Dread Pirate West

1 a day redeemable, throws you straight into the first fight that pops up, or into a fight that has lasted less than two minutes. Cant redeem if you have one in your inventory that was redeemed. Can outfit the rune like a ship, allowing you to toss upgrades on with a small repairs inventory to add. Keep the rune if you win the fight against a player with exp rewards associated with a first rate to allow you to unlock knowledge slots. If you lose the rune goes away, though you retain exp and slots unlocked. Id say thats worth a DLC, and will satisfy battle junkies. Make things very interesting, for both combatants, as the rewards should also proportionally increase for the player who engaged the fight.

As a new player just jumping in, and with an excellent grounding in naval combat from World of Warships, theres a few things ive been noticing. Fighting the AI ships that are tier 7 is relatively functional. Ive not had many suprises, ive had to use more tricks than I thought I had, but for the most part, it makes sense. Working with other players to go after bigger targets broke me out of the super cheap ship stage, as it gave me the privateer, which allowed us to go after snows and the like. The combat missions for tier 7 are a joke. I get more doubloons faster grabbing a single passanger, and sailing to whatever port I need to in the Trader Snow. I have every incentive to ignore the combat missions, and instead hunt whatever NPC looks tasty. If I didn't have a friend to play with, I would have dropped the game, and gone back to play other things. First real combat I had was in a basic cutter with an enemy player 'noob' hunting. It was no contest, which made sense. But it was ten feet (relative) from the capital. Ways to modify it to give the new players a fair shake: As long as youre in the basic cutter, you get an AI companion ship automatically (either a basic cutter or a lynx), they share a few tips as you get into situations but are generally there as a teaching tool. Watching the AI ship engage in combat would help a player to understand ship combat mechanics a bit better than the tutorial action. Disable this after the player pilotes their first rank 5 vessel. When in capital waters, any time a new player (50 hours or less) is engaged in combat, and the opponent is a player, spawn a ship on the side of the new player that engages the opponent as well. Give the enemy player a reason to go after that ship rather than the player, either by making it an Elite, or giving it some above average loot. (Sellable goods, crafting materials for the port in question (Common), an upgrade or two...) If a high level player is sailing in the deep ocean, and comes into view of a low leveled player, spawn a ship similar to the low level player in that vicinity of the same faction as the low level player. Give high level players a second target, allowing them to go after either the player or the NPC with similar risk/reward.