[Exciting times ahead - pre-release wipes information]

Hmm April, no Pandora, or did you mean definitely march 2020? 

[Exciting times ahead - pre-release wipes information]

Hmm April, no Pandora, or did you mean definitely march 2020?

[Patch 23: Updated Tutorial, Special ship and new UI teaser.]

One thing that always had puzzled me about a PvP battle near a port, is that if you are near a tower or fort, they fire upon the enemy ship, which could help you. That is god and would happen in real life. But you cannot enter a harbour if you managed to get to it. In real life if you managed to get into a friendly harbour you would be safe, maybe this should be possible in NA.

[Patch 23: Updated Tutorial, Special ship and new UI teaser.]

Just now, Sir Texas Sir said:

But it was a buffed Suprise?  lol

The poor guy didn't find out as it sailed away from the enemy ship anyway lol

 

[Patch 23: Updated Tutorial, Special ship and new UI teaser.]

3 minutes ago, Archaos said:

Well said, but the problem is that the changes in the recent patches are not making it more attractive to leave the safe zone, they are just making the safe zone more dangerous and making them even bigger PvP hot zones which means more seals will get clubbed.

I havent seen any feedback yet on what the new reinforcements are like, but if they are easy to outwit then the green zones will no be safe zones.

I read in Nation that a player got jumped by an Indefatigable and got a Surprise as a reinforcement ship and it sailed off on it's own.. Another got jumped by a Trinco and also a Surprise came in.

[Patch 23: Updated Tutorial, Special ship and new UI teaser.]

I watched so called PvP in action yesterday in the Nassau Patrol zone. 1 Brit player in a 1 on 1 battle.  I was going back in a T/Lynx. I  saw a Spanish player waiting for a while and then joined. I went into port swapped into a Mercury and came out to jump in on the side of the Brit. By the time I got  there, the Brit had done his first fight but was being set upon by a fresh Spanish player whilst he himself needed repairing. It seemed to me that the so called PvP Spanish waited until things were stacked well in his favor. I managed to get there and tried to help the Brit survive, but he was too badly damaged and the Spanish Player managed to sink him. I fought the Spanish player and as he got low on structure he must have called out as another Spanish jumped in with a Heavy rattled and I ended up with 2 on 1. Luckily I managed to sink the first one before I was myself sunk.

 

So even in an area where there is PvP, so called PvP players will only jump in once things are stacked int heir favor  and they can guarantee a win.

 

 

[Patch 23: Updated Tutorial, Special ship and new UI teaser.]

6 minutes ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

Tutorial feedback:

Difficulty is ok for PvE players, maybe a bit hard for new players but a good place to practice then. Good as a final exam tutorial difficulty. You have to learn basics to pass it.

There could be more of these but named as "Challenges". Then Cerberus vs Bellona, etc. Easy to make content.

 

Final Exam notes:

You gave here an example how to win the Final Exam. Maybe after player losses the first fight there could be hints how to win it, give tactical advices.

Boarding is too easy. Consider giving defender perk for all players and AI? Decrease the speed limit for boarding? Increase boarding round time, it is too fast now.

Chain needs more testing. It can be that we simply move slower in our future fights. Probably not good for our gank based PvP.

Demasting is average skill level way to win the final exam.

Going in fighting both at the same time by hull bashing is probably the most difficult way to win.

If bots were repairing like players this would clearly show the issues that we have in PvP. Most common PvP scenario in game is to gank or get ganked.

Thickness was not high enough and too much repairing. Decrease cannon damage, increase repair kit cooldown and increase thickness.  Repairing is boring and makes battles simply last longer. Actively angling your ship is much more fun. If I could win this with less repairs and more angling, I would be constantly active in combat. Repair kits create a boring time sink, has no purpose.

Make boarding to be more difficult, on the same level as demasting. Make hull bashing easier to bring on the same level with demasting.

If tutorial gave you hard time but you finished it, you learned really good amount of basics of NA.  In the end wont make you better PvP player as PvP is so different. For example bots should actively repair and force you to nuke one out.

@admin Should make himself a small test scenario.  Remove all repairs from the Final Exam and fight those 2 at the same time. Modify battle variables so that you win by skill. Once you win the battle we are 100 steps closer to good PvP game. If you really want to keep s loads of repairs in this game, make the bots to repair and win it 1vs2 so that you are constantly fighting with them.

I feel that these exams rely on a lot of luck to pass.

On the final exam I hit masts on a ship up close 49 times and not one demast. I watched most of the balls squarely hit the mast from close range.

 

Next attempt I manages to take 2 masts down on one and it still managed to be able to spin on the spot to shoot you, much too quickly for a 3-mast ship with only 1 mast left.

 

The other ship with one mast down was sill able to turn and move very quickly.

If you are lucky with RNG and manage to demast early on without too much damage to yourself then fine.

 

[Tutorial feedback 2]

2 hours ago, admin said:

Lets see if this will work first before thinking if something is wrong with that exam

Use this tactic. (this is the safest way but the longest)

• There are two ships  Ship A and Ship B
• Slow down one of the ships (Ship A)
  • Load chain in the beginning. 
  • Chain one cerberus (ship A) to 50% using up all chain (it will slow it down a lot) but be careful with aim.
• Destroy another ship Ship B
  • Start shooting the hull on the second one that has intact sails (ship B). 
  • Once you get damaged to 50% planking disengage and repair
  • Once repaired a bit come back and continue focus on ship B 
  • If you aim and turn properly you will get its planking to almost 0 on one side but you will still be damaged
  • Disengage a bit and repair (shooting from distance)
  • Come back to finish it off
  • If you are playing very safely you will destroy Ship B in 2 repair cycles (24 mins)
  • Now when this ship starts sinking - dont come back until it fully sank and pick up repairs if needed (i did not need them)
• Destroy ship A
  • You can do it three ways
    • Now because ship a is on low sails you can rake it and then grape it (a bit more risky) reducing reload
    • Or you can use 2 repair cycles (another 24 mins) to just destroy it by ball
    • Or you can be even more safe - and repair one more time by shooting top mast sections in the process removing all maneuverability from Ship A.

3 things that can help a lot

1. You can time the shots of the enemy - try to angle before it start shooting (reducing incoming damage drastically). If you are turning when broadside starts they will miss all the shots. 
2. Never fight both of them together.
3. And dont fight at close range. (stay further than 250 m as they miss more at this distance. 

In general you can destroy those ships in 1 hour if you playing safe and do not take any risks.
Players dont have to pass this exam to continue playing but if they do - they most likely will not have ANY problems in combat in the future both against AI or Players. 

 

 

Thanks for this idea, yet in Endurance mission I hit the front mast of the second brig 49 times and it didn't go down!!!

[Forthcoming Patch 23. Hercules, Tutorial and Map teaser]

3 minutes ago, admin said:

we are not trying to attract casual crowd - sorry. And NEVER planned or plan to. in fact there is no place where we ever said this is a casual friendly game. 

Funny fact! (kudos to all of you). NO-ONE HERE IS CASUAL. Even if you think you are casual YOU ARE NOT.

You are playing one of the most hardcore games. Think about it.
Full loot. Everything you carry with you is lost on death. Full gank. You can lose most ports forever. Some nations can lose access to admiralty (forever). You are not safe ANYWHERE. You have to sail for hours. 
 

There NEVER were a single casual player in this game. You are all  HARDCORE M****ERS. excuse my french.

Why do you not state this on your advertising or when people start to play the game?

Or is it the case of "unlucky you bought this game not knowing that we don't actually want you as a casual player, by the way, you're not getting your money back seeing as you don't want to stay"

[Forthcoming Patch 23. Hercules, Tutorial and Map teaser]

2 minutes ago, admin said:

 You agree with me in principle and we only talked about principles. 

You dont have to sail for 2 hours to find a pvp fight 
You dont have to sail for 2 hours to find a pve fight

In fact most of the time average time to find a fight is not much slower than PUBG. TP to tortuga and sail to mortimer - 5 mins and you get a fight.
The only caveat is this - you can find A fight, but it might not be a fair fight (which can also be said about pubg)

sinking players who do not yet know how play is part of the game. Every pvp game (from tarkov to cs to eve to pubg)

That's not true about Eve. You could play in high sec no PvP allowed or NPCs killed PvPer low sec (0.4 and down)no PvP near stations, or 0.0 space all bets off. I remember buying my first Battle cruiser going to low sec and getting wasted, until learned about resistances and types of weapons.

As for this game. When I first played there were regularly over 900 players online, on a PB day or some weekends it reached over 1000.  Not that many now.

i didn't know about being able to refuse missions. I would take a mission in KPR and it would send me to PA or St Annes, or Carlisle. I, im my little pickle, Privateer never stood a chance when I got ganked by 4-5 players regularly. I remember how proud I was when I got my first Snow, only to lose it as soon as I went out on a mission. I was about to jack the game in as I did no see the point on being fish food to people who didn't even fight 1 on 1.

Luckily for me I mt a guy who was the leader of a clan base in Concepcion and he recruited me to go down there away from Jamaica. I learned to sail and fight my ships. It was a good helpful clan, then we had a war with the Russians playing danish Nation for months. There were continuous skirmishes and PBs. I won some and lost more more, but had a great time. I left for about a year, came back and things had changed, stayed around for a while then left again. Interestingly during my return over 75% of my ship losses were when I was ganked by 3- 5 ship groups. Rarely was I attacked 1 on 1. That is not PvP, that is chickenshit ganking. Unless they were totally incompetent you were screwed

There were only a few players who were a plague in our area who hunted solo, Moscalb was one notable, I can't remember the other 3 names, but I had respect for them due to their skills. One guy, I think he was a Spanish player,  always hunted in a Snow and was a real bugger to catch. If they caught you, you did your best and tried to learn from what they did to you. On the British side I remember Banished Privateer who hunted solo, Gregory Rainsburrough and a few others also hunted solo. I have respect for those because of their skills. Players who gank noobs I have no time for.

 

[Forthcoming Patch 23. Hercules, Tutorial and Map teaser]

21 minutes ago, admin said:

It wont. sorry mate. Your logic is flawed, and here is why. 
There are two sides of the medal

1. Limited missions cancellations (position decided by admiralty)
2. Unlimited missions (position decided by player)

Only one side could be right. 

You (and some others) say that limited mission will cause online to fall.
Using this logic we can infer that unlimited missions should cause online to go up. Which is definitely not true.

Everyone should understand this: this game tries to deliver a certain experience, but not everyone will like this experience. We have no desire to satisfy everyone.

Hunt in the OW, there are places where you dont even have to sail for 5 mins for constant non stop farming.
Leave capitals - there are plenty of bot chokepoints. 

But i will tell you this. Missions are not a final feature. They might not survive by release.
 

 

Do you actually want this game to develop and have a great vibrant player base or just keep it a low base niche game? If so just state that and be done with it.

 

I used to work in mainstream leisure centers and gyms. Their membership model is to enroll as many new members as they could each week and get their money. They actually did not care or want member retention as long as they could get new members each week. If everyone turned up they simply would not all fit in the gym. One study worked out that for mainstream gyms over 60% of their income was from members who did not go to the gym for various reasons.

Reading what you say makes me think  that you don't care if people leave or not. You are happy to get their initial buying in fee and that's it. You could make so much more money buy encouraging a higher player base and introducing micro-transactions on cosmetics for ships for the large amount of player that you would have. Players could decorate their sails and ships, have various historical decals/crests etc. Elite Dangerous is a very good example of pay to decorate and not pay to win.

[Forthcoming Patch 23. Hercules, Tutorial and Map teaser]

Just now, RedNeckMilkMan said:

So you should have free reign to ruin other pvpers play experience by hiding in an imaginary safe zone just to make you feel good?

You're just showing you intelligence level now. If you can't or wont understand that this game needs more people to survive then you just keep trolling. I will not bother replying to someone just trolling like a child. It's a waste of time and effort

 

[Forthcoming Patch 23. Hercules, Tutorial and Map teaser]

Just now, Karpfanger said:

... in my opinion the solution of the problem to get the players away of the safezones is the relation of risk and loot.

that means ...

If you like to do some missions without a high risk to get ganked or drawn in PVP you should be able to do this in the safezone but with less chance of good loot.

If you want to have better loot and rare items you should have to go for missions (and fleets) outside the safezone ...

Life could be so simple sometimes

 

This is what I would prefer to see

[Forthcoming Patch 23. Hercules, Tutorial and Map teaser]

1 minute ago, RedNeckMilkMan said:

So I'm not allowed to jump your combat missions because it doesn't suit your game play style?

 

So you should have free reign to ruin other peoples play experience and have them leave to make you feel good? 

[Forthcoming Patch 23. Hercules, Tutorial and Map teaser]

2 minutes ago, Tac said:

It’s quicker and more rewarding-to take on an Ai fleet.

I agree, but I am now the only player from my clan online, , so I can't do that today because I will not be online when other members of my clan come online. This is what happens in life, not everyone is there at the same time. At the moment I can get in my ship keep refusing missions until I can get a safe mission and get some xp on my ship. This suits me today. Later on in the week I might be able to get a fleet and do some fleet missions which I think is more rewarding and fun. I have the CHOICE. Some players think that I should NOT have the CHOICE, because it doesn't fit in with their game meta. How is that good for the game and population retention/growth???

[Forthcoming Patch 23. Hercules, Tutorial and Map teaser]

Just now, rediii said:

Then do it as a grou or do hosti or fleets in front of the capital or epic missions etc. etc.

Its normal that people cry tho if something is taken away that was better for them before (not only pve players)

Read carefully, I am online now and only 1 other clan member is online. I have a limited time and I want to grind slots on my 1st rate., then go back to work having achieved something. You are basically saying that I am not allowed to do that because it doesn't suit your play style.

[Forthcoming Patch 23. Hercules, Tutorial and Map teaser]

Just now, rediii said:

Grind in a smaller ship or accept the risk you take for the bigger reward

Again only play they way YOU want to play, if he doesn't tuff luck leave the game good riddance, one less player on server one less person to recommend the game. How about he plays his way I play my way? That too much for you to swallow or do you just want easy kills?

 

[Forthcoming Patch 23. Hercules, Tutorial and Map teaser]

15 minutes ago, RedNeckMilkMan said:

Grind with a friend for extra safety, use it for flipping ports which gives crazy xp/gold. It has been a problem for a while that players can sit inside the safezone with 1st rates and earn crazy amounts of gold doing basic missions. So either grind with a pal, or grind in a ship that you can replace.

So you are telling me that I am not allowed to XP my ship the way that I want in the limited time that I have due to real life and my job? Or are you saying that I can only play your way?  I'm talking about CHOICE in a good business model which will help increase the player base. Restricting what I want to do will only lead me to start playing other games. Is that good for the game or just you personally???

Also I'm on the game now because I have a gap in my work schedule, only 1 other player from my clan is on line and he is doing trading. What should I do? I know forget what I want to do, and that is develop my slots of my port battle ship and do something that I don't want to do because I have now even less choice.  

 

 

[Forthcoming Patch 23. Hercules, Tutorial and Map teaser]

12 minutes ago, victor said:

It's like the old joke: do you prefer having a lot of women but ugly, or a few but beautiful? The answer of the devs is: none, but soooo wonderful!

lol, like it

 

[Forthcoming Patch 23. Hercules, Tutorial and Map teaser]

20 minutes ago, RedNeckMilkMan said:

You can, sit on the dock of your capital and tag ships that come in to the harbor. It's a terrible way to make money but the bigger the risk the bigger the reward. No more millions of gold from the safety of the green zones.

Great idea on player retention. So you like to play a certain way so all should play your way? The guy you were quoting was simply stating that he did not want to have to do missions outside an enemy port, which is quite a sensible concern. But you don't agree so he must play your way? How many players must this game lose to force the devs to merge the pvp and pve servers?Then how many players would that lose to the game.

Everyone should be able to play this game in the way that suits them. That means proper mission choices in areas where those sort of players want to do them without hassle or hindrance if they so chose. If they want missions in more dangerous areas, maybe for better loot monetary rewards, then they have the CHOICE. You want to gank people and ruin their experience then you have 75% of the map to do you stuff that is your CHOICE. You want a mixture of both pvp and and pve then you can play and mission accordingly. That is your CHOICE.

Such a model suits more types of people and so the player base increases, they are happy with the game and so encourage friends to buy the game. Elite Dangerous give you choices on how to play the game and you can switch to different servers depending on how you feel. They have a strong player base and a strong youtube content community as well.They make more money from the player base by offering micro transactions to buy paint jobs and "bling" for your ships. Every ship I won  in that game has a paint job than additions that I have paid real money for to alter the appearance of my chip. It does nothing to it's abilities, just appearance. That is a good business model. 

 

Pandering to only a certain type of player in a low population niche game is in no way any how a good business model. If I said I would only train overweight one legged clients who must be able to run and jump, I would soon run out of clients and have to close my  business down.

[Forthcoming Patch 23. Hercules, Tutorial and Map teaser]

Reading the replies tells me there are a variety of players who play this game for a variety of reasons. Some like all the changes, some like a few of the changes. Some think a few are the changes are detrimental to the way they want to play.

Those that don't like the changes and believe that it hurts their experience will simply move on to another game (loss to the player base and to the devs).

As it stands at the moment, the gankers have to stay outside the reinforcement zones to gank people. So in order to gank British players they have to keep out of the safe areas surrounding Jamaica and Belize. The other big nations also have safe areas around their capitals. But he gankers have THE REST of the CARRIBBEAN to gank and sink to their heart's content. Also players and xp and earn money in realtive safety to then afford to go out and do pvp.

I have recently got a L'Ocean to use in port battles. If I lose it in a PB so what? I had it for that purpose, but sod losing it because I have to sail a long distance to do a mission or do I forgo the opportunity in xping it up? 

I constantly read British player sunk by so and so near PM, or KPR or Carlisle etc, so there are still enough players for the gankers to get their happy fix at the moment. Enough go out of the safe zones and get jumped, usually by a good player in a souped up ship,  mostly in a group, so the unlucky player has no chance anyway. How long will said player keep playing this game and will he/she recommend it to their friends?

 

Seriously Devs do you actually want this game to succeed or keep it a low number niche game? If so then fess up and say that you only want it to have low numbers and be a niche game.

 

[Forthcoming Patch 23. Hercules, Tutorial and Map teaser]

2 minutes ago, rediii said:

But in eve you also couldnt fly the big ships in highsec is that right?

Correct, I think it was Dreadnoughts, Carriers and above you could not fly in secure space if I remember correctly. So again it boils down to choice. If I wanted to earn money to be able to afford such ships to pvp in I could earn it in secure space and then go out and fight and possibly lose it in 0.0. If I wanted to gain experience and do just missions I could in secure space. if I wanted to pvp I could go to un-secure space. I am talking about the CHOICE I had to PLAY the way that I wanted at that present time. That is why Eve had such a huge player base, it attracted all types of players of many differing skills and interests. And make the Devs a ton of money.

By the very nature of NA being an age of sail game, it will mainly attract certain types of players or curious players. Restricting the choice of how a person can play the game will not develop the game or allow it to grow. Look at the average number of players on each day even after the server mergers. The policy is still not increasing the player base so something must not be working. One of the definitions of madness  is "to keep doing the same thing each time and expecting a different result"

I run a small l PT business, I regularly look at my client base and say, I'm doing ok but what can I do to attract even more clients to take care of natural attrition. it seems to me ( and I may probably have got this wrong) that the devs see numbers reducing and say well we're losing players let's make it harder for the casual players that we still have and make it easier for the pvpers and gankers.

[Forthcoming Patch 23. Hercules, Tutorial and Map teaser]

14 minutes ago, admin said:

Cancellation limit is a step forward (the proper step would be complete removal of missions), limits on cancellations is a good compromise.

Admiralty sends you to the mission you honestly cannot argue with the mission location. Historically if you declined orders you would be demoted or fired.

Workaround is simple - If you dont like the mission - sail out to OW there are plenty of NPCs.
Or wait until next day. You get 3 more cancellations attempts. 
Even Eve limits mission cancellations by a significant drop in agent reputation. 

So what you saying is that if a person wants to xp their rank in peace or their ship in peace they are not allowed to do it? 

As for EVE, if I wanted pvp action I went to systems with a security level  below 0.4 (if I remember correctly) or completely to 0.0 space. I went into those areas knowing that I risk all and could get hit at any time, but I liked the excitement and possible greater rewards to make it worth the risk. Occasionally I lost out but I knew that before I went in. If I was just making money to be able to afford losing ships and to grind better ships, I stayed in higher security areas where it was safe. So cancellation of missions was not that common and the three cancellation rule was fair and worked in EVE. Every player in the game had this choice.

Now with these changes here in NA, that choice is being taken away, the only choice will be to do missions regardless of where they are in be prey to the gankers who will really benefit from this, or go play another game. Yeah a really great idea to increase the player base.

[Forthcoming Patch 23. Hercules, Tutorial and Map teaser]

17 minutes ago, Headless Parrot said:

Bull.........there is no way you can explain this where it makes any sense. So basically, you are forcing players to take ships they cant afford to replace into areas they are sure to be ganked. Brilliant.  Watch the numbers drop even more....

Agree whole hardheartedly,  if I reach my daily limit and still get shit missions, I'll just play another game instead, well done devs. I thought you r idea was to create a great game for all and make yourselves a decent amount of money on the way. 

[Forthcoming Patch 23. Hercules, Tutorial and Map teaser]

This will makes doing missions harder, good going there, lol

So, at the moment I have a 1st or 2nd rate I need to xp up, therefore I take a mission, it's in the middle of nowhere, I cancel and try again  until I get a closer one in a safer area and then I do the mission. This is a pain in the rear, but I would be stupid to go out on my own to a mission in a big ship far away from safety,  and before you anyone starts going on about take some friends or form a fleet, there a re times when I can log on and very few of my clan can.

 

Now  you devs think it's a great idea to limit this process to 3 goes to get a decent mission or a crap mission. Once again I will NOT go out on my own far from a safe port so that I can XP my ships up, therefore this will greatly increase the time it will take to xp up. Result, I will play this game less and less, because I will not be able to achieve anything. I know there will be people going on that this is a pvp game/server etc, but look at the average numbers of the player base. You've already had to close down global server and other servers before because of declining numbers.

 

I stopped playing over 9 months ago and just came back a couple of weeks ago to see what had changed. I liked the reinforcement zone which would allow careful new players learn the game and rank up, gain experience etc. This process is being reversed yet again by the devs.  They are also making xp gains much more difficult, a gret way to keep players and a great way to gain a new player base. Granted they will get the initial fee from when players first buy the game, but if more and more leave, you will a limited experience for all including the pvpers. Also at the moment I cannot in all honesty recommend this game to any of my friends at all.