Pirate Interview Questions

[Tolzan]

I asked David ‘Taelorn’ Hunt a couple questions about Pirates and here are the answers.


Pirates don't match up in Port Battles, how are you planning to change this?

Pirates have started to learn how to use their ships and skills to fight on better terms in port battles. The main problem is when they face off against too many rated ships. Some of the 1.4 skill changes help against fighting rated ships, and the Navy skill set is better overall so that they don’t need to rely on rated ships so much.

The Pirate Hercules Ship costs more to make then a 4th rate, do you plan to change this?

No. The Pirate Hercules is a superior ship. It has exceptional firepower without the weaknesses of a Fourth Rate. It’s superior to a Fourth Rate in almost every way.

Will pirates ever get ships that have better maneuverability and speed then any other ship?

No. Pirates have a lot of skills that help their maneuverability and speed, and we’re not going to stack it so they also have superior speed and maneuverability in their ships. Now that we have two pirate careers, we’re introducing more refits and some of those are going to be fast/maneuverable ship, but they won’t have an inherent advantage over all other ships.

[Tolzan]

Production Cost of Pirate Hercules Frigate: 256,859 DB/ Durability
Production Cost of Alexander Fourth Rate: 45,000 DB/ Durability

[stokes234]

Read the roberts forums. Id say about 40 to 50 of the main brit RvRers just quit because they had nothing that could fight the pirate hercules without costing 10 times as much, and even then it was a close thing.

[Sundown]

Originally Posted by stokes234

Read the roberts forums. Id say about 40 to 50 of the main brit RvRers just quit because they had nothing that could fight the pirate hercules without costing 10 times as much, and even then it was a close thing.

Your beating a dead horse. They have the ships and skills to beat a 6 person all pirate herc group, actually its more of a 50/50 deal as i see it, both sides will win some both will lose some. The problem the brits are having is they arent used to that kind of competition and have now found its not so easy to sink pirates in thier refits. Nor is it easy to sink a 3rd 2nd or 1st rate added note privateers & freetraders already get acces to the same ammount of herc refits.

Nat:
Herc Sleek, Herc Hvy, "Mastercraft Herc" , every other ship in the game

Rat: Herc Sleek, Herc Hvy, "Pirate Herc" , every other NON refit ship in the game. Except for the Oli MC? Still dont get this is our best pb ship other than a herc refit.

1.4 there are more ships coming. And unless im wrong you guys are about to get another serious ship refit *** compared to our red devil. Its will be a oli MC refit. We are actually flagged in that ship anyway and cant build it in the careening camp.

And to top it off the nats have a better organized community effort for the most part in terms of building their refits. It has taken all the way to this point from release for the first group of pirates to even start sailing in a refit 6 person group whereas the nats as a whole have had them running the OS for quite awile. Its more of organizational problem for the rats than the nats add in lower money coming in and thus here we are. Now alot are finally getting to the point of building their first ones. And man let me tell you for most it was an insane grind in every aspect of producing it as anyone would attest to making a 1st or 2nd or so on.

[Sundown]

Which leads me to my final post. I really hope a dev will read this last section. Most of the hardcore players i talk to on any of the servers agree that you guys have made a wonderful ship battle mmo/simulator. I understand you are going to great lengths to help change the game for the better and for everyone. But what we want you to know is sometimes its the smaller changes that we appreciate the best. There will be many who have many different interest in the different facets of this game. But the majority are here for the PvP aspect of the game.

If i asked every regular player what was the single most enjoyable thing to them in this game it would be sailing good ships, PvPing on the OS and Port Battles. It takes alot of time to make the ships the fittings the ammo and every aspect of the ship and battle to come to get prepared. In alot of cases it takes hrs on hrs and days on days and months on months in some cases.

Heres my point. Its a simple fix no matter which way you would choose to do it and im sure everyone including all classes would be on board with this. no one wants anything for free. When this game was designed it was designed around a very large number of players in the very begining. With the population not meeting that goal we eventualy had server mergers.

The Economy has been a big issue that has not only effected pirates in a horrible way but nationals as well. The system itself was designed for a very large number of people to run it. FLS has made alot of good changes but we all feel this one has been sorley overlooked.
When the cost of great battles overshadow the production for said battles it becomes a slave grind for everyone invovled. Most people are more concerned about losses than anythig else, which drives alot of these arguments.

If there are 100,000 players to drive a large economy , ship building, and all the production.
And the cost of everything is very high . Then overall the cost isnt as bad becouse you have so many people producing that it in essence lowers the cost.

But when you have 10,000 running that same economy things start to fall apart.

The lack of OS battles and People showing up to fight in the PB's really is a result of the economy.

Devs no one wants to spend months on months to build the proper ships for os and pb battles. We want to be able to go out everyday and battle each other without a slave type grind. Its grinding us all to death. If we could spend 3 days or a week to get the proper ships everyone would be alot more active we could actually be playing the game it was meant to be. Pirates have been struggling with this for a long time as a whole. And i know it effects nationals just as bad.

i hope you can see the vision im trying to share with you. Making things cheaper as a whole is an easy fix in comparision to drastic changes. We love your game alot we just want to be able to play it. Right now theres always a large number of people left out. All the arguments about OS and PB's battles stem from the lack of them and the ability to try new tatics. No one simply has the ability or pocket book to do that.

No one wants anything for free i promise that and no one wants an easy button. Im sure some do but most dont. But the prices for building the ships on both sides are just way too high. If you want to see fraps of hrs and hrs of 6 v 6 groups both sitting at the edge of a red line i can get them its sad. Your game works lets give it a shot of dabloon steroids. Make them cheaper or as a better note i would think increase everyones dabloon drop sounds like the best fix.

[stokes234]

Originally Posted by Sundown

Your beating a dead horse. They have the ships and skills to beat a 6 person all pirate herc group, actually its more of a 50/50 deal as i see it, both sides will win some both will lose some. The problem the brits are having is they arent used to that kind of competition and have now found its not so easy to sink pirates in thier refits. Nor is it easy to sink a 3rd 2nd or 1st rate added note privateers & freetraders already get acces to the same ammount of herc refits.

No, freetraders get a rough total of zero herc refits at the moment. Yes, its somewhere between zero and none. Around there.

Originally Posted by Sundown

Nat:
Herc Sleek, Herc Hvy, "Mastercraft Herc" , every other ship in the game

Rat: Herc Sleek, Herc Hvy, "Pirate Herc" , every other NON refit ship in the game. Except for the Oli MC? Still dont get this is our best pb ship other than a herc refit.

1.4 there are more ships coming. And unless im wrong you guys are about to get another serious ship refit *** compared to our red devil. Its will be a oli MC refit. We are actually flagged in that ship anyway and cant build it in the careening camp.

And to top it off the nats have a better organized community effort for the most part in terms of building their refits. It has taken all the way to this point from release for the first group of pirates to even start sailing in a refit 6 person group whereas the nats as a whole have had them running the OS for quite awile. Its more of organizational problem for the rats than the nats add in lower money coming in and thus here we are. Now alot are finally getting to the point of building their first ones. And man let me tell you for most it was an insane grind in every aspect of producing it as anyone would attest to making a 1st or 2nd or so on.

Better organised community effort? Not any more, on the brit side anyway. Sleek, heavy and MC hercs captained by privateers? Far inferior to pirates in herc refits (less dps and defensive skills, and dont even think about mentioning boarding). 1st, 2nd and 3rd rates? Ridiculously expensive, and have less than half the defence value of the pirate herc, and awful target tracking, and so cannot dish out as much damage to the pirates as they take themselves. Also have the added bonus of not being able to cover eachother quickly. Oh, and to top it off, if they are losing, they lose completely, and the pirates get some of their ships. If the pirates are losing, they leave, and can try again.

Let me ask you something. When you roll around in these herc variant groups, what groups are you scared of coming across? Do you think, as you enter the zone, 'right I'd better keep a lookout for such-and-such a 6 group, because they could beat us'? Dont answer this with a 'SOLs used to be overpowered' line, because it doesnt actually affect anything any more.

See to me, it seems you are beating a dead horse as well, except the one you are beating has been dead since the SOL nerfs.

[Sundown]

Originally Posted by stokes234

No, freetraders get a rough total of zero herc refits at the moment. Yes, its somewhere between zero and none. Around there.



Better organised community effort? Not any more, on the brit side anyway. Sleek, heavy and MC hercs captained by privateers? Far inferior to pirates in herc refits (less dps and defensive skills, and dont even think about mentioning boarding). 1st, 2nd and 3rd rates? Ridiculously expensive, and have less than half the defence value of the pirate herc, and awful target tracking, and so cannot dish out as much damage to the pirates as they take themselves. Also have the added bonus of not being able to cover eachother quickly. Oh, and to top it off, if they are losing, they lose completely, and the pirates get some of their ships. If the pirates are losing, they leave, and can try again.

Let me ask you something. When you roll around in these herc variant groups, what groups are you scared of coming across? Do you think, as you enter the zone, 'right I'd better keep a lookout for such-and-such a 6 group, because they could beat us'? Dont answer this with a 'SOLs used to be overpowered' line, because it doesnt actually affect anything any more.

See to me, it seems you are beating a dead horse as well, except the one you are beating has been dead since the SOL nerfs.

By your responses i can tell i cant have a conversation with you on the matter good luck with your endeavors.

[horatio harrington]

well you do have 1 point about privateers and her refits but look at it from another standpoint. buccs get hvyhercs couronne and treason but why do freetraders get all those over powered buffs and an overpowered ship like the couronne mc. any other class of ship the mc version has a couple more guns and each is 1-2 lbs heavier then the others. The couronne mc has how many more guns then a couronne. It shouldnt be a couronne mc it should be some other kind of ship. Come on now its basically a 2nd rate almost a 1st with 2000 cargo add in all the overpowered buffs a free trader has and its almost unbeatable. Should privateers get a herc sleek or hvy herc yes. but at the same time should 1 a class thats supposed to be a merchant class have a ship like the couronne mc or the level of buffs they have plus the advanced structures no they shouldnt. Part of what fls has givin the freetraders should be passed around to the other classes instead of being concentrated with just them. But what do I know. Im just a player and not a dev/fls. Plus Im just a bucc.