John Page

Single shot should stay. Very true. All those running rigging are there to support the mast under press of sail. If a handful are shot away and the wind pressure is great enough, that mast is coming down. As it is currently, but I believe @AeRoTR's suggestion below would simulate the rigging being cut up: Yes, 'fire as she bears' would be a nice option. To build on and flesh out my idea from earlier: @admin: The game engine would have know which ship to target, expecting you to aim the first shot and the rest 'fire as she bears' at the target. Also, Cecil's suggestions there are really good, although having to aim each swivel would be extremely difficult, it should be automatic (once you assign crew) with the option to aim, in my opinion.

Make a toggle, like Pirates of the Burning Sea had. Simple.

Nailed it on the head @Marcus Corvus! That's assuming the player wants to craft ships with all of those wood types. I get plenty of stone, gold, and silver as random drops from my iron mines as it is. So it has some effect sure, but probably not as much weight as you think.

I like the idea of swivels. The rest seems a bit complicated, even though I like the ideas and were presented very well. We have to remember this is a game. The more complex a mechanic becomes, the harder the game becomes. I personally think mechanics should be simple. Also, I believe I read somewhere the time is sped up already, which it clearly is if you play the game. That is, sailing maneuvers and ship speeds are much faster than they would be in real life. So, if something like this is to be implemented, it would have to be rebalanced to adjust accordingly. Manning each individual cannon becomes a significant challenge because the player is already controlling so much. It is already very hard to shoot and perform a maneuver at the same time (e.g. tacking and shooting). It would not be in real life because you would have multiple people responsible for each task (firing and aiming a gun, steering the ship, setting/adjusting sails, etc.) whereas in game the player has the sole responsibility. This is why the AI can shoot and sail backwards with ease, the AI has multiple components that handle certain aspects of the ship and can do so much faster than a single player who is trying to manage all of the same aspects. I think it would be cool to have a combination of @Cecil Selous's idea and what is currently in game. I am thinking the player should still have to aim the guns, or at least part of them, and we can have 'gun captains' (friendly AI) that aim/shoot the rest for you. Not sure how that could work exactly though. But I never liked the idea of having to aim every single gun myself just to get the accuracy I want (and enemy AI already have) and there isn't exactly a 'fire as they bear' command you can give.

@admin Why is the current system better? What is the purpose behind limiting supply? This is what we end up with: Supply cannot keep up with demand. For context, I just sailed from KPR to La Navasse (about 20 minutes) and then from La Navasse to Little Cayman (30 minutes) looking for available Teak. I believe what Gregory suggests here makes more sense than the current system. I am of the opinion that the economy should be free market and player driven, not people waiting in line, for who knows how long, to acquire resources fulfilled by NPCs. I understand that there should be rare resources, but it should be player driven in a free market economy. The ideas presented here seem like a good compromise to limit resources (by making it extremely expensive, either by gold, or labor hours, or both) but still player produce-able.

It would also allow smaller clans to participate more actively in RvR.

Excellent idea!

Repairs (Hull, Rig, Rum) are somewhat expensive, relative to a new player. This is not so much of a problem when you have a lot of money and are making a lot of money later on, but for a player just starting out who has gotten the hang of the basic cutter after 10 or so fights and wants a bit bigger fifth rate, it is prohibitive. Especially for someone who plays casually, or does not have a lot of time to devote. I found the majority of my time just starting out to be eaten up trying to make money. Not a bad thing, I'm just stuck with the cutter longer, which probably frustrates some players. I like the idea of consumable repairs, but I also liked the perk that was taken away that gave one free repair during combat. Ship XP. I think several have already mentioned this. For some reason, I seem to be stuck at 888/900 xp on my cutter with one slot left to unlock. Any missions or PvE I do does not count anymore, I do not know if that is deliberate or not, but it is frustrating, and PvP would almost certainly be an extreme difficulty to gain xp on, unless I had a friend helping, but who wants to join someone for serious PvP in a cutter? I think one way to help satisfy the current 'too much xp requirement' is to have all ships of the same rate unlock the others. E.g. a fifth rate Surprise unlocks the same slot on a fifth rate Renomee. Just my two cents on this topic. Travel times. Again, I think this was mentioned already. I am all for role playing and being as close to realistic as possible, but in my opinion going from Kingston / Port Royal to Belize should not have to take 2 hours of play time. I think an excellent way to alleviate this problem was mentioned by Daguse above: http://forum.game-labs.net/topic/22013-grind-discussion/?page=2&tab=comments#comment-449704 Later on in discussion: For those arguing that this will allow a 'gank fest' or PvP hot zone, I argue that people who devote more time are probably going to be there ganking you anyway. This would enable casual players to participate more in RvR and PvP events. All in all though, I think development is progressing, albeit slowly, in a good direction. Developers, thank you for building this game and continuing to improve it! Sincerely,

What if, instead of a timer based on log off, we made it so you could not log off close to an enemy port? A certain distance perhaps? Several miles or something more relevant; I am not sure what in game units are based on. With the new port battle entry and land mechanics this area would be outside the outer circle.

This would be good, and I would be in favor of it, but since time is sped up on the open world you have less time to make a decision. If the spyglass is left the way it is, along with the open world ship info (Nationality, Player name, ship type, fleet ships, and fleet strength) that currently requires you to click on the ship, I recommend at least making it so the spyglass has to hover over the ship rather than having to click the ship, or allow use of both. Sometimes it can get really annoying having to click each ship when there are seven of them coming from different directions. I also like the ideas presented by poosd here: http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/16553-viewsa-simple-change-for-big-imersion-value/?hl=spyglass such as, the view being higher for the spyglass (at the top of the mast), taller masts mean further views. Sincerely,

I agree, the developers are taking this in a good direction, but I don't think it will completely solve the problem. A player (or clan for that matter) who is hardcore will always have the best ships and upgrades, regardless of cost. If we just make gold ships so ridiculously expensive that they will indeed be rare, a few players are still going to have them, and everyone else will want to have them. Hardcore players will still PvP in gold ships. Getting rid of the tiered color system could also work. Probably simpler too. I am glad you think it is ridiculous. It is just an idea. Do you have anything constructive to add or discuss? This is a multiplayer game, there will always be a hardcore crowd and a more casual crowd. The intention behind the idea was to encourage more of the casual players to participate where traditionally the hardcore players dominate. We are not trying keep ships "safe." We are trying to make the experience more fun for as many people as possible. Granted you cannot please everyone, but you can try to improve game play. Players will stop playing a game when they deem it is not fun anymore (or should stop, since the purpose of a game is to have fun). If PvP becomes too frustrating for casual players I see one of two things happening: 1) they will stop participating in PvP, or 2) they will quit the game.

Small suggestion for ship durability. Instead of ships being completely destroyed after durability is brought to zero, penalize the player by giving negative stats to his "sunk" ship until durability is refilled. This allows the player to keep his ship, allowing him to sail it if necessary, but with some type of disadvantage until durability can be refilled. Negative consequences can be things like: slower speed, ship starts battle with less structure / armor, longer reload speed, etc. Or maybe even set it as a "basic" ship with no advantages until durability is refilled. Obviously, this would require some changes to the current durability system. As of now, there is no way to "refill" durability on an existing ship other than just buying a new ship. It might be challenging if the same wood type, selectable bonus (speed, build strength, crew space) and regional bonus were required to refill you durability for the same type of ship since there can be many different combinations. However, that might encourage variety for crafters. Maybe allow same type of ship with different qualities refill another? Scratch that, it could be exploited if cheap ships were just used to refill exceptional, so something like that should not be possible. Anyone have ideas to find a solution to this? Should not affect crafting or ship building in any way as new ships would be needed to keep durability filled. This would encourage more players to participate in PvP, especially casual players. I cannot see it changing anything else (let me know if you catch something?). Sincerely,

This idea has merit. Is PvP ever going to be perfect? No, and I think we all know that. There will always be advantages and disadvantages for the opposing sides, but this looks to be a good compromise between players on open world time (sped up) and players in combat (normal speed). Meaning, it allows enemies the chance to tag and win while giving allies a chance to help a lone ship and win without giving one side a distinct advantage over the other, in comparison to the current 2 minute timer which seems to create more stacked fights. The previous timers (5 minute and 10 minute before that?) seem to allow the battles to bloat, especially in populated areas. It would be interesting to test. Nice work Skully!

I am thinking it means the first smaller circle is for attackers and the second larger circle is for Players and NPCs of the opposing side. Could the developers please clarify? Sincerely,