TheHaney

I'm not too worried about that, there's a dozen ways to prevent such behavior. Could be as simple as not allowing players in the starting zone to advance beyond Master and Commander (tutorial finish rank). That being said, I generally lean towards doing something with capital waters. A new-player area has been done very well in a variety of games (EQ2's starter island did well), but generally works best if integrated into the overall gameplay. Doing a separate new-player area justice would eat up far too much development time compared to just instituting something simple around capitals, as you've suggested.

I'd want regional chat eventually but right now the population is so small I think it would be a bad plan. Unless you mean cross-faction regional chat, which is just gross.

I dislike the concept of "safe zones" in general but the more time I spend in-game again, the more I think something of the sort is necessary. I make a lot of comparisons to EVE for this game, as it's attempting a similar loop, and EVE very much supports safe zones to a certain degree ("safe" is very casually used here). Primarily I think there should be some type of area where newly-joined players can experience base-level missions, trading and player interaction without getting chain killed within minutes of leaving port. That might be something as simple as making capital missions more abundant and making them only spawn in safe waters, or something as complex as introducing a "starter area" that new spawns of all nations begin the game at until they choose to leave. Another simple mechanic that would inhibit this type of behavior is adding a mechanic where sinking a ship in their reinforcement zone prevents it from dropping any inventory or counting towards any mission/leaderboard.

Not really an issue anymore given the new gameplay loop mechanics. Generally like the concept but I'd simplify it even more: 3 repairs total, and Urgent Repair also replaces any lost masts.

I don't generally see them on the market. Given labor hours are the highest-value currency and shipbuilding for sale simply turns doubloons into reals, the ship market has suffered.

I think the intended open-world tutorial arc the devs have asked for feedback on will directly address this. That being said, the Admiralty really should have trader ships to purchase on the regular.

This is an important point. Outposts, or more specifically the ability to spontaneously pop into existence at any one of them, directly encourages gank squads and unbalanced PvP. Personally I vote for more outposts, more dockspace, the aforementioned "trade wind" travel speed buff and the ability to interact with docks, buildings and contracts remotely, but in exchange put teleporting on a timer. Like a serious one. At least an hour.

Adjusted for post-doubloon patch: "What did he drop?" "Um, oh, nothing. Just a basic light sail."

Oh, sorry, I thought we were comparing suggestions on how to promote PvP. All the PvP'ers are bitching about doubloons. That's kind of the point, the entire series of recent patches has drastically increased players' motivation for OW travel. I don't see a need, yet, for another mechanic that has every chance of turning into a boring slog from port to port. It's like a crappy trade route.

Increase doubloon drops from players.

oh Lord Jesus I can't unsee that

Really all this does is force people to keep a tricked-out trader lynx around, then. That's what people are doing already with the changes. If the loot is garbage, nobody will do it at all. If it's good, everybody will have to. There's quite enough of that, thank you.

Oh, so I can go around in a cutter and hit 50 enemy ports? And they likely can't do anything because of undock timers and the fact I'm in a cutter? I made a comment on another thread earlier about how "players will always optimize to the point of boredom." This sounds like an incredibly boring thing that everybody will be stuck doing to stay competitive.

If I could have a posh captain with manservant and tea service on the aft castle, I'd sure as shit buy it.

This is a cosmetic, flavor-and-dlc-based addition, and I think it's a fantastic idea. The suggestion you've linked to is an entire separate minigame involving an avatar, which I think is complete overkill.

Good concept but that's essentially an entire separate game's worth of mechanics.

Now remember, ganking is alive and well in EVE. There are entire ships and combat mechanics built into the game specifically to support ganking. To be fair, though, new players have VAST options when it comes to mostly avoiding PvP, which this game does not support in any way whatsoever.

This has proven effective in many games, and been a disaster in many others. I think there's a distinction to be made between providing mechanics to drive gameplay, and providing layered systems that drive gameplay. A good comparison would be vanilla World of Warcraft versus EVE Online. I recall with glee the heady days of Tarren Mill versus Southshore open-world PvP ganksquads, prior to Battlegrounds. They provided no purpose other than gankfest joy/misery. Battlegrounds were introduced as a reward-based mechanic that drastically reduced "ganking" but made the open world feel less alive. BG's effectively killed the need for open-world PvP. Comparatively, there's EVE Online. You have such depth of economy in the game that open-world PvP thrives on merit of economic impact alone, without the need for heavy-handed mechanics to drive players in one direction or another. Obviously there are many mechanics to help new players and veterans slot into their respective spots, but it's mostly subtle. The Sandbox is largely free. I think there's a fine line between providing enough layered gameplay to let players naturally sort themselves out versus stymying entire segments of gameplay by providing reward-based mechanics. As EVE developers say, "players will optimize to the point of boredom." We mustn't provide mechanics in Naval Action that players will potentially view as "the only effective option." EDIT: I guess my whole point there is to say that ganking should be "allowed," but there should be systems of gameplay in effect to make ganking just slightly unattractive. Give players a reason to prefer harder opponents and even fights. But you have to make it a SMALL reason, otherwise you're just eliminating options.

Apparently the official response is, "exploration? IMPOSSIBRUU"

I've gotten some pretty decent ones off the AI, but if you're wanting something highly specific you'll need to spend them dubs.

There's an opportunity in the tutorial OW missions to tie them into real-world events. As an example, the mission to enemy reinforcement zones can be themed after Stephen Decatur's infiltration of Tripoli. Have the new player sail to a mission located in an enemy reinforcement zone that requires them to board and sink an enemy Constitution that's manned by only 40 crew. Spice it up with flavor dialogue and you've got yourself a daring, dangerous, memorable new player experience.

Step 1: Find a good trade route. Step 2: Sit on the halfway point. Step 3: Profit from AFK traders!

The key for me as a newer player is that the damage mechanic, rather than rewards-per-sinking, is better for me in a group setting since I often won't have the biggest guns.