Content plans for the first half of 2017

[Angus McGregor]

1 minute ago, koltes said:

What a terrible conclusion. Dont be too quick to make one without giving it any thought. Have you considered clan wars when one clan declares war on another clan from the same nation and they fight just like two nations at war?

For my money, GameLabs made a huge mistake when they used the word "clans" for national groups of players. They should have called them "squadrons". Pirate clans maybe. National clans - no way.

"Clans" gives people funny ideas about operating as independant militias. I can't believe that actual green on green conflict within a nation would have ended well for those who decided to go rogue. Monarchies didn't tolerate independant thinking by factions within its colonies. The scenario quoted above is a rebellion, and would have gotten your group branded as pirates or seditionists under a death sentence.

Not saying that what you're describing wouldn't be enjoyable. But IMO if NA is to allow warring clans within the same nation, we'll have to drop the pretense of being in the historical Caribbean and just drop it into an alternate reality setting.

[Thonys]

hi captains DEV,s

we had maintenance this morning  25-1

 but what is changed do we have notes? or am i mistaken

[OlavDeng2]

18 minutes ago, Thonys said:

hi captains DEV,s

we had maintenance this morning  25-1

 but what is changed do we have notes? or am i mistaken

There is maintenance every day, does not mean there is a patch.

[van der Clam]

8 hours ago, SirSamuelHood said:

What a terrible idea.Sanctioned green on green has never worked well in this game. If you're fed up with the direction your nation's going, reroll under the black flag. 

reroll to a small nation in need of help

 

4 hours ago, Angus McGregor said:

For my money, GameLabs made a huge mistake when they used the word "clans" for national groups of players. They should have called them "squadrons". Pirate clans maybe. National clans - no way.

"Clans" gives people funny ideas about operating as independant militias. I can't believe that actual green on green conflict within a nation would have ended well for those who decided to go rogue. Monarchies didn't tolerate independant thinking by factions within its colonies. The scenario quoted above is a rebellion, and would have gotten your group branded as pirates or seditionists under a death sentence.

Not saying that what you're describing wouldn't be enjoyable. But IMO if NA is to allow warring clans within the same nation, we'll have to drop the pretense of being in the historical Caribbean and just drop it into an alternate reality setting.

Fleets or Flotillas or whatever that is translated into their nation's language.

[SirSamuelHood]

Just now, van der Decken said:

reroll to a small nation in need of help

The answer for a small nation in need of help is to allow clans within that nation to fight each other in order to gain... nothing? No way to tangibly enforce its views on where the nation should go beyond 'Let's beat some of the guys on our team up and they'll suddenly want to do it our way.' It's not as if armed infighting will magically not touch smaller nations, and I guarantee that if what little resources for crafting ships of the line you have are constantly being siphoned off to fight insurrection so that you manage to get even fewer lineships into battle, you'd be smiling on the other side of your face.

 

If more thought were given to how changes and proposed changes would affect the community as a whole, the game wouldn't be in the bog right now.

[Dubloon Ueal Dagger]

Pirate v Pirate, i'm liking the sound of that.

Can we have a bit more info on the two sets of Pirate groups please?

Keep up the good work devs/admin, so far i'm really enjoying this game and look forward to updates.

[milkyway12]

I just want to say thank you for the attempt at the game, however, I am highly disappointed with the lack of content or features. POTBS seemed to have much more going for it, and it still died out. This game is a shell out of some of the features on POTBS. I really want this game to succeed. I love this era and the sailing. At the same time, I sail in the open world and it feels void. Nothing to do. And I have no idea how you would even fix this void. 

Is there anything that you guys have planned to fill out the game world instead of just fixes on the shell at this time? I am confused on how you guys plan on making the game ... more than what it is. It's okay now, it's not bad, but I feel like there should be more for some reason and I'm just at a loss for words. Maybe this kind of game isn't meant to be full of things to do. In the real world, it was 90% boredom and 10% terror. This game seems to hold true to that. It's 90% boredom and 10% fun (Battles). 

Does anyone know how to fill out of the open world and make it more active and engaging? I feel POTBS did very well this, and I had lots of fun with it for an entire year that I played. I mean a year long fun streak out of a game is a TON of gaming time. I hate that it died out, but it did because of a few bad decisions, but I was very happy with the time I had with the game when it first came out. Was glorious. I want to have that fun again with this game and I hope you guys are focused on getting new content out as well. Maybe my hopes are just too big for reality. Things like that cost money .. and a lot of it and I am sure if you guys had 100 million dollars this game would be a 100 million dollar game. 

Edited January 25, 2017 by milkyway12

[Ned Loe]

19 minutes ago, milkyway12 said:

I just want to say thank you for the attempt at the game, however, I am highly disappointed with the lack of content or features. POTBS seemed to have much more going for it, and it still died out. This game is a shell out of some of the features on POTBS. I really want this game to succeed. I love this era and the sailing. At the same time, I sail in the open world and it feels void. Nothing to do. And I have no idea how you would even fix this void. 

Is there anything that you guys have planned to fill out the game world instead of just fixes on the shell at this time? I am confused on how you guys plan on making the game ... more than what it is. It's okay now, it's not bad, but I feel like there should be more for some reason and I'm just at a loss for words. Maybe this kind of game isn't meant to be full of things to do. In the real world, it was 90% boredom and 10% terror. This game seems to hold true to that. It's 90% boredom and 10% fun (Battles).

 I myself gave them multiple hints that this will be a major issue down the road. There are 100s of ideas on this forum suggesting on how to fill NA world with joy. However, the better question here is do they have enough Brains with Hands to bring it all to life.   

Next scheduled patch will have more content that you will be able to enjoy, but it won't nearly be enough. We will also have a solid ground to build on. I personally not too happy about how they approach and develop things. Let's wait and see what happens in 2017.

Edited January 25, 2017 by Ned Loe

[Koltes]

9 hours ago, Angus McGregor said:

For my money, GameLabs made a huge mistake when they used the word "clans" for national groups of players. They should have called them "squadrons". Pirate clans maybe. National clans - no way.

"Clans" gives people funny ideas about operating as independant militias. I can't believe that actual green on green conflict within a nation would have ended well for those who decided to go rogue. Monarchies didn't tolerate independant thinking by factions within its colonies. The scenario quoted above is a rebellion, and would have gotten your group branded as pirates or seditionists under a death sentence.

Not saying that what you're describing wouldn't be enjoyable. But IMO if NA is to allow warring clans within the same nation, we'll have to drop the pretense of being in the historical Caribbean and just drop it into an alternate reality setting.

Good point. Well presented.

Asking for clan on clan wars I haven't thought from historical perspective, only from pvp gameplay. However your comment have made me to change my mind about that. Thank you.

Giving it more thought I now believe that good PVP mechanic will allow anyone to attack anyboby. But attacking another player from same nation triggers game driven consequences, e.g. Criminal tag, hostility, Coastal patrol agro etc. It is a criminal act.

Clans from same nation should not be able to declare war on each other, when it comes to clan politics. Same goes to clans from allied nation as the crown will not tolerate that.

 

[Nelson Hornblower]

Regarding nations, it was mentioned in this QA ( https://www.twitch.tv/braincage/v/39127630 ) that nations could split off and minor nations might emerge. I haven't listened to this in awhile, but there were some cool ideas that were discussed. I bet some have been implemented, some scrapped, but it was a fun QA from awhile ago!

[Cmdr RideZ]

About the content talk...

 

Good PvP is content.  PvP content is easy to do, why I personally think that just tuning the end game PvP is the most important thing content wise.

Lot of people on PvP server hate AI sailing around, except traders.  So just filling that with bots that agro etc., not sure if that is going to do the trick.

 

The game has:

1. Conquest (Port Battles/Screening/Hostility/Flags/something else?)

2. OW PvP (Often small fleets)

3. Piracy, capturing traders

4. Arena (If someone would play these in the 1st place)

 

I would say that is a lot better than nothing for PvP players.

Conquest is hopefully getting a fix, to keep it interesting.

OW PvP, this has ROE issue.  I would like to have some BR balancing to keep fights some what interesting.  I do not care if that is not 100% realistic.

Piracy, I have no idea why they do not remember that this is there.  Adding fort and AI fleets everywhere?  Um.  Maybe in the next patch you could think about this "mode" as well.

For me personally, PvP is the thing.  As a PvP player this game has a lot more to offer than other games.  Yes, some fixes needed, but when those are in I am sure it is going to be ok.

The only issue I see here is, that people cannot own things.  They do not feel like building something.  Can make this to be a bit boring in long run.  It can be that clans should be able to own something, and fight for it.  Give some purpose for players&clans.  This could be done after launch tho.

 

We also now have PvP events, that I do not like to be honest.  As the server population went down, this is still the only place to find people in the 1st place.  So this is a bubblegum fix to me, that helps us to find each other.  This could be removed and add other ways to find each other -> Would improve OW PvP/Piracy.

 

For PvE players the game offers very minimal content.  Truth is that PvE content is way more time taking and expensive to do than PvP content.  Another truth is that PvE content is a never ending task.  People get bored way faster to shoot some bots or to do some missions, than shooting each other.  Like Counter Strike?  There is a map and 10 players, and fight.  PvP players need nothing more, and that same game with that same map, has been running forever.  So I would personally focus to do PvP game first, then think about PvE.  PvE players will leave after they have max rank and crafting lvl, and they have seen all PvE content made so far -> PvP players will stay long after this.

[Nelson Hornblower]

44 minutes ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

For PvE players the game offers very minimal content.  Truth is that PvE content is way more time taking and expensive to do than PvP content.  Another truth is that PvE content is a never ending task.  People get bored way faster to shoot some bots or to do some missions, than shooting each other.  Like Counter Strike?  There is a map and 10 players, and fight.  PvP players need nothing more, and that same game with that same map, has been running forever.  So I would personally focus to do PvP game first, then think about PvE.  PvE players will leave after they have max rank and crafting lvl, and they have seen all PvE content made so far -> PvP players will stay long after this.

I'm a PvE player in the PvP world and I like both aspects. I like that someone is out there hunting for me, but I also like to see other ships sailing around, even if they are bots, the world feels more immersed. 

An issue though is the map size, it's too big for too few players. If the map is going to stay this size, you might as well have bots sailing around. Someone mentioned that if regions bots could change based on players in that region. The developers say there are 25 bots per region, but if the region has a lot of players, can that number be reduced and more bots added to other regions? Take the west coast of FL, no one sails there, so do you remove bots and it's an empty ocean? What's the point of these places if there are no bots and no one sailing.

Even if the PvP people do not like bots, you don't have to fight them (getting pulled into a battle is another story), but without bots sailing around, sometimes it's a big empty sea and that is boring for everyone. 

 

Edited January 25, 2017 by Nelson Hornblower

[Angus McGregor]

2 hours ago, koltes said:

Giving it more thought I now believe that good PVP mechanic will allow anyone to attack anybody. But attacking another player from same nation (or an ally) triggers game driven consequences, e.g. Criminal tag, hostility, Coastal patrol agro etc. It is a criminal act.

Good suggestion! With a little planning, the devs could tie the Admiralty points reward system mentioned in the 2017 Road Map, with a (negative) reputation system suggested by others and echo'ing your idea above. Do good things and get rewarded, do bad things and get more and more notorious. That could result in a PvP event being spawned by the game.

"Attention captains: Curse Koltes is hereby under penalty of death for his many crimes against the interests of the brotherhood. A bounty is hereby offered for the sinking or capture of him and any ship he may be aboard. Arrrrr!!" 

[Koltes]

34 minutes ago, Nelson Hornblower said:

I'm a PvE player in the PvP world and I like both aspects. I like that someone is out there hunting for me, but I also like to see other ships sailing around, even if they are bots, the world feels more immersed. 

An issue though is the map size, it's too big for too few players. If the map is going to stay this size, you might as well have bots sailing around. Someone mentioned that if regions bots could change based on players in that region. The developers say there are 25 bots per region, but if the region has a lot of players, can that number be reduced and more bots added to other regions? Take the west coast of FL, no one sails there, so do you remove bots and it's an empty ocean? What's the point of these places if there are no bots and no one sailing.

Even if the PvP people do not like bots, you don't have to fight them (getting pulled into a battle is another story), but without bots sailing around, sometimes it's a big empty sea and that is boring for everyone. 

 

Good way to sort large map vs small number of player will be:
- Allow clans to claim regions and make them their homeland;
- Fill in regions with more things to do in regards PVE, so you dont have to sail far to do PVE (this creates traffic in one region);
- Allow clans/player to build regions prosperity via PVE content, trading, crafting, paying taxes to the region etc;
- Drop sail speed down to Battle Instance speed within a region territory;
- Keep speed same at it is outside region territories for faster travel between nearby regions;
- Increase x2 speed in deep waters so crossing the sea is not as time consuming. This will make traveling to distant areas faster than now, but will keep sailing around regions more realistic;

This will make regions more important to player groups and will bring the activity and meaning to owned territory. All of a sudden you will know where to come to interact with more players.

 

 

1 minute ago, Angus McGregor said:

"Attention captains: Curse Koltes is hereby under penalty of death for his many crimes against the interests of the brotherhood. A bounty is hereby offered for the sinking or capture of him and any ship he may be aboard. Arrrrr!!" 

Are you making me to regret my words? haha

[Rebel Witch]

I have said it before and will say it again. While this game has so much potential, in its current theme (pirates of the carrib, European historical powers etc) it limits the games potential and gets boring after awhile.

This game needs an EVE Online type of revolution in open world format and freedom of play mechanics. I dont mean sailing spaceships silly, i mean scrap the whole map, create a whole new world map, something NEW! A Water world that people can EXPLORE and find new lands, claim them, defend them, fight over them, resources etc.

Scrap the european powers and have a few ai powers that will make up a central safer zone or new player zone while 90% of the game world is dedicated to the players creating their own nations, their own politics, their own wars and building their own stuff. Those who have played EVE Online know there is a central area called High Sec where its "safer" to do things then there is null sec where anything goes and the players completely dictate what happens. See my threads about the equivalent of stargates in this game and how they would allow for more pvp and better travel options.

Do i hope this game succeeds in its current form? Of course! Do i think it will? I doubt it and i draw that conclusion on what i saw happen to POTBS and also from the back and forth changes that are happening as we speak. There seems to be so much more confusion on the direction of the game and players are leaving, not staying.

The devs deserve tremendous praise for all they have accomplished so far, i just hope, no matter how they finish the game, that it is worth playing long term. It's been tough to watch over the past few months though.

[Sir Max Magic]

5 hours ago, rediii said:

I also think nations should be patched out of the game and get replaced by "fantasy" nations. They can fight within a specific area and the area which is not "discovered" yet should be managed by clans entirely. Clans should be able to set allied clans so clanalliances can occur and the map changes due to playerdecisions.

Also, the important things (regional bonusses and woods) should be inside a safe zone so noone gets destroyed when he looses a strong hul region or the possibility to get liveoak.

there should be other bonuses in the "clanworld" or whatever it is called like a autogeneration of admirality points for the clanport/warehouse or other things. Also a realtimemap of clanowned regions should be developed. I like to watch youtube videos of eve and the history of the owned territory and i think many others like it too.

another thing would be the possibility to create realy big battles Can you imagine a 50vs50 battle? like holy crap that would be awesome.   If you find a scaling mechanic portbattles/battles can then maybe even be close to unlimited and then every ship counts and you get some variety in battles.

Sorry mate...most times i like your postings and arguments very much...but this one is a TERRIBLE idea !!! ALL of it... 

Hope you dont take it personal...

Edited January 26, 2017 by Sir Max Magic

[Sir Max Magic]

13 hours ago, Rebel Witch said:

I have said it before and will say it again. While this game has so much potential, in its current theme (pirates of the carrib, European historical powers etc) it limits the games potential and gets boring after awhile.

This game needs an EVE Online type of revolution in open world format and freedom of play mechanics. I dont mean sailing spaceships silly, i mean scrap the whole map, create a whole new world map, something NEW! A Water world that people can EXPLORE and find new lands, claim them, defend them, fight over them, resources etc.

Scrap the european powers and have a few ai powers that will make up a central safer zone or new player zone while 90% of the game world is dedicated to the players creating their own nations, their own politics, their own wars and building their own stuff. Those who have played EVE Online know there is a central area called High Sec where its "safer" to do things then there is null sec where anything goes and the players completely dictate what happens. See my threads about the equivalent of stargates in this game and how they would allow for more pvp and better travel options.

Do i hope this game succeeds in its current form? Of course! Do i think it will? I doubt it and i draw that conclusion on what i saw happen to POTBS and also from the back and forth changes that are happening as we speak. There seems to be so much more confusion on the direction of the game and players are leaving, not staying.

The devs deserve tremendous praise for all they have accomplished so far, i just hope, no matter how they finish the game, that it is worth playing long term. It's been tough to watch over the past few months though.

Cant disagree more:

1. We dont need an EVE online with sailing ships !!

2. We dont have to drop historical nations because we had some in reality !!

3. EVE Online plays in a FICTIONAL future, THATS the reason why there can NOT be "historical" nations, instead of all this FICTIONAL ones

4. Given the fact, that even EVE Online have nations, you can take them also as "historical" out of the lore...so your point isnt valid from both points of view

 

What we NEED instead is:

1. A VISION from the Devs what the Open World should be in the end (and stick with it like a PvP promoting Hostility system)

2. a working RoE which promotes PvP without advertising GANKING too much !!

Like an infinite open entry to a battle for the inferior side until they get superior to some degree and than the now inferior side can call in reinforcements for their own...and so on and on !

The spawning could be always at the edge of the battle zone so the reinforcements cant spawn on top of the existing ones

3. maybe a mostly player driven economy if we get the player numbers

4. Thats it

Edited January 26, 2017 by Sir Max Magic

[LeBoiteux]

13 hours ago, Rebel Witch said:

i mean scrap the whole map, create a whole new world map, something NEW! A Water world that people can EXPLORE and find new lands, claim them, defend them, fight over them, resources etc.

When discussing about the OW design months/years ago (dec. 2014 ?) before its implementation, the ideas of a fantasy/unrealistic/unknown OW and an associated exploration gameplay were proposed by NA devs and (sadly) rejected...

[Sir Max Magic]

2 hours ago, rediii said:

Thanks for letting us now.

This was realy a bad decicion then in my oppinion. There would be much more content with discovering islands etc. and the balance of nations would be better

...As good as exploration sounds in theory, EVERY possible finite fictional map would have been fully discovered since MONTHS !!!

Should the devs introduce every 3 weeks a new map, so we have something to explore ??  

 

 

[LeBoiteux]

15 minutes ago, Sir Max Magic said:

...As good as exploration sounds in theory, EVERY possible finite fictional map would have been fully discovered since MONTHS !!!

Should the devs introduce every 3 weeks a new map, so we have something to explore ??  

Subject discussed here (in 2014/15) : 

It would have been great...

Edited January 26, 2017 by LeBoiteux

[Koltes]

4 hours ago, rediii said:

...i would just like to see that nations have the possibility to get a wider range of players. I think you see on PvP 2 what i mean. 

I believe that introducing clan politics will achieve just that

[simone]

 

when you think of releasing raids and port battles with land? And Add Italian lenguage??

 

[Rebel Witch]

4 hours ago, Sir Max Magic said:

...As good as exploration sounds in theory, EVERY possible finite fictional map would have been fully discovered since MONTHS !!!

Should the devs introduce every 3 weeks a new map, so we have something to explore ??  

 

 

You just gave me a great idea about the EVE Online Revolution this game needs. Regarding exploration and the map.

Map exploration and knowledge would be based on individual player actions. So if the entire map is FOG (except for the high sec NPC area) the fog is revealed only when each individual player explores the map. That players map is updated but it does not update everyone elses unless that players "shares" his map to someone else.

This way it could open up a whole new market on maps, discovery, exploration. You could have a player explore a far off place on the map, find a deserted island, claim it, make his own nation there and nobody else would know about it until they discovered it for themselves or they got the map shared to them.

One thing i have learned from EVE online is that players LOVE open world exploration and staking out their own destinies. That is why i think NAVAL ACTION in its current european format will ultimately fail because its the same old nations, kings, maps we see in games over and over and over. Nobody will take the beauty of the age of sail and create a whole new fantasy world, its a shame. Players are boxed in with choosing from several old kingdoms and serving them, even piracy is being boxed in on this game. So players are checking out already.

This game needs an EVE Online type...okay no for all the EVE haters....... fine a Fantasy Revolution!!!

[Rebel Witch]

4 hours ago, LeBoiteux said:

Subject discussed here (in 2014/15) : 

It would have been great...

I think at this point, i am going to go ahead and say it, the wrong choice was made back then. I really hope the DEV's try the FANTASY option and create a whole new game using their beautiful age of sail mechanics they have. there are literally dozens of other sail games out there for this historical time period. Why wont anyone try a Truly New World for the age of sail for players to explore and create their own history with!!!

This game needs a FANTASY Revolution!!

[Neverdead Ned]

With all due respect, most of us love the game because of the time period, the Napoleonic age of sail...the age of Hornblower and Aubrey-Maturin.   This game is way past the age of exploration and that would make it an entirely different game genre.  There are plenty of other fantasy games out there and very few keeping it real like this one.

Edited January 26, 2017 by Neverdead Ned