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RvR - Bringing back a better Flag


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7 hours ago, Intrepido said:

They are many guys sitting on 100 millions now.

Which would be a resonable price for a flag bought by a clan of several members with millions in their accounts?

well i have so much money i can buy a complete continent :)

my clan can buy the world ...

(oke now i have done it  the percusion will be on my shoulder )

we need better and actual currency numbers not a million but just a thousend

-but i cant buy a bucket of paint....

-or a book i dont have ...yet

Edited by Thonys
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20 minutes ago, admin said:

The problem with the flag is the abuse that is impossible to solve. 
You can either

  • deny the port battle by purchasing the flag and keeping it if flags are exclusive
  • deny the port battle by placing the flag first if flags are not exclusive
     

Long hostility is sometimes not fun especially if no-one comes to defend, but it serves the purpose: to give defender at least some chance to react. The goal is to not have more port battles but to have more full port battles.

Hostility generation will become a bit more bearable once we improve the PB rewards (already in test builds) by 1) dropping a rare item during port battles 2)giving capturable ports a better crafting bonus. 
 

Maybe even drop a paint too, hard port  to capture rarer paint, anything that induces people to want to do something .

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26 minutes ago, admin said:

Fake flags will be a problem in your proposal. If flags are cheap you can set multiple fake port battles, if flags are expensive we will get "cant participate in a port battle" comments.

Hostility requires effort and this effort is the price that eliminates fake flags, if someone is faking a port attack he is actually THERE at sea grinding bots in a battle open forever. 
 

We would have fake portbattles too right now if the population would be there to flip those ports. Multiflips happen and always will happen. The difference between what we had and what we want is, that so called fake flags only result in a port battle the next day. So plenty of time to prepare it. I still prefer any kind of action to happen than none as we have currently.

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17 minutes ago, Nelsons Barrel said:

We would have fake portbattles too right now if the population would be there to flip those ports. 

We will, but to get that port battle you have to risk your ship in the open world by being in a hostility battle which is open to all. You have to send a fake fleet to a real risk even if you never plan to attend the port battle. 

With a flag you just buy it and wait it out while enemy searches for you wasting time.

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1 hour ago, admin said:

The problem with the flag is the abuse that is impossible to solve. 
You can either

  • deny the port battle by purchasing the flag and keeping it if flags are exclusive
  • deny the port battle by placing the flag first if flags are not exclusive

Flags could have an expiration timer

Maybe only clan officers can purchase flags?

 

I think you should pull a flag and then fight a small AI battle near the desired port (like current hostility) to flip the port. Which ever captain has the flag must survive the battle.

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14 hours ago, Teutonic said:


2. Maintenance - I would adjust prices of maintenance, but still keep it. I would propose lowering the Time maintenance to 400k (so the maintenance is 500k and not 600k with a timer)
3. BR limits

Since we are on this topic something that has really bother me is the maintance cost of ports right now.  I don't mind paying the 600K a day for a port, what I don't like is if I make say 2 million I have to pay 1 million tax's (inlcuded is the 600K port cost)  If I make 5 million I pay 2.5 million in tax's. It seems when you break that 1 million mark you get hit big time with taxes and it makes it where it's not very profitable after all.  If we have one profitable port it should help pay for the not profitable ports we have timers on..  Cause we have enemy ports on our coast line folks don't use the other ports we have to keep timers on and they make very little profit.  So this makes it very hard for a nation/clan to support timers to keep a coast line secure while fighting a war.  

While I get you want to make it a money sink, but if it was a small clan with just a few ports.  I'm not going to count all the shallow ports we hold with no timers cause we want folks to flip those, but most other clans in our nation couldn't hold the ports we have and would of dropped lost them a long time ago.  If I'm going to be paying over 50% tax's on something that makes a little profit than I should be getting something more than just a timer.   Remove the tax creep and keep to static port cost or give us something extra like more forts, allowed adjustment of BR"s for the port or something.

Now for BR's why are so many ports in the 2500-5000 BR range for Deep water?  We use to have 25 vs 25 port battles all the time, but right now one of the biggest complaints I heard since going US from Russia is, "If I helped grind than why can't I get into the PB too?"   Well cause we have to bring our "A" time to win the PB cause we are limited to 5-7 or 10ish players at max to win some very important ports.  An small elite clan can hold off a big nation from getting there ports back simply by keeping to the PB and fighting with low numbers.  Many of these ports should have higher BR's cause folks want to actually fight in the PB not have it limited to a few elite teams every time.  While all the action seems to mainly be out side in the screening flight now a days.  If your going to keep the BR low for many of the ports than you need to put some restrictions on them.  Like making ports 4th rate and below only or other restrictions. This would allow more ships in instead of the meta a few 1st rates and what ever you can fill it with. 

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4 minutes ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

Since we are on this topic something that has really bother me is the maintance cost of ports right now.  I don't mind paying the 600K a day for a port, what I don't like is if I make say 2 million I have to pay 1 million tax's (inlcuded is the 600K port cost)  If I make 5 million I pay 2.5 million in tax's. It seems when you break that 1 million mark you get hit big time with taxes and it makes it where it's not very profitable after all.  If we have one profitable port it should help pay for the not profitable ports we have timers on..  Cause we have enemy ports on our coast line folks don't use the other ports we have to keep timers on and they make very little profit.  So this makes it very hard for a nation/clan to support timers to keep a coast line secure while fighting a war.  

While I get you want to make it a money sink, but if it was a small clan with just a few ports.  I'm not going to count all the shallow ports we hold with no timers cause we want folks to flip those, but most other clans in our nation couldn't hold the ports we have and would of dropped lost them a long time ago.  If I'm going to be paying over 50% tax's on something that makes a little profit than I should be getting something more than just a timer.   Remove the tax creep and keep to static port cost or give us something extra like more forts, allowed adjustment of BR"s for the port or something.

Now for BR's why are so many ports in the 2500-5000 BR range for Deep water?  We use to have 25 vs 25 port battles all the time, but right now one of the biggest complaints I heard since going US from Russia is, "If I helped grind than why can't I get into the PB too?"   Well cause we have to bring our "A" time to win the PB cause we are limited to 5-7 or 10ish players at max to win some very important ports.  An small elite clan can hold off a big nation from getting there ports back simply by keeping to the PB and fighting with low numbers.  Many of these ports should have higher BR's cause folks want to actually fight in the PB not have it limited to a few elite teams every time.  While all the action seems to mainly be out side in the screening flight now a days.  If your going to keep the BR low for many of the ports than you need to put some restrictions on them.  Like making ports 4th rate and below only or other restrictions. This would allow more ships in instead of the meta a few 1st rates and what ever you can fill it with. 

I made up my mind quite a long ago about the lack of changes in this game.

Try to think to the development of naval action in terms of resources: shrinking the game features in order to adapt it to a low population (i.e. allowing small numbers in PBs and avoiding easy multi flips) requires less investments than adding/changing feautures in order to try to attract more players in the game.

Unless new money comes in, it would be anti-economic (or at least risky) for game-labs try to go down the second path.

So, basically, my impression is that really new "big" changes will be possible either after successful DLCs or after the final launch of the game. For now, I think we can have just little tweaks here and there.

So - in short - it's better saving good proposals for better times.

Edited by victor
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12 minutes ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

Since we are on this topic something that has really bother me is the maintance cost of ports right now.  I don't mind paying the 600K a day for a port, what I don't like is if I make say 2 million I have to pay 1 million tax's (inlcuded is the 600K port cost) 

You say that 1million profit out of nothing for doing nothing is to less? Just sounds like the people selling repairs for 4k doing 300-400% profit and still complain....

Just because some people own cash at the server limit doesn't mean the reward has to be in that range as well. There are a lot of people that don't even move below a 1mill reward in that game and that's just fail.

Cash for dmg kills the game :P

Edited by z4ys
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43 minutes ago, z4ys said:

You say that 1million profit out of nothing for doing nothing is to less? Just sounds like the people selling repairs for 4k doing 300-400% profit and still complain....

Just because some people own cash at the server limit doesn't mean the reward has to be in that range as well. There are a lot of people that don't even move below a 1mill reward in that game and that's just fail.

Cash for dmg kills the game :P

The problem is we aren't making a profit at all.  We have about 3 million port cost a day right now with all the ports we are holding for the Nation cause there is no other clan that could do it.  We pay about 2 million a day in port cost after the income.  We are not making 300-400% profit we are loosing money every day.  What little profits we do make is pretty much paid 50% in tax's so you don't really take home what you think you do and I assume this is a problem with other nations ports that have high profit ports too.   If your loosing 2 million a day that is bad business.  The only reason one of our ports even remotely makes money is cause folks do trade out of that port cause it's not any where close on the Coastline (it's a shallow water port) so they can actually make trade runs and do econ there.   

But like you said just cause some folks own millions doesn't mean we should expect every one.  We have one clan member with 200 million, why should he use his hard earned money to support the ports?  They should be some what reasonablely profitable.  Even if we dropped all the none timer ports we have we will still not make a profit as long as we are holding ports that have timers to protect them from being totally lost on the coast line.  I'll be bluntly honest and we have talked about dropping all ports on the US coastline cause right now with the game numbers down and half the server camping US coast line what is the point to even own ports out of the protected zone?   We don't do it cause we know once we do that it will be even harder to get them back and well the same folks 4 nations camping the coast line wont' go anywhere else cause now each of them could have there own ports along it.

I bet you if we did a full wipe with the current system and folks not having millions stocked up you will see a lot of ports drop with no timers.  The reason we don't see folks attacking those open timer ports is cause why would I want a port that some one else didn't want either?  The port cost put burdon on smaller groups of active players while it doesn't phase some of the old school clan/nations set up with banks of money right now, but you wipe that and start over I bet you see a lot of those ports drop fast.  It's old money keeping a lot of those ports owned not new money.

 

Oh and cash for damage is how I make most of my money. I rarely do trade or econ runs. The other way I make a little money to play for my econ and such is by sail of cannons and ships. I send the none perks ones I make to the market when I'm crafting a new ship.   I rarely have any more than 5-10 million me. I'm burned out of doing the stupid trade runs that some folks love so I don't make a large profit in my own trade/econs.

Edited by Sir Texas Sir
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13 minutes ago, rediii said:

with a good pop hosti would be no problem... atm its all aboit the population except pvp events (broken) and safezones (half protected half not makes for stupjd situations for new players)

The other problem is the missions are so stacked on the defenders side or the better PvPers.   Once you start loosing players in a fight on either side you can go from 97% to 0% in one fight.  We actually had a port to 97% and than lost a good part of our fleet when defenders dropped in and pretty much gave up on the hostility cause it would take to long to sail back out there with new ships.  So unless you flip the port and get it done before you get a defenders reaction than all your work is gone in a flash after a few guys get sunk.   While this is good and bad, I think you take to big a hit on PVP kills compared to how much grinding you have to do one some very big BR ports to flip it.   

Cause of the safezone/capital farming our numbers are even lower cause folks just don't have the moral to fight back when a lost can set you back so big and make all your work be for nothing.  A lot of the other nations don't see it cause they aren't working with so many newer players or casuals but it's something I see every day in US Nation.  Safe zones are not safe zones they are GANK FARM ZONES only.   Capitals honestly need to be true safe zones (I'm not talking about the whole coast line, keep reinforcement zones as is, but capitals need to have a bigger safe zones with the old rules. Where only defenders can attack in the zones and attackers can't.   People need to be able to do there little missions and level up if they want not be constantly farmed over and over by so call elite veterans that refuse to fight any one else.

Every game I have played on that has multi users had safe (true safe zones) around the starting capital regions that no other nations could start a fight in.  We need this in game for certain nations if you want to keep an active healthy growing population.  I say some nations cause yes we can still have the hard core mode nations that don't get either.  It's a players choose to pick those hard core nations, but if they pick an easy nation it should not mean, "Just more easier for them to farm you."

 

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My 2 cents

Flag price need to be dynamic and derived from the total amount of gold on server this way it will never be to cheap nor to expensive.

Fake flags will then cost a significant amount of money and players will therefore think twice before faking an attack. Thus not removing fakes but limiting. Somehow i think in a sandbox that fake attacks are ok/Part of the game but needs moderation ofc.

 

 

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, admin said:

dropping a rare item during port battles 2)giving capturable ports a better crafting bonus. 

Can you please stop introducing over and over same features, that were already in game at some point, but abandoned again?

Thanks.

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1 hour ago, rediii said:

with a good pop hosti would be no problem

Low population is a symptom to, what everybody calls "lack of content".

It is not the source, but REACTION to a game that has not much to offer, but calling itself "sandbox" or "MMO".

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How about a flag is used ... it has to be planted in front of the targetted port, if planting is succesfull a PB happens the next day.

You could call it a 'raid', perhaps even an instance in which you get the opportunity to destroy forts and towers (if no defenders show up) in preparation for the PB the next day?

 

The flag could be announced (as it was before) and therefore the defenders can try to intercept.

Maybe the flag has to survive a certain amount of time in that 'raid'-instance. The planting could happen in a farther/random distance than it was before.

Maybe the attackers can see the swords, where they have to plant the flag, while the defenders can only see it if attackers have entered the instance?

 

Sure, you can buy a fake flag, simply activate it to mess with the defenders, but can't you do that now aswell (by only raising hostility to 25% and then doing something else)?

 

As for low population : I feel like it is a symptom, not the cause (or atleast not entirely, it doesn't help to try and test things that's for sure). There are numerous reasons for low playercount, which are all being discussed in several threads.

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Flag mechanic has to work two ways, as I see it. Meaning - be pulled with intent, and a cost in case it fails.

If cost/bet is too high no one will use it - like today, look at clanwars... hostility cost is maybe too high ? Or clans not interested...

If it doesn't cost anything - like mere gold/resources - it can be trolled.

A hypothetical effect of the Flag would be

- has to be created in a conquerable port owned by the clan that creates the flag.

- Port that creates flag becomes open for PB on the next day during its timer.

- Flag must be planted during the port timer. Battle is the next day.

 

Attack on Neutral ports ( not owned by any nation ) can be crafted in any port without consequence.

Entire responsability of creating flags passes to clans and multiple flags can actually be created. The one planted cancelling all others. PB is guaranteed in any case.

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5 hours ago, admin said:

Long hostility is sometimes not fun especially if no-one comes to defend, but it serves the purpose

Please at least make it more bearable by informing enemy that a hostility mission was just created for his port. More time for reaction means more PvP and less PvE. 

You can secure it from fake missions by allowing to take one mission per battlegroup, limit them to only 4-player battlegroups, make them cost a lot if battlegroup doesn't show up to mission and inform enemy of battlegroup disbands. Mission could respawn in the same place after it's done. 

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5 hours ago, admin said:

We will, but to get that port battle you have to risk your ship in the open world by being in a hostility battle which is open to all. You have to send a fake fleet to a real risk even if you never plan to attend the port battle. 

With a flag you just buy it and wait it out while enemy searches for you wasting time.

Except now most people don't bother countering hostility and they just screen the force out.  And RVR now requires 2 days of effort invested and with timers staying up 2 nights or getting up early 2 days in a row is difficult.  

Since the change in hostility and the port costs RVR has dropped off considerable.  This system does not work

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7 hours ago, admin said:

The problem with the flag is the abuse that is impossible to solve. 
You can either

  • deny the port battle by purchasing the flag and keeping it if flags are exclusive
  • deny the port battle by placing the flag first if flags are not exclusive
     

Long hostility is sometimes not fun especially if no-one comes to defend, but it serves the purpose: to give defender at least some chance to react. The goal is to not have more port battles but to have more full port battles.

Hostility generation will become a bit more bearable once we improve the PB rewards (already in test builds) by 1) dropping a rare item during port battles 2)giving capturable ports a better crafting bonus. 
 

If flags are exclusive then you could publicise who bought the flag (user/clan) that way if the flag is purchased to deny another a port battle then everyone knows who it is - flushes out alts being abused - and if it keeps happening they you could have a tribunal case resulting in a flag purchase ban for a period of time.

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As long we don`t have ports which are worth being conquered, there is no point changing hostility.

No economy, no campaign, no letter from Europe, all ports in same region produce trading goods which can not be sold anywhere, but in enemy capitals(or you need to sail 3 hours to somewhere), no deeper content but shooting ships or crafting them... Well, no fun, no players, no game :)

 

 

 

 

 

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16 hours ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

The other problem is the missions are so stacked on the defenders side or the better PvPers.   Once you start loosing players in a fight on either side you can go from 97% to 0% in one fight.  We actually had a port to 97% and than lost a good part of our fleet when defenders dropped in and pretty much gave up on the hostility cause it would take to long to sail back out there with new ships.  So unless you flip the port and get it done before you get a defenders reaction than all your work is gone in a flash after a few guys get sunk.   While this is good and bad, I think you take to big a hit on PVP kills compared to how much grinding you have to do one some very big BR ports to flip it.   

Cause of the safezone/capital farming our numbers are even lower cause folks just don't have the moral to fight back when a lost can set you back so big and make all your work be for nothing.  A lot of the other nations don't see it cause they aren't working with so many newer players or casuals but it's something I see every day in US Nation.  Safe zones are not safe zones they are GANK FARM ZONES only.   Capitals honestly need to be true safe zones (I'm not talking about the whole coast line, keep reinforcement zones as is, but capitals need to have a bigger safe zones with the old rules. Where only defenders can attack in the zones and attackers can't.   People need to be able to do there little missions and level up if they want not be constantly farmed over and over by so call elite veterans that refuse to fight any one else.

Every game I have played on that has multi users had safe (true safe zones) around the starting capital regions that no other nations could start a fight in.  We need this in game for certain nations if you want to keep an active healthy growing population.  I say some nations cause yes we can still have the hard core mode nations that don't get either.  It's a players choose to pick those hard core nations, but if they pick an easy nation it should not mean, "Just more easier for them to farm you."

 

I agree with some things you’ve said but to keep using the old excuse ( which you are not the first or the last to use) that US players are new players and that is why they get farmed is just not right. A lot of experienced players in the US that get killed a lot have been playing the game forever. Some of them even from pvp2.

US players in pvp 2 and then in global just weren’t very good for a lot of reasons. That tradition ( let’s call it that) either came to this server with the merge or it might have been here as well. 

The people that hunt the US coast do it because that is where most people are at night time and  it is easier to get kills. 

They keep doing the stupid coast guard thing, trying to avenge one guy by ganking another with 20 guys.

In all honesty in over 2 years I haven’t seen any improvements and it’s not about to change now. 

Like one famous philosopher once said: “You can’t fix stupid”

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13 hours ago, Intrepido said:

There should be more ports like Veracruz, Cartagena, Santo Domingo... Ports that consume trading goods of every type so home capitals cities lose their importance. 

This won`t help either....

There are many of those actually on the map, but only few are being used.

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29 minutes ago, Banished Privateer said:

We tested that, there is always more than enough regions or counties to fake PBs or multiflip. I like the single port system better, but dislike the hostility mechanic.

My original intention for bringing this suggestion up was due to the amount of "current" players playing the game that said they dislike the PvE Grind that is hostility mechanics.

I'm fully aware that taking and owning a port that is "extremely" unprofitable is dumb and stupid and why would you take that port in the first place, Which is why I made a thread previous about a way to bring Regional Economic bonuses to create an incentive to hold more ports for an overall gain in economy and economic bonuses.

I feel both of my suggestions, if added in the game would help enhance the current experience of players playing right now. Every time I hear someone say "this won't work because we've already done it blah blah blah" (and trust me, I've done that too) I want to point them back to the original post and say "yes it didn't work, that is why I suggest changing it so it does work." It's like they didn't even read the suggestion.

 

Nonetheless people like @Rickard or @Banished Privateer while I don't agree with them on all things, seem to be the ONLY people who have disagreed with suggestion and either offered up an alternative or showed that they brought up other suggestions instead. Maybe those who disagree but don't bring anything to the table should look at these two and understand when you disagree, you bring evidence and a counter offer. Don't cry that it's not good and then do nothing. If you think it's a bad suggestion, I would much prefer you then make your own suggestion or thread so that we can see the thought process here.

I'm sorry to hear that the @admin does not like the proposal, but I understand why. I just hope that there are steps being taken to possibly make hostility more manageable or at least look as to WHY people currently playing the game dislike the PvE Hostility grind so much.  I personally feel the change coming up to make player owned ports better for ship crafting is nice, but I argue we need further economic bonuses to create more incentives to leave the safe zone and I believe we need to make the safe zone ports restricted in crafting and resource gathering, a penalty/increased tax if you will. which is why I brought the regional bonuses thread and the Poll that the thread had was largely in favor of all suggestions:

People talk about no incentives for owning ports - I hope the Admin takes a hard look at my suggestion and I really do hope more of the favored suggestions get placed in. Sorry if it's not "PvP related" but a good econ or econ incentive DRIVES conflict in a game.

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