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Post Wipe : Resource Rethink


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27 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

Paying absurd prices for them?

Jeah I agree its dangerous, you are probably right here.

In an ideal economy each nation has a rare good to trade for other rare goods, creating dynamic trading routes and relations between nations all the time. And even if they lose them for a certain amount of time they still would be able to compete.

Maybe im just too optimistic or naive.

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26 minutes ago, JonSnowLetsGo said:

In an ideal economy each nation has a rare good to trade for other rare goods

Bartering went out of fashion centuries before this game is set. In the nineteenth century we use gold.

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9 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

You are picturing things that arent ingame right now not even suggested by devs.

I have silver and you have copper, so we can have a good trading relationship. Maybe you ganked me yesterday, thats why im trading today with some1 else who also has copper.

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I don't expect perfect balance in the game - but it needs to be better for the smaller nations.  You wouldn't sign up for any sports league if your team was forced to play with less players than the other guys.  This is one of the few games I have ever played with no real method of balancing nations.

On PvP2 / Global, Denmark and Sweden are both likely to start with fewer players than GB or USA, and have almost no resources, and be positioned on the map where it is very hard to expand - not good.  I don't play for either of these nations - but I think it is grossly unfair to their population - if anything, it should be these nations that have critical resources needed by everyone else - but they don't have anything of consequence.  No silver, LO, mahogany, gold, ....

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A feature I feel we are crying out for is stockpiles.

Our Devs like notes. Use the note system to highlight a port/region that will be receiving a stockpile of resources.

If this port is captured the capturer gained access to the stockpile (normal production system) if the defender defends the port after say 4 days they gain access to the stockpiles (production buildings) 

This relatively simple system gives the Devs the ability to give a stockpile to a smaller population nation with the chance of keeping it and boosting materials etc.

Also I feel bringing revolts to regions (pirates given ports/regions) to break up long stale monopoly of the map buy the bigger nations.

Could you imagine if a core British construction region revolted (pirates given region) the British would be forced to capture it back. (generating content)

Simple ways to push content.

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Distribution is secondary, the consequences of not owning critical ports is primary. Instead of slowly hollowing out the whole point of conquest by making things easily accessible for everyone (or in the worst suggestions, making those unassailable as well, yeuck), just tweak advantages of wood quality and regional bonuses less drastic.

At the moment the difference between for example a live oak strong hull vs mahogany regional thickness ship, or a bermuda cedar pirate refit versus a fir regional speed ship, is quite steep. Especially when multiplied across an entire fleet.

Reduce the differences so that they only give an edge while player ability remains as the most reliable way to secure a win, because at the moment it's at the point of being "have access to X resources or don't even bother resisting", and provides a reason to own back-up ports with sub-optimal yet still useful resources/bonuses. You know, the 80% of the map that people currently don't really care about.

Though then again, since we've had access to all of those with the alliance system maybe more testing is warranted to know how much of a difference there truly is between optimal and sub-optimal ships in fleet fights. I for one would say that there's good potential for interesting content with asymmetric resource distribution, such as particular nations having a monopoly on certain resources while another has a monopoly on the other, and how that affects the economy and diplomacy across the map, instead of trying to squeeze in one of each in 8 areas of the map.

 

If it's going to be redistributed without a 'one for all' solution, nor by tweaking the bonuses, then how about if the critical regions were even more localized than they already are (since thats the problem with live oak, and to a lesser extent bermuda cedar and pirate refit)? What if all the strong hull shipwrights were in Dutch waters? And silver mines were in the Antilles? To make perfect ships in such a scenario might take considerable effort by having to hold vastly separated regions and ship goods all over the map (depending on how deliveries will work), and you could end up with scenarios such as live oak regional thickness ships fighting mahogany strong hull ships, instead of inferior vs superior.

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Guest sruPL
On 2.04.2017 at 1:16 AM, Hethwill said:

I am happy Mannis :) and support all. Don't misinterpret my distance from the focused issue, but I like to look to the whole board.

We did have too many mechanics that were focused but did f... all in the grand scheme of things and in the long run didn't work.

But do we even know what is coming post wipe regarding mechanics that rule trade, production, resources, and ultimately ship building ?

As I said, I'd rather see a more realistic approach to the "building" costs of ships than a massive "everyone has it all".

Just as an example Teak ships were massively cheaper and faster to do than Oak ones. Why can't we have that ? LO quality must have a price to pay, no ?

Also... why not have abundance and shortages or resources ? Once you cut down a tree it will not be available anymore for ship building for a long time, hence why so few ships were made of live oak...just maybe :)

Same with silver. Why mines do not dry out as they do in RL ? New veins could eventually be found.

IMO there's more to resources than a simplistic boardgame approach.

 

 

 

Naval Bases.

If you speak about Live Oak... "Southern" Live Oak, the iconic of the Old South, here you get the map where it grows:

Quercus_virginiana_range_map_1.png

 

Yet in game, we get only 2 ports producing them. Here you have lots of it all arround Florida, some near Havana and in Texas. This is just one of the spiecies of Live Oak, we get more of them growing in different locations... I don't know how Devs redistribute resources, but it looks very random or narrow-minded...

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20 minutes ago, sruPL said:

Yet in game, we get only 2 ports producing them. Here you have lots of it all arround Florida, some near Havana and in Texas. This is just one of the spiecies of Live Oak, we get more of them growing in different locations... I don't know how Devs redistribute resources, but it looks very random or narrow-minded...

I think it would be cool for resource availability to roughly correspond to actual / historical values / facts.

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1 hour ago, TaranisPrime said:

I think it would be cool for resource availability to roughly correspond to actual / historical values / facts.

Hmm. I haven't found a reference for Teak being grown in the Americas before 1913.

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4 minutes ago, Davos Seasworth said:

Resource locations although cool that they are in more historical regions, it creates issues in game. I also do not think everyone gets a source of a resource for themselves but rather have the resources spread out slightly more evenly rather than just on one side of the map. 

True, but i think that there are ways to possibly address resource availability through other means.  Having AI merchant shipping be a dynamic response to player contracts would be one way for instance.  Having merchant shipping interception missions, may be another way of dealing with rare resources. 

On a related note, I do hope they keep the smuggler flag system.  Not sure that I understand why that has to go - its invaluable to small nation players.

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1 hour ago, TaranisPrime said:

True, but i think that there are ways to possibly address resource availability through other means.  Having AI merchant shipping be a dynamic response to player contracts would be one way for instance.  Having merchant shipping interception missions, may be another way of dealing with rare resources. 

On a related note, I do hope they keep the smuggler flag system.  Not sure that I understand why that has to go - its invaluable to small nation players.

I don't think it's going any where. I think in it's current form it's going to be gone.  I noticed back in the PvE merge stuff they mention the only way to be attack in this zone is by having the Smuggler flag on.  I haven't tested it on testbed but I wonder if they reverted it back to the old smuggler flag days.  Cause they said if your attacked with it on it creates the same FFA battle as Pirate vs Pirate does.  So I get a feeling it's going to be around just not in it's current form as a free way for traders to enter into any ports.

Doesn't matter to me as I never take it off, you know being a pirate and all.

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On 02.04.2017 at 1:25 AM, Jeheil said:

As we go post wipe, can we get a better spread of 'key resources', for example Live Oak.

We don't need 100 places that build this.

I think having perhaps 6-8 ports spread far and wide with the 'rare' resources would be about right.

Make these Ports worth fighting over.

And please no heavy woods in shallows.

But what is the incentive to fight for live oak if everyone has access to it? 

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1 minute ago, admin said:

But what is the incentive to fight for live oak if everyone has access to it? 

may be not 6-8 ports but may be just 1 or 2 more would be good. 

This would allow for more traders on the OW, more traders in the OW would mean more room for PVP. 

If you build fun an engaging PVE, more players will be in the OW, more players in OW means more PVP. 

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Guest sruPL
8 minutes ago, admin said:

But what is the incentive to fight for live oak if everyone has access to it? 

How players without Live Oak can be competitive in PB? Please, don't give such answers like:

  • use Mahogany instead
  • capture PB ships
  • smuggle / buy / hunt traders

Often we get to the point when if someone loses certain state, he can never get back to it.

Edited by sruPL
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5 minutes ago, admin said:

But what is the incentive to fight for live oak if everyone has access to it? 

I understand what you are saying @admin but live oak builds dominate port battles. Additionally those LO ports either belong to the US or quickly will and the US will may have the highest pop on Global making it extremely difficult for another nation to conquer the live oak ports.

Fine, keep resources rare but there is going to have to be mechanisms that enable strategies for smaller nations to pursue conquest by weakening a stronger nation: raids that weaken defenses or nation, economic competition, huge expense of live oak 1st rate, other resources that give significant but different advantage than live oak in PB, better alliance system, letters of marque, etc. 

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22 minutes ago, sruPL said:

How players without Live Oak can be competitive in PB? Please, don't give such answers like:

  • use Mahogany instead
  • capture PB ships
  • smuggle / buy / hunt traders

Often we get to the point when if someone loses certain state, he can never get back to it.

I like reading your posts and learning from your experience, but what is so very wrong with the third option?

To my mind, unless everyone - yes, even the Dutch - has some method of getting live oak then the game is seriously flawed.

How many ports would it need to ensure the Dutch get one? Clearly so many that it it is no longer rare. Should live oak be rare? I really don't know, but that is probably the first question.

Assuming we do want live oak to remain rare, how are players to get hold of it?

Players in nations who hold LO ports will simply craft it, and for them life is easy.

Nations who don't hold LO ports must still be able to obtain it, but it must be harder for them to provide the incentive to capture an LO port for themselves.

I don't know what the best method is. Perhaps it needs a combination of methods. But smuggling and hunting traders both look like suitable mechanisms to me.

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20 minutes ago, Remus said:

I like reading your posts and learning from your experience, but what is so very wrong with the third option?

To my mind, unless everyone - yes, even the Dutch - has some method of getting live oak then the game is seriously flawed.

How many ports would it need to ensure the Dutch get one? Clearly so many that it it is no longer rare. Should live oak be rare? I really don't know, but that is probably the first question.

Assuming we do want live oak to remain rare, how are players to get hold of it?

Players in nations who hold LO ports will simply craft it, and for them life is easy.

Nations who don't hold LO ports must still be able to obtain it, but it must be harder for them to provide the incentive to capture an LO port for themselves.

I don't know what the best method is. Perhaps it needs a combination of methods. But smuggling and hunting traders both look like suitable mechanisms to me.

I would argue that the third option he mentions is extremely unreliable. I suppose sure, it's one way to gain the resource but I must agree with others. If you don't have live oak, but your opponent does in a 25v25 man PB, you're going to always lose the fight. (assuming equal skill level)

the admin stated a while back they plan to get rid of the smuggling mechanic, I would like to hear a confirmation on it, but even with the smuggling mechanic, you're relying on the fact that there is LO wood to purchase, of which realistically there will never be as others will make sure of it. Hunting Traders is going to be funny because now with the shipyard building back in the game, you will have those traders sitting in the live oak port so they won't need to be in the OW with live oak.

if anything, I suppose it's nice that the 2 live oak ports are going to have a high activity of hostility. the US is going to have to defend those ports from the 7 other groups, and I highly doubt they will be able to keep them when the time comes.

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Was it Hethewill that proposed a system of diminishing returns per the number of buildings or players harvesting a resource?  If this were the case, it would be harder and harder for a nation to obtain the resource as each week would reduce the harvest rate as the environment would be depleted of the resource.  It would (should) cost more for less production as the supply dwindles and takes more effort to find and/or transport to the ports.  As that was happening there would be an increase in demand for it as the supply decreases and the war continues.  Another element to think about with the grand balancing act of resource allocation and availability.

Edited by Kiefer Cain
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1 hour ago, Teutonic said:

I would argue that the third option he mentions is extremely unreliable. I suppose sure, it's one way to gain the resource but I must agree with others. If you don't have live oak, but your opponent does in a 25v25 man PB, you're going to always lose the fight. (assuming equal skill level)

If you truly believe that if the opponent has live oak you will always lose then you are limiting yourself to only a single approach to combat. There are other ways to win besides he who puts the most holes in the other wins.

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I think that the economy, the conquest and the player interaction requires creation of resource rich regions that gives access to more than one nation. On one hand this will lessen the conflict on the nation level, however will bring players to one area for the specific resource, thus creating a point of interest or... a conflict zone.

Today we have 1 nation holding Live Oak for example. Other nations don't really show up in that region until that region is conquested.
The new approach will bring the entire server to a smaller area of the map in search for a specific resource.

The conflict on the nation level will be created over a resource rich regions that grow/produce more than one resource as per map below.

Trade Hubs will also create point of conflict and bring people together. You will have to use those Trade Hubs in order to access the Market globally, thus brings another conflict zone around actual Trade Hubs and routes.

CsjWBYm.jpg

Edited by koltes
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I think where the game will differ post patch is that the capitals will be the trading HQ's again, so like it was before the fine woods there will always be stuff for sale at your capital and the only place you ever need to bring live oak to is to the capital. I guarantee you people will be sailing Live Oak up and down if there is enough money to be made with that.

On top of that everybody starts with the same gear and gold, so there'll be no players sitting on stacks of millions just buying the shop empty.

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Guest sruPL
13 hours ago, Remus said:

I like reading your posts and learning from your experience, but what is so very wrong with the third option?

To my mind, unless everyone - yes, even the Dutch - has some method of getting live oak then the game is seriously flawed.

How many ports would it need to ensure the Dutch get one? Clearly so many that it it is no longer rare. Should live oak be rare? I really don't know, but that is probably the first question.

Assuming we do want live oak to remain rare, how are players to get hold of it?

Players in nations who hold LO ports will simply craft it, and for them life is easy.

Nations who don't hold LO ports must still be able to obtain it, but it must be harder for them to provide the incentive to capture an LO port for themselves.

I don't know what the best method is. Perhaps it needs a combination of methods. But smuggling and hunting traders both look like suitable mechanisms to me.

3rd option is a pirate style more likely.

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