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Update on the port battle set up


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Believe me you don't want to step on the same rake as potbs did by forcing pvpers to farm pve to take part in supposed ''end game pvp content''...

 

 

I agree. But if there is no-one in that zone and you want that port. What do you do?

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smaller nations will be parts of alliances - which is a separate development thread.

 

But as we see it - smaller nations can raise hostility for themselves by arriving in force to active zones and sink both sides who are fighting for the port. 

Small nations cannot arrive in force when there are only 2 of them as he said. Now, if they are part of an alliance and they initiate hostilities and have alliance members in their force, does this apply? Meaning, can a 2 person nation start a PB and have alliance members join the PB on their side to help them out?

I just trying to figure out how a small nation will get credit for a PB and that port is captured for their nation and not one of the alliance nations.

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Small nations cannot arrive in force when there are only 2 of them as he said. Now, if they are part of an alliance and they initiate hostilities and have alliance members in their force, does this apply? Meaning, can a 2 person nation start a PB and have alliance members join the PB on their side to help them out?

I just trying to figure out how a small nation will get credit for a PB and that port is captured for their nation and not one of the alliance nations.

Unless they changed their mind on something its : All nations are at war with each other/ Unless you have signed an alliance

Alliance gives the following options

  • You can support each other in port battles
  • You can enter each other battles
  • You can enter each other ports
  • You can build in each other ports
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I agree. But if there is no-one in that zone and you want that port. What do you do?

That answered some questions.  :)

 

How I see zones are being created.

 

1. Select target Port. Start sinking NPCs (We do it all the time, and I see no harm in this. Fleets create small amount of hostility contribution points at the start).

2. Create Hostile zone and bring attention (map marker appears) Add bell or Trumpet sound to Defender(Nation who is under attack) Player Screen and let them know it's time to defend their country! Similar to Black Desert Online.  

3. Wait for Defender arrival. (Steal wind prepare to pvp fight). Hit them hard as they start entering the zone. Defender will be required to maintain organized sailing lines and move in as a group ;) This means group up away from the zone and roll in as Armada.

4. Sink both NPCs and Players to generate Hostility % or Sink Enemy Fleets/Players to stop evil plans. (Double sided action benefits PvE and PvP fans).

5. Get rewards for defending country. 

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I agree. But if there is no-one in that zone and you want that port. What do you do?

You implement a pvp currency like in potbs (mark of victory) and you make them nation-specific and dump them on the target port to get done with your points hassle.

Group from Denmark wants a port that belongs to France, they accumulate their points through pvping against french players anywhere (not limited to specific zone) and then dump them on the target port to trigger port battle. Why should pve'rs have any say in the outcome of a pvp event? Do pvpers go to pve server and tell pve'rs that they need 1 PvP kill to start their pve mission, imagine the flamestorm...

 

This pvp currency can be used to also obtain specific gear faster to bypass the mindless grind for people who just play to pvp.

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You implement a pvp currency like in potbs (mark of victory) and you make them nation-specific and dump them on the target port to get done with your points hassle.

Group from Denmark wants a port that belongs to France, they accumulate their points through pvping against french players anywhere (not limited to specific zone) and then dump them on the target port to trigger port battle. Why should pve'rs have any say in the outcome of a pvp event? Do pvpers go to pve server and tell pve'rs that they need 1 PvP kill to start their pve mission, imagine the flamestorm...

 

This pvp currency can be used to also obtain specific gear faster to bypass the mindless grind for people who just play to pvp.

Negative, I make 3 accounts and farm currency from 3 Nations and eventually break the game. It must be based on effort and time spent fighting in each hostile zone. The more time you spent and damage dealt on that character the bigger are the chances you will make into PB. This should eliminate dual boxing or use of multiple accounts for Conquest cheating. 

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Negative, I make 3 accounts and farm currency from 3 Nations and eventually break the game. 

plot twist: you need at least flag captain rank (or higher) to get pvp currency against target nation and every death adds a cooldown for a period of time to prevent farming your alts. And if you still do it then good for you, take your 3 alts to port battle and see how this multiboxing works out for you.

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You will have 48 hours to round up Captains and prepare for Defense. Even if your guys are offline it will surely take time to reach 100% hostility and won't be as quick as it seems.

Ok, so you have 48 hours to tell your people that they have to fight at 2am?  That's not going to work.

 

Interesting idea, but it's going to be manipulated just like port timers are, it'll just take a little more effort and thinking.

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Negative, I make 3 accounts and farm currency from 3 Nations and eventually break the game. It must be based on effort and time spent fighting in each hostile zone. The more time you spent and damage dealt on that character the bigger are the chances you will make into PB. This should eliminate dual boxing or use of multiple accounts for Conquest cheating. 

 

And what prevents me from making 2 accounts to farm hostility point near a port I want to attack with this new system ?

 

Now about the new design and the things that need improvement :

 

The new design is the following.

 

Hostility levels

Player actions generate hostility levels

  • PvP kills, by means of free hunting or pvp missions
  • PvE kills by means of hunting or pve missions
  • Smuggling and Sabotage - delivering war supplies to support increase or decrease of hostility
  • Potentially - Raids

All ports have the hostility level that is increased or decreased by above mentioned actions. 

Hostility levels will go up slowly to give the chance to respond in all time zones. 

 

Top 10 ports with the highest hostility level will be indicated on the map (where assault fleets are now currently)

Once hostility level reaches 100% port battle is automatically set up in 48 hours

Hostility level is generated for all ports in the vicinity - which creates interesting options for smaller nations and allows unexpected flexibility

 
This need to be changed, imagine that everybody is fighting around 18-20h, at the end of the day where most activities stopped the hostility level reaches 98%, then at 5AM, there is a dude that log into the game and finish the remaining 2% with PvE missions. At this point everybody will be forced to fight at the port battle at 5AM because the hostility level happened to reach 100% while most of them were playing between 18-20h.
 
Keep the "2 days later" concept without the "in 48 hours exactly", so that if the hostility level reaches 100% the 24th, the port battle will happen the 26th.
But for the port attack timer, just select the timer in which most of the points have been accumulated. If the majority of the hostility points happened to be earned between 18-20h, then the port battle should be set between 18-20h.
 

Only top 10 ports can reach port battle state - which is awesome because:

  1. it is naturally limiting the number of port battles per day (lets say 10)
  2. it funnels players to top 10 most active locations - if you want action you sail to the zone with high hostility level 

 

 

Those port should be limited by nation. let say only 3 ports can reach the port battle state for each nation, so it prevents all the port battle to happen at the other end of the map where 2 big nations are fighting leaving the others smaller nations with nothing to do.

 

Increasing or decreasing hostility levels grants War effort commendations per port 

  • During the first 10-20 mins of the port battle timer only people with war effort points for this port can enter the port battle
  • After this timer everyone else can enter
  • This stops port battle trolling when large groups enter and quit battle denying the victory or opportunity to fight.

Commendations are a cargo hold item and can be lost (and intercepted to use for your advantage). 

 
I sincerely hope that the port battle didn't already begun for the first 10-20mins in which only people with war effort commendations can enter.
If it's the case it's a very bad system because you won't be able to fight fully for the first 20 minutes and elaborate a strategy if all 25 people with a war commendation don't show up.
 
The solution for that is to make a lobby system within the port battle.
When the port battle is launched and people can enter, you would have 2 sections :
-The usual one with the front/middle/rear where you can decide where you'll be at the launch of the fight.
-At the bottom, a lobby section where everybody who enter the port battle will be placed.
 
-During the first 10 minutes, only people with a war commendation will be able to move from the lobby to the front/middle/rear sections and participate to the fight.
-After those 10 minutes, everybody can switch from the lobby to the front/middle/rear sections, as long as there are still open slots obviously.
-5 minutes later, the battle start.
 
So basically you'd have 15 minutes of preparation time before the fight begun.
 
People who stayed in the lobby at the start of the battle will be placed as "spectator" and will be able to witness the battle the same way you do when you're dead.
This will prevent the recurrent issue when you attack a port and managed to gather like 27 people and 2 players will be left outside of the instance like a sacrifice to the screening fleet because the port is limited to 25 people only.
Edited by Nalyd
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I agree. But if there is no-one in that zone and you want that port. What do you do?

 

I think that if no players come to defend and therefore no pvp points are gathered the port should switch ownership without a port battle, this should prevent nations from just staying clear of the hostility zones which is most likely to happen as there is no benefit for them that i see outlined.

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There's no stopping anyone from gaming the game Nalyd. In every game with persistente assets/progression and rvr it happens. No exception even with subscription, so let's get over that.

 

For those that want to play and have healthy fun this is good and as Lytse Pier well puts up it will require a national wedge instead of a single clan maul.

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And what prevents me from making 2 accounts to farm hostility point near a port I want to attack with this new system ?

 

Now about the new design and the things that need improvement :

 

 
This need to be changed, imagine that everybody is fighting around 18-20h, at the end of the day where most activities stopped the hostility level reaches 98%, then at 5AM, there is a dude that log into the game and finish the remaining 2% with PvE missions. At this point everybody will be forced to fight at the port battle at 5AM because the hostility level happened to reach 100% while most of them were playing between 18-20h.
 
Keep the "2 days later" concept without the "in 48 hours exactly", so that if the hostility level reaches 100% the 24th, the port battle will happen the 26th.
But for the port attack timer, just select the timer in which most of the points have been accumulated. If the majority of the hostility points happened to be earned between 18-20h, then the port battle should be set between 18-20h.
 
 

 

 

Those port should be limited by nation. let say only 3 ports can reach the port battle state for each nation, so it prevents all the port battle to happen at the other end of the map where 2 big nations are fighting leaving the others smaller nations with nothing to do.

Nothing, but you will need x2 amount of time to waste in each zone to make sure you get in both Port battles. :) Solo player will stay in one zone spending 6 hours hunting and will get enough points to get into PB. You on the other hand will need 12 hours to make sure you will get full benefit from 2 accounts. 

 

In the end, you might get in both PBs,( and I am sure devs will welcome this, they always need full PBs) but in one of them you will miss half of the action by giving room to those players who worked hard and spent more time fighting in the zone and earned war effort points.  ;) Currency is bad and can be exploited, but hard work always gets you a reward. 

 

  • During the first 10-20 mins of the port battle timer only people with war effort points for this port can enter the port battle
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i have a doubt. If hostilities reaches 100%, which timer will be set? Will it be the conquest port window set by the defenders?

-Once hostility level reaches 100% port battle is automatically set up in 48 hours

 

48 hours from flip point. Devs did not mention anything about time restriction zones. In 2 days players will schedule who can make it and who can't. It all will be random due to the ability to bring Hostility % down. Random is good because it will give opportunity for all time zones to participate. You will never know if defenders let you take the port of resist by prolonging hostility mining. 

 

I am sure devs will set limit on how many PBs will happen in a week and it won't be the same as we have today (30 PBs in few days or so). They mentioned it many times - Port Battles will be slowed down. 

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Might I suggest that once it reaches 100% that the attacker has 2 days (48 hours) to choose when they want to attack? That way we have 48 hours to speak with the rest of the nation and set our attack time over those next 2 days. If we happen to have the numbers the first day, then we can attack, and if we never have the numbers within the 48 hour window then our opportunity has passed and the hostility level lowers.

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Might I suggest that once it reaches 100% that the attacker has 2 days (48 hours) to choose when they want to attack? That way we have 48 hours to speak with the rest of the nation and set our attack time over those next 2 days. If we happen to have the numbers the first day, then we can attack, and if we never have the numbers within the 48 hour window then our opportunity has passed and the hostility level lowers.

It will be bad because Nation will always choose an easy way to win. That is where Devs have to stop this and keep their ground on making PBs based on National Effort. Attackers will always select time when other Defender Nation population is at weakest point or vise versa. By making it random, it will be more interesting(will require players to play and flip port when they play) and will enable Nations and Captains to plan ahead. It will require you to unite, plan and sail as one Disciplined fleet if you want to set your PB to a specific time. After some testing people will figure out how long it takes to Flip a port and this will easily be calculated with each nation fleet numbers that participated. 

 

I know you will say no my Nation will pick the best time for all. Based on what we see during this Alpha, Nations always switch timers when no one is online to make an easy take or win. 

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It will be bad because Nation will always choose an easy way to win. That is where Devs have to stop this and keep their ground on making PBs based on National Effort. Attackers will always select time when other Defender Nation population is at weakest point or vise versa. By making it random it will make it more interesting and will enable Nations and Captains to plan ahead. 

 

I know you will say no my Nation will pick the best time for all. Based on what we see during this Alpha, Nations always switch timers when no one is online.  

I guess I missed the part where it says that the battle time would be chosen randomly.  The way I read it is that the battle started 48 hrs after the hostility level reached 100%, which means that the attacker chooses the time and the defender gets screwed over.  The only difference between this system and timers is that the attacker gets to choose the time and the defender gets to hope that it's a time when they're not all asleep.

 

This isn't going to solve the time of day issue, the only thing that would solve that is to have 5 or 6 different servers for time zones, and as we sit now, there's not even close to enough players to support that.

 

Why are the devs so set on reducing the number of port battles?  Every time they've slowed the game down, people have voted with their feet and left.  Between this and the crew management system doing away with slingshotting ships, it's just going to be way too slow and boring to play, even for addicts like me.

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I guess I missed the part where it says that the battle time would be chosen randomly.  The way I read it is that the battle started 48 hrs after the hostility level reached 100%, which means that the attacker chooses the time and the defender gets screwed over.  The only difference between this system and timers is that the attacker gets to choose the time and the defender gets to hope that it's a time when they're not all asleep.

 

This isn't going to solve the time of day issue, the only thing that would solve that is to have 5 or 6 different servers for time zones, and as we sit now, there's not even close to enough players to support that.

 

Why are the devs so set on reducing the number of port battles?  Every time they've slowed the game down, people have voted with their feet and left.  Between this and the crew management system doing away with slingshotting ships, it's just going to be way too slow and boring to play, even for addicts like me.

Think logically. It will be random because Defender can strike back destroy your attacking groups and grind points down. Then your reinforcements come in and you actually flip port at 100% hostility. When you put this all together you did not flip this port as planned because Defenders made it harder and it is now 2 hours later than planned. Also, reaching 100% hostility might never happen due to your forces destroyed by Defender and you are exhausted.

 

Question to Devs is how long can it take to Flip a port and make it PB? If it will be a quick effort then it might cause issues, but if you make points raise slowly for few days then it will be another story. Right now we don't know all the detail details. 

 

The only trick here is to make Hostility raise slowly, so all time zones(players) work equally. We need to research how long Port Battles/ Port Blockades lasted in real time. 

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Im sorry but I dont like the random timers at all. That way a nation with a big population set in another timezone could easily (by just farming pve) set a conquest timer while the other nation is sleeping or working.

 

So back to those times of the release of steam when initial ports had no conquest time... :(

I am sure Devs will set 'Dead zone' when player base is at it's low and auto shift few hours ahead to more populated window..  :)  There is always a way we just don't know it yet. With 'Dead zone' devs can make sure that small Nations with small populations have a chance. 

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To be clear, As I see it, PvP and PvE kills by the wanna be attacker raises hostility. PvE and PvP kills by the defender lowers hostility

 

So, in effect, if the defenders want to keep the port they are forced to show up to attempt to counteract the hostility and sink enemy player ships

 

If everyone groups up this should provide fun PvP

 

The only problem I see is large vs small nation, large being able to sail in 25 man fleets against a small only having 10 players in a fleet. No fun for that small nation. 

 

Lone ships getting ganked in the hostile zone are being stupid. Why the hell are you in a hostile zone without a group?

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i have a doubt. If hostilities reaches 100%, which timer will be set? Will it be the conquest port window set by the defenders?

From what i understand its the exact time it reaches the 100% 48 hours later. So if you reach the hostility 100% on monday 7:49p.m the port battle will start wednesday 7:49p.m

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The only problem I see is large vs small nation, large being able to sail in 25 man fleets against a small only having 10 players in a fleet. No fun for that small nation. 

 

 

That's when  the small nation gets help from friends or hires corsairs to fight the larger nation. There's more than just two factions in this sandbox.

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Now we are talking, having to put in the work to achieve the goals, allowing equal opportunity to get involved and participate, looking forward to test.

Question is what will become of screening fleets before the port battle, X nation tries to show up for the battle but have to deal with Y nation and its allies to get to the battle, it will just prevent any smaller nations or smaller allied groups to have hardly any chance to participate in a port battle, if they get screened at every single PB this is why POTBS had the invitations system to port battles so players could actually participate in them rather hen being trolled outside all the time, it will deny larger nations and allies basically flood the map and dictate what happens in RvR, at the end of the day we want to promote good PvP not trolling PvP, will have to see how the first roll out goes but this might be a thing that needs considering.

Edited by Ronald Speirs
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