Pirates in RvR

[Capitane Jean]

The pirates part of the game is just a marketing gimmick to attract kids to play, obviously. Same goes for brits for all the nelson and master & commander fanboys.

[Ships Be Sunk]

Originally Posted by Coffey I have heard this many times on the forums that rats are not meant to win the map or be relevant to it. Is there any official FLS statement to that effect. Or is this just the consensus of experienced players as a result of the fact that rats have to work 3 times as hard to win. I'm just asking because I cant find anything in the rules or policies on the subject.

Pirates were designed to the game to be a small section of the player base that was hardcore pvper's. That is why they started out as cutt only. Have you ever tried eco on a cutt? its a pain in the butt ( see there i rhymed a lil). Also the cutt has some Serious negatives incentives to fleeting (-55% doubloon income fom defeated ships, NPC) What has happened in game is that the cutt due to one reason or another is the most sought after class in game ( maybe b/c it can steal ships). This causes an inbalance in the server population to the pirate nation.

Look at the design of the classes themselves. The national classes are designed to be great group fighters and have the heavy ships that do well in port battles. Pirates are great at 1v1 and small group fights and if you get an experienced group of pirates they will kill all in a 6v6 as well. The ships given to pirates are mostly frigates meant for open sea combat. Pirates with the exeption of a couple bucc ships would have to steal a Nat ship to get a decent pb fleet.

The writing is on the wall. read all the class descriptions and the career skill initial bonuses.

[Cronic]

Is it posible that the rules were implimented because FLS knew the game could possibly be overwhelmed by pirates? If say, rats outnumbered nats by 2 or 3 to 1, then they are not really working twice as hard. And I do see how it would be silly for pirates to say....completely take over port royal. Historcally speaking, I do not remember hearing anything of the sort. The 'RvR' rules for the pirate nation seemed tuned to this by the rats raiding a port then returning it.
What really needs to happen is the pirate nation should actually begin thinking of itself as relevent to the map. Numbers should more than make up for the lack of rewards for flipping a port.
JMO

[Coffey]

Originally Posted by Ships Be Sunk Pirates were designed to the game to be a small section of the player base that was hardcore pvper's. That is why they started out as cutt only. Have you ever tried eco on a cutt? its a pain in the butt ( see there i rhymed a lil). Also the cutt has some Serious negatives incentives to fleeting (-55% doubloon income fom defeated ships, NPC) What has happened in game is that the cutt due to one reason or another is the most sought after class in game ( maybe b/c it can steal ships). This causes an inbalance in the server population to the pirate nation. Look at the design of the classes themselves. The national classes are designed to be great group fighters and have the heavy ships that do well in port battles. Pirates are great at 1v1 and small group fights and if you get an experienced group of pirates they will kill all in a 6v6 as well. The ships given to pirates are mostly frigates meant for open sea combat. Pirates with the exeption of a couple bucc ships would have to steal a Nat ship to get a decent pb fleet. The writing is on the wall. read all the class descriptions and the career skill initial bonuses.

So I see the writing on the wall. If FLS didn't intend for pirates to win the map why did they give them a victory status on the conquest chart? I do have the impression mostly from the forums that most of the pvper's have gravitated to the pirate nation. Are these the hard core Pvper's? or are they the just pvper's that have no interest in winning the map?

I was on last year when Pirates won the map. It was very very cool. It was actually cooler then i realized at the time. At the time I didn't know how rare it was for the pirates to win. I would like to see that more often. I'm surprised at how often pirates come in 2nd and 3rd place. I'm inclined to think that its more a result of nats using pirate alts to disrupt the other nations and not really trying to win.

I think that Pirates were meant to win the map. I believe there are three main obstacles;
Cross teaming (and I'm not talking about using x-teaming to deliberately cause the pirates to fail. I'm talking about x-teaming with no interest to PvP for RvR victory)
The Pirate fail RvR mind set (Keep telling people that pirates shouldn't try to win and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy)
Leadership. (This games lacks a mechanic for setting up any kind of a leadership to direct the nation for RvR. This creates an environment ripe for confrontation.)
So there are many things that contribute to pirate not performing in a meaningful way to RVR. If pirates get past these three issues then they would have a chance to win the RVR again.

[Coffey]

Originally Posted by Cronic Is it posible that the rules were implimented because FLS knew the game could possibly be overwhelmed by pirates? If say, rats outnumbered nats by 2 or 3 to 1, then they are not really working twice as hard. And I do see how it would be silly for pirates to say....completely take over port royal. Historcally speaking, I do not remember hearing anything of the sort. The 'RvR' rules for the pirate nation seemed tuned to this by the rats raiding a port then returning it. What really needs to happen is the pirate nation should actually begin thinking of itself as relevent to the map. Numbers should more than make up for the lack of rewards for flipping a port. JMO

I agree. The explanation given for the pirates to have a realm and to win the map is that the game is based on historical fantasy. I'm all for realism but mainly as a backdrop for the great "What If Storyline". One thing that keeps me interested in the game is the realism of the ship battles. I'm so burnt out on unrealistic battles of magic based fantasy MMOs.

This game needs to be played with the RvR as the priority. It is the way the game mechanics where designed. If players want to cross-team they should do so with what ever that nations best interest in mind. If they cant do that then they should not cross-team.

If Pirates would put forth the effort and start being a serious contender it would indeed make the whole RvR better for both Rats and Nats.

[blackshepherd1]

Originally Posted by Capitane Jean The pirates part of the game is just a marketing gimmick to attract kids to play, obviously. Same goes for brits for all the nelson and master & commander fanboys.

Exactly. End of story.

[Coffey]

Originally Posted by Capitane Jean The pirates part of the game is just a marketing gimmick to attract kids to play, obviously. Same goes for brits for all the nelson and master & commander fanboys.

Originally Posted by blackshepherd1 Exactly. End of story.

Well Fodderboy does not seem to imply that it is the end of the story when he says they are changing the way Pirates effect RvR.

I don't know if any of you have played Sid Meier's Pirates. It is the play at home predecessor of this MMO that dates back to 1988. In that game you start out as a pirate and get marks from governors' to fight for different nations. The ability to start in this game as a National is what was added. to create a RvR. Thats probably where they may have messed up.

In the original game RvR was handle by a game mechanic.The program decided who you were at war with and you had a choices to adjust your game play accordingly.
You could help any nation you had rep with and marks as a Privateer. You could change the almost all the ports over to one nation. They should have left that part alone. Or you could choose to stay a pirate and continue to attack any nation. If they wouldn't have messed with that then RvR could have been handled by players Socs, guilds etc. You wouldn't need to have a map win to give bonus's to winners who just keep winning.
The reason they did mess with it is to allow for different classes and skills and but the idea fails because they end up with three Nations all with the same classes and one nation that is not being played properly, mainly just because its is different.

Any ways it is a moot point. Accept to say that they didn't add pirates. Pirate life was the core to the original game. Pirates are meant to tip the balance of power.
They could return to that if they would simply lift the ban on trading with pirates and let socs choose who they want to help by making deals with the nationals.
But It requires FLS to make an official rule that says Pirates are free to cross team and attack each other as they see fit. The only issue that needs to be worked out is the award of an mov for defeating a fellow pirate. If you allow movs to be awarded that way then PvP would dominate the RvR and ruin it as it does now.

I don't think any other changes would be necessary. Accept that National Cross teaming should not be allowed.(French and Brit; Brit and Spanish; Spanish and French)

The big question is; Would enough players continue to play all of the national realms?

[CJFlint]

Ever since I started playing as pirate we have only won one map. There are 3 factors to blame shipcom skill set, unity and X-Teaming. I have done heavy group as Nat and as a pirate. From what I remember as nat Conquest was much easier, as a national NO. The nationals are just set up much better for heavy group pvp; it’s as simple as that. Right out of the gate they don’t have to try as hard to do well in that department. When I played national it was before the Mace Hunters 4th was nerfed. It was basically seriously OPed sick 4th rate. It turned like a frigate, and had serous fire power. Prefect for heavy groups, insanely OPed for that sort of thing. I don’t remember ever having a hard time with flips or PBs, not nearly like we have on the pirate side now days. Not even close.

Allot Pirates on my server are discouraged from even doing RvR. You hear all the story’s, arguing in nation chat, we could have won but, stories of X-Teamers and horse doping. Then when the PBs happen everyone acts surprised no one showed up except for a few people.

I think Pirates have to have relevance in the game, other than RvR. Rouge Pirates historically did not do national conquest period. The concept almost seems laughable. These were stealthy, guerilla warfare fighters on the sea. They were not interested in conquest they were interested in personal gain. They disrupted shipping, they robed people act ect. FLS needs to play more into this Idea, I have said this many time before. Right now we got a watered down faction. I sudjest making RvR role limited for pirates, in return give us the RD back unerfed and give us more ships like it. Then reverse some of these heavy handed fls nerfs. Let the nationals have what they are good at RvR and let us have what we are good at piracy. Let them have their 1st and 2nd rates back, but let us have our ships back the way they were and skills the way there were.

The thing I always found kind of annoying is hearing nationals QQ about pirates, as especially when you take look at conquest history. Currently they have nothing to complain about. It’s self-centered completely. So quick to ask for nerfs. I have played both sides, other than capping ships playing as a nat has more perks. Capping ships is over rated. Take a look at the FT for example advanced structures for econ, they don’t have enough room to haul on their ship no problem there’s a skill for them to extend that, they have high OS speed and completely OP ship vs. ship. Ships like the Khan Flute, yeah there was really those things running around in the 1700s....give me a break. Good lord I’m surprised ALL nats art FTs. The NO has access to the biggest most powerful ships in the game. The priv is the only class on their side that I feel is kind got the short end of the stick. Nationals have zero to complain about.

On dev path POTBS is on now the pirates being slowly nerfed to irrelevance.

[Nestcrow]

Rouge Pirates?
gorilla warfare?

Man you can't do that by accident.

[CJFlint]

Originally Posted by Nestcrow Rouge Pirates? gorilla warfare? Man you can't do that by accident.

Spell checked just for you, sorry I type fast and was not known for winning spelling bee's...didnt know anyone really gave a crap on these forums so most of the time I dont bother..