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Faul Battle Entry Timer, be gone with thou!


For battle entry we should ...  

42 members have voted

  1. 1. have an exponential growing circle instead of a timer?



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Goal:

  1. Open World should be about fleet and ship movements and positioning.

So having good tactical placement of assets is just as important as getting a good shot of in battle. Hence the transition of open world to battle should be as smooth as possible.

 

However, we don't want to fight 4+ hour long engagements like the battle of Trafalgar. Nor do we want to sail hours to get into any engagement. Hence we have the time dilution between open world and battle. With neither being a truly realistic flow of time.

 

Let me propose to fully take away the battle entry timer. B)

 

Does this mean you get to enter a battle at any time at close distance? No.

Ship positioning will still be of the utmost importance.

 

Instead we first divide the initiation of battle into 2 segments:

  1. Tagging, this segment is out of scope for this proposal, but might be retweaked.
  2. Battle entry.

Now we have tried numerous different options for battle entry and numerous other options have been proposed. Rather than making an inventory, I'll write up this proposal based on the posts I did manage to see and read. Therefore I can't be credited for this suggestion, rather it is a mix and/or accumulation of ones that have already been made. Kudos for everyone who proposed them.

 

Note that to become a full participant of open world only takes 2 minutes (currently) while the circle will keep on expanding after that. However the goal of "Anybody visible on OW can join the fray, nobody else." I do not consider breached as after 2 minutes your join distance is almost 3 km, an average 8 minutes sail away.

 

For reference I made a time/distance chart: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VIzDMmnXiq59XBjVmlIvntCm2RTcoypymowm4Qh7S4A/edit#gid=0

 

TL;DR:

  1. To be eligible for battle entry outside of the tagging circle, you must be a full participant of open world. See http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14536-to-gank-or-be-ganked-that-is-the-question/
    Again, tagging (segment 1) works differently.
  2. Beforehand each player can choose the distance he or she wants to engage at, the minimum being half the diameter of the current tag circle. (If you get tagged, you are forced to enter battle.)
  3. The battle entry circle then starts to expand with an acceleration of 0.4 m/s^2.
  4. If any enemy is closer to the player than the battle, the player is not allowed to enter that battle.
  5. If the circle edge hits a player and the distance is lower than the chosen engagement distance, the player enters that battle.
  6. If the circle edge hits a player and the player is part of a group and a group member is dragged into that battle and the engagement distance chosen is lower than the distance to that group member, the player enters that battle. (Gasp for air, purpose is to keep groups together in a battle.)
  7. If the battle is "semi-full" (based on prevailing criteria, currently 25 per side), the player only enters battle if a group member is in.
  8. If the battle is full, then tough luck.
  9. NPCs will always have the minimum distance set.
  10. To annoy Fasti, the distance can be set using a slider (in 100m increments).

I reserve the right to keep the rules up to date, so please revise your vote accordingly when it happens.

 

We'll do a simple, yes or no vote.

Does anybody see a potential exploit here?

 

[edit 2016-06-22] typo

[edit 2016-06-23] clarified battle entry/join vs open world entry. Added time/distance clarifications.

[edit 2016-06-23] clarified joining happens on the edge of the circle and added calculations up to 18km. Plus engagement distance must be chosen beforehand.

[edit 2016-05-25] http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14789-faul-battle-entry-timer-be-gone-with-thou/?p=275045far dragging

Edited by Skully
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I really don't care how big the circle is, but rather that the battle just stays open with no timer. If people really want to drag a battle out for 4+ hours, then so be it, they have the endurance that I would not have. But seeing one mate stuck in a battle vs 4 or five and not being able to help him because of a clock is simply ridiculous.

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I really don't care how big the circle is, but rather that the battle just stays open with no timer. If people really want to drag a battle out for 4+ hours, then so be it, they have the endurance that I would not have. But seeing one mate stuck in a battle vs 4 or five and not being able to help him because of a clock is simply ridiculous.

 

Thank you!  I have been arguing against this since it was implemented.  Now that we have 2 minute timers, there are always a pack of pirates going up and down the coast near our nations capital indiscriminately ganking players ships.  By the time the ships in nearby ports sail out, the battle is closed, and the player is stuck in a 4 or 5 vs 1.  I lost my 3rd rate because I was ganked in this manor right outside of a port where all my friends were.  They left port immediately after I told them 5 ships engaged me in combat, and I was pitted against these guys in a grossly lopsided battle.  My friends could not help me because the battle closed before they were allowed to join due to the 2 min timer after leaving a port.  Its extremely disheartening to lose my ship in such a manor near my nations capital. 

 

Since this was implemented, I have either lost my ship or a durability on 3 constitutions, and a 3rd rate. 

Edited by Ultravis
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Thank you!  I have been arguing against this since it was implemented.  Now that we have 2 minute timers, there are always a pack of pirates going up and down the coast near our nations capital indiscriminately ganking players ships.  By the time the ships in nearby ports sail out, the battle is closed, and the player is stuck in a 4 or 5 vs 1.  I lost my 3rd rate because I was ganked in this manor right outside of a port where all my friends were.  They left port immediately after I told them 5 ships engaged me in combat, and I was pitted against these guys in a grossly lopsided battle.  My friends could not help me because the battle closed before they were allowed to join due to the 2 min timer after leaving a port.  Its extremely disheartening to lose my ship in such a manor near my nations capital. 

 

Since this was implemented, I have either lost my ship or a durability on 3 constitutions, and a 3rd rate. 

To make sure the expectations are right, this mechanic will not save you.

  1. http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14536-to-gank-or-be-ganked-that-is-the-question/will still be in effect, so after you sail from a port you have a 2 minute join penalty. If you want friends in, then they must be sitting on open world.
  2. They can only enter when the circle hits them. So they must have the proper distance setup. If not, then their chance of entering battle is over.

So if you are a defense force, keep your eyes open and your distance to your maximum comfort level. That way, if somebody does get ganked you'll be in that battle and have the opportunity to save the gankee.

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I dont understand what keeps people from entering the battle from port . Yeab they have a countdown timer but the battle has no timer so they just wait it out right?

You would never get into a freeport. Once a battle starts on a freeport and you can freely enter the battle, then everyone will hop in. Or rather the ones that were expecting the battle to appear would hop in. Picture a lone trader trying to dock up in a freeport.

 

Hence we need to disconnect battle entry from open world entry.

Edited by Skully
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You would never get into a freeport. Once a battle starts on a freeport and you can freely enter the battle, then everyone will hop in. Or rather the ones that were expecting the battle to appear would hop in. Picture a lone trader trying to dock up in a freeport.

Hence we need to disconnect battle entry from open world entry.

Ah i get it i think and yeah that was my point is that every battle would never end and you could never cap a ship.

So basicly in dumb terms for me you aresaying that when a battle starts everyone who in the ow who can see it is in another plane sorta and only those people can enter the battle but can enter at any time ?

Thats not bad but could still be taken advantage of by people pretty easily just to be trolls and since its the internet well lol.

Not a bad idea though if it had some tweaks.

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The recent concern over the timer is not new. Here is the thread discussing the reduction of the timer from 10 minutes to 5 minutes:

 

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/7652-battles-now-remain-open-for-only-5-minutes/page-2?hl=battle

 

There are multiple other threads on the "battle entry timer" but the issue remains the same - how do you deal with the OW time dilation vs. the battle instance. So my question is does your expanding battle circle resolve this problem? If not your goal is not being met IMO.

 

There is a suggestion in the above thread to do away with the timer but to have ships spawn a distance away from the battle based on their arrival time from the OW. Is this captured by your expanding circle?

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The recent concern over the timer is not new. Here is the thread discussing the reduction of the timer from 10 minutes to 5 minutes:

 

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/7652-battles-now-remain-open-for-only-5-minutes/page-2?hl=battle

 

There are multiple other threads on the "battle entry timer" but the issue remains the same - how do you deal with the OW time dilation vs. the battle instance. So my question is does your expanding battle circle resolve this problem? If not your goal is not being met IMO.

 

There is a suggestion in the above thread to do away with the timer but to have ships spawn a distance away from the battle based on their arrival time from the OW. Is this captured by your expanding circle?

The one thing that is not captured by this mechanic is that ships in battle are fighting in "slow motion" as opposed to the ships sailing on open world.

However I consider a slightly off the side topic, that we may need to address through other means. Also keep in mind that doing a battle usually requires a lot of back and forth sailing. (Although we had a battle in the past that started at Bonacca and ended at Black River.)

So that part I consider to be, under investigation / construction.

 

The problem with placing late arrivals further back results in ships ending up on land. Most of us have seen this happen with the initial positional reinforcement mechanic. It was hilarious.

In this mechanic late joiners will arrive further from the center of battle, but there position is directly based on the point where the circle intercepts them.

 

Here are the numbers: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VIzDMmnXiq59XBjVmlIvntCm2RTcoypymowm4Qh7S4A/edit#gid=0

If you join after 3 minutes, you have 6.5 km to sail, which on average takes you 20 minutes.

 

Yes, it means during the circle growth you can maneuver yourself a bit closer to the fight. That is the only "gamey" element in this mechanic, but for two reasons:

  1. As battles start around you, you want to be in the right/closest battle. (Not every battle starts at exactly the same moment.)
  2. We still want to "force" action to take place, while not nullifying tactics completely.
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I understand where you are coming from on this and if we did not have a means of communication between players I would probably be supportive of the idea. However, there is no way around the simple fact that we have nation chat as well as teamspeak etc. In the real world if I just happened to be sailing my ship and on the horizon I could make out the signs of battle and decided to sail closer I could.....but also keep in mind that at the distance I could see this engagement it would probably take me almost the entire length of our battle timer to even reach it. In the real world the did not have the ability to instantly communicate with other captains or ships over great distances.....in game we do. Ignoring this simple undeniable fact, combined with the whole time warp between real time battles and ow time compression means we kind of need to keep the system we have currently in place.

 

I simply have no sympathy for players who are sailing around by themselves in slow ass ships and then get engaged by enemies and want to be saved. Even if this was close to a friendly port there would have been very little chance anyone in that port would have even been aware of a fight taking place....they simply would not have had a means to even see it. Secondly, no ship would be able to muster it's crew and make way, plus sail there, in the time frame that our battles take place. 

 

I understand peoples frustration sometimes with the system but it is the best compromise you could expect when you are trying to combine a time compressed open world with a real time battle instance. People need to understand that they need to sail in close enough proximity on the open world that they can reinforce or otherwise not to expect help. 

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I understand where you are coming from on this and if we did not have a means of communication between players I would probably be supportive of the idea. However, there is no way around the simple fact that we have nation chat as well as teamspeak etc. In the real world if I just happened to be sailing my ship and on the horizon I could make out the signs of battle and decided to sail closer I could.....but also keep in mind that at the distance I could see this engagement it would probably take me almost the entire length of our battle timer to even reach it. In the real world the did not have the ability to instantly communicate with other captains or ships over great distances.....in game we do. Ignoring this simple undeniable fact, combined with the whole time warp between real time battles and ow time compression means we kind of need to keep the system we have currently in place.

The current system is broken. Right now the ganking guide says: use OW to sail to the edge of the circle closest to the swords and join. Poof, gank complete.

 

This suggestion actually takes away the advantage of communicating with an OW player and directing him to an advantageous join point. Ideally we would have OW go to 1:1 time whenever a battle is started (or even one is in progress). For some (MMO) reason, this can't happen. :D

So the only thing we can do is take away the OW time dilution advantage on those players that want to join. The growing circle hitting you will do just that.

 

I simply have no sympathy for players who are sailing around by themselves in slow ass ships and then get engaged by enemies and want to be saved. Even if this was close to a friendly port there would have been very little chance anyone in that port would have even been aware of a fight taking place....they simply would not have had a means to even see it. Secondly, no ship would be able to muster it's crew and make way, plus sail there, in the time frame that our battles take place.

My neither and I stated that in such hard terms, that I got a warning out of it.

 

But as admin said: "Our position is and was always this: ganking has to be reduced by design."

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/13106-patch-97-land-sighted/?p=239607

 

So we are kind off forced into having sympathy. :P

 

As for the friendly/free port sailing, I have clarified that ships must be fully at the ready on open world.

 

I understand peoples frustration sometimes with the system but it is the best compromise you could expect when you are trying to combine a time compressed open world with a real time battle instance. People need to understand that they need to sail in close enough proximity on the open world that they can reinforce or otherwise not to expect help. 

I want to put it completely in the hands of the defenders. If I was a defender I would put my distance at 2km max, roughly 5 minutes sailing. I would not waste more time on folks sailing further away from me.

 

The other part is that this gives a slight increase of pressure on gankers, without truly increasing the risk. Should you find yourself in a battle with lots of reinforcements incoming (which you can see now). You can chose to disengage the gankee.

 

I hope I have given enough arguments to convince you (and others) to make/change their vote (to) yes. :)

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The problem is that what helps you, also helps the enemy. People like to say that removing timers is the solution to prevent ganking, but we have had longer timers in the past and this was ultimately not proven to be the case.

 

Say you are sailing and see an enemy gank squad on the open sea consisting of 4 enemy ships. You ask for help and 5 players are relatively nearby and willing to sail 20 minutes to help. They join your fight, thanks to having unlimited time to do so. However, as your teammates are joining, the 4 enemy ships have ALSO asked for help as well. 6 more enemies come to help them.

 

It is now 6 on 10. By the time any more friendly ships can even get to your battle, your ships will be so smashed up that the outcome will be pretty much determined.

 

If you are fortunate to be in a fairly large, active faction, there is a chance that you might be able to find 19 more players to come and fill your team's roster in the fight.

 

If you are NOT in a large, active faction, plan to get good at building ships because you are going to be replacing a ton of them, and eventually you will tire of being little more than target practice for your enemies.

 

Now lets' consider the smaller faction's odds with a shorter timer as we have now:

 

Your nation is down to 3 or 4 ports. Every port battle you try to defend in results in disaster. It is certain death to leave port in a trade ship, much less any ship. You are considering either deleting the game or, re-rolling to another nation, abandoning your former friends and leaving your faction to the mercy of the buzzards feeding on its carcass.

 

But do not despair! There is hope. Guerrilla warfare.

 

If you can manage to break out to sea, get behind enemy lines, and hit targets in the relative safety of their home waters, now you are no longer at a disadvantage as the smaller faction. You can even do this alone if you choose your targets and hunting grounds wisely, teleporting between free ports and always hitting the enemy where they least expect it. They will say, "How did this Swedish player get here? I thought we eliminated them from the game!" Au contraire! They will constantly be panning the camera in fear of Swedish players coming over the horizon. They will check under their beds for Swedish players before going to sleep at night. The 2 minute timer has put the tiny nation on equal footing with the Zerg nation. 

 

TLDR: Unlimited time with fewer active players means you will always be at a disadvantage, because the enemy will continue to pour into the battle until it is full while you are resorting to calling people on their phones and telling them to log-on to the game because no one else is online in nation chat. The 2 minute timer serves to equalize the contenders. Yes, they will still be sailing gank squads into your waters before you can react and the battle closes, but at least you can do the same to them.

 

That said, I'm with-holding voting for the moment, because I would like to hear more arguments from the opposition before deciding one way or another.

Edited by ajffighter86
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The problem is that what helps you, also helps the enemy. People like to say that removing timers is the solution to prevent ganking, but we have had longer timers in the past and this was ultimately not proven to be the case.

 

Say you are sailing and see an enemy gank squad on the open sea consisting of 4 enemy ships. You ask for help and 5 players are relatively nearby and willing to sail 20 minutes to help. They join your fight, thanks to having unlimited time to do so. However, as your teammates are joining, the 4 enemy ships have ALSO asked for help as well. 6 more enemies come to help them.

 

It is now 6 on 10. By the time any more friendly ships can even get to your battle, your ships will be so smashed up that the outcome will be pretty much determined.

 

If you are fortunate to be in a fairly large, active faction, there is a chance that you might be able to find 19 more players to come and fill your team's roster in the fight.

 

Anybody inside the circle will not have the option to join, as you can only join on the edge (/the moment the circle hits you).

 

To go by your example, the gankee get tagged by 4 gankers. At that point the circle starts growing. The 5 rescuers are at ~6.5km distance, so when the circle hits, they join up for the 20 minute sail. Keep in mind the circle is growing now by 140 kts.

 

At that point the gankers send out a message for help. Lets presume their OODA loop is ~30 seconds, which is pretty short. So their reinforcements must be at least 9 km away ready for a 25 minute sail. The circle is now growing at 163 kts. Once the circle passes there is no option to join that battle anymore.

 

Whoever makes another call, again presuming an OODA loop of ~30 seconds has to be at least 11.5km away (a 35 minute sail).

 

So yes, it can grow large, but because of the exponential growth the later you join, the more you are penalized.

 

Also keep in mind that joining forces are all positional. So nobody would stick around the center, but rather sail to the point that is most opportunistic for them. In the battle the gankee links up with the rescuers and then start an anti-gank chase, until they meet with the enemy reinforcements and thus are turned back.

Maybe the battle will go back and forth a couple of times. But that is how battles are fought.

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14676-pvp1-june-the-british-honduras-campaign-pirate-perspective/?p=273848

 

After 5 minutes the circle has reached 18km, a good 53 minute sail to center. Whoever wants to join? Be my guest. :)

They will never see an opportunity for a shot.

 

The circle is then expanding at 233 kts. Hence the distance chooser, which you need to set beforehand.

You can't manually join the edge anymore at those speeds. :)

 

If you are NOT in a large, active faction, plan to get good at building ships because you are going to be replacing a ton of them, and eventually you will tire of being little more than target practice for your enemies.

 

Now lets' consider the smaller faction's odds with a shorter timer as we have now:

 

Your nation is down to 3 or 4 ports. Every port battle you try to defend in results in disaster. It is certain death to leave port in a trade ship, much less any ship. You are considering either deleting the game or, re-rolling to another nation, abandoning your former friends and leaving your faction to the mercy of the buzzards feeding on its carcass.

 

But do not despair! There is hope. Guerrilla warfare.

 

If you can manage to break out to sea, get behind enemy lines, and hit targets in the relative safety of their home waters, now you are no longer at a disadvantage as the smaller faction. You can even do this alone if you choose your targets and hunting grounds wisely, teleporting between free ports and always hitting the enemy where they least expect it. They will say, "How did this Swedish player get here? I thought we eliminated them from the game!" Au contraire! They will constantly be panning the camera in fear of Swedish players coming over the horizon. They will check under their beds for Swedish players before going to sleep at night. The 2 minute timer has put the tiny nation on equal footing with the Zerg nation. 

 

TLDR: Unlimited time with fewer active players means you will always be at a disadvantage, because the enemy will continue to pour into the battle until it is full while you are resorting to calling people on their phones and telling them to log-on to the game because no one else is online in nation chat. The 2 minute timer serves to equalize the contenders. Yes, they will still be sailing gank squads into your waters before you can react and the battle closes, but at least you can do the same to them.

 

That said, I'm with-holding voting for the moment, because I would like to hear more arguments from the opposition before deciding one way or another.

 

If your nation is down to a couple of ports, then every of that nation should be close-by. Or in other words, the density of ships per area of water should be roughly equal for any nation. Low population nations will have little ports.

Now the hole that each nation has versus the Pirates should be fixed to prevent Pirates being the high population nation by design: http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14574-curing-the-black-plague-bug/

But that is another story.

 

So in the end, while you can in theory poor ships into a battle indefinitely, it makes zero sense to tie up your forces as such. Nobody should be joining a battle at 18+km, if the enemy turns away you will probably not even see them through your spyglasses. You would have really wasted 90 minutes staring at sea-gulls. :P

 

I hope I have convinced you that this suggestion can lead to interesting battles and you vote yes on it. :)

Edited by Skully
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Thanks for your response Skully. So to be clear you are sailing up to a battle and you can only join it for a limited window - as the engagement circle passes over your ship? Is the choice of engagement distance only for the initial participants - the tagger and taggee (and their groups)?

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Thanks for your response Skully. So to be clear you are sailing up to a battle and you can only join it for a limited window - as the engagement circle passes over your ship? Is the choice of engagement distance only for the initial participants - the tagger and taggee (and their groups)?

Yes, as the circle passes over your ship, entry is dictated by the engagement distance of your choice you made beforehand.

 

post-11395-0-30482300-1466705684_thumb.jpg

 

No, as you set sail from harbor, you pick an engagement distance that suites your style and set it via the slider in the ship detail menu. As long as you are not entering battle, you can change it at whim.

 

No longer will battle entry be dictated by timer, but by a choice you make and control.

post-11395-0-30482300-1466705684_thumb.jpg

Edited by Skully
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Let me ask this:

 

If you are able to 'determine the engagement distance', what is there to prevent every player from choosing the most extreme distance option and leaving every battle that doesn't suit their odds? In other words, wouldn't this simply further reduce the overall amount of open world PVP, when we should be implementing features to encourage it?

 

And supposing that your friends were able to join for an unlimited amount of time when you are being ganked . . . if the circle keeps growing, wouldn't they keep spawning too far away to be of any assistance to you anyway?

 

I'm not voting yet. I would like a better system, but I do believe that we have a fair amount of control as to how battles are set up as they are now. You just have to be really considerate of how you tag someone (or allow them to tag you) on the open sea before the 20 second countdown timer ends.

 

Because cannons are now loaded after the battle starts, I will always let a larger ship try to tag me closely if I cannot outrun him. I can usually have my cannons loaded and be raking his stern before he can even set his sails to 100%. They think they are getting a good tag, but it turns out to literally bite them in the rear. So far I have not needed a slider bar or pre-determined engagement distance because over-confident enemies usually determine the starting distance for me with their tags. I'm just not sure that the proposal would solve more problems than it creates.

Edited by ajffighter86
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Let me ask this:

 

If you are able to 'determine the engagement distance', what is there to prevent every player from choosing the most extreme distance option and leaving every battle that doesn't suit their odds? In other words, wouldn't this simply further reduce the overall amount of open world PVP, when we should be implementing features to encourage it?

Absolutely nothing. But you'll get real tired of seeing enemies at 20+ minutes sail from you (if you can see them at all) setting a course away from you. So you'll start tweaking down the engagement distance, until you are at the distance you are comfortable with.

 

But you actually found an exploit. As a trader, if you see an enemy you'll put your engagement distance at maximum and hope you get dragged into battle. I need to think about this.

 

And supposing that your friends were able to join for an unlimited amount of time when you are being ganked . . . if the circle keeps growing, wouldn't they keep spawning too far away to be of any assistance to you anyway?

First, they would need to be that far away on open world to be able to join. Second, if they are too far away to provide assistance on open world, they are too far away in battle to provide assistance. It is positional reinforcement, so you join the battle on the exact spot where you are on open world.

 

I'm not voting yet. I would like a better system, but I do believe that we have a fair amount of control as to how battles are set up as they are now. You just have to be really considerate of how you tag someone (or allow them to tag you) on the open sea before the 20 second countdown timer ends.

 

Because cannons are now loaded after the battle starts, I will always let a larger ship try to tag me closely if I cannot outrun him. I can usually have my cannons loaded and be raking his stern before he can even set his sails to 100%. They think they are getting a good tag, but it turns out to literally bite them in the rear. So far I have not needed a slider bar or pre-determined engagement distance because over-confident enemies usually determine the starting distance for me with their tags. I'm just not sure that the proposal would solve more problems than it creates.

The tagging "mini-game" is out of scope. Personally I think it works very well. But we may want another topic on it.

This one is purely about joining a battle.

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Absolutely nothing. But you'll get real tired of seeing enemies at 20+ minutes sail from you (if you can see them at all) setting a course away from you. So you'll start tweaking down the engagement distance, until you are at the distance you are comfortable with.

 

But you actually found an exploit. As a trader, if you see an enemy you'll put your engagement distance at maximum and hope you get dragged into battle. I need to think about this.

I think this can be countered by the following rule:

  1. If there is an enemy closer to you on open world than the battle, you are not allowed entry into that battle.

This prevents both the trader from diving into a far away engagement, plus a defense fleet sitting at port dragging in a trader at far distance. In effect you can blockade ships from meeting by sitting in between.

 

A defense fleet needs to sail and clear the incoming route.

Edited by Skully
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Ah i get it i think and yeah that was my point is that every battle would never end and you could never cap a ship.

So basicly in dumb terms for me you aresaying that when a battle starts everyone who in the ow who can see it is in another plane sorta and only those people can enter the battle but can enter at any time ?

Thats not bad but could still be taken advantage of by people pretty easily just to be trolls and since its the internet well lol.

Not a bad idea though if it had some tweaks.

I think you are missing the way it works, while a battle never ends (well in 90 minutes it does ;) ) the reinforcements can only come in from open world at the distance the circle is at. So after 5 minutes any reinforcements that can still come into battle have to be at least 18km away and willing to sail for 50 minutes to catch up with you. And that circle is still growing at a huge speed. I myself consider this an acceptable risk while I'm capping away. :D

 

So I think you should really reconsider your vote. :)

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  • 1 month later...

I think you are missing the way it works, while a battle never ends (well in 90 minutes it does ;) ) the reinforcements can only come in from open world at the distance the circle is at. So after 5 minutes any reinforcements that can still come into battle have to be at least 18km away and willing to sail for 50 minutes to catch up with you. And that circle is still growing at a huge speed. I myself consider this an acceptable risk while I'm capping away. :D

So I think you should really reconsider your vote. :)

After re reading it i agree with my original thought and acually think its a even a worse idea than first thought. It clearly supports gankers and port huggers.

Ill stick by my vote. Sorry gankers.

Edited by Mrdoomed
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After re reading it i agree with my original thought and acually think its a even a worse idea than first thought. It clearly supports gankers and port huggers.

Ill stick by my vote. Sorry gankers.

It is not supposed to support gankers and port huggers. How do you see them exploiting this?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Timer needs to be increased or removed, and made so anyone can join a pvp. Or do it so the weaker side can get reinforcements then lock it once they do. I hate getting jumping by a high end rat who is bored. I won't even have cargo I just picked wrong day to want to try and get some exp and coin, and fight a ship I literally fired 3 salvos at, and all but one cannon ball bounced off as he laughed at me. Yeah in that kind of battle I say leave it open so any one who wants help the little guy out can. They will just camp outside and chase you. What this is really about isn't 4 hour battles its about doing one sided fight and then having turn against you. I mean people are camping capitals now they should have to worry that any second 2 victories could come in to aid the snow they freaking jumped just outside of the capital protection, I mean right now there is no real fear at all because of the timers all you can do is camp the battle site and hope you get them when they get out, and they got run if its bad, meanwhile they raped some poor guy and if did it right will run away laughing about it, and come back in a few hours.

 

Oh and this supports it because you can just sit outside watch the timer to scare off others or distract then join last second to the battle. You giving them a visual icon that lets them know how long they can wait while still clicking every ship they see to see if its a player or a npc, and lets them still hop in if its clear and dog pile some one. Already saw some one doing that today a pirate in a basic cutter was playing scout for a big monster fleet that had a first rate at c-town camp. He ran around mostly getting ignored, just reporting any US player he saw and their rank and ship, plus you know direction they left in case they wanted to kill that one next. But that was its job report if any one was coming to camp the battle till it was over, and were they were, or play bait if attacked buy time for them to escape if it was bad if not die or surrender fast come back out in free cutter from sunbury as fast as they could.

 

And other end lets say I am fighting a traders brig, well there is circle over my battle telling people how long they got to come in and piss me off. It is way more tempting to them now, it could bring in moths like it was a flame. Not only that a passing pirate could see this from a good distance away and know with out even clicking it how much time he had to get there to show up and defend the contraband ship and ruin my day.

Edited by Zalzany
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  • 2 months later...

This idea has merit. Is PvP ever going to be perfect? No, and I think we all know that. There will always be advantages and disadvantages for the opposing sides, but this looks to be a good compromise between players on open world time (sped up) and players in combat (normal speed). Meaning, it allows enemies the chance to tag and win while giving allies a chance to help a lone ship and win without giving one side a distinct advantage over the other, in comparison to the current 2 minute timer which seems to create more stacked fights. The previous timers (5 minute and 10 minute before that?) seem to allow the battles to bloat, especially in populated areas.

 

It would be interesting to test. Nice work Skully!

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