van Veen

I would like to propose two minor changes to gunnery that could have a nice effect and improve battle gameplay. Current situation is as follows: It is possible to switch each gun deck on and off using F1-F4 keys. The toggle has two states: "nominal" and "no fire" (sign "X"). The gundeck is still reloaded. F5 key removes crew from the whole ship side. The toggle has two states: "nominal" and "no crew" (sign "R"). Cannons on the ship side are not being being reloaded. 1) My suggestion is to have a three state toggle for all keys F1-F4 as well as F5: "nominal", "no fire" ("X"), "no crew" ("R"). This would allow to remove gun crew from individual decks or from the whole side, switch off individual gundecks or the whole side. For instance, in long range battles you might want to free crew from your top gundeck because you are out of carronade range anyway. 2) An additional improvement would be to apply the ammunition selection only to gundecks with state "nominal". This would allow mixing ammunition types, e.g. grape on top deck, ball on middle deck and chain on lower deck (just an example, not sure if there's a situation in which that makes sense). What do you guys think?

I think all chats should have stayed in place. I found global chat annoying, so I had it switched it off most of the time. But anyway, I think it's bad to remove communication channels for everyone, just because a few idiot do not know how to behave. In-game moderators could have fixed most cases more efficiently than forum tribunal imho.

Ok, you remove a communication channel for a few idiots. But you remove it for everyone which includes the vast majority of decent players. I understand that tribunals take a lot of manpower to check every case and you want to reduce this. You could instead appoint player moderators who step in immediately when communication is getting offensive. Less cases would be tribunaled. Please reconsider. Edit: I do not care if you removed global chat, honestly. But please keep the battle instance chat.

These gaps are visible but are still not passable directly by air without getting deflected.

Over dramatic? Perhaps. Unrealistic? Perhaps not.

If port upgrades and port investments were removed from the game, I could agree with that. But since this is not on the horizon, I see many downsides. First of all: no more motivation to upgrade ports and make port investments. Second, effect on RVR will be very strange to say the least. No foreign neutral will have any desire to capture the port, as this would actually reduce the bonus and require re-investments from the owning clan, while the port owner becomes more and more unhappy with owning port. This is really weird and could lead to very strange behaviour. Like Despe said, it is not unlikely that clans destroy all upgrades just to piss off everyone. I am convinced that this is not the way to go.

Read what I wrote above and try to understand. I have given quite a few arguments why this is a bad change. But I haven't read any argument why it should be good. Convince me.

You are right on describing the situation, but you make wrong assumptions. There is no coercion. All your subsequent assumptions which are based on this fiction are just wrong. I get the impression that you are on a personal crusade and this is in fact derailing the discussion. How is that relevant to the topic at hand? I mean, why would making port bonuses available to all neutral foreigners help with that? Tell me, please. You complain about the situation as is. Fair enough. RVR is currently quite bleak. You are right on this one. But how does this specific change make the game better? Unless you provide a clear answer, I am not convinced. You write a lot of text, but there is no logic argument why this change makes anything better. The poor state of affairs is not per se an argument to change whatever.

There is nothing to admit. It is the intended game mechanics. Clans were given the power to develop the ports for their own and their allies benefit. And the clans used that game mechanic for their best ability. There is nothing wrong with that, is there?

All this is just the product of your fantasy. Please stop derailing this discussion on the changes. Thank you. Your point of view is a little bit shortsighted. Yes, clan power will be removed. But a) this contradicts a long-term game development and b) does not make anything better per se. A good end not always justifies the means. Or does it? Then tell me how. Seriously, I am really curious. I thought about it and could not find anything positive about this specific proposal. The way I see it is this. Anyone will then be able to craft ships in the most upgraded port regardless of their clan tag or nation. So, do you think all these foreigners established in VC are now keen to conquer that port? I'd wager no. And what about the clan owning a port? Do they continue upgrading and investing when they know that everyone profits from it, not just their allies? I'd wager no. Strange situation then. Foreigners have no interest to change port ownership, and the clan owning the port is pissed off with the situation. You see the problem? The motivation to invest into port upgrades and even to own a port in the first place would be gone. And no motivation, no game. As simple as that. And then, anyone would need to have two alt accounts, at least one of them in a foreign nation. Is this the situation you want to have in the game, when foreign alt abuse is the de-facto standard way of crafting?

You can complain about clans having too much power all you want, but this did not come over night. The first change in this direction was this here: Clans were given more power allowing them to control who has access to its resources. Then, port upgrades were introduced to max 55 points (largest ports). Then, this was expanded by introducing wooden chest/money locker investments to further increase the port upgrade limit. So it was a long term development. All crafting and associated econ was bit by bit put under the control of the port owning clan. Now, the karma system is a good change. Karma is not the issue here. It is about letting any neutral foreign player use the port investments. This seemingly minor side-move basically makes all the changes made in the last 3 (!) years undone. All the investments giving power to the clans required more grind. The motivation to do this dull, repetitive AI grind was to have an edge in shipbuilding for your clan and your allies. This motivation will drop to zero if neutrals can bypass the friendlist. In addition, the importance of nations will basically removed. Foreign neutrals now can do the same or more (in case the friendlist is removed completely, this is not clear to me) than co-nationals. In effect, everyone and their mother will set up a shipyard in VC with a foreign neutral alt and send a Russian alt there to do the hauling. Having two alts is then basically a must-have. In terms of RVR, this will freeze the status quo, because no one with an alt and shipyard in a foreign port wants to see this setup change, because a lost port battle would mean reduction of investments. So, port ownership will never change, until a major clan decides to switch nations just to piss off all those alts. But then this clan settles somewhere else and it'll be the end of the RVR game, cause no one in their right mind will do that twice. As Tiedemann said: you might as well just remove port bonuses altogether. It was a bad idea in the first place.

Guys, let's not mix things up. Karma system is one thing. Removing the clan friendlist for crafting/port bonus control is a completely different story.

Thanks for clarifying!

I totally understand your frustration. I have not fully understood if the friendlist is made obsolete completely or if it remains in place for your co-nationals. If it remains in place, it's not that bad. Cause it means that your unwanted co-nationals (foreign alts) still can be excluded by cleaning up your friendlist (you have to trust those clans you have on the list). Foreign neutral players still have to bring their materials to the crafting ports since it is impossible to make everything in one port. And, since they can be attacked, hunting traders in your home waters might be very profitable. So, crafting in foreign ports is possible, but comes with a huge risk. However, if the friendlist has no effect on crafting at all, you'll see an army of alts pouring into Vera Cruz and nothing can be done about it. So basically, everyone will join the winning team (at least with one alt account).

Exactly. This is why I find admin's statements very confusing.