Server Merge Proposal

[Christendom]

2 minutes ago, George Washington said:

Devs did not even mention a word about server merge or any plans to develop a system that would work for both time zones. Numbers dropped again and I do not have many hopes for any bright future here. I do agree that many who left will never come back again. Honestly there is nothing new here anyway. I tested many features and 90% of them out of balance. For example marks and mods. 

Admin has mentioned recently that he is working on a way to fit all servers into one.  Aka merge.  

[George Washington]

Just now, Christendom said:

Admin has mentioned recently that he is working on a way to fit all servers into one.  Aka merge.  

Do share info plz. 

[Christendom]

Just now, George Washington said:

Do share info plz. 

Look through his history.  

[Christendom]

4 minutes ago, Vernon Merrill said:

My playtime is usually 7-10 PM EST US.  I watch the EU server numbers drop from 500 to ~90 during that time....   

Yesterday I sailed from Aves to Fort Royal, up to Gustavia, over to Christianstad and back to Aves.  

I saw ONE French Indiaman that was just outside his huge "Safety Zone".  He immediately turned and ran back into the zone away from my Prince...lol

THAT was MY gaming experience.  

God forbid you guys cant be on for EVERY port battle.

 

You could always pop on to Global more frequently and lose yet another PB to the pirates with Kingy. 

[George Washington]

2 minutes ago, Christendom said:

Look through his history.  

I wonder when we will see that one. His history is limited. 

Edited November 16, 2017 by George Washington

[Grundgemunkey]

1 minute ago, Intrepido said:

Flag system was exploited until limits some of us didnt know.

Splitting the map into lots of timezones will decrease a lot the conquest possibilities.

If EU playerbase is the biggest one by far, why should we have only 1/3 of the map with our primetime?

do you want the game to be an eu only game ...thats playable at your prime time .... there are lots of eu players that left the game because 1700- 2200 ist their primetime ... people who have family commitments on a evening ....people who work evenings and nights .... we are strangling the game ourselves by insisting on an eu 1700- 2200 port battle timers

splitting the map takes away the night flip and day flip abuse and allows everyone to enjoy the game

[Grundgemunkey]

Just now, rediii said:

tbh I rather have a working EU game than a totally broken global game

so your answer is the game suits you personally so hello kitty everyone else

as it is the game will continue its slow painfull death .. which is such a shame because its a great game

[Vernon Merrill]

11 minutes ago, Christendom said:

You could always pop on to Global more frequently and lose yet another PB to the pirates with Kingy. 

Will your pretty little face be there?....

[Christendom]

Just now, Grundgemunkey said:

so your answer is the game suits you personally so hello kitty everyone else

as it is the game will continue its slow painfull death .. which is such a shame because its a great game

And it’s already happening.  EU went from 1200 people to barely cracking 600.  This past week I’ve seen it barely cracking 550.  It’s slowly going down. 

A consistent downward trend doesn’t mean everything is fine.  

 

[Grundgemunkey]

Just now, rediii said:

Arent you saying the same?

I say I want a eorking game and not a broken one. A broken game also means many players leaving. You rather have a broken global game because it suits you better?

why would splitting the map into different rvr time zones break the game ... what does it matter to you some ports in the gulf or florida have port battle tmers that are outside your prime time ... I dont see you having port battles there at the moment

[Christendom]

2 minutes ago, Vernon Merrill said:

Will your pretty little face be there?....

Too late for me bud.  I told your daddy that if he wants to sink me it’s gotta be earlier or a weekend.  

[Grundgemunkey]

4 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

Which is the advantage of having more players while I am working? 

so if you cant play no one should be allowed to

Global met death since the very begining.

EU server, at least, still see some action almost every day.

Spreading the disease of the global idea will kill the game for everyone.

eu server is dying just a bit slower than global .. we had an influx through steam sale ,, but those players are leaving too

 

 

Edited November 16, 2017 by Grundgemunkey

[z4ys]

On 15.4.2017 at 4:40 PM, admin said:

Main fact one . no-one wants to play at 5 am

There are 3 things about your comments
1) You can suggest all you want but there are no solution to waking up at 5 am. There are no better ideas. All are bad. Maybe you can provide a good one - we are open to it.
2) American server does not have a problem. Alliances are a problem. Based on player numbers we see that US server has a diverse population who can fight each other without any european player. You just have to fight and not sign alliances covering 70% of players on the server. 
3) You are all exaggerating the importance of port battles for the general audience. From release with 120,000 copies sold only 2000-3000 thousands players participated in 1 port battle or more over the course of 2 years of testing.

If you ignore port battles nothing changes. Both groups can pvp on all servers. 

You are right one thing.
European players will leave global in the long term and will get back to EU with the ruleset. You know why? Because no-one wants to play at 5 AM. (fact 1). 

Ps. knowing human nature we also think that european players will also visit US servers and cap some ports at nights just for fun. Eventually forcing US players to ask for time restrictions too. You know why? Check fact 1

On 15.4.2017 at 11:05 PM, Barberouge said:

A lot of alternate proposals have been brainstormed, but none of them came up fixing up the problem enough or being non-exploitable. There were the 5 proposals of the PvP1 summit (servers merge, lords windows, servers split, PBs split, demographics-set windows), forum suggestions sometimes mixing part-solutions, and other ones. PotBS, which had a similar conquest system (including historical nations), implemented windows 6 months after the release because the 24/7 system was being exploited.

 

• Merge the servers to balance out the factions - but not a viable long-term solution since the PvP1 situation could form up again
• Player-set defensive faction windows (lords) - but then the windows can be set off-hour to make the conquered ports difficult to re-take
• Longer lords windows - decreases the problem if the windows are at least about 10h-long, but then all the attacks can happen out of the prime-time of a faction
• Faction-voted 6-hours or 12-hours immunity windows - same consequence as above, but is detrimental to the spread of players into different factions
• Game-set demographics-based offensive server windows - incentivizes a spread but doesn't necessarily impulse it since there's still an advantage (not to mention the difficult determination of the demographic conquest activity)
• Split of PBs into multiple timezone battles - same consequence as above
• Limit the number of attackers to the number of defenders - can reduce but doesn't prevent stacking off-hour attacks, can be exploited by choosing the best PvPers and requires to tune the fortifications - also increases the influence of possible alts
• Complement the outnumbered side with bots - requires a fine-tuning of the bots power, and doesn't cater for PvPers
• Map split defensive windows - if the resources aren't balanced some areas would be disadvantaged, if they are, only 1 area would be needed to craft - also gives an easily conquerable area
• Larger week-end windows - helps any solution but doesn't fix the problem
• Make the natural spread more comfortable by for example having a nation-language chat and an English nation chat - same consequence as above
• Remove alliances - decreases the problem but doesn't make it disappear locally
• Decrease the economic importance of conquest making it non-stop a-la GW2 - removes a big part of the drawbacks but doesn't promote balanced PBs
• Force alliances - the alliance with the off-hour faction would still have the advantage
• Replace nations by historical factions (French Empire, French Republic) and/or independencies (Haiti, Texas) - radical but interesting, although wouldn't fix the problem in all cases
• Mixes of the above proposals but which carried the same consequences
• Other radical proposals but which would require a revamp of the conquest system

Although the brainstorm is interesting and sometimes brings up ideas that could be applicable to a servers split solution, in the end if the final global solution doesn't fix the problem or creates exploits, there's no point. Maybe some ideas haven't been explored though.

On 14.4.2017 at 12:48 AM, Blackjack Morgan said:

I also believe it was a missed opportunity concerning pirates and how they could have been used to help fill in "gaps" in populations of smaller nations or those with timezone shortages.

That one for example sounds interesting, and it's actually what happened on PvP1 for months after the creation of the W/E alliances. The Eastern Alliance knew it couldn't break the British Empire without any help from another timezone, and thus tried to convince the Pirate Coalition to join a campaign. After their war against the US, the ZombiePirate forces were too exhausted to launch another offensive. The Eastern Alliance had to wait for the push of the LordVicious forces in the Gulf and for the switch of AUSEZ to the pirates to eventually reverse the course of the war. But at that time the populations spread and the diplomatic relationships enabled that opportunity.

[Vernon Merrill]

3 minutes ago, Christendom said:

Too late for me bud.  I told your daddy that if he wants to sink me it’s gotta be earlier or a weekend.  

Yup, me too...  I can keep up with those CST and Western time zone night owls.

[Hodo]

Here is what I saw last night at 2130 EST.  

Global 126 players

EU  74 players.

There are less than 250 players on BOTH servers at 0230 GMT,  which is pretty much the American prime time.  

Even 3 hours earlier, the EU pop wasnt a whole lot better, sitting at 150 players, and the Global sitting at 120.  

 

On the weekend during EU prime time the peak was about 650 players on the EU server for about 2 hours, then it SHARPLY fell off. 

 

I support a server merger, and PB timers set by the owner of the port.  

 

[Grundgemunkey]

8 minutes ago, rediii said:

Give us a smaller map with the same amount of outposts and we conquer everything.

Sweden is only limited by outposts at the moment.

Also you would split hp different content (portbattlemapy) etc. and I dont see a reason why. Timezones cant interact with eachother anyway too much

. think the reason for your  resistance  ..is in a smaller rvr map with all nations represented in that timezone ... a swedish dominance would see nations ally against sweden and reduce your  dominance

it would balance out naturally

if you look at the rough splits in areas there is still a lot of sea to be sailed in the eu time zone is plenty big enough for the current 500 players

 

Edited November 16, 2017 by Grundgemunkey

[Jef]

I would like the merge for more people online, I simply don't care about any of the RVR.

I still love the introduction of PVP marks, gives us PVP folks to work for something, I would love to see more rewards become available.
I can't spend my time hunting chasing PVE bots.

So I encourage having more folks online!
And as a Pirate please bring back the option to fight other pirates....

[Hodo]

Just now, Intrepido said:

We had exactly that. It didnt work.

It is the same as asking for the return of the Fine Woods.

It can work.. it needs fine tuning.

If you set it for a 6 hour or even an 8 hour window it would give attackers in other regions more options.

The issue with a 4 hour window is it is to easy to just lock out whole regions of the world. 

 

[Grundgemunkey]

4 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

There is no alliance system.

And despite the efforts of several nations, sweden keeps having the high ground.

you dont need one player made alliances work fine .... if sweden were dominant and were attacking .. say a french port .. they would struggle to remain dominant if Brits, spain and danes were all attacking swedish ports at same time

swedes currently have the high ground because .. several nations have no need to attack them

Edited November 16, 2017 by Grundgemunkey

[Grundgemunkey]

10 minutes ago, rediii said:

Happens all the time, doesnt work.

Would be the other way around. We wouldnt have problems anymore getting fleets together and going in to conquest things. A big map forces us to split up.

Nice argument tho saying im biased. Doesnt work but hey.

 

 

A merge would end in one thing: You get both playerbases together from global and EU. Asians would have a hard time due to ping. Many will loose interest with a too high ping.

Then maybe everything works fine for a week. Then population starts to go down even more when people realize they cant attack for example cartagena becajse its 2am their time.

After a while also nations will seperate again in EU playerbase and EU+other timezone nations and start exploiting it to the fullest so population will go down even more

it would still be a large enough map you would still have to split up

why would they want to attack cartagena if its not in their time zone .... read my post resourses would have to be redistributed equally around each timezone

as for ping we currently  have a chinese based clan in eu brit nation ... we still have some US players ... we had australian players befor split .. in all nations ... ping is a red herring

take the map i posted ..im not suggesting it looks like that or should be like that ,,,, but sweden hold or attack very few ports outside the eu timezone indicated on there anyway .. so your argument about it been easier for you is invalid you only play in that area at present as it is

 

Edited November 16, 2017 by Grundgemunkey

[Grundgemunkey]

4 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

Some nations will never have a non-EU strong community. We have seen that for months.

If you dont have a 24/7 playerbase your options are so limited that you cant afford to lose any port at your primetime. 

and thats why things need to change

[Grundgemunkey]

Just now, rediii said:

So you also want to split up conquest leaderboard?

There is a wipe connected to your proposal. Also 1 timezone has a lot of shallow pbs with bahamas other timezones have almost no shallow pbs

is the conquest leader board important ... it can stay as it is or you could have one for each timezone ... doesnt really matter

a lot of US players may play for sweden and represent your nation in the us timezone

seems to me that some players cannot bear the thought of something happening in their nation that they cannot take part in ... and would rather see the game struggle than a port battle happening thats not in their primetime

[Grundgemunkey]

1 minute ago, Intrepido said:

You cant force players to chose a flag.

no but you can make it easier for them ... to be able to choose a nation ...

[Christendom]

Just now, rediii said:

I still dont see a reason. You split the map in timezones so each timezone is active in a different part of the day... These players will still not play together

You're wrong in this regard.  These players do play together, perhaps just not in HRE.  If you create an inclusive environment, they will come.  If you look at some of the major clans of the western alliance....ZERG, 7up, VCO...couple others.  Majority of those clans spread multiple different time zones and nationalities.  REDS is very similar over on EU right now.  If you look at the nations/clans that are currently not doing well, they are predominantly of one nation...aka Spain and France.  Adapt or die.  Variety is always good.  

[Grundgemunkey]

4 minutes ago, rediii said:

I still dont see a reason. You split the map in timezones so each timezone is active in a different part of the day... These players will still not play together

the timezone only applies to rvr nothing else .. .. no not all players will play together ... those that play at 4am in the morning eu time will still not face you in a port battle

but the game will attract more players as your gaming time will be more flexible

i can play most evenings eu time my prime time is 2000 - 0000 ,,, on a weekend my primetime is during the day

i have a guy in clan lives in uk  who starts work at 1800 and works until early morning his prime time is 1200 -1700 he very rarely plays anymore because of current timers

the more people who we can attract to the game and play it when they want ,,, the better the game will be

people dont want to play a game like this with 50 people online thats why global failed

people who cant be online between 1700 and 2200 dont play

we are killing the game ourselves by restricting gameplay times