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

[Skully]

20 minutes ago, mikawa said:

What prevents me from just joining that company, so that I "earn" my own Taxes? It sounds for me more reasonable than to engage in RvR to capture it back.

Your Clan not getting an invite.

[DrZoidberg]

Dear Developers!

 

This changes just try to fix the new conquest system, what is a crap. The conquest system just eliminates underdog nations with a big player base loss. Now u make a new bad and chaotic patch to fix it. The result will be this: small guilds will disappear as spanish nation with a big player base loss again. Just go for it. By the way maybe ask players first, what should be changed and how. After collecting opinions u can decide what to do. Dont decide and ask after, thats bad way and just for to prove that u work right (but u not - sorry...). Just to make such ad-hoc changes will ruin the game again and again, as it did before. One of ur main problem that u divide the player base to too many nations, now u want to solw this problem with dividing them into more pecies. Baaaaaaad idea.

I wish best for ur beautifull game.

Best regards ..

Edited August 4, 2017 by DrZoidberg

[mikawa]

29 minutes ago, Skully said:

Your Clan not getting an invite.

According to OP it is possible to change (with time zone) war companies, or am I wrong? So it's pretty much like the clan system we already have?

Edited August 4, 2017 by mikawa
typo

[Cmdr RideZ]

18 hours ago, Rikard Frederiksen said:

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

• Taxpayers: 
• Enemy Waters:

There is a change that you are right, just that...

Almost always if a player has a change to sink another player, he will take it, someone will soon take it.  Kill first, talk later, like in every game.  It is more important for players to put another player in position that he cannot negotiate and has to humbly ask his stuff back, feel the powah!  Read some Naval Action politics, you will see the same there.

[Skully]

8 minutes ago, mikawa said:

According to OW it is possible to change (with time zone) war companies, or am I wrong? So it's pretty much like the clan system we already have?

On 8/2/2017 at 3:57 PM, admin said:

new chartered war company will be able to be created by players for the purpose of region control and taxation.

Yes, it should be an extra layer on top of the Clan layer. Basically a Clan can belong to 1 Charter. I reckon the Charter interface will be similar to Clan roster except you would see a Charter leader and Clan leaders.

I think it's done this way because Clan - Clan alliances bring a pain to the tagging, dragging and the combat engine. Now it can be resolved as Charter - Charter fights.

[mikawa]

2 minutes ago, Skully said:

Yes, it should be an extra layer on top of the Clan layer. Basically a Clan can belong to 1 Charter. I reckon the Charter interface will be similar to Clan roster except you would see a Charter leader and Clan leaders.

The more the discussion goes on the more it might occur to me that pirate life could suit my playstyle better then, assuming that there will be changes for the pirate "nation" too. I hate bureaucracy and over-complicated mechanics which cost more time to think about than to play ...

[Skully]

14 minutes ago, mikawa said:

The more the discussion goes on the more it might occur to me that pirate life could suit my playstyle better then, assuming that there will be changes for the pirate "nation" too. I hate bureaucracy and over-complicated mechanics which cost more time to think about than to play ...

Or rather an Independent. The problem is figuring out a mechanic for those without introducing all sort of abuses.

I think it would be great for new players to get a feel of the game before diving into the underlying deeper mechanics.

[admin]

15 hours ago, Dragonfire said:

 

You want hard core grinder types only to play the game direction it is headed.

 

thats exactly what we are trying to avoid

 

[Sir Texas Sir]

58 minutes ago, Skully said:

Your Clan not getting an invite.

Why would my clan want the clan members in our charter that we just beat unless we recruit them in.  It's like in game right now our clan just doesn't take any fence jumpers.  Now if we been trying to recruit you for some time is different, but if you jump ship cause your nation just lost one port out of many we don't want you either.  

39 minutes ago, mikawa said:

According to OP it is possible to change (with time zone) war companies, or am I wrong? So it's pretty much like the clan system we already have?

I'm sure they will be created and disband and created and some will stick around for a while. I think I all ready know the name of the one I want our clan to make.

19 minutes ago, mikawa said:

The more the discussion goes on the more it might occur to me that pirate life could suit my playstyle better then, assuming that there will be changes for the pirate "nation" too. I hate bureaucracy and over-complicated mechanics which cost more time to think about than to play ...

Don't expect any changes to pirate mechanics any time soon unless Devs say so.  We are prob going to stay the same for a very long time even though I would love some true pirate mechanics to make us not a true nation like the others.

[admin]

thank you everyone for feedback.

we will update the main post and provide the new version of the proposal

[Rikard Frederiksen]

42 minutes ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

There is a change that you are right, just that...

Almost always if a player has a change to sink another player, he will take it, someone will soon take it.  Kill first, talk later, like in every game.  It is more important for players to put another player in position that he cannot negotiate and has to humbly ask his stuff back, feel the powah!  Read some Naval Action politics, you will see the same there.

I do not disagree with you at all, I'm aiming for the positive & optimistic side of things. Ultimately in a game such as this people will do exactly as you say, but I'd hope that the War Companies would realise that protecting shipping in their area (well, the traders at least) is important for their income/resources and keep a tight rein on their members.* At least I'd hope that a War Company from an opposing nation(s) would prompt the home nation's War Companies to push them out of the area ASAP. It might also increase chances of OW PvP closer to capital/home waters.

I love the NA politics section, it is incredibly entertaining stuff at times, both for the EU & Global server.

*Of course there will be War Companies that exist purely to 'grief' others relentlessly. Because apparently that is fun.

[admin]

UPDATED SHORT VERSION (simplified based on feedback and discussions)

War corporations and national unity

• Clans will be able to form war corporations
• Port battles will ONLY be available to war corporations
• War corporations will be able to change tax rates in ports (for example if the standard national tax rate is 15% war corporations will be able to reduce it to 0 or raise up to 30%) 
• War corporations can fight other war corporations in the same nation ONLY in port battles
• War corporations will be able to set their controlled port as free town (enterable by all nations) or as national town (enterable only by their own nation)
• War corporations will have to vet their members themselves but if they do it properly alts will no longer interfere with port battles
• Hostility changes will be done
  • Hostility grinding will be removed
    • Some kind of flag will return - but the placing time will be increased to 30 mins to give time to respond
• Potentially we can bring back timers set by governors

Regions

• Regions will split into individual ports for conquest (tentative)
• All ports will be split into captureable (all large islands in the center of the map and island chains) and non captureable - coasts
• All capture able ports will change status to neutral after reset
  • History fans can relax because in 2-3 weeks port captures will shape the nationalities of ports themselves. New players will come to a live fluid map, which will have stability along the coast and constant instability in the center.
• Rare resources will move closer to the center of the map.. the closer to center the more potential profit would be on trading
• Map will be reset

Coastal experience

• Some capitals might be moved (with simple ID change so you don't have to reposition your resources). Or we can just move all assets players have to redeemables to give more options. 
• Free towns will be removed from the coasts
• Reinforcements in coastal ports will come back to game (as fleets no longer give xp)
  • to those who don't remember this is how they worked
    • If BR of enemy was higher than yours if you were attacked near your national port, the port would send you the support equal to the difference between your BR and enemy BR.
    • For example - if you were in a surprise and were attacked by two surprises port would send you 1 surprise to support you in battle (which you could command)
• Potentially clans will be able to invest into improving port reinforcements class

 

Additional wipe announcement. There will be no asset resets/removals or wipes during this rework. Only map will reset (which will cause some inconvenience when moving resources).

[loulou45TB]

How soon will we have this new system?

[PIerrick de Badas]

What ETA for this patch? We know for sure that announcing a wipe kill the playerbase. Is it mid or long term patch?

Second question, can 2 clans in two different nation join the same war company?

 

Second question : is it a way to limit people into a war company to decrease ability for large nation to rules everyone? For example war company with 150people?

[Corona Lisa]

@admin Is there any reason for a whole nation to not join the same war corporation? Because that would be very boring....

• Quote

  Potentially we can bring back timers set by governors

  This can only work if we have many small war corps, otherwise people will set timer to worst possible time for the enemy again

Edited August 4, 2017 by Jon Snow lets go

[Rebrall]

14 minutes ago, admin said:

UPDATED SHORT VERSION (simplified based on feedback and discussions

War corporations and national unity

• Clans will be able to form war corporations
• Port battles will ONLY be available to war corporations
• War corporations will be able to change tax rates in ports (for example if the standard national tax rate is 15% war corporations will be able to reduce it to 0 or raise up to 30%) 
• War corporations can fight other war corporations in the same nation ONLY in port battles
• War corporations will be able to set their controlled port as free town (enterable by all nations) or as national town (enterable only by their own nation)
• War corporations will have to vet their members themselves but if they do it properly alts will no longer interfere with port battles
• Hostility changes will be done
  • Hostility grinding will be removed
    • Some kind of flag will return - but the placing time will be increased to 30 mins to give time to respond
• Potentially we can bring back timers set by governors

Regions

• Regions will split into individual ports for conquest (tentative)
• All ports will be split into captureable (all large islands in the center of the map and island chains) and non captureable - coasts
• All capture able ports will change status to neutral after reset
  • History fans can relax because in 2-3 weeks port captures will shape the nationalities of ports themselves. New players will come to a live fluid map, which will have stability along the coast and constant instability in the center.
• Rare resources will move closer to the center of the map.. the closer to center the more potential profit would be on trading
• Map will be reset

Coastal experience

• Some capitals might be moved (with simple ID change so you don't have to reposition your resources). Or we can just move all assets players have to redeemables to give more options. 
• Free towns will be removed from the coasts
• Reinforcements in coastal ports will come back to game (as fleets no longer give xp)
  • to those who don't remember this is how they worked
    • If BR of enemy was higher than yours if you were attacked near your national port, the port would send you the support equal to the difference between your BR and enemy BR.
    • For example - if you were in a surprise and were attacked by two surprises port would send you 1 surprise to support you in battle (which you could command)
• Potentially clans will be able to invest into improving port reinforcements class

 

Additional wipe announcement. There will be no asset resets/removals or wipes during this rework. Only map will reset (which will cause some inconvenience when moving resources).

Some very good Ideas Going forward any thought on protecting newbies like if you take a mission within your capital the mission is with in the "safe zone"? 

[Bart Smith]

No flags please. This simple dont work in past.

[Hethwill]

Just now, Bart Smith said:

No flags please. This simple dont work in past.

War Companies are the ones acquiring them not solo players like before. But, this being put up there's always margin for "dirty game".

I hope this time around any attempt of disruptions will surely be met with force this time around and the perpetrators strung up properly, if you get my drift.

 

[Koltes]

10 minutes ago, admin said:

 

1. Some kind of flag will return - but the placing time will be increased to 30 mins to give time to respond
2. Potentially we can bring back timers set by governors
    
3. All ports will be split into captureable (all large islands in the center of the map and island chains) and non captureable - coasts
4. Free towns will be removed from the coasts
5. Reinforcements in coastal ports will come back to game (as fleets no longer give xp)

Generally good, but I have few comments. I have proposed this few months ago and its good to pull it our again. Thank you for coming back to this option.

1. Return flags for raiding ports (not capturing) - winning raid = temporary 3 day ownership with free access to production of that port.
2. If you are to bring timers, please don't make it narrow 2 hour window when ports CAN be attacked, Instead allow to set 6 hour window when ports CANT be attacked, so clan which owns the territory will set the way that they wont have it flipped when that clan is mostly offline.
3. Please reconsider. Coast area is too large for non-capturable ports. Middle islands area is too small for capturable. In EVE high sec is only small place in comparison to free for grabs space and it works great. Please re-consider the bellow. Please note that by this system the further away capturable land from nations capital is, lower its maximum influence is for that nation means harder to hold. This allows naturally have national zones rather than spread all over the map.

4. Leave 4-5 free towns and make them Trade Hubs that share 1 shop as per below

5. Please No! You have already tried to give AI reinforcements and that killed all hunting around busy areas. 
The ONLY AI reinforcements that are controllable by the players we need is those that fill in Port Battles, providing that clans have built the region's/port's defenses. This allows for smaller clans to have some means to defend. As for OW PvP please NO AI involvement at all.

Thank you for your hard work developers! 

[Kanay]

Need a tax changing cooldown to not have taxes change each 2 days and make investments done in a port a loss.

Allowing to turn any port into free town is a very bad idea, entire rogue clans working for other factions will be able to capture and set a zone full of free towns around strategic areas... this needs to go seriously... Will lead to a giant mess quick enough... Free towns always caused problems and had been better if gone once and for all many patches ago, now you will have more of them , enjoy ...

Instead remove smuggler flag, and allow owning war companies to deliver trader's permits so traders from other Nations came come to ports they own and increase profits from taxes, at worst keep actual free towns and allow owners to set if enemies ships can enter or not on them...

Good to see some form of reinforcements coming back to the game even if AI is useless 90% of the times... had liked to see AI attacking enemies players in OW around capitals too, AI attacking players in OW was a thing happening from times to times back in the days, this should come back around capitals areas ... A capital should have a meaning ...

Will the capitals be protected from conquests and taxes raising and also getting a free town at doors ?

What capitals are planned to move ? If i understood correctly  our warehouses or clan warehouses or ships and all content moved automatically ?

What about pirates, do they remain a nation like others able to do conquests or become the supposed hardcore mode they should have been ? With raiding mechanics spoke about earlier in this thread, what about those too ?

Entire regions of 5-7 ports not falling apart in one shot is a good thing, but rare resources all located around the center of the map ? This means that you make traders an easy target, putting the hammer on them once again to create easy pvp content area at the depends of traders... This is becoming ridiculous seriously, aren't you bored to beat the same dead horse patch after patch ? nerfing them speeds, giving them less possibilities than others when it comes to knowledge slots for example, can't you just try to create something without beating again and again on the same easy targets ?? I might be wrong but all i see in this change is that there will be a very tasty area in the center of the map for easy hunting and very profitable loot from traders, and area that some will try to conquer and turn surroundings into free ports quickly i bet ...

Need to see the map, new capitals areas, capturable cities and the central area essential for trading that will become the main hunting ground for easy mode pvp ... Some things seems interesting, some others will turn into a mess quickly imo...



 

Edited August 4, 2017 by Kanay

[z4ys]

On 2.8.2017 at 3:57 PM, admin said:

• • • If BR of enemy was higher than yours if you were attacked near your national port, the port would send you the support equal to the difference between your BR and enemy BR.
    • For example - if you were in a surprise and were attacked by two surprises port would send you 1 surprise to support you in battle (which you could command)

Its a fake feature while it offers fake protection. 2 real players can easly fight the 1 player and the one AI. They just sink the one player and leave the AI alone. At the moment AI is no compensation for one real player especially when its the same BR and ship.

 

Add a perk or something like that: When you are in national waters the battle stays open for longer time period And a help message is sent into Combat news..

Edited August 4, 2017 by z4ys

[Sang Noir]

Quote

• New players who come into the game have completely no information on what is the state of their nation they just joined.
• Sometimes they join a happy strong nation, but often they join weaker nations
• As a result players who joined a stronger nation have a much better experience than players who joined a weak nation and leave the game. 
• Current national conquest system (take everything from your enemy) reinforces this problem. 
• Fluctuating online increases the problem even further - if you nation has 10 captains left you cannot play normally because you become completely uncompetitive in conquest, which in turn reduces quality of other types of gameplay
• As a result most new players (who did not join a winning nation) become unhappy populace and leave the game instead of having fun.

I agree with all of these. Given the Darwinist nature of an open world, I see it hard to come by. I totally agree that it has the potential to break the game experience for a lot of people, especially casual players.

Your solutions to the problem sound incredibly complicated. I think you are run into the danger of bogging down your resources on this problem in the long run, unable to attend any other matters (like buffing the story content, trade, new ships, etc.).

As professional players you may lost sight of the most obvious thing: you take clans for granted.

Maybe I'm going to make myself a lot of enemies when I say: clans are part of the problem.

By adding war companies (or any such ideas) you are just adding the level of complexity, making solution finding even more difficult: keep it simple.

There should be one simple rule: YOUR NATION IS YOUR CLAN.

Since there were no clans in the Age Of Sail, you could re-name it to FLEETS and still give the people the opportunity to organize their war bands.

That doesn't solve the port domination problem though. All I can throw in are a few thoughts:

- Limit the regions a nation can possess. There are about 89 regions and 9 nations. Limit the regions a nation can hold to 10.

- Tackle the problem from ground up: Instead of regions, make it possible to have port battles about individual towns. Now there will be a lot more port battles for players seeking them.

- Give nations that own many regions a sort of handicap. Its an effective way in many games (for example Civilization) to control growth. Maybe a nation has to install a governor. The populace of a town has an affinity to the nation it once belonged, so if you don't tend to your town (by trading, visits, battles), over time it will fall back to its original nation.

- Maybe you have to install governors regularly at a very high cost. The costs rise progressively, the more regions you control.

Keep it up!

 

[admin]

28 minutes ago, Bart Smith said:

No flags please. This simple dont work in past.

flags will be almost impossible to exploit because they will only be available for war corporations + they won't be exclusive. Meaning whoever places the flag first get the port battle

[admin]

2 minutes ago, Jean de la Rochelle said:

 

There should be one simple rule: YOUR NATION IS YOUR CLAN.

 

this system is impossible - because you can't hang traitors. Its against steam eula.

[admin]

16 minutes ago, Kanay said:

Allowing to turn any port into free town is a very bad idea, entire rogue clans working for other factions will be able to capture and set a zone full of free towns around strategic areas... this needs to go seriously... Will lead to a giant mess quick enough... Free towns always caused problems and had been better if gone once and for all many patches ago, now you will have more of them , enjoy ...

 

But now you will be able to recapture - even from your own nation