WilsonMG

Good! About time. Now finish the UI so it looks like a real game and (some) people will return!

We've been around for over ten years now, and we never stop recruiting. Now that the game is back to being playable after the long wait leading up to the wipe, we have expanded to the PvP Global server as well, and members are beginning to slowly return to the game. Head over to our website, register an account, and join us on our Discord server.

I leveled up once to Rear Admiral / Curse. I'm not going to do it again, but this time by an even slower version because you've skill-locked the ships I've been sailing for ages behind a new leveling system. If you want this kind of system then make it per ship and not based on the ship below it, i.e. I level the ship I'm in, when I'm in it, and it doesn't matter a good goddamn if I leveled the ship below it.

Nope.

So, with Naval Action hurting for players, I've got some ideas I'd like to toss out. After all, even though some of my ideas change things up quite a bit, I really don't think it could get much worse... The game world is massive, and with so few players, with most people either avoiding PvP entirely, only getting into PvP unwillingly due to unfair numbers, or only participating in Port Battles and Events, it's just not a lot of fun these days and the numbers reflect that. My hope is that players might return, PvP could be the norm for once, and people wouldn't be as afraid to lose their ship if they did choose to fight. Losing a ship should still have a marked impact, though maybe not always a permanent one as to cause players to avoid it all together. http://steamcharts.com/app/311310#All 1. Remove Ship Durability and replace it with a Repair Timer Example Repair Timers: 1st Rate = 7 days, 2nd Rate = 6 days, 3rd Rate = 5 days, 4th Rate = 4 days, 5th Rate = 3 days, 6th Rate = 2 days, 7th Rate = 1 day. Possibility of paying down the timer for a multiplier based on remaining time, up to "a whole Hell of a lot" for a 1st rate with maximum time remaining. No ship could go below a certain minimum wait time (2-4 hours?), so as to avoid people with a lot of gold just sinking and going right back out in the same ship. 2. Implement Towing When sunk, allow captains to choose between paying a fee to be towed by the game (automatic, but costly), being towed by a friendly player, or scuttling their ship and losing it forever. Once back in a friendly port the Repair Timer begins. 3. Ships could still be lost forever to boarding actions by other players, when the other player chooses to take the captured prize. Add in a button during boarding to intentionally scuttle your ship to avoid it falling into the hands of an opponent. Would behave like Disengage, etc. If boarded by an NPC and the player loses, it would be treated as a sinking and the Towing System and Repair Timer would apply. 4. Remove Officer Lives Remove the 10 "lives" and instead add in the ability to rename them, and retrain them for a fee. 5. To make up for fewer lost ships, add more random properties back into crafting to keep people producing ships chasing the ideal build. Possibly reduce and normalize all ship building materials to a set amount for each ship, and remove the ability to select traits and quality and instead have non-location-based traits be random, and the quality be based on overall trait amounts.

Not keen on a wipe, personally, but things are so messy at this point after so many sweeping changes... We'd need to keep our EXP/Ranks, and perhaps be compensated in some way, but if it is absolutely necessary, so be it. Just know that a wipe will absolutely lead to a loss of many former players. I think I like most of the crafting changes, but I'm just not a fan of grey/yellow color scheme. I think you should keep the current scheme, but just make it grey/green/blue for captured/crafted/special. It leaves room for adding things later on with purple/yellow. That also means upgrades can still follow the same scheme. I'd personally like all ships to either be 1 durability, or rechargeable--an all or nothing approach--either way is fine by me. The biggest takeaway I got from all this though is the consideration of adding limited ammunition. My fear is that this will lead to ships being too weak to compensate for fewer shots, unwinnable battles/stalemates, or people abandoning the ranged combat phase all together in favor of strictly rage boarding, which even with unlimited ammunition, is a major issue.

We're still very much an active part of the US nation on PVP One. Now's as good of a time as any to join up. We have both new players and veterans of the game active daily.

Crew losses already turn a lot of battles into a break even/net loss in gold scenario unless you go the Santi + Gold Marines + Stack Melee + Rage Board = Profit route or have access to unlimited med kits... I'm taking a short break and mostly just logging in to right now to craft anyway, but I definitely won't be getting into much combat until after the minimum 1 crew killed per penetration is applied and then reverted back to its current state... Have you considered having the morale stat actively affect your crew temporarily inside a battle instead of adding permanent casualties to account for the same? There are a great number of factors which could increase or decrease morale during the course of a battle affecting how many men are available at a given time due to morale, further, it could give way to new officer perks to inspire the crew and reduce the negative impacts of morale loss, speed recovery, etc. It could also carry over to the boarding action so that it would be more dynamic than it is currently. Along the same lines, perhaps wounded crew should be another separate stat as well, but also temporary (i.e. full recovery at the end of battle). Recovery rate in battle would be dependent upon the current morale and the ship's surgeon's skills (more officer perk possibilities), but would be much slower to recover than morale. While on the one hand morale could fluctuate quickly and increase or decrease a lot over the course of a battle due to events, wounded crew cannot simply heal themselves of serious injuries. A guy missing a leg might recover eventually, but he won't be back in the fight this battle, but a guy that's just knocked out might come to with only a light concussion. A future UI might indicate the following information regarding your current crew state: Total Crew: 900 Morale: 79% Sailors: 810 Able: 787 (9 KIA / 14 WIA) Ready: 621 (165 RO) Marines: 90 Able: 83 (4 KIA / 3 WIA) Ready: 66 (17 RO) Abbreviations Used KIA - Killed in Action WIA - Wounded in Action RO - Refusing Orders I'm not completely sold on the idea myself, so I'm probably going to regret even mentioning it, but with the above system you can see how morale would have a drastic impact on your crew even at just a 21% loss so you could potentially have a probability of causing an involuntary surrender should the number of crew Refusing Orders outnumber the Ready crew by a large margin for an extended period of time, i.e. the crew becomes mutinous, overthrows the captain, and strikes the colors.

As a US player, all being merged into the US server would be an even better solution, I just assumed it was less likely to occur. In regards to the economy the devs have already stated multiple times it is very easy to take a lot of gold and assets out of the economy very quickly if needed.

Couldn't have said that better myself. Bravo! And yes, I know at least 75% of my gaming community would quit permanently if dealt a setback like an asset reset. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Port control wipes are fine, but individual asset wipes or XP wipes are not. I hate to break it to folks, but regardless of Alpha, Beta, Gamma semantics, the game's actual launch as an MMO was the day it went live on Steam. There will never be more players than that unless they have a free weekend after it is at 1.0+ content level, or release massive expansions (doubtful that will ever happen with an indie developer). Most people don't like wasting their time. I'm nearing 500 hours of playtime myself, and if that work were to be suddenly stripped, I would not be incredibly motivated do it all over again. I'm not even one of the ones at max level or that has an insane amount of gold or ships, even after all those hours spent actively playing. Instead, I'd go play some other game. There's so many great games vying for a gamer's limited time these days, that all it takes is a little push and they're away and off to something else.

Even PvP One is at ~200 players at most when I play, which is prime time in the US. Just get on with it and merge us all on to one server. We won't see a spike like we did with the Steam launch again. It's just the way things go in all games. We might as well have the highest population possible at the moment and deal with queues if more than 2200 people ever decide to play all at once again. /rant

How about I see your point as raise you this... The closer a port is to an enemy nation's ports, the greater the XP and gold to be gained from missions, while the farther away, the less? Obviously the system would need a fair amount of balance to ensure the island nations that are clustered aren't at any more of an advantage than the spread out nations. It would give people seeking to PvE in relative peace a place to do so but reward those willing to do their PvE in more dangerous areas.

1. I get that you need a break, I'm the same way. You can still log out in the battle or results and come back after your break back to OW. The proposed change isn't intended to ensure that pursuers get their victim to come out of a battle faster, but rather, to prevent people from hiding in these in order to ambush people without being present in the OW. 2. Distance of tag circle is up for debate. My main point is now we have land in battles, and everyone joins in roughly where they were when the battle started. If we allow people to join after the start, they essentially time-traveled into the future to get into their position since they're moving faster outside the battle in OW than the people are inside. It's an unfair advantage to allow people to position themselves in such a way as to prevent escape while moving in OW. The only alternative is to go back to set positions for battle participants, and that's less realistic and more "gamey" and I have no desire to see that as it would remove a huge tactical layer from the game. I don't understand how it's so hard for people to comprehend that if you weren't inside the tag circle, that you are simply too far away to assist, i.e. a couple hundred miles can be covered in OW in a few minutes, but inside the battle time is close to real-time, so you would never reach the battle before it was over. 3. Nothing should involve netcode here. Just a decrease in timers and a proposed solution for people trying to abuse timers to avoid fights or split fleets. 4. If people are sitting stationary around battle spots, they are making targets of themselves as well. 30 sec. is still some time to get away after a battle. I don't have a better solution but there are disadvantages from either side of it.

The purpose behind these proposed changes is to eliminate people abusing current mechanics such as hiding infinitely in completed battles, abusing invisibility/invulnerability to separate fleets/interfere with port captures/defenses, limit ganking (by abuse only) while retaining organic PvP with few restrictions, all while maintaining a semblance of realism without the need for gamey mechanics. Consider all numbers mentioned here fluid and up for debate based on player feedback. I will only mention them to paint a solid picture. 1. Put a cap on the amount of time anyone can sit in a battle or on the results screen, after which time they are kicked out to the open world. 5 min. in battle (reasonable--if not slightly long--time to capture any derelicts, if this is a major concern then make sure you don't sail too far upwind of your prize), 2.5 min. in results screen, total of 7.5 min. Can be shortened to 5 min. total by halving the time in battle. This also allows for a quick bathroom break after a long battle since we're all human. 2. Taking into consideration that everyone inside of a tag circle should show up with their current heading and distance represented in the battle instance (including land masses) no one outside of the tag circle may join a battle after it is started. Consider this: The open world is time in fast forward. Any ship outside of the tag circle is judged to be too far away (possibly dozens, if not hundreds of miles away) to make it in time to assist. Size of tag circle is open for debate. 3. Limit invisibility and invulnerability to only as much time as is needed for someone with lower-end hardware/connection to load into the open world from a port or battle. 30 sec. total? 3.a. If someone is invulnerable when inside of a tag circle, they should be presented with the option to join the battle from the position (including distance and heading) they were in when it was initiated. This should prevent fleets from being split that were otherwise sailing close together. 3.b. If the person that was invulnerable chooses not to join the battle, then they must sit anchored and stationary, but visible and vulnerable to attack for an additional 30 sec. and cannot re-enter a port. This should prevent people trying to escape a blockade by defensive tagging and abusing timers. 4. All battles, even though closed, should remain visible in the open world for the entire duration. To deconflict seeing a bunch of white sword icons around see my post some months back regarding battle/mission icons in the open world: http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/9761-battle-icons/. EDIT: After some thought, and feedback of others, I feel we could do without this change at this time. Discuss.

So far most complaints seem to be coming from people that prefer to only PvP when the numbers are in their favor or by folks getting screwed trying to capture ports. All it should do is keep people from ganging up on weaker forces after the initial attack. You can still have your 25v1's... just keep them inside the attack bubble and wait until everyone's off cooldowns to allow the ticker to hit 0. It's really quite simple. Maybe I'm just unbiased because it hasn't affected me because I don't travel in a large hunting party trying to find smaller forces to... gank... With the ability to now position ships in such a way as to cut off escape routes, especially if someone is using the wind and any land masses as part of their ambush, we simply can't have the unrestricted ability to join the battle after it is initiated, with an unlimited number of reinforcements. Why? Because if the system can be abused, it will be. Regardless of what anyone says about leaving the game, what will most certainly kill it is if people feel like they're being abused by other players manipulating the system. The only real valid argument I've heard is forces being divided due to the cooldowns. Maybe the post-battle/leaving port cooldowns need to be revised? Could the latest system use further tweaking? Sure. But that's what we're all here doing. Testing to find the best fit for v1.0. We definitely need a post battle time cap. that allows for let's say, 2.5 mins. to remain in the battle instance, and 2.5 mins. to sit on the Results Screen. Why as much as 5 mins. total? Because occasionally after playing a game for up to 1.5 hrs., people need a bathroom break, to stretch, etc.

1. Allow capturing of combat ships 3rd Rate (not Bellona) or below via PvE again. Leave the 1st and 2nd Rates (and Bellonas) as player-crafted "end-game" content. Some of us have the required crew rank to sail SOLs, we can afford to buy SOLs, however due to naturally occurring favoritism (no slight intended), we're so far back in the queue as far as ship orders go that we're like to never actually see said order fulfilled for one reason or another. The ability to capture a 3rd Rate at least gives players that are not in the largest clans, and who may not have the appropriate connections to the high-level crafters a foothold in the SOL category so we can be useful where SOLs are applicable. Also, capturing a ship and having it automatically converted into gold is boring as ****, thus a large portion of our entertainment is now gone. 2. Sell Common/Green ships (more rare than Basic/Grey) via the NPC system at ports (Regional Capitals perhaps?) up to 4th Rates. No one seems to bother to craft Common quality ships really after the first few crafting levels, once resources begin to add up and offer diminishing returns on labor hours invested (and BP drop chance) for anything less than Fine/Blue, or Exceptional/Gold.

MG maintains a casual presence in NA while it's in development so if you're past or present US military, come check us out!

Incredibly excited to see the actual map terrain in battles! It's going to change the game entirely (for the better) as it will offer infinitely more opportunities for advanced strategy. It will also help make port battles so much more meaningful since everyone one will be unique in some way. It should also make them entertaining instead of the current placeholder that has been so badly abused.

Any chance we'll be seeing "clan" change to "fleet" (clear winner of the poll), or any on the more appropriately fitting terms other than clan, in one of the future updates?

I understand the need to remove certain animations and ship objects in order to increase FPS and reduce latency since the game is still far from optimized. I can handle not seeing crew, certain cannons, numerous objects/details on other peoples' ships, etc. in Open World, however, not having a visible (even if not animated) rudder, at least for me, breaks the immersion quite a bit since it changes the profile of the ship, sometimes rather drastically depending on the model. As the game gets its first optimization passes and it's time to start making things visible again, I would hope to see the return of the OW rudder at the top of the list. Thanks!

Yep, I'm all for paid cosmetics upgrades like the ability to paint our ships with historically inspired hull paints, the ability to set specific flags and pennants instead of random ones, signal flags, the ability to name your ship instead of having the default ship name on it, elite ship skins as an infinitely redeemable upgrade slot to be placed on standard ships, etc. just no crazy sail or flag patterns like PotBS, please! If you do allow people to make their ships look really crazy/goofy, then give us the option to filter out anything non-historical in our settings.

One other observation I've made is that both Left Control and Right Control register as the same key/function currently. This would need to be changed as well. Surely I can't be one of the only people having a rough time not being able to talk while trying to do anything else at the same time? I can't change my PTT key on TS3 for just one game out of hundreds. I also can't break a 15+ year old habit (I have used the same key for voice comms at least this long).

I can understand your point of view, however, the term isn't attached to the name, so it's irrelevant. You can call your organization whatever you please and that's all anyone will see (actually right now anyone outside the fleet will only see your tags). The word "clan" only applies to menu items and such and in the meta the word is used to describe an organization in general, i.e. here in the forums and the like. When you say "Naval Action clans", it doesn't really jive. Saying "Naval Action fleets", on the other hand, makes more sense given the setting and context.

One other thing not yet mentioned, the elephant in the room if-you-will, is that fleets (clans) would have to carry over as well for a many number of reasons. How do you think they would accomplish that? Keep it attached to the original founder? What if he/she never comes back? How would they carry over the entire roster even if they do? What if someone doesn't recreate their character, or changes names since XP has been tied to Steam ID and not character name as of the last patch? Would we have to work up to 100K as quickly as possible each wipe and hope no one has claimed our fleet's name (or tags) just to troll? How many people would these fleets lose each wipe? For MilitaryGamers.com we at least have a community where everyone is registered and can find their way back to us, but for a lot of Naval Action only fleets, it would crush them further pushing people away from the game. These are serious issues that would need to be addressed before a wipe can even be considered.

Any mechanic which randomly punishes players without a way to counter it is a bad mechanic. Storms should only cause damage if there was a way to mitigate it.