Naval Action Classic

[Sir Texas Sir]

6 hours ago, qw569 said:

imho.

If Dasha Perova spoke about the NA patchnotes, as in WOWS, then there would be more players.

I haven't played WoWs in ages, but I still check out DASHA ever time she has a new video.  Didn't like that other girl they had for a short time though....just something about Dasha.

 

[admin]

16 hours ago, qw569 said:

imho.

If Dasha Perova spoke about the NA patchnotes, as in WOWS, then there would be more players.

 

10 hours ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

I haven't played WoWs in ages, but I still check out DASHA ever time she has a new video.  Didn't like that other girl they had for a short time though....just something about Dasha.

 

We think its cheesy. 

[admin]

having said that..  

[Guest]

1 hour ago, admin said:

having said that..  

Another DLC? Yippie.... 

[Thonys]

On 10/14/2019 at 5:25 AM, admin said:

having said that..  

Ha.... you mean , there are a lot more "dashas"in the world who speak for themselves right... 

by the way.... i like cheese   

[Celtiberofrog]

To increase retention of newcomers, maybe a simple coding to make rewards much more valuable might help.

Every single AI's ship should be worth a fight by everyone as long as it can offer good rewards.

This detail could sustain the anthousiasm of newcomers, today a newcomer a bit curious will easily realize the very long way to go through before getting rich or high level XP's.

This very long way is frustrating.

Good rewards in random falls could minimize that frustration.

Why not having the possibility to loot (more frequently) high value stuff such as rare upgrades, rare books, generous coffers, etc...

Those items would certainly give better hope for newcomers, they'd feel like easier prosperity is possible despite the long way to go.

 

Having many more wealthier players could change the overall server activity.

Edited October 15, 2019 by Celtiberofrog

[AeRoTR]

@Celtiberofrog I think loot is okay except capital zone. Only problem is, ai is too hard for new players. And some nations have tiny capital zone. Anyway here we just talk with each other, just enjoy what we have. 

 

[Angus MacDuff]

9 minutes ago, AeRoTR said:

think loot is okay except capital zone.

Yes.  You actually want players to leave the Capitol zone at some point.  If loot was great in there, they would never venture forth (and vets would stay in there as well).  As many have said, the Capitol zones should be much larger.

Edited October 15, 2019 by Angus MacDuff

[Severus Snape]

Will this DLC come out before the much needed content patch?

[Ccarpio]

On 9/2/2019 at 2:38 AM, Sparkydog said:

As a US player it’s almost impossible to unbox larger rate ships when we have no bigger than 5th rate missions and not many NPC’s to hunt either.  

Recently came back after a few years' absence (due to RL reasons) and rejoined the USA faction. I must say it was a massive shock to not be able to play missions of the rates I actually enjoyed playing. Most fun I ever had in naval action was running fleet missions with one or two friends or teaching newer players how to do fleet battles solo. The current mission limitation by port means, my game content pretty much stops at fifth rate, because I have no real time for clan life anymore and I simply happened to pick a weak nation. Given the quote in these forums, I am also not the only one running into this wall. Fourth rate DLC releases, despite looking like fun ships to play, are not really worth the money for players that simply have no access to missions to use those ships.

 

BR and diplomacy

I have been reading the forums and the suggestions being made now and the problems pointed out, are things that have been tested in so many variants, that it just doesn't really fix anything, as @admin pointed out. A lot of the developer's work over the years has been for nothing, as the community wanted a thing, it got implemented and then it turned out to be utterly terrible, despite being exactly what they asked for. BR changes (high, low and mixed) have been tried before and changed absolutely nothing in player attendance. It just resulted in other meta builds (full Wasa fleet, etc).  Maybe there could be an option to restrict BR by value of a port and then let for example 30% of the max allowed BR to be decided by the port owner just for novelty, but it will not solve anything. It just means additional ships that are required to fully kit out. The diplomacy page in the past did not work either (seems some now think it to be the holy grail). It just resulted in the stronger banding together to maintain the status quo, with the added flavour of some lunatics threatening others in chat to vote for the allies that they wanted to keep.

 

Population imbalance

Once the GB faction was dominant, US had some great guilds for a while (e.g. STARS, TDA), then the pirates had their time in the spotlights, followed by the Danish, ... Now it seems the RU faction has pretty much reached map ownership. There will always be a top dog and there will always be a lot of players that jump ship to the easiest option. You cannot punish the players that worked hard to reach that status or expect the DLC to disappear. The original players just played the game according to its mechanics and they did not ask for parasites either. The most common complaint I see from the smaller factions (e.g. FR player posts, ...) is not being able to recover from a defeat at a rate fast enough to give the fights that many claim they want to see. I cannot say how hard it in the current game iteration really is at top tier, as I simply cannot realistically get there currently. I asked in the US nation chat about port battles. I got a response 30 mins later from a player in private chat. This is (paraphrased) what I received: "Do not bother,  it takes ages to get it going and you lose it all anyway.". This was about 2 hours after I installed the game again.

 

Player retention

A game has only one chance to make a good impression. These days, games hardly ever leave early access and use that as an excuse for flaws. Naval Action did release and it seems to have reached quite a lot of players compared to the number of people at the time I had to quit (in my last few days there were about 180-200 people online during my playing time slot). It seems Naval Action kept most of its loyal player base and lost those that popped back in to test the waters. None of the suggestions I saw on the forum so far (nor mine below) will improve the total player count. Most that really quit do not read patch notes, while a majority of the others simply troll on forums. Only good Steam reviews, community exposure (e.g. streams, events, ...)  and probably a more active Reddit can really do something. Instead of typing "the game is dying", it is probably a good idea to first see what needs to change before you feel confident to recommend the game again to friends.

 

Below, are my suggestions to at least make the game more accessible to a wider audience. Hardcore is great, I used to love being competitive myself. But in all honesty, is it really that wrong to open the sandbox to players with a slightly more relaxed approach? I have tried to keep the essence of the game as it is with this list, while providing players with choices. All suggestions below should be realistic to achieve in a released game. I do not know how the code is written, but I think the tools are present or at least have been in the past. Feel free to criticise them as you see fit:

1. Power rankings: Although the current RvR scoreboard is nice, it only shows success in terms of absolute numbers of ports. A score based on ports owned and total broadside weight (in long gun pds) of all ships owned by active players (in the last month) in a nation is most likely more representative. It seems many factions are only still there because they are allowed to exist. A better metric should exist to balance out the game state, as history has proven that the players simply will not do it by themselves. This metric should not be used to impede players' ability to play the game and achieve their goals, yet gives the smaller fish in the pond a better fighting chance as long as they do not give up.

2. Customizable combat missions. Players tend to love being able to make choices. Allow them to make them and scale rewards accordingly. Add 3 dropdowns in the combat mission UI: battle type (e.g. single ship, small group, fleet, epic),  rate (1-unrated) and difficulty (very easy - very hard). Then restrict players to having at most three kill missions active at a time to maintain some open-world presence and make missions refresh only every 30 minutes to avoid constant rerolling for a better position on the world map.

3. Players of the non top-3 factions in port count can play PvE missions of any rate in any port their nation owns. For the others the current system remains to force people to spread out. The mission spawn distance for all nations depends on their power rankings. Players of all nations will need to travel further based on their relative power to the strongest nation. The current travel times (about 2-3 minutes) seems generally well-received. They would then be scaled slightly for all factions based on their relative power (e.g. TravelDist=base+scalar*Power_faction/Power_topFaction) to improve presence in the open world (up to e.g. max 8-10 minutes travel time for the top faction).

5. Ship capturing: First and second rates can no longer be captured (automatically sold to admirality). Third rates captured from AI are low-quality by default and can be used as expendables. All other ship boarding outcomes work as in the current system.

6. Increased mission rewards for smaller factions (cargo & combat only, higher bonus for PvP) relative to strongest faction (same methodology as travel distance). I don't think passenger missions really need a boost as nobody is really helped by zergs of trader lynxes or cutters. They are good enough to help new players start out as is.

7. "The home fleet": Players of every faction can click on ports owned by their own nation on the world map to invest money that affects NPC spawns. All money invested will increase NPC spawning based on if NPC level thresholds are exceeded (calm, border conflict, unrest, high alert, total war). Each level will increase the probability of high rate fleet spawns. The thresholds are based on the relative power score. The money pool decays over time, reducing the boost in strength to the point it slowly disappears when reaching 0.

8. "Developmental aid": More NPC traders proportionally and of more diverse nations enter the waters of counties in which conflict has recently occurred (port battle) in order to simulate a relief effort. This will draw in raiders. Most of the so-called open world PvP'ers only attack trade ships and then leg it at the first sight of an armed opponent (exceptions exist, but the majority has always been like this). Drawing them in to a potentially interesting area will increase the chances of conflict. Spawned trader's probability of being of X nation follows the power metric.

9. Return the flag pulling mechanic with restrictions. Only group leaders with at least 10 players in a group can pull one flag and the group leader's name gets broadcasted in nation chat (to prevent trolling and allow reports). 3 flags are allowed per nation simultaneously. Flags can only be pulled against nations that are stronger than a relative power threshold. If a port battle has not started within 2 hours of a flag being pulled, the flag gets reset and the initial fee for pulling it is lost. The flag automatically becomes void if the group size drops below 10 players. Flags cannot be pulled against roughly equal-power or weaker opponents. If the port is successfully captured, the initial fee gets refunded. Cost for pulling a flag depends on tax income of the target port.

10. Casus belli: The nation that lost a port to a flag pull gets a free retaliation against that port and can attempt to retake the port within 12h, after an initial cooldown of 2 hours to allow the attackers to retreat or prepare a defense. If the counterattack fails or does not happen, the port becomes protected as usual. This should mitigate some of the night capping complaints that plagued the early stage of the game. If the counterattack succeeds, the port does not become protected, but triggers proposal 11.

11. Ports that have recently been flipped get a substantial demand of all basic goods (fir, oak, iron, stone blocks, provisions, ...) for a period of time after expiration of the retaliation window in order to simulate it repairing the damage. The port will offer very high prices initially, which will decay over time. Ports do no longer produce goods or spawn trade missions from the port while in repair mode. All buildings in the port are inactive for 24 hours. More passenger missions are available in that port to represent people wanting to leave the damaged town (to give traders something to take back, essentially). This may bring the traders that loved blockade running back and force them to spread around goods if they want to optimize their passenger returns.

12. Port bonuses are now part of ship experience (this will require more extensive coding). Actions that grant ship experience like they currently do, continue to do so. All port upgrades now add a flat amount of experience to every ship constructed in this port. Ships now have multiple levels that unlock at preset thresholds. Each level grants ability points that players can spend as they see fit. These can be used to upgrade hull, guns, speed, etc (current port bonus passives) or to unlock ship upgrade slots. This will make it so all ships of a given rarity become equivalent with enough time spent on them (and if players farm for the same rare ship upgrades). Ships in upgraded ports will start with the current substantial advantage and will require much less time to max out. Player skills will now be the only determinant in PvP and the whining about port bonuses can then stop. Players are also then free to create their build as they see fit. (Optional: Extra economic balancing can be done to maintain high experience for ships/unit, as is the case in Ultimate General (replenishing your unit with rookies or veterans). If you lose too many men in battle, you can lose experience. This can be compensated by hiring veteran sailors, which are substantially more expensive. It is probably best to make sure that the experience loss penalty is not too harsh, so that the average players can actually max out a ship.) 

13. Crew training: Ship experience boosts can be bought to increase ship experience earning with ingame currency. If this is price-balanced correctly with the in-game equivalent, this could be act as a pseudo-subscription to complement the DLCs being released, but care should be taken to keep it balanced. Naval Action has been released for quite some time and there is no reason to suggest an immediate influx for players. If done properly (as convenience, instead of "P2W"), it could give naval action a more sustained source of income and perhaps help support the development cycle.

14. The difficulty of starting nation information gets removed. It has no relation to the current in-game situation and can be considered mostly misleading (even though the initial intention was good).

15. More randomization in trade good prices in addition to randomly spawned missions for player-produced goods? I have no immediate ideas what the trading community really wants to see.

These are what I believe can help alleviate some issues with the current game, based on comments I have seen in these forums and my personal experience with the game. Many of these ideas are not my own, I gathered them in a framework that might work. The base game has solid foundations and it really has improved a lot of things compared to back in the day. It is clearly a work of love, which shows in the quality of the current combat system (maybe boarding can use some tweaks, but meh).

Edited October 16, 2019 by Ccarpio
Fixed bullet ordering and a few typo's.

[Fluffy Fishy]

It concerns me that we are modelling competitiveness with a game released in 2003. Something 16 years old simply shouldn't be a benchmark to be used to judge how effective the game marketing or player retention is although if anything it should be ringing some alarm bells that something so old which also requires an almost full time commitment as well as a monthly subscription is holding on to vastly more players. WoWs however is a completely different experience and probably not the best thing to compare to.

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Celtiberofrog said:

To increase retention of newcomers, maybe a simple coding to make rewards much more valuable might help.

Every single AI's ship should be worth a fight by everyone as long as it can offer good rewards.

This detail could sustain the anthousiasm of newcomers, today a newcomer a bit curious will easily realize the very long way to go through before getting rich or high level XP's.

This very long way is frustrating.

Good rewards in random falls could minimize that frustration.

Why not having the possibility to loot (more frequently) high value stuff such as rare upgrades, rare books, generous coffers, etc...

Those items would certainly give better hope for newcomers, they'd feel like easier prosperity is possible despite the long way to go.

 

Having many more wealthier players could change the overall server activity.

Because this in general wont feel doing stuff rewarding, it become a requirement, and when something becomes a requirement to do something it becomes a grind, not a reward, but a grind and this is the trap that we're in. 

If you dont have the best best admirality books for rvr you stand theoretically small Chance of succes, if you dont have a lo|wo 1st rate with good port bonuses you wont win a port battle.

This is the trap we're in were again the rewards we get are requirement for further events which pushes players out of the game and it becomes stale, which then escalates to a declining player base and eventually a dead game

[AeRoTR]

@Wyy I do agree, so what I say nerf wood difference, nerf port bonuses, nerf super mods (some were partly nerfed before release, some got better like speed mods??)

Idea should be mods, bonuses, they should be nice to have, not MUST HAVE. 

Now 55 point port bonus being OP, and some super mods, they are must have, killing the skill matters, to grind and mods and sometimes zerg matters. 

This is very important, yet looking for some devs to realize! Where are they, in may be in Pocahantas forums