Voodoo/Plunder System Changes

[sXs]

By ships sailing, you mean ships in a fleet.

Aye.... fleeted ships

[Dmanwuzhere]

redesigning a system for who?
a few players?
these arent small changes its a whole different game

most of the problems come from not logging in
whether its a player who was raided or a guild member who ignored the voodoo on a team mate

i dont see enough static for such a redesign
and certainly not for those whos goal it is to log in before their ships stop trading

2 or 3 frigs and cutters can hit 100 fleets because those fleets they hit were designed with max profit in mind
and no care for security
they deserve raided

how about you cant have 500 lmms trading without a minimum of 50 sotls mixed in the trade fleets
doesnt sit well with ya does it?

tired of seeing limits on attacking constantly being brought up
just go ahead and make it a bannable offense to hit other players and it will be where you are heading
no sense in baby steps



https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Pirate

[Shadowood]

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Pirate

[sXs]

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Pirate

"Numerous studies by credible scientific journals have also came to a net conclusion in the past years that if you don't think pirates are the coolest you're probably a huge p...y."

[Sir Henry Morgan]

I have read and studied this idea; as posted, this will slow witch doctor play and naval combat in general.

Retaliation would be possible, and a player could mathematically set up for victory or the cost of a defeat. The only gain is the control of the witch doctor - it may even reduce naval combat outside of skirmishes

I still prefer the Shaman of the Seas model. It also solves the witch doctor issue; but it also changes the entire character of combat. Strategies abound for offense and defense alike. In addition to tweaking current voodoo cards, new cards can be added to the mix for balance, playability and more. I would actually encourage usage by raising bounties rather than lowering them (for plunder).

In addition, imagine 1-5 voodoo cards being used - spent - in each naval battle; I imagine that substantially more voodoo cards will be used than we are currently using, and this would not include cards used outside each fleet....

That, to me appears to be alot of cards! Now ye see why I'd raise the plunder bounty....worth the risk for raiders, worth the voodoo defense or cannon for traders.

Tweak it with ship values, and you have validation for retaliation, as well.

[The Lamb]

I like the idea of balancing ship power to total attack power, as well as taking the heat off some existing voodoo. Now i know its not traders glory, and changes to the way the game has played for years may threaten the comfort level of some players but...times change.

Could you imagine if everyone had 1 or two fleets and 600 credits worth of cheap voodoo how fun this game would be? Everyone would be like pirates right? woohoo

People like to build build build. Sure a few like to run minimal ships and just cause a little stir which can be fun i guess, but your in the minority of all gamers on the planet. Ask the developers of Forge of Emp....., how much money they make from a game that lets people build things and attack, but if you dont build up (in every game known to man), your not strong enough to attack those who are much larger than you. They make millions!!!

So the secret sauce I think to a killer game, let people socialize, let people build, let people create, let people modify, let people attack, let people defend, DONT allow your customers to get wiped.

This game is a financial endeavor and the more people who play, the more money it makes. That means you cant make it too easy to completely crush people, or they wont want to play and I think CJ is looking for the balance is all. I welcome any changes, i will just modify my strategy, im a gamer and its not my game, im just a customer just like the rest of you.

[Meliva]

I personally like the idea of a ship power, where folks can't hit those who are far bigger, or far smaller then their ship power without some sort of penalty. I do agree that it should apply to only ships sailing, as otherwise just spam howkers to gain the power when needed. Some other tweaks might be needed as well that I'm overlooking, but otherwise looks promising.

The shaman idea looks promising too however. Whichever path is chosen, would be fine by me. Maybe even a combination of them. Regardless glad to see development is still going strong. Thanks for all your hard work guys.

[sXs]

I have re-read and studied this and want to break it down into pieces

Suggestion #1
I propose a change to the random ransom from 1% to 5% to 2%-4%. This slight reduce, will allow better battle preparations which will result in more large scale attacks.

Suggestion #2-a
I propose a minimum gold coins bounty, set at 10k.This will work similarly with the max bounty. If your hand is too low, you will still need to pay at least 10k for each lost plunder attack. This will not apply to Skirmishes.

I propose maximum bounty is changed to 150k from 250k.

Advanced Piracy bonus increased to 5% instead of 2%.

Suggestion #2-b
Alternatively, the minimum bounty can be made optional OR adjustable based on Voodoo used. For example, certain voodoo cards could also cast an enchantment on you which will affect this. The enchantment could be dispellable or not.

For example, when you cast a FoJ or against someone, you will get an enchantment on you, lets call it Weak Spot Revealed (WSP). This could have the effect Minimum Plunder Bounty is increased by 2.5k, stack 3, duration 24hours and a new trait called Golden Stack. This trait would allow cards to be stacked by replacing the card that expires first. If we combo this with a starting minimum bounty of 5k, then someone could reach 12.5k after casting 5 of these cards. Numbers are debatable.

I am more favorable of a combination of minimum plunder + voodoo cards as this will has less impact on newcomers.

Suggestion #2-c
We could also detach the Ransom (gold coins bounty) amount from gold at hand.
We can calculate it based on a fixed amount per fleet. Like 50k + 10% of tail.
You can't pay it, you start losing.

Alternatively, the bounty amount could play a role. When people hit a fleet, would see the bounty offered by the fleet owner. Fleet owners could have a reason to offer higher bounties. Perhaps this could grant a protection of DR accumulation for specific fleet (like -1 danger per 25k offered and minus danger allowed).

+1 to all or any combination of the above. These changes will help to increase activity.

Witch Doctors

Witch Doctors have always been a problem in the game. A lot of problems arise from this. What is most annoying here in my opinion, is that you are unable to defend against them. Therefore we might need to issue some changes here.

Suggestion #3

Ship Power concept
We already have a way to calculate ship power and this is the gross value of the ships you sail. This can play a role in an upgrade to the whole voodoo system.
For every 1 million of gross value, you will have 1 Ship Power. This will be calculated hourly.

Voodoo Points concept (mana)
Voodoo cards, except of turns cost will also have mana cost. The mana will be adjusted by:
1)Turns
2)Voodoo
3)Ship Power

Ship Power will also define the maximum amount of mana you can store at every moment.

Let's see an example:

A card example:
Fugitive of Justice will require 8 mana to use and 3 turns.

Your mana pool (maximum mana stored):
200 (Basic Pool) + Ship Power

So, someone with no ships, will have a mana pool of 200.
Someone with 200M worth of ships, will have a mana pool of 400.

How mana is generated:
1 mana per hour
1 mana per Ship Power per day, distributed hourly

So, someone with 200M worth of ships, will get (is 200/24 = 8.33) 8 + 1 = 9 mana per hour. So, in 44 hours he will get his mana pool from 0 to max 400.

Someone with 500M worth of ships would get 500/24 = 20.83 = 21 + 1 = 22 mana per hour. So he would need 31 hours to fill his mana pool of 700.

Ship Power Modifier:
When casting a voodoo, we can also use ship power modifiers.
This can either prevent casting against players with big difference in ship power or to increase cost when casting against such targets or even better, both.

Ship Power Difference (SPD) = Target Difference - Your Difference

Here is an example:
SPD > 500 AND your SP is less than 200M = No cast is possible.
Which means that if your target's ships are worth 600M, you will need at least 100M worth of ships to target him.
However, if your target's ships are worth 1B, you will still be able to attack him with 200M worth of ships.

Additionally, we could use extra cost for ship cost modifiers:
For ever 100 SPD diffence, mana cost is increased by 1, maximum double the original cost.

This should also reflect the difficulty of attacking a much larger opponent than you.

The original mana cost for cards will be the current turn cost, however we will reduce the turn cost for all cards.

Based on the above suggestions, let's see how reality will be shaped:
Someone with 0 Ships will not be able to touch anyone with ships gross value greater than 500.
Someone with 200 Ship power (200M gross value), will be able to attack anyone.
When someone with 200 SP casts a FoJ against someone with 600SP, he will pay 8+4 mana = 12 mana per FoJ
This means he will be able to cast a total of 33 FoJ before his mana pool is depleted.

With the addition of new cards, even techs/buildings etc for mana, we will be able to control better the voodoo

-1 I understand the reasoning for this but it is overly complicated. Currently all voodoo casts and actions are governed by turns, and in some cases .... fame?? . To add another measure "mana" overly complicates things. This would also have the opposite of the desired effect. This would protect large mega traders from pirates and smaller and newer players. This also only protects larger players from witch doctor activities

"So, someone with no ships, will have a mana pool of 200."

this means they could still cast on players, but now they can only target small/ new players. This is a negative for player retention.

The work around is actually quite simple... even with the addition of the ship power modifier.

let me explain....

I am a witch doctor with no ships sailing or even in inventory, but I have a maxed marina and 5-10 SOTL parked in it. maybe a MoW or two.

To do my activities, I simply pull my SOTL out, cast my cards and then redock them. Turns really not an issue because you can have 600 turns and the ability to buy for a total of 800 turns. Since you do not get danger for casting voodoo, the fleets never show.

The work arounds are too easy. Replacing this second section with the Shaman suggestion would fix this.

[The Lamb]

Damn good point!

[PFH]

Good observation, Feniks