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Why did players leave?


Simon Cadete

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5 minutes ago, Peter Goldman said:

https://chroniclesofelyria.com/

 

Chronicles of Elyria is the game that abandoned all of the most typical and annoying parts and mechanics of MMO games. New interesting solutions and methods and mechanics. They didn't want to follow all other typical MMO games. They wanted to fix all of these games common issues and bottlenecks.

 

and even then - i have not seen any indication that they give partial xp for an incomplete kill. 

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3 hours ago, Slamz said:

gets old pretty quick for most people

It wouldn't get old for me if i didn't have to grind pve to outfit my ship properly and could actually find other players in OW.... just saying. But yeah for the average player you're right.

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Just now, Hodo said:

  You launched 10.0 with the idea that 1st rates would be more rare... yet they are more common now after your recent changes then they were previously.   

You don't have data to support your theory. I have. Their number has not changed for dedicated organized players (so called hardcore crowd). But their number has dropped significantly for the average players. (which was the goal of the patch = which was in retrospect the bad goal (to listen to hardcore crowd). Because as @maturin said once - 90% of feedback now is focused on getting your own chance to win bigger. 

Since this realization we are now focusing on our own vision and will ignore feedback catering to narrow groups of players. For example - invisibility will be removed. It was purely a solo hunter feature for people hunting near capitals. Who does not play anyway even after he got it. With new reinforcement fleets that feature must be removed. 

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16 minutes ago, admin said:

majority of games don't give participation trophies. eve/wow/many others. in fact i can't name a single mmo that give xp or money if you did not kill an enemy. We had this effort rewards but they were exploited. Thus we chose a proven way because everyone else (every other mmo designer) have already figured it out.

EVE doesnt use an XP system at all, so you can throw that out.   And it doesnt give cash rewards for PVP victories either... T-Totally different game there.

WoW, as in the World of Warcraft, actually did give rewards for RvR participation losses.   But again comparing this game to WoW is like comparing Youtube to Netflix.   

 

11 minutes ago, admin said:

Do you want your car to use all experience all other carmakers accumulated? Or you want your car to ignore all safety standards learned by 100s of years of driver deaths? 

We tried a unique effort xp system and it did not work because exploits supposedly ruined it for those who believed they were getting an advantage. Now the most complaints about no rewards don't come from new players. New pve players quickly figure out that you just sink the ship and get all rewards you want.

Actually the auto industry would ignore all that data if it werent for the National Highway Safety Commission.  Fun fact....

Ford, GM, and Chrysler all said the 3 point seat belt, that is found in all cars today, was to expensive to develop back in the 1960s... and refused to put them in their vehicles.   Volvo designed the 3 point seat belt and did it with very little actual cost and gave away the design to everyone for free. 

<-15 year automotive technician/parts adviser, Volvo Certified Technician, and Chrysler Master Parts Adviser.

 

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3 hours ago, Peter Goldman said:

In popular MMO games you can buy legendary weapons for cash or other currency. I have 15m gold right now and probably another 30-50m gold worth in assets. I can't find Planking books and some other skill books for myself. No one is selling them, I can't loot them in PvE because of RNG fortuna. Any advice for me? Thanks.

This is pretty much my experience, too. And then people come up giving me this "uhhh ohhh but you know good items should be rare" bullshit.

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1 minute ago, Hodo said:

 

Ford, GM, and Chrysler all said the 3 point seat belt, that is found in all cars today, was to expensive to develop back in the 1960s... and refused to put them in their vehicles.   Volvo designed the 3 point seat belt and did it with very little actual cost and gave away the design to everyone for free. 

<-15 year automotive technician/parts adviser, Volvo Certified Technician, and Chrysler Master Parts Adviser.

 

Yes - but it was a belt :) improved but a belt someone invented long ago.

if we find a way to eliminate farming we will get it back. We want to promote heroic deeds.

 

PS I agree with eve comment. It indeed allows you to level up titan and buy a titan without ever exiting a station. Or in fact without ever logging in (once they implemented longer queues)

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26 minutes ago, admin said:

you are one of those people who only reserve the right for direct criticism for themselves. Such people are not welcome here as we don't tolerate double standards and demand forum members to treat everyone equally. You won't be missed.

The thing is, Im a customer who bought a playable product that now is totally unplayable. You destroyed MY product. And now you blame US - the customers! Every suggestion down the line favoured PvP and easy playability. But every patch made it more and more impossible to find the fun factor in this game. Read suggestion, adapt. You are messing with the wrong guys here, mate. Blaming customers equal you own downfall.

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8 minutes ago, fox2run said:

The thing is, Im a customer who bought a playable product that now is totally unplayable. You destroyed MY product. And now you blame US - the customers! Every suggestion down the line favoured PvP and easy playability. But every patch made it more and more impossible to find the fun factor in this game. Read suggestion, adapt. You are messing with the wrong guys here, mate. Blaming customers equal you own downfall.

where did we blame you? 
we did not destroy your product - we changed it searching for the perfect game based on feedback. It felt bad for you as a player but we had to get it done as doctors sometimes have to inflict pain to make it better in the long term. We did not know where the perfect game temperature is. What if you liked the 24th may patch? Testbed players liked it. 

It is still playable, but its unplayable for you because it was better for you before. All ea devs struggle with this.

As jim sterling said once - devs must be very careful because in early access they must change the game , but at the same time they must not change anything at all. So looking back we must not have change anything

BUT. At least now we can always say to the hardcore crowd. Well we tested your option and easier ways worked better and were liked more. We tested all spectrum of things. Thanks to your support

So testing was absolutely needed - at least for us.

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3 minutes ago, admin said:

what happens if devs listen too much?

It is my understanding that you had a roadmap as to how you saw the game develop, now there is nothing wrong with asking advice as long as both the advisor and the advised recognise that advice freely given and received may also be freely accepted or rejected. If the advice given does not meet with your roadmap then a polite thank you, it's a good idea but it conflicts with the roadmap Is a fair reply, if it does comply then use it. If however an idea improves the roadmap then by all means adapt the roadmap but only as far as it does not cause conflict elsewhere in the roadmap or worse still derail it.  

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19 minutes ago, admin said:

You don't have data to support your theory. I have. Their number has not changed for dedicated organized players (so called hardcore crowd). But their number has dropped significantly for the average players. (which was the goal of the patch = which was in retrospect the bad goal (to listen to hardcore crowd). Because as @maturin said once - 90% of feedback now is focused on getting your own chance to win bigger. 

Since this realization we are now focusing on our own vision and will ignore feedback catering to narrow groups of players. For example - invisibility will be removed. It was purely a solo hunter feature for people hunting near capitals. Who does not play anyway even after he got it. With new reinforcement fleets that feature must be removed. 

First, my theory is sound.  You could sail out on Global and find in a Port Battle easily 23-25 1st rates in all 3 of the major populated nations (I am including the Pirates).   It wasnt until everyone quit caring did those numbers drop.   I know CKA, TF, and VCO could field enough 1st rates to put every person in their clans in one.  Same for BLACK and BLOOD in pirates.    The US had NPG could field a 1st rate fleet, but lost that after one fight.  

There is a COMPLETE lack of variation on port battles for SoLs, yet you insist that there will be.   Well I am going to say it, I aint seen it yet.  

The forums are nearly overflowing with good suggestions and ideas that would improve the game one way or the other.  Some of them are actually VERY well thought and worded with detailed instructions and modifications from others that have chimed in on the subject.   

 

With the removal of the invisibility without adjusting it, you are just returning to a previous state of broken.  Instead of adjusting it, like adding double blind.  If you are invisible the outside world ships are invisible to you too.   This has been suggested before but was ignored, or missed.   

 

Then there is the nations balance issues, population is a joke in half of the nations in game.   I mean Spain on 2 servers cant even mass a single PB fleet.  But other nations like the Pirates which shouldnt be a nation yet are.... WTF over?  Have some of the largest fleets in game.   

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Why did players leave?

- @admin/Devs listened to a small, but vocal minority of players on the forums that wanted this game to become more hardcore and more like sailing simulator......and ruined the game.  Unfortunately the majority of us did not want the game to turn NA into a 2nd job and didn't have the inclination to commit the time necessary.  In short, these guys thought removing stuff like map coordinates would make the came more immersive and recapture fond memories past of when they first started playing.  I didn't.  I just made the lives harder for the newer players, which is a demographic this game struggles to keep.  These players have kinda held the game hostage saying "Nelson didn't have this and Nelson didn't have that".....well you know what.  Nelson didn't have port battle timer restrictions and didn't have 3 servers to play on.  He also didn't have a 3 minute timer preventing players from joining his battles.  Realism doesn't always = Playability.  I hope some of you see that now.

- Major changes vs small changes.  It seems like every major patch one system goes and another is introduced.  Whatever happened to tweaking a system to make it work instead of just going scorched earth and implementing a whole new system every time.  Right after the fine woods went away and compass wood was the "main" resource in shipbuilding seemed to be an economy that could of been built upon.  Instead dupegate happened and the server had to be wiped and an entirely new system was implemented that no one asked for.  Build upon your successes and work on fixing the failures instead of just testing new things over and over.

- Player population.  This is always going to be a niche demographic of players.  Age of Sail combat sims won't ever be as popular as something like PUBG.  It will never be the new EVE.  For a game that fields a daily population of 2000 players or less, 3 servers is simply spreading the butter too thin on too large a piece of toast.  2 servers should of been shut down a year ago and a solution should of been found to sustain players on one server.  Players seem to forget this is early access.  Most early access games don't have multiple testing servers (especially this size of a population).  Most early access Devs don't cater to one demographic of players who are mad because the game gets played while they are asleep.  Life goes on.

- Lack of progress.  I've been playing the game for over a year now and I don't feel as if the game is 1 step closer to release than the first day I started.  Actually I think it's worse off in a number of ways.  This community has been patient.  Far more patient that other communities I've been apart of.  Even the most ardent of fans lose interest after a while if no real progress is made.  I also feel like admin seems to use this "early access" excuse a bit too much.  UI hasn't been worked on?  Oh it's early access.  Not enough ships?  Early access.  If you've been in early access for a couple of years, it's kinda time to shit or get off the pot.  With the announcement of NA Legends, many players seem to think that the dev team has given up on NA in favor of Legends and the game is dying a very slow death.  It is and it seems like NA is no longer the focus.  

In summary, the game lacks meaningful and diverse content.  We've had several patches that changed things around, but fundamentally the game has not changed.  No real new aspects of the game were introduced.  No exploration missions, no REAL new pirate mechanics, no raids....we've had a couple of lazy PVP circles and treasure fleets and they simply were not enough to keep the community interested.  The devs also seem to go half in and half out of the sandbox approach.  If this is designed to be a true sandbox game, then we should not have 3 servers and we should not have conquest restriction timers....but we do.  If players are supposed to generate the content of the game, thats fine.  But you need to let us generate said content with minimal restrictions OR you need to provide the player base with content if they are not able to create enough of it.  

Basically even after a couple of years Naval Action still hasn't figured out what kinda game it's trying to be....and we're tired of waiting.

Edited by Christendom
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4 hours ago, admin said:

Players don't leave or quit. Players stop playing. They do it for 3 reasons
1) They win (conquer everything they wanted)
2) They lose and see that they can't win
3) They finish the game (their personal win)
4) They don't like the game
 

Which is why in your new patch with a permanent land there will be no way to lose or win on a nation level.

Yes one clan owns a port and loses it and its a loss for the clan. For the rest of players of a nation life goes on however.

Nothing in the end game should be absolute, therefore victory or loss should never be absolute. 

Ships below 4th rate should be easy to afford so people sail 5th rates no problems, naturally generating content. After 4th rate (inclusing) prices should steeply go up and 1st rate should be 10 times more than what it is now.

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1 hour ago, admin said:

You don't have data to support your theory. I have. Their number has not changed for dedicated organized players (so called hardcore crowd). But their number has dropped significantly for the average players. (which was the goal of the patch = which was in retrospect the bad goal (to listen to hardcore crowd).

Since this realization we are now focusing on our own vision and will ignore feedback catering to narrow groups of players. For example - invisibility will be removed. It was purely a solo hunter feature for people hunting near capitals. Who does not play anyway even after he got it. With new reinforcement fleets that feature must be removed. 

Can you show a popular topic where people demanded hardcore grind? Your so called "hardcore crowd" which you were referring was a at this time 1 year old youtube video from a guy who probably played less than 100 hours of your game while you were ignoring the majority of active players.

Next point invisibility: there were a TON of suggestions how to improve it and make it more fair, but you sticked to invisibility even tho most players here in the forum were against it (Tommy Shelby Liquicity Rediii all made great suggestions about this, which you ignored).

So please stop blaming the community for every stupid decision. It actually feels like you dont give a shit about player opinons for quite some time now.

 

Also this patch is out 4 months now and you did what? People are complaining since week one about the stupid grind and ship knowledge, yet you are unable to fix it. You like with fine wood patch where you also needed 5 months to fix obvious problems.

Testing stuff is fine but ignoring problems and blaming the community for it is not.

Edited by Aegon Targaryen
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I left in two steps.

First is when I realized my limited playtime meant I could barely keep up with the evolving PVP-RVR situation, thanks mostly to the ''no tp in or or of FT''.

 

Then, the dwindly numbers on Global completly demotivated me to even log in at all.

Edited by Serk
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for a 5th rate sailor there is almost nothing to do

 

In pb you dont need 5th rates

and in OW you have to sail first 2+ hours to find some enemy and when you find them, a lot of time they run away when they see you to a port or they try to gank you.

There is just a to small group of players that like to have a decent fair battle

 

thank god Sea Trials comes back

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2 hours ago, admin said:

We understand that you want us to give our participation trophies. (...) Here we don't know how to close exploits in pvp as battles can be arranged. 

It's important to understand that rewards in PvP is not a real issue. The real issue is that it's impossible to have a meaningful fun fight with multiple ships within eg. 45 minutes of joining the game. A real issue is that there are no incentives to fight without having an advantage, and no real way to start such fights easily.

This can be easily fixed. You don't even need to give XP for damage, it's just one solution. It's eg. enough if you allow for players to purchase an option to launch flag-like XvsX Yrd rate PvP missions (eg. 5 vs 5 3rd rate), which are easy to join by other side and which give some reward similar to rewards you would get for doing PvE missions, including compensation for risks that players take. Those could be lightly linked to RvR as well.

 

It's also easy to tune and vary such missions to easily give players "extra content" that they're shouting for.

This is just one solution, there are more.

Partial rewards for damage can be easily secured from exploits as well. It's eg. enough if you give each player a ticking "score" (which I personally call renown) that goes up when he does time consuming actions (including eg. PvP fights), and then reward player who damages him based on this score. This way farming is impossible, as on average you would get more by simply continuing farming. It's not perfect, however it does the job - it makes fighting against overwhelming odds more profitable.

Edited by vazco
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2 hours ago, admin said:

 

We understand that you want us to give our participation trophies. 

 

(triggered)  Absolutely NO!  Players just want to be able to make some tangible progress after many hours of time investment, without having to resort to a tedious PVE grind.  The PVE grind is almost always a foregone conclusion so don't dress it up as an "achievement", and I actually got most of the XP to reach my most recent level-up from merely sailing traders between ports which isn't an "achievement" either.  In comparison, sticking your neck out to have a decent battle would seem to merit better XP than easy grinding, even in a loss.  Most players (considering myself as an example) are just easy Prey in the PvP=Predator-vs-Prey equation for a very long time, in large part because we're curbstomped by players that already have bigger ships and fleets (via prior XP).   In other games I get some token XP as a loser, and sometimes even decent XP as a loser.  That doesn't detract from the much larger piles of XP and loot you get as a winner, and it keeps you moving along to the next interesting part of the game. 

 

Edited by Barbancourt (rownd)
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