A few thoughts

[blademage]

Dear Game Labs Team!

 

First of all thank you for doing this! Since "Age of Sail" on Win95 (i guess, it is soo long ago), your game is the very best in this genre - and defacto the only.

 

But as we see on steam, the game looses players. Why? Simply because it more and more becomes a simulation than a game. Since the steam-release it "lost" some features:

 

.) Action - with the current damage model there is nearly no more action. I tried a basic-cutter vs. cutter (50XP) Mission yesterday. This one took nearly one hour of sailing in circles around each other. It doesn't get better with bigger ships.

 

So please make it a bit more a game. People want to play instead of planning their weekend for one epically boring battle.

 

.) PvE/PvP - on the PvE server the politics is missing. There should only be two nations, like Navy and Pirates. On the PvP Servers PvE content is nearly unplayable due to PvP. You can't go anywhere without the risk of being ganked. About 20 years ago, there was a MMO, Asheron's Call, where you could set a PvP flag. Something like the smuggler Flag now. If set you could attack other players that also had the flag set and be attacked by everyone else. It had a cooldown of one hour, so "playerkillers" couldn't hit and hide. An option like this would greatly enhance playability for lesser experienced players and allow full PvE experience. You could trim it to make Port- and Instant battles always available or whatever... There are many options, but I think gameplay would profit from a regulation like that.

 

.) Motivation - Crafting is currently the only way to get "better" ships. And crafting is frustrating (blueprint drops, getting the materials and resources to the shipyard, etc.).

 

Earlier you could capture enemy man-o-wars and use them with one dura, most of them were nothing special, but from time to time you got a good one. This was great motivation, much fun for many players. The official reason was to reduce "ganking" by removing free ships. That didn't work. The "bigger" players still do their "ganking" and "smaller" players won't have any motivation.Today you can only buy them for a lot of money (that you have to grind) or grind them on your own.

 

Nearly the same for upgrades. They only seem to drop from port battles. It feels like WOW without loot.

 

Loosing a ship is frustration, getting a new one is to hard.

So please bring back loot and capturing of enemy ships.

 

.) Economy. Basically it works. But it doesn't feel right. Once again. It is a game. We don't want a simulation of an economical crisis or be reminded that everything we do in real life is a money sink.

 

So please give players back the option to improve their income by crafting and trading. This requires some steps:

.) creating resources should be usually more expensive than buying them. Even creation should be profitable.

.) labour hours should be buyable. Captains didn't craft their ships themself. Workers were paid.

.) recource prices (price levels) should be adjusted to the demand. Player driven pricing doesn't work as long as there are so few players, demand and offer are that far away from each other and resources are randomly generated as they are now.

.) "Taxes" are to high, markets to small, direct player trade is non existant. A global or at least national Market would be a good start with contracts being only taxed on one side and maybe less.

.) Storage, transportation: Why is delivery only available in free towns? Why does it take 6 times as long as if you transport it on your own?

 

 

Thank you for reading. IMHO this game is great but lacks some fun, motivation and "casual factor". I hope other players comment and discuss this (peacefully). We all love this game. We all want it to be a great success. Media feedback around the world is very positive and I would really appreciate much more players to join us. Therefore it needs a wider player base that is comfortable with the mechanics.

 

best regards

Elgered

[Paint]

I dont know, but i had 0 Problems with fight lengths. Maybe you aim too high, or take too much distance but i got a trincomalee killed with a frigate in i think 15-20 minutes ? and he shot both my broadsides down to a minimum. So about 11000 Damage dealt, thats quite much.

[Anne Wildcat]

I like how on the PVP server there is a chance to be attacked anywhere. Do not bring PVP flags into this, maybe somehow bring politics to the pve server.

[Bach]

Battle lengths-With the new penetration model to shorten your fights you need to get into close range and aim below the waterline when a swell lifts the target up. Being up wind will also tend to make the targets waterline visible. Staying back at range now yields longer battles unless you are taking masts down. Boarding is as quick as it ever was.

Motivation - crafting and pvp are currently the only ways to get new combat ships. Crafting is so the Econ players have a game to play. When we could all capture all the 3rd rates we wanted there was no point to the Econ game other than buying materials to level. Now that we're mostly end game crafter there would be little reason to build and sell ships if we could still just capture easy NPCs. So although this may not be as easy for some players it allows Econ players a purpose in the game.

Upgrades- other than marines and powder monkeys Econ players can make you better upgrades than you will likely get from a port battle. Just ask for one in your nation chat, be ready to provide the medium notes and you'll probably get the exact upgrade you want.

Economy- though it may not be for you and I there are players that specific play for the Econ game. We have to have a challenging Eco contest for the merchant minded to compete against each other. Which is good because the more they compete the lower prices of ships become.

Prices- the reason prices are so high and not following demand is because players had realized they could just put up compaswood factories, harvest the wood for 500 gold and sell it to NPC for 1500 gold. This was creating a gold glut and hyper inflation. I'm guessing you are not much into Econ and may never come across the "compass wood to riches" trick. This is why the new patch capped NPC buying to 25000 units. The was no actual player driven economy where players were using this in mass. It was an NPC driven unlimited buyer creating gold so prices on everything went sky high. New rule will help cap the amount of free gold generated by NPCs and make player generated gold more valuable.

I hope this helps. Battles now need to be fought at closer ranges, Coronades are more deadly in pvp, boarding players generates better rewards. Economy should become more player driven and prices should start to drop. But we shall see.

Edited May 20, 2016 by Bach

[blademage]

I like how on the PVP server there is a chance to be attacked anywhere. Do not bring PVP flags into this, maybe somehow bring politics to the pve server.

 

hehe, no, not bringing this to PvP Servers - therefore they are PvP servers, but to PvE Servers or a "universal" server.

 

 

I dont know, but i had 0 Problems with fight lengths. Maybe you aim too high, or take too much distance but i got a trincomalee killed with a frigate in i think 15-20 minutes ? and he shot both my broadsides down to a minimum. So about 11000 Damage dealt, thats quite much.

 

So I see that both me and my opponents simply did it wrong.

 

But what else is the reason that so many players already left this game? Most people I asked answered that it became boring by a lack of motivation. Mostly because of the ships. @bach:Thanks for your opinion and the information. I only partially agree with you on your second paragraph regarding crafted ships. Casual players would never buy a craftet 3rd rate because they couldn't afford it. The others wouldn't fit their best upgrades into a 1 dura ship or wouldn't use a grey or green one lacking the slots at all. They would still buy a masterpiece or exceptionally crafted one. Captured ships would be for the ones, who are trying to do admiralty missions alone, so mostly single players. I think it would give a massive motivation boost and keep people playing. Even if capped ships only have 1 dura, lesser quality and only 1/2 Upgrade-Slots.

I think it is mandatory that players play the game - that also means casual players. And especially they see only the grinding to get the mats/money for a crafted ship.

 

 

Edited May 20, 2016 by blademage

[surfimp]

The change in patch 9.6 or 9.7 that allowed missions of any rank to be requested (which rolled out at the same time that NPC capturing was removed) is a solution for solo players who don't want to craft or trade to earn gold. So they can, for example, keeping pulling 1st rank missions and grinding vs Cutters and Privateers if they want to earn without trading or crafting or PVP.

I am also against "no PVP" flags in this game. I understand that other games have used them but I don't care to see them on the PVP server, because every trader in their right mind would fly the "no PVP" flag while trading and this would make privateering impossible (and it's already quite hardcore as it is). In fact the new update allowing people to toggle Smugglers is in fact something like this, except it encourages even more PVP as opposed to less. I like that approach as well as having the PVE server for those who don't.