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More NPCs in open world


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With recent changes, I'd love to see more NPCs traders, single warships cruising around the coasts. It's boring to sail from one port to a port 30 mins away and come across one trader and two fleets, one being 200 battle rating or 1500 battle rating. I know, sail long enough you'll come across a trader or two (oh wonderful). The open world, is just overall lacking any excitement, it's disheartening to open into the world, sail and hardly come across any ships.  

This world is too larger, to rely on PVP, you have to open it up to more NPCs, otherwise make the map smaller, and consolidate the NPCS. I can sail up and down the west coast of FL, never see a player and only a few NPCs, that doesn't seem right. What's the point then? 

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5 minutes ago, Nelson Hornblower said:

With recent changes, I'd love to see more NPCs traders, single warships cruising around the coasts. It's boring to sail from one port to a port 30 mins away and come across one trader and two fleets, one being 200 battle rating or 1500 battle rating. I know, sail long enough you'll come across a trader or two (oh wonderful). The open world, is just overall lacking any excitement, it's disheartening to open into the world, sail and hardly come across any ships.  

This world is too larger, to rely on PVP, you have to open it up to more NPCs, otherwise make the map smaller, and consolidate the NPCS. I can sail up and down the west coast of FL, never see a player and only a few NPCs, that doesn't seem right. What's the point then? 

the number of bots is 1550 since the beginning of the servers. it was never changed. Every region has 20 NPC ships.. half of them are traders. they just sail around. 

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I do agree. We had 100s of requests like yours. Open world needs more content. Even if a single NPC dropped some junk loot after you kill it, it would feel different. Right now it's very empty and grim. How Devs plan to fill that empty area? 

Why not add:

-Junk Loot

-Ship Wrecks

-Treasure Chests

-Floating Debree

-Wreck Survivors

-Rare NPC ships with 'rare items drops',  NPC Captain Blacktooth, Bounty Reward 20 000. (Rare item drop chance 10%)

Is it that hard to implement all this?:) and fill that empty ocean with fun. but Honestly, I lost my hope in this. I think we will end up with the same empty ocean even after the release.

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17 minutes ago, admin said:

the number of bots is 1550 since the beginning of the servers. it was never changed. Every region has 20 NPC ships.. half of them are traders. they just sail around. 

20 Npcs are still boring 20 NPCs. From region to Region...same thing everywhere. Where is the Dev imagination?

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28 minutes ago, admin said:

the number of bots is 1550 since the beginning of the servers. it was never changed. Every region has 20 NPC ships.. half of them are traders. they just sail around. 

I think the makeup of the fleets need to be  a little more traders and single or two ship fleets.  If groups want to fight npcs, they are going to use missions.

Edited by Prater
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Right now the overwhelming majority of NPC fleets that I've seen are massive armadas of 1st rates, with the occasional single St. Pavel or frigate squadron.  1st and 2nd rates were rare not just in the Caribbean but globally.  Naval Action is really much more suited to single raiding warships, especially in PvE (where I play), unless you have a massive group (which will do conquest or missions anyway).  The PvE open world becomes essentially unviable without lots of NPCs sailing about of all different sizes--and this is especially true on the low end when new players are just getting their feet under them.  It's a lot less fun when you're in a basic cutter at the beginning of your development and all around you are towering line-of-battle ships.  More volume, more variety, and skew it towards the ships that would actually be more common: lots of small regional traders and coastal warships (7th/6th rates), a slightly smaller number of long-range cruisers (corvettes, 5th/4th rate frigates, and larger merchantmen like LGV and Indiamen) sailing alone or in small groups, and then a select few battle divisions (i.e. AI fleets of 3-6 ships of the line) based in national and regional capitals, occasionally making an expedition to a hostile city that players can join or concentrating for a big fleet action in a strategic location someplace.

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Scale the number of NPC ships to the number of players connected, so that low player count times result in more NPC ships, and high player count times have less NPC ships. Thus the open world maintains a fairly steady level of activity, although it will shift what sort of activity it is based on the player count.

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On 12/21/2016 at 8:42 AM, admin said:

the number of bots is 1550 since the beginning of the servers. it was never changed. Every region has 20 NPC ships.. half of them are traders. they just sail around. 

It doesn't feel that way though or may it's because ships are more in fleets now, but the ocean is empty. Maybe it's because the regions are so large now, 20 ships feels very small. Be nice to get more action on the high seas!

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 12/21/2016 at 8:42 AM, admin said:

the number of bots is 1550 since the beginning of the servers. it was never changed. Every region has 20 NPC ships.. half of them are traders. they just sail around. 

If half of them 20 are NPC battleships and 2 are part of fleets, that leaves just one single NPC sailing around. Break up the fleets, or at least leave one big fleet and more single NPCs. Make the world more immersed with NPCs, you don't have to attack them, but it would be nice to see more ships on the high seas. As someone who won't get to first rate, seeing a fleet of first rates, sort of stinks, doesn't give me anything to do. 

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On 12/21/2016 at 8:43 AM, Ned Loe said:

I do agree. We had 100s of requests like yours. Open world needs more content. Even if a single NPC dropped some junk loot after you kill it, it would feel different. Right now it's very empty and grim. How Devs plan to fill that empty area? 

Why not add:

-Junk Loot

-Ship Wrecks

-Treasure Chests

-Floating Debree

-Wreck Survivors

-Rare NPC ships with 'rare items drops',  NPC Captain Blacktooth, Bounty Reward 20 000. (Rare item drop chance 10%)

Is it that hard to implement all this?:) and fill that empty ocean with fun. but Honestly, I lost my hope in this. I think we will end up with the same empty ocean even after the release.

But will this end up being like sealed bottles, where those who play hours upon hours will just search the seas for all these new features and those who can only play an hour a day or on the weekends, miss the opportunities?

The rare NPC ships, be great to put that way off shore, someone needs to sail 15 mins into the big ocean hoping to find it. Makes people sail farther away from lane and opens up the opportunity for someone to get attacked on their way back

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On 12/21/2016 at 8:43 AM, Ned Loe said:

I do agree. We had 100s of requests like yours. Open world needs more content. Even if a single NPC dropped some junk loot after you kill it, it would feel different. Right now it's very empty and grim. How Devs plan to fill that empty area? 

Why not add:

-Junk Loot

-Ship Wrecks

-Treasure Chests

-Floating Debree

-Wreck Survivors

-Rare NPC ships with 'rare items drops',  NPC Captain Blacktooth, Bounty Reward 20 000. (Rare item drop chance 10%)

Is it that hard to implement all this?:) and fill that empty ocean with fun. but Honestly, I lost my hope in this. I think we will end up with the same empty ocean even after the release.

This above is what we need, especially the rare NPC (famous ships with famous captains) dropping rare items in a bounty system.

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I like the idea of trying to move PVE more to OW. I hope though they break up those huge fleets into smaller groups. What I would also love love love to see is more rare fish, or other collectibles, and collections of these that can be traded in for something, at the least paints or rare mods but sail customizations would be nice too, something to show off I sailed around and collected all these. I'm really OCD, have had to try to have everything in POTBS (still working on Black Point sail pattern and jury rigged barrel lol), and collections would suit me. :).

Edited by Anne Wildcat
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I really like the idea behind this. Give players something to do when they're sailing. Let them be surprised, let exploration matter, we need something. I love that the devs are attempting this game, but they are really lacking imagination. They really need a team member that can think outside the box, or maybe not .. it seems a lot of you are thinking outside the box for them! I would love to hear some thoughts on their creation ideas for the open world. What kind of imagination do they have if any? Maybe they have and I just haven't found the post, but I'd love to see their imagination work.

Not just

- Fixing UI

- Removing Officers

- Might be removing smugglers

- Looking at PBs

I mean all of that is great and all, but we need something more I think. Something that makes people get excited when they run across something. I  am not super imaginative, so I cannot help much, but I know for sure that we need something much more than what we have or the game is dead I think and I dont want that to happen. 

Maybe the devs do not have the money, or they do not have the skill set for a lot of this yet and are having to learn as they go. I have no idea what's going on behind the scenes, but I hope they get it figured out and everything will work out for them. 

Edited by milkyway12
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I love the idea of there being little persons stranded on random beaches around the OW, waving frantically for some observant captain to spot them, sail close enough to shore to click on them. A little graphic of a jolly boat going from your ship to the beach and back to retrieve the person would be icing on the cake. Once 'rescued' the castaway would present a reward - such things as chest of coins, ship's blueprint, Admiralty points (gratitude) or sealed bottle. Objects small enough to be hand carried.

Edited by Angus McGregor
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Variety is the spice.  I wouldn't like open world as much if everywhere I went the sea was filled with ships.  There is certain appeal to having some open ocean here and there.  It is more interesting after on long leg far away from land to see a occasional ship.   I find that I see a lot more ships close to shore and even more closer to ports.  To me too much of something creates boredom.  There an appeal to scarcity.   I really wouldn't want to see ships in every direction everywhere in NA.

I hope we keep it this way ... so if I am off of the trade routes it seems a little lonely.

BUT ...Perhaps it is possible to populate certain areas with more ships.  Not evenly distributed.  So those who like heavy traffic can find it.  And those who choose to slip by unnoticed have half a chance to do that too.

 

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