Yesterday 2 of my friends fought 10 pvp battles in an evening (2 hours) of gaming in the Windward islands , not too far from the Danish capitol I might add.

1. Countless threads on this - you jump in to help your friends but it turns out they were ambushed by players waiting in port, your nice battle is 3 v10 gank.

2. Not really, informal alliances were made by players before the game mechanics were implemented.

3. ships are still cheap because of money inflation but this is a different issue - open battles won't help here.

4. yes that was good and right after EA release of course. Many of those 2000 spent time grinding AI anyway.

All this gets back to my earlier point which is that based on all your postings it appears that you want instant battles and don't care for any of the trading/crafting/sailing. Hence the World of Sailing Warships is your game, just hit the battle button and enter the queue and spawn right in to the battle.  

 

Read Æthelstans fine additions to This forum. The ROE does not Work as intended.

It's a battle facilitator. And does so very poor. Unless you use heavy time to organize there will be no pvp other than ganktraps or rare TPs.

World of warships has nothing to do with it. This game was a favorite of mine. The 2 min timer killed it completely for me. And remember im no noob but admiral and clan leader. Dude.

[SirSamuelHood]

53 minutes ago, DeRuyter said:

With an outpost at Shroud Cay or La Navasse you could sail 5 minutes to the PVP event circle for a fight, which you should find with 300 online.

Christ, with an out post at either port all you have to do is undock and wait 30 seconds to find a hostile player. 

[Prater]

20 hours ago, fox2run said:

I have played the game from february to around october,, where I finally gave up on the project. It was my number one game. But it simply got boring somehow. Im max level on everything but it is the lack of action that drove me away. When I began the game had:

1) 15 min joining timers for each sword - imagine how you could easly find a fight! - help ypur friends or protect your fellow nation-players or aid them in battle!

2) All antions where at war - enemies all over the place!

3) Ships where cheap meaning that pvp was no problem to get

4) 2000 players where online

Now we have none of this left. 

And yes - I have outposts all over the map from east to west and north and south - but hey - I dont play it anymore. Its too boring now.

I don't think we've ever had 15 minute timers.....The last time we had 10 minute timers was maybe September 2015.

 

You obviously haven't attempted to pvp in the last few months.  It took me maybe 15 minutes to find someone to fight last night when there were 80 people on.  We chased a few and they ran, but then caught 2 LGVs with 4 ai Trinc escorts plus friendly ai (Inger, Endy, Brig, Rattle).  Our other group that was running had 15 or so fights last night.

 

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

The masts are held tensed via rigging. On their own they are just a piece of wood vertically erected that can swing and snap easy.

Rigging/Sails damaged could be, eventually, tied to mast resilience. The less rigging support left the less a mast can hold under pressure.

Even cracked, if the tension from the shrouds and cables hold the center piece might keep firm. It is a solid thick piece of wood maybe way thicker than the walls.

Or maybe i'm totally wrong on this.

[fox2run]

2 hours ago, Prater said:

I don't think we've ever had 15 minute timers.....The last time we had 10 minute timers was maybe September 2015.

 

You obviously haven't attempted to pvp in the last few months.  It took me maybe 15 minutes to find someone to fight last night when there were 80 people on.  We chased a few and they ran, but then caught 2 LGVs with 4 ai Trinc escorts plus friendly ai (Inger, Endy, Brig, Rattle).  Our other group that was running had 15 or so fights last night.

 

From 2000 to 80 and you still think everything is ok?

Do you have a past as commissar in USSR?

[Blaatand]

9 hours ago, Hodo said:

I love this picture and explanation, BUT.....

Even a "glancing" penetrating shot (the third image from the left), would be catastrophic to a mast under sail.  

Actually no.

One you must consider Shrouds and stays as well as Hethwill mentions.

9 hours ago, Hethwill said:

The masts are held tensed via rigging. On their own they are just a piece of wood vertically erected that can swing and snap easy.

Rigging/Sails damaged could be, eventually, tied to mast resilience. The less rigging support left the less a mast can hold under pressure.

Even cracked, if the tension from the shrouds and cables hold the center piece might keep firm. It is a solid thick piece of wood maybe way thicker than the walls.

Or maybe i'm totally wrong on this.

But mainly the fact that wood is one of the finest composite materials in the world and as someone else also mentions they were often composed of several timbers joined (a composite composite???)

To make a mast fall you would have to weaken an area as in several high damage shots close to each other.... Masts were not dimensioned to battle sails in light winds - battle conditions in NA would guestimately give a 30% strain compared to design strength and if you research literature on wood strength you will find that you can make carvings in a wooden pillar removing large amounts of wood with no significant impact on braking strength.

Some high damage shots in nearly the same area AND hitting some shrouds as well would be catastrophic.

OF COURSE this is mainly bottom sections on larger ships - high sections or yacht/schooner masts hit with a large diameter ball would take less number of shots (but of course same relative percentage damage)

[Prater]

16 hours ago, fox2run said:

From 2000 to 80 and you still think everything is ok?

Do you have a past as commissar in USSR?

I see you can't read and are pulling fake conversations out of your rear end.  I can't remember saying anything you have just said.

[Kiithnaras]

Regarding the mast discussion: It's good to know the realism behind things in order to simplify it into game design, so thanks to @Blaatand for that.

The core issue is more that glancing (non-penning) shots don't do enough damage to structures. If my shot hits a ship and it just sort of stops and flops into the water, that means that most of its energy has been transferred to the ship even though it didn't break through, and would cause significant weakening and splintering of timbers at that spot. In game terms, I'd estimate that the damage it should be doing to that hitbox area should be reduced to 60-40%. On the other extreme, ricochets - shots that bounce off at 60 degrees or greater - cause very little damage, at most 10%. The in-between is what we'd largely be looking at with mast hits that don't pen - bounce-backs. Shots that impact and then bounce off at an angle less than 90 degrees (usually between 20 and 60, unless you're limp-wristing with 4-pd shot) should be doing between 20-40% of base damage on those kinds of hits.

But all that is if we did want to complicate masts to act like rounded structures and have things bouncing off of them (which would be cool, admittedly). A simpler game design decision would be to simply lower the thickness of masts again because, yes, even today, a Vic's masts are impossible to even damage unless you're within fart-sniffing distance or have 42-pd long guns. Carronades can't even touch them. Meanwhile give masts another 30-50% HP increase to represent their resilience to off-center shots or distributed impacts vs focused ones. As I said before, I am completely okay with demasting being a tactical decision that one should dedicate themselves to, but it really shouldn't be impossible for smaller ships to demast larger ones.The thickest masts, in my opinion, should be no thicker than 90-100cm for a victory (A little digging online finds that, in fact, the lower mast sections of the vic were about 38 inches across for an equivalent of 97cm). This 100cm-cap means that 24pd carronades and higher can still do damage to them at spitting distance, and cannons as small as medium 18s or long 12s can also get the job done if they're up close and personal.

Simply put, it should take time and careful aiming and maneuvering to demast another ship while not being an egregiously futile effort.

Edited January 6, 2017 by Kiithnaras

[Sir Texas Sir]

On 1/5/2017 at 2:54 PM, Prater said:

I don't think we've ever had 15 minute timers.....The last time we had 10 minute timers was maybe September 2015.

 

You obviously haven't attempted to pvp in the last few months.  It took me maybe 15 minutes to find someone to fight last night when there were 80 people on.  We chased a few and they ran, but then caught 2 LGVs with 4 ai Trinc escorts plus friendly ai (Inger, Endy, Brig, Rattle).  Our other group that was running had 15 or so fights last night.

 

We did and even the hostility missions had 15 min timers when they first came out.  Some how I missed the notes where it was reduced to 5 mins though.  I really think this should be bump back up to like 10-15 mins as it's to short to find folks to counter grind them building hostility by joining there missions.   Yesterday we found 2 first rates and a exxes grinding up kidds and only the two light/frighates was able to join cause of the 5 min window.  We had guys just about to get there that fell short.    I'm sorry your that close to an enemy port we should be able to join when there is an act of war going on.  I get the instant close battle windows and like that system, but the agro system needs that open window cause we might of been able to sink them or sent them home to stop them instead they out number us and out agro/counter us.  If we could of hit each one (we did get a Vict in another battle and sunk him) we could of used our smaller numbers to send them packing by joining the battles and helping the AI's.

On 1/5/2017 at 3:11 PM, Hodo said:

I love this picture and explanation, BUT.....

Even a "glancing" penetrating shot (the third image from the left), would be catastrophic to a mast under sail.  

Specially when sails are at full and you take a good blow.  I see way to many folks fighting at full sails.  There is a reason it's called battle sails and I hardly see folks use it and they wonder why they get so much sail damage in a fight presenting full sails.

15 hours ago, Blaatand said:

Actually no.

One you must consider Shrouds and stays as well as Hethwill mentions.

But mainly the fact that wood is one of the finest composite materials in the world and as someone else also mentions they were often composed of several timbers joined (a composite composite???)

To make a mast fall you would have to weaken an area as in several high damage shots close to each other.... Masts were not dimensioned to battle sails in light winds - battle conditions in NA would guestimately give a 30% strain compared to design strength and if you research literature on wood strength you will find that you can make carvings in a wooden pillar removing large amounts of wood with no significant impact on braking strength.

Some high damage shots in nearly the same area AND hitting some shrouds as well would be catastrophic.

OF COURSE this is mainly bottom sections on larger ships - high sections or yacht/schooner masts hit with a large diameter ball would take less number of shots (but of course same relative percentage damage)

Good point, but also the same thing can be said of a mast under strain damage with full sails would prob snap way faster than a mast that isn't under as much strain cause of either sail damage or it's at say battle sails.

[Prater]

No, we have never had a 15 minute timer.  Maybe you could join missions up to 15 minutes or maybe you could join with the signal perk up to 15 minutes, but the default timer has never been 15 minutes.  We had a 60 minute timer, then a 10 minute timer, then a 5 minute timer, then a 2 minute timer, and now a close instantly no timer.  Early Access started with maybe a 5 minute timer, but it was changed to a 2 minute timer.  The last time we had over a 5 minute timer was in 2015.

Edited January 6, 2017 by Prater

[elite92]

11 hours ago, Prater said:

No, we have never had a 15 minute timer.  Maybe you could join missions up to 15 minutes or maybe you could join with the signal perk up to 15 minutes, but the default timer has never been 15 minutes.  We had a 60 minute timer, then a 10 minute timer, then a 5 minute timer, then a 2 minute timer, and now a close instantly no timer.  Early Access started with maybe a 5 minute timer, but it was changed to a 2 minute timer.  The last time we had over a 5 minute timer was in 2015.

IMHO: if u can see in OW both the attacker and the defender when the battle start u can enter. simply and easy

[fox2run]

I disagree on This assumption based on gameplay aspects. When the timers are longer more players can interact (also whine-but this is independent on which model ROE is based on. ) no ROE would ever make gank-whining go away.

When swords occur in OW it should be possible to enter a battle. The timers should be indefinite but distance should be father away as time progresses. This model would enhance a lot of player interaction, living nation strategies, naval tactics etc. 

And in the end safe the pvp server from the pve disease that has taken it's toll.

Edited January 7, 2017 by fox2run