It's Time to Sail

[Teutonic]

42 minutes ago, Trashumi Cubanwara said:

In order to come back I need some of this to be fixed

 

Agree with you 100%.

[staun]

1 hour ago, Released Privateer said:

I heard that Tutan has collected 250k doubloons alone and I saw a pirate capturing AI LGV with 6k dubs. Enough said.

So that 1 person had the time and another had the luck it is your argument? But you said it. We need to hold the dbl mint press. It should take Tutsn atleast a 1/2 year to get 250 k. Admin plz set his playstyle and game time as the benchmark. Luck on trader 6 k dbl should never be possible, plz admin nerf all traders.

just for the record after I was told they had changed it around Christmas I tryied traders again. Nope, none just forget about dbl in traders. But hey you are right lets use one luckely bastard as the standard.

 

Edited December 28, 2018 by staun

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Hemp Amore said:

It's Time to Sail!

Without a crew!

This game is more than MMO of players, its needs clans to fuel realm, its needs communities to fuel clans.

This game needs to return the concentration of players around capitals, back to communities of players, which then leads to the formation of clans. The low level or beginners end of the PvP game is still a disaster.

If released, the game will sail without a crew.

[admin]

4 hours ago, Hemp Amore said:

Hello everyone,

Wanted to write a quick thread as we've all seen the lower pop levels, the salt, and from the changes/adjustments we have been going through in our favorite naval action simulator.   The reason I am writing this is because I believe *most* of the issues that we had with Patch 27 are behind us.  For the most part @admin has indeed listened to the community after all and adjusted the drops in a very healthy and productive way that allows everyone to actually build themselves and their clans again which brings me to the title: It's Time to Sail!
 

soon rvr will shine and port control will matter more, trading will be even more interesting, barter will allow to increase port production, pvp missions will be added (with rare rewards), delivery orders, postal missions will help to get on foot if you lost all money. and don't forget the Chinese language. 

happy new year all.

[JDAM]

2 hours ago, van der Decken said:

Indeed, having enough dbls and material for 1st and 2nd rates should require a lot of work, at least from 5 ppl. A single person can do it now too easily. IMO it should take 3-5 times as long for 1-2 rates, and they should only be built from the admiralty. At least imo.

That's indeed what it took to get that much cash flowing.  And these are rough numbers I'm about to give here just from memory, but it honestly can't be done easily solo, the fleets we are tagging are insane 10-12 ship bellona fleets with 3-4 ships (2x 2nd rates, 1x 3rd rate and sometimes a 5th) and doing about 25-40 minute battles to gain around 3000-5000 dubs on average with some jackpots of around 9000-12000.  Then in addition we've landed some nice books too in the process, I'd say 1 in 20 ships drops something really nice.  Sometimes with a little extra drop in between.  It just feels well balanced and some ships are completely empty too, so it has become exciting seeing what you get on the loots, as you really do get a very positive lottery experience where you're sometimes winning and then sometimes losing some.  Idk all in all we've put in about 2-4 hours a night at it with a total manhour count for the group of ~48 hours.  I'd say that's tracking right where it should be imho.... does that change how you see it with some raw numbers of the time spent?

Edit to add:  The fleets are of medium to high difficulty imho, you can't go in unprepared, you need to stock and maintain regular hull/rig & rum repairs, if you don't fight the AI well and with purpose, you'll get focused and sometimes surprisingly quickly sunk.  It takes good team work and management of repair to sink them, obviously getting easier as you start getting sinks.  Once you get it down to 1:1 you can split up and finish it off, it really is a ton of fun.  

Edited December 28, 2018 by Hemp Amore

[JDAM]

27 minutes ago, Released Privateer said:

Well, Reverse barely has any doubloons, Dinark complains he doesn't earn anything in PvP while PvE players are swimming in doubloon ocean. Seems about right.

Part of that is doubloons are per ship, so in PVP if it's 1v1 you only get one chance for doubloons to spawn whereas in a 10 ship PVE fleet you'll get 10 chances for a nice drop.... I suspect that OW PVP with 10v10 would give some pretty nice drops

[Guest]

7 hours ago, staun said:

Oh I have l given up. No dbl for me. But thats ok. Herc and 5 rate are nice ships.

In Call of Duty you dont get highest ranked equipment from playing 24 hours.

In Battlefield 5 you dont get the best equipment on the highest tier weapon after playing for 24 hours.

In World of Warcraft you dont get the best PvP gear or PvE gear from playing the game for 24 hours.

In EvE I can only assume you're not able to get the best space ship after 24 hours of gametime, since im not playing that game.

 

But in NA you can after 24 hours farm enough doubloons for maybe 2 or 3 first rate. They are ment to be expensive, i would consider it taking days to farm up for a first rate, "yes blah blah its a game", but you could also say "YES its a game! you're supposed to be encouraged to grind your way to the very top, because if you only want to use it for PvE its almost impossible to die so there is more or less no risk

Edited December 29, 2018 by Guest

[Christendom]

I'm not exactly sure it's the cost of doubloons that is preventing players from sailing out in the big boys, but merely the ease at they can be lost.  

Player X farms for a couple days to get the mats and dubs to make a Vic, goes out and can lose it in 15mins to a 4 on 1 gank.  Rinse / repeat a couple times and Player X gets frustrated and goes back to Fortnight.  Some might say that new players need to suck it up and this is a PVP game and they would be right, but there is something inherently wrong with the current system in game where ganking seems to not only thrive, but encouraged.  Hostility missions heavily favor the defender and responses almost always result in ship loss and ganks.  PVP Zones still are mostly lopsided battles.  Even if players have a successful hostility mission and trigger the port, it's very easy to screen players out with the BR port battles.  Everything in this game appears to be attuned to ganking in numbers and while most of us old dogs that are left have just accepted this style of play and even come to enjoy it, it's not conducive to new or casual players.  What you end up with is what we're currently experiencing.  Very low pop.  

I don't really have a solution, but it just seems NA is on this continual loop where we have a patch...players come back....they stay for a month or 2 and then fizzle out.  Each time around the retention gets fewer and fewer.  Will a 4th or 5th tweak to the RVR system fix this?  Maybe.  But for how long?  

[Slim McSauce]

Just now, Christendom said:

I'm not exactly sure it's the cost of doubloons that is preventing players from sailing out in the big boys, but merely the ease at they can be lost.  

Player X farms for a couple days to get the mats and dubs to make a Vic, goes out and can lose it in 15mins to a 4 on 1 gank.  Rinse / repeat a couple times and Player X gets frustrated and goes back to Fortnight.  Some might say that new players need to suck it up and this is a PVP game and they would be right, but there is something inherently wrong with the current system in game where ganking seems to not only thrive, but encouraged.  Hostility missions heavily favor the defender and responses almost always result in ship loss and ganks.  PVP Zones still are mostly lopsided battles.  Even if players have a successful hostility mission and trigger the port, it's very easy to screen players out with the BR port battles.  Everything in this game appears to be attuned to ganking in numbers and while most of us old dogs that are left have just accepted this style of play and even come to enjoy it, it's not conducive to new or casual players.  What you end up with is what we're currently experiencing.  Very low pop.  

I don't really have a solution, but it just seems NA is on this continual loop where we have a patch...players come back....they stay for a month or 2 and then fizzle out.  Each time around the retention gets fewer and fewer.  Will a 4th or 5th tweak to the RVR system fix this?  Maybe.  But for how long?  

A lot of players don't realize the way you make doubloons is you go out and jack them from AI  traders. If you aren't doing solo pvp then that's how you make your money, which also funds your crafting in more than one way if you're familiar.

But no I think what's really bad is the ship market. Go to La Tortue and sure it has lots of contracts, good mods, some good well priced ships. It's still very lacking for what competes as the largest hub in the game with shroud and tumbado.

I don't think RNG crafting has helped in any way. I think it's actually hurting that people are forced into crafting ships otherwise they have no options for buying ships with reals. You have nothing to look at but the player market and what meager sort the dockmaster has to choose from.  No, I think the only true markets that exist in NA are in A. The nations capital 
B. A few freeports. Maybe 3 and they're pretty bad, you'll get maybe 20 or so ships to choose from, with a variety of like 5 because one guy posts two indiamans and the other person has a purple and a blue ship on sail.

Now I could be wrong and this is just more of the dev's black magic taking time to kick in but I'm not seeing and growth of shipbuilding soon.  Ship redeeming, yes. Ship building, ehhh no not so much.

[Christendom]

20 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

A lot of players don't realize the way you make doubloons is you go out and jack them from AI  traders. If you aren't doing solo pvp then that's how you make your money, which also funds your crafting in more than one way if you're familiar.

But no I think what's really bad is the ship market. Go to La Tortue and sure it has lots of contracts, good mods, some good well priced ships. It's still very lacking for what competes as the largest hub in the game with shroud and tumbado.

I don't think RNG crafting has helped in any way. I think it's actually hurting that people are forced into crafting ships otherwise they have no options for buying ships with reals. You have nothing to look at but the player market and what meager sort the dockmaster has to choose from.  No, I think the only true markets that exist in NA are in A. The nations capital 
B. A few freeports. Maybe 3 and they're pretty bad, you'll get maybe 20 or so ships to choose from, with a variety of like 5 because one guy posts two indiamans and the other person has a purple and a blue ship on sail.

Now I could be wrong and this is just more of the dev's black magic taking time to kick in but I'm not seeing and growth of shipbuilding soon.  Ship redeeming, yes. Ship building, ehhh no not so much.

I still maintain cheap and easy ships is the way to go.  If the DLC ships have taught us anything, people aren't afraid to lose ships....they're just to lose their time investments.  

[Slim McSauce]

1 hour ago, Christendom said:

I still maintain cheap and easy ships is the way to go.  If the DLC ships have taught us anything, people aren't afraid to lose ships....they're just to lose their time investments.  

Well... I don't see why not. The gold (ship) rush has kind of turned everyone into ship hoarders with HUGE amounts of cash invested into each ship.

We should just make gold ships standard, and bring back regional crafting bonuses. 5/5 mods makes more sense when you have 20 different types of mods, and it's easier to balance the noob with the vet when you level the playing field on ships.

[staun]

6 hours ago, Wyy said:

In Call of Duty you dont get highest ranked equipment from playing 24 hours.

In Battlefield 5 you dont get the best equipment on the highest tier weapon after playing for 24 hours.

In World of Warcraft you dont get the best PvP gear or PvE gear from playing the game for 24 hours.

In EvE I can only assume you're not able to get the best space ship after 24 hours of gametime, since im not playing that game.

 

But in NA you can after 24 hours farm enough doubloons for maybe 2 or 3 first rate. They are ment to be expensive, i would consider it taking days to farm up for a first rate, "yes blah blah its a game", but you could also say "YES its a game! you're supposed to be encouraged to grind your way to the very top, because if you only want to use it for PvE its almost impossible to die so there is more or less no risk

Call of Duty do you lose your equipment when you die?

Battlefield 5 do you lose your equipment when you die?

World of Warcraft do you lose your equipment when you die?

I’ll leave eve out since none of the question since non of us have plaid it.

Naval Action you lose your equipment when you die. So unless you have said yes to the things above don’t really thing you can compare equipment in NA with those games. There could be made an argument it is to easy to rank up ore to easy to get ship knowledge.

Yes it is a game. With the hardcore demand on grind for dbl for bigger ships, it for me not is worth it. That dosent mean others dont find it fun. But for me RvR is  dead, most patrolezoned is dead. Don’t try stop 3-4 guys comming in bigger ships in a defence of home water.

You lose bigger ships even in PvE. That could be epic ore big fleet battles. Witch I don’t do anymore, since my biggest ship is a indifatigable. You also get jumped when you are fighting Ai’s. Ore on the way back when you maybe are shoot to pices.

Thats just me. Dosen’t have be so for all. Soon there will be a RvR first aid pack for the elite. Think that should bring about a couple of hundrede ppl back. 

As I have said it is good some ppl think things are good again. I just don’t. So I limited my gameplay. But Hey I am just one player, so if the rest is happy we are on the right track to get a bigger population. I am just not sure about that, but time will show us. But even if when numbers go Down it is fine. Devs should make the game they belive in.

 

[staun]

10 hours ago, Released Privateer said:

Well, Reverse barely has any doubloons, Dinark complains he doesn't earn anything in PvP while PvE players are swimming in doubloon ocean. Seems about right.

In all fairness the PvE players need easier acces to dbl, otherwise then can’t keep up with the demand on ships that PvP players can kill.

[staun]

2 hours ago, Christendom said:

I still maintain cheap and easy ships is the way to go.  If the DLC ships have taught us anything, people aren't afraid to lose ships....they're just to lose their time investments.  

I agree with you on that. But thats just not the meta players have been keeping demanding. Ships should be expensive and ppl should fell fear of losing a ship. 

Do hope more will advocate for what you say and I think in time we will see a more players if we do. But for right now it atleast for me looks like the devs are more focused on the elite players/clans to get them to again create content in game, and less focused on the 2 h man.

[staun]

29 minutes ago, Released Privateer said:

And PvP players can sustain living off just PvP, PvErs are just extremely rich. PvP'rs... just depend on luck and gambling. Today I killed like 4-5 players and looted maybe 500 dubloons. British Niagara player dropped 26... That's a joke, right? T Brig Brit player dropped 0 of course. Highest drop was 311. I could get all of that just for 10 min of PvE instead of sailing for 2-4h in PvP.

Don’t forget those you get straight in to your chest. It is the total amount that counts. But I actually said nothing on the reward to the PvP players. I just said the PvE players needed easy acces to keep making ships the PvP players could keep killing. 

How many of the fights you won have you sunk the ship insted of capture it and take it back? I would actually think a skilled player like you would be able to catch enough ships to never have to craft one. But ofc you should not be the benchmark. I have no problem with higher reward for PvP. But we should not end up in a situation where PvP players could buy Bellonas for PvP marks, like it was candy in a shop.It was better to sink a good ship, then take it home. We should not end up where just because you are a PvP player you are above the issue of crafting and logistic. I read somewhere before dbl a guy actually had PvP marks enough to craft 200 Bellonas. I hope we never get in such situation again.

Just for the record. If I didn’t have lots of ressources from before patch 27, I most likely woldn’t be able to craft more than a ship(5 rate) a week.

Edited December 29, 2018 by staun

[staun]

Just now, Released Privateer said:

I had marks for over 200-300 Bellonas, but that was months of PvP. Same could be achieved with months of crafting. Now? 0,5-1h of PvE and you buy a Bellona Note... 

How many ships I sank? All of them, all blue, bad mods, bad woods or NPC. I captured just one gold ship for obvious reasons, everything else sank. Doubloons into chest? Like 200-300. Feels like nothing. 

I need to know where you go PvE. I  am nowhere close to the numbers of dbl you say. Where I get the highest reward in dbl from time spend is in the patrolezone. There I have to spend around 2 h to get 2 k dbl.

So you got some dbl and a gold ship without losing a ship. Dosent sound to bad. Again I have no problem with high reward for PvP, but don't think we should end up where because you are a PvP player, that you are above crafting and ressources, But to me it sounds like you actually think PvP alone should be so rewarding that you can sail on only the best. I just disagree on that point.

[staun]

2 minutes ago, Released Privateer said:

PvP is the highest risk. Risk/reward rule must apply. We often risk expensive ships, expensive mods, high risk of getting ganked etc.

Easy doubloons? T Brigs drop 2k, LGVs drop 6k... It takes 1-5 min to capture. 

High risk. Do think we need to get @admin to show us the list with all players kill death ratio. Not so sure that being a PvP would put a player on the list of the most fatal jobs in NA.

You don’t have to risk expensive ships with mods. It is a choise you make. Use a captured ship taken from a player. Cost you nothing, so all you gain is actually a win for you. You can capture an AI, cost you nothing, so all there is also a win. Now you actually have no risk in regard losing, since you haven’t paid for it.

Not sure where you find those traders and LGV’s. I tried but only gets dbl from around 1 og 7 and never had more than 1100 dbl. Just for the record it takes more than 5 min. You have to sail out find them and also get back. But if you have a good spot plz pm it to me. Hunt traders is a high risk job. Chances to be attacked is high in OW away from safezone. Slim chances to get any help. 

[Sir Loorkon]

6 hours ago, Slim McSauce said:

A lot of players don't realize the way you make doubloons is you go out and jack them from AI  traders. If you aren't doing solo pvp then that's how you make your money, which also funds your crafting in more than one way if you're familiar.

Do you realy think you can make money from solo PvP? You can sink money in solo PvP. With the PvP mark system I could live from PvP. With the doubloons dropping from PvP you can not. Sometimes you can capture a good ship but most of the time those ships are not worth it. And if you go out alone (I do this most of the time) you have a high risk of getting ganked and you can seldom loot when getting ganked. You earn much more doubloons in PvE. Have you ever tryed solo PvP?

Edited December 29, 2018 by Sir Loorkon

[JDAM]

10 minutes ago, Released Privateer said:

PvP is the highest risk. Risk/reward rule must apply. We often risk expensive ships, expensive mods, high risk of getting ganked etc.

Easy doubloons? T Brigs drop 2k, LGVs drop 6k... It takes 1-5 min to capture. 

 

I agree with that, I really think PVP should drop just as well as PVE imho.  I don't think PVE is without risk however, I have seen AI do remarkable things especially when players let their guard down.  When you start getting into 10 ship+ fleets the game changes a bit and it's not exactly as difficult as PVP can be it's not push over easy either.  I'm not sure why, but a lot of players seem to hate big doubloon drops, but again doubloons are not supposed to be scarce, they're supposed to be a plentiful resource that's used for ships, mods, skill books and perk resets.  You need many of them, if we are playing the way we are supposed to, we will be using a lot of doubloon at a high rate so hence the need for a high supply.  I think simply because they are gold it creates an over-inflated value in people's minds.  At some point there has to be a set value for commodities in the game and a certain rate at which you can "earn."  No question PVP carries the highest risk, maybe rewards could be tweaked, but a lot of the reward in PVP is simply beating other players, creating fear in the virtual hearts of others, getting back at your enemies, creating new ones, and some of us get to be known as the best in the business.  I think you're one of those.... not saying you shouldn't be paid in game for your work, but at the same time you can grind some 3rd rate fleets and AI traders to get your doubloons so you can go do Banished Privateer things
 

[staun]

Not sure Dbl should flow. Not with the mata we test right now. We test expensive ships. The dbl is what makes them expensive right now. So if we make dbl easy to get, we need to make ships expensive in another way. So much more Mats and maybe even have to change the crafting system.

[JDAM]

3 minutes ago, Sir Loorkon said:

Do you realy think you can make money from solo PvP? You can sink money in solo PvP. With the PvP mark system I could live from PvP. With the doubloons dropping from PvP you can not. Sometimes you can capture a good ship but most of the time those ships are not worth it. And if you go out alone (I do this most of the time) you have a high risk of getting ganked and you can seldom loot when gerring ganked. You earn much more doubloons in PvE. Have you ever tryed solo PvP?

I don't think living off solo PVP is good play style personally.  There are a few components to being self-sustaining and you have to use all parts of the game in order to do so.  Trade, ship building/crafting, and PVP/PVE.  In order to be solvent imho as a single player you need to maintain a bank balance of at least 1,000,000 real.  This allows you to craft mats, buy upgrades or craft them, and other essential purchases to run your fleet.  The other competent is doubloons, which in my opinion as a single player at 20,000 will give you the complete ability to fund yourself without any limitations.  You can get them in over 15 different sources in game, whichever best suits your needs.  If you have enough players you can hunt fleets while you hunt PVP (we often come out of PVE fleets into PVP fleets or single players so we get both at the same time) and earn.   So before you can go hunt ideally you have saved up a war chest of reals, doubloons, ships in harbor, cannon and materials to support your logistics.

No on the flip side if all the above mentioned does not appeal to you whatsoever, you can live completely off the seas without having any farms, buildings, ect.  By hunting AI traders you can over time build your mats up without any of the trade/craft, but it is going to take you more time and hunting (initially).  I think it is better to prepare your war chest, then once you have sufficient equipment to do so, then out on the seas for whatever kind of hunting you're looking for.  I just think we are placing artificial limits upon ourselves that takes away from our enjoyment of the game.  We hated initial patch 27, but those issues aren't exactly there anymore.  We can afford to go hunting now and build our fleets back up.  That's where solvency comes into play, once you reach a certain point of doubloons/real/materials you create momentum and it is very hard to get stopped once you've built yourself up that high, you lose a ship you replace it and get back on the road... You win, well you get to add to that impressive stockpile.  Choice is yours, be a victim or get out there and change your position in the game!

[JDAM]

4 minutes ago, staun said:

Not sure Dbl should flow. Not with the mata we test right now. We test expensive ships. The dbl is what makes them expensive right now. So if we make dbl easy to get, we need to make ships expensive in another way. So much more Mats and maybe even have to change the crafting system.

They already are expensive.  Idk if you own a clan and have a warehouse to manage, but you would be surprised at how fast your mats deplete.  We are constantly and I mean constantly having to trade, source goods, get them into the warehouse.  Ships sink, they get used and used some more until you goto build a ship and you've got no iron.  Uh oh time to get the boatswains working again... While we have a stockpile of doubloons now, one big RVR war and that will be gone... remember the Prussia vs Pirate war?  That would have cost hundreds of thousands of doubloons in lost ships and mats under the new econ.  We need to get over the collective doubloon psychosis and accept that they drop at this rate and that it costs 10,000 doubloons, 2800 live oak logs, 1,100 provisions, and other related mats to build an L' Ocean (seriously folks that's a lot).   I think you need to get crafting and see how long it takes to source all those logs, provisions, and doubloons for building one.  I don't think you'd say they're so cheap.

[LeBoiteux]

Hard to change mentalities. Gold/Doublons/loots are no longer meant to reward the risk of the most high-skilled activity of NA (PvP), but to encourage every player to be in the OW, make it easier to access ships to fight more easily and more often and make players attack every possible prey in OW as it may be wealthy. It was a way to reward the elite. It is now an incitement to fight/be in OW given to all, whatever in PvP/PvE however in OW. Doublons to have more ppl with not much time available fighting, doublons for more OW PvP. 

Edited December 29, 2018 by LeBoiteux

[staun]

1 minute ago, Hemp Amore said:

They already are expensive.  Idk if you own a clan and have a warehouse to manage, but you would be surprised at how fast your mats deplete.  We are constantly and I mean constantly having to trade, source goods, get them into the warehouse.  Ships sink, they get used and used some more until you goto build a ship and you've got no iron.  Uh oh time to get the boatswains working again... While we have a stockpile of doubloons now, one big RVR war and that will be gone... remember the Prussia vs Pirate war?  That would have cost hundreds of thousands of doubloons in lost ships and mats under the new econ.  We need to get over the collective doubloon psychosis and accept that they drop at this rate and that it costs 10,000 doubloons, 2800 live oak logs, 1,100 provisions, and other related mats to build an L' Ocean (seriously folks that's a lot).   I think you need to get crafting and see how long it takes to source all those logs, provisions, and doubloons for building one.  I don't think you'd say they're so cheap.

Oh I been there. I say no more. Never again. Not gonna happend. But the meta we test is that expensive ships gives the best game play. Dbl is part of making ships expensive, thats why they need to cost to get. Meta is to get ppl on small ships, big ships has to be rear. Think we are on the right path to get that gameplay.

[staun]

4 minutes ago, LeBoiteux said:

Hard to change mentalities. Gold/Doublons/loots are no longer meant to reward the risk of the most high-skilled activity of NA (PvP), but to encourage every player to be in the OW, make it easier to access ships to fight more easily and more often and make players attack every possible prey in OW as it may be wealthy. It was a way to reward the elite. It is now an incitement to fight/be in OW given to all, whatever in PvP/PvE however in OW. Doublons to have more ppl with not much time available fighting, doublons for more OW PvP. 

Well if thats the purpos to think they have failed since the pop went Down since they came In to the game. Really look forward to the RvR patch to see if it can bring us up to numbers from before patch 27.