Update on the port battle set up

[Ned Loe]

Yea, much shorter with PvP than PvE, so even buried deep, an enemy fleet that is left alone by players will take along time build up hostility.

 

I think that may be a strategic mistake on the part of the developers, that choosing to ignore player fleets in your waters to prevent the climbing of hostility is a potential strategy.

 

Ignored fleets should devastate the target, not be less effective. I think the Devs should consider a mechanic that seen PvE hostility start off less effective, but escalates to being more effective if left alone.

 

 Perhaps after a certain level of hostility is reached (>40%) , PvE becomes equally effective as PvP, so that fleets simply can't be ignored after a certain point.

 

You shouldn't be able to stop an invasion by ignoring it.

We don't know anything yet and our discussion has no firm foundation. Let's wait and see what they bring us and then try to balance it. 

[cmdrbobcito]

Okay, let's test it and allow our further discussion to be based on the reality we find in the game...

[KrakkenSmacken]

We don't know anything yet and our discussion has no firm foundation. Let's wait and see what they bring us and then try to balance it. 

 

Its easier to stop a rolling Cheese before it gets half way down the hill.

 

[KrakkenSmacken]

2014 statement that i perfectly know and was one of the numerous reasons that made me buy this game in December 2014 but there has been a lot of water that passed under the bridge since... next patches plans up to final release of the game don't even include exploration anymore sadly .. 

 

 

 

Woah... I did not realize that thread started in 2014, I just saw the chatter from someone waking up the thread today and jumped to page one to see what the original post was.

 

I honestly thought it was a recent idea, but wondered how the hell they would maintain persistence and exploration/establishment of ports at the same time.  The only thing I could think of was that instead of conquest, if a port was flipped too many times it would simply kill it and re-open a spot in a limited number of port positions.

 

My guess however is that things have changed too much for that kind of game play to be an option.

[admin]

2014 statement that i perfectly know and was one of the numerous reasons that made me buy this game in December 2014 but there has been a lot of water that passed under the bridge since... next patches plans up to final release of the game don't even include exploration anymore sadly .. 

 

 

 

That statement did not take into account potential for 2500 players to be playing together. Basically it was considered a redundant feature during design war-games and exercises. What we found is this: all ports will eventually be developed from villages to large hubs, by players and all new players coming into the game will never see their personal small town to develop. That feature will work well only in a single player/co-op game where the world is built around you (a hero). 

 

Same happened to port investments- over time all ports will be fully invested. Even if investments are to be destroyed on capture only capitals will be invested into.

[cheatos503]

im concerned by the pirates in this, as they have no PVE fleets, does this means capping traders with contraband currently works as hostility against pirates?

 

seems until the pirate mechanics are resolved to your future plans this will be an advantage in that it will be harder to get the pirate towns into a PB situation.

 

Also will there be a guage of some sort that we can see the progress of every area being hit?

 

if we are talking an area and not a specific port, will there be a maximum radius? if so, how large are we talking? will it be big eonough that we could take multiple ports if close enough to each other?

 

will the devs actually give us information to test with?

 

IE do we have to guess at how many x per hour and y per hour need to be done to give us unrest, and the opposite to lower it. or for once will the devs actually supply that info

[Kanay]

That statement did not take into account potential for 2500 players to be playing together. Basically it was considered a redundant feature during design war-games and exercises. What we found is this: all ports will eventually be developed from villages to large hubs, by players and all new players coming into the game will never see their personal small town to develop. That feature will work well only in a single player/co-op game where the world is built around you (a hero). 

 

Same happened to port investments- over time all ports will be fully invested. Even if investments are to be destroyed on capture only capitals will be invested into.

I see and can easily imagine all problems with the cities themselves and find it normal that it wasn't made as planned in 2014 with the others developments the game received, remains that exploration itself could to a lesser degree have been implemented, expeditions, finding new small lands, new species or rare resources, a way to abandon yourself at the seas for long weeks of sailing ( and soon, in a couple of hours, fishing ) and find something interesting if lucky, sadly while we still get GPS coordinates available it won't be very interesting and a bit pointless.

 

 If GPS gets removed it will be something challenging, keeping track of your navigation bearings and long days at seas to be able to come back home or come back to the discovered lands a second time with no map indications beside your notes,  lost in the seas for days and days of navigation trying to find out that small bit of land, i know it won't make it probably in game but had been nice.

 

 

About free towns removed or staying as they are or changed functionalities like no more warships, do you have a position about this or thinking at potential problems they can cause or waiting to see how things will turn out maybe ? ( or don't wanna say anything at all on that subject   ) 

 

 

Thanks a lot 

[Anne Wildcat]

OMG Kanay, if you are sooo worried about hostilities raised from free ports, get a group together & patrol them! Stop sticking around your capital.

I do see your point, it isn't realistic to have a Spanish fleet in French territory, for example, but with the coming allies, that will be possible so for now, deal with it.

Yesterday I was in the northern Bahamas, a pirate in US territory, oh my. I saw a Dutch trader. If I was on my Snow, not a traders Lynx, I would have attacked. Please do not take away my ability to have a snow in enemy territory because you are afraid of a few bigger ships.

Edited June 29, 2016 by Anne Wildcat

[Kanay]

Free ports allowing safe storage of warships is the issue, let's say once diplomacy implemented USA have no diplomatic alliances with any other Nation and is at war with his closest neighbors Spain and pirates that are both allied, then France and Sweden that are also both allied together but not have any diplomatic alliance with Spain and Pirates or any other faction comes into the party using free towns to harass US cities in the entire Florida coast for example... 

 

See the issue or not ? You won't be able to defend against all those fronts or do anything to push back the French and Swedes, only able to do concrete actions against pirates and Spain, you will be able to defend and harass your neighbors cities to balance things out and but will be already too busy with those to go harass French and Swedes in them own waters using free towns too, you will never be able to raise the hostility levels enough there while having to defend your own territory and try to push back your neighbors territories, they will have free hands using free towns and no risks at all involved for them, the free towns are safe, they can store and produce ships on spot and will only have to do the travel once to a free town in a free basic cutter to establish there , can even then buy ships in your market using alt accounts to then trade them in the free town and use them against you ...  all this while staying at the other side of the map and not having a single port around that you can harass and capture to reduce the aggressions.

 

If you don't see the issue with free towns you should look a bit deeper into all this i think.

[Skully]

Please define the difference between "war supplies" and "normal trade goods", because that line is rightfully blurry.

 

I made more money selling raw materials to shipbuilders than anything else, so I fail to see how "Oak Logs" would qualify as a "war supply" more than say "Compass Wood".

 

If it's simply arbitrary "this dock won't deal in X", with X being anything used in ship construction, then what the hell is the point of a free town?

Now that the first supply item is in, Food Supplies, we can continue where we left off.

This one is buy-able and craft-able from a freeport.

 

I think for true "war supplies", like for example troops. Those should not be craft-able in freeports or even craft-able at all. Rather they come out of friendly ports.

[Hethwill]

Now that the first supply item is in, Food Supplies, we can continue where we left off.

This one is buy-able and craft-able from a freeport.

 

I think for true "war supplies", like for example troops. Those should not be craft-able in freeports or even craft-able at all. Rather they come out of friendly ports.

 

Obviously. I do not see Portsmouth being a free port in 1798 can you ?

[KrakkenSmacken]

Now that the first supply item is in, Food Supplies, we can continue where we left off.

This one is buy-able and craft-able from a freeport.

 

I think for true "war supplies", like for example troops. Those should not be craft-able in freeports or even craft-able at all. Rather they come out of friendly ports.

 

Good point. 

 

Troops make sense to restrict to your national ports, so do officers and other human components that would potentially have a preference for who they fight for.

 

Also on the potential list of restricted goods for free ports could also be cannons, upgrades (some types), ammunition (which we don't have but could), specific classes of repair kits, etc.  

 

I really think the repair kits could and should be broken down more than is currently done. We already have the "Class X repair kit" as prizes, so why even have the current mechanic?  I don't quite get the need to two systems.  Perhaps it's a place holder.

 

For example a sail kit would be available at free ports, but a Heavy Carriage kit, or cannon repair kit would not.  I know that one set of cannons currently represent a full deck damage healed automatically, but it could be tweaked so that for every canon destroyed I would simply also assign the % of cannons that represented, and assume that a cannon repair kit or carriage repair kit a fixed percentage of the damage, only available to be used in OW.

 

Ammunition could be tracked simply as one kit per 25% ammunition "damage", and "repairable" during a fight. Damage done at a rate of .10% per broadside loading.  (That's 1000 broadsides for a fully stocked ammunition for the mathematically challenged among you.  )

 

With all of the above, capture of a ship, and stripping any of it's repair kits would become the thing to do while in hostile waters, not require you to travel home to fix, but to constantly be on the hunt for those types of supplies.

 

Sounds like that may be fun.

Edited June 29, 2016 by KrakkenSmacken

[Skully]

If you don't see the issue with free towns you should look a bit deeper into all this i think.

 

They way I see the role for freeports is how I outlined it in:

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14600-auto-travel-from-port-to-port/?p=270697

 

Plus casual players need a safe storage for ships.

 

So far the freeport of Bonacca has been a great source of some big fun:

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14676-pvp1-june-the-british-honduras-campaign-pirate-perspective/?p=272800

[Skully]

Back to the port battle mechanic, I would like to see whaleboats and troops be added.

1. Whaleboats are a craftable item weighing, lets say, 50.
2. Troops are a regenerative resource in friendly ports (low in shallow, medium in deep, fast in regional and ultra fast in capital).
3. Troops are hired for gold.
4. Each whaleboat allows you to drop troops near an enemy port to build up hostilities.
5. Each whaleboat can drop an X number of troops in 2 minutes (same as a flag drop right now). Multiple whaleboats increase the number of troops dropped.
6. If the dropping ship moves or is engaged within 1 minute, the troops and whaleboat(s) are lost.
7. If the dropping ship moves or is engaged within 2 minutes, the troops are delivered, but the whaleboat(s) are lost.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vigo_Bay#Breaking_the_boom

Edited June 29, 2016 by Skully

[oldcrankyman]

Think logically. It will be random because Defender can strike back destroy your attacking groups and grind points down. Then your reinforcements come in and you actually flip port at 100% hostility. When you put this all together you did not flip this port as planned because Defenders made it harder and it is now 2 hours later than planned. Also, reaching 100% hostility might never happen due to your forces destroyed by Defender and you are exhausted.

 

Question to Devs is how long can it take to Flip a port and make it PB? If it will be a quick effort then it might cause issues, but if you make points raise slowly for few days then it will be another story. Right now we don't know all the detail details. 

 

The only trick here is to make Hostility raise slowly, so all time zones(players) work equally. We need to research how long Port Battles/ Port Blockades lasted in real time. 

I am thinking logically.  The attacking force will choose to push the hostility limit to 100% at the time of day when the defending nation has the fewest players active, which means that the PB will also happen when the when the defending nation has the fewest players active.  This system just plain won't work.  Making things happen slowly doesn't resolve ANY of the problems, that's just irrational.

[Potemkin]

In order to enter the PB do you need to carry the accumulated commendations in your hold when sailing to and entering the PB or can you leave them stashed in a warehouse? Could make some interesting play for individual raiders outside an along the route to the port battle assuming i read right and they can be capped.

[Jeheil]

The build up mechanic seems really interesting, I am a little unclear as to the actual win conditions to capture the port. 

 

Once the Port Battle Proper "kicks off" how does it work ?

[admin]

The build up mechanic seems really interesting, I am a little unclear as to the actual win conditions to capture the port. 

 

Once the Port Battle Proper "kicks off" how does it work ?

 

 

You need to win the port battle just like today

 

Its just the preparation of the battle is a group/national effort without abusable flags

[Ledinis]

That statement did not take into account potential for 2500 players to be playing together. Basically it was considered a redundant feature during design war-games and exercises. What we found is this: all ports will eventually be developed from villages to large hubs, by players and all new players coming into the game will never see their personal small town to develop. That feature will work well only in a single player/co-op game where the world is built around you (a hero). 

 

Same happened to port investments- over time all ports will be fully invested. Even if investments are to be destroyed on capture only capitals will be invested into.

Make the towns deteriorate if not looked after, or captured/raided, while taking a decent time to rebuild - boom a constant stream of all level towns that both new and old players can enjoy, extra content to keep us busy. Want development to not be focused in the capital as it is now ? Spread the resources around instead of making everything available in 10 mins of sail and make diminishing returns so that the more production buildings are built in a single city the lower the resource yield you get. Honestly this just sounds as "its to much work, and we dont wanna do it" .

[Loco Bandito]

So let's say the US faction has a lot of players about 65% of the server and they do a lot pve missions to raise the level, what happens to a small nation they wait 2 weeks to build up their hostility?

How do Aussie players fit in or other players outside the US? If the timer is triggered then what?

[Skully]

Here is what I would expect to happen. If the US nation has 65% then you will see a slow expansion of their territory until it will be impossible for them to proceed, because the opposition can bring about a matching force locally (but potentially in a different time slot).

 

At that point nations need to restructure so they put their majority of forces in the same slot, so they can force a push. Likewise the defenders will do the same.

 

Effectively this should create conflict zones tied to time slots, like we saw at Bonacca.

 

The next step will be bringing the diplo mechanics up to speed, so it should be easier to combine different forces into the same time slot / conflict zone. This is going to be a complex step and I'm hoping it can be pulled off correctly.

[KrakkenSmacken]

 

At that point nations need to restructure so they put their majority of forces in the same slot, so they can force a push. Likewise the defenders will do the same.

 

 

 

Not to mention, that as the top dog on the pile, odds are good that there will be two or possibly more hot spots as other nations attempt to knock them off.

 

I can't image the gang up event that the pirates of PvP1 are going to suffer the moment this becomes the norm and they run a port reset to facilitate the change..  

[Vernon Merrill]

This is my #1 concern at the moment, actually. It seems they may have scrapped the port/town investment process. To me, that seems like a near limitless way to get people involved in the game. As to the admin statement that eventually all ports will be fully invested-- yes, maybe. But that should take YEARS in real life and enormous amounts of resources and money.

[KrakkenSmacken]

This is my #1 concern at the moment, actually. It seems they may have scrapped the port/town investment process. To me, that seems like a near limitless way to get people involved in the game. As to the admin statement that eventually all ports will be fully invested-- yes, maybe. But that should take YEARS in real life and enormous amounts of resources and money.

 

Any core mechanic that creates limitations on play and takes more that a couple of months tops to over come is not a well thought out one if you ask me.  

 

EvE is a HUGE exception, and it is precisely those long term aspects that largely prevent new players from even starting now.  It's a bad plan to marginalized new players from the start with a multi year commitment.

 

Change should be reasonably rapid and fluid, and even new players should be able to participate in, or at least see how it is feasible that soon they will be able to participate in, every aspect of the game, or the mechanic will deter more than it attracts.

[admin]

Make the towns deteriorate if not looked after, or captured/raided, while taking a decent time to rebuild - boom a constant stream of all level towns that both new and old players can enjoy, extra content to keep us busy. Want development to not be focused in the capital as it is now ? Spread the resources around instead of making everything available in 10 mins of sail and make diminishing returns so that the more production buildings are built in a single city the lower the resource yield you get. Honestly this just sounds as "its to much work, and we dont wanna do it" .

 

 

we wanted to force players to deliver supplies and immigrants to the captured towns to stay national (not to turn back into neutral town)

idea sounds great on paper but not sure if it fun (not a job) to do over a long time