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Hello devs, I was recently out hunting this weekend in my Niagara with my friend in a Belle Poule. Last night we came across a Rattvisan and sunk it. I did 10k damage and got ~550 xp; my Belle Poule friend got 11k damage and ~650xp. I was under the impression that higher BR differences between ships would yield greater XP rewards, and expected to get a lot more XP than the Belle Poule. Is there some sort of cap on the scaling? Thanks, Doug Maoz

Ans from HAN clan joined my side of a battle against 2 swedes. I originally thought this was to help me, but he had no intention of fighting the swedes and only joined to lock the BR, so my group members could not join my side of the battle and actually help. He originally pretends to 'help' but misses every shot, eventually he just puts his sails down and sits, providing zero assistance. He didn't shoot an enemy's hull even once, although they gave him clear shots. It is clear they knew he was working with them. Jump to these times just to see the intentional misses. 5:19 6:21 7:37 9:38 (links in video description) I would say this is as bad as sinking my boat in green on green, as I would not have lost the battle if he did not lock the BR. Also, I would have played the battle differently and run from the start, if I had known he would be of no help.

@admin I have the following suggestion to introduce a way to generate data for modeling a meaningful Battle Rating. Taking data from the logs you have now will result in a bad starting position for any iterative process, whether it is applied by hand or automated. It will require many iterations to get to a stable solution. The reason for this is, the fact that you have (if I understand it correctly) data that encompasses different phases of the game with several buffs and nerfs along the way. This would at least explain why the Wasa has the same BR as the Bellona, despite being worse in every aspect except for a light advantage in turning rate and a negligibly better sailing profile. Also ships not being used does not mean they are weak (e.g. the Agamemnon,) there are just better alternatives that are as easy to obtain (why sail an Aggy if you can afford and crew a Bellona?) My suggestion is as follows: Create a build of a battle instance. Load one AI ship on both sides, with equivalent starting postions (eg. facing each other at a beam reach). Pair each ship with every other ship. Run the battle as often as you can, considering resources, for every pairing. This will create a set of data that shows each ships relative performance without taking into account different skill levels and knowledge stuff or fleet composition etc.. Use this ranking as a base for a BR order, which can be adjusted on data that will be accumulated from then on. You will get a starting point for the proess that resembles the current situation without the many tunings of the past. EDIT: This post is solely about the way that data is acquired, not about how it is used to calculate BR!

Dear @admin, in the current state of the game it's slowly becoming impossible to find a somewhat fair fight when sailing alone or in a small group (eg. up to 4 players). By somehow fair I mean a battle of up to 1 vs 4, where there's at least some chance of sinking one of the enemies. Battles in reinforcement zones most often are eg. 6-8 vs 1. During patrols small group is usually obliterated by a larger group warping in on 1st rates. There's no chance to find an even fight outside of the zone and patrol events, and RvR is too time consuming (boring AI fights) to get a fight, which is not certain you'll get. You also need a group of 7-10 players to efficeintly grind hostility. I think it's critical now to fix a patrol zone for it to be what it ment to be - a chance to fight, where both sides agree they want to fight. Without fixing ganks, this goal is not met. The best and most comprehensive fix would be a BR limit, so that everyone can be reinforced up to 1.5 BR of an enemy (this parameter can be also tuned with time). It means that reinforcements still matter and put you in a disadvantage, but we would avoid a situation where you don't have a chance to sink any of the enemies due to his reinforcements.

Ok, so the loss-induced propensity to bring big ships, friends and pile on the winning side has cast a shadow over the patrol missions. BR limits will help and maybe even fix it? The intention of the patrol missions is that players should feel free to bring an un-modded and cheap ship, do as best they can, sink but get enough rewards to make them not care about their loss. The big groups of big ships piling on makes it hard for smaller ships to do enough damage to farm rewards, at least enough to make the experience equally frustrating to a normal gank anywhere in the OW. Sandboxers love to gank. They will tell you they love their freedom, role-playing, war-game or “playing it smart”, but they simply love to gank. Even reasonable guys are quickly turned to the dark side when the lizard brain kicks in and tries to avoid loss at all cost, yes, even to the point of having less fun. There may be something we can do to counteract this, or give the lizard brain something else to knee-jerk to. We’ve talked about this loosely in the past but it’s never been tried: BR based multipliers. We could have variable multipliers applied to xp, cash, marks, damage or all of them but for the purpose of patrol missions I guess most players are grinding the damage thresholds. The idea is to let the gankee get something from it while at the same time making ganking a truly inefficient way of farming rewards. Let’s start with an example where one ship is ganked by three ships and two late joiners come in to, um, secure the win. As it is today all damage is logged for all ships and rewards are based upon said logged damage. In my illustration the B-C-D gankers know they will have to share the damage but one of them is getting the kill rewards and it will be over quickly enough for them to go find a new victim. The victim will struggle to do enough damage to make it feel worth it, he will soon lose the ship, get sent back to port to buy a new ship, guns and repairs. Let’s say we put a tag on all incoming damage. Ship A would have damage tags from ships B, C and D. The gankers would only have damage tag from ship A. Then we could make damage or reward multipliers based on those tags: A multiplier: sum(BR-B, BR-C, BR-D)/BR-A = 450/200 = 2.25 B, C and D multiplier: sum(BRtags)/BR-B = 200/150 = 1.33 Notice how the gankers are even being rewarded for ganking in lower BR ships than their victim. It’s even possible to actively pulverize the gankers rewards by using the tags to indentify the gank, but it would get more complicated and I suspect it’s enough to give the victim a consolation price. The late joiners, though inside the battle instance, don’t factor in as they didn’t get close enough to put a damage tag on the victim. If they did get some damage in they would get precious little for it while bolstering the victim’s multiplier: 1050/200 = 5.25. If you want to enjoy your freedom and gank the shit out of people like a true sandboxer you can go ahead until blue in the face, but you will let the victim run off with all the rewards. If you are motivated by rewards you’ll have a strong tendency to join the outnumbered side to get damage done and farm those damage tags.

@adminAt the port battle of Salamanca we sailed in our PB fleet of first and second rates and me as the mortar brig. We were all in the same battle group to up our BR to more then 10000. While sailing through the screeners several 1st rates got tagged but nothing happened, however when i in the mortar brig was tagged i was dragged in to a battle together with another of our screening groups. None of the people in my battle group got dragged in. I also did an F11

Base stats of ship 1) Broadside Weight- 765lb/880 Speed- 12.3 kt Turn Rate- 2.46 Side HP- 6500 Side Thickness- 68 Base Stats of Ship 2) Broadside Weight- 669pd/876pd Speed- 12.0 kt Turn Rate- 2.34 Side HP- 6525 Side Thickness- 71 Between these 2 ships, what should have the higher BR, or should they be the same?

Several topics are questioning the applicable Battle Rates. Many parameters changed, being adjusted in patches, the apparition of new ships modified choices, etc. I’m trying here to give an hand for calculation of “new” Battle Rates, from these new parameters. Forgive me, but this message will be quite long and filed with a lot of formulas. Those who prefer to skip can directly go to conclusion. What is the Battle Rate? (in this proposal) The Battle Rate (BR) has several components: Attack Rate (AR), ability to make damages to the enemy Defensive Rate (DR), ability to sustain damages from the enemy Chasing Rate (CR), ability to tag using bow chasers without changing route Retreat Rate (RR), ability to fight in retreat using stern chasers without changing route Transport Rate (TR), ability to transport a lot of cargo, guns and repairs (with little impact on performances). These components don’t have the same importance, and coefficients will be applied to limit AR to 350, DR to 175, CR and RR to 100, TR to 50. And at the end BR= AR + DR + CR + RR + TR. Attack Rate (AR) Let’s consider that a ship is good for making damages if it has a good broadside, a good speed for coming on range, a good turn Rate. The broadside weight used here will be the canon broadside weight, considering this weapon as the most used by players. The Broadside Weight is squared because louder it is, shorter will be the fight, limiting the effect of enemy broadside. AttackRate= BroadsideWeight * BroadsideWeight * Speed * TurnRate / 143536 The coefficient 143536 comes to limit the biggest AR (Santisima) to 350. Undercrew factor for Trader Lynx, Trader Cutter, Trader Brig and Trader Snow reduce the rate of fire, reason why the AR for these ships is devided by 3 compared to others. Defense Rate (AR) Let’s consider that a ship is good for sustaining or avoiding damages if it has a good structure, a good armor, a good speed for coming off range and a good turn Rate to angle enemy shots. DefenseRate= SideStructure * SideArmor * Speed * TurnRate / 116492 The coefficient 116492 comes to limit the biggest DR (L’Ocean) to 175. Chasing Rate (CR) Let’s consider that a ship is good for tagging with bow chasers if it has a good bow chaser weight and a good speed for catching the enemy ship. ChasingRate= BowChaserWeight * Speed / 6.642 The coefficient 6.642 comes to limit the biggest CR (Wasa) to 100. Retreat Rate (RR) Let’s consider that a ship is good for retreating being protected by stern chasers if it has a good stern chaser weight and a good speed for escaping from the enemy ship. RetreatRate= SternChaserWeight * Speed / 4.957 The coefficient 4.957 comes to limit the biggest RR (Endymion) to 100. Transport Rate (TR) Let’s consider that a ship is good for transport if it has a good cargo capacity and a good speed. TranportRate= CargoCapacity * Speed / 928 The coefficient 928 comes to limit the biggest TR (Indiaman) to 50. Proposition for a new BR: This gives the same min/max rates than previously (BR 30 for Lynx, BR 650 for Santi), but this is I think more balanced: Lynx: BR 30 Cutter: BR 30 Privateer: BR 30 Pickle: BR 50 Brig: BR 80 Prince de Neufchatel: BR 110 Snow: BR 80 Navy Brig: BR 90 Rattlesnake Heavy: BR 90 Mercury: BR 70 Mortar Brig: BR 60 Niagara: BR 100 Cerberus: BR 120 Renommee: BR 130 Surprise: BR 170 Hermione: BR 150 Frigate: BR 140 Belle Poule: BR 120 Pirate Frigate: BR 160 Essex: BR 130 Trincomalee: BR 180 Endymion: BR 260 Indefatigable: BR 210 Constitution: BR 340 Agamemnon: BR 290 Ingermanland: BR 240 Wasa: BR 450 Wapen von Hamburg III: BR 290 3rd Rate: BR 240 Bellona: BR 380 St. Pavel: BR 410 Bucentaure: BR 460 Victory: BR 530 L'Ocean: BR 640 Santisima: BR 650 Rookie Snow: BR 10 Rookie Brig: BR 10 Rattlesnake: BR 70 Gun Boat: BR 60 Yacht: BR 30 Santa Cecilia: BR 170 Traders Lynx: BR 40 Traders Cutter: BR 30 Traders Brig: BR 100 Traders Snow: BR 80 Le Gros Ventre: BR 100 Indiaman: BR 170 Basic Cutter: BR 30 Remarks: Some results are unexpected. Among which, I propose an improvement of performance for the Belle Poule (confirmed here why it is so few used by players), Same for Essex. The 4th rate Wasa is better than the 3rd Rate Bellona. The Prince de Neufchatel seems to be over performing too. Something should be done for more differences between Trader Brig and Le Gros Ventre. Hope this will help and not hurt anybody’s favorite ships. This are just calculating figures which don’t take into account human factor. Artificial Intelligence is in development but not yet the Artificial Emotions! The Excel File is given in attachment, for those who want to make their own opinion. New BR.xlsm

At the moment open world battles are locked at the start to not exceed the higher battle rating. I am proposing a change that BOTH sides of the battle can escalate the battle to 1.5 times the lower br continuously This allows the battle to escalate from 300 vs 300 to a battle of 2000 vs 2000. Allowing each side to recieve reinforcements once they have lower BR. This allows the fight to stay competitive and involve more ppl and even discourages outright ganking. Any suggestions to build on this ides pls share

A player in a gunboat tried to attack my trader and it said that he couldn't initiate combat because BR difference was too high. What is the BR difference that prevents combats? When can I attack larger group (to pull them to battle) and when will ti fail? EDIT: typos. Dyslexia ftw.

This is a suggestion against ganking and to increase low risk/gain ratio in uneven PvP situations to create more incentive to fight instead of running away in different ad-hoc OS fight scenarios. If a battle rating system to enter instances, like the group strength in PotBS, might be added or not, is irrelevant for this concept. Here the battle ratings are being used to dynamicly adjust the XP and gold gain in various OS PvP fights. Dynamic PvP Reward System: After the battle is closed, the battle ratings for both sides are being used to calculate an extra PvP loot factor according to the BR ratio (Battle Rating) both for XP and gold. Lets say you are in a 3v1 battle and battle ratings are 200 for the attacker and 100 for the defender (one ship). The lonely ship might have a slight chance to sink enemy ship(s), but usualy this risk won't be taken by the majority of players. However, according to the extra loot factor introduced here, whatever damage he does, he could get double XP and gold for his efforts due to the fighting in an outnumbered and outgunned situation. On the otherside of the coin, each player of the ganking side would recieve half of the XP and gold compared to if they would sink the same ship in an even fight. To sum up, in a 200/100 ratio battle, this concept means double XP and gold for the defender and 0,5x less XP and for both attackers. PvP Loot Factor = BR of your team / BR of opposing team Final XP/Gold = Current Loot Gain / PvP Loot Factor Different scenarios can be seen from the table/graph. This could be enough incentive to demote the ganking, however, if the ganking still occurs, this would also give the ganked side a reason to fight back despite the fact being outnumbered and outgunned. An example for the realization of similar concept, the Microsoft Gaming Zone used to have similar rating system for many years, for instance in the legendary Age of Empires series matchmaking. The proposed loot balancing/stabilizing concept according to battle ratings would be a nice feature for the good of the game. Poll removed by mod team for being non-essential to the discussion.

I already mentioned this in the thread for feedback of the current progression. Change the BR of the Renommee to 100. Quoted from the topic: Now I know this might not be the final progression system but it really felt like this needed some attention.

The lethality of each ship can vary greatly dependent on Rate, Type, Quality, Number of upgrades, Quality of upgrades and Rank of commander (Crew on board) Observation. A basic fir 74Bellona with 1 common upgrade slot and Flag Captain with 69% crew is NOT the same BR as an Exceptional Live oak 74Bellona with 5 upgrade slots all exceptional and a Commodore with full crew. Will the end game allow for such variations in deciding the BR of each ship or will all ships continue with the set single BR rating.