Well, this discussion addresses a potential resolution to current ranking unbalance. I am sure many people would like to rise higher in fame and even hit the leaders but in the same time they do not want an open war.
This is the only discussion in the forums that tries to approach this.
I will try to summarize the discussion so far in titles.
Feature name: Patrol to find PC fleets- Available only to Pirates
- Normal danger resolution involved when a battle resolves
- Pirate uses turns (probably 2) to find a rules-based-selected fleet on selected port (check below for the rules)
- Pirate does not see the fleet's owner name. He only sees gold and a DESCRIPTIVE indication of fame amount.
- Pirate has 5 minutes to attack this fleet.
- Pirate gets to see defender's name if he wins the battle
- Defender only sees that a PIRATE attacked, no matter if he won or not
- Normal gold bounty with a maximum of 62500 (4 times lower than current max)
- Halved fame bounty (This means 2.5% of fame for someone with more than 1 million fame - 1.25% of it goes to the winner)
A new special rule for pirates is needed in order to have this feature successful:
- Pirate owned fleets no longer show owners' name in plunder list - ever again. Only Flag and Pirate will show.
- Example: Queen's Ann Revenge (#12345) - Pirate
- Fleet numbers, Fleet names and Ship names will be visible as normal.
Rules for selecting a fleet. Every fleet must meet ALL conditions in order to be discovered by a pirate.
Conditions ORDER (as listed below) plays a role!
- A fleet must be travelling to or from or be stationed in the port which pirate patrols.
- Fleet owners that received 10 attacks in this day, are excluded (It will act as PROTECTION - Up to 12.5% total loss of fame every day. Up to 625k max gold loss per day)
- A fleet must be owned by a player that is among the top 20 fleet owners: By number, Only fleet numbers on port will count. (ie if Captain Dungeness has the most fleets overall but only 3 in this port and there are 20 others that have 4 or more, his fleets will not be included)
- A fleet owner must not be in the same guild with the pirate (this means that if your colleagues consist of the top20 fleet owners in port, then no fleets will be generated for you)
Here is now a real case scenario example taking in mind the rules above:
- Skyhawk patrols for PC(player character) owned fleets in the region of Tortuga. 200 Fleets are found at the region by the engine.
- The engine finds that 3 of the owners have already received 10 attacks today. Their fleet total combines a massive number of 50. Therefore 150 fleets remain as these are excluded.
- The engine sorts these 150 fleets by player and creates a top 20. With this method 100 fleets remain in the pool
- The engine finds that there are 3 of your guildmates included in this list. It removes them and their fleets so about 80 fleets remain in the pool
- The engine randomly selects one of these 80 fleets and makes it available to Skyhawk
(All this resolution will take place in less than 5ms. I got to love pc gaming!)
I personally consider this idea (as it has evolved) very important. Such a system would balance the game a lot, especially fame indicators which are still going up and are completely unrealistic. I am not sure if it is final yet, more discussion should take place.
We need some more discussion on it and I hope EVERYONE that has something to say, please do so. If you disagree, I need to know. If you agree, I also need to know. If you do not like a specific element, I need to know. If you would like something more or changed, I would like to know.
We also need to define when this should be implemented (once we decide it with final details). Countries&titles huge feature is nearly finished (it's primary phase at least as there are a lot of things to be added to nations as time passes). The next feature programmed are a)Hideout HQ - Special Buildings - Gold Resource and b)Treasures and Banks. However this feature is SMALL and can be added EASILY.
Surely after the Nations&Titles feature and could be right after (like an addition to the nations overall feature).
Notices:
-Fame loss & Gold loss in combination with PROTECTION
With 180 turns per day, it will mean that a pirate will be able to pull 30 attacks per day (2 turns for patrol & 4 for the attack).
- If the bounty is normal, he will be able to make UP TO 30*62500 (max bounty) = 1 875 000 gold per day
- Halved fame combined with daughters, means that the BREAK EVEN point will be at 6,250,000 fame points (if you can get what I mean)
- We only worry for the amount of fame lost, not won, as Pirates will get normal danger on their fleets.