An alternative solution to fixing pirates

[Tugmund]

Sorry to add to the fix pirates circle jerk just putting forward an opinion, i didn't see one of these suggestions mentioned with a quick search through forums so making a topic.

 

This board is filled with peoples suggestions on how to fix pirates, most of which unfortunately are people trying to put forward something that would mean either nerfing the pirate faction into oblivion or removing them (Temporarily or permanently) and replacing them with another nation. This is pretty ridiculous and there are much less extreme ways to fix pirates whilst also keeping the pirate faction a viable and enjoyable option.

 

As it stands the issue with pirates appears to be they behave like any other nation, with the same port mechanics etc. of any other nation, however they are also a very popular nation so have overwhelming numbers over others, and as such are expanding way too quickly, pirate players can also attack whoever they like, including each other and aren't as restricted as the rest of the factions.

 

I might have misread the situation but from my perspective the issue here seems to be that pirates are way too coordinated and way too strong so rather than their presumably intended design to be a smaller, more challenging nation that is suppressed by the big powers (Great Britain, Spanish Navy, US Navy etc)  . they have turned into a "Super Nation" and have taken over way too much of the map than they should be capable of.

 

An alternative way to fix the faction, a more preferable one for pirates than being nerfed into the ground or having their ships limited to only crappy privateers etc. Could be two things.

 

1. Do not make the Pirate Faction joinable as a new Character (This has already been proposed by a few people and appears to be a good idea), Make it so that people must first join another, regular Nation then can only become pirate by attacking a friendly faction member, making it less appealing for players to immediately join.

 

2. Remove the Pirate Nation Chat, it seems kinda odd that pirates should have a communication network as good as GB, US etc, they should be far more rag-tag and divided than they actually are, by having the Pirate Nation chat it is far too easy for clans to expand are become very powerful and for these coalition type deals to be formed which makes taking ports and defending them ridiculously easy with a nation with as many players as pirates, This doesn't mean completely removing communication between pirates and clans ability to recruit and communicate with each other, there should still be Port chats for trading, clan chats and friend chats, therefore pirates would still be able to group together etc, trade at ports and all that. But also be less coordinated than the big powers in Caribbean waters.

 

 

Both these seem like more reasonable suggestions than hardcore nerfing Pirates in some of the others ways people have come up with, it would make pirates more at odds with the other nations and also change them from being a Super Nation that has the same default politic system as other nations, with the added bonus that way more people join pirates than the other factions because the pirate label is cooler, to being a smaller, less coordinated less conquering faction more focused on raiding, ducking and weaving between the big factions navys etc. 

 

Just my two cents, make up your own mind on it.

Edited April 1, 2016 by Tugmund

[Ruthless4u]

Removing any chat is basically futile, given the other communication options available.

[Tugmund]

Removing any chat is basically futile, given the other communication options available.

 

Pirate chat is mostly people organizing clans together for taking ports and defending them etc, Removing the nation chat might lessen this coordination a bit, whilst still allowing us to coordinate defences through clan chats and friends to some extent.

Edited April 1, 2016 by Tugmund

[Ruthless4u]

Pirate chat is mostly people organizing clans together for taking ports and defending them etc, Removing the nation chat might lessen this coordination a bit, whilst still allowing us to coordinate defences through clan chats and friends to some extent.

Most clans use TS or other form of voice chat almost exclusively for PB, removing nation chat will not lessen coordination.

If you can't voice chat, almost no clan will allow you to be involved. Trust me on this one, I know from experience.

[Galileus]

1. People just join any nation and then go pirate as soon as possible, so it changes nothing

 

2. Pirates will just adopt global chat as their nation chat. And removing global chat from any player is out of the question.

 

 

Sorry. Your suggestions won't work one bit.

[maturin]

Can we please use one of the 40 open topics for this?

[Tugmund]

1. People just join any nation and then go pirate as soon as possible, so it changes nothing

 

2. Pirates will just adopt global chat as their nation chat. And removing global chat from any player is out of the question.

 

 

Sorry. Your suggestions won't work one bit.

 

Well i join pirates as a new player because its a much more appealing looking option to start out with than most of the others, i never even tried other Nations, as i'm sure is the situation with many other pirate players. However if i or others had tried out one of the other Nations first, like GB etc. I'm sure they might find they like it.

Edited April 1, 2016 by Tugmund

[William the Drake]

1. Do not make the Pirate Faction joinable as a new Character, Make it so that people must first join another, regular Nation then can only become pirate by attacking a friendly faction member, making it less appealing for players to immediately join.

• Going on the Record

Just out-and-out removing pirates is hardly the direction to go. Pirates are a fact of history and the time period. Pirates can be done, they just need to be done right. At the moment, yes they are more of a nation, but hopefully there will be some changes in the near future that address this.

 

1. People just join any nation and then go pirate as soon as possible, so it changes nothing

I disagree: as stated in my post on the subject, this would simply be a first step; something that provides some sort of barrier, however superfluous, that creates a known separation between the nations and pirates, and one that may even reduce players who simply "start" as pirates. Furthermore, it would be an initial system whereas later down the line of development, there could be a pirate mechanic like in ArcheAge where to go pirate you must not only commit X amount of crimes, but also be convicted of them.

[Galileus]

I disagree: as stated in my post on the subject, this would simply be a first step; something that provides some sort of barrier, however superfluous, that creates a known separation between the nations and pirates, and one that may even reduce players who simply "start" as pirates. Furthermore, it would be an initial system whereas later down the line of development, there could be a pirate mechanic like in ArcheAge where to go pirate you must not only commit X amount of crimes, but also be convicted of them.

 

Forcing player to go through artificial hoops before he can join a nation he wants to - that he will be able to do - is terrible game design.

 

If you want pirates as a playable faction, make it possible to join it. If you don't want pirates as a playable faction, do not include them in your game. Easy as that.

[William the Drake]

Forcing player to go through artificial hoops before he can join a nation he wants to - that he will be able to do - is terrible game design.

 

But that's just it: i'm saying pirates shouldn't be a nation, or even like a nation: we need to be separate, unique, fun! It's less of another play type and more along the lines of a next-level sort of thing.

[Galileus]

Sigh... allright!

 

Forcing player to go through artificial hoops before he can join a faction he wants to - that he will be able to do - is terrible game design.

 

Better? Because the point still stands.

[Migui]

I'm amazed how people still thinks that making things annoying prevents people from doing stuff. That is terrible game design.

 

Removing pirate chat? Any entity a bit organized uses 3rd party apps to keep in touch.

 

But more so... You should see what people is capable of to overcome any wall you want to build in front of them if the goal is worth it.

 

Right now the biggest problem with Pirate nation is that you get all the advantages and none of the inconvenients of being a nation: you are a pirate, yarr, you can tell everyone to fuck off and backstab them because you are a pirate, therefore, not affiliated with anyone, by principle. Also you can attack each other for shit and giggles and even use this to save your ass.

 

You can't try to balance it by fucking up a big chunk of the playerbase that wants to be pirates.

 

Pirates were not a nation, they raided and assaulted ships, their life was hard and often short, they had treasures, casinos and hookers. Well, maybe not casinos, but still. You have to give them a fun, meaningful and enjoyable way of life, with a high risk vs reward scheme. Not simply a nation that is going to own half of the map because it happens to be popular. You can't simply go and tell them to fuck off the map because they happen to be more players.

[William the Drake]

Sigh... allright!

 

Forcing player to go through artificial hoops before he can join a faction he wants to - that he will be able to do - is terrible game design.

 

Better? Because the point still stands.

 

I'm amazed how people still thinks that making things annoying prevents people from doing stuff. That is terrible game design.

 

[...]

 

But more so... You should see what people is capable of to overcome any wall you want to build in front of them if the goal is worth it.

 

But here's the thing: having people take a specific action to "go" pirate as opposed to simply starting out as one isn't preventing or blocking them from a mechanic, it's delaying them. The mechanic is still accessible to everyone. It's the same as lineships: everyone can sail them, but everyone also has to jump through some sort of artificial hoop to get to them, whether it be leveling up to get the crew for them, or the actual crafting of it. The content is there for anyone and everyone who is willing to work for it. 

 

Let's look at ArcheAge, who's pirate system could probably work very well here: in the game, players start on 2 opposing factions. Each player can commit various crimes: killing friendlies (known as "purpling), steeling crops, etc. When a player who has committed crimes is killed, they are sent to a trial. A computer (bot) led trial with an all player jury. Based on evidence that has been collected and reported by other players in the world, the jury can decide if the defendant is innocent or guilty, and if guilty, how long they spend in jail (an actual, in-game jail where a player cannot perform any actions-even emotes- for the entirety of his/her sentence, Real-Time). Once a player commits and is found guilty of a certain amount of crimes, they turn pirate. 

 

ArcheAge was the first game my clan came across when we made our exodus from PotBS. It wasn't a perfect fit, but as a F2P MMORPG with naval combat, it was enough. And if there were pirates, we were going to be pirates. Or at least so we thought. The process of becoming pirate was no joke, and you were KoS for any of the other 2 nations, including their OP NPC guards. Furthermore, you lost connection with everything: all the land you had, any clan you were in, gone, and you were sent to the pirate island. As a clan, this was too much to ask from both our members and our leadership. Once we established ourselves, going pirate was no longer an option simply because we were well situated. There are still some plans to go pirate, but it is less of a need and more of a want now.

 

In ArcheAge, when you came across a pirate, you knew that player had put in the work to be a pirate: gave up everything and committed a ton of crimes and spent a lot of time in jail. And that was intimidating. And that's how it should be; pirate players should have a reputation, even for just turning pirate. 

And if you think it's not possible for whole clans to switch to pirate in this system, many in ArcheAge have, multiple times.

 

Again, the hope is to avoid Pirates turning into the PotBS Pirates, which were in fact just another nation that was pointlessly under-powered. 

[Pagan Pete]

Pyrates are not broken!

 

​It's the nationals own problem that they can't organize like the pyrates did...

• And it was not easy
• and it took time 
• and take continual effort

​But the comradery that pyrates enjoy, and the effectiveness of our attacks, is of our own making.

the fruits of out labor, the harvest of th seed we have sewn...

[mouse of war]

Pyrates are not broken!

 

​It's the nationals own problem that they can't organize like the pyrates did...

• And it was not easy
• and it took time 
• and take continual effort

​But the comradery that pyrates enjoy, and the effectiveness of our attacks, is of our own making.

the fruits of out labor, the harvest of th seed we have sewn...

 

So you are saying that you are so confident in your own skills that you are now ok with the rules being changed so that you don't have an advantage over other nations?

 

Really glad to hear it - problem solved. Devs - do your stuff!

[Galileus]

So you are saying that you are so confident in your own skills that you are now ok with the rules being changed so that you don't have an advantage over other nations?

 

Really glad to hear it - problem solved. Devs - do your stuff!

 

What advantage? o_O

[Almirante Jimi]

Pirates need a huuuuuuge rework, and be more "real" also "fair play".

Pirates conquest huge villages/territory?

Nowadays pirates as a faction seems a Imperium.

I think that being a pirate should be a problem, with movies we treat pirates as imparable, but in reality they always being chased and the pirates had to do sneak attacks and never conquer all nations with santisimas cmn guys the joke went too far.

Edited April 7, 2016 by Almirante Jimi

[Mrdoomed]

Sorry to add to the fix pirates circle jerk just putting forward an opinion, i didn't see one of these suggestions mentioned with a quick search through forums so making a topic.

This board is filled with peoples suggestions on how to fix pirates, most of which unfortunately are people trying to put forward something that would mean either nerfing the pirate faction into oblivion or removing them (Temporarily or permanently) and replacing them with another nation. This is pretty ridiculous and there are much less extreme ways to fix pirates whilst also keeping the pirate faction a viable and enjoyable option.

As it stands the issue with pirates appears to be they behave like any other nation, with the same port mechanics etc. of any other nation, however they are also a very popular nation so have overwhelming numbers over others, and as such are expanding way too quickly, pirate players can also attack whoever they like, including each other and aren't as restricted as the rest of the factions.

I might have misread the situation but from my perspective the issue here seems to be that pirates are way too coordinated and way too strong so rather than their presumably intended design to be a smaller, more challenging nation that is suppressed by the big powers (Great Britain, Spanish Navy, US Navy etc) . they have turned into a "Super Nation" and have taken over way too much of the map than they should be capable of.

An alternative way to fix the faction, a more preferable one for pirates than being nerfed into the ground or having their ships limited to only crappy privateers etc. Could be two things.

1. Do not make the Pirate Faction joinable as a new Character (This has already been proposed by a few people and appears to be a good idea), Make it so that people must first join another, regular Nation then can only become pirate by attacking a friendly faction member, making it less appealing for players to immediately join.

2. Remove the Pirate Nation Chat, it seems kinda odd that pirates should have a communication network as good as GB, US etc, they should be far more rag-tag and divided than they actually are, by having the Pirate Nation chat it is far too easy for clans to expand are become very powerful and for these coalition type deals to be formed which makes taking ports and defending them ridiculously easy with a nation with as many players as pirates, This doesn't mean completely removing communication between pirates and clans ability to recruit and communicate with each other, there should still be Port chats for trading, clan chats and friend chats, therefore pirates would still be able to group together etc, trade at ports and all that. But also be less coordinated than the big powers in Caribbean waters.

Both these seem like more reasonable suggestions than hardcore nerfing Pirates in some of the others ways people have come up with, it would make pirates more at odds with the other nations and also change them from being a Super Nation that has the same default politic system as other nations, with the added bonus that way more people join pirates than the other factions because the pirate label is cooler, to being a smaller, less coordinated less conquering faction more focused on raiding, ducking and weaving between the big factions navys etc.

Just my two cents, make up your own mind on it.

Pirates probably had a much better communication network and fast coms compared to any national exept maybe the US. England had to get and recieve orders from a month away and so did the rest of Europeans and even direct orders from island to island was probably a fluster cluck of papers orders , codes and securty drills to get from one place to another while pirates said hey lets get that ship that just left port...arrrrrr.

[maturin]

Except pirates didn't have any communication network. There was nothing to talk about.

 

 

Pirates in this game remind me of entitled children with trust funds who expect everyone to recognize their hard work and discipline, now that they've landed a cushy job. Sorry guys, but it was all handed to you on a silver platter. All you had to do was avoid overdosing on the powder or knocking up the au pair.

Edited April 7, 2016 by Henry d'Esterre Darby
Cleaned up terminology a little.

[Potemkin]

Why not just apply any and all pirate "nerfs" to a separate server that opens at the next major wipe. All xp stays the same and everything else will get wiped anyways. The pirates can keep pvp1, while everyone who doesn't want to play with a pirate zerg can move to the new mirror and start again as if nothing happened, and be at the same exact spot they would have been in had they stayed. The nerfed pirate server would foster a more realistic historical nation vs nation environment, and any pirates that came over that new server would have no basis to complain about the changes to pirate mechanics.

Note: im sure theres a million reasons why this wont happen, i just thought id throw it out there.

Edited April 11, 2016 by Potemkin

[thp]

1. Do not make the Pirate Faction joinable as a new Character  : actually it s good for pirate, we wont have any newbie players that need to be trained anymore but only the experienced players that like to do PvP joined Pirate.

2 Remove the Pirate Nation Chat : Pirate just use another form of communication from the internet, there are so many others.

I think you guys missunderstand the goal of this post, Tugmun is in a former pirate FTS clan which now switching to British because they failed to make every pirates isolated, egocentric  and everyone for himself so it will be easier for them to take over all pirate, insteed pirate become more and more united now he want the game mechanics changed to do what they failed to do.

[Tugmund]

1. Do not make the Pirate Faction joinable as a new Character  : actually it s good for pirate, we wont have any newbie players that need to be trained anymore but only the experienced players that like to do PvP joined Pirate.

2 Remove the Pirate Nation Chat : Pirate just use another form of communication from the internet, there are so many others.

I think you guys missunderstand the goal of this post, Tugmun is in a former pirate FTS clan which now switching to British because they failed to make every pirates isolated, egocentric  and everyone for himself so it will be easier for them to take over all pirate, insteed pirate become more and more united now he want the game mechanics changed to do what they failed to do.

 

Fuck me what a lonely little life you must lead to go and look up what clan i'm in ingame.

 

I play with FTS because i like their company and have good fun with them. At the end of the day it's a video game i'm not too bothered about pirate nations quarrels and arguments, think its pretty pathetic really, i just play to have fun and anyone with two brain cells to rub together can see that pirate nation is more like the fucking U.N Navy than looters n pillagers.

[Chug]

I read all this rubbish about people complaining that pirates are OP... too many pirates.... The pirates have NO advantages over any other faction. We don't get magical super ships or a button that lets us instant capture a port. We can't TP every 5 mins to any port and are guns don't do 100x the damage of anyone else's. The only difference is we have a black flag on our ships. People moan about us and cry "nerf!" and it's nothing but bitterness and frustration that they can't get an easy win. You think there's way more pirates than you? you are wrong, there are not. Britain is the largest faction by far player wise.

 

Pirates have held their own and more is purely down to a few clans and a very limited number of their members, working hard together to make it happen.

 

Too many people on these forums talk rubbish about things they don't know anything about. They complain and moan about pirates as a way of justifying to themselves about how and why they lost their ships or failed to take/hold a port..  "its not because we didn't play well its because the other guy cheats/is OP" that classic excuse of the online gamer. Let's be honest, we all thought that at some point in a game and more than once.

 

So enough about "fixing pirates" because we know what you really mean. Yeah pirates should play slightly differently to other factions, that I agree with but it should be done in way that doesn't make us an easy walk over for the other nations. Reading thread's like this and others, It seems certain people wont be happy till pirates are limited to just sailing a cutter forever.

 

 

[Vernon Merrill]

Bwahahahahahaha. Ummmm, ok. Which server do you play on?

[Vexy]

Dont have courage to make new topic, so ill just write my thoughts here. Atm pirates not much differs from regular nation player.

At start players choose which nation's navy they will serve, nation pays for missions, for sinking ships, for capturing enemy nation's ports etc. First main difference - noone pays pirate for missions or for sinking ship, but he can get all loot for himself and can capture ships (unlike navy players). So its easy to become pirate but it will cost you in profit. But we need give pirates chance to serve crown and there goes reputation system.

reputation system: Lets say at start player have 5000 reputation with his nation and 0 reps with others, sinking ships and all kind of act against other nations lowers your reputation with hostile nations and raise your reputation with chosen nation.

So if good navy person killed ship of his own nation, or done other criminal  he recieves some penalty ( may be instant -10000 and force him to piracy or may be more interesting - lower his rep by a bit, raise jolly roger for some time(anyone can attack him) AND remove some of his exp points - cap with bad reputation cant get much crew).

If player become pirate he will have neutral or negative reputation with some or all nations, point is - if he constantly sinking ships that hostile towards one nation, that pirate in time will raise reputation with that nation high enough to become privateer for that nation. Privateering gives benefits - some gold for mission and sinking ships, neutral status with nation's navy, ability to dock in nation's ports, limited trading. May be think of additional way to get pirate license - bribe nation (pay x gold to receive some rep). Privateers still counts as pirates. There should be some drawback for privateers too, may be if you get yourself pirate license you lose some reputation with pirates that also lowers your rank in exp (pirates dont respect domestic rats). But i really think changing sides should have heavy drawback : player started as navy and switch to piracy - lose rank, if committed minor crimes (friendly npc killed) - lose part exp. If pirate went to privateering for some nation - lose rank with pirates, going back to unlicensed pirate wont affect rank, cause everyone knows him as scoundrel and will anticipate that behavior.

And i really think of neutral nation, that wont be joinable from start, some trading company, if you want join, you should be neutral or above with nations and positive rep with traders. Trader rep will raise from trading acts and from bribing trader "nation". Traders shouldnt have much ports, one mb but they have free passage in every nations waters and will be defended by nations navy npc in case of pirates or greedy navy players. If trader attack first - instant rank loss and piracy side.