Ahoy all,

Based on previous discussions here and here we have come up with a suggestion.

1)Gold Coins Plunder (Ransom)
Change #1: Instead of the random 1% to 5% , a standard 1% of total treasury hand will be charged.
Change #2: An extra (Total Number of Ships) * 5 Gold Coins per ship in fleet will be added.

Therefore the rule will become as following:

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a = Lost Fleet's last ordered Ship -> 10% of its base value (shipwright price)
b = 1% of the Lost Player's treasure at hand
c = (Total Number of Ships) * 5 Gold Coins per ship for every ship in the lost fleet when battle begun.
Total Ransom = a + b + c

If the total Ransom is greater than 250,000, it is reduced to 250,000 (maximum Ransom)

(Postponed - A better idea is needed)

2)New Sink Chances

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1 to 10 Ships: 0% Sink Chance (Ships never lose a level)
11 to 25 Ships: 5% Sink Chance
26 to 50 Ships: 10% Sink Chance
51 to 100 Ships: 15% Sink Chance
101 to 150 Ships: 25% Sink Chance
151 to 200 Ships: 33% Sink Chance
201 to 300 Ships: 50% Sink Chance
301 or 400 Ships: 75% Sink Chance
401 or more ships: 100% Sink Chance (Ships always lose a level)


3)New Bonus Plunder: Sink Chance Plunder
Whenever a ship loses a level, the winner of the battle receives 50% of the lost level value.
(Note: This fee is paid by the game and not the player who lost the battle)

The changes will result in a better and fairer system. It is not that the current system is bad, it is that this system is better.

These changes are expected to:
1)Increase strategic options to battle system.
2)Increase number of battles overall.
3)Increase earnings through battles overall.
4)Increase defense options overall.

Specifically, it will solve issues such:
-Defense against Hostile Natives strategy / Losses are controlable
-Increases the number of fleets that can be sufficiently defended
-Increases usefulness of large treasury hand during battles (or makes it meaningful better said)
-Decreases necessity of howker last for large fleets that is the leading strategy right now
-An attacker will have better ideas on what to expect winning when choosing a target


Feel free to post your feedback.

For example:
If you agree, let us know how much time you think it should be allowed before implementing it.
If you want adjustments, let us know of your proposals.
If you disagree, let us know why.

Is that 10% of last ship's base value or 10% of total value with level ups or 10% of total value with level ups and cargo?

or is that Total value of last ship minus (-) 10% of its value?

Base value (shipwright price). The same as it currently is.

Edited above to avoid misunderstanding.

I think there is a slight illogical element to the thinking on this : reducing the maximum loss on a 5mil purse from 250k to 60-70k is not a reason for anyone to decide to carry a bigger purse : rather the opposite, as ones calculations for the optimum purse size dont need to cover the possible 5% plunders anymore : given the new formula would mean that a purse of about 20mil would be reqd to attain a 250k max plunder, why is anyone gonna carry that when 3mil is now enough to cover most eventualities?

I dont see this change promoting the carrying of larger purses, so the notion that it will promote more battles to grab those purses is arguable : it will make ship-stealing raids harder : but just cos we cant steal ships as easily, dont mean we will smack away for such meager returns. And thats for the same reason many dont skirmish : the returns dont justify the effort.

Specifically, it will solve issues such:
-Defense against Hostile Natives strategy / Losses are controlable
-Increases the number of fleets that can be sufficiently defended
-Increases usefulness of large treasury hand during battles (or makes it meaningful better said)
-Decreases necessity of howker last for large fleets that is the leading strategy right now
-An attacker will have better ideas on what to expect winning when choosing a target

No offence, in my eyes you are helping out Merchant's a awful lot - I know you are trying to make both sides balanced, but surely - Decreasing the Plunder profits will decrease number of battles do to not making as much profit? As who will actually carry more gold coins?

The main thing I don't like is that the factor of chance has been removed. I love numbers, math and statistics, but it should not be able to calculate everything down to the last coin. I understand that 1 - 5 % is a big gap, but I actually don't see it as a problem. If we want to lower the amount plundered, the percentage could as an example be 0.5 - 2.0 %.

I don't like that one could calculate precisely the income from 3 attacks and thereafter 1 loss to be 100 % sure of profit. The most people do this already, but you could end up getting 3 x 1 % and get plundered for 5 % and end up with a negative profit. That is how it should be. If your margin is too small, you might loose due to pure bad luck.

I can't imagine a pirate spotting a lonely merchant, fetching his abacus and calculate his exact profit to make the risk of a loss non existing.

Besides that, even though I am the least piratey merchant that has ever existed, I don't think lowering the amount of gold plundered is the direction this game should move in. The seas should carry a risk.

I agree with gunder.
There should be some random element to the plunder.
But I will not fight him for the least piratey merchant title.

@Danik
There is a valid argument to carry a bigger purse as now a bigger purse will considerably increase durability of your defence.
In the same time, it open a way for players to hold many ships without worrying of losing them so easily as before.
Right now, the amount of players holding more than 200 ships is agonizingly low. We expect an increase of players with fleets around 200 ships to increase dramatically: a 200% increase is expected.

You are right, if one thing that these changes do, is to make ship capturing harder. Think it another way though, if you have 10 players and only 1 of them has more than 200 ships how good it is for pirates and the game? This is exactly our situation as only 10% of the ACTIVE playerbase chooses to run fleets around 200 ships or more. The rest 90% plays daily with fleets that contain a lot less than this figure.

For those holding few ships, the new changes will not be of any difference.

@Pirate Robets
You need to see the whole picture here. It is all about targets. Many players grew tired of losing their big fleets or being targeted for having them. It is currently too difficult to defend big fleets. Not that this changes it dramatically but it improves the situation. Our hope here is to increase ships numbers and treasuries at hand. When this happens, current system will be far superior for pirates than the current one as there will be more potential targets than now.

Btw:

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Total Treasure at Hand:    692M

This has solely been achieved by removing the Top Treasure at hand player from demographics. We expect it to grow considerably with these changes. This figure is very important as it shows the maximum available loot in terms of gold coins in Avonmora. We need this figure as high as possible. And players with many ships, will carry more gold.

I will list one more reason as to why this system is better for pirates. It makes ship stealing worse when attacking a prepared player. But how about an unprepared player? Or players running with less than 10 ships? Not to mention inactives as right now, there are several thousands of players out there with 5 to 10 ships. With this formula, plundering these will be easier as the last 1.5M lasts less than what a 1.5M lasts now.

Add to this a new Pirate tactic similar to skirmish that will allow pirates to harass such players (Dunno how we could call this tactic, perhaps Expose. You will get Expose points similar to Skirmish points and you will be able to seek and expose fleets of players that have 10 ships or less. I will post about this idea shortly)

@Gunder
We add a new random element though and this is sink chance plunder. The random element should not count against defensive preparations. At least we are ready to try this approach at the very least. We want more big fleets out there after all.

It is worth adding that it is the FIRST time that we tweak the game in a way to allow larger fleets. Up to now, we were mostly adding features to limit this (perhaps the second,if you count the Captains plunder update).

Calculating precisely is not that easy and attackers have weapons up to their sleeve to ruin these estimations (ie Booty Master). Still, I agree that they can calculate now in a better way but I think this is better for all.

The risk is still out there. If you work our tool that I gave to the discussion topic, you will see that the big differences are only spotted at 2 cases:
-Players running with 1.5M or less at hand get considerably less defends.
-Players are able to add more defense durability for their coin.

This 1-5% random effects tend to average itself intensively if you add up all attacks. For a 20M hand, you will almost always get the same number of defends (236) so it is not as random as we initially thought. The problem here is not the randomness but the large % of treasure at hand.

Captain Jack wrote:@Pirate Robets
You need to see the whole picture here. It is all about targets. Many players grew tired of losing their big fleets or being targeted for having them. It is currently too difficult to defend big fleets. Not that this changes it dramatically but it improves the situation. Our hope here is to increase ships numbers and treasuries at hand. When this happens, current system will be far superior for pirates than the current one as there will be more potential targets than now.

Btw:

Code: Select all

Total Treasure at Hand:    692M

This has solely been achieved by removing the Top Treasure at hand player from demographics. We expect it to grow considerably with these changes. This figure is very important as it shows the maximum available loot in terms of gold coins in Avonmora. We need this figure as high as possible. And players with many ships, will carry more gold.

I will list one more reason as to why this system is better for pirates. It makes ship stealing worse when attacking a prepared player. But how about an unprepared player? Or players running with less than 10 ships? Not to mention inactives as right now, there are several thousands of players out there with 5 to 10 ships. With this formula, plundering these will be easier as the last 1.5M lasts less than what a 1.5M lasts now.

Add to this a new Pirate tactic similar to skirmish that will allow pirates to harass such players (Dunno how we could call this tactic, perhaps Expose. You will get Expose points similar to Skirmish points and you will be able to seek and expose fleets of players that have 10 ships or less. I will post about this idea shortly)

Hi, hi!

I know the first few sentences were not targeted at me - I do agree, I use to steal Ships/Caps quiet a lot ,however I do not agree with you that its too hard to defend big fleets - In terms it is quiet easy, all you would need is a strategic mind.. The Voodoo is 20% Whilst the mind is 80%...

Whilst regarding total treasure at hand yes, it has increased the Total Treasure at Hand by 192 M currently : I still feel the gap of 50 M is too big, but it is finding the " Lower Defensive Players " that hold great amounts... I still feel it needs changing to 25 M+ for it to appear: The " Bigger Players " such as Black Sparrow, Sir Henry Morgan and what not hold quiet a big % of this - What I am getting at, is even I do not dare to attack such giants. Regarding them having more ships = more gold... Not true, the " Better/Strategic " players know how much to carry , such as 250,000 per 50 ships... Yes, I will really go out and plunder those with 5-10 ships, it sounds so Profitable!

No offence, I class myself as one of the only " Active Pirates " doing raids at the moment , yes they are smaller pirates ; But you do not see them Raiding Merchants nor Privateers ; In my opinion , everyone is happy with the Current % of Plunder, but... Up to you...

Roberts wrote:In my opinion , everyone is happy with the Current % of Plunder, but... Up to you...

Captain Jack wrote:The changes will result in a better and fairer system. It is not that the current system is bad, it is that this system is better.

@Everyone
In my effort to ease the concerns that you all have voiced so far, I want to remind to you all that if things seem not to work out,we can always tweak again later.

I would like more feedback though as the way it appears now in the public forums, it is like we want it and the players do not.

I personally do not find this as a big change. I see this as a small correcting tweak.