Hotfix 8 for the testbed patch 9.99

[Kiithnaras]

2 hours ago, admin said:

Missions now only accept ships of the mission level and below. You can no longer do low level missions in 1st rates. This opens up more possibilities to create better and more challenging PVE content.

Bad move, IMO. Myself and two other players, all in Constitutions (Rank 8 ships?), took on a Rank 6 Fleet Mission. 3 Connies faced off against an Ingermanland, Essex, 3 Belle Poules, and 3 Surprises. Both of my buddies got sank early on (they honestly aren't that great at sailing, not even close to my level of hours), shortly after taking out the Ingerman and Essex, at my direction, leaving me to clean up the rest of the ships. I managed to complete the mission successfully, but my Connie was just barely holding together with about 40% structure and no armor left on either side (after multiple repairs). The whole fight took about an hour, too.

If players really want to bring a Victory into a Rank 6 (fleet) mission, let them. Things are pretty challenging with current damage mechanics without forcing players to ship-down to meet the "challenge" of the mission with fewer numbers.

That being said, some level of sensibility should apply. Probably nothing bigger than 5th-rates in Rank 1-4 missions (Reno, Belle, and Surprise still struggle in Rank 5 Fleet missions.), 4th rates for Rank 5-6 missions, 3rd rates for Rank 7, 2nd rates for Rank 8, and 1sts for Rank 9-10.

Edited May 15, 2017 by Kiithnaras

[Kiithnaras]

As an additional request, would it be possible to delimit the number of perk slots? Not saying additional points, just that if players want to spend their points on more, less-costly perks, they shouldn't have to try to optimize to fit 10 points into exactly 5 slots.

Edited May 15, 2017 by Kiithnaras

[Hethwill]

As an example, 1st rates can still engage 7th rates, kind of like "in missions". Simply attack them in the OW.

just an idea

[Rebel Witch]

Thanks for the update Dev's keep up the great work!! The changes look very interesting.

Edited May 15, 2017 by Rebel Witch

[RaimundoJoe]

i have a problem when i try to buy certain stuff from the shop. The slider only lets me get one item at the time.

[Smithy]

can still take lowest missions while in a trinc

edit: nvm it stops you from joining on OW 

Edited May 15, 2017 by Smithy

[Farrago]

43 minutes ago, AxIslander said:

i have a problem when i try to buy certain stuff from the shop. The slider only lets me get one item at the time.

Same here. It is happening on Test Bed now for some items both Buy and Sell.

Commerce grinds to a screeching halt! I wonder what's going on the Live Servers today...

[derekticus]

1 hour ago, Senhor Lenhador said:

Not even just new or casual players.  I'm what I suppose you'd call a 'veteran player'  (although I'm pretty mediocre at PvP) and I prefer to take missions lower than my ship type.  Usually I take missions if I want to try out a new ship I've bought/crafted so I don't want to either a) lose the ship or b)really think too much beyond getting to grips on how the ship handles.  Sometimes i take missions when I just want to have some stress free battle fun.  Otherwise I'm on board with the other changes and obviously this is just my opinion but I don't think EVERYTHING needs to be hardcore.

I agree, this latest patch to testbed is OVER THE TOP with the change to missions.  I was attempting to Grind my Endyminion - a VERY expensive Ship, and was sunk in a mission.  It seems like the Devs have ramped up the NPC ship's abilities, and my un-modified Endyminion had little chance, especially with the 15 min cool down btwn repairs.  I will mention that have played thousands of hours and am decent in battle. 

Once again, it looks more and more like a beautiful game is getting ruined by the opinions/desires of a few expert players.  If the game is suddenly this hard for some one who has played a great deal, then good luck retaining new and inexperienced players.  A player HAS to have a chance to be successful grinding solo, since that is where the Ship Upgrades come from.  Grinding is now the core of the game.

[Remus]

Can we have more useful information in contract fulfilled emails please?

I now have lots of guns on sell contracts, and to get five messages each entitled 'Contract fulfilled' saying 'You successfully sold items from contract' is no more use than not getting message at all. I'd like to know how many of what sold in which port.

[William Death]

For missions, I agree with @Sir Texas Sir, allow players to join one mission level lower than their ship. Other than that, I think this implementation will be pretty good for the game...

Testbed is a PvP server (and the patches applied there are to be tested for deployment on live PvP servers), therefore, PvP should be the focus. If you want to do some missions and enjoy some PvE content once in a while, thats all well and good. But if you prefer to only run missions, then perhaps the PvE server is a better choice. 

I see this change as a benefit: it will finally force people to learn how to fight and sail their ships properly. Rank will be meaningless if they can't handle fighting an AI first rate with their own first rate. No more easy mode grinding low level missions in a big ship. 

[PG Monkey]

I did a couple of 5th rate missions...first one had navy brig,cerb and niagara..2nd had 2 navy brigs and a mercury..so not too hard

 

[Smithy]

made nice trinc in sabicu plank and trim and decided to do a 5th rate mission to get xp. sank and it dawned the effort the last few days to get that ship built and for nothing rofl. so yes without doubt from now on it will be NPC bought ships and meh. cant be arsed.

[Sir Texas Sir]

Yah I also get what there doing and it keeps folks from taking easy missions to farm PvE Marks too.  I figure the one off would still do the same job and allow folks to not have to take same level or above only.

[Sir Texas Sir]

11 minutes ago, Smithy said:

made nice trinc in sabicu plank and trim and decided to do a 5th rate mission to get xp. sank and it dawned the effort the last few days to get that ship built and for nothing rofl. so yes without doubt from now on it will be NPC bought ships and meh. cant be arsed.

So you did a fleet missions of your level solo and got sunk?  You do know it's a fleet mission so suppose be a fleet/group.

[CatSwift]

9 minutes ago, Smithy said:

made nice trinc in sabicu plank and trim and decided to do a 5th rate mission to get xp. sank and it dawned the effort the last few days to get that ship built and for nothing rofl. so yes without doubt from now on it will be NPC bought ships and meh. cant be arsed.

haha, similar happened to me.  built sabicu/sabicu essex, sank it on my second npc battle.  But i built it with basically no effort, and I build 2 more (surprise and indefat) with basically no effort.  Once you get set up getting a new ship every couple days is easily accomplishable with one account, and for the bad streaks there are the store bought ships.

[Smithy]

1 minute ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

So you did a fleet missions of your level solo and got sunk?  You do know it's a fleet mission so suppose be a fleet/group.

thank you for that lesson captain obvious. 

[PG Monkey]

5th rate fleet missions I did were only brigs and a cerb..4th rate mission was another matter I exited that one pretty quick

There seems to be ai of all sizes everywhere on the testbed now dont really need the missions

 

Edited May 15, 2017 by PG Monkey

[Remus]

Cutter blueprint LH and XP reward are still wrong (prob should be 224 LH and 536 XP as per live), Surprise BP is wrong (I F11'd it last week), T Cutter, T Lynx and Niagara BPs are still missing (In hotfix 2 thread you said the two traders were forgotten rather than intentionally omitted like the LGV and Indiaman; I don't recall any mention of the Niagara either way). Rattlesnake BP is missing as well but this may be intentional (I forget).

I see Cutter prices in the shop have been corrected (maybe an earler patch I hadn't noticed before)

High and Mid-grade notes and silver coins BPs are still in game and silver coins are still in Admiralty shop. So far as I can see, everywhere these items were used on Live doesn't exist on Testbed, but of course there are a number of ship BPs I don't have

Other apparently redundant blueprints are cotton rolls, cases, bermuda cedar, compass wood, cotton, mahogany log, pine log, red wood log, tobacco. Tobacco and Cotton apparently still exist as port resources, so I guess it is possible to still erect the buildings and harvest the resource even though they are useless.

That farm building's pricey isn't it? 50k to make 200 fish meat and 50 salt a day. And it'll cost you 7000 gold a day to harvest them, but I suppose it's only 33 LH instead of 80 LH for processing the same quantity of herring. Still, poor value I reckon.

Copper ore no longer drops from iron or coal mines (I don't currently have a stone mine) - thank you!

Contitution permits drop from shop-bought Constitutions - thank you

[SneakyTurtle]

Here I sit in front of New Orleans waiting for a nice NPC French fleet to appear... I'm on my Connie with a Belle Poule fleet ship (430BR).  I do see lots of fleets, 610 BR, 660 BR, 760 BR, 950 BR and a 1750BR fleet....nothing I feel like I could get a win with......Maybe ...Just Maybe I can make some hostility here.....

 

[Barbancourt]

1 hour ago, Willis PVP2 said:

Testbed is a PvP server (and the patches applied there are to be tested for deployment on live PvP servers), therefore, PvP should be the focus. If you want to do some missions and enjoy some PvE content once in a while, thats all well and good. But if you prefer to only run missions, then perhaps the PvE server is a better choice.

New players are going to need to struggle through a lot of PVE battles before they're ready for any PVP, regardless of where they intend to end up. 

[William Death]

33 minutes ago, rownd said:

New players are going to need to struggle through a lot of PVE battles before they're ready for any PVP, regardless of where they intend to end up. 

Yup, which is why you should allow them to take a mission one size smaller than their ship. This *should* let them do midshipman missions in a brig...shouldn't be too hard for a new player to do. 

[Shrez]

6 hours ago, admin said:

Missions now only accept ships of the mission level and below. You can no longer do low level missions in 1st rates. This opens up more possibilities to create better and more challenging PVE content.

Challenging content is PvP, PvE is for grinding money or for xp.

Let the player decide if he wish challenging PvE, so player have to chose ship type. 

Restriction isn't needed, another useless change.

My rating for patch: 0/5 stars.

Edited May 15, 2017 by Shrez

[Farrago]

4 minutes ago, Willis PVP2 said:

Yup, which is why you should allow them to take a mission one size smaller than their ship. This *should* let them do midshipman missions in a brig...shouldn't be too hard for a new player to do. 

I have over 1000 hours in game but if I'm in a fleet mission at my rank level with only AI support, I tend to die.

On the other hand, if I'm with clan mates in a higher level fleet mission, I tend to live, still score assist XP tho usually not the kills, and learn things.

Seriously, is it a big problem in Naval Action that Rear Admirals are taking low level fleet missions and sail in a 1st - 3rd rate to do them to farm PVE? I doubt it. That would be very time consuming and not that productive. Heck, if such a player wants to invest HOURS raising hostility by just a little by overweighting missions or blowing away Pickles with his Bellona, what should we care!?!

[William Death]

55 minutes ago, Farrago said:

I have over 1000 hours in game but if I'm in a fleet mission at my rank level with only AI support, I tend to die.

On the other hand, if I'm with clan mates in a higher level fleet mission, I tend to live, still score assist XP tho usually not the kills, and learn things.

Seriously, is it a big problem in Naval Action that Rear Admirals are taking low level fleet missions and sail in a 1st - 3rd rate to do them to farm PVE? I doubt it. That would be very time consuming and not that productive. Heck, if such a player wants to invest HOURS raising hostility by just a little by overweighting missions or blowing away Pickles with his Bellona, what should we care!?!

Ah, but thats the thing, I think devs are wanting to promote players getting skilled in one ship before they move up to another ship. Rank XP system attempts to do this, but it can fail if players are all about grinding it as fast as they can get through; the dumb ship-knowledge tree will be a very much failed attempt at this [but that is a rant for another thread]. This new method they are implementing will work well, I think.

Lets think about it:

If you get a brand spanking new Bellona and go back to doing the same missions you were grinding when you were sailing a Belle Poule...what skill in the game are you learning? To get the basics of a new ship, go find some small AI sailing in OW and get a feel for handling it, after that, what is the point in fighting against those smaller ships? The reason you got a bigger ship is because you were deemed worthy of the rank to command her, now its time for you to prove that you can sail her competently. Remember, my suggested tweak to the Dev's idea was to allow you to take the mission right beneath your rank instead of just the one at your rank and the ones above, so that would let you do a Connie level mission with your Bellona, and that should be no trouble.

As you focus more on honing your skills, and less on your rank xp, you'll begin to get better at the game, and the rank will come at the rate you deserve it to, not at the rate you can easy-grind it to (by using big ships to "seal-club" the smaller AI in missions). As an example from a player's perspective now, looking back to when I started the game: I can now take a fleet mission 1 rank, often 2, higher than me in just about any ship I choose and I'll do fine in it. No player support, only the provided AI. Granted, some fights are not easy...a solo Bellona and a few AI in some of those Rear Admiral missions can be a bit challenging, depending on the AI's mood . I remember, back when I was leveling up, that I wouldn't dream of such stuff, but I could still handle a mission that was my own rank (usually), and especially a rank below me.

And honestly, yes, I do think its a problem when Rear Admirals are not capable of fighting the ships their rank says they deserve to sail. If you can't handle a first rate in combat, then you shouldn't own a first rate...thats just my opinion of the matter. 

Yeah it takes forever to raise hostility with those little missions, but honestly, why would you want to do a small mission in a big ship? The only thing I can think of is maybe farming the PvE marks on the testbed server...that could be a problem.

[Farrago]

39 minutes ago, Willis PVP2 said:

Ah, but thats the thing, I think devs are wanting to promote players getting skilled in one ship before they move up to another ship. Rank XP system attempts to do this, but it can fail if players are all about grinding it as fast as they can get through; the dumb ship-knowledge tree will be a very much failed attempt at this [but that is a rant for another thread]. This new method they are implementing will work well, I think.

Lets think about it:

If you get a brand spanking new Bellona and go back to doing the same missions you were grinding when you were sailing a Belle Poule...what skill in the game are you learning? To get the basics of a new ship, go find some small AI sailing in OW and get a feel for handling it, after that, what is the point in fighting against those smaller ships? The reason you got a bigger ship is because you were deemed worthy of the rank to command her, now its time for you to prove that you can sail her competently. Remember, my suggested tweak to the Dev's idea was to allow you to take the mission right beneath your rank instead of just the one at your rank and the ones above, so that would let you do a Connie level mission with your Bellona, and that should be no trouble.

As you focus more on honing your skills, and less on your rank xp, you'll begin to get better at the game, and the rank will come at the rate you deserve it to, not at the rate you can easy-grind it to (by using big ships to "seal-club" the smaller AI in missions). As an example from a player's perspective now, looking back to when I started the game: I can now take a fleet mission 1 rank, often 2, higher than me in just about any ship I choose and I'll do fine in it. No player support, only the provided AI. Granted, some fights are not easy...a solo Bellona and a few AI in some of those Rear Admiral missions can be a bit challenging, depending on the AI's mood . I remember, back when I was leveling up, that I wouldn't dream of such stuff, but I could still handle a mission that was my own rank (usually), and especially a rank below me.

And honestly, yes, I do think its a problem when Rear Admirals are not capable of fighting the ships their rank says they deserve to sail. If you can't handle a first rate in combat, then you shouldn't own a first rate...thats just my opinion of the matter. 

Yeah it takes forever to raise hostility with those little missions, but honestly, why would you want to do a small mission in a big ship? The only thing I can think of is maybe farming the PvE marks on the testbed server...that could be a problem.

Umm. We're actually in total agreement. One level lower is fine. I just don't think we need to worry about some player spending 2-3 hours fighting below their weight class. Their "gain" doesn't hurt the game.