A proper BR system for Port Battles

[Baptiste Gallouédec]

If a nation can field 25 first rate that can't enter the pb, they will still be there screening the smaller enemy pb fleet though.

For exemple: limiting a shallow pb to 5 privateer don't prevent the defender to screen with 50 Pandora so what is the point ? Appart allowing weaker clan to be the first to claim them from neutral  and defend them with fair 5vs5 privateer battle until they loose to a bigger clan that will never loose it anymore due to superior screen?

 

Only economy would have been able to prevent that but now economy will count only for 3rd-2nd-1st rates crafting due to dlc ships, and we can't even test that due to ships not wiped.

 

[Ligatorswe]

I totally agree on limits for BR. Battles where all ships are 1st rates leave less room for creativity and tactics. And... Battles where 3rd and 2nd rates and 4th rates are needed means that thos ships will be regarded as more valuable and there would be variability in gameplay.

But I would not make it too historica. If only a few players ge to play the endgame, first rates, it is not good foir the game. I would place the BR higher, perhaps 17000 -18000 so more 1st rates can participate.

Edited April 25, 2019 by Ligatorswe

[OjK]

28 minutes ago, Snoopy said:

4 First Rates: 4*900 = 3600
6 80gun two decker: 6*700 = 4200
2 74, British 32pd 2*500 = 1000
20 74, Spanish/French 36pd 550ish = 11000
1 64 = 340

total: 20140 BR

Yes, but we are limited to 25 players per battle.
That's why I used percentages, of how should same composition look in Naval Action.

After all, it was 74 ships in that battle, not 50

[OjK]

18 minutes ago, Ligatorswe said:

I would place the BR higher, perhaps 17000 -18000 so more 1st rates can participate.

You just randomly dropped the number, right?
17k would end up beeing 15 L'Oceans (13,5k), 5x 3rd Rate (2,5k) and last 5 people on Mortar Brigs etc.
That's still a monobattle.

Don't drop random numbers.
Think about whats behind them.

Also, it's better to have more restricting number, rather then too inflated one.

Imagine 6000 BR Port.
You can either bring 12 3rd Rates or 6 L'Oceans - it's restricting the values what's making the fleet composition, and what makes smaller rates better choices.

When HAVOC captured Cartegena, they didn't bring 12 L'Oceans to max out BR. They brought a mix of 25 smaller rates. And that's what made this nice battle to watch, rather then "L'Oceans everywhere"

 

Edited April 25, 2019 by OjK

[admin]

6 minutes ago, Ligatorswe said:

I totally agree on limits for BR. Battles where all ships are 1st rates leave less room for creativity and tactics. And... Battles where 3rd and 2nd rates and 4th rates are needed means that thos ships will be regarded as more valuable and there would be variability in gameplay.

But I would not make it too historica. If only a few players ge to play the endgame, first rates, it is not good foir the game. I would place the BR higher, perhaps 17000 -18000 so more 1st rates can participate.

Less limits = more action. There was no indication that different BR limits increased happiness or number of port battles. It may sound counter intuitive but smaller limit increased the skill ceiling required to win the battles. 

Bigger number in port battles will increase confusion, will increase coordination costs, and will give more players an option to experience them. Skilled captains will still win battles when outnumbered, average players will get more chances to participate and learn. Bigger limits will increase desire to recruit and cooperate with other clans.

[van der Clam]

It will definitely require small clans to pull their entire nation together to help protect their captured ports. I already expect our entire Dutch nation of 3 major clans to fight 1 half of a russian zerg clan just to hold on.

[Papillon]

Any solo player with a 3rd Rate or higher will be more welcome to participate in the PB (with the higher BRs).  By open invitation even.

Edited April 25, 2019 by Papillon

[Meraun]

6 minutes ago, van der Decken said:

russian zerg clan just to hold on.

lol, there is no such thing as a Russian Zerg. We are few. Zerg... tss

[van der Clam]

Yet somehow Russians can field multiple Hostilities and PBs all at once.

[Dibbler (Retired)]

24 minutes ago, admin said:

Less limits = more action. There was no indication that different BR limits increased happiness or number of port battles. It may sound counter intuitive but smaller limit increased the skill ceiling required to win the battles. 

Bigger number in port battles will increase confusion, will increase coordination costs, and will give more players an option to experience them. Skilled captains will still win battles when outnumbered, average players will get more chances to participate and learn. Bigger limits will increase desire to recruit and cooperate with other clans.

 

 You say less limits = more action but seem with each update to do the opposite and limit play.  Choking better wood supplies,  placing ships behind permit walls (although less now after you reconsidered), and now new RvR mechanic will limit which ports can be challenged.

 Biggest issue i see with new mechanic is way currently can just jump capital to capital, which will  probably result in lots of untaken ports in rest of region.   This will limit RvR options rather than increasing, more limits= less action?   Less ports able to be challenged will result in less RvR overall, although i do understand logic behind it with port developement.

 Not sure what answer is, and have no idea what you want to achieve. On paper frontline seem good idea, but way been implimented currently makes no sense, you have effectively taken all non capital; ports out of RvR with this.

 To be honest i think was better before, but ofc i could be wrong.

 

 

Edited April 25, 2019 by Dibbler

[van der Clam]

Don't forget we are conjecturing with current populations. I suspect things will be different. This will just certainly require national pride and cohesion.

[Dibbler (Retired)]

6 minutes ago, van der Decken said:

Don't forget we are conjecturing with current populations. I suspect things will be different. This will just certainly require national pride and cohesion.

 

 Will be same with bigger ingame pop, port challenge options will be limited in same manner but with more people.

 On paper idea seeems great, but I think limitations of possible ports to be challenged along with non-capitals taken out of equation will actually be worse with more clans/bigger pop.

 

 

Edited April 25, 2019 by Dibbler

[Tom Farseer]

30 minutes ago, admin said:

Less limits = more action. There was no indication that different BR limits increased happiness or number of port battles. It may sound counter intuitive but smaller limit increased the skill ceiling required to win the battles. 

Bigger number in port battles will increase confusion, will increase coordination costs, and will give more players an option to experience them. Skilled captains will still win battles when outnumbered, average players will get more chances to participate and learn. Bigger limits will increase desire to recruit and cooperate with other clans.

Limiting BR will not limit the number of players, just the size of ships, which is a good thing. Small clans will not get acces to PBs because they won't have first rates, which will be needed because the enemy may bring 25 1st rates as well...

[huliotkd]

sorry for the fast OOT but i want to bring to devs attention this thread

[OjK]

43 minutes ago, admin said:

Less limits = more action. There was no indication that different BR limits increased happiness or number of port battles.

Yet we will still try to get as much players as possible WHILE WITHIN the BR limit.

Like the example of last Cartagena PB. There were just 2 L'Oceans, and still full 25 players.
BR Limit could be reached with "just" 12 L'Oceans which would be "easier to control", and Yet, Rediii decided to bring 25 smaller ships.

The more restrictive BR, the more importance of smaller ships, the more creativity and options for PB roster, and the more variety.

Now, we're coming back to absolutely no variety whatsoever.

Everyone will bring L'Ocean, as even 20 L'Oceans are not maxing out the Capital BR limit

[Slim McSauce]

A single battle instance of 50 is still too small for what national region versus region conquest should be fielding. Since you can't make a single battle fit 300v300 like some other MMO, what you could do is open up more battles the more players show up. So every time a battle hits 40 another one opens up for the PB. You can keep a smaller BR per battle for the diversity but it will still scale up.

[Gregory Rainsborough]

*Slaps table in agreement*

[MassimoSud]

1 hour ago, admin said:

Less limits = more action. There was no indication that different BR limits increased happiness or number of port battles. It may sound counter intuitive but smaller limit increased the skill ceiling required to win the battles. 

Bigger number in port battles will increase confusion, will increase coordination costs, and will give more players an option to experience them. Skilled captains will still win battles when outnumbered, average players will get more chances to participate and learn. Bigger limits will increase desire to recruit and cooperate with other clans.

I agree, more players more fun!

The one I disagree with is 20x20 1rts rates or 25x25 1rst rates battle!

Please don't go back to that meta! Please study mechanics for a greater diversity of ships in battle. Only 1rts rates favors large clans that can build them, smaller ships give the opportunity to participate in even smaller clans!

[Gregory Rainsborough]

1 hour ago, admin said:

Less limits = more action. There was no indication that different BR limits increased happiness or number of port battles. It may sound counter intuitive but smaller limit increased the skill ceiling required to win the battles. 

Bigger number in port battles will increase confusion, will increase coordination costs, and will give more players an option to experience them. Skilled captains will still win battles when outnumbered, average players will get more chances to participate and learn. Bigger limits will increase desire to recruit and cooperate with other clans.

I don't agree. I was happier with port battles where there were differences in fleet composition and a lot came down to the cohesion of the players.

I understand that it can raise the ceiling to win but perhaps the smaller PB battles could be in shallow water ports. Shallow water ports have always been the best training ground for port battles.

[Guest]

20 hours ago, admin said:

Less limits = more action. There was no indication that different BR limits increased happiness or number of port battles. It may sound counter intuitive but smaller limit increased the skill ceiling required to win the battles. 

Bigger number in port battles will increase confusion, will increase coordination costs, and will give more players an option to experience them. Skilled captains will still win battles when outnumbered, average players will get more chances to participate and learn. Bigger limits will increase desire to recruit and cooperate with other clans.

why did you just scrap the idea of different fleet compositions? you know people will only fight full first rate pb's and where is the realistic value in this change? No nation had 25  first rates to throw into a battle, you could instead added limits on how many rated ships could be brought into a pb.

 

Example redo the biggest br ports to say 12k

12k br pb:

- 1,6k br reserved for 1st rates ( this brings either 2 victories or 1 santi/l'oceans = 900 br  which gives 700br more to spend on 2nd rate)

- 2k/2,7k br reserved for 2nd rates (this brings you either slot for 2 / 3 with 600 to spare for 3rd rates bucentaures or 3 / 4 with 300 br to spare for 3rd rates  christian)

- 8,2k/8,8k/8,5k br reserved for 3rd rates ( gives 16/17/17 3rd rates or 20/22/21 wasas) (we all know wasa suck compared to the hp value of bellona and 3rd rate, but oh well)

- 200/470/270 is left for 4th rates/frigates/mb's (hold up on this one, here is where the flexibility comes in.

 

You could also play around with it so the BR you have to spare in one section adds up to the Rate below

 

This is just something i thought about just now and would give different setups in port battles, this would give more people the possibility to do rvr because people could use more ships. Its either something like this or just the 1st rate meta all over again.

 

Edited April 26, 2019 by Guest

[Barbancourt]

9 hours ago, admin said:

Less limits = more action. There was no indication that different BR limits increased happiness or number of port battles. It may sound counter intuitive but smaller limit increased the skill ceiling required to win the battles.

How will there be "more action" when fewer clans will be able to do their own RvR, fewer players will be able to participate in RvR because they don't have fancy massive "RvR" SoL, and fewer small clans will be able to RvR against larger clans?  It's hard enough to coordinate a group activity within your own clan, nevermind trying to form a committee to multi-clan and multi-timezone the action.  Also, the PB BR limits did not prevent players from participating in scouting, screening and diversion.  I have no problem facing a "skill ceiling" - that's much better than a "gear ceiling" or a "population ceiling". 

 

[Slim McSauce]

I would be okay if one side could field 25 1st rates, but in return the other team can bring 50+ 3rd and 4th rates. That balances it out You're not going to get the optimal conditions having port battles maxed on 1st rates, or putting a limit so low than only 10 or so can participate. If Pb's dont scale up and spread br in each battle then you'll have underwhelming, cheesy RvR that would draw less people. admin u said yourself the more people who can participate the better. That's very true so maybe it's about time to expand port battles in a way that achieves this with less limits than we currently have.