Woody051

To the Admins & Staff: It is still not 100% clear what your position is on Freetowns/Neutral Territory. Can we leave ships and assets these Freetowns yes or no? What happens if the patch occurs and we did not have sufficient time to evacuate our items out of a town that had then now changed ownership? Is there a more clear or more finalized list of which towns will be flagged as "Neutral" ? Could you perhaps share this in list form? Is there a list of towns that were formerly a freetown but are going to change over to a faction's possession? Could these town's names be shared so that those can be evacuated? Any clarity or further explanation would be appreciated as there is daily speculation on the forums, clan forums, teamspeaks, as well as in the in-game chats that is counter-productive and the players do not know whether to relocate their assets or not. If some questions could be answered then the peace at mind could enable the players to go back about their business and not have to worry about the patch holding their assets hostage. Thank You

I have also made similar observations as the above. I had mentioned this in a different thread. http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15898-issues-with-994-boarding-changes/?p=299550

Some good contributions, keep them coming.

Ditto

I like the "action & adventure" idea of things in maybe that on loot chance there would be a bottle, tome, book, some sort of item that would start a mission line (quest line i suppose you could call it.) They would start a chain of events that may or may not be predictable. They could begin by investigating a location such as a "last known whereabouts" of a person or a fleet. They could be storyline based to search out a name (making you go check out a port.). They could be a trap, and when you sail out to the mission in this mission line multiple ships spawn even (or a second wave.) Another possibility could be to ask you to smuggle a stowaway to a foreign port. There are many creative things you could do. You have some players who enjoy their black and white, this or that, point and shoot style of gameplay. That's fine and they will find their fun in their own ways either in doing the bare minimum of PVE or seeking all their exp/money from PVP. There is now wrong answer to how we progress our characters within the game, that is what's great about playing in an open world or "sandbox" type of game. But for others there are content seekers and they do get board of repeating the same things over and over so it is always good to provide opportunities to a variety of player's player-types. These items whatever they may be would in theory have a rare drop rate but not be bound to the character so that the character if he or she so chooses not to follow that line of missions then still has the option to trade it away. There is still hints here and there about flags and banners. I still see an occasional thread in the suggestions section stirring the conversation again every once and awhile. Perhaps these lengthy chain-missions or quest lines could be a means to earn titles or flags/banners or even perhaps the means to craft them.

As of right now you can't, no. So that officer is always with you and any perks that are ship-class specific (or economy specific) won't help you if on a different type like in that situation.

Originating off my post in the patch notes thread: http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15638-development-plans-for-conquest-mechanics-rvr/?p=293895 Note: These are just rough ideas. The rewards, map design, ship types, fleet designs, etc.. Minor details can be worked out or discussed. Myself and a few of the players in the community have begun to feel that the current mission system is getting a bit stale. Things became a bit more fun and exciting when fleet missions were introduced but the base mechanics remained the same in that your objective scenario is always the same. "Go here, shoot this." Well to a certain regard that is what the game is but there are other ways... more creative ways of going about combat rather than the current sail to point X spawn in head to head and sink what's in front of you mission types that we have now. To break up the menatoney Here are perhaps a variety of new mission ideas: Exploration - Discover 5 new ports (player has to dock in 5 new ports that they have previously never been to before.) - Limited once per rank Exotic Trade - Mission will spawn an exotic good in the port where you start the mission and task you to deliver that item to another port of the same or ally nation Escort - Battle instance will load with a landmass with a harbor on each side. Your goal is to escort a trader to a circle near the opposite end of the map as 1 or more npc's want to kill you and your trader. Intercept - You and 1 NPC spawn in vs a trader and 1 NPC and your job is to kill or capture both ships. (Opposite of Escort) Fleet Intercept - A well guarded group of trader ships are being escorted and you and your group must kill and capture them all. Fire Watch - (Group Mission) You spawn in next to a large NPC fleet of line-ships of your nation. Your nation's NPC.s sail in a straight line and in 3 waves npc's equipped with the fireship module will spawn that will be trying to target your ships of the line. You and your group must sink all 3 waves of fireships. Coastal Assault - You spawn in next to an abandoned mortar brig and you have to sail over to it and take command of it and start killing structures/towers. As you do this you have a npc fleet of ships "carrying troops" that will be sailing into the port. Your mission is to destroy all land targets before they can kill your assault fleet of NPC's. To Arms! - Daily mission - Win one small battle or one large battle (Through joining in the port user interface) Mission is active until a win is achieved. On Guard! - Daily mission - Player assumes coastal patrol duties and is flagged as "Coast Watch" or "Coast Guard" for one hour. Player receives x3 experience for travel and x2 experience and gold for combat fought in friendly territory sphere of influence. In Plain Sight - This will be covert ops mission. The mission spawns you at a mouth of an enemy harbor at night (very dark and foggy). In this harbor there will be multiple ships of the line at anchor (and remain at anchor). You leave your current ship outside and nearby you take control of a cutter (or a gunboat maybe?) and your mission is to sneak around to the center rear of the enemy harbor and interact with their flagship and plant a powder charge then sneak back out again. As you sail away a slowmatch fuse will burn and then the powderkeg will ignite setting off a large explosion on that ship. On the shore in say 2 or 3 places there are combat towers but with very poor range (due to it being night and foggy). Also in the harbor are enemy patrol boats (cutters, gunboats, pickles, or something..) just sailing around but they will have a radius drawn around them (just like we see the radius if we tag someone in open world.) If you come within that radius then we essentially are "detected" and that ship will start shooting at you. If you sink you fail.

Slightly off-topic but still on the topic of leaders... There needs to be a clan mechanic for the Clan founder to be able to pass leader to another member/officer without having to disband the clan and form anew.

Currently it looks like officers exist only as a stat enhancement (or handicapped depending how you look at it.) but the only way we get to interact with them is through the interface screen. I agree there should be more in-depth interaction as they do seem lacking. Being able to name them/rename them is a start. A step up from that could be showing them on the deck of our ship walking about and eventually when we have the more critical game mechanics ironed out then we can get into uniforms and apparel. Officers to fleet? - We have the ability to send ships to fleet and have AI ships sail with us, perhaps a future ability will be to send an officer to ship if i wanted to either during or prior to a battle. Experience - Another setback i feel is that those of us who are already at max rank are in a sense disappointed as player experience doesn't benefit us any longer so little things such as travel exp or just PVP and PVE there is wasted rewards. I feel that once player reach the max rank the so-called "end-game" phase that there should be a better means of distributing our rewards one one way of doing this is enhanced experienced gains for our officers. I would make the argument that players at this max-rank end-game phase are among the most likely to fight and potentially kill off their officers so in theory they would also be the ones in a hurry to re-train up a replacement in order to continue to enjoy the game.

+1 I would support clan owned dock space Perhaps clans should become a "rank" thing and clans will have clan experience which is contributed cumulative from all the players within the clan. The higher level the clan the more "benefits" the clan has available or available to purchase/unlock? Maybe while a ship is in a clan's possession in clan dock space a play could "rent ship" to undock it and use it but it has to be returned to the clan dock.

I'm still advocating any ideas for officer flexibility and customization as well as choices to the player for the mitigation of lives(durability) lost.

Because when pirates blob together to attack a minority during off-hours and primarily undefended ports it's supposed "leet skillz". When they focus fire the underdogs, refuse diplomacy or negotiations, and continue to brag about it as if it were a great sense of accomplishment it is supposedly a testament to their power. They seek appeasement in attention-whoring. However if any entity large or small were to capture territory from the pirates it is supposedly "not supposed to count" because "but uhh.. we uhhh chose not to defend those.. Yeah that's it. Yeah you're capturing undefended ports." or "We weren't ready." or my favorite "We have like 30-50 people ready at all times we just chose not to fight right now." When an entity or nation brings a group to engage the pirates of equal or similar value then it's time for pirates to flee, tag each other, Run to port (running contraband), or famously wait in battle screen. For a bunch of guys err, kids that talk so tough i believe they really have perfected the art of hide and go seek in Naval Action. I'm just assuming the Coward Perk is just automatically coded into their characters upon joining their faction now. So eager to talk the talk but so unwilling to own up to their actions or consequences. What i find particularly interesting is the psychological aspect in which the very faction that seems to be caring so much about not fighting, not defending, not wanting to lose anything is labeling all of those who are willing to fight, and those willing to put themselves in conflict as "care bears". It's ironic that the faction that in definition is doing the most caring right now is pointing the finger outwards. The main staple of the Pirate "Faction" has deteriorated to forum PVP. I'm looking forward to some of the upcoming patch changes to see what reworks are up and coming. It could actually include some fun dynamics if the atmosphere is right.

I'm just gonna leave this here

Would there be a such thing as aggressive AI fleets (i know in the past sometimes AI would tag us, but rarely) to supplement nations with a low population? Maybe server trends would use this as a way to compensate during low times and they would fade out during peak hours? In an another idea - What if after a nation is conquered and that nation becomes a protectorate then the conquering nation then could control the offensive AI fleets? I'm not talking like large amounts here but just occasional fleets of AI that are more aggressive. They could be controlled via a drop down list (Like we have a drop-down list for setting up a contract in that user interface.) The conquering nation would choose what regions (Since the map will now be divided by region) limited by nautical miles from each port. Capitals and Regional Capitals would spawn larger AI Fleets, shallow water and regular deep water ports spawn small and intermediate sized AI fleets. This is based on the fact that usually after a nation is conquered they are pretty reluctant to fight with or alongside the very force that just beat them so i saw this as a means to accent or "supplement" this.

Question 1.) Is the player affiliated with their nation indefinitely or do they have to re-choose their nationality every seasonal reset? Question 2.) a.) What happens to our assets? b.) Do any of our items carry over to the new season? How would this work? c.) What about guild/clan assets? Question 3.) a.) Will the national starting areas and capitals be the same for each season? b.) Will players be able to vote for new capitals? c.) Will the freetowns always be in the same locations? Question 4.) Is there any way to generate a server leaderboard/scoreboard based on the server's API key? (It could update every day after downtime). Perhaps the stats could show kills/deaths by nation and clan as well as other data areas. Question 5.) It was once discussed that perhaps clans could break away and form their own factions or nations. Is there any more discussion about this and how this could potentially effect the new conquest mechanics?

How about some other economical perks such as: Hoarder - Ship can carry 10% more in the cargohold Scavenger - Player receives 50% more resources when breaking down and scrapping a ship Fish Bait - 10% increased chance to catch larger fish types Load Master - Ship's cargo weight is more evenly distributed - +1 knot speed -3% roll rate on trade ships Ample Provisions - Medkits restore additional crew while at sea while on trading ships Merchant Marines - x% (maybe 2 or 3%?) marines on trading ships and +2 preparation per round while in boarding mode Trade Connections - -10% market costs for setting up a contract

First i want to share/reiterate an idea i had - Trading posts In this thread: http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14273-trading-posts/ My Trading posts idea would help support the changes planned with the freetowns and encourage more player traffic around the map in addition to other cool features. Regarding Capitals: I don't think capitals should be capturable in the context that they literally "flip" to the conquering nation's colors. However i would humor the idea that if a nation was reduced to say 1 or 2 cities (such as their capital and 1 other) that their nation could be forced into a diplomatic session. This could either be done by A.) The attacking nation through the game mechanics must initiate the session, or B.) the Capital could be beseiged and upon victory it would represent the government building being raided/attacked and a diplomatic session would then be forced upon them. Some ideas to consider when a nation is in a "Reduced" state Sue for peace - a Diplomatic option to immediately enact a cease-fire Conditional Surrender - Nation can enact a cease-fire and a lump-sum of gold. Nation cannot be attacked by that same attacking nation again for 7 days. Conditional Surrender with secession - Cease fire is enacted and ports/territory is granted as spoils of war. (Perhaps maximum 5?) Conditional Surrender with Protectorate Status - Nation immediately surrenders and becomes a protectorate (puppet state) of the nation claiming victory. The protectorate enters cease-fire with it and must remain a protectorate for a minimum of 14 days. The conquering nation may also cede conquered territory back to the protectorate in the deal. Unconditional surrender - cease-fire occurs but at a price (I don't know how these mechanics should work. Maybe randomized items of value should be pulled from clan storages? The Capital market? NPC prices go up for a week? All players must pay a percent fee? i don't know.) Regarding Freetowns: What if there was a way to setup a transport contract for players to transport between freetowns? A player could "package" their cargo into exact size/weight amounts and a contract could be setup that would enable an another player to act as a courier to transport it from Point A to Point B between freetowns? The player carrying the items won't know what the contents of the cargo is but will only act upon the size/weight perimeters and will be paid for delivering the item to the destination. The player wishing to have their items transported would setup the start location, the destination, the time duration, the reward, and the collateral price with the number of units. The player acting as the transport/courier would pay the collateral (on hold) and will receive the units in the form of crates or barrels so that they make the trip in the ship of their choosing. If they successfully make it to the port destination and deliver the items then they will be repaid their collateral and collect their reward money. Contracts could be separated by size so that there isn't odd quantities that cannot be carried on ships Small contracts - Cargo capacity of 1 up to 1600 Medium contracts - Cargo capacity of 1601 up to 3200 Large contracts - Cargo capacity of 3201 up to 8000 Regarding Mission Changes: I think there are good intentions here and it will indeed lead to more PVP opportunity. However the first thing i should say is i think there should be a rank cutoff and that it should only be a "X rank and above" missions should appear near or around enemy territory. It does not really help our newer players to send them far way from shore (or home territory) when we wish to retain some of them in interests to keep this game running. The second thing with this is i certainly hope that this doesn't turn into a gankfest where the ranked-up players just end up hunting the players who are trying to level up all day. I would hope there would be more incentives for our higher-ranking players (and clans) to run protection fleets. In all honesty the mission types really need to change as well. The same thing over and over gets pretty stale. Here are perhaps a variety of new mission ideas: Exploration - Discover 5 new ports (player has to dock in 5 new ports that they have previously never been to before.) - Limited once per rank Exotic Trade - Mission will spawn an exotic good in the port where you start the mission and task you to deliver that item to another port of the same or ally nation. Escort - Battle instance will load with a landmass with a harbor on each side. Your goal is to escort a trader to a circle near the opposite end of the map as 1 or more npc's want to kill you and your trader. Intercept - You and 1 NPC spawn in vs a trader and 1 NPC and your job is to kill or capture both ships. Fleet Intercept - A well guarded group of trader ships are being escorted and you and your group must kill and capture them all. Fire Watch - (Group Mission) You spawn in next to a large NPC fleet of line-ships of your nation. Your nation's NPC.s sail in a straight line and in 3 waves npc's equipped with the fireship module will spawn that will be trying to target your ships of the line. You and your group must sink all 3 waves of fireships. Coastal Assault - You spawn in next to an abandoned mortar brig and you have to sail over to it and take command of it and start killing structures/towers. As you do this you have a npc fleet of ships "carrying troops" that will be sailing into the port. Your mission is to destroy all land targets before they can kill your assault fleet of NPC's. To Arms! - Daily mission - Win one small battle or one large battle (Through joining in the port user interface) Mission is active until a win is achieved. On Guard! - Daily mission - Player assumes coastal patrol duties and is flagged as "Coast Watch" or "Coast Guard" for one hour. Player receives x3 experience for travel and x2 experience and gold for combat fought in friendly territory sphere of influence.

In the new thread here: http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15638-development-plans-for-conquest-mechanics-rvr/page-1 I wanted to reiterate this idea and that this would be a great opportunity to try this and to help encourage more player traffic on the map.

What we need is for the servers to merge into 1 server to save this game and grow its community. I'm assuming the goal of this poll/post is to bring more action and activity to the game. To me i see the real solution is to bring the population together into one and to more potently fill out the server and map and the rest will occur naturally. Showing dots on the map will only encourage people getting jumped when exiting battles. It isn't very roleplay-like and it isn't something i would expect in a game like this. If i want to see where enemies are i would go play Battlefield or Call of Duty and launch a UAV or a scout plane. However this is the "Age of Sail" and for any well-versed player in the game they already have a partial education as to where battles are most likely happening. With the proposed upcoming changes in that PVE missions may begin to take place in the nearest enemy territories then it would only further caution that players may want to act more covertly as to be in enemy territory will be risky.

I still think this is a priority given that some players are considering not even undocking or PVP'ing due to not wanting to lose lives on the economy officers.

It will be interesting now that players have to travel further to find their shipwrecks how more frequently people are losing their officers.

Hmm, maybe a building-type similar to an iron mine or hemp plantation (crafting building) could be built but instead it would be a Military Building. This could be a Guild/Clan owned structure and there could be limitations associated with it. Drill School / Officer Academy Suggestions could be: Building can not be built in your nation's capital Building can only be built in regional capitals Players can place an officer into the building for a fee Building will provide officer exp per day (at a maximum daily cap) Players have to pay to withdraw the officer If port is captured, all officers that were assigned to the building now become lootable to the capturing clan. Building also becomes destroyed. (Risk vs Gain)

Exactly! It wouldn't be fair to those who play a dedicated PVP or a dedicated crafting/economy playstyle if we could just interchangeably swap around without at least some form of disadvantage or limitation to keep it in check. It could come in the form of money as in paying to take the officer off of the shore leave status (to take out of storage) or in the form of time hours or days. Perhaps even both if the costs were reasonable. Maybe even one economical way could be as follows: Player can place officers into storage for free (Always) Player can withdraw officer from storage after a time cooldown (hours/days) for free OR a Withdraw now option will be another choice, however to do so the player must pay a fee (in game credits) The idea here is that having multiple officers isn't a necessity but a luxury. To train up multiple officers and to pick and choose what skills you want on them gives individual player goals in the game but it also gives the freedoms of making their accounts more unique. For a player to sustain this luxury that is to enjoy their customizability options and to employ their various officer types they must either be a successfull and skilled player, or a profitable player and/or has the support of a clan or friends. Regardless we are still faced with the actual leveling of the officers themselves which in itself requires effort and time to do. I agree and disagree. I feel like there should be risk vs reward options for these types of things. In order for a player to enjoy the perks that a certain officer rewards we all kind of have to make a sacrifice somewhere. The economy player is diminishing their combat ability in order to improve their wealth and production efficiency. Likewise in the exact opposite end of the spectrum combat-heavy perks obviously aren't going to help you sitting in port building ships. Diversity and career path is what is going to make the game more fun and interesting i think. You will get various perk-builds in either combat or economy, but you may also find players making combat/economy hybrid officers. What i would also like to point out is that if an officer "remained on land" but still provided its perk rewards to the player then it would be a little bit unfair as these officers would be immortal as they would never be at risk of being killed.

I originally started talking about it here in the patch notes thread: http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15485-patch-993-bucentaure-acceleration-rework-and-many-other-things/page-15#entry288759 Part 1: I think it would be a good idea to have an option available to the players to unequip our officers and leave them in the outpost. Part 2: I also believe it would be great to have the ability to have multiple officers but only a limited number equipped. Suggestion - Maybe the total number of officers we have could be effected by player rank such as max rank can have 5 officers (or whatever number they see fit) the interim ranks would be limited. Here is just an example: Rank - Nation Rank Name - Officer Limit 1 - Midshipman 2 - Ensign 3 - Second Lieutenant - 1 Officer 4 - First Lieutenant 5 - Lieutenant Commander - 2 Officers 6 - Master and Commander 7 - Post Captain - 3 Officers 8 - Flag Captain 9 - Commodore - 4 Officers 10 - Rear Admiral - 5 Officers So say maybe we can only have 1 or perhaps 2 maximum equipped to our ship at any given time. It would still be a pleasant option to have an ability to train/level up other additional officers with other perks that i can switch out. Shore Leave - This could be a game mechanic that would essentially be like an item warehouse but for officer personnel. The only difference is perhaps maybe a gold price could/should be paid to approve shore leave every time you take the officer off shore leave (i think putting them in storage should be free, but withdrawing should have a cost). This way there is a monetary penalty so players have to choose wisely about their officers. If you're a wealthy captain then great!, perhaps you can enjoy additional benefits as in rotating out officers depending on your wants/needs/situation. If were something to be done for free then i feel it would be too unfair to other players who have invested in certain perks. An alternative balance instead of pay to withdraw from shore leave is a time cooldown. An officer once placed on shore leave could then only be available again after X hours/mins.