dagdriver

great and interresting guide. Unfortunately it also points out how broken the speed mechanic is, and for some reason, I suddenly just dont feel like playing today.

- Balancing of rewards for both PvE & PvP. It makes NO sense that you do not get anything for lost battles, even when fighting against overmatched opponents. Admiralty might not provide you with gold for a lost battle, but at least you as a captian should have learned a lesson (= given xp). From a PvP point of view, the current system involves more risk than rewards, as the loser literally loses everything and gets nothing however he has fought. - Fix the stupid boarding mechanics - Really, a system with some buttons where what matters is who presses what button when a timer reaches 1? Some argues that boarding is mostly won or lost before the grapping, (and I mostly agree), but then just skip the whole button-clicking thing. I would actually preffer a general stance (chosen as 1 of 3 as the ships are pulling in), and then the rest gets automatically slugged out based on factors such as stances, numbers & upgrades. Also why does the defender just accept getting grapped wihtout any sort of attempt at cutting the grappleing hooks? - Fix the speed / turn / damage relations for ships and upgrades. As discussed many times, speed mostly win the day, and agility of certains ships (ie Surprise, Reno etc.) easily wins the day against larger frigates - speed and agility wins anytime, (with a good captain) partly because of skill, but also because a capatin can happily eat a couple of broadsides from larger ships in order to get in position and start stern-camping. I think that the damage difference between smaller and larger cannons are simply too small, a Surprise should be terrified at receiving even a single broadside from 18pd'ers.

AND be very carefull. I lost my ship to a sinking AI with water up to its gunports, when it surprisingly insta-boarded me as I was too close ( they can really pull a long distance). When they won the boarding their original ship had only a bit of the masts visible

I dont understand why there should be an issue with the labeling here, makes perfectly sense to me as it is now.

The old saying "the first million is hard, from there on it gets easy". (or something like that)

More people played before the introduction of Agamemnon, Bucentaure and L'Ocean in the game. Does that mean that adding those ships was bad for the game? I am not saying we need a pinpoint accurate GPS. But we got to have some system for navigation. Some might think that getting lost is fun. I dont.

yeah, the speed does cut the time alot, but I still think it would improve the experience, often the distances are great enough that it does take a while to get within tagging range.

One thing I think is sorely missing from the open world sailing, is the anxiety of encounters. The moment you can click the tiny sail spotted on the horizon, you imidiately have all the details about who it is, what ship it is including fleet ships, and what nation it belongs to. I think it would be far more exciting, if you only got partial information based on distance. So at the furthes distance you will get no info (other than "ship/x-ships"), then when a bit of distance is closed you get its rate (5,4,3 etc.), then ship type, and lastly name & nation. (amount of info and distance could be adjusted). This would bring more excitement to the OW sailing, both while hunting and running trade.

I have played most of my NA time on PVP1, but once in a while it is nice to play on a server were you are free from PvP purist crusaders. I kind of get why PvP purists care so much about PvE servers, after all a player on PvE is a loss of potential prey on PvP

I guess this is the end of "Dagdrivers Handmade High Quality Mid Grade Notes", crafted with only the finest Fair-trade Silver and Eco-friendly Coal from own mines (No slavery or child labor used)!

Not really. The first one was barely watchable, the rest was just awfull nonsens. Hollywood high-budget nonsens.

no matter what, I allways feel I got the wind against me

How often?? I would interpret this to be "how many times do you log on". ( which for my case would be of course week as there is 5 days you can log in and not just 2 as in the weekend) :-) Wouldnt it be more interesting to know how many hours players spend in game on different times of the week? Anyway - I would think that both would be easily gather from the log- files on the servers?

looks nice. But I am not convinced theres a good game at the end of development here, and personally I am not into this " Multiplayer cooperative sailing - one player steers the ship, another operates the sails, and several more could operate the cannons" - thing. (I also dont care for "sea of thieves")

Its pretty clear with the F5 key (entire side, shown with an "R" on the reload indicator) as the crew numbers on gunnery changes and crew is spread to other tasks (sail etc) as well. But does it really make a difference if you just switch off a deck (ie F1 or F2, red cross on the reload indicator) - crew numbers does not seem to change?

NO,NO NO,NO, the current boarding system is a dys-functional stinking turd, blemishing an otherwise beautifull game. Not only is it a deeply stupid game mechanic (clicking a menu in a "real-time-turns", who can click the right moment just before the round ends), the possible actions are strange, and it is the feature in the game that reeks the most of placeholder mechanic.

The problem is that the campaign is on rails, and that winning decisevely battle after battle doesnt end the war, but merely forces you through battles with an enemy magically getting strengthend according to the players strength. IMO the aim of the campaign should be to win the war, that being as fast as possible, or with as few casualties as possible. (disclaimer, I have not played this game, only seen videos and read comments and discussions on this board, if I have misunderstood something - sorry!)

Change of Boarding mechanics! yes! Yes! YES!

AMEN!

yea, the ancient brit code, captains losing their ships would face a courtmarshall - what about other nations?? Not convinced the spanish, danish, french or dutch had the same code of conduct. BUT it was not my intend to discuss historical codes of conducts, honor etc. but merely trying to point out, that the game shouldnt nescesarily mimic historical behavior, if the players anyway wouldnt follow the same.

And this is IMO the issue here. There is a distinct difference between a "real life" captain of the time period, and the gamer of today; While the captain, having responsibility of hundreds of lives, would never let the ship sink, the player does not really care, he usually fights till the bitter sinking end ( as do the NPC). I think that the game cannot aim for realism, without having a mechanism that forces "realistic" behavior from the player. Perhaps the solution would be to have cheaper ships ( 1 dura or not) and much more expensive crew, this could make the players care more about crew than their current precious golden ships (could be further expanded if the crew gained experience as well) . - would this be more fun from a game perspective? not so sure - after all then it might just be another thing that the average player was afraid to lose....

First time I was able to see the event. In my opinion Saturday evening is ill chosen for special events. Friday and Saturday evening and nights are for parties, dinners and other social events, not game time. But back to the event itself, I found it a bit..... underwelming..... saw some empty wrecks, ships milling around, but very few battles, and after about 20 minutes on the spot, I had to log off anyway. I would have thought there would be more ships and or more chests on each ship. This kind of event needs some work, but all in all we need more events and "special stuff" happening.

But what would the point be? Does any kind of "produced once, included forever" component really add to the game?

Yes! Exactly. We need a proper spotting mechanic to emphasize the anxiousnes of spotting a sail far away, especially when sailing in terrirories bordering hostile nations. "AHOY on deck!" "Sail on the horizon, hull down" ... What size is it? what nation? What are its intentions? Maybe details shout be revealed dependant of the distance ..... first size, then type, then nation, then player...

1864: Dybboel ( http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kampene_ved_Dybb%C3%B8l ) - sorry its only in danish fight an impossible battle as the badly equipped danish army against the mighty modern preussian army (or a complete walkover from the prussian side)