Taranis

Ah ha, touche! Guilty as charged. You mean its not enough to feed them rum, you have to manage them too? Thanks for the tip.... So wait a second, in other words this implies that you can re-crew your ship without rum (since the two mechanics are dissociated) if you have extra crew available at port? So, is that like crew magically beaming teleporting to the ship? On a somewhat related note, I understand that we want devs to get the game right, but there is a certain "je ne sais quoi" of a need for documentation/explanations/tutorials - at least for critical combat mechanics.

Trying to "repair" crew from the OW continues to be bugged. It drains all of your rum and you still get no crew back.

True if the ports become challenged. Not true of ports become far from the front and nevermore become challenged.

I like the idea, but as stated it has certain flaws. Instead of denying the presence of the flaws, i look forward to brainstormed ideas of how they may indeed be resolved.

Yes, but conquest marks will be earned passively over time - whether folks log in or not.

Remind me what the retention rate of the game has been? 5%? We are not talking about just 1 off player here.

Well, everyone should have a chance at least some things.

So a player that participates in the Bridgeport PB and helps win the port, who then stops playing, keeps collecting conquest marks ad nauseam if Bridgeport is never challenged again for the next year. The players that are in that nation a year down the road are prevented from the conquest mark income that this retired player has been getting all along. The retired player has a pile of conquest marks accumulating in his/her account that the nation does not benefit from. Call that an oxymoron if it makes you feel better, but doing so will not address the issue: inactive players will siphon the limited resources of a passive income.

Again, i like the idea generally - but (1) it biases towards large nations, (2) it does not consider player bases that become inactive and keep collecting ports that remain unchallenged for long periods of time and, (3) i gears the game towards the extreme player. Some of these are addressable through mechanics, others are a product positioning/marketing strategy.

If a port generate 25 marks per day, then the number of marks per player should vary - else you penalize the nation that can't field a full stack, and you reward the zergs.

Ok, so to be clear, we are now saying that the players that defend take over the income base. On a related point: presumably the income of a port is fixed and divided up per number of players attacking or defending? Otherwise small nations will suffer from having fewer players (not maxing out) in PBs.

No, player bases rotate. New players defending inactive player's interests would serve them little good.

A variant of Slamz' points: what happens when players that are getting paid the conquest marks stop playing the game? The nation gets the income but not the benefit of having players making use of the rewards. Those defending the ports are not even getting the indirect benefit of supporting fellow active players. The solution there may be to have the defenders take over the income others once enjoyed - as compensation for the defense.

Sorry, but there is a disconnect: the value of pvp marks and conquest marks will certainly not be the same, not to mention the difference between collecting a passive rent rather than having to actively get the pvp marks. Can we at least get a conquest/pvp mark converter - or get the ability to pay for unlocks using pvp marks as well as conquest marks?

So if players can't spend more than 2 hours a day, they should not benefit from being able to play the game or eventually get the unlocks? Isn't that the very point of my post? It affects players as much of the content is now coming at such a cost that it is exclusionary. As an aside, the suggestion does not compensate for folks screening PBs.

no because PBs so far have been empty ones - though players did spend time going through the process of getting pb. I like the concept - but again, the grind mechanism that is being implemented is in the extreme. This game is becoming a significant turn-off to the more casual players (ie: those that have less than 2 hours a day to devote).

Wait, what? This may be "so two weeks ago", but I thought we would no longer be able to keep captured AI ships on pvp server. Is this being revisited?

Never tested it, but have always felt that the LGV is too good at close hauling - particularly when sailing gun-less.

Winning your battles should at least offer a steady state / balance - otherwise it will dishearten players. Also, grinding gold for the sake of grinding gold and getting ganked is not something that will retain players for long. I mean I am guessing that there are only so many masochists out there.

Seems to me that the costs of cannon and crew a bit too high on TB server. Even winning your fights - you still end losing a ton of cash in re-crew and repairs. The fact that you can't sell captured ships or canons is overly punitive.

If you can't TP in/out Free Ports, nor deliver your goods there, nor smuggle from nearby enemy ports, nor exchange with other nationals in FPs, nor produce goods in FPs, nor benefit from nearby allied ports (in terms of resources to draw upon or place your goods in)... Then: The FPs in home waters will more likely be used by fellow nationals - yet, as they are less convenient than the capital, and thus not the center of activity, they will see fewer transactions (and thus be less attractive than the nearby national production ports). The FPs in/near enemy waters will be farther away - thus require a longer sail time, and provide an increased chance of getting attacked on the way - so would really only be attractive to a buyer of resources this buyer direly needs - which they may or not find in that port, and which they would then have to haul out. At that point, forget buying in bulk, get into a fast ship and trawl the waters of key production ports (and nearby FPs) - at least you will have more fun / and a better chance of a favorable outcome. No economically rational buyer will get into a trader ship to go buy resources in an FP in enemy waters. As a seller, you could easily sail from one of your production outpost to another closer home port where you would sell the same goods to your countrymen (which non-nationals can no longer enter). Then there is always the question of whether one would want to sell key resources to their opponents. A good example of that may be live oak. If you are a US player, why would you indeed sell the one resource advantage that really only you have - now that distance will play a more significant factor? So as a seller, you have the further disincentive of not wanting to sell the more strategic (valuable) goods in FPs in/near enemy waters. Also, as a seller, why spend all that time sailing at the increased risk of getting mugged along the way, unless the profits are obscene. Therein is a catch 22: the more obscene the profits, the more likely you will get mugged before you can deliver the goods to the FP. What do you do when you are at that port? Do you wait for the contract to get fulfilled, or do you sail back out, to eventually have to schlep all the way back and get your gold? If gold is the motivation: let me suggest that there are much easier and less time intensive ways of making money. My conclusion: unless FPs are given some new love, they will see very little to no activity and are thus really pointless and should be removed or turned into something else (someone suggested Pirate dens - which could be a cool idea). Even solo hunters will not use FPs because again: even if you can have an outpost there - you won't be able to TP in/out. So, whereas Carriaccou was a notorious den of British and Ducth mischief and malevolence (in both pvp1 and pvp2), from which the Brits/Dutch defended their interests in the Antilles, it will now be deserted.

Again, I don't mind that we remove TP to free ports - but we need to have something of value for Free Ports to even exist. They are becoming largely pointless with the new proposed changes. As for Louisiana, I don't see how France can keep it - nor why that would even be desirable in the first place. As a pendulum, we seem to be going from one extreme to another...

I am not asking for more limits - just suggesting an alternative to a course of actions already expressed by the admin that would be (IMHO) even more detrimental. I for one want to eventually be able to craft any ship and play any ship. I also assume that I am not unique in that. It is a separate matter to think that all players should have up to 20 1st rates at their docks at all times and that this would be healthy for the game.

I am not a fan of hard caps - I think that you can promote a balance through other incentives. At the moment there is no cost to maintain SOLs - suggest that a number of times. At the moment deep port 1st rates promote the use of 25 1st rates per side. The way things are going, we will see a reversion to very rare BP drops for 1st rates - which would not be great IMHO.

As the quote you quoted stated - that popularity will be short lived: active ports will see people waiting for incoming traders to jump them. Perhaps we think that trader players are idiots and will still bring their goods to these ports like good lambs headed for a fleecing... More likely is that trading activity will stop. The only FT that shines on PvP1 or PvP2 is Navasse because it is central and because people can quickly tow their ships in or deliver their wares. Remove that, and the ability to TP to an FT and you will have nothing left.