Preliminary discussion of the changes to conquest - clan wars are coming

[Kanay]

Not really sure what to think of all this yet.

Nations becoming useless and instead of having pops moving from one nation to a dominant Nation you will have now players moving from one clan to the bigger ones.

What about pirates ? will they finally be the hardcore mode they were supposed to be or not ? Will they still be a regular Nation like others able to control regions and put taxes? Or will they have a limited number of crew not allowing them to fully man the bigger ships? Like 500-600 crew max if you are a pirate ( one free option is that they will have the fleet perk for one ship being part of them game mechanics, they can naturally cap and add a ship to fleet directly without needing a perk for that.)
Instead of conquests they will raid war companies owned ports and pillage them or simply add a kind of max 4th rates kind of PB for them, again capitals excluded from this for obvious reasons.

Speaking of flags, put a long cool-down on flags if the region was successively defended, no more flags possible to be raised again by the company for this same port during 3 weeks and maybe limit the number of flags one company can raise per week or 2 weeks to make conquests slow down, one flag possible ot be raised per week for example, but if attacked by a company it gets an extra counter attack flag possible, this flag will have to be raised against the company attacking them.


Control and taxes... first exclude capitals of this, it's mandatory or capitals will be a mess, keep them safe from this, now on the regions the taxes will be on buy & sell contracts or on everything ?If i buy 10 oak logs from the shop of a port controlled by  X that put 25% taxes on it will i pay 25% tax on this or will the taxes be only on buy / sell contracts like now 5% for buy/sell and 10% for selling ships ?

Do not allow entry in all ports, instead remove smuggler flags and let the owners of the port deliver a permit for traders of other Nations to come, the company decides what type of permit: enter only with a trader ( no fleet) or with a trader having a warship fleet escort, members of the war company delivering the permit to trade cannot attack the trader, other members of them Nation can do it, still will be heavily used by alts tho... but not more risky than now. And no permits for warships entries, this will lead to too much abuses.

Trading permits will be delivered (at a price decided by the port owner company maybe ?), for a period of let's say one month, if the port owner is not happy with the traders they can revoke the trading permit, owner is informed and have one week to take measures before it becomes inactive, in this case money invested in the permit can be brought back automatically to avoid scam.

Same thing for exploitation of resources permits, owning company delivers a permit for a month to collect some stones for example, applies a fixed tax on each extraction of products, owning war company cannot attack the owner of the permit, company can revoke permit before the end, cash is returned to the player to avoid scam.

Taxes should be set once and not allowed to change each days, same for changing/leaving clans or Nations, put a long cooldown on this, when i say long it's not 2 weeks only... if a company sets a tax at 5% then raise it to 25% once many installed there it will be just bad, a notice should be set to the trader or worker one week before the taxes rate changes maybe, and during this week he will be free to remove a building and get back a part of the cash invested there maybe.

If a region switches of owner the new owner will have to honor the contract of the previous owner as long as they stand, if i own a trading permit of one month in a region + one building permit for one month and the region switches 2 weeks after getting my permits i have still 2 weeks to do my things and potentially move out, new owners can also not attack me, if new owners permits and taxes prices is correct i can decide to renew my permits and exploitation rights.

Otherwise it will just be constant scam with regions switching hands between 2 Nations clans that are partners in crime or alts for that matter, making players loose everything they have invested in a region with simple tricks ...

After all the companies have all interests in making them regions becoming a good healthy and safe trading area so they can collect taxes from it, if a trader is only there sitting to spy they can revoke the permit, a week later the trader will not have the right to come back anymore... Meanwhile they can ask any Nation member to take it out.

Make a rating system for War companies, players who dealt with them getting permits for trading and mining or farming can rate them, trustful companies keeping traders safe and happy with low taxes will be more attractive than those using tricks to bring them in an area and use alts to attack them, or raising the taxes too high once many guys are installed there.

Members of war companies don't pay any taxes in a region they own ( can also not vote for the company trust rating of course ), they have all taxes removed from the region they own.

On the free ports the owners will have more choices, either no entry at all for enemy ships, only traders, traders+fleet , or any ship including warships.

I play as solo player, well a one man clan to be exact, i am happy to not be in a clan with all the mess the politics are in this game, or when a clan is not happy and leaves for another faction, or decisions taken often not going in the general interest of the Nations but in the general interest of the biggest clans taking the decisions. 
I don't give a crap about sailing first rates or SOL's, i'm happy with 5th's and lower, i do my stuff in game, try to help when it's possible, do pvp when the occasion presents and spend time in traders collecting mats and so on for my crafting and trading, used to love doing screening and help the Nation ( and not only in npc crappy ships, no matter if i had to loose a ship it was fun and often worth the effort if it helped the Nation in the PB ) but now this is avoided by many actions in game tho...
 
Anyways i do a bit of all and depending the mood i do what pleases me. I see some potential good opportunities with the proposed system if there is some tweaks done, i see also a lot of downsides on it if things like capitals are not excluded from this and protected, or the market completely deregulated and taxes allowed to change when they want, with no warnings for the players who have invested in a region, no cooldown between the changes, same with flags if no large cooldown for attacking a same region, and limits for flags raised per week by a single company ... All this can turn into something new and interesting or another big mess that will be exploited by clans made entirely of alts working for another faction ( like we already have in game ) , or by different clans in different Nations being partners in crime... And Nations becoming an useless concept in what is supposed to be a realistic game...

Edited August 3, 2017 by Kanay

[Hethwill]

Nations, Vassals, Vice Royalties, States, ...

Make a War Company called Poland and make New Curland ports under your protection, make them vassals ?

[mikawa]

What happens if a have shipyard lvl 3 in a town which gets "capped" by a big global company rising high taxes? Should I close that oupost build shipyard elsewhere just to find out that in a week this town is also taken over by the same company? Considering shipyard prices I must say this would be the complete meltdown for all players who like their independence ... Is there no room for these people anymore? And the next question: what benefit has a company in *not* rising the taxes to the max?

Edited August 3, 2017 by mikawa

[Baptiste Gallouédec]

Can we have a clarification about the trans-national company matters ?

- Are company tied to players from a same nation or not ?

[mikawa]

I do not understand where the problem with small nations is. I play myself in a small nation and I like it.

[Kanay]

And i forgot: merge the servers, this will be useless in global server with the current population there.
 

[Sir Texas Sir]

31 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

We need more players per nation. To achieve this we need less nations, simple as that.

 

Remove nations, make pirates a no-nation.

French, Spain, GB, US, DUTCH/DANE/SWEDE(combine these) would give you 5 nations.  Than make Pirates a Privateer faction where if they have a LoM they can work for a nation, if they don't they are pirate/outlaws.  Only work out of free ports/pirate havens and no conquest.   

[Mamen]

2 hours ago, admin said:

Initial thinking was wrong about port entry..  giving an option to everyone to enter any port just creates too many opportunities to ruin the game for others

we will post an update later today on the port entry and starting and conquerable ports. In general we think we should stop trying to find the new type of wheel and copy working designs from Potbs or eve. 
 

you can also add in conqerable ports where rare woods are spawning possibility of building rare forests to War Companies members who own that port...also cobat mark income cause just gold tax income is not really attractive...

Edited August 3, 2017 by Mamen

[DrZoidberg]

at first sight it seems a chaotic, and game killer system again.

it seems to me, that u started conquest system without any conception, and u try to fix it with a chaotic, more complicated system. I feel that this system will kill or force the small clans to join to others, what is again a big mistake. I think this patch will make player base leak again, what can completly destroy your game. 

I hope my feelings are wrong, but usually not.

Make a new conquest system, what is not difficult, has balance and dont let big area changes on the map keep easy nations easy, hard nations hard. U have many other opportunities to defend new players. I dont think this patch will help in that.

Best regards ..

[Siegfried]

36 minutes ago, Kanay said:

And i forgot: merge the servers, this will be useless in global server with the current population there.
 

You are wellcome to EU server, one server that works fine.

[William Drayman]

35 minutes ago, Kanay said:

And i forgot: merge the servers, this will be useless in global server with the current population there.
 

Sorry mate, but all that would do is lose those who play the PVE server. The game needs a LOT of work before it's ready for a merge.

[Archaos]

8 minutes ago, Mamen said:

you can also add in conqerable ports where rare woods are spawning to make possibility to build rare forest buildings to War Companies members who own that port...also cobat mark income cause just gold tax income is not really attractive...

I think the tax income in ports that have rare materials and materials in high demand will be very attractive. Remember the tax is on production too so if someone has an Oak forest in that port at the tax rate is 10% and it costs 72g to harvest 1 log then the port is making 7.2g per log harvested. That soon mounts up to a hell of a lot of gold, I dont think you need other incentives to own ports. 

edit: at least I think that is how the tax system will work.

Edited August 3, 2017 by Archaos

[Mamen]

2 minutes ago, Archaos said:

I think the tax income in ports that have rare materials and materials in high demand will be very attractive. Remember the tax is on production too so if someone has an Oak forest in that port at the tax rate is 10% and it costs 72g to harvest 1 log then the port is making 7.2g per log harvested. That soon mounts up to a hell of a lot of gold, I dont think you need other incentives to own ports. 

edit: at least I think that is how the tax system will work.

Im not sure since when you sell ship 10% of what that tax would be... if tax is 10% and I will sell 9 logs then tax collector will get 0 or 1 of course Im messing now... but I think they've meant gold...

[Hethwill]

7 minutes ago, William Drayman said:

Sorry mate, but all that would do is lose those who play the PVE server. The game needs a LOT of work before it's ready for a merge.

PvE character, on birth, could be an idea ?

[DrZoidberg]

 

I suggest a new conquest (ruler) system. The war/play on the map should go for the Ruler of the Caribean title. In my system between two nation there will be 3 type of reletaionship. One can rule the other, and they can be equals (later can be 4, if there will be an alliance system implement in this). For example British can rule spanish, spanish can rule british and they can be equals. If british wants to rule spanish, they have to attack one of thier ports and win the port battle. If they rule the spanish, they shouldnt be able to attack any more port, but OS battles will be still enabled. The British should be able to use the spanish resources (with smuggler flag they should be able to bid on thier resources, or maybe they should able to make smuggler outposts in enemy ports can be usable only with trader ships). If the spanish attack back to a british port, and they win, they became equal (they both can attack again, and British smugglers can not bid  in spanish ports again), and if they win another PB (area) against british, they will rule  british (cannot attack them anymore, but can bid on resources). If a nation rule  all others (get one area form all others or lets say win 1 PB against all others, and not lose any), they become the ruler of the caribean, and they win the map. Then should be map and nation status reset (all equals), but every outposts, xp, ships and so one shouldnt be reseted in the starting areas. This system has loads of advantages. Strong nations capable to win has to attack all other nations, and they wont be able to anihilate or supress others (they can get only one area from one nation). The wars between nations will go for 1-2 important areas or lets say for winning PB-s, and not for getting huge play areas. It should work like a climbing ladder, win against (rule) 1 nation after 1.  In this system there are big chance that strong nations will deplete thier ship pool for the win, as they need to attack all others and defend against all others. Till the map reset (win) the national areas doesnt change much, so easy nation stay easy, hard nation stay hard even if they are ruler or underdog.  The system has the national balance in itselfs, as the strongest nation always against all others. This system doesnt bother the cross play, what i think u support nowdays, as smuggler on ruler side still can be attacked, so own a second character on the underdog side still has advantage.With this system there is one problem. There can be a situation, when nation(s) with small starting area (especially swedish, US) will have only the capitals at endgame. Solution is easy, when a nation rule  all others but one, the last attack should be on 1st rate port or on the last remaining (not ruled) nation capital. If the main ruler win, the map reset come! There should be some tricky situation, but its not that chaotic, as it seems. For example if swedish, british and spain equals, British attack Cartagena (spanish port) and win, they will rule  spanish. If swedish attack cartagena after that, and take it, they will rule  british, while british still rule  spanish. Another tricky situaton if only US not ruled by British and British  attack thier capital but before attack time they lose one port against another nation. In that case the capital attack should be canceled.  This system simple, isnt it? I dont think has so much game killer side effect that u plan to implement.

If u do this system, u have to make new port battle timer system aswell. I think there should be only 1 PB in every 2 (3) hours. The first nation who reach 100% tension at any port should get the first PB (after 22 h, 24 h or after 26 h, as u wish), next 100% tension port should get after 2 hour from the first PB start ( or more, like max PB time+5 min between  two PBs). If all PB time slot occupied on next day, rising tensions should be stay at 100% (no PB at 100%, and slow tension drop or deny  tension drop at all if they reach 100%) and the nation can grind the tension easily up to PB on the next day, and get the first PB time after that day.

If u do the conqest/ruler system, u have to let nations attack others far from home water, and help to defend or take back thier isolated ports. That wont work, if u dont let players to make outpost at least 1 freetown, with the capability to move there ships automatically (after sailing there for the outpost for sure) and switch to ship there. This can boost OS PVP very much, and if u let only 1 freetown outpost, main force of the nation will have the same freeport, while minor part can do solo trader hunting, smuggling with it. I think my system can work without making this change in freetown outpost system, but i feel it should be better with it. Maybe its not necessary.

Btw the main problem in the game now is not that there are supressed nations. They are stikll ghost nations, becuse of the mistakes u made u make still (sorry guyz).

U have to make all player life easier, u have to make OS movement easier.

There are a lot of boring sailing time implemented, 99% no action in it. This sailing are mostly ship rearrangement between outpost and for hauling. This OS sailing get players from real action, what is bad for them and for the rest.  Let all type of ships move automatically between outposts without cargo with 1 day penalty. In outposts should be an option to send ships to other outpost. The ships should get "on the way mark", and should arrive in targeted outpost at server reset or after 24 h (to avoid get advantage by fast rearrangement). This can give more active players on sea (PVE, PVP, smuggling, cargo hauling, exploring for outpost and for trading missons) against non active players. Btw automatic movement should help players struggled with ships in contested port aswell (struggling with ur best ship in a contested port can make player leak again, and can weaken low populated nations). Top of that i think ships from contested ports should move to the closest outpost automatically without any player action/intervention, so players after holyday or long work or just  a short break shouldnt get themselfes without thier best ships. I think till u not make OS sail easier, ur player base will always go below critical mass, and ur map wont work again and again appart from that what else u patch. I have that opinion appart form that there are lots of whining against making OS sailing easier. Those whiners are without real life, and im sure they wont leave the game, but normal players will sooner or later if they have to sail hours for some or none action. If u implement teleport system again, that is not good. Then the rearrangement (with no action) still stay in game with boring no action sailing, while u make cargo hauling easier, what is bad for trader hunting gametype.

Edited August 3, 2017 by DrZoidberg

[Archaos]

1 minute ago, Mamen said:

Im not sure since when you sell ship 10% of what that tax would be... if tax is 10% and I will sell 9 logs then tax collector will get 0 or 1 of course Im messing now... but I think they've meant gold...

As the game is at the moment you pay gold to harvest from your buildings, you pay gold to place a contract, and you pay gold to the market to buy items, so and all that gold goes to the game as a gold sink, with the new mechanics I would assume that instead of all that gold going to the sink that a percentage (i.e. the tax rate) would go to the port owner, so the prices should stay the same as they are now. The only item not currently taxed is the selling of items to the market.

[Archaos]

2 minutes ago, Bobzillah said:

lets see hmmmkaaay

• Potential results: This will completely eliminate alts from conquest and will stabilize the map for new players who will have an equal experience irrespectively of the nation chosen.
• Captains who are not a member of a chartered war company will be able to enter any port in any ship. 

not if the alt choose to enter a warcompany but then again the alts wil be more effective with no warcompany ,since then they can enter each port in each ship ....
so lets see i know the port where the enemie has its first rate pb fleet we stick a pvp (non warcompany) fleet in there with enough firepower and we can start screening from the beginning port instead of waiting at the port of the pb . 

this system can be a HUGE step foward but i have my doubts wether this wil be implemented correctly. hope it wil work out cause atm i just sit idle in a port .

A War Company is just a clan that participates in RvR, so if you allow a alt to join your War Company then its your own fault, I am sure if someone in your clan was messing up your port battles you would soon kick them out of the clan.

The access to all ports is going to be addressed according to the Devs post.

[Archaos]

3 minutes ago, Mrgoldstein said:

Its just bad, so the already rich,big clans will get more and more and the lone player or smaller clans will have an even harder time to make money because of taxes...

 

How is this good for new players?

But the way I see it (and I may be wrong) it will not cost you any more than you currently pay to harvest and buy goods, its just that the port owners get a cut of what would go to the gold sink. At least I hope thats how it works.

[Archaos]

1 minute ago, Bobzillah said:

a alt can start its own clan and then enter warcompany how is that anyones fault ....  and not just talking about entering a PB but about the screening aplications...

Again such an alt is just acting the way any other player would or could play, they are not taking a place in the port battle, they are not able to drag the attacking force into a false battle by being in the same nation, all they can do is screen for the attacking or defending War Company which is a lot better than it is at the moment.

[Archaos]

2 minutes ago, Mrgoldstein said:

I hope so, but i dont think so..it will probably come out of the player pockets,otherwise every clan can just raise it to the max (they can anyway but it might keep people from going to that town is taxes are to high)

If the players dont pay for it what is keeping the war companies from making deals so each one has a few ports and they will just get money for nothing?

There is gonna be some many exploits i cant even phantom, its also way to complicated for new players

Remember they have also mentioned about the War Companies having to use tax to develop the region. They have not elaborated on this but you can bet it will cost some money to do this, so it will not be just free gold for the company. If they get it right it could be quite an interesting feature, they could for example have no forts at a port and you have to build them as a War Company, or after a fort is damaged in an attack you have to repair them or they are not available for the next defense.

With the right mechanics it will not just be an easy time for the port owner it will require some management to maintain your port empire.

[Kanay]

33 minutes ago, William Drayman said:

Sorry mate, but all that would do is lose those who play the PVE server. The game needs a LOT of work before it's ready for a merge.

What have PVE server to do in this ? note that they could incorporate them in a single server and just make them totally neutral while they are at this, able to attack AI , closed battles where players can not enter, and not able to be attacked in OW, might be more interesting for them to play the eco game at larger scale, but then comes uses and abuses possible for spying and such ...
 

34 minutes ago, Siegfried said:

You are wellcome to EU server, one server that works fine.

Used to be there before, went to global for the no limits on the timers and with flags coming back and timers set by port owners it will be the same as before, no reasons to not merge, fact is that even on EU server the pops are low nowadays, and this proposed change will lead to big clans becoming bigger and expanding more... The big risk of this is reproducing the Nations flips we have now on the scale of clans, changing nothing at all in the end.

With a larger population like we used to have at start things will equilibrate by themselves, with current one, even if you merge all servers it won't be good ... The 3 servers combined don't even reach 1000 players at peak times noadays, less than 900 the last 3 days ... all servers combined including pve one...
 

[Yngvarr]

22 hours ago, Intrepido said:

A BIG NO.

If this game aims to be realistic, wars in the XVIII century were among nations, not between small groups.

If you think like this, we should all be listening to a central government, and clans should be removed from the game...

[Hethwill]

5 minutes ago, Kanay said:

uses and abuses (...) and such ...

From PvE players ? I doubt it. It is more the pvper that does all of it.

So what would a "shadow" PvE layer would break that isn't already by powergaming use of alts anyway... ?

 

If I did not read wrong one of the focal ideas is to promote new players space to grow and safety to do it.

[Siegfried]

12 minutes ago, Kanay said:

What have PVE server to do in this ? note that they could incorporate them in a single server and just make them totally neutral while they are at this, able to attack AI , closed battles where players can not enter, and not able to be attacked in OW, might be more interesting for them to play the eco game at larger scale, but then comes uses and abuses possible for spying and such ...
 

Used to be there before, went to global for the no limits on the timers and with flags coming back and timers set by port owners it will be the same as before, no reasons to not merge, fact is that even on EU server the pops are low nowadays, and this proposed change will lead to big clans becoming bigger and expanding more... The big risk of this is reproducing the Nations flips we have now on the scale of clans, changing nothing at all in the end.

With a larger population like we used to have at start things will equilibrate by themselves, with current one, even if you merge all servers it won't be good ... The 3 servers combined don't even reach 1000 players at peak times noadays, less than 900 the last 3 days ... all servers combined including pve one...
 

With the new mechanic, the population will be big again, as always.

[Rikard Frederiksen]

3 hours ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

I am a new player, I sail in my waters doing my stuff.  Other nations WC owns the ports, so waters are full of enemy warships.  Did I misunderstood something?  If I did not, this might be a problem.  New players see the map, sail in their national waters and enemy warships are allowed to come and go as they please?  I hope I misunderstood.

I think there are a couple of things that need to be taken into account:

• Taxpayers: The clan running the port will want an income from it. If they're killing off all and sundry and stealing cargoes, no-one will want to go to those ports. This would make the port a weight about the clan's collective neck, especially if a daily upkeep were required to maintain possession of it and its defences. They'd have to send out their own traders to get the resources required to replace lost ships or create new ones. Those traders would in turn be in danger from the opposing nation's warships.
• Enemy Waters: By running a port in an opposing nation's waters, the clan ships themselves are vulnerable to ships from that nation, and also from that nation's War Companies. They will have less distance to go, will be closer to the resources of their capital and if multiple War Companies decide they want that one 'enemy' clan out of the port, they can work together to achieve it.

Of course this is all theoretical, but just because the foxes would have taken over the henhouse does not mean they'll kill all of the hens. If there aren't any hens left, what is there to feed off of?* If anything, the result of this could be that more vigorous patrols are undertaken near 'enemy' clans ports and as a result potentially more OW PvP. I know, I know, ifs & buts, etc., but there is potential in their idea. Plus it would probably be pretty damned difficult to take and maintain a port deep in enemy territory. Guess who will be claiming those ports first & would have to be shifted?

*Awful analogy, I know.

Edited August 3, 2017 by Rikard Frederiksen