Letter of the Marque (Medium)

[Captain Jack]

For long we have been trying to find a way to incorporate Letter of the Marque into the game. Here is a suggestion.

1.Issuing a Letter of the Marque

Only the legitimate King may issue a letter of the Marque.
As legitimate, we name any King who has been at his throne for at least 3 days in the last 5 days.

Every letter lasts until completed or for a maximum of 2 weeks. This time starts to count after someone has received the letter.

The King gets to choose how many similar letters will be generated. The King can cancel any amount of undelivered Letters during anytime.

2.Target of a Letter of the Marque

Any player can be the target of the Letter.


3.Cost of a Letter

a)Who pays for the cost
-If the target player is a fellow countryman, the King pays the costs. At all other cases, the cost is assumed by the national treasury.

b)Costs Table
-Every part of the Letter requires gold coins. Then, the number of available letters defines the final cost.

Here is the relative costs table per part:
Amount of Plunders -> 10.000 per Plunder
Amount of Skirmishes -> 5.000 per Skirmish
Amount of Aggressive Voodoo -> 10.000 per Voodoo Card
Amount of Plunder Wins -> 15.000 per Plunder Win
Amount of Skirmish Wins -> 5.000 per Skirmish Win
Amount of Successful Aggressive Voodoo -> 15.000 per successfully casted voodoo card


c)Payment
-Once issued, the King or the treasury, prepays the whole amount required.
-If an undelivered letter is canceled, the whole amount but a small corruption fee (3%) is returned to the payer.
-The payer returns a proportional return minus a small corruption fee (3%) for incomplete expired letters.

4.Recipients of Letter of the Marque

The king can create the letters specifically for individuals or guilds or nations.
Alternatively, the King can create Letters available for everyone.

Depending on type, these letters are sent with a different way:

Individuals: An event is sent to each one with the Letter of the Marque Details.
Guilds: An event is sent to the Guildmaster with the Letter details. He will get to choose whether to publish it or not to the rest of the guild.
Nations: A forum topic at the national forums is created.
All the aforementioned ways, as well as when the recipient is everyone, create an entry to the Court -> Meet the Governor -> Available Letters of the Marque

5.Collecting Letter of the Marque

If someone is a rightful recipient, he can choose to accept the Letter of the Marque. This will be through a confirmation upon viewing the Letter details.
Collected Letters will show up in Captain's log. Expired Letters will be placed in an archive within the Captain's log.

6.Letter of the Marque Benefits

Any target on a Letter of the Marque is excepted from Hostility Penalties law.

7.Letter of the Marque Rewards
+15.000 per Plunder Win
+5.000 per Skirmish Win
+15.000 per successfully casted voodoo card

+1 Honor Point per any of these actions:
·Successful Plunder
·Successful Skirmish
·Successful Voodoo Cast


Honor

Every player will have a honor rating with every nation in Avonmora.
A player will be able to use 1 Honor point to remove a Hostility point with the same nation, at anytime.
A player will be able to use 10 Honor Points for a Loyalty Point (only in case he needs them for promotion).

Every week, 1 Honor point with every nation will be lost.

Honor points will be visible to a special list for the nation officials. This list will contain all players with Honor Points with the nation.

[Mugiwara]

Letter Of Marquess:
And we can use Letter of Marquess for that purpose. An owner of Letter of Marquess can join to a blockade near the Letters owner nation. Pirates shouldnt be set a blockade themselves because they have no nation treasury to pay ransom of blockades instead they can join to blockade with Letter of Marquess.

I made a suggestion in Haron's Ports and Blockade topic. I thought Usage for Letter of Marquess will bo good that way to clarify some unwanted situations.

Here for more details viewtopic.php?t=2151&p=42638#p42638

Sincerely Mugiwara...

[Haron]

Absolutely interesting!

I notice from point C that nation diplomacy is expected to be in place. Soon, perhaps :-)

I also think that "defence" should not qualify. This allows the target to attack people with letters to drain the bounty. Only attacks should count.

As for "hostile voodoo", the same comments as usual about defining this applies.

To those who can't wait for this to be implemented: The T'zak Ryn offers far more flexible solutions already today! Just pick up your carrier pigeon and contact your local Naval Combat Solutions Provider today! :-)

[Shadowood]

b)Every combat action, will be rewarded with 0.0001% gc of the bounty fee total. (if the bounty fee is 200M, then each offensive action will award 20k).

I don't know of many nations that would put up 200 million for a bounty on 1 player. I think 10-20 would be more feasible. So I would say the 0.0001% would need be to low. It would need to move a decimal to 0.001%

[Slindur]

b)Every combat action, will be rewarded with 0.0001% gc of the bounty fee total. (if the bounty fee is 200M, then each offensive action will award 20k).

I don't know of many nations that would put up 200 million for a bounty on 1 player. I think 10-20 would be more feasible. So I would say the 0.0001% would need be to low. It would need to move a decimal to 0.001%

I agree with Shadowood. If every action gets .0001%, then it would take a total of 10.000 actions to complete the entire bounty. Moving it by a decimal point, like Shadowood mentioned, means that 1.000 actions would complete the bounty as you indicated.

I could go either way on point C. As it can be a way that the "lettered" player gets rid of the bounty, though it can also be a way that player's who get reprisals are in some way reimbursed.

I also think that certain actions should be worth more than others and think that the proposed mechanism for rewarding people for "attacking" the "lettered" player should be changed. Ideally, I would love to see it so that the nation can choose how much (either a flat rate gold or percentage) to give to certain things (i.e., casting a hostile natives is worth 1K gold, winning a plunder is worth 20K gold, and sinking a ship is worth 40K gold). It would be nice if the nation could choose which voodoo is "hostile" and desired on the target since they are paying. (When the voodoo options pop up, the nation could check which voodoo they want to reward on a player and fill in a box for how much per voodoo cast on the player.) This could also be a way that point C is settled in letting the nations decide if/how much to give players who are attacked by the "lettered" player.

in reading the description, I am also unclear of how players would "collect" the Letter of Marque to be able to reap the benefits of the letter. CJ, you mentioned pages that players can go to to get them, though how does that work? Is it clicking a button? Is it asking for it from the nation that a marque or above can grant? I would like to know more about that process and what you envision there.

Slindur

[William one eye]

this was my suggestion on how to do this

posted in
Nation bounties, letter of marquess and other considerations
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3031&p=40437&hilit=nation+bounties#p40437

letter of Marquess

you see governor the governor to apply for letter of marquess.

use of letter of marquess must be approved as law by nation
nation selects maximum hostility towards the nation that an applicant may have or they get automatic rejection - voted in like a law
player must apply for letter of marquess and must be approved by nation voting 24 hour
player must fly colors of the nation they represent - split flag
player can only represent 1 nation at a time as a privateer
player flying the black can carry letter of marquess

you cannot fly privateer and your own nations colors.
if your nation posted the bounty you can leave your own nation temporarily and work as a privateer,
to sail under letter of marquess you must op out of daily national activity. you become privateer class.
you get no stipend, voting rights or benefits, during this time. when the contract is up you can
go back to your normal position with restored rights.

in this case you would go privateer by seeing the governor,
and opting in, then you must revisit the governor to op out and have your rights restored.


You cannot privateer against your own nation.


benefits of letter of marquess - can claim bounties with the following advantage
- WORKS WITH NATION BOUNTIES IN THIS PARTICULAR IDEA -see below

no hostility gained on bounty attacks
50 % danger incurred on bounty attacks

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nation bounty

automatic nation bounty is passed like a law

nation votes to have this law or not
nation votes on bounty hostility activation level
as this is automated only plunder win, or skirmish win would make sense - cannot be ship specific
nation votes on bounty payout
payout comes from treasury and is adjusted at nation update with other law based balance adjustments
bounties are open to anyone but additional benefits with letter of marquess - explained later

if a hostile player gets a bounty hit their hostility drops by 25 points


custom bounty

bounty is placed and specified by a member of council
bounty goes to 24 hour voting for national approval
bounty is paid up front and member placing bounty can pay from personal funds or select national treasury
unclaimed bounty is returned to the source

specify nation of target
specify rank of target
all
citizen
military
noble
marquess
duke
king
specify action
plunder win
skirmish win
ship plunder

specify payout
specify total funds available for payouts

bounties are open to anyone but additional benefits with letter of marquess - explained later

[Mugiwara]

Slindur your suggestions exact same as Current bounty system.

[Captain Jack]

b)Every combat action, will be rewarded with 0.0001% gc of the bounty fee total. (if the bounty fee is 200M, then each offensive action will award 20k).

I don't know of many nations that would put up 200 million for a bounty on 1 player. I think 10-20 would be more feasible. So I would say the 0.0001% would need be to low. It would need to move a decimal to 0.001%

This is not a point of interest I reckon. With the bounties system, even countries through a representative can currently prosecute someone. Or through a mercenary. This bounty fee idea is more as a way to limit actions against a player.

The current % allows 10,000 actions and at 10M that's 1k per action. If we move to 0.001% it will be 1,000 actions for 10k per action. We could go for it.

Point is, that point b) and point c) are not that exciting anyway. Point a) is and hopefully we can find one more to make it count.

[Captain Jack]

To collect the letter, apart from the hostility requirement (you need to be friend of the nation) which has some value in itself, we can in the future build on this.

For example, a certain voodoo could prevent your from picking newly issued LEtters. You should be able to collect each Letter only once from the country officials and in this case you could lose one in some way (through voodoo, action,etc). We can create much depth here, in the future.

[Slindur]

The current % allows 10,000 actions and at 10M that's 1k per action. If we move to 0.001% it will be 1,000 actions for 10k per action. We could go for it.

Point is, that point b) and point c) are not that exciting anyway. Point a) is and hopefully we can find one more to make it count.

On the first point above, I believe that very few times would someone have 10k actions against them, and if they did, I feel like they would not want to continue playing the game. Other players, could you imagine logging in for a month and constantly seeing 2XX new events against you? I don't think that .0001% (or maybe percentage in general) is a good way to go.

CJ, on the last point you made, I disagree. I think that most people enjoy having a mission or purpose to go after. Many players make their own (and they should), though having a fun objective added that you can get rewarded for (including having some kind of record of how much damage you have done against players with a Letter or Marque against them) would be a major benefit for this feature. Unless the voodoo is really awesome, I find that it will be more of a nice side benefit instead of the main attraction for Letters of Marque. Anyway, that is how I interpret it as yet.

Slindur