Grinding some ports is beyond stupid

[Koltes]

I understand there is no better mechanic than to grind hostility. I understand that we have to fight etc.
But common. Sitting waiting for AI fleet to appear for over an hour is just stupid. This is not a game play. This is just an hour of my life NOT playing.
We been trying to flip Trinidad for 3 hours and just saw 3 fleets the entire time.

Same goes for Portobelo. It took 5 hours for 10 1st rates to flip it!..
It took 3 days for Brits to flip it back for the last PB we had there. Common!
There is just no excuse to waste players time like that.

Remove all AI mighty fleet from OW. We don't need them
Give us a hostility flag already. Pull that flag and plant it to start bringing AI massive fleets in the area. So there are targets to fight

[Koltes]

7 minutes ago, Peter Goldman said:

Your suggestion still forces PvE for hostility.

 

Dude I dont really care at this stage. I understand that we are working on better mechanic and yours might be the way to go. But until this mechanic has been found and implemented we have to use current mechanic. What I'm asking is for a hot fix that would give us the damn fleet to fight or at least bring back hostility missions

[shaeberle84]

RAIDS, please!

[admin]

unless we find how to remove griefing from flag purchases new ports system missions will come back for hostilities
they will be open for some good time for entry and will only spawn around the port that you are raising hostility. It will provide good options both for attack and defense and will be very easy to tune (without ruining OW bot distribution)

for example -
small ports hostility mission will always spawn 10 light ships
4th rate ports will always spawn 10 frigates
line ships ports will always spawn 10 first rates


 

[Skully]

Just bobbing around should count as hostility. PvE hits are just for intermissions.

The formula needs improving though as to not flip in 1 go, but rather in 2 days (read 2 PvP battles in a single timeslot).

[Skully]

3 minutes ago, admin said:

unless we find how to remove griefing from flag purchases new ports system missions will come back for hostilities
they will be open for some good time for entry and will only spawn around the port that you are raising hostility. It will provide good options both for attack and defense and will be very easy to tune (without ruining OW bot distribution)

for example -
small ports hostility mission will always spawn 10 light ships
4th rate ports will always spawn 10 frigates
line ships ports will always spawn 10 first rates

I would rather steer players towards PvP fights, but I can't find a solution for folks not wanting to engage for 2 hours (/ 1 timeslot).

[admin]

Just now, Skully said:

I would rather steer players towards PvP fights, but I can't find a solution for folks not wanting to engage for 2 hours (/ 1 timeslot).

you can't do that - due to no-shows or lower online in that nation

[Koltes]

1 minute ago, admin said:

you can't do that - due to no-shows or lower online in that nation

Good! As long as those hostility missions are open BR for players its all good. Missions today are ships rate limited. This way if they are open grinders will get ganked easily.

- Hostility missions NEVER close;
- Hostility missions allow up to 25 players (no BR limit);
- Hostility missions SPAWN AI fleet after players joined = more players joined more AI to kill, thus speeding up the gringing when we bring more people

Please! Thank you!

[Quineloe]

 

4 minutes ago, Skully said:

I would rather steer players towards PvP fights, but I can't find a solution for folks not wanting to engage for 2 hours (/ 1 timeslot).

People will not engage your hostility fleet unless they're sure they can win if the other option is to just not engage you at all and sit out your "attack".

IMO the game needs more NPC all around on the open world to make players rely less on missions to generate combat. Why are there no small convoys yet of 2-3 traders and 2-3 warships in the game yet?

[Koltes]

Here @8:45 listen to what Jeheil says in his "Letter to the King" about their experience of flipping Portobelo

Edited August 9, 2017 by koltes

[Vernon Merrill]

40 minutes ago, Quineloe said:

 

People will not engage your hostility fleet unless they're sure they can win if the other option is to just not engage you at all and sit out your "attack".

IMO the game needs more NPC all around on the open world to make players rely less on missions to generate combat. Why are there no small convoys yet of 2-3 traders and 2-3 warships in the game yet?

Because then everyone would be a bazillionaire in 3 months instead of 6 and still not bring their modded-out ships that they spent 6-million gold upgrading out to fight...

This is why this revenge fleet topic is so amusing.  

Literally the ONLY people that are playing the game as originally intended I.e, ow ship combat, have to go to capitals to find traders and mission grinders.  

I'm in my redeemable Surprise still with one magic bow spell and 2 knowledge slots.  Please tell me why people are "grinding"....

[Quineloe]

35 minutes ago, Otto Kohl said:

Hell no. No need for more AI fleet huggers.

Of course you don't like the suggestion. When ganking in missions, you can spawn right on top of the player, whereas with open world fleets you'd have to join in the reinforcement circle and are a bit away from the action.

[shaeberle84]

1 hour ago, admin said:

unless we find how to remove griefing from flag purchases new ports system missions will come back for hostilities
they will be open for some good time for entry and will only spawn around the port that you are raising hostility. It will provide good options both for attack and defense and will be very easy to tune (without ruining OW bot distribution)

for example -
small ports hostility mission will always spawn 10 light ships
4th rate ports will always spawn 10 frigates
line ships ports will always spawn 10 first rates


 

This is like raids?

So winning a port mission will give you ressources? =)

Free to joint for defenders (or more attackers)?

[Skully]

The basic premise should be: if a fleet wins PvP battles in a timeslot 2 days in a row exceeding its own BR, then it wins.

Next: if a fleet shows up unopposed in a timeslot 2 days in a row, then it wins. This is the pain point, because it would mean sitting still doing nothing for 2 hours.

Not engaging a stronger enemy is a very valid naval tactic, but it sucks for gameplay.

The price can either be the region outright, or the right to do Port Battle (via flag means or timed slot). I like http://forum.game-labs.net/topic/21271-the-conquest-part-1-port-battle-mechanics/.

Then comes more: A 25 (PB) Fleet must be able to defend/hold a region, unless defeated directly in a 25x25 fight. I think this should only apply to the region/port in which the warehouse is planted. Effectively it forms a hostility barrier the size of the docked up ships during off-times. Similar to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleet_in_being doctrine.

 

[Tiedemann]

2 hours ago, admin said:

unless we find how to remove griefing from flag purchases new ports system missions will come back for hostilities
they will be open for some good time for entry and will only spawn around the port that you are raising hostility. It will provide good options both for attack and defense and will be very easy to tune (without ruining OW bot distribution)

for example -
small ports hostility mission will always spawn 10 light ships
4th rate ports will always spawn 10 frigates
line ships ports will always spawn 10 first rates


 

Improvement over what we have now at least, so I like it.

[The Spud]

The flag system is a better system because it is more dynamic, any minute something might go down. Its worth loggin in, because you know stuff will happen. And you can make stuff happen yourself. With minor tweaking you can bring back the flag system, and make the game more entertaining again. It'll feel like an always ongoing battle all the time, now it just feels like its evey now and then some RvR and some PvP (if you're lucky) to fill the gaps.

Flags can only be pulled by top ranked players, 3 other top ranked players must agree to the flag being pulled (with some sort of invite mechanic, where you need to type "conquest" to accept) this to prevent alts or trolls from pulling fake flags. So you basicaly Buy a flag and you invite other memebers out of your group to accept the flag. The one who bought the flag owns the flag. Flag sticks to his name and not to a ship so he can't trade the flag.

On the EU server you allready have port timers, so I imagine any flag pulled between these hours is fair.

One could say, the flag needs to be carried by a 6-7th rate for Shallow PB's, 4-5th rate for 4th rate PB, and 1-2-3rd rate for 1St rate PB. This avoids using lynxes for uncapturable upwind sailing. Ship with the flag takes up 1 spot for the attackers, so if its not a PB worthy ship its not going to do well, and if it doesn't enter its one less ship the attacker has to fight with.

 

Edited August 8, 2017 by The Spud

[Vllad]

13 minutes ago, The Spud said:

The flag system is a better system because it is more dynamic, any minute something might go down.

The Flag system never worked well. It certainly isn't any better than what we have now.

We need to move forward not backwards. They need to re-think the entire port battle system.

We have already tested flags. We have pretty thoroughly tested just OW PVE.

Time to try something new.

[Quineloe]

19 minutes ago, The Spud said:

The flag system is a better system because it is more dynamic, any minute something might go down. Its worth loggin in, because you know stuff will happen.

 

my memory was more like "Don't do anything for two hours, someone MIGHT buy a flag. " And then nothing happens. And people logged off in frustration.

[Teutonic]

1 minute ago, Quineloe said:

my memory was more like "Don't do anything for two hours, someone MIGHT buy a flag. " And then nothing happens. And people logged off in frustration.

I remember this well and it was exhausting. It really killed the fun for folks who wanted to pvp or mission or trade or what have you, only to have to tell them "You can't do anything because if you do we won't have enough people to defend x,y,z within this timeframe."

[The Spud]

Just now, Quineloe said:

my memory was more like "Don't do anything for two hours, someone MIGHT buy a flag. " And then nothing happens. And people logged off in frustration.

I have been sitting outside "guarding" ports allot of hours, I know what it was like. But back then we had to protect EVERY port, now its just the nation capitals. Also we couldn't TP between our own outposts freely. If you put up an outpost in the most likely regions, you can just do whatever you want and TP to the area when a flag is pulled.

To prevent fake flags, you can implement a feature where if the flag doesn't reach the region it attacks within a set amount of time the flag expires (30 minutes).

Scheduled PB's sounded nice, I would like to give the flag system another go just to be able to compare it better to the conquest system we have now. Alternatively, you could also say a flag can only be pulled when a region has reached maximum hostility and you need to pool attack points to be able to pull a flag.

 

[Quineloe]

>To prevent fake flags, you can implement a feature where if the flag doesn't reach the region it attacks within a set amount of time the flag expires (30 minutes)

Uh, that mechanic was already in place. It was 60 minutes, but that made no difference. If your ports were open from 18 to 20, you had to be ready to defend from 18 and if a flag was bought at 19:59, that added another hour on top.

So your change would reduce the time in that case by 1/6th.
 

[The Spud]

5 minutes ago, Quineloe said:

>To prevent fake flags, you can implement a feature where if the flag doesn't reach the region it attacks within a set amount of time the flag expires (30 minutes)

Uh, that mechanic was already in place. It was 60 minutes, but that made no difference. If your ports were open from 18 to 20, you had to be ready to defend from 18 and if a flag was bought at 19:59, that added another hour on top.

So your change would reduce the time in that case by 1/6th.
 

I know it was 60 minutes, but you only knew it was fake after 60 minutes, now you would know after 30 minutes.

You could have a "flagnews" channel passing info on the flag location every now and then "Tiburon Flag is sighted near Port Morant" or something. So you would know its moving and not sitting in some port of sorts. I would even agree to having the flag position register on the map every 5 minutes.

Like I said we can TP now, you can TP to the port that is attacked once you know for sure that the flag is real.

[Fastidius]

I'm going to throw out a bit of a off topic thing here but make it visible because i think the game is worse now than before.

 

Flags, even when exploited, created attention and activity....everyone was looking for if the flags were fake or real and were trying to engage the flag carriers in PVP.....this effectively trained people to learn to chase PVP.  The OW was visibly in play rather than just a screensaver.  Currently the system and designs all put people into PVE mode and avoiding combat.

The game was better when you had no missions, there were plenty of OW fleets and people had to sail around to do everything rather than just sitting in instances.   The solutions put forward to this point have been unsatisfactory however sound in concept the final iterations have compounded to the point where the PVP and PVE servers are almost interchangeable except for a small couple of segments of the map.

I don't know what the solution you guys are redesigning is but this game is far to PVE Now so the new system has to satrt lending itself to players doing things against players not bullshit fleet grinds that are not even being supported well enough for the fleets that come out of ports to be of the right nation.   There are far to few fleets of any size and what you hit them with has no affect.

[Sir Texas Sir]

4 hours ago, admin said:

unless we find how to remove griefing from flag purchases new ports system missions will come back for hostilities
they will be open for some good time for entry and will only spawn around the port that you are raising hostility. It will provide good options both for attack and defense and will be very easy to tune (without ruining OW bot distribution)

for example -
small ports hostility mission will always spawn 10 light ships
4th rate ports will always spawn 10 frigates
line ships ports will always spawn 10 first rates


 

The biggest problem with the hostility missions was that you couldn't find them in some regions cause they where so freaking big and you had no clue what port they pulled them at.  All missions should be at the capital only of that region so you know where they will be.

The second problem was them closing after 5 mins.  There was nothing wrong with them staying open 15 mins or even 30 mins (I wouldn't go longer than this).   When you drop it to 5 mins most the times you would maybe find it when they closed and if the fleets saw you they used exit to friendly port so to avoid a fight and that killed OW hunting and PvP to counter RvR grind.

Make the missions only spawn at regional capitals or at that port if we go back to the port system.   Make the missions stay open for 15 to 30 mins. IF some one is worried about a fleet droping in on them all they have to do is turn it into a running fight with the AI and mvoe away from the spawn area.

Having the missions spawn a set amount of ships is good so that you can get a fleet up to 12 players to do them.  Hell you can get bigger fleets that can split up and join more than one of them at a time, but you know your prob going have to bring enough ships to deal with 10 ships of that level.  Than put the BR/Ship rank cap on it so folks can't bring 1st rates into the 4th rate frigate missions.  Though I would mix the fleets up for each one so that Shallows will have 10 6-7th rates.   Deep water would have 10 5-4th rates.  SOL ports will have 10 3rd-1st rates.  Cause not every one has the biggest ships and still want to help grind.

[admin]

5 minutes ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

The biggest problem with the hostility missions was that you couldn't find them in some regions cause they where so freaking big and you had no clue what port they pulled them at.  All missions should be at the capital only of that region so you know where they will be.

 

when there is no more regions and all ports are individual the problem solves itself. just patrol the area around the port