General Objectives

[Lefty]

Make the value of SotL and MoW less, what happens as it goes down ?(Or the opposite and trade ships value rise)? Add plunderers vs trader/merchants desire to possess preferred ships? Anyone got that worked out?

[Bmw]

I don't think we should remove ship damaging voodoo, but instead add other reasons to own large size fleets.

Maybe something like.

If 2 sotls are on both ends of your trade route then skirmishes against the trade route are defended against with your sotls

would you run sotl's more if you couldn't get fully wiped out of gold in 5 mins by someone using around 25 booty masters and then have them take the sotl's or mow's with 10 fireships and 10 howkers or a few Krakens and use just 1 sloop or a cutter to take the whole fleet away form you.

or maybe limit it so that you don't lose all your gold on hand form booty masters and then have your ships still able to fight but only 50% of the way damaged.

limit the number of casts or the amount of damage a ship can take from damage voodoo in a day or at least have on them at one time and you end up still having ships that can fight (although I would exclude swarm of worms from the damage limit if there is one put in place).

If you also limit the amount of gold someone can lose to booty masters you get a few more attacks needed to take the fleet's but it is still easier then taking them down from full treasury and being fully ready for combat.

doing it this way would also let new strategies for both defending and attacking to evolve along with old tactics that rarely get used to resurface.

Remember with this way of doing it it does make them harder to steal but it would add to the number of people that are willing to keep sotl's and or MOW's out and about for plundering.

It would also nearly fully eliminate people who are basically just voodoo chests with no real ships yes they could still put the ships into there marina but they would still have at least a small chance of losing something and not like how it is today. Oh I lost a cutter what will I ever do builds a *builds a new one in 5 seconds*.

[Shadowood]

Make the value of SotL and MoW less, what happens as it goes down ?(Or the opposite and trade ships value rise)? Add plunderers vs trader/merchants desire to possess preferred ships? Anyone got that worked out?

Interesting idea

[Meliva]

Perhaps instead of limiting booty masters by how many you can cast, perhaps we can make a minimum gold requirement.
Such as target must have at least 2M gold. That way you can remove a players purse to a certain level, but not keep draining it with more booty masters.

[Bmw]

if the limit is 10 booty masters and you have 10mill on hand you end up with 4.8 mill left if its 15 booty masters you would end up with 3.3 million on hand if you have less then that on hand you still lose a large chunk of gold but still not as much as before.

[Haron]

I do NOT think there is a problem with too few "Top Ships" in the water today.

A) I see lots of SoLs out there.
B) I do not see filling the waters with top ships as a goal in itself.

As for MoWs, I think there are several reasons why people are extra careful with those. One such reason is that you can't build a new one if you lose one. Another is that people consider these to be "prizes", and wish to keep them for display. MoWs still sell for lots of credits on the market, so there is no shortage in people buying them.

What is important to keep in mind, is the overall balance. Providing players with dilemmas. Nothing should be safe. No one play style should be "safest". The advantage of having the better fleet, is that you can plunder the other fleet without the need for voodoo. I will definitely not use krakens or fire ships on a superior fleet simply to be able to plunder it three-four times for gold coins. I will only use such voodoo in an attempt to steal the ships. And I will only do so if I think I can profit from doing it. Booty masters is the only viable way to reduce the gold level of a target in order to steal ships. FoJ, you say? Light him up and hit his traders? Well, first, not all targets have trade fleets. Second, those who do are prepared for this. They are in guilds who keep an eye out at the top of every hour. Use FoJs, and the raid is blown. It has to happen at another time than at the top of the hour, because at such times people are looking out for their guild mates.

If you want to be able to plunder combat fleets (like frigate fleets) in order to steal gold, then you need a strong fleet. This can be a good idea, since frigate fleets usually are plentiful on the plunder board. I, for instance, use most of my turns plundering or skirmishing, and so people with SoLs can get lost of "free" plunders against me, if they have strong fleets. Of course, that means THEY get lit up, too. Others may see THEM as tempting targets, and decide to get an even stronger fleet to be able to plunder them. At one point, someone builds a fleet that is too big. And get their danger a bit too high. And that's then their fleets are stolen.

Also, several players use strong escorts in their trade fleets. That means you need to either use voodoo or field strong fleets in order to plunder or skirmish them. This, too, needs to come with a risk. Carry too strong escorts, and you risk losing them to someone stealing ships. This is a necessity.

Some players see combat as something only done in wars. They trade for ages, building up huge gold reserves, and then have a small war. For such cases, attacks do not need to be profitable. However, if this game is to have any pirates, or anything RESEMBLING pirates, then attacking needs to be profitable. It must be possible to be a pirate and make a profit. Booty masters is a vital part of that. I have used them in several of our raids. And when people defend against it, or decide to not use big ships in a response, that is a dilemma which is good. If they don't use big ships, they can't plunder our combat fleets. And their traders are not safe against skirmishes and plunders.

Booty masters are needed as they are. They are vital. Not only because they are used in raids, but because of the THREAT of them being used is neccessary. Avery was already driven from piracy because the game is too skewed against pirates. Making ship stealing - or the threat of it - even harder than it already is, may make pirates completely extinct. Please leave the booty masters as they are.

[Haron]

Oh, and then the math.

One BM removes 3-7% of a targets gold at hand. At an average of 5%. Using 7% in calculations is very, very wrong. You will not get a result 0f 7% ten times in a row. Using the average value of 5% is far more correct. I could set up a complete tree with probabilities for the possible total outcomes when N booty master cards are used, but I doubt anyone here would really get that. So using the average value of 5% is the closest we get to a correct estimate. To find out how many cards are needed to halve a target's gold level, you get this equation:

(0.95)^x = 0.5

This gives x = log (0.5) / log(0.95) = 13.5

So, 14 BM cards are needed to halve the target's gold level. Not that this is vital to the discussion, but the math should remain correct.

[Mugiwara]

Here is a list of the near-future general objectives we currently have in the dev team, in no particular order:

• Guild-wide common objectives

I was thinking about guild perks for a while. its not 100% ready to explain but want to share some infos about it so maybe i will get some nice feedbacks.

Some ideas about it:

pvp wins(attacks) will give 2 points
pvp wins(defence) will give 5 points
skirmish wins(attacks) will give 1 points
skirmish wins(defence) will give 3 points

25k resource trade will give 1 point.
1k gold bar trade will give 3 point.

100k gold investments for influence will give 1 point[/list]

Activating perks:
you need to obtain 250 points and use additional gold bars or maybe a few credits to activate it.
you will lose 50% of your points daily or flat 100-150 points. It will encourage daily activity. Also these buffs will define guilds playstyle better.
Perks will effect all members of guild's.

like %10 fleet speed for x duration of time (24 or 72 hours)(CJ once said they looking for alternative options for Favorable winds. Thats why im adding this one)
%5 more trade income(both apply for buy and sell value)(will be unlocked with trade points)
%5 more plunder income(will be unlocked with plunder and skirmish points)
%5 additional influence for build up port(will be unlocked with influence investments)

Guild Raids(already have a suggestion for that)
Npc raids will organized weekly and guilds will compete with other guilds to gain firepower bonus for a week. a guild can win max 2 raid in a row. even they will win third times they wont get buffs. second guild who killed boss will gain weekly buff.

For prevent bigger guilds domination at most 10 player will participate for each guild.
each guild will have same process. and they need to kill certain npcs to reach final boss. npcs' ports will be same like nation missions. there will be a common spawn time for all guilds to follow. fastest guild which kill all npcs and boss first will obtain 5% firepower buff. For defeating npc boss faster it will also encourage bigger ships usages during raid times which may open some pvp actions too.

5% additional firepower for pvp up to 10% (will be unlocked with npc missions) Weekly 5% buff will expire.

Additional effect: Activating all perks will double amount of buffs. 10% plunder income(or others) instead of 5%.

Or we can use stack option. and will reduce daily income to 2% instead of 5% and each 100 points will add additional 2% up to 20% hard cap.

Point necessity should set based on 10 active member for guilds to prevent bigger guilds gain more power. but still it will be easy for bigger guilds to obtain these points.


Sincerely Mugiwara...

[Donald Trump]

-1 for Guild Raids. Kinda lame.

But I do like the points suggestion. Possibly enough points and your guild can get a free voodoo card/pack per person in guild. I think small material type rewards would better fit than perks.

[Shadowood]

The idea behind guild raids (vs NPCs) is a good one. Of course it would be voluntary and those who thought it "lame" could sit out. Much like some don't use all the current features of the game (buried treasure). However it could add some "safe" fun to promote guild activity and team work... all while encouraging the use of big ships (SOLT, MOW).

The current suggested design was, to a degree, shot down. But I believe guild raids should be something that is added in the future. Just need a solid design first. (I'm slowly reworking an idea)