[Treaty between Spain and pirates clans]

Its totally boring currently - when I saw the Pirates advancing down I thought about evacuating my stuff to Jamaica - but the next thought was - Why? With the changes made, sailing between Bensalem and PR a couple of times is boring of itself and not worth the time. Maybe defend the ports? What for? What does it give you? Best case its flipped back and forth and even if, why would one need another port with resources that you already have just 5mins away from your capital? Territory doesnt mean anything and is worthless, even port battles are worthless, there isnt any benefit of doing it, especially with the wipe of all the stuff coming, I just quit playing, there is nothing worthwhile left to do.

 

And the worst part - I wont probably come back even if this Alpha is ever finished, the ratio fun:time is just way too off. Ofcourse thats a personal impression, but it also explains the massive drop in playerbase - there is just nothing left to do.

[Minor port battle changes next patch]

two questions:

 

1) Niagara will become available in shallow waters port battles or Mercury will still be the "flagship" for that kind of battles?

 

2) Even though excluded by the corresponding port battles, will1st, 2nd and 3rd rates still be allowed to dock in any deep water port?

That I would really love to know - if that changes too, I ll have to relocate my ships used for normal missions.

[Variable Wind]

Question that should be asked tho is:

 

- Is it realistic? Yes, it might be.

 

- Would it be a fun element or does it have the potential for frustration? Not so sure if every cool thing is necessarily a good thing for gameplay.

[Teleporting with cargo, solving the issue]

Then fix the profits, do not keep the problem.

 

I believe there will be more and bigger trade ships in the future. Seeing just how much raw materials present one have I do believe it would be ok to make 1-2h trade trips if they allowed you to stock up fully.

 

As for 5h trips... well, if you want to for some reason park right in the middle of enemy nation just to pick up something at a free port... you're right, there will be no profit and no risk "Risk" assumes you have a chance to get out

Big trade ships are an issue in themselves, seems ppl are using the increase space to pick ports clean, the cargo capacity currently ingame far outstrips the production levels of ports, even Ports that produce 9k of a resource daily are nearly empty at all times so 1-2h wont cut it in the near future.

 

All those ppl talking about raiding, strategically securing trade hubs and routes ... cmon guys, the features needed arent ingame really and blockading you might be able to do with a handful of ports, with resource distribution as it is, its hardly worth the effort.

[[Proposal] Real Time Hauling System on OS]

Another option would be to have it where each port has a cap on how many trade ships it sends out an hour to prevent server loads.  but this is the #1 thing that is needed in the game, without it, the open world is almost useless.

Great ... gives you players camping queues to get their mats.

[Hotfix Deployment - 23 January (Tomorrow)]

 

Patch contents

• Coal production expanded across the region
• Iron production expanded across the region

 

Very nice stuff, might reduce some frustration for some players, but the way the economy is currently going and the amount of resources needed to craft (also considering we mainly only trade with goods that are crafting goods) I think we are going to need a reevaluation of the economic model soon.

[Fix this little problem.]

If you choose to attack its part of the attackers job to check who is going to pull, thats situational awareness

 

 

But I second the option for players to decline joining a battle if they are just a bystander and not the target.

[HRE und kommender Wipe...wirklich schweden?]

Zunächst ein Gruss an die deutschspr. Spielergruppe!

 

 

Da wir (ein paar rl Freunde aus AT) selbst noch nicht ganz schlüssig sind, hab ich hier mal vorbeigeschaut - derzeit tendieren wir am ehesten zu UK.

 

Was ihr vielleicht bedenken solltet, das scouten der derzeitigen Häfen ist für den EA ziemlich unerheblich, da sich die Resourcen-Verteilung komplett ändert. Die Häfen werden weniger Güter pro Hafen produzieren/konsumieren und einzelne Resourcen auch weiter verstreut sein (findet man in einem der DEV Posts), macht also das Aufklären derzeit etwas sinnlos [Letzte Info war auch, dass zb Schweden keinen Hafen im Golf beim Start haben wird - d.h. ihr müsst euch per Insel-napping dorthing vorarbeiten - da müsst ihr entweder durch die Holländer, die Spanier oder die Briten durch - na wer wirds? )

 

Da es sicherlich eine Zeit dauern wird, bis es wieder Cerberus+ gibt, wird gerade um die Shallow ports mit wertvollen Resourcen ein regelrechtes Gemetzel losbrechen - Spanien leidet massiv unter Spielermangel und besitzt am Anfang das grösste Territorium, daher ist anzunehmen, dass zumindest zu Beginn ein All-vs-Spanien stattfindet - eröffnet aber auch diplomatische Optionen, ob Spanien für Unterstützung nicht freiwillig Häfen abtritt (bzw zumindest nicht aktiv verteidigt). Der Golf ist sicher ein interessantes Gebiet, wenn man sich da ausbreiten kann - man sollte aber bedenken, dass die Fahrtzeit dorthin mitunter eine Spassbremse sein kann, als Spanier brauche ich von La Habana nach Esteros (sofern ich mich im Kurs nicht irre) 1 Stunde 50 Minuten. Aufgrund der Positionierung, wären die Franzosen am ehesten in der Lage sich dort auszubreiten.

 

In jedem Fall, viel Erfolg

DB

[Siegfried's Map]

Great looking map m8, great job!

[[Proposal] Real Time Hauling System on OS]

 

All hauling MUST be done on the open sea.

At least thats my opinion. Therefor it does not matter if stuff is hauled by NPC or PPL.

 

I am aware of the impact a fully AI driven real time hauling system can have on the server, so I recommend to limit NPC hauling ships to a fixed amount, i.e. 10 or 20 for each port (it really depends on the server load). Those hauling NPCs should not have a specific base harbor, they will do the hauling as it is scheduled by the players. To prevent players stacking hauling contracts, each player can place one hauling contract every 30 minutes.

 

Example:

A player places a hauling contract from Port A to B wich will be placed in the schedule. The server looks if there is a hauler available. If all haulers are in use. If a hauler is available, a ship will be generated by the server and starts to travel from A to B, having exactly the cargo on board, that was ordered for delivery. If the hauler reaches its destination, the server will "delete" the ship and proceeds with the next hauling contract in the schedule. While this is gonna happen, the player might get notified, once the procedure starts and once it arrived or - in worst case - once it was lost on the OS.

 

So instead of having all the NPC ships sailing around without having anything to do and beeing just there for the grind, make an AI with a job. If you can do so - and I bet you can - you will solve 2 issues at the same time: Having NPCs sailing around acting as a target for player and having a proper "real time hauling system". For the player this system will be easy to use, so i cant see any game design issues. If i missed something feel free to show me.

 

 

Its a nice idea, but sorry, gives you the worst of all worlds. First you implement a resource hog on the server with managing all AI transportation in OW for every port with player queues, the managing of the sailing onroute and then maybe handing it over to battle instances and back (if lucky) while simulanously giving the players another waiting-game to play in a game thats already very time consuming. Although I do see what you were trying to do, this would make other factors even worse.