Pirate Mechanics Vote

[Haratik]

if we're limiting pirate ships shouldn't we be limiting the US to the constitution? Pretty sure it was the flagship and the heaviest frigate we built. non historical bias just means someone got outplayed in pvp and is crying about it. All the factions could band together to try to suppress piracy. >.>

I guess the Niagara and the Essex aren't American are they?

As far as everyone getting together to suppress piracy, you must not have played PotBS. Didn't work there either.

Edited January 30, 2016 by Hairy Fishnuts

[theprof739]

if we're limiting pirate ships shouldn't we be limiting the US to the constitution? Pretty sure it was the flagship and the heaviest frigate we built. non historical bias just means someone got outplayed in pvp and is crying about it. All the factions could band together to try to suppress piracy. >.>

 

By the cutoff date of blueprint inclusion (roughly 1820) the US had built the USS America (74 gun 3rd rate, promptly given to France,) USS Independence (90 gun 2nd Rate,)  USS Washtington (74 gun 3rd Rate,) USS Franklin (74 Gun 3rd Rate,) USS Columbus (74 gun 3rd Rate) and USS Delaware (74 Gun 3rd Rate.)  The United State certainly had the capacity to build SOLs, something that would be impossible without a nation budget and infrastructure. 

 

I'm not arguing that we should "NERF PIRATES PLOX!!1!" I honestly think, as many have stated, the pirates should have some fun and unique gameplay compared to Nationals. I don't think it is fair if pirates couldn't use SOLs at all, as locking anyone out of ships is unfair, but they should be a challenge to get and hold on to.

 

With things are they are we might as well just rename the factions in game to: Green, Blue, Light Blue, Red, Dark Red, Orange, Yellow, and Black. because aside from being able to attack eachother Pirates operate the same way as everyone else. Hopefully once Diplomacy come around, and the Pirates can enjoy no peace it will change some things, but I doubt it. The pirates shouldn't have a capital honestly they should be spread out across the map, because being located near in the Bahamas they really only interact with Britain, Spain and the US, unless players consciously move away from there. If each pirate player spawned in a handful of different ports around the map, it might be much improved. You'd have a nest near the Dutch, Danish, and French bases, some near the Spanish and British, and some near the US.

Edited January 30, 2016 by theprof739

[Deepgift]

 

 

 

Nations should eliminate piracy not by voting, but by fighting.

 

 

 

YAR!!!! I Will fuel the fire of piracy. Spread the black throughout the map!!! Fear the pirates. We are strong and united under the black flag!!

Edited January 30, 2016 by Deepgift

[randommexi]

I oppose anything that would create an imbalance to one faction or another.

 

I voted for pirates to have the same options as every other faction and here is why,

 

making one faction not be able to do something instantly creates an imbalance in the game.  now one faction is handicapped.  this is bad

 

while historically it makes no sense for pirates to capture ports and have an economy. everyone should have the same options to craft and build their factions economy.

 

make all factions have the same options is the best way to make the game balanced and fair.

 

after you hamstring a faction you have to do something to rebalance it.  giving it more power in another area that no one else has.  sure, it adds diversity to the game but now one faction has more power then another and will create a population imbalance (which we are already seeing). 

 

I currently believe the fact that pirates can attack other pirates with no penalty is enough of a difference to keep them interesting.

[FruchtZucker]

Hello there,

I want to say on this topic, a few things here. Currently we are seeing here is a phenomenon which is increasingly blazes at the present time in the forums / chats of games. If something is too difficult or too strong it must be done immediately weaker, because you do not want to make an effort, or wants to use your brain.
As mentioned by some including Moderators / Admins are the people who complain to blame if the Allow a pirate nation forms, but because still I confess that there are a few things that should be changed.

 

1. Crafting

2. Ships

3. Ports

4. Others

 

1. Crafting:

• 1st Rates, 2nd Rates, 3th Rates should not be made by pirates, only to board. 
• 4th Rates (Small ships of the line) should be the highest which a pirate can make. The best would be of course to distinguish between a Normal & Pirates variant.
• 5th Rates Here, the main focus of manufacturing should be by pirates. Pirates should be able to produce all the frigates, in this case the Constitution would be the largest ship currently. Here it would again offer to create a pirate version.

 

2.Ships:

• It would make sense as mentioned above vessels into two categories to divide. On the one hand the "normal vessels (e.g. Navy ships)" and "pirate ships". The "Pirates variants" can be produced only by pirates, and these differ from the "normal ships".
• Furthermore, the frigates (e.g. Constitution currently) should be the main class of ships of the pirates.
• 4th Rates should be the only "ships of the line" so that a certain balance is created.
• The possible Distinguish the two variants is enormous. Maybe the other nations find a pirates ship so great that they begin to hunt them.

 

3. Ports:

• Pirates should be able to plunder all ports. However, the other nations should be able to also plunder the ports of their enemies.
• Pirates should have one to three permanent and unconquerable harbor, if you take them denied other ports. Furthermore, you could also other ports handed over to the pirates, but these are normally vulnerable. And must be defended. If these are lost they can not be recaptured by the pirates.
• Furthermore, you need more "free ports" in the world, so that pirates can find refuge there to e.g. repair or otherwise. These ports should also not be vulnerable.

 

4. Other things:

• The function that you will be a pirate, after having attacked an ally should be removed. Instead of this function, a Punishment system should be introduced. For example, the pay of fine or imprison in a prison, it should be guided by the offense. This would also reduce the growing number of pirates since there are a lot of "new" players who are honestly too stupid to recognize their faction. One might as well give these players the opportunity to return back to their actual fraction, if it should be changed the system.

 

These are just a few ideas and comments. Furthermore, it should also show that you can compromise to make it interesting to all factions.

I also suspect that the pirates have used as a scapegoat currently because many factions there not manage to organize themselves against the pirates or other nations.

I would also like to remark that this post contains my My personal opinion.
I am also happy for any further questions regarding my ideas.

Please excuse Several spelling or grammatical fails.

Best regards
FruchtZucker

P.S: I'm a Pirate

[Jimlit]

Seeing as the majority of players want to remove pirate crafting and port take overs I think there has to be some sort of compromise. Some counter points:

 

1. Pirates cant craft anything above a canoe
   If we aren't going to be able to craft ourselves decent ships then we should get a durability bonus to captured ships. Maybe not 5 like crafted ships but 3 would be a reasonable number. We should also get a quality bonus to crafted upgrades, such as -1 or -2 required crafting notes for an upgrade. 
    
2. Pirates cant take ports
   Historically it makes sense but as far as gameplay goes its a huge drawback and would cripple a large portion of the player base. A counter would be to allow pirates to use every port outside of capitals or be able to buy letters of marquee from nations for access to their ports. Many pirates were historically mercenaries more than raiders so a mechanic like that would make much more sense than just gimping an entire faction. It would also allow for more trade goods to be moved around. 

[ajffighter86]

Yarrh, if you take me ability to craft 1st rates then I want to be able to craft permanent upgrades that ye nationals can't get, like upgrades that increase the speed or firepower of my tugboats.

 

But seriously, if you guys want to make this about cat & mouse, pirates have every right to ask for a mouse-hole in the wall. It goes both ways.

 

I like the idea of raids, but if you take away capping ports for pirates out-right, then what inevitably happens is that pirates will lose their ports and basically there was no point in giving them ports to begin with.

 

Maybe make port-capping much more expensive for pirates, but make raiding a cheaper option. Keep it so assault fleets can only be launched from another pirate port, but raids could be launched from any port. It'll influence one option the over (since pirates were more likely to raid than capture) and it won't be a guaranteed game-over for pirates.

 

Pirates are supposed to be more of an annoyance to nations than a threat (sayin' as a pirate). Gameplay ought to reflect that, but that means the developers will need to make major changes to create mechanics that apply to the pirate 'nation'.

Edited January 31, 2016 by ajffighter86

[James T Skoll]

You people are insane if you seek to ban an entire faction from an aspect in the game solely to suit your RP needs. Not only is there any reason to do it, but given the fact that literally the only thing that differentiates any of the factions is Flags, you might as well limit what faction can have what if you go down that road and I promise no one will enjoy that.

[Nerdwing]

I for one would absolutely play as an Aztec Ghost

[GrapeShot]

Henry Morgan wasn´t a pirate. Just sayin...

He also didn't capture 14 towns; he raided, and sacked them. The about face by the devs on pirates being the hard mode is very disappointing.

[sailNE]

Idea that pirates can craft 1st rates is ridiculous

[James T Skoll]

Idea that pirates can craft 1st rates is ridiculous

 

You're reallllly gonna hate that my clan has 3rd Rates already then and working towards 2nds.

['Sharpe]

1- If Pirates were always going to be a regular nation with a black flag, there probably should have been no hints given early on in development about Pirates being "hard mode" and unique in some way. They should not be listed in the nation selection screen as "Very Hard". This expectation creates a lot of the dissonance we are seeing now.

2- If what makes Pirates "hard" is that they cannot form any alliances, then an alliance system should have already been introduced to the game. At the moment there is no diplomacy mechanic that actually makes Pirates unique in any way. Even if alliances are eventually introduced, the inability for Pirates to form them does not represent a significant enough differentiator to justify that alone being the sole source of their faction's "hard" difficulty.

3- The fact that Pirates work together should not come as a surprise to anyone who has understanding of human behavior, especially in games/competitions. If you put people together with a common goal and common enemies, of course they are going to work together. It is a massive fallacy to point towards Pirates working together as some sort of unique and Special choice, when all game mechanics have ensured that nothing else was ever going to happen.

4- The answers about plans for Pirates by devs have been quite honestly a little condescending. Maybe it's a translation thing and maybe I am interpreting it wrongly, but to be completely honest I feel condescended towards. All we have been told, in maybe 4 posts by admin despite hundreds if not thousands of player posts on the topic, is something like "nations have all the tools to stop piracy, if you can't do it then it's your fault." Many of us are trying to have discussions about how unique Pirate attributes can actually create a fun new dimension for gameplay. We are not whining about Pirate "domination", just as non-Brits don't whine about British domination.

Many Pirate players themselves support unique attributes for Pirates that make them distinct from nations. So that they can actually feel like Pirates. THAT is what the discussion is about - not simply punishing Pirate players or making it needlessly difficult. To be treated by the devs like we are insolent whiners on an issue we are actually contributing much thought and effort to attempting to better the gameplay experience for everyone is extremely off-putting. Henry Darby locking every thread about piracy within minutes of it opening makes the whole issue feel like a police state.

Many longtime testers are trying to give feedback to better the game, and the results of this poll shows where the majority stance resides. The fact that new topics keep being created by different players, Pirates and non Pirates, shows this is still an issue. The developers have listened to majority opinion previously and at least tested modifications to the game based on that majority opinion. I'm not sure what is different now.

***Edit - I don't mean for this post to come across as anti dev, as I think 95% of the time they have done a great job of listening to the community and designing a fantastic game. It's just this one issue where their behavior is so radically different, both in terms of not considering majority opinion and not engaging in conversations on the topic other than to respond briefly and in a way that (I interpret) condescends to testers that are simply trying to help the game be the best that it can be.

Edited February 2, 2016 by 'Sharpe

[Eldberg]

Well, I took the time to read through all the posts on this thread and I have to say, some of the responses have been the equivalent of a baby not wanting to share it's toys. I find it rather amusing that the developers (I presume the Admin is a developer of sorts, maybe just a background knowledge of the subject?) presumed that players from the Pirate nation would not in some way band together. It was as likely to happen as for the sun to rise in the east and set in the west. I don't see not allowing the Pirates to craft the larger ships as a punishment, it seems that it would only feel like that if you were used to what you already had. There have been some interesting suggestions here, some that would almost tempt me to re-roll as a Pirate if they came about (especially the suggestion about capturing ships and re-fitting them).

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

Well, I took the time to read through all the posts on this thread and I have to say, some of the responses have been the equivalent of a baby not wanting to share it's toys. I find it rather amusing that the developers (I presume the Admin is a developer of sorts, maybe just a background knowledge of the subject?) presumed that players from the Pirate nation would not in some way band together. It was as likely to happen as for the sun to rise in the east and set in the west. I don't see not allowing the Pirates to craft the larger ships as a punishment, it seems that it would only feel like that if you were used to what you already had. There have been some interesting suggestions here, some that would almost tempt me to re-roll as a Pirate if they came about (especially the suggestion about capturing ships and re-fitting them).

Admin is the lead person for the game (not sure of the exact title, we'll just call him the Lead Producer). Nobody knows more about it, the code that runs it, the intentions for features, etc. than he.

[James T Skoll]

IMO, if you wanted to make Pirates something different, they should have been put in the game as something different from the very beginning. Now that it is a faction pretty much indistinguishable from any other, going back now may cause a lot of friction. Me personally, and only speaking for myself, am open to anything the devs might like to try. New experiences and stuff like that. However, what I cannot abide is players with a chip on their shoulder trying to shout down how Pirates should be just so that it fits in their own little world.

[GrapeShot]

It is causing a lot of friction already. We know what we read back in the 'hard mode'days and would like to see that pirates are pirates in the game.

[Haratik]

IMO, if you wanted to make Pirates something different, they should have been put in the game as something different from the very beginning. Now that it is a faction pretty much indistinguishable from any other, going back now may cause a lot of friction. Me personally, and only speaking for myself, am open to anything the devs might like to try. New experiences and stuff like that. However, what I cannot abide is players with a chip on their shoulder trying to shout down how Pirates should be just so that it fits in their own little world.

 

I agree that they should have been put into the game differently, however, my guess is that that was impossible with the resources they had available at the time, if that was what was intended.  Not being an admin or a dev, we can only guess as to their true intentions.  If they DO intend to change the way pirates are to play this game, either it needs to be one big patch with minor tweaks along the way to stabilize the playstyle, or successive small patches.

 

I will go so far as to say that if the devs do remove the crafting of anything larger than a fourth rate for the Pirate faction, then I will willingly haul down the Stars and Stripes and raise the Jolly Roger.  Until then, playing as a pirate is something of a joke at the moment.

Edited February 2, 2016 by Hairy Fishnuts

[Eldberg]

What it comes down to, from the looks of it, is that the overwhelming success of the Pirate nation actually has the developers a little scared. They did not expect the players to band together, perhaps they didn't even expect the number, and now they are at the stage where Pirates are the 2nd largest nation in the game. To remove or change anything now (even if it does actually improve the game) that makes the Pirate nation more difficult to play would create a huge public backslash from those players.

Can you blame them though? Look at the amount of abuse that they get as it is from aggravated players. Imagine the torrent of abuse and name calling they would receive if they take little baby Jack Sparrow's toys away from him.

[Haratik]

They're lucky they get such toys. There are plenty here that remember how it was on PotBS. The only ship larger than a frigate that could be legitimately crafted was the Poseidon. The Hyperion and the Wenden refit (can't be bothered to remember the name, I preferred frigates) were the only ships of the line that pirates could access without capturing them first. That is, until Portalus started doing their premium slide to oblivion and added a 2nd rate refit.

If the combat mechanic for pirate vs pirate gets smoothed out, and access to ships of the line gets drastically limited, the outcry will be great, but I have a feeling that instead of quitting, you'll see a majority of those players fleshing out other nations, or bloating already fattened nations like GB, or USA, and the only players remaining pirate being the hardcore minority.

Edited February 3, 2016 by Hairy Fishnuts

[Tremor]

pirates should work as any other nation.

[Haratik]

pirates should work as any other nation.

If they were a nation, then perhaps, yes.

[Pagan Pete]

I notice yer poll doesn't have "Pyrates should be able to both capture and raid ports."

 

Therefore, since the poll be not representing all options, I can't partake.

[CRASHS]

lamo if you think using a poll to nerf a faction that is causing you all trouble is cool. I call for great britain and america to only have a limited number of ships faction wide, and have spain be the only faction allowed first rates.

[Haratik]

lamo if you think using a poll to nerf a faction that is causing you all trouble is cool. I call for great britain and america to only have a limited number of ships faction wide, and have spain be the only faction allowed first rates.

And...moving on.