Hotfix 4 for Patch 9.96

[Lannes]

While I appreciate the hotfixes and all the stuff, arent the crew losses going to be tune a bit more?

 

Really devs, is not fun to do always rakes, or to listen to people saying "70 less crew", or'm spending my money just replacing crew. posting pics with stern rakes, always the same it turn the combat into something boring at the long term. There is no need to do a good rake to kill docens, no minimun distance (effective rakes at 400m... c'mon), grapes are useless in comparison with the canon balls...

I agree. It's about time the crew loss gets reduced to what it was before the patch. I am wasting my money and/or resources just replacing crew. All combat now is stern rakes. Stern rakes were not all that happened historically.

[Edward Canaday]

I agree. It's about time the crew loss gets reduced to what it was before the patch. I am wasting my money and/or resources just replacing crew. All combat now is stern rakes. Stern rakes were not all that happened historically.

 

 

historically the aim was primarily to destroy rigging in order to protect the ship as a potential prize.  That just isn't possible in this game.  Sure you can target rigging to slow down or reduce maneuverability, but it doesn't end the battle. Other than that, if a captain was given the chance to rake an enemy's stern, he took it.  It's an incredibly vulnerable part of the ship, and could end the battle quickly.  Are you just wanting broadside to broadside?  While this was certainly an accepted method for combat, it also almost always precluded a boarding action.  However, if I'm sailing a 5th rate, and I see a 4th or 3rd or (as is usually the case) a 1st rate coming for me, and I have to fight, I'm raking that stern as much as possible.  I can't survive any other way, maybe I can take away enough of your crew to take the fight out of you.  Maybe I can take your ship. 

 

Bottom line, stop sailing SOLs against smaller ships and assuming it's a guaranteed win.

[Pelennor]

LOL what faction is this and on what server?

He talks about Dutch PvP2. What he says is true, and I ve personally stop playing.

 

Well if 90% of your faction quit because of a patch and not being able to wait a few days for a fix or new patch then aloha testing is not for them. I would say life is really gonna be a challenge for them too lol.

PvE feast patch is out since weeks now, not a few days, and devs shows no sign of willing to adapt hostility lvl to the low pop of PvP2. Or maybe i ve missed something ? Please, save my life, master.

 

Last I heard this is still in development...so good and bad will be brought in while fixes made, did your faction not realize this is a Alpha/Beta ?

alpha or not, if a game isn't fun anymore to me, I stop playing it, this is as simple as that. What particular point you don't understand in this sentence ?

[Mrdoomed]

My clan knew it was alpha / early access and quit in February. These were hardcore milsimmers used to Arma's wonky bugs and half-broken missions. They quit because it was a PvE grindfest with a broken command-driven NPC production economy.

I played arma and is almost all pve with a few players spread over an enormous map. Wierd they like that pve but not this. Perhaps its the fps they like instead of naval combat strategy.

[Mrdoomed]

He talks about Dutch PvP2. What he says is true, and I ve personally stop playing.

PvE feast patch is out since weeks now, not a few days, and devs shows no sign of willing to adapt hostility lvl to the low pop of PvP2. Or maybe i ve missed something ? Please, save my life, master.

alpha or not, if a game isn't fun anymore to me, I stop playing it, this is as simple as that. What particular point you don't understand in this sentence ?

This game has always been a pve fest. IM pretty much the only person saying to take away missions past lvl 3 but leave ai bots on ow. THis means pvp has a better chance to happen. THis patch only made attacking pve queens an option for us pvp players. IF they can do something about the massive ai fleets even tagging will be good.

If your faction is to small to even raise hostility perhaps its not big enough to capture ports.

Me and one friend raised hostility 13% in 4 hours only killing ai. Learn to better use the system till its tweaked instead of quitting.

[Wesreidau]

I played arma and is almost all pve with a few players spread over an enormous map. Wierd they like that pve but not this. Perhaps its the fps they like instead of naval combat strategy.

 

First, what you played in a pick-up game of Arma's "Altis Life" is not anything like what they do. Second, considering they were tremendously enthused about naval combat strategy for the full year leading up to open early access and play such sundry titles as EVE, DCS, BMS and War Thunder, I highly doubt that you know their interests better than I did. 

[Lannes]

For many people this game has had its day, even before it is released. The devs do not know what they're doing any more. They have lost their way. I am fed up with things that work being changed for no reason that I can figure out. And then we have to struggle with the new changes that will be changed anyway in the next patch. At the moment, this game is a pot pourri of patches and applications. It is not as good as it was before the last patch and not as good as two patches ago.

Initially, even two months ago, I would have recommended this game. Now, I would not buy it.

Edited November 6, 2016 by Lannes

[Pelennor]

If your faction is to small to even raise hostility perhaps its not big enough to capture ports. Why don't stop speaking something you totally ignore ?

Me and one friend raised hostility 13% in 4 hours only killing ai. Learn to better use the system till its tweaked instead of quitting. Considering the fact me and my faction took more ports than any other since last patch, please keep your childish L2P to yourself. Good for you if you feel happy with a 4 hours campaign against bots. I don't.

[PaladinFX]

 

Hello Captains

 

Hotfix was deployed today

• Ship quality level now guarantees the number of upgrade slots
• Santa Cecilia ship speed lowered to beginning of the week level

 

 

 

Hi Devs,

 

A big THANK YOU for finally making upgrade slots guaranteed; has been a long time coming and IMHO you have made a very good decision that is good for the game and a fair way to do it too.

 

Here's my take on it:

 

We now have the following guaranteed upgrade slots:

 

Green/Common - 1/2

Blue/Fine - 2/3

Purple/Mastercraft - 2/4

Gold/Exceptional - 3/5

 

I then compared this to Fine Logs requirements of the specialised build wood; eg a Bellona mahogany/build strength(note % is same across all ships btw so only 1 example needed):

 

Green 60 mahogany logs

Blue 90

Purple 120

Gold 150

 

If you divide the logs of each quality to the Gold the % matches the number of regular upgrade slots. Excellent and makes sense.

But what I noticed was that for Permanent slots for a Blue/Fine ship you get 2 slots vs 5 Gold = 66.7% BUT you only need 60% of the fine logs.

 

This is GREAT! It makes Blue ships more economically sensible, you still get 2 perms and 3 regular slots and I think this works because I think that is the threshold for what, certainly in my case, is the main number of favourite upgrade slots I/we need/can live with to "feel happy" with what we are going out to sail with. I of course love having 5 but I know I have 3 "must haves", maybe other players are the same????

 

Eg: Battle set up might possibly be Extra hammocks/Powder monkeys/Carpenter teams for example. Boarding setup might possibly be Extra hammocks/Marines/Grog rations for example.

 

So devs, IMHO you have done well here and have potentially promoted use of Blue/Fine ships; nice job!

 

I am happy because in the other thread on ship builds changing to just Basic and Gold I made a case for keeping Blue/Fine; this makes sense to me.

 

HOWEVER, what you need to do next is to address properly making Gold ships extremely rare and harder to achieve to develop on top of this good direction you have started with the set number of upgrade slots. Good suggestions have been made; my favourites:

 

1. Make the number of Mid/High Notes required for a Gold ship exponentially greater than the current Blue/Fine ships current requirement.

2. Make the number of Fine Logs required exponentially greater than the current Blue/Fine ships current requirement.

 

From a personal standpoint I have argued that Purple/MC is redundant and I think with this patch and the now guaranteed upgrade slots I still hold to that position. If you only get 2 perm slots and blue gives you 2 also plus you get 4 regular slots purple but maybe your 3 "favourite" upgrades are enough so again Blue/Fine makes more sense economically re fine logs requirements and could yield more Blue/Fine ships being built and sailed in game. 

 

Personally I am now seriously considering ONLY building Blue/Fine ships for a while for PvP battling/PvE missions as a test! (may reserve Gold builds only for port battle ships)

 

If you bring in exponential Notes and Fine logs requirements for Gold ships vs Blue on top of the new upgrades slots guaranteed I think you may have cracked it for making Gold ships more rare and harder to achieve and getting more Blue and Green ships out on the water.

 

For this reason and as I have already stated on the other thread with reasons, I hope you do not go to only Grey & Gold ships. I hope you move to the following format:

 

Grey/Basic & Green/Common ships: NPC build in shops + battle captures.

Blue/Fine ships: Players build + some NPC OW captures.

Gold/Exceptional ships: Player build.

 

You are heading down the right road now, just a bit more work to do to get it balanced right for your stated goals . Nice job!

Edited November 6, 2016 by PaladinFX

[Mrdoomed]

First, what you played in a pick-up game of Arma's "Altis Life" is not anything like what they do. Second, considering they were tremendously enthused about naval combat strategy for the full year leading up to open early access and play such sundry titles as EVE, DCS, BMS and War Thunder, I highly doubt that you know their interests better than I did.

And yet you dont understand na? Hmmm curious.

If your faction is to small to even raise hostility perhaps its not big enough to capture ports. Why don't stop speaking something you totally ignore ?

Me and one friend raised hostility 13% in 4 hours only killing ai. Learn to better use the system till its tweaked instead of quitting. Considering the fact me and my faction took more ports than any other since last patch, please keep your childish L2P to yourself. Good for you if you feel happy with a 4 hours campaign against bots. I don't.

So then you lied? Ok , now i understand.

Perhaps if you learned to play better than you read or comprehend you wont have so many issues. PLus not lying helps too mate.

Edited November 6, 2016 by Mrdoomed

[Sir Texas Sir]

And yet you dont understand na? Hmmm curious.

So then you lied? Ok , now i understand.

Perhaps if you learned to play better than you read or comprehend you wont have so many issues. PLus not lying helps too mate.

Yah I could of swore he said he stopped playing and now he's bragging about taking the most ports?  You mean empty Spanish ports?  Seems they and the brits have a lot of in common.   Sadly the US are the only ones with balls to take away ports from some one that fights back even if they are finding out that Pirates are NOT the biggest nation.  I still don't where they keep getting these numbers on PvP2.  US is the largest with Brits behind them and maybe Pirates third.   Just cause we have the most active PvPers doesn't make us the largest nation.  

 

Last I checked Dutch numbers are kinda up from before patch cause there was a few Brit and US clans that switched over.  What is making PvP2 a boring place is no one wants to PvP and even worse none of the nations want to fight each other.  

[Pelennor]

And yet you dont understand na? Hmmm curious.

So then you lied? Ok , now i understand.

Perhaps if you learned to play better than you read or comprehend you wont have so many issues. PLus not lying helps too mate.

What lie are you talking about ? I ve never said I ve stoped playing the game as soon as the patch went out, I ve played it like 10 days before giving up. You don't seems to be a very clever guy to talk with Oo

Edited November 6, 2016 by Pelennor

[Wesreidau]

And yet you dont understand na? Hmmm curious.

 

This is the laziest passive-aggressive trolling I've ever witnessed. Get to brass tacks here, buddy.

[Pelennor]

Yah I could of swore he said he stopped playing and now he's bragging about taking the most ports?  You mean empty Spanish ports?  Seems they and the brits have a lot of in common.   Sadly the US are the only ones with balls to take away ports from some one that fights back even if they are finding out that Pirates are NOT the biggest nation.  I still don't where they keep getting these numbers on PvP2.  US is the largest with Brits behind them and maybe Pirates third.   Just cause we have the most active PvPers doesn't make us the largest nation.  

 

Last I checked Dutch numbers are kinda up from before patch cause there was a few Brit and US clans that switched over.  What is making PvP2 a boring place is no one wants to PvP and even worse none of the nations want to fight each other.  

Next time, dare face me in the PvP tournament and assume your words. Oh... you didn't even subscribe to last one, yeah, I see what kind of brave and skilled PvP player you are.

 

EZ

Edited November 6, 2016 by Pelennor

[Wesreidau]

Hi Devs,

 

A big THANK YOU for finally making upgrade slots guaranteed; has been a long time coming and IMHO you have made a very good decision that is good for the game and a fair way to do it too.

 

Here's my take on it:

 

We now have the following guaranteed upgrade slots:

 

Green/Common - 1/2

Blue/Fine - 2/3

Purple/Mastercraft - 2/4

Gold/Exceptional - 3/5

 

I then compared this to Fine Logs requirements of the specialised build wood; eg a Bellona mahogany/build strength(note % is same across all ships btw so only 1 example needed):

 

Green 60 mahogany logs

Blue 90

Purple 120

Gold 150

 

If you divide the logs of each quality to the Gold the % matches the number of regular upgrade slots. Excellent and makes sense.

But what I noticed was that for Permanent slots for a Blue/Fine ship you get 2 slots vs 5 Gold = 66.7% BUT you only need 60% of the fine logs.

This is GREAT! It makes Blue ships more economically sensible, you still get 2 perms and 3 regular slots and I think this works because I think that is the threshold for what, certainly in my case, is the main number of favourite upgrade slots I/we need/can live with to "feel happy" with what we are going out to sail with. I of course love having 5 but I know I have 3 "must haves", maybe other players are the same????

 

Eg: Battle set up might possibly be Extra hammocks/Powder monkeys/Carpenter teams for example. Boarding setup might possibly be Extra hammocks/Marines/Grog rations for example.

 

So devs, IMHO you have done well here and have potentially promoted use of Blue/Fine ships; nice job!

 

I am happy because in the other thread on ship builds changing to just Basic and Gold I made a case for keeping Blue/Fine; this makes sense to me.

 

HOWEVER, what you need to do next is to address properly making Gold ships extremely rare and harder to achieve to develop on top of this good direction you have started with the set number of upgrade slots. Good suggestions have been made; my favourites:

 

1. Make the number of Mid/High Notes required for a Gold ship exponentially greater than the current Blue/Fine ships current requirement.

2. Make the number of Fine Logs required exponentially greater than the current Blue/Fine ships current requirement.

 

From a personal standpoint I have argued that Purple/MC is redundant and I think with this patch and the now guaranteed upgrade slots I still hold to that position. If you only get 2 perm slots and blue gives you 2 also plus you get 4 regular slots purple but maybe your 3 "favourite" upgrades are enough so again Blue/Fine makes more sense economically re fine logs requirements and could yield more Blue/Fine ships being built and sailed in game. 

 

Personally I am now seriously considering ONLY building Blue/Fine ships for a while for PvP battling/PvE missions as a test! (may reserve Gold builds only for port battle ships)

 

If you bring in exponential Notes and Fine logs requirements for Gold ships vs Blue on top of the new upgrades slots guaranteed I think you may have cracked it for making Gold ships more rare and harder to achieve and getting more Blue and Green ships out on the water.

 

For this reason and as I have already stated on the other thread with reasons, I hope you do not go to only Grey & Gold ships. I hope you move to the following format:

 

Grey/Basic & Green/Common ships: NPC build in shops + battle captures.

Blue/Fine ships: Players build + some NPC OW captures.

Gold/Exceptional ships: Player build.

 

You are heading down the right road now, just a bit more work to do to get it balanced right for your stated goals . Nice job!

 

This is a start. However the cost-benefit curve is still favoring Exceptionals, because only an Exceptional will get you a third permanent upgrade slot.

 

As others have proposed,

 

1/1 Basic

2/2 Common

3/3 Fine

3/4 Mastercraft

3/5 Exceptional

 

Would really favor Fine ships. At that point, the gain from Mastercraft and Exceptional ships is marginal compared to the much more important permanent slots. 

 

Elsewhere you gave wood requirements for these grades.

 

Green 60 mahogany logs

Blue 90

Purple 120

Gold 150

 

Why are Green ships costing 60 fine wood? They should cost 0 fine wood. Any player crafted ship should be better than grey basic vendor trash. Fine wood should be needed for Fines to start with. I've explained elsewhere, but the cost for those final upgrade slots for Mastercraft and Exceptional needs to be much, much higher than it is now. Bend the cost curve up at the end of the power scale.

[Mrdoomed]

Next time, dare face me in the PvP tournament and assume your words. Oh... you didn't even subscribe to last one, yeah, I see what kind of brave and skilled PvP player you are.

EZ

Better watch out texas this guybis bad ass. You better not dare...hahahahaha . Sorry i tried to be for real.

Little dude you are all over the map brah.

[Pelennor]

Better watch out texas this guybis bad ass. You better not dare...hahahahaha . Sorry i tried to be for real.

Little dude you are all over the map brah.

Thanks That wasn't hard. I ve got other trophies than your so called 13% hostilities in 4 hours. Hahaha

Edited November 6, 2016 by Pelennor

[Sir Texas Sir]

Better watch out texas this guybis bad ass. You better not dare...hahahahaha . Sorry i tried to be for real.

Little dude you are all over the map brah.

I like to know when we had a tournament on PvP2 that I could of played in?  Oh yah that is reserved for PvP1 cause they have the active community that can support such things.  Though since I don't play on PvP1 and I don't have any ships other than a basic cutter and I think maybe the gunboat as I never redeemed it why would I be in said tournament?  I'm kinda confused about this guy as we where talking about The Dutch on PvP2.  I never said I was some great PvPer, but it normally tends to be the guys that brag the most in forums and say global chat are some of the worse players in the game.  Good players tend to not need to brag about such things.

 

Hay I hate if a leader board even shows up to show who actually is a good player or not. I know I won't be on top of that list, but I won't be on the bottom either.

 

Back on topic I wonder if they can adjust the agro lost per server.  It seem with the lower pop on PvP2 right now it takes for ever to get agr on a port even when it's not being contested or defended.   

Edited November 7, 2016 by Sir Texas SIr

[Bulwyf]

The most debilitating issue in the game at the moment is the resources locations/distances and it seems it wont be addressed.

 

Resources are concentrated in the hands of a few nations and the distances that need to be covered at least from a British view point are far to long. Not only has this made crafting unpleasant, I am basically solo most of the time and unable to co operate with my clan members. Some will no doubt suggest buying resources, I am not interested in doing so, I've never been rich as I largely craft at cost or gratis and have been in the main self sufficient with lots of aid from guild members. So much so that I have retired from trading/crafting and the game in general as a result of them.

 

For me personally I have done multiple trips to Flatts (16 days at sea) sometimes up to 3 nights real time to do one trip. These are boring and generally I don't see a soul British of foreigner. My last trip I decided to take a short cut (while empty and would have saved a day or two sailing time) and was tagged by a Swedish Santa Cecile (this was before they nerfed its speed) and while I almost sank it, it convinced me of the dangers of the short cut. On my return trip I was playing another game for the 16 days at sea and on my 3rd night got distracted (forgot to turn right at Albuquerque) and sailed into Dane land where I was promptly set on by 4 Dane players with attendant lackies for a total of 8 ships. The main tagger took his time to get a perfect position and I was somewhat disorientated as I had been head out of the game for most of the time. This gave me ample time to destroy labour notes, 1200+ Bermuda cedar, 120 fine Bermuda cedar, tobacco, silver coins etc as I could see no escape. To further exacerbate my position I was downloading DCS 2.0 and had a ping of 1200+. Anyone who tells you that ping does not affect combat simply hasn't experienced the lag in shooting this brings about. Once in combat I still got some licks in, but wasn't doing as well as I would have liked given that my two escorting frigates are pretty stupid and the lag made good timing essential. So I surrendered. Lost life off of both frigates and my gold Indiaman and was hugely out of pocket in both time and gold. I have been doing similar length trips to silver mines in the far south and to Sunbury where my live oak plantation is in the hands of the Perfidious Danes.

 

But the time cost to try and trade over these distances with the attendant risks and degradation of clan life and socialisation has solidified me in the decision to retire, albeit temporarily in the hope that some time in the future the crafting/trading equation will not be such an unsatisfying time sink. So myself and my 3 crafting alts bid you all adieu for the time being.

Edited November 7, 2016 by Bulwyf

[Wesreidau]

Gotta pause those downloads. I've got maybe a 200 ping and I don't suffer for it.

 

Hauling Cedar out of Bermuda is always going to be risky.

 

Are you actually sailing from Bermuda to Jamaica, or from Bermuda to Little River, using free port deliveries, and then from La Navasse to Jamaica?

 

Look, I admire if you're playing it on "hard mode" but the freeport delivery mechanic exists to spare us these long hauls.

Edited November 7, 2016 by Wesreidau

[Bubba Smith]

Good adjustment, I wonder if ships that have been built under the old system - Gold 2/4 to 3/5,etc - will get the upgrade? Would be nice. 

Thanks for this I like the fact the gold ships will now be assured 3/5. 

[Jesters-Ink]

Let us know when the BPs are available for the new ships, the RNG has been removed and the fine woods RNG is better behaved, then we can all come back n play

[Bubba Smith]

And how can we get the new bps. I would love to get a Endymion for a Chrstimas present (hint, hint).

 

[Jacob Elston]

Raking Simulator 2016

[Wesreidau]

Raking Simulator beats the alternative to be sure. I'm from flight sims and FPS's... getting shot in the back and dying very quickly is pretty par for the course in all forms of combat.