Archaos

I did mention how PvP can make money by selling their PvP marks. I did a PvP battle 1v1 against a Connie the other day and got 11 PvP marks, I hear those marks can sell for around 100k each, so that is 1.1million for sinking a single ship. You cannot say that the PvP marks reward is not enough as I know from experience that raiders who hunt trade ships seldom bother taking the ship as they gain more from sinking it and its cargo than trying to take it to port. Over the last couple of weeks I have been intercepted 4 times on trade runs each time losing a Indiaman to a pirate and on every occasion he has sunk it after boarding, its not even as though he takes the cargo as most times the cargo has been heavy and he would not have had much space in his Connie to take much. Agreed proper PvP carries more risks than trader bashing but still the reward of PvP marks can generate good income if sold (issue probably is that most regular PvP'ers save their PvP marks to buy special upgrades rather than sell them). Within a couple of days of PvP marks being introduced there were people sailing in the pirate fit LGV which costs 150 PvP marks, thats worth 15 million at the 100k per mark rate. If you can get that many PvP marks in a few days then you are making more than the average trader. I also was agreeing with the OP that PvE mission rewards should be reduced as there is little risk and they also get drops of mods and books which they can sell for money. A general session for a trader, spend 15 ~ 20 minutes checking round for good trades that will return a good profit, possibly have to sail 30 minutes to the port to buy the goods, load up and sail to your destination, probably another 30~40 minutes all the time risking being attacked. If you are successful you probably at best make around 1.5 million profit if you are running 3 Indiamen and if you are unlucky at worst you lose your 3 ships and all your cargo, probably setting you back 3~4 million. So for a time vs reward I do not see much difference between PvP and trading. So overall the PvE method is the safest way to make money and maybe that should be reduced to bring the risk/reward profile more in line with PvP or trading.

Limiting chain shot will not make any difference as the new meta is to snipe masts with single ball shots.

The problem is not the size of the reinforcement zones, the problem is there is no need to risk going out of the zones if all you want to do is kill some AI to grind up slots, farm drops or make money. I do not agree that the solution is to not allow reinforcements after a certain rank, as that would mean a rear admiral in a trader could be ganked close to their capital, also what if the rear admiral was grouped with a lower player, would the lower player be able to summon reinforcements? It would all start becoming very complicated, you see a senior rank player in the reinforcement zone and attack him, but in the pull circle there are rookie players, what happens then? The solution is that missions or AI ships in the reinforcement zones should not drop loot or give XP after a certain rank. That way people are welcome to do as many missions as they like and kill AI's to their hearts content but they gain nothing from it. I know sometimes I feel like beating up on some AI just for the fun of it or to test out a new setup on a new ship and I dont want to be jumped while doing that. I know people say there is a PvE server for that but people do not want to level up on 2 servers one for PvP and one for PvE playing. People are not just pure PvP'ers or PvE'ers, most are somewhere in-between and that is where you will find majority of players. If you reduce the reinforcement zones too much they become worthless and all that does is drive players away. Forcing people out into the OW to face the risks is not the solution, same as PvP'ers do not like to be forced to PvE. Forcing people to do something they do not enjoy only drives them from the game. Looking at the map someone kindly produced the reinforcement zones take up very little of the map, all you need to do is encourage people to leave those zones by making it more attractive to face the risk that remain in the zone. The same applies to trading, you should not be able to make profits trading completely in the safe zone, profits should have to be made on decent length voyages outside safe zones.

The same could be said regarding forcing people to PvP when they dont want to. PvP generates PvP marks which if sold would generate a lot of money (I hear the going rate is around 100k each). So PvP'ers have a way to earn money. For people who do PvE missions and general attacking of AI fleets, well they get books and mods to drop as well as combat marks, all of which can be sold to make money. What do traders have apart from making money from trading? No one is forced to do anything, all three types of play have their own way of making money, but people want to have it both ways, they want the marks, books, mods and money from only doing one thing. The game should develop to allow different types of playstyles and they should all be viable. Get more people out trading outside of the safe zones and you will generate plenty of targets for PvP.

I agree with the OP, if you want to make money then trade. This will get more traders out on the oceans thus providing more targets for the raiders and in turn more opportunities for PvP as nationals try and intercept the raiders. Fighting wars costs money, so how come in the game fighting generates more money than you can get trading. Build a proper economy and make trading a viable profession. That way traders can pay for protection.

Nice suggestion, but you can guarantee players will abuse it if the rewards are good enough. This is always going to be the hardest thing to solve with PvP, how to reward it sufficiently without making it too attractive to abuse. As can be seen from the good rewards available for PvP marks, people started abusing it. I like the idea of battles randomly between different nations that dynamically move to different areas round the map, maybe the number of players in an area could determine where the event was likely to spawn, for example there is a lot of US players in a certain region and close by there are a lot of French players, the game could realize that and generate an event for US vs French somewhere between them. Would need to be worked out how other nations could affect it etc. I am not sure how you think such PvP could be self sustaining as with any battle there are winners and losers, it can only be self sustaining if you are always on the winning side and even this becomes self defeating as if you always win the other side eventually stops showing up.

If I remember correctly the shallow water one was mostly deserted and was mainly used for people to farm alts. I went there a few times but seldom saw anyone. I never attended the deep water one, but I did hear that there was a lot of organised groups who would only engage when they had a numerical advantage and it was not really a place to look for action solo. I think it had a lot more action than the shallow water event and maybe someone who experienced it more could let you know how it was. Despite what a lot of people say about wanting PvP, there are many who only want it when they know the odds are in their favour.

How would player population go up if people do not recommend it? No one is asking you to lie, but at least if people said there was still fun to be had despite the games issues then the population might grow.

Sorry I do not think that is being honest. If he was being honest he would tell people that despite its faults he was still having fun in the game in a review rather than not recommend it to anyone. Its the same as people with 2000 hours in the game saying the game is not worth it. How many games give you 2000 hours play for $40? The game may have faults but it is a good game that will hopefully improve. Everyone seems to think that their suggestions to improve the game are ones that will work, but the reality is that not all of them would work. The game will always be niche mainly due to the slower paced nature of play.

That sounds strange, you say you are really enjoying the game and will be playing for quite a while, yet you would not recommend it to anyone, why? don't you want others to enjoy it as you are enjoying it? The game may have its faults but if you are enjoying it then at least tell people it is still enjoyable despite its faults.

Do not discount trade missions they can enhance your profits while at the same time giving you additional XP and craft XP. For example today there is a mission at Brewers to deliver 10 Madagascar jewels to Belize and available in the port is 175 Madagascar Jewels selling for 12065g each (a bit expensive for the jewels but still a profit to be made). So lets say you bought 170 of them to complete the mission 17 times it would cost you 2256155g to buy once you include tax which is 5% at the port. You could sail them direct to Belize and sell them at 28237g each which would give you 4320261g once 10% tax at Belize was considered, thus a profit if 432026 -2256155=2064106g profit, which is nice. But if you were to do it via the trade missions you would have done 17 missions each giving you 324725g which would be 17x324725=5520325g after you take away your costs of 2256155g to buy would leave you with a profit of 3264170g and at the same time you would also have received 850 xp and 850 craft xp. I know I would rather take the 1.2 million extra gold as well as the XP. The only issue with this run is that you would need 5 Indiamen to transport it and Brewers is a shallow water port, but it proves that trade missions are not just a waste of time, you just need to look out for ones that give you the greatest benefit. The run from Brewers to Belize would take around 40 minutes with a good wind. You just need to have an outpost in both ports to teleport back and forth to pick up the missions again. Edit: BTW in case anyone is going there to get the jewels, I already bought them

Hauling goods can be profitable, but it is not much better than you can get from just doing missions in the safe zone. Hauling trade goods can give a good profit on some runs, but remember to take into account the tax to be paid at each end. I do not really find much profit in hauling crafting goods unless you can get hold of some rare goods. The problem with hauling crafting goods is you are not guaranteed to sell them immediately for profit at your destination. I guess if you knew a ship crafter who would give you a reasonable price to haul goods it might be worthwhile, but again the profit margins would be very small. If you do haul trade goods remember to check out the trade missions available at the ports, you can come up with some good missions now and again that not only turn a good profit but also give you some xp and craft xp. I got a good one the other day where there was lots of the required trade goods available in ports close by and it was not a heavy cargo so I went with an Indiaman and 2 Indiamen in fleet and bought up all the trade goods I could close by and shipped them to the delivery port, luckily I had outposts in both mission port and delivery port so once I did one bulk delivery I just had to teleport back to the mission port and pick up the mission again and teleport back to deliver. If I can remember correctly I was able to take that mission over 90 times just by teleporting back and forth, making several million in profits and earning over 4.5k xp and crafting xp. If I can remember correctly the trade item was tobacco and the mission was to deliver 60 each time and I think the payment was something like 30k per run.

The issue I have with this example is that if the LGV is a pure trader and has no guns equipped then it is not much of a contest, so you would need some other way to scale rewards against traders.

The game is an MMO you are supposed to play it with other people. The epic events are supposed to be epic and should require several players same as other games where epic raid bosses require multiple players to take down. If you just want to pit yourself against strong AI opposition then head out solo and attack an AI fleet with double your BR. I play solo a lot, but I accept that doing so means that I cannot experience all aspects of the game. Things like Epic events and port battles should remain a group effort. Personally I think even a group of 6 players is hardly epic, but I do agree that they could provide some tools to help people group up to partake in such events rather than having to announce it in nation chat and run the risk of being jumped because spies have realized what you are up to.

Maybe they could bring in an option where you have the option of accepting their surrender or not, if you do not accept their surrender then the battle continues. But I would not like a system where the person who surrenders is forced to remain in the instance once they have offered to surrender.

The topic title is advanced economy but what the OP talks about is advanced crafting. I think the crafting is okay as it is as you need many parts to make the ship you want, if it was any more advanced then you would need more storage space for all the additional materials. What the game really needs is an advanced economy that creates a relevant supply and demand for goods and services. We should not be hauling goods round the world just because the NPC is buying at a higher price, these goods we haul around should have some effect on the world. I have suggested before that ports should require various trade goods for their upkeep weekly, that would generate a demand for goods that players could supply, that in turn means more traders on the seas and more targets for raiders. I was doing a trade run yesterday and I got intercepted by a pirate, I had 3 trader ships so I sent my fleet ships to escape and I headed in the opposite direction knowing that the pirate would likely follow me. My fleet escaped and I got captured, so I lost 1/3 of my cargo, the remaining cargo more than covered my loss so there was no real consequence to getting caught. The cargo has to mean more than just profit for there to be a meaningful economy. That cargo should have been required somewhere, so its loss would mean another run had to be done to make up the shortfall. For an advanced economy they have to create supply and demand, not just make things more of a grind.

Bear in mind that the NPC AI is not very good and any reasonable player will still be able to take you out so you lose not only your merchantman and cargo but also your NPC escort. The idea of hiring other players to escort you is one that has been raised before and it is possible, but the issue is they would want to charge you much more for their time than you could make in the voyage. At present it is easier to make gold and xp from doing missions in safe zones rather than trading out where you can be attacked.

If you think its bad now, just wait till it gets released on console.

Have you considered trying that port owners can set their defence timers to their own prime time on the Global server, because as it stands at the moment a huge portion of the player base are restricted from RvR content if they play on the EU server and if they play on the Global server they still face the night/day flip issues which is why global timers are bad. Let everyone be able to defend in their own prime time.

Return to the game if what? they merge servers? if they make changes to Global servers? The three options so far in this thread are merge, remain the same or change Global, if more people were to return to the game because of change it would either be due to a merge or change to Global else why have they not returned already?

Then you have nothing to fear if they make a change to Global, either way it makes no difference to the current total population of the game.

Then why did you respond to my post which mentioned nothing about a merge or changes to EU server.

You only say this because things worked out for you and you got what you wanted and the way the server split happened most people remained on what was PVP1 server. If you are so confident that the EU server is a success then you would have no issue with them implementing changes on the Global server to allow defender port battle timers and give people the opportunity to transfer, or are you not so confident that you will not get an exodus to a better system?

My response was to what Macjimm said, I do not actually think it is true. I do not think you are getting anyone who's primetime is not EU doing RvR on the EU server, but I do think if you implemented some changes on Global and made it easy to transfer you would actually get some movement to Global. The thing is this would only have the effect of sharing existing population more evenly between the servers and many that fought for EU port battle timers do not want to see this as it would reduce numbers on the EU server.

This is probably why Global is seeing an increase in PvP, people are using it as a PvP server and doing RvR on EU.