Lord_Howe

Wow... its a miracle... a Slamz post I can sortof agree with No-one, no matter what sort of PvP badass they like to claim they are, wants to fight (and inevitably lose) against insurmountable odds. One battle every now and then, just for the glory, sure... but not often. Equally, not many will get fun for very long fighting in a huge fleet that basically cant lose. I'm not sure how the game can get the more even and exciting fights going more often, but that's what it needs in order to have a healthy PvP environment. I've seen suggestions that BR ratios be used as a multiplier of the end-battle reward, so that a team that outnumbers their opponent 2:1 gets only 50% of the normal reward while the underdog 1:2 team gets double. Something like this might be in the right direction to encourage people not to stack teams in combat, but im still not sure how you get the right mix of people in the right area at the same time, short of pre-organized battles. I think POTBS at least made an effort for port battles by inviting players based on their contribution to the conflict (they could then teleport to the battle), and by allowing a long schedule lead time for the fight so that people could make sure they were available. Don't know how you would apply that idea to open sea battles though.

You have all used your elite social skills, witty repartee, and pleasant company, to win us over. Congratulations... enjoy fighting one another on your almost empty server

The French have been hold up in the corner of the map for most of the game. The antilles is a relatively fun area precisely because you don't have to sail for an hour to get anywhere. I think that as you have to travel further and further to do anything you will discover just what the brits did.... its not fun at all. The map is certainly not the same game for all nations. I do wish you the best of luck though. There are undoubtedly plenty of ports that you guys can expand to

And I honestly wish you an enjoyable time. I doubt I'll move either, though possibly not for the same reasons. I'm certainly hoping that we get some improved systems in place (port battles for one) and a new influx of players as the game gets fleshed out. But I also hope that peoples attitude changes, so that we don't drive any new players away just as fast. Competitive is fun... anti-social and disrespectful is not.

While you are busy ridiculing everyone else you might want to take a look in the mirror. People are looking for a more enjoyable experience. ...perhaps they want more, or better PvP than you could provide ...perhaps they just want a huge map that isn't mostly empty space ...perhaps the just want to be somewhere that you aren't. What makes you think you are qualified to judge anyone else's reasons? What business is it of yours anyway? So sick of seeing the endless flood of immature finger pointing and name calling... no wonder players are leaving in droves.

You really cant help yourself can you? I have seen French players run away just as often... but i dont judge their pixel battle bravery based on it, lol

"My nation was brave.. every one else is a coward" Funny how you hear the exact same thing from every nation, lol

Moving yourself may be fine for those that just want to fight. For those of us that have spent hundreds of hours getting out trading and crafting set up it is nowhere near as painless. Cant see myself bothering unless they provide a way to move with our BPs intact (critical), and some materials/money to allow us to keep going.

I'm sorry you feel the British forces should have stayed after they already won the battle. Apparently everyone except you knew the game mechanics, and knew there was no reason to stay, since any sinking ship could simply hit the 'Leave Battle' button. People aren't cowards just because they don't fight the way you want them to. If you had made some different tactical choices, you probably could have forced more of a ship-to-ship engagement prior to losing the towers. You haven't seen us here complaining about you winning at St.John.... we gave it the best shot we could with what we had available, and you beat us fair and square. But to childishly claim you "Let" us attack your Victory at St John?.... You didn't expect an enemy that was outnumbered 5:1 to come straight at you at the first tower, and your Victory that had PARKED to cap the tower got taken by surprise and barely got away (with half his crew dead). We tried to get him... we failed. How about instead of trying to make out it was some clever ruse on your part, you simply acknowledge that we were a lot more aggressive than you expected such a small defending force to be? Would that be so difficult? We were there to defend, and we were ready to fight to the last man to stop you getting it... perhaps if you hadn't speed capped the towers you would have had time to actually fight our seven ships with your 10,000 BR fleet instead of ending the battle?

I used to think this was a bit of a cheesy tactic. However, I recently watched a program covering the period of the Anglo-Dutch wars, and apparently the primary tactic of the dutch navy (in the early years) was indeed to close rapidly with the enemy and then overwhelm him by boarding. This tactic changed as the British brough bigger and better organised 'Lines' to bear, where the sheer firepower would overwhelm the dutch ships before they could get close enough. I therefor think its a pretty valid tactic on the whole, though the 'Ramming straight into the enemy to stop him' still seems quite wrong to me.

I have not experienced this situation, but I rather like the idea that if no-one on either side has been hit by the enemy for perhaps 10 minutes, then there is in fact no longer a battle going on, and the battle should end. 10 minutes should be enough for anyone that is catching up to a fleeing enemy (that might still fight) to get them back into a shooting match. If they manage to keep away for that time then clearly they are not returning to try and regain their teams captured ship.

Pot -> Kettle

I was observing that its a pointless measurement that doesn't provide any rivalry between nations, since it only indicates how Undefended ports are. Neither off topic, or a complaint. If you feel the need to report that, well grats... enjoy yourself.

It's a pointless challenge. Capping an undefended port take 12-13 mins. What are we trying to prove... which server has the most undefended ports?

From my own perspective i would agree. It is clear that when you changed your minds and headed back to the towers on the right (attackers perspective) you executed a turn to the right... You couldn't turn 180 at this point, as you would have been directly into the wind. A right turn put your line heading approx 315, back towards the second tower (again, from attackers perspective). You were essentially yielding ground at this point. Every minute you kept this heading put you further away from the Brit start, and left the port towers less defended. When WIS defended St John, we started in almost the same way. However, we executed our turn left to 45, engaging you in front of the first towers. Alas, our numbers were too few. I suspect a similar turn by the French fleet, being much closer in BR to the attacker, would have forced a full-on battle, though it would have initially allowed the lead elements of the Brit line to shoot at you instead of vice versa.

I have video. Alas, it is rather painful for me to watch... as I eat an astonishing number of cannon balls from what felt like the entire French line. Guess it's dangerous to be the lead ship. Having seen the joy with which certain individuals love to use selective pictures to spin their stories, i prefer to keep it to myself, though ill be happy to provide any factual observation i can from my footage. If you have a specific question that i might be able to answer then let me know. I can tell you that I only got a direct view of the stats of a relatively small proportion of the French ships thru the hail of iron. I noticed no monkey business crew wise, and did see a significant number of folks using 'Extra Hammocks', which i thought was interesting. Bear in mind that it's also only from my ships perspective (plus tab key views etc)... i rarely have time to detach the camera and zoom around shooting grand sweeping panoramas unless there is so little action that i'm not busy (or i already sank, which is thankfully not quite the case here). I therefor don't know much in the way of detail regarding action on the other side of the battle.

I believe his statement was directly referring to the accusation of us doing it in a port battle, and the one for Fred in particular... an accusation i am sure will be withdrawn?

Is a Post Captain moving a ship around in OW relevant to an unsubstantiated (and refuted) accusation of Brits stacking BR in a port battle? It's twice as effective for a defender to do this... but you don't see us accusing you of it, even though you could well be since we cant see your ranks easily. You sneaky French men

And having just reviewed the video, i can state categorically that none of the Brit 3rd Rates/Bellonas were under-crewed. In fact three of them were even sailed by Commodores. I cant speak for the French 3rd rates, since three were sailed by 'Capitaine de (something cut off by the screen)', which could be anything from 'Master & Commander' thru 'Flag Captain'. Edit: And one last time... the battle didn't end when Brits capped the towers at Fred. One French ship escaped early in the action, and another sank almost two minutes after we had destroyer the last tower, which is what changed the BR ratio to 2:1 If its any consolation, the French did cap the towers at St John in 26 seconds less than the Brits did at Fred, but then you had a 5:1 BR advantage there

ah, but the timer was set for 10-12pm (East coast)... 2 hr window (as even your example shows) You didn't purchase the flag until 12:50am (arriving at the port to plant it right around 1am.) So, the real window in this case was 10:00pm-12:59am, with presumably another hour after that for you to plant it. That to me is a bug (or if i'm being generous, another bad piece of the UI). We are well aware of the extra hour to plant, thats why we stayed at the port until the timer said it had past (at midnight). It's probably only the fact that we were all drinking port and brandy, while eating our roast beef, that allowed us to still be on-line at all when you attacked... given away not so much by the gathering of ships (or the purchase of the flag) as you were by the gently wafting smell of runny cheese drifting towards St.John on the nights breeze.

A side of roast beef and a good bottle of port or brandy, that's more our speed (and possibly a reason for a few near misses when we maneuver.. but that's another story).

And we will sink you also Sir. The difference is that we will still be Gentlemen Captains, while you will still be uncouth rabble

The participation of the other clans was mainly so that we could obtain somewhat of a peace agreement in the area (at least re. Ports), hence the port swap where the Swedes gave us St.John in exchange for one of the ones held by Brits. We wanted to get the fun, small scale fights going in the area again... and having a port away from all the other action, while also working with our RP objective (St Johns did belong to his majesty you know), seemed a good way to do it. The Swedes in particular have always given us good fights, as they were relatively low population and we are a small group. I'm sure we will be back... some day

I am confused Sir. You seem not to have read what i said. The entirety of WIS (minus 1 gentleman who's work shift didn't allow it) was on-line every evening during the open ports assault time for St. John (our only port). Despite the timers actually displaying wrong information (they apparently "round off" 59 minutes of the timer) we were still mounted a defense against a huge attack fleet with 100% of our online players. Port timers are a rubbish mechanic, as many have said repeatedly... but irrelevant to a discussion involving WIS. The present French port blitz is primarily possible because most of the players in the clans that held those ports for Brit are no longer playing... see my previous comments regarding possible reasons. A constantly shrinking player base coupled with a fundamental flawed game mechanic can only lead to similar silly shifts/blitzes over the next few weeks, by one or more nations. I assume we all agree It's not hard (and certainly boring) to capture relatively undefended ports? Bravo Sir... well said. i particularly like the idea of a port type that favors mid-range ships.

WIS would have loved to oblige you with fun PvP in the area, but unfortunately you decided to wait until 12:55am to attack a port that you knew was held by a group that has never had more than 12 players on-line. (a full 55 minutes after the game was telling us the port timer was closed, so we left to do other things... not your fault, presumably another display 'bug' in the game). We still managed to get our 7 ships that were online into battle against your 10,000 BR French fleet, and even engaged you at the very first tower. We thought you wanted PvP, and were surprised to find you still going for the speed cap of the towers. We were sure we had read you all posting about wanting to fight, and that winning using the BR ratio was wrong? We can only surmise that you were uncertain of your chances against WIS, since you only had 5:1 odds in your favor... we know you Frenchies are a skittish lot Seriously though... Unless something changes I suspect good fights will be harder and harder to come by as time goes on. Many people have already grown tired of the lack of game content and left, and the game isn't helped by the constant trash talking both in-game and in the forums. This community has been showing the immaturity of many of its so-called adult players really badly over the last couple of weeks, and thats not a good way to retain a player base. There are too many other games out there that people can play and have fun, without listening to a constant spew of hate-filled garbage. Lets hope the community cleans up its act, and the devs get some more meaningful content out really soon, before we lose too many to make this game fun. We want an age-of-sail game to succeed... i hope we can at least agree on that