The dream of more realism / simulation

[JeanJacques de Montpellier]

I'm one of players who want more realism / simulation. 

I realize to be a type of player in the minority, but i think the game has gone the way totally opposite than what i would have liked when i bought it (two years ago). Honestly now, in my eyes, the game looks more like a "game with mechanisms and in background ships" than a "game on sailing ships".

Currently I have over 1000 hours on NA, I started as said two years ago, with several friends, we come from the flight simulation. We had great fun when the game was still only battles; then trying the ow my friends have abandoned considering the game is not of their kind. I'm practically the only that continue play.

 

Here are a few things i would have liked:

1. one dura for all ships.

2. no tp, no send to outpost, no town. When the player need leave the game, just leave like disconect in ow now; if he leaves in battle, he loses the ship.

3. no ai fleets (never understood).

4. no stupid balances, like stern cannons more precise than the bow chasers, etc.

5. no possibility to thicken the crew in ow afther battles (never understood); only in ports.

6.   MAIN POINT maybe: change totaly the ow, for have less mechanism and so more fun. I have thought of a totally different ow: a scaled tactical / strategic map (the size should studied to give a gameplay in decent time). * A map like that of Silent Hunter (but scaled as mentioned), from which the player (or group of players) set her course; when two or group of vessels will come to find a certain distance (to be assessed where, but certainly to scale) in that map comes out a window where you can choose: attacks or ignore it and continue on your course. If either player (or group of players) will set attack, it will enter into battle. The spawn system and exit i think can will remain as the current one.

For port battles is worth more or less the same system; once you get on the strategic map in the vicinity of the city from attack or defend you press attacks and you get into battle.

According to me that "ow" system provides significantly less mechanisms (like tags) and related abuses. Moreover, as veteran flight simulation, i always thought that the visibility of the other ships in the current ow is really close, which removes both the time to get a correct idea of the situation around and even the right ones timing that the wide spaces of the sea provide.

*Map. Why stop at just the caribbean? I say we make a map (always understood as i said before) of all world. How greatness, you might try a scale of being able to cross the Atlantic in 3 hours.

7. add ai cargo ships, whaling ships, etc; and do missions with point or stats for kill them.

8. in battles: no icons on ships, no status bar; only info on your ship and your crew.

9. add a sistem of flags comunications between ships.

10. etc.....

-------------------------------------

These are just some ideas, some inputs.

I honestly do not understand some very fragmentation that have been created and of which he often speaks. PvP, PvE, RvR, gank, PB, etc. It should be a whole thing.

I repeat, i will probably come from other types of game and then I can not understand.

 

I realize that everything i've written hardly will be followed (at least i hope some little thing).

 It will remain a dream ... but what a beautiful dream!

 

 

 

[Guenwhyvar]

I'd just like it if the DEV-team finally managed to get some creative people into their numbers for implementing your ideas and the many, many other stuff that really needs to be done to flesh out this game.

Also, a proper economist in stead of some well-meaning "game designers" would really improve the game. The economic system is too primitive - primary-school level.

This game feels like the metal framework of a fantastic aeroplane that just needs some proper designers to make it fly.

[Capt.Pig of the seas]

Totally agree, Jaques, I would add my 5 cents, if I can:

Decide to have navy or shipping career on the start:

Strong limits about the high grade in the sea (Very hurting to see 6 Santissima in fleet)

Much thing to personalize the captain (the avatar)

Interaction with the crew in the sea (where's my pig head brine?!?)

Add random event in navigation (Need to learn from Paradox, I do not know: when you are in nav, pop-up appear with "saint elmo's fire - moral lost for 10 minutes") ecct. 

 

Edited December 30, 2016 by Capt.Pig of the seas

[Tomms123]

Really the only way you will achieve these things is by making the game singleplayer/Coop because most people dont have the time to invest in sailing for 3 hours from point A to point B. People just dont see the joy of it, if there were that you had to trim the sails etc etc and adjustable wind then it would need more server communication thus we're back on the singleplayer/Coop area again.

 

The reason why the OW got as you say "visibility of the other ships in the current ow is really close" is because its not 1 to 1 scalability, Sailing out from most ports in 1 to 1 scale would take all from 10 mins to around 30-40 mins, thus not really a simulation that you want to have.

[JeanJacques de Montpellier]

Why you need invest 3 h for sailing? I said the the size of the Atlantic, and was just an example, you could decrease or increase. In the map it would the hot areas, rendered so by merchant ships (both human and AI, as mentioned above) or from areas to conquer, enacted missions, etc etc...
In such a scale, for example, you can patroll the Atlantic area in front of the Europe in less than an hour. The same for the islands of the Caribbean. The scale in each case is only one thing to be decided by testing.
Sincerely every night we lose or lost more time abusing game mechanics. 

The visibility actually in OW is really close, more than in a air sim. (sincerely i realize that players that require the entry time in battles is extended to 5-15 mins don't understand or agree with me).

Edited December 31, 2016 by JeanJacques de Montpellier

[Anne Wildcat]

Maybe give the option to sail the OW at regular speed or to set a course that speeds it up.  I know I'm in the minority as I like sailing the OW. Currently touring it in a surprise. I also like hunting, looking for ships, while sailing. 

 

I would believe you would also need the ability to dock at any port, maybe with a cost. Without send to outpost or add to fleet the cargo hold will fill up quickly if you are hunting traders in enemy territory.

[Red October]

 

[Rebel Witch]

Many of us have asked to see them at least try one dura ships, so i believe there is growing support for that.

Your zeal for more realism and simulation is commendable however i do not think this is the game for that. Because there needs to be some kind of balance of realism/game or you will lose so many people. The makers of this game want to make a great game people love, but they also want money for their efforts and deserve it. Their game will likely die or not make up for the cost if they go the way you suggest as in full realism. Not enough people would play.

No ai fleets would make the OW very boring, its a game, not reality. The devs are trying to add some population to the ow with ai, its a good idea. The only thing i would like to see removed is those gigantic ai fleets of 50 first rates, i mean gawd dam!

Lets hope the devs make money on the game and continue to develop it that makes the most players happy. I welcome some realism but going too far will make the game a ghost town.

[akd]

1 dura ships have nothing to do with simulation or realism.  Just pretend duras are insurance.

Edited December 31, 2016 by akd

[Destraex]

I consider the open world to be the means to the ends... the open world to the realistic battles. Nothing more.

The problem came with the people that came after the Open World implementation that think the OW is the core of the game and not the battles.

[Guest]

One option.

On 12/30/2016 at 0:10 AM, admin said:

Third option is private servers and we talked about it some time ago (Maturin was all in on this feature). The idea is that server can be repacked as a product and provide options to host player owned servers with their own rule-sets (like rust does).

 Hopefully such a thing would allow the creation of a realism-focused server by altering at least some of the things that aren't hardcoded. Personally the OW vs Instance separation is what inhibits my immersion in the game.

Edited December 31, 2016 by Guest

[Cmdr RideZ]

9 hours ago, JeanJacques de Montpellier said:

1. one dura for all ships.
2. no tp, no send to outpost, no town. When the player need leave the game, just leave like disconect in ow now; if he leaves in battle, he loses the ship.
3. no ai fleets (never understood).
4. no stupid balances, like stern cannons more precise than the bow chasers, etc.
5. no possibility to thicken the crew in ow afther battles (never understood); only in ports.

6.   MAIN POINT maybe: change totaly the ow, ...

7. add ai cargo ships, whaling ships, etc; and do missions with point or stats for kill them.

8. in battles: no icons on ships, no status bar; only info on your ship and your crew.

9. add a sistem of flags comunications between ships.

1st of all, I like simulations, I like pretty HC gaming.  I play everything with hardcore/ironman mode, etc. So I am kinda on your side, but I believe the issue is that how the game gets a decent player base.  This makes it important to design the game around different life situations, that we have in real life I mean.  The simulation will be boring if there are noone else in the game, so then you kinda have to make a compromise. Other simulators are different, as those contains just the combat.  I agree still, that the combat could be very realistic, even more than now.

 

1. The game took a direction of pretty heavy death penalty vs other games.  For many, just losing a dura is pretty damn big death penalty alone + the game has more.  This leads to a fact that people do not dare to take fair fights.  If the death penalty would be lower, ships faster to craft, etc. this would work better for bigger audience.

2. TP, well this is bound to the fact that we have real lives.

3. I agree here, the AI fleets could go.

4. I agree here as well.  Create a huge stern rake damage, make small ships to be very agile and then try to fit this just BECAUSE, and forced to fix all the rest.  This is beginning of the end.  Simply idiotic direction to take.  We have one realistic feature, but none complains from laser guided stern chasers?  Like WTF?!  But we HAVE TO have massive crew damage.

5. Playability once again.  It is not that much fun to sail back to port to get more crew + because everyone knows where you are, so they will attack you in that location.  In other simulators this works, as it is just the combat.  Also if you go to hunting zone and 90% of time you sail back and forth, it gets pretty heavy.  Maybe even one of the reasons why your friends liked the arena but not the OW.

6. Just saying that the player base is so small, and bigger the map is -> Less combat it will be.  But yes, OW could need ideas.  Not going to comment your ideas, just saying that OW definitely has issues with tagging etc. that should be solved.  Remember tho that OW is time compressed and combat is not, and without would take long to sail from place A to B.  Hard to simulate features.

7. No opinion really.  But I would be happier to see traders and whalers instead of full fleets of SOLs just wondering around.

8. Well, there should be some info from enemy ship that cannot be seen from the graphics.  But indeed, the statistics you could not see should not be seen, from that part I agree.

9. Nothing against this, but remember that people dont know the flags + they already sit in TS/Discord/Mumble/You name it.  Probably not the most important feature?

Edited December 31, 2016 by Cmdr RideZ

[Stilgar]

I dream of a finished game in a (reasonably) short time.

[Anne Wildcat]

Just on #8, do you know you have the ability to turn the aiming lines and I believe status bar (but may be wrong) off? I don't remember what key it was. 

 

Maybe they need to come up with 2 servers, one more sim (no tp, 1 dur ships, manual sails on OW, slower sailing times, no repair kits in battle or replenishing crew on OW ...) and 1 more combat game (tp allowed, multi dur ships, ability to chart your course and have the AI sail for you, repair kits and replenishing crew, etc) just an idea. I think I would play both being somewhere in the middle. 

And on that combat server, make a heat map where you can see what regions have the most current activity. 

Edited December 31, 2016 by Anne Wildcat
Corrected spelling mostly

[Anne Wildcat]

I first heard of NA from a POTBS friend. He told of a massive OW where you could be attacked anywhere and you would want to hide in coves on the OW to avoid being attacked. So I envisioned this massive OW with combat on the OW and people running into ports to avoid combat. What I would like to see for NA2, no combat instances, combat on OW, slower OW speeds so it can take hours or days (as the guy said) to get to enemy territory. There would be fleets on the OW but not like it is, you would see every ship sail together. Clicking on a combat button to enter a battle instance seems so old school. 

Maybe have different servers for different areas of the map, once you get to the border the game switches you to the new server. So players seem to all be on the same server but unless they are close by they are in fact on a different one. 

 

Although that probably wouldn't keep players bc you would first need to sail somewhere to find enemies. Maybe add a storyline?

Edited January 3, 2017 by Anne Wildcat

[maturin]

Not too much room for more realism in an MMO with conquest.

 

Hope for an eventual shard with SP/dedicated server or mods. Would make for a nice DLC repackaging.

[Hethwill]

It is always a tug-of-war between the drive to turn the OW into a make-believe place, with all the risk, rewards and characteristics inherent to the type of activity being simulated by the game, with its own time scales, distances of travel and the way combat situation develop;

and the aversion to it all aka. "takes too much time", "it is too risky", "there's no point"... etc...

I personally choose a game for what it is and for what it may become, in the case of open development early access projects.

If it is "too risky" or takes "too much time" as I interpret it I wouldn't even consider it.

I do not like having a acceptable, the most acceptable, simulation of seafaring life in the west indies turn into a ugly representation of it.

The sea is a vast empty place but given we are playing a game the OW can be populated with SP features - there are excellent suggestions out there.

Even the competitive scene is canibalizing itself... So, get back on track with the OW simulation.