Should PLAYER NATIONS be removed?

[Thinking]

150K is peanuts. Literally nothing.
Wasn't PN1 funded by cheated gold anyways or is that only a meme ?
Because if it's true, then everyone has to quit saying they earned their current position.

As someone who has been playing since close to the start, I would estimate that somewhere between 50% and 90% of the gold generated in the first 8-12 months of this server was most likely "exploited". Back when gold buying wasn't bannable (just "forbidden") nearly the entire population of ArcheRage bought exploited gold (whether knowingly or not) for relatively cheap prices in bulk amounts... There was no risk in doing so. Everyone's gear during this period was funded by cheated gold technically speaking. The guild that actually "paid" for the first player nation (the wisps) during this unregulated market, left the server long before the nation was even created, I'm not sure if there's even 5 of them still left on the server.

Essentially, someone + a guild they were in acquired/inherited these nation materials. Several months later, they actually finished the nation questline and created the nation. I'm not sure why the method of acquisition matters here, if you wanted to retroactively remove all the exploited resources, gold, and gear within the first year of the server, ArcheRage wouldn't be a thing anymore. It doesn't matter if something was obtained through donating/buying gold, luck, hard work, good social connections, or some combination of all four; let's remember for a minute that we are playing ArcheAge.

PN owns 2x the castles as a group in comparison to the other castle owners. Tell me: how exactly does the improvement of LC generation help non-PN catch up when mathematically, they have twice as many castles at their disposal?

Because diminishing returns exist everywhere in this game, but primarily in terms of gearing. The difference in the ratio of output/input (stats per gold) between a 40k and 100k weapon versus a 20k and 40k weapon is extremely large. Clearly, more money > less money, but there is an inflection point.

In order to have a competitive raid, you need to have a strong baseline. Obviously, it helps to have the star outlier players that vastly outgear most people on the server, but having as many people as possible at an effective gear level is what will really make a difference.

Think about it this way:

If you had 1 million gold and 10 players, would you spend 400k on each of the two best players, and then divide the remaining 200k between the other eight?

Or would you spend 200k each on the two best players, and then divide maybe 600k between the eight?

* These are just made-up examples, and are not meant to be serious figures

You need to reconsider how you allocate finances.

If we're not going to delete player nations, at least make them go to jail if they take a pvp death on the continents of nuia or haranya, just like pirates. There needs to be a down-side to the ability to cherry-pick the most geared pvpers from both factions. That's what pirate is -- it's give-and-take. The give is that you get to team up with the other faction. The take is that you go to jail if you die in a nuia or haranya zone. It works, because it's fair.

Pirate
The Give: No out of pocket cost to merge east & west forces, growlgate ezi's light (very strong @ kraken), kill anyone

The Take: Jail on land, maybe harder to make gold, don't have access to randoms from main faction to do dailies with (cr/gr/whalesong/aegis/etc), No castles, Infamy/Have to Draught to go back mainland (lol)

A side note: Pirate guilds themselves can't own castles, but with the amount of hoops you need to jump through in the siege system the admins have implemented, you can basically own a castle with your old east/west guild while your people are actually in the pirate guild.


Player Nation
The Give: Own castles, All ezi's lights but growlgate, kill anyone even on land, increased peace fund, ease of access once the nation is actually made (no "flipping" process)

The Take: Upstart gold cost, Questline, have to potentially work together with reds to actually create the nation, maybe harder to make gold, don't have access to randoms from main faction to do dailies with (cr/gr/whalesong/aegis/etc) WITHOUT spending money, risk of losing it all if you can't reobtain a castle, have to immigrate other guilds in for 2k prestige and you can't immigrate them back mainland


Conclusion
Both options offer increased independence for a group of players at a cost, the player nation has more of an upfront and ongoing maintenance cost but more benefits, pirate has low barriers to entry but less benefits.

There can be clearly defined winners and losers, but the complaint from the 'winners' is "There is no PVP".
1. When an attempt is made to make a sizeable force to PVP with, it is squashed.
2. When an attempt is made for the vanilla factions to get better, it is squashed.
3. When an attempt is made to improve morale so more people are interested in PVP, it is squashed.

Those who complain about it are ruining the very efforts to improve gameplay they're demanding/asking for. Does PN want PVP or don't they? Do they want people to actually fight them or don't they? Do they want people to WANT to show up or don't they? Because actions speak louder than words, and words say "We want PVP" but actions say "keep potatoing until we bore ourselves off the game". Because when met with impossible odds, it's very clear that the West and East are willing to walk away from a fight instead of throwing their bodies at you guys unable to make a dent. These guys see avoiding PVP as a punishment to you, and if that's what you guys want, then keep doing what you're doing. Only a few of us continue to show up consistently and try to have a fight, but every time we bring people, the opposing force brings enough to where we can't even kill 1 person, then we get an earful of complaints. You have the opportunity to call more. We have no more.

We (those on my side of the fence) are saying "make your own PVP" if that's what you want. We've tried to make PVP better and are met with an impenetrable wall right from the get-go. Not much else can be said about that. And as I said awhile back: We already know the direction the server is going with Player Nations. We already know how toxic it is for the population overall. The most competitive people you guys can fight against are your own allies in that nation (hence your in-house scrimmages to keep people entertained). We know that all of you are real people with friends, family, and the like. You have people in PN that I am friends with, and I still willingly jump into a fight, attack them, and have a laugh about it afterwards. Why does splitting up a Player Nation make it so you can't do the same?

Hmm honestly as a nation member I don't care much if there's no "PVP". I've played this server for almost two years and seen it "die" multiple times, I'm still here though.

Sure, I definitely had more fun when No Contest/ENDGAME was active and we fought everyday all the time... At the end of the day though I've seen it all and I mainly continue to play to this day to screw around, hang out with my friends who still play, and just do whatever I like because I can in a nation. It's not like I have to pay for patron to login here, I can really come and go as I please. There will always be the elite players who won't login if there isn't PVP, or will complain about "killing the server!!!" or "where is the PVP???" but I really think those types are a vocal minority for the most part.

It would be cool for a new force to emerge and actually give us a reasonable fight, but at this point I don't care enough to really foster that scenario and I'm not gonna get my hopes up for anything.

 

[Flipsy]

Hmm honestly as a nation member I don't care much if there's no "PVP". I've played this server for almost two years and seen it "die" multiple times, I'm still here though.

Sure, I definitely had more fun when No Contest/ENDGAME was active and we fought everyday all the time... At the end of the day though I've seen it all and I mainly continue to play to this day to screw around, hang out with my friends who still play, and just do whatever I like because I can in a nation. It's not like I have to pay for patron to login here, I can really come and go as I please. There will always be the elite players who won't login if there isn't PVP, or will complain about "killing the server!!!" or "where is the PVP???" but I really think those types are a vocal minority for the most part.

It would be cool for a new force to emerge and actually give us a reasonable fight, but at this point I don't care enough to really foster that scenario and I'm not gonna get my hopes up for anything.

Super long quote, didn't want to nitpick, mostly because it was an all-over-the-place post. Also was on a bit of a vacation IRL so I couldn't reply in a quick fashion. Hope you don't mind

You might not care if there's no PVP, but your vocal minority does. And your vocal minority is ruining the server. None of your members are letting either faction emerge to give a reasonable fight, because they're coddling the East at every pass while suppressing the West, and the whole mindset of not wanting to foster a scenario where a new force gives you guys a reasonable fight is honestly one of the most toxic situations above all else. And that isn't a sleight against you, because that seems to be the running trend for the entire nation. This server is bleeding players to WoW Classic, AAU, real life, and burn-out, and the most powerful PVP force is playing God at events. Last night's Halcy as a great example. A solid raid of 30 East could take out the West's 27 with ease, but PN1 had at least 8 there, and they alone swung the tide of every fight. Then this lovely shout happened: https://gyazo.com/d3a4ea4161e1247c7f495998667f1753

The West raid left right after that. Flat out asked for mobilizations because they knew your end result was to never even give West a fighting chance, and that was that. Nyumn complained about your hand in whole situation, Dahmer went on his all-caps rant, and honestly? I can't blame both sides for hating on you guys. Your most vocal (and most active) "want PVP", refuse to foster a fair scenario where people can actually rise up to give you guys a decent fight ANYWHERE, show favoritism to one vanilla faction over another despite the faction they're favoring already having an upper hand, driving people away from even the most miniscule and unimportant events of the server, targeting individuals in morally-low ways causing entire guilds to leave the game, and yet still be surprised and butt-hurt when the factions they abuse leave PVP.

Literally everything about your nation at this point is toxic to this server's health. I WANTED to have an open mind about alternatives to limit you guys in the case that maybe something could be salvaged. But after seeing how your nation behaves, I think my empathy for this situation is gone. Player Nations should not have been created, and admin intervention is the only way to fix the server's population. And if that means that your most active members quit the game, then that's a worthy loss. If that means you guys reroll into one faction and steamroll the other side anyway, then that is a worthy outcome. But having a third party play puppetmaster at events, screwing over both vanilla factions from learning experiences, and causing an overabundance of toxicity in a small community is not something this server needs right now. I've been here for 2 "server deaths" and this current population situation right now is the worst I've seen so far, and every single source of lack-of-player-retention can be pointed directly at one group of people.

 

[triste0214]

Super tired of PN playing god. Super tired of PN spoon feeding east. Super tired of PN destroying a server. AAU won't have PNs because even they understand that all a PN does is put the server off balance. AR should do the same

 

[trapwhre02]

When PNs say they want PVP, you gotta translate it to: "We want fights which we in advance already know, we are going to win."
As a west/east player, you can have fun in fights regardless of outcome. But for "PVPers", the only fun is winning by great lead so they can feel superior, above all others. Untouched by anyone. It's sad, really. As an EU player, I don't see as much of the impact they have, but I hear it everyday from friends or random people in nation chat how they are sick & tired of it.

 

[Hny]

@Flipsy preach

 

[Sophie]

Just one question: On a server of this size, why can a pn own more than one castle? Wouldn't it be better for the overall economy if the castles were spread around? I don't think, in this current economy and downsize, that it makes sense.

The economy is the game is currently depressed. And this will kill any server. I think we need to consider castles as stimulants to the economy (ofc after they are established because at first they are a huge gold sink - which the current poor economy cannot help support).

 

[Lionheart]

So you died at halcy, disband nations. Got it.

 

[Joey]

Arguably the LC market is in a better place then it has been in the past. Previously none of the castle holders were selling LC but now just about every castle owner outside of Flipsy are putting there LC into the market [To my knowledge]. The argument regarding Pn's owning more then one castle being bad for server health that is nothing but the server and its players fault. In the current circumstances of a PN the maximum amount of players a PN holding two castles could bring to defend a castle is 62 player due to mechanics. An attacker can bring up to 100. Even if the castle was moved to another guild it would not only take them forever to get it fully built so the LC wouldn't enter the economy but it would just lead to another DC where its a guild that seemingly has little to no impact on the server except are holding a castle spot.

 

[Flipsy]

Arguably the LC market is in a better place then it has been in the past. Previously none of the castle holders were selling LC but now just about every castle owner outside of Flipsy are putting there LC into the market [To my knowledge]. The argument regarding Pn's owning more then one castle being bad for server health that is nothing but the server and its players fault. In the current circumstances of a PN the maximum amount of players a PN holding two castles could bring to defend a castle is 62 player due to mechanics. An attacker can bring up to 100. Even if the castle was moved to another guild it would not only take them forever to get it fully built so the LC wouldn't enter the economy but it would just lead to another DC where its a guild that seemingly has little to no impact on the server except are holding a castle spot.

And that was where my confusion for their economic statements comes in, because yeah...LC was near 250 at one point, there's more than enough in the supply even with me recycling everything into Marcala. Castles are, for the most part, a status symbol of sorts and a different method of income...correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Joey]

Correct there is legitimately 0 reason to be frustrated with player nations for the current castle situation. There is plenty of ways and options for the west which is where majority of the complaints are coming from to obtain castles, there is even 2 west castles currently and only one east castle. The west has a severe under dog mentality and wants everything to be handed to them under the pretense that they need these things to catch up when in reality there are 2 west guilds with over a 5k average with 70 members in each and even a small 20 man guild with a 6k+ average. There seems to be alot of excused to be had from the west when in reality it seems to be a lack of coordination and willingness to compete. The west has an awful mindset of why try if we are just going to lose and if that is the way that a guild looks at situations then there is 0 reason for a guild to want to consider themselves relevant in a end game scenario. Realistically the west has no leadership so regardless of any kind of hand out they receive they will not amount to anything until someone steps up and leads the retards.

 

[Flipsy]

The west has an awful mindset of why try if we are just going to lose and if that is the way that a guild looks at situations then there is 0 reason for a guild to want to consider themselves relevant in a end game scenario. Realistically the west has no leadership so regardless of any kind of hand out they receive they will not amount to anything until someone steps up and leads the retards.

The West has a mindset of "why try when we get stomped", not "if we're going to lose". When I started leading reset raids months ago we had 9 people showing, and eventually I was able to get 40 people to actually stick around and the fights were nearly even and fun as fuck, win or lose. Yeah, East was stronger and outgeared us, and yeah, it took us 6 weeks to finally pull a win at reset, but in a pure East-vs-West scenario, the fights were great. It is absolutely nothing to do with losing (at least, the raids I lead, idk how afternoon events go). But now? Shankss, Vinchino, Cowboy, Amber, and Congo can wipe out the usual 30 that show up to Halcy with relative ease. More than half the West can get 2-shot by you guys. You could probably wipe out the raid on your own without buffing. Adding onto the fact that it was an even fight last night at reset and you guys still showed up to then tell the East "we're gonna give you guys the win, we just didn't want to do it on the first fight", why would people stick around? In the one fight where East vs West happened, it was actually a solid fight with major casualties on both sides, but adding you guys in, it was a slaughter of West. Even without the East showing up, you guys plus Revive, Books, and one of your healers who starts with a D (Dadgamer or Dudekisser? I can't remember which was which) can completely destroy the West hands-down without any other intervention. That combined with what Spookynoodle said, how could anyone realistically expect a raid to stay there and be fish in a barrel?

And that's been the point of my posts. West leadership is trying to step up, East leadership is trying to step up, but with you guys favoring East and basically letting them ride coattails while you do the legwork, how do you expect either vanilla faction to get better at what they're doing? You guys typically rag on my leadership, I even rag on my leadership, and EVERYONE rags on Hermos' leadership, but when all is said and done, both factions are ready to fight each other at its purest form without you guys involved, because at this point the only thing they know is mob vs mob fighting. There's no coordination, there's no two-step planning, it's just a straight up fight of composition, but neither side is actually learning anything. If the East prevails, it ends up being because you guys intervened in the end and sandwiched West, and if West prevails they don't have the numbers to counteract the sandwiching that ends up occurring. The factions are just now learning how to crawl in PVP again, and both sets of leadership aren't exactly growing to be in a competitive state with your constant intervention. THAT'S why people are complaining and THAT'S why raids are dodging any semblance of PVP with you. When the lack of coordination gets stomped by superior gear, of course there isn't a willingness to compete. There is nothing to learn from getting melted by an archer in 2 hits other than "why am I here when I'm clearly just going to die before I can see the arrow hitting me?" and that's what both vanilla factions are running into.

 

[Joey]

lol what a silly post. The west zerged the east with 30-50 people almost every halcy before we started allying them. This ideal concept that the factions are balanced is not the case no matter what happens one of the sides will frail out. You rewording my outlook on the Wests mentality is an example of that frailty. Saying why try if we are just getting stomped is legitimately the same thing as saying why try if we are just going to lose except it makes the people doing the stomping seem like the bad guy rather then the ones losing. The west is delusional and refuses to change via ingame means or build anything worthy of being called a guild on the west and is looking for outside help from the admins to carry there dead weight.

 

[Piratejack]

Do the people on the west want to pvp? Like if they do they need to start working on their gear and class choices tbh

 

[Vinchino]

@Flipsy

If you're so upset with player nations, have you ever considered, idk, actually fighting back? Organize your raid. Call Targets. Petrify SKs. Make people spec out of their shit tier classes and play something for RvR. Don't port out at the first sign of PvP. Use any tactic other than crying to the admins to spoon feed you.

You say you've been here for "2 server deaths" yet you're still 6k gearscore? Are you even trying?

 

[Flipsy]

lol what a silly post. The west zerged the east with 30-50 people almost every halcy before we started allying them. This ideal concept that the factions are balanced is not the case no matter what happens one of the sides will frail out. You rewording my outlook on the Wests mentality is an example of that frailty. Saying why try if we are just getting stomped is legitimately the same thing as saying why try if we are just going to lose except it makes the people doing the stomping seem like the bad guy rather then the ones losing. The west is delusional and refuses to change via ingame means or build anything worthy of being called a guild on the west and is looking for outside help from the admins to carry there dead weight.

The West zerged because you absorbed uwu and Lads, the brunt of the PVP force. And at the end of it all, we still gave the East their 10 kills and had some of our bigger guys back out because it was an unfair shit show. Aside from the loudmouthed morons we have, we tried to work things out as Footlong and Terai can attest to. I raised up a raid of players to fight an East force led by Gildarmesh, and after that one halcy where West won with 4 minutes left on wartime, population went downhill from there. West didn't zerg East, East's force just left the East altogether.

Saying "why try if we are getting stomped" is NOT the same thing as "why try if we are going to lose". If someone gets 2-shot by an archer, they learn NOTHING. If someone gets 2-shot by a mage, they learn NOTHING. If a raid of people fight a raid of people and it ends up being a more even fight, there is more to learn from. But when you have someone firing a 30k Charged Bolt at someone, that confirms nothing the players didn't already assume: their gear sucks and they need to just not show up at all because all they do is die and feel useless to the raid. Couple that with the toxicity of your most vocal players, and the constant handholding you guys did even before the alliances happened, and you get what exists now: a raid full of players asking for a mobilization because fighting you is futile. Not fighting East, fighting YOU.

Do the people on the west want to pvp? Like if they do they need to start working on their gear and class choices tbh

There's no one to lead them. Player Nations absorbed the more PVP-oriented teachers and leaders. East and West are trying, but both sides seem/are fractured, and there aren't many learning opportunities to be had because of previously-mentioned statements I've made.

@Flipsy

If you're so upset with player nations, have you ever considered, idk, actually fighting back? Organize your raid. Call Targets. Petrify SKs. Make people spec out of their shit tier classes and play something for RvR. Don't port out at the first sign of PvP. Use any tactic other than crying to the admins to spoon feed you.

You say you've been here for "2 server deaths" yet you're still 6k gearscore? Are you even trying?

Read aforementioned being-two-shot. Organizing a raid and calling targets means nothing if two archers can mow down an entire faction raid. Again, no one ports out at the first sign of PVP, they port out when they don't see a chance. With you involved, they don't see a chance. Look at that lovely castle PVP we had a few days ago as an example. A small dispute with our Iron Head friends turned a 5v7 into a 7v10, where only 1 of my guys had a higher GS than your lowest one. You personally dropped 2 people with 3 God's Whips, and you had Stchieven, Books, and another healer. There is nothing to learn from that when all we had online were mages. Your mages beat our mages, your healers could probably kill half of the guys we had there. I'm sure you're all hungry for PVP, but an actual fight is completely different from a massacre, and that was hands-down a massacre. No learning experience from that.

I play 3 different games, don't treat this game like a job, and work on gearing up other players who (depressingly) got tired of playing catchup and went to the other games coming out recently. Not really trying, because as I've said before: without you guys, the East vs West fights are pretty even and fun. Why do I need to get to 8k GS when I have so many people to help out with gearing so they can contribute to the battlefield you guys "desperately want"?

 

[trapwhre02]

You say you've been here for "2 server deaths" yet you're still 6k gearscore? Are you even trying?

Shanks is 6K since an eternity. Joey is a leader of the most established pvp group and barely in the top 20. There are a ton of people that play a lot and don't give a damn about their gearscore. Your argument is super flawed. I play since a year and am 8.5K. How many in PN1 play for longer than me but are far lower down the list ?

Do the people on the west want to pvp? Like if they do they need to start working on their gear and class choices tbh

I think there is a difference in who wants what kind of PVP. People going to halcy don't expect it to be endgame pvp. They are looking for casual pvp fun, a place where it doesn't matter that they are sub 5K, where they can enjoy it nontheless. But you turn it into a way too organized / try-hard pvp.

What Flipsy said is also true. Joey is here acting like we zerged down East and they are the nice people helping them get back on track, when in reality, he himself was a major reason why east suddenly dropped numbers to begin with.

 

[Joey]

I mean if your allocating your funds into people that are going to stop playing the game within a short span that falls on you as a leader. Once again majority of that short novels is irrelevant. Your main point is there is no learning experiences to be had to which I can sort of agree, But you should not be relying on halcy as a event to learn 90% of the rvr before we got involved was line fighting or just holding w into the opposition cause you have more people. That is not learning that is just mob pvp, Learning happens within said guilds not in pugs raids. To bounce off of some of Taylors point there is definitely enough geared players in each faction to match us. When we attend halcy majority of the time it is less then 11-12 of us are we aren't in comms making calls its mostly just pinging to group and if we are in comms its just us messing around. Like I said regardless of any point the west wants to make you guys are scapegoating "trying to get nations deleted" because you can't even comprehend the ability to catch up or even trying to catch up due to the lack of leadership and willingness of your player base/guilds.

 

[Vinchino]

Read aforementioned being-two-shot. Organizing a raid and calling targets means nothing if two archers can mow down an entire faction raid. Again, no one ports out at the first sign of PVP, they port out when they don't see a chance. With you involved, they don't see a chance. Look at that lovely castle PVP we had a few days ago as an example. A small dispute with our Iron Head friends turned a 5v7 into a 7v10, where only 1 of my guys had a higher GS than your lowest one. You personally dropped 2 people with 3 God's Whips, and you had Stchieven, Books, and another healer. There is nothing to learn from that when all we had online were mages. Your mages beat our mages, your healers could probably kill half of the guys we had there.

I play 3 different games, don't treat this game like a job, and work on gearing up other players who (depressingly) got tired of playing catchup and went to the other games coming out recently. Not really trying, because as I've said before: without you guys, the East vs West fights are pretty even and fun. Why do I need to get to 8k GS when I have so many people to help out with gearing so they can contribute to the battlefield you guys "desperately want"?

so you're saying you all just accept the fact that you're trash and are begging the admins to swing things in your favor instead of trying to improve on your own. Got it.
even with a gear advantage, 10 players with 7-8k gearscore shouldn't steamroll 20 players with 5-7k gearscore if they have an actual raid lead.

Shanks is 6K since an eternity. Joey is a leader of the most established pvp group and barely in the top 20. There are a ton of people that play a lot and don't give a damn about their gearscore. Your argument is super flawed. I play since a year and am 8.5K. How many in PN1 play for longer than me but are far lower down the list ?

Why would shankss upgrade his gear if the leaders of west don't? Shankss is on the side that already rolls over the side that doesn't put in any effort to improve. So what exactly would be the point in him upgrading his gear? Also, there's a point when gearscore soft caps and you're just upgrading things strictly for gearscore, Flipsy is not even close to that point.

 

[trapwhre02]

Why would shankss upgrade his gear if the leaders of west don't? Shankss is on the side that already rolls over the side that doesn't put in any effort to improve. So what exactly would be the point in him upgrading his gear?

You realize anything ?
You're telling us that you have enough of a geared core that those of you who aren't as geared don't even have to put in any effort, because you're already free-farming in easy mode anyways, right ? So you even have plenty of potential space upwards. What's the point in a vanila faction trying then ? We improve, get close to being competitive and you just start gearing your mid-tier players and you're far above us again.
All because you have the advantage of cherry picking the strongest forces from 2 faction pools and get no penalties for interfering with events on mainland.

Asking us to improve is just a bait, for us it's simply an illusion that we can do anything, because you have more than enough man-power and resources to always be a step ahead of us when we get close.

 

[Vinchino]

You realize anything ?
You're telling us that you have enough of a geared core that those of you who aren't as geared don't even have to put in any effort, because you're already free-farming in easy mode anyways, right ? So you even have plenty of potential space upwards. What's the point in a vanila faction trying then ? We improve, get close to being competitive and you just start gearing your mid-tier players and you're far above us again.
All because you have the advantage of cherry picking the strongest forces from 2 faction pools and get no penalties for interfering with events on mainland.

I don't understand what point you're trying to make here. We show up to halcy with 8 people on average, some of which are the same gearscore as flipsy and you guys get rolled. My point was that flipsy doesn't put in any effort to improve but wants things to change. You guys either don't try to win or are just so bad that your efforts go in vain. Either way, you're pissed lmao.