Review and Suggestion of the Impossible Nations

[Guest]

What happened to the old idea of having two separate pirate factions?

One "pirate nation" so that we don't hurt the feelings of J4ck Sp4rrow, and one that exists under the ruleset of the current impossible nations.

Maybe even working in a more clan-based approach within it so that we can try/have that out without overhauling everything?

 

[VirtuallyIdiotic]

19 minutes ago, Flinch said:

I'd be pretty pissed off if Prussia got removed because of haters on the forum saying so. Don't hate.

Well too bad. The three impossible nations were introduced for mechanics. I'd be bummed losing Poland but I already understand it will not be in the final game.

[Hethwill]

The difference between Normal and Impossible nations is:

- no ports that are not conquerable

- no safe zones

- starting position is not capital

What Impossible nations were never intended to be was ( as I seem to read so much ):

- a place to attack everyone, including own nation ( outlaw )

[Aventador]

37 minutes ago, admin said:

Preußen Bleibt

Prussia (or countries that became prussia) held 3 islands in the caribbean from 1650 till 1700. 

I believe Krabbeninsel is Vieques. Could give them that. But Chris does have a point with Russia and Poland. I would agree that they should be removed. 

[Bloody Hound]

@rediii From what i've gathered we don't attack Lorimers because we just don't care about it xD

Were only somewhat arsed for Blondel as it has Teak in and we enjoy the smaller battle fights.

 

Edited February 16, 2018 by Bloody Hound

[Christendom]

1 minute ago, Banished Privateer said:

Polish vassal (Duchy of Courland) owned Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. Duchy of Courland was over the years under influence of Prussia/German states, Poland and Russia.

Also, there was a Polish legion on Haiti, that gives roots and history to the Polish population on Haiti.

Some more lecture for you:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Haitians

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_attempts_by_Poland

 

Indeed, but they were not OWNED by Poland.  Maybe fly the Poland Legion flag under France?

And the Tobago ones are a bit of a stretch. 

Can you find an attempt by Russia to colonize anywhere other than the NW Pacific Coast?

[Rhodry Heidenrich]

The notion of wanting to cater to players with the "Disney Pirate" fantasy seems dubious. I'm suspicious that those types of players probably don't have any longevity and may not be worth fussing over. They'll figure out that this game isn't about instant gratification and will move on to Sea of Thieves or Skull & Bones. 

Pirates being an easy-mode Nation, and the desired void for a "Pirate like" faction being filled by Russia/Poland/Prussia is just so strange. Nation building players should play in Nations and those of us who want to scratch out a living away from the drama, egos and tomfoolery of RvR should be the ones flying The Black. 

 

[blubasso]

40 minutes ago, z4ys said:

Eating vegetables is healthy but eating an half cow filled with pork just taste better So from the fresh recruit perspective this journey is good to do so. But is it fun? I guess you have in mind while sailing down with the basic cutter (free repairs) you attack whenever you see AI and repair afterwards. But therefore 1. you have to survive  + 2. you have to know that repairs are free + how to repair crew. What is the real behavoir of a new player?

First of all, the wonder of a new environment. Second, killkillkillKILL ‘EM ALL!

Seriously: new players behavoir depends on their expectations on the new game. Someone could find the  exploration a marvelous thing overall, some other join us because of fight. Or a good mix of it. In the menwhile he can learn the mechnics, asking ingame and in forum. If you relly like the game, you stay...

[Hethwill]

1 minute ago, Wraith said:

It's because there's no way to hold those ports without a large player base. Shallow water port battles are fun but unless you have 25 man RvR-ready players (at least 12-13 for pbs plus 12-50 for screening) you're really vulnerable.

I get what you mean. But the Kingdom of Northern Prussia was definitely not the large player base when Green Cay - Shroud Cay lifeline was established.

I reckon the Russian Empire and Kingdom of Southern Prussia had way more players. Pretty sure they even had more than Commonwealth at a point.

I know the sandbox liberty plays this way and the temptation is great to carve a "safe zone" but why overlook a step stone like a Admiralty in the Bahamas ?

But sorry, I am diverting from mechanics discussion.

Do the Impossible Nations work ? Definitely they do. The descriptions say - the nation must prove worthy of being in the Caribbean. And being PvP oriented you know what that means.

But the problem is it became the focal point for many newcomers and not pvp adepts. Some sort of implosions can happen and if a PvP nation is not strong enough it will be steamrolled back to free ports  

[VirtuallyIdiotic]

1 hour ago, Hethwill said:

Do the Impossible Nations work ? Definitely they do. The descriptions say - the nation must prove worthy of being in the Caribbean. And being PvP oriented you know what that means.

But the problem is it became the focal point for many newcomers and not pvp adepts. Some sort of implosions can happen and if a PvP nation is not strong enough it will be steamrolled back to free ports  

Agreed. These Impossible nations can work. Prussia is a perfect archetype of what the pirate faction should be, hence why I suggested that the Pirates follow the same parameters as these three impossible nations do and in particular function very similar to Prussia. Poland and Russia did show that with a large player base these nations can function like the other nationals. However, when both of their populations deteriorated their ability to project and maintain power decreased as well. If Russia and Poland were to merge their merged nation would flourish. This is why I suggested creating one faction that follows similar rules like Portugal where the only difference is they have one non-capture port being their capital. I suggest Portugal because they could be placed not in the center of the map but rather more towards the Dutch waters which tend to be very quiet most of the time and very little boarder conflicts. This would create hopefully another point of interest on the map rather than the center around Mortimer Town. If another nation instead of Portugal is used like Prussia I am fine with that as well. In the current state of the game and from what we have observed so far from the three impossible nations we have seen what does and what does not work based on certain elements or in some cases lack of. 

[Barbancourt]

4 hours ago, Hethwill said:

It is after you have some feet wet. And no better place than the Bahamas  hence why the first objective of any impossible-pvp nation, in my opinion, is to create a Admiralty near Shroud.

Why only one did ? It would be a more welcoming scenario to all newcomers that join a Impossible nation than telling them to sail to Bermuda or to Panama.

I am not against the mechanic, I love it. I am just intrigued why the new nations decided ( at the start of it all ) to focus on far lands rather than on the obvious starting spot.

Bahamas doesn't interest me much.  Too crowded and too many "pirates".  As a noob I went to a quiet location (Saint Marc) with a reliable AI Lynx and Cutter spawns to farm repairs and XP, and to mine Gold Ore when it was rare after the Wipe.  I'd rather have Puerto Plata or another port on the north Haiti coast for access to the Bahamas.  The first destination for a new "Small 3" player should really be another Free Town or two (or more!), to start establishing your teleport network and your secure Free Port warehouses while your ambitions are still limited to sailing the fast Basic Cutter or Lynx.  (less of a target as you port)  Noobs don't need an Admiralty since we don't have a Prize mechanic. 

I don't want the "Small 3" nations removed.  I'd like more of them, even.  It gives people a place to go for a different game experience from the big nations, and a way to escape from some of the personalities in those.  If noobs aren't getting what they expected, that's a failure of the game interface.  These need to be advertised as Free Port nations. 

Edited February 16, 2018 by Barbancourt (rownd)

[Sir Texas Sir]

6 hours ago, admin said:

that journey is amazing the first time you sail. You never seen the world, everything is new, you sink a couple of time on the way or get lost. 
i think from the fresh recruit perspective this journey is not bad. 

We really should have fog of war until you map out the game.  Just show the capitals of regions on your map until you visited that region.  It would give folks more reason to explore.  With that being said yes but what about the second, third, 100 times...need to have things in game where it keeps those folks interest and giving more nations options for new player and spreading them ll over the place isn't going to help keeping player pop up in certain nations.  We need less nations not more.  Also incentives to join each nations.  Maybe each nation should have it's own player perk for the members of that nation. Kinda like the Nation Refits we had in game but make them a perm thing of either the players of that nation or ships made in that nation (that would just get abused by alts building ships in other nations to get perks).   France more accuracy, British Faster reload, Pirates boarding perk or more crew, US maybe HP/Thickness (good old iron side) to 4th rates and below....etc etc. that only the players of those nations gets for playing that nation.  That would give folks more reason to play diffrent nations.

6 hours ago, Liq said:

When I joined I joked about some guy in a white uniform told me if I signed i get to go to Disney Land.....I didn't know it was going to be Tokyo  Disney land.....forward deployed in Japan I got to see a lot of water...lol

6 hours ago, admin said:

Preußen Bleibt

Prussia (or countries that became prussia) held 3 islands in the caribbean from 1650 till 1700. 

I only found 1 and that aws Vieques, but it was held like for 4 years years 1689-1693 which is out side our game time line.  Why are we depending on port owner ship out side of the time line of the game set by ya'll?   Also if you go by that than Scottland owned the same island to for a short time so whey don't we have a Scottland nation?  I'm part Scottish so I demand a Scottish nation....see where I'm going with this?  Next you will have like 100 nations to please every one.

4 hours ago, Wraith said:

But for other small nations no one cares about the shallows exactly because they are not defensible. There's no reason to establish a lifeline if you don't have a port on the U.S. coast, since you can operate out of Shroud with impunity anyway. I mean, do you really think just because Prussia has a couple shallow water ports than new players are going to be flocking to Prussia?  

I don't take issue with the fact that small nations can do their thing under the current system. The question really has to do with whether they add anything of value to the game?  I think they mostly just are a vehicle for spreading out the discontented of an already small and whingy player base, and appealing to nationalistic identities (and potentially selling a few more games to Russians and Germans).

Under the current system this intersects with the RvR mechanics in mildly messed up ways.  Instead, we should have fewer, more historical nations, that serve just as a backdrop to clan- and clan alliance-based RvR.  That way you get your mechanics for isolating whingy discontents as well as ways to keep the feel of the time period and a more flexible set of mechanics for player-generated content, diplomacy, and intrigue.

Those areas in the shallows should not be about ports for small nations, they should be ports for small clans.  Think it's funny majority of them are owned by the two largest clans in game (well port owner ship wise) so it makes it very hard for any small nation or clan to take any of the shallows.  Hint the reason we need to have dedicated ports for small clans that big clans can't own if they have to many ports.  Thuse keeping the kiddie pool as some like to call it for the small clans/nations to play in and keeping the mega big clans out of them.

[Hethwill]

2 hours ago, Barbancourt (rownd) said:

Noobs don't need an Admiralty since we don't have a Prize mechanic. 

Most books are exchanged with Combat Marks.

[Sir Texas Sir]

10 minutes ago, Hethwill said:

Most books are exchanged with Combat Marks.

The first thing I found out back on GLOBAL when I switched my old Dane alt to Prussia to test out the new nations was.....I couldn't get a perk reset cause we didn't own any ports yet.  So I had to get my main to buy one and meet it in a free town so I can reset my perks.  Little things like this are what new players need in an Admiralirty shop along with buying any of the common books as you stated.  I kinda feel Shroud Cay should have a shop for any of these three nations if they where to be keeped around.  Oh wait they are suppose to be extrem hard mode....which means Noobs shouldn't be picking them than.  Which is why I think they should be removed, the only extrem hard mode should be pirates and even than I think that should be a nation you become in game not at start chargen

[Barbancourt]

1 hour ago, Hethwill said:

Most books are exchanged with Combat Marks.

new players don't really need 'em and you might as well try to get them as drops from OW Lynxes first  (there probably should be an Admiralty for everyone at one of Free Towns for nations that don't have any owned ports at all)

Edited February 17, 2018 by Barbancourt (rownd)

[Hethwill]

1 hour ago, Barbancourt (rownd) said:

new players don't really need 'em and you might as well try to get them as drops from OW Lynxes first  (there probably should be an Admiralty for everyone at one of Free Towns for nations that don't have any owned ports at all)

Impossible Nations need to carve their presence in the Caribbean. Nothing is "given" to them. Admiralty in Free Ports would defeat the entire purpose.

And yes, newcomers need content as much as anyone.

 

[Hethwill]

*crickets*

Ignorance is not a blessing. It is blindness, in this case voluntary, and Innocence surely is a bliss.

[vazco]

On 16.02.2018 at 7:53 PM, Davos Seasworth said:

Poland and Russia did show that with a large player base these nations can function like the other nationals. (...) If Russia and Poland were to merge their merged nation would flourish.

The truth is that impossible nations can't function as normal nations in the long run. It requires a very tedious diplomacy and a bit of luck to avoid your capital to be focused. Having this capital in a free town is a solution which works only for experienced players, however not for fresh people, as they don't have a place to grind.

You either recruit only veterans, or risk your capital being targetted, which makes your inexperienced people leave.

As long as those nations don't have a single port which would be uncapturable, they can work only for veterans.

When I mentioned this is a problem in Commonwealth, I was blamed for whining - also by Russians. Now Russia was focused with a single attack and it suddenly imploded. I guess Commonwealth did a better job when they had this issue...

 

ps. free towns should have admirality. Not having admirality is simply a time waste, it doesn't have any value.

[maturin]

23 minutes ago, vazco said:

The truth is that impossible nations can't function as normal nations in the long run. It requires a very tedious diplomacy and a bit of luck to avoid your capital to be focused. Having this capital in a free town is a solution which works only for experienced players, however not for fresh people, as they don't have a place to grind.

 

I mean, this is entirely expected. Impossible nations are only expected to survive as long as their committed and active playerbase does. Coasting and carebearism = defeat.

[Hethwill]

9 hours ago, maturin said:

Impossible nations are only expected to survive as long as their committed and active playerbase does

Perfect definition.

[Vizzini]

11 minutes ago, Graf Bernadotte said:

Russia didn't implode with a single attack. Russia lost a lot of experienced players long before, who took a break or quit the game. Russias problem was that devs forced us into a race over the map. Which was not winnable on the long run with a small player base.

Without changes in VM mechanic we would never have expanded in an extent we couldn 't manage anymore. Controlling the map is a time consuming and boring game play, as long as you don't have enough traders who share all those sails necessary to ensure supply with repairs and ships in so many different regions. Boring game play leads to a loss of players.

Impossible nations don't work, if Devs make access to 1. Rates at the same time so hard for small nations that only the very best players with a lot of PvP marks can pay for them. Knowing that move of Devs before, almost nobody would have joined those nations.

Russia didn't implode losing battles. Russia got backstabbed by Devs. It would have happened to all other impossible nations as well, if they would have been successful in the beginning like Russia was. Devs have to decide if they wanna test the impact of small nations without safe ports or if they wanna test the impact having only big nations. But they cannot test both on the same time.

Devs didn't kill Russia ..  look somewhere else for your scapegoat.  The same names keep appearing with failed nations that got so riddled with hate and i guess I am not the only one to notice.

[Vizzini]

Just now, Graf Bernadotte said:

Mate, we are here in suggestions and not in national news.. I posted some proper arguments to proof my point. If you don't have any argument to disprove me, it would be better just to shut up.

No you asserted your opinion as fact.... No proof was provided.

Telling people to shut up on the internet....  oh dear

[vazco]

12 hours ago, maturin said:

I mean, this is entirely expected. Impossible nations are only expected to survive as long as their committed and active playerbase does. Coasting and carebearism = defeat.

The current issue is that impossible nations have a huge weakness. They can survive only if they can defeat enemy in EVERY battle, or if their economy is based on alts. None wins all the battles. 

With an enemy with even experience and numbers,  impossible nations will always loose in RvR. Simply their eco will be focused. 

Not that it's an issue for me. 

[maturin]

25 minutes ago, vazco said:

The current issue is that impossible nations have a huge weakness. They can survive only if they can defeat enemy in EVERY battle, or if their economy is based on alts. None wins all the battles. 

With an enemy with even experience and numbers,  impossible nations will always loose in RvR. Simply their eco will be focused. 

Not that it's an issue for me. 

Still a feature, not a bug.

They can also live out of the free ports.

[Slim McSauce]

If these impossible nations weren't nations but just the pirate mechanic no one would be complaining. Right now impossible nations feel like a half feature.