Abuse of flag mechanics to block assault on port - Pirate Edition

[Sir Henry de Montfort]

I have apologised if our actions deprived FTS of an assault that they had planned. However since FTS continued to attack ports regardless, I do not believe this was the case. They were able to pull a flag for another port, get there and fight. 

 

All I see here is a witch hunt and Valco has put 'evidence' which has been taken completely our of Context to try and support his claim that we did this on purpose just to deprive his 10 guys of a battle. It is nothing like that and I have always done my best to bring as much content as possible to the Pirate Nation. 

 

As stated previously. I was under the impression that they only aimed to take a single port either way and not continue onto the two ports we intended to flip with the danes. As shown in this -

 

 

 

I do not see the issue here and again I apologise for any issues we may have caused. But you can clearly see Penta state FTS wanted A port to hold and they intended to hold the port they took. Even saying this, they then just attacked another nearby port. So either way we did not deprive them of content. If indeed our aim was to prevent them from taking any ports from the Danes. We would have pulled the flag for Samana which we knew they were going to attack. Or pull it for ALL surrounding ports rather than just the two we had aimed to swap with the Danes. 

 

In addition to the Evidence supplied by Valco where he claims we BOASTED about what we have done... It is all taken out of context and that is why he has not included the entire conversations. 

 

The Coalition is working against FTS just as FTS is working against the Coalition. Just like Pirates work against the British. No where do it state we deliberately aim to use shady mechanics to stop them playing. Why would we? We welcome conflict and it spices up the game. We will deal with this in game and by using legitimate tactics. 

 

Insom states very clearly we are working with the Danes. Hence the port swap we had planned. It is no secret that we ARE working WITH the DANES. Again this does not seem like someone boasting about exploiting a mechanic. 

This is nothing more than smearing the topic at hand!  This is a tribunal Post referring to Zombie Pirate and plotting associates and there Blantant VIOLATION of the Flag Rules.  It has been stated that this should and would be punished by the Dev's and it is clear and convicting.  PERIOD.    We need an example made of this.   It just so happens that said individuals were so happy with themselves that they needed to brag about it to others and in the process incriminate themselves.  I don't care what your reasons were, what your excuses are.  All i care is what you did!!!!     You broke the rules...you need to pay the price.  That simple.

[DarkFenix]

The attempts to deflect attention away from the actual issue are cute. This thread is about the deliberate abuse of flag mechanics (ie. buying a flag locking out further flags from your own nation) to block a Pirate clan (FTS) from launching attacks on the Danish nation. This is the second occurrance of this exploit and it cannot continue unanswered by the devs, unless it is in fact the devs' standpoint that cheating and exploiting are officially permitted in this game.

 

Oh and the notion that BigValco has a deal with the British is laughable. BigValco's 'thing' is that he and FTS are Pirates, you can't trust them as far as you can throw them and certainly can't trust them to adhere to an agreement.

Edited March 20, 2016 by DarkFenix

[Sir Henry de Montfort]

I see so many brits in here with totally other motives than justice. And that just ruins the game. Atleast let us keep the Tribunal roleplay free.

For me some of the posts made here are totally without any common sense what so ever.

 

 

Let us just do some mindblowing, and think alittle about what this game is about and what the pirate nation is about.

The British got BigValco to attack our ports. He attacked one, and succeded. Then Insomnion and Zombie Pirate bougth to flags on Macao and Higuey.

I had an agreement a long time ago with Pirates that they could have ports on East Haiti(both Macao and Higuey were discussed) to fight the brits when they were in Bani, Santo Domingo and El Soco and putting up stupid timers to prevent us from attacking them(Abuse of game mechanics). Pirates actually have a player base that would fight the brits on those silly timers(brits almost never defended late night timers). However I did not consider that arrangement to valid any more. This was a long time ago. Part of what happened yesterday was asking them to move in there to help us against Brits, put it was a poorly organized attempt and no diplomacy was made with Russians about it either, so I wanted to drop it to not offend anyone. However luckily the pirates did not attack, and I got that confirmation and also told that to my nation in chat yesterday. I told people in Denmark chat to not defend Higuey nor Macao if they were planted. It was "friendly" pirates. However I did tell people to attack BigValco and FTS if they saw them. So when BigValco bought the second flag for Aquadilla, we mustered a defence there and he got defeated. Am I not allowed to "pay off" the pirates to do my "bidding", while Brits can do whatever they want? And when something don't go according to their plans they jump into tribunals in numbers demanding accounts to be reset? If that is not roleplaying in their own personal interest then I don't know what is. Atleast I had hoped tribunal could be fair and we put nations aside.

 

And see what happened last night as well. British claim they put defensive timers against EU zone players for their Australians to defend, and they actually do not defend. Both Tiburon and Las Cayes had timers set to 04-06 and both were undefended. I have adressed this issue to them several times, and they always say, they put those timers so that Australians can defend in their primetime, but they never do. Is this not a part of "abuse"?

Is timers set to prevent PVP or to promote PVP?

 

And you know what Herminator...This has nothing to do about us being brits!    We are losing ports fighting 5 nations...big deal we know we can't win and we are gonna lose ports...>WHO CARES....we will fall back to 10 ports and fight and we are fine with that.  What WE ARE FED UP WITH .... is the numerous people using alts, alts tagging fleets illegally, buying blocking port attack flags.  WE are completedly TIRED of it.  I don't care what nation they are....british, spanish, danish, pirate, american.  IF you do it and ruin peoples hours playing and cause people to leave the game or quit out of frustration.... It doesn't matter..... who you are or what your reasoning.    IF YOU CHEAT OR DO SOMETHING in knowing violation of game rules...YOU GET THE NERF HAMMER.....   there is no middle ground.  you did it or you didn't.    We are all adults here and we know right from wrong.  It's not subject to what nation you are, or what ever your petty reasoning.  Its wrong or its right.  that simple.   No matter what banter is being thrown around.  The subjects in question were WRONG...and they need to be punished.  If a british captain did  this...I would be the first person saying the exact same thing i am now.  I hate cheaters and have no patience for them.

[Mored]

Really sad topic here.

Everyone in the pirate nation knows FTS for trolling sympathize with the brits. So they are on the ignore list for a lot of pirates.

I dont know why they decided to play pirates, becasue they work against our "nation" and for the brits. Koto is engaging the brits so FTS is trying everything to stop them. And because they are not successful ingame they try it now in the forum....

Lest see the facts on this one:

It was unlucky but no rule was broken.

So please close and think about punishment for trolls

[Benass]

Never been to this section of the boards.  Usually accused of being a Pirate not a Criminal....

 

If this is a popularity contest of who has more friends/Allies to post flame on there behalf of tell partial sides of the story or there views on game mechanics I may lose because Zombies  aren't known for there typing abilities and we don't travel in "hordes" like Hollywood's walking dead.  We prefer to just eat brains and enjoy raiding ports solo or in small packs...

 

Some of you have hurt feelings yesterday didn't go as planned; and I understand that.  I didn't go as planed for me either. So apologizes.

 

Most Important Fact:  Why didn't I pull the flag for Samana to block them from taking a port if that was my intention to spoil there fun all along?  I commented on the hit in Pirate chat well before they pulled the flag so pirates would have the choice to defend timers VS Brits or to head the opposite direction which is also fine but they have a deliberate choice to make as FTS did. Pirates are smart enough to drawn the line for themselves.

 

Was at a Port making mats, Knew it about the hit...everyone did because he bragged to all pirates/Nations so much, and I had the gold to cover it.....

 

 

 

- Danes owe Zombie 2 Ports (Sam/Macoa Ideal) (But Macoa is a reginal Cap and not near sorted) More important issues at hand with Brits pushing and still not sorted.

- Black is Black? No...because Brig V would put it on a messed up timer they couldn't/wouldn't defend.  Give it to the British and screen other Pirates like they did Saint N.

- I told Insomian to buy other Flag

- PLAN: If I could beat them there with flag plants and sort out 6-8 people I could take mine (furthest one) and double back and take his as long as he Planted on time. Insom could then TP and attack Jere/Defend Saint N/and the other timers.  6-8 people would be out of the fight on West Haiti though, with this plan it knocks out what is owed + 1 to sort later both of the ports in question would be in our(98% of pirates) timer control and more important the front line for a future battle field.

- If FTS Jumped into the the next port it wouldnt matter because the flag was planned by someone who would be responsible with defense window.

- At this point FTS was braging about some KOTO and others being involved in hits on Danish in Pirate Chat.  Not that we were blocking there content.

 

 

What happened/why it didn't happen:

- FTS was to buzy swearing and cussing at all Pirates in pirate chat and telling everyone how awesome they are because they are so "healthy for the game" as people mentioned here.  There actions were  a direct result of all pirates losing ports on the Opposite side of Haiti.

- I was sorting Drama in PM's and on TS, I was trying to sort players for one direction and assisting Insom for forming on Jere.

- As well as getting lines of communication with Danes while they were in combat in Multi places

- Trying to sort Intel on whether the British fleets massing Danish were coming for West Coast haiti

 

In the end we dropped the East Haiti split plan to get sorted ASAP in West Haiti so we could catch SRLN out of place in Jeremine.  With the hits they were involved in it would have been closer then the day before and it worked.  Did it.  Absolutely you guys were caught out of play and didn't have the 25 stack you guys usually do and some randoms mixed in.  But we still failed to Capitalize.  We were missing some of our own key players and some bad calls on our part by not pushing you gents to the end of the bubble.

 

This Offense was also the best defense for the rest of the timers in East Haiti.

 

We were in place partially for defending a multi prong attack in South Cuba/Haiti which we lost a lot of ports due to FTS's deals with you.  Which you aware of.

 

http://images.akamai...3D5D29E109BB62/

 

(Read chat box)

 

In the end the right choice was made to stay together and pound the drums to do East Haiti because we did hold Sevilla and got back Portillo even later that night.

 

@ SLRN - I personally hold/held you guys in high regard's, But running to the boards to back a one sided story on what you "think" happen or didn't happen in mass shows true colors and intentions.  If your view on winning the game is pushing to Ban everyone playing against you without hearing both sides of the story i feel bad you your so angry/worked up about the game.

 

@ Everyone - I ticketed and GM's have my game log's and they know what happen/didn't happen/suppose to have happen and told them they are more then welcome to post it all publicly.  Zombies don't care.  Maybe I should be a streamer.

 

 

Proposed Fix:

 

- Multi flags can be bought on same place by any nation and first come, is first serve.

Hey Morrdon, how would u feel if some one bought Jere flag and had no intention to plant it 5 min before you.  

 

Ur a cheat, coz u can't play by the rules.

 

 

 

Thinking about it, maybe Brits should buy 1 game, create pirate and buy jery flag every day  just to deny you a fun the game provides.    

[Prater]

Agreed.  Where were the flags pulled from?  If they were pulled from far away, it is obvious trying to block, in which case the devs would need to decide whether verified players can block their own nation or not.  If the flags were pulled within distance, there probably isn't enough evidence that they did it on purpose to block and so the tribunal should be dropped.

 

 

In any case, the devs need to warn everyone.  If you abuse flag mechanics, it will not be tolerated.

[C Blood]

perhaps this can be resolved by the devs looking at which ports the higuey and macoa flags were bought from?

 

if they were bought at a port close to higuey and macoa we have to accept that it might have been legitimate purchases as stated, that got called off

 

if the flags were purchased at ports far away, it's clear they were bought to prevent further attacks and thus griefing using flag exploit mechanics

 

i'd be happy with the result either way if this could be done

 

the issue isn't to smear or demonize anybody, the issue is to discover if individuals were abusing game mechanics to grief others

 

This is the only way i see this being resolved.. Cheaters are cheaters and need to be dealt with accordingly, weather they are Pirate, American, British, Danish, Swedish, French or Dutch its all the same.

 

If there is evidence that they bought the flag from far away then this is clearly proving the flag was ''griefing'' if not then it may well have not been ''griefing''

[Herminator]

I guess I can't speak as a tester because I play British (per Herminator) - kind of a double standard IMO.

 

But you bring up so many interesting worms in this can - the giant worm is you accusing Brits of abuse of game mechanics because we set port timers that make you sad.

 

Do you honestly think it is abuse to set the timer on our port as we see fit?

 

No I se it perfectly well for you to place them as you see fit. But at the same time hiding behind the notion that it is in your Australian prime time and claiming they will defend it. It's just a pile of rubbis. Not once have I seen your Aussies come to defend any of those ports. You claim it is to be defended, but you still never do. Let's atleast be honest about it!

But this is off topic. Anyways. And I am even sorry for bringing it up.

It was just mentioned to give a background on why the Higuey/Macao trade off were discussed and mentioned.

[JCDC]

The only proof of this is where the flags were bought. if they were bought from the other side of the pirate nation not ports close to the target then they are guilty and worse than that they will have been caught lying in the tribunal and accusing other players falsely. this is the kind of behavior that can kill the game and needs to be stopped.

 

If they were bought close to targets, then there is no proof really. the spat between the different Pirate clans is not illegal however destructive it is.

 

simple as that, can the devs check this? all this other nonsense is irrelevant as usual from the usual people spreading propaganda and lies in the wrong forum.

Edited March 20, 2016 by JCDC

[SirLeggit]

I saw the both conversations in the pirate chat, that the FTS troll posted small screenshots off, and they are taken out of contexts and used to try and get some one else banned.

 

I think the OP deserve a punishment for trying to trick Devs into punishing some one else by posting fabricated lies. 

yes I agree...i sat through 3 hours of trolling and bitching.... and imho FTS did a lot of trolling...that's not to say the other side is blameless, but that is what i seen.

[Scout]

One simple idea to prevent this is simple way to simple really don´t limit the number of flags per nation on a port but when a some one plants one it nulls out all other flags for that port that way this blocking abuse is fix´d

[Captain Tylor]

One simple idea to prevent this is simple way to simple really don´t limit the number of flags per nation on a port but when a some one plants one it nulls out all other flags for that port that way this blocking abuse is fix´d

What will be the point of screeners then?

[Captain Alexander]

This tribunal case is for players exploting game mechanics to block the real attack / griefing. This is not a discussion thread.

 

Love to see so many puppies trying to change main topic of this thread. If you have nothing to add, no need to spam this thread.

Edited March 21, 2016 by Captain Alexander

[Shameless Anney]

The efforts to justify the action by making up a long winded, far fetched story just highlights that they know what they did was outside the scope of gamesmanship.  Then to have all their friends come in and help them in continuing the fabrication stinks of desperation.   FTS wasn't by and large trolling, but defending itself from baseless accusations built off of assumptions and circumstantial evidence at best.  If this was a court hearing, the evidence leans heavily in favor of the plaintiff.  The defense has done nothing but provide rehearsed storyboard and conjecture.

[Erkki]

Interesting to see my screenshot here.

 

But as noted, preventing actual attacks or not, FTS would not have had the strength to attack more than one port any way. Not with 12 players. Flags were bought to prevent them from buying flags for what was basically just a diversion any way. Is it okay to buy a flag if you intend to come with single Cerberus, but not if you dont appear at all? Do we need a referee constantly online? Perhaps even costlier flags?

[Shameless Anney]

The reason we attacked a different port was because we were blocked by Insomnion and Zombie Pirate to hit our intended targets, thus half our force logged off angry.  Using the end result as a justification is a weak tactic and is extremely transparent.

[Erkki]

I didnt justify anything. Theres no way for us to tell how many "were coming", but didnt. Only 12 did. Maybe you should have just canceled the attack to spare your ships if it was supposed to be more than just a diversion well behind the front.

[Kutai]

The reason we attacked a different port was because we were blocked by Insomnion and Zombie Pirate to hit our intended targets, thus half our force logged off angry. Using the end result as a justification is a weak tactic and is extremely transparent.

Think this just needs loxking now until an Admin has a look at it.

Edited March 21, 2016 by Kutai

[Caymen]

Well a response is needed from Admin, and a statement issued about this post.

 

Granted we are in early access, and bugs etc need to be flushed out.

 

This post and its replys have highlighted the abuse of flag mechanics, alts, griefing call it what you want..

 

Players are not blind and a lot are very passionate about this game,and want this game to be a success. Unfortunatley there are a small minority of players who have the" lets win at any cost mentality" which exposes the cheating and bending of the game mechanics.

I'm not going to get into a mud slinging contest, but I and quite a few others will be more than interested on what the Admins have to say.

lets hope they respond quickly.

 

Remember guys its a GAME and its the player base and the Devs who will decide the future of Naval Action

Will it sink or Will it swim. ....?

[Hethwill]

Allow multiple flags for the same target. Gets the defender guessing which direction the fleet will come from. First flag planted nulls all others immediatelly. Bypasses flag blocking exploit.

[Llewellyn Jones RN]

Well a response is needed from Admin, and a statement issued about this post.

 

Granted we are in early access, and bugs etc need to be flushed out.

 

This post and its replys have highlighted the abuse of flag mechanics, alts, griefing call it what you want..

 

Players are not blind and a lot are very passionate about this game,and want this game to be a success. Unfortunatley there are a small minority of players who have the" lets win at any cost mentality" which exposes the cheating and bending of the game mechanics.

I'm not going to get into a mud slinging contest, but I and quite a few others will be more than interested on what the Admins have to say.

lets hope they respond quickly.

 

Remember guys its a GAME and its the player base and the Devs who will decide the future of Naval Action

Will it sink or Will it swim. ....?

Now with regards to this thread I believe the Pirates accused here did exactly as described with the intent of blocking FTS the evidence is there for all to see.

With regard to FTS being in our pockets this is strictly not true this is certainly the case in regards to BRITS. Valco did propose something to do with taking the Jamaica ports but we declined the invitation and we 100% did work in partnership to push the US out of Northern Yucatan but this was to help the Spanish regain some ports but that's as far as our relationship goes.

Edited March 21, 2016 by Henry d'Esterre Darby
Keep your speculations on Player Counts and what the Developers actually are or are not doing to yourself sir.

[TheLiin]

I like the idea of pirates as the only nation being able to do this, and I really like the fight they are having between them, seems more realistic than them getting together and agreeing and voting on everything.

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

This matter is under review by the Admiralty.