KrakkenSmacken

Um from that link you just sent me, "Top 10 ports with the highest hostility level will be indicated on the map (where assault fleets are now currently) Once hostility level reaches 100% port battle is automatically set up in 48 hours" Additionally pve and smuggling is needed if other nation is not in the zone (trying to deny kills) but of course pvp kills will give a lot more than pve. And this Simple math tells me that if it takes 48 hours for a port battle to start, and the total system is limited to 10 active zones at a time, then on average there will be 5 port battles per day, spread out between all the nations. But then thinking about it some more, I realized that both of us are making assumptions about something that has not been explained. I assumed that a nation would only be able to have a single port battle active against another nation at one time. So that for example the US would not be able to trigger a second port battle against the pirates prior to the first being settled. I also assumed that a nation would only have one or two hot spots possible,(one offensive, one defensive) regardless of population, due to the new division of ports model outlined on the map. You I believe assumed that once one hostility trigger was hit, the country could go strait into trying to trigger a second port battle before the first one was resolved. This actually points out a really good question. What is happening to hostility during the 48 hour count down to the battle? Can another town become the focus of hostility, or does hostility drop back to zero across the board? Is it impossible to generate new hostility until after a port battle has been resolved? Is it simply harder to generate the hostility, as in adding in a divisor on hostility generated based on outstanding port battles? Can you be forced to defend against two at a time by multiple nations, or is there an automatic lock of new defensive battles once you are scheduled to be attacked? The answer to all the questions around "What happens to both nations during the 48 hour before attack window?" has not been explained and does require further exploration. This also ties into alliances. Perhaps you are only able to generate hostility against the nation/s you are specifically at war with, regardless of windows and timers. EDIT: Oh, and I am going to throw out my suggestion again that the timer should be set by the attackers between 24-48 (numbers could be changed to 36-60 for example) hours from time of trigger, based on the time voted on by those that contributed the most hostility. In this way an alliance could force a hostile enemy to fight both an offensive and defensive port battle at the exact same time. If for example the US triggered a war at 2 pm vs the French exactly 48 hours from the time hostility hit maximum. The UK would see this and be able to trigger their own attack for the next 24 hours to also select a 2 pm attack on the same day against the US. The US would have to fight the UK tooth and nail to prevent hostility being raised against them in the 24 hours following declaration of attack to prevent being attacked during the same time window that they are running an attack, or be forced to sort out two engagements at the same time. If they US however picked a time that was only 26 hours from the trigger time, the UK would only have 2 hours to generate the necessary hostility to trigger simultaneous attacks. This would be resolved at least 24 hours prior to both attacks so the whole engagement would offer more strategy and more interesting alliance dynamics. With the current model of fully fixed time start on both sides, it totally prevents the ability to create any kind of secondary counter game prior to the event.

I think you may be missing the fact that the cap of 10 per day could only be met if all nations trigger a hostile port take over on the same day. There is also a 48 hour lag between hostility trigger and the port battles. The odds of there being a day with all 10 nations triggering hostile port battles in the same day, is I suspect, rather small, especially since to trigger one, you need to be engaging the enemy actively. Having all nations fighting a two front war at the same time seems... difficult to imagine. I would also argue that high pop nations will not spread faster. On PvP 2 I just watched the pirates sweep the Florida coast area (>15 ports) in the period of a week, only to be pushed back those same 15+ ports a week later. That was at the least 2 ports every 24 hours. In the new model the best the most aggressive and populous nation will be able to take in a week is 3 ports, due to the one port at a time and 48 hour port battle trigger. We are going to be playing the RvR game over the course of months/years, instead of the current days/weeks model. It is to be seen if this will be too slow for people to feel a sense of accomplishment.

This part is true enough, so some sort of limit would be acceptable. Say for example you have 14 days from entrance into a campaign world to make the switch, once. Then you get to have an informed decision, and one chance to switch, without the ability to flip flop or suddenly join the winning side at the last minute (unless you happen to join at the last minute). It's at least better than the current model of complete character wipe and restart from an assets point of view that is currently in play. I would also let you change nations during a map reset, so you if you feel you picked the wrong team the last game, switch to a new team for the next. Natural attrition and joining, as well as the number of nations, should reduce the impact of Zerg joiners to the winning team. That would be a wait and see sort of thing.

Exactly why I posted this possible variance method a few weeks ago. http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15638-development-plans-for-conquest-mechanics-rvr/?p=294381

I could see a mix of several methods for raising and lowering hostility. Method 1, hostility raises by the lowest value based on the Enemy BP in the radius. Method 2, hostility raises by the results of a PvE battle within the area. Method 3, hostility raises by the results of PvP battles within the area. (1 and 2 could be directly tied to XP earned) Method 4, hostility lowers while your waters are clear of enemies. ... ... ... Why oh why do people insist on a magic bullet model of "this is the best and only way to do X"? With a system as open as hostility could be, you could create all sorts of inputs for affecting it, from combat and control as describe above, to economic and building impacts on the same. I think it should be built like the "perks" were. Create a base model with things that are obvious to build/reduce hostility, and things that can modify the impact those changes have (multipliers/divisors) like how developed/used a port is, and then put in the simplest things first. After that open it up to as many modifiers as you like, with players suggesting new modifiers for the devs to implement. With a good core system, adding additional ledger items (think accounting balance sheet), is as easy as identifying them and adding the calls to the correct controllers (MVC developer thinking here), that update the values.

I think you are very wrong about this assumption. Right now there is no way to eliminate a nation, so there is no effort put into eliminating a nation. I've been down to Mort as a pirate, that I KNOW if it was possible for us to have been wiped out, we would have been. The back and forth is forced on both sides, with no relief. Eventually something always happens to tip the scales back for a nation to make a comeback, but often that something is unhealthy for the game. For example the top team players get bored of hammering newbs at the capital, have no other real enemies and leave the game. In the case of pirates when pushed to just the capital, many players gave up and quit, leaving an interest vacuum for the other team, and so they moved on. New players joined the pirates and pushed the nation and revitalize it to where we are now, with a solid back/forth between Pirates/US/UK, but those old players are gone or switched servers. Bottom line, a good game developer thinks just as hard, actually harder, about how the losing experience is and feels, and tries to make it as palatable as possible. They also give incentive to continue to fight against losing odds. Trust me, I used to write gambling software for a living where the absolute truth is that you are going to lose more than you win consistently. Far more time is spent on programming the losing experience than the winning, because you lose more players when they are losing than when they are winning.

Admin commented on this idea a few months ago. There is exactly one recorded instance of a ship running out of ammo, and that was after multiple engagements over a protracted period of time. For realism, do NOT add ammo. It was not something a Captain usually had to worry about.

Well I checked. It's kinda weird now because there are over lapping events. The last vote was War with UK, and I can't vote for war with UK again, but I can vote for war with the US, where we are still at war and will be for a few more days. So if they plan on running vote over laps it looks like you can continue a war indefinitely, but just not vote on it while it was the previous selection. It effectively forces you to be at war with two countries at the same time, you last pick and your current pick. It would prevent a large country from ganging up on just one country at a time. They would have at least two countries gunning for them back. If it goes this way, perhaps the war votes frequency should be tightened up a bit from once a week.

I really want to see how the plan the Crowfall guys has comes about. I do like the idea of two OW servers, one that seasons, and one that is eternal. We already have a PvP1/2 split, so it's not like there isn't precedent for different servers. A merge then split in a "test" environment it would certainly show the population that has a real problem will loss of assets. Count me in for the seasons server.

I'll check it out again when I get on the game a few hours from now, but I don't think you can vote either way, war or peace, for the nation you are currently at war with. I am also a pirate, so we are pretty much at war with everyone all the time, but I thought this round had the pirates not having the eventual pirate limitations for testing purposes.

Hummm. Few questions. (Yes a bit OT, but I think sailing speed is fine as is it now that TP limits don't lock us to regions for multiple game sessions in a row. The core problem is the quick action model.) If a tournament takes place over multiple days/weeks, how is that different from a MOBA season based on ELO rates? What population do you expect given the time required to actually play in a dedicated tournament to commit to a short term version? Is that a viable number of players to run a tournament?

Are you supposed to not be able to declare war on the same nation twice? I could not see how to vote for your enemy while at war with them. Or am I missing something?

That to me would be a different game mode than the OW, almost totally unhinged from the OW experience. I would make sure that money, resources, and all the trappings of OW did not carry between the two, the only things being XP and unlocked ship access, like LoL unlocks champions. There was a thread that had a MOBA style battle selection screen, (can't be arsed to find it now) and I'm pretty sure Admin said that was a long term goal. Perhaps at the next vote for priorities we can ask nicely for that instead. After the 2016 goals are in the can, that may be a good time to let the game run for a bit to smoke test it, and focus building the instant action style of game that is so popular with many people.

I'm not married to any one idea I may have. I toss out many ideas, some that would not work with each other, but I think are worth considering depending on the circumstances. In this case, my first preference is for the original, Birth-Allegiance, character relationship. It think it offer's the most opportunity for groups and clans to hold together, even without a "natural" nation state, and stay together through server wipes. The second creates a perpetual comeback mechanic that could potentially avoid the need for server wipes, but I consider that more fraught with peril. The peril being that there is no viable location for the state without a capital to travel to, that will not result in an almost immediate repeat of the same situation. That said, with total mobility on the map, it may be ideal and cause exactly the type of regional control mix up required to wobble the top nation enough for others to make a bid for it. They are not entirely mutually exclusive, but they are certainly not the most compatible of models to work side by side.

I suspect that with the changes to the port mechanics (Port attack window opens automatically 48 hrs after hostility trigger), that the rush to the port is going to look a bit like a salmon run with bears (defenders) tagging the ships as they try to make it in. In those circumstances it's very likely that some/many of the big fish are going to get tagged on route, while some/many of the smaller ships heading to the battle will sneak past or be let through. I foresee a glorious chaos as players jockey for position, defenders target the important targets, screen fleets and formations are ran in an effort to form up the best possible final BP ship distribution. I also suspect that the race to the port, and battle for the area around the port, will start several hours before the actual port capture window opens. It's going to be messy and I think rather intense.

Think about it? I have. The gain is in the potential for variety to naturally develop. There are those that will go to any lengths to have the best stats and play the best meta, and there are those that will buy up to the maximum they can afford at time of purchase, and those that are cheap and will stick to basics due to costs. Anytime you say "everyone will X", your making too broad of an assumption, like your trophies comment. Right now everyone is doing X (exceptional construction) and If everyone is doing X, then whatever X is, it is no longer a choice or an option, but rather the standard. That is what Gold level ships are now, the standard, for several reasons. Crafting a Gold gives you the best chance at a BP. Crafting a Gold costs no more resources that need hauling, except copper/silver/gold in such small quantities it's not really a challenge to source. Effectively just 1 day of labor hours. Makes the base ship better. Makes room for more upgrades. People who play a couple of times a week would wait to spend the hours, while those that play constantly would constantly feel the shortage. The irony of this situation would be that the more frequent players would be less inclined to drive the best ships due to more frequent loss, while the less frequent players would have the labor resources to have the best ships. In short, I think it would add more variety to what is essentially a all gold all the time current standard.

On part one, you are correct. The solution is game play elements that are difficult or impossible to assign to a secondary account due to required human inputs. On part two, I think you are incorrect. I do not think Labor hours as a concept per se were or are the problem. They provide a balancing mechanism where playing for extended periods of time does not improve your ability to produce ships, creating a breaking mechanism on mass production. The problem comes from the ability to bypass that intended limitation with alt accounts, to produce more than the design is hinged around. The solution is ... well I don't know what the solution to people using multi accounts to bypass the limitation. Unfortunately every mechanic that encourages co-operation in the construction process would be subject to the same problem, because at its essence muilt accounts are effectively the same as two players co-operating with themselves. This is a huge problem because the goal is for large ship construction to either be a collaborative effort, or take an enormous amount of time. So it's a baby with the bathwater problem. Do you allow those with more time to dominate absolutely in the economy game, or do you put up with a few multi boxers behaving like those who can dedicate an inordinate amount of time to the game? At least the multi boxers are spending money to do so, and the devs have taken the steps of limiting things to one avatar per account, and locking labor hour production across all servers to that account. I really don't see how much more they could do, and removing labor hours completely would remove all limits on ship production, and just imagine the first rate proliferation if currency was the only restriction. At least now it has some breaks, as opposed to being a runaway train going down hill.

I disagree. Only ships that you build to the highest specifications would be in the range of 10 millions under the model I posted. You could build a basic anything without a single note. Those basics or a couple of steps higher should make up the bulk of ships fighting anyway. Exceptional should bloody well mean exceptional, not what everyone uses. The cost scale up should be a very nasty hockey stick, not the linear +250 labor hrs per upgrades that first rates are now. I found that I personally build to the best expectations all my ships, even the ones I will only use occasionally, simply because the cost of waiting for an upgraded version is about a days worth of hours. If that was more like a weeks worth of hours, well then I would consider an upgrade here and their, and build most of my ships to lower specs. Current model has fully upgraded ships being no real big deal unless your losing all dura from your ships once a day. From my experience you out grow your ships in class much faster than you sink them anyway. I would love to hear a way to control that. Actually I think the entire internet world in general would love to hear a good way to control multi accounting. It's a problem that absolutely no developer has ever solved, so what makes you think NA is going to do any better of a job of it.

Basic, no notes. Rate in below formula is 7=1 6=2 etc Tier 1 (Copper notes 1X Rate) Tier 2-3 (Silver Notes 2 X Rate ,3 X Rate) Tier 4 (Gold notes 4 X Rate) So Gold Niagara would cost 8 Gold notes, while a Gold Gold Santi would cost 28 and represent 7000 hours of labor, the real cost of ships. This way getting Gold anything requires a level 50 crafter, and a huge expense. Players would naturally gravitate to things they could afford, and this would naturally provide a greater mix of ship qualities.

The complexity of an Agent smith mechanic could be greatly reduced. Basically you can only Agent Smith to an active ship on the water from a port. Once you Smith onto a boat, it has to dock somewhere before you can use the Agent Smith Mechanic again. You can only Agent Smith if your at a port with an outpost. So you can never leave a ship/cargo someplace it can't be without you. Other than that, I don't see it being technically much more complicated than it would be than the current mechanic that lets you hop around with the camera in a PB after you have been sunk.

I see this thread has been getting a few bumps in votes since the cargo hold changes on traders has forced more open world travel to make money trading. I think it's time to poke this hornets nest again and categorically say, we should be able to hire AI, or use our own crew to let AI drive cargo and ships around the open world. No more TP, even of captured ships, and no more "deliveries" that do not actually travel on the map. Give us an outlet to automate, while putting at risk, normal cargo and ship movement. I know Admin thinks this "feature" would never be used because of the risk, but personally I would rather risk in game assets, than be guaranteed to spend real world time, doing the kinda boring sailing from port to port thing. I currently do that sort of thing when I have other things to do. Just point the ship in the right direction, set a timer, and come back to dock when it goes off. May as well be AI at that point.

Also not stated is what is actually lost in a wipe. There may be no good reason, in fact there are probably allot of very good reasons, why assets other than ports and building will simply be itemized and passed on to the next season. Think of it like LoL. Phase one is leveling 0-30, then comes phase 2 rune collection. Phase three is competing in ranked. Every game you enter you are always the best character you can be, level 30, and your rune set. Seasons in ranked will alter the ranked value, but they never require a loss of champions or runes. very game you enter you are always the best character you can be, level 30, and your rune set. A well balanced skill based model works when everyone is assumed to have access to all assets, and makes specific choices about what type of asset to work with. So I think the wipe would and should be limited to a simple port reset, and possibly resource stockpiles. Once people know what passes on and what does not, the days/weeks leading up to a reset, people will simply invest heavily in what survives in preparation for the wipe.

Because the current model with no win conditions has does such a great job of building community. </sarc> (See US PvP2 for example of near total social collapse.) MMO and RvR resets have little to nothing to do with relationship building and community, as long as they are well defined and understood. The only real social collapse the Pirates have had was due to the ambiguity of the server merge, (many left months ago en mass, many did not, community divided and split), and the US collapse could be find a source in the battle royal model that let them fragment and in-fight due to multiple goals. The exact same thing that happened to the pirates just before the complete push back to mort. (Pirates split into north/south factions, then south went french looking for a fight.) What is needed is a way for "tribes" to plan for and work towards what happens to them at the reset. I strongly urge the developers to go exactly down that route, planned win conditions and known reset parameters, just like any other conquest game.

Nothing official yet, but if they run it like they did the EU merger, all assets get turned into redeemable items, and all buildings get turned into cash.

Citation needed. Who said pirates would no longer be able to conquer ports? Admin made a rather spirited defense of pirates capturing ports ages ago by pointing to historical records and facts about just how powerful the historical pirate nations were. Tens of thousands of marines and total control of many major ports if I recall correctly. Bottom line, pirates NOT being able to capture ports is as equally ridiculous as thinking every pirate was like Jack Sparrow. All the bitching and moaning about pirates being OP because of two simple mechanics is mostly sour grapes. The irony is that pirates tend to be more cohesive and better managed than the nations, probably because almost nobody goes into piracy thinking they can stroke their epeen by being the leader of the pirates, simply because pirates have already basically told authority to go pound sand. Nationals, however unwise the plan to be king of the US is, still see that as something they can aspire to. When they fail then look around for someone to blame besides their own inadequacies, and have us dirty pirates leering at them through unbrushed teeth. (Though the brits seem to have the same dental hygiene problems in general.) So far the only thing I have seen that pirates won't be able to do is have allies,which is a major dis-advantage as no allies can enter the same battle instance with them to bolster numbers, and everyone else is always basically an enemy. So on pirates not being able to take ports, Citation needed because the map above sure still seems to have pirate ports. EDIT: Ahh here is at least a bit of it anyway.