Patch 11.0: New ships, Unity 5, Improved clan based conquest, and many other changes.

[fox2run]

5 hours ago, Rigge1988 said:

To remove durabilities was probably the best decision ever made by the devs.

No it was the very worst...

[Genma Saotome]

19 hours ago, admin said:

Everybody wants realistic economy and zero sum balanced rewards, but nobody plays those games. 
Realistic economy means 1% are rich, everyone else has a job. We found that most players don't  want a job in a game, they just want progress at their own pace and it means money should not be a problem for everyone. 

I think you'll find that most players don't want a game that is a lot like a Casino -- where you can lose your shirt one night and the next morning it is still gone -- for good.  IMO you need to move the game towards one where a player's assets are both limited and, essentially, permanent, where he brings those assets to a very short-lived sever environment and he plays... it doesn't matter much whether he wins big or loses his shirt because he can start over next month in a new server environment, a new map, and what assets he had before (adjusted by captures, purchases, whatever, but a fixed, rather small amount.  Maybe less gold, many fewer resources in his inventory, but always his ships. Nobody walks away in a huff having lost their hard gained ships or their preferred region conquered... You start over FRESH and WHOLE on the first of the next month.

Think of it this way: Some guy saves up and eventually splurges on a new sports car: Two weeks later he crashes it and it is totaled.  No insurance.  THAT is Naval Action today.  Player loses his shirt and leaves for good after posting terrible review.  Remaining players moan about too few players, post negative reviews.  Nobody is happy ,especially not Dev's who are not selling more licenses.   OTOH, if it is set up that he has crash insurance -- maybe not 100% but darn close, it doesn't matter if he crashes his spiffy car after two weeks because two weeks later he gets the identical car delivered.  He is HAPPY.  He tells his pals what a great game this is.  He continues to play week after week.  Dev's sell more licenses... they are happy too... maybe even rich.  What's not to like?

[BetaVape]

Economy seems completely broken for me. Im trying to get iron ore buildings set up. In capital region, in neutral and in clan ports its telling me the building is only going to produce 150 per day at level 1. I want to start producing ships and cannon but to wait 100 days for an easy to burn through 15k iron is broken af.

[Vizzini]

14 hours ago, Teutonic said:

EDIT - I also think Clans should be allowed to taxes members for their rewards, so clans can actually get players to help participate in pooling money for maintenance.

No taxation without representation !!!!!

 

HEHEHE but I thought that the clans coffers paid for any maintenance if the tax didn't cover it ? I'd have thought a % of income wouldn't be a bad idea but it would punish those who put in the extra effort ...hmm starting to imitate real life now

 

[admin]

10 hours ago, Fargo said:

That AI prices dont react to inflation makes it even worse... 

 

Player driven economies don't exist in games with floating online because they only work if the online is sufficient (eve online. But even in eve economy is supported by hidden hand. In real life you cannot withdraw and has to work or do something to support life. In games you can just quit and uninstall. As a result if you cannot progress you quit the game, reducing player driven economy ability to work even further. 

Increased money supply is a calculated decision and supports average players. Inflation is not an issue at all and trying to address by austerity patch in may it based on feedback of "some" players was a huge mistake, that dropped ratings by 20% (huge inflation 70%/austerity - 50%) and reduced the sales.

TLDR. Economy must work when the online is 1, and it does now. The fact that some players buy iron at 400 does not inflate prices for the solo player because he can always mine it at 60. 

[qw569😳]

6 minutes ago, Peter Goldman said:

Prices should change live.

And implement something like QUIK terminal, or Metatrader.

 

 

Edited September 15, 2017 by qw569

[Armored_Sheep]

It seems to me that devs should focus only on exploits, such as BUY 1 or Sell 10000 contracts that players use to abuse the contract market for goods that cannot be produced by players.

[admin]

10 minutes ago, Peter Goldman said:

Prices should change live.

Don't allow people to sell 20000 items at the exact same price, unless it's a contract. For that, we need probably a separate economy server like in EVE and other games with a good economy to monitor and change it, because right now prices change only after maintenance.

No

Dont confuse stock trading with bulk trading plz. A lot of industries buy in bulk and will stockpile resource for future use even if they don't need them now (until their warehouse capacity is filled). It is the same in NA.. NPCs has their internal stockpile limits and prices change when they reach this limit.

 

[admin]

7 minutes ago, Armored_Sheep said:

It seems to me that devs should focus only on exploits, such as BUY 1 or Sell 10000 contracts that players use to abuse the contract market for goods that cannot be produced by players.

can you explain the bug to me in detail? i don't understand the problem

[admin]

2 minutes ago, Peter Goldman said:

so we end up with people selling 282k muskets in Belize giving them 250m gold profit or 180k muskets in KPR. The limit is only "reached" after maintenance. If we get the price changing live and very, very high sell/buy prices for 0 items in stock, then it will encourage people to have the variety of goods and resources. Right now trading ships carry mostly 1 good, 4000 Hull Repairs or 5000 Iron Fitting or another x resource. 

 

if someone is buying muskets in bulk (npc got an order - buy as many muskets as you can today, until you run out of storage space) why is unrelalistic?

[Armored_Sheep]

2 minutes ago, admin said:

can you explain the bug to me in detail? i don't understand the problem

Black Ironwood buy 1 contract in capital city, results in blocked trade of loot.

Teak Log 10 000 sell results in contracts not fulfilled (NPC does not sell to contractor and puts the goods in store for lower price)

[Siegfried]

Some players realize that charcoal is not necessary now for crafting. At least for casting metals and guns.

Is charcoal a dead good now?

[Stepp636]

They should just get rid of these money printing things like muskets and iron fittings. 

It doesn't add anything to the game except a whole lot of money. 

[Quineloe]

1 hour ago, rediii said:

Wrong.

Removal of duras made it possible to live with boarding ships and using them.

Before 1 dura you couldnt sell the ships you boarded and they were just useless. And respawning next port with the same ship after it sank was stupid.

And building 5 ships to get a entire pb fleet of shallow ships was stupid

etc. etc.

 

1 dura was a realy good decicion devs made

All of that is still a design decision. I did not qualify whether it was a good or bad one. But it's a design decision, like so many being made.

Fargo has been doing nothing but shit on game labs non stop, and I'm pretty tired of it by now. No constructive feedback, just BAD BAD BAD  BAD BAD

And as for the buy 1 price "exploit"; you people need to explain it in a lot more detail. You throw down two sentences and I can barely follow what you're explaining because you're skipping half of it.
I haven't done it myself, but I heard people explain it so I know there's a lot more to it than that.

Edited September 15, 2017 by Quineloe

[shaeberle84]

5 hours ago, fox2run said:

No it was the very worst...

It was only the worst because they did not adjust ship costs.

[shaeberle84]

1 hour ago, rediii said:

well, upgrade it then?

Still way too low production levels.

Player produced Iron Ore is already out of sell in Swedish waters. We live now by buying the Iron Ore that has been sold to NPC ports for 120g ... after that buying the Iron Ingots and Iron Fittings we sold in millions to the NPCs.

Cannons are already in short supply, ships will be soon.

Edited September 15, 2017 by shaeberle84

[admin]

31 minutes ago, Armored_Sheep said:

Black Ironwood buy 1 contract in capital city, results in blocked trade of loot.

Teak Log 10 000 sell results in contracts not fulfilled (NPC does not sell to contractor and puts the goods in store for lower price)

what you say does not exist (i think)
you cannot place a buy at 1 contract for a good that NPC would buy at a higher price.

its should be impossible

 

[admin]

7 minutes ago, Peter Goldman said:

They changed the prices of iron fitting and muskets so it's not that profitable anymore, but it doesn't fix the whole market itself at all, just a few most profitable.

Here is the video giving you an idea how the

market worked in Port Royale (PC game from 2003, so old and so great economy system).

 

 

Don't be silly.
Single player game economy only has to make one player happy. It does not have to think about the other 1000 guys. 

[shaeberle84]

1 hour ago, admin said:

Player driven economies don't exist in games with floating online because they only work if the online is sufficient (eve online. But even in eve economy is supported by hidden hand. In real life you cannot withdraw and has to work or do something to support life. In games you can just quit and uninstall. As a result if you cannot progress you quit the game, reducing player driven economy ability to work even further. 

Increased money supply is a calculated decision and supports average players. Inflation is not an issue at all and trying to address by austerity patch in may it based on feedback of "some" players was a huge mistake, that dropped ratings by 20% (huge inflation 70%/austerity - 50%) and reduced the sales.

TLDR. Economy must work when the online is 1, and it does now. The fact that some players buy iron at 400 does not inflate prices for the solo player because he can always mine it at 60. 

But the solo player can not mine enough to get ships build.

Players already build their ships and cannons with the iron ore that is laying around in NPC stocks. Player-produced iron ore is in short supply.

Increasing the money inflow from PVE missions and such is a good thing. Higher prices for goods induces players to sell to players for building ships, cannons and repairs rather than to sell to NPCs for profit.

However, a fixed player production (5 buildings per player) is not a good idea. We should be able to build more buildings, but prices for buildings increase the more buildings we have. Also, labour hours should be able to be bought from NPCs. This would allow for a more flexible reaction of players to supply shortages.

[shaeberle84]

1 hour ago, Peter Goldman said:

Prices should change live. Now players gather 200k of the item and sell in bulk.

Let's say iron fitting sells for 1000 in port. There is 0 in stock. I sell 1 iron fitting and price changes to 950, then 900 and after selling 50 iron fittings price would stabilize at around 250. The more I sell, the lower price gets. Don't allow people to sell 20000 items at the exact same price, unless it's a contract. For that, we need probably a separate economy server like in EVE and other games with a good economy to monitor and change it, because right now prices change only after maintenance.

This is how it used to be in spring 2016. The economy worked quite well back then after the EU traders where introduced.

[vazco]

59 minutes ago, admin said:

Player driven economies don't exist in games with floating online because they only work if the online is sufficient (eve online. But even in eve economy is supported by hidden hand. In real life you cannot withdraw and has to work or do something to support life. In games you can just quit and uninstall. As a result if you cannot progress you quit the game, reducing player driven economy ability to work even further. 

Increased money supply is a calculated decision and supports average players. Inflation is not an issue at all and trying to address by austerity patch in may it based on feedback of "some" players was a huge mistake, that dropped ratings by 20% (huge inflation 70%/austerity - 50%) and reduced the sales.

TLDR. Economy must work when the online is 1, and it does now. The fact that some players buy iron at 400 does not inflate prices for the solo player because he can always mine it at 60. 

Unfortunately economy based on player actions soon will die. Soon all resources will be only crafted, not bought and traded. That's because noone will choose to sell goods if he can gain much more by grinding PvE missions.

All books and upgrades will be increasing their prices. This market will die too, or will move to barter. Barter is not supported by game mechanics though, which will limit trade.

Since influx of money is huge now, soon everyone will have everything, as everything can be bought from european trader. In such scenario it's simplier to remove money completely and instead eg. move to combat-marks economy, like you did with Wasa. It's removing right now irrelevant part of the game, which is very complicated and will soon become meaningless.

It of course removes also a great mechanism that made many people play NA.

Problem with austerity patch wasn't caused by fixing economy. It was caused by people not being able to afford things. It could be fixed without destroying economy. Eg. insurances, which we discussed already, were a better option. You could also simply increase money gain and create money sink to give players good they requested, and those "wealthy" ones an option to spend money eg. on something minor that would influence RvR.

Right now we just have a meaningless economy, which only introduces complexity to the game, without a reason to do so.

[shaeberle84]

50 minutes ago, admin said:

No

Dont confuse stock trading with bulk trading plz. A lot of industries buy in bulk and will stockpile resource for future use even if they don't need them now (until their warehouse capacity is filled). It is the same in NA.. NPCs has their internal stockpile limits and prices change when they reach this limit.

 

Stockpile limits are a very unrealistic design element. At least how they are implemented right now (very high price until limit, then price of 1g). You could do stockpile limits, but with less drastic price changes.

I tell you how we made money before patch 11.0 ... we waited for a port to have reduced its stockpile limit for iron ingots. Prices were about 50-100% above production costs. Then we took dozens of Indiamans and floated the port until after the next maintainance the port again reduced its price to 1g. This is a very poorly designed economy.

[Quineloe]

2 minutes ago, rediii said:

Any reason why it was bad?

 

I did not say it was a bad decision.

 

[shaeberle84]

40 minutes ago, Peter Goldman said:

I can literally (extreme example) gather 1m of muskets and sell it during one day (lots of clicking). That would give me a profit of 1 billion gold. 

Another broken thing is "bombing". Let's say port has 1k muskets and it reached the limit, sell price is 1 gold. I buy all stock muskets spending 1m gold and sell the next day after maintenance 1m of muskets getting profit of 1 billion gold. Basically, I spend 1 million to earn 1 billion. 

Another unrealistic thing is where NPC stores thousands of thousands goods? Who pays for costs of goods and resources storage? Where does it fit millions of resources?

One more thing... If a port has 5000 iron fitting, why it doesn't sell it cheaper than when it has 500? It should try to get rid of the surplus. With my market model, the higher value of the item, the cheaper buy price would be. My market model would fill all ports will small/medium amounts of all possible resources and goods (healthy market). With current model ports are filled with 200-300k muskets, hull repairs, iron fittings/ingots (only items with huge production cost/sell price ratio). No one bothers to sell other goods and resources at all.

 

PS "Musket Bomb" in Belize was organized by our clan, work of about 5-6 players, took us 1 week to organize and provided with income of 250m gold

That is the problem. NPCs have fixed prices until the stockpile limit. This is such an unrealistic and poor design of the economy, I cant even express it.

We had flexible prices in Spring 2016, it worked a lot better.

[shaeberle84]

19 minutes ago, Peter Goldman said:

They changed the prices of iron fitting and muskets so it's not that profitable anymore, but it doesn't fix the whole market itself at all, just a few most profitable.

Here is the video giving you an idea how the

market worked in Port Royale (PC game from 2003, so old and so great economy system).

You can see that such market model would make all resources spread equally across all ports (that would give the best income for all traders, thus making whole map region worth trading, so good for hunters and PvPrs as well). Nonetheless, the main trade hubs would still have lots of players contracts (more player2player interaction in trading hubs).

 

 

This is how the Naval Action economy should work. Exactly this. It is a great design: it is easy to grasp, yet challanging to master.