Jeheil

Quick addition for Pirates (even though they are dirty scum and should all be hanged, revived and then hanged again), we could a) Just allow any old raid, they get more loot/ship notes and cause the economy penalties I mentioned before. b ) or, and you may need tissues right now, they could be hired for Marks/Money by a nation to raid a port for 'them' and this would add 33% (or some amount) of hostility for that nation. c) I hate that when I type b then ) it makes a smiley face @$@#$ emojis are taking over my sms, email and now even forums...come the day all emojis will share a rope with pirates.

First off thanks for the quick reply. I would like to see Raids be part of setting up the MAIN PB (similar to Texas T). Please don't do 4. Look for an interim hostility fix until a better system for hostility is IN. Just up the points for snotting fleets or some sort of thing and make it clear its temp. Worst case we have lots of Port Battles !! But I would like to see Raids use the 'olde' flag mechanic to generate a NORMAL port battle on ANY of the NOT capital territories in the region. Make it a tug-of-war. If the attacker wins raid 1 then the port is "Primed", if they win the next raid, the Port is SET for a PB X time from then forwards (within any Time windows you deem to set to keep folks happy on Euro and 24 hours or whatever on open-Global-no-timers land). If however the defender wins Raid 2, then make it go back to neutral. Let the rewards from a raid be more "gold, materials, xp and the random Ship note" but no conquest marks. So worth doing. Now it a 3rd, 4th or 5th raid are successful then I would REALLY like to see the capitals defences diminish. This will give fun to all. Allow for non-regular players to participate in a Port Battle (use the same ship rates to set the type, lets be honest, until we are 4 months in, no fleet is going to be 25 twinked out agamamemnememnomnoms). If a nation has their PB's already Queued up and you keep the idea of a maximum, people can still raid. So what do we do about EMPTY defended raids. Use Bot's as best you can, but should a player arrive, a Bot sinks (picking undamaged ones first) and the player eats its spot. If the attacking force have sunk a Bot, that spot is eaten (so a player can't replace it). Defenders get same loot for winning. I would, now that I have left the land of likely and entered the world of the dreamer, look at goosing the economy of a raided port. All goods cost 50% more to buy until the region is placated and all production houses at that port run at 50% capacity. A man has to dream Oh quick Edit, we can still have open world hostility work to Prime and Set a Port. A raid can be seen as two hostility bombs mechanically. So if you do 50% through snotting players/fleets, you only need one raid to tip her over. Second Quick Edit, I offer this suggestion free of IP claims, of course an Aggie BP would be a nice thanks J, thanks.

I honestly and non-mischievously think the following : If you look at the wipe being a change to the old game, you gunna get hurt, this is now a NEW game. The Dev's have taken a direction. If you want something different, you will (as my grandma used to say) "be swimming uphill". Ship captaincy and progression from one ship to another is much slower. Its not a GRIND, you will need to take lots of time mastering a ship (and oddly some other ships) to fully benefit from all the 'perks' one can have on that ship. Ship manufacturing is far more difficult than it used to be. And SUPER MEGA MORE DIFFICULT if you play totally on your own. It's not impossible. Using only one account, in 3 weeks of say "2 hours" a night, and while doing other things, I made a lovely Constitution. It is a TANK n SPANK build. It took planning. I could make my next one much more quickly. It COST ALOT OF MONEY as I needed to build, trade and teardown lots of ports to do so. If you want to be solo. It is MUCH MUCH HARDER. I cannot implore people enough to join a clan. Doesn't need to be some big dictatorial, super governed, mega clan...simply you and 3 other like-minded, equally dedicated (or not) players who can share the burden of various elements (cannons, resources, escourting, marks etc). You will HAVE to learn how to trade the economy and where the risk/reward is for resource gathering. None of the above applies to Pirates who are arguably more 'crippled' than they were in the previous version. Pirates are an undercooked meal at the moment. Now, in summary, I like in general the direction. It is however VERY DIFFERENT that what we were playing "2 months ago". Creature comforts are gone. Instanced lobbied things are gone (may appear in a whole new 'sister game'). But in all honesty 'railing' against the direction and hanckering 'for the old ways' will just be futile with the current zest the dev/admin team have for their current direction. Over time and perhaps with balanced well worded feedback some creature comforts, changes, compromises may sneak back in. We are still missing BIG LUMPS of the game (raids, pirate world), RvR hostility generation seems a bit wonky to me at the moment and my biggest concern is the new 'direction' may be dependant on a server population we will no longer have...and this will 'skew' what I think is a good direction. Player driven economies...need...get ready for this....players ! So for me, a big challenge for the darling Dev's is how do they get enough folks back into the sea for their vision to work. Personally, I would give folks a $1 humble bundle type 30 day pass (STARTING IN NOT A CUTTER BUT A PROPER BOAT LIKE A SURPRISE) or some such with an option to extend at standard game cost at the end of their 30 days. With some promos. The risk with this is that there is no 'tutorials' and 'interface' that looks like my mum coded it in 1974. So this sort of promotion may need to wait till the UI uplift. However until then where will the playerbase come from. The short term/tactical/imo BAD decision to split the servers for the 'euro teatime brigade' versus the 'dirty US nighflippers' will bite us all in the bum as both servers will limp along with 300 players..undermining this GOOD and brave new direction. Instead they should have bitten off a solution to a GLOBAL GAME. TL;DR - Read it ya lazy git.

No a Grundge Monkey hangs around in his Garage on a rainy Manchester afternoon overdoing the reverb on his guitar while singing psuedo anthemic rockpop...and then when noticing it is still raining after 23 consecutive days in June gets very Grumpy...at this points transcends to a GrumpyGrundgeMonkey

Jeheil, becalmed of PvP, adrift of changes on the Testbed, goes utterly mad in his doldrums and tackles the recent BANHAMMER that has been wielded with much abandon.

Maaaate I hear ya, I am back to Diablo 3 FFS !! On the upside appreciate the consolidate patch list/notes and at least the new date is closer than the slip on the last move !! The horizon is getting closer......

In essence BJ Morgan I agree 100% with you. In practice many in the community play the game (and lets be clear ENJOY the game) as if its a finished product. The huge changes on the test bed that inside 7 days can totally render useless the 'thing you are halfway doing' would NEVER be accepted by the community. On the testbed you can have spent 5 days gathering matt's to discover one matt no longer exists and you need two others. Now on the testbed...well suck it up princess...on the main servers we would be sailing the Dead Sea with so much salty salt salt

One of my big regrets of the server split is that I will only ever tell half the story, so I think its great if you guys want to pick this up, I am more than happy to share my source materials so you can then edit them accordingly (promise not to tell anyone...its shockingly easy !). Let me know and I will forward on my materials and a 'how to'. I am sure within 10 seconds you will improve it !! (at which time...I will come asking for help from you)

Wood you believe it...crafting has changed again, there are now lots more exotic things you can do with crafting and its all rather exciting tbh. All this and more in this weeks L2tK.

Corrected in comments...only to those of your nation.

Yes I just went on to check, if you cook from this ship recipie it offers 'marks' if you cook from the casting/woodworking/manufacturing page you can use the raw materials. Although for some nations the marks will prove a viable (if not very hard to obtain) alternative. I will add a comment., can't use annotations anymore, yt is phasing them out.

Lots of REALLY BIG changes on the testbed. The Dev's have set sail for the land of "Toughen the @#$! up" and its a whole new game. Catch up on lots of new features in this weeks LtTK....and I answer the question "should I come back ?"

@admin any ETA on when the production wipe will occur.

Thanks for that. Yeh given the line "player crafted ships will be much better" I am somewhat underwhelmed....well done in getting her built...its alot of startup effort (I don't have a problem with that btw).

Would love to see PLEASE STS a comparison of stats between the two...any chance u could screenie your lovingly built Surp v a store one ? I will build my first connie this weekend...or at least thats the plan.

World record shortest ever L2tK but then...well theres not much to cover. A quick update on the latest patch on the Testbed...and well thats it !

So any clues as to what the new buildings are/do

Yay binge watching....Ill contact netflix asap

All hands all hands...get thyself to the testbed....

....and will they be 'named' global and euro...so I don't herpa derp and end up with the wrong mob !! Oh and 220 ping...I dream a dream

Put on your rubber gloves and safety glasses, in this weeks episode, Jeheil ignores the PvP that ins't happening on Euro PvP1 and instead takes us through the Testbed and the latest patch on there.

I try to do as you described, perhaps not all those who post under 'admin' maintain the same consistent and even handed approach you are espousing here. I agree with all you said, the approach, the bannings for very bad behaviour etc.

Having slept on this (figuratively of course..as an Aussie gamer sleep is some 'mythical' construct) this is my considered and honest input : Chat Removal : Personally I believe this is a terrible idea. For lots and lots of reasons. In an EA game, devoid of tutorials and guides, new peeps need the community love. Now I truly understand the issues with moderating chat. People call it toxic...honestly its nowhere near real toxic. In every 10 people one of them is an idiot, indeed, if you are ever in a group of 10 people or more look around, spot the idiot, if you can't, you should leave !! For the small %age of horrid people lets not throw away what is generally a good and helpful community. You will 'silo' people, they will be driven much further apart. It was conversations with pesky French players, those damned Spanish and several Pirates that changed my 'national' and myopic view on lots of things. Community organised fun will be hampered. This is just a bad reflex to a few stoopid peeps. Racist, Sexist, Bigoted behavior should be punished. Rude/Idiot people, leave them to the community. We have ignore lists and mute options. Thats easy. Implementation of Open World Sharia Law : Now, I have always said, that GamesLabs really missed a trick not taking their initial 'sea trials' and creating a 'World of Warships' type game for drop in fun. So I for one support this type of game. The combat in NA is just superb. We all love it. Its how we get to it that causes muddlement. Now if we had 2,000 players online then having 'lobbied' content to some 'mini-games' would probably be fine. Think WoW, PvP Leagues, Alteric Valleys etc. However with 2-400 people online having these two worlds together, both only ~50% implemented is possibly a bad idea. It does neither thing well and pays the price. I also believe that outcomes, rewards etc from lobbied content 'should not' be useable/useful in O/W. I, as many of you know, LOVE Naval Action. I also am prepared (at cost to Real Life) to put time into it. Not everyone makes this choice or can afford the time commitment. This makes me fear for O/W. I believe a balance has to be struck between 'realistic', 'simulation' and 'game'. Again I will use the most successful MMO of all time WoW as an example. There are 'lifestyle' assists to having to 'walk/sail' everywhere. Flight Outposts, Summoning, Portals etc. These do 'takeaway' from the chore/commitment of having to spend hours to travel. We need to find a balance. Between Bore/Chore and Work/Reward and Just Fun/Gaming. I think the patch has gone to far to one side with the utter smashing of almost 'all' comfort mechanics. I do however support the notion of making the O/W more 'vivid' and 'exciting'. But almost all of the patch is making other things worse to make it look better (or indeed be the only choice). I hope this is just a step in evolution. On the upside the inability/peskiness of moving vast distances does mean that 'wars' will be fought over more slowly moving and better defined borders. As most nations will need to slowly and incrementally 'push' their borders from their fronline to 'the next territory'. This might be good. Admin Behavior in the Forum : Firstly, thanks for the loadsa time you are putting in, I think you are a little too combatitive with some of your comments..however at least you are Frank. But I do advise you play the ball and not the man !! Sometimes your own comments would if said by a player get them in trouble. OUR Behavior in the Forum : We are all passionate about NA because we love it and its potential. However, we are sometimes a little dismissive of other perspectives and are not really behaving like collaborators in a sort of 'co-design' exercise. Which is exactly what we should be as an EA community. So I do implore us all (me included) to think beyond our own bubbled world view. Imagine a new player coming in...what made sense and we got used to over the past 3-4 months may actually not have been a good long term idea. RoE : If Open World is ALL, then THE single most important thing to get right is the Rules of Engagement. Make Tagging and entering/joining into battles a focus for improvement.

Spain go after the cloggies, some OW scraps outside KPR and that's about all, so I give us an update on the next Test Patch and some tips n tricks for setting up post wipe if you are a shipbuilder.

Wow lots of interesting stuff to test, I have been pottering around on test, look forward to this. Traders xp to get ship bonuses will need some love. I am also assuming 1 dura ships...so, why craft ? I assume some ships can't be captured still ? Will AI have super sexy secret mods all over it ?