Add Capital Marker to Open World

[Ned Loe]

Please add 'Capital' marker to Open World, as well as toggle on and off feature.  I've noticed lost at sea problem is often happens when players leave ship sailing afk or loose sight of land. With simple marker, you will reduce the amount of players who get lost at sea. Capital marker will let players know approximate position in the world. Since you know where the capital is you can navigate from there. 

 

['Sharpe]

After all the work and effort putting into making this a "manual" navigation game, why would we add this element that completely nullifies all of that?

Lost at sea?

1) player's own fault

2) sail west until you hit land.

3) or teleport.

It's already easy enough.

[Ned Loe]

After all the work and effort putting into making this a "manual" navigation game, why would we add this element that completely nullifies all of that?

Lost at sea?

1) player's own fault

2) sail west until you hit land.

3) or teleport.

It's already easy enough.

Players quit game over stupid things like this. Company looses $ & population. 

[SirThorne]

I think this is an interesting approach, and I appreciate its minimalism, but I would personally rather go another route.

[Ned Loe]

I think this is an interesting approach, and I appreciate its minimalism, but I would personally rather go another route.

Please explain. 

['Sharpe]

Players quit game over stupid things like this. Company looses $. 

 

If the player is that impatient that they're going to quit the game over getting lost at sea (which is actually quite a novel experience that most gamers of the genre would appreciate), then countless other things are going to turn them off. Long sails between ports, no wizards, etc. It's fruitless to try to cater to the World of Warcraft crowd, because once you make one concession you're going to have to make them all.

 

If anything were to be instituted, it would maintain the integrity of the game far better if there was a one time "get unlost" ability...but we are going to have teleport to capital, so that takes care of that.

 

Also you have to think, how is this glowing capital beacon on the horizon helpful in any way if you are across the map from your capital? I am a U.S. player...if I am sailing by, say, Vieux Fort, the direction of my capital Charleston on the horizon is going to tell me nothing more useful about my location than the compass itself. A beacon on the horizon would only be useful for new players sailing immediately around their capital, so it doesn't seem to make sense to institute this for everyone.

[SirThorne]

It just seems to me that it is a fairly mechanical way to display the required information. It works, and still requires a bit of player effort to hone in on their exact co-ords, but it makes very little sense to give players a carrier pigeon's ability to find home at a moments notice.

That said, it is worth remembering this suggestion if the issue cannot be resolved another way.

[Ned Loe]

It just seems to me that it is a fairly mechanical way to display the required information. It works, and still requires a bit of player effort to hone in on their exact co-ords, but it makes very little sense to give players a carrier pigeon's ability to find home at a moments notice.

That said, it is worth remembering this suggestion if the issue cannot be resolved another way.

I do agree with what you are saying. Making a good first impression is always a key and as you said before, only time will tell how hard population will get hit by this issue. I also appreciate players who rate topics and never express their opinions. 

[admin]

Players quit game over stupid things like this. Company looses $ & population. 

 

We have even more magical feature. Teleport to capital once every 8h hours))

[Ned Loe]

We have even more magical feature. Teleport to capital once every 8h hours))

I know, what happens if player spent 1 hour sailing and got lost? Teleported back to start over? Yeah... Time wasted.  With 'Capital' marker player at least can try to get back on track. 

[maturin]

No one gets lost near their capital, so I can't see how this is terribly useful. When I'm wandering around between the Windward Isles and Caracao, what do I care where Havana is?

[SirThorne]

If you know where Havana is, and can tell that it's to the north west, than you quickly get a solid idea of where you are no matter how far away it is. it takes a bit of effort to gauge, but more or less allows you to know your location within a very small margin of error.

If you simply travel from your capital to the nearest port, and measure the distance, you then have a scale that you can apply to determine your exact location on the map relative to the capital. This is effectively like having your ships location on the map, but requires a little bit of head math, and a few extra seconds with the map open.

I prefer the simple method of hugging the coast where possible, and using the ports I pass as markers myself though.

[maturin]

 

it takes a bit of effort to gauge, but more or less allows you to know your location within a very small margin of error.

We only have a 9-point compass. That means a massive margin of error. You could be just off the coast of Puerto Rico, or you could be in Africa. Unless you can perfectly align your camera to due west and then gauge the angle accurately (is this even possible on a 2D monitor with variable FoV?)

 

 

No one noticed that we get exact position fixes from F11? That's 100x more accurate.

[SirThorne]

We only have a 9-point compass. That means a massive margin of error. You could be just off the coast of Puerto Rico, or you could be in Africa...

...No one noticed that we get exact position fixes from F11? That's 100x more accurate.

Good point. Perhaps I am being too optimistic about the possible accuracy this would provide, but at the same time, one would hope that a player has at least SOME idea of their location to begin with.

I would be surprised if the info on the F11 scene remains available after launch.

[Ned Loe]

We only have a 9-point compass. That means a massive margin of error. You could be just off the coast of Puerto Rico, or you could be in Africa. Unless you can perfectly align your camera to due west and then gauge the angle accurately (is this even possible on a 2D monitor with variable FoV?)

 

 

No one noticed that we get exact position fixes from F11? That's 100x more accurate.

Compass is good, but it's only good if you memorize your location in the world before you start your journey. If you are in the open ocean and do not know what is behind you, you are in trouble. Do we really want people to go to F11 and read X00000.0 Z00000.0.

 

 

[Ned Loe]

If you know where Havana is, and can tell that it's to the north west, than you quickly get a solid idea of where you are no matter how far away it is. it takes a bit of effort to gauge, but more or less allows you to know your location within a very small margin of error.

If you simply travel from your capital to the nearest port, and measure the distance, you then have a scale that you can apply to determine your exact location on the map relative to the capital. This is effectively like having your ships location on the map, but requires a little bit of head math, and a few extra seconds with the map open.

I prefer the simple method of hugging the coast where possible, and using the ports I pass as markers myself though.

Thanks for making it clear for others, but what if players are new? the only way for them is as you said stay close to the land. This will keep players away from exploring oceans. My biggest concern is, if players are lost and there is nothing that can help you find where you are, it's simply 'start over' or f*ck this game it takes forever I will try another one excuse my language .   -1 player today, -2 tomorrow....

[AKPyrate]

Along the same lines, but a different approach, I would suggest that being able to make some markers on the chart would be helpful.  I am not a hardcore gamer and have a family that makes it difficult to play even every few days sometimes.  If I can't reach a friendly port before logging off, and might be days or a week before playing again, it would be nice to have a reminder of my whereabouts.  It would be nice to be able to manually note my approximate location for a reminder later on.  As it would be a manual note, not a computer calculated location, this would be akin to navigation before mechanical propulsion.  If I were able to do that, I know that I would be exploring a lot more than I do currently, as I generally try to stay in an area that I'm familiar with simply because I don't want to get lost if I forget which way I started sailing a week ago.

[Feretier]

Please add 'Capital' marker to Open World, as well as toggle on and off feature.

 

 

 

Everything is said here, i think it could be a good idea for the new players as i've seen some of them indeed lost very quickly and as long as it is on/off where's the problem ?. But you have to go a step further in "navigation" adding some features to help everyone have the hand on planing routes. Indeed as AKp said having some markers would greatly help when logging off a few days or so.

I was also thinking about having a interactive maps for clans and groups who wish to, having the possibility to mark hints, routes, convoys etc..

[ulysse77]

well we could have a few real life tool. An officer could give you a y coordinate at noon every day... And a chronometer gice you an x coordinate at noon... Those could have a larger range of error if quality of both are poor... Also a marker could appesr on the map if you near coast line... a good quality navigator could placea marker as soon as he see land.... A poor one only once it sees the town... But the feature i want is some course plotting course and mayber a header bug on the compass that you would have to manually set...

[z4ys]

Don't add things that allow brainless sailing/fighting. I love the game therefore that I'm supposed to think and not to be a stupid money cow.

[Justme]

Don't add things that allow brainless sailing/fighting. I love the game therefore that I'm supposed to think and not to be a stupid money cow.

Company has to earn money, make it to hard and you lose enough of the playerbase to kill the game. There is only the one issue I have with the game that has me leery about building a PC to play it, and that's time. I'm sure it's that an issue for many.

[z4ys]

Asking for tools that make that game to an arcade style game without sailing and seamanship (like a flight arcade game where you have to press a button for autolanding or autoaiming)isn't in my opinion the right way to handle that issue.

To improve gameplay for beginners it would help to increase Ai fleet occurrence of trader + guard (cutter or lynx)around starting ports. So new people don't have to sail far and get lost. Furthermore they will get the first fight within the first minutes. With that small fix beginners shouldn't become disappointed because they got lost in the first few mins.

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A capital marker is useless for USN player because they are everytime south of there capital.

Only a marker for the center of the map would fix that issue.

Wasting time because of sailing in the wrong direction only happens when people don't think about what they are doing and I don't believe a marker would fix that. Only autosail to port xy will fix that.

Edited December 7, 2015 by z4ys

[Macjimm]

To improve gameplay for beginners it would help to increase Ai fleet occurrence of trader + guard (cutter or lynx)around starting ports. So new people don't have to sail far and get lost. Furthermore they will get the first fight within the first minutes. With that small fix beginners shouldn't become disappointed because they got lost in the first few mins.

Well said.  The creation of happy hunting grounds that are close to the initial spawn ports could be very helpful to players that are confused looking at a compass.   Just follow the AI ships and they will lead you to a port.   Don't think we should reduce the quality of the game too much for for a few players who go AFK and come back to find out they are lost.  Perhaps they could just stop their ship before they go AFK and resume speed upon return.

 

This argument of the player base quitting or refusing to play is a red herring.  Irrelevant.

 

How can you decide that having a beacon flashing on the horizon will retain players and creating an environment that rewards navigation will repel them?  Personally I think that when we dumb the game down we will lose players, but what do I know? 

 

I would loath having my position on the map OR some sort of beacon that would render navigation useless.  Unless it can be toggled off.

 

Hopefully someday we can purchase a compass, clock and perhaps a sextant.  All of which should be able to be toggled on or off.  Both in OW and an instance.

 

Also:  Every time we add (or remove) a feature to compensate for the primary objective of competitive fairness we complicate the game.  But if it can be toggled on and off why should I care if other players have all kinds of little cheats to help them get into fights faster and more frequently?