Capital Spying

[Galileus]

Also on the flip side, often I'll get pulled into a battle that someone has started against a big AI fleet. This was is great XP, especially for lower level guys.  Again, if not interested, just leave the battle.

 

This! Getting pulled into a massive AI fleet battle in my first Cerberus was an experience and a half, gave me good chilly-willies about playing the game for a long time.

[CptEdwardKenway]

Sigh.

 

Yes, ban them all for starts, then VAC ban them because why not and finally get them fiscally responsible. Them horrible, awful people need to be stopped! Then need to be punished! Then need to give way for our FREEDOM!

 

Something like that, yes?

 

Seriously, stop this circus.

It's becoming tradition. Everytime a player post issues this clown bombs the thread and troll around instead of writing serious suggestions to solve the problems. I wouldn't be surprised if he is one of those troll gankers in enemy capitals.

To topic: I wrote about this problem weeks ago. The last patch made it maybe even worse. I know the devs tried to protect the players but there are always those trolls who find a way to exploit the mechanics on a hardcore level. At the moment you can't even get you ship out of capital to send it somewhere else without getting tagged or ganked.

AI ships should be more aggressive against enemy players and you should be able to outnumber those gankers with unlimited BR difference.

@Aposky nice stats. I got trolled in an aggressive way after I told people player numbers are dropping. All the players out there should think about the numbers or soon they will be very alone in this game ganking, trolling and exploiting around. All the steamrolling and punishing of nations. For what? To boost their ego while they destroy the game?

[Aposky]

The reinforcements i gather wont come back as it was there were to many players using alt accounts to exploit and get easy fleets to kill and level, but that also showed how many hated the grind that they would resort to this

 

Alt account abuse is another large issue that developers should deal with quickly. Alts are currently used to:

- spy

- join enemy port battles in tiny ships + escort to take slots from 1st and 2nd rates players

- tie in combat or slow down enemy large fleet

- start fake attack on ports (port battles abuse)

- buy ships, resources, etc from enemy nation market to transfer it to alt owners

- produce goods

- generate labour hours

- your example

 

Full ban on alt account + 30 day ban and massive exp penalty for owner account should be good starting punishment for such abuse.

Edited April 19, 2016 by Aposky

[Ronald Speirs]

we have switched off the attack in capital zones to reduce trolling by alts - who attacked enemies pulling whole fleets into battle.

If captains agree that pulling fleets into battle by alts is a lesser evil we will switch the defensive attack back on. it will allow you to punish campers immediately in the vicinity of the capital.

Surely you can add a pop up would u like to join the battle tag or something to stop the pulling of players not interested and if they haven't accepted within the tag period it times out and they don't join.

Removal of protection zones, impenetrable protection zones, timer on entering protection zone (leave within 2 min or sink, restarted once every hour) - pretty much anything but banning people left and right.

 

I agree this is a problem. I disagree with punishing everyone for everything. Just listen to what you are saying:

 

"People are sailing next to my capitol, PUNISH THEM!"

 

Are their intentions dirty? Likely. Can you prove it? No. Maybe it's a spy, maybe it's someone "resting" in no-PvP zone. Is this a problem? Yeaaah? Is it worth anyone's time to chase and punish? Hell no.

 

If your first reaction to any problem is to have a strict code saying how to play and punish anyone else, you will end up scaring people away. People want to play a game and if they can - yeah they will find a way to game the game. But start punishing people for everything and you turn the game into something you cannot "play" without lawyer telling you if you're not going against rules.

 

Not every "exploit" is worth chasing, much less punishing. It's a game, not a prison camp for war criminals...

2 minute warning could work in the way that it would seriously be risky being around there, though they could teleport in that time so might need to be shorter, i prefer this post to your previous as its something to work with

This spying I'm not saying this needs to be dealt with harshly, i was saying about other exploits and abusing that has been going on like that damage farming, which had to have mechanics and systems turned off, thats just doing more harm with these kind of abuses.

I'm not for banning them as thats a little to extreme but we could do more annoying punishments like their gold, xp and trade is locked for 24hrs so they cant progress, maybe even TP locking for an extended period then those that are camping in safe zone will have to try sail out to leave then comes the chase, i would rather not exploit then be locked for doing certain aspects of the game so hopefully things like this might deter players for abusing them, these are just ideas to annoy more then seriously punish

[Galileus]

Alt account abuse is another large issue that developers should deal with quickly. Alts are currently used to:

- spy

- join enemy port battles in tiny ships + escort to take slots from 1st and 2nd rates players

- tie in combat or slow down enemy large fleet

- start fake attack on ports (port battles abuse)

- buy ships, resources, etc from enemy nation market to transfer it to alt owners

- produce goods

- generate labour hours

- your example

 

Full ban on alt account + 30 day ban and massive exp penalty for owner account should be good starting punishment for such abuse.

 

I get some of these examples, but... seriously? They buy resources? They produce? These bastards...

 

There is moderating your game and then there is policing your game. You're not interested in that. What you're proposing is terror dictatorshipping your game.

 

Amount of resources needed to monitor and punish use of alt accounts for trade or production is insane as is, and on top of that the moral justification of doing so is finicky at best. A full ban on owning a second copy of the game? And how are you going to prove it is used by the same person?

 

You are aware even police needs a search warrant to do stuff like that? And you're proposing devs go out and do it?

 

This is why I am being so vocal. This is insanity!

 

 

2 minute warning could work in the way that it would seriously be risky being around there, though they could teleport in that time so might need to be shorter, i prefer this post to your previous as its something to work with

 

Rather than making it shorter I would simply disallow TP in capital waters.

 

The problem here is stacking of anti-anti-anti-anti-exploit mechanics. Every mechanic can be used to some or other advantage it was not meant for. But going out and stacking them fixes will only lead to creation of obnoxious, complicated and in the end still non-functional game ruleset - not to mention wasted dev time.

 

It's all nice to say fix this - fix that. The reason why I am vocal against things like that is not - as some will quickly jump to - because I want this abuse in the game, but because some thing are too minor to warrant the action. Such - in my opinion - is this case.

 

In this case the amount of overbloated fixes stacked on top of each other gets pretty darn bad (protection area -> no-attack area -> no TP / timer) for a generally minor fix. This does reflect in ease of working with these rules (any change now affects 3-4 different mechanics and fixes) and this in turn means lost dev time.

 

Some things are just not worth being fixed in small scale. Instead, this is a place to rethink the whole system as is - stacking small fixes on top of each other has it's limits.

[Long Beard]

Don't think they can ban them unless they specifically come out and say it's not allowed to sit in enemy protected zone. At the moment people are using just abusing a mechanic designed for something else.

 

I agree with Ronald Speirs. If there really was a need for this mechanic to stop players being pulled in to battles unwillingly, just impement a 'do you want to join' button in protected areas when being pulled.

[Ronald Speirs]

Alt account abuse is another large issue that developers should deal with quickly. Alts are currently used to:

- produce goods

- generate labour hours

Do you find using it as a second crafter that bad?

I've just got to level 30 in crafting and its taken me ages to get there, the hours we get supplied with are poor to achieve a great deal in a day, you make mats then have to wait another day or 2 to make either more mats or notes then another day or 2 to be able to build the ship, we also have the production buildings now costing hours to farm so we hardly have many hours to make much, its sucks IMO.

There are that many players looking and asking for ships or having to pay other crafters to use their hours, players don't want to buy basic ships so u need to spend more time making these notes for ships, plus trying to buy ships from store cost a small fortune so its better to craft your own and you can get what you want without risk of trade scams and what not.

I literally just brought a new copy myself for my other PC so i could make crafting a little easier, all it does is build all the mats for ships and my main account can build the ships, it saves me from having to expand my warehouse to house goods, cannons and all the other junk we collect, then i can save a little from not having to buy big quantities of materials and resources, i still do buy from shop i just save more overall, the more i save the better the deal the client gets.

So i do not see this as being a huge problem, if we had more crafting hours then i wouldn't have needed to buy another copy but at this point the devs are laughing as its more money to them :S but i do like to achieve something in my short play times.

[Migui]

Alt account abuse is another large issue that developers should deal with quickly. Alts are currently used to:

- spy

- join enemy port battles in tiny ships + escort to take slots from 1st and 2nd rates players

- tie in combat or slow down enemy large fleet

- start fake attack on ports (port battles abuse)

- buy ships, resources, etc from enemy nation market to transfer it to alt owners

- produce goods

- generate labour hours

- your example

 

Full ban on alt account + 30 day ban and massive exp penalty for owner account should be good starting punishment for such abuse.

Also they should take the custody of their first born.

Lmao. Reread what you just wrote. Good luck promoting this kind of things in a game that wants to be sold on Steam.

[spencekwon]

we have switched off the attack in capital zones to reduce trolling by alts - who attacked enemies pulling whole fleets into battle.

If captains agree that pulling fleets into battle by alts is a lesser evil we will switch the defensive attack back on. it will allow you to punish campers immediately in the vicinity of the capital.

Why should it be one evil or another?

 

Is there no room to revisit or look at more ways to add variable conditions to how your attack system is turned on or off and who is or isn't effected by this?

Just feel that some things are already set in stone in way of design which is providing you with awkward scenarios.

[312_JS]

we have switched off the attack in capital zones to reduce trolling by alts - who attacked enemies pulling whole fleets into battle.

If captains agree that pulling fleets into battle by alts is a lesser evil we will switch the defensive attack back on. it will allow you to punish campers immediately in the vicinity of the capital.

Wouldn't having to agree to be pulled into a battle solve this as well? (Popup window: Do you want to join the battle? Yes/No)

[Smithy]

Why not have it so that national AI are aggressive to any player within this safe zone? This would mean they could not sit idle and wait for easy pickings and also mean that player vs player instances with alts cant happen. Also players of that nation could join the battle to help the AI sink the intruders and on a similar note I would not want to stick near a capital if i knew some of them massively OP fleets were gonna go berserk on me

[Wilson09]

I cannot read everything, but as I figured out:

Enemy ships enter protection zone of the capital and no one can tag anyone, right ?

 

his purpose: Capital spying

problem: It is by no means "realistic". For some reason, the game mechanics don´t let player´s allow

anymore to attack them (problem has been stated).

>>we have switched off the attack in capital zones to reduce trolling by alts - who attacked enemies pulling whole fleets into battle.

>>If captains agree that pulling fleets into battle by alts is a lesser evil we will switch the defensive attack back on.

>>it will allow you to punish campers immediately in the vicinity of the capital.

 

If none has already came up with a solution, here is the simple solution:

solution I am looking for:

At every capital, every enemy force entering a protection zone should be ripped to pieces.

 

How?

i) AI should be more agressive (CptEdwardKenway) Defensive AI fleet is "triggered" by the system

and they chase down any enemy ship entering the zone. (offers some new nice varieties...)

 

ii) By Port Defense. Just think of the TV series Black Sails. Protection zone means, you are entering

a zone, where the fort batteries can fire at you. Simple. Otherwise, you might call this feature "enemy spy zone".

As long as the game machine cannot provide the programme, treat it like this...simple. ANY enemy ship

entering the zone is being treated like in small battles, you are leaving the circle and have 5 min (better 1 or 2)

to leave the zone and turn. If you don´t make it, you sink. Simple. Realistic.

Simulating none-existing fort batteries.

 

Right now, I would simply implement ii) they sink.

Easy, next hotfix.

 

i) is more tricky, but offers nice options...

Edited April 19, 2016 by Wilson09

[Aussie Pastor]

we have switched off the attack in capital zones to reduce trolling by alts - who attacked enemies pulling whole fleets into battle.

If captains agree that pulling fleets into battle by alts is a lesser evil we will switch the defensive attack back on. it will allow you to punish campers immediately in the vicinity of the capital.

How about a simpler system!

You call it an Exploit, so if someone can then F11 a screenshot of the infringement, THEN they get a weeks holiday.

SIMPLE!!!!!!!

[Wilson09]

How about a simpler system!

You call it an Exploit, so if someone can then F11 a screenshot of the infringement, THEN they get a weeks holiday.

SIMPLE!!!!!!!

Very "new player friendly".

More banning p*** players off...

No.

 

Anyone, buying the game, sailing to a enemy capital (just for the first "thrill"), can quickly figure out

(an instant message tellng him, you enter a capital / fort battery protected area, leave it asap)

what is going on.

 

Moreover,

any such "spy player" can be chased by players, once he is going to leave the "capital protected zone".

Edited April 19, 2016 by Wilson09

[Galileus]

How about a simpler system!

You call it an Exploit, so if someone can then F11 a screenshot of the infringement, THEN they get a weeks holiday.

SIMPLE!!!!!!!

 

Why are you guys so obsessed with banning everyone?

 

A guy does nothing inside the protection zone - ban him! Find out if he has another account and ban them too! Ban 10 random people in his nation!

 

I might just join the trend. Seems a lot of fun, seeing just how amazingly and violently you guys can over-react... ^^'

[thp]

 The solution of this problem could be something like, no protection zone around the capital but if other nation players come to the capital and enter the battle, the forts of the capital will shoot them. I think the developers already stated something like that in one of the their previous post.

[Vernon Merrill]

Because if you send a strong message that fucking around with mechanics that CLEARLY arent intended, maybe people would stop making it so that the devs dont have to constantly add little ticky tack fix attempts.   

 

It all goes back to my outlook on life:  Just because you CAN be a dick, doesnt mean you HAVE to be.  

 

THATS why KNOWN bad apples should be banned.  Just because you have internet anonymity doesnt give you a free pass to be a tool.  

 

I get the feeling that many of these hard-core "pirates" that want such an unfettered, open sandbox are just accountants and bankers that use the game to rebel against "the man".

 

Ultimately, its the devs call as to what kind of community they want here...  All the bitching about it is just that....  bitching.

[Potemkin]

This has been going on at habana since protected zones were implemented and no one was whining about it. I guess if it gets done around kingston/port royal it must be a bannable exploit but anywhere else its just someone trolling.

[Wilson09]

It´d never came to my mind, sailing on a basic cutter  to Port Royal (being a pirate)

to spy around.

 

Why?

- fort batteries or British frigates would sink me even before I could say "Hello"

- they´d capture me and hang me the next day.

 

Therefore, I´d decline any proposal "just sail there and give us reports what´s going on there"

I just don´t like stupifying myself...

 

Maybe, this kind of "roleplaying" is the wrong approach?

[Galileus]

Because if you send a strong message that fucking around with mechanics that CLEARLY arent intended, maybe people would stop making it so that the devs dont have to constantly add little ticky tack fix attempts.   

 

(...)

 

THATS why KNOWN bad apples should be banned.  Just because you have internet anonymity doesnt give you a free pass to be a tool.  

 

Who gets banned? Why? Why that other person is not banned for the same thing? Spying? Where is the proof? How can you prove it wasn't just... well, making fun? What if someone really was just trolling without anyone getting hurt? How far can you troll before you get banned? What is trolling? What proof do you have of someone's intentions? Who gets to judge who is a troll and who is not?

 

Best way to get a toxic community. Fighting bad behavior is one thing, banning everyone left and right because you feel like it is another.

 

 

Your post is the best proof. It clearly screams - "I dislike someone and I want him banned".

 

In real life we have rules and laws. We follow the letter of the law. We also have that rather good thing of not putting people in jail for thievery because "this is surely why they jumped the fence!".

 

Proof and facts. You don't ban people because "they are bad apples".

Edited April 19, 2016 by Henry d'Esterre Darby
Removed insult.

[Migui]

I'm so glad all this Internet judges don't put a finger in real laws because they would send anyone to jail for the dumbest reasons.

PLS PAPA DEV SOMEONE OUTPLAYED ME BUST BAN

[Sir Robert Calder]

The thought of banning someone for cleverly using a game mechanic is asinine, especially when this is early access and many of the mechanics we expect to be in the full release aren't implemented yet. We should be thankful that these problems are being realized now instead of later during the game's full release so let's get it straight:

 

Yes, we have *enemy faction* spies in our capital.

Yes, this is rampant now due to the fact they can't be tagged.

Yes, we understand this is due to a change to prevent AI fleet grief tagging.

 

Considering the developers themselves admit that this mechanic wasn't intended for players to spy in the capital, logic and reasoning dictates the developers should change mechanic without compromising the change that nullified griefing caused by AI fleet tagging. Still, that doesn't mean the individual currently in question should be banned nor do I think my colleagues actively want to ban an individual for doing it unless they feel it to be intentionally offensive foul play.

 

Creating a British alt for the sake of griefing British players, sitting in Kingston, and then bragging about how much chaos you've caused? That's a matter for the Tribunal. So far I haven't seen any such thing, thankfully.

Edited April 19, 2016 by Sir Robert Calder

[Anne Wildcat]

To protect new players, mechanics should be installed so enemies can't enter protected zones, but than you'll get all the whiners, 'that's not realistic', 'it's a sandbox game, I should be able to do whatever I want' and so forth.

[Magnum]

The thought of banning someone for cleverly using a game mechanic is asinine, especially when this is early access and many of the mechanics we expect to be in the full release aren't implemented yet. We should be thankful that these problems are being realized now instead of later during the game's full release so let's get it straight:

 

Yes, we have *enemy faction* spies in our capital.

Yes, this is rampant now due to the fact they can't be tagged.

Yes, we understand this is due to a change to prevent AI fleet grief tagging.

 

Considering the developers themselves admit that this mechanic wasn't intended for players to spy in the capital, logic and reasoning dictates the developers should change mechanic without compromising the change that nullified griefing caused by AI fleet tagging. Still, that doesn't mean the individual currently in question should be banned nor do I think my colleagues actively want to ban an individual for doing it unless they feel it to be intentionally offensive foul play.

 

Creating a British alt for the sake of griefing British players, sitting in Kingston, and then bragging about how much chaos you've caused? That's a matter for the Tribunal. So far I haven't seen any such thing, thankfully.

 

The real reason AI fleet grief tagging was turned off was to prevent the massive ship advances some exploiters were making with it (capping Victory's), but since capping AI ships is ALSO turned off - I don't think we now need the no tagging in Capitol protection piled on top of it.

[Galileus]

The real reason AI fleet grief tagging was turned off was to prevent the massive ship advances some exploiters were making with it (capping Victory's), but since capping AI ships is ALSO turned off - I don't think we now need the no tagging in Capitol protection piled on top of it.

 

Since EA there was never a chance to capture any AI bigger than a 3rd rate (wither no AI spawned bigger or no AI capping was allowed), and player ships could be capped before and can be capped still. I don't know what instance you are referring.