Increase BR Limits for Port Battles to counter Kiting

[Anolytic]

With the changes of Battle Ratings for ships, it is time to look again at the Battle Rating limits of Port Battles. For one thing with the increased BR of 1st rates those highest BR ports on the map should have their BR increased as well, to allow for truly massive fights over those ports. 11 000 BR is not enough as the highest BR. The biggest ports, like San Juan and Cartagena de Indias should give room for full 25 man fleets of 1st and 2nd rates to engage.
I am not asking for mono fleets of 1st rates again, though I do miss those days and would happily take them back. But we don’t have to go quite so far as 22500 BR Ports, but 15 000-18 000 BR as the upper limit would be suitable if applied to a few ports.

Even more importantly however, the lowest BR ports need an increase in BR. There are a lot of deep water ports with less than 3000 BR. With the current damage model it is simply impossible for attackers to bring enough ships AND firepower to capture and defend 2 circles for long enough to accumulate 1000 points when the defender can just kite and use small ships to deny points. When the BR of ports is a little higher there will be enough ships in the battle for each side that they have to engage each other and fight for the circles, because any part of the fleet will be able to cover a single circle sufficiently together to keep Le Requins or Niagaras out of it. But in Ports with 2800 BR and less this is not possible. These fights inevitably devolve into kiting, preventing which was the entire reason for creating the 3-circle PB system to begin with.
There is nothing realistic or historical about defending a city by running away from the enemy. Kiting is gamey and boring gameplay and should be eliminated as best as possible from conquest. Port battles should be about engaging the enemy.
The reason for these low BR PBs working before the new damage model, is that more ships would participate on each side as smaller ships, like 3rd rate, could deal with a small number of 1st rates. This is not the case anymore.
There should be no Ports that are so small that they have Port Battles with a BR limit less than 5 000. Or kiting will continue to destroy RvR and make players leave from sheer boredom.

Edited April 17, 2019 by Anolytic

[Capitalism]

Agreed. The new damage model has harmed balance in all things more than it has fixed in my opinion. But its impact on RvR and interactions with the forts/timing and balance of point accrual is in severe need of adjustment.

[Tom Farseer]

I am very much in favor of increasing the deepwater PB lower BR limit to a point where no shallow ship can enter them (so 131 or higher). For the Mortar Brig a special solution would have to be implemented that allows it to circumvent the BR limit.
Coding-wise the most simple way I see is adding two boolean properties to each ship (I sincerely hope they all are derived from the same class :D ). One that if set to true allows entry to shallow water PBs and one that if true allows entry to deep water PBs. Of course that is a mere assumption as I do not know how PBs are implemented and so on....
Maybe a little increase in BR for the lower BR ports (about a thousand points more?) could be great as well.

But I don't think PBs that allow for 25v25 first rates should be possible. In my (very personal) opinion, most PB fleets should consist of mostly 3rd rates with the odd 1st and 2nd rates as flagships. Medium sized PBs (roundabout 7k Br as of now)  perfectly allow for that. Have a decent squadron of 8 or so 3rd rates, 2nd rates as leaders and a 1st rate flagship. with some BR left for frigates to keep remote circles and/or hunt mortar brigs.
Example with 7k BR assuming that no shallow ships except Mortar can enter:

I think that is what most battles should look like.
25 3rd rates currently amount to 12.250 BR. So at most ports should have a BR limit around 15k to ensure that fleet compositions stay mixed and 1st rates don't get spammed. Although I expect 1st rates to be much rarer for a while after release.

[Slim McSauce]

Little to say port battles need an overhaul. They have 0 scaling potential which is why there's 25 people in the battle, and 100 people on the OW. If the 100 people can't show then that's leaving so much content on the table.

[admin]

BRs already increased in internal versions. 

Deepwater county capitals will allow 20 first rates on both sides (maybe more needed)
Deepwater Regional towns will allow 20 3rd rates

[Meraun]

2 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

Im sorry but it is not realistic.

Not with the current prices of lineships neither with the playerbase numbers and nation unbalances.

Wait, patiance, you have not seen the changes in  Permits,  rare Woods (Wich i'am pretty sure will come), the new Port-System  and you also dont know how the Playerbase will be after release. Dont jump horses.

Edited April 17, 2019 by Meraun

[MassimoSud]

6 minutes ago, admin said:

BRs already increased in internal versions. 

Deepwater county capitals will allow 20 first rates on both sides (maybe more needed)
Deepwater Regional towns will allow 20 3rd rates

Just a suggestion, why not tie the BR to the amount of taxes in the port (obviously guaranteeing a minimum br for the capitals)?

[huliotkd]

13 hours ago, Anolytic said:

With the current damage model it is simply impossible for attackers to bring enough ships AND firepower to capture and defend 2 circles for long enough to accumulate 1000 points when the defender can just kite and use small ships to deny points

defenders have the same BR limith...i suppose your fleet's combination choice is wrong then.

if the defenders can defend, attackers can attack. choose proper ships

Edited April 17, 2019 by huliotkd

[huliotkd]

14 minutes ago, admin said:

BRs already increased in internal versions. 

Deepwater county capitals will allow 20 first rates on both sides (maybe more needed)
Deepwater Regional towns will allow 20 3rd rates

what about smaller nation or clans that cannot show 20 3rd rates with new prices for rare wood? you are giving the map to big unbeatable clans, no one will struggle to fight a battle that cannot be won.  and this is the way for quit the game for new palyers with some vets...

[Tom Farseer]

6 minutes ago, huliotkd said:

13 hours ago, Anolytic said:

With the current damage model it is simply impossible for attackers to bring enough ships AND firepower to capture and defend 2 circles for long enough to accumulate 1000 points when the defender can just kite and use small ships to deny points

defenders have the same BR limith...i suppose your fleet's combination choice is wrong then.

if the defenders can defend, attackers can attack. choose proper ships

You know well enough that it is easier to kite than to catch a kiter Defenders don't need to generate points, they only need to stop the attackers from generating. So they have the option to kite in the current system. Attackers must make points so they must get kills or drive the enemy out of the circles in time.

[MassimoSud]

6 minutes ago, huliotkd said:

what about smaller nation or clans that cannot show 20 3rd rates with new prices for rare wood? you are giving the map to big unbeatable clans, no one will struggle to fight a battle that cannot be won.  and this is the way for quit the game for new palyers with some vets...

This is why the BR must be tied to the taxes generated in the port. Small taxes = small battles = space for smaller clans

[Tom Farseer]

Small clans will always need to band together with others in order to stand a chance in RvR. They always had. SNOW is the best example. Elitist, picky PvPers who then need help defending their ports because they lack numbers

[Meraun]

12 minutes ago, huliotkd said:

defenders have the same BR limith...i suppose your fleet's combination choice is wrong then.

if the defenders can defend, attackers can attack. choose proper ships

i dont think you really know how PB's work currently... Been in any lately?

[Meraun]

[Off topic]

Edited April 17, 2019 by resarE

[Hawkwood]

24 minutes ago, MassimoSud said:

Just a suggestion, why not tie the BR to the amount of taxes in the port (obviously guaranteeing a minimum br for the capitals)?

Because trading is dead, and nobody is buying selling trading goods to increase the port income. Thanks to cargo/passenger missions.

[Teutonic]

A small clan of 10 or so people can fill and enjoy deep water ports at the 2-3k BR limit. A small clan already struggles with deep water ports at the 5,000-7,000 BR limit. And before anyone says - 7 1st rates is not a proper PB fleet.

I agree there should more more ports with higher BR - but lets not forget that if you do it too much then you're back to sqaure 1 where small clans just never have enough people.

 

[Angus MacDuff]

With the new model for regional capitols, small clans are doomed anyway.  Think of several major fortresses per nation.  Any small clan that tries to build a base will be massacred.

[Tom Farseer]

1 minute ago, Angus MacDuff said:

With the new model for regional capitols, small clans are doomed anyway.  Think of several major fortresses per nation.  Any small clan that tries to build a base will be massacred.

or can peacefully flip a regional port in the shadow of the mighty county capital^^
assuming there will be enough players to want those ports

Edited April 17, 2019 by Tom Farseer

[MassimoSud]

8 minutes ago, Hawkwood said:

Because trading is dead, and nobody is buying selling trading goods to increase the port income. Thanks to cargo/passenger missions.

I understand your point, the economy must be fixed, even the delivery missions must generate taxes in the port of departure / arrival (if they don't do it now). The concept should be that the more taxes a port generates, the more important is the port, the greater the effort to conquer it.

[MassimoSud]

7 minutes ago, Angus MacDuff said:

With the new model for regional capitols, small clans are doomed anyway.  Think of several major fortresses per nation.  Any small clan that tries to build a base will be massacred.

No if you built your base near to a friendly capital and if you try to work with other clans. I see a lot of potential in this.

[Meraun]

51 minutes ago, Angus MacDuff said:

With the new model for regional capitols, small clans are doomed anyway.  Think of several major fortresses per nation.  Any small clan that tries to build a base will be massacred.

a major Clan can take a Capitol while smaller Clans take the regional Ports? OR Several Small Clans take a Capitol togther and split the Regional Ports? there are many possibilits

Edited April 17, 2019 by Meraun

[huliotkd]

On 4/17/2019 at 4:02 PM, Tom Farseer said:

You know well enough that it is easier to kite than to catch a kiter Defenders don't need to generate points, they only need to stop the attackers from generating. So they have the option to kite in the current system. Attackers must make points so they must get kills or drive the enemy out of the circles in time.

nope. catch a kiter with a proper ship is easy cause kiter have to run or die, catcher have to follow to push it our of circle so friends start generating points. requin is made for this, but also niagara or prince.

once a kiter is out of circle, you have to put a ship on border so when the kiter try to come back it can't enter circle or die...you don't need anymore to kill to make points

Edited April 18, 2019 by huliotkd

[Sir Texas Sir]

17 hours ago, Intrepido said:

Im sorry but it is not realistic.

Not with the current prices of lineships neither with the playerbase numbers and nation unbalances.

I would prefer to have to many slots than not enough.

17 hours ago, huliotkd said:

what about smaller nation or clans that cannot show 20 3rd rates with new prices for rare wood? you are giving the map to big unbeatable clans, no one will struggle to fight a battle that cannot be won.  and this is the way for quit the game for new palyers with some vets...

This is why there should be a scale.  More important regions have higher BR while those out of the way with no real good resources should have lower BR's.  The problem we have right now is some of the key ports have very low BR so a small elite clan can just hold it from a nation that could field 4 times there numbers.  Little River is a good example of this.

 

@admin kinda off topic but on topic too.  If we capture a region capital and an alt clan goes for one of the region ports to leave it open for other nations.  How can we prevent this?  A prime example of this is Little River right now is perm open to all cause an alt clan owns it and US can't do anything about it.   This is the only thing I see that is big problem when the new patch hits. Folks using alt clans to take ports on the line so they can leave them open to all and hunt out of them.  

[huliotkd]

7 hours ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

This is why there should be a scale.  More important regions have higher BR while those out of the way with no real good resources should have lower BR's.  The problem we have right now is some of the key ports have very low BR so a small elite clan can just hold it from a nation that could field 4 times there numbers.  Little River is a good example of this.

absolutly not.  a clan that could field 4times numbers of a smaller one is a potential game-breaking clan.

small BR allow every clan to fight for ports, bigger and smaller ones. 2.5k BR can be filled up by 5-6 player that is the number of a middle-clan of the server today.  if BR raise up to 8000 for a port that had only 2.5 before, all smaller clans ragequit cause they will never win or defend only for a numbers of player problems. 

no more skill----numbers win.

and this is the fastest way to drive the server empty.

[Sir Texas Sir]

30 minutes ago, huliotkd said:

absolutly not.  a clan that could field 4times numbers of a smaller one is a potential game-breaking clan.

small BR allow every clan to fight for ports, bigger and smaller ones. 2.5k BR can be filled up by 5-6 player that is the number of a middle-clan of the server today.  if BR raise up to 8000 for a port that had only 2.5 before, all smaller clans ragequit cause they will never win or defend only for a numbers of player problems. 

no more skill----numbers win.

and this is the fastest way to drive the server empty.

I know more folks left cause of lack of 25 vs 25 battles not cause of the 5 vs 5.

No a small clan shouldn't hold key ports hostage from a nation (Not CLAN) that can field large port battle fleets.  We aren't talking about one clan we are talking about a nation.   If a small clan wants a port they can look for a none importnant port out of the way or a none regional capital port and flip it.  Key ports should be high BR to allow a proper mix fleet to defend them.

And you do know more than one clan can defend a port.....this game isn't clan based just yet.