[[suggestion] Name ships]

While people are mentioning painting your hull...while I'm fine not introducing a full colour editor (to prevent silliness) I would very much rather see 2-3 colour options for a ship when you buy it.  Even if you don't choose the colour, ie. it's assigned before put on sale (again I'd be fine with pre-designed ships for sale "oh here's the Troubadore and it's painted in this colour scheme...").  Or, ideally, ships produced by nations have their own colours and are historically accurate.  This would be even cooler if you captured an enemy ship.  A little dig at the other side (oh, look at your ship, flying my colours!)

 

To me I do find it annoying that all cutters and yachts etc. are identical.  To have any kind of genuine diversity we really do need some colour options and that's not a hugely difficult task when the models are completed.  I'm also fine skipping fancy colours/designed sails.  They're fine as is, unless a nation historically flew different coloured sails.

[Alternate Forms Of Xp Gains.]

Correct, but if you're going to spend dozens/hundreds of hours on the open world going to different ports - it'd be nice for it to have some XP benefit, furthering your game.

[Alternate Forms Of Xp Gains.]

Yeah, give some purpose to going out and seeing the world.  If you can stick around a single island and fight just about everything you need...it defeats some of the purpose.  I'd also like to see some XP system for those who want to do more trading (certain XP for Y-dollar amount gained through selling resources?).  Not big XP, not game breaking, but making stuff more worthwhile.  For instance, I have tons of money - enough for a couple of larger ships, but I'm stuck slowly grinding through battles to level up so I can even use a larger ship.

 

I don't mind a bit of grinding, but I'd like to be able to grind in a few different ways, vs. just gunning other ships into drift wood.

[Playing as a group no longer XP effective. Solo missions boring]

I've also found zero loot when engaged in a fleet battle, for anyone.  We had a small group the other night (just three small cutters) and engaged in a half dozen battles with 3-4 AI ships each time, and were generally victorious with zero loot (ie. hampering money gains).  I'm fine with the damage XP etc., but it's damn hard to gain useful coinage.

[Alternate Forms Of Xp Gains.]

I assume there are some other options on the way.  I like sailing/gunning as much as the next fellow - and I only have 18 hours in the game.  One thing I'd like to see is a small (5-10 XP) for each port you visit, which would encourage exploration.

 

I'd like to see courier missions in the missions list, for a moderate XP gain (30-50), etc.  I'm quite sure I've missed some of it, but if it's all ship-destroying grind, that takes a bit of joy out of it for me.  I'd definitely enjoy some alternate methods to gain a little XP here and there.  I did think of whaling when I first played the game and I saw that was mentioned here too.

 

Are their plans for diplomatic/trade/exploration missions in the future - or will all XP be based solely on enemy ship kills?  I've killed a dozen or more ships since the wipe and it's just a slow crawl.

[Flags, Ensigns, Banners]

I'd like to see a few different flags per nation (at least for the pirates - that's be a nice option).  Just 4-5 to choose from if needed for that country.  Overall, I'd like to see more work/choices put into the banners.

[Enemies visible damage Yes or No (Health Bars)?]

Again, I think I'd like to see normal and hard-core servers...one with this off, and one with this on.  However I do not think the damage model is sufficient enough to let players rely solely on visual observation.  Particularly on the smaller ships (it may be easier on bigger ships).  Most of the ships I engage (small) show barely a cannon ball strike (lots of sail damage) and then simply sink. 

[Closed gun ports]

Would love to see this - one of the things I immediately noticed and thought was odd.  For a game with relatively few ships and simple graphics for Open World etc. I had expected a bit more attention to detail on the ships/functions. 

[[suggestion] Name ships]

This is something I was a bit shocked to "not see" in NA after watching from the outside for so long (and only recently joining up when allowed).

 

I'd be hugely in favor of naming ships, or at the very least creating a random bank of 100+ names for each nation (to decrease the likelihood of running into duplicate ships).  The name would be presented when purchasing the ship.  After all, we do imagine the majority of officers would be assigned to a ship and not creating one from scratch.  I'd also love to see randomized or different figureheads for ships - again either selected or randomly applied to the bow when purchased).

 

My sim-nature also would love the idea of a hardcore mode requiring you to identify the ship by its nameplate/colours instead of the label above.

[Important: Release information and next steps]

[Visual Damage on Ships]

In my short amount of gaming NA, I've seen a decent amount of sail damage with little to no hull damage (despite sinking the ships I've engaged).  I'd like to see a good bit more on the damage front, particularly given the small scale of the engagements in NA.