5-sided Battles

[fraxl]

Did you have some? How were they? Too long? Too short? Too hard? Too easy?

We've got more testing and tweating to do before these go live, but tell us what you thought so far!

[ArmEagle]

The Battle Marker tooltip doesn't update the 'You cannot enter' text when you get out of 'Preparing Ship'. You have to click the Battle Marker again to get it with the right text.

I think it's annoying that you cannot see whether a Ship Battle has really closed up, or whether you can't join because of preparing ship. Why not at least make the color of the Battle Marker show the actual state, and let the text in the tooltip specify whether you yourself can join or not.

I don't think the 'Commit to enter' (or whatever the confirmation box is saying) stores it's position. It would be nice if it did. It now always overlaps with the target tooltip. And I like to look around before deciding to commit or not.

That's it for now.

Edit:
Ah yes,
When a ship leaves a Battle Marker, it briefly shows visible. This really shouldn't be happening.

[Lemmy_Koopa]

I guess this test proved alot of nations problems with 5v5 battles, there are a billion pirates and only a couple of nats to fight espically on smaller sides like spanish

Also i think it would be good to have diplomacy for everyone rather than a skill you have to waste as it seems to help alot on test server espically for setting up these 5v5s.

We didnt actually have a 5v5 but im sure diplomacy for every nation would definetly be very beinifical as it was on test server to organaise fights

Also in future for pvp events, i think you should make some deeds more avaliable like mc hercs or 2nd rates, because i dont think many people want to fight 6 bucs in treasons or 6 cutthroats in mc couronnes they have capped of a freetrader ;(

I think also in the 5v5 the different sides spawn way to close to each other. I tihnk you need to spread them out even more, if it was a 5v5 everyone as soon as they formed up would be bascailly next to the other sides.

Btw our spanish group pwned 1 french group (2 mc herc, 2 couronne, 1 trinity, 1 crap ship) and 1 british group (2 trinity, 3 mc couronne, 1 crap ship) who both outgunned us (we had 2 reasons altohugh i dced in the brit fight, 2 c couronne, 1 heavy herc and mc herc)

[MrJunkz]

The system needs a 6 v 6 v 6 v 6 v 12 test for stability and lag reasons.

[BlackBellamy]

Played a bit wi' me pirate - but - what makes it tough is this: really hard to risk your ship since you have no idea who may join, since anybody may join and tip the initial odds on ye, or even change sides in mid battle.

Free vanilla ships, either handed out by devs or cap'd as a rat - no big deal I guess. My nat on Antigua doesn't get free vanilla ships tho', even wi' insurance, because the labor and hassle getting the goods to build 'em isn't the least bit free.

Edit: I am currently in a battle against French, and got the "there is hope for the French defenders, their side may be reinforced up to 9 ships total".

I thought the 9 ships on one side system was disabled? No?

[GB.]

Testing a system with free ships can only prove technical functionality which i believe this thread is for.
On live servers all 5-Sided battles will do is create un-balanced battles that players will be hesitant to join.
If it has a negative impact on live servers please don't spend weeks correcting it.

[Wintersdark]

1) When it works out - big groups, starting together, not trickling in - it's a TON of fun. LOTS of fun. The fights are intense, hectic, and unpredictable. It's very hard to read how they are going when you don't know what people will do.

2) This testbed event clearly shows the need for skirmish. "5-sided battles" are not a good place for organized fights - too many things can happen, random passerbys can jump in, etc. Autojoin is important to maintain group cohesion.

All the problems that we had early on would not have happened had we had Skirmish, were multiple sides can pre-arrange a battle with specific factors that can't be "crashed".

3) Statistically, grinding in a red zone is several times more dangerous. Previously, a random passerby had a 1 in 4 chance of being able to jump in as a foe. Now they have a 3 in 4 chance.

4) I'm not sure that 5 sided battles is a good option for OS PvP. Not saying it isn't, but I'm nervous. It's highly dangerous, and increased danger = increased loss, which presents it's own problems in the grand scheme of things. It definitely will be the nail in the coffin for traditional 6-man PvP - not saying that's a good or bad thing, but it is a factor. The "old-school" 6-man in 1.7 has to worry about reinforcements. In 5-sided battles; it can be jumped by multiple 6-man groups and buried. This factors into the loss issue... People will sink; a lot. It will be MUCH harder to keep yourself in a decent ship. Things to consider.

5) However, 5-sided battles are going to be magic in skirmish. Absolutely fantastic. In scripted, arranged battles, player made and game-defined (like port battle type setups) they will be extremely fun.

6) I noticed no technical issues. I WOULD like to echo ArmEagle, though, in requesting a way to differentiate between a closed battle and one I cannot enter due to Prep Ship, though.

[Lemmy_Koopa]

Maybe you could increase the number of mots and movs your recieve for the more people in the battle to make the risk and reward more balanced.

[IgorOh]

It's GRATE yeah more ships more MOV's and MOT's but one problem it's not fair in 5sides pvp must be peace and war like Frenches vs brits against pirate spanish!!!! So it's good but it's like Win vista or exp befor serves pack 1 or 2 it's sucks but it good so far. SO thanks GM's for good job so far.

[MrJunkz]

We had a group of mixed ships, 4 heavies and 2 low lvls waiting to be lvl'd and guess what the low levels could'nt enter the battle so i guess griefing with a Cutter in the group wont work either