Bach

I get what you are saying but CM = money, goods, labor and helpers. Just the promise of an SOL will often open any needed door for the puppet master player. (players with many Alts) Once you get up to a half dozen or more CM/day all the other problems of building SOLs will get solved for you. Think of CMs as a universal currency. It's essentially all you need.

It does matter from the point of view of cross teaming and all the nation destroying paranoia and dessention that goes along with it. Ideally you want clans to do what VLTRA did and team up to build big ships. But a handful of players using Alts can do the same thing. But to do this they need to be in your nation chat, in your port battles and using your Econ. Since you don't know where their true loyalties lay social problems develope. These build into game drama.

Huliotkd gets it. As long as CMs can be traded from player to player it is easier and better to have Alts in empty port battles across a few nations than to actually fight for them. The current system promotes Alts. Lets ts say I have a Brit, pirate and French character. In the center of the map are x3 French regions, x5 British, x4 pirate and some Spanish ones to be gobbled up. At any port battle I send which ever character my nation chats tell me is likely to win or I just send one on each side. I cant lose CMs and eventually I will be getting 20+ CM/day if not more. The problem is that this all leads to cross teaming becoming the norm and that crap destroyed POTBS.

Although you don't need 1st rates to conquer the Bahamas I think his point is that First rates are already in the game now on week 3. This means to compete outside the Bahamas the Pirates will need access to 1st rates. i think the Conquest marks test based on "what is lord" land ownership has failed. I think you forgot to take alt characters correctly into account. A player with Alts in multiple nations can build 1st rates two weeks after the conquest change by getting into each nations PB's and sharing the marks. I really think the number of mark producing regions needs to be restricted or marks made unable to be traded.

The battles shift from night to day and back again to fast. All that extreme gamma shifting on the computer screen is rough on the eyes for those trying to focus cannon shots. It's not really adding that much to the battles so please just slow it down so it's not so rough on the eyes.

All that needs to be done is reduce the number of regions that give conquest marks down to create competition. Then award marks for owning the ports and marks for attacking the ports. There are simply to many ports to go around to create any real competition. A few empty PB's will net all the marks you may ever need. The Dutch or Danes capturing undefended Spanish ports already gains them resources and refit access. It is already an award. if the x11 special land regions were the ONLY ones that awarded Conquest marks then true competition starts. To keep the combat going award marks to those 25 players that attacked the port on a one time basis. So attackers get marks for the attack. Owners get marks each day. It becomes best to own the port but if you can't own it attacking it is the next best thing to get conquest marks.

What for, cause they are getting out and getting PvP? Ya'll could to, if you left your little safe zone a bit. I hear there is a great big red nation right next to ya'll ripe for the picking.....oh yah ya'll are all buddy buddy and stuff? Could always attack say the French than? We have seen French, Brits, US, Pirates (FFA battles lol) and I heard some one even sunk a Spain and one dutch player too around our waters. I have raided KPR area myself with others. Caught some US traders in the shallow, if it's PvP you want you have to just get out there into others waters. So not really sure what your jelly about man If Pirates want to seriously harass KPR you will probably find it work a lot better if you capture the South Eastern coast of Cuba. Puerto Escondido or something like that. The new game makes repairs much more important to raiding. La Navasse is too restrictive and that southern Cuban coast has the resources to build on site. Good Luck! I do miss flying the black.

If every region gives conquest marks daily x 25 players each then there are going to be an HUGE amount of conquest marks floating around the game a month from now. I had assumed it was just those 11 regions to keep hvy rate ship production down. Even just 11 x 25 = 275 Conquest marks entering the game /day. That is x11 second rates/day. Not bad and reasonable. But every region giving CMs will produce dozens of hvy rate ships/day ???

Let me see if I'm following this new rule correctly. There are now 11 special ports that give Conquest marks daily to whom ever participated in the PBs to capture them. Other regions PBs still give resource and refit advantages but not Conquest Marks.Conquest Marks only buy Rate ship blue prints and permits. Everything else us bought with PvP or PVE marks. The 25 players that gained the mist hostility points have the best chance to get into the port battle if they chose to do so in the first two minutes. As long as the nation holds the port only the 25 players from the initial PB can get CMs. If I am reading this correctly it all looks pretty good to me. For example, I belong to a clan that primarily screens. This means I won't get any conquest marks ever if all I do is screen. But unless I'm screening in a rate ship I don't really need them anyway. The 11 special ports will become super valuable land areas fought over in PB's. This should be good for me as the more frequent PBs will give us more chances at PVP screening and OW countering hostility. Do I have this correct?

I got it as well and my write up also suggests its main sail bonus jib penalty.

If you are in a lone LGV being chased by two pirates, one with pirate refit and the other with Spanish, it is indeed a worst case scenario. But is it game unbalance? To achieve this situation some hurdles must be crossed. First the LGV must be traveling solo and away from shore batteries. Second, Pirate A must have come by a rare refit. Third Pirate B must have also come by a complimentary rare refit to the one Pirate A has. Possible but not all that likely untill much later in the game. To build a refit now requires items from the market in that specific region and a PVE drop from NPCs also harvested in that region. Though possible these are pretty tall hurdles. Now let's consider the fight. The LGV chooses its best wind and if good tags with range. In the ensuing chase one of the pirate ships will be advantaged and the other disadvantaged. So the LGV needs to figure out how to slow the one advantaged pirate while sailing away from the others. Not an easy task but not impossible for a good LGV captain. Other factors. We did not discuss if the LGV captain has prepared ahead of time. Does the LGV also have a rare refit? Did the LGV captain purposely not completely fill his cargo space to keep speeds up? Did the LGV reduce guns for speed? Did the LGV have the cargo space perk? This early after reset I do not think this in unbalanced. This might change later in the year when certain ref its may no longer be rare?

Just spend the perk points and sail with Area Control on if this is a big concern for you. I'm going to just remember to tap hit the wounded ship till we get around to sinking it. If I forget and he manages an escape to open sea good for him if we don't just grab him again. Escaping battle is neither a win nor a loss. Demoting players because they choose not to fight a particular battle is a bit extreme. It's back to the computer determining things vs. players. If a player decides not to fight its up to you to figure out how to get them. Not some invisible computer hand determining fights. We had plenty of that last year and it just doesn't work. If I had my way I would get rid of the current unrealistic computer enforced BR RoE. We would have more decisive battles if it did not exist.

It should be an interesting experiment with the new rules set. The fact you don't get xp or gold unless a battle is decisive puts the rewards in the hands of the Econ game. It makes Econ more important than Pvp fights in a way. As someone said above, we're not playing checkers anymore this is now chess or Risk. RvR is going to become as dependent on the Econ game of clans as much as their PvP prowess. We should see the OW ships shrink in size. We should see 1st rates become rare not only due to difficulty to build but the risk of loss. If you don't need 25 1st rates to get done what you can do with 25 Bellonas players will now go with the Bellonas. But more importantly we should see the Econ game grow and become more important than it was. Let's be honest, it used to be a joke. Whether this is a good thing or not remains to be seen. The fact you got no rewards after 90min of fighting didn't actually diminish the thrill of the fight or the entertainment value of the PvP. It simply didn't meet a predetermined expectation you had from previously playing a game that did hand out rewards. Players will need to find other means to support their PvP other than purely PvP. They will need to take part in other aspects of the game they used to ignore. Be it PVE, Econ or hauling for gold.

I don't think the issue is hauling capacity. A TBrigs will carry enough to make millions trading at first. I think the issue is that under the new patch rules the LGV is one of the best combat ships to start the game with when everyone doesn't have frigates capable of fighting them yet. Day one or two there would be LGV squadrons everywhere hunting players, flipping ports and hauling cargo. If the NPC sold them day one it would be the wonder ship everyone sails for combat and everything. When the testbed first opened with the new patch the first PvP kills were from groups of players combat hunting in LGVs. I'm certain LGVs and Indiamen will find there way into the game. But the new patch needs to go the first week or so without instant x3 skill slotted combat cargo frigates at the players finger tips.

I'm all for a check in game that doesn't let nationals sail a pirate frig. I think it would be a good. I built the Aggy on the test server before the new wood types. It's just oak. In the long game I see Heavy line ship dominating line ship PBs and heavy 4ths the 4th PBs. Not at first of course but we're destined to get there. When we do I think it would be good if raids were limited and therefor dominated by 5th rates. A lot of the 5th rates are better balanced than the 4ths anyway. Early on even 6th rates will prove good for cargo hunting. Right now everyone is still thinking of cargo in terms of Indiamen and LGV. But once players realize an alt mule with x4 Trader Cutters or TLynxs can carry 1600-2000 cargo upwind this is how important runs of Bermuda Cedar, White Oak and basically anything moved solo of high value is going to be moved. I like that there would be a special role for LS, 4ths, 5ths and even 6ths.

If I understand things the Raids will be pull a flag, goto point A, fight PVE and maybe PVP and collect loot. With the increased OW speed a Connie can easily keep up with my Frigate OW. My Agamemnon isn't much slower. I have to think players natures being what they are we will have many that just start bringing the biggest guns they can get into the raid. They will bring 4ths. Even though my x4 Slot Frigate will dance around an Agamemnon and handful of them spiking is still going to be enough of a problem were going to have to add some 4th rates to our side. Then as we each get more skill slots open on 4th rates all the raids will likely just become all 4th rates. I like the Raids confined to 5th rates. It makes a situation where the Pirate Frigate can be the baddest boat sailing the waves. Nationals would need to use expensive Indefs and Endy's to try to match or out gun it. It's certainly no guarantee but it makes Raiding something pirates may be naturally better at. That I like. Pirates need something they do best.

You know I get it. You haven't really been testing for a year. You've been playing and now you don't feel you should lose what you already had. A lot of us feel similar but in the end it was a game in testing and now it has changed. I'm not sure of your play style but from what I have seen on the test server I would suggest the following: If you play primarily solo - Join a large population nation and push for player markets. This will accelerate your ship building. When they come out with the published skill ladders obviously build just what gets your first three skills slots the fastest. Make sure the frig is in the same tree as the lineship you want. Preferable the slot 3 ship in the line ship ladder. Realistically the majority of the game wont be exceeding 3 skills slots in the first few weeks or even months if they keep switching ship types. So no one should ever be ahead of you in the skill ladders as long as you stick to your chosen frigate and line ship. If you play as a team - you have it made here. Working together 3 players can easily produce 4th rates and probably will have them by week 3 even casually. Once you have the 4ths it will spring board the progress into the Line ships as you begin to more successfully conquest. Again, being on an active RvR nation will help a lot in progression to line ships. Realistically a heavy RvR nation with medium to high population will be sailing line ships in the second month. They will see 1st and 2nd rates by the end of the third month depending on how hard they go at it.

I think Bart has a point here in that the nations do not appear to have been meant to be equals. In any event they wont be just due to player preference for Brits, Pirates and such fickle tendencies. As such there is really no point in the Devs trying to balance them. Instead it is far better if small nations adapt the strategies and tactics of a small nation. They may not be the "world shakers" the British may be but they can have just as much fun if not more being the "king makers" that swing the sides. There are strategies that wont work for Britain due to size and strategies that wont work for Pirates due to inconsistent player views of pirates. But small nations like Sweden and Denmark or whomever ends up being small a year from now can pull off these small team strategies. We just need to think out of the everything is equal and fair box.

You can teleport to your outposts that are not in free ports.

I was also testing on test bed and I do NOT agree with Sneaky Turtle on much of the stuff he is claiming testers wanted. He does not speak for me. I did not find 1 dura ships to be a problem. Second rates being hard to craft and expensive to lose I found to be a good thing Lack of easy ability to solo craft everything in the game is also a good thing. Resource gathering being more efficient on teams vs. solo was also a good thing. The Indiamen never was an issue. An LGV can carry almost anything you needed and the hold space on trader brigs was not far behind. Not sure why Sneaky Turtle thinks an Indiamen is a requirement for play. Both the Swedes and the French flipped ports. We found a six man team was enough to get over 50% hostility and we did it multiple times. France, Sweden, Dutch and Pirates all had ports beyond 30% on just test bed player numbers. Are you sure you were on the test server?

Perhaps for live release but I don't think any of that would stop pushing to the live servers to start testing with larger populations. Econ alone remains to be seen how it will react in the larger player pools as well as hostility gains. It is something we would need to know before release. As for the rest I would think it could be patched on the live server just as easily as the testbed. Though the nation swap is a bit of a tricky one.

You got a list of these? I haven't found anything left on testbed worth testing in small groups anymore.

We've more or less run out of small population things we can test on the testbed so the population has been dropping off. It seems ready for the live server.

The tested is running pretty solid with all the new skill and mods. Just a few bugs. Nothing I think would stop them from releasing on 5/15 or pretty close to it. I wouldn't put to much faith in the "get it perfect first" camp. Timing is as important in marketing as anything else. George Lucas was a mediocre writer that got his product out at the right time and place. Star Wars is not a great story and its full of plot holes. But the timing of its release in the late 1970s was ideal enough that the product didn't require perfection. Disney's Pirates of the Carribean 5 comes out 5/26. If the Devs have a sea battle game to offer them at the time that may be good enough. What may just happen is an overload of the NA character creations for captains named variant of Jack Sparrow.

The barter system is how most closed loop Econ systems work. We see this mostly in clans acting independent of national Econ. Basically player A trades cannon carriages to player B who pays by building a ship for player A. It actually hurts the Econ of the nation and slows ship production. The best method for a war economy is actually open loop trade with market hubs at industrial hubs. Here player A produces carriages in bulk with his materials and labor hours. He puts them up on a market for all the nation to access. Player B collects material from the market and only uses his labor hours to produce ships the nation uses and puts those up on the market. Player C produces Long and Carronades with his labor hour and puts those on the market. Gold is the common denominator that ties these all together and allows the market to work faster without individual player to player contracts. Now we could create an index of offered contracts that trade goods for goods. Players could shop thus index. It would work but not as fast or flexible at building ships as a gold based market. Reason is that player have to constantly review the index to find an exact mutual transaction first and then fill it. In the gold based trade hub they just put up their products whenever they want and adjust the gold price till it sells to some player that may not have the exact item player A wants at the time but has the gold. Player A can then take the gold and buy from player C that has the exact items he wants but does not actually want his carriages. If we could convince the players of a nation to drop the closed loop and self performed ship building models for instead creating open loop stocked national market hubs that nations ship building capacity would greatly increase.