Mix up Port Battles a bit more

[Archaos]

I think the current system of port battles could be mixed up a bit more to allow a range of ships to participate.

As it currently stands in a lineship battle it is 1st rates only (apart from the mortar brig and possibly 1 faster vessel to chase it). Everyone fields the best ship possible for their planned tactics and it is the same for 4th rate port battles and shallow water.

How about if for each port battle a certain number of each class of ship were allowed to enter. For example in a Lineship port battle you could have slots for X first rates, X 2nd rates, X 3rd rates and so on to a reasonable level. 

I think it would lead to more interesting battles and allow people to make use of their 2nd and 3rd rates more.

What do people think?

[clebi]

I don't know why this topic went forgotten, but here's my take of this in hopes of reviving it: (unless another one exists that I am not aware of)

During the battle of Trafalgar, the British had 3 1st rates, the franco-spanish had 4. The British had 4 2nd rates, the franco spanish had none. Both parties had 20+ 3rd rates and 6-7 other ships such as frigates. It is anything but accurate to have 25 first rates fight 25 other first rates and it bothers me greatly that there is no mechanic capping out the number of first rates.

One Drawback I can see is sailing up to a PB in a 1st rate and having all first rate slots filled and you're stranded outside while you could have joined, had you brought a 3rd rate. This would have to be avoided by maybe being able to select a ship from some sort of a "ship bag" as you join the battle. This "bag" would not be the same as a fleet, it would not affect open world or anything like that and would exclusively be used for port battles.

I think having a mixture of line ships would make PB's a lot more interesting and much more accessible to anyone who isn't exactly rear admiral.

Additionally, this would legitimize making 1st/2nd rates harder to craft and it would give 2nd and 3rd rates importance.

[monk33y]

Personally I just wish they enable upto 4 port battles in any 48hr window as the amount of conquest has ground to a halt. (also make each nation only have one allie)

[Guest]

1 hour ago, clebi said:

I don't know why this topic went forgotten, but here's my take of this in hopes of reviving it: (unless another one exists that I am not aware of)

During the battle of Trafalgar, the British had 3 1st rates, the franco-spanish had 4. The British had 4 2nd rates, the franco spanish had none. Both parties had 20+ 3rd rates and 6-7 other ships such as frigates. It is anything but accurate to have 25 first rates fight 25 other first rates and it bothers me greatly that there is no mechanic capping out the number of first rates.

One Drawback I can see is sailing up to a PB in a 1st rate and having all first rate slots filled and you're stranded outside while you could have joined, had you brought a 3rd rate. This would have to be avoided by maybe being able to select a ship from some sort of a "ship bag" as you join the battle. This "bag" would not be the same as a fleet, it would not affect open world or anything like that and would exclusively be used for port battles.

I think having a mixture of line ships would make PB's a lot more interesting and much more accessible to anyone who isn't exactly rear admiral.

Additionally, this would legitimize making 1st/2nd rates harder to craft and it would give 2nd and 3rd rates importance.

I think there's a discussion elsewhere that has more information about this.

Edited January 21, 2017 by Guest

[CarlBaron]

1 hour ago, clebi said:

[...]

One Drawback I can see is sailing up to a PB in a 1st rate and having all first rate slots filled and you're stranded outside while you could have joined, had you brought a 3rd rate. This would have to be avoided by maybe being able to select a ship from some sort of a "ship bag" as you join the battle. This "bag" would not be the same as a fleet, it would not affect open world or anything like that and would exclusively be used for port battles.

I think having a mixture of line ships would make PB's a lot more interesting and much more accessible to anyone who isn't exactly rear admiral.

Additionally, this would legitimize making 1st/2nd rates harder to craft and it would give 2nd and 3rd rates importance.

It's not a bad idea, and with a restriction to sail at least a 3rd rate to access your "ship bag" I could really see the benefits with this. 

Edited January 21, 2017 by CarlBaron

[Angus McGregor]

The TLDR version is...

Everyone wants to fill every slot with the the most effective ship for a given class of PB. In each PB class, there's a fairly clear 'best in class' ship right down to the build options and mods it should have... so people who bring those get first dibs on getting in.

It also *used* to be a big advantage to have all the same ships since they all turned the same and moved at the same speed. A good thing when maneuvering nose to tail at arms length in a line. Not so sure the commanders have gotten over that yet with the new much more fluid nature of the PBs.

It is very unlikely that the 'bring only the biggest and best' approach will change unless we're forced into it by mandatory multi-class quotas in the PB entry rules.

[monk33y]

The only way I can see port battles being switched up is to restrict port battle entry by rank!

Rookie zone (top four ranks forbidden)

Capitals (top rank only)

Nations regions classed by importance, higher the importance the higher the rank etc to enter 

Edited January 21, 2017 by monk33y

[Hethwill]

Personally I think we reached the very zenith of imposed limits in game regarding accessibility. We can see that it leaves a lot of people off whether we like it or not and that isn't really a good thing but we also don't want to see the issues from the past with prospective ranks messing up a PB.

There's space to think about the Admiralty idea posted by Admin and proceed to a more "fleet" centric system. The ability to compose a War Fleet, for example, by Admiralty points and respective BR/rate associated with the points. Obviously everyone will race to get the max points but I hope it isn't a grinding thing.

[clebi]

23 hours ago, Angus McGregor said:

The TLDR version is...

Everyone wants to fill every slot with the the most effective ship for a given class of PB. In each PB class, there's a fairly clear 'best in class' ship right down to the build options and mods it should have... so people who bring those get first dibs on getting in.

It also *used* to be a big advantage to have all the same ships since they all turned the same and moved at the same speed. A good thing when maneuvering nose to tail at arms length in a line. Not so sure the commanders have gotten over that yet with the new much more fluid nature of the PBs.

I personally feel like I wouldn't necessearily want to sail a first rate in every lineship pb. I know that many agree on that they are not the most pleasant vessels to sail. The people I've had chats about this with agree that they would much rather see a mix of ships in PB's and nobody here seems to be against it and the only excuses not to work on it seem to be that it would require time and effort to figure out how to implement it properly...as do so many things in this game.

Quote

It is very unlikely that the 'bring only the biggest and best' approach will change unless we're forced into it by mandatory multi-class quotas in the PB entry rules.

A mechanic like that is exactly what I am talking about and wishing for.

Of course it would be optimal if the game and the world itself made us decide against running only the biggest, baddest ships through something like what Wraith is suggesting:

8 hours ago, Wraith said:

It won't solve everything, but what the dev's need to commit to is getting draft/depth variation into combat instances.  Every ship has a draft, and depth is modeled with a simple binary check just like it is in open world. Either your ship can sail at a particular depth or it can't (beached with rigging shock, then you wiggle). It's just stupid that the dev's claim that it's too complicated to implement, since the collision modelling that is there already is likely far more computationally intensive.

This isn't rocket science, it's just about adding a draft depth to each ship and estimating a depth mapping from already existing, scientific data sources. The primary problem I could imagine is connecting open world to battle instance bathymetry, but I still think this is solvable.

Doing this would allow for the following kind of situation: First rates/deep water ships would be limited to the harbors. The side circles could likely be limited to shallow water ships and the interstitial areas should likely be a mix of frigates to protect the line or 4th rate ships in the harbor. In reality this may devolve into first rates of choice (L'Oceans or Victories) and Heavy Ratt's, but there likely would be a combination of frigates and shallow water ships that would be mixed in based on the maneuverability restrictions placed by bathymetry variation from port to port, since some ports would have all capture zones accessible to all deep water ships, etc..

 

 

[Batman]

Bringing diffrent kind of ships to a port battle would a low for more strategies. A few fast frigates could rush, chain enemy fleet or draw circles around them while capping points. But sadly, everybody is afraid of loosing a port battle due to lack of firepower, so it's still "biggest ship only".

[Grundal]

There are a lot of good ideas posted here and elsewhere.  The devs have all of them and ones they came up with.  And that is why I can't wait for the devs final version of a port battle and screening force.  It will be epic.  I truly beleive this.  We just have to wait and test the few remaining versions they have until the final release. 

Thank you devs for all your Hard work. 

Tsa

[Fargo]

I think any kind of restrictions are bad, not adressing the cause of the problem. 

Having less first and second rates around in general would be best, making them expensive and the crafting time consuming. So maybe wait for the upcoming changes in crafting.

 

Another idea is to increase xp/time needed for high ranks again. Im thinking about the time after steam release. Grinding ranks took much longer, but as a player you felt important sailing brigs and frigates, cause there were no larger ships and npc fleets around. OW felt more plausible in general.

If 3rd rates would be sufficient for portbattles, achievable for all casual gamers, the upper ranks could be some kind of late game motivation for the more hard core players.

[Fletch]

It does not matter how expensive you make first rates, people will always bring 25 of the biggest and best ships allowed in in order to win no matter what the cost.

The only way to go is to make first rates take more than one ship slot out of your 25, say 3 places. So if you bring a full fleet of first rates you would get 8 ships inside   8 x 3 - 24.

Either that or do it by BR.

[Angus McGregor]

7 minutes ago, Fletch67 said:

It does not matter how expensive you make first rates, people will always bring 25 of the biggest and best ships allowed in in order to win no matter what the cost.

The only way to go is to make first rates take more than one ship slot out of your 25, say 3 places. So if you bring a full fleet of first rates you would get 8 ships inside   8 x 3 - 24.

Hmmm - good example of thinking outside the box but methinks it's too drastic a reduction on the actual number of ships in the PB.

I would dearly love to see a 2 week test of ship rating quotas something like:

• 8 - 1st through 3rd rates
• 12 - 4th and 5th rates
• 5 - 6th and 7th rates

With the larger ships present, it's my hope that the smaller ones would have to be quick and maneuverable. A lot less of the strong as bull, slow as ox stuff we have now.

[Fletch]

Its only drastic if the players are drastic enough to bring all first rates, 2nd rates could take 2 places  3rd rates 1.5,  you get where I am coming from

[Fargo]

1 hour ago, Fletch67 said:

It does not matter how expensive you make first rates, people will always bring 25 of the biggest and best ships allowed in in order to win no matter what the cost.

The only way to go is to make first rates take more than one ship slot out of your 25, say 3 places. So if you bring a full fleet of first rates you would get 8 ships inside   8 x 3 - 24.

Either that or do it by BR.

I think it does matter, at some point people wont be able to keep up the production. There is also the option to go away from insta-crafting. A first rate atm takes about 7 days to craft in total, but one crafter can produce one ship in less than 2 days if all mats are stored. A crafting duration of 7 days would be completely different. 

 

I dont see the difference of your proposal and BR limitation. For example define Frigate BR = 1 Slot, total BR = 25 x Frigate BR.

[Fletch]

43 minutes ago, Fargo said:

I think it does matter, at some point people wont be able to keep up the production. There is also the option to go away from insta-crafting. A first rate atm takes about 7 days to craft in total, but one crafter can produce one ship in less than 2 days if all mats are stored. A crafting duration of 7 days would be completely different. 

 

I dont see the difference of your proposal and BR limitation. For example define Frigate BR = 1 Slot, total BR = 25 x Frigate BR.

Problem is the same 25 people with the same 25 first rates can teleport anywhere in the world and fight every battle.

If one side lost badly the other side kept their 25 first rates intact that would be game over for a while.

[Sea Archer]

I like the idea of adding water depth to the port battles, that should result in other strategies without forcing players to use certain ships. There won't even be a limit for certain ship types necessary, since you cannot sail them in that area. So a 1st rate might give some supporting far from the coast but without being able to fight in the hot zone.

This would require maps of the ports, so that a proper planing of the required ships can be done.

[Sea Archer]

You could even make port battles for every ship class, 6th to 1st rate. That would be a good first step. 

7th rate battles are not necessary. 

[Fargo]

3 hours ago, rediii said:

sorry didnt read all the comments. Facts:

- If you don't set hard limits the best mix of ships to win will be used. This is everytime a specialized fleet. Because long range shooting is not effective it will allways be ships that are strong close range

i dont see any possibility to get a mix of ships into portbattles except hard limits (which are bad). But in the end a single type of ship dominated battles in the age of sail anyway: Lineships (or not?). Maybe there should be a 3rd kind of portbattles: 3rd rate battles

You mean the best mix to win a battle, but this mix might be worse when its about winning a war...

Another fact is that at some point all these stored ships, gold and mats will be gone. 

If then 1st and second rates are very inefficient to craft, it would become more important to gather full 3rd rate fleets. The first rate only nation would get outnumbered very quickly.

3rd rates could become the efficient and sufficient ships to fight port battles, if they are valuable enough to keep crafters busy over time. There is no need to bring full 1st rate fleets when the enemy doesnt. 

If "inefficient" here would mean 30+ days to craft one first rate, then yes its extreme, but it is an possible option. Even if there was high demand for first rates, the availiable amount of labour/mats in the nation would limit the production.

 

11 minutes ago, Rickard said:

that is not true ! most clans have so much resources stacked that they can build 10 first rates for days on end

...any changes before a wipe are not worth thinking about.

Arguing with broken mechanics or their results is very short minded while the goal is a game that is working and balanced.

[Fletch]

Sorry but it will not matter how expensive or how long winded you make 1st rates to craft, it will not be that long before one nation or even one coalition could field 25 of them. The fact those same 25 ships can be towed safely almost anywhere and used in every single port battle just makes the problem worse. First rates should need a much longer time to tow than other ships perhaps, If first rate fleets took a few days to tow we might see less of them. Other than that we need an answer to get more diverse fleets into port battles.

[Fargo]

Nobody can tell what will happen, especially when multiple things are going to change at the same time...

The point is these 25 first rates might face 250 3rd rates crafted in the same time for the same mats. If 25 ships can fight 250 ships because of tow times, there might be something wrong with it.

Its not like a nation decides what ships will be crafted. If crafters can sell 3rd rates for better profit than 1st rates, there would be more 3rd rates around. You cant really predict this, the price development alone is quite complex. 

 

5 hours ago, Fletch67 said:

Other than that we need an answer to get more diverse fleets into port battles.

Well, then set BR limits that favour mixed fleets...

But restrictions like this contradict the sandbox style of NA. If you have 25 first rates availiable, you should be allowed to bring them as the strongest fleet possible in deep water. Simply because there is no plausible reasoning why you shouldnt.

I mean if i restrict it in this simple way, i accept that economy has no meaning for conquest.