Groups on OS overhaul

[Joseph Fletcher]

Like it is a big deal to have someone else steer the formation around on the OS?....

How much of a deal it is to have someone else steer your ship is going to very for each player. Personally I spend a lot of time in the OS and a lot of time in groups. Often members of those groups are split up over the map fetching ammo or dropping off cargo. I like to be in control of my ship at all times, after all the direct control is one of the things separating this game from the point and click norm of MMOs

"Player skill" in how to deploy group? How much skill is involved in driving to a green circle and hitting the space bar?

Very little, but there's much more to OS sailing than that. You want to keep your ships close together in the danger zone to avoid being split, ships run at different speed and some co-ordination is needed, especially when plotting an intercept course to run down a fleeing enemy.

I'm sorry, but I think one of the biggest problems is that a group can send out a tackler to chase down another fast ship...

I agree, but this currently only happens in PVE battles. With PVP the instance locks after the set time no matter what groups people are in. Personally I'd like this to happen with PVE as well. Although the 1.7 PVP changes will allow this exact behaviour for all ships, not just groups (for the record I'm not a fan of the new PVP system in 1.7)

Also, concessions are made for speed on the open sea for playability, but ships spread out over hundreds of miles are able to warp time and space to reach a battle.

True, but this would happen even with the group control system. Ships from different groups can join a PVP battle now and will be able to do so even more with the 1.7 changes.

Make the rules so any player fleet is always attackable by solo ships or fleets of equal or smaller number, and you end up with fair fights all over the place, all the time, instead of all this camping on the edge of the red zones, speed boat gank groups, etc etc etc.

That's a fair point, although only between players of the same level and ships. I'm not sure it outweighs the negative points of the system for me personally but it does appear to stop ganking very effectively.



Detta,
You're right I don't care about the 99% who are fine when I have a problem. But the Devs look at things differently. They care about the majority not individual cases. I'm not discounting your example, it's entirely valid. I'm just looking at the problems we have and possible solutions and how the Devs wil prioritize a fix.

The fact is the Devs don't care if you or I loose a Valiant due to a disconnect, they only care if a statistically significant number of players loose them.