Obi-Heed Kenobi

Get rid of Loki. It's not fun to use Loki, and it's not fun to be Loki'd (it's more annoying than anything else). If I were a NEW PLAYER, I think I'd be pretty frustrated with it.

Hehe, I learned that, and then got Loki'd while in the midst of boarding the elite ship. I won, but was down to something like 50 crew. With a USS against a belle poule or something. Never again!

A couple suggestions: 1. Real-world shipwrecks To encourage active cruising of the OW in areas where other players are, increase bottle-drops in areas where other players have been sunk in battle (perhaps only PvP) for ## mins/hours after the battle. The bottle then drops to a wreck from the battle, and you get both the normal shipwreck reward, plus something that was on the actual ship (say, an activated book or upgrade). This would in essence be a variation of the fishing perk, couple with a logbook. That would encourage another use of the logbook, as well as require sailing in the OW in proximity to other players. It could be a book, and the ingredients for the book itself could be: 10xlogbooks (need to encourage accumulating something through playing the game), plus a carpentry/repair book, and the addition of something like a "navigation" book. To actually use the book, you'd have to have the book active, along with a logbook in use. 2. OW Book Changes Create a perk that allows changing of books while in the OW. I'd suggest this be a perk rather than something else - something along the lines of having a clerk or librarian on board your ship. I'd include a cooldown period on use of the perk. 3. Longboats With looted dubloons now being an important aspect of econ, why not introduce an "away boats" upgrade that allows a player to dispatch longboats to loot the enemy ship. This would cut down on a lot of frustration, add some realism along with some risk. I'd suggest something along the lines of the following. Each longboat temporarily costs you 20 crew. Number of longboats required is dependent on ship class (1 longboat for a 7th rate, 2 for a 6th rate, and so on). Longboats can't be launched if another enemy is within ### yards, and will be lost if an enemy later sails within that distance. Sailors assigned to longboats are lost for the rest of the battle. For materials, I'd say make it roughly equivalent to what building a cutter takes. I'd also make these an upgrade rather than a book, because in real life, each ship would require its own boats. I wouldn't bother trying to visually include the boats. Just a nod in that direction would be helpful, *especially* to those who grinding AI.

Thanks for the gift, and Merry Christmas to you all.

I think most of the criticism is well-intended, from players with good intentions. Yes, there are some who don't mean well, but I do think most of us would like to see the game succeed.That's certainly true for me. This isn't your typical "shoot-em-up, with lasers" game. Instead, these are ships from centuries ago. That's a niche market, and I suspect most of us, along with the devs, have some kind of appreciation for history, tradition, the sea, etc. Maybe that's not true, but it is for me - and I don't think you make a game about warships from the 18th century unless you've got some kind of love for it. It's also worth remembering that there are a lot of different languages, and there are a lot of different cultural values. What might seem like constructive criticism to me might not be received the same way in, I don't know, Russia. Or, maybe my words aren't well-chosen, or any of a lot of other issues that pop up with different languages and cultures. Anyway, I do appreciate the effort the devs have put into this game. It's a game I enjoy. I certainly don't agree with every decision that has been made, but that doesn't mean I need to stomp my feet and be a jerk (and I've been tempted, that's for sure). So, yes, I believe a "thank you" is in order.

When accepting cargo missions, there's a message that you need either a ship or a warehouse. How do you accept the mission when you don't have a cargo ship at your outpost? Put differently, can you send the cargo Mission straight to your warehouse so you can pick it up later? Is this possible, or is having a ship with enough hold capacity necessary? Thanks.

I liked your whole post. But what especially got my attention was "gotta smash HURR DURR MY XP." Love it! ROFL

Win. Really looking forward to this.

I had just started writing a similar suggestion. My thoughts: 1. Is it possible to tie AI traders into the broader game somehow? It sounds like this may be happening in the port battle changes, with hostilities. But, would it be possible to make AI traders have an impact on the economy? For instance, if a cargo of hemp going to a town gets captured, could we have the supply of hemp in that town go down, and/or the price go up? 2. If we can tie AI traders into the game, why not add an Admiralty mission of "convoy escort?" If you take this nission, you get assigned to protect a convoy, and you get gold and XP if you meet whatever the victory conditions are. That could promote PvP in a very realistic fashion, give new players an opportunity to farm XP/gold while sailing the OW rather than just grinding the existing missions, and overall add some variety for all of us. 3. I'd also consider a "trader escort flag," similar to the smuggler flag. When you're flying that flag, you've got the option of clicking on friendly player-traders and, so long as you remain within some set distance of them, the Admiralty pays you on safe arrival at the next town based on distance. I suggest this as an alternative to the trader paying the escort. In my eyes, why should I pay someone to escort me, when that escort will get the XP, gold, and possible capture of mods/ships that come with being an escort in a PvP fight? What do y'all think?

Great suggestions all the way around. Paying gold, or goods, or ships/whatever is a good idea. To put you back in the king's good graces, so to speak. I also like the idea of Letters of Marque, so long as you can't change nations too often.

Along the same lines as Sully's last post, will there be a mechanism for pirate amnesties? That is, will people that have left the national flock, for instance by attacking an allied nation, ever be given a chance to come back? Granted, you can just reset your account right now, but will there be any mechanism in-game for this?

I personally like the map/OW/etc. as it is now. How about a compromise, where distances to certain events are reduced, thereby reducing the overall time commitment? That wouldn't require adjusting the map or recoding OW acceleration. For instance, reduce the distance to fleet missions. It's just happened with the shipwrecks. It might help casual players get a little more action without having to sail against the wind. I can't imagine that it would really affect PvP. If I want PvP, I can find it pretty easily. Unless, of course, you're looking to jump primarily-PvE players.

Sounds reasonable to me.

Maybe put a timer on teleports to (but not from) free towns? Maybe allow pirates some kind of special teleporting privileges, like unlimited teleports but can only leave port in a 6th or 7th rate?

These are a few suggestions I posted over in the patch notes section. What do you all think? 1. Create a mechanism for KIA and WIA. Unless your ship sank, which could result in a loss of all hands, there is a fairly uniform ratio between KIA and WIA. Would it be possible to implement this, instead of simply having all casualties being KIA? 2. If yes to the above, would it be possible to have a hospital as a building at an outpost? It could heal your WIA over a given time, as opposed to simply hiring a whole new crew. Maybe it would be possible to tie crew proficiency to this as well - if you heal an experienced crewmembers,rather than hire green crewmembers, your crew will perform better. 3. Would it be possible to have a building dedicated to crew recruitment? Call it a "training center" or something like that. Along the same lines, how about an officer trait like "charismatic leader" that would give a bonus when recruiting? 4. Should pirates get a automatic bonus in recruiting crew? As irregular forces motivated by profit among other factors, pirates didn't exactly follow traditional rules of recruitment. Could this be reflected by giving pirates some kind of bonus in recruiting crews? Also, should pirates be able to recruit from captured crews? 5. Historically, if you surrendered, you were taken prisoner. You would then be paroled, possibly through a prisoner exchange. If your enemy surrenders, should there be a gold bonus representing the benefits from prisoner exchanges? 6. If you surrender to a pirate and you have crewmembers that don't join them, should you have to pay a ransom to get those crewmembers back? That seems like it would be a good unique benefit to pirates that would have at least some basis in reality. What do you all think? I'm relatively new and not overly familiar with the history of patches, so apologies if some of this has already been implemented.