Port Bonus - an attempt to get discussion back on track

[I Shot Got]

 

Lets take a step back and see how we ended up in this game.

Through our own interests, for the most part, we found out about Naval Action through word of mouth, steam search etc etc etc. We noticed it was 19th century sailing ships - first thoughts ohh what nations what ships. We bought into the game or got early access, maybe someone gave you a key or gifted you the game. Either way you got involved, got interested, first and foremost you selected a nation then maybe joined a clan. I'm sure we can agree it was something along those lines. A lot of players went through multiple wipes - some happily some not so.

So here we are today with a game that is enjoyable in both PvP and PvE but if I am hones is having issues.

For me Clan control of ship building ports is a problem - not just because of what has recently happened in game but because the mechanics behind it are not the best and this has been compounded with by the Port Bonus'. At this stage we have a lot of nations that do not even have access to a 55 point port and one not even a 40 point port (I was shocked to discover this as I don't have Netlify and assumed that all nations would have at least one 55 point port). Yes assume does make an ASS out of U and ME when you don't check and it did in my case.

I was truly horrified that clan friends list controlled who got access to the shipyard and disappointed that it was so limited. As far as I am concerned every player either as an individual or in a clan should be able to access full port bonus' port and build either through his/her clan or as an individual. Everyone has spent money to be in here.

Even more horrified when I had a friend to a quick search on Netlify for me to find out who had what 50+ ports.

Russia 4 x 55 point port - Neuve Orlenes, Vera Cruz, Campeche and Nassau. 5 x 50 point ports - Sesal, St George, Basse Terre, Santa Marta and Cartegena de Indias.

Dutch 1 x 55 point port - Santo Domingo. 9 x 50 point ports - Tolu, Rio de la Hacha, Maracaibo, Coro, Caracas, Neuvua Barcelona, Cumana, Santo Tome de Guayama and Les Cays.

British 1 x 55 point port - Santo de Coba. 6 x 50 point ports - Salamanca, Belieze, Truxilo, Puerto Plata, Cape Francis and Trinadad.

Swedish 1 x 55 point port - San Juan. 2 x 50 point ports Oranjsted and St Johns.

Pirates  2 x 50 point port Neuvitas and Baracoa.

Kingdom of Prussia 2 x 50 point port - Chagres and Batabano.

United States  1 x 50 point port - Saint Augustine.

Spain 1 x 50 point port - Remedios.

French 1 x 50 point port - Bridgetown.       

Apologies for what I'm sure are many spelling mistakes. The above list may not be complete I wasn't the person checking it and have listed it on good faith. Notice missing nations?

I find it frankly pretty damn poor that each nation doesn't have a full 'open to anyone' 55 pt port bonus port that should be protected no matter how large or how small the nation is.

The fact that a player pays money to play the game then gets screwed over because

A. HE/SHE isn't in the right clan.

B. Isn't in a nation that has a 55 point port. 

Port Bonus' either get rid of them or make one port in each nation 55 points and untouchable (making the port bonus for protected ports pre selected and the same across all other protected ports). Any other ports can be clan controlled as they see fit - this gets rid of some nations having an advantage over other nations and gives every player full access regardless of clan affiliation or not. Make it so if you want a shipyard in that protected port you must pay in trade/dubloons/CM's or some such to keep it's Port Bonus' up and running (this can't be extravagant or to much of a burden for an individual player) if the shipyard owner fails to pay then he loses the bonus' until he/she can. Clan owned Shipyards get a 0.5% additional chance of building a Gold ship and the choice of how they wish to expend port bonus points allowing them to focus on particular preferences or maybe an extra resource being produced in that port giving them less crap to move. There has to be some way of making this more equitable across the board and not as discriminatory against some nations/players or those that don't want to be involved with clans and clan politics. The game should be inclusive not exclusive.

Come to that under this current system why have nations at all why not just team Green, Blue, Red and White. Nations (as many as we have) are basically defunct due to Clan control. I think we have to many nations on a map that is to large. Due to my time zone I have been playing against the scorchingly high numbers of 164 persons and slightly higher over for the past couple of days.

We have a map that allows some nations to have well protected waters with minimal interference in trade due to long distances and other nations get reamed from the get go because the are surrounded. Look at the Gulf of Mexico - only two neutral ports with access to the entire area Tumbado and El Rancho. The British, Dutch and Americans have the same protected areas where long sailing times protect ports from any harassment at all - vast swathes of area with no neutral ports. On the flip side these areas offer little in the way of targets for new players to come to grips with because it seems a vast majority of the shipping is from the owner of those ports.  As a consequence we have players operating out of La Mona so they can rank up the heavies due to a total lack of any targets in or on the borders of that nations home waters.

The game mechanic does no favours to new players. If they join the right nation, if they get into a clan that has an all access pass it's ok but what about those that don't? No help or support at all to the individual player who wants to just hunt and craft ships and play for fun unless other players give them that help (one wonders why people would want to buy the game and DLC's especially if they know that other players have such a massive leg up in ship quality/capability). If you don't know about the port system and you select the wrong nation your options are pretty much ..... limited (not the word I wanted to use) as you now either have to delete your character and start up again or are forced to spend real cash to change nation (yay and not a convincing one!).

For those that say just go capture one of those 55 point ports - ask yourself if your ships are several standards below what the enemy can craft and your nations numbers are small - what chance do you really think they have. Are these smaller nations to be given only a single choice - join a bigger nation (totally undermines having this many nations in game) or get the crap kicked out of you because of a game mechanic. I can sail for hours in enemy waters and not see a player to fight. If I am lucky enough to find them I'm pretty much instantly outnumbered. If I fight AI's then they (players) either wait for you outside in numbers or just join in. Neither of which I mind as PvP is what we are here for. But it is further discouraging to know that any ship you sail will automatically be at a disadvantage.

Winds - I don't mind the wind structure but for me it needs to be modified - If you take advantage of one of the wind gusts when you get within a set distance of land it should cease to work. The wind gusts should be in game to mitigate against time spent during long distance sailing not as a tool for players to get 10mins or so of speed buff so they can screw over those closer to shore who are just going about what they are doing and don't get the benefit of any gusts. The current structure of Wind Gusts has just turned it into a hunters hit and run rocket assisted paradise.

Loki PvP - I did't mind it but I think it unfair if your fighting larger ships that you have tagged you suddenly end up with two or more larger or even smaller ships with players in them. Maybe the devs could look at Loki only allowing 1 slot in an AI fleet.

Loki PvE - I didn't mind Loki in PvE (though this feature has now been removed). Tackling the PvP issue in PvE where some players also want limited PvP is difficult. I think that with the current PvP zones it would be good if you introduced a true PvP zone and a true PvE zone that way players in PvE that wanted to try PvP could do so in the true PvP only zone. This would be a great introduction to PvP for those players allowing them to gain experience, improve sailing skills and the hopefully move into PvP when they feel comfortable. Introduce an individual PvP and PvE zone on opposite sides of the map each day maybe and rotate them around the regions in tandem?

Fact - No game will ever be perfect but all games can be improved.

Spy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Angus MacDuff]

25 minutes ago, I Shot Got said:

The fact that a player pays money to play the game then gets screwed over because

A. HE/SHE isn't in the right clan.

B. Isn't in a nation that has a 55 point port. 

Port Bonus' either get rid of them or make one port in each nation 55 points and untouchable (making the port bonus for protected ports pre selected and the same across all other protected ports).

For me, this is a cornerstone to player's enjoying the game.  In order to feel like you are not being disadvantaged, each player should be able to build ships that are equal to anything else that is out there.  IMHO, there should be an uncapturable 55 point port in each nation (except of course the 3 hardcore nations).  We can see what letting human nature have its way has done for the game...

[Angus MacDuff]

2 minutes ago, Bryan Von Gyldenloeve said:

Personally I think port bonus is crap. The best playes actually depend on have acces to better ships than the rest. Really Sound stupid to me.

I won't argue that point.  Either take the port bonus away or make it available to everyone.  Anything that makes the perception that the other guy is sailing in a far superior ship causes many to quit.  Note that I use the word 'perception".  We all know the argument that you don't need the highest quality ship to win.

[Oli Garchy]

1 hour ago, Angus MacDuff said:

For me, this is a cornerstone to player's enjoying the game.  In order to feel like you are not being disadvantaged, each player should be able to build ships that are equal to anything else that is out there.  IMHO, there should be an uncapturable 55 point port in each nation (except of course the 3 hardcore nations).  We can see what letting human nature have its way has done for the game...

I would give the capitals all bonuses at 2-3 but to get rare woods would have to venture into capturing ports and investing

[Miaowi]

2 hours ago, I Shot Got said:

I find it frankly pretty damn poor that each nation doesn't have a full 'open to anyone' 55 pt port bonus port that should be protected no matter how large or how small the nation is.

Why?

You are looking at the status quo rather than the mechanisms as a whole.

You cant holistically make sure that everyone has a 55 point port. You cant make sure that everyone has protected waters. Instead we need to celebrate these differences and work within their confines. Its a sandbox.

Everyone has equality of opportunity. We all started the same on day 1 with the whole map being neutral.

Honestly, i promise you. There are a select few folks that have organised infrastructure. With that I mean a small handful of people. The success of nations/clans/groups is attributed to those groups that have organisation and required thought processes to work within the confines of the game. Nothing that you forum warriors suggest will have an impact larger than a communal teamspeak and some shared goals and infra-structure

The more admin listens to you folks (not aimed at you I Shot Got) the more diluted the game experience tends to get.

 

[Oli Garchy]

actually, what if free towns had all bonuses at lvl2 or 3, means you dont have to fight over owning a port just haul in resources creating pvp based around freetowns

[I Shot Got]

 

A couple of quick answers (yes it will likely be long winded).

Bryan the quick answers you gave have issues. Change nation - you either wipe your character and yet again start out from scratch or have to pay real money for the ability. Neither works for me and likely won't work for other people.

Stop Playing - I'm sure you can see that that is not in the games best interests. If you can't see this then the game is doomed to fail. We want to encourage people to play not drive them away. I realise that some decisions that the devs make aren't popular and you can't make everybody happy all the time. But once again the current structure that deliberately disadvantages players is not a good draw card for the game.

Miaowi perception is the issue here, people won't buy into the game if they feel they can't compete on even terms (once they have put the effort into building all the infrastructure required to). It is human nature to seek an advantage but when an individual perceives that he is getting screwed over it is likely he/she will not participate. Hence every nation should have a fixed and safe 55 point port. It's not about equality it's about marketing the game and letting those in the future who wish to join the game even they are joining later that they can compete without everyone they run up against having a quantum leap advantage over them. Slaying newbies or players with crap ships is hardly worth patting yourself on the back over and calling yourself a hero.

Not everyone started on day one and your statement is in fact just plain incorrect. I have intimated before that perception is everything and new players who come into this game are literally being looked down upon by some members of the community and the sense of self entitlement these more experienced players exude is truly not welcoming. Pretty much every one in game will help out but to be constantly informed 'You didn't help with this' and we can do what we like attitude really screws over newer players. Quite simply put unless a port is captured new players have NO OPPORTUNITY to contribute and this game at the moment is not much more than a vast stalemate.

Select few, now we see the sense of entitlement come out. We may well have had a select few in some cases but others helped out as well. Wow some people captured a port from AI's and believe they then have the right to screw everyone else. Entitlement - simply put Clans shouldn't have been put in that position in the first place.

 I know many new players in the Danish nation who joined after the port was built up - spent hours chasing down all the mats, Dubs and Reals to set themselves up and now it is all gone. This can hardly be in the best interests of the community. Players are quitting, those that have changed nation we haven't lost thankfully.

So it is highly unlikely to help encourage new players to populate the smaller nations. People can rationalise and justify actions until the cows come home but ultimately shouldn't we as a community be looking to keep the game healthy? The push to fill out the larger nations is in fact counter productive to having the current national structure we have. If the developers want to go down this path then they need to grow a pair and make some really tough decisions for example limit it to four factions/nations this will result in a more compressed player base.

Simply put PERCEPTION is everything.

This game is a massive time sink and it discriminates against those that don't have the time. It is not player friendly in this sense, so making sure that those new players (and old players) can compete means every one should have access to a 55 point port. Otherwise why bother with the game at all. If you know you are outgunned from the start you can't replace your ships and can't compete in any meaningful way what incentive to play? Absolutely none. Perception.

 

Spy

 

[Never]

This just seems silly... the strongest nations with the better players get the best ports. Is it really about not being able to be 'competitive' because a nation doesn't have a 55 point port? Should the game also guarantee every nation has a port that drops cartagena tar? or copper? or swedish carpenters? If a strong nation only had a 40 point port it would still win in RvR if it had the numbers and dedicated RvR players. Port Battles aren't won cause one fleet had gunnery 4 while the other had only gunnery 2. 

What is definitely an issue is the cost of upgrading ports, it is way too steep a price for the number of players we have on the server. If players are quitting cause their clan or nation lost 1 crafting port then it should be a clear message that it's way too difficult to build up ports. 

The clan/nation dilemma is another issues altogether. If @admin himself says that players should serve the flag before their clan then no clan should control anything over other clans in any nation. Everything should nation based and not clan based. All upgrades should be open to everyone in the nation. 

On a little slightly unrelated side note: Shipyards should actually be port investments and not single player buildings. 

[Oli Garchy]

2 minutes ago, Never said:

This just seems silly... 

boils down to those nations who are motivated, have decent numbers and work  together. some may have parts of those but without all 3 its tough

[Rymy Finne]

This is not nation based game but clan based game. Mechanism of this game is extremely broken when clan switching nation can stop rest of the nation clans to defend ports they have owned by removing them from their friend lists. In most of the games that would be exploiting game mechanism and stopped by game mods.