Patch 30: General feedback

[shunt]

has anyone tried the final  exam on tutorial and won ... it seems impossible ... 3-4 broadsides and your sunk ... try boarding  ai always wins .. 2nd ship takes your crew down ship your boarding boards and with marines wins easy ... usually get sunk before have hope of demasting  even 1

[HachiRoku]

1 hour ago, jodgi said:

You might even catch a Doran in the wild these days

sidenote: How do you find trinco these days? It's got 0.1 better turnrate than endy...

I love her. Endy is still a better brawler because of profile but trinco has more character. Trinco has more character than all other ships combined. By character I mean heel,  turn rate and sailing overall. 

[Stilgar]

Pvp medals is pvp marks 2.0 (or perhaps even worst). Here is my main problem with that: I still remember when sailing in group and tagging everything that moves (every small pitiful target), just to grind pvp marks. With those gone, everyone relaxed and was looking for a good fight, while leaving small targets alone. 

PVP rewards are a good fight, a win, and a captured ship. Just balance XP, doublon and real reward in pvp vs pve, and done. 

[Archaos]

6 minutes ago, admin said:

On the PVP/War server, best ships should be available to those who engage in pvp/rvr activities.
On the PVE/Peace server, best ships should be available to those who engage in pve activities.

But many of the ship crafters in game are PvE'ers and the changes that have been made severely restrict crafters from being able to craft ships. 

I am the sort of player who enjoys a bit of everything in the game, I do some PvP now and again, I attend some Port Battles, I do PvE, I trade and I craft ships for the clan, and the problem I see now is that you cannot get anywhere just enjoying a bit of everything, you need to dedicate your time to one thing and this becomes boring.

The idea that the best ships should be available to those that engage in PvP/RvR activities is flawed because it creates a barrier to entry. How do you start to get the PvP rewards when the already established PvP'ers have the better ships? You get no PvP rewards for just participating, you only get them for winning. If you want to encourage PvP then you should give easier access to better ships to all. To reward PvP success you should give a reward that does not increase the gap between the winner and the loser, the winner is already better.

Many PvP'ers cannot be bothered with the PvE, trading and crafting in the game, they just want easy access to ships to continue their PvP, so make it easier for crafters to craft ships for them, introduce a ship order system where a person can specify what they want so crafters can fill the order. I understand why you wished to limit the building of 1st rates, but with recent changes these restrictions are now extending down to any ship that requires a permit. 

[admin]

3 minutes ago, Archaos said:

 

The idea that the best ships should be available to those that engage in PvP/RvR activities is flawed because it creates a barrier to entry. 

Rewards can be traded of course. You earn something in pvp and give it or sell it to crafters. Or capture yourself. Some ships become more valuable and rare which is a good thing. 

[Aquillas]

30 minutes ago, admin said:

On the PVP/War server, best ships should be available to those who engage in pvp/rvr activities.
On the PVE/Peace server, best ships should be available to those who engage in pve activities.

Excuse me, Sir, for insisting:

This kind of mechanic will inevitably push casual players out of the game. We ever lived it, that’s factual data.

In another hand, and humbly taking my own player experience, I think I am rather involved in PvP and RvR.

• I almost never stay in capital waters, except for some defence fleets (but this is PvP) or for new player training.
• Not at the top player for PvP, because I prefer light ships than big one. This choice on how I find fun makes me not having the kill most of times, in spite of being a significant contributor in the battles. I see proofs of that when very often, being the first focus by enemy players, being in a light ship or not. On last battle, I got 40% of damages on a killed Trincomalee, I was in a Cerberus.
• In RvR, I lead battles from times to times, and I get no complaint back on my leading skill, when we win or when we lose.

In spite of this involvement, I think that medals are removing content to me and even more to others who are less involved than I am. Medals are closing opportunities that were open “before”. They are closing opportunities to keep players in game. And less players will finally give less content.

But you may consider that removing more content to players who are less involved than I am is the target of medals. I just question on the opportunity of this target. 

Sorry again for insistance.

[Archaos]

1 minute ago, admin said:

Rewards can be traded of course. You earn something in pvp and give it or sell it to crafters. Or capture yourself. Some ships become more valuable and rare which is a good thing 

The problem is that most PvP'ers want the crafters to sell ships at the same sort of prices as the NPC sells them, and that is just not possible for the time and cost required to build a ship especially now with the changes. As you probably can see from your data most people tend to hoard stuff rather than sell it on, which creates a scarcity and increase in price. You stated in a recent post that there was around 45 million doubloons stored between players, with that many in circulation the price should have been lower than they were.

Like all currencies there should be a way to exchange between them through a market maker such as the Admiralty. Maybe the exchange rate could fluctuate depending on supply and demand but still it should be an automated system rather than having to search round individual ports looking for contracts.

[Jan van Santen]

I've seen 9 neutral fleets now and 2 neutral traders since hotfix (PvE)....

[Corona Lisa]

35 minutes ago, Archaos said:

But many of the ship crafters in game are PvE'ers and the changes that have been made severely restrict crafters from being able to craft ships.

Then they have to buy these medals.

PvP is high risk and I doubt you can be close to break even if u have a 50% winrate / sinkrate even with those medals. So PvP still means you lose money for most players, in contrast to crafting, trading or PvE

[jodgi]

54 minutes ago, Stilgar said:

Here is my main problem with that: I still remember when sailing in group and tagging everything that moves (every small pitiful target), just to grind pvp marks.

Combat medals are only tied to pvp missions and patrol zones. So they've already fixed the problem you remember.

[Archaos]

11 minutes ago, Father of Dragons said:

Then they have to buy these medals.

PvP is high risk and I doubt you can be close to break even if u have a 50% winrate / sinkrate even with those medals. So PvP still means you lose money for most players, in contrast to crafting, trading or PvE

But dont you see the problem, with a 50% win rate the price you have to charge for those combat medals is so expensive that it forces the crafters to raise the price of their ships which in turn makes the PvP'er increase the price of combat medals. It is not a functioning economy and defeats the purpose of increasing ship availability to encourage PvP. And if your win rate is less than 50% you are making a loss, so the average to poor PvP'ers or ones just starting out can not afford to take part, hence why I said it creates a barrier to entry.

You have to ask yourself, why would a crafter craft a port battle or PvP ship if they are not taking part in PvP or RvR? They do it to sell or supply their nation with such ships and make a profit. There are people who enjoy the amassing of wealth even if it is pixels and has no real world value.

[jodgi]

3 minutes ago, Archaos said:

with a 50% win rate the price you have to charge for those combat medals is so expensive

3 combat medals for one lost Mercury, is that too expensive?

[admin]

26 minutes ago, jodgi said:

Combat medals are only tied to pvp missions and patrol zones. So they've already fixed the problem you remember.

you can get them from general pvp hunt missions - it does not matter where you sink the targets.

[Sir Loorkon]

1 hour ago, Stilgar said:

Pvp medals is pvp marks 2.0 (or perhaps even worst). Here is my main problem with that: I still remember when sailing in group and tagging everything that moves (every small pitiful target), just to grind pvp marks. With those gone, everyone relaxed and was looking for a good fight, while leaving small targets alone. 

Interestingly this is simply not true. My experience is that the majority is not looking for a good fight but for ganking. Most players want a easy win, not a „good“ fight. Its hard to find an oponent in equal ship that is not just running. 

[Baptiste Gallouédec]

Reals was the economy currency and doubloons the reward for using the OW, i liked how that was split, but now medals..

First i hate pvp kills rewards only as it don't promote simple pvp activity (assists, participations, damages, escapes, capture) , it promote being the one who got the kill, and now even worse you only get the medals for multiple pvp kills of a same kind of targets, making it even more restrictive.. 

This when top ship of their class are now hidden behind medals wall, so either you form gank group in basic ships catching nobody, or you cross you fingers hard in hope for meeting a lone player in a ship worse than yours with no backup around..  Yay!.. 😕 

In testbed we tested economy, new missions, no great complains were made, and i had good hope, so you decided to add something else for the live patch breaking everything... I can't understand really.

Edited March 7, 2019 by Baptiste Gallouédec

[Sir Texas Sir]

2 hours ago, admin said:

On the PVP/War server, best ships should be available to those who engage in pvp/rvr activities.
On the PVE/Peace server, best ships should be available to those who engage in pve activities.

I always been one to believe that the best gear should be behind RvR and PvP, but folks should still be able to luck out and get notes randomly from rewards chest so do put those in the loot tables.  The other thing is when I look at the Permits I don't see all the ships that need them listed in the Admiralty, are some just not in there yet or something?  I kinda like how some can be bought with VM and others can be bought with the PvP medal.   One thing that might help is allow for exchange of these two formats between each other.   That way the land owners of RvR can get rewards for owning lands and the PvP guys get there rewards for PvP.  A lot of time you share kills in larger battles that you rarely get the kill or assist cause of spread of damage out.  Maybe add assit to the KIll list or have a separate mission that rewards for Kills/Assit in Port battles.  Maybe a bit more reward from this to encourage folks to fight more in PB's than play the circle game.  Maybe not a mission but when PB is over every one that score kills/assit gets so many PvP Medals for the fight on both sides win or lost.

1 hour ago, El Patron said:

The best pvp players are sailing the best ships.  Thats total nonsens. 

Any why shouldn't they?  Sorry this game isn't about getting a Trophy just for logging in, you want the best PvE or PvP rewards your going have to do those parts of the game.  Most other games the only way to get elite gear is you had to go do the elite dungeons to get them. Some of them even lock the gear so you can't trade it and have to actually do the content to get the gear.

1 hour ago, Intrepido said:

Also, about the clan delivery missions.

I would love to see a slice bar or more variety (different quantities) because farming around 100.000 doubloons just to extract the woods (frames+planking) is a nightmare.

Also the current value for all woods is just too much, it will not encourage action. At all.

 It's not meant for one person to be doing all the work, clans are about working together.  If your clan isn't than it's it's own fault.  You don't have to carry it all at the same time, let the folks pop in and drop the coins.  I haven't been able to work with the mission, but it should be along running missions that you can fill slowly and once it's filled than an officer can retrieve the goods.   Remember how the old delivery missions was where you didn't have to bring 1000 logs, you could bring 100, 40, 500 until you reached 1000.   

As for the resources that clan can than sale those woods on the market to make tax revenue off of it if they sale it in there own port.

1 hour ago, shunt said:

has anyone tried the final  exam on tutorial and won ... it seems impossible ... 3-4 broadsides and your sunk ... try boarding  ai always wins .. 2nd ship takes your crew down ship your boarding boards and with marines wins easy ... usually get sunk before have hope of demasting  even 1

There is a youtube and I think even post some where how to do it.  Basically you do the rage board and use you cannons to sink it while you in boarding.  

1 hour ago, Archaos said:

The problem is that most PvP'ers want the crafters to sell ships at the same sort of prices as the NPC sells them, and that is just not possible for the time and cost required to build a ship especially now with the changes. As you probably can see from your data most people tend to hoard stuff rather than sell it on, which creates a scarcity and increase in price. You stated in a recent post that there was around 45 million doubloons stored between players, with that many in circulation the price should have been lower than they were.

Like all currencies there should be a way to exchange between them through a market maker such as the Admiralty. Maybe the exchange rate could fluctuate depending on supply and demand but still it should be an automated system rather than having to search round individual ports looking for contracts.

 Econ always been screwed up where folk either over charge things or don't charge enough.  They need to make it so we can list the price in trade in contracts.  If I want to buy things in reals, doubloons or combat medals than I should be able to list I'm going to sale this L'Ocean for 2.5 Million Reals or  25000 Doubloons or maybe I just want 100 Combat Medals.  Cause the problem comes when you have nations where most guys loose instead of winning fights they don't sale doubloons and such cause they dont' get them as much as the guys winning all the time.  US hardnly ever has Doubloons on the market and when it does it way above the average price for the server cause folks don't have as many from fighting.  This was more an issue with PvP marks than doubloons now, but I can see it as an issue with combat medals.  

[redbear]

so i dont no if anyone found out yet but i tryed to do the clan deliver mission and the erro "could not genrate mission" comeup my clan leader tryed it too and same message would like repose on this if anyone ele has tryed

[Stilgar]

To echo the concern about medals as having content-prohibitive effect and side effects I have described a few posts back, I feel devs put too much emphasis on reward as way to motivate activity, when focus should remain on the process, aka gameplay, and try to avoid putting too a high barrier to joining an activity.  And that was after a rather good imo move with dual currency.  In this dual currency system: reals as currency to be used in trading, production and crafting and doubloons as (sort of) activity currency awarded in ALL activities (pvp, pve, trading etc). Doubloons allows one to bypass to some extent the time-consuming trading and crafting and take a shortcut to pvp, thus creating a larger pool of people seeking pvp at any given moment. For casual pvp players like me this was great news, for I could reduce my trading/crafting activities to minimum and could spend more time on pvp, which I enjoy much more. So, people with more in-game time will be still richer, have best ships and refits, but casual players will be just a step or two behind and can still stay active and compete against more regular players. Win-win for everyone.

So, this is example of a more flexible inclusive and activity-enabling approach. Why not to stick to this approach when dealing with rvr reward/punishment system?

Edited March 7, 2019 by Stilgar

[admin]

49 minutes ago, redbear said:

so i dont no if anyone found out yet but i tryed to do the clan deliver mission and the erro "could not genrate mission" comeup my clan leader tryed it too and same message would like repose on this if anyone ele has tryed

file the f11 report, when you get this message..
forum post is not enough

[Zoky]

 

[Hawkwood]

3 hours ago, Archaos said:

The problem is that most PvP'ers want the crafters to sell ships at the same sort of prices as the NPC sells them, and that is just not possible for the time and cost required to build a ship especially now with the changes. As you probably can see from your data most people tend to hoard stuff rather than sell it on, which creates a scarcity and increase in price. You stated in a recent post that there was around 45 million doubloons stored between players, with that many in circulation the price should have been lower than they were.

Like all currencies there should be a way to exchange between them through a market maker such as the Admiralty. Maybe the exchange rate could fluctuate depending on supply and demand but still it should be an automated system rather than having to search round individual ports looking for contracts.

Nailed it.

[redbear]

yes i F11 1-2 days ago

[Archaos]

3 hours ago, jodgi said:

3 combat medals for one lost Mercury, is that too expensive?

It is if you cannot win battles to get the combat medals

[Neads O'Tune]

1 hour ago, Archaos said:

It is if you cannot win battles to get the combat medals

Especially if you have to use an inferior ship to to try and do it with

[Sir Texas Sir]

3 hours ago, Wraith said:

Why would combat missions remove the motivation to kill everything that moves? (Kill and sink mind you, there’s no motivation to cap...)

In fact this probably even enhances the motivation given the extreme risk vs. reward for trying to clear a combat medal mission.

Trying to get enough kills without losing ships so you come out ahead will always reinforce the ganking and noob smashing.

Just about every PvP style game has missions like this, that is why we got Admin to change it to class of ships not by rate.  My only issue is there needs to be a few other ways like part of port battles you get a missions rewards according to what you kill or assist in the PB.  Encourage more folks to fight in PB than play the circle jerk game.

2 hours ago, Archaos said:

It is if you cannot win battles to get the combat medals

This is a problem and removing safe and forcing the bad players out of them to PvP isn't going to give them more wins or make them better, just gives the Hard Core guys more easy targets.  So it is a two edge sword.

1 hour ago, Neads O'Tune said:

Especially if you have to use an inferior ship to to try and do it with

That why not every good ship should be locked behind one means to get it.  There should be some ships that you can't get unless you PvE too (would like to see some trader ship refits maybe?)  Though most of the time when we capture ships off our coast line, these guys aren't using 5/5 ships with expensive mods.  Some do, but most of them are using the same thing every one else is using.  As for the woods and such that is why we need a port wipe.  Many of the ports where taken by bad timers, human errors, or just not touched in ages cause of current timers.  If they don't have the active players to recapture that port than why should they be holding on to them now?