Creating more PvP

[AngryPanCake]

This might sound weird coming from a PvE server player, however, I thought for what it's worth I'd share my opinion with you.

This came up to me after I read in chat from PvP players coming to the PvE server that PvP battles have become less frequent since the last patch despite a significant increase in the number of players. Which sounds quite counter intuitive. Some raised an interesting question that it could be due to the lack of ships and/or their high prices, in other words, ships have become so valuable that a lot of players do not want to risk them unless the odds are in their favor. Which is totally understandable.

I was following the threads prior to the wipe about the upcoming changes in the last patch and thought I understood what the developers were trying to do. It seemed like higher rate ships were very easy to get and everyone was racing to get the biggest ship at the expense of a more varied selection of ships. By making ships 1 dura and more expensive/difficult to get (through a series of grinds), every ships has become too valuable to risk in battle.

Could it be that the new patch has overshot its mark and resulted in a decrease in PvP because of that?

Maybe a balance can be struck and ships are made less difficult to acquire, therefore reducing the "psychological" value, and encourage players to go out and fight other players knowing that even though ships are 1 dura only and lose them, they will still be able to get new ones and go fight again.

Edited July 16, 2017 by AngryPanCake

[Liq]

It's not the ships that are difficult to aquire but more the Upgrades which allow you to be competetive in the current OW PvP situation, due to the silly 15 knots hardcap.

• Some crucial upgrades like Copper Plating only drop from PvE missions (with a very low droprate)
• The two main upgrades (Bovenwind and Crooked hull) require materials which are only available from 1 (Crooked hull) and 2 (Bovenwind Refit) ports.

Additionally, there currently is literally not a single reason for anyone to be in the middle of the sea in no nation's waters. That leads to the fact that if you want PvP, you'll have to enter enemy waters. And if you were lucky enough to finally get something into a battle, the probability of ships waiting outside for you due to the existence of two dimenstions, 75x compressed OW and battle instances, is extremely high. So you cannot really blame players for not looking for pvp at the current circumstances.

Ships themselves are relatively cheap to craft (ressource prices wise), at least anything up to 5th rates. But if you're not competetive enough, you will get roflstomped by the 15 knot connie / surp spam, which will then lead to players quitting.

Edited July 16, 2017 by Liquicity

[AngryPanCake]

6 minutes ago, Liquicity said:

It's not the ships that are difficult to aquire but more the Upgrades which allow you to be competetive in the current OW PvP situation, due to the silly 15 knots hardcap.

• Some crucial upgrades like Copper Plating only drop from PvE missions (with a very low droprate)
• The two main upgrades (Bovenwind and Crooked hull) require materials which are only available from 1 (Crooked hull) and 2 (Bovenwind Refit) ports.

But if crucial upgrades are so difficult to acquire, everyone has the same limitation (give or take a few very lucky players) and the playing field remains even, right? Or is one nation more favored than another?

If the upgrade limitations are felt by everyone, so why would they prevent most players from going out to PvP?

11 minutes ago, Liquicity said:

Additionally, there currently is literally not a single reason for anyone to be in the middle of the sea in no nation's waters. That leads to the fact that if you want PvP, you'll have to enter enemy waters. And if you were lucky enough to finally get something into a battle, the probability of (1) ships waiting outside for you due to the existence of two dimenstions, 75x compressed OW and battle instances, is extremely high. So you cannot really blame players for not looking for pvp at the current circumstances.

Ships themselves are relatively cheap to craft (ressource prices wise), at least anything up to 5th rates. But if you're not competetive enough, you will get (2) roflstomped by the 15 knot connie / surp spam, which will then lead to players quitting.

#1: I understand the revenge fleet problems you guys have been talking about and I have no idea how this can be fixed or at least reduce the problem.

#2: not sure what that means.

[Liq]

Just now, AngryPanCake said:

But if crucial upgrades are so difficult to acquire, everyone has the same limitation (give or take a few very lucky players) and the playing field remains even, right? Or is one nation more favored than another?

If the upgrade limitations are felt by everyone, so why would they prevent most players from going out to PvP?

In most cases it's rich alts holding the monopoly on the demanded items, and will then sell it for a lot so only the most "hardcore gold grinders" (isnt that a oxymorgon) have access to it, which means the average player will never even get to see one - except if he's super lucky and gets one from a mission. But that's rare.
Also, as the items are being sold in a port of a nation A, regular players from any other nations can't simply go there and put a contract for it, even IF they have the gold, as you cannot place contracts in another nation's port.

3 minutes ago, AngryPanCake said:

#1: I understand the revenge fleet problems you guys have been talking about and I have no idea how this can be fixed or at least reduce the problem.

#2: not sure what that means.

Here's a compilation of the most important stuff being said.

#2 means, if you're in a frigate not doing 15 knots, you will have a hard time to get away from a big enemy force, having the crucial upgrades (e.g. Connies doing 15 knots). And since you, as a regular player, have no access to those upgrades, you will sooner or later just stop to even bother anymore and put the game aside.

[AngryPanCake]

Thank you for the info...thought I'd add my 2 cents.

[Cmdr RideZ]

When we had 5 dura ships and upgrades were easier to get, etc. easy mode features -> Players were afraid to lose a dura. Ships were already too expensive for many.

To get back to earlier level of PvP, plus 5 dura to 1 dura, economy should be multiple times more productive than before, not less.

IMO, before wipe people were already so god damn afraid to lose a dura and wanted to gank and revenge gank and all shit that you can imagine -> We should make everything cheaper than before the wipe.  Casual players should be able to lose a Constitution without quitting the game.

Move from PvE/Craft/Trade oriented gameplay to Naval ACTION oriented game where we have plenty of OW PvP and RvR.  We should be shooting each other mainly and all the time, and PvE for new guys to get XP, create some economy to get in PvP and learn some basics how to sail.

Right now it is the opposite

[Quineloe]

With 10.0 ships are now more expensive to craft (Wood log prices are through the roof since we can't craft all the good woods ourselves, and cannons are far more expensive now. This is not fully offset by reduced carriage costs. And on top of that, it's 1 dura instead of 5. I am not quite sure what was meant to be achieved by this change. It feels like it was just done for the sake of it because so many people whined "realism" on the subject.

Sure, you *can* just buy a bunch of cheap shop ships and go sail into enemy territory and look for good fights, but we all know this will get shot down by  Endymions, Surprises and Constitutions build and refitted specifically to hunt down and sink other ships, and we all know how that oak wood / crew space Cerberus would really stand up in battle against these ships. So every PVP ship needs to be crafted.

Another issue is how to find PVP.

How does PVP usually happen? Players sail to enemy waters and attack whatever they find at random. They'll usually engage players currently doing PVE, since there's no reason to PVP in your home waters unless someone has already been spotted (revenge fleeting). The only PVP objectives where you get big, good fights, is port capture and the contention building leading up to it.  Maybe this game could do with a bit more red herring towards PVP that doesn't involve such high stakes?

[HarryButpain]

It doesn't matter if it was hard for everyone to get upgrades or not. The average player simply won't seek pvp as long as he knows he doesn't have the best possible upgrades for his ships (player psychology).. Another thing that stops pvp from happening are ppl with 2 npc ships in their fleet.. I know why players can do it et cetera but it prevents pvp from happening. Furthermore, ppl sailing with 2 indiamans after maintenance to buy every rare item possible in the entire caribbean doesn't help pvp, too.. 

I kept saying for so long that it wouldn't destroy the game if it was easier/cheaper to join pvp and lose, but up until now ppl kept telling me that that was not hardcore enough. I'm glad ppl start to finally wake up and realize that more pvp is always better! 

We need a balance between using ships as cannon fodder and barely being able to get a competitive pvp ship (e.g. modules) whatsoever. 

On a side note, I've read that on pvp_global britain became so strong now that nobody dares to mess with them. I also kept warning you for ages about that.. 

Edited July 16, 2017 by HarryButpain

[Captain Lust]

6 hours ago, Liquicity said:

It's not the ships that are difficult to aquire but more the Upgrades which allow you to be competetive in the current OW PvP situation, due to the silly 15 knots hardcap.

Pretty much this and nobody seems to get it... Ships are fairly easy to get if you don't want to ride L'Oceans 24/7 ( and you shouldn't ). The super rare korean style mmo gear grind upgrades ( that only drop in pve and not pvp with 0.000001% chance ) for speed and lackluster RoE mechanics are what made pvp and as a consequence NA as pvp game go to absolute shit... with those ultra rare upgrades that you really dont want to lose and the endless repairs with cooldown ( another garbage mechanic ) ganking is promoted more than ever...  You have your ship decked out with max upgrades? Only took a month to get them? Nice! Now lets go to get some PvP - but wait we ain't looking for a fair and square 1v1 nooooo hello kitty that shit... even if you should win the other guy will just spam endless rig repairs and run away... we need the whole mob to nail some solo guy down and not risk those precious upgrades! GG

Edited July 16, 2017 by Captain Lust

[Mrdoomed]

The devs keep complicating everything and making everything more "challenging " in an attempt to slow down how fast some clans can go in RvR but they fail to see what allows the large clans kickbso much ass no matter how much crap the devs put in the way.

With people being able to own as many copies of the game that they can buy and using all those accounts in unison then couple that with instant teleports with no slowdown there will never be a way to slow down a clan the really wants to use all the perfectly legal exploits. 

All the devs have done is exclude the vast majority of gamers. When you have a game sold world wide and it is only being played by about 1000 players at any given time (according to steam numbers when i look) i think that is an epic fail of epic failness.