Question for devs regarding character account limit

[Justme]

I know it's been suggested 1 character per game purchased. While I understand having more can be abused for in game progress, my concern is including myself there are 3 potential players in my household.

If I am understanding correctly that would mean 3 purchases of the game for all of us to play. Can you help me understand the reasoning to buy 3 of the same game do my family can enjoy this great game?

[OlavDeng2]

I know it's been suggested 1 character per game purchased. While I understand having more can be abused for in game progress, my concern is including myself there are 3 potential players in my household.

If I am understanding correctly that would mean 3 purchases of the game for all of us to play. Can you help me understand the reasoning to buy 3 of the same game do my family can enjoy this great game?

Spying, exploiting(making a character, trasnfer a lot of cash to it, use that character to empty enemy ports of resources).

[Justme]

actually using the Steam friends and family feature i'm fairly sure all three potential players in your household can play the game - just not at the same time

That would be fine with me.

[Anarcke]

I agree with you justme, it is quite unfair to make people pay for a new copy of the game if they want one of their family member to play NA. i'm fine with one account per game copy obviously, but maybe limiting to one nation per account, or un nation log per day may resolve the "spying" issue, in a certain part.

 

Because those saying "buy another game copy" if money is not an issue for them, will still be able to spy. So it will make people with less real money unable to let play a family member, but richer players will be able to, and will even be able to spy. That's really unfair in my opinion.

 

One account OK, one nation or one nation log per day OK, one character by game copy NO plz.

[Nathaniel]

As stated in another thread, to prevent economic exploiting we could have multiple characters only if they were tied to one nation, shared one pool of labour hours and all the outposts (to prevent tripling the amount of markets you can control). We could have that, sure, but at that point, is it that difficult to just share a character?

[Anarcke]

@ Nathaniel

 

I don't think it's a good idea to share a pool of labor hours between characters, because if there is one player by character, it means that you will start a labor hours run between those two players on the same account. And what if a player has two characters, one for trading, another for pvp? two differents gameplays.

 

What you say is that at that point (particular case i admit) i should for example let my daughter play with my character, while she can't master every aspect of the game. It would prevent both of us to play as we want, except if i buy another game copy.

 

If you have enough money to buy as much game copys you want, that's good for you, but I, and i believe other people, can't.

[Elouda]

@ Nathaniel

 

I don't think it's a good idea to share a pool of labor hours between characters, because if there is one player by character, it means that you will start a labor hours run between those two players on the same account. And what if a player has two characters, one for trading, another for pvp? two differents gameplays.

 

What you say is that at that point (particular case i admit) i should for example let my daughter play with my character, while she can't master every aspect of the game. It would prevent both of us to play as we want, except if i buy another game copy.

 

If you have enough money to buy as much game copys you want, that's good for you, but I, and i believe other people, can't.

 

The problem really is that if you dont make labour hours pooled for the whole account, it basically forces anyone who wants to be competitive in the economy to use all their character slots to maximize the hours they get, and I can tell you from experience this is a hassle and not really fun.

 

I think having to split crafting hours is an entirely reasonable compromise for being able to run multiple characters in the same nation (and hence not have to buy multiple copies of the game), and if for example you are running one character for trading and one for pvp, will not affect you at all. The only problem will be if you have both players wanting to craft, in which case you should just talk it out with the other person and come to some kind of agreement on how to handle it.

Edited January 16, 2016 by Elouda

[VonVolks]

Official answer would be appreciated...

[Ratline]

As stated in another thread, to prevent economic exploiting we could have multiple characters only if they were tied to one nation, shared one pool of labour hours and all the outposts (to prevent tripling the amount of markets you can control). We could have that, sure, but at that point, is it that difficult to just share a character?

 

Is it that difficult to limit it to one character per server?

[Anarcke]

It seems to be impossible for a lot of people. I don't know why, it looks selfish and elitist to me. And even worst, it may prevent new players to buy or keep playing the game more than a few weeks, wich can be very bad to the game in medium/ long term.

 

And if the worst happen, those people will be the first to complain.

[LeeUK]

If there is more than one character it has to be limited to one Nation only to prevent people from making spy/troll alts. The labour hours should also be pooled for obvious reason. For the sake of gameplay we need limits.

[Nathaniel]

@ Nathaniel

 

I don't think it's a good idea to share a pool of labor hours between characters, because if there is one player by character, it means that you will start a labor hours run between those two players on the same account. And what if a player has two characters, one for trading, another for pvp? two differents gameplays.

 

What you say is that at that point (particular case i admit) i should for example let my daughter play with my character, while she can't master every aspect of the game. It would prevent both of us to play as we want, except if i buy another game copy.

 

You realize that you and your daughter will with three pools of crafting hours between you will be at a disadvantage to any other two players who will have six crafting pools between them anyway? So having one shared crafting pool doesn't really remove anything from you - it just will make alting not a necessity for crafters anymore.

Edited January 17, 2016 by Nathaniel

[Anarcke]

@ Nathaniel

 

If people with 6 crafting pools can spend enought time playing to use it all, good for them.

I just want to be able to use my labor hours to craft what i want, and let my daughter craft what she wants. Having only one character will prevent us from doing so.

[Nathaniel]

@ Nathaniel

 

If people with 6 crafting pools can spend enought time playing to use it all, good for them.

I just want to be able to use my labor hours to craft what i want, and let my daughter craft what she wants. Having only one character will prevent us from doing so.

 

But you will be able to do exactly like that with a shared crafting pool. You'll be able to both craft what your want and your maximum crafting capabilities will still be 50% of a player who plays alone in both cases but the meta will be preserved.

[Anarcke]

Why would it be 50% of a player alone, if the econ is built in a way that don't require two characters to be fun?

Why should it take me twice the time to craft something than a solo player playing with only one character? Because that's the downside of what you're saying. I've paid the same price, i'm not asking for any advantage, just no handicap.

[Nathaniel]

Well, you'll have a handicap, since any solo player will have double the amount of crafting hours available just for him and so will build everything twice faster than you and your daughter can. It will take you twice as long regardless if you have a shared labour pool or not. It may not be critical in the initial stages of the game, but when you reach larger stages when a ship takes several days to be build, it will not just be a matter of fun. And you have exactly that handicap right now, of course, because every crafter uses his three crafting pools. So i don't really get why you are campaigning against shared crafting hour pools.

[Anarcke]

Ok, i stop campaigning, i'll just ask a refund if the one character only finally happen.

[LeeUK]

The labour hours have to be pooled if there were more than 1 character per account, because later in the game it will be the difference between a crafter making 1 sol in a given time period and a crafter making 3 sols in the same time period.

Also, it was already stated long ago that there is a good possibility we would be limited to one character to defeat alt abuse like spying etc.

[OlavDeng2]

What i dont get is why cant the people just share the characters if it truly is an issue for them that they cant buy multiple copies... its not like you can play at the same time with different characters anyways...(unless i am mistaken ofcourse, id assume that it is not possible)

[BungeeLemming]

I dont know if it works but.. Does the Steam Family work with EA titles as well?

You can share games between the family and thus would be able to have access to Naval Action at least if the owner is not playing on his own.

[Ratline]

What i dont get is why cant the people just share the characters if it truly is an issue for them that they cant buy multiple copies... its not like you can play at the same time with different characters anyways...(unless i am mistaken ofcourse, id assume that it is not possible)

 

Would you (for example) let your 6 year old kid sail your SOL?

 

Seriously, I've never seen so much rampant overthinking of a really simple (non)issue. Limit us to one character per server and have done with it.

[OlavDeng2]

Would you (for example) let your 6 year old kid sail your SOL?

 

Seriously, I've never seen so much rampant overthinking of a really simple (non)issue. Limit us to one character per server and have done with it.

there will be 1 character per server if it is anything like the PVP and PVE server thing, also who said you should let your 6 year old sail a sol? let him/her sail a frigate instead...

[LeeUK]

Yeah, if someone is that passionate about the game in the same household as someone else that they wouldn't want to share characters, then they can purchase a copy of the game like the rest of us.

[Cpt Shadow]

Just a point on this.  If a household had several people who wanted to play Naval action, I would imagine at some point the family would want to play against or with each other?  In which case you would have to buy it multiple times anyway.   Multiple characters on this game would cause problems and I hope they dont implement that.

[Ratline]

there will be 1 character per server if it is anything like the PVP and PVE server thing, also who said you should let your 6 year old sail a sol? let him/her sail a frigate instead...

 

You asked why people wouldn't want to share a character, that's an example of why... Doesn't need to be the hypothetical 6 year old and even if they sailed your frigate you might then find your character on the wrong side of the map for what you want to do, or suddenly missing lots of gold or crafting mats. There are lots of reasons people don't like sharing single characters.

 

I don't quite understand what you mean by saying there will be 1 character per server 'if it is anything like the PVP and PVE server thing'. The current issue is being debated precisely because there is not a 1 char per server limit and people are using alts, no? Anyway, for those of us who want to play more than one faction (or those who have kids) an unnecessary limit of 1 character per account is a terrible idea.