24 hour Port Battles

[Tyrant]

TL;DR: Make Port Battles last for 24 hours.  Get rid of port timers.  This way people can PVP whenever they want, and all time zones get a fair shot.  All players will be able to participate.  Port battles become a truly national endeavor which require the time, effort, and resources of all its players!

 

 

-Make the ports vulnerable to attack any time of the day.  No more port timers.

 

-Once a port siege is declared, the battle room opens and remains open for 24 hours.  Possibly make the announcement when flag is purchased, and then open the battle when servers are up from maintenance.  The battle could last until the servers go down, at which time the developers can check the score and set the new ownership.  Not quite 24 hours, but whatever works best for the development team.

 

-Allow defenders to use crafting hours and resources to repair the forts.  Forts now occupy objective zones, if the attackers successfully destroy the towers and occupy the objective zone, they will produce victory points overtime until they are contested once again.  Once an objective area is being contested, or a fort is repaired, the attackers no longer gain points in the objective area.  Defenders will not gain points over the objective area while attackers are present.

 

-Grant no access to the port under contest.  Neither the defenders nor the attackers may enter.  Participants must sail from the nearest friendly or free port.  Blockading/scouting is highly encouraged, perhaps somehow rewarded.

 

-Players can enter the battle room as often as they want to.  Each time they die, they may sail back to the port to enter again if they wish.

 

-Players gain their loot, exp, and gold for each successful participation within the port battle.  The more victory points they earn within the span of that life, the more lucrative their rewards will be.  Surviving the battle and gaining more points is encouraged over zerging by offering higher quality loot items.  

*A player that gains 1000 points in one life could receive and exceptional upgrade.

*A player that gains 100 points over the course of 10 lives, could receive 10 basic upgrades.

 

-Make the flag prices based on the type of port (if a regional capital, deep, or shallow) and multiplied by the number of ports that nation owns.  Nations with few ports will have cheaper flags.  Nations with lots of ports will have more expensive flags.

 

-Have some sort of tournament point system which award players for doing things in the port battle such as...

*Sinking ships

*Holding objective areas

*Destroying towers

*Repairing towers

 

-The player who purchases the flag will automatically receive a certain number of victory points for financing the operation.  However; the highest performing player on the team (the MVP) will be granted lord protector status.  You may buy the flag and have the advantage so long as you participate and do well in your own battle.  But if another player is more dedicated than you to that port, they will usurp you and be the lord protector of that port.  This will grant them the voting rights and land ownership status along with whatever other privileges the administrators develop.  This also stops players from simply paying for the flags and then letting their nation do all the work.  If you want to be a lord, you must play!

 

-Defenders win by default, the towers holding the objective area will automatically win any port that isn't contested by the attackers.  They do so by generating points over time while "holding the objective uncontested".  Attackers must show up and establish dominance of the objective area and accrue points to beat what the towers have established in order to qualify the port as a win for the offensive side.  This prevents a nation from declaring 100 ports under attack and making the defenders have to respond to each one.  The defenders will only have to respond to the ports that are actually under attack and they will win all the others by default unless the attackers respond.  The current scores of each battle should be displayed so players may check and see where they are needed most.

 

-After the 24 hours (or upon server maintenance), the nation with the most points overall will win control of the port.  The 24 hour time limit gives each time zone a fair shot at participating.

 

-The battle can be persistent in nature, or it can be split up into several battle instances with each one counting as a round towards the total fight.  I would, personally, prefer the "persistent" battle model.

 

-Nations may have multiple battles at the same time.  The more battles they have, the more thinly their forces will be displaced.  The more territory they take, the more exposed and vulnerable their territory will become.  The port battle system will, intrinsically, establish an ebb and flow of control based on the population and participation of each nation.  It will not be practical or economical for one nation to dominate all others.  They will have too many open fronts, too many open battles, and too many defensive operations to possibly continue their press into enemy territory.  Alliances will become crucial.  

 

-Place a cool down period on each port, after the victor is decided, before it may be placed under siege again.  Admin suggested 7 days or longer.  I agree with that time suggestion.

 

 

 

-This accomplishes several of the Administrator's objectives for port battles

*Port conquest will be slowed down.

*7 day cool down for port captures.

*Losing or capturing a port should be a national effort.

*Losing or capturing a port should be a big event.

 

 

This will, of course, be a MASSIVE fundamental change to the way territory is fought over and how the game is played.  It has many pitfalls and balancing issues, I cannot possibly think of them all.  I would like to discuss the ones you discover at length!  

 

I ask that you keep an open mind and provide constructive feedback with an objective eye towards making it fair for everyone.  

 

After reading this post, please vote how you feel.  Also comment below for any changes you wish to discuss.

[Hethwill]

War and Port battles rework

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/13606-war-and-port-battles-rework-moderated/

[Tyrant]

War and Port battles rework

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/13606-war-and-port-battles-rework-moderated/

Yeah, it is posted in there too. Somewhere buried deep on the 7th page or so with a few positive comments.

[squedage]

i think the persistent fight would be a bad thing. Say your in a neck and neck fight with the defenders and 1 or 2 of them make a mistake that allows your team to sink them. They then should not be able to sail back and jump into that battle and change the tide back into the other teams favor. The "persistent" battle only promotes players that have more ships that can be "thrown" into the fight to have a bigger advantage then the players that say only have 1 or 2 ships that can go into the fight.

[CptEdwardKenway]

It's too much to read sorry but the idea of 24 h port battles would only help the biggest factions and hardcore gamers.

Small faction or factions with less hardcore gamers wouldn't stand a chance. And you forget the reward/loot system. Which needs a major rework in my opinion.

The lengh is not the problem. Just how it starts. I am still for a mechanic like in PotBS. It was simple it was good and it worked for everyone and it was a pool for everyone who wants to do PvP and maybe there would be less ganking at capitals.

Edited June 6, 2016 by CptEdwardKenway

[Isink A Lot]

It's too much to read sorry but the idea of 24 h port battles would only help the biggest factions and hardcore gamers.

Small faction or factions with less hardcore gamers wouldn't stand a chance. And you forget the reward/loot system. Which needs a major rework in my opinion.

The lengh is not the problem. Just how it starts. I am still for a mechanic like in PotBS. It was simple it was good and it worked for everyone and it was a pool for everyone who wants to do PvP and maybe there would be less ganking at capitals.

What if the 24 hours was busted up into 12 separate battles? A defender only needs to win 6 of those, an attacker needs to win 7? That's 1/2 a day of coverage if you win them all. Now throw in allies to help you with your battles, and pirate clans as hired mercs and you could cover the entire 12 battles if you make the right political deals. This will require the "Pirate Nation" to have the ability make make contracts for a port offence or defense to be paid by the nation that hires them. And if done by clan or group you could have Pirates on both sides of the battle! Of course I have the idea of Pirates becoming strictly pvper's, no crafting, no trading, but that's a separate post.

 

PotBS way sucked also. I can't tell you how many "flips" I helped get started only for them to be finished in the middle of the night, and then the battle happen before I got off work, effectually excluding me from said port battles I helped create. Timers of any kind will screw all players over one way or another. It is a global game and needs global mechanics if this is to last or players will figure out how to set the times to when it is the easiest for them to win (read least resistance). Then get bored and stop playing.

Edited August 5, 2016 by Isink A Lot

[Hethwill]

24 hours battles ( actually we did weekend long battles ) is done for many wargame scenarios.

 

In truth it is a lot of battle being played simultaneously and then campaign judges compute the outcomes and declare a victor.

 

Impossible to do unless there's set piece battles in NA.

 

 

Edit:

 

I didn't vote as I my POV stands with the triple timer. Battle timer is set for whatever timer and the system automatically creates 2 additional timers, for the 6 and 12 difference timezones relative to the time set.

[Skully]

And here is mine:

I see potential in this mechanic. I also see additions that can be added later like:

• A more detailed supply mechanic

  I'm not sure how far it's going to come up now, but I see something like "buying" supplies in a friendly port, "selling" in enemy. With different regeneration numbers for shallow, deep, regional and capital.

• Whale-boating from Santismas as a mini-flag alternative

  http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14792-pvp1-june-22nd-the-foggy-dance-at-bone-cay/?p=274409

The one thing I don't like is the "random" time slot. The worst outcome would be a time slot that has very little players (with assets) in that area and thus an empty port-battle. This must be prevented.

The other issue is that it gravitates towards the peak population time slot. So you would only see PBs happening at 18-20.

Tie to this the limitation of 10 port battles, and we are back at a tidal wave problem, but now time slot based.

 

Maybe something like the following will work:

• Count up the contributions of each player by time slot. Assuming a player can't be at two spots at once, it means he implies his preference for the time slot in which he makes his contribution.
• Once the threshold is reached, determine the time slot based on top contributions in each time slot.

Now comes the tricky part, because there is choices on how the proper time slot is chosen:

• The time slot with the most contributions wins (regardless of which side made it). Could end up in 25-1 fights.
• The time slot with the most contributions on the outnumbered side wins. So a 10-8 slot beats a 15-5 slot. That means 20 players worked for "nothing".
• The time slot with some other funky formula wins.

The important bit is that contributions should be tied to a time slot and whatever formula is chosen the UI must clearly show the potential outcome (/ leaderboard).

Lets first get the structure in place and try it out. I think we all see the problem coming, but let's just see the scaffold first.