Ping for me in NZ, with a very poor connection speed does make PVP noncompetitive, I've come to the point of just letting another player kill me and sink my ship, berate and verbally abuse me,
so, I can try and rebuild what I've just lost.
I'd prefer to just exit the situation, move to a safer sea, without having to scuttle my ship and pay for the repair, which whilst preferable to being continuously spawn camped, appears as a punishment
to the player who'd prefer to avoid the confrontation in the first place.
This all could be dealt with players who wish to engage in PVP combat, flagging themselves as such, literally saying bring it on. This could be done with a battle flag being raised by both ships,
which would enable them to engage. Players who break this rule and attack commercial traders, fisherman or non-combative's should automatically have a bounty placed on their heads, with the cost of
the loss to the player affected, taken from the Offenders own gold reserve.
Gold to most seasoned players is not relevant, levels matter, from what I can gather, loosing levels would be a decent consequence for someone's own personal actions, which may make people think. Becoming the scourge of the sea , being hunted by all and sundry, having you picture on the notice board for all to see should satisfy most of the narcissists who unfortunately propagate within this game. The one
thing that would need to happen would be that their reputation stays with them, they cannot leave it behind on a server, if they move server, or join another crew, that will automatically
flag the ship there to other players, indicating a reward for their demise. Even if their ship is destroyed, or they are killed, the stain stays for a period of time determined by nature
of the original interaction.
You could also, if the engagement was a misunderstanding, allow the players to clear their name, by paying reparations for repairs or loss of cargo.
I digress...
Getting players onto a server with the optimal ping for their location and situation, would make the game better for all concerned. I agree that if you have friends around the world, it may be better to find the optimal mean ping for all of you on the crew. Getting only teams onto one server with similar pings would help match in game interactions and level the playing field. Whilst there are no upgrades to ships or weapons available to ensure that this level playing field is maintained. Having a significantly lower ping gives you a massive advantage, especially in the jumping fast moving combat that comes along with a ship boarding, or an shore encounter.
Even in PVE combat I often struggle, I can sense the LTP lobby with their fingers, hovering gleefully above their keys as I'm typing this, but when you fire a pistol and it takes a second and a half to register a hit, when the NPC is less than a few meters away is challenging..
Really like this suggestion, however, how practical it is from an admin point of view, would be something the developers would have to answer.
