Pirates as a game mechanic instead of a nation.

[Ledinis]

I know topics about pirates are more abundant in this forum than the amount of compass would being sold in the current broken economy, but what bothers me the most is that all of those posts (although some of them have quite good ideas in general) are all focused on keeping pirates as a nation, which is a waste of a huge game content potential.

 

The problem with pirates being a nation, is that there’s two ways to go about it. A ) Give or take away distinctive features that would differentiate them from other nations (stuff that is often proposed like limiting pirates to not be able to craft ships, only capture them). B ) Keep them with minimal difference from the current nations. With option A, making them have distinctive features would result in a lot of balancing issues, and having a big part of game content striped away from a huge player base. And option B … Well that’s just a lazy excuse to say that - yeah of course we have pirates in a sailing game.

 

Reimagining them as a game mechanic is mostly inspired by games that people here most likely have played before, like Age of Sails: Caribbean Tales, Port Royal/Patrician Series and such. And by the ideas already proposed on these forums.

 

So the core of it all is that each and every captain would have the ability, once out of port and sigh of others to raise the black, which in turn could differentiate them into two categories: Pirates and Privateer. I doubt many here need explanation to distinguish them, but still Pirate – any captain committing crimes on the seas usually for his own personal agenda, Privateer – an individual granted a license from a governor to attack enemy ships. Both of these would deepen the game experience greatly.

 

Pirate – would be the choice for the person who wishes to either gain personal wealth through any means necessary, or for someone who wishes to destabilize a nation. The main features for the players who would choose this route would be as follows:

• A pirate name different from his national name, to hide his true identity. Back in the days captains didn’t have the ability to see the captain’s name just by right clicking on the ship and telling the entire server about it, and a person innocent until proven guilty. So this mechanic would be mainly to simulate the event where a pirate captures an enemy ship, and is not lenient enough to release the enemy crew, meaning his true identity is not revealed. While at the same time letting a trader go if it surrenders its goods, the said trader running away could have a percentage chance of revealing the true identity of the captain, since there are witnesses left to describe the ship and such. Naturally counter boarding a pirate should have a 100% chance to reveal his identity.

·         If the identity is revealed the player becomes hostile to everyone regardless if he is flying his national flag or a pirate flag, maybe even have a bounty placed on his head to encourage other people to hunt him down.

·         All national ports close entry to the said captain and assets he had in them are confiscated by the port authorities.

·         If the said captain gets caught and killed while his identity is blown he losses a portion of his XP.

·         Releasing ships that surrendered their good, or escaped ships, should have a bigger chance to identify larger ships, it would be much harder to keep tabs on all the pirate sloops while a pirate line ship would attract a lot of attention.

 

• The ability to create pirate havens. A choice to establish sort of pirate towns anywhere on the map away from national cities, that would be upgradable, unlock extra game mechanics for the ones that choose the pirate life and be totally destroyable by any nation that attacks them. The main functions and ideas of these pirate havens would be:

·         They can be built anywhere on the land. That would lead players that don’t want to have active piracy near their ports to explore the world to fish out and destroy these lairs.

·         To create such a lair one would need a huge amount of resources and labor hours even for the basic state. After witch it could have upgrades that would require more investments. i.e one could build a Tavern or housing to attract sailors to the haven, a dock where one could acquire pirate specific refits for small ships like sloops and frigates, or defenses like batteries, towers and such that would give a fighting chance to defend the haven in case of an attack.

·         They could be attacked just like normal ports, but maybe with a smaller player cap like 7-10 ships max per side.

·         Would offer pirate specific missions, like smuggling, or trader capturing

·         Could be a place to store stolen goods and fence them.

 

• The ability to create pirate clans, that would have entry rights to the pirate havens build by their own, could participate in its defense and have the ability to sail together in groups to hunt down their pray. These should be limited to small numbers 10-15 players per pirate clan.

 

Privateers – would be the choice for those who wish a safer way of earning a prize without intervening with their own nation’s well-being, and don’t want to risk becoming an outcast amongst his own people. By receiving a Letter of Marque to act against the nation’s enemies, these captains could discretely harass the enemy, while being allowed to keep a bigger portion of the prize money for their effort than a captain sailing normally under his nation’s flag.  A reputation system could also be implemented for these captains – where as acting upon the governor’s request would increase you reputation with your nation to unlock specific upgrades (be it unique ship upgrades, cosmetic stuff or something in that line).

 

These are just a few thoughts of the top of my head, and I hope to see more suggestions or problems and workarounds for these suggestions in the comments. 

Edited May 11, 2016 by Ledinis

[Long Beard]

This sounds like a very complicated set of mechanics designed for just one portion of the community.

Why would you enforce limits on how many pirates could sail together? It would be fine for 40 players to team up and hunt 15 pirates? In RL did pirates turn away other pirate captains because they were only allowed to sail a certain number of ships?

 

The thing that gets me the most about these 'change pirates' posts is they are predominantly  posted by non pirates who have never played pirate.

I am all for changing the pirate mechanics, but mostly I see ideas and suggestions that focus on nerfing pirates to make them weak, and have a huge disadvantage over other players.  Restrict this, don't let them have that, prevent them from doing this, and so on.

 

Fine and dandy if this was real life, but it's an entertainment platform, played for pvp fun.

[Eishen]

This sounds like a very complicated set of mechanics designed for just one portion of the community.

Why would you enforce limits on how many pirates could sail together? It would be fine for 40 players to team up and hunt 15 pirates? In RL did pirates turn away other pirate captains because they were only allowed to sail a certain number of ships?

 

The thing that gets me the most about these 'change pirates' posts is they are predominantly  posted by non pirates who have never played pirate.

I am all for changing the pirate mechanics, but mostly I see ideas and suggestions that focus on nerfing pirates to make them weak, and have a huge disadvantage over other players.  Restrict this, don't let them have that, prevent them from doing this, and so on.

 

Fine and dandy if this was real life, but it's an entertainment platform, played for pvp fun.

 

Totally agree, Pirates need a different playstyle from "nationals" , not a "nerfed" one.

 

 

And for the record , I think a can -partially?  - be counted as pirate... maybe one of the few players whose "second character" (sadly semi abandoned precisely by being "more-of-the-same" ) is not  an spy or a labor hours suplement.

Edited May 12, 2016 by Eishen

[Hethwill]

different playstyle from "nationals" , not a "nerfed" one.

 

 

 

 

Yes. I also see a pattern.

[The Spud]

The pirate faction is a hard nut to crack, and these complicated mechanics (although nice idea and well explained) will be the cause for exploits and griefing. The pirates can not share the same motif as a nation, they shouldn't be on the hunt to cap as many ports as they can. My sugestion:

 

Make the pirate faction purely gold driven, no battle experience needed to rank up, just how much money you make in your "carreer". To prevent abuse (huge gold transactions from one pirate to the other) you need to transfer gold to your treasure, the treasure gold can not be used and can not be put back to useable gold, the treasure gold is the only gold that counts towards you "rank". On top of the usual rank, we could also give the top X amount of players a bonus of some kind. A redeemable SoL or something worth the effort of being the wealthiest pirate in the carribean, a little medal or something next to your name.

 

This would have as a benefit to the nations that they are totaly uninvolved in the whole port capping business. We could have some fixed pirate ports across the map, uncapable, maybe on small islands. So they are not focussed on any region or nation. So the pirates would have no interest in who is owning what port, only how much money can be made from their traders and ships. They can attack eachother, to steal their stolen cargo. Clans could work together to put a player in the top X amount of players. Maybe give them some more pirate only ships, like the pirate frigate. We could or could not let them craft stuff, make trading only possible in free towns and pirate ports. It would make a nice bit of competition amongst pirates...

 

The fact they are not involved in the national diplomacy, might open up the option for a nation to make a pirate a privateer for an amount of time.

[mouse of war]

This sounds like a very complicated set of mechanics designed for just one portion of the community.

Why would you enforce limits on how many pirates could sail together? It would be fine for 40 players to team up and hunt 15 pirates? In RL did pirates turn away other pirate captains because they were only allowed to sail a certain number of ships?

 

The thing that gets me the most about these 'change pirates' posts is they are predominantly  posted by non pirates who have never played pirate.

I am all for changing the pirate mechanics, but mostly I see ideas and suggestions that focus on nerfing pirates to make them weak, and have a huge disadvantage over other players.  Restrict this, don't let them have that, prevent them from doing this, and so on.

 

Fine and dandy if this was real life, but it's an entertainment platform, played for pvp fun.

 

1. "The thing that gets me the most about these 'change pirates' posts is they are predominantly  posted by non pirates who have never played pirate." - is it such a surprise that those disadvantaged by the pirate's special rules and advantages should complain about it? 

2. "I am all for changing the pirate mechanics, but mostly I see ideas and suggestions that focus on nerfing pirates to make them weak, and have a huge disadvantage over other players.  Restrict this, don't let them have that, prevent them from doing this, and so on." - agreed there should be a balance of changes. Or the pirate nation should have the same rules as all the other nations.

3. "Fine and dandy if this was real life, but it's an entertainment platform, played for pvp fun" - 'fun' does not rule out 'fair'

[The Spud]

The pirate faction is a hard nut to crack, and these complicated mechanics (although nice idea and well explained) will be the cause for exploits and griefing. The pirates can not share the same motif as a nation, they shouldn't be on the hunt to cap as many ports as they can. My sugestion:

 

Make the pirate faction purely gold driven, no battle experience needed to rank up, just how much money you make in your "carreer". To prevent abuse (huge gold transactions from one pirate to the other) you need to transfer gold to your treasure, the treasure gold can not be used and can not be put back to useable gold, the treasure gold is the only gold that counts towards you "rank". On top of the usual rank, we could also give the top X amount of players a bonus of some kind. A redeemable SoL or something worth the effort of being the wealthiest pirate in the carribean, a little medal or something next to your name.

 

This would have as a benefit to the nations that they are totaly uninvolved in the whole port capping business. We could have some fixed pirate ports across the map, uncapable, maybe on small islands. So they are not focussed on any region or nation. So the pirates would have no interest in who is owning what port, only how much money can be made from their traders and ships. They can attack eachother, to steal their stolen cargo. Clans could work together to put a player in the top X amount of players. Maybe give them some more pirate only ships, like the pirate frigate. We could or could not let them craft stuff, make trading only possible in free towns and pirate ports. It would make a nice bit of competition amongst pirates...

 

The fact they are not involved in the national diplomacy, might open up the option for a nation to make a pirate a privateer for an amount of time.

 

Reading it again makes it sound allot like I want to endlessly nerf the pirates. I just want to shift the attention for pirates from owning ports to owning gold, as it would have been in the days. So they essentialy play their own game inside the game. They could still sail whatever they want, they just can't do PB's. We should give them something of equal value in return, something the nations don't have and might envy, like nice ships or special missions. In a way they will influence the nations gameplay, but they will never be able to destablize it, they would have no reason to do so.

[Hethwill]

Given the game revolves around combat and rules of engagement, better start there at combat & roe before going up to the conquest & nations level.

[Long Beard]

1. "The thing that gets me the most about these 'change pirates' posts is they are predominantly  posted by non pirates who have never played pirate." - is it such a surprise that those disadvantaged by the pirate's special rules and advantages should complain about it? 

2. "I am all for changing the pirate mechanics, but mostly I see ideas and suggestions that focus on nerfing pirates to make them weak, and have a huge disadvantage over other players.  Restrict this, don't let them have that, prevent them from doing this, and so on." - agreed there should be a balance of changes. Or the pirate nation should have the same rules as all the other nations.

3. "Fine and dandy if this was real life, but it's an entertainment platform, played for pvp fun" - 'fun' does not rule out 'fair'

 

Other than the fact pirates can attack each other, what special advantages are you talking about? AND, there is a difference between 'complaining' about it, and calling for wide sweeping restrictions and nerfs. 

 

The pirate faction is a hard nut to crack, and these complicated mechanics (although nice idea and well explained) will be the cause for exploits and griefing. The pirates can not share the same motif as a nation, they shouldn't be on the hunt to cap as many ports as they can. My sugestion:

 

Make the pirate faction purely gold driven, no battle experience needed to rank up, just how much money you make in your "carreer". To prevent abuse (huge gold transactions from one pirate to the other) you need to transfer gold to your treasure, the treasure gold can not be used and can not be put back to useable gold, the treasure gold is the only gold that counts towards you "rank". On top of the usual rank, we could also give the top X amount of players a bonus of some kind. A redeemable SoL or something worth the effort of being the wealthiest pirate in the carribean, a little medal or something next to your name.

 

This would have as a benefit to the nations that they are totaly uninvolved in the whole port capping business. We could have some fixed pirate ports across the map, uncapable, maybe on small islands. So they are not focussed on any region or nation. So the pirates would have no interest in who is owning what port, only how much money can be made from their traders and ships. They can attack eachother, to steal their stolen cargo. Clans could work together to put a player in the top X amount of players. Maybe give them some more pirate only ships, like the pirate frigate. We could or could not let them craft stuff, make trading only possible in free towns and pirate ports. It would make a nice bit of competition amongst pirates...

 

The fact they are not involved in the national diplomacy, might open up the option for a nation to make a pirate a privateer for an amount of time.

 

You are failing to consider one key factor. This is a game were + numbers = win. Trying to split pirates up will not work. We would simply coordinate and work together. Why? Because if we didn't we'd stand no chance in a game were nations field large fleets for PVP.    Pirates would not make much 'gold' if we had to consistently try to evade large fleets on enemy players. I know this because even when I go 'stealing' on my own, I get hunted by fleets.  This would in turn make rank progression much more difficult and imbalanced compared with nations.  What you suggest is an epic nerf.

 

[Anne Wildcat]

In POTBS what was fun to do as a pirate was find ports that were being flipped by other nations & go with a group & wreak havoc on their attempt. There was little pirate interest in conquest. However, with such a large OW map & small windows (i.e. buy a flag & sail to the port to start battle) that's hard to do here.

Add more free ports, remove tp cooldown timers, and rework how port capture is done & maybe you will see more pirates being piratey

Edited May 12, 2016 by Anne Wildcat

[The Spud]

Other than the fact pirates can attack each other, what special advantages are you talking about? AND, there is a difference between 'complaining' about it, and calling for wide sweeping restrictions and nerfs. 

 

 

You are failing to consider one key factor. This is a game were + numbers = win. Trying to split pirates up will not work. We would simply coordinate and work together. Why? Because if we didn't we'd stand no chance in a game were nations field large fleets for PVP.    Pirates would not make much 'gold' if we had to consistently try to evade large fleets on enemy players. I know this because even when I go 'stealing' on my own, I get hunted by fleets.  This would in turn make rank progression much more difficult and imbalanced compared with nations.  What you suggest is an epic nerf.

 

 

It is being said before that OR we make pirates a full nation, where they can't attack eachother, exactly the same as nations, OR we try to add a touch of history and make pirates real pirates.

 

The only way I think we could ever achieve this is by making the end goal for pirates different from these of nations. That is why i sugested the gold as a historicaly correct method of motivating pirates to do PvP. If you guys all agree on a "code" where its not done to attack a fellow pirate (something I might assume of being more or less done back in the days) there's nobody to stop you from dong that. You could raid and PvP all you like and whoever you like. Like said above, who is to stop you from interfering with a nations tactics. It would be the real free for all pirates.

 

It would be preferable to compensate the loss of features with something in equal measure.

[Ledinis]

Would like to thank everyone for their input so far, and to apologize for not highlighting the main reason of this suggestion. I am not suggesting different rule sets for the current pirate nation, since i already stated my opinion if you keep them as a nation you either A ) Make them have different game-play mechanics - which leads to a lot of balancing issues and endless whining from one side or the other or B ) Keep them as close to other nations in terms of game-play - which is wasted potential for enriching the game. What i am suggesting is changing the current pirate nation into Portugal or what ever other nation (yes i know historical Portugal didn't have any ports in the area at the time period but this is just an example of the top of my head) and making piracy an integral part of each and every nation - meaning there would be British/Spanish/Danish/French/Dutch/USA/Swedish/Portuguese pirates praying upon their own or other nations in secrecy. Meaning you could be a well respected Spanish captain that finds out about a clans plans to transport a lot of resources from one port to another, secretly you are also a part of a small pirate brotherhood. You inform them of this shipment, go out of the eyes of other captains raise the black and after meeting up with your fellow outlaws pillage the trader's you had information from before.

 

Of course there needs to be other changes for this to work like no teleporting traders with their full cargo and such, but this would enrich the entire game play for each player regardless of nation, by adding extra content and if done correctly enriching the possibilities of diplomacy.

Edited May 12, 2016 by Ledinis

[Ludvik]

I fully support every proposal made by ledinis. The man is a genius

[CptEdwardKenway]

In POTBS what was fun to do as a pirate was find ports that were being flipped by other nations & go with a group & wreak havoc on their attempt. There was little pirate interest in conquest. However, with such a large OW map & small windows (i.e. buy a flag & sail to the port to start battle) that's hard to do here.

Add more free ports, remove tp cooldown timers, and rework how port capture is done & maybe you will see more pirates being piratey

That wouldn't change anything. They would still conquer the map like now. Only way is a completely overhaul which is in progress.

A PotBS mechanic would still work. No need for countless tp. They already attack only 2 nations. And they are already everywhere. Maybe the travel system isn't perfect but at the moment it works.

And to the topic: to be honest I didn't read the whole thing but I don't think it's a good idea to hide names. It's like hiding in post battle screen and jump and gank on other players just with the difference you don't need to hide in post battle screens.

In history the captains were very aware of pirate ships. They were some kind of tuned ships with alot of crew. They pretty knew when a pirate crossed their way.

Just imagine pirates hiding in green zone and ganking everyone who tries to leave the capital. It's another way to force new players to quitt this game very fast.

Edited May 14, 2016 by CptEdwardKenway

[Ledinis]

That wouldn't change anything. They would still conquer the map like now. Only way is a completely overhaul which is in progress.

A PotBS mechanic would still work. No need for countless tp. They already attack only 2 nations. And they are already everywhere. Maybe the travel system isn't perfect but at the moment it works.

And to the topic: to be honest I didn't read the whole thing but I don't think it's a good idea to hide names. It's like hiding in post battle screen and jump and gank on other players just with the difference you don't need to hide in post battle screens.

In history the captains were very aware of pirate ships. They were some kind of tuned ships with alot of crew. They pretty knew when a pirate crossed their way.

Just imagine pirates hiding in green zone and ganking everyone who tries to leave the capital. It's another way to force new players to quitt this game very fast.

Good point, maybe a limit of having them to travel a certain distance from friendly ports before they could change their colors ?