Slamz

1) Can you be in a clan and a war company at the same time 2) Can people from different nations be in the same war company (I think "yes and yes" makes the most sense but let's discuss, if anyone disagrees)

Even when the stars align and a fair port battle happens, it's more about the circles and points ticking up than it is about kills. Circles, points and timers = PvE. If nobody shows up on one side then it's literally PvE: just your fleet, the clock, the points and a few woefully inadequate NPC forts. Kinda like Arathi Basin in WOW, if that helps illustrate. A good match will have a lot of PvP but it's layered over a PvE mechanic of standing on flag circles. In a bad matchup, it can be more PvE than PvP. Just lots of standing around, twiddling thumbs. PvE. You chose to waste your own time. You care about dots too much. Any way, what do we care about your time. Our time was great. We got to sail around and sink people outside La Tortue and MT while you sat in your 1st rates and became irrelevant.

That does sound attractive, actually. Pirates decide to be jerks to everyone and take over all the ports with high tax but it encourages everyone to PvP them nonstop and to provide supporting cover for any war company that promises to push out the Pirate war company and replace it with a lower tax. Wait..... can people of different nations be in the same war company? That might be real interesting. British and French decide to team up. They join the same war company and now can take ports together.

Can I be in a clan AND a war company at the same time? I think that needs to be how it works, if it's not already. e.g. Player: Teutonic. Clan: BORK. War Company: The French Legion. Player: Slamz. Clan: PURGE. War Company: The French Legion. Player: The Red Duke. Clan: ROVER. War Company: The French Legion. We're all in our separate clans but we're in the same war company. We have our clan warehouse, clan roster and business-as-usual but we are also in a war company for purposes of RvR. If this is NOT how it works then frankly I do not like the idea at all. Running a clan is a big deal. Lots of different personalities, forums, rules, etc. Requiring small clans to officially merge isn't gonna fly.

Only agreement I know of was WO's and that was only so long as France had a port in Haiti. If you're talking about pre-reset stuff, that was a completely different set of players.

BT and GT are good for war supplies (granted alts can do that work). BT was additionally useful because of Aves. When we needed to teleport home from Dutch waters, tow-to-port towards Aves was the quickest way (and then from an outpost in Aves, you're in FR). And a lot of people were using GT + La Des as a money farm and shipyard at the start of the server -- basically the French Belize. So when ICS surrendered those ports, it pissed off a lot of French. At the time, nobody really knew anyone so we didn't want to step on toes. ICS made a deal and while we didn't sign it or agree to it, we let it sit at first. It changed when CCCP said they changed their minds and we could only have them back if Alliances came back into the game, so never. That's when we took them back and forced CCCP to give them up. They are less useful today, of course. We don't really need money. We have alts for war materials. We live in free ports and rarely go back home. We never really did understand why CCCP wanted them, though, unless it was Aves as a launching point? We don't frankly understand why they want them today. Unless they plan to challenge the Pirates for the #1 spot, it's just pac manning the dots in empty port battles. So 2016!

In the middle of tremendously fun PvP, surrounded by other clans who like PvP, with the last of peacenik surrender-monkeys having finally used their forged papers to switch nations? I'm not saying I planned this. ...but I'm not saying I didn't.

Just for the record, only WO ever had an actual deal with BLACK, to the best of my knowledge. Not wanting to upset their deal, most of the French clans agreed to put BLACK and BLOOD on a do-not-kill list but we were never part of an agreement. It was purely a courtesy towards WO. I believe that all ended when we lost Haiti, as there was no longer any reason to have an agreement. See also: Santa Marta. If your enemy has stopped coming out for PvP and if they care about ports, then there is One Simple Trick Your Enemy Will Hate to make them come out and PvP again...

For future reference, here is how the war is going to work: 1) Danes take French ports. 2) French literally ignore it. 3) French continue to hunt primarily pirates. 4) Pirates spread out more to avoid being easily targeted in one spot. 5) French spread out more to keep finding pirates to hunt. 6) Some French clans, finding it hard to find Pirates, spread back into the Antilles to also hunt Danes and Swedes. 7) Danes can no longer safely grind missions or do trading in prime US time zones. 8) Danes sweep South America, taking all Dutch ports. 9) Danes sweep much of Great Britain, taking their ports, all during Oceanic time zone hours, but Brits keep grinding them back. 10) Danes declare server victory and quit the game. 11) French have been sinking prime time pirates and Danes this entire time. ICS didn't understand. CCCP didn't understand. BLACK doesn't understand. The way the game is right now, there is almost no reason for a PvP nation to care about port ownership. Between alts, capturing of ships and just regular war profiteers looking to make money, we can operate out of free ports and continue hunting and acquiring new ships. Is this a problem with game design? Should it work differently? I don't know, but it's the way it works today. The biggest mistake on the server will prove to be AUSEZ joining Denmark instead of fighting them. You could have had fun. Now all you have is empty port battles ahead of you, as far as the eye can see. France will not oppose you. For starters, we literally can't oppose you in your own time zone but additionally, we just don't care. I really only made this thread to jab CCCP for breaking the agreement, so that when they eventually ask us for a new deal, and maybe there are some newer French at that time that want to cave in, I will point them at this thread and I will say "no".

It was always expected. We are surprised it took so long. I am a bit disappointed that CCCP broke the agreement without engaging the 72 hour clause though. It would not have really made a difference to give us a 72 hour warning. If I was them I would have started it this past weekend. With a 72 hour warning allowing an honorable end to the agreement, it would allow a chance for future negotiations to occur. But since they broke it without warning, there can be no more future agreements of any sort with CCCP. I will personally veto ever making a deal with them again and I'm sure most other French leaders feel the same way. We are going to keep busy with the Pirates for a while but it will ultimately be our goal to make CCCP realize the full extent of their mistake on this.

The problem is that "fairness" cannot be measured by BR. Even if you are in a Surprise and I am in a Surprise, it's not necessarily fair. Ship build, cannon selection, who-hit-who-with-what-wind and most importantly, captain skill, all come into play. This is why ultimately the solution to fairness is to understand points of sail, "defensive tagging" and having a pretty fast ship. This lets you decide what's fair and what's not. Run from ganks. Engage fair fights. I find the OW to be fair most of the time because I'm very good at avoiding fights I don't like the look of.

News Flash! CCCP @chailang Pearl Harbor the French Treaty Broken Without Mandated 72 Hour Warning "Most dishonorable", says noted French Admiral Slamz, "but we knew CCCP could not be trusted to maintain their deals. This is also a failure of negotiations through the Pirates and a stain upon the honor of @Duncan McFail as we have no doubt they will not hold up the enforcement end of this treaty at this time. Let this be a warning to all other nations: you cannot treat with BLACK or CCCP. They have no honor and hold to no agreements they make. Why they couldn't at least stay honorable enough to use the 72 hour escape clause, I cannot fathom." CCCP grind groups were seen personally running up contention at the French ports and the port battle time was set shortly thereafter. Former-British transplant SCAR clan and CCCP sycophant clan DICS, formerly known as the ICS clan from France, were also noted to be in attendance. French citizens are advised to evacuate any holdings and to prepare to survive as a one-port nation. When questioned about the French strategy, Admiral Slamz stated "the policy of the French nation is to continue sinking ships. Port ownership is largely irrelevant and most of the French clans already operate completely independent of French ports. We will continue to do what we have been doing, which is taking ships from the Pirates whenever we need a new one. And now we can take the 1st rates of the Danes as well, who we know love to run solo 1st rate missions outside of their capital waters. Any younger French captains are encouraged to acquire high speed ships capable of catching and sinking the enemy and they may wish to contact the more veteran French clans for assistance in this if needed." At the time of this publication, the French port of Grande Terre has been fully scheduled for a port battle by the Denmark clan of CCCP.

I don't really know the state of internal GB politics or setups but my suggestion is that some individual GB clans need to go out and start "doing stuff" with or without the council. Just go run up contention somewhere. Who cares if you can't win the port battle. See if the contention distracts the pirates [or whoever your favorite enemy is]. Run it up at a few places and then finish one of them off if pirates schedule a battle of their own somewhere else. Now they have 2 for the same time frame. My suspicion is that GB is paralyzed by this council concept. France does not operate that way. Purge said we're going to go work on Sante Fe, so we did. WO said they were going to camp pirate in MT so they did. In the end we got some Bork and WO support both materially and diplomatically and got it done. WO got a lot more French to join them. But it all started with 1 clan saying "we're doing this" and going to do it, no council approval needed. Lead from the front, ye British clans! This is an interesting side-effect of the Pirate strategy. Intended Pirate strategy: Concentrate in one area of the map. Be ready to respond to attacks there in force because nothing is all that far away from home. Home is central and also in the best part of the map. British strategy: Take dots everywhere. Various clans of various sizes all over the place. Homes are scattered and not convenient or strategic for the map. Net effect: Hunting British is a mixed bag. It's hard to say where they're working right now and if you just want to kill some Brits you can end up sailing around the butt end of nowhere for a while because they're not here right now. They're over there. At some other butt end of nowhere. Hunting Pirates is kind of a slam dunk every time. They're always in pretty much the same area. It's a fairly big circle but action within there is guaranteed and it's also the center of the map so it's accessible to everyone. "Good access" cuts both ways. This is not a critique. Just an observation. Each strategy turns out to have some secondary effects I would not have thought about a month ago.

The question isn't "what do people put them on the market for". The question is "what do people buy them for". And I think the answer is more to do with inflation than with rarity. Which, to bring this back into relevance, is a result of "safe zone mission grinding" causing fountains of gold to come into the game with little risk. I wonder how many millions of gold these 1st rate mission grinders have by now. Maybe they really do buy a single British Gunnery Sergeant for 2 million because they have 30 million in the bank and nothing else to spend it on. It's not like they take any chances or need another ship.

If admin writes an API for the data, someone could just implement it on a 3rd party website. Might save admin some UI work.

1) Mission grind. I wonder.... What if "missions" was an overlay that you can turn on and off. Rather than picking up a mission and sailing to it, they are all over the map (similar to epics), concentrated near coastlines, and you just have to turn them on/off to see/hide them. Once someone does a mission it vanishes for 30 minutes after exit, to encourage people to spread out a bit. Mission grinders would sail around the coastlines doing these missions rather than sailing back and forth to some port. I would consider adding a 30 second timer (similar to how Tow To Port works) when entering a mission, so that they can't be used as easy escape routes. (Recently entered missions could also be displayed even if you have "show missions" turned off.) Basically I don't think the missions themselves are something people complain about, but rather, it's the way you have to get them that people don't like. 2) Book grind. I wonder if it would be more interesting to turn this in a WOW-style "talent tree". You don't have to find the books. But you can't have them all at the same time. You have to specialize your character and can purchase a respec when desired. This would take some mental effort to create the tree(s) and balance them to keep them interesting but it's a popular MMORPG concept that I think most gamers enjoy. 3) Ship slot grind. I think this is okay as-is but I wish PvP counted for more. You will basically never unlock 4th rate or higher slots through PvP. Maybe this is just intended to be a "PvE thing" and I've pretty much just accepted that's the case. 4) Contention grind. I see three problems with the contention grind: a. Missions are the superior way to grind if you want anything out of it. I think killing OW fleets should reward bonus XP and bonus money to make them more attractive than missions. Let missions be the safer and more consistent option while contention grinds are the real way most people earn XP and money. It's funny, but this really happens: people don't want to grind a port for contention because they "need money and XP". They go off to grind missions rather than help flip a port. b. Contention grinds are very inconsistent from place to place. Worth thinking about. Flipping Basse-Terre is super fast and easy due to fleet concentration in the area while flipping San Juan is a huge pita. Is that what we want?? c. Repairs make this super expensive, especially when grinding an area that has no practical port you can go to for cheap repairs.

Also speaking from personal experience, the impact of it is hugely exaggerated. Moreso now that you can only be "1 countied", with each home county having most of what you need to build basic ships. Actually even moreso after today's patch, where you can just go get 5th rates for free from NPCs and then use them to capture better enemy ships if you hunt in groups and get some good tags. Plus smuggler flags to go into enemy ports and buy stuff. I mean RvR means more in NA than it means in Planetside, but it's not the impact people seem to think it is. That is an entertaining idea. Players could make their own FFA server at any time simply by all going pirate. If they made Pirates be clan-based, they could still have port battles, too! Just against each other!

I assume you mean Sante Fe. The short version is that you can death-teleport from the south side of Cuba to the north side, making Sante Fe (plus fleet perks) an easy way to get ships up to Cayo Romano and Las Tortugas, while also being a really annoying port for the Pirates to take from us. Trinidad would be better be we have no chance at that if the Pirates don't want us to have it. ANYway, B.S.ing people about our intentions has never really been the Purge way. We are too old and forgetful for that and wouldn't remember which lie we told to who. Easier to just tell you the truth: we want Sante Fe so we can death-teleport north to kill pirates and to also have a somewhat more reasonable teleport home for econ and potentially as a fallback for some other conquests we could try elsewhere. I wouldn't take Sante Fe to kill Brits for the same reason I wouldn't take Nassau to kill pirates: it's too close and the offended party would just wipe us out of there. We know we can't defend ports so picking something that's closer than FR but also really inconvenient to attack is our best bet.

The perception at the time was that the British were super strong and the only hope of mankind was to team up on them. Something about how they flip 3 ports at the same time and had huge screening fleets and shot lightning from their arse and all that. But that's why I don't like making big alliances or long term deals: situations change. We've been KOSing the Pirates ever since Haiti. We actually were fighting the Pirates at the start of the PaP action until it was mutually decided that the British looked like the bigger threat. Also, it was the British who pushed us out of Haiti. So we did pretty much owe you a punch in the face for that. I mean technically this is all your fault.

It all comes down to the fact that France isn't likely going to beat either the British or the Pirates in a straight up port war halfway across the map if nobody else is keeping them busy. I want to again express my surprise that nobody is grinding Georgetown. Not even a bit of 10% contention there to see if Pirates will show up. I look on the contention list each night and there's no British ships creating contention anywhere in the world. I poke my head into the Belize area and British ships come swarming out and chase us for an hour but apparently they can't be bothered to put a bit of contention on Georgetown? And that, in turn, makes it hard for France (or the USA) to make a move. We need the two big guys to fight each other so we can sneak in a punch edgewise. Brits seem worried that we'll punch them but there's only one way to find out. And it has to be more than this weekend warrior stuff you guys do. My personal biggest worry with helping the British is that we all get the Pirates really fired up and angry Friday, Saturday and Sunday and then poof, British ships turn into pumpkins on Monday and we're left swinging in the breeze with the Pirates for another week while you guys go grind your 1st rates in the middle of nowhere. To be frank, everyone on the server needs the Brits to ratchet it up. You're the only team that can. If I'd seen contention going on in Georgetown and saw sinkings going on, I'd be down there looking for those pirates. If Purge was a British clan, we'd be poking Georgetown every night til it either flipped or we got some Pirates to come out and play. I don't see what the holdup is. I assume you don't want to risk the Pirates trying the old "one port" maneuver on Britain but I'm not sure they have that in them anyway and even if they did, all that fighting would again create big openings for other teams, who at that point would have little option but to attack the Pirates.

If we are talking about the zerg doing this to a small team then you have to realize that raid mechanic or not, they will simply take the port away from you completely. Why raid if you can just take it? The whole point of a "raid", regardless of the mechanics of its implementation, is a way for a team that cannot win port battles to damage a team that cannot lose port battles.

Is that a real problem? Has anyone actually experienced being stomped so bad that they can't play? Like they can't even afford a Snow to go out and PvP in? I imagine a zerg capital camping a small team could lock them in like that but I feel like mostly when I hear these type of complaints they are coming from British or French or some other team that had perhaps gotten a bloody nose but is far from being "stomped". Maybe you mean "stomped" as in they can no longer easily access the ship of their dreams. They can't get the white oak they need for their LO/WO Santissima. But to me that's just "I can't afford this luxury item". If you can't scrape together a fir/fir Surprise THEN you're stomped and I'd be curious how that happened.

I think it's too much stability that drives players away from the game. Chaos is great in gaming. Something new to think about every day. Stability is boring and when players get bored, they stop logging in.

That does seem like a shame, really. We could use those French fighting the Pirates. The talk of the town was to "punish" the Dutch for interfering with Santa Marta but really it's just the low hanging fruit of Dutch being the only nearby target and a lot of French players being adverse to moving across the map. Hmmm. The lack of teleports was intended to drive bordering nations into each other, which is good thinking, but the reality of the map is that your neighbors are not always good targets. France crushing through the Dutch until they reach the British is not good gameplay for the Dutch. The irony is that had we actually captured Santa Marta, it probably would have been better for everyone: Dutch get bypassed, British end up with a French PvP port near the Pirate PvP port at Portobelo, so maybe they'll start fighting and the French have something to do.

This doesn't benefit the zerg nation, though: they would simply flip your port. Why bother raiding when you can just win the port battle and take the whole thing? (Although... another interesting option might be that a "raid" gives a team 1 point on the conquest scoreboard and the lead team cannot generate raids... or maybe it's something that ONLY 3rd place and below can do.) It helps the non-zerg teams that don't think they can win port battles. They can go ahead and put the county into contention which generates SOME trouble for the enemy but when the zerg shows up to defend the port with 25 ideally outfitted PB ships + 25 screeners, it's not a wasted effort to have done the contention. So even the zerg must stop contention flips. They can't simply lean on their PB defense fleets to basically avoid RvR. For a specific example, it seems like nobody wants to attack a Pirate port on PvP-Global because they don't think they can win the PB against the defenses + the screeners. But they can probably manage contention. With this raid mechanic, the Pirates would have to come out and win the open world PvP fights rather than rely on their 1st rate PB defense fleets. I basically think it would generate more PvP and would be of little value to any team that can win port battles anyway.