Patch 31 - Port investments and shipbuilding bonuses feedback

[Hawkwood]

40 minutes ago, jodgi said:

I'm going to play the Devil's advocate here.

You say better, but for what would it be better?

Once again we stare down the barrel of terribly unbalancing buffs. This time the buffs are put in place in an attempt to motivate us to go out and conquer.

If the buffs weren't good they wouldn't serve as motivation, would they?

Observing from the side-line it seems to me that RvR won't drive itself (above a meaningful threshold) unless there are really good rewards. Either it cools down because people don't like to lose their shit or they can't be assed to do the needed bot grinding to set up a PB.

So we blindfold and hogtie fighting mechanics balance and start abusing it in the hope that it will give meaning to RvR. It may or may not work as far as making PBs happen but in either case ship class balance, demasting vs. pen, speed vs. tankiness and other balancing pivots will remain out of whack.

Le plus le Sigh...

Some anti-DLC posters have long argued that paying for cosmetics should be enough. I wonder if those guys would be happy with cosmetic rewards for the RvR endgame?

Fighting mechanics balance is the most precious thing we have in this game but we seem happy to throw it under the bus again and again. 

pls halp!

Because no matter what you do as a developer, in my opinion the end would be the wag the dog situation..

1. Balance the woods in order that "skill matter", like Santa Roja suggested to the point where all attributes of all woods won´t matter(+/-1%), there will be no motivation for..

2. RVR, which will eventually die(again) from boredom and saturation, because there is no motivation for getting the LO/WO/Teak ports. So if you want to balance this madness(meta) of..

3. LO/WO/Teak, you need enough ports for all nations in the whole Caribbean, otherwise some are having huge advantage, the others will be crippled at release. But then..

4. Having enough of all LO/WO/Teak ports, the RVR motivation goes down, which is a matter of time, because always the same reason for RVR? So balance the woods, and then...

5. Back to point 1....

There is an urgent need for another reason/motivation to do RVR.( and port bonusses aren´t a motivation enough, since any nation can have those)

This is another vicious circle that needs to be broken, by having this "another reason to do RVR". Not found yet.

Edited April 29, 2019 by Hawkwood

[Teutonic]

Personally I think the wood bonuses and port bonuses should be the biggest bonuses.

Mods and books should revert (nerf) back to 1-3% bonuses and no more than that.

So i like the wood and port bonuses now - but it is only sustainable if the mods and books get a huge nerfbat.

Edited April 29, 2019 by Teutonic

[Hawkwood]

3 minutes ago, Teutonic said:

Personally I think the wood bonuses and port bonuses should be the biggest bonuses.

Mods and books should revert (nerf) back to 1-3% bonuses and no more than that.

So i like the wood and port bonuses now - but it is only sustainable if the mods and books get a huge nerfbat.

Port bonuses are useless. Everyone can have those.

[Angus MacDuff]

1 minute ago, Teutonic said:

but it is only sustainable if the mods and books get a huge nerfbat.

Devs have said that will happen.  Even so, we could still see 14 knot Santi's if the port is fully developed.  We need some limits.

[Sir Loorkon]

1 hour ago, Hawkwood said:

Port bonuses are useless. Everyone can have those.

Following your logic everything that is not random is useless because everyone could potentially have it? I do not think so.

[Hawkwood]

21 minutes ago, Sir Loorkon said:

Following your logic everything that is not random is useless because everyone could potentially have it? I do not think so.

Port bonuses are random, because everyone can have those. That is my logic which you maybe didn´t quite understand, or maybe i didn´t write it in such manner that you could.

Read my post above please, maybe you can understand my concernes.

Edited April 29, 2019 by Hawkwood

[angriff]

If the three largest clans have ports that can build ships of unlimited speed and power, why will they take another port again? 

[Ahoy H.R. Matey]

What is the plan for the PvE server?

You're about to nerf mods and books into uselessness (1-3% bonuses won't make an appreciable difference) to compensate for the mechanic that is only accessible on the War server. What are we supposed to do on Peace, where that will be an across-the-board nerf with no compensation?

[Zlatkowar]

3 minutes ago, Ahoy H.R. Matey said:

What is the plan for the PvE server?

You're about to nerf mods and books into uselessness (1-3% bonuses won't make an appreciable difference) to compensate for the mechanic that is only accessible on the War server. What are we supposed to do on Peace, where that will be an across-the-board nerf with no compensation?

We'll be sinking cutters with our L'Os x'D

[Vernon Merrill]

8 minutes ago, Ahoy H.R. Matey said:

What is the plan for the PvE server?

You're about to nerf mods and books into uselessness (1-3% bonuses won't make an appreciable difference) to compensate for the mechanic that is only accessible on the War server. What are we supposed to do on Peace, where that will be an across-the-board nerf with no compensation?

Can AI use repairs over there?  I'm not understanding why a mod nerf would affect you guys any differently....  

[Oli Garchy]

24 minutes ago, Vernon Merrill said:

Can AI use repairs over there?  I'm not understanding why a mod nerf would affect you guys any differently....  

He's just upset pve server can't get port bonuses yet so nerfing pve server mods is "unfair"

[Angus MacDuff]

I can understand why they would want them.  It's a new feature and could be fun for them to develop a port.  It's not that they need the more powerful ships....but who wouldn't want to take advantage of this?  They should just be allowed to do it in a random port.  What would it hurt?

[Baptiste Gallouédec]

What worry me the most is that post wipe, port bonus will do nothing but enforce the snowball effect, highly populated nations / clans alliances will be able to invest faster in a port gained from neutral and get the ship bonus before the others, gaining that way an overwelming advantage in pvp & RvR very hard to recover, moreover when those nations can farm cm in patrol zone by simply flooding the area.

 

Secondly if i like the possibility to trim my ships, i dont like that many speed mods&upgrades options able to stack up. This coupled with the hardcap is nothing but a nerf to the ships supposedly fast from the start. What is the point of a frigate like endymion if any lineship can reach the same speed (This + the fastest wood being not even a rare wood) 

Hard cap should be different for 6-7th rate / frigates (5th rates & constitution-USS) / lineships (agga-Rattis up to 1st rate)

Announced nerf of books is also quite dissapointing, now that even our xp will be wiped and you tell us we will be able to keep books, then you tell that you will nerf books into oblivion.. 

[angriff]

Well the investment part is failure out of the box IMHO.  The amount of resources needed to get even a tower up takes so much effort that you lose the port the very next time it becomes available and all your investments are to naught.  You can see that happening right now with the Russians attacking Nassau; Morgans Bluff and Santiago de Cuba in one sweep after they took all the other big towns.   

 

There needs to be longer cooling periods to allow for building forts are they will just never be in the game.  You spend 4 days building a fort and the town is allowed to be attacked and taken in 2.  I mean if you cant get PVP players to even want to move wood to build their ships of war, how are you going to get them to move cannons, stone and provisions in such huge quantities?

Edited April 29, 2019 by angriff

[--Privateer--]

4 minutes ago, angriff said:

Well the investment part is failure out of the box IMHO.  The amount of resources needed to get even a tower up takes so much effort that you lose the port the very next time it becomes available and all your investments are to naught.  You can see that happening right now with the Russians attacking Nassau; Morgans Bluff and Santiago de Cuba in one sweep after they took all the other big towns.   

 

There needs to be longer cooling periods to allow for building forts are they will just never be in the game.  You spend 4 days building a fort and the town is allowed to be attacked and taken in 2

or just defend the port? 😉 I think some clans are learning the hard way that you need more than an early timezone to own ports.

[angriff]

7 minutes ago, --Privateer-- said:

or just defend the port? 😉 I think some clans are learning the hard way that you need more than an early timezone to own ports.

Or a late one to take it when they are asleep 

[Suppenkelle]

Regarding port investment there are three things I don’t understand. 

A) Shipyard ist the most diverse investment as there are five different strands with four steps each to develop. However, you can’t develop one strand to the top and neglect the others. You can’t even choose to invest in crew or mast/rigging as a first step. It has to be gunnery or sailing. This prevents clans to set up highly specialized yards that would serve their needs. Why has the development to be such uniformly? 

Any port investment done can’t be removed or destroyed anymore. Why is that so? Ports develop needs change over time. I can’t see a reason for not being able to destroy investments. 

C) In port features one can copse the investments being open to clan only or to clan and friends. While I see that this regulates who can invest (I can’t drop doubloons in sport of a clan who has chosen clan only) I am not sure whether this choice holds for profiting from the investments also. If a clan after the shipyard is fully developed buy all clans on the friends list chooses to change the port feature to clan only are all others exempt from the boni then? 

Perhaps admin cares to explain?

[Angus MacDuff]

14 hours ago, angriff said:

Well the investment part is failure out of the box IMHO.  The amount of resources needed to get even a tower up takes so much effort that you lose the port the very next time it becomes available and all your investments are to naught.  You can see that happening right now with the Russians attacking Nassau; Morgans Bluff and Santiago de Cuba in one sweep after they took all the other big towns.   

 

There needs to be longer cooling periods to allow for building forts are they will just never be in the game.  You spend 4 days building a fort and the town is allowed to be attacked and taken in 2.  I mean if you cant get PVP players to even want to move wood to build their ships of war, how are you going to get them to move cannons, stone and provisions in such huge quantities?

Yeah, this ties in to the "frontlines discussion (shudder).  Why bother developing a port when anybody can swoop in from Free Towns and flip it before you get started.  Every nation can hit your port from there. I don't know how many weeks it will take to get enough stone for a square fort.

[angriff]

9 hours ago, Angus MacDuff said:

Yeah, this ties in to the "frontlines discussion (shudder).  Why bother developing a port when anybody can swoop in from Free Towns and flip it before you get started.  Every nation can hit your port from there. I don't know how many weeks it will take to get enough stone for a square fort.

It takes almost 56 days of one person or 112000 labor hours to get enough stone to build all the buildings.  That does not include the provisions or guns.  The time to move the Stone Blocks alone means you will never see major PVP players doing this action.  They won't even get wood to build a ship as they want DLC or free builds.    

Unless the forts can make a decisive advantage as they would have in real then they are meaningless and will fall by the wayside making the ports simplistic  and almost boring fights.  

The front line aspect seems to attract every person on the server at once into a combined effort which is another big problem as the server really cannot handle it. The hidden game instance and invisibility after that lets players get right up to other players then pop in is something really weird and has already made me log off.   The inability to have one big OW battle or relief force arrive is simply incredulous.    The game is not designed to be a generally fun experience except maybe for a few elite players. 

Edited April 30, 2019 by angriff

[Atreides]

Well, looks like the port buff testing is over, the frontline system was gamed/exploited to the point that all 55 point ports are in one nation and an ally's nation so there won't be any testing of top tier port bonus-built ships.  One side will simply wreck havoc on the map with super ships and steamroll other nations.

 

RIP skill based game, hello super Meta shitstorm.  I hope the dev's fix this before release, but the ones who broke the whole thing have been above reproach in past similar situations. 

[Dibbler (Retired)]

23 minutes ago, Atreides said:

Well, looks like the port buff testing is over, the frontline system was gamed/exploited to the point that all 55 point ports are in one nation and an ally's nation so there won't be any testing of top tier port bonus-built ships.  One side will simply wreck havoc on the map with super ships and steamroll other nations.

 

RIP skill based game, hello super Meta shitstorm.  I hope the dev's fix this before release, but the ones who broke the whole thing have been above reproach in past similar situations. 

 

 

[Sir Texas Sir]

On 4/29/2019 at 7:01 AM, Angus MacDuff said:

Devs have said that will happen.  Even so, we could still see 14 knot Santi's if the port is fully developed.  We need some limits.

We still have the % and hard caps in game.

On 4/29/2019 at 8:41 AM, Routan said:

To make sure the others can’t. They can always drop them afteward and that way keep there advantage in both RvR an OW PvP. 

Back on global we took all the silver ports to prevent US and GB from making mods and MC ships.  So it’s kinda the same thing.  If you control the market and Ship building you can limit the power of other countries 

Edited May 1, 2019 by Sir Texas Sir

[Teutonic]

9 hours ago, Atreides said:

Well, looks like the port buff testing is over, the frontline system was gamed/exploited to the point that all 55 point ports are in one nation and an ally's nation so there won't be any testing of top tier port bonus-built ships.  One side will simply wreck havoc on the map with super ships and steamroll other nations.

 

RIP skill based game, hello super Meta shitstorm.  I hope the dev's fix this before release, but the ones who broke the whole thing have been above reproach in past similar situations. 

Add the groups exploiting the hostility missions and it really makes it not worth trying or enjoying the game...

[Vibrio Cholerae]

9 hours ago, Atreides said:

Well, looks like the port buff testing is over, the frontline system was gamed/exploited to the point that all 55 point ports are in one nation and an ally's nation so there won't be any testing of top tier port bonus-built ships.  One side will simply wreck havoc on the map with super ships and steamroll other nations.

Sorry, but is Vera Cruz Russian ?

No! 

Stop crying and come for the port 

ps we want some content 

[Sir Texas Sir]

1 hour ago, Teutonic said:

Add the groups exploiting the hostility missions and it really makes it not worth trying or enjoying the game...

I noticed the past week we had a lot of players return to check out the new system and get ready.  Moral has been at an all time high as folks where happy we get a fresh start without having to deal with enemy ports in the middle of are home waters.  We started to flip ports fast and than suddenly one port is taken, than two, and now three by use of exploits to put pirates and french behind our frontlines and in the middle of our waters.  

Let me make this clear we had no issue if some one sailed up from a neutral town before we could close it or some other place, but they would have a long journey and prob would be selected to the ship they are in, but now we have full fleets of SOL's on our coast that can just pop into a port and repair or hide.  Ports that was gain through expiolets and what do we get told by Ink and Admin?   "Deal with it cause there will be a wipe soon for release."   Yah what a week or two from now?  Maybe a month or two?  Or more what we all expect is 6-9 months from now as that is how long it takes for them to do things after they announce.   We can't wait that long wait to see if things are corrected, loose faith in the Devs and the game that same players over and over keep being abusive toxic to other players and exploiting the game over and over.   Something needs to be done and an official ruling made about folks that continue to use exploits after they are found before they are found.  Than removal of anything gained from those exploits done by Devs so they don't get rewarded by exploiting as that is bad practice.

Edited May 1, 2019 by Sir Texas Sir