Big Point??

Who is in charge at corporate? Do you understand common sense business practice?

Let me show you the math:

PS is a multiuser game.

1) Not enough players = Not reaching critical mass (e.g. even if someone does happens to log in, they don't stay because THERE IS NO ONE THERE TO PLAY AGAINST)

2) Mismatched arena = Not enough players sticking around to play (refer back to #1)

I did give your test server arena a chance, and you know what? It is just as bad for newbs as your regular game servers. I became a level 17, fully developed all of my scrolls (thanks, at least, for the 10 mil dias), put the best equipment on the eagle2 you provided (way prefer a piranha in arena, but I can't get that without skulls) and entered your "new" arena.

What I repeatedly ran into, worse than even when I was a newbie on euro1, were players that were way higher in both levels and power than I.

Think about it, will you? A newbie is NOT going to stick around after doing everything correctly and get repeatedly sunk in the arena. I was getting hit by players whose damage was 5-8 times what I was throwing out.

Oh and nice touch not even having arena insurance available to buy---after losing cannons I figured to heck with this and logged off.

You've had some really good suggestions posted in here but not a single response back from BP.

So here's a another suggestion for you: everyone has the same ship in 1v1 arena, make it a war brig or a dev. Every one has the same number and type of cannons, same ammo, no bloods, no extras--basically when a player logs in to play the combined server arena, they have the exact same tools as everyone else.

Match the players as to their game level--this will further match them per the Captain's orders. Scrolls maybe different, but if the levels are matched between players, the scroll achievements should be similar.

This will do two things: the players who win, will win by a combination of dumb luck and actual skill plus doing this will stop the domination from certain groups in 1v1.

 

Interesting idea, if i have all well understood
But if players don't have to use extras, means no diamonds spent to buy them, and lose of money for BP
Moreover, players use different ships in arena, for better gameplay (ahab, event ship, dow etc).

A match-making by level means:
- players having limited their lvl on purpose will be winner on new comers
- game is old, lot of players are lvl 50

A match-making by scrolls seams better.

A combined match-making by level/captain orders/scrolls seems the best, like in battlefield.

In conclusion, from my point of view:
- the whole idea is very good for testing new developments on server test (all players same ship, same items, same cannons etc)
- a combination of level of player/captain orders/scrolls for match-making in a PS global arena system/server.

Equally-full level players would meet according to their arena ranking to the week/season as it is already the case in the current arena system.

But BP needs here some better algorythm for match-making.
Most of arena pushing is made according to the current arena match-making, and players should meet in a more random mode.

I'm not programmer, IT engineer or developer, not my business, but all good MMO games based on pvp match-making have that....

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^I agree. Best is matching with scrolls/level/captain orders which will not only encourage money spent to achieve these as well as best ships, cannons/ammo, but will make it less spectacular when a new player is sunk after one shot. Nothing says screw this game to a new player than being sunk so quickly.

The arena is an awesome experience and part of this game, pity so few players can actually play it. The arena has become certain players' own little private Idaho.

(The idea for all having the same ships in the arena came from the test server, you are given an eagle2 to develop, all of the arena matches I had on the test server were from eagle2 ships).