OW Navigation

[Sir Texas Sir]

4 hours ago, rediii said:

Why no "I'm here" thing?

Does it add anything to the game if you can't find stuff as a beginner?

 

They probably start on the map, look at the map and have no idea where they are anyway  

By having you actually look up the Long/Lat on the in game map to figure your location instead of a red dot saying "I'm Here" is like the meeting grounds between the folks that want a dot and the folks that want every one to be master navigators.

3 hours ago, Grundgemunkey said:

 i dont see what the fuss is about .. Even without f11 coords.. does anyone get lost ??

long long time ago even when we had cords I got plenty lost, but cause i was a US player back than we all knew turn west and you will hit land and than go north until you find a port and than you will know where you are.  It's not about us old timers, it's about the new players.  I got guys that can't even figure how to get a couple ports over until you point out it's north or south of the port they are in.  

3 hours ago, z4ys said:

Was precise coordinates part of the revenge gank problem back as we tested it?

Right now the only folks that have that are us old vets and folks using 3rd party info to get those.  Is that fair to the new players that have no clue about that?  Every one should have the same info in game they can use.  Just don't make it accurate and they can't pen point the location.  That why I said have a grid map and give the long/lat on the side and you have to figure your self where that is not just look at a dot on the map.

3 hours ago, Licinio Chiavari said:

IMHO I think best median solution could be:

Approximate position (sextant idea) pointed on map every 20 minutes with an error like 30-40*k.
Available perk "Navigator" (1 pt?) get extimated position every 10 minutes with an error reduced to 20*k.

Delete F11 coords, and port distances from trade tool at sea. 

*Edits

Yah keep the distance in port, but not at sea.  Though it is handy cause they would know the distance from location to the distance of a port during this time if they weren't off course.  So maybe just drop the F11 cords from player view (it can still show up on devs logs) and put the cords and grids back on the map.  Keep the protracter though.

3 hours ago, Hethwill the Harmless said:

10k is nothing. 20k is horizon skyline cut landmass.

Wasn't the old squares on the map grid something like 25km from one line to the next?

2 hours ago, Hethwill the Harmless said:

Pinpoint accuracy kills more ships than the lack of exact knowledge.

Very very very very easy to camp your battle and wait your escape without any risk.

 

Vets that know how to use F11 and third party maps do that any way.  Though honestly I don't think I heard some one call out cords other than for epic locations in ages cause most of the battles are along the coast line and we can just say, "The cove north or south of CT that the french/prussian/pirates hide in."

 

[kitsunelegend]

Holy crap, why is this topic still so heavily debated?

 

Just take away lat/long coordinates all together, give us a small circle on the map that is 1 square km in size that represents the rough location of our ship, and call it a bloody day.

This game needs players. Not having something like basic navigation mechanics does way more harm to the player base than good. It scares away new players because they see the map is huge but have no idea where they are. It puts them off wanting to sail long distances, which means they dont take risks. They dont go and explore. Which means the game becomes stagnant to them and they get bored and leave, most likely leaving a bad review on the store page.

Seriously, something like navigation shouldn't even be a topic of discussion ffs.

And to the people who are saying they dont want any type of navigation, you're doing FAR more harm to the game than good. Just because you understand how to metagame the trader tool/3rd party maps and F11 key, does not mean they're all thats needed.

[Jean Ribault]

4 hours ago, rediii said:

...because everyone is using your F11 coordinates together with Felix's map.

 

I've never used either, I don't see the need.  Must be just in the circles you run.  Honest question, is there some advantage?  I can't think of one.

[Eduard L'Aquila]

1 hour ago, Hethwill the Harmless said:

Not against whatever, just asking a simple question - who do you mean when you say "gamers" ?

By gamers I mean the general masses that would possibly buy the game if the barrier to entry wasn't high, the non-hardcore fans and the casuals.

Let's face it, whoever is playing Naval Action is a gamer that has a desire/need for a good Age of Sail game, I'll assume we aren't casuals that stumbled upon the game during a Steam Sale. I'll also venture a guess they're the ones that usually make up the bulk of most game sales - making games for limited audiences might be worthwhile (such as the Train Simulator style games) but a strictly online, multiplayer game needs a large-ish community.

At any rate, it's a design decision.

Personally, I'm perfectly content not knowing my location on the map, I found it refreshing but I remember my first impression when opening the map: "Awesome! But casuals won't like it."

[Hethwill]

Thank you for clarification. Just wanted to make sure we consider everyone sitting in front of the PC playing NA is a gamer, no matter his/her "mechanics" or "genre" favorites.

 

[Hethwill]

21 minutes ago, Jean Ribault said:

 

I've never used either, I don't see the need.  Must be just in the circles you run.  Honest question, is there some advantage?  I can't think of one.

100% true.

Too much flight sims taught me 2 things - time to destination estimation and navigation by landmarks.

NA is way easier than having to mentally fix 25 landmarks for a flight route  and making marks on a kneepad.

[kitsunelegend]

I'm going to use an example of my current situation to make a point.

 

As of typing this, I'm sailing in a LGV just north of the Bahamas. I'm trying to get to Ays, but I cant go through the Bahamas because obviously the LGV cant go through the shallow water there. My issue atm, is that I can see islands... but I have no clue WHAT islands they are. I know I should be passing a port very soon, but A: I dont know how long it'll take to get there, and B: theres a chance I may not even be able to SEE said port from my current position, which would make it very hard to actually figure out where the heck I am. This is creating a situation where navigating around this area is becoming very frustrating, tiresome, and annoying. Hell, I cant even place custom waypoints or marks on my map to plan out a route to take!

 

I were a new player or a casual, I'd most likely be extremely frustrated because I have no idea where I am or where I need to go. So much so, I'd most likely just alt-F4 and go play something else instead. Preferably a game that has a decent navigation system that isn't metagamey.

 

This is a problem. One that is a super easy to fix by adding a simple mark on the map for players to see roughly where they are in the world. It doesn't have to be super complicated or pin-point accurate or even updated every other millisecond. Just give us a 1km sized circle on the map that updates every 30 seconds, to give us an idea of where we are. Then, allow players to write and draw on our maps and create waypoints to plan out custom routes.

Its basic game design. It shouldn't be this bloody hard.

[Grundgemunkey]

2 minutes ago, kitsunelegend said:

I'm going to use an example of my current situation to make a point.

 

As of typing this, I'm sailing in a LGV just north of the Bahamas. I'm trying to get to Ays, but I cant go through the Bahamas because obviously the LGV cant go through the shallow water there. My issue atm, is that I can see islands... but I have no clue WHAT islands they are. I know I should be passing a port very soon, but A: I dont know how long it'll take to get there, and B: theres a chance I may not even be able to SEE said port from my current position, which would make it very hard to actually figure out where the heck I am. This is creating a situation where navigating around this area is becoming very frustrating, tiresome, and annoying. Hell, I cant even place custom waypoints or marks on my map to plan out a route to take!

 

I were a new player or a casual, I'd most likely be extremely frustrated because I have no idea where I am or where I need to go. So much so, I'd most likely just alt-F4 and go play something else instead. Preferably a game that has a decent navigation system that isn't metagamey.

 

This is a problem. One that is a super easy to fix by adding a simple mark on the map for players to see roughly where they are in the world. It doesn't have to be super complicated or pin-point accurate or even updated every other millisecond. Just give us a 1km sized circle on the map that updates every 30 seconds, to give us an idea of where we are. Then, allow players to write and draw on our maps and create waypoints to plan out custom routes.

Its basic game design. It shouldn't be this bloody hard.

type fishmeat into traders tool .. look at two nearest ports ,,, look on your map... make a rough mental triangulation,,,, thats where you are  ... its not hard

 

 

[Hethwill]

Sailing around makes for nice accuracy in both time to target and relative position after a few voyages.

[kitsunelegend]

1 minute ago, Grundgemunkey said:

type fishmeat into traders tool .. look at two nearest ports ,,, look on your map... make a rough mental triangulation,,,, thats where you are  ... its not hard

 

 

Its very VERY metagamey. If I were a new player or a casual, I most likely wouldn't even know that was possible (or even know that tool exists for that matter). Which was the point I was trying to make.

 

Stop using this reason as an excuse. Its growing old.

[Eduard L'Aquila]

13 minutes ago, kitsunelegend said:

As of typing this, I'm sailing in a LGV just north of the Bahamas. I'm trying to get to Ays, but I cant go through the Bahamas because obviously the LGV cant go through the shallow water there. My issue atm, is that I can see islands... but I have no clue WHAT islands they are. I know I should be passing a port very soon, but A: I dont know how long it'll take to get there, and B: theres a chance I may not even be able to SEE said port from my current position, which would make it very hard to actually figure out where the heck I am.

You touch on a good point when, landmark and local knowledge, which depends on experience acquired through careful study and/or repetition - both take time, which is something not many people have an abundance of. A rough approximation of location could, in my opinion, simulate this. Perhaps 1km is too precise though, a 20km diameter circle could be enough.

Edited September 17, 2018 by Eduard L'Aquila
I cut out a lot of useless text and there was a sentence that I left that didn't make sense.

[Hethwill]

Time is just time. Some folk "master" a game in 2 weeks. Others take months. The end result is the same.

[Grundgemunkey]

7 minutes ago, kitsunelegend said:

Its very VERY metagamey. If I were a new player or a casual, I most likely wouldn't even know that was possible (or even know that tool exists for that matter). Which was the point I was trying to make.

 

Stop using this reason as an excuse. Its growing old.

you said you were lost just trying to help

a new player only has to ask .. how do you navigate ,, to get the answer

 

[kitsunelegend]

2 minutes ago, Hethwill the Harmless said:

Time is just time. Some folk "master" a game in 2 weeks. Others take months. The end result is the same.

Yeah, and some people dont have the patience to sail around for weeks or months to learn where they are, and therefor leave the game entirely to play something else.

 

Which ya know, is the exact opposite of what this game needs right now.

[kitsunelegend]

1 minute ago, Grundgemunkey said:

you said you were lost just trying to help

a new player only has to ask .. how do you navigate ,, to get the answer

 

And not all new players are going to bother asking for help.

 

Again, using the trader tool as an excuse to not have proper navigation in the game is getting very old. I do so very wish people would stop using it like this...

[z4ys]

 

3 minutes ago, kitsunelegend said:

Yeah, and some people dont have the patience to sail around for weeks or months to learn where they are, and therefor leave the game entirely to play something else.

 

Which ya know, is the exact opposite of what this game needs right now.

2 minutes ago, kitsunelegend said:

And not all new players are going to bother asking for help.

 

Again, using the trader tool as an excuse to not have proper navigation in the game is getting very old. I do so very wish people would stop using it like this...

"learning" can be a long term goal why to play the game as well

Edited September 17, 2018 by z4ys

[Raf Van Boom]

A sextant can be used at night, it can be used with landmarks to triangulate  your exact position, it can be used to measure distance between ships and a lot of other cool stuff. Having to use this 'trader's tool' is silly really. The tool was invented somewhere in the 17th century or early in the 18th century.

The other tool used for navigation was the astrolabe and apparently it dates back to 220-150 BC....

You don't like knowing your position, don't use the map, just follow the scent?

[kitsunelegend]

Here, I've made an example of the type of mark we could have in the game for navigation. Map is at max zoom in this picture.

 

Have the mark update its position every 30 seconds to 45 seconds or so. Just a simple circle with a rough location. Thats it. No coordinates, no lat/long, no metagamey trader tool trickery, no super complicated mess of different tools to mess with. Just a simple, clean, hand drawn looking circle of a rough location for players to use as a reference point when traveling.

 

Thats ALL that is needed.

[Grundgemunkey]

2 minutes ago, kitsunelegend said:

Here, I've made an example of the type of mark we could have in the game for navigation. Map is at max zoom in this picture.

 

Have the mark update its position every 30 seconds to 45 seconds or so. Just a simple circle with a rough location. Thats it. No coordinates, no lat/long, no metagamey trader tool trickery, no super complicated mess of different tools to mess with. Just a simple, clean, hand drawn looking circle of a rough location for players to use as a reference point when traveling.

 

Thats ALL that is needed.

why

Do you want an automatic fire button that shoots a broadside at the right moment too .... do you think manual sailig is too meta

leave us something in the game ,, please  dont try and fix soething thats not broken ,, the way we navigate around is fine

[Raf Van Boom]

See this 18th century map? See longitude and latitude marked clearly? The game would have us follow fish scent and the intensity of it rather than having stuff that actually makes sense.  And, how about the Moon too?

[Grundgemunkey]

4 minutes ago, Le Raf Boom said:

See this 18th century map? See longitude and latitude marked clearly? The game would have us follow fish scent and the intensity of it rather than having stuff that actually makes sense.  And, how about the Moon too?

wheres the automatic you are here icon ??

 

[Hethwill]

18 minutes ago, kitsunelegend said:

Yeah, and some people dont have the patience to sail around for weeks or months to learn where they are, and therefor leave the game entirely to play something else.

 

Which ya know, is the exact opposite of what this game needs right now.

Sorry if i wasn't clear enough and led you to misunderstanding what i wrote exactly. Has nothing to do with quantity of players. Actually was all about quality of playerbase. It won't happen again. I try to improve.

I also would like to reaffirm, no GPS please. No F11 coordinates please.

At best a "midday" position check and possibility to add pins in own player map.

 

[Raf Van Boom]

That's where the sextant comes in, you are here.

You are HERE, right?

While this is no GPS it's very accurate with a good chart.

Edited September 17, 2018 by Le Raf Boom

[kitsunelegend]

Just now, Grundgemunkey said:

wheres the automatic you are here icon ??

 

You are the type of person that is hurting this game. You want everything super complicated with a very steep learning curve (more like a giant wall tbh), that serves no purpose than to scare away new potential players. And for what exactly? What possible reason could you have to NOT want something as basic as a god damned bloody location mark on a map?

 

ffs people, this topic should not even be a point of such heated discussion! Map markers are BASIC GAME FUNCTIONALITY. We have a massive bloody game world. Making it needlessly difficult to get around is completely counter productive to what this type of game needs. NEW PLAYERS.

[AeRoTR]

5 minutes ago, Grundgemunkey said:

wheres the automatic you are here icon ??

Can you read the posts again? 

F11 is your location, any skill? 

Traders tool, write fish/hull etc, how realistic and big skill is it?