Plunder Formula tweak discussion

[Grimrock Litless]

You want more strategy? Oh, why didnt you say so. My thought on that is to have voodoo with more other abilities, you should go look at my post on it.

[Shadowood]

I am torn on this. I am in favor of option B as I feel a player should always work toward an advantage in a game. However with that said I have never played a game that has such a high cost and time demand for new techs. I want a new tech but don't want to have to spend 5 years maxing the 5-6 that I'm working on too. (How do we fix that?) Am I off base with that comment??

In favor of the proposed skirmish changes

I agree with Haron that Advance Piracy card should not be paid by the game

In favor of reducing the cost of hideout. But not from 10 > 1. Maybe $10mil to $5mil. It still needs to somewhat of a goal to newbs.

[ChaIbaud]

In favor of reducing the cost of hideout. But not from 10 > 1. Maybe $10mil to $5mil. It still needs to somewhat of a goal to newbs.

I got my hideout gold from Rothschild for some info about a certain country and a certain guild when I was new but that was a ton of money to use. +1 to lowering it. 5 million still seems like a ton to NewBs, even me right now after I gave all my money away when I left so no one could feast.

[not a pirate]

You want more strategy? Oh, why didnt you say so. My thought on that is to have voodoo with more other abilities, you should go look at my post on it.

Stop promoting your other threads in this one, I believe it's already been stated this is a serious thread... Let people find your thread by themselves...

[Haron]

I think the long tech study times are GREAT! This makes only very few having max technologies, and people need to choose which techs to develop. Unlike many other games, this will make players have only a selection of techs, and many only to a modest level. To me, this is much better than games where everyone gets max in every tech as soon as they become "big players" and can afford it.

As for the price of the Hideout: If you can't afford the 10M, then you really can't afford most of what it offers. I think 10M is a nice price. I got my hideout after between one and two months, if I remember correctly. That's not really a long time. Gives the newbies something to stretch for, and look forward to.

[ChaIbaud]

The essential buildings (mansion and marina) combined with the 5M would be less than the 10M, I believe. NewBs can't afford to make banks or goldsmiths so these 2 buildings are what is available to them.

[Lockreed]

I agree that Hideout cost and research times should not be reduced. They are end-game content and should be very difficult to obtain (cost and time).

I also think that techs should only provide benefits, not create new content. This way, everyone has access to all content, but some can do it 5%, 10%, or maybe even 20% better than the average joe after significant investment that may not pay for itself for months or even a year. I believe the current tech list and balancing is good.

I like the techs that were offered as ideas in option B. But I don't think they are the solution to the current goals since they would only apply to the few who can afford it (I also think the numbers should be a little smaller, so as to be just small benefits rather than radical changes, but that only matters if we move forward with the techs).

I think that the proposed changes ro skirmish may have a large effect on the plunder boards, and we should see how that plays out before making too many more major changes. Making the turns cost zero essentially says "hey! Here's free money! Come take it if you're willing to risk a small amount of danger!" So I suspect many will begin to take advantage of it, which will lead to more plunder action...

Also, in regards to skirmishes, why should yhere be a limit to a number of skirnish defends per day? If someone starts skirmishing the same person over and over, it will likely escalate. Essentially, it would provide an option to attack someone without the need for voodoo. Since it requires some work to position fleets where the routes are, it could result in cat-and-mouse games betwen the attacker and defender. There is also a time limit based on how long the fleet is on the skirmish list, essentially protecting the merchant by requiring the attacker to be constantly checking for the target. PLUS the attacker can only skirmish so many times in one day (again, using multiple players to continuously skirmish 1 player would likely escalate to a real conflict...).

Tl;dr: Zero turn cost and reduced danger gain for skirmish is a big (good) deal. Also, the defender of a skirmish has plenty of protections in skirmish list duration, skirmish points limiting attacks, and small loses to not require any skirmish defend limitations (or at least, greatly increased hard limit).

[Lockreed]

One more idea: if skirmish danger gain was reduced to 3, then the dilemma of ship count is reintroduced to (savvy) pirates. Right now, there isn't much reason to NOT run a low ship count if skirmishing be your primary line of work. But if it could be done without being on the plunder boards for more than a few minutes with enough fleets....

[Most Lee Harmless]

-1

[Haron]

Lockreed: I think reducing the danger for skirmishes is not the way to go. When you attack, others should be allowed to attack you back. This should go even for skirmishes, I think. I see your point, though, but I think it would be too powerful.

As for removing the "5 skirmish defence limit" - well, most pirates would not benefit much from this. So, who would? I would, actually. In my line of work, that would give me an extra tool. Being able to skirmish every fleet of a specific target, without any need for voodoo, would be great for certain assignments. Also, it makes skirmish bounties much more powerful. I fear it's too much, though. But increasing it, that's another issue. I think if each attacker has a max of 5 attacks against each target, rather than each target having max 5 defences, that would actually mean a lot. And that number could even be increased, say, by 1 for each level of skrimish tactics, for a maximum of 9 skirmish attacks against any one target. If this is implemented, though, I suggest another technology as well: "Evasive maneouvers". Each level increases your chance of escaping skirmishes by 1%, for a total of 20+20=40% chance of escaping skirmishes.