Hotfix 2 for testbed patch 9.99

[admin]

26 minutes ago, maturin said:

And yet there are delivery missions with rewards of 400,000 and 400% profit. People are making millions just trading around Jamaica.

This isn't inflation control. This is kleptocracy. Денег нет, но вы держитесь.

 

Are missions still going to be limited? Because they have only increased in importance as the best form of grinding.

400,000 missions mattered on live. Now with ship of the line prices being planned to reach 10 million and above those quest rewards are peanuts (especially taking into account no safe travel - to make those 400,000 (including cost of goods) you have to sail and risk being a target.

+ I doubt those missions matter to rookies. We are talking about new player experience right? 
We are playing as rookies every day
things that you propose to improve/increase are not satisfactory. Your proposals are just welfare - buy ships at higher price, drop more goods etc. We need something better and deeper and maybe more structured for a rookie specifically - more than just drop more resources from deconstruct. We have some ideas but would like to hear yours and from players like you (those who level up from zero on testbed) 

[Sir Texas Sir]

10 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

All ships of the line 10 millions at least?

It is not enough to farm 350 pve marks for the BP of one first rate... now we have to grind insane amounts of gold for lineship PBs.

and remember that is before you prob even buy the guns.  

[Siegfried]

Just now, Borch said:

Yes, thats true, but it all changes when PvP come in play. Doing PvE all day long with base crew is ok but only on basic cutter. As soon as you get bought/crafted ship (or even capped) and you fit a new set of guns loosing it can be very costly. I dont understand why cannons are so expensive (they cost more than ship itself - mods vol 2.0?). Add to that repair kits + 1 dura ship and a newbie will be in trouble.

Playing with lesser ships. Not all would be the bigger and full equiped ship. And think, the enemy has the same money problems than you. Is a test and prices are not final. I am sure with some whine from a lot of people, devs will made easier than now... again.

[Corona Lisa]

Why do we still have national goods in the game?

All they do is printing money and taking up all the time of the traders. Traders could transport liveoak from A to B and selling it to players who dont have access to it but nope trading with national goods is more lucrative. End of story: less trading between players, if nation B wants liveoak they have to get it themselves because noone sells it

[Sir Texas Sir]

2 minutes ago, Jon Snow lets go said:

Why do we still have national goods in the game?

All they do is printing money and taking up all the time of the traders. Traders could transport liveoak from A to B and selling it to players who dont have access to it but nope trading with national goods is more lucrative. End of story: less trading between players, if nation B wants liveoak they have to get it themselves because noone sells it

And how do you plan  to produce that live oak without money?   It takes money to make money. How do you plan on them to pay for that Live Oak once it's delivered some where?

 

7 minutes ago, Siegfried said:

Playing with lesser ships. Not all would be the bigger and full equiped ship. And think, the enemy has the same money problems than you. Is a test and prices are not final. I am sure with some whine from a lot of people, devs will made easier than now... again.

Why should we be stuck in noobie lower level ships.  We should be able to play mid level ships and still support them.  I understand SOL's should be costly and prob loose a profit every time you take one out to battle unless your doing a lot of fleet grinding, but mid level ships should be the back bone of any navies.  Econ should be priced on about the frigates (lets say 5th rates to be int he middle) upkeep of crew and repairs.   Right now you can't run that unless your doing a bunch of trade runs or constant NPC grind and even worse if your trying to solo since you get nothing from trade ships for the most part.   The cost of crew and repairs doesn't match the little 10K you might get from the cargo.

[Siegfried]

Just now, Borch said:

Yes, ofc, but if there is a chance that players will plenty of times end up broke just because they wanted to equip their ship with cannons then I'm, saying that the system is not working.

As for the enemy, you got to remember clan groups for who solo players will be easy prey. They will have it easier in game and as much as people can be telling others, not everyone would want to join the clan.

My post was exactly some form of whine, although its all speculation on my part as we cant really test it atm.

As I said, the prices are not final. I am a solo player myself, with a sort of alergy of clans membership. I understand this game as a survival mode. If I end broke, I made something wrong. But they will adjust the stuff to a playable state, only that state will not the super easy mode as before.

[Hethwill]

So far experience as a newcomer player "fresh out of navy academy" has been interesting.

( one thing impossible to simulate is being newcomer in combat, so let's give a bit of room on the Free Cutter )

The Free Cutter can stand up pretty nice and does the job. The free ride on everything, repairs, cannon, crew, is a good "Starter Pack". After 4 missions had 3 Ship knowledge slots and 1 Captain perk.

I couldn't find a Cutter being sold nor a Lynx so I got myself a Privateer and equipped it with 12 Long Cannon. Money went on the "barely enough for food" zone but was on the positive.

Went out there, no repairs, no medicine, so I knew I had to do it right first time, there were no second chances. It really make a difference.

Did a two missions more, elevated the Privateer to second slot, and raided two traders for some extra cash.

Next day set my mind on getting that Cutter or the Lynx. Found the bug with Cutter price and found myself a Lynx. Not a good fighting build but would have to do.

Gladly still had the 12 cannons from the privateer so saved that cash and went out to get the needed ship knowledge, as I need the 3rd slot on the Lynx to be able to work on my precious Privateer.

Three missions done, again with no repairs and no medicine, on one the battle ended right on the water edge.

Sadly I'm stuck. Need to "learn" the Cutter to proceed further on the Lynx and given the "buggy" price I can't afford it.

Ended the string of being a freshman for now, on the profit side in excess of 25k and owning two ships ready to roll.

Two afternoons of playing, maybe accumulated of 4 hours.

 

What I like:

- there is a sense of progression. It is quite natural and if all sloop/schooner models are available at all ports it becomes a enjoyable ride from ground zero to Brig level.

- the time spent is deceiving. The rewards are fair and the ranking up / unlocking ship slots and captain perks is there and comes fairly fast. Maybe the boarding actions should also give XP ?

What I like less:

- fairly confusing Ship knowledge thing. Some ships, given similar sail plans / tonnage / crew etc could act as a "group" for progression. Example being the Lynx and the Privateer.

- the Admiralty store Books could be grouped [1-3] [4-5] [6-7]

 

[Siegfried]

8 minutes ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

Why should we be stuck in noobie lower level ships.  We should be able to play mid level ships and still support them.  I understand SOL's should be costly and prob loose a profit every time you take one out to battle unless your doing a lot of fleet grinding, but mid level ships should be the back bone of any navies.  Econ should be priced on about the frigates (lets say 5th rates to be int he middle) upkeep of crew and repairs.   Right now you can't run that unless your doing a bunch of trade runs or constant NPC grind and even worse if your trying to solo since you get nothing from trade ships for the most part.   The cost of crew and repairs doesn't match the little 10K you might get from the cargo.

In the Rear Admiral rank you have 310 free crew. Is enough for full crew every 5th rate frigate in the game. For the Essex you only have 5 guys less and 15 in the case of Trincomalee. Anyway you can mount Mediums or even lighter guns with less crew requirements. I hope we can mount less than full battery of guns too.

I understand that "powergamers" and super competitive PvP guys will need more money, but they must to level down their stuff a little or go direct to bankrupt. If they are so good players they will not have a big problem anyway.

Edited April 22, 2017 by Siegfried

[Corona Lisa]

4 minutes ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

And how do you plan  to produce that live oak without money?   It takes money to make money. How do you plan on them to pay for that Live Oak once it's delivered some where?

The goal is to fix inflation. Getting money is easy, if we dont have enough they will increase kill reward or give AI traders more goods or something else.

4 minutes ago, Borch said:

You need to have some goods in game which you dont need to mine/cut or whatever else.

Yeah, I agree. But it doesnt need to be some useless fake resources. NPCs could produce some useful goods instead, depending on the playernumbers. The delivery mission system could identify shortages in some nations and put more contracts to bring needed goods to a specific port/nation.

Voila you have a dynamic economy with constantly changing trading routes and goods depending on who owns which port and not some boring and never changing singleplayer trading game.

[admin]

54 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

All ships of the line 10 millions at least?

It is not enough to farm 350 pve marks for the BP of one first rate... now we have to grind insane amounts of gold for lineship PBs.

3rd rates are excellent and several times cheaper. You don't have to grind anything. You can just capture it from those who grind.

[admin]

25 minutes ago, Jon Snow lets go said:

Why do we still have national goods in the game?

All they do is printing money and taking up all the time of the traders. Traders could transport liveoak from A to B and selling it to players who dont have access to it but nope trading with national goods is more lucrative. End of story: less trading between players, if nation B wants liveoak they have to get it themselves because noone sells it

I agree

[BoomBox]

well after reading Red Duke on global on testbed , i said yeah to myself y not start with from scratch ? thought and done it , enrolled in to the swedish navy nad named me char BoomBoom. What i liked so far, awesome experience starting from scratch .

really like that it's multiple things to look at , opening slots , xp , perks. is a hell of a lot more entertaining than i remember leveling

first thing i did was do missions. was pretty cool , took some getting use to shooting in the cutter but all in all , great experience. specially how you get the hang of shooting at low profile ships BUT i'd like to level without doing mission and i find it quite hard finding fighting ships that are low level on the OW. i might have just looked in the wrong places . i don't mean traders since they give such low xp.

gold wise doing quite fine but everything is still free. so i have no money sinks yet.

Edited April 22, 2017 by BoomBox

[Hethwill]

@BorchI shall disagree. I wasn't forced to do anything. I would go out, fight, return and "owww shiny, new things with a plus sign" oh look, and new rank.

That's what I said about natural progression.

Playing Rear Admiral mindset and trying to test as a newcomer won't work. 

[Sir Texas Sir]

23 minutes ago, Siegfried said:

In the Rear Admiral rank you have 310 free crew. Is enough for full crew every 5th rate frigate in the game. For the Essex you only have 5 guys less and 15 in the case of Trincomalee. Anyway you can mount Mediums or even lighter guns with less crew requirements. I hope we can mount less than full battery of guns too.

I understand that "powergamers" and super competitive PvP guys will need more money, but they must to level down their stuff a little or go direct to bankrupt. If they are so good players they will not have a big problem anyway.

actually no one got the free crew, every one started out with 40 and that was it.   SO you have to start out buy spending a good chunk of your income on crew straight out of the bat.  I went with a frigate instead of the Connie for that reason.  To keep it to the lower ranks of the middle, the 5th rates to get a better average player feel of some one not new but been playing a while.

Again why should we be subject to get into lesser ships and play at lesser levels?  We should be making money off our kills even it's just AI's  Now lets throw in PvP, that is even bigger risk, but is the rewards enough?  I"m sure it is as long as you keep wining fights.  Which will be mainly the clan guys and not the solo.   Right now PvP is pretty much Nill cause of testbed population, If I played it easy I wouldn't lost a ship today. I kinda lost it on purpose (fight 7 ships, did sink half of them) to test what the cost of a lost was mid level.  Devs keep saying you should be able to just jump in port and buy a new ship and be back in action.  Well you can't.  Not when the Cannons cost three times what your ships cost and than you have to replace crew which cost more than your ship cost.  IT all addes up.  We are having way to many money sinks and not enough profit.  

Hell I was one of those that walked Ink through how I could make 5 million in 2-3 hours.  You can't even do that any more and that was no risk cause no one was PvPing.  If I was on live I would be hunting guys making those trade runs.  Now you can't make hardly anything cause stock runs out what little is in there and that is only with the small population we have on testbed not even counting what we might have on a live server.

[Remus]

2 minutes ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

actually no one got the free crew, every one started out with 40 and that was it. 

I got crew. I cannot remember how many - not enough to 70% 3 x LGVs that's for sure, but probably 310 sounds right to me.

[Sir Texas Sir]

17 minutes ago, BoomBox said:

gold wise doing quite fine but everything is still free. so i have no money sinks yet.

Wait until you open up a building and try econ.  You will find there is a big money sink.  Though no one is trading or buying so you aren't able to make money off it yet, but also I was just doing this with a char that was pretty much start and It cost me a lot to produce hull repairs.

9 minutes ago, Borch said:

I meant that it should be great with everything except mastering other ships before you can master your favourite one.

Playing with Rear Admiral skills and trying to be newcomer also wont work, so please do not judge me.

And why do we have to play as a newcomer?  Isn't this game going to be for both the vets and the new guys?  I actually do have one char that I was playing without any xp reclaims.  One char I'm playing with all claimed but won't do any tradeing.  Than the last and the one that actually has money is the one that isnt' fighting but all he's doing is crafting and trade runs.   Why is the PvE guy the one rich and not having money issues?  Shouldn't the guy that fights be making enough profit that as long as he wins enough fights he can make up for a lost once in a while?

17 minutes ago, The Red Duke said:

@BorchI shall disagree. I wasn't forced to do anything. I would go out, fight, return and "owww shiny, new things with a plus sign" oh look, and new rank.

That's what I said about natural progression.

Playing Rear Admiral mindset and trying to test as a newcomer won't work. 

Again why do I have to play as a Newcomer?  I have over 4K hours in game so I'm not a newcomer.  Yes we need to test this, but we need to test the rest of the game for the majority of the players that will be playing and that is the mid level of the game.

[Thonys]

3 hours ago, Headless Parrot said:

Yes. My cannons cost more than my ship

Yes historically right

warships were more expensive than traders, 1/ 3 of the cost was for the build of the ship, and 2/3 of the costs where for the cannons[incluiding 23.000 kg =46.000pound of powder+ 55.000  kg  of ammo] (82 cannons ship){dutch pounds 494gram/british pound 454gram}

 

Edited April 22, 2017 by Thonys

[Remus]

38 minutes ago, The Red Duke said:

So far experience as a newcomer player "fresh out of navy academy" has been interesting.

( one thing it is impossible to simulate is being newcomer in combat, so let's give a bit of room on the Free Cutter )

The Free Cutter can stand up pretty nice and does the job. The free ride on everything, repairs, cannon, crew, is a good "Starter Pack". After 4 missions had 3 Ship knowledge slots and 1 Captain perk.

It's good to read your report, but I'm new enough to remember my first experience on a basic cutter. I coudln't get a single shot to hit and whatever enemy I faced was deadly accurate. I tried a mission (just one at Midshipman level), very nearly got sunk and decided to leave. About half an hour later I got a message that the mission had successfully completed - presuimably my AI had beaten the enemy AI. I have no idea if I got rewards.

Fortunately I found a guide online recommending starting by attacking unarmed traders on OW, usefully telling people like me know exactly what guns low level traders carry. So this is how I started, and it worked well. I was a little suprised to sell one singe cargo for over a million, but that was nice too.

Now I think I'll maybe have to write a new guide. Capping traders is useless of course - asnd presumably impossible for new players (no fleet perk) - but you can still get xp for sinking them. Or take a mission, let the AI ally do all the work and stay out of the enemy ship's firing arc. You won't get xp for the kill of course and probably nothing for the assist, but you'll get the mission xp.

Personally I reckon the first three levels will probably be okay because expenditure is still low. But by the time you're in a Mercury or Cerberus ... actually, probably a Snow given how many guns its got ... your costs will escalate enourmously, but so far as I can tell your income doesn't. Unless you do trading - if anyone has left any useful goods in handy ports. Trading isn't straightforward to learn, it probably isn't what most people come to Naval Action to do, but enough people know how to make lots of money (2 million for me in under 3 hours tonight on Testbed) to bring shedloads of gold into the economy unless it is nerfed, and if it is nerfed to stop people like me swamping the server with gold then it'll be no good for that new Snow captain who forgot to prepare his crew, slowed down too much in a battle he was winning against an LGV and got boarded and lost. That was me too. Losing was bad enough then (I was carrying a labour contract and other goodies I'd just picked up from a wreck), but at least I still had a healthy ship with guns (even if it had one less dura) so all I needed to do was kick myself. I don't know what I'd do in today's game.

[Kaos]

34 minutes ago, admin said:

3rd rates are excellent and several times cheaper. You don't have to grind anything. You can just capture it from those who grind.

The fact that everyone seems to be concerned and wants to craft their own ship and you have to tell them that they can actually take desired ships by force from those who are  sailing around with head in clouds is quite informative regarding average current player I think. I remember when Victory took like a week or so to make, some players were threatening to quit the game after their begging for mercy proved futile so I hope the future ''rear admirals'' don't contemplate suicide after losing one, too bad that you want to turn off the chat with enemy though, sometimes reading these attempts to talk their way out of it turning into bitter rage in a nanosecond was very entertaining.

Really ballsy changes (regarding current EA audience) increasing the values of some higher ships and I like it, perhaps sighting and hunting down some SOL will actually start to have some meaning now and becomes thrilling event when everyone and their friend cannot just order a replacement from Walmart but I have to wonder how much of a player and potential ratings bleed (there's not much left to bleed to be honest regarding active players so + points for good timing) it will result considering all these players who arrived on EA being used to getting money thrown at them for doing anything really and other other welfare systems...

These changes do not sound something I would ever thought you had the courage to try on current players but I suppose you are going full yolo now and really test the playerbase.

[JobaSet]

lol Just got back...... thought I will play some NA on test.  Nope not wasting my time.  Can't make money, Can't gain marks, Can't gain XP.  I will try again after next patch on test maybe.  What new game do I wanna buy this week

 

1 hour ago, Jon Snow lets go said:

Why do we still have national goods in the game?

All they do is printing money and taking up all the time of the traders. Traders could transport liveoak from A to B and selling it to players who dont have access to it but nope trading with national goods is more lucrative. End of story: less trading between players, if nation B wants liveoak they have to get it themselves because noone sells it

Said @admin I agree..... but until there is a system for some one else to move goods "like eve" for someone else this is not going to work...

[TheLoneWolf]

1 minute ago, JobaSet said:

lol Just got back...... thought I will play some NA on test.  Nope not wasting my time.  Can't make money, Can't gain marks, Can't gain XP.  I will try again after next patch on test maybe.  What new game do I wanna buy this week

Same thing here and for many of my clanmates of Black clan on pvp2.  I do not want and will not waste countless hours sailing, trading and grinding.

As for testbed. Made money on testbed, unlocked ships, got ressources, buildings, etc. to test.  All wiped and got nothing.  Conclusions, a big waste of my time so not interested to continue.  

I wrote a post about my concerns for new system.  The hardcores players are quitting maybe someone will pay attention...

BTW inflation and money are not and never where a problem on this game as the system adjusted.  Players and the lack thereof are the issue...  

[Siegfried]

12 minutes ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

actually no one got the free crew, every one started out with 40 and that was it.   SO you have to start out buy spending a good chunk of your income on crew straight out of the bat.  I went with a frigate instead of the Connie for that reason.  To keep it to the lower ranks of the middle, the 5th rates to get a better average player feel of some one not new but been playing a while.

Again why should we be subject to get into lesser ships and play at lesser levels?  We should be making money off our kills even it's just AI's  Now lets throw in PvP, that is even bigger risk, but is the rewards enough?  I"m sure it is as long as you keep wining fights.  Which will be mainly the clan guys and not the solo.   Right now PvP is pretty much Nill cause of testbed population, If I played it easy I wouldn't lost a ship today. I kinda lost it on purpose (fight 7 ships, did sink half of them) to test what the cost of a lost was mid level.  Devs keep saying you should be able to just jump in port and buy a new ship and be back in action.  Well you can't.  Not when the Cannons cost three times what your ships cost and than you have to replace crew which cost more than your ship cost.  IT all addes up.  We are having way to many money sinks and not enough profit.  

Hell I was one of those that walked Ink through how I could make 5 million in 2-3 hours.  You can't even do that any more and that was no risk cause no one was PvPing.  If I was on live I would be hunting guys making those trade runs.  Now you can't make hardly anything cause stock runs out what little is in there and that is only with the small population we have on testbed not even counting what we might have on a live server.

Please forgive me in advance if I sound rude, I am not native english speaker, but your first paragraph show me that you don't know the subject you are speaking.

I was playing before the reset of yesterday, from rank 0. You have free crew in every rank. First rank 40, second rank 60, the rank of 150, you have 130 free. The rank of 200 you have 160 free. The rank of 250 you have 190 free (I am speaking from memory maybe not the exact numbers). I don't know more because the server was reseted yesterday.

I played until the rank of 250 guys and I NEVER spent 1 buck in crew, and I earned 5 millions (without the deliveries between freetowns xploit) 300 PvE marks (in two days) WITHOUT to use any repair kits or medkits in battle. My first 3 ranks were only sailing while I made economy travels. The rest of ranks were in the last two days before the reset. Now I redeemed the XP and in the last rank, you have 310 guys free. Again without spend money in crew in this two days.

If you redeem the max rank you don't know this. As I see, every guy is redeeming the stuff in the first minute and they dont know about the "rookie life". Ok, I am a veteran with 4800 hours played, but the new comers can to ask to veterans like me about this methods of leveling.

The other your post maybe is correct or not, but if you can't sail the biggest ship, you need sail lesser or risk to lose too much. Every player have this limitation, not only you.

[Hethwill]

1 hour ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

Yes we need to test this, but we need to test the rest of the game for the majority of the players that will be playing and that is the mid level of the game.

Totally agree with that. Hence we call to specific issues. Newcomer issues are not veteran issues, and likewise the opposite. Being the major being presented the Ship Knowledge and Cannon prices I don't see the first being an issue and the second not being a obstacle.

The old adage "Don't fly what you can't afford to lose" suddenly becomes also true in NA like it is in some other OW / sandbox with pvp games.

Remus presents a good display of how it was and how it is. One thing he has right, once a new player hits the two mast brigs that is where the social and veterancy is very welcome for sure. The freshman has passed the basic controls, has setup game Options, has seen a bit of the surroundings and ( if nuts like some, has already did a big sail around the map ). He needs to pair up with a veteran and start to explore playstyles in earnest.

[Sir Texas Sir]

9 minutes ago, Siegfried said:

Please forgive me in advance if I sound rude, I am not native english speaker, but your first paragraph show me that you don't know the subject you are speaking.

I was playing before the reset of yesterday, from rank 0. You have free crew in every rank. First rank 40, second rank 60, the rank of 150, you have 130 free. The rank of 200 you have 160 free. The rank of 250 you have 190 free (I am speaking from memory maybe not the exact numbers). I don't know more because the server was reseted yesterday.

I played until the rank of 250 guys and I NEVER spent 1 buck in crew, and I earned 5 millions (without the deliveries between freetowns xploit) 300 PvE marks (in two days) WITHOUT to use any repair kits or medkits in battle. My first 3 ranks were only sailing while I made economy travels. The rest of ranks were in the last two days before the reset. Now I redeemed the XP and in the last rank, you have 310 guys free. Again without spend money in crew in this two days.

If you redeem the max rank you don't know this. As I see, every guy is redeeming the stuff in the first minute and they dont know about the "rookie life". Ok, I am a veteran with 4800 hours played, but the new comers can to ask to veterans like me about this methods of leveling.

The other your post maybe is correct or not, but if you can't sail the biggest ship, you need sail lesser or risk to lose too much. Every player have this limitation, not only you.

Again I'm not playing as a new player.  I'm playing as some one all ready ranked up.  Yes you get a small bit of crew back from the shop when you retrun to port as you rank up, it actually will stop if you die to much or it use to.   Though after you hit that point and you loose crew you don't get it back any more. Other than at start when I bought 500 or maxed out crew I'm not buying them.  I'm stating the cost of crew lost with the reward of the fights aren't matching.   Again this is mid level 5th rate not kiddie pool shallow water ships. There is enough players that are doing that we don't need every one to do that.

 

And yes I should of worded that differently.

[maturin]

3 hours ago, admin said:

things that you propose to improve/increase are not satisfactory. Your proposals are just welfare - buy ships at higher price, drop more goods etc. We need something better and deeper and maybe more structured for a rookie specifically - more than just drop more resources from deconstruct. We have some ideas but would like to hear yours and from players like you (those who level up from zero on testbed) 

So you view it as normal that a new player can't earn any money without grinding missions? I remember you agreeing that the missions are the worst kind of gameplay.

A poor newb has to play 10 missions just to afford 12-pdr carronades for his basic cutter.

He will need to break up dozens of captured brigs just to craft a single batch of repair kits, and you're worried about welfare? Just remove the Break Up button from the game. It is a fake feature now.

Captured ships don't accumulate ship XP, meaning newbs need to buy from NPC shops. Meaning, again, that they need to run missions, and only missions.

It is now impossible to make money by hunting on the open world. Before we were incentivized to grind missions. Now we are forced to. If we don't do missions, we can't even earn gold and XP at the same time!!! Fun and profit are now in inverse proportion.

 

Everything (including missions) should be pushing people into OW hunting where there is high risk and (maybe) high reward. I don't see why newbs need depth and structure when everything is new and the steps of the ladder are so close together. Progression is the biggest motivator early on. I just wish I could progress doing things that were fun, and not the damn missions.