Hethwill, the Red Duke

@TommyShelby We all did play through and through a lot of systems. We did manage to make and break them all, be it solo or be it in big groups. In big ships and in small ships. Always open battles, always closed battles, invisibility, 15 minutes joiners, half hour joiners, big circles, positional spawns, and much more. Across how much ? 3 years almost ? We know in advance what are the problems that will arise with each "new idea" because we tested it, no ? I will tell everyone right now what will happen with always open. I, myself, will be inside the battle watching it progress and keep myself in comms. And will tell exactly when the squadron outside must enter to harvest the already damaged enemy ships. End of story. Be it big groups, small groups, big ships, small ships. We been there and done that. Full healthy ships coming in and ravaging the damaged ones. Ofc the opponents can do the same, but then numbers will count and snowball effect happens again, as we see nowadays. In the end everyone will avoid fighting once more. Now, one thing we didn't test yet was 1:1 BR ( +- 30 BR ) even if there's more ships in the vicinity and treat combat as "local tactical" scenarios while the bigger picture is the OW full of "local tactical" battles.

Winning by all means if everything else fails...

By being honest and not overthinking. Such as, and quoting a famous captain - PvP means picking a fight I may not win but will never lose. And when I win it really pays off.

Great theme to discuss and chat but let's stay on focus with the OP topics.

This is where the line should be drawn, in my opinion. We never had this focused career evolutions by player choice. In truth the ship is the character, not the captain The ability to switch at will makes for poor careers and simply pushes for do-it-all. On a credible point of view, any pointers to a navy war officer, that was a naval architect or shipyards master ?

I would link a thread, but would be plagiarizing your style. Search for... what does pvp means... and you shall find it.

Makes sense on paper but not in reality. Why should we conquer any ports if we can use all the infrastructure anyway ?

That's how the "explosion and fire" theme makes sense. "I just want to see PvP" as in "...see the world burn"

They can or they can't ? You said both in the same sentence Whatever the form of distinction, Rookie zones...well...weren't.

Captain rank. Mechanics are blind and don't care if you, human, understand how to handle your ship.

Player versus Player: Ethical Issues, the willing and the unwilling eternal conflict. "I want PvP when I want not when others want it (too)...."

Because non Rookies used it the most ? Stores of materials and resources were "plundered" first thing after maintenance and during the day by non-Rookies.

Admiralty assignments.

Thank for the mention and the correct minimalist assessment. I play a character, or try to, and not powerplay as myself. But it is my gaming culture. Blame too much table and paper and great groups and clubs. The path from being a duckling to have a slight idea of how a ship works in NA, in my case, was always by setting realistic objectives. I think newcomers get easily overwhelmed with a lot of information and total freedom and feel "lost" about what is possible. The easiest route is to fight the environment to finally captain a Victory. As simple as that. Linear and plain fair. Everything good. Let's be minimalist and make a scenario of 25v25, where there is multiple types of ships and multiple types of objectives and a mix of newcomers and veterans. Not all 25 in a team will play the same way. What happens in that minimalist scenario is, a portion of veterans will expect the newcomers to act like they know what they are doing... *sigh*... they will kill a lot of potential. What also happens in that minimalist scenario is, a portion newcomers will focus on the large scale battle instead of focusing on realistic objectives in their local tactical situation... *shrugs*.. they will feel lost fast. Then we have the portion veterans that provide the other portion of newcomers some guidelines, given the ships they use, what they can *realistically* achieve in that scenario. They'll probably ask them ( ending with a please ) to bring their schooner to a scout position or setup their light frigate as a picket delay action until the veteran ships of the line get in position. Open World simply translates a minimal scale of 25v25 into "unknown" quantity in a bigger scenario. Plenty of playstyles and all contribute to age of sail west indies simulation. If what takes for the new players to set their own "local tactical situation" objectives is this entire renewal of the open world... ... we are here to test.

Swords disappear upon closure, any battle type, whatever timer. Now they stay visible for quite a while after they are closed.

In a PvP server, as it is now, can be anytime we press Sail! button ... or not. In truth the mission making grounds are magnets for player killers.

No matter how high the reward the player psyche counts millions. Can be easy for some. For others is just... void activity. To voice many fellow captains undergoing these sea trials since years...beating brainless robots for 3 hours is the hardest thing. It numbs the brain as much as sailing 3 hours without anyone in sight. I would say the biggest share of NA mmo players always despised the type of "kill 10 leets. return for reward!" type of mmo.

Yes I put a stop to production of first rate. Roleplaying "that's all that matters to my investors, which shall remain anonymous". That's the whole objective. That's my "time investment". Sail around, take notes, recon an area, see patterns, raid. ( on the game side those stolen materials will build me 3 new ships that serve as raiders, even if I will never need them, at the moment have 7 slots, 3 being used... a waste of slots... ). Do not get confused by your choice of a naval career when compared to mine ( which changes along the nations tour until release ). I appreciate the time put by all captains into their careers of choice. Maybe suplemental playstyles must be induced early on, by missions or the like, to the newcomers.

Did the Labour hours got spent in assembling/extracting materials/resources ? Not newcomers making a living but actual veteran crafting alts moving materials. I say I can intercept the LH. I know I did. Many many times.

It was directed at all comments. No discrimination.

Let's be respectful. Either discuss the particulate aspects pointed by the players, without the silly remarks, or simply do not post at all.

I will have to agree that some of the web weaved towards the hardcore did not work properly, for many reasons The proposed roadmap as in the OP shifts attention from the "loose" collective of a nation to clan - let's be honest, we never emulated a nation in the age of sail, we simply inflated competition of screenshots and bragging rights. The true consequence of Conquest was to deny to enemy land, not to promote own land. Big big difference. As a sidenote, search for non-consequentianl pvp in the OW is not privateering. Let's stick to proper age of sail risk&reward Sir. When you set sail with a "treasure" convoy you are content for corsairs. As I always say, a 1st rate can be killed even before it is born, if the corsair captures the traders transporting the materials. Please tell me how wrong it is to kill a 1st rate. What is important is to keep interest and so far, as shown, the whole politics, conquest scene had little to entice the newcomer. Is a conquest driven by clan warfare a option ? For sure it is worth testing but I will defend scalable entry to Conquest, being a Captain grants access to a part of Conquest, and being RA blocks you from that specific rank conquest area, so you don't take breathing space from newcomers but have your own rank access.

Until 1917.