Ad-Hoc pvp idea - ship level limits, not 6vs6

[Gustave Molyneux]

The 6 vs 6 ship limit seems to allow a super squad of six ships to dominate a red circle and basically kill pvp occuring there.

A good idea I've seen discussed before is to create a sort of "tonnage" limit on the ad-hoc fights. In the case of PotBS, tonnage could be determined by ship levels, which are already used to denote a ship's size and power.

Instead of 6 players vs 6 players, make it 300 ship levels vs 300 ship levels. This would still allow for a full 6 man group to roll out to a pvp zone in level 50 ships. But it'd also allow whatever assortment of vessels that are threatened to have a chance to match power with the 6 man group. ALSO, it'd have the very nice side effect of making EVERY SHIP in the game a viable participant at all levels of adhoc pvp. The potential combinations of ships and strategies would be absolutely endless (instead of dominated by 5 lvl 50 superfrigates and a tackler or just 6 heavies hoping to find another group of heavies willing to go at it).

Now of course, there are hardware limitations on what a system can handle, and port battles are limited to 24 v 24 for those reasons, so something that might be considered is to set a minimum level value of 15 for every ship below level 15 for ad-hoc value purposes. 300/15= 20 ships possible on a side, assuming they're all level 15 or lower. Therefore the biggest adhoc fights could be up to 40 ships total, although that'd be unlikely with the bigger ships that would get involved.

Also to accomodate this change, it might be necessary to increase the pvp join window to 2 minutes from 1 minute to allow for the sides to fill-up more easily. This might not be needed though.

Anyhow, I just wanted to plug this idea since the last thread I saw it mentioned and discussed got locked down by flaming that took part deeper into the thread. We need to expand ad-hoc pvp to allow for every ship to be viable in the endgame, while at the same time still maintaining some control on the size of fights. I can't think of a better way than changing ad-hoc pvp to "tonnage" controlled instead of rigid player number limits.

[kurtilator]

When a sloop counts as much toward the 6 ship total as an SoL, you have a situation where all viable groups are 5 rank 50 ships and a tackler, or 6 big ships. If you are in a smaller ship like a Stralsund or a Defiant, you need not even apply for PvP. If you don't have exactly 6 people for your group then stay out of the red zone.

The first 49 ranks of ships should be useful for something other than PvE to 50, at which point one can be allowed to play the most fun part of the game (IMO), which is PvP ship combat.

[Spinnaker Sam]

I would think this would lead to the discovery of the best group template that gives you the most ship power and would make you invincible to anything but a similarly constructed group. Then everyone would be forced into this template in order to stand a chance.

[kurtilator]

Right now we have 1 template: the 6 biggest ships you can find. There is a slight variation on this: the 5 biggest ships you can find, and a tackler.

Adding more types of ships as potential PvP group members will add more possible templates. Would you take a Stralsund into a PvP group, when the enemy has 6 Tigres? Ok, but what if you could bring two Stralsunds?

[sethdonovan]

Yes as I mentioned below in a another thread the current pvp system degenerates into an odd king of the hill game instead of true Realm vs realm. The two biggest problems are the 6 ship limit and the ability for people to hide their true numers via abusing the rules of joining late... Coming into the instance late using 17th century teleportation devices and cloaking technology that would make Captain Kirk jealous is a bad thing. If I could look at a group and size them up, then I might be willing to take on some long odds. But if I attack someone knowing that their friends will teleport a few hundred yards away from me and kill me from thin air, then it pretty much kills any interest I have in trying to find a fight.

Not sure of the answer to this but the current system is not working very well.

I've tried to compare it to say a game like Planetside. That was a game where you could find a pvp struggle at any time no matter how many people you have with you. if you had 1 or 3 or 13 people you could find some pvp. Sometimes the battles were way lopsided, but not to the degree that this game ends up being if you dont have a group of 6 people . 30 vs 20 people is far less imbalanced than what I get if I head out in a 2 or 3 man group in Pirates.

I mean if 3 or so people from my society are logged on there is very little true pvp we can do that wont result in us losing all our ships to a 6 person gank team. So the net result is if we cant find 6 people, we dont flag up and we dont go into the red circle. So not only are we disappointed from no pvp, the gankers I imagine get bored from not much to do as people just go right around them.

In this sytem you need EXACTLY 6 players mostly in end game ships to be a serious group. It's just become a an arena game not much different from WOW at least until you get the the port battles which are another thread. I think the server login numbers dropping is bearing this pvp apathy out, I hope it gets addressed as I think this is an amazing game for the ship combat and could go a long way if fixed soon. The current system will favor one super stack of people being kings of the hill. Which is nice and all, but if 6 people ever get too effective/dominant the rest of the server will just fade away.

I used to think that it would be hard for one group to dominate, but the Carribean isn't that big so one "super stack" of 6 ships can move round and pretty much end pvp on that server if they do well enough. Once again on paper that sounds reasonable till you realize that many people will just get driven off and start looking at other mmo options.

I'm much more of a hardcore gamer than most and I get pretty disenchanted by what I see. I mean if I'm tired and I have 3 friends on that want to sink stuff we should be able to do something useful to the national effort without begging everyone to join us for the perfect 6 stack of ships.

Maybe something more on the lines of making the red circle one huge battlefield that people can enter and leave is what I'm thinking. I'm not sure of the specifics, but subdividing the game into only 6 v 6 battles only (cept for port battles), just isn't working for me as is. I'm thinking more like a port battle should be an epic thing that lasts hours and hours with people working in shifts if need be. With maybe NPCs to help balance deficient teams like france always seems to be on numbers. It'll never be nearly perfectly balanced, but I'd rather fight on a losing french team outnumbered 2 to 1 than the current 6v1/6v2 system that happens if I try to solo or just deal with a close group of people.

All in all limiting the pvp to groups of 6 replaced zerg tactics with l33t tactics. At least with zerg it takes a lot of people somewhat cooperating to do something. In the current system 6 well outfitted/played characters can effectively END the pvp for the rest of the server.

While this sounds good on the surface that pvp is meaningful and good players can be identified/recognized... in practice that will drive the other 90 percent of the average players away. The fact that a few 6 people teams can dominate the game is a severe weakness as well as a strength, as the other rest of the server can get demorilized if they can't offer anything against them. There's just not much place for the average joe in that scheme of things...

[kurtilator]

The spawn placement is being addressed, though I will reserve judgment on the efficacy of the fix until I see it in action. I agree it is a problem, although if you study how the present system works you can figure out ways to get your main group to pop on top of a lone enemy. I say that rather glibly, but it's easier said than done, especially against an enemy that is trying to do the same to me.

To me, the larger problem is the group composition: get 6 high rank ships or stay out of the red zone. When a cerby costs as many group slots as a prince, nobody brings a cerby. If that cerby is the highest rank ship some players are able to sail, then nobody brings low rank players.

Because PvP means bring your biggest ship, a loss of a rank 50 ship can be enormous in economic terms. If I lose a cerberus, I can replace it from petty cash. If I lose a rank 50 ship the economic penalty the economic penalty is considerably more severe, and is understandably discouraging to many players, myself included.

[IrNinjaBob]

I was just coming to the ideas forum to make a thread on this very idea after I posted in a thread on another forum.

But instead of making it a max of 300 level points, I think that they should give every ship a seperate point value, and have it be a max of 100 points per battle. It would work pretty much the same way as your idea, except then there will actually be a difference between a level 1 ship and a level 15 ship.

Because in your example a schooner and a Xebec would nearly be worth the same amount.

With my idea FLS could give each ship the point value it costs to enter a battle, and this way they could do a much finer job at balancing the ships. Because I think we all know the weakest level 50 ships shouldn't be worth the same amount as a 1st rate SoL.

Here was my post on the other thread:

It would be cool if they had PvP battles work on a point system instead of just having it 6 players per nation at any time. It would take a long time to code though and would be a huge change from the current system. But what I mean is have a system like this: Each ship would have a point value that corresponds to its level and importance in PvP. Meaning an SoL may be worth 25-30 points, and a sloop may be worth 5. Then instead of having it so 6 ships can be in a battle per side, a max of 100 points would be able to join in on each side. This way, you could have one group with 4 SoL's, or a larger group of 10-20 low level ships. Like I said, it would take a lot to balance, because 6 low level ships could probably take out a single SoL fairly easy. But at least this way multiple low level players could team up against fewer high level players and have a somewhat equal fighting force. I really think the devs should look into a system like this, because it really would make more of an equal playing field for everybody and not have it so PvP is a level 50 activity.

[pokerman69]

I agree wholheartedly. I havn't had much pvp experience because of this exact reason. While I can see the other side of the argument, all I can say is something has to change, otherwise, it's going to become a big problem.

Experiences I've had were, being the lowest lvl player in a 6v6 high lvl pvp. I was around lvl 26. Our players where more spread out. We had 26, 29, 34, 37, 45, 50. They had, 50, 50, 50, 50, 45, 45. What we did was run for the hills. I was the only one that sunk. It really annoyed me that 4 lvl 50's can just go around and kill everyone with relitive ease. It shouldn't be easy. It's supposed to be a CHALLENGE, something that's not happening now.
Well, thats my two-cents worth.

[Gustave Molyneux]

Originally Posted by Spinnaker Sam I would think this would lead to the discovery of the best group template that gives you the most ship power and would make you invincible to anything but a similarly constructed group. Then everyone would be forced into this template in order to stand a chance.

Like another poster said... as opposed to the current two template setup for successful group ad-hoc pvp? 6 lvl 50 heavies or 5 level 50 heavies and tackler. If you attack one of the premier pvp societies rolling out in a group like that with anything less, you will not only lose, but be totally dominated. Opening up the option for lesser ships adds numerous possibilities to group combat. Got 9 guys online? Figure out what the best setup you can use to roll with nine guys. Only got 6, well then use the current tactics. I believe there would be more than one or two optimal combinations, and alot of it would depend on the players you've got online to group with, what class they are, and what ships they've got available.

Originally Posted by pokerman69 I agree wholheartedly. I havn't had much pvp experience because of this exact reason. While I can see the other side of the argument, all I can say is something has to change, otherwise, it's going to become a big problem. Experiences I've had were, being the lowest lvl player in a 6v6 high lvl pvp. I was around lvl 26. Our players where more spread out. We had 26, 29, 34, 37, 45, 50. They had, 50, 50, 50, 50, 45, 45. What we did was run for the hills. I was the only one that sunk. It really annoyed me that 4 lvl 50's can just go around and kill everyone with relitive ease. It shouldn't be easy. It's supposed to be a CHALLENGE, something that's not happening now. Well, thats my two-cents worth.

In this particular scenario, your opponent would have been unable to add another ship due to the lvl 15 minimum value of ships. However, your own group could have added another 79 levels worth of ships. Maybe a heavy deliverance and a Stralsund. What went from a 6 man power squad ganking a 6 man average joe group, into a 6 man power squad attacking a larger and varied force. I bet you wouldn't have run if you'd had roughly equal firepower spread over more numbers. It's still entirely possible they dominate you, but at least it'd have been alot more interesting for both sides.

Originally Posted by IrNinjaBob But instead of making it a max of 300 level points, I think that they should give every ship a seperate point value, and have it be a max of 100 points per battle. It would work pretty much the same way as your idea, except then there will actually be a difference between a level 1 ship and a level 15 ship. Because in your example a schooner and a Xebec would nearly be worth the same amount. Here was my post on the other thread:

My reasoning for setting the minimum value is due to limiting battle sizes from getting too crazy (The value of level 15 is just a nice guess, as it rounds to allowing a nice even 20 per side maximum participants) Jamaica sloops going to level 5 now, you could fit 60 of them in an ad-hoc fight without limiting thier value upwards some. That'd probably crash the battle instance server. How about 300 level 1 ships on each side... that'd be ridiculous. By setting a minimum value, you are able to maintain some control over battle size, while still allowing for a ton of variety. Sure a sloop wouldn't be as helpful as a Xebec in most cases, but the difference and penalty for using one in adhoc as opposed to a Xebec is negligible compared to the penalty of using one right now against a heavy deliverance.

Thanks for the various opinions being discussed about the idea. I'm highly in favor of a system like this replacing the current hard cap of 6 vs 6 players. It'd be really awesome to see some of the combinations of ships that get used for pvp. More importantly though... NOBODY gets left out due to ship type (except maybe the atlas bark guys ). EVERY ship will have a viable endgame market (We're you really considering owning a non mastercrafted stralsund at the endgame for any reason? Really? With this change, it's something you'd actually need to consider). Single 6 man groups wouldn't be able to shut down a pvp zone for an entire evening due to thier dominance. The other nation could get try getting together a large group of small quick ships to literally chase them out of the zone. No matter what, there'd always be the ability of fielding a group of ships roughly equal in power to your opponent, no matter your level or ability to afford ships.