Testbed: Content patch - 9.98 deployed

[Rabman]

I thought the issue with new player retention is they never got to the next rank in ships. It's hard for me to believe "new" players are having issues with line ship durability

Edited February 17, 2017 by Rabman

[Yar Matey]

13 minutes ago, admin said:

LV is wrong just like you. 

A lot of veterans want us to solve problems of those who played 2000 hours - or maybe even add 1000 of additional things to do. 
Our goal right now is to help the player who left after 10 hours to stay for a 100. If they can stay for a hundred the result will be more pvp for everyone. 

Starting with the first comment

He is against providing the challenge ship for pve challenges. With that he just lacks understanding of what the normal average player needs. For example he does not understand that the normal player does not have enough slots or outposts to even participate in a challenge because he only has 5 spaces for ships due to server example. If the challenge is for unpopular ship the player cannot do it just because he does not want to sell his current ship just to do a challenge.

 

While, I am happy to hear that you are trying to look out for what is in the best interest of the casual, I do not think that 1 durability hurts the casual at all, if it is implemented correctly.  If ships are super cheap labor hour wise to craft, like a bellona costing 1800 LH instead of 5600 LH now, it would work out the same.  

What is really hurting the casual player right now, is the whole regional bonus system.  I made a few posts on this.  Basically the problem with the regional bonus system is it simply requires too much sailing around in a trade ship and not enough sailing around in a combat ship looking for something to shoot at.

Regional bonuses are the number 1 problem today hurting the casual player, and its even hurting some of your more hardcore players as well.  I know people who left in droves when they found out that they had to setup shop where they wanted a regional bonus.  

I recommended ways to fix it, most notably, the crafted material option.

Example:  You need to be in Orinoco region with an outpost to craft live oak planking parts, which are then used in the construction of a strong hull ship.  

This way players dont have to ship an entire ships worth of materials to a specific regional port and instead can ship just 1 crafted material from the region to the port where they craft ships.  

Edited February 17, 2017 by Yar Matey

[Lord Vicious]

2 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Could you articulate what problems this solves?  Surely alt-farming is not that big of a problem that you would absolutely destroy a new player's ability to get rewards from PvP? As LV correctly points out, it would make PvP essentially meaningless for levelling and it would serve to increase the grind for players trying to reach max rank substantially. Basically, you're forcing players to go out and grind PvE for rewards as opposed to sail around for already too long, looking for a PvP fight that most likely will not result in any xp or gold gain.

This seems like one more mechanism that forces people to grind PvE rather than to engage in PvP, especially at low to mid ranks where you should be enticing them with everything you can to PvP?

Give players a carebear opportunity with no risk to obtain the same results (money-ship exp) and they will always take the easyer and safer way.

Like current aggression, forts, roe, escort fleets, patrols not where enought for kill ow pvp..

[admin]

13 minutes ago, Lord Vicious said:

 

like the boost of forts you intend to do, mortar brig are used in every pb, so your premise of boosting it for make brig getting used is false, and everyone in the community wich does pb know that. that means you detached from your own game reality.

Assuming something without facts about others is a bad quality and devalues your posts

Regarding the game we watch how players play and play ourselves. We see how medium frigates can destroy a player santisima even if santisima is protected by a large fort. In recent ponce port battle american agamenmon was able to sail close to danish ship, board him and change ship and sail away under fire from the large fort. Forts shoot peanuts now and must be buffed. 

We dont like forts like that and we are changing that. You can disagree as much as you want and comment on that of course. It wont help sorry

[Jean Ribault]

LV, I have never battled you, but I am probably nowhere near as good as you and by experience can tell you not as good as many others here.  I will get sunk a lot.  Although newbs may not be sailing around in SOL's, for me I can understand the rationale on the 3-dura system.  In theory, less risk of a total loss may just encourage more pvp.  At least, that is, after the total wipe of servers and starting from scratch with nothing.  I don't see how testing this on the testbed can prove that theory however.

[Lord Vicious]

10 minutes ago, admin said:

Assuming something without facts about others is a bad quality and devalues your posts

Regarding the game we watch how players play and play ourselves. We see how medium frigates can destroy a player santisima even if santisima is protected by a large fort. In recent ponce port battle american agamenmon was able to sail close to danish ship, board him and change ship and sail away under fire from the large fort. Forts shoot peanuts now and must be buffed. 

We dont like forts like that and we are changing that. You can disagree as much as you want and comment on that of course. It wont help sorry

So you dont listen the community, you wanna do like you want, so whats the purpose of this thread if you decided to do anyway like you want?  why you ask us to give you  our opinion if the consideration is 0 ?

 Even in the reply before you blamed on the veterans the errors of the precedent patches  (cause you listen to us, but now you negate it)

you understand how you manage to contraddict yourself in the matter of 2 pages?

In another pb the forts killed firstrates, and multiple  aga in another.

 

Now you now that only 15% of the total pb in attack are won? (dont count usa nightflips i am talking about full 25 on 25 )        if is already 15% can you imagine with boosted forts? for not talk about fact that withouth a mortar brig there is no way to kill a fort, i mean you can but you going to lose 10 ships becouse while you shoot at the fort the enemy fleet gonna kill you.

Edited February 18, 2017 by Lord Vicious

[admin]

1 minute ago, Wraith said:

This is like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. I'm not sure who in the community you're listening to but 1 durability should be implemented for all ships with permanent mods and their cost adjusted accordingly, and all mods be captured with the ships.

We don't need to listen to wolves to find out what sheep want. 

We know 1 durability system is better - but it must work for all ships.
And if you like this - you - YOU PERSONALLY - must help to shut down all comments about too many first rates. Because its just a game and because if you want pvp you want ships to be affordable?

Before you do it you will accept 3 duras because its what it was before and worked. 

 

[Cmdr RideZ]

20 minutes ago, admin said:

...With that he just lacks understanding of what the normal average player needs...

I am actually pretty happy to read this.  Definitely encourage you to continue on this path.

[admin]

2 minutes ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

I am actually pretty happy to read this.  Definitely encourage you to continue on this path.

sarcasm?))) 

[Lord Vicious]

9 minutes ago, Jean Ribault said:

LV, I have never battled you, but I am probably nowhere near as good as you and by experience can tell you not as good as many others here.  I will get sunk a lot.  Although newbs may not be sailing around in SOL's, for me I can understand the rationale on the 3-dura system.  In theory, less risk of a total loss may just encourage more pvp.  At least, that is, after the total wipe of servers and starting from scratch with nothing.  I don't see how testing this on the testbed can prove that theory however.

Becouse we tested it already bro a year and half ago all was 5 dur, then 3 then 1.   And i am talking right now in our coalition discord and nobody want 3 dur first, there is even ppl who say they wanna all ships to have 1 dur, for sure nobody want 3 dur.  

Cant see why we need to test something we already tested o_O  maybe you not where playng back then but many of us did

 

Btw we where 2k in the server with 1 dur first and it not stopped the pvp whatsoever, other "changes" killed the population.   1 dur was well accepted and received by the community.  The fact that they wanna return back for theyr unknow motivations show how they detached by their own community.  Literally they see black where we see white.   More then tell them this i dont know how to help.

Edited February 18, 2017 by Lord Vicious

[dumpert]

15 minutes ago, admin said:

 We see how medium frigates can destroy a player santisima even if santisima is protected by a large fort.

 

это вот серьезно сейчас? 

[Jean Ribault]

1-dura on all tho is a completely different configuration than what we have now if 3-dura firsts are the only change.  All 1-dura wouldn't be the same scenario IMO.

You also mentioned that now pirates would be harder.  Like others, I believe pirate should be by far the hardest choice to play.  Kudos to that proposed change too IMO.

[Fellvred]

Interested to see how 3 duras affects how 1st rates will be used on the OW. Would still like 1st/2nd rates to be stupidly more expensive (and rarer) than they already are, needing several people to make them etc.

[admin]

14 minutes ago, Lord Vicious said:

So you dont listen the community, you wanna do like you want, so whats the purpose of this thread if you decided to do anyway like you want?  why you ask us to give you  our opinion if the consideration is 0 ?

 Even in the reply before you blamed on the veterans the errors of the precedent patches  (cause you listen to us, but now you negate it)

you understand how you manage to contraddict yourself in the matter of 2 pages?

In another pb the forts killed firstrates, and multiple  aga in another.

 

Now you now that only 15% of the total pb in attack are won? (dont count usa nightflips i am talking about full 25 on 25 )        if is already 15% can you imagine with boosted forts? for not talk about fact that withouth a mortar brig there is no way to kill a fort, i mean you can but you going to lose 10 ships becouse while you shoot at the fort the enemy fleet gonna kill you.

last warning LV.. discuss the game - not the devs. 
We never blamed veterans - but the 1 dura for rates was proposed by players and implemented by us - we bring it back to where it belong.
 

Regarding PB main changes that will make attackers life easier are already in the TB. 

1. Zone control points will start counting after 10 mins only - right now defenders get a lot of advantage from the start (but maybe its still good because they control the port)
2. Kill points are going to be 50% higher so active action by combat will actually resolve battles faster, making skill not control a bit more important.

 

 

[Lord Vicious]

13 minutes ago, admin said:

We don't need to listen to wolves to find out what sheep want. 

We know 1 durability system is better - but it must work for all ships.
And if you like this - you - YOU PERSONALLY - must help to shut down all comments about too many first rates. Because its just a game and because if you want pvp you want ships to be affordable?

Before you do it you will accept 3 duras because its what it was before and worked. 

 

Can we have a list of who is a wolf and who is a sheep? since clearly you not wanna hear any opinion that not goes the way you want so we stop waste our time give our opinion, even if you asked for?

 

i give up tbh.     dunno why i still care to try help make this game better if this is the consideration you give us.

Edited February 18, 2017 by Lord Vicious

[dumpert]

1 minute ago, Fellvred said:

Interested to see how 3 duras affects how 1st rates will be used on the OW. Would still like 1st/2nd rates to be stupidly more expensive (and rarer) than they already are, needing several people to make them etc.

nope. there will be 1st rates (1 dura) everythere, like free 3rds were a year ago.

[Cmdr RideZ]

3 minutes ago, admin said:

sarcasm?))) 

Definitely not.  You should stay on this path for sure.

Just reminding, that this forum is full of HC-Veteran players.  You probably have to think yourself a bit why casuals are leaving.  There is a high change that you should not listen this forum for "casual" opinions.

[Sella]

The question is: Does the 100-hour-casual or just the casual gamer, has to necessarily be able to reach the first rates by himself? If it is pvp that he is looking for I don't think he will really mind if can't join pbs or huge battles in a first date. Since most casual players don't really take part in PBs or RvR in general.

plus it didn't affect the veterans with loads of cash because they can easily produce more cash. You've said that at the current state of the game money is easy to come by for testing purposes so how can you say that it didn't affect the veterans when money is abundant

[Aventador]

30 minutes ago, Lord Vicious said:

All thread made by veterans largely supported by the community got ignored

I can't agree with this more. What ever happened with the post with player suggestions and a poll that was supposed to happen?

 

37 minutes ago, admin said:

Our goal right now is to help the player who left after 10 hours to stay for a 100. If they can stay for a hundred the result will be more pvp for everyone. 

If you want to help the noobs add a tutorial for the love of God. The learning curve is horrible!!!! If you made it so the average noob didn't give up within the first few hours there would probably be hundreds of more people on this game.

[admin]

4 minutes ago, admin said:

We never blamed veterans - but the 1 dura for rates was proposed by players and implemented by us - we bring it back to where it belong.

 

 

in fact since the first OW voting in 2014 all features were proposed by players. If we did not use open development with all the risks and negatives (for example doing silly things from time to time) we would be a released session based age of sail MOBA (massive online battle arena)

 

[Chustler]

Personally, I would like 1 dur ships across the board.  I would love a game where it is a constant struggle to keep yourself in the bigger ships.  1st rates should be a rare treat that most people never even get to sail if it was up to me.  I would love it if I only ever got as high as brigs and small frigates due to fun Pvp in 1 dur ships, but I suspect I am in the minority on that issue.  Imagine how intense 1st rates would be in a system like that!  Imagine the varieties of ships that might show up to a port battle. I would also love to less stockpiling of huge numbers of vessels. 

Maybe my tastes are too hardcore though

[Christendom]

2 hours ago, admin said:

Hello Captains

Patch have been deployed to testbed. Here is a brief description.

• Challenges: PVE challenges now provide the ship for you. No need to purchase the ship anymore to participate in challenges. 

No opinion either way I guess, but maybe this will make the PVE events more based on skill than better ships.  OK.

• 1 durability for ships of the line did not achieve its required goal and is removed. It did not have any effect on rich veterans and was just punishing casuals who left the game instead of converting into pvp/conquest players because they lost the ships they worked so hard on. All linesips now have 3 durabilities with the corresponding increase of required resources.

Not a good idea.  If we're going for realism battles in first rates were very rare.  Now there will be almost zero risk in doing 1st rate battles.  There needs to be some risk to using big boy ships, if anything we should have less 1st rate battles and more mix fleet fights.  Now every battle is going to turn into a gold marines boarding fest.  New and rookie players aren't thinking, gee I really don't want to risk that vic in a PB.....they are thinking why does this gave have zero tutorials and has such a high learning curve.  Bad move on this one guys.  Not good at all.

• You can now use the hold of your fleet ships

Great, so now traders will be able to move more cargo in between OW AI fleets.........

•   
• Admiralty store has been added for testing. The content is not final, prices are not final and what is sold in stores is mostly for testing the systems. The following rewards were added (names are temporary and might not survive)
  • City Key - for raids or port attacks or defences
  • Battle Ensign - PVP reward
  • Short Pennant - PVE reward
  • Trading Manifest - reward for trader ships or trading missions etc. 
  • Each reward can be used for exclusive content in admiralty stores (test content to test systems provided in testbed).
  • All rewards are given in the end of battle based on battle kills and damage. If 10 people sink 1 ship rewards are split for 10 people based on damage, kills and assists. 

Looks good.  how will this play into hostility?

• Officers. Officers had one problem, they punished you if you played actively (and sank a lot). As a result officers were removed from the game and all perks have been moved to a player. You get 1 point per rank. The system is not final and will continue development. Officers in their traditional sense might come back in the future. 

Sounds good.

• Pirate vs Pirate - outlaw battles. Pirates can now attack each other. The battle created by pirates vs pirates is always open and has FFA rules (free for all). You can sink anyone you see. Signalling perk does not work in the battle. Battle cannot be created in the capital protected waters. 

Not sure this was needed.  The pirate faction is already so diminished from the devs lack of support, does it even really matter at this point?  How do you plan to bring numbers back to the faction.  They can't hold regions vs the big alliances.  They can't craft ships.......this is like trimming a guys toenails while he's on the operating table.  

• Recently killed tracker added to game. Players who recently lost the battle (sank or surrendered) no longer give rewards for 1 hour. This solves huge number of problems for a minor price.

Will this solve farming alts in PVP events?  

• Ship paints can now be stored in clan warehouses. 

Good.

• Forts and towers were significantly buffed (large fort will destroy a ship in approximately 5 minutes under constant fire). We hope this feature will help players to vary their fleets a bit and bring mortar vessels to battles (who can destroy a fort in 10 mins. If this damage is too big we will lower it, but we were not really satisfied with the forts uselessness in battles. 

Good idea in theory, but the success rate for attacks is already at like 10%.  Sounds like we'll have to flip more ports at night........

• Chain shot damage fall off from distance implemented and added to game. 

Much needed change

• All instances are now immediately closing when last player leaves the instance. A good % of instances were wasted for bot vs bot entertainment

good change.

 

I get Devs intentions I suppose, but none of these things really address the current issues plaguing the game.  I expect numbers will continue to dwindle after this patch.

Edited February 18, 2017 by Christendom

[admin]

Just now, Wraith said:

If you know that a one durability system is better then why don't you implement it?  I've already said that I want it, yet I don't feel the need to police or shut down people's opinions about wanting something else. However, I'm happy to engage in a dialogue about it and that's what I'm doing here.

 

we can and will test it too .. its early access and we do experiments. Experiments are required because WE DONT KNOW. And players also dont know. Because if players knew everything no-one would have a job. Dentists, doctors, engineers - no-one would be needed if players knew everything. 

Thus we experiment to find what works and what does not. Failed experiment showing that something does not work is a great experiment as it closes the doors we should not waste time on. 

 

[admin]

8 minutes ago, dumpert said:

nope. there will be 1st rates (1 dura) everythere, like free 3rds were a year ago.

They are already everywhere. Also we see no difference between 10000 resource 1 dura ship and 30000 resource 3 dura ship

 

[dumpert]

Just now, admin said:

They are already everywhere. Also we see no difference between 10000 resource 1 dura ship and 30000 resource 3 dura ship

 

again, are you hello kittying serious about frigates killing santisima? thats the only answer i want right now