RvR issue #1: OS/PB players ratio

[Barberouge]

Consider this one as an introduction to the other RvR issues threads.

I won't give miracle wonderful solutions. Partly because I don't have them, partly because I don't know what the devs are able to code. Just trying to see where exactly the issues are, and sorting out some possible solutions. I'll add links to others suggestion threads.

However, it is not a simple summary of ideas about RvR. They are related to each other in a logical way. I know some subjects being processed like seal-clubbing or cross-teaming will help improving RvR, but I don't think they are essential.

#2 Unfull PBs
#3 Time Zones
#4 Lack of incentives - conclusion

As this is the #1, some concerns may be lightly pointed out there but focused on in later threads. The main concern here is the ratio needed between Open Sea players number and Port Battles players number. It is from my point of view the main RvR issue, and the main PotBS issue.



Why is it important ?

PotBS end-game is RvR. When maps are disputed, PvP players want to log in. They want to flip ports, they want to fight the other nations groups in Open Sea. They want to know which nation has the best fleet. Which side found the best tactic ? Which fleet best executed the maneuvers ? Who are the best leaders ? How could their fleet improve ? During those disputed maps, the forums are full of RP. Eco players craft more and make money. Societies call their veterans. New players are enjoyed by the nation chat, they want to participate to the fun. The game is good and alive ! When we log off, we've had a good PotBS session and we want to come back.

Unfortunately, there is a difference between the number of players needed to have dynamic flips and the number of players allowed to participate to PBs. Some people can't participate to PBs, societies are cut and struggle to form 6 groups. Part of the fun is gone, but players still put the effort in. After one map like this, some players stop playing, others play less often and the server becomes less active.



Issues

A good PotBS evening is fliping a port fighting opponents every half an hour, or participating to an even, well organised PB. This should be able to happen every day, not only the 1 day per week people have been lucky.

A dynamic flip is 3 or 4 groups of each nation (plus IMO 1 or 2 groups of rats).

Considering the number of players needed to flip, and considering that many more players should be allowed to participate to PBs without having participated to the flip, we can easily deduce that either the number of OS players should be decreased, or the number of PB players should be increased. OS players decrease leads to boring flips, and it is what naturally happens, for the reasons stated above.

Conclusion: the PB players number should be increased !



Suggestions

There are 2 ways of increasing the number of PB players. Either allow more PBs, or increase the number of players allowed to participate to PBs.

1. More flips

More flips = more OS players needed. It doesn't sound like solving the problem. However, it could be part of the solution: some flips would be long disputed flips, some others would be fast easy flips. The counterpart is: the more flips are allowed, the more easy it is to zerg a map for an average PB lvl nation. Not so good.

2. More players in the PBs

As a dynamic flip is about 24 players, allowing more than 24 players to enter a PB seems to solve the problem. However, I personally feel that the PBs are good as they are with only 24 players. It's already difficult enough to organize the fleet, and it's always enjoyable to execute the well-knowned tactics. But new is good, 48 players PBs could also give some freshness to the game.

3. More PBs without more flips

Increasing the number of PBs per flip. There would be a main PB, and secondary PB(s). Secondary PBs would happen on a different map than the town maps. The map could be either an OS map (the defending forces are trying to break the blocus of the attackers to get some supplies), or even an avcom map (some agitators are sent to try to revolt the population or break some defenses).

The secondary PBs could happen before the main PB, for example flip on monday, secondary PB on tuesday and main PB on wednesday. Or they could happen at the same time but with a limited duration (half an hour ?), so they finish before the main PB. They would be of a less importance than the main PB, they could for example give light bonuses to the main PB fleet. The rewards would be kept high though. Those secondary PBs would be good for training and learning !



I really hope FLS can find an easy to implement solution amongst the aboves. To me, it doesn't seem too complicated, but I may be wrong. Any dev information would be welcomed, so we can adapt the suggestions or drop them.

#2 Unfull PBs

[Josh_Brown]

Antigua Brits only sent 8 players last night to try to retake their primary DNH.

Antigua Rats only brought ten to defend their primary DNH.

Both PBs were primetime.

But I doubt that either nation has had any trouble filling PBs while they dogpiled France this map.

The problem with population and RvR aren't the raw numbers of players at flips and PBs, it's the proportion of fair-weather players.

[Georgiana Jennings]

Originally Posted by Josh_Brown The problem with population and RvR aren't the raw numbers of players at flips and PBs, it's the proportion of fair-weather players.

It has more to do with how ultra-dominant a handful of vets are. Very few relatively new players will stick with a system that requires them to be farmed repeatedly, which is why the people who joined since F2P and became established PvPer could be counted onthe fingers of one hand, litterally.

That's just not normal in a PvP-oriented MMO, across two servers. The game is designed for a tiny population and discourages massive participation (see second quote in my signature).

[Barberouge]

Originally Posted by Josh_Brown The problem with population and RvR aren't the raw numbers of players at flips and PBs, it's the proportion of fair-weather players.

If there were more people enabled to participate to PBs, more people and societies would stuck in one nation rather than switching to the better/less populated nation. Also the amount of "bad-weather" players would be diluted, decreasing the effects of their actions.

It might not completely solve the problem of players who don't care about the server wealth though. In Roberts there are very few "bad-weather" players, but it doesn't prevent the server from loosing OS groups and OS fights.

[Josh_Brown]

Originally Posted by Georgiana Jennings It has more to do with how ultra-dominant a handful of vets are. Very few relatively new players will stick with a system that requires them to be farmed repeatedly, which is why the people who joined since F2P and became established PvPer could be counted onthe fingers of one hand, litterally. That's just not normal in a PvP-oriented MMO, across two servers. The game is designed for a tiny population and discourages massive participation (see second quote in my signature).

The game has been out for 4 year; there's no reason why any nation should have a shortage of experienced players. There's no reason new players should be "farmed" when there are experienced players around for them to learn from.

And I don't see where this is some horrendous problem post-P&P. It's not like everyone is expected to grind up a SHerc for PvP and immediately get 6v1 ganked back to the stone age by 9-speed mod failfitters, or grind up a 8-13LSB boat as a minimum entry requirement for PBs only to get 1-shot at 740yds without actually learning anything.

And it's not like people can't use skirmish if loss replacement on vanilla ships is such an issue. And if the issue is the QQ psychological trauma of losing at a game, then what is the community as a whole losing if they don't stick around?

Originally Posted by Barberouge If there were more people enabled to participate to PBs, more people and societies would stuck in one nation rather than switching to the better/less populated nation. Also the amount of "bad-weather" players would be diluted, decreasing the effects of their actions. It might not completely solve the problem of players who don't care about the server wealth though. In Roberts there are very few "bad-weather" players, but it doesn't prevent the server from loosing OS groups and OS fights.

You know what's less fun than a 24v8 PB? A 60v8 PB (which probably ends up a 45v5 after both sides suffer massive DC issues from overloading the instance). Increasing PB size doesn't help anything.

If the high-pop nations could focus on doing anything besides turning RvR into just a bigger ****ing gank, maybe they'd stop being their own worst enemies...

[Barberouge]

Originally Posted by Josh_Brown You know what's less fun than a 24v8 PB? A 60v8 PB

That's why adjusting the max players should be needed: #2 Unfull PBs

Originally Posted by Josh_Brown (which probably ends up a 45v5 after both sides suffer massive DC issues from overloading the instance)

How could we be sure about this ?

Originally Posted by Josh_Brown If the high-pop nations could focus on doing anything besides turning RvR into just a bigger ****ing gank, maybe they'd stop being their own worst enemies...

Not sure I understand this. In Roberts, people tend to help weak nations. And ganking will be adressed in a patch soon.

Originally Posted by Josh_Brown The game has been out for 4 year; there's no reason why any nation should have a shortage of experienced players. There's no reason new players should be "farmed" when there are experienced players around for them to learn from.

For new players to learn, there have to be old societies to teach them. It takes time and is dangerous: put one new player on a group and it is already weakened.

I've seen very few new players playing more than 3 monthes. Those who did became PvP capable. Amongst those, I see quite few still playing. Those who quit did it because we had boring evenings where we couldn't get fights, where we had to farm fleets to flip, where we were split into 2 groups because of PBs.

Amongst those who quit, the only ones who still come on the forums to see what's happening, are those who had experienced a disputed map.

[Yulbrynner]

Originally Posted by Josh_Brown The game has been out for 4 year; there's no reason why any nation should have a shortage of experienced players. There's no reason new players should be "farmed" when there are experienced players around for them to learn from. And I don't see where this is some horrendous problem post-P&P. It's not like everyone is expected to grind up a SHerc for PvP and immediately get 6v1 ganked back to the stone age by 9-speed mod failfitters, or grind up a 8-13LSB boat as a minimum entry requirement for PBs only to get 1-shot at 740yds without actually learning anything.

It's nice you can make up an argument why the FACTS we've seen for years now shouldn't be the case. Protip buddy: They are. You argue like a politician. Hardly any new players have become established PVPers, no matter how often you and others say that it's not hard to become an established PVPer. How about you tell us why that is instead of repeating that last thing over and over?

[Grutte Pier]

Originally Posted by Barberouge I've seen very few new players playing more than 3 monthes. Those who did became PvP capable. Amongst those, I see quite few still playing. Those who quit did it because we had boring evenings where we couldn't get fights, where we had to farm fleets to flip, where we were split into 2 groups because of PBs.

and that is why lowbes rarely get help....
i used to be a very helpfull player, but out of all lowbes, maybe 10 percent stick around longer then 1 or 2 months, i bet les then 5 percent make it past a half year,
to have some good fights you have to fight together atleast couple of weeks i think,
you invest a lot and by the time you are ready to have fun again, they are bored and leave.
thats why its better to look amongst vets, those cracks that you know have been playing for over a year, as they are more likely to stick around for a while

[PaulG]

Reluctance to PUG.

Lack of communication.

Flipping at the expense of your own nation's economy.

Crutch boating.

Rolling heavy against light ships.

Vets rolling to same nation to crush.

Same rewards for participating and not bothering.

Rewards for fleeting and dailies.

I'm sure I could think of more.

[Barberouge]

Originally Posted by PaulG Reluctance to PUG.

If there were more players enabled to participate to PBs, societies would have less trouble filling their 6 groups often. And the time they put in learning to new players would be more rewarded.

Originally Posted by PaulG Lack of communication. Flipping at the expense of your own nation's economy.

A RvR system that would let more people participate, would let them want to get more involved. RvR communication wouldn't be reserved to 50 RvR players nations, or to a small group of larger nations.

Originally Posted by PaulG Crutch boating. Rolling heavy against light ships.

If there were more OS groups, there would be more groups fitting your own group's size.

Originally Posted by PaulG Same rewards for participating and not bothering. Rewards for fleeting and dailies.

Not sure I understand those ones. IMO RvR should be a pleasure, not a constraint you accept to get material rewards. I would better let people who don't really care about RvR do what they want. I think giving good conditions to those who want to participate is a better approach than trying to get involved those who don't care.

Originally Posted by PaulG Vets rolling to same nation to crush.

Again, letting more people participate to PBs would let the RvR population of each nation be more united, giving less room to crutch cross-nation players. And maybe more important, rolling together a nation wouldn't be the only option to let a group play together in PBs.