Aggressive use of loading time

[Piroko Pearlblade]

This is a topic that I think needs to be raised at some point before the product goes live.

I'm a pilot in EVE. I've done the PVP thing there and know how it goes. I have my concerns that Burning Seas is susceptible to GoonSwarm style gridcrashing. I'll elaborate.

In EVE, zoning into a region entails a significant amount of initial load time. Your ship appears but you may not have control of it. This is made worse in a battle, where you might have people shooting you before your client is even responsive. Whole capital ships have been lost in this way, and countless smaller vessels.


Imagine if you will...

A large group of people, say a hundred, all log into one server. They all start pirate characters. They all sail over to Port Royal and park in the harbor. A hundred ships.

Then they just sit there. Not doing anything, just sitting there milling around.

What happens to a person zoning into that? Their client has to immediately draw a hundred ships. How long might that take? What if their client seizes up as a result? What if that happens to a lot of people?

Now, I know pirates has it's own version of jump cloning. Leaving a ship in a different port allows you to circumvent such a "CPU blockade". But the problem still stands. Is the game ready to handle sadistic use of load time as a strategic lockdown tactic?

[ZaiRoX]

Well you still have like 30-45sec (?) after zoning where you CAN'T be attacked unless you move. If you manage to load and see the blocade you can easely click back into port.

And massive corporations like in EvE with litteraly thousands of players is very ulikely to happen in PotBS. But if this turns out to be a problem, I'm sure that the devs will increase the immunity times before you can be attacked.

[Montbrun]

FLS instituted the "preparing ship for combat" deal just because of what you describe.

[Charles Blackhart]

The other reason for the 'preparing for combat' immunity period was one member of a group enticing PvP while the other 5 stood in town on the dock ready to enter open sea and join the encounter. Its good to see FLS working to prevent Pirates of the Burning Sea from becoming Ganking Griefers of the Burning Sea.

[EMTsNightmare]

There are a few things that combat this problem.

1) on the OS you can only be attacked by at most 6 people.

2) I'm about 90% sure there's a setting somewhere that limits how many ships you render on the OS, you can edit this and not have this problem if you only render 50 or so.

3) there's a 60 second timer before you can be attacked or attack anyone after undocking from port.

4) Port Battles can only have 24 v 24.

5) battles are instanced and on different servers/shards to reduce lag in the actual battle.

6) you can't be attacked directly after exiting a battle instance (again about 90% sure on this one)





On the other hand the biggest loading time exploit i've heard of so far is actually in boarding combat for PVP. The boarding combat doesn't actually start for 45-60 seconds after it starts or until both captains come out of their respective starting areas (bow or stern), whichever comes first. What then happens in one person hangs out on his starting location for as long as possible while his friends shoot at the other guys ship so that he comes out of the boarding instance with an almost dead ship (should he make it out).

[Jakkin]

6) you can't be attacked directly after exiting a battle instance (again about 90% sure on this one)


I think the actual effect is a very high degree of stealth. You could be attacked again but it's unlikely as your OS vis is really low.

[sinjinsmythe]

The other reason for the 'preparing for combat' immunity period was one member of a group enticing PvP while the other 5 stood in town on the dock ready to enter open sea and join the encounter. Its good to see FLS working to prevent Pirates of the Burning Sea from becoming Ganking Griefers of the Burning Sea.

Im afraid you are wrong. The idea is correct only it does not work that way ALL of the time.
I dont think i am the only person to have to wait in a loading screen only to appear already being ganked and almost on the way to meet Davie Jones. If you are a merchant come the official launch and you brave pvp contention zones in order to maximize profit (as the game overview suggests) you stand to lose a lot if your coming out of a port into OS with a cargo and there are hungry players waiting for you.

[EMTsNightmare]

Im afraid you are wrong. The idea is correct only it does not work that way ALL of the time.
I dont think i am the only person to have to wait in a loading screen only to appear already being ganked and almost on the way to meet Davie Jones. If you are a merchant come the official launch and you brave pvp contention zones in order to maximize profit (as the game overview suggests) you stand to lose a lot if your coming out of a port into OS with a cargo and there are hungry players waiting for you.

Have you actually tried that since around Dec 20th? If not then you're probably wrong since that is when they changed the system to the 60 second timer.

That said if you aren't loading in 60 seconds that's issue number 1 and if you are loading in under 60 seconds and still getting attacked before 60 seconds are up, that's a bug, report it.

[necrovore]

I posted a similar thread below, on the problems of open sea load times.

OK, I don't have a high-end machine (yet), but I meet and exceed minimum requirements. Open Sea loadtimes around a busy port like Port Royal are already considerable, they could easily be around 60 seconds. And even if I see the screen after 60 seconds, I still can't move around much for another 30 secs or so due to all the lag, so I'd be a sitting duck if that port would be in contention...

Another problem is open sea lag that sometimes prevents you from steering your ship away from a high-level NPC pirate that comes right at you, but I suppose that's really my machine's fault.

If everyone is confronted with it in a similar way I suppose you could consider it part of the game: using the lag to your advantage is just one of the legitimate tactics, just like using the wind or shallow waters or whatnot.

It'd just be a pity if people with low-end machines end up being the sitting ducks while faster pcs get to pound an AFK target for up to a minute until they zone in. Perhaps that's acceptable in first-person shooters but it shouldn't be here.

[P. Pete]

turn the graphics details down then.

if its that bad then you have the settings too high for the hardware your using.