Balance to the war system

[M0nkeydluffy]

death can come in a second u knw? You can lose ur life and everythng u built in a second. .but i agree somethng must be done to make it less lose everythng in one battle. .tho that is not realistic. .also we PK will not apologise for our strategies that makes us win. .in a vo0do laden environ when you can buy ur way to the top. .u have no choice but to evolve or stay with the bottom dwellerz. . inches counts when running a race. .so we will continue to evolve and develop our strategies no matter what the admin does. .those who gripe becus they are too lazy to thnk of them shud go sink themselves. .this is n0t a game for mental slackerz. .finally i respect most of the long time players in this game. .but i told u b4 this would happen? you opted to accept the game as is. .so did we. .

[Hellfire]

We are playing an unfinished product after all. So many people overlook the fact that this game is still in the Alpha stages of development. Of course there will be pieces and parts that are broken, OP, or exploitable, that is the nature of a game in this stage. And it is up to us to do as much of it as we can so that the developers can BALANCE it and learn why some things should be fixed, removed, or added in. WE are the beta/alpha testers, WE are the ones finding out what needs attention, WE are the ones who have to go through the hardships of growing this game into a finished product, and we all accepted that fact when we started.

[Faceless]

of course there are various shades between trader and pirate, but true pirate must feed in order to grow, so he have to attack others and make enemies as well
in navy one can be strong, but vodooo equalises it. it is hard to defend against 2 not talking about 5 people vodoos
well, one player gets limited amount of vodoos a day, how to defend oneself from 97 people vodoos?
there are a friendship, teamwork in both sides
and how borring the game would be without villains? no couse to unite for, so i think it is near 'balanced'

[Roileon]

I want to make it clear that we of The Rebel Navy are not PIRATES! Yes, our old name was Pirate Kings but we were not a true pirate guild. We were mostly balanced traders and pirates to defend our fleets and a few true pirates. We already had a name change in plan but were trying to figure out what it would be. This war gave us the perfect name. U have to admit it's pretty good. I need to make it extremely clear that we are not pirates, please stop with that ideology. We are more like the CTC than we are the The Damned or The Piratery Syndicate who are true pirate guilds.

[Captain dungeness]

It seems Hellfire disagrees with you. In a message to me yesterday he said "We are a raiding guild after all". I would say "raiding" adeqately describes how your guild plays- you take down the high-fame players when they give you enough reason to attack. I don't know how many trade fleets each of you have but I know a large amount of your guild's fame and warships are from plundering. Hellfire took one of my best SOTL. I provoked Black Sparrow and paid for it.

This post is more about the game and it's rewards and less about current events. Raiding is a quick way to gain fame and fortune. It's a rewarding strategy- I'm not against good strategy and excellent organization.

-Captain D

[Hellfire]

Yes, we raid. Its not like that isn't obvious, but we do it when we have a reason to. For example with Horatio, He was plotting to attack us, so we attacked first and got all the flak that involves. Thats how we play the game. But when we aren't in conflict, we settle down and play the merchant game, at least most of us anyway. With our fleets only showing their fangs in minor instances and small hits. Thats what being a highbrid guild is all about. We aren't pure pirates or pure merchants, we walk the grey area and profit from the leniency. Raiding is a major part of this guild, but its only one of the phases we cycle through.

[Captain Jack]

First of all, there are 2 moderators and they are only public forum moderators. They only get some access in this very forum we now browse. No access at all in - game is bestowed. No one can read your messages or whatever else anywhere; you might want to check for spies in your own guild instead of loathing game administration. Horatio, If you want to become a forum moderator, I am offering you a public invitation as after all I find you as a perfect choice.

Secondly, there are some flawed assumptions here;
-The game is nowhere near as what it used to be 1 year ago. Yes, 1 year ago, it would take you 1 year to build 100 or 200 ships but now this can be done in months or weeks. So it is only normal to be able to lose them fast too. Game metrics have changed so comparing the past with current won't lead us to any safe results.

-Dungeness, you said you lost 200 ships and the truth is that you have been attacked hard numerous times. Still, you got 451 ships and you are #4. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think you do not use credits at all either. My point here is that despite all the problems, you seem unaffected at large. Surely, a clear demonstration of your skills but in the same time a clear demonstration that the game has the needed mechanisms already.

-And indeed, there are multiple ways to defend from losing a ton of ships. There are a lot of antimeters and a lot of strategies you can choose before hand. Even if you are caught off guard, there are still many things you can do. From voodoo to helpful friends and from ships to stored materials.

-There are big fat limits to how many times you can get attacked. For voodoo, there is Mindbar (which can be casted by allies too, even if you got 0 turns or no mindbar cards for example). For fleets/ships, there is danger rating. If you got 200 fleets, it is only natural that you will get attacked as much. How can we impose a limit other than danger and still be fair to new and old players ? Still, you can disperse your fleets and sell your ships off, for a total payoff. I am mentioning this tactic because I have seen players using this; I find this as a perfect tactic in fact as you utilize the sinking chances mechanism.

Regarding the name speculation, lets draw a big separating line here. There is In-Character (IC) and Out-Of-Character (OOC). The guild names are considered IC. We can interfere for a name if it is abusive/offensive. Just send a message to #1 in-game. We will not resolve any such issues here. For the record, we do find current name within the rules.

Certainly, we do want to facilitate different styles of play. Solutions can be created and most of the times easily and fast. Do not ask however for solutions that will ensure your domination against everybody else. If you want total domination, this is a hard and tough battle that you need to carry along with your allies.

To sum up, I think that you are still exploring the potential of the game. Of course I wish this discussion to continue and I am ready to discuss anything you want and analyze anything to a greater extend. This is part of my duties as a community administrator. I am your link with the developer team and I speak for them.

So far, the impression I have got is that we should improve the visibility of the voodoo casted on guildmates feature. This feature ensures that you are not destroyed while sleeping and currently it goes unnoticed. Perhaps we could add an event generator somewhere at the main menu where it will list events relative with your guildmates. We are currently brainstorming on this and suggestions are welcome here or even better in a new topic.

[John rackham]

list events relative with your guildmates

Certainly a list of recent battles involving guild members would be very useful and I would have thought relatively simple, being the Port Battles lists brought together with location added.

It would save going through the ports one by one looking for the names of guild members, which takes some time.

Sorry, that is going off-topic a little

[Horatio Nelson]

We are playing an unfinished product after all. So many people overlook the fact that this game is still in the Alpha stages of development. Of course there will be pieces and parts that are broken, OP, or exploitable, that is the nature of a game in this stage. And it is up to us to do as much of it as we can so that the developers can BALANCE it and learn why some things should be fixed, removed, or added in. WE are the beta/alpha testers, WE are the ones finding out what needs attention, WE are the ones who have to go through the hardships of growing this game into a finished product, and we all accepted that fact when we started.

This post probably wins the thread and places things into perspective.

Those who are trying to justify that you are pirates or not - take it elsewhere - it is irrelevant. The justification for your internet mugging - take that elsewhere also. I want a solution to these matters.

1) I understand that the mindbar voodoo prevents multiple voodoo attacks but it still does not eliminate any element of surprise. And there must be a cap on the number of attacks per 24 hours. Read back if you do not understand why.

2) The guild tags incident was farcical. It was clear abuse admitted by one guild member to "piss" me off. That should not be permitted to occur again. At least Hellfire has shown some courtesy and removed them.

I want to advise you that governance is important in any game and if not enforced then the game becomes less enjoyable for many when others abuse it. And it's fine to state - "I found a loophole let's abuse it" (as it is within the rules) but wouldn't it be better to state "I found a loophole let's close it?" I guess that is the difference between myself and some of you here. If we are in the testing stages of this game, and you want players to enjoy the experience you are going to get to your destination far slower by ignoring and exploiting loopholes rather than fixing them before they can be abused. Have you ever heard of the expressions "PUT OUT THE FIRE"

As far as my query re: moderators - I make no apologies - accountability is also important.

But on the whole from what I have read - pretty solid contributions.

And Captain Jack as far as your public invitation - I shall consider it - at the moment I have RL biting at my heels but I will see what occurs in the next two weeks and drop you a PM.

EDIT: Spelling.

[Black sparrow]

I like the idea to make the voodoo casted on guildmates feature more visible. Perhaps you could utilize guild log and put it there. Then put the last 5 guild log entries to somewhere easier to reach (or a 1 click link which will take you to the guild log). It will also make it easier to handle applications. Also include shortlinks relevant to each log entry.

This should be enough for now imo.

Horatio, there are few excuses over losing 100 ships in 12 hours. You were most probably at large unprepared. I have been shocked attacked in a bad moment too and I lost a few ships. If it wasn't a bad moment, I would not have lost any. And I was inactive more than 12 hours and I received more than 400-500 events (perhaps 600, cannot recall exactly) in 2 day time (although I received some support with serenity from my guildmates while I was inactive. However voodoo active on guildmates feature was not implemented that time, if it was I think it would have been a lot easier. Mindbar was not working well either that time). Ultimately, after a 3-5 day long war, what I lost was fame + some reserves. I have rebuilt in less than a week so little harm done imo.

So you should also look on your end for the losses. Improve your defenses and get reliable allies. Some purify/serenities + a mindbar casted by guildmates can save you when you are shocked/sleep.