LegoLarry

Ahah! Ohoh! The old tradition of annexing Poland by Russia and Prussia I see.

British navy experiment with new Fireship equipment

That is a heartening post , I think the devs talking to level headed new guys like yourself would be a wise move to get a different view on things. If I was them at least it is what i would try to do, and they probably are already. Naval Action is the only game like it out there, leeway, sail control, mass battles and has a lot going for it. Hoping for the best, and an ocean filled future .

Good effort and nice to see

It's good that things are being done now for new guys, but ideally should have been considered pre release. The devs are and have been listening but to vets who wanted to style the game for their own enjoyment, but in doing so created a perfect storm for new players to be farmed (6th rate pvp kill missions, removal of zones around capital area's for example) to cater for the test players wishes. So here we are a few months after release and mostly what we are left with are those same players that advised the devs and little else. It's easy in hindsight to lay blame, but i do believe all sides in the forming of current situation 99% did so in good faith. Out of curiousity I restarted fresh after ports were taken etc and what i noticed was alarming after release and server pop was over 1k. When game was released it was easy to hunt AI out of neutral ports, skill etc as players/clans/nations were more concerned about establishing their max rank/economy than PvP, enemy AI ships were everywhere. After all ports were taken and the PvP increased on server, the new guys had to go into enemy waters to find AI ships above 6th rate and in home waters only enemy AI you see was in capital zone. So along with less options in terms of AI (discounting missions which lets face it loot extremely poorly for refits), came the horde of pvp groups hungry for combat marks to fund RvR/port upgrades. Basically new guys had a harder time than vets in this time and thats when server pop really crumbled away. The Loki rune although kinda fun is yet another thing that will cause grief to newer players, this evening i absolutely destroyed a poor US guy in his connie with a rune it spawned me in an essex and basically cored him out staying on stern. All it does is impede new player progression, and yet again satisfy the PvP hungry vets for e-peen kicks. While a great idea i think it's again affected newer guys way more than older players, maybe make the loki rune much rarer? Not sure what the answers are tbh, and just hope it's not to late to rescue game from where we are but one thing is certain we need better retention for new guys or game will die. Sorry if i sound negative, I don't mean to trash talk just saying things as i see them, and perhaps an understanding of how we came to be here is a way to aid to formulate solutions without replaying past mistakes. I really do hope balance can be achieved for game to be the success it deserves to be.

The thing is balance in games i think is the hardest to achieve, hopefully the right mix will come.

I think that while i agree with you about game being less fun now that it's more due to players than the devs tbh. Firstly we had on release experienced players in the main gravitating to 2 nations which i guess is understandable, but has created an oxymoron where stated hard nations are the easy ones lol. Nothing i think devs can do really about this, but as time goes by more have switched to the power houses or quit (look at server pop). Also before someone says russiaphobia or whatever, you can't really blame players either for joining with those that they enjoy playing with. Changes made after release are based on viewpoint of experienced players which although is valuable data takes zero account of new guys, perhaps this is a reason we have such bad player retention? Viewpoint on things from a new player and veteran will be totally different perspective on game. Finally without player retention you end up with dying game pop, and so less targets, less fun. I would wager that a large % of players we see in game atm are those that played pre release (numbers are about the same more or less). So basically pre release players gave advice for devs that created a game not for all but to satisfy the vet players with no regard to new player experience. Maybe i'm wrong but server pop has returned to pre release levels overall , but seems there has been an increase overnight for US time zone.

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Meanwhile in the US war council...

Only way i can think is being achieved would be to take missions in a nation with an alt, forge papers over and hunt in area's with missions activated before moving over. I've seen it happen and is quite odd, easy fix would be to not transfer missions when you switch nation and they reset. Unless is a special way to do this ofc.

For me at least I am having much more fun/time in other games, latest one is Battletech which i got with 2 expansion packs from humble bundle monthly which was $9 (12 normally but had $3 discount) and i get a selection of games on 4th Oct also which most probably will be no interest but still. I log into NA look at what i need/want to do... Kill missions PvE - 5th rates i need to sail an hour set up outpost, ship repairs, tow/sail ship over.. Kill missions PvP - Sail 1-3 hours looking for a fight only to find mostly teams of 3-4 players on gank fests (what ever happened to lone hunters?) Cargo missions - Sail hours while watching netflix or playing another game alt/tabbing out to see if am near destination. So what tends to happen is i will fight couple 6th rates outside capital to open slots, then go play something i can get some fun out of. I know is a sailing game so travel is expected but the whole realism guys obsession with huge time sinks, making lineships rare, etc has made NA feel like going to work. Somewhere along the testing fun seems to have been forgotten, balance has always been an issue throughout testing and seems like nothing has been learned. So we are left with a population mostly consisting of the ones that stuck through testing who mostly joined the same powerbases, and game design with port bonuses/ship permits created initial huge demand for combat marks..... which of course meant new guys were raped constantly around capital waters... Combat mechanics are great, although forts are insane (again balancing issue) and have made motar brigs useless and may as well be removed from game if stay same as is current situation. Port bonuses would be ok if say craft level influenced how many of the bonus points could be used perhaps 1 per craft level and crafter chooses which ones from levels available (no more mass produced frankenships) but ofc would need a wipe as game flooded with them which would be a disaster. Open world is sterile, AI at moment are just comedy zombie things in open world so perhaps if done right AI reacting would be a good thing for game. Finally i think removing the protected zones/rienforcements was a really bad idea, but gotta keep the spawn campers happy... genius move. I really hope NA is fun again and that the playerbase grows, but currently i don't see it happening. If devs think adding a wind button people can press to travel quicker will make people sit watching empty sea for an age instead of alt/tab netflix or whatever there really is little hope i think. I have had fun in NA and many hours so can't complain personally, but I really hope devs have a master plan that will succeed.

So.... when are we going back to Beta test. 😂🤣

The French could always capitulate and join their invaders, it would be in keeping with national traditions.