Development priorities

[Don Alvarez]

Open world!

If you choose to support donations, then if i donate money I want a small island named after me that only I can bury treasure on. I dont care if it is only an acre big, I want to visit the Isle of Don Alvarez.

[Sir Cloudsley-Shovell]

I think the need to be able to remap keys is rather an important feature that needs to be vastly improved,i know we are still early days yet,but given all the different keyboards and personal preferences it needs to be done sooner rather than later.

[admin]

I think the need to be able to remap keys is rather an important feature that needs to be vastly improved,i know we are still early days yet,but given all the different keyboards and personal preferences it needs to be done sooner rather than later.

it is definitely planned.

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

This poll is extremely old and out of date.  I've locked it for now, and hopefully after release of Open World, Admin will create another one for the next direction of development.

 

Stay tuned!

[admin]

so Captains. Lets put things in perspective. how are we doing on this so far?

2 years most features done (or maybe even all)

 

[Mrdoomed]

Doing ok so far, sometimes great ! There are alot of things i would do differently but before this last big update i would say the game was pretty fun and i could spend a long time playing it.

It could definitely be more fun and attract a better player base for long term success if thingswhere a bit different but all in all if the newest patch was changed i would re buy the game to play it but this last patch....meh i wpuld wait for a sale and i personally dont play much now. hour or two a week instead of a day.

[Rikard Frederiksen]

I do feel the game generally goes from strength to strength, and on the whole I'm happy how it is. However, I do have some issues, which I will detail below:

 

Sailing Model - Turning: Now that there are consequences for showing the stern or advantages in outmanoeuvering an opponent, I am hoping you're going to look into the way ships turn. The acceleration change was a welcome alteration to the sailing model, but it strikes me that ships can still turn incredibly quickly, faster than reality. As an example my current Rattlesnake has two 'turning' mods at 'purple' quality - Optimised Rudder and Lightweight Ropes & Blocks. With these I can sit behind larger ships with near immunity as I can keep turning quicker than they can, spinning whichever way I want in a matter of seconds, and continually put round shot into opponents stern and effectively be untouchable whilst I can rake ships down to no crew. It is like an invulnerability mode.

I would like to see turning reworked to be slower and a tad more realistic, and this goes for turning the spars as well (and also raising & lowering sail!). This would make outmanoeuvering opponents harder, and being able to achieve a rake much more satisfying and worth the damage level we have.

 

Diplomacy - Drop the two 'super-blocs' option!: One of the biggest mistakes I think that has been made was in making the political system utterly redundant with the option of 3 allies. It is pointless. We've got two blocks of nations that won't change. I understand that the idea of just one ally causes fear amongst people of two alliances 'ganging up' on one alliance, but that is politics for you. One ally per nation in the game mechanics allows for diplomacy and politics outside of the game itself, and this extra dimension is worth having, in my humble opinion. It satisfies those who'd wish to take part in such activities away from the actual sailing, and would help make politics more dynamic, as player-made treaties can shatter and fall apart quicker and more radically than the current in-game mechanics would allow (plus the changes can happen in a relatively short period of time, meaning back-stabbing could occur). It also allows those more casual gamers/those who don't want anything to do with said player-made treaties, who just want to get out there and find someone to fight, to have a greater chance of finding PvP.

One ally per nation would also make the Open World so much more dangerous. Currently I know I can AFK sail almost where ever I like because I'm more likely to meet an ally than an enemy. Where ever I sail I feel utterly safe.

The benefits of 1 Ally per Nation as I see them are:

• Makes the Open World more dangerous, due to a greater number of 'enemies'.
• Allows for alliances to change more often depending on the strategic situation.
• Allows for politics/diplomacy outside of the actual game, leading to player made treaties which can be abided to or not. They'd help to make politics more dynamic as said treaties are always susceptible to breaking apart, or allowing a nation to back-stab another without warning (whether for good or bad).
• Brings more RvR/PvP as nations have to look to their borders on all sides and could help to prevent nations overexpanding, as they're more vulnerable to attack when they have more to defend. Also a nation that holds a larger area may create more foes as it threatens more nations by its expansion.

I did have a suggestion as well for fire mechanics for sails (to push towards the use of the Battle sails setting for running battles), but that might be better off elsewhere. I would like to suggest having more 6th/7th Rates though, please!

[Der Fliegende Hollaender]

I vote for Travel Improvement, which is included into my little suggestion i made into another thread!

Ahoi.

From the Netherlands!

Keep up the Good Work!

 

[tankgame]

13 hours ago, admin said:

so Captains. Lets put things in perspective. how are we doing on this so far?

2 years most features done (or maybe even all)

 

well i have played the game since jan 2015 and for me the you have worked so hard to get the game were it is today thanks

[Baptiste Gallouédec]

I like the path this game is taking

- Sailing/Turning/reactivity: i believe some adjustments will come with the crafting rework. No more uncatchable ufo spinning top with nearly no downsides (unstability / weakness) , to their counterparts please.  Leeway, ship reaction could be added / tuned.

-Damage model is nice, much better than one year ago. Now you could restore some more historical hull strength and gun penetration imo. Invisible crew on ships is still a problem for me, we should see crew on deck when in boarding prep.

-Boarding&muskets (simplified boarding is still doing a good job even if upgrades/mod/perks plays a too important role, but not a priority)

-Transfer ok

-OW ok,  I think atm the balance is good between having to sail and the ability to relocate to another outpost via tp.

-Progression ok

-Customization ok, even if still wip, i liked the paint implementation (should be craftable and not only trophies) and the future shipcrafting annoucements

-Full line of ship ok: each new ship is a real pleasure to my eyes, i want more but it's better every time.

-Crew and officer: ok. Maybe some perks are still too effective but it will become less a problem after testing when we will loose the possibility to reset for free. Injuries / morale should be a thing.

 -Land batteries (forts & towers on OW are ok but there is too many of them) Maybe some castello towers could be changed into weaker gunpits / dirt redoubt, but it's really great they are in game.

 

 

Edited November 15, 2016 by Baptiste Gallouédec

[Slamz]

My only real concern is wondering if new players will find this game acceptable, in regards to the time it takes them to become a worthy contender in the PvP/RvR game. I wonder if we shouldn't start new players out at 5th rate rank, at least (or arrange it so that they tend to get there in 4 hours of gameplay, which is plenty for an intro). After all this time I'm still not convinced that "vertical leveling" does more good than harm.

Basically I know that if I invite any new people to this game, I'm going to spend the first 40 hours of their game play reassuring them that "it gets a lot more fun later".

But as a max rank captain I'm pretty happy with it. Honestly the only thing holding me back from returning to the game for full time play again is I'm waiting for you to finish sorting out the economy and reset whatever you're going to reset. Basically I feel done and satisfied with the beta and am waiting on release. (And I hope some modest marketing might bring a lot of new players in. Would sure be nice to see 2000-3000 players on a server again.)

[Angus McGregor]

3 hours ago, rediii said:

if new players start with 5th rates they will complain about being stuck in the wind. 

Agreed - there's learning curve for a new player. Basic controls, limitations on close haul, manual sail control, cannon range and sequence selection, shot types, etc etc etc

It would not be doing them any favors to hand them a 5th rate right off the bat.

[Dumu]

I think the devs should focus on the aspects that make the game enjoyable, or atleast try to make those aspects easier to reach. By far the most memorable things in NA has been the epic 25vs25 organized port battles, and those thrilling 1v1 pvp struggles. Most of the problems ingame are about reaching those moments, the battle mechanics flaws have mostly been about just fine tuning.

My view would be to offer something for everyone and forget about trying to hand out everything to everyone. The organized port battles i was doing in March was excellent end game content for those hard core players that had the time to invest in the game (Just needed a few tweaks for some mechanics). Those players don't find much fun in shooting AI's, no matter how good the AI is. Now some could say that it's too exclusive, but if the only option to do port battles is to form a group beforehand, then the people willing to participate will do so (maybe add a tool ingame to help forming player fleets).

Another thing is the epic feel of the game. When i begun playing ppl were sailing mostly smaller ships, i think 3rd rates were the biggest AI ships (and those felt HUGE). Then came the 1st rates, at first there was only few of them sailing around, even seeing them was a WOW. Then there was 1st rates everywhere, 10x1st rates outside every port. Then i quit playing, nothing to see anymore, everyone sailing the biggest ships in the game. It was the best when rare things were actually rare, ppl want to feel that they have something unique and valuable. Adding things that you only get by playing alot or by being successful in the game makes it feel like you've special. If you have to have AI first rates, make them special rare, like 5 on the whole map. Add flaggs and paints or decorations for ppl to show off that they are the kings of the sea (but dont give them to everyone out of no reason). That way the ppl that play alot have something to show for it, but don't get any real benefit.

By looking at the suggestion made by the players, there has been alot of good ideas. I think the accelerated sailing while not in sight of anyone would be great, not to say how it could be done without abuse possibilities. Another thing is the player npc fleets, why not make it so that if you sail a trader, you can hire warships to aid you and if you sail a warship you can hire trader ships? And for PVE content, i think missions and random OW AI ships would be sufficient (maybe AI ships in the non-attended port battles). AI ships in the OW are needed for ppl to be able to practice and try out new stuff without being sunk.

All in all, the game looks great, combat feels really polished for most parts, but its missing the long distance goals and epic feelings. (understand that it's beta and everything needs to be accessible for testing).

 

[Galvez88]

new ships! 

[admin]

On 8/1/2014 at 6:20 PM, Destraex said:

i am a bit dissappointed that so many people seem focussed on the open world. This would seem to indicate that they just want to adventure with simplistic combat.

Interesting observation in 2014))