Voodoo/Plunder System Changes

[SilverShadow]

For FFJ's and HN's can we have the danger only apply while the caster is online? Instead of a specific amount of time?

[The Lamb]

For FFJ's and HN's can we have the danger only apply while the caster is online? Instead of a specific amount of time?

What if instead they were just single use cards? I mean wouldn't you think it should cost more that three credits to have the entire game attack someone for 24 hours?

[DezNutz]

For FFJ's and HN's can we have the danger only apply while the caster is online? Instead of a specific amount of time?

What if instead they were just single use cards? I mean wouldn't you think it should cost more that three credits to have the entire game attack someone for 24 hours?

The only way that a player would have FFJs on them for a full 24 hours is if they purposely leave them there, don't have clearing voodoo, are inactive and not in a guild, their guilds sucks, and/or their guild hates them.

[PhoenixKnight]

I personally am for 1 &2. Not sure about 3

[Haron]

Ahoy all,

Proposal
We need a small redesign to the voodoo/plunder system.

Why?
Because current system creates some problems, like the following:
a) Players with no ships/considerably weaker ships cannot be contained.
b) In contrary, players with strong/fleets can.
c) A player with 0 ships can harass anyone at minimal cost and there is no way to actually stop him.
d) Ship plundering is so hard and prone to a gazillion of defenses which makes even the attempts a very rare case.

The letters a-d were inserted by me for ease of reference, and is thus not truly a quote from CJ.

There’s a lot to say about this proposal, but I think the most pressing matter is this: Why are these things considered problems? Points a, b, and c means that it is possible for a player to have no trade fleets, and thus (seemingly) he can attack but not be attacked. I do not see that as a problem.
One must consider the immense cost of such a play style. What cost, you say? The inability to trade. Most pirates could easily, in a matter of days, set up a fleet of 200+ trading ships instead of his pirate setup, and get a higher income than he has from piracy. Yet he does not. It is a huge cost to not use trade fleets. So a pirate’s mere knowledge that you would be able to retaliate if he were to use trade fleets, is costing him dearly.

I sense (possibly wrongly) that the cause behind these ideas is that people who get hit, get angry, and feel like smashing something. Seeing that their enemy has nothing they can smash, they complain that the system is flawed – they want it to be impossible for player A to attack player B unless player B has a chance to hit player A back. However, making a system where that is the case – retaliation is always possible – would be a very bad idea. This would make doing piracy for profit impossible. It would cause fewer attacks, not more. Because if I know you can hit me back if I hit you, and that such a hit would lead to a total loss for me – well, then I would not hit you in the first place. The Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine is a way to ensure peace. Good in the real world, perhaps, but not in a game where action is desirable. Piracy for profit gives only 10%-20% of what a good trader gets, but it is at least still possible to do it for profit.

As for point d, I may agree that things could improve, but there is one important thing to keep in mind: Just because something doesn’t happen at lot (or even at all) doesn’t mean that the possibility for that something to happen doesn’t matter. One of the things I do at work is to conduct and analyse wargames. A common misconception is that if a weapon system caused few enemy casualties, then that weapon system was of little importance in the war game. This is very wrong. For instance, we had a war game where we saw that the main battle tanks on Blue side inflicted very little damage to the enemy. Upon closer inspection, however, we found out that the enemy in his planning process obviously knew that Blue side had tanks, and that those posed a danger. They therefore had to abandon their most desirable courses of action, and had to fall back to less ideal plans, in order to avoid the tanks. So the tanks were in fact very effective in deterring the enemy from conducting his most dangerous plans. Something similar is happening in Pirate’s Glory regarding ship stealing: There’s a trade off regarding how much gold to have on hand. Have to little, and your ships may be stolen. Have too much, and you lose more if you’re lit up and your traders are plundered. So the mere threat of having ships stolen, means that plundering someone purely for gold becomes more feasible.

For this reason, I think that lowering the maximum amount that can be stolen during plunder is a bad idea. This changes this payoff, and makes it safer/cheaper to carry a larger purse, thus reducing this dilemma. It also further reduces the already meager income of the poor pirate. The “sweet spot” for most large traders is already a relatively large area; it’s easy to carry a purse large enough to not risk your ships, yet not so large that you lose too much gold if you’re lit up. As for increasing the minimum, that would probably have relatively severe consequences for both attackers and those who are attacked. But my point was to comment on the rationale behind these ideas, not the ideas themselves. And at least reasons a, b and c I disagree with.

[sXs]

Ahoy all,

Proposal
We need a small redesign to the voodoo/plunder system.

Why?
Because current system creates some problems, like the following:
a) Players with no ships/considerably weaker ships cannot be contained.
b) In contrary, players with strong/fleets can.
c) A player with 0 ships can harass anyone at minimal cost and there is no way to actually stop him.
d) Ship plundering is so hard and prone to a gazillion of defenses which makes even the attempts a very rare case.

The letters a-d were inserted by me for ease of reference, and is thus not truly a quote from CJ.

There’s a lot to say about this proposal, but I think the most pressing matter is this: Why are these things considered problems? Points a, b, and c means that it is possible for a player to have no trade fleets, and thus (seemingly) he can attack but not be attacked. I do not see that as a problem.
One must consider the immense cost of such a play style. What cost, you say? The inability to trade. Most pirates could easily, in a matter of days, set up a fleet of 200+ trading ships instead of his pirate setup, and get a higher income than he has from piracy. Yet he does not. It is a huge cost to not use trade fleets. So a pirate’s mere knowledge that you would be able to retaliate if he were to use trade fleets, is costing him dearly.

I sense (possibly wrongly) that the cause behind these ideas is that people who get hit, get angry, and feel like smashing something. Seeing that their enemy has nothing they can smash, they complain that the system is flawed – they want it to be impossible for player A to attack player B unless player B has a chance to hit player A back. However, making a system where that is the case – retaliation is always possible – would be a very bad idea. This would make doing piracy for profit impossible. It would cause fewer attacks, not more. Because if I know you can hit me back if I hit you, and that such a hit would lead to a total loss for me – well, then I would not hit you in the first place. The Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine is a way to ensure peace. Good in the real world, perhaps, but not in a game where action is desirable. Piracy for profit gives only 10%-20% of what a good trader gets, but it is at least still possible to do it for profit.

As for point d, I may agree that things could improve, but there is one important thing to keep in mind: Just because something doesn’t happen at lot (or even at all) doesn’t mean that the possibility for that something to happen doesn’t matter. One of the things I do at work is to conduct and analyse wargames. A common misconception is that if a weapon system caused few enemy casualties, then that weapon system was of little importance in the war game. This is very wrong. For instance, we had a war game where we saw that the main battle tanks on Blue side inflicted very little damage to the enemy. Upon closer inspection, however, we found out that the enemy in his planning process obviously knew that Blue side had tanks, and that those posed a danger. They therefore had to abandon their most desirable courses of action, and had to fall back to less ideal plans, in order to avoid the tanks. So the tanks were in fact very effective in deterring the enemy from conducting his most dangerous plans. Something similar is happening in Pirate’s Glory regarding ship stealing: There’s a trade off regarding how much gold to have on hand. Have to little, and your ships may be stolen. Have too much, and you lose more if you’re lit up and your traders are plundered. So the mere threat of having ships stolen, means that plundering someone purely for gold becomes more feasible.

For this reason, I think that lowering the maximum amount that can be stolen during plunder is a bad idea. This changes this payoff, and makes it safer/cheaper to carry a larger purse, thus reducing this dilemma. It also further reduces the already meager income of the poor pirate. The “sweet spot” for most large traders is already a relatively large area; it’s easy to carry a purse large enough to not risk your ships, yet not so large that you lose too much gold if you’re lit up. As for increasing the minimum, that would probably have relatively severe consequences for both attackers and those who are attacked. But my point was to comment on the rationale behind these ideas, not the ideas themselves. And at least reasons a, b and c I disagree with.

One very big issue with your premise. You can "trade" and make a good deal of income without ships/ With plantations, the advent of the players resource markets, and the workers market, you can make millions a day without sailing a single ship. I have sustained a 2000 acre plantation this way without a single fleet committed to it. I could have sustained a plantation 5 times that size. A 2000 acre plantation is capable of 2 million a day or more depending on development.

This actually makes "witch doctors" even more viable.

Yes there is a cost to being a witch doctor, but the fame is stepping further and further away from reliance on ships.

[The Lamb]

I think we are all guilty of looking at this for a "how i like to play" perspective, but we are not looking at it from a best for the game point of view. I think the point is that you will find much more battles if NO ONE can totally destroy anyone else. Haron spoke of MAD (mutually assured destruction), that is a death sentence for a game but he neglects that fact that one sided total destruction is just as bad. Balancing the game is about making sure that doesn't happen.

If you will indulge me with a fictitious scenario:

Player A comes in, does their missions, and starts trading for the next year they build their hideout, do tech research, build war fleets and trade fleets searching daily for the right ships, buying them off the markets getting officers, making friends, making enemies. After that year that person has spent countless hours watching, learning, building, buys credits when he/she can and goes through 1 billion GC doing so.

Player B comes in, makes two little fleets, buys some voodoo, spends 5 million GC, has been playing for a two weeks and starts attacking player A

Both of these styles are perfectly fine!

But the argument I have seen is that because its Pirates glory, Player B should be able to attack and destroy anything from player A as much as game mechanics will allow just because... its really player A's fault if you think about it, they should pay attention more, or set timers, get in a better guild etc to make sure player B doesn't wipe him of the map and there is nothing player A should be able to do about it. It was their fault for building up, after all its not traders glory...

Aside from some not wanting to be vulnerable to attack like the rest, what sense does that make for a game? You can disagree with where we go from here, but at least admit that its a horrible game model if your looking for players to stay, spend money and build stuff.

This way of thinking leads to a very unstable play experience for most people. People come in, see the dynamics how long it will take to get to where you want to be without spending cash, and how easily you can loose it all, and decide its not worth there time or aggravation.

There should be no reason in any game for a player with one small fleet to take on everything CDV has worked for in an instant, but also CDV shouldn't always be able to find that small fleet and crush him either. Thats why we need a better balance, better game stability.

Maybe to Feniks point, the markets need adjusting or maybe voodoo success needs to be based on overall strength or mana, maybe Prates with the black flag (not those in nations) have a better chance to evade retaliation, maybe FOJ and HN need to be cast per port not overall... maybe..maybe ... maybe... see where im going here... how can we all help CJ do it better?

[DezNutz]

Development Update:

Based on community feed back, the Dev Team has reviewed the discussion and provided CJ with direct feedback. The below is the feedback presented to CJ.

The Dev Team finds suggestion 1 and 2a favorable for development. An approved suggestion thread will be created and linked to the discussion.

The Dev Team finds that even though suggestion 2b is listed as an alternative to suggestion 2a, suggestion 2b should remain open for additional discussion. The idea offers unique points that could open up new avenues of development down the road.

The Dev Team finds that additional discussion needs to occur for suggestion 3. A couple of options were discussed to include taking parts of suggestion 3 and tying them into SIr Henry Morgan's Shaman at Sea suggestion to meet the purpose presented. The idea of mana, more specifically the idea of using something else other than turns to cast voodoo, is a point that should be looked into with this suggestion.

-Dez

[Sir Henry Morgan]

If Mana is used to cast voodoo, would it benefit a pirate if turns were once again unlimited for combat, or would this upset balance?

[sXs]

If Mana is used to cast voodoo, would it benefit a pirate if turns were once again unlimited for combat, or would this upset balance?

I am not sure mana would replace turns for casting, i think it may be an additional measure needed to cast. Those are some of the questions to be worked out and the reason for the hold on section #3 for now.