Bring Back Outlaw Battles for Every Nation

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

Just now, Jon Snow lets go said:

And for this your whole nation will punish you.

How did it go last time outlaw was up ?

Not agains the Proposal, i suggested 1v1 same BR versus same nation. Isn't that enough ?

[Corona Lisa]

Just now, Hethwill said:

How did it go last time outlaw was up ?

Not agains the Proposal, i suggested 1v1 same BR versus same nation. Isn't that enough ?

I remember INSANE clan (think that was their name) attacked all other players. They got called out in nation chat and hunted down everytime someone saw them. Traders from clans were pretty safe and very rarely got attacked. A lot of clans worked together for this (which is pretty rare in Pirate nation^^).

I think 1v1 only is abusable to escape ganks etc like Christendom said. Not rly sure how a good mechanic should look like.

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

A strong clan in a nation can grief lockdown the entire starter zone.

I am usually innocent regarding griefing and exploiting but I can foresee where this will lead.

Let the devs do whatever. Careful what you wish for.

 

[Capn Rocko]

Outlaw battles were never perfect and its sad the devs saw it easier to remove them altogether rather than patch the few issues that existed. I know many players that would return to the game if outlaw battles were reinstated. Not to mention the content that would be generated for the players currently in game. Even if you do not want to be an outlaw yourself, content is created for hunting down outlaw players. 

In a game with little content, content should not be limited.

[Kejsaren]

32 minutes ago, Hethwill said:

How did it go last time outlaw was up ?

Not agains the Proposal, i suggested 1v1 same BR versus same nation. Isn't that enough ?

Not nearly the same thing.

[Guest]

44 minutes ago, Hethwill said:

Man, i'd just raid every single trader on "my" nation. Sit in front of the major hub and get bored to hell  as they keep coming until there's no one left.

See where this is going ? It is not about 1 playstyle, it is a mechanic that will affect everyone.

Think about it in depth.

This is what happened last time. It drove off tons of players

[Slim McSauce]

1 minute ago, Headless Parrot said:

This is what happened last time. It drove off tons of players

you say that, but offer no proof of such. Last time it was only pirates who got outlaw battles and on global they were one of the strongest nations on the map. So what do you mean it drove off players?

[Vile Executioner]

52 minutes ago, Jon Snow lets go said:

I remember INSANE clan (think that was their name) attacked all other players. They got called out in nation chat and hunted down everytime someone saw them. Traders from clans were pretty safe and very rarely got attacked. A lot of clans worked together for this (which is pretty rare in Pirate nation^^).

I think 1v1 only is abusable to escape ganks etc like Christendom said. Not rly sure how a good mechanic should look like.

No one ever actually killed anyone from NSANE in the pirate nation. We never got caught.

[Archaos]

12 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

you say that, but offer no proof of such. Last time it was only pirates who got outlaw battles and on global they were one of the strongest nations on the map. So what do you mean it drove off players?

Well maybe it was the outlaw mechanics that allowed them be the strongest because they could cheat by hiding in battle and escape being chased by starting an outlaw battle with their own nation player. The outlaw mechanics were abused and that is why they were removed and until there is a way to stop them being abused they should not return. There were some upsides to the mechanic but there were also many downsides which need to be addressed.

[Slim McSauce]

21 minutes ago, Archaos said:

Well maybe it was the outlaw mechanics that allowed them be the strongest because they could cheat by hiding in battle and escape being chased by starting an outlaw battle with their own nation player. The outlaw mechanics were abused and that is why they were removed and until there is a way to stop them being abused they should not return. There were some upsides to the mechanic but there were also many downsides which need to be addressed.

the only downside is that is was offered only to pirates as a means to troll nationals and had no penalty or prep to use it, giving pirates reign over the OW. The ROE itself was non-abusable and at worse you could hide in the battle to jump right into PB (now fixed)

Edited May 6, 2018 by Slim McSauce

[Capn Rocko]

35 minutes ago, Headless Parrot said:

This is what happened last time. It drove off tons of players

It made carebears leave pirate nation for other nations, yes.

By the end of the outlaw battles, only PvPers were left in pirate nation. RvR was extremely low priority and pirates were hunting at every corner of the map, mostly out of free towns. This is very similar to what many suggest what Pirate nation should be and it happened organically within in a sandbox environment without developers doing anything. 

The day after outlaw battles were removed, Patu and all the other carebears returned to pirate nation and it drove the PvPers away to other nations (mostly Prussia). Now KOTO hides at bottom of map and hardly any combat activity is reported from pirate nation. gg wp 😏

 

 

[Christendom]

If outlaw battles were returned I know quite a few players would return.  I know I'd personally go back pirate.

[vazco]

2 hours ago, Christendom said:

Outlaw battles stay open for 30 mins.  Problem solved for #1

Anyone can join an outlaw battle and sink anyone in it.  Problem solved for #2

The largest abuser of the outlaw mechanic was from alts or disgruntled members of the pirate faction tagging others inside the safe zones so national players could get in.  Remove the option to form outlaw battles in reinforcement zones.  Problem solved.

This was not the only problem, there were many. One of them was that pirates were attacking each other and sinking themselves while outnumbered, to prevent enemy from getting marks. There are multiple other ways of abusing those battles and people were using them a lot. 

[vazco]

Other abuses:

Hiding in battles, luring enemy close, jumping out and ganking him

Starting fake battles where sides don't fight each other, and after someone joins, a side with advantage fights, the other withdraws

Trolling own nation's ships

Starting a battle with a join circle on land to avoid a chasing fleet

 

Less severe, but common:

Switching ships in OW

Resupplying with a trader bringing repairs

Those are just a few from the top of my head. 

[Slim McSauce]

3 minutes ago, vazco said:

Other abuses:

Hiding in battles, luring enemy close, jumping out and ganking him

Starting fake battles where sides don't fight each other, and after someone joins, a side with advantage fights, the other withdraws

Trolling own nation's ships

Starting a battle with a join circle on land to avoid a chasing fleet

 

Less severe, but common:

Switching ships in OW

Resupplying with a trader bringing repairs

Those are just a few from the top of my head. 

That's why the proper penalty and rules must be applied like OP's suggestion

Edited May 6, 2018 by Slim McSauce

[Archaos]

3 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

That's why the proper penalty and rules must be applied like OP's suggestion

The OP's suggestions would not be a deterrent, for option 1, 10% is not much of a penalty and even 250k is nothing when you consider the price of PvP marks, and option 2 would just mean they had to operate out of freeports for a while. There are just too many downsides to outlaw battles.

[vazco]

8 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

That's why the proper penalty and rules must be applied like OP's suggestion

I don't see a good way of fixing all issues of outlaw battles. Those that OP suggested don't do the trick. 

Trolling could be removed only by allowing to set enemy clans and allow battles between enemy clans only, which would require also PB's against enemy clans. 

[Slim McSauce]

10 minutes ago, Archaos said:

The OP's suggestions would not be a deterrent, for option 1, 10% is not much of a penalty and even 250k is nothing when you consider the price of PvP marks, and option 2 would just mean they had to operate out of freeports for a while. There are just too many downsides to outlaw battles.

If you read a bit further down OP's suggestion you'd see no rewards mentioned for outlaw battles

 

5 minutes ago, vazco said:

I don't see a good way of fixing all issues of outlaw battles. Those that OP suggested don't do the trick. 

Trolling could be removed only by allowing to set enemy clans and allow battles between enemy clans only, which would require also PB's against enemy clans. 

Define trolling, because someone attacks you and is now marked and outlaw and infers whatever major penalty that comes with it seems like a fair deal that you'd not be able to just do because you want to mess with someone.

Edited May 6, 2018 by Slim McSauce

[William Death]

58 minutes ago, vazco said:

Other abuses:

Hiding in battles, luring enemy close, jumping out and ganking him

You can't hide in battle, the battle is open for the entire duration of combat and, therefore, visible to anyone sailing by.

Starting fake battles where sides don't fight each other, and after someone joins, a side with advantage fights, the other withdraws

Outlaw Battles were free for all. There are no "sides" you fire at whoever you want to. If you join it and get shot at, shoot back!

Trolling own nation's ships

You mean repeatedly tagging and sinking the same person(s)? Thats kind of the point of it. If one clan goes rogue in your nation, other clans work together to punish that clan. If the ROE are adjusted slightly as @Christendom and others have suggested: mainly removing the ability to Outlaw Battle in the capital zone and reinforcement zone; you won't have problems with new players or casuals being Outlaw Battle'd into quitting--they can simply play in the safezone if they don't want to risk outlaw battle. Furthermore, as suggested in the OP, there would be punishment for using outlaw battles.

Starting a battle with a join circle on land to avoid a chasing fleet

There are no join circles: its a single, large circle with positional joining. Just like the battles inside the reinforcement zone are now. If you start an Outlaw Battle to avoid a chasing fleet, you just might find that chasing fleet surrounding you, blocking every angle of escape.

 

Less severe, but common:

Switching ships in OW

This isn't an exploit. In fact, I thought I'd read somewhere that the devs intended to add a button for this. In the mean time, most of us just tag an AI fleet and swap ships that way.

Resupplying with a trader bringing repairs

Much as above, most players who want to do this now simply use a battle against a nearby AI ship to transfer repairs.

Those are just a few from the top of my head. 

All valid concerns, but most were already addressed in previous iterations, or easily addressed in future implementations of Outlaw Battles.

Now, another exploit (already mentioned in other posts):

Using an alt to start an Outlaw Battle so that nationals who own the alt can join.

This was abused on the PvP2/Global server by several nations/clans to force Pirates into unfavorable battles. The suggested ROE change to remove ability to Outlaw Battle in the Reinforcement zone is a fairly easy fix for this. It would mean that, if you are in the safezone, you are safe from your own nation as well as enemies. If you leave it, you better be ready to fight or escape .

 

Bring back Outlaw Battles!

I know that was a major feature for many of us who played Pirate. I certainly enjoyed being a Pirate a lot more when we had Outlaw Battles. If they are implemented again, I may just have to find the old jolly roger and hoist it again. 

[Christendom]

1 hour ago, vazco said:

This was not the only problem, there were many. One of them was that pirates were attacking each other and sinking themselves while outnumbered, to prevent enemy from getting marks. There are multiple other ways of abusing those battles and people were using them a lot. 

get in there and sink them first.

[Farrago]

Would it help solve the outlaw battle exploit if outlaw battles were like PVP zone. Win or die?

[Capn Rocko]

47 minutes ago, JG14_Cuzn said:

Nope.   Wayyyyy too many ways to abuse it   

 

RoE and reinforcement zones have changed a lot since outlaw battles were a thing and exploits can be limited with proper implementation. Way to be close minded

[Teutonic]

20 hours ago, Christendom said:

get in there and sink them first.

 

20 hours ago, JG14_Cuzn said:

Nope.   Wayyyyy too many ways to abuse it   

 

 

19 hours ago, Capn Rocko said:

RoE and reinforcement zones have changed a lot since outlaw battles were a thing and exploits can be limited with proper implementation. Way to be close minded

If I also remember correctly. Outlaw battles gave zero rewards. No gold, no XP, no PvP marks, Nothing. the only thing you could possibly take was the ship as a prize. hardly abuse there with all the Alt farming we have now.

if one change was needed for Outlaw battles, then the only change was to make so Pirates would be unable to create them in the safezone.

[Bach]

Outlaw battles just become to problematic with meta gaming.  As nice as it would be to have them, especially for the pirate team, there will always be those that abuse it. In the end it only takes one abuser to ruin the game for dozens of others.

This is why we can't be trusted to have nice things. 😊