RvR port maintenance

[Bach]

One of the issues new players speak bad about the game is inability to play the nations of their choice because they are one ported or have so few usable ports.

in real life if a group of Spanish over run a British colony the colonists didn't just magically turn into Spanish citizens. They are oppressed British citizens. If the Spanish want to keep control of the port they needed to pacify the citizens, garrison troops and patrol the coast.

if you added a maintenance factor into captured ports it would help. Assign a port an "unrest factor" and if it ever reaches 100% unrest the port reverts back to the original nationality. Unrest should always go up everyday by a set amount. To counter unrest the conquering nations must do activities in game that reduce the unrest. It can be: 

Delivery missions of goods given to the citizens to keep them happy. Something like deliver 500 Cuban Tobacco or Iberian dried pork. This spends gold and puts merchant ships at sea.

it can be improving the garrison. A delivery mission of muskets and cannons to the occupying troops. This gives player manufacturers a purpose and puts delivery ships at sea.

Patrolling the coast. Players sink other players or NPCs off the coast and a factor of the hostility gained goes to reducing unrest. This puts more PvP and PVE players onto the sea.

This will also mix up the RvR game as it will be harder for nations to simply sit on the ports across the majority of the map and enhance the Pvp components of RvR. Nations will be discouraged from taking more land than they can maintain. The game map will naturally heal itself following big swings in RvR dominance. becoming attractive again to new players.

Edited August 18, 2017 by Bach

[Skully]

9 minutes ago, Bach said:

Nations will be discouraged from taking more land

Sounds to me like "Please don't conquer, your effort will be nullified automatically and ultimately you can't win anyway..."

I don't need anymore discouragement. 

[Bach]

1 hour ago, Skully said:

Sounds to me like "Please don't conquer, your effort will be nullified automatically and ultimately you can't win anyway..."

I don't need anymore discouragement. 

That's a bit dramatic.

You have to admit conquering the Gulf of Mexico and then just walking away and leaving one color is a waste of game play area.  Hot spots would still be as contested as ever. Capturing a port next to a capital will require more input than just logging in once every few days for a 90min PB. 

[Slamz]

1 hour ago, Skully said:

Sounds to me like "Please don't conquer, your effort will be nullified automatically

Did you really conquer an area if nobody on your team ever uses it and never goes there?

That's just coloring in the dots.

I had an idea like this sometime like year. Basically areas tend to go neutral unless they are being used. "Used" means player structures are making things, people are coming and going, buying and selling, etc.

Some areas of the map will end up going permanently neutral -- essentially acting as a magnet area for new guilds that may want to try their hand in an out-of-the-way area. Once they start using it, the port becomes theirs and will stay that way until they stop using it or someone takes it from them.

 

We have to get away from "pac man the dots [and then never go there because they are useless]". That's what killed the game in 2016 too.

[Slim McSauce]

Unless you raze the populous and cash in on all their delicious wealth

[Jean Ribault]

4 hours ago, Slamz said:

Did you really conquer an area if nobody on your team ever uses it and never goes there?

That's just coloring in the dots.

I had an idea like this sometime like year. Basically areas tend to go neutral unless they are being used. "Used" means player structures are making things, people are coming and going, buying and selling, etc.

Some areas of the map will end up going permanently neutral -- essentially acting as a magnet area for new guilds that may want to try their hand in an out-of-the-way area. Once they start using it, the port becomes theirs and will stay that way until they stop using it or someone takes it from them.

 

We have to get away from "pac man the dots [and then never go there because they are useless]". That's what killed the game in 2016 too.

 

I cannot find your suggestion, but I do remember it.  And I happen to think that some form of that would be an awesome modification to this game.

[IndianaGeoff]

A carry cost for ports would be wise.  Food for troops, war supplies for weapons, stone for forts, trade for the people.  Make keeping 2 or 3 zones easy, 4 to 10 hard and over 11 extremely hard.

[Skully]

11 hours ago, Bach said:

That's a bit dramatic.

You have to admit conquering the Gulf of Mexico and then just walking away and leaving one color is a waste of game play area.  Hot spots would still be as contested as ever. Capturing a port next to a capital will require more input than just logging in once every few days for a 90min PB. 

Please do not talk to me of the Gulf when you've never been there. I myself have rampaged up and down, both as British and Pirates. Mostly to dislodge lazy Rear Admiral councils who could not be puckered about the fact: the West Coast is owned by the Free Empire.

On 8/17/2017 at 7:04 AM, Sir Texas Sir said:

If you want a safe place go play in the Gulf.  That is the safe zone for folks that don't want to PvP and do there happy little trading.

On 8/1/2017 at 8:34 AM, Prater said:

The gulf is a deadzone where you go to pve, not pvp.  That's how it has always been.

If anybody wants to come of their lazy arse and attack the Gulf, be my guest. But alas that brings some obstacles (/excuses ).

Skully said:

I shouldn't be saying this, but what if there was a true attack on the Mexican gulf.

1. Avatar TP to Freeport needs to come back. Make a large Nation put in effort against privateering. (Avatar TP is just a mechanism to counter low server population anyway.)
2. Bring back contracts in any port for anything. Make a smuggler smuggle something again.
3. Bring back a low AI resource production, so land needs "maintenance" done either by traders or smugglers.

 

Your suggestion gives the enemy the option to wait and win. Shit on their arses while the AI takes back their lands. Something that must never happen.

Instead we went out to the French to Fight and win!

PS. We should formalize the existent PvE area: http://forum.game-labs.net/topic/22258-a-vision-for-new-players

Edited August 19, 2017 by Skully

[Skully]

11 hours ago, Slamz said:

We have to get away from "pac man the dots [and then never go there because they are useless]". That's what killed the game in 2016 too.

Nothing killed the game in 2016. We called an end to the Season / Competition, whatever you may want to call it.

On 8/31/2016 at 8:45 AM, Skully said:

So you can hide your territory behind the time slots. You may call it an exploit or not. It does not matter.

It is broken. It must be fixed. Region Conquest is coming, so does the first part of the Exterminatus.

Our Lord has revealed what the Free Empire already knew:

On 8/26/2016 at 4:16 PM, admin said:

This means that current port conquest is becoming even more meaningless.

And thus we wait... we abide our time... we prepare...

The End is Nigh

And the same is happening again.

On 8/14/2017 at 0:04 PM, Skully said:

And the current game on its current rules is done. We have reached the end-state, so we are leaving to come back when the development team is done on a new rule set.

For Global, technically BLACK has won this round. But really they lost out big.

How much the Free Empire conquered is hard to say, most of us literally live on the dark (/ night) side of the map.

Since they are number 1, I can only say congratulations to them.

Lets bicker over the next rule set in the mean time. 

[Bach]

35 minutes ago, Skully said:

Your suggestion gives the enemy the option to wait and win. Shit on their arses while the AI takes back their lands. Something that must never happen.

Instead we went out to the French to Fight and win!

You mean sit on your ass and "win" like is happening right now?    You may have come down to france to win some port battles but it wasn't to fight. The current rule set allows you to send over 90% of your "combat time with france" not on the sea. 

[Skully]

2 minutes ago, Bach said:

You mean sit on your ass and "win" like is happening right now?    You may have come down to france to win some port battles but it wasn't to fight. The current rule set allows you to send over 90% of your "combat time with france" not on the sea. 

The game allows you to hide behind mechanics. A Nation needs to be able to fall else we'll never see players giving it their utmost to defend it. The current winning move is: do nothing and troll.

It is broken. It must be fixed.

My Lord, bring forth the Exterminatus.

Inquisitor Skully of the (Early Access) Alpha Legion

[Bach]

3 minutes ago, Skully said:

The game allows you to hide behind mechanics. A Nation needs to be able to fall else we'll never see players giving it their utmost to defend it. The current winning move is: do nothing and troll.

It is broken. It must be fixed.

My Lord, bring forth the Exterminatus.

Inquisitor Skully of the (Early Access) Alpha Legion

Nations are failing now. Nobody is "doing their utmost to defend them".  That force people to do stuff DOESNT WORK.  Its been thoroughly tested over two years. Its still not working. Let it go. Coloring dots isn't making it a fun game.  "Its dead Jim"   Its time to try something else.  Maintenance of the map aras will put more dynamics into PvP, RvR, PVE and Econ.  They need something to do other than RvR over a dot every few days.

[Skully]

18 minutes ago, Bach said:

Nations are failing now. Nobody is "doing their utmost to defend them".  That force people to do stuff DOESNT WORK.  Its been thoroughly tested over two years. Its still not working.

I'm glad we agree on this point.

18 minutes ago, Bach said:

Let it go. Coloring dots isn't making it a fun game.  "Its dead Jim"   Its time to try something else.

The coloring dots was never implemented properly. For some odd reason there is still yellow and blue on the Global map.

18 minutes ago, Bach said:

Maintenance of the map aras will put more dynamics into PvP, RvR, PVE and Econ.  They need something to do other than RvR over a dot every few days.

I provide options to both sides to proceed:

1. Conquer a Capital (or not)
2. Defend a Capital or let it fall, go privateer and smuggle (in essence become a pirate by circumstance)

While you force a play style onto the other side, because the choices presented to you are not to your liking and you want to simply hide behind the unconquerable Capital mechanic.

Edited August 19, 2017 by Skully

[IndianaGeoff]

There is a choice other than what you present. Quit and play something else.  Winner take all as you propose and the global pirates have done has accomplished that.

Losing players who are or might be good is the real enemy now.  And he is winning.

 

Oops left one off, join a winning team.

Edited August 19, 2017 by IndianaGeoff

[Skully]

16 minutes ago, IndianaGeoff said:

There is a choice other than what you present. Quit and play something else.

Sure, that's happening right now. I don't like the looks. Any other options?

[IndianaGeoff]

I have already.  The winners need to decide what they want.

[Sir Texas Sir]

10 hours ago, Skully said:

Sure, that's happening right now. I don't like the looks. Any other options?

Quiters never win....that is the problem with todays generation is they would prefer to quit and ignore the problem instead of fight it out and solve it.

 

As for the OP topic I thnk Port Maintenance would be good, but also I think it would hurt some of the big nations that collect tons of dots.  When every one was grabbing up Spain ports for the points/dots it would not have ended well for US or GB for sure very early in the game since patch.  Though if the victory was off the max points you have you can still maintain enough ports to be the winner and not keeping them all as the ones not upkeeped should fall into a neutral status even if it's historically owned by one nation or the other.  That is why I liked this War Company concept they came up with and making it more clan base not National based.  If you don't want to RvR you can just stay out of it and not fight over those key regions/ports.  Though keep the game PvP OW in all areas (though do think Capital regions need a Rookie ROE system to help the new players out).   

And I do think PvP and RvR content should be separated from PvE content. If you want PvP/RvR (they should share rewards type) content you need to do PvP/RvR content or buy it off some one that does.  That is why I liked the PvE/PvP marks system cause it did exactly that.  I hate every one gets a trophy crap right now so the Conquest Marks was wa better system than the current Victory Mark system.  Though I think to fix that they should do something like this.  Every one on the game gets one victory mark at the end of a map count.  Lets say make it every three weeks.  This will give even the guys that sit in port something to look forward to.  The winner gets 3 Victory marks (like how as it's one per week).  The second place gets 2 and third gets 1.    This way it rewards folks that aren't in first place to so they are willing to fight and not just give up cause they didn't make 1st place.  Give non combat rewards in Port Battles to the winner.  Paint Chest would of been a great way to do this to encourage folks to show up but they can still trade these with PvE guys that don't want to PvP/RvR.  Have the same rewards offered in a shop for PvP Marks so the PvP guys can get them too if they don't want to get involved in the RvR.   The PvP shop should have some ships that aren't easy to get through normal means.  Ships like the Niagra, Ingermanland, Wasa (make it BR above Wappen and lock out of 4th rate Port Battles) would be good ships to put in the shop that are't key RvR port battle ships, but they are ships that not every one will want or need to own to do RvR.  Actually all three of the new ships would work for this as they aren't exactly the top ship of there tier bracket.  If a none PvP/RvR players wants these ships they need to either do PvP/RvR or pay some one that does them to get them.  

10 hours ago, IndianaGeoff said:

I have already.  The winners need to decide what they want.

And this is why you don't win, cause you just quit ever time things don't go your way.  If we did that than pirates would never leave Mort Cause we would be one ported and camped by all nations....oh wait that did happen before and we still came back and brought US down to 11 ports (the reason we had that war with them) and than Brits to 1 cause they back stabbed us while fighting the US.   Oh but I love how folks all ways forget how and why those exchanges happen.  Just like your nation every time we took a port from you was after you put two of our ports in Port Battles.  We ignore all the agro but if your strong enough to put our ports into port battle and come fight us than you should be strong enough to defend your own ports. I think that has been a very fair trade off that we have waited every time for you to attack us twice and flip a port since patch before we flip one and only one back.  Maybe if you stop trying to poke the big bear you wouldn't have lost two ports to us, but no PIRATES ARE EVIL SCUM AND THEY MUST ALL BE DESTROYED.....all along while loosing half your ports to the Brits and shaddy deals.....yah and you wonder why you nation keeps loosing....lol

Oh and Geoff for a player over a year and half old why aren't you Rear Admiral yet?  Sitting in port being a keyboard commander never gets you any xp to level up.

[IndianaGeoff]

14 hours ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

And this is why you don't win, cause you just quit ever time things don't go your way.  If we did that than pirates would never leave Mort Cause we would be one ported and camped by all nations....oh wait that did happen before and we still came back and brought US down to 11 ports (the reason we had that war with them) and than Brits to 1 cause they back stabbed us while fighting the US.   Oh but I love how folks all ways forget how and why those exchanges happen.  Just like your nation every time we took a port from you was after you put two of our ports in Port Battles.  We ignore all the agro but if your strong enough to put our ports into port battle and come fight us than you should be strong enough to defend your own ports. I think that has been a very fair trade off that we have waited every time for you to attack us twice and flip a port since patch before we flip one and only one back.  Maybe if you stop trying to poke the big bear you wouldn't have lost two ports to us, but no PIRATES ARE EVIL SCUM AND THEY MUST ALL BE DESTROYED.....all along while loosing half your ports to the Brits and shaddy deals.....yah and you wonder why you nation keeps loosing....lol

Oh and Geoff for a player over a year and half old why aren't you Rear Admiral yet?  Sitting in port being a keyboard commander never gets you any xp to level up.

First off, I don't have to justify not being a Rear Admiral to anyone.  There is another post that explains why.

Second, I can not quit all day long. But if the mechanics of the game encourage others to quit (by switching teams or frustration) my little stand means nothing.  It is friggen hilarious that a bunch of Ex USA players who camp nightly their former nation tell us to stop being a quitter.  ROTFLMAO.

What you don't seem to get is that the USA or some player on a nation you quit or me is not the enemy.  The enemy is the game failing.  And right now, asshatery is killing the game as hard as the Devs.  We had a streamer with healthy following join the the game, bring dozens of new players, experience this toxic server and leave in 3 weeks.  Call them quitters all day long, but the end result is an huge opportunity gone.  But hey, destroying the US is worth it because they lost a port battle and they are the easy PVP target.

[BetaVape]

Doesnt actually help small nations get more players which is the actual problem.

[Skully]

7 hours ago, BetaVape said:

Doesnt actually help small nations get more players which is the actual problem.

I would say lack of leadership. Be it because circumstances do not bring one forth or bring forth too many (usually in GB ).

Suffice to say such a Nation has no role anymore in RvR, and should therefore be removed from play.

Let players fall in with the conquerors and experience true leadership.

[BetaVape]

Sure but the flow is overwhelmingly from weak nations to populated nations. Are you saying to reduce it to like 3 factions like DAoC? Many games have nice underdog bonuses. Everytime i play H&G or RoR i always go to underpop faction to get those extras.