Dear Sirs (developers) My thoughts.

[Moria15]

Dear Sirs,

 

Hopoe this is the right place, but whatever.

I wanted to write and give you my impressions of the current status of Naval Action in it's current form post patch and why I think you are failing on some fronts since I believe one should always present constructive critisism in these things and hopefully it may provide some thoughts from a player that's been in this game for 18 months.

In all these cases, I can only present my views on the current status and for those who don't like a long read, then please stop here.  Please.

The game is a Multi Player On-line Game, one of many on the market, but currently, the only one set in the age of sail and is more of a simulator than a game, by which I mean that it's mechanisms are based more on what happened in reality than giving way to arcade mechanisms.

To my mind, I see 4 types of players in the game..   one subdivision is PvE or PvP and the other is the solo player or the clan player.   All types are being catered for in the current format.

For each of these types there are probably a number of subdivisions..  those that are frequent players, moderate players and casual players and further subdivided by those that prefer to play by fighting ships and those that prefer to trade.

If you take all those categories together, then your balance in this game needs to cross 24 or more different boundaries to satisfy all and maintain a healthy player base.

For all types, there should be a "reasonable" progression in the game with objectives and goals in mind.  After all any game, even a simulator, should be fun in order to retain players of all types.

There is no question that not all those goals should be similar or even, just that some sort of goal should exist and be obvious for those players.

No game will survive, if only catering to one or two types of players out of the gamut of players out there with so much competition for gaming time available.

OK summary over.. lets take a look at the game as it stands now shall we...

Post patch, I decided to start a new character..  not taking any of the redeemables both on PvP and on PvE to see what the experience would be for a brand new player perhaps deciding if they would like to get into the game.

I start with a basic cutter and 4 pdr guns.   I have zero money.  I'll bypass the fact that theres no info or clues in the game yet but will come back to that.

The ONLY thing I can do at this stage is a combat mission.  There is absolutely NO other option in the game, nothing Nada, zilch.   I can't buy anything to trade and I have nothing to sell to make money..  so my first impression is..  I have to take part in combat as my only choice..   okay  for the person that wants to be a trader then I have a first negative mark.  But however.. of I go.

Having played before, to me, that first mission wasn't to bad..  it was my cutter v a privateer, however for a new player, that would NOT be an easy contest and finding the mission was not an easy experience..  just a mark in the sea with a pray and hope to get to, even with the new protractor.

That first battle took me about 15 minutes to complete,  for a new player, they might not survive.  If they DONT survive that first battle, then you have created a negative impression against those who want to fight ships as well.

The logical output of the first 30 minutes of the game, therefore, is a negative to both trader types and fighting types.  For casual players.. that might be enough to send them away.. but lets continue.

I know have a few thousand dollars and a little bit of exp and maybee, just maybe a couple of hull repairs or something, If I could work out how to loot the ship before it sank.  Is it enough to upgrade my ship?  Nope.. guns cost way to much..  is enough to start trading..  nope not really, so now what, you want me to grind even at this stage and rinse and repeat the same things..  okay  strike 2 as a trader and perhaps as a casual player..  nope too much time involved to even get out of tier 1 so strike there as well.

If I lost..  I still have nothing..  I can replace what I had but I am still at a zero level.. nothing at all after 30 minutes of playing the game.  That's an appalling situation.

Now, I can work out that in 4 battles, I will have enough to get a new rank.. but for what?  what is the purpose here?

So I go into my second battle.  

etc etc..  all I have here is a timesink but for what?  Whgat am I supposed to be aiming for.  I look at costs of ships and costs to equip them, and I realise that I have to hard core grind to get that next ship..  even buying from the stores, I need maybee 15k for that ship and 30k for guns..  45k at less than 10k per battle means I am FORCED to fight until I have won 5 or 6 combat missions to get a ship I could loose in one battle.

Goodbye Casual player.

OK now we have less types to cater for.

Lets assume, I have the 50k after a few missions...  I look into my home port and see a few items available.  Is there ANY clue as to what might be useful somewhere else in the world..  Nope.  there is a trader tool that only lists what prices would be at another port if they were available there, but theres no list of IF something is available.  So I can see what I could take from my port and sell somewhere else, maybe at a profit.

The game world is divided into small areas..  eg Surrey, Corwall and South Cays for a starting brit.  There is no reason, not even historically, why stocks of goods in the same county should not be available from any port in that county.  It's called throw me a frikin' bone here guys.  Theres also no reason, that I couldn't send someone by horse from KPR to Port Morant to buy goods in that port, even if I then had to go to that port to pick them up and have them sitting in the warehouse there perhaps with a time limit tom picking them up.

Whilst we are on that topic, what is this complete rubbish about goods in warehose dissapear if you have no outpost and sail away..  people make mistakes..  providing you recover those goods within a certain timeframe, they should remain.

OK so more strikes against traders because the trading is so localised and restrictive.

Secondly, it should be possible to see from the map, which ports can produce which items..  it's not like they move around between ports, they are fixed and solid, so display them..   how do you expect a new player that perhaps wants to build cannons in game to know that their coal supply needs to come from the far edges of the map?

OK..  so I make a little money, but that trade run nets me so much travelling experience..  (sarcasm mode)  of 2XP from KPR to Morant that again I am depressed..  again, if I want a bigger ship..  trading is NOT the way forward.

OK.. lets go back to our fighter..  Hes done his first 5 or 6 combat missions and got enough to equip something a little bigger.. maybe a Pickle, so he eagerly goes to home port, buys a ship and the cannons...  and sails off into the ocean to use his shiney new ship and the first battle he gets into he looses against a privateer..  he now has 2 choices..  give up or back to a basic cutter where he has alrady spent 3 hours getting enough money to buy his shiney new ship that he used once..  Even a medium player will have spent a ferw sessions in game to get to that point, so is it worth going on.. probably not.

Lost medium fighting player.

Now lets look at the crafter....  He wants to build ships or guns..   Before he can even start he needs to buy a shipyard..  50,000 gold, plus all the resources..  Have you ANY IDEA AT ALL how long that takes to get doing 10k missions.. well lets see..  to get the oak and stone you probably need buildings..  and it will be two outposts, so thats maybe 150k with outposts buildings and getting the resources..  doing missions thats 20 basic missions assuming no losses at 20 minutes a time, thats 400 minutes play time just to get the basics without any materials to even start building the ships.

Now whilst we are on that topic.. what can I build..  A lynx.  whoppeee  do de da..  not that a lynx isn't something, but heres another throw me a bone moment..  show EVERYTHING a crafter will be able to build, just grey out those that can't be built yet so the crafter can have a target to aim towards and see what they will need in the future..  allow them to have a goal.

An example..  I found a delivery mission that required the delivery of a mid note somewhere..  what the hell is a mid note  (Yes, personally I know what one is )  but none of the crafting screens showed a mid note and I damn near F11'd it thinking it was a left over from the old iteration of the game until someone told me that at a certain craft level they do appear again in the craft list.

So casual crafter..  gone..  never to return.

Now youve lost ALL your casual players.

Your mid level fighting players may have gone as well when they lost their first ships.

OK you say.. so Get in a Clan and socialise to learn the basics..     well hold on there a minute.. not everyone has the time or inclination to be in a clan, and frankly, some of the clans in this game will put people off the game faster than the mechanics.

At this stage,  the casual player has gone, the Mid level fighter may have gone and the mid level trader and crafter are already looking at the game and thinking about leaving.

That leaves us with the hard core players.

That is not sufficient to support the game in any way or in any fashion.

What is there in the game for the hard core player that doesn't want to be in a clan..  answer..  zip nada  nothing..  so now all you have left are the hard core clan players, whether on PVP or PvE  so we are down to two types of player from our origional 24 types.

What is there in the game for the hardcore player that IS in a clan..  zip.. nada apart from social.. theres nothing  (NOTHING) in this game that being in a clan gives you in terms of extra rewards or anything.. and before you say port battles..  ermmm so what..  conquest marks are available by timesink by doing enough free missions, so apart from being IN a port battle..  what ya got..  nada.

Finally lets look at the economy..   There isn't one.. theres a time sink disguised as an economy because the tools you need to be a trader or crafter just don't exist to make it enjoyable.

The economy in this game doesn't work, not even slightly.. it's far to dependant on already knowing what is out there and where it is.   A limited economy is no economy and an economy that is based on who's been in the game longest is NOT sustainable.

You have massive cost sinks..  (loss of ship and repairs) but no drip feed or recoverability against that so therefore it HAS to be broken and has no way of NOT being broken.

Theres not even a listing of what is in the game or not to allow people aims and ambitions.

OK so suggestions as to what may be needed from me.

1)  Give people a goal to select.. show all the craftable items.. show fighters ALL the ships in game and ALL the options even if greyed out because they dont have rank or status to use them..  give people a bone so they can make a goal for themselves.
2)  1 player per account..  absolute rubbish..  allow more ( maybe three) so people can play different styles even if you limit them to just one nationality.
3)  Trading.  build a proper market and let people see ALL available items in game and what stocks and prices are at ALL ports in the county you are in.
4)  Allow remote buying and selling of goods (perhaps just within county but broader than just this port), but require travel to pick them up within a certain timeframe or they return to stocks.
5)  Allow items in a warehouse to stay there, EVEN WITH NO OUTPOST for a time limit or until you dock in another port to allow for beginner mistakes.
6)  For Fighters,  add insurance to protect against ship loss..  not the full value, but enough of the base cost that it doesnt kill you whjen you loose your ship early in the game.
7)  For Traders,  add insurance on cargo, maybe even different levels and depending on length of run to not make it a total disaster if you loose the cargo.
8)  Readjust the grind to be easier lower level and harder upper level..  stop penalising new players or casual players who may not be able to spend 7 dayts a week full time in the game.
9)  Put limits in the game for minimum prices so that casual traders and players can actually get some return against the established ones.. anything below minimum is automatically bought by the game..
10) Maybe add in some sort of daily reward for gaining exp in that day in the form of a sepcial delivery or something that has a random loot drop in it to encourage players to come back and do things in game on a daily basis, even if only for a short time.   Maybe have levels so those that play more per day get two drops or similar.
11) Class type..   Trader/Crafter or Fighter  these should be different with different base rules.
 

Trader/Crafter should get more exp for sailing between ports,  they should get benes for doing trader/craft things than fighting and vice versa.

There should be things that a trader/crafter can do without having to fight to start the game.

Traders/Crafters should be able to own more buildings than fighters.

Perks should be different for Fighters than crafters

What you currently have is the idea that anyone can be anything and it fails everyone by trying (and failing) to do that.

Put back the perks of Crafters getting some exp from the people that buy their ships and use them.

Maybee add trader perks that allow you see whats available further away from you in ports even if you can't buy them remotely.

Give fighters more ship slots and less building slots and vice versa.

12) Add some sort of honour/loyalty system so that people could raise in reputation as well as rank.  Maybe become friends with nobility that are in charge of ports or something that give benefits to both fighters and trader/crafters.

13) Timesink does not equal fun in any way whatsoever when timesink = negligable rewards.

14) Show, ONTHE MAP, what ports can establish what buildings..  like they don't change so why wouldn't people know.

OK and whilst we are at it..  having played since the start of early access....

1)  Get a damn UI sorted..  Get a freakin intern or something and make the game pretty.. theres no excuse anymore for the boring as hell grey screens all over the place..  remember, the UI IS the first thing you will see in the game and many will be turned off by it and it hasn't changed in 18 damn months and it's not only rubbish, it doesn't even work properly in the current itteration..  I spend more time logging off and logging in to see whats in the shops after a mission than I do playing the game almost.

I am sure that there are people out there who would absolutely jump at the opportunity to add an actual games UI to their resume in return for little actual cash who could do a great job in a summer break or something.

2)  STOP playing with an economy that doesn't work and start THINKING about making something that works for all levels of players, not just those that are unemployed and want to work in clans.

3)  START thinking about the casual player and not just the hard-core gamer who can devote their life to getting somewhere.

4)  At the very least.. if you can't afford any new staff..  get some approved players to monitor the help channels rather than relying on players to do your job for you so there is always some sort of bone that can be thrown to new players in the hope of retaining them.   Absconding from your responsability in game is an indicator to people of what they should expect  and currently it's nothing.

5)  STOP using early access as an excuse to not do the basics.

6)  Frankly in 18 months, damn near nothing has changed in this game and I humbly suggest that it is no nearer a finished product than it was 18 months ago and currently is at exactly the same stage of early access as it was 18 months ago.

OK sorry this was way to long and on the edge of a rant, but frankly.. to me, at this time, this game is only suitable for hard core players in clans  and that, my friends is NOT a recipie for a game that is looking for longevity in the current market, no matter HOW specialised the premise behind it is and that makes me sad, because even now I can see something that to me could be great, but even as an ex Navy person and retired, this game is not providing me with an "ENTERTAINMENT": factor that will keep me coming back and competing for my Real world gaming hours.

By the way, this entire post was written during one timesink run from KPR to Plymouth which netted an absolutely stunning amount of 195XP..  really..  thats just sad.

Regards to all..

M

Edited June 1, 2017 by Moria15

[OLDGOAT]

I agree with you on all parts of this great novel, you have said what I wanted to say and just could not find the correct works, I hope more players READ this and comment as well, fair winds Moria.

 

Old Man from the sea

 

 

[Benass]

True. All of it. Uniq game and only 1k players.  

I think all aspects of this game should be profitable independently not together.

 

 

 

[HoneyBaddger]

Wow...thats it. 

[Yngvarr]

There is like nothing i can add to this.

You are absolutely right, Sir.

 

[Captain Lust]

You raise some valid points but I think nobody can disagree about this game not being for casuals - it's no secret mate... if you can't get beyond the basic cutter, this game isn't for you anyways. Starting with a shitty little ship and rising up to captain of a heavy frigate / tradership is what the game is about... But it is true that with how the economy and everything works it is too easy for veterans to make gold compared to new players... i made a few millions with good trade routes after the wipe while others were grinding in their basic cutters... the swedes and danes had some deal going on exploiting warsupplies for ridiculous amounts of gold, too. So while the game is a massive timesink already, it's even much more so for casuals... 

[HoneyBaddger]

I love it being a time sinc.  These people that are whining are mainly the PvE players who want to have a Insta trade route and don't have to worry about being bothered by anyone else. Sad really, but hey, whatever floats their boat lol 

[monk33y]

Put caros on a basic cutter to farm those missions with ease.

Then farm. Get funds. Figure out what resources are in demand and exploit that resource!

Then when you have the funds get a better ship....

So on.

 

[Captain Lust]

2 hours ago, Borch said:

Nothing wrong with grind and time sink but only if It is interesting and provides a clear progress in any playstyle you decide to take.

Can't put it any better to be honest. There is nothing wrong with the time sink if you have a good time and progress but people just enjoying the time waste for the sake of it should really reconsider their life...

[Rabid_Infidel]

Pretty much a very accurate analysis of Naval Action.

Many of us have been harping on how this game is very time intensive with very little meat on the bones to keep players to play the game. 

Right now there is very much risk vs very low reward!  The game is heavily slanted towards players who stick together like glue basically not playing NA but rather living it! 

I am a rather casual player who does not prefer to go into clan workings as the inner core of the clan gets everything while the rest are workers. Inner core spends their days chatting over Team speak all day long practically ignoring clan chat. So if you dislike listening few guys constantly talking about stupid stuff in TS being in a clan offers no real bonuses (at least that is my experience so far). 

I am doing well in game. Have plenty of cash, ships, outpost.. However i'm stuck at this lvl as i cant get PvP marks! And getting people organized to hunt gank squads around KPR is a nightmare. You never know how many will actually enter the battle, how will they preform (and my experience is that most Brits are poor sailors), how many will bail! And the prospect of financial loss is huge! If i lose, i lose a lot with exactly big fat 0 for my effort, performance or time invested into pvping. 

Game catering to hardcore no-lifers is shooting itself into the foot at the very start as the no-lifers are about 5-10% of the ENTIRE worlds gaming player base. Now take into account that NA is a niche title, there are very little no-lifers to be had from the entire gamer pool.

This "megapatch" is live what? About 2 weeks? And already the population dropped about 200-300 players and i believe it will somewhat stabilize at around 500 peek players at pvp EU server in less then a month. 

Calling this "megapatch" is an insult by itself as after 6 months hiatus of development you only come with some shuffled numbers and mechanics changes. 

One only need's to look in the steam reviews. Players who played this game ranging from 300 to 2000 hours of gameplay are posting a negative reviews. Sadly almost all paint the very very similar picture. Players who play, love and like this game (well, like what it could be or what it somewhat maybe was) and that have hours of gameplay do not want to recommend this game! 

Red flags and warning are everywhere. They have been slowly pooping up for a year now. You almost killed the game after the "fine wood fiasco". So called "megapatch" made a little comeback of players into the NA only to start dropping out already. Devs, you had a few chances so far and wasted them , now you'r out of time and chances! 

So yea, this does not look good in the long run.. 

 

Edited June 10, 2017 by Rabid_Infidel

[Enemy]

Moria you completely nailed it with this.

i am somewhere between medium and hardcore player and actually been thinking of quitting again. 

 

Another game-breaking thing for me is-

for new players its even harder to be competetive. they get ganked for this pvp marks all day long and lose everything. not to think about getting resources for a new ship, again ganking.

 

pirates shouldnt be rated as a nation. their game mechanics give them already an advantage. they have the most players and nearly all resources. that is so unbalanced again. 

there should be a way to balance the amount of players per nation. also they should be limited to a certain amount of ports. they shouldnt be a NATION, they never have been one.

 

at this state of development i really dont know if there will be any improvement. with the wipe and patch it has become worse. i always played games with grind but there i had my goals which i knew i can reach. here i know i only can reach them with a big clan and a lot of luck. from 120 members we had, 6 are still playing. 

hopefully you guys will quickly improve the gameplay because now its simply just frustrating and annoying.

 

regards

[Peer den Schuymer]

Moira, I couldn't agree more. Lengthy but very true story

 

[Gysendorf]

Unluckily the devs are belo russians so you insultet them because you critizied their product. Any critic to the work of an eastern Europe person is in 99% a personal insult for that person. Thats my intercultural life expierence. So nice try but as all players (and me) we lost this discussion with the devs from that point if you say that not all is 100% great.

Btw an interessting idea would be that all players of PvP server, which are not in the leading clans of a nation, switch to PvE, the actual state of game is as you described only for those hardcore 24/7 gamers. I bet they are bored if they have only 100 person online in the prime time.

Btw many has changed in the 18th month, they lost from over 5000 active player to below 200 (before the mega patch) and they implementet armor thickness, I remember the time when a Trinc could  sink an npc Trinc with two carronade salvos - imho armorthicknes is a good idea. Than they implementet a new port battle system and you have to farm hostility what made it more challengeing for non leading clan players in a nation, you could be usefull besides as screener. Than they implemented the mega patch, with a mega amount of bugs that I havent seen since I started the game. For me as professional software tester is a new expierence with this patch - an epic massive downgrade in stability and functions - never seen such a deep hard cut before. They tried out some stuff which could have worked if they had been patience enough and they implemented stuff which kills the fun in the game (ship knowledge tree&actual state of PvE missions single only to rank 3 and fleet missions are actual totally out of order).

 

 

 

[Random]

Fully agree as well. 

[Cimbi]

Real question is:If 190-200 pve players have a server or game mod , if 200 hc players have a server, why dont make a game mod and a server a couple or thousend casual player? 

[Thomas Sailaway]

Oh dear, @admin, OP is spot on! Hope you read this and use this topic for your future plans for the game. Please do the UI, tutorials, cover all the different player aspects of the game, and stop the roundabout train you've been riding for the last 18 months!

 

[fox2run]

Pls make the game as in february 2016 except from the nice combat mechanisms. Please :-)

[Pad Seayew]

I just spent two hours chasing a wreck last night, never found it.  Turned back around to KPR, set the course and fell asleep.  Naval Action!

[AngryPanCake]

I am also a relatively new player with my 70 hours (50 H pre and some 20 H post wipe) and I agree with your overall assessment.

I do not believe the devs were trying to make it this hard on purpose, or at least I hope they did not do it on purpose, maybe they were thinking more like making it challenging, however, I feel they really overshot their mark and the game has become just too hard for new players to get into and even to the not so new players. As everyone knows, there is a difference between hard as in challenging and hard as in frustrating and the line can be very thin. In my limited and relatively short experience I feel it is becoming hard as in frustrating.

There are many little things that could make it a little easier, as in more intuitive, that are missing and I am hoping they will be added soon. On the other hand, there are also many little things that made this game more forgiving that were removed. Some of them to try to improve some other aspects of the PvP experience, others were removed for unclear reasons that I still can not understand. One thing I'm sure though, it is not to keep people from playing and continuing to play, otherwise this would be really ill-advised.

Anyway, I am hoping people will continue testing the game and its new patch and provide more feedback so the game succeeds. After all, this is an early release, a WIP and we are "testers", even though we are not paid to test, but the other way around: we paid to test.

[Gysendorf]

On 14.6.2017 at 0:49 AM, AngryPanCake said:

I am also a relatively new player with my 70 hours (50 H pre and some 20 H post wipe) and I agree with your overall assessment.

I do not believe the devs were trying to make it this hard on purpose, or at least I hope they did not do it on purpose, maybe they were thinking more like making it challenging, however, I feel they really overshot their mark and the game has become just too hard for new players to get into and even to the not so new players. As everyone knows, there is a difference between hard as in challenging and hard as in frustrating and the line can be very thin. In my limited and relatively short experience I feel it is becoming hard as in frustrating.

There are many little things that could make it a little easier, as in more intuitive, that are missing and I am hoping they will be added soon. On the other hand, there are also many little things that made this game more forgiving that were removed. Some of them to try to improve some other aspects of the PvP experience, others were removed for unclear reasons that I still can not understand. One thing I'm sure though, it is not to keep people from playing and continuing to play, otherwise this would be really ill-advised.

Anyway, I am hoping people will continue testing the game and its new patch and provide more feedback so the game succeeds. After all, this is an early release, a WIP and we are "testers", even though we are not paid to test, but the other way around: we paid to test.

The hardcore players had been crying so loud and long that they got their will. If you answer now question of newbies in nation chat you got insulted by them. Imho thats toxic behaviour and they act as they dont want new players - sometimes I think they also want that all non hardocre players leave the game. Maybe a MMO for 100 hardcore player would be their ideal world and the devs actual support it with the mega patch. I guess the hardcore players was the loudest fraction in the forum and the less criticizing players. It could be a wonderfull game - it had its potential.

If you wait one or two month the player base is back to a value around 500 on PvP1 but the interessting question would be if the frustrated players come back when the next wipe comes and is the starting cliff now high as the Himalaya or not? For sure the toxic behaviour of the hardcore players will be still there.