surfimp

I never found this forum too over the top, but I never took it particularly seriously, either. Someone made a quip about "RVR" in a different section, saying that if one took the time to browse the NN subforum, they'd be forgiven for thinking RVR mean "retard vs retard" With apologies for repeating such an offensive term, that is kind of hilarious and on-point with respect to the usual level of discourse here.

Yeah just in the last couple of days I've had a number of people - including those from eastablished clans like EI and RAE - jump in when I go to intercept an AI trader near Habana. Never really happened in the past, presumably they see the BR of 10 and understand it's just a trader, perhaps they want to cap for the purpose of teleporting their ship elsewhere. I don't know for sure but it's a bit weird and should really be stopped. Doesn't make me have a warm and fuzzy feeling towards España... if you guys are going to act like Pirates, I can certainly join Pirates to return the favor... ;-)

I think new content is wonderful. Saw a Gros Ventre off la Habana last night on PVP1 and it looked great.

Leaderboards will help keep interest alive as well. I think they're probably worthwhile... people like to be able to measure their accomplishments and all that. It would be cool if, when you right-click someone's name in the chat or friend lookup interface, there'd be a "Challenge to Duel" option. Obviously there'd be details to work out, but for non-random encounters, that would be a neat way to initiate a duel. Maybe it could even happen in the OW, too? With basically no entry timer to prevent ganking/griefing? And if the person being challenged declined, it would just become a normal "attack".

I love your suggestions! The lack of connection between NPCs and the economy is a real problem right now, in my opinion, too. It makes grinding PVE pointless in an RVR sense, when in fact it should be the opposite. Hopefully the devs can find a way to correct this. I think your ideas are great food for thought. And your English was just fine!

I've been doing a few Small Battles lately for fun, and noticed that most people use Basic Cutters, outside of a few brave (foolhardy?) souls who bring bigger ships. For my part: Because I focus on small ship PVP (i.e. privateering) in the OW, my rewards are not very high, and because I'm mostly a solo player, even replacing something like a decent Privateer is not exactly a nontrivial undertaking, even if it's just capping one from AI (they aren't always that easy to find). Those factors lead me to the essentially risk free choice of sailing a Basic Cutter in Small Battles. Which is a shame, because I really enjoy the Privateer quite a bit more. So: my vote is for no risk, no reward, and you can sail anything you want up to your rank (but not beyond). That's essentially how Sea Trials worked, and it was great IMHO. This would potentially be a way that people could get more accustomed and confident in their PVP skills, which might spill over to the OW. Also, for those like me on the US West Coast, it would mean I'd have an avenue available for fast action, as sometimes - despite primarily sailing "behind enemy lines" in the OW - it can be rather difficult to find more than 1-2 decent PVP fights per 2-3hr gaming session, due to my timezone and the low player population on PVP1 at that time. EDIT: As to the question of whether or not this is a new game mode, I think the answer is: yes, and it's one that a lot of people are looking for. So long as the only way to rank up and gain gold is in the OW, I don't think this is a problem in the least. In fact, I think the two game modes (OW and Duels) will actually create a positive feedback loop: gain actual player skill development and confidence in the Duel room which can be applied to good effect in the OW, where these will help the player rank up (hopefully via PVP!!) to unlock bigger ships in the OW and, of course, the Duel room, where the player can once again learn to sail their newly unlocked ship to best effect, which they will then unleash in the OW. Rinse Repeat.

Fantastic suggestion. You have my support, sir!

And yet I'm seeing it happen, frequently, since reinforcements have been removed. PVP1 I'm getting much more, and much better, PVP since this change, and I'm seeing a type of teamwork between traders & escorts that was absent before. I am convinced it's been a huge boon for the game and I have redoubled the strength of my opinion that this change be made permanent.

First screenshot shows the wind running parallel. Second two screenshots show it blowing offshore (perpendicular), if I'm not mistaken.

I just did this (leave my computer while in post battle screen) for the first time a few days ago. I had just finished a fight vs an NPC near Cabo Canaveral. When I returned to my computer about an hour or so later, I re-entered the OW to find that I had been magically teleported down near Bensalem (in the Yucatan). No idea if this is intentional or not, but it was pretty lulzy!

To be clear - I only support moving ships with cargo if they actually traverse the open world. IMHO the current "teleport to outpost" mechanic must be gotten rid of before this game can truly become what it should be. However, I recognize that people do not want to spend huge amounts of time "just sailing" in the OW, so the compromise solution is some kind of autopilot feature, to have ships move through the OW without player interaction.

Wasn't involved in the battle but can confirm that Global chat was full of mention of this bug last night, after the battle finished. I sailed down by Ays and saw the combatants just before entry. Lots of big beautiful ships!

One question based on a closer review of these screenshots: Will the wind direction relative to the land at the moment the battle is instantiated be taken into account? In all the screenshots above, I see the wind is running parallel to the coastline and (if I'm reading it correctly) at one point blowing offshore. Is there the possibility of the wind blowing onshore, i.e. creating a lee shore danger?

I respect your opinion but I disagree; if a faction's access to vital shipbuilding resources were truly threatened in a future OW state where ship & cargo teleporting was gone, and everything had to move through the OW, then there would be real and extremely good motivations to protect trade ships as they performed this essential task. That would draw player escorts and player hunters together, with a strong competitive goal at hand. It would create the opportunity, currently missing, for a whole new gameplay style. I mean, right now, we have players spending literally hundreds of hours grinding NPC fleets so they can level up to command 3rd and 1st rates in port battles. But the ports themselves, as it stands right now, are almost worthless and these forums are filled with plenty of confirmation of same. Surely escorting the trade ships of one's faction, and/or hunting the trade ships of another faction, and finding plenty of PVP fights with something truly meaningful to fight over in the process, would be at least as much fun as grinding NPC fleets, per current practice? It would give something much more meaningful for low and mid rank captains to do, at the very least. EDIT: additions for clarity.

I love this attitude. I mainly focus on hunting player traders and I know for a fact that they find my fumbling attempts to capture their ships exhilarating. Just last night I tried to intercept a Trader Snow on the US East Coast and got graped very badly... my tactics sucked and I paid for it. The player trader then tried very hard to turn the tables on me and capture my ship - I had to run away like a coward because I was already down to < 20 crew and had no chance. Maybe it's just because I'm so bad, but I routinely find that player traders are not at all "sitting ducks" by any means, and often give me some of the best and most challenging fights I've had in this game. I can't imagine for a second that they don't enjoy turning the tables on me and/or escaping at the last second, when I fail to tag them with a long range shot.

I hope that's not the case... I mean, the world is literally filled with autospawning NPC ships now, presumably it can't be that different? This thread from back in 2013 is so spot-on to what I'm envisioning, I see I'm not alone - Admin's suggestion seems perfect: http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/311-automated-trading-routes-auto-convoy/?hl=autopilot Maybe it was tried and found too CPU intensive? Hard to say. Maybe it can be revisited.

I completely back the idea of unlimited character teleports between outposts. What I don't like is the teleportation of ships, because it takes them out of the open world. I think we need an autopilot feature implemented which would allow you to set one of your vessels to sail through the OW to any port you can enter, using an NPC crew to do so. Obviously, your ship might come under attack while transiting the open world, but that's a risk you'd run in exchange for the convenience of not being required to perform the sailing yourself. It would put a lot more player-owned ships into the open world and give those who prefer sailing smaller vessels something meaningful to do in an RVR sense. The net results I envision: - Much more PVP (since you could easily teleport "where the action was") - Creating a new, quasi-RTS play style of setting up your trade empire and having a bunch of ships moving on autopilot through the OW - Improving the privateering/pirating gameplay style by giving actual RVR meaning to capturing player-owned but NPC-crewed ships - These privateering/pirating players would also have compelling reasons to protect & hunt trade ships => more PVP for lower-level players - Exposing many more player-owned resources to the depredations of the OW, putting a realistic and natural brake on the currently unrestricted accumulation of SOLs through easy / risk-free teleportation of cargoes via the existing teleport mechanic The removal of reinforcements has been *great* for PVP, and I think the removal of ship teleports - so long as it is accompanied by a good system for moving those cargoes through the open world - would be the next "big win" enhancement.

Expanding on my appreciation for this idea: 1) I would allow any kind of ship, including cargo & upgrades, to be delivered to any port the player him/herself would be able to enter (outpost, free port, national port) 2) I would have the ship transit through the OW with an NPC crew. The player could escort his/her NPC -crewed delivery through the OW if he/she wanted. 3) Since the ship traveling the OW exposes it to risk, I would not charge anything for delivery. I think of this more as an "autopilot", using the crew the ship already has, as opposed to a delivery crew hired just for the purpose. 4) I would allow the player to supply their own NPC -commanded warships to escort the trader. 5) Also, I would allow the player to create convoys of multiple trade vessels all journeying together (including warship escorts, if the player chose to supply them). 6) I would reduce and possibly eliminate the "teleport to outpost" cooldown for player character teleport between owned outposts. Otherwise I would not change that mechanic at all. In my view, the above changes would allow those players mainly interested in creating a "trade empire" to play Naval Action in almost an RTS fashion. They could easily teleport to their owned outposts, setup their trade ships to deliver, via NPC autopilot, trade goods created or purchased in the outpost to any port they might like. They could then teleport to another outpost and repeat the process. They might then teleport to one of the outposts intended to receive the trade ship, and personally sail out in a warship to escort the NPC autopiloted trade ship into port. Or pay other player characters in their faction to do so. In addition to fleshing out a whole new play style of "trade mogul", the presence of all these trade ships in the Open World would give other players a meaningful RVR reason behind intercepting NPC traders. Not only would they potentially capture the ships and cargos of the trade mogul, they would potentially impact the production of ships in the trade mogul's faction... leading to a meaningful form of "trade war" which would tremendously improve the gameplay experience of those for whom the Port Battle meta of the current game mechanics holds no appeal (and/or for which they have not sufficiently ranked up to justify their participation in). Privateering and pirating - as well as fighting against same - would actually matter in a way that they only barely do now, and small nations would have a new means of capturing the resources and wealth of large nations, allowing them to "fight back" from just a few owned ports. The net result would be, in my view, much greater PVP between players, as well as a true PVP implication to PVE activities (i.e. capturing a player-owned NPC-crewed vessel in the OW). To whit, quite a bit more "action" in Naval Action.

+1

If it would be possible to send a trade ship on "autopilot" using NPC mechanics, then player traders wouldn't be required to manually sail long boring voyages over and over again. And it would put those cargo ships back into the open world, giving players in smaller ships something more meaningful to do (in an RVR and PVP sense) than the current "grind PVE so you can level up" meta which is IMHO even more boring than sailing long voyages. If that (autopilot to replace ship teleport) could be implemented, then I think you could significantly reduce if not completely eliminate the cooldown on player teleport (i.e. between outposts).

I currently sail for Spain on PVP1 and love patrolling between Cabo Canaveral and Sunbury in small fore-and-aft rigged ships. I don't jump in on other player's admiralty missions, and I don't pick on newbies, but I find plenty of good 1v1 PVP fights, try (and usually fail, LOL) to capture player traders, and etc. IMHO it's a lot of fun for all involved and really captures the spirit of what I think Naval Action should be about. Also, it alleviates the need to get bossed around by people obsessed with port battles. Oh, and the last thing I'm thinking or worrying about is ranking up. I can captain (with full crew) up to a Cerberus but spend 99% of my time in Privateers and Basic Cutters. I'm no threat at all in an RVR sense, but I'm giving like-minded players in the US faction something to do in the GMT -8 timezone. IMHO it's working out great and I'm really enjoying the experience.

As long as it's not possible to sail through the land, and there is some sort of consequence for running to the land (i.e. loss of speed, etc.), I don't think a whole lot of detail is required to achieve the desired effect.

In this specific case (the damage farmers who have been demoted), they have in fact had their XP wiped. So they are "the grinders who are going to have do do a ton more grinding to get back where they were." I just feel like the port battle thing, and its tendency to privilege having the "most of the best" ships, leads people down this path of "grind PVE so you can PVP", to the extent that many people eschew actual opportunities to seek PVP in the open world, in favor of the "more efficient" PVE grinding activity. To the extent that they use exploits to level up as quickly as possible... but it's all for a mechanic - the port battle and port capture - that demonstrably just doesn't matter very much at the current time.

Do you even internet? ;-)

I think we are already seeing some unofficial and possibly unintentional versions of what is being described here in the form of mass defections from large factions to those of smaller factions. On PVP1, Spain has seen some influx of new players (presumably from other factions) which combined with greater internal harmony has seen them recapture quite a few of the ports they'd lost around Cuba and now, even into the Yucatan. On PVP2, Pirates had been reduced down to just one or two ports but then saw a mass influx of defectors from other nations and, prior to the die-off in population on that server, a big increase in the number of ports they controlled throughout the Bahamas. In both of these cases, these factions had essentially been "defeated" and then, for a variety of reasons, saw a big influx of defector players largely pulled from the "winning" nations. Perhaps those defectors had tired of internal faction politics, maybe they were seeking more PVP, maybe they just wanted a change of pace... who can say. The net result was, in essence, a bit of a soft reset. I think the suggestion here has merit... assuming that additional gameplay modes outside the "Port Battle Meta" can be realized as fully-fleshed, meaningful (in an RVR sense) and enjoyable pursuits in their own right. I've outlined my suggestions here and won't repeat them in this space, but assuming the necessary changes can be made, we would see PVP outside of port battles get a big boost, and actually holding ports would be significant as well as costly. It's understood that declaring a given faction had "Won" could potentially imply some kind of map wipe, which pure sandbox players surely don't like. The implication is that we need to envision what "Winning" would imply... we wouldn't want, for example, a situation where someone with a big and profitable trade network would actively support an enemy faction just for the sake of forestalling his faction's victory and incipient map wipe... as one example of a situation I could imagine resulting. We also probably don't want to further split the community between a PVP/RVR server with victory conditions, a PVP sandbox without, and a PVE server. So... is there a way to institute a victory condition that is meaningful, but also doesn't undermine the sandbox experience? I don't know, but it's probably worth discussing, because the current "paint the map" schema is truly meaningless by any conceivable measure.