Screening Yes/No?

[Roy Mustang]

[Slim McSauce]

It won't be removed, it's just going to be phased out. Dedicated RvR clans will use whatever item to tp to the battle instead of sailing to avoid it.

My opinion is that screening was never a good part of the game. It was the ugly center where OW and Battle instance met, and it never meshed well.

I don't mind so much it being set aside. I just would have prefered they developed something for RvR after all these years, and that may happen yet.

Edited April 11, 2020 by Slim McSauce

[Earl of Grey]

Actually i dont see the big griefing problem in screening ...

But i think building up hostility over three days - involving many different ship-types - would be a good thing ...

Something like "you have to Control the surounding Waters before you can Attack the Port ...

As far as i remember Eve Online went the same way (years ago) and it was a good Change ...

[erelkivtuadrater]

answered not sure, because i agree something has to be done so you cant get kited in a pb vs screening fleet, but abandoning it totally imo is the wrong decision

[The Rear End of Sauron]

i answered not sure because i want to see what the new hostility mechanics are about

i have a feeling that they are basically shifting the opportunity to have larger scale OW pvp from screening to hostility and i want to wait to see if that is the case, and if so whether it is a success or a fail

[Gregory Rainsborough]

I voted yes to both. I think people should be able to choose whether or not they want a port battle to be a teleport in or to allow screeners. Teleporting to the battle should be a choice which people should pay extra for.

Sometimes flipping a port is a nice way to get multiple people in one place. There are many instances of griefing for sure but I feel they're in the minority of cases. If just tends to happen to Russian players more as they're more feared in OW engagements.

Edited April 11, 2020 by Gregory Rainsborough

[Smoothie]

Captain Reverse already voted No in below thread, thus it got removed. Don't expect it will come back due to this poll.

 

[Tiedemann]

I think this is a much needed change to RvR. Will it please everyone? Nope, but if this is combined with a more PvP focused hostility generation I'm very much looking forward to this! And this will replace the loss of PvP action for screeners imo.

Currently most players are in the Zerg nations and therefor most of us will argument to keep "status quo" to protect their zerg nation screening advantage, but screening was always mostly grifing. At a point we had a a solution for the screening, with the exponential BR requirement needed to drag a big group of players into battle. But it was never implemented or it was immediately nerfed (I don't remember)..  

[Capitalism]

Removing screening because a few whinging port battle commanders didn't arrange for proper screening or counter screening is silly.  Screening is an important aspect of RvR that often serves to integrate new and more casual players into the more nation-focused and broader community. It's often a great way to blood those newer players, get them used to comms, integrate them into fleets and get them to follow orders.

Magically teleporting fleets from across the map to ports is just silly business that belongs in a lobby-based game. Further fragmenting the game into elite lobby content and removing players from the OW is just a poor game design decision.

And until we actually see solid information on new hostility mechanics, I fail to see how this will result in more PvP than less, especially for new and less hardcore players.

[Farrago]

5 hours ago, The Rear End of Sauron said:

i answered not sure because i want to see what the new hostility mechanics are about

i have a feeling that they are basically shifting the opportunity to have larger scale OW pvp from screening to hostility and i want to wait to see if that is the case, and if so whether it is a success or a fail

That’s where I am as well. If the whole hostility thing gets reworked so that it’s during hostility that there are legitimate opportunities for battles between players and multiple nations to influence the result then the change to a lobby PB will be okay. 

[Montagnes]

My guess is hostility missions will work as before, you will only need to farm more fleets to flip a port.

I don't expect any innovation.

[Corona Lisa]

4 hours ago, Capitalism said:

Screening is an important aspect of RvR that often serves to integrate new and more casual players into the more nation-focused and broader community. It's often a great way to blood those newer players, get them used to comms, integrate them into fleets and get them to follow orders.

 

Time to adapt and integrate them into fights to stop hostility.

Also "suicide and waste their time in some random trash ship of your choice" is not a great way to integrate people into the game.

[Slim McSauce]

Noobs need to learn how to sacrifice themselves for the cause. There's a correct way to do it, and if they learn to let go, they can be immortalized.

[Stilgar]

Mostly for better, than worse, screening provides content. In my experience screening could be more fun than PB itself. If screening is removed, hostility part should provide an alternative or even improved content. In other words, if hostility part of the game is done well and provides reasonable means and time of countering, then tp to PB makes sense. If the hostility part is just longer and more tedious version of the current hostility mechanics, then tp to PB is a bad idea.  

[SnovaZdorowa]

Get removed because people are ´´griefing´´

Get removed because slow and valuable PB fleet can be tagged and blown up by 24 npc Victory fireships.

Get removed because it's hard to collect 50 ppl screen to get PB fight as attacker.

[TheDread]

I'd be okay with a lobby based system, without the TP element.   It makes no sense that you can get to a port battle without sailing there, but I'd be okay with you  being able to sail in and join the lobby for the 4 hours before the PB.   That keeps the advantage with those who do the hard work - if you get organized and get the ships and reps there early, good on you.  If a defender can afford to scout and screen for  the extended time before the PB...  and  actually BEAT the PB fleet, not just waste 30 minutes of their time while the circles get points...   good on them.

[Teutonic]

I've been on both sides of being screened as a form of "griefing" and being screened as a form of PvP content.

With the addition of this "item" so that a PB can get into a port battle is at first nice to consider. because the PB fleet wants the PB content. but the players outside also want content in the form of PvP.

lets take the term Screeners out of the process. instead taking it to the core of what it is.

a Port Battle is essentially a "signal" to the server informing folks where players are likely to be when looking for PvP. Effectively, a port battle is the ONLY way to have a 99% chance of certainty that there will be players to fight, whether that means in the port battle, or the surrounding waters.

So what happens when you take away a key aspect of how port battle work currently - in the form of a PB fleet needing to use OW to get to their destination - and allow folks to bypass the limitation?

You kill OW PvP around Port Battles. So your question goes to - Where can I go that the game can tell me where players are? After all, when we for for OW PvP content, the majority of us are going out because we want/need to find people in order to enact PvP.

 

the game NEEDS a way for players to know where other players are with better accuracy - multiple players in the past have asked for a "heat-map" and I can't believe we still don't have it.

We seem to be going in the direction of "Make things easier for players to have PvP," and yet changes to game mechanics seem to also entirely contradict that very goal.

1. Bring back Small/Large Battles and do the following
A - Risk/Reward: Small/Large Battles now gives Rewards while also risking your ship
B - Small Battles are no larger than 4th rates - and each side is evenly formed based on BR from all players Queue'd
C - Large Battles have no limit - each side is evenly formed based on BR from all players Queue'd

2. Heat map - we already have a "form" of it based on the ship log note showing battles nearby that are open to you.....Why don't we have that as..I don't know...standard?

Give it like a 10-20 minute cooldown, but allows players to be able to check all the time. we are out their sailing because we WANT PvP action, lets make it easier to find the action.

 

[Farrago]

I withhold judgement on whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing that screening is removed. It will depend on what the hostility process is like.

But perhaps this teleport to the port battle should all happen from the same port: defenders in the port being attacked and attackers maybe using the Devs upcoming Naval Base idea. A fleet should need to assemble together before joining.

Ultimately, the current screening problem is a server population problem. Giant screens are the result of not enough going on with the servers at the same time.