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  1. OK I get it. Devs don't want international cooperation in Port Battles on Peace Server. Either it is a holy cow that PB should only allow nationals and their befriended clans, or it's the standard argument "but the alts" which ruin the idea. We have stressed often enough the fate of small nations or small clans, or the combination of both (sic!) namely Poland, Russia, Prussia, when they cannot defend against 21 neutral ships attacking their ports, if... IF THEY EVER WERE ABLE TO CONQUER ONE AT ALL, in the first place. So we are reduced to small numbers in PB. But what about the attacking NE fleet [raiders], could they not be stopped in open world? - Nice try. I have done the effort and positioned myself next to a port owned by national AI which was to be attacked by NE attack fleet. We saw nobody coming. Suddenly at the appointed time, the crossed swords appeared in front of port and the battle was (mathematically) waging: 21 attackers versus zero defenders (!). Suppose the same come when this port would be in human hands. What will Poles do, when they have maybe 5 people of various rank available, if at all? But there is a solution. Or at least a hope. This suggestion. It's rather simple. I don't think big deal in programming but would be so much help. We know from PvP War Server Port Battles the custom of setting up a screen fleet which tries to take out as many attackers as possible before they reach the port. Often this is done by befriended nations or at least some befriended clans in other nations who sent an auxiliary force. Nice. But why not the same on PvE Peace Server? You don't allow us international cooperation in Port Battles, so allow us international cooperation in screen! For this you have only to change one thing: don't let NE attackers miraculously spawn in one math calculation at port, but let them spawn physically at some distance from port in OW and let them sail to their destination, so any players can attack them. Yes, any player. Defender nation or international supporters they have summoned. Like it is possible in any OW battle. Fact that NE are neutrals even does not exclude a single faction. So allied forces do the screen battle and what comes through nevertheless the national defenders in Port Battle will have to deal with. Problem solved. Theoretically now EVERY LITTLE NATION or clans without friends can defend their ports, asking other nationals for help. If all will be coming, is another question. Leave that to diplomacy.
  2. Port battles for today seem to be wiped. Nothing on "Conquest Information"
  3. We have had a number of mechanics to manage port battles in the past, all of them with various positives and negatives. The current iteration moves away from a realist base, and instead favors abstraction: If you control a majority of the circles around a port, you control the sea lanes, and therefore, the port. This is not bad, per se, but it is so abstracted from the subject matter that it feels disconnected. Setting up the port battle is an exercise in mass AI farming, taken from the idea that "people need to do something in order to create the port battle." And so, I present a series of ideas that hopefully are easy to implement (I will point out the sticking points as I go), remove a layer of abstraction, and hopefully make the battles more dynamic by introducing more options. 1. Return of the old flag system to initiate hostility. Instead of simply taking a mission, launching a flag could once again be done in isolation, or with a whole fleet escorting. It should be physically carried, and announced as it was in the past. This brings the first aspect of the port battle back: Fleet actions at sea, heading off the port battle in its inception. I would encourage these flags to cost doubloons, in order to have big-ticket items that are consistently purchased, keeping them moving within the economy. 2. Generate Hostility via economy. Instead of grinding bots with a massive fleet, I would encourage basic supplies moved into the port. This can be abstracted from siege equipment, bribing locals, what have you, but I would encourage the goods brought not be trade goods, but instead, actual crafting goods. Hemp, Oak Logs, Iron Ore, etc. Things everyone needs, and everyone uses, which in turn would encourage privateers to hunt the waters (and in turn encourage escorted merchant vessels, which in turn leads to larger, task-force sized engagements). Further, I would cap the rate of hostility generation at 25%/hr., in order to prevent simple spiking of hostility - this would allow for time for people to gather and fight. The lower end, I would recommend at 10%/hr., forcing a faction to commit to at least 4 hours of setting up a port battle, at most 10 hours. 3. Add a craftable "Shore Party" item weighing 100 tons. This will come into play later, but simply adding the item should be easy. The reason for 100 tons is to limit them in quantity, while having a palpable effect upon ship handling in battle. Further, merchant ships should be allowed into the fight in order to carry more shore parties. (This will be important.) 4. Reduce the three circles to one circle in front of the port. This is abstracted to represent storming the town itself. This is partially where the shore parties come in. Each shore party is one "unit." Much like the game of Diplomacy, you need one more "Shore Party" than the defending side to take the town. Shore parties, ideally, would only be active when the ship is going less than 3.5 knots. This would take programming, but could loan from the "boarding initiate" parameters. I am not certain how easy this would be to code in. 5. Add circles near to shore batteries. Exactly as above, one more "shore party" than the defenders, and you can seize the tower for your own side. This adds to dynamism of battle, increasing options from "destroy fortifications" to "destroy fortifications" or "seize fortifications" for each fortification the port has. (This mechanic was present in Naval Action: Legends, but simply used the ships as abstraction for shore parties, without an item representing those shore parties.) 6. Destruction of the Enemy Fleet, or Total Absence from the Port Circle would result in the town's capitulation. This mechanic would remain from current mechanics, that way even if no shore parties are left, the defenders cannot simply kite away and leave the town. In a nutshell, this brings the focus of RvR back to economics, which is of course the whole purpose of naval presence in the Caribbean. It re-diversifies both the lead-up and execution of the port battle, creating a more dynamic event - largely re-using old mechanics in new permutations.
  4. The Mortar Officer perk is a definite requirement when operating a mortar brig and it costs 2 perk points, but the problem is the perk reset permit costs 200 dubloons, so in order to participate in a port battle in the mortar brig you are looking at a minimum outlay of 400 dubloons to operate the mortar brig and then change back to your normal perks, or go around gimped with your perks when not using a mortar brig. Either drastically reduce the cost of a perk reset to maybe 20 dubloons or make the mortar officer perk into a permanent mod that can be installed on a mortar brig maybe at a one off cost of 200 dubloons.
  5. I hereby suggest the following: - that the 80BR limit that separates the shallow PB from the deep water PB to be raised to 160BR - that the most powerful ship able to enter shallow PB to be 160BR and all others to be addressed accordingly, mainly Heavy Rattlesnake and Prince, not to share the exact same BR as the Xebec. Traders to be accommodated under their warlike counterparts. - that the deep water ships increase in BR equivalent to 1/3 of their present value. So a 200 BR ship becomes a 266BR ship. And so on, such as a 600BR ships becomes 798BR. - that no port PB BR to be touched. Any suggestions for the BRs up to 160 value more than welcome.
  6. So @Kutai came up with a great idea the other day to promote smaller clan RVR that levels playing field a bit. Posting because he's to lazy This might have been suggested before because it seems slightly to obvious as an idea. Let me know yours thoughts. So the idea: Limit port battle BR to the member size of the clan that's defending it. Some sort of arbitrary number that determines if its a 5200 br or a 7200 br port etc. For example, If clan X has 20 members limit deep water to 2500. 40 members limit port BR to 4000ish etc etc you get the point. Currently the predefined BR limits are actually turning people away from port battles. That mixed with the timers makes what seems like a choice of hundreds of ports to attack more like a choice of 2 or 3 for a smaller clan. Of course smaller clans will look to group up with other clans to take bigger ports but then there's the question of "can we defend it now" ? Typically no "so why even bother trying"? Essentially as it stands small groups of players are unlikely to partake in large RVR events because there's no incentive for them to other than to support a larger clans attacks/defends. It would be nice to see small clans getting a foot hold on the map and honing there RVR skills on there own then cooperating to take the bigger ports off the powerhouse clans in the future Benefits/drawbacks I can think of. Benefits: Small clans can partake in RVR easier Small clans can defend there ports effectively Promotes alliance and internal nation team work to take on bigger foes (bigger clans) Removes the large clans active player bias (IE can always field a big fleet) Drawbacks: Big clans might be able to multiflip easier (although there's a hard limit on nation port attacks) Could possibly be exploited. Multi clans rather than one big one. (not sure what you can do with that, maybe some sort of reward incentive to be in a big clan, less tax at nation cap or some such) Now as a fairly big clan we wouldn't benefit from such a idea but it would be really nice to see the small but hardened clans getting a stake on the game rather than it being limited to the big boys. Let us know your thoughts. Happy hunting.
  7. The game is of course a wargame and the battles and fighting are at the moment the most important part. However i think that that a lot of people would like to see both the economic side and the port handling side be improved so that the game can also cater to people who do not want to fight continuously or like me lack the skills of fighting 1v1. I want to explain the things that I would like to see for ports and this is just my personal opinion. I do believe that the interface of the ports and the management system of the ports should be increased. Also i would like to see that a clan leader who is now responsible for the port, can delegate this responsibilty to a port administrator (call it whatever you want probably per nation there are some fancy titles) This administrator would then be responsible for the running of the port and at the moment that isnt really a lot because there are not so any things that you can actually do with a port therefor i would like to suggest some options that could be implemented and that would stimulate also a bit the trade between ports. The administrator would have access to the port warehouse a bit like a clan leader would have access to the clan warehouse. This would be used for storing the goods that you would need for running the port and its defenses. Like a normal warehouse this can be expanded to store more goods and a different variety of goods. Later will become clear what types of goods i am thinking about and why it would be important to have these goods always in the warehouse. This would not be like your own warehouse where goods are stored but this would be more for storing the goods that are consumed every day. Forts are probably one of the main features of a port. A well defended port is harder to take and every port should start with 2 basic round towers that are next to the town. The administrator would then be able to add additional forts on places he believes are suitable for the defenses of the port. I would like to see it like with a shipyard that you will have to upgrade the forts that you build. Fort level 1: Basic round fort as we know it right now. To build it you will need to have stone, oak, muskets, provisions, iron, canons and a certain amount of gold. This fort could be placed anywhere on the map but depending on the location this can be upgraded to a bigger fort. Fort would also have to be maintained every day and would require a certain amount of the materials that are used for building it as well as gold for daily maintenance. Also after a port battle the damage would have to be repaired a bit in the same way that we have to repair our ships after a battle. This would also be necessary for the larger forts that follow but of course the bigger the fort the higher the maintenance. Fort level 2: This would be the basic suare fort like we know it now. This would only be available if you have allready a round fort in place and could only be placed on certain areas of the map to account for the underground etc etc. I would limit the amount to 2 forts of this type per port to avoid a port being cluttered by forts. Fort level 3: This would be the highest upgrade and i would call it a bastion. These would the upgrade for the level 2 fort and there could only be 1 of these forts per harbour. The places where these forts could be built should be limited due to there extended size. the most important change for these forts would be heavier guns and also mortars to defend the harbour. It would be important for the administrator to always keep the resources available to maintain the forts because if certain resources are not the there the fort will start to decay. This will be shown in the port battle as a damaged fort allready and therefor will take less hits before being destroyed. Same thing would go if the administrator does not repair the forts after a port battle they would still be damaged. Forts should only count as 300 points maximum in a port battle, no matter how many are destroyed, this to avoid too much emphasis being put on destroying only the forts and not fighting a battle with ships. The BR of a port battle should also depend on the size of the forts there are. A shollow water port with only 2 square forts should only get like 750 BR where a deep water port with 4 round forts, a square fort and a bastion would be 9600 BR or more, and maybe with other multipliers like county capital to go to 11000 BR. The prices for the maintenance should be set high enough that only the most valuable ports or the ports that a clan really wants to keep out of a strategic perspective, would have the biggest forts. A useless port would then also show up on the map as useless due to its BR. Trade should also be steered by the administrator and a bit more then it is now. instead of the random dropping of goods per port the administrator should be able to attract traders or trading companies from different nations. He can then choose for instance to have a dutch trading company of level 1, 2 or 3 in his port and the highest level would then drop the rare dutch goods like Grietje van Dijk. I am just giving an example. However if the dutch trading company does not make enough money of course they will not come with the rare resources and they will not drop. This would stimulate the trade between different ports. Of course having a trader in your harbour would also mean that he needs to be supplied with certain goods which would increase the import and export of a harbour. Natural resources that drop in a port can of course not be changed by the administrator, or only in a way that it is now. the benefits of an extended harbour management system would be increased trade, less gold in rotation, other gameplay options, port battles would be more important, important ports would be harder to take not like at the moment where ports are constantly flipped and changing hands. It would also give the nations an option for a long time investment in a port and would make the loss of one of those ports really hurt.
  8. OK before everyone will start that I am crying on the forum because we dont jave a victory mark this week and i am salty, I absolutly dont care if I get a victory mark or not. I dont use them and they are just stockpiled in my captains chest. Now that we have this out of the way let me start my post. I have participated in numerous port battles over the last years sailing from here to there, moving ships, towing ships, making sure the resources are where they are needed, and in the process of doing all this having a lot of fun both in the offensive and defensive port battles. However sometimes the result is a bit frustrating. You will win a battle on points but loose half your fleet and vice versa. Also some battles inconclusivly and no one wins. I think it should be reworked in some way like in a football (soccer for the americans) where you get 3 points for a won battle, 1 point when there is a draw and 0 points when you loose a battle. This way when a defender wins a port battle they are also getting points and not like it is now where it is only based on the amount of ports you own. The issue i see with this is the multi flipping of ports. I play GB and often in the weekend we get 3 port battles at the same time so we need to concentrate on 1 port to effectively defend it and if we loose that battle that means -3 points for us. The fights are usually fun but boy it does get tiring. The system with the win and loss would also mean that people dont just flip ports for flipping ports. Not to blame you guys or point a finger but Sweden flippped Harbour Island on saturday. Spanish were there to defend the port, Russians were there to screen for the Spanish, GB was there to screen for the Swedes, Pirates and Prussians were there to get PVP marks and kill the stragglers. The only ones that were missing were the Swedes. The spanish didnt get anything for getting their captains organised and defending the port. This would change if they got 3 points for doing this. Multi flipping is also terribly annoying for the defender. You need to make a choice and sometimes it works other times it doesnt. The russians lost ports due to it, we lost ports due to it and if some nations decide to multiflip a small nation like Denmark, Prussia or Poland they can get 1 ported or even annihalated in no time. For the attacker it is easy to multi flip. Just coordinate a bit and you will flip 3 ports, preferably not to close to eachother so the defender has to guess what the target is. The defender needs to spread their forces as to see what port is really going to be attacked and if they loose the real target well they are at -1 on the conquest board. In the system i propose the defender would get 6 points for 2 defended port and the attacker would get only 3 points for the one they won. I am personally not in favour of a system where if 1 port is flipped the next port battle can only start 2 hours after the start of the first one. That would negate the tactical decision of multi flipping. We are all looking for content in the game and Port Battles are an important factor. There needs to be more but those are diffent subjects. Keep it decent when replying. Thank you
  9. Not turning up to Port Battles This has probably been done before but I couldnt find the thread. I was in a PB the other night, there was a full PB fleet and Screening fleets, probably involved 60 or 70 people. 60 or 70 people who could have been doing something else and in my case probably would not have been playing NA at all. But I changed my plans (and those of other people too) cos it was an important PB. The clan that raised hostility didn't turn up. That just lacks class and respect for your fellow players and I'm not happy about having my time wasted by a bunch of scrubs and for me that constitutes griefing and some action should be taken against players who deliberately waste people's time. Most clans have some sense of decency, rivalry but with respect to other clans and nations, fellow players. What makes it worse is that the useless scum-sucking clan in question, ran the hostility while we were in a Port Battle, as they would never have dared show themselves otherwise, (they are cowards as well as time wasters). I can understand that the mechanics of this game allow for diversionary tactics and fighting on many fronts, but if this just results in 60 or 70 players sitting around doing nothing getting bored of the game, then thats a problem. The clan in question were logged into the game and decided to run fleet practice missions instead. That was by far the most de-motivating experience I have had in NA, and made me question whether I want to be involved in RvR anymore. As it is your opponent that sets the time for the battle, it effectively means that someone has been allowed to actively go out of there way to waste my time and that of 60 or 70 other people, and that can't be good for the game. There should be some kind of penalty for raising hostility and then not making a reasonable effort to take the port. eg. clan banned from entering hostility missions for 1 month. Or at least the 'port can't gain hostility' period should be extended so attacking an enemy port and losing the PB at least has a big benefit to the defender. The Port Battle should be automatically won if no attacking players have entered within x minutes of the start, instead of having to sit there waiting for the points to accumalate. It's really Boring. Change it.
  10. New Slate! Or Old Slate, You decide. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post your Port Battle Screenshots here as well! We all love looking at triumphs and conflict together, as well as telling the story of some epic clashes between nations or clans. Format will be as follows: War -- Nations or Clans have deemed each other enemies OW Conflict -- OW conflict is strictly OW PvP, Ports aren't the primary purpose of the nations contention, rather sinking your opponents ships is all the clan/nation cares about. Neutral -- Trade agreements, NAPs, NIPs, Port Agreements, or other limited agreements will define this slot. (everyone will start as neutral) Limited Conflict -- Nations Generally/Broadly Agree on only a Certain area on the map to be fought over. Alliance -- If an official post is made between 2 or nations it will be officially updated - an Alliance is only made when the majority of clans within a nation are in agreement. Clans Agreements - If a Clan wishes to have agreements be made public, they may do so, otherwise nothing is official. If any information is incorrect, Please inform me, I wish to make this post as accurate as possible. I ask that we keep this thread clean :). I will attempt to update this Thread daily. Politics/Diplomacy United States of America Verenigde-Provincien : Neutral Espana: Ow Conflict France: Neutral Great Britain: Alliance Denmark-Norge: OW Conflict Sverige: OW Conflict Pirates: War Prussia: Ow Conflict Russia: Neutral Poland: Neutral Verenigde-Provincien United States: Neutral Espana: Neutral France: Clan Agreements Great Britain: Neutral Denmark-Norge: War Sverige: War Pirates: Neutral Prussia: Neutral Russia: Neutral Poland: Neutral Espana Verenigde-Provincien: Neutral United States: OW Conflict France: OW Conflict Great Britain: OW Conflict Denmark-Norge: OW Conflict Sverige: Neutral Pirates: OW Conflict Prussia: Neutral Russia: Neutral Poland: Neutral France Verenigde-Provincien: Clan Agreements Espana: OW Conflict United States: Neutral Great Britain: Neutral / OW Conflict Denmark-Norge: War Sverige: War Pirates: OW Conflict / Limited Conflict Prussia: Neutral Russia: Neutral Poland: Clan Agreements Great Britain Verenigde-Provincien: Neutral Espana: OW Conflict France: Neutral / OW Conflict United States: Clan Agreements / OW Conflict Denmark-Norge: Ow Conflict Sverige: Neutral Pirates: War Prussia: Limited Conflict Russia: Neutral Poland: Neutral Denmark-Norge Verenigde-Provincien: War Espana: Neutral France: War Great Britain: OW Conflict United States: OW Conflict Sverige: Neutral Pirates: Neutral / OW Conflict Prussia: Neutral Russia: Neutral Poland: Neutral Sverige Verenigde-Provincien: War Espana: Neutral France: War Great Britain: OW Conflict Denmark-Norge: Neutral United States: OW Conflict Pirates: Neutral Prussia: Neutral Russia: Neutral Poland: Neutral Pirates Verenigde-Provincien : Limited Conflict Espana: OW Conflict France: OW Conflict / Limited Conflict Great Britain: War Denmark-Norge: Neutral / OW Conflict Sverige: OW Conflict United States: War Prussia: OW Conflict Russia: OW Conflict Poland: OW Conflict Prussia Verenigde-Provincien: OW Conflict Espana: Neutral France: OW Conflict Great Britain: OW Conflict Denmark-Norge: Neutral United States: Neutral Pirates: OW Conflict Sweden: Neutral Russia: Neutral Poland: Neutral Russia Verenigde-Provincien: Neutral Espana: Neutral France: Neutral Great Britain: War Denmark-Norge: Neutral United States: Neutral Pirates: OW Conflict Sweden: Neutral Prussia: Neutral Poland: Neutral Poland Verenigde-Provincien: Neutral Espana: Neutral France: Clan Agreements Great Britain: Neutral Denmark-Norge: Neutral United States: Neutral Pirates: OW Conflict Sweden: Neutral Prussia: Neutral Russia: Neutral
  11. Hello NA Community We are West India Trading Company a new Creat Clan in the Nation of the Great Britain. We are searching for Players they wanna do PvP/PvE/Crafting/Trading in a Family Clan. We are based in Trinidad and when we grow up i think we make another Base in KPR. What we are looking for Ts3 + Headset 18+ Ambition Rank and Ship doesnt matter What we offer: Ts3 Server Familiar Clan Active Leaders Helpin each Other If ur Interested contact Laempi, Yinyangpanda or Lord Iron Ingame, or leave me a Message in Forum or Poste. Have a nice evening.
  12. After leaving a battle there should be a restriction that prevents you from entering a port battle for 5 minutes, as is the case now when you log out at open sea but for less time. There are certain players who in order to avoid screeners get a friend from another nation (or an alt) and then tag them and sit in the battle. They then jump straight out into the port battle, avoiding screeners etc...
  13. You could perhaps even do away with all the random capture points as result of predictable winds making several points little to obnoxious, instead permitting capture of port after demolition of fort which anchors attackers so that they don't always start upwind, and successful defense so long as fort isn't taking damage. You could perhaps even make the whole thing zen by requiring that certain amount of damage is produced against the fort depending on enemy fleet size as apposed to defending fleet size (by cannon poundage), which means you don't need to go as clan somewhere just because you have to and be there for that same reason- in a clan. In small enough port (that is small winds) you could probably could disturb first rate enough that he would fail. It sure enough could still lead to attackers trolling defenders, but I trust you could come up with some math that would ensure that theres equalibrium with variables like firepower involved and such. In addition instead of hostility system you could require that fort is rebuilt requiring resources proportionate to amount of pounds of cast iron demolition took, requiring that there's also a fleet of indymans somewhere nearby lest defenders chose to regroup and kill of defenders with indyman having to travel through battle instance towards the port. I suppose that with supplies required to solidate capture of fort trolling defenders becomes less so practical but a timer could still be required unless you want to let defenders build up the fort again to which only requires that you check back in every so often in case some lonewolf did decide that he would both destroy the fort and bring the supplies to actually capture the fort. Either way necessity to escort a trade vessel requires frigates either in screening fleet/convoy or in actual port battle instances. Reference to sailing physics and winds come from first several sentences of this post.
  14. Port Battles are quite repetitive and I can here on the TeamSpeak more and more players telling that they do not want to do RvR anymore because it is “always the same”. Always 25 x 1st rates (some obliged to use Oceans or preferring her, some using Victories if their nation allows it, battle marks obliged) or 25 x 4th rates (most Wasa’s by now, awaiting remaining Agamemnon’s to be sunk or burnt) Or 25 Heavy-Rattlesnakes or Mercuries (also depending on Nations CM’s) for shallow waters. I would suggest a BR limit for Port Battle, this limit being a consequence of the tax recoveries during the last 2 weeks. So that important ports would have a BR limit of 16,250 (25 Santi’s), less important could decrease to 500 (25 Lynx, yes!) if no tax came from. This would create a lot of variety in Port Battles: Would I prefer 25 Bellona’s or 16 Ocean’s when the PB limit is 100,000? Or a mixture including some 1t rates, some 2nd and 3rd rates and some frigates?... What will be my strategy? What’s about enemy choices? Hoping that would help…
  15. In tradition I wish to bring this back for Global as for players who come on the forums and check out the situations on the servers, or new players wanting to see the lay of the land. I will keep this unbiased, and unless a player from that nation wants to update their clan or nation's diplomatic stance, it will remain unchanged from the beginning. I will make it clear, this is not a "Rumor says" political post. Post your Port Battle Screenshots here as well! We all love looking at triumphs and conflict together, as well as telling the story of some epic clashes between nations or clans. Format will be as follows: War -- All nations start off as at war by default OW Conflict -- OW conflict is strictly OW PvP, Ports aren't the primary purpose of the nations contention, rather sinking your opponents ships is all the clan/nation cares about. Neutral -- Trade agreements, NAPs, NIPs, Port Agreements, or other limited agreements will define this slot. Alliance -- If an official post is made between 2 or nations it will be officially updated - an Alliance is only made when the majority of clans within a nation are in agreement. Clans Agreements - If a Clan wishes to have agreements be made public, they may do so, otherwise nothing is official. If any information is incorrect, Please inform me, I wish to make this post as accurate as possible. I ask that we keep this thread clean :). I will attempt to update this Thread daily. Politics/Diplomacy United States of America Verenigde-Provincien : Neutral Espana: Neutral France: Neutral Great Britain: Neutral Denmark-Norge: Neutral Sverige: Neutral Pirates: Neutral Verenigde-Provincien United States: Neutral Espana: Neutral France: Neutral Great Britain: Neutral Denmark-Norge: Neutral Sverige: Neutral Pirates: Neutral Espana Verenigde-Provincien: Neutral United States: Neutral France: Neutral Great Britain: Neutral Denmark-Norge: Neutral Sverige: Neutral Pirates: Neutral France Verenigde-Provincien: Neutral Espana: Neutral United States: Neutral Great Britain: Neutral Denmark-Norge: Neutral Sverige: Neutral Pirates: Neutral Great Britain Verenigde-Provincien: Neutral Espana: Neutral France: Neutral United States: Neutral Denmark-Norge: Neutral Sverige: Neutral Pirates: Neutral Denmark-Norge Verenigde-Provincien: Neutral Espana: Neutral France: Neutral Great Britain: Neutral United States: Neutral Sverige: Neutral Pirates: Neutral Sverige Verenigde-Provincien: Neutral Espana: Neutral France: Neutral Great Britain: Neutral Denmark-Norge: Neutral United States: Neutral Pirates: Neutral Pirates Verenigde-Provincien : Neutral Espana: Neutral France: Neutral Great Britain: Neutral Denmark-Norge: Neutral Sverige: Neutral United States: Neutral
  16. tl;dr: Putting a port into 100% contention causes problems for that team regardless of how the port battle turns out. Random thought of the day: If you build 100% contention on a port, this is a "raid" and lasts 48 hours. While in a raid state, the county generates no trade goods, will not buy trade goods (or only pays "1" for them) and player buildings produce labor hours at 50% rate. I was just thinking that while contention often generates PvP, a smart team that was confident in their port battle fleet could simply ignore contention grinds. Let the contention happen, show up for the port battle, done. Costs them less time, less risk, no counter-grind and they win. I think this is such a huge risk that when people realize what I have just said, nobody will grind ports anymore unless they were really sure they could win the port battle. It would be a tremendous waste of time to grind contention, get no PvP out of it and not be able to win the port battle. You accomplished literally nothing in that case. So let 100% contention mean something: It means the county is screwed up for 48 hours. Better go out there and fight those contention grinders!
  17. I know it's late in the game development wise but perhaps this suggestion would be of some use. The PvP events weren't really that wonderful in my opinion. However, those mechanics could be applied to general RvR with a slight twist. Instead of one instanced battle to determine a region through a PB, how about making each region a point scoring zone for several days. The highest point scorer wins. Points would be scored by obviously sinking other players. However the trick is motivate people to be in this zone. How passive points are scored. Once a player enters the contested region, they'll score points over time based on BR. ((Perhaps this will be in the form of a "patrol" button that takes 10 minutes on the sea to light up and resets on docking)) Maybe tied to "days at sea" so that dock hopping isn't encouraged. The points over time caps at some BR level (possibly based on region size?) for each nation. The problem with this idea might be calls back and forth to the server and updates to map points sort of how contention takes a while to update each players map. Shallow areas on OW allow safety for shallow ship BR point generation from larger ships. Obviously battles near forts help defense as typical. No npc generation of points, only player controlled though patrolling the zone or sinking ships of the opposing nation. The one nation with most points after X days wins the region. Example: Region Dominia has been flipped. I patrol solo in my 100BR ship. Once I'm in the region, i score 1 point per 15 minutes in the zone. My friends join making our total BR 2150 BR but the cap is 1000BR so only 10 points are scored per 15 minutes. Then the enemy fleet arrives and battles ensues with each side losing 1000BR worth in ships. That scores 1000 points for each side. Three days later the contested area ends and the enemy wins 23,540 points to 21,550 points. Pros: No more hiding in instances. Screening is basically counted in points. No need to fear of a PB fleet being tagged. Multiday event-style allows more participants. Contested regions become hot zones for pvp. Even other nations might join in although no points are scored. Cons: Strain on calls to and from server and UI updayes. Larger nations may still have the advantage. (Although they'd risk more BR sinking thus more points might be scored by better smaller teams). Some people like arena style combat. Maybe this puts less people on OW and more into NA Legends. Discuss but please leave drama at the door.
  18. Political situation PVP 2 US (Inter Clan) Information is from players (Inter clan), updated weekly and daily if needed. This is the same sort of format as the EU political Situation thread. The Diplomacy part presents the attitude of the nation's major clans towards other nations. Verenigde Provinciën: Espana: Neutral France: War Great Britain: Alliance Verenigde-Provincien: Danmark-Norge: War Sverige: War United States: Alliance Major clans: DWIC1-6 - Dutch West Indische Compagnie NPV- Nederlandse Protectoraat Vloot SMS - Reichsflotte Danmark-Norge: Espana: Neutral France: Alliance Great Britain: War Verenigde-Provincien: War Danmark-Norge: Sverige: Alliance United States: War Major clans: CCCP - CN - SORT - Pirates: Espana: Neutral France: Neutral Great Britain: War Verenigde-Provincien: War Danmark-Norge: Neutral Sverige: Neutral United States: War Major clans: CBP - BLACK - Black Flag BLANC - French PvP1 players BLOOD - Blood of Black HYDRA - SOB - Sons of Black TFG - Great Britain: Espana: Neutral France: War Great Britain: Verenigde-Provincien: Alliance Danmark-Norge: War Sverige: War United States: Alliance Major Clans: AGW - CKA -Canadian Kicks Ass- Cordova BCS - British Commonwealth Sailors BRA - ELITE - ?- Norfolk nChance MINE - Sweden: Espana: Alliance France: Alliance Great Britain: War Verenigde-Provincien: War Danmark-Norge: Alliance Sverige: Neutral United States: War Major clans: RISE - ISN - SS - USA: Espana: Neutral France: War Great Britain: Alliance Verenigde-Provincien: Alliance Danmark-Norge: War Sverige: War United States: Major clans: ACDC - ASP - BSR - DD - Detroit Demolition IGG - NPG - No Pants Guys MARS - France: Espana: Alliance France: Great Britain: War Verenigde-Provincien: War Danmark-Norge: Alliance Sverige: Alliance United States: War Major clans: SD - SINK - Sink or Swim Spain: Espana: France: Alliance Great Britain: Neutral Verenigde-Provincien: Neutral Danmark-Norge: War Sverige: Alliance United States: War Major clans: note: If anything is wrong please reply or PM! Major clan= edit* no restrictions* *** Mods can we have this replace the current sticky post of the same topic. It's out dated and the old player that started it is no longer active so it's not getting updated. With that and I know Blackthorn/Decken had a clan one like this he was doing, if folks can post there clan info I'll go through this list and update the info. For clan info please send me a PM instead of posting it with your clan info that you want to post. Numbers can be optional but if you want to give current active numbers it might help with new players that want to join one clan over another. The main thing is to let folks know who the players and makers are for each nation.***
  19. IDEA FOR NEW NATION MECHANIC This system would address the following issues: 1. Would provide a good starting point for new players to run missions, explore the map and trade where there would be less PVP ganking, as only pirates would be a threat. Would then have option of entering the PB RvR world later if they wished through 'privateer-naturalisation route'. 2. Ends the utterly daft and unrealistic situation of Pirates as a nation sailing in fleets of SOL's and threatening the Ports of large powers. (Which imo is currently ruining the entire Pirate experience atm). Pirates would now have to behave like Pirates and would be heavily outgunned at National Hubs having to make use of 'Hit and Run 'tactics . Being a Pirate would be HARD (The big pirate clans need to just just go and join a nation like everyone else if they want to RVR/PB/sail 1st Rates) 3. Would make Free Ports (and Safe Ports*) far more interesting hubs of trade and commerce 4. Would create some interesting dynamics with regard to the use of 'Privateers' in RvR skirmish and hostility raising 5. Would make 'Pirates' a real threat but (probably) less numerous and spread more evenly across the map 6. Would allow players to explore different aspects of the game and would provide more 'fluidity' in nation Balance of power 7. Would rid need for 'forged papers' and players would now never be in a 'dead end' with regard to their playing careers 8. Allows players the option of a Merchant/Trading Profession without national constraints 9. Would also open the possibility of 'WANTED' Bounty Hunting Rewards (killing Pirates) 10. Has more 'historical accuracy' than current system displays IDEA: Every Player begins as an 'Independent Free Trader'. NOT a member of any nation More Free Ports added to Map and they would be in 2 Categories: 'Free Ports' and 'Safe Ports' The only difference being that 'Safe Ports have a protection area around them (as national ports do currently). INDEPENDENT (FREE) TRADER This would be the starting default setting for the beginning player. They: - Can ONLY sail, fleet or build 5th - 7th Rates!!!! - Do NOT have National Ports - CANNOT take part in Port Battles - CAN dock at ANY Port but must pay a tariff (except at Free/Safeports) (dont pay if smuggler flags enabled) - CAN build outposts and Buildings at Safe Ports or Free Ports - CAN teleport from Free/Safe Port to Free/Safe Port (*except below) - CANNOT attack other players (*except Pirates see below) - CANNOT be attacked by other players (*except Pirates see below) (or if smuggler flags enabled) This provides a safe(er) envronment in which new players can learn the game, trade, explore the map and be (relatively) safe from pvp gank, while they decide how they wish to play the game. The player then essentially has 4 Options: 1. Remain an Independent Free Trader 2. Become a 'Privateer' for any 'adopted' nation (NOT simultaneously) 3. Become a Privateer for an adopted nation and THEN 'Naturalize' and become a National 4. Become a Pirate (Players will have the ability to revert back to any of these states, but at a heavy price, see Below) PRIVATEER: AT ANY TIME Independent Free Traders can sail to a Nation Capital and acquire (buy) a 'Letter of Marque' (Ref 'Kotles' idea June 2) for that Nation. When activated the Player is a 'Privateer' for that nation and: - Can ONLY sail, fleet or build 5th - 7th Rates - CAN dock at (adopted) National Ports (no tariff) and Free/Safe ports - CAN NO LONGER dock at any Port (except as smuggler in trade ship in usual way) - CAN be attacked by any players of other (warring?) nations - CAN attack players of other (warring?) nations (not 'Independent free traders') - Can build outposts and Buildings at Free/Safe ports - CANNOT build outposts or buildings at the (adopted) National Ports (yet) - CAN teleport from Safe/Free port to Safe/Free port (but NOT national Ports (yet) - Can raise hostility and skirmish during PB's (although not enter the PB itself) (Becoming a) NATIONAL: After a certain amount of experience is gained while a Privateer for an adopted Nation the player then has the option to become 'naturalized' and become a member of the nation in the normal (current) way. (Thus unlocking 4th-1st Rates, Port Battles, Teleporting between and building Outposts and Buildings in National Ports) Then able to Build Outposts at National Ports but loses ALL Outposts and Buildings at Free/Safe ports and the ability to teleport between them. A Naturalised Player can revert back to Independent Free Trader at any time (after 1 week) BUT will lose any Outpost or Buildings in the National Ports (and then loses PB and 4th-1st Rate Sailing ability) OR: Player can remain a National Privateer OR: Become a 'Pirate' PIRATE: Independent Free Traders can 'hoist the Jolly Roger' and become 'Pirates' Once Jolly Roger is hoisted the player becomes a Pirate and loses any Outposts or Buildings at Safe Ports and ability Teleport to them (But retains Outposts and Buildings and ability to teleport between Free Ports) - Can ONLY sail, fleet or build 5th - 7th Rates!!!! - Do NOT have National Ports - CANNOT take part in Port Battles - CAN build outposts and Buildings at Free Ports (NOT Safe Ports) - CAN teleport from Free Port to Free Port (NOT Safe Ports) - CAN only dock at freeports (NOT Safe Ports) (unless smuggler tags in Trader in usual way) - CAN be attacked by any players - CAN attack any players (including Independent Free Traders) Pirates also have the option to get in a Trader Ship and Activate 'Smuggler Flags' and Sail to a National Capital. where they can 'Make Reparations'. Upon paying a (large?) sum of gold the Player loses all Buildings and Outposts and becomes a Privateer for that nation (from where (after 1 week) they can then revert back to Independent Free Trader) I cannot see any obvious alt (or otherwise) exploits of this (yet!!!) Obviously things can be tweaked Please Comment (constructively): Cheers
  20. We got the hostility at Vera Cruz to 100% at about midnight Pacific Time last night (3 hours before server down time) --- I WAS THERE. But - of course - instead of "flipping" to set a port battle for the next night at 10 PM Pacific Time (as we had been told it would) the "game" decided to apparently glitch out and not flip .... So that after server down time when SKMARSH came on and noticed the hostility was at 91% .... ---- WTF? I mean WTF? You owe me a night's sleep because of course the Aussies came along and "flipped" it so it is set for 4:09 AM Pacific Time. ---- (Mutters to self: and they wonder why I'm cranky) Server 2 (Global)
  21. After today's events and hearing players complain about the lack of conquest marks from winning a pb I think a set number of conquest marks should be given out to each player on the winning side of a pb. This would eliminate "rigged" port battles. Just in case you don't know what happened today: http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/20465-cap-francois-battle-today/&
  22. Scroll to the bottom of the thread and read 1.02... Admin & Ink, The Port Battle Better Local Impact Mechanic Idea Port Battle Idea that tries to reflect the local impact prior and post battle. I don't even think it would take much extra coding, but would focus all players of any Nation on a single battle. In the time of war down the ages either at the theater point or along the armies march the local prices of goods and services rocketed and labor shortages rampant. This then just as quickly collapses post battle even with a new over lord. I will assume in the future (however the Port Battle is triggered) we will still have a two to three day build up window prior to battle on whatever server. Imagine Timeline Events Port Battle is triggered - 46 hours or count down timer starts. The Local Port will instantly feel the effects of an imminent clash. In the Port UI under the Shop Tab. All AI Bid & Ask Prices will increase by 25%. The bid quantity demanded increased by 25%. The Ask amount for sale will decrease by 25%. This reflects the local shops having shelves emptied and prices sky rocket. Any PC contract offers below the new bid would be completed at the contract offer price. In the Ships tab, all AI Ships for sale will see their prices increase by 25%. The amount of AI ships available will decrease by 25%. The mission tab under Delivery missions. Contracts with Goods to deliver to the Port that’s completed within the Port Battle window will see that trader receive a 25% Gold bonus. The Craft Tab, all crafting from Iron Ingots to a complete Victory build will suffer a 25% increase in Labor Hours needed. Again, this reflects chronic man power shortages common in these situations. Server Restart… 24 hours Server Restart, the actual day of the Port Battle. Replace 25% with 50% as above. This is the Panic escalation by the local community. Port Battle Takes place and ends. Server Restart, sees all prices return to normal values prior to the trigger. Outcome Expected…. I think if you see the PB trigger and want to off load resources or materials at an inflated price you’d load up the LGV or Indiaman and go for it. If it’s an enemy port Smuggler tag (mechanic) needed etc. If you’re the attacker, you can guess over the next two days a lot of Player Trade ships (with full cargo) are going to try and enter the port. In fact, if you are a Ganker or just the opportunist well its worth a look… This reflects the Blockade of the Port. So, it’s not just a Port Battle anymore but prior to it a load of smaller skirmishes. The Timer was 3 days instead of 2 well it would be more tempting to run the blockade. This is a lot more interesting than Night Flipping right ….? Anyway, it’s just an idea over a bottle of red. If you think its rubbish let me know, and if you’ve a better idea likewise… Thanks for reading, Norfolk nChance. changed the name to make it less cluncky
  23. I am sorry, but this is going to be a rather long post. However, I feel that for you to understand my suggestions I need to lay out those problems which I perceive and am trying to address, and I need to explain what assumptions I am making in addressing them. Let’s start at the beginning: There once was a little boy…Ok, maybe not that far back…Try again. Anyhow... RvR is my primary playstyle. I am a (de-facto) clan leader, diplomat, and occasional port-battle commander. So it is only natural that the conquest mechanics are among my chief concerns about this game, and it is the mechanic on which I try to come up with solutions to the problems that are discovered during testing. I have previously on several occasions offered thoughts and suggestions to that effect, most notably the following suggestion for regional conquest, which was the brainchild of a former clanmate and fellow danish captain, @Bartas11, and which I was given the opportunity to formulate in English and help develop: It is upon this idea, which has since been partially implemented, that I intend to expand and further develop below. But first: What conclusions can we draw from testing a few variations of RvR mechanics for the past year and a half? I will try to offer some suggestion as to what conclusions I have drawn, based on my own experiences, and talking to fellow players, clan-members, and RvR-players of other factions in-game. Players want conquest to be a daily activity: Most RvR-players that I talk to want conquest to be an accessible, low threshold, frequent occurrence in the game. A lot of the players who had been playing day in and day out since January of last year, left when conquest became dependent on days of grinding, hours of sailing to the other side of the map for some special region or resource far from ones own frontlines, and long (46h) preparation times. Many I know, missed the spontaneity of gathering 20-30 players sometime between 6 and 10 in the evening, buying a flag, and going for a port nearby, with all that it included: arguing about which port, anticipating enemy defences, screening with the flag, planting it, fighting and then sailing home-or never even getting there because while we were wasting time the enemy bought a flag for one of our regions and we decided to defend that instead. Now we have to plan our gaming 2 days ahead and try to get enough people together at the right spot and at the right time. It’s not spontaneous, it doesn’t feel player driven. It feels like a chore the game gives you, rather than an opportunity that you grab. A lot of players left, I believe because there was simply too much work, too much PvE-grinding, too much planning, and too much waiting around for each time you want to do something. Players want conquest to be flexible: On top of that, players-in my experience-want conquest to have a constant ebb and flow. Win and loose. That regions change hands, rather than stay static. It doesn’t have to be either, that regions change hands all the time, but that battles are won and lost with a little more variety. When the outcome is determined beforehand by wether you are defender or attacker, it looses some of its appeal. With the new system, attacking a port is a chore, and victory is a slim chance in most cases. Defenders only need to find a decent defence tactic for a port and stick to it, and the attacker has no chance. Add screening, getting delayed into the fight, and spawning far, far away, and you might end up doing a ton of work and not even getting a fight out of it. Port Battles have been well stocked with players on both sides for the past months, but still half the time port battles were over before the forces were even able to engage each other in the instance. We may have gotten rid of empty port battles, but I’m not sure we made port battles more fun. In my opinion, despite it’s flaws, it was much more fun when the map changed colours from day to day, and you lost one port (or three) one day, and regained it (and 5 more) the next day. There were more undefended Port Battles, more zerging, and more pointless pixel colours, but there was more action. Not all of those things were good, but ideally we could keep the positives and throw out the negatives. I’ll get back to how. But to be clear, to its credit, the 46 hour preparation time makes port battles slightly more fair now, at least once screening will be fixed and easy teleports removed. Players want RvR to be meaningful, but not a zero sum game: We as players, want to feel that we achieve something. That when we win we get rewarded and that we win *something*. When we win a port battle, we want to win the region/port. We are willing to work hard to see pixels change colour. It is in the nature of a RvR game. We also want to see the enemy suffer. But for most of us, who at one time or another have been on both sides of the win/loss, we don’t want that loss to be too great. We don’t want our enemy to quit because loosing is too punishing, and we know that one day the shoe might be on the other foot and we are the ones to loose. Ideally you want your enemy to loose to you one day, chalk it up to bad luck, and be back the next day ready to try again with the same spirit. If loosing is too punishing, many players don’t bother to continue playing until they get enough experience to be able to win. Players don’t want defenders to be able to wait out the battle by simply kiting and running till the battle is over: Before we got land in port battles, one of the main complaints about port battles was that since the attacker needed to kill the defenders, while the defenders only needed the battle to be over, a viable tactic for defenders was trying to run the entire match and kite the enemy to prevent them from being able to catch up and engage a battle. You could defend, simply by drawing out the time and avoid a fight. Since the circles we got with land in Port Battles, this particular thing is no longer an issue. How can we address these requirements?: Players want daily conquest activity: Ideally the promised raids could be the daily, large-group, RvR-tied, clan-centered/organised activity that RvR-players can do and enjoy every evening, on short notice and spontaneous organisation. It needs to be tied in with RvR-as working towards port battles somehow, so that it is not just an inconsequential activity that players have to weigh their time doing against doing activities that would gain RvR. If we get raids, that work, but with no tie-in with Port Battles, then raids will either be DOA, or kill RvR. We need a balance. Players want conquest to be flexible: With the flags and individual port capture, RvR was too flexible. Frontlines were shifting back and forth every day, but too many ports would change hands each day, and it was all about taking more ports in a night than the opponent could take back the next day. Way too many ports were exchanged without any opposition. There was a lot of sitting around shooting towers, and not enough shooting each other. The new system, however, has made conquest too inflexible, yet at the same time too fleeting. First, winning as an attacker is hardly possible due to the mechanics and the port defences. Second, if you win a battle, through a stroke of luck or moment of brilliant inspiration, that single battle makes a whole region of several ports change hands. It makes little sense to me that a single battle should make as much as 7 ports change nation in an evening. It also makes little sense to me that attacking should be so punishingly hard and unforgiving that it is demotivating. And if you mess up one evening and loose a port, that port will be almost impossible to get back. Players want RvR to be meaningful, but not a zero-sum game: You need to get rewarded for conquest, but conquest also needs to be reversible. If you loose an important region, you should be able to get it back if you just put enough effort into it. A defeated nation needs to be able to get back on their feet. You also want it to take more than just one single battle to win or loose a region. Conquesting a region should take several days, but you want it to involve action every one of those days. The grind to get port battles, and the 46 hour wait, are both toxic. Yet without preparation time you will have more empty port battles and difficulty for the defender to be where they need to be. To the point of making it meaningless. Players don’t want defenders to be able to wait out the battle by simply kiting and running: The capture point circle system that we got with land in port battles fixed this. Yet I never liked the 3 circles. It took port battles from being about sinking each other to being about artificial points and number of ships. Most of all I strongly dislike that there is now very little viability in fighting when outnumbered. If you didn’t get 25 people together, or one ship dropped out (or god-forbid was blocked out by a devious exploiting alt) you are now at a huge disadvantage, whatever the skill comparison. This might improve with the structure system making ships sink quicker, but with the unlimited repairs it might just as well magnify the problem tenfold. Instead of the 3 circles and the capture points, I wanted the old single circle of the tower maps just to be reduced in size and tweaked just enough to make kiting less viable as you would run into the edge of the circle sooner, and with land in port battles added to that, the number of directions you could run in would be severely lessened as well. Instead of loosing armour after 5 minutes by going outside the circle, and instead of the circle shrinking, you would get a penalty of some sort for staying outside the circle too long, even loosing by having a certain percentage of your fleet outside the circle for a given number of minutes. I think that with land in port battles and a slightly lesser radius on the port battle circle, we remove or reduce the issue of kiting defenders. I have 2 proposals for reworking the conquest system below. I believe that with the current mechanics that are already in the game, neither of these proposals will require prohibitive amounts of work to implement, and that both will constitute significant improvements over the current conquest system which we have. I leave judgement of the latter to my fellow testers and to the devs. Conquest system A: Raids, the new Port battles Make raids the new «port battles». Make raids the activity that clans and organised groups, but also just unorganized spontanous gatherings of players, can do every night, in and out, spontaneous and with little preparation. Specifically, raids need to be viable gameplay for groups of 15/20+ players working together. Give it meaning and make tactics a part of it, not just a blob of cheap ships shooting at another. To allow smaller groups to do raids as well, you can assign different tier raids to different ports, so some can be attacked with small groups of 6 players, while others require 20 players to work together. Bring back the old flag system for raids. 1 hour to plant the flag, and the flag can only be bought in a national port, and allied ports if and when alliances are brought back. We can bring back 2 hour defence timers for raids, or we can have open, 24-hour timers (for EU-server limited to within conquest window). A limited number of raids can be organised each day, but the limit could be something like 6 raids, or even more. You could conceivably organise within a nation to raid every port in an enemy nation’s region at the same time. In order to counter abuse, zerging and exploits, make raids prohibitively costly, and give diminishing returns for consecutive raids directed at the same region. Meaning that flags are purchased for PvP marks in addition to gold/war supplies to craft the flag. Since all or most ports in a region can be raided, buying the flag for one with an alt to block it, means nothing since all the other ports in the region can be attacked instead. Other exploits are also less viable to players, since no regions actually change hands directly from raids. Exploiting the flag system will be prohibitively expensive and gain you almost nothing. A successful raid limits owning nation’s production in that port for one day and gives raiding party produced resources as loot to bring home with traders. Say that production is halved in the specific port for one day by a successful raid, or by 75%, or maybe even halted completely. To prevent spamming and zerging the same region day after day by attackers, implement diminishing returns. A port/region that was recently raided needs time to recover before it will pay anything to successful raiders again. They can raid it again and again, but they won’t receive any rewards. To limit the off-hour raids to avoid defenders, scale rewards during the day relative to defending nation’s active population (or server population as a whole to make it simpler). Much higher reward for raiding in prime time could encourage raiding when there are enemies around to defend. Also, with the flag system, defenders have up to an hour warning to get to the port to defend against the raid or even intercept the raiders. The most likely defenders against a raid will be those players who have an outpost there because they have production there, so that they can go to a national port when they see that a raiding flag is bought, and teleport to their outpost to defend. Other players with outposts in the same region can teleport to their outpost and sail there to defend. Thus better rewards and better defences in a port the more people own production buildings there. Raids will be variable, have a decent chance of success, therefore being motivating, and yet a good chance that defence will involve players and not just AI. If raids are successfully implemented to be the go-to activity for larger scale group play and satisfy RvR and port battle fleets, then we can make the actual port battles even rarer than they are today. Keep port battles mostly as they are today (with improvements), with 46 hour preparation (or rather 22 hours if I had my wish), and increase the time between them. Make them weekly or bi-weekly for each nation for instance. That a nation can manage to set up and go through up to 2 port battles per week. Maybe only during weekends. Regions change hands rarely, and the map and conquest is fairly stable. The tides of war and conquest are slow, but not stagnant. Conquest system B: The removal of Port Battles (this is my preference) After thinking long and hard on how to improve conquest mechanics, the following is what I came up with. This proposal is not dependent on the implementation or progress of development of the raid mechanics that we are waiting for. Yet raids could easily be tied in with this mechanic to contribute towards RvR, or implemented alongside it without affecting RvR. In developing this idea, I tried to rethink my position on RvR completely, and pay some heed to those players who say that «port battles» in their setup are detrimental to the game and to the open world gameplay. They are a remnant of this game’s past. Some even say that conquest should be removed from the game. I love port battles, and I know a lot of players who play this game mostly or only because of them. So the removal of RvR is to me not an option. Yet we as RvR players could perhaps do well to scrap our current ideas about RvR and look at it with fresh eyes to come up with a system that is more integrated with the Open World and the rest of Naval Action gameplay. In developing this idea, I also relied heavily on my previous conquest mechanic suggestion, written in cooperation with @Bartas11, back before we had regions in the game. It is on his idea of Open World «Trafalgar» battles and controlling sea zones that I base my new approach. We now have in-game the regions that we suggested. We don’t however have the multi-stage conquest of a region. There is one Port battle, and then the region either changes hands or doesn’t. I’m proposing that we scrap «Port Battles». Why do I say this, being an admitted port-battle player first and foremost myself? And why do I say that when devs have spent so much effort and time giving us land in port battles and towers and the capture point mechanics? We waited so long for these features to be developed before the port-wipe, and we spent so much time refining them. Well. I’m not saying we should scrap the land in port battles features completely. These ports, towers and so on should be used for the upcoming raid mechanics. Here is my proposal for conquest mechanics port battles are scrapped: -When you wish to capture a region, you buy a flag in any nationally owned port. This flag is crafted with X amount of Conquest marks, X amounts of Gold and X amounts of War supplies - war supplies being the main ingredient. For instance 5 conquest marks, 200k gold and 50 war supplies. -This flag lasts for 5 hours from the time it is crafted and you buy it for a specific region. Say that you want to attack Santo Domingo region. You would craft the flag in Ponce or Areceibo probably, if coming from the east. -When you craft the flag, you need to form a group. This group can hold up to 25 players, and to avoid abuse the group has to have 20 players in it before you can properly craft the flag. -Upon crafting the flag, a message is sent to the entire server, alerting of the fact. Just like previously with the flag system. -The crafting of the flag also spawns a circle in the open world at the region capital of the region that is under attack. This circle has its focal point on the capital city. The radius of the circle is roughly equal to the viewing distance in OW in clear weather. -Whoever crafts the flag, becomes the flag-bearer (flag-carrier). -The flag can be transferred between players in port(?). -If the flag-bearer logs off from the game for more than 5 minutes, the flag disappears and the group is dissolved. -The composition of the group can be changed by adding or removing players from the group. But the group can not have more than 25 members in it. -The point now, is for the flag-carrier and his group to bring the flag and themselves to the region they are attacking. -The attackers are now to get their fleet to the OW circle outside the region capital. They need to be inside the circle. Once inside that circle, if the flagcarrier leaves it, the flag expires immediately. Thus you cannot hover at the edge of the circle and go in and out of it like people do in the PvP-events. -Conquest depends on a «meter». That meter rises for every hour that the aggressors' flag stays inside the circle. -In order to flip a region’s ownership the attacking faction has to have the flag inside the region for a cumulative 12 or 24 hours (number to be determined by testing). Meaning conquest will not happen in one day, but may take several days or even weeks to generate enough points towards the meter. With a 5 hour flag expiry, you can maximum contribute 5 hours minus travel time towards conquest in one day. But then you would have to sit inside the circle for an entire five hours consecutively and the enemy would have 5 hours to mobilise a defence. -While the goal of the attacker will be to stay inside the circle for as long as possible to generate points towards the conquest of the region, the owners of the region that are under attack will have the goal to try and chase or force the attackers out of the area, or sink the attacking fleet. -Once an alert is out to the server that a nation crafted a flag against a region, the current owner of the region will have to mobilise a defensive fleet of their own to sail there and defeat the intruders. Once there, they will observe the invading fleet and engage it in a large open world battle. The position of the invaders in OW will determine the spot of the battle, and it could happen close to shore or at the farthest end of the circle far from any land. Forts will not really be a factor, unless the invader sails all the way up to a town, but why would they? There were no forts at Trafalgar either. -When in battle instance, the timer still counts towards conquest for the invaders. If they stay one hour in battle, that is one hour towards conquest just like if they sat in OW. To avoid that invaders just tag a small fleet or single ship to hide in battle instance from defenders, anyone belonging to the group carrying the flag cannot do a tag on any other ship, player or npc, while inside the conquest circle. In other words, invaders cannot initiate a battle while inside the circle. -The defenders however will have to attack the invaders in order to halt their conquest. To avoid that invaders use alts or trick noobs into engaging a fight with them that allows them to hide in battle instance, the new BR rules should apply. Only a comparable force can engage the invaders. If they have 25 Victories, only a force of 20+ 1st rates or so can drag them into battle. -Once the defenders engage the invaders, making a battle of 25 vs 25 players, the following can happen: The battle stays open for the entire duration of the fight incase either or both sides do not have 25 players initially. However either side can have a maximum of 25 players enter. Neither side can get a 26th or 27th ship in even if there are less than 50 ships total in the instance. The battle may have 3 outcomes. Invader wins, defender wins, or a draw. The invader wins by getting to 2 times the BR of the defender (just like old times). The defender wins by either getting to 2 times the BR of the invader, or by sinking the invader’s flagcarrier. A battle ends in a draw if by the end of 90 minutes neither side has gained 2 times the BR and the flag is still afloat. If the battle ends in a draw, then the time that was spent inside the battle is added to the conquest meter in favour of the invader. If the invader wins the battle, then they get 2 times or 3 times the number of points. So they get credited for twice or three times the time they spent inside the battle. If the defender wins, that sets back the clock for the invader by about the same amount of time as they would have moved forward if they won. To explain this better I will use points: You need 24 points (for instance) to flip a region. For every full hour spent inside the region with the flag, you get 1 point. If the defender engages and you defeat them, you get maybe 4 points from the battle, if the battle is a draw you get 1 point from the time you spent inside the battle, but no bonus. If the invader looses the battle they are subtracted 4 points. There is a bonus to the defender for sinking the flagcarrier, which subtracts another 1 point in that case. -If the defender sinks the flag 3 times before the invader can flip the port, then the conquest is reset and a cooldown of a few day is applied before the flag can be crafted again for that region. -The flag for any one specific region can only be crafted once per day per nation. -More than one nation can have conquest going against the same region simultaneously. They will then be competing about getting 24 points first. -If the defender does not have players near the region when you first attack it. There is a chance that they might not get there the first day to engage the invaders, if invaders turn around and go home after sitting in the circle for 2 hours unopposed. However, the owning nation then knows that the region is under attack, and a flag will most likely be crafted the subsequent days, and must therefore station ships in the region and an outpost to be able to respond in time the next day. -If attackers do not face resistance the first day of conquest, they are guaranteed to face it the next day, as defenders set up base there to be ready. Defences will be gradually increasing as the conquest progresses and defending nation sends more players there. -How to avoid that either side just kites to get a draw? Well. If the defender does not engage and try to sink the flagcarrier, then they will be helping the invader who then gets points for staying in the region by surviving the battle. -To avoid that the invader tries kiting the defenders to draw out the battle, the following mechanic applies: The ship of the player carrying the flag will get a 25% HP bonus as long as he is carrying the flag. However, in battle instances that are initiated inside the circle, the flagcarrying ship will also have a 15 or 20 percent reduction in top speed. If the invading fleet tries to kite the defenders they will therefore be leaving behind their flagcarrier, leaving him exposed to be sunk by the defenders and winning the defenders the battle. -Looting the hold of a sunk flagcarrier yields some war supplies which the defenders can take back home to their own port and use to craft flags themselves. -Players in the invading party, the group formed by the flagcarrier, cannot initiate tags of their own as long as they are inside the circle, but they can also not be dragged into separate battles unless they are too far away from the flagcarrier (the diameter of the ROE large tagging circle). They are bound to the flag-carrier. They cannot be dragged into separate battles, either by allied screeners or enemy screeners. The invading fleet cannot be separated into multiple instances. -To avoid that the defending fleet accidentally drag some of their screeners instead of their big ships into battle against the invading fleet, putting them at a disadvantage BR-wise, defenders should possibly also be able to make 25-player conquest groups that prioritise them into the same battle as players from their own group doing a tag. -Players will be encouraged to take part in screening. Players who show up in the circle to screen, but are not part of the invading force’s conquest group or the defenders’ engagement with the invading fleet will get larger rewards from any PvP they do while the flag and the circle is still active. Any battles that do not involve the flag-carrying fleet will not however count either positively or negatively towards the conquest points to flip the port. -The invaders can get reinforcements and exchange members of the conquest group while inside the circle. -Once the invasion is over for the evening, either because flag expires after 5 hours, or because the invading fleet sails out of the circle, the flag disappears and the effects that apply with it disappears as well, like flagcarrier having more HP or giving off war supplies when looted. -An invasion fleet can be intercepted and engaged before they enter the circle. If the flag carrier is sunk, the invasion is ended for that day before it even started. -The flag has to be crafted over again each day to continue the assault. Thus, the longer it takes to finish capture the region, the more expensive the invasion will be. -Each nation can have up to 3 invasions going on at the same time against different regions. -Not buying a flag for a region one day, does not reset progress on that conquest. A conquest can be halted to focus on another or on a defence. -Flags should not be so expensive that they cannot be bought each day. But they should be expensive enough to feel costly. -Most regions that are invaded, will in most cases eventually flip. Unless the defender sinks the invading fleet’s flag 3 times, the conquest can go on for a long time if slowed down by defenders. But eventually they will probably reach 24 points. That way a small and hard pressed nation can always eventually regain important territory that they lost. No regions are unassailable or impossible to a determined attacker. However a skilled defender will still be rewarded by the invader being forced to spend more resources and time on the conquest, and the previous owner can try to take the region back again after a couple of days cooldown. Advantages of this system: Brings action to OW. Counteracts the segregation between OW and port battles which has happened. Forces RvR-players into OW. To conquer regions you have to spend time in OW. Brings spontaneity back to RvR. Prolongs the conquest of a region. Means that several battles will have to be fought to conquer a region, not just one. Increases variety in RvR battles. Screening is relevant but not OP. No kiting. Gives defenders warning and time to respond to invasions. Battles are no longer set to start at (example) 18:23 and you have to be there at that time. RvR-battles start when both the attacker and defender are present. Removes PvE-grind from RvR. Involves trading and crafting with RvR (for making war supplies) Regions will always be changing hands, but much more slowly and less abruptly. We will have a frontline conquest system limited by sailing distances as you will always have to sail out from a port that you own with the flag. However there is a possibility for conquest over longer distances than an hour for instance, but it will be more costly and more time-consuming as the time you spend sailing there takes away from the time that you have to sit in the region to gain points towards conquest. You could also adapt the above by having most regions be attackable by 3-hour flags (leaving 1 hour travel + 2 hour camping/fighting), while some special regions were accessible with longer lasting and more expensive flags. That would force front-lines more, but still allow jumping the map to certain hubs. There would be no advantage to not showing up and avoiding PvP. Defenders would have to defend, if not the first day, then the second day. I believe this system will suit those players who used to camp their fleets outside capitals - typically - KPR, to bait players into coming out and attacking them. Now these fleets can get involved in RvR. One of the advantages I see of this system is that it leans in favour of the attackers, but still balances. Realistically someone would only invade a region if they had a significant force and a good chance of conquering. In this system, unless the defender repeatedly beats back the invader and sinks the flag (or win the battle, if being able to sink the flag to win would be too easy), a determined attacker will always eventually flip the region. This makes for a dynamic RvR world where regions change hands every week. You will loose regions and have to take them back, rather than just sit on what you have and fend off attackers. The system forces nations to act aggressively in RvR. Otherwise, in the current RvR-system which very much punishes invasion attempts with total loss, nations that start out with much territory are incentivised by the system to not act aggressively, and only defend as many as possible of the regions they start with, at much less risk than those nations that have to go out and attack something. Because defenders would still affect how fast a region would switch hands, this dynamic conquest system would let nations conquer territory no matter their RvR-fleets' relative skill, but would favour as the most successful and expanding ones the nations that have more skilled fleets and therefore more effectively can halt and slow down enemies attacking their regions, while quickly completing their own conquests. A nation would expand not by always winning offensive and defensive conquest, but by being twice as fast at capturing their neighbour's territory as their neighbour was at capturing theirs. Sorry for the long post (5 400 words!)
  24. So, here's an odd idea I had. Premise: the gripe with port battles vis-a-vis nightflips and so on does not look like it will be resolved in the near future (for reasons that have been discussed in boatloads of other threads, so let's not rehash this here). It appears to me that the root causes people get so emotionally worked up are that, currently, the culmination and decisive point for conquering a region is happening at one point in time, in a very narrow time-frame (two hours for the battle, more like two minutes for the join window). Thus individual captains are upset when they themselves cannot take part in the decisive engagement, and nations as a whole are aggrieved as ports can change hands because of awkward timing rather than combat success (whether with malice aforethought or not, that’s not my point here). The hostility generation on the other hand, is less problematic: for one thing, it happens around the clock, so everyone can have a go; and its separate engagements are not individually decisive, so adrenaline levels are lower. So – thought experiment – what if we turn this on its head? The port battle opens conquest, rather than closing it: there is no pre-requisite for declaring a Target Region, merely an advance warning window (48 hrs or so); a limit to the number of Target Regions a nation can declare in parallel; and the requirement to declare an Attacking Region. Then the opening PB happens after 48ish hours. Defender wins PB: nothing happens. Attacker wins PB: the region is now open for conquest. Think: the port defences have been broken, and a beach-head has been established. Now we have different kinds of missions to generate Superiority (rather than Hostility). These missions run parallel, for a period of time. PvP engagements in Target Region: to gain/refute control of the sea-lanes. (Superiority accrues like the scores in the Admirality Events) Player convoys: running trader ships with War Supplies from Attacking Region to Target Region. Similar to War Supplies now. AI convoys: both Attackers and Defenders are notified in Missions tab that: Fleet of [trading vessels] will leave Attacking Region Capital for Defending Region Capital on [date and time]. If those AI ships make it to the Attacking Region’s capital, attacker scores Superiority, if they are taken or sunk, Defender scores. Nail mission: both Attackers and Defenders are notified in Missions tab that: [AI Fighting Vessel] carrying important personage will leave Attacking Region for Defending Region on [date and time]. If this AI ship makes it to the Attacking Region’s capital, attacker scores Superiority, if it is taken, Defender scores. Minor Port battles: open the non-capital ports for port battles, the outcome of which will contribute Superiority [randomtaskkk's idea] Smugglers: smuggling contraband into or out of the Target Region contributes Superiority for the attacker [Wraith's idea] After a period of time (2 days maybe?), conquest operations cease, and Superiority scores are tallied. If the Attacker wins, the region changes hands. So, in a nutshell we go from “distributed Hostility opens decisive single port battle” to “single port battle enables distributed Superiority engagements, which will decide conquest”. Worth thinking about, or utter balderdash? Discuss (in a civilised manner, please )!
  25. Heyho, I leave this here, but I think wraith solution might be the better one. You'll find it here:
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