Port Battles and its flawed mechanics

[Ronald Speirs]

BR is flawed for port battles as ships, lets just capture heaps of 3rd rates and give them to midshipman just to get the BR high enough while the ones fully crewing go hit the towers, seems alittle silly to me, not to mention that having the timer and people just running to run it out, if 10 attackers are chasing 2 defenders who really win the battle? the defenders are fleeing so that would constitute a retreat and loss IMO, maybe removing the timer or making the circle get smaller the longer the battle goes on then it would force an actual result, those wanting to flee still wait their 1:30 or what ever it is.

 

As for the undercrewing to get BR up it would be better using crew percentages in the mix to stop vastly undercrewing ships just to prop up the BR to win, if it worked on a percentage of crew on ships then maybe this flawed mechanic wouldn't be used, not sure if anyone else has an idea on how to help fix this system but in its current state its not the best mechanics to promote port battles. 

 

Let me know what you think

[Bigvalco]

I think the simplest solutions are what you said, make the arena smaller so people can't run as easily, or maybe make each tower destroyed makes the arena get smaller. Also undercrewing ships for full BR is silly and should be fixed to represent a real BR.

[Ethan_Lysander]

Totally agree with Mr Spiers.

[Ronald Speirs]

when i first started port battles i didn't think it was that bad but the more you do and the more tactics we find out the more flaws we eventually find

[Admaa]

Make it so you are unable to sail a ship if under 70% crew... makes sense, right?

[Bam_Morgan]

Simple solution is to modify the ship's BR based on the percentage of crew.  You sail a ship in a PB at 50% crew you get 50% of the ship's BR. 

[Woody051]

Simple solution is to modify the ship's BR based on the percentage of crew.  You sail a ship in a PB at 50% crew you get 50% of the ship's BR. 

 

to ensure fairer mechanics for the defenders instate the crew/BR percentage as mentioned above

 

to ensue fairer mechanics for the attackers shrink the boundary circle a set amount with each tower destroyed

 

let's make port battles fun tough pvp experiences rather than broken BR mechanics/running away mechanics 'winning' the day

 

These seem reasonable, especially the part about the undercrewed ships effecting Battle Ratings.

[Ronald Speirs]

Hopefully the devs look into it

[Scorpio Shirica]

I posted a lot about this in... http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/8249-problem-with-25v25-port-battles/

[Lord Roberts]

I think the simplest solutions are what you said, make the arena smaller so people can't run as easily, or maybe make each tower destroyed makes the arena get smaller. Also undercrewing ships for full BR is silly and should be fixed to represent a real BR.

If you made the arena smaller you would have to make the towers not as OP as they are already, they are Snipers and do unreal dmg to people.

[Reonhato]

The biggest flaw for PB is before the fight even starts. The attackers can take as much time as they need to organise their fleet, defenders get like 5 minutes. We need to actually get 25v25 port battles before the actual combat mechanics can be adjusted.

[Scorpio Shirica]

The biggest flaw for PB is before the fight even starts. The attackers can take as much time as they need to organise their fleet, defenders get like 5 minutes. We need to actually get 25v25 port battles before the actual combat mechanics can be adjusted.

 

We did 25v25, that's the thread I was talking about. http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/8249-problem-with-25v25-port-battles/

 

It's not fun.

 

People either run away if they don't have large BR and win by running. Or if the opposing side has super high BR, then they simply run over the other ships and win by ignoring them to destroy the towers.

 

Unless something has seriously changed since we did that right before wipe, I doubt port battles have suddenly become much more fun. That's not to say they can't be, but we found after repeat battles, that mechanics can be abused really badly. 

[Disavowed]

I think one single game edition would fix this, when all towers are down a capture point spawns in the middle.  This capture point has One rule:

 

"When the battle timer expires, only the Battle Rating of the ships in the circle will be counted towards the Nations overall Battle Rating"

 

Adding this will force defenders to actually defend, instead of "win by fleeing".

[Reonhato]

We did 25v25, that's the thread I was talking about. http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/8249-problem-with-25v25-port-battles/

 

It's not fun.

 

People either run away if they don't have large BR and win by running. Or if the opposing side has super high BR, then they simply run over the other ships and win by ignoring them to destroy the towers.

 

Unless something has seriously changed since we did that right before wipe, I doubt port battles have suddenly become much more fun. That's not to say they can't be, but we found after repeat battles, that mechanics can be abused really badly. 

 

How often are port battles full though? How do you know some issues won't be solved simply by practice, organisation and communication.

 

At the moment it is a big effort just to get to a port to try and defend it, giving people time to actually plan and organise for a port battle might solve some issues or create new ones. 

 

Basically I don't think you should be worried about combat mechanics until the overall system is actually up to scratch.

[Ronald Speirs]

How often are port battles full though? How do you know some issues won't be solved simply by practice, organisation and communication.

 

At the moment it is a big effort just to get to a port to try and defend it, giving people time to actually plan and organise for a port battle might solve some issues or create new ones. 

 

Basically I don't think you should be worried about combat mechanics until the overall system is actually up to scratch.

How many port battles have u been in so far, we have been in countless battles and this is what we have noticed is quite a problem so far, the ports are easy to defend if you don't spread yourself to thin, the defender gets the advantage of picking the defend times, so they should have players up and around those areas with ships to defend if they are organised enough, so far from most battles we have experienced these tactics of fleeing and stacking undercrewed ships in to win battles are being used, its not what the devs intended but its the way the mechanics are getting used atm, we are looking at ways to stop them and make port battles more enjoyable and fun rather then a flawed mechanic handing the win to the ones that uses it the wrong way.

[Reonhato]

How many port battles have u been in so far, we have been in countless battles and this is what we have noticed is quite a problem so far, the ports are easy to defend if you don't spread yourself to thin, the defender gets the advantage of picking the defend times, so they should have players up and around those areas with ships to defend if they are organised enough, so far from most battles we have experienced these tactics of fleeing and stacking undercrewed ships in to win battles are being used, its not what the devs intended but its the way the mechanics are getting used atm, we are looking at ways to stop them and make port battles more enjoyable and fun rather then a flawed mechanic handing the win to the ones that uses it the wrong way.

 

 

You are just proving my point by mentioning undercrewed ships. This is a issue that time will solve. The only reason it happens now is because of the lack of players who can actually use the bigger ships.

[John SIlver]

Making it so you can't crew a ship at all unless you have 70 or 80% would fix not only this, but a lot of other issues as well.

[Steelfury]

Actually making BR a function of how many crew you have would fix this. But mainly I'd like to see an actual port represented, which you have to 'board' in order to win, the boarding mechanics are there, you just need to make a few points along a harbour (could use ships or none-armed towers as a placeholder) to capture, rather than caring about BR.

[Hethwill]

BR should be Captain Rank/Vessel Rate combination with penalty regarding under 100%. Appliable to Port Battles only mind you so there is no exploit of this in OW.

 

Also, sorry for this, block any Freebies from going to it. A non-free 7th rate is cheap enough.

 

Regarding PB blockades, no ship with a BR of half or less  of the intended  target can interdict. It is a cheap exploit of the gap in the mechanics sending out fishermen hordes to blockade ( by wasting time... ) warships. The opposite does not apply.

[Kaaru62]

as i have said in other posts about port battles, i dont like the BR difference mechanic all together. it promotes a style of play centered around self preservation over defending any type of area. i believe the towers should be captured to achieve victory. if the defenders can hold on to 1 tower by the end of the battle they can win. the attackers of course would have to capture all 5 to achieve victory.

 

if we had to capture the towers, it would prolong even uncontested battles because of the strength of all those marines the towers have. it would take multiple ships taking turns engaging and disengaging to take down the towers making for prolonged and not easy battles and would also make people use alot of boarding equipped  ships. all this would add more diversity to ship types and use in the battles.