Bringing people to battle

[Freya Midgaard]

After playing the game for a couple of months I am surprised of the lack of willingness to participate in port battles. For me PBs are the most intertaining part of the game (I am not a very good 1v1 player yet), but as I understand it, most players seems to be happy with managing their multiple accounts and doing econ and fleeting and accumulating dublons.

To revitalize the PBs and the game, I suggest to raise the awards for participating in battle. Gaining a victory for conquering or raiding a town could for example give a huge pile of loot in reward eauivalent of 1-2 hours of fleeting, and a victory as defender could give a siginificant number of marks-of-something, which could be exchanged or traded.

This would give encourgage more people to participate in PBs making the game more dynamic.

Ohoy!

[Grutte Pier]

problem is you are not guaranteed a spot for effort
randoms get the invite

then people dont like to loose, lose 3 times and you will only see 6 people in PB
win 3 times and you have waitinglist of 50+

the way to sort this is not by better rewards(that will only add more randoms that are there for the loot only and nto want to team up)

the way to sort this is by giving first invites to the people that were present at flip
that means first invites go to people that gained points when the port went up from 0 to 10 k
after that invite people that have points
AND IF ITS STILL NOT 24, ALSO INVITE PEOPLE WITHOUT POINTS. THIS IS SO SIMPLE TO IMPLEMENT< LIKE ARCADIA LEVEL 45, I FEEL LIKE THEY NOT DOING THIS JUST TO ANNOY US! FLSFLSFFSFLSFLSFFSFLSFLSFFS

[bungeelemming91]

well THAT may be an idea to implement..
the moment when PB invites go out the mechanics will work like they do now.
But simultaneously EVERY nat player gets a /roll with maybe not dice 1k but 10k or more.
so there comes another waiting list after or with the afk-invites in wich you may have 30 secs time to accept the invite...

[Josh_Brown]

I think there's a lot of confirmation bias. At a given PB, well-attended with a wait-list, you might find guys who flipped the port, some more people who ground points after the flip, some people who helped at the last flip but weren't able to attend, a few folks who tried to defend the port from being flipped last map/earlier this map but were unable to attend that PB, maybe a couple folks who fleeted near there at some point, and somebody who just ran the mission there for an MoW to drop on another port during a flip. Doesn't make any of their points invalid, per se; everyone contributed something at some point, by design or not.

But when things are rolling well for a nation, and RvR is hot, most of the major PvP socs will be pretty active at flips, and a lot of other less-organized people get swept up in the enthusiasm. That leads to long queues. When a nation loses a few big fights, finger-pointing ensues, and the more-casual/less-organized players get told they aren't wanted, and they go away, while a few ardent PvPers with their noses out-of-joint try to decide whether to regroup themselves or just QQ a bunch on the forums and throw the map. And once people lose a few fights 16v24 and 12v24, they get tired to sinking in expensive refits while trying to run for the fort, then numbers dwindle down to 6 or 8 folks hard-headed enough to slog through.

I'd say the general trend, though, is that if a nation thinks they have a good chance for a good, even 24v24, everyone wants to show up; if they think the PB will be a poorly-attended waste of time and dura, many don't.

So I don't think, overall, making it harder for the casual/noob players to get into PBs when things are "good" is a wonderful idea - it limits their ability to get good experience and improve, and it discourages them from RvR participation altogether. In some ways I dislike just sending out invites to people with no points - it offers little encouragement for people to risk the red to grind points after a flip - but it might be an improvement overall if people had some confidence that if their nation had at least 24 people online, there would be a full set of invites sent out. Even just a system that sent invites to people with General Contention points would be an improvement.

[The Dragonfly]

Although I've given up hope on this aspect, you so brought back memories of when I still cared a month ago. Have a look, may be you can use something.

http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94442

With the high likelihood of 1st raters dominating PBs and putting off mere mortals, I like the fixing of the ship for flippers even more now than then.

One last thought though, seeing as nightflips are on the rise again (see the below link for a laugh), there should be

- better defined PB windows, e.g. for Roberts 17:00 to 24:00 GMT (at least on weekdays), but allow parallel unconnected battles (like brit vs rat and frog vs dons) on the same hour.
- adapted flipping windows, e.g. flips can only be completed say one hour either side of the PB window (e.g. 16:00 to 01:00 above), outside of that window the unrest would be capped at/reset to 5000 points

Best of Luck

http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=95390

[Barberouge]

Originally Posted by Josh_Brown But when things are rolling well for a nation, and RvR is hot, most of the major PvP socs will be pretty active at flips, and a lot of other less-organized people get swept up in the enthusiasm. That leads to long queues. When a nation loses a few big fights, finger-pointing ensues, and the more-casual/less-organized players get told they aren't wanted, and they go away, while a few ardent PvPers with their noses out-of-joint try to decide whether to regroup themselves or just QQ a bunch on the forums and throw the map. And once people lose a few fights 16v24 and 12v24, they get tired to sinking in expensive refits while trying to run for the fort, then numbers dwindle down to 6 or 8 folks hard-headed enough to slog through.

Casual players are not the same as less-organized players. Neither are PvE players and PvP players. The invite system favors PvE players. I lived what you describe, except instead of telling less-experienced PvP players that they weren't wanted, we explained the mistakes and proposed as a goal to do better during the map. Unfortunately we still couldn't field 24 for the next PBs.

However, some nations managed to build a common effort for a map or more. It can't happen in every nation, and night-flips don't help, neither the abscence of long-term goals. Good-will players have to be helped by the system. The system has to be built for players who want to improve.

Originally Posted by Josh_Brown I'd say the general trend, though, is that if a nation thinks they have a good chance for a good, even 24v24, everyone wants to show up; if they think the PB will be a poorly-attended waste of time and dura, many don't. So I don't think, overall, making it harder for the casual/noob players to get into PBs when things are "good" is a wonderful idea - it limits their ability to get good experience and improve, and it discourages them from RvR participation altogether. In some ways I dislike just sending out invites to people with no points - it offers little encouragement for people to risk the red to grind points after a flip - but it might be an improvement overall if people had some confidence that if their nation had at least 24 people online, there would be a full set of invites sent out. Even just a system that sent invites to people with General Contention points would be an improvement.

That's not what I saw. Less-experienced players with the will to improve have had their ability to get experience limited because of PBs fullfilled by players who didn't want to improve in defeats. The invite system favors anyone who can farm personnal contention points through PvE, it should favor those who want to improve in PvP.

Originally Posted by The Dragonfly Although I've given up hope on this aspect, you so brought back memories of when I still cared a month ago. Have a look, may be you can use something.

FLS said they agree that players who participate to the flip should have better chances to get into PBs. They also said that smaller windows (for flips or PBs) and an invite system that favors PvP aren't on the plans.

[The Dragonfly]

Originally Posted by Barberouge FLS said they agree that players who participate to the flip should have better chances to get into PBs. They also said that smaller windows (for flips or PBs) and an invite system that favors PvP aren't on the plans.

I take it you heard that in the CC fora. So let me get this straight, first you say they agree a little with the players' opinions, but then you say they don't care about it!!! Are you sure that's what they said, because that would be very bad indeed.

[Freya Midgaard]

Thanks for the replies.

I agree with most of the analisis of Josh_Brown. It is a really god descriptions of the processes behind that particular part of the game.

I also think Dargonflys ideas of restricting the PB window are good. It is really anoying for a nation to lose af port in a PB scheduled i the middle of the night, because the majority of players is asleep. Unles you wont the players to consist only of unemployed and kids, who can skip school, I think it will be worth considering something like that.

[Barberouge]

Originally Posted by The Dragonfly I take it you heard that in the CC fora. So let me get this straight, first you say they agree a little with the players' opinions, but then you say they don't care about it!!! Are you sure that's what they said, because that would be very bad indeed.

They sometimes agree and sometimes disagree with players opinions.

I'm sure that's what they said, because that is what I'm interested about since the 2012 Fodderboy's devlog. Follow my avatar picture for more details. I also know that a "port campaign" system is awaiting technical review. I assumed that this system is FLS key to avoid/decrease/perpetuate night-flips without shortening the windows, but this last one is just a guess.

Of course that's very bad, especially if the PvP system has been destroyed. No good PvP, no good RvR...

[The Dragonfly]

I followed your avatar, but all I read was the same old blah blah blah, just a bit more aggressive and vulgar. But I don't think most guys there don't get it.

What is so attractive about PotBS!

1. "Age of Sail" era
2. Ship Combat system
3. Nation "warfare" system

Well, 1 you cannot change either way, 2 is working reasonably well and 3 is broke for a long time. Why FLS went to break the working bit rather than to fix the broken bit is beyond me. If it wasn't for 1 and 2 I (and many others I'd say) wouldn't have bothered to comment and make suggestions ever since the direction of 2.11 became obvious. I.e. if only 1 is left, there are other better alternatives and we'll be off. If on the other hand they fixed 3 instead, they might need to open another server to accomodate the influx of new and returning players. But I'm tired of making suggestions and seeing even more suggestions go unappreciated by the wayside.

PS: the purpose of RvR for most by now is to manage 4th rank, so that you get the 40% bonus for more loot and XP for leveling alts! Pathetic, but true.