Hourglass Changes

  • BotoxBiene
    Seafarer
    Insider

    Ahoi my fellow Pirates. Recently i got into playing Hourglass and my experience could be way better. Here are some suggestions that would make Hourglass much more enjoyable for everyone + might even help the high seas.

    1. Time limit: don't let us battle for 45 min until someone runs out of cannonballs. Set a time limit to 25 min, the battleground could get smaller and smaller over time. No running for ages.

    2. Open World / High Seas: i think it would be a great idea to split Hourglass and the High Seas into 2 completely different modes. 2 main benefits with this one: Not interrupting any WE and no players camping in a safe distance to kill u after your battle + no lost ship slots for the High Seas. The servers feel kinda empty at the moment. If we don't have 2 constantly server swapping Hourglass ships this could change. Let there be all 5 ship slots available for actual High Seas content. (Never saw a Hourglass ship with loot on it, we don't need the High Sea and Loot for Hourglass)

    3. Starting / leaving Hourglass takes to long + resources in general: To start hourglass you need to raise the flag, collect resources, vote 2 times and need to sail away. This takes to long in my opinion. But it gets worse if you loose. Loading into the new server, raising the flag again and all of the stuff mentioned before. My suggestion: Let us get into battle quicker, just reset the emissary and same resources for everyone.

    Edit:

    Maybe we could have a underwater "Lobby" for our matchmaking. Select Hourglass in the main menu or the High Seas. Now you find yourself underwater, you could decide for a fraction and get the level 1 emissary. If everyone would have the same resources u could just vote for matchmaking an battle. If u loose or win u could start to dive again and queue instantly. Without all the timewasting flag raising and collecting resources.

    This needs a few tweaks of course, but i could imagine this being a way nicer Hourglass experience.

    If i decide to play Hourglass i want to fight and not waste my time. And if i want to fight for treasure or do some voyages, i sail on the High Seas.

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  • LittleMatJab
    Rogue

    @botoxbiene

    100% agree. Every time I see people who disagree with the changes to the HG, I think they are completely blind. It's good to see someone who understands the issue with the game. At the same time, I've noticed that on this forum, it's always the same people saying the same things and not helping improve the game. People are afraid and don't want significant changes. Moreover, you are so few on this forum that it's not even worth waiting for your comments. You're not even 1% of the players giving their opinion. So, if 1% of the gamer base disagree with me, I'll clearly not stop proving my point.

    Here a nice video that explain all the problem of HG and why its dead

  • BotoxBiene
    Seafarer
    Insider

    @littlematjab That video is great!

  • lI JRATT lI
    Master
    Insider

    @botoxbiene
    Yes on #1. Love it.. Maybe a shrinking battle zone instead of a timer, Like a BR game.

    #2 im not so sure.. I really enjoy being able to build up my Treasure hoard level and defend.
    Sure i lose the loot sometimes but i get more Rep for defending a ship full of loot. And i like that at anytime someone may pop on me for a battle.
    And with the HG wait times... Id sooner just PVE until its time to defend instead of just waiting in the que.

    But on the down side it stinks that those 2 ships in hourglass take up valuable server spots.. making the world feel even more empty.
    We desperately need more ships per server imo.

    #3 .. While it would be great to be able to start a battle right from the main menu (skipping the outpost) It cannot be at the expense of the open world sandbox Hourglass.
    I feel like this would have to be a battle mode in addition to the current HG system. But.. that would be splitting up the player base even more.

    Too bad you couldnt just load right into the que (bypassing the outpost) for those who want too get into HG faster, without gathering any extra Supplies.
    even if you might have to battle someone who took the time to collect supplies.
    I feel that would be a good middle ground.

  • Soulstinger2k20
    Master
    Insider

    We have been suggesting a shrinking battle arena since HG came out.

    The entire reason HG was implemented over Arena was so the on-demand pvp mode would use the main servers, and not their own servers which incur additional maintenance costs. This will not be going away.

    It would be nice to be able to streamline HG re-supply, especially for Galleons, but there are a lot of problems to consider when changing the availability of supps. If the winning ship recovers the losers supplies, you essentially have gargantuan amounts of supplies snowballing more or less indefinitely. For these resources to have any weight or value; they need to be finite in some fashion.

  • LittleMatJab
    Rogue

    @li-jratt-li a dit dans Hourglass Changes :

    @botoxbiene
    .
    I feel like this would have to be a battle mode in addition to the current HG system. But.. that would be splitting up the player base even more.

    For me its ok that the HG battle are in the sandbox, but with a dome where no one can enter and no one can exist the area

    Too bad you couldnt just load right into the que (bypassing the outpost) for those who want too get into HG faster, without gathering any extra Supplies.

    If there are many barrels with cannonballs floating on the water inside the combat area, I don't care how many cannonballs you already have at beginning. Because, anyway, I can collect plenty. However, once the battle is over, it would be good if those barrels filled with cannonballs disappear.

    even if you might have to battle someone who took the time to collect supplies.
    I feel that would be a good middle ground.

    Sure, im only OK with this if the guy dont full his barrel with 50 chainshot and 20 curse ball before starting HG. Cuz thats not fair. Maybe you could find some in the barrel on the HG area, thats could works. Its fair the two team can find chainshot and curseball during the fight

  • BotoxBiene
    Seafarer
    Insider

    In addition i just got cheated on. Boy oh boy was this fun. Invisible aimbot, nice. Ship was stuck, all of a sudden the ship moved a mile. Fast ladder. Just a great experience! How is the anti-cheat system going? ^^

  • HiradC
    Lord
    Insider

    No one likes being third partied in hourglass, but the takeaway they learned from arena was that maintaining a separate mode and being reliant on it to keep enough interest to warrant investing the time to maintain alongside main adventure has a much higher risk of backfiring. They have done that with safer seas but I think there was enough evidence of players planning to use that.

  • BurnBacon
    Vanguard
    Insider

    Time limit: don't let us battle for 45 min until someone runs out of cannonballs

    Or..dont miss your shots so much?

    Set a time limit to 25 min, the battleground could get smaller and smaller over time. No running for ages.

    Okie and the winner is determined by what factor?

    Open World / High Seas: i think it would be a great idea to split Hourglass and the High Seas into 2 completely different modes

    No.

    Not interrupting any WE and no players camping in a safe distance to kill u after your battle

    Players forget the purpose of HourGlass. Its not a Sub for Arena or replacement. Its for the players who hate sailing around the map looking for a like minded player who also wants to fight. Its Pvp on demand. that why it on Open World, once its over you can collect your winnings and maybe do that World Event that spawned up in the distance.

    But best part, Yes a third ship can come in. Just Like how it can happen without HG. Its not a 1v1 strictly.

    To start hourglass you need to raise the flag

    Do you? I dont recall this being a thing, Ive always started Hourglass without a flag

    collect resources

    Do you? I always started one with default resources

    vote 2 times and need to sail away.

    and? 9/10 people are at Port...the ground is VERY high and you cant dive. The whole two click vote is to make sure, "Are you sure you wanna dive" since players make mistakes (shocking I know)

  • BotoxBiene
    Seafarer
    Insider

    Or..dont miss your shots so much?

    What a productive answer. My point is about running.

    Okie and the winner is determined by what factor?

    Sinking the other ship? What do you think would happen if the circle shrinks and both ships are next to each other? Of course one will win and the other ship will sink.

    No.

    Another great answer. At least explain your point or don't mention this.

    Players forget the purpose of HourGlass. Its not a Sub for Arena or replacement. Its for the players who hate sailing around the map looking for a like minded player who also wants to fight. Its Pvp on demand. that why it on Open World, once its over you can collect your winnings and maybe do that World Event that spawned up in the distance.

    i can understand that.

    But best part, Yes a third ship can come in. Just Like how it can happen without HG. Its not a 1v1 strictly.

    since there are levels behind it and i spawn in a 1 v 1 face off, i would think otherwise. For me it should be a strict 1 v 1. Me suggesting changes and u saying it just is the way it is, is not helpful. You could say "I don't want / need it to be a strict 1 v 1".

    Do you? I dont recall this being a thing, Ive always started Hourglass without a flag

    If u want to get the best results in form of progression, yes.

    Do you? I always started one with default resources

    Yep, if i face of a crew with double or more the chain shots I'm in a disadvantage, so i want to collect some resources.

    and? 9/10 people are at Port...the ground is VERY high and you cant dive. The whole two click vote is to make sure, "Are you sure you wanna dive" since players make mistakes (shocking I know)

    If u sink, the whole loading into port and preparing the ship for the next battle takes to long in my opinion.

    You write like a very rude person (friendliest i can say this). Maybe u want to be more open and engage in a more friendly and productive way. We can agree or disagree on everything, but keep it nice. Thanks.

  • Shark1343
    Castaway

    I was just on the receiving end of, what honestly, felt like griefing in HG.

    I recently got back into SoT, hourglass is completely new to me. However, it's the only way to get the cool skeleton/ghost curses and that's motivation enough for me.

    It was just past 9 PDT, I queued up solo. I understood that whoever else was solo queuing HG this late was probably better than me but I wanted the curse, and I wanted to get better myself.

    As soon as I surfaced from the depths my opponent turned around completely. A full 180, sailing off as fast as they could.

    "Must be loss farming." I thought as he went further and further out of bounds. Only, even though he seemed to be almost half a kilometer out of bounds, it wasn't far enough. He turned around came back to just the edge of 'inbounds' and would only run away if I approached.

    This went on for 15 minutes. Then a brig showed up and only shot at me. Even in a 2v1 situation, my opponent never turned to get cannon angle on me. He only ever ran away. Fortunately for me the brig crew was incompetent and they crashed into a nearby inactive skelly fort. Their ship stuck between the island and one of the cannon towers, I managed to put a few holes in them and kill their cannon line. The brig sank, but some of the crew stayed at the island to use the cannons. Again, only on me.

    This 'fight' went on for over an hour and a half of my opponent simply running away. Often he went right out of bounds for quite some distance. He would even go far enough to circle around some big rocks or an island and come back before he was counted as forfeit.

    I could land shots, sure, but trying to maintain a cannon angle and stay close enough while I was by myself wasn't exactly easy. I had a plan to get on his ship and drive him out myself but he was hiding with his island cannon friends and any attempt to sneakily swim up were given away by my mermaid. He would again, just move his ship away.

    I could have just left. At any moment, I could have let him have what he wanted. It definitely would have been the sane thing for me to do. He was wasting both our time after all. But the idea of him doing this to other people didn't sit right with me.

    This person was inconsiderate and rude. I couldn't let them win.

    While this definitely felt like, "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes" I did manage to get on his ship after putting a couple of holes in it. Set a course for out of bounds, while my ship was safe and sound.

    I spawn camped him until it sank. My prize, the hollow satisfaction of beating this creature, a skull worth 300 gold, 10k from the hourglass 1 win, and 1 whole level of servant rep (from 6 to 7).

    Over an hour and a half...

    The SoT team at Rare doesn't seem to know what they are doing in terms of PVP game design. Probably why Arena failed too but that's a whole other issue.

    The Circle should shrink, absolutely.

    Being out of bounds should break your ship and damage you, like the shroud. It should also break faster the longer you are out there.

    I'd even be in favor of a sudden death mechanic kicking in after 10 minutes. Maybe something like you no longer can respawn or both ships just start breaking. I don't know.

    All I know, is my HG experience was completely awful and it would be an easy fix with just a few small changes.

  • Rotten Rocko
    Marauder
    Founder

    Yes please oh please can we introduce you something that stops people running away after every broadside or just stops people that will just run away and barely fire any cannons. As for the second point about separating HG for HS I'm not sure that will work because of what happened with arena, not against it, it's just arena died because they didn't want to keep pouring resources into something only a fraction of the player base played regularly. (Also I've got I think 3-4 commendations left tick off with servants that don't include miles sailed and then I was gonna start doing world events with HG up so Id still like to be able to do that lol. But that's just a personal reason along with the arena statement against that, and doesn't actually matter)

  • Look Behind You
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Moderator
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    Deckhand

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