Neverending WIP

[Lyric]

Hello Gents,

 

So I just wanted to say that I'm quitting Naval Action for now.  I'm not so vain that I feel I need to inform EVERY NA player, mod and Dev of this fact, the only reason I'm posting this is to give, I hope, some useful input into what is, a game with a lot of potential.

 

 

The prime reason I'm leaving is because, a year ago it was still a game with a lot of potential.  It's kinda like having a 12 year old boy with an incredible voice + heaps of potential.  However 20 years later the kid's voice sadly never broke + We'll never know what could have been

 

 

My main frustrating is the sheer amount of time it takes to get new patches + the content of those patches.  Each new patch usually contains an "experiment".  I completely understand and value the logic behind this, and why the Devs need to keep using these to fine tune everything.  However there is a line.  We have to wait a good month to get say 1-2 more ships, and a new experiment, which sometimes we like sometimes we don't like. It's simply too long, for very little change.

Some of the experiements, are just utterly perplexing and I couldn't possibly understand the reason for example that 3rd rates are now redundant.  Anyone with a history book would know 3rd rates were THE most commonly used, and most popular SOLs of the era the game is based in.

 

AND not to mention we complained about the 25 1st rate battles a good 6 months or something ago. Before official alpha release and when we only had 100 or so open world testers.  as of about a fortnight ago we STILL had that same freakin problem, which has only been slightly resolved by a new patch which introduces more historical inaccuracy and frustration. 

And the new promised diplomacy system where the most active players get national power.  That doesn't seem well thought out at all.  Encourging civil war?  The sheer amount of evidence screenshots of the community at eachothers throats is quite substantial.  The sheer amount of guilds that have split [Just in early alpha alone!!!!] primarily due to the lack of decent hierarchy mechanics you've given us is colossal.

What is interesting is that when I originally bought this game. It had very good reviews.  It's been on "Mixed reviews" for a good couple of months now.  If you look at the comments, most agree, with all due respect, the problem lies within the devloping team.

 

Please. Please. Please hire more Devs, get stuff done quicker + throw your veterans a bone.  For me it's too late. I'll maybe return in 6-12 months depending on the state of the game, but there are LOTS of players out there wanting this game to work. 

 

I've played this game more than a year, and loved it.  But it feels like the Developers are feeding us scraps, but misconvieve it as a feast.

my hours

my photo albumn! 184 screenshots!! that's alot of memories!

 

Your statistics already show you that you've lost a LOT of players. Most don't bother telling you why, but you have created an incredibly unique game with a lot of potential which I've had an attachment to for over a year, which is why I'm posting.  I hope you take a lot of the presentation of this with a pinch of salt, but take the primary points behind it quite seriously.

 

Safe sailing.

Best Wishes for the future.

 

Monkeybullet

[Sella]

Am i the only one who is happy that the Devs aren't like Electronic Arts and Creative Assembly? I think of this game a bottle of good wine. The more it ages the better it gets.

[mikawa]

Just a proposal: instead of quitting, keep up giving good feedback on what you want to be improved and wait ... it's still alpha and I think the game suffers from players who don't realize that and therefore play like it's already released -- I mean, what matters, let's try to fight without hesitation -- I see players running away much to often, but how do you want to test the battle mechanics when you just don't participate in them?

[Galileus]

Am i the only one who is happy that the Devs aren't like Electronic Arts and Creative Assembly? I think of this game a bottle of good wine. The more it ages the better it gets.

 

I gotta agree with that. I myself left a good month or two ago, but I still have my ears out and I still try to keep in touch. Maybe will return, maybe won't. Maybe got spoiled by EA, maybe will only return for the final product. In the end, I am happy with my purchase. I got 650h in the game, and this gives me no right to complain.

 

If you clock in 1kh in a game... this raises a question - were you really not having fun? Were you seriously stupid enough to slug it out through 1k hours against your own better judgement? Unlikely.

[BungeeLemming]

-deleted trolling/ nonconstructivenes above-

 

Instead of everyone telling him what to do he might as well take his break.

Respect him for his opinion.

The devteam knows that some testers just dont want to play the way the tests run atm.

Ive heard of a few ppl who also quit for a while after the damage experiments are over.

 

We also are aware of much more and deeer reasons.

 

However -

to say that content is scarse is harsh.

The devs promised us one content patch per month. Which they delivered each - after EA was succesful.

Never did they promise more - or less.

And this wont change.

To be fair to them - nearly each patch had substential change within.

 

 

Still.

Take your break, breathe fresh air and at some point you might want to come back - even if that is after the release.

 

sail save and fair seas, Captain!

[Lytse Pier]

I see more people around me taking an extended  "shore leave" and I understand it well.

 

I think there has been a lot of testing already and it will probably continue on a smaller scale, but a lot of players are a bit disappointed that the testing lately just involves mainly discussions about a minute more or less on a timer, a tad more penetration or less on a ship, a spawn zone left or one a bit more to the right, etc. Don't get me wrong, all these things are probably necessary, but are certainly not very inspiring to test nor give a feeling the development or this game progresses.

 

I tell you what expectations I have that are not implemented yet and I don't see coming for the foreseeable future:

- A proper trading system with commodity markets and banking;

- A good cooperative gameplay system to influence the map that is not just based on only Port battles. In the end we only need just 25 (or less) peeps to plant a flag and have impact the map. No trading influences yet, no political influences, no loyalty demands, no seducing the daughter of a Governor yet to get influence in a certain port. I really would like to see more of those features.

- An exploration system where roaming the seas will put me in wondrous events and meetings with other captains.

- A proper development of my distribution network and production facilities and bring much wanted goods towards the European ports and markets.

- etc.

 

One can only hope, but I probably will also spend less time in Naval Action until these features will be announced.

 

I did hear that in the Dutch Nation a lot of players on our teamspeak are playing World of Warships and other games in the meantime abundantly together already, so perhaps we will meet in those games and the NA community stays together a bit until the testing will become more interesting again.

Edited May 30, 2016 by Lytse Pier

[Flamigant]

1034 hours and counting, I'm going to take a longer break soon also ( Since I will become a father). And hopefully when i have more time the game will be super.

[Hethwill]

It is all about the journey and the why we play the game. Each one of us has reasons.

 

Before expecting something to be delivered it is always better to be honest with ourselves and to what we can expect to do with what has been delivered already.

 

There is no ONE way to do things. There is no TRUE way to do things.

 

It is a game. It is leisure. It is a hobby.

[Glazo]

Am i the only one who is happy that the Devs aren't like Electronic Arts and Creative Assembly? I think of this game a bottle of good wine. The more it ages the better it gets.

 

I can agree with one. It takes ages, and i dont see this game to be finished in years at current pace. Instead of introducing those things sticked in "Developer news..." + diplo and piracy mechanics, there is month long testing of +/-5% mast durabilty. C'mon, many ppl are just fed up with this slooooowness and showing by devs what will be introduced "noone knows when". Make at least "road map" with ETAs for big changes.

[Z-fuzi]

Instead of fine tuning the battle (what can be done in parallel, it is already good), i think it is time for the dev to :

 

 

• Put some content in the game (treasure quest in open world, PVE/PVP quest, like mission 'destroy 3 Brit', or destroy '2 Bellonas', kills 3 boat in the same battle, special mission to try to loot Marine Gold upgrade (or others), with the big risk to loose the ship...). This game need more variety to avoid the redundancy of the Fleet Mission
• Give us a good port interface, the one existing is horrible

Edited May 30, 2016 by Z-fuzi

[Bommel]

And simply turn off the ability to turn pirate and keep all your stuff and blueprints as long as pirates are just another nation. Not much work needed for that I bet.

Even though this was ignored way too long now. And simply give out numbers of population per nation so players can see which nations are in need of players and which are allready overpopulated.

Highly unbalanced population of nations might kill the player base sooner or later.

[Kronans]

one thing that the dev can do is post a list / time frame that they have planed to update the game.

[admin]

You should always buy the games based on their current state and our current state is listed on the Steam page

 

Here is what you are buying. 

 

Naval action - open world multiplayer sandbox

Naval Action is an exciting, realistic, and beautifully detailed naval combat game immersing players into the experience of the most beautiful period of naval history - when sailing ships ruled the seas.

 

Features:

• Exciting bugs – Because its still alpha we have an interesting selection of annoying, strange, and sometimes wonderful bugs. We are squashing them one by one, but it's Caribbean - they will keep coming for quite some time.
• Enormous open world – Large open world, recreated based on 18th Century maps, historical harbors, positions, and town names. We do not believe in the various modern hand-holding markers, thus player position is not shown on the map: you will have to navigate yourself using compass, sun or landmarks. PS. battles are instanced to allow extremely complex sailing and fighting calculations for 50 ship battles.
• Freedom – Build ships, trade, sink enemies of your nation. You can attack anyone almost everywhere. Remember that every action could have consequences. So don't attack everyone - or you will become a pirate. Conquer almost every port in the Caribbean, but remember! other adventurous captains will try to ruin your plans.
• Beautiful ships – Accurate hull models, sail plans, guns, internal upgrades, historical speed, turning and heel performance. Ships from small cutters to large 100+ gun 1st rates will allow the player to experience every possible role of the Age of Sail period.
• Realistic sailing – Advanced wind and physics model provides for realistic portrayal of ship’s performance in the age of sail. Yard angles, ship angle to wind, fittings and ship condition affects speeds and turning rates. Correct tacking, boxhauling, clubhauling and other elements of the age of sail sailing are possible. Hidden ship characteristics will allow to gradually uncover potential of the vessel – every ship in game will be unique.
• Historical gunnery - Realistic ballistics and cannon performance of the period. Every cannonball is tracked in the air and after it hits the target. One shot can hit the stern, damage the rudder, then hit the cannon carriage, injure crew, ricochet from the floor and hit the opposite side. Listing and wind affects the shooting distance and will require change of tactics.
• Weapons - All major types of naval artillery are implemented: from long guns to carronades. Fort and land batteries will provide support during port battles. Mortars are coming soon.
• Damage model - Leaks, structural damage, torn sails, demasting, raking, fires and all other hazards that were possible in that era. Damage is positional: hit the gun and you might destroy it. Gunnery crews are placed deck by deck. Shot can pass through the balcony, ricochet of the gun, hit a crew member and then fly out of the gunport splashing into the water. Armor thickness and wood type is implemented and at extreme angles cannonballs will ricochet from the hulls.
• Community driven development - Players actively participate in development and many elements of the game have already been implemented based on the player feedback. Content is immediately given out to players for testing and improvement. Share your thoughts in comments or on the forums.

Here is what you want.

 

 

 

I tell you what expectations I have that are not implemented yet and I don't see coming for the foreseeable future:

- A proper trading system with commodity markets and banking;

- A good cooperative gameplay system to influence the map that is not just based on only Port battles. In the end we only need just 25 (or less) peeps to plant a flag and have impact the map. No trading influences yet, no political influences, no loyalty demands, no seducing the daughter of a Governor yet to get influence in a certain port. I really would like to see more of those features.

- An exploration system where roaming the seas will put me in wondrous events and meetings with other captains.

- A proper development of my distribution network and production facilities and bring much wanted goods towards the European ports and markets.

- etc.

 

 

You bought a pizza, consumed it and probably liked it (if it was bad you would not eat it at all) and now you demand sushi, pad thai and an onion soup. Thats not how it works in the world, there are dreams and there is reality. 

 

We are realists not star citizen. We take pride in the fact that we don't bullshit players with empty promises. The Governor's daughter is in another castle - because we never promised it. 

[Ledinis]

You should always buy the games based on their current state and our current state is listed on the Steam page

 

Here is what you are buying. 

 

Naval action - open world multiplayer sandbox

Naval Action is an exciting, realistic, and beautifully detailed naval combat game immersing players into the experience of the most beautiful period of naval history - when sailing ships ruled the seas.

 

Features:

• Exciting bugs – Because its still alpha we have an interesting selection of annoying, strange, and sometimes wonderful bugs. We are squashing them one by one, but it's Caribbean - they will keep coming for quite some time.
• Enormous open world – Large open world, recreated based on 18th Century maps, historical harbors, positions, and town names. We do not believe in the various modern hand-holding markers, thus player position is not shown on the map: you will have to navigate yourself using compass, sun or landmarks. PS. battles are instanced to allow extremely complex sailing and fighting calculations for 50 ship battles.
• Freedom – Build ships, trade, sink enemies of your nation. You can attack anyone almost everywhere. Remember that every action could have consequences. So don't attack everyone - or you will become a pirate. Conquer almost every port in the Caribbean, but remember! other adventurous captains will try to ruin your plans.
• Beautiful ships – Accurate hull models, sail plans, guns, internal upgrades, historical speed, turning and heel performance. Ships from small cutters to large 100+ gun 1st rates will allow the player to experience every possible role of the Age of Sail period.
• Realistic sailing – Advanced wind and physics model provides for realistic portrayal of ship’s performance in the age of sail. Yard angles, ship angle to wind, fittings and ship condition affects speeds and turning rates. Correct tacking, boxhauling, clubhauling and other elements of the age of sail sailing are possible. Hidden ship characteristics will allow to gradually uncover potential of the vessel – every ship in game will be unique.
• Historical gunnery - Realistic ballistics and cannon performance of the period. Every cannonball is tracked in the air and after it hits the target. One shot can hit the stern, damage the rudder, then hit the cannon carriage, injure crew, ricochet from the floor and hit the opposite side. Listing and wind affects the shooting distance and will require change of tactics.
• Weapons - All major types of naval artillery are implemented: from long guns to carronades. Fort and land batteries will provide support during port battles. Mortars are coming soon.
• Damage model - Leaks, structural damage, torn sails, demasting, raking, fires and all other hazards that were possible in that era. Damage is positional: hit the gun and you might destroy it. Gunnery crews are placed deck by deck. Shot can pass through the balcony, ricochet of the gun, hit a crew member and then fly out of the gunport splashing into the water. Armor thickness and wood type is implemented and at extreme angles cannonballs will ricochet from the hulls.
• Community driven development - Players actively participate in development and many elements of the game have already been implemented based on the player feedback. Content is immediately given out to players for testing and improvement. Share your thoughts in comments or on the forums.

Here is what you want.

 

 

You bought a pizza, consumed it and probably liked it (if it was bad you would not eat it at all) and now you demand sushi, pad thai and an onion soup. Thats not how it works in the world, there are dreams and there is reality. 

 

We are realists not star citizen. We take pride in the fact that we don't bullshit players with empty promises. The Governor's daughter is in another castle - because we never promised it. 

Shots have been fired :DDDDDD

[Lytse Pier]

Hi Admin, 

 

Oh, I liked it for sure, and still like it. That is certainly not the problem. It is just that, like I wrote and read well above,  .. "one can only hope".

 

No bad word about your ability to deliver what was promised. I am certainly not talking about the expectations I had when I bought it, those were quite clear and you even delivered more than I expected to be honest.

 

I am talking about the expectations I got when playing your game, mainly due to my own imagination and the potential I see and experience what you guys created the past few months.

 

I am just a customer that would like to see more Naval Action than you might be willing to make, is ready to pay for additional fee's for content and expansions and is willing to admit he is a fan of Sushi .... and governor's daughters. 

[Lonar]

I understand the Opening Poster i took recently a month long break and it helped a lot. But you always should see it that way at least Game Labs dont sell Pictures of Ships still to be build ... ;P

Edited May 30, 2016 by Lonar

[Ruthless4u]

I'm on a bit of a forced break( no comp till end of summer) but I get the feeling that a lot of people are just frustrated. As to why there are various reasons, but I am afraid of the state of the testing when I return and that pvp 1 will have less than 1k at peak times at the current rate of shrinkage.

Not very encouraging to say the least.

Edited May 30, 2016 by Ruthless4u

[Galileus]

Most people are frustrated, because they bought EA game and imagined it will be done in 5 minutes.

[Hugo van Grojt]

Just wanting to say that I am also taking a leave of absence for similar reasons as Monkey in the OP. 20+ port battles per day, endless exploiting of game breaking bugs by all parties involved followed up by ridiculous bragging on the Forum.

It is not that the devs are not delivering. It is the community that often doesn't seem to be mature enough to exercise some restraint instead of ruining the gameplay experience for the other team.

But boy oh boy - don't you even dare using that empty promise of shiny bling that is Star Citizen in the same sentence with this little marvel of a computer game Alpha we have here! ☺

I hope I will return to a less broken and once more enjoyable game soon. In the meantime: Safe sailing and fair wind to the true captains that remain out there!

Sincerely Yours,

Hugo van Grojt

Edit: spelling

Edited May 30, 2016 by Hugo van Grojt

[Ruthless4u]

Just wanting to say that I am also taking a leave of absence for similar reasons as Monkey in the OP. 20+ port battles per day, endless exploiting of game breaking bugs by all parties involved followed up by ridiculous bragging on the Forum.

It is not that the devs are not delivering. It is the community that often doesn't seem to be mature enough to exercise some restraint instead of ruining the gameplay experience for the other team.

But boy oh boy - don't you even dare using that empty promise of shiny bling that is Star Citizen in the same sentence with this little marvel of a computer game Alpha we have here! ☺

I hope I will return to a less broken and once more enjoyable game soon. In the meantime: Safe sailing and fair wind to the true captains that remain out there!

Sincerely Yours,

Hugo van Grojt

Edit: spelling

Stupid off topic question, what's so bad about star citizen?

[HarryButpain]

Just wanting to say that I am also taking a leave of absence for similar reasons as Monkey in the OP. 20+ port battles per day, endless exploiting of game breaking bugs by all parties involved followed up by ridiculous bragging on the Forum.

It is not that the devs are not delivering. It is the community that often doesn't seem to be mature enough to exercise some restraint instead of ruining the gameplay experience for the other team.

But boy oh boy - don't you even dare using that empty promise of shiny bling that is Star Citizen in the same sentence with this little marvel of a computer game Alpha we have here! ☺

I hope I will return to a less broken and once more enjoyable game soon. In the meantime: Safe sailing and fair wind to the true captains that remain out there!

Sincerely Yours,

Hugo van Grojt

Edit: spelling

 

Admit it, you'll only come back once the devs add sharks with FREAking laser beams attached to their heads!!!???? 

Edited May 30, 2016 by BACk ALLEY ShENANiGANS

[Ledinis]

Stupid off topic question, what's so bad about star citizen?

It present its ambitions as facts  

[Hugo van Grojt]

Stupid off topic question, what's so bad about star citizen?

Off topic answer (delete if too off topic):

150 million dollars budget, hundreds of people as staff, three years of development - and they STILL have yet to deliver a combat system that works at least half decent. They keep doing the bling while the core is garbage - Naval Action does it the other way around. With NA we know at least what the combat experience is like. They have that part figured out nicely.

(Last time I checked, their forum thread about controller imbalance and the horrible flight model had 1800 pages. One thousand and eight hundred - and counting)

Edited May 30, 2016 by Hugo van Grojt

[Red Jack Walker]

It is not that the devs are not delivering. It is the community that often doesn't seem to be mature enough to exercise some restraint instead of ruining the gameplay experience for the other team.       

+1 about that.

In general I would say that one of the main issues we have is people playing Naval Action as it was a finished/complete game already (some people trying even to apparently "win" the game in alpha stage ). Guys we are testing, we are "experimenting", and we are going to face disappointment, loss, anger and so on in the process. Personally I think that this game is so good and unique that it deserves all of this and I don't want to quit it at all!!!

Edited May 30, 2016 by Red Jack Walker

[Hugo van Grojt]

+1 about that.

In general I would say that one of the main issues we have is people playing Naval Action as it was a finished/complete game already (some people trying even to apparently "win" the game in alpha stage ). Guys we are testing, we are "experimenting", and we are going to face disappointment, loss, anger and so on in the process. Personally I think that this game is so good and unique that it deserves all of this and I don't want to quit it at all!!!

Cross Post from another thread:

I think that one of the many problems this gaming community suffers from is the different mindset of players playing the game:

1. The Alpha Tester

- accepts the partly broken mechanics and reports bugs

- tries to find ways to enjoy what content we have

- tends to be more lenient and less toxic towards other testers, even when in the enemy nation

- will accept that players sometimes need to make their own rules where the game engine falls short - deciding not to kill off a faction in the game for the sake of community health vs. own pride would be one example. Deciding not to exploit bugs or broken features in the alpha game in order to improve gameplay experience for everyone would be another

- look at Hethwil as one such example of a Tester

2. The Power Gamer

- plays Naval Action as if it is a done and polished game

- as such, he/she uses any game mechanic available, because it is "a feature" and "allowed, because the game engine allows it"

- plays to "win the game" - one could argue that wiping off an entire faction from the map can be considered a "win"

- favours "winning the game" over enjoying the game

Obviously, these are oversimplifications. But I feel that the difference in attitudes towards how Naval Action could/should be played is the largest cause of grief for the player community. The alpha game simply is too broken in too many parts, which potentially allows the Power Gamer playerbase to easily ruin it for a majority of the rest of the playerbase. The result can be seen in ever dropping player numbers.

I don't mean to doomsay here, like many people do in other threads - but the fact stands that many players leave the game when their faction is reduced to rubble. We also have seen many old school and competent fleet commanders leave the game because they cannot keep themselves motivated to do port battles 24/7 for weeks on end.

So, what can the gamer community do to prevent player loss? Sometimes, the aggressor needs to exercise some restraint and not push over any given faction when they clearly could. Unfortunately, the "diplomats" in the nations aren't necessarily the most level headed people - so, claiming that the victim of a faction genocide could always just surrender and negotiate a good deal for their faction's survival is a kinda lame argument when you look at the big egos of some of the decision makers in factions.

I am not pointing fingers here at any individual nation, clan or individual, just explaining the situation as I see it. Right now, Naval Action needs more Testers and less Power Gamers in my eyes.

Cheers,

Hugo