A change to the portbattle mechanics and more...

[stache1]

This is a proposal for a change in the way port can be captured  that will solve 2 of the biggest problems in game atm:

 

1)prevent Landgrabbing map rollovers that demoralize and destroy whole nations in a couple of days.

 

2)give a meaningfull and usefull task to the starting and lower level players in the nation/clan and not only for the powergrinders.

 

how can this be archieved?! : by setting up a port supply that needs to be influenced before a port can captured OR before a flag can be crafted there (conquering fleets need to stack up supplies to before going on a campaign!!).

 

Imagine this; there are regular AI convois (2,3 or 4 big traders and a small escort) going to each port to supply it with basic needed goods to keep the port/city running (flower ,tools ect ,ect. not the goods we trade with now) ,each port has a minimum level of supplies it needs to stay functional /defendable, dropping below that makes it weak and it becomes capturable!.

 

So now if you want to capture a port ,first you have to weaken it by intercepting the resupply convois (a perfect task for players in mercs,cerbs, suprises and frigates! ) or as the opposing nation make sure the convois get through to the port you want to protect from capture (even human made convois with traders and escort would be possible! another great task for all ranks of players).

 

This mechanic will open up a whole new strategic level to the game, with a lot of possibilties for PvP and PvE battles for all player levels, while also reducing the number of ports beeing capturable at any given time(remember you have to build up supplies in a frontline town to craft a flag!!).

 

The human resupply convois would be made up as admirality missions  giving gold and maybe some Xp for traders taking the risks.

 

All additions to this idea are welcome ,it's just my idea on improving on the  current situation.

 

S! fellow captains!

Edited February 28, 2016 by stache1

[IronClaw]

I like it! It will slow down the rate of ports being captured, making it feel more epic when you do. Also it will give everyone something to do, and not just the 25 players with the biggest ships.

[Galileus]

I like it. In the meantime, we were theorizing about a system where capping too many ports in too short span of time (talking weeks or months, not nights) would stack up "debuffs" on your nation, making it harder to attack future ports (limiting BR, limiting slots) and defend newly acquired ports (less/weaker forts due to overstretching forces, less slots). The idea behind is to make it possible to roll over other nation - but with skill (winning an unfair fight) and not with numbers.

[Lytse Pier]

Awesome idea, with also involvement of newer players!

[IronClaw]

I like it. In the meantime, we were theorizing about a system where capping too many ports in too short span of time (talking weeks or months, not nights) would stack up "debuffs" on your nation, making it harder to attack future ports (limiting BR, limiting slots) and defend newly acquired ports (less/weaker forts due to overstretching forces, less slots). The idea behind is to make it possible to roll over other nation - but with skill (winning an unfair fight) and not with numbers.

 

 

I like that idea as well. Much more effective than just making stuff more (and exponentially) expensive, as that would only lead to heavier and heavier grinding.

[Lytse Pier]

I like it. In the meantime, we were theorizing about a system where capping too many ports in too short span of time (talking weeks or months, not nights) would stack up "debuffs" on your nation, making it harder to attack future ports (limiting BR, limiting slots) and defend newly acquired ports (less/weaker forts due to overstretching forces, less slots). The idea behind is to make it possible to roll over other nation - but with skill (winning an unfair fight) and not with numbers.

 

Indeed. You could also have different profiles for Portbattles to add to that, like e.g. Profile one: 3x 1st rates, 3x 2nd rates, 10x 3rd rates, etc. 

[stache1]

Indeed. You could also have different profiles for Portbattles to add to that, like e.g. Profile one: 3x 1st rates, 3x 2nd rates, 10x 3rd rates, etc. 

 You could link those profiles to amount of overstockingof the town the flag is crafted from and/or how far the supply of the attacked town has dropped below capture level!.

[dhyran]

hiho,

 

thats really a great idea!

[Flamigant]

Omg thats an amazing idea!

[Sea Nettle]

Arbitrary pve grinding for port battles? The point of the over world map is conquest and economy to fuel said conquest. If it weren't then arena battles would be all that is needed. Making conquest arbitrarily more time consuming is not a good idea. If pvpers are logged in and ready for conquest they don't want to waste hours on top of travel time doing a menial task just to attempt conquest.

 

Right now if a solo player logs in and has the money they can buy a flag and initiate a port battle. They aren't constrained by agendas or artificial limitations. Any other players who want to participate can do so.

 

This suggestion transforms the system in to something that requires more energy and coordination than people want to give.

 

If the argument is that ports are transferring too quickly then take the extreme in reverse. Why not have the taking of a port require a month's planning, the setting of a date sometime in the future so that way we have oceans of time to ensure a proper defense including people requesting days off to attend.

 

The answer is because it's a game and the accelerated pace of conquest and loss keeps the game exciting.

Edited February 28, 2016 by Sea Nettle

[Shark Aumakua]

Great idea! I'm in!

[Galileus]

Right now if a solo player logs in and has the money they can buy a flag and initiate a port battle. They aren't constrained by agendas or artificial limitations. Any other players who want to participate can do so.

 

This suggestion transforms the system in to something that requires more energy and coordination than people want to give.

 

You would be surprised how much organization and coordination people are willing to put out there. i know. i fought the Dutch.

 

The very "zerg rush" you promote led not only to a massive amounts of problems, promotion of numbers over skills - but also to devaluation of port battles. They became a mundial task, that for better situated agressor was no different form A-to-B side quest; and for the conquested side - unstoppable and unfair show of force. In the end no-one would be happy with that.

 

I would love the very idea of port battles to evolve into massive events, taking place over days and including a lot of side objectives involving much more players. And stache1 presents a good start. Also, my own addition ain't half bad either!

[dhyran]

This is a proposal for a change in the way port can be captured  that will solve 2 of the biggest problems in game atm:

 

1)prevent Landgrabbing map rollovers that demoralize and destroy whole nations in a couple of days.

 

2)give a meaningfull and usefull task to the starting and lower level players in the nation/clan and not only for the powergrinders.

 

how can this be archieved?! : by setting up a port supply that needs to be influenced before a port can captured OR before a flag can be crafted there (conquering fleets need to stack up supplies to before going on a campaign!!).

 

Imagine this; there are regular AI convois (2,3 or 4 big traders and a small escort) going to each port to supply it with basic needed goods to keep the port/city running (flower ,tools ect ,ect. not the goods we trade with now) ,each port has a minimum level of supplies it needs to stay functional /defendable, dropping below that makes it weak and it becomes capturable!.

 

So now if you want to capture a port ,first you have to weaken it by intercepting the resupply convois (a perfect task for players in mercs,cerbs, suprises and frigates! ) or as the opposing nation make sure the convois get through to the port you want to protect from capture (even human made convois with traders and escort would be possible! another great task for all ranks of players).

 

This mechanic will open up a whole new strategic level to the game, with a lot of possibilties for PvP and PvE battles for all player levels, while also reducing the number of ports beeing capturable at any given time(remember you have to build up supplies in a frontline town to craft a flag!!).

 

The human resupply convois would be made up as admirality missions  giving gold and maybe some Xp for traders taking the risks.

 

All additions to this idea are welcome ,it's just my idea on improving on the  current situation.

 

S! fellow captains!

 

i absolutly like the whole idea and will go a bit more into a detailed scenario:

 

a Flag is choosen, now the Admirality creates a support chain with orders from the nearby ports. Missions can be choosen by traders, each mission got also 2 slots or more for small battleships to protec the supports.

 

For 7 Days there will be an amount of support missions, to craft the flag, if the minimum level of supplies is reached, the port battle can be started with a limited time window, if the support level end after 7 days with a factor like 2 or more you get additionel time to attack the port

 

• Those Supplies are no goods nor can one buy those in the shop. Those can be taken as admiral missions and hve to be fullfilled in a limited time frame
• With such a suply chain the fresh players can play also a very usefull role for each faction
• Additional one can get also XP and some gold running those mission. So you also can level up as a trader!
• once the flag is  crafted and the portbattle is won, those suply chain trades will get an additional amount of gold and XP fee as a bonus so you will be motivated to run more supply missions over the week 

The system behind that idea can be integrated at the mission menu. Once one started the Flag crafting, those admiral support missions will be displayed as convoi mission from a to b. You can accept those missions as a team with minimum 3 up to 6 Players and such missions must be fullfilled in 90 minutes realtime. than the race will be started. interception fleets will raise up to defend , and protection fleets can be additional part of such a scenario

 

Imagine how this would be. We would see all kind of smaller and faster ships like the Brigs surprises and renomees in usefull roles.

 

And no port steamrolling anymore. A captured port will be a national or at least a squadronwide effort to reach! 

 

Snappy Salute 

dhyran

Edited February 29, 2016 by dhyran

[Puchu]

I like the system. Eventually the outcome of the map would be the same though. just not as quickly.

[Galileus]

I like the system. Eventually the outcome of the map would be the same though. just not as quickly.

 

Not at all. If the amount of manpower and effort would rise with each port taken, it would naturally divide nation by playerbase. Bigger nation can give more manpower and effort and cap more ports... but not more than possible due to their playerbase. Or at least not for long - these overstreaching parts would last only for a time and require amazing amounts of mobilization. These would last only for a time, as no nation is capable of mobilizing upper 80%'s and 90%'s of their clan population for too long. They would naturally fall to counter-offensive from the other side, that would NOT be overstreaching and find it easier to mobilize proper numbers. Or even to a itself over-streached counter-offense, also being only capable of lasting for no more than few battles.

[dhyran]

Not at all. If the amount of manpower and effort would rise with each port taken, it would naturally divide nation by playerbase. Bigger nation can give more manpower and effort and cap more ports... but not more than possible due to their playerbase. Or at least not for long - these overstreaching parts would last only for a time and require amazing amounts of mobilization. These would last only for a time, as no nation is capable of mobilizing upper 80%'s and 90%'s of their clan population for too long. They would naturally fall to counter-offensive from the other side, that would NOT be overstreaching and find it easier to mobilize proper numbers. Or even to a itself over-streached counter-offense, also being only capable of lasting for no more than few battles.

well 

 

 

simple solution, just add a dynamic factor based on the number of overall controlled ports, so a bigger nation have a higher level to reach because of less effectivity

 

Voila!

Edited February 29, 2016 by dhyran

[Konali89]

Havent read it fully yet, but Puchu liked it, so it must be good! 

[Narfi]

I realy like the initial idea about a supply system which has to be interupted to make a port weak enough to attack. Giving both the attacker and defender a direction to go when they look for action, Both PvE and PvP opportunitys should be included there. (transports, combat ships etc. of both sides)

Additionally i thought about another system in the last few days which could work nicely with urs. lets call it stages of the port battle.

Stage 1: ur supply part.

Stage 2: Port is under attack, and both sides have to supply enough troops to attack and defend, which again could be supplyed by some NPC and player ships (could even add a new troop transport ship for it)
Each side would require a certain ammount of troops to fullfill diffrent tasks.  
The defending side would need the troops to man up there forts, and if not enough troops made it, the forts would be undercrewed.
The attacking side would need enough troops to either Unlock Slots for the battle, or to initiat the battle once the troops are ready.
(This stage should also work as a countdown timer for the final stage 3 battle)

There would be 2 factors to be important for balance.
A: Nations with alot of Ports would get less NPC ships to supply troops due to the nation beeing spread out thin and the need to keep there troops in other harbors. While smaller nations would get more NPC help. (Both sides would still require players to send in troops)
B: The total number of troops needed should be based upon a nations activity in the last x days.

And only after that in stage 3 the final port battle would happen.


Harbor Assaults should be a Nation wide objective where everyone can/has to help to make it succesful. It should also provoke more open world action due to it forcing players into certain areas knowing there is PvE and PvP available.
Mission system could be changed to work with these new harbor assault stages, potentially getting rid of the NPC ships/fleets that magically appear just for u to fight against.


No more randomly sailing around the map hoping to find a somewhat equal opponent to have a fun fight.

And when thinking about a potential system to build up harbors that i remember reading about, these systems provide more options to build bigger storages to make it harder to make them vulnerable, some garrisons to always provide some troops etc.

 

Then again, having both the first and the 2nd stage  like this might be a little to much wrk around 1 harbor, not sure.  But i would realy like to see harbor assault going into that direction and away from the quick action we have now.
 

[MalakithSkadi]

I always loved the PotBS mechanic of having to cause chaos at the port before the port battle happened for the simple reason it drew people to the area to make content. This suggestion seems like a nice twist on that general idea.

 

Currently port battles are pretty much the preserve of the big ships (excluding shallows of course), if you are stuck below the "meta" you get relegated to screening.

Sometimes Screening does get interesting, sometimes it really doesn't as you sit around and nothing comes (usually depending on how far the port is from the general population of the defenders / if they have more important ports to defend at the time).

Any idea that draws out the process a little from the super fast flag run and having to float around outside vulnerable ports on the off chance an attack is coming in it's window is a good one in my opinion.

 

Whilst someone in the thread was complaining "PvPers don't want to do PvE crap to attack a port", you could easily make it so player ships sunk of the defending nationality count towards the general "progression" to port battle. Equally the defenders want to protect the supply ships from attacking players. It promotes Open World PvP on multiple scales, you get the big organised fleets diving in on each other to try and clear the waters and also around the fringes are likely to find smaller battles for lower level guys as well as trying to hunt the traders themselves.

Hell it might even encourage the Pirates (or other nations) to come over just to mess with the two in conflict and get some PvP action.

 

Currently very few individual ports actually have any significance beyond painting the map your colour and are a way to get PvP content, why not flesh it out so that lasts a bit longer and gets more people involved. 

[Hethwill]

As a privateer and frigate captain I must support the suggestion.

 

I have no interest in trafalgars ( had enough of that in trials ) and being open sea skirmishes way more the caribbean way this suggestion can work nicely.

Actually, by opening Outposts, the player themselves could be the direct creators of trade routes between ports and influencing how the AI fleets would spawn and behave.

[Aussie Pastor]

I always loved the PotBS mechanic of having to cause chaos at the port before the port battle happened for the simple reason it drew people to the area to make content. This suggestion seems like a nice twist on that general idea.

That's what I was seeing it like.

You guys do amaze me more and more.

Keep up the good work.

I hope some of you with the strong clear understanding on how this could be done try to start to "workshop" it in TS,

TRY TO TEAM UP, you may be in different Servers, nations, time zones etc but talk to each other develop new friendship and enjoy the journey.