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Anolytic

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Everything posted by Anolytic

  1. Is it intentional that this link is identical to the Naval Action Discord link? nvm Shouldn't Dreadnoughts have its own server though? Like This Land Is My Land. The TLIML and UA: AoS communities have such a different tone to the NA community (SP vs MMO natural differences). Dreadnoughts deserves the same opportunity.
  2. So, no more newspapers, recruitment, ship videos and other RP which once made the game and the forum great? Steam forums just don't accommodate that kind of stuff very well. Why not revive this plan?:
  3. I'm all for suggestions to change the mechanics on this, but as of now this is just how the mechanic works and the accused didn't do anything wrong. It's the exact same thing Sweden did at Macao some weeks ago. So I agree, 1 low-BR ship joining and immediately surrendering should not automatically lock the hostility battle to 45 minutes.
  4. The purpose of this tribunal is not to get someone punished. It is aimed at pointing out a flaw in the new "unexploitable" flag mechanic, and suggest a solution to it. Hence I will not point fingers at the names of any that may have utilised this "exploit", and I will have to describe the issue without giving specific examples. I also, with this, seek to get clarification that what I describe actually is to be considered an exploit by developers. While I would argue that it most likely is an exploit, the mechanics involved were discussed prior to the release of the new mechanic without being flagged as exploits, and those who have used it so far could argue that it was not clear to them that they were using an exploit. The "exploit" works like this: You make a fleet to farm Home Defence Fleets. You bring an alt that you have in another nation along. This alt joins the HDF-battle. This alt can join either side in the battle. He can join the AI side, and thus avoid any risk of being sunk by the AI as long as his friends on the opposite side make sure not to accidentally sink him. With this he can cruise around in any ship he would like, like a lynx or snow for convenience and speed. Or he can join on the player side, and stay out of trouble till there's something to loot that's free of enemies nearby. In either case he can wait for the players fighting the HDF to find a flag on one of the ships they loot. As long as they leave the flag on the wreck and do not touch it, they can call out the location and let the alt cruise over and pick up the flag. Your alt, which as mentioned is in another nation, now has a flag. This flag can be used for any of the old business that hostility missions, and the old-old flags, allowed to do, which was shady and which the new flag mechanic was specifically introduced to end. The flag can be used to take a port with your alt-clan. Preventing the enemy nation where your alt is placed from getting that port, as they cannot attack a port that is already in their nation. The flag can be used to trade one of your own ports into an attacking nation, preventing the enemy clan from taking possession of their spoils of war and keeping control of your port even if you have to hold it in another nation. The flag can also be used to plant a flag on your own port, creating a cooldown, and preventing your enemy from attacking your port on the day that they planned. Not only are these tactics gamey and shady. They specifically break the "Alts for Portbattle Activities" -principle. That alts in other nations should not be used to contravene, circumvent, avoid, delay or sabotage RvR. My reason for posting this topic now, specifically, is that I've come up with a suggestion for a solution to fix this exploit. Here's how a flag looks after you've picked it up from the hold of a HDF-ship. But before you pick it up, the nation & the owner name is unassigned. My suggestion is simple: That flags are assigned to a nation even before they are picked up, but to a player only after he picks it out of the hold. So once a HDF fleet starts, any flags found in any of the holds of that HDF, will be already assigned to the nation starting the fight with the HDF. Case in point: A Russian player-fleet engages a French HDFleet (Russian player attacks HDF-fleet or vice versa makes no difference). A French player joins on the AI side and a GB player joins on the Russian side. Player X is Russian. He loots a flag. It is assigned to "Player X - Russian Empire". Player Y is French. He loots a flag. It is assigned to "Player Y - Russian Empire" Player Z is British. He loots a flag. It is assigned to "Player Z - Russian Empire". The first player, player X, can use his flag, no hiccups. Player Y & Z on the other hand will be in possession of two flags that are entirely useless - unless they move their character to the Russian nation. The flag is assigned to each of them respectively, but it is also bound to the Russian nation, and can only be used to set a Russian PB.
  5. Correction: This is just the numbers for yesterday, not the whole month.
  6. Tax on Crafting Every monetary transaction in a port between player and AI is currently taxed. With one exception. So it seems an oversight that when doubloons in crafting receipts were replaced with Reals, taxation was not applied. After all a good crafting port is the most valuable commodity a clan can offer. And the most expensive investment. So taxing crafting makes even more sense than taxation on random trade resources that the clan does not even control or affect. Who wouldn't tax labourers in their harbours shipyards? And shouldn't port owners get paid for players using their port to craft. Basic Mechanic: When you craft a ship, you pay 10% tax to the port from the Reals cost in the receipt. Like this: You could potentially lower the base reals cost for crafting a ship by approximately 9% accordingly so that crafting costs to the individual player would not increase.
  7. Admirals, I present to you evidence of intentional green-on-green damage by the Russian player Cardinall in a battle that happened on July 14th. He was in battle with players Willem van Hamsterdam and Sinterklaas from REDS in an engagement against what looks to be an Elite AI and proceeded to shoot several broadsides green-on-green against said REDS-players. Here is the battle tab-screen: Here are some screenshots that show him firing green-on-green in the battle, on point blank range and nowhere near the direction of the enemy AI in the battle: ----- Now, nobody was sunk from this and we are not demanding some harsh reaction in this case. But the screenshots show clearly, by gunsmoke and muzzle flash, that the player committed intentional green-on-green in clear violation of the rules. This can no doubt be collaborated by server records from the battle. Unfortunately I am not aware of any F11-report from the battle, but you can find the time and participants from the screenshots. I therefore record his name here in the tribunal in case the player should be accused of similar violations in the future. I would also suggest the player be given a mild warning and his steam-ID recorded as is precedent. Note that the player is not anymore a member of the BFII-clan and has been kicked from that clan.
  8. I like it. But what about when everybody sits in port all day only, doing their defence duty. Who will populate the Open World. I'm not saying this would be the nail in the coffin for OW, but if we make it too convenient to just sit in port and get insta-PvP, then we might as well shut down OW and make PvP lobby based. I know you wouldn't be opposed to that, but I think OW has its charm, and Naval Action Legends didn't do so well (for a lot of different reasons that might not be only about the concept).
  9. Admirals, Tonight we had the Tampico Port raid which BF and REDS defended together. Right as the battle was about to be finished, the battle instance crashed, our ships spun out of control, we got a connection timeout error message on our screens and a few minutes later we were kicked to the login screen. On the map the port raid is still listed as not yet completed, although for some (not all) of us the battle over screen came up when the instance crashed. Moreover, because of the untimely battle instance crash there were multiple sunken ships that we did not get to loot because we were on our way to do so when the battle instance crashed. Here is the battle still listed on the in-game map at the time of writing: Here is everyone that was in the instance when it crashed, as well as the disconnect message we got: I also have a video recording of the minutes just before, around and after the crash if it is of any use. I will upload it on request. Here are some F11 reports that were filed about the crash: NAB-102653 (by @Yettie ) and NAB-102663 (by myself). Our ships spawned back in OW after relogging, and we got a battle report with some rounded amount of XP (5400 and 3300 as concrete examples). However I'm still inconclusive if this XP actually got added to ship XP (can't say for sure) or character XP. There is no record of the battle or XP in our battle-"History"-log. But this could be due to the XP being registered before we got kicked to login screen as opposed to after we logged back in. Most importantly for compensation however are the chests lost to the sea because the crash kicked us from battle before we could loot/sink the last few ships.
  10. This is way off topic, but since you bring it up: Spying is explicitly allowed by the game developers, even implicitly encouraged in the past. Moreover, at this point economic alts in other nations is practically a forced mechanic given that so many vital resources are available in some nations, but not obtainable at all in others.
  11. Ever since release I've been entertaining the idea of a large scale battle involving only gunboats. The theory being that a battle of 25 vs 25 gunboats would be the cause of significant hilarity and an interesting display. 50 gunboats going at each other would be a sight to behold. However the planned introduction of a karma-mechanic could put any ability to arrange such an event in jeopardy in the future, thus I have decided to try to put this idea into the world sooner rather than later. So how to do this? First I want to see if there is enough interest in this proposition. So leave a comment here or let me know if you’d like to show up for such an event. I’ve already broached this subject, with generally positive feedback, with some British captains, but I think that to truly make this the magnificent encounter it could be, we will need captains from all nations to join. A battle would be started between two nations and then captains from other nations jump in on each side till they are filled. To make this somewhat manageable at least a core of captains should be on Teamspeak or Discord together to make sure everything is orderly to begin with. After we hit go in the battle though, all bets are off as far as order goes. For communication before and during the event we can use the REDS Teamspeak, which I manage: fleet.red I’ve been contemplating making it a free-for-all event where we all agree to ignore green/red and everybody fires on everybody. But for now, let’s make it two teams fighting each other, and if it’s a success we can try it the other way next time. How do we find ships? By now every clan and player on the server should be sitting on a stockpile of Gunboat Notes, but if somebody doesn’t and they still want to join, I know that at least my REDS-clan has collected hundreds of Gunboat Notes since release, so getting hold of a ship should not be an issue. When do we do this? Monday 6th of July. Let’s say approximately 20.00 server time, but I can be convinced to change the time. I wanted to do this on a date with some significance, and July 6th is the date in 1812 of the Battle of Lyngør which is considered to mark the end of what is called the «Gunboat War» or «Kanonbåtkrigen» between Denmark-Norway and Great Britain. A war that got its name from the cheap and easy to construct and man gunboats that the Danish-Norwegian Navy used to protect its coastline after the destruction of the Danish fleet of Warships in the Second Battle of Copenhagen. Where to do this? July 6th also happens to be a day that will have Nassau Shallow Patrol Zone. So I’d say we do the battle in the Patrol Zone. We all meet at Shroud Cay and then go to find a suitable spot near the edge of the zone where the battle can be initiated.
  12. In the course of the past two days, rumours have spread in the Caribbean of sightings of a large treasure fleet or convoy journeying from one edge of the map to another. Here's some footage of the huge fleet along its journey:
  13. This is not a proposal for a new mechanic, but an adaptation of an already existing one. In short, my proposal is this: Scrap the current clan-missions for woods as they are in-game right now. By now everybody has build farms for Live Oak, White Oak, Teak, and if they have use of it also Bermuda Cedar, Mahogany, Locust (Cauguiran Wood) and Sabicu. The old Clan Mission forests like this one is no longer in use, if they ever were: Keep the core mechanic however. -Woods for doubloons exchange. -24h waiting time. -Clan & Clan friendlist (optional) -Depletable forests. How it should be changed: -The amount of wood in each forest should be lowered. My suggestion would be rather than 1kk logs per forest, the total amount should top out at 25k logs. Some types of logs could have even smaller stocks. -Change the price. Instead of 2 doubloons per log, make it 5, maybe 10 doubloons per log. Rarer/more exclusive logs could cost more thanothers. So riga fir could cost a quarter of what Malabar Teak costs per log. -Have forests despawn and change location every week. Either by making the supply so low that they will be depleted as soon as they are discovered, or by forcing respawn every X days no matter if the forest is depleted or not. If the forest is depleted early, then there would be no supply until it respawns in another port, another nation. -Optionally, the randomization of spawn location could account for nation ownership, making the spawn each week equal chance for each of the nations in-game - thus giving an advantage to smaller nations with more concentrated territories. This is how an example clan-mission could look for Malabar Teak: What this mechanic would achieve: -exploration gameplay. Players would sail around their nation's ports, looking for forests every week. Players that found the location of a forest could try and empty it themselves/with their clan, or sell information about the location to a bigger clan. -PvP-players would get currency for their looted and rewarded doubloons. -A fairer distribution system for logs. With the current system I know almost all of the handful of players on the server with the resources, alts, patience and time to camp each of the current resource spawns and collect usable amounts of the new woods, while normal players without alts, time or reals enough have no chance of ever seeing a ship made of the special new woods. REDS has already started to craft our first ships from the new woods. The current distribution system hugely benefits certain players - players like myself. The system I propose would make it impossible to monopolise the new woods the way they currently are. Distribute them more fairly between nations. And the parameters could still be adjusted to keep the woods as rare as intended. My rationale for suggestion this is explained in further detail here:
  14. This is not a suggestion for a new mechanic, but rather an argument to revive and improve an existing one. The mood in my circles about the freshest changes to the game is generally positive. The new woods introduced seem to have an idea behind them. They need further adjustment and balancing, but that’s already been promised is coming. And the decrease to acceleration is something the game experience may really profit from when it is further adjusted as indicated. The thing that isn’t really working however, is the distribution of the new woods. The way they are distributed serves only to advantage those few players who have alts in all other nations, and are rich enough to be able to buy the best woods at any cost. Some spawn locations are captureable, but they are also extremely close to the home waters and Home Defence Fleets of a nation, and also happen to be in ports that are already developed crafting ports. Meaning they are either practically uncaptureable and therefore may as well have been placed in a capital, or they serve as a rag placed in front of a nation’s crafting port making it more likely some other nation will attack the port, something they might not have been willing to before, effectively destroying the target nation and driving droves of players away from the game. Now...we have a mechanic for distributing rare woods already in the game, which has been effectively unused and neglected since release. The Clan Missions mechanic, whereby you extract X amount of logs from a forest for typically 2X amount of doubloons out of a forest that starts at 1 000 000 logs was an interesting idea meant to incite fighting over the ports where the resource would spawn. Before release it was effectively replaced as the system to distribute woods by farms that we could invest and plant ourselves and with unlimited resources. Which had the advantage of shortening hauling distances, give players back control of the supply and also avoid the situation where some nations would be randomly gifted access to woods with more favourable RvR-characteristics than others, while risking some nations might have to live with oak/oak warships. However clan-missions were never removed from the game. They spawned around the map at release. There are white oak forests, live oak, bermuda cedar, etc. as clan missions in various locations on the map. Yet no wars have been fought over access to these forests. And to my knowledge none of these forests have been depleted and respawned since release. Some forests were almost halfway depleted at the beginning right after release, when labour hours for resource extraction were sparse and doubloons were plenty. Since then they have not been touched, and I’ve come across forests where only one clan mission has been completed. Some of these forests have changed hands since release, yet I doubt the conquering nation paid any mind to it. My proposal: Is to remove the clan missions we have on the map today, slightly adjust the numbers in terms of output, cost and total amount, and reimplement the mechanic, but for distribution of the new woods. Remove the current clanmissions for Live oak, White oak, Bermuda Cedar, etc. Make new clan missions for Malabar Teak, African Teak, Riga Fir, Greenheart etc. These clan missions should see some changes from previoulsy. The size of the forest should no longer be 1 000 000 logs. Make it perhaps 25 000 logs per forest. Enough that more than just a couple of people can extract some, but a small enough forest that it will be quickly depleted and respawn in another location. Make it so that each extraction is 2500 logs at a time, about almost enough for 2 lineships. The total forest size should be small enough that the forests are depleted and respawn in a different location at least about every week, provided that the woods are actually desirable for players to acquire. Yet large enough that it is not just the first player who comes across the forest that gets to extract some. There could even be a mechanic that these forests are redistributed on the map once every week, regardless of if they are depleted by then or not. The forests could be distributed one out of two ways across the map. Either they have an equal chance each time to spawn in any of the almost 400 captureable ports on the map. The consequence of this is that the more ports a nation, clan or clan-alliance owns, the greater the chance each time that a forest will spawn in one of their ports. If you own half the map, you have a pretty good chance at any given time to have each and every one of the desireable woods spawn in one of your nation’s ports. Smaller nations would see forests spawn in their ports maybe once for every 3-4 times it spawns in a particular larger nation. Alternatively there could be a two-step lottery. Where in the first step for each forest it is randomly decided which nation a forest will spawn in, and secondly after that there is a random decision which of that nation’s ports the forest would spawn in. Smaller nations would have just as good a chance to spawn a desireable forest as larger nations, and moreover, large nations would often find that although woods spawned in their ports, the location of where they spawned could be on the other side of the map in their far-away colonies, requiring a long haul to get it back to where it is needed after extraction. In some small way this could serve as a slight rebalancer of nation. I’m not sure how much it should cost to extract woods from a forest, but particularly rare and desireable woods could have an exorbitant price in doubloons. Requiring for instance 10 doubloons per log, costing us 25 000 doubloons to extract 2 500 logs. And each player being able to extract only one batch of logs per 24 hours. If the forests deplete often/weekly, then within just a few weeks each of the woods would have typically spawned at least once in each of the nations ports, distributing the woods somewhat evenly and fairly between the nations, without flooding the market with logs that are meant to be rare and expensive. The old, «normal» woods that we ourselves produce in our ports would still be the go-to for most builders, but once and again there would be a chance for each player to extract enough of a special wood that he seeks that he could build a ship out of it. Or two. This is how clan missions look today: This forest has been in place since release, not moved at all. Only 2 clan delivery missions have been completed, taking a total of 10 000 logs out of a forest of 1 000 000. This forest will never move, and no other nation will get access to this particular forest. Here's how it could look for the new woods: 25 000 logs in the forest. 2 500 logs delivery. The price in doubloons is adjustable. The forests could despawn every week forcibly, or just wait for the 25 000 logs to deplete, which should go quick as soon as the location of the forest is discovered. Apart from a viable distribution system for logs, this suggested system of distribution has two further advantages. It encourages exploration playstyles, as players sail around their nations ports looking for freshly spawned forests to be the first to get their hand on the new logs. And secondly, it gives immense added value to doubloons as a PvP-reward. PvP-players can exchange their doubloons for logs, and hand them to crafters who turn the logs of their choice into ships.
  15. Clerk keeps spamming our clan-chat though:
  16. Trying to have a conversation in clan-chat right now is like:
  17. For a solo/small-group player who mostly go to PvP-zones but wants to be part of big fights of many ships without having to join a big clan and go do RvR with all its investment and effort, this change will severely affect their opportunity to continue to experience the game in the same way. If they continue to look for interesting fights to join this is an example of how their PvP options would progressively restrict until they eventually would only be able to join the battles of one other nation: In this example the player is Polish, and the green checkmark indicates the side that he joined in each battle. There needs to be an exception for Patrol Zones at least, so this playstyle is still possible even if significantly limited.
  18. I think you're looking at this from completely the wrong side. At least the opposite perspective of most (PvP-)players. When people go hunting for PvP, they're not looking for what side in a battle they can help. They are looking for what side in the battle they can hurt. You're hunting pirates, and you see a battle against pirates, you want to join against pirates. You don't care if it's danes, brits or russians attacking the pirates. If the battle is open you're joining. But now... if you ever joined a battle against danes, brits and russians you're not gonna be able to fight those pirates. Don't you see how this is HUGELY exploitable? Anyone who wants to be practically invulnerable better just bring a friend from another nation sailing with them while raiding. You see a gank squad or somebody chasing you that you don't wanna fight, just attack each other and you then have a better than even chance that your pursuers won't be able to join either side of the battle at all.
  19. Sooo...you're saying that for every choice we make in PvP from now on, we are limiting our future choices in PvP? By definition we're all eventually only going to be able to join the battles of ONE other nation, if any. And that nation might be different for different people in the same clan. People from the same clan, sailing together, in the same group, will not be able to join the same battles. Did you take into account that alliances change? Or that a nation you're allied to might be enemy with another one of your allies? Or the fact that there are different clans within the same nation with different agendas. And sometimes you know that a particular clan is in an area or battle and you join against them even though you would not join against other clans in that nation. Does every exploit have to be countered by an extremely restrictive mechanic that punishes all of us, especially the ones who never abused? Why can't we just go on reporting abusers and they get banned, but the rest of us can go on using the mechanics normally.
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