Few suggestions while servers are down

[Eric Cortana]

Well servers are dead so thought i would take the time to voice some suggestions on the forums i think would help the game and keep the population up.

 

PVP

-Battle join times: Okay i'll start here, in PVP the time between you're tagged and before the battle closes is far too low the time should be at least 15 minutes or based on battle rating. Ganking is one of the lead causes of losing people on a PVP based game, now i'm not against ganking in the slightest. But it doesn't make sense to have 20 vs 1 in battle and another 19 waiting outside but they can't join because of the 3 minute timer. Either way i think this is something that needs addressed sharpish.

 

-PVP Marks: From what i understand each ship is worth X amount of PVP marks and how many you receive is based on how much damage you do to that ship, which is fair enough however we discussed this in clan the other night about how to come up with a way to reward everyone who takes part in the battle.

for example 3 surprise vs 2 surprise and a l'ocean, the 3 surps are going to sail from the l'ocean but the ocean is still playing its part, if he leaves the 2 surprises could very much be done for. So if he gives chase for an hour he should at least be rewarded something for the battle. Even if it's 1 pvp mark and you increase the total required for admiralty items or we were thinking a PVE to PVP conversion at high numbers e.g. 100-200 PVE for 1 PVP. But that would mean you wouldn't even have to participate in PVP so i would rather award those for actually being in the battle.

 

There is a lot of issues with PVP at the moment in my opinion but i think these two are priority.  I think if they add a system when you get a PVP mark for joining PVP battles a lot of people will be joining them, but i also believe they should add a system where if you join and leave without doing sufficient damage then you lose PVP marks. 

If servers begin to accumulate too many marks you can either increase the price of items or make PVP marks non-tradeable.

 

Alliances

Alliances are something that should of been fixed and implemented before the wipe if you ask me as it effects major aspects of the game from PVP to the economy and even for those of us who like to explore.

Even the old system was better than nothing.

I haven't put to much thought into how this could be implemented but some sort of diplomacy system would suffice.

 

Economy

The economy is so broken with everyone just spamming iron fittings/hull repairs, Most ports buying items for 1 gold and selling them at full price.

That's not how supply and demand works, if you have too much supply you lower the price to shift goods so you can buy more to sell.

Quantities also need to be improved, you use traders tool to find the only port with available products you need then make the risky 3 hour sail to purchase said product only to find out the port has none, Or you grab a delivery mission and realize you would have to sail around the entire map twice to complete your delivery order, and you would be down 200,000 gold profit as you had to pay over the odds to fill the demand.

 

User Interface

Now i don't know about everyone else but i honestly thought the user interface would of been updated. I've owned this game a long time now and i realize it's still in alpha and UI isn't a major priority but i honestly think that could attract new players to stick around and even make old players return.

 

Anyway i may add more as i think of things, if anyone else has suggestions or better ways they want things implemented feel free to comment.

 

 

[twizt3dwun]

So If I were to participate in a battle that included a 3rd rate in my Frigate, I would lose any PVP marks I had from not doing 'sufficient damage' under your proposed changes lol.. and why would that make me want to participate in further PVP if the few marks I have could be lost? Just saying, If this were the case I'd only participate in battles that were in my favour i.e ambushing boats smaller than my own to increase my chance of success effectively promoting the ganking more.. I like where you're going with the supporting roles though, I tend to agree in the example you gave of the surprise + L'Ocean, the supporting ship(s) should be rewarded for their efforts. I mean I'm happy to take broadsides if I have more HP than a friend I'll put myself between them and the incoming shot but when I get half wrecked protecting people I get nothing for it. It would be nice to see some gold or something for the effort even if you just spend it replacing hull repairs later, it's still something lol..

Also agree with the battle timers being too short.. I don't know about having them open for 15min though, seems excessive but a bit longer would be good yes. 

[TommyShelby]

I understand why you want battles to be open for longer. 
But, i think you don't see the issue with battles being open for longer time. 

I'm not going to go into details with all the issues but to name a few:

1. Organized gank groups.
Organized gank groups can use longer join timers to their advantage. They will have 1 or 2 ships sailing ahead as bait while the rest of their fleet is outside of view range. Then when someone tags the bait ship(s) the rest of the fleet will soon join and gank you. 
(This is why "what you see is what you get" Rules of Engagement is good - Eg 2 minute join timers - Only people in visual range will be able to join). 

2. If you "sail together" you actually have to sail together. 
Lots of the complaints about short join timers are from people saying something like; 
"I was sailing with my friend and he got tagged by 2 pirates, i couldn't join because short join timer". 
- Well, if you were actually sailing with your friend you would be within visual range right? 

 

[Christendom]

Only 1 server is down.