Preliminary discussion of the changes to conquest - clan wars are coming

[Magnum]

@admin Please get the switch to Unity 5 done first. I would also suggest waiting till after you open Legends.

[Guest]

@admin Would you explain how this new system is supposed to relate to the historical pretext of the 18th century? As far as I know (and I reheeeally do know a lot about history) at no time did "companies" such as the ones you describe exist. Please don't refer to the british east india company as a individually based entity as it operated with  a charter from the crown - and the british east-india company did at no time own and operate colonies - the takeover of India was made by proxy rulers and with the endorsement and considerable weight of the british crown and military. As I see it this radically removes the need for national factions, the need for a carribean setting (let's face it you would have a hard time coming up with a map that is worse from a gameplay perspective) and removes any historical pretext for the game - something that was the one of the direct reasons why I bought into the game. 

[The Ghost of Sir Edward]

The new War clan will become the dominant form of organization in NA. Since membership in a war clan will give exclusive access to port battles, very few new or current players will have any interest in joining or remaining within the current clan system and thereby removing themselves from a significant portion of the game's content. That said, if the creation of a war clan is a simple straight forward process, i.'e. an individual pays a fee and receives a charter and then it's up to them to organize a company that's viable, then it could be a good substitute for the current system.  

On a related note, new player expereince would be drastically improved if basic cutters captained by Guardiamarina or their foreign equivilents were removed from PVP altogether, both in attack and defense, there are far too many baby seals being clubbed to death.

[The Ghost of Sir Edward]

Please excuse my double post, but a question came up on me from astern. I am sailing in my Spanish frigate to my port in Mariel. Mariel is under the governance of a pirate war clan. How do I go home without getting my ship shot out from under me?

[Guest]

9 hours ago, admin said:

Yep maybe the player rights to entry all ports is something that needs to be reviewed with more scrutiny. But thats exactly the reason why we post this here in advance for discussions. 

Why not remove the current map and all national factions. As @Christendom identifies this is basically EVE with sails so lets forego with the historical context, get a better map gameplay wise and kill of all nations as national membership will have no bearing compared to company membership and historical context is thrown out of the window anyway. The days of mercenaries were dying by the time of this period in history and at sea it died a lot earlier than it did on land. One reason was the economic considerations of national ownership of ships and especially warships. By the 18th century only the Netherlands and Britain had privately owned shipyards that made warships and they did so purely to nations (and in britain it had to be England otherwise the proprietor of the shipyard would be liable to charges of treason = national membership mattered).

[Daguse]

3 hours ago, CaptVonGunn said:

Why? Not all clans are into Port Battles.  

 

  I am more interested in how they are going to deal with none War Clans screening for war clans to keep people out of a Port Battle? 

Any clan that can't field a full 25 PB ready ships will get curb stomped by those that can. However admin already addressed this issue in his reply.

[CaptVonGunn]

10 hours ago, admin said:

regions won't change national ownership 
only the controlling chartered war company changes.. 

it will look like this:

Havana region

• Nation Spain
• Controlling company - Hanseatic League
• Governor: Con Shonnery
• Tax rate 5% 
   

If another clan conquers it it will look like this

Havana region

• Nation Spain
• Controlling company: East India Company
• Governor: Shon Connery
• Tax rate: 25% 

Please Please Please do away with Regions.. If you go back to Individual port control under the same concept.. More places to contest.. heck even set a limit to how many any one group can control based on Clan size.. say 1 port for every 20-25 members? So a maxed size clan still could only control 12 ports.. then you have the Big boys fighting over the best ports while the smaller clans will contest for the less important ones..   Also no one group can control more then 1 National Capital.

  One thing I noticed was no comment on Free Town Status..? Will they change to control able also or remain as is?

[CaptVonGunn]

1 hour ago, Magnum said:

@admin Please get the switch to Unity 5 done first. I would also suggest waiting till after you open Legends.

They wont have a game if they wait that many months

[Van Poon]

hmm, don't think this will break up the large clans...and won't keep the pirates from killing the new players, that definetly has hurt the game!

[CaptVonGunn]

Also what are the rules going to be for Outposts in this new system? 

[Van Poon]

if you really want to even things out between players and nations- weight the battles so that lower rank players get more xp and gold and higher ranks attacking them get less xp and gold...and give bonuses to smaller nations like the Spanish, swedes or dutch

[Fastidius]

I have no real idea of what all this means yet but any changes are better than the current.  you still have timezone issues tho and since you decimated the population so badly its worse than ever.

merge all servers.

also your leaving the game issue is as much about OW speed than anything else.  bump open worls speed up again.

 

7 hours ago, Magnum said:

@admin Please get the switch to Unity 5 done first. I would also suggest waiting till after you open Legends.

the game will be dead the moment legends opens if they don't fix it before.

[CaptVonGunn]

1 hour ago, Van Poon said:

hmm, don't think this will break up the large clans...and won't keep the pirates from killing the new players, that definetly has hurt the game!

lol yeah only Pirates kill new players.. that would explain ll the ships outside MT doing just that....

[Lonar]

8 hours ago, Qwolf said:

In my view, this would be a huge disruptive change, crush any national spirit that exists, channel everyone into a few, very profitable clans, and be historically inaccurate.  I strongly oppose the proposed clan mechanic.

If the problem is that small nations are undermanned and not much fun to play, here are simple solutions in my view:

Problem:  Smaller nations have no chance:

Solution: Give each nation 3 unconquerable regions to protect smaller regions and make it fun and fair for everyone. 

Problem: No incentive to join or remain in smaller nations:

Solution: Give a salary of gold and/or marks to captains, based on rank, that equals number of regions in a nation divided by number of captains.  Salaries are historically accurate.  Captains got paid.  Make this salary visible on join nation screen to help captains decide.  Big nation captains would likely make less than small nation captains and provide incentive for big nation captains to join small nations.

How it could work: Nations with lots of captains but few ports would get small salaries. Small nations with even 3 unconquerable regions would get good salaries.  If you could make 10x the amount of gold and marks serving another smaller nation, players would consider that in choosing their nations, even things out.  Example:  100 British captains control 10 regions. 1 region for every 10 captains.  Based on rank, British Rear Admirals receive salary of 10000 gold a week.  Conversely, 10 Spanish Rear Admiral captains control 3 regions.  Or 1 region for every 3 captains.  They receive a weekly salary a much higher salary of roughly 30000 gold.

Finally, I continue to believe that if you want improved RVR (which is fun and is working, not sure why some are calling it "broken") you need a way to give nations some sort of national power.  Elected leaders setting national objectives.  Serve two weeks.  New election, new leader and new clan required. Let those leaders use tax revenues and conquest/victory marks from controlled regions to unite the nation behind a common goal.  Options for elected leader(s) 1:  Distribute some or all of national revenue to captains  2:  Use tax revenue to reward PVP play against certain nations.  3.  Use tax revenue to reward hostility points in certain regions or for port battle attack or defense. 4.  Use tax revenue to reward shipbuilding resources sold in the capital or elsewhere. 

Final point, if there are only 3 Spanish players, in a national leader system, that means one of them is president/leader every 4 weeks.  That's a strong incentive to join Spanish, be El Presidente!

Its broken because nations exchange ports without defense to win the round and get marks, something that will happen with the new system to. When i learned anything here it is that player always try to go the easy way look at france (EU) the cryed beaten have nothing but as soon as they thought they could win there were enough player with big enough ships.

[RaimundoJoe]

15 hours ago, admin said:

• New players who come into the game have completely no information on what is the state of their nation they just joined.
• Sometimes they join a happy strong nation, but often they join weaker nations
• As a result players who joined a stronger nation have a much better experience than players who joined a weak nation and leave the game. 

In my oppinion, the problem with players leving the game its caused, by the way pvp works. You have old experienced players, teaming up to sail to a nation capital. While there, they kill every and all players, unlucky enough to get in their range. And i know some plyers will be "i never did this", but you did. This is because there is no other, sure place to get pvp, so if one sets sails for hours to get pvp this is what happens. Then is the pvp reward system were the losing side or the winning side, for that matter, get nothing if they loose a battle or if a player capture a ship. The argument for this is "players will farm their allts!". And so, we punnish everybody! Fact is, cheaters will allways cheat no matter how big the punnishment.

Bring back the pvp events and reward all players in a battle according to damage done. Plz!

[Jonathan Arlington]

5 hours ago, Bearwall said:

@admin Would you explain how this new system is supposed to relate to the historical pretext of the 18th century? As far as I know (and I reheeeally do know a lot about history) at no time did "companies" such as the ones you describe exist. Please don't refer to the british east india company as a individually based entity as it operated with  a charter from the crown - and the british east-india company did at no time own and operate colonies - the takeover of India was made by proxy rulers and with the endorsement and considerable weight of the british crown and military. As I see it this radically removes the need for national factions, the need for a carribean setting (let's face it you would have a hard time coming up with a map that is worse from a gameplay perspective) and removes any historical pretext for the game - something that was the one of the direct reasons why I bought into the game. 

^ This!  In all points.  Just this! 

[Archaos]

5 hours ago, Bearwall said:

@admin Would you explain how this new system is supposed to relate to the historical pretext of the 18th century? As far as I know (and I reheeeally do know a lot about history) at no time did "companies" such as the ones you describe exist. Please don't refer to the british east india company as a individually based entity as it operated with  a charter from the crown - and the british east-india company did at no time own and operate colonies - the takeover of India was made by proxy rulers and with the endorsement and considerable weight of the british crown and military. As I see it this radically removes the need for national factions, the need for a carribean setting (let's face it you would have a hard time coming up with a map that is worse from a gameplay perspective) and removes any historical pretext for the game - something that was the one of the direct reasons why I bought into the game. 

It think we have to stop trying to put this game into a purely historical context because although it is set in a historical age and we use ships spanning probably 100 years or so and the starting nation map positions are historical, once we start playing history changes. There were never this many first rates in the Caribbean, the Swedes never captured Bermuda, and the list goes on, so to a certain extent we are creating an alternative universe. I do like the national pride and I would always choose to sail under the White Ensign, but if there is truly national pride then you will not have civil wars between war companies of the same nation, if you do then you would have the same discord within the nation with no possibility of resolution short of bullying them with personal abuse until they leave the game or change nation.

I know many people play this as a historical game and like to have national pride, but I think that most can agree that nations forcing people with radically different views together is not working. There is no King or President or Emperor of a nation exerting his or her will, there is no command structure like the admiralty dictating the agenda. There is no way a wayward clan or person can be brought into line by the rest of the nation, so how can nations work. At least with the clan system you have a leadership and a group of like minded people working towards the same goal so they can act more like a nation would.

I think the Devs have taken this step because it is obvious that Nations as they currently are is not working, I think it will alienate the pure history buffs and put the game more into the realms of fantasy, but it may be a solution to the games problems. 

[Luc]

Don't know if it's mentioned before - no time to read all posts. 

So, is this the perfect timing to make pirates as we know  disappear or split them as mentioned often before. True Pirates should not be able to form war company's only clans. They should be able to enter every port of course with danger. And so on - will not rephrase all the good ideas that are make in all the posts before - admin surely had keep them in mind. 

I think it's a good timing to implement pirates rework in this whole thing!

[Thonys]

Well its a new dawn..

lets see how it works out and gets implemented

lets start with the beginning:  a sugestion:the nation npc clan/admiralty

. i also hope that it will have.,  Nation NPC clan...... (like the British marine Training school NPC clan tag BMTC,or Danish cadets facility center [DCFC])  where new captains spawn in the nation ,and where they can not attack other same Nation players.... (what is the restriction of the (any) Nation faction)for a start...

. Also nation npc clan has restrictions on what it can do in the game , like building some buildings like the workshop or ship building above 5 rate (just to give some example)the result of that restriction must be that it will push beginning captains out of the NPC clan, to regular player clans after a while..

. Also nation NPC clan members who attack other same nation players must transform into a pirate instant (with warning)with the loss off every assets (ships and goods)they have in the harbor (but not ship and money they sail on at that moment)

. Nation npc clan has his own chat room (asking box for beginning captains)

Nation NPC clan can not enter a clan in the form of a alliance or group up a clan who is in war, or even not at war,

. and is a stand alone Nation clan it can not declare wars (only officers of alliances or player of regular player  clans can do that)

 

 

 

 

[CaptVonGunn]

7 minutes ago, Mrgoldstein said:

Thats horrible, imagine having a pirate port,brit port,and spanish all next to each other..the more pve/trading oriented player will be ganked non stop..

That will also remove national waters, what i like now is that there is a whole area controlled by the danish for example and i can go and hunt there, or trade relative safe in my own nations waters,but also have to be weary for hunters...but this would create people/gankers popping out of different country ports close those each other all the time

They are already removing national waters with the Suggestion they posted...  Ports will NOT change hands between countries only between governors...  whatever.. PVEers need to be on a different server

 

[CaptVonGunn]

Just now, Mrgoldstein said:

Im not a pve player, but how are new players gonna rank up, do missions? When there is an enemy port right next to them..

This is gonna lead to alt abuse, stay safe in port right next to enemy port, put alt outsside enemy port..someone sails out go and get them..

Atleast now you have to leave your port and venture into enemy waters

Which is why they need to add in the [talked about west coast PVe area for them to figure stuff out in wish no PVP allowed and the ability to TP from any port in that region back to their national capital. It really only needs a single Island with a port on it and a 1/2 dozen more spread out to learn Navigation 

[Demsity]

Why not let both systems exist? The old and the newly proposed?

Let War company's be a collaboration of clans, instead of individual players. Try the War Company´s as suggested and make changes based on what happens.

Keep the nation RVR but with much higher restrictions to protect the new players. Nations that have not declared war have a much stricter BR limit on the OW pvp scene. This is to prevent ganking and such. And maybe put a restriction on how many nations a nation can be at war with at the same time, say 2?

Also as suggested by me before, Open up all ports in a region for PB. The region capitol can only be contested when all the other ports in the region is captured by the nation. This will slow down the nations conquest, and take some serious time and effort. Maybe put on a limit on how many ports a nation can capped per week?

With the War Company´s being able to do port battles at will, nation port battles does not have to be easy, since players will be able to do PB in other ways.

Also implement a way for new captains to be able to change nations, if they choose one that is being targeted heavily. Dont know how this would work though.

Edited August 3, 2017 by Demsity
Spelling errors

[Demsity]

And also something has to be done about the invisible ganking squads off ridiculous speed... of DOOM.

The Swedish coastguard on PVP EU was a magnificent sight before this was a thing, players working together to keep our waters safe, protecting traders and new players.

Now there is no point, its almost impossible to catch these gank squads going around, so players don't even bother trying to protect any more, its open season for gankers and its killing trade and making new players leave faster than a cat on speed.

Just to clarify, I´m not complaining about the ganking myself, I´m concerned for the new players and players who just quits after being ganked by 6 suprises in their Snow for the 11th time.

[mikawa]

In fact I do see a real problem here:

Atm every player, solo or clan player, has a binding towards his nation, because it provides "safe" waters, help in battles and a common feeling of sticking together and going towards the same goals. What result might cause the proposed changes? Nations are not worth anything anymore, who should matter about being dutch or british? Would a company member help a solo player of the same nation? I guess not, what reason should he have for that? I believe he doesn't care anymore for anything exept when it's a matter of his comapny. Teamplay will suffer a great loss in this game I think. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't see any reasons why nationality and teamplay outside companys should play the slightest role in this game anymore.

[Mamen]

18 hours ago, admin said:

• Captains who are not a member of a chartered war company will be able to enter any port in any ship. 

If Im not a member of chartered war company can I PVP at all? And if... who can I tag or be tagged by?