PaladinFX

I have almost 2700 hours in this game now. I started on PVE but now play predominantly PVP; in fact I levelled to Rear Admiral on PVE. I thoroughly enjoyed the freedom to explore a vast map on PVE and the community was great and friendly. Personally I don't think I would have enjoyed that time so much if I had been limited to only the Gulf of Mexico. I fail to see why players who want to play PVE only can't make that choice upfront on server merge and thus be flagged as such so not attackable by PVP players. Then the PVE only players could then have access to the entire map. This is no different to us PVPers not being able to attack our own nation players without turning pirate, so if we click on a PVE Only player ship it would tell us! Just code it that PVE Only tagged players cannot be attacked, and anyone trying to attack them would just get an in game message saying "PVE Only Player, cannot be attacked". Personally I want the PVE server to merge to bring our communities together but it should be done as described above to ensure PVE Only players have access to the full map and not attackable. It seems very simple to me, am I missing something????

Thanks Devs/Admin; really good to have the communication on what you are working on for the coming 9.97 Patch. Looking forward to testing the Land in PB's; looks interesting and the 3 Objective concept could work. Like the idea of promoting more PvP with the Challenge concept. Personally really pleased to see that you are going to rebalance the Crew Damage model; makes sense to me as it is a bit over the top atm. What you've intimated in how you're going to do that with the rollback to prior model sounds good. I like the idea of Admiralty store/currency that promotes PvP to get that benefit in the game. As I've stated previously I am ok with the fine woods having come into the game. I think they should stay. Maybe a good solution would be Fine Woods required on crafting of all levels of SOL's, but on other ships on Exceptionals only, or something like that; ie a modified fine woods system. Bringing OW wind into the PB's/PvP battles would be good, total nonsense that the wind doesn't change direction. Overall, to me it appears you ARE listening to the player base and your very starting comments show that as well as that you are understanding that the game has lost some fun element with the time sink etc from Patch 9.96 and that having tested it you are now moving the game back towards more PvP and more fun for all of us. Personally, I'm really happy with your general outline for 9.97; looks like you guys are on to it! Thanks!!!!!

Well said! With over 2500 hrs in the game so far I could easily let myself get upset with the changes in patch 9.96 that have slowed the game down, created more time commitment required and caused issues with port battles BUT what I come back to is: 1. I love that the devs are trying to create an awesome age of sail game. 2. When the PvP action happens its still as fun as always for me. 3. I have faith that the devs are committed to making this game work and at release it will be what all us hardcore PvPers are looking for combined with an effective econ/trade/crafting side. 4. I bought this game knowing it was EA/Alpha and expected changes and that there might be things along the way that the devs wanted to test that might make the game less fun in the short term to reach the best game long term. 5. I have always accepted that I am a Tester for the devs; this game is not finished yet! So, I certainly will not be quitting, I will be supporting the devs with my commitment to the game as a tester and just doing my best to have fun with a good group of guys to play the game with along the way. I don't see any point wasting my energy on whining about it all when the game is still in development mode! Better to try and give constructive feedback to the devs in this forum where I can and hope I can make some small difference in helping this game to turn out awesome!

I've never understood why people complain about there being so many exceptional ships. Surely if just about everyone has them then it's creating a fairly level playing field where results in battle come down more to the skill of the player or group of players in the battle, which is a good thing. As I said in my previous post on this thread I personally feel Mastercraft ships are pretty much redundant but if NPC are going to continue to churn out Basic & Common ships in the shop then there is an argument for keeping Fine ships craftable for that first rung on the ladder for new players, for fleet ships etc. At the end of the day, we will adjust and if we have Basic/Common from NPC and/or captures, and Gold from player crafting it will be fine as the majority of players will be wanting to sail Gold ships as they do now. If on top of that the devs do bring in additional ways to trim your ship build during crafting, there will be opportunities for players to have some level of customization on top of the trims/wood type/regional bonus we have now which I think will work well.

Can we get an answer to this question PLEASE?????

Some thoughts for the Devs from a Rear Admiral/Level 50 crafter on PvP1 who mostly plays for the pvp action fun: At its heart Naval Action should be adhering to some very simple principles and uppermost in it all should be the KISS principle. It appears you are turning people off to the game by getting ever more obtuse and pedantic about the minutae of the age of sail and the game's mechanics. Personally I love the game and will see it through to release and applaud many of the awesome mechanics and design you have developed so far. However here's some suggestions and some thoughts: 1. Players just want to have fun playing the game whether they are hardcore who play several hours per day, or the more casual player. The fun is getting hammered by you making the game ever more complex and time intensive; especially for the casual player. 2. Players just want to be able to build a nice ship and customize it a bit to feel it suits their purpose for why they are sailing out(battle vs boarding or a mix of both for example), or their style of gameplay (eg frigates vs SOL's). A straight forward Ship Upgrade slots system without RNG where each ship has 3 permanent and 5 regular upgrade slots on every ship will give players this flexibility. This creates a level playing field and gives players ample chance to customize their setup and feel happy and excited for what they have set up and done the work to achieve. I'm ok with fine woods being needed for exceptional quality ships but please get rid of the ridiculous RNG and make growing all these damn forest make sense to produce at least some fine logs per xxx number of regular logs. 3. Players ultimately just want to test their skills against other players (PvP) or Ai (PvE) and have fun doing it. Patch 9.96 has just taken huge time away from this to the more tedious side of the game. For most players the trading is a means to an end to be able to craft the ship they want. They don't want to spend 90% of their time doing it; they want to go out and have fun doing battle. And lets face it the Naval Action battles are awesome to look at and awesome to play! 4. Stripping away unnecessary ship quality levels is a good idea; Mastercraft(purple) particularly is redundant. However, if NPC are going to continue to produce Grey & Green ships I suggest keeping Blue too as this is a good first leg up for new players to cut their teeth on crafting and feel like they are progressing = fun = satisfied with the game. After that level i would bet most players then aspire to have the best they can so scrap Purple and make Gold ships something worthy to aspire to even if it takes some work ; whilst keeping in mind there needs to be a balance between how much grind it takes to get a Gold ship and not losing the fun/enjoyment in the game. It is a total falsehood to say that players do not build or use Green/Blue ships. I know many who use those as fleet ships. Personally i don't know anyone who bothers to build a Purple ship tho; they just move on to Gold! So maybe 3 levels: Grey/Green(NPC builds) or Blue(Player entry level crafting), Gold(Exceptional ships that take work/commitment to achieve). 5. Doing away with all Upgrade levels/colours is a bad idea. I'm sure I'm not the only one who can remember the thrill as a new player at getting a drop of a next level up colour upgrade after a good battle and feeling like you were starting to climb the "upgrade ladder", gave satisfaction to me while doing the grind in the game. As with ships, I think again it is the Blue upgrades that are the first level up for new players as they can find greens in shop so same argument as to ships for keeping them. Here again if there's one redundant one, maybe its the Purple ones because if you are at the point of being able to craft purple you will just hold on - build another note and have Gold BUT new players who don't have much gold will relish initially trying to get Blues to get started moving up i feel. As with ships, it is not fair to say no one uses different coloured upgrades; people use greens and blues on their 1 dura ships and fleet ships for a start. New players will use blues while the're getting started leveling up until they can afford to have better or join a clan and can get golds crafted. Many of us switch between using green/blue/gold marines depending on what ship we are sailing or what set up we're looking for. 6. Regional Bonuses for ship building are a great idea, creates diversity and drives mechanics of pvp to fight for control of a region 7. Adding other choices into the Trim menu ( or maybe one sub-menu?) of a ship build could be a great idea and I think players would welcome the flexibility to customize their build a little more BUT dont get too bogged down and keep it simple (KISS!!!) and straight forward. Keep choices limited in each menu/sub menu. And please don't allow ships to capsize - you will really piss off a lot of people who have just spent much time energy etc building their ship; its just not necessary in a game who's underlying principle should be that it is an environment where people can come together and test their skills and have fun playing the game either solo or with friends! I think a thread on suggestions of development of Trim menu or sub menu possibilities might be a good idea! Thats my initial thoughts, may come back and edit if I think of some more. Overall I applaud you for creating a beautiful looking game that its just awesome to play, particularly in battle instance which is incredible BUT please KISS and keep it fun for us all to keep coming back for more!

To Devs: By "all old ships will be removed" do you mean all ships crafted before Patch 9.96 when Regional Bonuses & extra craft requirements came in; or do you mean in ETA Dec/Jan you will wipe every single ship from the game?

I didnt say it was a crap ship I was just stating the obvious that it has less options for mods than a 3/5. If you'd rather have my 2/4 Bellona than a 3/5 one you have, feel free to trade me!

Great, I just built an exceptional Bellona a little while ago and it dropped 2/4; would've been nice to have had the Halt Crafting warning in game before I wasted all those fine logs that are so damn expensive!!!!!

So how exactly do you envision the transition of PvE to the pacific Coast working? Will PvE ONLY be there after the server merge? Will the merge be done with redeemables for our assets as per the recent PvP3 merge? Some details on this would be much appreciated. many thanks.

I like the idea of anything that adds realism to the game so its a thumbs up from me for changeable wind strength. Getting rid of or giving all ships chasers is a bad idea IMHO; as it is we have diversity in the game for certain ships and thats a good thing.

When is the compensation going to be done? I had most of the mats for a Victory build in the hold of my LGV which disappeared and they have still not reappeared? Thats alot of cash and crafting hours tied up just gone! Do I need to provide a list of what went missing to speed things up?