Switching Nat/Rat

[HarryButpain]

Buenos días mis amigos

 

just like arguably everything else in naval action switching nation or becoming pirate should consume an awful lot of the gamer's time! It is contradictory to the game's mentality to become pirate or switch nation with such little hassle which is why I propose the same old grind, known from leveling up and advancing through the ranks!

 

Nobody likes to invest a lot of time into tedious things like sinking bot after bot just to be allowed to get to the 'meat and potatoes' of the game which is precisely why I, as well, suggest the reputation approach! 

 

Free towns could contain missions given by the nations' embassies/ representatives ( or the tavern's scallywag) of such free settlements. The more missions you complete for a nation the more increases your reputation with a chosen nation. Such missions are the same as known from grinding standard missions to level up. Once a player has reached enough reputation points an option within the free town's menu will become available which allows the player to make the 'switch'. Players will keep whatever stored in free towns but won't be able to get their possessions from ports of their former nation or the pirates until such ports will change ownership in favor of the player. You might wanna make it also costly for the player once the 'switch' option became available. Having to pay a fee to uhmm, 'convince' the representative of a nation doesn't sound all that unusual at all. 

 

The more annoying it is to switch the likelier it is to think twice before a player actually decides to switch. People should, however, also be allowed to switch immediately as long as they completely delete their characters and start from scratch again.

 

If you like to include PvP into the whole switch nation/ to pirates thing you could make it so that while you increase reputation points with your nation of choice or pirates the more you also lose reputation with your old nation. Ultimately, you would be flagged as a traitor if you gain enough negative reputation points with your current nation. Obviously, this will only matter if you intend to go back to your old nation. 

 

An example,

a player who sails for the brits wants to become a pirate. He sets up camp inside a free town and starts to grind embassy missions in order to increase reputation points with the pirates. This decreases reputation points with Britain at the same time. Once enough negative points are obtained the player will be flagged as a traitor so that every brit can tag and attack him. This makes it even more difficult to grind embassy missions since British players could jump into his battle and attack him, too. This is furthermore annoying because of the time it takes to transport all your stuff and ships to a free town far away from your old nation to avoid PvP and being exposed as a traitor. Now, once the player joined the pirates and intends to suddenly switch back to Britain he would have to grind an awful lot more than he had to become a pirate since his negative reputation with Britain still exists.

 

There could also be embassy pvp missions, especially once we got diplomacy. However, such missions should only make a reputation increase possible if you win in pvp against something else than basic cutters to avoid alt-character shenanigans et cetera.

 

Unanswered questions:

1. Can groups do embassy missions together like when a clan wants to switch nations? Are groups too powerful, would that make the switch too easy?

2. What happens when another player of the same nation jumps into an embassy mission? Will he get negative/positive reputation, too? Should a warning window pop up like when you're about to attack a friendly and are in danger of becoming a pirate only this time with the warning that the player risks negative reputation with his nation? 

 

I'm aware that reputation was used in POTBS and that it was brought up before. Feel free to add this thread to a collection if you want.

 

I thank you for your interest !

Edited May 25, 2016 by Dark Alley Shenanigans