Ideas about gameplay

[[ZBD] Mamertyn]

Dear Developers

First of all, I'd like to thank you for giving us this great game! I am truly amazed by all the work. I hope you want to continue good job. If you're interested in some ideas regarding game-play, and game itself here you go:

Ports:

- It would be nice to have some life in ports, isn't it? Tavern - where some melody comes from. Some drunken man thrown away from the brothel, A lady somwhere, Monkey... Life of the Town by the sea.

All Ideas regards PVP server:

Ships:

- Ships are great thing in the game, but isn't sailing a little bit to safe ? Under rough weather sails may broke down, cargo may move from one side to the other and change balast. Of course crew shall react to it, but loosing part of supporting lines may force you to sail down or upwind - temporarily, to allow the crew set a new rigging. 

Enviroment:

-Heavy hurricanes with huge waves, from time to time. With all the difficulties. I see it so: Ship wents automatically into "battle-mode" storm hits the ship. Now, all the trick is to avoid a hit by huge wave from ether of the side of the ship. Sails dropped down to avoid mast damage... Fight for life, against the nature. 

- Islands... They're pretty nice, but there's no life. Maybe adding some local population will be possible?

Missions:

- We all do like campaigns, aren't? so... How about a mission available in Port to take. "Captain - on the Caribbean Water there's a excessive piracy activity! go there, and hunt down Pirate group under the command of (in)famous Bartholomew Roberts. Sounds nice... But where the hell can we find a Bartholomew Roberts?

here we go :-)

In some Caribbean port appears the mission: "Did you ever imagine how it was to be a pirate? In these mission you'll became a famous captain Bartholomew Roberts. On your map, will appear from time to time a position and heading of a trader ship (it shall be player trader on trader mission) go and intercept the ship. Mission shall be well payed in Dublons and Reals. A Ship allowed for the mission, shall be up to 6th class, since pirates used mostly Brigs, Sloops or Brigantines. 

....

Now it's clear, that our pirate hunter shall get some directions too. How about giving our captain on a pirate hunting mission a tip about a trader ship which is under a threat of attack? He shall see his position on the map, doing effectively an escort mission. A Ship used for this mission shall be not bigger as Cerberus ( again - form purely Historical reasons). Mission shall be payed in Chests (Books, Ship Upgrades). 

Eavents in game

Games MMO/MMORPG use to use a "special events" to keep players attention. So:

1. How about organizing " Trafalgar Battle" in a anniversary of these Battle? Give players a reason and place to fight. Give them some prize to win :-) 

2. How about getting old captains alive again? Nelson day, Jean Bart day, Admiral Spiridov day ...

For example a Nelson Day could be: Britain gets for that day a special mission available in every British port. for the day all the port battles are suspended, to let the players concentrate on the event. After taking a mission player gets a location of fleet concentration area. After concentrating number of the ships they shall be grouped in a fleet automatically. On the OW map appears a battle area - your task is to control it. When opposite fleet arrives in area (the players shall be grouped in only two fleets British/French in these case to avoid chaos) a sword -battle sign appear at sea and fleets are joining the battle! 

3. There must be some ruler of the sea. It seems to me, that today a "Российский императорский флот" Rules the sea. There's no doubt about it. It is amazing to see their huge fleet in action! (However it costs me sometimes a ship :-D) I think they deserve some special attention.

- Profits from being a ruler of the sea: once a week there shall came a huge AI fleet from the side of open sea. Big and medium sized trader ships loaded with gunpowder, guns, updates, rare wood, tools, prisoners for slave-work and anything what a Russian colony may need. The convoy shall be marked on the map and appear - For Russians to protect, and for others to attack :-) Convoy shall be created as a group 10-20 ships with 2 ships in fleet in every of them. 

......

 Convoy arrives the port then it's loaded with gold, silver, dublons, slaves and sails back - again under an escort. So there are two separate events

For the time of an event, PB and hostility shall be suspended.

4. In a real life, progress has a natural coefficient, that stops every conquest. It's logistics. Currently there's no such thing and the Port once taken regards no attention. There's no need to keep some forces in it, cause it can not be attacked and lost. I see the reason, and I agree - chaos is the last thing we need, but... Every conquest shall has it end and it shall be natural. There are some ideas:

- Robbery.  Every port may be robbed. I see it like these: Two frigates are approaching port X. After hitting a button Enter port X (just like we use to do it normally) there appears a battle. On the anchor stays a group of AI ships. now the balance faktor:

If  in last 2 months of a Open World game time a frigate (lets say) Cerberus entered and stayed in port - there's one Cerberus protecting. If there was 10 Trincomalees - well... the raiders are very unlucky, if in last 2 months (again game time) no warship entered and stayed in port there's no protection. Battle is automatically won. If the battle is won, it gives acces to a port, and raiders are entering harbor. There appears only one active icon - "Enemy Warehouse" - it's a summary (or average if u'd like) of every Warehouse in these port, including dublons and Reals of Clan warehouses in these ports. Of course amount of money taken by raiders shall be lost by clans owning the port and all players having warehouses in it. 

Given time period of 2 months is just a suggestion. In the end it shall be very dangerous and risky mission. Only possible to do, if a port is unused and not maintained by owners by a longer period of time. 

 

5. I would like to have a possibility to name a ship i produced / bought / boarded... Please

 

Again. Thanks for a game given to us

 

With my best regards

Mamertyn

Edited August 15, 2019 by [ZBD] Mamertyn

[Meraun]

Are you refereeing to PvE Server or PvP?

[[ZBD] Mamertyn]

PVP

[Rymy Finne]

I think all are valid ideas!

[SantaRoja]

i can just +1 for everything that is content.

weather events, special events and missions like treasure fleets and famous pirates; they would all be attractive contents.

I could also add some other content like city supply (economic missions), conquest missions and a bounty system.

 

Edited September 21, 2019 by SantaRoja

[Sea Archer]

This is what such a game needs, even if some of your ideas need a bit of adjustment, it is exactly what is missing. Some more content than just pvp or pve battles. 

I hope the devs will code something like this.

[John Hill Regard]

They won't , they had plenty of time and this kind of content has been asked for hundred's of time.....But Dev prefer to listen and please the little Hard core PVP group that lead this game to the final crash .....(Port bonus ,Uncontroled Zerg , clan driven game and all this thing's that make this game unbalanced and in final boring .....) 

So don't waste your time and energy this game is already dead. 

[Hethwill]

Less MMO and more Simulator... at all careers levels, and more Simulation at those same levels - true dedication to your chosen activity - crafter, frigate commander, fleet admiral, etc ( is sandbox so a career is simply the choice of what activities you dedicate more time on ). Thank you.

[Guest]

these are not bad ideas per say, I really like the idea of diverse weather and making sailing a bit more hazardous but the game needs less solid "open pvp" direction. We have an expensive game that's hard as shit, a total grind-fest and where new players get ganked the second they step out of port. This game is run top-down by hardcore PvP'ers to the point where we have an active user base less than most "dead" mmo's. 

In the years that I have dipped in and out of this game these problems have never been solved and the development team seem either incapable or unwilling to do anything to fix these issues, acting as if this game will simply spike in popularity magically. Open world PvP no longer brings the crowds it used to and there are better, easier and more satisfying games the crowds who are still into it can go to.

These suggestions are ok by the by but what this game needs is more features, or an update/redesign to existing features that help bring in more funds for development and keep player retention for longer to create a larger user base.

Ganking players the second they get out the dock is ok if you want to farm pvp marks but if that player who got ganked calmly closes the game and never plays it again then maybe you can start to understand why at peak time a buggy, single player, non-pvp game from 2010 has 16 times our active playerbase. You think about how much potential DLC money that adds up to for the development team. 

Your ideas are ok, but they are the pepper for the steak, we don't have a steak, we have some decent cut wedges but the only reason we have them is because everyone else is selling fries.

 

This is my opinion of course, others may differ.

[[ZBD] Mamertyn]

22 hours ago, Winterthrust said:

... features that help bring in more funds for development and keep player retention for longer to create a larger user base.

Do you mean lets say... Premium -payed accounts? I'd buy one to keep devolpement running.

Quote

Ganking players the second they get out the dock is ok if you want to farm pvp marks but if that player who got ganked calmly closes the game and never plays it again then maybe you can start to understand why at peak time a buggy, single player, non-pvp game from 2010 has 16 times our active playerbase. You think about how much potential DLC money that adds up to for the development team. 

Many new-commers like to start from Trade missions, being sunk one time after another. I think it would be nice to be abble to act as "Convoy escort". I see it like this:

You take one ship to Fleet - an escort. Than you sail away in 1Fleet setup. After being ganked there is possibility to alied players to jump into escort Vessel - so she no longer is AI controlled. 

more PVP, less harmfull for traders, easier for newcomers.

 

Other idea is to introduce Mercenary system to PB's.... some nations have money but no warriors.... Why not to buy them from others?

 

Edited September 22, 2019 by [ZBD] Mamertyn

[Guest]

That's something that is already possible, but I do like the idea of being able to hire mercenary ships, big ships that didn't appear in your fleet and if you attacked another player didn't show up, but if you were attacked would spawn in like regular npcs on your side.

I have a few suggestions on how to re-work PvP to make it less seal clubbing and more a challenge for late game players, but that will take a long time to write up, correct the spelling, post, watch as everyone ignores it and calls me stupid, cry a bit, eat a sandwich, feel better, you know the drill.

[Captain2Strong]

On 9/22/2019 at 3:55 PM, [ZBD] Mamertyn said:

Other idea is to introduce Mercenary system to PB's.... some nations have money but no warriors.... Why not to buy them from others?

 

or just allow selected clans to join pb on your side if they want to do it

Edited September 24, 2019 by Captain2Strong

[Sea Archer]

4 hours ago, Saryk said:

Or an international diplomacy that allows to befriend clans from other nations ? If it's just for one night, to defend a port, and they want to get paid for it, sure, but don't limit it to that. I want to be able to form a big coalition.

It would be a good start, if we could talk to all players on OW, not only of the own nation.

Show player names again and let us chat.

[Marquês do Bonfim]

Open world and instance definetly needs a revamp. Weather should always be a factor in either battle or travelling. If you're caught up in a storm, you should be teleported to a instance, where you actually go through the storm like in a battle (but yourself), masts should get damage if you keep full sails lowered. Heeling should be also a thing in battle, the bigger the ship, the stable it sails, since it's weight should counter-balance the heeling.

There should be more islands with different designs, maybe some mountain-wall that dives straight into the ocean, instead of it being completely uniform from low-high-low point of view with tons of florest around. There should be more rivers cutting straight into the island that we could sail through.

Port Battle should also include 2 phases, one being; you gotta fight for the 3 points, keeping the enemy fleet from taking it. 2; taking the forts at bay and harrassing the city with cannon fire from the ocean. 3; sending in the long boats to take the town. (This would go hand-in-hand with the Port Battles coming to the PVE server)

Also, forts and towers should be nerfed down, a fort/tower shouldn't be that much of a threat if you're counter-attacking it's cannons, the reload time should be nerf and the amount of cannons you take from the fort should be more realistic. I've tried taking down a fort by myself few days ago, I got it to mid-hp, but everytime it gave me a full broadside like I was battling a goddamn ship of the line, and my hp was going down quicker than his, which is insane. Forts and towers are not that strong. 

Looting shipwrecks should be always on an instance, like in battle. You sail close to it, anchor your ship near the wreck and loot it like looting a ship recently sunk in battle.

Also, looting ships. We should be able to anchor down and send in long boats to do the looting. I still don't understand why we need to get that much close to a ship in order to loot it, it makes us lose time and effort. Let us anchor down near the location and have the option to send in long boats to retrieve the loot. It doesn't even need to be animated or graphic. Just make the circle of looting around the ship bigger and instead of it being "Inspect the ship hold", do something like "Send in the long boats" and we're good.

[[ZBD] Mamertyn]

On 9/25/2019 at 1:43 AM, Marquês do Bonfim said:

Port Battle should also include 2 phases, one being; you gotta fight for the 3 points, keeping the enemy fleet from taking it. 2; taking the forts at bay and harrassing the city with cannon fire from the ocean. 3; sending in the long boats to take the town. (This would go hand-in-hand with the Port Battles coming to the PVE server)

I like the ideas. PB and PZ are not funny as they are now.  And i like big fleet battles! I really do, but circles... schrinking zones it reminds me WoW. WoW shall stay WoW, and NA shall be different. Longboats, landing troops... It should look like that.

[Papillon]

On 9/22/2019 at 11:38 AM, Winterthrust said:

...but that will take a long time to write up, correct the spelling, post, watch as everyone ignores it and calls me stupid, cry a bit, eat a sandwich, feel better, you know the drill.

Yes literally laughing out loud, thanks for the lift this morning, just what I needed with my coffee today.  Great post, so true, so true...  A good laugh does good like medicine.