Slamz
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Posts posted by Slamz
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I assume this is talking about merging PVP3 back into PVP1.
But bear in mind PvP1 was "full" on several occasions.
The U.S. needs its own PvP server but I do question the need for that PvE server, which I think just leads people into boring gameplay. (They may say they don't want PvP but I bet none of them are still around 3 months from now. Extra true as they max out crafting and the PvE server economy literally just stops.)
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Port attack windows need to be longer to let more people participate.
The entire concept of how ports change hands needs to be changed.
Simply opening the hours up will actually cause more problems. The map is too unstable as it is, with things changing hands too rapidly, and the main way of capturing ports right now is to prevent defenders from showing up (through various tricks).
Port battles don't need a tweak. They need a total re-invention.
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Maybe there needs to be a contract system.
I create a Contract for a new Trincomalee.
The contract is like a bundle: it contains everything I am offering up. Could be money, raw resources, parts, crafting notes, whatever.
The contract has a "guarantee price" and a time limit.
I set my guarantee price to 500,000 gold and a time limit of 24 hours.
In order to get this contract, you must pay the guarantee price, which is held by the system. You then get everything that was in the bundle and you have until the time limit to deliver the product.
If you deliver the product, you get that 500,000 gold back.
If you fail to deliver the product, I have lost my stuff but I get the 500,000 gold.
(The idea being I always set the guarantee price to more than the value of the items. You would always prefer to actually make the item than to pay the gold.)
You could also do this without the guarantee price, but moderated by players: now it's clear who owes who. You took the contract and never delivered the product. The contract is a trace of what was agreed on and therefore easy to search for.
I don't see why we can't just totally automate it, though, with the price guarantee solving the problem. (The system might even warn you if your price guarantee is clearly less than the average vendor price of the bundled goods.)
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This is logical, as you shouldn't be able to come along many minutes later and camp a battle
Why not?
People exiting the battle are invulnerable and invisible for a time, so it would be impossible to effectively camp the battle even if you could see it. As I understand it, the only reason battle markers are hidden is to reduce clutter. Personally I would like to see a toggle to "show hidden battles".
At any rate, this "exploit" isn't that terrible anyway, since the players popping out of the battle still have a long time of being invulnerable (cannot attack) plus 20 seconds of the attack timer itself. The defender has ample time to see them, maneuver and potentially even do a defensive tag (hitting an enemy or nearby NPC at a purposefully bad range and angle, allowing them an easy escape followed by invis/invuln).
The better example of this exploit in play is to actually tag someone "1v1" in the wide open ocean. They look all around, see no enemies anywhere remotely nearby on a clear, sunny day, go ahead and accept the fight, and then your 20 friends pop out of an invisible battle nearby and jump in.
Now it's 21v1 and they had no way to see it coming.
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This game is more and more turning into a massive display of hypocrisy from elitists who demand special rules like ships having reduced durability or being uncapturable when it serves to preserve the advantage of grinders and huge clans,
At the same time, we can't have 3rd rate grinders bragging about how easy it is to cap 3rd rates and claiming it literally doesn't matter if you sink theirs because they will just cap a new one in 10 minutes.
I don't mind 3rd rates being out there, but it's a bit too easy and too good right now.
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Would it make a difference to have the captured 3rd rates automatic basic ships with only one usable upgrade slot?
Another idea might be to just make upgrades better, across the board.
Right now upgrades aren't that great, so sailing a 1 durability ship with no upgrades isn't that big of a deal. Maybe if upgrades were better, people would be warier of going out in a ship that doesn't have good upgrades and the durability to hold onto them.
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Its just co-incidence that the topic is brought up by a Brit in a Clan with an extensive crafting base and supported by other members of that clan.
Might give you an easier time against the Danes and Pirates, thats for sure.
I can't imagine why anyone should care about that.
6 months from now literally everyone will be able to craft all the 3rd rates they'll want.
The long term question I see is whether they should be quite so freely available through capturing, simply because the AI is so bad at using them.
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I think the real problem is that the AI is very poor at sailing 3rd rates. The Constitution is actually more dangerous to fight in AI hands. I think the main problem may be that it's just remarkably poor at scoring hits and has a tendency to fire guns that you aren't quite within the arc of.
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felt the need to sail an entire fleet north to counter a fleet of 8 people.
There is another question, here, I think, which is "Why would the British show up with only 8 ships."
There seems to be a thinking in the big nations that goes like this:
"We are a small guild. Let's ditch this zerg and go find a fight our size [but we will stay a part of the zerg nation]."
This causes a couple of problems...
1) The team that sees you coming sees your nation flag and says "oh crap it's the zerg" and they round up every ship they can muster. You only brought 8 but they saw your flag and had good reason to assume there were 50 more on the way.
2) If you are successful as a small guild attacking a small area, the zerg really will show up ("hey, that 8v8 over there looks fun, so let's all 150 of us join in!"), so the assumption made in #1 is not, ultimately, wrong.
Joining the British and showing up with 8 ships when the enemy expects 25+ and prepares for this is kind of your own fault.
(If we learned anything as France, it's that when a small force from a large nation shows up, you better kick them way out real fast or you will be fighting 150 of them next week, regardless of the intentions of the original attackers.)
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I'm honestly confused by the choice of France going chummy with the Swedes, considering France seemed to have something going with the Brits and obviously, Swedes and Brits never were on good terms. You keep telling us Slamz how you had it all planed out, was the Brits walking all over your lands and allies part of the plan?
The French/Brit relationship is complicated. Let's review!
The Brits had some ports down in our Southeast with a couple of small guilds that worked down there. We skirmished a few times. In all likelihood we would have had a war with them to push them out of there but the pirates showed up and pretty well settled that matter: the British abandoned ship and the pirates simply PvT'd their ports. So basically, "Thanks, British, for all these pirate ports you basically left us with."
Once we were awash in more pirates than we could shake a croissant at, it made sense to accept any allies we could find. One day a large British guild showed up, wanting to wipe out the pirates and claiming no interest in holding the ports afterward. They would just kick the pirates out, let us take the ports back at our leisure and then we could all get on to fighting bigger foes, such as, perhaps, the United States.
That effort lasted 1 day. After the fight at Aves, the British -- and I don't necessarily blame them for this -- said "we need more levels to fight these people" and they scampered off. Well, ya know, I can feel that. PURGE has no 3rd rate captains yet and it definitely impairs our ability to do deep water battles. The urge to clam up somewhere and grind fleets for a week is strong. So "Thanks for the help (I guess)" to the Brits there. That's twice.
So now they're apparently coming back, which I mostly just think is odd. I'm actually not up on the details of what they are doing but if they're planning to gobble up Sweden then I frown on this.
If I were in charge of British general diplomacy, I would probably pull back out of the Lesser Antilles entirely, focus on the United States and gently nudge everyone else in that direction (if I was in charge of the United States, I would do the same thing, the other way).
Showing up to attack Sweden is mostly just a head-scratcher. Maybe there's history there that I'm unaware of. Why do the British have bad relations with the Swedes? Seems immaterial considering the Swedes own like 10 ports in a tiny part of the map.
And of course there's always a matter of saying things like "Brits" or "United States" or "Pirates" when there is really not much unity in these things. We could be friends with Brits A-M and be at war with Brits N-Z because they have opposite views.
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Hello, Britain. What are you up to? We have not chatted lately, but France is friendly with Sweden these days and we seem to have the pirate situation in hand. Perhaps your ships would be better put to use somewhere else?
I understand there are some filthy American pig-dogs running loose around Louisiana. We hear tales of cannibalism and asylum escapees. Perhaps the British Empire could investigate these claims.
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I love how you acknowledge that no one out of your faction likes you very much, especially the remaining pirate clans.
Actually I get along with everyone just fine, except for the pirates that invaded France and continue to do so, who I think I should not be expected to get along with.
But even there I'd be perfectly happy to bury the hatchet, assuming they have relocated out of French space (or rolled French).
I imagine some pirate guilds may well hold a grudge forever, probably even into new teams (and new usernames, and map resets) but my grudges so far have been objective based. No more objective? No more grudge. I don't plan to go camp Mortimer Town for "revenge against all pirates" or anything.
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totes happy what your clan and all those who tagged with you done but it's not like you can't teleport back to help like i do
Well that's the problem: it's a one way trip.
I can teleport up north to help with Fort Royale area and suck up the 45 minute trip back south if something erupts down there and probably still arrive in time to matter.
With Louisiana it's a commitment for the next 4 hours. The teleport window actually cycles faster than it would take to sail back. I don't wanna be there for 4 hours.
What we really need is a new guild of like 20 members that wants to just live there full time. Maybe one of those pirate guilds can join France and do it. It would be like joining France minus Slamz because I never go out there! It's everything they could want!
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Im sure the USA is going to jump at the chance to hand 40 dudes 2 million gold to take back ports they didnt defend.
Well, they did jump at the chance to spend 2 million gold to take ports they will probably never, ever use.
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Bit late now, Rice. Even if the US simply wanted to "give" them back, there's no way the French could recap deep water ports up north since the only French ports left to launch conquests on the Gulf are all shallow water, and it takes too long to launch a conquest from way down south.
Well....
You don't need deep water ports to launch deep water conquests. We docked deep water ships at Pedernales, for example, and attacked Peurto de Espania from there. But even assuming the shallow ports up there are so shallow you can't reach them, you could also have the deep ships at an outpost in a nearby Free Port and then just buy the flag from the shallow port using a light ship. (I think there's actually a good argument for always carrying port battle flags in a Lynx, which is very nearly impossible to kill if it just runs away.)
I can't comment on the shipbuilding part, though I will say for my part I got all of my shipbuilding stuff from the Cano Mac area. I would put up buy orders for oak, hemp and iron and eventually they would end up getting filled. I don't know if that's some function of NPCs filling the buy orders or if it was people capping traders and dumping the goods for cash. (I was only offering buy prices of just above what the port itself would have paid.)
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You should start a thread where all you do is talk about your pirate adventures and try to update it every couple of days or so.
Ultimately you need more people and the way to more people is not so much to ask "where is everyone" but just to start talking about what you're doing. Other interested parties may materialize if it sounds like fun.
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Well... if the ports change to neutral, there would be much more pressure to go PvT... because you cannot just "cap and forget".
And neutral ports, even if not useful for economy, can be PvP staging grounds. You don't want them in your territory.
Ergo - your idea actually promotes MORE PvT and forces MORE boring busywork...
The threat of people basing out of neutral ports for PvP is pretty minimal. Your nation would just wipe them out the next day because they would not be able to defend the port. The other 364 days of the year your nation would just ignore the neutral port because there's no reason not to. Recapturing a port that nobody uses over and over would be a complete waste of time. (Not that players don't frequently engage in complete wastes of time, but that's their problem.)
Anyone wanting to do serious PvP raiding will stage out of Free Ports precisely because they cannot be taken.
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Lots of bloody battles tonight.
France attacked La Trinite (a shallow water port on the same island as Fort Royale), Cano Araguabisi (aka "Middle Cano" in South America) and Naparima (in the South America bay area).
La Trinite was reported to be a narrow defeat to the French, literally coming down to the last couple of ships on both sides. France had a lot of cutters in the battle, though, as it was largely a pug / newbie attack. Hopefully the new players got a taste of port battles though and liked what they saw. It sounded like the closest battle I'd ever heard of.
Cano Araguabisi was fiercely contested. 18 pirates including a 3rd rate, a couple Constitutions and a Trincomalee versus 25 French including several 3rd rates. Pirates lost 10 ships and the battle. French lost 9 ships but won the fight. I don't think any of the 3rd rates sank on either side.
French went to Naparima after that -- no pirates defended and no ships were lost in the taking of that port.
(French lost several more gulf ports to the Americans with no defenders present.)
France has made up with the Swedes and tentatively agreed to cooperate in future endeavors. The Swedes are not a particularly dangerous port battle force due to low population but they have a fair open sea PvP presence.
The British took a nearby port and we are unsure as to their intentions as they have not been in communication with us.
(But no, you cannot have your old ports back in the southeast.)
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The problem with #2 is the same reason we French did not want to move to Louisiana regardless of how ugly it got for us in our starter area: I think it's a death sentence for your team to be separated from its capital. It makes it that much harder for any new players to get started AND for anyone to transfer over. Transferring people to France was easy with us fighting within a 45 minute drive of the capital. No big deal to help people transfer their stuff and get them set back up in Fort Royal.
So I think pirates are hurting themselves by trying to hold onto that southeast zone. Even if it works I think you'd cause more harm than good to your team in the long run. The handful of veterans would enjoy it but no new blood would likely join the team just because the startup is so unattractive.
Whereas I think #1 should be attractive if you, well, look at what the French did. Lots of fighting in smaller ships. Lots of shallow port battle defenses (which are frankly almost impossible for attackers to win, especially if the defenders teleport in). Basically take everything that was learned fighting us and try applying it to the forces around your starter area. It should result in non-stop PvP. Frankly if I had known that most of the pirates would run off and then quit, I would have made Purge be a pirate guild! We would be doing our Pedernales Defense except it would probably be endless around Mortimer Town. (Maybe we'd get tired of it eventually but I dunno, we didn't get tired of Pedernales. It was, if anything, just exhausting to PvP literally all night every night for as long as we wanted. I slept like the dead on the weekends trying to make up for the late nights.)
We're too invested in France now to want to do that but honestly I don't know why more pirates don't want that. You joined the PvPingest team on the PvP server. Why is anyone in the corner??
For our part, we are doing our best to gently nudge your teammates back to Mortimer Town. At some point they have got to get tired of moving their outposts. And now they've lost the reinforcement bubble around Cano Mac so their favorite thing to do is going to be a lot harder.
#3 is viable too, incidentally, though technically any team can do that. It's probably what we French would have done, had the pirates been able to totally wipe us out.
I still think #1 is a solid choice if approached with the right thinking but #3 can certainly be done as well. #2 at this point seems silly. The French, if I may suggest, are not going to give that up, and have been demonstrating that they have the firepower to take it back.
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Thought of the day:
Ports should have a "faction" rating, like from 0 to 1000.
Ports will slowly lose faction and turn neutral if nobody uses them.
"Use" could be measured by products bought and sold, unique persons visiting per day, missions completed or maybe even battles nearby or "number of times reinforcements called".
Port takeover cost could then be a factor of the port's current faction rating, with 0 faction having some minimum cost to buy the port attack flag (50k?) and maximum faction rating being maximum cost. Capturing a port sets it to 500 faction rating and then if nobody ever goes there, it will go neutral in about 10(?) days.
For that matter, maybe neutral ports should turn into a faction without a port battle, if that faction uses it enough to generate enough faction points.
This is mainly stemming out of thoughts of ways to reduce the number of "PvTower" battles this game has. Taking empty ports nobody cares to defend (or, if neutral, is able to defend) is expensive and boring. If those ports simply drifted to neutral on their own, there might be a lot less pressure to run around playing "colored dot pac-man" just to eliminate empty "enemy" ports.
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In my opinion, "fair fights" is what killed POTBS. I watched my guild participation dwindle week by week mainly, I believe, because it came down to:
* logs on.
* says, "Hey guys! Any group spots?"
"No sorry, groups are full."
* logs off.
(Or they join a less-than-6 group, which basically mills around, hoping enough other people log on to make it a 6-man group.)
The 6v6 meta basically meant that you were in a 6-man group or you didn't play. Extending that further to "2v2" or "3v3", etc, just limits everyone's potential targets: 600 people online and you can only fight a fraction of them because the rest are in the wrong group size.
It's tremendously better to have a Naval Action setup where everyone can just log in and join whatever we're doing.
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France is (was?) at peace with the Dutch and they would come help us with the southern pirates sometimes. Actually haven't heard from them in a few days. Something about having to deal with Spanish to their west.
Far as I'm concerned, that trend can continue. It was always my plan to draw a line around Galdonas with the Dutch to the west and France to the east. They do their thing, we do ours, likely find a common foe eventually.
I hope the pirates in the southeast have a better plan than "fight the French for ownership of the southeast". We don't think it's healthy for them to stay there. For them or us. Ultimately they have to leave. I hope someone down there has an actual plan for this. There is plenty of uncontested space on the map, still, or they could actually go home and fight the Americans.
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Pirates were getting feisty tonight, with a large concentration in the Cano Mac area. They attacked Puerto de Espania, trying to recapture that important port and trying to bring in quite a lot of undercrewed 3rd rates to quickly kill the towers and then seize the BR victory. France was already working in the area, however, and was able to react quickly, killing three Pirate 3rd rates outside the port before they could reach the fight, and at least 4 more in the port (2 more escaped the port battle but were killed outside as they tried to get away...and I can't remember what ButlerBeard was in but I'm pretty sure Wakko Sick was a 3rd rate that blew up). That's nine 3rd rates sunk if we're counting that right.
Port battle:
20 Pirates
20 French
15 Pirates killed
2 French killed
In other news, the filthy American pig-dogs attacked innocent civilians in the Louisiana area, murdering hundreds of peaceful farmers and miners for no reason. Several French ports have ceased communicating with the outside world, and it is assumed they were captured by Americans and probably fed American food, causing them to all die instantly of heart failure, high blood pressure and despair.
Unfortunately the French military was up to its eyeballs in pirates at the time and was unable to respond.
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Group waits after battle outside free town. Single player hops in and out of port. Exploit or Good Idea?
in Tribunal - Трибунал
Posted · Edited by Slamz
Does the decision to hide battles predate invisibility and invulnerability?
I would certainly like to see the number of people required to effectively camp a battle on the open world, knowing that the people inside are going to have a fair amount of invisibility to get a head start in any direction, and then a minute of invulnerability and 20 seconds of attack timer on top of that! Trying to camp them out (for what could end up easily being an hour) and then chase them down (which might easily be impossible) would be quite a trick!
That's such a tiny chance of effective abuse that it's an easy choice between that risk and the current risk, which is various ways of exploiting deep open sea semi-permanent invisibility.