Pirates should only gain XP from PvP kills

['Sharpe]

Pirates are intended to be the most difficult faction. Piracy is supposed to mean something significant. Pirates are supposed to fight with each other.

These are, to my understanding, what has been stated as the developers' goals.

None of this is happening right now. Pirates are a big happy primarily PvE grinding group where every player is welcomed warmly. The Pirate population is booming to astronomical levels, risking any semblance of historical realism ingame.

As a simple fix, why not this:

*After the first two levels, Pirate XP is accumulated only through PvP kills - of other Pirates or other nations.*

Not just damage, but kills (to avoid risk free damage farming). Kill XP amount can be increased to account for no damage XP.

The benefits of this:

-Pirate rivalries will emerge due to PvP grinding. The Pirate faction will not be a cohesive whole, but rather fragmented into different alliances. This will do wonders for ingame diplomacy, for all nations. Imagining a national guild hiring a Pirate guild (letter of marque) as a mercenary force to fight other Pirates or nationals. The diplomacy outcomes are much more robust than are currently ingame.

-Pirates will take their rightful place as feared PvP players. Grinding entirely on PvP will give them comparatively much more experience in this area than nationals who can grind on PvE, and having the black flag actually inspire fear is something the game should aspire to (and no multiplayer game has yet achieved).

-The Pirate population will have a natural control, to stop it from numerical domination with countless ships of the line. It takes a certain calibre of player to be willing to earn XP entirely through PvP. This ensures that only the bloodthirsty can fly the flag, as it should be historically.

[Lord Vicious]

i am playng with usa, so not going to bring water on my mill

 

 

but sorry nope  not gonna happens

[Powderhorn]

This is very, very drastic. I'm not convinced it's wrong-headed, however.

[admin]

why everybody wants to limit pirates so much?

Capture their ports keeping them only to Mortimer town and they are done without iron or gold.

 

Unless you cant

 

then of course pirates will grow very powerful and build their own country. Perhaps Poland or Glorious Republic of Kazachrstan

[Kaos]

Pirates should not even grind rank xp like navy does, they just need crew to upkeep and when they die/get captured noone will invite them to their ship to have honorable dinner in candlelight, they will be sent straight to gallows in other words permadeath - character reset.
Fast progression worrying only about money and crew upkeep countered by fast downfall in case you get caught.

I don't understand why we even idealize a concept of pirate utopia nation like in some fairytales? Every rat is for himself and he shouldn't even need to collect gold to craft ship - he should take it from others what belongs to him.

 

[William the Drake]

I don't think Pirates need to be limited to PvP only. Your concern that pirates should be at each other's throats is unfounded; if we want to sink each other, ok. If we want to form a republic on the island of New Providence only to come down with an epidemic of syphilis, then let us.

And having a target on our back by literally every other faction will have us as the PvP faction regardless; we won't have a choice in the matter. 

 

As I've stated before, pirates should be hard mode, not impossible mode. 

 

 

why everybody wants to limit pirates so much?

Capture their ports keeping them only to Mortimer town and they are done without iron or gold.

 

Unless you cant

 

*cough*

 

 

then of course pirates will grow very powerful and build their own country. Perhaps Poland or Glorious Republic of Kazachrstan

 

That is some serious shade being thrown. 

Edited January 6, 2016 by William the Drake

[admin]

 

 

 

 

That is some serious shade being thrown. 

 

Don't understand what it means we know people want to build their own nation (poland russia and some others definitely would do it if they had a chance)

 

We i think mentioned it some time before that we were and are not against such potential in the sandbox game. For example if a guild captures a big number of ports and keeps them for some time they can buy a revolution charter and form their own nation (from the historical list). That's how we originally planned to allow USA creation. (in the early OW tests there were no USA)

[Powderhorn]

I think the reaction here is a natural one:  Right now, pirates are alleged to be the "hard" mode, but with XP farming off each other, and all the same mechanics as a nation otherwise, they actually become "easy mode."  (Unless I misunderstand something currently.)

 

The charters of revolution are a very interesting idea, and honestly, I hope it is implemented.

[Deepgift]

Pirates are intended to be the most difficult faction. Piracy is supposed to mean something significant. Pirates are supposed to fight with each other.

These are, to my understanding, what has been stated as the developers' goals.

None of this is happening right now. Pirates are a big happy primarily PvE grinding group where every player is welcomed warmly. The Pirate population is booming to astronomical levels, risking any semblance of historical realism ingame.

As a simple fix, why not this:

*After the first two levels, Pirate XP is accumulated only through PvP kills - of other Pirates or other nations.*

Not just damage, but kills (to avoid risk free damage farming). Kill XP amount can be increased to account for no damage XP.

The benefits of this:

-Pirate rivalries will emerge due to PvP grinding. The Pirate faction will not be a cohesive whole, but rather fragmented into different alliances. This will do wonders for ingame diplomacy, for all nations. Imagining a national guild hiring a Pirate guild (letter of marque) as a mercenary force to fight other Pirates or nationals. The diplomacy outcomes are much more robust than are currently ingame.

-Pirates will take their rightful place as feared PvP players. Grinding entirely on PvP will give them comparatively much more experience in this area than nationals who can grind on PvE, and having the black flag actually inspire fear is something the game should aspire to (and no multiplayer game has yet achieved).

-The Pirate population will have a natural control, to stop it from numerical domination with countless ships of the line. It takes a certain calibre of player to be willing to earn XP entirely through PvP. This ensures that only the bloodthirsty can fly the flag, as it should be historically.

 

 

Thats because the pirates have a influx of new players and were trying to catch up so there are so big PVE grinding fleets going outside mort all the time were trying to get our new players in bigger ships, Alot of us are at a disadvantage for deep-water port battles because we dont have everything needed to crew larger ships to be competitive , And im appart of that haveing everyone welcome to this Big pve group Im one of those people going out of there way to help out new players give people new ships getting people in to bigger ships, helping teach people how to play the game . Im trying to do my part to try and make the pirates competitive .( beacuse right now there are only 3-7 active players for my timezones who can even fully crew 1st and 2ed rates  )

 

Please dont hurt our new and growing nation!!!

 

We are gaining a lot of members from Twitch streamers which is really nice Maybe some of the other nations should try and stream some game play find people who are interested in promoting and expanding the game. 

[Deepgift]

I think the reaction here is a natural one:  Right now, pirates are alleged to be the "hard" mode, but with XP farming off each other, and all the same mechanics as a nation otherwise, they actually become "easy mode."  (Unless I misunderstand something currently.)

 

The charters of revolution are a very interesting idea, and honestly, I hope it is implemented.

 

The people I know arnt using the XP farming off oneanother were just grouping up and taking on big AI fleets

[DeathGenie]

I'm so sorry that you feel as though your enemies should have it harder than you, they are changing pirates to make them harder but this is not the way.

[Dragoon]

pirates have to lvl up just like everyone else

[William the Drake]

Don't understand what it means

I thought you were making a joke that Poles were just a bunch of pirates.

[Ned Loe]

Pirates are free sailors. They can earn XP by any way they want. 

[Powderhorn]

Pirates are free sailors. They can earn XP by any way they want.

Doesn't that, by definition, make pirates "easy mode"...?

[Nathaniel]

Only because of global conquest reasons: either we remove pirates completely, forcing them to be historically more appropriate thugs within other nations, but if that's to radical, let pirates be. We wan't one of the potentially most popular factions that can tackle British dominance to just disappear because of some strange forced restriction. Leave the pirates the ability to grow into great adversaries. They will have enough difficulties to keep from fighting eachother anyway

Edited January 6, 2016 by Nathaniel

[maturin]

why everybody wants to limit pirates so much?

Capture their ports keeping them only to Mortimer town and they are done without iron or gold.

 

Unless you cant

 

then of course pirates will grow very powerful and build their own country. Perhaps Poland or Glorious Republic of Kazachrstan

Why would you ever expect the (second?) most popular nation (and pirates are just a nation) to be limited and defeated by the others?

[Scorpio Shirica]

I like the idea of pirates being able to form new nations with some mechanic. Like buying a nation charter as several clans and creating a new one? Would help solve the problem of others wanting their own nation without a new faction needing to be added whenever a different part of the global audience got interested in the game.

 

However, maybe it'd be better to call them something else so people don't get so hung up on them being fantasy ahistorical pirates?

 

This thread is definitely going places.

[Jon Allen]

The real solution is to join the pirates, rise up through the ranks, start your own group, dominate one or more ports, calling them yours and saying that other pirates are not welcome there. Then go to war with all other pirates.

Edited January 7, 2016 by Jon Allen

[FloX]

Let the pirates be pirates, I dont feel like us being a real treat to any other nation we might be alot but in some aspects still small. I mean if the US and GB would form a pact again we be gone like the wind.

Ofcourse port timer settings is helping us a bit but still gotta agree with the admin there.

 

also i have never seen or heard about pirates vs pirates for xp ive heard about doing honor kills that way but that was before i even joined.

I dont know how you came up with this idea it just sounds wierd... We aint that different from other nations.

 

also this:

 

-Pirate rivalries will emerge due to PvP grinding. The Pirate faction will not be a cohesive whole, but rather fragmented into different alliances. This will do wonders for ingame diplomacy, for all nations. Imagining a national guild hiring a Pirate guild (letter of marque) as a mercenary force to fight other Pirates or nationals. The diplomacy outcomes are much more robust than are currently ingame.

is kinda happening already Guilds are doing their own stuff i see tons of arguing in the chat about possible treaties and some want it and some dont. Ofc when it comes to port battles everybody wants to have a slice.

Edited January 7, 2016 by FloX

['Sharpe]

why everybody wants to limit pirates so much?

Capture their ports keeping them only to Mortimer town and they are done without iron or gold.

 

Unless you cant

 

It's really discouraging to consistently hear this. Treating Pirates like an empire-sustaining faction is just not consistent with history. And yet so much historical detail has gone into this game. Which is frustrating, because an inconsistency like this is like watching Saving Private Ryan, but at the end Matt Damon uses a lightsaber on the Germans at Ramelle.

 

The best response I can give is from a thread I posted in a couple weeks ago:

 

In real life, GB, USA, and France were able to limit Piracy because Piracy was decentralized and lacking concerted firepower relative to the Nationals.

One can't make an historical argument ("well they suppressed piracy in real life, you can too") if Pirates ingame are afforded such non-historical luxuries as a centralized location with an unassailable defense fleet.

Also, Pirates were inherently different than the U.S. Founding Fathers in terms of political goals. The analogy posited is false. Aspiring nations such as the United States sought independence under a common banner, with the hopes of creating either a centralized political structure, or, in the case of the U.S., a looser decentralized confederation.

Any research on Pirates shows that Piracy was primarily motivated by short term, personally achievable goals such as profit, and freedom from debt collectors or the law. Nation-building is motivated by long-term, collective goals, that require independent actors to forego short term gain for a larger concept, for historical posterity and glory for future generations.

As short-term actors, many Pirates quarreled with and possessed animosity towards certain other Pirates more than they had towards nations. Yes, a select few literate Pirates did write of dreams of a Pirate paradyse, a land under the black flag, but such musings are akin to disruptive teenagers of the current age dreaming of a utopia without laws and police. They were pipe dreams, not based on what was realistically feasible, in other words. And this was yet a minority: most Pirates saw no future beyond the well being of their purses and their ships.

To treat Pirates as some sort of unified front that historically wanted to band together under a common flag and create a cohesive political empire that would span generations is, simply, wrong in the historical realm. I'm quite disappointed to hear that admin wants to treat them as such, as this game is so good at honoring history in other ways. This seems astonishingly inconsistent with history.

 

In addition to the inconsistency with history, there are also gameplay reasons to want the Pirate experience to be different. It's more fun for everyone if piracy is the scourge of the entire Caribbean, not just the scourge of the area surrounding Mortimer town, or whatever territory they own. To accomplish this, there should be uncaptureable pirate havens spread around the map, and gameplay reasons to keep Pirates visiting each haven (perhaps their endgame RvR goal is to sink a certain amount of tonnage in each sector). It seems like a huge missed opportunity if a Pirate "empire" spreads around Mortimer Town (arbitrary location), and players of Spanish, French, Dutch factions who rarely leave the Lower Antilles almost never encounter a single Pirate.

['Sharpe]

I'm so sorry that you feel as though your enemies should have it harder than you, they are changing pirates to make them harder but this is not the way.

 

Genie, it's not my goal to preach about making the Pirate faction being harder, but I do believe the faction should be different from the others. I want all you guys to have fun too. I know and like and respect many Pirate players. I want this game to succeed and that means making the best possible gameplay experience for all. In fact, if you read other posts I've made I actually suggest unique buffs to Pirate play, unique ships, customization, modules, etc, that nationals cannot have.

 

As stated above there's just so many gameplay opportunities that can be unlocked by allowing Pirates to fill their historical role. It would help the economy, diplomacy, RvR strategy, and it would just feel so fresh coming from a game like this. We already have 7 factions...is it more important to have an 8th that's completely identical, or more important to have an 8th that's capable of filling a unique and fun role?

 

Anyway, I hope what you say is correct about changes coming to Pirates, because I have not heard anything like that confirmed.

Edited January 7, 2016 by 'Sharpe

[_Masterviolin]

I think that a good way to perhaps encourage a more divided and broken up pirate nation would be to perhaps established the aforementioned pirate havens as belonging to different AI pirate factions. The main pirate player faction could perhaps control x amount of these havens whilst factions claim the rest. 

 

Then, player pirate factions could then be created to try to capture more havens under their flag and influence, and hopefully lead to the map consisting of a collection of varying pirate factions dotted around the entire West Indies, all competing for eachother's ports and havens to gather more resources for shipbuilding, ect.

 

Here's an example:

 

There are eight pirate havens in a region. They're controlled by three different AI pirate factions, and others are "independent" for players.

 

A: Red AI

B: Independent

C: Blue AI

D: Green AI

E: Independent

F: Independent

G: Independent 

H: Independent

 

Over time, player pirates form their own factions. Through the conquest system, they exclusively have access to capture pirate havens and fight one another for the havens based on their locations for PVE, ect. Perhaps it would look like this:

 

A: Swashbuckling Skullywags

B: Rum-Relishing Rascals

C: Blue AI

D: Swashbuckling Skullywags

E: Crimson Fleet

F: Crimson Fleet

G: Red AI

H: Swashbuckling Skullywags

 

And over time, the factions ally, make enemies and hold their ports. As to prevent total annihilation of a pirate faction due to their loss of ports, a neutral pirate port could act as a buffer.

 

To avoid totally strangling new pirates from ports and resources, we could say that any pirate can access any pirate haven port, but cannot use a warehouse, create contracts or craft there without their faction claiming it or until they join the faction that owns said haven?

Edited January 7, 2016 by _Masterviolin

[FloX]

Altough Libertatia might not have exist but there was some democracy between pirates etc,

 

Libertatia was a legendary free colony forged by pirates and the pirate Captain Misson, although some historians have expressed doubts over its existence outside of literature. Historian and activist Marcus Rediker describes the pirates as follows:

These pirates who settled in Libertalia would be "vigilant Guardians of the People's Rights and Liberties"; they would stand as "Barriers against the Rich and Powerful" of their day. By waging war on behalf of "the Oppressed" against the "Oppressors," they would see that "Justice was equally distributed.

 

i feel like if they had even more support or more men back in the day they coud've done great things.

I play these types of game a bit for historic reasons but mainly to play a game. And i see it as, What if.... back in the day. You know alternate history this way you can decide your own nations fate instead of following an historical book ye know, Alternate history.

 

And as far as fairness goes, If the US, GB, Spain, Sverige. Holland, Denmark would unite against us the pirate's, we would have no chance. So why not do that? just like in history. Nobody liked us back then

[Westgate]

You have to balance historical vs enjoyment. Doing this would have catastrophic consequences.

 

When the wipe happens, you would have National players able to level against AI fleets which are a lot more common than getting a PvP fight, this would put Pirates behind the level curve right off the bat. Getting behind the level curve means that Pirates are now in smaller ships than National players, this makes getting XP in PvP battles even harder which sets them back even further. Now that National players are leveled up, in their better ships, they can start taking ports, guess who can't defend themselves? The Pirates. Pirates now start losing ports at an alarming rate, which lowers there chance to potentially make money from trading. You would be better off starting to play as a National player then swap to Pirate by committing an act of piracy because you don't have to jump through so many hoops.

 

I am all for tweaking around some of the mechanics Pirates have to make them feel harder and to provide a different style of play. This is just a completely illogical plan that would absolutely decimate the Pirate player base into oblivion.