Hotfix 9.72

[thirdleg]

I know several people were complaining about Ganking but my only issue was the utilization of hiding in battle screens while a single ship initiated contact or enemies running and jumping into missions.  This BR difference needs to be rescinded and the not attacking in capital zone should only apply to the enemy.  We currently have pirates, spanish, and swedes camping in KPR and when it is clear they jump out of the zone and attack then while invisible/ invulnerable run back into the zone.  I do a lot of anti gank around Jamaica and certain pirates and danes have already rigged it so that they do battle strictly on their terms right outside the capitol.  They pull in cutters and 2 frigates against a consti and surprise and boom...no one else can join and they have only a slight disadvantage on paper....but they ignore the cutters, de mast the frigates, then sink the cutters and they win....because no one else can join.  The sooner the better on this....hell, make it a hot fix for tomorrow.....I will hold off on telling friends about the game until then.

[Gatsu]

Please don't make the game too easy on people when it comes to PvP. When your out sailing it's not only about choosing your targets when hunting prey but also watching over your shoulder to not become an easy one. Please do not make the game too easy just because some can't handle doing this.

[fox2run]

The game is...dead...just as I feared. Gone is the uncertainty and excitement being in an open world where all things could happen. Gone is the need to organise attacking squads and counter-squads. The need to patrol home-waters vs "gankers" as you call them (a stupid word for enemy squadrons or pirate hunters). Most of the folks that I made dearing missions in hostile waters has turned into PvE players hunting AI-fleets to get XP and gold. Its just so bloody boring now.

 

And me? I play other games now. Games that award risks, PvP and organisation.

 

Now and then I will take a look to these forums to see if the game has gone in any good direction, but I doubt it. Its getting more and more of a "feel good game" with no bite, no feeling, no care.... It has good graphics, ok - but thats about it. Before this terrible patch I spend hours and hours in front of my pc at night. Now I really lost the feeling for the game...

 

Maybe I will have it back someday? 

Edited April 19, 2016 by fox2run

[LeBoiteux]

There probably needs to be a hard, normal, and easy version of each type of mission.

 

Flag Captain Hard could spawn a solo Pavel, or a pair of Conis, etc.  Flag Captain normal could spawn a Solo Bellona, or a solo 3rd Rate, or 2 Frigates, etc.  Flag Captain Easy would spawn a solo Coni, or solo Ing, etc.  Rewards would be scaled of course.  Hard would give a bit more xp for the reward.  Easy would give a bit less.  Maybe you can request the difficulty of ai as well.  Smart AI, Normal AI, dumb AI.  Smart AI for a flag captain mission would be rear admirals and commodores.  Normal would be Flag Captains.  Dumb AI would be Captains(Post Captains) and Flag Captains.  Again, xp would scale.  Smart AI might give 10 more xp.  Normal, no bonus.  Dumb, -10 xp to the mission reward.

 

Why not 3 modes for the missions, even though I think easier missions for newcomers may be enough ?

Your solution has the advantage to help casual gamers / relaxing ppl.

 

But what about OW bots (at least in the PvE server) ?

I'd really like to have them to be as challenging as possible, to have them able to tag (being aggressive) and that devs :

• teach them to chase and demast
• teach them to board
• teach them to operate in groups and focus fire
• create several roles and patterns for bots (like bots that can parry you or backstab you in Dark souls)

 

So should the 3 modes apply to :

- missions and OW bots ? in that case, the mode (easy, medium, hard) is linked to a character.

- missions only ? In that case, OW bots may have all the same AI (say all with a medium AI) or several AI (some hard, some medium, some easy). 

[Skippy]

There is no pirate fleets. I belive it was bugged when pirate ports spawned nonpirate fleets. Now it got fixed. Go fight players - youre a pirate!

I do both man, and i dont see your point... AI fleet from other nations are also the target for pirates. A britts AI fleet is an ennemy as any other Britts players fleet, so their traders, combat fleets, everything, are interesting targets for us (and all pirates i know was doing this)... we are also players and enjoy also atacking fleets and this is what was giving the most xps and gold, we were farming fleets who had 2 or 3 or 4 SOLs in them with a load shit of frigates classe with them and I was often making more than 100k gold per fleet and between 1000 to 2000 xps.(took the britt just for exemple). Its not because we are pirates that we just need to attack players only all the time. Im playing on US PVP 2.

And Im not talking about only around pirate town, im talking about other place we were going  Before the patch, there was good fleets wandering around Baracoa, LaTortue area, Puerto de Nippes... and it was Britts, US and France fleets.  Now we have nothing in these place, even not the huge one that ''can winTrafalgar by themself ''.. I went around Port aux prince and i saw mega huge fleets over there... why when i go to Saint-Nic now, we see nothing anymore... only small fleet of traders or combat fleet with things like Tring, Essex, Fridates... no more SOLs in these.

Edited April 19, 2016 by Skippy

[Skippy]

id like the dev think about soemthing to put onthe neutral's ship flag.. having only white flag is weird, white flags are for people surrendering or sunk. Maybe just a change of color for something elkse than white.  Would bne also interesting having national ships in the fleet orders XD.

 

 

I was also thinking about an idea to add.  Cross over fleet order mission and events.  What It is is, you take a kind of fleet order that give you a location (not only the two swords but more liek a zone delimited by a big cicle) but others nations players gets also the same fleet order location, they all go there.. there would be some kind of timer and then a big fleet battle begin and last long, Ships class limits would go with the mission rank. That would be a blast.   And that would make pvp fleet missions where you need to reach a place and fight there.

 

 

For the normal pvp with the new BR limit, I think you should change this for what someone already proposed.  A bigger circle (3 or 4 time bigger), and people outside that circel would have only like 15 seconds. that could be better.. or the idea with the multiple circles depending of your distance too could be great.

[Mrdoomed]

The game is...dead...just as I feared. Gone is the uncertainty and excitement being in an open world where all things could happen. Gone is the need to organise attacking squads and counter-squads. The need to patrol home-waters vs "gankers" as you call them (a stupid word for enemy squadrons or pirate hunters). Most of the folks that I made dearing missions in hostile waters has turned into PvE players hunting AI-fleets to get XP and gold. Its just so bloody boring now.

And me? I play other games now. Games that award risks, PvP and organisation.

Now and then I will take a look to these forums to see if the game has gone in any good direction, but I doubt it. Its getting more and more of a "feel good game" with no bite, no feeling, no care.... It has good graphics, ok - but thats about it. Before this terrible patch I spend hours and hours in front of my pc at night. Now I really lost the feeling for the game...

Maybe I will have it back someday?

The only time ive logged in since patch is to play with my last friend still playing till his divorce is finalized and he can spend freely on new games.

Now the once beautiful open world full of suprise and fear is nothing mre than crossed event swords every 200 feet and massive ai fleets everywhere to give anti pvp players places to hide.

Over night NA has become just another LFG mob /fleet camping grind or epic quest /mission grind. Like you i see no more reason to contribute to the forums.

At least the pve players who play on pvp servers are safe.

Edited April 19, 2016 by Henry d'Esterre Darby
Removed discussion of moderation. Watch it Captain.

[charognard666]

The game is...dead...just as I feared. Gone is the uncertainty and excitement being in an open world where all things could happen. Gone is the need to organise attacking squads and counter-squads. The need to patrol home-waters vs "gankers" as you call them (a stupid word for enemy squadrons or pirate hunters). Most of the folks that I made dearing missions in hostile waters has turned into PvE players hunting AI-fleets to get XP and gold. Its just so bloody boring now.

 

And me? I play other games now. Games that award risks, PvP and organisation.

 

Now and then I will take a look to these forums to see if the game has gone in any good direction, but I doubt it. Its getting more and more of a "feel good game" with no bite, no feeling, no care.... It has good graphics, ok - but thats about it. Before this terrible patch I spend hours and hours in front of my pc at night. Now I really lost the feeling for the game...

 

Maybe I will have it back someday? 

 

I'm curious, what games ? 

[schurem]

so when's 9.73 with the AI fix due?

[victor]

At least the pve players who play on pvp servers are safe.

 

Well, with the new IA I would not subscribe to your point of view: I think that 50% of the players are less skilled and dangerous than the new mission bots in the same ships.

Edited April 19, 2016 by victor

[Fastidius]

Current Issues

 

• Traders are drunk.......tag a ventre he sails into bank and kills himself.....make Land count as an object in the AI so it at least saild away from land.  Also it seems fairly reasonable to me that something singking due to ram/land damage should give xp to the players....gros ventre vs essex = 0 xp if it beaches itself.....surely winning the battle should give XP not just the kill?

 

• Ingermanland (sp?) - 32lbs chew up everything's armour in commodore missions....makes it fun but i think they are way more dangerous than a connie in those missions.  a planked pavel still gets chewed through and it is 2 rates higher.

 

• Can we do something about shallow warnings....there are a few spots around small islands where you hit the shallows with no warnings and the warnings seem to be not showing for the shallows in other areas at all.   can you adjust the range of them or something please

• UI can still be glitchy with ports.....crafting/trading warehouse refreshes are quite bad sometimes and sometime you haveto log out to get warehouse to resync with reality.  sometimes upgrades don't show on ship screens when this happens also

Edited April 19, 2016 by Fastidius

[Prater]

I know, all PC games offer that..

 

Why needed?

Break further immersion? More devs programming needed, which need to be somwhere else.

 

Just select difficulty level with mission lvl...

 

My ideas are just for missions.  I'm not sure how they further break immersion when you always have been able to select what type of mission you want to do.  It doesn't affect Open World AI, just for missions.

[fox2run]

I'm curious, what games ? 

 

Any PvP would do, I think... Even arena based PvPs are better right now becourse they focus on PvP. Hell, Gettysburg is more fun right now. Any FPS would do too. Warthunder or a sportsgame maybe. NA is not a PvP focused game anymore. That is my point. Its all about PvE now. PvP players are getting accused as gankers. Its nuts. Its like accusing the sniper in a FPS making unfair headshots, or a mchinegunner to kill on a distance... I learned the lesson myself as a lonely ceberus captain engulfed by enemies... Look for sails in the horizont - never sail alone - and organise attack groups in OW. Now its all about harvesting xp and gold killing AI-fleets. And OW battles? Absent. The most fun was when there where a 5 min timer. Then you could take the ship and find a battle and help your fellow nation-teammembers. It gave that special feeling towards the nation and clan-organisation. Now its near on impossible to do such a thing. Im not saying I will never play this game again. But its really odd that a fun game has turned into a real bore.

 

And regarding PvE I would take Civ5 or EU4 anytime. NA is only fun vs real human captains! (That being without AI laserguided, chain 9 pounders guns). Yes?

Edited April 19, 2016 by fox2run

[Pown]

"You're pretty bad, pick lower-level missions" is not a solution. "The AI is still pretty easy" is not productive when so many players clearly think otherwise. "We want this game to be extremely difficult, no matter how much it shrinks the playerbase" is valid, I guess, but if that's the way game labs wants to play it I wish I could get a refund.

 

I suspect the accusations of denial are because so many with some affiliation with devs are constantly defending the current level of AI, quite a few implying the entirety of the problem is with players (silly newbs, not being good at a game yet and wanting a way to practice without farming traders or sinking 39048 times), combined with the delay in making any changes. It's been a week, 2 hotfixes have been put out, but nothing for the AI.

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

"You're pretty bad, pick lower-level missions" is not a solution. "The AI is still pretty easy" is not productive when so many players clearly think otherwise. "We want this game to be extremely difficult, no matter how much it shrinks the playerbase" is valid, I guess, but if that's the way game labs wants to play it I wish I could get a refund.

 

I suspect the accusations of denial are because so many with some affiliation with devs are constantly defending the current level of AI, quite a few implying the entirety of the problem is with players (silly newbs, not being good at a game yet and wanting a way to practice without farming traders or sinking 39048 times), combined with the delay in making any changes. It's been a week, 2 hotfixes have been put out, but nothing for the AI.

 

On the one hand, brand new players should have AI that they can learn with - at a low level.  By the time you're into 5th rates, though, the AI should be extremely challenging.  So, for the sake of argument, let's say we both agree that people who are brand new to the game need to encounter AI for their first rank or three that is very similar to the previous patch's AI.

 

Once you've gotten the basics of shooting and sailing, though, you need for things to become more challenging.  Practice isn't practice when your opponent can't hit the broadside of a barn and are basically floating targets that pose very little threat.  I would liken it to saying "I want to get better at football (soccer), so I'm going to practice against 5 year-olds."  You get better by encountering people or AI who are better than you are.  That challenge forces your mind to come up with new tactics and ways to fight against them that will increase your skill level and make you better at the game.

 

Practice with an eye towards improving your skills happens when you're challenged.  Challenge can, indeed, be provided by running missions that are a few ranks lower than yours.  As Prater said above, it's not about the rank, it's about dialing in the hardness level to a spot that is winnable to you, but only just winnable (or very winnable if you want to be the hero and win 100% of the time).  If you want really easy so you can relax and send some iron downrange, fine, drop the mission "rank" even further to make it easier on yourself.

 

There needs to be AI that is a challenge for new and old players alike.  By having an increased level of difficulty for 5th rate and above, you are able to serve both camps quite will IMO.

[Enraged Ewok]

I suspect the accusations of denial are because so many with some affiliation with devs are constantly defending the current level of AI, quite a few implying the entirety of the problem is with players (silly newbs, not being good at a game yet and wanting a way to practice without farming traders or sinking 39048 times), combined with the delay in making any changes. It's been a week, 2 hotfixes have been put out, but nothing for the AI.

 

Part of it may be a player problem, yes. But it must also said, it would be a good idea to wait until any possible overperformance issues with the 6/9pd guns has been resolved (this issue has been mentioned multiple times on the previous pages) before any lobotomizing of the AI. Once the guns are performing correctly again, then the lower level AI can be tuned to where it should be instead of tuning it now, fixing the guns, and then tuning it again because the gun fixes threw AI performance out of whack again.

[Lannes]

The AI is not a challenge, it is ridiculously Over-Powered. I have to say it once more. Today, I went out with my French Niagara and found an AI British Brig. Its firing was near 100% accurate at all ranges. My Long 9 pdrs could not match it. He blew my ship's armour away on most of one side and my ship had serious leak, so I pulled out of the fight before I lost my ship.

 

It's becoming a bore to fight the AI and do missions or encounters, (which I must do since I am a 'lone ranger'.) On this issue, no one complained before, as far as I know. Now, there are myriad complaints. What does it need to get heard and for the thing to be resolved satisfactorily?

Edited April 19, 2016 by Lannes

[maturin]

I give it two weeks before the PvE players get better at the game and the complaints die down.

 

The AI is only overpowered in your head. Anyone capable of average-level marksmanship should be able to win an even fight.

 

Sail close; sail slow; focus one broadside; present your bow when possible; aim carefully.

[schurem]

Ugh with the git gud stuff. Elitism.

That is no way to grow a game.

[maturin]

Ugh with the git gud stuff. Elitism.

That is no way to grow a game.

You don't think you will learn more about the AI and get better at the game?

[Scud]

The AI is not a challenge, it is ridiculously Over-Powered. I have to say it once more. Today, I went out with my French Niagara and found an AI British Brig. Its firing was near 100% accurate at all ranges. My Long 9 pdrs could not match it. He blew my ship's armour away on most of one side and my ship had serious leak, so I pulled out of the fight before I lost my ship.

It's becoming a bore to fight the AI and do missions or encounters, (which I must do since I am a 'lone ranger'.) On this issue, no one complained before, as far as I know. Now, there are myriad complaints. What does it need to get heard and for the thing to be resolved satisfactorily?

I had a similar experience last night. Took on 2 ai Niagara in my exceptional trinc. At first my goal was to cap them both and see what the admiralty payout looked like. A few volleys in I was at a little over half armor and no rear armor. Changed tactics decided to sink one and cap the 2nd. With one remaining and about 40% armor I started to work on the remaining Niagara. Took its mast off and had it at about 20% sails, still maneuvered like it was 100% sails. After a couple more broadsides my choice was clear, run from the gimped niagara or get sunk by it... lol. I opted to bravely run away and lick my wounds.

All that to say the ai needs some work and the low caliber guns need a look too. My trinc is live oak and build strength. They were ripping me for 5% or more per volley with puny 6lb guns. Even as I ran away the Niagara kept pounding, every shot landing unerringly and doing damage.

This is not a matter of pve players needing to get better, I can see having an occasional god-mode ai ship to keep things interesting, but every ai vessel and captain should not be terminator bots with lasers. This needs some adjustment.

Edited April 19, 2016 by Scud

[maturin]

I'm not sure why you think you should be immune to 9-pdr guns. This is a frigate caliber gun, used against a frigate. It's going to be a really bad game if vessels of one tier are incapable of resisting vessels one or two tiers higher.

 

I just easily took down 2 AI Renommee's in an Essex. It is entirely dependent on your technique.

[Jan van Santen]

You don't think you will learn more about the AI and get better at the game?

 

The beatings will continue till morale improves ?

 

That sentence is attributed to Captain Bligh...and we all know the results

Edited April 19, 2016 by Jan van Santen

[Scud]

I'm not sure why you think you should be immune to 9-pdr guns. This is a frigate caliber gun, used against a frigate. It's going to be a really bad game if vessels of one tier are incapable of resisting vessels one or two tiers higher.

 

I just easily took down 2 AI Renommee's in an Essex. It is entirely dependent on your technique.

 

For one thing, at what point did I say immune? Didn't. What about 9 lb guns? Didn't say 9 lbers, said it was 6 lbers, given that the Niagara can mount 9's, but either way your point is irrelevant. A live oak ship a full category up+ from the ship it is facing, with cannons that are 3 category's higher, should not be taking the same or even close to the same damage from the smaller guns. Unless there are 3x as many or more smaller caliber guns firing at you, of which the opposite was true in this case really. All of that before considering how much more hp per side, and armor. There is a reason smaller fish run from bigger fish, and that is how it should be. Should I be immune to their guns? No. Should they be able to go blow for blow and come even remotely close? No.

 

2nd off. No one cares how good anyone else is, except the people that think they are good/better than others, or are trying to convince other people that they are better than they really are. Most of us just want to have fun playing this game, and when every single AI opponent is god-like with around a 95% efficiency with their guns it is not fun. No normal human being can come close to that without putting the end of the barrel against the enemy hull before firing. People that feel the need to prove themselves to others, should be playing against other people. Leave the people who just want to enjoy the game out of the ego contest.

 

All that being said you are entitled to your opinion, but those of us who are sick of the "get better like me" argument are entitled to ours as well 

Edited April 20, 2016 by Scud

[maturin]

The beatings will continue till morale improves ?

 

That sentence is attributed to Captain Bligh...and we all know the results

Attributed to Captain Bligh, which is to say a myth.

 

How pertinent to the current situation.