BR regulations for Port Battles

[D. Federico de Gravina y N]

Hi captains (and hopefully Devs) 
 

 Time ago PB were modified to fit into one of three categories , trying to gain variety to the collection of ships we use on those battles.

 

While it is true that these battles become a bit more entertaining, the number of variants are equally limited, as practically everyone tends to use the same ship - allegedly the most more useful in each category, 1st rates for RC, 4th (inger) for Deep ports and mercury for Shallows - so in practice only 5 or 6 ships types at most are used...making port battles somewhat dull as two mirrored fleets competes in doing the most damage.

 

Those of us being here from Sea trials, on those big battles were surprises were fighting alongside Victories and Santissimas, remenber for sure how much fun they were.... partly by ships variety allowing mixed strategies...ships of the line were pounding their linear formations, while forces of frigates tried to position themselves in the enemy´s rear...or trying to screen their own lines from their enemy counterparts.

 

In the spirit of bringing back those times, I ask for a BR total limit being assigned to each of the three port battle types. Each sides would try to max his forces with two variables, number of captains (up to the 25 limit) and BR "weight" to maximizes their probabilities.

 

This change would have the added advantage of equalizing battles for low-population nations/timerzone, as 15 captains would have a greater chance against 25 in ships totalling same BR than in same ships (as currently).

 

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Thanks Eishen for help me with the traduction and for add some ideas

[Snoopy]

Yes, this idea has come up a few times and I couldn't agree more.

The workhorse of the era, the 74gun SoL has no place in PBs currently, and that makes me sad.

It will require a lot of fine tuning and balancing though to get the BR caps right so that 15 first rates vs a mix of 25 first/second/third rates yield a balanced and fair battle.

[SteelSandwich]

It wont change anything, there will just be a new 'best' for each battle. Either 15 Ingers or 25 trincs (or whatever combination)

BR limits don't work, create incentives to vary the fleet you are bringing.

 

The ships the attacker will have in current situation:

1^st rates 25

 

The ships the defender will have in current situation:

1^st rates 25

 

How do port battles look currently?

 

So, let’s look at the goals in the ideal port battle.

 

The inherent goal of the attacker is:

Attacking the fortifications

Taking the capture zones

Destroying the defenders

 

The inherent goal of the defender is:

Defend the fortifications (optional)

Defending the capture zones

Destroying the attackers

 

What features are in the port battle:

Heavier fortifications

Capture zones

The raiding of resources (Only in raid battle, see end of post)

Land in battles, including shallows.

 

How does this look like in the battle itself?

Land is green, shallows are lighter blue

 

When including the fortifications and capture zones:

Red circles indicate the zones, the yellow squares the fortifications

 

So, what does this to the fleet composition?

Fortifications -> Attackers will bring mortar brigs -> defender will bring frigates to attack mortar brigs-> attacker will bring frigates for defending the mortar brigs.

 

Shallows -> Deep drafted ships can only operate in certain areas -> the usage of shallower draft ships.

 

So, what does the fortification do to the fleet composition?

 

The ships the attacker will have in current situation:

1^st rates 17

Frigates 5

Mortar brigs 3

The ships the defender will have in current situation:

1^st rates 18

Frigates 7

 

When shallows are taken into the calculation, the usage of 4^th rates and 3^rd rates will increase.

 

The ships the attacker will have in current situation:

1^st rates 10

3^rd/4^th rates 7

Frigates 5

Mortar brigs 3

The ships the defender will have in current situation:

1^st rates 12

3^rd/4^th rates 6

Frigates 7

 

When raiding of resources is also taken into account, this will result in the following:

 

The ships the attacker will have in current situation:

1^st rates 10

3^rd/4^th rates 6

Frigates 4

Indiamen 3

Mortar brigs 2

 

The end result is a very tactical approach to a currently linear engagement. The attacker can position himself for the most optimal appoach, whilst the defender is incentivized to sally with the frigs to take down the MB's. Also the fleetcomposition plays a massive role in the strength in battle, no longer will 1^st rate on dominate.The whole cat-mouse game starts there and then.

 

 

For more extensive and detailed proposition regarding the draft of ships in this game, look here:

http://forum.game-la...pshallow-ports/

 

Which would create a detailed spectrum in which PB can be split.

 

 

Certain ports will allow up to 6, certain to 8, some to 5,5, others to 4.

Not only will this diverse how ports are spread across the map, it will also create interesting combinations and even more variety besides the earlier described diversity incentive.

[squedage]

1 of the ideas that i think could fix this is make caps on ship rates that can be brought to a battle so so you go for Saint Nic you can have 2-3 first rates 2-4 seconds 6-8 thirds and then a mix of 4th and 5th rates. This would force people in to a larger mix of ships and would also make planning and executing a BP more important

[Teutonic]

Every time the idea has come up or whenever I have suggested it, it has always seemed like an ideal solution to a number of the issues we have with current port battles.

 

I am constantly for this. When Deep waters were split up so that it would separate 4th/5ths and SoLs Admins wanted to create more opportunities for the smaller ships. It only caused one thing in my opinion, that constitutions and ingers were the new 1st rates. So we have Mercury's (Heavy Rattlers), Ingers or Constis, and 1st rates. In the current players view, if you have any other ship for a port battle, you are less effective and possibly taking up a space that could be used by someone who does have the "best" ship.

 

EDIT: There are definitely a number of ideas that could be combined to create an excellent port battle experience. I think most, if not all of us, are in agreement that the current way PBs stand is not the way they should work.

 

SteelSandwich's suggestion is promising, I just wish we could test it sooner rather than later.

Edited September 7, 2016 by Teutonic

[D. Federico de Gravina y N]

It wont change anything, there will just be a new 'best' for each battle. Either 15 Ingers or 25 trincs (or whatever combination)

BR limits don't work, create incentives to vary the fleet you are bringing.

 

The ships the attacker will have in current situation:

1^st rates 25

 

The ships the defender will have in current situation:

1^st rates 25

 

How do port battles look currently?

 

So, let’s look at the goals in the ideal port battle.

 

The inherent goal of the attacker is:

Attacking the fortifications

Taking the capture zones

Destroying the defenders

 

The inherent goal of the defender is:

Defend the fortifications (optional)

Defending the capture zones

Destroying the attackers

 

What features are in the port battle:

Heavier fortifications

Capture zones

The raiding of resources (Only in raid battle, see end of post)

Land in battles, including shallows.

 

How does this look like in the battle itself?

Land is green, shallows are lighter blue

 

When including the fortifications and capture zones:

Red circles indicate the zones, the yellow squares the fortifications

 

So, what does this to the fleet composition?

Fortifications -> Attackers will bring mortar brigs -> defender will bring frigates to attack mortar brigs-> attacker will bring frigates for defending the mortar brigs.

 

Shallows -> Deep drafted ships can only operate in certain areas -> the usage of shallower draft ships.

 

So, what does the fortification do to the fleet composition?

 

The ships the attacker will have in current situation:

1^st rates 17

Frigates 5

Mortar brigs 3

The ships the defender will have in current situation:

1^st rates 18

Frigates 7

 

When shallows are taken into the calculation, the usage of 4^th rates and 3^rd rates will increase.

 

The ships the attacker will have in current situation:

1^st rates 10

3^rd/4^th rates 7

Frigates 5

Mortar brigs 3

The ships the defender will have in current situation:

1^st rates 12

3^rd/4^th rates 6

Frigates 7

 

When raiding of resources is also taken into account, this will result in the following:

 

The ships the attacker will have in current situation:

1^st rates 10

3^rd/4^th rates 6

Frigates 4

Indiamen 3

Mortar brigs 2

 

The end result is a very tactical approach to a currently linear engagement. The attacker can position himself for the most optimal appoach, whilst the defender is incentivized to sally with the frigs to take down the MB's. Also the fleetcomposition plays a massive role in the strength in battle, no longer will 1^st rate on dominate.The whole cat-mouse game starts there and then.

 

 

For more extensive and detailed proposition regarding the draft of ships in this game, look here:

http://forum.game-la...pshallow-ports/

 

Which would create a detailed spectrum in which PB can be split.

 

 

Certain ports will allow up to 6, certain to 8, some to 5,5, others to 4.

Not only will this diverse how ports are spread across the map, it will also create interesting combinations and even more variety besides the earlier described diversity incentive.

I think your proposal is an ideal one...but I fear it is a utopia and doubt it being feasible at this stage .... while putting a BR limits  seems a quite doable

[SteelSandwich]

I wonder, what part of this would be too far fetched?

 

Forts are coming, land is coming and zones are being considered for implementation.

The only thing left is shallows (which we already have in coastal engagements) and then it's good to go.

 

Even the port depth link i send i no different than the nationality check we currently have ingame.

[Snoopy]

Yeah Steel your idea would be best, and it is something the devs may have on their list of things anyway but it requires a lot of code, whereas BR caps require only a few lines to close a battle instance once a given BR has filled up.

[And: this was an existing mechanic a while back].

The BR balancing is something that could be easily offloaded to us players, and changing a ship's BR after a healthy discussion across the playerbase just means changing a single number for the devs.

BR balancing needs to happen for open world battles anyway, I think we can kill two stones with one bird here: While waiting for forts and land in PBs we could have more diverse battles while tweaking the BR.

Changing BR could also keep us on our heels and constantly change what the "optimal" BR/PB setup is considered to be.

[Knobby]

While i like these ideas for varied fleets (especially steels idea), they would need to be combined by some sort of queuing mechanism or match lobby room, otherwise there is not enough control over fleet combinations before entering battle.

[D. Federico de Gravina y N]

However I havent yet read an opinion from the devs about the suggestion.

This is a sad true amigo mio

[Mighty_Alex]

Can we at least test BR limit in port battles for a couple of weeks? I don't think it will involve a lot of coding for the devs to introduce it. That will certainly add some variety at least.

Edited September 7, 2016 by Mighty_Alex

[Stilgar]

Ideally, I want to see solution very similar to what Steel proposes, at least key elements, if implementation is complex. If that's a no go for devs from whichever reason, some sort of BR-limit system should be implemented. However, I'd like to see an allowed BR range for a given port type (shallow/deep/regional capital), which would allow some BR choice for attacker. Alternatively, there could be 2 BR limits per type port. The lowest would allow just raiding/looting if battle won, the highest would allow port capture. This might be a simple way to add some variety to PBs.

 

With this said, I am curious what solutions devs will come up in coming patch.

[Teutonic]

Can we at least test BR limit in port battles for a couple of weeks? I don't think it will involve a lot of coding for the devs to introduce it. That will certainly add some variety at least.

 

I would very much want to try this. We are in Alpha, and we are testers. It should at the very least be tried yes?

[D. Federico de Gravina y N]

and no words from the devs

[Rebel Witch]

 

Hi captains (and hopefully Devs) 

 

 Time ago PB were modified to fit into one of three categories , trying to gain variety to the collection of ships we use on those battles.

 

While it is true that these battles become a bit more entertaining, the number of variants are equally limited, as practically everyone tends to use the same ship - allegedly the most more useful in each category, 1st rates for RC, 4th (inger) for Deep ports and mercury for Shallows - so in practice only 5 or 6 ships types at most are used...making port battles somewhat dull as two mirrored fleets competes in doing the most damage.

 

Those of us being here from Sea trials, on those big battles were surprises were fighting alongside Victories and Santissimas, remenber for sure how much fun they were.... partly by ships variety allowing mixed strategies...ships of the line were pounding their linear formations, while forces of frigates tried to position themselves in the enemy´s rear...or trying to screen their own lines from their enemy counterparts.

 

In the spirit of bringing back those times, I ask for a BR total limit being assigned to each of the three port battle types. Each sides would try to max his forces with two variables, number of captains (up to the 25 limit) and BR "weight" to maximizes their probabilities.

 

This change would have the added advantage of equalizing battles for low-population nations/timerzone, as 15 captains would have a greater chance against 25 in ships totalling same BR than in same ships (as currently).

 

-----------------------------------------------------------

Thanks Eishen for help me with the traduction and for add some ideas

 

 

 

I am on board with this idea, i think the best solution to the 1st rate dilemma in PBs is a BR limit. this allows nations to mix and match ships as they please too.

[DeRuyter]

Here is a famous example of a port battle that pretty much follows Steel's example. The water near the forts and city was too shallow for the 1st rates so Nelson shifted his command into a 74 to lead the line into battle, even then several 74s ran aground. The largest ship in the assault fleet was a 74 and it had a mix of ships including frigates, bomb ships (mortars) and even fireships:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Copenhagen_(1801)

 

  

I also think Steel's idea will provide the best solution all around. Ship drafts have been discussed here is another thread by Steel:

 

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/12020-redefining-deepshallow-ports/

 

While I believe admin did comment that a full underwater topography with colliders for running around etc would be very difficult to code. I think a simplified layer system with ships given a draft or depth class could work. (Imagine the rage if players took damage from running around ir were stuck aground anyway!)

 

We shouldn't fall back too quickly on the old BR limit solution because it would be the easiest to code. It is only a temporary fix IMO.

[SteelSandwich]

 

We shouldn't fall back too quickly on the old BR limit solution because it would be the easiest to code. It is only a temporary fix IMO.

Yes, Yes!! My mind exactly.

[Mrdoomed]

A simple ship size cap limit would solve the whole thing.

[CaptVonGunn]

Yes, this idea has come up a few times and I couldn't agree more.

The workhorse of the era, the 74gun SoL has no place in PBs currently, and that makes me sad.

It will require a lot of fine tuning and balancing though to get the BR caps right so that 15 first rates vs a mix of 25 first/second/third rates yield a balanced and fair battle.

 

 Actually for Capital battles you could have for every =Four(4) 3rd rates One(1) Bellona as Divison CO...Each Six(6) 3rds also gets One(1) 2nd as Squadron CO and Each fleet gets (One)1 First Rate  each fleet gets Two(2) 5th Rates as their scout/harassing ships.

 

  This would give you at most 16 3rds, 4 Bellonas, 2 2nds and 1 st plus 2 5ths

[Skully]

Fleet composition should be entirely a players choice based on the maps and forts SteelSandwich & co are gathering at http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15285-fortification-researchcollection-project/.

• Testing of land in port battles - in internal testing

Fingers crossed, press Pray a couple of times and hopes it will work out.

[Mrdoomed]

There just needs to be a ship type limit. But to keep everyone showing up in ships that cant be used the port battle should have a tab that shows how many ships of what type have pledged to show up.

The only drawback will be try hards grinding thier alts up and pledging 1st rates amd not showing up ( another reason for one account per server) but with thier names attached to the pledge it will quickly root out spies.

This would ensure some kind of order,dedication and realism to the battles and make all ships useful.

[Skully]

There just needs to be a ship type limit. But to keep everyone showing up in ships that cant be used the port battle should have a tab that shows how many ships of what type have pledged to show up.

The only drawback will be try hards grinding thier alts up and pledging 1st rates amd not showing up ( another reason for one account per server) but with thier names attached to the pledge it will quickly root out spies.

This would ensure some kind of order,dedication and realism to the battles and make all ships useful.

You need no help from the game to do that, now would you?

[Lord Vicious]

We tryed all beside this:

We already tested in front of kpr that we can have more then 50 ppl in a battle.

So we can test and augment battle to 30 slot each and maybe even more if all go well.

 

 

The idea behind a pb BR system is that normal town have 8k br and capitals 12k, and any ship from cerberus to firstrate can join  (shallow and depp will be separate in term of ship allowance)

 

Why a BR system? first of all it allow  noobs to join big battles with their frig, not "stealing" slots for big ships,   Second it will bring a huge variety in the fight since everybody will try to find the better composition,   Expecial considering the new pb system that devs wanna do,   with points to capture, so a fast squad of frigs in that enviroment will have a lot to do, forcing enemy to cover points for then relocate faster for capture another, creating division and diversion.

 

This system will not go into: bring biggest ship possible becouse they can encounter problems such as :

I bring 10 firstrate and i need to defend 3 points while my enemy bring 25 fast/medium ships, , what you will do? divide the firstrates? for cover all points? cool, now the enemy can attack the point upwind tryng to isolate the 3-4 firstrate defending a point while the others slow firstrate will may need to go against wind for  reach their friends in danger, this will open the pb to endless tactics where even smaller ships will have a tactical-strategic value.           

In the current pb there is nothing of this, all rush to each other and brawl becouse there is no point to conquer, and all that matter is bring the biggest ship possible and thats it.

This will require also a BR rebalance since now some values are fucked up (see agamennon for example)

 

All of this will bring much more deep  to the game, will allow new players to enjoy big battles withouth being cursed for bring a small ship, it will disrupt much less big clan organization since the pb system will be much less  slot dipendent, and also will bring much more variety instead   mono inger-aga fleet, or mono firstrate fleets.

Edited November 23, 2016 by Lord Vicious

[Hethwill]

It is a good thing to test after we have land in Port Battles.

 

[TrackTerror]

Yes please, I would also like to try out br system in Port battles very similar along the lines of what L Vicious proposes.