How to make a PVP game?

[moriwenne]

Just a random thought.
All of the people in the forums are constantly pulling left and right, moaning about this and that issue. I believe that what most people don't realise is that any specific detail isn't at fault here.

Lack of Balance is killing the game, but not the balance you think. Take an FPS game. You go in with your mouse, keyboard and your skill. That' it. You always have a fair shot and the fun ensues.
As it stands now, be it on the OS or PB's and since the beginning of the game, you get a herc vs a minerva, 3 hercs vs 3 defiants, 4 phercs vs 5 capris, on and on. Then you get PB's with 6 2nd rates, 2 1st rates, 16 4ths or HDs vs 24 4ths, or tons of other combos.
My point being, the game is a lot not about skill but about ships. Skill plays a part sure, but it's mostly about ships.

Usually, rpgs with different skill sets, equip, still manage to strike a balance and the differences are minor at high levels thus ensuring competition and fun for everyone. But now, you go out alone, in a group of 2, u fail to find a target, either because it's not there or because it's not attackable. It's the same with PB's. SOOooo much hard work (read grind, that at this point in time is the furthest thing on anyones mind and add to that that eco bombing is a money pit for it gives nothing back) to get a PB going and then 1 in 10 times 2 evenly matched forces meet and you have a fight instead of a complete slaughter or one side just running away.

All of us just end up piling frustration after frustration and in no time after you spent a week without 1 single PB fight, without any meaningful OS pvp, you start to not have fun and when that happens people just feel like it's not worth it anymore. As the population goes down, it just aggravates the problem.
Wouldn't everyone just love to have a day in pirates where they could

a) Be in a PB fight (as in balanced, win or lose)
b) Fight 5 to 10 OS battles (where you actually fought, not ran away or ganked)
c) Do 1h of killing npcs only to get some money to pay for your pvp
d) Do a couple of missions because you enjoy pve as well
e) Spend another hour doing eco to get money, your own ship and keep the AH healthy

Correct if I'm wrong, but isn't what an a) to e) day in pirates should be like...everyday? Anything less is just lacking in the fun department. How many from the entire population are getting that now? 1% maybe and they are all mostly pirates.

This is feedback, I'm talking from my own experience here. I play british on Roberts and for a long time the map was vibrant with loads of people attacking everywhere. That resulted in lots of red zones. There was a bigger chance to find that perfect, evenly matched fight but most of the time it was still about running away or ganking. Pirates which are the biggest pvpers out there can account for this and if they are honest admit that 80% of their movs come from being stronger than an opponent in each OS fight.
Then you had tons of PB's and since the bristish had the biggest pop and had lots of points, you had 3 nations against the british which resulted in lots of PB's. How many of those were balanced? Only a few. I remember fighting a lot but mostly because the enemy, just wanting to play the game, engaged when they were clearly the weakest force. I remember very well that we basically won all the fights where we had the strongest force with losing only 1 or 2 max, tons of times no losses. Of course it feels nice for the winning party but it resulted in less and less people playing the game on french side, pirates, spanish.

So now you go to a port battle and it's a lottery. You often find 24 pirates vs 13 french (st roses report ) or any other combo, so one more opportunity wasted to play the game I just wish I could fight evenly fights all the time or, as i like to challenge my skill, have me be an underdog slightly (or the opponent) instead of having 2 phercs on my intrepid, or something like it.

Hope for the future. Is there hope for the future? I am an optimist and a very patient person so I would answer yes. But I am also a realist and I don't like fooling myself. It's a long way away that hope is.
The skirmish system will bring something that will help, allowing everyone to set up the rules for a fight so that you can have balanced fights and tons of people will start having fun. The problem is that people will feel that it is disengaged from the RvR, it will feel like duels now or events, in short its like doing a pve mission and it won't help the core of the game.

Port governance is also coming. This should help as well. It will add a new aspect to the game. It will not fix the core but giving new content to the game, should add to the experience and if it's fun it will keep players wanting to play.

For the rest, FLS is mostly working on 'making the game'. They are revamping sailing skills and later on the swashbuckling. For the small company they are, with the time they had, they could not deliver us at launch the 1.6 game with the new skills for ships and swash already there. As population is very important to any mmo, this is a hard fact that affects the game tremendously as people move on to other games because they aren't getting their fix from this one.

So in conclusion: I played beta, I bought the game and am paying for a subscription because I like what FLS did with this game, i like how the eco works (near perfect with a massive pop) and I like 'instance ship combat' a lot as they do (and as they do I don't care much for the swashbuckling and I would like to). I really do love it and so do many others. But this does not a game make and after the initial period of enchantment...you can't escape that fundamental truth.

PS: No whines, flames, attacks, insults, fanboism, trolling was used in the making of this post just facts and opinions...mostly opinions so respond in kind please.

[BlarghAld]

Oh well, you know what they say about opinions, so here is mine. Hell, have 2 for the price of 1.

@FLS:

1. Too little, too late.
2. Decide who is your target audience/market already.

[Saltone]

I couldn't agree more with the original poster. I would say that there should be absolutely no reason to kill NPCs for an hour unless you feel that is rewarding gameplay, because a game who is designed with a "not fun"-component is flawed. Other than that, I agree completely.

I want port battles, I want fair and exciting OS fights and lots of them, and even if I sink in every last one of them I still want to have made progress. Not as much as the ones who won of course, but still. Progress. Like in WOW PvP or Counter-Strike for instance, although that is also as far as I would use that as a model.

If I am GUARANTEED to be losing money and putting myself deeper in a hole by logging on and doing nothing but PvP - which is supposed to be the endgame... well seriously, who designed that crap? Is it really better for everyone to be soloing Urgent Fury and Woes? Or even be looking for fleets on the OS outside of the red zone?

Is it really a superior design to force every player (except pirates in their current form, of course) to spend 80-90% of their online time wasting time, being bored, grinding money in PvE away from the PvP fights? Helllooooo? I see the lights are on, is nobody home? Am I on crazy pills? Why does the MMO industry always limit themselves to a BORING grind, when you have games like Battlefield, Counter-Strike, Command & Conquer and even DAOC that people will play again and again and again for years and years.... WHERE YOU HAVE FUN THE WHOLE TIME, on a FUN PvP grind! The only boring part is running 12 seconds to find the enemy team! Yet somehow they manage to get meaningful rankings and a reward system for everyone, though more for the winners! But I digress.

Kill the GD grind. Completely. Just take it out. No, shh, not another word - just take it out.

[Elena Navarro]

More random thoughts on OS pvp

Hi,

I think the problem this game has with "The Gank" is less that there is Gank, but the way it is achieved.

As POTBS is a tactical and/or strategic game it is quite appropriate that a good part of OS combat is dedicated to getting your team into a position where it can attack with superior numbers.

Currently the usual way to set up The Gank involves weird game mechanics like Invisibilty.

A better way would be, if ships would hide in fog, or behind islands. Seems like every ship is fitted with high power radar equipment.

There would actually be a reason to have os-speed fitted scout ships escorting your heavy group. They could cruize around suspicous islands, or venture into the fog, to check if there is someone hiding, etc.

Regards,
Elena

[DieAlteHexe]

Originally Posted by Elena Navarro

More random thoughts on OS pvp

Hi,

I think the problem this game has with "The Gank" is less that there is Gank, but the way it is achieved.

As POTBS is a tactical and/or strategic game it is quite appropriate that a good part of OS combat is dedicated to getting your team into a position where it can attack with superior numbers.

Currently the usual way to set up The Gank involves weird game mechanics like Invisibilty.

A better way would be, if ships would hide in fog, or behind islands. Seems like every ship is fitted with high power radar equipment.

There would actually be a reason to have os-speed fitted scout ships escorting your heavy group. They could cruize around suspicous islands, or venture into the fog, to check if there is someone hiding, etc.

Regards,
Elena

Oh! Now this...this would at least make it more interesting. I like this idea. Being the exploratory sort, I'd probably get clobbered a ton but it would be far more interesting than "oh look, red spot on map". I *know* what happens in there whereas a fog or an inlet etc. would be tempting and I'd probably just have to stick my nose in there.

And then...more fodder for the squarshers.

[Ged Bligh]

Very good thread not much here to disagree with...

/signed & approved

GB.

[Nurglitch]

Originally Posted by BlarghAld

2. Decide who is your target audience/market already.

But they have. The "no crying in the red circle" laid it out as explicitly as possible.

By the way - equipment and leveling ladder is not incompatible with skill if properly done. Take CoD4 as an example. An lvl55 guy has way more weapons and playing styles to choose from (and everyone, regardless of skill can climb quite quickly to lvl55), but one headshot from an lvl1 guy kills him dead just like from anyone else.

[dogstar]

Originally Posted by Saltone

I couldn't agree more with the original poster. I would say that there should be absolutely no reason to kill NPCs for an hour unless you feel that is rewarding gameplay, because a game who is designed with a "not fun"-component is flawed. Other than that, I agree completely.

I want port battles, I want fair and exciting OS fights and lots of them, and even if I sink in every last one of them I still want to have made progress. Not as much as the ones who won of course, but still. Progress. Like in WOW PvP or Counter-Strike for instance, although that is also as far as I would use that as a model.

If I am GUARANTEED to be losing money and putting myself deeper in a hole by logging on and doing nothing but PvP - which is supposed to be the endgame... well seriously, who designed that crap? Is it really better for everyone to be soloing Urgent Fury and Woes? Or even be looking for fleets on the OS outside of the red zone?

Is it really a superior design to force every player (except pirates in their current form, of course) to spend 80-90% of their online time wasting time, being bored, grinding money in PvE away from the PvP fights? Helllooooo? I see the lights are on, is nobody home? Am I on crazy pills? Why does the MMO industry always limit themselves to a BORING grind, when you have games like Battlefield, Counter-Strike, Command & Conquer and even DAOC that people will play again and again and again for years and years.... WHERE YOU HAVE FUN THE WHOLE TIME, on a FUN PvP grind! The only boring part is running 12 seconds to find the enemy team! Yet somehow they manage to get meaningful rankings and a reward system for everyone, though more for the winners! But I digress.

Kill the GD grind. Completely. Just take it out. No, shh, not another word - just take it out.

No crying in the PvE zone please. What you wanted and what you have bought are two entirely different things. If all MMOs are like this, then why do you persist. Presumably for the pleasure of trolling?

[flaknugget]

Originally Posted by dogstar

No crying in the PvE zone please. What you wanted and what you have bought are two entirely different things. If all MMOs are like this, then why do you persist. Presumably for the pleasure of trolling?

Because there are no alternatives. The battle system in PotBS simply can't be compared to anything else, it's unique, and it is the best part of the game.

PotBS can never be a hack-and-slash like every other fantasy MMO. And that is exactly what made a many people, like myself, buy it.

But why any developer would take such an awesome system, and then make PvP so costly that only a marginal number of people can ever enjoy it on a regular basis, boggles my mind.

[logicstrike]

Either pirates should start paying for their ships so that we all aggrevated or make National ships cheaper. I choose latter.