Plunder Formula tweak discussion

[Admiral Nelson]

If game admin wants more battles, then reduce the danger points that a fleet incurs from attacking, that will result in more attacks quickly without changing any other feature of the game. Leave the DP removal at the current level for being attacked. Easy peazy!

-1, this would help pirates more.

If you are willing to attack, you are willing to be attacked.

[Sebena]

Why would we like it? Taking away the one strategy that benefits us more than you would seem good to you but obviously horrible to us. Guluere's new suggestion didn't say it had to be cast an hour or day before the next one, so you could cast it two seconds before update and have it occur. Hypocrisy suxxx

Why are you aggainst this when it helps merchants... talking about hypocrisy

[not a pirate]

-1 to Crackedcubes's suggestion... the plunder feature, as CJ said, needs to be a "top feature, not a side feature" but that isn't the way to do it.. Skirmishing is basically the way that pirates would have attacked in real life, no voodoo or anything needed, but I think that the reward from skirmishing- keep in mind, this is without voodoo, without the academy techs, without any extra investment (i.e. a default skirmish- needs to be higher...

I skirmished Lana's trade route, and I only got 20,000. That isn't worth the turns invested.

[Crackedcubes]

Yes, any game feature that increases attacks will help pirates by design, because they make their living attacking. Admin requested suggestions for increasing the volume of attacks, thus my suggestion for decreasing DP for each attack impacts all players that are capable of mounting an attack.

[Captain Jack]

If we forgot the number of ships headache and we would only need to have players fight more with each other, then the treasury at hand should or value of the last ship should play a lesser role than now.

In short, make the 3 possible wins( attacks )more profitable than the 1 possible loss (during defend).

One of the current obstacles to this is ship sink chance.

[not a pirate]

I skirmished Lana's trade route, and I only got 20,000. That isn't worth the turns invested.

fleet*

Agree with making stuff more profitable.

[Crackedcubes]

If we forgot the number of ships headache and we would only need to have players fight more with each other, then the treasury at hand should or value of the last ship should play a lesser role than now.

In short, make the 3 possible wins( attacks )more profitable than the 1 possible loss (during defend).

One of the current obstacles to this is ship sink chance.

Tie the plunder into the total fleet value instead of the trailing ship.....

[Hawk]

Or just make it a random ship in fleet ransomed. Much easier and allows for more luck

[Sir Henry Morgan]

Voodoo is a part of the game that changed Pirates Glory forever - it is here to stay, and will continue to enhance what pirates and merchants both need and do. This is not about the voodoo, but I see the issue based on the actions required to trade vs plunder. I believe it comes down to turns and DR.

Two players begin the game. One decides to trade. The other decides to pirate.

Both spend a bit of resource to build one ship. It costs turns and gold coin, etc.

Here's where it will change - The trader can now set a trade route, no turns required, and his little ship will slowly start to create a bit of gold coin.
If he trades a bit too fast between ports, his fleet gains 1 DR point, and once he hits 3, he's in and on the plunder screens. If he controls that he's golden. He can do this without spending any additional turns, and simply risks the fact he may be skirmished, which he has a 20% chance of evading. He can only be hit 5 times.

The pirate, however, looks to NPCs - costs turns to even find one. He decides to skirmish - it costs turns to hit a fleet. He decides to plunder something on the plunder screens, he has to spend turns to do it. As he decides to spend turns, he gains 6 DR points on all but the NPCs, and good chance he won't beat the NPC's for the small amount of swag he gathers in the attack.

This is where I see the primary difference. Voodoo costs turns for both parties, however, to pirate requires the use of turns to practice one's art, and a minimum 4 hour exposure on the plunder screens if a skirmish or plunder is undertaken.

If plunder is the goal, a means to raise the need to take the risk to antagonize an adversary with voodoo and suffer the consequences needs to be adequate.

These are simply my thoughts, and they may or may not be viable -this may be quite simplistic, but here goes:

As the skirmish feature will not result in the loss of a ship for the defender, I suggest the following;

1) No cost of turns for a skirmish attack. You are already limited by the number available per day one can use.
2) The addition of 1 DR point for a skirmish attack. (Perhaps an automatic 2 DR goes into play if skirmish is selected, thus for one attack, the attacker will be on the plunder screen for that one attack for 1 hour.)
3) Defender can only be attacked 3 times per hour, instead of 5 times per day.

This will activate more skirmishes, which may eventually escalate the situation to warrant plunder tactics by either defender or attacker.

This is just an idea, and a way to bring a bit more balance to the way things can work.

[Captain Jack]

Tie the plunder into the total fleet value instead of the trailing ship.....

Or just make it a random ship in fleet ransomed. Much easier and allows for more luck

Both ideas are the instant death of fleet arrangement strategies which is not something good for the game.