Battle system core ruleset discussion

[Sir Max Magic]

4 hours ago, Angus MacDuff said:

This is exactly what will happen.  I got hooked on this game because I had finally found something that I could play solo, and I've spent many happy hours solo hunting.  Taking away that ability will make my wife very happy.  Don't do that....

Why is "battle open for weaker side" taking away the ability to hunt solo ???

I would say, its ENCOURAGING to hunt solo, because the Solo Hunter has most times the worser BR !!!

So because he is the "weaker" side, noone can join the battle on the other side and help out his prey...  

 

Just thinking of Le Reqs jumping Fleets of Indiamens...and others

[Licinio Chiavari]

6 minutes ago, Sir Max Magic said:

Why is "battle open for weaker side" taking away the ability to hunt solo ???

I would say, its ENCOURAGING to hunt solo, because the Solo Hunter has most times the worser BR !!!

May be you missed the dangerous ideas about attacker unable to retreat.

6 minutes ago, Sir Max Magic said:

Just thinking of Le Reqs jumping Fleets of Indiamens...and others

You know.

Requins are really a few devoted and specialized captains at the moment (speaking of those who could be a real danger for enemy shipping).

And again ATM BR wise... Endymion is higher than 3rd rate or Agamennon 😎

Edited January 22, 2019 by Licinio Chiavari

[Guest]

25 minutes ago, Sir Max Magic said:

Why is "battle open for weaker side" taking away the ability to hunt solo ???

I would say, its ENCOURAGING to hunt solo, because the Solo Hunter has most times the worser BR !!!

So because he is the "weaker" side, noone can join the battle on the other side and help out his prey...  

 

Just thinking of Le Reqs jumping Fleets of Indiamens...and others

if a requin tags a fleet of indiaman, the indiamans can just sail downwind and make the requin leave the circle to kill it

Edited January 22, 2019 by Guest

[Sir Max Magic]

16 minutes ago, Licinio Chiavari said:

May be you missed the dangerous ideas about attacker unable to retreat.

You know.

Requins are really a few devoted and specialized captains at the moment (speaking of those who could be a real danger for enemy shipping).

And again ATM BR wise... Endymion is higher than 3rd rate or Agamennon 😎

 

7 minutes ago, Wyy said:

if a requin tags a fleet of indiaman, the indiamans can just sail downwind and make the requin leave the circle to kill it

When following the thread, the initial proposal by @admin of implementing Circle of Death to the whole OW, gots rejected by nearly everyone so far...and even @admin didnt mentionend it in later postings anymore...

So i guess, its gone already  

 

[Guest]

@admin cant wait for the first forum thread about dying because a player joined outside the circle of death.. 🤙

[Slim McSauce]

1 hour ago, Licinio Chiavari said:

Aye. The famed equal battle of 3 AI/shop Surprises without mods and just a couple bookslots opened handled by 100hrs players vs. 3 t/wo 4/5+trim ones with approx 1mil worth mods each handled by 3000+hrs veterans.

Then we would finally see how imbalanced ship woods/mods/repairs are.
Back to good old balance and see that veterans have a harder time when damage on them sticks.

[Guest]

On 1/18/2019 at 6:32 PM, Wyy said:

Think it would be this way.

 

In Battle group either side

• Friendly AI wont get dragged in.
• The whole group withing render range are dragged in from their exact OW location.
• Other friendly/enemy players gets option to join from their exact OW location, if from own nation can chose one side like today or from enemy nation can choose either side if none from their own nation has already chosen side, pirates can join either side.

In Group either side

• Friendly and enemy AI from the nation you tag are dragged in, spawn at exact OW location.
• Rest as above.

Tagger in Battle group, target in Group or Solo.

• Taggers AI is left out, Targets AI autojoins.
• Rest as above

Tagger in Group/Solo, target in Battle Group

• Both nations AI are left out.
• Rest as above.

Both sides Solo

• Tagger AI is left out, defender has the option to drag in Friendly AI or leave it as 1v1
• Players within render range can only join targets side

Players within render range

• Wild suggestion is  if there are one player on the edge of the render range, and there is a player just behind him again, but which the tagger cant see, that player as well gets the option to join, so it could get into a really long chain of players joining, but they would all be joining the same battle instance.
• All the option to join decisions would have to be made within 5 seconds for the target and the targets friendly players or the targets join button gets locked (as today) or 10 seconds for the tagger. This would leave targets to either join the same battle instance as your friend, or potentially join a 1v1 vs an other player so people just hinge on that last second join.

*cough* Gib back outlaw battle for pirates and make pirates hardcore again. #letpiratesbepirates *cough*

thoughts? @admin

what do people think about this suggestion? would it be fair/unfair thinking about both attacker and target, also people would have to sail not to far away from each other in OW to have a good location to begin with.

[Licinio Chiavari]

15 minutes ago, Sir Max Magic said:

When following the thread, the initial proposal by @admin of implementing Circle of Death to the whole OW, gots rejected by nearly everyone so far...and even @admin didnt mentionend it in later postings anymore...

So i guess, its gone already  

So it was our duty to clearly state it was super terrible for the game.

[Licinio Chiavari]

15 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

Then we would finally see how imbalanced ship woods/mods/repairs are.
Back to good old balance and see that veterans have a harder time when damage on them sticks.

Again.

Gear matters with close skill.

A noob will lose to veteran even if outgearing him hard.

As already said: veteran with gear makes stuff only faster.

[Bumsebiene]

5 hours ago, Chevalier du Ethuville said:

There was never a mention of Fair in the OP.

Only notion regarding fair is open to the weakest BR side.

Do not distort the initial notion.

Omg If you cant fight a fair fight you have to deinstall the game. Players, New and old players are leaving because of unfairness. 

The Ganking without a Chance to survive must have an end. You always forget that this is a game, not the reality. I think GPS dots are good for the game! 

[Slim McSauce]

8 minutes ago, Licinio Chiavari said:

Again.

Gear matters with close skill.

A noob will lose to veteran even if outgearing him hard.

As already said: veteran with gear makes stuff only faster.

Back in the good old days on 1 and 3 repairs, you had much better battles because they didn't drag on, damage stuck and every lick of damage was meaningful to the end result. Mod disparity and the return of non standard mod slot's allocation has expanded the gear gap further, bringing us more away from skill-based combat and ever so closer to being a tab-target MMO based on DPS and numbers, and not action based input.

[Baptiste Gallouédec]

It's always unfair to loose, get a proper 1vs1 in similar ship, don't manage to dismast him, maybe it will be unfair because of ping, or just because you imagine he have a mast mod while you were just too far to penetrate, or just bc he used took advantage of recent patch note you were not informed about, nevertheless you will cry the unfairness in chat + forum, it's all subjectivity.

Edited January 22, 2019 by Baptiste Gallouédec

[Slim McSauce]

6 minutes ago, Baptiste Gallouédec said:

It's always unfair to loose, get a proper 1vs1 in similar ship, don't manage to dismast him, maybe it will be unfair because of ping, or just because you imagine he have a mast mod while you was just too far to penetrate, or just bc he used took adventage of recent patch note you were not informed about, nevertheless you will cry the unfairness in chat + forum, it's all subjectivity.

It's actually numbers, it's just arbitrary. The game game has been achieved without so many mods, fewer repairs and no little imbalance in ships except the ships themselves, and it that case less was more.

Saying "Gear only makes things faster" Is one part addressing the obvious and one part dismissing the problem. Are mod/ship/repair unblances causing problems? Yes. Do we care to have something done? No.

Objectively, stats matter, a 30% mast thickness is a 30% advantage in combat, because there's only one way to destroy masts, and you aren't going to achieve the same result any other way except for shooting the masts. Same with boarding, speed, thickness. Add all those up one one ship and you actually see the advantage, and can prove they exist. No subjectivity unless you really aren't paying attention.

Edited January 22, 2019 by Slim McSauce

[Hethwill]

27 minutes ago, Bumsebiene said:

Omg If you cant fight a fair fight you have to deinstall the game. Players, New and old players are leaving because of unfairness. 

The Ganking without a Chance to survive must have an end. You always forget that this is a game, not the reality. I think GPS dots are good for the game! 

Who are you ? Oh yeah i remember. I did say gf, gg, all of that and did not fear a single bit all the fights, and I thank you for them.  

GPS are good to know where you are... if you want the perk... 

Anyway...

Also keep reading and you will find some sense.

[Licinio Chiavari]

22 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

Objectively, stats matter, a 30% mast thickness is a 30% advantage in combat, because there's only one way to destroy masts, and you aren't going to achieve the same result any other way except for shooting the masts.

In a realistic simulation you should not be able to aim to masts. Period.

Stacking mast mods is a necessity due too high gun precision. But also faking having one is nice (granted 99% vets suppose other vets having mast mods, often they do not aim to them 😁 meta-meta-meta-gaming at its best).

22 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

Same with boarding

Dont mix boarding fits with others.

A boarder devotes an enormous share of his mods/books to be strong in it.

Let me know how you think to simulate embarking more marines, or better trained (in hand to hand combat) seamen and better equipment (muskets, grenades, swivels).

I'd remember that even with similar crew it's close to impossible to break a defender in a single boarding, even 5 mod/book to 0.

And boarding fit comes into play only if you succeed in STARTING the damned boarding.

22 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

..., speed, thickness. Add all those up one one ship and you actually see the advantage, and can prove they exist. No subjectivity unless you really aren't paying attention.

This stack of few % comes really into play, again, in case of really nice (and balanced) ships against similar skilled enemies.

No point having cartagena on my ship if my enemy keeps firing at my side when angled or discharging half a broadside in the water.

Edited January 22, 2019 by Licinio Chiavari

[Jack Lowe]

4 minutes ago, Bumsebiene said:

Omg If you cant fight a fair fight you have to deinstall the game. Players, New and old players are leaving because of unfairness. 

The Ganking without a Chance to survive must have an end. You always forget that this is a game, not the reality. I think GPS dots are good for the game! 

This is a game you are correct. The part your wilfully leaving out is that it is a SIMULATION of WAR in the age of sail. Those two capitalized words are key. 

There needs to be a certain amount of realism or this game might as well be a recreation of pirates of the burning sea with better graphics. Complete with magic voodoo skills and zombies. 

War is war its hell, its unfair, its brutal. It's also dangerous, treacherous, and an adrenaline rush. Think that's in part what is advertised on the screen when you click onear server no?

Ganking is part of war on the sea. You really think in real life if two frigates came across a lone trader they let it go or allowed him to get friends so the fight would be fair. Nyet. If you want only a fair fight then you might as well just scrap the whole OW, RvR and economy. We dont need them for that just a lonby and a match maker will do. Wait didn't that happen already? 

Ganking will happen it has a rightful place. It is senseless to expect an enemy to not commit its whole force or to ask those that would unbalance a fight to sit vulnerable on the OW waiting for their mates for up to an hour to satisfy your ideas on fair. Griefing will occur as it is a loophole allowed due to the idea of delaying actions, a valid military tactic. 

Things that we can do because it is a GAME to simulate war thus needs to be fun as well as realistic. We can add a few limiters on ganking such as reducing the group size to 6 and allowing multiple groups in a squadron say 4. One group may engage one group or single ungrouped player. Leave the timer as is. That's a bit of a spit ball idea off the cuff and could be crap or require at minimum further refinement. The idea is to balance in some fashion the expectations between reality and fun. RL and game.

Griefing can be limited by inducing the correct level of risk on the action while still allowing the legitimate delaying actions. IMO conversion from diameter to weight as a metric for damage is going to help induce that risk as most reported griefing is a smaller ship against a much heavier target. OW taging skill becomes key for both in whether the delay/grief is successful or ends on the initiator taking a fast ticket to Davy Jones. Perhaps some additional change will be necessary to make increase the risk to regulate griefing to a annoying but rare occurance. 

Ganking and griefing for better or worse are going to happen in some fashion or frequency because this is an OW simulation of war. If all you want is fair fights you need to uninstall and wait for NA legends to release.

[Licinio Chiavari]

47 minutes ago, Bumsebiene said:

Omg If you cant fight a fair fight you have to deinstall the game. Players, New and old players are leaving because of unfairness. 

The Ganking without a Chance to survive must have an end. You always forget that this is a game, not the reality. I think GPS dots are good for the game! 

So a fast frigate attacking a lone trader (first's duty indeed) is not gank (it's 1v1 so by definition not hopeless)...

Warfare is not fair. If you want a fair duel, look for a duel - or a MOBA game. This is a WAR game.
 

Joking (almost) aside: I was used to be counter-ganked. It's part of the hunter-prey-hunter's hunters game and ecology.

But please stop considering the fast frigate attacking the trader the ganker and the 5 frigates counter-ganking the first not a gank.

Edited January 22, 2019 by Licinio Chiavari

[Sir Max Magic]

1 hour ago, Sir Max Magic said:

 

When following the thread, the initial proposal by @admin of implementing Circle of Death to the whole OW, gots rejected by nearly everyone so far...and even @admin didnt mentionend it in later postings anymore...

So i guess, its gone already  

 

 

49 minutes ago, Licinio Chiavari said:

So it was our duty to clearly state it was super terrible for the game.

Ofc, it was...and we did it in the whole thread !! +1 to all of us  

Lets hope, the message got taken...

[Sir Max Magic]

45 minutes ago, Bumsebiene said:

Omg If you cant fight a fair fight you have to deinstall the game. Players, New and old players are leaving because of unfairness. 

The Ganking without a Chance to survive must have an end. You always forget that this is a game, not the reality. I think GPS dots are good for the game! 

Caant agree more !!!

The notion that always have to be something in the game for people who can only but gank, have to leave the mindset of the Devs ! Urgently !! And now !!!

I think, we cannot count the players anymore who left the game because they got ganked one time too often...

 

...and those are much more than the ones who would leave the game because they cannot farm helpless victims anymore

Edited January 22, 2019 by Sir Max Magic

[Capn Rocko]

3 hours ago, Chevalier du Ethuville said:

Yep

I hope it is, at best, equal BR combined. At best case scenario.

I agree but where do you draw the line?

200 v 250 BR can easily turn into 400 v 250. Or 1200 v 1400 turning into 1800 v 1400 

My point being that if anyone joins the weaker side, (most of the time) it turns the other side into the weaker side (and a bigger BR difference than at start). You will rarely find the perfect amount of BR needed randomly sailing next to your battle. 

What happens when a lone (low BR) ship baits an enemy to attack then his friend comes out of hiding to join the battle? The guy who hit attack now cannot leave and can only hope for someone to sail by the battle and join his side? 

Perhaps 1v1 within a certain BR range should instantly close the battle?  

Edited January 22, 2019 by Capn Rocko

[DeRuyter]

Ganking is not discouraged by battles open for the weaker side for the following reasons.
1) 2 min free entry for all still exists
2) Once 2 mins passes the system checks the BR in battle and keeps it open for the weaker side. 
3) Battle closes when BR of the weaker side exceeds the attacking side.

FYI This is @admin quote. My reply was just about possible dynamic BR based on installed mods, etc. 

22 hours ago, Angus MacDuff said:

But the attacker is not allowed to leave the battle (according to the OP).  Why would anyone initiate a battle when he knows he's going to get outnumbered?  Players start battles that they think they can win.  I tag a frigate in my Herc.  My BR is higher.  After 15 minutes of good fighting, with both of us damaged, someone joins on his side in an Endy.  How is this "good" PVP?  All I see is an easy victory for the Endy Captain and me swearing that i'll never start another battle...just hang around and wait to jump into someone else's fight.

I see your point though maybe there should be a BR range at which the battle is considered 1:1 BR and then closed?

[Angus MacDuff]

3 minutes ago, DeRuyter said:

Ganking is not discouraged by battles open for the weaker side for the following reasons.
1) 2 min free entry for all still exists
2) Once 2 mins passes the system checks the BR in battle and keeps it open for the weaker side. 
3) Battle closes when BR of the weaker side exceeds the attacking side.

FYI This is @admin quote. My reply was just about possible dynamic BR based on installed mods, etc. 

I see your point though maybe there should be a BR range at which the battle is considered 1:1 BR and then closed?

It wont be 1:1.  A Victory can join on the weak side.  And @admin did not really address whether groups can join on the weak side.

[DeRuyter]

9 minutes ago, Angus MacDuff said:

It wont be 1:1.  A Victory can join on the weak side.  And @admin did not really address whether groups can join on the weak side.

Good point on the group issue. Limiting the amount of BR joining after equalizing the sides could also exclude a group.  Using your example of a Herc attacking a Frigate if you put a limit on the amount of BR joining then a Vic or a Bellona couldn't join, but a another Frigate could. 

Although the counter point might be again that we don't want complex rules to force completely equal fights on the OW. 

[Guest]

Just now, DeRuyter said:

Good point on the group issue. Limiting the amount of BR joining after equalizing the sides could also exclude a group.  Using your example of a Herc attacking a Frigate if you put a limit on the amount of BR joining then a Vic or a Bellona couldn't join, but a another Frigate could. 

Although the counter point might be again that we don't want complex rules to force completely equal fights on the OW. 

Yeah holy shit. Lets not make it so complex that we have no idea if we can get in or not. I dont want to do a big math equation to detemine if I should sail to the circle in my bellona or frig.

[Angus MacDuff]

1 minute ago, Flinch said:

Yeah holy shit. Lets not make it so complex that we have no idea if we can get in or not. I dont want to do a big math equation to detemine if I should sail to the circle in my bellona or frig.

The point is....I'm not even against ganks.  For me, the simplest thing is that anybody in sight of the swords can join.  Out of sight...can't join.  And don't have that "Attacker must stay in the battle.  We don't need PZ ROE in the OW.  A smart attacker will look around the horizon before engaging.  I don't like to see the advantage going to the defender when it's the attacking players who do all the work and they are the ones who generate PVP.