Apologies if similar to a post I created several months ago but once again I feel that offline raiding is just killing the game.
The server I’ve been playing on is more or less dead (after a cheater/hacker came thru and wiped most folks — offline). To “spice things up” I decided to revisit a server I had a toon on that still had a good size population. Sure enough, after building a decent T2 base, some solo player offline raided it the one night I was away and more or less completely destroyed it (can’t imagine the number of bombs they used). The only saving grace was that there was quite literally nothing worth taking from that base… I will say with the recent rampant duping, I can’t help but wonder if said raider didn’t have to worry about wasting a large amount of bombs…
At this point, with offline raid protection not implemented, I see the following options: be online EVERY night of the week watching your base (not fun), stick with mostly dead servers (boring once you’ve built up), or be prepared to be constantly raided. The problem with the few number of official servers with decent pops is that they seem to attract the remaining “trolls”.
Anyway… once again I wish FC would just implement offline protection on at least a small number of PVP servers.
I’d say that duped bombs MAY still be in some clans stores, but they dwindle quickly. Add also that many who duped an were caught were summarily suspended. They’d have to get friends or alts to access the duped bombs. More than likely duped bombs changed hands with those who raided their last standing stores/popped leftover chests and vaults.
The servers are what, x8 gather rates at the moment? You can have full production and ready to raid with a small amount of bombs in less than a day. I’d say this is the most likely scenario that is happening.
Of course offline raiding is opportunist. Player vs. structure. I can appreciate offline raiding a cheater clan if the opportunity presents itself, surely.
But at the present state of the game, really your only option is to be online, prepared to defend and fight and hope you cut them off from their supply - kill their bomber, counter raid their vault and have a plan B to get out with the most important stuff.
Get clan mates, take turns watching or be present, for now. Be ok with loss and big tip, don’t build in T2 on an official pvp server, it’s a HUGE waste of time. T1 then aim for T3 immediately.
Consider hiding if you can’t get the members and be online.
I agree with you, offline raiding is an issue but it is not killing the game. I believe that if they implemented dynamic building damage it would help to alleviate problems for casuals and solos as the most affected. Also allow clans to take a breather and not feel it necessary to sacrifice their family and personal time to ensure they’re there “in case”.
Yeah good point about it maybe not being a dupe (just easy to farm). The person probably just non-stop farms bombs and hits new players.
As for the lack of offline protection, I agree that is just requires too much time to protect your base and thus not fun… I’ve been part of large clans but over time folks just get tired of the non-stop watching and rebuilding of bases and either quit playing or move on to quiet servers.
I’ve learned that if you want to survive with a bigger clan on PVP, being passive is not an option. You have to be willing to raid people to assert some dominance; keeping up your stores, demoralizing opponents, cutting them off from their ill begotten gains XD Of course, choose your targets wisely. You don’t know who has more game sense as it is easy to pretend to be the “noob” or what alliances were developed. Plus, being willing to accept the consequences of your actions.
I’m saying this from a perspective of healthy PVP servers, keep this in mind. I don’t believe in server wiping and I’m not into raiding sandstone noobs. But we all accept that people can raid and kill you regardless of their reasoning by choosing to play in this mode. Some just like to watch the world burn right.
Checking logs if you’re out and pull your bracelet right away, having repair chests with mats and tools ready, ensuring your spawn point is not easily accessible, be willing to use the game mechanics to your advantage to defend or kill them outright, find their bedrolls, etc.,… obviously multiple layers, contingency plans, considerations.
Funcom has communicated that they’re not enabling the now properly working dynamic building damage system for Officials… it sucks. But maybe there are other things in the pipeline; V-Rising’s system is a great example that deals with land claim, decay and offlining.
I’m going to go ahead and get my personal opinion out of the way so people don’t try to use an assumption (which tends to happen in these sorts of discussion). I think offline raiding is a cancer and never bothered to play on a server that allowed for it. When I PVP its with online raiding only, so everytime I’ve raided someone, its with them online, and vice versa.
With that said. Official PVP have been offline raiding servers for five years. They’re not killing the game. They’re not driving away players. They are a place where people who like that playstyle have a place to do their thing.
It is not wrong for them to enjoy an aspect of the game that -I- do not. What potentially might be wrong is taking away a playstyle someone has enjoyed for five years.
Again I believe offline protection should have been something the game had not only in release, but also in early beta. FC decided to not include it until much later. They also decided to only develop offline protection for non-official servers.
Any bugs have been fixed involved with it. And thus FC has a tool that they have developed and decided it is not a fit for the servers they wish to provide. Official PVP are offline raiding servers by choice, by design, and by intent.
Let me rephrase that. Official PVP is intended to be played with offline raiding as part of their concept. You are to be able to offline raid and be offline raided. This is not an oversight, this is not a mistake. This is Intentional design. That is the type of server they wish to provide.
Again there is players who do enjoy offline raiding. They do it. When you login naked in the desert and your belongings stolen. Someone enjoyed that. Likely few people did. Why should they lose that experience just because -we- don’t like it?
Actually I love real PVP (and don’t mind when I lose in an actual fight). I’m just tired of the offline shit i.e. you don’t log in for one night and everything gone — that isn’t fun…
Good points but I’d argue that based on the current state of official servers (most are dead or near dead) maybe time to have some of the offiicial servers with the offline protection enabled to see if those do become more popular.
Lots of good points here. Personally I think offline raiding is OK in principle. More options and ways of playing are better than less. If you’re in a war scenario, it makes sense to attack your enemy’s fortress when they’re not home or poorly defended. Takng away that option makes the game more gamey and lowers the stakes.
The problem is with restraint. If people offline raided but just blew a simple hole, went in and popped some chests and stole the loot - that’d be fine if everyone was playing that way. But some people don’t do that, they bring hundreds of bombs and completely level your base, because they can. I’ve been playing official PVP for four years now and this has always been the problem in my eyes. People need to raid, not wipe.
Either it has to be firmly part of the culture to raid with restraint, or it needs to be coded into the game somehow. Just spitballing here, but maybe if only placeables could be damaged when the owner was offline, then doors and exposed chests could be blown up, but if you want to breach walls the owner has to be online? I’m not sure if that could be possible to do though I am not a programmer.
I definitiely think it’s worth a try. But as for the server pop… since the merger there seem to be a couple of servers in each region that are high pop and the rest low. Before the server merge there were about the same number of high pop servers but way more servers with 0-2 people online. Maybe the people who want to PVP in a high pop environment are all already on the high pop servers? If that’s the case then only drastically cutting servers would make a difference. And all it might achieve is forcing the people who like playing on low pop servers to choose 40/40 or stop playing.
Which ones are dead? Is there any server that actually empty of buildings? I doubt there is. There is an epidemic of low activity servers for sure. But for an offline raiding server, isn’t that to be expected? You login, you farm, you build up against the potential raiding. Then login and do it again.
If you’re being raided, someone is playing even actively. Now if there was a server with under a dozen active players and nothing happens day to day. Like even offline raiding stopped. Then you’d have a good culprit for mergers and then use the stack after for a new server with a new rule type.
But out of all the servers labeled as PVP official, I don’t see any of them where even offline raiding isn’t happening. If you do, by all means let everyone know which ones.
What do you mean, I was raided two days ago! And I online raided someone last week. I’m on a US PS4 official PVP server and buildings get bombed daily. I was killed by a player in Sepermeru just this morning.
Here’s an idea (and I apologize as it’s not my style )
BE LOUDER!!
That seems to get results, I mean 5 people whined about the katana and it’s getting nerfed! Why can’t more PvP players show up to demand offline protection? Show Funcom your numbers!
I do not think that offline raiding should be banned, but I think that the raid time should be three hours, not five. Or maybe even 2 hours. A short raid time would give people the opportunity to play it all, and meet the enemy more often than just waiting for someone to leave the game.
good luck raiding someone with a proper built base in 2-3 hours if they are online then. You kinda asking for people to offline raid with 2-3 hours raidtime lol.
I do not need luck, if we are stronger we raid just about 1.5 - 2 hours, if you do not get for this time is not this time. But when they run for 5 hours just waiting for the enemy to go to bed because he has to work tomorrow - complete nonsense, not pvp.
Well that’s intended… all you’d need to do if you don’t want to be offlined is keep chests behind walls instead of doors.
I’ll tell you all a secret: I want people to raid me, so that we have an excuse to go to war. What I don’t like is when a raid = total destruction and days of solid play to get back to where I was.
This way you could have stuff you don’t care about behind doors, and when someone offlines you that’s all they get. Well, that plus a war. If someone wants to get your actual good stuff, or wipe you and make you quit, they have to online raid you.
Anyway it’s just an idea. A sort of alternative to the banking system someone proposed a while ago. I really think the biggest cause of hurt feelings and rage quits in PVP is that we can’t protect our best stuff when we’re offline.
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