Pirate Economy

[Poe]

Instead of shoehorning pirates in with nationals you guys should use it as an opportunity to make pirates more unique.

 

Let pirates trade and live out of free ports, thats it.  We all do anyway for the most part.

 

Let pirates get x2 or x3 the amount of "break down" goods when we scrap a ship and let us get x2 the lewt when we take a trade ship to power our economy.

 

This way we can still get enough stuff coming in to make ships without having to be saddled with being a nation.  The more Pve orientated pirates can go pirate and "farm" and sell stuff to cover the losses of the more Pvp based pirates.

 

If you want to change colors of dots on a map then fly a flag with some colors on it.  If you just want to watch the world burn... Well then fly the Black.

Edited February 24, 2016 by Poe

[Taralin Snow]

Pirates should get to use neutral ports also, and they should have the ability to raid a national port and turn it into a neutral one.

[William the Drake]

Pirate Economy needs to be parasitic. It needs to be unique. Been saying it since day one. It needs to happen soon before Pirates just become another nation.

• An Approach to Piracy
• Pirate Havens, Port Security, and Trade Regulations
• Port Raid: The Pirate End-Game

[Lord Roberts]

hahaha no. 

[Bigvalco]

 

If you want to change colors of dots on a map then fly a flag with some colors on it.  If you just want to watch the world burn... Well then fly the Black.

 

 I see a red dot and I want to paint it Blaaack....   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4irXQhgMqg

 

 But talk about "shoehorning" don't take away my ability to fight conquest, just because I'm a pirate doesn't mean that I shouldn't be able to participate in a fundamental part of the game. I keep saying it over and over, don't remove features to make us unique, add features (Carrot vs Stick argument).

[Babble]

 I see a red dot and I want to paint it Blaaack....   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4irXQhgMqg

 

 But talk about "shoehorning" don't take away my ability to fight conquest, just because I'm a pirate doesn't mean that I shouldn't be able to participate in a fundamental part of the game. I keep saying it over and over, don't remove features to make us unique, add features (Carrot vs Stick argument).

I think its a good is idea and apparently many people agree.  If you would like to compete in RVR there are several nations that could use your help.

 

As they stand now pirates are simply another nation. 

[Poe]

I think its a good is idea and apparently many people agree.  If you would like to compete in RVR there are several nations that could use your help.

 

As they stand now pirates are simply another nation. 

 

 

A lot of people want to be trader pirates or nation building pirates, on PvP 2 there a gaggle of pirates that want nothing more than to flip dots...

 

I don't get why they would want to do that as pirates as "Nation Building" and "Pirate" are words I have a hard time putting together in the context of the Caribbean.

[Babble]

A lot of people want to be trader pirates or nation building pirates, on PvP 2 there a gaggle of pirates that want nothing more than to flip dots...

 

I don't get why they would want to do that as pirates as "Nation Building" and "Pirate" are words I have a hard time putting together in the context of the Caribbean.

Because they think they are Jack Sparrow and don't understand the concept of a pirate, or somehow think because they are a pirate they are cooler then the Nationals.

[Bach]

I see a red dot and I want to paint it Blaaack....   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4irXQhgMqg

 

 But talk about "shoehorning" don't take away my ability to fight conquest, just because I'm a pirate doesn't mean that I shouldn't be able to participate in a fundamental part of the game. I keep saying it over and over, don't remove features to make us unique, add features (Carrot vs Stick argument).

The nations need to be balanced. The pirates don't and that is part of what makes them Piratey. If you want to paint dots your doing it wrong. Join a low pop nation and balance out the national conquest aspect of the game and the map wars will really start to sing.

I know you may not agree but the BEST thing the Devs could do for the Conquest aspect of the game is remove the pirates ability to compete in it as a nation. The pirates should be unique and doing piratey things. If the nation builders in the pirates had all joined Spain, for example, we would be having a much healthier conquest game at the moment. Capturing the Bahamas would be a waste of time so no one would bother and the pirates would be living and raiding in the middle of three fluctuating war fronts. It would be huge chaotic fun to be a pirate.

[Leviathan]

As they stand now pirates are simply another nation. 

 

Not just another nation...one of the 2 largest nations with a massive shipbuilding operation.

 

Because they think they are Jack Sparrow and don't understand the concept of a pirate, or somehow think because they are a pirate they are cooler then the Nationals.

I know we joke about this a lot, but if they acted more like Jack Sparrow it would at least be closer to the real thing than the massive empire that's roaming the seas currently. At least he stole things instead of crafting them.

 

 

I think we missed the target by initially allowing players to choose pirate instead of encouraging acts of piracy to become one. As others have said they are much closer to a real nation than groups of raiders wreaking havoc on trade and commerce.

 

Many of us assumed by default that the pirates would compete among themselves therefore limiting their ability to organize and work effectively in larger numbers. From what I've seen so far this isn't the case and they are as organized as any other nation.

 

I'm not against pirates and If it wasn't for the US being added to the game I planned to go pirate for the unique and challenging gameplay, but to be honest I don't think I would in it's current form.

[eriks]

Historically there was one shipyard in the Caribbean capable of building large ships. Havana.

 

The idea of lots of big frigates getting built in a place like Mortimer Town or Nassau is silly. The idea that all the materials to build something like a Cerebus fit in the hold of a single Trader Snow is also silly.

[Poe]

 

I think we missed the target by initially allowing players to choose pirate instead of encouraging acts of piracy to become one. As others have said they are much closer to a real nation than groups of raiders wreaking havoc on trade and commerce.

 

 

 

I said that myself every pirate should start as a national and murder his way into the occupation.  Doesn't seam garner much support thou.

[Prater]

Instead of shoehorning pirates in with nationals you guys should use it as an opportunity to make pirates more unique.

 

Let pirates trade and live out of free ports, thats it.  We all do anyway for the most part.

 

Let pirates get x2 or x3 the amount of "break down" goods when we scrap a ship and let us get x2 the lewt when we take a trade ship to power our economy.

 

This way we can still get enough stuff coming in to make ships without having to be saddled with being a nation.  The more Pve orientated pirates can go pirate and "farm" and sell stuff to cover the losses of the more Pvp based pirates.

 

If you want to change colors of dots on a map then fly a flag with some colors on it.  If you just want to watch the world burn... Well then fly the Black.

 

 

For this massive advantage, pirates would have to have significant disadvantages in other aspects.  Let's also not forget that the pirates currently get Pirate Frigates, which is an upgrade and better version of the normal Frigate/Cherubim that nationals can't get unless a pirate sells them one or they capture one.

 

Seriously, the game mechanics right now already favor the pirates.  They can fight anyone, which means even in down time they can just fight their clanmates to practice pvp and have fun.  2nd, they get fictional upgraded version of ships which would have never existed. 

 

What advantage do nationals get?  None.

[ajffighter86]

Not just another nation...one of the 2 largest nations with a massive shipbuilding operation.

 

I know we joke about this a lot, but if they acted more like Jack Sparrow it would at least be closer to the real thing than the massive empire that's roaming the seas currently. At least he stole things instead of crafting them.

 

 

I think we missed the target by initially allowing players to choose pirate instead of encouraging acts of piracy to become one. As others have said they are much closer to a real nation than groups of raiders wreaking havoc on trade and commerce.

 

Many of us assumed by default that the pirates would compete among themselves therefore limiting their ability to organize and work effectively in larger numbers. From what I've seen so far this isn't the case and they are as organized as any other nation.

 

I'm not against pirates and If it wasn't for the US being added to the game I planned to go pirate for the unique and challenging gameplay, but to be honest I don't think I would in it's current form.

It definitely wasn't as unique and challenging as I thought it would be. I wasn't expecting a million fellow pirates either. I think difficulty should be a major factor in pirate faction gameplay, so we can thin out the herd a bit.

 

Once upon a time, there were as many pirates as British sailors in the Caribbean. — . . .said no history book ever.

Edited February 24, 2016 by ajffighter86

[Bach]

I like the idea of pirates not being a nation that can be chosen. They should have to murder their way into it and then live of the frontiers of society raiding and such. There is absolutely no need for them to be nations or even build/sail ships larger than a pirate frigate. They don't need to be a nation and removing them as such would help the competitive populations of the nations that should be land grabbing.

[worst2first]

Pirates need unique game play mechanics that are completely different from those of the other nations. Pirates should not be engaged in empire building. That is simply absurd.

 

Pirates should be a prestige class that present a unique experience. Playing a pirate should be more difficult than playing for a legitimate nation but should also have unique rewards.

 

One suggestion I've made is that pirates should have the ability to develop ports (havens) that players of the other nations cannot see on the main map. In order to discover them, national players would have to get very close. Pirate havens should not be subject to capture but could be destroyed by national forces. Pirates could also move their haven with all of its resources but this would take some time to accomplish. This could lead to an interesting cat and mouse dynamic where the nations scout and search for pirate havens and the pirates consider whether to stay and fight or relocate. I think this would be fun and more in line with how pirates historically functioned. 

[Leviathan]

One suggestion I've made is that pirates should have the ability to develop ports (havens) that players of the other nations cannot see on the main map. In order to discover them, national players would have to get very close. Pirate havens should not be subject to capture but could be destroyed by national forces. Pirates could also move their haven with all of its resources but this would take some time to accomplish. This could lead to an interesting cat and mouse dynamic where the nations scout and search for pirate havens and the pirates consider whether to stay and fight or relocate. I think this would be fun and more in line with how pirates historically functioned. 

These are the types of ideas we need when it comes to pirates. Less national shipbuilding empire and more of this.

Since these would be off the map it would offer a nice ambush spot to attack unsuspecting traders.

[Poe]

For this massive advantage, pirates would have to have significant disadvantages in other aspects.  Let's also not forget that the pirates currently get Pirate Frigates, which is an upgrade and better version of the normal Frigate/Cherubim that nationals can't get unless a pirate sells them one or they capture one.

 

Seriously, the game mechanics right now already favor the pirates.  They can fight anyone, which means even in down time they can just fight their clanmates to practice pvp and have fun.  2nd, they get fictional upgraded version of ships which would have never existed. 

 

What advantage do nationals get?  None.

 

I would have thought the lack of any ports other than "free" would have been enough?

 

I am going to assume that not only are you not a pirate and you don't fight pirates either. We banned pirate frigs from port battles because they have such god awful sailing characteristics. And this coming from a pirate that really wanted to love that ship... Its dookie.  A constitution is a more nimble ship, at that tier the plain Frigate is much better in practice.

 

Currently I believe pirates don't get xp for murdering other pirates, I assumed it was deliberate as its something they keep turning off in the patch notes.  Its pure spite if you put the black spot to someone, and with the current mechanics of joining the battle almost never done anyway.

[Dickbeard]

Personally i would hate not being able to sail anything larger than a pirate frigate. This would put us at a huge disadvantage to say the least. If we cannot build them at least allow us to cap them and possible up the durability through a one time purchase. Also would be nice if we had pirate specific upgrades since they would often heavily modify the ships for increased speed and such. Maybe even change the base stats for the ships.

[Lord Roberts]

It's funny how the Pirates are both the 2nd second largest faction/nation on both PVP 1 and PVP 2, it's clear that the Pirate system in this game is extremely bias towards pirates and needs a complete reform, they should not have near to everything other nations have, they have no limits at the moment, only thing different is that they can't use neutral ports which doesn't really matter to pirates.

Edited February 24, 2016 by Lord Roberts

[KrakkenSmacken]

I like the idea of pirates not being a nation that can be chosen. They should have to murder their way into it and then live of the frontiers of society raiding and such. There is absolutely no need for them to be nations or even build/sail ships larger than a pirate frigate. They don't need to be a nation and removing them as such would help the competitive populations of the nations that should be land grabbing.

 

I really don't see any advantage to this method of selecting to be a pirate.  Murdering team mates, or national AI is easy.

 

One of the things we should lack is missions.  Having a pirate "admiralty" equivalent that lets you mission farm for XP and Gold is silly. To compensate for that, bonus XP for ship capture should be given.

 

As for nation building, well we don't need it. If we could fly the colors of a captured ship and dock at that nations port until the ship was marked as "reported" for example, then we would be able to parasite and have a good reason to.

 

If we could additionally raid a port to switch it to neutral, have little or no "Flag" costs, and attack ports without warning, and instead of being banned from neutral ports be the ports we are allowed to use but not defend, then Pirates doing pirate things such as they are would be the mechanism by which large nations could be forced to keep on their toes.

 

Getting top of the line ships would not be by crafting, but rather by stealing them from the shipyards of the ports we raid.

 

A constant scourge that you never know where and when they are going to show up. 

 

Certainly not the same nation mechanics currently set up.

[William the Drake]

First and foremost: This comes up every time there is a major pirate discussion, and it is just plain false. Almost never, 99.9% of the time no one, I repeat no one is proposing that pirates not be allowed to pilot large(er) ships. Perhaps limits on producing them, but not piloting them. This is almost always brought up by pirates who actually want to be Nats as an argument that people want to nerf pirates. It's not, and they don'. So stop it!

 

You want to conquer ports and make an empire? You want to have huge line-battles and drawn-out port battles? You want to have a huge faction-based economy and churn out mass amounts of vessels to take part in said huge Port battles? Then go play a nation. The issue in PotBS wasn't the restriction on pirates only being able to command only up to 3rd rates, but rather the fact that it was all we had to compete against Nats and their 1st rates. We shouldn't have been competing with nats in Line-battles in the first place.

 

Anywho, yes, Pirates need  a major re-haul if we want to be anything other than a carbon-copy of the Nationals. The issue is not only that because they are continuing to grow, thus meaning any change will be harder to implement, but also the fact that there seems to be no interest on this issue from the devs whatsoever. I have yet to see them comment/discuss any unique pirate mechanic suggested as of yet. It needs to happen soon, otherwise the pirate playerbase will be too large and too content with the current Nation-esque system to be able to successfully change it. 

 

 

I really don't see any advantage to this method of selecting to be a pirate.  Murdering team mates, or national AI is easy.

 

Yes, but it still offers some sort of hurdle to becoming pirate, and even that may be enough to begin creating even a minimal siphon on the pirate population. More on this here:

• Going on the Record

Edited February 26, 2016 by William the Drake

[KrakkenSmacken]

 

First and foremost: This comes up every time there is a major pirate discussion, and it is just plain false. Almost never, 99.9% of the time no one, I repeat no one is proposing that pirates not be allowed to pilot large® ships. Perhaps limits on producing them, but not piloting them. This is almost always brought up by pirates who actually want to be Nats as an argument that people want to nerf pirates. It's not, and they don'. So stop it!

 

You want to conquer ports and make an empire? You want to have huge line-battles and drawn-out port battles? You want to have a huge faction-based economy and churn out mass amounts of vessels to take part in said huge Port battles? Then go play a nation. The issue in PotBS wasn't the restriction on pirates only being able to command only up to 3rd rates, but rather the fact that it was all we had to compete against Nats and their 1st rates. We shouldn't have been competing with nats in Line-battles in the first place.

 

Anywho, yes, Pirates need  a major re-haul if we want to be anything other than a carbon-copy of the Nationals. The issue is not only that because they are continuing to grow, thus meaning any change will be harder to implement, but also the fact that there seems to be no interest on this issue from the devs whatsoever. I have yet to see them comment/discuss any unique pirate mechanic suggested as of yet. It needs to happen soon, otherwise the pirate playerbase will be too large and too content with the current Nation-esque system to be able to successfully change it. 

 

 

 

Yes, but it still offers some sort of hurdle to becoming pirate, and even that may be enough to begin creating even a minimal siphon on the pirate population. More on this here:

• Going on the Record

 

 

Well for the record I sort of started that way myself, as the "ITS HARD" warning made me think I should know the basics before going pirate.

 

I started US, made it a level, then destroyed the account and made a new pirate with that characters XP.

 

Since that is now possible, it would be simple enough to implement that to make a Pirate you had to at least be level 2, and abandon all your worldly items in the process. 

 

No real need to force a random Murder or be stuck starting close to your current capital.

[Poe]

 

No real need to force a random Murder or be stuck starting close to your current capital.

 

I a big fan of Murder for Murders sake.

[Babble]

In my opinion pirates shouldn't be able to craft anything larger then the pirate frigate and only capture as high as a 3rd rate.  Not own ports but i like the haven idea posted earlier in this thread.

 

No missions but increased XP for captures and pvp. 

 

Cant start pirate, only turn after acts of piracy.

 

No port battles but possibly port raids as have been suggested elsewhere on the forums.

 

Being a pirate should be the ideal choice if you want to cause havoc.  It should be difficult game-play.   It shouldn't be an attractive choice for the majority of the player population.   It should be hard mode.  Attracting hardened captions.    Running into a pirate on the OS should elicit a fearful reaction.  Like damn that guy is playing hardmode, and like Janice from accounting, he don't give a fuck.   Currently seeing a pirate is like seeing a seagull at the beach.  They are everywhere.

 

 

 

 

I've spent the vast majority of my game time lurking in the Bahamas as a National looking for pvp with rats and it appears to me that the vast majority of them aren't very piratey.  One, almost none of them are not willing to fight unless they outnumber you by 5 or more ships and then you'll get every rat in a 4 miles radius eager to jump in the battle and possibly land one cannonball before I sink.

 

Two, I see them out fleeting in groups.   Constitions, Trincomalees, Surprises,   everywhere in groups hitting NPC ships. This just seems very wrong to me. 

 

Three.  They are freaking everywhere.   I see far more Pirates then any other nation. 

 

 

 

I'm not really sure where I'm going with this as i was interrupted by my boss and lost my train of thought but pirates feel very broken at the moment.   I'm currently a National but would gladly go pirate if it were a difficult, pvp, raiding, trade robbing, ship capturing, hard mode, pirate life it should be. 

Edited February 25, 2016 by Babble