Dev Team - Flagships

[Grimrock Litless]

I dont know why everyone is treating flagship like it should be a new thing, isnt it just a better version of the original ship it is flagged?

Wouldnt just giving them extra stats do it?

Dont really get why people are trying to add crew kill and what not. What? Had an idea and can't let it go?

[DezNutz]

If you insist on making perks for everyone then add bonuses for goldsmith, banks, shipwrights. Then when that is done lets revamp all those others to include perks for everyone. This is a game where you choose how you want to play. All choices should have a pro/con to them.

All choices do have a pro and con. By choosing to purchase a bonus that doesn't relate to PvP, you make it harder for your flagship to earn more experience to reach higher levels and gain more points to purchase more bonuses. No bonus is a one and done. Experience for your flagship is only gained by battles with your flagship.

For example If takes 1000 experience points to reach level 1 to buy a bonus, your Flagship fleet would need to win some 30+ battles if it's 30 exp per win. 30 battles isn't very much, but that's 30 battles the flagship has to engage in and win. Other fleets don't gain experience for your flagship. That's 180 danger just for those wins on 1 fleet. Then to get to level 2 it takes another say 1200 experience that is another 40 battles just by the flagship fleet.

Those are PvP Battles that directly involve your flagship. You gain nothing if another fleet does battle.

The big problem though Dez is it would be very hard to entice traders to engage in PvP willingly, and the amount of motivation it would take to make it worth it would have to be quite the considerable amount. Most traders would prefer not to attack others except perhaps in retaliation, or maybe an occasional hit if a juicy target shows up. After all, trading is super profitable, but if you tick off people and get raided that can really damage profit.

Wanting to make PvP increase is good-but trying to entice traders is something I think just won't work without giving them quite the incentive. I think it would be best to make pirate life and privateer life more appealing to convert some traders into those paths-with more pirates and privateers that means more raids on traders-which can motivate them to hit back.

If it is going to be very hard to entice traders to engage in PvP willingly, what makes you think those same players are going to be enticed to move to the pirate/privateer life. Piracy can't be easy.

[Banger]

The big problem though Dez is it would be very hard to entice traders to engage in PvP willingly, and the amount of motivation it would take to make it worth it would have to be quite the considerable amount. Most traders would prefer not to attack others except perhaps in retaliation, or maybe an occasional hit if a juicy target shows up. After all, trading is super profitable, but if you tick off people and get raided that can really damage profit.

Wanting to make PvP increase is good-but trying to entice traders is something I think just won't work without giving them quite the incentive. I think it would be best to make pirate life and privateer life more appealing to convert some traders into those paths-with more pirates and privateers that means more raids on traders-which can motivate them to hit back.

This. Much this.

[DezNutz]

The big problem though Dez is it would be very hard to entice traders to engage in PvP willingly, and the amount of motivation it would take to make it worth it would have to be quite the considerable amount. Most traders would prefer not to attack others except perhaps in retaliation, or maybe an occasional hit if a juicy target shows up. After all, trading is super profitable, but if you tick off people and get raided that can really damage profit.

Wanting to make PvP increase is good-but trying to entice traders is something I think just won't work without giving them quite the incentive. I think it would be best to make pirate life and privateer life more appealing to convert some traders into those paths-with more pirates and privateers that means more raids on traders-which can motivate them to hit back.

This. Much this.

Except that's a logical fallacy. If a trader isn't going to enticed to be involved in PvP, why would they be enticed to become a pirate or privateer.

[Meliva]

Yes, piracy shouldn't be easy. But it also shouldn't be too hard. At the moment, in my opinion the scales are too heavy on the merchant side. So making piracy a bit easier and with some additional benefits should be done to help tip the scales a bit in their favor.

Earlier you mentioned how it's mostly non-pirates who are arguing for them. That's because there are hardly any proper pirates in the game at this time. Without pirates, this game quickly becomes just a mindless routine. Log in- check fleets, buy some stuff, log out. Hardly any thinking required. No planning on how to strike back against enemies, or protect yourself from pirates, as none exist to do so.

Edit-As for it being a logical fallacy, it isn't. You can not entice traders to battle- that isn't what they do. It's even in there name. Trader-they trade. You should entice them to think of piracy and privateering as a viable options.

[Banger]

There is no need for flagship to be pirate exclusive but it should be PvP exclusive and it should give some interesting perks that entice battles and raid. Like I would love to see a perk that if I am using my flagship fleet to steal a players fleet it causes that player to have a 10% chance to have any Geno's cast on him fail. Conversely a trader could opt to go with a perk that had a random chance to Geno himself if he is attacked while his treasury is zero or someone like that.

This makes combat more fun and enticing.

[Dejanira]

Example:

100 players
80 are pure traders
10 traders but engage in plunder from time to time
9 privateers
1 pirate


Pirate Flagship entices some players to piracy:

80 Pure Traders
5 privateers
15 pirates

PvP increases, but 80% of the players are only on the receiving side of that PvP. How many players do you think are going to jump to become a pirate for a flagship? 15% of the community? More? I doubt that.

I think you (and others) are missing the fact that more battles doesn't strictly neans more pirates. More battles means more interesting combats, more reasons to battle, not simply more pirates.

Lets take the same example to an extreme:
100 players

50 merchants
50 pirates

would leand to an extremely umbalanced game and the total battles would decrease as 50 merchants wouldn't be enough to feed 50 pirates.

The existence of pirates is totally based on the simple fact they can't exceed a small % of the total. Pirates need a lot of merchants to simply exist.

The wolf knows to need 50 sheeps. The clever wolf. The naive one would think that the more wolves the better. Result: no more sheeps to feed the wolves, and wolves dead.

[DezNutz]

Yes, piracy shouldn't be easy. But it also shouldn't be too hard. At the moment, in my opinion the scales are too heavy on the merchant side. So making piracy a bit easier and with some additional benefits should be done to help tip the scales a bit in their favor.

Earlier you mentioned how it's mostly non-pirates who are arguing for them. That's because there are hardly any proper pirates in the game at this time. Without pirates, this game quickly becomes just a mindless routine. Log in- check fleets, buy some stuff, log out. Hardly any thinking required. No planning on how to strike back against enemies, or protect yourself from pirates, as none exist to do so.

How is a flagship going to change that?

I played as a pirate for a year. I saved more money as a pirate then I did as a trader and I made roughly 60M in plunder as a pirate without casting a single voodoo card. On top of that, I wasn't doing much to gain it (I would go several days between plundering or skirmishes). SO I don't want to hear about life is so hard as a pirate.


@Dejanira, I'm aware of the pirates need traders factor. I chose not to use it because it will just bring more complaining about calling it trader's glory. It is a valid point though and is why enticing players to be a pirate shouldn't be a focus, it should be enticing players in general to get involved in PvP.

[Meliva]

Yes, piracy shouldn't be easy. But it also shouldn't be too hard. At the moment, in my opinion the scales are too heavy on the merchant side. So making piracy a bit easier and with some additional benefits should be done to help tip the scales a bit in their favor.

Earlier you mentioned how it's mostly non-pirates who are arguing for them. That's because there are hardly any proper pirates in the game at this time. Without pirates, this game quickly becomes just a mindless routine. Log in- check fleets, buy some stuff, log out. Hardly any thinking required. No planning on how to strike back against enemies, or protect yourself from pirates, as none exist to do so.

How is a flagship going to change that?

I played as a pirate for a year. I saved more money as a pirate then I did as a trader and I made roughly 60M in plunder as a pirate without casting a single voodoo card. I don't want to hear about life is so hard as a pirate.


@Dejanira, I'm aware of the pirates need traders factor. I chose not to use it because it will just bring more complaining about calling it trader's glory. It is a valid point though and is why enticing players to be a pirate shouldn't be a focus, it should be enticing players in general to get involved in PvP.

I never said it would solve everything on it's own. It would just be a good start. Make flagships a feature that can benefit pirates and make it enjoyable to use while pirating and that can help lure some into giving it a go. The ratio of pirate to merchant does need to be kept in balance. But right now it's too skewed towards merchants.

And your figure is not impressive at all. 60M in one year as a pirate sounds impressive. However a decent sized trader should be able to make 2M a day. Or bare minimum 1M. That means 2 months they equal your profit in a year. And without stepping on a single toe doing so.

[Dmanwuzhere]

Goal is to get more PvP Battles. A pirate flagship doesn't change the fact that there are few active players as pirates. It doesn't and can't make plundering for pirates or anyone else a low risk endeavor. So piracy/plunder doesn't and can't really change by having a flagship. You just now have a ship that gets some bonuses in regards to PvP. Those bonuses can reduce risk and costs, and increase gains, but risk still exists.

Last I checked, piracy doesn't require a flagship to plunder traders. So where is the enticement for all the players to jump back to being a pirate.

Almost everyone complaining about Flagship not being a pirate perk aren't even pirates.


Here is the big picture that I see. Increasing PvP Battles needs to occur on a game wide scale. That means that more than just pirates need to be getting involved in PvP actions. And by getting involved, I don't mean be just on the receiving end. For that to occur, there has to be an enticement for everyone to engage in PvP.

A pirates only flagship doesn't help this. A flagship for everyone can (plus it solves some functional problems with having a flagship), but only if there is enticement to engage in PvP Battles. How do you get traders to build a flagship and engage in PvP battles? Simple, include enticements that work in their benefit.

I'm not against pirates getting some perks that aren't available to others, but we have to look beyond the corner of the picture frame.

feniks version gives incentive to be a pirate and an opening for hunting pirates as well as adding to nation play...... but plantation bonuses is more appealing and important i guess the advisor wasnt very helpful huh

I've read Feniks' version. It's interesting but enticing players to being a pirate isn't going make PvP Battles more common. It doesn't change the PvP dynamic.

Example:

100 players
80 are pure traders
10 traders but engage in plunder from time to time
9 privateers
1 pirate


Pirate Flagship entices some players to piracy:

80 Pure Traders
5 privateers
15 pirates

PvP increases, but 80% of the players are only on the receiving side of that PvP. How many players do you think are going to jump to become a pirate for a flagship? 15% of the community? More? I doubt that.

The number of players that initiate PvP Battles needs to increase. So you entice a few players to piracy, but that isn't really changing anything. There is still no benefit for pure traders to engage in PvP. Players that will be pirate hunters, will either be players that are small time plunders or privateers and still be only a small group of players. It isn't an enticement to get most active players engaging in PvP.

yes i can see how making the flagship a trade boost for traders will be an incentive for them to pvp ... makes sense