Post by steevodeevo on Aug 16, 2008 3:31:02 GMT
I think whether you are a PvP buff or not these are great changes and if you understand the PoTBS game mechanics, as most of us do here, these make perfect sense - and are much closer to what Heff and I imagines - see especially Ambush Play - this was always going to be a TLC tactic - all be it we thought on an EvE size map. That aside, this is deffo worth a look. As the scum of the sea, TLC were alwaysgoing to be a bit sneaky....
The goal at hand is to make PvP more fun, and more available. That means providing greater freedom, more PvP opportunities, and decreasing situations that feel unfair to many players. We’re going about this in a couple of ways. First, were fixing the way spawning works in ad hoc battles; it’ll be more consistent and eliminate battles in which the winner is determined by lucky positioning. Second, we’re taking big steps in the direction of making PvP battles more open, rather than locking them down. Many current tactics which create problems for the overall PvP picture of the game are directly or indirectly enabled by battles being locked. So we’re gonna open ‘em on up, albeit with some new mechanics to make sure things work as they should. I’ll get into those in a moment, but first let’s just consider the implications of this basic change.
Today, PvP battles on the open sea are, like PvE battles, quite limited in scope. Whoever’s in at the beginning, that’s pretty much who you get. There are no allies coming to save the day, and no looming threat of enemy reinforcements. When you sink an enemy, you’ve got one less enemy to deal with. Well, not anymore! Battles will now remain open so that new players can come in to reinforce their side, and replace the ranks of the fallen. However, late joiners will not hop immediately into the fray theyll spawn some distance away, giving existing combatants time to steer the combat to their favor, or beat a hasty retreat. Since you can see on the map where these reinforcement spawn points are, this introduces a new dimension to battle tactics: steering the fray to a position thats favorable for your side.
The ability to join as a reinforcement will significantly expand the ability of individual players or small groups to get involved in PvP without being overwhelmed. Don’t want to brave the red circle alone? Hang out and wait for a fight to occur, then barge in and bust some heads!
So, what about ambush gameplay? Well, knowing that battles stays open to reinforcements past the initial join period, attackers shouldnt feel quite as secure about pouncing on smaller groups. A single ship against a group of 6 is still going to be in a pretty tough spot, of course, and the battle may be over before help arrives; were not doing away with all such battles in one swell foop. But a group of, say, 3 ships that gets attacked by 6 will have better luck at least some of the time. It only takes a few such cases to really alter the dynamics of the red circle, making it more feasible to go out in smaller groups.
In fact, we’re going to provide even more support for the outnumbered side we’re raising the defenders’ join cap on any battle where the defenders are outnumbered by 2 or more. In such a case, the cap for the defending side goes up to 10. If your group of 4 is attacked by a group of 6, the attackers will have to look over their shoulders because another full group of 6 could arrive at any moment! The sweet revenge of turning the tables on these attackers (and entering the fray on such advantageous terms) should provide plenty of incentive for prospective reinforcements. Reinforcements also have a chance to look around before committing to the battle, so there’s no harm in poking your head into a fight to see if you can help. If not, you can always bail out.
By no means will this eliminate ambushes altogether (nor is it meant to), but it will certainly help. The fact that you can look around and see whether or not you’ve got allies in the area adds a new strategic layer to your risk assessment when entering a red circle—arguably, this provides a natural place in the game for ambushes, since the risk is now more obvious and less ubiquitous.
With all these reinforcements coming in, we need to make sure that people don’t just pop right in to the middle of the fray, which would be disruptive and weird. So we’ve introduced another new mechanic, the battle start timer, for PvP battles. This is a short (45 seconds) timer that activates at the beginning of the battle. Nobody can move or attack during the timer. This gives everyone a chance to zone in, auto-join, evaluate the situation, etc. Once the timer expires, any players joining in on either side will spawn at a different spawn point, a bit farther out. These spawn points will be visible on the local map, so you know which way to run if you’re in trouble!
Another change we’ve done is to simplify the rules for what constitutes a PvP battle. We want to ensure that players who just want PvE can still do that through obvious means—don’t enter the red circle, and don’t flag yourself for PvP. Any battle under those conditions—in the red circle, or with any PvP-flagged participant—is now considered PvP, even if one side is only NPCs to begin with. This will reduce (not eliminate, yet) “NPC-hopping” as a free ride through the red circle; if you attack an NPC, other players can come in and rain on your parade.
Lastly, we’re smoothing out the way the “Ad Hoc Invisibility” and “Preparing Ship” effects work, to make them get in the way less when they’re not needed. They now apply only to PvP situations, so that when you’re attacking NPCs in a totally PvE situation you don’t have to wait around between fights for them to wear off. “Preparing Ship” is now simpler—it prevents you from attacking or being attacked, period (okay, one exception: you can still auto-join if a groupmate is attacked). The duration is reduced, as well; the combined duration of these two effects (which happen one after the other) is just a few seconds longer than the battle start timer duration, which is all that’s required to serve their purpose.
Pirates of the Burning Sea version 1.7 hits Testbed today, and wed love to get your input in on all this before we push it to live. Currently, there is no time limit for reinforcements, which means even a small flare-up can become an epic, long-lasting event that outlasts all of its initial participants. Battles should generally close organically by themselves as one side eventually prevails, but we want to see this in practice and learn from player behavior and feedback whether this is the best way. If it’s problematic, we’re prepared to add a time limit so they eventually close. How long should battles remain open? Jump on Testbed, try out the new rules of PvP engagement, and let us know!
We realize that there’s bound to be a wide array of opinions on this set of changes, and we fully expect to tweak them based on your feedback. So we’re hosting a special Testbed PvP event to give as many players as possible to take part and express their opinions based on direct experience with the new mechanics. The more people participate, the more we learn about how to maximize the fun, so I encourage all of you to get involved. The details on this event will be released very soon; watch this space!
The goal at hand is to make PvP more fun, and more available. That means providing greater freedom, more PvP opportunities, and decreasing situations that feel unfair to many players. We’re going about this in a couple of ways. First, were fixing the way spawning works in ad hoc battles; it’ll be more consistent and eliminate battles in which the winner is determined by lucky positioning. Second, we’re taking big steps in the direction of making PvP battles more open, rather than locking them down. Many current tactics which create problems for the overall PvP picture of the game are directly or indirectly enabled by battles being locked. So we’re gonna open ‘em on up, albeit with some new mechanics to make sure things work as they should. I’ll get into those in a moment, but first let’s just consider the implications of this basic change.
Today, PvP battles on the open sea are, like PvE battles, quite limited in scope. Whoever’s in at the beginning, that’s pretty much who you get. There are no allies coming to save the day, and no looming threat of enemy reinforcements. When you sink an enemy, you’ve got one less enemy to deal with. Well, not anymore! Battles will now remain open so that new players can come in to reinforce their side, and replace the ranks of the fallen. However, late joiners will not hop immediately into the fray theyll spawn some distance away, giving existing combatants time to steer the combat to their favor, or beat a hasty retreat. Since you can see on the map where these reinforcement spawn points are, this introduces a new dimension to battle tactics: steering the fray to a position thats favorable for your side.
The ability to join as a reinforcement will significantly expand the ability of individual players or small groups to get involved in PvP without being overwhelmed. Don’t want to brave the red circle alone? Hang out and wait for a fight to occur, then barge in and bust some heads!
So, what about ambush gameplay? Well, knowing that battles stays open to reinforcements past the initial join period, attackers shouldnt feel quite as secure about pouncing on smaller groups. A single ship against a group of 6 is still going to be in a pretty tough spot, of course, and the battle may be over before help arrives; were not doing away with all such battles in one swell foop. But a group of, say, 3 ships that gets attacked by 6 will have better luck at least some of the time. It only takes a few such cases to really alter the dynamics of the red circle, making it more feasible to go out in smaller groups.
In fact, we’re going to provide even more support for the outnumbered side we’re raising the defenders’ join cap on any battle where the defenders are outnumbered by 2 or more. In such a case, the cap for the defending side goes up to 10. If your group of 4 is attacked by a group of 6, the attackers will have to look over their shoulders because another full group of 6 could arrive at any moment! The sweet revenge of turning the tables on these attackers (and entering the fray on such advantageous terms) should provide plenty of incentive for prospective reinforcements. Reinforcements also have a chance to look around before committing to the battle, so there’s no harm in poking your head into a fight to see if you can help. If not, you can always bail out.
By no means will this eliminate ambushes altogether (nor is it meant to), but it will certainly help. The fact that you can look around and see whether or not you’ve got allies in the area adds a new strategic layer to your risk assessment when entering a red circle—arguably, this provides a natural place in the game for ambushes, since the risk is now more obvious and less ubiquitous.
With all these reinforcements coming in, we need to make sure that people don’t just pop right in to the middle of the fray, which would be disruptive and weird. So we’ve introduced another new mechanic, the battle start timer, for PvP battles. This is a short (45 seconds) timer that activates at the beginning of the battle. Nobody can move or attack during the timer. This gives everyone a chance to zone in, auto-join, evaluate the situation, etc. Once the timer expires, any players joining in on either side will spawn at a different spawn point, a bit farther out. These spawn points will be visible on the local map, so you know which way to run if you’re in trouble!
Another change we’ve done is to simplify the rules for what constitutes a PvP battle. We want to ensure that players who just want PvE can still do that through obvious means—don’t enter the red circle, and don’t flag yourself for PvP. Any battle under those conditions—in the red circle, or with any PvP-flagged participant—is now considered PvP, even if one side is only NPCs to begin with. This will reduce (not eliminate, yet) “NPC-hopping” as a free ride through the red circle; if you attack an NPC, other players can come in and rain on your parade.
Lastly, we’re smoothing out the way the “Ad Hoc Invisibility” and “Preparing Ship” effects work, to make them get in the way less when they’re not needed. They now apply only to PvP situations, so that when you’re attacking NPCs in a totally PvE situation you don’t have to wait around between fights for them to wear off. “Preparing Ship” is now simpler—it prevents you from attacking or being attacked, period (okay, one exception: you can still auto-join if a groupmate is attacked). The duration is reduced, as well; the combined duration of these two effects (which happen one after the other) is just a few seconds longer than the battle start timer duration, which is all that’s required to serve their purpose.
Pirates of the Burning Sea version 1.7 hits Testbed today, and wed love to get your input in on all this before we push it to live. Currently, there is no time limit for reinforcements, which means even a small flare-up can become an epic, long-lasting event that outlasts all of its initial participants. Battles should generally close organically by themselves as one side eventually prevails, but we want to see this in practice and learn from player behavior and feedback whether this is the best way. If it’s problematic, we’re prepared to add a time limit so they eventually close. How long should battles remain open? Jump on Testbed, try out the new rules of PvP engagement, and let us know!
We realize that there’s bound to be a wide array of opinions on this set of changes, and we fully expect to tweak them based on your feedback. So we’re hosting a special Testbed PvP event to give as many players as possible to take part and express their opinions based on direct experience with the new mechanics. The more people participate, the more we learn about how to maximize the fun, so I encourage all of you to get involved. The details on this event will be released very soon; watch this space!