US Should Join w/ Spain France Sweden

[Guest sruPL]

9 minutes ago, Aegir said:

So it's true then that not even GB has enough US players to provide opposition?

It's true that this game has no players at all. Most moved to other games like Wolrd of Warships, Star Citizen, ARK and other games.

@JonSnowLetsGo Pirates are barely able to form any PB fleet. RUBLI, X, BLACK clans don't really participate in RvR. PODW and many other clans are not active much. SORRY left Pirates nation. There is nothing that can defend them at all, but they need regions for crafting too to survive as a nation, that has no allies (can't use GB/Dutch/US ports, can't enter PBs)

Edited March 1, 2017 by sruPL

[Ravern]

Why do you think players from outside Europe mostly join the US, Dutch and Britain?  solve this and so called night flips may not such a huge problem.

The only nation outside those 3 that I feel would be welcoming to these players is Sweden.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Ravern said:

Why do you think players from outside Europe mostly join the US, Dutch and Britain?  solve this and so called night flips may not such a huge problem.

The only nation outside those 3 that I feel would be welcoming to these players is Sweden.

Don't forget the pirates who have lost the ability to cope with such attacks as well.

[The Spud]

If you "force" an alliance where half a nation disagrees on you'll just have half of that nation either quit the game or switch to brit or dutch, basicaly making it pointless.

Would it be an idea if everyone would mark his native language & country, and have it show up on the nation selection screen. Like for instance "Great Britain" 60% native english speaking, 15% german speaking 10% dutch speaking, etc... and alternatively you could select show country. Would maybe say 40% players out of UK, 15% US, 5% australian, 4% German, etc...

So like Italian people could see, oh France has the highest number of Italian speaking players i'll join France. So people who share the same nationality and language can find eachother more easily. Would avoid people choosing the easy solution and going for the obvious choices.

[Kloothommel]

And Brits who think the Brits suck join the danes or swedes. But it takes a while to realise that.

[Anolytic]

2 minutes ago, Hethwill said:

They remade character in other nations due to some nation(s) having little or almost no english being used. They wish some nations would be more universal and less language focused. It is a community issue. On the opposite side of the coin we have a lot of native language players that do not write or understand english that join nations due to language issues. Again a community issue.

So better get to work and welcome all in a good universal way/language than struggling with population issues because the game-nations self isolate themselves when they unware impose barriers.

The naval action community is sometimes marred by elitism, always marred by trolls, and veteran players no longer remember how it was to be a noob so they act arrogantly in many cases. So yes, you are right, there are community issues in this game.

However you seem to be implying that there are some nations that have specific community issues. That small nations, like Danmark and Sverige, are small because they are somehow not welcoming to new players. This is just a cop-out that I've heard all too frequently, even from the devs. In Danmark everything from German, French, Danish/Norwegian and Spanish to Russian is spoken, but most chat is in English and the majority of clans use English as their primary language. So it's not like the problem is a language barrier.

Players choose nation based primarily based on 3 factors in my experience. Some don't choose until they come to the character creation screen. Here the most noob friendly choices are probably Great Britain and Pirates. Only a masochist or someone with a prior connection to the nation would choose Danmark or Sweden there. France and Spain might be options if you're interested in history, and Dutch if you imagine your play style will be trader/crafter. Some players choose based on an emotional or geographical connection to one of the nations. Due to historical events half the world has a historical connection to the Royal Navy. The other half has read about Trafalgar and wants to role-play as Nelson.

These are both things that however welcoming we are in Sweden and Danmark, we can do nothing about. By the time someone can greet them welcome to the game, they have already chosen differently. Then there are those that before making a character in the game will check out the forum and other materials about the game before joining. As GB/VP/US players already make up most of the server, this is also reflected on the forum. Even more so because other nations have more mixed communities. So anyone reading the forums before joining the game will be exposed to ten times more propaganda and recruitment messages from the GB/US/VP populations than from the other nations. In addition a lot of the National News section is about tarnishing the reputation of enemy nations with propaganda and false accusations. This also is skewed enormously by the current population balance.

And lastly, if you're a player who doesn't have any prior preference between the nations when you get to the point where you should choose where to put your character, then there's the ships in-game. There are no Swedish ships. No Danish ships. When I created my character for the first time last January, it was not clear to me, because devs had not made it clear enough, whether ships were nation specific. If I wanted to sail the famous HMS Victory, which clearly I did, would I have to make my character British? 

In large nations there are enough players that tasks are naturally divided and there are always someone available to help new players. But there are individual clans in the British nation that alone have more active players than all of the Danish RvR-clans combined. In small nations the same players have to do everything. The same few players who show up in port battles every day, also have to welcome new players, teach them the game, train them, give them starting resources and keep them entertained. There are no tutorials in this game, no learning curve. And small nations suffer more from this than larger ones. There's not always someone online to greet new players and help them. There's not always someone available who has time, between port battles and IRL, to teach somebody manual sails or ship strengths and weaknesses.

All this is to say that, no, the population balancing is not a community issue within some nations, it is a game design issue, and an issue created and maintained by developers' choices. 

[Hethwill]

Oh I don't disagree.

We, community, need to be more welcoming to the newcomers  and that means from all timezones. We are not a mirror of the RL age of sail. We are re-writing fictional history . I just remembered that communication is a good start on a Nation chat and not alienating anyone from the action is also a good second step.

[Anolytic]

3 minutes ago, Hethwill said:

Oh I don't disagree.

We, community, need to be more welcoming to the newcomers  and that means from all timezones. 

My clan is actively recruiting and welcoming US/AUS timezone players (even players we know are spies to buff activity in the clan in off hours) we have a few Canadians, Americans and Australians now, but not enough to keep a healthy and consistent population in those timezones. There are not many players to recruit from in our nation, and by the time we get a new recruit another player may have left the game. Most nights we have more Europeans on than Americans. Naturally the hardcore players who play every night consistently will chose to play with a group of other consistent and hardcore players, and thus already chose another nation.

 

13 minutes ago, Hethwill said:

I just remembered that communication is a good start on a Nation chat and not alienating anyone from the action is also a good second step.

During the Antilles War, I conducted every operation mainly through Nation chat, knowing well that there were spies. Inclusiveness and involving as many players as possible has always been high priority in Danmark-Norge.

[Kloothommel]

9 minutes ago, rediii said:

Another thing in the char creation screen is the difficulty of nations. I understand that at the beginning sweden is a hard country with almost no regions and so on. But why is there a "easy" difficulty now after some time after the last wipe and a "hard" at the swedish nation while both alliances can craft everything they want? (liveoak and bermuda are exceptions here since nightflipping and bermuda ... well noone cares about bermuda cedar after fine woods anymore  )

I think that is part of the problem. Most GB players are frustrated because they face off against some of the most highly skilled players on the server XD

So there goes the difficulty

[Kloothommel]

5 minutes ago, rediii said:

I'm sick of the "we are better" thing tbh Kloothommel. This is one thing why the pirates think they fight for the british underdog nation.

True. When I saw the AHOY roster on the Port au Prince PB it said it all. They outnumber us 2 to 1. And are angry we don't just roll over and die.

[The Spud]

58 minutes ago, rediii said:

But exactly this is the problem.

Nations have to be mixed. Wouldnt be a problem with fantasy nationnames but like this a french will most likely join france anyway. A spanish speaking person will pick spain and a english will most likely pick brits or US.

 

I think if GB would have been in Swedens spot, it would have just as many players as it has now.

My nation selection when first playing this game, without any background stuff on this game was as follows:

- I know a bit of French but not enough, so not France.
- I don't know Spanish, so not Spain.
- I don't know Danish or Norwegian, so not DN.
- I don't know swedish (although I was assuming that DN and Sweden would have allot of german players, but like with French I don't know enough), so not sweden.
- Pirates is probably a mix of everything, not my choice.
- I speak Dutch as native language, but I'm a Belgian so thats a no go.
- Only leaves me English with GB and US, GB is european like myself so I chose GB.

I don't think people choose GB for the easy mode, its just the place you'll most likely feel most comfortable communicating as a european. If you would know for instance, oh there is a reasonable Belgian community in say the Swedish faction, I would probably have gone swedish.

Another fact in favour of GB is its rich Naval history.

As for fictional nations, It would feel realy weird sailing historicaly accurate ships under a fictional flag.

Edited March 1, 2017 by The Spud

[monk33y]

1 hour ago, sruPL said:

It's true that this game has no players at all. Most moved to other games like Wolrd of Warships, Star Citizen, ARK and other games.

@JonSnowLetsGo

You are correct! Naval action unfortunately gets boring when  we have these huge gaps between content/tweets. This games biggest draw is also it's biggest problem. Open world sailing. It takes to long to get anywhere (a feature I love btw), right now I can't personally be bothered to collect ships and move them, I'd rather play world of warships or star citizen.

Until raids gets added around Xmas this year, we will see numbers ebb and flow!

On this side issue of what's hard and easy, really! This weekly fighting is getting old! (I won't mention the throwing of toys out of pram when certain nations fought pbs in other nations non primetime, then attacking in other nations non prime times) 

#on a side not what star citizen ships do you guys have? 

[Kloothommel]

7 minutes ago, The Spud said:

- I don't know Danish or Norwegian, so not DN.

Danmark Norway main nation language is english.

[Guest sruPL]

14 minutes ago, Kloothommel said:

True. When I saw the AHOY roster on the Port au Prince PB it said it all. They outnumber us 2 to 1. And are angry we don't just roll over and die.

You know right that over 50% of the captains in that fleet never did a single PB before? I would even risk saying 70%.

[Kloothommel]

2 minutes ago, sruPL said:

You know right that over 50% of the captains in that fleet never did a single PB before? I would even risk saying 70%.

I don't think we have that many active players that don't do RVR XD

Like Anolytic already stated, we have a small group doing all the work, but that small RVRgroup is by my own guesstimate about 75% of all DN players.

[Hethwill]

So having different nations admirals setup now and then Large Battles could help having some guys get introduced to "trafalgars" and possibly win their shoulder pads ?

[The Spud]

6 minutes ago, Kloothommel said:

Danmark Norway main nation language is english.

Well it might just be, but nobody knows that when they need to choose a nation. Thats why I think people should be informed what language is mostly spoken in a certain nation, and what real life nationalities are mostly in that nation. I think anybody new to this game would just, like myself, assume Sweden and DN is full of scandinavian people who I don't understand at all. And I don't think you can blame them.

16 minutes ago, rediii said:

So it doesnt feel weird sailing/fighting a Victory as a pirate, swede or dane?

 

You are describing why national names are a problem in this game and why most people just go to GB. The difficulty is not a thing for the most players (maybe) but it is for some.

Gameplay has to come first and then fictional nations are the thing to go but it is too late for this anyway. 

I know it doesn't feel right, but it doesn't feel as ahistorical as sailing under the flag of a made up nation.

We all know that it would be more fun for everyone if the playerbase was evenly devided amongst all nations, but I feel that imaginary nations would just be weird for some people. I believe we can come up with a better plan. Maybe just add a random join button which gives a nice bonus, some gold, XP and a redeemable. I would have probably gone for that one if it would have been in.

[Guest sruPL]

15 minutes ago, Kloothommel said:

I don't think we have that many active players that don't do RVR XD

Like Anolytic already stated, we have a small group doing all the work, but that small RVRgroup is by my own guesstimate about 75% of all DN players.

Just grab all clanless pubbies, give them ships and tell to go to PB. It works.

[Kloothommel]

Just now, sruPL said:

Just grab all clanless pubbies, give them ships and tell to go to PB. It works.

Done that.

[Jean Ribault]

I agree with sruPL, there's nothing wrong with nightflips, but qualifying that with this: my theory is, and in keeping on-topic with the OP, first if they would simply force the game mechanics to make alliances dynamic (continually fluid, as Anolytic said above), then the effect of time zone coverages would be massively reduced.  And second, all night-flipping will even out because those alliances are constantly changing.  Arguably players will nightflip less by choice simply because next week or in two weeks they will be allied differently.  The devs have to find a way to make alliance shifting very dynamic.  That's the way to keep the pvp live and make nightflipping less of an impact.

In this game, any faction should be able to war with or ally with any faction and keep it bubbling fun and unpredictable.  Also, any sovereign nation should be able to (IMO) stab our allies in the back and change our minds any time.  Even moreso for pirates.  After all you're only my ally while I'm facing you, and when I'm not in your presence then I'm plotting against you.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Kloothommel said:

Done that.

Then you shouldn't be surprised that the first port battle for many of them didn't go well. It's a process, pvp and port battles are nothing like missions, so these new players need to learn how it all works. 

sruPL is completely right, at solid half those players were brand new to this. Many other Brit clans aren't actively seeking and  recruiting the new players, so we have a large number of them. Give us some time, then we'all start giving you a challenge  

[Kloothommel]

3 minutes ago, EliteDelta said:

Then you shouldn't be surprised that the first port battle for many of them didn't go well. It's a process, pvp and port battles are nothing like missions, so these new players need to learn how it all works. 

sruPL is completely right, at solid half those players were brand new to this. Many other Brit clans aren't actively seeking and  recruiting the new players, so we have a large number of them. Give us some time, then we'all start giving you a challenge  

I meant that there are hardly any noobs left in D-N

[Chijohnaok]

3 hours ago, rediii said:

 

 

I somewhere suggested that you should see, like in other mmos, a "low pop" nation and get rewards for joining that nation. More exp, redeemable cerb maybe and a bit more starter gold maybe. I think it would work on a long term.

^   is a good idea.

[Anolytic]

7 hours ago, sruPL said:

You have to decide. In one thread you cry about nightflips, say "go to hell" and so on, but then you want US to go on your side and nightflip us. Sounds like hypocrite. 

All diplomatic approaches to discuss the US changing sides had the explicit agenda to balance the timezones, not to flip the problem on its head. The GB has American time zone players and the Dutch (had) American time zone players, so for the US to switch alliance would be to have opposition in their primetime, and balance the server. The goal was, and would be, to reduce the problems and consequences of night-flips by having defenders and attackers available to both alliances in that time zone, and not, as you say, to night-flip the GB. GB would be able to defend with its American time-zone players.

That's is all moot at this point, but there's definitely nothing hypocritical about it. It was Sweden and Danmark who spear-headed the initiative to talk to the US before Christmas.

[Jean Ribault]

There's no such thing as American time zone.  Continental USA spans four time zones, and that is incompatible as we already have seen.  Early morning for EST is sleeping time for Pacific and mid-primetime for EST is still work time for many Pacific, and the flipside is true.