Chug

yes this is like my 3rd suggestion Parrot just better said but yeah that would work too.

The loot system that now exits in the game is frankly, terrible. To be clear I do not mean the actual "loot" but the the looting mechanic of having to be very close and at a low speed to a "sunk" ship to get the option to loot. Every one who has ever done any PvE, will have on multiple occasions, lost loot due to being downwind of the sinking ship and unable to get back to it. Had it sink before you can get to it, or simply been 10 feet away and needing to be 9 feet to loot. With no way to do anything about it. The "new" loot system ( over the old Esc battle, loot screen) was just about bearable but with the wind changes/sailing profiles it has made looting so much worse. Just as an example, I boarded an AI ship the other day won the fight but was unable to loot it as it was out of looting range (!?!). Not only that but it was behind me and upwind so i had no way of getting back to it in my Agamemnon what so ever. To me and many people I play with, this should be top of list of things to change as soon as possible. I sit in my clan's Discord and every day someone is complaining about the loot system. the ships right there at edge of your finger tips and you can not loot it, is just annoying beyond words and all you can do is watch it sink. The added effect of this problem means to have a good chance to loot you have to drag out missions/fleets etc and wait till they downwind of you to shoot and sink them and this adds a huge amount of time where you just sit waiting for the AI to sail to the point where you can give them a "killing blow" and have a chance of making it to them before they become unlootable. The AI also compounds the problem as it has a tendency to beach its ships and get stuck in fights near land, making looting harder if not impossible in these locations. Especially true if your in a bigger draft ship. Suggestions: 1. An easy temporary fix would be to increase the radius substantially of where you can loot a ship from. Increasing the time you can loot a ship after it has "sunk" would also help allot. 2. A floating crate or some wreckage could appear after the ship has sunk, that itself never sinks allowing players to take the time if they can/want to, to sail to it and loot. 3. A system like the "brace" ability that has a wind up/wind down could be added that stops all actions on your ship and starts a timer that would be shorter or longer, dependant on the range of your ship from the one you wish to loot ( would still need a max looting range to work) and after the timer finishes you would have your loot. 4. Introduce a mixed system where you can still loot ships if you close enough but if your against AI and you've sunk or captured every enemy ship in the battle (i.e. "won") you would get a loot screen at the end with everything that was on the sunk ships regardless of if you physically looted it or not during the fight. However, if you had to run and leave with AI enemies still alive then you would get no loot screen, and only have what you were physically able to sail to and loot as your reward. In a group, you could choose the loot option that suits your group best (an option that many games have had) everyone in party gets an equal but randomly assigned share of the loot at end, or free loot, where if you can sail up and loot in the fight then its yours. Free loot would be the default option with shared loot only available while in an actual pre-formed Team/battle group and would be set before joining the battle. Just to be clear this would only be for PvE/missions/fleets not for PVP. So when your working on the next patch, if you could please take a look at the Loot System and give it a tweak to be less brutal and frustrating and bad... I think everyone will agree it would be a very welcome change.

For the Horde!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!..........wait wrong game................. .... ahhh whatever..... KOTO's back, it's all good.

Yet your screen shot shows pirate screening ships in your OW battle and where in that case were your own screening ships? Screening ships and fleets are a part of the game and many port battles have been won or lost because of the guys in the small ships. Your own last screen shot you posted of the PB seems to show the pirates had more than a respectable force inside the port ready to defend it. I see 22 1st rates and a full 25 people on the pirates side in the PB. Your forces seem pretty evenly matched so I'm not sure I see a severely outnumbered defending fleet. This is the job of screeners to try and split apart the port battle attacking fleet and try delay/sink the enemies big ships. the fact that other players were in the same fight as you who were not in your big ships seems to be (when there is more than 25 ships in the same pull circle) down to RNG. Picking which ships in a tagging circle are pulled and which are not is not an ability players have. Would this not indicate that they were dragged into a fight that they didn't start or want to be part of? Many players in small ships come to the area of PB's either out of curiosity of what goes own or because they see it in nation/global chat and being "new" want to take part without really knowing how it all works. Either that or they just in the area doing their own thing Trading/pve etc when all this is happening and like many people they close chat as its usually full of rubbish talk. I have random people join my missions or fights in OW fairly often and i'll be fighting a line ship and they hop in in a basic cutter. It can be annoying but its not against the rules. Green on green is against the rules and should be looked into. I was not aware it activated the 2 min tag timer. seems silly that it does and should be looked into. Hope you guys got some screen shots/evidence for this. The ones you posted above don't seem to show it so but perhaps the f11's you sent hopefully do. Again your screenshots here don't show any of this. Your only PB screen shot does not show anything wrong as far as i can tell. looks like it would of been a good fight even though the Danes are outnumbered. This is the only bit of your post I have a small problem with. The NA team should decide the punishment not you, due to your conflict of interest. Having said that, I get the sentiment as loosing out on some fun due to a possible griefer is not fun. I am pretty sure the pirates waiting in the PB for you guys to turn up feel the same as it seems they were ready and willing for a fight. You don't bring 20+ 1st rates to the port battle to do nothing with them. Some screen shots of the ships you lost would be handy but if there is no accused exploiter in those fight, as seems likely, as you show the people you accused are all in your fight in the first screenshot you posted.. Then the ships must of been lost in other fights and these must of been just another normal open world fight. So how can you punish people by removing their prize they probably spent an hour plus trying to sink/capture and not get sunk themselves when they in all likely hood had nothing what so ever to do with anything you are accusing others of and are just players playing the game as intended. Asking to turn over the region as "rightful spoils" is also just a little conceited. Sat in the port battle as your own screenshots prove is a full fighting force of line ships equal to your own and to think that your win was guaranteed, well you get my point. Steam ban seems also to be an extreme call. It's a game mechanic that has potentially been exploited, that already doesn't work well (Just one of many right now) and you say has been used against you. Yes, if the player/s are found guilty they deserve some punishment but some of the blame should be laid at the Developers for not fixing the problem. it's been around for a long, long time. I am not sure if this is a comment on the fact the majority of the guys in the port battle for the pirates are from the clan SORRY or if it is a genuine stated punishment form the NA team for the type of action your accusing those 2-3 players of in your post. I'll just say this, just because people pick a nation to play in NA doesn't mean their actually from that nation in real life. Nor does having SORRY as your clan tag mean you must be some Machiavellian bad guy who is responsible for every bad thing that happens. The game, like any other, is full of good guys and bad guys and everyone in-between. To believe they are all just in one clan and some how responsible for every dirty deed carried out by any player is being a little misguided. As a final note. (yeah its been a long one folks, my bad. almost done) I'd just like to say to PowderHorn I think you did the right thing removing all that "spam" I read 2-3 posts of it last night and wished I hadn't. Hopefully what I've written above is ok and relevant. Thanks for reading, now back to the game.

Not everything can be planned for. Who comes on and when and what people then do with the time they have to play is random. Yes for PB's you plan and prep and have set times but for many other things they just end up happening and if for planned events you only have a limited to time to play before hand being forced to not do what you want because you don't have enough time to do it, as you'll miss out later on things, is not fun. "I want to go join you guys hunting open world, but I'm only on for an hour so wont have time to get back in time for the PB later tonight if i do go". "oh wait, i can sail to the nearby free port and TP to the free port near our capital so i can join you guys and make it back in time for tonight fun..." (again would still need to sail ship they left in free port back at some point. TP for character only not ships/goods) can you explain what you mean by this please Duke.

Remember there's a limit on number of ships you can have docked and the price to expand dock yards is not cheap. it goes into the millions. Secondly, store bought ships from AI are terrible compared to crafted ones and putting upgrades on all ships and cannons is expensive. Third. you would be paying with my suggestion "x" amount of gold per hour, per ship you have in a free port. so the cost of doing what you suggest would spiral rapidly.

Ok, so you still have to do all of that with my suggestion. the only difference is you don't have to do it all in one go. or sail back to a nation port to then sail back again to do it another day if you have other stuff to do in game, for your clan for example or to do stuff in real life. It's ok for the people who have hours and hours to play in one go but you need to make the game playable for those that don't. My suggestion to TP between free ports ( again just your character not ships/goods) allows people to have some flexibility do more in shorter play times without making it easier for them. They can be attacking danish traders right upto the point where they need to go back to defend a port battle in Florida in half an hours time. While still needing to sail ships/goods they captured back through dangerous waters risking being attacked as they do and whats more they can do it over multiple game play sessions. example: I've sailed for an hour to la Mona in my surprise, caught a trader and need to get back home to defend a port or join clan for some missions as my clan mates have just come on, i can sail to la Mona leave the ships there (paying a small fee per hour to do so) TP back to a closer free port to home waters, sail, pickup a ship and join clan, do what ever, then sail to a free port, TP myself back to La Mona to pick up surprise and trader and sail them back to friendly waters. Current system example: I've sailed for an hour to la Mona in my surprise, caught a trader and need to get back home to defend a port or join clan for some missions as my clan mates have just come on. "sorry guys it's going to take me an hour or more to get back, so i cant join the fleet"... or "sorry i was hunting ships last night around La Mona and logged off for night so still need to sail back for an hour so wont make the PB". This is why so few people travel any distance to do anything and there's so much "dead water" in certain areas. Honestly Z4ys, it seems your looking at this from just your perspective and not for other players. what works for you doesn't mean it works for others. Yeah, you cant please everyone but to make a game successful you need to give people options to play the game.

you would have to have a ship in the free port their near to come help them. you would also to have sailed that ship to the free port in the first place. you also then have to sail to a free port to then TP yourself to the free port their near. As mentioned in my suggestion the free port TP is separate to outpost TP. the two can not be combined. so you cant go from say your nation capital to a free port and on top of all that, you would of being paying a minimal but continuous "X" amount of gold per hour to have your ship in the free port. So, yes you could come to their rescue, or more likely to avenge them as the battle would likely be closed by time you get to them but it would require investing and planning to be able to do so and fair bit of "luck".

so you move your fighting ship to a far away outpost. how do you get back? then, how do you get back to that far away outpost and what do you call "far away"? and just to say it again for what seems the 100th time. You still have to sail your ships to and from the outposts that you want to use to do stuff in. I made no suggestion about being able to TP ships or goods. Just yourself. Sail fighting/trade ship to far away free port. TP yourself "home" to take part in a PB (just for example) then you can TP back to free port to go do what you wanted up there, grab a few traders, whatever then you have a choice to sail back with those ships or leave them there TP yourself home so you can do something with your clan without having to say " i'd come help guys but i need to sail for two hours to get back to you".

Exactly Katerholzig. Saves time but doesn't remove the risk.

It was easy when you could TP your ships and ill gotten gains. I agree with you. You cant now and that is a very good thing. With my suggestion, you still would not be able to do this. It doesn't remove any risk. it just makes it so you don't have to sail in a basic cutter for hours to get to a free port to then start your pvp or from one, back to your nations ports to go do something else. Again you are only teleporting yourself, no ships, no goods. No risk is removed just a little time saved so you can do more with your game time.

Its to have an active game Siegfried. so to use your example. Spain want to take a swede port so they can use it as a base to raid more of Sweden or take more of their ports, open a second front to help an ally, have access to new trade goods or markets or to just have more open world pvp with different people than their usual neighbours. With my suggestion they can sail to a free port near Swedish waters (take a long time to sail) leave a ship there, paying a fee per hour so it encourages them to use it a s a temporary base or for a limited time. then TP themselves back to a free port near their own water so they don't have hours of sailing back in a cutter so they take part in a port battle closer to home or get back to team up with friends, or do whatever. Think, active game play. Then, when thy have enough people online and willing with ships in the free port to go raid Swedish traders or raise hostility or do a trade run for a rare resource they don't have another X hours of sailing to get back over to pick up their ship. People who don't live on this game and even many that do, don't want to have to sail a 3 hour round trip all at once to get 30 mins of possible action or none at all. Removing free ports would make this even worse. A Spanish player would never see a Swedish player or vice versa. So why even bother having them on the same map? Server population at peak time is only just around 1000 players. There is what 400-500 ports on the map? that is 2 people per port (not even taking into account most people will be around capitals allot of time time) and you don't want to make it a little easier for people to meet each other and interact?

That is all still possible. even more so. Just to be clear I made no suggestion about TPing ships, you still have to sail to and from ports. Its just to TP yourself to these free ports where you have ships to take part in pvp/trade etc My suggestion would actually increase opportunities not decrease them.

This is the same problem Duke, you are sealing players off from each other, effectively reducing the server population even further. The idea is to encourage people to spread out and interact and not be stuck in a corner of the map.

This is why it would only be in free ports and only smaller amounts. 1000g an hour is 24,000 gold for a day. that is less than one missions gold reward. No one should struggle to pay that. It is also why I suggested you cant go into negative amounts of money from the fees. So players who cant get on to play don't come back weeks later owing a million gold. As for higher fees on bigger ships, if your leaving a 1st rate in a free port you can afford the higher fees no problem.

So can you explain to me with your above suggestion how for example the Americans could attack the French or Spain attack Sweden, etc. Either PB's/grinding hostility or just open world pvp. You seem to be wanting to add to the problem and separating people off from each other and not encouraging people to sail and pvp.

With tow to port now working as intended and only taking you to the the nearest deep water port, adding back in the ability to teleport (TP) to a free town (as you can between your own outposts in your nations towns) may not be a bad idea. My suggestion, would be to make it a separate TP system from your nation outpost TP's. So once your in a free town/port (you actually have to sail to a free port first),you can TP to any other free town/port on the map, regardless of having an outpost there or not. (you wouldn't be able to TP from a nation held town to a free port or vice versa). Building an outpost in a free town would still be needed to allow you to store goods in the warehouse there. However you would not not need a outpost to leave ships at these ports. Instead a docking fee for each ship ( scaled to the ship class) is taken every hour that the ship is sat in the port. For example for each 5th rate and below in a free port you pay 1000g an hour. For a 1st rate you would pay 4000g an hour (these figures are just rough examples but it needs to be enough to matter but not crippling). This would mean that you can store ships in free ports for going raiding or for launching an attacks/moving goods etc but the cost would limit how many you can store there and for how long. Making free ports, a kind of temporary short term storage port. If a player was to go down to 0g in his bank then the docking fees would stop so you cant go into a negative, but in order to take that ship out of a free port, you would then have to pay the last hours fees to get it out. Which can easily be done by doing a mission (even in a free cutter). Just remember you still can't TP ships or goods across the map. You would still have to sail your ships between ports, but it would allow you to sail across the map, leave your ship and TP back home to take part in events instead of sail again for another X hours and miss out. This would open the map up for people to explore/trade/fight without giving them the ability to use the TP as a shortcut to move goods or use free ports as a free safe haven. As of right now, allot of map is underpopulated due to long travel times, that many people don't have to time or inclination to do and this idea would help to reduce that problem and allow people to play the game without removing the sailing part from the game. You could also make it so leaving a free port puts a timer on you so cant take part in port battles for X minutes (just like the login timer) if people feared this system would allow people to wait in free ports for PB's in close proximity.

At the moment many rare resources (ones used for certain crafted refits, such as, Quarter Masters, Almeria Saltpeter, Crooked Cedar etc) and high value trade good that are produced at only certain ports are being "camped" by people simply placing contracts 1g above the next persons in an effort to grab the resource before it hits the shop (becomes listed at in the port and buy-able from the port shop if you were physically there) Some of these resources are only produced in very small amounts (some 10-15) per day. My suggestion is to make it so contracts only buy goods 1 hour after they have appeared in the shop. So yes the contract still buys the goods (passive play) but the player who sails there and is "physically" there is rewarded for his journey/active play. As for the rare resources. As well as AI producing X small amount a day. (Which is needed so players from factions who don't own the ports can have access to it.) Why not add the ability for players who's faction controls the port to be able to build a unique production building in this port. (similar as ones for iron/stone/oak etc.) that uses 1 of your 5 building slots, (again like other buildings) but produces a much smaller amount of the rare resource per day ( Im thinking 1 a day similar to Labour contracts office). It would not swamp the market and allow people to collect enough of these resources to produce the items over time (most items need 5 of "X" resource so would take 5 days) allowing them to "play" the game and not sit in port "afk playing" the game. This would also give a greater importance to the port and region. As capturing the port would mean your nation, would have an increased supply to these goods, due to the building players could then build at them.

PVP is obviously a big part of this game and you have the organised Port Battle pvp and then the open world small group/solo hunting pvp. Where you go looking for easy pickings, such as lone traders or enemy ships. It is fun, when it's you hunting and making money/marks and bad when its you losing all your items. It adds risk/reward and some "spice" to the the open world sailing, which without, would be really boring ( well, lets be honest, more boring). Usually the ships of choice for players to go hunting in are the Surprise,Renommee and/or the Endymion. They usually base themselves in a freetown/friendly port near an active enemy area, where trade is going, and easy pickings are to be found. Then they begin to hunt players for the marks and loot. So far so good, but here is a problem. No ship below a 5th rate can realistically deal with these ships ( Surprise/Renom/Endy) they can not out run them or out fight them. Yes, the trader lynx can beat them all upwind, and yes people do escape them on occasion thanks to a bit of luck or skill or simple lack of, but they don't really have much chance. The only real counter, is to match them like for like with the same ships. So you can hopefully catch them and beat them (two very different things). This becomes a real problem for low level players who are just starting out. Loosing your new Mercury for example with the new cannons you just got crafted for all your money or even worse, your trader brig with your life savings invested in goods in its hold can be brutal and cause many people just to quit. My suggestion is, what if (like shallow and deep water port battles where only certain ship rates can take part in each) the open world pvp mechanic was changed slightly so that people in 5th rates and higher could not tag/attack or pull into a fight any player in a 6/7th rate, only those players actually sailing in 6/7th rates could. Just to be clear. This is just for player versus player and is only for being attacked not for attacking. Obviously BR difference is still in effect. It would mean new players would come up against ships they can compete against on a more even field and have a better experience. Meaning better player retention for the game and also mean veteran players (as in more established) would have to use lower rated ships if they wanted to catch those traders brigs for example. Expanding the need and the market for the smaller vessels ( if they wanted to hunt LGV's or Indiaman's then they can still take the surprise etc to do so as these traders are 5/4 rates). It would also mean that new players could go hunting enemy player ships earlier and experience more of the game other than the early grind and even be of help for screening/scouting port battle pvp in deep waters (allot of port battles are deep water). As they know they wont get clubbed to death by bigger ships (unless they wanted to start that fight of course,(again don't forget BR still exists)) and they would get a fight against ships their own size as the enemy has to bring smaller ships to counter theirs in the open world. It's not about making it safer for players sailing the lower rates, it's about making it more fun and accessible for them and adding some variety to the game and not just sailing one or two types of ship because they are the best at that role. No-one goes hunting in almost anything but the surprise, with removing the 6/7 rates from it's sights as a hunter you make a choice. Do I take a small ship to catch the small ships? or do i take a bigger ship to catch the big ships? Small ships become more useful across the map and not just for shallow water areas. Small traders at least have a real chance to escape from attackers or put up a fight. Plus the added bonus of this is that it will help people with gaining the ship knowledge XP. As you have a reason other than unlocking slots to unlock slots on higher class ships to play the smaller ships more. So what do you think?

You know I wasn't going to post a reply to this. Whatever the Dev's decide is up to them and those players affected (and those that were not) will then have to make their own minds up whether it was fair or not. However, there are allot of people (as there always are on Forums) who like to voice their opinion... and voice their opinion... and then again and again and again. Simply to Stir the pot. There are also those, who immediately cry "cheats!Hackers!..off with their heads!" who want the harshest possible punishment without really thinking to hard about what these people may or may not have done. These people fought a single port battle and half of them won it and half lost it. They got no more Rewards than any other port battle. They didn't some how get/farm millions of gold and/or XP, as far as I can see, or get any more marks than a normal port battle (less it seems so for the french- actually cost them money). No 3rd party Cheat or hacking was involved. The Hostility was raised, a port battle took place and one side won and the other lost. Same as any other Port Battle. I played over a year ago (stopped for a long time, back now) and we had Port Battles where there was no enemy and we simply took the port and got the xp/loot. I am sure, most of you who have played the game, have had similar experiences (probably allot more than once). Were we all supposedly exploiting? because we lost no ships and took a port and got rewards. You know we weren't. So how's is this instance any different? At most and the simplest solution to me, would seem to be, if the Developers believe something was actually wrong in this instance, would be to remove the xp/gold/marks from those that took part in the port battle and reset the port/region back into the previous owners hands and warn ALL players about what they deem as not allowed or not in the "spirit of the game". Maybe even enacting a 24-48 hour ban might also be an option. To simply accuse 50 people of all cheating in a game where there is around a 1000 people online at peak time seems extreme over reaction to me. For those that were not involved (and not even playing on the same server in some peoples cases) how have you lost out if at all? Go do one Port Battle yourself and you'll get more from it than those 50 players did and have allot more fun doing it. If the enemy show up that is From a Naval Action player. P.S. ( just to prove a point out of 83 posts as of posting this, 43 are from the same handful of people)

People seem, for the most part, to not be very happy with the new system, it's made as many new problems as it has fixed, judging by peoples reactions to it. Part of the problem I think is that different types of players and their respective play styles have their own demands for what they believe a good system would be and these needs are almost in direct opposition to each other. Some players like to hunt other players alone and want those 1v1 fights. Others like being in small groups and jumping on that lone trader or fancy ship. Still others want to be able to sail along without having 6 mates tagging along and still be able if attacked to have a fair fight or chance of help arriving, while those doing the attacking, (for obvious reasons) don't want any help to arrive. Then there's the big fleet guys. the ones in the big ships going to the big port battles, who don't want the flag carrier or any of their 25 guys to be dragged separately into lots of small fights as they try get to a port despite being grouped up. They all want a different system that works for them. So fixes/suggestions. These are just my thoughts but: when a battle is over, put a timer on ( no more than 5 mins for example) that kicks anyone in that battle onto the end battle screen, have a time run on the battle screen that then kicks anyone out into the open world ( again no more than 5 mins) with the added effect that in the last few minutes you start to use your invisibility/invulnerability timer. So if you leave quickly you get that bonus if not and you sit and hide in the battle screen you start to loose it. make open world fights again 25vs25 instead of 50 of any nomination. This just promotes Zerg like tactics.This is a new mechanic I believe that was put in with the latest big patch and was not properly thought through. Before open world fights were limited to 25vs25 not to a 50 total, meaning 49vs1 sitiuations were not and now are, possible. This change while not a problem for most of the time is a real big problem for organised big scale PvP. make it so deep water ships can't attack shallow water ships ( except traders ) and shallow water ships must have more BR to be able to attack deep water ones. 1 cutter should not be able to attack a 1st rate but 10 cutters together should. Remove the 1.5 BR and have battles stay open to joining for 5 mins. wait for it. Have the timer work differently depending if your an attacker or defender. Have the timer change based on the difference in BR between the two sides. The bigger the difference in BR between the sides the faster the timer ticks down. attacker has more people in, the attackers open timer ticks down quicker and the longer the defenders timer stays open and vice versa. allowing for more people to come help the defender. so for example a lone player is attacked by another player, 5 min timer starts, another attacker jumps in, attackers 5 min timer goes down to 4 mins defenders timer goes up to 6 mins ( these are just arbitrary times used for an example) another defender jumps in, so now 2vs2 the defender time drops down and the attack timer goes up again. so if people keep joining on either side the fight stays open for longer. This system can be based off the BR difference and/or the difference in number of players on either side. BR values reworked for ships. Perhaps a multiplier effect based on the difference in number of players between the two sides in a fight. right now a victory is 900 BR that is equivalent of 4 trincs and a cerb. add in the 1.5 BR system and you could have another 2 trincs against the Victory making it 6 trincs and a cerb and be just under the 1.5 BR meaning none else can join to help the victory. this seems unbalanced to me. If your within the battle circle and your ally is attacked or your ally attacks someone you should get the option to join the fight or not join it. Only the person tagging or being tagged is automatically pulled into a fight. The OW battle marker for a fight should simply change looks when its closed not disappear. So people can see enemies/friendlies are in this area fighting and be on guard. you should not be able to click teleport to capital while you are invulnerable. Feel free to poke holes. Just me thinking and typing at same time

I read all this rubbish about people complaining that pirates are OP... too many pirates.... The pirates have NO advantages over any other faction. We don't get magical super ships or a button that lets us instant capture a port. We can't TP every 5 mins to any port and are guns don't do 100x the damage of anyone else's. The only difference is we have a black flag on our ships. People moan about us and cry "nerf!" and it's nothing but bitterness and frustration that they can't get an easy win. You think there's way more pirates than you? you are wrong, there are not. Britain is the largest faction by far player wise. Pirates have held their own and more is purely down to a few clans and a very limited number of their members, working hard together to make it happen. Too many people on these forums talk rubbish about things they don't know anything about. They complain and moan about pirates as a way of justifying to themselves about how and why they lost their ships or failed to take/hold a port.. "its not because we didn't play well its because the other guy cheats/is OP" that classic excuse of the online gamer. Let's be honest, we all thought that at some point in a game and more than once. So enough about "fixing pirates" because we know what you really mean. Yeah pirates should play slightly differently to other factions, that I agree with but it should be done in way that doesn't make us an easy walk over for the other nations. Reading thread's like this and others, It seems certain people wont be happy till pirates are limited to just sailing a cutter forever.

Just want to say you need to change the poll for your first question about ports/raiding: Where is the option to vote for both port capture and raiding? As for the other stuff about crafting. If you want to take away the ability of a nation/faction, what ever you want to call pirates, to craft ships that every other nation can craft and so be able to compete with those other nations, you have to suggest an alternative way for them to do so. Otherwise your just looking for an unfair advantage. As it is this whole post smacks of sour grapes and "nerf pirates" even though they are fighting by the same rules/mechanics as everyone else. Purely because certain other nations aren't beating them as easy as they would like. So what if Pirates team up to fight another nation and aren't just fighting amongst themselves? ( though this is not always the case) So what if this isn't "historical". Naval Action is a game not a history book. If players decide to work together to fight a common enemy instead of each other, then that is the players choice and they are doing it, because it's how they want to play and enjoy the game. Trying to get rid of this play style because it makes fighting them harder by removing their ability to match you in a fair fight is not right.

yeah I am having the problems as mentioned before and can confirm I'm in the UK and with Sky. Also at a guess, this is also the cause of having no ship visible and the camera stuck underwater?

UK . Had to try 6+ times to login to game. Still getting lag when using menus, items not being visible for 20-30 seconds at end of fights and when in port transferring or buying goods can take multiple attempts to move. Also, occasional long load times. Doesn't seem to happen on every load screen, just 50% of time roughly.