Diodo

Why don't just use a lobby for this instead of OW? What are the players there supposed to do? Wait around for an opponent? Just make a lobby with a challenge and answer system so players can match each other appropriately. Having it in the OW simply breaks roleplay and immersion to me.

And every port has different ship class requirements; this might work out fine too, bringing in more diversity in fleet composition.

It's more about making quick battles great again for players that just want a quick PVP fight. OW has his downsights but it's a compromise between having a large world and being able to travel it relatively quickly. Also i'm going to guess that OW is far lighter both on the machine and the server side both for graphics and physics.

Assault flags were obviously removed because they were exploited in many ways; but this topic is not about the flag itself, it is about the concept of assault fleet. As of now port battles are staged by the server following the hostility mechanic; great system, at least in theory, that allows everyone to take part in the war effort. The problem comes when the port battle finally starts and players literally flush into it by logging right in front of the port denying the defender the ability to intercept the attack. This could be partially solved, or at least mitigated, by bringing back the concept of assault fleet: to join the port battle you must be part of the assault fleet which must be assembled in an appropriately selected national port. You would join the fleet like you join the port battles now: generated hostility gives you precedence, but then everyone is free to join. Bear in mind that this fleet is to have limited capacity exceeding not by much the port battle limit (like 30 for 25 pb). The assault fleet has now to sail from their safe (and theoretically hidden) assemble location towards the port battle position. An appropriate message might now be broadcasted to the server announcing the departure of such fleet and could even contain the region or the county of origin. Now the defenders are given the chance of intercepting the attacker and defeating the invasion attempt, bewaring of counter-screening attempts. Assuming that part of the fleet managed to start the port battle, a timer is started at the end of which additional reinforcements are allowed to join even if they don't belong to the assault fleet. This system will again increase OW activity related to port battles, requiring long journeys to attack ports far from national territories giving more importance to geographical positions and ownership while also giving some degrees of safety to central national territories that would require the assault fleet to sail trough hostile territory in order to attempt an invasion. At the same time it cannot be exploited like flags were because timing is still determined by hostility generation.

I like this, the enemy has no way of finding where it is if not to spread out his forces. But it needs to kick you out of battle after couple minutes of his end to avoid players sailing in a parallel universe where wind is fixed (even if time is not compressed like in OW). What i don't like is killing the battle screen, it has legit use if you for example have to urgently go afk after a long battle (like going to the toilet). We just need a way to avoid it being used has an hiding spot (not a simple task). Every thing that we come up to kill exploits and ends up damaging gameplay for others is not a worthy solution in my opinion. Giving the battle player a way to escape safely can help against revenge fleets, disabling events and tags after leaving battle helps against battle logging; but for hiders....i don't see how.

I'm not sure how war supplies work, but i think you already have to deliver them to the enemy port. However i see that the point you're making about the flag mechanic is that you have to travel to the actual port battle location and not spawn there. A good solution could be to have some mechanic (user or automatic) that picks a national port where to assemble the fleet, which will contain the only ships able to enter and start the port battle. This fleet could be limited to like 30 ships, allowing the defenders to actively intercept and stop the attack. After some time from the start has passed reinforcements can then join the battle too considering that the defenders had their fair chance.

If you manage to do so...

Well that would be a legit strategy, i don't see the problem with it. And then you're left with 2 fleet ships that you'll potentially easily lose.

I don't think it would kill pvp, it will just move it closer to the borders instead of having fleets right outside capitals (adding once again impprtance to territory). You would still have medkits, that would work as they're intended to, healing casualities after each battle to minimize crew losses. On top of that having to sail back with resuced crew, combined with the new comparative battle rating visualization, would be a great opportunity for players with smaller ships to try and take on a crippled, bigger enemy that happens to flee thought their hunting zone. I don't mind risking a ship to a good fight. This whole thing maybe just needs a bigger player base, as usual.

Right now if you hire some extra crew you can magically access it in the post battle screen and have it appear on the ship. Opposite to this medkits spawn fresh crew out of fish and rum. It would be more realistic in my opinion if crew was only accessible in national ports and medkits could only be used to restore portions of the lost crew. (I know that realistic is not always better for gameplay, but this would add a nice touch)

Cool, time to catch some lizards! It could even unlock special fishing rewards like rare species or particular ones like squids for example. Even better would be if you could go near shore away from any port and go “hunting" for local species. (Like we se in Master&Commander)

Fleet hold capacity summed up Defence hostility page in the conquest tool Allies hostility interacting in some way

Yes! A must have for casual players, i can't see how this can go wrong.

I suggest one simple solution: if you log in at sea in a region with a scheduled PB you shouldn't be able to join events or attack for a couple minutes (5?) giving opposition a chance to react. This should also apply to defenders who can simply avoid this by logging at port with standard ROE.

You should consider disabling captured ship teleport until a new system is avaible because as of now it is used as an exploit to teleport ships around the world. Disabling it you could even bring back smuggler fighting and green on green for pirates. Even having the option to sink a captured ship doesn't make any sense if you can simply send it away without any cost, even of crew. If you really want it you can take it to your fleet, crew it, and escort it back; or if you can't, you sink it. Having some sort of alternative “ship parking" (even temporary) would help if you capture something in the middle of a mission and you don't want to carry it around until you're done and ready to bring it back to your outpost. And this would even work nicely with single durability ships making it more dangerous to move around ships.

Instead of buying X amount of goods that weight 100lbs and cost Y/x it would be far easier and simpler to directly buy 100lbs at Y/lbs cost. This way you can also easily compare profit over the same hold weight.

Free ports are being used more as bases for fleets than trading hubs; my suggestion is: use some sort of hostility system to allow a nation or alliance to blockade a free port. The blockaded port behaves like it belongs to the blockading nation but it still allows outpost operation and trading by smugglers. The only real difference: warships can't enter such port without breaking the blockade first. They still can leave, so it can be broken from inside if a force big enough is present. Blockade will of course be far easier to flip than port ownership resulting in it only working against ganking fleets near territorial waters. It will work much like port ownership itself, with or without timeout after establishment. Number of possible simultaneous blockades can be of course limited for balancing purposes.

Sure...but i'm quite sure they didn't let lineship fleets dock in to not disturb someone to the point where they would loose their freedom. For example, if someone gives shelter to my enemy right next my home, i'm going to wipe him out. Blockading trought pvp hostility seems a good compromise to me. You still have the free ports around where you can trade, but they're no more a base for ganking fleets to disturb capital waters without establishing forward bases by capturing territory. And of course you can still smuggle past the blockade with traders and the blockade itself it's a very volatile thing.

Personally i would remove free ports and open outpost policies. This way territory matters more even for commerce, but at the same time losing a port where you own an outpost isn't too bad of a thing. Being able to leave and send ships around is really a thing that must be added to the game to simplify those who don't have the time to sail for hours in empty waters. An idea for free ports: give them hostility but instead of PB it gains a blockaded status that prevents enemy operations (it is kinda like owning it but it can change more quickly than a full capture).

Yeah i was having the same thought, but if i have to alt-tab and go check the player levels, then the ships that you can crew... that's even more immersion breaking. That was it.

I'm often using captured 1 dura ships, which come in all sort of varieties.

I'd rather have multiple officers to choose but only one is in charge at one time and therefor only his perks count. Maybe give officer slots based on player rank (how it would make sense for an admiral to have multiple officers below him).

Kinda self explanatory; it should make it easier to pick the correct mission for the ship you're sailing in.

One must have thing is comulative hostility for allied nations.

No. For many reasons i don't have time to explain now.