[Event suggestion] - "The Key to success"

[Havelock]

Hi all!

I'm here today to post a textwall make a suggestion on a new design for Events, called "The Key to success". To make it work though i'll also propose some additions to the upcoming Raid feature and an outrageous (stay tuned) rework for blueprints.

Before i start, i wanna thank Brogsitter for bringing up the discussion in Global chat which started me thinking, and John Reet who took part in the discussion.

Before i start, let me do some assumptions on what the actual goals of events are and why the previous event failed:

1. Create an rewarding PvP experience.
    For the most players it was more rewarding to hop into the fastest trader they had and get as much loot as they could grab. There was no intention of them to go in a fight at all. The only fights happening were frigates tagging these traders to steal their loot.
2. Create an equal PvP fight.
    When theres 256 different Chests, there will be 256 different unbalanced battles. Less chests will give each fight a higher meaning and give a greater chance for larger battles.
3. Making some ships more exclusive.
    Well, the events were dropped early. But if they kept going, number of blueprints would have increased until they were common. Paint was a different thing since it wasn't reusable.
4. Give people with real lives the possibility to have a planned PvP event within a managable timeframe.
    This worked so far through the hints. But the location could be away more than an hour of pure sailing which drew a lot people off. Also, if you get chased with your loot it can play out as a tedious "run -  get tagged - get chased - exit" loop.

 

My initial idea was the following: Instead of having a piece of loot everybody can grab, each of the two oppositions already has one half of the loot, but needs the other half to actually get the loot. I will refer to this as the "Chest" and the "Key" from now on. If you don't defeat your enemy to get the Key your Chest will be worthless (and the other way around).

Questions:

How should those two items be distributed?
To whom shall they be distributed?
How to make sure all nations get the same chances for loot (and not always randomly the same two)?
Where will these events take place and how do you allow easy access to them?
What should chests contain to make them rewarding over a long term?

 

Now it gets a bit roleplay-ish because i thougt of how these mechanics could be described around 1800. Let's go!

The first step for Nation A is to get three keys. To get a Key, it will raid a port. When the raid is successfull, it will search the prison cells for captured comrades and conveniently free a spy of its own who got caught. This spy managed to steal a key from Nation B together with a hint on where 3 valuable chests are stored. This Key+Note will now drop on a random player in the raid fleet and is from now on indestructible. It can be transfered to any other player of the same nation, but one player may only own one key at a time. After three successfull raids you will know where the enemies chests are hidden, but you can only get one active key per region! One set of Keys will have to be collected from the same Nation (you can still have Keys from different Nations, but these Keys together won't trigger any event, they're not related). You will have to attack multiple regions, so Nations with a high number of ports will have a difficult time and undeliberately feeding others with keys*, while small nations can easier defend. E.g. it could be hints like:
- the port lies on Santo Domingo
- the port is owned by the French (Nation C)
- the port produces Red Wood
Which leads us to Sale-Trou. The spawn chance (like, for the chest storage port) is equal for each nation = 1/7 (Pirates love chests so well include them. yay!). The chest location may spawn at a different nation than where the Keys came from, that's unavoidable for balancing issues. In Event-Mode even allies could be able to attack each other and fight over Keys and Chests.**

The Admirality of Nation A (aka the system) now sets a time for the attack. The plan is to bring the Keys to the port, open the chests, and leave with whatever they contain (Don't tell me now stealing the chests is easier dumbnut!). Meanwhile... Nation C's Admirality is very confused about three missing Keys and can't explain their disappearance. To make sure their valuable chests are safe they order to relocate them and sets a time for the transport, which - you knew it already - magically is the exact same time the enemy will attack

Time for the climax! Nation A will try to escort 3 Keys from La Navasse (closest Free Town) to Sale-Trou, while Nation C will try to escort 3 chests to La Navasse (to send them away)! They meet somewhere in the middle and clash. But maybe they scouted ahead and already know whats coming. The Admirality had the great idea to mark Key and Chest carriers with giant flags so they could be protected better. They didn't think that the enemy would see these flags too. Both sides will now continue to try and deliver their Keys/Chests, while at the same time trying to steal their enemies Keys/Chests. Sinking a carrier will then mean the carried Key/Chest is captured (they rescue it out of the wreck). It won't have to be carried to La Navasse/Sale-Trou anymore, we just assume it teleported there. E.g. Nation A sank one Chest carrier, his Chest is now back at Sale-Trou. To open it Nation A now also needs to deliver one of their Keys to Sale-Trou to get one part of the loot. What can happen:
- no carriers get sunk: they Keys and Chests get delivered, but without their counterparts theyre worthless (no loot)
- all carriers get sunk: the Keys and Chests switch sides (worthless again), but will not be reusable after the event (no loot)
- one Nation sinks all carriers and delivers all items (3x loot for one)
- a mix of both nations sinking and not sinking, delivering and not delivering items (1x or 2x loot for both)

 

Some additional things:
- Allies can help but wont get loot (except you gift them some)
- To make travel to the event easy, I wanna propose to add an "Event-Outpost"-Slot. It's linked with your capital, for the duration of the event you can access all ships from your capital as if they were in that Free Town
- To make the BPs meaningful, I had the idea for them to be consumables. Use them for the ship then they disappear. It could even be in the future that only basic ships (Cutter, Brig, Frigate, 3rd Rate, ...) are unlocked with crafting level, while all other special ships are event drops (PBs or high-end NPC mission could be events too)

*Which might be a reason to make Hostility also drop into the negative if regions are inactive and reverse to neutral at some point. But that's material for another suggestion
**Possibly only nations marked as enemy (WAR state) can be counterparts, the chance is the same for those then

That's it! I edited a lot of things after i wrote them, so if something is not clear feel free to ask and give feedback. Thanks for taking the time, and if you like my suggestion please upboat

 

Fair seas,

Havelock

Edited November 9, 2016 by Havelock

[Johann von Brandenburg]

Since noone replied to this post i choose to not open another thread because it is a similar idea.

 

So my idea was to start with 8 Keys but only one chest. 

Every Nation starts with one key which  sails  in their territory via marked AI ship. this AI ship cant get attacked just like this. for this you can use the "Pull flag, sail to destination" systhem. When a flag is pulled the defending (D) nation gets a notification and a location on the map where the ship is. The (A) attacker only gets an area in which the ship is in. When A found the ship and is sailing with their fleets toward the Trade Ship, D got a few possibilitys: either they stand close to the Tradeship and risk it being pulled into battle or they sail towards the enemy and keep the Tradeship out of battle but risk it being attacked by a 2nd Fleet that sneaked another route. 

More information: 

-A flag can only be pulled when over 500 people are online

-When a flag being pulled. the Ai ship will try to get to a Port to save itself. when the ship reaches the port the event is over for now and it will have some cooldown to sail again.

-Only one KeyBattle at a time 

-The Key will sail for A if they successfully capped it and sunk any other ship in battle (if the Keyship sinks it respawn after some time for D Nation

 

What happens when one Nation or one Alliance (yes allies should count together in this matter) got all 8 Keys ? 

When this occurs there will spawn an AI Tradeship in the Countrys Capitol or the Allied Capitol(s). This fleet will sail towards The Chestisland (probably around 64/26). All other Nations getting Notified. when the fleet reaches this destination there will be a battle. But the battle is a very special battle because:

-it is inside a Cave, the Treasure Cave. ( i dont know how difficult that would be but it would be a very cool atmosphere when you only have ligth of some lanterns on deck or fire from a ship and you can see stalagmites and such) 

-only 7th Rate are allowed (or maybe only gunboats?)

 

Problems this idea have:

-Slots for 8 Nation would be difficult yes you could go for 7x3 + 1x4 (the nation with the keys) but that would left out alot of players that participated in getting the Key.

-Obviously the cave but that could also be a small harbour or something like that.

 

The Loot

After this battle everyone of the winning nation or alliance around that Island will get Loot. (Their should be a little freeport in which the people in the 7th rate (gunboats) spawn to buy a trader lynx and put your other ship in fleet and carry your Loot back home. you dont need an outpost in this freetown but you cant tp there)