New player segments, more nations without splitting the player base

[Georg Fromm]

Due to the current situation (Poland's situation) I would like to make a proposal that may attract new players to the game without ignoring the concerns of some players (existing players split by too many nations) when introducing new nations.The proposal is based on the fact that a large number of players like to join the nation to which they also belong in real life.

My suggestion is to introduce new nations to the game without increasing the total number of nations in the game. This could be achieved by taking one of the hardcore nations out of the game as soon as it has lost its last port. At the same time you introduce a new hardcore nation from the nation pool into the game. The choice of which nation it is could be determined by a random program. The nation that is eliminated from the game comes back into the pool of nations and can return to the game at a later time. In my opinion, it would make sense to give a penalty to a eliminated nation so that it has less chance of returning to the game and fresh nations have a better chance.

An example:

The pool of nations includes the Ottoman Empire or Babaresque States (for Muslim Playerbase), Kingdom of Portugal, Kingdom of Both Sicily or Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont (for Italian players) and maybe even China (for Chinese / Asian players). Now a hardcore nation (currently Russia, Poland and Prussia) loses its last port and the random program determines a new hardcore nation which will be introduced to the game at the beginning of the new month. In order to keep the programming work low, this new nation could also start in Shroud Cay. It would be a bit more elegant if the Portuguese (coming from Brazil) and Chinese started in Guayagauyare, but the effort involved in the implementation should decide here. This new nation then has 2 months to conquer a port, otherwise the random program determines a new nation.

I think with the possibility to play a nation in this game, to which one has an emotional connection through real life, could bring new players to the game but also give new impulses. The fact that some of these states never had possessions in the Caribbean can be ignored in my opinion (see the other hardcore nations).

The devs should only have to worry about flags for the individual nations (maybe a chance to make some money again). Otherwise I can see no major new programming effort.

 

Edited January 23, 2020 by Georg Fromm

[GrubbyZebra]

Hardcore nations never lose their last port, as they still operate out of the free ports.

[Gregory Rainsborough]

The problem I think from a coding perspective is what to do with those players that want to stay in the nation they're in. I mean should all Polish players be *forced* to join another nation.

[Vizzini]

7 minutes ago, GrubbyZebra said:

Hardcore nations never lose their last port, as they still operate out of the free ports.

They would however lose their major crafting base as they would get no bonus from a freeport. This has been a major factor in players leaving their 'impossible nation' ..once they get slapped like Prussia did at New Orleans

 

I'd rather have many more nations than fewer, there are far too many drama queen trolls in every nation as it stands. You cannot move nation any more and find any peace. All you can do is press the x and disable nation chat.....  You are then left with your clan

 

 

we get more fighting  and bitching and whining inside nations than we do against the other actual enemies. Often we have better friends in other nations than we do within our own

A pirate outlaw mechanic, that couldn't be abused in any way was the dream. Sadly it didn't work without gamers finding out how to ruin it

 

[Earl of Grey]

3 minutes ago, Vizzini said:

All you can do is press the x and disable nation chat.....  You are then left with your clan

 

I often do this, but problem is then i dont get intelligence about enemy ship sightings ...

We should really get two more national Channels, one for trade and one for intelligence ... 

[Conte D. Catellani]

I would like to see La Serenissima, Republic of Venice. And the capital could drop Murano Glasses 

[Lukas97Austria]

Why not remove impossible nations. So you have 8 nations at war for let's say 3 months. Everything gets safed and than they make the impossible nations war. Where they add maybe Portugal as 4th. Also for 3 months. Both Handlings will switch and one time you got 8 nations fighting with an home town. And one time 4 with valuable ports. So 800 players will fight in 8 nations and once in 4. Would be dynamic because one time you have lesser players in your nation and one time you have these clashes. 

 

No wipe nothing. Everything gets safed. 

 

To get into this  we had to wipe the game for 1 time. After that no more. Would be interesting to see how the war and nations will handle 

[Sella]

I'm willing to support the addition of as many nations as possible. Since the game has become increasingly clan based and some clans don't get along with others in the same nation,this will give the opportunity to create one clan nations or mostly one. Regional ports will have to become a bit more valuable though in order to give them a chance to survive. Could be interesting. 

Edited January 23, 2020 by Sella

[Mouth of Sauron]

The best solution to this I saw was one @rediii proposed over a year ago.  Create 1 "outlaw" faction that takes the place of all the impossible nations.  Each outlaw clan can fly an assortment of flags that are availabe in game and indentify as that nation.  For example, Clan X is created and in their clan options they select "Prussia" (can't only select 1 nation) and then that clan and it's members have access to the Prussian flag and are automatically allied with all others flying that flag.  Obviously it needs some better fleshing out to prevent abuse like switching clans for a day and stuff, but I still think it's a solid idea that solves the 11 nation dilution of players.

Edited January 23, 2020 by Mouth of Sauron

[Earl of Grey]

43 minutes ago, Mouth of Sauron said:

 For example, Clan X is created and in their clan options they select "Prussia" (can't only select 1 nation) and then that clan and it's members have access to the Prussian flag and are automatically allied with all others flying that flag. 

Huh? They are not allied with the rest of the outlaw faction? Where is the purpose then in all beeing in the outlaw faction?

[Mouth of Sauron]

23 minutes ago, Earl of Grey said:

Huh? They are not allied with the rest of the outlaw faction? Where is the purpose then in all beeing in the outlaw faction?

RVR?  They fight each other.  Hence the "outlaw" in outlaw faction.

[Eyesore]

so ... 11 nations is too many ... but 111 clans will be fine?

[z4ys]

In NA Legends you picked a Flag. That flag was displayed for you and for your whole team (but only visual for yourself). Event hough someone else might have picked a different nation flag.

Example:

• Player A - picked US Flag
• Player B picked the spanish flag
• Both end up in the same team both see their flag choice as their team flag.
• The enemy flag is one of the remaining 10 flags. So for Player A it could look like he is vs Spain while for his team mate it looks like he is fighting US.

That would allow to implement a ton of new nations (flags) While the actual game nations could be splitted into 3 blocks. Red blue and purple

 

So char creation could look like:

Join Team Blue, Red or purple

---> picked Team purple

Choose your flag

----> picked chinese

Welcome to port interface

 

Edited January 23, 2020 by z4ys

[Vizzini]

34 minutes ago, Eyesore said:

so ... 11 nations is too many ... but 111 clans will be fine?

i'd argue that its the implementation of 'impossible nations' that causes players to only join one with a healthy playerbase and to swap out when they get 0 ported

 

If we had gone full on clan wars, when many hoped we would , there would have been as many nations as clans

Being forced to team up with players you despise will never end well

 

far better for each clan to have total control over what they do and not be dictated to by alts in a nation voting or acting against their interest.

Being able to attack anybody not in your own clan, on the open water would increase pvp imho

[Mouth of Sauron]

41 minutes ago, Eyesore said:

so ... 11 nations is too many ... but 111 clans will be fine?

Sure.  I didn't want to get into the whole idea here but I'll put down a few cliff notes.  It works, but would require a change in NA philosophy.

1 outlaw FFA faction.  That fight each other for areas of the map.  Hard mode for hardcore RVR players.

5-6 actual nations.  Have limited RVR against other nations.  Easy mode for occasional RVR players and casuals.

PVP is open amongst everyone.  Introduce a reputation system where if nationals attack too many other nationals that reputation goes down and they eventually turn into an outlaw and join the outlaw faction.  Another good suggestion a while back would be to have randomized battles / alliances / wars amongst the 5 or 6 nations.  For example - This week the server announces a war between GB and Spain.  Those players attack eacher other in PVP without consequences and several ports from each side become unlocked and RVR can happen.

Edited January 23, 2020 by Mouth of Sauron

[Reorx Redbeard]

5 hours ago, Georg Fromm said:

Due to the current situation (Poland's situation) I would like to make a proposal that may attract new players to the game without ignoring the concerns of some players (existing players split by too many nations) when introducing new nations.The proposal is based on the fact that a large number of players like to join the nation to which they also belong in real life.

My suggestion is to introduce new nations to the game without increasing the total number of nations in the game. This could be achieved by taking one of the hardcore nations out of the game as soon as it has lost its last port. At the same time you introduce a new hardcore nation from the nation pool into the game. The choice of which nation it is could be determined by a random program. The nation that is eliminated from the game comes back into the pool of nations and can return to the game at a later time. In my opinion, it would make sense to give a penalty to a eliminated nation so that it has less chance of returning to the game and fresh nations have a better chance.

An example:

The pool of nations includes the Ottoman Empire or Babaresque States (for Muslim Playerbase), Kingdom of Portugal, Kingdom of Both Sicily or Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont (for Italian players) and maybe even China (for Chinese / Asian players). Now a hardcore nation (currently Russia, Poland and Prussia) loses its last port and the random program determines a new hardcore nation which will be introduced to the game at the beginning of the new month. In order to keep the programming work low, this new nation could also start in Shroud Cay. It would be a bit more elegant if the Portuguese (coming from Brazil) and Chinese started in Guayagauyare, but the effort involved in the implementation should decide here. This new nation then has 2 months to conquer a port, otherwise the random program determines a new nation.

I think with the possibility to play a nation in this game, to which one has an emotional connection through real life, could bring new players to the game but also give new impulses. The fact that some of these states never had possessions in the Caribbean can be ignored in my opinion (see the other hardcore nations).

The devs should only have to worry about flags for the individual nations (maybe a chance to make some money again). Otherwise I can see no major new programming effort.

 

this game dosen't need more nations just please a few players. instedt they should remove the nations that wasent present in the Caribien at the time of the game, the only nation that might be okay to include in the game is the Kingdom of protugal since the had a colony in Brazil 

[Yoha]

I would like the game to be more focused on clans rather than nations. To do this there would need to be a diplomacy mechanism in game where for example two clans from two different nations could make a pact.

I would also be ok with internal conflicts between clans in the same nation. A hefty admiralty fee for declaring a war on own nation clans would be appropriate in order to prevent abuse.

[Farrago]

I’ll make a post in suggestions but They really should include a current port ownership map on the screen where players select a nation. 

[Hethwill]

54 minutes ago, Farrago said:

I’ll make a post in suggestions but They really should include a current port ownership map on the screen where players select a nation. 

this is a great suggestion.

[Celtic]

On 1/24/2020 at 10:08 AM, Syler said:

I would like the game to be more focused on clans rather than nations. To do this there would need to be a diplomacy mechanism in game where for example two clans from two different nations could make a pact.

I would also be ok with internal conflicts between clans in the same nation. A hefty admiralty fee for declaring a war on own nation clans would be appropriate in order to prevent abuse.

Absolutely not - this isn't Eve. The game is already far too clan focused - generally to the detriment of the "nation."  

[Yoha]

On 1/25/2020 at 4:47 PM, Celtic said:

Absolutely not - this isn't Eve. The game is already far too clan focused - generally to the detriment of the "nation."  

Players would organize into their own "clans" even if there were no in game clan mechanism. The issue with being just nation orientated is that not everyone in the nation has the same goals and objectives...this creates internal friction within nations that often becomes toxic. 

Eliminating nations and implementing clan diplomacy is the best way to allow the players to play the way they want, make alliances, and reduce toxicity.