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Fixing Tag Mechanics: the 3x / 10s method.


What do you think?  

70 members have voted

  1. 1. How should tagging work?

    • I like this 3x radius / 10 seconds idea.
      27
    • I like the current system (2 minutes, no BR limit, tag circle).
      12
    • I want the previous system (2 minutes, closes if BR > 1.5x, tag circle).
      8
    • I want it to be totally open (no limits at all, anyone can join forever).
      13
    • I want the old-old system where everyone spawns with the tagger (no other relative positions).
      2
    • Some other system.
      8


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I've posted about this in other threads but thought that since there is rumor of 1.5 BR coming back, I should try to gather my idea up and present it as its own thread in one post:

 

First, I must steal Neil Terkildsen's excellent image from his own idea (which is not quite the same as mine).

 

X0k8z6e.png

 

Black 1 is tagging Green 1. Red is the normal tag circle we have today.

 

Green 2 and Black 2 are going to get dragged in, like normal.

 

Pink represents the join distance for the battle -- that is, you can click on the crossed swords and get an entry window from within this radius. Black 3 and Black 4 can click join and immediately get in if they want to. Their position within the battle will be relative (i.e., they will be really far away).

 

The battle is only open to joiners for 10 seconds. That seems like a big change but since the join radius is huge, there is no need to "sail in to join the fight" -- everyone in practical range can join immediately.

 

Green 3 (top right of the image) is too far away to join. If he can make it to the pink area within 10 seconds he can get in (but will be VERY far away).

 

 

"Why 10 seconds?"

 

20 second tag + 10 second battle window = the 30 seconds of invulnerability after invis wears off. You will not be able to join any battle where the tag starts while you are invisible. Check it:

 

MM:SS

00:00 you pop out of port.

00:29 someone does a tag nearby

00:30 you become visible

00:49 tag lands

00:59 battle closes

00:60 your invuln wears off.

 

If you are a tagger, then whoever you see at the point you hit attack is who is eligible to join. If some ally pops out of invis after that, you will need to reset your tag or they won't get out of invuln in time to join.

 

Also, 10 seconds will not be enough time to sail across the battle and enter from some totally different direction.

 

 

 

TL;DR summary:

  • Set battle entry distance to 3x tag radius (how close you have to be to the swords to click in).
  • Set battle window timer to 10 seconds.

Done. I think admin can code this up in about 10 seconds (unless there's some problem with people clicking in from so far away). It's just changing two existing values.

 

:) Totally fixes invisible people joining fights

:) Still allows more distant teammates to click in

:) Does not give time for major positional adjustments by the more distant players.

:) Dead simple to implement.

Edited by Slamz
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10 seconds is straight up too short. It would lead to a lot of cases where people can "snipe out" single ships and lock them in combat.

 

I like the cut of this idea, but adjustments would be necessary. I would propose:

 

- Mechanic as presented, with 15-20s positional spawning (need to be tagged or click join)

- A HUD indicator about battles you can positional join (arrow with two flags, like locators in flight/space simulators)

- Relative position of a battle began within your first-wave reinforcements range should be remembered - thus even if you manouver for position during these 15-20 seconds, your position is exactly the same as when the battle started

- 20-60s into the battle, you can join it without the positional spawning - you spawn according to original tag vector, 1 long cannon range behind the farthest ship in that vector

(If tagger is S and attacker is N, second-wave reinforcements will spawn south of the south-most ship in battle

if tagger is NW and attacker is SE, second-wave reinforcements will spawn NW of the most NW ship in battle)

- 60-120s into the battle, you can join according to original spawn-vector, 1.5-2 long cannon range behind

 

It keeps the best part of your idea - the perfect representation of OW positioning.

It allows for "cries of help" in nation chat and in general sniping-out people will not be possible. If something is on the horizon, it just might make it in time.

It's relatively easy to grasp for the ganked (if you run away from the original attacker, you are 100% sure to run from second and third way reinforcements. If you go against him - you might see reinforcements spawn in front)

It gives you a chance to join big battles and gives space for natural forming of epic battles if two big fleets operate in the region - instead of promoting limitless small-scale skirmishes.

The "join from invisibility" problem needs to be fixed aside from tagging mechanic. Designing whole tagging mechanic around a fringe case is bad game design and should never happen.

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- 60-120s into the battle, you can join according to original spawn-vector, 1.5-2 long cannon range behind

 

The only problem with this is that either we make people invulnerable for 2 minutes or we accept that unseen people can join battles.

 

With the current 60 seconds of invuln and 2 minutes to join, you have:

 

MM:SS

00:00 You start the tag. No other enemies in sight.

00:20 Tag lands. Still no other enemies in sight.

00:59 Hidden enemies jump out of battles / ports.

01:59 Hidden enemies lose invuln and join the battle.

02:00 Battle closes. You are screwed.

 

The problem is, we need invulnerability to be as short as possible -- just enough to give someone a chance to get situated after exiting a fight but not so much time that is a huge opportunity to escape or position themselves for a perfect tag.

 

That's why a 10 second tag + a really large join radius is perfect. It eliminates the ability to reposition yourself, lets us keep invuln timers short but still gives everyone in the area time to click in.

 

(Count off 10 seconds in your head. One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand, all the way up. That's plenty of time to click on swords and join. I wouldn't object to an audio/visual queue of "BATTLE NEARBY" if one starts within range of you but I'm not even sure that's necessary.)

EDIT: However there is a slight problem with more than one battle starting at the same time in an area. Needs a bit more thinking, but it should not be impossible.

 

I don't think there's a problem with that.

 

If two fights started at the same time and you were in the join radius for both, there's no conflict at all. You can click to join either battle, or neither battle, just like always.

 

That could happen even under the old system -- you find yourself in range to join two different swords. It was just rare because the join radius was short.

 

 

Maybe to rephrase, the pink area is not locking you into a battle or marking you for a battle or anything. It's purely representing how close you need to be to click into the battle.

Edited by Slamz
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As mentioned, you fix invisi-join problem, not re-make the whole mechanic to fit one problem.

 

Make a tag-lock that lasts 2 minutes. You can be attacked, but cannot join battles for 2 minutes after leaving one battle or after leaving town. Boom! Done.

 

You fix problems by fixing problems, not by changing the board you play the game on.

 

10-seconds timer is an awful idea on it's own - because of the snipe-out I mentioned earlier. We went through all of it last few weeks, you should know better. It's just like 1.5BR lock - it leaves you with little options after someone gets tagged and ganked. And you need these options to reinforce national solidity and to make word full of stuff that is going on.

 

Insta closing battles? No, thanks.

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Make a tag-lock that lasts 2 minutes. You can be attacked, but cannot join battles for 2 minutes after leaving one battle or after leaving town. Boom! Done.

 

Tag lock solves one problem but not others. Your solution for the reposition issue is to add joiners to a known location behind the tagger but I think that will create other abuses. One of us knows who is going to join, when and where. The other has no idea, unless he has eyes on the outside.

 

That's the problem with band-aid fixes. It can overcomplicate what should have been a simple concept. 10 seconds "what you see is what you get" makes sense. I don't get the "snipe" argument. If you are out there by yourself with no allies in sight, that's the fight you should get.

 

If you have allies, then 10 seconds and 3x tag radius is ample time and distance to get in. I'm just not seeing how you can snipe anyone whose allies are in sight and not AFK.

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I would prefer to deal with "inivisi-bros" once every so often than to have a friend loose his ship, because it took me 10s to load out of the port. 10s is just not elastic enough.

 

How about it being used to hide in battles, too? Wouldn't it be super-easy to just join in the last second when being pursued if someone (or alt) starts a battle within range? Just count to 8, join, before anyone knows what is going on, you're free.

 

Not elastic enough. And whatever is not elastic enough leads to abuse.

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I would prefer to deal with "inivisi-bros" once every so often than to have a friend loose his ship, because it took me 10s to load out of the port. 10s is just not elastic enough.

 

How about it being used to hide in battles, too? Wouldn't it be super-easy to just join in the last second when being pursued if someone (or alt) starts a battle within range? Just count to 8, join, before anyone knows what is going on, you're free.

 

In my experience "invisi-bros" is at least 50% of all battles. Actually wonder what team you fight that DOESN'T do this. You not being able to help your friend because you were ported up is literally the style of gank that everyone is trying to prevent.

 

If you really wanted to help your friend, be outside on the sea sailing with him, not hiding in port waiting to gank.

 

Not sure what you mean about hiding in battles. My original post spelled out why this is literally impossible under this system. The only way to join a fight is to be visible when the tag starts.

 

How about 10s for those from the attackers nation, so they can not magically appear on the other side of the circle, but a longer time for people from the attackee's nation?

 

That will just allow the dreaded "counter-gank". I will sit on the open sea and pretend to be alone. You hit me, so now I'm the "attackee". But I'm not really the victim here -- I'm part of the gank squad. All my friends jump out of their port or hidden battle and use the longer time to get in and start the ganking process.

 

It's important that both attacker and attackee have the same rules. Gankers can play either side.

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In my experience "invisi-bros" is at least 50% of all battles. Actually wonder what team you fight that DOESN'T do this. You not being able to help your friend because you were ported up is literally the style of gank that everyone is trying to prevent.

 

If you really wanted to help your friend, be outside on the sea sailing with him, not hiding in port waiting to gank.

 

Not sure what you mean about hiding in battles. My original post spelled out why this is literally impossible under this system. The only way to join a fight is to be visible when the tag starts.

 

Well, I don't do PvP within port range.

 

The problem is - to sail with someone you need to visit a port. Every time I was out on a prowl I would see solo Vics or Santis next to a port, with his friends pouring out after we get closer to take a looksie. With 10s timers we could simply come around to say HI, kill the Vic, and all his friends would be unable to do anything because they were docked to take a pee.

 

All of that would happen in your national ports, while only invisi-bro capable ports are the free ones. Not to mention, people proposed a simple system of spotting what ships are in ports that would fix that one too.

 

There is no need to fix invisi-bros with tag mechanics and 10s timer is not elastic enough, as mentioned. You base your whole argumentation on invisi-bros, which is basically like making a mechanic as a hotfix. That's a bad way to approach things.

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With 10s timers we could simply come around to say HI, kill the Vic, and all his friends would be unable to do anything because they were docked to take a pee.

 

That's why I don't think you and I will ever agree on a method. You literally want to be able to jump out of ports to "help my friend" (aka gank unsuspecting enemies) and admin and I both want to prevent that.

 

If all the Victory's friends are actually docked up to take a pee then the Victory should face solo combat.

 

 

Protip:

Do not have your entire group dock up to take a leak while leaving your Victory sitting outside.

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There is a difference between helping someone and ganking someone. The fact you even put = sign in-between is ridiculous.

 

With that, I drop my argumentation. Indeed, our views differ too much at basic levels to find agreement there.

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10 seconds is simply too short.

 

One player need more than 10 seconds to do: 1. see the cross where the battle happens  2. see how many ships already joined the battle  3. react to that thinking of whether to join or not  4. click the cross to join the battle.  If one misclick or somehow his poor computer lags for a moment, things can totally screw up for players in a open world. 

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Done. I think admin can code this up in about 10 seconds (unless there's some problem with people clicking in from so far away). It's just changing two existing values.

 

:) Dead simple to implement.

I'll start of with this reply, because this one is likely to be flagged. :P

 

Your obsession with 10 seconds is presumptuous. If something is dead simple to implement in 10 seconds, I want to hear it from the devs themselves. So I consider this a non-argument from your part and it should be stricken from the proposal.

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I'm voting "Some other system", not because I don't like the proposal, but because I think 15 seconds is already too short and you shortened it even more to 10 seconds.
 
http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/13263-propsed-new-open-world-battle-mechanics/?p=246915

I think I like the 15 second join with the large circle. It just needs one addition:

  • if you hit the circle you get dragged in at that position.
Right now the popular ganking tactic is basically "overshooting" the target within the timer. A 15 second blockade wouldn't be too much to interfere with regular shipping and disable the "overshooting" tactic.

The only disadvantage I can think of is that 15 seconds might be considered a short time. In that case maybe we could add "stances" like "neutral" and "hostile" to indicate whether we want to get dragged into large circles.

 

 
So once again I will counter with the growing circle proposal: http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/13263-propsed-new-open-world-battle-mechanics/?p=246890

Well, since you opened up this thread Babble, I will also re-post my proposal in here. http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/13167-short-announcement-on-the-15x-br-reinforcement-limit/?view=findpost&p=245635

How about make the circle grow at a slow, but exponential rate, say 0.1 m/s2?
After 2 minutes the circle would be growing at 11 knots, you can close the battle then.

...

As for ports, you could argue that those folks do enter a queue for a time, say the same time the battle has been open. The port itself won't be moving. :)
But I can not say how hard it would be to implement. If it can be implemented, I'm in favor.


As for invisie joiners: http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/13167-short-announcement-on-the-15x-br-reinforcement-limit/?p=245635

A late joiner will have to invest time. The "defender" should keep a lookout and maintain tactical awareness of any such reinforcements.

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To alleviate the short 10 second timer I would add to Slamz's proposal:

  1. If a member of a group gets tagged, then the entire group within the outer circle gets dragged in.
  2. Groups fill up the instance first, then individuals, then AI. If a tagged group can not fit in the instance, it should not get dragged in. (Maybe battle should not even commence?)
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I still like the idea that an ongoing battle can be reinforced. Make the homewaters safer and creates larger battled... In war it's not always about "wysiwyg".

 

I still like the 5 min timer so you could aid a distress-call nearby. Good for gameplay and nation based strategy and communities.

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10 seconds is simply too short.

One player need more than 10 seconds to do: 1. see the cross where the battle happens 2. see how many ships already joined the battle 3. react to that thinking of whether to join or not 4. click the cross to join the battle. If one misclick or somehow his poor computer lags for a moment, things can totally screw up for players in a open world.

Agree with this, how about 20 secs? And I still feel it needs to be longer for the attackee's nation (say 2 min) so the attackee's can call for reinforcements. To avoid counter ganking, maybe add 1.5BR on the attackee's side. Edited by Anne Wildcat
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What would be cool but probably impossible to code is save battle instances for NPC fleets and port battles, have OW pvp on the OW. If someone spots a ship close, they fire. Add the ability to enter enemy ports just to hide/repair, no chat available or shops. But then again you will have players hiding & popping out of NPC battles. :/

Edited by Anne Wildcat
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10 seconds is simply too short.

 

One player need more than 10 seconds to do: 1. see the cross where the battle happens  2. see how many ships already joined the battle  3. react to that thinking of whether to join or not  4. click the cross to join the battle.  If one misclick or somehow his poor computer lags for a moment, things can totally screw up for players in a open world. 

 

Here's the formula:

 

JOIN TIME + TAG TIME = INVULN TIME - INVIS TIME.

 

If you don't do this, you will have people joining fights who were invisible when the tag started.

 

So you can increase invuln time or decrease invis time, for example, to allow join time to be greater.

 

Possible values:

10 seconds join time + 20 seconds tag time = 60 seconds invuln time - 30 seconds invis time (current)

20 seconds join time + 20 seconds tag time = 70 seconds invuln time - 30 seconds invis time (+10 to join time and invuln time)

30 seconds join time + 20 seconds tag time = 70 seconds invuln time - 20 seconds invis time (+20 to join, +10 to invuln, -10 to invis time)

 

I'm not really set on "10 seconds" but if you want to avoid the invisible joiners problem, you'll have to figure out where you want the extra time to come from.

Edited by Slamz
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Absolutely against this suggestion as it would kill all OW tactics and mean Clans clubbing randoms at will. The attacker "only" needs to tag properly to seperate a part of an unblobbed enemy fleet (randoms) while the defender would have to be blobbed up constantly which is not done under randoms. No more tagging tactics at all because every organized fleet will just drive in blobs.

This suggestion is the manifested random-clubbing (read ganking) by organized clans while clan vs clan is just a blobfest.

Open the battletimers completely, test it and balance it and everythihg is fine.

Edited by Thonar
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The problem with the larger capture circle is that splitting or undesirable pulls into battles becomes more of a problem (or join / no join mechanics become very complicated).  I suggest "other system" again: current mechanics except once the battle is created, the join circle expands until closing at 2 min.  Anyone joining late is consequently placed at an appropriate distance, but joining from the wider area remains elective without need to respond to a prompt.  Choosing not to join as soon as possible would have a big trade-off.

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