Taking a break

[Ronald Speirs]

Stopped playing after 8.01 and having to get certain ship kills, i liked the freedom to pick what i wanted to do and now to level up i'm restricted to playing ships that i don't like, yeah some like it some hate it, im a hater, the way this game was released to level up was to get XP and the best way to do that was to get a ship larger then you could crew and fire off some broadsides, u got XP for the damage dealt, it was a value for money as i would call it, why buy a ship that u can crew for 80k when u can spend a bit more and under-crew a larger ship and get more XP and gold.

 

I felt that if u wanted us to test ships then make the generic battles like sea trials and say on forums that we want to test these ship models then players can go generic and select the ship that you want us to test, then maybe if they want to test modules and outfits later then they have full range to find what outfits will work best for them later, but it seems that u now just lock everything in and expect people to go along with your way of testing.

 

Its not fun or enjoyable to be locked into certain ship progression and with the lack of ships as it is i don't feel its going to get any better, if u want to test ships and characteristics then do it like a sea trials with their system surely it will give you a better insight then the OW run around, far better to not waste time searching or getting a enemy to call reinforcements, hardly a game u want to promote in that state, i already did the cerb kills and leveled up now having to do surprise and reno kills i have no desire or motivation to want to play that style of progression and why do it with a wipe pending, sure its a test state but why cant we test ships like sea trials, why waste my time anymore for something i wont enjoy doing but others may, they will enjoy being able to get straight into testing and helping rather then searching themselves, EA has a fine line on making and breaking this game, i like the way u want to test but sometime keeping things simple will be better then over complicating and restricting people, the arguments on realistic and arcade go hand in hand, to much realistic and u lose, to much arcade and u lose, if u want to know why most people use the same ship its because its better all-round then the others, generic ships seem to handle alot more evenly then the other models and when buying ships the more firepower or other characteristics make us not want to waste our money on ships we can crew under what we can achieve in them!!!

 

[maturin]

I thought I would hate it, but to be honest the HK system feels less stifling than what we had before.

 

Why? Because the worst kind of grind is the straight grind. When all that matters is XP, and there is only one way to get it, freedom in pursuit of that goal is a terrible thing. Because left to my own devices, I will try to end the grind ASAP, choosing the most efficient vessel and most efficient tactics for the task. In my desire to grin faster, I doom myself to repeating the same kinds of encounters ad nauseum.

 

Any complicating, limiting factor makes the experience less of a straight grind. It adds texture, and guarantees a small change in scenery every 10 NPCs down.

 

Obviously, I would rather see more fleshed-out conditions or quests shaping the grind, but this may just be better than nothing.

[Prater]

Sea trials had a strict progression where you had to sail every ship.  You say you don't like the current progression system and want a more Sea Trials system, when the current system is more relaxed than Sea Trials progression wise.  In the first version of Sea Trials we had to have a certain amount of victories to progress. It was far harder than the system we have now, especially when you had to utterly rely upon your teammates to progress.

 

Also, you don't want to sail on OW.  Interesting, since this is an OW game, and devs have said all along that is how it was going to be.  All along they have talked about OW.  What do you do in an OW game, specifically, an OW Age of Sail game?  Search for enemies, hunt, explore, etc, etc.  This was never going to be a WoWs game.

[Ronald Speirs]

Sea trials had a strict progression where you had to sail every ship.  You say you don't like the current progression system and want a more Sea Trials system, when the current system is more relaxed than Sea Trials progression wise.  In the first version of Sea Trials we had to have a certain amount of victories to progress. It was far harder than the system we have now, especially when you had to utterly rely upon your teammates to progress.

 

Also, you don't want to sail on OW.  Interesting, since this is an OW game, and devs have said all along that is how it was going to be.  All along they have talked about OW.  What do you do in an OW game, specifically, an OW Age of Sail game?  Search for enemies, hunt, explore, etc, etc.  This was never going to be a WoWs game.

 

sorry prater i believe u missed my point i'm trying to say if they want us to test ships then go a sea trials style of selecting ships not having restrictions on them or having to have them will save them having to do redeemables and we can test for ourselves and then feedback to devs, they say they want us to test ships but the way they do it i feel is silly or buy them ingame or redeem, wouldnt that be a better way of testing to just be able to got into a list and pick and test in a generic battle? 

[Ronald Speirs]

And as for the ship kills its more of a mission then a level up progression, u can pick missions to use ships to gain more XP or gold or even haul goods to gain better ranks then its way more immersive and more of an incentive to try and do, atm the way they did it isn't fun and why waste time, for those that have kids or a job they don't have time to waste time with the dev's ideas on things or time travel so why force it upon others?

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

I saw your post this morning Mr. Speirs and appreciate your candor.  I raised the purpose of the current progression system with Admin and received the following information, which I'll provide here for discussion amongst the community.

 

The Developers feel that there needs to be a system that provides more usefulness for some ships.  The general idea right now is - everyone sails one of five ships, and some only long enough to get to the next largest "good" ship.  The progression system implemented in Patch 8 is designed to put more players in other ships on the water.  They're not saying this is the "right" way to do it, nor is it the "final" way this feature may look, but it is their initial attempt to create a system that will cause players to sail more of the ships more often.

 

I know this idea is quite unpopular with some folks, yourself included.  So our role now as testers is to provide well thought out alternatives with the above goal in mind.  If we absolutely want to sail whatever we want whenever we want, then the alternative may be to stop creating new ships - why create a ship that nobody will sail?  It's a waste of time and a waste of resources that could be put to other uses.  Creating a ship that only three people sail and only because they're die-hard lovers of that ship and don't care about its drawbacks compared to, say, Trincomalee or Frigate (for example), isn't a good use of resources.

 

Please provide Progression System Feedback at this link:  http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/7577-feedback-on-the-current-progession-system-patch-8/

[admin]

We all know how typical path looked like before

Yacht - Frigate/BP/Trinco-Constitution-Bellona-Vic or Santi.

Progression was too fast anyway. It gets easier when you get to higher level ships due to huge volume of DPS = Damage=xp.

 

This had to change.

 

To get promoted you get to sail a specific ship. 

• Nelson commandeered Boreas (28 guns) for 3 years and 9 months.
• Some time after he sailed Agamemnon (64 guns) for another 3 years and 5 months.

We are not planning to force you to play for 3 years in Cerberus. But we will require to get you through the typical ships that any Admiral of that time had to sail. The only usable and unexploitable way to replicate this is to track victories (honor kills and in the future assists as well). It is the closest possible thing to immersion. Consider this requirement an order from London or Sevilla. 

 

Winning a whole battle is sometimes hard to achieve but you can always sink an enemy. Not all ships are required and after you fulfill the orders you can sail your favorite vessel anyway. 

 

Regarding freedom.

Freedom was given and it was exploited.

Some players were abusing the freedom by farming damage and not sinking the opponent.

Sinking requirement makes this a lot harder because  it will cost time and money to do it. 

 

 

Arguments about jobs and time are strange. You don't have a time limit; you play at your own pace. Once you get the orders fulfilled you sail what you want when you want.  

[Prater]

I think the progression system, along with Henry's comments, also help out with slowing sol creep.  Granted, the current system is rough but it is a 1st and 2nd implementation of it.  What other feature have we not gone through several patches to get right?  When they allowed you to attack ships 30% BR rating of your ship (2nd implementation), that made it far easier.

 

I haven't really liked the Frigate or Belle Poule recently but I haven't minded having to level up with them.  I think of it as being assigned a ship from the admiralty.

 

edit:  just saw admin's post.  All those points too.  We still have freedom, but to get more crew we have to progress first.  What mmo doesn't have some type of progression system?  In WoWs or Wots can you quickly level up to T10?  (I don't play these games so I don't know).  I know in Eve it takes months and months and months and months to fly a Titan.  Even a Battleship takes time, and a Carrier takes months as well.

[admin]

way more immersive 

 

Would like to also post this list of ships Nelson had to sail to serve his country

 

• Raisonnable – 64 gun
  • Midshipman under his uncle Captain Suckling
• Carcass – 8 gun bomb vessel
  • Captains coxswain under Commander Lutwidge
• Triumph – 74 gun
  • Captains Servant, then midshimpan under Captain Suckling
• Seahorse – 38 Gun
  • able seaman, midshipman under Captain Farmer
• Dolphin – 24 gun
  • Midshipman under Captain Pigot
• Worcester – 64 gun
  • Acting lieutenant under Captain Robinson
• Lowestoffe – 32 gun
  • 2^nd Lieutenant under Captain Locker
• Bristol – 50 gun
  • 3^rd Lieutenant under Admiral Parker
• Badger – 16 gun brig
  • Commander
• Hinchingbrooke – 28 gun
  • Post Captain
• Janus – 44 gun
  • Acting commander
• Albemarle – 28 gun
  • Captain
• Boreas – 28 gun
  • Captain
• Agamemnon – 64 gun
  • Captain then Commodore
• Captain – 74 gun
  • Commodore
• La Minerve – 38 gun
  • Commodore
• Theseus – 74 gun
  • Commodore
• Vanguard – 74 gun
  • Rear Admiral
• Foudroyant – 80 gun flagship
  • Rear admiral
• San Josef – 112 gun
  • Vice Admiral
• St George – 98 gun
  • Vice Admiral
• Elephant – 74 gun
  • Vice Admiral
• Medusa – 32 gun
  • Flagship during attack on Boulogne
• Victory – 104 gun
  • Commander in Chief

 

Naval action is an experience. For click click better find another game.

But if you have ideas on how to make this experience better please post on this forums

[akd]

Would like to also post this list of ships Nelson had to sail to serve his country

 

• Janus – 44 gun
  • Acting commander

 

HMS Janus was a Roebuck-class frigate.  Obviously Roebuck class must be added to the game to honor Nelson's progression (even though he was clearly a hacker going from light frigate to 64).

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

Let's continue the discussion here:

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/7577-feedback-on-the-current-progession-system-patch-8/

Thanks!