Poll Player Nations

[echoes_of_eternity]

Here's a thread from the official forum, describing what happens to every server in which player nations are enabled:

http://forums.archeagegame.com/show...e-Factions&s=e5023417013fe003043a4ec28b0d1442

As you can see,it ends up being a single nation that ruins both continent factions as well as the pirate faction, since it will take the best geared people from all three until it hoards all content, and everyone else is forced to basically leave the game.

I think player nations are too advantageous at the moment. They can own all castle territories, they recruit all the high geared players from Nuia and Haranya and become an OP nation.
Player nations have zero disadvantages at the moment. Before player nation system, we were able to kill pirates and send them to jail. Now, they formed their own nations but participate as jury members in our nation's courts. How is this logical? They should go to jail if they get killed by mainland nations, since they are just pirates with a different name. Pirate nation died and has only a few players just because of that. Plus they are making use of all the mainland advantages(like inland safe trading etc.) through their alts in Nuia and Haranya, so it's another plus for them. They are basically dominating all the in-game content with player nation mains and nuia-haranya alts.

Please don't think I'm too negative in my interpretation of it, practically every longer and better thought out post says the exact same thing. I will link directly to a few posts that explain it well so that I don't have to multi-post here while quoting them, I would seriously recommend reading them:

http://forums.archeagegame.com/show...the-Factions&p=2645836&viewfull=1#post2645836
http://forums.archeagegame.com/show...the-Factions&p=2645784&viewfull=1#post2645784
http://forums.archeagegame.com/show...the-Factions&p=2645782&viewfull=1#post2645782
http://forums.archeagegame.com/show...the-Factions&p=2645725&viewfull=1#post2645725
http://forums.archeagegame.com/show...the-Factions&p=2645972&viewfull=1#post2645972
http://forums.archeagegame.com/show...the-Factions&p=2646051&viewfull=1#post2646051
http://forums.archeagegame.com/show...the-Factions&p=2646058&viewfull=1#post2646058

On one side you have : P2W+alt-army+end-game gold, already highest geared players, and the number, and same objectives.

On the other side we have : no-p2W, no-alt, no-end-game gold, lots of low geared, lots of alts and spies, not the number, lots of pk or PN allies, lots of players that don't focus on pvp.

Would it perhaps be a good idea to disable player nations before it's too late and the inevitable happens to this server too? Because I don't think any small tweaks will fix these issues.

 

[Gugu]

Here's a thread from the official forum, describing what happens to every server in which player nations are enabled:

http://forums.archeagegame.com/show...e-Factions&s=e5023417013fe003043a4ec28b0d1442

As you can see,it ends up being a single nation that ruins both continent factions as well as the pirate faction, since it will take the best geared people from all three until it hoards all content, and everyone else is forced to basically leave the game.



Please don't think I'm too negative in my interpretation of it, practically every longer and better thought out post says the exact same thing. I will link directly to a few posts that explain it well so that I don't have to multi-post here while quoting them, I would seriously recommend reading them:

http://forums.archeagegame.com/show...the-Factions&p=2645836&viewfull=1#post2645836
http://forums.archeagegame.com/show...the-Factions&p=2645784&viewfull=1#post2645784
http://forums.archeagegame.com/show...the-Factions&p=2645782&viewfull=1#post2645782
http://forums.archeagegame.com/show...the-Factions&p=2645725&viewfull=1#post2645725
http://forums.archeagegame.com/show...the-Factions&p=2645972&viewfull=1#post2645972
http://forums.archeagegame.com/show...the-Factions&p=2646051&viewfull=1#post2646051
http://forums.archeagegame.com/show...the-Factions&p=2646058&viewfull=1#post2646058




Would it perhaps be a good idea to disable player nations before it's too late and the inevitable happens to this server too? Because I don't think any small tweaks will fix these issues.

Okay so currently, if a player nation happens, it won't kill the server I think.

The only Player Nations that can happen in the short-mid term would take people from Welcome & their east besties BLACKED.
This wouldn't make them an overpowered guild since the good guys & elite pirate guild <zfz> would be here to stop it from happening, or to force them back home if they manage to get it done.

Remember, making a player nation is a HUGE cost, at the moment, it'd cost about a million gold for the materials, aswell as a lot of lord's coins (at the very least, 1k).

The steps to create a nation can be contested, especially the first part, delivering the Golden Ruins' pack, which can only be done on weekends, and when contested makes it really hard if you lose the pack, since you'll need another 1000 lord's coin to attempt again.
Also count the fact that they need to kill the DS general, which will be contested by EVERYONE but the people who plan on moving to the pn.

 

[fused]

Also count the fact that they need to kill the DS general, which will be contested by EVERYONE but the people who plan on moving to the pn.

Generals are now orange to everyone, we can't heal them in peace, they will just zerg it during peace. This need to be fixed and generals NEED to despawn during peace.

 

[Gugu]

Generals are now orange to everyone, we can't heal them in peace, they will just zerg it during peace. This need to be fixed and generals NEED to despawn during peace.

They can zerg it during peace all they want, all it takes is a skateboard to move the general away and reset it.
Also, what about everyone contesting speccing defense, and just spamming imprisons all around, making the fight unbearable ?
There are ways to contest it during peace, but I do agree that it needs to despawn during peace time.

 

[fused]

If a guild doesn't kill the General during war time, they don't deserve their nation imo.

 

[echoes_of_eternity]

I would just like to point out that I'm mainly talking about all the things that will inevitably happen *after* the player nation is formed - whether the nation deserves it or not, and whether they can actually pull it off or not is largely irrelevant, my view is that no one should even get a chance to "deserve" to ruin the entire server like live servers have been ruined in the first place, regardless of how much effort they put into setting it up.

I have been in player nations, fought multiple player nations and my view is that overall Player Nations are bad for the game and erode at your community.

There is little point in fixing the gear gap issues for new players if you leave Player Nations as they are. Player nations pull people from east/west factions and ultimately make those factions weaker. New players to the game are going to be joining east/west factions when they join the game, not going directly to a player nation. If those factions are weakened to the point of not being able to do content it greatly impacts the ability for new players to catch up. On those servers where PN's become bullies running around stomping pugs all day, its even worse.

The health of AA is directly linked to the health of the community on each of the servers. Those communities are eroded by the player nation system.

The poll results showed a lot more people want player nation removed. Trion isn't going to do it even though people have quite because of it and more people will quit because of it. It's a shame.

 

[prego_kamata]

hi ArcheRage crew can u comment on the possibility of adding a Trader House Upgrade option on the Aquatic Houses
U dont necessary have to reskin/resize the house just add pack crafter similar to the one on the Fellowship Plaza to the upgraded version of the house ,and packs to be crafted with "Aqua farming and fishing materials ONLY" . It will make aqua farming and ownership of aquatic properties much more relevant to the game because now days it seems to be kind of useless to own aqua farm or marine house due to lack of gold making options .All type of salt water fish sells on the AH for the price of -few copper per piece ,dawn lake essence price is on rock bottom as well , coral and pearl market is inconsistent . Marine house and aqua farm areas are full of open land plots because people dont see any perspective in owning any kind of aquatic properties houses or farms

 

[Disrep]

I have mixed feelings about the player nation topic. I've been in a few player nations as well as fought against player nations. Player Nations themselves aren't the problem in my opinion, it's the state of the server that allows Player Nations to stomp. Be prepared, this is a long post.

If you think about it, every time a player nation has been formed on live servers, the general population of the server have died off. Most competition had left and quit the game, which allows player nations to thrive. Because its a dead server, these player nations can hold multiple castles and continue their snowballed advantage. Newer guilds cannot handle these nations due to the gear gap that has formed.

Being in a Player Nation isn't all that different from being pirate, except the fact that you can't get sent to jail for Red Dragon. That's it. Any money making method that's done on land, with the exception of land trade runs, can be done as a pirate. What would be the difference being in a Player Nation?

There was a big chunk of those posts that was linked in the OP that talked about gear disparity and the fact that these Player Nations are farming all the content and gaining crazy amounts of money, as well as monopolizing things like Gold Trader, and Abyssal. This is very true for live servers, but everyone has to remember this is not a live server. On live servers, DGS aren't nerfed. A good chunk of money and progression was taken out of the game because of countermeasures that we as the community put in to prevent snowball effects from killing said content.

On live servers, it's much easier to monopolize Abyssal because, as explained earlier, the Player Nation was formed on an already dead server. Have you seen one faction completely dominate abyssal so far on this server? As far as I know that isn't the case at all. There is a healthy population that if banded together could stop either <zfz> or <welcome> from free farming this event. What you also have to understand is that the amount of abyssal packs that come out of crystals are doubled on live, and have no % drops when turning in. That is alot of gold coming into the game, which will absolutely snowball a guild just on that alone. But again, that's on live, not private server.

The only other boss that drops gold is Kraken, and that's on a 2 day timer. Which means currently on this private server, there is no way to get ahead in gear by killing content. You can see this because of the current fight between <Welcome> and <Zfz>. <Welcome> has killed more pieces of content over the servers lifespan over <Zfz>, however <Zfz> still outgears them (we all know its due to p2w, but that's not the topic of discussion here please don't mention it when giving counter points). That's not due to killing Kraken on cooldown. 3k every 2 days to 40 people is garbage money. 75 gold is enough to replace your pots that you used for the fight, that's about it. Even if we count the Luck Sunpoints that have a potential to drop from the boss, it's still not enough to gear 40 members with content alone. It's pocket change.

The argument of "well people are more likely to join a player nation versus commit to going pirate" is slightly flawed, especially on this server. Anyone who actually wants to go to content, and be in a high level guild will already have the mentality of going pirate. At this point, there is only two guilds who have the capability to make a nation, and that's Zfz and Welcome. Both of these guilds at this point would only take people who are willing to go through that change if that is what is required of them. On top of all of this, depirating is extremely easy with the fact that it's double honor gains.

With all of this being said, I would actually like to see some changes made to Player Nations, such as they cannot hold more than one castle. If you're going to go forward with creating a guild filled with strong people, there should be some slight limitations to how many people you should be allowed to bring, similar to pirate. You don't need more than 100 people in one guild, even with alts. Allowing 1 nation to hold multiple castles would be unhealthy for the server, and increase the gear disparity. The amount of money you would gain would be far too strong. Another change that I would personally like to see is removing the option to ally with a faction. Anything that can be used to limit how much strength these nations can have would be a good change.

If the majority opinion is to remove Player Nations, then that's fine I'm not to worried about it, however I just want to make sure that it's done for the right reasons. Everyone has to remember that this is a private server. Things that are issues on live or other servers aren't as much as an issue here, and vice versa.

TLDR: Pns dont kill servers that have an active population. Pns kill servers that are already dead. You cant snowball on content here, because values on live are much higher than here.

 

[echoes_of_eternity]

With all of this being said, I would actually like to see some changes made to Player Nations, such as they cannot hold more than one castle.

But how, when they can simply hold all castles through proxy guilds (as Welcome is already doing with 3 castles, two of which are registered to their proxies). This would require the GMs to step in and not just change the mechanics, but disallow behavior that goes against the "spirit of the game".

 

[Gugu]

With all of this being said, I would actually like to see some changes made to Player Nations, such as they cannot hold more than one castle. If you're going to go forward with creating a guild filled with strong people, there should be some slight limitations to how many people you should be allowed to bring, similar to pirate. You don't need more than 100 people in one guild, even with alts. Allowing 1 nation to hold multiple castles would be unhealthy for the server, and increase the gear disparity. The amount of money you would gain would be far too strong. Another change that I would personally like to see is removing the option to ally with a faction. Anything that can be used to limit how much strength these nations can have would be a good change.

Agreed on this!

In 3.0, a change is added that limits castle ownership, meaning a player nation needs several guilds to own multiple castles, however, this can be done via guild hopping. Maybe as a first step, enforce the 100 player limitation on nations? Which means no matter how many castles they own, they would have a cap of 100 members, and a single guild will have a hard time holding on all the castles if several of them are under siege.

If this still proves to not be effective, maybe have the admins enforce the 1 castle per nation rule, to allow for other guilds that are not in nations to grow by having castle money, and eventually overtake the nation.

But how, when they can simply hold all castles through proxy guilds (as Welcome is already doing with 3 castles, two of which are registered to their proxies). This would require the GMs to step in and not just change the mechanics, but disallow behavior that goes against the "spirit of the game".

Welcome is holding 3 castles, but they cannot defend them if all 3 of them get sieged

I do agree on having a GM step in to enforce that rule

 

[ramz]

Player nations are usually formed on dead or dying servers to fight the last "strong guild" until they zerg it down and it quits. That won't happen here as the only two guilds capable of forming a nation are Welcome and zfz. zfz is already pirate, and already capable of zerg recruiting from both factions, but rather than doing that, zfz continually downsizes itself, to the point of being a 64 man guild currently. Welcome already is allying with other guilds on West and East to brute force zerg Red Dragon and other events down. Them making a player nation would just allow them to do it all under the same tag.

Either guild forming a Player Nation here would not change things a whole lot except to make things a lot less complicated for either guild. Neither of them would stand to immediately free farm the server due to massive advantage. To be fair, if neither guild makes a nation, the server would eventually be free farmed by one of them once the other gets bored and quits anyways, unless they broke apart and fought each other once their competition died out. I can speak as a guild lead of zfz when I say that us forming a nation would only change things in that we could come to contest Red Dragon without going to jail, or come PvP on mainland without going to jail. If you take away Player Nation as a possibility, we would just go to our original factions and work together cross-faction, as currently if we do not, Welcome will just ally the rest of the server into a free farm alliance much similar to what you fear a Player Nation would become.

That being said, I personally do not care if you remove Player Nations from the game if that is what the entire community desires (though it will be very biased either way if it goes to a vote.) Some people would be bummed out, is all, and this change would absolutely be done at the behest of the people who benefit from it, not in fairness to the "health of the server." Our goal is to make a Player Nation to KEEP the server active and balanced, not free farm it. If we wanted to do that, this server would already be dead.

 

[Ryuzaki]

I think it is in servers best interest not to push any group of players out of options, making them lose interest in the game.
This goes for small softcore guilds as well as hardcore guilds which would like to band together and work with different factions.

To be able to determine which changes if some are needed to be made, community itself should suggest and agree on constructive solutions that wont be pushed upon them, which are both balanced and fair.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Another change that I would personally like to see is removing the option to ally with a faction.

Can you please clarify this?

Maybe as a first step, enforce the 100 player limitation on nations? Which means no matter how many castles they own, they would have a cap of 100 members, and a single guild will have a hard time holding on all the castles if several of them are under siege.

Dont you think it is a bit too much to make it 100 players per nation, since some guilds have nearly 100, and it beats the purpose of allying?
Cross-Faction Nations would tend to attract 2+ Guilds to unite, which in turn would make those up from potentially 200+ active players.
It should be fair bothways.

And do you think there could be any other solution as to how to leave a window of opportunity on how other guilds would contest Nations?
This is related to all content, primarily castles yes, but keep in mind Nations are able to participate in everything normally.

 

[Gugu]

Can you please clarify this?

What he means :

Player Nations have the option every week to pay Lord's Coins and send a gift to the other factions. This gift is just a way to pay to offer to Nuia/Haranya to ally with them.

Once the lord's coins have been paid, the heroes of the targeted factions can decide to vote yes or no to the alliance request.
If they say no, the Player Nation requesting the alliance will have paid Lord's Coins for nothing.
If they say yes :

• Players from the PN and from the targeted faction (Nuia/Harania) will see each other as green
• Haranian/Nuian guards will not attack the PN on sight
• Players from the PN and from the allied faction can still kill each other, by turning purple. This leaves bloodstains and can get the player in jail.

Such alliances can bring a faction to its knees (Example: If a PN allied with West, East would be pushed into a corner at every event)

Dont you think it is a bit too much to make it 100 players per nation, since some guilds have nearly 100, and it beats the purpose of allying?

The only guilds who can afford and hold a player nation are the very strong guild. If two very strong guilds were to ally up and form a 200 man alliance, they would dominate the server in a matter of days, and the server would slowly die to them freefarming it. It snowballs, once you start freefarming, you get a lot more gold in, and you gear up quicker etc.

Making it 100 players per nation however would allow for Player Nations to be a cross-faction guild, and keep them on the same level as continental guilds. If anything, you don't want to allow the powerhouses to get even bigger.

And do you think there could be any other solution as to how to leave a window of opportunity on how other guilds would contest Nations?
This is related to all content, primarily castles yes, but keep in mind Nations are able to participate in everything normally.

Unfortunately, one of the only solutions to allow continents to contest strong player nations would be to force a limit on their numbers.
Remember that if player nations can only hold one castle and are limited to 100 members, it makes it a lot harder to have castles with alt guilds (Guild timer + nation timer). It also allows for other guilds to hold castles, meaning that the lord coins etc.. aren't only kept in a single group of players, but spread to several and eventually to the entire server

 

[Ryuzaki]

What he means :

Player Nations have the option every week to pay Lord's Coins and send a gift to the other factions. This gift is just a way to pay to offer to Nuia/Haranya to ally with them.

Once the lord's coins have been paid, the heroes of the targeted factions can decide to vote yes or no to the alliance request.
If they say no, the Player Nation requesting the alliance will have paid Lord's Coins for nothing.
If they say yes :

• Players from the PN and from the targeted faction (Nuia/Harania) will see each other as green
• Haranian/Nuian guards will not attack the PN on sight
• Players from the PN and from the allied faction can still kill each other, by turning purple. This leaves bloodstains and can get the player in jail.

Such alliances can bring a faction to its knees (Example: If a PN allied with West, East would be pushed into a corner at every event)





The only guilds who can afford and hold a player nation are the very strong guild. If two very strong guilds were to ally up and form a 200 man alliance, they would dominate the server in a matter of days, and the server would slowly die to them freefarming it. It snowballs, once you start freefarming, you get a lot more gold in, and you gear up quicker etc.

Making it 100 players per nation however would allow for Player Nations to be a cross-faction guild, and keep them on the same level as continental guilds. If anything, you don't want to allow the powerhouses to get even bigger.



Unfortunately, one of the only solutions to allow continents to contest strong player nations would be to force a limit on their numbers.
Remember that if player nations can only hold one castle and are limited to 100 members, it makes it a lot harder to have castles with alt guilds (Guild timer + nation timer). It also allows for other guilds to hold castles, meaning that the lord coins etc.. aren't only kept in a single group of players, but spread to several and eventually to the entire server

Thank you for explaining ! Interesting information.

 

[Ryuzaki]

How do you guys think 4 day Guild re-join timer would impact all of this?
Oppinions are split, between it would make smaller guild members reluctant to leave and ally to contest castles, or that this would in turn make castles harder to defend.

This change though as Sparkle said is not yet certain to come soon on our server, it happened on RU.

 

[Ariess]

We would just like to get the communities opinion on Player Nations. Please describe the reasons for your answers, so we can get a better feel for how the community feels about player nations. The good and bad about player nations on a young server.

 

[echoes_of_eternity]

To be able to determine which changes if some are needed to be made, community itself should suggest and agree on constructive solutions that wont be pushed upon them, which are both balanced and fair.

That's basically asking a pack of wolves and a flock of sheep to sit together and vote on what's for dinner.

How do you guys think 4 day Guild re-join timer would impact all of this?

It will kill small guilds and push people into 100 member guilds allied with the player nation that would constantly have everyone who's not on every day kicked.

Not everyone can or should be treated equally, because when they are, the sociopaths end up on top. The guild timer solution for example would work only if it was applied differently to different types of guilds at different times. The overall gist of it would be to hinder the player nation and allied guilds as much as possible, and help smaller guilds or factional guild alliances working against the player nation and allied guilds as much as possible, you can probably devise the exact system yourself from the description.

Have you noticed how everyone is talking about *one* player nation? Surely the system was intended to have more than one player nation competing with each other, right?

edit: Can you think of any positive things that a player nation would add to the server btw? Since there are already three factions (the pirate faction already having the benefits of the player nation but also the downsides that are supposed to go with them), and a player nation brings all the negatives from the OP thread to the server, what's the actual point of it being enabled?

 

[echoes_of_eternity]

I don't see a "never" option, the poll is biased right from the start.

 

[Shanks]

The longer it takes for the server to die to free farm the longer I stay. That's why I vote.