Zezo forum:

Post by UR2L8 | 2018-06-21 | 17:18:45

I really hate VR now...

I have a course that looks fine. Fixed heading, not fixed TWA.
I steere free from Islands, zoom in max on my laptop, to be sure.
Everything looks fine. A little close but should be fine... until the game tells me I run aground... So I get free the next minute. The interface shows how my boat moved away from the island. Perfect. Didn't loose too much. So I am about to do some other stuff, when I receive a warning on my mail, that I run aground. I don't think much about it.
Surely the message must have been delayed.

But then I check again on my laptop and, what... My boat has been moved back to where it run aground. It was moved back! Seriously??!!
This is so utterly stupid that I have no words. Who came up with such a lousy interface?

27 Comments

Post by toxcct | 2018-06-21 | 17:38:57

yup. This is what happens when the Client side tries to move your boat without clearance from server position, and then when getting back in sync, moves you back to where you actually are...

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-06-21 | 17:45:40

same happened to me. refresh the game, steer around the cliff to TWA49 only to be moved a minute later. luckily downwards this time, so only a few meters too much sailing.

have only 4 WP's and want to save them for when I need them more. Credits spent on options and true NMS sailor

Post by Stormbringer | 2018-06-22 | 01:31:17

I have a related issue I think, although thankfully without running aground.

I was watching the rounding of the southern tip of Samso closely. I had programming set up to skim across the edge of the island, but when it came time to round up the client sent me another full boat length (at full zoom) past the layline. If you look at my track, I'm a full boatlength overstood compared to everyone else. I was rounding up in the first wave, I should have been top 50 and I end up around 400.

But the cherry on top was a minute or so after I tacked back for the other side of the island. I watched the client drag me backwards by about a minute's worth of progress, which at the 20+ knots we were running was substantial.

I fought hard on the first leg of this race to get south and leeward, I was probably a length or so ahead of the typical frontrunners. I feel like I got fucked.

Anyone?

Post by MissAdventure | 2018-06-22 | 04:39:40

Similar thing happened to me just now going round the northern tip of Denmark....I had a nice tight line programmed, but it moved me north by about a boat length and at an angle about 45deg to the land, just as I was about to line up parallel to the land as programmed. It was basically all hell let loose for a few cycles - I didn't know if I was still skimming along the land due westerly, or much higher than the land and therefore needed to let er rip faster south to the next tip. I lost some nms there in my new cute route. I really don't know what caused it.

Post by MissAdventure | 2018-06-22 | 04:41:26

I was watching very very closely, as I was worried about hitting land. My coordinates on the game blinked a few times, and it was almost as if I HAD hit land and the server angled me up to avoid it. Despite my programmed route.

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-06-22 | 07:10:40

exactly the same shit for me at the same locations with more or less similar positions. VR sucks and we have to deal with it, because they aren't. I already predicted it with the crosshair around the center pxel of your boat. people take more risk and therefore will run into this crappy behaviour much more often

Post by UR2L8 | 2018-06-22 | 06:59:39

My gosh
Again I run aground (my fault this time, because I simply overslept).
I turned the boat 180 degrees. Let it run until a minute pass and the client updates. I turn it around and makes sure the course if free from land with some margin.
The client updates and also the dashboard. Both looks ok. I set the course with fixed TWA and am about to close down the laptop when I receive a mail that I am aground...

The client shows my being moved back to the aground position... Again...!!! So utterly stupid and annoying.

Post by Stormbringer | 2018-06-22 | 10:27:43

I think it has something to do with the added .5 mile map resolution. When you program a course change the boat now sits on the dot for a minute before turning. It used to be the boat would hit the dot, turn and then sit. It looks as if the server continues to send the boat on the previous course for the minute the boat is sitting on the dot.

I'm wondering if you could program your course change 1 minute early to compensate. I'm going to experiment in the Atlantic record map to see if this works.

Post by lbl | 2018-06-22 | 13:35:32

Same here, route setup precisely around the corner, yet early morning I got "aground" message. That was not something I set in one minute and hit the ground in next - this could be well explained by server/client not fully in sync. In fact, I set the route in the evening and checked it several times afterwards - everything looked fine but... Are the VR guys running out of Server computing capacity or what is going on there?? When you pay for the full pack, you do not want these things to happen. Very stupid and very customer un-friendly

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-06-22 | 17:05:00

also when you don't pay the full pack and wake up a few times in the night, you don't want this to happen. it is a crap game interface

Post by natto | 2018-06-22 | 17:51:16

I also got hit with waypoint bug rounding Southern tip of Samso. Boat hit the dot and did change course and appeared clear of land at which point I proceed to make a slight course change (47 to 46 TWA) at which point at next iteration my boat moved backwards back around corner and I got a grounded message.

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-06-22 | 18:39:01

very familiar bug report. however VR and the Jessicabot don't do anything about it

Post by Flying Dutchman1 | 2018-06-22 | 19:53:30

Same happend to me natto......also samso grounding....did put me far behind while I was well underway for top 50..........
And when I thought I was clear I run aground again.....and lost all my waypoints I had set......

Post by Lasse | 2018-06-22 | 23:14:48

I programmed my way around Denmark with waypoints. Worked fine for me. I don't understand your problems. I have used waypoints many times in different races and have not had any problems ever. I know that setting waypoints to close to eachother or to close to where you are can bring problems so I have been very careful not to do that.

Fair winds to you all!

/Lasse

Post by zezo | 2018-06-25 | 21:12:09

It's probably the already suggested problem of editing waypoints while one of them was reached. Not a very good design of the client-server tranascion.

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-06-25 | 21:15:09

for NMS players, waypoints are scarce and valuable. so we try to safe the by shitfing them. because cost is incremental, you already need 15 WP-cards to program just 5 WP's in a row.

Post by mcmgj | 2018-06-27 | 16:19:02

When you use many Waypoints, you make a chain between them. When you move one of them, you send all chain to server, At this moment first waypoint MUST be out of active iteration, if this first waypoint moves, her position is pushed out 10 minutes range, if first waypoint doesn't move, her position will be valid only for the next iteration. !!!
This, can explain some aground

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-06-27 | 21:31:59

quite a clear answer, thanks. makes sense.

only question is why VR doesn't document that and reply it to support calls?

and yes, that's a retorical question ;)

Post by marcusbelgicus | 2018-06-27 | 21:56:13

Because they still need to understand what the word 'customer' means. It happens often with companies that are dominant on a market with small competition. They just think they are the best and are arrogant... and forget about the customer. This is usually not sustainable situation.

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-06-27 | 22:29:02

Is there any serious competion in virtual sailing regatta's? I mean is there a candidate to provide virtual regatta services for the next volvo ocean race?

Post by nsp | 2018-06-28 | 01:16:29

Totally agre with you Marc!

But hey even with the number of players going down from race/leg to race/leg they don't seem to care...so what more can we do?...

Sad...

Post by YourMomSA | 2018-06-28 | 02:24:08

I believe they get a huge number of one-time (or few-time) customers. Huge. In proportion to the number of serious long-term users. I could be wrong, but that's my belief. You get a big-name event, and then some promotional stuff goes out to the fans and they sign up and hundreds-to-thousands pay for credits or full packs, and then the serious players crush them (including some of the serious non-paying customers), but they don't mind because they're beginners and didn't expect to do well.

IF and only if I'm right about that... then the business model makes sense, much to the consternation of the serious players. They keep staffing and costs relatively low by making the game outstanding from the perspective from a newby player, without investing into the work required to make the game perfect from the perspective of the most serious players. If they have the right deals with the major players (like VOR, Clipper, and Vendee), and they work the marketing end of things well, then they don't have to cater to the 100-300 really serious players. They just need to keep the 500-3,000 paying newbies coming. Much more profitable that way, whether we like it or not.

An additional benefit for them is that causes top players to quit, giving mid-level players the chance to say "wow, I'm up to 80th and 6 of the top 10 just quit. If I keep going, I might be #1 one day!" and then those folks start doing every race at significant accumulated expense. That's where I was about 2 years ago. There were players then that were, no doubt, way better than me at the time. I don't know if I'm better now than they were then or not. No way to tell because they disappeared. And several top players (Toppen/Ventus Mare, Mangina, Marcusbelgicus, etc) have announced their intent to quit after Clipper and VOR, giving many players presently ranked in the top 100 more reason to keep paying, especially if I quit too. (I've been very indecisive about it... I'm often not having fun anymore, but am clearly addicted). On the other hand, if they perfected the game, fewer top players would ever get sick of the problems and quit, so players ranked in the 60s would look at it as hopeless and never fully commit to paying for full packs race after race, etc. So it actually makes some sense from a business perspective to not cater to the small minority of extremely serious players. (Although this could be mitigated by changing the VSR scoring system to be less cumulative, and I'd be fine with that).

Anyway... Part of being one of the top players is accepting the flaws and soldiering on as best you can, never getting angry enough to blow a race completely or quit. It's very difficult to do. I believe that's actually harder than winning races when nothing goes wrong.

(And... in some ways... that isn't entirely unrealistic... In real races, sometimes you have unexpected breakage despite your best efforts, or your crew gets drunk or no-shows, or you mysteriously have to race with a brutal hangover... and you do the best you can... so maybe think of VR as your alcoholic navigator or the disease-ridden bowman you had to bail out at 3 AM, or as the shackle that has been reliable for you for years and decides to let go in a critical national championship event, which happened to me recently. I hate the VR "c'est la vie" attitude when they could improve things... but the reality is that you hit "c'est la vie" moments in real races too)

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-06-28 | 06:36:36

thank you for your valuable views again YMSA!

I've also started telling people that the bugs, flaws and crappy game interface (especially for NMS with the everlasting WP-shortage) is part of the game. Indeed just like mechanical, wind or crew failures. Sometimes I get really really angry and even take it out on Jessica(bot). In order to perform top50 or top 100 as NMS, so with all options saved from several races and without enough nav-cards, you have to wake-up several times a night for manual steering, knowing that you will loose on all full pack players, because you have to make extra distance taking safety margins. Very frustraing when all that effort goes down the drain again because the crappy game interface rendering manual steering impossible.

In marketing you always learn that costs more money to get a new customers (fees to VOR, Clipper, Vendee, etc) than to keep them. I think that counts herre as well. A top 20 VSR player has to spend like 500 or more euro's per year to get there and stay there. Newbies will play maybe 5 to 10 race anyway and some may stick around for a very long time if the playability of the game was better. So with the crap game interface and customer support they loose revenue.

on ranking:
in our NMS group on facebook, we have ranking: https://goo.gl/LekSXM where the 2018 ranking was cast in concrete after three/four months. Therefor we introduced something with a moving average and weighing older races less. We have it short term (10 races) so new players can (and will) become number 1 within three months. In VR that would be short, but weighing races between 1 and 2 jears old for 50% would be great. Races older than 2 your don't count. So a very good new player can reach number 1 spot in max. two years.

I've accumulated 21719 VSR points since starting in in november, so 8 months playing all races NMS (so not the Loic Peron money puller). Extrapolating means I will reach VSR 14 in 10 months. Would I have paid all options all races, probably would have had 30%/50% more VSR points costing 33 x 15 = 495 eur. If the game and support would have been better, I might have spend a full pack every once in a while. Maybe just to see, where I could end up racing in true OneDesign.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/VR.NMS

Post by YourMomSA | 2018-06-28 | 13:20:51

In VRO2, the VSR points were cut in half a year after each race, and then disappeared after two years. I think they'll probably make an adjustment at some point, unless all of the top players are quitting often enough that no one ever runs up a score of 200,000.

Post by Stormbringer | 2018-06-28 | 17:45:03

Mom is probably correct about the numbers for VR. A splashy regatta presence to grab new players generates more revenue and carries less overhead than better game functionality to keep older ones.

The ranking system should be changed so that earned VR points are only one component of the formula, similar to professional tennis or golf. Right now it's just cumulative which is idiotic, no one will pass Mom until he decides to quit.

FWIW I am going to stay with it until I get a world ranking and then re-evaluate, maybe someone over there will get their head out of their ass by then.

Post by BGSteMarine | 2018-06-28 | 22:03:09

Hi, fully agree with you that the VSR system need to be adjusted and not stay purely cumulative.
The VR2 system, as described by YMSA was quite good I think (100% for last 12 months, 50% between 12 and 24 months, 0% older that 24 months).
If they decided to keep that, they will have to deal with one specific point :
What to do with the initial points allocation (51000 for VSR 14, 40000 for VSR 13, 25000 for VSR 12, ...). One solution could be to cut this allocation by half after one year, as if it was a "race #0".
If they do that, which could be a good idea, they would also need to readjust the floor level for each VSR Level (50000 points for VSR 14, 30000 for VSR 13, 20000 for VSR 12, ...).
If they don't do that, the number of players in each VSR level will fall dramatically ! For example, for Top VSR (Level 14), if you substract 25500 points (the initial 51000 points divided by 2), you need to have today more than 75 500 points to keep more than 50 000 points, and today, we only have 51 players who have more that 75500 points !
I have not figured yet what would be a "fair rule" for the new VSR floor level. Hope VR will select something smart ;-)

Post by Stormbringer | 2018-06-29 | 17:20:42

Yes that or some sort of variation on that would work. Grandfather all existing players at their current level for 6 months or something, after that it's all equal going forward.

World ranking is probably pushing 1000 players at this point, which dilutes the accomplishment anyway.