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What did PotBS do wrong?
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You're not the first person to assume that the September 2008 means your opinion is automatically more "correct." Jean Gris and others made the same mistake. I forgive you. Fact is, an MMO is an MMO, all that changes are skins and interfaces. All the wheels have been invented and reinvented and there won't be anything truly revolutionary for a long, long time.
I have read the old history, I've read pre-release interviews, I've perused the beta forum archive, I've spoken at length with rats and nats alike who were in beta; I don't think you caught it in a previous post where I said I get why a lot of the old guard players are embittered about things. The same sort of bitterness exists among EVE vets, and I'm sure there's more than enough of it among MxO, SWG, AoC, possibly even WAR folks by now. Such is the life of an MMO player.
I know how many servers there were at launch and I know they took way too long to merge them (I happen to be of the opinion they should go to a 1-server model with a 24hr. PB schedule, but there are plenty of good arguments against that model for PotBS as well... the number of servers wass overly optimistic for a niche product).
While we may think things are as simple as "press butan maek change fix gaem!!!" it often isn't. I don't know if you were still sub'd recently when a patch caused bugs to the PvP flag system and caused the OS currents to show as code rather than "Eastbound Current, Southbound Current, etc." And that patch had nothing to do with PvP flagging or open sea travel. If Skirmish and Port Governance were as simple as they seem to be, they'd already be in.
API still works, or ArmEagle's site wouldn't be able to show up-to-date info regarding where the red bubbles are. It just doesn't show population data accurately; whether that bug is intentional or not, I don't know - nor do I care, to be honest. I'm sure it sucked (sucks?) playing on Rackham and Invincible, and if everything isn't straightened out Defiant, too. But, compared to even September, both BB and Antigua are positively bustling with activity, especially Antigua. But we've been over that.
Link me to where those Cancellation Surveys were published, please, so I can see all their answers as well. Oh...
I don't think I deny the game has problems so much as you deny it has anything good going for it. ALL games have issues, ALL of them have Devs that make promises that seem not to ever come true, some of them outright lie on purpose (SOE, for example). As a poster above said, it's FLS's first MMO title, and for a company whose only big release beforehand was Rails Across America, they're doing a lot better than they could have done. They made (and are making) mistakes. It would've been better for everyone if they'd act on what they learn from those mistakes quicker than they are, but as I'm not a software developer I can't really say they take longer than is justifiable when it seems to take every other game forever to implement any change. It only took 14 months (more?) of players posting literally dozens of threads every single day for EVE-O to nerf nano-HACs/Recons and I think everyone will agree CCP has done a tremendous job with their game.
I'd love to see better guild tools. I'd love to see societies operate on a similar model to EVE's corporate hangar/wallet/roles system. I'd love to see the market operate more like EVE's. I'd love to see a lot of things different. But that doesn't make it a bad game
All of this I can agree with word for word...
I know from CCP dev comments on the EVE forum that all those great guild tools basically amount to wildly complicated database functionality, which wouldn't take anything but time to get working correctly and a little bit of minor art work to skin the interfaces. But the most important thing is to have a sense of what it is to just be a player. To be fair, I've never seen any MMO dev team demonstrate that understanding, not even EVE (which is the holy grail of video games imo).
I always wondered whet the game would be like if the starter areas were all placed in relative proximity to each other, something like this:
Players could have run their introductory quest series, the one that gets them used to the game mechanics, in their starter ports just like they now do in game. At the conclusion of the last one, for France it was "Red Tide" the one where you put together a six person group, they get to decide whether to stay grouped and hit the open sea. Now, in game, there is no incentive to remain grouped, they fragment. The combat learning cycle is abruptly broken.
However, out on the open sea, in between the starter nations, there would be a couple of perpetual red circles (contention starter ports) for the players/groups to practice PvP in their fallback ships. It doesn't matter whether the players win or lose a PvP fight, they get "points" for PvP toward that contented port's RvR, though more points if they win. The two nations with the highest points become the RvR contestants, and invitations are issued to the highest personal points for each of the two nations.
The RvR contention occurs each hour, on the hour. If you miss one, PvP for the next. There is no reason the same starter contention port cannot run simultaneous RvR battles, as that starter contention port is always in perpetual contention. It never changes hands, never counts toward victory, is only there for players to learn, enjoy, and experience the PvP and RvR mechanics.
This should have been the progression system for introducing players to POTBS PvP and RvR concepts. Instead, they abruptly broke it off, sent everyone on the merry way to run quests.
WTF were they thinking? Protecting PvE players from PvP rather than introducing them to it step by step? Later the PvE players wind up getting caught in the fray unprepared, and FLS wonders why they're upset?
Poor foundations.
Has merits, I would enjoy it, you would enjoy it... but what do you do about the hardcore carebears? I mean, there's people who play FPS games and refuse to PvP (idk if you remember America's Army, that free game the US government put out, but there was pvp maps and PvE maps; there were players who would wait hours in a PvE map room for it to fill up so they could play, they just would not PvP).
If you're a businessman with a niche product, are you going to alienate the majority of MMO players (that is, carebears - like it or not, there's more of them than there is of us... it's why WoW is the only game with 10 million subscribers) or hold their hand as much as you can to keep them on board?
I know MY answer, and I suspect I know yours and maybe even Linna's: Promote a PvP game AS a PvP game, attract PvP gamers and politely explain to the hardcore carebear who complains about their pixel safety that they can kindly gtfo. Unfortunately, that's not how most businessmen would approach the problem, and certainly not how FLS handled it.
Personally, my hopes for the PotBS future go something like this:
1. Get Skirmish implemented/perfected.
2. Get Port Governance in/perfected.
3. Release PotBS II, noobs start in the Mediterranean for Spain and Pirates and on the European coast for Brits and French (hi-sec, no PvP unless flagged), around L12 missions start becoming available that send you across the Atlantic into the Caribbean (lowsec!!!! Would act like current game's "Pirate PvP" outer ring, unless a port were in contention, which would put the immediate area into "Full PvP") but you don't HAVE to go there at L12, highsec would keep mission support up to about level 25. Player-owned ports possible in gulf of mexico and new spain areas (0.0!!!!!, Full PvP at all times)
I could go on, but I doubt I'll ever see my dreams come true. So in the meantime, I just enjoy what's there for me to enjoy
All of this I can agree with word for word...
I know from CCP dev comments on the EVE forum that all those great guild tools basically amount to wildly complicated database functionality, which wouldn't take anything but time to get working correctly and a little bit of minor art work to skin the interfaces. But the most important thing is to have a sense of what it is to just be a player. To be fair, I've never seen any MMO dev team demonstrate that understanding, not even EVE (which is the holy grail of video games imo).
I would treat those comments about databases on the Eve forum with a HUGE grain of salt. My husband is a Database Administrator, and has worked for city wide linked database systems. And he's currently laughing and shaking his head. The problem is not that the database functionality becomes complicated (it's not, not really, it's about adding and linking fields), it's about not being willing or able (funding problems?) to actually hire an expert on databases. There have been hilarious problems in many MMO that were 100% related to a faulty/amateur setup of the database system. Does anyone here remember the melon problem in SWG? Server crashes because players got assigned 3 melons during the tutorial?
When you look around at other games, both (very) old and new, you will soon have to conclude that every single one of them has better guild tools than PotBS, and most better by a wide margin. It's often simple things too, like displaying the date a member last logged in, or the ability to demote or boot absent leaders (much requested, incredibly easy to implement). And contrary to what some devs claim, this does NOT eat up CPU power. That data is in the game in the background, it's logged on the server for CSR and dev error tracking.
Player communities are at the very heart of an MMO's success, and they should be a priority, even at the cost of development time.
Linna
In my experience, guilds form the core of the RvR effort in PotBS (and in other games). Experience and training are passed on to members, and experienced guild groups, used to playing with and reacting to each other, usually eat equally experienced pickup groups for breakfast, both in port battles and in open sea combat.
The success or failure of nations depended on whether or not guilds could set aside their egos to work together. In some cases (Rackham Spain, Rackham France for the most part) this worked. In other cases, there was eternal infighting with multiple factions. Please keep in mind the ego problem would have happened with or without guilds, it's just one of those things.
Linna
Link me to where those Cancellation Surveys were published, please, so I can see all their answers as well. Oh...
I don't think I deny the game has problems so much as you deny it has anything good going for it. ALL games have issues, ALL of them have Devs that make promises that seem not to ever come true, some of them outright lie on purpose (SOE, for example). As a poster above said, it's FLS's first MMO title, and for a company whose only big release beforehand was Rails Across America, they're doing a lot better than they could have done. They made (and are making) mistakes. It would've been better for everyone if they'd act on what they learn from those mistakes quicker than they are, but as I'm not a software developer I can't really say they take longer than is justifiable when it seems to take every other game forever to implement any change. It only took 14 months (more?) of players posting literally dozens of threads every single day for EVE-O to nerf nano-HACs/Recons and I think everyone will agree CCP has done a tremendous job with their game.
I'd love to see better guild tools. I'd love to see societies operate on a similar model to EVE's corporate hangar/wallet/roles system. I'd love to see the market operate more like EVE's. I'd love to see a lot of things different. But that doesn't make it a bad game
Surveys lie. People tend to fill in what they think you want to hear. Which is why professional research organisations (both for scientific and commercial surveys) always have the main questions presented multiple times, phrased in a couple of different ways, to catch out the inconsistencies. FLS's survey, in comparison, is very amateurist in both scope and setup. It also wasn't even there during those critical first months, so what they DID get was distorted information, since they never did catch the initial exodus' reasons.
I am a guild leader of long standing. During my time on Rackham and Blackbeard (11 months), at least 80 Fated tried the game. By far most them left within 2 months. Most of these people told me why they left, and I was aware what frustrations each player had with the game. That gives me a pretty good picture. And since I was in the Spanish Council, I talked with the other guild leaders all the time. They told me why THEIR people left, and what their frustrations were. In all, I am 100% convinced I and the other guild leaders had a more accurate knowledge of why people left than FLS ever did. The sheer drudgery of the PVE, and especially the economy/crafting/hauling, was a huge reason, for instance. I've yet to see that one even acknowledged by a dev.
Linna
You're not the first person to assume that the September 2008 means your opinion is automatically more "correct." Jean Gris and others made the same mistake. I forgive you. Fact is, an MMO is an MMO, all that changes are skins and interfaces. All the wheels have been invented and reinvented and there won't be anything truly revolutionary for a long, long time.
I have read the old history, I've read pre-release interviews, I've perused the beta forum archive, I've spoken at length with rats and nats alike who were in beta; I don't think you caught it in a previous post where I said I get why a lot of the old guard players are embittered about things. The same sort of bitterness exists among EVE vets, and I'm sure there's more than enough of it among MxO, SWG, AoC, possibly even WAR folks by now. Such is the life of an MMO player.
I know how many servers there were at launch and I know they took way too long to merge them (I happen to be of the opinion they should go to a 1-server model with a 24hr. PB schedule, but there are plenty of good arguments against that model for PotBS as well... the number of servers wass overly optimistic for a niche product).
While we may think things are as simple as "press butan maek change fix gaem!!!" it often isn't. I don't know if you were still sub'd recently when a patch caused bugs to the PvP flag system and caused the OS currents to show as code rather than "Eastbound Current, Southbound Current, etc." And that patch had nothing to do with PvP flagging or open sea travel. If Skirmish and Port Governance were as simple as they seem to be, they'd already be in.
I don't think I deny the game has problems so much as you deny it has anything good going for it. ALL games have issues, ALL of them have Devs that make promises that seem not to ever come true, some of them outright lie on purpose (SOE, for example). As a poster above said, it's FLS's first MMO title, and for a company whose only big release beforehand was Rails Across America, they're doing a lot better than they could have done. They made (and are making) mistakes. It would've been better for everyone if they'd act on what they learn from those mistakes quicker than they are, but as I'm not a software developer I can't really say they take longer than is justifiable when it seems to take every other game forever to implement any change. It only took 14 months (more?) of players posting literally dozens of threads every single day for EVE-O to nerf nano-HACs/Recons and I think everyone will agree CCP has done a tremendous job with their game.
I'd love to see better guild tools. I'd love to see societies operate on a similar model to EVE's corporate hangar/wallet/roles system. I'd love to see the market operate more like EVE's. I'd love to see a lot of things different. But that doesn't make it a bad game
And as to this part: it does make a difference what your sub date is, because you didn't experience first hand what they did to us. And I'm afraid your reading failed to make you don't understand the impact FLS's decisions had and still have. Or the sheer depths of their lack of insight in what makes players tick. I'd quote you some correspondence, but that's not allowed.
The server mergers alone were a nightmare. The mere fact that they didn't factor in the existing nation population sizes, and that they allowed people from the 4 supposedly healthy servers to move, totally messed us up. It led to a situation where many Blackbeard British and French went to Rackham in search of PVP, leading to huge faction imbalances on both the home server and the new one. It led to a situation where almost all of Roberts Spain and France moved to Antigua because of the constant British nightflips, leaving Roberts in a mess. Do you understand what it feels like to be a light nation, faced with what is suddenly a very heavy one, that totally outguns you? Do you understand how frustrating it is when you ask the devs directly for help to address this very obvious problem, and not get help in any way, shape or form, not even when both the light nations are near death, with only British still able to field 24 in a port battle? How 'fun' it is to be one of 10 people left who are capable of countergrinding, and having to do this almost every minute you're logged in, without ever getting any help from FLS, despite desperate pleas? How hard it is to see people totally burn out, and not WANTING to log in, because they simply can't take it anymore?
But it wasn't just the mergers that killed nations. Rackham Spain had at one point literally destroyed France, because our slightly larger population allowed us to exert more pressure on them than they could keep up with. Added to people leaving out of boredom (lack of OS PVP, bored with econ/pve, etc), this led to a situation where France had 8 players left to man port battles, while we still had 12 people queued who couldn't get in. This is a situation that can and will happen again, we've seen it happen on different servers. And since the system punishes you for losing, it is very hard - if not impossible - to recover. Which makes even more people bail ship.
I'm fully aware how the programming and development process works, I've been part of it for 15 years, be it in commercial software. I know things take time. But major problems, like the population discrepancy and its attendant economic repercussions, that were apparent in beta, STILL haven't been corrected. And they had tools available in game as early as beta that could actually have helped solve some of these population problems, but they simply chose not to use them.
In the end, the only good thing that is left in PotBS, and the reason that kept me playing and trying to hold things together for so long, was the PVP ship combat, which is second to none. But that is simply not enough to keep most people playing. Which makes this game a failed game. Even a niche game cannot afford to bore and frustrate its players to the extend both the PVPers and the PVEers leave.
Linna
Tell your hubby to apply for a job at CCP, then, so they can implement looking in your containers remotely and customizable ship paint jobs, then I'll gb2eve ^^
I agree, allowing transfers to be wide open the way they did (and do) isn't the best way to go about it. But, after that damage is done, what would YOU do to 'fix' nation imbalances? You can't force people to re-roll, you can't tell a new player just signing up "Oh no, you can't roll British 'cause they have too many, but here, you can play the same class as a Spaniard, doesn't that sound like fun?" Imagine joining WoW and being told you couldn't be a night elf hunter 'cause there's too many of 'em.. So what do you do, offer a free ride to 50 if you reroll to the weak nation? Okay, but where do you stop? I mean, you start doing that and it'll get abused before you can hit "Publish" on the devlog. Ya think cross-teaming is an issue now? You mentioned earlier that entire guilds were trying to switch sides to balance it out, which was a generous offer on the surface but, again, where do you stop?
A lot of people criticize their lack of action on the population imbalance, but I haven't yet seen one solid solution offered that wouldn't cause as much harm as good (if not more). Their underdog tools, iirc, were intended to entice people to re-roll to the weakest nation but all they created was a race to be the weakest nation, the strong aren't re-rolling at all (well, once a map somebody with an over-inflated opinion of themself makes a big thread announcing their reroll but the only one I saw go past 5 pages was Garbad rerolling to Spain, who was dominating at the time, so he got flamed for it)
I agree, allowing transfers to be wide open the way they did (and do) isn't the best way to go about it. But, after that damage is done, what would YOU do to 'fix' nation imbalances?...
A lot of people criticize their lack of action on the population imbalance, but I haven't yet seen one solid solution offered that wouldn't cause as much harm as good (if not more). ...
That's the thing.
When designing a PvP / RvR game - Population Balance should be the FIRST design hurdle you solve. Not the last, as an afterthought.
Because, as with PotBS, when the rest of the game is in place if you try to put it in later you may find you cannot with the existing mechanics.
FWIW I do believe you CAN balance a RvR/PvP game - but it's to late to 'retro fit' my idea to PotBS (without a redesign and rebuild).
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
I agree, allowing transfers to be wide open the way they did (and do) isn't the best way to go about it. But, after that damage is done, what would YOU do to 'fix' nation imbalances? You can't force people to re-roll, you can't tell a new player just signing up "Oh no, you can't roll British 'cause they have too many, but here, you can play the same class as a Spaniard, doesn't that sound like fun?" Imagine joining WoW and being told you couldn't be a night elf hunter 'cause there's too many of 'em.. So what do you do, offer a free ride to 50 if you reroll to the weak nation? Okay, but where do you stop? I mean, you start doing that and it'll get abused before you can hit "Publish" on the devlog. Ya think cross-teaming is an issue now? You mentioned earlier that entire guilds were trying to switch sides to balance it out, which was a generous offer on the surface but, again, where do you stop?
A lot of people criticize their lack of action on the population imbalance, but I haven't yet seen one solid solution offered that wouldn't cause as much harm as good (if not more). Their underdog tools, iirc, were intended to entice people to re-roll to the weakest nation but all they created was a race to be the weakest nation, the strong aren't re-rolling at all (well, once a map somebody with an over-inflated opinion of themself makes a big thread announcing their reroll but the only one I saw go past 5 pages was Garbad rerolling to Spain, who was dominating at the time, so he got flamed for it)
Facts:
- Both guilds and individuals wanted to reroll from England and Pirate (High pop) to France and Spain (ultra low pop). No one had to be forced, the volunteers where there. The only thing stopping them was the prospect of having to relevel the same careers to 50 again. They were even willing to leave their ships (including first rates) behind.
- FLS have a tool they use on testcenter that CSRs use to insta-level characters to whatever level they want. They use this from time to time to make sure they have enough testers of the required level.
- FLS had a different tool in Beta for instant levelling, the XP books. They allowed you to go from 1 to 50 in minutes.
- The aforementioned guilds and individuals petitioned the devs through PMs AND through the support ticket system to please help them transfer using these means. Every single last one of them was refused.
The problem for the direct nation transfer was the fact that all the quests, including the career ones and the ones giving important quest items, were individually coded per nation. Allowing a toon to just transfer would have opened a huge can of worms, as people could then conceivably have gathered e.g. multiples of the same buff item (like OS speed buff). This was undesirable. But people were actually willing to roll new toons and do all those quests again on the new, clean slate toon, just as long as they weren't forced to relevel from scratch.
I will never understand why they were denied. Economic problems were cited as one reason, but that sounds like utter nonsense to me. Both of the low pop nations were in desperate trouble, because the sheer discrepency in player numbers meant they had lost the arms race, and were getting further behind every day. We could not replace our big ship losses, which meant losing more ports, more resources, fewer ships... it was a deadly spiral. Adding more players - even if they were allowed to bring their dubloons and non-bound items accross - would only have helped to balance things.
You say 'where do you stop'. The answer is simple: at the point where the population numbers indicate parity has been reached. Nation transfers should only ever be allowed from high pop to low pop nations, and they shouldn't be an option that is always open. Suggestions from the playerbase were many, but the most promising one was simply making it an option in the week after a map win. And even if a generic tool were never made, why not look at it at a case-by-case basis?
Crossteaming... that was a load of dung they pulled on us. They EXPLICITLY stated that they didn't see a problem with it, that it was OK in their book. The impact on the economy was negligeable, espionage would be perfectly easy even if multiple nationalities were not allowed (they cited two friends in the same vent for an example, which is, to my knowledge, the way it usually happened if it happend). Many perfectly honest players believed them, and had accounts in several nations. Then FLS introduced insurance, despite MANY warnings there was a highly exploitable component to it. The exploits happened, and they took a sledgehammer approach to the problem by threatening to ban everyone who had multiple nationalities. Incredibly stupid, doing this 6 months into live, Especially since they exploits they were so afraid of could be tracked by any halfway competent Database specialist. They save all transactions and chats, all they ever needed to do was have a query program run on the background serversice to throw up red flags. The existing rules on griefing and exploits would have sufficed to get the bad apples without harming all the innocents.
Incidentally: players who never did anything worse than trade regular econ between their pirate and national alt, got permabanned. Players who themselves admitted they were speedhacking, got a 6 day ban for that offense. And people who trade lots with people from other servers, and thus have up to 40 lots available on one account, circumventing the 10-lot -per-account rule, walk away scott free.
And the underdog tools. Lord... They were horrible. When they were introduced, they promised us this was the first version, and yes, they were static and based on the map winner, but they would be changed very very soon to the intended version, which would be fluid and would take ACTUAL population status, economy and victory status into account. Well, Guess what, that too never happened.
And you only know the version we have now. They were much, much worse in the beginning. Rackham Spain had just won the map the week before the transfers came in. We willingly accepted the fact we would grind up France 55% slower and British 35% slower, while they could grind our ports at 155% and 135%. We could have sat on the map indefinitely, we were that strong, but the French nation was in a mess (it had collapsed) and the British were demoralised. The map had to be ended, or the game would become a bad joke. So we pushed ourselves to win. And then the transfers came. France went from very light to moderate, and gained 3 1st rates. The Pirates went to heavy. The British went to Very Heavy and gained 8 1st rates. And we, Spain, got almost no one. We remained light. We had 6 second rates before the transfers, the French none, the British 6-7. After the transfers, we had 8. Whoop-te-do.
We gritted our teeth, and managed to hang in there for a while, winning battles against first rates using nothing but 4rth rates, but the underdog tools and the transfers combined wore us down. Desperate petitions to the devs to make the tools fluid as promised had no effect. The best they managed was to tone it down a bit after more than a month.
Never underestimate the playerbase, the suggestions they made or the sheer dedication of the players who tried to keep this game alive. And never underestimate how very deeply we were let down every step of the way.
Linna
I agree, allowing transfers to be wide open the way they did (and do) isn't the best way to go about it. But, after that damage is done, what would YOU do to 'fix' nation imbalances?...
A lot of people criticize their lack of action on the population imbalance, but I haven't yet seen one solid solution offered that wouldn't cause as much harm as good (if not more). ...
That's the thing.
When designing a PvP / RvR game - Population Balance should be the FIRST design hurdle you solve. Not the last, as an afterthought.
Because, as with PotBS, when the rest of the game is in place if you try to put it in later you may find you cannot with the existing mechanics.
FWIW I do believe you CAN balance a RvR/PvP game - but it's to late to 'retro fit' my idea to PotBS (without a redesign and rebuild).
What angers me the most is the fact that even in early beta it was abundantly clear that the British and Pirates would be the largest nations. Cultural identification and naval fiction heroes (British), romanticism (Pirates) and prejudices (Spain, France) would see to that. It was the pattern all throughout beta. But somehow FLS convinced itself that live would be different, and they failed to even take precautions. It should have been a priority, but it wasn't. And thus, on most servers, the game became 'see who can gobble up the failing nation first'.
Linna
I'm sorry, Linna, but I still don't see what I'd consider a 'solid' idea regarding nation balance. The reasons why Brits and Pirates would always be the highest populations are obvious, you're absolutely right. But while insta-levelling in BETA Testing and on Testbed is all well and good, and while they certainly have the same tools available to GameMasters/Developers on the Live server, in my opinion it would be short-sighted and irresponsible to use them in that manner. They should be reserved for resolving bug issues.
Your answer to "where do you stop" was that it's simple, you stop when you reach parity. Linna... as much as I've disagreed with you about the quality of the game in its present state and its prospects for 2009 and beyond, you express yourself well (even if a little abrasive) and have most definitely demonstrated that you're not a fool. With that in mind, I don't understand how you can not see that this wouldn't be 'simple' at all. The reason: MMO players in general either are or behave like spoiled children. Not talking about you, not talking about me, talking gamers in general. Joe Gamer would see this and pitch a fit. It would start with one forum post, which would be followed by a cascade of whines. They would read something like this: "How come HE gets free L50 and I don't!? Not FAIR!!!!!!!!1111" The devs would point to the devlog announcing it and say "it's to achieve fairness, really, it IS fair! Calm down!" But it wouldn't matter.
Then, so many of the overpopulated nation would reroll and power level that it would create a new overpopulated nation. Of course, you could put an automatic stop in so that after X amount of characters gets re-rolled and powerlevelled, no more can follow. And sure, that would prevent a new overpopulated nation; it would also split guilds and if there's one thing guilds get more angry about than anything else it's being divided. This would repeat ad nauseum until the only thing they could do to make it "right" would be to let Sony put Station Cash in so EVERYbody can power level for one easy payment of 5.99 (or whatever it costs, idk, never played a StationCash game).
A few remarks that come to mind after the last two days' postings:
-PvP is indeed level-based, and a lower-level player is triply disadvantaged against a level 50: Disadvantaged in the number of guns, their calibre, and their range. A lower-level player has to get closer to a ship to fire at it, by which time he is getting fired at by more cannon of a larger size. Don't even try to win unless you're Garbad.
-Speaking of Garbad, I want to raise the question: Do players like him help or hinder the promotion of a game? Certainly, he loved PotBS, despite his own concerns with the game. However, when you see someone bragging about every win of his, and who clearly got to master the game in beta, what message do you get as a new player, say, a few months after release? "L2P"? Or rather, "no matter how much L2P I make, I'll never be able to catch up with this guy"? I'm all for helping newbies along, but if it turns into an opportunity for showing off, that can become quite daunting. Garbad was good, but he didn't have to rub it in. That gets tiresome in the end. (And no, I don't write this out of spite; as far as I know, I never encountered him in battle or even talked to him.)
-All this talk of faction imbalance has me bringing up this question: What would you have done? Player initiatives to reroll are fine, but those only happened because they were dedicated players who cared about the game and put their desire to see it work better ahead of their own preferences. Your average player doesn't care about that, as demonstrated by faction imbalances in other games out there -- WoW, WAR, etc. So, if you want to prevent faction imbalances, what do you do? In some games, it's because a faction gives, in the phrasing of an old joke about D&D munchkins, "the most plusses". Some players coming in at a later stage just don't care and go for the easiest option -- the most populous faction, just making matters worse. PotBS? Well, it's as Linna wrote. Nelson and Drake for the British, romantic notions of Pirate life, and two loser nations.
What would you have done to prevent faction imbalance in PotBS? Giving them different attributes (French sail faster, etc.) just opens the door to all the l33t munchkin way of thinking. Getting rid of identifiable real-life connotations detracts from the sense of the period. So what would you have done? (Certainly I would have put in the ability to attack your own side, at the risk of becoming a pariah in your own ports. Many of those guilds don't like to be forced to not attack one another because they picked the same side.)
EDIT: And thank you very much Linna for that splendid recap of what it meant to play in a small faction that never had a chance. Not having enough players to be competitive is one thing; watching the developers turn a blind eye to the abuse of the rules perpetrated by the larger nations against us was another, and a game-breaking one.
EDIT #2: Just came across this thread on the PotBS forums:
http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45505
They don't have a clue, do they?
Folks like Garbad arent a problem. The problem is the game. With PotBS, the multitude of ships, outfittings, skills, and sheer skill needed to exercise it all properly, as you say, it would take a long time, if ever, to catch up. Its like having a game based on math and youre playing against a bunch of math teachers. Whatever you are learning, they are learning something more advanced.
Thats why players like Garbad are not noticed in "simpler" games like WoW or WAR, because to "master" combat it is much faster/easier due to the simpler designs, allowing people to get to a level (and fair/fun) playing field.
As such, as I certainly expected, PotBS was designed as a niche game, where the only people truly having fun are the hardcore, and the casuals can never compete, end up getting their butts kicked, and quit.
Regarding faction balance, the only way to do it is to make each side look very cool in their own way. PotBS simply fails to do ANYTHING to differentiate the sides, besides their starting location and town theme. Everyone gets the same ships, skills etc. So people generally go for the side that more reflects their cultural makeup, or desire to be the underdog, thats it.
Do you know why in Warhammer Online the population imbalance is so heavily skewed towards Destruction over Order? Because Order have butt ugly dwarves, humans that all have ugly red hair, and elves that wear dresses (always). Destro on the other hand have funny looking goblins, badass Orcs, humans that just look down right mean/dangerous, and sexy looking elves. Therefore one side is cool/appealing, the other is the ugly underdog.
Another reason I heard for Order's unpopularity in WAR is the lack of a Human tank. But I agree with you that in that game it's mostly a result of cosmetic choices.
However, as you pointed out, we can't say this is the case with PotBS -- all factions look and dress alike (although I did make it a point of patriotism to always wear blue clothes).
Look very cool in their own way, okay. But how? Surely you could give the French ze most outrageous wigs and the Spanish the most dashing forked beards of the New World that players still wouldn't roll them? So as far as I can see, there were very limited options which FLS could have turned to:
1) Change RvR to make it purely guild-based instead of nation-based. However, you would have lost a great deal in terms of realism. Best example I can think of is Navy Field: You can roll British, German, American or Japanese, but when you show up at the same battle, on the same side, regardless of the nation you picked, it reduces the appeal of a game which never made much than a half-hearted effort at a historical setting. FLS was not exactly a stickler for historical accuracy, preferring to go for a romanticized view of the period, but what they did when I played PotBS worked as far as the atmosphere was concerned. Not sure having Frenchies, Brits and Spanish fight on the same side strictly based on guild affiliation -- fighting against more Frenchies, Brits and Spanish in a rival guild -- is a good idea.
2) Give the different nations various attributes to attract players with different gameplay styles. The problem with this is that it could lead to some borked problems in gameplay if carried to any extensive length. I do recall an example from Age of Conan, where the "Culture PvP" servers (the gameplay of which, based on what I read, had not been tested before release) created a climate of total war between the three races, so no mixed guilds or anything of that sort. The races, however, were further limited to playing certain classes in keeping with the attributes of said race. End result: Stygians had no tanks and plenty of magic users, and Cimmerians plenty of brute force and no magic. Imagine class imbalance being extended to the RvR. Even though in PotBS you can still play 3 classes regardless of nation (though it might matter for pirates; never played one), make the French sail faster, and no matter how much the British might have a bonus to accuracy, that won't compensate for the French advantage in speed. And seriously, do you expect that the developers who gave us the Econobomb, the Supergank, Insurance, Bundleboats, etc., and who constantly tweaked classes to favour one or the other after each new patch, will get the balancing act right?
I don't think there's a solution to faction imbalance in this type of game, I'm sorry.
Game play feels like hard plastic.Rigid.....controlling.....limiting. No E FACTOR (emotional involvement).
I quit two months after launch because of the ganking and FLS' support of ganking in general. I was never given a chance to tell them why I was leaving...when did they start doing exit interviews?
After everyone left.
They noticed the pattern and suddenly got concerned.
Sharp boys over at FLS, definately the brightest bulbs on the tree........
Another reason I heard for Order's unpopularity in WAR is the lack of a Human tank. But I agree with you that in that game it's mostly a result of cosmetic choices.
However, as you pointed out, we can't say this is the case with PotBS -- all factions look and dress alike (although I did make it a point of patriotism to always wear blue clothes).
Look very cool in their own way, okay. But how? Surely you could give the French ze most outrageous wigs and the Spanish the most dashing forked beards of the New World that players still wouldn't roll them? So as far as I can see, there were very limited options which FLS could have turned to:
1) Change RvR to make it purely guild-based instead of nation-based. However, you would have lost a great deal in terms of realism. Best example I can think of is Navy Field: You can roll British, German, American or Japanese, but when you show up at the same battle, on the same side, regardless of the nation you picked, it reduces the appeal of a game which never made much than a half-hearted effort at a historical setting. FLS was not exactly a stickler for historical accuracy, preferring to go for a romanticized view of the period, but what they did when I played PotBS worked as far as the atmosphere was concerned. Not sure having Frenchies, Brits and Spanish fight on the same side strictly based on guild affiliation -- fighting against more Frenchies, Brits and Spanish in a rival guild -- is a good idea.
2) Give the different nations various attributes to attract players with different gameplay styles. The problem with this is that it could lead to some borked problems in gameplay if carried to any extensive length. I do recall an example from Age of Conan, where the "Culture PvP" servers (the gameplay of which, based on what I read, had not been tested before release) created a climate of total war between the three races, so no mixed guilds or anything of that sort. The races, however, were further limited to playing certain classes in keeping with the attributes of said race. End result: Stygians had no tanks and plenty of magic users, and Cimmerians plenty of brute force and no magic. Imagine class imbalance being extended to the RvR. Even though in PotBS you can still play 3 classes regardless of nation (though it might matter for pirates; never played one), make the French sail faster, and no matter how much the British might have a bonus to accuracy, that won't compensate for the French advantage in speed. And seriously, do you expect that the developers who gave us the Econobomb, the Supergank, Insurance, Bundleboats, etc., and who constantly tweaked classes to favour one or the other after each new patch, will get the balancing act right?
I don't think there's a solution to faction imbalance in this type of game, I'm sorry.
Missed the last part of this thread somehow...
There always was a partial answer, and a very obvious one too. At least to me. Why not have the Dutch as the player nation, and the British as the NPC one? I imagine there would still have been differences, but they'd not have been as huge. While there are plenty of heroic Dutch sailing adventures (we ruled the seven seas in that era), Holywood for the most part never caught on, so identification based on language or fiction would mostly have been absent.
As to national advantages and disadvantages... well, the original PC game Colonization comes to mind. The Dutch were the better traders (dubloon bonus on sales?), the French got along better with the native population (labor bonus as native indians joined the labor force?), and the Spanish were better in sacking places and gaining treasure (more gold when sinking fleets?). Something along those lines could be done, with the bonus percentages varying based on the nation's victory status.
Linna
But it IS that simple. For guilds, the names of transferring guild members would have to be presented at time of transfer request, and no exceptions allowed. Transfer approval only given if the transfer doesn't exceed the quotum, which should be easy enough to check. They have population statistics in exquisite detail, analysed in all kinds of different ways. There really isn't that much of an excuse for not doing it this way, except the fact that it DOES cost man-hours.
And as to any complaints of the type you describe: as long as no one was levelled beyond the level already reached in the other nation, there would really not be a reason to complain.
Also, please keep in mind those transferring would not exactly be entering into a walhalla. Much would have to be regained, like any and all bound quest items, and getting a failing nation back to functional is hard work.
(Incidentally: I can only laugh and shake my head at the latest round of 'population incentives'. Same old, same old. Didn't work before, so why do they think it will now.... )
Linna
Another reason I heard for Order's unpopularity in WAR is the lack of a Human tank. But I agree with you that in that game it's mostly a result of cosmetic choices.
However, as you pointed out, we can't say this is the case with PotBS -- all factions look and dress alike (although I did make it a point of patriotism to always wear blue clothes).
Look very cool in their own way, okay. But how? Surely you could give the French ze most outrageous wigs and the Spanish the most dashing forked beards of the New World that players still wouldn't roll them? So as far as I can see, there were very limited options which FLS could have turned to:
1) Change RvR to make it purely guild-based instead of nation-based. However, you would have lost a great deal in terms of realism. Best example I can think of is Navy Field: You can roll British, German, American or Japanese, but when you show up at the same battle, on the same side, regardless of the nation you picked, it reduces the appeal of a game which never made much than a half-hearted effort at a historical setting. FLS was not exactly a stickler for historical accuracy, preferring to go for a romanticized view of the period, but what they did when I played PotBS worked as far as the atmosphere was concerned. Not sure having Frenchies, Brits and Spanish fight on the same side strictly based on guild affiliation -- fighting against more Frenchies, Brits and Spanish in a rival guild -- is a good idea.
2) Give the different nations various attributes to attract players with different gameplay styles. The problem with this is that it could lead to some borked problems in gameplay if carried to any extensive length. I do recall an example from Age of Conan, where the "Culture PvP" servers (the gameplay of which, based on what I read, had not been tested before release) created a climate of total war between the three races, so no mixed guilds or anything of that sort. The races, however, were further limited to playing certain classes in keeping with the attributes of said race. End result: Stygians had no tanks and plenty of magic users, and Cimmerians plenty of brute force and no magic. Imagine class imbalance being extended to the RvR. Even though in PotBS you can still play 3 classes regardless of nation (though it might matter for pirates; never played one), make the French sail faster, and no matter how much the British might have a bonus to accuracy, that won't compensate for the French advantage in speed. And seriously, do you expect that the developers who gave us the Econobomb, the Supergank, Insurance, Bundleboats, etc., and who constantly tweaked classes to favour one or the other after each new patch, will get the balancing act right?
I don't think there's a solution to faction imbalance in this type of game, I'm sorry.
Missed the last part of this thread somehow...
There always was a partial answer, and a very obvious one too. At least to me. Why not have the Dutch as the player nation, and the British as the NPC one? I imagine there would still have been differences, but they'd not have been as huge. While there are plenty of heroic Dutch sailing adventures (we ruled the seven seas in that era), Holywood for the most part never caught on, so identification based on language or fiction would mostly have been absent.
As to national advantages and disadvantages... well, the original PC game Colonization comes to mind. The Dutch were the better traders (dubloon bonus on sales?), the French got along better with the native population (labor bonus as native indians joined the labor force?), and the Spanish were better in sacking places and gaining treasure (more gold when sinking fleets?). Something along those lines could be done, with the bonus percentages varying based on the nation's victory status.
Linna
No offense against the Dutch, but in this game, I'm not too sure how it could be practical to add the Dutch as a playable nation, without making some serious changes to the gameplay.
The only port they have in the game is Oranjestad, so how would it work in the RvR? Give them British towns? Well, given FLS's geographical liberties that gave us a British Cayenne or a riverless New Orleans, I'm guessing it's in the realm of the feasible...
Another reason I heard for Order's unpopularity in WAR is the lack of a Human tank. But I agree with you that in that game it's mostly a result of cosmetic choices.
However, as you pointed out, we can't say this is the case with PotBS -- all factions look and dress alike (although I did make it a point of patriotism to always wear blue clothes).
Look very cool in their own way, okay. But how? Surely you could give the French ze most outrageous wigs and the Spanish the most dashing forked beards of the New World that players still wouldn't roll them? So as far as I can see, there were very limited options which FLS could have turned to:
1) Change RvR to make it purely guild-based instead of nation-based. However, you would have lost a great deal in terms of realism. Best example I can think of is Navy Field: You can roll British, German, American or Japanese, but when you show up at the same battle, on the same side, regardless of the nation you picked, it reduces the appeal of a game which never made much than a half-hearted effort at a historical setting. FLS was not exactly a stickler for historical accuracy, preferring to go for a romanticized view of the period, but what they did when I played PotBS worked as far as the atmosphere was concerned. Not sure having Frenchies, Brits and Spanish fight on the same side strictly based on guild affiliation -- fighting against more Frenchies, Brits and Spanish in a rival guild -- is a good idea.
2) Give the different nations various attributes to attract players with different gameplay styles. The problem with this is that it could lead to some borked problems in gameplay if carried to any extensive length. I do recall an example from Age of Conan, where the "Culture PvP" servers (the gameplay of which, based on what I read, had not been tested before release) created a climate of total war between the three races, so no mixed guilds or anything of that sort. The races, however, were further limited to playing certain classes in keeping with the attributes of said race. End result: Stygians had no tanks and plenty of magic users, and Cimmerians plenty of brute force and no magic. Imagine class imbalance being extended to the RvR. Even though in PotBS you can still play 3 classes regardless of nation (though it might matter for pirates; never played one), make the French sail faster, and no matter how much the British might have a bonus to accuracy, that won't compensate for the French advantage in speed. And seriously, do you expect that the developers who gave us the Econobomb, the Supergank, Insurance, Bundleboats, etc., and who constantly tweaked classes to favour one or the other after each new patch, will get the balancing act right?
I don't think there's a solution to faction imbalance in this type of game, I'm sorry.
Missed the last part of this thread somehow...
There always was a partial answer, and a very obvious one too. At least to me. Why not have the Dutch as the player nation, and the British as the NPC one? I imagine there would still have been differences, but they'd not have been as huge. While there are plenty of heroic Dutch sailing adventures (we ruled the seven seas in that era), Holywood for the most part never caught on, so identification based on language or fiction would mostly have been absent.
As to national advantages and disadvantages... well, the original PC game Colonization comes to mind. The Dutch were the better traders (dubloon bonus on sales?), the French got along better with the native population (labor bonus as native indians joined the labor force?), and the Spanish were better in sacking places and gaining treasure (more gold when sinking fleets?). Something along those lines could be done, with the bonus percentages varying based on the nation's victory status.
Linna
No offense against the Dutch, but in this game, I'm not too sure how it could be practical to add the Dutch as a playable nation, without making some serious changes to the gameplay.
The only port they have in the game is Oranjestad, so how would it work in the RvR? Give them British towns? Well, given FLS's geographical liberties that gave us a British Cayenne or a riverless New Orleans, I'm guessing it's in the realm of the feasible...
Well, like you already said, they've taken significant liberties with the who-owned-what of the era. Suriname (British newbie ports) was originally Dutch, for one. I would think a few more liberties wouldn't hurt. Of course, this would have been a lot better if they'd done it while the game was still in beta, but it might still have some positive effects.
Linna