Kanay

haha, no thanks, it's easy enough like this in this game to hunt traders, and keep in mind that loot can be destroyed when you know you are getting screwed... Some traders delete all valuable cargo instead of giving it to the enemies So what's next ? Known if a cargo have fish meat or gold inside it, coal or silver or how many notes and LH's weighting nothing a trader is hauling ? Add a x-ray scan perk on officers ? If anything there should be less infos in this game, like the exact crew number not displayed for enemies, for traders and warships ... and all this with silly free towns magical spawn points allowing enemies to dock and hunt in your National waters with no risks involved ... And traders getting the same speed despites being full, empty or loaded with one unit of hemp only ... when warships get infinite ammos and powder ... Plus the traders OW speed being really slow for all ( on purpose i guess) compared to a warship having the same speed always being faster in OW ...No thanks

AFK fishing either in green zone or in the middle of nowhere while in deep waters ... get nice stuff for no effort provided at all, fish and bottles while not even playing the game ... make it so you need to go more than 2-3Kn speed minimum to get some fish and problem will solve itself .

What about officer's life removed and getting rid of this annoyance to bring pvp back to life and not only surrender matches awarding nothing like now ? Sinking ships is still profitable, getting opponents going into surrender brings nothing, and why do they surrender ? Mostly to spare the officer ... It takes insane grind to get an officer fully leveled up, the advantages officers gives us are often better than cumulated gold upgrades on ships, right now with surrendering meta to spare officers the pvp rewards became meaningless already compared to free risk pve, getting no xp and no gold when surrendering after having put a nice fight will create a even bigger gap between advanced players able to grind quickly the officer's using Sol's in pve and the rest of the players not being rear admiral's able to do this... If you still find some pvp after such changes ... It needs around 35k XP made in game to get an officer fully leveled up, the same xp needed to pass from Master & commander to post captain and then Flag captain ... Way too much grind for a limited life's officer, way too bigger gap between end game players able to grind this rather quickly and others struggling to progress in game ... Do you really want to bring less pvp in the game ? Limiting players into safe PVE only ? Reducing pvp rewards if surrendering or loosing officer's if not done, and also speaking about limiting ships dura's killing simply the crafting market already in bad shape since last patch due to free ships all around and npc ships costing almost nothing for 5 dura's and mass used by some as throw out cheap ships ?? Get rid of NPC 5 dura's ships to start with or make them prices realistic for once, a 4 dura basic connie cost twice less to buy at NPC shop than it cost to craft with mats at npc default price + 100 gold added per labour hour for parts and ship itself, no wonder why some only use basic npc ships, current npc shop price is almost the same as materials cost at npc price only ... leave the rest as it is Please think twice about all this, loosing and affording new crew is one thing that many will accept and deal with, grinding for ages to loose officers in a blink or make no xp or gold in pvp to spare them is something that will kill this game ... It is already slowly killing pvp with surrenders. And also right now the crew is just a money sink since we don't need to return to ports and can load infinite med kits or use helicopter deliveries at seas to get new crew ... limit the number of med and repair kits possible, force players to return to a National port to get more crew each few matches ... http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15025-99-feedback-poll/page-7#entry281849 I'm sorry but i don't see where all this is aiming right now, game wasn't too bad before crew and officer's addition, pvp was rewarding , way more than pve, now it's surrender left and right, not much for the crew loss but for officer's that take way too much grind and bring a lot of advantages, people have free ships, crafting market is gone down the toilet beside non captured-able ships ... Dura's are fine, it takes day's to build your ships and you can be ganked multiples times in a day and loose all quickly ... i don't see an issue with Dura's, no issues with upgrades as they are ... i don't see what this is trying to achieve beside pushing away players. Simply get rid of officer's limited life's to make pvp worth it again, there will be way less surrender if it's only to spare the crew and rewards will be nice again in pvp ... then yeah give no xp and gold if you surrender and don't allow surrender if ship have more than 15-20% water on it or else ... but unless you want to kill the pvp in this game, i speak of pvp not 7 guys against a single frigate that you will encourage even more doing what is enumerated, then go for the changes you proposed and let's speak of pve only in a month after changes ... Main problem is officer's eternal grind , big imbalance it creates between advanced players able to do pve with Sol's and others needing to do 35 missions in 4th rates to get a competent officer, or double this number of missions in a frigate ... And the most funny is to come if we get more than one officer possible ... I don't give a single damn about my crew if lost or not, i do care only about officer and the great advantage it gives, like many others i won't keep grinding my butt for this just to loose it in a blink, pvp is already not interesting with mass surrendering to spare the officer, it brings nothing as reward compared to pve now, get rid of officer limited life's it will balance all this with a simple solution and make pvp enjoyable to do and rewarding to do again, not only a surrendering pvp matches like it is now that bring nothing as reward... http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15251-add-abandon-ship-as-well-asor-surrender/#entry282665

Problem with surrendering before you sink is that often you don't even see it coming, you are still in very good shape with 95% of your armor on sides and have 23 crew in survival, often bow armor heavily damaged and tanking a little water and water level not even visible on the compass indicator, so basically i am tanking water and can stay afloat for long long time with only 23 crew in survival and pursue a fight for 45mn without consequences while having almost all the rest of my armor full ... yet i won't be able to surrender with your system .. Surrendering became a problem since patch and especially when it comes to save the officer that takes an insane grind to level up and have only 10 lifes but gives a lot of advantages cumulated, perks cumulated often giving more advantages on a ship than adding 3 + 5 gold mods on it ...PVP used to be rewarding, way more than pve, now i can make in a single mid level pve 30mn mission more xp and gold than in 3 pvp encounters that will take me 2 and half hours, thanks to surrendering meta introduced in game, used to spare crew life but more important is to save the officer and his perks, i don't care for the crew itself, they can go feed the sharks if i let my ship sunk but the officer is another story seeing how much time it takes to level it up and the advantages it gives. I quote myself from another thread : Remove the officer's limited life's and people won't surrender 95% of the times like it is now, officers is the problem that turned this game into Naval Surrender, just get rid of limited life's and the surrendering won't be the main meta of pvp and not a problem anymore.

In the battle against the connies and the next one it was 2 Swedish players that joined the party and helped, not dutch ones, they done a great job in both battles tagging and harassing the sterns. Unless i'm mistaken the connie was set a fire by one of those 2 swedish guys harassing his back while i was shooting his sails and later his side, we all managed to get distances when he entered in fire shock, he blow up but was still alive after this with a very little crew remaining, he took some more hits from ships around in the next minute and he surrender before sinking and probably saved his officer and few crew remaining. I got credited for the kill and sent his basic teak connie to an outpost at the end of the battle. - 2nd battle all French and the Spanish player that had joined escaped quickly and left the third rate alone with a brave guy in surprise, was again an uneven and unbalanced encounter, not sure if they could had choose another option to be honest, trying to shoot sails of the Sol's to slow them down and allow the third rate to escape was almost impossible in the ships they had not doing much damages to those fat ships sails. Still appreciated the answer from a French captain speaking about Brits doing only uneven fights before he escaped ... Reminded him that we see often 7 French trincs/connies attacking a single Brit 5th rate ... I really don't like much those uneven fights but like we use to say here " On voit la paille dans l'oeil de son voisin, mais pas la poutre dans le sien. " - Third battle someone managed to get the Spanish snake tagged by targeting AI near by, some dutch players around jumped in but i'm not sure if they did it on purpose or just picked up the wrong battle to join, i was lucky to unload 2 boardsides on him at range removing a good part of his right armor , so did a ingermanland just after, he could not escape while being near coastline and winds not in his favor to get away from it, he said in chat that he will not surrender and he didn't, props to him for this, he was then boarded and capped, got credit for this kill, we finished AI that was pulled into the battle and after exiting this battle i teleported to capital to end the day. Not many targets and clearly uneven fights that had not much savor because of this, noting to be relly proud of, the really fun thing to see was all those battles going on in front of Guama and players from other factions jumping into battles to help one side or the other, nice battlefield mess all around, that's the only highlight i will keep in mind from all those battles.

stats are on forum, not sure if final ones tho : http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/6794-aktualnosci/page-4#entry280064 and stats card a couple of posts below the linked post.

Was a fun fight but not well unorganized and many errors on our side, i guess that's what happens with mixed players, my essex unloaded quite some iron in few of you guys 5th's while trying to protect a bit the heavily damaged side of the fir wood pavel, thanks for the couple or ramming too Managed to get awarded a kill in one of the ships captured and an assist on the other, i think it was the Essex and belle poule, or maybe the surprise, then ruin a couple more 5th rates that surrender just before sinking with the help of our belle poule remaining, sadly as we left before the end no ship awarded to me, only some blue pellew's sights, last frigate was close to be gone too but with the victory coming back in the area and my armor being low i did not wanted to risk a broadside from it, said bye, GG and got away. Was surprised to see how bad those Sol's in fir wood are when it comes to tanking damages, i knew they will be bad but to this point was a surprise for me, like i was surprised to see remaining ships on our side after a bit Like i said it was a fun and interesting encounter, thanks for this moment Pirates.

Unarmed or not isn't the problem, i sometimes taxi warships without guns loaded for the gain of speed and can still attack or do defensive tag and sometimes force a boarding, warship or trader isn't the problem , the problem is that you are able in this game to initiate a combat and be out of the battle session in 2mn, or even 1mn now, while staying out of range of the enemies all the time and having 0 intentions to put a fight ... Even in cases the hunter is slightly faster than the person doing a defensing tag, the player that is in OW and battle sessions slightly slower will always be able to escape using this broken defensive tag mechanic as the large attack circle, spawn distances, timers to escape and now coward perk always gives the advantage to the defensive tagger while he have no intention to stay in battle, lock the person doing a tag for 10mn in battle as long as there is enemies in the battle and it will be fixed. More food about def tags : http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14784-defensive-tagging/

I guess the same sense it makes for a warship to initiate a combat using a defensive tag, then spawn very far away from the enemy and be able to leave 2 minutes after without having fired once, just running away, or now able to leave only one minute after with the new officer perk ... without ever having been in canons range of the ship he attacked as he never had the intention to even fight ... The guy pressing the attack button should not have the right to leave the battle for 10 full minutes as long as there is enemies in the battle of course ... Defensive tag how it works now is a joke no matter if the ships have guns or not loaded ...

The livery it have in game with the Santa Cecilia is a jewel i hope they will keep it like this, (not my pictures, credits to OlavDeng ) : http://imgur.com/a/Ohea4

As long as i can endlessly tag people and reset the timer 50 times each time i press attack again if i wanted to do it... nope, don't need for this ... Once and if this possibility is ever fixed yeah why not ... at the condition we do the same for any type of ships trying to enter the free towns , smuggler flag enabled or not ...

Something i have no though about before and is apparently possible now turn the game into something i don't like much : Get an outpost captured with materials and warships locked ... go there as smuggler in a trader, load your materials into the trader, add your locked warships to your trader as fleet, get out with all your stuff captured now being liberated ... what's the point ... Used only once fleet for now for a trader i captured and assigned to my ship fleet for a short travel ... while i'd like to add some ships for my traders runs i'm not fan of the fleet system as it is used and did not experimented much since this after seeing many use fleets or large ships now ..

Always thought about this one, during the heavy storms we have from times to times we can barely see the coast 100 meters away from our ship but we are still able to see and follow clearly the illuminated stern of a ship acting like a beacon in the night as long as he stays in the rendering distances, being able to turn lights off will be great, if i am chased by enemies in the night or trying to sneak up somewhere using the bad weather i should be able to turn lights off on my ships.

servers up apparently

Free ports allowing safe storage of warships is the issue, let's say once diplomacy implemented USA have no diplomatic alliances with any other Nation and is at war with his closest neighbors Spain and pirates that are both allied, then France and Sweden that are also both allied together but not have any diplomatic alliance with Spain and Pirates or any other faction comes into the party using free towns to harass US cities in the entire Florida coast for example... See the issue or not ? You won't be able to defend against all those fronts or do anything to push back the French and Swedes, only able to do concrete actions against pirates and Spain, you will be able to defend and harass your neighbors cities to balance things out and but will be already too busy with those to go harass French and Swedes in them own waters using free towns too, you will never be able to raise the hostility levels enough there while having to defend your own territory and try to push back your neighbors territories, they will have free hands using free towns and no risks at all involved for them, the free towns are safe, they can store and produce ships on spot and will only have to do the travel once to a free town in a free basic cutter to establish there , can even then buy ships in your market using alt accounts to then trade them in the free town and use them against you ... all this while staying at the other side of the map and not having a single port around that you can harass and capture to reduce the aggressions. If you don't see the issue with free towns you should look a bit deeper into all this i think.

Fishing time with a fresh crew hired, hopefully while sailing a new ship that will make it into the patch and why not some dolphins able to be seen at seas once in a while after the birds we received last patch ^^ ( one can dream of more activity in the open seas )

I see and can easily imagine all problems with the cities themselves and find it normal that it wasn't made as planned in 2014 with the others developments the game received, remains that exploration itself could to a lesser degree have been implemented, expeditions, finding new small lands, new species or rare resources, a way to abandon yourself at the seas for long weeks of sailing ( and soon, in a couple of hours, fishing ) and find something interesting if lucky, sadly while we still get GPS coordinates available it won't be very interesting and a bit pointless. If GPS gets removed it will be something challenging, keeping track of your navigation bearings and long days at seas to be able to come back home or come back to the discovered lands a second time with no map indications beside your notes, lost in the seas for days and days of navigation trying to find out that small bit of land, i know it won't make it probably in game but had been nice. About free towns removed or staying as they are or changed functionalities like no more warships, do you have a position about this or thinking at potential problems they can cause or waiting to see how things will turn out maybe ? ( or don't wanna say anything at all on that subject ) Thanks a lot

yeah and for patch ^^

here we go : Patch day

For me it smells like patch polishing then maintenance and patch done at the same time a bit later in the day, hope so .

No maintenance warning on the server, no shutdown yet ... Polishing patch and doing maintenance + patch release at the same time a bit later in the day or Dev in charge is only a bit late ? Last time we had maintenance and a couple of hours later a patch with another shutdown, maybe this time they will do all at the same time ? High hopes for a patch ^^

2014 statement that i perfectly know and was one of the numerous reasons that made me buy this game in December 2014 but there has been a lot of water that passed under the bridge since... next patches plans up to final release of the game don't even include exploration anymore sadly .. Taking in account current alliances in game is not and option as this can change, who knows what will be the alliances running in 6 months from now, yet you will still have one Nation, and his allies if there is some, miles away from your waters but able to use free towns to raise hostility at your capital door while storing and producing ships in a completely safe spawn right in the middle of your waters, basing statements on the current political situation is not really what have to be done, you need to have a more global vision for the sustainability of the game on the long run . I think i explained myself long enough about those free towns and why they need to at least not allow anymore to store warships or preferably be simply removed from the game once and for all, i cannot be more clear explaining it than what i did already .

Sorry but I don't see this as off topic, it's entirely part of the current exposed mechanics about PB's and numerous possibilities and big advantages offered by free towns for the raising of hostilities around those ports.

Because outside PB's and some very rare occurrences the rest is only consisting in largely uneven battles in this game ...

In a even battles between same class crafted ships they are a last resort yeah, if they are used with some numbers advantages they won't be bad at all and will be able cause lot of damages like they used to do before when captures were possible, it's throw out ships, cost nothing to get and are still a big advantage, especially with fire-ship fitting upgrades allowing for great fireworks . Ai capped ships should really be inferior in terms of quality compared to anything else in game and not allow upgrades to avoid giant fireworks fleets. As for 5th or 4th ranks myself passed rear admiral few days ago and i prefer to sail frigates than bigger ships for the versatility they offer, as long as you have free throw out ships and able to align enough players for a battle they will still be a very good option to use at no costs.