Anolytic

Nassau PB Thanks Brits, for your enthusiasm in grinding Nassau on day one. It saved us from doing this against AI.

The long and short of this idea is this: That Regional capitals are expanded ONLY through investment in the other ports of their Region. The problem to solve is that currently only County Capitals matter. All other non-capital ports are inconsequential. To change this, non-capital ports should matter in the conquest of a county, and they should matter in the development of a county. Only through expanding the infrastructure in surrounding ports can the capitals reach their full potential. This is not only prudent gameplay-mechanics, it is also historical. If you neglect the surrounding lands, the cities cannot fully develop their potential. There should be no distinction between 20k ports and 25k-ports in terms of development, except for possibly this: Some few ports could allow 100% development of shipbuilding bonuses, PLUS placing of Forts and other defences. While the other county capitals would still allow 100% development of shipbuilding bonuses, but you would have to ration your points if you also wanted to put defences in the port. That way any nation can make any county capital a shipbuilding port, but they would have to secure a frontline port as a buffer to their shipbuilding port, where they could develop defences instead of shipbuilding characteristics. The current model of having only some few 25k BR ports with full development potential creates gear disparity and is a great way to make people in the smaller nations quit the game in frustration and facilitate player-base warfare, where it is not about winning, but about destroying the enemy nation’s community. We tried this before. My preference however would be a system where shipbuilding upgrades in a port was a strategic choice, and you could only develop 2 traits to level 5, or alternatively all 5 trait options to level 1 and 2. And you would have to choose what traits to focus on. This would also encourage RvR expansion without it being crippling, as having more regional capitals would allow a nation to develop different combinations of traits in different shipbuilding ports. Successful RvR would allow more shipbuilding variety, but any nation with at least 1 county would be able to develop shipbuilding bonuses in that capital to the RvR-meta to give themselves a fair chance to expand their territory further. Back to the development of Regions as a whole, my idea is this: The county capital would have say 30 base development points if you owned only the county capital, or if the county capital was the only one being developed. Through the development of dependent ports, a further 30 points could be added to develop this county capital. By investing in a special infrastructure option in each of the dependent ports, the whole region would improve. If the region had only 2 other ports in it, each of those ports would be able to be developed for another 15 points each, available at the capital. All dependent ports in a county would not have to be equally important, so in a county with 4 different dependent ports, port A could be developed for a potential 15 extra points, while port B, C and D would each be developed for an additional 5 points. This system that I propose would have the benefits of encouraging collaboration within nations. If you want your county capital to be fully expandable, then you need to encourage the clans who own the dependent ports in the county to develop them. Most importantly, it would mean that capturing whole counties would be important, and loosing parts of a county would hurt the value of the capital.

Я был осведомлен о том, что произошло, и от имени REDS я оговариваю факты, представленные в суде, и приношу свои извинения. Я также организую незамедлительную замену потерянных кораблей и улучшений. Пожалуйста, дайте мне знать, что конкретно было потеряно. Что касается случая: хотя присоединение к сражениям с целью их закрытия не является чем-то, что ранее рассматривалось трибуналом, я согласен, что это должно быть определено как подвиг, и это так же хорошо, как и любая возможность для его решения. Поскольку это первое нарушение рассматриваемого игрока, приоритет заключается в том, что игрок должен получить предупреждение. Он также получил предупреждение от клана. Что касается других игроков в битве, они не знали об этом до тех пор, пока это не произошло. Нам стыдно за этот инцидент и искренне приносим извинения I have been made aware of what happened, and on behalf of REDS I do stipulate to the facts that are shown in the tribunal, and I offer our apologies. I will also arrange to replace the lost ships and upgrades forthwith. Please let me know what specifically was lost. As to the case: while joining battles in order to close them is not something that has been previously been addressed by the tribunal, I agree that it should be defined as an exploit and this is as good as any an opportunity to address it. As this is a first offence of the player in question, the precedence is for the player to be given a warning. He has also been given a warning by the clan. As for the other players in the battle, they were not aware until after the fact. We are ashamed of this incident and apologize sincerely.

After the map-wipe we had the situation with pirates being able to take Saint Mary’s using legacy hostility missions taken before the wipe happened. This was a good test and revealed a critical flaw. Because even though this specific situation could not be replicated at release, even if nothing was changed to address it, since at release everything will be wiped including any missions taken, it still reveals a path to another potential exploit. The situation is this: Some nation holds the whole of the Gulf of Mexico. Then they are attacked and successfully kicked out of ALL of the Gulf of Mexico. They really want the Apalache County back, because they have their stuff there. But some other nation now controls the whole Gulf of Mexico and to get back to Apalache, you would have to go from El Rancho and attack first Texas, then Louisiane, then Florida Occidental counties, and only then could you attack Apalache county The enemy nation has built strong defences, forts and timers on Texas county. So it is hard for you to go that route. But then someone in the clan says that he still has Hostility Missions in his mission log for the port of Apalachicola from when you last conquered that port 3 months ago. Thus you can sail straight to Apalachicola and attack that port, bypassing the whole frontline and 3 Counties. Strike at the hearth of the enemy territory and after successfully taking Apalachicola you can attack San Marcos and work your way outwards from behind the enemy Frontline. In simple terms: Legacy Hostility Missions allows bypassing frontlines and capture supposedly safe territories in the middle of enemy waters. The simple solution: Wipe hostility missions from the quest log at Maintenance every day. When you take a Hostility Mission from one of your ports or a freeport, you have until the first Maintenance to complete the Hostility Mission or it disappears from your map.

Two major issues with the current way regions work in the Frontlines system is that: A. Big nations are able to go to every freeport and ports close to their starting territory and immediately capture the 3 closest Counties everywhere. Allowing just a few nations to grab an enormous amount of territory already on day 1, securing frontlines and laying the grounds for further occupation of territory. B. Besides the County Capital the other ports of a region are utterly unimportant and once you occupy a County Capital, you can take your leisurely time capturing the other ports - if you even bother to. Instead it is better to jump from one County Capital to the next, to secure control over another county before thinking of consolidating control over the ones you already have access to. On top of this, in the future once a nation looses the county capital of one of their Counties, they will have little incentive to defend the rest of the ports in the County, and we will see conquest focused only on County Capitals while other port battles will be undefended, abandoned or half-heartedly defended. Making most of RvR just about grinding rather than the battles. My suggestion is to involve whole regions in conquest, rather than just the capital. In my proposal, the next Region can only be attacked from the outer ports of a Region, and after capturing a County Capital, you need to progressively expand outwards in the region to control it before being able to capture the next one. Others I have discussed with, such as El Patron, would favour the inverse of my proposal, that in order to attack a County Capital you first have to capture all of the other ports in the region. Another option is to lessen the significance of regions and simply have conquest move from port to adjacent port, without the need to capture capitals first or last, but rather as you get to them. In this topic I will however use as premise the current model of capturing regions as a whole. Imagine that you seek to conquer Hispaniola, starting in this case from the freeport of La Mona. You would first have to attack the County Capital of Santo Domingo. After capturing it, you could not directly attack Les Cayes or Puerto Plata. If you wanted to attack Les Cayes, you would first have to take Bani, then Azua, then Barahona, before being able to attack Les Cayes County Capital. If you wanted to attack Puerto Plata, you would similarly have to make your way to the border port Higuey first. My proposal is illustrated below: I would pair this system with proposals I have made elsewhere to limit the number of Regions that can be simultaneously engaged to 2 per day (EU-time) and 2 per US-time day. And with a remapping of what constitutes adjacent regions. Ideally I would also move away from freeports as "jump-points" and to using captureable ports instead as jump-points between different parts of the map.

I suggest adding a 2nd type of Free-for-all port that the owner can select. This option would allow other nations to take Hostility Missions to adjacent ports from said port. This would be useful for a couple of reasons: Allowing a nation/clan that you are collaborating with to use the port to move through your territory and attack the territory of a common enemy. Inviting a foreign clan to attack a port owned by another clan in your nation. Either simply to sabotage this clan, or because you wish to engineer a takeover of the port in question. It is an option that only the Pirate nation would be able to utilise such ports, and that this way mercenary clans within Pirates could be hired to help impact disputes between clans within the same nation. This mechanic would only really be worth to consider presuming that some other changes (discussed in other topics) were first done to the current Frontlines and County Conquest system.

If we are going to stick with the idea of Frontline conquest, we have to find a better implementation. There are several problems with the current model, from the unimportance of non-capital ports. To the rate of expansion leading from nations jumping from Capital to Capital without filling in the rest of the region first. And the approach that was taken in implementing the Hostility Missions. I believe that given the current model we have for Frontlines, either most Counties are far too large (too many ports within each County/too many ports per county capital), or we should do away with Counties/regions completely in this context and jump from individual port to individual port like we did with flags. I am contemplating other ways of having Counties/Regions and having frontlines too, but in this topic I am taking as premise the currently implemented idea of Regions and Frontlines and only addressing the problem of how hostility mission distances are implemented. As I have written elsewhere, neither the model with ability to attack the 2 closest, nor the 3 closest Regional Capitals work in a satisfactory way. The first creates some odd results where adjacent regions are not connected, while the second in effect does away with the Frontlines concept. Below I put some effort into mapping out all of the regions and connecting them according to how I believe Regions should be interconnected in the current model conquest model. Note the distinction between one-way and two-way arrows, and that most freeports are only connected to a single region, and note that there are no frontlines in Bahamas. And sorry that I unfortunately did not have time to put more effort into drawing the arrows representing the connection between regions. P.S. In this map I have kept the Freeports as jump-points around the map, allowing nations with the capacity to do so, and especially "impossible" nations, easy (too easy in my opinion) access to jump to opposing ends of the map. I still maintain my opinion that conquerable ports would make better "jump-points" from Island to Island and to various parts of the map. Meaning that all movement of territory across the map has to be done by conquest, and these jump-points can be blocked by conquest as opposed to Free-towns that are always open.

Frontlines are a great idea, but they way they are implemented is sloppy. At first we had that from each county capital/free-port you could attack the 2 closest counties. This led to situations such as Pirates not being able to attack Pitt’s Town from Mortimer Town, even though the two regions are directly adjacent to each other. To remedy this, it was expanded to the 3 closest counties. The consequence of this, is that for large parts of the map, the actual Frontlines are eviscerated. Case in point: From Cartagena, you can now jump past the British frontline and attack Old Providence. But presumably it would be impossible to go the other way, because Old Providence has several Counties that are closer to it than Cartagena is. However, Cartagena is no longer an eastern Frontline towards the freetown of Dariena. It is perfectly possible to bypass the Cartagena region and jump straight to Santa Marta. Because the 3 closest Counties are Portobello, Cartagena, and Santa Marta. From San Augustin on the Florida coast, the 3rd closest County is Abaco (Marsh Harbour), which any way you look at it is not adjacent to each other. Some parts of the map have still a semblance of Frontlines. If Spain was to settle the Gulf of Mexico, most of the territory would be behind a couple of frontlines, due to the relatively far-apart free-towns. If you are not already situated in the Gulf, it can only be attacked from the 3 closest Counties to El Rancho, and a single county from Tumbado. The Gulf has 10 or 11 counties depending on your definition. In either case more than half the counties are behind frontlines. Britain also benefits from the relative safety of being able to lock down most of their territory behind narrow frontlines. Everything in the triangle between Jamaica, Bacalar on Yucatan and Portobello in Panama, as well as portions of South Cuba, and with the exception of Old Providence can be defended behind Frontlines. Similarly, anyone possessing Bermuda and the Secret Islands will have the 2 very strong regions very safely protected behind a frontline as long as they hold Marsh Harbour. On the other hand, if you are Danish or Swedish, you might as well forget about the concept of Frontlines, at least as far as helping you to defend the integrity of your territory. When you are looking for places to expand, it might be a different story. From a Swedish perspective, not only has the Virgin Islands County been inexplicably expanded to protrude to ports directly on top of their capital, forcing an immediate confrontation between Denmark and Sweden that will be long-term completely destructive to the player-base of one of those nations. In addition, even if Sweden were to expand outwards from their starting position, in the 2 directions available to them, and capture every region north of Fort Royal (Martinique) to the South, and all the way to the Eastern half of Hispaniola to the West, only a meagre 2 counties (Leeward Islands and Grande-Terre) would be covered by the Frontlines Mechanic. Due to access from the Freeports of Aves, La Mona, La Tortue as well as enemy capitals, every other region they capture near their core territory will be constantly compromisable. For Denmark this is even worse. Given that they work outward from their capital and capture the same territory as mentioned above, comprising of the ten counties of La Vega, Santo Domingo, San Juan, Ponce, Virgin Islands, Bovenwinds, Leeward Islands, Grande-Terre, Basse-Terre and Dominica, only a single one region, Grande-Terre, would be protected behind their «Frontline», since Leeward Islands is attackable from Gustavia. I have said this before, and Hullabaloo made a good write-up of it somewhere as well: If we are to use frontlines, simply coding Hostility missions to be distance-based for each port is a terrible solution, whether it is the 2 closest or the 3 closest regions. Instead, the map has to be looked at and adjacent regions/counties identified, and for each County Capital and Freeport, it must be carefully considered what ports should be attackable from there. And most Freeports should only allow attacking 1 or 2 adjacent regions. For Aves, this number should be 1 - Basse Terre. And from La Mona, also only 1 - Santo Domingo.

Stop projecting. Just because you are so self-centred that you only think of how this game can be improved for you and your own group, doesn't mean the rest of us do. Most of my proposals go against my immediate self-interest. Because I want thousands of casual players to enjoy and play this game, not just 200 bitter old power-gamers. I first made this exact proposal long before the wipe happened. And seeing as all will be wiped on release, I could hardly care less about Nassau right now. I am actually pleased that if brits think it's so important to us, they might actually fight to defend instead of us doing more boring neutral PBs.

Wtf are you talking about? You previously complained that my OPs are too long and yet you accuse me of not contemplating my proposals enough. It seems like you try to imply that the current BRs we have are based on my suggestion, they are not. I have only advocated for removing the absolutely lowest BR limits we had before, because they made it possible for defenders to win by default by kiting, something which I stand by still. Overall, the increased BR limits we have now are a good thing. We cannot design this game for the current playerbase numbers. We have to assume that after release we will have a much higher population, and it should be designed for that, or we might as well declare it DOA right now. For a couple of years now we've had cute little PBs of 5-10 players each side. But after release most PBs should give room to accomodate 15-20 players each side, with a few PBs for smaller groups. In a 2500 player dream Naval Action world a small(tiny) RvR-clan will be the size of the largest RvR-clans we have right now, and the really large ones will reach the 250 player limit and have to create secondary clans like several British clans had to back in 2016.

It is no secret that I and others with me are nostalgic about the good old days of 25v25 1st rate fights. This has two main reasons for me at least. First, with 25v25 1st rates, everything was equal at the start. Ships were equal, numbers were equal. It was all about what happened inside the battle instance, and all about sinking the opponent faster than they could sink you. Sure, we had kiting problems with the 1-circle system, but battles were at least decided on sinking or not sinking your enemy, not on passively acquired points. Secondly, screening. It took some effort and risk to screen a 25 first rate fleet. Screening 5000 BR port battle fleets is child’s play, and with hopefully 2000+ players after release, screening is going to be a huge issue in RvR when clashes happen between large and small nations. However, despite my nostalgia, I’m advocating to revise the current Port Battle BRs on the map. For a couple of reasons. First of all, everything is the same. With deep water ports being only 3 different sizes, 10k, 20k and 25k BR, out of hundreds of ports all over the map there will quickly become only 3 metas. One setup for each of those sizes, with little variety. Once someone finds a meta that works reliably, others will copy it. There will be no surprises, no strategising before PBs, and most importantly no variety. This does put us on a more even playing field in some regards. Some nations have leaders with more or less ability to innovate strategy. But it also takes away a huge element of RvR. An element which I was against when it was introduced, and never really developed a fondness for, but which I still think ads an important dimension to RvR, which should not be overlooked. For the purposes of this discussion, I am leaving aside the issue of screening, which is helped somewhat by the new BRs, as well as the fact that planning and organising PBs will now be significantly easier and that DLC-ships will be less of a deciding factor in Deep Water Port Battles. Speaking strictly about the experience within PB instances, I am advocating for more variety in BRs. As 25v25 1st rate clashes can occur in OW just as well as inside PBs, and there is nothing really special about having 25 1st rates on each side compared to 18 1st rates and a 6 2nd rates, I am suggesting that no Port Battle needs to have a BR limit higher than 20k. Why even have a BR limit on a port if there is so high that 27 1st rates would fit in, even though the instance can only take 25 players. This highest BR limit should only be in Regional Capitals, and the largest/most important County Capitals. Most County Capitals should have BR limit between 10k and 18k. Non-county Capitals should have an average BR Limit of about 8k, and a span from 4,5k to 12k allowing smaller fleets to take part in RvR for those ports. Historically some harbours, like Gustavia or Christiansted, were put under occupation by just a single frigate, but that would equate in-game to undefended port-battles. However, to accommodate participation of smaller fleets, some 5-10% of non-capital PBs should have a BR limit of 4,5-5k BR. Meaning they are small enough for small PB-fleets, without being so small that kiting is a default win option for defenders. Most importantly, variety. Instead of every port being X000k BR limit. Creating a limited number of meta PB setups that we will eventually get used to. Having port limits return to limits like 8500BR, and 5340BR, and 12400BR like we had before, will make sure that almost every port battle is fought with a unique fleet composition.

I have made this proposal before, but I want to repeat for emphasis: Please remove the frontlines mechanic from the Bahamas Region. Specifically the Counties of Grand Bahama, Abaco, Andros, New Providence, and Exuma. The ports in this region should be available for all nations to fight over at will. Missions for any port within the Bahamas, county capital or not, should be possible to take from Shroud Cay. Regardless of whether your nation holds any adjacent ports or regions. The Bahamas should be an active RvR-area, with ports constantly shifting hands, and individual ports PvP and piracy abounds. Not locked behind the bars of frontlines allowing one or a couple of nations to control the whole region by their ability to lock down Regional Capitals using numbers, and the construction of forts that will be more significant in Shallow PBs than anywhere else. I would consider also the option to not allow construction of forts in Shallow/Bahamas Ports (Shallow Ports elsewhere on the map, i.e. Pedro Cay, is a different story). The frontline-mechanic, is a good idea for the general map, but in the Bahamas it only serves to limit diversity, access and gameplay. Removing Frontlines from Bahamas will allow the «Strong» nations to fight over the ports perceived as important and valuable, because of strategic location, profit, resources, or proximity to Patrol Zones. While leaving «lesser» nations or clans to fight over ports with great value, though they are often overlooked or ignored by the powerful nations.

This wipe has made evident some notable problems with the current RvR-model. Especially about early expansion after release. One of the problems is the connection between regions putting unnatural restraints on the direction of expansion. Another problem is the rate of expansion. The map gets gobbled up by the nations with the most large clans that can fan out over the map and capture every region adjacent to default territories or Free-ports. Last but not least (of the problems addressed here) is the problem of no luck for the US-timezone. The first problem, created by the way hostility missions are now linked to the closest regions, was addressed somewhat by the expansion from 2 to 3 regions being available. But in return it created new problems and I plan to address this whole mechanic further elsewhere. However, the other two problems persist in full. That after wipe/release, it is first come-first serve, and since maintenance/wipe usually happens after US primetime and before EU primetime, by the time US players come online again after a wipe, the map is already divided between European clans. Every nation that has the ability, through sheer numbers, will fan out immediately after a map-wipe and grind everything that can be grinded. My suggestion consists of two recommended changes. First is a limitation on how many regions can be under attack at the same time by a nation, and the rate of outward expansion. What we are going to see clearly tomorrow, when nations for the first time take full possession of county capitals they have so far conquered. Is that it is strongly in the interest of clans and nations to largely ignore capturing ports that are not regional capitals, and instead to secure the largest territory possible by proceeding to attack the next county capital from where they have now reached with their expansion. We will see regions where a few, or even most, of the ports beyond the county capital, will not have the controlling faction even bothering to claim them. As long as they are within a region held by the nation, they are impossible to claim by other factions, and therefore can be left neutral with little threat save from enemies creating outposts and hunting there. Instead nations will be seeking to secure as many regional capitals as possible, and leave it to lesser clans to fill in the gaps of undesirable smaller ports. My suggestion is this: Allow each nation to only be engaged in the conquest of 2 regions per day. And also, make it so that until a nation controls at least 60% of the ports in a region, they cannot take hostility missions from that region to an adjacent region. So not only will you need to take a county capital anymore, a nation also needs to be in possession of most of the ports within that region before they can use that region as a staging ground to go for any adjacent region. And nations can only attack 2 regions at once, meaning that if they have attacked 2 regional capitals, they cannot attack any further regional capitals until they have control of those two regions. Meaning they should control a majority of ports (60%) in the regions. So for example if Pirates on day 1 attack Baracoa and Pitt’s Town. They cannot attack any third region until they have captured those regional capitals, plus 1 further port in Baracoa County and 2 further ports in Crooked County. This will slow down the initial expansion somewhat, and allow the map to develop at a more natural and steady pace in the beginning. With more nations being able to secure some initial territory, and with nations needing to cooperate to prioritise what counties they should attack first as well as in finishing up all of the smaller ports within each County. So what about the US timezone population? My opinion will always be that the game would benefit from having two regional servers. However, let us put the lid on that idea for the purposes of this discussion. My suggestion for the resolution of this issue is to consider each 24 hours as 2 12-hour days. One EU-timezone day, followed by one US-timezone day. The division being at, say, midnight UTC time (server time). Going by the system proposed above, that means that EU-timezone players would be able to attack 2 regions before midnight (server time), and US timezone players would be able to attack a further 2 regions after midnight (server time). Meaning also that in 24 hours a nation can engage in 4 different regions. So conquest will be slowed down a little bit, but not a lot and the division of the map not unnecessarily hampered. Nor will lack of coordination within a nation be too harshly punished with 4 chances to get the most important regions on the first day. Of course, SEA-timezone players will, given the current maintenance times, be caught somewhat in-between two chairs, neither being able to fully compete initially in the EU-timezone, nor the US-timezone. But if they were to find themselves in nations with less of a US-timezone contingent of players they would be able to take almost the same benefit from the proposed system. So in short: 2 regions attackable simultaneously per day per nation. 60% of ports in either regions needs to be controlled before the next regions can be assaulted. And divide the day into two 12-hour blocks to allow the US-timezone players to also attack 2 regions per day, even when the EU-timezone population used up the 2-region quota in their timezone.

Also. Please increase the number of clans we can have on our friendlist.

Thanks! There's a lot of great new features to test here. Howver: I'm not sure this is the right idea, but given the new frontlines system, it might work, encouraging building connected territories. Marsh Harbour should not be the only town to give missions for Kidds Island. There should be at least 3 more ports from which it can be attacked. I really think that instead of inflation of currencies (combat medals and Victory Marks), prices should be lowered and so should rewards. If permit prices were significantly lowered, we could get 1 VM for 1 port, 2 VMs for 5, 3 VMs for 10-to infinity.

I had to apply, even though my stealth game experience beyond Assassin's Creed is severely limited. Nice to see the progress on this game. All of the footage looks just beautiful.

Let’s accept that devs want some ships to be «rare», i.e. permits obtainable by RNG from chests only. While I object to this concept in principle, given that this seems to be already decided I will rather focus my input on what ships should and should not be, rare. This is the list of ten ships mentioned by devs as being rare ships: Santisima Christian Bellona Constitution Indefatigable Endymion Renommee Rattlesnake Rattlesnake heavy Niagara Questions have been raised by others about the future status of LGV Refit, Diana and Santa Cecilia, three ships that would also be likely candidates for rarity. I would think that these three are better fits than some of the ships on the list, though Santa Cecilia has in the past been mentioned as a possible exclusive reward-ship for tournaments and gifts from the developers. Regarding the aforementioned list, there are a few ships I think should not be there. Mainly because of how they affect the balance in RvR. I am opposed to any lineships being «rare», except through higher pricing. Although these three lineships are all replaceable in RvR-setups given their current BR and balancing, I would much prefer if they were, in addition to RNG-drops from chests, also available to use in RvR in form of permits being purchaseable for a significantly higher price in Victory Marks. My reason for wanting the Indefatigable and the Renommee not to be rare is that they are both ships that I find are often under-appreciated, yet are both great ships for levelling captains to learn the game and get introduced to PvP. If they are made rare I fear that both or one of them will not be sailed nearly enough for captains to appreciate their beauty and performance, and not enough captains will figure out just how great these ships both are. Lastly the Rattlesnakes and the Niagara. I am concerned about limiting the tactical and variety choices in the shallow waters for beginners, and the diversity in shallow water PBs, which is already limited. But most of all the Niagara, as I have said before, should not be rare, given that with its sailing profile and BR it is unique in its ability to contend with and fill the role that can otherwise only be relegated to DLC-ships in RvR. The Niagara permit should also be purchasable for Victory Marks. Make it as expensive as a first rate, but those who do RvR should be able to utilise it in lieu of DLC-ships should they wish to.

I get your point, but I disagree. Making ports attractive to take (i.e. profitable) is the best way to entice and drive RVR without "RvR-Importance"-features (like rare woods/rare resources) that force RvR but also pushes a winner-takes-all mentality that drives players from the game when they can't catch up. Any clan that makes less reals from their ports can simply recruit a few more traders to stay afloat, while a strong clan can capture profitable ports to save time on trading. Rare woods and such features on the other hand puts strong clans/nations on a irrevocable long-term advantage over less successful clans, which is ruinous to motivation of both strong and weaker clans.

Now that clans with the next update will be able to expand their ports with more industry opportunities, in return for an investment, and as both clan-members and friendly clans will be able to benefit from this. It is high time that Resource extraction from industry buildings should require taxes paid to the port owner. The port owner has facilitated that this port is available to you and expanded with the resources that you need, and hence they should be entitled to some taxes from everyone who benefits from these facilities. This would also make tax rate a factor in where some players/clans would set up their industry. If a clan sets a lower tax rate they could entice more players to make their crafting bases in their port. Obviously the base daily cost of upkeep of a port should also increase in relation to how many port expansions and defence options are enabled for the port. Taxes from industry would help pay for this increased cost.

Please add a name change history. If a captain has changed names there should be a drop-down or similar in the player info card (when you search for someone or right click them in your friend list), listing previous names. Forged Papers should allow you to change the name you go by, or how it is spelled, but not for players caught exploiting or spying to become anonymous again. It is annoying when some players change name every 30 days, and there is no way you can keep track of them. And many people have forged papers on their alts to move them around between nations as needed. But this also allows them to change name if they are found out. There should be a way to find out that the new name you see pop up in nation chat is actually the same player you had a confrontation with earlier, or that was called out for cheating somebody in a trade transaction. For anyone changing name because they got tired of their old name, or because they have grown some creativity since they bought the game and named themselves "Captain J4ck Sparrow III», this change should be inconsequential. For anyone using name-change to escape notoriety, this should make it harder. The only way to wipe your name-change history clean should be to delete and recreate your character and regrind. Since we should all start with a clean sheet at release, name change history should be wiped with the rest in the final wipe.

Thanks for the update! This list is fine, except that I absolutely do not think that the Niagara, Renommee or Indefatigable should be on the it. Niagara and Indefatigable because they are excellent entry-level RvR-ships, and Niagara is a must-have counter to DLC-ships. And Renommee is such a great allround frigate for beginning players to learn the mechanics by playing. What about Lineships? Will this remove the Victory Marks as a currency completely? Or will Victory Marks become a part of the recipe for lineships directly (removing doubloons in the recipe hopefully)? Victory Marks requirement for Lineships Permits is a good thing. But there should be an alternative to buy the permits with Combat Medals, and the prices need to be reverted back to around 1-2 Victory Marks per permit. Great news. But I hope that the Combat Medals currency will be completely revamped to make it into a PvP-only currency again, and that both prices and rewards in Combat Medals will be lowered exponentially compared to now.

The issue of timers has been litigated and re-litigated ad nauseam. But I will not let it go yet. I have read both that the basic ROE and join timers are now settled, and also that they are still under review. Which of them that is true I don’t know. I have already offered my opinion on timers, but I want to come with a suggestion as well. We currently have 20 minute join timer - if the BR is uneven, and let’s face it, it usually is. Many players in my clan loves this ROE. Others, like me personally I hate it and I miss the good old 2-minute join timer. What I call the WYSIWYG ROE, because what-you-see-is-what-you-get. With the current ROE, I get attacked in my heavy frigate by a light frigate, far out to sea and with no land in sight. And then, just as I am about to get him low enough on sails that he can no longer outmaneuver me, a Bucentaure might join on his side and completely change the situation in battle, even after 15 minutes. What I don’t like about this ROE is: The uncertainty. Never knowing if someone will jump your battle, completely shifting the balance in an instance, or not. The small battles that grow larger incrementally. You may have a battle where your BR is higher, so your opponent calls for reinforcements. And they bring a big ship, which opens up the battle for your side again, you call reinforcements and it switches sides again. False security. Big battles are still uneven. In the highest BR-battles, even when one side is outmatched and calls for reinforcements, this only helps them to a degree. In the highest BR battles, <13% BR difference is still a lot. Even after getting reinforcements you may still be several lineships down compared to the opposing side. Gamey tactics. Like small ships tagging and getting bigger ships as reinforcements after 10 minutes, turning it into a gank. Like ships dragging a fight towards the join area for their side so that their reinforcements can join on top of you. Like dragging the initial stages of fights out past the 20 minute mark to be sure of no interference. Split the Map What if we could have parts of the map with 20 minutes automatic 2-sided signalling ROE like now, and other parts of the map with the good old WYSIWYG ROE? We already have special zones of the map with a special Patrol Zone ROE, so it should be possible to implement. We could of course do this by simply dividing the map into an East ROE and West ROE (or South and North), with one ROE in one half of the map and the other ROE in the other half, but my idea would be different. I would have the main ROE be WYSIWYG - 2 minute timers. In open sea, far from land the timer would be 2 minutes. And in the shallow regions of Bahamas it would be 2 minutes. However, in the waters of any county/region containing either A, a National Capital, or B, a fully upgraded (in the new port management) Regional Capital, the 20 minute automatic 2-sided signalling ROE would apply. Thus, near all capitals, as well as some portion of other coastal areas, typically where clans have settled their crafting areas, the 20 minute ROE would apply, while more remote coasts, as well as the Bahamas and all stretches of Ocean would have the WYSIWYG ROE. Alternatively the 20-minute reinforcement ROE could be applied not automatically to fully upgraded cities, but be a defensive option that the clan owning a regional Capital could apply (with a weeks cooldown) to the whole County/region. There should be an indication on the screen when sailing in open world if you are in the coastal waters of a region/county where 20-minute ROE is applied. This in my view could work to some degree to appease those that preferred the old ROE, and at the same time keep any benefits that is intended to PvP from the current ROE. It would mean that near capitals there would be 20 minutes reinforcements (for both sides) until even BR, and the same in other highly populated coastal waters. At the same time you could attack someone in the middle of the open sea, or in lower populated regions, without magical reinforcements jumping in 15 minutes into the battle.

With the changes of Battle Ratings for ships, it is time to look again at the Battle Rating limits of Port Battles. For one thing with the increased BR of 1st rates those highest BR ports on the map should have their BR increased as well, to allow for truly massive fights over those ports. 11 000 BR is not enough as the highest BR. The biggest ports, like San Juan and Cartagena de Indias should give room for full 25 man fleets of 1st and 2nd rates to engage. I am not asking for mono fleets of 1st rates again, though I do miss those days and would happily take them back. But we don’t have to go quite so far as 22500 BR Ports, but 15 000-18 000 BR as the upper limit would be suitable if applied to a few ports. Even more importantly however, the lowest BR ports need an increase in BR. There are a lot of deep water ports with less than 3000 BR. With the current damage model it is simply impossible for attackers to bring enough ships AND firepower to capture and defend 2 circles for long enough to accumulate 1000 points when the defender can just kite and use small ships to deny points. When the BR of ports is a little higher there will be enough ships in the battle for each side that they have to engage each other and fight for the circles, because any part of the fleet will be able to cover a single circle sufficiently together to keep Le Requins or Niagaras out of it. But in Ports with 2800 BR and less this is not possible. These fights inevitably devolve into kiting, preventing which was the entire reason for creating the 3-circle PB system to begin with. There is nothing realistic or historical about defending a city by running away from the enemy. Kiting is gamey and boring gameplay and should be eliminated as best as possible from conquest. Port battles should be about engaging the enemy. The reason for these low BR PBs working before the new damage model, is that more ships would participate on each side as smaller ships, like 3rd rate, could deal with a small number of 1st rates. This is not the case anymore. There should be no Ports that are so small that they have Port Battles with a BR limit less than 5 000. Or kiting will continue to destroy RvR and make players leave from sheer boredom.

Thanks! However Niagara being rare is still going to be a huge problem. It is the best overall non--DLC counter to both Hercules AND Le Requin in both Shallow and Deep Water PBs. Prince de Neufchatel would be a better rare ship. Yet I do not like that either (and Prince need to be able to go in Deep Water Port Battles again btw - again as an alternative to Le Requin). While I have some objections to any rare Lineships (1st and 2nd rates) because of limiting tactical choices in PBs, both Santisima and Christian with the current balance of BR and HP can still work while rare, because they would not make up more than a couple of ships in any individual fleet anyway. Endymion would also still be very possible to use in RVR just as before even if it is rare. But, Niagara is such an important RvR-ship. And such an important competitor to the DLC-ships. It absolutely must not be rare. Ask @Imperator1 how many Hercules and Le Requin he sank in the patrol zone (before the expansion of shallows to include Surprise etc.) Just a very few ships should be rare, and Niagara should not be on that list. If it absolutely has to be RNG-drop, then the RNG-chance for Niagara permit has to be very high. Cerberus is a GREAT ship that gets far too little love. I absolutely consider it for all shallow PBs and even deep PBs. The main reason I haven't used them in my setups recently is that not a lot of people currently sail it regularly. The Cerberus is a good alternative to both Pandora and Hercules. Currently most people going to PBs do have the Hercules and prefer using it over Cerberus, and everybody has the Pandora. But after release I would have no problem substituting Cerberus for Pandora/Hercules in my setups to accommodate any player who did not have the Pandora unlocked.

Despite multiple topics about it in this forum, not enough of us realises just how bad the current crafting and currency situation is in the game. Because ships have not been wiped, and because most clans are now indifferent to RvR, the enormous hurdles now placed on crafting almost any ships is hidden. But REDS has been recruiting new players, as well as old and returning players, in recent times. Players who in both cases do not have tons of ships stored. And while we are able to cover their need of ships from our storage, it gives us a glimpse at just how expensive it now is to produce even frigates. Because of permits. And woods. If DLCs are reportedly such a boost to PvP on the server because they are fast and easy to bring and to replace, why is the opposite principle now seemingly applied to all crafting of ships? Why does surprise need an extremely expensive permit, and why does the Niagara need one that only drops randomly from chests? Because Russia still organises infrequent RvR in order to get good screening- and possible PB-fights, and because almost exclusively I am the one who initiates and organises this, I get another insight into the destructive nature of the current permit situation. One of the guiding principles I use when planning Port Battles is avoiding the use of DLC-ships in my setups. @Captain Reverse, does the same, but I do not know his specific reasons for choosing to do so except to demonstrate that it is possible. My reason, however, is that while most players in my clan and that I play with, have some or all of the DLCs, I firmly believe that the game should be playable even without DLCs, and that buying them should be an individual decision and not something that myself or my clan should push on players by making it impossible for them to participate when they do not have DLCs. By using DLC-ships in my setups, I would ensure that anyone who does not own DLCs knows that there is that much fewer places in the Port Battles where there might be room for them. The huge problem that has arisen for every one of the last few port battles, is that with the changes to permits, choices are severely limited. The Surprise is a good alternative to Hercules in both Deep and Shallow port battles. But with the price for the Surprise Permit, if I did not craft them and hand them out myself, most players would not be able to afford the ship for the port battle, let alone have a Surprise that they could grind to open up slots on it. Worse, by far in this regard, is the Le Requin. It is a difficult ship to begin with, to replace, being so specialised to kite and contest circles. In the past there was two non-DLC counters to Le Requin in RvR. But the Prince de Neufchatel and the Niagara now have permits that are ONLY obtainable through random drops from chests. This means that only the most hardcore PvE-players are likely to have disposable permits for the ship to use in RvR, let alone for getting the slots and experience needed to use the Niagara or Prince effectively. This means that we are left with the only option of using DLC-ships. Even the Pandora will be a ship used in port battles that any players who joined the game after release will not be able to bring. And these are the smallest ships. The ships needing the least crew. The only roles which new recruits can be put into to participate with the rest of us, except they cannot, because they may not have bought the DLCs yet and they have no Niagara to use. DLCs in all Port Battles might work for hardcore clans, who recruit only hardcore players, and whose players all have the DLCs. But for those clans who try to expand this game, to bring up, train, and introduce more players to the endgame content, it is not sustainable, when the first thing new players always learn is that if they do not buy DLCs they cannot participate. This is not just «Pay2Win». This is blocking off basic aspects of this game behind a paywall. Without changes being done to permits, so that all non-DLC ships are available to all of us to choose from, and easily replaceable and craftable, for RvR. RvR will be DLC-only and normal players coming after release, who are not like the hardcore powergamers that have stuck with us throughout the ups and downs of development, will not be able to play and enjoy this otherwise great game. This is not just about DLCs, and not just about Niagara and Prince de Neufchatel. For all ships of all classes, that are hidden behind a RNG-drop permit or an exorbitantly expensive permit, the side that is lucky in RNG and can afford to use the most suitable ships in the most suitable roles for a port, will have an advantage to win that port battle.