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surfimp

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Everything posted by surfimp

  1. I would also like a better surrender mechanic... similar to the trade window, except would popup in battle instance. The one surrendering could make an offer (including payment of gold) and the attacker could either accept or reject, and use in-battle chat to negotiate terms. Of course, this could also be used for exchanging trade goods / ships / gold between players in a peaceful way. I don't see that as a problem - it's no different than meeting in a freeport, and so long as there remains no ability to teleport through the OW, then it's really no difference from now. Overall I just think a better surrender mechanic would be a nice enhancement to the game. Not really relevant to looting mechanics, sorry for the offtopic.
  2. I was getting better drops a couple weeks ago - I think the hotfixes this past week may have adjusted the drop rates for the upgrades, but that's just speculation. Still haven't ever gotten a sealed bottle while fishing - after 130hrs since wipe. Womp womp.
  3. I have always focused on hunting player traders, and I almost always hunt solo (like 99% of the time), and always in enemy waters. This has been my playstyle ever since getting involved in the OW. From my perspective, this playstyle is much more fun now than it's ever been. It's still very challenging and requires a lot of patience, but it's extremely enjoyable for those who partake. I took a long break from the game,, between June 2016 to the wipe / mega-patch, so I may have missed some things, but compared to a year ago (era of compass wood magic money): - The general restriction of teleports has significantly increased the amount of player traders you see in the OW. This has lead to far more opportunities for hunting than in the past. - The changes to trader speeds have helped somewhat. An empty fir/fir trader can still easily outrun a typical 7th rate hunting ship, but one that is laden down with cargo is now much more possible to chase. You still absolutely need to have a good tag and a mastery of the points of sail of your own ship and the quarry, and if you make even a small mistake in the initial minutes of the encounter you can see your prey slip away easily. But it's definitely much more feasible than before, when it was almost impossible to catch a trader with a typical 7th rate. The Privateer - a ship literally dedicated to hunting traders - was almost useless for the purpose. That was sad. - Captain perks have helped a lot. Area Control, Prepared and Fleet 1 are the most important in my opinion, though I could see Pirate, Area Control & Fleet 1 being viable too. There was nothing more utterly frustrating than watching a trader blink out of the battle instance because one of your grapeshot rakes didn't register anything (despite being on target and seeing splinters, etc.) and the 90 second exit timer expired. Even though you are 20m from them, poof and they're gone. That sucked. Now with Area Control, the magic blink-out is not possible so long as you stay close, and with Prepared, you can get some early chain shots in to slow down the trader. Fleet 1 because 7th rate hunting ships have very little cargo capacity, so you need to take the ship (and deal with getting it to a free or friendly port, which is exciting and fun). - Player traders are armed now, and some of them really fight well. I like the balance here quite a bit, my hunting ships have to be built for speed, which means they are fragile, which means a determined trader can give me hell, and because I want to capture his ship and cargo I don't want to sink him, so I have to try to avoid his shots while getting him slowed down and then decrewed so I can board. This leads to some exciting and honestly pretty damn good PVP, it's not by any means simply shooting fish in a barrel trying to take down an armed Traders Brig with 60 crew using a fir/fir Lynx or Privateer. Easy to dismiss if you've never done it, but if you've never done it - using a small ship - then you don't really know what you're missing. So, in summary I would say that compared to a year ago, I am having much more success hunting, but that's because the traders can't just plop themselves on a 135* broad reach and run with virtual impunity against my Privateer or Lynx. It might have been different in the later months of last year, I don't know because I was on a break, but compared to this time last year, the combination of more trade ships in the OW and the balancing changes has made the "Literally Pirate Sailing" playstyle a very valid and tremendously enjoyable pursuit. I am quite content with the game as it stands right now, even though a typical hunting session of 2-3 hours might at best only net 2 prizes. That is fine with me. Sometimes I get none, too, and I'm OK with that as well... I enjoy the challenge of the hunt.
  4. I really enjoyed this post, nice job and nice tactics. Good gameplay mechanics encourage such thinking and actions and lead to longterm enjoyment. For my part, my tactic for dealing with revenge fleets is to use a small, fast and agile ship, and to keep moving constantly in the OW while hunting player traders (which is, for me, my favorite thing in Naval Action). The enemy gets glimpses of me along their coast, but their efforts to intercept are usually quite futile... I rarely get caught in a tag circle, let alone get caught in a battle. When I find my prey (player trader), I have my routine (tag, chain, ball, grape, board) down to a pretty polished system that allows me to get my work done quickly, in 10min or less, so far faster than a revenge fleet can get to me. Then I have the excitement of trying to stay out of sight while I make off with my prize.. this is the most stressful but also, in many ways, the most fun part. I know they are out to get me - can they find me before I reach safety? It's good times. So, that is another approach, which works for me as a solo player. I don't mind sailing small ships, it's what I've always done, and it's a tremendously exciting and rewarding (in terms of gameplay experience) to be a hunter "behind enemy lines." That playstyle - my playstyle - is better served by the current build's mechanics than I think it's ever been before. I'm having a blast and have put in over 100hrs since wipe, after having not played for over a year.
  5. How to make money as a solo in the current build - paraphrasing a great post by @Remus as well as sharing some of my own experience: 1) Use your bone-stock Basic Cutter to hunt a few AI Le Gros Ventre. Watch these videos to learn how to cap an AI LGV in 25min or less. You will earn $17k gold, ~75XP and 3 Combat Marks for each one you cap, along with whatever loot you find in its hold (which will often be worth anywhere from $20-30k or more , depending on what you get). 2) Once you've saved up $100k gold or so, use http://www.navalactioncraft.com/ to identify a source of Iron and a source of Oak near wherever you want your base to be. 3) Create outposts and Iron and Oak production buildings 4) Collect Iron and Oak from your production building and craft Hull Repairs. Sell these for a reasonable price (say $1000 gold) in your nation's capital or PVP-intensive zone 5) Repeat step 4 until you have enough money to buy and replace the ship(s) you care about, and whenever you need to earn some more cash for whatever reason. The above can be done comfortably in less than 10 hours of play time, probably less than 5 if you are experienced and focused. That setup gives you the independence you need to do whatever you want as a solo player, at least during the "getting started" phase of the game. From there you can join a clan or whatever. Like @Hodo I use the freedom to setup hunting outposts where I seek to capture player traders. I enjoy the sport and challenge of hunting player traders and it's my favorite thing to do in Naval Action, so I don't mind the once-a-week sail back and forth. I sail to my hunting lodge, I capture traders for a few days, then I sail one of the traders home (full of a cargo of stolen or purchased trade goods) and sell it, along with the trade ship, at my home port. I then purchase or craft new upgrades, ships, etc. and repeat the process. It's quite fun.
  6. Global has a much better ping (~100ms vs ~200ms) and equal if not greater population as PVP Euro during US West Coast primetime. Works for me
  7. Clan Solo is for those within the Pirate faction on PVP Global who choose the solo player experience. It is not a clan in any traditional sense, it is merely a means by which to identify yourself as a dedicated solo player. We solo players value, above all else, our freedom and independence to do whatever we want, whenever we want, with no one to answer to except ourselves. We accept total responsibility for our actions and set our own course through the many challenges facing those who choose to go it entirely alone in this rather hardcore game. We collaborate, or not, with other solo players and other clans on an as-available, as-interested basis. We ask nothing of others and promise nothing in return. If you would like to wear the [SOLO] tag to signify your commitment to the solo player experience, PM me on PVP Global and I'll be happy to add you.
  8. I hear Belize is lovely this time of year.
  9. I use it (Fleet 1) and need it, and I like it that you need to pay perk points & slot for it. If Fleet 1 was free, think of the min-maxing you could do for specific builds. It helps keep that in line a little bit by having a cost, and thereby forces hard(er) choices. Good things in my view.
  10. I've noticed this correlation, too - the fewer players there are in a area, the less NPCs I seem to see, and vice versa. All areas do seem to have NPCs, it's just that the concentrations within each area seem higher where there are more active human players. I'm not sure if this is something dynamic, or if it's hardcoded based on the devs knowing where human players congregate, but it's a correlation I've seen many times as I've sailed around the map. It makes sense from a gameplay perspective for the devs to choose to code it this way - AFAIK there is a hard limit of 1544 NPC ships in the entire map, so they have to make the most of them.
  11. Hunting out of free ports in enemy waters is fine, but in the interest of balance and fairplay the hunter must take the risk of getting to and from there.
  12. The current TBrig can have a crew of 60 and the same weapons/armament as the regular version. It's essentially exactly what you're describing already, just not with NavyBrig armor.
  13. So, for the sake of discussion, let's say freetown teleports of captains only were added back, on a cooldown of let's say 12hrs. Then what happens if you teleport to or from the freetown and realize that wherever you ended up "doesn't have PVP"? (translation: if I have to spend more than 5 minutes looking for PVP, it's too hard / boring / whatever. Also the PVP has to be "fair" and there have to be no "revenge fleets" allowed afterwards, and I want to get one billion dollars reward if I win and one million dollars reward if I merely do some damage). Won't the same or functionally identical people complaining now about "too much sailing in my sailing game" also be complaining about how the 12hr cooldown is too long, and asking for it to be reduced or removed? Let's say they succeed. Then we're back to having "friendship is magic" gank squads and port battle fleets magically spawning out of freeports, and then we'll have another whole raft of whining about that. TLDR: If there's too much sailing in your sailing game, fear not, Naval Action Legends is coming soon. In the meantime, try to understand that much of the PVP content in this game revolves around figuring out where the action is, and how to get some. It's a puzzle game that way.
  14. One could say there could be many other explanations for a perceived lack of PVP right now; the availability of freeport teleports is just one potential explanation and, based on evidence proposed here, not the most convincing. One could make the counterargument that teleports actually discourage PVP because they take ships and captains out of the OW, as well as making it easy to create "flash mob" gank squads and revenge fleets. To say nothing of how these teleports are abused for the benefit of low-risk trading. I'm glad they're gone and am not convinced by the evidence provided that whatever perceived changes in the availability of PVP are best explained by the presence or absence of free port teleports.
  15. I reset my captain perks last night and took Fisher, just for the heck of it. It can't hurt, right? Thanks all for the replies.
  16. EU server has same or less population as Global in my prime playtime. No thanks.
  17. Just want to say that I support this counter-colonialism. I am happy with my black flag for now but I will wish you all the best of luck if I ever see you online.
  18. I don't know if any ICS are online in my timezone, but I will be looking for them now! o7 thanks for creating some excitement.
  19. Since the wipe, I've logged about 90hrs. Most of that time has been spent sailing the OW, and like many players I've turned on Fishing for most of that time. I have not received a single Sealed Bottle drop in that time. I've sailed a good deal of the eastern edge of the map, having transited from the southern tip of the Leeward Isles just north of Venezuela all the way to the northernmost US ports. I do not have any fishing-related perks turned on. I do not click the pray button. I've seen plenty of anecdotal reports of other captains receiving a good number of Sealed Bottles in this time, so I'm just curious if there's something I'm doing wrong, or if the drop rate is just extremely low? I'd expect that over the course of nearly 100hrs that at least one bottle would've dropped, but maybe that's an unreasonable expectation? This isn't a big deal for me, just curious if I've misunderstood a fundamental mechanic of how Sealed Bottles are collected.
  20. I like the idea of insurance, too, though I find a big pile of gold (from the sale of my ill-gotten gains) is a good workaround.
  21. And, you know, there's nothing stopping people from doing this anyways, even with the current mechanics. Have an alt craft cheap ships, use your main account to sink them. So long as the rewards are higher than the cost of making the ship, you're farming. On the flipside... what is PVE, if not farming of precisely this nature? It certainly takes less effort to farm automatically-spawning NPCs than it does to go through the trouble of creating an alt account, crafting/buying ships for it, and then sinking them with your main. Why is PVE farming considered more worthwhile / not an exploit, while PVP farming via an alt is? It sort of doesn't make sense. Full disclaimer: I do not have an alt and do not advocate them. I'm just not convinced that the alleged abuse of alts for farming of PVP rewards is a real problem, in the sense of something game breaking for other players. There's nothing stopping people from doing it now, other than the fact that PVE farming is far more efficient. Which, unfortunately, has the noted corollary effect of making PVP rewards low.
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