Region balancing, carebear alliances and more

[Elric]

This post stems from PvP2 balance issues, but I think the issue is just as relevant on PvP1.  We have seem multiple times where nations get taken back to 1 port.  That kills the game for players of that nation, and they tend to leave - either switching nation, switching server, or stopping playing NA.  We don't want to lose anymore players.   On PvP2, we recently have a mega-alliance where 75%+ of the players were all part of one alliance.  That allows the care-bear alliance to crush however they chose - and France, Sweden, Spain and Denmark are all down to 1 or 2 regions.

I would propose a modification to the current aggression or Port Battles that may help limit the effectiveness of mega alliances and stop nations getting reduced to a single region..

I'm suggesting implementing some sort of ratio adjustment based on regions held between the attacking nations that gets applied when defending nations are down to 5 or less regions..

If the attacking alliance controlled 25 regions and they are going against a nation with 5 regions, increase the difficulty in raising aggression by a factor of 5.  Then in the PB do a similar thing - by reducing the number of slots for the attacking region..

Smaller nations struggle to fill the 25 ship slots - so once you are down to just 5 regions, limit the number of ships the attacker can enter in the PB by 1 ships for every full ratio point they outnumber the defender in regions held.  So if you outnumber the defender 3:1, you lose 2 ship slots, outnumber them 25:1, you only get 1 ship slot...

For example:

• 25 region alliance against 5 region defender - 5:1 ratio - 500% aggression needed to raise PB.  21 slots for attacker in PB, 25 for defender
• 40 region alliance against 4 region defender - 10:1 ratio - 1000% aggression needed to raise PB.  16 slots for attacker in PB, 25 for defender
• 50 region alliance against 2 region defender - 25:1 ratio - 2500% aggression needed to raise PB.  1 slot for attacker in PB, 25 for defender

Comments and constructive criticism please.

Related to this, once you are taken down to just 1 or 2 regions, not only do you struggle to get resources, but you don't have any crafting bonuses.  That's one of the negatives of the National capitals having zero crafting bonuses.

Edited January 6, 2017 by ElricTheTwo

[van der Clam]

I like the general idea, maybe even setting a BR matching for PBs, not allowing more than 1 ship's BR over however many defense shows...
But the alliance feature is not totally the issue as those smaller nations have the same option to form their alliance and use them in the PB or even as a screen. Plus many rats have stated they would like to play the privateer role and be paid to screen.

But still, I agree that this huge alliance is a killer. The entire reason I switched from US to Dutch is to help the balance.  :/ I'm hoping we can form some sort of alliance/treaty this weekend.

[Elric]

Originally when I started to think about this, I thought about taking the alliance region count for both the attacker and defender - but if a small nation is allied with a bigger nation, the attackers can pick on the weaker nation in the alliance and take them back to 1 region - that should not be allowed as alliances are temporary and frail in many cases.

...and even with alliances, there is no guarantee your partners will show up to help defend...

Edited January 6, 2017 by ElricTheTwo

[SirSamuelHood]

I like the idea of making aggression generate more slowly as your nation's territory increases; overextension should have consequences! 

[Jean Ribault]

11 minutes ago, SirSamuelHood said:

...overextension should have consequences! 

 

...or at least should be increasingly harder to maintain territory.  This is true for any overextended entity, whether it be a business with multiple locations or a colonizing empire.  The proposed approach would provide some form of rules towards accomplishing that.

[Angus McGregor]

I'm tempted to suggest a national tax to the governor on all captains that increases with rank and number of controlled counties. This would include pirates in the form of a brotherhood loyalty tribute.

That might also put a slight damper on alt accounts used for questionable purposes.

[Jean Ribault]

9 minutes ago, Angus McGregor said:

I'm tempted to suggest a national tax to the governor on all captains that increases with rank and number of controlled counties. This would include pirates in the form of a brotherhood loyalty tribute.

That might also put a slight damper on alt accounts used for questionable purposes.

That's been suggested in the past as I recall.  I don't think it ever got any traction.  Personally I like the idea, but it would be tough to appreciate if you are a very casual player that doesn't have enough time to play in order to gain enough resources to support the tax.

Edited January 6, 2017 by Jean Ribault

[Sir Texas Sir]

1 hour ago, SirSamuelHood said:

I like the idea of making aggression generate more slowly as your nation's territory increases; overextension should have consequences! 

20 minutes ago, Angus McGregor said:

I'm tempted to suggest a national tax to the governor on all captains that increases with rank and number of controlled counties. This would include pirates in the form of a brotherhood loyalty tribute.

That might also put a slight damper on alt accounts used for questionable purposes.

I really think a maintenance tax for ports is good.  If you and your clan can't afford the tax of that region to up keep it than it should get agro and go neutral allowing any nation to capture it after that.   Right now though to many folks are money stuffed and resource stuffed so there is no reason to fight over regions. That and if you can share you regions than why fight?  I also think ship building should only be in regions you own.  You can build and set up buildings in other regions of alliance, but ship building should all ways be in your own regions.  This would mean you need to own that agil hull, hull strength, Pirate Refit what ever region to build there your self.  You can get the oak, teak or what not from there, but you can't actually build from that region if you nation doesn't own it.  Yes this kinda hurts the little guy, but gives more incentive to help them get there own regions if you have an alliance with them and helping them out, instead you have the big guy gaining more and more regions and the little guy not gaining any at all.   I'll use US as an example on PvP2.  Every alliance they have had and helped every one in it out they have been the only ones really gaining any regions.  They crushed France and took the two regions cause of the war between Dutch and Swedes.  Those regions prob should of been for Dutch to take since they are the ones at war.  France wasn't really involved, but got voted in by Swede alts (that I hear) to the alliance in the first place.

Since there is no conquest end game in yet or planned as far as I know than there is no reason to take a nation down to one region other than just to crush them.  I think every nations should have three regions.  There Capital region like we all ready have.   One good refit region that is tied to there nation so they all ways have it:

Brits:  British Refit

Danes:  Northern Carp

Dutch:  Northern Carp

France:  France Refit

Spain:  Spanish Hunter

Swedes:  ?

US:   ?  Maybe the Strong Hull since they are know for it.

Than one other region that has no purpose build wise (no regional bonus).  This will keep nations from being totally crush alliance or not.   It can be brought down to two regions perm, but the point is the same give them room to rebuild.

 

As for the alliance system I like what been said about a penalty for taking on a weaker nation when your way stronger.   There needs to be some incentive to play those nations.  We need map resets too.  When a nation gets so many regions the map resets that way a country will want to keep it down to a certain numbers if they don't want to reset every thing and loose all the extra regions they gain.  This would pretty much be like the conquest win.  That nation gets a big prize for it's players and than the other nations get a little prize for there actions in the wars.    We all start over.  Other wise the map gets stale and nothing happens. Just about every nation except Brit/Dutch/US is currently down to 1-3 regions.   And they are the only ones that those three are fighting right now are the smallest nations that can barely field 10-15 players in a port battle while the alliance has had 20-35 every port battle I seen so far.

Port battles need to change some how to not be a race to the cap circles.  There is no skill an now one fights any more for the most part.  We had a Port battle the other morning with 17 Pirates vs 23 Brtis/US (would of been more but Brit/Dutch alliance is on cool down).  We had to scratch really hard to get that 17 to show up and we only did it to help the Danes out that had 10 show up to there port battle (only 4 Dutch/Brit/US showed).   Even though we lost we helped them keep there port.   No biggy cause it's still a learning experience.

http://imgur.com/gtHpueN

The problem with the new system is that no one really fights any more.  Two kills with that many players is kinda sad. In the old system we prob would of brawled it out and with the Pirates having normally more experienced team we have crushed odds against us in many fights like this.  It still might of been a lost of taking the port, but we prob would of killed a good number of there ships.  Which gives us a fighting chance,but the new system is more who can get the most number of ships into the circles fastest so your smaller nations will always loose.  It would be even worse for the smaller guys that can't even field 5-10 and have no alliances at all.

Two largest nations should never be allowed to have alliance with one another.   While we can use the voting system to decide who is the most active population, it can be messed with to scew the numbers by just not voting.  So I think the rule should be the number of regions they own. If they are the two top owners of the regions they should not be allowed to make an alliance with one another. I'm more extreme and even think they should be forced at war with each other to be honest.  This will force them to take in smaller nations as there alliance and force nations to actually fight each other and over the special regions.

[monk33y]

You will learn (as I have) that if you propose anything that alters the games currant format/alliance system you will be labelled a nation hater and a game hater.

The historical big strong nations will never allow their nations strength to be adjusted for the fear they'll loose or become weak.

The bigger nations it would seem, have the Devs ear!