Returning player with some questions

[Fonsworth]

I'm returning to NA after probably a year+ hiatus

I logged in to find something odd, a Spanish character. I've never made a Spanish character. In fact, my last time playing I was in a pretty large USA clan that had people in it from a previous game I played, so I know I was not Spanish. I deleted the character and started a new one. A Pirate this time. I also noticed I had some redeemable items. XP, a Constitution and something called 'XP for 3 Ships' that I don't think did anything at all when I redeemed it.

So my questions are:

1. Are the nations balanced atm as far as player base goes?

2. Are the redeemable items a one-time-per-account thing, or if I delete this character and make a USA character will I get to redeem those items again? If I get a friend to purchase and play NA, will he get those items as well or were they just a 1 time thing for current player accounts?

3. I noticed some UI changes, notably the info panel that pops up in open world when you click on a ship. NPC ships have the name of the ship as the name of the NPC (until you get in combat) and the Player ships show the player name, but not the type of ship. Am I missing something somewhere? Where can I see the type of ship a player is in without having to get into a combat instance?

4. How the heck did I end up with a Spanish character when I know for a fact I was ranked up in USA last time I played and a member of a USA clan.. can clans switch nations and take their members when they switch?

5. What is the chief complaint/bug/issue right now that I should be careful of while playing?

edit: 6. What is up with the new island south of Bermuda?

Edited September 25, 2018 by Fonsworth

[Gregory Rainsborough]

35 minutes ago, Fonsworth said:

I'm returning to NA after probably a year+ hiatus

I logged in to find something odd, a Spanish character. I've never made a Spanish character. In fact, my last time playing I was in a pretty large USA clan that had people in it from a previous game I played, so I know I was not Spanish. I deleted the character and started a new one. A Pirate this time. I also noticed I had some redeemable items. XP, a Constitution and something called 'XP for 3 Ships' that I don't think did anything at all when I redeemed it.

So my questions are:

1. Are the nations balanced atm as far as player base goes?

2. Are the redeemable items a one-time-per-account thing, or if I delete this character and make a USA character will I get to redeem those items again? If I get a friend to purchase and play NA, will he get those items as well or were they just a 1 time thing for current player accounts?

3. I noticed some UI changes, notably the info panel that pops up in open world when you click on a ship. NPC ships have the name of the ship as the name of the NPC (until you get in combat) and the Player ships show the player name, but not the type of ship. Am I missing something somewhere? Where can I see the type of ship a player is in without having to get into a combat instance?

4. How the heck did I end up with a Spanish character when I know for a fact I was ranked up in USA last time I played and a member of a USA clan.. can clans switch nations and take their members when they switch?

5. What is the chief complaint/bug/issue right now that I should be careful of while playing?

edit: 6. What is up with the new island south of Bermuda?

1. No.

2. n/a

3. You have to use your own knowledge of the ships to identify them.

4. Did you give you account details to someone else? A lot of American clans went Spanish.

5. You will learn to love the trollequin

6. It's a secret island, a very nice one as well.

[Guest]

I'll give my quick view of it:

 

1. No. If you want an elaboration then here follows my account of the nations as I see them:

Brits are still the largest carebear nation in the server. The swedes still has the strongest RvR fleet in the server. The Russians are a close second but has to resort to multiflips in order to compete. The french are still losing their port battles and using timers to hide from the real RvR fleets. The spanish are getting a bit of stick atm. The dutch are carebearing as usual and hardly ever participate in RvR, if ever. The danes are weak atm but we're still active in PvP and can muster a decent RvR fleet if need be. The pirates are as weak as the french and tacking ports in the night just to loose them in the daylight. The Prussians are a small active playerbase that are atm mostly raping the pirates since the pirates has tried to take the ports from the prussians in the night. The polish-Lithuanian commonwealth is barely active and only live through a reservation that the danes has allotted them. 

2. As far as I know the DLCs are account locked so you can delete your character as much as you want. - Don't take my word for it tho..

3. The playerships no longer show playername. The shiptype has to be identified by visual identifaction rather than from the UI.

4. Have no idea.

5. The Le Requin.

6. The island S of Bermuda has always been there right?

[Angus MacDuff]

4 minutes ago, Gregory Rainsborough said:

1. No.

2. n/a

3. You have to use your own knowledge of the ships to identify them.

4. Did you give you account details to someone else? A lot of American clans went Spanish.

5. You will learn to love the trollequin

6. It's a secret island, a very nice one as well.

For 5 I would say the broken ROE in the Patrol zones....oh, and Patrol Zones!  You can sink the Xebec

[Ink]

Experience redeemables are tied to account - it means you can create new characters and those reedemables will be there until you use it - but if you already used in on a character, upon deleting it you will lose all experience and will start from a scratch.

Experience was transferred two times so far: on the wipe in May 2017 and on USA and EU server merge in December of 2017. Most likely you played on PVP Global (US server) and also had an inactive Spanish character on PVP EU (EU server), thus, after merging, experience from PVP Global character were transferred to PVP EU account where you had a Spanish character. If this is not the case, that most likely you gave your steam details to another person as the game could not switch your character nation on its own.

Regarding the Constitution ship - it is a timed redeemable that was added on 12 September and will be expired if you didn't activate it within 15 days period.

 

[HachiRoku]

13 minutes ago, Lars Kjaer said:

The island S of Bermuda has always been there right?

yes it has always been there

[admin]

1 hour ago, HachiRoku said:

yes it has always been there

I wish i will walk on it one day (this game or next one). Its an exact copy of one of the most famous age of sail fiction islands. Built by hand according to the map created by the author. Every height is almost exactly like it was in that book. 

[Barbancourt]

9 hours ago, Lars Kjaer said:

The Prussians are a small active playerbase that are atm mostly raping the pirates since the pirates has tried to take the ports from the prussians in the night.

"night"?

 

[HachiRoku]

15 hours ago, admin said:

I wish i will walk on it one day (this game or next one). Its an exact copy of one of the most famous age of sail fiction islands. Built by hand according to the map created by the author. Every height is almost exactly like it was in that book. 

Have you ever considered the ability to walk around ship interiors or is that just to much work considering 95% of the time people don't use things like that? I'm just wondering and not suggesting since it would not be worth it imo. I would love it but still....

I really wish these kind of games had the players so you would have a Buget for this. 

[Malachi]

11 minutes ago, HachiRoku said:

Have you ever considered the ability to walk around ship interiors or is that just to much work considering 95% of the time people don't use things like that? I'm just wondering and not suggesting since it would not be worth it imo. I would love it but still....

Making accurate interiors for ships is an absolute research nightmare, believe me

And then there´s the tris count and textures to consider.

[HachiRoku]

3 hours ago, Malachi said:

Making accurate interiors for ships is an absolute research nightmare, believe me

And then there´s the tris count and textures to consider.

I know that, that was not the question. Besides that there is no need to be that accurate.