In my mind, there are two separate issues for low level PvP:

Low level players fighting other low level players.

Low level players being competitive against high level players.

The first is something that we have minimal support for right now. It certainly can happen, if you chance upon another low level player in a PvP zone, but it's honestly not that likely. We have a cunning plan* to address this with the skirmish system. Basically we plan to allow players to create skirmish battles that are limited by level, or by ship size, or both. Unfortunately that system will take some time to get to you.

The second issue, low level players being competitive against high level players, is a bit trickier. One of the things I'm happiest about in Pirates is that a low level player at least has a chance against the higher level player. A cannon ball is a cannon ball, and a low level player in a small fast ship can, potentially, outmaneuver and out play an opponent in a powerful high level ship. I still feel that is the case, however there are some caveats.

First, no matter how good you are, a small ship is unlikely to be able to take on multiple high level ships. The advantage of the small ship is maneuverability, his strategy is to avoid the big guns of his opponent. When there are two sets of big guns bearing down on you, avoiding them becomes exponentially more difficult. Ultimately we don't ever expect a single small ship to be able to take on more than one high level ship successfully. I now encourage all small ship captains to prove me wrong.

Secondly, we want level to be an advantage. High level ships should be big and powerful. Taking them on in a lower level, small ship should be a significant challenge. If you manage to win that fight it should be a major accomplishment, something you can brag about on the message boards.

On top of all that, there are some high level ships that are specifically designed to counter small fast ships. This was one of the real life rolls for frigates: chasing down the small harassing ships of pirates and privateers. There are some match ups that simply do not favor the small ship.

Finally, on the topic of more PvP zones: Yes we need more. Yes, it will likely be beneficial to low level players interested in PvP if there are more PvP zones. We're working on ways to make that happen.

*used with permission of Baldric's Turnips LLC.

Game Arena had some trouble with this on Tuesday (AU time) but it's supposed to all be cleared up now, and your IP is definitely on the allowed list. Are you able to get in now?


Joe

Thanks for the reports of which lines are getting massive repeats. I'm adding code to the logger so we can say things like "Log once and then shut up" or "Log N times and then shut up" and knowing which logs are the biggest offenders helps me to in and modify those log lines to use the new calls.

Yeah, we definitely shouldn't have done that. It's like giving a cookie to a kid, spending ten minutes telling him how delicious it is and that you're going to take the cookie away tomorrow, then telling him not to eat it. I'm not surprised that some of those cookies had a big bite out of them when we got back the next day.


Joe

I think smiller's explanation of the situation with starting points is essentially correct. I'm checking into it now.


Joe

Heh. If I were a master of spin I'd be deflecting responsibility on everybody else instead of taking it myself.

Oh, and we have the new tinfoil-penetrating mind control rays now. Your hat needs an upgrade.


Joe

I just wanted to drop by and say I have not forgotten about this. It's still on the top of my 'to do' list. We have a tentative short term plan, and a more tentative long term plan. We need to get them a little firmer before we talk about them publicly, but I hope to make a post about our short term plans (at least) by the end of the day.

I'm sorry for the delay, but our whole design team (myself included) was out sick yesterday.

The UI improvements discussed in that devlog are the first step in a multi-stage process of improving society functionality. We believe societies are extremely important to the long term health of the game. The UI improvements were the easy part, so we did them first. In the long run we plan on adding custom ranks (including more ranks, renaming ranks, and setting permissions for ranks), and some form of shared society resources*.

We're certainly not going to stop adding society supporting features at that point, and we have some vague ideas for the future beyond that, but those are the things we have plans to add. I don't know what the time frame on those improvements are, but I'm hoping soon.

Besides the changes we're already planning on making (UI improvements, Custom ranks/permissions, and shared society resources), what do you want to see for society support?


*Note that this may not work out to be exactly "society warehouses," there are some implications to those we're not totally comfortable with, but we are going to add some way to share guild resources in a reasonable manner. Not that we don't love you purchasing an extra account, but that's not something that you should feel required to do. I'm not saying it definitely won't be a shared warehouse, it's still under consideration.

This is a pri-1 bug on the plate of the programmer responsible for the landmark battle system. I don't have an ETA on a fix yet, but it should be coming soon.


Joe

As this isn't an appeal to approve a rejected flag, I've moved it out of the Appeals thread. It's actually something of a chore to purge a flag or sail from our system entirely and we only do that in cases of necessity (e.g. inappropriate content).

As for your ratings and averages, I believe only you and the admins can see that, so you have nothing to worry about there.