We want outlaw battles!

[Slim McSauce]

Just now, Macjimm said:

I've read the whole thread.  

What is an Outlaw Battle?

Explain with detail, I have difficulty understanding battle mechanics.

An outlaw battle is a feature in which players of the same nation could attack each other at any given time at any given place. This battle would produce the legendary 'FFA' ROE where everybody was an enemy, and anybody could be sunk by anybody.

They were a very big hit with the pirates, but for everyone else we suffered having to deal with players tagging each other for various gameplay exploits that gave the pirates an advantage over everyone else, so they were removed.

As per usually every time we have this thread, the common answer is either keep them gone, or return outlaw battles to all nations. I'm personally in favor of the latter. Piracy plays a big role, pirate nation is placeholder for actual outlaw mechanics that work. o7

[Macjimm]

4 minutes ago, Beeekonda said:

Pirates attacking Pirates. Anytime. Anywhere.

 

That's it?  No option for any other nation to attack itself?

Simple change.  Big effect.

[Hethwill]

You shall not abuse the new guys.

You shall not abuse anyone that does not agree with your politics.

For that you need no Outlaw, you need to go Enemy Nation and teach them a lesson.

To teach newcomers you need little more than what's in place - attack AI, do green on green duel.

Or attack AI fleet and train formations, etc.

Need no outlaw for that

[Capn Rocko]

3 hours ago, Hethwill the Red Duke said:

You shall not abuse the new guys.

You shall not abuse anyone that does not agree with your politics.

For that you need no Outlaw, you need to go Enemy Nation and teach them a lesson.

To teach newcomers you need little more than what's in place - attack AI, do green on green duel.

Or attack AI fleet and train formations, etc.

Need no outlaw for that

Yes, buy $DLC$ to change nation so you can attack someone in your current nation. That is a great advertisement for the devs 😎

#1 new players should not be rolling pirates, especially when safe zones are removed. Even if new players decide to join pirate, the devs have already posted disclaimers on their website and in the initial release of the port UI stating that pirates can attack each other. There should be no misunderstanding what the player is singing up for. I repeat, there are 10 other nations they can choose from. 

#2 Green v Green is a horrible way to duel/train players. Once you sink or let the AI escape, you only have 15 minutes to duel each other, which is not enough time to do much of anything. Not to mention, there are no boarding mechanics in green v green, thus, taking away a lot of the strategy and risk that you experience in a normal battle. 

#3 Oulaw battles worked great last time on EU server. Yes, there were exploits but all can be easily fixed and in some cases have already been fixed by RoE mechanics currently in game. Last time outlaw battles were in game, the pirate nation turned into a true nation of hunters (which is what most people expect pirates to be). It got to the point where you found pirates hunting everywhere on the game map (combat news was almost entirely full of pirate names) , clans were operating out of smaller ports and creating their own economies, and duels were happening daily at Mortimer Town. As long as you did not PvE in the capital area, you generally were not bothered. Everyone who remained a pirate after the first 1-2 months of outlaw battles loved the mechanics and the play style that was offered. It was a unique nation that offered a hardcore life for those who wanted it and many loved it. 

[HachiRoku]

4 hours ago, Hethwill the Red Duke said:

You shall not abuse the new guys.

You shall not abuse anyone that does not agree with your politics.

For that you need no Outlaw, you need to go Enemy Nation and teach them a lesson.

To teach newcomers you need little more than what's in place - attack AI, do green on green duel.

Or attack AI fleet and train formations, etc.

Need no outlaw for that

why do you consider pvp abuse? Have you ever considered their are players that don't like sailing around with other pvpers to gank noobs. EXILE members even attacked and sank eachother as pirate outlaws. The only reason I never attack rover because I have little care for fighting shallow water ships and I don't like the odds since you know what youre doing and are mostly 3-4 guys. 

[jodgi]

On 12/6/2018 at 10:11 PM, Hethwill the Red Duke said:

Being a mmo is not why i play NA

Signed.

[Hethwill]

58 minutes ago, HachiRoku said:

why do you consider pvp abuse? Have you ever considered their are players that don't like sailing around with other pvpers to gank noobs. EXILE members even attacked and sank eachother as pirate outlaws. The only reason I never attack rover because I have little care for fighting shallow water ships and I don't like the odds since you know what youre doing and are mostly 3-4 guys. 

Clan based warfare is great. You are right. We should do away with nations, make it just one nation and outlaw battles.

Cheers.

[Capn Rocko]

29 minutes ago, Hethwill the Red Duke said:

Clan based warfare is great. You are right. We should do away with nations, make it just one nation and outlaw battles.

Cheers.

Or perhaps make one of the 11 nations available with outlaw battles for the players who want it that way.

Players' opinions will always be split on the issue, but let's at least test it again with the exploits fixed (See the many threads in the last 1.5 years for easy exploit fixes).  

[HachiRoku]

41 minutes ago, Hethwill the Red Duke said:

Clan based warfare is great. You are right. We should do away with nations, make it just one nation and outlaw battles.

Cheers.

i like the idea of having nations. Makes it feel historical. 

[Hethwill]

Sure, let's go.

[Latron]

11 hours ago, Wraith said:

What kind of abuse can you imagine if you make it so Outlaw battles can't be started inside safe zones? This was the only exploit left available prior to their removal and would be the only fix necessary to prevent abuse of pirates by people in other nations with alts.

All of the other "abuse" that gave any kind of advantages was removed through the use of post-battle timers and/or conferred to other nations through use of alts anyway. So don't pretend like there's some kind of special abilities for pirates being conferred here, especially since it's my contention that all nations should have Outlaw battles in order to settle internal disputes and provide opportunities for training up their new players.

The most common type of exploiting back in the day was pirates tagging each other while being chased by enemies. So the pirates could just sit in a battle where nations could not join and avoiding fighting entirely. Then they tried it so any player could join and there were no teams. It was a free for all. They had also made it so the battle would be open for an hour, but if this battle occurs anywhere near a port where pirates could have outposts, then they'll all join and gank the nation players.

[greybuscat]

I would love to see outlaw battles come back, either for pirates or for all. If we need to carebear it slightly (e.g. no outlaw tags in R zones, perhaps forbidding outlaw tags on the bottom rank or two, etc.) to discourage human nature from ruining the game, then that's fine by me.

On 12/9/2018 at 1:56 PM, Latron said:

Outlaw battles were added several times, and each time it was exploited to give pirates an advantage over other nations. I have yet to see a legit solution for the many instances I've seen where pirates abuse the mechanic because each solution that has been attempted so far always had a way around it. So no, I don't think outlaw battles can stay in the game, and I don't think the devs should waste their time on it because we know it'll end up being removed just like every other time. 

Open world tagging mechanics are vastly different from what they were ~2 years ago, so I don't think the specific exploits of hiding from countergank fleets and sneaking past screening fleets would be as viable as they had been in the past.

It's hard to reason with you more specifically because you yourself aren't being at all specific with what your concerns are.

[Capn Rocko]

34 minutes ago, Latron said:

The most common type of exploiting back in the day was pirates tagging each other while being chased by enemies. So the pirates could just sit in a battle where nations could not join and avoiding fighting entirely. Then they tried it so any player could join and there were no teams. It was a free for all. They had also made it so the battle would be open for an hour, but if this battle occurs anywhere near a port where pirates could have outposts, then they'll all join and gank the nation players.

Outlaw battles were like reinforcement battles:

1. Players can join anywhere on the circle.

2. The battles stayed open for 1+ hours. 

This makes defensive tagging pointless. It gives the enemy the opportunity to spawn right on top of you and gives their reinforcements enough time to sail from KPR to MT to find the battle. The only reason to defensive tag would be to deny PvP marks. But that is a bug that could be fixed easily on the development side. 

 

[Latron]

7 hours ago, Capn Rocko said:

Outlaw battles were like reinforcement battles:

1. Players can join anywhere on the circle.

2. The battles stayed open for 1+ hours. 

This makes defensive tagging pointless. It gives the enemy the opportunity to spawn right on top of you and gives their reinforcements enough time to sail from KPR to MT to find the battle. The only reason to defensive tag would be to deny PvP marks. But that is a bug that could be fixed easily on the development side. 

 

If some pirates that I'm chasing start an outlaw battle somewhere west of MT then who do you think that benefits? Is it good for the pirates who always have players sitting at their capital and can sail to the battle in minutes, or is it better for my fellow swedes who would have to sail from a port farther away and are likely too busy to sail out immediately? Outlaw battles can let pirates dictate where the battle starts which is already enough to give them the victory over smaller nations since we aren't able to react as fast

[traitorous mctraitoro]

Ohh god yes, please make pirates actual pirates again.

Or rename them to the collective states of nassau.

[Capn Rocko]

6 hours ago, Latron said:

If some pirates that I'm chasing start an outlaw battle somewhere west of MT then who do you think that benefits? Is it good for the pirates who always have players sitting at their capital and can sail to the battle in minutes, or is it better for my fellow swedes who would have to sail from a port farther away and are likely too busy to sail out immediately? Outlaw battles can let pirates dictate where the battle starts which is already enough to give them the victory over smaller nations since we aren't able to react as fast

We are also proposing that pirates lose MT island and reinforcement zones.. If this happens, you will not likely find a lot of pirates at one central port aside from free towns. Instead, you would find individual clans spread all across the game map. Am I saying the old system is perfect? No. But RoE is something that can be fixed/improved. RvR was full of exploits (mainly due to OW RoE) for the first 2+ years of the game. No one said "RoE is crap, lets remove port battles from the game".

I think the opposition for outlaw battles comes from players not liking the concept and pointing the finger at RoE to justify their feelings. Im sure the devs know what to do in order to limit the exploits of outlaw battles (if they dont, they are welcome to ask us for feedback). It just requires priority and development time, which I understand is best spent fixing other things right now. All I am asking is that we give it another try even if that means waiting until 2nd half of 2019. 

[Socialism]

7 hours ago, Latron said:

If some pirates that I'm chasing start an outlaw battle somewhere west of MT then who do you think that benefits? Is it good for the pirates who always have players sitting at their capital and can sail to the battle in minutes, or is it better for my fellow swedes who would have to sail from a port farther away and are likely too busy to sail out immediately? Outlaw battles can let pirates dictate where the battle starts which is already enough to give them the victory over smaller nations since we aren't able to react as fast

You do remember that anyone could join pirate battles right?  If you're afraid of pirates tagging each other and hiding in battle......well tag them first or join that battle.  Seems simple enough to me.  

Seems like letting pirates be pirates would be a good thing.  We should have an advantage over nationals in smaller battles and we should be trying to dictate where to fight and on our terms.  

[Latron]

2 hours ago, Socialism said:

You do remember that anyone could join pirate battles right?  If you're afraid of pirates tagging each other and hiding in battle......well tag them first or join that battle.  Seems simple enough to me.  

Seems like letting pirates be pirates would be a good thing.  We should have an advantage over nationals in smaller battles and we should be trying to dictate where to fight and on our terms.  

I'm aware that outlaw battles were open to all, but depending on where it is, it can allow them to get reinforcements from miles away, and nationals might not be able to have the same response. Also why do you think pirates deserve an advantage in small battles? Seems unfair imo

[Barbancourt]

On 12/10/2018 at 5:01 AM, Wraith said:

What kind of abuse can you imagine if you make it so Outlaw battles can't be started inside safe zones?

There are no "safe zones".  There are tiny reinforcement zones that don't mean anything anymore.  When outlaw battles were a thing a year ago Pirates would cruise near our ports, and disappear into outlaw battles whenever they liked.  Then they'd use the invisible speed boost exiting the battle instance to set up an attack.  If they didn't like the result they'd just disappear into another outlaw battle. 

[Barbancourt]

12 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Don't be obtuse. If you literally can't tag to start an Outlaw battle inside a reinforcement zone then that part of the mechanic and any available exploit is impossible.  It doesn't matter whether another nation can hunt them successfully or not, that's not germane to an Outlaw mechanic at all.

And the exploit you're talking about with tagging and speed boost has been eliminated by battle-exit join timers, which you'd know if you actually bothered to play the game instead of focus on forum PvP. 🙄 Furthermore, if they did start an Outlaw battle, which has positional join mechanics, you could join right on top of them and kill them instead of moaning about it.

Why do you keep talking about "reinforcement zones"?  Those are tiny, currently irrelevant, and players spend about 10% of their time or less in them.  I'm almost never in a reinforcement zone, and if I am then I'll have sailed out of it 20-30 seconds later to get to wherever I'm going. 

Why would I attack a superior enemy in a battle instance that they've set up where they're waiting prepared for me?  Talk about being obtuse.  The invisible speed boost allows them to position for a better attack tag in the open world. Join timers don't take away the positioning they've gained

[Capn Rocko]

9 minutes ago, Barbancourt said:

There are no "safe zones".  There are tiny reinforcement zones that don't mean anything anymore.  When outlaw battles were a thing a year ago Pirates would cruise near our ports, and disappear into outlaw battles whenever they liked.  Then they'd use the invisible speed boost exiting the battle instance to set up an attack.  If they didn't like the result they'd just disappear into another outlaw battle. 

Going back to the old mechanics: outlaw battles were essentially reinforcement battles. If a group of pirates started an outlaw battle outside an enemy port, the enemy could gather forces and spawn right on top of them in their battle. There is no "disappearing". You would just need one person to join the battle first to tell others where to join on the circle, just like current reinforcement ganks. 

Again, this is just another example of "i dont like outlaw battles so im going to blame RoE".

RoE can be fixed and improved upon. The official reason that outlaw battles were removed was because the developers didn't have the time to fix the RoE. We are simply suggesting that they take the time to fix it (some of the issues have already been fixed) and re-implement the feature after the current priorities are taken care of (pvp missions, localization, economy, etc.). Dismissing the whole suggestion because "RoE in the past" is BS. 

[Slim McSauce]

Sure, give it to all nations.

[Barbancourt]

5 minutes ago, Wraith said:

 The positional join of Outlaw Battles make you joining a battle that was opened with the intent of avoiding a battle trivially easy for you to take the wind and gain the upper hand (you may have forgotten that Outlaw battles are open forever).

And if you didn't want to fight the group that started an Outlaw battle in the first place then what are we even talking about? Sail on your merry way and ignore it.

I'm not going to join a battle instance where a superior enemy is waiting for me.  They don't come camping outside your ports because they think they might somehow lose.  

They use the outlaw battle instance and invisible speed boost to magically appear in the open world to set up a tag as you "sail on your merry way".  I saw plenty of it last year, and don't want to see it return.

[Barbancourt]

13 minutes ago, Capn Rocko said:

You would just need one person to join the battle first to tell others where to join on the circle, just like current reinforcement ganks. 

"others?"  Good luck with that.  Population was 87 when I was on last night. 

[Capn Rocko]

16 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Again, that can't happen any more with post-battle join and tag timers.  Please try to keep up.

Its hopeless. He also fails to mention how a pirate knows you are outside his battle and how he knows when to leave. Hypothetically, pirates would do a much better job at pulling off this conspiracy theory by tagging AI instead of themselves. At least AI battles vanish from OW.