One and a half year of F2P

[Barberouge]

Announced on september 2011, Free to Play was seen by many as the death of the PotBS we knew. "Noobs invasion", "Pay to Play", "Game mechanics crush"... Some had already lost faith in PotBS.

Launched on december (after Power and Prestige expansion), it was also the door to fix population, to give the game a second chance, to welcome a new generation of players.

How much did we enter the nightmare ? How many of its best promises did F2P stand by ?



09/10 What does Free to Play mean?

"We want to remove the monetary barrier to the game and instead offer ways to enhance your experience through micro-transactions. "

"We are very interested in offering ways to help players make the parts of the game they like better and cut down on any time spent in between."

"We won’t ever sell an item that lets you dominate the PvP game. We want to give all players access to the end game experience of PotBS and get them interested in the existing game systems so that the game can grow as a whole. That means that we will not be selling any outfittings, ships, etc that are clearly better than ones you can obtain through normal gameplay."

10/10 The International Summit of Robert’s

A meeting is organised with all major Robert's societies to prepare for F2P: newbie ports protection treaties, cheap ships sailing incentives, primetime treaty. Players want to support FLS and their game on this one.



11/10 2.1.111.0

Basic TA items and Captain's Club members advantages are set up. Some previously limited mission rewards are now purchasable through TA, including St Elmo's Fire which decreases the target's morale by 10. Invincible and TMTD become unreliable.

After the removal of the three-deckers building, the Golden Age of Macedon is starting (Mace spam in OS and PBs).

12/10 2.1.112.0

Transfers are enabled from the russian server Caribbean. Players from Caribbean will arrive on Antigua and Roberts from february to april. Good news for some nations, bad news for others. Best Caribbean PvP groups dominate OS. Players ask for some communication tools which could enable them to set up advanced PB tactics without having to find translators.



01/11 2.2.83.0

Statues are erected to the glory of some famous pre-F2P players.

RvR rewards are cut for non-CC members. Unfortunately, players didn't get enough time to get their P&P erased CoCs items back.

02/11 Open letter to FLS

Ubert le Danois writes a letter that summarizes the Robert's players concerns after some monthes of F2P:
1. TA and the game breaking item St Elmo's Fire, and some improvements to give FLS money.
2. Nerf the Mace.
3. Put numbers next to names, so we can call cyrillic written names targets.
4. Tuning stacking penalties.



02/11 2.3.39.0

Level 50 Bey's retreat with some new best PvP items.

"Career & Swashbuckling Respecs have been removed from the Trainer shops and added to the Treasure Aisle for purchase."

03/11 What's Next?

Society warehouses & wallets, tuning survey, more TA pets and clothing.

03/11 2.4.34.0

"Captain’s Club members can now get a free career or swashbuckling respec by visiting their respective nation’s career or swashbuckling trainer. This option will not appear to Free-to-Play or Premium members." Quite a huge incentive.

04/11 Fishing for a Complement

"Angling is something that we feel fits perfectly with the game, in zeitgeist, region, and gameplay [...]. We are having a lot of fun making this new feature, and we think you will have even more fun playing it."

... Which isn't the way the community will take this new feature, especially as it requires some hours of fishing to get some of the best PvP fits. Fish to Play ?

However, Rhaegar said that the FLS PotBS team includes game designers, motion makers, 2D/3D designers, scenarists and programmers. Most of players requests require programmers, but there were only game designers, motion makers and 2D/3D designers needed to develop fishing. Thus fishing wasn't developed instead of players requests, but in addition to players requests.



06/11 2.5.60.0

First patch after the one month SOE hack. More TA items.

Ships tuning: buff Achilles, Intrepid and Khan; nerf Mace and RD.

"St. Elmo’s Fire: Now applies Stun Immunity for 30 seconds. Can no longer be used on a target with Stun Immunity." That's 6 monthes after.



07/11 Producing the Future

Fodderboy becomes the new PotBS producer.

"Free to Play dramatically altered the landscape of PotBS. It brought a larger casual audience to the game (as expected) and with them came a deluge of requests for features from both the casual audience and the veteran player base. Reconciling the differences between the two audiences has been a challenge, and has often split the resources of the development team in a way that didn’t always produce an end result suitable to either type of audience."

" [...] we’ve decided to embark on a multi-milestone campaign to address an issue that comes up very frequently in both support tickets and on the forums: bringing more balance to the game."

" [...] The overall goal of these adjustments is to reduce excessive flow of currency into the game as well as to cut down on items dropped that are of little value to most players and tend to clutter up warehouses and ships. This is a preliminary step necessary to prepare for changes we are planning for ships, outfitting, skills, avcom gear and the economy, which will in turn lay the foundation for enhancements we are designing to endgame RvR."

"The design team and I will be spending a lot of time on the forums talking to you and bouncing ideas around in various ways in the coming weeks and months."

Plus tattoos.

07/11 First Round Table

FLS, Fodderboy and Hesh start asking players about game changes in specific threads. And listen.



07/11 2.6.57.0

Fishing, society roles & wallets.

Salvaging supplies correction. This game breaking item is the new Pay to Win, or Spend 10x more doubloons to Win.

08/11 2.7.56.0

"[...] unrest bundles are now not tradeable, and influence can no longer be traded between nations."



10/11 2.8.84.0

The first real patch of F2P IMO.

San Fernando.

"Salvaging Supplies and Smuggler’s Overhaul have been added to the Fishmonger Consumables shop.". From Pay to Win to Fish to Win. Or not.

"The speed at which you can board has been reduced from 8 to 6."

"The base boarding resistance for all ships has been increased from 50% to 70%." Which will be bugged until patch 2.9.40.0.

Bucc crew and accuracy nerf, PV Break Formation and acceleration, and FT resistance buffs.

Avcom revision: back to 600 base offense. -30% speed while in combat. Offense lines buff. Some schools tuning.



12/11 2.9.40.0

The second real patch of F2P IMO.

Centurion.

"Non-consumable clickable mission rewards have been added to Treasure Aisle"

"Boarding resistance for all ships has been returned to its previous value of 50%"

"The Blind Auction system has been turned off"

"Players will now lose 300 player faction with their nation for each direct trade with any character from an opposing nation."

"OS engagement mechanics have been modified to use player level and ship level in new group strength calculations." Which will be bugged until now. Except PvE engagement will be fixed in 2.9.46.2.



01/12 Building the Future

2012 devlog, by Fodderboy.

"Philosophically, we have two main goals:
Increase the immersion of the game by trying to bring more elements of the early 18th century.
Layer the game in a way that will improve the game experience for all the different kinds of players we have in our community, (e.g. casual, hardcore, PvE only, PvP only, etc.)."

Society warehouses once again, return of some new three-deckers, economic changes and improved hauling.

And "over the horizon": "Most of the [...] development goals we have are all geared toward setting the stage for the one item we feel is the most important item on our list of goals for 2012 a complete overhaul of the Conquest system. We feel that while the system functions in its current state it doesn’t function as well as it could, and often leaves many players dissatisfied either by their inability to participate in a meaningful way or in a consistent one. This is a critical issue as we agree with many of our players that Conquest is intended to be the end game and long term playability in PotBS is dependent on it being fun."

[Barberouge]

What's bad ?

Some PvP breaking bugs stay in game for too much time.

Some light tunings could be implemented prior to major changes.

Some suggestions (which seem easy to implement and would highly improve game experience) still haven't been put in game. Such as repairs and skills CDs reduction, or a change to bidding mechanics.


What's good ?

We got new ships Thanks to the designers.

FLS seems to have a well thought plan, and listens to most of players requests. Fodderboy and Hesh steering is good.

The ships, careers and avcom tunings were well fitted.

Some unexpected changes have been improving the game and could do more, such as group strenght mechanics.

CC membership is highly incentived, but non-CC players still can play in acceptable conditions.


What's very good ?

The main goal is RvR revamp, which is also the player's most important concern.


What's very bad ?

No clear communication from FLS about Salvaging supplies and:

"We won’t ever sell an item that lets you dominate the PvP game. We want to give all players access to the end game experience of PotBS and get them interested in the existing game systems so that the game can grow as a whole. That means that we will not be selling any outfittings, ships, etc that are clearly better than ones you can obtain through normal gameplay."

http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=89719 7 pages, rated 5 stars. People who want to often get competitive PvP have to spend huge amounts of money for a video game.

Having to fish to get the best PvP things is just a bad joke. Fishing isn't normal gameplay, if even it is gameplay.



State of the game

IMO it's worse than it was before F2P (I'm playing on Roberts). We got no more empty primetime PBs and more consistant OS PvP.

But the price to pay is quite high: more non-primetime PBs (some nations now even have their primetime during the London working day) and less involved players, and as a result no more competitive RvR. We had about one good map every three maps. Now we have an average map every map, despite some players efforts.

PvP didn't change much (still great and challenging) - although the average level dropped a bit, but F2P didn't bring the OS activity needed. PBs aren't back to chaos blobs, communication with russian speakers went well overall.



From a language minority PoV

SOE translations are still lacking.

We used to have at least one rat soc and two or three french socs welcoming the french speaking players. Now we have half a rat soc and 2 halfs of french socs. New players can't learn PvP, if they even can try it.

That's quite bad for new players retention, but what's more worrying is that the very few who manage to get to 50, join a soc, and have a try at PvP (the players who are really interested in the game) don't stay because no group can offer them good conditions.



Which future to build ?

I play PotBS much less than I did pre-F2P (I was quite hardcore those times though), one map from time to time, some hours of 1v1s, a bit of eco.

I'm still quite confident in PotBS future, but what I fear the most is that the "over the horizon" RvR revamp couldn't give back it's letters of marque to primetime OS PvP.

Could FLS manage through this 2012 revamp to put three full groups of each nation ready to PvP for RvR on the OS every evening, and I'd happily come back to PotBS as my main spare time.

There are some very good ideas around, it's up to FLS to choose them. The purpose of F2P shouldn't be an overall players turn-over, but a light turn-over of players not so much interested in the game, and a heavy retention of those who really enjoy it.

[Hootuk Myrum]

The worst you could come up with was salvaging supplies? Granted they're a good consumable, but how does that break the game more than the ridiculous boarding mechanics and ping-based avcom?

Yes, the skills in avcom are relatively balanced--except brawling might have gotten nerfed a little too heavy and there is still no equivalent to SOD for other schools. But all that is almost for naught as I can't land a hit on my oponent anyway because my screen is displaying him 5 yards in front of me when he's actually 3 yards behind me. I've grinded for OP gear and have all the potions/clickies you can accumulate, spent months/years obsessing over the numbers and experimenting with different builds only to get rofl-stomped by a noob with an absurd costume simply clicking random buttons. But if we could just eradicate those crafty salvaging supplies...

Arcadias slowing CMC's to a dead halt? Yeah, salvaging supplies are the problem.

What about higher level players putting level 50 gear on level 21 ships, using level 50 consumables in these level 21 ships...you tell me, even with group strength, how are the lowbies supposed to compete with that? Seal clubbing hasn't gone away, it just makes the clubbers look even more pathetic and desperate. But yeah, salvaging supplies are the worst.

The fate of that nation lies in the hands of randomly selected 24 players, despite who participated in the flip, despite who have been planning to attend the battle in the same group, despite having any real interest in conquest at all...it all lies in the hands of 24 players with the rest of us just sit, twiddle our thumbs, and x up for SC. Damn those salvaging supplies!

[Barberouge]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about Salvaging supplies as a repair, but as a symbol. Also I've been trying to have a look at what happened since the game went F2P, and I couldn't come up as the worst with what is already in the game for longer, or has been announced by FLS as going to be fixed.

I agree with you about avcom, seal-clubbing and RvR.



Avcom 2.0 was implemented on december 2008 http://www.burningsea.com/page/news/...ticle_id=11009 http://www.burningsea.com/page/play/avcom http://www.burningsea.com/page/news/...ticle_id=11098 . Since then, players have been complaining about it, and the small tweaks didn't change the bad pings.

They don't want to go back to avcom 1.0, or put the time to build 3.0 yet. When P&P came out, I could easily with my good ping win 6 waves without loosing a single one. It doesn't happen anymore, so the average level increased. Most of the people I train with get better despite an average ping. Boarding is avoidable. Bad pings could be considered as bad avcomers. They still can board to immobilize an opponent, and when they get boarded we know we have to sink their opponent. With much more waves than a player with a better ping, we can still win a boarding. When I play against another player with a good ping too, one single error can set the result. With no errors, a random damage sets the result.

I understand that all this futile arguing doesn't have any value in the eyes of the few whose ping lets avcom become totally unplayable. As is avcom for everyone who fights a good kiting brawler with equal waves. And, FLS announced an(other) improvement to avcom and boarding in the 2012 devlog. I don't think it will be solved, but at least they are going into the right direction.



As far as I know, game physics didn't change since launch. No, there isn't any colision damage in PotBS. Yes, T-boning is a proven tactic. Aren't T-boning tactics avoidable ? Don't physics add to gameplay ?

Of course better physics, with colision damage and entangled sails could add a lot if well fitted to interesting gameplay. How much dev time would those require ?



Seal-clubbing should be solved soon, shouldn't it ? RvR is the main target of this year. So I would put all of those in the "work in progress" or "requires too much dev time" categories.



Now let's have a look at Salvaging supplies. They were introduced as un-limited into the game as part of the "I pay to get some advantages" F2P features. Against equal or better groups, they are needed to win fights. Very nice to new players. Very nice to CC members. Very nice to all the playerbase whom FLS told "We won’t ever sell an item that lets you dominate the PvP game". Changing their mechanics would require little dev time.

Those Salvaging supplies weigh a lot. A few words, but a high weight. In my purse. I'm not sure I could haul them with a single SMT. Let's have a look at numbers.

I play 4 days a week, two 1v1s and four 6v6s. Three hours of playing: quite hardcore would say some, quite casual would say others. I have to use Salvaging supplies in half my fights. That's three per day. If I'm not mistaken, one Salvaging supply costs 0.5 euro. Cost per month: 24 euros.

If you had a magic wand, what would you change amongst those ? Avcom ? Or Salvaging supplies, which once avcom would be changed would cost you more because you would play more ?



I hope I convinced you Damn those salvaging supplies !

But TBH I agree that the game also needs the improvements you mentioned. Just change Salvaging supplies and some other small tweaks along the way.

I'm particularly looking for the RvR revamp. Before F2P, it was more easy for people who enjoyed RvR to have an impact on it. Now, people who don't care can go for night/day-flips, PvE flips and CoCs wins rather than epic map wins, without much opposition.

[Old Guard]

These threads always fascinate me.

I don't feel RVR is broken.

The only elements that need to be fixed are the invite system.

No real ideas has come forth to fix that so I'll mention one here then i'll get back to playing.

-First 20 invites go out over regular lottery system
-Last 4 invites go to 4 members who the first 20 vote on.


Also.

Shallow water p.b.'s to ease new players into RVR would be nice.

[PaulG]

What is your solution to seal clubbing?

Avcom also has to be priority for me, t-boning to board because you have better gear/ping is lame. Ship combat is fantastic, avcom most certainly is not.

[Barberouge]

Originally Posted by Old Guard These threads always fascinate me. I don't feel RVR is broken. The only elements that need to be fixed are the invite system. No real ideas has come forth to fix that so I'll mention one here then i'll get back to playing. -First 20 invites go out over regular lottery system -Last 4 invites go to 4 members who the first 20 vote on.

Have you been playing for a long time ? In october, RvR wasn't in good health on Antigua.

I agree about PB invites. The F2P wave counts a lot of non-prime-time, PvE players who easily get spots into PBs and can cut down the RvR efforts of the majority.

Please fix port battles!
the people that flip the port, should go to the battle

Originally Posted by PaulG What is your solution to seal clubbing?

Won't the new group stength mechanics solve seal-clubbing ? I can't see how they couldn't. Just forbid to attack a player 5 levels lower.

Originally Posted by PaulG Avcom also has to be priority for me, t-boning to board because you have better gear/ping is lame. Ship combat is fantastic, avcom most certainly is not.

Better gear is fine by me, but it can't overcome better ping. Although I usually find my way out of T-boning when I don't want to be boarded. But yeah, devs are looking at this.

Originally Posted by Seolenmina I have 24 Mbit /s internet connection so the problems in the avcom cant be just internet connection related.

I remember some dev post about avcom "ping" but can't find it back. They said that what people consider a "ping" problem is a wrong explaination of the click->picture delay. The real ping (internet delay) couldn't explain the click->picture delay. But maybe I'm wrong, not being used to computer science.

I found this in the avcom round-table though:

"Of the issues mentioned in this thread the most difficult of the issues to solve is the ping issue. You can mitigate it but you can’t eliminate it. Every internet based game must deal with a range of connection speeds and where ever there is a range there is always someone faster and someone slower. The smaller you make this range the less latency based issues you will encounter but it also means from a business perspective you’ve just narrowed your potential audience for your product. Obviously there’s a bit of compromise here that’s required so I’d consider the total elimination of ping oriented problems to be unrealistic from a development standpoint. That doesn’t mean we won’t try to eliminate what we can. It just means we are already aware that the results of our efforts are likely to be less than perfect.

The kiting part of the issue is easier to address. Kiting involves movement and we could penalize players for moving too much in combat. While I would not want to completely eliminate movement (love the rock’em-sock’em robots reference used in this thread) there’s no reservation regarding penalizing it. We do agree with the players here that this issue is quite possibly the number one avcom issue so I would expect to see some form of mitigation appearing in the 2.8 build when it’s ready."

Originally Posted by Shisnaught Maybe, there could be another battle going on simultaneous to the main port battle? Make it a battle for levels 10-30 and the result can be non-binding to the main battle's result. This would give new players a chance to experience a massive PvP ship battle, without feeling molested by the big boys.

A quite common consensus is that PotBS PvP starts at level 50. But is has been suggested if I remember rightly, to keep some of the neutral ports for low level PvP. Considered by many as boring, level up can still be done in a few weeks by casual players, and is a good way to learn about game physics and skills.

Even at level 50, new players will be molested by all those who have a little more experience of PvP - and it is the way they will learn, alongside playing with more experienced people.

Originally Posted by Old Guard Shallow water p.b.'s to ease new players into RVR would be nice.

There have been so many suggestions about shallow waters since before the game went live. I think I'd prefer a partly shallowed OS map and/or partly shallowed battles maps, but fully shallowed PBs could be good. The problem is that some nations newbie zones don't have access to some other's newbie ports. Maybe sending invites to players without contention points could solve this.

Don't you think that the access to RvR shouldn't be too easy for new players ? Joining a PvP society is a good first step. May I suggest some interesting reading for new players interested in RvR ? http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=72294

[Seolenmina]

Originally Posted by wbcochran I've grinded for OP gear and have all the potions/clickies you can accumulate, spent months/years obsessing over the numbers and experimenting with different builds only to get rofl-stomped by a noob with an absurd costume simply clicking random buttons.

This comment made me lol, thanks.

Iam experiencing same issue with most of my boardings. FLS can u fix this and / or make rageboarding abit more difficult pls.

I have 24 Mbit /s internet connection so the problems in the avcom cant be just internet connection related.

[Shisnaught]

Maybe, there could be another battle going on simultaneous to the main port battle? Make it a battle for levels 10-30 and the result can be non-binding to the main battle's result. This would give new players a chance to experience a massive PvP ship battle, without feeling molested by the big boys.

[inkjet]

Hey, we got fishing.

And a whole bunch of great stuff we can't live without in TA.