Changes to how reinforcement zones work

[Elmarby]

With the reinforcement zones currently disabled, maybe it is a good idea to suggest an alternative.

 

With the current BR 1.5 max difference limit on joining battle, would it be a good idea to replace the reinforcement zones with zones that waive this limit for the side that fights inside their own reinforcement zone? So a fight in Dutch waters could see Dutch reinforcements unrestricted while still restricting the intruder to the original limit established by the start of the fight.

This still gives home ground advantage without magicking reinforcements out of thin air. I think this would be a fair compromise. If you are in someone's home waters one should expect and do deserve to be outnumbered if the owning nation can send ships in the area to that fight.

 

Perhaps fights in his zone could also have a slightly extended join time, but that is not an essential addition to my suggestion.

 

Thoughts? 

[Kanay]

That's a bit how i see it too, more or less : http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/13079-roe-proposals-for-the-next-hot-fix-in-1-2-weeks/page-5#entry243807

[Elmarby]

Cannot access that link.

Which may be why I did not see a similar suggestion. Because I TOTALLY looked for them before I posted my suggestion. Yes-sirree, I totally did that.

*makes innocent face*

 

[Jean Ribault]

I like the suggestion, but doesn't that give a greater advantage to the factions with greater numbers of ports (e.g. GB) ?

[Manta Scorpion]

Nah that would be a disatvantage for the player that go to other areas and bring them pvp. They have all the work and the guys at home just enjoy free pvp, mostly with a higher BR. We should not punish the others more.

[Kanay]

Cannot access that link.

Which may be why I did not see a similar suggestion. Because I TOTALLY looked for them before I posted my suggestion. Yes-sirree, I totally did that.

*makes innocent face*

 

That's weird, don't know why it doesn't work anyways this is what i think :

 

 

Reinforcements & Anti Ganking :

One thing that i would like to see implemented is the reinforcement times ( or BR differences ) allowed from players of a same Nation depending directly of the territory and areas owned / controlled by a Nation .

Right now since productions buildings there is no advantages in getting a vast territory, getting only 3 cities plus your capital and you will be able to produce everything with only those and get most of your population around this small area, making it even easier to defend, the extension of territories gives no benefits now and is not encouraged by all the current game mechanics.

In my opinion the extension of territory and the system of attacks/defense in OW should rely on the territorial aspect, it should be way easier to attack players from another Nation at the borders of them Nations compared to an area more deep into them waters surrounded by a lot of cities owned by them or even next to them capital, thus the timers for the defenders should depend on this aspect to reflect this difficulty and render the game more realistic. I mean if in real life a group of few ships was going to attack in a area heavily controlled by a Nation they should expect a large reaction force coming at them as it will be more risky than attacking ships at the borders of a Nation territory, attacking ships in a less heavily dominated waters should be easier than doing this in areas surrounded by a Nation owned cities, right now there is no differences in game, especially with the magical free towns spawn points aggravating all this.

What i have in mind is dynamic "zones" defined by the surrounding cities and who owns them, those zones defining the timers for the defenders to join the battles, again attacking someone near the borders between 2 Nations should be easier than attacking someone right into the middle of a Nation waters, will try to put this in pictures and for the example let's take Jamaica :

 

- In this first picture we connect the dots or the external borders of a Nation , this gives us a zone where it should be easier to attack and less easy to defend either based on timers to join the attacked side or BR's differences allowed in the battle, i don't know what will be the best and leave this up to be decided.

 

 

In orange we have the Nation borders, inside this zone we have another zone in green where it should be harder to attack and easier to defend again with a bigger BR difference or a longer timer to join battles.

 

or it could be done like this too ( notice Bonacca and how the dots connect there compared to the previous picture ) :

 

 

 

Now let's say a few cities fall down and we can end up with something like this :

 

 

Here we have only 2 layers of different zones, but we can imagine one or two more zones, if a group of cities are well surrounded by 3 or more layers of cities we could get another zone with a different timer or BR difference.

 

 The green areas where it will be more difficult to attack should give the attacking players a bonus in terms of gold and XP for PVP to compensate for the risks taken by attacking there, will create some kind of different levels for pvp at the same time.

 

Depending the configuration of National territories it should also be based on the proximity to the next cities, for example a Nation in the border of a map will have no cities around to connect more dots and extend the zones, some others are extended in a vertical or horizontal shape with only the sea for long hours of sailing in them perimeter, in those cases if there is no city on the right or left because it's the border of the map the game will have to consider this, same thing if on the external border the next city is xxx kilometers away with no cities around under one hour sailing in game, the game will add a virtual safe zone when the external borders are near a map border or when the next cities are too far away. For the Nation scattered in various areas of the map it will also work this way taking in account the distances and creating another set of zones with them own borders, independent from the Nation other territories far away . 

 

I believe the code existing already in game for indicating the reinforcement available in some areas could be a good base to rework all this, instead of having dynamic fleets reinforcements located it will be the neighbor cities playing this role to define the zones, well Dev's only could tell.

 

 

All this will finally give a meaning to territory extension to create zones where it's safer to sail and harder to attack, more risks but also more rewards for those adventuring into those waters, especially for new comers it will be areas where they are more safe to start in the game, this will also put a pressure on some cities becoming strongpoints to defend or the borders will collapse and redefined entirely the zones.

 

In the end will reflect some difficulties levels in attacking into the enemies waters like it had been in real life and unlike now where it's easy to attack near an enemy capital as it's easy to attack near a Nation border territory, i really believe this will create a good dynamic of conquests, Nations trying to expand for securing a bit more some areas, trying to take some cities to reduce the zones of influence of other Nations, will give some intense battles in the long run for some key cities etc .

- All this can only come with also a removal of free towns ability to store warships and complete fleets, either simply remove them or allow only merchant ships to be sent and stored there, let's be honest the magical spawn or hide points right into the waters of an enemy territory is ridiculous, if an invasion fleet or group of ships decided to go attack another Nation it had been probably be spotted around the borders of a Nation, giving time for the attacked Nation to prepare a counter attack, no fleet had been able to spawn not even 15mn away from any capital or like in game sailing a basic cutter at 4am when servers have 400 players online, make an outpost and teleport full fleets of ships, even if they had to been sailed it will be the same, pick up a low populated time on the server and sail safe where there is 400 players online.

There is a game mechanic in game to get closer to enemies territories : the PB conquests, right now there is not even need of this to deploy full fleets of heavy ships right into the middle of another Nation territory and as expanding for resources is not needed anymore there is very few incentive to extend as it becomes in fact a disadvantage now, simply remove this magical spawn in the enemies territory feature and add the zones and it will give another meaning to the game territories expansions.

Hope i'm not too much off topic, that's something running in my head since a while now and it looked like a good occasion to put all this on the paper, hopefully it will be clear enough for readers as it's not that easy to explain, all this will give a meaning to the owned territories, giving a real purpose to expansion of territories to get different zones with different risks involved to do pvp ( more dangerous waters to attack on but more targets to attack too and the pvp rewards for gold and XP having a multiplicator based on the areas )

Well that's how i see it how reinforcements should work after thinking at all this since a long time, this will make the game really dynamic and more interesting in my opinion, will limit a bit easy attacks in some areas, not make it impossible but more risky to be done and at the same time more rewarding in terms of XP and gold for the attackers, will protect a bit the new comers and give a better health to the game, but maybe that's only my opinion.

 

 

As for the advantages of factions having more ports, yes and nope it's a double sword since a couple of ports captured will totally change the zones and as right now the more ports you have the more at disadvantage you are and it shouldn't be like this ...

 

 

 

 

Nah that would be a disatvantage for the player that go to other areas and bring them pvp. They have all the work and the guys at home just enjoy free pvp, mostly with a higher BR. We should not punish the others more.

More risks for the attackers, but also more rewards ...

[Babble]

yeah your link is broken or the post was deleted or something.  But i like the idea.

 

 

You should  repost this to suggestions

[Elmarby]

That's weird, don't know why it doesn't work anyways this is what i think :

 

 

Seems to me that your idea on zones of control are much more complicated then what they need to be. The erratic nature of frontlines will make it a headache to program something that will give a consistently fair representation of the frontier. And much of that extra effort is to have a ZoC in bits of sea where the likelihood of help is slim in the first place. I think just a simple zone of control of a certain radius around each town, as was already implemented with the reinforcement system, is almost as effective in doing justice to the concept of towns and their shipping exercising a certain level of control over the surrounding seas. I believe it also has the merit of being more easily understandable for the player.

 

As for your idea of giving a bonus to an intruder, I am not convinced either. While it has some merit as a gameplay device, I see no rational behind it from a realism/imersion standpoint.

The intruder chooses to be in enemy waters, why should that be automatically be given greater reward? Where is the extra money of beating a ship inside of a ZoC as compared to outside a ZoC coming from?

Ultimately, operating in an area  controlled by the enemy should be dangerous and should provide its own naturally occurring reward:  that of traders going to and fro, ready to be intercepted.

The other day a Dutchman bagged a fully laden LGV. THAT is the reward for entering an enemy territory, and I do not believe the game needs any additional stimulus then that

Edited April 20, 2016 by Elmarby

[Kanay]

The idea behind it is that the more deep you attack into a Nation owned territory the more risky it becomes and the more advantages the defenders/owners of those territories get.

 

It's way easier to find players in certain waters than in some others, yet it's the still the same risk involved in launching an attack near a dense populated area compared to one at the border of a Nation that will see just a few potential preys players passing by each hour or so ...

 

You say you don't see " no rational behind it from a realism/imersion standpoint.", well it seems pretty clear to me, why should it be so easy to attack someone not far from his capital while surrounded by a lot of cities owned by his Nations and profit of the same advantages in terms of who can join for timers and BR differences as doing this in far away waters at the border of a Nation ??

Simple, for me it shouldn't be following the same rules and be way harder to attack in some areas depending on the territory owned by a Nation, it should be easier to join the battles in some areas for the defending side, either longer timers and greater BR difference than in some other areas to reflect the territorial domination that is currently meaning nothing and not encouraged at all in game.

 

 

As for the extra money and XP it's compensate for the larger BR's difference in battle or way longer timers to join the battle for the defending side in his own waters, like i said it won't be impossible to do such actions but the risk will be way greater to end up after a few minutes outnumbered if the time allowed to join in the green area is far superior as the orange one, but let's be clear it shouldn't be twice more rewards, a slightly superior one but not that important, i won't mind if the rewards will not be improved at all depending the zones and only the risk being greater for the attacker, after all it's more easy to find preys in those areas so yeah this part can be skipped why not.

 

 

Getting "simple" zones of control around towns will leave "holes" and weak points where people will always be hunting and again not push the game in the conquest direction that is rendered not really needed anymore by design, this will create a need for it, will create different levels of difficulty for PVP, probably make some of the borders of a Nations way more active in terms of PVP, like it have been in real life and contrary to how it is now where people just use magical spawn points created by free towns and go to where there is the more active players in a Nation... 

 

 

As for the complexity well it's just mathematical formulas and some lines of code that will define all this, how far is the next friendly city, is there some enemies cities in the way, is there no city at all around in a perimeter larger than xy, if so define zone as safe etc... nothing over complicated i believe, also it's pretty easy to figure out for a player if you are only surrounded by a lot of one Nation towns or if there is only a few around and some other Nations towns in the other side... 

 

That's how i see it but i understand my opinion is good only for me 

[Slamz]

The idea behind it is that the more deep you attack into a Nation owned territory the more risky it becomes and the more advantages the defenders/owners of those territories get.

 

That part, at least, seems reasonable, especially if the "fronts" (most distant / unsupported areas) actually have no reinforcements at all.