AngryPanCake

If you guys have noticed that most of the negative "game reviews" are not reviewing the actual game, but mainly complaints against the dev team. A critical mind would go past, or at least not give those reviews a significant weight, unfortunately, many people do not use critical thinking and just seeing "mostly negative" reviews is enough for them to steer away from purchasing the game. The other thing I noticed is, most negative reviews got over 50% "helpful" and most positive ones got less. There is definitely a core of extremely unhappy people on steam that are bent on discrediting NA no mater what good features are added. It's quite disheartening! PS: there is a recent review from a player Trim, who wrote a positive review there, please read it and make sure you give it a thumb up if you agree with it. Or any of the positive reviews for that matter.

I totally agree with that statement, I am guilty of it myself. It was entirely my thought process after I started building outposts. My idea was to have ships there and be able to "move" from one outpost to the other in order to use a ship locally and not having to sail for a long distance/time to do what I wanted to do in that particular area. Now thinking about it, I don't think I am opposed to doing without TP's, or at least for a while and see how it pans out. If it improves game play, then it's all good, otherwise something else has to be found. Regardless of TP or no TP, increasing content with good incentives to come out and sail is in my opinion one of the best solutions to re-populate the OW.

1- I think this is a great future plan and it seems it was overshadowed by the fact the newly added Lobby Missions are being scrapped. 2- That is also excellent, but the current game content is making most people pessimistic about how fun this is going to be. Most common OW complaints are "how boring it is", "nothing to do", "lack of content"...etc. Being relatively new to the game, I don't find it boring yet, but after sailing day in and day out without running into wanted or unwanted trouble, it will probably become boring. The major request from many players is more content, more things to do in the OW, something to look forward to, missions, explorations...anything. There are countless suggestions about what appears to be interesting content: Bounty, Escort Missions and many more. If you want to see players out in the OW, provide a reason, an incentive to leave port. The idea to create lobby type quick battles for the ones who just want to log in and hop on to a PvP duels, small or large battles was a good fix to provide instant gratification due to the low number of players in the OW. Keeping them will not really prevent players from sailing the OW, especially if instead of removing them, you just rework the rewards and make it so one gets less XP, marks or gold by completing those lobby battles and focusing the rewards for missions that make players leave port. You can even remove gold rewards from the lobby PvE battles, since the ships are provided and gold is not needed to repair them. If the decision is to make (or keep) this game an immersive sandbox OW one, then the main challenge is to add content. I kinda sound like a broken record...I've read so many posts asking for more content, it just feels weird repeating it over and over.

This Global Chat Ban is going out of control in my opinion. As I have said, I feel there are many other options to try before a total removal of the Global chat. Maybe I do not have a clear notion of the level of toxicity that's present on the PvP Global Chat. Since I am only playing on the PvE server for now, I should stick to what I know. One question though: is the Global Chat going to be removed from the PvE server as well?

By the way, the original post generated 6 and 1/2 pages of feedback, debate and suggestions between Wednesday 11:30 and early Monday (that's about 4-5 days or about 100-120 hours)...the update to the original post 16 hours ago created a whopping 15 and 1/2 pages of a lot of discontent. It is unclear whether it is the majority of players that are having major doubts about this new significant change or it's just a small but passionate number of them that are really vocal. Nevertheless, this has generated a lot of heated debate in such a very short time! Again, as I mentioned earlier, there must be some type of compromise between making people go out into the OW and completely removing the ability for quick battles. Global chat ban might be too drastic and/or desperate of a "fix" for ongoing toxicity. Again, I'll advocate for moderation instead of radical changes. Thank you, APC.

As far as chat toxicity, I have not seen any (on the PvE server) and reading the forum here, which certainly reflects to an extent the in-game toxicity, I did not get the feeling this was any worse than any of the other MMO's I've played. So, as far as removing global chat, I think it is sad to resort to such a drastic measure because of a few bad apples!

I had shared my opinion when I first started playing the game about a month ago and it seems someone has come to a realization that NA can not be a PvP fast paced instant battle type game and a sandbox open world age of sail immersive game at the same time. I am glad that Game Labs is thinking about a Lobby version of this great game to allow for instant battle gratification for a significant portion of the player base. At the same time, work on making the OW version a more attractive game for the ones that are still interested in sailing and doing everything related to actually producing ships and get the satisfaction of sailing/fighting them. It is totally understandable to me for the need to make people go out into the OW to increase the likelihood of player to player encounters, even if it means getting rid of some of the lobby like features. However, could there be some type of compromise? Could some of these features be allowed to stay in order for some casual players, who are desperate for a quick fight and can only play for a very limited time, to run a quick battle? If the remaining lobby battles have less interesting rewards and OW missions greater ones, that may give players a better incentive to sail in the OW and just have a quick battle every now and then. I also feel the best way to make captains leave port is to have more OW content. I strongly believe that if the OW content is there, people will sail no matter what lobby type battles are offered.

I had considered SLI at one time, but after some research and asking questions/advice on Tom's Hardware website (great site for everything PC related and more), the consensus is a more powerful single GPU is often times better than 2 lower end GPU's. Plus, not all games are SLI ready.

Which server is this, the old PvE or the new PvP Global?

I agree with the above statement. As far as PvP combat is concerned, it's the number of players that's the issue. The open world concept is amazing.

This Bounty suggestion made me think about so many possibilities. Not sure if this was talked about already, but I was thinking about 2 types of "Bounty" missions. 1- Bounty initiated by a nation through AI (as Parrot mentioned above with a twist): let's say a British player has been attacking his/her own national traders/warship both AI and players and/or attacking allied/neutral AI/players' ships. That particular individual will be considered an "outlaw" and will lose reputation with all nations. Britain will issue a Bounty 1 to 2 Mil or more, maybe depending on the type of goods looted/ships destroyed. The "National Bounty" will give every other player the right to hunt down the "outlaw" without losing reputation. The Bounty contract will remain in effect until the player's ship (it could be any ship or a warship of a certain size) is sunk or captured and the reward given to the player who won it. Or a deadline can be instituted, for so many hours or days then the Bounty expires, again if it becomes more of a hassle than true fun. 2- Hit contracts issued by players: maybe because he/she captured one of your traders, has been a nuisance to your expanding trade empire or whatever reason that is. The Hit Contract instigator would remain anonymous in order to avoid "bad blood" between players. Contract reward will be limited maybe to between 50K to 1 Mil max. The Hit contract will also be limited in time, let's say 24 hours and will have a cooldown period of let's say another 24 hours, during which the target player will not get another Hit contract on his/her head until cooldown is over. The cooldown period can be prolonged after a trial period if the community feels this is being "abused", this will limit reward farming as well. On the PvE server, the "bounty Hunters" would be AI ships that would be more challenging/aggressive than the run of the mill AI encountered in the OW.

I'm not sure anyone wants to "inflict" anything on PvE server and/or players. Even though freedom of speech is a right, we are trying to stay away from the sort that is inflammatory or accusatory. It really is useless and unhelpful in every way. A lot of people are sharing good ideas about making every server viable and both modes enjoyable and I think most people here are having fun.

Looking forward to building my own ships in the near future and I agree with you, if there is no incentive for building unique ships, there is no point in wasting energy and time gathering resources if the end result is sub-par compared to just going out and capturing AI ships. However, I can see the other side of the medal. If among AI ships, there are good quality ones, then this would be a different type of incentive to make people go out into the OW and hunt for them, which would increase the likelihood of running into other players for PvP action for those who are into it. A balance between the two options would be great, with the ability to gather resources and craft good quality ships that are better than the generic AI ones and going out hunting for "uncommon" AI ships. Those uncommon AI ships would be part of missions that encourage players to come out of ports and go search for the particular ship at a particular location, which in my opinion would be considered an additional content so needed in the game.

You do not have to remove your tin foil hat prior to the pledge!

Thank you for providing the info about the upcoming patch. I was hoping to get some clarification about some of the new features we will be trying on the test server: Does this mean we have access to the total hold of a fleet? Meaning, If I am sailing a trader with 1000 ton hold capacity and have 2 other ships (escort or other traders) in the fleet/convoy with 500 ton hold each, does it make my total tonnage 2000 and will I be able to use all that hold to carry goods? Does the ship start with 5 slots from the get go or is it the end result after earning a certain amount of XP in battle? Like you start with one slot, earn XP, unlock another one, earn more XP, unlock another one...etc? What about unarmed traders, how do they earn enough XP to unlock the knowledge slots? How are knowledge slots different from upgrade slots? Are these goods/mats like Oak or Fir logs one produces or buys from the marketplace, or are they specialty goods used for repairs only, just like the old repair kits one has to carry around to fix hull/sails, but now are more specialized and separated into 2 different repair "kits" aka planks and rig repairs? My last question: Are all these changes going to be available in both PvE and PvP modes across all servers? Thank you.

This was the OP in a different thread and amazingly it got an overwhelming number of players agreeing with the idea. I think it is worth considering ideas/suggestions that many players support.

Sorry for joining this discussion a bit late. I wanted some clarification regarding the redeemables/XP...etc. I've been playing on the PvE server only, so I only have one character so far. Since the PvE sever remains the same and I'm not planing on creating characters on PvP EU or PvP Global, just staying with PvE, do I still have to go through the steps outlined by the Admin in the initial post to keep my rank/XP? Thank you.

It really didn't as far as I'm concerned. I had read how "horrible" the UI was, so many negative reviews just because of it. To me what was important was that it was functional, and functional it is. It is doing everything (or almost everything) it is supposed to do. Knowing this is a WIP game, I didn't put too much weight on the UI. I don't want to go against the grain, but I feel we need to focus (devs and us) on game mechanics issues, content such as what else do you do beside sailing from point A to point B hauling cargo or looking for that trader or enemy warship? Any special missions, Spanish treasure fleet "sighted near such and such place", I mean there is so much content that can make this game so vibrant and addictive...the ski is the limit (where ski the Dollar amount!). Making the game "look good" is like building a house, you make sure everything is built (foundation, walls, power, plumbing...etc) and then the "look good" part is the coat of paint, it comes last, that's when you bring in your furniture and move in. I do like the idea of more color though and a good looking map that you can showcase during marketing will definitely attract many potential customers and future members for this great community.

Great topic and it seems this is an issue many people are in agreement with. It would make the most sense for the developers to take this into account and maybe the sooner the better. The game is still in EA, plenty of time to test the new resource distribution, if people remain happy with it, then it will be part of the final release, if it doesn't work then it was given a fair chance and something else will have to be implemented.

If only we are allowed to name ships for our own use, don't have to be visible to others, but just for us to sort them out efficiently and know what ship has what characteristics. It would be a great help.

I think it's a good idea to link AI trade with what is produced/consumed in any given port. Not sure how easy it is to code and manage all the variables inherent to trade, but it would add so much to the strategic side of the game. As far as PvP is concerned, clans can organize blockades of enemy clans and may even prevent them from acquiring the goods necessary to produce ships. This will be an incentive for players to go out and become blockade runners, which will increase player vs player interactions/combat. So while a player keeps raiding a particular trade route, capturing most of, let's say, the sugar produced from port A which will cause some shortage in the rest of the surrounding ports, thus driving prices up, another player may take advantage and sail his own produced sugar in those ports at a premium. As a side note, it could be worrisome about large nations completely paralyzing smaller ones, which after a while of being unable to do anything, it would take the fun out of it...I think this option might be too much! Of course, a dynamic economy like this is probably extremely difficult to develop and maintain if it is easily influenced by the player base, but if it is feasible it would be a very nice touch. If the general game mechanics are done, the combat mechanics refined and the much needed content is added, an improved/dynamic economy would be the icing on the cake.

Unfortunately it's not looking good for ship names. This is a Q&A from the Steam forum. Answers provided by a dev to players' questions. A: Not in the release version. Paints could be customized on certain vessels on release. Not sure if this is final or not, this thread was from Feb 10th (http://steamcommunity.com/app/311310/discussions/1/135508662494018010/)

Being a new member of this community and for what it's worth, I can share how I felt before I purchased the game. I had added it to my wish list several months ago, I can almost say it was a year ago. The reasons I didn't purchase it outright, were as follow: 1- I had thought it was an MMO only game. Having had my fill of MMO's/Clans and what goes with it, I was not willing to invest time/effort and especially money in it. 2- "Mostly Negative" reviews on steam. This was the least of the two reasons that prevented me from joining this community (# 1 being the main reason). In general, negative reviews don't prevent me from buying games, especially if they are inexpensive. I certainly take into account other people's reviews, but I also like to try things for myself. So, if I like the game, I keep playing and I'm glad the bad reviews didn't steer me away. If I didn't like the game, then it was only $5-10, not a significant loss. As far as the Steam reviews were concerned and how I felt about them as a potential customer, they bothered me to a certain point and the general theme I got out of those reviews was of a development team that did not take criticism very well and were somewhat vindictive to the player base. That was the general feeling I got from those reviews. I have not felt this way since I have been on this forum. I did notice some unneeded "bickering" between some of the moderators and some players, but as a whole it has not been as negative as the steam reviews led me to believe. As far as Developers/player base interactions, I have not seen any, be it positive or negative. Most of the negative reviews, I discarded immediately, they had to do with things being changed and a player did not like this change or that change. In my opinion at that time, it just told me that some of those reviewers did not understand what an Early Access was. So, those reviews were irrelevant to me. After continuing to watch the game for a while, my interest in that genre was not fading a bit. I joined the forum and asked about the PvE mode and if one can play this game without having to be in PvP, the answers pleased me and I purchased the game a few days later. For me the reviews only delayed my purchasing of the game, they did not deter me completely to the point of removing the game from my wish list. But, I can understand how other potential customers may be passing it over because they didn't use critical thinking in analyzing those reviews, did not separate between "disgruntled" players that did not get their way...etc. Plus, the thumb up/down system may not do justice to a game. I prefer the start system. Some games are great, others are not so much and others are pretty bad. So you can tailor how many stars you think a game deserves. I can't really tell the devs how to run their company since I have zero experience in game design (only some basic mod scripting), I will gladly provide suggestions and feedback in the most constructive way I can though. I do think that if the steam reviews improve and if there is attractive content along with fixing things that are broken, more people will flock to this game. I had also recently read a devs Q&A from Feb 10th with some promising things, such as: So, I feel this is really promising, it's just difficult to please everyone all the time. Some changes are great, others are tried and then reverted because they did not turn out well...etc. So I think, it's up to us to provide the much needed constructive feedback to speed up the development.

I quoted this Admin reply from the suggestion thread, which post I think is relevant to this discussion. I am hoping this will put to rest baseless rumors, blame and accusations that claim the game development will take longer by keeping the PvE server alive. Those claims are neither helpful nor constructive and only widen this incomprehensible divide that for some reason exists between the PvE and PvP communities. So, instead of wasting your energy calling each other cry babies, AFK'ers, gankers, care bears, Alt abusers and whatnot, focus it on providing actual feedback, constructive feedback instead of the unfortunately common "this patch sucks" without any type of explanation or the classic "I will not play this game anymore". My final 2 cents regarding this topic. APC

One of the most sensible posts I have read as of late and in particular the very first sentence: Play and let play If I could, I'd give you a dozen likes!