Finding each other in OW

[z4ys]

Just now, seanjo said:

OK, but how do they indicate player usage?

someone bought goods to equip ships or trade. therefore they must leave the port to transfer ships or bought goods.

[CatSwift]

I think it would be a good compromise if combat news for the day was somehow represented on the map, and gets reset each day at maintenance. So maybe there is a visual representation of the amount of deaths that happened near that region.

It would not be an immediate "oh there's a person here" (which i feel is wrong). It would reflect information that is already available if you just logged in and watched the combat news all day.  And it would immediately show which areas of the map are seeing action on a daily basis and naturally draw players there over time.

Edited November 2, 2017 by CatSwift

[George Washington]

47 minutes ago, Otto Kohl said:

Welcome to my world , sailing in OW is 90% waste of time .

Tell it to the rest who think this game is fun. Log in check server numbers, sell goods log out. 

Edited November 2, 2017 by George Washington

[vazco]

2 hours ago, admin said:

Of course not.. but people are on the map.. and concentrations of players can be found with hunting experience. 
One could argue that adding player markers on the map will increase pvp for one day - but we doubt it is a good idea. 

Markers are not a good solution, they reveal too much. I'm not talking about markers.

I'm talking about a system that would tell you which region to go to to find many players. An overall indication that tells you there is noone eg. in Dominica, and that there are eg. 20 people sailing in Bowenvinds.

In result, some regions would get populated by people searching for PvP, while others would remain empty. It would work almost similar to shrinking the map. I would know where to go with my group to find a quick fight.

I think I have a very bing hunting experience. Recently I'm wasting so much time searching for PvP that I stopped doing this. 

[seanjo]

20 minutes ago, z4ys said:

someone bought goods to equip ships or trade. therefore they must leave the port to transfer ships or bought goods.

Not getting it, does it show up in the tax rates or summit?

 

[vazco]

1 hour ago, Anne Wildcat said:

Please no precise spots, imagine the revenge squads. Someone suggested earlier a heat map type thing that shows the amount of players in the general area. 

That would be me, some time ago... In this post I'm suggesting to show a number of players that are in a given region, not actual markers. Eg:

Bowenvinds - 20 players in last 15 minutes
Dominica - 5 players in last 15 minutes
Fort-Royal - 100 players in last 15 minutes

I'm repeating this, as it seems people understand my suggestion as markers indicating an exact position. Such an exact location wouldn't work well.

Edited November 2, 2017 by vazco

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

That's the info you get in Elite spaceports... with a twist, for good measure. - How much traffic passed in the station in the last 24 hours (!).

Means any given amount could've passed in the last minute or 24 hours ago. We don't know

Been suggested as some sort of fluff addition to towns, like tavern talk, etc.

 

[vazco]

19 minutes ago, CatSwift said:

It would not be an immediate "oh there's a person here" (which i feel is wrong). It would reflect information that is already available if you just logged in and watched the combat news all day.  And it would immediately show which areas of the map are seeing action on a daily basis and naturally draw players there over time.

Why do you think it would be wrong to show number of players in a given region, however with a 15-minute delay? Can you please explain?

Regions are quite big, while in 15 minutes you can be 2 regions further away. It wouldn't allow you to track a single ship, only general numbers in the area.

@The Red Duke suggestion with tavern talk is actually great. You don't even have to see this information in real time, it's enough if you can see it when you're in a harbour.

Edited November 2, 2017 by vazco

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

@vazco that's how it is in E:D you only see it in any given station or outpost.

Funny part is "last 24 hours". Means any given amount could mean 5 minutes ago or 24 hours ago. The pilot/captain does not know for sure, he only know how much traffic passes through.

In true fashion the long jumps take as much time as sailing in NA OW, so similarities exist especially when chasing a bounty

[z4ys]

10 minutes ago, seanjo said:

Not getting it, does it show up in the tax rates or summit?

 

when you look at: taxes / daily taxes it says: 5.8kk gold of taxes were earned by the city. That means that players are buying stuff out of the shop or selling it. That means there have to be players. Even it is a contract. The goodies have to get out of the port or others goodies have to get in.  That indicates players have to be around.

[CatSwift]

11 minutes ago, vazco said:

Why do you think it would be wrong to show number of players in a given region, however with a 15-minute delay? Can you please explain?

It's wrong on many levels:

1. Are you a wizard, Harry?  Do you have access to spy satellites?  That kind of direct information doesn't belong in an age of sail MMO.  And before you ask, no i actually don't like that combat news is instantaneous; it was a good idea whose implementation lacks finesse, like most of the good ideas in this game.

2. What is appropriate for age of sail is news of big events being gossiped about and propagating over time.  This is where the "combat news show on map for the last day" comes into play nicely, you should be able to here news that a big Indiaman was captured near portobello yesterday and the day before. This will allow for you, as a player, to look for trends and clues as to where the good places are to find action.

3. Why should you have any knowledge of my activities if i haven't done anything news-worthy? Maybe I've found the perfect solo hunting spot, hiding behind an island waiting to ambush a trader i've been monitoring for weeks.  Maybe i'm just there grinding ship knowledge XP. Unless you are there looking at me or i've sunk a player, you shouldn't know anything.

[George Washington]

1 hour ago, Cabral said:

 That's why devs made Legends for you and others that don't  want to waste time.

They had to , because it's a good excuse. Still just by adding such simple feature they could bring so many new customers and make them stay. 

 

31 minutes ago, z4ys said:

when you look at: taxes / daily taxes it says: 5.8kk gold of taxes were earned by the city. That means that players are buying stuff out of the shop or selling it. That means there have to be players. Even it is a contract. The goodies have to get out of the port or others goodies have to get in.  That indicates players have to be around.

So we have to sit 24/7 hope he will move out? BS. Chance of catching him logging in the port and time to travel to that port equals to almost 0 and with 170 players online it is impossible.

So , I really hope Devs change their mind about this and instead of making limited repairs and bringing back kite wars, make heat map to help people find 'Action'. 

Edited November 2, 2017 by George Washington

[Farrago]

There really should be some sort of delayed alert that hostility missions are being done on one of your ports.

[seanjo]

53 minutes ago, z4ys said:

when you look at: taxes / daily taxes it says: 5.8kk gold of taxes were earned by the city. That means that players are buying stuff out of the shop or selling it. That means there have to be players. Even it is a contract. The goodies have to get out of the port or others goodies have to get in.  That indicates players have to be around.

Gotcha, thank you for your patience.

[vazco]

38 minutes ago, CatSwift said:

It's wrong on many levels:

1. Are you a wizard, Harry?  Do you have access to spy satellites?  That kind of direct information doesn't belong in an age of sail MMO.  And before you ask, no i actually don't like that combat news is instantaneous; it was a good idea whose implementation lacks finesse, like most of the good ideas in this game.

2. What is appropriate for age of sail is news of big events being gossiped about and propagating over time.  This is where the "combat news show on map for the last day" comes into play nicely, you should be able to here news that a big Indiaman was captured near portobello yesterday and the day before. This will allow for you, as a player, to look for trends and clues as to where the good places are to find action.

3. Why should you have any knowledge of my activities if i haven't done anything news-worthy? Maybe I've found the perfect solo hunting spot, hiding behind an island waiting to ambush a trader i've been monitoring for weeks.  Maybe i'm just there grinding ship knowledge XP. Unless you are there looking at me or i've sunk a player, you shouldn't know anything.

Basically you're against it due to immersion reasons, as I understand.

I get your point, however having information on number of ships in area would be less intrusive than other features that have to provide for good game, eg:
- an option to warp out of a fight after not being hit for 2 minutes (of course it can be explained - warp field is disrupted when hit by cannon balls, and sail ships are quite similar to space ships, at least in name. Still, for some it's fishy...)
- we have damn Poland on Carribean
- you're sailing 30 knots on a sail ship
- you can actually sink ship in battle (it wasn't the case at that time. Ships sank only after battle, and either surrendered or were boarded)
- you capture a port by sailing into imaginary circles

... and so on. Game is a compromise between being realistic and fun to play. Sure, it's realistic to sail for a few hours and don't meet anyone. It's not fun though.

Edited November 2, 2017 by vazco

[CatSwift]

1 minute ago, vazco said:

Basically you're against it due to immersion reasons, as I understand.

I get your point, however having information on number of ships in area would be less intrusive than other features that have to provide for good game, eg:
- an option to warp out of a fight after not being hit for 2 minutes (of course it can be explained - warp field is disrupted when hit by cannons, and sail ships are quite similar to space ships, at least in name. Still, for some it's fishy...)
- we have damn Poland on Carribean
- you're sailing 30 knots on a sail ship
- you can actually sink ship in battle (it wasn't the case at that time. Ships sank only after battle, and either surrendered or were boarded)
- you capture a port by sailing into imaginary circles

... and so on. Game is a compromise between being realistic and fun to play. Sure, it's realistic to sail for a few hours and don't meet anyone. It's not fun though.

Like i said, there are many good ideas in this game whose implementation lacks finesse; thank you for listing some.  We really shouldn't add more.

And, no, all of the reasons i supplied are not immersion.  As i said, if i'm a solo hunter or a trader out in the world minding my own business, there is no reason you should get a cheat to know approximately where i am.

[jodgi]

53 minutes ago, George Washington said:

because it's a good excuse.

?

[vazco]

57 minutes ago, CatSwift said:

Like i said, there are many good ideas in this game whose implementation lacks finesse; thank you for listing some.  We really shouldn't add more.

And, no, all of the reasons i supplied are not immersion.  As i said, if i'm a solo hunter or a trader out in the world minding my own business, there is no reason you should get a cheat to know approximately where i am.

Well, there's an easy solution for this - show only numbers of non-trader vessels. On the other hand a solo hunter would cause a rumor to spread in the real world as well. In every tavern you would get info about an approximate number of ships in a given region. Not accurate and not always true, but still.

[Corona Lisa]

bring back PvP zone

[Sir Texas Sir]

16 hours ago, z4ys said:

taxes help as well but they only indicate the last day. Sometimes portbattles that happened there can fool you because someone was smart selling repairs and rum at the pb day.

I noticed it's  a 3 day cycle on GLOBAL.  Some ports make great money but others are trade runs and you only see a profit every three days as those folks make there runs.  I think we own 22-25 ports right now and that is 2.5 million a day we pay.  We make enough profit on average to pay all but about 600K.   Which is easly covered with some one doing a mission or two.   Though it does let you know the active and high profit ports, but it might just be folks doing Trade dumps on certain days if it only goes up every couple days. It's the ports that stay constant at the same rate that you know are very active ports.

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

typical sea rover practices, as per period accounts, are used in NA by several players of all nations. they do find what they look for. raid the treasure convoys, escape the navies.

but if the idea is to emulate navy operations then the patterns must be different, as the objectives are not the same. It becomes a game of threat and counter until battle is joined.

gladly did account the time spent on cruise yesterday. From Almirante to Santa Cruz passing through the entire Mosquito Coast, island hop, was one hour and 20 minutes on a Cerberus ( not 3 hours like many like to cry out... lol ). 20 mins more and we did intercept two trade convoys inbound to Jamaica from the north east, both smugglers.

Then we come across captain Vazco in his Indiaman convoys, sadly he was covered and close to port , shortly after we escry another crow, surely a empty trader brig given the speed he could ride the waves, so we let her go.

There's no magic involved. Just planning the cruises according to the time to spare.

All in all the cruise lasted 2 hours and 15 minutes. We sailed all the way around from Costa Rica, almost to Yucatan, then up to Cuba and then to Haiti and around the east side of it to Macao, raiding 2 convoys on the way ( insert times of battles here ) all in little more than 2 hours which was in accordance to the time I had to spare. If it was less time i'd cut the cruise short somewhere in the way.

Oh, and now we don't have the Pray button anymore so I cannot RP having Service aboard to thank the good lord for all the fat traders he puts in my way.

 

[George Washington]

On 11/2/2017 at 1:38 PM, seanjo said:

Not getting it, does it show up in the tax rates or summit?

 

120 players not worth a minute in NA. It's a waste of time trying to hunt in such a vast world.