Musuko42

I bought the game to play it and have fun. Being screwed over by cheaters and exploiters is not fun. If I'm not having fun, I'll stop playing. If enough others think the same way I do, the game will empty out and die, becoming yet another dead MMO. That's how it affects the game. The actions of these few exploiters meant that about 30 odd British players, and maybe as many Spanish players, got robbed of a few hours of PVP fun. That's maybe 60-odd people, who all got together at the same time, spending their limited leisure time (because most of us do have jobs and other commitments), and had their fun spoiled by a few cretins. That's why we're "butthurt" about it. Not because we didn't get to win the port; because we didn't get the chance to have fun trying to take it.

Absolutely punish for being a jerk; the devs can't write a totally inclusive list of actions that are ban-worthy, as it'd be as long as your arm, and constantly being added to. We'd never keep up. What they can do is recognise that the actions of a few people have made the game less enjoyable for a larger number of people, and consider what they need to do for the game to be enjoyable for the largest number of people possible. When you think in those terms, the answer becomes simple. Really, it should be easy for people to think "is this a cheaty dick move?" before they do something. And if they are incapable of thinking that way, then do we really want to play with them? Perhaps the devs can do something like GTA5 does: consign exploiters and cheaters to their own seperate server, where they can be dicks to eachother at their hearts' content.

A mechanism for "forgiving" or "complaining" friendly fire damage, at the end of a battle. A friend accidentally hits you when in tight battle; you click "forgive", and their XP loss is substantially reduced. A troll enters your battle and green-on-green attacks you; you click "complain", and their XP loss is substantially increased.

1) is creating an alt to pull a flag and block a port battle ok? No, it's cheating, entirely against the spirit of fair play and fun. 2) what should be the punishment? The standard punishment for cheaters/exploiters, given to any and all guilty parties. 3) And what, if any, mechanics might help to stop this from happening again. Remove the need for the flag to be physically delivered, but introduced a variable timer between the flag purchase and the battle starting, based on the distance from the port the flag was purchased at. Sadly, that'd only delay, not fix, the problem; all it would take is one person to make an alt, grind away for a week or so, and they'll have the level required. Also, they'd more easily evade suspicion than a brand new account would.

I wouldn't like to see the ports producing labour hours that can be bought. But, having the ability for players to put their crafting hours up for sale, and for others to buy them, could be interesting.

I'd support a mission limit of some kind only when there's more content added into the game. As it is, there's only a few things to do (missions, fleet farming, trader-hunting, crafting, trading, fleet battles, PVP), so putting a limitation on one of them would put a big reduction on what you can do in the game.

No durability, but the option to take out insurance policies (of varying level of cover and cost) on your ships, which will pay out money or a replacement ship in the event of loss.

I voted no. There are already some good damage indications in game; how tattered the sails are, number of cannonball impact marks on the hull, whether the ship is slow, low in the water, or listing. As the game develops, perhaps we'll see more; crew visible moving on deck, or lying dead, cannons visibly broken in the ports, that sort of thing. And for less-experienced players, a "report" button you can press when sighting a ship with your spyglass, which gives you a canned response from your First Mate that helps you to interpret what you're seeing. "She's barely got a scratch on her!" "I count a dozen cannons out of action on her port side, sir!" "She's low in the water, sir, she's taking on water and no mistake!" "There's a lot of dead bodies on that deck, sir. I'd wager there's barely a soul left alive on that ship." (delivered in the voice of Gibbs, naturally) XD

I would take this suggestion one step further; you cannot change faction without going through piracy first. Like this: I'm British, I want to be French. I attack a British ship and become a pirate. I continue as a pirate for a while, attacking ships from various nations. I avoid attacking French ships, because I want to be friendly with them. After a while, I am contacted (by AI) with a message from the French leadership, recognising my aggression against other factions and, and this is the important bit, my sparing of French ships. They (still the AI) invite me into their ranks. Thus, faction-changing is possible, but has to be earned.

Idea: running cost for port defences. Port defences (towers, forts, etc) are also player-built buildings, and require investment to construct them, and regular fees to maintain them. Any player (of the appropriate faction) can contribute to the construction and maintainence of the defences by donating labor hours and money via donation buttons in the home screen of the port. If a faction overextends, they'll find that they can't afford to maintain the defences on all their ports. Some of them will be neglected, end up defenceless, and fall to another faction. The ebb and flow of power will remain fluid and enjoyable, and factions will concentrate on taking/keeping ports of value to them, and ones they can defend, rather than steamrollering every port they can get hold of.