I see a several different Pirate groups cruizing around Cuba and Hispanola but fewer further south. That’s usually where I am, doing loot runs between San Juan for patrols with my PA and the Yucatan area where I keep my businesses (such as they are, I’m a major slacker for a Freetrader) and warehouses.
Then again, I’m pretty much done with PotBS. It had moments of intense 6 vs 6 PvP where I had lots of fun, but those only punctuated the much greater time I spent tediously setting them up. There was simply too much time spent getting reasonable groups together, and even when I managed, the resulting PvP battles were generally one sided. There’s a certain schadenfreude to be had tagging some national with “Run Them Down!”, refusing their surrender, and sinking their expensive ship, but it pales quickly. I never got a chance to try 24 vs 24 port battles, because they always happened at ridiculous hours, and were lopsided anyway.
They are going to put arenas in so people looking for pure PvP action can just get to it without it negatively impacting the flow of the strategic game too much. Not sure exactly how that’s going to work, whether the results like losing ships and the like will be the same or whether this is just more “for fun” and practice.
My line of thinking is that most casual gamers, or normal people, aren’t anywhere near wealthy or experienced enough to be affordably competative with the hardcore catassers or early adopters. As we’re early in the release cycle, and a semi-historical and somewhat complex game like Pirates of the Burning Sea is going to appeal to a broadly older audience with RLs, there’s just not been time yet for the underpinnings for more fullblown conflicts to take place.
I’m kind of hoping the new PvE raid content will toss more dubloons into the economy. More dubloons more ships and gear bought, sold, and available to be expended in battle. That should help smaller outfits build up some warchests they can use to fund their strategic game. Once the missions are gone it’s not easy to make it preying on PvE targets (though those treasure and spice convoys can be worthwhile if you go through them like a blue whale through plankton).
That said, too many dubloons and too much easy PvP you lose the meaning of the strategic game. Economic warfare, losses and warchests, need to remain integral to the game.
Aside from the PvP, there’s not much to keep me. I’d rather play some single player RPG, where the quests are more interesting, and the AI opposition stiffer.
PvE on the seas can be as challenging as you make it for yourself. There are times I’m trying to make money fast which means hitting multiple ship convoys much lower than myself and killing them as fast as I can. There are times I’m looking for fittings and upper level items and then I hit single ships above my level. And there are times I’m looking for a fun engagement so I’ll sail into something I know I can’t win just to see how much damage I can do before I have to run.
By and large the AI could use some work - using special ammo types, employing better tactics tailored to ship type and numbers, attempting boarding when they’ve a massive advantage, using consumeables. But the flip side of this is that it’s already challenging enough to make dubloons in the game. If the AI really did put up a much better fight it would simply take that much longer. Maybe if they only tweaked up the “special” named NPC ships. Made them and their escorts that much smarter and more dangerous.
Maybe this would be different if I’d played Spanish or British rather than Pirate (despite liking the Pirates better), as they both seem much more organized. However, I’m not keen on re-grinding up to level 33, especially as by then all the PvPers will be level 50. Maybe I’ll come back once they work out the PvP kinks (like the egregious 48 hour port battle timer), and especially if I could convert my character to Spanish without starting over (though I’m not holding my breath).
I started as Pirate, which is possibly why Tom went ahead and made the Society pirate. Or because he knew pirate would be popular as a fun choice. But after my previous Society went belly-up well before the game came out due to leadership being, well, not there I took a hard look at things and came to the conclusion that Pirate isn’t a real faction. It’s a faction for alts and very casual gamers or gamers who see PoTBS as a second MMO. Very easy to solo. Very easy to keep going and be self sufficient. Ports you don’t need to bother defending or capturing because they, unlike national ports, don’t switch sides. And so you end up with a herd of cats rather than an integrated coalition of Societies.
In theory Pirates could win a game but I just don’t see them attracting people who will really bother to show up en masse and win a serious effort. I see occasional spoiler actions against the leading nation and, if someone pisses the faction as a whole off, retribution. But they don’t need to approach the game the same way Nationals do.
So I went with one of the underdogs. Spain. And that’s worked out really well. I’ve seen most aspects of the game so far. I’m seeing teamwork within, and without, the Society on strategic goals both military and economic. We need each other. Every night we’ve full patrols out doing PvE grinding as a regular course of action and learning to work together. When we need a little more excitement or there’s a push on we’ll jump in and grind port contention somewhere. Two of us jacked up Spanish contention post-pop from 60 points to 175 in an afternoon of raiding. It was hilarious watching British Freetraders fleeing from the two of us. I assume they thought there were more of us around and I’d do the same thing but it made me puff out my chest and strut a bit.
It ended up being a drop in the bucket. Belize seems to have some weird things going on with contention totals there. But it was fun and happened within a real context.
