Pirate Mechanics

[B4NGSPL4T]

Greetings,

 

I'm not going to spend the usual amount of time outlining my suggestion, as it feels every time I spend 1-2 hours thinking through and writing an informative and detailed post it gets spammed and pushed to the back. I am not one of those hugely vocal forum members, so cannot contend with it. Anyway, here we go.

Pirates historically never owned ports, however they were tolerated in some by the governors. I understand of course there is a level of gamification required, which is why I suggest that the Pirates are given the hidden island to the North-East of The Bahamas. This island has 2-3 ports (can't remember how many exactly), which would be the ONLY place where the Pirates have their very own ports. They should act as a Capital, permanently in the pirate hands. This raises the point of port captures. I suggest removing this ability from the pirates and creating a new mechanic called "Raiding". Through raiding, pirates can assault a port but never capture it, rewarded with loot similar to Port Battles but with the addition of ships.

Why ships you ask? Because I also suggest that pirates are not able to craft! Pirates very rarely crafted their own ships, even then for the most part they just took captured ships and heavily modified them. Realistically you didn't have Pirates sailing around in self built 1st rates, however they could potentially capture them if they worked together (this would be PVP). They would still be able to buy ships from their ports, so this would limit them to Pavel's and below.

Well, that's it really. No crafting for pirates, and no capturing of ports. It further creates a unique faction to play as, which I believe is exactly what they should be.

Mr. Splat has created a new poll with some extra questions. Please move the discussion over to that thread - it's located here: http://forum.game-la...-mechanics-vote

Don't forget to vote again! 

- Henry d'Esterre Darby

Edited January 14, 2016 by Henry d'Esterre Darby
Locked per OP's request.

[SteelSandwich]

I wanted to public a small chabnge/addaptation of the pirate city structure myself today.

Would you allow me to add that here to conduct a constructive discussion on a more eleborate level?

 

Since, by all means, i dont want to hijack your thread or shift focus from your original intent.

[Ned Loe]

In fact they did own ports, ports were small enough for their own operations. In this game it would be the best to keep what we have. Your idea suggests an invisible zone for pirates. The thing is, once players find that wonder land they will farm pirates day/night at that location. Nationals will blockade that zone from spreading, so Pirates won't be able to move in or out any goods from that zone. I agree with 'raiding' idea similar to Potbs. Raid, destroy Port infrastructure and in 3 days leave. 'Raiding' should give pirates extra cash reward. This idea might be added if Conquest points are added to NA. 

 

Also, Pirates can have 50/50, which means some ports can be captured by Pirates and some only Raided.

 

 I also, have made a suggestion not long ago about Pirates who can be hired by Nationals as Mercenaries and always go back to Piracy without problem. This can expand Conquest and it's impact as a Pirate. 

 

Let Pirates build ships, but call them refits with different names. Imagine this, you don't craft Pirate ship from scratch - you refit ship to Pirate needs by using same amount of materials. Let's say the idea is not to limit any players of any nation. Crafting should be equal for all. Removing crafting from a nation will hurt player base. As we all know, Pirate nation will be one of the most popular nations in this game. 

 

If there is raiding there should be Port Battle. 

 

I hope developers can add these ideas to their list. 

 

*Note that Conquest system is not fully finished and will be expanded. 

[Lord Vicious]

Pirate historically captured some cities, and ports, so yes they should be involved in port battles

 

 

and imho pirates should not be able to build more than 3rd rates but have a bonus of durability when capture enemy ships. (from players)

[admin]

We welcome all suggestions so thank you for the feedback.

 

Current state of things is the following.

Pirates in real life were limited in numbers. In game pirates nation is second biggest after Britain, there is nothing you can do about it. Many new players will continue joining pirates and some of them will organize into large fleets.

 

Game mechanics already allows pirates to attack each other with no consequences, but even with this mechanics pirates have decided to act united.

 

Nations are provided with all the tools to keep pirates in check by sinking them and denying them ports. If you capture all pirate ports it will be harder for them to build ships. 

[Deepgift]

Greetings,

 

I'm not going to spend the usual amount of time outlining my suggestion, as it feels every time I spend 1-2 hours thinking through and writing an informative and detailed post it gets spammed and pushed to the back. I am not one of those hugely vocal forum members, so cannot contend with it. Anyway, here we go.

Pirates historically never owned ports, however they were tolerated in some by the governors. I understand of course there is a level of gamification required, which is why I suggest that the Pirates are given the hidden island to the North-East of The Bahamas. This island has 2-3 ports (can't remember how many exactly), which would be the ONLY place where the Pirates have their very own ports. They should act as a Capital, permanently in the pirate hands. This raises the point of port captures. I suggest removing this ability from the pirates and creating a new mechanic called "Raiding". Through raiding, pirates can assault a port but never capture it, rewarded with loot similar to Port Battles but with the addition of ships.

Why ships you ask? Because I also suggest that pirates are not able to craft! Pirates very rarely crafted their own ships, even then for the most part they just took captured ships and heavily modified them. Realistically you didn't have Pirates sailing around in self built 1st rates, however they could potentially capture them if they worked together (this would be PVP). They would still be able to buy ships from their ports, so this would limit them to Pavel's and below.

Well, that's it really. No crafting for pirates, and no capturing of ports. It further creates a unique faction to play as, which I believe is exactly what they should be.

Edit: Can we get a poll here please? Two questions, one being "Should Pirates be able to capture ports? Yes or No" and then "Should Pirates be able to craft? No, Yes, and Only Modules/Upgrades".

 

+1

While I don't like your Idea bang I think it is a valid,and very good one, and it would make pirates alot harder to play.

 

I agree with you that if pirates get crafting taken away from them we need a way to get rate ships to be competitive in higher end late game pvp

 

The only thing that I find hard is implementing the SoL drops and that balancing aspect around it

 

the selling point for me to agree to this is that pirate raids would not have to adhere to conquest timers

 

Very good idea if you ever have anymore plz pm me with a link to the post because I would love to read that and future* one as well

Edited January 11, 2016 by Deepgift

[mouse of war]

Yes, pirates should be able to raid ports - and ransack the warehouses of as much booty as they can carry (possibly destroying the rest)

 

Having said that I must warn all pirates that trying to do so to a British port will result in a large reward for your head being posted - there will be no escape.
And do you entirely trust your fellow pirates not to turn you in?

[Ned Loe]

Yes, pirates should be able to raid ports - and ransack the warehouses of as much booty as they can carry (possibly destroying the rest)

 

Having said that I must warn all pirates that trying to do so to a British port will result in a large reward for your head being posted - there will be no escape.

And do you entirely trust your fellow pirates not to turn you in?

Nice idea. Nationals can pay Rats to get info on their fellow pirate location and ambush them, letting the spy go.   In fact this practice was well known in potbs. There always be the one who likes gold coin.

[Ned Loe]

Another idea is when Port is 'raided' or 'captured' by pirates all Player or any other Nation, ships inside port are Damaged. Why? Battle just happened. Players can pop out outside 'captured' or 'raided' port, but can't pop back in.  All repairs and access to market is locked while they are inside capped or raider port. This, means you have to sail damaged ship to nearest port and repair or use stored repair kits to restore ship health. 

 

Only those who captured/raided the port have full assess.

[Deepgift]

This is starting to look like a cool idea but it looks work intensive, In-terms of balancing and implementation. but if we do the whole raiding thing pirates need a way though difficult to capture of be within striking distance id say 30min good winds of atleast 90% of ports, now this may require having taken prior objectives but need not be forgoten

[Herzog]

We must take back Nassau! Its ours!

[Powderhorn]

Current state of things is the following.

Pirates in real life were limited in numbers. In game pirates nation is second biggest after Britain, there is nothing you can do about it. Many new players will continue joining pirates and some of them will organize into large fleets.

It has been suggested that instead of starting as pirates, players have to become pirates via the current mechanics in game. Essentially, taking pirates off as character creation.

Adding the "knowledge limit" (you have to know how to become a pirate to be a pirate) may well reduce pirates to vaguely approach historic numbers. Adding in revolutionary charters that you've mentioned may further bring pirates to more piratical levels.

[William the Drake]

I have voiced concern of Pirate port ownership, PB role, crafting, and other things in many of my previous topics:

• An Approach to Piracy
• Pirate Havens, Port Security, and Trade Regulations

In short, should pirates capture (and hold) ports? No, should they raid them? Yes.

Should pirates be able to craft small vessels? Yes. Large frigates and lineships. Absolutely not. Should they be able to craft some economic materials (sugar, wheat, coal, iron, etc.) yes. Should they be able to corner the market on rum or ship materials, no. 

[Garrand]

If you want pirates to be something other than another nation, then we need to identify what it is the pirate "faction" should be. The developers have stated in the past that they want pirates to be the "hard" faction, or more PvP oriented faction, and if that's true then removing their ability to capture ports by rolling up with 25 3rd rate+ ships is probably a good call, because that's where we are headed. It's going to happen, and when we see 25 SoL's vs 25 [Nation]SoL's then there is little difference between them and any other nation.

 

What should "hard" be? High risk gameplay? Then you need high rewards as well, or nobody will play pirates after the first few weeks where all the nations are running around in 3rd rates and up. Historical accuracy is quaint, but when accuracy starts to impinge upon good gameplay then accuracy needs to go - yes, pirates were not running around in SoL's constantly, but is there an adequate compensation for being, say, unable to craft or purchase them?

 

I don't think pirates should be able to take and hold ports (other than their starting capital) for any appreciable length of time. I also don't think that pirates should be able to craft SoL's from scratch. How do we solve these "problems" while introducing unique gameplay elements that are risky and fun?

 

Allow pirates to raid. I mean actually steal everything not nailed down and that they can transport. Loot "drops" from boarded ships should be increased for pirates. Pirates capturing a port should begin a timer, say, 4 days (if you're going to have these "defense windows"). During that time, loot is "generated" for pirate ships to come in and take. Let the pirates that were in the initial port battle receive higher quality loot (because they would have scooped up all the good stuff, seeing as they were there first). Allow something similar to the teleport timer to be clicked on, say once every 12 hours or whatever (per account), where pirates can receive random mods or resources. Perhaps the quality slowly drops over time as the port is ransacked more and more. If enemy nations don't retake the port before the 4 day timer expires, the port is completely ransacked and rendered unusable for a period of time, maybe as long as a week.

 

For crafting, prevent pirates from crafting 3rd rate or higher ships like other nations do - instead, they must capture a ship of the desired type and send it back to a free town, temporary pirate port as described above, or the pirate capital. The pirate's previous ship should suffer from a crewing penalty for a length of time dependent upon the distance from the outpost the ship was sent to, since a skeleton crew would be on the captured ship sailing it. Once the ship is safe, then they can use resources (through the crafting system) to "repair" the ship up to 3 durability. Additional durability after this would not be allowed, because then you start to run into situations where pirates have fleets full of exceptional SoL's that are impossible to fight with a normal fleet.

[Captain Comery]

Well can't they add a feature to ransom ports?

It would make the game more balanced and the ransom could be split between the players that captured the ports.

[Powderhorn]

That would be a very interesting diplomatic option.

[Deepgift]

How do we fit the outpost system into this? or in this world would pirates be centered around free-towns?

Edited January 11, 2016 by Deepgift

[Prater]

We welcome all suggestions so thank you for the feedback.

Current state of things is the following.

Pirates in real life were limited in numbers. In game pirates nation is second biggest after Britain, there is nothing you can do about it. Many new players will continue joining pirates and some of them will organize into large fleets.

Game mechanics already allows pirates to attack each other with no consequences, but even with this mechanics pirates have decided to act united.

Nations are provided with all the tools to keep pirates in check by sinking them and denying them ports. If you capture all pirate ports it will be harder for them to build ships.

We actually don't. Once it goes to EA and our current progress is wiped, pirates will win the race. They can attack each other and earn fast xp and gold. They don't have to even go far from MT. They can sit outside the zone and attack each other without having to hunt or sail. Once they get high enough xp and gold they will be the first into sols and the first to take over the majority of the Caribbean without any nation having the means to combat them. What happened to your stance of pirates being the hardcore criminal mode? Now they are just the fanboy easy mode whose numbers will rival GB and maybe even surpass it, being able to field the most people in any given time zone except maybe the UK timezone. Nationals have to hunt for enemies, pirates can just fight their friends to insure easy gold and xp. I bet on the 1st day of EA several pirates will be in frigates. Within a week, they will be in sols.  Oh, and nationals can't join each other's port battles, so even if all the nations gang up together, the pirates will just outnumber them in the actual port battle.

[Kaos]

I think it is pretty obvious that pirate vs pirate xp/gold will have to be removed.

[Deepgift]

We actually don't. Once it goes to EA and our current progress is wiped, pirates will win the race. They can attack each other and earn fast xp and gold. They don't have to even go far from MT. They can sit outside the zone and attack each other without having to hunt or sail. Once they get high enough xp and gold they will be the first into sols and the first to take over the majority of the Caribbean without any nation having the means to combat them. What happened to your stance of pirates being the hardcore criminal mode? Now they are just the fanboy easy mode whose numbers will rival GB and maybe even surpass it, being able to field the most people in any given time zone except maybe the UK timezone. Nationals have to hunt for enemies, pirates can just fight their friends to insure easy gold and xp. I bet on the 1st day of EA several pirates will be in frigates. Within a week, they will be in sols.

 

That is an abuse of a game mechanic and I imagine doing so would carry negative consequences 

 

you are more then welcome to create a pirate alt and see that's not what were doing , Now i cant speak for all pirates but i can speak for a large portion saying that there not , were out there grinding npc fleets to catch up with all of you players who have been playing for months and have a huge gold and xp lead. heck i see someone like you with almost 3000 forum posts you have been around a while. were doing our part just about every player who ranks up is helping another player a rank below him .

 

I spend 75-90% and I play 8+hours a day, of my time and i know im not the only one helping players lower level then me get in to bigger ships and getting higher rank .The pirates growth is truly an example of how paying it forward really spreads we have grown over the course of 3 weeks from being one of the smallest nations to the 2ed largest.

[Deepgift]

I think it is pretty obvious that pirate vs pirate xp/gold will have to be removed.

 

Then ask the admins to turn it off for a few hours and see if the rate of gold and xp that pirates earn goes down , hell most of us wouldn't even notice that it got turned off.

[Prater]

The old pirates used it, and it needs to be removed, because people will use it if it is available and if it turns into a race, which is what it will become after EA. We can't trust you not to use it. I would use it if it was available to me and we know that at least one group will use it because they used it in the past. It has to be turned off to never come back. If you don't use it, then it never coming back should not be a problem. If you pirates want to be a nation, then you need to have this removed because us nationals don't have it.

[Chustler]

I'm a bit surprised that many pirates don't fight each other for XP and gold. In the current system it is by far the best way to go. It is also the best way to get actual fighting experience for new players right now.

Many people playing as pirates are actually nationals with black flags I guess. Many nationals are really more like pirates with national flags too.

I still wish pirate was not a choice you could make in character creation.

[Deepgift]

I'm a bit surprised that many pirates don't fight each other for XP and gold. In the current system it is by far the best way to go. It is also the best way to get actual fighting experience for new players right now.

 

I think with the introduction of assist and kill xp using teamwork to take on A.I. fleets is better exp/hour

Edited January 11, 2016 by Deepgift

[Prater]

I think with the introduction of assist and kill xp using teamwork to take on A.I. fleets is better exp/hour

Pvp gives a higher rate of gold and xp. And if you take it seriously, it gives you a lot more experience in battle to develop your skill. Pirates are the closest thing to Sea Trails 1 right now. If you wanted you could do an endless supply of pvp without really having to sail. It is the best way to train new players too in a low key/stress and controlled environment.