RVR (port battles and territory control) feedback

[Capn Rocko]

9 minutes ago, Wraith said:

That would be nice but I fear that certain game modes would be clearly the easiest for defense, etc. and it would end up being a false choice. Though perhaps with the diversity of port locations and layouts that might not be true?

In any case, port customization would indeed be awesome, and good content.

I guess it depends on the game modes implemented. Either way, the game needs more depth and features while maintaining balance. 

[Christendom]

18 hours ago, Tiedemann said:

But seriously think on this: What nations are fighting GB in small BR deep water port battles? Prussia maybe? Or are those all large > 5000 BR?

We have some GB players saying they like it the way it is. Then we have some Swedish players saying we like it the way it is. Soon some pirates will comes and say that we like it the way it is. These are all nations that are not fighting each other ffs! They have no idea of what they are talking about, they just like patting each other on the back. I see a conspiracy!!!! Conspiracy!!!! 🤣

Pirates typically fight GB once a week in the shallows.  BAIT is always good for a fri/sat night battle.  Sweden has no players during our prime time unfortunately.  FYI pirates have been involved in more port battles over the past 2 weeks than any other nation.  Deep and shallow.  

As an experienced PB captain I currently like the 3 circle system. I like it when we win battles and I curse it sometimes when we've lost them.  You may chide Alejandro there about his experience, but you'd be hard pressed to find someone with more PBs under his belt than I and we share a similar opinion.

3 circles requires a bit more strategy than sailing around and around 5 magical towers in the middle of the water.  It isn't without it's faults though.  Points per kill should reflect the BR of the ship and the port, fortifications are poorly placed and don't affect majority of the circles in most battles and I dislike that lineships can enter every deep battle regardless of BR.  That said, the 3 circle system works and we've had some epic fights.  I'm also still extremely salty about that ninja port layout swap that was done by Admin hours before we were set to attack a RUBLI port in the middle of the night.  Still the only layout that was changed in that manner.  See my comment below.  Port battles should vary based on BR and the importance of the port.  My point in all this?  The PB system works.  It's not perfect, but it works.  I'd rather fix the manner in how they are created first, then worry about the combat 2nd.  More PBs for all is what this game needs.

1 hour ago, Capn Rocko said:

I always thought there should be different types of port battles and that the port owner should choose which one best suits their playstyle. For example, make one option a "fight to the death" port battle where you are in a shrinking circle (like patrol zone). 

I also wish there was a mechanic in place for clans to invest in their ports to build extra forts/towers or produce extra resources (for example) 

I'm not sure player should choose the type of battle, but I think varied battles should be a thing based on the value and/or BR of the port.  For example, smaller BR ports require circles and points to win and larger ones are based off ship kills (or something like that).  We should also have ship rate caps on certain ports.  2600/2700 BR ports should say have a max cap of third rates to prevent 1st rate spams in EVERY battle.  It always struck as odd that admin keeps trying to make lineships more exclusive but then allows them into every deep water fight.  How does that make sense?

Edited January 15, 2019 by Christendom

[Christoph]

On 1/14/2019 at 12:17 PM, Tiedemann said:

I think RvR and port battles should be about fighting - by sinking ships and destroying fortifications, not gathering points from 3 imaginary circles. Now if attackers do not get 1000 points, then defenders win! So the current defender meta is to bringing more small fast low BR ships to sail into the circles that are conquered by attackers, and stop them form generating points. This is very effective and is why often even if the attacking team is killing winning the battle and has been owning the most circles, they do no get 1000 point and they lose the pb.
So defenders win because of a technicality, not because they did well in the battle it self..

This is not ideal imo and it takes the fun out of pbs for me at least. It is possible for attackers to adapt the fleet setup to bring more low BR fast ship, to match the enemy, but this is like "pissing on your own legs to keep warm" because defenders just bring more small ships and this escalates. So in the end we are all sailing Princes and Hercules in deep water port battles..  

Please consider these (Imo simple) changes to port battles:

• Team with highest BR in a circle will capture it and get points from it. It should not be about player numbers, but ships BR. With out this change it is to easy to for defender to deny attacker points with small low BR ships and kiting around in the circles for 90 minutes.
• Please consider reducing the number of circles. I would prefere 1 circle, but I get that in high BR ports this will result in chaos, so maybe have 2 circles for ports with BR higher than 5000. The 3 circles we have now forces us to spread to much out and sail far in battle, and is only really useful for the team with the most small/fast ships. 
• Reduce the size of the circles dramatically, to penetration distance, so kiting within the circles is not possible. So diameter about 400-500 ingame meters maybe.
• Increase the points teams receive when sinking a enemy teams ship, making sinking enemy ships more important that getting points from imaginary circes. And please consider the ship size, so we would get less points for sinking a mortar brig compered to sinking a 1. rate. I believe we get the same amount of point for all ships now.
   
• Mortar brigs should be used for destroying forts and towers, not moving ships!  I have seen many skillful captains do some amazing stuff in mortar brigs. They are so accurate they are used to target moving ships. It is normal the see defending team bring mortar brigs in PB, not to destry their own fortifications but to target enemy ships. And if the attacker are in line ships and have bad wind = RIP. The fact that a good mortar brig captain can seriously damage ships sailing at 9kn makes it OP. When we take mortar fire we spread out avoid line sailing and we change direction at random. But this is not always enough and we lose mast and internal structure when mortars hit.. 
  Please consider removing the mortar brig perk!  Giving it the ability to shot 4 balls is just insane! Or at least nerf its ability to shot fast moving targets some how  

+1

[Licinio Chiavari]

6 minutes ago, Christendom said:

Pirates typically fight GB once a week in the shallows.  BAIT is always good for a fri/sat night battle.  Sweden has no players during our prime time unfortunately.  

I'm not sure player should choose the type of battle, but I think varied battles should be a thing based on the value and/or BR of the port.  For example, smaller BR ports require circles and points to win and larger ones are based off ship kills (or something like that).  We should also have ship rate caps on certain ports.  2600/2700 BR ports should say have a max cap of third rates to prevent 1st rate spams in EVERY battle.  It always struck as odd that admin keeps trying to make lineships more exclusive but then allows them into every deep water fight.  How does that make sense?

First rate spam in PB is dead by some months: too crap effectiveness/BR ratio.

Best ratios got on Bucetaure, 3rd rates and eventually Agamennon.

That said, some tactical problem, like circles (simulating getting control of port waters for invading fleet) is fine in place of senseless (even if fun) kill kill kill.

As it is fair that defender should be advantaged over attacker as in any/All military situations (on land, granted similar training/equipment/supply, a density of troops 3 to 1 was considered up to WWII needed to - almost - guarantee a successful attack).

I personally would prefer a total revamp of port invasions; because conquering a port is getting an invading army safely land.

I would like to see attackers having to gather "war supplies" in a Port, with enemy seeing the build up.

Then attacker having to sail these "war supplies" (usually on traders; and quantity proportional to enemy Port "defense" that owner can increase with trading/investing) to enemy Port.

And than in a PB where attacker has to sail these traders safely getting on land and staying there afloat for x time.

So, in truth, a Port Battle would be a long preparation at home (no more senseless hostility) and then making an invading fleet safely landing. And invading fleet that could be intercepted a lot of times on the way... Making logistic problems (having or not a closer starting base) a real issue... And at same time making PvErs and traders matter to prepare them.

[Capn Rocko]

 

On 12/10/2018 at 11:27 AM, admin said:

 

• Add feature allowing lockdown of ports by clans (giving access to port resources only to the clan who owns the port) + maybe adding docking fees. 

I also think this should be tested. Get the alts out of our ports and let the clans set the prices and make the income from the resources. I've been arguing for this for a long time.

The only downside I see is clans working against their nation (not sharing the resources produced and/or supplying enemy nations) and, thus, creating conflict within nations that cannot be easily solved without seeking outside help. Maybe an incentive could be added to prioritize selling resources to your own nation's capital instead of free towns? 

[Farrago]

47 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Not if they brought back Outlaw battles for all nations at the same time!  😈

I agree. I am in favor of complete clan control over ports but it will only work if we have the capability of clan warfare.

[staun]

We haven’t tested it. That a clan can limited the ressources in a port, to them self and maybe some friendly clans. I see the up sides and why it might be a good idea. But is there a Down side to.

Upside ports matters now. The best have a chance to get an advantage and will fight to keep it. Maybe the second and third best will challange them to get it.

Downside might be ppl not even trying to challange the best, because besides you have to overcome the skilgab, you now also will have to overcome a geargap. It will also have a potential negativ effect on the solo player.

 

Edited January 15, 2019 by staun

[Tiedemann]

5 hours ago, Capn Rocko said:

I always thought there should be different types of port battles and that the port owner should choose which one best suits their playstyle. For example, make one option a "fight to the death" port battle where you are in a shrinking circle (like patrol zone). 

I also wish there was a mechanic in place for clans to invest in their ports to build extra forts/towers or produce extra resources (for example) 

PBs was like this in the past. Patrol instance is a reuse of the old pb system. But defenders could use purpose built fast ships to kite and avoid a real fight. This made it very difficult for attackers to sink them and gain enough points to win pb. So attackers  where forced to chase the defending fleet around until the circle started to shrink and then the fighting started.

I believe the 3 circle system was implemented to force the defenders to stay put and DEFEND their port. But the way it can be used by defenders now make it again very hard for attackers. to be successful.   

[Samuel Smith]

or make the forts captureable and then whom ever owns the most forts after the battle controlls the port? 

[Crimson Sunrise]

On 12/10/2018 at 12:27 PM, admin said:

Captains. 

We are not satisfied with RVR incentives and goals and wanted to discuss them with you.

Things that can be done within a short period of time. 

• Tie port hostility points to port tax income
• Reduce costs of ports trading posts and timers
• Remove conversion of victory marks on War (RVR) Server as their current prices in doubloons is one of the things that makes RVR not worth the time. RVR rewards must only be accessible through RVR on the War server (but should be tradeable like right now). 
  • Additionally RVR reward trading should be disabled as i doubt Nelson could trade his Baron of the Nile title to others. This will make it important to participate in RVR if you want RVR related ships or rewards.
• Add items or chests for victory marks to the admiralty with some conquest related exclusive items. (Including paints and rare ships)

Longer coding required and riskier features

• Add feature allowing lockdown of ports by clans (giving access to port resources only to the clan who owns the port) + maybe adding docking fees. 

1 major problem with limiting access to vic marks is people who do have port ownerships are still swimming in vic marks and have nothing to do with them. replacing SoL's is one thing but what then when ur dock is full of SoL and still have vic marks. 

1 major problem with locking down ports is there is no green on green so say HAVOC locks nassau to just their clan, other british clans cant attack that port to reopen it so any rogue clans can ineffect lock their own nation our of ports.  this will cause many problems.
 

[Gregory Rainsborough]

21 minutes ago, Phaserburn said:

Maybe this gets fixed with increased population, but I see no reason why I should be screened out of a port battle by someone. It just cheapens the experience. And doing it to others feels shitty as well. I don’t know who finds greifing entertaining. Revenge is one thing, but greifing is just low.

If you sign up to group content, you should be able to partake. @admin Don’t let one player who decides to hello kitty someone over, be allowed to deny someone their right to group content they planned for. 

Didn't you only the other day get the Spanish to screen for you?

Do as I say not as I do

[Carlos_Condell]

1 minute ago, Phaserburn said:

Personally I asked the US to help. No one from them did. I did this only because I knew the brits would screen. And they did. I actually made it into that battle. Some of our fleet did not. All said, I stand by the fact that it’s wrong and would hope it could be changed... perhaps with a lobby.

But prussia screen for spanish as well in Corrientes PB, Las tortugas PB, and many others i can recall so... Why you cry now when you get screened out if as Prussia are doing the same for a long time... Perhaps now you just taste a little of your own medicine and didnt like it at all. 

 

 

 

[Grundgemunkey]

On 1/14/2019 at 11:17 AM, Tiedemann said:

I think RvR and port battles should be about fighting - by sinking ships and destroying fortifications, not gathering points from 3 imaginary circles. Now if attackers do not get 1000 points, then defenders win! So the current defender meta is to bringing more small fast low BR ships to sail into the circles that are conquered by attackers, and stop them form generating points. This is very effective and is why often even if the attacking team is killing winning the battle and has been owning the most circles, they do no get 1000 point and they lose the pb.
So defenders win because of a technicality, not because they did well in the battle it self..

This is not ideal imo and it takes the fun out of pbs for me at least. It is possible for attackers to adapt the fleet setup to bring more low BR fast ship, to match the enemy, but this is like "pissing on your own legs to keep warm" because defenders just bring more small ships and this escalates. So in the end we are all sailing Princes and Hercules in deep water port battles..  

Please consider these (Imo simple) changes to port battles:

• Team with highest BR in a circle will capture it and get points from it. It should not be about player numbers, but ships BR. With out this change it is to easy to for defender to deny attacker points with small low BR ships and kiting around in the circles for 90 minutes.
• Please consider reducing the number of circles. I would prefere 1 circle, but I get that in high BR ports this will result in chaos, so maybe have 2 circles for ports with BR higher than 5000. The 3 circles we have now forces us to spread to much out and sail far in battle, and is only really useful for the team with the most small/fast ships. 
• Reduce the size of the circles dramatically, to penetration distance, so kiting within the circles is not possible. So diameter about 400-500 ingame meters maybe.
• Increase the points teams receive when sinking a enemy teams ship, making sinking enemy ships more important that getting points from imaginary circes. And please consider the ship size, so we would get less points for sinking a mortar brig compered to sinking a 1. rate. I believe we get the same amount of point for all ships now.
   
• Mortar brigs should be used for destroying forts and towers, not moving ships!  I have seen many skillful captains do some amazing stuff in mortar brigs. They are so accurate they are used to target moving ships. It is normal the see defending team bring mortar brigs in PB, not to destry their own fortifications but to target enemy ships. And if the attacker are in line ships and have bad wind = RIP. The fact that a good mortar brig captain can seriously damage ships sailing at 9kn makes it OP. When we take mortar fire we spread out avoid line sailing and we change direction at random. But this is not always enough and we lose mast and internal structure when mortars hit.. 
  Please consider removing the mortar brig perk!  Giving it the ability to shot 4 balls is just insane! Or at least nerf its ability to shot fast moving targets some how  

 So the current defender meta is to bringing more small fast low BR ships to sail into the circles that are conquered by attackers, and stop them form generating points. This is very effective and is why often even if the attacking team is killing winning the battle and has been owning the most circles, they do no get 1000 point and they lose the pb.

but wasnt this brought in because people were bored with just 1st rate battles and wanted more diverse port battles

[Tom Farseer]

4 hours ago, Phaserburn said:

Or perhaps I’m just one player, not speaking on behalf of their nation, but rather for himself...? What a wild and bizarre thought.

 

Currently it is a well used and viable strategy. What I’m asking for is could it be changed?

I'm with you on the whole griefing issue. But Screening fights are not neccessarily griefing but often enough fully fledged OW PvP fleet battles. There have been times where we had great fun fighting screening fleets instead of making the PB.

So, in my opinion making PBs lobby based would be detrimental to the game. It would also take away the opportunity for the rest of each nation to partake and contribute because a lobby based PB would only encounter those select few in the PB fleet itself....

[Hethwill]

Screening is the last resort of "national wars"; where non-clan aligned players can still enjoy naval operations that "help the nation"; because as nationals they will be able to enjoy the opportunities offered by the port conquered ( or defended ) by a clan.

Anyway, adding to the discussion fire.

https://forum.game-labs.net/topic/23614-suggestion-economy-conquest/

https://forum.game-labs.net/topic/22043-new-blood-into-the-fold-small-rvr-suggestion/

https://forum.game-labs.net/topic/21949-rvr-port-blockade-and-hostility-notes/

https://forum.game-labs.net/topic/18838-suggestion-lord-protectors-war-fleets/

 

[Teutonic]

I skimmed over what was said in the previous pages so I apologize if these have already been stated.

1. Hostility missions need to be easier to access for everyone - as it currently stands if you don't have 1st rates you don't do hostility missions.

2. Rewards/loot in hostility missions and port battles need to be greater. Players should be rewarded chests or resources of money if you win. You can do this by making them redeemables or having them go to the nearest outpost.

3. An owner of a port should be able to control who has access - but I firmly believe that resource distribution would need a hard look at for this to work.

4. An owner should be able to customize a port to their liking but you can't make a port do everything.

For example you can choose between better trading opportunities, or better defense (forts or larger), or better crafting incentives, or more special resources - but you can only choose one and it cannot be easily adjusted.

As a side note I still think BR limits are key to allowing smaller groups and nations the ability to participate, but having more ports have larger BR limits in the deep water would be nice. I think there are far too many deep water ports at the 2,400  BR level. If anything - let shallow water ports be the main form of smaller port battles.

EDIT: i have made a number of suggestions in the past which I argue would create a lot of incentives for RvR. I'll summarize them here:

1. A nation controlling a county/region of ports should give all ports in that county/region a maintenance reduction. Enemy nations can disrupt this by taking and holding one port.

2. Rare resources should be distributed in the county/region that the main port resides in. The main port should always produce the most, but the rest of the ports should be able to get some as well. This creates more ports having more value and if someone wants to truly control a resource - they must control the county/region.

3. A clan should be able to create "clan buildings" which can further enhance certain clan goals. These buildings would act similar normal buildings but for the strict purpose of rare resources. The buildings are expensive and created where the clan's warehouse is placed. These buildings then 'steer' the rare resources from a port of their choosing. Basically creating a siphon. If enemy nation owns the port - extracting is expensive, if nation owns the port - it is standard cost, if your clan owns it - there is a cost reduction.

Edited February 12, 2019 by Teutonic

[Hethwill]

12 minutes ago, Teutonic said:

Hostility missions need to be easier to access for everyone - as it currently stands if you don't have 1st rates you don't do hostility missions.

Ofc you do. The hostility spawn equivalent ships rates to the ones you are using for the mission. 😶

[Teutonic]

7 minutes ago, Hethwill said:

Ofc you do. The hostility spawn equivalent ships rates to the ones you are using for the mission. 😶

Realistically speaking i'd love for someone to pinpoint me to a group that doesn't use 1st rates. I know you fight equal ships, but if i am increasing hostility by 5% every battle versus someone in a 1st rate doing 15% - i think we know where we all go to.

[Hethwill]

4 minutes ago, Teutonic said:

Realistically speaking i'd love for someone to pinpoint me to a group that doesn't use 1st rates. I know you fight equal ships, but if i am increasing hostility by 5% every battle versus someone in a 1st rate doing 15% - i think we know where we all go to.

I was pinpointing the mechanic. Not the human considerations on usage of the mechanic.

[van der Clam]

19 hours ago, Phaserburn said:

And Port battle screenings are just cheap ways at avoiding pvp.

 

Maybe this gets fixed with increased population, but I see no reason why I should be screened out of a port battle by someone. It just cheapens the experience. And doing it to others feels shitty as well. I don’t know who finds greifing entertaining. Revenge is one thing, but greifing is just low.

.........

Hopefully what I’m saying isn’t too far feteched, most games have lobby based ques for clan v clan content.

I'm confused. Doesn't PvP mean player vs player? Aren't screening fleets controlled by players? And are you a player?

........

Most lobby based clan games are pure crap. Open World is where it's at if a clan wants to seriously prove its metal at all clan management aspects. Look at all the recent games, When territory is the goal, it should be OW, not lobby based. This is where clan based games are going. Lobby is so 2013.

[Farrago]

Screening is a legitimate part of conquest: it is the desire to prevent your enemy from bringing his forces to bear at a strategically vulnerable or important point.

It is currently a problem in game (some say griefing) because our population is so low that often a single port battle is the only thing really happening on the server at a specific time. Much of the server flocks there, even those nations who have no vested interest in the outcome of the port battle, because that is where the (only) action is.

Do the other things to grow the population so that there are many things and many port battles happening at once. You'll see less ridiculous screening actions from uninvolved nations.