Improvements I'd like to see before final release.

[Aldeveron]

I love the game. However, I'd really like to see the following:

1. Bluer seas, more blue sky, and prettier sunsets (more like the Caribbean, and less like the Arctic regions).
2. Scrap the 'raindrops on glass' effect, as it seems inappropriate.
3. Shorten the rain storm duration. (Rain in the Caribbean is usually short, heavy showers; not 3-day-long storms.)
4. Paint the cabin section of the Santi and Ocean, and tone-down the lurid vermillion of the Santi's masts and stripes.
5. Fix the 'NPCs sailing though land' issue.
6. Add some atmospheric, period music, at least while the game is loading (or  make it optional).
7. Shorten the duration of boarding/capturing.
8. Add visible crew (at least, someone at the helm) and flags, on ships in the open world.
9. Scrap the Requin. (For the Caribbean, it seems as out-of-place as a turd in a swimming pool, and has unrealistic abilities anyway.)

Edited February 19, 2019 by Aldeveron

[Guest]

There should be an applaud button.

If I may add something I'd personally would like to see before release:

1. A functioning economy

2. A realistic combat model, no more laser accuracy.

3. You mentioned it but I believe it is worth a rementioning - scrap the le requin!

[Slim McSauce]

1. Small arms fire
2. Better crew models
3. Swivel guns loadout for most, if not every ship.
4. pood limited to russian
5. Lessened cannon accuracy
6. Officer skills
7. Raids

[Marquês do Bonfim]

1. More OW interactions (trade w/ whoever you want, flags and ensigns in OW aswell)

2. Reputation and ranking system (be able to start as a neutral capitan, join a nation and become a Naval Officer, or become a privateer for said nation, leave the neutral or pirate life and become a privateer for the nation of your choosing).

3. More variety of vessels and a more in-depth customization (be able to put some colors of your choosing in your hull, sails).

4. The possibility to open/close your cannon hatchets in OW and in battle.

5. More caribbean looks to the map, right now it doesn't feel like you're sailing through the caribbean, the game doesn't feel and looks like it.

6. The possibility to turn a merchant ship into a frigate as a crafting option on the LGV or the Indiaman. Be able to put 48 cannons on it w/ balanced pounders to make it a warship.

7. Galleons.

8. Adjust the zoom on your spyglass to something similar to real life, 2x or 4x instead of 100x that you can even see the captain and the helm of a ship 1000y away. 

9. More PVE content, career/campaign and more rewarding and interesting quests.

10. Pirates shouldn't be a faction, it should be strictly about reputation, the more you plunder and sink, the more fearsome you become; for PVE, the player with the most fearsome reputation would be attacked by any naval NPC in the map; for PVP, the player would be given a bounty on their head and whoever collects it, would be granted a nice reward, kinda like hunting missions.

11. Be able to set trading routes as a clan and the possibility to send AI fleets on the trade routes to do trade runs instead of being yourself, if it gets attacked, it would show on the captain's log of the clan or something similar to that (kinda like that system from Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, where you could send your fleet to do trade runs throughout the world).

 

PS:

12. Be able to mount heavier cannons on any ship (even tho it would ruin something like speed/turn), just something to make your ship even more powerful, even though it's weaker than SOLs. It would give frigates a more powerful punch to go against bigger players and AIs, just something to give the players the option to play more w/ smaller ships than just reach Rear Admiral and become the 1st rate player.

13. Graphics overhaul, specially the sinking ship animation.

Edited February 7, 2019 by Portuguese Privateer

[Licinio Chiavari]

7 hours ago, Aldeveron said:

8. Scrap the Requin. (For the Caribbean, it seems as out-of-place as a turd in a swimming pool, and has unrealistic abilities anyway.)

Never going to happen: will you pay back the DLC to all players who bought it?

More realistically, make DLC craftable/tradable for all.
Or, as I proposed, add to DLCs owners a second option: or you can redeem the ship (still not tradable) as now (without the fleet trick) on 24hr CD, or you can redeem a "ship permit" on a 48/72 hrs CD that will be tradable. Options being mutually exclusive: in 48/72hr you'll be able to redeem 2/3 ships OR 1 permit.
Add that redeemed ship having lower chance (or zero) to be superior contrary to crafted one. I'd consider this a good balance of DLC ship and accessibility to them for the Playerbase.

 

About the out-of-place.
All Ship of the Line are even more unreal in the area.
Lateen rigged ships were used in the area; 1st/2nd rates NEVER... and the Bermuda rigging was invented modifing the lateen one.

Last note: the use of a Requin is very realistic: fast upwind boarder... exactly what 90% or more of privateers and pirates ships were.
No pirate (nor privateer) ever used nothing bigger than a Brigantine aside a very few exceptions.

 

About unrealism.
Do you want to really speak about of the unrealism of a lateen rigged ship able to out-run easily square rigged ships?
Or do we want to speak about the realism of tacking with a squarerigged ship? or about mast sniping? or square rigged ships close hauling at 45° to the wind?

 

So, please. Stop this eternal whining.
If a ship with less HP, less turning, almost same armament, slower downind and faster upwind than a Niagara with the same crew of a Surprise is a so incredible enemy... there're other problems.

6 hours ago, Lars Kjaer said:

3. You mentioned it but I believe it is worth a rementioning - scrap the le requin!

Same as above.

Edited February 7, 2019 by Licinio Chiavari

[Custard]

@Licinio Chiavari

Santisima was built in Cuba mate so it kinda did sail there 😎

[Licinio Chiavari]

Just now, Custard said:

@Licinio Chiavari

Santisima was built in Cuba mate so it kinda did sail there 😎

How many engagements? You know exactly what I'm saying. So no way kidding me 😎

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Licinio Chiavari said:

Never going to happen: will you pay back the DLC to all players who bought it?

More realistically, make DLC craftable/tradable for all.
Or, as I proposed, add to DLCs owners a second option: or you can redeem the ship (still not tradable) as now (without the fleet trick) on 24hr CD, or you can redeem a "ship permit" on a 48/72 hrs CD that will be tradable. Options being mutually exclusive: in 48/72hr you'll be able to redeem 2/3 ships OR 1 permit.
Add that redeemed ship having lower chance (or zero) to be superior contrary to crafted one. I'd consider this a good balance of DLC ship and accessibility to them for the Playerbase.

 

About the out-of-place.
All Ship of the Line are even more unreal in the area.
Lateen rigged ships were used in the area; 1st/2nd rates NEVER... and the Bermuda rigging was invented modifing the lateen one.

Last note: the use of a Requin is very realistic: fast upwind boarder... exactly what 90% or more of privateers and pirates ships were.
No pirate (nor privateer) ever used nothing bigger than a Brigantine aside a very few exceptions.

 

About unrealism.
Do you want to really speak about of the unrealism of a lateen rigged ship able to out-run easily square rigged ships?
Or do we want to speak about the realism of tacking with a squarerigged ship? or about mast sniping? or square rigged ships close hauling at 45° to the wind?

 

So, please. Stop this eternal whining.
If a ship with less HP, less turning, almost same armament, slower downind and faster upwind than a Niagara with the same crew of a Surprise is a so incredible enemy... there're other problems.

Same as above.

The Santissima is made in the carribean but it's true that there only were a very few places with the ressources to fit and maintain the largest men of war. La Habana was however from the 1750's the permanent residence for 6-9 spanish third rates, constituting up to 1/3 of the entire spanish battlefleet (the spanish battlefleet is remarkable since it's the only major naval power to experience a decline in the number of ships of the line during the timeframe, both british, french, danno-norwegian and even the ottoman navies experienced increases in numbers tho for the french a decline in the operational status of many her largest vessels). Martinique likewise became a permanent base of operations from the early 18th century for the french carribean squadron and had at times 1st rates stationed there. The british had permanent bases at Tortolla island and Jamaica from the late 17th century and for Jamaica there were the required docks, warehouses and storages for outfitting and maintaining ships of the line.

The Le Requin is an unrealistic ship however - it's never been in the carribean and the few accounts (that I have managed to find) of Xebecs actually traversing the carribean all have them return to the meditteranean in a matter of 6-8 weeks. The reason is the vessels poor sailing qualities and low resistance to harsh weather along with the lack of onboard storage facilities to supply the crew with necessities - I'm guessing because none of the accounts I've read mention anything but a lack of fresh water that was a common issue for all nations in the carribean, especially the berber nations since their knowledge of the area were more limited.

In regards to realism - mastsniping, now with carros, shouldn't be possible. Tacking with a squarerigged ship shouldn't be as easy as it is ingame and running with full sails shouldn't allow for using the lower gunports on SoLs.. Neither should using the lower gundecks in adverse weather conditions. This isn't excluding a demand for realism in terms of the ships used in NA. The Snow shouldn't exist - it's a lakeship that sank during the very first storm it encountered, you can't get a much worse ship than that, yet in terms of handling, sailing and guns it's one of the best in class ingame. 

Boarding was NOT the preferred choice for neither pirates nor men of war during the timeframe - in fact the idea of the man of war as a mobile infantry platform dies in the mid 17th century and is the cause of the dutch decline at the hands of the british navy (the dutch navy made a slower transition to mobile gunplatforms than the british, probably due to the fact that most dutch men of war was converted traders that in peacetime functioned as tradeships and only was converted in wartime. The advent of dedicated warships with strenghtened frames and heavier guns came at a huge expense to already established naval forces where as the brits had the advantage of having gambled on dedicated warships along with the danno-norwegian navy from the late 16th century), pirates merely used boarding more often due to having inferior firepower to the navy vessels and rarely on dedicated men of war, and most pirates were unable to mount heavier guns since both securing the guns and ammonitions meant either being in the service of a foreign navy or having to get it from navy ships.

 

EDIT: Just for the sake of anyone being curious about the developments of the European navies I can recommend Jan Gletes "Warfare at sea 1500-1650", he's made a couple of more accounts but I can't remember those on hand..

Edited February 7, 2019 by Guest

[Barents]

1. Regional Servers

[Thonys]

cheaters banned.

for life.

to begin with ,  to separate the east block entirely (server wise)

make the west great again... just a wall at the eastern border would be nice. at the east of Poland ip

, we don't need them...

look how every mast is hit even when the aiming needle is way off. (and aiming follow)

 aimbot is doing the same....(build for Russia nation   )

when they fart at a mast they hit a mast, when you aim at a mast you miss.

 

it would be a nice improvement they are banned from steam. 

Edited February 9, 2019 by Thonys

[Aldeveron]

22 hours ago, Custard said:

@Licinio Chiavari

Santisima was built in Cuba mate so it kinda did sail there 😎

Good point. It most definitely did sail in the Caribbean then! I also thought that HMS Victory sailed to the Caribbean and back, prior to the Battle of Trafalgar, but I could be wrong. It should be remembered that many ship's logs of the era did not survive the ravages of time, so who really knows what 1st rate ships made it to the Caribbean and saw action there?

Edited February 8, 2019 by Aldeveron

[Aldeveron]

17 hours ago, Licinio Chiavari said:

Never going to happen: will you pay back the DLC to all players who bought it? 

It might be an idea to make DLC ships time-limited in future (say, 6 months, or a year at most). If it was decided that the Requin should be axed, then hopefully those players who own it, will at some point get tired of the game and stop playing - so the active Requins would over time, become fewer and fewer. It might also be possible to allow Requin owners the option of swapping their Requin for some other, more desirable ship.

Edited February 8, 2019 by Aldeveron

[Angus MacDuff]

18 hours ago, Licinio Chiavari said:

1st/2nd rates NEVER...

Battle of the Saintes (1782)  Brits had five 2nd rates and captured the Ville de Paris (104). Over 30 Brit SOLs including Agamemnon.

Edited February 8, 2019 by Angus MacDuff

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Thonys said:

cheaters banned.

for life.

to begin with ,  to separate the east block entirely (server wise)

make the west great again... just a wall at the eastern border would be nice. at the east of Poland ip

, we don't need them...

look how every mast is hit even when the aiming needle is way off. (and aiming follow)

 aimbot is doing the same....(build for Russia nation   )

when they fart at a mast they hit a mast, when you aim at a mast you miss.

 

it would be a nice improvement they are banned from steam. the difference between a good studio and a bad studio is ignorance.

Oh dear god.. learn the game mechanics and stop being terribad. For instance you actually have to lead the shot since its travel distance in the game, but i guess you didnt know about that

Edited February 8, 2019 by Guest

[z4ys]

Shots never land there where the arc is. (At least for the front an rear cannons)

[Licinio Chiavari]

14 hours ago, Lars Kjaer said:

The Le Requin is an unrealistic ship however - it's never been in the carribean

How many specific ships do we get in game that NEVER sailed in our waters?

14 hours ago, Lars Kjaer said:

and the few accounts (that I have managed to find) of Xebecs actually traversing the carribean all have them return to the meditteranean in a matter of 6-8 weeks.

I am pretty sure that accounts of small ships are more difficult to find.

14 hours ago, Lars Kjaer said:

The reason is the vessels poor sailing qualities and low resistance to harsh weather along with the lack of onboard storage facilities to supply the crew with necessities

So poor that crossed the Atlantic.

So poor that bermuda rigging was invented based on? Lateen rigging.

And about storage I recollect discussions in these forums after proposals about having to put and consume provisions on our ship... Main reply was the lenght of our cruises, rarely exceeding few days. So no sense to worry about provisions.

 

14 hours ago, Lars Kjaer said:

In regards to realism - mastsniping, now with carros, shouldn't be possible. Tacking with a squarerigged ship shouldn't be as easy as it is ingame and running with full sails shouldn't allow for using the lower gunports on SoLs.. Neither should using the lower gundecks in adverse weather conditions.

So there are far more serious issues of "realism" in game than xebecs or not. Xebecs that engaged other sailing vessels in other waters in the same time frame. So what's wrong having them (1) here?

14 hours ago, Lars Kjaer said:

The Snow shouldn't exist - it's a lakeship that sank during the very first storm it encountered, you can't get a much worse ship than that, yet in terms of handling, sailing and guns it's one of the best in class ingame.

So let's delete the Snow too. Interesting approuch to game design.

14 hours ago, Lars Kjaer said:

Boarding was NOT the preferred choice for neither pirates nor men of war during the timeframe... pirates merely used boarding more often due to having inferior firepower to the navy vessels and rarely on dedicated men of war

There's a contradiction in the two parts.

Anyway they used boarding.

Missing maybe the point capturing a ship not too bad damaged was... economically better.

And not risking being damaged in a prolonged gun duel too.

And not to speak about... Nelson's death. Or the famed Speedy-El Gamo.

I still miss the point of a simulation of 1700/1800 naval combat, and complain boarding attacks. But at same time far less complaining the far more unreal corvettes (and even smaller ships) sterncamping to death SoLs.

Do someone want a pure gunnery naval combat? Look for WWI-WWII simulations.

But I suppose the gun lovers in a WWII simulation would complain about carriers and air attacks. Or in WWI about torpedoes.

2 hours ago, Aldeveron said:

It might be an idea to make DLC ships time-limited in future (say, 6 months, or a year at most). If it was decided that the Requin should be axed, then hopefully those players who own it, will at some point get tired of the game and stop playing - so the active Requins would over time, become fewer and fewer. It might also be possible to allow Requin owners the option of swapping their Requin for some other, more desirable ship.

So, likewise, for the Hercules.

So people who has, will have. And new players no. Brillant.

I have to understand this level of hate to a single ship in game. Never seen.

A ship I usually hunt with a damned privateer.

[Einarr]

On 2/7/2019 at 9:19 PM, Lars Kjaer said:

. A functioning economy

Sir I disagree. The economy fluctuates much like a realistic one would. Player driven economies work themselves out eventually. Always. AI bought items is the only issue in having a player driven economy. Buying doubs for 15ea, trading for a bellona 9.5k doubs, leads to buying bellonas for 140k~. That's out of the ordinary. But it ought to work itself out. 

[Slim McSauce]

1 minute ago, Einarr said:

Sir I disagree. The economy fluctuates much like a realistic one would. Player driven economies work themselves out eventually. Always. AI bought items is the only issue in having a player driven economy. Buying doubs for 15ea, trading for a bellona 9.5k doubs, leads to buying bellonas for 140k~. That's out of the ordinary. But it ought to work itself out. 

Ok but we've had 3 different player economies in the last 3 years and none of them worked out so..

[Einarr]

As long as they are not skewed or able to be skewed deliberately. 

100% of badly run economies fail 100% of the time.

[Slim McSauce]

This one will likely fail too then, it's the same design as the old one, split currencies, money printing, it taking roughly 2 weeks to become a billionare through mindless trading, thus infinite ship printing, yeah this will work out fine.

[Marquês do Bonfim]

1. Flags, ensigns in OW, being able to tell what type and what nation that ship belongs to, just by looking with your spyglass. There should be an option for players to turn off all kinds of comms that informs you if that ship is from an enemy nation or if it's a player. Give a purpose for people to use their spyglass, and it will improve the mystery at open waters aswell, sometimes it really takes the whole immersion off when you have to click on a ship and get all the information you need to proceed with the engagement. Like I said, should be an option on the menu to do that. Make gameplay similar to the instance battles. Camera moves when you move your mouse, if you have to open a menu or something, press CRTL to bring the mouse up, or use the determined keybinds.

 

2. Ship models and general gameplay overview (camera, angles, ship height and weight-size). A schooner, sloop feels like fishing boats when in OW and in instance, when in reality they were way bigger than they are in the game. Frigates were huge compared to them and didn't seat too close to the water as they do in-game. SOLs were even bigger than that. I've been noticing a lot more the differencies between them and I'll be honest, they are not that huge in-game. The camera could be angled a bit lower so people don't get that overview from the top of the ship easily enough.

3. Different types of cameras besides free look and follow-up. I usually sail with the follow-up camera right beside the helm, so I get the view from the deck of my ship:

The downside to that is that I couldn't steer the ship nor could I simply be able to use the spyglass, because whenever you zoom it, your camera goes faster when moving, so I was constantly fighting against the follow-up camera system because I was trying to sit still. Would be nice to have a few camera options from other points of the screen where you could make your gameplay more immersed/difficult and exciting.

Camera from the deck, by the helm. Camera from the stern-sides at the back of the ship, something like that, in OW and in battles.

 

4. Spyglass; Again. I've been suggesting that for a while now and I'll still suggest that everytime I get the opportunity. Make the spyglass feel more like a spyglass in-game. I-for that matter don't need to zoom-in 100x to see and tell what kinda of ship I'm looking at. I guess everytime I look, I usually zoom-in 6x to 8x times and that usually give me not only an overview of my surroundings but a good view of the ship I'm trying to discover.

 

5. Make the navy/nation feel more like a navy/nation by giving out missions and assignments that gives you proper xp and money in return, a real payment for that matter. Officers did make a lot of money sinking ships as bonuses and rewards, but they did get paid for assignments and missions aswell. It will give more content to players that usually is not really focused in hunting players and PVP, not everyone enjoys that. I've been suggesting a few types of missions and other types of systems that could be improved on and made to create and bring content to PVErs and everyone else for that matter, that enjoys the gameplay itself. Not everyone logs in to go out to hunt and sink other players, that's just a token of the game.

6. Slower battles, ships overall. I really enjoy the slow battle, figure it out a way to overcome the enemy and position myself in key places to give a more effective broadside towards the enemy ship. (that's up for discussion right now in a few threads, specially around sailing/rigging profiles).

7. OW should have way more merchant ships and less naval fleets imo. There should be merchant ships w/ escort~like LGV +1 Small, Niagara, Prince, merchant ships, randomly should be assigned w/ a 6th rate escort. Right now they are too easy prays to hunt down and sink/loot. And I still don't know why naval officers usually go out hunting for merchant ships, they should be able to encounter one, probably auto-surrender (if they are from an enemy nation) and you should be able to confiscate their cargo and get it back to the Admiralty for rewards. Pirates should be the ones looting merchant ships, aswell as privateers.

8. Being able to become a naval officer, privateer or pirate. Pirates shouldn't be a nation in the first place, they should be simple sailors/captains If you become a pirate, you would simply be a neutral player that could attack and be attacked by any player in the game (or NPCs, if we ever get the system where they attack enemy players). As a neutral/without natiton player, you should be able to sail to a national port, enlist in the navy or get a letter of marquee with doubloons. Your missions and assignments would usually be around that matter, if you're a privateer, you would be able to get missions that makes you hunt down merchant enemy ships to confiscate cargo and bring them back to the admiralty. If you're a Naval Officer, your assignments would be hunt down enemy fleets or enemy ships, pirates, escort high valuable pessengers and/or mail letters/orders.

 

9. NPCs from different nations should attack you on site, if they have superior forces. If you're sailing a frigate and the NPCs are on a 3rd rate or a frigate aswell, they should engage you on site, tag you giving you the opportunity to flee or fight. If a player attacks a weaker ship, you should be able to give them a sign for insta-surrender, if they refuse, you should engage. This would save so much time and effort for players that usually sail w/ fleet and stronger ships. When you first enter the instance, after tagging a merchant ship, players would have a button somewhere on the screen that would prupose a surrender from the NPC, wait 5 seconds, if the ship strike their colors, the player would simply come about the merchant ship, board it and confiscate the goods/cargo.

 

10. Water physics, weather and overall graphics of the game; Right now it doesn't feel like you're sailing in the west indies, the water doesn't look like the caribbean sea and specially not the islands/maps. I've sailed through the entire map at this point not ONCE I've seen hills and waves collapsing w/ rocks, islands that you could easily see the other side of it. There's no elevation, nor huge peaks of rocks and mountains like there is in real life, almost every single island, hispaniola, cuba, venezuela, hell, mexico and the US coast, there's no different  terrain than just simply small hills and elevations, no different beaches and peaks, the waves doesn't really collapse against your ship, the animation for the ship movement is simply a loop to rock from side to side, those things are really easy to spot on when you sail too much the open waters.

Edited February 14, 2019 by Portuguese Privateer

[Aldeveron]

On 2/14/2019 at 9:22 PM, Portuguese Privateer said:

1. Flags, ensigns in OW, being able to tell what type and what nation that ship belongs to, just by looking with your spyglass.

I very much agree, regarding OW flags. I meant to include 'open world flags' in my own list. To me, the game feels disappointingly lifeless, when one's ship has no flag, and nobody at the helm, in the OW.

Surely, it wouldn't be a prohibitive drain on server resources to have OW flags, and someone at the helm, considering all the other moving stuff going on, would it?

Edited February 18, 2019 by Aldeveron

[van Veen]

On 2/8/2019 at 3:31 PM, Einarr said:

Sir I disagree. The economy fluctuates much like a realistic one would. Player driven economies work themselves out eventually. Always. AI bought items is the only issue in having a player driven economy. Buying doubs for 15ea, trading for a bellona 9.5k doubs, leads to buying bellonas for 140k~. That's out of the ordinary. But it ought to work itself out. 

On 2/8/2019 at 3:36 PM, Einarr said:

As long as they are not skewed or able to be skewed deliberately. 

100% of badly run economies fail 100% of the time.

Your misconception is that the economy is player driven. It is not. 

Values (doubloons, resources, trade goods, NPC ships) are created without any cost, without any balance. Values just spawn. Infinitely. Without limitation. Just ask yourself who pays the reward a player gets for sinking a ship. Right. No one. Or, what are the costs of harvesting resources? As resouce buildings are a one time investment without any additional costs, it comes down to 0 on the long term. 

Can't make this economy work. There will be inflation at increasing speed.