Port Bonuses are way OP

[Anolytic]

It is my view that such arguments are best made with visual aids. So I was going to make a video showing the difference between port bonuses and no bonuses in surprises. However @dron (<3) put a stop to that by sinking both test ships…

And I haven’t gotten around to making a new test.

But the argument is already raging about the portbattle of Les Cayes, in the wrong topic. So I thought I’d redirect that discussion here and sprinkle it with a few facts. And these recent port battles will have to do as demonstration.

Here is my ship from Les Cayes PB:

Anybody want to trade?

The fact is that for each of the battles of Nassau and Les Cayes I constructed 8 new ships with port-bonuses (only one was better than blue). That is, less than a 3rd of each of our fleets was new ships with bonuses.

So, did they decide the outcome of the battles?

In Nassau it’s a clear NO.

In Les Cayes, the answer is both yes and no.

Without them we might have lost some ships, but the brawl was still decidedly in our favour. But let’s discuss the particulars of the battle elsewhere.

The fact is the stats on ships with port-bonuses are very high compared to those without them. Just looking at the stats it’s like having a ship with 10 upgrade slots and all elite upgrades. Just to highlight a few stats, the 5% speed boost of Sailing Bonus 4, or 10% armour thickness AND HP of Hull Bonus 4.

Port-bonuses seem like a good idea for content in principle. But they need to be nerfed. And they need to be accessible to all, dependent on effort, not nationality.

I know that port-bonuses will be changed next week. But I don’t think that it is enough.

No ports should have more potential for greater ship-building than others. But the full potential of a regions should only be realised through the development of dependent ports in the county. Making other ports on the map more valuable than now. Notice how some nations have not even bothered to take the ports around their county capitals yet.

If we want to have some special ports that are extra attractive for conquest like now, make it through convenience and profit. Give them more profitable trade-goods and make it so that ship-building in those ports require less hauling of resources and less logistics than in other ports. Right now a few nations can take all of the 55-point ports and monopolise the production of OP ships. Skewing the balance of PvP and RvR alike.

People ask for something to fight for. But I remember in 2016 when there was no exclusive resources and we all fought more than any other time just for dots on the map and our names on the Lord Protector list.

And I also remember other times in the game, and how troves of players, even entire clans, left nations or left the game over the loss of these pixels which suddenly had become more than just pixels, but prerequisites for gameplay on even terms.

We should not go back to the times when RvR was about the destruction of communities rather than fun fights.

If you loose one crafting-port, you should be able to set up your facilities in another one until you can get the first one back.

[HachiRoku]

The port bonuses being OP is sometime people said before the patch even dropped. By looking at the raw stats alone anyone can say so. I had no idea you could have multiple of them though. I thought depending on the port you would get different bonuses. Why dont you use cartha instead of navy planking?? I dont have any national ports so I dont know the bonuses of them. 

[Gregory Rainsborough]

7 minutes ago, Anolytic said:

We should not go back to the times when RvR was about the destruction of communities rather than fun fights.

That I fear will be the result of sniping ports that are highly prized.

Part of the problem is that so many of the ports that have the highest amount of points are county capitals and therefore on the front lines.

[Archaos]

26 minutes ago, Anolytic said:

The fact is that for each of the battles of Nassau and Les Cayes I constructed 8 new ships with port-bonuses (only one was better than blue). That is, less than a 3rd of each of our fleets was new ships with bonuses.

So, did they decide the outcome of the battles?

In Nassau it’s a clear NO.

In Les Cayes, the answer is both yes and no.

Without them we might have lost some ships, but the brawl was still decidedly in our favour. But let’s discuss the particulars of the battle elsewhere.

I agree with what you say about port bonuses being overpowered and I know you do not wish to discuss the PB's in this thread, but I just want to say that I think from your comments I have quoted above that you are underestimating how overpowered they are.

I did not take part in either of the battles and have not watched any of the streams so I do not know if the Brits played badly or not, but the fact that you had a certain number of ships with these bonuses can have a major effect on the battle. As you know in many such battles once a couple of important ships go down you end up in a one sided contest which leads to results like these battles show. With repairs and repair bonuses unless you can keep concentrated fire on a ship it has the opportunity to pull off and repair, with the bonuses this gives these ships a greater chance to survive and thus repair.

Also the fact that you can emerge from such a battle without losing a single first rate makes a huge difference in the long run with respect to RvR. Because you lost no first rates your PB fleet is ready to go straight away for the next target while the losing side have taken major losses and have to replace them before the next engagement and if the same happens again it just leads to a steam roller effect. At least if you had lost some ships it would have been some consolation that you too had to replace some ships. Prior to these bonuses how many port battles actively contested had such one sided results, I do not know the quality of ships fielded by GB in the Les Cayes battle but looking at the roster there are some very skilled GB players on the list.

[HachiRoku]

32 minutes ago, Archaos said:

ships with these bonuses can have a major effect on the battle

I think you are confusing the word can with will. 10% Armour advantage is massive not even including the HP buff. The side with ships like this will win 9 times out of 10 and no I will not take skill under consideration because in game balance skill is irrelevant. 

[William Death]

1 hour ago, HachiRoku said:

Why dont you use cartha instead of navy planking??

Carta is old news.  Only +5cm

Navy Planking is +6cm. 

C'mon now try to keep up with the metas 

 

 

RE: the topic:

Did anyone expect any of those port bonuses to be balanced? Like....even having any single one of them is enough to give a decidedly strong advantage to a player. Having all of them, maxed out...oof. 

I sail with the best gear most of the time, and I'm an alright player. But unless its a noob sailing it, I wouldn't want to fight that Ocean with a standard blue PB ship. Or even a purple/gold ship. Too much gear advantage there. 

Balance can best be achieved when maximum differences between one end of the spectrum and the other is like 10 or 20% max. I was a fan of the really old system where almost every bonus was +2% or +4%, and you only had a couple bonuses per category, so stacking was less of an issue.

 

So I suggest to remove the port bonuses altogether, or significantly reduce the bonuses associated with them. 

Incentive for RvR should be the rare resources like Carta tar, French sail cloth, etc. And thats ok if they're locked to the capturing clan's nation now because we have the PvP mark mods that are just as good or better. Everyone can access those, even if their nation doesn't have access to the equivalent rare resource. That was a step in the right direction.

Now if we can reduce the cost of ships enough so that players can once again afford to lose good ships, I think PvP will go up.

I remember in 2016 ships were dirt cheap, everybody had SOLs and frigates aplenty. RvR was done solely for the pretty dots on the map, and yet we had battles all the time. Even when population on PvP2 tanked to 200-400 in primetime we still had action because everybody wanted to fight. Lose your gold Victory? No worries, just push the button on another and try again.

Maybe its the "rose colored glasses" I'm looking through, but I really believe the game was better off when everyone could afford to build, sail, and lose competitive ships. (I had to emphasize competitive there; because, being honest, the only builds for PB SOLs are LO/WO and occasionally Teak/WO, everything else is junk because any comparison starts with the phrase "but its almost as good as...." No. Just no.)

[Carlos_Condell]

sounds way OP to my taste

Edited May 4, 2019 by Carlos_Condell

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

Not only Port Bonus but ALL books and modules bonus, imo.

But sure, Port bonus are as well.

 

[Liq]

so in summary

• -10% reload
• +6% vertical gun range
• -10% dispersion
• +10% penetration
• +5% speed
• +10% turn rate
• +15% acceleration
• +15% deceleration
• +10% HP
• +10% thickness
• -20% fire spread rate
• -10% splinter resistance
• -15% heel
• -10% sail damage
• +15% mast HP
• +10% mast thickness
• -12% repair time
• +10% repair
• +10% crew
• +5 crew transfer per sec.

All together on one ship ?! And that's not even considering possible upgrades or rare trims.

Yeah, that seems totally fine

This needs some tweaking ASAP. A port should have to specialize on a trim, and NOT be able to have everything maxed out - Also IMHO this will require removing the bonusses from ports which are already maxed out, as I think this was not planned for the next patch. Else the balance will be totally gone.

 

Edited May 4, 2019 by Liq

[Jim Beamreach]

I did not played much the last months.

But for me, i never liked the Tuning of Ships like they are in the Game, if you go to a PvE Battle with a Slow-Tanking Ship and end in a PvP-Battle its not fun. Ships shoud have rolls like Hunter Brawler(Tank), but no Fusioncore powerd Starships. The Woods shoud be more togheter and the Modules and books need a bit nerfed. I can not say from my owne experiance how much the Portbonuses are but it soounds like it spreads the players more.

Player A : With the Fusioncore powerd Starship (Portbonuses, Rarewoods, Moduls and Books)   10000Hp and 15kn.

Player B : Pre-Patch Solar powerd Starship (Rarewoods, Moduls and Books)  8500hp and 14,5kn.

Player C : The normal casual player with his Steam powerd rusty Trawler (Some Moduls and some Books with basic Woods) 6000hp and 12 knots.

All with same ships. Thats for me a bit to much of difference.(no real numbers but it sounds like that)

So i think yes Bonuses are to much overall.

 

[Kejsaren]

And there are already so many ships with full upgrades that we will be seeing them until wipe.

Friend lost his trinco today, bought another on 5 min later. (both fully upgraded)

Edited May 4, 2019 by Huang Po Tsai (Retired)

[Barbancourt]

I like to put Cotton Sails and French Gunners on my teak/sab ship.  How am I doing?   😍

[Busterbloodvessel]

New feature!

Turn up the volume on the new feature to 11 to get people to try it and moan about balance, then down to 2 or close it altogether, and turn something else up to 11. 

Remember officers? Remember fine woods? Remember crafting 5/5 ships by choice? Remember the muskets?

Same test, different day.

We may all be old enough to expire before all the balancing is done though .

Buster (Remember the Alamo?)

 

 

Edited May 4, 2019 by Busterbloodvessel

[Pada]

1 hour ago, Liq said:

• -10% reload
• +6% vertical gun range
• -10% dispersion
• +10% penetration
• +5% speed
• +10% turn rate
• +15% acceleration
• +15% deceleration
• +10% HP
• +10% thickness
• -20% fire spread rate
• -10% splinter resistance
• -15% heel
• -10% sail damage
• +15% mast HP
• +10% mast thickness
• -12% repair time
• +10% repair
• +10% crew
• +5 crew transfer per sec.

[Teutonic]

2 hours ago, Liq said:

so in summary

• -10% reload
• +6% vertical gun range
• -10% dispersion
• +10% penetration
• +5% speed
• +10% turn rate
• +15% acceleration
• +15% deceleration
• +10% HP
• +10% thickness
• -20% fire spread rate
• -10% splinter resistance
• -15% heel
• -10% sail damage
• +15% mast HP
• +10% mast thickness
• -12% repair time
• +10% repair
• +10% crew
• +5 crew transfer per sec.

All together on one ship ?! And that's not even considering possible upgrades or rare trims.

Yeah, that seems totally fine

This needs some tweaking ASAP. A port should have to specialize on a trim, and NOT be able to have everything maxed out - Also IMHO this will require removing the bonusses from ports which are already maxed out, as I think this was not planned for the next patch. Else the balance will be totally gone.

 

I think we all took 1 look right after the patch on the port bonuses and all knew they are too god damn insane.

I don't know why this is a surprise. it's hello kittying insane.

any ONE of these port bonuses on a ship is crazy good and we have ports that can give 4 or even all 5 bonuses at level 4 max? LOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

Edited May 4, 2019 by Teutonic

[Teutonic]

Basically.

I get that the crafting part of the ship should give the most bonuses. But I think no port should have enough points to get more than 2 bonuses to max level.

I think it's fine that ports will all have their point pool lowered, but I think the investments should have their point costs all increased as well.

have the "7 special ports" have 30 points max.

and make the crafting investments double in point cost every time, instead of the incremental we have now.

level 1 -- 1 pt
level 2 -- 2 pts
level 3 -- 4 pts
level 4 -- 8 pts

so having level 4 would cost a total of 15 points instead of 10 total points.

Edited May 4, 2019 by Teutonic

[z4ys]

I like that the people who said "books make no difference" are now saying port bonus is op. Now that almost everyone has all the books and we were finally back to an even gear lvl port bonus got introduced. Now you guys know and experience how a new player felt when he joins the game before and had to face all the ency and stacked books + mods. But that stuff makes really no difference - yes 😉

[AeRoTR]

13 minutes ago, z4ys said:

I like that the people who said "books make no difference" are now saying port bonus is op. Now that almost everyone has all the books and we were finally back to an even gear lvl port bonus got introduced. Now you guys know and experience how a new player felt when he joins the game before and had to face all the ency and stacked books + mods. But that stuff makes really no difference - yes 😉

Just compare gunnery book to port bonus gunnery. We had 3 books in game, only 2 was good and everyone (single casual included) can collect with effort. Now ?

I do agree, remove all books, bonus etc, just keep basic modules ! Let the skill shine, ah also crappy op wood bonuses needs nerf.

[Gregory Rainsborough]

2 hours ago, Jim Beamreach said:

But for me, i never liked the Tuning of Ships like they are in the Game, if you go to a PvE Battle with a Slow-Tanking Ship and end in a PvP-Battle its not fun.

Don't PvE in slow-tanking ship seems to be the lesson you refuse to learn.

[Jim Beamreach]

8 minutes ago, Gregory Rainsborough said:

Don't PvE in slow-tanking ship seems to be the lesson you refuse to learn.

This is a lesson many Mustang lesen 🤐

[HachiRoku]

3 hours ago, Liq said:

• +15% acceleration
• +15% deceleration

wow, that seems extreme to me, besides than spanish rig also increases acceleration. 

[Isaac J Smith]

2 hours ago, Teutonic said:

Basically.

I get that the crafting part of the ship should give the most bonuses. But I think no port should have enough points to get more than 2 bonuses to max level.

I think it's fine that ports will all have their point pool lowered, but I think the investments should have their point costs all increased as well.

have the "7 special ports" have 30 points max.

and make the crafting investments double in point cost every time, instead of the incremental we have now.

level 1 -- 1 pt
level 2 -- 2 pts
level 3 -- 4 pts
level 4 -- 8 pts

so having level 4 would cost a total of 15 points instead of 10 total points.

Honestly, just needs a hard cap. Max 4 level 1 (out of 5), 3 level 2 (out of the previous 4), 2 level 3 (out of the previous 3) and 1 level 4. Otherwise adding crafting farms and defences becomes unviable in a port.

[Barbancourt]

2 hours ago, z4ys said:

I like that the people who said "books make no difference" are now saying port bonus is op. Now that almost everyone has all the books and we were finally back to an even gear lvl port bonus got introduced.

Uh, no, most players don't have the combo books

 

[AeRoTR]

All the balance, all the skill is gone with port bonuses. 

More speed less strenght, more strenght less speed. Bonus should be marginal. 

Stronger mast more heel, stronger gunnery weak boarding, I do not know? 

Only 4 points at a port. Gunnery 4 or gunnery 2 + rigging 2.

Bonus should be with rng, sonetimes good, sometimes bad bonus. 

Needs more thinking, It was a good try but failed hard, but is early access yet. 

Why the hell shipyards at capital or non-capturable ports costing same huge reals? @admin

Current status is dangerous, too much disadvantage for solo and casual players. 

[Busterbloodvessel]

 Speaking for myself, as ever, if your fighting with a lollipop stick against a port-bonus baseball bat, the appeal is limited.

Buster (Good ship Lollipop for trade or sale, no time wasters)

Edited May 5, 2019 by Busterbloodvessel
Can't speel