Steelfury

Ok, so maybe you don't set a hard cap to 6 players, just a cap of 1000 BR (I think it's necessary, as otherwise it becomes just another 'we have a fleet of 25 3rd rates, therefore we win'). The problem is when you start making the groups larger it becomes a case of 'only the clans can do this' what I'd like to see is more content aimed at non-aligned players, as well as clan players - specifically content aimed at creating fun, competitive pvp, and as we've seen the double xp + gold isn't enough - spending 3 hours trying to find a fight or spend 3 hours killing non-threatening AI, the rewards are way better with the AI, most of the time (purely in terms of game gold & xp at least).

As we all know pvp is sometimes very hard to come by, unless you're doing port battles or you have a deathwish there's few ways to encourage people to engage in pvp with you. So here's my suggestion: similar to what people have suggested as a 'Pirate raiding mechanic' you should be able to form a raiding party, however these parties would be capped at 6 players i.e. one group, and consist of ships totaling a maximum of 1000 BR. You then buy a raiding license from a friendly port for another enemy port and this is then listed in a separate tab on the map menu, unlike port battles it isn't globally announced, but specifically to players who have buildings in this port (and listed in the aforementioned menu). The raiding party sails to the port, engages in a battle versus a group of traders sailing across the map, the defense (assuming there is one) consists of anything up to a total of 1000 BR - up to 6 players. If successful, any ships capped by the raiders are attached as fleet to the players and needs to be returned to a friendly port. The result is that if the raid is successful, production buildings are damaged in the port, and need to be repaired to continue production, and production is halted for two hours by the port, the traders containing goods that are in demand & produced at that port are captured or defended. At the moment this is just a rough sketch of the mechanics and the details would need to be ironed out, but atm there's a (relatively small) carrot for pvp, but no stick, and limited use for frigates in terms of RvR and I believe something like this could go a fair way to solving those issues. Additionally I think the window for this should be 2 additional hours either side of the PB window.

As the title says I would suggest a simple solution to factions going 'extinct' and that is make flags cost, inversely proportionate to the size of the nation you buy them for. E.g. nation x has 10 ports, the conquest flag for one of their ports costs 10 times the cost of a flag for nation y who has 100 ports.

The ability to form 'real' alliances, co-locate with allies and thus be able to help each other would make a huge difference imo.

Actually making BR a function of how many crew you have would fix this. But mainly I'd like to see an actual port represented, which you have to 'board' in order to win, the boarding mechanics are there, you just need to make a few points along a harbour (could use ships or none-armed towers as a placeholder) to capture, rather than caring about BR.

Make a shit-ton of money, failing that go take those spanish territories these guys keep wanting to protect

I definitely want to see this in game, it'd make a great early game merchant-ship/explorer, not sure of the practicalities, but she could even be a decent privateer vessel if re-armed with something more potent, given her shallow draft.

I think the only issue with having all ships available to everyone is that then you get only a few ships actually being built, because why build anything less than the best? - let's say everyone can build Ohio's, then you'll see everyone building them - unless they're prohibitively expensive. Perhaps make ships of the specific nation cheaper to build by that nation?

I've found the cause of it and that's shadowplay (at least since I turned it off the game seems to be working fine)

Today I played two games of naval action, in both of which the sound has started glitching (essentially the sound 'stutters' and keeps playing the same 'note' on high speed repeat - I'm not quite sure how to describe this), accompanied by the game freezing, initially it happens for very short periods, before going back to normal, but eventually it freezes up for seconds at a time, unfreezes shortly, then repeats, and the only option is to use task manager to shut the game and restart the computer, after which the problem appears to be gone after I reload into the game. I did manage to send one report during this (although the description was pretty mangled as the computer doesn't seem to be recognizing input while the freezes are happening), on the second game the problem was so severe that I simply restarted the pc with the power button.

Didn't see the pinned one, was looking down the list of threads rather than at the top :S

I've seen lots of discussion on these forums on national navies, realism etc. but in my opinion the most important aspect of any open world game is the economy: it dictates peoples behavior and aims and is the bedrock of any mmo. I don't know what the current plans of the devs in regards to this are but personally I'd like to see a player driven economy i.e. supply and demand is (mostly) player based, although there should be a demand from each nation's 'homeland' most of the price fluctuations should be driven by players, you deliver a cargo of (let's say) guano to Havana, the price will subsequently fall by a small amount as farming needs in Havana are met - but since it's a large town there will be a constant demand for guano, so prices will soon bounce back again. I'd also like to see national navy numbers (of ships commissioned) based off taxation, thus the merchants and protecting them have an important role to play in the in-game economy, not just something a nation does because it's 'right' but because it's in that nations interest to (and a potentially lucrative career as a smuggler becomes very interesting!).