Mmm, my server (ezi) is probably a factor in how many I see, though there've been less the past couple days. Maybe they just leveled past me, though.
It's going to be interesting to see how (if) ports get changed. Right now, there isn't party based aggro. I'm a former EVE player, so I understand that party aggro isn't a perfect mechanic, but it's absolutely necessary for people who want to do trade runs into hostile peace zones. It's not like you can have a fleet booster in archeage (I don't think). Interestingly enough, the way harbors work wrt neutral guards sort of recreates the gate camp scenario in EVE. Archeage isn't EVE, though; you can't warp past the seas, so, imo, there should probably be more emphasis on catching people outside of port. You could do it by expanding the neutral guard areas or by sending people killed by neutral guards straight to jail and, mostly, by making it less arbitrary to catch people on open ocean, without resorting to 'Ship Radar'.
There need to be more mechanics for buffing/debuffing ships on the high seas. Right now, draw distance and movement speeds mean that an attacker basically has to coincidentally end up in front of you and probably needs to have a good initial bearing and orientation, too. I'm pretty sure one of the excuses for the pitiful draw distance (~100 meters most of the time) is that it's the only way allow for any high seas pvp, given nearly uniform ship speeds. How about currents, more weather, winds, and waves? Yknow, the things that dominate the mind of captains and helmsmen even when the ship isn't dependent on wind power.
Winds and currents could provide vector changes to the velocity of boats and gliders. Thus, a trader being chased might sail into the wind with their sail down (which might eliminate the wind vector effect on small boats) and with a favorable current, to make it harder for the opponent to glide to them or for a large ship to chase a small.
An ice storm or doldrums could reduce all movement speed in an area and provide status effects for the frigid waters or soothing tropical seas. A storm or squall would slow you, as now, but it would also whip up waves in the direction of the wind. Taking swells on your flank would slow you; taking breakers could flip you, based on ship size. Rarer storms, like gales, typhoons, or hurricanes, might slow all movement to a near stop and be sure to swamp any but the largest ships.
The point is simply to add complexity and to implement real environmental hazards, not stupid stuff like evasion-ignoring seabugs and random whirlpools.
Some ship variety would be nice too. A longship with spots for 8 rowers, port and starboard mounted harpoon launchers, a rowing rhythm drum for your bard, and ~7 or 8 m/s base move speed boosted by rowing would be something pirates and privateers would go crazy for.
Gameplay improvements come after stomping on bots and hackers, though. From what I've read, XLGames did not try to stop botting and hacking on the Russian and Korean servers, so hopefully Trion can talk them into trying (seems damn unlikely) or implement a better anti-hack wrapper than hackshield, which apparently doesn't work at all (OH NO AHK SHUT IT ALL DOWN).
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Topic: ArcheAge alpha, preparing for beta and release (Read 29765 times)