A Suggestion To D
 

Okay so I wrote this letter to D when I heard that level 40s would loose Master Status. I was thinking maybe if a whole bunch of us cut and paste this, then send it to member services, maybe, just maybe they will listen. Here's my letter...


I was wondering, I'm hearing a lot of talk about Notoriety and Weapons cap increases lately. My question is what will happen to those of us who have a Mastered Pirate (not me) or Weapon (got one of those). Will we loose the Master tag we worked so hard to get? Somehow that just doesn't seem fair. Conversing with a fellow Pirate on Pirates Online Forums, I hit on an idea.

If in fact the caps are raised, why not just leave level 40 pirates and level 25 weapons as Pirate Master and Mastered. Future caps could have different names so that rather than changing an entire huge list of things all you'd need to do was add. For weapons cap raises you could just add a star, like the military uses. Then you would have (eventually) 3 star weapons masters. I put out for consideration these Notoriety level suggestions:

Notoriety Level 50: Pirate Lord
Notoriety Level 60: Pirate King
Notoriety Level 75: (May Pirates make it this long) Pirate Legend

Between you and me and the moon it would take a legendary effort to reach a level 75 pirate so why not call it what it is?

Anyway, this is just a simple (I hope) solution to keep Pirate Masters from loosing a very hard earned rank. I hope you like it. By the way, I know you hear a lot about we need this and that and whatever. I'm a not exactly new player, (been at it about two months now) and I LOVE the game the way it is thank you very much. :) No sarcasm here, I'm serious. I love the range of Pirates, the potential for growth, and how much there is to see and do. I'm in a large guild. Our GM is amany times over Pirate Master, and he manages quite well to keep the game fun even for fully mastered pirates, based on what's in there now. I have no objections at all to the game the way it is. I love it, I think you guys do excellent work. I can't wait to see where Pirates stands a year, two years, (may be be so very lucky) five and ten years down the road.

It's kinda funny, out of all the requests you must get for new stuff and changes, here am I asking please leave this the way it is and just add as ya go. Hopefully my odd little request finds it's way into the game. :)

Anyway, thanks for listening to my 2am suggestion.


This is the not all that reassuring form reply I got back...



This is a great idea for an addition to Pirates of the Caribbean Online! Your suggestion has been forwarded to the Pirates Product Team for review. You never know, your great idea might make it into the game!

See you in the Caribbean!

Pirates of the Caribbean Online Member Services


For those of you that don't know it you can send this to member services at [email protected] They do listen to floods of emails. Ya never know, this might be worth a try.

Wow....... Disney and their default replies. Oh hummmmmm :(

I suppose weapon levels would be capped at 40 or the like (they seem to always be a little over half of the notoriety max), and would gain a star for each 5 levels or so? That'd be alright for most everything, save the number of skills that you'd be able to max. 41/55 would be how the thing would play out, which would make for nearly all the major skills on all weapons to max. As well, it'd need to be forty for there to be stars on a routine level, past what it is now (30/35/40).

I was actually thinking add a star with each subsequent cap raise, to whatever they make it, but ya, that's the theory.

Good suggestion, Pirate Lord, King and Legend! However I think you missed something. Common sense! You applied it, Disney will ignore it! :psmiley27:
Although keep at them and I'm sure under pressure they may give in to your idea!

Well, seeing as they probably aren't going with your idea, I would say the Master Tag will be lost until you reach level 50.

I think it's fair. If we're not going to be a Pirate Lord at level 50, why should be stay a master when we're not at the mastered level? That doesn't make sense to me, so I don't mind taking the time to earn it again.

Do we KNOW the master rank will be taken away? I don't recall reading that anywhere.

Did that happen on test for mastered pirates?

Not first hand information, but was told by a couple of pirates that were level 40 on test, that you lose your "Pirate Master" status, as you are no longer mastered with a cap of 50, and same for the weapons since their cap is now 30.

In otherwords, they changed the definitions of "Mastered", revoking it from those already "Mastered" allowing them to now work again towards being "Mastered" at the new caps.

Master that sentence! lol

I agree with your suggestion Hawke, everything except the leave it alone idea.
New pirates tend to share this opinion, and thats fine, just I think that most of us veteran pirates would disagree.

Well, IF we actually lose "Master" statuss, I wouldn't be too bent out of shape. I'll chug along until I'm a master again. No biggie.

I was almost thinking the same thing.

So what you lose the master status. All it means is you go in there and get it back, either fast or slow this time to prolong it til the next time they may or may not raise it again.

Strangely enough, I actually enjoy grinding weapons. It's kind of satisfying. I look forward to having a reason to play my mastered pirate again.

I guess it's because I'm newer that I find it kinda unfair? I just have an inkling of what it takes to earn that mark. And I'm not saying keep the 0 rep thing. I just think it would be nice to be able to work above being a master. Maybe if I was an older player I'd be of all of your school of thought.

It bothers me the amount of time and work I put into Kat to get her within range of being a Pirate Master, only to find out I now have not 5 but 15 levels to go. It's disheartening to me to have come so close, to now have reaching 40 mean nothing.

I would have thought that those of you who reached that mark would be those who wanted most to keep it. Maybe being a Pirate Master doesn't mean as much when you get there? I don't know. I just know I've spent 2 months looking forward to something that's meaningless. The thought of another 15 levels of weapons grinding and half of my Pearl Quest is just exhausting. All those endless repetitive hours stretching out farther and farther in front of me, it makes me wonder what the point is.

Being able to still say Pirate Master at 40 would have given at least some measure of accomplishment for all those endless hours. For those of us who never hit that 40 mark before, 50 is a LOT of levels to go and have nothing to show for it till you get there but level after level left to go. I mean how many tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of points is needed to hit 50? Shouldn't there be something in there somewhere to break it up? At 10 you get daggers, at 20 nades, at 30 the staff. At 40 it's nothing but another 10 levels? It just sounds kinda wrong.

I dunno, maybe it is just me, but the 10 level marks should earn something. Why not keep that Master status and go up from there? You'd still get to work those level 40 pirates, and it would still count. Yet at the same time you'd still get to keep being a Pirate Master. That's the whole point of this letter.

Maybe I didn't quite explain it right, but hopefully I've cleared up at least some of my reasoning.

I like this idea. However like bart said if we loose master status its no big just keep grinding until we re-become master,

I understood what you meant Hawke, I think.

I think the idea would be something like implementing some different official "titles" for levels of notoriety achieved.

Maybe something like:

level 1 - Land lubber
level 5 - Scoundrel
level 10 - Scurvy Pirate
level 20 - Pirate
level 30 - Voodoo Pirate
level 40 - Pirate Master
level 50 - Pirate Lord
level 60 - Pirate King
level 70 - Pirate Legend

Giving pirates additional goals to work towards as they continue to play. Added 'incentives' if you will.

Exactly I guess kinda like the rep system here on POF.

As for me I dont need any incentives :P Just me aht and a cutlass ando' course a bottle o' rum!

In a sense however, the levels themselves are the incentives... each one as we keep plugging along. Ive seen other games do it. Might be neat, but not what id consider a necessary addition.

I"m just happy to have more to do soon, couldn't care less about a "title". I see where it would be nice to have different levels, but it's not on the top of my list of POTCO additions ;)

Actually I don't think they'd have to change a huge list. They just redefined what a Pirate Master is. When the game checks what notoriety your pirate is, it sees you're a 40 then it probably adjusts your game for being a Master. They're just changing that 40 to a 50. Hopefully they'd use such a relational model for record keeping so they shouldn't need to update every single pirate record out there.

Which is why I don't like to play the game to grind just to make it to the next level. I just play and level up when it happens.

I have one notoriety 40 pirate after my 1.25 years of playing. I don't even refer to Sven as a "Pirate Master". To me, it really doesn't mean anything except that I've reached his limit of notoriety. I don't see it any more special than that. I mean, there's a heck of a lot of "Pirate Masters" out there. I just don't see it as that special.

That number "40" is a measure of accomplishment. Actually, the one person who sees the words "Pirate Master" is the person playing that pirate. It's not even under our names above our heads (thankfully). The player [and friends] knows what he or she has accomplished in the game.

When they take away big Sven's Pirate Master title, I won't mind a bit. Just means I can finally get more rep for my favorite skills. But I'm in no hurry to reach notoriety 50, just like I was in no hurry to be a 40.

I dont mind the whole upgrade, I like the new upgrade because many people have been screaming out that there is nothing to do once they reach level 40. So with the new upgrades, we now having something fun to do and this will bring back players that have lost interest.

That list sounds very similar to the Tradewinds and Tradewinds Ledgends.
You would start from a low rank something like swabby I think it was and would
slowly move your way up the "Food Chain"
From Sultan to Legend and so on.

I just would like the game to finish at lvl60 and weapons at lvl40 or lvl45
,no more lvls, after all we are but only humble pirates.

So , lets leave the part of being "Pirate Lords" to the actual pirate lords,
like Ammand, Jack , Barbossa, and Jochard.

I think that wont happen untill another year or so, cause if it took disney a year just to get this far.... well....

I actually enjoy it too. One of the things I always enjoyed about TT was the gag building and the challenge to earn as many points as you could in each battle. Guess that's carried over to POTCO too.

:degen:

Thank you Hawke for eloquently stating my fears too... I've been playing about 2 months and have that Master level 40 as my target... a kind of raison d'etre when it seems like forever until the next level... I really liked yours and Zeppers suggestions regarding different titles at pivotal levels.

There are some days where I could hack and slash all day, then others when the thought of how much time it will take to get to level 40 almost does me in. Now to have to go to 50 without that stop off at Mastering... sigh...

50-50 on this, part of me says yeah more higher level enemies, another level to aim for. But also at same time, after playing for almost 2years now and due to work, studying, etc my 1 only Pirate is only at level 36, yet to master some weapons. So I'm kinda disappointed not to reach the master status! yet still have to slash, cut and thust more weapons to master them as well! I mean ugh all that work, then someone shifts the goalposts!! Ah well, I like a good fight anyway! :buds:

For all of you old guard players out there. I have a great and undying respect for the efforts you all went through to get your first 40s, some of you when it was way harder than now. But I ask you this.

Imagine being a semi new player, someone who has never yet reached a level 40 and has just barely gotten into that last 10 levels to go. The end is finally in sight, and you have just started mastering the first of your weapons. Dunno if you remember that giddy high of the very first time you master your very first weapon, and what that meant at the time. Now imagine that just after you hit striking range of finally, finally finishing a pirate.... They yank the rug out from under you. No, now you have 10 more levels to go on top of your less than 10, now you're the equivalent of being shoved back down to the 20's again. Now another 15 or so endless levels stretch in front of you again. You think, well, maybe we will still get to be Master at 40 and something else at 50. Cause hey, at all the other 10 level marks something happens. But this time, no. You got within striking range after long weeks and maybe months of work, and now all you have to look forward to is more long weeks and months to go.

That is what we never mastered players are sitting on. That's what we have to look forward to. Yes, some of you have waited over a year to bring back your old pirates, your very first 40s. How amazing is that? We don't ever get to see it that way. We don't ever get the chance to say, I made a Pirate Master, and now I get to play him/her at last! I know a lot of you have said it's just a name. That you won't mind giving it up at all. But to those of us who never got the chance to be a Master at 40, that was like out Holy Grail. An now it's gone. Shifted into oblivion.

I don't for a heartbeat regret them finally at last upping the cap for you guys. I'm GLAD they did it. Had I been an older player maybe I would feel just like you do. Maybe then all that would matter is the right to play your long neglected pirates again. All I'm asking is for D to give us, the never mastereds a chance to be one at the place you were, and you, the old Pirate Masters, a whole new title to strive for. That's it. Is it really so much to ask for?

We do see what you're saying and where you're coming from. Doubtful that D is going to implement something like that in the near future, the only thing I can advise is that if you really want to experience being a "Pirate Master" at Notoriety 40, just go do it. I mean, go full-bore. Drive yourself to hit notoriety 40 before they release the new updates to Open.

Other than that, I don't really know. Play the game how you like. Honestly when I was two months into the game, mastering wasn't on my big list of things to accomplish. It still isn't.

Uh, is 5 notoriety levels and some 30 weapons levels even possible in a matter of days? Even if it is I'm not killing myself for it.

It is possible, but given that its 5 levels, and 30 or so weapon levels... it might be a challenge.

I thought you were just talking about notoriety, not a Full Mastering. Good gosh that'd be crazy. Hitting just notoriety 40 to get the "Pirate Master" title for a while should be well within range without sensory deprivation.

Nor would I, however some would.
Some are working feverishly to master on Test, a feat im in no hurry for.

I had put my 2 cents in, on how a title system could be implemented, however had in retrospect thought it really wasnt that big a deal to me. I see your point however Hawke, so it would definately be nice to have at least the notoriety titles accordingly. Unfortunately its not likely something to be seen soon, not as soon as these updates are likely to hit open. With good company of friends those vast gaps of reps will be surpassed. :)

Yes. I should finish doing just that sometime today or tomorrow. And I wouldn't say I've killed myself for it. I've played smart and stayed focused. Even taking time out for my forum duties, playing on test, and real life.

As I am in the same general boat as you Hawke I do understand how you feel. Mostly I am happy just playing & enjoying my time with my Guild you included Sweetie. You & I have several pirates going at once & have from the start. That takes a lot of time from mastering any one pirate. many of the mastered pirates made new pirates after they were mastered just to keep playing & making Potco interesting. I get a little thril every time I level weapons or Noto but it is not my main objective so it taking longer is a small disappointment but not a big deal to me. I will probably master doll before the update so will get 1 extra thrill before the update & that will be cool. I can appreciate & respect all the Masters I know & they will still have the knowledge & wisdom to impart whether they have a title or not in my eyes. I am more thrilled that they & we have more content & opportunities soon!

ME! I'm more than willing to give up that "MASTER" title! If it means more things to do, more levels and skills to achieve, (Maybe) more weapons and another story line, they can take that title and toss it out. I'm hoping it is a loooong time before that shows up on any of my pirates.

I'm just looking forward to bringing out the big guys for more than a guild event or Boss Battle.