Port flipping: automatically driven by NPCs?

[Galileus]

Sigh. Whatever. Sure, having to keep track of 24/7 PB that might or might not happen is less monotonous than having a 2-4h uptime. Sure, sure.

 

Yes, sure, "choosing to do it or not" is a strategy. So deep. Lemme just come around from the site of port battle, so I can buy a ticket to get into port battle. HAHA! But strategy! I did not participate!

 

And sure, organizing defense 24/7 is much easier than having a set window. You just need to rotate people on night and day shifts, so everyone is ready all the time.

 

Sigh.

 

I'm off. I'm sorry, but this is daydreaming, and I will not participate.

 

PvE flag carriers. Tsk. So fun, no broke, all workin :/

[Galileus]

There's 8 nations.

 

You have a nation that fights only one other nation.

 

You have a nation that fights all others.

 

What is the timer between PBs active for one nation?

 

8h? The first nation needs to wait 4-5 days till next port battle against their enemy in daytime. 2 weeks? 4 weeks? Till port battle in prime time. That's one. Next one in a month? Two?

 

2h? The second nation needs to watch out for 12 port battles a day, day, night, day, night... who cares at this point? It's like a job - keep the steam on, they might need you, and you never know when the attack comes! And don't forget - next friday it's your 8h long watch!

 

Just how many examples of broken scenarios do you need?

[KrakkenSmacken]

The end goal is to have fun playing the game, that is why we are here.

 

Yes, winning is fun.  But winning by figuring out a way to prevent your opponent from fighting gives you the fun of winning by robbing your opponent of the fun of playing.  Because this is a game it needs to be fun for both sides, which means removing or limiting mechanics that are only fun for one side.  Taken to the extreme, this style of conquest becomes a PVE contest -- a question of which team can PVT the most ports the fastest.

 

This is why Monopoly is hated by so many people.  It is very rare for a game to be close enough that the loser has fun losing.  Compare this to games like Ticket To Ride where the outcome may be in doubt until the final move.

 

 

The end goal is to have fun playing the game, correct.  Winning the OW conquest game, if there is one in the final game, is that fun. If all you want is to shoot cannons, then what are you doing messing around in the conquest game anyway?

 

The game is very often not fun for both sides, period.  If you are playing to win, you are not going to enjoy losing no matter how mechanically entertaining the engagement was.  Far too many people think that those that play to win at all costs are somehow worse because they take every advantage the game gives them to win.  That is not their fault. If there is a balance fault, or a generally not a fun game fault, it is the fault of the game design and developers.

 

Complaining about how people win is the thinking of a Scrub, not playing to win.  (http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub)

 

I will play to win with whatever mechanic is at my disposal, period.  The existence of the tribunal is I hope a temporary thing, because every tribunal case that results in a punishment should be pointing out to the Devs a game mechanic, or set of game mechanics, that have a fundamental problem that needs to be addressed, like the current port timers.

  

Monopoly is not fun because it was designed to not be fun, do the research on why the game was built the way it was.  As a demonstration of a failed economic system.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_board_game_Monopoly

 

"Magie, a follower of Henry George, originally intended The Landlord's Game to illustrate the economic consequences of Ricardo's Law of Economic rent and the Georgist concepts of economic privilege and land value taxation. "

 

 

The REAL issue is that the game only has slippery slopes, and no perpetual comeback mechanics.  That is real life realistic and very "Monopoly" like, but as you pointed out, that's not very fun.

[Taralin Snow]

Yes, exactly.  This is a game that is still under development, so there is still time to make it not like Monopoly.  A sandbox game without comeback mechanics will devolve into a "play to crush" game where the smaller teams eventually quit or join the biggest team.  If the game were to release today in its current state, I predict that within 3 years the meta will be for the majority of players to reroll to the same nation, then see how fast they can repaint the map.  Then reroll to a new nation and repeat.  There will still be die-hards playing the "right" way and of course for econ purposes there will be agreements that certain ports are off-limits so that shipbuilders can continue to produce (they will not want to reroll and lose their blueprints, die-hard  crafters will have permanent crafter mains that never change nations, and conquest alts that reroll as needed (if they're interested in conquest at all), and possibly a dozen alt accounts for resource harvesting).

[Balsafer]

We also do not need anything in the game that does things for us like most f2p games that have it where you dont even have to find the quest location yourself, just click on the quest and it will auto run you to the spot..