Standard Plunder Rate

[Stan Rogers]

I too am a self admitted opportunist always looking for where someone let their purse get too low for the ships they sometimes have on display.

[Sebena]

There is nothing bad in being opportunist in fact whole world today is full of opportunists and by being one is the only way of surviving

[Most Lee Harmless]

what's wrong with opportunists? we are better than pirates (no offense intended) as real opportunist like myself will attack only when he can gain ship or huge ammount of gold and if someone forgets to leave enough money on them and has huge chance of losing ship due the DP so be it real opportunist will never use voodoo as he doesn't plan he just sees and takes chance. But if you secure someone like this what's the point of guilds then? Wasn't guilds intended to help theirs members I can't see any logic in this. You said yourself you can go with 1-3% so go with that leave us opportunists to our humble profession. We can accept that we'll have less ships to plunder with nerfed plunder income but if you stop us then game becomes monotone as you'll have pirates and traders only we add spice and diversities. I am certain that traders loves us more than pirates and you have strategy there balancing how much money you carry so that you are not interessting for us and yet to have enough to keep pirates at bait.

I'd class myself as an opportunist : I raid when opportunity presents itself : that might be 'piggy-backing' anothers voodoo assault, running a 'ninja' to steal the prime ships from under their noses or, at times, a full on voodoo storm hit starting from scratch and running to completion inside an hour.

The trouble is, any plunder formula will become 'stale' as we work out how to circumvent the obstacles it presents or exploit the new opportunities for a different raiding style.

The game isnt just a binary competition tween 'pirates' and 'traders' : some change their roles to suit the occasion.

[Cdv]

I am not clear on how the proposed change in plunder rate works against opportunists. Can someone explain it to me?

[Roberts]

There is nothing bad in being opportunist in fact whole world today is full of opportunists and by being one is the only way of surviving

That is how I am halfdead, I am guessing?...

I do not even know what this is going to change...

[Sebena]

what's wrong with opportunists? we are better than pirates (no offense intended) as real opportunist like myself will attack only when he can gain ship or huge ammount of gold and if someone forgets to leave enough money on them and has huge chance of losing ship due the DP so be it real opportunist will never use voodoo as he doesn't plan he just sees and takes chance. But if you secure someone like this what's the point of guilds then? Wasn't guilds intended to help theirs members I can't see any logic in this. You said yourself you can go with 1-3% so go with that leave us opportunists to our humble profession. We can accept that we'll have less ships to plunder with nerfed plunder income but if you stop us then game becomes monotone as you'll have pirates and traders only we add spice and diversities. I am certain that traders loves us more than pirates and you have strategy there balancing how much money you carry so that you are not interessting for us and yet to have enough to keep pirates at bait.

I'd class myself as an opportunist : I raid when opportunity presents itself : that might be 'piggy-backing' anothers voodoo assault, running a 'ninja' to steal the prime ships from under their noses or, at times, a full on voodoo storm hit starting from scratch and running to completion inside an hour.

The trouble is, any plunder formula will become 'stale' as we work out how to circumvent the obstacles it presents or exploit the new opportunities for a different raiding style.

The game isnt just a binary competition tween 'pirates' and 'traders' : some change their roles to suit the occasion.

Right now it's not but if they keep changing things like plunder rate it will be like CJ said we are only one affected with this and that he is not sure how long will our way of play be allowed so maybe I am wrong but it seems like they want to make it game with two options only either you are pirate or a trader. That's why I said we give diversitie in game. I assumed I am not only one who plays this way and I wasn't wrong.

[Captain Jack]

I am not clear on how the proposed change in plunder rate works against opportunists. Can someone explain it to me?

It does not work against opportunists. It justs makes defense easier, thus fewer opportunities to grab a ship.

This is however only the one hand. The other hand has improved average income per attack and if ship sink chance changes are implementing, much better yield per attack too (ie maximum is 1.95M for a Lvl 10 SoL that loses a lvl).

[Black sparrow]

-Howkers at the tail are not a decisive factor for ship plundering. Sure, they ease the defender and make him last a few rounds more. This strategy, If I remember well, was first used by Hellfire, leader of PK. It has been widespread from there. For me, I never used it due to my playing style. After all, the GC difference of running a howker versus a LMM at tail, is 5,25k (or 210k for 200 ships).I believe however, that you should not target this strategy at all but rather let it alone as those who pick it are relying on it.

-If you want to see more players using something different than howkers tail, then slightly reduce their speed. Right now they are faster than fluyts,trade galleons, large fluyts, galleons and they are fast enough to be added in a merchantman or large merchantman fleets. A small decrease on their speed, would force most people to use either Merchantman or LMM on LMM fleets which are the most common setup. It would also help Fluyt and Galleon ships to become more popular. It would also make more sense. (Also, a slight slight increase on Trade Galleons would help them immensly).

-I prefer the proposed 1% of overall money than the current formula. Somehow, I welcome any defense technique that allows more time for the defender. As it is now, any determined attacker can anihilate someone in like 4 hours max. The formula you are suggesting, will surely help me sleep better at nights. I do not think that the extra hours to strip the ships from someone (from the calculator, I found them nearly the same for unprepared players and up to 4 hours more for normally prepared ones) will have any detrimetal effect to the game play. In contrary, I believe that this change alone is beneficial for all.

-If you couple this change with the sink chance, I cannot find a single reason why anyone would not like it. Opportunists, Pirates, Merchants, Strategists, Fleeters, even bankers can earn more from this. (You only get a gold sinker less and you seem to care about gold sinkers a lot). A full yes by me.

However, despite the positives, there is a catch here. You said you want big players to use their war fleets.
THESE changes might improve the game overall but they are not enough to persuade an established player to use his war fleet.

-If you want big players to use their war fleets, then create some short of event. A repetetive one (weekly?) where players will fight for something (they can collect points every week and get the rewards every month). They could fight each other or the game, you choose the details.

Finally, while we are at this, two more tweaks are requested (buffs! you like them!):
-Flag Galleons need a boost in fighting (more cannons perhap? Or tougher armor). They also need a little more speed.
-War Galleons need even more ships. Right now they are slower than flag Galleon and I believe it should be the other way around. Tougher armor too perhaps?
These two ships should make more use of Iron Scantling; they have higher HP but their armor is same with the rest. So, why not give them some innate armor? I had a few Flag Galleons which were not good enough in real warfare...

[Sebena]

Traders like this, opportunists don't that's fine but I started not to care at all anymore as I don't have any significent role in the game so my discussion here is futille and that's ok after changes happend I'll see if I'll like it if not and I see that I don't have place I can always leave. So to CJ and developers do whatever you want I am out of this discussion.

[John jacob astor]

-If you want big players to use their war fleets, then create some short of event. A repetetive one (weekly?) where players will fight for something (they can collect points every week and get the rewards every month). They could fight each other or the game, you choose the details.

-1

I've played games that have tournaments or events in which people fight to get points to win. From my experience, this just greatly increases the gap between the top few players and everyone else, creating a dominance that is very difficult if not impossible to overcome.

Also, when there are events like these, especially in weekly ones, the big players just beat down on small players for points and make it extremely difficult to ever build anything significant because the big players eat them alive, causing a lot to just give up and quit.