International Balance

[Alejandra]

First, let me say that I am a relative noob to this game, I wasn’t in Beta and have played the pre-release without ever having engaged in any type of PvP.

However, after logging in last night one huge glaring problem hit me with the PvP system. How does PotBS handle widely varying player numbers from one nation to the next. On my server it seems like there are more Spanish than any other nation. After PvP opened up yesterday by the time I logged in (2pm PST) we already had 2 British ports close to being taken. The reason behind this I must presume was that we had sheer numbers over the brits. If this steam rolling effect continues I don’t think it will be fun at all for 1) the attacker to not really meet any resistance or 2) the defenders to be blow away at every turn.

If after every reset we can just walk through any defense because we outnumber the opposition 2-1 this is going to get boring very quickly.

This problem seems so big that I can only guess there must be a game mechanic in place to deal with it, like extra NPC’s for the outnumbered team or something. If not, there really needs to be some handicapping function.

Is a feature like this in place? Or am I over simplifying the PvP system.

[MobyDick]

From what I understand. Belize and Turtling Bay (Rackham server) were flipped so quickly because the Spanish had been saving up a ****load of material to turn in to the Rebel Agent.

Basically they're pouring in tons of $$$ into port contention, while the rest of the nations scramble to try and figure out what to do about it. The British are under heavy attack from the French and Spanish. Thankfully the Pirates are causing those 2 some trouble.

I have to ask though, was it really the intention of the Devs that the pre-boarding party would allow people to build up enough resources to flip multiple ports above 10k contention on the 1st day of release?

I can only imagine how much worse it is to be a brand new player, log in on the 22nd and see the red circles.

[Alienfreak]

You cannot use turn-ins for Contention above 5000. So they still made the remaining 5000 by themselves. So it would have just doubled the time they would have needed.

[Sailing Bear]

I play Spanish on Blackbeard. The populations there are very out of balance, there Spanish and French combined are not as big as the British or as big as the Pirates. Of course FLS doesn't want to dictate which nation new members join, but I think they could offer incentives and balance. A percentage based exp bonus to the smaller nations. The largest nation gets a slight exp penalty and second largest gets no penalty or bonus and the smaller two get bonuses based on population. I'm thinking one quarter percent for every percentage point in population difference, ie: If there are 6000 pirates, 5000 British, 3000 Spanish and 1000 French, then Pirates get a -5% exp, British get normal exp, Spanish get +10%, and French get +20%. This should be shown at the time of character creation so that there is an incentive to join the smaller nation, and a disincentive to join the biggest mob. It would also provide balance in that the smaller nations would still have a similar number of level 50 players.

[Ice_Hole]

I play on Morgan, our problem is much different. Spain is outnumbered by both Pirates, and Brits, but the Spanish are completely dominateing the server.

It isn't a matter of numbers, but a matter of organization. Thoes nations that are better organized are the ones that are winning the war. Although number of players has a lot to do with it, it isn't everything.

In fact, the Spanish have been so over agressive on our server, and are pounding the higher populated nations to such a point that they have gone belly up. Unwilling to fight. Tonight was a portbattle with the brits, brits were at moderate population, Spanish at low as normal. Spanish had 24 people show up, brits had 5. They simply don't want to fight. They don't think it is worth it, don't have the levels, (Basically insert every possible excuse, includeing that we keep flipping ports TOO late. 9PM PST isn't too late IMHO.)

So ya. The Spanish are pounding everyone in general. Their are a few good groups that represent from the other nations. But at this point I feel like I am playing a game with 24 people in it total. Fighting the same people anytime we get a fight.

- Ice_Hole of OMG Im Drunk

[Drphil]

On roberts the french and spanish are the smallest factions, but they both have most points of the factions. In fact, the british, being the largest faction, get kicked around by everyone pretty much.

I guess it's like Risk, in that part of winning is to divide and conquer. If any nation goes too fast, you might see other nations simultaneously trying to keep them in check. I think it's a bit early to say much about it tho, and we'll have to see how it evolves.