Development plans update: 1 half of 2019

[admin]

15 minutes ago, Puchu said:

And everyone who thinks differently should just leave and play other games. I understand. 

You are not a very negative person - you should not twist he words for others, and maybe accept reality as it is - which will bring peace. 
We did not say people should leave (especially those who think differently) 

We just said we have ramen. only ramen. You can have any ramen you want. But we don't have french fries  lobby content. We could cook them - but they wont be good and wont be cheap. Ramen on the other hand - will be the best.  You would not ask a ramen shop to cook you something not on the menu 

 

23 minutes ago, Puchu said:

us why we cant have a dueling room where we can fight each other no matter the flag with our ship that we have equipped  without loot and without loss? A place to train people, fight ourselves and test everything?

 

 

Because you (or I or someone) have to pay for it - i explained above. So the duel room as i said can be fixed very fast if there REAL demand that can only be proven in a monetary exchange of goods. You provide monthly sub - we provide duel room for that sub. 

How much would you pay for the duel room - and will you pay in advance for 12 moths? (because to get good price for duel room servers i have to buy them for a year)

[van der Clam]

8 minutes ago, admin said:

You are not a very negative person - you should not twist he words for others, and maybe accept reality as it is - which will bring peace. 
We did not say people should leave (especially those who think differently) 

We just said we have ramen. only ramen. You can have any ramen you want. But we don't have french fries  lobby content. We could cook them - but they wont be good and wont be cheap. Ramen on the other hand - will be the best.  You would not ask a ramen shop to cook you something not on the menu 

Can we please get crafting XP back for making these ramen, and the spoons and bowels and napkins, and...?  

 

Edited June 25, 2019 by van der Clam

[Severus Snape]

7 minutes ago, Puchu said:

And everyone who thinks differently should just leave and play other games. I understand. 

Then play a different game - Arena based NA failed twice.  Perhaps if all the people who have cried for an arena based NA actually played it when legends was active, it might of not failed.  

 

[Puchu]

8 minutes ago, admin said:

Because you (or I or someone) have to pay for it - i explained above. So the duel room as i said can be fixed very fast if there REAL demand that can only be proven in a monetary exchange of goods. You provide monthly sub - we provide duel room for that sub. 

 How much would you pay for the duel room - and will you pay in advance for 12 moths? (because to get good price for duel room servers i have to buy them for a year)

-You edited your post after i had already written mine without marking the edit as an edit. Now i look like an idiot who didnt read your post. Dont take me for a fool.-

 

So about the content of your posts:

I am no programmer. I dont see how a duel instance is any different from a ow instance with 2 people in it, but you have to know that, since you are a dev.
What i see is that you are deliberately reducing the amount of instances that there are at any given time to save money on the servers. You do that also by making people sail on the cheap OW for as long as possible and then giving people the option to teleport in and flood the few instances that there are. 
Thank you for letting us know what really drives your design decisions.

Btw, i really appreciate your honesty.

How much would a duel room cost? Would you make it the way we want it? Would you make it with loot and exp? Would you make it without loss?

 

[Puchu]

10 minutes ago, Severus Snape said:

Then play a different game - Arena based NA failed twice.  Perhaps if all the people who have cried for an arena based NA actually played it when legends was active, it might of not failed.  

  

Kids dont like icecream with dogshit all over it. Does that mean kids dont like icecream? For how long should they eat Icecream with dogshit just to proove they like icecream?

[Slim McSauce]

It's not a fair comparison. Arena combat is the combat instance. A lobby would be just the combat instance, nothing more required. Not out of the realm of our ramen shop.

[Roadkill]

Admin

Would it be possible to bring back the tournament room with ships actually being lost.  I completely get that keeping people on OW makes sense but if we lost our ships in room it would limit the entrants and additionally only open the room one day a week say.  Some of my best memories of the game have been playing against and with guys from other nations I didn't get chance to sail with otherwise.  Also great for players to test how their skills have improved.  I do understand the reasoning but is there any was of giving it us on a limited basis.  So many players would love it.....may bring back a few who like the instant nature of it and will therefore buy DLC (if the ships are lost).

 

Edited June 26, 2019 by Roadkill

[Slim McSauce]

Here's one, tournament room. 1v1, 3v3 and 5v5. No ship loss, only against people in your own nation. Friendly duels.

[Snoopy]

2 hours ago, admin said:

[..]Asymmetric hunting is what makes OW exciting and it works. Just check small group pvp streams (they exist).
Players who want fair 1v1 pvp should be seen more often in the solo patrol area. [..]

Ok fair enough.
The 1v1 part of the patrol area is kinda workable as a substitute but imho the circle is shrinking far too quickly for a fun duel.. you end up fighting it far more than your opponent, its very constricting and contrived. I can see why it is there, but perhaps it could be adjusted to simply be stationary.. this should prevent endless running while still allowing the area to be used as clutch training room/dueling arena. win/win

[Sureshot]

The worst part about legends was 95% of the fights was against all AI even with a lot of people online, the matching making was poor. The gun grind was another a whole other story that I don't even need to talk about. I would like to believe that most people that got NA legends for free never knew what it was or that they even owned the game. 

I don't know how many people are in the same boat as me that just want battle after battle without any hassle. The combat in this game is so damn good with the beautifial ships. It is painful knowing we aren't going to have a lobby based NA. So many good fights and memories in SeaTrials and duel rooms. 😐

Edited June 26, 2019 by Sureshot (SeaHyena)

[Koltes]

3 hours ago, admin said:

Regarding duel rooms and testing rooms.

We had them (duels, small battles, large battles, tournament room) as a appendix leftover from sea trials. But later we realised. 
Duel rooms remove players from the OW, making overall experience for the community worse. They kept part of the audience in the past. 

Our game is OW. Players must be risking something in OW. There is no other game. Not because we are stubborn - but because we tested the OTHER game. It does not hold average players - and as a result hardcore fans of other game have to fight bots and also leave.. 

Solo and Clan based tournaments might come back in form of official quarterly event. But again. We would prefer to do them in OW - old school style like wow classic will do raids when they launch. 
 

Cant agree more about lobby based game.

Regarding duel however. Somehow you think that we are asking for lobby duels. Nope. We are asking for an ability to challenge players in the OW without consequences. Further more an ability to fight with your own nation based on agreement. There are few guys im meeting that I would happily take into battle and show them some tricks and tips. Or have a plain simple fight

E.G. Just like Trade in the OW, we need Duel button. You click that and chat goes - Let's duel! Then you can right click on persons name and select Duel. This gives ability to go into battle instance with your own nation player. To avoid possible exploits make it so this only available in capital zone.

Edited June 26, 2019 by koltes

[Mr. Doran]

5 hours ago, admin said:

 

 

You always never mention the fact that you had to start in a 7th rate. You once told me that most people on OW never got past brig before leaving so I do not think it is exactly a coincidence that the exams give you MC. The real content of this game always started at fifth rates  so is it really shocking that most vets that I knew threw up in their mouths and when they saw they had to start in a cutter? You always never mention the fact that a 12-pound gun-deck Constitution could be fighting one armed with a 24-pound gun-deck either. You also never mention the fact that you admitted to the fact the first round of testing was almost purely to see what the rate of the grind would be. 

Obviously most players actually looking for PVP did not want to fight bots which is why you botched how combat was organized. Instead of taking the effort to get with the times and create a que with a set amount of players in a competitive format such as 5v5 or smaller you decided to go with the dirty cheap shit way of your forebearers using a mass que. You created the artificial necessity to have over a dozen players in each match with essentially no guarantee of being able to pull together the correct balance of ships. You could have made a simple champion selection type process so you could at least guarantee standardization and some semblance of balance. What should have been focused on is getting players into fun combat as fast as possible in a competitive environment rather than the generic "World of" crap that you fed us. You still to this day draw the wrong conclusions to why NAL did not draw players in. Instead of asking yourself how you could have made it better you just assume that people do not want to play it. I'm always reminded of the Andrew Lang quote, "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination" whenever this comes up. 

It befuddles me that you believe the combat system is not good enough to stand up to the type of environment described. It was arena and a supply of over two thousand battles on-tap that inspired me to write this. Not the promise of ganking people. Not because I had to go craft ships. Not because I had to escape from revenge fleets. 

 

5 hours ago, admin said:

How much would you pay for the duel room - and will you pay in advance for 12 moths? (because to get good price for duel room servers i have to buy them for a year)

 

1. Whats your cost basis?

a. How many instances per room?

b. Could it just be used essentially as a regular lobby for 2v2s as it sounds like a full room is being paid for?

2. If there is a fee for arenas/lobbies there better not be any grinding involved. If you are going to actually offer the chance to buy instant combat it damn well better be. 

 

 

Edited June 26, 2019 by Mr. Doran

[Guest]

Pop slowly building (steam charts), steam forum is full of fresh threads, posts and players with new ideas and helps.

This forum is starting to stagnate, keeps rehashing old disappointments with no benefits, when is this forum going to move forwards, like steam has!

 

Edited June 26, 2019 by Guest

[Puchu]

The steam forum is full of new people who dont have 4 Years of experience like yourself. You joined 2. July 2018. And who dont have 2-5k hours into the game. They dont know anything jet. They will come to the same conclusions as we once they have equal playing time invested. 

 

And I aggree 100% with what Doran said. NAL was set up to fail. Admin didnt ask for any opinions before shmashing that abomination onto us. I think you just dont want an Arena based game and you are just desperately looking for proof that people dont want it. It's a self fulfilling prophecy.

If you would really want to make a good arena game, set up a task force of players and devs have them develop something good and then test it, and then let the masses have it.

But yes, a duel option on the OW, why not... But it could also just be a button that teleports you into a duel setup from anywhere you are so swedes and prussians can fight each other aswell.

[Guest]

36 minutes ago, Puchu said:

...arena..duel [rooms]...

In regards to the arena game, @admin has said no, been there done that already and with dismal results, what else can he say! you gotta wonder what part of no you guy's don't understand! especially if you been here 4 years, ditto for duels rooms.

Edited June 26, 2019 by Guest

[qw569😳]

8 hours ago, admin said:

PS

Small print
Main reason for their removal - they steal take instance capacity from Open world (duel instances cannot be joined by other players in form of reinforcements, revenge gankers or helpers) = which means they cost more money than OW instances because i have to keep a separate server pool for them and they can be used only when people want to duel (staying idle all other time). We are all adults and know it can be solved. Duel room can be a subscription feature. This will be a real litmus test on how many people REALLY want a duel room.

Do you know that World of tanks have training room? They also spent server resources but Wargaming continue its support without any subscription. Why do they do this?

[HachiRoku]

8 hours ago, admin said:

 

Cannons have nothing to do with it. Unlockable guns exist in all arenas and progression is required for free to play arenas to survive.
But maybe you did forget.. 

NA Arena died twice

• First Sea Trials - Infamous Sidestrafe was very excited for the OW plans while playing in the sea trials. But Sea trials died . In one of the last battles in March (peak was January) he literally had to fight bots live on twitch cos he could not find players - 0 other players online - only sidestrafe.. He could not find a single player 4 months after start of the arena testing. 10000 players joined - 1 (sidestrafe) was left in 4 months. Perfect chicken dinner winner.
  • Thanks to community gods we already had a working OW prototype by then and moved everyone to the caribbean (online jumped and never went down below 100! even with low sales with no crafting and no trading. It was just OW npc hunting and pvp and despite that it has way better player numbers compared to arena)
• NA Legends: Same exact thing and timing happened with Legends. Some say it was guns, some say it was bots. But no. They are all mistaken. It was the arena itself.
  • Arenas/MOBAs only survive if they get to top 1 or top 2 spot. Otherwise they die. If you have no players any arena dies. All mobas that did not get to pole position died. Unlike niche games it is a winner takes all concept.

Just think about these numbers

• NA - legends was given for FREE to 120,000 people and only 11000 logged in and online was 0 in 3 months. (reminder about cannons - sea trials had no progression with the exception of ship unlocks and it died in 4 months). Nobody wanted it - except for people who want fair combat. But those left too because they did not want fair combat against bots. 
• In comparison
• NA OW never went below 250-300 people during the worst patches with very low monthly sales

We closed the arena topic for ourselves. There is no retention there. Proven twice. with pure product and with product with several progression lines (cannons/officers etc)

Asymmetric hunting is what makes OW exciting and it works. Just check small group pvp streams (they exist).
Players who want fair 1v1 pvp should be seen more often in the solo patrol area. 

 

Regarding duel rooms and testing rooms.

We had them (duels, small battles, large battles, tournament room) as a appendix leftover from sea trials. But later we realised. 
Duel rooms remove players from the OW, making overall experience for the community worse. They kept part of the audience in the past. 

Our game is OW. Players must be risking something in OW. There is no other game. Not because we are stubborn - but because we tested the OTHER game. It does not hold average players - and as a result hardcore fans of other game have to fight bots and also leave.. 

Solo and Clan based tournaments might come back in form of official quarterly event. But again. We would prefer to do them in OW - old school style like wow classic will do raids when they launch. 
 

PS
Small print
Main reason for their removal - they steal take instance capacity from Open world (duel instances cannot be joined by other players in form of reinforcements, revenge gankers or helpers) = which means they cost more money than OW instances because i have to keep a separate server pool for them and they can be used only when people want to duel (staying idle all other time). We are all adults and know it can be solved. Duel room can be a subscription feature. This will be a real litmus test on how many people REALLY want a duel room.

All the great YouTube videos are from the arena days. I would argue it's when the game really lived. The open world part of this game has died several time too. You just revived it with patches and wipes. Sea trials was never on steam. It died because all games do. If it was on steam when sidestrafe was making videos it would have sold way better. The only promotion this game ever had was in internal development. Once "released" on steam Noone made videos except small youtubers. Legends matchmaking was broken. It was designed for hardcore pvpers yet you forced use to start in basic cutters vs bots. When i asked people over teamspeak to look for lobby we were split up in 2 lobbies vs ai. You might be right that arena is less popular but do not blame legends failure on the genre because it was a technical mess and a game Noone except a few people on the forums knew about. I met one player in legends that was not from the regual game. 

 

[Slim McSauce]

Albion online has duel rooms in the same fashion.

[FKL 1982]

43 minutes ago, qw569 said:

Do you know that World of tanks have training room? They also spent server resources but Wargaming continue its support without any subscription. Why do they do this?

Wargaming is worth a LOT more money and as such as can freely afford such overheads?

Also fairly sure @admin once worked for Wargaming (I may have heard wrong, maybe admin and confirm/deny) and is very aware of this.

 

Edited June 26, 2019 by H982 FKL

[Puchu]

2 hours ago, BuckleUpBones said:

In regards to the arena game, @admin has said no, been there done that already and with dismal results, what else can he say! you gotta wonder what part of no you guy's don't understand! especially if you been here 4 years, ditto for duels rooms.

The part of NO that we understand are the reasons for it. 

If the NO is just a word without reasoning behind it, then its worth nothing.

If the  NO is based on tweaked gimped and messed up results, then its wrong and should be a YES. It's like reading an environmental report by a chemicals company. They only find out what they want to find out and they set up the tests in such a way that they are bound to give the results they want to. Admin said NO, i heard that. I say: He never really tried to get it to a YES. There are thousands of reasons why the Arena tests "failed" and none of them have to do with people not wanting the Arena. E.g. In Seatrials it was long clear that the game would become open world. People finished the grind to santissima. They had tried it all out and were curious to find out what the open world was going to be like. Beta testers allways want something new. With the promise and hope of ow being just as great as the arena people were looking forward to that shiny glow at the end of the rainbow. But then people found out that it was way less glorious and way less fun than expected. The open world was and still is full of flaws and insufficiencies. The crafting is boring and unexciting. The RoE and the whole game design favor uneven fights and running away. So people started demanding the Arena back. Then they got it back in the form of Small battles... Which was also horribly designed and you had to sail small ships... And there were big battles... where people were bound to loose their ships and get basically nothing in return. Then NAL came...many ppl were super hyped for it. But out of the 120k that got free access how many actually knew that they had access? Did they get mail? Was there a steam announcement? Then there were those people who logged on to find out that it's even more grind than Naval action. ... remember: most of those people had already grinded to santissima 4 times. Do you really think they were happy about even more grind? No, they were not happy. They said they were not happy and stopped playing it while hoping that the devs would change the NAL and then they would return, but admin said NO, and concluded the experiment with "The people dont want an arena game". But thats not true! The people dont want a shitty arena game, just like they dont want a shitty open world game. The people dont want a shitty game that is flawed to the bone. There were tons of suggestions on how to make NAL better, but noone of them got implemented. The arena book was closed and locked without ever trying to make it good. 

 

For the open world:

The game doesn't deal well with risk averse gameplay. Yes, people dont like to loose stuff. Surprise surprise.... If fights make you loose stuff, people wont like fights.... If you want people to fight you need to change the game... It should incentivise fights and not punish the ones who actually look for fights bringing content to everybody. 

On the other hand... If you dont want people to fight, because every fight costs you money, then the game is perfectly designed. It all depends on your goals i guess. 

But i am a player, and as a player i have a clear goal. I want fun. For me fights are fun. Thats why I want fights. Real fights, not stomps. As many as possible in the limited lifetime and playtime that i have.

[FKL 1982]

30 minutes ago, Puchu said:

 

But i am a player, and as a player i have a clear goal. I want fun. For me fights are fun. Thats why I want fights. Real fights, not stomps. As many as possible in the limited lifetime and playtime that i have.

But you are not the ONLY player, what makes a game fun for one person if not what makes it fun for another. Stop acting so entitled

[Meraun]

To me, The Constant fear of losing my Ship, Trade Goods and everything if worked is waht keeps me playing. The Thrill of beeing chased as a Trader or to sink an enemy ship. Knowing i have not just sunk his ship but also damaged his Wealth and i gave him a setback. And by sinking his ship and his Goods and all the Money he invest in it, it also means i damaged his Clan, His Nation  and their Progress. Same go for Hostility missions and PB. The Fact that lossing   a Ship or a Port  hurts a nation and a Clan sooo much is waht this game is about. Thats Thrill, tahts the Drama (This game needs Drama)

Naturally you try to fight with the Odds on your side. Tahts the Conclusion of waht i wrote above. So its about turning the Favor to you, in OW and each battle.

Little story from yesterday: We were a Squad of 4 (2x Le Req,1x Pandora,1x USS) i was scouting ahead in a Le Requin when i got tagged by 2 Prussian Hercs. our other LE Requin joined and the battle closed. They stayed downwind so we coudnt Board them. Since we had no Chance broadside on Broadside we decided to run away and retagg them  in OWwith the Pandora and the USS nearby.  - We tried to turn the Engangment into our Favor by get much stronger backup

Our Pandora tagged them outside again, we went in to chain them down so the USS coud catch up and finish the Job. But we were to agressive, the Herc's sailed smart, kept their Distance to our USS and sunk both Le Requin and the Pandora. And left before the USS was able to catch up to them. -All this battles were asymetric and onsided. But in both cases on side was able to turn it towards their favor (or disengange and get Help)

 

Arena is meaningless. there is no thrill in it. i hope NA  never goes back to it.

[Mr. Doran]

11 hours ago, H982 FKL said:

But you are not the ONLY player, what makes a game fun for one person if not what makes it fun for another. Stop acting so entitled

 

I don't think any of us arena players are entitled. If it meant paying 20 USD a month to stay away from the filth of OW I know me and quite a lot of people I have met in my time here would do it. I never understood the anti-arena sentiment on this forum. It's not as if some of the most popular games ever constructed and running today are not some form of arena game. What is worse is that most people do not realize that most of the ROE that is currently implemented is basically some form of shitty arena-lite. Even back in 2015 when it was just the instance close timer being debated and tweaked there were quite a number of people that realized the "sailing" in OW is basically just a glorified lobby with a horrendous wait time. But instead of getting good fights or at least the opportunity for so, you get the asymmetric rofl stomps you so desire over 90% of the time.  

Edited June 26, 2019 by Henry d'Esterre Darby
Offensive word removed.

[Puchu]

9 minutes ago, Meraun said:

 Naturally you try to fight with the Odds on your side. Tahts the Conclusion of waht i wrote above. So its about turning the Favor to you, in OW and each battle.

 Little story from yesterday: We were a Squad of 4 (2x Le Req,1x Pandora,1x USS) i was scouting ahead in a Le Requin when i got tagged by 2 Prussian Hercs. our other LE Requin joined and the battle closed. They stayed downwind so we coudnt Board them. Since we had no Chance broadside on Broadside we decided to run away and retagg them  in OWwith the Pandora and the USS nearby.  - We tried to turn the Engangment into our Favor by get much stronger backup

 Our Pandora tagged them outside again, we went in to chain them down so the USS coud catch up and finish the Job. But we were to agressive, the Herc's sailed smart, kept their Distance to our USS and sunk both Le Requin and the Pandora. And left before the USS was able to catch up to them. -All this battles were asymetric and onsided. But in both cases on side was able to turn it towards their favor (or disengange and get Help)

 

Arena is meaningless. there is no thrill in it. i hope NA  never goes back to it.

I dont want the odds in my favor. I want even odds. I guess im not the natural ganker that you are. Or maybe your "natural" behavior is not so natural after all.

How long did your story take? How many actual fights did you have? 2 hercs sinking a requin and a pandora is a joke, not a fight. So they kited you ... wow. That must have been a very fun fight.... Did you even use your rudder? How much fun did the uss player have? Did he even fire anything else but his chasers? For how long did you keep that poor guy in that engagement where he literally did nothing but scare the enemy into kiting? He was like a guy with a mask going "Buhuuu, one day i will catch youhuuu´!" 

[Vizzini]

Games only just released and the whiners already want to dismantle it