Suggestion to replace battle timer.

[Ian2492]

Hello everyone,

 

The 5 minutes battle timer has been a large source of debate and controversy amongst the community and I'd like to propose an alternative that would bridge the gap between OW and instance battle. As we know instance battles are necessary to allow for compression of the OW, and compression of the OW size is necessary to ensure that voyages don't take weeks in real life. This leads to our problem: either remove the timer, which is unrealistic because it allows for players to sail hundred of miles to join a battle, or use a small timer, which can be annoying in terms of last-second jumping in, or being locked out.

1) Last second jumping in is unrealistic because people can tag a ship, wait until he's committed to the battle, then have everyone jump on top of him. In a real life settings, the target would've seen the reinforcements coming as soon as their sails would pass the horizon, thus he could chose to disengage if he felt that the battle would be unwinnable.

 

2) Being locked out can also be annoying because if your fleet gets split next to eachother, and one of the battle ends, technically, you should be able to proceed to help the next battle. If an enemy ship succeeds in holding you in a mock battle for 5 minutes, you won't be able to help your allies, and thus it leads to complaints of unfairness.

The solution I would propose is that the timer would be removed entirely, but for every x amount of time that passes by (say, each minute), the players that join would join further away, to a point where if you join an hour after the start, you'd be far enough that it would be next to impossible to participate in the battle.

 

1) This would fix the ''last second jumping in'' because if one person tagged you, and all their friends joined 5 minutes later, they would be far enough to allow you to take a tactical decision to retreat or fight, instead of having a gank fleet spawn in the middle of your little fight.

2) It would also fix the feeling of unfairness of being locked out, because people that join further away will still feel like they have a possibility of helping out their friends. They could coordinate to try and regroup and defeat their enemy.

TL;DR : Remove timer, make people join progressively further away based on time since battle start, solve the problem of instanced combat.

 

Thoughts? Comments? Insults?

 

Regards, 

 

Ian

 

[Lucas Corso]

The potential problem I see is that of battles never ending as a trickle of reinforcements keeps the battle in existence.

[Ian2492]

Not really because after a while you'd spawn so far out that you'd have no reason to join at all, and your opponents would be far enough to simply leave the battle. I guess you'd have to remove the xp bonus for 'winnning'' a battle and base the xp solely on your contribution to the battle, in order for people to be able to leave at any point.

Edited January 9, 2016 by Ian2492

[Lucas Corso]

As potential joiners won't know how long the battle has been there for, they'd have no idea how far out they'd spawn.

 

I would also like to see improvements to the joining mechanism, That could possibly be achieved by a distance system that only allows ships within a certain distance (based on visiblity and audibility) at the commencement of the battle to join.

Edited January 9, 2016 by Lucien Delmonte

[Ian2492]

As potential joiners won't know how long the battle has been there for, they'd have no idea how far out they'd spawn.

 

This information could easily be displayed on the battle card that we already have. Speaking of which, The battle card should also update with the progress of the battle, so you know what you're getting into.

[Mr. Doran]

We've been here in another simpler form already. It used to be that the spawn point was always definitive and as battles (some times) progressed down wind people could be spawning far past visual range; given this is a more extreme version of that but it does not solve one key issue and that is who ever has more numbers basically still rules the OS with very little chance of being contested. People should not get a feeling of being "cheated" because it was "unfair" when they get locked out of a fight. If you want to go on a gank happy spree on the complacent you should have to do it in an organized cohesive manner. It is getting pretty hard not to sound like a total ganker at this point if you are for removing timers or against on drastically lowering them. 

[Ian2492]

I don't understand how you feel my proposed system would encourage ganking, I myself think it would reduce it, since you would have to join in an organised simultaneous fashion if you wanted to have a strong numerical advantage. The current system allows for baiting people into commiting themselves to the battle before dropping a fleet onto them when the timer is at 4 minute 50 seconds.

I feel you underestimate how far I imagined people would be spawning. The spawn distance increase over time should be quite drastic, it could even be exponential, to a point where if you join late you could only have a chance of participating if the battle headed your way. This system would have no drawbacks over the current 5 minute system, and multiple advantages.

Edited January 9, 2016 by Ian2492

[Mr. Doran]

I don't understand how you feel my proposed system would encourage ganking, I myself think it would reduce it, since you would have to join in an organised simultaneous fashion if you wanted to have a strong numerical advantage. The current system allows for baiting people into commiting themselves to the battle before dropping a fleet onto them when the timer is at 4 minute 50 seconds.

I feel you underestimate how far I imagined people would be spawning. The spawn distance increase over time should be quite drastic, it could even be exponential, to a point where if you join late you could only have a chance of participating if the battle headed your way. This system would have no drawbacks over the current 5 minute system, and multiple advantages.

 

Have you just not read at all into the 1 minute timer debate that has been going on for over six months now. Did you not read the other thread you posted in at all? The whole root of the issue is any number of players big or small can not or preform any decent kind of risk/reward analysis of the situation in visual range; you can make as many well guessed and experienced guesses by how many people are within reinforcement range of what target(s) you are about to hit but no one not even the salitest elite OS hunter knows for certain. This fact lends a lot of power by default to sheer numbers and brute force in a world of five minute timers and almost infinite force to a  world of no timers. Let say the distance joined was so exponentially high even at three minutes or even two minutes you would never ever be able to realistically join the battle which would have to be a good almost 40+ kilometers in instance. You would still not be able to preform any risk reward analysis of the situation just by the virtue of the fact that there could still be a metric shit load of people you never could have guessed existed waiting to jump you outside visual range before the distance got too extreme. Bottom line it still favors sheer numbers and is still detracting from the amount of skill involved in OS combat. 

 

I think this sums it up nicely... https://gyazo.com/3757ff87fe1a483c62241b08fe0ea7f5

[Ian2492]

First I'm on mobile so i can't see what post I liked that you're reffering to, what's your point with the picture of me likeing a post? I could like like all the posts in the website and it shouldn't affect your opinion of my proposal unless you are basing your opinions on emotions as opposed to facts.

Second, if you want a 1 minute timer, could you explain to me what the advantage of a 1 minute timer has over a system where if you joined 1-2 minutes after the battle started you would be quite far from the battle and there would be significant risk of your ally losing the battle before you got there to help? My proposed system can be adjusted to whatever scale necessary to be balanced up to point where if you join 5 minutes in you'd have to sail an hour to start seeing ships in the distance. It's still far better than an arbitrary cutoff.

Edited January 9, 2016 by Ian2492

[Mr. Doran]

I could like like all the posts in the website and it shouldn't affect your opinion of my proposal unless you are basing your opinions on emotions as opposed to facts.

Second, if you want a 1 minute timer, could you explain to me what the advantage of a 1 minute timer has over a system where if you joined 1-2 minutes after the battle started you would be quite far from the battle and there would be significant risk of your ally losing the battle before you got there to help? an an arbitrary cutoff.

 

Have you seriously not read AT ALL any of the other 1 minute timer threads. You have not even proposed what these said distances are either to begin with. There is no significant risk of your ally being sunk or captured even if you spawn what you may think is a "considerable" distance away if you can warp in 20 ships to save him because the person who tagged your enemy could never anticipate your ally had 20 guys outside render with decent polars to help your ally. At best the attacking party is forced to disengage regularly to an overwhelming force and what is likely at worse going to happen most of the time in frequent regularity is him getting his shit pushed in by overwhelming numbers. So if the joiners spawn so "impossibly" far away to begin with to ever have a chance of participating in combat what is the point them joining to begin with? If they do have the possibility of joining combat then this just further encourages ganking and sloppy OS play that allows people with overwhelming numbers to cast a massive screen over any area with little consequence to their actions making numbers concentrated or not the only thing required to win OS combat. This terrible system has no advantages over 1 minute timers and in fact only allows for the same ganktastic oppritunites the five minute timer allows for now. With one minute timers the name of the game is simple: the hunter and hunted will know what is going down and how to act accordingly. In the words of AKD are you are asking for is many sad violins to be played... or more ganking. People like you should feel cheated if you are not competent enough to maintain cohesion even in a five minute timer environment. 

[AWH]

I don't know how you think this is a good alternative to 1 minute timers...

 

Not only will this put uneeded strain into the server requiring extra calculations for each joinee in the battle, but will also require extra coding for the function to be there in the first place.

 

What 1 minute timers give you is the ability to analyze the battlefield before anyone can commit to a battle. What would be the point of distance based tagging if, as you say, it will be up to an hour for the reinforcements to catch up to the battle (if the battle has moved from the spawn point at all)

 

There's just too many variables for this to be viable bro.

 

All you suggested can and would be addressed with 1 minute timers.

[Ian2492]

It has the advantage of not being an arbitary cutoff, and removing the ability to jump in on top of someone. Why would someone that arrives at 1:01 (or 5:01) be denied entry? He should just be further back from those who joined at 1 min. You can then scale up this system to have a reasonable join distance based on time and based on the distance compression of OW.

It also allows for the movement inside the battle instance to be meaningful. If you join on my side at 5 mins, while I'm being attacked by a superior force, I can attempt to close the distance in time. The attacking captain can also make the decision to press the attack or to disengage based on how far and how strong my reinforcements are.

It removes the safety net of "oh its past 1 min, i'm safe" and instead you have to account for speed and distance of reinforcements.

Edited January 9, 2016 by Ian2492

[Mr. Doran]

It has the advantage of not being an arbitary cutoff, and removing the ability to jump in on top of someone. Why would someone that arrives at 1:01 (or 5:01) be denied entry? He should just be further back from those who joined at 1 min. You can then scale up this system to have a reasonable join distance based on time and based on the distance compression of OW.

 

Because they did not have near instant communication in the age of sail. Should the OW mechanics not try to represent the vastness of ocean and how isolated most conflicts were, put in place the restrictions and limitation of movement of fleets being bound by the slowest moving ship, and give smaller groups a chance on the OS while putting proper limitation on larger ones? Or do you just want to make ganking easier which is what taking the timer off and allowing a steady stream of human fecal matter to pour into the instance. 

Why would you want such a rubbish system? 

 

 

It removes the safety net of "oh its past 1 min, i'm safe" and instead you have to account for speed and distance of reinforcements.

 

 

You can not account for accurately to what you can not see Ian and with the current timers or what you are proposing if you already see it, it is too late. 

[Siegfried]

I think that Doran is right here. Or if you want enter in a battle, cause the compressed time and distances,you must be in the battle circle when the battle begins or near.

 

Or if is possible technicaly, make the timer based in BR of ships in instance. Big battles, takes more time and then more time to join. Big battles' noise, smoke and fire lights can be sighted furter away. But no more of 2 minutes. 

 

But with 5 minutes or more, you obtain people that feeling a "disturbance in the Force" (aka Team Speak) TelePorting from te other side of the map, picking a ship and entering in the battle if it is near a port..

[Mr. Doran]

I think that Doran is right here. Or if you want enter in a battle, cause the compressed time and distances,you must be in the battle circle when the battle begins or near.

 

Or if is possible technicaly, make the timer based in BR of ships in instance. Big battles, takes more time and then more time to join. Big battles' noise, smoke and fire lights can be sighted furter away. But no more of 2 minutes. 

 

But with 5 minutes or more, you obtain people that feeling a "disturbance in the Force" (aka Team Speak) TelePorting from te other side of the map, picking a ship and entering in the battle if it is near a port..

 

BR based balancing just throws more wrenches into the works for everyone... just let it be a 1 minute timer and be done with it. 

[Laik]

If the developers want to do additional coding then I personally would prefer that they resolved it this way:

 

In a perfect world battles would not close according to a timer, but simply be invisible to all players who were out of visual range when then the battle started. This takes more than a tweak in a patch to code, however.

(of course some sort of timer should also be implemented there to prevent players sailing 10 minutes to get their ship of the line and come back or alternatively the moment you go outside of the visual range of the instance it is closed for good - that should also include ports until we get information of what ships are in the port)