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Prohibit Alts


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As the title suggests, evidence is mounting that alts, alternate accounts owned and played by the same physical person, are causing more and more frustration with the general playerbase (i.e. non-alt-users). Even without shady things like preventative tagging, counter-aggression, and battle-filling, a person with more than one account has that many more crafting hours, outposts, production buildings, and market contracts. It is the very definition of pay-to-win. Individuals like @Anolytic, who have admitted to having no less than six accounts, are capable of easily belting out exceptional first-rates every single day.

This is a major problem for the game at large. Usage of alts in the game, while it is nice for GameLabs, financially, for now, seriously hinders the health of the community and the longevity game. The very ships that the devs have indicated that should be rare and, explicitly, exceptional, are no big deal for people with multiple accounts.

Shady tactics like using cross-nation alts to hide in battles, countering or abusing hostility, and entering large-ship battles in small ships, only to escape shortly after the battle begins, are all examples of game-breaking tactics that ruin the fun for the game.

I propose that holders of alts at least be allowed to surrender their alt accounts for redeemables (paints and ship chests) for a short period of time. Following this grace period, any person found using an alt should be banned permanently.

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We on PvP2 have the exact same issue with a certain "non-nation-nation". It seems there are very very few nationals who have alts, yet nearly all the "unmentionables" have multiple alts. And they wonder why we nationals have run out of resources and ships. Not only have we been supplying our nation, but also these smaller nations. And we are depleted now. :/
However, we cannot eliminate alts by an IP filter or the like, as there are many legitimate family members in the same household playing this game and choosing different nations.

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This is laughable. Alts do nothing that an actual player couldn't do. You want to "belt out" first rates every day then you can do it with help of other players. If you're cool with another nation you can attack them to keep them from being hit by an enemy. Don't point fingers at alts and get to the root cause of the problems like national restrictions of first rates or allowing 3rd parties to join a battle.

Van Der Decken you are so full of crap. You run out of resources because we're now right next to your ports and buy them out with smugglers. You run out of ships because we sink them. What small nations do you "supply"? You're in an alliance with the top populated nations on the server which all crap on the small nations. You don't show up for a port battle in your own area, but you show up to try to deny the French Windward Islands. Not to mention fighting the Swedes for everything that was near their homeland.

Kiithnaras do you really think some redeemables are worth the $200 Anolytic spent on this game. Having alts gives Flying Labs money. Money is this best way to show your support of a game. Maybe you guys should step up and get some alts of your own to show your support instead of sliding by with the bare minimum. Or spend more time networking with other players to have the same acheivements as having alts instead of crying to try and deny this game revenue.

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@Duncan McFail, So you're in favor of Pay-to-Win is what you're saying. I've said time and again that I'd happily support the game financially in a host of other methods such as supporting in-game cosmetics, expanding the ship lineups, and other non-P2W means.

While it is true that a second account can't do anything on its own, mechanically, that the first one can, it is the melding of using cross-nation accounts to do shady tactics like hiding in battles or setting up port battles that oppose the majority of that nation's normal player base.

Even if one never uses cross-nation accounts and only uses their extra accounts for economy, you've handily admitted it: Multiple accounts allow one player, one physical body, to do the work of many without requiring cooperation. Since these extra accounts are not freely accessible by everyone, but require an additional purchase of the game (and another Steam account explicitly for that purpose), this therein is the very definition of Pay to Win.

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Alts are a serious problem because they are being used to do things like defensive tagging, battle hiding, PB spot stealing, and messing with aggression. While most players playing do not have alts, there is a prominent handful of players who are abusing it and it is driving more casual players like me away from the game. A lot of games only allow one account per IP but this can prevent players who share the same internet from all playing the game, so I realize that might not be a good solution to the problem. What if there was a limit of 5 accounts per IP max (something like that) and only allow those players sharing the same IP to be in the same nation. While this would not stop the labor hours and resource harvesting advantage of alt accounts, it would at least help reduce some of the unsportsmanlike play styles that alts are currently being used to do.

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But it's not pay to win. Having tons of crafting hours doesn't win battles. Having an alt work up hostility doesn't stop the opposing nation from countering it. Pay to win is more like the only way you can get the best gold mods is to pay real cash for it or a ship that's the best of it's class only being available by certain bp's paid with cash. Alts are in no way associated with pay to win.

Since it's a sandbox and there's no official "win" here then it's more along the line of pay to get more out of the game. Most would consider killing other players or taking the most ports as a win. An alt doesn't help you in these regards and if they did then it's a problem with a game mechanic. When you're logged out in front of a port waiting for a port battle you can get a trade run in. While you are sailing to the next mission you can craft stuff. While you are running from a gank squad you can check your buy orders. 

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23 hours ago, Duncan McFail said:

Having tons of crafting hours doesn't win battles.

No, it does not win battles directly, but it does afford the nation with more characters per player to field the best possible ships for the engagement and heavily weights the odds in their favor

23 hours ago, Duncan McFail said:

Having an alt work up hostility doesn't stop the opposing nation from countering it.

You misunderstand. If, for instance, Nation A increases hostility to 90% but fails to hit the mark before the battle-scheduling window closes, it makes it feasible for alts to work in concert with Nation A's enemy and raise it to 100% at a time that isn't feasible for Nation A to attend.

This in particular is a point of contention since this sort of thing was explicitly stated as a bannable offense, "Using alts to abuse Hostility mechanics [or anything other than Spying and Economic Espionage]," by @admin, and to my knowledge not one alt that has been discovered and proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, to be responsible for this sort of behavior (Charles Hunter, of particular note) has received substantive punitive action.

To clarify, this is not an attack on spying or economic treason. I am wholly in favor of these being a player's choice. Some people really love being spies and smugglers, I can dig it. That sort of person does enhance the gameplay experience and make it feel alive and interesting. All I am saying is that if someone chooses to be a spy, they should only be a spy and not playing four different sides on four different characters.

On the flip side, if the developers are really okay with alts - open it up. Let us have multiple characters on one account. There are a host of other means of generating revenue besides buying separate accounts.

Edit: Chief among these options, instead of buying another account for yourself, how about buying a copy for a friend or friend of friend? I would feel vastly more comfortable and engaged in the game having six people with one account each (even if I'm staring down their guns) rather than one person with six accounts.

Edited by Kiithnaras
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19 minutes ago, Kiithnaras said:

No, it does not win battles directly, but it does afford the nation with more characters per player to field the best possible ships for the engagement and heavily weights the odds in their favor

Not all players are ship builders. In fact most players don't make the ships they sail. They buy them from other players in the form of gold and labor hours. Clans have ship lines where those players give up those labor hours to get into new ships. If players in a nation have multiple accounts it's the same as increasing the population of that nation.

41 minutes ago, Kiithnaras said:

You misunderstand. If, for instance, Nation A increases hostility to 90% but fails to hit the mark before the battle-scheduling window closes, it makes it feasible for alts to work in concert with Nation A's enemy and raise it to 100% at a time that isn't feasible for Nation A to attend.

This in particular is a point of contention since this sort of thing was explicitly stated as a bannable offense, "Using alts to abuse Hostility mechanics [or anything other than Spying and Economic Espionage]," by @admin, and to my knowledge not one alt that has been discovered and proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, to be responsible for this sort of behavior (Charles Hunter, of particular note) has received substantive punitive action.

To clarify, this is not an attack on spying or economic treason. I am wholly in favor of these being a player's choice. Some people really love being spies and smugglers, I can dig it. That sort of person does enhance the gameplay experience and make it feel alive and interesting. All I am saying is that if someone chooses to be a spy, they should only be a spy and not playing four different sides on four different characters.

On the flip side, if the developers are really okay with alts - open it up. Let us have multiple characters on one account. There are a host of other means of generating revenue besides buying separate accounts.

The bannable offense is using alts to die to your nation to increase hostility. Now we have alts that can enter missions to increase on their own nations hostility(also bannable). Both are not the root cause of having an alt, but rather game mechanics that need to be adjusted.

The Devs have never outlawed alts. They've had mentions of where the line is between abuse and good use. But never have they taken a stance that alts are going to go away. So please, when you think of another "burn the alts" thread(as if there's not enough) then just think of game mechanics you'd rather have to prohibit them instead of getting rid of them completely.

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Wail i don't have any alts myself I will say this, Alts are reality i do not believe you will be able to talk the devs out of them.  I don't really have a problem with people who buy alts for more crafting hours i have thought of doing it my self.  Alts in enemy nations cause most of the issues i have so i would not mind seeing them limited to the same nation as the parent account.  However i think even this is unlikely to be a realistic goal.  And wail your calling out @Anolyticabout this I know plenty of people who have more alt accounts then him and if you don't have evendence of real abuse i don't see the point of a name and shame about buying extra copy's of the game,

Edited by Augustus Charles Hobart H
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5 hours ago, Kiithnaras said:

As the title suggests, evidence is mounting that alts, alternate accounts owned and played by the same physical person, are causing more and more frustration with the general playerbase (i.e. non-alt-users). Even without shady things like preventative tagging, counter-aggression, and battle-filling, a person with more than one account has that many more crafting hours, outposts, production buildings, and market contracts. It is the very definition of pay-to-win. Individuals like @Anolytic, who have admitted to having no less than six accounts, are capable of easily belting out exceptional first-rates every single day.

This is a major problem for the game at large. Usage of alts in the game, while it is nice for GameLabs, financially, for now, seriously hinders the health of the community and the longevity game. The very ships that the devs have indicated that should be rare and, explicitly, exceptional, are no big deal for people with multiple accounts.

Shady tactics like using cross-nation alts to hide in battles, countering or abusing hostility, and entering large-ship battles in small ships, only to escape shortly after the battle begins, are all examples of game-breaking tactics that ruin the fun for the game.

I propose that holders of alts at least be allowed to surrender their alt accounts for redeemables (paints and ship chests) for a short period of time. Following this grace period, any person found using an alt should be banned permanently.

First off I'd like to refer you to @Snoopy when it comes to the whole SOLs are exceptional idea!!!

Secondly as Augustus already said many people could be named and shamed. In fact I have come to believe that off the 400-600 still active during peak times at least 20-50 must be alts by now. So a name and shame on @Anolytic is completely useless here and also has no place. Also I with absolutely no alts whatsoever (I don't even have an account on the other servers or alts in any of the games I have ever played) can produce a 1st -3rd Rate every 2-3 days without clan help (although due to the development in regards to crafting since November it has been a major pain/time grind and had some major wear and tear on my motivation to start this game in the first place). SO let's face it his advantage in the terms of crafting can only be seen as extra help/slave labour and only gives him a minor advantage - I don't even see this being worth 35€ once!!!

Thirdly I think we are past the point where alts can be forbidden. People have not only been allowed to buy more accoutns but by some moderators and on occasion the devs even encouraged to by alts. To take them out now would nearly come down to fraud and would crush any cooperation there ever was with the devs.

All of that being said - I agree with you that allowing alts was a major mistake to begin with. Not when it comes to crafting. As I said before I see no problem there as people working together and grinding resources can still achieve major production. However as you mentioned people can sadly not be trusted with uncontrollable assets. The spy problem has at some point been so bad that talking about anything but the weather in the GB Nation chat came down to treason. And people dick around with alts to ruin port battles and tag fleets.

I personally have mostly left RvR but about once a week I tend to show up for one. Yet I always live by the rule that when I see anyone using shady tactics on either side I am out of there. Believe me that is the best you can do and yes that is killing the fun.

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3 hours ago, JollyRoger1516 said:

I think we are past the point where alts can be forbidden. People have not only been allowed to buy more accoutns but by some moderators and on occasion the devs even encouraged to by alts. To take them out now would nearly come down to fraud and would crush any cooperation there ever was with the devs.

This. Banning alt accounts simply because they are alts, regardless of what people do or don't do with them would be a big mistake, with possible legal consequences for the devs.

How about removing the hard one-char-per-player limitation instead ? In the current system we only get to invest in one nation and end up being stuck with it lest we lose a lot of progress  when switching. What if I rushed into the wrong nation and the others are having more fun ? I created my Alt at a time when you couldn't sail 15 seconds out of KPR without being swarmed by rats. All I wanted to do was sail around and play, not sit around in port trying to get a large enough group together with the couple of hours or so I had to try and enjoy the game.

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There is no way that you can identify alt accounts. All you can do is compare the IPs of all acounts. But then again, how do you know its not the wife or kids playing from time to time? Ive lived in a student residence, all people there had the same IP.

 

It sucks for the game, but I dont see how they can do something against it.

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Alts are pay to win for crafting focussed palyers, because you cant compensate the additional LH and contract count by playtime. Thats my view, because there is no clear definition for "pay to win".

Alts, obviously only used to support the main char, just make no sense. Even the devs would make more profit if they would sell fixed amounts of LH for real money directly. Alts generate infinite LH over time = worse for everybody.

 

They could call players to exchange their alt account with redeemables, an additional char on main account, whatsoever. If players hide their alts, thread with ban for the alt and or some reasonable punishment for the main account. Alts doing nothing else than placing contracts are quite conspicuous.

I dont think there is a problem to say that the use of alt accounts just to support the main account wasnt expected, its bad for the game and something needs to be done. Isnt money you spend in EA basically voluntary support and doenst provide any ownership rights?! Also if you complain about this, you would admit that you didnt spend money to support the game, but to "cheat" in an EA game.

In the worst case just prohibiting additional alts after release would atleast make them rotate out of the game slowly.

Edited by Fargo
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9 hours ago, van der Decken said:

We on PvP2 have the exact same issue with a certain "non-nation-nation". It seems there are very very few nationals who have alts, yet nearly all the "unmentionables" have multiple alts. And they wonder why we nationals have run out of resources and ships. Not only have we been supplying our nation, but also these smaller nations. And we are depleted now. :/
However, we cannot eliminate alts by an IP filter or the like, as there are many legitimate family members in the same household playing this game and choosing different nations.

You so full of BS...pointing fingers at RATs again...I know personaly from chatting with some RATs who came over after playing BRIT/US that it is just as bad on NATs side....so enough with the Holier than though crap.

But back on topic...I believe ALTs and the abuse that goes on will get only worse unless the Devs jump in and get a handle on it, I speak my mind to my Clan on how I despise any use of ALTs to gain any advantage....cant stand them Alts

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41 minutes ago, Fargo said:

Alts are pay to win for crafting focussed palyers, because you cant compensate the additional LH and contract count by playtime. Thats my view, because there is no clear definition for "pay to win".

Alts, obviously only used to support the main char, just make no sense. Even the devs would make more profit if they would sell fixed amounts of LH for real money directly. Alts generate infinite LH over time = worse for everybody.

They could call players to exchange their alt account with redeemables, an additional char on main account, whatsoever. If players hide their alts, thread with ban for the alt and or some reasonable punishment for the main account. Alts doing nothing else than placing contracts are quite conspicuous.

I dont think there is a problem to say that the use of alt accounts just to support the main account wasnt expected, its bad for the game and something needs to be done. Isnt money you spend in EA basically voluntary support and doenst provide any ownership rights?! Also if you complain about this, you would admit that you didnt spend money to support the game, but to "cheat" in an EA game.

In the worst case just prohibiting additional alts after release would atleast make them rotate out of the game slowly.

1. Alts barely simulate an additional palyer bringing in his labour hours to craft materials and farm resources. Its like having a mini clan of your own. Alts themselves win you no battle whatsoever unless you use them as spies!

2. You can NOT do that!!! You have a gigantic misunderstanding of both early access and the received product/contract! When you buy into an early access product you buy a full ownership to the game with 'early access' to it hence the name. The only thing not clearly defined is the end product (means the direction development takes might change) and the commitment of the developers (means you might end up with an unfinished product). And you are willing to be subjected to an unfinished product during development meaning there is no guarentee the game runs fine (but then again which game even not early access does these days...) Nonetheless you buy full ownership to that product. You can NOT retract that. The only way to get rid of alts would be to actually pay them back their money (no ingame substitude whatsoever would be sufficient - you'd break the law)!

Otherwise you can ban accounts but only for a limited time (must be reasonable or steam will step in (so no one year bans)) or in extremely severe cases for life (must be some serious offense like promoting racism (also needs to be repeatedly been warned usually)) again otherwise steam would step in and kick you of their paltform and possible pursue legal action as they are the distributing plattform and the dev/publisher teams ahve to abide by certain rules if they are to be on there!

3. You cannot sufficiently pursue alts as they can jsut be several players at the same home. With your understanding of early access you would end up not only robbing a person in such a house of their money but also porperty rights! That is literally (not figuratively) gonna end the devs in a court room.

4. To prohibit additional alts would in fact be possible (would need to be on the steam page with a date from when onwards etc though!)  and I think that is actually not the worst idea although it would obviously not fix our current alts (or take a long time so we would feel any effect).

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49 minutes ago, Mike the Mongel said:

You so full of BS...pointing fingers at RATs again...I know personaly from chatting with some RATs who came over after playing BRIT/US that it is just as bad on NATs side....so enough with the Holier than though crap.

But back on topic...I believe ALTs and the abuse that goes on will get only worse unless the Devs jump in and get a handle on it, I speak my mind to my Clan on how I despise any use of ALTs to gain any advantage....cant stand them Alts

If this talk is to go anywhere everybody needs to drop the holy act. No nation on any server can claim to be free of alts. I even know of alts on the PvE server so nobody is innocent here!!!

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1 hour ago, JollyRoger1516 said:

1. Alts barely simulate an additional palyer bringing in his labour hours to craft materials and farm resources. Its like having a mini clan of your own. Alts themselves win you no battle whatsoever unless you use them as spies!

Thats not my point. Try to compete as a crafter without alt, with sombody owning an alt. There is no way, no matter how much more time you spend.

1 hour ago, JollyRoger1516 said:

2. You can NOT do that!!! You have a gigantic misunderstanding of both early access and the received product/contract! When you buy into an early access product you buy a full ownership to the game with 'early access' to it hence the name.

Im not so sure about it, but thats not my subject. If there is no legal opportunity to deal with current alts, we dont need to discuss this. But please make sure youre absolutely right on that. Prohibiting additional alts then seems to be the only option. 

Im critical because u usually dont get refund in early access, no matter what devs decide to do with your money. Also when i loose a second copy, i dont loose any access to the game. People bought a second copy for a second character, what is the problem moving this char to their main account? Ofcourse you need to be sure its only one person and there might be technical or effort problems. But in theory it should be fine.

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32 minutes ago, Fargo said:

Thats not my point. Try to compete as a crafter without alt, with sombody owning an alt. There is no way, no matter how much more time you spend.

Im not so sure about it, but thats not my subject. If there is no legal opportunity to deal with current alts, we dont need to discuss this. But please make sure youre absolutely right on that. Prohibiting additional alts then seems to be the only option. 

Im critical because u usually dont get refund in early access, no matter what devs decide to do with your money. Also when i loose a second copy, i dont loose any access to the game. People bought a second copy for a second character, what is the problem moving this char to their main account? Ofcourse you need to be sure its only one person and there might be technical or effort problems. But in theory it should be fine.

1. I am. I have no alt account and in the last 4 weeks I have crafted about 11x 1st rates. That comes down to about one 1st rate every 2.5 days! I think that is pretty good for somebody who has to bring in his own resources and has no alt account. Bear in mind while that does take some time you'd still have to ferry resources around the place no matter on which account you are. So in the end alt accounts only allow you to use an additional 1000 hours a day to make materials. That is literally all that is gained from it crafting wise.

2. I am dead certain about that. I have some experience when it comes to steam dealings/distribution and as I said you'd walk the plank there.

3. You get exactly the same refund on steam for an early access game as for all other games as well. Max of 2 weeks after purchase and a max playtime of 2 hours and youre eligible for a refund. The only difference is that you agree for the timer to start when the game is not yet in a finished state. That is literally the only difference.

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as with any pvp based MMO, a minority within those who cannot figure out how to win simply start to complain and demand the game be "dumbed" down to a level where they can compete. If the Devs listen to that group then the game will fail because pvp'rs will leave a pvp game that tries to cater to the side that cant compete.

This is why games like EVE Online thrive because the DEvs made sure to cater to PVPrs while leaving safe spaces for carebears and those who could not compete, it was a healthy balance.

While i can sympathize with the frustrations of those who cant figure out how to win in pvp, i wont support their arguments because it always hurts pvp games. There is a big difference between balancing a game and dumbing it down.

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29 minutes ago, JollyRoger1516 said:

1. I am. I have no alt account and in the last 4 weeks I have crafted about 11x 1st rates. That comes down to about one 1st rate every 2.5 days! I think that is pretty good for somebody who has to bring in his own resources and has no alt account. Bear in mind while that does take some time you'd still have to ferry resources around the place no matter on which account you are. So in the end alt accounts only allow you to use an additional 1000 hours a day to make materials. That is literally all that is gained from it crafting wise.

2. I am dead certain about that. I have some experience when it comes to steam dealings/distribution and as I said you'd walk the plank there.

3. You get exactly the same refund on steam for an early access game as for all other games as well. Max of 2 weeks after purchase and a max playtime of 2 hours and youre eligible for a refund. The only difference is that you agree for the timer to start when the game is not yet in a finished state. That is literally the only difference.

Pretty good for you, but pretty bad compared with the guy doing 22 first rates. "Only" 1000 LH just doubles your production power. And again, actual eco has no meaning. There is no competition when everybody owns enough of everything.

Fine, then the only question is about future prohibition.

 

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5 minutes ago, Fargo said:

Pretty good for you, but pretty bad compared with the guy doing 22 first rates. "Only" 1000 LH just doubles your production power. And again, actual eco has no meaning. There is no competition when everybody owns enough of everything.

Fine, then the only question is about future prohibition.

 

Well for one I actually doubt anybody does actually produce 22 first rates like that and also you'd still have to ferry and pay the necessary resources. I can also tell you that I am pretty happy about my output and I don't really see the point of gettin anymore ships out at once. I mean with 10x lvl 50 crafters at my output you can supply the entire damn nation and GB has that so whats the point of gettin any better?!

I kinda liked your idea at least as a temporary solution so the devs have time to think about any other means of invalidating alts.

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23 hours ago, Forphuxakes said:

Just purchase it on another steam account and stop complaining.

Quite the opposite of the point. I have very little interest in running multiple characters and even less interest in spending the time involved in setting up a second steam account, let alone spending the money on another game account for myself. I would much rather people promote gifting copies of the game to friends over setting up additional accounts for themselves. 10 more players is far and away better compared to two players with eight additional accounts between them.

My point is that if the developers are not inclined to openly allow every player easy access to multiple characters, then no player should have multiple characters. Am I perhaps willing to settle for prohibiting cross-nation alts only? Maybe. But when a nation of mostly single-character players has the same number sail up against another nation with roughly equal numbers but vastly superior and uniform ships, something isn't right in the mix there.

As far as tracking and detecting alt usage, it's totally possible and quite easy. I'm certain the devs would like some tips and insight into this should they agree with my stance; such a situation is a slim hope, but I won't know till I try, eh?

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