So i wanted to see how other people felt about voodoo. I am a builder style gamer, so how i see things may be a bit skewed as i look for fairness and balance so that skill and strategy rule not "im going to light the up, click click click, and dead" Maybe fairness isnt always the way things should be, i dont know. But if we have retention problems, maybe the way we have always done it needs to be changed. Maybe everyone should feel they have something to loose.

So here is a senerio:

Player 1 can be new or Vet, has 1 fleet
Player 2 can be newish or Vet has 100 fleets

Player one is bored and looking for something to do, casts 4 or 5 cards on player 2, costs player 2 many millions of dollars and decimates their 100 fleets if player two isn't watching closely. We have all seen it, some have experienced it. Its a risk of game play. Also accounts for the advice "play in stealth, dont speak up, you dont want to get cast on leading to another issue discussed in other treads.

Now player 2 is left to spend millions more replacing ships again and upgrading the ones that took damage. And player 1 made millions and is bored yet again, rinse and repeat.

Player 1 has nothing at all to loose and doesn't give a f...iissh. Player two who has everything to lose and becomes another casualty of unbalanced power in a pirate ship game and may decide to rebuild but smaller, play like player one which reduces available normal targets for pirates, or leaves.

There is no incentive for people to have ships in a pirate game. What if voodoo casts were tied to fleets in/or trading from that port. You have no fleets in that port, you cant stir up the natives in that port. You have 3 Fleets in or traveling to/from that port, you can cast three natives in that port. (just using natives as an example). This would make people have to invest in fleets and protect them, loose your fleets in that port, loose your cast till you get new ones there. This would also remove the fear that every new person and trader has that a person with one fleet can cause the destruction of 100's of fleets.

To go further, what if total fleets were tied to turns. Case for this, everyone gets 50 turns fleet free (can allow for noobs to build some fleets), then every fleet you run gets 2 more turns to the pool up to the current max of 200 turns, unless you use the cr options.

Everyone wants to talk about more navel battles and port battles and blockades, but as soon as voodoo comes to topic, with some, it quickly switches it to "no voodoo is fine, nothing to see here, its the great equalizer". Sure, it allows a person with one fleet to wipe another with 200 fleets in every port all over the world at once, just like in the days of yore. I believe that is part of the reason it came to be, to "equalize" but not when you have people with thousands of cards, me included.

The second reason for voodoo is credits and $$. Of coarse, thats how this game stays free for the masses. So we cater a bit to those with "plastic" ships, me included. I feel like some may not spend real money due to how quickly it can be gone due to that person with one fleet. I personally would rather see 1,000 players spending $10 bucks a piece than 5 players spending $1000. But thats just because i did the whole business school thing, its stupid, im stupid.

Am i way off base here? Any thoughts?

i have not experienced vodoo, but it seems to be extremely powerful ! you can really lose so much if someone casts right cards on you ? technically it's like you can lose everything and you can do nothing ?

You cant loose everything at once, and you can use voodoo to clear the voodoo casted on you, but you can be overwhelmed if not well versed in voodoo, but if your not on for a day, sure. But thats also where guilds and nations can help.

Voodoo trumps all. Thats just fact

Thats why bermuda died.

As a pirate who has raided plenty of people none of which have left the game or rebuilt smaller so I would think its more a matter of if you have the right attitude to be a merchant who gets raided if not choosing a new play style is within your power I skirmish mostly and make plenty of gold try it out talk to some pirates and learn their styles and get advice

Voodoo, is what I call a strong support, the game is built in a way where voodoo have the greatest power, but nothing can get done without combining it with something else.

Example 1 : HN is use, yes, you gain danger when you move to a new port, but that actually does nothing, until the person or another actually attack you with a fleet.

Example 2 : Using Call leviatan to sink a ship. Again, the person lose it, but unless the person who used the voodoo use a fleet to find that ship, nothing much actually gets done.

Example 3 : Mindbar is useless if it actually never managed to block anything during the duration it's on you.

Fair enough, so so far it seems maybe im looking too deep, thinking too much?

El Draque wrote:Fair enough, so so far it seems maybe im looking too deep, thinking too much?

Voodoo is an equalizer but does more personal damage because a ship bought on the market vs something you built yourself has different values theoritically.

Its like building ypur own car vs buying one. Id care if i lost the one i built.

But, voodoo is op. Because.

1. It can change the tide of an event in an instant.

2. You can stack limitless amounts of them.

Grimrock Litless wrote:But, voodoo is op. Because.

1. It can change the tide of an event in an instant.

2. You can stack limitless amounts of them.

+1