Update on the port battle set up

[admin]

Update on the current design research for port battles arrangements and pvp motivations

 

Initial proposals were posted here

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14642-port-battles-assault-flag-rework-proposals-moderated/?hl=port+battle

 

During the research and design exercises we believe that we have found an even better way to arrange port battles and wanted to share it with you for discussions.

 

Assault fleet construction still allows for some trolling potential especially in case of two powerful groups in one nations having competing goals. Also delaying or speeding up the fleet construction could be confusing and lead to lack of understanding of what is going on conquest wise. 

 

The new design is the following.

 

Hostility levels

Player actions generate hostility levels

• PvP kills, by means of free hunting or pvp missions
• PvE kills by means of hunting or pve missions
• Smuggling and Sabotage - delivering war supplies to support increase or decrease of hostility
• Potentially - Raids

All ports have the hostility level that is increased or decreased by above mentioned actions. 

Hostility levels will go up slowly to give the chance to respond in all time zones. 

 

Top 10 ports with the highest hostility level will be indicated on the map (where assault fleets are now currently)

Once hostility level reaches 100% port battle is automatically set up in 48 hours

Hostility level is generated for all ports in the vicinity - which creates interesting options for smaller nations and allows unexpected flexibility

 

Only top 10 ports can reach port battle state - which is awesome because:

1. it is naturally limiting the number of port battles per day (lets say 10)
2. it funnels players to top 10 most active locations - if you want action you sail to the zone with high hostility level

Increasing or decreasing hostility levels grants War effort commendations per port 

• During the first 10-20 mins of the port battle timer only people with war effort points for this port can enter the port battle
• After this timer everyone else can enter
• This stops port battle trolling when large groups enter and quit battle denying the victory or opportunity to fight.

Commendations are a cargo hold item and can be lost (and intercepted to use for your advantage). 

 

New mechanics are way better than assault fleet construction or assault flag because

• It stops trolling by entering and leaving port battles
• It stops assault flag abuse
• It eliminates timers and sets up battles based on the activity level (while providing options to defend in other timezones)
• It allows smuggler hunting (against nations who want to achieve port battles without PVP)
• It immediately shows to players where the action is creating more PvP
• It removes all confusion and timer problems

Discuss and ask questions

[Ned Loe]

You nailed it. With some tuning it will be an ideal system for Port Battles. Introduce rewards,rewards,rewards, achievements and loot(to stimulate pvp, pve fights, sabotage, raids etc) and we are talking non stop gaming and lots of fun. 

 

-Once hostility level reaches 100% port battle is automatically set up in 48 hours. Thanks for this, I will finally be able to schedule Port Battle times. 

[Lytse Pier]

Cooperative gameplay will be necessary instead of an elite group of 25  extremely l33t playerz! ;-)

 

Awesome!

[Pugwis]

Assault fleet construction still allows for some trolling potential

 

Sound good to me.

[Powderhorn]

The commendations in your hold, which are tickets to the port battle, would be good as currency to redeem for rewards as well, simply because many might be interested in helping achieve national goals, but NOT interested in participating in port battles.

[Powderhorn]

Generating hostility for pirate ports can be problematic, as you may find nearby ports to be allied, and thus cannot generate hostility there, and as they lack AI fleets, you may not be able to generate hostility that way either.

Essentially, this limits you to smuggling, which in turn means the only way to take pirate ports is through economic means, which seems limiting.

AI pirate fleets would resolve this. Changes to pirate mechanics might make this redundant.

[Vernon Merrill]

Sounds like a great idea to test!  I'm in.

[Domox]

This sounds great to me!

[Ledinis]

So is it top 10 ports per nation, or top 10 ports in general, meaning one nation can be zerged to death? Other than that i would prefer a mix of the assault fleet option you had before with this new hostility levels mechanic  

[Anolytic]

This sounds very interesting. I look forward to testing it out. However I still fear that smaller nations will be at a disadvantage. Especially if it is possible to engineer the system so Port Battles are set up when a smaller nation has no players active, or the RvR-players of a nation has to frequently schedule playtime for defensive battles in the middle of the night to be able to defend territory.

 

I do think that if you added a Regional conquest system on top of what has already been proposed here, it would allow for even more strategic gameplay, more diverse battles and bigger fights.

[Lytse Pier]

Just to suggest, I'd make it that not every port reacts the same to hostilities. A big regional port should not feel as threatened by a few ships not reaching its destinations, than for example a shallow water port on the rim of the empires. Instead of using percentages, you could make it in a more numerical presentation of transported/provided supplies and troops, defensive and offensive actions, commendations, etc. This would also make it fun to give a nation to coordinate a strategical investment in a certain area of the offensive or defensive actions of the fleets.

 

So in short:

A regional capital needs more supplies and troops towards the front to get worried, expects more offensive and defensive actions to feel threatened, and their governor needs more commendations to get worried than for example a deep water port, which on its turn is less vulnerable again than a shallow water port.

 

This would also account for the lack of order in the pirate area. There are lot of shallow water ports in that area and therefore more vulnerable to aggression on also a smaller scale. My suggestion above would leave that area of shallow ports as a much less stable and dynamic area than for example a more nation oriented area.

Edited June 24, 2016 by Lytse Pier

[Enraged Ewok]

At first glance, I like this outline. It appears to both solve the port battle issues of the current system and problems of the old suggestion, while also combining the "PVP hotzone" suggestion. I'd love to give it a try.

[Ned Loe]

So is it top 10 ports per nation, or top 10 ports in general, meaning one nation can be zerged to death? Other than that i would prefer a mix of the assault fleet option you had before with this new hostility levels mechanic

He means Map will show top 10 active zones. where you can have pvp fun.

[Ned Loe]

This sounds very interesting. I look forward to testing it out. However I still fear that smaller nations will be at a disadvantage. Especially if it is possible to engineer the system so Port Battles are set up when a smaller nation has no players active, or the RvR-players of a nation has to frequently schedule playtime for defensive battles in the middle of the night to be able to defend territory.

 

I do think that if you added a Regional conquest system on top of what has already been proposed here, it would allow for even more strategic gameplay, more diverse battles and bigger fights.

You will have 48 hours to round up Captains and prepare for Defense. Even if your guys are offline it will surely take time to reach 100% hostility and won't be as quick as it seems.

[Kaos]

 

Hostility levels

Player actions generate hostility levels

• PvP kills, by means of free hunting or pvp missions
• PvE kills by means of hunting or pve missions
• Smuggling and Sabotage - delivering war supplies to support increase or decrease of hostility
• Potentially - Raids

All ports have the hostility level that is increased or decreased by above mentioned actions. 

Hostility levels will go up slowly to give the chance to respond in all time zones. 

Increasing or decreasing hostility levels grants War effort commendations per port 

• During the first 10-20 mins of the port battle timer only people with war effort points for this port can enter the port battle
• After this timer everyone else can enter
• This stops port battle trolling when large groups enter and quit battle denying the victory or opportunity to fight.

Commendations are a cargo hold item and can be lost (and intercepted to use for your advantage). 

Does this imply pvp and pve players competing over commendation points and port battle entrance? Let's say some pve group A farms all the npc's/missions outside said port for those points at off-hours and pvp group B who can't find any pvp outside that port (because enemy nation obviously does not want to feed them points) will have to resort to farming missions and npc's to get commendations too?

[Sven Silberbart]

That concept looks fine. I like it.

 

But let me do one question:

 

"Hostility level is generated for all ports in the vicinity - which creates interesting options for smaller nations and allows unexpected flexibility"

 

How do you think this an interesting option for smaller nations? I am playing Sverige, and we are one of the small nations.

This game will never be balanced by player numbers until the low populated nations don't get big advantages.

The game system needs to allow the smaller nations play their role in the carribean. It should be harder to capture

ports close to the nations capitol to give the small nations a chance to make their territory more save against bigger nations.

 

Maybe it is a solution to make the hostility increasing much slower, if the harbour/area is very close to the capitol

Edited June 24, 2016 by Sven Silberbart

[Ned Loe]

Does this imply pvp and pve players competing over commendation points and port battle entrance? Let's say some pve group A farms all the npc's/missions outside said port for those points at off-hours and pvp group B who can't find any pvp outside that port (because enemy nation obviously does not want to feed them points) will have to resort to farming missions and npc's to get commendations too?

I bet PvE will generate very little points compared to PvP. So, if Nations want to attack and make it Port Battle, they will be there waiting in that zone. Otherwise it might take days and get counter grinded to 0 hostility by defenders. This should guarantee non stop Action. 

 

Devs might need to provide details .

[Bart Smith]

Yay flipping ports like in PotBS... joke   but way better ideas than current ones. Looking forward to test it as always. To avoid "zerg" i would gladly see some kind of limit how many ports can by attacked per one nation. I told nearly 3 years ago - some PotBS ideas and concepts were fine and may be worth to implemented in Naval Action.

[Diodo]

LOL i guess this came from my idea. I like it very much.

 

So, how do you actually affect hostility levels? Is there a radius from the port or what?

[admin]

 

 

"Hostility level is generated for all ports in the vicinity - which creates interesting options for smaller nations and allows unexpected flexibility"

 

How do you think this an interesting option for smaller nations? I am playing Sverige, and we are one of the small nations.

 

 

smaller nations will be parts of alliances - which is a separate development thread.

 

But as we see it - smaller nations can raise hostility for themselves by arriving in force to active zones and sink both sides who are fighting for the port. 

Does this imply pvp and pve players competing over commendation points and port battle entrance? Let's say some pve group A farms all the npc's/missions outside said port for those points at off-hours and pvp group B who can't find any pvp outside that port (because enemy nation obviously does not want to feed them points) will have to resort to farming missions and npc's to get commendations too?

 

pve and smuggling is needed if other nation is not in the zone (trying to deny kills) 

but of course pvp kills will give a lot more than pve.

+ we are fixing mission entry spawns for hostiles - they will allow to interfere with pve in those zones

additionally timers for entry into battles can also be affected by hostility levels - lets say - 75%+ hostility = timers are longer for both mission entry and pvp battle entry

[Ned Loe]

Will you redirect more NPC fleets to hostile zones?

 

Let's say how can players start hostility if there are no players or very little NPCs around port? Will players only be able to start it by doing missions and when zone appears wait for actual players?

 

Suggestion 

 

Make sinking enemy NPC fleets contribute to Hostility amount

 

Hostility level 1 (1% Hostility/100%) - send small fleets to Action zone at rate of 2/every 10 minutes (+.05% towards hostility per killed fleet)

Hostility level 2(50%Hostility/100%)  - send medium fleets to Action zone at rate of 2/every 20 minutes + Level 1 Hostility Fleets.(+.08%)

Hostility level 3(70%Hostility/100%) - send large fleets to Action zone at rate of 2/every 35 minutes + Level 1 and 2 fleets.(+1%)

 

So sinking 1 large fleet will add +1% out of 100% hostility needed for PB. Make tough fleets and it will require National Effort to increase Hostility to 10%, that can equal to 1 hour play time with 4 groups sinking just fleets and other groups pvp outside.

[Bommel]

smaller nations will be parts of alliances - which is a separate development thread.

 

But as we see it - smaller nations can raise hostility for themselves by arriving in force to active zones and sink both sides who are fighting for the port. 

 

Big nations will be part of alliances too.

So how does this even out things for small nations?

 

I mean if the three biggest nations would be in the same alliance (unlikely but possible) how are the small nations supposed to be a factor?

Or are we bound to ally with the biggest nation?

[Kaos]

pve and smuggling is needed if other nation is not in the zone (trying to deny kills) 

but of course pvp kills will give a lot more than pve.

+ we are fixing mission entry spawns for hostiles - they will allow to interfere with pve in those zones

additionally timers for entry into battles can also be affected by hostility levels - lets say - 75%+ hostility = timers are longer for both mission entry and pvp battle entry

Believe me you don't want to step on the same rake as potbs did by forcing pvpers to farm pve to take part in supposed ''end game pvp content''...

Suggestion to implement universal pvp currency you can get from any pvp that you can convert to port battle commendation so it won't end up who farms pve faster and more efficiently during off-hours to accumulate points for actual pvp event.

 

Increasing or decreasing hostility levels grants War effort commendations per port 

• During the first 10-20 mins of the port battle timer only people with war effort points for this port can enter the port battle
• After this timer everyone else can enter
• This stops port battle trolling when large groups enter and quit battle denying the victory or opportunity to fight.

pvpers should enter first to prevent people who have nothing better to do than farm pve points to prevent key players from entering pb for said 10-20 minutes.

[Cpt Blackthorne]

OH MY!!!! I WANTED TO CLICK LIKE ABOUT 50 TIMES!!!!!

 

In the new "Such is Lord" patch coming up I always wanted player interaction with other players and NPC to count toward diplomacy with other nations!!!!

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14337-international-politics-relations-in-game/

 

1) I'm not too sure about the "War Effort Points" as it will give that feeling of the battle almost being won and then...uh oh more showed up.

2) Also, Not certain of the "Top 10 Hostile Ports" idea, because all nation ports would be hostile if actions were taken against its NPCs and players and such should make all their ports available for attack.

3) I liked the idea of the "Assault Fleet" build up as it would have required the nation to help pay toward the war effort. Maybe even the Nation's prez/king would set the taxes on all sold items to allow for extra collection toward this effort.

 

But despite my 3 points..I CAN'T WAIT to see how these hostilities work out!!!!

Edited June 24, 2016 by Cpt Blackthorne

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

Holy...

 

The design seems very nice and draws a lot from ALL the suggestions given by a lot of players.

 

It shows boardgame rules simplicity allied with wargame dynamic table for objectives.

 

Also, and this is one of the factors I am most intrigued to test, send out the raiders and the "pirates" and seed confusion in the target area to increase the hostility.

 

Oh my, so eager to test this. Suddenly it all became more complex with such "simple" changes.

 

 

Question: Successful defense versus "foreign" forces does reverse the hostility in the area ? I am thinking "enemy militar presence" threshold moving positive/negative.