Hotfix 9.95 - Social perk and other important changes

[Isink A Lot]

I would suggest this for US first rate http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/7707-american-ship-collection-with-plans/?p=254006

[Captiva]

DeRuyter wrote, "Okay so with the incoming PB rework patch will it be necessary to have 25 1st rates in a regional PB? in fact what will a regional PB look like after the patch with land and (hopefully) proper forts? The answer to these questions really has a bearing on how much of a disadvantage not having national resource for 1st rates will be. The answer should be that a diverse fleet lead by a few 1st/2nd rates would be the ideal for most PB. So let's see what they have in mind for the upcoming conquest and PB mechanics before judging the 1st changes."

 

 

I agree 100% with the last sentence. Please insure that a diverse fleet is mandatory in all port battle instances. This will improve the value of strategy and tactics, similar to what is happening with the clan challenges (pvp tournament) that can be viewed on YouTube. 

Edited September 4, 2016 by Captiva

[Kiithnaras]

Here's an idea, rather than whining about having/not having the social perk as-is: A different way of implementing it!

- Reduce Social Perk cost to 2 points

- Alter mechanic so that the time a battle remains open is refreshed to 2 minutes any time any player with the Social perk joins a battle (No effect for attacking/attacked player).

 

Honestly, I felt the 30-minute open timer was severe and silly. 5-10 minutes would have been more sensible, but this is another way of looking at it if the perk is ever re-implemented.

 

Using the perk in this way, captains would have to stagger their entry and -all- have the social perk in order to get a distant, large reinforcement into the battle, but it does make it possible. Additionally, it keeps the status quo of being unable to join a battle that has already begun when reinforcements leave port.

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

Here's an idea, rather than whining about having/not having the social perk as-is: A different way of implementing it!

- Reduce Social Perk cost to 2 points

- Alter mechanic so that the time a battle remains open is refreshed to 2 minutes any time any player with the Social perk joins a battle (No effect for attacking/attacked player).

 

Honestly, I felt the 30-minute open timer was severe and silly. 5-10 minutes would have been more sensible, but this is another way of looking at it if the perk is ever re-implemented.

 

Using the perk in this way, captains would have to stagger their entry and -all- have the social perk in order to get a distant, large reinforcement into the battle, but it does make it possible. Additionally, it keeps the status quo of being unable to join a battle that has already begun when reinforcements leave port.

 

That's actually an interesting idea.  On the surface, I like the sound of it.  Nice job.

[admin]

Here's an idea, rather than whining about having/not having the social perk as-is: A different way of implementing it!

- Reduce Social Perk cost to 2 points

- Alter mechanic so that the time a battle remains open is refreshed to 2 minutes any time any player with the Social perk joins a battle (No effect for attacking/attacked player).

 

Honestly, I felt the 30-minute open timer was severe and silly. 5-10 minutes would have been more sensible, but this is another way of looking at it if the perk is ever re-implemented.

 

Using the perk in this way, captains would have to stagger their entry and -all- have the social perk in order to get a distant, large reinforcement into the battle, but it does make it possible. Additionally, it keeps the status quo of being unable to join a battle that has already begun when reinforcements leave port.

 

social perk staggered or not staggered will make sense (a lot of sense) if free towns are removed 

right now you can teleport across the whole map and enter the battle which makes social perk unbalanced in many cases. 

[Snoopy]

I don't like national resources for first rates.. at all.

The response already shows that players in factions which do not currently have a national first rate BP feel at a disadvantage.

Although in practice this disadvantage is more imagined than real and those extra resources only add to the cost of the first rates (we can all bid on those resources and smuggle them out), and put a hard cap on daily production which is arguably a good thing, it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

It will not change that people will be sailing a first rate when they think they need one [i am looking at you, Bucentaure BR], it just made acquiring them more annoying.

One of the strengths of the game was always that ships had no national boundaries and factions which didn't operate them in RL can do so in the game.

Even when it is just in the heads of the players, if Spain == Santisima and France == Ocean you put them in direct competition to each other and even marginal differences (and there is little to no difference between the capabilities of both boats at the moment) will be an excuse why faction X has it so much easier than Y and how this that or the other thing is not being represented correctly on each ship.

[victor]

social perk staggered or not staggered will make sense (a lot of sense) if free towns are removed 

right now you can teleport across the whole map and enter the battle which makes social perk unbalanced in many cases. 

 

But it's undoubtable that big brawls are big fun!

 

For me social perk with timer reduced to 10 minutes would be a fair tradeoff.

 

But, if the problem are just free towns exploits, then just add to ships that come out from free towns a timer that prevents the entrance in "socialized" battles for the duration of the social perk timer . I dunno if encoding this feature is difficult or not, but it will be a solution.

[Mrdoomed]

But it's undoubtable that big brawls are big fun!

For me social perk with timer reduced to 10 minutes would be a fair tradeoff.

But, if the problem are just free towns exploits, then just add to ships that come out from free towns a timer that prevents the entrance in "socialized" battles for the duration of the social perk timer . I dunno if encoding this feature is difficult or not, but it will be a solution.

Big brawls are not big fun for all. I do not like them at all for several reasons but the biggest is because the are just a giant cluster phuck most of the times with people crashing into you or ending up in a big blob like an old RTS . No organization or skill just button smashing.

If they were at all organized maybe it woulsd be more fun but for now i prefer smaller engagements and dont wish to see every battle turn into smashfest 2016.

[victor]

Big brawls are not big fun for all. I do not like them at all for several reasons but the biggest is because the are just a giant cluster phuck most of the times with people crashing into you or ending up in a big blob like an old RTS . No organization or skill just button smashing.

If they were at all organized maybe it woulsd be more fun but for now i prefer smaller engagements and dont wish to see every battle turn into smashfest 2016.

 

You smell ganksquad from a mile away, mate

Edited September 6, 2016 by victor

[Mrdoomed]

You smell ganksquad from a mile away, mate

Sorry mate i sail alone and my entire clan is 3 people so sorta hard to gank mate. In fact the only timeim ever in a group of more than 3 in a ship bigger than a suprise is to rescue a mate being ganked by nationals mate.

I like to play as a pirate mate. Ya know the way all the nationals bitch about how we should play. Not many 25 man fleets of pirates mate let alone attacking 25 other ship aye mate?

Sorry mate but please let me play the way the nationals want me to play and dont force me to play like a black flag nation mate.

Cheers mate.

Edited September 6, 2016 by Mrdoomed

[victor]

Sorry mate i sail alone and my entire clan is 3 people so sorta hard to gank mate. In fact the only timeim ever in a group of more than 3 in a ship bigger than a suprise is to rescue a mate being ganked by nationals mate.

I like to play as a pirate mate. Ya know the way all the nationals bitch about how we should play. Not many 25 man fleets of pirates mate let alone attacking 25 other ship aye mate?

Sorry mate but please let me play the way the nationals want me to play and dont force me to play like a black flag nation mate.

Cheers mate.

 

So, if that is your gameplay, what's your concern about social perk .... mate?

[Smithy]

***Stay on topic please. - H. Darby

Edited September 6, 2016 by Henry d'Esterre Darby

[Mrdoomed]

So, if that is your gameplay, what's your concern about social perk .... mate?

um i thought my first post that you questioned made that pont......mate.

[Bach]

So, if that is your gameplay, what's your concern about social perk .... mate?

Now bear in mind I like the idea of an expensive social perk of some kind. That's said here is the major flaw.

When combined with teleports and the prevalence of free city outposts on every region border the social perk can be used, by creative players, to generate a roving Zerg.

Most consider the sea area covered by social perk to be that within 30min sail of the battle in question. It's not. It's actually the time from that battle to the nearest national or free city out post plus the remaining time from every other free city out post in the game. That makes the area of potential battle joiners enormous. Seriously, it's like a quarter of the entire carribean has a chance to join if they know where the battle is.

No lets strategize that with the upcoming regional nature of the future map. Free cities boarder each conquest region. Conquest regions are expected to create war front. If a creative team or set if clans decided to centralize all their outposts on two or three battle front this shortens the travel distances needed. If they all use the social perk and TS they can now Zerg multiple battlefront a at the same time. Albeit 25 men per battle at a time. Essentially the largest population, once they learn how to do this, can get 25 men in virtually every critical battle on a war front.

So to have the social perk going forward requires some tweaking. Even just removing the free port teleport isn't perfect as the effect is still just as bad when a dominant team excercise it out of captured ports. A bit trickier and more expensive than free cities but still possible. I think to work the social perk needs to become something like 5-10 min and you must NOT have teleported in the last 5-10min.

Edited September 6, 2016 by Bach

[Jerome]

social perk staggered or not staggered will make sense (a lot of sense) if free towns are removed

right now you can teleport across the whole map and enter the battle which makes social perk unbalanced in many cases.

Yes, so why have it at all?

[Sir Texas Sir]

Any word on what got changed on today patch?

[VonBarb]

social perk staggered or not staggered will make sense (a lot of sense) if free towns are removed

 

Are-we to understand you are considering removing free towns ? I believe that would be a terrible idea, as it would encourage people to stick close to their capitals or best defended ports, and abandon the more remote areas, especially those people who aren't on 24/7 and won't be able to keep up with the strategic campaigns. Remove free towns and I might log in one day to find all my assets are frozen in captured ports (I know because it has happenned to me before) Freetowns are the only reason I'm still guaranteed I'll be able to log in and get some decent action within 60mn.  It would solve the ganking fleets raids problem, but then that would make it rather dull wouldn't it ?

[Cmdr RideZ]

But it's undoubtable that big brawls are big fun!

 

I hate big brawls.

 

...

Going a bit off topic here, but kinda following the line to incoming patch...

 

Pirate mechanism should be so that pirates can move fast on the map, if not their ship, at least the way it works at the moment.  The pirates can be restricted to specific ships, for example to 5th rate, or pirate frigate, or something similar.  This way they are not that radical threat, except for traders, which kinda makes sense, no?

 

If in the future, you can just trade stuff without any risk in your own waters.  As a PvP game/server, I would say that to be a bit lame to be honest.  If some national really wants this, I would highly recommend PvE server.  PvE server actually could have some ports to fight from as well.

 

With their restrictions pirates can raid shallow water ports with equal terms.  But deepwater ports and regional capitals, would be very challenging, as they have their 5th rates and the others have 4th to 1st rates as well.

 

If pirates are restricted to 5th rate -> You can always have bigger escort fleet than any pirate fleet can ever be.

If national waters were all kinda like "safe" zones, trading will basically turn to be a pure time sink.

 

Removing Free Towns from all...  I would invent a mechanism for pirates as well here.  Some pirate havens around the map would be probably needed, if not Free Towns.

 

...

Focusing everyone to capitals, this is also an issue if asked from me.  Some mechanism to spread people all over the map would be nice.  Like change the "teleport to capital" to "teleport to home".  Home port that can be changed once per week or something.

[Leku]

Dunno about todays patch but i`ll be happy if devs consider putting 3d cooldown on creating flag against port. Simple as that. You pulled flag and didnt win? 3 day rest. Pull flag for other ports.
Im kinda new to port battles and fighting same hours for same ports for 2 weeks ... is idiotic. Cant say otherwise. Dumb like hell.

There is mechanic already that after conquering port is unattackable for 3 days. So mechanic is in game. Please do fast fix and implement this mechanic for every flag pulled.

Till its done, or new conquering mechanic is implemented im done with so called port battles.

[Loco Bandito]

A successful defense of a port should be rewarded with a 2 or 3 day cool down.

[Sir Texas Sir]

Yah there should be a cool down on successful defense and false flags.  It's getting old folks are pulling 5 flags in a night and only showing up to the ones you don't go to defend cause of your numbers when you know they sure as hell has the numbers to fight, they just want the easy win cause they can't fight and win other wise.

[Ragor]

Dunno about todays patch but i`ll be happy if devs consider putting 3d cooldown on creating flag against port. Simple as that. You pulled flag and didnt win? 3 day rest. Pull flag for other ports.

Im kinda new to port battles and fighting same hours for same ports for 2 weeks ... is idiotic. Cant say otherwise. Dumb like hell.

There is mechanic already that after conquering port is unattackable for 3 days. So mechanic is in game. Please do fast fix and implement this mechanic for every flag pulled.

Till its done, or new conquering mechanic is implemented im done with so called port battles.

 

QFT.

 

Plus:

I spent over a week now doing screening. As I got told.

So I sit there every evening and scanning for 2h the same 270° arc in front of me.

Nothing happens except when I get overrun by superior forces (which is my job, to bind them in battle) or jump superior foces, usually resulting in a ship loss on my end for some extra 20min bought for my team.

-> Obviously the 'user experience' I had in my week of screening duty was quite lacking.

-> Obviously I didn't get any XP for the screening and for sure no loot, lost one week of play time for no reward AT ALL.

-> As a bonus I sit in TS and can hear the bragging and dick-waving of the PB participants. If they won: Only they worked for it, no one else contributed to the success. If they loose: No wonder with this incompetent screening fleet. And the leading officers were all incompetent as well. (Oh, me as a 'spectator' who was in TS the whole time as well recognizes these voices as the same which didn't follow orders in battle, hence, couldn't even get into formation. Oh well...)

 

What is the point of my post?

Since it is not supposed to be a rant but might come across as one here my summary what people should read out of it:

For the needed tactics for successful portbattles it is needed, that jobs like screening & scouting get an in game reward as well by the mechanics.

 

How could this be achieved with limited exploit-possibilities?

Fleets become formed (group) and according to their job tagged as screeners, scouts and active PB fleet, assigned by clan leads.

The PB reward is equally distributed among all tagged players.

 

"But but but then people get reward for doing nothing, just for hanging around while I fought the battle and actually worked for my reward."

My answer:

"Stfu you self important fuck face. Seriously, where you 'worked' for your reward, you actually played the game, had fun, made XP. This is in my book a double win for you. While others on 'day 1' just had been locked in place with no gameplay at all, no fun and no reward, the 2nd day they have a tagging job by chance and were busy keeping guys in battle and shooting sails and usually getting sunk at some point and therefor high expenses but still no income or XP."

 

During my screening week I lost a lot of money, made no progress, collected stupid remarks and even some insults.

Yeah, fun.

Tons of it.

 

Sidenote:

3 times I ran into flag carriers on my own.

2 times I sank them, 1 time I denied the area and the flag expired.

My reward:

Yay, I sunk 2 trader lynx. Woohoo, I better do not spent all the gold at once and save it for later for a big investment. Like... hiring 4 crew members in one go...

Edited September 7, 2016 by Ragor

[Baron Von WeisenCracker]

Yah there should be a cool down on successful defense and false flags.  It's getting old folks are pulling 5 flags in a night and only showing up to the ones you don't go to defend cause of your numbers when you know they sure as hell has the numbers to fight, they just want the easy win cause they can't fight and win other wise.

deja vu

[JollyRoger1516]

No mate. I'd demand the Duke of Kent (170 guns) so the british can have at least one ship a bit better than the rest of nations.

http://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaLib/660/media-660270/large.jpg

(end of irony)

Dunno why irony was applied in the first place as the Caledonia isn't aprticularly better then other nations 120 gun ships but ok then 

 

tbf I don't care which ships get into the game as I wanna see them all (including those from Spanish and French nations) though I would cut it of at the 140guns line - Santissima/Pennsylvania being top of the list effectively so sorry but no Kent

[ironhammer500]

Devs are going about it  all wrong if you want to make First rates rare and limited, put a cap on how many a Clan can actively own, take notes from EvE Online, the capitals used to be rare but people found a way to get around the resources and time needed also not enough would die off so they kept making them.

 

MAKE then LIMITED in clans, simple. Big clans, Little Clans all are balanced because they should be able to make say 5 with ease but wont be dominated by a larger clan since they only get 5 first rates each. Don't go down the Eve route of big clans rule everything.