[WYSIWYG RoE - Bring back 2-min join-timer]

Nah, though I've been quite supportive of many of your essays on mechanics so far, this I'll have to disagree with you on. 

Three minute join timers were the goldilocks timers.  Just enough to hunt in groups but not so much that it was magical-teleport-in-from-anywhere.  And I'd add that I'd leave the undocking and leaving battle timer as they are so that you could still be somewhere waiting but not completely called in from out of the blue in order to defend a mate that was tagged right outside of your Outpost/Battle, etc.

In any case... We need one, consistent RoE, nothing that varies between zones, etc. This just breeds endless frustration, complacency, and bugginess. 

[On Rare Woods Harvesting and Map Distribution]

I think that rare woods should be tied to PvE players, thus making a link between people who PvP (generating combat marks), those who PvE ("gathering"), and their intersection which are people supporting or participating directly in RvR.

If we make the "gathering" of rare woods based on time spent in game rather than labor hours then everyone wins (more targets on the open water, more PvP opportunities, etc.). Basically the "gathering" would go like this: traders drop rare woods quite often, but an even more steady supply available for base crafting materials including fine woods by capping AI ships, sailing them back to your crafting port and breaking them up.  By driving up the number of timbers and crafting supplies recovered from broken ships then we get close to traditional "mining" activities of other MMOs (making active time spent in-game matter) rather than just passive labor hour accrual or AFK hauling.

You might argue that doubloons are just a go-between for this "gathering" activity, but let's be honest.. getting doubloons is basically best done by AFK sailing these days which I don't think is good game design.  I think if you married resource gathering to the ability to cap AI 3rd rates and below (and introducing all DLC ships as open world AI), thus alleviating pinch points on permits and evening the playing field for DLC owners vs. regulars, the game would be a much happier place.

[Forthcoming patch information: Port Investments + map wipe]

22 minutes ago, Socialism said:

I’m mildly excited, though I think to enter a region you need to take the secondary ports and then the capital.  Effectively a clan can lock down a region with just 1 timer if I am understanding admin correctly.  

Also if you want folks to actually participate in RVR the availability of rare woods needs to be considerably tweaked.  

Alternatively, we can just pay a friendly, foreign clan to come out in a fleet of fir Rattvisans and let us sink them a couple times to grind hostility in front of one of the county’s noncapital ports without a timer.  

But I agree on the fine woods 2.0 problem. I think it needs to be addressed through significant bumps to “gathering” via PvE traders and capping and breaking down AI.

[Yet another map: Naval Action map]

16 hours ago, LIONOFWALES said:

Not a bad map mate... but the one in game is better... sorry.

Are you being serious? Felix’s provides all of the tools that the in game map is missing, so much so that the dev’s basically endorse it over their own tool and quit working on it, lol (they’re removing the trader tool as of the last word).

[On the issue of imported ship permits versus ready imported ships.]

On 4/12/2019 at 6:01 AM, jodgi said:

It's not, though I appreciate the effort to include me in the grand eco scheme.

You play EVE so I fully understand why you fight for eco.

I've given a very wide berth to EVE, not because of spaceships but because that game is a near perfect example of eco gameplay. 

Funny enough, it also has ten+ thousands of active daily players and an extremely vibrant PvP, PvE, RvR, and social tapestry to satisfy all play styles. 

Coincidence?

[How to fix DLC ships without changing DLCs]

Since they’re blowing up econ and crafting anyway, and DLCs are not going to change, I feel like our time would be better spent lobbying to make all AI ships, 3rd rate and under capturable, and return all ships (even those with permits and DLC) to be found in AI fleets.

This would hugely lower the bar for all players to have access to these ships. It would even the playing field a lot between those with fancy woods and the DLC ships, while also motivating people to go out, find and cap nice AI builds and put them up for sale. 

There would still be motivation to have the DLC for convenience and to build non-crew space, purpose-built ships, but for general PvP your captured Bellona or Trinco would probably be just fine.

[Remove Crew gain from Exams]

This is a terrible idea that will hurt new players more than help them. 

Ask yourself why such a shortcut to Master and Commander rank was instituted in the first place... If you were around when it was instituted the rationale given was that we saw a huge dropoff in players before they even made it through sailing a Brig. So the idea was to kick them immediately into a ship they could be effective in PvP and clan activities with.. and with the new damage model heavily favoring anything with larger guns this is even more important than it was at that time.

[Gauntlets]

28 minutes ago, mikawa said:

The duelrooms are not liked by community.

That's exactly the opposite of reality. 

The community loved duel rooms, small, and large battles. They made training up new players, testing builds, and getting better at PvP a much more manageable affair. It was the dev's that didn't want to maintain them because they were handwringing at the time trying to prop up server populations and were also removing any extra work they would incur during the UI rework/localization efforts.  Clearly the removal of them failed and left us with even less content than we had before and we still have plenty of people asking for their return.

 

[Gauntlets]

How about we lobby for the return of duel, small, and large battle rooms instead?  OW is a garbage matchmaking engine anyway...

[On the issue of imported ship permits versus ready imported ships.]

9 minutes ago, Koveras said:

I don't disagree, but there has to be an incentive for ppl to go into the OW for other reasons than RvR.. Econ needs money sinks, stuff that is readily available but exorbitantly expensive - like mods, special guns (edinorog guns etc) and crafting unfortunately will take a backseat due to the 'rare' woods, permitwalls and the availability of competitive DLC ships.

I think that's the huge irony of all of the changes recently and the ones talked about here. Essentially the active and passive money sinks of crafting and taxes have no way to keep up with inflation now that most of the motivation for trading and crafting has been removed.  People are amassing huge amounts of reals from delivery and passenger missions with essentially nothing to spend it on, all while satisfying their ship/combat needs with DLC ships that are free.

With all of these changes in the economy so "close" to release I doubt there's any way to properly balance the economy, and inflation will eat away at the entire game ecosystem.  This is the nature of non-player-based MMO economies and seems to be a huge failing of the Naval Action mechanics and testing. All of the economic bones of such games have to be in place throughout a long enough period of testing in order to understand the complex interactions in place... and sadly, after three years we're no closer to that than we were on Day 1 of Early Access.

[On the issue of imported ship permits versus ready imported ships.]

I’m excited for the port control changes as it’s something I and others have been asking for for a long time. But let’s face it, we would have bought cosmetic DLC to support you (consumable paint packs, flag packs, ship models, etc.) at a rate that might have been sustaining, while leaving the pay to win nature of the current DLC out of the mix. With a line ship in elite woods now at daily disposal players with it are simply at a huge advantage over other without it.

And this is particularly true with the RNG, permits and pay walls for woods in place.

If we are basically flushing crafting down the toilet I’d propose a major change that I think would make everyone happy: Enable the capture of all ships, 3rd rate and below and add even the permitted and imported ships to AI fleets. This would even the playing field, create interest for PvE-oriented players while still allowing for ship builders to create the ships with the very best, purpose-built builds, but with a much smaller edge granted to DLC holders that’s focused mainly on convenience.

[Rebalanced Permit Costs]

On 4/6/2019 at 6:15 PM, o7Captain said:

What makes Prince de neufchatel so special over Niagara that it costs combat medals ? In my opinion any 5 or 6th rate permit shouldnt cost any combat medal.

Because it's the only ship in a group that can get even close to a DLC Requin's sailing profile. i.e. we need to reduce the availability of anything that can compete with those.

[Reduce shipwreck weight please]

On 4/7/2019 at 11:46 PM, Macjimm said:

Making wrecks easier  won't improve the game.

Making wrecks harder certainly doesn't. 

Seriously, like we need one more reason to be AFK on the OW? 🙄

There is literally no reason to not make the shipwreck looting interface like the in-battle looting interface, realism, logistically, or game-play-wise.  It's just a quality of life feature that makes sense.

[Suggestion for peace server (consensual PVP flags)]

6 hours ago, Captain Reverse said:

What do you guys need? You did not think that this game is hard for your brain? Maybe you should try to play something easier? although I don't know which MMO might be even easier

So calling me stupid for pointing out the indisputable fact that the majority of players in any MMO actually prefer a mixture of PvP and PvE is your idea of a good argument? Way to be a strong and supportive member of the community... You're a true, upstanding member. 

If you ever did anything other than bash noobs and rack up combat medals against inferior opponents you might be worthy of more respect and attention. But as it is, your opinions, though clearly mattering to the developers, are clearly out of line with the "average" Naval Action player.

I agree with my fierce rival @Socialism, however, that players should play where they get the content they want. And the biggest problem is that players who want anything other than ganking and seal clubbing after interminably long searches for PvP increasingly have nowhere to go.

[Bottles and why we cant choose what to pick]

27 minutes ago, Salty Sails said:

could you post a screenshot of your shipwreck with full of crap?

i never found such a ship.

It's right there in the screenshot.. Teak logs and Spanish square sails. Enable fishing and hope to catch a bottle with a location of such a ship wreck.

[Suggestion for peace server (consensual PVP flags)]

2 hours ago, Captain Reverse said:

crazy people

"People from PVP server":

- GIVE US PVE!!!!! We wont PVE!!!! No PVP on PVP server, only PVE!!!!!!

 

"People from PVE server":

- GIVE US PVP!!!! We wont PVP!!!!! No PVE on PVE server, only PVP!!!!!!

 

what is wrong with this world??

Could it possibly be that most players want a mix of both? <gasp> This is a lesson that every other major MMO has incorporated and Naval Action seems to be ignoring... 

Your attitude, and the fact that dev's have listened to players like you, has been hugely detrimental to the game and its population.