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Rikard Frederiksen

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  1. Oh, I did. Once I'd finished being angry at myself (he got me fair and square, no-one to blame but myself), I saw the humour in the situation and laughed it off. If I'm honest, I didn't quite like how it felt in that one combat, so maybe I didn't lose out.
  2. Actually, that was a problem I had. It wasn't really a problem, but I couldn't initiate boarding actions when we were both at a dead stop, flank on to each other and it ended up being the AI doing the boarding.
  3. That would have been handy, as I'd only wanted to see what it could be like in combat. If it is available at a prohibitively expensive price I doubt I'd go for it*, but at least it won't be lost to everyone forever. *I'd hoped, from the pictures, that it would be akin to ships like this, but it is so bizarrely (and heavily) armed and looks quite odd, as well as feeling a little sluggish to me in the one combat I had, so I doubt I'd have gotten on with it anyway.
  4. As much as I'd love to have given feedback on this ship, I was jumped before I could even try using it in a PvE mission (as a test run) and lost it to a Trincomalee. Typical of my sort of luck, really; here, have a one of a kind ship you won't be able to get again! Oh look, you've lost it.
  5. Completed the Endurance exam, but I had to go about it by using the 'Attack > AI Defends > Fire Deck Guns' behaviour in a 'rage board' to get rid of the first ship so I could duel the second ship into the depths. All of my other attempts ended in disaster as I couldn't take down the first Brig quickly enough to be in a good enough shape for the second Brig. Otherwise I can't see how anyone could pass the examination as it currently stands unless they got lucky. I feel as though I got lucky on my successful attempt as it was the only one where I didn't have a yellow/red rudder 90% of the time. If I were to change the Endurance exam, I'd switch the two Brigs for two Rookie Brigs, or I would otherwise drop it completely and add in a tutorial based around tactical positioning in battle (i.e. angling the hull). As it stands the Endurance exam was far too frustrating for me and reluctant as I was to use the AI's boarding behaviour against it it was the only way I could manage it. I'm not looking forward to the final 'exam' now...
  6. I wish they'd gone for a clan-based system whereby: Each nation remains with a single capital port that can't be taken. Each clan picks its nation on creation. Clans can create a unique 'Look at us' type flag (like EVE's Corporations, I think it was) from in-game options (colours, symbols, etc.) that could also be their ensign in battle. Non-clan players are a 'neutral' nation, as it were, in that they can access every port and do as they please until they join a clan whereupon they become part of the same nation, with the option to raise a nation's flag as your own, but can change it as you wish and desire. Maybe. People who opt to go pirate get mechanics for disguising their flag for entering port/engaging at sea but are revealed by close proximity of other players on OW. Could have been an interesting twist that keeps the nations present (variety) but allows clans to accomplish things of their own, create their own content, and force them to look to hold their own territory but always have the fall back of their national port to regroup and rebuild. Could be a bit of a 'special resource' jiggery-pokery to make ports worth capturing to allow monopolies on certain specialist goods. I don't know, this is just what I've conjured up in my old grey cells from reading this thread. Of course the forger DLC makes such a system difficult now people are paying for additional stuff with real money; can't just take that away from them!
  7. Now this intrigues me. I'm awfully curious to know what you chaps have in mind. This tutorial/examination business: what happens, I must ask, if a player fails this M&C tutorial 'examination'? Do they have to keep trying until they succeed? Or will they start at a lower rank with a 6th Rate? I'm glad that you're taking steps to solve the issue of new players & square-riggers, but I still have some reservations about this 'examination' thing. I'm sure once we have the information it will all fit into place but until then it seems a little peculiar, especially the claim that it will be really hard to succeed on.
  8. Well, if I were told to think of three ways to encourage players to return, I would do the following... First: Introduce PvP 'hotzones'. Regardless of how they emerge (placed by server every couple of hours, or built off of where battles are taking place), what I would do with them is have them increase in size as more battles take place, and rewards begin to increase. The more battles that are going on the bigger the zone, which in turn means higher rewards, so more and more people can get in on it and feel rewarded for fighting. Also some minor rewards for input, not just for winning. Second: Ditch permanent upgrades (maybe retain ship knowledge, but in the guise of officers*). The game is supposed to be about skill, not farming for stuff to get a statistical advantage that can nullify an opponent's skill. So I'd throw them away. However! Anyone crafting a ship would be able to boost an (one, singular) aspect of a ship in a small way, dependant upon crafting level. Except speed. Leave speed out of it. To take a current 'upgrade', a level 10 crafter building a Lynx would be able to craft it with a reload speed increase of 1%. A level 50 crafter would craft the Lynx with a 5% reload speed increase. The only downside, I suppose, is that people would only buy the level 50 craftsmen ships, but at least it would make being a high level craftsman worth it. Frankly, though, I'd rather see the ship crafting system redone, along with 'crafting level', but within the confines of current systems, the above is what I'd do. Third: Already mentioned in this thread but worth it for the repetition, insurance for ships! *An idea I've had for a rather long time, and one I am rather partial to, is that you employ officers to serve on your ship to give you a minor boost that might be dependent on the officer's experience, depending on their role. The number you would have depends on the ship's Rate. If you have a 1st Rate, you have space for 5 officers, for a 7th Rate, 1 officer. Anyway, that is by-the-by.
  9. To turn that on its head, surely we should have an auto-surrender option for when crew losses hit a certain percentage, because crews aren't stupid and won't fight to the death. Game mechanics have to be taken with a hefty pinch of salt at times and this is an area where that perspective is needed. If PvP in this game is meant to primarily be about skill, why deny others the chance to show their capability? Keeping your 6th Rate out of the line-of-sight of a larger ship's batteries is not an easy task. Judgement of distance, speed, turning speeds, reading opponents' intentions and timing are crucial, as staying on a tack just too long, or leaving a turn too late, misjudging distance or an angle, or the relative speeds of ships can leave you being pummelled by a hefty broadside. It is tricky, and there are times when I find myself gritting my teeth and emitting an 'eeeeee!' sound as I desperately try to finish my turn before I am in the arc of the larger ship's guns! Hiding larger ships behind a safety blanket of 'Ha-ha, you can't attack me!' nullifies PvP opportunities, removes an element of danger from the open seas and negates a daring playstyle. The 'little ship' captains should not have their fun removed because some people are scared of not being able to fight off smaller ships. My fun should not be considered less important because I don't choose to sail a large, ponderous ship. Even a 5th Rate in a Captain's fleet would do wonders to deal with 6th Rate ships. Otherwise, find tactics to deal with them. 6th-5th Rates really should be the bread and butter ships of the game, but I suppose the allure of a huge, hulking man-o'-war is far greater than the nippy, speedy and lightly armed frigates & sloops-of-war. As I said in my post above, redoing the mechanics for turning to include acceleration & deceleration and momentum would help in this area, not a blanket ban on smaller ships being able to engage larger ships.
  10. I must agree. As a 6th Rate user I know the joy and pain of being in such a small ship. The tactics our clan have developed, as we play in our hunting ships, have allowed us to overcome larger ships, quite often with barely any scratches. Most of the time when we've taken bigger ships it has been because the Captains try and run from us.* This led us to be so lax that when we found a captain who would fight. On that occasion Caroline Vodka, who was in either a 4th or 5th Rate (I can't remember which - long time ago), gave us such a bloody nose that we limped off in one direction and bailing water for our lives, whilst Caroline crawled away in the other. The big problem is that Captains, I feel, get a little too comfortable in the size of their ships, the number of crew, and heavy poundage of guns. Against capable captains in smaller ships, who know their vessels, a larger ship on its own can fail and that breeds frustration because how could such a large ship lose to smaller ships? I would blame the linear progression of other games whereby being bigger/more powerful = destroying anything weaker. One thing I feel that would help is to have slower turning capabilities for all ships, and acceleration/deceleration & momentum for turning, so that we can't perform doughnuts in smaller ships or switch direction with ease. Slightly slower yard turning times might help as well. As for the original post, I can see the frustration there, that you were hounded for the entire battle by smaller ships that didn't close to disable and sink/board your ship. However, this is just the course of a battle, and sometimes they take 20 minutes, other times an hour & a half. If they choose not to close and disable/sink then that is their choice, and you just have to roll with it. *Notably, we took one Surprise whilst two Trincomalees fled together away from us. Madness. They could have obliterated us but ran instead.
  11. The three things I'd say to that are this: Firstly, it has been that long (several weeks) since I've last been able to log into the game and play (hurrah for work and my current situation) and I had not seen the hotfix-update-patch that made NPC ships capturable again. Some people would argue that I shouldn't be making suggestions without very recent in-game experience, but when you've an idea... Secondly, even with that change, with this suggestion you don't have to faff about finding an NPC ship, chasing it, dealing with anything interfering with your attempt to capture an NPC ship, or anything else that would get in the way when you're trying to get out there and PvP. Of course, if you did want to go out and find whichever ship it is you want to capture you can go off and do that, but if not you've a basic ship available to you. Thirdly, the additional intent of the idea is to aid newer players in feeling as though they're progressing. They get up to whichever rank it is and boom, they've immediate access to a Sixth Rate. Hurrah! They're not having to go and buy a crafted ship which they might lose and be unable to replace, nor hunt down an NPC one to get started in square-riggers. This is why I suggested that perhaps it could be extended to include a Seventh Rate as a leg-up from the Basic Cutter. I would imagine people want to be in a 'proper' square-rigged ship as soon as possible than a fore-and-aft ship (although I love 'em personally).
  12. My suggestion would be halving the map. Ish. In that the map goes from the Lesser Antilles to somewhere around the Greater Antilles. This would give a significant amount of land, ports and sea space, whilst bringing everyone closer together. Ahistorical divisions of territory would be required to start with, but if mechanics were sorted and the number of people playing grew then the map could be 'unrolled', as it were, to bring more territory and sea space into the game world. This may be a rose-tinted view, but when I first entered the Open World when it was released, as I hung around English Harbour in my Royal Navy days, it felt like there was always something going on close by. Of course this was pre-port battles, so it was mostly gank fleets or my being shown how bad a player I was compared to others. The French and Pirates were close by and we could sail out and engage others, and I knew that the Dutch were nearby, and so on and so forth. Sailing felt like it took little time because my in-game world felt tiny; I didn't bother exploring to the west because I didn't need to. Perhaps by reducing the current playing area it would help to concentrate the numbers of people, but reducing it by such an amount as the OP would not help, in my eyes. 50% reduction, yes. More than that would probably be too tight.
  13. Good point! Treated like an NPC ship in that you can loot it but not capture it.
  14. Now, this may have been suggested elsewhere, but as I've not the time nor interest to trawl through every single thread and read every single post, I'm going to throw this out here as a suggestion and gauge the reaction to it; there may be flaws in it that I've not seen. The problem below is what I've gathered from reading threads about the forum recently (I can't be in-game currently), that the grind and access to ships is an issue, particularly progression from 7th Rates to 6th Rates. This is not an answer to solve the problem entirely, but it could help. On to the issue at hand... Free ships for all! Problem: This appears to be two-fold but centered around the 'grind'. Firstly, it is difficult for new players, unaffiliated to a clan and lacking knowledge of the game, to progress from the fore-and-aft ships to square-riggers. Secondly, replacing ships can be difficult, which makes PvP unattractive due to low rewards and the difficulties from losing a valuable asset. Frederiksen's Answer: Free ships. Alright, more detail below. Now, I'm not advocating everyone having access to every ship for free. That is ludicrous. However, what if, what if the game gives you access to a free ship depending upon your rank. It is a simple concept. Currently we have the Basic Cutter. Brilliant, a free ship with free crew and repairs and is not for PvP, but gets new players started and can be used as a barge to get around for ranked up players. What if, once you reached the relevant rank for the crew numbers, the game gave you access to an Oak/Oak Sixth Rate, perhaps the Brig. The ship is free, purchased just like the Basic Cutter, but you must pay to arm it, crew it, repair it, same as a normal ship, but it is free for you to get hold of. You don't get a choice in wood types of which Sixth Rate, maybe you can't mount permanent upgrades on it and its 'knowledge' upgrades are restricted to, say, 3 boxes. That makes the free Brig viable in a basic sense as a ship to take to PvP or PvE, you can waste it in PvP without issue and get another. Yay! Taking this further, it could be done as well for Fifth Rates, maybe the Cerberus is available as a free ship, or the Renommee. It would also follow the same procedure; you pay for the crew and repairs but to get it it is free, but you lack choice in wood types, etc. Now, where this falls down is the potential for 'spam', as we saw with Basic Cutters; using a free ship to attack ships with no loss for the people using the free ship. How do we counter this? A cooldown? You can only have one free Sixth Rate per 24 hours, one free 5th Rate every 48 hours? It still gives a leg up but means that if you lose it you will need to buy a replacement ship. In short: Positives When you rank up you can 'buy' a Sixth (and maybe Fifth) Rate for free at the relevant rank (when you'd have enough men to crew it) in port, same as the Basic Cutter. This free ship has a set wood/wood type, perhaps no permanent upgrades and limited knowledge upgrades. Repairs, crew, cannon etc. are paid for as usual but the ship itself is free. Combined with other ways of incentivising PvP (decent rewards) it gives a fallback option for PvP/PvE that isn't back to square one in the Basic Cutter. Can treat it as the ship issued to you by your nation's navy (goodness knows what excuse the pirates would have, but hey). Leaves player-made ships being worthwhile as they can be customised by wood types, will have all of the upgrade/knowledge slots available to you (if you have the knowledge) and can be an investment, but if you need a free ship for some PvP, boom! You have an option. Perhaps this could be introduced for a free 7th Rate ship beyond the Basic Cutter to give new players a sense of progression. These ships cannot be traded or captured (suggested by @The Wren). Negatives Would need a means of preventing spam (my suggestion being a cooldown). It is giving stuff away for free. Anyone think of anything else that would be a problem with this? As always, thoughts on a postcard, address being the reply box below.
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