Ahoy all,

It has recently came to our attention that there is a bigger problem than we thought, in the formula that awards fame based on gold coins earned/spent.

Here are the current details:
-The game adds fame when the player earns gold with one of the following ways:
1.By winning naval Battles.
2.By selling resources at the market.
3.By earning Porter Gold

However, in the game tutorials is mentioned:

You earn fame points by using gold and winning naval battles!

Which is incorrect.

At some extend, we knew that not all actions are covered and we wanted to get time to fix this. Today, we realized that not only we are not covering all part, but the formula works differently than we thought.

In the early game, this was too little of a problem and this is why it has been left unattended. Nowadays though, it provides no fame boost to Gold Earners/spenders which has positive and negative results for them, results however that should not happen. It is unrealistic for example to have the most powerful accounts in the game outside top 100.

This needs to be corrected before the Skirmish feature or shortly after. We will let the players propose solutions for a few days. By the time the solution is decided, we will allow 10 (15 max) days before the solution is implemented.

This means that you should start incorporating this change into your strategies already as we estimate that we will have the tweak at the end of April.

To begin with the solution discussion, we believe that the fame award should be given when gold is spent and not when gold is earned. The reasons are:
-The gold spent function is used everywhere so it will allow quick implementation.
-It will allow for true fame to be recorded as with Banks and Treasures it will be hard to define "earnings".
-It allows greater flexibility for a player to control the fame bonus he gets.

We also need to provide a formula if we go with the proposed solution.
-The current formula (for the earnings above) is 1 fame point for every 100 gold coins earned. This might need to change. With this metric, it means that when you build a level 10 SoL, you will earn about 150k to 170k fame.

Please use your best judgement before you comment here. Your participation is highly welcome. We need a very fair solution to this. Regard this tweak as a very critical option for the game.

Basing fame gain on action undertaken that improve a players account, such as the spending/earning of gold in trading, in building ships and hide-outs, etc seems to me to be the best indicator of a players 'standing'.

The fame gain/loss in battle does not really work in the same way, being far more of a lottery : hit a high fame player, win the battle and gain 100k's at a time, whilst a series of successful hits on a low fame player gains little fame at all even though that player may otherwise be a substantial one.

The two elements do contradict one another and so a players 'fame' provides no real guide at all to their standing in the game.

Add in the various legitimate ways to manipulate fame : such as voodoo to reduce your level or steal it from others to increase ones own and the fog gets thicker.

I'd suggest the main plank for fame gain should be the first: building up the account with ships, trade and hide-out buildings. I think this kind of fame should be 'sticky' and harder to reduce than 'battle fame'.

The second plank, 'battle fame' should be made less capricious ; remove the % element and make it more reliant on the type of battle won/lost : this would mean making the fleet types more relevant in the calculation : a war-fleet defeating a howker fleet should mean little to no fame gained or lost : so, more of a 'flat-rate' calculation : say, a fixed amount won or lost on the outcome of the battle, then modified by the relative strengths of the opposing fleets.

This would mean the only way to lose your fame gained from expanding your account is to lose lots of battles..or use voodoo. Then the only way to gain high fame is to win lots of battles, or grow your account... or use voodoo.

My view, a much fairer system, and far more accurate in denoting a players standing in the game, whilst still leaving some ways to self-modify matters by use of curses.

Edited as above post defines the problems and possible manipulations to make it better and more representative of true player power and achievements.

+1 on Daniks suggestion

For me agreeing with Danik is about as pleasant as listening to Vogon poetry. But, I believe he is right in his assessment.
+1 to Daniks suggestions

Kart wrote:For me agreeing with Danik is about as pleasant as listening to Vogon poetry. But, I believe he is right in his assessment.
+1 to Daniks suggestions

And what's wrong with Vogon poetry?

Ah freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me,
As plurdled gabbleblotchits,
On a lurgid bee,
That mordiously hath blurted out,
Its earted jurtles,
Into a rancid festering confectious organ squealer.
Now the jurpling slayjid agrocrustles,
Are slurping hagrilly up the axlegrurts,
And living glupules frart and slipulate,
Like jowling meated liverslime,
Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turling dromes,
And hooptiously drangle me,
With crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or else I shall rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,
See if I don't.

See, perfectly pleasant word-smithing....

So it seems to me, based on Danik's contribution that we agree on the fame gain per gold spent formula. That's plank A.

For plank B, you suggest that we change the way fame is won/loss through battles. Similar ideas have been thrown before. We need a formula to transform these ideas into something the game and players can understand easily.

Sorry I am not a maths genius but could you not use a flat rate formula for arguments sake 10% of the losers fame then make an adjustment based on the difference in fleet values and average fleet speeds, say +/-1% for each 500k value or part there of and +/-1% for each step of speed difference (very slow to very fast)

as a rough example:
defender 5 howkers (speed Slow) 4 X LVL 1, 1 X LVL 2 TOTAL FLEET VALUE £60,000

attacker 5 sloops of war ( speed Fast) 1 x lvl 10 4 x lvl 5 Total fleet value £1,295,000

so we start at 10% and for each speed change reduce by 1% 2 steps so 2% reduction so loser only loses 8% then reduced further through fleet value difference £1,235,000 so thats another 3 x 1% reduction for a total reduction of 5% so the winner only gets 5% fame not 10.

for a reversed situation

defender 1 lvl 10 Frigate, 3 x Large merchants lvl 1 1 Large merchant LVL 2 £ 4,980,750 (average speed slow)

Attacker 1 x lvl 10 brigs of war 1 x lvl 5 brig of war 2 x lvl 1 howkers and a lvl 2 howker £3,710,000 (average speed slow)

in this case attacker wins average fleet speed is equal so 10% fame but the fleet values mean a 3% addition for a total gain of 13% fame

My suggested formula is :

per battle : the basic fame gain/loss is 10k (exact amount is open to debate)

each fleet is assessed and a relative strength is calculated : a fair measure would be the total number of cannon in each : a further modifier could be relative ship types : so, for example a war-fleet attacking a pure trade fleet would add a factor to the calculation, perhaps +1 added to the cannon ratio.

thus if Fleet A has 120 cannon in total, and Fleet B has 40, the ratio would be 3:1

Thus, Fleet A can now gain 10k /3 (3.33k) if it wins : but a loss would be 10k *3 (30k)

Fleet B can gain 10k *3 (30k) for a win, or lose 10k /3 (3.33k)for a defeat.

next example : Fleet A has 40 cannon and is a war-fleet : Fleet B is an unarmed trade fleet.

The assumption is made that all ships retain a single cannon : so, fleet B has 5 trade ships and thus has a strength of 5 cannon.

Now our ratio is 8:1 : if we use the ship type modifier ; it gets +1 added ( warfleet v traders) and become 9:1

Thus, Fleet A can now gain 10k /9 (1.11k) if it wins : but a loss would be 10k *9 (90k)

Fleet B can gain 10k *9 (90k) for a win, or lose 10k /9 (1.11k)for a defeat.

Needs some work and some checking to see where the extremes lie : but it would make 4xsotl fleet hits on unarmed trade fleets rather pointless for fame gain/loss.

edit : there is no 'transfer' of fame between combatants as such as in present system : fame is acquired or lost purely on the basis of the outcome of the battle.

Danik's suggestion regarding cannon count used to generate fame through battle is a good idea, though i'm worried he is looking at only one part of what could/should be a much larger forumla. i have suggestions which i feel will ultimately round out the overall picture.

first however, i'd like to restart discussion about why the fame issue is problematic, beyond the 'lottery system' which Danik has thus far eloquently and accurately critiqued.

The 25 fame 'player protection' is routinely used to shield the largest accounts in the game from attack. the intent of the system, as i understand it, is to allow players to go on vacation and not have massive gains undone while they take a vacation from the game. this protection space, as well as other parts of the fame formula is exploited by large merchant fleets to gain this protection as part of a passive defense strategy. Most players in the game, if attacked will get a fleet of 10-20 traders hit, and still have sufficient fame to not be in protection, so they're still vulnerable.

The largest fleets in the game, when attacked are on a scale much larger. the sheer size of the fleets means that a player with even a relatively large fame count will drop into protection in the first wave of attack. The best example I've ever seen took a player from the number 3 fame ranking, to protection in a single FFJ raid.

Most of the players act rather benevolent in this capacity, but when a player does lean on this protection it sucks ALOT of fun out of the game. best example, giant account dumps the change out of his pockets to take a port from an enemy nation, then starts sending over 'haha you can't do anything' messages after the retaliation raid drops them into protection with only a tiny, measured fraction of gold lost from their daily income.

when this happens, they're right, they have all the time in the world to replace the lost levels on their ships, change positions, whatever else. they can even use the party cards from this position to make enormous sums of gold while staying within protection... which brings me to my next point.

the formula doesn't incorporate gold gain... this one is less personally offensive. more.. silly. player is generating several million gold, can and does for several consecutive days, with the only fame gain coming from the wife feature. there has been at least one player specifically that i have observed who spent Weeks at a time running his fleets at high danger, then the moment the update happened, he would take sufficient hits to get rid of his spousal fame, and then boom right back to running hot fleets all day. this play was incredibly smart, but more then just a little exploitative of the fame protection get up. heh, the infamous-est billionaire's of avonmora.

which brings me to my suggestion. 1% of net assets per day mathed into the overall fame count according to the current formula used for $ spent.

furthermore, sort the party card issue, by including gold generated as a way to increase fame

i think that's enough for one post.