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When was the game really good?


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On the 26 April 2016 I wrote the following:

'At the level of Capitaine de Corvette on a Cerberus the game is wonderful at the moment both as a team game (using ts3) and as a me vs the AI game.'

At this time, the number of players was in excess of 1,500. This is about where--give or take a month or two--the game was a playable plaeasure. This is the game for which I paid €36.99 and so many others did, too. Are we to be abandoned? For what reasons? Is it ethical?

Could we go back to the past and forget everything that has destroyed the game and made it 'fun' for only about fifty players? Continuing with a path that is wrong won't get you any prizes. Please, consider.
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What became unfun to you?

I think a big part of it was how 25v25 port battles tended to get ruined via splits, alts and exploits -- some of which has been addressed and which the upcoming "clan wars" feature will address further. 25-ship fleets can no longer be split (if they stick together, due to battle groups + circle-on-the-defender) and once clan wars are in you'll never have alts taking spots up in a PB again.

It might just be a problem of "too late" but they have been getting addressed.

But I also think a lot of people joined PvP servers who did not really enjoy PvP.

As a PvPer, I think the game has been great and other than the low population, its never been better than it is now. The only thing I would change is the way people use missions to hide in the nether-regions of the world. People should be sailing on the open sea, not grinding missions outside their capitals. We might still need to twiddle with invis, "warp speed" and timers (things regularly abused by the douchebags of the game, because they're too terribad to hunt like a real PvPer) but generally things are good now.


I also think there's a perception of "this is too much work/risk" but again I think this is a perception problem. You can PvP all day long in a Snow or a Cerberus. Cerb is a great PvP ship and I'm not joking -- get 2-3 together and they can do a lot. We sunk a Santissima using 2 Cerbs recently (and no he was not AFK and yes he was a member of a major clan and knew how to use it, but he got busted with too little escort on the OW and couldn't outturn Cerbs.)

If anything, this game just needs to be re-marketed.

Target audience: people who love hard core PvP.

They're out there and I think they'd love this game. They probably just look at it and think it's PvE and they hear complaints about "the grind" but the irony is PvPers are the people who need to grind the least.

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April 2016 was 4 months after Steam Early Access and  before the further summer dip in population. The game was more fun because there was more content, that is to say more players. Something was always happening, and the world was crowded. At 1500 players the population had already dropped by about half since Steam Release and it was continuously dropping as we got further and further away from the excitement of Early Access release.

I am sure that population was not dropping any slower or faster than it is right now. People drop from an early access game as they get through all of the content so far implemented and realise that all their efforts are not permanent as wipes and mechanics changes and bugs are always looming.

The game needs more content for fun to be less dependent on player numbers. It also needs to bring back more of the old spontaneity. Every action now requires just a bit too much planning, preparations and grinding. Most of all, to bring back the fun you are missing, the game needs to get to release, in a slow paced hurry, so that more players, who do not necessarily go for Early Access games, will give it a chance, and the players who already fell in love will feel that their efforts are creating something permanent for them to benefit from, that won't be wiped any day.

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Foe me the game was most fun in early months following the Steam early access release. Back then fights were plentiful wherever I went and people engaged each other with wild abandon and little regard for their ships. But I do not think that it had anything to do with any particular mechanics, but rather the novelty of the game. With time, as they inevitably do in most things, people naturally developed tendencies to game the system and the understanding that it is just pixels evolved into a burning desire to win at all cost.

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7 minutes ago, Drunken Spelunking said:

evolved into a burning desire to win at all cost.

Yeah, this is a game design issue but also a lot of player fault is here.

I remember how people gamed the flag system just to avoid having to fight anyone. You could only attack a port within a certain window of time, so no night flips, but you could do false-flag attacks and pull multiple flags so defenders couldn't know where to be, etc. And people would intentionally set their timers to 4am in the hopes that nobody would be online to attack them, effectively making the port invulnerable.

Once people got the hang of the mechanics, it has been nerdcore gaming-the-game ever since.

Now it's night flipping so bad that they made an EU server just so SOME of the people could avoid it. And I'm sure EU still has issues with people trying to flip as early as possible or as late as possible and multi-flipping to avoid PvP again.


Ultimately this must be fixed through game design, but I can hate the player AND the game. Port battles -- the entire system and concept of them -- is broken. This has probably caused more grief than anything else over the last year and half.

Devs are trying to address the problems with port battles but Old Yeller has gone rabid and needs to be put down for the good of the game.

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This game scratches an itch for me, the itch to sail around solo or with friends and find other players to fight. It isnt always easy and sometimes it takes hours to find prey but when I do it is exceptionally rewarding. 

This game is eve online but with fun combat. 

However the devs dont really know where they want to go with things so every two weeks something major happens like this new clan wars system that fundamentally changes the game. 

As long as nothing changes to prevent me from being a real pirate and hunting other players I will be happy. Im very worried that in the effort to protect newbies there will be safe zones everywhere and mechanics that make it almost impossible to find pvp... 

 

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February 2016.

Great fun. Easy to find combat. Well balanced grind. Everyone was welcome in game. Port Battles was for all. No exclusive RvR club of superplayers that disliked casual players. Much, much better in almost all aspects. Combat was more thrilling too. 

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Personaly i liked the time befor the pb where broad into the game the best times, back when people meet up in ow to make trafalgar battles for fun. If the stack are to high some people get in the must win at all cost mod and start to look for exploits and work arounds instet of just playing for the fun of it. Don't get me wrong i did a lot of port battles and enjoy the team work and so on, but often all the stuff around the pb is more work then fun.

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Seatrials and the first 2 months. but there was an issue with PBsin that there was no way to win or lose over time but it was far more fun.

Flags and disposable 3rd rates were a headache for progress but a hell of a lot more fun than empty PBs.

Personally if i had my way I would bring back capping all ships put them as 1 duro, shrink the map turn up OW speed and make it less about econn/crafting and grinding and more about getting cheap ships to throw away.

way things have gone has simply turned the game into a gank fest

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1 hour ago, Fastidius said:

way things have gone has simply turned the game into a gank fest

When has it ever been anything other than a gank fest?  The first war (2015) in Open World was a gank fest.

Edited by Prater
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I know, some of you--all fifty of you--love the current game and the rest of us can go stuff ourselves--all 2,000 of us. Well DEVS, what about it? Are you going to give this game mouth-to-mouth resuscitation? Will it be like the phoenix and rise from its ashes? I hope very much so.

One positive: still superb OW with huge map.

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17 hours ago, Slamz said:

What became unfun to you?

I think a big part of it was how 25v25 port battles tended to get ruined via splits, alts and exploits -- some of which has been addressed and which the upcoming "clan wars" feature will address further. 25-ship fleets can no longer be split (if they stick together, due to battle groups + circle-on-the-defender) and once clan wars are in you'll never have alts taking spots up in a PB again.

It might just be a problem of "too late" but they have been getting addressed.

But I also think a lot of people joined PvP servers who did not really enjoy PvP.

As a PvPer, I think the game has been great and other than the low population, its never been better than it is now. The only thing I would change is the way people use missions to hide in the nether-regions of the world. People should be sailing on the open sea, not grinding missions outside their capitals. We might still need to twiddle with invis, "warp speed" and timers (things regularly abused by the douchebags of the game, because they're too terribad to hunt like a real PvPer) but generally things are good now.


I also think there's a perception of "this is too much work/risk" but again I think this is a perception problem. You can PvP all day long in a Snow or a Cerberus. Cerb is a great PvP ship and I'm not joking -- get 2-3 together and they can do a lot. We sunk a Santissima using 2 Cerbs recently (and no he was not AFK and yes he was a member of a major clan and knew how to use it, but he got busted with too little escort on the OW and couldn't outturn Cerbs.)

If anything, this game just needs to be re-marketed.

Target audience: people who love hard core PvP.

They're out there and I think they'd love this game. They probably just look at it and think it's PvE and they hear complaints about "the grind" but the irony is PvPers are the people who need to grind the least.

i completely disagree with your thoughts

try to focus on balance,   the last patch was a game breaker for new captains (and even for old captains)

try to understand the new upcoming patch where battle sails probably will be introduced and clan related stuff (what will be great stuff)

if people say there is a problem, then there is a problem for them, to some extinct, your thought will not help them..if things look generally "good" for you, does not mean they are just fine for others. 

and believe me, hard core PVP is at the bottom at the ocean, even for a PvE player or a PVP player,  and even for PvE player there must be a place on the server 

and the game is on the market it does not have to be remarketed.

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>

Just now, Thonys said:

try to understand the new upcoming patch where battle sails probably will be introduced and clan related stuff (what will be great stuff)

wait, what? we already have battle sails. It's just pretty pointless.
I can't see what you're referring to in the announecments, you have a link?

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3 minutes ago, Quineloe said:

>

wait, what? we already have battle sails. It's just pretty pointless.
I can't see what you're referring to in the announecments, you have a link?

i have to look it up but there will be a new introduction of battle sail where they effect, turning and fire and speed, to a more realistic battle

battle sails is very static at the moment and only on speed.

 

Edited by Thonys
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12 minutes ago, Quineloe said:

sounds like it will make getting away from a fight easier.

no it reduces speed. but 

it will prevent getting in fire easy 

(when doing full sail and fire your guns against wind your sails will burn for sure, when real battle sail is introduced)

and your turning is much better 

now everybody sails full sail  (it is not historical or realistic)

 

here is the link ,and what admin says about it

 

Edited by Thonys
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Oh I've lost count how often I've seen dev posts in the suggestion section that haven't made it into the announcement section, let alone the game itself

Without further changes, just an increased chance to catch fire is irrelevant.

Edited by Quineloe
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1 hour ago, Quineloe said:

Oh I've lost count how often I've seen dev posts in the suggestion section that haven't made it into the announcement section, let alone the game itself

Without further changes, just an increased chance to catch fire is irrelevant.

well the concept is pretty easy to implement now they have all the perks/knoledges in place

 

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9 hours ago, Vernon Merrill said:

Solo PvP is close to a myth...  you can solo RAID, but finding another solo player willing to fight is damn near impossible.  

Well.... Solo PvP is very real. Solo duels might be a myth.

Using a Surprise to gank traders is certainly real. Works great; happens all the time.

But if you mean 1v1 warship duels then I agree. My experience is that even when things look perfectly even -- we are both in the same ship model -- one of two things happen:
a. They run away.
b. They charge at me, which about 99% of the time means everyone they know is hidden in a battle nearby, and is even now jumping out and coming at me.

...this is why it's always important to rig for speed.

5 hours ago, Thonys said:

try to focus on balance,   the last patch was a game breaker for new captains (and even for old captains)

How so? Being a new captain today looks easier than when I did it and XP requirements were so much higher. And now new captains can capture ships again.

I do think AI tweaks may have made it too difficult for new captains to level up solo, though -- something I'm not sure has been addressed still. It's hard for a veteran to "start over" and really measure how difficult newbie missions are to solo. On the other hand, the new players could learn to beat these things. I guess the question is how far do you want us to dumb down the game to make room for lazy gamers.

If you balance the game so that even the worst gamers can have fun, then you've made it boring for the skilled gamers.

5 hours ago, Thonys said:

if people say there is a problem, then there is a problem for them.

Which is why it's important to determine who the intended audience is.

I don't like WOW. There's too much leveling up and not enough focus on quality open world PvP.

Does this mean WOW is a bad game and needs to change? Or does it just mean I am not WOW's intended audience?

So what's the intended audience for Naval Action? Those are the people who should be listened to. Others will be unhappy. Welcome to game design 101: you can't make every audience type happy with one game. (And it has never been entirely clear to me what the audience for this game is really supposed to be. There has been a heavy goal of making open world PvPers happy lately but there are still some pretty questionable game elements if that's the case, like how missions and port battles work.)

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