Qwolf

In my view, this would be a huge disruptive change, crush any national spirit that exists, channel everyone into a few, very profitable clans, and be historically inaccurate. I strongly oppose the proposed clan mechanic. If the problem is that small nations are undermanned and not much fun to play, here are simple solutions in my view: Problem: Smaller nations have no chance: Solution: Give each nation 3 unconquerable regions to protect smaller regions and make it fun and fair for everyone. Problem: No incentive to join or remain in smaller nations: Solution: Give a salary of gold and/or marks to captains, based on rank, that equals number of regions in a nation divided by number of captains. Salaries are historically accurate. Captains got paid. Make this salary visible on join nation screen to help captains decide. Big nation captains would likely make less than small nation captains and provide incentive for big nation captains to join small nations. How it could work: Nations with lots of captains but few ports would get small salaries. Small nations with even 3 unconquerable regions would get good salaries. If you could make 10x the amount of gold and marks serving another smaller nation, players would consider that in choosing their nations, even things out. Example: 100 British captains control 10 regions. 1 region for every 10 captains. Based on rank, British Rear Admirals receive salary of 10000 gold a week. Conversely, 10 Spanish Rear Admiral captains control 3 regions. Or 1 region for every 3 captains. They receive a weekly salary a much higher salary of roughly 30000 gold. Finally, I continue to believe that if you want improved RVR (which is fun and is working, not sure why some are calling it "broken") you need a way to give nations some sort of national power. Elected leaders setting national objectives. Serve two weeks. New election, new leader and new clan required. Let those leaders use tax revenues and conquest/victory marks from controlled regions to unite the nation behind a common goal. Options for elected leader(s) 1: Distribute some or all of national revenue to captains 2: Use tax revenue to reward PVP play against certain nations. 3. Use tax revenue to reward hostility points in certain regions or for port battle attack or defense. 4. Use tax revenue to reward shipbuilding resources sold in the capital or elsewhere. Final point, if there are only 3 Spanish players, in a national leader system, that means one of them is president/leader every 4 weeks. That's a strong incentive to join Spanish, be El Presidente!

Disagree strongly with the proposed changes. Here's why: 1. People seek out gold ships precisely because they are the best. People like to seek out and acquire the best, or close to the best. Its fun. In other games that might mean playing a little longer to get a better sword, or better spaceship. Same goes for upgrades. People like to customize their ships with upgrades. Its also just another thing to chase, which adds meaning to the game. 2. There is plenty of variety in the game, I've fought plenty of battles with basic ships, especially last minute surprise battles I didn't have time to ship my finest into the area. I also use basic ships as fleet ships all the time. 3. If you want more variety in the quality of ship, you need to incentivize that variety. A victory costs roughly 6,000 labor hours to build. Why wouldn't you spend another 1,000 to make it GOLD instead of basic? Now if that GOLD is going to cost you 12,000 labor hours, instead of 6,000, I'd be surprised if smart individuals didn't start to consider just how high in quality to make that ship. Is a GOLD vic worth 2 basic Vics? Interesting debate. You control the rules, you control the incentives. And the way you've structured the rules, you've incentivized building only GOLD ships. Incentivize building other quality and they will absolutely appear and appear more regularly. 4. Another reason why everyone builds GOLD ships is that you've incentivized building gold ships in order to drop blueprints. Make the blueprint drops roughly equal, and remove that huge incentive to build GOLD lynxs and gold pickles, so you get a BP drop. 5. Stop allowing the AI to flood the ship market with basic ships. There is ZERO incentive to build basic ships because the AI floods the market with them. I'm fine with allowing cutters in every port, but Green Connies and Trincs? You can't complain that nobody builds less than gold ships when you give the players no reason to do so. Almost everything in life comes down to incentives. If you incentivize building a variety of size and quality of ships, people WILL build them. But currently, the smart player builds mostly huge gold ships. Because that's what you've incentivized. Test dramatically increasing the cost of bigger and higher quality ships, and allowing BPS to drop from all ship builds. My guess is that youll start seeing good frigates in the OW instead of just GOLD SOLs.

Regional bonuses are great, add more national map/attack/defend strategy, crafting strategy, and force shipbuilding and commerce out of the capital region. Just about everyone I've talked to in our nation enjoys the idea and is looking forward to building ships with the bonuses.

I can without a doubt say I've enjoyed this game tremendously and played it more than any other multiplayer game ever. I'm not even a huge gamer. But this game is something I look forward to playing daily when life allows me to, (much to my wife's everlasting annoyance). In fact, playing in early access has probably made the game more fun for me. With big changes coming every month or two months, it helps keep the game fresh and evolving, along with strategy and tactics. Moreover, this game has an incredible amount of potential as an open world MMO set in the historical age of sail. Given the steady progress and great changes over the last few months, (Voting, port battle ship size changes, outpost hopping, combat tweaking, etc...) it seems to be on that path to even more greatness. I continue to think it could use a touch more "never quite done" aspect to character development, carrots to keep even maxed out players chasing a goal and a dream. But that's perhaps just something I personally want, that others maybe don't want or need, to keep us coming back a year from now, with the sense that we continue to build towards something every time we log on. Then again, I already log on despite being mostly maxed out. So to the developers I say this: Ignore the petulant shouts of the impatient displeased few. The silent majority love the game and constructively provide feedback to improve the game that you can take or leave depending on the strength of the idea and your resources. Thanks for working to create such a great game that continues to get ever better. I think most of us love this game concept, enjoy the current game, and appreciate that it is being improved steadily.

1. Having to shuffle ships around because we can only have 5 in one port. Perhaps this could be an upgrade you can buy for more dock space? Fleets were helpful in this regard, but I feel like I'm constantly having to shuffle ships between ports to manage ship and fleet numbers. Unfun. 2. Once you've maxed out XP, you cannot improve your character. I'm not sure what the solution here is, but a few options to increase forever play: crew members that gain XP and skills and also die (partially implemented, and implemented well, but would love to see more officers), resource buildings in unprotected ports that increase output over time/use(without a cap), shipyards in unprotected ports that very slightly improve ship quality by building ships (without a cap), kill/capture/port statistics per player, ship specific statistics, ship hall of fame, fortress building, and time in nation that increases your votes over time. More discussion below. 3. Rapid and wild nation switching. I'm all for allowing nation switching, but it happens very very frequently, and can lead to a herd effect that alters the map over night and chases people loyal to a country from the game when their nation crumbles with player switching overnight. See above #2 for solution suggestions. #2 discussion. So you've maxed out your player in XP. There isn't much more to accomplish in game to keep you coming back. I humbly suggest the following additions to increase forever play in game. Officer experience: This was already implemented, and implemented well, for one officer. LOVE this. Want more officers, shorter life spans. This will keep players constantly working to get an experienced crew of officers, with MAX level infrequently achieved. Even when achieved, an officer death will quickly reset the need to get an experienced officer. Resource buildings that increase output with time/use in unprotected ports: In real life, a coal mine that has been around for 9 months is going to be much more efficient than one that has been around for 2 days. This could be reflected in game by increased output/lower cost over time and use. Would make long held ports strategically very important bread baskets for the nation and reward staying in one nation and fighting for your ports. Will militate against nation switching. Shipyards that increase ship quality with use: A shipyard that has built 500 ships should make better ships than one with 5 built. In an unprotected port (especially intriguing with new regional bonuses) a long serving shipyard could be a huge asset to the nation and player, and give maxed out players something to shoot for, or rebuild once its destroyed by an enemy capture. Will also militate against nation switching. Stats/ Hall of Fame: Stats would be fun to track, and give a player something to shoot for. A ship hall of fame would be fun. Top pvp kills/captures/assists for a particular ship before it sinks. Would give maxed out players something to shoot for. Fortresses: Perhaps you could make fortresses something that could be built or improved at GREAT expense over time, to protect critical ports. If forts degraded over time as well, this would mean overwhelming forts wouldn't be everywhere on the map, just the places where players really actively focused on building/improving them, as they decayed elsewhere. Would give maxed out players something to do. Time in Nation: Increased votes for months spent in a nation not only feels right and fair (newcomers shouldn't get same votes as long time members), it would slow rapid nation switching and give maxed out players a reason to stay in game by increasing their vote with time.

Not sure how technical issues somehow morphed into someone yet again asking for a merge. But let me clear in the strongest possible of terms: PVP2 is the experience many captains prefer and choose. Maybe your favorite thing is PVP1. Cool. Ours is PVP2. Also cool, right? Everyone can just do their own thing. Pretty sure you wouldn't like it if I started asking the devs to merge PVP1 into the PVE server. That would totally change your experience right? And if you wanted to play PVE you could already just choose to play on the PVE server right? Same thing for us on PVP2. Thanks.

I'd like to add this thought: There are no real manuals or tutorials in this game. The manuals and tutorials are therefore the veteran players that take in rookies, give them hints or tips, agree to sail with them to a fleet battle or two, and get them involved in clan operations. That and youtube videos with interesting English accents. Kinda hard to watch hours of that stuff. In our nation, the rookies that ask for and receive help from veterans stay in the game much more often than those you see quietly sailing around on their own, figuring out a complicated game. Heck it took me three months to even figure out that fleet missions were great for exciting PVE leveling, because I though "fleet missions" meant you needed a fleet. Another player taught me otherwise. I figured the basics of the game out on my own through a long period of trial and error. Not a smart choice. But it didn't really get fun until a clan taught me the rest and got me involved in player actions. My fear is that a rookie area will deprive rookies from the veterans and clans that can get them started, shorten the learning curve considerably, and keep new players invested in the game. What is the problem this is designed to address? I was winning PvE battles by day 2 or 3 after losing a ton of cutters my first four to six hours online. Is there a rookie ganking problem? Do people really seek out rookies and gank em? I've been ganked maybe three times. And once it was my 100% fault for being AFK in a warzone and ramming the coast like an idiot. Lost a lot of ships in battle, but its usually a mutual thing. Been playing a long time. In sum, I understand the desire for a small rookie on rookie area. I'm ok with that. Might even reduce the stigma of PVP and get the PVP fires burning in rookies. I'm just not sure its a great way to learn the game on your own like that. Maybe create a small cutters and rookies only area for rookies to teleport to and sail around and slap each other with 6 pounders? But I wouldn't keep them from their capitals where they can actually learn the game quickly from veterans.

Dear USA, You are being Zerged. It happens. You already know what I'm going to tell you, but it might be helpful to hear it again. You'll be fine. Fall back. Organize. Fight when you can. Have fun. This is nothing new. It has happened a few times before to other nations. Same reasons given, same finger pointing, same nation switching, same taunting. Hopefully the pirates and brits will honor the server wide agreement to leave you five ports. Or maybe you'll be able to defend five ports instead of 150. Either way, it should be a fun new challenge. Either way, you'll come back. New players will join. Tensions will ease. New clans will form. New leaders will rise. A different nation will become the object of conquest. You'll grow again. It won't be long. Enjoy the ride and the new challenges. Many of us has been through this before. We are still here, and still having fun. Good luck, and I look forward to seeing you rise again. It will happen. Everything is gonna be alright.

Thank you for designing alliances! This should be fun to test. Any reason why instead of rounds of voting directly on alliances, you didn't go the "elect a leader who quickly decides alliances and enemies" route? Seems like a leader and/or his foreign minister could negotiate alliances quickly, and in interesting ways that voting could never do... that said, I'm very grateful for the new content, and looking forward to testing it!

Quick thought, because I know if there is a loophole, it will be exploited. Since we can switch nations fairly easily, it might be prudent to require a voter to have a certain residency requirement, of say a couple weeks or a month, to vote. A few votes could swing an election. And I shudder to think it, but I can think of certain larger "nations" that might have a dozen players switch to another much smaller nation just to swing an election, then switch back. This might be irrelevant under the system the developers are considering, or they may have already thought of this.

Agree with this. And the point that ships that strike their colors are EXACTLY what an opposing captain would want. They don't want the ship to sink. They want the prize with little damage to the prize and their own ship. XP should thus be awarded accordingly, just as high for sinking the ship. You force a ship to strike their colors by proving you are going to win, by speed, force, skill, etc, and you've achieved the ultimate goal of any ship captain. This will also mean no hurt feelings by ships striking their colors and "depriving" opposing captains of XP. The ultimate goal should be a ship striking their colors, not sinking it. Of course, captains should feel free to take their crew, officers, and ship to the bottom if they prefer to sink instead of strike. But honorable and sensible captains strike their colors when the battle is obviously lost.

Just a quick note to the developers, I can't find it in the patch notes, but my understanding and experience in game is that only the top rank of officers (Admirals) can buy port capture flags. I get why you did this. I don't even disagree with the logic behind it. But..... here's the thing. I'm in a small nation with very few active admirals. So we can't buy flags most of the time. A couple of us have been playing fairly regularly for many months. We know generally what we are doing, run our own clans, and have fought many port battles. But we haven't exactly focused on the XP grind. So nobody is an Admiral. Maybe the Admiral's only rule thing was overkill? Maybe allow the top 2 or 3 ranks to buy flags? Perhaps the new politics system is really going to change the port flag dynamic, but for now, the smaller nations might have some problems buying flags, even when they have guys ready and willing to jump into the fight. And that's a kinda crappy experience. For example, and this has happened, the whole nation wants a PVP port battle, but the lone admiral is having a date night, so nothing can happen. Not super awesome. I think you can accomplish your objectives with a lower, more reasonable bar to buying flags. Thanks!

Historically, not many ships "fought to the death." A frigate even approaching a poorly armed merchantman would cause the merchantman to quickly surrender. Why? Because who wants to sink or die in the middle of the ocean when the battle is already lost? Captured seamen and officers were treated reasonably well to encourage ships to consider surrendering when appropriate. I think the easy solution is consider a surrender a kill or capture for XP purposes.. Its the honorable thing to do on the loser's side, saves the victor dead crew from a bloody battle, gives the victor a prize (captured ship), and saves the defender crew from needless death. Indeed, historically, a quick surrender or a surrender at all was PREFERED over a sinking or bloody capture, because you got a prize without a bloody battle. And frankly, in my view, there is a certain honor to saying "you got me, I surrender." Increase the rewards for a surrender to kill/capture levels and everyone will be happy. Closer battles will get fought until a winner is obvious. At that point the loser can go down in an expensive blaze of glory or surrender. The winner won't gripe if he is getting fully kill/capture XP. Indeed he'll be happy to save crew and time. Also, prevent sinking ships from surrendering. That's too late in my view. Captains will have to balance when to surrender versus possibly sinking, like real life.

Subtle Clan Moniker: [DUTCH]. Clan Motto: "Live Free, or Die Hard." - Detective John McLane.

I like the proposed changes, and am certainly game to test them all. I would like to emphasize what would be both historically accurate and an incredible addition to the game: Crew experience. Sailing a ship was complex. Fighting a ship even more so. Green crews were slower to set sails, slower to perform sailing manuevers, and could buckle under the stress, noise, violence, injury, and death of combat. A highly experienced crew gave their ship a significant advantage in rate of fire, maneuverability, gun accuracy, and boarding actions. Losing an experienced officer, botswain, sailing master, etc, was a big loss for a ship, while good and experienced crew and officers was a huge asset. In reality and in the game, experience could thus be dynamic, ebbing and flowing with action and losses. Capture an experienced crew, and your experience might go up. Lose a large number of experienced hands, and the green replacements would lower the crews overall experience and efficacy. It would also be a joy, in game, to take a crew of green hands and officers and develop them, over time, into a crack crew, only to have to start to rebuild that experience when officers or crew were lost. So I'd like to suggest that the developers consider adding crew experience and officers, if and when able. This could be accomplished in easy ways: By simply adding an overall ship specific experience. Lose the ship, lose the experience acquired. Experience buffs sailing and fighting attributes (rate of fire, accuracy, sailing speed, ability to tack and work the sails) This could also be accomplished in more complex ways: A crew's experience ebbs and flows based on actions, captures, and losses. Officers can be hired, gain experience, and be lost. In my view, any method of adding crew experience to the game would both enhance the enjoyability of the game and its realism.