Tenet

Show me on the diagram where VCO touched you? That's a VCO screenshot, we're the true BLACK. Just read the names. Yours is missing.

Don't derail the thread. The answer was already provided - it's a balancing mechanic against large area control. If you want to argue against it in principle, start a different thread - and better have a superior alternative.

You're not saying anything useful. There's a simple industry standard, called Patch Notes. Perhaps some of the DLC money should be going towards making sure ALL the information is available in ONE place including important nuances like changes in the way join mechanics work. https://store.steampowered.com/news/?appids=311310 100% of the information should be posted in a separate post right there. Not somewhere deep in replies on the forum. You gotta stop apologizing for this madness.

I don't think this implies "any battle". RvR specifically implies 1st Rates, and the requirement to move around in big groups. That last leg of the sail back almost never includes PvP (once you are out of sight of land, and with enough numbers to prevent further tags earlier anyway). Such unnecessary corners of "unfun" need to be shaved off, to leave as much of the actual PvP-time intact. Would you rather spend those 45 minutes sailing a slow group of PB ships safely back to port, or get back, get into a faster PvP ship, and actually show up elsewhere in the OW? Isn't that an actual increase in OW PvP, not a decrease? The time that you spend sailing the 1st Rate back is "Seen", what is "Unseen" is the missed opportunities for other more PvP-friendly activity. Note that his will only work for the PB, not for the Hostility.

Problem outline: This is a summary of a typical RvR session from the Aggressor: 1. Sail out of a port around 30-45 minutes away from where you want to attack. Spend 60 minutes or more because there is no way to match speeds, so Half-Sail juggling is maximum. 2. Fight in a port battle, up to 90 minutes. 3. Lose, and be unable to logoff - now have to spend 60 minutes or likely longer, while being harassed by enemies trying to catch someone sleeping. Considering the battle timers, that often means late night for most people, and it becomes a real pain to execute a strike. Design Goals: 1. Keep the opportunity to engage and sink enemies "after the PB" (whether this is good for the game should be evaluated). 2. Eliminate as much of the boring sailing, especially on the return trip. Solution: Port Battle creates an even larger "RvR Retreat Circle" after it concludes. This circle is large enough to allow one opportunity to get tagged once outside of battle. When every ship in the Battle Group manages to sail outside of this "Retreat Circle", each player gets a "Retreat to Home Port?" prompt button. If they Accept - their ship has to wait 60 seconds while stationary. When the timer is up, the ship disappears, and the player gets ported to their closest outpost. The ship in question cannot be used for twice the sailing time calculated by the game. It appears in port, but is disabled for that duration (grayed out, no access to cargo). Bonus rule: The only acceptable cargo are Doubloons, Repairs and Upgrades. A ship with any other cargo (books, goods, etc) cannot use the Retreat circle. Interception: Enemies can still intercept ships regularly on their way to RvR, or sink them in the Port Battle, or tag them right outside of port, or while they wait on the retreat timer once outside range (this new circle). Whether this applies to offensive anti-screeners (in clans on the PB list) could be an extra feature.

This system can be integrated into the PvP kill missions - a trader that struck their colors can be counted (with some cooldown to the count to prevent abuse, like "recently killed", "recently struck-colors"). Great idea. Being able to then pay Reals/Dubs from the ones carried in the Captain's Chest would be optimal, since some traders carry goods that the raider cannot really carry back.

Good, but we should include a different track:

Santa Marta PB was a disaster for two reasons: 1. William Death (Willis) did not call the battle. 2. Tenet was replaced in the PB list by some nepotistic scrub. I regret not having the opportunity to sink you again. A great game requires GREAT ENEMIES! You are the best Arch-Enemy one could wish for in a PvP game! I hope NA North American timezone becomes worth playing again, or some other game places us in another confrontation. Fair winds!

Wasa killing L'Ocean used to be ~4000 XP, now reduced to ~2000 XP. 4th Rate killing Victory used to be ~3500 XP, now reduced to ~2000 XP. 5th Rate killing Wasa used to be ~2400 XP, now reduced to ~1200 XP. I didn't see such a huge XP nerf in any recent patch notes. Please restore the rewards!

1. Yes, crafting is too expensive. 2. Don't blame the players, blame the game. The economy only works if some people generate currency via moving objects. To be able to live by stealing, you need the majority to be producing things for you to steal.

If you join the Russian Empire on the PvP server, I will build you a new Aggie as compensation. I was one of the people who reported this issue - an exploit that allowed a ship as small as the Surprise to kill a 1st Rate without firing a shot, by luring it outside the circle, then sailing back. Now NPC's are no longer bound by the circle - so if you want to capture a trader in the PZ, you have to demast or board fast. Combat ship NPC's are quite bad sailing upwind, so they may be pushed beyond the circle over time. If that happens, you might have to wait out the timer.

Willis definitely has the original screenshots, as he called the battle. There are a lot of differences on that screenshot, like the "A" in [BLACK]. Pretty blurry, lets see if I can help: [VSC] Willis, [VSC] Tenet, [VSC] MidnightLight, [VCO] Jarlath Morrow, [VCO] Doug Maoz - did someone change their name? Did I forget someone active? Any of the names not mentioned still play? No disrespect intended. Which one of these names are you Simon? All your current leaders had to do was show up a month before release, and say "We're re-forming the old crew. Come join us and we will give this game another shot." All they had to do was to show an ounce of humility.

Come fight them someday, at equal numbers, and they might teach you something too, like how to spell. Edit: Oh wait, you did fight them when you tried to steal Nuevitas... Hint from a fellow rookie: You want to save some longs and tap every enemy in the battle, so that if you lose badly, but your team gets one kill, you at least put that missing "A" on the score board. 👌 Since your pals always go into personal attacks, I'm not in the above screenshot, because I joined the fight that happened at the same time here: p.s. It is amusing how native English speakers manage to malign their own language in writing. It's easy mode compared to writing in Russian.

It's not a flaw, because I never claimed that was the reason I joined Russia. I just presented the current status of my PvP experience. HAVOC, WO, the Dutch, are some of the toughest clans on the server. English is my second language, but I'm fairly sure I was logically and semantically correct in my statement. You came into the thread to nitpick at a post I made. You may now leave.

Great, and how would I make money to replace lost ships? Sail only Princes "again and again and again"? PvP and RvR is designed for 3 factions maximum. That worked for Dark Age of Camelot and other games. Having more factions at such a small population on server is a really bad design.

In my timezone North American- or close to it, I face HAVOC, WO (when they return) and other Dutch clans, along with the remaining Prussians. In PZ we often fight the rest, people who are at or above my experience. What does the word "Most" mean in your post? Did you take an accurate count of the clans and their members, or is your veiled statistic merely in your imagination? For the record, I advocate openly for Clan Wars:

My experience in Russia is entirely positive. 1. The chief organizers are competent, and received their roles by merit. 2. Besides BF doing their own thing, everyone tries to work together, most sharing the same TS 3. PvP is easy to get, and clans in the nation show up in every Patrol Zone. I'm learning a lot from facing some of the toughest clans on the server. 4. Nation chat is friendly (except a few alts we can ignore) and active - people show up to sink infiltrators and to raid. 5. Economy is much more efficient, we spend much less time sailing around for shipping. I suspect it's a similar situation in the Dutch and Danes, which is why they show up to PvP and RvR in the best ships and at very high numbers relative to the server. It's a game about pixel ships, pixel flags and should just be played for fun. It's not real life patriotic military service. Nostalgia for past accomplishments is an illusion. Carpe Diem!

VSC contains quite a few members from "BL4CK", and quite a few brand new recruits that make great strides at learning the game. These former "BL4CK" members are the ones who wanted to play the game from day one. The members who were betrayed by You and 7Grams, by your refusal to plan for release. The members that stuck around in "BL4CK" back in 2017 for many battles longer than either of you "leaders", the ones that didn't get discouraged by losses, the ones that finally crushed WO at PdP. The members that lived in the future, and recognized that you can't keep treating multi-month recruits as "others" just because they didn't participate in your former glory. VCO became the #1 largest and most active clan in the Pirates at release, and built up Nuevitas - gathering the absolute majority of the 1000 combat medals and 400K+ doubloons and all the Victory Marks (by showing up at every damned port battle, no matter the time). VCO tried desperately to unite the pirates in one capital - Nuevitas, the most central and best defended Port Battle. VCO warned both UWS and WTF that if we don't pool resources into one spot, we will fall behind and WO and others will show up on our shores with a 25 stack or more that we can't counter. UWS, WTF, and now even BL4CK have sacrificed national interest in order to put their names on a crafting port - picking vanity over national interest. We did all that before BL4CK showed up, while BL4CK sailed lonely trader brigs, while BL4CK did nothing to defend the coasts from raiders, or coordinate shipments, or any other national activity. BL4CK refused to join our TS for battles, despite VCO bringing the most firepower. BL4CK refused to coordinate defenses - letting enemies slip freely into ports during screenings. BL4CK had anti-national policies like never reforming battle groups - making it impossible to re-tag screened fleets after a partial join. The list of ways you hello kittyed with us and the nation to feed your messiah complex is quite long. You personally wanted to lead the Nation into battle, while not playing the game for years, and not knowing basic RvR mechanics. You could have asked someone - but that would require humility. We allowed you to profit from our great Nuevitas investment, which despite your claims produced less money than one players' regular economy work, and cost money to maintain timers (along with all the other ports we had to pay for because YOU WERE WEEKS LATE). We gave you information to help you grow more efficiently, not holding back any findings. We did that despite constant berating and open sabotage by other clans, people who showed up to PB a month after release in a Hercules (!). We had a week where every night we had to defend from WO or Raiders or others, and if we took a break, no one filled the void. The same people who showered us with abuse suddenly demanded we defend their ports. We all realized that we were suffering for nothing, and that people play games for fun. Most of us voted to leave. Some chose to remain Pirates. You couldn't stand that. I remember the kind of cold reception I received from 7Grams ON THE DISCORD OF MY CLAN - A CLAN HE QUIT BEFORE I DID, when his "highness" got convinced to play, and realized I didn't wait for him and had to join another clan (with other former "BL4CK" members). I remember gradually losing permissions (why wasn't a "BLACK Veteran" tag provided to replace the one with clan permissions, at least while I was pirate? Oh, you didn't think of it, right). I remember having my messages erased from the lobby, to deny me friendly banter with old clanmates. You don't know anything about the current state of VCO, and which people participate in making it a great group to play with. You don't know anything about the effort we put in at release. You operate based on information from 2016 in 2019. I have so far mostly poked fun at you in a silly manner, using relatively friendly memes. Keep lying about the efforts of me and mine, and these gloves come off. Mistake not my current state of joshing gentle peevishness, for awesome and terrible majesty of the towering seas of ire, that are themselves the mere milquetoast shallows fringing my vast oceans of wrath.

"...everything to be re-enacted twice over, once as grand tragedy and the second time as rotten farce".

Will Great Britain fulfill her obligations? Will the advancing BL4CK hordes be stopped? Will the citizens of Santiago face the same persecution as the residents of Nuevitas and Baracoa? Find out in the next edition! Public Service Announcement: BE ALERT, STAY AWARE, PIRATE SPIES ARE EVERYWHERE! A message from our sponsor: QSPA - Quality Shit-Posting Alliance See you next time, Captain!

I have a solution for that problem: 1. Enable the announcements in an API that players can use to create parsing tools / websites - ex: the twitter bot that does PB info 2. Enable the announcements in a separate optional menu in the map - showing a feed in descending order with latest at the top, with a sort pull down menu to pick an All or Area-Name.

You can only join Baracoa if the BL4CK Gestapo doesn't find out who hides under your floorboards. Well done @SteelBeard, the Reich rewards its allies! Too bad for @Ed Rose and his Pirate Clan...