Please file a support ticket in our system. Include the incident number from SOE support. Post your FLS incident number here. We'll get this figured out.

Note however, that if we don't get it figured out by Monday, the point might be moot. You'll use a code from the retail box to get access to the game, and the Landing Party key from the pre-order box to get access to the /claim items. i.e. You'll have all new entries in SOE's subscription database.

These turnin missions will be available in v1.1, which is coming shortly after launch.

Yes, I am happy with boarding being used as a stunlock. Neutralizing an enemy ship without destroying it is a very valid and useful tactic whether you do it with boarding, by destroying their sails, wiping out their cannon, keeping their crew suppressed, or any other method.

What I'm not happy with is playing boarding combat but not actually fighting. If you just run around to prolong the fight then yeah, that's bad. You should have to fight steadily until someone wins. That's the degenerate case that we are discussing solutions for.

The level you see on those skills in the Help section has nothing to do with what level you get the missions.

The system already changed. You'll see different mechanics in the first content update.

I think you're looking at this career in the wrong way. Privateers are extremely powerful, especially in PvP. It isn't their ship selection that matters -- it's what they do with any ship they captain. Compared to Navy, Privateers have the skills and Navy has the ships.

Regarding career comparisons:

Pirates: They pretty much share the same ship list as privateers. The other ones they can capture are flagged for PvP, which is a major negative. The pirate-specific refits are not actually very popular in actual play except for the Cursed Blade, so there is no evidence that the pirate-specific refits are incredibly awesome. Pirates do not have a ship advantage over privateers.

Freetraders: The FT-only ships are also not produced or used very often and are definitely not powerful and desirable in this regard in terms of combat. Privateers have it all over Freetraders in terms of combat ships. The SOL-like ship you mention that is just for FT'ers is the Couronne writ ship, and that means its comparable example is the Mastercraft Pommern writ ship. The MC Pommern can pretty much obliterate a Couronne. Freetraders do not have a ship advantage over privateers in terms of combat, which is what Privateers are all about.

Navy: Most navy players will never, ever sail anything bigger than a 4th rate. Those that do use 1st-3rd rate ships will use them so rarely that they are not really valid for comparison. The rest of the high-end Navy ships are indeed very powerful, but this is where we trade ships for skills in terms of balance. Privateer skills give them a lot of advantages that Navy skills don't.

The Mignone has 14 more guns than the base ship, which nearly doubles its mid and long range DPS. It's got 32 12lb guns with a reload bonus, which means it will outgun most ships at the right range. I wouldn't dismiss that as just a stat variation.

The only pirate merchant conversion with more guns is a level 50 refit ship that you have to buy with PvP Marks of Victory, so it's not lower level. There are also no lower level 4th rates -- all 4th rates are level 50. The Mignone is very powerful and compares well to the other ships in its range, especially when used with the Privateer's skill selection.

We don't believe there are any serious issues with privateer ship selection.

Yes, this is supposed to happen. Mostly for visual reasons.

In v1.1, which is coming shortly after launch, we have doubled the chance for these rare spawns to appear.

We are doubling the rate at which these rare spawns appear. They'll still be rare, but not as bad as they are now. This change will be in v1.1 which is coming shortly after launch.

Omnis, can you give us an example of a mission or missions where you're having trouble? We need to know the following:

1) What town this is in.
2) What the mission is.
3) Your level, nation, and career.
4) Your ship.

The difficulty change we made wasn't that substantial but there may be specific cases where there are issues. Finding a good example we can look at would help us understand. Thanks!