Will you adress the elephant in the room?

[Lord Vicious]

The biggest issue with pb is not how we generate them, but the fact that : OW beside pvp events, ow pvp is almost dead beside screen actions so the only ships ppl use in pb is agamennon and  3 firstrate anything else have no reason to exist.

 

Again as long pb is:  just bring your best ship possible for the cathegory    having 4 ships or 600 will make no difference.

 

What we need is a pb system related not to the slots but to the BR  or pb with composition limits, a tot of first/2nd a tot of 3rd etc etc       This will give space to compositions  space to newer players, and more deep tactics then 25 aga vs 25 aga  or 25 vic vs 25 vic.

Edited January 24, 2017 by Lord Vicious

[Yar Matey]

I said this before and I say it again, unless ships have specific roles to play in PBs people will only bring the best ships of the highest rating.  Make it so capturing or destroying the towers on land are important and you just gave the mortar brigs a roll to play in port battles.  Make it so capture zones are in shallower waters where only 4th rates and below can enter and you just gave 4th rates a roll in PB.  Make it so only 5th rates and lower can get close enough to the towers to board them and capture the towers and you just gave 5th rates a roll in PBs.

Also, want to see more variety other than Agamemnons as the 4th rate of choice?  Then either buff the Connie and Ingermanland or Nerf the Agamemnon.  

Edited January 24, 2017 by Yar Matey

[Koltes]

15 minutes ago, Yar Matey said:

I said this before and I say it again, unless ships have specific roles to play in PBs people will only bring the best ships of the highest rating.  Make it so capturing or destroying the towers on land are important and you just gave the mortar brigs a roll to play in port battles.  Make it so capture zones are in shallower waters where only 4th rates and below can enter and you just gave 4th rates a roll in PB.  Make it so only 5th rates and lower can get close enough to the towers to board them and capture the towers and you just gave 5th rates a roll in PBs

Love it!

[Fellvred]

Completely agree - devs have mentioned before about having slots for different ship classes so there's a decent spread of ships . The only way this is going to be possible is if the port battle itself is moved to a lobby system (which a lot of the vocal people here seem to hate). No one is going to want to sail for 20 mins to a port to find out the slots for the ship they are in have been used up.

[Guest]

So what's your suggestion? Because there's already been quite a number of threads about this already, even by the devs themselves.

[James Cornelius]

I went into a PB on PVP1 a few days ago in a Bellona (in what was already very one-sided and going to be a crushing victory no matter what I did or if I had entered in a basic cutter) and the reaction I got from the rest of the folks there...well, you would have thought I came in guns blazing for friendly fire and screaming disparaging comments about their mothers.

 

The system needs to be improved. That's the only way to prevent the mentality currently in effect.

[Norfolk nChance]

I agree with Lord Vicious and the rest of the Captains above,

Unfortunately the Dev's are having real trouble changing just the port battle timer on PvP US(2). I think adding limits to the number of SoLs or/and a BR limiter is a real solution and a brilliant idea. But if the timer is such an hard issue to solve, these ideas are way off down the road realistically...

don't expect anything, anytime soon. I hope I'm proved wrong.

 

regards

 

 

Norfolk nChance

 

  

[John Quilliam]

I completely agree with what Lord Vicious has stated. The current meta for PB is SH Eggs and Bacon for 4th rate battles and yes we might get 3 choices for Line ship battles but it's boring and stale only having 2 PB by a nation active. 

 

Screeners get 0 rewards for being an important aspect of a port battle which is a shame, they do not have something like a capture circle outside the PB to participate in the outcome of the battle and get rewards like the 25 players in the battle.

 

The devs really need to sort something out where all the 4th rates get an equal chance to play and be effective.

[Lord Vicious]

Make the pb have dedicated slots for  first-2nd etc will force ppl to compose  if they unable to do a BR system  where you have a sort of BR pool to use at your choice with no limitation non slot related/limited

 

it will help if  1 of the objective to take can be reached only by 4th rate or inferior  ( that will means create a draft system a little mote deep then  shallow-deep)  that will make a squadron of frigs an absolute must for any pb

[Kiithnaras]

20 hours ago, Yar Matey said:

[...] Then either buff the Connie and Ingermanland or Nerf the Agamemnon.  

...or tweak Carronades to actually have higher pen than long guns of equivalent caliber inside 100m (historically-accurate based on info that I could find - carronades actually had a higher muzzle velocity than long guns [and comparable range] due to the tighter windage, despite using less powder). How crazy would that be?! Carronade-Brawling Trinc or Belle might actually be worth a darn again...

[DeRuyter]

Sigh - Please don't nerf or buff ships to fit the PB mechanics - fix the mechanics. And yes lots of threads on this subject already with good ideas to try.

[monk33y]

Wouldn't the easiest way to effect the currant port battle set up would be to make points a+c capturable by 4th rates! Make point b give more points. So you can still slug it out in the middle etc.

Personally I'd see port battles limited not on br but instead a maximum crew Size per side. This would force mods like gold hams to be important again also granting a wider range of ships etc 

[Ned Loe]

and here is your realism knocking on the door....too much of it and this is what you get

Edited January 26, 2017 by Ned Loe

[fox2run]

Another go is to make a wargame where players actually can join some action. (Action meaning battles not arcade).

[Captiva]

Here is a suggestion that I posted last week. Probably not perfect, but at least a starting point, as I agree with the OP that variation of ship composition is the only way to make port battles become more reliant on strategy and tactics rather than a slugfest of 25 Mike Tyson's against 25 Mike Tyson's.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I believe it would be an interesting experiment to require a mandatory number of different rated ships in port battles.

Using a deep water port battle as an example, the fleet composition would be something similar to the following (the numbers for each ship allowed could be changed and maybe not allow 4th rates, although I personally would like to see them in);

1. Each side must have 3 and only 3 first rates

2. Each side must have 5 and only 5 second rates

3. Each side must have 7 and only 7 third rates

4. Each side must have 10 and only 10 fourth rates

This would ensure variety and at the same time equality to every port battle. I believe that this could also add more tactical variety in approaches to winning port battles. 

You would follow the same paradigm for choosing ship variety in 4th rate port battles and for shallow water port battles. The exception being that you would allow  more number of fourth rates in a fourth rate battle (say, 10) than you allowed first rates in a first rate battle. And  the same for shallow (more Heavy Rattlesnakes allowed in shallow port battles than you allowed 4th rates in fourth rate battles).

At the very least, we would get away from every port battle looking like clone wars

Edited January 26, 2017 by Captiva

[monk33y]

Just make random regions 1St rate, others 2nd rate, others ....  So on 

[Busterbloodvessel]

On ‎26‎/‎01‎/‎2017 at 4:32 PM, Captiva said:

Here is a suggestion that I posted last week. Probably not perfect, but at least a starting point, as I agree with the OP that variation of ship composition is the only way to make port battles become more reliant on strategy and tactics rather than a slugfest of 25 Mike Tyson's against 25 Mike Tyson's.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I believe it would be an interesting experiment to require a mandatory number of different rated ships in port battles.

Using a deep water port battle as an example, the fleet composition would be something similar to the following (the numbers for each ship allowed could be changed and maybe not allow 4th rates, although I personally would like to see them in);

1. Each side must have 3 and only 3 first rates

2. Each side must have 5 and only 5 second rates

3. Each side must have 7 and only 7 third rates

4. Each side must have 10 and only 10 fourth rates

This would ensure variety and at the same time equality to every port battle. I believe that this could also add more tactical variety in approaches to winning port battles. 

You would follow the same paradigm for choosing ship variety in 4th rate port battles and for shallow water port battles. The exception being that you would allow  more number of fourth rates in a fourth rate battle (say, 10) than you allowed first rates in a first rate battle. And  the same for shallow (more Heavy Rattlesnakes allowed in shallow port battles than you allowed 4th rates in fourth rate battles).

At the very least, we would get away from every port battle looking like clone wars

Yes, perhaps though that these could be upper limits on ship ratings. So, for example the PB would accept 25 fifth rates. This would perhaps allow more players to enter PB's with small ships after the wipe. Different ports could have different ship mix limitations.

Buster