Battles System / Plunder Revision

[Sir Henry Morgan]

If I understand this correctly, the concept of ship stealing will be harder, but gc rewards will (or should) go up exponentially. These funds should also come from the loser, not the game as techs are generating swag (this adds to the inflation effect you mentioned earlier.) This will change the idea of ship stealing for profit to more of a 'personal' or in-your-face accomplishment. Ship stealing would be more of a war tactic rather than a plunder tactic, and if values are raised, it becomes something worth a like response.

As Shadowood mentioned, pirates do tend to go solo - this is true, and where the glory of sea battling used to reside, not in team efforts. If turns were uncapped, as they once were, glorious feuds and battles may come again.

Another thought I have always had, and a bit off topic: a ship without cannon aboard will have a great issue resisting one with cannon - ships/fleets without cannon should be much more easily captured regardless. And whether skirmish or plunder, the second the crew gets to port, they disembark - they didn't sign up for combat! The fleet stands idle until a new crew is in place.

If ship/fleet does have cannon and loses, it should be subject to damage and greater sink chance, as well as a capture chance.

[not a pirate]

-1,110

What's the point of removing the "Overall Max Plunder Cap" and reducing the maximum cap per plunder from someone's treasury by 60%? Seems I'd rather have the current max plunder cap of 250k instead of, like in your example, being "eligible" to receive 400k and only getting 150k. Those numbers just don't add up to make such a change reasonable. By your new suggestion, I'd be out 150k under the current system and 250k under this new system.

Seems that this just complicates taking ships for pirates with less ships- and for what? Slowly but surely everything is stacking up for one side of the game while another has been grossly neglected for many years-- and it's not the sides you'd figure in a game named "Pirate's Glory" sadly.

"An ambushed fleet with less than 20 danger, cannot be attacked by the same fleet twice within 10 hours." Why is this even a thing? I see problems in the entirety of the suggestion- many of which Shadowood glossed over in his post. This line, however, elevates the worry over this suggestion exponentially to me.

One of my fleets cannot attack one specific fleet, no matter what voodoo I cast or resources expended, more than twice a day? If we are being reasonable with play times and stuff, this would mean for the average PG player in all likelihood can only get one hit in a day with Ambushes-- this would create a ton of problems. For instance, Disfavor is used to double the effectiveness of your Ambush by allowing two hits before the fleet is dropped. Disfavor wouldn't even be able to be an option in this instance because you'd be able to hit once and then you're done for 10 hours unless you pull out another fleet.

This isn't even taking into account the emergency kits- one hit per fleet on one other specific fleet a day- and that fleet could have 12 emergency kits. I understand *MAYBE* if you don't want ship stealing to be as simple as it is, but making is nearly impossible to do is definitely not the path the game should go down. Instead of this feature, I'm sure any of the other highly discussed and sought after features would be more warmly welcomed. This suggestion has bits and pieces that I agree with, but the negatives, oh so many there are, strongly outweigh any possible positives coming out of it.

I agree with what Dman said also. The profits of the majority of the playerbase have been made immune to almost all external control- to an extent, this is necessary. The extent of which is sits currently, however, is extremely overtuned.

Also, CJ, you stated this would "increase the chances of ultra rewards on well planned attacks on unprepared, lesser prepared players." -- Wow, so we get to drive more new players out as they would be the only ones with the lack of resources to make hitting them viable and not a waste of time/turns/gold/cards/etc.????

You stated that there is a chance for new income, referring to the % looted from the emergency kits, and that this would be "higher value than current plunder now." This point is completely irrelevant with your current example, I seriously doubt that with a plunder cap of 100k any of us would be able to achieve something higher than possible in the past or present. Especially if levels are harder to take in battle.

TL;DR-
Lowering plunder cap by 60%? -10
Fleet #1 cannot be attacked by Fleet #2 more than ONCE in ten hours-- do I even need to say anything? -100
"increase the chances of ultra rewards on well planned attacks on unprepared, lesser prepared players" - Most likely meaning those less knowledgeable about how to prepare or those lacking the resources to prepare more and more -- -1,000

[Banger]

This is the dumbest shit ever. First you don't code shit into the game for ages then you come along with this rubbish. Go crawl back under your rock.

[DezNutz]

Banger. Do not take this as me thinking the idea presented is good, but I think you are looking at this in the wrong light.

First take notice that this a General Discussion Thread, not a Suggestion. There is a stark difference. Discussions are meant to spark ideas and discussion in regards to a particular point or thought. Suggestions are thought out ideas intended to be implemented.

CJ doesn't have all the ideas or answers. These topics are to spark discussion, see if an idea can form or to address potential problems or points. Simply asking for input doesn't always work. Sometimes the only way to get the ball moving is to toss out an absolutely insane idea that on its face would never be implemented to see if it can evolve into something tangible or a worthy idea is brought forth in the discussion. Bad ideas can actually spawn good ideas.

Please keep this in mind.

[The Lamb]

I like the idea of getting more people to float more and more fleets

Danger doesn't really matter ------- Just field 5 very strong fleets and some do what ever they want because they dont care about the danger. They could use a strong fleet for attack after attack all the way through all their turns and any turns they get from others.

What if danger acted as a sliding scale for fleet effectiveness. With no danger, the fleet attacks and defends at full strength but the higher the danger, the lower the effectiveness of attacking and defending. this would make people not want super high danger per fleet as they would easily be able to be plundered. Call it fatigue or war wariness that decreases the effectiveness the higher the danger, but the answer to it would be that people would need more fleets. Look how expensive officers get to keep traders from getting to big, just like officers costs act as a trader speed break, this would act as a 5 fleet fighter speed break.

I would see something like every attack after the (n-th), fatigue would start reducing effectiveness of attack and defense 5% down to 20%.

Oh, and i still would love to see a tech line for pirates only that is only in effect when Flying the Jolly Roger.

Thoughts?

[Haron]

This suggestion contains many points. It is supposed to be a completely new battle system. I could go through each bullet point separately, and perhaps at one point I will, but for now, I will limit myself to a couple of comments and a few questions.

What overall direction are you trying to take the game in, CJ?
What are you trying to achieve with this suggestion? Why do you wan these changes?

Comments: It seems to me that this will be very bad for pirates. Very. And "making it easier to hit back" as well. Which of course makes pirates less reluctant to attack in the first place. Reducing the max plunder cap is a very, very bad move. If anything, this should be REMOVED COMPLETELY! No cap. If a player carries 100M, I should be able to steal 3% of those 100M. 100k per attack? Really? That's nothing. Skirmish will be better. And minumum 10k? That only means pirates will lose far more from retaliation. As it is right now, I am strongly opposed to this suggestion. This makes it both harder and less profitable to attack others. I want there to be more incentives for combat (and I have plenty of suggestions in this regard, if this was the way you wanted the game to evolve). This suggestion is another step towards the game becoming another "building game". Build income stuff, get income, use that to build more income stuff, repeat. Infighting reduced to almost zero.

As for the "combat system", I don't see any reason why this should be important. Better ships will defeat poorer ships. Easy. Yes, I know and understand how the combat system works in detail. No, I don't need to know that, because it's not important. And I don't see any reason why it SHOULD be important. Fighting is not about a single fleet vs fleet attack. Fighting is about multiple attacks. At it's very simplest form, it's about lighting up all trade fleets of a target and plundering them for gold. Any single attack is not important here. What matters is the consequences of the attack as a whole. What did it cost (in terms of turns and voodoo, retaliation and other things)? What was earned? How much was the target hurt? What setup was needed to achieve this? In a slightly more advanced form, it's about trying to steal a ship. While actually just stealing a ship may be "easy", it can be insanely expensive. Stealing a ship - with a profit - is a whole other story. That is only possible against people with stupid setups. And even then, the extreme alarm system available to guild members makes it very tricky. In even more advanced forms, attacks is about complex ways to reduce the abilities of players or a guild to defend themselves over time, trying to create windows of opportunity, cooperating with multiple other players with plans and contingencies and contingencies within contingencies. Single fleet vs fleet battles matters not at all. It's the larger picture. Outcomes of one "plunder attack" - that is, the total result when lighting up a player and attacking him, or trying to steal his ships - after everything is considered - THAT is what matters.

[Zephore]

Yeah, no, don't like this.

It seems to limit even more.
Sure, some of the points seems useful such as ''remove the max plunder cap'' - but to reduce this?

Rather keep the current system.

[Leo]

I don’t like where this is going. The issues at hand don’t seem as big as they are made to be

The problem isn’t this. Have you seen how every USA player runs their fleets?

Why is it that every single player there basically runs 4 SOTL and 1 cutter fleets? Seriously?

The problem isn’t the risk, the problem is how hard it is and how risky it is to TAKE them.

Each of those players runs over 30m on hand to protect these monsters, and they are always online to watch each other’s backs (I’ve tested this.)

And now we want to give them more protection?

I strongly disagree. the issue is backwards from what the real problem is.

There isn’t an issue where you make it to be. It isn’t a problem. The problem, is how it isn’t risky to run fleets that large when you have people watching your back.

I’m on dmanwuzhere’s side with this. This is pirates glory.

#getridofplundergapsaltogether

+100

[Haron]

This is the dumbest shit ever. First you don't code shit into the game for ages then you come along with this rubbish. Go crawl back under your rock.

While I disagree with the proposal as well, I think this is a disrespectful way to address CJ. Or anyone else, for that matter. This is not how we should discuss issues.

I know that CJ cares about the game and us players. I know he tries to improve the game. Unfortunately, what would be an "improvement" varies depending on who you ask. So it is not an easy task CJ has. And I appreciate his efforts to try to make the game better, even if I disagree with this proposal. Had I had more time, I'd have done the proper thing, and given a thorough analysis of the proposal and the consequences I foresee. Alas, I don't have that time. Not now, anyway. So I only stated briefly why I think it is a bad idea. While trying to stay civil, and still having deep respect for CJ and his efforts.

[Shadowood]

I like the idea of getting more people to float more and more fleets

Danger doesn't really matter ------- Just field 5 very strong fleets and some do what ever they want because they dont care about the danger. They could use a strong fleet for attack after attack all the way through all their turns and any turns they get from others.

What if danger acted as a sliding scale for fleet effectiveness. With no danger, the fleet attacks and defends at full strength but the higher the danger, the lower the effectiveness of attacking and defending. this would make people not want super high danger per fleet as they would easily be able to be plundered. Call it fatigue or war wariness that decreases the effectiveness the higher the danger, but the answer to it would be that people would need more fleets. Look how expensive officers get to keep traders from getting to big, just like officers costs act as a trader speed break, this would act as a 5 fleet fighter speed break.

I would see something like every attack after the (n-th), fatigue would start reducing effectiveness of attack and defense 5% down to 20%.

Oh, and i still would love to see a tech line for pirates only that is only in effect when Flying the Jolly Roger.

Thoughts?

Danger is a very big deal. Not sure a debuff to your fleet with high danger is a good idea. I would actually add a metric to the game like "Notorious". High danger would add to this metric. They higher your Notorious level you unlock buffs as a Priate/Privateer.

Danger is a big deal. Those who run it up are either careless and unknowning or they are almost untouchable.... almost.