Bach

Poking around the EU merge idea. They have about 80 late PST to 450 early EST and of course the weekend have almost double that. The only nations worth joining in North American times would be GB, US and PR. Currently PR are true pirates living out of neutral cities. GB is a strong RvR nation. US is a weak RvR nation. EU time Swedes and Danes are dominant on the server with Spain and GB close. If we divided in with the stronger clans going US/Pirates and those not as confident going GB we could balance out well. EST will get a lot more action and we all would on the weekends. Ping is certainly an issue for AUSZ and CCCP. But to be honest, its not like we're getting to play with them all that much on Global either.

Here is a wild idea. We could all just do our own server merge and go to PvP EU. Right now they have 125 in our time zone and we have 160. We could make it 285. PvP would come back and the weekend RvR would be incredible! Seriously, think about it. There isn't really any RvR on PvP Global to be missed anyway. Am I right. We could even join the predominantly English speaking nations and divide into Brit, USA and Pirates. It's essentially the exact same thing we have been talking about dividing into but with a few hundred spare players running around and over 500 on the weekends.

You have a point on the noobs hauling and mission running. So perhaps South America will work better. But as far as "the long trip" its really not the case. The free ports are already well stocked with supplies and I have 8 of them as out posts. No one actually sails long distance. You sail a BCutter half way and since you don't own any ports in between you just attack an NPC then surrender and it teleports you to the next free town in the path. Rinse and repeat and you can cross the map in half the time as long as you don't own ports in between. I could write a small guide on living out of free ports. But that is for another time. We need to get the fun back into our server.

As much as I enjoy the back and forth banter and chest thumping the server is currently at 158 players when it used to be over 300. Its getting lower every week. The banter isn't really progressing towards fixing anything. You cant force players to RvR any more than you can force them to PvP if they really don't want to. Those aren't solutions.

I feel it needs to be more than just a random pvp area. Needs to be something with RvR potential as well. George Town isn't really good for all that. South America all along Maricabo maybe. What might be better is if we set up around Haiti and then we all contested for Haiti in RvR and PVP support it. With the land mass in the center there would be more moving dynamics than just converging in a center spot. In that case probably Saint Iago, Ponce, San Juan and KPR. If the idea is that the port isn't captured it doesn't matter if a home port is in the mix. As I write this we're patrolling Mortimer Town now. So its not like giving up any of those ports around your home port are actually making a difference. Loosen up a bit.

Back to topic The teams need to get mixed up/consolidated if we want each nation to be viable in each style of play. RvR, PvP, Econ and time zones. If you want a shrunken map all we need do is get each competing nation a port near the center of the map that no one captures. This is essentially a shrunken map. RvR is relatively meaningless as we can all still build ships and such even if we only have the home county. If you want players to invest the time to RvR there needs to be some reward to it. Make an ante of gold or whatever to a winnable pot and let players contest over that somehow. No one is actually going to start RvR just because you wait and wait and wait for them too. They either see value in that style of play or they don't. Spreading out the RvR players will certainly help. PvP needs ships on the waters and more players willing to take a risk. Again, spreading out such minded players will certainly help. I'm sorry but on Global we just don't have the population to support x8 nations competitively. We need to be willing to move to a smaller number to create competitive nations. France cannot really ally with Pirates. This only looks good from the RvR conquest board. In reality and under the current server conditions it would create an almost unstoppable total war machine. The division would need to be by play styles and time zones.

We need to pick dodge ball teams and create our own arena for "king of the hill" and such. Seriously. We need the major clans to sit down and hammer out a mix of who joins which nations to create better competitive teams. Some nations will need to be purposely left out of the mix until population improves. Then we need to agree to get each competitive nation one county near the center of the map we all agree not to take so that player can teleport in. It would also be good to determine an RvR target that we can all fight over for those that like that. Each nation could ante up a prize fee going to the winner each cycle. Again, if population improves we can always just go back to the way it was. But until then if we get together and create teams that contain players with the essential elements for RvR, PvP and econ logistics across 3-4 competitive nations we can probably improve the game remarkably. Suggestion: Dump Spain, Sweden, Dutch and delegate the pirate team to pure scally wags. Divide the rest of us into Britain, France, USA and Danish. Then pick regions to contest over for prize money. *** Using Spain over Danes would be more historically accurate but you would have to like that sort of thing.

Yes and just today one of your clan mates was using his French alt to entice newbie French to escort his cargo ship into his pirate main character and trap. Players don't find this sort of thing sporting. Some consider it cheating and the refuse to play. Player choices and actions have as much or more to do with player retention as any rules or more. The RvR game isn't forcing anyone to one port nations. That is a player choice. If you left each nation one port near the center of the map you would essentially have your shrunken Carribean.

@ the admin and OP I've been weighing a lot of factors before really forming an opinion on this proposed change. I think it's got some good potential but I also do not think it will generate the desired results of player retention and increase the fun. I'll keep this short. It does not appear that players actually play the game mostly for RvR. It also does not appear the majority play for PvP. Both are simply various things they can do in game. The best way I can describe it is this. After the wipe players filled the seas leveling ship classes, making money and setting new Econ chains and clans. They also RvR and PvP some while the seas were busy with activity. Then, like most MMO's the max leveled their ships, completed their crafting chains and established their clans. Then they started dropping off. Like it or not it isn't the RvR and PvP that attracts them no matter what they say. It's the building of the characters is some strange way. I think you could simply introduce new ships or areas of the map and attract just as many players for just as long as you would making this whole clan war change. It simply doesn't address the players real concerns. Which appear to be, again like it or not, new content to explore and build. i think you could get all the good points of the new system by simply: Letting nations occasionally green on green in some method of temporary civil war. Taking port conquest back to one port at a time. Give each nation an uncapturable port near the center of the map. Continue having the entire starting county uncapturable for each nations new players.

The game does not force night flips or one porting. Both are player choices. What the devs did do was make it so one porting a nation has minimal effects on it. Which it did. Global France may not have a lot of ports but we can still build any ships we want and were on the kill leader boards everyday. The problem is players sitting on discord or similar services and only logging into the game to do Port Battles. We all reached top end ships so the Econ slowed down. With less players leveling ships, doing Econ and advancing RvR less players are on the sea available for PvP. RvR players logging in only to RvR are essentially just using the position and gear to hold the rest of the nations down. So less RvR and PvP. This is all primarily due to players maxing out end game and then choosing to play in ways that minimize PvP and risk. The Devs will never be able to fix that and we're not going to force anyone to fight in a game that doesn't really want to. I can't help but laugh everytime I read a proposed solution that is....."Do this and they will have to do that." No they don't. It's just a game. It's about being fun and not about being forced into anything. Make the game fun and they will play forever. If they are leaving now it's because the fun from last months wore off. RvR is just a tiny piece of the game. It probably has very little to do with why people really quit.

Currently the only method of RvR is the port battle. Ths slows the game down once player reach top end gear as there is no need for strict RvR players to do anything but PB play. So in the course of few days of gaming they may only log in 1-2hours to flip a port and 1.5 hours to PB it. End game becomes less and less about being at sea as there is only one method to RvR. If fact this effect is worse when one nation becomes dominant in PBs. Suggestion: add another way to RvR. (Defensive RvR) Ports that have been captured can "Revolt" and return to the original owner if that nation continuously sinks enemy NPC shipping/players off the coast. If the hostility on the port rises 20% per day in three sequential days (something like that) the port with revert to original map owner without a port battle. This will keep dominant factions from just sitting on captured ports and only logging in for the defensive PBs they are likely to win. This will encourage them to maintain an OW presence on captured territory or at least counter the hostility increases. Putting more ships on the sea and giving small groups the ability to get ports back through OW RvR.

One of the flaws in the RvR game aspect is that it does not require a sustained open world presence to succeed. You can literally log in for a 1-2hour flip and log off and then log in again the next day for 1.5 hour PB. There is no need to play the game in the hours in between if all you are going to do is the PBs. No one is hiding or any of that stuff. They are just playing other games waiting for the next PB. With the teleports still in game its only a matter of sailing the seas to build up the RvR fleet. After that you don't even need to be on the seas. You can just sit in the ports until its time with minimal if any OW movement required. Game needs some tweaks. One of those tweaks is some addition to RvR that occurs slow over time on the OW. There needs to be more methods of RvR than just the PBs

NA needs more diversity in the ways players can RvR. Use the old flag system to allow players to purchase invasion flags and sail them to the port to be invaded. If the flag makes it to port an invasion battle takes place. Only instead if a ship battle this takes place as a land battle using the current boarding system and the number of troops brought to the port verses the garrison troops stationed at the port. Give port Lords the ability to garrison troops and build defenses from the tax base. Have the morale level of each port determined by the tax rate of the people and any goods given to them by the port Lord to boost morale. Troops or soldiers should be a commodity players can build, outfit and delivery in the cargo hold of merchant/troop ships This will allow more diversity in the ways we RvR and put in a badly needed counter to RvR by 1st rate only system we have. Could be combined with raiding attacks that either weakens the garrison and robs tax base. Delivery of troops and extra garrison could take place over a 24hr period after battle is triggered giving off hours players a chance to contribute and generating OW PvP potential to stop troop deliveries.

The anti-revenge fleet mechanics still takes care of that. You can camp the battle but they are still coming out of it invisible and at extremely high speed. A camp is really just a revenge fleet.

I can deal with the ocean outside the home port being filled with cutlasses. That is more a function of missions being to close to home ports anyway. I prefer game fixes that allow players to make choices and adjust their play to solve their own problems. Hard coded mechanics, no matter how well intended, often just lead to secondary problems. Like the anti-revenge speed/invis mechanic being used as a gank tool that we are talking about now. Increasing join timers till everyone on half the map gets in, teleports at ends of battles become transportation tools and positional exits become hidden movement methods. Simply let us see the battle, see the color red change to know players in it are not engaged in combat and then let us choose if we risk it or not. These are things we should be able to see on the OS anyway for realism. Spotters in the ports would see the x6 ships anchored off the port. They would know if they are engaged in combat or not.

Good to see you Yanks out there mixing it up!

They are pretty long now though. Doing sequential battles is tricky on coasts as ships can almost already hop from port to port protected. I do see you point though on the value of the anti-revenge mechanic. I amended the suggestion to just be persistent cross swords that turn red for a warning signal to those on the OW.

There seems to be a lot of drama lately regarding and old tactic that has returned in a slightly new form. The Invisible pop out ambush. We used to have pages of threads complaining about players popping out of ports and battles to gank others that couldn't see them coming. This lead to a bunch of anti-gank rules changes and so forth so new players, that didn't under stand the mechanics, had a chance to avoid it. Well it's back. Today players use a look out alt of the target nation and use two different nations in the attack group. The attack group can generate a battle between themselves they have no intention of fighting. This then generates an invisible safe space to hide in the ocean anywhere they want it placed for up to 90min at a time. When the look out sees a patrol fleet the ambushers stay safe in their private instance and it sails right past them. If the lookout sees a target, usually a noob that doesn't realize the lookout isn't really on his team, they pop out. ONLY today the anti revenge fleet mechanic also gives them super intercept speed and invisibility. Makes it almost impossible to escape them as they likely appear right on top of the target due to increased anti-revenge speed. So thus is the new meta gaming gank tactic. Suggestion: Make the open ocean "cross swords" persistent for the whole battle and have them turn color to RED whenever a players inside can exit the battle but hasn't. As much as I hate messing with other players ability to ambush, the new player drama from falling victim to what they tend to view as an exploit is unfortunately very high.

Your timeline is accurate. I only have two points to add. France was not surprised the Danes attacked. It was expected. This thread is simply about them not honoring the 72hr notice in our treaty with them. France has been prepared for being one ported since the Danes first attacked us. For us it has always been a potential reality Now you ask WHY does France attack the Pirates. It's as simple as this. There would be no competition on this server and it would fade into stagnation, as players leave, if someone doesn't balance the Pirate teams current dominance. You need an opponent.

Kill Board seems to indicate the Danes need the travel advisory the most. Well done French captain. o7

I think every nation has or occasionally gets the very vocal players. I'm not sure what, if anything, could ever be done about it. For competitive gamers it's like the rivalry between two sports teams. But it can get out of hand. Rivalry in itself isn't a bad thing. Actually, I think if we were allowed to see the data we would see that PB often contain very little actual PvP. It can be there but in my experience it seldom is. Either one team doesn't show up. One team shows up with a clearly superior force or after the first few loses one team opts to withdraw. I think very few PBs actually come down to knock down drag em out ship slaughters. But we do tend to see more bloody battles in OW battles. I'm not saying one is better than the other. Each players have their fancy. One caveat, before 1st rates became prolific I think we actually had bloodier PBs.

There are a lot of good points in the above and I think there are deeper cause and effect issues. For example:. If ports are flipped on a nation off hours they can't very well choose to be PB players even if they wanted too. The initial Dane war with its off hours PBs probably had as much to do with France becoming an OW PVP nation as the French players themselves. Perpetual alliances are not good for the game. They are essentially stagnating factors that keep drawing the servers society back into the same polarized tendencies. "No fighting" alliances are actually totally counter productive and stagnating. Teleporting is actually bad for the RvR game. <ducks thrown objects>. I know you don't want to hear it but teleporting is a tricky thing. It helps to increase PvP but at the same time it serves to limit a RvR diversity. A lot of these factors influence the likely paths players tend to choose.

There actually isn't much there. We went there last night and only saw one other French player the whole time. We encountered several Pirates running with a Swede but they had no stomach for a fight and ran off. We did a lap around the entire Antilles and saw nothing but the same swede keeping an extreme distance in his Endy. There is nothing really here to be had. It's all no risk tactics without any fights. Have to figure out something else to do before it gets too boring.

Why not bring a Death Star fleet? It depends on your goals. If the goal is to hold the dot then yes the D Star fleet is certainly the call but it almost guarantees no fight vs. opponents without similar fleet. If the goal is PvP one does not actually bring a bazooka to a knife fight. So far you have stacked all the oceanic zone players into one nation and you have night flipped three ports. You have surrendered Mortimer Towns waters. Let's not mince words here. BLACK is clearly a top notch RvR guild. But you not the pinnacle of PvP. You built an RvR machine and its a good one. But from my point of view it has to get boring and stagnant at some point because on this server it's pure RvR over kill. As to all that WO and KoC stuff I can not speak on that. It's between you and them. I like most of the pirate players I meet. Even the ones I sink. I love playing like a pirate and I guess in that sense we've turned France into a piratical nation and not so much RvR. But it is what it is.

I'm pretty sure none of us care that the end result was war with Denmark. AUSEZ or SCAR the end result is they just flip one more off hour port than before. We could shoot the Dutch as Dutch and now we can shoot them as Danes. ICS are out of France and now we can shoot them too. Swedes were harassing the crap out of us and now we can shoot them. Danes finally have US prime time players. From the PvP stand point this is a win win for both France and Denmark. The "Pearl Harbor" issue is as it was the honor of the agreement. That agreement called for a 72hr notice before CCCP began attacking. That is the point where everyone is pointing and saying "Ha, we knew you couldn't stick too it". The original arguement was that the Danes said France broke the agreement while France said the Danes made the agreement in bad faith. The drama here is just a continuation of that same old argument on "treaty honor." Basically it's a big "I told ya so" gloat. But not undeserved. There is no coalition of US, GB, France. The only agreement is a gentlemens agreement that if they are shooting pirates in pirate waters we don't shoot them. But everywhere else is fair game. It's simply a "the enemy of my enemy is my ally" sort of thing. That couldn't possibly surprise you and I'm sure you expected as much as soon as Pirates established dominance over USA and Brit while allied to Danes. What other choice was there that could possibly challenge you?