X-Files: The Pirate Corruption

[Skully]

You do realize why pirate vs pirate gold and xp was removed at some point (has it returned?) right?  Because of damage farming.  And this is one reason why pirates will no longer be able to attack pirates in the future.

What do you get if you continuously nerf conflict in a war game?

[Fastidius]

carebear porn..

[Bach]

It is a feature of the game. And in my opinion rightfully so.

We can only recognize this and see what we need to deal with it.

I don't feel that strongly about it. However, my point still stands. If the game loses credibility with the steam or other gaming communities, due to even just the impression of unfairness, it's all going to be over. Any game dependent on a critical mass population can't ignore reputation factors in the bussiness model.

There are game hacker forums out there that already have/had threads addressing Naval Action. So the real cheaters are already targeting our client side coding. Don't be suprised when ships start appearing slightly faster than they should be or shooters seem to get a consistent high rate of leaks. These kinds of things the devs have to try constantly to stay ahead of. They are real. The impression side of cheating, basically meta gaming, is just more headache on the pile. Even though not technically real cheating it drives the same consumer emotional factors. When the population drops below a certain point we're all done. If it means I have to give up attacking another pirate that's not that much of a sacrifice. To completely ignore reputation effecting player practices would be very unwise.

Edited August 15, 2016 by Bach

[Prater]

What do you get if you continuously nerf conflict in a war game?

 

What do you get in a game where everyone is now cheating, and to keep up you have to cheat?  A game people stop playing.

 

Conflict between pirates and nationals is not nerfed.

[Random]

I firmly believe that all each of us really has in this game when the smoke settles is our reputation. Pirates absolutely have to have some sort of notoriety not only among the nationals whom they harass, but also among themselves, which necessitates their ability to attack each other. It does not take that long to level up in this game (especially with fleet farming being readily available), so higher level pirates would not care about xp gains from attacking each other. They would also not need xp farming if implemented properly since they wouldn't have a burning need to sail ships of the line. I really don't see much of a problem in allowing them to attack each other, and, after all, it can be allowed with no xp award for the fight.

[Bach]

I firmly believe that all each of us really has in this game when the smoke settles is our reputation. Pirates absolutely have to have some sort of notoriety not only among the nationals whom they harass, but also among themselves, which necessitates their ability to attack each other. It does not take that long to level up in this game (especially with fleet farming being readily available), so higher level pirates would not care about xp gains from attacking each other. They would also not need xp farming if implemented properly since they wouldn't have a burning need to sail ships of the line. I really don't see much of a problem in allowing them to attack each other, and, after all, it can be allowed with no xp award for the fight.

Taken in its purest form, two pirates fighting each other for dominance, it sounds good to let pirates attack each other.

But what if you are sailing away from a large national fleet when suddenly the pirate next too you tags you into a battle at short range. All those nationals following you now get to jump in on his side and you just got ganked by a traitor on what you thought was your side. Now he'll just say "The Nations paid me to attack you." Technically this isn't cheating. Emotionally it's not going to sit well with much of the player base. So reputation dies.

But what if you are chasing a slightly smaller national group when all of a sudden the largest ship in your squadron suddenly disappears into a battle alongside one other of the pirates in your group. Now the whole chase unravels as two ships on the sea magically disappear shifting the OW group strengths. Turns out your team mate tagged your largest ship to take it out of the upcoming fight along with his. He says "the Nats paid me to stab you in the back so it's ok". Again, technically not cheating but still a game killing move.

But what if you are in a 25 slot limited port battle against an equal sided National. Suddenly an entire 6 man clan stops fighting, blocks shots, neutralizes towers and basically throws the battle. They say "The Nationals paid us to stab you in the back so it's ok". Again, technically not cheating but in the long run no pirate will ever want to play with new pirates or anyone they don't personally know. The game reputation suffers.

Unless we can come up with a better set on constraints to pirate v pirate attacks than xp and gold it's to potentially advantageous to use pirate Alts to leverage national positions against them.

Edited August 15, 2016 by Bach

[Brogsitter]

I think he understood your point mate. 

 

It doesn't really matter "who's fault" it is for the present state of the pirates. I think we can all at least agree that the present pirate system doesn't really work, and that the present system doesn't reflect what a pirate should be.

 

I'm going to assume the purpose of this post was to propose various things about how the pirate nation should become in the future, and hence will make my own proposition.

 

I think that it would be wise to seek the following goals:

-To create a system which enables pirates to PVP with one another. Pirates competing with one another for hunting grounds and bragging rights just screams pirate, and removing their ability to PVP with one another (though it does remove the tedious xp farm exploit) sorta "forces" unity.

-To create a system which shifts pirate gameplay away from port battles and land wars to internal competition between individual players and commerce raiding. The present system merely renders the pirate a nation with some unique perks and a different identity.

 

I propose the following:

-Remove the use of 3rd-1st rates. Ships of the line of this caliber are illogical to a pirate; they are slow, and their only purpose lie in port battles and other major fleet actions. Pirates don't do major fleet actions, and I know of few people who hunt commerce and engage single ship actions with lumbering ships of the line. The 4th rates should be kept however, to prevent pirates from being totally defenseless from SOLs and help balance that disadvantage. Plus, a light 4th rate SOL like the Ingermanland would remind me of a sorta "pirate flagship"

-Allow pirate PVP, for the reasons I stated above.

-Create an Infamy mechanic, a rating which players improve by winning various actions against players at sea. This could help bolster individual competition as various pirates try to keep up on the top of the social order by winning battles and becoming famous. This also dissuades pirates attacking each-other for exploit reasons, as it harms the infamy rating of the defeated player.

-Remove pirate ownership of ports and reset to the original ports from the start of the game. Some people forget that the pirates initially had a string of ports all over the place as sort of "hideouts" which they could use to raid commerce in the area; for example, Pedro Cay to raid British shipping, etc. Make these ports unconquerable as permanent pirate bases. Nations would contest with their pirate threats by devoting their ships to protect shipping (I can imagine constant escort activity near KPR, being so close to Pedro!), adding a new dimension to frigates and under. After all, the backbone of national fleets has long been made up of SOLs; SOLs are the only strategic ships. Adding this mechanic could add more strategic value to nations and clans focusing efforts on building frigates.

-Add special perk to pirates that emphasizes loot gain from captured trade ships. This should help encourage pirates hunting down traders.

 

I purpose: Remove all Santis and Victories except 1.... everything else is non realistic.

[Skully]

The first two scenarios should be tackled with admins pull circle proposal.

The third scenario is under discussion. I'm leaning towards marking the port battle as a Clan fight of the potential Lord Protector. That immediately defines who can enter the PB and who can not.

(I have no clue where I left that. Might have been on a TS discussion. I usually steal the best ideas from my clan mates. Yarrr. )

[Skully]

What do you get in a game where everyone is now cheating, and to keep up you have to cheat?  A game people stop playing.

 

Conflict between pirates and nationals is not nerfed.

So far I have yet to encounter a cheater, which makes me question whether everybody is already cheating.

Both in-conflict of Pirates and conflicts between Nations is going to be nerfed.

Thus we are not on a path to deal with cheaters, but we are on the path of nerfing conflicts.

[Enraged Ewok]

The first two scenarios should be tackled with admins pull circle proposal.

The third scenario is under discussion. I'm leaning towards marking the port battle as a Clan fight of the potential Lord Protector. That immediately defines who can enter the PB and who can not.

(I have no clue where I left that. Might have been on a TS discussion. I usually steal the best ideas from my clan mates. Yarrr. )

 

The issue I see with the first two scenarios is groups. What happens with the rest of the group members if one group member attacks another? Everyone drawn in? If so, to which group member's side? If they aren't, we've now split the fleet since those group members can't enter the battle with Admin's no timer but large circle proposal. I am completely for restricting attacks against same-flagged allies, including pirates.

 

The way I see it, the flag immediately defines friend/foe on the open sea, which is hugely important to a player's decision making process as to what to run from and what not to. There should not be a scenario that in 99% of cases is an ally outside your clan, and 1% is a player flagged as an ally but attacking you because "he was paid to do it." When this becomes the case, suspicion, chat rage, tribunal reports, etc. explode because mechanics are unclear after players were attacked by what in 99% of cases would have been an allied player.

[Skully]

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15725-hello-there-friend/

How far should the game go in being a trust provider when playing Pirates?

To me it should not put up any bars. Trusting Pirates should always be risky.

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15528-pvp1-june-29th-no-sympathies/

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15653-mine-mine-mine-mine/

[Enraged Ewok]

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15725-hello-there-friend/

How far should the game go in being a trust provider when playing Pirates?

To me it should not put up any bars. Trusting Pirates should always be risky.

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15528-pvp1-june-29th-no-sympathies/

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15653-mine-mine-mine-mine/

 

I don't see it as a matter of trust on the open sea. In port, yes you should always be wary that a business partner may scam you. Not only is it the nature of online gaming, its also the nature of piracy. That being said, pirates generally did not fight each other on the open sea. Disagreements were settled on shore where the pirate crew's means of sustenance (the ship and the rest of the crew) were not a risk. Even if the captain got himself killed in a disagreement with another man on shore, a new captain would be elected and life would continue for the crew. If two pirate ships engaged on the open sea, it puts the entire crew and the ship at risk for little to no gain in wealth, meaning its an engagement that no pirate crew would agree with their captain on starting.

[Skully]

I was at port when I was requested assistance of pursuers of the Clan that I am under employ and paid to defend Island Harbour and the Swedish nationals under contract of privateering payment of 800,000 gold per term.

Do we really want (or trust ) the game to make our profit/loss decisions?

The game needs to deal out the consequences, which is a high cost from a bad decision.

By letting "crew" decide our faith, we might as well let the "AI" captain do the fighting or not fight at all.

A perfect example is the BR rule. http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15679-br-difference-threshold-should-not-include-ow-ai-fleets/?p=293037

[Enraged Ewok]

Do we really want (or trust ) the game to make our profit/loss decisions?

The game needs to deal out the consequences, which is a high cost from a bad decision.

By letting "crew" decide our faith, we might as well let the "AI" captain do the fighting or not fight at all.

A perfect example is the BR rule. http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15679-br-difference-threshold-should-not-include-ow-ai-fleets/?p=293037

 

Let me rephrase, since I think I lost my point in historical minutiae. If a player does not appear as an enemy to you, tagging that player should not be possible (unless contraband trader). No green on green attacks. With that said, once diplomacy is released, pirates should have the ability to set hostility on a by-clan basis. If one clan sets itself as hostile to another, members of both clans will see each other as hostile on the OW (red nametags instead of white). This preserves the ability of pirates to attack each other even if one is operating under payment from a national (and even reinforce the both sides of the battle instead of just the defender), but removes the false-flag sneak attacks that, in my opinion, destroy OW gameplay.

[Prater]

So far I have yet to encounter a cheater, which makes me question whether everybody is already cheating.

Both in-conflict of Pirates and conflicts between Nations is going to be nerfed.

Thus we are not on a path to deal with cheaters, but we are on the path of nerfing conflicts.

 

You weren't around in the damage farming era of Naval Action.  Ask everyone who was around back then, it got pretty ugly on the forums and several people got banned from the game for it and other things (treating the devs poorly when caught) and not just banned from the forums.  In fact, people were talking about bringing it to the gaming media about how people were getting banned.  You might not think it happens but it happened and there are reasons why the game is like it is because of what happened and there were changes once the devs discovered it.  In fact, before the major blow up a few months into Sea Trials, after less than 1 week into the first round of Sea Trials, Naval Action was completely shut down for an entire week because of the first major wide spread instance of damage farming.  You could say that was a complete nerf of conflict if you want.  Fact is, the devs have to code against cheaters because we can't be trusted not to cheat.  And, it creates support tickets for them, and the idea is to limit the amount of support tickets.

[Bach]

Do we really want (or trust ) the game to make our profit/loss decisions?

The game needs to deal out the consequences, which is a high cost from a bad decision.

By letting "crew" decide our faith, we might as well let the "AI" captain do the fighting or not fight at all.

A perfect example is the BR rule. http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15679-br-difference-threshold-should-not-include-ow-ai-fleets/?p=293037

There is no high cost penalty for an alt. It's simply logged in when the need arises and otherwise sits dormant in port. They are even recycleable as they maintain xp. It's essentially immune to in game social factors. There are no consequences unless you can discover who the players main and Econ Alts are. This is why cross teaming destroyed POTBS. No reasonable way for players to self police the sand box. Only there it was certainly worse as players could simply purchase a name or nationality change.

I'm not sure how you would address the alt factor. I'm all for players self policing. I prefer it. But it just doesn't work in all cases. Like the alt you referenced above. It sits in Island Harbor only to be logged in when it is needed over the Main. Does he really get paid 800,000 or does he just pretend to shuffle funds. The excuse is the easy part. But the game reputation effects and consumer confidence loss such player actions can lead too are real and permanent. basically, if consumers get the impression they are being cheated they move on. Integrity of the game and its reputation matter over individual player free will. At some point you need a moderator.

Edited August 16, 2016 by Bach

[Bach]

Just for the sake of discussion let's talk through this scenario.

Player X - is kind of a jerk. He believes in whatever the game allows him to do is all fair and good and gets his thrills out of cheating other players.

A Team - are a group of spirit of the game devoted mmo players.

I'll offer a scenario of what player X does. You counter with what A Team does in game to deal out consequences to player x.

Player X has a main character in the British nation that is max level. He has several outposts in free cities. He has an alt named Sir Tristan that also has outposts in the same free ports. Sir Tristan needs nothing as he is fed by the main.

Today player X feels like scamming other players. So he has Sir Tristan, also in the British nation, playing trade scams on his own team. It works and well he gets a million gold in free stuff. But he sees he gets called out in Brit nation. Bummer. So he deletes Sir Tristan and creates Thatcher. Thatcher has all the same so levels. He is just missing officer skills and has to reset out posts. But he doesn't need the officer for what he does and the out posts aren't a huge problem. So he actually scams some Brits again. That gets notice so he Deletes Thatcher and creates a French character named Louis IIX. Scam French players. Then some Dutch. Etc... At the end of the day he decides to end as Pirate 6+ million scammed gold to the good, anonymous and with a clean reputation.

Next day player X decides it's time to fight the USA because they made him mad. So he recreates his alt as Thomas Farlay. A returning player from a break looking for a new clan in the USA. He gets a few choice ships from the main character at the nearest free port and he is ready for sabotage. He find a gullible clan. Using some mod provided by him main he convinces them he is a level 50 crafter and can make gold mods if he gets access to the clan warehouse. He gets key TS channels to monitor. The he subtly makes mistakes, gets tagged in bad positions and crashes into people in PBs. He may sell his spy services to the enemies of the USA. When he gets bored he empties out the clan warehouse. Now the literal Benedict Arnold of the US team, he deletes Thomas and recreates the alt as a Brit again.

Third day player x finds his niche. As a pirate he can actually attack his own team with less suspicion. Claiming to be a paid mercenary he has license to actually play this alt openly screwing over the team it represents. His twisted anti-social psychi has found nirvana. All he has to do is recycle the character periodically and he can do whatever he likes to his unsuspecting pirate brethren. The icing on the cake to his megalomaniac shenanigans is to disrupt and destroy the pirate nation from within till they no longer own a port. Then sit back and admire the accomplishment.

Edited August 16, 2016 by Bach

[The Spud]

Bach, I share your concerns on the matter, some players in this game do however and whatever pleases them and have no respect for the other players in the game. A game should be the lazy equivalent of a sport match, where you measure your talent against the talent of another team/player, you win or lose congratulate eachother at the end and you both move on with your day.

 

Some will probably think thats talk for "Softies" but there's nothing "soft" about good sportsmanship and friendly behaviour.

 

And that why I think instead of rules we should just encourage good behaviour and sportsmanship.

 

The amount of realy toxic players is realy minimal, the problem just seems bigger as they are most talked about both ont his forum or in any in game chat.

I see plenty more realy good behaviour with people helping eachother out without self interest, people giving ships and upgrades away to lower levelled players.

Clans or Nations compensating a player for something one of their toxic fellow gamers did.

 

Maybe we should have an alternative for the Tribunal where we can openly congratulate someone who went out of his way to help a fellow player out, just to give the good examples the recognition they diserve.

[Bach]

Bach, I share your concerns on the matter, some players in this game do however and whatever pleases them and have no respect for the other players in the game. A game should be the lazy equivalent of a sport match, where you measure your talent against the talent of another team/player, you win or lose congratulate eachother at the end and you both move on with your day.

Some will probably think thats talk for "Softies" but there's nothing "soft" about good sportsmanship and friendly behaviour.

And that why I think instead of rules we should just encourage good behaviour and sportsmanship.

The amount of realy toxic players is realy minimal, the problem just seems bigger as they are most talked about both ont his forum or in any in game chat.

I see plenty more realy good behaviour with people helping eachother out without self interest, people giving ships and upgrades away to lower levelled players.

Clans or Nations compensating a player for something one of their toxic fellow gamers did.

Maybe we should have an alternative for the Tribunal where we can openly congratulate someone who went out of his way to help a fellow player out, just to give the good examples the recognition they diserve.

I agree. In any population of humans you are going to have a tiny number of bad apples. If the population doubles you get twice the bad apples that will alway push the boundaries. The problem isn't their number but their effect on reputation of the sport if left unchecked.

Let's take the olympics. If we turn a blind eye to doping the other athletes must now either cope competing with a disadvantage and mistrust in the sport. Or they have to start doping themselves. The bad apples are not only destructive but contagious. They can rot a good Apple next to them. To curb this you have to have some regulation and enforcement on the sport. You still won't cure the true bad apples but you can cure the reputation and the stop the good apples from rotting.

Edited August 17, 2016 by Bach

[Random]

Bach, would a dedicated tribunal potentially solve the alt problem? Say you get scammed and then notice that the scammer is no longer in the game (by searching for the name), you report it, the devs (or a dedicated tribunal team) investigates the technical side of things to see whose alt it is (I'm as far away from a technical guru as I am from being a ballet dancer, but I believe it's possible) and administers appropriate punishment to the main character. Just a thought to possibly start thinking of a solution; you've eloquently outlined the problem on many occasions, but I don't see many proposed solutions from the community. The new patch does away with smuggler exploits, so it's a good start, I guess...

[The Spud]

I agree. In any population of humans you are going to have a tiny number of bad apples. If the population doubles you get twice the bad apples that will alway push the boundaries. The problem isn't their number but their effect on reputation of the sport if left unchecked.

Let's take the olympics. If we turn a blind eye to doping the other athletes must now either cope competing with a disadvantage and mistrust in the sport. Or they have to start doping themselves. The bad apples are not only destructive but contagious. They can rot a good Apple next to them. To curb this you have to have some regulation and enforcement on the sport. You still won't cure the true bad apples but you can cure the reputation and the stop the good apples from rotting.

 

Well, I don't realy think the alt tagging will encourage other players to buy another copy of the game and start alt tagging themselves. Allot of people have alts, most just for the labour hours or fishing or whatever, bit harmless stuff. Some for spying, and unfortunatly also some for alt tagging. I don't think the alt tagging is so frequently used that it would need to be adressed by the devs, if it even can be adressed. Would be a waste of time and resources from the devs part in my opinion.

 

I think the most important thing for the games reputation is just people being a tad more polite in chat, especialy battle chat. In my experience its almost never calling names, its rather bad losers or even worse, bad winners. Some people play this game way to serious in my opinion.

[Skully]

Well, I don't realy think the alt tagging will encourage other players to buy another copy of the game and start alt tagging themselves. Allot of people have alts, most just for the labour hours or fishing or whatever, bit harmless stuff. Some for spying, and unfortunatly also some for alt tagging. I don't think the alt tagging is so frequently used that it would need to be adressed by the devs, if it even can be adressed. Would be a waste of time and resources from the devs part in my opinion.

 

I think the most important thing for the games reputation is just people being a tad more polite in chat, especialy battle chat. In my experience its almost never calling names, its rather bad losers or even worse, bad winners. Some people play this game way to serious in my opinion.

It is frequent enough to give the current Tribunal headaches, so it must be addressed. It's not just tagging, but also false flag buying and other stuff.

I am all in favor of bringing in the Tribunal to National courts, so to speak. We need to know which scenarios lead to exploits and how we can identify and deal with them. For example, the scenarios mentioned by Bach rely on the player remaining anonymous. I think it is important we remove such anonymity. So all characters are tied to a player tag/name.

Then we also need the means to deal with such players (not characters). So if we kick someone from a Nation he can not come back via character creation.

Note that being obnoxiously rude in chat is already an EULA offence and should be reported using the in game function.

As for damage farming, it is hypocrisy to call that an exploit. Every form of diplomacy we have seen is damage farming on a grander scale. The moment you say, "I give you this port" you allow the enemy to farm rewards. Some folks like regulated battles a lot. In fact you are saying all battles should be regulated. In that sense fighting AI is another form of damage farming, maybe we should only calculate PvP experience?

As long as folks are putting in their time, I don't care how they get their XP. Be it PvP, PvE, trading, crafting, sailing, fishing or regulated battles. (Hmm, isn't there some tournament coming? )

Let it go. We now all know how to get to Rear Admiral the easy way. Some kids farming around a bit won't make a difference.

However making a big point out of these things every time they happen and calling on the Tribunal for a ban, that is the true negative publicity you do not want to see for a war game that wants to mimic 18th century naval warfare.

[Bach]

Bach, would a dedicated tribunal potentially solve the alt problem? Say you get scammed and then notice that the scammer is no longer in the game (by searching for the name), you report it, the devs (or a dedicated tribunal team) investigates the technical side of things to see whose alt it is (I'm as far away from a technical guru as I am from being a ballet dancer, but I believe it's possible) and administers appropriate punishment to the main character. Just a thought to possibly start thinking of a solution; you've eloquently outlined the problem on many occasions, but I don't see many proposed solutions from the community. The new patch does away with smuggler exploits, so it's a good start, I guess...

Well first and foremost I agree with Skully. If there is any possible way we could put consequences into the hands of the other players I think that always works best. But in events like Alts, yes I think you need some sort of tribunal to act on an IP address and factors the public at large should never have access too. But before a tribunal can act you have to first establish a rule to be broken.