Snoopy

I think the most important point that needs to get into the dev's heads is that faction switching/balancing needs to be made easier, and incentivized, not made harder and ****blocked. I commend you all for trying to balance things now, but even if you succeed today, there is nothing in place to rebalance in the future.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that. Flat out 180 degrees wrong direction unless they have a lot of other things in the pipeline to balance teams..

Say something nice and conciliatory.. and the poo slinging commences straight away.

The initiative to balance is very commendable. Please try to focus on the most important take away from the current PvP1 lock in: Implement a system of changing alliances right from the start. It's the only point at which this may have a chance of working and it's the only thing that may counteract the salt flowing again. Balancing numbers is good, but you also need to prevent ossified alliance blocks from reappearing. They are worse than temporary fighting with fewer numbers.

The ship would make a lot of sense in Naval Action, too..

My tour of nations on PvP1 seems to be sadly cut short by these events (it would have been France and Spain next).. so farewell to all players who leave and good winds! Having played GB for most of the time, a big shout-out for the hospitality I received during my tenure in "the East" I hope someday we can play together again o7 P.S. Having played on both sides of the alliance divide I think there are things to take away here. It is amazing in a social experiment kind of way, but also frightening, to see how good people on both sides can be pitted against each other in a seemingly insoluble conflict. Looked at it by daylight the split was easily preventable or at least a better arrangement could have been found. It is too easy to only blame night flips for this. It is also the level of instilled 'hate' that made true enemies here. It was helped by the downward slope of cross community relations due to game mechanics - or lack of them. In other words, there is nothing to prevent relations from becoming more and more hostile. The night flips happened, in part, precisely because they pissed the other guy off, as a response to something that pissed the night flipper off earlier. (Night flip is timezone independent so you have to insert who the evil night flipper was as needed to preserver your conception). If it wasn't night flips it would have been something else. The developers need to implement safeguards to prevent future splits, it is dangerous to think that if you replicate the exact same environment such a community division will not happen in the same way. The new servers will see the same development if you wait long enough. We had already seen this happening before EA. The writings were on the wall so much so that I wrote this: This was written in January 2016. Hardly surprising in hindsight, but still hurts to see the player base fracture. Devs, the next split is in your court.

Yeah, faction switch mechanic is very much needed. Even if (massive 'if') players use the upcoming wipe/server changes to try and balance things out this is only a one time solution. Future imbalances won't have that luxury.

All these proposals have one weak element in common: it is a game and players are not always playing. Breaks are common and the game kinda needs to be the same for them where they left, so a weekly taxation is not a good idea in my submission. Besides, the existing money cost for harvesting is already such a tax. Using proceeds from that to into the pockets of a Governor is not a bad system, but be careful with weekly upkeep.

it will still have slot limitations though?

I can't play at the moment, but this is good news. Thanks for organizing this, Liq!

I'm sorry, but this is one of the worst proposals ever. The keywords are 'still no proof of alt' and 'witch hunt', and "nothing can possibly go wrong with players having the power to ban other players".

Best of luck! That's one of the ships I'd really like to see in NA..

"The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out" (I was about to say 'a wise man once said' but the guy with the quote was a racist bigot. He got that part right though)

It isn't.

Read the OP again . If overhaul contracts for ship type X also require a BP for X, it won't do any of the things you fear, the only thing it might potentially harm is demand for ship paint if vessels are brought to life time and again. Your crafters will build fewer ships, but more repair contracts. It does make 1 dura captures worthwhile (more than now, anyway) because they can be brought to a full state of repair again. If it's possible to rebuy multiple durabilities it also does not have the drawback of having to transport a new vessel into combat areas after sinking like the 1 dura system. But above all, it addresses the psychological affect of loss aversion. It is one of the most powerful (de-)motivators in human behavior. If you can't technically lose your ship (even if rebuild costs were to be higher when looked at it rationally) , the loss aversion effect on players is a lot less pronounced, hence the urge to stack your odds in PvP in favor of yourself is dampened - and this can only be a good thing for PvP. The days when we had 'free' 74s were unrealistic and I don't want them back, but at least nobody was afraid of PvP.

This is an excellent idea. Loss aversion is a powerful deterrent to PvP and this would help, even if the costs were the same (or higher) as building a new ship.

Personally, I wouldn't mind single dura ships provided all modules are craftable. It would make prizes and the prize taking effort meaningful. However, the perception of grindyness to build ships is a problem, for these reasons: It actually is a grind Multi durability lessen the impact and perception of that grind because you get several times worth your investment Even if crafting costs come down proportionally for single dura ships that perception probably still remains and multi duras are easier to use (towing/teleporting to areas of operation only once for n durabilities) So, given those things, I'd rather have multi duras and remove module loss on the last durability.

You can put ships you have in port into a fleet of your own (right click on the ship -> "send to fleet") and once activated ("Fleet" button top left) will accompany your ship in OW. You have to split your crew among them but it is entirely feasible to sail a flotilla of three fully crewed Trincomalees instead of one. In battle they will be controlled by bots (the same way fleet missions work) but you can also issue commands to your ships and tell them to chain specific enemy ships, focus them etc. It is a pretty neat feature, but the problem with it is that it entirely destroys the PvP experience. If you don't bring them you will have to fight 3v1 when attacking another player - or - bring AI bots of your own to even out the odds. There is no classic 1v1 Frigate duel with fleets. Also, while the bots are competent in ship handling (better than most players ) they lack intuition and insight into how small fleets fight so they get in the way a lot and generally transform something that would be a pleasant PvP fight into another PvE grind.

Historically, the US also had a war against France, and they almost declared war on both France and Britain simultaneously, soo But yeah, in game if the US were to switch blocks it would be better. Unlikely, but better.

As much as I wish trade winds were in the game, I think the camp that says it'll suck is right

Seriously? Your first sentence sounds like you have that academic snobbery down already, and spiced with being dead wrong on the recorded history, too. Here are some numbers for you: in 1804 the Royal Navy had the following ratings and ships: ships of at least 100 guns: 10 ships of at least 90 guns: 21 ships of at least 64 guns: 48 ships of at least 74 guns: 94 ships of at least 80 guns: 13 total: 155 ships of at least 50 guns: 27 ships of at least 32 guns: 164 ships and sloops of at least 14 guns: 197 Third rates (and up) were not rare in reality. The fifth rate Frigates only just outnumber the third rates. Even if you add the 6th rates, if you enter the Royal Navy in 1804 you had a better than 60% chance of serving on a SoL, just by dividing the manpower demand and fleet composition above. This is war time. In peace, a lot of the SoL would be laid up and maybe then you can argue that they were rare, but Naval Action by definition is war time, we have Port Battles (and blockades "screening fleet") every day. You can argue OW fleet compositions (most vessels would have been smaller traders) but since we all are essentially navy captains of sorts, commanding SoLs isn't some super rare gift of god, it was a (sometimes hated, because of blockades, and not a lot of chance for prize money) part of normal duty. What is the fascination of making ships rare in the game that were not rare in RL? Where does this elitism come from? It certainly can't come from a want of depicting reality..

Mutually exclusive is the way to go. You can escort your own convoy - and other players can only intercept you with a single warship. This is a setup for good gameplay unless they bring many players and gank you but that's always going to be an issue. These restrictions could be dropped on PvE (if that's going to be a thing in the future). It would be fun for a player jumping in to a raid to be able to command all warships (same mechanic like now, just more controlled vessels), a true role for admiral ranks perhaps?

Could be fun sailing as the AI, will be confusing in TS "Noo! I am Top Dog. You are Bizzarly?" Not sure about the need to sail home with the loot. It is an awfully long time to prepare a counter gank.

It needs to be done to all ships post the cut off point though.

Busted