PhoenixKnight wrote:John, don't get upset but I am in sarcasm mood because I just watched John Oliver!
Let's analyze this shall we?
1.Plunder Hour!
You plunder 5% of the players purse ( However it is generated by the game ) this lasts for a hour.
This one is obviously pro pirate, hence the name! So you are not looting the cargo but you are also tapping into the players purse making it also a booty master for I don't know how many times you can do in an hour!
2.Pirate showdown ( 12 hour period ) !
Per ship, those carrying the jolly roger flag gain 50,000 ship every hour
Still a pirate advantage and I am going to pick on this one a little further because I am assuming you made a typo and you meant 50K gc otherwise if I am a pirate and I have 1 ship, OMG I gained 50K ships in the first hour, and in the second hour, I have 2.5 BILLION and 50K ships! and the server crashes by the 3rd hour because it cannot do the math anymore, let alone the hassle of storing all these ships into fleets and trying to get all the officers needed for the, unless you wil sell them all to the shipwright!
3. Merchant Glory ( 12 hour period ) !
All resources have a higher demand! They are all worth 20 gold coins then before!
I am going to go with controversial because I assume you made a typo here too because this essentially mean that resources are scarce and hence prices at the market get elevated by 20 making the cost to buy resources 20 coins more which makes it pointless if you do not sell them at 20 coins more which will do nothing for the merchant because the profit will be the same! So unless you meant merchants sell at 20 coins more, then it is pointless and more to the points not restricted to merchants because anyone can sell! so unless somehow you restrict this to players who have not plundered anyone in the last week of 2, this is worthless to merchants as an advantage! but hey! have Plunder hour at the same time and it is hallullya for pirates too!
4.Merchant Haven ( 1 Whole day ) !
For 24 hours, all merchants can not be skirmished!
This is really good but it makes pirates go for attack instead of skirmish and no one will be able to retaliate either because merchants are self label still!
So while an advantage for merchants on first thought, not really so on a second thought because attacks will happen instead of skirmish which takes more toll on merchants who are not clearly defined inside the game parameters.
5.Pirates Haven ( 1 Whole day) !
Those flying the Jolly roger, can not be hit if there danger is less then 1000!
From the name a pirate advantage, and think about it. To get to a 1000 that means you have plundered 125 times. All you have to do is wait a few hours or use some hideouts to continue but no one really cares because you will attack back after the 24 hours. Oh wait, the pirate can store everything in a bank or bury it, sell all ships except most prominent ones which he can dock and then you can whine all day long for the next week while casting all sorts of useless voodoo!
so out of those 5, 3 serve pirate 100%, 1 will serve any player, and 1 will either be pointless or serve any player still!
While I admire the fact that you thought of these ideas, I think some advantage for traders need to be thought and figured out for implementation. one way to do it is if you plunder anyone you lose the advantage you get. If you plunder anyone in the 2 weeks after the even, you lose what you gained from the advantage. There are a few things we can do but none will be acceptable by admin because, 1. They are horrific to implement, 2. can cause more damage to implement than benefit!
Now, I do NOT approve of Avery's idea here, but let's at least look at what he's suggesting! I don't really fear for the balance here, I think it is not a good idea for other reasons, one of which is using the Jolly Roger for distinction. So I will defend the balance:
1. Plunder hour. Phoenix, did you read the part about this being generated BY THE GAME? So although pirates would gain 5% rather than the usual average 3%, this would be paid BY THE GAME. So ti would be HARDER for pirates to steal ships, actually, since the game pays the plunder, not the target. Also, the suggestion does not say anything about lighting fleets up, so this should be assumed to be required done as usual. This is an ADVANTAGE for merchants.
2. Pirate Showdown. Yes, let's assume it was a typo. So it's 50k gc pr ship. If you have 200 ships, you gain 10M gc every hour. I agree, this is rather powerful. And the large merchants with 1000 ships would actually benefit from turning pirate for 12 hours, then climb the ranks of their nation agains, as 1000 ships would give them 50M pr hour for a total of 600M. Why, EVERYONE would want to sail the Jolly Roger during such a period. So definitely a bad idea, given that I understand it right.
3. Merchant Glory. Phoenix, how can you read the suggestion that way? I simply read this as every resource SELLING for 20 gc more than before, meaning large traders would make a fortune from this, with no downside.
4. Merchant Haven. To plunder instead of skirmish, a pirate would need to light up his targets. There's a reason they are more reluctant to do this. That said, I don't think this is very valuable to merchants anyway. They are, after all, restricted to being skirmished five times a day, of which on average one skirmish will fail, so this is hardly VERY useful.
5. Pirates Haven. Trust me, anything stolen from you by a pirate worth his salt will be hidden away long before you would be able to hit back anyway. So that's not a real issue. However, this does not really help the pirate much either. The danger only drops by one each hour, after all, so there'll be plenty of danger left after this "haven" time. So plenty of time for retaliation then. Also, most pirates are not mainly afraid of the returned plunder, but retaliation in other ways. So while I disagree with your objections, Phoenix, this is still not a good idea, as it is really not very useful to the "pirates" either.
Yes, I know you were in sarcasm mode, Phoenix, but that doesn't stop me from critizising your critizism!
EDIT: Skirmish is five times pr day, not pr week, as I initially wrote.