Brainstorm: Further game improvements
Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2011 9:06 pmGreetings,
The new voodoo system is expected to further improve game mechanisms.
Besides this though, we are in need of perhaps some changes in how plunder targets are generated. Current issue in our perspective is that most players will setup their trade routes to be invisible from other players by putting trade routes that last more than 1 hour per travel. In this way danger rating never exceeds 2 and therefore these fleets cannot be attacked.
With the voodoo system, the particular strategy will be able to be exploited as with specific voodoo cards you will be able to raise target player fleet rating and attack. Till here all fine.
What is not fine is in regards with the new plunder system. Currently, it is hard for weak players to use it at all as there are 2 notable reasons:
A)NPC fleets are too strong
B)Strong players wait to see fleets with rating in order to attack
This makes a weak player uninterested in the feature. For A) the solution is easy; we will improve the algorithm that generates NPC fleets and fleets generated will not be as strong as now.
For B) things are more complicated. As it is now, if you have a strong fleet that can win NPC fleets, you can attack 6 times and in the same time withstand 1 attack (6 attacks * 3 danger per attack =18 danger, but one defense is -18 danger). There can be measured profitability on this if you calculate your losses in cases you lose the defense vs the other player. Fame + gold earned versus potential gold and fame lose.
If the story would end here, all would be fine as till certain points the earnings would be more than losses. However there are two more issues within:
1)Fame and gold earnings are standard. This means that at some point, Patrol will become not a profitable business for strong players (there is a solution that will be provided in time though: more players will mean that the strong players will always have some targets of real players therefore patrol won't be necessary for them anymore anyway).So we can skip this for time being.
2)Ship level loss - As you may already know, when a ship loses a battles there is a small chance this ship will also lose a level (or sunk if it is level 1). This is the worst part of getting attacked in the game right now and does not only affects patrol but also the necessity for everyone to keep their fleets hidden!
So here comes the brainstorming as we seek a solution...
The easy one would be to strip it, but if ships cease to lose a level this would mean that in a personal vendetta against someone, you would lose the opportunity to slowly sink all his ships.
The rest of brainstorming.. I leave to you...
The new voodoo system is expected to further improve game mechanisms.
Besides this though, we are in need of perhaps some changes in how plunder targets are generated. Current issue in our perspective is that most players will setup their trade routes to be invisible from other players by putting trade routes that last more than 1 hour per travel. In this way danger rating never exceeds 2 and therefore these fleets cannot be attacked.
With the voodoo system, the particular strategy will be able to be exploited as with specific voodoo cards you will be able to raise target player fleet rating and attack. Till here all fine.
What is not fine is in regards with the new plunder system. Currently, it is hard for weak players to use it at all as there are 2 notable reasons:
A)NPC fleets are too strong
B)Strong players wait to see fleets with rating in order to attack
This makes a weak player uninterested in the feature. For A) the solution is easy; we will improve the algorithm that generates NPC fleets and fleets generated will not be as strong as now.
For B) things are more complicated. As it is now, if you have a strong fleet that can win NPC fleets, you can attack 6 times and in the same time withstand 1 attack (6 attacks * 3 danger per attack =18 danger, but one defense is -18 danger). There can be measured profitability on this if you calculate your losses in cases you lose the defense vs the other player. Fame + gold earned versus potential gold and fame lose.
If the story would end here, all would be fine as till certain points the earnings would be more than losses. However there are two more issues within:
1)Fame and gold earnings are standard. This means that at some point, Patrol will become not a profitable business for strong players (there is a solution that will be provided in time though: more players will mean that the strong players will always have some targets of real players therefore patrol won't be necessary for them anymore anyway).So we can skip this for time being.
2)Ship level loss - As you may already know, when a ship loses a battles there is a small chance this ship will also lose a level (or sunk if it is level 1). This is the worst part of getting attacked in the game right now and does not only affects patrol but also the necessity for everyone to keep their fleets hidden!
So here comes the brainstorming as we seek a solution...
The easy one would be to strip it, but if ships cease to lose a level this would mean that in a personal vendetta against someone, you would lose the opportunity to slowly sink all his ships.
The rest of brainstorming.. I leave to you...
