Port Hugging Abuse @ Free Towns

[Cutch]

Since the teleport timers have been removed and changes have been made in how long before you can join battles after undocking, the frequency in which gankers have been abusing port hugging game mechanics around Free Towns has skyrocketed. They are able to sit in docking range and gank without any risk of being attacked themselves. This seems like a clear abuse of unintended side-effects of the recent game mechanics.

 

As it currently stands, a player can sail a basic cutter to a Free Town, setup an outpost, then slingshot PvP ships to the Free Town with no risk. Then they undock the larger PvP ship and never move until the 25 seconds attack timer is up, so they can always re-dock if anyone threatens them. They then wait at the docking spot, and never move unless they see an incoming easy target that they can charge out and try to gank. Since people undocking have to wait 120 seconds before they can enter battles, its nearly impossible for anyone else to enter the battle, let alone be able to tag the attacker if they choose to run once the tide turns. On the other hand, if anyone attempts to come challenge them, the ganker simply docks up, teleports to the next busy Free Town and repeats the process there. Its already to the point where there are entire clans of gankers organizing to do nothing but this.

 

Here are a few suggestions as to how this could fixed:

 

• Bring back teleport timers ONLY when teleporting from Free Towns. Maybe less than an hour (15m?), but long enough to detract from type of abuse. This has the side benefit of encouraging more use of conquerable ports, which I think is a good thing.
• Make the time others can join a battle proportional to distance the battle is to a Free Town. Up to 5 mins if its within a 25 second sail and trailing off to 2 mins towards the horizon. This creates a tradeoff between the ganker's safety from other coming to defend and the safety of being near docking range.
• Instead of a 120 second delay to being able to join battles after undocking and 2 mins for others to join new battles, make the window for others to join the battle based on the time the attacker has been outside undocking range. Start at 5 mins and decrease to 2 mins after 120 secs. Similar to the above technique, this creates a tradeoff for the ganker to consider.
• All Free Towns get local defenders in a certain radius, like national capitols. The defenders will always side against the party that initiated the attack. Some care to prevent 3rd parties from being automatically being pulled in might be a worthy consideration to avoid exploitation by alts spies to get Free Town npcs to sink 'friendly' enemies. This is probably too much hassle to implement, so not ideal.
• Create a safe zone around Free Towns where players can't attack. That way, you have to move away from the docking point and put yourself at some risk in order to gank. The problem is that gankers will then just move to this edge and it'll essentially change nothing...

Those are just some suggestions, anyone else have others? I'm sure many players don't see this as a problem at all (probably the ones abusing it...). so I'd like to hear what others think.

 

Thanks!

[Skully]

You have no business at a Free Port, if you can not hold your water.

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14676-pvp1-june-the-british-honduras-campaign-pirate-perspective/?p=272800

PS. "Send to outpost" is a different thing. It means assets warping in.

[Salzi]

With the current undocking timer unless you get caught right next to the port guys still in the port are hardly going to join the battle, camping of the ports was always a thing even when the timers where 4 hours long so how is this a mechanic that is being abused? Blockades happen, I see a group at a port and i have two choices - Risk it or Go else where. 

 

Note that a simple solution to this is to get people of your nation to go to that free town to assist with trasport of goods, to enforce them to move away or to set up a counter gank using bait... If you are a solo player like me I just suck it up and sail else where. Also as a PvPer if you attack a player or two near spanish ports/freetowns the spanish react and go assist which works fine as it pushes me away form that town.

 

However for the teleport timers, I have to agree somewhat about having a short timer on them would be better than the current state, 20-60 mins area would be fine in my opinion.

 

But one thing that really needs to change is this use of contraband basic cutters to teleport ships about. People complain pirates can attack one another to get out of situations in OW but if two nationals have the smuggler perk they can do the same in war ships which should not even be able to use the smuggler perk only traders should be able to use it. ^^

[Grundgemunkey]

With the current undocking timer unless you get caught right next to the port guys still in the port are hardly going to join the battle, camping of the ports was always a thing even when the timers where 4 hours long so how is this a mechanic that is being abused? Blockades happen, I see a group at a port and i have two choices - Risk it or Go else where. 

 

Note that a simple solution to this is to get people of your nation to go to that free town to assist with trasport of goods, to enforce them to move away or to set up a counter gank using bait... If you are a solo player like me I just suck it up and sail else where. Also as a PvPer if you attack a player or two near spanish ports/freetowns the spanish react and go assist which works fine as it pushes me away form that town.

 

However for the teleport timers, I have to agree somewhat about having a short timer on them would be better than the current state, 20-60 mins area would be fine in my opinion.

 

But one thing that really needs to change is this use of contraband basic cutters to teleport ships about. People complain pirates can attack one another to get out of situations in OW but if two nationals have the smuggler perk they can do the same in war ships which should not even be able to use the smuggler perk only traders should be able to use it. ^^

 

the game is already very time consuming ...having to sail warships around the map for 2-3 hours to get them where you can have a bit of pvp fun would kill the game for pvp .. the smuggler method to tp ships requires a bit of team work ie someone prepared to help you  but could still take 5-10 mins then it takes 5-10 mins while you sail in and out of port wait for battle timers etc so its not instant ...why would you want to tp an empty trader the idea is you have cargo in them ?

[Mrdoomed]

Making rules that only effects freetowns only hurts pirates and after pirate reworking it will kill pirates so nothanks.

I do hate the way nationals all port hug at thier capital and do just what you described because of no cooldown teleports. Maybe you shouldn't be able to undock a ship for 15 minutes of you teleport in or something or get rid of basic cutter abuse but to just hurt freeports is a no go for me.

[Skully]

A player waiting on a timer, is a player not providing content.

[Loco Bandito]

It's a pvp server. You want safety go to pve. Simple.

[Cutch]

Right, if you want safety go to PvE. Don't just sit in docking range outside Free Towns all day avoiding real PvP. I'm all for ganking being viable, but when it involves no risk to the attacker and all the risk to the defender, and the gankers systematically tuck tail and teleport elsewhere when anything remotely approaching even odds shows up, then its clear that the mechanics are not balanced. Any time the aggressor has the advantage of safety AND surprise, something is broken. It should be one or the other.

[Cutch]

replies in red 

 

With the current undocking timer unless you get caught right next to the port guys still in the port are hardly going to join the battle,

 

It's not that they're not going to.... I would! It's that we CANT! With the 120 second timer after undocking, and the 2 minute battle window, its just not possible unless you are already in view.

 

camping of the ports was always a thing even when the timers where 4 hours long so how is this a mechanic that is being abused? Blockades happen, I see a group at a port and i have two choices - Risk it or Go else where. 

 

The problem is that blockades don't do any good if the attackers teleport in, bypassing the blockade, and dock up before they can be attacked. There is no risk - they dont have to sail in, they dont have to sail out. If its not an easy gank, just teleport to the next place.

 

Camping sure was a thing back then, but once you went to gank, you had the risk of a counter attack. That risk is gone.

 

Note that a simple solution to this is to get people of your nation to go to that free town to assist with trasport of goods, to enforce them to move away or to set up a counter gank using bait... If you are a solo player like me I just suck it up and sail else where. Also as a PvPer if you attack a player or two near spanish ports/freetowns the spanish react and go assist which works fine as it pushes me away form that town.

 

First off, its not a matter of transporting goods. People undock for lots of other reasons. Second, you can't bait and counter gank without them already seeing your numbers and having the ability to just dock up and avoid the fight, which they're doing even when they hold a significant advantage. And no, freetowns dont have any assistance as you claimed. That was one of my suggestions...

 

The best you can do is force them to dock up. In that case, they just teleport to the next free town and harass whoever happens to live there. What they seem to be doing recently is putting scouts in each free port so it looks like its just 1, then abusing the free teleports when a target is located.

 

However for the teleport timers, I have to agree somewhat about having a short timer on them would be better than the current state, 20-60 mins area would be fine in my opinion.

 

But one thing that really needs to change is this use of contraband basic cutters to teleport ships about. People complain pirates can attack one another to get out of situations in OW but if two nationals have the smuggler perk they can do the same in war ships which should not even be able to use the smuggler perk only traders should be able to use it. ^^

 

Agreed somewhat, but thats a topic for another thread More of a balance between being too much of a grind and being realistic.

Edited July 31, 2016 by Cutch

[Jerome]

The short answer is use care when around those ports but trying to catch dock humpers is an exercise in futility.

[TheAmerican]

Yeah, the free ports are kind of annoying. Sometimes it feels like they negate the whole, "territory" idea. Especially when a faction decides they want to teleport halfway across the globe, pop out in a giant fleet of SOLs, and go cause havoc deep in enemy waters. They never really cause too much damage, because we can quickly muster a force to defeat them, but it does significantly take away that glorious immersion I love so much.

However, there does need to be some kind of shelter interspersed throughout the map for pirates. Not sure how exactly we could accomplish this.

[Mrdoomed]

Yeah, the free ports are kind of annoying. Sometimes it feels like they negate the whole, "territory" idea. Especially when a faction decides they want to teleport halfway across the globe, pop out in a giant fleet of SOLs, and go cause havoc deep in enemy waters. They never really cause too much damage, because we can quickly muster a force to defeat them, but it does significantly take away that glorious immersion I love so much.

However, there does need to be some kind of shelter interspersed throughout the map for pirates. Not sure how exactly we could accomplish this.

You used to only get 1 teleport ever 4 hours so when fleets of sol decided to lauch a raid like that it was a BIG decision and something they had to live with for 4 hours but now you can just teleport all day so its a bigger problem.

[Obi-Heed Kenobi]

You used to only get 1 teleport ever 4 hours so when fleets of sol decided to lauch a raid like that it was a BIG decision and something they had to live with for 4 hours but now you can just teleport all day so its a bigger problem.

Maybe put a timer on teleports to (but not from) free towns? Maybe allow pirates some kind of special teleporting privileges, like unlimited teleports but can only leave port in a 6th or 7th rate?

[TheAmerican]

You used to only get 1 teleport ever 4 hours so when fleets of sol decided to lauch a raid like that it was a BIG decision and something they had to live with for 4 hours but now you can just teleport all day so its a bigger problem.

Yeah exactly. I was fine with the 4 hour teleport. Maybe like Obi Heed said, and limit exiting port after teleporting to small ships or traders.

[Fastidius]

add a green zone for freeports.....fixed?

[TheAmerican]

add a green zone for freeports.....fixed?

I think it's more the insta porting that is the issue though. People would still be able to wait until an enemy left port, and follow them out of the green zone.

[Sire Trinkof]

But green zone in front of free port would maybe solve the "exit port ganking" with dozens of ships stacking in front (which ruins immersion).

Basically any port should have a green zone, representing port batteries.

[Skully]

A free port doesn't need a green zone nor batteries. If you want in or out, bring the ships to ensure you can.

If you can not, you have no business there.

[TheAmerican]

A free port doesn't need a green zone nor batteries. If you want in or out, bring the ships to ensure you can.

If you can not, you have no business there.

That's pretty obvious at the moment. The debate is about wether or not the teleporting all over the globe thing is BS.

[squedage]

well the devs have already talked about removing the teleport mech from the game all together and if they do that then problem solved. I think we just need to wait and see what the devs do and go from there

[Mrdoomed]

well the devs have already talked about removing the teleport mech from the game all together and if they do that then problem solved. I think we just need to wait and see what the devs do and go from there

They have ? Please can you find that link? I know at one time they said they would never put in no cooldown teleports but well we see how that went.

It would be a great move towards less ganking and more ow battles but i think to many loud voices have control of development.

[squedage]

They have ? Please can you find that link? I know at one time they said they would never put in no cooldown teleports but well we see how that went.

It would be a great move towards less ganking and more ow battles but i think to many loud voices have control of development.

 

i will try to find it. it was in patch discussions from 2-3 patches ago that they said they were going to do it and then when it came time they didnt because they couldnt put it in without it causing a glitch at that time.

 

its in patch 9.9 that they say they couldnt put it in and its in the future content page that they talked about it

 

this is the not being able to add it link its in the first page

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14886-patch-99-officers-fishing-provisions-and-other-things/

Edited August 1, 2016 by squedage

[Mrdoomed]

Ah ok the teleport of ships. I thought you ment teleporting captains all over. Ty.

[squedage]

well if they cant send ships to all the free ports it will slow down the ganks and the amount of ports they can be at. If you have to sail or "transport/deliver" your ships from port to port and not insta get them there to do all the teleport ganking it will make it alot easier for people to def and respond to ganks also if they cap your ship they would then have to sail back to port to get it and the loot they took from you. This would leave all their ships and your ships open to getting taken back unless they had some other fleet to screen from them. So all in all it will add a lot more pvp to the game when they add it and will help with the prairie dogging that goes on at the ports IMO

[Ser_Slack]

well the devs have already talked about removing the teleport mech from the game all together and if they do that then problem solved. I think we just need to wait and see what the devs do and go from there

The problem will be solved because they're only be about 100 people left.