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

[z4ys]

Regarding war company numbers biggest company could rule the server.

Maybe let the Attacker or defender or combination of both decide which size the portbattle should have 10vs10 / 15vs15 / 20vs20 or 25vs25 this way even small companys would have a chance. Therefore the rule for battlesgroups could be changed as well that a battlegroup is only attackable by the same force (numberwise) regarding screening when carrying a battleflag.

Edited August 2, 2017 by z4ys

[Jean Ribault]

4 minutes ago, CatSwift said:

I think the goal there would be that your "clan" is a collection of your friends, whereas a "war company" could be a collection of like-minded clans. This allows for lots of cool interactions, such as clans changing war companies because of disputes between other clans who make up said war company.

I also like the idea of clans of other nations being able to join war companies. This allows for player made alliances out of the box, as well as all those mercenary company scenarios everyone brings up.  Need some night flippers to help round out your war company, but all of your members are EU? Entire/hire/whatever a clan from another timezone (regardless of their "nation") to join your war company.

The cool interactions is true, would add some well-roundedness to the game.  I like that aspect of it.  Looks like the intent was for clans to be OW pvp oriented and war companies to be the financial magnates as well as port powerhouses.

[Daguse]

10 minutes ago, Rikard Frederiksen said:

Why reduce the number of nations? It won't achieve anything if the whole nation-vs-nation element will primarily be reduced to OW PvP. The only thing I can see such a move doing is alienating people who can no longer sail for their chosen nation. If these changes do happen and the RvR focus becomes clan based rather than nation, then I see no issue with retaining all of the current nations (bar pirates, who should have their own mechanics).

 

 

Having the same number of players in fewer nations means clans would have a larger pool of players to pull from. Hence you'll have more clans and more clan battles. 

I do agree with the pirates, at this point there is no reason they should be a nation. 

 

 

[z4ys]

1 minute ago, Jean Ribault said:

The cool interactions is true, would add some well-roundedness to the game.  I like that aspect of it.  Looks like the intent was for clans to be OW pvp oriented and war companies to be the financial magnates as well as port powerhouses.

yeah i would consider war companys as hardcore endgame content as well.

[Magnum]

What?

Only if you merge servers at the same wipe .....

 

 

 

 

 

[Jean Ribault]

5 minutes ago, Slamz said:

...

PURGE has not merged with BORK because we are different clans with different styles and histories. We work together a lot but we are different entities. If the game makes us merge into a single War Company in order to do RvR then it creates organizational confusion. Internally we are going to continue to be different clans, but I guess we will no longer be labeled as such??

"The Purge" has a long history spanning many games with our own leadership and rank structure and forums and Teamspeak rental server and so forth. We are not going to fully merge with another clan because of a test in Naval Action, so it's almost like NA is dropping support for clans. Effectively.

...

I see your point Slamz, but it doesn't appear like it's the intent here to merge the two (or more).  It looks more to me like offering the ability to control ports or to control OW pvp, whichever your play style prefers.  I know which one you prefer. 

[oleander]

18 minutes ago, z4ys said:

When you are not in a war company you have easy mode. Only other nations will be able to attack you at the OW all ports will be accessible (or at least your national ones which cant be lost) . The only thing you have to worry about are taxes. There is no need for national alliances anymore.

I get that, and I agree with removing the need for alliances. I just feel like it makes it a bit one sided when you're basically setting up a war profiteering model, the war companies, and those that don't want to be part of those companies get the penalty for it through taxes. I guess what I'm getting at is something like the Boston Tea Party where you can basically tell the company to GTFO. I mean you could join a rival company and fight them that way, but I feel like Nationalism should be a thing. If an enemy company is controlling a port, sure you can fight them hands down, but if a company from the same nation controls it there's really nothing you can do and I don't particularly care for that. Make sense?

[Jean Ribault]

1 minute ago, Mrgoldstein said:

so the same as it is now basicaly, except the enter any port thing, wich is the worst idea ever..

I have to agree with the last part (bold) of this, or maybe it's not the "worst" idea but it ranks up there.  There have to be some boundaries maintained.  Bring back some relevance to the nations, as I mentioned earlier you can tie it to gold/tax, but also tie it to port entrance authority and not allow any ship any entry.  Between those two things there you can still make nations relevant, even if nation conquest is dead.

[admin]

33 minutes ago, z4ys said:

When you are not in a war company you have easy mode. Only other nations will be able to attack you at the OW 

since then being able to be attacked anywhere by other nations is easy mode   

[Eyesore]

- So, the company-warehouse can get raided ...

Hmm, i would think it will be empty at all times then ... simply transfer everything to the clanwarehouses, which can't be raided?

- A couple members from a clan don't join the war-company ...

They can move the goods (for their clanmembers) out of ports and can't be attacked by oposing (same nation) war-compagny-members?

- Zerg inbound?

[Sid the Infected]

I think this is a new thing to be tested and maybe should be tested but I have grave concerns about some consequences of the idea....

1. It discriminates against small clans - Not all clans want to be large. Some are made of close friends that still want to participate in all aspects of the game.

       Solution: War companies should be an alliance of clans. So a new structure must be used. Example: For instance Tattered Flags is a clan created by Thomas Pain and VCO is a clan ran by Christendom. Their clans exist as is. After the patch T. Pain and Chris get together and choose to start a war corporation called Brits Unite. They then enroll their respective clans in "Brits Unite" Their clans exist as separate yet equal parts of the the War corporation. Now smaller clans have the ability to take part in PBs as well as part of the greater clan alliance called a War Corporation.

      Solution 2: Smaller port battles. No more 25 v 25 fights

2. A negative side effect of this may be that more wars take place within a nation then against other nations. If this is what players really want than they should play your other game, Ultimate General.

        Solution: This is more appropriate to the pirates than the nationals. Make it so.

        Solution 2: Design a penalty to a war company that challenges another war company but fails. Think of it this way.....  The nation is at peace, both inside and out. War company A gets greedy and thinks it can take a lucrative port off of War company B. So they go rogue and attack A's region. This angers the population of the nation which makes them essentially kill on sight to every other clan or war company that is out there. This last for 24 hours until the PB. War company fails and the nation remains angered at them for say a week and they can be killed on sight. If they win the PB then the nation realizes they are a powerful clan and it is better to stay at peace with them then to view them as hostile. B keeps the port and they are no longer considered rogue and are protected by green on green.

        This would require that nationals cannot attack each other unless hostilities are declared between one War company and another.

[Archaos]

25 minutes ago, Slamz said:

It's an organizational issue, mainly.

PURGE has not merged with BORK because we are different clans with different styles and histories. We work together a lot but we are different entities. If the game makes us merge into a single War Company in order to do RvR then it creates organizational confusion. Internally we are going to continue to be different clans, but I guess we will no longer be labeled as such??

"The Purge" has a long history spanning many games with our own leadership and rank structure and forums and Teamspeak rental server and so forth. We are not going to fully merge with another clan because of a test in Naval Action, so it's almost like NA is dropping support for clans. Effectively.

So the War Company will have like 50 French in it and I'll have little idea of who is who or where they came from because really it will be about 6 different clans in there, unlabeled and unclanned now.

Also, it would screw up our economy which is running smoothly based on the clan warehouse.

We will definitely not use a "War Company" warehouse that can be raided, btw. We'll go back to the bad old days of internal trading between members.

I guess having a mechanic that allows different War Companies to be allied would solve this that way PURGE and BORK could be different War Companies but allied, but then you have the issue of who controls the port and gets the taxes. 

I think having membership of a clan and a War Company could cause confusion especially if some members of the clan were not members of the War Company.

As I said before the way I see things developing a lot of people will run alt clans alongside their War Companies especially for the clan warehouse that cannot be raided.

I think the War Company warehouses will mostly be empty apart from the most recent tax take especially if there is notice of port battle.

[Bragan Benigaris]

5 minutes ago, Jean Ribault said:

I have to agree with the last part (bold) of this, or maybe it's not the "worst" idea but it ranks up there.  There have to be some boundaries maintained.  Bring back some relevance to the nations, as I mentioned earlier you can tie it to gold/tax, but also tie it to port entrance authority and not allow any ship any entry.  Between those two things there you can still make nations relevant, even if nation conquest is dead.

What about if you enter a foreign port of another nation and warships are hold there for neutrality reasons till next maintenance and warships and trader ships have to pay harbour fee?

[Katastrophic]

what about increasing profits gained when a port battle is won and just simply add the war company thing

 

Edited August 2, 2017 by Katastrophik

[Jean Ribault]

4 minutes ago, Bragan Benigaris said:

What about if you enter a foreign port of another nation and warships are hold there for neutrality reasons till next maintenance and warships and trader ships have to pay harbour fee?

My original typing was ambiguous.  What I meant to say is in lieu of any ship at any port if you are not a war company member, instead make it limited, so that as someone else pointed out above you don't have solo players who can't leave a port anywhere without being attacked.

I like your idea of a harbor fee.

[Eyesore]

3 minutes ago, Jean Ribault said:

My original typing was ambiguous.  What I meant to say is in lieu of any ship at any port if you are not a war company member, instead make it limited, so that as someone else pointed out above you don't have solo players who can't leave a port anywhere without being attacked.

I like your idea of a harbor fee.

that will still not fix the problem. How much should the fee be? 1000 gold? To follow a trader with 100k of stuff on board?

[Jonathan Arlington]

1 hour ago, Daguse said:

I get the idea of keeping nations, you need them for port assignments, and well people want a flag to sail under. However, we can drastically reduce the number of nations to let's say 4.

And that's the point. For the people which like "to sail under a flag" it means something to fight together for that. Call it role play romantic but this was a part of all of that. Open world, Nations, The war aganst your Nations arch enemy. It was something to enjoy. This change will kill that instantly and remarkably. It will kill the "Age of Sail"-Romance for a big MMO-Clan-vs-Clan-Battle-Royale which works fine if you play "The Division" or some other lone raider game but not in this "Age of Sail" scenario.

 

[Jean Ribault]

1 minute ago, Eyesore said:

that will still not fix the problem. How much should the fee be? 1000 gold? To follow a trader with 100k of stuff on board?

I agree problem not solved.  I don't like the idea of warship of another nation entering your nation's ports.  But if clans from differing nations can be combine to form war companies, then you wouldn't be able to prevent that.

[Eyesore]

If warcompanies can ally ... imagine the powerblocks that will come to existance ... Nobody will be able to go up against them?

[CatSwift]

1 minute ago, Jean Ribault said:

I agree problem not solved.  I don't like the idea of warship of another nation entering your nation's ports.  But if clans from differing nations can be combine to form war companies, then you wouldn't be able to prevent that.

You could just be able to enter the ports owned by your war company, you wouldn't gain access to all ports of said nation...

[Corona Lisa]

Is there anything that stops a whole nation from joining a single giant zerg war company? Because that would be boring...

[Slamz]

49 minutes ago, z4ys said:

Maybe let the Attacker or defender or combination of both decide which size the portbattle should have 10vs10 / 15vs15 / 20vs20 or 25vs25 this way even small companys would have a chance.

I think there's merit to this idea: either war company dictates terms of the battle or else maybe the port dictates it but there are many different types of ports. Not just lineship/4th rate/shallow but lots of types. 10v10 lineship. "3000 BR max". 20v20 shallow. Whatever. Take the port that fits your style.

More generally I have been thinking that the problem with port battles is that "the juice is not worth the squeeze". Currently we have to go far out of our way to generate a port battle and then it's a big hassle to get 25 Aggies or 25 first-rates together to do the battle, when the winner barely matters.

By contrast, Planetside battles for base control are so fundamental to the game and so integrated into normal gameplay that you almost can't avoid them. Just log in and play and you will find yourself fighting for base control on a regular basis. Base ownership doesn't matter that much but it's okay because it's more like a side-effect of regular combat anyway.

NA needs to be more like that, I think. Fights for port control should feel more like common gameplay and less like a special hassle event where the stars have to align and a lot of "work" has to be done to make it happen. Allowing for a variety of conditions might help that. 25 lineships is a hassle. 10 might not be. Maybe let the players decide.

Edited August 2, 2017 by Slamz

[King of Crowns]

5 hours ago, admin said:

there are two solutions to this

• alliances between clans (potential feature for the future)
• raiding becomes meaningful. If you can find time when the clan port is unprotected you can take their warehouse and rob them. Building a bigger fleet for the future. Defending will be harder for smaller clans. 

if your going to do this you have to downsize the amount of people that can join the battle. I get it.. yall want the big 25vs 25 battles. HOWEVER, 25 vs 25 is not fun for everyone. it takes so much logistics and hours  and hours of planning for that crap to happen. if you going to do this then the max amount of people that can fight the battle should be equal to the number of people in that clan. smaller clans have nothing to do except hunt  pvp. this 25 vs 25 crap has got to stop. IT takes to much and the game doesn't have the population.  you have to find away to equalize the numbers to make it where big clans are equal to smaller. 

[Eyesore]

Also, the separation of rvr-players and the 'rest' is not a good thing imo.

As somebody else suggested, rvr creates unrest. Concerned citizens might want to opose that, maybe it's possible to do some kind of 'underground/resistance'-type of actions against the warmongerers?

For example maybe smuggling (as in = not paying taxes)? you'd be attackable though as you are now?

Edited August 2, 2017 by Eyesore
added the smuggling bit

[Helbent]

What does this mean for production buildings? Does port nationality really not matter anymore and we can build outposts/buildings in ANY port, and all we are really worrying about is what the tax level is in a given port? That seems... Boring. I don't mind the idea of shifting RvR to a clan-based mechanic, but the idea of essentially making nations a cosmetic thing seems like it would really dumb down the map, and also would seem to imply that we can teleport all over the map again?