PVP2 - A dark day for pirates

[Taranis]

Perhaps you might want to offer terms? 

[Arbour]

 Whom think its a great idea to take basic cerbs into a fleet battle against 3rd rates.

 

 

Any Frenchman would, in fact, we've taken down several pirate player 3rd rates using a couple Mercuries even.   It's not the size of your ship, it's how you use it.  A video is even being passed around France of a player in a Cutter defeating a player in a Belle Poulle!  Again, stop thinking that ports matter, stop thinking that ship size matter, stop thinking that "under-strength" ships can't win.  This midset will be your true downfall, more so than anything another nation can do to you.  That mindset almost destroyed France, but we changed how we thought and changed how we played.   And as you can see, it works. 

[Random]

Remember that you have the whole server on your side, while we have the whole server against us. 

Remember how that came to be and who demanded that a possible ally should instead crawl on their knees and beg for mercy? French earned respect while your "leadership" council showed their true colors and the extent of their ability to lead. The "whole server" didn't care about the SE until French made them care with their attitude. You, on the other hand did not exactly present yourselves in the best light...

[Vllad]

 Though picking the pirates to fight just because you didn't get your way was a bit childish.

 

 

It had nothing to do with getting our way. We talked about you guys the night of "the deal" and we have seen your kind in a dozen games before. Your explosion was going to happen no matter what you did. The Pirate team as it used to exist are not the kind of people you ever align yourself with since they will just drag you down with them. Had it not happened with the French it would have happened with someone else.

 

The decision to fight you guys was an easy one. We have seen teams like the Pirates come and go in other games. If you play it right you can expedite the situation by just applying the right kinds of pressure.

[Arbour]

But they are important even though it's not impossible to play without them. Not having ports means not getting new players and not keeping lowbies. You guys got a lucky break with the OMG thing because we lost half our muscle to that move and you gained it. Had this not happened, 2 weeks from now I would be curious to see how many new french players there would be. Remember that you have the whole server on your side, while we have the whole server against us. You guys have to worry about 2-3 ships occasionally camping Fort Royale.. We have whole fleets of US and Brits camping Mortimer during prime time that are too big to fit into a 25 man battle, ganking everything that moves. We can't use neutral ports like you do to gather resources, we're stuck with only free ports which are all pretty much gouged price-wise...

 

Not saying it's impossible, by trying to sell such a plan to all the Jack Sparrow wannabes is going to be an undertaking to say the least.

 

.....you aren't learning.  When we were telling you, back when you were taking our ports, that "ports don't matter" it was not a hollow statement from cry-babies that wanted to show that they weren't upset.  It is because we came to realize that ports truly don't matter.  Do you see any neutral ports in the SE?  I don't.  But France still prevailed, and while you claim that victory is because OMG switched you are wrong, it just made victory quicker.  They brought ~10 players, that's it.  Pirates outnumbered France 5 to 1 and 10 turned the table single handedly?  Don't think so, it helped yes but we were inching closer and closer to total victory without them, without ports, without wanna-a-bees that like pretty little dots.  France was in good shape, you were just underestimating us based on your false interpretation of the game mechanics.  

 

If the Jack Sparrow wannabes don't like being true pirates, then fine, who cares.  Why would you want people that aren't into piracy in the pirate nation anyways?  Your job is not to convince a nation your job is to show them the way.  I hope you are smart and do what we are telling you to do, cause if you don't the pirate nation is doomed.  All you need is 10 people to implement the strategy, there is no need to convince the entire nation.  Once you have success others will follow.    

Edited February 29, 2016 by Arbour

[[MCC] Die Antwoord]

Perhaps you might want to offer terms? 

 

I bet your new found friends are eager to make a deal lol

[Cauldronborn]

And in due time France will also implode. It is the nature of the beast. Enjoy victory and things going your way while you can, it will not last forever.

Edited February 29, 2016 by Cauldronborn

[Michel de Toulouse]

You're condemning pirates for not being PVP purists, even as they're double teamed by nations who refuse to PVP each other and have such vast territory that they have beginner friendly zones shielded from PVP by hours of travel time to the nearest enemy port?  On top of that we have 2-3 major pirate clans that left for other nations and are now bravely PVP'ing the remaining, mostly new pirate players.  Yes, it's the pirates who are the ones looking to make things easy for themselves...

 

The pirate nation isn't breaking apart because people don't want to PVP, we're breaking apart because taking on multiple larger nations with no advantage in resources, labor hours, or travel time can only result in defeat through attrition.

 

 

The French were getting destroyed by the larger pirates for two or three weeks.  It is entirely possible for a small nation to hang on and fight a war of attrition.  All you have to do is do piratey things like raiding traders and attacking bigger ships with large groups of cutters.   Unfortunately the pirates seems completely incapable of doing actual pirate shit and insist on using big ships and dying to small french attacks.  

[Arbour]

And in due time France will also implode. It is the nature of the beast. Enjoy victory and things going your way while you can, it will not last forever.

 

First off, I "like" how you "liked" your own post.  Klassy.  

 

Secondly, France will only implode, if we do what the pirates did and pick fights with understregth teams, and focus on "newbro safe zones."  France has learned from pirates, so I doubt that will ever happen.  The real question here is "will the pirates learn from France?"

[Cauldronborn]

The reason I liked my own post is because I was trying to find the edit button lol, I'm on my phone.

Everything good comes to an end.

Edited February 29, 2016 by Cauldronborn

[Vllad]

Not having ports means not getting new players and not keeping lowbies. You guys got a lucky break with the OMG thing because we lost half our muscle to that move and you gained it. Had this not happened, 2 weeks from now I would be curious to see how many new french players there would be. Remember that you have the whole server on your side, while we have the whole server against us.

 

Ports don't = newbies, having fun = newbies. That means giving them something to play for.   

 

OMG expedited things but what happened would have happened anyway.

 

We learned to survive with an economy using zero controlled ports and Free Towns. The mechanics are there, you just have to figure it out. Not 2 weeks or 2 years would have changed our situation. Ports give us an excuse to fight and park our boats but really they are just fancy garages. They aren't really necessary however. 

 

 

The entire server is against you because of poor leadership, that is always fixable. 

[Taranis]

I bet your new found friends are eager to make a deal lol

 

I don't think you understand the deal that we might accept from you quite yet....  It goes along the lines of you crawling, begging, and.... well you can use your imagination. 

[Arbour]

Stop thinking we are dumb. I understand all the subtilities. What you fail to understand is that you lost the war even though you don't realize or acknowledge it.

We offered several things to you guys and never once backed out of them. You never offered anything, never, in fact all you've done is make demands. You are in no position to make demands. You can beg for mercy and we'll probably grant it and more than likely give back more than you would even expect.

We need to hear Slamz' shacky voice on teamspeak asking for mercy with tears in his eyes. Is it too much to ask? That's honestly all we've wanted since all this started.

 

 

I don't think you understand the deal that we might accept from you quite yet....  It goes along the lines of you crawling, begging, and.... well you can use your imagination. 

 

I think they understand the deal, it's along the lines of the one they offered us. 

[Scraggly Beard]

The French were getting destroyed by the larger pirates for two or three weeks.  It is entirely possible for a small nation to hang on and fight a war of attrition.  All you have to do is do piratey things like raiding traders and attacking bigger ships with large groups of cutters.   Unfortunately the pirates seems completely incapable of doing actual pirate shit and insist on using big ships and dying to small french attacks.  

 

Yeah, they were able to "hang on" and start winning once pirates left and joined the French... to attack pirates.  That's not winning a war of attrition, that's waiting for reinforcements.

 

A problem with this game is that alliances aren't prevented between nations.  We should probably not be able to talk to other nation players for starters.  Hell, if the game detects people playing as if there is an alliance, the NPC's should probably take over and start attacking players of the conspiring nations. 

 

One thing especially annoys me though, that is people who criticize the "PVPness" of pirates from the safety of their non aggression pact holding nations.  It's the ultimate hypocrisy.

[Random]

Yeah, they were able to "hang on" and start winning once pirates left and joined the French... to attack pirates.  That's not winning a war of attrition, that's waiting for reinforcements.

 

 

But it is winning a war of attrition. There was so much talk in the pirate chat about how French are trolling and ruining the fun of the game. Pirates talked so much about how French should just accept their defeat. Meanwhile, the French persisted to "troll" and ruin the determination of many pirates and the fun of many others. In this game (precisely because it is a game), fun is one of the resources that can be ruined and exploited in the war of attrition. French did just that and now you have pirates joining Britain because they want to have a very particular type of fun (which the French prevented them from having).

[Arbour]

Yeah, they were able to "hang on" and start winning once pirates left and joined the French... to attack pirates.  That's not winning a war of attrition, that's waiting for reinforcements.

 

 

France players were sinking pirate player ships at a rate of 3 to 1, every night in OW battles.  That is attrition. The reinforcements made the port recaptures happen sooner rather than later, but France was winning in the OW before then.  France doesn't use ports as a score board, we used kills to determine victory.  

[Obliterati]

Any Frenchman would, in fact, we've taken down several pirate player 3rd rates using a couple Mercuries even.   It's not the size of your ship, it's how you use it.  A video is even being passed around France of a player in a Cutter defeating a player in a Belle Poulle!  Again, stop thinking that ports matter, stop thinking that ship size matter, stop thinking that "under-strength" ships can't win.  This midset will be your true downfall, more so than anything another nation can do to you.  That mindset almost destroyed France, but we changed how we thought and changed how we played.   And as you can see, it works. 

 

I have no problem hitting cerbs in a 3rd rate... size does matter. smaller is more effective in this case.

 

For example I defeated a frigate and a mercury yesterday with a basic cutter (separate battles). Mercury because there was a small AI ship there and i had longs vs his caronades. Frig cause he was slow and used caronades, For the same reason (assuming 1.5 hours is enough time) a lone cutter could beat a 3rd rate.

 

However, a cerb is larger and slow enough for a 3rd rate to bring its broadsides to bear. I don't care who is driving the cerb. I'm 100% positive i can defeat any cerb in a 3rd rate... A good cutter pilot might not be so easy. The damn annoying flies. Plus a single broadside can take half the HP off a side of a basic cerb.

 

The southern guys haven't really learned this. I mean shit they were telling me last night about the puerto de espana fight and how their 3rd rate (didn't even bother to join comms). Yolo'd in the last 15 minutes. Blooming idiot is what that is.

[Arbour]

Then don't bring a cerb to a 3rd rate fight.  Simple.  I classify a Cerb as a support ship that is meant to support larger friendlies, not engage larger enemies.  I really think the devs did a good job at ship balance in this game, but I guess since they didn't autoassign class-based roles to different ships, people can't figure it out on their own.  

 

One important thing alot of the French clans started doing was organizing their fleets based on strengths and weaknesses of the ships.  Not just hopping in the biggest available and assuming it's the best.  Many French captains don't use your biggest ship in OW combat because balance in a fleet is extremely important.  Not one ship can win in every situation, but the right combination of 3 different ships can steamroll an enemy fleet or 3 or even 4, even if they are technically outgunned. 

Edited February 29, 2016 by Arbour

[Obliterati]

We learned to survive with an economy using zero controlled ports and Free Towns. The mechanics are there, you just have to figure it out. Not 2 weeks or 2 years would have changed our situation. Ports give us an excuse to fight and park our boats but really they are just fancy garages. They aren't really necessary however. 

 

 

I'd like to correct this patently false statement. You always had perdenales. Meaning you pretty much always were within reinforcement range. You also always had handy French NPC fleets you could use to drag into battle for cover. You never experienced true pirate life because of this fact. Go up to Sunbury and gank out of there for awhile. You'll see what i mean when you can't counter them when they drop 10 ships on top of you by spawning AI. Though even up there. Some French NPC fleets spawn.

[Scraggly Beard]

France players were sinking pirate player ships at a rate of 3 to 1, every night in OW battles.  That is attrition. The reinforcements made the port recaptures happen sooner rather than later, but France was winning in the OW before then.  France doesn't use ports as a score board, we used kills to determine victory.  

 

I'm new and only saw only one of those battles, the french outnumbered and outclassed all of our players at du roy.  That is not attrition, that's closer to total war.  And when you field more players in a battle, you should have better kill rates.

 

You also seem to be lacking the context of my original comment.  It was that constant battles with Brits and US, who wouldn't fight each other and consequently saved each other the cost of resource drain from fights they should have with each other, coupled with the fights against the french recently fortified by pirates who defected can only prevail against our forces.  Each player can only craft so much, each player can only gather so much.  And when fighting 3 opponents who won't fight each other, those 3 have a distinct resource advantage.

[Arbour]

Do you have anything other than excuses to vomit out?  We are sitting here give you, our sworn enemies, the keys to victory, but instead you just make excuses and tell us that WE are wrong.  If you think that NPCs actually help that much you are again under a false misconception.  I've had friendly NPCs shoot me, ram me, and make me lose a fight I should have won.  I avoid calling them unless I am extremely outclassed and intend to flee, using them as a screen otherwise I avoid it.  FYI, when land is introduced to NA, they are hoping to eliminate the reinforcement option, but then you will complain prolly just complain about that then too.  

[Arbour]

I'm new and only saw only one of those battles, the french outnumbered and outclassed all of our players at du roy.  That is not attrition, that's closer to total war.  And when you field more players in a battle, you should have better kill rates.

 

You also seem to be lacking the context of my original comment.  It was that constant battles with Brits and US, who wouldn't fight each other and consequently saved each other the cost of resource drain from fights they should have with each other, coupled with the fights against the french recently fortified by pirates who defected can only prevail against our forces.  Each player can only craft so much, each player can only gather so much.  And when fighting 3 opponents who won't fight each other, those 3 have a distinct resource advantage.

 

Since you are new, you should understand that a week ago the pirates were doing the same to us.  Yes, at this point it is Total War.  I was Total War when the pirates came though with a 5 to 1 numbers advantage and camped outside FR.  It was Total War when they took 3 ports a night from the French, trying to mock us the whole way as they swept though.  It was Total War when the pirates said they would only stop if we came crawling and begging (which we didn't) if the pirates don't like those tactics, they should not have taught them to the French. We have learned from the enemy, I recommend you do the same. 

Edited February 29, 2016 by Arbour

[Slamz]

The problem with the free port approach slamz is that it only appeals to the pure pvp players. Its not a viable long term plan because going that route means we are cutting ourselves from new players and putting a huge damper on our capacity to keep our players progressing level-wise.

 

I don't think pure PvPers need to level as much. I guess time will tell but I'm pretty sure I would not want to take 3rd rates out for open sea piracy -- they're too sluggish and not really suited for the ganking lifestyle of pure PvP. They're great in a defensive slugfest but not for jumping into missions and snagging someone before they can get away.

 

And you'd lose players, but you'd be losing the RvR guys who frankly should have joined a national team anyway, and you'd lose the "1st rate line battle" types who, again, should have joined a national team.

 

Not having ports might actually help the pirates focus on a pirate style of gameplay, which this game DOES support. It's just hard to see it if your team is busy playing port pac-man. We found the real pirate game because we were forced into it. Maybe that's what happens to the actual Pirate team now. It's there! If that's not what you want then in my opinion there's no shame in switching to a national team. (I don't think the red coat jumpers should be looked down on. If they want to get XP, big ships and gobble ports then they should have been a national this whole time.)

 

Slamz your posts are TLDR. Seriously buddy short and sweet.

 

 

 

You guys got a lucky break with the OMG thing because we lost half our muscle to that move and you gained it. Had this not happened, 2 weeks from now I would be curious to see how many new french players there would be. Remember that you have the whole server on your side, while we have the whole server against us. 

 

I don't see it as a lucky break -- I saw it as inevitable.

 

You were either going to start a real war somewhere to keep the masses entertained or you were going to lose players. Maybe the British players can go around having Master and Commander re-enactments but the Pirates need someone to fight.

 

If you started a fight, it would have to be with the British or the U.S. Either one would be an all-hands war where you can't have 25 pirates teleporting 3 hours away back to old French territory to defend ports that you probably wouldn't need anymore due to gains elsewhere.

 

If you didn't start a fight, well, we saw where that lead.

 

Either way, all I had to do was find a way to hang on to a decent French population, which was easy to do when BSO and SIN -- basically the lower level, lesser geared pirates -- stayed behind to fight us. They were literally the entertainment.

 

 

The really interesting question is I wonder what you guys could have accomplished with a determined, all-pirates attack on the Brits or U.S. That Aves fleet was beast. I know the U.S. is big but 75+ ships riding heavy would have been something I bet even they would have a hard time responding to in time. Would'a been real interesting, anyway. And maybe, quietly, you would have lost some old ports down in the southeast, but probably not have even missed them due to your exciting war with the U.S.

 

So, we had a plan, we just weren't sure which road you would take.

 

I'd like to correct this patently false statement. You always had perdenales. Meaning you pretty much always were within reinforcement range. You also always had handy French NPC fleets you could use to drag into battle for cover. You never experienced true pirate life because of this fact. Go up to Sunbury and gank out of there for awhile. You'll see what i mean when you can't counter them when they drop 10 ships on top of you by spawning AI. Though even up there. Some French NPC fleets spawn.

 

I wonder how much time you really spent learning reinforcement rules. Don't forget you guys had reinforcement bubbles down there and we were ganking pirates daily. We learned to cope.

 

For those actually interested in reading, I'll quickly go over what we learned:

 

1) The target cannot reinforce if he initiates the fight. This includes fights he started against NPCs and any mission he's in.

2) The target cannot enforce until he is outweighed by 2x BR. This means you can hit a Constitution (300 BR) with a Trincomalee (200), a Surprise (140), a Cerberus (100) and 3 Snows (3x50) and he can't call reinforcements. That fleet is MORE than enough to kill that Connie. The problem comes when you try to attack a Surprise with 4 Surprises, 2 Constitutions and a 3rd rate. Okay now he can call massive reinforcements.

3) You can only call reinforcements once. If you jump in with just over double his BR and he calls reinforcements, then you can jump in the rest of your fleet and he's probably screwed (and you can kill all the NPCs for mad XP too!)

 

 

These 3 facts let us kill a whole lot of pirates by initiating attacks within pirate reinforcement zones.

 

I suspect #2 is the biggest problem for pirates, though. You would never fathom attacking a Constitution with a handful of lighter ships. You'd kill him and he wouldn't be able to call reinforcements but you just can't resist hitting him with overwhelming firepower. Which is why he gets reinforcements against you.

Edited February 29, 2016 by Slamz

[Roberto de Castella]

I always saw the pirates were doing it all wrong...they gave up piracy to become a nation which the game does not encourange...at last we will be forced to being real pirates. For fucks sake man up and cause chaos for once

Edited February 29, 2016 by Roberto de Castilla

[Michel de Toulouse]

I have no problem hitting cerbs in a 3rd rate... size does matter. smaller is more effective in this case.

 

For example I defeated a frigate and a mercury yesterday with a basic cutter (separate battles). Mercury because there was a small AI ship there and i had longs vs his caronades. Frig cause he was slow and used caronades, For the same reason (assuming 1.5 hours is enough time) a lone cutter could beat a 3rd rate.

 

However, a cerb is larger and slow enough for a 3rd rate to bring its broadsides to bear. I don't care who is driving the cerb. I'm 100% positive i can defeat any cerb in a 3rd rate... A good cutter pilot might not be so easy. The damn annoying flies. Plus a single broadside can take half the HP off a side of a basic cerb.

 

The southern guys haven't really learned this. I mean shit they were telling me last night about the puerto de espana fight and how their 3rd rate (didn't even bother to join comms). Yolo'd in the last 15 minutes. Blooming idiot is what that is.

 

Congrats on figuring out the point of different ship classes.  Frigates are designed to be big enough and heavily armed enough to destroy pirates in Sloops and Schooners.  They are designed to screen ships of the line.  They are not designed to kill ships of the line.  Frigates are maritime patrol vessels. 

 

Ships of the line are designed to kill frigates and face off against ships of the line.  It is not important for a ship of the line to be able to chase down a cutter because in real life ships of the line would always have frigates to support them and deal will the enemies screen and skirmishing ships.  So yes, unsupported ships of the line, can be harassed by very tiny ships