Missions being severely restricted

[Rabid_Infidel]

There are people here in this game, and on this forum (fanboys, hardcore nolifers and diehards) who keep forgetting (or they honestly failed to realize) that the most valuable commodity, resource and stuff in this game is a player!

As Naval Action is flat out devoid of content (like No-Mans-Sky, a ocean wide but a puddle deep) ALL content actually comes from other humans!

Let's take a player sample of 1000 humans. 

10-15% are fanboys and hardcore unemployed ppl.

10-15% are rabid troll squad and guys who's average attention spam is that of a domesticated gerbil.

THE REST 70-80% are filthy casuals (me included). Players who besides the game in question have other stuff in their life and play the game for fun in somewhat restricted game sessions. 

If we have servers full of people WE ALL BENEFIT! How do we fill servers with people? Respect casuals enough to keep them playing the damn game so we all can have some fun!

Diehards and fanboys are the worst player denomination to listen to as they are very low in numbers and will leave your game DEAD. And they will leave as well to  ruin some other game.

 

Naval Action was almost a virtual job before, now it's like having +2 virtual jobs (and not a good ones either!). 

Do what you will, but this course will only lead you to a dead and empty game. 

 

About the mission restriction:

I very much hate and dislike dev's forcing us into gameplay we do not want nor like. If this is a sandbox game then we should have freedom of getting our objectives done in a manor of our own choosing!

Grouping with other ppl sometimes is not possible or preferable!

Hunting NPC ships in OW is intensely time consuming and now worth the time investment. I don't have time to scour the sees for a chance to find a lone enemy NPC ship! Most are in fleets anyway. 

Missions were a sound and sure way to have somewhat fast action when you feel like shooting at AI or doing some grind. Now you have taken that option from us. 

 

Edited May 26, 2017 by Rabid_Infidel

[ironhammer500]

2 hours ago, maturin said:

The game worked just fine before missions came along, I can assure you.

If you say that OW rewards should be increased in order to help new players, then I'll agree with that.

Afaik the game was a Arena style warfare like World of warships(which id argue the game was better off in that state) Then OW came, it also had missions.

[Hethwill]

There were no missions in first iterations. All hunting OW.

[ironhammer500]

1 hour ago, The Red Duke said:

There were no missions in first iterations. All hunting OW.

And im sure that worked so well they had to add missions? I mean wipe is ok no one has complained, what people complain about was the changes from testbed version to ours now.

 

Missions were not removed and that was fine gold flow would be constant, Instead we will have a few rich people buying everything and loads poor people barely making ends meet.

It will just boil down to the largest clans will own everything while the newbies and small clans will be hard out of luck to buy or build stuff.

[randommexi]

remove missions entirely, add more ships on the OS.  and more different npc fleet comps.  i'd love to see 3 traders brigs escorted by some cutters and brigs.

[victor]

21 hours ago, jnovotny6 said:

I made 500k in one day trading. Set up coal, iron, oak, workshop and stone buildings, about to start crafting long cannons. You need to incorporate trading to make gold, not just missions/OW battles. One day trading, two days fighting.

A good game allows players to earn a fair amount of the main ingame currency in different ways, not only doing ONE thing (in this case sailing for hours trading exotic goods between ports). But this seems impossible in NA since Devs say that in "their" game - if you are not a 100% PVPer - you should be doing this and that, and cannot do nothing but they want (which - BTW - is just sailing in OS or doing other boring things until you get jumped and robbed by some ganker). 

 

13 hours ago, randommexi said:

remove missions entirely, add more ships on the OS.  and more different npc fleet comps.  i'd love to see 3 traders brigs escorted by some cutters and brigs.

Removing things is not the solution: rather it is the problem of this patch!

Removing a lot of things (solo missions above 6th rates, the possibility to craft every ship without having to do PVP or RvR, teleport from free towns, diplomacy, free towns deliveries, towing ships, coordinates etc. etc.) in order to make everything harder (better: grindier since there's no skill at all in grinding) it's just the (wrong in my opinion) way Devs took with this patch. 

They should instead ADD things (also, in example, different npc fleets, as you suggest), but keeping the missions. So you will be free to play the way you like and people that like missions will be free to play the way they like.

Having a lot of different playstyles that - each one of them - is more or less equally rewarding: this is the key to the success of a MMO.

I am testing the new fieatures of the game after the new patch more or less trying to "simulate" the gameplay of a newbie and I have already some ideas about how to improve some aspects of the game. But I'm gonna wait a few weeks (after the "new patch" euphoria will have faded and the actual playerbase will be settled in its real numebers) before posting something articulated and propositive. Now any criticism is very likely ot be either ignored or flooded by the usual "hardcore/realism" refrain.

 

 

Edited May 27, 2017 by victor

[ironhammer500]

A least why cant the PvE  server get solo missions back, it has no benefit for us to be on the Open world due to no PvP..

Edited May 27, 2017 by ironhammer500

[Flip Flap]

On 26.5.2017 at 0:29 PM, admin said:

Before overreacting remember that even World of warcraft forces you to do mini raids in groups. Not only that - most casual games like clash of clans completely lock some of the content only for groups. 

We want you to socialize - it is easier to do fleet missions with friends and more fun. You are more protected this way and actually will enjoy the game more playing as a group. If you are solo player you still have access to solo content on the open world. Just find the spawn that you like (by some sailing around) and move there sinking ships of your liking.

WoW finds the other players automatically for you though and there's never a shortage of players. In Naval Action all you can do is shout in nation chat hoping that there are people up for it, which is fortunately mostly the case for now. But there are also plenty of people around that don't speak English for example, for them finding a group might be really tough.

Fleet missions are so much more generous rewards-wise (and more fun most of the time) that I believe people will automatically prefer doing them over solo missions anyway, having the option around wouldn't hurt anyone. 

Edit: Because of lack of solo missions people are just soloing the 5th rate fleet missions in their Indies. I suppose the next way of forcing people into your way of gaming is limiting fleet missions to groups of 2 or higher.

Edited May 30, 2017 by Flip Flap

[ramshot]

On 2017-5-26 at 2:25 PM, admin said:

There is 1536 NPCs on the world ranging from solo traders to 24 ship fleets. + from 100 to 1000 players (lately)
if we completely remove missions it will make it sandbox again? Missions and quests are actually give less freedom to players. There are no quests in sandbox Rust for example. 

Just in case my actual feedback comes off a little harsh, I'm going to start by saying thanks for a game that is already great. You have my utmost respect for delivering one of the games I've always dreamed about. Thank you.

I feel that "motivating people to group up or sail the open seas" is an extremely poor excuse for removing content that people who bought your game (Early Access or not) were using and enjoying, especially considering that there is a barrier of entry to playing together with other people or sailing around hoping to find something. Sometimes I just don't feel like communicating with others. Sometimes I can't find anyone to group with. Sometimes, and this is the most common one, I can't give the game my full concentration and thus don't want to bother other people by groupping up if I can't communicate and co-ordinate with the properly. As for sailing around, the barrier here is time. It's hard to get motivated to boot the game up for an hour long session if there is absolutely no guarantee I'll ever fire a single cannon.

The solo missions made this a non-issue. I could pick them up, do 1, go afk, come back later to do another. It was a method of enjoying a very time consuming game in a somewhat non-time consuming manner. Now the alternative is still there, but I'm limited to using small ships that isn't really what I want to do, and the rewards aren't going to scale with other means of profitting or gaining experience.

Furthermore, I feel you're doing yourselves a great disservice by limiting player choice like this. I enjoy sailing the seas when I have the time, don't get me wrong. But I've recommended the game to several people in the past, and I don't know if I would do that now. Just like me, they are adult people with busy lives, and "sail around until you find something to kill, it may take from 10 minutes to two hours" just isn't a very enticing concept as far as time use is concerned. Let me emphazize: These people prefer to play with others when they can as well.

I feel that the majority of people who play only solo or prefer to play solo aren't going to be swayed by this, mostly because their decisions and wants are dictated by real life. I think you have created a straw man with this image of a person who is just waiting to discover the joys of playing with other people. Mostly NA players are relatively old, experienced gamers. They know what they want. You don't need to grab them by the hand and remove options to force them to discover there are more fun ways of doing things - they are able to discover this by themselves, when and if they can.

Now I saw some vague mentions of "missions chains" coming up, but with no information on what those are and how they work, I'm just going to ask you to reconsider what you have done now in regards to solo missions. If you wish to motivate OW sailing and grouping up, then please, implement ways of rewarding players for doing those things, make them more profitable than doing missions. But do not flat out eliminate the possibility of sitting down for an hour, shooting some cannons in that awesome combat of yours, and then going back to real life because I have to. Surely a busy player's money is just as good for you as someone's who is able to dedicate more time to the game.

Thanks for reading.

[Challenge]

Well said, sir.

 

[victor]

On 26/5/2017 at 1:37 PM, Yngvarr said:

A decent strategy in Naval Action would be to keep missions for all levels in the game without restrictions, but just increase the rewards for group play.

This is the more logic, easy, and consistent solution. A win win scenario.

But it is also very likely that your wise suggestion will be totally ignored.

My impression is that devs - supported by the patrol of the self proclaimed hardcore players - just chose to ignore the "fun" factor and wants players to struggle and suffer in this game.

Moreover the equation "everyting more difficult - more players in the OS - more PVP" is very disputable: just look at the numebrs of players online in PVP EU on prime time (around 1100) and the look at the number of battle instances (around 200). People seems to be too busy in gathering money to waste them in one dura pvp battles.

A player is disposed to loose only what he can easily replace. If it is very difficult to replace a ship, pvp will be less frequent. Quite easy to understand.

This game is very likely to take the same path of mortal online (with the difference that in Mortal you can do a lot of different things, while here you are compelled to do a few things). A niche game with a small, elitist and closed community of seasoned players that frustrates the needs of the newbies. Will this be enough to support the costs of the game? Nobody actually knows.

Edited June 1, 2017 by victor

[Hethwill]

Given rewards for the first ranks have been increased, by hotfix 4 notes, the "new players" approach might be covered.

 

[Parazaine]

I hate this decision tbh. Do the devs really think they will promote one style of gameplay by hamstringing another? If you dont want people to PvE then dont have  a PvE server .. job done, no complaints possible BUT if you are going to have a PvE server then PvE should be unlimited on that server. By all means limit it on PvP servers but some people just want to play the game solo.

Please reverse this decision and open up combat missions for all levels as it used to be pre-wipe. My suggestion as a compromise is only change it on the PvE server if you want to encourage clans and PvP play on the PvP servers although my personal preference would be to just allow combat missions for all levels as it used to be , everywhere.

Edited June 1, 2017 by Parazaine
a point has been covered above

[admin]

4 minutes ago, Parazaine said:

I hate this decision tbh. Do the devs really think they will promote one style of gameplay by hamstringing another? If you dont want people to PvE then dont have  a PvE server .. job done, no complaints possible BUT if you are going to have a PvE server then PvE should be unlimited on that server. By all means limit it on PvP servers but some people just want to play the game solo.

Please reverse this decision and open up combat missions for all levels as it used to be pre-wipe. My suggestion as a compromise is only change it on the PvE server if you want to encourage clans and PvP play on the PvP servers although my personal preference would be to just allow combat missions for all levels as it used to be , everywhere.

but pve server has 1500 varied fleets for like 200 players - you can imagine that you are hunting them in the open world on orders without being chained to one port. 

having said that - we are working on new pve content.

[Parazaine]

2 minutes ago, admin said:

but pve server has 1500 varied fleets for like 200 players - you can imagine that you are hunting them in the open world on orders without being chained to one port. 

A lot of players play solo because of time constraints, I have been in a clan and it was like a second job ... hunting a.i. fleets is great BUT why cant you bring back combat mission sfor all levels on the PvE servers? i'm really trying to see what your real reasons are...please explain your thoughts. The cynic in me just says that you dont want people playing solo. 

[maturin]

16 minutes ago, Parazaine said:

I hate this decision tbh. Do the devs really think they will promote one style of gameplay by hamstringing another? 

It's not a style of gameplay. It's factory farming. Missions and their profitability treat players like doped-up chickens raised for meat in tiny cages.

It's correcting an error; they never should have existed in that form to begin with.

[admin]

6 minutes ago, maturin said:

It's not a style of gameplay. It's factory farming. Missions and their profitability treat players like doped-up chickens raised for meat in tiny cages.

It's correcting an error; they never should have existed in that form to begin with.

it just seems it cannot be undone/unseen. players prefer simplicity of clicking a button and getting to the mission. even if it removes the excitement of search and hunt. 

our new mission system will try to address it. 

[maturin]

Just now, admin said:

it just seems it cannot be undone/unseen. players prefer simplicity of clicking a button and getting to the mission. even if it removes the excitement of search and hunt. 

our new mission system will try to address it. 

For the sake of argument, players unlearned teleport and Send to Outpost pretty fast, because they were forced to.

Retaining some missions but not others is the irritant. 

[JollyRoger1516]

On 25.5.2017 at 9:27 PM, Powderhorn said:

As stated above, it is desirous to have people populate the OW.  If you want to improve your frigates and line ships, risk will have to be taken.

It got nothing to do with risks having to be taken. Most of the time people are now aimlessly sailing around hoping to come across something they can fight. On a server like global with a rather low population this means not even seeing an attackable AI for 20 mins easily. Missions give purpose. AI on our side made them available to both palyers with friends and enough population (less AI) and to those without. It allowed underpopulated nations to go out and enjoy fleets. You simply can't expect everyone to remain on either low ships or to have 10 people on the same ship level at the ready at all given times.

[Ned Low]

46 minutes ago, admin said:

it just seems it cannot be undone/unseen. players prefer simplicity of clicking a button and getting to the mission. even if it removes the excitement of search and hunt. 

our new mission system will try to address it. 

Well if you would fix 'white' swords and replace them with better looking ones (glow in any time of the day) it would fix the problem. You can't see that damn thing. We asked so many times.

ex. Sometimes you spend tons of time trying to find that stupid thing. Imagine a bunch of players did it once then 2nd time and couldn't find the mission, wasted time and that is why they are crying. 

Edited June 1, 2017 by Ned Low

[JollyRoger1516]

54 minutes ago, admin said:

it just seems it cannot be undone/unseen. players prefer simplicity of clicking a button and getting to the mission. even if it removes the excitement of search and hunt. 

our new mission system will try to address it. 

Are you aiming for a SIlent Hunter style Open World then? Am I getting this right? Because in that case I know exactly why it isn't working right now.

1. Silent Hunter has the option to speed up time. Obviously that is only possible in a single player game. But it was very easy to speed up travel and to skip a hunt that rendered no results. If I go out in Naval Action and have nothing to attack after 20-30mins and then have to sail back again that is a major pain.
2. Returning empty handed is not only a 'fast thing' to do it is also expected and as you don't have to pay for every torpedo and some such in that game it is not a major loss. While surely that has also happened to Pirate crews all the time that is also the reason the crew could get angry quickly and get rid of an unsuccessful captain. (consider this the angry community barking at you/playing other games ) In other words to stay in power it is something you want to avoid at all cost!
3. One major time sink for using the open world is that Silent Hutner is a kill/mission only game. As the holds are limited a successful trader hunt or major engagement or high crew loss means I have to constantly sail back to port to replenish. This leads to a whole lot of unnecessary travel (this may get better when repairs are more available but it is still very annoying). A very easy first fix would be to allow us to put crew on a captured trader and let it be sailed by the AI to one of our outposts (the ship can be auto unloaded and auto sold then to prevent us getting ships (different problem))
4. And now to the biggest problem which addresses the intial problem. In Silent Hunter I always knew where to go. Either I pursued a specific mission or you could hunt very clear trade lanes/beset ports and their main exits. This was supplemented by radar contacts, reported sightings, wolf pack calls, spies, etc. There was a literal shit ton of information coming in all the time (at least when above water aka in radio contact) which would allow me to quickly perceive major convoy routes or at the very least give me some kind of target in the near future. In Naval Action however I am sailing compeltely blind. I am not pursuing any leads or trade lanes whatsoever. (this could work for players but those tend to get hit once and then sail in heavy convoys only...). This is made worse by the fact that AI trading seems absolutely random/RNG based. I craft in Buena Vista pre patch and Dariena and its channel were amazing hunting grounds location wise. However I could hit 10 ships ore ore one day and then the next three not a single ship could be sighted. This means that players constantly have to aimlessly sail around the world hoping for something. This is the main reason RvR  and capital area attacks being the only fixed point engagements tend to be a major attraction of PvP. This could be fixed by providing 'brothel intel or spies' as well as establishing clearly perceivable trade routes that can regularly be attacked (think Malakar Strait etc.).

These things need to change or at least be adjusted to make the Open World more viable for random PvE and therefore PvP targets.

Edited June 1, 2017 by JollyRoger1516

[shaeberle84]

1 hour ago, maturin said:

It's not a style of gameplay. It's factory farming. Missions and their profitability treat players like doped-up chickens raised for meat in tiny cages.

It's correcting an error; they never should have existed in that form to begin with.

Every MMO has this kind of grind, right? WoW has dailys ... WoT even has increased rewards for the first battles each day. People just like it and want it. In small doses, of course. =)

[maturin]

10 minutes ago, shaeberle84 said:

Every MMO has this kind of grind, right? WoW has dailys ... WoT even has increased rewards for the first battles each day. People just like it and want it. In small doses, of course. =)

Small doses, exactly.

That's why I called for limiting the missions available per day. Anything from 1-3 would be fine.

Problem was, the new OW austerity made constant missions the most reliable, profitable activity.

[admin]

24 minutes ago, maturin said:

Small doses, exactly.

That's why I called for limiting the missions available per day. Anything from 1-3 would be fine.

Problem was, the new OW austerity made constant missions the most reliable, profitable activity.

generating good number of targets as well.

[maturin]

19 minutes ago, admin said:

generating good number of targets as well.

I was never, ever attacked once in hundreds of missions in Cuba. There's no risk when you are only 5 minutes from port.