My 2 doubloons...

[Poe]

So in an effort not to burn myself out on NA in EA I toned down my playtime and put some thought into what I liked and don't like and thought I would share what my biggest gripes were with this game.

 

First, and really foremost, is that my mates all pissed off to whence they came because of travel time and how slow the combat is.  I have heard many people hear say that this was intent and whatnot; but while I am loving the game, I am a social gamer first and foremost.  If the game is so slow that EVE players are having a hard time with the pace consideration may be in order.

 

Second is that piracy is the most difficult and the least rewarding thing I have found to do in this game. I know, its not a popular pastime, but in games that allow it I find myself gravitating to it.  Understand I am not talking about being a "pirate", but in actually piracy; as in the act of hunting down player transports and running off with the booty. I am unsure if this difficulty is by design or circumstance, so I figured I would jot down what parts of it I find most annoying and that way, in either case, the developers will know if what they are doing is working or if they need to fix it.  I will also touch on some of the work arounds I have found for my fellow pirate types. 

 

So, I have heard people here say that running false flags is a technical hurdle and that is why it has not been implemented.  If that is the case I would ask that they reduce the identifying range on ships until they can overcome it.  As it stands now you can click on any sail you can see and know who it is, getting the jump on a player is impossible if he is paying attention.  For getting around it I have had shit luck with the whole come out of port invisible thing that so many bitch about, if I find them and tackle them with it still active or just after it goes down odds are they can get into whatever port I came out of before they are drawn into battle.  I have had better luck running slow with a group of AI mobs and acting like a bot, if they don't click on every sail they see sometimes you can get closer that way.

 

So now you have to contend with how fast trade ships are. They go fast regardless of burden and it they don't apparently have any penalties crew wise for being a merchant (merchants run around 1/2 crew) to sailing or handling or whatever.  To counter this I run with Fir build and rigging on the ship with "speed" green text I then rigging the ship with copper plate and speed rig on everything I use to pirate in. In all honesty, its usually still not enough speed.  You also have to drop RIGHT on top of them and get enough sail damage quickly so that they will use the sail repair early if you are going to have a chance, if he just runs and lets you get his sails down to 60 or so before using it he will probably get away.

 

I guess that brings up sail repair as well. Between how little damaged sails actually slow a ship and how effective percentage wise the sail repair kit is while the ship is underway on top of how fast the trade ships are in the first place and you are in for a bad time.  I have not found a counter to this, I have tried using ball on masts after the first kit is spent but not only are masts hard to hit, and durable I almost always manage to hole the ship before I can close the deal and merchants will let themselves sink to defy a pirate any booty, much to the chagrin of the crew.

 

Next on my list is escape timers to keep people in battle instead of it being a distance based thing.  I am not sure why the decision was to do it this way, maybe it was just an easier to implement solution but in a game that sports a fair amount of realism it seams odd.  To counter this you have to drop RIGHT on top of them and stay right on top of them no matter what, if they pull off and you whiff a couple shots or have those "ghost hits" that don't reset the timer you are going to be cursing at your screen with a truly piratical vocabulary.  The best solution for this is to run with a bud, ya, it will make for more AI reinforcement but it is worth it IMO.

 

And of course, on top of this you have to expect that whenever you catch someone they are going be able to call reinforcements.  Given, I hunt Americans in the Bahamas and it is kind of tight up that way, but the places a player can not call a reinforcement from are few and far between.  I just focus on the trader and murder the AI afterwards, given how scrubby AI is even beat up I can usually seal the deal, thou I have been beaten to the point during a long chase by an AI that I had to escape a couple times.

 

Now the best part of this, after getting close enough open word that he doesn't run and put into a port, getting a close enough drop so that I have a chance to catch him in the first place, managing to cripple his sails despite his raw speed and the state of sail repairs and then having finished off the reinforcements he called before he sank only to wrap up the battle and find that... He's empty.  The ability for a player merchant to fill a ship up with cargo and completely avoid any risk of pvp by casting a magic spell is, IMO, hands down the biggest deal breaker for player on player piracy.  

 

My two bits. Sorry if it ran long.

 

 

 

[OlavDeng2]

1. this game isnt for them then, i personally love the pace of the game and many others do

 

2. piracy and privateering needs improvement on indeed

 

3. i think best would be to get the nation and the rate of the ship, no more

 

4. i dont find this to be true, loosing sail % does slow you down considerably

 

5. the timer isnt the best, but you dont have to stay right on top of them, you can be up to iirc 1400meters away and still keep him tagged, that is quite the distance.

 

6. reinforcements is broken, i agree however they are AI and can easily just either be defeated or ignored, or you could call in some of your friends

 

7. are you sure the trader had goods?

[Ned Loe]

First of all thanks for taking your time typing this.

 

Second, never listen to people and what they say it is a very bad practice. Taking a look at Pirates all I can say is they will get more booty very soon, but with extra challenge. Think of it like this, when developers add Indiamans with huge hold and nice gun count Pilates will be able to make 100k if they cap a full hold of resources. However, don't expect to see those ships sail alone and will definitely sail in trader packs. Now some Indiamans have 2 deck of guns that you will need to fight and could be fast as well. This info can be found in ships in production posts. 

 

If you pick the right angle you will be able to catch anything. I have tested myself and I was able to catch any ship if I hit it right. By now I think many players should know what is the right angle to tag traders or players. There is no need to explain here. Any player should be able to escape if they want to and it is your fault that you hit them at bad angle. 

 

Distances and long sail time are ok as long as you settle in free ports and store ships there. For each zone build an outpost and operate from there or jump to another zone and play there. Done deal. 

 

In real life if ship noticed a fight in the distance Captain made decision to join or stay out of fight.  

 

More content will come, all you need to do is to be patient. 

[Mrdoomed]

Piracy is very difficult, almost annoying at times but its what i do primarily and am pretty good at it but the problems you mentioned are for the most part wrong.

To have a good shot at getting the trader ship or player ship you have to time the OW perfect and then its still not a great start. Then if you miss with your first chain shots then it could be over especially if its a player. After that if you can line up and have hit with your chain shot its easy but if you messed up at all then you really have your work cut out. If its a player in a trader or fast ship then yeah you get one shot to do it.

How to fix it ? Dont know but im sure they will. I would think a cargo laden ship would turn slowet in its initiall turn to wind amd would move slower due to being lower in the water and having more drag.

Fighting a player who wants to run is very hard but i think maybe it should be. Its up to me to catch them not up to them to just sit there BUT the starting spots in battle could be reworked. If you start close in OW it should be closer in battle. I would like to think i could get 1 or 2 shots off to a guy intent on running.

Edited February 18, 2016 by Mrdoomed

[kumisz]

Combat should not be fast paced. It is supposed to be the age of sail. Everything takes time. The battles are still in a reasonable time frame.

Long travel times makes traveling actually feel like traveling, and losing the sight of the land terrifying. I think it really makes the game a lot more intense.

 

Merchant ships' speeds just have been nerfed by 1 whole knot (which is a lot), if I position myself correctly to them in the OW before attacking them, it takes about 5 minutes to reach them side by side, which is rather fast. Then, I usually have to switch back and forth between 20% and 40% sails, to not run them over... They operate with less crew because they dont have guns (or not as many as a warship would have).

It is a fair point that they should be slowed by heavier cargo though.

 

Escape timers are a weird solution, as you said, a distance based thing would be better, but it would need to be really long distance. Like, outside a long gun's reach.

[Hethwill]

A hint. You can press Attack again to reset the timer to 20 secs again. This is highly useful if the position is not ideal for you so it makes pursuits easier right from the start.

[Admiral 8Q]

A hint. You can press Attack again to reset the timer to 20 secs again. This is highly useful if the position is not ideal for you so it makes pursuits easier right from the start.

Yes. I discovered that by accident.

[Poe]

A hint. You can press Attack again to reset the timer to 20 secs again. This is highly useful if the position is not ideal for you so it makes pursuits easier right from the start.

 

A smart player, at least the ones I hunt will often attack me to ensure the battle starts with a shit position.

 

Not knocking em for doing it or anything, just how it works.

[Admiral 8Q]

A smart player, at least the ones I hunt will often attack me to ensure the battle starts with a shit position.

 

Not knocking em for doing it or anything, just how it works.

Yes. Positioning yourself before an engagement is an important strategy in naval combat.

[Viziam]

positioning is important, but what i'm finding is being positioned down wind of the target is preferable to being up wind. I know square rigged shipped are faster down wind, so if i'm down wind of my target i can easily intercept. if i'm up wind i have to chase the buggers down. historically, wasn't the advantage to the ship up wind?

 

EDIT: to the OP, I come from EVE too, and I quite like the pace of NA pvp. There is more thinking involved than EVE. I can see your point, but it's probably the "young generation" that are having issues with it.

Edited February 19, 2016 by Viziam

[Admiral 8Q]

Being upwind is always best in any encounter. 

Edited February 26, 2016 by Admiral 8Q

[surfimp]

Good post. I'm very interested in OW PVP privateering but haven't done any of it yet. Looking forward to giving it a go. This thread is full of useful insight, thanks for that.

[Reyvar]

Tbh it sounds like the OP wants trade ships to be easy prey that never stand a chance.

This wouldn't make for a fun game for either player. One will be bored due to lack of challenge, the other frustrated by losing rediculous amounts of money without ever having a chance.

[Aetrion]

Escaping is distance based for all practical purposes, because if they are close enough to be hit they aren't far enough away to escape.

[Dread_Mya]

Sorry but the ability to tag your chaser long before they can catch you and give them complete shit wind is lame. I would vote for if you initiate the attack, you dont get an invisibility timer when leaving combat. That would help alot. 

[Mrdoomed]

Sorry but the ability to tag your chaser long before they can catch you and give them complete shit wind is lame. I would vote for if you initiate the attack, you dont get an invisibility timer when leaving combat. That would help alot.

Not really. The defender ( the one being chased) always has the advantage of picking his ground and having the odds in his favor. This would go for sea combat too. If in real life you was running and seen a ship chasing you from behind, of course you could reverse your course to give you the best chance available. The OW is still part of combat in this game.

[surfimp]

Some ideas that might make the entire OW engagement experience more realistic & IMHO fun than it is currently:

 

- Enable spyglass in OW

- Have ships fly their national colors in OW so you can see their nationality

- Don't reveal a ship's captain name until you get to hailing distance (OW used to have a "Hail" button, what happened to that?)

- Completely disable the very unrealistic "click on ships' sails to learn what they are" mechanic that seriously degrades the hunter's ability to stalk prey

 

Those are my two doubloons FWIW.