Patch 9.7 - Land sighted

[Kanay]

Tried a quick mission and ships seems to have returned to overloaded crews, a frigate started with 308 crew instead of 280 like it had been the case since a few patches with all ships and AI traders having the default crews numbers, 308 crew is 10% more so it correspond to a Mastercraft hammocks as those give now 10% .

 

Love the land in battles, really give a soul to battles instead of the empty world we had.

 

About NPC ships supposed to be available in shops, i tested a couple of shops and did not saw any difference with before, still only a few NPC ships to sell, maybe i missed something.

 

PS: did all contraband traders got sunk in this patch ? i saw none for now, do they still exist ? 

[admin]

These changes will makes it even harder to do pvp. In my world the word "ganking" is nonsense on a pvp server. Maybe it makes sence in a pve-world.  If you go alone in pvp unescorted in enemy waters - well then you ask for getting captured. With this patch this game is getting overprotective and most likely leads to fewer pvp-actions. Let alone the 2 min timer. These kind of timers should be removed. It was much more fun before the 2 min where introduced.

 

 

 

That means world collide

In our world most pvp players disagree with this statement. 2 min timers made pvp better especially for smaller groups. 

Its hard to find middle ground here. Our position is and was always this: ganking has to be reduced by design.

[LeBoiteux]

"All ships up to heavy frigates have been added to NPC stores."

 

Including Le Gros Ventre or is it only for warships ?

 

PS : I tested my first battle with land : AMAZING !!!!!

[NavalActionPlayer]

Are the manpower requirements for sailing and gunnery increased or decreased? Does any change for either factor apply to some or all ships?

Thanks

[Qusso]

Ok this patch is just AMAZING , I already love it ! Finally some even fights in OW without having like half of the nation joining to battle ! Leaks now working really good , land in battle looks awesome . Devs really great job , keep it up! This weekend will be decent !

 

My 1st battle in new patch :

 

We missed 3-4 mins to board Pavel :< We started boarding 6-7 mins before time runs out . But many many more battles to come !

<3 Naval Action 

[fox2run]

That means world collide

In our world most pvp players disagree with this statement. 2 min timers made pvp better especially for smaller groups. 

Its hard to find middle ground here. Our position is and was always this: ganking has to be reduced by design.

 

I dont accept the word ganking. To much whining in it. Everyone like equal battles of course. And everyone favours larger engagements instead of smaller ones. Could it be possible to enhance this experience in OW? I think that the port battle-system is too static and too much clan-driven. PLease at least favour a system where you can sail in your ship when you log on and then get into larger battles in open sea. A battle with lots of different players in different vessels makes it more fun than in PB with 25vs25 santasimads hammering at eachother.

I mean: if a battle only starts with equal BR then the timers seems to be a bit... unnescessary.

[Quineloe]

I am a bit curious why crew space wasn't buffed, but extra hammocks was.

Choosing crew space is a significant sacrifice on ship survivability, slapping on extra Hammocks was already a no-brainer before because they're not that many upgrades worth using.

 

And even if there were,  you only sacrifice one out of 4 or 5.

Edited April 13, 2016 by Quineloe

[Twig]

Well does that actual mean, that if i.e. a Trinco (or 2 Renos) attacks a St.Pavel, no one of them is able to join the battle? I mean the Br. Difference would be more than 1.5 in favor for the defender even though he got attacked - so the battle would be closed right from the start

Edited April 13, 2016 by Twig

[Arsilon]

That means world collide

In our world most pvp players disagree with this statement. 2 min timers made pvp better especially for smaller groups. 

Its hard to find middle ground here. Our position is and was always this: ganking has to be reduced by design.

 

 

If you want controlled PvP where there is no chance for any mis-match, no chance or reason to outmaneuver your opponent to make whatever advantage you can, that is why you have duels and small/large battles.  Why do we have to make open world the same way?  I am not suggesting that the 'anti-gank' point of view doesn't have its place, just that the alternate point of view also has its place.  With these reinforce changes you are catering only to one side of that discussion.  Again you say that is the point of view of the majority of players but I don't see where that poll was made or where that discussion gave you that impression?

 

Perhaps what is happening is that you are referring to 'ganking' as it applies to a very small subset of encounters where it is taken in negative connotation almost to the point where you have a large group of people purposely looking to 'grief' a single player through potentially exploitative use of game mechanics to make it happen, eg using expired battled to hide and jumping a lone unsuspecting player wandering by.  It may very well be that the majority of players think this specific situation should be removed and therefore you have the opinion that the majority of players do not want the possibility of mis-matched encounters (i will use that term instead of gank)

 

However the mechanics you have put in place to counter that is applying to a much broader type of play which in many people's opinion is critical to make the open sea element of the conquest game more vibrant.  You are now catering to the solo minded player without putting any responsibility on them to avoid being in a situation where such an occurrence is even possible.  Why are they out alone in the first place in a ship that has no chance to escape except under a narrow set of circumstances?  Should not every captain accept a certain level of risk as soon as they leave port when they are playing a PvP/RvR game?

 

While it remains to be tested here, experience from other games tells us when similar mechanics have been put in place, it hurts the ability of groups to play as groups and stay as groups.  Battles become a series of splits where groups are broken up and tied up in battles in several 1v1 battles, some end 5 minutes, some end in 10 minutes and some end in an hour making it impossible for the group to reform and play as a group as they intended.  They may as well be playing a single player game with a global chat channel.  And worse yet, when you are in a situation where you have an odd number of players in an area, you more often than not end up in situations where several people are left sitting in the sea while their team mates are in combat waiting for someone else to sail nearby or sail off on his own in search of someone again making the idea of playing as a team impossible.  Is there also some onus on them to make sure they stay close enough together to stay in the circle on the initial tag, of course.  However, this again narrows the possible encounters that they can achieve to a much tighter set of possible circumstances, eg no more flanking maneuvers in faster ships, no more mixed fleet patrols where you have designated roles and ship set ups.  

 

You have accused us players many times of not thinking things through to the broader implications of our suggestions.  I hope you have thought through the broader group dynamic issues in this case as well.  Again if anyone knows where this discussion thread is, please post a link as I would love to know the thoughts and conversation that went into the current line of thinking.

Edited April 13, 2016 by Arsilon

[Abuu]

3. Making it a "Korean MMO grind fest" isn't helping either.

 

it took me 120 hours for 3rd rate and 200 hours till admiral (BEFORE the latest xp nerfs and xp mission buffs... without exploiting)

 

naval action isnt a korea grinder! u every played one?

 

 

the main problem with the xp nerf right now is that:

All people are getting way to fast to the last and biggest ship and right now there is no real good endgame content...

the port battles are getting borring after 1 or 2 weeks sitting all day long in a port to defend... the system is no fun with that shitty port window timer mechanic...

 

right now we are still missing the diplomatic system and the officer / crew lvl system... that would give everyone who is Admiral the motiviation to do some pve

 

but right now we are just borred as fuck because u have nothing else to do... u cant create a second char, because ur xp is acc based... 

 

to be honest i would LOVE to have more lvl or be at least flaggcaptain again or so, because right now there is no need for me to battle npc ships... and after the patch i cant capture them anymore for pvp... so why should i attack them? just wasted time

 

 

the problem with giving away those lvl for free to everyone is that a lot of people will see that the real endgame content is still missing and they will get borred to and log out... because there is no need to do pve anymore as a rear admial 

[Castello Haufniensis]

it took me 120 hours for 3rd rate and 200 hours till admiral (BEFORE the latest xp nerfs and xp mission buffs... without exploiting)

 

naval action isnt a korea grinder! u every played one?

 

 

the main problem with the xp nerf right now is that:

All people are getting way to fast to the last and biggest ship and right now there is no real good endgame content...

the port battles are getting borring after 1 or 2 weeks sitting all day long in a port to defend... the system is no fun with that shitty port window timer mechanic...

 

right now we are still missing the diplomatic system and the officer / crew lvl system... that would give everyone who is Admiral the motiviation to do some pve

 

but right now we are just borred as fuck because u have nothing else to do... u cant create a second char, because ur xp is acc based... 

 

to be honest i would LOVE to have more lvl or be at least flaggcaptain again or so, because right now there is no need for me to battle npc ships... and after the patch i cant capture them anymore for pvp... so why should i attack them? just wasted time

 

 

the problem with giving away those lvl for free to everyone is that a lot of people will see that the real endgame content is still missing and they will get borred to and log out... because there is no need to do pve anymore as a rear admial 

I agree. I logged on today and I am suddenly kontradmiral (rear admiral). Earlier I read (in a post from admin, but I cannot remember where) that the dev. team planned expanding the system to have more ranks. I like to have something to shoot for rather than having it handed to me. Now it feels like I "completed" the game and I have nowhere to go....

On another bar: For a game that pretends to strive for some sort of "realism" It is a little ironic that the greater part of the population are commander of a ship of the line and that there are 100s of santissimas in the OW....

I think this (imo) blunder was made to attract more casual gamers who cannot endure a grind. But is there an intersection of casual gamers and gamers who want detailed controls and crew managment/and a detailed crafting and trading system?

Who do you plan to sell this game to?

[Babble]

"You are now catering to the solo minded player without putting any responsibility on them to avoid being in a situation where such an occurrence is even possible.  Why are they out alone in the first place in a ship that has no chance to escape except under a narrow set of circumstances?  Should not every captain accept a certain level of risk as soon as they leave port when they are playing a PvP/RvR game?"

 

 

 

Agree with your entire post completely.  Also the use of counter tagging mitigates the possibility of the solo player being ganked.   A solo player who is situational aware can reasonably sail around enemy waters without much fear of a gank.

 

If someone is getting ganked the have no one to blame but themselves. 

• They are sailing alone
• In a slower ship
• Deep in enemy territory or known hot spot for piracy
• Are not scanning the horizon
• Are not counter tagging
• Are not Tagging NPCs to avoid being tagged in a bad situation
• do not know their ships strengths vs their opponents
• Do not know their best wind vs enemy ships
• Do not know how to use invisibility/ invulnerability timer
• Sailed to that region with no plan of escape if needed

All of the anti-ganking game mechanics are already there.  Point blank people getting ganked need to L2P.  This is a PvP game correct?

BR cap hurts group pvp which is what this game is going to end up being about once everyone is max rank and has more money then they known what to do with.

 

 

IMO:

• Cap mission enemy join timer to 2 mins.
• Cap enemy join any other engagement to 5 mins
• Leave counter tagging

Edited April 13, 2016 by Babble

[Long Beard]

Point of note @ devs.

I'm unsure how the new AI reinforcements work.  I did some testing outside Mortimer.  Whilst in protected area, it was showing reinforcements unavailable.  I sailed to the point a fraction outside the protected area and it still said reinforcements unavailable. Is this a bug?

[Leviathan]

There are no AI reinforcements. The reinforcement part of the patch note only applied to the new positioning of player reinforcements joining your battle.

[Long Beard]

There are no AI reinforcements. The reinforcement part of the patch note only applied to the new positioning of player reinforcements joining your battle.

 

Ahhhhhhh! Thanks for the clarification.

[Twig]

Reinforcements changes.

• Because spawns are now fully positional and you can place yourself very close to the enemy – ships now start the battles with guns unloaded (as it was some time before in early testing)

  Other changes

   

• Unprepared ships start with 25 preparation when boarding begins (you are in battle and are somewhat prepared to boarding fight anyway)

Am I the only one thinking, that this is no thought-out well enough?

I mean: Yes, when you are in a battle, you are prepared to boarding fight anyway. (or at least a bit)

But when you are going to attack someone, you are also prepared to battle and to shoot at the player.

I mean the fight is not happening right away - you've got the 20sec. timer before the battle is going to start to get your crew and guns ready.

Historical seen, the guns had been loaded as soon as a battle was expected to happen, and not when the battle already was going on.

Especially the attacker had this chance! And if you are close anyway, both sides should have known what will happen.

Thus, if you are going to say: "As soon as you are in battle, you are prepared to a boarding fight anyway" you should also say: "If you are going into a battle, you are expecting to shoot" 

At least make it half loaded when the battle is starting and give the players the opportunity to switch from balls to chains/grapes until the loading is done. (one timer, but letting the player the possibility to change) - When you are going to fight, you do have an intention what you want to do.

EDIT: I thought there will be a patch, that you get throwned out of the battle after the battle is over, just to get rid of those which camp inside the battle screen. Did I just over read it?

Edited April 13, 2016 by Twig

[Sir Robert Calder]

Fleets are extremely powerful. Seeing some fleets boasting 6 Santis/Vics changes the dynamic quite interestingly enough. I read reports that a capped Merc sold for near the port's sell price, so I imagine the same would be for capped 1st rates. I imagine the clans who were farming fleets are now going to become a whole lot richer.

 

On an off-note as a trader or lone player sailing in hostile waters, some of these massive fleets go a long way at giving you a chance to survive in dangerous territory. Previous fleets were relatively useless unless someone was trying to attack you solo. I find this to be very useful and the inclusion of all craftable boats is interesting too.

[Thonys]

i like it 

+1

and i hope the pirate gankings from without the battle screens are somewhat over now (it was a weird exploit)

 

i also hope that the tag closing for friends groupmembers (pecialy in case of head winds ) is increased from 2 to 4 minutes

Edited April 13, 2016 by Thonys

[admin]

 

 

 

the main problem with the xp nerf right now is that:

All people are getting way to fast to the last and biggest ship and right now there is no real good endgame content...

the port battles are getting borring after 1 or 2 weeks sitting all day long in a port to defend... the system is no fun with that shitty port window timer mechanic...

 

 

Port battles mechanics have a lot of posts on the forums (incl alliances and wars etc) 

Yet

Over the last month 800 people participated in the port battles out of 20,000 players who logged even once.

[Galbatorix]

Any info about the hotfix?

[Gatzweiler]

i was with a friend to join a fleet mission at difficult LvL Last one.. We had one Bellona and one Pavel. And as Enemies we had 12 Ships from Consti to Santissima. I mean,..ehmmm..... are u serious ,devs? Its that right Balanced? I think 2 ships against 4 same of us will be ok,.on this difficult LvL ,..but  12 ??  wtf ^^

[Bulwyf]

I hope I'm not the only one who noticed this gem. An achilles' heel for the Trincomalee? 

 

For the warship capping changes, my first impression is dislike but we'll see how this plays out. I found capping AI ships to be a great way to "Test Drive" and figure out which ships I liked and which I didn't. 

 

Making ships easier to sink is totally unrealistic, they sink far to easily now. Historically these ships rarely sank even in major battles. For instance only one sank at Trafalgar, none sank in the campaigns of Suffren in the West Indies over 5 major battles. They were far more likely to burn or blow up than sink.

[la Touche-Treville]

 

"You are now catering to the solo minded player without putting any responsibility on them to avoid being in a situation where such an occurrence is even possible.  Why are they out alone in the first place in a ship that has no chance to escape except under a narrow set of circumstances?  Should not every captain accept a certain level of risk as soon as they leave port when they are playing a PvP/RvR game?"

 

 

 

Agree with your entire post completely.  Also the use of counter tagging mitigates the possibility of the solo player being ganked.   A solo player who is situational aware can reasonably sail around enemy waters without much fear of a gank.

 

If someone is getting ganked the have no one to blame but themselves. 

[...]

• In a slower ship

[...]

All of the anti-ganking game mechanics are already there.  Point blank people getting ganked need to L2P.  This is a PvP game correct?

BR cap hurts group pvp which is what this game is going to end up being about once everyone is max rank and has more money then they known what to do with.

 

 

IMO:

• Cap mission enemy join timer to 2 mins.
• Cap enemy join any other engagement to 5 mins
• Leave counter tagging

 

So, just how the f**k is one supposed to do solo missions at higher rank? Oh, wait, you are telling me to go and kill 2 constis or a 3rd rate with my Fir Reno equipped with copper plating?

Sorry, that is very narrow minded!

 

As the game is presently, you still have no problem enjoying your PVP though it will limit your group to 6 vs. 1 instead of 12 or more vs. 1

Is that really a problem?

And I do realize that it obliges you to pay more attention to sailing in a tightly formed pack in OW to achieve this but hey, isn't skill part of what you are after?

 

Or do you really get a kick by slaughtering someone sailing in a 3rd rate with your pack of 12~14 mates?

 

Sorry I still think that this patch is fantastic by introducing some limits into stupid and brainless ganking, though ganking isn't the right word, may we say ridiculously unfair fights?

[admin]

Making ships easier to sink is totally unrealistic, they sink far to easily now. Historically these ships rarely sank even in major battles. For instance only one sank at Trafalgar, none sank in the campaigns of Suffren in the West Indies over 5 major battles. They were far more likely to burn or blow up than sink.

 

dont ram until its fixed or tuned

its not penetrating leaks related... leaks could be generated by rams and they depend on speed and relative mass and vectors during the collisions. If you hit the enemy bow into bow with both ships going at max speed you both will sink 

[Thonys]

Making ships easier to sink is totally unrealistic, they sink far to easily now. Historically these ships rarely sank even in major battles. For instance only one sank at Trafalgar, none sank in the campaigns of Suffren in the West Indies over 5 major battles. They were far more likely to burn or blow up than sink.

well you have to sink some time....

 

but if you want to be blown up more...or  catch fire more... i would say ask the devs for a burner/fire ship , im sure you dont want to meet that ship.. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_ship#/media/File:Brulot10.jpg

 

pic of a specific fire ship look at the door and the escape vessel

Edited April 13, 2016 by Thonys