surfimp
-
Posts
718 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Blogs
Gallery
Downloads
Events
Posts posted by surfimp
-
-
Wraith, you get me and where I'm coming from. Privateering, if the gains from patch 9.8 can be built upon, could become a new and fun game mode for people who don't have / don't want to participate in port battles. It could supplement or possibly replace mission grinding to help newer players level up. It could and should lead to a lot more PVP.
I respect the way the devs are proceeding - the SOLs and port battles are the "carrot" encouraging the grinding up through levels and consequent testing of the larger ships. But now that we've got those mechanics pretty sorted out but for some finish polishing, I think it's time to re-focus on the economy and ensure that it, more than anything else, is the primary driving force behind the conquest, alliance & other high level mechanics. Privateering historically was, and in game should be, an important part of that. I look forward to seeing what they come up with, but patch 9.8 is a tremendously good step in the right direction IMHO.
-
1
-
-
I am just happy that these changes make trader hunting take on a bit more RVR importance. Not in the sense of cargo captures, which - I completely agree with you - is a very low odds proposition at best, and in a world where production buildings exist, a minor/insignificant setback at best.
But because putting pressure, even if mostly ineffective, encourages players in smaller / faster ships to come out and protect the traders. This leads to lots of opportunities for PVP of the 1v1 variety, where - also very in keeping with historical outcomes - the escort and raider would engage in a duel while the convoy escaped.
Example of same: last night, the last night of compass wood magic money, myself and a number of other Spanish players headed over to try and capture Brit compass wood and silver traders operating between KPR and Pedro Cay.
I got a few good chases in and very nearly capped one Traders Cutter while directly under the guns of two player escorts in Snows, but alas, he got away with 2 crew left alive.
I then had to extract myself from the Snows, which was a bit challenging as my Lynx had been shot to pieces (I had very little armor left) and my sails were around 80%. My compatriot in his Mercury was not so lucky, and got sunk by the Snows.
The entire engagement was around 30-40min and was some of the most fun I've had in Naval Action recently. And it was only the *first* engagement of a 4hr session in which I had all kinds of fun adventures, run-ins with escorts, and similar.
I didn't cap a single trader the entire time, but the point is that it was FUN. I don't even need any of the stuff they're carrying, I just want the challenge of the hunt - while dealing with the defenders, too.
And of course, by drawing in players to defend traders, we potentially pull away Brit attackers from the Spanish ports, buying the Spanish defenders a bit of relief.
All in all I think it is a fun mode of play. I totally respect where you're coming from, I just feel like this is far less like "ganking" and far more like "fighting for a purpose." But that's just my opinion and I understand that other people have differing views.
o7
EDIT: spelling & typos
-
2
-
-
I'd also love to have AI shipping to and from any port. There will be resistance to this by the "vulnerable trader" romantics. It would be like deliveries and not actual NPC ships in the OW due to technology limitations (at least now).
I respect all that you have done with speed trials & whatnot but your constant negative attitude towards people who chose to play in a manner that is representative of the *vast majority* of age of sail ship engagements is kind of wearing thin.
Port Battles just don't appeal to me, but I don't take every opportunity to slag them or the people who enjoy them. Maybe try being a bit more open minded and realizing that there's room in this for all, and that privateering was, for hundreds of years, one of, if not the, most significant seaborne combat activities during times of conflict during the age of sail. It's completely appropriate that it is represented here, and leads to all kinds of fun gameplay between traders, privateers and escorts.
-
1
-
-
Niagara makes an excellent and quite versatile trader escort, too. Plus it's a very attractive ship.
-
This patch is wonderful. I am so happy with the solution chosen, including with the smugglers toggle.
I had already begun trading and crafting myself to supplement my privateering income (yes I am that bad / it is that hard) and am now looking forward to making smugglers runs to sell off my prizes and take advantage of new markets. This is going to be so much fun!
Also with regards to TPing Santis around the map, this was already being done. The Smugglers toggle just makes it as easy for nationals as it does for pirates. And if it helps those who enjoy port battles to have less undefended fights, then it will be a good solution.
The problem of steamroller nations is going to be solved via alliances and diplo, not via teleport mechanics.
-
As I understand it, the flying option has been maintained for the purposes of screenshots and videos.
It's of course an exploit, too, but in fairness you can only see ships that would be within your view radius from the normal 3rd person view.
Obviously you can see over / around things you wouldn't be able to see otherwise, but it's not like I can scout Mortimer Town from La Habana or something.
Really looking forward to the spyglass in the OW, though. Been missing that forever!!
-
IF that is what free ports were used for it would be fine. Sadly most of the time they are used as port jumping staging points to jump others because those others have no way of knowing who is in the port waiting to gank them and they can't be evicted. Best solution I've heard is you can dock/undock from a free port 3 times an in an hour's period with no invisibility. That's plenty to see if anyone is camping the port from outside the port and decide to make a break for it or teleport.
The "exploit" around free ports and ganking from there has been fixed in patch 9.8:
"Captains wont be able to enter battles immediately after log in, port exit or sitting in battle result screens. To do that the system of invis/invul has beend changed. After login or port exit or battle exit you will not be able attack or be attacked for 30 seconds. 120 sec invulnerability timer wont let you enter battles. This will completely solve hiding in battles issues."
Free ports will remain dangerous but the possibility of having an unknown number of attackers piling out of the port once their buddy has tagged someone has been eliminated.
-
The great news is that a compromise has been reached in patch 9.8: teleporting between outposts is now unlimited, with no 4hr cooldown. This doesn't move ships, but it does allow you to quickly jump around the map to your various outposts. YAY!
In addition, teleporting to capital has been updated. You can still teleport to capital (on a 4hr cooldown I believe) but, you can no longer do it with cargo.
This is a nice fix because it still allows captains who get lost / tired / whatever to get back to their capital, but it removes the "exploit" of teleporting fully laden cargo vessels. Thereby ensuring those cargoes will have to travel at least some of the time through the OW. DOUBLE YAY!
-
1
-
-
Desde luego sa gusto tanto positivismo
.... a los renegones como yo les parecera que esos cambios vienen mejor a la defensa de imperios extensos y muy poblados (aka el ingles) que la defensa de cuba ...donde queramos o no ya estamos encerrados casi todosPues hasta que la sistema de alianzas esta implementado, yo creo que vamos a tener problemas de esta forma o otra contra las facciones muy pobladas. Ya es bastante facil para los ingleses hacer un "steamroller" contra nosotros, e yo creo que este cambio no va a cambiar mucho porque creo que ellos ingleses que quieren luchar para los puertos de Cuba ya esta luchando.
Pero lo bueno es que sera mas facil hacer una defensa cuando nos atacan.
A ver
-
J***r, no puedo esperar esta parche. Los cambios a teleportacion va a asistir mucho en nuestro defensa de Cuba... y tambien va a poner mucho mas traders en el OW.
Enhorabuena, corsarios!!! Ya puedo probar las lagrimas inglesas, y son deliciosas
-
Did I miss mention of retention of Rank/shipbuilding upon transfer?
These are tied to your Steam account and transfer with you between servers already.
-
Mejor matar ingleses:)
-
The OW teleport should stay as it is: a quick transport to the capital, even with cargo, so that most of the trading activities take place around the capitals - making these spots interesting for trader-hunters.
Unfortunately, OW teleport to capital has exactly the opposite effect:
Player traders load up their cargo vessel at their production outpost, then use the Teleport to Capital function to move their laden vessel directly to the capital without ever going through OW. The result is that their ship and cargo are never at any risk to trader-hunters whatsoever, because they never transit through the open world.
-
1
-
-
Economics rather than conquest should drive the conflict.
... with the proviso that, if some kind of resource limitation were in effect, similar to labor hours and how I understand the coming crew changes to be setup, then conquest - to achieve access to further resources beyond the limitations of a nation's current resource pool - would be compelling on economic terms, rather than the current rather gamey "paint the map" basis.
In other words, for "popular" nations with large player populations, there should be some built-in brakes on just how many total resources are available, based on the number of ports they control. Once that entire production is getting consumed by the economy, then the only way to accommodate more production output is to conquer more ports and therefore gain more access to resources.
These limitations will have the effect of driving prices up within the popular nation, as well as encouraging them to spread far and wide... thereby exposing their commerce to a vast territory of potential depredation by the privateers of the small nations allied against the large popular nation.
Per current practice where certain resources - i.e. redwood, compass wood, etc. - are used only in the production of the largest ships - the large nation's significant naval power would rest upon the routine transport of these vitally important goods within their territory. Their lower ranked players would have a vested interest in protecting that trade and would be rewarding accordingly for ever privateer or pirate they were able to intercept. Their higher ranked players would focus on maintaining the network of ports using their SOLs to ensure their own, and their nation's, continued existence. Their traders would be treated as the vital and tremendously important machinery enabling the nation to survive.
Likewise the smaller nations could focus on crafting the smaller, cheaper vessels from comparatively far more common resources. These vessels would be used to prey upon the large nation's traders and thereby serve as an important check on that nation's power. The larger the large nation got, the harder it would be to sustain, whereas a small nation would always have a means by which to fight back.
Seems fun to me!
-
The issue of large (in terms of player population) nations steamrolling smaller nations is really independent of specific gameplay modes, be they privateering or port battles or trading or whatever.
Meaning there needs to be a solution for that situation, and presumably the diplomacy & alliances mechanics will be at least part of that.
But those are really independent of the changes I'm talking about for privateering, which are really not so much about privateering per se, but more about making commerce matter in a way that it currently doesn't.
In my view, privateering and commerce are intimately related, and commerce in particular should be the thing that drives the possibility of a large and powerful navy, not the other way around.
In fact, these proposed changes to the way the economy works, if implemented alongside diplomacy and alliances, might be the perfect solution to the large zerg nation "problem"; i.e. all the smaller nations ally together and make the big nation bleed from a thousand privateer paper cuts. Can't build those fleets of first rates if all your traders got interdicted, you know what I mean?
-
1
-
-
This subject is near and dear to my heart, as I know it is with many of you, and I've given it a good deal of thought over the past few months.
The current state of affairs in "The Life of a Privateer":
For my part, I have focused my time in Naval Action almost exclusively on privateering, and can speak from experience when I say that it is one of the most difficult, if not THE most difficult, ways to progress in this game under the existing mechanics. To whit, after 350hrs of play, I am only midway through rank 6 (Capitan de Fragata / 250 crew). This is not a complaint, and of course you don't need to level up very far to sail the typical privateering ships.
Privateering, under the current system, does not pay particularly well in terms of gold or XP, even if you focus on the far more reliable and more easily obtained rewards from capturing AI traders. Typically I will grape a Traders Cutter or Traders Lynx to decrew, which is pretty quick (usually only taking 3-5 broadsides) but results in 0 gold and around 3-4 XP... with the only benefit being that the ship will have 100% sails and thus be relatively safe from capture once I take command of it in the post battle screen. Rewards from selling the ship and its cargo to the Shop in a friendly port are relatively paltry, averaging probably $5,000 - $10,000 gold (guesstimate but probably not too far off the mark). Compared to other activities in game, these are extremely modest rewards, especially as compared to the current (and almost certainly not lasting) compass wood "exploit."
Hunting player traders, while TREMENDOUSLY FUN in terms of gameplay, is a mixed bag in terms of rewards, since they frequently teleport when fully laden with cargo, preventing even the possibility of their capture when not empty. There are some "happy hunting grounds" to be found, and I'm recently having better luck finding player traders with actual cargo aboard, but it's still quite difficult to interdict them (compared to AI traders) especially if they are sailing in Traders Snows, Le Gros Ventres and other relatively fast and/or hard to slow trade ships. There are a whole host of game mechanics which facilitate their escape and tilt the balance in the player trader's favor, and for my part, I find it far easier to win a 1v1 duel versus a player opponent than I do to capture a player trade ship in the vessels ostensibly intended for privateering- i.e. Lynx, Privateer, etc. It's easier if the player trader is him/herself sailing in a Traders Cutter or Traders Lynx, but those are a bit more rare... as the players quickly wise up to which ships are "safest."
Of course, I could myself begin hunting player traders in a fast Snow or similar square rigged vessel - but then I too take on greater risk of interdiction from the 6th and 5th rates that should rightly be patrolling and hunting me. I see this as a somewhat balanced gameplay design, although I think the Privateer and Lynx should have slightly better downwind performance to give them at least some chance of keeping a Traders Cutter (for example) tagged, to say nothing of a purpose-built (i.e. fast) Traders Brig or Traders Snow. It's nearly impossible right now with a Privateer, which is a shame considering the ship really has no other stated purpose in-game.
It wasn't till I started crafting and trading - and myself "exploiting" the current situation with Compass Wood and its influence on the availability of gold currency in game - that I was able to accumulate any sort of meaningful capital reserves (and by "meaningful", I mean I am finally approaching $1M in gold currency cash reserves - paltry by most standards, but FAR BETTER than when I could barely scrape together $100k - which was my state of affairs for a long time prior to initiating my crafting & trading activities).
I did this by setting up production buildings to provide myself with copper, silver, coal and compass wood, which - combined with a shipyard - allowed me to get quick cash (from Compass Wood) as well as crafting and selling Low Grade & Mid Grade Notes. That cash, combined with the resources I've plundered from NPC traders as well as purchased at various ports, have allowed me to begin crafting my own ships, ensuring I have a ready supply of Lynxes, Privateers and similar to support my privateering addiction
What I think can be improved to make privateering a viable gameplay option:
-
Teleport with cargo needs to be removed from game and replaced with some sort of autopilot / NPC crew delivery option for those who don't want to personally haul cargo through the OW.
Cargoes must move through the OW for privateering to be viable and for goods to be valued at their "true" price (as opposed to inflated by compass wood gold). Until this changes, far too many cargoes are getting 100% safe free transport, and this is the primary reason why privateering versus player traders is generally very difficult and time inefficient except for the most die hard of hunters who will do it regardless of the rewards or lack thereof.
-
NPC trader cargoes need to have an actual impact on port consumption, demand and resource availability.
Currently port production / goods availability and NPC traders are completely independent, which means NPC traders and their cargoes are essentially just a resource & gold faucet with no corresponding sink and no impact on port consumption, demand or resource availability.
What I suggest instead is that if NPC traders are interdicted, preventing their cargo from arriving at a port, then that port's demand for the interdicted goods should go up, with a corresponding price increase for those goods in that port.
-
Having NPC cargoes impact port demand will create opportunities for player traders to profit from scarcity as well as wage economic warfare on their enemies.
This will provide a motivation for player traders to take on the risk required to service that demand. It will also create opportunities for privateers to remove goods from an enemy's economy, thereby facilitating economic / resource warfare - giving a true RVR purpose to privateering which is not possible currently because NPC traders and their cargoes have no actual, direct influence on resource availability or port demand/consumption.
Essentially, the economy needs to become more player-driven, with goods moving between ports if and only if they are physically transported through the OW by either a player trader or an NPC trader. There need to be corresponding impacts on the price and availability of resources in ports if those traders (whether player or NPC) arrive in port or not.
-
Navies exist to protect commerce - not the other way around.
Currently Naval Action starts from the idea of a navy and builds a nation's economy around supporting its existence. This is precisely backwards from how things work in the real world, where the navy is created to protect the commercial interests of a nation. By requiring cargoes to transit the OW and thereby subjecting them to risk, and by making NPC cargoes have an impact on port demand & resource availability, you create a situation in which commerce matters.
A nation's navy will thus have a natural and compelling reason to protect that commerce, and to fight to ensure its trade routes remain free from interference. Likewise, a nation will have clear and compelling reason to attempt to interdict the trade of its enemies. The resulting conflict will result in more and more meaningful PVP with true RVR impacts for all player activities, not just those who choose to participate in port battles.
I am hopeful the devs grasp the above concepts and that we will see movement towards realizing them in time.
-
3
-
Teleport with cargo needs to be removed from game and replaced with some sort of autopilot / NPC crew delivery option for those who don't want to personally haul cargo through the OW.
-
Also would be nice to get some forum tools so "view new content" wouldnt show NN section (maybe something like that exist?).
Yep:
-
1
-
-
I know this pain. I often sail around in a Lynx and cajole/beg/plead with people to fight me, and they still turn me down.
Presumably they think I'm part of a gank squad or something... but if that was the case, I wouldn't be asking them via PM, I'd just attack them and force the issue.
With that said, what are you chasing people with? Maybe they don't think they have any chance against you, so they just run away? That's a totally reasonable thing for them to choose, especially if they know their ship can outrun you.
-
Ah, y gracias a Potemkin y amos baida, soy socio de EI otra vez. Me alegre mucho
-
Pero no hay snows en Havana, quizás alguien puede craftearme Snow rápido de ataque, y puedo unirme a ti, convirtiéndome en una espina en el culo de esos comerciantes de Albión. Guerra económica hasta que supliquen la paz.
Pues mi nivel de crafting es nada mas que 19 y por causa de eso esta bien para mi hacerte un Snow... no tengo nada mas importante que hacer y siempre haria mas ingleses para tormentar
Juego por las noches en California 20:30 - 23:30 (GMT -7), no se si podemos reuñirnos en La Habana un dia para que puedo darte el Snow?
-
We have no preference to this and will change it if the community decides they do not like the word clan
Dear Admin, we love you, and have decided that we do not like the word "clan"
Please change to one of the democratically selected alternatives!
XOXO,
The users
-
2
-
-
I agree with the need to remove teleport, ideally to be replaced by a means of having your ships travel the OW with an AI crew.
I'm afraid that removing teleport without having the AI crew "autopilot" option will cause even more players to leave the game, as cargo hauling is not that exciting and many people would rather not do it. Not necessarily because of the risk of loss, but because of the lack of fun.
I also agree that unlimited, or less limited, "player captain" teleport between outposts should be permitted. No ship teleporting in that, just the player character.
-
.I got tagged FOUR times heading to port...and missed the timer by about 2 mins.
My Lynx is many things, but inaccurate is not one of them
-
I've only just realized this thread was about a very well produced video series from one of my favorite enemies, Jeheil.
Nicely done, sir, thank you for this! I am pretty much a lone wolf privateer for the Spanish so I wouldn't be a very good source of information for you, but it was quite fun tagging and delaying your flag-carrying Snow in the British attack on Cochinos the other night. I was the pesky one in the Lynx.
Keep up the good work and we'll see you out there!
o7
.... a los renegones como yo les parecera que esos cambios vienen mejor a la defensa de imperios extensos y muy poblados (aka el ingles) que la defensa de cuba ...donde queramos o no ya estamos encerrados casi todos
Make instant battles more attractive
in Current Feature Improvement Suggestions
Posted
Based on how much fun I've had in the Duel Room, I agree regarding Small and Large battles: eliminate loss, and balance XP and gold earned so that there is at least some reward, but it's far less than what you'd get doing an equivalent battle in the OW.
I think the original concern was around these battle rooms drawing people out of the OW, but there is enough going on in the OW now that I feel this isn't such a big problem anymore.
I feel that removing loss would give something fun for more casual players to do within Naval Action, and it would certainly help people get better at gunnery and tactical maneuvering without becoming a powerleveling tool.