Alliances discussion + Poll

[RedNeckMilkMan]

By slapping the USA and France together you would essentially be killing most or all night time content. We would be forced to leave France in order to continue playing a pvp game.

This would seem to me like simply a reduction of people to hunt and kill in the open world. Yes we need less nations but not at the cost of limiting potential pvp and rvr targets. My personal perfect system would be 80% clan based with a loose alliance of clans making up 3-5 nations. In this system, joining a zerg nations does not really benefit you because the large clans would have to open their ports to you. 

[Sento de Benimaclet]

I am totally in favor of the alliances of nations. With the current numbers it would balance the game. That the nations choose their alliances, but once done, ALL the clans of the nations involved must respect them.

[Hullabaloo]

2 hours ago, admin said:

previous alliances system broke down because humans tend to ally with the strongest which will cause top 3 nations in power to ally and create the unbreakable status quo. 

Is this not already happening in effect already?  I'm not too abreast of the global politics, but there are already some very close relationships. Particularly, between clan leaders of different nations who even sail together for PvP in some cases. I have voted yet as I am undecided.

 

2 hours ago, AeRoTR said:

But my dream;

British Nation

Spanish Nation

French Nation

Dutch Nation

Privateers (remaining nations with flag of their nation but under privateer faction, where clans able to get letter of marque from nations)

Pirates (not a nation but clans, end game for best players, only level 1 shipyard, fame board, can retire from pirate with forge papers and join a nation (very expansive), but very profitable during pirate life if you are good)

I share your dream

[van Veen]

21 minutes ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

but does this mean we aren't going to make a Spring Release of the Game or would it be something they can easily code in?

I am pretty sure the old mechanic (hostile/red, neutral/grey, friendly/green) is still in place, but everyone is set hostile to everyone.  

[Baptiste Gallouédec]

With the forced alliances, i see still nothing to prevent every alliance to "ally" against one of the blocks like  ALL vs US/Spa/Fr. So forcing by game solves nothing.

 

As i said, if you want to force alliances, instore themed victory conditions, and red vs blue situation,

like post wipe : Round 1 =  US independance war with one pro-US coalition vs Brit coalition, Round 2 =  Sve + ally vs Russian coalition, then Republicans vs royalists, etc..

Edited May 3, 2019 by Baptiste Gallouédec

[Njord]

3 hours ago, admin said:

if alliances come back they will be forced by the game

I like your suggested alliances. Holy Alliance here I come. Deus vult.

[Severus Snape]

7 minutes ago, RedNeckMilkMan said:

By slapping the USA and France together you would essentially be killing most or all night time content. We would be forced to leave France in order to continue playing a pvp game.

This would seem to me like simply a reduction of people to hunt and kill in the open world. Yes we need less nations but not at the cost of limiting potential pvp and rvr targets. My personal perfect system would be 80% clan based with a loose alliance of clans making up 3-5 nations. In this system, joining a zerg nations does not really benefit you because the large clans would have to open their ports to you. 

I think it's a given that some clans / players will have to do some shuffling around should this happen.  

[Georg Fromm]

8 minutes ago, Sento de Benimaclet said:

I am totally in favor of the alliances of nations. With the current numbers it would balance the game. That the nations choose their alliances, but once done, ALL the clans of the nations involved must respect them.

Moep ... topic missed
The game is in a trial phase and no solutions are being sought for a player count of 300-400. I would prefer to work out solutions for 1000+.
Especially since I do not believe that all our current problems would be gone if we had only 5 nations.

[Michael of Saxe Coberg]

May I suggest a variation on alliances. Every so often the devs could declare the state of alliances between the powers. I would suggest 3 possible states, allied, neutral and hostile. If one nation starts to become overpowering, make it so that all the other nations are hostile to it whilst allied to each other. As that power wanes, change the alliances to suit. Do not leave it to the players to choose! Captains didn't make alliances, nations and empires did, let the devs be the governments of the day. It might be fun to be allied one day and then find that hostilities have broken out the next or vice versa.

There were incidents where captains had to ask foreign captains if they were still at war!

Edited May 3, 2019 by Michael of Saxe Coberg
Omitted text.

[van Veen]

2 minutes ago, Baptiste Gallouédec said:

With the forced alliances, i see still nothing to prevent every alliance to "ally" against one of the blocks like  ALL vs US/Spa/Fr. So forcing by game solves nothing.

You seem to presume that all those coalitions proposed by admin can select their allies freely. I strongly doubt that this will be possible. 

[Sir Texas Sir]

11 minutes ago, RedNeckMilkMan said:

By slapping the USA and France together you would essentially be killing most or all night time content. We would be forced to leave France in order to continue playing a pvp game.

This would seem to me like simply a reduction of people to hunt and kill in the open world. Yes we need less nations but not at the cost of limiting potential pvp and rvr targets. My personal perfect system would be 80% clan based with a loose alliance of clans making up 3-5 nations. In this system, joining a zerg nations does not really benefit you because the large clans would have to open their ports to you. 

Are you could actually fight the pirates the other main strong US prime time RvR force ya'll avoid to fighting all the time.  Some of your guys are former US and GB players....could go GB and fight both US and Pirates?

2 minutes ago, Severus Snape said:

I think it's a given that some clans / players will have to do some shuffling around should this happen.  

Well that is why we have forge papers after all.  Though with the split it would prob give some coalition a better all around time zone mix of players.  

[Thorka]

Less nations more density of player in each remaining nation. Then there will be no reason for coalitions.

[Sento de Benimaclet]

2 minutes ago, Georg Fromm said:

I would prefer to work out solutions for 1000+.

Forget it, there will not be 1000 players. Make yourself up to the idea that weeks after the release we will be the ones that we are.

[van Veen]

Just now, Liberalism said:

Yes? and what stops players from using Forger DLC to change and join the strongest nation/coalition?

Nothing. But then, these players are rightful members of another nation and the status is clear. Mission accomplished. 

2 minutes ago, Michael of Saxe Coberg said:

May I suggest a variation on alliances. Every so often the devs could declare the state of alliances between the powers. I would suggest 3 possible states, allied, neutral and hostile. If one nation starts to become overpowering, make it so that all the other nations are hostile to it whilst allied to each other. As that power wanes, change the alliances to suit. Do not leave it to the players to choose! Captains didn't make alliances, nations and empires did, let the devs be the governments of the day. It might be fun to be allied one day and then find that hostilities have broken out or vice versa.

Yes!

2 minutes ago, Thorka said:

Less nations more density of player in each remaining nation. Then there will be no reason for coalitions.

Yes, there is still reason for coalitions. Friendly nations can join each other's port battles for instance, can help each other in PVP. This happens already, although everyone is hostile towards each other. Coalitions should fix this dilemma of unclear relations: game says hostile, but they do help each other. 

[derekticus]

If you force Alliances, players can still pick and choose where to play, so the % of Players in a coalition could very easily vary wildly - especially once the game is released globally as "Final Product" and a surge of the population occurs. 

The only Alliances in game have to be Player driven. 

Also, please note, your rationale states that small Nations have no chance.  This is flawed logic.  Look at the numbers:  Russia 9% , then LOOK at the Map.   Small Nations CAN and do win.  

I would argue that a large part of Great Britain's players are either brand new to the game, or casual players who have little interest in RvR.  Many Players START as British, then decide to play for other Nations once they gain some skills.

[LeBoiteux]

14 minutes ago, van Veen said:

You seem to presume that all those coalitions proposed by admin can select their allies freely. I strongly doubt that this will be possible. 

^ Good question. As I understood it, those 6 coalitions would remain 6 enemies to each others. But in fact would they be able to ally with each others (if so, how ? freely or with a certain historical logic ?)

Edited May 3, 2019 by LeBoiteux

[Sir Texas Sir]

7 minutes ago, derekticus said:

If you force Alliances, players can still pick and choose where to play, so the % of Players in a coalition could very easily vary wildly - especially once the game is released globally as "Final Product" and a surge of the population occurs. 

The only Alliances in game have to be Player driven. 

Also, please note, your rationale states that small Nations have no chance.  This is flawed logic.  Look at the numbers:  Russia 9% , then LOOK at the Map.   Small Nations CAN and do win.  

I would argue that a large part of Great Britain's players are either brand new to the game, or casual players who have little interest in RvR.  Many Players START as British, then decide to play for other Nations once they gain some skills.

The current map really doesn't tell you much of anything other than who is faster at the grind of empty ports.  We could see a totally different picture a week or month from now.   GB while has the largest number also has 84 ports.  Russia has half that at 44 with the next in lines running late teens and mid 20's.   Russia and GB are spread all over the place.  If some one wanted to take regions from either they can just hit them in diffrent place or get another nation to attack them and distract them.  That spead out they can't be all over the place at once.

[Gregory Rainsborough]

I'm horrified that so many people like this idea.

A sandbox game with such restrictions ceases to be a sandbox.

[Baptiste Gallouédec]

21 minutes ago, van Veen said:

You seem to presume that all those coalitions proposed by admin can select their allies freely. I strongly doubt that this will be possible. 

I mean right now "no one can pick ally" yet you can arrange to not attack a nation's port nor captains, screen for one side of a pb between 2 enemies, etc..  So what prevent forced northern block to not attack russian or britain in an informal pact ? Nothing.

  As long as there will be more than two blocs, this will continue being a possibility.

[Angus MacDuff]

10 minutes ago, Wraith said:

And for those who join clans and leave the shallow pool for full experience, full-loot/loss but high reward, no restrictions PvP, you have the highest tier port/ship production, missions, etc. These are areas outside the full control of nations and where clans set the game rules and alliances, hold the ports, set the restrictions, the taxes, etc. They would have control of an expanded "friendly clans" list and management of that regardless of national affiliation

Wouldn't you have to get rid of national flags (affiliation) in this case?  I like it, but I can see Brit flagged players fighting each other because of their clan bias.  

[s2bu]

once again - i applaud you for your good intentions but imho that is a horrible way to "fix" the playing experience of players of small nations...

and here is why:

your assumption seems to be that there will be a "huge influx of new players" as soon as the game is released. at least that was your reasoning when you came up with the idea that a xp wipe is abolutely necessary. personally i think this notion is laughable but what the heck let's go with it for argument's sake. by thinking that "fixed alliances" between nations that are somewhat based on the current distribution of players will lead to a fair spread of players after the wipe you imply that all the new players will somehow magically distribute "exactly" like the current population. i dont think that is gonna happen...  -> flawed concept

 

also if you think there are too many nations:

why keep them as seperate nations after merging them into fixed alliances - just get rid of a couple

 

what you really need to come up with is a mechanic that strives towards balance dynamically (i.e. makes it harder and harder to spread out further the bigger you are). all "static" solutions are doomed to fail rather sooner than later.

Edited May 3, 2019 by s2bu

[van der Clam]

No to forced alliances. We are trying to influence history...trying to change history in this game. We want to see which nation can rule the Caribbean by their own accord/alliances, not be forced to create a history based on dev's plan. 

[Vinnie]

2 hours ago, Salty Sails said:

What RVR? Almost every port is now the same without rare resources or refits! You can put every damn forrest  in every port! 

So, tell me, what are your goals now in RVR?

Victory marks to built those nice port features?  

[Capitalism]

1 minute ago, van der Decken said:

No to forced alliances. We are trying to influence history...trying to change history in this game. We want to see which nation can rule the Caribbean by their own accord/alliances, not be forced to create a history based on dev's plan. 

I agree with this to a large degree, but am also swayed by arguments for a dynamic alliance system where thoughtful developers might have the tools to change balance based on changing population trends over time. Because of the influence of forged papers the current distribution of players, and most importantly RvR-active players, will not be the same forever.

So something dynamic is key, and that's why I'd favor something like Wraith's proposal above which doesn't lose the historical context but leaves dynamic the large majority of the map (much of which is unused) to the clans, their alliances, and their warfare both between and within the backdrop of the nation states.

[Hawkwood]

53 minutes ago, Gregory Rainsborough said:

I'm horrified that so many people like this idea.

A sandbox game with such restrictions ceases to be a sandbox.

But Greg, where is the difference? On one side we have already Spain/Russia/Prussia ,on the other side GB, and Sweden/Denmark/Dutch( what´s left of them)? If clans from different nations can ally and those can use each others ports, i see only benefits. The only thing that bothers you? is the open world PVP i guess(forgive my assumption).

Anyone can buy forged papers DLC and switch nations if he wants, being unhappy with an alliance. so i don´t know why are so many resentfull.

Seem to me there are so many here, having a trauma from old alliance system, was that feature so bad?