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


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1 hour ago, admin said:

Port maintenance will be added - if the clan controls the port they will have to pay maintenance (taken from the clan warehouse). If maintenance is not paid the port will turn into a neutral port. Taxation money will be collected to clan warehouse as well. 

Can you look at some stage of expanding on this so it is not just a cash payment for maintenance. Bring in something like a port requiring so many supplies of various sorts per week. Utilize some of the trading goods, have a whole list for each port of items that are required each week to maintain the port (items that are not produced by the port). The owners can then set up buy contracts and let others fill the orders or fill them themselves. This will generate worthwhile work for traders and more traffic on the OW.

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3 minutes ago, Archaos said:

Can you look at some stage of expanding on this so it is not just a cash payment for maintenance. Bring in something like a port requiring so many supplies of various sorts per week. Utilize some of the trading goods, have a whole list for each port of items that are required each week to maintain the port (items that are not produced by the port). The owners can then set up buy contracts and let others fill the orders or fill them themselves. This will generate worthwhile work for traders and more traffic on the OW.

Maybe do a flat maintenance few for the port just to keep it running but any improvements cost donations of certain goods to keep them at those levels or something.

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43 minutes ago, Norfolk nChance said:

Alts
As we only need to solve problem of alts interfering in OW and PBs we needed a simple and quick fix. We do not need a convoluted and complicated system of war companies and such. 

  • As a result. 
  • Clans will be able to set friendly status for other clans in their nation (up to 15 clans). Current clans and their historical names will remain intact. 
  • Diplomat role will be added and clan founder and diplomats will be able to set this friendly status. 
  • Only clans listed as friendly will be able to enter port battles initiated by the clan.
  • Friendly status + battlegroups will keep alts from battles and port battles.

Will there be a delay on joining and leaving the alliances, i.e. will a clan be able to become friendly a few minutes before a port battle and then be able to join the battle?

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3 minutes ago, Archaos said:

Will there be a delay on joining and leaving the alliances, i.e. will a clan be able to become friendly a few minutes before a port battle and then be able to join the battle?

Is there a need for such a delay?

In effect you won't see or know the difference unless you are part of such an agreement.

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4 minutes ago, Archaos said:

Can you look at some stage of expanding on this so it is not just a cash payment for maintenance. Bring in something like a port requiring so many supplies of various sorts per week. Utilize some of the trading goods, have a whole list for each port of items that are required each week to maintain the port (items that are not produced by the port). The owners can then set up buy contracts and let others fill the orders or fill them themselves. This will generate worthwhile work for traders and more traffic on the OW.

I completely agree that there should be more -reasons- to trade stuff between ports. This would certainly help. Honestly 'center area'  towns should have a need to be supplied with basic resources from 'outer ring' towns to even be able to make their 'advanced resources'.

On a side note t.b.h. the amount of trade goods each port is able to sell should be dependant on the 'wealth' of the city. Which should be dependent on providing the needed supplies for consumption and for sending 'colonial' goods back to their respective home countries. Basically, a sort of proper economic model for towns.

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1 minute ago, Skully said:

Is there a need for such a delay?

In effect you won't see or know the difference unless you are part of such an agreement.

I can see having a 24 hour delay  from time that a clan is removed from your friends list before you can declare war on them if they still allow same nation to fight over port owner ship.    This way some friendly clans can't boot one clan at the last moment from there list and than attack them.  Other wise the other thing would be to boot them before a port battle so they won't be involved in it.  Pretty much depending how the port battles are set I think the clans that can join should be set at that time.  Than again this can all be very interesting when certain clans turn on each other.  

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1 minute ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

Maybe do a flat maintenance few for the port just to keep it running but any improvements cost donations of certain goods to keep them at those levels or something.

I did post a thread in suggestions that had a more detailed suggestion for ports where ports started neutral at level 1 and once captured had to be built up with buildings, docks, fortifications etc all which required basic resources. As the buildings got built the port would level up to a maximum level and tied into that was trade resources weekly to maintain the port or it would de-level. Just a way to ensure that port owners did not just capture and forget a port set the tax rate and collect the money. Make the owner have to ensure the port is maintained.

The higher the port level the bigger the port battle e.g. a level 1 port may only need a 5v5 battle while a level 10 port would be a full 25v25 with varying battles in between. I thought it would add more interest in the ports and create more OW traffic with traders transporting goods.

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6 minutes ago, Skully said:

Is there a need for such a delay?

In effect you won't see or know the difference unless you are part of such an agreement.

I actually liked the idea of War Companies, I just see this loose grouping of clans as similar to the way we already play with organizing the defense just before the battle with last minute friend agreements, whereas with a War Company you had more identity which could be further developed later with the introduction of company flags/banners etc.

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8 minutes ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

I can see having a 24 hour delay  from time that a clan is removed from your friends list before you can declare war on them if they still allow same nation to fight over port owner ship.    This way some friendly clans can't boot one clan at the last moment from there list and than attack them.  Other wise the other thing would be to boot them before a port battle so they won't be involved in it.  Pretty much depending how the port battles are set I think the clans that can join should be set at that time.  Than again this can all be very interesting when certain clans turn on each other.  

The updated version no longer speaks of being able to fight in Nation (through PBs).

@admin I think we could use clarification on this.

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2 hours ago, admin said:

Privateers operating from free towns near capitals, placed conveniently within 20 mins form each capital for a different reason (resource transport that was removed) completely destroy the opportunity to rebuild. You must stay in green waters otherwise you are dead.

Desperate privateers will just join a nation with good outpost possibilites so they can even teleport there and store ships there. Baracoa is a 5 minute sail to Mortimer, and is currently under Danish Control. I have never based any of my privateering out of a free port since the wipe, always a national port closeby.
TBH I don't really see a reason to choose the pirate faction at the moment. Sure, having the jolly roger is nice and all that... But I never liked the idea of having to sail for hours to a freeport in enemy lands, just to then have to sail back again to get new supplies.
The decision of removing the freeports alltogether made it even more unlogical for privateers to join the pirate faction.

I just hope NA Legends will be a good replacement for the PvP combat experience, because THAT is what I (and many others) truly love about the game.

Edited by Liquicity
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1 hour ago, admin said:

Important. Within the zone of influence around the waters will be made extremely safe, by use of national reinforcements (a-la CONCORD) which will arrive to battles and defend the player in case he is attacked. The bigger the distance from capital the weaker reinforcements would be. Extremely skilled captains will still be able to sink the defender despite all odds, but it will give some breathing room to players to rebuild in case of multiple losses.

Unless their ship is saved by AI, you'll see many complaints.

Ultimately I see it as a false feature, because veterans simply ignore AI.

A4FDDA74114FB9D704AAA5EBBAB3B41FB72D0C3A

Here is Frenchies sinking a puppie and a "casual" player next to the Danish capital. I don't have the end shot, but it just took @C R E W a bit longer to get away and leave.

2 hours ago, admin said:

When online numbers were higher it was a lesser problem because of abundance of targets (some could pass through). When online fluctuates the only target is a new player.

Veterans need something to do away from capitals, so they would have no reason to go in there.

Otherwise, just let capitals fall. Absorb them into the conqueror and there is an instant puppie shelter.

Another option, but more difficult to convey, is making clear that usually the western end of the map is relatively safe.

Maybe even make it to the point that new players can only choose Spain or British. Freeze the west coast apart from 4 or 5 regions in the middle. And let the new players get a breather north west and south west. Once they have the ropes they can choose another Nation and join the fray on the rest of the map.

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2 hours ago, admin said:

Snip

Clan stuff is decent.  We needed some more tools there.

Name change for servers again isn't a problem.

New player experience.  The capital area protection systems with NPC help, larger radius of protection probably would help.  I'd add perhaps creating "basic" cannons for 6lb and 9lb guns costing 0 with obviously significantly  lower dps.  Keep Freetowns.  They serve more than just newbie hunter ports.  If you look at global, you'll notice pirates have taken regions next to capitals.  This allows them easy access to attack newer players who don't realize the risks.  

And please retool the invisible and speed boosting after battles.  They'll help stop newb traps.  Personally i think revenge ganks wasn't worth the headache that this mechanic created.

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2 hours ago, admin said:

As a result we would like to discuss the alternative solution for discussion

  • Change naming of servers to properly identify the style of play 
    • Easy (PvE only)
    • Hardcore Global
    • Hardcore EU

 

2 hours ago, admin said:

We can supply new players to game (10000 new players came to NA during last 3 months) but current system do not keep them. No-one stayed. 

When online numbers were higher it was a lesser problem because of abundance of targets (some could pass through). When online fluctuates the only target is a new player.

Changing the name of the servers won't help anything. They need to be merged into one server. You said yourself when online numbers are higher it was less of a problem for new players. You can fix this right now by merging the servers and bringing all of the 1000ish dedicated players together

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I would say good update.

I still think verying port battles to also have different player limits would be useful. Then clans of all sizes could take part in rvr and I believe it would be more enjoyable.

Right now if you don't have 25 players it's just not worth the hassle. 

Question - how big will the protection circle be around the capitals (except dnemark and sweden? Is that correct?)

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1 hour ago, Skully said:

 

Ultimately I see it as a false feature, because veterans simply ignore AI.

 

we will just send reinforcement AI captains to the future to get some tips and training from CONCORD 

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3 hours ago, admin said:

Update

As usual community brain in general provided interesting edge cases that required some additional design rework of the initial proposal.

 

As a result
Here is the updated version of the preliminary proposal

Alts
As we only need to solve problem of alts interfering in OW and PBs we needed a simple and quick fix. We do not need a convoluted and complicated system of war companies and such. 

  • As a result. 
  • Clans will be able to set friendly status for other clans in their nation (up to 15 clans). Current clans and their historical names will remain intact. 
  • Diplomat role will be added and clan founder and diplomats will be able to set this friendly status. 
  • Only clans listed as friendly will be able to enter port battles initiated by the clan.
  • Friendly status + battlegroups will keep alts from battles and port battles.

New player experience, seal clubbing and inability to progress
Once the average player have passed the initial hurdles of the UI and started building ships it is getting very hard to progress because he has no place to safely rebuild and survive. 

Initial solution was to move un capturable ports to coasts

  • Moving un capturable ports to the coasts and moving very profitable resources to the center will actually increase sailing times for many (who wish to venture into dangerous waters for profit or pvp)
  • In addition to that repositioning of ports will drastically change existing gameplay and reposition resources and having done this before we believe that this might have a drastic adverse effect on play

As a result we would like to discuss the alternative solution for discussion

  • Change naming of servers to properly identify the style of play 
    • Easy (PvE only)
    • Hardcore Global
    • Hardcore EU
  • Capitals will remain in their current places
  • Un-capturable ports will be set in the areas around the capitals (with the exception of sweden and denmark which will be set as very hard again during selection of the nation).
  • Un-capturable ports will not be counted in the national leaderboards for victory marks
  • Important. Within the zone of influence around the waters will be made extremely safe, by use of national reinforcements (a-la CONCORD) which will arrive to battles and defend the player in case he is attacked. The bigger the distance from capital the weaker reinforcements would be. Extremely skilled captains will still be able to sink the defender despite all odds, but it will give some breathing room to players to rebuild in case of multiple losses.
  • Extremely profitable trading resources will be removed from the un-capturable ports and placed in capturable ports to provide profitable trading, privateering and potential taxation base.

Taxation will remain the way described before. Port maintenance will be added - if the clan controls the port they will have to pay maintenance (taken from the clan warehouse). If maintenance is not paid the port will turn into a neutral port. Taxation money will be collected to clan warehouse as well. 

 

Safe(R) waters are going to be controversial for some. So lets spend some time discussing this as well. 
Predicting outcry about safe waters we would like to say. We believe some safe waters will be good for the game.

We can supply new players to game (10000 new players came to NA during last 3 months) but current system do not keep them. No-one stayed. 

Some might say - but add pve and such - we could do that and plan to do that, but the problem is that with current system you won't be able to even get to those exciting PVE events. Privateers operating from free towns near capitals, placed conveniently within 20 mins form each capital for a different reason (resource transport that was removed) completely destroy the opportunity to rebuild. You must stay in green waters otherwise you are dead. When online numbers fluctuate they increase the problem because there are less targets and the only target becomes a new player, because old players know how to avoid it. New players unfortunately do not get time to learn to avoid it, and just leave.

When online numbers were higher it was a lesser problem because of abundance of targets (some could pass through). When online fluctuates the only target is a new player.

@adminSo what about RVR? RVR is dieing off, fewer and fewer PBs are scheduled. 

Several suggestions have been made and most are for a flag like system with smaller 10-15 man PBs to drive hostility. 

If not this then what are the plans to bring back rvr? 

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"When online fluctuates the only target is a new player."" 

The protection of the trainee captain:

options :

.make them invulnerable for a certain amount of time

.or/and  till a certain rank ..

.>> until they attack a player,  or do pvp(in groups or alone) after a certain rank ..or time

.give them popups when they attack in their "save period" and explain

 

the option is theirs and it's their responsible action to become vulnerable to/ for heavier fights(in their trainee period)

there is no way back for them after losing invulnerability 

 

 

 

Edited by Thonys
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3 hours ago, admin said:

Update

As usual community brain in general provided interesting edge cases that required some additional design rework of the initial proposal.

 

As a result
Here is the updated version of the preliminary proposal

Alts
As we only need to solve problem of alts interfering in OW and PBs we needed a simple and quick fix. We do not need a convoluted and complicated system of war companies and such. 

  • As a result. 
  • Clans will be able to set friendly status for other clans in their nation (up to 15 clans). Current clans and their historical names will remain intact. 
  • Diplomat role will be added and clan founder and diplomats will be able to set this friendly status. 
  • Only clans listed as friendly will be able to enter port battles initiated by the clan.
  • Friendly status + battlegroups will keep alts from battles and port battles.

New player experience, seal clubbing and inability to progress
Once the average player have passed the initial hurdles of the UI and started building ships it is getting very hard to progress because he has no place to safely rebuild and survive. 

Initial solution was to move un capturable ports to coasts

  • Moving un capturable ports to the coasts and moving very profitable resources to the center will actually increase sailing times for many (who wish to venture into dangerous waters for profit or pvp)
  • In addition to that repositioning of ports will drastically change existing gameplay and reposition resources and having done this before we believe that this might have a drastic adverse effect on play

As a result we would like to discuss the alternative solution for discussion

  • Change naming of servers to properly identify the style of play 
    • Easy (PvE only)
    • Hardcore Global
    • Hardcore EU
  • Capitals will remain in their current places
  • Un-capturable ports will be set in the areas around the capitals (with the exception of sweden and denmark which will be set as very hard again during selection of the nation).
  • Un-capturable ports will not be counted in the national leaderboards for victory marks
  • Important. Within the zone of influence around the waters will be made extremely safe, by use of national reinforcements (a-la CONCORD) which will arrive to battles and defend the player in case he is attacked. The bigger the distance from capital the weaker reinforcements would be. Extremely skilled captains will still be able to sink the defender despite all odds, but it will give some breathing room to players to rebuild in case of multiple losses.
  • Extremely profitable trading resources will be removed from the un-capturable ports and placed in capturable ports to provide profitable trading, privateering and potential taxation base.

Taxation will remain the way described before. Port maintenance will be added - if the clan controls the port they will have to pay maintenance (taken from the clan warehouse). If maintenance is not paid the port will turn into a neutral port. Taxation money will be collected to clan warehouse as well. 

 

Safe(R) waters are going to be controversial for some. So lets spend some time discussing this as well. 
Predicting outcry about safe waters we would like to say. We believe some safe waters will be good for the game.

We can supply new players to game (10000 new players came to NA during last 3 months) but current system do not keep them. No-one stayed. 

Some might say - but add pve and such - we could do that and plan to do that, but the problem is that with current system you won't be able to even get to those exciting PVE events. Privateers operating from free towns near capitals, placed conveniently within 20 mins form each capital for a different reason (resource transport that was removed) completely destroy the opportunity to rebuild. You must stay in green waters otherwise you are dead. When online numbers fluctuate they increase the problem because there are less targets and the only target becomes a new player, because old players know how to avoid it. New players unfortunately do not get time to learn to avoid it, and just leave.

When online numbers were higher it was a lesser problem because of abundance of targets (some could pass through). When online fluctuates the only target is a new player.

 

Sounds better then the first idea, but one little Problem is there. Without being in a Clan you cant participate. Would it be possible to let Clans add Single Player into some Kind of Friend- List so they can join to?

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21 minutes ago, admin said:

we will just send reinforcement AI captains to the future to get some tips and training from CONCORD 

Lets call concord from now on : 

coast guard

or Regional Navy Force

[*RNF]

or just Regional Navy for nations [*RN]

or Regional Pirates for the pirates  [*NP]

choice enough 

Edited by Thonys
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So u make a chaotic, unrealistic system to solve problems. I think if u make this u plan to make a material reset aswell, what will force players to leave again. With this mechanics, with this attitude the end is close. In my opinion the strongest 15 clans in nations will cooperate each other and will supress the others inside the nation. more better if the strongest 15 clans all over the map will make alliance, and supress the rest. This is the most likely version will happens, as the HC players know each other, they are friendsappart from that they fighting each other. The game wasent balanced till know, what was a real big problem, but u didnot take care of it. Now u make a system what can be more unbalanced. At least national system has some restrictions to gather the strongest forces, now u make a clear way to do it. Who wont be in the strong  alliance(s), just will have hard times in the game. They will be able to build ships, but it will be hard, they wont be able to do PB-s or make good OS sea PVP as it intended because they will be underdog.  I dont think supressed nation's guilds will have place in that alliances, why HC national players just make alliance with weak guilds, while they can with thier old HC friends. I dunno how this solute the OS sailing time issue, the supressed nation issue, the low PVP on server issue? No Balance, no PVP support, no reward changes, no OS sailing changes. I feel u do nothing against the real problems, AS ALWAYS. No, its not true. I feel ur direction just streghten this problems.

I wish best to ur game..

Best regards: ..

Edited by DrZoidberg
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How about built in-game warning system that will announce intruders ?  Basically if enemy player violates some rule, his presence will be announced in nation chat.

Examples

a] any friendly ship (incl. NPC) that spots enemy in protected water area will automatically send report to local combat news chat as soon as this ship enters port

b] allow players to report spotted target (add button in dialogue window where you now can start chat with selected ship), report may create mark on map for other players for limited time

c] friendly NPC ship sunk in friendly waters to be reported at the time of her expected arrival

Edited by Armored_Sheep
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12 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

No, they dont need to be merged.

EU playerbase dont want to be merged into the Global server rules.

 

When the devs fix all the pending issues with alts, grinding, UI, tutorials, safe rookies, languages... the game will flourish again.

Keep believing that.  Much like the ostrich, putting your head in the sand doesnt make the problem go away.

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15 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

No, they dont need to be merged.

EU playerbase dont want to be merged into the Global server rules.

 

When the devs fix all the pending issues with alts, grinding, UI, tutorials, safe rookies, languages... the game will flourish again.

They need to. The EU server is dying out through boredomness. No RvR, no OW fights. Only missionjumping. While that, global has a running diplo with wars and stuff but with the problem that RvR is simply to expensive and playernumbers consuming that they only do OW fights. Combine it and you get at least more action.

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