My Thoughts/Suggestions Compiled

[Jacob Elston]

My suggestions:

• Remove the 'Teleport to Capital' button (it's purpose has been fulfilled and is now mostly used as a get out of jail card).
• Make ship deliveries an in-game feature working similar to goods deliveries it takes time and costs money.
• Limit all ships to 1 dura.
• Make all currently in-game ships and upgrades craftable.
• Reduce the number of AI combat fleets.
• Have quasi-historically accurate AI SOL fleets located around region capitals only.
• Reduce the number of coastal forts/towers around non-region capital ports.
• Increase number of lone and escorted AI traders sailing between ports and across the seas to other ports/allies ports.
• Replace many of the big SOL fleets with medium sized patrol fleets of Frigates, Brigs, Sloops etc..
• Add more ship types to the game such as Barqes/Barks, Clippers, more Schooners, Sloops, Sloops of War, Third Rates, Frigates etc..
• Create an instant PvP room which provides a cash reward and random upgrade drop chance for the winning side. However loss of a ship will loose you a ship. Capturing a ship does not allow you to keep it.
• Add exploration missions.
• Add land to port battles.
• Add a kick-out timer to battle result screen.
• Make is to that  a ship leaving battle leaves battle relative to the position they were in when the battle ended or within a randomly selected position within a circular zone around the battle to avoid "revenge fleets".
• Keep current ROE but add a reinforcement feature where a battle will re-appear in the OW as open for 5 minutes before closing after 20 or 30 minutes after it initially started.
• Add ship paints as a craftable/purchasable item.
• Allow us to customise the types of flags and pennant flags on our ships.
• Add a special flag for a group leader or selected port battle leader.
• Allow us to customise our sails colour/design within historical perimeters.
• Add storm conditions to battles if battle is started during a storm in OW.
• Wind in battles should very, very slowly change similar to OW.
• Ramming damage should be increased based on hull/armour thickness, strength, angle of impact and speed/mass of the two objects.
• Limit War Supply hostility gain to 50%.
• Make PvE hostility gain much lower after a port is over 50% or 75% hostility by your nation.
• Make the "alliance" / "war" system more relevant, you can only initiate a port battle with a nation that you are at war with.
• Prevent avatar log-off within a certain radius of a port.
• Increase OW speed by 2 knots.
• Make night time last longer.
• Allow captains to "douse" the cabin lights.
• Add sea shanties / historical instrumental music when in OW (something that may have been played by sailors).
• Add a 3D rendering of your ship in port with the ability to rotate the view (similar to EVE Online station dock).
• Add a more intuitive UI with windows being hidden unless activated.
• Add a more immersive UI.
• Make the OW map resemble an old sea chart for immersion.
• Add ammunition as a consumable which takes up hold space.
• Make the weight and amount of items in the hold have a direct impact on your in-battle sailing performance and speed.
• Add delivery missions (transporting cargo for AI) with penalties for failing to deliver.
• Add a reputation system so that higher reputation unlocks better missions with greater reward.
• Change in-game ranks so that the highest rank is a Flag Captain. Admiral rank can be a temporary rank given to "group leaders" or someone selected as a "fleet leader" who has a special OW flag and in-battle pennant to represent the flag ship. Add additional sub-ranks to fill the gaps left by removing Commodore/Rear Admiral (It seems daft having a battle with 25 Rear Admirals).
• Rename 'groups' to 'fleets' for immersion.
• Rename 'clans' to something like 'societies' or 'squadrons' for immersion.
• Add more crew to in-battle ships with some climbing rigging etc.. (add the number of crew visible as a graphics option).

 

Eventually way, way down the line:

• Add 3D characters which we create for ourselves.
  • Our character can be seen on the desk of our ships with our crew in battle.
• Be able to walk in 3D rendered ports, access buildings such as 'admiralty', 'tavern', 'shipyard', 'general store' etc.. where we can pick up missions, buy/sell ships and upgrades, wares and cargo etc..
• 3rd person or top down view 3D boarding battles (thinking Empire/Napoleon Total war combined with Age of Pirates/Pirates of the Caribbean).
• 3rd person or top down view 3D port battle land sections.
• Add exploration of beaches, caves and land which can be tied into the mission system and PvE (you can sail to a destination and drop anchor in a bay and go to shore in a launch/row boat).
• Add a cool clan only area that we can go to/access in the clan HQ port, just for the sake of being able to meet each other's 3D characters etc.. (Voyage Century had something like this).

[JollyRoger1516]

Damn that is a good list. I would add a few things

• Make upgrades non loosable or all craftable if we go for every ship being 1 Dura.
• In addition make all ships gold. Stop this 1 upgrade difference - basic and gold wont be a solution - either keep all colours or have one.
• Reduce the amount of fine woods needed/increase their drop.
• Make compass wood an additional drop as to not constantly block fine woods.
• Add more outposts and docks for the outpost to help us cope with the immense resource/presence requirements.
• Limit hostility gain to 3 regions away from your closest own to prevent one nation from jumping half the map.
• Allows us to send trade ships out from any port - they are ships that sail on the open world like any other becoming attackable, escorts can be added but additionall costs will come up - do NOT mark them in a special way so as to be able to cleverly camo them as AI ships.
• Add the aforementioned trade missions similar to the Elite Dangerous game - deliver this good which will be given to you to another port of your antion or a firendly/neutral one - no more deliveries to the enemy capital.
• Add patrol missions which ask of you to capture or kill x ships in x region.
• Add all ships to the open world (i.e. Indiaman) and fill traders with some decent loot
• Allow us to send captured traders back to an outpost with the goods on them at a cost of i.e. 40 crew (can be replenished) so we don't have to go home everytime we captured something useful. These ships will however be on the open world and atackable (they just switched nation and are damaged now).
• Allow us to intercept an enemy trader and when captured not take the ship (no dura lost for the enemy). We take from the cargo what we want but don't harm the player himself as a reward for surrendering of putting up a good fight. Milk the cow don't kill it is the logic here.
• Add a clan dockyard for storage of 10 ships - crafters can drop ships of here for the requesting person to pick up so they dont constantly block our port slots until the timezones intersect.
• 100x yes to the storm battle return!!!
• Add fog without rain but also add more coastal lights
• Remove the GPS accuracy at all times - everytime at 6pm the location will be marked on the map (exactly) with a heading however if fog or bad weather block the sun this won't happen. (maybe make it twice a day so we get more locations)
• Add map tools similar to Silent Hunter games for us to mark course changes etc when sailing through bad weather
• Remove the crew cost for all nations but pirates - admirality took care of crew not the captain. Pirates need to either pay their crew or share prize money
• Pirates are removed from the nation options - only few ports on the map accept pirates in them, pirates can't capture ports, pirates get more money from captured ships, pirates can buy a letter of marque to join nations temporarily should they wish to support certain nations.

[JollyRoger1516]

1 hour ago, Donnerschock said:

I disagree with nearly half of your points.

For example:

Teleport for Capital is still usefull. WIthout it you slow the game even more down.

agreed it should stay - I don't see the harm in it anyway - people will jsut log out isntead for the magical escape

Reopen battles? i really don't think thats a good idea. it's like before with the 30min join timer for PvE. I found not one happy player after i joined his mission on the AI side. ;-)

I think he means the battle is closed for 30 mins and then reopens for 5 - that means you as an attacker you got 30mins to finish the enemy off, If the defender manages to maintain himself for that time and his reinforcements then arrive they can help - makes sense to me.

Nights in game are just a pain. Right now they are not usefull at all. They are just to tire your eyes even more while staring at the wavesimulator. Make them longer? I really don't think it's a good feature for game you play for hours each day.

I think he means icnrease the time from 10mins to 20mins - and they do make sense especially with dousing the lights for you to hide your ship! I don't have a problem with nights eye wise and I don't know of anybody else who does. This seems to me to be your personal problem...

Increase amount of PvE for hostility gaining? Have you ever tried to raise hostility on your own? If not, try it out. It's really fun... Not!

He says PvE will stop being useful after 50-75% meaning you need to pick up teh rest via PvP. This makes sense - and you're not supposed to raise the hostility on your own anyway - its meant to be a nation effort!

Ammo... If you want to have another moneysink that will stop everyone from doing PvP, go for it! Right now the normal crewloss on a pvp fight is so high that you don't get enough to replenish your crew. Thats really hard for newcommers to the game. Adding another moneysink for PvP and PvE is not the best idea.

Ammo is a mechanic the devs want to bring in anyway - he didn't say anything about money needed but it would allow us to limit battles to a certain degree and force people to break of the attack on occasion. If we stop always attaching money to it these suggestions would work just as crew limits but as the devs keep adding money it becomes frustrating.

Penalties for failed missions? I think the failing of the mission (losing your (trader)ship) is most of the time penalty enough.

Look at the way Elite Dangerous does it - you get the penalty for not delivering the goods you ahve been given - it also is always limited to a max of 10% of the goods worth. This does not seem excessive to me. Loss of a trader is currently only such a penalty because the devs killed crafting so there are no new traders.

On other points that make the game faster and more fun I agree with you. More reward, more/better missions, less boring hours on sea.