Forthcoming Patch 23. Hercules, Tutorial and Map teaser

[Red Dragon 13]

[The Marinadtor]

1 minute ago, Wyy said:

maybe the intentions are to let the players explore the map instead of having 10k hours of playtime around jamaica?

The normal way to make people explore games are by making exploration rewarding, not by making playing the game more laborious and tedious.

[Tac]

11 minutes ago, admin said:

Lets think this through together. 

• If a player does not know the difference between indefatigable or surprise he will have trouble with or without text support for the visuals
• If the players does know the difference between indefatigable or surprise he can easily judge which ship is this by just looking at the ship model.

Ship models are rather beautiful and detailed - you can see if it is indefatigable or wasa, visually.

So the more you sail the more you gain experience of the ships and types of ship and it actually gives the spyglass a use, that seems like it is as it should be.

 

[Thonys]

5 minutes ago, Christendom said:

 That realism seems to only apply to certain things.  I have a hunch that Nelson wasn't able to repair his ship to an almost "like new" condition every 15mins.  Or was he?

nope.

 

you see, i agree ...

i also believe that indecisive battles need more presence in the game.. to

 

pief paf poef,  bang bang, boem boom .... is every game ... lets be different

Edited April 17, 2018 by Thonys

[Project Pluto]

19 minutes ago, admin said:

Lets think this through together. 

• If a player does not know the difference between indefatigable or surprise he will have trouble with or without text support for the visuals
• If the players does know the difference between indefatigable or surprise he can easily judge which ship is this by just looking at the ship model.

Ship models are rather beautiful and detailed - you can see if it is indefatigable or wasa, visually.

All you have to do is to educate new guys. Show them what ships are present in this game and how they look. Once they know the shape they will not need any ID. This can be done by introducing Ship Book. You already have it in Legends. Just copy paste it here. 

To make it fun, grey out all ships in the book (show stats, rank etc). When players buy new ship and sail it, it will be unlocked in the book in full color. 

Edited April 17, 2018 by Project Pluto

[RedNeckMilkMan]

1 hour ago, Mikocen said:

About cancelling missions. In sweden i had many times situation in which from Gustavia my mission was placed in front of Road (or Spanish) Town (Danish ports). Maybe before making such a thing like limitations in number of cancels firstly repair that? Mission which is 30k from port is not a content, it is waste of player time. And i will repeat that once again, DO NOT TRY force people to do PvP. Dont listen to whining of gankers, even in PvP server player should be able to do something without big risk of being ganked and its my opinion.

You can, sit on the dock of your capital and tag ships that come in to the harbor. It's a terrible way to make money but the bigger the risk the bigger the reward. No more millions of gold from the safety of the green zones.

[Michael Corvinus]

Reading the replies tells me there are a variety of players who play this game for a variety of reasons. Some like all the changes, some like a few of the changes. Some think a few are the changes are detrimental to the way they want to play.

Those that don't like the changes and believe that it hurts their experience will simply move on to another game (loss to the player base and to the devs).

As it stands at the moment, the gankers have to stay outside the reinforcement zones to gank people. So in order to gank British players they have to keep out of the safe areas surrounding Jamaica and Belize. The other big nations also have safe areas around their capitals. But he gankers have THE REST of the CARRIBBEAN to gank and sink to their heart's content. Also players and xp and earn money in realtive safety to then afford to go out and do pvp.

I have recently got a L'Ocean to use in port battles. If I lose it in a PB so what? I had it for that purpose, but sod losing it because I have to sail a long distance to do a mission or do I forgo the opportunity in xping it up? 

I constantly read British player sunk by so and so near PM, or KPR or Carlisle etc, so there are still enough players for the gankers to get their happy fix at the moment. Enough go out of the safe zones and get jumped, usually by a good player in a souped up ship,  mostly in a group, so the unlucky player has no chance anyway. How long will said player keep playing this game and will he/she recommend it to their friends?

 

Seriously Devs do you actually want this game to succeed or keep it a low number niche game? If so then fess up and say that you only want it to have low numbers and be a niche game.

 

[RedNeckMilkMan]

8 minutes ago, Christendom said:

 That realism seems to only apply to certain things.  I have a hunch that Nelson wasn't able to repair his ship to an almost "like new" condition every 15mins.  Or was he?

Nelson also couldn't reef his stays instantly, turn his yards instantly, tack in 20 seconds or sail his first rates backwards. The game happens in fast forward for a lot of aspects because no one wants to sit and tack for 30 minutes or wait for 3 days irl while their ship is repaired.

Repairs also take 2 minutes longer to complete now.

[Navalus Magnus]

59 minutes ago, admin said:

Cancellation limit is a step forward (the proper step would be complete removal of missions), limits on cancellations is a good compromise.

How exactly is it supposed to be in the end?

[RedNeckMilkMan]

5 minutes ago, Michael Corvinus said:

I have recently got a L'Ocean to use in port battles. If I lose it in a PB so what? I had it for that purpose, but sod losing it because I have to sail a long distance to do a mission or do I forgo the opportunity in xping it up? 

Grind with a friend for extra safety, use it for flipping ports which gives crazy xp/gold. It has been a problem for a while that players can sit inside the safezone with 1st rates and earn crazy amounts of gold doing basic missions. So either grind with a pal, or grind in a ship that you can replace.

[Sir Texas Sir]

21 minutes ago, Banished Privateer said:

@admin Great work on everything, but I see a huge missing puzzle still:

• Сrew on sails numbers updated and generally reduced (based on final sail area recalculations)

Implement crew % for battle sails and other sail plans. Could be exactly 20-40-60-80% of the 100% crew requirment. Coding time 5 minutes?

I really wish they gave more reason for folks to remain in battle sails in a fight.  Every one tends to run full sails for the most part and than wonder why they can't get out of a pickle when needed. I like to build my ships so they can remain in battle sails during a battle and than go full sails when needed.  Which is now hard with the LO/WO tank meta with Battery a lot do in PB's.  Makes my pref of Teak/Wo even more just a support ship in the fight instead of a front line fighter.   Full sails should also give you added chance to loose more sails from chain and shot vs being in Battle Sails in combat.

20 minutes ago, admin said:

Lets think this through together. 

• If a player does not know the difference between indefatigable or surprise he will have trouble with or without text support for the visuals
• If the players does know the difference between indefatigable or surprise he can easily judge which ship is this by just looking at the ship model.

Ship models are rather beautiful and detailed - you can see if it is indefatigable or wasa, visually.

Actually they will do what they do now, "I'm getting attack by a french ship?"  "What is it?"  "I don't know. (past they could say 5th rate."   "Well what BR is it?"   "Uh it's 155/250" "OH that is a Surpise/Indefatabel, what are you in?"  "A TRADER."  "Well your screwed."  Mobilized the Coast Guard to catch the ship on it's way out after killing the poor guy in the trade ship.

But now we can't even tell the fleet comp which can be every big difference from a small ship or a big, but hay not every one knows the ships BR's by memory.  I have it tagged in discord under our game info for easy reference cause they change so much I can't remember all the BR's.

9 minutes ago, Christendom said:

 That realism seems to only apply to certain things.  I have a hunch that Nelson wasn't able to repair his ship to an almost "like new" condition every 15mins.  Or was he?

Well it is every 2 mins now instead of 15, wait I was reading that backwards which means they increased the ammount of times you repair?  Dang I was reading that backwards early.  Ok so we can repair even more now than we could before unless I'm reading that wrong, still half a sleep this morning.

7 minutes ago, Tac said:

So the more you sail the more you gain experience of the ships and types of ship and it actually gives the spyglass a use, that seems like it is as it should be.

 

Which is understandable that folks learn things over time, but not every one has been playing the game as long as we have and know just about every ship by the back of our hands.

[Michael Corvinus]

20 minutes ago, RedNeckMilkMan said:

You can, sit on the dock of your capital and tag ships that come in to the harbor. It's a terrible way to make money but the bigger the risk the bigger the reward. No more millions of gold from the safety of the green zones.

Great idea on player retention. So you like to play a certain way so all should play your way? The guy you were quoting was simply stating that he did not want to have to do missions outside an enemy port, which is quite a sensible concern. But you don't agree so he must play your way? How many players must this game lose to force the devs to merge the pvp and pve servers?Then how many players would that lose to the game.

Everyone should be able to play this game in the way that suits them. That means proper mission choices in areas where those sort of players want to do them without hassle or hindrance if they so chose. If they want missions in more dangerous areas, maybe for better loot monetary rewards, then they have the CHOICE. You want to gank people and ruin their experience then you have 75% of the map to do you stuff that is your CHOICE. You want a mixture of both pvp and and pve then you can play and mission accordingly. That is your CHOICE.

Such a model suits more types of people and so the player base increases, they are happy with the game and so encourage friends to buy the game. Elite Dangerous give you choices on how to play the game and you can switch to different servers depending on how you feel. They have a strong player base and a strong youtube content community as well.They make more money from the player base by offering micro transactions to buy paint jobs and "bling" for your ships. Every ship I won  in that game has a paint job than additions that I have paid real money for to alter the appearance of my chip. It does nothing to it's abilities, just appearance. That is a good business model. 

 

Pandering to only a certain type of player in a low population niche game is in no way any how a good business model. If I said I would only train overweight one legged clients who must be able to run and jump, I would soon run out of clients and have to close my  business down.

Edited April 17, 2018 by Michael Corvinus

[RedNeckMilkMan]

2 minutes ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

Well it is every 2 mins now instead of 15, wait I was reading that backwards which means they increased the ammount of times you repair?  Dang I was reading that backwards early.  Ok so we can repair even more now than we could before unless I'm reading that wrong, still half a sleep this morning.

I believe it means that it now takes 2 minutes longer for your repair to complete (you repair slower) cooldowns are still the same.

[Guest]

34 minutes ago, Banished Privateer said:

Small level missions spawn almost outside the port/capital. It's rear admiral missions that spawn in a fair distance

you know your pve dont you

[Michael Corvinus]

12 minutes ago, victor said:

It's like the old joke: do you prefer having a lot of women but ugly, or a few but beautiful? The answer of the devs is: none, but soooo wonderful!

lol, like it

 

[RedNeckMilkMan]

7 minutes ago, Michael Corvinus said:

Great idea on player retention. So you like to play a certain way so all should play your way? The guy you were quoting was simply stating that he did not want to have to do missions outside an enemy port, which is quite a sensible concern. But you don't agree so he must play your way? How many players must this game lose to force the devs to merge the pvp and pve servers?Then how many players would that lose to the game.

Everyone should be able to play this game in the way that suits them. That means proper mission choices in areas where those sort of players want to do them without hassle or hindrance if they so chose. If they want missions in more dangerous areas, maybe for better loot monetary rewards, then they have the CHOICE. You want to gank people and ruin their experience then you have 75% of the map to do you stuff that is your CHOICE. You want a mixture of both pvp and and pve then you can play and mission accordingly. That is your CHOICE.

Such a model suits more types of people and so the player base increases, they are happy with the game and so encourage friends to buy the game. Elite Dangerous give you choices on how to play the game and you can switch to different servers depending on how you feel. They have a strong player base and a strong youtube content community as well.They make more money from the player base by offering micro transactions to buy paint jobs and "bling" for your ships. Every ship I won  in that game has a paint job than additions that I have paid real money for to alter the appearance of my chip. It does nothing to it's abilities, just appearance. That is a good business model. 

 

Pandering to only a certain type of player in a low population niche game is in no way any how a good business model. If I said I would only train overweight one legged clients who must be ably to run and jump, I would soon run out of clients and have to close my  business down.

I mean players that just sit inside the safe zone and grind AI all day basically have 0 effect on the game. But please name me a game similar to this one that allows you to progress quickly in complete safety. Sure you can kill pigs on the starter island but the big mobs are in the pvp zone. Every MMO does it this way.

The Devs are not forcing you to leave the safe zone (AI fleets still sail in and out of the port) They are just making it more profitable than sitting inside it. When this game had the highest pop there was no safezone.

Edited April 17, 2018 by RedNeckMilkMan

[HachiRoku]

16 minutes ago, rediii said:

To be fair he wasnt able to build his ship in a week aswell

And how many ships sank in the battle of trafalgar? (not after!)

How long did you play this game before we had multiple reps? If you had it long tell me honestly how good you were compared to now. Almost everyone I talk to that has been around since the start would say the old combat system was more punishing and definitely more tactical. Even the stupid old port battles with circle of death were more tactical than the battlefield style conquest. You know why conquest works in bf? Because it was designed without the wind being a limited factor. Metas are also worse without a doubt. 

[admin]

13 minutes ago, RedNeckMilkMan said:

 sail his first rates backwards.

Nelson could and did sail his ships backwards (even first rates). Sternway is an integral part of the seamanship in the age of sail. Its all in the historical manuals.

[Sir Texas Sir]

2 minutes ago, RedNeckMilkMan said:

I believe it means that it now takes 2 minutes longer for your repair to complete (you repair slower) cooldowns are still the same.

Yah I think I might of miss read it maybe Devs can clear this one up.  I think a lot of folks missed that little bit when reading through. 

1 minute ago, rediii said:

too lazy to comment all of the nonsense ... (sorry but thats often the case, less text would be nice)

However I have to correct your repairthing ... English is my 2nd language and I understand it that repairing takes 2 minutes more time than before. Cooldown didnt change

Yah this might need a bit clarefication from the Devs.  @admin can you maybe clear this up?  I would assume this means it is going to mean longer time between repairs I hope?

[Guest]

I hope Im wrong, but I think we are going to see the player numbers drop significantly after this update.

[Michael Corvinus]

15 minutes ago, RedNeckMilkMan said:

Grind with a friend for extra safety, use it for flipping ports which gives crazy xp/gold. It has been a problem for a while that players can sit inside the safezone with 1st rates and earn crazy amounts of gold doing basic missions. So either grind with a pal, or grind in a ship that you can replace.

So you are telling me that I am not allowed to XP my ship the way that I want in the limited time that I have due to real life and my job? Or are you saying that I can only play your way?  I'm talking about CHOICE in a good business model which will help increase the player base. Restricting what I want to do will only lead me to start playing other games. Is that good for the game or just you personally???

Also I'm on the game now because I have a gap in my work schedule, only 1 other player from my clan is on line and he is doing trading. What should I do? I know forget what I want to do, and that is develop my slots of my port battle ship and do something that I don't want to do because I have now even less choice.  

 

 

Edited April 17, 2018 by Michael Corvinus

[jodgi]

giggle

[Hethwill]

39 minutes ago, The Marinadtor said:

While it might be true to you it does not answer or counter my claims that player retention probably will be hurt because people don't want to wait to play.

Oh. okay. My bad then, I was indeed referring to the Caribbean server and not the PVE server.

[AeRoTR]

2 hours ago, Powderhorn said:

People forget that mission spawn distance already is closer in the lower rank you are.  No more rear admirals cancelling missions over and over so they can grind first rates in peace.

Three a day is plenty for a casual player, who might only DO three missions in a day.

So the guy is grinding is first 1st rate, picks up missions all far away, or out of safe zone. You are assuming that he will sail his 1st rate with no slots unlucked out of safe waters so he can make 2000xp until he unlucks all his slots which is 80.000 xp or was it 160.000 xp ? Do you think that when this guys has his 1st rate sunken, he will happily rinse and repeat same process ?

You have to give first 3 missions in the SAFE ZONE, after that mixed with no cancel, that may be okayish.

[Navalus Magnus]

1 minute ago, rediii said:

Grind in a smaller ship or accept the risk you take for the bigger reward

If you want to unlock slots in a 1st rate you don't want to grind in a smaller ship!

... and some don't want to grind XP in PvP and Hostility Missions too!

Edited April 17, 2018 by Navalus Magnus