Standard Plunder Rate

[Sebena]

It will be easier if you nerf down plunder rate to 1-3%. Easier for newer players and us who are bad with math. And I agree with that point that noone should lose all while they are asleep but that's why we enter in guilds and if someone chose guild who is not helping that's their problem as there is so many helpfull guilds out there and I doubt that someone would lit someone up with few howkers and sloops. so persons whom are litten should be aware till then that guild is not helping and should switch guilds.

[Mr. Rothschild]

If we want to be deepest sincere here, what we are after are three objectives:

1)Players should lose less than they do now
This is relative to time and time only. The current possible losses are considered too high. A player can lose all his fleet in short time. Sure, it requires efford but the damage involved make warfare a hateful practice. How many times defenders made you feel a really bad guy for attacking them? How sinister it is nowadays to cast a danger-adding voodoo to another? This is due to the big loss involved first and foremost. This will plunder rate change this? Probably not immediately but in the long run, traders will care less for getting ambushed.
At the same time, we do not want to make the attackers earn less.

2)Players should not lose everything while they sleep
It is nearly impossible for anyone to defend while he sleeps. Only very active guilds can play a role but still this era will soon pass as guilds are becoming more and more organized. Soon, even active guilds will be forced to watch when an organized attack comes in. What we want, is that if the losing player has to watch, then he must do so. Losing while sleeping is not good.

3)We want more battles
For this, more income has to be generated through fleets. If fleeting business is too risky, people will avoid it.

These being said, we do not really care about the flat rate. 1-3% random can still work for us. What we do think that will help the objectives above, is a less tight relationship between plunder amount and treasury at hand. Whatever helps to this cause and the simplest it is, the better for all.

To make it count for all and also ensure that plunderers will not see less but more income, we have also proposed a change to the sink chance ( viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1823 ). This change will allow traders to maintain larger fleets with less losses. It will help plunderers to gain more and hopefully, with this change, it will allow big players to engage in combat more frequently than they do now.

Remember, we have Ship Specialization ahead. All the rest features, diplomacy, academy etc, they all sound good but they are not really taking the game to a greatness level we desire. Ship specialization can do it. And for specialization to play a role, we need to change some of the plunder rules first. We are however open to your discussion; you play this game, you pay this game, your feedback will play a big role in our final decision on how to step forward.

I am on board with this logic 100%. Pirates will want to pirate for the simple fact they can earn so much more through winning battles and sinking ships. Many large merchants are going to want to increase their ship count as they begin to lose less from plunders and feel more secure. To me, this is a revolving door inevitably leading to battles and raids being taken much less personal. One will feed the other and expand many aspects of the game.

+1 to this and the new proposed ship sink chart.

[Roberts]

I agree with Number 2, Wanting more battles in Avonmora to try to balance out pirate/merchant side ; But part of the fun for me is waking up to find my fleet being plundered... Its part of the game... Yes, they are ways to still plunder when it turns to 1-3% ; But , its part of the game surely, getting less from merchants will decrease the number of pirates? Just saying...

Roberts.

[Sebena]

If it is reduced to 1-3% and new ship sink chance of attacker getting ammount of lvl cost would mean that plundering won't suffer actually it will grow

[Roberts]

If it is reduced to 1-3% and new ship sink chance of attacker getting ammount of lvl cost would mean that plundering won't suffer actually it will grow

Nope 1-3% means less profit per raid... Whilst ship sink chance, yes that is true, but not with the 1-3%

[Sebena]

I know what it means but again implementing new formula actually destroys chance for oporttunist players like myself as we will have much harder chance of getting ships without of use voodoo while reduced plunder will make it little harder but still higher possibility. But also I am pretty sure if it is reduced on 1-3 % ppl will carry more money I know I will probably.

[Roileon]

If we want to be deepest sincere here, what we are after are three objectives:

1)Players should lose less than they do now
This is relative to time and time only. The current possible losses are considered too high. A player can lose all his fleet in short time. Sure, it requires efford but the damage involved make warfare a hateful practice. How many times defenders made you feel a really bad guy for attacking them? How sinister it is nowadays to cast a danger-adding voodoo to another? This is due to the big loss involved first and foremost. This will plunder rate change this? Probably not immediately but in the long run, traders will care less for getting ambushed.
At the same time, we do not want to make the attackers earn less.

2)Players should not lose everything while they sleep
It is nearly impossible for anyone to defend while he sleeps. Only very active guilds can play a role but still this era will soon pass as guilds are becoming more and more organized. Soon, even active guilds will be forced to watch when an organized attack comes in. What we want, is that if the losing player has to watch, then he must do so. Losing while sleeping is not good.

3)We want more battles
For this, more income has to be generated through fleets. If fleeting business is too risky, people will avoid it.

These being said, we do not really care about the flat rate. 1-3% random can still work for us. What we do think that will help the objectives above, is a less tight relationship between plunder amount and treasury at hand. Whatever helps to this cause and the simplest it is, the better for all.

To make it count for all and also ensure that plunderers will not see less but more income, we have also proposed a change to the sink chance ( viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1823 ). This change will allow traders to maintain larger fleets with less losses. It will help plunderers to gain more and hopefully, with this change, it will allow big players to engage in combat more frequently than they do now.

Remember, we have Ship Specialization ahead. All the rest features, diplomacy, academy etc, they all sound good but they are not really taking the game to a greatness level we desire. Ship specialization can do it. And for specialization to play a role, we need to change some of the plunder rules first. We are however open to your discussion; you play this game, you pay this game, your feedback will play a big role in our final decision on how to step forward.

I am on board with this logic 100%. Pirates will want to pirate for the simple fact they can earn so much more through winning battles and sinking ships. Many large merchants are going to want to increase their ship count as they begin to lose less from plunders and feel more secure. To me, this is a revolving door inevitably leading to battles and raids being taken much less personal. One will feed the other and expand many aspects of the game.

+1 to this and the new proposed ship sink chart.

Again, +1

[Captain Jack]

Lowering the percentage is not enough. It will make it far too hard to take anyone's ships. It needs to be combined with a stable loot of a few thousands.
This will make the battles required for the last 1.5Millions less, average bounty higher and protection cheaper. Win win situation for all.

All except the opportunists, as you well said. These are the ones mainly affected. I am not sure how many people play this role though and most importantly for how long. Not only how long they like this role but for how long they are allowed this role.


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Another formula that could work is the following:

Gold Coins Plunder = 1% of the total gold at hand + 5% for every fleet ship base value (shipwright default price)
If a ship's 5% base value is higher than 10k, then 10k are assumed instead. (It validates for MoWs, SoLs, Flag Galleons and Large Frigates)

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It's a bit complicated for my liking but it has strategic potential. It takes into consideration expensive ships that might be used as escorts in a trade fleet. We do not want this escort ship to increase the value too much, this is why we included a limit.

Now, this 1-3% you mention as an acceptable solution, it creates huge differences.
Here is an example of a player that has 40 fleets of 5 LMMs in each (a total of 200 ships)

At 5M hand:
1% - 143 battles or about 7 hours durability before starting to lose ships (under the effects of 3x Fuigitive of Justice)
2% (the average for a 1-3% scenario) - 99 battles or about 5 hours
3% (worst case scenario) - 78 battles or about 4 hours

At 10M hand:
1% - 200 or 10 hours
2% - 130 or 6.5
3% - 100 battles or 5h

At 15M hand:
1% = 235 Battles or 12 hours
2% = 150 battles or 8 hours
3% = 120 battles or 6 hours

At 20M hand:
1% - 262 or 14 hours
2% - 171 or 9 hours
3% - 140 or 7 hours

If we estimate that the average sleep is 8hours then we need about 12hours protection to be certain. To achieve this with this formula, a 200-ship player should have at least 15M at hand. If we use the 1-3% in the place of 1%, then he should have about 35M at hand! This is a big difference.

Some mentioned however that it works well now. Only because very determined players, with much aggression and good guild cooperation make it so. Still, or forecast is -as i said above I believe- that such will not necessarily be enough. Let's see the metrics with current system!

We will take the 3% which is the average to 1-5%.

Then we would have:

CURRENT SYSTEM (200 Ships player, 5LMM at each fleet)
At 5M, 106 battles, 6 hours ships protection (before gold coins hits zero)
At 10M,129 battles, 7 hours
At 15M, 149 battles, 8 hours
At 20M 169 battles, 9 hours
and lets not troubleshoot it more, for every 5M added at hand, the player earns a mere 20 battles protection which is enough for barely an hour. In reality, it is less than this.

How current system is anywhere near better than the one we are proposing here? Is this that bad for opportunists? Is guild aid uneeded? It is just more strategic and more fair in my opinion.

Again, the same list with the above formula:

Proposed System (200 Ships player, 5LMM at each fleet)
At 5M, 143 battles, 7 hours
At 10M, 200 battles, 10 hours
At 15M, 235 battles, 12 hours
At 20M 262 battles, 14 hours

Proposed system, is still under discussion of course. We need to determine a good enough formula that is as easily remembered and calculated as above.


Btw, profit for the attacker will be the same at both cases. Only that it will need more time at new system (which however will be rewarded with higher plunder in total due to the proposed sink chance change. In the same time, first hits will be worthwhile for more than just the voodoo caster. See? We took everything in consideration - let us know if not)

[Captain Jack]

I forgot to add that nowadays most run with a howker at tail. Which kind of balances the equation for them.

They endure 9 hours for 5M or 12 hours for 20M (and again for every 5M 1 hour). That's enough for overnight protection and the amount a player loses but it is not fun. No battles, only organized assaults (lighting ups) which end up in voodoo overdoses for those that dared to do it. We are not sure if we want more of this (also, for traders using howker at tail, it is like 10% less income per day or more as howkers are also pretty slow)

[Sebena]

what's wrong with opportunists? we are better than pirates (no offense intended) as real opportunist like myself will attack only when he can gain ship or huge ammount of gold and if someone forgets to leave enough money on them and has huge chance of losing ship due the DP so be it real opportunist will never use voodoo as he doesn't plan he just sees and takes chance. But if you secure someone like this what's the point of guilds then? Wasn't guilds intended to help theirs members I can't see any logic in this. You said yourself you can go with 1-3% so go with that leave us opportunists to our humble profession. We can accept that we'll have less ships to plunder with nerfed plunder income but if you stop us then game becomes monotone as you'll have pirates and traders only we add spice and diversities. I am certain that traders loves us more than pirates and you have strategy there balancing how much money you carry so that you are not interessting for us and yet to have enough to keep pirates at bait.