The future of Conquest

[Anolytic]

Considering that the game that we have now pretty much revolves around RvR, and devs have made statements previously to the effect that they want to force (push) every player into RvR-involvement (cf. discarded land ownership idea, resource wars etc), I feel like remarkably little has been said on the matter of RvR in connection with this particular much anticipated wipe and patch.

 

How does RvR fit into the new direction of the game?

Will Conquest even remain? Or are Port Battles-being relatively fair battles normally-about to be phased out and put into the coming Arena game instead as they don't fit the current direction?

Will hostility generation remain, even though missions and PvE are getting cut, making it on testbed practically impossible to generate port battles in some areas? Or will we get a new flag-system or other system where we spend gold and/or Marks to create port battles?

Is the goal for port battles, which is the content that many of us primarily log in to take part in, to still be a daily occurrence, or will it be a lot rarer, requiring us to grind for a long time between each Port battle to set up the next one?

 

In most other aspects of the game, devs are saying that balance, easy access and fairness are no longer priorities. The world is a harsh place, the open ocean was doubly so. But for RvR to be viable, some semblance of balance needs to be maintained. Sailing and the partial removal of teleports actually promotes this balance. By making it harder to concentrate forces, and making defence an effort more equal to attack. As long as no-one holds to the illusion that territories should ever be equally sized for small nations as for large.

However, the removal of compensation for losses and the increased effort to build ships threatens this balance. If one nation builds a strong fleet, and is able to sink part of the other nation’s fleet in a Port Battle with minor losses themselves. The defeated nation will get no compensation or marks that they can use to rebuild their fleet or regain their loss, and the next day the first nation can attack again before the enemy can grind to replace their ships. A lot of territory could change hands before the defenders are able to rebuild their fleet. How will this be sorted and balanced to prevent nations from being stomped at and kept from ever rebuilding? 

With resource production being all player-driven, and territories being key to production access, the efforts and results of RvR-players will have very considerable impact on the gameplay and competitiveness of non-RvR PvP-players, crafters, traders and PvE-ers alike. This could force more and more players to switch to the larger nations with more possibilities, or give up and stop playing altogether. How will the number of nations we have in-game today be maintained and kept viable?

[Ned Low]

35 minutes ago, Anolytic said:

If one nation builds a strong fleet, and is able to sink part of the other nation’s fleet in a Port Battle with minor losses themselves. The defeated nation will get no compensation or marks that they can use to rebuild their fleet or regain their loss, and the next day the first nation can attack again before the enemy can grind to replace their ships.

What happens here is people loose interest and game dies. Did I not mention rewards are important in both loose or win situations? 

Edited May 3, 2017 by Ned Low

[Powderhorn]

It seems you're asking about the issue of Hegemony.  Perhaps you might find it useful to review the thread from a year ago on the subject:

 

[Ned Low]

3 hours ago, Powderhorn said:

It seems you're asking about the issue of Hegemony.  Perhaps you might find it useful to review the thread from a year ago on the subject:

 

What you are reading above is a message that tells all of us about problems that can hurt NA down the road. Let me explain how. 

Let me tell you what dominance is and NA should be very afraid of it. ex. One clan decides to rule the world and it will happen after release. Let's say a nice number of Vets come together and join a specific Nation. That nation will beat (New Player Nations) so hard that new players will say "@@@@ it",  It is very important to fix the problem now and make sure it's working properly before it's too late. Unfortunately Naval Action as it is right now can be exploited and destroyed in less than a month. 

How can we prevent this?

Edited May 3, 2017 by Ned Low

[admin]

the main unsolved question of conquest is this:

1. is it slow and deliberate (arranged) like the tournaments - with limited number of PB per day (full PBs)
2. or is it sandbox style - conquer everything if you wish to sail there with no limits on conquest 

first one is a show of force where only the strongest win.
second one allows smaller nations to operate and reconquer by operation outside of main routes of strongest nations.

all the other mechanics are somewhat tested and do not have unsolved answers
maybe with the lack of teleports the limits on the number of PBs should be removed. Nations should attack ports as they see fit in the regions they are willing to sail to. 

[Powderhorn]

Ultimately, the question of Conquest ties into the question of port battle timers.  The first is sort of what the EU server is going to look like (sort of, as it's only semi-restricted), the second is what the Global server is going to look like.

I think, regardless of what happens, we should take note from the board game Diplomacy.  Seven nations conquering Europe.  Control half+2 Supply centers, and you win the game.  Similarly, in Naval Action, we will need "Win" conditions, with rewards and the like.  Control half the map and you "win," map resets, winners get X, losers get significantly less X or none at all.

Then you have to answer the question of, "How do you schedule port battles?"  We've gone around and around for years on this one.  How do we make a round Earth flat without distortion?  If nations had certain time zone blocks affiliated with them, that might alleviate it AND allow us to re-merge the Global and EU servers.  If nations could vote on their own national time zone block, that'd help take the decision making out of the developers' hands.  Then they're semi-scheduled.

If you could take it a step further, you might have some sort of purchase system for PvP marks to get a flag, and schedule the flag 2 days out.  People get a chance to organize a defense.  But perhaps they are only told which region it is, and the players take the flag on the day of the port battle to one of the ports in said region.  Defenders know the region, attackers choose the specific port.

Would take a little more work, but maybe, maybe all these things together would:

1.  Bring us back together on one server
2.  Remove the pain of off-hour port flips
3.  Resolve the issue of Hegemonic nations

[Ned Low]

39 minutes ago, admin said:

the main unsolved question of conquest is this:

1. is it slow and deliberate (arranged) like the tournaments - with limited number of PB per day (full PBs)
2. or is it sandbox style - conquer everything if you wish to sail there with no limits on conquest 

first one is a show of force where only the strongest win.
second one allows smaller nations to operate and reconquer by operation outside of main routes of strongest nations.

all the other mechanics are somewhat tested and do not have unsolved answers. 

Simple answer to this is - Allow Nations to protect themselves. ex. Small Nation who does not participate in War that much, but is focused on resource gathering should be able to build a massive defensive capabilities. I am talking upgrade and build more Forts, larger forts. We need tools that would allow Nation population to contribute resources to defend it's borders. We need teamwork = protection. If players deposit resources and money into National defensive or offensive capabilities we will see the result. 

So, when dominating Nation comes knocking at their door, the Victim will be able to defend themselves. What we have right now is whoever plays better will take everything. This means Vets will win Port Battles vs New players who just started and they will ruin their game play. So, how can small starting Nations protect themselves and their regions if their fighting capabilities are not that Advanced? 

Did you consider removing permanent territory capture? How about capture and hold for 7 days + points to win the map, after 7 days ports return to their original owners 'damaged' - reduced resource output, whoever held it for 7 days takes only points. 'Damaged' ports need teamwork to restore.

Reach 1000 points and win the map + get epic rewards for 1st , 2,3 places. Nations who fell under take underdog with bonus to XP and Loot next round. 

It's hard to tell, but if one nation takes ports non stop then they will be unstoppable and will sail in best ships burning everything on their way. 

In the end, I believe that making Nations fight for 1st place rewards is better than territory capture and world domination. Nations can damage each other , but they should not be able to destroy them.

Edited May 3, 2017 by Ned Low

[Cmdr RideZ]

10 minutes ago, admin said:

the main unsolved question of conquest is this:

Clans have to be able to agree about attacks.  There can be information about attacks as much earlier as you want but...

A specific clan has to be able to define their attack, their members are meant to get in.  It can be a flag they sail together to this port or what ever you want, but I think they have to be able to agree that on Friday 2000, we attack to Port X.  This makes it possible for people to have a real life, and helps casuals to stay in the game.

It cannot be that only biggest clans are able to attack, or clans that are most HC.  Casuals probably want to participate in RvR as well, and mechanism cannot be done so that some HC nolife is defining rules for the rest.

 

An idea, not sure if the best, in case a small nation gets attacked a lot...  Maybe small nations could have teleports.  If all are more or less equal, none will have.  Also, probably will help you to balance your nations

[shaeberle84]

21 minutes ago, admin said:

the main unsolved question of conquest is this:

1. is it slow and deliberate (arranged) like the tournaments - with limited number of PB per day (full PBs)
2. or is it sandbox style - conquer everything if you wish to sail there with no limits on conquest 

first one is a show of force where only the strongest win.
second one allows smaller nations to operate and reconquer by operation outside of main routes of strongest nations.

all the other mechanics are somewhat tested and do not have unsolved answers
maybe with the lack of teleports the limits on the number of PBs should be removed. Nations should attack ports as they see fit in the regions they are willing to sail to. 

Removing limits on port battles results in steamrolls of larger nations over smaller nations. Or timezone-divers nations over timezone-restricted nations.

We had it before, we do not want it. This actually causes hardcore players to quit. This cannot be what you want.

 

We first need a new mechanic to raise hostility that is not based on pure PVE, that is missions against NPCs. It should, however, also not be purely be bases on PVP. If a large nation has many provinces and they are sparely populated, it will be difficult or even impossible to raise hostility.

 

In short, we need RAIDs!

 

Raids to raise hostility.

Raids to have the sandboy-style conquer everything feeling, while still being able to make RvR deliberate.

And raids to be able to balance the HUGE advantage defenders have right now with very strong towers and defences. Basically raids should be able to destroy towers before a port battle to even the odds. (Only if sucessfull of course.)

[Fellvred]

Getting rid of the limit of PBs will probably create just as many problems as it solves. One of the main reasons is that there are no real downsides to having a huge empire (especially with defending port battles being much easier than they used to).

As we'll soon have an item to switch nations on the servers it seems like a good time to test dynamic buffs and debuffs depending on the size of a nation and the players in it. The aim would be to give players an incentive to move to the lower populated nations but 'taxing' players in the larger nations and help create multi front wars.

For example, after a while the new EU PvP server may have 40-50% GB players and control a massive number of ports. All GB players would receive a dynamic debuff (30%?) on all gold, xp, marks and items received. In the same way a smaller nation which may have started with/pushed back to one region would have a dynamic buff of similar size. 

Obviously you'd have to look at not applying the debuffs to new players etc but it might be worth a try.

[Sir Texas Sir]

Even though I would prefer this more for a pirates system, but it would work with any one.  Keep the current system for conquest and agro we have but add int raids.  

Raids are 12 man teams like the old flag system.  I picked 12 cause that is one large group/party and you don't need the full 25 man teams.   They pull the flag and raid a PORT not a region.  That port will have a battle, but there is only one goal, the not three capture circles.  Just the "A" Circle.  Who ever wins the points by either control of it or sinking of the ships wins the raid.  Can make it 500 Points instead of 1000.   If the raid is successful it does auto 25% agro on that region.  If it was defended it removes 25% agro.   You can raid a region as many times as you want in a 24 hour period as it has ports.  Each port though though has a 24-48 hour cool down after it's been raided before it can be raided again.  If  port is captured than it belongs to that nation for 36 hours and than it can return to original owners (this was more a pirate raid concept part if they didn't have conquest).  So you don't have to raid 4 ports to flip a region, if you want to disturb a nations production you can just raid one port ever couple of days.

This will allow you to get agro through PvP and not the silly grind that we have currently.   We still have the old system for the smaller nations or the slower grind off off peak hours.  Remember there is not such thing as night flips on a global server.  If I'm going to attack you wouldn't I be start to do it while your pants or down if I can.  You don't like it take it back during you peak time instead.  With a more balanced population than it would be easier to fill the 12 vs 12 raids during those off times.  While we keep the 25 vs 25 battles to for control over the regions. 5

[captain pips]

another idea to keep nations balanced:every nations starts with a battlerating limit on portbattles (e.g 10000 points).if a nation owns more than 10 regions ,they get a minus of 10% on that br limit and a small nation with just 1 region gets plus of 10% or whatever.

the bigger a nation is,the less points they get on portbattles to give smaller nations a chance to defend themselves .

just an idea.what do you think?

[Ned Low]

28 minutes ago, Rickard said:

NO ! the very dumbed down hostility system you got into the game is not the same as this one.(so please dont use that as a argument)

It's beautiful, the only problem with that is balance and OS travel speed. These 2 hold the key to successful and working hostility system. 

Edited May 3, 2017 by Ned Low

[Teutonic]

I would keep in mind concerning hostility and port battles is that we need to make sure that we don't allow the best way to defend a region is by "not being there." 

The worst thing that can happen, in my opinion, is that myself and my friends can never get a PB to happen because the enemy stays away from the region and there is not enough NPCs to grind it up. 

I don't know if the admins fixed the fleet spawning problem in 4th rate regions, but it's still irritating to be deep in spanish territory and then only find US ships for example.

[Hethwill]

Has to be both sides showing interest in the region, owners providing stability and enemies working on hostility, with trade providing demand goods or cash for produce, combat against intruders. Overall showing interest in the region and not conquest just to paint a map.

[Sir Texas Sir]

55 minutes ago, The Red Duke said:

Has to be both sides showing interest in the region, owners providing stability and enemies working on hostility, with trade providing demand goods or cash for produce, combat against intruders. Overall showing interest in the region and not conquest just to paint a map.

This is why I'm excited about the merge and having more folks and hopefully more balanced nations.  It gets a bit boring when you have one sided wars or one or two nations only fight the little guy, but if any one brings equal numbers they run (problem on PvP2).   Going to be a new game for sure.  Just hope folks keep to there word about fighting each other and trying to get the population more balanced.  I can live with one or two big nations, but they don't need to be in a super alliances and owning the whole map and if a small nation even tries to get a port or two crushing them.   It just wasn't good for the game.

I still think small pop nations should be allow alliances.  Population isn't going to be the way to balance it, it should be off how many regions you own.   If you have under a certain amount you can make an alliance with another small nation, but you get over so big you can't keep the alliances.  There is nothing stopping folks from having a verbal agreement, but with clans and such that won't work for all the nation.  You might still have some clans that want to war between the other nation.

[Bommel]

Why use kills to raise hostillity? Why not use a heat map?

If a certain amount of traffic of nation A is in a region of Nation B and there isn´t any or less traffic from the owners, the region will become vulnerable over time.

This way Nations are forced to be actively travel/occupy the waters they want to defend/attack.

[Powderhorn]

I'm in favor of PvP marks for conquest / raid flags because it does a few things:

It forces people to PvP for conquest

It already exists in the game

The flag system worked well, and just needed the delay of two days to work more perfectly.

In a nutshell, it simplifies a lot of things.

[Powderhorn]

10 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

PvP marks for conquest will result in a quite static map.

We already need the Pvp marks for ships, skill books and figureheads. Do you really think people is going to give his pvp marks for a PB that might not even happen?

Now I know I'm on the right path.  Port battles should be exceptional, not half a dozen a day.

[Grundgemunkey]

7 minutes ago, Powderhorn said:

Now I know I'm on the right path.  Port battles should be exceptional, not half a dozen a day.

why does everything have to be exceptional and not trhe norm ....1st rates should be exceptional and rare ..port battles should only be fought on the 6th tuesday of the month ...

im afraid  people are getting carried away ....its a game

why dont we go the whole way and make it real time sailing in ow ... you have to provide medical evidence to the devs  that you wear an eye patch and have at least one limb missing before you can sail a pirate frigate

....make it fun or it will be empty

[Iroquois Confederacy]

2 hours ago, Grundgemunkey said:

why does everything have to be exceptional and not trhe norm ....1st rates should be exceptional and rare ..port battles should only be fought on the 6th tuesday of the month ...

im afraid  people are getting carried away ....its a game

why dont we go the whole way and make it real time sailing in ow ... you have to provide medical evidence to the devs  that you wear an eye patch and have at least one limb missing before you can sail a pirate frigate

....make it fun or it will be empty

Thoughts like this seem out of line with the developers intent.  If they want to push things hard core (which recent posts seem to suggest), why wouldn't port battles be hard core too?  You wouldn't say the world is a serious, tough place and then say, "Except for port battles.  Those are happy happy fun make believe land."

With that, PvP marks for conquest make a lot of sense.  Yes, they are used for many things.  GOOD!  That means if you want to lead, you have to LEAD.  Give up some self interest (figureheads) for the greater good (port conquest).

Port Battles should be a national effort, with REAL costs to match the very real consequences.

Anything else belongs in the Arena.

[The Spud]

Both of the mechanics, hostility and conquest have their disadvantages.

The hostility mechanic works great in creating a cooperation amongst a nation, but at the same time it created the meta where it would be nearly always the same people fighting eachother. With nearly always the same ships. Attacks on PB's were more often lost then won. For instance it took the french maybe 10 tries to get castries back, and they never took Bridgetown. Some ports like Salamanca are uncapturable if the enemy can plan their defence. And the whole screening ordeal was something heavily discussed and often heavily depends on player numbers.

The conquest flag is much more dynamic, some attacks are well prepared, some were just a bunch of random people and ships having a go at a random port. Downside is you kinda need timers, otherwise you can have one clan just take a couple or regions during other peoples downtime. But timers are not realy what people want, otherwise we would all play on the EU server and not Global. Someone proposed once to have the timergap get bigger the longer a port is uncaptured, so after two weeks you could cap it at any time. With the no TP to freeports, attacks on a safe area might be less of a problem. And due to it being regions that get capped, I doubt we would ever see empty PB's.

PvP points for conquest flags would be a good idea, as they'll prevent alts from buying flags and they'll make flags expensive enough to not spam them.

[shaeberle84]

36 minutes ago, rediii said:

The PvE thing is a huge problem. Just let people draw flags, do a small portbattle and if they succeed the portbattle is scheduled.

 

Or even better, make conquest flags a thing again. It made so much more fun.

Old conquest flags for RAIDs to increase hostility for real PORT BATTLEs.

Successfull raids increase hostility by 20%, unsuccessfull raid decreases hostility by 10% (to stop spamming flags).

Successfull raids AFTER PB has been scheduled destroys one tower or fortress in the Port Battle to level the playing field for the attackers.

[Daniboy3000]

Why not combine both systems. First you have to sail a conquest flag to the port (can be intercepted), if you successfully managed to plant it, then

42hrs (or whatever time choosen) a PB is scheduled.

[Barbancourt]

16 hours ago, Powderhorn said:

Now I know I'm on the right path.  Port battles should be exceptional, not half a dozen a day.

Too exceptional means most of the players don't get to take part.  That's probably just fine for the exceptional few, but hardly satisfying for most.