Patch 9.96 - New conquest, New trading, New ships and other things

[Edward Canaday]

Wow all this hate.

 

I played for 40min last night while waiting on a pizza and wings to arrive. 

 

I managed to capture a trader brig, and sink 1 Niagara, 1 Cerberus, 2 Navy Brigs all AI.   I was in a Rattlesnake with a fleet Rattlesnake.   There were also 1 Pavel and 1 Inger drawn in on my side. 

 

The crew losses were a BIT high.  I lost 38 men to cannon fire, 10 in one shot from the trader brigs stern chasers.

 

I love everything else about this patch.

 

 

So to those of you rage quiting...

Can I haz your stuff?

 

I'm hoping that will be the case for me this evening, I'm only basing my comments on current experience.  

[Neverdead Ned]

I really like the combat in this new patch. Losing crew should be a big concern and using the enemy'so crew loss to your advantage is just as important. Last night we chased away several attempting ganking fleets after they had lost significant crew. Had they the skills to stern camp better, the outcome would have been different.

Cap'ing the new ships was easy if you hunted for them in the right areas. Lastly, I did find the number of fortifications outside ports to be really unrealistic...I'd suggest halve their numbers.

[Liq]

Question, I think i read somewhere that free ports don't provide any region bonus, but i cant find that post anywhere anymore. Is it true?

[Helbent]

Question, I think i read somewhere that free ports don't provide any region bonus, but i cant find that post anywhere anymore. Is it true?

With the removal of shipyards I don't think you can build in free towns anyway, only national ports.

[Lord Vicious]

We are making the game. Making the game involves adding things and testing them. Some things that are added are new and will feel uncomfortable or wrong (like beer). Some will never feel right. We have no desire to waste time and test them twice somewhere. EA is a testing build. Claiming something about pvp experience disqualifies all your comments as it seems you are just making up things about others instead of focusing on the features.. Splinter damage warning was given like in June or July. Pepperidge farm remembers

 

For more infromation please check this warning by Valve http://store.steampowered.com/earlyaccessfaq

 

Here is the main statement by Valve 

We like to think of games and game development as services that grow and evolve with the involvement of customers and the community. There have been a number of prominent titles that have embraced this model of development recently and found a lot of value in the process. We like to support and encourage developers who want to ship early, involve customers, and build lasting relationships that help everyone make better games.

 

I don't see that you are trying to support and encourage developers and trying to build a lasting relationships with us here by making statement like i quoted.

 

You have the testers you just not use them look tester forum is pretty much dead, becouse you barely answer, you never inquire us for a feedback, we just post propositions that we dont even know if you embrace or not since rarely we get an answer.

 

When a dev nerf a perk like pirate from +1kn to +0,5kn that cost 6p and leave the mastery perks for ships at 5p for +0,5kn and +5% reload, clearly  have lost his in game experience, becouse is a such obvious and blatant mistake , mistakes that cost you time, and cost us fun.

 

Nobody who play the game will ever nerf yellow modules to +2,5% bonus becouse they will become simply useless, nobody gonna use them anymore  and is not that we have hundreds of modules there is 20, when you make half of that useless ppl will use the un-nerfed module with the biggest bonus.

 

Nobody that play and have fight experience will nerf caronades by 300%,  Nobody that play will make crew loss augmented by 500%,  is unplayable,  Nobody that play will augment the weight of items by x5 knowing how is boring already to haul around.

 

 

You understand that you wasting your own time? becouse you make a thing that need to be re-done over and oveR? when you have testers that could have told you that this setting are wrong before they go to the main server? do the polishing work? and get overall better tweaked patches? why is soo hard for you accept this process? and every time you make the same mistakes and every time you not wanna admit it, when is evident to all the community.        I really dont get it,  and dont tell me i not like the game or i not support you becouse i have 8 accounts i follow the game since febrary 2015, i reported dozen of bugs made dozen of  threads of suggestionst, and reports, and tests,   and i spend shitload of my time to write walls of text like this   where i support all my critics with solutions .

 

Balancement is a long process, the game tweaked for example the modules for the last year and half and i never heard anybody complaining that powder monkeys at 5% where too strong,       but now i hear all telling me how at 2,5% is an useless slot,    you cant balance and tweak the game if all the aspects change continuously over and over.    And you keep going from one extreme to another,    see the crew losses from losing 20-30 crew even with a side completely destroyer, to lose 400-500 crew before the ship even lost 50% of hp.     Thats is a system that not have any methodology on it, you never go by +10% +20%   is either 0 or 100.

Edited October 21, 2016 by Lord Vicious

[maturin]

Sheesh, speak for yourself...

 

Every tester I know was asking for weaker mods and carronades, not to mention the magical pirate perk.

[admin]

You have the testers you just not use them look tester forum is pretty much dead, becouse you barely answer, you never inquire us for a feedback, we just post propositions that we dont even know if you embrace or not since rarely we get an answer.

 

When a dev nerf a perk like pirate from +1kn to +0,5kn that cost 6p and leave the mastery perks for ships at 5p for +0,5kn and +5% reload, clearly  have lost his in game experience, becouse is a such obvious and blatant mistake , mistakes that cost you time, and cost us fun.

 

Nobody who play the game will ever nerf yellow modules to +2,5% bonus becouse they will become simply useless, nobody gonna use them anymore  and is not that we have hundreds of modules there is 20, when you make half of that useless ppl will use the un-nerfed module with the biggest bonus.

 

Nobody that play and have fight experience will nerf caronades by 300%,  Nobody that play will make crew loss augmented by 500%,  is unplayable,  Nobody that play will augment the weight of items by x5 knowing how is boring already to haul around.

 

I nerfed them because i don't like upgrades having more value than a ship, i dont like that upgraded ship changes completely. And most importantly a lot of players also don't like it and helped me to understand that. 

 

It's a paradigm shift and you will get used to it. And its a good thing. We remember you posted similar statements about repair upgrades when they were nerfed in summer. And similar statements about press gang. So no reason to exaggerate and name names.

 

Now.. when you leave good constructive critical post don't spoil it by talking about people with statements you cannot prove. 

I PvP a lot and I talk to people who pvp a lot (mostly danes, pirates and dutch) we are in direct voice contact on a weekly basis with several teams who got to the semis and we constantly talk to several clans who we trust (respected community members in their nations). So please refrain from qualitative statements talking about people, devs, mods and such. Keep the structure and content that is very useful. 

 

And open development means updating and testing LIVE. Get used to this. You see both good things and bad things. Its just faster this way and will only change after release. 

[admin]

 

 

When a dev nerf a perk like pirate from +1kn to +0,5kn that cost 6p and leave the mastery perks for ships at 5p for +0,5kn and +5% reload, clearly  have lost his in game experience, becouse is a such obvious and blatant mistake , mistakes that cost you time, and cost us fun.

 

 

Btw this is a good point)) 

we have not thought of that when we did the change but its not important at this stage.  Cost wise pirate perk is strangely more expensive and it should be changed. 

But this is not a blatant mistake. It is just a mistake. People who work make mistakes all the time. 

The only point is that mistake does not matter - honestly. Have some Maderai wine which is also in game .

[Mrdoomed]

Wow all this hate.

I played for 40min last night while waiting on a pizza and wings to arrive.

I managed to capture a trader brig, and sink 1 Niagara, 1 Cerberus, 2 Navy Brigs all AI. I was in a Rattlesnake with a fleet Rattlesnake. There were also 1 Pavel and 1 Inger drawn in on my side.

The crew losses were a BIT high. I lost 38 men to cannon fire, 10 in one shot from the trader brigs stern chasers.

I love everything else about this patch.

So to those of you rage quiting...

Can I haz your stuff?

You eat wings ? Gross.

[Pagan Pete]

The outer circle is too large. I LITTERLY can't attack anything without a mess of AI being drawn in.
It is not fun to play like this.

Please reduce the size of the outer circle.

Thanks

PP

[Anne Wildcat]

Thanks admin, hopefully pirate perk gets fixed somehow.

I also suggest with the ROE, enemy AI only gets pulled in if in the small circle or maybe in outer circle until even BR. Something.

I'd also like to see foreign trade ships back in friendly waters. Just took my rattlesnake out near Shroud Cay area to hit AI traders to relax & I found 1 Brit AI by Nassau, a fleet I would not be able to battle solo, every trade AI in the area was pirates.

Edited October 21, 2016 by Anne Wildcat

[Guest]

The outer circle is too large. I LITTERLY can't attack anything without a mess of AI being drawn in.

It is not fun to play like this.

Please reduce the size of the outer circle.

Thanks

PP

 

Or refuse the AI's entry and let players decide wether or not they want to join or not..

[maturin]

Maybe AI should get tagged in the inner circle only?

 

That way you can still hide behind friendly AI, but only if you do it deliberately and in time.

 

AI don't join fights, so excluding them from the tag is unimportant.

[z4ys]

Today I could have had a good fight with my rattle against a Niagara. But tons of AI got pulled in so it was me + 10 AI against one little Niagara.

It would be nice if we would be able to activate/ use the tactical map command *retreat* for the AI ships in case we don't won't a pvp fight becoming a pve zerg.

[Blackjack Morgan]

This patch really has me bummed out to be honest. Struggling to find almost any positives to draw from it. Don't like the dramatically increased crew damage, the new wood types, massive time sinks, regional ship bonuses, and many, many others. Perhaps the most demoralizing is that it seems we just re-invented the wheel again instead of making some minor tweaks that people were asking for. 1 step forward and 2 steps back.

[Cmdr RideZ]

Took some duels, shooting ships.  The game is broken.  Frigate to Frigate bow rake, I think it was 135x Crew killed + a crew shock.  Do you honestly try with purpose to make it like this?

 

Bow is equally weak as Stern now.  So you kinda just destroyed the weather gauge?  I do not know what to say.  It might be even easier to cause crew damage through bow.  Maybe bow provides more deadly splinters?  We do not even know if the splinters actually killed crew, and now this?

 

I understood that the bow was actually strong.

 

 

Either, bring the crew damage down.  The grape damage was before already too high.  So you have to nerf the grape damage, then decrease even the ball crew damage under the grape damage.  If you want, you can make grapes to be easier to hit, but less crew damage per shot.  And decrease the crew damage way faster after casualties have been already taken.

 

OR

 

Rebalance everything to support the new crew damage.  This means pretty much everything.  This is a lot of testing and changes etc.  I highly do not recommend this.

 

You had a good combat mechanism.  I think it makes no sense to make this kind of massive changes.

 

And yes, because in the game raking is common, that happens a lot in battles. So you make one thing to be gamy, and then you try to combine that with something that you think is realistic?  And this realistic from extreme end of casualties in this case.

 

...

 

And those wood types.  Just give us 6 end game wood types, instead of ruining the old ones and leaving us with 2 end game wood types.  You are trying to make us "gear", to what we can upgrade when we get forward in the game.  But 6vs2 wood types in the end game, I take 6 any time.  Will make a lot better end game experience.

 

...

 

I suppose there are many things that are broken now...  To the next time.

 

 

 

...edit.

Just to clarify, in case someone get picky.  You did not destroy the whole weather gauge.

Edited October 22, 2016 by Cmdr RideZ

[Lord Vicious]

Btw this is a good point)) 

we have not thought of that when we did the change but its not important at this stage.  Cost wise pirate perk is strangely more expensive and it should be changed. 

But this is not a blatant mistake. It is just a mistake. People who work make mistakes all the time. 

The only point is that mistake does not matter - honestly. Have some Maderai wine which is also in game .

 

You didnt reply before that you have this "estimed pvpers" ppl helping you? and they cant see the obvious?  they always make go thrue their filter this obvious mistakes, maybe they are not that expert pvpers.  1 time can happens but in every patch there is dozen of this obvious "mistakes".   Time to try inquire some other ppl also ?

 

also if i am wrong and it may be, how is that i got x3 support on my critics then your reply? and i am not a popular guy who many ppl like.  Majority at list 60-70% is pretty negative towards the patch.

 

Also you talk about new features, when you make them something can go wrong, sorry i fail to see how augmenting all weights is a feature, it just make an existing feature much more time consuming, and is already a boring activity, really wondering who can suggest something like that.        

 

And i not believe that guys that arrived on best placements in tournament like the current patch since majority is small clans who live of small pvp 3 vs 3 etc, that now cant find anything around unless they wanna face ppl+fleet+forts.   And wich also massive crew loss enforce them to return more often to port or bring tons of medic kits. 

 

I can tell you that in my clan 170 ppl , nobody like the patch and not becouse i say so, is becouse nobody enjoy the new mechanics, is not about making them different, is that they are less fun then before.

 

Before was risking go pvp in front of enemy capital, ppl afraid to lose ship hugged the green zone, leaving only with overwhelming numbers, now is even worst

 

towers+fleets+hugging

and pvp in small group have become a waste of time, thats fun for you?     it kills also lone pvp

 

this game not was to be historical belivable? jamaica have more towers and forts then the deathstar in star wars. roughly 2k cannons  1300+ 42lb cannons more then the entire britain fleet got all over the world in his entire fleet  64x20 + roughly 6x60 only for man up the current in game defence structures you will need a force of 50k redcoats.   

 

I made some research on historical jamaica maps and jamaica have at its peak an 5-6 fort,s and 5 watching towers, not the currently 20+ forts and 60 towers

redots = defence structures

 

and thats just for jamaica if we calculate all towers and forts in game the number that exit is absurd more cannons that the entire navy of all nation have ever builded in 200 years of age of sail warfare. , And considering that the crew losses/management etc got publicized in the game as they where based on a historical overall pop calculation, of the period this 2 things cant fit whatsoever together.  

 

Edited October 22, 2016 by Lord Vicious

[maturin]

The new ship has a secret weapon... Capsizing ships

 

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/251466029771339318/B8E87B9F41E52CC0E9F5F030D4B3463092B0CB58/

The ship didn't capsize. The devs did their job well. Although the ideal physics settings wouldn't allow the ship to ride up out of the water like that, what you see in the screenshot is a survivable heel angle for a stable ship.

 

 

Don't like the dramatically increased crew damage, the new wood types, massive time sinks, regional ship bonuses, and many, many others.

This community is beginning to remind me of a bunch of old ladies sitting around in a nursing home, whining about the color of their medication bottles changing.

 

Of course, they complained about the way things were five minutes ago, but the real waterworks are reserved for when something gets improved. Or it turns out that they really liked the crappy old state of affairs after all.

 

They whine about OP mods making the game gear-based instead of skill-based. Then they whine about nerfed mods and regional bonuses.

 

There is a universal consensus that carronades allow people to dismast everyone. Then the carronade nerf is bad.

 

They whine about wood types that can just be ignored.

 

They whine about there being no purpose or drive to RvR, then whine when they actually have to fight over resources.

 

And of course the root of all the evil is because fishing got added. (Now why haven't I gotten more than five bottles this week?!?)

 

They whine because the randomly-placed event didn't end up in their backyard.

 

They even whine about motherfucking yellow ships changing color to purple ships, with zero actual stat adjustments. Get a grip, people.

 

Yellow label turned into purple label. Jesus Tapdancing Christ.

[themule08]

He is 100% correct..

[EL LOCO]

^{This patch really has me bummed out to be honest. Struggling to find almost any positives to draw from it. Don't like the dramatically increased crew damage, the new wood types, massive time sinks, regional ship bonuses, and many, many others. Perhaps the most demoralizing is that it seems we just re-invented the wheel again instead of making some minor tweaks that people were asking for. 1 step forward and 2 steps back.}

 

^{I agree.      And especially not warn us of any of these changes.   I lost a lot of great ships I had for sale but were there due to space for map reset.     This is definitely 2 steps back.    Not liking this at all.}    

[Guest]

Well.. I've got some points of criticism.. Or whining as some apparently calls it...

The crafting bonuses doesn't make much sense.. Even if we disregard the fact that it's kinda strange that the same guy can make the same ship in two different ports and get two different results - it still doesn't explain why the same guys can make the same ship (without bonuses) in two ports owned by his allies..

Since the devs made bonuses dependent on port ownership they should've reset all alliances to make it possible for the small nations to get these bonuses. This problem could easily have been avoided by making the bonuses dependent on resources used. This would also give a viable role to the smuggler - as it is it's merely a tool for raiders to be able to quickly sell items in a nearby port.. Nothing else.. By making bonuses depending on the mats used there'd be an incentive for smugglers to run into enemy ports, have a prearranged seller (or buyer) ready and make profit by the smuggling..

The weight of the goods are basically unrealistic and frankly just made an already broken econ system worse.. Before the patch I made 9 millions every two days from trading (and no I've never crafted a note in my life).. It was impossible to be poor unless u actually tried hard to be.. Now they've introduced a trading tool that removes the need to make an effort to map the ports and identify trading routes.. Basically they introduced the Internet into the 17th to 18th century econ system.. The devs need to settle on a weight system that makes it possible to set the goods weights in game to somewhat realistic levels..

The crew losses has become more realistic - before the patch I could do a frig battle against two trincs and only loose three men.. There should however be an overhaul as the costs of hiring new crew..

Carros were needing a nerf, now u can't just slam ur ship alongside that of the enemy and carro them to death (well actually u can, but now there's a viable alternative to the snipershotguns of prepatch)..

And yes the events were exceptionally bad and reintroducing them in their old state as juvenile pranks would be the epitome of stupidity..

[Fenris]

I dont understand many point of views reading the posts.

Before the patch everybody had the the opportunity to get rich very fast,have the best possible ships,easily recruit the crew,even reach highest craft level in few months if playing often and using common sense.

Now everything became a bit harder,and like someone said "This community is beginning to remind me of a bunch of old ladies sitting around in a nursing home, whining about the color of their medication bottles changing."

Well, there is no doubt,some changes should be applied.Nevertheless,this patch is 2 days old.Stop moaning.Start thinking.

Analyse.Adjust.Apply.

[Guest]

It seems that limiting fine live oak and fine mahogany to three nations is unfair to the others. As a Dutch player, we already start with a significant deficit of ports plus resources and I'm sure it is similar for the other small nations. How are we supposed to retain people in the smaller nations when you have made things so unbalanced? I'm not asking for super ships or the same number of ports as some of the other nations but come on, throw us a bone here. First we get ripped off because of the event locations, now this unfair patch...just what have you got against the Dutch?....everything else about the patch seems ok so far btw.

As I understood the possibility for raiding towns will come into the game sooner or later. Then also we small nations will get our resources

[GoodTime]

_{Great job guys...Love this game so far...}

[LeBoiteux]

this game not was to be historical belivable? jamaica have more towers and forts then the deathstar in star wars. roughly 2k cannons  1300+ 42lb cannons more then the entire britain fleet got all over the world in his entire fleet  64x20 + roughly 6x60 only for man up the current in game defence structures you will need a force of 50k redcoats.   

 

I made some research on historical jamaica maps and jamaica have at its peak an 5-6 fort,s and 5 watching towers, not the currently 20+ forts and 60 towers

redots = defence structures

 

The plan of Jamaica on which you counted forts and towers doesn't take into account the many coastal batteries there certainly were on the island.

 

See e. g. the shore battery of Pond Hill at the entance of Port Royal Harbour and her 12 guns I framed in blue : 

 

 

It doesn't appear on your map (nor in your counting) :

 

 

Coastal batteries were lighter installations than forts or towers and were spread along shores and at the entrance of ports :

 

 

 

 

On the single small island of Sainte-Marguerite (France) in the Mediterranean (only 2,4 km² !!!), Napoleon decided to build 3 batteries in 1793 (besides the old fort) !!!

Source : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fours_à_boulets_des_îles_de_Lérins

 

NA devs might replace some towers by coastal batteries but that's just a matter of cosmetics.

 

and thats just for jamaica if we calculate all towers and forts in game the number that exit is absurd more cannons that the entire navy of all nation have ever builded in 200 years of age of sail warfare. 

The number of forts and towers in NA might evolve over time. But it's a matter of game design, not of historical accuracy.

 

Besides, I guess one could also say that the number of ships crafted and sunk each day in NA or the number of battle instances each day are "absurb" compared to History...

But it's a game.