Letter from a Filthy Casual

[IndianaGeoff]

Yes, I am that player.  The Casual one on global.  Lately I have been able to play more, but usually it is 1 or 2 or 3 hours a night.  I also admit I am a totally average player.  I can sail in fleets and not break my team mates stuff maybe even hit the other side with some accuracy.  I can play AI at my level and win.  I enjoy collecting mats and building ships as much as fighting.

I have played the game for quite a while.  Like most I have gotten more involved since the patch.  Pre patch I got my levels and maxxed crafting.

But for me a game like this is Work vs Fun.  How much work do I have to do to have fun.  Fun can be crafting a new ship, sailing with buds chasing other players, doing a port battle or just smashing some AI's.  I don't consider grinding for gold or mats to be fun, but part of the price.

Right now, the work does not equal the fun.  Thank goodness I didn't have to grind levels in crafting in this patch.  My hat is off to anyone trying to do it now.

But with the ability to make any ship in the game, I am done.  I was looking at it last night and after setting up an economy, collecting mats and gold I am on the cusp of making mid tier ships.  I am looking at about six hours of grinding gold, then getting the mats go to Shipyard 2 and making a reno for chasing Pirates.  I was looking at those six hours and... It is not worth it.  I don't expect to have enough fun after those six to justify it.  Mind you, I have multiple PC's and some other accounts so it is vastly easier for me than most in my situation.  Yes, alts are common.  Why not. 40 bucks and you can save your self HOURS of grinding.

The whole switch nations at the drop of the hat has been an unmitigated disaster.  It has concentrated the better players all in one nation with everyone else just being something to beat up.  In the old days, you could switch, but it cost you everything.  Now players jump from side to side.  Yes many are the "look for the winning team" people, but it also concentrated those with the time and skill to be the best players.  I think this has made the game even more toxic. 

Once again, the problem with this is the effect on new players.  I like to see new players in my clan, give them a decent ship and go out and do AI missions with them.  But now the ship building costs are too high and they won't be around after a month or two. Why should they?  They are not good enough and leveled enough to go fight other players.  They will save up, get that trader brig, do a few missions and then get sunk, losing all they invested (capping AI ships will help this some).  Yes, a very intense player will get past this, but this game needs good casuals more than the future top players.

Now missions.  This one is a personal pet peeve.  I looked at one last night.  Sailing Ivory to Charleston.  The Ivory is available at the opposite side of the map in the southern Islands.  So let me get this right, I can take my traders brig (assuming the order will fit in one ship), sail 2 or 3 hours to enemy waters and through many hostile zones, drop 100k to buy the Ivory and then sail it back to basically double my money.  Yea... right.  I would love to see a mission like this that was worth it.  Double my money and make 100k... Nope.  Invest that time and 100k to turn it into 500k?  Maybe, but probably not.  Too much risk when I can do a six hour grind of my trade routes and make the same.  Now make it worth a Million... Heck yes.  And guess what, if you did that, players would have fat, long distance traders to hunt.  What would that million get a Filthy Casual?  Well, I would finish my shipyard, build a couple ships and maybe buy an extra ship slot.  But no.  I will just fire up my alt (in one of the big nations) and run my <random crap> from one free port to another and make a 100k in an hour.  Make 50k on the return trip and have zero risk.  Boring.

When I look back, the most fun period for me was the era of flag drops for ports.  Yes, the port battle site was crap, but the action was fun.  Grabbing a flag, running with your buds to plant it while the other side mobilized to get the flag.  If you got it planted, you jumped in the fight and had at it.  New players could do it in small ships, the islands were a constant war zone with larger missions to take the bigger ports.  At any time you could see a flag pulled on your side and off you went to stop the attack.  I learned to play back then and most nights, there was a reason to log in and have at it.  The current meta has nothing like this.  The bar is too high for new players in the big port battles.  The end result is they are always watching the big players do the port battle while they sit outside and screen.  If you do get new players into the PB, they will be crushed because the other side has a full fleet of maxxed ships with good captains.

I look at it this way, the time I spend is only worth it if the game will be around long enough to justify it.  Right now it is not.  Sure I can have fun.  But when I look at what a new player has to go through to get to a decent level with decent ships... it's not gonna happen.  The player base will wither and we will be back to 80 people playing.  And by Playing, it is a handful of players sailing around looking for a fight that will be with the same people every night if you find each other.  That just was not fun and it is where the game is sailing, full speed.

I don't have fixes for this.  But then again, I don't have to.  There is a universe of games to play.  I can play Elite Dangerous.  The PVP is not as good (for me) but the exploration is a lot more fun so grinding is a LOT better.  I can play Albion Online.  In a couple hours I can achieve a goal, craft some gear or go kill stuff.  I can do World of Tanks.  There I can have all the toxicity of Naval Action with fight after fight with no waiting. 

The time invested to have fun is not worth it in Naval Action right now.  I might pop in every now and then to smash an AI with a grey ship, but I am not feeling the desire to put serous time into the game any longer.  It won't be worth it since the game will wither back to what it was six months ago.

[shaeberle84]

Agreed 99%.

[mikawa]

1 hour ago, IndianaGeoff said:

When I look back, the most fun period for me was the era of flag drops for ports. 

Yeah, this was *really* fun! You have hit the nerve with your post. I am a casual player too and I really love the frigates and when I a saw NA first, I thought my childhood dream had come true and I dropped a very good review on steam. But many things have changed, I understand the need for some long term motivation and the need to restrict first rates in game. But do we really have a long term motivation? It gets killed by boredom and long term frustration, I guess. And do we have less first rates? Ha ha, joking. The last port battle at Basse Terre ... It didn't look like we have ... First rates all over. I think this game needs the same good concept for OW as we have already (since a long time) in the battle instances. Hope this will change in the future and we get the big hit game we all look for.

Edited July 27, 2017 by mikawa
typos

[Wind Catcher]

Can't agree more, they need to take few steps back and make this game more fun. 

[Hodo]

Outside of the action going on around Isle de Pinos on Global the hostility grind hasnt generated a lot of PVP. 

Overall it appears every choice the developer has made to make the game more realistic and balanced has turned into ash right in front of his eyes. 

[Janwin]

As another largely casual and newly returned player, I have much of the same concerns about whether or not the time I invest into the game will be worth it, and whether the game will even exist in 6 months.

One thing that's concerned me a lot is the extremely toxic environment in the game.  I switched nations largely because the conversations that were going on in the US nation chat on Global when I came back were just arguments and bickering.  If you were a new player, would you stick around if your first experience with the game was a toxic playerbase and a massively steep learning curve?  Probably not.  And I feel like that's going to continue to be a large problem with gaining and retaining new players unless people take a moment to step back, take a breath, and realize that this is just a game.

[IndianaGeoff]

3 hours ago, mikawa said:

Yeah, this was *really* fun! You have hit the nerve with your post. I am a casual player too and I really love the frigates and when I a saw NA first, I thought my childhood dream had come true and I dropped a very good review on steam. But many things have changed, I understand the need for some long term motivation and the need to restrict first rates in game. But do we really have a long term motivation? It gets killed by boredom and long term frustration, I guess. And do we have less first rates? Ha ha, joking. The last port battle at Basse Terre ... It didn't look like we have ... First rates all over. I think this game needs the same good concept for OW as we have already (since a long time) in the battle instances. Hope this will change in the future and we get the big hit game we all look for.

The only thing that restricting first rates has done is make the game even more top heavy.  The best nations and captains (with lots of time to play) will be so far ahead of every one else, there is no need to try to compete.  Personally, I think a 25 first rate vs a 25 first rate battle is stupid on it's face.  It should be a couple first rates, 5 second rates, 10 third rates and the rest sprinkled below.   I have no idea how that would be done, but that is the way it should be.

[IndianaGeoff]

1 hour ago, Janwin said:

As another largely casual and newly returned player, I have much of the same concerns about whether or not the time I invest into the game will be worth it, and whether the game will even exist in 6 months.

One thing that's concerned me a lot is the extremely toxic environment in the game.  I switched nations largely because the conversations that were going on in the US nation chat on Global when I came back were just arguments and bickering.  If you were a new player, would you stick around if your first experience with the game was a toxic playerbase and a massively steep learning curve?  Probably not.  And I feel like that's going to continue to be a large problem with gaining and retaining new players unless people take a moment to step back, take a breath, and realize that this is just a game.

The game has gone World of Tanks level toxic.  Not quite to League of Legends, but there may be time before the player base craters.

[Eyesore]

You chose to cheat with an alt, and then you complain that things are too easy? I'm sorry, you won't get any sympathy from me.

I have not used any  redeemables (as a soloplayer, without a clan backing me up). Crafting is not that hard. Yes, you have to invest a lot of money in upgrading all your stuff.

It's your own fault for wanting everything immediately. Grow up and play the game, adapt to the situation and stop cheating.

[IndianaGeoff]

2 minutes ago, Eyesore said:

You chose to cheat with an alt, and then you complain that things are too easy? I'm sorry, you won't get any sympathy from me.

I guess you really didn't read it after all.

[Prater]

4 hours ago, IndianaGeoff said:

But with the ability to make any ship in the game, I am done.  I was looking at it last night and after setting up an economy, collecting mats and gold I am on the cusp of making mid tier ships.  I am looking at about six hours of grinding gold, then getting the mats go to Shipyard 2 and making a reno for chasing Pirates.  I was looking at those six hours and... It is not worth it.  I don't expect to have enough fun after those six to justify it.  Mind you, I have multiple PC's and some other accounts so it is vastly easier for me than most in my situation. 

I would agree with this right here.  I grinded a few hundred combat marks to get 3 frigate skill books.  Then I grinded 50 combat marks for a LGV blueprint.  I then gathered the supplies, look at the bp, need lvl 2 shipyard, ok, no problem.  Look at requirements to upgrade to lvl 2 shipyard...wth, 500k gold, 1000 oak logs, 1000 iron fittings, 500 stone blocks.  Then I still need 20 combat marks for gazelle.  Uh, that burned me out bad seeing that after 2 weeks of grinding ai to get skill books for frigates and then I see the requirements for the shipyard.  

[Hethwill]

Marks - I was expecting them to be a Admiralty honor badge for well executed orders/combat against enemy nations - hostility, pvp, port battles. So PvErs could gain them from hostility points done against fleets, OW PvPers gain them with OW raids, combat, etc, and Port Battle admirals and captains in the line get them from their favourite arena mode.

Instead they are turned into a necessity, not a reward.

Also, in truth, it is not hard for 4 players to build an empire, to carve their own little world of naval action playing as much as 2 hours per day and some only play a evening per week. Newcomers have it harsh still mainly due to a overwhelming amount of information and very little guidance.

Casuals is simply a captain that sets realistic objectives to the time it invests, usually the objective is per session - do a mission, trade some goods, sail to a port, enter a PvP battle, sail with some friends and do all the mentioned, etc. When done, logout. Next day login and continue its "journey". That's how much casual it can be in Open World.

 

[Eyesore]

Then don't grind for the upgrades? If everybody is ok with the use of alts, then their should not be any complaints about 'grinding'? Just cheat as is expected/promoted and there is no more problem.

Sure requirements are steep, but if you set your goal at a reasonable date, instead of 'right now', 'immediately' or 'tomorrow', you'll get there. The grind is only there if you choose it to be, that first rate will be there a week or a month later aswell. Or do you guys want a game that you play for 14 days, max out and then play another one?

[Captain John Keats]

I firmly agree with the OP. To add weight to the point about the  current mechanics in order to open a PB: as much as the flag system was abused, one could log in any night of the week and join some group, flotilla or fleet and try to capture a port and realistically expect some sort of fight. 

 

Right now, (I feel) that if you don't have the best of the best equipped ship (which I don't right now) you have no place in these heavily contested PB, that's not because they are so important, but mostly because they are so rare. 

[Vernon Merrill]

The ONLY thing fun about 1st rates is catching them in the open and sinking them....

 

[IndianaGeoff]

2 hours ago, Eyesore said:

Then don't grind for the upgrades? If everybody is ok with the use of alts, then their should not be any complaints about 'grinding'? Just cheat as is expected/promoted and there is no more problem.

Sure requirements are steep, but if you set your goal at a reasonable date, instead of 'right now', 'immediately' or 'tomorrow', you'll get there. The grind is only there if you choose it to be, that first rate will be there a week or a month later aswell. Or do you guys want a game that you play for 14 days, max out and then play another one?

As I said, I can do it.  But I don't have to grind combat and crafting levels.  Those are done.  Just collecting the stuff to craft is a huge chore for a casual.  If I look at it from a brand new players perspective, No Frigate Way.  Without a steady influx of new players who stay around for a while, the game is doomed.  If the game goes back to the state it was just pre reset, it won't be worth it.  Not enough gameplay to bother with as a regular thing.

And I am not expecting a 14 day to a 1st rate.  It is a month of work  (or however long since the reset) to get a reno.  I have no expectation of getting a first rate ever unless I get it through my clan.  I could have gotten there faster by just doing trading, but I am not playing a trading simulator.  Even as I say that, often trading is so intense that the inventory on saleable items is low and the ports that take the trade goods are full and not buying after a round or two of moving the stuff.

As far as the alts, they help the grind.  There are some materials that are in enemy waters that I can set up buildings for instead of roaming around, hoping not to get ganked while I check inventory, or grind for money to buy it from someone.  Alts do not end grinding... just make it a bit more efficient.  And you can complain about them all you want, crafting alts are pervasive.  The exploit alts are subject to banishment, but still pretty darn universal.  Just having one logged into the game for the nation chat is very useful.  And to set the record straight, I only use them for collecting mats and grinding money.  I do not grief, port spy or exploit.  That is true for most people.

Edited July 27, 2017 by IndianaGeoff

[IndianaGeoff]

2 hours ago, Prater said:

I would agree with this right here.  I grinded a few hundred combat marks to get 3 frigate skill books.  Then I grinded 50 combat marks for a LGV blueprint.  I then gathered the supplies, look at the bp, need lvl 2 shipyard, ok, no problem.  Look at requirements to upgrade to lvl 2 shipyard...wth, 500k gold, 1000 oak logs, 1000 iron fittings, 500 stone blocks.  Then I still need 20 combat marks for gazelle.  Uh, that burned me out bad seeing that after 2 weeks of grinding ai to get skill books for frigates and then I see the requirements for the shipyard.  

We are like opposites.  I have the gold, most of the logs, fittings and blocks.  But only enough marks (with the redeemable) to build the ship I want.  I still have that grind for uprade marks.  And really, these days you need two of those ships.  To be top tier, you need to fight the ship in AI to level it up.  A fast PVP ship is crap in missons.  So you really need to build a fast one for PVP and a tough one to grind missions.

Edited July 27, 2017 by IndianaGeoff

[Eyesore]

I understand why people use alts, I still consider it a cheat.

There are enough threads explaining why they are a problem, convenience is hardly an excuse. How does it help the development if all mechanics are allowed to be circumvented? How will you see how things can work as intended?

I restarted from zero, on my own (we are 'testing' after all), sure it takes time, sure there are setbacks,I craft for myself and sometimes even give new players a free or at bottomprice ship (6-7th rate, 5th rate will have to wait a bit longer). Granted, doing it for the second time has obvious advantages, but I still think it is doable for a new player to get passed that barrier. Is it hard? It is. Will you lose your ship and get bankrupt? Definately. Will you learn from those mistakes? You'd better. Figuring out how to play is the point of starting to play a new game? I have been given 2 (captured) ships recently, just for participating(shooting sails with a 6th rate)/helping/screening with the people/clans that are obviously way ahead of me, I didn't even had to ask if I could get a ship, they just offered, I tried to even give it back. Sure, some new players don't stick it out, they will always be there, I have games I only played once, that doesn't mean they are bad games or something is wrong with them.

When looking at the missions ... Who says you have to buy all those things at once? They can be looted, or bought closer to where you need to deliver them, etc. Many ways to go about such an endevaour. Whose fault is it that the player picks a mission where he has to deliver in the middle of ennemy territory, or on the other side of the map? Maybe plan those things a bit? Not everything will be possible or make sense at a given time, but maybe tomorrow or next week or ... ? No, people only want most profit and then complain that things are 'impossible'. You're not going to go up against those fleets in an epic event on your own, why would you consider a deliverymission with the same expected outcome?

I liked the flagpulling era most aswell. Every evening there was a fight, definately screening, maybe a PB. Everybody had an opportunity to get into a PB aswell as there where so many. After that it all went downhill, it was never so exciting in ow again.

[Jean Ribault]

This is probably just a matter of adapting, for us players that have been around a while.  It is a lot harder in today's game than a year ago, but maybe we all just got spoiled by having everything available to us all the time in a short and easy manner.  We need to change perspective on this to some degree.  At the same time, I think devs have missed the boat on players starting out fresh and need to provide a boost so that they can advance more quickly at first while they're learning.  If new players hit a wall in the first week they aren't going to stick around.  I also believe it should be easier to craft or get ships, they are the real currency of the game.

[Nelsons Barrel]

Allowing alts is the biggest mistake the devs ever made in this game. Yes they made a huge load of money through it, but it backfires. Nearly every exploit and most of tribunals involve alt accounts. There is a reason every other MMO has as rule #1 "no alt accounts". No you can't just forbid them without getting shitstormed by alt account owners.

[IndianaGeoff]

Alts are a side issue and not an significant issue to my point.

[Jean Ribault]

2 hours ago, IndianaGeoff said:

Alts are a side issue and not an significant issue to my point.

Well, even if one does not consider ALT's as an "issue" per se, the fact does still remain - even as you yourself acknowledged above - that many players find spending another $40 easier and/or less offensive than gathering materials or crafting in the manner that the dev's intended.  So if you are an alpha purist who wants the bugged mechanics to be worked out of the game, then you must consider ALT's a problem, or as a min an unnecessary workaround.  Just my take on it, at any rate.

I think you make some good points.

By the way, this is coming from a double-filthy player, because I'm not only casual, but also tend to play mostly solo......Oh, the horror.

Edited July 28, 2017 by Jean Ribault

[Barbancourt]

13 hours ago, IndianaGeoff said:

Now missions.  This one is a personal pet peeve.  I looked at one last night.  Sailing Ivory to Charleston.  The Ivory is available at the opposite side of the map in the southern Islands.  So let me get this right, I can take my traders brig (assuming the order will fit in one ship), sail 2 or 3 hours to enemy waters and through many hostile zones, drop 100k to buy the Ivory and then sail it back to basically double my money.  Yea... right.  I would love to see a mission like this that was worth it. 

When I first looked at the delivery mission listings in Fort Royal they were all delivering large quantities of heavy stuff into enemy captials and dangerous free towns like that, and I gave up on the idea of delivery missions entirely.  Then recently someone pointed out to me that delivery missions are different in every port, and there are some really easy ones here and there.  They don't pay much money, but they do make a little XP that is helping my crafting XP grind.  The same mission will spawn repeatedly for a period of time, so you can make a little stockpile of the goods run it several times in a row.

[CaptVonGunn]

On 7/27/2017 at 9:36 AM, Eyesore said:

You chose to cheat with an alt, and then you complain that things are too easy? I'm sorry, you won't get any sympathy from me.

Playing the Game is designed is not cheating

[EdWatchmaker]

Very interesting thread.

Yes, I too am a filthy casual that also plays solo mostly. The time I have in my "spare time" just doesn't allow more than an hour or two a day for games, and I do play other games mostly RPGs. Yes, I am one of those craven, nasty, filthy snakes that has an ALT ( Oh, Lord how my very soul withers at the admission). Do you know why I have an alt? I'll tell you why. So I can play with my family or friends when they come to visit. My brothers and sisters live in different places than I and don't play computer games ( Think it's a silly waste of time). I can set it up and get them on my main computer with it's nice big monitor, I on the laptop, and we can go sailing together. They are WOWED by the stunning beauty of the open world of this game. Last time my brother was here I showed him how to board and capture me. Next round I blasted the snot out of him, but he gave as good as he got and sank me. He had great fun and I loved it. Do I use my alt otherwise? Yes I do. I role play and they are two compleatly different characters. 

Next. For more and better PVP I would like to see something like the flag system brought back maybe in combination with a reworked system of hostility grinding. One port at a time instead of whole regions. Perhaps it would get more players involved, if you valued your home you would be more interested in defending it even if all you could do was screen. Though I'm mostly a trader and crafter (don't PVP much) I think it was much better when one port at a time was being contested rather than regions. There seemed to be much more excitement in running a flag to a port and it being chased. Also it seemed that more low level players got in on the action.

Next. Toxic players. I know first hand it is a thorn. I've met some and I generally ignore them. If they are in my nation there is nothing they can do except flap their jaws and blabber their heads off. I just go about my business and have fun. If they are from another nation and try to grief me, I surrender ASAP, go about my business in another area. It's a big map and I have no time for that type of person. In my experience in this game the population is overwhelmingly awesome. I have met some of the best people from all over the world. My hat is off to them and I bow deeply in appreciation. 

Next. New players. Given the steep learning curve it is the duty of each of us older players to help and guide them, but not dote on them. They must be allowed to find their own way. So many, both claned and clanless, helped me and taught me when I first got the game. There are also all the excellent player made videos and guides.

Finally. I do think that this game will have a good long life. Where is it going? Toward fun. How is it going to get there? A lot of bashed elbows and scraped shins from the stumbles and falls. Probably an occasional running into a brick wall or unopened door. " Ouch! My head hurts!" I have watched and played and read. I think the end result will be something I'll play for a long time.

Have a great day.