How to make players come back?

[Hethwill]

17 hours ago, Louis Garneray said:

Maybe I'm not clear enough

What I mean is that when we had more players (you know more than the 140 usual players on Global) we had both ships available... crafted and npc.  I have nothing against npc ships. I just see that now with the low pop we don't have any player made ships.  So there is no variety in what is available.

Thanks for clearing it.

Correct assessment though variety is provided by the 'dreadful pve drops' and not really by the ship's finest 'wrights. 

[fox2run]

11 hours ago, Intrepido said:

Insurance, maybe. I still think it is not needed

Multiple duras, hell no.

More availability for upgrades, hell yes. The ships worth a lot only if it has good upgrades, thats the problem.

 

Maybe short on realism but the MORE ships aviable to players the more ships you will see in OW. Same goes with battles. Let me give you an example:

Two battles that are open for 10 min each gives other players 20 minutes to join a battle.

Two battles that are open for 2 min each gives players 4 min to join in a battle. 

Try with some accumulative thinking here as well given distance and time. Cutting joning timers simply killed A LOT of the OW life. By going from ten minutes to 2 minutes the game reduced the possibility to access action by at least 5 times!

If you add the amount of time each player has in sailing in a warship it was also reduced considerable as well when the multi-dura fuction gone. For smaller ships 5 times for frigate class 4 or 3 times. In other words players has to sail in trading ships a lot more than before! Hence the OW is emptied. Its maybe more realistic but hell... its bloody boring to sail around in a multiplayer game alone.

Its all a question of simple calculation. The two things that hooked most players in game has been reduced. Hence players left. IT IS THAT SIMPLE. A qeustion of mathematics really.

 

Edited December 5, 2017 by fox2run

[Liq]

9 minutes ago, fox2run said:

Maybe short on realism but the MORE ships aviable to players the more ships you will see in OW. Same goes with battles. Let me give you an example:

Two battles that are open for 10 min each gives other players 20 minutes to join a battle.

Two battles that are open for 2 min each gives players 4 min to join in a battle. 

Try with some accumulative thinking here as well given distance and time. Cutting joning timers simply killed A LOT of the OW life. By going from ten minutes to 2 minutes the game reduced the possibility to access action by at least 5 times!

If you add the amount of time each player has in sailing in a warship it was also reduced considerable as well when the multi-dura fuction gone. For smaller ships 5 times for frigate class 4 or 3 times. In other words players has to sail in trading ships a lot more than before! Hence the OW is emptied. Its maybe more realistic but hell... its bloody boring to sail around in a multiplayer game alone.

Its all a question of simple calculation. The two things that hooked most players in game has been reduced. Hence players left. IT IS THAT SIMPLE. A qeustion of mathematics really.

Balanced Battles open for 10+ min only feeds the lazy players jerking off in port while waiting for someone "stupid enough" to actually sail a ship in their waters and then join a battle he should never be able to get to.

We need more reasons to actively sail out and hunt yourself, NOT messing up current battle timers

Edited December 5, 2017 by Liq

[fox2run]

8 minutes ago, Liq said:

Balanced Battles open for 10+ min only feeds the lazy players jerking off in port while waiting for someone "stupid enough" to actually sail a ship in their waters.

We need more reasons to actively sail out and hunt yourself, NOT messing up current battle timers

10 minutes timers made the battles pretty big between nations. They escalated and where very,very fun. Yes, there where exploits and some you lost and some you won but wasnt it just for the developers about making some adjustment instead of killing the gameplay totally? I remember a world with 2000 players online and ships ALL OVER the place. It died when the access to action got reduced. I know some like it realistic in terms of everything has to take loooong time but then they cant expect nothing but a very narrow and short player base. Empty OW that is. 

I dont mind anymore. I have moved on to other games, but I would love to see a good age of sail multiplayer titel. Guess I have to wait some years before this one has changed or another developer takes the lead. This game was a timesink and was reduced from a great game to a boring one down the line ;-)

 

BTW: why do you have a scene from a sea battle as your signature? Most players have SOLs or frigates and the like which is weird as they tend to favour a game-style with lonely trading ships... 

 

Edited December 5, 2017 by fox2run

[Liq]

1 minute ago, fox2run said:

10 minutes timers made the battles pretty big between nations. They escalated and where very,very fun. Yes, there where exploits and some you lost and some you won but wasnt it just for the developers about making some adjustment instead of killing the gameplay totally? I remember a world with 2000 players online and ships ALL OVER the place. It died when the access to action got reduced. I know some like it realistic in terms of everything has to take loooong time but then they cant expect nothing but a very narrow and short player base. Empty OW that is. 

I dont mind anymore. I have moved on to other games, but I would love to see a good age of sail multiplayer titel. Guess I have to wait some years before this one has changed or another developer takes the lead. This game was a timesink and was reduced form a great game to a boring one down the line ;-)

 

If you want big battles you should try Legends (or participate in PBs (or make your own clan as Ive read you dont like cooperating with "children-clans")). There is a vid on my channel of NA L with 32 players in 6th and 5th rates. The game will be great on release.

Playerbase dying has little to do with battletimers IMO. After about 50 hours you are just done levelling, got the biggest ship. Most then leave because they think they are done

Battle timers have been experimented with for quite a while. We had pretty much everything, including insta closing ones which also not really were the best approach.

Point of battle timers is to simulate that only ships in range can join, as it should be. 3 minutes OW time let you cover quite a distance. I think most players by now agree that there has to be some sort of joining timer limit.

[Hethwill]

Yep I remember it fox2run. Was 15 minutes enter battle but also -  No teleports, only the 'back to capital' every 4 hours, no buildings for production and no outposts. Sail everywhere and fight and go from town to town trying to buy resources or fill the contracts. Yep. 

[Anne Wildcat]

2 hours ago, Liq said:

Balanced Battles open for 10+ min only feeds the lazy players jerking off in port while waiting for someone "stupid enough" to actually sail a ship in their waters and then join a battle he should never be able to get to.

We need more reasons to actively sail out and hunt yourself, NOT messing up current battle timers

Amen! I would be for open timers if it's added that if you are not on the sea when the battle starts, you cannot get in, unless it's in a green zone. Also you would have to account for distance, I wouldn't want every entering player 10 minutes after battle starts to jump in on top. Personally I enjoy small battles & brawling.  

[RaimundoJoe]

Make a training botcamp for the clans! (No pvp mark, cm or xp)

This way more experienced players can teach new players how to fight. 

Edited December 5, 2017 by AxIslander

[George Washington]

14 hours ago, Intrepido said:

1. Insurance, maybe. I still think it is not needed - People will not risk their hard earned ships and mods if there is no money return. 

2. Multiple duras, hell no. - People will remain scared of pvp and loss, repeating N1. 

3. More availability for upgrades, hell yes. The ships worth a lot only if it has good upgrades, thats the problem. - Upgrades already created pvp free oceans, giving everyone all the upgrades is same as removing content. Problem is not in upgrades. 

We will see how far you will go with your ideas. 

Edited December 5, 2017 by George Washington

[Slim McSauce]

1 minute ago, George Washington said:

We will see how far you will go with your ideas. 

Nowhere like all the ideas that don't come with the devs blessing

Edited December 5, 2017 by Slim Jimmerson

[George Washington]

3 minutes ago, Slim Jimmerson said:

Nowhere like all the ideas that don't come with the devs blessing

And you can't get that anymore since Pray button is gone.

[Hethwill]

9 minutes ago, George Washington said:

And you can't get that anymore since Pray button is gone.

Can I haz it back ? 

[George Washington]

44 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

...to boldly go where no man has gone before.

 

Problem is the costly upgrades, not the fast built and cheap ships. Last time I checked,

Cartagena caulking refit: 2,5 millions

Crooked refit/bowenwinds: 0,9 millions

Northern carpenters/nassau boarders/british rig refit: half million

 

Meanwhile I can craft a L'Ocean for about not more than 0,9 millions.

What are you talking about? Upgrades are on 1/4 of the problem. Changing them will not fix anything. 95% of ports have empty markets on Global, this means no ships, no repairs, no upgrades. Yes there are Lynx, Renome and Frigate, that variety is asking to give it a noble price.  On top of that add travel time and the amount of time it takes to do anything. Absence of global shop listings makes this task even more impossible for new guys. Even if they spent weeks camping their starting Port and saving for that 1 frigate, they will never risk to loose it and if they do you will be the one who will gank that noob and make us all a great benefit -1 player +1 bad review. Do I need to write more clearer for you? so you can look outside the box for once. 

Edited December 5, 2017 by George Washington

[George Washington]

16 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

Lately, you are getting out of hand.

You can spank me if you like. 

[George Washington]

@admin

Another very clear review with some good points. These can be fixed. Please take note. New player quit after few hours with bad review and no recommendation. 

---I've gotta say that I don't like the game, which is a deep shame because I really wanted to. When I join I spend an interminable amount of team loading. The interface in port is like something you'd expect from a Unity budget platform shooter, and when I click sail I seem to be kicked out of the game to then rechoose the server (I chose PVE) to then find muself in my ship.

I don't get any sense of feedback from pushing the movement buttons - it all comes as a rush. And the view is way too zoomed in. In looks a lot like Pirates of the Burning Sea in it's graphics but really does not play as well. --

...

I paid for this game and don't want my Steam friends to think that my ownership of it means I recommend it. ---

Quick note on zoom in game. Fix was suggested long time ago with no improvement and it still effects new customers. Why Devs can't have 1-2-3-4 different range for the view? It's so easy to fix. make acceleration slope more shallow for both launch and stop. Don't forget about Stop and drift feature as well. 

Add smooth sailing force and smooth sailing /breaking force. Ships do feel to have turbo including NPCs. 

Edited December 5, 2017 by George Washington

[Eyesore]

How many times do people have to tell you that the devs are working on UI and tutorial?

Edited December 5, 2017 by Eyesore

[victor]

1 minute ago, Eyesore said:

How many times do people have to tell you that the devs are working on UI and tutorial?

Many times.

But actually if Devs could give us a ETA for the tutorial, it would be a good thing

[George Washington]

23 hours ago, Eyesore said:

How many times do people have to tell you that the devs are working on UI and tutorial?

Might provide suggestions while they are at it, else keep it quiet. 

[fox2run]

On 5/12/2017 at 7:46 PM, George Washington said:

What are you talking about? Upgrades are on 1/4 of the problem. Changing them will not fix anything. 95% of ports have empty markets on Global, this means no ships, no repairs, no upgrades. Yes there are Lynx, Renome and Frigate, that variety is asking to give it a noble price.  On top of that add travel time and the amount of time it takes to do anything. Absence of global shop listings makes this task even more impossible for new guys. Even if they spent weeks camping their starting Port and saving for that 1 frigate, they will never risk to loose it and if they do you will be the one who will gank that noob and make us all a great benefit -1 player +1 bad review. Do I need to write more clearer for you? so you can look outside the box for once. 

+1

[King of Crowns]

On ‎12‎/‎1‎/‎2017 at 2:37 PM, Simon Cadete said:

How to get players back? Pretend you’re a developer and you want to save the game. What would you do? What changes would you make or what features would you add or remove from the game? Basically if you were one of the game developers what would you do? 

One last note I don’t think putting the game on sale works because all you get is new players That end up quitting anyway

open world will have to go to free to play model to bring enough players into the game if the game doesn't pick up a massive amount of players on release. Not only pick them up and bring them back but also retain them. perhaps a UI and a tutorial will help. but the last chance that NA has is at release. the game needs to be able to hold peoples attention and be enjoyable to play by the time of release or the game is dead before it ever got to be alive. 

[jodgi]

On 6.12.2017 at 9:28 PM, King of Crowns said:

open world will have to go to free to play model to bring enough players into the game

Hmmm... How would you like premium ships in game? I asked for that a few weeks after the economy came to OW but it was met with some resistance from certain players who aren't here anymore.

[Valentine Karrde]

I think it's going to be very difficult for this development team to retain current players or attract former players to return. I've put 4600 hours into this game, and have been around for a very long time. 

To retain players, the staff needs to start treating their players like customers, instead of like cattle. I've witnessed at least 4 incidents this week, where a developer has downright mistreated a player or been incredibly rude to them. I don't care how angry a customer makes you, they are a paying customer and entitled to respect. Now, that said, a lot of players are fed up with the slow development cycle and lack of progress, lack of anything to do but grind, and lack of pvp due to the endless protection zones. Fix these 4 issues and you may get some people to come back. That's my 0.02.

[lapje]

8 hours ago, Valentine Karrde said:

I think it's going to be very difficult for this development team to retain current players or attract former players to return. I've put 4600 hours into this game, and have been around for a very long time. 

To retain players, the staff needs to start treating their players like customers, instead of like cattle. I've witnessed at least 4 incidents this week, where a developer has downright mistreated a player or been incredibly rude to them. I don't care how angry a customer makes you, they are a paying customer and entitled to respect. Now, that said, a lot of players are fed up with the slow development cycle and lack of progress, lack of anything to do but grind, and lack of pvp due to the endless protection zones. Fix these 4 issues and you may get some people to come back. That's my 0.02.

+1

[Yngvarr]

On 12/12/2017 at 11:35 AM, jodgi said:

Hmmm... How would you like premium ships in game? I asked for that a few weeks after the economy came to OW but it was met with some resistance from certain players who aren't here anymore.

i would not mind premium ships in the game.

I would resist premium ships with premium stats however.

I wouldn't mind paying a few dollars/ euros to be able to build a Santa Cecilia (and make it non-tradable).

Shouldn't be too hard for the dev's to make the Santa Cecilia somewhat like a paid DLC and have it give a redeemable Santa Cecilia Blueprint.

 

@admin What is your opinion on this idea? Please make it a positive one :-)

Edited December 14, 2017 by Yngvarr