PvP Marks and victory marks

[Guest]

Suggestion:

Remove PvP and Victory marks. Reason: Alt abusive behavior reaching all time heights and dev inability to properly police them. 

I'd like to propose this mainly on three reasons.

One is that I find it cowardly that some nations has swapped a few ports - ensuring a plentitude of alts got into defend/attack them and thereby ensuring as many alts receive VM for the conquest competition as possible. This is an unfair advantage only achieved by alt abuse and my own initial reaction is the gut reaction I think many of us feels - permaban the lot. But. It is symptomatic of a generic issue in the game. Some players enjoy RvR but do very little PvP. I on the otherhand enjoy PvP (even broken as it is) but mainly participate in RvR as a sidedish. You need PvP marks in order to convert to VM if you're not lord protector in one of the 3 major nations. This can be circumvented by simply flipping some ports pr agreement and ensure that ones own alts get into the port battles.

Second is that everytime someone institutes a policy it is unable to properly implement or police their authority suffers a collapse. We have all seen combat reports on ***** the great I, that sinks swedes at the exact same time at Barranquila. Or Big **** that sinks brits at Belize with 30 mins intervals. I'm not saying that these specific incidents is all issues of cheating, I'm just saying that player to player trust is at an all time low. Whenever players in competitive games get the feeling that someone else get an unfair advantage basically by cheating three things happen - they stop playing, they start to cheat, or worst of all  - they stop to care.

Thirdly: I dislike the notion that already great PvP players get's access to ships/content that is potentially gamechanging when the less skilled doesn't. I've got plenty of hunting Wasas and I'd wager I generally make more PvP marks than I lose - in essence I'm a decent PvP'er.. But - I got the book of five rings, I've got the gunnery encyclopedia and I've got the art of shiphanling. Twice. Halleluja PvP mark trading for books. These books, these upgrades, these ship knowledges(plural of knowledge??) is gamechanging. The books are decided by RNG, I've already suggested they'd be removed or at least diminished by making books available in admiralty store as well as drops, price wouldn't matter just the notion that they are achievable. I am also however, aware that I am a relatively skilled PvP'er, and can prob take 2-3 agas of unskilled or inexperienced PvP players in my Wasa, mainly due to the Wasa being far superior to the other 4th rates.. IF not more.

 

To sum it up:

Marks incentivize cheating/farming, devs inability to properly police (as seen by the threads of the alleged cases) excacerbate the issue, and marks works to screw the gameplay balance in favor of the major nations, and the best PvP players that is actually becoming less and less skillfull since they get access to the best ships, the best upgrades and the best books either via the admiralty or from the fact that in order to compete in RvR you have to get VM - booktrading. Solution: Removal of the marks, the conquest competition and reintroduction of the La Navasse PvP area (last one I just threw in because liq sank me in a frigate and I've yet to get even).

[Landsman]

We wouldn't have this problem, if PvP marks only gave cosmetic items... just saying. VMs is another story. I think there shouldn't be any VM's and it should only be possible to build 1st rates with PvP marks. The PvP marks are granted through conquest and RvR anyways, if you are successful. VM for the 3 top nations is useless imo.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Landsman said:

We wouldn't have this problem, if PvP marks only gave cosmetic items... just saying. VMs is another story. I think there shouldn't be any VM's and it should only be possible to build 1st rates with PvP marks. The PvP marks are granted through conquest and RvR anyways, if you are successful. VM for the 3 top nations is useless imo.

Totally agree.. If the PvP marks merely were for cosmetic there would still be an incentive to go PvP'ing. But the VM for top three nations is not exactly useless. 50 1st rates were lost the day before last in battles around Cartagena, this translates into (I'm not a mathematician so bear with me here)... 50*50=2500 PvP marks or about 300 PvP kills.

[Landsman]

1 minute ago, Bearwall said:

But the VM for top three nations is not exactly useless. 50 1st rates were lost the day before last in battles around Cartagena, this translates into (I'm not a mathematician so bear with me here)... 50*50=2500 PvP marks or about 300 PvP kills.

Well "useless" was probably the wrong word... I should have said "bad". Making the 3 top nations even stronger only increases the gap and can cause a snowballing effect and I'd have no problem to see less 1st rates in game but it is very hard to make them super expensive / rare and still maintain some balance between players and nations....

[Corona Lisa]

I like PvP marks because I can get rich with PvP only and Im not forced to do PvE again (except for stupid knowledge slots).

 

Also PvP marks are worth something while gold is almost useless

 

If they would ban main accounts of PvP mark farmers then noone would do it anymore.

Edited January 25, 2018 by Jon Snow lets go

[Hawkwood]

53 minutes ago, Bearwall said:

Suggestion:

Remove PvP and Victory marks. Reason: Alt abusive behavior reaching all time heights and dev inability to properly police them. 

I'd like to propose this mainly on three reasons.

One is that I find it cowardly that some nations has swapped a few ports - ensuring a plentitude of alts got into defend/attack them and thereby ensuring as many alts receive VM for the conquest competition as possible. This is an unfair advantage only achieved by alt abuse and my own initial reaction is the gut reaction I think many of us feels - permaban the lot. But. It is symptomatic of a generic issue in the game. Some players enjoy RvR but do very little PvP. I on the otherhand enjoy PvP (even broken as it is) but mainly participate in RvR as a sidedish. You need PvP marks in order to convert to VM if you're not lord protector in one of the 3 major nations. This can be circumvented by simply flipping some ports pr agreement and ensure that ones own alts get into the port battles.

Second is that everytime someone institutes a policy it is unable to properly implement or police their authority suffers a collapse. We have all seen combat reports on ***** the great I, that sinks swedes at the exact same time at Barranquila. Or Big **** that sinks brits at Belize with 30 mins intervals. I'm not saying that these specific incidents is all issues of cheating, I'm just saying that player to player trust is at an all time low. Whenever players in competitive games get the feeling that someone else get an unfair advantage basically by cheating three things happen - they stop playing, they start to cheat, or worst of all  - they stop to care.

Thirdly: I dislike the notion that already great PvP players get's access to ships/content that is potentially gamechanging when the less skilled doesn't. I've got plenty of hunting Wasas and I'd wager I generally make more PvP marks than I lose - in essence I'm a decent PvP'er.. But - I got the book of five rings, I've got the gunnery encyclopedia and I've got the art of shiphanling. Twice. Halleluja PvP mark trading for books. These books, these upgrades, these ship knowledges(plural of knowledge??) is gamechanging. The books are decided by RNG, I've already suggested they'd be removed or at least diminished by making books available in admiralty store as well as drops, price wouldn't matter just the notion that they are achievable. I am also however, aware that I am a relatively skilled PvP'er, and can prob take 2-3 agas of unskilled or inexperienced PvP players in my Wasa, mainly due to the Wasa being far superior to the other 4th rates.. IF not more.

 

To sum it up:

Marks incentivize cheating/farming, devs inability to properly police (as seen by the threads of the alleged cases) excacerbate the issue, and marks works to screw the gameplay balance in favor of the major nations, and the best PvP players that is actually becoming less and less skillfull since they get access to the best ships, the best upgrades and the best books either via the admiralty or from the fact that in order to compete in RvR you have to get VM - booktrading. Solution: Removal of the marks, the conquest competition and reintroduction of the La Navasse PvP area (last one I just threw in because liq sank me in a frigate and I've yet to get even).

Well PVP marks are not the problem so much as Victory marks. Despite all alt farmers, i personally think, Victory marks are a much bigger, a serious problem, because it affects more players, as part of a nation.

That is why we see spain and russia swapping ports, in regular intervals.

Regarding Wasa...

Anyone who still has issues with her, start using Bellona. even a PVE player like me figured it out.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, rediii said:

We saw a porttrade between russia and spain, no swaps back and forth atm.

porttrades are normal

Using alts portswapping would be counterproductive once as many alts receives VM as possible - my issue doesn't stem from any current situation but from the fact that it's easily exploitable. Nation A is bottom of the table, allies with Nation B. Nation B agrees that x, let's say 3, amount of ports get flipped and Nation A send 75 alts to Nation B to defend said ports. Now Nation A gets 75-225 VM pr week simply from alt abuse and trading the marks to their main. And the conquest competition incentivizes this sort of behavior since 1st rates are more or less necessary to flip enemy ports.

[Bart Smith]

Alts may be limited to same nation that main account but i`m not sure is doable by technical reasons. All have to agree that current mechanics promote mark farming and port swapping for victory marks - in one word promote abusing.

[Navalus Magnus]

I like the - supposed - intention of VM though:

Incentives to actually participate in RvR. You can win or lose something important (speaking in terms of ingame importance) - i‘m already a bit giddy, thinking about the pbs tonight!

I think NA should create this kind of feeling, because it‘s very motivating!

Imo the pain with the VMs would be eased a bit by also giving them to players of the 4th, 5th and maybe even 6th listed nations (each one VM). If there seems to be a bigger chance of getting VMs more would participate in RvR.

And I also agree with @rediii: The thickness difference between 1st and 2nd rates is to high! If reduced it would increase chances to win pbs even if some 2nd rates participated in battle.

But I also admit, that you wouldn‘t necessarily need VMs as an incentive to do RvR.

If there would be more rare ressources like Cartagena Tar, or other economical reasons to conquer ports these could provide incentives enough.

Edited January 25, 2018 by Navalus Magnus

[Christendom]

PVP marks should only ever be able to purchase cosmetic items only.  

[Corona Lisa]

2 minutes ago, Christendom said:

PVP marks should only ever be able to purchase cosmetic items only.  

How can I get sustained income from PvP then?

[Navalus Magnus]

57 minutes ago, Wraith said:

But we've never suffered from a lack of port battles or RvR activity

I can‘t remember the last time it was that exciting, as it has been in the last few days (Cartagena), and the last few weeks before Christmas RvR even seemed pretty much dull and dead to me!

But I of course could be wrong viewing it as quite a noob and through the eyes of a swedish captain.

[Christendom]

1 hour ago, Jon Snow lets go said:

How can I get sustained income from PvP then?

sell paints?  Sell pvp marks?  Same as you do now.  The game is full of carebears that don't pvp and they want their ships to look pretty.  Back before the wipe I made a killing selling paints and notes from the chests.  

[Christendom]

46 minutes ago, Navalus Magnus said:

I can‘t remember the last time it was that exciting, as it has been in the last few days (Cartagena), and the last few weeks before Christmas RvR even seemed pretty much dull and dead to me!

But I of course could be wrong viewing it as quite a noob and through the eyes of a swedish captain.

Last time the game was as exciting as it was now we had the Western Alliance vs Eastern Alliance.  A lot of the old Western Alliance players came back as a result of the merge, right around xmas.  We bring the excitement  :-)

 

[Corona Lisa]

15 minutes ago, Christendom said:

sell paints?  Sell pvp marks?  Same as you do now.  The game is full of carebears that don't pvp and they want their ships to look pretty.  Back before the wipe I made a killing selling paints and notes from the chests.  

Yeah but only in the beginning, after some months the market was full and paints lost most of their value

[Christendom]

2 minutes ago, Jon Snow lets go said:

Yeah but only in the beginning, after some months the market was full and paints lost most of their value

Always a market for rarer paints.  I was selling rouge noir's and scarred up until the end.  

[Navalus Magnus]

1 hour ago, Christendom said:

Last time the game was as exciting as it was now we had the Western Alliance vs Eastern Alliance.  A lot of the old Western Alliance players came back as a result of the merge, right around xmas.  We bring the excitement  :-)

 

You‘re welcome to keep bringing excitement! 😊

'Hope i‘ll be able to join the fray anytime soon!