What's supposed to be the fastest way to level?

[Slamz]

Admin said something interesting that I just came across and it got me thinking.... here's what he said:

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/7945-beginners-experience/page-2#entry153700
 

The most fun is in PvP
Missions were added to provide the opportunity to fight with bots when open map was cleared by someone else. Once you learned the ropes bots are going to be boring as hell, unless you are trying to do some heroic feats like trying to sink a frigate in a yacht.

This made me wonder, "What's supposed to be the fastest way to level?"

 

In my guild, and I think in a lot of guilds, there's a bit of a crisis forming:

 

* We have realized it's vitally important to get 3rd rates. If we want to be viable in port battles, we need people who can captain 3rd rates. We need the BR weight and we need them to reduce the relative value of the towers. We can't go in 25 vs 25 and beat a bunch of 3rd rates and towers using Surprises and Cerberus.

 

* We have leveled almost exclusively through PvP. Consequently we level slower because even with double rewards and probably one of the most active PvP areas in the whole NA universe, it's still a lot of time hunting, chasing, fleeing, fighting, etc, and overall it's less XP per night than other sources.

 

* Fleet grinding we reckon is fastest but it's "boring as hell". We try to spice it up by hitting dangerously large fleets but still....it's bots. It's not that interesting.

 

 

Is this the way it's supposed to be?

We need levels to compete and the best way to get levels is boring as hell?

 

I wonder if XP rewards for PvP should be significantly increased.

I actually wonder if there's any point to levels when we will all, 12 months from now, be max level anyway. It's not really an achievement in anything except time investment (it's not like bad captains never make top rank. Everyone makes top rank eventually, so what's the real point of it?)

 

[xAzDKr]

Fastest way seems to be fleet grinding, but as it is called, it's grinding and therefore boring as hell

[Capt. Rice]

it seem only the large scale pvp is where its at....my last battle was with the brit ..where i gaind 1400exp and 75k gold from that battle alone but i lost my third rate(which are easily captured).  The real issue is with the time it takes to find a battle  like this and then the chances of them sticking out.

[Johannes Zoutman]

I have to say that even as Second Luitenant I already grow bored with grinding. I would rather transport goods from A to B for xp then doign missions myself. :/

[[MCC] Die Antwoord]

Grinding fleets is good, doing high level missions in small groups is also good. Boring yes, but fast. Only faster method I know of is exploiting pvp mechanics but the devs are banning for this so I would not recommend.

I'd be down for significantly higher pvp rewards, but that would increase the viability of the exploit by as much.

IMHO they need to rework the whole level vs ship scale. It takes waaayyy too much time to level and some levels end up being bastard levels because you are either undercrewing severely or have way too much crew for the ships you can use. Level 4 at 150 crew is a good example... A Brig class ship is terrible at that level and a Cerb at 75% is just as bad... Same with the 250 crew level, etc.

They should at least double the XP across the board and maybe have us pay for crew. Make money the brake to running around all day in a 3rd rate rather than the weeks of mindless grinding.

[Hethwill]

No idea about grinding. Got to rank without even noticing it much with a healthy mix of small pvp combat in the high seas, a couple port battles and fleet blockade actions, trade interdiction and a mission now and then with the guys.

[Leviathan]

This is the exact situation we had in TDA. We all prefer to PvP so we almost exclusively did this at the beginning of early access but we quickly realized we were behind other groups in ship size who were exclusively grinding NPC fleets and missions.

 

Lately, we've been grinding missions trying to catch up and I can tell you it's been much easier to gain XP by grinding high level missions. When you do get a good PvP fight the XP is nice but it's also much harder to find to make it efficient compared to NPC grinding unfortunately.

[Pigafetta]

In all respect for the initiator of the post and some other people answers: I do not agree with the philosophy of the "fast leveling."

I have been playing for years now, and  I was waiting for a nice, complex, realistic game on the Age of Sail.

And here it is. I love this game because there are no skills to grind. The only skill to be honed is YOU. I do not acquire experience in skills using them over and over. I simply gain experience, period. I am "me" playing "myself": and I get better with practice, not a character with special skills.

The leveling is secondary. I am really loving testing all the ships I can command. Sailing, doing missions, assaulting traders or pirates. Then, once on a while, I glance at the rank and, hey,  I am... I have been promoted, time to try other ships.

It is the same with the navigation system... honestly I think it is beautiful to have that uncertainty when sailing, not knowing exactly where you are but just estimating your position.

Please, I do not want to sound pompous or offensive to someone else ideas saying that this is the best way to play the game. The beauty of it is that anyone can do whatever seems fit to his/her taste. I am just reminding (to myself first) enjoy the journey.

Edited March 5, 2016 by Antonio_Pigafetta

[surfimp]

The fastest leveling I have done has been taking on AI fleets on the PVE server, where I was sailing something like a Mercury and accompanying 2-4 other players in bigger ships (Constitutions, Trincomalee, 3rd rates, etc). I'd get 300-400+ XP per battle and plenty of gold.

 

That said I'm really enjoying the greater feeling of danger and excitement on the PVP servers, where I can still do all the PVE-style play I want, while also having to be on active watch for PVPers. I level up slower, but really, who cares? There are so many fun things to do in this game. I'm quite happy for the time being.

 

EDIT:

Oh, I should add that I actually regret leveling from 1st - 4th ranks so quickly on PVE. I completely forgot to hire a fleet of NPC Cutters and totally missed out on the experience. Because rank is tied to my Steam account, that's a part of the game I will never get to play. Not the end of the world but I leveled up so fast grinding NPC fleets that I completely passed it.

 

So take time and smell the roses, that's my advice. There's a lot of fun to be had here outside of Port Battles, IMHO. I know because I am 130hrs into Naval Action and am still finding much to discover.

Edited March 4, 2016 by surfimp

[Leviathan]

Snip

 

I agree that the grind shouldn't be forced or rushed and I think most feel this way as it takes the fun out of the game. This truly is a game to be enjoyed visually and at a pace you are comfortable with. The problem we ran into however was defending port battles from those who had been grinding missions and fleets. We would show up in a Surprise or Trinc trying to stop a fleet of Connies and 3rd rates.

[Arvenski]

If you ask me, part of the problem could be that there aren't enough players per server. If PvP is to be the best option, there needs to be enough players around so that you don't have to go far to find someone to fight. Going on that, I don't think it would hurt if the devs found a way to significantly increase the number of people per server, while perhaps at the same time reducing the number of servers that folks are spread out across (do we really need a PvP 3?).  

Edited March 4, 2016 by Arvenski

[Slamz]

In all respect for the initiator of the post and some other people answers: I do not agree with the philosophy of the "fast leveling."

 

I wish I could agree with this, but if you care about RvR -- which is to say if you care that your nation owns any ports on the map -- then you must care about "fast leveling", at least up to the level for fully crewed 3rd rates. That's a huge jump in BR (a required victory condition) not to mention firepower.

 

Maybe the real problem is just that "port battles suck" and the rules for them really require level grinding as a team. Maybe we don't need to fix XP as much as we need to fix port battles. Like maybe rank is ignored when inside a port battle, so you bring whatever you can afford. It's limited by economy, not rank.

 

 

I'm worried that as 2nd and 1st rates start appearing, that grind pressure will just push itself up to "if you care about RvR, you must be top rank and have a 1st rate" because anything less will guarantee defeat for your team in port battles. You can't fight a fleet of 3rd rates using a fleet of Surprises and I'd bet you can't fight a fleet of 1st rates using a fleet of 3rd rates. Which I'm sure is fine and realistic but it does mean we need to grind to top rank to really participate.

[surfimp]

I haven't done *any* port battles yet, so I'm pretty ignorant in that area. But aren't shallow water ports only contestable by shallow draft ships? Isn't that the point of the distinction in port type?

[Slamz]

I haven't done *any* port battles yet, so I'm pretty ignorant in that area. But aren't shallow water ports only contestable by shallow draft ships? Isn't that the point of the distinction in port type?

 

Yes, and long term, that's how it will work out: when most of the players are in 1st rates, the new players can have fun fighting it out in shallow water battles where heavy ships can't go.

 

In the near term, though, you must fight over deep water ports since that's what most of them are, and then it's a question of "which team has the most high ranking people". If your team has simply grinded more levels than another team then you can probably win port battles almost without regard for skill due to the sheer weight difference in ships.

 

 

Part of the problem may be that there is simply no reason to use anything less than the biggest ships in these deep water fights. It's not like a Cerberus or Surprise brings anything unique to the fight. You would rather they just show up in 3rd rates at a minimum.

 

In fact, if they don't -- or can't -- you will probably lose to any enemy that does, almost without regard for individual player skill.

[Capt. Rice]

Yes, and long term, that's how it will work out: when most of the players are in 1st rates, the new players can have fun fighting it out in shallow water battles where heavy ships can't go.

 

In the near term, though, you must fight over deep water ports since that's what most of them are, and then it's a question of "which team has the most high ranking people". If your team has simply grinded more levels than another team then you can probably win port battles almost without regard for skill due to the sheer weight difference in ships.

 

 

Part of the problem may be that there is simply no reason to use anything less than the biggest ships in these deep water fights. It's not like a Cerberus or Surprise brings anything unique to the fight. You would rather they just show up in 3rd rates at a minimum.

 

In fact, if they don't -- or can't -- you will probably lose to any enemy that does, almost without regard for individual player skill.

Hopefully the Rakeing damg increase will have those slower ships think twice before showing their stern to faster ships....

[Slamz]

Hopefully the Rakeing damg increase will have those slower ships think twice before showing their stern to faster ships....

 

Yeah. The crew changes coming in the patch may help some too. I wonder, for example, if a 250 or even 200 crew Constitution will be viable, as well as a 350 crew 3rd rate or 650 crew 1st rate.

 

With minimal sail adjustments needed and mostly being able to focus on firing 1 side's worth of guns, undercrewing, especially in port battles, may be a lot more viable. This won't fix the problem but may at least reduce the impact, allowing people to crew things 1 or 2 levels ahead of what they should be able to fully crew with effectively no penalty as long as they aren't trying to fire out both sides at the same time.

[Quineloe]

I am pretty sure even trader raiding would easily outperform PvP on exp per hour.

[Bloody 9]

Drop the rank system.  Make the game driven by battle over resources.  If you can craft it then you can sail it.  This makes trading and resources the driving force in battles.

Constructing ports, importing the materials in order to grow and protect the key ports the driving force in constant conflict of factions.

thoughts??

[Wicked Mouse]

I agree that the grind shouldn't be forced or rushed and I think most feel this way as it takes the fun out of the game. This truly is a game to be enjoyed visually and at a pace you are comfortable with. The problem we ran into however was defending port battles from those who had been grinding missions and fleets. We would show up in a Surprise or Trinc trying to stop a fleet of Connies and 3rd rates.

I don't think the problem is the "grind", but the port battle system we currently have. I honestly think the current system is okay, or even slightly too fast. Why would I go back to a surprise while I can sail a bigger ship with more cannons and crew? When they release a bunch of 5th rates, why would I want to sail those, if I can take out a 3rd rate or constitution?

[subtraho]

Drop the rank system.  Make the game driven by battle over resources.  If you can craft it then you can sail it.  This makes trading and resources the driving force in battles.

Constructing ports, importing the materials in order to grow and protect the key ports the driving force in constant conflict of factions.

thoughts??

 

I feel like that removing the experience gate from advanced ship access is just asking for a bunch of folks in big ships with no idea how to sail or fight them.

[Slamz]

I feel like that removing the experience gate from advanced ship access is just asking for a bunch of folks in big ships with no idea how to sail or fight them.

 

What's wrong with that?

 

If someone wants to hand a Trincom to a noob that has no idea what he's doing, well, it's his money.

 

Frankly I think a lot of people who grind their way up fighting bots end up in big ships with no idea how to sail or fight them -- their 2 months spent fighting bots taught them very little of practical value.

 

 

I don't mind leveling so much, but I don't like that the fastest way to do it is through stuff that the developer himself says is "boring as hell" and then if we don't do it, we fall behind in the ability to conduct or defend against port attacks.