PongoNW

And in this graph we show the typical destructive path of biased decisions to a successful product. It is in the nature of a bias that a person does not know they have it. When the bias is reinforced by even a small minority that share the bias it can make much excellent work meaningless. The bias just destroys. Limits on chain are a self evident idea that took how many years to implement? lol

remember how many players you had when you did not optimize the game for griefers.

Keep chasing the business of the 5%, how has it worked for you.

Seeing the admins list in response gives me no hope. If they cannot see people leaving the game in response to the changes they make, then there is no hope for them. No one ever quit this game because of the blue print drop scheme in the old game. No one ever quit this game because they got a ship they wanted. No one every quit this game because some resource to build some material was too rare. Some people have certainly left because of how much sailing is required. They left the game because the devs keep spinning the dial in response to a few hard core whiners and make their efforts worthless. They left the game because the devs set up some nations in a hole. They left the game because the pirate mechanic is and has always been asinine. But most of all, people leave the game because the interface between open world and battle has always been silly even in concept. When people play the game and players de-cloak from battle to gank them, they leave. We never see them again. This central tenent of the game has always been stupid and undercuts everything good about the game. Spinning the dial on game economy has always been pretty pointless people leave when the devs undue their efforts with near clockwork regularity. The ship fighting is fine, once in battle, but the interface with open world is a wet mess. Always has been.

stop listening to the same 5 idiots. "grinding skills in order of ship type is hard" so you remove it. Grinding skills is hard and I do not want enemies who grind their levels to be able to beat me. so now you will fold and remove the skills so that people who do not want to play the game you have designed will be the last 5 guys off the server. The skills are fine. Just get freaking reasonable about how long it takes to open the 5 spots on a ship. 10 000 xp per upper skill on a 5th rate is silly. I know, no one else on the server is actually playing the game you designed. But I am, take it from me. 15 hours per skill level is silly.

Skill books are fine.

Your post has nothing to do with anything. Well done.

takes 10 000 xp to grind the 3 4 5 levels on an Essex. missions bring 330ish per. so 30 missions at half an hour each 15 hours of play on an empty server per level, 45 hours of play for the last 3. Silly, nuke the amount needed or structure mission so that these ships get challenging but not suicidal bot battles.

Ya, you care about PVP, but to me the whole PVP mechanic is flakey in this game has always been and will always be until they have open world battles. It is the domain of griefers and hackers. So how exaggerated you think an observation is about a feature of the game you do not care about certainly useless.

Did the devs intend to take a month to grind each skill level in each ship? The lower and mid 5th rates which should be the heart of the game take 10000 xp per level after the 2nd. they can only count on 330 ish per mission, 3 per thousand, 30 per level, half and hour per battle. 15 hours per level and 45 hours of numb game play to get the 3,4,5 on my Essex. I go out to any enemy area to try to do aggression and open world AI intercepts to make it more fun and find zero worth while battles in 5 hours. This is just silly. And that is after I ground up to just about 5 on the frigate I didnt want before you changed that rule to make that worthless.

Just a drop in to say its a solid idea, doing a way with ports changing hands did not occur to me, but is a credible start to making the game always approachable to starters and non dedicated players.

Do we know what they changed in this patch about high tier ship skills?

The brit gunnery sgt uses up and old flag officer book which in itself is a great gunner skill +5 ROF +6 accuracy or something like that.

Bit of a grind but I enjoy it and the way it is tied to the skill books. Some of the skill books are very powerful. More powerful then any mod in the old game I can think off. And in combination way way more powerful.

The worst part of the game is how battles are started and how people enter them. The border between OW and Battle Instance. The details of crafting, economy, captain skills, battle itself can be spun in almost any direction with little real change in the outcome I would think. People do not trust the way that battles start. I can not imagine how to fix that without re architecture the game to have sub servers that can handle the ships that are on that server and economy changes so that only historical sized fleets will ever be seen on each instance. So that you are always in open world or something even for fights. That being said, I like the concept of grinding up your proficiency with a ship type so that when ever you replace it you get that upgraded type of result with the ship.