Time to hit the Reset Button

[Blackjack Morgan]

I think it is time someone said your overall plan on having RNG for overpowered upgrades and books was beyond a bad mistake. If I didn't know better I would say that the entire focus of NA is to actually drive it toward being a sandbox PVE centric focused game while you shift your efforts into Naval Action Legends. Virtually every single change that has been made post wipe has shifted the game more towards PVE. That could be looking at things at the macro level all the way down to the micro level. I don't like it but what really annoys me is I'd rather you just come out and admit this is going to be a PVE focused game. 

This isn't hardcore mode this is carebear mode. You want us to go grind countless ai for a chance at various mod skill upgrades so we can be on a level playing field with our PvP opponents? Some of these upgrades and skills are so damn powerful you are at a significant disadvantage if you don't have them. Why did you do this? Why did you turn a great skill based PvP game into one that rewards or punishes players so severely based off random drops? You made ships 1 dura because you wanted them to mean more? Ships mean even less to me now then they have in the past three years compared to what your gear based RNG driven combat system has become. I would gladly trade a ship I've crafted for some of the better books you have in game. 

Just decide what you want NA to be. This isn't hardcore to me in the least....unless you consider time consuming pve grinding to be hardcore. Grinding up xp on ships to unlock skills is stupid....does nothing to develop or enrich the playing experience. Having overpowered RNG drops for gear is not hardcore it's just massive carebear 101 game design. Revenge ganks is not, has never, and will never, result in these big ongoing massive battles you envision them to be....like this is beyond delusional.....you show me one circumstance that this has happened since you released OW and I will eat a turd. All of this and so much more is not what makes a game hardcore or provides pvp players with a sense of accomplishment or something to work toward....this is simply lazy game design to keep us busy for awhile. Eventually the carrot on the string stops working because we all have the carrot or have moved on.

Sad truth is that you had a pretty damn awesome game. You had so many people playing you had wait time just to even log in. You had extremely good reviews on Steam. But then came the stupid crap like "fine woods" and an inability to make Port Battle timers work.....oh and the announcement of a eminent wipe....tons of massive ai fleets added around ports as well as massive port defenses added to every backwater town in game killing off solo raiders. All this crap is what chased off a ton of your player base. PvP players are not happy with a lot of the current mechanics, PvE players are not satisfied with the depth of play, econ players will never be satisfied because it doesn't come close enough to real world economic models. Just go back to what the hell you were doing when we had so many people trying to play a damn EA game they had to wait in a que....I mean seriously it isn't that damn hard to figure out is it? Stop shooting yourselves in the foot.

Flame away.....get mad at me. I have played this game for a long time....I love it in so many ways. Every time I have told myself to walk away I've come back. Yea....I'm frustrated because it was so much closer to perfect than where we are headed now.

[fox2run]

Spot on!

[Blackjack Morgan]

So when all is said and done what was more fun? That is really all I'm asking.....my vote goes to when the servers were at max capacity and we had ques to just get on over what we have now. Sure, there are things I like about the game post wipe but a whole heck of a lot more that I don't. Why not just go back to what was working with maybe a few tweaks and move toward polishing things up over reinventing the wheel and losing the majority of the playerbase?

 

[TommyShelby]

+1 Blackjack. 

[Blackjack Morgan]

2 minutes ago, TommyShelby said:

+1 Blackjack. 

Thanks Tommy! I appreciate the support before I get blacklisted lol. You know I love NA and have supported this project just like many others. I'm probably just venting but I only do so because i so desperately want it to be great.

[Sir Lancelot Holland]

There are many valid points raised here, addressing those would go a long way to making NA the 'go to' game for Napoleonic naval warfare. One point that seems to be missing is incentive. Why spend a lot of time, gold and effort building ships, learning how to sail and fight them only to find there is no incentive to do so? Port battles for the sake of Port battles gets stale very quickly, yes they are fun and partly provides incentive, they have a place but where is the incentive to take a fleet to sea and fight the classical sea battle, the celebrated mix of line and general chase where ships of all rates have a place and function? Find that and I think you will grow from a Napoleonic shoot 'em up' to a real game of Napoleonic naval warfare. 

[SeaWolf_]

+1 OP is one of the first people that i pvped with against the brits on OW. The game has changed a lot for good and worse since then, but now its just focused on PVE and coast guarding. Maybe and hopefully the devs will wake up and start listening to the pvp veterans again, instead of the carebears and pvers.

Me along with SeaHyena has been around since mid july 2014 testing, and has been playing every patch, update and change since then. When a bad patch came out that we didn't like we gave our opinion but we still played and tested. When a good patch/changes came out we also gave our opinion on it, but now its so bad that not only us but a good part of our clan as well can not stand to play the game. Everything is targeted towards pve and not actual PvP.

Edited June 29, 2017 by SeaWolf_

[victor]

I have been saying since the patch hit.

THE problems are:

1) cost of basic materials that makes crafted ships too costly (then crafted ships are scarce on the market, cost a lot if you build it for yourself, and people are scared to loose them).

2) way too time wasted in OS sailing to make everything (and in particular OS PVP)

THE solution may be then:

for problem 1)

i) cutting oak, fir, hemp and iron price of 50%;

ii) allowing the crafring of "supplement dura" items for ships: when I craft a certain ship with certain woods I will be offered to possibility to craft - instead of the ship - a "furthter dura" item, that I can use (or sell) and that - when used - will add one dura to an existing ship in the port of the same kind and with the same woods of the one of the dura item.

for problem 2)

iii) bring back teleport also to free towns,eventually:

1) allowing the access to free towns only to traders and frigates up to fourth rate, thus excluding ships of line, and 

2) putting a daily cap to the number of teleport to a freetown;

iv) allowing the tow of ONE ship a day to another outpost (with no ships of the line tow allowed to freetowns)

 

[victor]

27 minutes ago, SeaWolf_ said:

+1 OP is one of the first people that i pvped with against the brits on OW. The game has changed a lot for good and worse since then, but now its just focused on PVE and coast guarding. Maybe and hopefully the devs will wake up and start listening to the pvp veterans again, instead of the carebears and pvers.

I am a PVE player and liked much more the game before the patch

My perception is that the mega patch - one dura, no teleport, costly ships and so on - has been implemented to answer to PVP players that asked for a more "hardcore" and "realist" and "difficult" game.

So blaming the carebears for what the game has become seems to me quite a strange attitude.

 

Edited June 29, 2017 by victor

[victor]

Just now, rediii said:

I disagree with 2.

Problem is the mechanic how to get out of fights. If you attack a region you have a huge risk that you lose your entire fleet, that's the problem and not that you have to sail there. Except for sweden everyone has a close enemy atm on pvp eu

Dear, you indentify the problem of the game with the problem of your gameplay.

So I agree that that ONE of the problems is the mechanic how to get out of fights. But that does not exclude that the other problems are existing as well.

Edited June 29, 2017 by victor

[Rikard Frederiksen]

Regarding upgrades, they should be scaled down, quite a bit; they are, as you rightly say, over the top at the moment. They should provide a small, noticable boost, but it must only be a small one. Perhaps the error can be also be found in the number of upgrade boxes available? Perhaps they should be cut back for all ships to, say, three permanent and three 'book' upgrades? Or base it around the ship's Rate, so that a 1st Rate has access to 3 permanent upgrade slots and 5 'book' slots, whilst the dinky 7th Rate has access to 1 permanent upgrade slot and 3 'book' slots? I don't know what the answer is, but my Pickle currently goes at 14.9 knots loaded, has cannon dispersion reduced, and several other bonuses that make it rather a mad little ship as it currently stands.*

Rewards for PvPing need to be examined and boosted. If you spend an hour fighting, you should get something worthwhile out of it. As an example, three [HEC] members (including yours truly) spent an hour and 17 minutes chasing, disabling and then boarding a Renommeé with our little Pickle schooners. We barely broke even financially upon taking it, and the guy who lost the Renommeé would have gotten nothing. Yes it was fun, but was it worth that much time? I love the danger of single durability ships and the loss it can entail, but at the same time there is a distinct lack of compensation for the time spent engaging in PvP. Why should we spend that time sailing off to another nation's waters, engaging a ship and chasing it for over an hour, when in that time we could go and do PvE missions and be rolling in money and experience?

Maybe we need PvP missions of some sort with a suitable reward? Pick the nation, get an objective and off you go. Perhaps getting rid of PvP marks was the wrong move? Perhaps something similar for fleets to enable the large scale PvP Sir Lancelot Holland mentioned further up. I wish I knew the answers.

*On a mildly related note, ship speeds need to be examined and, I think, reduced by 1-2 knots across the board. It can be ever so easy to push a ship to the 15 knot cap at the moment.

[victor]

Just now, rediii said:

Things you see as a problem are things i don't see as a problem.

You are a pve player, I'm a pvp player.

You want easy to get ships with multiple duras. I don't

so why just we do not propose things in order to have a game that solves the problem of both kind of players, instead of telling the devs just "solve only my problems and hello kitty the rest of the players"?

Edited June 29, 2017 by victor

[victor]

Just now, rediii said:

Because solving your problems (cheap ships, multiple duras) would create problems for me as a pvp player?  

And which is your problem?

Cheaper ships and multiple dura, less fear to loose ships, more OS PVP for you.

 

Edited June 29, 2017 by victor

[victor]

Just now, rediii said:

no chance to board ships and sell them on the market

sinking ships without impact or meaning

 

boring gameplay

How much gold would you earn selling captured ships in a desert world in which there will be only let's say 100 Os pvpers?

If there are more ships in the sea, you will board more and sell more, no?

Moreover - as far the second sentence - it seems you play more to damage other players than to have fun (or that your fun consists in damaging others). I am not so sure that a game based on this gameplay could survive on the long run.

Edited June 29, 2017 by victor

[Elbizor]

1 hour ago, rediii said:

There is no RvR right now because people still need ships. The people that have ships already are scared to lose them. () Or some people just hello kitty the experience of others and tag some guys with alt accounts so the nice sailshooting is happening again. 

Sadly most people are pretty slowly building up, once they are built up nations can start to do conquest.

 

I agree though that something has to happen about revenge ganking. (Like proposed various times)

RvR hasn't happened yet, so far people have been gathering resources and consolidating  their borders.

The devs have been leaning towards RvR I think, lets hope they got it right. 

When/if it does I hope its all I want it to be

[victor]

Just now, Otto Kohl said:

Why do you need multiple dura ships when you play on PvE ? PvE is easy as f#ck and has 0 risk of sinking.

Well, I'm a trader and crafter, so I get sunk sometimes. Anyway the reason is another, that crafrable duras will enhance the economy and production of ships. You know, duras will be bought to the PVPers also and they can benefit from them.

[victor]

6 minutes ago, rediii said:

multiple duras or onedura is no argument for a empty server. It could be a argument about a server without you but i can live with that

you are a pve player so I understand why you write the second part. Impact of your actions in PvP plays a big role. If i know i can trow my ship away anytime it doesn't mean anything to me to sink or to play PvP. Knowing that you can loose (a lot) of stuff is important for me in this game. The same is important for me and others in RvR when we know it does matter if we constantly win OW PvP battles or that it does matter that you sink a whole enemy fleet inside a portbattle and not just win.

As I don't argument that PvE shouldn't be in the game and missions should be gone you shouldn't argument that PvP shouldn't have a impact  

You identify PVE with missions? Well you are wrong. The important part of PVE that influences PVP and RvR is crafting (and, to a certain extent, also trading). Since in one server PVE and PVP are connected, I am perfectly entitled to talk about the problems of the cost of accessbility of the ships and about the timesinks in OS navigation.

Problem is that a lot of PVPers do not realize that - in a MMO game - they just burn the resources that other players produce. So if those "other player" stop producing (or if they produce at a very low pace) also the PVP players will have much less to burn and, then, their gameplay also gets worse.

Edited June 29, 2017 by victor

[Corona Lisa]

They buried this amazing combat system underneath so much boring bullshit like the PvE grind or afk sailing its just sad

[Elbizor]

12 minutes ago, Peter Goldman said:

I wonder, so we get all best PvP players in the game trying to explain Developers that the things are going into wrong direction, but there is very little answer / commentary from them about it. I haven't seen them admit that it's true. We've been through all these problems in past already and they are back again... Just after we got rid of them:

1. RNG
2. PvE Grind
3. Revenge Fleets
4. Very Expensive Ships (We had already Fine Woods...)
5. Very Little Rewards for PvP (This problem occurs for the very first time, I believe, huge downgrade from past)

 

1. im ok with it

2. As we're all rear admirals the devs think we need some grind to give us a goal

3. Yep many good ideas already

4. big ships should be expensive though corvettes shouldn't be.

5. I like the idea of a reputation/renown rank, separate to ship rank we have now, that you get points for pvp ( more points against some one higher that you, less for some one lower)

[Elbizor]

Just now, Peter Goldman said:

@Elbizor so instead of PvP & RvR on the PvP Server, our goal is to grind, grind, grind, PvE, grind, grind, trade, trade, so we have something to do, right?

I did say the Devs Think

[Siegfried]

@victor, in all this time multidura ships were tested and people was afraid to lose ships the same as now. Even free ships, people will run.

You are right about the prices and difficulty of crafting, but not about teleports and freetowns. I think the freeetowns would be removed even. If you want to attack enemy, you can do it from the nearest national port, not unrrealistic ports inside factions.

[Rychu Karas]

Blackjack,I totally agree with your every single word you wrote here.

This is how NA looks atm. everything in this game become a one big WTF!!!1. by pvp combat focus they mean MOAR BOT FARMING, by better for you, they mean MOAR fakin bot farming. By less RNG in crafting, They mean MOAR BOT FARMING for RNG LOOT

everything is flipped over.

 

Where is this great game, I was dreaming about!!111111

Edited June 29, 2017 by Rychu Karas

[Justme]

28 minutes ago, victor said:

You identify PVE with missions? Well you are wrong. The important part of PVE that influences PVP and RvR is crafting (and, to a certain extent, also trading). Since in one server PVE and PVP are connected, I am perfectly entitled to talk about the problems of the cost of accessbility of the ships and about the timesinks in OS navigation.

Problem is that a lot of PVPers do not realize that - in a MMO game - they just burn the resources that other players produce. So if those "other player" stop producing (or if they produce at a very low pace) also the PVP players will have much less to burn and, then, their gameplay also gets worse.

Problem is with PVE only players is that they don't realize.

 

1. This game will not survive as PVE only. No matter how much you want it, just won't happen.

2. PVE only gameplay ( in NA) is almost 0 risk. No risk of getting sunk and losing ships, no reason to replace them, which leads to boring and tedious gameplay, which leads to empty servers( aka PVE only server)

 

 

[Elbizor]

Just now, Peter Goldman said:

You sounded like supporting this path, though.

no no, just my opinion of why we have it.  

[Ruthless4u]

I still think the game will end up like what I posted here