Edward Canaday

I am about 90% in agreement with you, but what about the PVE server players? I no longer play there, but there are plenty of people that do and enjoy it. You're making the game yet more pointless for them. I'm not especially competitive, and don't feel a need to show everyone how big my...ship...is, but moved to a PVP server for the conquest possibilities that drive the game forward, with the understanding that I would have to deal with those groups of people that do DO want to show everyone how big their ship is, and PVP would be a necessity. I know this is a game designed by PVP minded folks, but put something in it to drive the game forward from a PVE perspective. As it stands, people on PVE basically have no reason to play once they have acquired riches and amazing ships. Put in end game missions and let those have some rare drops. I know PVP is life for a lot of you, but some of us just want to enjoy a beautiful game.

No, I don't want to sail around in a merchant vessel and pretend it's a man of war. I suggested the larger hold size because of the current setup with not being able to put items in fleet ships and not being able to send the captured vessel away with it's cargo intact. You argue against what ships couldn't do historically, but then suggest I sail around with a merchant vessel as an escort. That makes NO sense. Let me send the trading vessel away with it's holds full, add a small catastrophe chance, and take a small prize crew with it. That makes the most sense, and it's also historically what was done. I certainly wouldn't see a privateer, pirate, or Naval officer willingly send valuable cargo to the bottom of the ocean. You make a recommendation for a particular type of play. I want to sail, and take targets of opportunity, whether they be merchant vessels or enemy ships of war. My options shouldn't be limited by MY hold size, they should be limited by my available prize crews and my willingness to fight shorthanded.

So I know why ships of war have a smaller hold, you want to encourage captains to sail trading vessels when trading. That would in turn encourage more PVP throughout the world, and create a tension in the trader. I like this and don't want it taken away. What I DO want is a reason to actually use a man of war for my day to day sailing. As it stands now, I have to use an LGV (I don't have an indiaman) if I want to attack traders because of the size of the cargoes involved. If I take a frigate out (my ship of choice for these things), I have to stop and return to port every time I capture a ship. This also involves sending my ship of war back to port without me, taking command of the trader, and sailing it back all so I can make the capture profitable. All that set up complete; would it be possible to create a "captured cargo" section on a ship that has a much larger capacity, with more slots? This would allow people like me to stay out longer, sail farther, and actually enjoy the combat mechanics of the game instead of sailing for twenty minutes, make a capture, then turn around and sail back. If we can't do this, then allow the captured ship to be sent back with cargo still in its holds. I'm even ok with giving a small (should be fairly small, like 2-4%) chance of the ship RNGing on some bad weather, or being sunk or lost in any of a hundred ways. I know this is more of a PVE problem and these are usually ignored, but it is part of the game and it's a part that bugs me. I should be able to take at least two LGVs, or three or four smaller vessels, in my 4th or 5th rate ship before having to return to port.

Privateers were not pirates, not really. They were granted a letter of Marque that provided them the ability to engage and disrupt commerce of enemy nations. But the key fact here is that Privateers were officially sanctioned by their nation. They weren't pirates that one day decided to be privateers. It usually went the other way, Privateers that wanted more money and so started attacking off-limits shipping. In reality, all the "Nation" players are privateers because we are our own owners and captains. The nation doesn't tell us what to do, the nation doesn't provide ships for specific purposes.

Lets stay on topic, which is the removal of RNG on slots for upgrades. How did we suddenly change to raking mechanics? Aren't there like three threads running with that same topic?

Will this result in yet more Fine wood requirements?

I agree with this, save the exceptional ratings for either fleet level ships (SOLs and Frigate tenders), or that one ship that you sail above all others, love it and won't hesitate to put forth the effort (or cost) of making one exceptional. That being said, I'm working to get my blueprints (they don't transfer with you when you migrate servers), guess what level ship you need to build in order to get blueprints to drop. That's my biggest frustration right now. I'm building ships no one wants and therefore can't sell them. Wasting valuable resources in order to get BPs for the ships I actually want.

I believe I remember reading that the logistics (IT wise) would make it impossible currently. There would be a thousand ships a night sailing the oceans with player cargos. I think it should be harder. You want to switch nations? Leave, you get none of your stuff except what you can carry on one ship, and half your gold gets left behind. Take away the ability to re-roll and make them marked as traitors or turncoats to the nation they left. While I think the ability to change sides should exist, I think people do it all too much for small reason, and experience none of the loss a real traitor would have experienced. This isn't a simple immigration, it's joining the military might of an opposing Military Force. It's treason and should be treated as such.

Though I agree with the sentiment, I was one of those with VERY little pre-patch. I had a Frigate and a cutter. Maybe 20k in gold. I'm still broke, but mostly because all of my profits go back into crafting materials and ships. The big difference for me is my ambivalence towards exceptional anything and ships of the line. I'm pretty content with my basic connie for now (I was able to buy it in the shipyard, it was a default-placed ship), and have been steadily capturing other smaller ships to build up resources. I will say my intent is not Port Battles, at all. I'm privateering and crafting, almost exclusively. I'll help build hostility, but only because that involves taking, burning, or otherwise destroying enemy ships. Those three things give me money and/or resources, which I need to live. I haven't accepted a single red penny from anyone else. So yes, port battles will probably be in a lull for the first couple of months (or weeks depending on how many of you nerds don't have jobs or responsibilities), but life is by no means stagnant.

I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but this sounds like a cop-out. I've never experienced a failure to fire on PVP2. Does that mean I'll get more failures to fire on PVP1 due to "Wet powder"? I will caveat this by stating that on PVE, which is I believe EU based, the lag is usually in the form of seeing the visuals firing and the hits still count. But That's against stupid AI, not a player that is fully capable of making the use of decreased ping rates. As much as you say you make the game independent of bandwidth, some kind of connection must occur in a timely manner in order for my command to fire to be relayed to my opponent - which will translate as hits or misses. If the speed of my connection isn't fiber, how much am I going to suffer? Even if it's a matter of a second, that could mean every one of my shots misses the stern on a close stern rake. And to finish, I know it's all about the money and running a server is expensive. I also believe that upon full release with a good marketing campaign, people will start show up in PVP2. I guess it is all going to boil down to the bottom line, can it be profitable.

Changing the topic, I see the potential for the PVP2 server merge with PVP1 listed on the devlog for the next patch. For myself, I'm a bit worried about the outcome of that. PVP2 is a US server, I am in the US. I worry about the effects of transferring to an EU Based server. For my part, I don't mind the fairly low player base personally, though I know money is money. But if the ping rate is bad on PVP1, why would I continue to play when I would be at a disadvantage against EU players. It would be one thing if it didn't happen often, but I forsee people like me being targeted and destroyed out of hand simply because they don't have to wait for their signal to cross the maze of American networks, pass through the Atlantic fiber lines, then traverse the maze of EU networks, all to reach a server there. I know there are US players on that server, do any of you experience lag moments?

While I too hate pirates, I feel like this would hurt them way more than help. It also just turns them into mercenaries. Pirates were thieves and murders, not mercenaries. If you don't want them to craft ships, then there needs to be an alternative. Maybe allow them to build durability on ships, to extend their lifetimes, or maybe they can craft up to 5th rates, but have to capture anything else. The caveat to that is that the current trend of "Anything less than 3rd rate is garbage" has to go away with that. If you don't want them to own land or any ports, then there needs to be an alternative. A good idea COULD be to allow them to fly a false flag, thereby enter any port regardless of ship type, so long as they aren't recognized by a player. I think that the idea of individual hostility is a bit ridiculous and not in keeping with the concept of a pirate. Mortimer town should be a known pirate refuge, unable to be captured or destroyed. If you want to nerf certain aspects, then they need to have certain advantages. Players of other nations can smuggle into Mortimer Town, but under the fear that at any time they can be captured. However, Mortimer town should have restricted production values, so that trade is highly encouraged. That would add something for both sides to think about. High profit with a chance at losing your cargo vs. a nice cargo at the risk of scaring away your town's only chance at survival. I'm all for removing a known historical flaw(Pirates as a nation), but we don't want to make the largest playerbase unwilling to play.

The flip side is every merchant that buys a basic ship from one port, to sell it at another for ridiculously increased price...like 56k marked up to 300k. You're an asshole and you know it, and you're just trying to take advantage of people that don't know any better (i.e. new players) Mark it up 10 or 20k for a convenience fee and move on.

If you have a website that is actually filled out somewhat, sure! But most clans don't have that much in regards to resources. I was hoping more for a small blurb along the lines of "Heavily invested in the expansion of the Nation" Or "We don't take ourselves too seriously, we just want to have fun" or "We are all about helping new players". That seems to be the basic trend, aside from Craft-heavy or trade-heavy. But there's nothing indicating these things on the majority of the clan information provided. Does this make sense? It doesn't need to be information heavy necessarily, but if I'm looking for a clan, I'd like to know what I'm getting into before talking to someone. If I want to play casually, I probably shouldn't talk to someone that wants scheduled battles every week and demands constant attention.

Well I'm personally Great Britain, but I meant in a general sense. I'm sure I'm not the only one that's thought of this.

I'm not going to go the route of more name calling. I'm more interested in whether or not you understand (from a high level, not detailed) how application development works. It's a lengthy process. First you code out what you want. This is a series of (in my opinion) non-intuitive phrases that dictate how the application (in this case game) is supposed to react to a variety of actions. By variety of actions, I mean ANY action you can think of. Every button you click, ever item you see, has code affiliated to it Bear in mind I'm not even talking about graphics at this point, but just how the game reacts to input. So you've got this huge application, filled with code (which is really just language, we say code because that's what it friggin reads like, encrypted code) and you hope that it works. If you're a talented developer, it does work with only a 'few' bugs. Next you have to test, test, test. Testing can be a significant process, as we all know. Bugs show up at the strangest times, from the most off-the-wall occurances that you never really think of - at least until some nit-whit decides to do something that no rational human being would do. Then it's back to finding where the code went wrong. Keep in mind you have THOUSANDS of entries. They may be organized in a logical manner, but it's still a time consuming process. Then, once you think you've figured out the problem, you realize that the only possible solution affects six hundred other entries, and those have to be corrected as well before you can fix that ONE thing. This is a time consuming process. You don't like it, no one's forcing you to continue playing. If you want to play, however, stop being unforgivably rude and make constructive requests for things you'd like to see. As an addendum, your last little sentence there smacks of internet strength. Don't threaten people on the internet, it makes you seem like a twit and you never know what other people are capable of, some psycho may hunt you down and make a coat out of your skin.

I'll have to check that one out. I haven't heard of it. I skipped books, because some age of sail books are making a rise again and are not quite so one-sided towards the villains. I'm loving the Aubrey/Maturin series (Listen to them on the way to and from work every day), and there are a few other notables out there. But I think my statement still stands, bad guys are just considered the sexier choice in current pop culture.

Is there any way to get a kind of mission statement? I'm considering joining a clan, but would like to make sure I agree with the overall intent of the clan in question.

It's not quite the same, but I made a server transition just recently, and went from cutter to small frigate (Surprise) in a day (couple of hours, really), will have an exceptional Frigate by tomorrow so long as my warehouse is still there. If you have the level, the rest is fairly easy. I will say it was nice to get a fresh start, get a new appreciation for smaller vessels and being penniless.

This sounds counter-intuitive, but I'm a big fan of "Silence fore and aft!" Perhaps at the end of a run of random talk.

I can tell you that answer easily. Being a bad guy is sexy. Look at every Age of Sail movie and video game of recent history. I can only think of one that isn't either glorifying piracy, or making the ruling nation out to be the bad guy - Master and Commander. And even that is pushing it, Maturin in that movie was so anti-tyranny that he argued vehemently against Jack's right to rule the ship (kind of), and was in favor of Mutiny when justified. Now how many movies or games can you easily recall that favor piracy? All of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, Cutthroat Island, the Assassin's Creed game, Black Sails. Then you look at our current pop culture and what shows are receiving wide appeal. Shows like Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, etc. Being bad is the new good. I personally don't agree with the concept, but the appeal is there. "Be Morally bankrupt without any real repercussion" ....I may have gone on a bit of a tangent. Sorry

I don't have much ambition or drive to be "the best", I really just approach this game to play and have fun. That being said, I frequently see posts about Pirates feeling like everyone is against them. Some pirates thrive on it, and those I applaud. You're a pirate - the definition of a pirate is "someone who attacks and steals from ships at sea". So do that, and have fun. But don't expect a Nation to back you.You are criminals, historically speaking, EVERY Nation would hunt and kill pirates, without remorse. Piracy is and always has been considered extremely criminal - Despite the fact that privateers were basically legalized pirates. A real Pirate was fair game for everyone. If you're tired of being targeted by all parties, don't be a pirate. If you thrive on the constant aggression and want to be at war with all nations, then be a pirate! If you want to take part in diplomacy, legal warfare, and alliances, then join a Nation and do the Empire thing. Pirates are - according to patriots - scum and deserve to be hanged. Long story short, be what you are, and stop trying to make your "Nation" something it's not. Bear in mind, this isn't a discussion on Port battles, or expanding your "nation's" interest. If you're a pirate and are able to take ports, I could care less. Just don't complain when many other nations are naturally inclined to attack and destroy you.

This small paragraph is the most succinct and intimidating paragraph I've read on these forums. No bragging, no chest beating. Short, to the point, deadly. Well done sir.

I like the idea, not sure if I love the multiple choice. The guy knows three things but will only tell you one...I'd throw him back in the ocean, ungrateful wretch. I do like the idea that there would be more than just shipwreck data, but maybe make the survivor only have one of the three (or however many). RNG on what info he gives, but now you're not playing a "choose your own adventure" scenario. All that being said, I would love for this to be incorporated!

The only real problem I see with this (And this may be restricted to me) is that I have a heck of a time using the glass when I'm in open world. We're moving too fast in relation to one another, and the panning is not perfected yet.