shaeberle84

On the one hand I would like to just stat "you brought this on yourselves". On the other hand this is testbed and if the majority of testers think differnt timezones in PVP are a severe problem, it is their very own right to tell the developers so. There have been a number of possible solutions for this problem floating around, though.

Exactly!

Exactly!

I find it strange that you can deploy only two (large) corps as CSA. This makes the deployment a little bit inflexible.

Raids would be awesome. Use the old flag system, new port battle mechanic. And you should be able to target EVERY port, not just region capitals.

How can I see the appropriate officer rank according to unit size for the different types (inf, can, art, skirm)?

I like this idea and the economic concept behind it.

3. What happens to goods that do not exist anymore, but still exist, like Indian Tea and French Wine. They do not show up in the trader tool, but are still in stock at some ports.

1. Are you going to tell us how prices for goods are determined? 2. Is port production totally abolished, i.e. do you plan to make a player based production the norm? 2a. Then what about goods that noboby wants to produce?

The larger the ship, the more officers. The more officers, the more differentiated the perks they can get. I think this would be both a realistic and fun mechanic. Example: You start with one officer on the cutter, with a choice of lets say five perks. When you get your first brig, you get two officers, one for sailing, one for canons; each with five (different) perks. When you get a trader ship, you hve two officers, one for sailing, one for trading perks; etc. You store your officers in the ports and they "travel" with you, and you can take them on the ship you sail depending on what slots the ship has.

It is more realistic and therefore a much better historical experience. One can really read old books on naval strategy and apply them to the game, which is a great thing! One the downside, some mechanics are not much fun. Graping is to easy. Boarding is a boring minigame with a mostly pre-determined outcome. And of course, finding the right balance on how easy it is to shot down masts, will never be found (too hard now)! =)

Overall, I like this game very well (1000hrs played) and also the style of the developers, to listen to community feedback. I think it is a great game, when you want to sail beautifull sailships and have a really good experience in naval combat of the 18th century, both in PVE and PVP. The game falls short in two (and a half) areas. (1) Economy and (2) Long-term PVP (2.5) Balancing in PVP. (1) The economy side is basically non-existing at the moment and in a worse state than when the game was released in early access. (2) The long-term pvp aka port capturing system is basically unchanged since EA release. (2.5) The pvp balancing is "more realistic" but way less fun and there are plenty of exploits, which are not intended (graping and boarding are way to strong compared to regular ball-based combat). What I do not understand from the developers side is how priorities are set, depending on the current state of the game and the neccessary work to significantly improve the game on different dimensions. One example: The flag and timer system for capturing ports has been critised for a long time. Different mechanics have been proposed months ago, such as a BR-rating instead of the deep water, regional, and shallow water port division; capturing areas instead of winning 2-1 in BR-rating; longer capturing windows etc. What I really do not understand is: why weren't we given the chance to test all these prosposals? Many changes discussed could have been implemented with relatively minor adjustments. Just implement them for a test phase of two to three weeks, we test them, give feedback, and we all can go on and decide whether or not to implement them in the final release. Instead, basically nothing happens, we discuss endlessly about the pros and cons of this and that system and are stuck with a flawed or at least suboptimal port capturing mechanic for MONTHS! Instead, you give us new ships. Wow. And birds and prayers. Wow. Second example: The state of the econony-side of the game is beyond what it was when the early access has been released. There are plenty of easy-to-implement solutions that would allow for a better experience for MANY players. In our clan, about half of the people who originally played the game, were in because they wanted to trade! All these players are lost to a broken system that has not been updated for MONTHTS as well. Instead you give us officers with economic perks. Wow. Sorry, I appreciate the work you put in new ship models, officers and more realistic sailing. I really like these changes. BUT, development priorities should focus on things that are not very well working at the moment; on things that drive people away from the game; on things that can attract new players to the game. Setting the development priotities right is the only thing that will seperate you guys from the other developers that have failed before: if you want to continue your work on naval action, and if we want to contonue playing this beautiful game, it needs to be a successful game with a broad player base. I the only ones left playing this game are some few hundreds of hardcore fans, this game will die sooner than later.

You can assume that the share of players voting in opposite directions is evenly distributed across nations. In this case the number of active players will be higher than estimated, but the relative numbers between nations should be similar. There might be suspicion for this assumption, for example that the Sverige players are better coordinated than the Dutch or others. In this case, the numbers will be a measure of active players weighted by the degree of coordination. Example: 5 Dutch players, 2 vote in opposite directions results in 3 counted active dutch player. 3 Sverige players are coordinated and vote in the same direction, hence counted as 3 active sverige players. I would suggest that in this case the number of ships you can expect to show up in port battles is three sverige, four dutch players. Hence you would undererstimate dutch turnout. However, counting every dutch vote caste (=5 players) would overestimate the active player turnout.

I also assume that the share of active players who vote is evenly distributed across nations. In this case the number of active players will be higher than estimated, but the relative numbers between nations should be similar.

The alliances system can serve pretty well as a tool to calculate the active player base, both for the whole server, each nation, and for each of the (two) alliances. I did a quick calculation on how many players have voted this turn. After the new alliances system has settled for a number of rounds, it can be assumed that especially the active players still cast their vote. They are involved in politics and rely on alliances to work if they want to have coordinated battles with their allies. I assume every player has 10 votes as every experienced captain should have the highest rank by now. I also assume that active players either all vote, or at least that the share of active players who vote is evenly distributed across nations. In the second case the number of active players will be higher than estimated, but the relative numbers between nations should be similar. On october 5, 2016, at 2 pm, the following numbers of players have been calculated: Espana: 70 France: 70 Great Britain: 120 Vereinidge Provincien: 70 Danmark Norge: 95 Sverige: 115 US: 40 Note: I cannot see the numbers from the pirates, so these have to be added. From these numbers, the following can be deducted. (1) Great Britain was said to be a huge nation. It is not when it comes to active players. (2) Sverige was said to be a tiny nation. It is not, when it comes to active players. These are extreme cases.These numbers significantly differ from the ones cast at the beginning of the patch. At the beginning of the patch, the votes cast for Great Britain vastly outnumbered those from Sverige. (a) Fewer players cast their vote in total. (b ) Fewer casual players cast their vote, relative to active players. Hence, Great Britain is a vastly casual player nation and Sverige is a hardcore player nation. (3) The US is really the smallest nation on the server. This has been discussed and veteran players have had this feeling for a long time, but know it is official. Turning back to the results: Total active player base (without pirates): 580 When we compare this number to the steam charts: http://steamcharts.com/app/311310#48h we can see that about half of the players who have logged in during the last 30 days have cast a vote and can be considered active players following this definition. This is a large share of total players. In other words: the game has relatively few casual players. Looking at diplomacy: Active Players of the USA/GB/VP alliance: 230 Active Players of the Espana/France/Danmark/Sverige alliance: 350 Here we can see the skewness of the ongoing or let us say finished coalition war. Not however, that with Sverige on the other side in the previous coalition war, the skewness was in the other direction, at least when we ignore the pirates, who are said to be more friendly to Danmark players and their allies. From my perspective, these number make sense. I have always felt that VP can only fight one enemy at once, be it France, Espana or Sverige and this makes sense when you look at the player bases for these nations. Similarly, it is very difficult for GB to fight a two front war against Espana and Danmark/France/Sverige without further help, e.g. from the US. Also, Sverige has a very hard time defending against both Danmark and France. It can beat one of the two, tough. To sum up, I think the alliances voting system is a good way to get information on player activity and diplomatic balance.

I completely agree with the thread opener.

And maybe more PAINT?

I think these changes could bring a lot of players back to the game. Let's stay tuned.

Nelson: "No, Hardy. Let us create an invisible wall between us and the whole French fleet in the harbour of Toulon such that they need to watch from close distance how we sink their trader right before their eyes."

First, this system is quite clever because ganked players can choose to sail TOWARDS the reinforcement. =) Second, here are the numbers: http://steamcharts.com/app/311310 Of course, you cannot attribute falling player numbers to one single design flaw of the game. I think the lack of a working economy side and the badly designed port battle /port timer mechanic are also factors contributing that especially casual players with not that much time have left the game.

You sir, count the players that are left. The devs and we all should count the players that HAVE left. And 2 minutes timers have killed the game for many players. We have lost the majority of our well and organised clan to hours of waiting outside closed battles without seeing action, to being ganked right besides a large friendly battle fleet that was 3 minutes away, because of upwind. Operating in packs is a consequence of the game mechanics, because you are forced to do so, or else you will be ganked, even in front of captial harbours. But the game should be about having a CHOICE how to play it.

You have, I think, stated four separate conditions under which you can have fun battles with the current systems. If one of them is not met, e.g. sailing upwind, then the system will not produce fun battles. This is a badly designed system. I can give you dozens of examples where the short battle timers produce very odd battles. The problem with battle timers in general is that other people who want to help need to sit outside and wait for up to 90 minutes for the battle to end, before they can help. This is system which is very demotivating. It will produce a series of ganks and counter-ganks, each with potentially very uneven matchups that are not fun to play, for neither side.

The other option would be just to make individual cannon fire quicker. Right not, between every cannon you fire, there needs to be a little pause. Just remove that pause and every hit on space bar is one cannon, no matter the speed.

It would be awesome to have a group of officers, each can draw from a different set of traits. Of cource, the number of traits per officers should be lower, then.

You can protect mission runners very simply, without ruining pvp for everybody else. Just make low-lvl mission battles instantly closed. No ganking on newbies. 2 minutes have been proven to be a rediculous short timer. Ever had a battle open up just 500 meters upwind? It is a joke you cannot join battle which lasts for up to 90 minutes, when you are only 3 minutes away from where the battle started. You can also very simply prevent hiding missions in port. Just show in the map how many ships are currently docked with captains in it. This way every port can be "scouted out" and then decided whether it is risky to attack someone in front of the port or not.