No skill no strategy.

Of course. Do you think that P:ToF is a strategy game?!? 

Fireships are pure cash and won't be limited, as pretty much anything else that's bought for money.

Threats/reports of mass leaving are as old as Fireships, if not older, yet Plarium is still doing financially great (even got bought for... what? half a bil USD?).

This is a pay-to-win game, and I wouldn't expect this to change.

(the above are my personal opinions; please, ignore my moderator status, as I have no special insight on this, just common sense and observation)

piratejohnny said:

Thanks to fireships and "green con -dums" these players can wreak havoc.  No skill no strategy.  Blast someone with 100 fireships and hide  Something needs to be done to counter this.  Last year i suggested making the fortress walls a deterant to fireships.  just like reality it would limit the damage done.  So the clown that launches 100 fireships at you only does say 30 worth damage...can get expensive after a while if he does it several days in a row and doesnt see great damage done

Why would any one spend 50,000 rubies on 100 Fire Ships, and then go blow some body up when the prize for doing so would not cover the price of the fire ships?

Old Timers are leaving because they can not keep up with the New School burn bot generation, who cares?

It is Evolution

I like FS's they allow me to spend my coin annoying those annoying coiners and their friends. (snicker)

FS's really are a weak weapon.  The 12k offense for 500 rubies is not a long term win.  It is a long term payment plan and a quick fix satisfaction button like the opium den of old. They only advantages are one sided pvp, allowing them to negate HDB, to toss a hit without warning, and to give an approximation of the stronghold's defenses. The problem isn't the FS, the coiners, or even the megaflottila some cap'ns are capable of assembling.  The problem is the general attitude.  It was once a fun duel of honor thing.  It has degenerated into an adult playground version of king of the mountain with every alt fer themselves.

To me the real decent into degenerative play came with the introduction of the Presidio.  Unless you have a large group of supporting members, a lot of coin, or are in with the in crowd ye get to watch everyone else paint with red war paint and get the advantages a third tier of troops gives ye.  The flip side of not having them is having an enemy to target and grow fat from.  I only had 3 million O until we no longer were the cool bunch.  :))

Just remember to leave is to let them have victory.  The game is based around rewarding the "fight".  Instead of making peace and worrying about how many times ye were attacked thrive on razor's edge of ye cutlass.  Show 'em how much heart and pride in ye flag ye have.  Stick 'em repeatedly with rib shots, low blows, and face slaps all the while smiling and mocking their inability to effectively do anything to really harm you in a digital world.

or

Leave ye Coords with a Happy Raiding note.

I agree in parts with a lot of what was said above.  I hv been playing for only about 1 year, and have managed to get stronger in both offense and defense without buying any of those units except in some instances when there are "great deals" 50% off or with many free rubies on some of those packages that Plarium spins our way every day.  Meanwhile, I have learned from some old timers the fine game of pricking their skin, hitting 25 members of a BH simultaneously, not with FireShips, but with dozens of small raids, blocks, pesky scouting missions (which apprently scare some stupid scallywags into useing their con-domes), and the like, all of which add up to nice points in a BH+Solo PVP Tournament when it is on. And all thewhile, turtling yet adding huge defense if they dare to raid or block me back.  So there is still strategy, you just have to deploy it.

Meanwhile, I agree with PirateJohnny that we should be able to buy FS protection just like we are able to buy FS.  That's just more profit for Plarium, it is an easy fix.  Everyone should suggest that to them.

Navigator

Navigator said:

Everyone should suggest that to them.

Navigator said:

Meanwhile, I agree with PirateJohnny that we should be able to buy FS protection just like we are able to buy FS.  That's just more profit for Plarium, it is an easy fix.  Everyone should suggest that to them.

Navigator

Full Protection is not good enough ?

Full protection is for pussies. Let the capn come at me with real ships, not FS, once he knows I hv 50 FS con-domes just like he has 50 FS.  How about you, do you stand up or go pussy, Nightmare?

Navigator

Let me also clarify my FS fix:

The FS Shield will only shield a haven from FS, not from raids or blocks.  Like Full Protection, it will only last 24 hours, so you have to buy many of them if you are concerned about FS nutjobs sending salvos and coining them on a regular basis.   Let them be 20% less expensive than Full Protection.  There you have it.

Navigator

Nightmare said:

Full Protection is not good enough ?

I'm sure you're just trolling me here.  But let me state the obvious anyway:

1. It's showing, so while the Full Protection is on, you won't be attacked and they won't waste FSs. You end up paying whatever the Full Protection costs (don't know; never used one) just to postpone the attack. Unlike Full Protection, Fireships are invisible.

2. While your Full Protection is on, you cannot perform any kind of attack, like raiding your own blocks...

3. ...while others can hit your blocks (you can't even reblock them; like Navigator said: it's only for your own haven)...

4. ...nor can anyone send real attacks at you, giving you both a fighting chance.

I do agree with piratejohnny above: at the very minimum, the walls (and other improvements) should not be ignored by Fireships.

DavyJones, I agree with every word. However, that - together with Wirlpools and charts - makes defending your haven completely pointless, unless you want to spend your days staring at the game non-stop. This means that the important part of the game - the most direct version of PvP - was removed from this (supposedly strategy) game. A fighting game where the only viable strategy is to hide from potential fight.

Aye Crowbar -- and by the by, u can also boost fireships, so you can send a big raid, wait for the other dumb captain to load up his haven with defense supposedly, then send a salvo of 10 FS to blow him away big time, by boosting the FS salvo ahead of your raid just before it hits.  And he really gets peeved because you not only foiled his defensive plot but blew him away twice. Voila. 

Navigator

Not really. Like KDH said, FSs are a weak weapon. 10x10 Fireships kills only 1.3M of base def (and you get to revive 30% for free if it's just your own def there, dropping it to some 900k). You can do that with a fake attack, thus wasting 900 of def on a single unit hit, but there is still a problem with that strategy:

1. if you don't chart, many will just leave a small party out, "just in case" (many will truly defend, of course),

2. if you do chart, chances are that the attack will go unnoticed and undefended.

So, in both cases, you have a pretty big chance of hitting empty, which is a very expensive way (min. 25k rubies for FSs + quite a bit for charts) to lose the element of surprise (next time they'll know you're charting FSs). And even the full success is not that attractive (killing 900k worth of def for all that money).

The price also emphasises what I'm usually saying: it's a battle of money, not strategic game. I'm not considering it a normal strategy, employable by anyone capable, if the large majority of players simply cannot afford it.

it would be nice if the condums didn't reveal themselves until AFTER the raid, block, or FS hits the haven.  Ye know something to waste their time, boosts, FS's....let 'em target it.  Just let it be an ineffective targeting.  :))

That is my opinion.  Then I might actually use those green glowing things for more than just protecting my full res banks during a good prize hunt.

Here is another good reason Tool's like Geo destroy a level 9 bastion ! 

Way to go Geo , that is real encouraging for  new player's to try build a bastion !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

jmoxley2 said:

I do not think they are new players, but same players building new accts so you have no idea who is harrassing you. 

I agree.  One side plays friend and the other foe.  Not just gnats build them either.  I firmly believe alts corrupt the game from bottom to top.  Spies, mischief makers, farmers, cheats, an harassment harpies.  Nothing is worse than the alts that infect this game like an bad virus.  Were it not for the few real friendships I've made in this game I'd likely have dusted long ago.  Since I stick around may as well buy into the kool aid.  At least the floaties in the punch bowl are easier to swallow.  :P

Alts also have their downsides.  Have fun logging in and tracking all those havens.

"LOL...."

KDH said:

I like FS's they allow me to spend my coin annoying those annoying coiners and their friends. (snicker)

FS's really are a weak weapon.  The 12k offense for 500 rubies is not a long term win.  It is a long term payment plan and a quick fix satisfaction button like the opium den of old. They only advantages are one sided pvp, allowing them to negate HDB, to toss a hit without warning, and to give an approximation of the stronghold's defenses. The problem isn't the FS, the coiners, or even the megaflottila some cap'ns are capable of assembling.  The problem is the general attitude.  It was once a fun duel of honor thing.  It has degenerated into an adult playground version of king of the mountain with every alt fer themselves.

To me the real decent into degenerative play came with the introduction of the Presidio.  Unless you have a large group of supporting members, a lot of coin, or are in with the in crowd ye get to watch everyone else paint with red war paint and get the advantages a third tier of troops gives ye.  The flip side of not having them is having an enemy to target and grow fat from.  I only had 3 million O until we no longer were the cool bunch.  :))

I've been in the game for 3 1/2 years and presidios were in the game then, I don't have an issue with presidios, most of the changes I've seen was the introduction of bot havens to the game, May 2015. People started stockpiling 100's of  bot havens, or even 100's of blockades, and when you scout 1 trying to find some good resource raids, you get fire shipped for scouting. Really, this is that king of the mountain aspect that was spoken about.  There are even those that go around stealing blockades from others that have held their blockades for years, using them for personal events. Everyone needs resources, and to raid bot havens or blockades, I don't see why so many have issues with this. I hold only a handful of blockades, you can only ransom 3, so anymore is a waste. But to sit on blockades that are full, that's a waste also. I raid my own blockades once a week just to keep the amounts in them down, so they regenerate. I find so many blockades that have been full for a long time that these people that hold 100's of them are just hoarding. But don't dare try to scout one or raid 1, you start a war with them over this. This is a pirate game, and to build troops takes resources, most of what goes on in this game requires resources, and if these hoarders  have issues with others raiding for resources, then maybe they need to go find a game more suited to them. There is no more respect in this game as there once was. A lot of us "old timers" still have the respect for those that have accomplished a lot in the long time they have been playing. But these unskilled players that was mentioned in the first post haven't a clue to what they are doing in the game. I've laughed when looking at some of the Master at Arms reports, like raiding. It's humorous to see what is sent just to raid a bot haven. 

Dane the One.  I couldn't agree more with what you described.  The alts/bots really are the plague of the game.

Those old timers that are sick of the drama club.  All I can say is ye gotta make a new game outta it.  Ye is 100% correct when ye say a haven needs to raid to grow.  War is great for that.  If they wanna make a stink be sure and bomb the outhouse and use all the toilet paper before the next guy comes in.  :))

There was a lot of strategy lost with so many of the ruby changes like autohide, autoharbor, rum removal, FS's, time boosts, ect

however there is still plenty of game left and with diligence even activity cycles can still be tracked.  Hasn't it always been king of the mountain though?

I'll never ferget Trotskinsky.  I thought I was doing great until I sent everything including offense to a LH target.  lol  I didn't even know that many troops was possible.  Then it was Hyro.   Well now people are in the Billions and 10 mil offense just ain't what it once was.

I recently held a contest for the remaining members of my BH.  We did "whoever can raid the most loot in 3 weeks".  The prize was a $25 gift code they could use to buy in game ruby packs with.

Also on the 100's of blocks thing.  Many of them share blocks amoung several players taking turns farming them.  Other's use them as an excuse to attack you for hitting their terror-tory.  Still even more use it as a meatshield for their alt.  There are many reasons people have multiple blocks.  Ye would need 70 minimum just to cast ye 10 raids a day each week.