Puchu

We all got the game too early. It's the same for me. Those who believed in the game the earlyest got nothing....

That's exactly the thing im trying to solve. If this is a game only someone who can endure 2h of boredom before getting a fight, can play, then how many people on this planet do fall into that cathegory? There is a reason why server pop is so low. That's one of them. Noone wants to spend that much time looking for the content they want. Noone is wrong... Very few is right.

Giving people what they want rarely results in lower pop. Usually people leave games because they a) dont get to do what they want or b) dont have enough time. this idea gets rid of both.

You will now be almost 100% sure to have a real player in your fight. That's what makes it predictable. That's the whole point of it. The problem with the loki runes is that you think you engage npcs but you get players. With the other mechanic you will most of the time get players and sometimes not. Btw: What's your solution for players who dont have 2h to look for a half decent fight?

There a re a few possible answers to that: 1. There is no reason for you to stay in port for this. It's probably a programming thing if you can be on the ow and in Defense Duty at the same time. And if it's possible to take your ship out of the ow and relteleport you back in. 2. The player on Defense Duty will most likely loose the fight, since he is not fighting with mods or golden ships. If you want to win, you need to be on the ow. 3. Players who would like to play Defense Duty only would not be on the OW onyways... they would be playing other games.

This is an Idea which we had hoped for for a long long time and which might make NA playable for people with less time on their hands. The goal: 1. Give people a way to quickly come into NA, have a real fight within a few minutes and the feeling of "time well spent" and logg off again. 2. Increase the amount of PvP happening on the PvP server. 3. Increase the feeling of danger when attacking an NPC. The idea: 1. When in port, you can click on an Icon that says: "Defense Duty" 2. When you are on "Defense Duty" and an NPC of your nation gets attacked, you get the option to join that battle as the NPC ship. (If you decline, you will be brought to the bottom of the Defense Duty queue and the next one gets the option to join. You have 20secs to accept.) 3. You will then fight that battle, gain exp , ship exp and some loot from that battle (amount is debateable), but you cant take boarded ships with you. They then belong to the Admirality. 4. After the Battle you are back to port. The reasons: Loki runes are a great way for people to get instant fights, but they are a loose loose scenario. The Loki looses time, that they could have used for farming or trading or grinding and gains nothing from it but the enjoyment of the fight, which is simply not enough for many players. And the one who gets a loki in his ai fight is usually sad because he took on bigger enemies, thinking he can easily kill them, but might loose his ship for this. If Defense Duty is there, basically all fights (lets exclude traders and small ships below the surprise) are pvp fights. People will be pvp'ing way more, everyone will get better. There are also advantages for starting the fight. The starter of the fight can pick his enemy, can pick his ship, which is usually better than that of the ai, will also get a pvp reward for the fight, and will get more loot and the option of taking home the enemy ship. Should there be a cost to Defense duty? No. It's there to make a quick fight possible and shall help people get real fights. (This is for admin:)The Defense Duty will overall reduce the amount of reals and loot that is on the server, because the AI fights become way harder, since they often are pvp fights. So it is a hidden mechanic to reduce the amount of money that is available in the game. The Loki is very unpredictable. This Defense Duty mechanic makes it so, that you should never attack a too big of an enemy force, since you are most likely to have real players in it. That's more predictable and you can adjust better. Thats nicer, than getting surprised in the middle of a hard fight. Being a Loki can be very frustrating, since you often get spawned into an already lost battle with one side already down. That would be eliminated, since you get the option to join the fight right when it starts. What do you think of this idea?

This endeavor is meant to help people. If you dont need / dont want help, you dont have to take part. It's all free choice. If you think you are better suited to provide help, encouragement and insight to other players, feel free to apply to become a Mentor in "The Naval Fighting Academy". Fight me, give me feedback on my fighting and show that you are able to help people and I will gladly make you a Teacher. It's all about helping people and helping the game. If you are here just to brag about how good you are, just realise that you are not helping the community that way. This is meant to create content for everybody and fuel people with confidence so they will take fights rather than run from them. So if you have suggestions and real help to offer, feel free to pm me, feel free to show me how good you are, feel free to wipe the floor with me. I've lost my pride long ago. I'm too old to care. I've been in this game for too long to get triggered. Wanna help, pm me. Wanna prove something, pm me. Wanna learn, pm me. Yours, Puchu, (by royal decree: Head of "The Naval Fighting Academy")

Why we are doing this: We are dreaming of a world where duels and small scale fights are a common sight in naval action. This is all done to make more fights happen in the game and to thus provide more content and more fun to everyone. We love the combat in this game. And we love good fights. The better our enemies become, the more fights we all get. The more confident people are in their ability to win fights, the more likely they are to actively search fights. We want to help you become a better captain so you will feel confident on your ability to take the fight and come home with combat medals and screenshots to brag with. Yours' Puchu (by royal decree, Head of "The Naval Fighting Academy")

After recieving many requests for coachings from "The Naval Fighting Academy" some FAQ's: 1. Can we negotiate the Investment? Yes, the Investment can be negotiated. There is a discount for new players which have not jet reached max rank. They will get their first session at a massive discount for 50k reals. This is meant to support the players who are just starting out. 2. How will the Feedback be delivered? We will be using Teamspeak or Discord for the feedback. You will learn the most when you get the feedback in the moment. Mainly the feedback will be questions during the action. If requested the session will have a specific topic. Example: Your mentor will put you in the unfortunate situation of being sterncamped. Then he will ask you: "What is your next moove?" You will talk the next steps through and then you will try to execute the best possible strategy. Your mentor will then put out the technical flaws in your execution to help you notice and eradicate them. 3. How does Boarding play out? You are allowed to board during combat. But to make sure the ships aren't lost, there will be no fight. We stay in Brace and calculate the most likely outcome based on the crew difference, Muskets, Marines, mods and ofc. Prep. 4. What ship setup should I use? If you have the luxory to choose your ship, pick one that is a hunting ship. A ship that is focused on speed. The reason is, that with a slower ship you would not be hunting in the first place and sailing tanks will teach you bad habits like sloppy angling. 5. Why is it a no sink Battle? Why can't we make it till the end. There are many reasons for this. Mostly: The teachers are there to help you. They will often put themselves in a disadvantageous position to show you a strategy. Or they will let you get away with something that would usually be punished hard, because that's not the current topic of the session. We want to provide the best learning experience possible and for that reason we can't risk 1ship per fight. We cant make that many ships per day. 6. What do I get if I win vs the Teacher? First of all: If you win, it's most likely because the teacher let you win. If you win it doesn't mean that you are better than the teacher. It means you did well in the exercise and you can moove on to the next. The teacher will allways present you with new problems to solve. You can also allways cheat the system by sailing in a ship designed for a no escape battle, but that kind of defeats the point of the fight. It's there for you to learn. And you will certainly learn many things, even if you "win". 7. What perks do i use? Use the perks you would normally use while on the OS. 8. Why Trincomalee? There are many reasons for this. The main reasons are 1. Because they are cheap and viable and almost everyone, even new players can afford one, and they will become dlc for everyone. 2. Because the Trincomalee is the highest risk/reward ship. Tactical errors become obvious very quickly in it due to its wind profile and the lack of stern chasers. Basically the Trincomalee is ideal as an exercise ship. If you want to fight in a different ship that can often be done. Best would be for you to provide the ship that you would rather fight in, since we cant have all ships in the harbor all the time. Asymetrical fights can also be arranged, if you have a specific thing you would like to work on. Yours, Puchu (by royal decree: Head of The Naval Fighting Academy)

Dear Sailors and Sailoresses all around the globe, What used to be only for some selected dedicated secret few is now open to all Nations: The one and only Naval Fighting Academy: Barretts Privateers Since 2015 a dedicated group of veterans has been teaching people the Art of Naval warfare. We've now officially created a Naval Fighting Academy meant to teach sailors from all Nations the art of strategic naval combat. The teachers are Veterans from all Nations including true legends like Mr.Doran and many more! We have specialists for every trade like shallow water specialists for combat in snows and fore and aft riggers aswell as SoL professionals and seasoned Portbattle commanders. If there is someone who just keeps sinking you its very likely to be one of our students. Amongst them are also some of your favourite youtubers. Ever wondered how to win fights against uneven odds? No problem, we can help you neglect their numbers advantage. Ever had trouble with Sterncampers? We can show you how to deal with them. Ever thought about how to wreck a top player? We teach you the tactics we hate the most. Got problems with people who have better ships and better mods and books? That won't stop you from sinking them anymore. This is how it works: Contact me, Puchu either here in the Forums or via PM ingame. Schedule a time and ship in which you want to fight. We will organise the perfect Naval Veteran for your questions to teach you exactly what you need. We are doing a first round of teachings open to the public: Fights: 1 Fight Feedback: Clear pro feedback during or after combat. Ships: Trincomalee 1vs1 Location: La Tortue Setup: Bring whatever setup you want. Investment: 250k Reals Battle Type: No Kill-Duel. We want to teach you, not rob you of your best ships. Boarding: No Rage-Boarding with equal crew. PS: Teachers: Since we are expanding, we are still searching for seasoned warriors who are willing to pass on their knowledge. To be part of this team you need to pass a test in a duel vs one of our main teachers, to show your tactical genius. It doesn't mean you have to win the duel, and if you win, it doesnt mean you will be accepted. We are looking for true skill and ability to teach. Together we can make NA a better, place with more skillful combat for all of us. Looking forward to your applications: Yours' Puchu By royal decree:Head of Barretts Privateers - The Naval Fighting Academy

You dont need veterans to fight noobhunters at the capital. You just need more noobs

It's your damn capital! What state is your nation in, if noones defending the capital? In what state is the game in that it's so worthless defending a noob in your own waters?

Interesting... so the players need to be defended and / or entertained by AI. How glorious that will be... Let's think about the reasons why the devs included AI on the PVP server. The main reason is very simple. Players need something to do. And if players can hide in ports and if it is better for them to hide in port than to go out and fight the enemy, they will do the latter, leaving everyone bored. So that's why the AI exists. ... Basically because the OW's mechanics are bad at bringing people together to fight it out. Now aggressive AI will be brought back, which will lead to even more fights vs AI. That will keep many people entertained, if that is the sort of entertainment you are looking for and satisfied with. But it will certainly not bring real people together to do real fights. It will do exactly the opposite. It will catch more people in fights vs AI and pull them away from the ow. One arguement for the removal of the duel room was, that it pulls people from the ow. And now they introduce aggressive AI, which will do exactly that... I just cant understand the principles behind the game design decisions. What is the reason? Are fights vs AI hosted on the client side, so you dont have to pay a server for them? Why do you want more AI fights? If the aggressive AI will be there to protect noobs in homeland waters... then we certainly have a serious gamedesign issue at hand. Shouldnt there be hundreds of players willing to defend a poor noob who is being attacked around the capital?

For admin the question is about money. He said that time and time again. If the peace server brings him more money than an arena, there will be a peace server. I've looked up "American truck driver" which is the most boring game i could possibly imagine. It's like doing traderuns in OW and never getting into a fight. That game has 92% positive reviews and 4.5k players constantly. How is that even possible... The reason is simple. It does what it does. nothing more, nothing less. If you want to drive a truck, thats where you go. if you dont. You wont touch the thing. You get what it says. For Naval Action it's strange and the 59% positive reviews make it a marketing nightmare anyways. Naval Action suggests that you will have "action" but when people actually play, they will be disappointed. Of course, the game is also promoted under "action" games... You know whats also under action? Team Fortress2 ... imagine someone who likes tf2 joining naval action.... what do you think he will say about the game? Imo NA tried/tries to be too many things at once and thus gets caught up in an inbetween which is sad for all parts. They could have made a beautiful naval trading game, but that isnt fleshed out enough... Or a crazy crafting game, but for that it's all too generic. Or a real good arena game, but that door has been closed. So they end up being meh in everything and a community which is divided. I wouldnt be here if the game was advertised as a "Naval Merchant Simulator", and noone would have to bother with me

I'm not your enemy. I never said you did anything wrong. I never blamed you for anything. I'm even komplimenting you, so please dont treat me like an enemy, because I'm not. I dont play the game anymore because I cant spare the huge amount time which is needed to negate and ignore the boring parts between the few actual fights one gets. That's why I'm argueing to get more, faster and better fights. ... For me and for everyone who thinks the same but has stopped caring or voicing their concerns. All that I'm saying is that the game has massive flaws in its core mechanics which detere people from actually experiencing the strongest point of the game, which is the combat model.

Dear rediii, I will do 2 things in one post now. 1: I will promote your latest youtube video so you get more views, which will hopefully help your channel. 2: I will use it as a recent example to show why it is all messed up. So, everyone, please go and watch this video: Description: There You can see rediii in a frigate in an instance vs a full hp and full crew trinc who has just looted another ship. The trinc is a way bigger ship with way more firepower and way more crew than the frigate, but still you see the trinc trying to run away for almost 6 minutes, sailing straight downwind. 6 minutes where nothing happens but the frigate shooting her 2 chasers from time to time. After 6 minutes of this unexciting chase, the trinc realises he wont get away like this, so he tries a different method of trying to get away. He shoots 1 broadside of chain vs the frigate. The frigate mitigates the damage by manual sails positioning and continues fireing chasers. 2 minutes later, the trinc fires the 2nd broadside of chain. From now they exchange chain broadsides, whereby the frigate gains an advantage due to her having the wind from the start and the trinc not even trying to retake the wind and the trinc being really bad at damage mitigation, but thats not the point. Eventually the trinc is so slow that he gets raked by an easy, jet well performed sternrake. From here on, the battle is 100% over. It was over before, but now it is certain since he cannot tack anymore without getting boarded. The frigate pushes the trinc into the wind and due to the hullshape of the trinc she gets stuck on the frigate and boarded. Conclusion: The trinc is a way bigger ship, but didnt want to fight. Why? The captain of the trinc had so much time to turn, tack, perform all kinds of maneuvers and with the superior firepower of his ship and the superior crew, it would have been easy for him to retake the wind and force broadsidetrades, which he would likely have won. But he didnt. In fact he didnt want to fight at all. All he was doing was trying to get away from a smaller ship. So these are the "fights" in naval action that are youtubeworthy? Where a big ship runs from a small ship without even trying to fight, only trying to get away and thus giving up every possible advantage it could have had? 8 minutes and the trinc fires 2 broadsides... how can that be called a fight? Really... what kind of a game is this, where people dont want to fight, even though they have an advantage? How big does the advantage have to be for someone to actually fight a battle? This "fight" which in fact is no fight at all... doesnt show that a smaller ship can well win vs a bigger ship. In this case you see a massive skillgap between the 2 players. This "fight" only shows that the game doesn't promote fighting. It promotes running. And that is not the fault of the player in the trinc or the fear factor of rediii. It's the game that promotes that kind of behavior. To make this a proper game we need mechanics in place that make the trinc player want to turn and fight instead of trying to run away. We need mechanics that make the trinc happy that someone came to fight him no matter the outcome.

OW timers down to 30 seconds, Remove the br restrictions Reduce the ow to the lower antillies or the area around la tortue for testing purposes to massively increase player concentration Remove teleporting, its not necessary with that new map size. 0 loss 0 gain 1vs1 area in the middle of the map where you can fight players of your own nation. And you have me onboard for the ow again. Too bad this wasnt tested in the beta while we still had the option... now it's released and we are stuck with this mess of a world that is waaay too big for the amount of players that this game has.

Thank you for the compliment rediii At least I will take it as such. 30s would be a proper RoE for the OW. Nothing more would be needed. This would force big gank fleets to stick together and be visible as such on the ow. Noone would be able to teleport to that place and noone would be able to abuse the OW time compression to get to a place where he shouldnt be able to get to within a reasonable time in the first place.

They have also said that they would do it if it would be profitable.

The first step of what we want already existed... It's not like it has to be redeveloped.... The other steps of what we would like would likely bring so much money into GL that more devs could be hired to work on the OW and make all your dreams come true... At least that's what i think.

Mcjimm and Angus... Why dont you want us to have what we want while you can still keep what we dont want. Tell me ... are you afraid that the Arena mode will take away what you love? Well then you know exactly how I feel because this is exactly what happened to me. The OW took away what i love. But im not standing here telling everyone that what you love should be remooved. Im standing here telling that i want my part aswell. There is literally nothing that you could say other than 'i dont need it' which you two have said many times before. Noone is talking about removing what you seem to like i dont know how you can be opposed to adding things that dont touch you at all. On the note of game of thrones: The show was allways about the depth of the characters. The writers of the last seasons totally butchered the characters and made them dull and stupid. They are horrible dialogue writers and they have no clue about medieval strategy so all the battles were such a mess its not even funny. But to stick with your comparison... The core of GoT was allways the deep characters. Thats what makes the show. If you butcher that by making the show about fighting... people will not be happy. Same goes for NA. The game was allways about the amazing core combat mechanics. If you butcher that by making it dull due to the accidental acceleration buff, and by making it rare and hard to participate in due to the 10000 other things you need to do which keep you from enjoying the combat. It's a question of "what is the heart of things" In GoT its the characters, so pure battles make it dull. In NA its the combat mechanics, so the ow makes it dull.

I would. If it would allign with or even be better than the ideas that i posted in the other thread. Ah i love some provocative discussion. If you prefere staring at the ow for 2h over doing 2-4 real fights vs actual people, then you are indeed very different from me. But you also deserve a place in NA OW since NA has become just what you seem to love. But it is no more what people who love the mind numbing boredom of real even combat love. It used to be, but it got taken away from us to benefit you. I dont want to take anything away from you. I just want a place for me and the likes of me aswell. Its interesting how i bought an arena game, which turned into an ow game and now im supposed to buy the arena game again. Why dont we make it the other way round? Let's give everyone who bought the Beta Seatrials and those who want the OW should buy it as a dlc. Sounds reasonable right? I mean ... They get so much more from it. You get hunting, stalking, fleeing, ganking, crafting, bottles, portbattles, traderuns and and and... But you only bought Seatrials. Would you as an existing owner PURCHASE this OW DLC...?

So let's talk a little about player demographics and migration according to gametype. If you want statistics here is a good place to start: https://www.wepc.com/news/video-game-statistics/ If you think about who played Seatrials, it was mostly people who came from arena type simulator games. Especially the arena style flight simulators was where many people came from (people and streamers like Schuetzengel e.g.). That's also why many people liked, watched and bought the game because they knew they would get their fun in the manner that they were used to. Many of those people were also notorious beta players who dont shy away from unfinished games and are generally curious of game developement (People like Jodgi and Hethwell e.G.). So when the first few were let into the OW they jumped on it, and while seatrials was still active, the most active players had alrdy hopped into the OW out of curiosity and to test it to see if it is "any good". When people realised, that there was basically no content to be had under 4h playtime, many people quit. They had been used to Arena type gameplay, which was completely gone and the player landscape changed. All those who only hopped on to play 1 or 2 battles after work were now gone. The average age of the male gamer is 33. I think it is much higher for NA. So most of the players here have jobs and family to take care of and especially the family doesnt want them to disappear for 5h in the evening. So the average gamer of ST left and over the years a different playertype got predominant. Lets call them the OW-Players. These OW-Players are people who have more than 2-3h per day that they are willing Invest into NA. People like moscalb e.g. who are basically allways online, sometimes even with multiple accounts. Those are people who have been actively looking for a game like NA-OW. And of course they are happy with the game design in general, because thats what they came here for. Then NAL was started and thrown onto a demografic of OW Players... and the OW players didnt like it and didnt play it. Of course they didnt. It's not what they came for and its not what they wanted in the first place. Ask a group of vegetarians if they want a delicious steak... it will give you the same results. The Beta players also came to test it, found that the mechanics were massively lacking and needed massive overhaul. They stated there criticism and nothing changed. So their job was done aswell. There was nothing more for them to test since it didnt change and there was no inclination that it was going to change. The Arena players had already left NA-OW and letf the Forum, so most of them just didnt notice that NAL even existed. So those that might have liked the general concept had already been driven away by the OW design. Now the game got "released" but nothing has really changed from its beta days. Only that many of the testers from the old days have come back to see how it has all shaped up and how the "final game" that they have been part of for so many years has shaped up. After a few weeks of getting to know the release version many have figured out that the game still has the same concepts and flaws which made them leave before in the first place and the player numbers will drop back to what they were a few months before release. So again only the OW-Players tho came after ST and who came after release will be the ones remaining. And of course they are going to be the ones who like the OW concept because thats why they are there. So if one looks at game genre statistics, one can see that the games that provide quick action are much more prominent than games that have slow action. I am very sure that there are more people in the world who fit into this cathegory: 1. Likes naval combat 2. Has job and kids and only 1-2 hours to play at max per day 3. Needs to have instant action, because he never knows when he can steal himself away from his dutys and cant afford to hang out on the ow all day. The statistics suggest that the market for that kind of player is way bigger than for the gamertype that is required for NA-OW. So for the life of me i cannot understand why there seems to be no intention to make the game appeal to a much larger demografic by adding an ability to get instant fights in the limited time that one has. Edit: People have been asking why i am so persistant and what drugs I am taking. It's actually pretty simple: I just want to play the combat of NA within the limited time that i can spare to do so, since I also have a job and kids like many of the actual and potential NA players do. I can play a max of 1-2h per day. If i make room i can do 1 full day per month. And in that time it just doesnt satisfy me to watch the ow. I want to fight real players right now. And yes, the current design of the game just isnt for me. Thats why im asking it to be added, adapted, changed, tuned, whatever you want, to be more fit for people like me, because i think "we" are actually many.

I fully aggree, just need to add that here is no reason to limit its use to be vs your own nation only actually.

Noone is trying to take NA-OW away from anyone. What I want is something on top, something in addition, which i think would be way more fun for... i think... way more people...