Serk

Looking at the thread you've linked, I see Wraith proposed something similar here. I just use the current hostility system and regular PvP battles instead of his large 24 hour PB instance warzone.

Edit: After re-reading my post, I realise it is a long text that simply says '' keep the current hostility system, make it take longer, and scrap the final PB''. There it is, much shorter I share your concerns about Port Battles and server population, but I don’t think quickening the hostility generation and multiplying the PB’s is the solution. It would just offer more opportunities for empty PB’s and quick flips of regions or ports, which is not a good thing IMO. I'm also worried that the current hostility system fails to deliver its promises because it is just another quick PVE grind to unlock a PB, thanks to war supplies and easy PvE missions. Maybe this is what you have in mind with the raids idea, but I’d rather promote what I had expected the hostility system would bring: Long sustained campaign over a few real life days (to cover all time zone), involving a national or alliance effort to conquer a region. This is why I would just scrap the ‘’single PB by an elite few deciding the day’’ idea and expand the hostility system as a ‘’area wide campaign’’ made of an unlimited numbers of OW PvP battles in the said area to raise or lower the hostility (or war score) to 100% and conquer the region. That way, the RvR would really be tied to the OW PvP and every player could play a role in it, instead of the elite 25 players and the screening fleet. Just imagine a huge screening effort over a few days instead. This is just a preliminary suggestion for discussion purpose, but here is the general idea : 1-Get rid of war supplies and PVE hostility mission. 2- Nation A buys a flag to open an enemy region to hostility generation over a few real life days (and not a few hours). This information is public, so everyone knows where the PvP hotspot is. 3- Nation A starts raising hostility in said region by sinking either AI fleets from OW (slow generation) or PVP (faster generation). If unopposed, the region is conquered once a set limit is reached, hopefully after more than 24 hours. 4- If Defender plans to defend, it must lower the hostility, but since there are no enemy AI fleets in their own region now, they must patrol the area and destroy Nation A's captains, thus creating more PVP. ‘’No show’’ is not an option for the defenders, or else they lose the region. 5- Once the hostility reach 100%, the region is conquered. I personally don't see the need of a regular PB at this point. The last battle taking place at 99% war score could be considered as a vital PB anyway. pro's: - Inspired by the PvP events, the targeted area becomes a PvP hotspot over a few days to conquer or defend a region. Difference is, people actually need to show up to defend or else the area is lost. - Less regions flips, but more sustained efforts involving anyone who bothers to show up in the targeted area and fight. Even Fox2run in his lone HMS Surprise could do it without being on TS - With the correct tweaks, it should not be influenced by the total amount of players online. More players showing up simply mean more ships are sunk, from both sides, so balance is kept. Con's: - Might advantage the most populous nation too much, but OW battles are still 25 vs 25 players anyway. - Need to find a way to prevent attacker limiting itself to sinking AI fleets to raise hostility and avoid defender's player to risk losing said hostility points. Since the current regions are smaller than the PvP event circle, an attacking fleet should be easier to spot for the defender and they could react accordingly. So in the end, the conquest of regions becomes a real campaign of multiple PvP battles. It is not limited to 50 players anymore and instead of capping points in specific circles, you raise hostility (war score) by sinking ships, which is what most of us are after P.S. War supplies could be kept and used instead of flags to launch a campaign on a region. It could simulate the landing of an expeditionary force to take the towns, supported by the fleet actions in OW during the following days. Feel free to comment. Cheers, Serk, (aka La_Pérousse on PvP 1 France)

Well, we should be allowed to load cargo in your fleet's hold now, so bring an indiaman in your fleet, order him to leave at battle start and escort him back to port with the loot?

It has more to do with the fact that without EU players, we can barely gather 10 players for a PB at those hours. 10 vs 25 being an hopeless situation, the few remaining do something else instead of entering the slaughterhouse.

The biggest losers in all this are North american players in FR-DN-SW-ES nations. While US player can band in small groups and get something out of it, even if it is empty PBs, we are littterally alone and can't do jack shit, including the PVP events. Even if we wanted, we couldn't even muster 10 players to defend cumana last night... Nothing is more sad than seing all your friend list as offline...

No idea how hard it is to implement, coding wise, but i'd really like to keep my own national flag when helping my allies in battle, instead of using theirs. It would give a better feeling of representing your naiton ''abroad'', but also be a solid proof that a nation is a helpfull ally Also, being able to place sell-buy orders for ship paints would be great.

The new admiralty systems described in the admin's post might be a step in that direction: earn some PVP achievement before being allowed to command a frigate or a SOL, etc. and other PVP content.

I just find pirates as a nation to be redundant with other nationals. If you are into regular RVR, just join a regular nation. If you are a lone wolf type into privateering, then pirate it is. It is just a suggestion, but it could be worth a try to give them one region as capital (kidd's harbour, that could be the only place to craft Pirate Refit ships, giving pirates an alternative source of income by selling those ships to nationals) and let them operate from free towns. If this make it too difficult to gather resources, they could be allowed to raid nation owned regions for ressources but not conquer them? This would surely have a negative impact on the numbers of players choosing so sail under the black flag, but those staying would be remembered by their real name, fame, and feared (allow them to design they own personal ensign from different presets if need be!) Food for thought.

Thanks for the info. They could just remove regional explorer now that it is identical to the regional speed bonus. It also make French Refit more competitive, which is good, yet IMO it is still inferior to the Pirate or British Refit, depending on you intended role.

On parle bien du bug des alliances qui tombent à l'eau à interval régulier? Si oui, l'alliance entre la France et la Suède sur le PVP 1 semble en avoir été victime encore aujourd'hui. Sinon, de quel bug s'agit-il exactement?

I dont't know how many ships models are ready but not in game yet, but one could expect that releasing many new ships at the same time as the ship/server/asset wipe to be a good way to reduce the negative impact it could have on the player base. It could help retain more players and even attract new one.

Thanks for the video. In the game, is it more like a bigger indiaman (armed trader) or a propper warship?

As always, google is your friend There are online videos explaining how to use manual sailing. Just google the keywords "naval action manual sailing" and you should find plenty. you can also look in this Thread.

I've just lost acces to 5 ships and my Live oak forest because of the odd 5 days transition forced upon us when renewing an alliance. I thought this was a bug that got corrected. Oh well, see you in 5 days then, I'll finally finish my Witcher 3 playthrough,

This question is not about the current patch, but since it hasn't been answered yet: what is the purpose and effect of the "pray" button? Great patch BTW. Cheers

Thanks for the great pictures! It looks much less dark than I would have expected in there.

Indeed, nice pics. You don't happen to have pictures of the captain's cabin?

And hopefully, we will once again start the battle with the guns already loaded, without the need for a officer perk

IIRC , the US server player base at US "prime time" (9pm east for me) is below 300 and even around that time of the day, the EU server has a higher population.

There are so many ship plans and model submitted in this forum section that the devs could give each nation their own exclusvie ships in every class (except 1rst rate but that can be balanced). I really hope that once all the game basic mechanics will be done, that the devs will concentrate on ships modelling and pump them out like they were Ford model T. IMO, the more ship diversity, the better and more attractive this game will be.

What if we have a female pirate?

So true. Those random flags and banners at the top of the mast could really be used as some clan identification or any other identification.

No paint for the Surprise yet?

It would be great if you would retain your national flag when supporting an ally in a battle. Why would I use spain's flag as a french ship while helping spaniards in a battle? I mean, french and spanish ships kept their distinct national flag at Trafalgar This could even lead to misidentification in battle if there are 4 nationalities in the same battle for exemple.

I don't understand why the merge has not been done already. It is obvious to me the current player base can't sustain 2, nor 3 servers. During my gaming time, (US east time zone ) there are at best 250 players in the EU server and less than 200 in the US server. There is no way I can participate in any RVR with such low numbers if I insist on playing as France, because the RVR is over when I log in the EU server, and because there is no one playing this nation in the US server