Battle system core ruleset discussion

[Preechur Blackheart]

I wonder if the proposed change does not call into question the way BR is calculated! Right now, each ship type has a discrete BR. But is not a 5/5 gold with super mega mods worth more BR than a shabby fir 2/2? Would it not be absurd if allowing the weaker side to add strength led to megamodded 5/5s being added to a weaker side? I am despairing that admin's idea could lead to fairer fights....

 

[Jack Lowe]

Ok so since I've seen most agree on the idea that at minimum

1. huge ganks say 5v1 is bad 

2. Balancing a fight by BR is at best problematic, (i.e. complicated formulas, hidden magic numbers, or lacking these two we have exploits.

Let's trash the balance by BR and go with straight numbers. If as in the example you get ganked 5v1 the defender can reinforce up a max of 5 more ships. The ships appear 600 meters from the friendly or in the case of say 2v5 the friendly furthest from the enemy. They also appear opposite the enemy force. The idea being 

1. If you are attacked by a superior force  6 or less the defender can reinforce up to a total of 6 ships. That enter in such a fashion as to provide the attacker the option to withdraw. If one side has a force equal to 6 the other may reinforce to 12, or if the BR of the reinforcements is say 2x the opponent(optional). Now the defender can reinforce a gank. If they choose to do this to the limit of 6 the timer resets allowing the attacker to reinforce. Provided the numbers stay below 6 the battle closes as usual. 

In this system we have the opportunity for escalation to a full fleet sized brawl. We also have some limit to the size of a gank or counter gank. Neither side is going to feel very good about reinforcing to the limit knowing the other side may counter. A attacking force has some assurance they won't get counter ganked by a fleet of 12 once a tag is made. The timer limit can be discussed. This adds IMO more thought with the least amount of complexity. The current number of possible reinforcement and BR limit can be shown when clicking on the battle. Making it rather easy for the user to figure out. All they need remember is 2x and max number limit. The battle can update to show if either threshold is reached.

The reason for the new spawn idea is this in the current system a lucky join point can allow you to literally spawn on top of the enemy. This is crap IMO. You really expect me to believe an enemy fleet spawning 200m dead in front of my escape route went unnoticed? It takes away the other sides ability to well do anything. In fact with TS and discord players will literally pop in one at a time each reporting their position to the enemy the next adjusts and pops in. No ship is going to allow one much less a group of enemies to get within short gun range without noticing. It's a bit of an exploit. I got my first PvP kill by accidently appearing 200m off the starboard quarter in a battle. Split one ship from his team mates and cut off his retreat to them. If he wasn't screaming BS he should of been. Thus the idea of changing join distance to allow some ability for the other side to assess and respond in an intelligent fashion as apposed to simply bend over in the face of a clearly exploitable mechanic. 

Edited January 22, 2019 by Jack Lowe

[Capn Rocko]

Aye it would be interesting if players had to join OUTSIDE the circle instead of inside. Kinda like port battles for the attacker side. 

Spawning on top of of the ships that are fighting never made any sense. This makes more sense especially if the devs want to greatly increase the join timer window. 

Edited January 22, 2019 by Capn Rocko

[Hethwill]

3 minutes ago, Capn Rocko said:

Aye it would be interesting if players had to join OUTSIDE the circle instead of inside. Kinda like port battles for the attacker side. 

Spawning on top of of the ships that are fighting never made any sense. This makes more sense especially if the devs want to greatly increase the join timer window. 

We had it long long ago. Took some nice sailing to get to the engagement BUT we didn't have wind rotation  

[Jack Lowe]

40 minutes ago, Chevalier du Ethuville said:

We had it long long ago. Took some nice sailing to get to the engagement BUT we didn't have wind rotation  

If joining in such a fashion didn't actually represent the exact point in instance you joined the fight but simply meant you were within engagement range, what then. If you joined at a position as mentioned around 600 meters from the engagement just outside of most effective gun ranges but close enough to have an impact on the fight within a reasonable time in most cases. Then it's a bit more fair to both sides as well as a bit more realistic. 

Those joining dont have to deal with a "bad" join spawn putting them well out of position to help. The other side still has time to react to these reinforcements without the nasty occurence of having a fleet magically appear in the middle of them guns loaded. Let's not mention the bad luck of a single joiner accidently spawning in the middle of an angry enemy fleet.

Determining what is a fair point for each yo spawn would then be the remaining question.

Edited January 22, 2019 by Jack Lowe

[Licinio Chiavari]

14 minutes ago, Jack Lowe said:

Determining what is a fair point for each yo spawn would then be the remaining question.

Single circle. Joining at border (like in PB).

In battle spawn: 500 (?) mt afar in the direction of the join from the closest enemy to the side: so if you join from S you'll be 500 mt S of the S-most enemy ship.

I think pretty easy code-wise too.

[Jack Lowe]

53 minutes ago, Licinio Chiavari said:

Single circle. Joining at border (like in PB).

In battle spawn: 500 (?) mt afar in the direction of the join from the closest enemy to the side: so if you join from S you'll be 500 mt S of the S-most enemy ship.

I think pretty easy code-wise too.

You can literally add a invisible circle to the ships which will always follow them. It can be of any radius. 500m to use your example. Then take the realitive position of any joining ship and the desired target shipping instance. There is another point required I believe.You use those three positions to get an angle of entry and have the joiner(s) spawn at the edge of the circle at that angle on the circle. That should be enough to give a spawn point. I did this once to create a LOS system for a character where i needed to know the angle the enemy  was at so i could simulate different fields of view. Main, peripheral and blind side or behind the player or enemy. I wanted to allow back stabbing or the ability to sneak up on an opponent with the possibility of detection determined by skill in an RPG. It wasn't real difficult just dont remember exactly how I achieved it.

Yes it would take a bit of coding to get all the calculations, and it's probably a rough and perhaps inelegant solution. Still that's roughly what would be required. As well as the logic for the program to know which circle and ship in instance to use for the calculations.

Edited January 23, 2019 by Jack Lowe

[Hethwill]

500m is nothing.

 

[Licinio Chiavari]

4 minutes ago, Chevalier du Ethuville said:

500m is nothing.

 

Do you think I write << 500 (?) mt afar >> by chance?

[Hethwill]

I know  you did put the ? on purpose. 

500 is nothing.

I play with the rules but one of the things that always bothered me is the spawn distance.

Of course it is nice to spawn at 100 meter of the stern of a warship, but makes zero sense age of sail ( forget false flags and ruses, they are not part of the game rules ).

You'd have warning shot at what ? 1000-800m? You'd be engaged if any closer.

[Licinio Chiavari]

1 minute ago, Chevalier du Ethuville said:

I know  you did put the ? on purpose. 

500 is nothing.

Which distance you propose?

Sidenote.

I could add. Granted battles staying open for longer than today 2 min, what about joining distance (in the direction/position as described) function of the time of arrival?

The later the arrival, the more afar the joining (ie. yes 500 mt within first 5 minutes, 750 mt between 5-15 min, 1000 15-30 and then battle closed?).

[Hethwill]

I propose 2500m on Signalling entry.

800m on normal tag.

[Vizzini]

22 hours ago, Angus MacDuff said:

Guess i'll have to find another game

Sadly you would not be the only one. Why is it hard for any sane person to believe that this game has to be for groups only.....

[admin]

22 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.  

Solo player is not affected by the "battles open for weaker side". In fact your experience will slightly improve (or significantly improves at certain areas on popular routes)
You attack a similar or stronger ship - you get a 1v1 anyway after 2 mins
You are attacked by 5 players (you are alone) - you get a chance to survive because players might join on your side. (reducing the ganking negatives)

I don't see how opening battles for weaker side affects the solo player.

[van Veen]

Cross-post:

A solution to get rid of the ganking / counter-ganking with one simple rule and 3 server parameters:

Battles stay open for a minimum time for everyone to join (server setting, maybe t_battle_open_min = 2min). After that, the BR balance is checked. Equal battles (BR1/BR2<BR_max_ratio; BR_max_ratio = 0.7) are closed immediately. Unequal battles stay open only for the side with less BR. Repeat the BR balance check for every ship that joins. Battle is closed regardless of BR ratio after a maximum time (server setting, maybe t_battle_open_max = 10min). 

These parameters could be even region dependent (capital zone, safe zone are defined already), but I would not like that, making things too complicated. 

Example settings:

Gank fest: set t_battle_open_min=2min and t_battle_open_max=2min and battle will be closed after 2min anyway, BR ratio has no effect. 

A bit of ganking: set BR_max_ratio to 0.2 and t_battle_open_max=3min. That means a battles with BR ratio of 1/5 is considered an equal fight and reinforcements have 1min extra time to balance that out. 

Eliminate ganking: set t_battle_open_min=1min, BR_max_ratio to 0.9 and extend t_battle_open_max=90min. 

Edited January 23, 2019 by van Veen

[Liq]

5 minutes ago, admin said:

Solo player is not affected by the "battles open for weaker side". In fact your experience will slightly improve (or significantly improves at certain areas on popular routes)
You attack a similar or stronger ship - you get a 1v1 anyway after 2 mins
You are attacked by 5 players (you are alone) - you get a chance to survive because players might join on your side. (reducing the ganking negatives)

I don't see opening battles for weaker side affects the solo player.

This is similar to the patrol roe change suggestion i made a while ago

Though I would suggest to give it a little more room and not close a battle once it has reached 1:1 BR but instead allow reinforcments to about 1.2 - 1.3x the BR of the other side - often when it's, say, 4v2, the two might be already too crippled for two joining ships to balance it out. Also allows battles to"grow" more.

And perhaps it would be wise to test the changes in the patrol zone only first as a test, to see how it works out

[admin]

7 minutes ago, Liq said:

This is similar to the patrol roe change suggestion i made a while ago

Though I would suggest to give it a little more room and not close a battle once it has reached 1:1 BR but instead allow reinforcments to about 1.2 - 1.3x the BR of the other side - often when it's, say, 4v2, the two might be already too crippled for two joining ships to balance it out. Also allows battles to"grow" more.

And perhaps it would be wise to test the changes in the patrol zone only first as a test, to see how it works out

the new solo patrol feels amazing from the perspective of the solo player

• small area near the main patrol (or in the center)
• you can ONLY attack ships of your class 
• you cannot attack ships of other classes
• all battles are 1v1 - turning it to a pure skill based tournament dungeon (that you have to get to like in classic wow)

If it successful the main patrol rules could be adjusted too. 

[jodgi]

I SO look forward to duel zone!

[Licinio Chiavari]

21 minutes ago, admin said:

Solo player is not affected by the "battles open for weaker side". In fact your experience will slightly improve (or significantly improves at certain areas on popular routes)
You attack a similar or stronger ship - you get a 1v1 anyway after 2 mins
You are attacked by 5 players (you are alone) - you get a chance to survive because players might join on your side. (reducing the ganking negatives)

I don't see opening battles for weaker side affects the solo player.

True.

If any idea of circle of death and/or "attacker should bear the responsability of starting battle" and related ideas of not available/limited retreat for attacker will be cancelled.

And this still, again, with the problem of BR balancing (ie. a 3rd rate tagging at close range an Endy is the weaker side).

 

[van Veen]

Another idea: adapt the tagging circles according to ship size. For example: large radius (1.0x current radius) for 1st-3rd rates, standard radius (0.8x) for 4th-5th rates, small radius (0.6x) for 6th-7th rates.  

1st rates should have a larger radius than smaller ships, justifyable by superior cannon range. This way, capital ships get some benefit in OW tagging on their terms. Right now, they are just dead ducks on the water and everyone is running circles around them. 

[Anymn]

On 1/18/2019 at 11:48 AM, admin said:

• This is a war server. Why escape options? Whats the point? If you attacked - fight!
  • Patrol rules for the whole world. Circle of death.
  • If you are ready to attack someone - be ready to die and fight to the end. 
  • Sure some will cry about it  - tough luck like they say in national chats - but it will keep only meaningful pvp.
• Battle is always open for the weaker side 
  • This is a war server - this is a pvp game with the goal to increase amount of pvp for all. There is no point to close the battle for the weaker side. Let them escalate. This becomes the goal. 
  • Then you can come to help your own, and know someone will come to help.
  • Then you can build more friendships and get assists 
  • Then you will stumble to more battles and will have more pvp kills per hour. 

Perfect suggestion. The attacker shouldn't be able to escape.However I'm puzzling how this Circle of Death would work out with being attacked in trading ships. No chance for escaping there?

Later addition: I think a good solution for that puzzle would be the following:

• Defender has to take a one-time decision - Escape or Defend
• Option Escape: A dotted circle centered around the escaping ship. If the enemy sails out, you can escape.
• Option Defend: A solid circle centered in the middle of the fight. Leaving the circle means death.
• In case of no decision, the defend option will be chosen.

Edited January 23, 2019 by Anymn

[Angus MacDuff]

30 minutes ago, admin said:

I don't see how opening battles for weaker side affects the solo player.

Yes, I just realized last night that the Frigate I tagged in my Herc had a higher BR, so I would be the weaker in that case.  But of course, if my Herc tags a TBrig, the battle is always open for the Brig's side.  My objection all along is the addition of the attacker being forced to remain in the battle.  This means that if the TBrig does get reinforcements, the attacker would likely die.  From attacking a trader.....Naval warfare in the 18th/19th centuries was full of traders being taken and rarely was the raider at risk.  I strongly feel that battles remaining open for ANY side is too similar to the PZ ROE and is the main reason that so many players dislike the PZ.  You don't take a good ship to the PZ.  If battles are to remain open in OW, does this mean you wont take a good ship there?  More likely, you may sail your good ship in OW, but you won't tag lesser BRs.  That certainly makes it safer for traders, but is that good?  It's less PVP.  Another option is to stop using high quality ships/mods because the risk to them has become too high with always open battles.  Not good for the economy.  The fact is, that hunting in OW will always include tagging lower BR ships.  The proposal in OP will make this too risky in many cases and will lower the amount of PVP.  We will definitely see a lot more unescorted, un-gunned players in TBrigs, because it's too risky to tag them.  Score one for the PVE crowd. 

[Sea Archer]

If battles can only be entered by players that are already in sight of the battle, there shouldn't be much surprises, even if the battle stays open for more than 2 min (which I wouldn't like).

But those players had to join in the ships they are already sailing. Changing ship ships must not be allowed. If a player looses sight of the battle, he cannot join anymore.

Wouldn't really help against ganking, but would be ok for me.

Still it does not solve the problem of small ships attacking larger ones to prevent them from fighting. And that for several times in a row.

This could only be solved IMO, when the damaged caused by the larger ship would be really devastating on the smaller one. Maybe we can test such a more realistic damage and gun model on the test server. At least I would really like to test it.

[staun]

57 minutes ago, admin said:

the new solo patrol feels amazing from the perspective of the solo player

• small area near the main patrol (or in the center)
• you can ONLY attack ships of your class 
• you cannot attack ships of other classes
• all battles are 1v1 - turning it to a pure skill based tournament dungeon (that you have to get to like in classic wow)

If it successful the main patrol rules could be adjusted too. 

Wouldn’t it be better to have them a bit apart, so players looking for a duel don’t risk end up in a group battle and the other way around?

[admin]

5 minutes ago, staun said:

Wouldn’t it be better to have them a bit apart, so players looking for a duel don’t risk end up in a group battle and the other way around?

it will be near (adjacent) so you can get into main patrol zone no-one is duelling today