A failed port battle is a "raid".

[Slamz]

tl;dr: Putting a port into 100% contention causes problems for that team regardless of how the port battle turns out.

Random thought of the day:

If you build 100% contention on a port, this is a "raid" and lasts 48 hours.

While in a raid state, the county generates no trade goods, will not buy trade goods (or only pays "1" for them) and player buildings produce labor hours at 50% rate.

I was just thinking that while contention often generates PvP, a smart team that was confident in their port battle fleet could simply ignore contention grinds. Let the contention happen, show up for the port battle, done. Costs them less time, less risk, no counter-grind and they win.

I think this is such a huge risk that when people realize what I have just said, nobody will grind ports anymore unless they were really sure they could win the port battle. It would be a tremendous waste of time to grind contention, get no PvP out of it and not be able to win the port battle. You accomplished literally nothing in that case.

 

So let 100% contention mean something:

It means the county is screwed up for 48 hours. Better go out there and fight those contention grinders!

Edited July 26, 2017 by Slamz

[Vizzini]

Or perhaps steal everything stashed in the port by the opposition , inventory of players , ships  or whatever

 

might increase the qq a bit too much tho , imagine 1 durability ports

[Hethwill]

11 minutes ago, Vizzini said:

Or perhaps steal everything stashed in the port by the opposition , inventory of players , ships  or whatever

 

might increase the qq a bit too much tho , imagine 1 durability ports

Yes.

But locking the Facilities in the port for one entire cycle could be an idea.

First and foremost, how does the machine knows the difference between a mock-up show up and retreat and a failed port battle ?

[Vllad]

39 minutes ago, Vizzini said:

Or perhaps steal everything stashed in the port by the opposition , inventory of players , ships  or whatever

 

might increase the qq a bit too much tho , imagine 1 durability ports

I like this!

[CatSwift]

28 minutes ago, The Red Duke said:

First and foremost, how does the machine knows the difference between a mock-up show up and retreat and a failed port battle ?

I'm pretty sure the OP only concerns that the port is currently in 100% contention, and has nothing to do with the actual results of the port battle.

The subject of the thread could be written more clearly.

[Slamz]

My intention is really that the 100% contention causes this "raid" debuff to go on the port without regard to the outcome of the port battle.

Whether you show up and lose, show up and win or don't show up at all results in the same effect: 48 hour port debuff.

(I think even if you win the port battle it's reasonable to assume the port is in chaos for another day, before it settles and is fully working again.)

[Slamz]

23 minutes ago, Wraith said:

So you're giving even more power to the Zerg nations with no penalty at all to the attacker for not showing up to said port battle?

This doesn't benefit the zerg nation, though: they would simply flip your port. Why bother raiding when you can just win the port battle and take the whole thing?

(Although... another interesting option might be that a "raid" gives a team 1 point on the conquest scoreboard and the lead team cannot generate raids... or maybe it's something that ONLY 3rd place and below can do.)

It helps the non-zerg teams that don't think they can win port battles. They can go ahead and put the county into contention which generates SOME trouble for the enemy but when the zerg shows up to defend the port with 25 ideally outfitted PB ships + 25 screeners, it's not a wasted effort to have done the contention.

So even the zerg must stop contention flips. They can't simply lean on their PB defense fleets to basically avoid RvR.

For a specific example, it seems like nobody wants to attack a Pirate port on PvP-Global because they don't think they can win the PB against the defenses + the screeners. But they can probably manage contention.

With this raid mechanic, the Pirates would have to come out and win the open world PvP fights rather than rely on their 1st rate PB defense fleets. I basically think it would generate more PvP and would be of little value to any team that can win port battles anyway.

[CaptVonGunn]

How is it a raid ? A Raid is moving in stealing ships from the Harbor in a Cutting out or landing and stealing stuff and destroying or stuff then leaving....  Showing up losing is a Failed Attack.. not the same thing

[Tenet]

Right now hostility can be raised to 100% in about two hours depending on the fleet spawns, using the all too known Fleet-Refill method. 

This means that in some ports low on fleets hostility is a huge challenge requiring 4-6 hours of grinding.

In other ports it's a 1-2 hour rapid offense with most nations unable to respond in time. 

I cannot support your potentially good idea while Hostility raising is PvE and Luck based.

[Barbancourt]

Too much chaos will drive players away from the game.  It's bad enough losing your ships when invaders descend to gank the weak , but not being able to craft or trade either means you might as well find something else to play for a week.  The game takes enough time when you're successful - it's a major league waste of time when you aren't. 

 

[AlteSocken]

8 hours ago, CaptVonGunn said:

How is it a raid ?

Then maybe call it a blockade, the name does not matter anyway imho.

I like this idea.

[Slamz]

16 hours ago, Barbancourt (rownd) said:

Too much chaos will drive players away from the game.

I think it's too much stability that drives players away from the game.

Chaos is great in gaming. Something new to think about every day. Stability is boring and when players get bored, they stop logging in.

[Barbancourt]

4 hours ago, Slamz said:

I think it's too much stability that drives players away from the game.

Chaos is great in gaming. Something new to think about every day. Stability is boring and when players get bored, they stop logging in.

I think most people like to be able to make some progress, instead of constantly getting stomped into the dirt and taking far too long to collect necessary resources. 

 

[Slamz]

37 minutes ago, Barbancourt (rownd) said:

I think most people like to be able to make some progress, instead of constantly getting stomped into the dirt and taking far too long to collect necessary resources.

Is that a real problem?

Has anyone actually experienced being stomped so bad that they can't play? Like they can't even afford a Snow to go out and PvP in? I imagine a zerg capital camping a small team could lock them in like that but I feel like mostly when I hear these type of complaints they are coming from British or French or some other team that had perhaps gotten a bloody nose but is far from being "stomped".

Maybe you mean "stomped" as in they can no longer easily access the ship of their dreams. They can't get the white oak they need for their LO/WO Santissima. But to me that's just "I can't afford this luxury item".

If you can't scrape together a fir/fir Surprise THEN you're stomped and I'd be curious how that happened.

[Barbancourt]

6 minutes ago, Slamz said:

Is that a real problem?

Has anyone actually experienced being stomped so bad that they can't play? Like they can't even afford a Snow to go out and PvP in?

 

You propose a situation where hostility is brought up to 100% against a region, so it seems that there must be some kind of stomping going in that senario.  What good is a Snow in that senario?  Then you propose on top of that cutting trade profit and labor hours during this hostility, which would effectively eliminate trade and crafting which already eat up a lot of time when things are easy so why would you waste your time trying if they get a lot harder.  My comment is that making the tedium of trade and crafting even harder for people when they've already got a conflict to worry about is just going to discourage a lot of people from playing.

 

[Slamz]

8 minutes ago, Barbancourt (rownd) said:

Then you propose on top of that cutting trade profit and labor hours during this hostility, which would effectively eliminate trade and crafting which already eat up a lot of time when things are easy so why would you waste your time trying if they get a lot harder. 

If we are talking about the zerg doing this to a small team then you have to realize that raid mechanic or not, they will simply take the port away from you completely. Why raid if you can just take it?

The whole point of a "raid", regardless of the mechanics of its implementation, is a way for a team that cannot win port battles to damage a team that cannot lose port battles.

Edited July 27, 2017 by Slamz