[Postponed] Proposed Plunder Bounty Rules

[Juicypotato]

Love this idea. Make the ships easier to steal!

[Roberts]

Love this idea. Make the ships easier to steal!

Not like you will be getting loads this year though, right?

[Slindur]

I apologize for going off topic in my previous post. I do think that the mentioned changes are good. Thanks Capt D for some good leg work.

Slindur

[Captain Jack]

We cannot agree in the dev team for the gold coins plunder formula change.

The official statement is that for the reasons below:
-Too drastic change for minor improvements.
-The new formula will create Intense problems to newcomers.
-Proposed formula must be simplistic.


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I really have no ideas right now as my personal suggestions for tweaking it by using total ships number has been remarked as too complicated - something that I agreed as well. We need to come up with something new.

Sink Chance change is not affected but it will be delayed till we reach a final decision on the gold coins plunder.

[Hawk]

a = 1-5% of lost player's treasury at hand
b = Random ship in lost player's fleet -> 10% of its base value (shipwright price)

Total Ransom = a + b

If the total Ransom is greater than 150,000, it is reduced to 150,000 (maximum Ransom)


Normal talk:
Make the ransomed ship random, and lower the max plunder amount. I think.. that makes having more gold worth it while not really changing anything for newer players.



*Disclamer*
Numbers were estimated. I did no math.. I hate mate.. #Pirate Life

[Most Lee Harmless]

or

a= 2-4% of purse

b= total ship build value of fleet (shipwrights price) / number of ships in fleet

ransom = a+b with a hard cap of 200k (plus any advance piracy bonus)

As new players tend not to run big ships but small ship fleets, plunder value will almost always be low : those running high value fleets will need to carry more gold to cover plunder loss, thus encouraging more hits on them, but, harder to collect.

[Greythorn]

@Danik +1

[Greythorn]

In support of Danik finer talking point, let me tell you a tell ..

So listn’ here gents, grab yea a chair, tap ‘ole Sir Henry’s Rum and lend me ye ear,

I was workin me howker fleet on the Thorakas – Caspian run. Twas a beautiful day with the wind at my back and I had just passed the Southern Caspain Horn; coming up on Whitefish Bay and lo and behold, what do me spy.

Tis one of CDV’s battle fleets and he has snaggered him a right mighty prize. He has caught Pirate Roberts napping in the bay and cornered his whole fleet.
Now, me being a curious sort, I wanted to watch the show. So I ease up into the bay wear I can hear CDV and Roberts hagglin like two ole fish wives over last weeks catch.

“But DaVinci, I only have few hundred coins in me chest and that old tailing Sloop aint worth much” Roberts said, “You be asking too much for ransoming this fleet”

Now CDV, he be a shrewd trader that one. I believe he could convince a fish to give up it’s scales, jump in a pan and cook itself right up.

So DaVinci turns a sharp eye on Roberts and with a wry grin, replies, “Why you be correct, that old barnacle sloop not be worth the tar to hold the planks together and your purse is always a wee bit lite, you being a smart Pirate and all. But those Frigates and that Big of War be worth a whole bit more I be thinking”

[Cdv]

I believe he could convince a fish to give up it’s scales, jump in a pan and cook itself right up.

Not to mention, serve itself on a plate and cut itself into bite-sized pieces that jump into his mouth one at a time!

[Captain Jack]

Scroll to summary at the bottom to get the most out of this lengthy post.

It is really a headache. We need to be clear on what is the most important objective here as it is becoming obvious that we are not going to meet all of them.

If I want to limit the objectives, then what annoys us most is the treasure at hand option. Simply by removing the demographic of richest person increased the total gold at hand by almost 50% (at about 750M currently versus 500M before).

This is not a race to get this number higher though but the strategies that are lost due to the low importance of treasure at hand option.
Two things in current system spoil these "lost" strategies:
1.The excessive amount of protection that you get from a small hand.
2.The low amount of protection (and unrealistic) that you get from an enormous hand.

One option is to limit further the max plunder cap, like already proposed by Skyhawk above. This could work but is 150k enough? 1 million would get you then 6.66 defends (evil Skyhawk). In the same time you make plundering less attractive to happen randomly as you put focus on coordinated attacks.

Ideally, random attacking should reward more and persistent attacking should favor the defender. This leads me to believe that we eventually might need a protection system in the game. A protection system that will not make someone invulnerable but instead it will reduce the % of plunder loss per attack received.

There can be a chart,like in ship sink chances for example. The maximum cap could be reduced 5k for every lost plunder in the last 24hours. So first attack rewards 245k, then 235k, 225k... till the cap of 50k. This means that after 40 lost battles (in last 24hours) the maximum cap of the target player would be 50k for every new battle he loses. The cost to get there would be 6.1M (if my maths are correct, I did them in a hurry). This is also in balance with our 200ships rule of the thumb. 200 ships are 40 fleets. So the maximum cost (without taking in mind Advanced Piracy) for someone who has 200 ships, would be 6.1M for the first wave of attacks (Fugitive of Justice anyone?). Then, for every new wave, it will cost 2M more. It sounds like a lot more manageable.

This could be the first step in this new plunder gold coins era. We could (now or later) also change the initial cap and step rate. Whatever fits us more.

Responses:
-The total value of ships is a factor that we should avoid as it requires constant (I would rate them as a bit heavier than usual chores) recalculations which cost in server cpu. Since we have 1 server for all of you, we need to be careful on cpu expenses for anything.
-Making the ship random defeats the last ship strategy. Which is a very nice strategy imo.


Summary
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We have one proposal. The proposal alone does not seem enough to cover our objectives but it can be a starting point.

Change the static 250k cap on maximum plunder earnings to a dynamic cap

Maximum Earnings are limited by a Cap
Cap = 250k - (5k*Number of Lost Battles of loser in Last 24 Hours).
Minimum Cap: 50k

Metrics to explain the formula above:
First attack Cap: 250k
41th attack: 50k

Total Max loss in first 40 attacks: 6.1M
Total loss in every 40 attacks from there after: 2M