Game mechanic for changing nation - Go Pirate - Optional Royal Pardon

[Tiedemann]

Hello!

I would like a ingame option to change nation. What nation you chose when you are new to this game is a bit random, and there are many different reasons for changing nation. I can understand that that it should not be to easy. I often hear about players that change nation and I also have the honor of greeting some of them. The way nation changing works now is just a massive pain, and the fact that players do it is a scream for a ingame feature. After reading the Q&A answers from the devs I got a bit worried. It seams the devs want to make it even more difficult to change nation by linking rank and XP to our character. So when we delete our character we lose our rank. I'm against this because I think it would stop most players from ever considering changing nation.  

Suggestion:
Reimplement the option to attack friendly ships and turn pirate, but add a royal pardon feature. Then the player is forced to betray his own nation first and join the pirates.
The pardon feature could work by letting pirate players receive clan invites from other nation clans, so when the pirate accepts the clan invite he switches nation. These clan invites should come from clans with a minimum 25 players to avoid the use of alt. accounts with alt. clans.

This way a player can prepare to switch nation by moving their ships and stuff into free ports and contacting another nation clan. Only thing that changes is the capital outpost and that former national outpost will be locked, because they are now enemy ports (you are pirate). They would still be accessible fro a trader with smuggler flag.
I would also suggest that the player should lose 1 level of his rank when attacking a friendly ship and going pirate. Just to give some sort of serious penalty so it's not to attractive. I also think that if the player accepts a royal pardon, there needs to be a 30 day cool down on the ability to attack another friendly ship. A bonus for the devs would be that if a new player attacks a friendly ship by mistake (clicking away 2!? message boxed with massive warnings) this could now be sorted out without having to involve the devs.

My last words in this wall of text is that I miss having the option of attacking friendly ships and turn pirate. Imo it was a interesting feature and having that choice gave the game a deeper and darker feeling of freedom. I also tried searching for a similar tread (Key word "nation switch"), but only found one about cooldown. So thats where I got the 30 day cooldown from. I'm not creative so most of this is ideas I have heard from players or read on the forum some where, I just pieced it together.

Share your thoughts and ideas.

[Angus McGregor]

I think it would be fair to take a one rank demotion for changing nations... and with a cooldown of at least a month before you can think of changing again.

[Snoopy]

Aye, it has to be easier, and I was shocked to see that Q&A response.
Losing a rank is too harsh though. Commodore to Rear Admiral grind is probably worse than what we have now (unless you are a crafter with rare blueprints, then you simply can't switch at all).

I'm currently testing that part of the game, and I can tell you if I had to grind RA again on top of all the other work, I would not do it and I wouldn't have been able to sail with nice people on both sides of the alliance divide.

I agree on the CD of a few weeks before being able to switch again.

[Chijohnaok]

46 minutes ago, Snoopy said:

Aye, it has to be easier, and I was shocked to see that Q&A response.
Losing a rank is too harsh though. Commodore to Rear Admiral grind is probably worse than what we have now (unless you are a crafter with rare blueprints, then you simply can't switch at all).

I'm currently testing that part of the game, and I can tell you if I had to grind RA again on top of all the other work, I would not do it and I wouldn't have been able to sail with nice people on both sides of the alliance divide.

I agree on the CD of a few weeks before being able to switch again.

I would agree that the grind from commodore to rear admiral was not fun.

That said, I would disagree with your assertion that you would not be able to sail with...

A commodore can sail in almost every ship in the game. A commodore shouldn't sail a Santi or a L'Ocean as they would be severely undercrewong it, but a commodore could sail a Victory, provided that they use an exceptional extra hammocks mod.  So even commodores can sail in 1st rate port battles. 

[Snoopy]

1 hour ago, Chijohnaok said:

I would agree that the grind from commodore to rear admiral was not fun.

That said, I would disagree with your assertion that you would not be able to sail with...

A commodore can sail in almost every ship in the game. A commodore shouldn't sail a Santi or a L'Ocean as they would be severely undercrewong it, but a commodore could sail a Victory, provided that they use an exceptional extra hammocks mod.  So even commodores can sail in 1st rate port battles. 

I never asserted you wouldn't be able to sail a first rate.  

I question the purpose of a new grind requirement, I already leveled up once, so why do it again? I still have to redo all my outposts, level a new officer, lose all my BP and outpost slots and I need to have people holding on to my stuff.. combine that with a 30 day lock out.. isn't that enough?

We are currently witnessing what lock ins of players/factions/alliances do - I firmly believe we need a less rigid system and maybe even incentives for people to even out teams rather than punishments like now. 

[Chijohnaok]

24 minutes ago, Snoopy said:

I never asserted you wouldn't be able to sail a first rate.  

I question the purpose of a new grind requirement, I already leveled up once, so why do it again? I still have to redo all my outposts, level a new officer, lose all my BP and outpost slots and I need to have people holding on to my stuff.. combine that with a 30 day lock out.. isn't that enough?

We are currently witnessing what lock ins of players/factions/alliances do - I firmly believe we need a less rigid system and maybe even incentives for people to even out teams rather than punishments like now. 

True, you didn't assert it but that was the implication that I thought you were making. My apologies if I was mistaken.

I would not necessarily be in favor of a rank reduction. I agree that all the other hurdles involved that you listed are enough.