la Touche-Treville

France As an Irishman, could have joined the Brits as many of their sailors back then were Irish but ... Speak fluent French, hate the idea of joining the strongest nation, and France have a really great community in this game!

To be honest it's not so much the damage model in itself, it's the radical change in tactics that it brings. Before we were all at more or less equal as anyone could penetrate anyone (at least compared to now). Goal was you sink the enemy, you win. Oh, we did also see the alternative for some lucky ones (more of this in a second) that consisted in boarding the enemy. The new damage model has left us with pretty much boarding as the only valid tactic as you can no longer sink a ship, well it takes ages so better to board. And here is were my grief is: I can craft exceptional Grog Rations, Exceptional Extra Hammocks and one or two other upgrades that are essential for successful boarding however I CAN NOT craft or buy: Exceptional Marines Exceptional Boarding Parties Exceptional Swordfighting Books etc ... So at this stage I feel that the game is no longer playable in fair terms. Thoughts?

Sorry if this has been posted before. As my title implies, I would like to see the clan tag along with he player name in OW. Right now we can see the player's name and then have to click on the 'Find' feature, look up the name, press Info to see what clan that player belongs to. Can't you simply show that information up front and save those clicks ?

Your choice. If you think that the 5 forts are purely for decoration, then ignore them and concentrate on capturing the cap zones or destroying the enemy fleet. However I do believe that a fort that is pounding canon balls down on you is a real threat and needs to be taken out fast or else you will suffer.

Sure and the towers are for simple decoration? Guys, you need to realize that timing is going to be crucial with this update. The clock with victory points will be ticking from the start. Anyway the devs have stated that this is going to be very much experimental at first as they need to figure out the correct positioning/distance to create a challenged PB but not totally unbalanced. BTW: Admin, can you please tell us what ports are changing hands with this update so that we don't end up losing ships and ressources? Cheers

This is not what it should look like because the cap zones (victory points) are directly behind the defender. So defender gains precious minutes and therefore victory points totally uncontested at the start of the battle by placing 3 fast frigates on each of these zones. Before the attacker get's a chance to move in, the defender has already accumulated a lot of victory points. Cap zones have to be equidistant from both attacking and defending parties in order to preserve balance.

This isn't a minor change but a major well awaited one! Love the cap zone idea as long as they are equally distant from attackers and defenders. This will introduce a whole new strategy, a greater variety of ships etc... Can't wait to test this. However the port reset makes me nervous. Is there a list of what ports will fall back to their original nation? I have ships parked all over the place and would like to see well in advance of this patch, what ports my nation is going to lose so that I can anticipate. Thank you

This sounds fantastic! But please add some randomness into the equation, after all they didn't have weather satellites back in those days so sometimes weather forecasts can go haywire. And as someone mentioned above, a nice storm once and again that comes from nowhere would make things a bit spicier especially if you take into account ship/rigging damage caused to anyone trying to deploy anything more than "Dead Slow" as speed in OW/battle during these tropical storms.

Nalyd nailed it. As long as the 1.5x limit isn't reached, any ship can join, be it a Santi. Once the BR limit reached, then battle closes

Well last night we sailed down from Tumbado to Bensalem with a group of 3rd rates, Constis, Frigates & Renos and had some very enjoyable battles with the Brittish. Lost 2, won 1 and had a great time. So what's the problem with current anti-ganking machanism ? All battles were reasonably fair and I heard no one complaining.

Thanks a million! I actually found what I was looking for here: http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/2346-forum-and-sea-trials-rules/

I guess this might be embedded somewhere in Steam but could someone from Game-Labs please point me to a link where I could read this document? Cheers

I don't see how this patch destroys ganking though it will limit it for sure. A group of 6 friends that have same ships can still tag a poor player that was 'lost' in OW and shoot the s**t out him. But it will require more skill as they all need to be in the tag circle from start Is this a bad? No, a great move forward as it will get rid of those 1 or 2 Reno + 3rd rate + Trinco where the fast ship goes and tags the player and the rest have 2mn to sail into battle. We'll now see real wolf packs sailing nicely packed in OW and that my friends will be a real danger. As for outside help, well the tagged player better not be alone (same as today) and even if he isn't, the BR limit will avoid an unfair reinforcement arriving up to 2mn after and changing the course of the battle. So what are you gankers complaining about? You lack the ships and skill?

The main problem currently resides with the fact that upgrades can be obtained by doing PVE (missions and bots), but when you capture an enemy ship in an intense PVP fight, you do not recover his upgrades. What's the logic here?

23 pages !!! Well Olav seems like these Saturday night meetings are becoming a crave success But the info on the first page seems outdated. Can you please let me know how I can join you guys? Might bring along some other players that are sick and tired of Mission and AI grind

Enriching experience these last 3 weeks (agree that it felt much longer). I can now see that without a deep refactoring of PBs, the end game play is too broken to be of much interest. Just hope that the Land in Sight + RvR changes will come fast before players drift off to other games..... Oh, still have outposts spread across the Caribbean so all is not lost Time to put away my Bellona and refurbish my Renommee

No salt here but I must say that this attack has once again shown how broken these PBs are. Not going to go through the long list I've posted to many times already on this forum but I'd like to point out the following concerning this campaign. - The English realized that they could not win a war on 3 (or more!) fronts so they smartly screwed all the timers by putting them at 4am. Lousy fun but hey, logical move. - The French think that hey can defend 14 ports at once and put all the timers at the same time. Disaster of course. Now that we are all back home, maybe the smart generals can think this over.... And don't tell me that this lead to massive fun and battles because the area out there is far to great for 50 plus ships to defend. Most ports where captured with no defense and people started getting bored and decided there was better things to do with their play time. My 2 cents (not salts, hey )

If Diplomacy changes includes reworked Port Battles, I tend to agree with the popular choice. Even if I am repeating myself, PB are the end game content and it is currently pretty broken IMHO, - Why are they so few shallow water ports compared to deep water ones? Think of new players please - Why can any Joe Blog with some gold buy a conquest flag even if he can't assemble a fleet to go attack that port? Abuse/exploit prevention and giving the possibility for zerg attacks (14 plus PBs in an evening by same nation) - Why can't allied nations truly team up in PB? - Why isn't there a cap BR that may vary by ports? - Why can a nation place over 80% of their ports in a [4am-6am] slot? This list goes on and on .... So change diplomacy is fine but you need to link that on day one with a recrafted PB system.

Mongoose, if we try to turn Naval Action into a true simulator, it's not going to be very fun. Only Spanish sailing on Santis, British on Victories, battles taking up several real life hours or even days, etc... So no, let's not think of NA as a simulator but as a gaming platform that uses a historical theme as it's background. The BR limit to PBs is something I suggested months ago, glad to see that my predictions at the time where correct in that PBs will now be dominated by 1st and 2nd class SOLs only. Hopefully with the coast line and PB changes announced, attackers like defenders will have to bring into the battle shallow water ships as well in order to win. Simply imagine a fortress situated down a creek where no SOL can sail and only way to reach it is via smaller ships. But I still think that the BR cap is the best way forward forcing teams to take strategic decisions based on the environment. Last thought here: To avoid simple Joe's going out and buying flags without any team or intention of attacking, I suggested earlier that in order for the flag to be activated, the flag buyer needed to gather 24 signatures from players in the port of flaq acquisition. Once those signatures collected, the king signs the conquest order and the flag is activated. A BR could be modulated between a min and max value based on players signing the attack order.

And this is why this news is so interesting! That port is probably the hottest spot on the map right now. Sounds like it was one of those battles that every player looking for inspiration/tactics and skill should watch.... which brings my following question: Is there a recording for us noobs to watch?

On this topic, I agree with one of the previous remarks that being Pirate, this is an acceptable mechanic. However, once again it is just another one of the multiple flaws that the current PB system needs to fix ASAP. Currently anyone in a ship above a Cutter/Yacht with a pocket full of gold can go an buy a flag. This is ludicrous! One simple solution is that you can buy a flag but for that flag to become active, you need at least 24 people to sign up for the attack by tagging an object inside the port where the flag was purchased. Yes I can see many unhappy people if this where to come, but it is a simple to implement solution that will greatly reduce this kind of abuse.

Sorry for being a noob but where can I dowmload a picture of the compass to use in overlay?

Just counted... Britain owns 101 ports. I understand that they have a large population to content but in present state, I strongly believe that they can loose 25% of these without even noticing the difference.

This is looking like a boxing match were the boxers provoke each other before the fight. However, the outcome is invariably on the ring. As part of the french nation, I don't really give a hoot about who's fault it was, whether Britain is invincible, whether we are going to get our arses whipped .... No, all that maters is that we can get some action in the evenings that allows us all to have some fun. Pretty sure most of the fleet that sailed down towards Panama yesterday would agree Give us action Britain! Let's exchange cannon balls, ramming, and all that good stuff and may the best win.

Already 5 pages on this topic before the first battle even takes place Will be a new and refreshing experience of that I'm sure, to go and whip some lily ass British ports. I just hope that Britannia is really as powerful as they make it so that this war isn't over by the end of the week! Anyone have any naval intelligence to share on the size of the British population and number of ports they own? Worth taking a snapshot as of today and watching the evolution over the next few weeks.