suggestions for open world content

[JazAero]

I hope the @admin actually reads this. Because I never got a response from you guys. (reprinted from elsewhere)

The problem with the game as it stands is that you are attempting to create a sailing simulation without the simulation. There are too many things wrong with this in its current form to Call it a simulation. So here are some suggestions on how to fix it and achieve the goals you set out for yourselves .

Give us the ability to sail our ships properly in open world.
 
Give us the ability to change our viewpoint while on the deck. If we use the binoculars let us get up into the crows nest. Change the view position from the rear of the ship to the front of a ship or amidships etc.

Make the crews useful, provide the ability to set and change your sails in open world. Provide for periodic maintenance for your ship while underway. Replace broken line and split masts or scrape the barnacles to attain one or 2 kn more speed. In other words give us something to do other than just staring at the screen while sailing and watching YouTube videos on the side out of boredom.

Additional thoughts:

Get rid of the compressed timescale,
and, while on the subject of scale, it appears that the scale of the ships doesn't match the scale of the landscape. This needs to be looked at.

Get rid of the rotating wind.
You need to include realistic wind and wind directions including Tradewinds and realistic tides. this will have the additional effect of creating natural bottlenecks forcing players into close proximity just as they would in real life.

Bring back real world weather including real-world storms, not this watered-down version we currently have. Sailing into a storm should be a very bad thing to do. if done, it should be done properly bow into the waves and reduced sail or risk broken masts or worse, being capsized. 

Wave action should mimic real world wind driven waves, which respond to inclement weather and have the ability to do damage to ships if improperly sailed.

Get rid of all instancing. 
If you're going to have open world sailing, then make everything open world including engagements. Having said that, if you're intent on instancing combat, Then it should at least have the wind reflect the direction and speed as it was in the open world when the instance was started.

With regards to maps and charts, get rid of the premade gridding system. Give players the ability to chart their own course and annotate their own maps. Give us maps we can markup. and, additionally give us proper navigation tools and realistic stars to chart our courses and take fixes to determine our position. Give us a virtual sextant to take readings with in the daytime, and an actual working ships compass with proper Gradiations would be nice, not some tiny display with bad markings on the bottom of the screen. 

Not everything needs to be on the maps and charts. you need the ability to discover new lands. This was a time period of discovery. While certain countries and Navies had standardized charts, this was a time when captains created their own charts and often modified the ones they were given to reflect their new discoveries and new wind and Tide patterns. There is so much that can be done in this respect, I'm probably just scratching the surface.

Ships need to be given the ability to extinguish their lights at night to give them a chance to run away from a Pursuer. 
 
 To summarize; there is so much more you can do with this game to make it a true sailing simulation and you have not even scratched the surface while at the same time claiming that this is a simulation of the age of sail. trust me, it's not even close, 
 
But it could be..!

 

[Farrago]

This all sounds great, but not for servers that are also serving a combat sim. Imagine the computing necessary for all these variables for all ships online, all the time.

I would buy this game as well.

[Powderhorn]

I'd love for these changes to happen, but not all are possible in an MMO, at least as things stand.  The instanced battles are here to stay, and the map is a natural consequence of people getting their GPS coordinates and putting them in 3rd party maps.  (I'd still like to see it go though.)

Sail management in the OW is, I believe, possible, but likely won't be explored for a bit yet.  Wind directions... I feel it was mentioned before that historically, winds pushed people towards the Gulf (which they did not want to do here), but don't quote me on that.

[Tiedemann]

2 hours ago, JazAero said:

Get rid of the rotating wind. You need to include realistic wind and wind directions including Tradewinds and realistic tides. this will have the additional effect of creating natural bottlenecks forcing players into close proximity just as they would in real life.

Bring back real world weather including real-world storms, not this watered-down version we currently have. Sailing into a storm should be a very bad thing to do. if done, it should be done properly bow into the waves and reduced sail or risk broken masts or worse, being capsized. 

With regards to maps and charts, get rid of the premade gridding system. Give players the ability to chart their own course and annotate their own maps. Give us maps we can markup.

Ships need to be given the ability to extinguish their lights at night to give them a chance to run away from a Pursuer. 

I agree with some of it, but for me this game is about the combat.
The wind is boring and to predictable. Having areas with "trade winds" for speedy sailing would be awesome and good hunting grounds.
I miss the storms and when ever a battle starts when it is stormy in OW, the battle just looks like if has a cloudy weather.
The map we have now has made it a bit to easy to get around, with the coordinates that show our present location at amy given time. If we could just click on our location and then click on the place we want to go we could get a vector to follow. Just like burning sails does it, would be better and more interesting imo.
I want to ability to put out all the lights on the ship so bad. Not that I need it all the time, but would be very good feature on those rare occasions you need it.   

Edited April 14, 2017 by Tiedemann

[Fenris]

6 hours ago, JazAero said:

I hope the @admin actually reads this. Because I never got a response from you guys. (reprinted from elsewhere)

The problem with the game as it stands is that you are attempting to create a sailing simulation without the simulation. There are too many things wrong with this in its current form to Call it a simulation. So here are some suggestions on how to fix it and achieve the goals you set out for yourselves .

Give us the ability to sail our ships properly in open world.
 
Give us the ability to change our viewpoint while on the deck. If we use the binoculars let us get up into the crows nest. Change the view position from the rear of the ship to the front of a ship or amidships etc.

Make the crews useful, provide the ability to set and change your sails in open world. Provide for periodic maintenance for your ship while underway. Replace broken line and split masts or scrape the barnacles to attain one or 2 kn more speed. In other words give us something to do other than just staring at the screen while sailing and watching YouTube videos on the side out of boredom.

Additional thoughts:

Get rid of the compressed timescale,
and, while on the subject of scale, it appears that the scale of the ships doesn't match the scale of the landscape. This needs to be looked at.

Get rid of the rotating wind.
You need to include realistic wind and wind directions including Tradewinds and realistic tides. this will have the additional effect of creating natural bottlenecks forcing players into close proximity just as they would in real life.

Bring back real world weather including real-world storms, not this watered-down version we currently have. Sailing into a storm should be a very bad thing to do. if done, it should be done properly bow into the waves and reduced sail or risk broken masts or worse, being capsized. 

Wave action should mimic real world wind driven waves, which respond to inclement weather and have the ability to do damage to ships if improperly sailed.

Get rid of all instancing. 
If you're going to have open world sailing, then make everything open world including engagements. Having said that, if you're intent on instancing combat, Then it should at least have the wind reflect the direction and speed as it was in the open world when the instance was started.

With regards to maps and charts, get rid of the premade gridding system. Give players the ability to chart their own course and annotate their own maps. Give us maps we can markup. and, additionally give us proper navigation tools and realistic stars to chart our courses and take fixes to determine our position. Give us a virtual sextant to take readings with in the daytime, and an actual working ships compass with proper Gradiations would be nice, not some tiny display with bad markings on the bottom of the screen. 

Not everything needs to be on the maps and charts. you need the ability to discover new lands. This was a time period of discovery. While certain countries and Navies had standardized charts, this was a time when captains created their own charts and often modified the ones they were given to reflect their new discoveries and new wind and Tide patterns. There is so much that can be done in this respect, I'm probably just scratching the surface.

Ships need to be given the ability to extinguish their lights at night to give them a chance to run away from a Pursuer. 
 
 To summarize; there is so much more you can do with this game to make it a true sailing simulation and you have not even scratched the surface while at the same time claiming that this is a simulation of the age of sail. trust me, it's not even close, 
 
But it could be..!

 

This is supposed to be a game,not a manual for in real life sailors.

You are exaggerating totally with most suggestions here.

 

[JazAero]

38 minutes ago, Fenris said:

This is supposed to be a game,not a manual for in real life sailors.

You are exaggerating totally with most suggestions here.

 

excuse me, but it is the developers themselves that are promoting this as a realistic sailing simulation and not just a game, as a matter of fact they have reiterated this several times in several other threads. please read some of the other threads on this issue.

[Macjimm]

6 hours ago, JazAero said:

excuse me, but it is the developers themselves that are promoting this as a realistic sailing simulation and not just a game, as a matter of fact they have reiterated this several times in several other threads. please read some of the other threads on this issue.

Also re-posted from the previous thread:

"I understand that the game was never intended to be a simulation and those that are trying to use the game as such are heading into the wind, swimming upstream, pushing rocks uphill. There are lots of players who seem to dislike the idea of a simulator or realism.  I would love it if it were more of a sailing simulator but am willing to compromise because it would ruin the game for such a large number of the players."

I think when the developers referred to "realistic" they were talking about the graphics.  Over the years I read lots of exchanges in the forums from players who value the MMO, sandbox aspects and primarily seek balanced PvP combat.  Seems that there was a whole lot of opposition to creating a "simulation".  Until recently it seemed that sailing realism was subordinate to combat.  It seemed that Devs were concerned that including simulation features would alienate the warriors who were in a rush to engage in conflict with cannons and would be bored if they were forced to wait for hostility on the sea to begin.

Things may have changed just recently.  Perhaps now that 2 types of games are under development the combat can be satisfied quickly and frequently in the Naval ACTION Arena Game and we can look forward to more simulation and immersion in the Open World (with long journeys and the age of sail experience - chasing and running).

You have some cool ideas here.