Ideas for authentic Pirates - Questions to you all

[thp]

Those ports are more similar to the mentioned hideouts. At the moment Pirates owning more Ports then some Nations. I said they should not be able to capture Ports. Didnt say that there are no Ports which they can use as hideouts.

 

If I would take your example, then pirates must form a clan and capture a port for that clan only. Then they can keep it as long as they can defend it. Because those mentioned examples everytime started with a bunch of privateers or even pirates.

 

"Pirates" are lawless. They formed up groups and wrote down their own laws. Those laws never count for every pirate. And sailing small ships isnt really true. A Pirate Frigate is a big "enough" ship to capture mosty everything interested out there. Also you can easily kite and kill Constitutions and others. The way u describe seems a bit intolerant aswell btw.. There was a Republic of Pirates, Brethren of the Coast and much more similar "Clans". But those clans stands for themselve and not all pirates in the whole world. In Naval Action, all Pirates are together. One big bunch of people sailing under the "Nation of Pirate" Flag and capturing / defend ports in the same size as spain, Great Britain or France. Those scenarios never happend in real life.

 

So my question again: Why is the pirate way so similar to nation way.

 

BTW: To setup a Shipyard in these days and craft mentionable ships took ages. Build up trading routes and crafting facilities aswell. When we go back to the Republic of Pirates, which lasts 11 years, they could never manage to build up a high trading and crafting influence. In Naval Action the Pirates are real trading and crafting gods. A thing which you can perform in every nation. There is no need to make it that similar.

 

I want to give some nice Ideas and not to break gameplay. Who ever want to play big ship boredom and trading simulation, could do this in 7 other existing Nations. So it should be fair, if there is another way of gameplay in Naval action aswell, isnt it? That is not really intolerant. To say: "But some pirates like it" and because of this you create Nation number 8 with a totaly similar way of play, then this is intolerant.

 

Think about some creative Ideas for a Pirate way of life. The thread is called "Ideas for authentic Pirates", not "Force Pirates to play diffrent". Think about a modified captured Trinc with more crew and the posibility of capturing while at 6kn or so. Just as an idea. Hull should be weak because of higher speed and turn rate. You can capture ships pretty easy but also can sink easy when u mess with the wrong people. It would bring a bit more dynamic fights in the game and also those Pirates could play the real Pirate way a bit better and the crafter / trader are in the correct Nation to do so.

That s exactly what happenned in game, the coalition of pirate got it own law, but not all pirates or pirate clans belong to coalition nor accept the coalition law either. Therefore  coalition of pirate didnt force you to do thing if you dont want to. You are pirate and free to do what you want even fight against the coalition of pirate, just expect that you ll be be fought back too if you do so.

You still can be a pirate and corsair and work for the british to fight against the french or spanish( like in real in life ). Just make a base in french or spanish water neutral port and hunt their traders down, or the opposite , be a privateer for france or spanish and fight against the british. But I think the  problem is right now, even national players can do that too , so there s no real reason to be a pirate to do it. All nations can play like pirate as I said before.

The game is a sandbox, what would happen if pirate didnt accept king's pardon and if the royal navy failed to hunt down pirate, insteed pirate could declare independance and build up their own country ? that some of pirates like to play that way.

You only see what you want to see, there are already many pirates  played like you want but they just dont ask for ALL other pirates to do like them if other people dont want to. Sailing in small ships,  dont craft ships just capture. Again you are free to do what you want but you want other people not free to do what they want because what you ask it s making the game mechanics restraint to only your way of piracy, that s intolerant.

 

[BallsOfSteel]

The biggest problem with pirates is the ability to abuse the green on green in battle to avoid attacks, to me this borders on cheating the game mechanic.

 

The suggestions here are very good and i agree, pirates should not be able to capture ports but raiding them successfully would produce booty as such if successful so defending a port successfully meant no booty either but a win is booty.

Edited May 4, 2016 by BallsOfSteel

[Balsafer]

I think the only ports pirates can capture are ones farthest from the capital of a nation.

[tiggily]

@thp u are totaly intolerant, are fitted with wrong historical informations and dont see, that pirates in Naval Action are Nation number 8. If you are against the ideas, just say that once and its done. Stop complaining about intolerance and stuff like that. People like you are glad to be against anything and I dont see, that you thought about the ideas in real. You throw some of your wikipedia informations and try to explain, that Pirates were as big as other Nations, doin the same as Nations in those times. This is - by far - WRONG! Not more, not less. By sure some of them captured ports. Others were privateers before. Some criminals were called Pirates aswell . But all those mentioned things never count for "all pirates", because there was never a Nation called pirates or a Pirate Nation, which act like Spain, France or Briatin. The Republic of Pirates, Brethren of the Coast and other mentioned Pirates stand for their own ideology and didnt waste time by thinking about other Pirates. If you have some Ideas, i would like to hear them. Otherwise thx that u took place and search for a new thread u are against. Otherwise this thread turns into something far away from the topic. I know you are Pirate and its ok, that you like the pirates. Me and some others want to place some ideas for interesting changes, which you dont like and want to see in the game. The good part is, that this is not our both decision.

 

BallsOfSteel: I guess they will fix it somehow. There are also other "bad abuse" things with this mechanic. U can stealth a big fleet with that mechanic also.

 

I would love to see some Ideas for reworking pirates from other people.

Edited May 4, 2016 by tiggily

[Hethwill]

A successful raid by pirates should blast a city morale ( citizens are simply left to their own designs with the feeling their overlords cannot save them ) and turn it unaligned for a full maintenance cycle [ 1 full day after maintenance the port gets blocked to all actions, no entering the port ], and then returns to nation control as normal.

[tiggily]

Nice Idea. Added it to the main Post.

[Haratik]

1) America did have a 1st rate within the time line USS Franklin

2) Russia did have a vast amount of ships in the time period

3) Sweden did have a 1st rate http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/4584-konung-karl-108-swedish-1st-rate-1694/

4) This is the only one you are right about, only known 1st rate Spain has is the Santisma

Dont throw out false information and claim its historically accurate

Same goes for you. The Franklin was a 74 gun third rate, not a first rate.

[thp]

@thp u are totaly intolerant, are fitted with wrong historical informations and dont see, that pirates in Naval Action are Nation number 8. If you are against the ideas, just say that once and its done. Stop complaining about intolerance and stuff like that. People like you are glad to be against anything and I dont see, that you thought about the ideas in real. You throw some of your wikipedia informations and try to explain, that Pirates were as big as other Nations, doin the same as Nations in those times. This is - by far - WRONG! Not more, not less. By sure some of them captured ports. Others were privateers before. Some criminals were called Pirates aswell . But all those mentioned things never count for "all pirates", because there was never a Nation called pirates or a Pirate Nation, which act like Spain, France or Briatin. The Republic of Pirates, Brethren of the Coast and other mentioned Pirates stand for their own ideology and didnt waste time by thinking about other Pirates. If you have some Ideas, i would like to hear them. Otherwise thx that u took place and search for a new thread u are against. Otherwise this thread turns into something far away from the topic. I know you are Pirate and its ok, that you like the pirates. Me and some others want to place some ideas for interesting changes, which you dont like and want to see in the game. The good part is, that this is not our both decision.

 

BallsOfSteel: I guess they will fix it somehow. There are also other "bad abuse" things with this mechanic. U can stealth a big fleet with that mechanic also.

 

I would love to see some Ideas for reworking pirates from other people.

Posted 03 March 2016 - 04:50 PM   Best Answer

We focus on important things and important things are determined by the community. 

Current priorities list (voted by players) will not let us focus on anything related to pirates for quite some time. 

Shouting about lack of attention to this topic is wrong and will only lead to ruined relationships of the dev team with those players.

Some are even threatening to leave the game which for us means complete lack of understanding of what this community voted for to be done first (+ also means that pirates won )

 

Regarding pirates

First will address the port capture

 

Lack of port capture is not going to make pirate gameplay interesting. Henry Morgan captured a lot of towns using his own forces (at some point he had 1400 infantry under his command - all buccaneers), if henry morgan could do it (he had funds and could hire people on the promise of riches) then any JackSparrow111 could do it too if he has enough funds and friends. But you can try to persuade us to the contrary.

 

Current mechanics were explained in detail to mods and those who asked.

The difference with the pirate mental model is strong for several reasons. 

 

Reason 1: Current war mechanics.

• Pirates can attack each other.
• But everyone else can also attack each other.
• Because you can attack anyone anyway -
• pirate is no different from the dutch because he can freely engage anyone
• Because of this the line between nations (who can be at peace) and pirates (who are always attackable) is blurred from the national player point of view
• But you miss one thing - pirate is not safe from his friends (explained in detail in reason 4.)

Reason 2: Sandbox goals

 

In a sandbox everyone has access to same tools and can use them the way they want.

Some players want pirates to have to extremely limited tools hoping their gameplay will become a lot more interesting as a result. For some reason many of those players are not pirates. Two proposals are common: lack of port capture (in reality pirates did capture towns) and lack of ability to sail first rates (in reality pirates did not need first rates because their goal was to steal enough money to retire)

 

In the sandbox getting enough money is easy and if you don't want to retire you create new goals for yourself and retiring is not one of them. Because its a sandbox you cannot really control those goals.

 

Reason 3. No war/peace cycle

If peace/war could cycle could happen between nations then pirates would be a main target (because criminals) during peace times - or used as harassing force against nations you are at peace with. Original thought was this - players who are interested lots of pvp opportunities join pirates because they attack each other (lots of PvP). But player base use the tools provided the way they want. And pirates decided to unite. 

 

Reason 4. Unity

Those who comment on the lack of difference do not understand the strong unity that exist in the pirate nation. You can attack and sink ANY Pirate with no consequence. You see a beautiful ship you don't have; you attack it and take it. Pirate towns are not safe (unlike british coasts). Pirates can sink you if you are a pirate and steal everything. But Pirates DONT attack each other because of the unity, because thats what they chose to believe. 

 

Reason 5. Disney and books

It is tied to goals players set for themselves. But disney/historical pirates are very hard to replicate in a sandbox environment. Because

Disney pirate - robs 3 player snows filled with gold and retires.

Sandbox pirate - robs 3 player snows filled with gold and buys a 3rd rate.

Rob enough players and you have a fleet of 25 third rates. 

 

In summary

Players proposing "I was hoping pirates were interesting" should offer things that will make pirates interesting. 

People play historical sandboxes because they want to change history, because they want to conquer the world as Albania in EU4 or conquer germany as poland 1938 in Hearts of Iron. But because its multiplayer you can stop them.

 

Pushing the game from sandbox into themepark will affect nations more than pirates.

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/11451-i-think-admindevs-owe-a-lot-of-people-an-answer-put-this-issue-to-rest/page-5

[Balsafer]

Same goes for you. The Franklin was a 74 gun third rate, not a first rate.

 

wrong 86 gun 

 

One ship US made (USS Pennsylvania)  reached 120 guns but due to budget did not set sail till 1837.  Its keel was laid down in 1821

 

If we go by when the keel was laid down it is within the timeline but if we go by when it went into service it is not. 

 

Aside from the Pennsylvania the US had 3rd and 2nd rates mainly depending on what gun count qualifies it as a 2nd rate and not a 3rd.  The US had 74 -92 gun SoL for sure.

 

 

Back to pirate discussion getting off topic slightly

[Haratik]

wrong 86 gun

show me your source then, and something other than wikipedia please, in the appropriate topic.

[tiggily]

No! Dont show him any source here. Open a thread for "ship details". If you have got any Ideas for Pirate changes, add them. Otherwise pls bring the other stuff to other threads. If other people want to read something about ideas, they dont want to see a 23 Pages thread because of those things. Would be nice to get a Mod function for those threads aswell.

[Thonys]

 

 

Tiggily, pirates did have 1st rates and for ten years did challenge the whole european colonial navies and did establish a small "nation". Please refer to Red Flag Fleet.

one bird does not make summer

 

I do agree with the supression of the construction of ships of the line but NOT because of the reasons you keep posting. The same reasoning can be used for the National Navies and supress them from building anything above a 5th rate at best.

agree>  not higher then frigates

 

 

But I digress, let's get back to the point and keep it interesting.

 

- We are agreeing on one unique point - disguise

 

no i dont agree it becomes WOT and arcade

 

 

- We can discuss a second point - the impossibility of crafting balance through capture and modification: ability to combine durabilites, up to rate limit, with the added pirate specialty of refitting the ships.

 

i agree on that

[Hethwill]

I was just naggin' on the Historical "thingies" gents always bring up, like it is FACT when it isn't

 

Importance of Historical credibility versus enticing gameplay is what we should strive for and NOT the demise of an entire field of play just because some folks wish it.

[tiggily]

This thread wasnt started to let the game become 100% historical correct. It was started to make things better. To make it more simple: At the moment we have got 8 identical Nations. Thats a fact. Then I cant call this side "pirates". They should be called Freelancer and I wouldnt talk about it.

 

When you call them Pirates and create them identical to all the other factions, there is something missing in this game. And dont make this depending to any class of ships. Most 1rd / 2rd / 3rd are totaly useless(*) and easy to capture / sink so leave them out of this thread. Also the way of a Pirate should be much more difficult then the way of a normal Sailor. In fact it works the other way around. It is much easier to earn cash, easier to get ships above 4rd and easier to hide for PvE Players and Traders(**).

 

I create this thread for collecting Ideas in the hope, that this could help the dev's to change something, or even not - up to them. I didnt create the thread to get unplaced reposts from thp or historical wiki posts about how much guns are at which type of ship. If you guys dont have Ideas for this thread, pls dont start those discussions here. Do it with PM's. This is an illness of most Forums, that after two posts the topic is thrown away.

 

 

Before the next offense: (*) 1rd-3rd are usefull in PB. For PvP Pirate Fleets they are a cash cow. Not more, not less. And as long as we are talking about the Idea of "being a Pirate", they dont have any worth for a roaming fleet, except beeing a bait. (**) In the North of MT, you can do what ever you want. Trade, PvE, go afk for the whole day... whatever. Clanmates who are fresh always level there. Every 4-10 hours some US or GB are around but not able to catch small ships in the shallow region.

[haemol]

Dear Devs,

 

I like and love the game in its status. Because of its working progress, I want to give you my feedback. I play Pirate.

 

In every game, where a Pirate system is able to be played, i love to do so. And yes, I joined Pirates in NA aswell. But I didnt know, that they are a Nation - which is a totaly wrong understanding of what pirate was in the 16th to 18th century. If someone had told me before, that I can choose the "Nation" Pirate, I were joined france frist, scam all the Clans and players, kill some friendly mates and become pirate then. Because this is, what pirates did in those centuires. They never fight to own a harbour. They fight harbours to own more stuff.

 

So here are my points:

 

1) Pirates shouldnt be able to own Ports. They only should be able to "raid" them for getting stuff out of it. Only 1-3 Hideouts which are only shown on Pirates map, should be owned by pirates. Not more not less. Because being a pirate is kind of a political statement. ATM Pirates are "friendly" to each other because they have to. This is FAAAAAAr away of beeing authentic. So here is the Idea: No Port Capture or battle for owned ports.

 

2) Be a Pirate : When I capture a ship from e.g. the Great Britains, I will steal the Flag and sail under my new fake flag. As long as i dont attack anyone - to get somethings like a criminal timer and be detected as "fake" Great Britain - i should be able to use every port / facility / chat or more from the Nation, i fake to sail for. Only when i get criminal flagged and or get killed, the flag should be gone.

 

3) Pirates should not be able to craft ships. They can dock at every harbour (fake flag at Point 2 explains why) and they can buy ships there or get into "deals" with clans of any nations to get ships. Also they should focus in raiding fleeds and capture ships. But Pirates should be able to upgrade or optimize their ships. e.g. enhance Speed and crew, better boarding abilities for fast travel Boardings at 6kn or something similar. Pirate ships should be a very scary thing in open world fights. And i dont mean, that they should be tanky or overpowered. They only need to have things, which nation ships dont have.

 

4) Turning into "Pirate" should be a penalty for players. So they should be thrown out of their "safed" life in a 150 member clan into a deep community of ugly, angry and beard people who kill each other for no reason, when the rum rations ran out. Learn how to sail, steal, fake flag, keeping morales up and get away with slaves / captured ships should be horrible hard for a normal player. But this should be all, what pirates should be able to do. Sitting in MT to craft things is dumb. No Pirate of our history books ever sit in a port and craft a plank for a ship. They all raid a port and take those ready build ships and the wife of the guy who crafted it. 

 

5) Give pirates some capturing advantage but for. eg. let them be attacked from npc's aswell, when they get a criminal timer. Those timer should be there for 1-2 hours.

 

6) A Pirate need to learn everything new. Sailing Routes, noone know and all stuff like that. So take away the teleport to capitol function for Pirates.

 

IMPORTANT: Pirates shouldnt be a Nation as they are atm. They should not have any friends in their own "Pirate faction" expect their Clan or ally mates. They should be able to fake flag. They should not be those pve focused Trader / Crafter / Labor hour seller as atm. Take all of the pirates harbours. Give them Hideouts. I saw so many pirates sailing around, who are no pirates and acting like Nation People... Organize political Port capturing Situations shouldnt be able... The Pirates atm are by far not authentic. Everyone who dont see this, should go back in the history lesson (no offense)

 

 

Added Ideas by other players:

 

From Hethwill: A successful raid by pirates should blast a city morale ( citizens are simply left to their own designs with the feeling their overlords cannot save them ) and turn it unaligned for a full maintenance cycle [ 1 full day after maintenance the port gets blocked to all actions, no entering the port ], and then returns to nation control as normal.

AN AWESOME IDEA!!!

and it's better than the other ones imo (sorry guys!)

 

I mean, he really has a very good point:

IF someone wants to be a pirate, it should be a REAL pirates life. and if someone does NOT like this, then they either have to steal flags or they stay with the nation they started with. and YES PIRATES ARE NO NATION!!! there are already enough nations that we can pick from, so why would we wanna have another nation that lacks all identity, the only difference is the name "Pirate Nation". this is really a wasted feature and tiggily presents us with a more than great solution. it will enhance the game in a way that it will even exceed eve online in terms of innovation.

 

great idea, i hope to see this. and then i'll become a pirate. muahhahaha

 

ps: about the not crafting ships thingy: makes sense, but to balance this disadvantage, they could be able to add dura to ships they own (or even captured npc ships) instead.

 

ps2: i forgot.

[haemol]

oh: ps2: about those 1st rates. why should a pirate not be able to sail a first rate if he can aquire it somehow? too much rum?

[Haratik]

No! Dont show him any source here. Open a thread for "ship details". If you have got any Ideas for Pirate changes, add them. Otherwise pls bring the other stuff to other threads. If other people want to read something about ideas, they dont want to see a 23 Pages thread because of those things. Would be nice to get a Mod function for those threads aswell.

That's what I asked him to do, if you bothered to read my post at all. Back on topic.

[Destraex]

@haemol pirates have never had the manpower or resources to maintain a 1st rate long. Even if they could they do not aim to fight, they aim to capture under-armed merchants and run.

Why would they need a first rate? Even nations found it hard to maintain these bad boys. It's never been a pirates job or inclination to fight the navy.

[Johnny Rotten]

Pirates and Neutral should be the same faction - no special pirate-only mechanics with flags.

 

Your reputation with each nation determines weather you're a pirate or not, each nation would have their own opinion of you so it's up to you to choose how you play.

 

Letters of marque would just allow you attack a nation without a reputation penalty. If a nation likes you enough - you can sign up to the navy, hence joining that faction.

 

So leaving the faction would require becoming a pirate to that nation (did captains have the option of leaving IRL?)

 

If were talking realism and fun - the game needs one less nation.

[Galaksee]

 

Added Ideas by other players:

 

From Hethwill: A successful raid by pirates should blast a city morale ( citizens are simply left to their own designs with the feeling their overlords cannot save them ) and turn it unaligned for a full maintenance cycle [ 1 full day after maintenance the port gets blocked to all actions, no entering the port ], and then returns to nation control as normal.

 

I would say to add to this proposition that with the low "moral" of the city, the timer of the port should be gone as a recently raided port should be taken in an easier way

Edited May 17, 2016 by Galaksee

[CaptVonGunn]

While this is not popular I will post in here as I did in teh Pirate Mechanic thread

 

 

  Pirates should have 3 -5 Pirate Havens.. much like current Capital.. These should be the only ports they ever own.. among them all resource types...  Each Piarte gets to pick which of these is His/her Capital

 

  They could be restricted to building Connie size and below ships with each of them an adjusted version like the Pirate Frigate... They should also be allowed to Craft Pirate Frigates and only sell them in those ports....  

 

  Raid ports instead of capturing... if raid is successful they get a LOT of lot... It should be all the resource in the port and it's production builds and warehouses.. Split among the attackers up to the max amount that will fit in their closest warehouse.. All ships in port should be capture able also up to the max you can store in your home port.

 

  A raided port should be completely useless to anyone for 24-48 real hours while it recovers from the Sack... and unattackable for 7 real days after the recovery.

 

 Battles flags should be bought 24 hours before they can start.. Start time should be 3-4 hour block after  the 24 hours is up making it a 24-28 hour lead time.  picked by the attackers and not known by the defenders. This allows both sides to get forces into the area and prepare.. If people are really wanting PvP this should end up creating several open water and 1 port battle easily. There should be no flag... it should just open at the set time and during that time you have a BIG fight... ships sink others can join for say an hour max from start time... No BR auto win... Fight till one side is sunk, captured or leaves.

 

   This will do a few things.. 1 fewer total attacks in a samll area.. just due to time.. the ones that happen should be AWESOME

 

  BR limits on port battle insure it isn't just a stack of max level ships...  Unless some thinks they can win a PB with 3 Santis vs 25 Friagtes(as an example not actual numbers)

 

   But hey what do I know about fun..