Rhodry Heidenrich

To many treaties getting in the way of PvP.

Since this topic is running all over the place, and this is strictly me speaking so my clan affiliation is irrelevant... The shit talk regarding preferred ship types is indicative of one of the overall problems with Naval Action. Theme Park MMO "End game" mindsets invading a sandbox MMO where "end game" is what each of us as a player decides to make of it. So who gives a rat-shit if someone likes to spend 99% of their time in 5th rates or below. Doesn't make them less of a player or not "worth the time". Nor does it invalidate their opinion of what's going on in this virtual political shit-show. What happens on the map has some effect on everybody be it an impact on national economy, or a shift in hunting grounds for the small time privateer. I'm going to put the U.S coast to my stern and not return for some time. Clubbing seals really isn't my cup of tea because it's boring. Time to go find some hunting grounds where I might actually have to turn my "git gud" up a little.

1) Pirate Mechanics 2) More Pirate Mechanics 3) Even more Pirate Mechanics. Rats definitely need their own flavor that doesn't taste like filthy National soup. Since (generally) we can't seem to act as Pirates on our own volition, perhaps it's time for the Devs to force the issue, starting with some easy changes such as no more port conquest for Rats, and limiting ship production forcing us to capture bigger ships on the OW.

That was actually a loaded question. I know you sank it, but you didn't mention that your victory was rather pyrrhic in your post. We all sometimes forget that there's two sides to each story. Anyway, The basic cutter issue is outside of your bravado, and my whole stance on it has been that it's good it's been brought to light so it can hopefully be addressed. I'm actually not a fan of any of the crappy tagging mechanics within the game, and I'd prefer if we as a community could come together to find a better way to do things because it benefits us all. Tag circle sniping is just as much of a bad mechanic as what started this whole crap storm to begin with. It's also used to circumvent other game mechanics, and if the whole idea is to weed out and eradicate exploits it's most certainly part of the conversation which boils down to this: Bad game mechanics are bad, and should be fixed so that way we can focus on beating each other up with virtual cannonballs instead of keyboards.

I think it's funny that Christendom keeps screeching about "they can't defend that port", and then you look at the screen shot from within the Port Battle itself and one thing is made abundantly clear. Yes, they could have defended the port. They chose not to fight, which has nothing to do with anything else other than a complete lack of confidence and just going "screw it".

@Aventador Did you make it home with that first rate, or did you wind up scuttling it because you were going to get it taken away again? So what kind of battle reports are there from all of the post PB skirmishing? How did all of that go? Good? Bad? Deadlock? Nobody's talking about that because they'd rather focus on the great Basic Cutter incident of 2017. I completely agree with what Sinister says regarding what happened. This is an early access game and these kind of mechanics need to be found, addressed, and discussed in an effort to better the game for everyone instead of using it as a torch to get people banned from a god damn alpha test. Good mechanic or bad, until it's decreed by the development team to be, in fact, a cheat.. it isn't. It's a grey area which needs to be ruled on by the makers of the game, and if they deem it to be a cheat they'll amend the rules or deploy a hot fix to make it impossible. There are a LOT of stupid mechanics in this game at the moment, quite a few of which people are more than happy to use to their advantage. See what Sir Texas Sir is talking about with the BR and tag-circle sniping. This whole witch hunt screams of people who are just being salty because they got out played for an entire evening, and no... Fail-capturing a first rate or two does not make up for the complete boondoggle that the US/GB vs Rat skirmishing outside of the Georgia ports was.

Yeah, how did the PAP port battle go I wonder? Was it a full 25v25 battle that was hard fought by both nations? Or was it a ghost battle? Haven't a few of the guys from France posted that they're not hugely into the RvR aspect of the game anyway, so why would they defend it? Unless they didn't want to lose some very centralized hunting grounds, of course. Did they even have a defense force to speak of in that region? If they didn't, a Brit calling Rats bullies for taking a port that's likey to not be well defended is indeed a bit of hypocrisy. Anyway, it'll be nice to have some hunting grounds on the Eastern seaboard and maybe OW Battle Brits like Hodo will be entertained knowing there will be Rats to skirmish with while he hunts the waters.

The UI is functional enough to test the rest of the game. Does it need improvement? Absolutely, but I'd rather they get some actual game play issues fixed before they spend too much time making a UI that doesn't turn away some weaboos from WoWS.

Hodo is correct, I expected that GB was going to win. GB looked like they showed up to win, and the US was being..... Yeah. The US.

I watched the PB Stream last night as it happened. The result was predictable unfortunately.

So how much fighting are you guys doing anyway? (By you guys I don't mean Hodo. He's always done his own thing. I mean the turncoats who were going to show the US what for)

It's good you acknowledge that the US/GB alliance had nothing to do with strength. Being "strong" (lol) wasn't the issue, it was that it shut down some of the dynamics of the open world sandbox as well as probably trapping unwilling parties into forced neutrality. There's no way you could convince me that there weren't US and Brit players who'd of had no problems with fighting one another given the opportunity. So I'll repeat that the removal of the really bad diplomacy mechanic from the game was one of the best decisions the Devs have made. It was bad for the game and the PvP2 US/GB (Then US/GB/VP) alliance was a very brightly shining example of why. This recent war declaration by some GB clans is a fun development to see within the rather stale RvR environment on this server. It's needed more PvP, and if a conflict between some factions within the US/GB does that, it's a win win. Like I said before, if you don't like it. Don't participate. Find another part of the sandbox to pee in.

With such fine table manners, I can't possibly see why anyone would want to pick on you.

This, right here, is why I was so glad when the Alliance system was removed. Everyone who's saying that the GB/US alliance was absolute shit for the health of the server is 100% correct (An alliance that was so effective it couldn't stop GB from being 1 ported). I actually felt sorry for any Brits or US out there who wanted nothing to do with that alliance, and who may have been more than happy to fight each other but couldn't. Also agree that for the Brits/US who want nothing to do with this war... Don't fight or contribute to it. The nice thing about sandbox games is the ability to do whatever you feel like. Nothing's stopping CKA and NPG from continuing their long standing cuddle party. Let the clans who want to fight have their battles and their fun. That's the order of things now, and it's good.

The only real reason "Pirate on Pirate" action can lead to increased difficulty while playing within the faction is because it's a great way to get black listed and a target put on your back. It's not really a widely accepted thing to do within the 'Rat community on Global. So overall it's not much different than playing in any of the other Nations.

Eh, Christendom isn't really wrong. See some names on the US side of that port battle, who I'm sure are perfectly upstanding citizens but at the same time are not exactly super organized when it comes to PB's.

If the heavy hitting 'Rats switched to a "real" nation, the result would be the same... Which is them kicking carebear teeth in while flying a different flag. So what exactly would change? Nothing. Glad to see you've thought that MENSA level tactical plan over so thoroughly.

Mad because bad, so you're going to stomp your feet and be children.

Maybe I need to start logging in regularly just to check the way the map flow happens over the next period of a month or two. I have the distinct feeling that the whole map isn't going to be black again. The server wasn't "killed" because a dedicated group of players was able to run the map. What "killed" the server was very few people actually being willing to put their virtual ships on the line to stand up to them. You'd think as a member of the clan that "killed" the server, my reasoning for putting Naval Action down was boredom as a result of being on the "winning" team. Not the case at all. I quit because I got disgusted with watching a certain group of U.S Players go full coward every time they didn't outnumber their opponents or couldn't quickly flip a port. Was a waste of my leisure time to spend time sailing to where a port battle was happening, only to have the enemy tuck tail and dip the hello kitty out because they suddenly had opposition. It was a waste of my leisure time to spend 20 minutes chasing someone, pull them into battle, then watch them run instead of even trying to fight. It was a waste of my leisure time to engage in battle with someone who could have easily whipped the shit out of me and my clan-mate if they'd of bothered to.. uh.. fight. Instead the guy put every effort into running, and it was EXTREMELY satisfying watching his plan to try to hide in a post battle screen fail as spectacularly as it did. However, didn't change the fact that I spent a bunch of my free time being frustrated. That was the last PvP "battle" I participated in. Prior to that, the last FUN fight I had was against BORK. I knew I was probably going to lose going in, but because Teutonic and Axel aren't complete knobs, it was an extremely entertaining engagement that had me laughing like an idiot in "teh IRL". Moral of the story: COWARDS ARE THE BIGGEST ENEMY TO THE SERVER. Not BLACK. Not Pirates. Players that group up in Uber-Alliances that consist of the majority of the server population as a means to not have anything that resembles a difficult gaming environment are the problem. They're the disease that needs to be cut out with extreme prejudice.

I need to clarify point two.. I don't want to even come close to insinuating that there aren't some really solid PvPers in the 'Rats, BLACK in particular. My PvP game got upped quite a bit as a result of both fighting against them, and being a member of their ranks. The carebears was to insinuate that if people on PvP2 actually turned their "GIT GUD" up and stopped being a bunch of cowards the following things could happen: 1) Good fights could be had more frequently for everybody. 2) It would be really hard to "run the map" because there would actually be opposition for good groups like BLACK. 3) A reduction of vilification of clans like BLACK as "seal clubbing server ruiners" as a result of the above. 4) Funk Soul Brother. Why? I don't know.

Point one is easy to answer: BLACK has a long standing (and now no longer secret) tradition of bribing players with real life incentives. Things such as rare Beanie Baby collections, Teletubbie action figures, and most importantly, signed 12x9 glossy head shots of Sir Texas Sir. Point two is also fairly easy: The only reason 'Rats have been able to roll the map is because there's too many carebears on PvP2.

So I logged in for about 15 minutes today (haven't punched the clown to some pretty ships in awhile), and I noticed some of the usual shit talk going on in global. Thought to myself "How much do I want to bet that the person crying like a baby is a U.S Player in NPG". I looked and to my complete lack of surprise, I was correct. Seems in the couple months I haven't played some things remain the same. Stay salty NPG. It's not JobaSet's fault you guys are bad.

Here we go with some more "Well, this didn't work out how we thought, so we'll just scrap the system entirely rather than making some adjustments to make it better/more immersive." Hostility system wound up being a bit of a dud because of poor design choices which could be changed for the better. Battles should have remained open for 30 minutes at minimum. On top of that there should have been a clear indication of a general area where battles could be found and entered. PvE should have NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER (and did I mention never?) been an element to the hostility system or conquest in general. Ports should have remained conquerable on an individual basis, with generation of hostility for that port being in a relatively small radius around it. Region bonuses given if a faction was able to take all ports in that region. Could have even integrated the old "Flag System" into the hostility system. For example: Hostility has to be driven up to 100%. Instead of the stupid 48 hour waiting period, players can now purchase the conquest flag and sail it to that port to initiate the battle. That way, screening and a little bit of cat and mouse play can be had. Tweak as necessary as to prevent too much exploitation. Pirate mechanics definitely need to be looked at. I'm all for the choice to be a full on brigand or a Privateer, with Privateering being my preferred course of action. Would be great to be able to help out whichever Nation I wanted to.. For a profit, of course. Let me sign a short term contract with a nation and be granted access to the diplomatic perks that go with. That way, if I want to help an underdog Nation I can fly their flag for a bit. Even do some Pirate hunting were there to be some 'Rats I found to be distasteful. I'll wait and see what's planned as a replacement for officers. Hopefully something more immersive.. Don't care about missions, whether they exist or not. Stopped doing them, have more fun "grinding" xp by hunting on the OW be it for other players or good NPC targets. Kickstarter stuff.. Put me in the camp of people who think it would be a better thing to just open up a cash-shop for cosmetic stuff like paints/flags/sail colors etc. Players love customization options, and if said options are reasonably priced will happily buy them. Would be a better long term cash generator to help fund continued development....

Yes, steam reviews for early access titles are labeled as such.

Coming soon: World of Shipcraft, The Saltiest Legion.