The Spud

I was thinking about the addition of a battle commander in Port Battles and maybe bigger PvP battles, someone who can coordinate the battle and give directions using the game interface instead of giving orders over TS. This would make it easier, and maybe less frustrating to some to have non TS players (I know everybody should have it, but some just don't want to or can't) in a battle. I would assume that when the port battles changes with the fortresses added and the victory points etc, as have been mentioned in a dev post some months ago, that tactics and communication will be even more important to have a succesfull PB. A commander could appoint himself in battle, and would require people to vote yes or no, and when a majority votes yes, he could use the pre port battle timer to put ships in a certain group, and maybe move them around (front, center, rear) by himself to get the perfect set up. He can give groups an order, maybe with a visual indication when you open the map using arrows and symbols. This would remove any potential language barriers, would remove the need to be on TS, however still recomended, and could be more "clear" to everybody as not everybody is familiar with all naval terms. Could remove potential frustration amongst players who are not in a clan or in the same clan, and at the same time make it more accesible to players who have never done a PB. It would also give for better tactics and better PB's all around. I would even go as far as giving a commander a better overview over the battlefield. I would restrics to visual indications on a map, and no indications on the battlefield (to keep it somewhat realistic). The commander could even change the tactics depending on the situation during the battle. I say this because I would assume that any major attack, like a port battle, would have been heavily discussed/briefed by the captains before the start, and I know they used flag signals to give orders down the line. You could say, well captains should just discuss every PB on TS before they start, but the truth is that you don't know who's going to end up in the PB or who's going to get cought out by a screening fleet. Sometimes random people join, and other people who should have been in, can't get in.

I especialy like the clan outpost idea, this would give the possibility to every clan member to join their clan in any operations they've got going on. Sometimes the battles are a long way from home, and I tend to move outposts only in the weekend when I have 6+ hour gametime, caus sailing 1,5 hours to the other side of the map in a cutter is a bit... boring. Maybe for balance sake, it should take a slot away from the regular outpost number so a clan member can never have more outposts then a non clan player? This way wouldn't probably need the high maintenance cost, maybe just a higher price tag for the outpost.

I always find it interesting to see how a playerbase adapts to new implementations, and how stuff gets tried out and at some point the most beneficial tactic is used by most of the player base. If we would get one dura ships at some point in the game, and build quality is getting more important, I think people will try to find out what ship can be produced in gold quality and at the same time be affordable and effective. Would be even less bigger ships like ingers and conni's around i guess, and even more surprises and renomees. Maybe people would go back to farming AI for one dura ships, just to do some random PvP. Allot of changes ahead, and I'm curious to see how its gonna work out. The much needed conquest changes will be like a breath of fresh air I think. Hopefully we'll see allot of players returning.

Maybe at one point in time the devs might try to get a free weekend going in Steam, just so all these people who went "Oh, well I had it on my wishlist, guess i'm not buying it after all" can play it and actualy see that it is a brilliant game. If the server infrastructure can handle this I don't know, and I doubt Steam does anything for free. "The proof of the pudding is in the eating"

Some people just think that because they have played a ton of games for thousands of hours combined, that they know how to develop a game and they are some "expert" game reviewers. Reminds me of the "Yelp" episode of South Park. Basicaly commenting on this game right now is like commenting on someones house who's half way through constructing it, it has no windows, it has no roof, but then again it also isn't finished... steam reviews on an EA game are a bit pointless, unless you know what parts of the game you should comment on and what parts don't need commenting as they are not finished. Especialy the UI comment is just ... stupid.

I think you can safely just implement some small limits, only letters, and just prevent people from using obvious words like f*ck and s*x etc... or just don't limit the use of certain words and just use a report option for inapropriate names. So the devs can just judge if its ok or not. Bit like insulting on chat works atm.

If we should ever make a book of all the topics that end in an absolute mud tossing contest, It would be a very long read, and allot of it would sound the same. Its just pointless.

On that note I would love to be able to select different charges per deck (like click on deck and select grape, chain, ball). And maybe a right click on the deck to disable the firing of that deck.

Maybe its a bit too effective when fired at a full health hull, if its as effective as shooting sails in terms of crippeling a ship, then I would say it needs a bit of tweaking. I would imagine crew would probably notice the other ship is firing grape after the first broadside and would stay clear of cannon ports and would know it is safe when its behind cover as it can't penetrate the wood as compared to balls. Maybe there should be a % of regeneration of crew over time, like people who get knocked unconcious for a while, or people who only have a small fleshwound. Most will be dead surely, but I would assume they wouldn't want to let their mates down. I haven't experienced it as negative so far, but when someone told me to shoot grape when your ship was lost anyways, in an attempt to damage the enemy as much as possible, i was quite surprised how effective it was. And I could imagine like Hethwill said that some have adopted it as their primary tactic.

Question by someone who knows nothing about age of sail history and gunnery. Isn't it a bit odd that a ship, even when structuraly severly damaged (0 hp left) on the sides, would let trought grape so easily? If like a vic has 70cm of hull, i can't imagine these grapes would be penetrating trough that, even when structuraly severly damaged. I get that grape would get trough the cannon ports, but trought the side hull. Was this something they did back then, and was that something effective. Did they actualy tore the structure down of the sides and fired grape at a hull? I get that the weather deck is unprotected for the most part, and that those men would be very sustainable to grape fire. A stern rake is something different, i get that a stern rake is effective, but like on a vic vs vic situation with one side torn down to just a bit of planks. I think I can grape between 80 - 100 men with a broadside. Aren't those more like realistic stern rake numbers? These are just things I wonder, I know nothing about the history or of possible battle references. Just some thoughts I have over this?

I would love for a deck camera, sailing a small ship next to a victory or santi must be and extraordinary feeling, especialy if its the enemies ship. In my opinion it could take too much coding to bind a certain camera position to a certain key (F1,F2,...). If one could walk around but still use right click to go to the aiming mode. Especialy on ships with no front chasers I would like to see a better option instead of the spyglass.

Maybe ships should just appear in the OW where they jumped out in the battle instance. So basicaly when you sink the enemy and could go to the battle screen, you have X amount of time to all head towards the point you want to exit. If you want to take a toilet break, you just have to put your ship in the right direction and let it sail. Most of the time those ganking around capitals have fast ships, so it might be enough of a headstart to escape.

It has come to my attention that several nations have not yet created a "Please nerf [insert nation]" topic, I would strongly suggest you put this on top of your priority list...

I can't realy say I have had problems with Steam ever. The verification on new PC's takes 2 minutes tops and its for your own good. There's a nice amount of money invested there... I hope i have no more then 2 kids, so I can split my belongings evenly, one will have my house and saving the other will have my Steam account.

Obviously his account got hacked...

If he drank all that, he's dead and won't be giving back anything I think

Well after checking the dev's post, it is indeed close to being completely yellow. And with the new conquest modes in, it will possibly be mainly yellow for a good amount of time too...

Someone insert "Paint it Yellow" soundtrack please...

As the matter of fact, we kinda accidentaly printed a couple thousand of these "We're sorry" stickers, and I was kinda wondering if you guys would be interested?

The Royal Navy is handing out "We awfully regret what happened" stickers at KPR, feel free to come and pick up as many as needed to make your sadness go away. We wanted to make "We're sorry" stickers, but we feared being associated with the chaps from the SORRY clan... (Stickers made for 40% out of recycled materials).

When it comes to PB they should just force us to use a composed fleets for example 2 x 1st rate, 2 x 2nd rate, 4 x 3rd rate, 4 x 4th rate and all the rest 5th rates or below. Depending on the type of port these numbers could vary. Maybe from 5th rate down specify the ships more, like 2 x trinc or essex, 2 x frig or BP, 2 x Surprise or Ren, 4 cerbs, toss in some merc's etc. I think this formula would be absolute fun, having a mixed battle that is an even fight but requires allot more tactics to be used. Now obviously the smaller ships could be wiped away easily by the big ships, but wasting a broadside might cost him his ship, as its one less broadside you can put in the ship of the same size. It would probably be more realstic too. In OW i don't consider the amount of SoL to be a problem, or to even be the most seen ship type.

200xp missions also has double 3rd rates.

Plot twist: There are nog glorious victories against the Sorry clan because: 1 - They lost but they managed to keep you in battle for 60 minutes so you couldn't join the PB, so its a "tactical victory" 2 - The victory doesn't count because there was AI involved 3 - The victory doesn't count because some inferior 2nd and 3rd rates were in the battle and not their full santi fleet. 4 - The victory doesn't count because they were only sailing teak ships 5 - The victory doesn't count because the BR was even but 4th rates "can't damage" SoL. (Feel free to add to the list)

For clans this would be great to do, instead of just running mission after mission, you could create a sort of story that is like a 5 missions long. Just the use of letters would be enough, you could go to the "tavern" in your capital and receive a letter from a strange man. And for every completed mission you get a drop with a new letter. For a change they might say for instance "Can't use anything above 5th rates for this mission" "Only 7th rates are able to do the following" "All in a LGV". If we have some new mission types they might involve different types of missions, escort mission, destroy missions, etc... so you could use standard implemented "missions" but just make it look like you are doing one big mission composed out of multiple ones. So you're bussy for a couple of hours, and its fun because you would never know what the next mission might be. Would be great for when nothing is happening. Will keep people online longer I think. Lastly, I would like to have a sailing race VS other players. In ships without guns that are given to you, so all have the same set up. Officer perks can't apply. So you would need to do some difficult manouvers, tacking trought the wind a couple of times. Sailing in a narrow space. Could even add guns, but disable friendly fire, and have a target set up in the middle where you need to shoot 10 single balls in a board. But like the ski'ing and shooting thing. The most skilled captain would win. Would love this, as its a skill on its own to sail very well in this game.

I'm guessing with alliances in place these smaller nations will be allied at least to one other nation who can help defend eachother. Maybe they should make TP possible to your allied capital (like an extra outpost). So you can always come to help your allies. As it is right now on PvP one sweden is caught between denmark and france, so they suffer both being a small nation and not being in the best location (unless they change their diplomacy, in that case they have a safe spot).