Screening = griefing?

[Corona Lisa]

2 minutes ago, Yar Matey said:

1)  2 min no attack timer:  Once you are plopped back into open world you cannot be attacked for 2 minutes.  It doesn't sound like it would make a huge difference theoretically, but having 4x the amount of time (currently 30 seconds), will make screening harder as the attacking fleet has more time to position, sail, join port battle once out of a screening battle.  Screeners, in theory, should get 1 shot at stopping the fleet, maybe 2 chances.  I think making the no attack timer 2 min would significantly improve the odds of a fleet to making it to the port battle. 

2)  Being able to join the port battle from a much farther distance from the port:  Once you are within a certain distance from the port, you should be able to join the battle.  Once you are in range of the port, you should get an option in the upper right hand corner of the map to join the port battle.  However, you should also start in the port battle at a farther distance from the capture regions based on where you enter in open world. 

I like 1, but I think 2 is useless because when you cant join from close range you pretty much autolose most of the time (we did that in Nuevitas and we lost in points before we could reach the closest circle).

Thats not enough.

[Yar Matey]

24 minutes ago, JonSnowLetsGo said:

I like 1, but I think 2 is useless because when you cant join from close range you pretty much autolose most of the time (we did that in Nuevitas and we lost in points before we could reach the closest circle).

Thats not enough.

One of the things I noticed that makes joining port battles a real pain in the XXX is having to click on the damn swords and then clicking join in the upper right hand corner.  Sometimes there will be so many ships surrounding the swords I cannot physically click on the swords and I end up clicking a ship instead, or I click a ship and the swords and the information on the ship covers the join option, or there is just so much lag and low FPS that my game becomes unresponsive for a few seconds.  This happened to me at the windward island port battle and 4-5 of our Agamemnon's got stuck in a screening fleet battle that should have never happened because we were all within range of joining the port battle and all 4-5 of our Agamemnon's that were supposed to be in the port battle got sunk by 3rd and 2nd rates and many frigates. 

Just give me a notification in the upper right hand corner of my screen that says:  Join port battle.  You click it and you are in. 

Edited February 2, 2017 by Yar Matey

[Lord Vicious]

3 hours ago, JonSnowLetsGo said:

Doesnt change much, because you still will get screened by some random shitfleet outside of that circle most of the time.

 

i am talking about a new circle way bigger,    not the circle of join

 

~ Address other players correctly. Unacceptable remark removed. ~ The Moderation Team

 

[JollyRoger1516]

4 hours ago, Alan Demarest said:

All I can say is that I am sick and tired of "screening".

I play this game to have battles, not sit in empty port while watching points tick up, because enemy fleet can't get in to fight us.

In what historical setting did a battle outside of a port prevent the fleet from attacking the port after the battle? Did the admirals in question go, "Oh shoot, it'll be outside the orders the admirality gave me! Better sail back!"

Ok you can bring forth a lot of arguments in this discussion but that one is just pure bullshit. Navies would constantly fight delaying actions with mxied or unconclusive results. This was meant to buy the land defenses time to set up meaning that by the time the screen was broken there was no chance anymore to get the marines ashore without massive losses. The french screen near Yorktown even emant that the fleet sent to evacuate Cornwiallis army could not safely reach shore and had to abort leaving an entire army trapped ashore and thereby allowing the US to become the US for good.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, JollyRoger1516 said:

Ok you can bring forth a lot of arguments in this discussion but that one is just pure bullshit. Navies would constantly fight delaying actions with mxied or unconclusive results. This was meant to buy the land defenses time to set up meaning that by the time the screen was broken there was no chance anymore to get the marines ashore without massive losses. The french screen near Yorktown even emant that the fleet sent to evacuate Cornwiallis army could not safely reach shore and had to abort leaving an entire army trapped ashore and thereby allowing the US to become the US for good.

Except that he's talking about how these minor delays against underpowered opponents in-game don't make sense as a reason for the attacking fleet to not keep pushing just because it's outside of the mission envelope - hardly the same as your example of 24 French SOLs delaying 19 British SOLs. Are there examples of considerably underpowered fleets delaying enemies in such a manner?

[elite92]

11 hours ago, Lord Vicious said:

i am talking about a new circle way bigger,    not the circle of join

 

~ Address other players correctly. Unacceptable remark removed. ~ The Moderation Team

 

lol, btw what about a circle big like the region? i mean when u enter the region area of a port battle scheduled today the BR needed to drag u in doubles (x2)

[Koltes]

On 2/3/2017 at 4:45 AM, JonSnowLetsGo said:

How can screening be fun?

Screening is fun as soon as you have to fight and you try to sink the enemy fleet instead of just delaying it. Here are 2 ideas on how to fix it:

Solution 1

Screening should be used to challenge the PB fleet with the intention of sinking it. Therefore we could increase the BR needed to attack other ships. For example if you would drag in a fleet with at least 20 ships you need 70% of their BR.

Solution 2

Step 1: Put a PvP zone around a region. It is used to generate hostilty and its used for screening. When your alliance dominate the zone (has more BR in there) or you sink enemy ships you will get hostility. You will have to gain it to a certain limit and when you can reach it the PB will be set up for the next day (24 hours later).

Step 2: PB will be lobbybased, people who gained the most hostility can join first (like it is now). Its basically the final of a long fight of the day before.

Additional rules for the 1st phase:

To make it fair and fun for all sides, limit the maximum BR per battle to 3000BR (there can be ofc multiple battles at once). This way pure numbers alone wont win you this phase and it also promotes to use a lot of different ships.

Kills gain a lot of hostility compared to just having dominance in that zone. This way fighting gets promoted and sitting in the zone and avoiding combat is not a good option.

Why BR and not number of ships in that zone to gain dominance? Because otherwise you could pick fast ships only and avoid fighting.

Its easy to understand, it promotes fighting and everyone can get involved.

 

Fix pls

I completely agree that screening mechanic and whats more devs support of it is killing the PB.

I disagree with your first solution because its still a part of another broken mechanic that is taging itself based on relative BR.

My strong believe is that in true PVP world anyone should be able to attack anybody. That is attacking ONE ship. Then the rate of your ship plus your rank should give a PULL STRENGHT (PS) in BR. So if your PS is 1000BR then you can pull ships of maximum 1000BR in total. And you should be able to pull them manually. Then anyone should be able to join ANY battles no matter their BR. Also attacking AI should NEVER pull players in. So this tagging mechanic would sort your screening issue. 

Second solution is better, but i think devs need to start with the actual PB mechanic. The actual PBs are more important. While testing they should allow people to join PBs from lobby just for testing purpose. Once we set on PB mechanic, then they need to work on join mechanic. 

Generally, ive been advising this for months now - join PB deployment screen soon as you are in the region that is opened 15 min prior the battle. Then let the clan who flipped the hostility to decide who they are taking to the fight so they have opportunity to fill in with their own players. Then participating slots open 5 min before battle starts so others have opportunity to join.

 

On 2/3/2017 at 5:25 AM, Yar Matey said:

Port battles themselves are good and fun, but the process to get to a port battle, all of that needs to change and ships need to be rebalanced badly. 

Agreed with everything except this. PBs are not good and not fun. You think that because today they offer the best PVP content that allows team on team. However they are not "port battles" of age of sails. Its like making super detailed spaceships, fully customizable and realistic like in StarCitizen and then use these ships in an arcade game like Galaga.

There is lots can be done about improving PBs and with amazingly minimal resources or changes.

 

On 2/3/2017 at 6:12 AM, Lord Vicious said:

If the screeners need to commit a real fight with a real fleet ,i would not mind be screen out and not reach the pb if at list i get a good fight after 2h of sail/organize and 2h for farm that damn port:

I HAVE A VERY EASY AND LOGICAL SOLUTION FOR THE DEVS:

Each port:

will have an area like capitals green zone where inside such area the br needed for tag is 50%? 60%?

That way ppl need to committ a real fleet

You are trying to fix some parts of the mechanic that is broken at the core.

Screening should be implemented into the actual PB mechanics and be part of conquest. Screening battle needs to be fought in order to gain access to the actual PB. Then if you brought more people they have opportunity to fight too.

In fact if conquest will be done as suggested (in order to claim a region you have to fight in all Ports of that region and take them all), then winning screening will be required in order to gain access to each port. This creates PVP action that removes timers of Naval Inaction.

Edited February 4, 2017 by koltes