Server Health is a Game Design Issue

[Dharus]

6 minutes ago, admin said:

We will launch before skull and bones on consoles too. (hopefully). Its hard to unsee the proper tracking shot and they don't have it.

Ugh... A sailor loses his ponytail for people who like Disney sailing games.

[Christoph]

54 minutes ago, admin said:

But again.. i will use @Tenet phrase and say one thing. As it seemed the topic moved on from what we want to address. 

Perhaps its time community lift their ass from the chairs if they want NA to continue to be developed. As we see a strange mechanic.
People who ARE SUPPOSEDLY interested in the game stay silent - while some really upset people run around and TAKE time shitting in positive reviews
like this:

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198251680420/recommended/311310/
0 of users found it helpful.. you know why? because haters actually spend time and down vote positive reviews. 
Sometimes they takedown positive reviews as breaking community standards. 
Yet 67% of players still like it. The negative voice is overwhelming just because it is louder.

Where is our community here?

Its a two way street. We want to see community do something about it. Otherwise this is not a community - its just consumers vs a seller. relationship and we should change our ways accordingly. bringing real fans closer but sending all consumers to steam to read news and announcements and occasional mod messages. 

Make the ship Speed in the Open World faster. 

When the ship is 50k away from Port make it 100% faster and we need a new hostility System.  No boring pve battles please.

 

Edited August 15, 2017 by Christoph

[Tenet]

 

Just now, Lord Vicious said:

Split a 500 ppl community      into 2 very similar games.  how gonna end for NA. cmon  you think i am an idiot?   you think NA gonna sourvive with 200 ppl on and 300 playng legends?

You just wanna sell another game, na is not making anymore $ i got it, but dont threat us like idiots plz.      I agree combat is best part of Na, and rest is meh..   and probably legends will be a better product since it will benefit from years of polishing of na combat,  but that also mean the death of NA. 

Yeah it's a concern, but you are "concern trolling" right now.

Let me tell you a secret, in MMO terms Naval Action is Dead now. There is brain function, but it's not among the living. I was concerned about Naval Legends but to be honest "what is dead can never die". 

What we are hoping for in this thread is a slow recovery. We limp and crawl towards an unsuspecting Steam Sale participant and eat their brain, then limp to the next one, and try to get attrition down to 50% (Impossible I know!) and eat another brain until we have 2500 players again and Admin gets featured on Gamasutra with "Necromancy" in the title. 

That's the only hope, and it doesn't matter for a niche' title whether there is competition or not.

Let me tell you about other brains waiting to be eaten -

If the game has decent RvR with open-world and loot mechanics, I can start going on the Forums of some of the RvR clans I know from other games and proposing Naval Action as a chapter. Most of them had people look at the game already and discard - we will be able to convince them to have a second look, particularly if Admin distributes some limited time keys or something. Between that and advertising among existing accounts it would be possible to recover IF the game is worth playing.

The frustration is primarily because of how close it is to that state - IF - we could work out the incentive and travel systems right.

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, vazco said:

 

You created a great combat simulator. You have a problem with PR and with creating mechanics that are stable and hook people to stay for longer. Invest - hire someone to fix them, launch NA2 with a new payment model, and you can have large profits.

Demand from yourself though, not others. Your ratings went down mostly due to a bad PR approach. 

I have taken the liberty to hightlight two issues that I partly agree with and partly underlines the cronic development problems that has plagued the game for the past year.

1) Little to no experience in developing MMOs. This is not a critique of the combat simulation but a critique of the lacking insight into developinging engaging game mechanics. - Solution: Hire a project manager. This game is riddled with poor gamedesign decisions many of which are tried and tried again. Because for some reason devs apparently believe that one failure will spawn the next succes - if you only do it exactly the same over and over again. Examples of this includes but are not limited to: Treasure fleet (worst "event" ever) and the ship speeds immediately post-wipe (we have actually had 15kn ships before and the issue became the same - boring OW PvP and everyone went with the EZ mode ships). Another problem is the many changes - needed changes mind you - to PvP RoE. I'm not saying that those changes hasn't been necessary but they don't give an impression of a gamedevelopment that has a true heading. Another issue here is the lack of insight into gaming culture - most of us like to play OW but we have families, jobs etc. and can't waste hours just getting to the hotspots. Reintroduce TP to FT please (among a whole list of changes).

I say this not to critizise the entirety of the game, but to underscore the fact that I'm getting tired of having to waddle through the same mistakes from the devs. 

The second part I'd like to adress is the issue about payments. I do not believe that a business model with subscriptions is going to survive for long. The simple fact is that there are a lot (as in A LOT) of f2p games out there that offers pretty much the same as NA just with microtransactions. We can call these games P2W but in reality most of the in-game assets that can be purchased are cosmetic. I believe this route would yield both stronger profits for the company and a more secure financing for the game overall..

[Nelsons Barrel]

5 minutes ago, Tenet said:

Let me tell you a secret, in MMO terms Naval Action is Dead now. There is brain function, but it's not among the living. I was concerned about Naval Legends but to be honest "what is dead can never die". 

What we are hoping for in this thread is a slow recovery. We limp and crawl towards an unsuspecting Steam Sale participant and eat their brain, then limp to the next one, and try to get attrition down to 50% (Impossible I know!) and eat another brain until we have 2500 players again and Admin gets featured on Gamasutra with "Necromancy" in the title. 

Your optimism in all honor, as long as the devs stay the same that we have right now, the game will not get a rebirth. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, you know?

[Tenet]

Hire a Project Manager is EASY to say but VERY hard to do: 

Good Game Design is NOT taught in schools. If they try to hire someone like that, chances are they will get someone who CLAIMS to be competent but actually will just mess it up.

COMMUNITY - Crowdsourcing - Consensus - Backers. These are the keywords to streamlining the design. 

People who put their money on the line and convince others backers to keep voting for them every election.

If I wanted to ask questions about OW PvP I would be interrogating someone like Koltes or Slamz or Red Duke or even KoC - because they are the ones that do it the most and if they reach consensus the suggestion is likely to be interesting - and then I would cross reference it against a similar panel made up of people of an entirely different mindset - Economy or RvR players, to see if they object and if their objections can be reconciled. If I wanted to question RvR mechanics I would similarly look at people from the most successful RvR clans on both servers. 

No Project Manager has their level of experience because they simply never passed through the pressure of competition at that level.

Edited August 15, 2017 by Tenet

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Tenet said:

Hire a Project Manager is EASY to say but VERY hard to do: 

Good Game Design is NOT taught in schools.

A friend of mine is a game-studio expert, with vast knowledge of the industry - he says that we can put all game designers on a plane, and if it crashes, the industry will lose the least 20 years of progress. 

If they try to hire someone like that, chances are they will get someone who CLAIMS to be competent but actually will just mess it up.

COMMUNITY - Crowdsourcing - Consensus - Backers. These are the keywords to streamlining the design. 

People who put their money on the line and convince others backers to keep voting for them every election.

If I wanted to ask questions about OW PvP I would be interrogating someone like Koltes or Slamz or Red Duke or even KoC - because they are the ones that do it the most and if they reach consensus the suggestion is likely to be interesting - and then I would cross reference it against a similar panel made up of people of an entirely different mindset - Economy or RvR players, to see if they object and if their objections can be reconciled. If I wanted to question RvR mechanics I would similarly look at people from the most successful RvR clans on both servers. 

If there was such an isolated forum I could also try and bring experts from other games - for example I can probably reach the leaders of the top 3 clans in World of Tanks Clan Wars from 2014-2017. They know a lot about issues with alliances, incentives to fight, timezone issues and RvR. 

No Project Manager has their level of experience because they simply never passed through the pressure of competition at that level.

A project manager couldn't do any worse..

[Tenet]

1 minute ago, Bearwall said:

A project manager couldn't do any worse..

Where is the downvote button? Someone that gets a paycheck without being able to actually help is "much worse" already.

Please don't full-quote for a one-liner, I edited out some unnecessary stuff and you are keeping it up... 

[Cockeyed Callaway]

45 minutes ago, admin said:

But again.. i will use @Tenet phrase and say one thing. As it seemed the topic moved on from what we want to address. 

Perhaps its time community lift their ass from the chairs if they want NA to continue to be developed. As we see a strange mechanic.
People who ARE SUPPOSEDLY interested in the game stay silent - while some really upset people run around and TAKE time shitting in positive reviews
like this:

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198251680420/recommended/311310/
0 of users found it helpful.. you know why? because haters actually spend time and down vote positive reviews. 
Sometimes they takedown positive reviews as breaking community standards. 
Yet 67% of players still like it. The negative voice is overwhelming just because it is louder.

Where is our community here?

Its a two way street. We want to see community do something about it. Otherwise this is not a community - its just consumers vs a seller. relationship and we should change our ways accordingly. bringing real fans closer but sending all consumers to steam to read news and announcements and occasional mod messages. 

I will be as diplomatic as possible here and suggest that the reason many an "ass has been lifted from their chair" but toward the negative side, may be due to statements such as this. How many people have been banned because of statement that are negative or misunderstood by the developers on these forums? Those people aren't going to just go quietly into the night. How many have been posting regularly about problems they find that make the game harder to play. they don't go quietly into the night. That small group of diehards you listened to is far outnumbered by players that just want to sit down and have fun for an hour. Those unlisten to players do not go quietly into the night.

 I have to be honest, it is not a "two way street." You are the service provider and we are your customers. Any business that blames its customer needs to reassess its business model.

10 minutes ago, admin said:

Legends will be a better game for those who hate current NA.
Those who love hunting/trading/crafting/sailing will not move there. 

Its a good signal. And timely. We will launch before skull and bones on consoles too. (hopefully). Its hard to unsee the proper tracking shot and they don't have it. There is no point to continue to shove ow travel into throats of players who don't want to travel and just want to combat. 

Legions was already released...it was called Naval Action. Asking for your patrons to rebuy, what they already purchased is a stretch. The truth is you should have released Legions/Naval Action first, then started work on Naval Action/Legions.

3 minutes ago, admin said:

Why we are talking about legends in this topic. All companies have products competing with each other from apple to mcdonalds. In this case propositions are drastically different. 
Vast caribbean open world with hunting for real humans
vs
Pure age of sail combat experience without any interference

also most f2p launches on steam got at least 100,000 users in the first week. We are sure a lot of them will trade up to NA. 

I believe Legions has been brought up because the community is fearful that it will be the last nail for this game. As I stated above the release is completely backward. Far better would have been the release of the stellar and fun parts of this game (PvP Combat) and then the release of an open world in which those skills learned, could be applied. You already have Legions finished, because Naval Action is legions. Legions is exactly where this game started. We already paid for legions, but instead we got a watery desert, Naval Action. If you are at all worried about negative comments from players pertaining to Naval Action and from the above quotes I know you are...I believe you ain't seen nothing yet.

[z4ys]

1 hour ago, admin said:

...

Perhaps its time community lift their ass from the chairs if they want NA to continue to be developed. As we see a strange mechanic.
People who ARE SUPPOSEDLY interested in the game stay silent - while some really upset people run around and TAKE time shitting in positive reviews

...

Perhaps people who are supposedly interested into the game lost faith while the game lays dead in the water like a ship in a dead calm sea. As 10.0 was announced I thought thats the final direction devs want to push that game. For me it was an huge game improvement. Finally OW got love which was missing for so long. But as soon the sails picked up some wind the wind dropped again.

Whats the direction of the game? Hardcore or causal because at the moment its nothing of each. It has elements of both.

Thats the steam info about the game:

Naval Action is a hardcore, realistic, and beautifully detailed naval combat sandbox immersing players into the experience of the most beautiful period of naval history ...

Hardcore:

• 1 Dura
• Sailingtime

Anti Hardcore:

• Teleports
• capturable AI ships
• ROE
• Pirates
• RvR

Realistic:

• Combat

Anti Realistic

• Teleports
• ROE
• Crafting (How its ingame)
• OW Ship sailingprofils
• Trading (How its ingame)

 

Whenever I think devs picked a direction the next update is to change the direction back to the previous statusquo. (Hardcore to causual back to hardcore back to causal)

In my opinion its about time that devs take the helm and plot a course. The ship is rudderless for quite some time, so whats our heading captain?

I want to Believe! But at the moment I am confused what that game supposed to be.

 

 

 

 

[Koltes]

1 hour ago, Lord Vicious said:

Is the business model that not work, expecial if you a small team, na is a big project wich require  continous support,   why do skins if you never intended to sell them?    i think 90% of players whould have enjoy a shop in game, with flags, skins, sails, customization etc.   Wich would have guaranteed you an income for augment your staff.

Eve started with 4 people too.. 

 

You not asking faith but you promise a better game already, while you leaving this to die,  dunno who instruct you about marketing and comunications, but is a very bad signal, you leaving a product unfinished to die, while already working on another wich is a direct competitor to your own title, it not require a genious for understand where this is going.

 What that say? that you have no intentions anymore to develop na, but tbh this is a thing ppl like me understood since last summer. , since game barely grow, it was just a continuous shift of "numbers" of current existing features.    

Is sad becouse community and old supportes give you tons of suggestions and hits but where always ignored,  the "secret" test forum area got hundreds of threads since 2+ year and almost nothing from that forum was ever develop or even receive an answer, is a dead section since a year+

 

I told you noob zone would have been a mistake you threat me like a fool, we gonna do it, anyway  where is noob zone now?, community told you not to do 1 dur on everything, you asked feedback community answer, you said : you all wrong we gonna do it anyway.

And i can make a thread long 10 pages of i told you so. (and with me any others) so you think we did that becouse we hate you and the game or becouse we wanted to help ?   But i am not a funboy i cant support blindly a game where devs constantly for 2 years, changed 10 times same mechanics and didnt fix core problems. Expecial when most experienced players suggested you the solutions and you costantly ignored them.

I bet soon or later you gonna try pb with br instead slots,  as me and other suggested since 2+ year for avoid the mono aga or mono ocean fleets.  But probably i will not even be here anymore for see it.

1 dura was a good move. Its just not been balanced with prices, production, grind

[Hodo]

1 hour ago, admin said:

Why we are talking about legends in this topic. All companies have products competing with each other from apple to mcdonalds. In this case propositions are drastically different. 
Vast caribbean open world with hunting for real humans
vs
Pure age of sail combat experience without any interference

also most f2p launches on steam got at least 100,000 users in the first week. We are sure a lot of them will trade up to NA. 

When this game launches... Because it will launch.  It may have 100k users in that first week, but it is highly unlikely.   Mortal Online launched on Steam and didnt even break 10k.   So to have the same goals as other more anticipated games is a bit.... foolhardy.  But on the other hand it is good that you maybe prepared for that... unlike other games.   I do hope you see 100k users, but again the problem isnt getting them, it is keeping them.   Steam users are like a plague of locusts, they go from free to play title to free to play title.  Often leaving a wasted game and horrifying reviews.  

 

 

[Slamz]

12 minutes ago, z4ys said:

Anti Realistic

• ROE

Well.... instances are anti-realistic. ROE are a consequence of instances and will always be fairly unrealistic depending on how you look at them.

[z4ys]

1 minute ago, Slamz said:

Well.... instances are anti-realistic. ROE are a consequence of instances and will always be fairly unrealistic depending on how you look at them.

I am talking about Instance stays open for x mins. It should be like you get what you see. And not who else can we expect.

[Hodo]

2 minutes ago, z4ys said:

I am talking about Instance stays open for x mins. It should be like you get what you see. And not who else can we expect.

So true...

[Tenet]

The problem with discussing specific changes is that they are all inter linked:

For example:

I am in favor of capturable low-tier AI ships because it's only really useful to new players, the ships captured are rarely of competitive quality, and it allows people a recovery mechanic once they lose everything they own. 

Capturing a ship is not that easy unless you know exactly what you are doing (and the people who will need them are often not in that category). Even when capturing LGV's for trading - you want Fir/Fir but you keep getting Oak/Crew it's not exactly optimal - so the people that use that option are going to be on the edge economically anyway. A rich trader will just buy exactly what he needs. 

Capturing ships is supposed to negatively affect Crafters - but that is not exactly true. Crafters are already screwed by the XP being available only from building ships. So people who level Crafting flood the market with useless ships sold below cost. 

So you say that for you as an OW Hunter, capturable AI 5th rate ships is "non-hardcore" and bad? Did you think it through? You need prey to hunt, you need the weak players to be OK with losing 3x traders and not quitting the game - because they know that in 2-3 hours they can recover from the blow even starting from a basic cutter with 0 in the bank. 

People quit the server -before- capturable AI ships started affecting the market.

The actual problems are the lack of a component market because components no longer provide any crafting XP. If you had a system of quests where you produce X of Y components, a different type each time so the market is evenly saturated, you would see a healthier ship crafting economy. 

The CM and Resource costs of ships are out of touch even for a Hardcore game. 

---

One of the first Hardcore games I ever played was Ultima Online (on a private server). Full loot. I had a house with an area filled with rows of bags. Each bag contained resources for spell-casting, a robe, a wizard hat, a book. Each time I die I would have to ghost away to be resurrected, oOOoooo, run back to the house, grab a bag, and try to get revenge. If I killed someone, I would get their regs and and other items. The value of the items wasn't important. The humiliation of having someone ghost away while I have their small amount of resources was fun enough, and occasionally they would carry something expensive by accident. 

--

The idea that sinking a Ship Matters can be resolved without placing a heavy emphasis on economy. For example, a system of "scalps" or "dogtags" could be implemented - where the person you sink has an identifiable item in their hold, and you can send it to chat "The mark of Captain Tenet #123". The only way to get that back would be to sink the person that sank you, at which point you get their Mark and retrieve all of yours from them, kind of like a game of catch. 

If we get a killboard site similar to EVE, perhaps using API released to players, that would be even better.  

CombatNews and the Daily Scoreboard are huge steps forward for inspiring PvP,  more can be done. 

You have  to balance the ability to humiliate an opponent - to make sinking or suicidal activity undesirable - with the ability of the people that are sunk to come back and fight within a reasonable amount of time. 

One way to balance that is not just economics but also various resurrection mechanics - like having options to decide between upon getting sunk or captured - you could pay ransom to be able to return to active duty immediately, or you could wait a timer where you can't join offensive tags against the same nation/company. This would allow reducing ship costs while making the cost of returning to the fight faster an optional expense - another lever for balancing PvP consequences without ruining economy.

These ideas are all raw and need work - no one person can do that alone or have full legitimacy in claims. 

We desperately need an Elected council of Backers willing to meet on Discord and Brainstorm and come up with consensus solutions. 

[z4ys]

32 minutes ago, Tenet said:

 

We desperately need an Elected council of Backers willing to meet on Discord and Brainstorm and come up with consensus solutions. 

That's called tester (forum title). In ancient times they suggested stuff and were in direct contact with devs but then something happened. Now most of them have quit the cooperation. Dig a little bit around what for awesome suggestion are here in the forum about pirates exploration etc. Stuff that would offer game content and game experience besides combat. But will never get in because of whatever reasons. 

Devs should decide how they want their game to look like and keep that direction so they can release it. With changing direction over and over again they just scare people away. How can you recommend a game when the next patch could attract an other target audience like before.

The most important thing that has to change is naval actions ambivalence. The game needs a clear direction.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, admin said:

But again.. i will use @Tenet phrase and say one thing. As it seemed the topic moved on from what we want to address. 

Perhaps its time community lift their ass from the chairs if they want NA to continue to be developed. As we see a strange mechanic.
People who ARE SUPPOSEDLY interested in the game stay silent - while some really upset people run around and TAKE time shitting in positive reviews
like this:

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198251680420/recommended/311310/
0 of users found it helpful.. you know why? because haters actually spend time and down vote positive reviews. 
Sometimes they takedown positive reviews as breaking community standards. 
Yet 67% of players still like it. The negative voice is overwhelming just because it is louder.

Where is our community here?

Its a two way street. We want to see community do something about it. Otherwise this is not a community - its just consumers vs a seller. relationship and we should change our ways accordingly. bringing real fans closer but sending all consumers to steam to read news and announcements and occasional mod messages. 

I find it reheeally unbecoming to basically state that it's the communitys responsibility to upvote a game that has had zero new development in the past year. How much did really change from pre-wipe and post wipe? - RoE got a minor change (I hunt daily and for me it makes zero change wether the tag circle is around the tagger or the tagged), RvR got very little change from pre-wipe (hostility grinding was already an issue before the wipe and there haven't been done much to the RvR system since) - the nightflips got fixed tho and that is a HUGE improvement, diplomacy patch was removed (wether or not this is an improvement is difficult to say.. for the smaller factions it's a definate disadvantage), crafting basically only got magic permits that forces crafters to PvE or PvP but doesn't really bring anything new to the table - the different woodtypes were an improvement but what were the line of thought with the bow-figures? - I can understand if they added morale, preparation or something that resembled the symbolic nature of the bow-figure but more penetration? - how does a bow figure change the world of physics? more speed? - how does a bow-figure add more speed?, the speed-meta came back - we've tried it before and it failed again, the treasure hunt event came back - still the worst idea ever, the PvP competetions got removed (one step back), and the TP to FT got removed which basically forces players to choose wether or not to do econ, grind PvE or go someplace and set up an interrim base for PvP - in short reduces the playability of the game.

A very long list of very minor feature changes. And the question that remains is - was that all? the game was in hiatus from the wipe was announced (partly due to the nightflips) and till the minor patch of 10.0.. The players that came back experienced the most tedious, boring and soul-crunching grind I have ever experienced in any game. What was the idea behind the shipknowledge trees? - I could understand it if the ships had anything in common but how does a merc relate to a reno? It was illogical and it was deadly for the huge number of players that came back to experience PROGRESS - what they got was a lot of the same, minor tweaks and a hell of a grind.

So why should there be positive reviews? - I changed mine to positive because despite the many repetitions of past mistakes I saw a lot of positives as well. The one dura ships combined with the different frames and woods made being a crafter profitable, the RvR got rid of the nightflips and I had hoped a lot more for the PvE and PvP RoE. I really liked the shipknowledge idea and still do - gives every player a different set of tactics but why does it have to be so dependent on the random number jesus?

To sum it all up - I can understand the bad reviews and I can understand why dedicated players - like myself, is losing confidence in a development that for more than a year has had no clear sense of direction. I once read a comment from you that this was partly due to a community that pulled in different direction - I agree. But there's a community that will never see eye to eye and there's developers that has to own up to that title and cut through the BS and show a way forward - that doesn't lead back to past mistakes. So to phrase the wording you chose - get your ass out of the chairs and start developing the game.

[Wang]

10 hours ago, admin said:

Most of feedback here is taken seriously and thats the reason we run so many experiments. But the reality is players hate experiments. Imagine your chess board and figures changing every week. Many would stop playing chess then.

Majority of great things and majority of bad things were proposed by players. For example did you know that reload lock (where you can lock reload on one broadsides to conserve crew) was proposed by players and implemented. Next time when you or someone comments about us not listening - think about that feature and 1000s of other features that you already take for granted. They were all proposed by players. 

Wow, you have really reminded me why i left here in the first place.  You guys have never been open to criticism, every forum post you i see you guys post.  They do come off as very defensive trying to justify the path that has been taken rather than trying to get hear what your community is saying to you.  'We have listened in the past to some ideas!'  Is not the reponse the community wants for these topics.  This is your job.  You get paid for this.  Everyone one else giving idea's and and posting on these fourms, take time out of their day to write on this forum becasue they care!  Instead of being so defensive and telling your players 'Next time you rorsomeone else has X criticism remember this!' Dude...

Well can't blame anything else.  I tried to come back and psot my thoughts and idea's as a belated player.  You have my money so you don't care.  Yeah i'll come back and see the game at full release.  (I suspect to see what a mess it will be) Although you have killed my hopes for this game in the long term.  Nice work dev's for not changing in over a year if your game slowly dying and still being so hostile and defensive towards your customers.

 

4 hours ago, admin said:

EVE was launched in 2003 and plex was introduced in 2008. Before that they had GTC (since 06) AND subs so people who are not interested in getting ahead by game means could always just buy money. So they had 5 years to build a viable working economy using game sales price - subs and GTC. Which is again relates to the point. We have signed up to entertain people for 40 dollars worth - we have amazing potential content for 40 bucks but once you get bored of it.. maybe thats it?

 

Thats what the subscription is for.  Not to just keep the servers running its for continued deveopment so after the intial 40 dollars....you guys make more content and we don't get bored.  I have seen you use this exscuse for the design of NA for a long time now.  I think you guys are the one's bored with your own product. While the player base is begging for more.

 

3 hours ago, admin said:

Legends will be a better game for those who hate current NA.
Those who love hunting/trading/crafting/sailing will not move there. 

Its a good signal. And timely. We will launch before skull and bones on consoles too. (hopefully). Its hard to unsee the proper tracking shot and they don't have it. There is no point to continue to shove ow travel into throats of players who don't want to travel and just want to combat. 

Wait wait wait, again belated player jsut comming back to forums to see how thigns were traveling...

They are making a WoT/Warthugner-esqe version of NA basically?  Called ledgends...and the hunting/trading/sailing will be left to NA orginal...lol

So basically you you guys have dropped NA from true development, just trying to balance changes enough and clean up the UI for launch.  (Again not a big thing although for some reason to gamelabs UI seemed to be the most intensive and complicated work)

Then you want to blame the community for negative reviews on steam? Hahaha  

I promise wait to see the reviews for Ledgends when it comes out...You will have nearly ever NA player downvoting it.  

 

Goodluck Gameslabs.  You are going to need it. 

Edited August 15, 2017 by Wang

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, Wang said:

Wait wait wait, again belated player jsut comming back to forums to see how thigns were traveling...

They are making a WoT/Warthugner-esqe version of NA basically?  Called ledgends...and the hunting/trading/sailing will be left to NA orginal...lol

So basically you you guys have dropped NA from true development, just trying to balance changes enough and clean up the UI for launch.  (Again not a big thing although for some reason to gamelabs UI seemed to be the most intensive and complicated work)

Then you want to blame the community for negative reviews on steam? Hahaha  

I promise wait to see the reviews for Ledgends when it comes out...You will have nearly ever NA player downvoting it.  

 

Goodluck Gameslabs.  You are going to need it. 

They didnt say anything like that. Unity 5 is coming for NA and changes to port battles. 

[Rhodry Heidenrich]

3 hours ago, koltes said:

1 dura was a good move. Its just not been balanced with prices, production, grind

This. Was a change that needed more than just reducing ship durability to make proper. Don't really feel that the things Koltes mentioned in this quote were adjusted to fit with the new feature. When it comes to the "grind", one thing you (the devs) could do is put all ship upgrades/skill books into the admiralty shop for combat marks. Take away the RNG factor from ship progression.

Also..

Tenet mentioned further ways to monetize and support NA. I know I've seen quite a few people say (myself included) that we'd be willing to spend money on microtransactions for stuff like paints, and other cosmetic/fluff things that don't have an effect on game play. Just so long as nothing in a cash-shop is "pay 2 win", I don't see how it would be a bad thing. $5 for a 10 pack of paints for my favorite ship? I'd buy. 

I really like this game, because it's fun and I am a big fan of the era it represents. I want to see more people in the OW and I want to see more people happy with the game. More people playing=more fun. 
 

Edited August 16, 2017 by Rhodry Heidenrich

[Teutonic]

14 minutes ago, Rhodry Heidenrich said:

This. Was a change that needed more than just reducing ship durability to make proper. Don't really feel that the things Koltes mentioned in this quote were adjusted to fit with the new feature. When it comes to the "grind", one thing you (the devs) could do is put all ship upgrades/skill books into the admiralty shop for combat marks. Take away the RNG factor from ship progression.

 

I've said it before. 1 dura was a good decision, but the other changes that came with it made it into a bad decision. I am with koltes here, if prices, production, and grind could be adjusted in FAVOR of making it easier for everyone to get ships, then 1 dura could finally work.

At this point what has happened was that we lost multiple dura but made everything more expensive, longer production lines, and "grindier" than ever to get the same ship.

Edited August 16, 2017 by Teutonic

[Sir Texas Sir]

5 hours ago, Lord Vicious said:

Is the business model that not work, expecial if you a small team, na is a big project wich require  continous support,   why do skins if you never intended to sell them?    i think 90% of players whould have enjoy a shop in game, with flags, skins, sails, customization etc.   Wich would have guaranteed you an income for augment your staff.

I'm all cool with an in game shop as long as I can get the same stuff by some in game means too even if it will cost me compared to something I might get.   Like special missions that give out the skins, but some one can buy them from me or they can pay real money in shop to get the same ones without doing the missions.   We really needs paints back to be honest as a lot of folks want them. I'm hoping this was only a UNITY engine issues and with 5 they will be back and with more of them. I don't know if the API was just a list of place holders, but if ya'll had that many more paints as the files show it would be nice. I mean what is the OUTLAW For the heavy rattler look like and could it be a pirate only skin?   Would be cool to have some of them nation only that you have to do a special mission in your nation to get it.  Like the outlaw one you have to use a Heavy Rattler to do a mission string in it to get that skin/paint.  Maybe have one such mission for each nation with a ship that is of that nations origins.  Have some Premium ships that are same ships we have in game and can craft and build, but if you buy the Premium version you get a special skin on it.  The SC could work great like this.  PUt the same ship in game as the Hermonie (not the l'hermonie) with a basic skin and save the SC version for a premium ship or special reward.

3 hours ago, koltes said:

1 dura was a good move. Its just not been balanced with prices, production, grind

I think the move to 1 dura was great, but it didn't become easier to craft ships, it actually became harder to craft them.  I can get the 4th rates and SOL's being harder, but the lower tier ships should be easier to craft.  Things like furnishings in light ships and frigates should be removed as gold and silver is a hard resource to find.  Save those for the bigger more rare ships at least 5-4th rates and above.  Bring back XP for damage to help with the grind. Make the first 2-3 levels easy to get for a ship, but make the 4th/5th slot the ones you have to grind/fight a good bit for.  Give xp for travel and missions to ship knowledge to help with the grind.  More rewards for PvP, we should not be getting better rewards by grinding out PvE over doing PvP.  Even if you don't make them a drop the PvP marks where good, but what you should done is allow folks to buy those books and loot with PvP marks and than make them a random drop in PvE for those that don't want to do PvP or trade for them.  When you removed the PvP marks you took away one of the perks of those that did PvP over PvE.   Some mods like copper-plating should be craftable not hidden behind RNG (which they said they where trying to get away from).  Combine and remove some of the lesser speed mods or make a three mod stack limit for one stat or do like POTBS did the more you stack the less you get from them as they degrade.

[Koltes]

1 hour ago, Teutonic said:

I've said it before. 1 dura was a good decision, but the other changes that came with it made it into a bad decision. I am with koltes here, if prices, production, and grind could be adjusted in FAVOR of making it easier for everyone to get ships, then 1 dura could finally work.

At this point what has happened was that we lost multiple dura but made everything more expensive, longer production lines, and "grindier" than ever to get the same ship.

I think that 7th rates needs to be dirt cheap to buy or craft.

6th rate are easily affordable to craft hence player price will keep low.

5th rates are bread and butter of open waters should be a bit easier to craft as it is now thus reducing the price for them costing at most 100k for the ship with best woods setups. 

4th rates should be where they are. Those are big ships and needs certain investment. 500-750k in a shop is a fair price.

SOLs needs to be given purpose. PBs that no one showing up to is not enough. Lineship PBs needs to have SOLs slots so 3rd and 2nd rates are used too. 3rd rates 1-1,5mil is a fair price. 2nd rate is 1,5-2mil. 1st rate should be around 2-4 mil mark total including canons and upgrades

Upgrades needs to have a fair cost, but not hard to replace. We arw no longer caring about ship loss, but mainly rare upgradez loss. All upgrades needs to be easily availabe to craft. Resources for their production plentiful. Permanent upgrades needs to be just costly in comparison to the ship (maybe double the price of the ship when installed), but something that you dont have to use to sail the ship well and be competitive.

Cannons should require less Iron and Coal or both of these resources reduced in price to gather, thus making cannons production significantly cheaper.

Thats it. Dura is not a problem. Its how it goes along with the rest mechanics

[Duncan McFail]

@admin and seriously get a cash shop going. No one's paying a sub for this game, but many people want to throw money at you. No pay to win. No ships, gold ,bps, labor contracts, resources, mods, marks, or books. Things like paints, name changes, server transfers, nation transfers, custom flags, sail schemes, cannon schemes, bow figure schemes, and xp boosts. 

For the steam reviews we can take care of it. There's plenty of people who haven't written a review and play this game. There's also a lot of people that play the game and have a negative review up. This I don't understand. That's basically saying the game is bad and I'm just basically tolerating it as I continue to play, but people interested in this game should steer clear. Shame on those responses. Either put up a good review and state your issues with the game or just stop playing if you have a bad review up.