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Callaghan

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Everything posted by Callaghan

  1. One thing that is nice about the current grading system is that it adds a bit of granularity to player progress. Levelling up and getting better ships can take a fair while if you are not willing to use exploits and or 'power play' (dishonourable nonsense for kids imo), and so have categorical variations within ship types helps add mini objectives for player progress in between the larger objectives. This is not an argument for getting rid of the current system, just a case for preserving what is good about it. In other words, please make the new system use visuals and language to distinguish between ship; varieties, as opposed to just a percentage change in the stats here and there. A bit of 'flavour' - an algorithm to generate adjectives for the ship based on the stat changes, much like loot in many RPGs ("Race built traders cutter", for example), can really help make crafting and purchasing new ships based on small changes seem a lot more significant and exciting. Colour coding according to ship strengths could also help in this regard. With the current lack of proper UI, the game in general lacks these small but important elements that all come together to make that 'hook' that keeps people playing and coming back.
  2. "it is ok if you comment on that without personal attacks he is also not allowed to troll you and might lose his position because of that" Fine, but where do you draw the line? The more I get into the game the more I like to role play a bit. There have been occasions where I have, in good humour, called a fleeing french captain an ´amphibian brained field-hand´, for example. It was technically a personal insult, but I don´t think any player that isn´t a humourless sourpuss would want to censor any such banter.
  3. All sounds good apart from compression of power of lower ranked ships - unrealistic and unhistorical, not to mention counter-productive. Taking on and defeating a snow in a yatch or whatever is already possible if the player has enough skill, it shouldn´t be made possible for players who aren´t willing to try harder, just seems to go against the core design principles of the game.
  4. Some of us don´t spend every day on the forum, and I don´t have the time to look through the entire forum to see if there is another topic. These are my suggestions, and I put them in the correct place.
  5. This game can never be advertised as ´realistic´if pirates are able to crew, use and maintain 3rd rates and larger. This is obvious, and the fact that the devs allow pirates very large ships goes against the core design principles of the game and the reason why many people invested in pre-alpha. For whatever reason, the devs seem incapable of simply sticking to their guns and denying all the Jack Sparrow wannabes from getting these large ships, so here´s a mechanics compromise to make it more viable. Pirates are unable to have crews large enough to effectively use SOLs, but they can still capture them, sell them and even use them if they like, they would just have a MASSIVE penalty. They would have the same number of ranks as the other nations, but each rank would correspond to a smaller crew. To compensate for this, and to reflect the pirate ´flavour´ with a bit more emphasis, I suggest that pirates are able to keep all of the durability on ships that they capture. This would be a fair compromise, and would also make being a pirate more ´piratey´ i.e. you would now have a great reason to go out and capture more ships as part of the core gameplay, as opposed to having one mastercrafted for you which is just ridiculous for a pirate. Thoughts?
  6. I voted Exploration and Delivery missions, but feel that the option isn´t good enough. Filling out the missions to make them fun as opposed to crushingly mundane should be priority number 1 right now. it´s what all players use to learn the game and gain their initial ranks via XP- if this isn´t fleshed out ASAP people are going to get very burned out on the game because of this oversight. I have made a post on the suggestions page for mission options, it doesn´t simply have to be limited to delivery and exploration (yawn). Get creative guys!
  7. So long as they never ever ever allow players to use unrealistic colouring especially for sails, sounds good. PotBS looked like a f*cking children´s swimming pool with all of those black and red sails everywhere, instant immersion killer.
  8. Ok so I have sunk god knows how many lynxes, privateers and what not in missions, and am getting bored quickly by how easy the missions are and the lack of variety. I´m picking the missions that are above my rank and they are still too easy. Some suggestions for mission types that should be added ASAP to make the early game more interesting, more of a ´game´ and less of a ´grind´in an attempt to get to supposed game content. Mission variety is especially important at this early stage when trading and crafting aren´t really viable unless you play the game 24/7, and would greatly improve new player retention. I can see that the devs have their hearts in the right place, but I´m worried they are getting distracted by less important aspects of the game. Right now, to be completely frank, the game doesn´t feel like a sailing adventure where the player feels drawn to explore and discover and, well, play. Right now it feels like being a coffee boy for a faceless corporation that has been given the vague, distant promise of a better afterlife if they make enough coffees and run enough errands. Rewards relative to difficulty - Why on earth do I get the same gold and XP when fighting a rank 3 mission enemy as with a rank 1? This just goes against common sense, creates a sense of grinding where there neednt be, and is probably one of the easiest things to change from a coding perspective. Unique/Special AI enemies - In line with the style of the game, I´m not talking about characters with abilities etc. I just think that this could be a good way to make the missions less crushingly predictable and repetitive. Every 1/10 missions, for example, the AI could be in a uniquely powerful ship relative to the player, with XP rewards to compensate. Convoy intercept - accepting the mission would create a trade convoy on the map (good escort compared to OW AI convoys) with very valuable cargo. Any player could attack in theory but the player who started the mission would have the advantage of knowing the departure and destination ports, allowing them to plan an ambush point. This would be an especially good mission for groups, as it nicely bridges the open world map and the battle instances in a way that the game hasn´t yet explored. Convoy escort - not a personal favourite, but more or less essential for this kind of game, could maybe be a good low level mission type that encourages new players to explore the world earlier on, as opposed to waiting till they get an SOL, which seems to be the case right now. Delivery missions - exactly what they say on the tin Pursue and capture - pirates would often flee from navy ships as opposed to stand and fight as they do in the game, I would love to be able to play missions where I chase a pirate ship loaded with booty through an archipelago or series of rock formations around a cove, needing to catch them before they escape to deeper waters where they will be able to escape. Spy/scout missions - could be held within specialised battle instances where the player ship has to get close to a port or fortification (rendered within the instance) without being detected, and then escaping with the intel. Sailor retrieval - entering this typr of instance would place you in the aftermath of a large battle, with floating burning hulks and a few surviving victors roaming looking for survivors, your mission would be to enter this smoky landscape and rescue friendly sailors while fending off the enemy. Just a few ideas off the top of my head - the combat is very well implemented in this game and it really should never feel like a grind, a few simple changes just need to be added for this to be the case.
  9. Thanks guys, keep being good devs, fighting the good fight, and resisting the demands of the onslaught of casual kiddies since Steam release!
  10. Ok so it seems like their AA is very badly optimised. I appreciate that with the level of geometry added by all of the rigging and lines then AA is going to be expensive, fine. But in 2016 we´re so used to not seeing jaggies that it really undermines the beauty of the game, especially because there are so many lines that need AA. FXAA is a nasty blur and counteracts the effects of having high res textures and anisotropic filtering. Are Gamelabs looking into ways of optimising their AA options further, or will it be down to the players to just lower their settings? In response to Octanen, AA is anything but ´useless´, it is one of the most powerful ways of adding verisimilitude to a game, and any experienced gamer should easily be able to tell the difference between 0x, 2x, 4x, and then also supersampled AA. Anyway, looks like other people are having equally bad performance. Now I just want to know if this is something that is being worked on.
  11. So I just booted the game up for the first time in a very long time. I upgraded my system recently, and now have an i5 6600k OC´d to 4.4Ghz, an R9 390 8GB, and 16gb DDR4 2666 on a good motherboard. Why then do I see no performance improvement in Naval Action over my 2010 system? I ran the game with the very same settings, 1080p, everything maxed out apart from AA which I had on low, and I had maybe 24 FPS. I´ll try again later, could be an anomaly, but I have the latest drivers and everything. I´m running it on Windows 7 64 bit. Am I the only one getting shockingly bad performance? This PC should easily be able to handle the level of geometry and the textures and simulation in Naval Action.
  12. Each deck clearly states which class of cannon it can handle. Normally a number range i.e. 7-9.
  13. I hate the idea. This is supposed to be an age of sail simulator, not a camerman with a time machine in the age of sail simulator. It´s like motion blur and lens flare, they should have been killed off a long time ago.
  14. Wow the whole thing came out the water? Haha.
  15. Not of all the things, I want to have them all if possible. In this case I´m more interested to know exactly why not.
  16. But it wouldn´t just be a label on the cargo, that was exactly my point. You´re missing the link to dayz too, it is not about the presence of slaves in Dayz, it is about the presence of ideas such as killing innocent people, or robbing them, or torturing them, they are all just labels and no one actually suffers at the end of the day but it is the labels that matter.
  17. " If you want trading with Africa you can trade ivory or diamonds If you want slave trading - you in reality want to bring slavery topic into the game, not trading " That´s exactly why I ask, and my question remains unanswered, what are the reasons for not bringing the slavery topic into the game? The label is anything but irrelevant. Games are, after all, nothing more than many labels representing underlying, really not fun mechanics. These controversial ideas are exactly what make any game interesting, it´s simply the case that we are so used to certain examples that they no longer affect us - killing players in the majority of games being the obvious example. In ´Papers please´, what is an otherwise cold and sterile admin-em-up, is made fun and gripping by the complex moral questions posed by the game narrative. It is not merely a CPU player you aren´t letting through the border because she made a slight mistake with her documents, it is a mother of three that will be unable to reach her children in the new country because you as a player can´t afford to let her through, you have your own kids to feed. Another example of this psychology making a game infinitely more engaging is DayZ, most of the time you don´t know whether a player will be hostile or not, and half of the game´s appeal is this controversy between ´doing the right thing´ and ´playing it safe´. The topic of slavery would add similar depth to this game, as a player I have the option to buy into a high-profit, perishable resource, but I would definitely not do it without a great deal of thought and hesitation (I personally would probably not trade) and then perhaps guilt if I went through with it. Surely we demand more from games these days than a simple ´yay I killed him´ reward mechanic? Especially if we want them to be considered as art. The connection to Naval Action and slavery might not be obvious to all at first, but I assure you it is there. Once more, this is not a case arguing for it at this point, I would simply like the devs to tell us why they have made this decision, considering how effective this potential link between game mechanics and game theme could be. It should go without saying really, but regardless I will say that I am completely against slavery in any capacity and condemn every real world example of it. I appeal that this topic not be locked. It is a question at this point, not a suggestion.
  18. Ah, I though that gamelabs reps would occasionally answer questions on the suggestions forum... Is this not the case?
  19. Please avoid the initial knee-jerk reaction and hear me out. I appreciate that game-labs have said an absolute ´No´, to the idea of representing the slave trade in game, this is their right as a business and I respect that, it would take real courage and integrity to approach the concept of slave trade within a game environment, and I have come to expect a lack of both of these virtues in the majority of businesses. What I would like to know, however, is why this absolute no decision has been made. I am not arguing a case for a slave trade in game, I just feel it is fair to ask and to expect a sincere reply. Otherwise the only thing we can all be left thinking is that Gamelabs is more responsive to fear of the market than the actually positive and productive desires and suggestions of it´s existing customer base. So, what are the intellectual/moral/business reasons for an absolute no to representing slavery in game?
  20. I have been trying to think of different ´game layers´ that could be added to the current build to add gameplay and immersion depth, and one of the first things that came to mind, largely because of its suspicious absence from the game so far, is the slave trade. This is a mature game, for mature minded individuals, so I think we can all take for granted that my suggestion is not one of trivialising the slave trade. On the contrary, within this mature and educated environment I believe that having slaves as a trade-able resource in the game would be the right and honourable thing to do considering we are enjoying all other aspects of this sometimes ugly history, and will also add another psychological layer to an otherwise, sometimes, sterile simulation experience. They could be a high-cost, high-reward resource with ´perishability´, i.e. the longer you spend at sea the more of the slaves die, perhaps even adding in factors such as the less space you have left in the hold, the quicker they die. I don´t think I have to bore everyone with details of how this would add many interesting things to the game via emergent gameplay, as is always the case with psychological/emotional game layers, hopefully this will just make sense to people. The very last thing we should be doing, is whitewashing history.
  21. When will the next wave of invitations be? Or changes to the invitation system?
  22. Greetings Captains/Saludos Capitanes I have formed a bilingual EN/ES facebook group for people who speak English and/or Spanish and would like to practise the other or simply be part of both communities. It is a very new and therefore small group, but will grow steadily as I think there are many people who would like to bridge these two gaming communities. We already have RamJB as a member, who I think is a very good example of the kind of person that is trying to work and play on a more international level. Any member is free to post recommendations, reviews, clan invites, in English and/or Spanish. The page was started with a recommendation to play Naval Action (Spanish translation pending), so please join us and invite any relevant people, this could end up being a great community with close links to games like Naval Action and other games that attract more mature players. Good sailing! https://www.facebook...159529/?fref=ts
  23. Greetings Captains/Saludos Capitanes I have formed a bilingual EN/ES facebook group for people who speak English and/or Spanish and would like to practise the other. It is a very new and very small group, but will grow steadily as I think there are many people who would like to bridge these two gaming communities. We already have RamJB as a member, who I think is a very good example of the kind of person that is trying to work and play on a more international level. Any member is free to post recommendations, reviews, clan invites, in English and/or Spanish. The page was started with a recommendation to play Naval Action (Spanish translation pending), so please join us and invite any relevant people, this could end up being a great community with close links to games like Naval Action, War Thunder and other games that attract more mature players. Good sailing! https://www.facebook.com/groups/729596067159529/?fref=ts
  24. 1. A direct and consistent relationship between nav-map weather patterns that affect travel speed and visibility, which in turn decide weather conditions for sea battles. It should not be random, we should be able to decide to stay in port if the weather is very bad. 2. Improved and varied storms of different strengths, all the way from 'slightly choppy' through to 'we're all gonna die'. A strong storm should be powerful enough to capsize a ship on its own, provided the player doesn't attack the waves properly. 3. Improved sinking/death mechanic/animation. Right now, the ships sails furl and the ship slowly turns into a submarine. This is highly anti-climactic, and I consider it a weakness of the current combat engine. Destruction should be varied, with fires breaking out and spreading, needing the player to go into survival mode to put them out. Magazines could explode, resulting in massive damage and sometimes instant death. When a ship sinks, it should not always sink in a perfect vertical line, it should follow the damage to the ship as we can see it. When sinking, crew members would be jumping over board, there should be appropriate and harrowing sound effects as crew members try to survive. As it sinks, persistent flotsam and jetsam - crates, timbers etc should fall off the ship and remain floating. Maybe players, as per PotBS, would have a chance to salvage cargo at the end of the battle.
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