Game is bleeding players

[Mrdoomed]

I guess my friends and i are a dying breed of gamers.

Grind ? What grind is everyone talking about ? Im a filthy casual exept weekends and i come home , log in get into my ship and go in search of bad guys to fight pvp and ai ships in between then i sail home amd log out. Ive made rank raider in a few weeks of 80% pvp and had so much fun with the chase or being chased i dont considet levels or ships at all.

Unfair pvp ? Sometimes im the windshield, sometimes im the bug. More often im the windshield and friendly back and forth with enemy players makes being the bug fun too.

Everything takes so long amd i cant insta zone ? Am i the only person not trying to cross thr glob in a day or a hour ? My friends and i have played our ways across the map a day at a time amd found a very fun place to settle. All action we need is minutes away.

I could go on forever but what im wondering with all the " problems " people seem to have , make me think is it this game that is the problem or the people playing the game?

Only been playing since EA but have followed since sea trials so this is just the opinion ive come to believe. Everyone could feel differently.

[Billy Ruffin]

Probably been mentioned before but then again I'm new around here. The problems sound almost exactly the same as the ones discussed/argued about in Elite:Dangerous.

 

IMO there never will be an answer that satisfies a game when progression - and I mean to very high levels - is seen as the be all and end all of playing a game. Nothing wrong with that at all of course but I've yet to see an online game where that actually works side-by-side with other modes of play  

[KrakkenSmacken]

How about this...

Rather than have dedicated PVE servers for the reason you described above, why not put in a trainee rank that prevents players from being attacked by other players until they reach a certain XP level? This would give folks the chance to get to grips with things before having the world of PVP thrust upon them.

I know this is open to abuse with players using such ranks to scout and spy with impunity, but if that behavior is made bannable, then it would be treated like any other kind of exploit.

Or, you could even have it so new players enter a PVE instance of the game, void of PVP players until they reach the next rank then automatically enter the normal PVP instance. Players could opt to 'skip' this phase and new players who play through it could carry any ships they've bought / captured over.

Just a thought.

 

 

Why by level?

 

Make the Green area around the capital PVE and the rest open. Put missions up to a certain level withing that boarder, missions after that level outside. The area should also encompass one other town, and give new players a safe place to try pretty much everything else including trading and outpost building.

 

With the green area pvp free, it will keep players interested in PvP away from ganking newbs, but still allow veterans to train and join them in the safe area.

[Long Beard]

ppl should stop buy this shit: that  we are testers,  when you pay for a game and they are selling it, we are no more testers,  if you want testers you pay them and you not sell the game.

 

And for sure "testing" game are not sold for 40$ that is a full retail market price

 

This testing thing is a mask that now every sh use even after years of game been released (see heroes and generals lol 4 years still an alpha)  for have a cheap excuse for their game flaws.

 

be smarter becouse i am sick of ppl sayng to others stop complain, is a testing phase bla bla, if you still are in  a testing phase you not sell your product for 40$ you test it you polish it then sell it.   

I think you've completely failed to grasp the concept of steams early access matey.

It's there as a new type of development model so developers can get some much needed cash flow during the early development stage of a game.  The price is set for all to see and people decide whether it's something they want to 'invest' in. Yes, it's an investment and by investing, you're supporting the development of the game whilst helping 'test' it during the development phase.

Early access is plastered all over the steam page as well as a blatant and obvious description of what early access is.

If you don't want to be involved in testing an early access game, simply wait until its official release.

 

 

What is Early Access?

Get immediate access to games that are being developed with the community's involvement. These are games that evolve as you play them, as you give feedback, and as the developers update and add content. We like to think of games and game development as services that grow and evolve with the involvement of customers and the community. There have been a number of prominent titles that have embraced this model of development recently and found a lot of value in the process. We like to support and encourage developers who want to ship early, involve customers, and build lasting relationships that help everyone make better games.

 

[surfimp]

I really think that starting city areas need to have zones around them,,,  this can be achieved by having NPCs  of those nations that patrol those waters,,

 

But isn't that precisely how things are, right now?

 

I sail out of free ports on the east coast USA - but NOT for the USA faction - and can assure you that the shorelines are heavily patrolled by USA NPC fleets of everything from Privateers/Cutters up to 3rd Rates. This makes privateering against USA player traders very challenging and more than a little exciting at times... but also very satisfying when it actually works out (like one time out of ten, lol, because I'm really bad).

 

I mostly leave the Midshipmen in their Cutters alone, unless they come to attack me. They should get to have some PVP fun, too.

 

Sometimes I jump into admiralty missions off Georgetown, but only when I see a BR > 30, because I don't want to bum out a new player.

 

At the same time, I don't want USA players to feel too comfortable ANYWHERE... that's antithetical to the whole idea of a PVP server, right?

[Zisme]

Grind is a problem for some and i think it should be addressed.

There is only one problem that is hard to fix - game is pvp centric and pve was added just to give some players the opportunity to experience combat without interference from others. PvE will always be less exciting.

 

3 things that must be done are

• reduction of thresholds in ranks so people can reach the favorite ship faster and just sail it.
• better events
• more content for clan and national wars 

But in general we are not worried about players coming and going. Its life and people stop playing all games eventually moving on to other things. We see no reason to tie people to the game by artificial chains. And online numbers are not a measure of success - overall happiness of the players is. If the player is happy and not playing the game he is still a happy player.

So is a good balance between an arcade game and a full blown simulation. I live near the Constitution, it doesnt mean I want to haul the sails and the anchor up for real.....make the game fun and people will play...make it a job and labor and good bye. 

[[MCC] Die Antwoord]

But in general we are not worried about players coming and going. Its life and people stop playing all games eventually moving on to other things. We see no reason to tie people to the game by artificial chains. And online numbers are not a measure of success - overall happiness of the players is. If the player is happy and not playing the game he is still a happy player.

 

That makes absolutely no sense. If I start a car dealership with that mentality and say "Hey no prob, I'm selling Fords and when a new client comes, I don't care if he goes away and drive a Honda, so long as he's happy" your business is dead before it even started. You're not in the business of making people happy wherever you are, you are in the business if making your players happy to play the games you make.

 

Early access is a rather new model and both players and developers are treating it like alpha/beta stages. Early access is an whole other thing, it's not about getting guinea pigs to pay for your game and test your game for free, it's about making a partial game that works and draws crowds and great critics before it is released so that you can crowdfund your development to compete with big multi-million dollar titles without having to deal with huge loads or investments.

 

In the same way as a bank or investor lending a huge sum of money to a game studio to dev a game, an early access game company owes it's investors (the players in this case, as opposed to the bank or whatever investor) a return on their money and constant insurance that this game will be "the game" and not just any other random flop. Keeping your investors happy with the game, letting them see constant progress but more importantly INTERESTED in the game is the most important thing in the world. Those players that are thrilled at the game's direction, new content, etc. are the ones that are driving the marketing of your game, they are ones telling their friends one of two things : This game is AWESOME bro buy it, or this game is boring bro, don't bother.

 

You absolutely want the most players to recommend and talk highly of your game, and that happiness and willingness to promote and incense you game to everyone around them is KEY to the success of an early access game. Also, because of the fact the whole process is long (much longer than the make it or break it "fire" sales of new titles), keeping the most people happy is paramount.

 

If you keep pushing to get more players and make them happy, the release status becomes irrelevant. Look at Rust... Garry could pull the plug on it right now and move on to another game and it would still be the greatest success story of early access of all times and probably for years if not decades to come. They'll be teaching about that game and it's success in schools and universities 20 years from now... He made weird choices and pissed players along the way, but his goal has always been to make the best possible game and keep people updated and interested in the game. It's been what 3 years now, and that game still has about the same pop playing it every night, constantly, every day, all the time.

 

Don't be lazy!

 

In other notes, great patch overall, this was a lot of content, IMHO it would have been better delivered in 2-3 smaller patches to keep the momentum, but you guys haven't been dragging your feet in the last month and this patch is a testimony to this.

[Slamz]

Old thinking:

The grind isn't a big deal because you can just ignore it and have fun in PvP.

 

New thinking:

The grind is bad because it tempts players into playing in a way that's no fun for them and results in them quitting.

 

 

This game is a ton of fun and there's no reason for anyone who likes PvP to be getting tired of it. The problem I see is that the simple fact that ranks exist will cause a lot of people to think they need to grind them out so that they can PvP using the biggest ship in the game. In the end, they are sitting in empty port battles in their Victory with not enough people to fight. They declare the game is boring and they quit. Next week, the 2nd fastest grinders do the same thing. Next week, the 3rd fastest grinders do the same thing.

 

 

The XP grind is like lemmings off a cliff.

 

 

I actually didn't think there was a problem with the pace of this game but watching hundreds of lemmings run off that cliff makes me think maybe we have to do something about it after all. Maybe we need to remove the XP grind just to get people to stop focusing on it?

[KrakkenSmacken]

Old thinking:

The grind isn't a big deal because you can just ignore it and have fun in PvP.

 

New thinking:

The grind is bad because it tempts players into playing in a way that's no fun for them and results in them quitting.

 

 

This game is a ton of fun and there's no reason for anyone who likes PvP to be getting tired of it. The problem I see is that the simple fact that ranks exist will cause a lot of people to think they need to grind them out so that they can PvP using the biggest ship in the game. In the end, they are sitting in empty port battles in their Victory with not enough people to fight. They declare the game is boring and they quit. Next week, the 2nd fastest grinders do the same thing. Next week, the 3rd fastest grinders do the same thing.

 

 

The XP grind is like lemmings off a cliff.

 

 

I actually didn't think there was a problem with the pace of this game but watching hundreds of lemmings run off that cliff makes me think maybe we have to do something about it after all. Maybe we need to remove the XP grind just to get people to stop focusing on it?

 

You know what could supplement XP grind, a way to increase crew size with a loyalty rate.

 

Win a fight, gain loyalty, lose a fight lose loyalty.

 

Loyalty gains you crew size due to .... loyalty.  When you are doing well, you gain crew.

 

Cap levels and basic crew limits BELOW what is needed to fully crew the best ships.

 

That way to stay in your top ship you need to be winning, not just grinding.

[surfimp]

Look at Rust... Garry could pull the plug on it right now and move on to another game and it would still be the greatest success story of early access of all times and probably for years if not decades to come. They'll be teaching about that game and it's success in schools and universities 20 years from now...

I think Minecraft is a much better example of this than Rust, as it essentially created the entire concept of "early access" as a viable development and software delivery model. To say nothing of establishing the sandbox survival genre that Rust was able to capitalize on.

My guess is that the devs of Naval Action are focusing on getting the core elements of the economy sorted in a sustainable manner. They seem to actively be trying to limit the availability of SOLs because those ships were quite rare IRL and are, appropriately, quite dominant in game.

My hope is that the next area of focus will be on meaningful activities for low- and mid-level players to engage in, beyond PVE grinding to powerlevel. Shallow water ports is part of this, currently, but something that provided meaningful impact on RvR outside of the port battle framework would be a good move, IMHO.

[Mrdoomed]

I dont get the grind still.

[Vllad]

It is entirely possible that the players leaving just realized this game isn't for them.

 

Right now this game is an RvR pvp game. Pure and simple. IF you aren't into RvR pvp then you shouldn't be playing this game. This isn't an RPG MMO to supplement WoW, EQ or "insert MMO here". 

 

This is primarily an RvR pvp game and as long as you play it as one this game is great. If you are trying to play this game as something other than an RvR pvp game then no matter what you do this game will be boring.  

 

This game will always just be a niche game because it caters to PVPers only.

 

The problem isn't the game. The problem are the players not understanding what exactly they are playing. This is evident by the post I see on this message board.

Edited March 14, 2016 by Vllad

[Slamz]

This is primarily an RvR pvp game and as long as you play it as one this game is great. If you are trying to play this game as something other than an RvR pvp game then no matter what you do this game will be boring.  

 

This game will always just be a nitch game because it caters to PVPers only.

 

The problem isn't the game. The problem are the players not understanding what exactly they are playing. This is evident by the post I see on this message board.

 

Agreed ^

 

Maybe what this game really needs is better advertising. "The Greatest RvR Game of All Time!"

 

We need PvPers and RvRers to buy this game. They would love it.

 

The forums are polluted with a lot of gripes that really only come from people who do not like RvR. They either want a totally meaningless game of pewpew or they want to endlessly grind NPCs until they are sailing a modern aircraft carrier and can kill everyone without having to move a finger. The game has somehow just attracted a lot of the wrong crowd?

 

 

I am comforted somewhat by the fact that the devs do not seem to listen to them overly much and are, themselves, big time PvPers, but I think maybe that PvP/RvR aspect needs to be brought to life more in the videos.

 

And maybe we can do something about the fact that new players are stuck in a cutter for so long. The cutter can be the free fallback ship but we need people in Snows ASAP.

[Capt. Rice]

WE just gota wait for a small bit for more to come out.  and keep the ideals for the devs flowing

[Justme]

The issue is 2/3rds of the game is no skill time sink.

Trading is a 0 skill time sink

Crafting is a 0 skill time sink

All you have to be willing to do is put the time in, that's it.

Currently a game angry birds takes more skill than trading or crafting.

Lot of people find unskilled time sinks boring. You can't force players who want skilled game play to play 5 hours of unskilled time sink for every hour of skilled play and expect them to have fun and stay.

[Blood Eagle]

There needs to be a super server and that will fix alot of issues. This game will be a niche game because all games of this lot are.

 

In the niche genre, you cant have multi servers pasted launch because what will drive players away is playing a pvp game on a low pop server.

[Prater]

Yes, 3 pvp servers is way too much.  Consolidating them into 1 would fix the issue I think, if they can handle the load.  I know in US prime time the current server can definitely handle the load.  Probably not during EU prime time though.

[Henrik]

PvP 1 is where the action is at!

[Captain Red]

And then people spend ages on politics, essentially looking for reasons to not fight each other

 

Or not.

In any war game, peace is only temporary and diplomacy always limited. It's just a matter of who is fighting who until the current enemy suffered enough "punishment", then factions find the next ennemy to go after. And one needs excuses reasons to find a common ennemy and start a new war to keep going, hence diplomacy

[Viziam]

 

3 things that must be done are

• reduction of thresholds in ranks so people can reach the favorite ship faster and just sail it.
• better events
• more content for clan and national wars 

Might I suggest separating rank from xp and tie it instead to pvp/pve ships sunk or port battles captured? It's funny seeing admirals tooling around in basic cutters..

Have you ever considered captain skills? Like maybe a specialist in sailing, gunnery, boarding? Or perhaps specializing by class of ship? Frigates, SoL, etc? That might add some interest to the grind.

To be honest, the grind doesn't bother me much because I don't want to be ranked higher than captain anyway, but maybe others like to be lord admiral what have you. Perhaps you could make rank like a title we can pick & choose from..

[chappy]

It is entirely possible that the players leaving just realized this game isn't for them.

 

Right now this game is an RvR pvp game. Pure and simple. IF you aren't into RvR pvp then you shouldn't be playing this game. This isn't an RPG MMO to supplement WoW, EQ or "insert MMO here". 

 

This is primarily an RvR pvp game and as long as you play it as one this game is great. If you are trying to play this game as something other than an RvR pvp game then no matter what you do this game will be boring.  

 

This game will always just be a niche game because it caters to PVPers only.

 

The problem isn't the game. The problem are the players not understanding what exactly they are playing. This is evident by the post I see on this message board.

If this is the case then they better make sure their next update seriously improves the RVR PVP mechanic so that all players have an opportunity to participate. The 2 hour timer window is currently a massive blocker for certain timezones to even get into the RVR element of the game at all.

The BR system of port battles rewards those that have done the grind as fast as possible, if players are lower rank and try to enter the battles they are decried as spies, griefers and shamed publicly.

Now you can't claim that the pve/grind is irrelevent when this system clearly favours those that have done the grind to its maximum.

Edited March 14, 2016 by chappy

[Vllad]

If this is the case then they better make sure their next update seriously improves the RVR PVP mechanic so that all players have an opportunity to participate. The 2 hour timer window is currently a massive blocker for certain timezones to even get into the RVR element of the game at all.

The BR system of port battles rewards those that have done the grind as fast as possible, if players are lower rank and try to enter the battles they are decried as spies, griefers and shamed publicly.

Now you can't claim that the pve/grind is irrelevent when this system clearly favours those that have done the grind to its maximum.

 

I don't disagree with any of your comments except the last one.

 

You get a port battle advantage if you grind but that is about it. I can kill bigger ships with smaller ones. So in the open sea's all the grind got you is losing a more expensive durability and paying more for repair kits. In this game the bigger ship doesn't necessarily help you in open sea fights. Port battles is another topic altogether.

[Ronald Speirs]

Roll the servers into 1 minus the PvE then get rid of the XP grind as that was last century game makers who didn't have any better ideas on making a progression game, the thing that should limit you is cash flow to buy and maintain ships, the more money i have the more willing i am to go trash some ships, XP does not depict how experienced i am nor should it anyone else, all that the Rank and XP shows is those that are retired or unemployed that can play all day and push through this imposed grind.

[chappy]

I don't disagree with any of your comments except the last one.

 

You get a port battle advantage if you grind but that is about it. I can kill bigger ships with smaller ones. So in the open sea's all the grind got you is losing a more expensive durability and paying more for repair kits. In this game the bigger ship doesn't necessarily help you in open sea fights. Port battles is another topic altogether.

 

Fair call vllad, 

I should clarify, the portbattle system ie the RVR element rewards the xp grind. 

 

You are quite right it is less relevant in open sea pvp and i do agree with you. I was primarily  talking about  the strategic RVR PVP component. I wouldnt call open sea rvr so much as it has limited strategic value in the current gameset

[Ratline]

Lot of people find unskilled time sinks boring. You can't force players who want skilled game play to play 5 hours of unskilled time sink for every hour of skilled play and expect them to have fun and stay.

 

Except nobody is forced to trade or craft. It's entirely viable to be a purely combat focused player and do very well.