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We have a wipe coming up with about a week to go. I figured this is a great time for a slew of suggestions since the devs are so open to suggestions lately:D

First, I really think if there's going to be new pirate mechanics then they should slip it in this patch. It will probably involve a conquest/port wipe later and I'd hate to go through another wipe. A lot of people treat pirates as though they're not a real nation even though they are currently. Even admin has said pirates are evil hinting that they should be treated differently. Pirate lives matter. I'm a pirate and agree we should be different. But not half-arsed like it is currently.

  • Pirates shouldn't be able to conquer ports
  • Pirates shouldn't be able to craft ships
  • Pirates shouldn't have AI on the OW
  • Pirates should be able to freely attack each other
  • Pirates should get half xp on AI
  • Pirates should get double xp for pvp(double what nats get)
  • Pirates should have a small number of unconquerable ports
  • Pirates should be able to sneak into low authority ports and buy produced resources at about double the price(will explain later)
  • Pirates should be able to fly false national flags
  • Pirates should be the only faction that can reliably cap ships(including AI)
  • Pirates should be able to raid national ports

All in all pirates are losing their rights to conquest and ship building. They're not going to have to worry about their ports being taken though and they can grab resources from a good number of ports. They can cap other ships 100% of the time and the raiding will be harsh. Raids would basically be like buying a flag with pvp marks at a pirate port and heading to the intended port with a large group. Except no actual flag is bought and at least 10 pirates need to buy in piece meal at 5 pvp marks each. The raiders have 1 hour to make it to the raid and can't leave the port until at least 10 have bought in. After that raid doesn't start until at least 5 pirates have made it in. There's one circle 2000m across right at the mouth of the port. If the defender has at least double the BR in the circle after the first 30 minutes of the battle then a 15 minute timer starts. The timer gets halted if BR is not met and continues when it is. This is to make the attacker move in after taking down forts/towers. Attacker can get near town within circle and start bombarding town. Other attackers protect them. A health bar at 50k is above the town. When it gets down to zero ships can send out long boats with marines to take over the town. A successful raid means attackers get to plunder 10% of all player's goods in warehouses and all the stuff in the shop. All items are placed on a giant loot screen. Player who had the most kills/damage gets first dibs and so on so forth. If the defenders successfully defend they don't lose their stuff.

Besides pirate mechanics I'd love to see a few other cool changes too.

  • A more creative crafting system. Fully customizable ships from the ground up. No more Connies and Surprises. We create our own off of a base. Hull shape/size, sail size, cargo space, crew space, cannon count/size(within length limits), bow style, aesthetic trimming, paint, figurehead, etc. Choice of wood types for all different types of subcomponents to lighten the load or make it stronger. Choose a sweet national/pirate refit for some extra diversity. And then make a blue print.
  • The blue print will require all subcomponents including the refit schematic to be crafted. In order to get subcomponents you don't want to craft wouldn't it be nice to have work orders you could put up to get them made. Maybe even being able to include the resources to craft them with the work order. This would give newer players or players not interested in crafting an easy way to make some cash. Could even put xp on subcomponents so the more someone makes the better quality it comes out. That could give players a way to set themselves apart from people making inferior grind quality parts and it would take the risk out of using someone's craft hours. Also having these and other work orders show globally would bring us a step closer to a player based economy.
  • With no more named ships you would basically work from a base ship of the style you want  to make. Maybe sloop, brig, small frigate, big frigate, 4th rate, 3rd rate, 2nd rate, and 1st rate. Xp would be gained per each base style of ship for combat purposes as well as crafting. The more type of ship you make the better you get at it.
  • Although no more named ships they could start giving us the ability to name our own ships. Of course someone who caps your ship could change the name. Even a step further would be having a cool ship history attached to the ship. Maybe see how many kills scored with that ship. Even specific names or full battle list. Preferably even on owner transfer.
  • Maybe more levels of buildings so instead of having multiple buildings for one resource in a port you just upgrade. One building per resource type instead of a specific resource. Add some other buildings to actually do the crafting like the workshop.
  • Most permanent style mods could be added into the ship before the blueprint is made. Maybe some other equipment mods that are easily swapped like studding sails or a reinforced rudder. Or the book system is fine, but it would be nice to cap a ship that has everything on it except the original crew. That good feeling of loss. Get back to that academy idea so everything is craftable. Get a ton more officer perks and separate econ from fighting perks so crafters can still fight effectively.
  • If your not cool with the way a ship is setup you should be able to retrofit it for some labor hours and materials. More if you changing something big like the frame parts. Less if you're changing to more smaller cannons.
  • Replacing the regular leveling system I'd like to see a fame/infamy system. At certain milestones players get more crew like leveling, but there is many rewards up the chain. For example you can get 10 crew per 25 fame at first, but that goes up after 100 or so to 50 and so on. This will be cooler than huge chunks of crew gained. In between there is other things that get opened up in the admiralty shop or small items given to you. When a player kills another player their points are dependent on BR difference and fame difference. When you die you lose points the same. If a player that's at 500 in a surprise kills someone at 850 in a bellona he'll get a huge amount of fame and the loser would lose a decent amount. If 2 guys at 200 each in endymions kill someone at 200 in an lgv the killers would get only a bit of fame and the loser would barely lose any. It will become very hard for players to reach line ship fame. Oh yeah and no cap.
  • Same system could be done with crafting. Small rewards in short intervals. Maybe a variety of milestones that unlock most of the non ship blue prints, figureheads, and bow styles. 
  • Nats can cap AI and player's ships. Upon returning to port though any non player AI gets sent to admiralty. Even player ships have a chance of going to admiralty based on fame level. Historically many nat captains did not keep ships they capped.
  • Marines should do something more than playing cards on the deck while they wait for boarding to come up. They should be shooting up crew on the enemy ship if it's close(like 50m). Same with swivel guns. We need those.
  • Entry point when joining a battle that already started should be further away from battle relative to the time it took to enter... and open forever. 
  • Exit point from a battle should put you in the same spot on the OW. To avoid griefing just have a tag timer that goes up after an unsuccessful tag. Maybe an extra 30 seconds on the first, a minute on the next one then 5 minutes after that.  
  • Let's see fire burn up sails, storms in battle, and damaged masts that snap when going full sails or in high wind.
  • Bring back alliances with no use of friendly ports. For pirate clans let them build alliances with other pirate clans. The option to say screw the alliance and attack an ally with consequences. Some way to reverse those alliances before they expire. Turn pirate if you kill a fellow nat again. Turn to another nationality even. Without deleting your character. If your rep with that nation is cool.
  • A rep system with other nations. For pirates if they are cool enough with another nation they can get into port battles as a privateer if invited. Nations can invite pirates to pb's for cash. Trading with other nations that your nation isn't allied with to give you negative faction. Between that and minimal fame and faction loss from killing another player over and over it will be much more difficult to grind on alts.
  • Go back to the flag system with like 50 pvp mark cost. Then no more dozen fake flag days. Pb's should be similar to the raids above. No more 3 circles. Successful taking of the port means flag carrier becomes governor. Governor can upgrade town. Higher authority level on a port will give you some AI to fight. Only enough to stop small groups from taking a port super fast. Set tax rates. Actually make money if the port is busy enough. Buy forts/towers. Oh and back to one port taken at a time.
  • Give port logs available at the ports that show who left and when. Not showing pirates or nats with smuggler tag on.
  • Maybe a bounty system where you can accept someones request to hunt them. Being able to make it a specific named ship that killed you or a certain level of ship.
  • If we're crafting cannons might as well do cannon balls too. Maybe some basic balls that are free but less damage. Stone shot or something.
  • More noob friendly stuff to keep them. As mentioned before being able to swap nations as long as your faction is not negative. A little tutorial. Some higher tier starter ships just in case they get killed a lot. Nothing above a frigate though. Some level up rewards. Nothing big. Like a little bit of cash or pve marks. Maybe some fireworks when they level.

This is what happens when I'm bored out of my mind. Sorry about the long post. Please discuss.

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Completely agree with OP. A huge part of this era of naval history is the fascination and uniqueness of Piracy. The Dev's so far have made pirates in the game pretty neutered. Some great ideas that can hopefully bring Piracy to full glory in the game and hopefully someday allow for "Player made nations" or pirate hold out ports where players can conquer a port claiming it for their own clan, not some NPC nation. Then govern it how they see fit until either other pirates take it or NAT's take it back. That would really make piracy amazing and bring a whole new level to the game play.

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5 hours ago, Rebel Witch said:

Completely agree with OP. A huge part of this era of naval history is the fascination and uniqueness of Piracy. The Dev's so far have made pirates in the game pretty neutered. Some great ideas that can hopefully bring Piracy to full glory in the game and hopefully someday allow for "Player made nations" or pirate hold out ports where players can conquer a port claiming it for their own clan, not some NPC nation. Then govern it how they see fit until either other pirates take it or NAT's take it back. That would really make piracy amazing and bring a whole new level to the game play.

I do wonder if you know what happened to the pirates in real life? 

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They became actors in Pirate movies. : )

Seriously, I hope for nothing but positive changes to Pirates. If they can make the changes while striking a good balance between enjoyable gameplay and historical pirates, all the better. We must have pirates. 

Edited by Captiva
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Raiding should be pirate only feature!! 

The pirates should have the same abilities to conquer as any other nation. but as in real life once pirates are pushed back to a single port they (we) should loose the conquest ability.

Afteral pirate history was controlled by the Britishs war on pirates. 

Raiding should be open to all nation's, once pirates are one ported. Raiding is unique to pirates. 

Nations like in real life control the fate of pirates NOT THE DEVS!

If you nationals want to raid then leave pirates alone, if you want pirates to be only able to raid, one port them.

 

Let us the players shape the future of naval action 

Edited by monk33y
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Developers should think about adding Port infrastructure. 

1. Port Governors 

2. Public Bank - Players donate money and Governor uses these money to increase defense/econ infrastructure.

3. Pirates should only be able to Raid and damage any port infrastructure by 25% per Raid, This means it will take them 4 Raids to destroy port completely. This means Port will loose all bonuses if Governor and players don't defend/rebuild it after 1st Raid. They can raid same port once every 48 hours. 

4. Pirates should be able to steal resources and gold. 

5. Smoke and fire animation should be added over every Raided port and will remain there until it's rebuild.  

This simple form of Raid system will give Pirates Resource/Gold income + marks and other rewards. 

Details:

-Investing into Econ can boost Port Labor regeneration by 10% max.

-Investing into Defenses can boost Privateer NPC presence around that port. NPC Privateers will attack pirates on sight. 

Edited by Ned Low
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12 minutes ago, monk33y said:

Good idea above. 

Still feel pirate clans should be open to contracts. (attack said nation etc)

Contracts is a good idea, but I think Pirates should have 'Pirate Kings' similar to Governors. Every port should elect 'Pirate King' who will be able to list contracts (taken from X Nations) to those who earned enough Reputation with each nation. 

Reputation can be earned by killing players who are in war with such nations. ex. You want to work with Britain and be able to take their contracts, so all you have to do is check who are Britains enemies and go kill them, raid their ports and damage their infrastructure. 

-Kill payer who is at war with Britain - 1000 rep 

-Raid port that is at war with Britain - 5000 rep

-Kill NPCs who are at war with Britain 100 rep

Once you accumulated enough Rep, you will be able to accept Britains contracts. All it means is that you are trusted and will be able to follow their attack orders in exchange for huge rewards. 

What do you think?

Edited by Ned Low
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Agreed. I'm up for any and all changes that don't start with the age old "pirates never captured ports so shouldn't take part I'm rvr" argument we see over and over. I have little (like most pirates) interest in ports But I need resources. 

I still feel that ports with very low national footfall should have a rebel system going to neutral status so any nation can capture it. Too much of the map is locked up with no-one using it 

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16 hours ago, OneEyedSnake said:

I do wonder if you know what happened to the pirates in real life? 

I don't , that was before my time.

I think Duncan was suggesting changes for pirates "in the game". Which i support, cuz pirates need some luvin in this game to be more fun.

For a year or so I have been pushing for the Dev's to allow players to make their own nations, or have clans be able to take ports for themselves. Similar to what players can do in EVE Online. So i just coupled that with suggestions for possible "in game" pirate possibilities for NA.

 

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Rebel,

I agree 100% here. Unfortunately having the NPC Nation overlay causes more problems than it solves turning NA into a "Lite" Sandbox. Follow EvE's example Hi-Lo Sec ... PvE wrapped around an Open World, Sand Box where clans control regions and access to resources.

Its a tad off Duncan's OP, but not really. This "Lite" Sandbox needs to be changed in order for a "Rogue" element to flourish. A place where a Nation clan can take a port. Then developed it, with shipyards or defensives etc.

Norfolk.

 

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Currently we have some bs system where pirates are a nation, but they are gimped. They can't hold alliances, they can attack each other, looks like they won't have access to rated ship bp's, other nationals can't join their battles, and forts attack pirates before nats except when its a pirate fort. The devs have a pirate rework on their roadmap and I'm afraid it's going to turn into a nation killer. In POTBS the pirates had very different roles that the nats, but were fun to play. They were the only nation that could cap ships. Their skill set gimped them when going broadside to broadside with nats so they came up with other effective tactics to fight them. If pirates are going to continue to be a nation then they need to be on a level playing field. If they're going to be changed then they need abilities that are unique to them and that makes playing pirate fun.

As far as clan controlled regions and alliances I'd love to see that. Their is always a lot of differences between clans in one nation. We always hated conquering ports that are far away and seeing the rest of the nation show up to reap the rewards after not lifting a finger during the campaign to take them. It would be nice to restrict who can trade there or how much they're taxed to use our ports.

I do like the idea of being able to raid and take actual resources from players. The whole hi-lo sec would fit in perfectly with a pirate rework as would a rep system to allow pirates to privateer for other nations. I've always been picky when it comes to MMO's. SWG was my first. It became my bar for other MMO's before they changed it so much and ruined it. Another one I liked was POTBS for a lot of the same reasons, but low pop killed it after awhile. I played APB for a bit and loved the extreme customization, but got boring quick. For most of my suggestions of new content or big content changes I mostly thought about the things I've liked in these MMO's. Although some was just for efficiency or better game mechanics.

I wanna be famous, unique, and dominate others. I want people to know my name and fear it. I want to be the best of the best at what I do and I want others to know it.

  • Fully customizable ships-No one has a ship like me. If I'm not happy with it I can change it. It has a unique name that I made. It has a history that I made.
  • Fame system-I have killed more than anyone. If someone manages to kill me they will be proud. People crap themselves when they see me in the OW.
  • Crafting rank-I'm not just a cookie cutter crafter. People come to me when they need ships. My ships are the best on the server.
  • Bounty system-People hate me so much they pay others money to hunt me. My bounty represents how much I've pissed off others.
  • Governors-I own this port. I decide who comes and goes. Ownership of this port gives me power.
  • Raids-I want to go to where you have all your stuff and take it for myself. I want to burn all your production to the ground.
  • Port battles-You want to keep your port then fight us. Your not going to win based on time or points. You're only going to win by fighting.
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Duncan you are far more experienced in NA than me and I'm not a pirate. The Pirate mechanic I always assumed to be a Catalyst to instigate battles, war etc and not a Nation state. The Pirate Republic (?) needs some form of an advantage over a Nation with an equal OFFSET to balance it out. Might be stating the obvious here but it feels you have the OFFSET but no clear advantage? 

But needed first....

[Rebel Witch] and I are of one mind on this. Both from EVE backgrounds, we've seen this work and work for years. The General Sandbox needs a change before the "Pirate" problem can truly be solved. You are trying to solve the SYMPTOM but not the CAUSE of the problem if that makes sense? As described above and on other threads the Nation CLAN must come first before the actual Nation in regards to Port Ownership. 

The glue is the Privateer (sub-clan rank) who can be the hired hand. The more famous the higher his fee. 

You and am sure others won't agree with me on this, and am not sure if its possible. After the wipe could we use the TESTBED to Test this mechanic? I want Open World Game play with a Sandbox. Not a Sandbox Lite as we have at the moment. Can it really work, this hands off idea? I believe even after a short time the pirate problem will be more a problem for [ELITE] than [BLACK]....

 

regards

 

 

Norfolk

 

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9 hours ago, Duncan McFail said:
  • Governors-I own this port. I decide who comes and goes. Ownership of this port gives me power.

Some time ago I had also suggested Governors, to make PIRATE life more interesting.
A governor could get bribed by PIRATES and allow them to secretly use his port(s).
PIRATES would therefor sail in and out under that NATION's flag, and the flag would only change
some distance outside the port; or if the PIRATE attacked another ship of that NATION.

After such an attack, the port would be lost for this PIRATE - his mask would have dropped.

But I guess that is to complex/complicated to install...

 

Edited by Wolfram Harms
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With how the testbed shows you the number of cannons available I'd love to see pirates given the unique ability to change the ships stats.

For example,  ship is captured and has slots for, (top deck), 30 rank 6 cannons.(2nd deck) 30 tier 8 cannons. Through pirates sailing the ship to kidds (shhh it's a secret) where there's a refit dockyard level one (only one in game) costs 500,000 to build.

This refit dockyard allows players to upgrade cannon tiers, (crafting of cannons not available here), using example above the ship gains tier 5 and 7 cannons but with the penalty of 25% speed reduction.

The level two refit dockyard costs 1million and does same things but instead of speed reduction penalty you get a cannon equipped reduction of 20%.

The refit dockyards gives pirates future chances for unique features. Also this could be used to change out regional buffs to pirate ones.

Once a pirate ship is edited it shows a * at the end of its name in game.

So when you nationals fight pirates and instead of sinking them, if you cap there ship you get a chance of getting a pirate ship your capital rewards for extra marks.

This system could be used for all nation's In one way or another to give each nation some unique benefit 

 

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One Yankee privateer, in 1812, left port for a cruise of four months with only 3 guns whilst the ship war ready for 17. She managed to prize a english armed merchant, from London, on the north approach to Habana. Gladly the cannon was the exact bore they needed and they transferred the 14 needed.

 It was really common to all sea rovers, independent "enemies of mankind" or properly sanctioned by nations. Their major issue was having correct size ammunition for any cannons they would prize... oh and quality gunpowder. Navy vessels didn't have the issue to contend with. They had standards.

And oh, no proper independent pirate would be a farmer, or a miner, or a fat trader, or work on a ship yard for a wage... no sir. Liberty had a price. No infrastructure to support the way of life.
So...Why should pirates have that specific ability if in reality they did not ?

It has to be something else.

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You nationals were given alliances when this time period everyone was at war with everyone. So don't give me this bs over its not historical etc!!! (so many ships never sailed in our region of the world, cough victory!) #(the victory is reported to have sailed in an area near to the Caribbean bur not to what is mainland america or Kingston port royal. TY for updated information) 

Edited by monk33y
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28 minutes ago, monk33y said:

You nationals were given alliances when this time period everyone was at war with everyone. So don't give me this bs over its not historical etc!!! (so many ships never sailed in our region of the world, cough victory!) 

Victory sailed to the Caribbean in pursuit of the French fleet before Trafalgar. 

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There needs to be a balance between historically accurate and it's a game. We want to see historically accurate without sacrificing gameplay. Some content would be horrible if it were historically accurate. No sped up open world, ships taking years to build, taking hours to fully turn a large ship, taking forever to raise/lower sails, or battles/chases taking days to resolve. We all sail around in multiple copies of unique historical ships of many nations currently. Fully customizable ships would be an easy fix to get rid of these cookie cutter ships. You could be sailing around in a USS Mad Dog brig or a HMS Juggernaut 2nd rate. Sure they wouldn't be historical ships, but they'd be unique. If the devs want to get closer to making pirates pirates then we should definitely be able to refit a ship. If a pirate capped an Indiaman back in the day they'd put a bunch more guns on that thing, strip off all unneeded weight, and start using that bad boy to get better booty.

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