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JJWolf

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  1. In traditional maritime history, if a number of enemy vessels were hanging around raiding trade ships and small patrols they would have been chased off pretty quickly by a nation's protection fleets, larger patrols would be conducted to ensure safer passage and hunting fleets would have been sent out after the pirates/privateers. In traditional maritime history the world wasn't burning with eternal war like it is in this game. Marks are a P2W currency that rewards one style of play only.
  2. Then why have a suggestions forum if not to receive and review feedback? As for your suggestion on why not just sell to players, I would question if I did not articulate it clear enough of the concepts in the original thread.
  3. I'm curious if any Devs have even read this thread or any of the other economy suggestions? I've noticed many threads with little to no activity in them, some of which are very good suggestions. It seems when someone makes a serious attempt to provide substantial feedback on major issues in the game, the place turns into a ghost town. I can't see myself providing this much effort in future with constructive criticism for this game, I'll stick to the apparent tried and true method of taking snipes and making snide remarks on issues and save the effort for other EA games.
  4. This reads near identical to the OP and I see a major flaw in this logic. This attitude of "PvP must be special" is a bunch of male cow manure. If one is only intent on combat then Legends sounds like the game. The current setup of marks allows PvP players and to a lesser extent PvE to earn rewards through respective ways of playing. Without the PvE players on the PvP servers (i.e: Traders, Crafters, and Shipwrights) your entire server economy will collapse with it's current implementation. Instead of a free market, the mid/late game will become exclusively for clan play only and discourage new combat orientated players from getting beyond their starting cutter. As it stands it's already in trouble. When playing as a nation, the part people forget is that as a nation you are a team of teams. In actual fact, I despise the current restriction of needing 'Conquest/Combat Marks' for BPs, Permits, and Books (crafters/shipwright items). It should be purchasable with gold. Why? Because the player-base who is most likely to craft the majority of the upgrades and ships are the same players who prefer to spend the endless hours it takes for large scale trading and crafting, not PvPing. Forcing those players out to PvPing or mission grinding is the same as forcing all PvPers from promoting each rank until they have made the X number of millions of gold in profit from trade runs and crafted Y number of ships as a prerequisite.
  5. This thread is to discuss my suggestion to get one of the core game mechanics fixed for those interested in other parts of the game outside of combat. This will provide alternative options of gameplay and to supplement non-trade/crafting orientated gameplay (Missions, PvP, PvE, Conquest, Exploring). The biggest issue with the economy revolves around supply/demand supplemented by a player run economy model and low population numbers. To address this we need to break down the economy into the different parts and address each part and how it ties together. First I will cover off on common terms used throughout, then I will identify the key areas with suggestions to fix each if needed, and finally I will provide a conclusion. Terms Common terms used: Store inventory - The quantity available within the shop of a port Raw resources - Goods produced through 'harvesting' in the craft menu - i.e: Logs, Ore, Hemp, etc. Manufactured materials - Parts made from raw resources and other manufactured materials but are not usable themselves - i.e: Frame Parts, Planking, Rigging Parts, etc. Manufactured goods - Finished products usable as consumables, upgrades, and cannons - i.e: Hull Patches, Turning Trim, 6pd Medium Cannons, etc. Trade goods - All the products not usable in crafting but consumables for ports - i.e: Sussex Oak, Fine Leathers, Parisian Furniture, etc. Goods - Encompasses all the previously mentioned goods - Trade goods, Raw resources, Manufactured materials, and Manufactured goods Currently in game: Supply The supply of goods can come in three different forms: Acquisition Appears in the shop for sale Acquisition is a static figure with a % chance of occurring to add stock to a port. Production Produced by players Production is goods produced through raw resource harvesting buildings Trade Populates the port inventory through the sale of goods to the store Trade occurs when players sell goods to a store or when NPC trade ships arrive at a port (unconfirmed the effect). Consumption The consumption of goods in a port are static transactions that reduce the port stock by a set amount every hour. Biggest Issues: Population Player numbers are FAR too low to support the existing model! Acquisition Quantity of acquired goods are purely added by a static figure that does not adjust based on nation population/activity Acquired goods are mostly only shippable from region capital to region capital, other ports are not interested in the goods Production Raw resources produced by players are more expensive than NPC port prices, it is actually more affordable to source from NPC shop inventory then from player contracts Some goods are ignored by players and therefore create massive shortages when NPC shops are not populating regularly as an alternative No profit in shipping goods from raw resource ports to the manufacturing hubs Some raw resources are not available through production Trade Goods moved from an acquiring port to a consumption port are being consumed at a static rate similar to acquisition of goods, there is no adjustment for player population/activity to increase/decrease in proportion Dock space Limited to a small number of slots globally Limited in number of upgrades available Upgrade costs to increase number of slots are astronomically high Building Slots Global limit of 5 buildings Upgrading buildings is costly for minimal gains Production ports Minimal variations of raw resources of ports in proximity to one another meaning ports further from a hub will rarely see any activity Proposed changes: Ports Dock space: Needs to be port dependant, not global. Each player with an outpost in a port should be granted 1 slot in a production port or 3 slots in a regional capital. A player will then need to purchase the upgrades currently available at the current prices to increase their slots available that is applied globally (to make it easy to store a players data). The UI also needs to indicate slots currently used vs total available so a player can visually see how many they have total in a port, currently there is nothing. Outposts should remain the current model of purchasing additional spots however, the increasing pricing without a hard limit needs to be slightly more reasonable. Building slots: (I will cover buildings in more detail later) Limits need to be port specific, not global. In a raw resource port the limit should be 3 and regional capitals 5. 'Upgrading' of buildings needs to change. Buildings Speaking of buildings, it needs a different approach: When you purchase an 'upgrade' to an existing building it should use up an additional slot within that port - A capital cannot have a level 3 shipyard, a workshop, AND a level 3 oak lumber camp. Raw goods ports will require more careful planning, one should choose to either a single level 3 resource building OR 3 separate level 1 resource harvesting buildings if multiple resources are available within a port. This means that for someone to have level three harvesting buildings across multiple ports it will quickly become time consuming and more investment capital required in outpost permits. This will limit massive conglomerates but reward the hard working and smart investors while remaining viable for players entering the resource or manufacturing market. Workshops should be upgradable - Level 1 to class 6, level 2 to class 3, level 3 all cannons/carronades. Again, this will force players into considering investing in a level 3 shipyard OR level 3 workshop unless they invest in another regional capital and split their manufacturing across multiple hubs. Port Population There currently is no difference between major hubs and smaller ports while consumption/acquisition is static. This needs to change to provide the dynamic and evolving world for players to interact with. I am proposing that population be based on two key figures - Production activity and Trade activity. Production Activity As players construct outposts and production/manufacturing buildings within a port, it will 'grow' the population figure of the port with better figures from 'active' ports (players harvesting resources) Port population increases the 'consumption' figures to reflect more people settling in the port for work at the production buildings. Trade Activity Key component as a flourishing port where raw goods are purchased from NPC producers which in turn promotes increasing NPC stock availability of that good to be supplied to the port store at a price above player production costs but not cost prohibitive to purchase nor restrict player profits in port either (~50% markup?) Sale of consumption goods to port encourages the growth through supplying the needs of a port. At any point that players demolish their buildings and outposts or when consumption goods go unfulfilled for long periods then the population would decrease. The supply of goods should remain with the three primary methods mentioned earlier however to address shortages and supply: Acquisition Expensive Trade goods should be exclusive to regions, not necessarily nation but will promote smuggling activity when another nation in a far port has a valuable trade good where massive profits could be made. Lower cost nation specific trade goods appear in all regional capitals and are in demand in all non-capital ports based on population. Raw resources specific to ports can be treated as 'acquired' as an interim measure to replicate NPC producers. Needs to scale based on port activity as mentioned above in trade activity Manufactured materials should appear in small dynamic quantities to replicate NPC crafters, needs to be expensive (2-3x player crafting) to provide space for player sellers without blowing the market out of proportion. Production As per buildings section above, players will be the primary producers of goods Raw resources in the shop will be populated under the acquisition section until NPC producers could be implemented in a better form. Trade Ports need to have far more consumption items including commonsense items such as whole fish, fish meat, and food supplies. Ports need to have consumption of all trade goods with better prices the further they are away from regional capitals or when they are becoming larger/wealthier from player activity/trade. Goods Pricing This has been partially covered previously but prices are currently very confusing. There is no commonsense approach to this, when production cost for Oak Logs currently is 73 gold and I can purchase them for 42 from an NPC shop, it defies logic. This is where prices need to be adjusted and as developers you can influence the economy to ensure it doesn't stagnate while promoting shipment of goods. Raw resources Purchase prices at raw resources ports should be low but not lower than production costs with a little margin thrown in (50% markup?) Purchase prices at manufacturing hubs should be punishing but not insane (~300% markup from craft cost?) Sale prices of raw resources in production ports should punish stuipidity (half production cost) Sale prices of raw resources in manufacturing hubs should be profitable enough to encourage movement of goods to restock but not out do player purchase orders (50% markup?) Manufacturing materials Purchase prices for manufacturing materials in hubs should be expensive but not entirely cost prohibitive for basic ship/upgrade construction (2-3x crafting cost) (Oak frames but not Teak frame, etc) Sale prices of manufacturing materials in hubs should be above the cost of materials if harvested and crafted to offer the option to supply the port when no one else is interested Sale/Purchase prices of manufactured materials at raw resource ports should be very low to encourage moving goods from non-hub ports where a player has chosen to manufacture Manufactured goods Sale prices on finished products should be above crafting costs as a last resort but not enough to exploit Purchase prices should be punishing but not insane (~500% markup from craft cost?) Trade goods All lower priced goods should be low buy prices in region capitals and high sell prices in resource ports linking in with population All high end trade goods should be regionally priced, moving goods from one regional capital to another should be good but not insane profit with modest profits if sold to resource ports within a region, again feeding the population/consumption. Ship Production I haven't found any major flaws to the current crafting system, it's been mostly the economy that has been the flaw that is breaking the ship building industry. The one change that needs to happen is that player crafted ships NEED to have at least 2 or 3 durability to actually ENCOURAGE purchasing player ships over NPC ships. The PvP servers are dying for a few more durability or ships while the PvE server is flooded with overpriced capped ships with no effort to craft better. Secondly, selling/breaking up ships. What is the go here? You want players to craft ships to increase craft rank, ok. But what do they do with the unwanted masses they need to make in order to progress? Selling them at 3% of the production cost to the NPC store is cost prohibitive. Swamping the market with cheap boats destroys the 'player led' model economy. And breaking up ships for a meger few pieces of scrap is an insult. What needs to happen is breaking up a ship should yield between 25-50% of the craft materials. NPC sale prices need to be at a minimum a slight profit from the cost of crafting the ship (~20%) to encourage people to pursue ship crafting. *edit: Admiralty Store One thing I didn't mention is the admiralty store, everything that is available that is not merely aesthetics SHOULD be purchasable with gold. This prevents pricing small clans/solo traders out of business and also prevents the current turn towards a P2W style. As it stands to obtain the correct marks one must either play PvE server or participate in the majority of PBs to earn enough to provide ships for the players focused on PBs and PvP. It just doesn't make sense to force the people who choose to supply the market instead of battling with engaging in a part of the game they aren't interested in and if they never did indulge in it wouldn't make a difference to the greater scheme of it. Asking a crafter to harvest 25 conquest marks simply to produce a single SOL for other players will hugely inflate prices due to the grind cost associated with it. On the contrary asking a PvPer / PvE mission grinder to have to trade goods and craft goods as a prerequisite to sail the next ship up would infuriate the player base. This needs a serious rethink, it needs options for both sides. Combat orientated players SHOULD earn less gold but SHOULD have an avenue to BPs / Permits / Upgrades etc. the same as Crafting / Econ orientated players SHOULD be earning the most gold but also SHOULD be able to purchase everything at a premium (i.e: Victory BP for 5 mil, Permit for 200k, Crafted ships will thus sell around 1-1.5 mil on the market or less internally). /edit* Conclusion These suggestions to fix the economy are based on my experience having played many 'economy simulation' games from as early as the original Sid Myer's Pirates!, Port Royale series, PotBS, to name a few more relevant games, and many more. These suggestions are by no means to completely resolve the economy issues but at a minimum revolve around tidying up the markets, providing a 'player led' economy model while using NPCs as a way to moderate prices and prevent abuse of the markets. It will encourage players to branch out beyond the starting regions, encourage supplying the ports they use to harvest resources, provide a more dynamic and immersive economy that can bring about more player interaction in the wider regions of the map. I'm not looking to hear how PvP needs this or that, they have had their time, take that to your own suggestion threads, please keep criticism constructive. If you don't agree with me on trying to fix this mess before the game is completely abandoned then please, by all means spend half your own evening devising an alternative, I long to hear more people offering solutions to the problems.
  6. The problem is that the AI still get these 'bonuses' of more crew than players and that they don't suffer crew penalties until a greater number of their crew is killed ergo AI is accused of cheating. On top of this, the performance of AI is extreme as was mentioned before, we have to be on our game the entire time against any AI as their manual sailing technique never messes up because they don't have to. The game is automatically calculating best turn and best speed for AI regardless of sail position, they aim with only small margin of error that quickly gets onto target within 3 shots, and their fire rate is perfect. In a sense this appears to be laziness in developing a more in-depth AI and thus fighting AI becomes a matter of getting a bigger or more ships, maul them harder, then ram and board or continue until sunk. I for one am tired of AI regardless of skill level, using ships 100% of the time at the maximum a normal player could possibly hope for. They are certainly not undefeatable as they make stupid mistakes and it's easy to cause it but their usage of ships at 100% efficiency is unquestionable.
  7. It's almost always displayed 'Updating' IIRC, only really hotfixes have just dropped without warning.
  8. I'll throw my hat in the ring for PvE since I frequent it more than others and many on the Brits at least have seen me in game if not been buying my ships. Server: PvE Timezone: +10 GMT (AEST) Reqs: Insightful and helpful posts on forums across all sections - Look at my content for a large number of threads for suggestions and ideas, assistance to others, ask around Positive attitude in everything - I'll be the first to admit I don't always have the most positive attitude but it's usually directed at the tards that ruin the game or people who are giving undeserved greif to others. Thick skin - I've been online gaming for around 18 years, been around a wee while dealing with all sorts of people with their online personas. Excellent knowledge of the game - Been playing since January, spent an ungodly amount of time learning the ins and outs of most aspects of the game. English language - I'm Australian Another language is a huge plus - Yo entiendo y hablo un poco de espaƱol - I also speak Australian, bad english, Pommie, Kiwi, and American english Activity levels - Been offline the last week or so but usually online most nights during Aussie prime time EDIT: Should probably point out for experience that I'm an active retired leader of AEF (look under High Command group) - http://www.aef-hq.com.au
  9. Very true, we will happily point out to those who complain about their 'ping' that our ping to the USA server is approximately 250-300, 350-400 for EU servers. Want to play an online game on hard mode? Come live down this way...
  10. I could write a script to 'auto-craft' ships by simply using AutoIT v3 that is installed on my PC if I really felt motivated to make something slightly less painful that is relatively slow paced and repetitive, I don't see how botting is an issue in a game like this, there is simply no real advantage aside from me having a bit more time to make coffee and scratch an itch. A simple fix to limit this bot/farming problem - XP is awarded for going between ports, the further apart they are, the more XP is awarded. This will give at least a basic start to rewarding explorers AND traders in one fell swoop... EDIT: Added extra wording
  11. They need to remove the link to player rank XP across servers, the only thing that should be linked is Steam with one character slot. These arguments are null and void if people didn't have linked characters across multiple servers. This also allows players to have a unique character per server and allow players to try a different nationality/pirate experience.
  12. I may get some hate for saying it but get rid of crafting hours and use timers and cost in gold to craft.
  13. I have no qualms about having AI fleets in anything except a player's initiated PvP battle. Starting a battle against a player or joining a battle against a player should prevent the agressors AI ships from spawning in the battle instance, but if a player is attacked or attacks an NPC then fleets should be allowed. I have even proposed a new avenue for managing fleet captains (link in sig block) and how to implement managing their progression so people can't just hire the best all the time. This might not be a single player game, but as an MMO you still can get hirelings. EDIT: Spelling
  14. We seriously just need SOME diplomacy in this game first, the idea of port control / taxes etc are great ideas and definitely worth pursuing but as it stands there is NO diplomacy, it's just complete war.
  15. Thankfully the Devs seem to be more focused on fixing the economy these days than more trivial issues now left in PvP combat. Once a quality economy model is established then things like NPC ship prices will be mostly irrelevant. At this time however, high resource prices, limited craft hours, and low NPC ship prices are all factors influencing how unprofitable ship making is. Adjusting NPC ship prices as a starting point would have a positive effect in selling ships overall by setting a more realistic pricing model. NPC ship sales don't factor in the 10% listing fee tax or realistic cost of goods. On the PvE server I can cover my costs by selling my basic crafted Snows (Oak/Live Oak) currently at 50k while NPC Fir/Teak ships sell at 38k. As it stands, I am effectively selling at 45k when factoring the listing fee. This doesn't factor in anything on the 6 hours RL time I spent sailing and collecting the resources to be able to do so. I see player crafted basic snows sitting in the list over-priced at 80-90k not selling and that's good, people already are realistic about costs, and with my undercutting the player perception on ship pricing is being enhanced. My ships sell like hotcakes like the bargins they are, I'm just not making much profitably, only XP...
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