Plunder Formula tweak discussion

[William Pitt]

It's sad when the same group of merchants complain about pirates benefit over and over. I wonder if all the merchants left what the pirates would do? If all the pirates left traders would trade and trade to achieve what? The game needs both side,I admit both sides have benefits that the other side doesn't have(point at traders). However, the game is balanced how it is,yes it is balanced in an imbalanced way,which is good.

[Ziggfried]

Pah Rumors... Ye be forgetting, this "advanced player" only had 1.1 Million gold coins and over 80 fleets active.

Whilst this raid took over a weeks worth of planning.

Which let us not forget, a merchant with 200 ships can make 5,000,000 and the net worth of the fleet I stole from 'im be around 50 m, whilst having 400 trade ships : Roughly 10 m a day, so is it really a major loss? No.

Yes and this merchant is useing voodoo to make this gold ea day as well. Do you minus the cost of the rescourses bought and ship taxes for ea ship and how much does ea fleet cost to build? After what you just said thats more like 2 months worth of work saying he had 200 ships for the previus 2 months.

I just think the game is balanced enough now. If you want to tweak the plundering fourmula to pay more and take more from merchants you need to pay merchants more as well or they will just take the cheapest route with less profits loss just like pirates do. And 200 ships only makes 5m per day if its all lvl 5 or fully stacked gold bonus plus speed voodoo and party cards then cost to build the wharehouse to. That 50m you stole in few minutes was a 200lvl wharehouse.

[Admiral Nelson]

I never said he had 200 ships 2 months? You hold me very confused?

I be' comparing himself to when I be' a merchant and making 8 Million ( 5 Mil true profit ) a day.

I do not want to, in fact if ye look back at my posts you would find I disagree and think the game mechanics of plunder should not be changed.

P.S All it takes is 4 cards ( 8 credits back when I be a merchant ) and a high level warehouse ( 150 ), speed cards I never used just party...

PSS: I agree, I also think the game is balanced how it is, both paths are hard; but as I said you do not need to fix something that has been working for months.

[Stan Rogers]

I have looked at the arguments for, against, objectives, needs, complaints and a lot of good idea's.

I tend to think although a small amount of tweaking is probably needed in the plunder and skirmish formula, to try to juggle the numbers to promote more battles will not likely work for any length of time.

It is very difficult to be a full time pirate without running some form of supplemental trade as it is difficult for a merchant to not have a serious war fleet for times of need. The whole pirate/merchant argument is bogus as if you think you want to be a pirate and not trade, be ready to be poor OR just attack merchants that do not want to own a warfleet and be a purebred merchant.
Most players fall in between the 2 extremes.
To try to satisfy either end of this player spectrum will result in driving away all the gray area players. They also tend to be the most vocal in professing the shortcomings at either end of the spectrum.
To force black and white decisions in a game that is various shades of gray play style may kill or seriously damage the game. The old system has brought the game this far and works despite some minor shortcomings and tends to be fairly balanced.

Perhaps to promote new/more battle, as Haron suggested, it's time to move into different ways to promote battle besides plunder/skirmish. Port warfare would go a long ways toward making new reasons for players to shoot there opponents ships full of holes and depend on the system that currently does work fairly well.

[ChaIbaud]

Nice pic stan

[Bmw]

I have to agree with Stan on this

[Hawk]

I have looked at the arguments for, against, objectives, needs, complaints and a lot of good idea's.

I tend to think although a small amount of tweaking is probably needed in the plunder and skirmish formula, to try to juggle the numbers to promote more battles will not likely work for any length of time.

It is very difficult to be a full time pirate without running some form of supplemental trade as it is difficult for a merchant to not have a serious war fleet for times of need. The whole pirate/merchant argument is bogus as if you think you want to be a pirate and not trade, be ready to be poor OR just attack merchants that do not want to own a warfleet and be a purebred merchant.
Most players fall in between the 2 extremes.
To try to satisfy either end of this player spectrum will result in driving away all the gray area players. They also tend to be the most vocal in professing the shortcomings at either end of the spectrum.
To force black and white decisions in a game that is various shades of gray play style may kill or seriously damage the game. The old system has brought the game this far and works despite some minor shortcomings and tends to be fairly balanced.

Perhaps to promote new/more battle, as Haron suggested, it's time to move into different ways to promote battle besides plunder/skirmish. Port warfare would go a long ways toward making new reasons for players to shoot there opponents ships full of holes and depend on the system that currently does work fairly well.

Well spoken Rogers. I would have to disagree with Skirmish not needed to be focused on, as it is not filling the important piece of the puzzle it could be. But regardless, that was an very eloquent and well thought out summary lol

[DezNutz]

Admins want to increase battles, but most players like the existing plunder mechanism.

Solution: Implement new rewards for Plunder Win Counts. 75Mil or 100Mil for each 1000 Plunder wins.

[Ziggfried]

I think if we had the options to buy mow or more advanced battle ships there would be more plunders.

If i was admin id add an auto battle route in game where war fleets could auto attack any ship that shows up on plunder screen in any 4 ports setup simular to trade routes but for plundering. You would still have travel time and danger added to and mabe would need a max number of fleets or a minimal number of fleets you could setup like this. Thats the only advantage trading has over pirating that makes it where you dont have to be here 24/7. And you still have the risk of losing your war fleet as well if its on plunder screen

[DezNutz]

Yes I think that game advancements in the long term will naturally increase battles. My suggestion is more of an short to mid-term incentive program using the existing mechanisms. It gives the admins a time to develop and implement the game advancements while giving them an influx in battles. Once the game advancements are set they can tier off the incentive program.