Solution to keep A global server ?

[Celtiberofrog]

Hello there,

If most of us look back to what was the initial NA map, you realize that USA have a quite large territory including Western Florida cost.

And France was THE nieghbour in Gulf.

Now if you look at current NA population with the time zones/timers dilemma, one could imagine to integrate (not by player setting) to each ports a fixed timer of 1 hour or 2 hours (window). Then the "other time zone" player (or clans) would mostly focus on ports of his (their) prime time.

To come back to USA & FRANCE, one could imagine that these map areas (Florida and Gulf) could have similar "fixed timers" in server clock, while FRANCE in the Antilles area would have a different "fixed timer". 

This solution means that the initial NA map (not the one with neutral territories) should be divided in 2 zones of "fixed timers" that each would integrate USA prime time and EUR prime time. 

This means that players & clans would be logically settling on territories with their prime time "fixed timers".

It will force some players/clans not to sail under their prefered Faction flag, it will reduce their interest to sail in the other time zone map.

This may not be fair cause it kind of segregates players in 1 half of the map, but to me, after turning & turning around this sad issue, it could be interesting FOR TESTING.

 

For sure multiflips will be easier with a 1 or 2 hours PB window timers,

For sure Frantic players will still be active in both map zones !

but is it worth a test try ?

please give your counter arguments

thx

[Celtiberofrog]

• Same crucial ressources could certainly be available in both map zones (easier for craft) while some sepcial items or ressources could be still located in Faction historical specialties. 
• "Fixed timers" related, Factions like GB, Pirates & Spain might owned ports in both timers map zones, it will force (hopefully) some players/clans of different time zones to settle in these Factions like it works ok today with France. 

[John Jacob Astor]

I'm US west coast.  I could adjust to this but doesn't locking the map this way mess with folks further west?

[Celtiberofrog]

Yep true, this is not resolving the dilemma for those far West or far East time zones,

but it might work as a test with the current population where we have, I think, 2 strong groups of players in USA & EUR zones

[Celtiberofrog]

For US West cost, it might still work in case the "2 hours PB timer windows" are set within a 3 hours "prime time frame", let say in same map zone we could have 2 or 3 timer windows.  

[John Jacob Astor]

2 minutes ago, Celtiberofrog said:

For US West cost, it might still work in case the "2 hours PB timer windows" are set within a 3 hours "prime time frame", let say in same map zone we could have 2 or 3 timer windows.  

Won't affect US west as only a three-hour differential. 

But locking out folks further west might be a problem for a game that is dependent on new sales in a stagnant PC market.

[Celtiberofrog]

I guess a good "prime time frame" for EUR players might be [19:00 to 22:00], for the East map zone

What would be the best compromize for the "prime time frame" between West & East cost USA players ?

[Teutonic]

How it is currently is better then what you are proposing.

Although I do believe time windows should be an hour or 2 larger.. instead of a 17:00-20:00 timer, it would be a 17:00-21:00 timer.

Or have a raid mechanic ingame that can disrupt a ports time window to make it easier to attack at different times.

EDIT i recall a post that @Jon Snow lets go created a while back with something similar. I understand the merit and it 'could' be a solution. My only gripe is that it just separated the timezones without create incentives for these timezones to work together for a larger goal. In truth we had that large goal when victory marks were only given out for the top 3 conquesting nations. Those top 3 nations had either a timezone coverage or the money to create timers on their ports.

We really need an RvR goal again to create incentives to attack, defend, and encourage full timezone coverage.

Edited October 13, 2018 by Teutonic

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

I want to see data of how many battles occurred in the appointed port windows and how many were undefended against how many were at odds times, both for EU and US and OCE times.

Only having that data one can attest the foundations of a less global proposal.

[John Jacob Astor]

2 hours ago, Celtiberofrog said:

I guess a good "prime time frame" for EUR players might be [19:00 to 22:00], for the East map zone

What would be the best compromize for the "prime time frame" between West & East cost USA players ?

Like I said, the East/West coast US doesn't really matter.  The three hour spread really doesn't mean much.

But there is at least one Australian in my clan.  How does this work for someone in THAT time zone?

[Christendom]

The timer situation is still ideal.  It would work fine if this game had more people.....400-450 on a good day is not a sustainable population regardless of which method we use.  This game fizzled out before the great wipe, both Global and EU fizzled out individually and even now after the merge, the 1 server is fizzling out.  Simply put, this game needs more content to keep people interested in it.  Over the past couple of years the game has revised it's RVR methods, added a few more ships and tweaked a few things.....but ultimately the game has exactly the same level of content it had 2 years ago.  It's boring, it's unimaginative and it's unsustainable.   

With a higher population timers will be more sustainable and even bullshit ports in the gulf would be viable.  We just need people to play the game and therefor we need more content.  

More people and less nations.

Edited October 13, 2018 by Christendom

[Guest]

The truth is that the two main timezones US and EU barely has any interaction with eachother as it is. The main interaction between the two timezones are PBs and the effect it has on the servers casual playerbase - which is singularly negative. This won't change with more players it will only aggravate the issue - players will place timers to avoid PBs and not to get them in their preferred timezone. This is a fundamental human condition - we want to win. More players will only mean more defensive timers placed in the timezone where there's the least chance of a PB - which we have all seen before. Do I have to remind ppl of the flagsystem and the timer exploits the british and americans used to avoid PBs? - We have ALREADY tested this mechanic and it failed. Hard. So why are we using it again? The reality is that dividing the map into two timezones won't fix the underlying issue - that the population in the low-TZ is too low to sustain itself.

There is to my knowledge no real mechanic explanation for this - why is it that the Europeans has twice the numbers than the US? - The only answer I can give is the extreme toxicity in global chat whenever I'm online in the US TZ. I was online a couple of nights ago and I was appauled by the levels of toxicity between players. What the game needs in the long run is regionalservers (I agree not atm, two TZ would be a possible compromise) and above all - moderation of the chat in the US timezone. Either chat ban the culprits or if they persist - permaban them. It makes no sense to me that a small group of toxic individuals can be allowed to run off all the mature and genuinely decent US players aggravating an already low playerbase in the US timezone.

[Sven Silberbart]

Why not doing two timezones? I like the idea.

Would fix the night flip probem

[Christendom]

Yes I’m sure the toxicity on global is the reason why US players stopped playing en mass and reasons like getting kicked off to global server and RVR being restricted past 9pm EST on both PVP 1 and PVP 2 for almost a year and a half had nothing to do with it.  

Global is a cesspool at all times of the day.  

[Celtiberofrog]

17 hours ago, Christendom said:

Yes I’m sure the toxicity on global is the reason why US players stopped playing en mass and reasons like getting kicked off to global server and RVR being restricted past 9pm EST on both PVP 1 and PVP 2 for almost a year and a half had nothing to do with it.  

Global is a cesspool at all times of the day.  

I guess toxicity is being now amplified due to the small remaining group of players/testers ego's.

This cesspool will be cleaned off after the great wipe thx to a fresh flow of new players in.

Here, the point is,

could a global server include in its mechanics a RVR system that would offer 2 main PB prime time zones of 2 main communities of players ?   

Knowing that this question fits in your "Jon Snow lets go" signature statement. 

[Celtiberofrog]

From Bobzilah recent post:

"...Wow a port get taken and they stil have so many and already so salty about timers /o\ what happen did all the french of old join spain ?  so many people keep changing nations its up to the nation that gets to to try and make them stay so you have people from all over the world and with these "new" br systems you dont even need 25 people for defending anymore so wtf do timers stil matter so much there are enough timers all around the clock over the map why bitch now again when britian finaly woke up to take ports that matter again ? i like the timer slrn has put the port on now but if they would have choosen a later time it just would have been funny with the salt here. ive never seen this in any other game where you have a shard server system for all people of the world to play in the same instance bithc and moan about timers. it is what it is when you play online vs the rest of the world..."

Your point of view is respected, the question about timer system is still fully relevant from a "testing role" point of view,

Did not we test a "2 servers" configuration ?

Timer system questionning (in NA, which is a niche game design) is not supposed to be salty at all from my point of view.

 

Presently i'm asking myself why not considering Rediii's perception :

19 hours ago, rediii said:

a decent population will fix the timezone problem.

 

Up to moderator to close this thread.

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, Celtiberofrog said:

 

 

 

Presently i'm asking myself why not considering Rediii's perception :

 

Up to moderator to close this thread.

But we have already tested timers with a far larger population (800-1000). The only difference from then and now is that now you have to make hostility rather than pulling  a flag. More pop won't fix the problem only aggravate it. And we already know this. Because it has ALREADY been tested.

[Simon Cadete]

I don’t really remember people complaining about the game as much as now when it had twice the bugs but also twice ( more than that) population. I agree with Christendom. More content needed to attract and retain more players. The population this game has is a joke and not sustainable. The longer people ignore that, the less chances this game has to come back to life

[Christendom]

5 hours ago, Celtiberofrog said:

I guess toxicity is being now amplified due to the small remaining group of players/testers ego's.

This cesspool will be cleaned off after the great wipe thx to a fresh flow of new players in.

Here, the point is,

could a global server include in its mechanics a RVR system that would offer 2 main PB prime time zones of 2 main communities of players ?   

Knowing that this question fits in your "Jon Snow lets go" signature statement. 

The real issue here is why can't we have one server 2-3 thousand players that provides plenty of overlap between timezones and has real diverse global oriented gameplay?  

Why aren't we pissed off that out of the 120-130k copies of this game sold can we only sustain 400-500 players on at max times on a good day?  Back before the merge the servers rarely cracked 500.  What is fundamentally wrong with this game that so many people stopped playing and found it too hard or too boring.  Hint...it's not night flips.

I used to think people were just waiting on until release to come back and play.  Now I'm not so sure.  

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

Gear fear.  Hard to overcome. If I don't play i can never lose anything  

Not exclusive to NA.