Naval Action will never suceed if that will continue

[NethrosDefectus]

4 hours ago, Gregory Rainsborough said:

I'm impressed. I can't multibox for shit.

It's true, he is actually terrible at it, although his single boxing can leave much to be desired at times as well

 

[TheHaney]

7 minutes ago, jodgi said:

How I never stopped missing Legends with all my heart.

Legends is gone...?

I'm not sure if I should be elated or horrified.

[OjK]

4 hours ago, admin said:

I am not sure where you lead with the design decisions statement. 

Well, the thing is it just cripples the main idea of the game.
What's the point of having a fight over a port, if (most probably) every clan have an access to any port of the game thanks to alt characters.

Basically, it reduces huge amount of background and reasons for RvR. But it's a very long story anyway. Having an option to just switch to another character, instead of fighting for something, have a negative impact on the game mechanics. Especially in the game, which is build around battles and wars...

 

4 hours ago, admin said:

we are very sure its not actually easy.

I never said it is easy. I pay my full respect to multiple awareness and multitasking skill he has. It just doesn't feel right.

And no - I can't take three ships to Port Battle, and even if I do, AI allies are terrible anyway

 

The main idea behind my post is - we are still lacking the content (I know it is worked on - I love the testbed additions, and can't wait to see them on live server) however, this two mechanics (Forger, and alt accounts) reduce even what we already have in the game, simply because many people will never care really for RvR if they can simply switch accounts.

[TheHaney]

I'm confused, are you complaining about dual boxing in particular, or alternate characters in general? Because one of those arguments is silly, and the other is insane.

[OjK]

4 hours ago, Banished Privateer said:

On the side note, I would worry more about the success of the Polish nation in the game than NA. You guys are struggling to do anything since the nation was added into the game.

What we currently have is the maximum that single clan can efficiently manage in the game. 
As long as Polish nation will be just single clan nation with some lone wolves not willing to strictly cooperate for the whole nation interest, not their owns, we won't have more than 3-4 ports. 

After all, in PRIV we are just a bunch of 20+ TOTAL.

3 hours ago, qw569 said:

Could you tell me how many copies was sold in July, August or September?
Have you any information that game not generate income to developer?
If you do not have this information, then why are you creating such topics?

For me, a good enough indicator is amount of people I've seen for the 8 months I've spent in the game, who did quit it due to multiple reasons. Some of the directly, or undirectly beeing caused by policies I mentioned here.

Other is even simpler than that. The amount of people who are logged in the game. 
https://steamcharts.com/app/311310 - that gives quite a nice feel of how is the game going.

1 hour ago, rediii said:

why exactly does forger kill the game from the inside?
People are not forced to stay in nations anymore that are not fun, big plus.

And does massive switches, which constantly creates some overpowered nations creates an environment where players want to keep playing?
Look at the bandwagon switch to Russia atm. Do You think that works in advantage of the game, it's playability, and retention of player number?

7 minutes ago, TheHaney said:

I'm confused, are you complaining about dual boxing in particular, or alternate characters in general? Because one of those arguments is silly, and the other is insane.

Alt characters in general. This is just a prime example, where by using extra alt-accounts You can (in this case) triple Your strength in the game.
But generally, alts are having many other side effects. Doubt if any of them are really "positive".
Alt characters hiding each other in a battle when player attack himself on the other box to get unfair advantage over the others?

Don't tell me You didn't see that happening.

 

 

And just to clarify it once more so everyone gets it:

I do admire his skill.

But it's still not right, that You can alter the balance of the game by buying, and using simoultanously other characters.

[TheHaney]

5 minutes ago, OjK said:

Alt characters in general. This is just a prime example, where by using extra alt-accounts You can (in this case) triple Your strength in the game.
But generally, alts are having many other side effects. Doubt if any of them are really "positive".
Alt characters hiding each other in a battle when player attack himself on the other box to get unfair advantage over the others?

Don't tell me You didn't see that happening.

Oh sure, even after having not played for a year I recall alts being used for nefarious purposes. However, I consider that a failure of game mechanics, not a reason to *ban alts.*

 

And no, you can't really triple your strength in-game with alts. Every ship you add reduces your overall effectiveness; no matter how good of a player you are you will lose combat effectiveness when multi-boxing, especially if the enemy is aware you are doing so. Assuming evenly matched variables otherwise, three good players will generally kill two good dual-boxers.

It's not cheating because he legitimately purchased and is legitimately running the second client.

It's not ruining the game because, let's be honest, of all the shit there is to complain about having MORE ships sailing around isn't a bad thing.

It's not pay-to-win because the ships themselves are no different from yours. He just happens to be masquerading as two players. If it makes you feel better, just pretend it IS two players.

[vazco]

5 hours ago, OjK said:

If one day, You'll start wondering why such a potential was wasted, and the game never suceeded the way it should, remember the video!

Do you mean that an issue is that Lenin is taking 3 spots in a battle and sinks on all his accounts in the process?

I kind of like it there are more enemies to sink. Multitasking is also damn difficult. Having 3 Lenins is weaker than having 3 average indepenedent PvP players in the game. There's nothing ruining about that. If 50% of server population would do this, game would actually be in a better state than right now

[Thonys]

looked at the vid and it is a good show of skill i admit .

also a multi-boxing same player with  other accounts  is fine,

but: 

it can be exploited very easy and can make a lot of trouble and confusion .

 

also ...its the same mind.... with two ships or maybe more

what ends up in a fight ....1 enemy player (single mind) vs 2 / 3 ships (or + 9  in fleet) with the same mindset.

 

in the vid, i saw 3 ships of the same player in the port battle firing at the same enemy (1)

perhaps in the port battle, it is not a bit of a big impact, but...

in a small battle, i can see the advantage for the forger player 

 

when it is in a single player battle... in that case, the normal player >>>>>  rage and quits...

 

perhaps some rules need to be made: 

> no more than one account in a battle.

> and if played with more account  (2) at the same time, at least one of them is in a other nation.

 

i am not against forged players, but i think we need gentlemen agreements on this one...

this behavior will end up in bad reviews, and fewer players in the long run 

 

ps. also in eve when having 3 accounts alive its more for mining and fleets not for fighting, or for helping out other ships that clearly is a other use.

if you do this in eve fighting, well... you end up in a clone ... most of the time

 

Edited October 22, 2018 by Thonys

[HachiRoku]

9 hours ago, Christendom said:

PVP keeps me in the game, but content is not created in a vacuum.  This game needs PVE oriented content that keeps the casual/not pvp inclined players interested in the game so players like myself can club them.  If you checked out the test realm at all you'd notice that there are more mission types and challenges that will hopefully keep the bulk of the players interested.  It's a good start and hopefully not too little too late.  We'll see.   

TLDR - We need more stuff to do.

I am. Name is Tracey suxx

😛

I don't pve and in my opinion pve will never keep anyone around. Economy is of little interest to me as well so I don't care about it. 

Edited October 23, 2018 by HachiRoku

[HachiRoku]

11 hours ago, Christendom said:

PVP keeps me in the game, but content is not created in a vacuum.  This game needs PVE oriented content that keeps the casual/not pvp inclined players interested in the game so players like myself can club them.  If you checked out the test realm at all you'd notice that there are more mission types and challenges that will hopefully keep the bulk of the players interested.  It's a good start and hopefully not too little too late.  We'll see.   

TLDR - We need more stuff to do.

On second thought... You really have the balls to go out and demand content you personally don't need for others? How do you know what they want? If your intention in naval action is seal clubbing then I know what you lack. It's not content but an actual challenge. Don't pretend to know what others want. 

[Raf Van Boom]

Some games implement a multiboxing penalty while allowing multiboxing by design. Your multiboxed characters cannot fight in PvP battles but you can do PvE/trading for example. Maybe something worth looking into.

[jodgi]

11 hours ago, TheHaney said:

Legends is gone...?

I'm not sure if I should be elated or horrified.

Don't worry, I'm sure they'll get back to that idea later, possibly much later.

[Tristan Wolfe]

Problem with legends it takes away from the main focus of the game player base and probably the Dev's which is the base game.  

[HachiRoku]

1 hour ago, Le Raf Boom said:

Some games implement a multiboxing penalty while allowing multiboxing by design. Your multiboxed characters cannot fight in PvP battles but you can do PvE/trading for example. Maybe something worth looking into.

I would get used to multi boxing because it's here to stay. I once fought Lenin,  his alts and another 5 Russians and pirates with @Hethwill the Red Duke and can assure you it's not an advantage to multi box in pvp. It is impossible for him to control both ships so I purposely fought the ship he wasn't controlling to force him to multitab more. Imo he is better of on one account were he can focus. 

For the economy alts do not change as much as you think and let's be honest. There is nothing better than ganking afk alts that return mid battle. 

 

[Beeekonda]

3 minutes ago, HachiRoku said:

I would get used to multi boxing because it's here to stay. I once fought Lenin,  his alts and another 5 Russians and pirates with @Hethwill the Red Duke and can assure you it's not an advantage to multi box in pvp. It is impossible for him to control both ships so I purposely fought the ship he wasn't controlling to force him to multitab more. Imo he is better of on one account were he can focus. 

For the economy alts do not change as much as you think and let's be honest. There is nothing better than ganking afk alts that return mid battle. 

 

I was watching few Babay's streams and I heard Lenin broke few bowsprits and was causing chaos by not controlling his alts 

[Sir Texas Sir]

Yep done it a few times myself.  Hell as you know BLACK was known for doing it all the time on GLOBAL (well PvP2 at that time).  When I would constantly tell folks you fought 15-20 guys when we had 25 on our team they just couldn't get it in their head we honestly had 15-20 guys with a few dual boxing.  Or worse later it become more like 10-15 with as we had to make up for more and more numbers we lacked over the US/GB/DUTCH Alliance pre wipe.  I think the most I had at one time was 3 PB's at the same time (good old flag days).  One was empty, but two of the battles was not.  So I had to actually fight in two of them at the same time.

Global/PvP2 guys when ever you saw S0B (zero not O) that was Son's of Black and was our alts in a battle with our main half the time.  That whole clan was nothing but alts.

I won't fight with more than one screen right now cause my poor laptop CPU can't handle it, but it's not hard against certain folks.  If you can't beat 5 guys using 2 accounts and you got 10 guys using single accounts than you have a problem with organization and team work.  Cause your not doing double the work as those multi boxing in a battle.

 

When I played POTBS I had 5 accounts cause our clan was small and I used 3 for econ while I fought with 2 of them.  I have 5 accounts here.  ALl have been leveled up to max through combat and have level 50 crafting.  I use 2 for main combat, one is a crafter and another is a haller/mortar brig.  The last is in another nation when I don't want to deal with clan or big nation politics.  The 4 in US nation is like a mini clan in side the main clan and that is how I play them.  Really no reason to use them for spying cause folks tend to not know when to keep there mounths shut in nations.

[Guest]

The focus is on the wrong area where Alts are used. Lenin is actually using them in a good way, its both hard and he is not spying in other countries.

The focus however needs to be moved to how to make alts LESS useful, i've come up with pros and cons for owning and alt and how it is its alot of pros, its also thought through that these pros could be also added mechanics to them which would make alts not so efficient, and instead trying to focus on the Main character, which is also not gonna punish the main character.

Pros of having alt:

1. More characters
2. More dockspace
3. More buildings
4. More Outposts
5. More Tows
6. More contracts
7. Much cheaper TP(after patch) to bid in enemy ports
8. Can be online the same time as the main character
9. More labor hours
10.  

Cons of having alt:

1. Costs extra money for account
2. Need to rebuy all DLC's to use them
3. Might need a better computer to run several accounts at the same time
4. Fake owner numbers and wrong number of the playerbase of the game
5.  

Todays solution, and what comes:

Since there will be Reals and Doubloons as currencies, where Reals is going to be the inferior and looking into how other games handle their situations with alts, some things cant be changed. E.g the standard amount of dockspace, outposts, tows for every character.

But why not add something that that if you want to have that second account, you have to spend some time up keeping it. Right now the only money sinks are the Port settings (crafting, trading, pb windows). As I stated earlier you cant have a mechanic that punishes only one part, you have to make it less efficient and valuable to own an Alt account.

What could be a possible solution:

1. To fix the spam the "fake" buyer numbers, add the possibility to make up to maybe x (maybe 5) characters (you would still have to logout from your main which takes time in OW, but it weighs up later).

2. Add Rent! we will have these Reals which is going to be the common currency, while doubloons would be the superior one. Make port rent for ships, x amount of every ship for each rate. The closer to capital you are the higher the rent. Makes sense as its in real life. This also would "hurt" main characters the same way as alts, as it wouldn't rate it out from level, but from the ship rate.

3. This one could be tricky to minimize the usage of alts without hurting the main character, so i would leave as it is, but you could debate if the labour hours could be removed and just increasing the resource cost instead.

4. For outposts i would drop the whole for every outpost the price is higher. Instead I would balance it by having Rent on the outpost you want, I would also go as far as letting the Clan owning the port is in charge of the rent since they are actually first in line to defend it. The more popular the port is, the higher the rent which makes sense.

5. Not much one can do, its the same as in buildings, it is what it is. Wouldn't make it DLC as it would be a step towards p2w.

6. Remove the maximum amount of contracts, decrease the days they are out on the market to 1 week, after that they are taken off market and only able to be collected in the port, if they are not collected withing 30 days they get deleted. Today one can "storage" ships on the market same as with materials, if they go out after 14 days it doesn't matter they just stay there with no consequence.

7. Being addressed in next patch however if its going to be cheaper for low levels to Teleport between outposts, its going to encourage Alt accounts and I really hope this is not the devs intention, instead it should cost again Reals which is the common currency, no matter the level the price is the same. Could maybe add a Teleport cooldown/price jump, e.g Teleport cost 50k, during the next hour it cost 100k before it goes down to 50k again, it would hurt Alts as much as Mains, and people wouldn't get bankrupt, but enough to make do something to use the feature.

8. Not much one can do.

9. Remove labor hours, instead make resources cost more (also noted on 3.) this thing works GREAT in other games, dont know popular it would be but maybe shipyards and workshops could be placed in county capitals instead of every single port, yes the sail time, but one can probably spend 5 min sail from normal county port to the capital port with escort if he wants to craft something.

TLDR; More characters on same steam account. Rent for outposts and dock space instead of buying, let clan set the rent rate. Remove max. contracts, somewhat system as wow, item removed and deleted after 30 days, Reals for TP without getting bankrupt and also not making alts proactive with price pr rank. Labor Hours indirectly makes it p2w, because more accounts = more labor hours.

Just waiting for this novel to pass through..

Edited October 23, 2018 by Guest
easier to read, pros and cons of alt if its missunderstood

[Macjimm]

How is the Forger DLC related to Alts and Multi-boxing?  I've read the thread and can't see a connection.

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Macjimm said:

How is the Forger DLC related to Alts and Multi-boxing?  I've read the thread and can't see a connection.

edited if you missunderstood

[HachiRoku]

9 minutes ago, Wyy said:

edited if you missunderstood

Removing hours was something admin talked about I believe. 

[Christendom]

6 hours ago, HachiRoku said:

On second thought... You really have the balls to go out and demand content you personally don't need for others? How do you know what they want? If your intention in naval action is seal clubbing then I know what you lack. It's not content but an actual challenge. Don't pretend to know what others want. 

Stay off the bath salts bud.  Everybody sinks and everybody ganks.  Thus is the nature of full loot MMOs.

Folks have been crying on the forums for years now looking for more rewarding and challenging PVE content.  If you think the majority of players in this game go out and actively seek PVP content you would be wrong.  PVE encompasses killing bots as well as hauling trade goods around.  Most players will log on for an hour or 2 after work to blow off a little steam, sink some bots or haul around some resources.  Most will only PVP when it finds them.  They quit for a litany of reasons, but chief among them is the content level on day 1 of the game 2 years ago is the same as day 2000.  It's boring, hence the need for more varied content that @admin is working on.    

I don't PVE.  I have maybe 7-8 ships with full 5 slots unlocked, most of which was done via player kills.  My content is other players and anything that will put more of them on the water and keep them there long term, I'm in favor of.  It amuses me when other players think otherwise.  

  

[Guest]

16 minutes ago, HachiRoku said:

Removing hours was something admin talked about I believe. 

maybe havent checked through the threads, but thats what i came up with on short notice thinking pros and cons about owning an alt account

Edited October 23, 2018 by Guest

[HachiRoku]

13 minutes ago, Christendom said:

Stay off the bath salts bud.  Everybody sinks and everybody ganks.  Thus is the nature of full loot MMOs.

Folks have been crying on the forums for years now looking for more rewarding and challenging PVE content.  If you think the majority of players in this game go out and actively seek PVP content you would be wrong.  PVE encompasses killing bots as well as hauling trade goods around.  Most players will log on for an hour or 2 after work to blow off a little steam, sink some bots or haul around some resources.  Most will only PVP when it finds them.  They quit for a litany of reasons, but chief among them is the content level on day 1 of the game 2 years ago is the same as day 2000.  It's boring, hence the need for more varied content that @admin is working on.    

I don't PVE.  I have maybe 7-8 ships with full 5 slots unlocked, most of which was done via player kills.  My content is other players and anything that will put more of them on the water and keep them there long term, I'm in favor of.  It amuses me when other players think otherwise.  

  

Adding more ways to sink bots is the same shit different game mode. Your average casual is done with the game after 50-100 hours. There is no way to keep them around. If the devs bring loads of new great missions you will see yourself that after 5 hours people are sick of it again. Map packs and dlc guns never bring players back to call off duty. People log in for few hours, check them out and after they realise the mechanics are the same they log off again. There is not alot of things you can do about it. Adding more ways to kill bots is repetitive and that's it. Adding more ways to trade still means you sail from a to b. There is nothing you can add to a game that keeps players around. Look at wow, they add new expansions but the players rarely return after the addiction is gone. 

Simple fact is and 90% of games loose 90% of player base in 3-4 weeks.

Imo giving rvr more depth and other tweaks is a better way to go because the devs need to give the hardcore players a reason to stay around. Casuals come and go. 

[Corona Lisa]

Its very hard to craft ships with one account because noone is selling basic resources. Not in free towns, not in the ports where they get harvested, just nowhere because it is not very profitable and players are limited by building slots and labor hours.

Ships require 8 resources + woods for frames and planking + the shipyard, so you most likely have to buy some of the basic resources (even if you have the building DLC, outpost limit is a big problem).

You can buy resources from EU trader, but the prices are so terrible you might as well just dont bother at all and buy ships from someone else completely.

 

So if you want to craft ships the game really encourages you to buy a 2nd account.

Edited October 23, 2018 by Jon Snow lets go

[Christendom]

WoW has 10+ mil subscribers 14 years after it was released.  90% of wow players don’t experience the higher forms of end game raid content.  75% of them don’t PVP.  What keeps them occupied is character progression, achievements and collecting various types of loot.  That’s a lot of players killing bots. 

Naval Action falls short in regards to player progression.  We have no achievements other than screenshots.  Limited amounts of “loot” to collect.  Pretty much zero cosmetic ship customization.  All you can do is basically sail out and kill the same 400 players or the same tired old AI.  This is boring.  Killing AI in any game is mundane and not really challenging.  What other games manage to do that NA has yet to figure out is how to make it rewarding.  People will do almost any grind as long as that carrot at the end is juicy enough.  

While I don’t have all the answers, successful MMOs figure out how to keep casual players engaged with a healthy mix of customization, rewards and progression .  Make the game full of players again and PVP / RVR will work themselves out.