"Defense Duty" or "How to make great use of the Mechanics behind Loki""

[Puchu]

This is an Idea which we had hoped for for a long long time and which might make NA playable for people with less time on their hands.

The goal: 

1. Give people a way to quickly come into NA, have a real fight within a few minutes and the feeling of "time well spent" and logg off again.
2. Increase the amount of PvP happening on the PvP server.
3. Increase the feeling of danger when attacking an NPC. 

The idea:

1. When in port, you can click on an Icon that says: "Defense Duty"
2. When you are on "Defense Duty" and an NPC of your nation gets attacked, you get the option to join that battle as the NPC ship. (If you decline, you will be brought to the bottom of the Defense Duty queue and the next one gets the option to join. You have 20secs to accept.)
3. You will then fight that battle, gain exp , ship exp and some loot from that battle (amount is debateable), but you cant take boarded ships with you. They then belong to the Admirality.
4. After the Battle you are back to port.

The reasons:

Loki runes are a great way for people to get instant fights, but they are a loose loose scenario. The Loki looses time, that they could have used for farming or trading or grinding and gains nothing from it but the enjoyment of the fight, which is simply not enough for many players. And the one who gets a loki in his ai fight is usually sad because he took on bigger enemies, thinking he can easily kill them, but might loose his ship for this. 

If Defense Duty is there, basically all fights (lets exclude traders and small ships below the surprise) are pvp fights. People will be pvp'ing way more, everyone will get better. There are also advantages for starting the fight. The starter of the fight can pick his enemy, can pick his ship, which is usually better than that of the ai, will also get a pvp reward for the fight, and will get more loot and the option of taking home the enemy ship. 

Should there be a cost to Defense duty? No. It's there to make a quick fight possible and shall help people get real fights. (This is for admin:)The Defense Duty will overall reduce the amount of reals and loot that is on the server, because the AI fights become way harder, since they often are pvp fights. So it is a hidden mechanic to reduce the amount of money that is available in the game.

The Loki is very unpredictable. This Defense Duty mechanic makes it so, that you should never attack a too big of an enemy force, since you are most likely to have real players in it. That's more predictable and you can adjust better. Thats nicer, than getting surprised in the middle of a hard fight.

Being a Loki can be very frustrating, since you often get spawned into an already lost battle with one side already down. That would be eliminated, since you get the option to join the fight right when it starts.

What do you think of this idea?

 

[Anolytic]

I like it.

But what about when everybody sits in port all day only, doing their defence duty. Who will populate the Open World.

I'm not saying this would be the nail in the coffin for OW, but if we make it too convenient to just sit in port and get insta-PvP, then we might as well shut down OW and make PvP lobby based. I know you wouldn't be opposed to that, but I think OW has its charm, and Naval Action Legends didn't do so well (for a lot of different reasons that might not be only about the concept).

[Slim McSauce]

I would be interested. OW has never been much more than a buffer for combat. I think it would work better as a chess board than a condensed sailing map.
Sailing around is cool, don't get me wrong, but sailing on OW is idle time. It's not realistic, hardly strategic and frankly very boring and time consuming.
NA would see more success if it's OW was like a grand strategy map, uniquely separate from the combat instance that over shadows it.

[Botq]

1 hour ago, Puchu said:

3. Players who would like to play Defense Duty only would not be on the OW onyways... they would be playing other games.

Are you sure about that ? The game already suffers from low pop in ow and i doubt that would help. In fact, it would make it only worse. Not even mentioning the griefing we already get from lokis like when someone jumps into elite AI and just sails away from you.

[Archaos]

17 minutes ago, Puchu said:

. The player on Defense Duty will most likely loose the fight, since he is not fighting with mods or golden ships.

This is not true as in majority of cases the players that like using Loki runes are experienced PvP'ers and the players doing PvE tend in general not to be great PvP'ers, so usually if the Loki player joins a fight close to the start when they have a full health ship they stand a good chance to defeat the PvE player.

Also a lot of players that regularly enjoy PvE like to give themselves some challenge by attacking AI that are stronger than them or multiple AI at the same time. If you then put in a Loki the PvE player is then at a greater disadvantage. Yes, I know there is always the PvE server for people that love PvE, but that does not cater for people who like a bit of both and rank and ships are not transferable between both servers, so most will not level up on both servers.

You say the player who gets a Loki in his battle is usually sad, so how is this different when they get a defense duty player in their battle?

What you are proposing basically removes the need for Loki runes from the game and ensures that players can jump into other player battles at absolutely no cost, in a ship that is not damaged, and you are proposing they also receive some rewards for winning. Nearly every PvP player would go for that as there is no cost to them and they get PvP and rewards.

As much as I dislike the Loki rune mechanic, it is 100 times better than what you are suggesting. At least with the Loki rune the player has to farm or buy the Loki and if they are farming it there is a chance they could get Lokied themselves or if nothing else they have to go look for PvP to get one.

May as well just go for a lobby based game rather than this suggestion. I guess you are probably one of the group of players that would prefer a lobby based game with quick action, and there are probably quite a few players like you, but you would be better pushing for a pure lobby based game than trying to make the OW game more like a lobby game.

[Jan van Santen]

Only issue i see with this is PvE server. As non consensual PvP is strictly not wanted there, the feature would have to be PvP server only.

[Archaos]

1 hour ago, Puchu said:

You will now be almost 100% sure to have a real player in your fight. That's what makes it predictable. That's the whole point of it.

The problem with the loki runes is that you think you engage npcs but you get players. With the other mechanic you will most of the time get players and sometimes not.

Btw: What's your solution for players who dont have 2h to look for a half decent fight? 

But the reason I would attack AI is to PvE, why should I be forced to PvP. When I attack AI I dont want a real player in my fight. Imagine if they brought in a item in game where a player once engaged in battle by another player could use it and be replaced in battle by an AI, thus avoiding PvP and any loss connected with it. Would PvP players be happy with that? being forced to fight an AI when they thought they were getting PvP.

So what you are saying is that the people with time should sail around the OW and attack AI just so that the people who do not have the time can have quick PvP battles. If I wanted PvP then why would I attack AI I would just sit in port with your system and wait to join a battle.

As I said I dont like Loki runes and I think they should be removed from the game as they are a bad mechanic, because if I want to fight AI I should be able to do so without the AI suddenly magically changing into a player. In OW and when I start an AI battle I run the risk of being intercepted or have someone join my OW battle, but at least I know where I stand with that and can adjust my tactics accordingly. But the Loki system brings that uncertainty to the battle and your proposed system makes every battle a PvP battle.

For players that do not have 2h to look for a fight I would suggest maybe another game and maybe only play NA when they have the appropriate time to play. Certain games require a certain amount of time to play properly and NA is one of them. Currently I do not have much time to play NA due to RL stuff, so I log on and do what I can in the available time or I do not play at all. The same applies to any game I would play, some are simple and can be paused and saved as and when you need to, but NA is not like that.  

[Archaos]

52 minutes ago, Puchu said:

Usually people leave games because they a) dont get to do what they want

I want to attack AI, but you say I should always PvP!!!!!

[Archaos]

1 hour ago, Puchu said:

That's exactly the thing im trying to solve. If this is a game only someone who can endure 2h of boredom before getting a fight, can play, then how many people on this planet do fall into that cathegory? There is a reason why server pop is so low. That's one of them. Noone wants to spend that much time looking for the content they want.

Noone is wrong... Very few is right.

You are trying to make the game the way you would like to play it, the problem is that the lobby style game was tried with Legends and the retention numbers showed there. Okay there are probably several reasons why that failed same as there are several reasons why population in OW game is low, but I do not think that your solution will gain the game more players, in fact I think it will alienate a lot of players.

There are many games out there that require a lot of time investment and many of them manage to keep a lot higher populations than NA, so it is not just the time investment that makes the pop low. I am not sure where you get the 2 hours before you get a fight, because with the PZ you can almost guarantee to get a fight quickly (probably a gank, but still a fight) all you have to do is setup in a freeport close to the zone and play on the days the zones you are interested in are active.

[Busterbloodvessel]

Let's give it a go.

Buster (mouse pusher)

[Puchu]

11 minutes ago, Archaos said:

You say the player who gets a Loki in his battle is usually sad, so how is this different when they get a defense duty player in their battle?

You will now be almost 100% sure to have a real player in your fight. That's what makes it predictable. That's the whole point of it.

The problem with the loki runes is that you think you engage npcs but you get players. With the other mechanic you will most of the time get players and sometimes not.

Btw: What's your solution for players who dont have 2h to look for a half decent fight? 

Edited July 14, 2020 by Puchu

[Puchu]

3 hours ago, Archaos said:

For players that do not have 2h to look for a fight I would suggest maybe another game

That's exactly the thing im trying to solve. If this is a game only someone who can endure 2h of boredom before getting a fight, can play, then how many people on this planet do fall into that cathegory? There is a reason why server pop is so low. That's one of them. Noone wants to spend that much time looking for the content they want.

Noone is wrong... Very few is right.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Puchu

[Puchu]

12 hours ago, Anolytic said:

But what about when everybody sits in port all day only, doing their defence duty. Who will populate the Open World.

There a re a few possible answers to that:

1. There is no reason for you to stay in port for this. It's probably a programming thing if you can be on the ow and in Defense Duty at the same time. And if it's possible to take your ship out of the ow and relteleport you back in.

2. The player on Defense Duty will most likely loose the fight, since he is not fighting with mods or golden ships. If you want to win, you need to be on the ow.

3. Players who would like to play Defense Duty only would not be on the OW onyways... they would be playing other games.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Puchu

[Puchu]

20 minutes ago, Botq said:

Are you sure about that ? The game already suffers from low pop in ow and i doubt that would help. In fact, it would make it only worse. Not even mentioning the griefing we already get from lokis like when someone jumps into elite AI and just sails away from you.

Giving people what they want rarely results in lower pop.

Usually people leave games because they a) dont get to do what they want or b) dont have enough time.  this idea gets rid of both.