Barbancourt

How about a cloud of cannon smoke in the patch of water where a battle is happening?

That's very unfortunate. They gave an incentive to use the Gulf and central american coast regions. Those elusive "bonuses" are never worth having to move all your ships and haul all your crap for hours when it gets captured

Final exam is pretty routine if you chain down the sails on only one of them and quickly run off to repair and get the other to follow you away from its partner so you can single them each out. AI will always prefer to play "sit-and-spin" so it isn't difficult to find the right time to make a break for it while the fast one is spinning to change broadsides and then string them out. (of course, this plays a lot on the AI's predictable shortcomings rather than actual skill and strategy) Demasting is pretty much spray and pray for me. I have better luck doing full stern rakes than aiming individual shots

Which lasted for a few months maybe? And yet for the years since then newcomers such as myself always had to face long-established players (and more of them every year) with their massive gear advantage, which is the normal state of things. Most of the people playing Tanks started out later on when there were already players with years of resources.

You've described the new player experience for pretty much any game. Starting out you face veterans with years of accumulate crew/vehicle experience, upgrades, consumables, premiums and leg-ups.

The national capitals are on different parts of the map, and the nations will have mixes of players from different timezones. (I couldn't say what the different peace server national populations are like) All of the ships are available to all nations, and the only thing that changes is the flag flying on the back in battle.

Playing "rock, paper, scissors" is never fun. This is one of the areas of the game that needs a complete rethink and overhaul.

They could just jump out blind and if they don't find something they like enter another outlaw battle. However if you have 3+ people involved you can use this nifty thing called a "spotter"

post battle join and tag timers don't negate the OW position and surprise that has been gained.

"others?" Good luck with that. Population was 87 when I was on last night.

I'm not going to join a battle instance where a superior enemy is waiting for me. They don't come camping outside your ports because they think they might somehow lose. They use the outlaw battle instance and invisible speed boost to magically appear in the open world to set up a tag as you "sail on your merry way". I saw plenty of it last year, and don't want to see it return.

Why do you keep talking about "reinforcement zones"? Those are tiny, currently irrelevant, and players spend about 10% of their time or less in them. I'm almost never in a reinforcement zone, and if I am then I'll have sailed out of it 20-30 seconds later to get to wherever I'm going. Why would I attack a superior enemy in a battle instance that they've set up where they're waiting prepared for me? Talk about being obtuse. The invisible speed boost allows them to position for a better attack tag in the open world. Join timers don't take away the positioning they've gained

There are no "safe zones". There are tiny reinforcement zones that don't mean anything anymore. When outlaw battles were a thing a year ago Pirates would cruise near our ports, and disappear into outlaw battles whenever they liked. Then they'd use the invisible speed boost exiting the battle instance to set up an attack. If they didn't like the result they'd just disappear into another outlaw battle.

In these games the rich can get WAY too rich. Then they buy everything up and get even richer off of everyone else. It spirals out of control. I'd rather see everything in the economy produced and traded by players. Nobody HAS to buy anything, but instead does so for convenience.

Gridded map and trader tool and protractor worked very well for navigation, even in storms. Apparently it worked too well for the devs who would seem to prefer that people get lost all the time and stumble into enemies more often as a result. I wouldn't be shocked to see the protractor disappear next.

Isn't that a significant part of what makes them consistently OP? Instant (just add water) teak/WO Hercules rolling around against normal players in fir/sab Niagara/Prince or a non-WO Cerberus/Surprise.

How about DLC ships being only instantly redeemable in a standard formula and woods, but you could instead choose to redeem the DLC as a crafting permit and build it as you like?

Only good for those with the DLC, which is not good for most of the rest. They just need proper balancing. I've suggested a Tutorial senario for learning to deal with Requin. (which would require an upgraded AI that isn't so predictable and silly) Speaking of which, I thought there were rumors of the Yacht getting some kind of buff that didn't seem to materialize?

Do you seriously build a dozen ships every time you need just one? 🙄

free towns should all be free outposts for everyone

Most (not all) nations might have ports there, but we don't go there. A new player really needs to find their community, and for most players there isn't one in the Bahamas.

All the stupid "teleport fees" and even Workshop/Academy/Admiralty/Shipyard doubloon fees should go to the port owner, but on the other hand that could also create a "rich getting richer" situation that could spiral out of control.

How about not to replace the national flags, which it should never do except for pirates, but instead to fly in a half-size under the national flag or from the top of the mast? I'd think it would be included in the current flag DLC.

It's really nothing to do with the Basic Cutter. Do you really think it would have played out differently in a different 7th Rate? If this kind of thing becomes common it will cause a high level of player discontent. It would be cool if you could command a fleet ship to hover on the edge of battle until needed, so they don't get in the way but are available for other situations such as this.

After some early n00b suffering in other similar games I'm able to avoid these interactions 100%.