When does a game in development lose its way?

[greybuscat]

To crew and maintain a first rate would require 900 or so pirates.... and the maintenance costs would be insane for the purpose of taking merchants.

It would be like Fastway Couriers using an abrams tank to do deliveries.

 

I'd much rather see the real-life consequences of that play out, than have the game arbitrarily stop someone from trying it out.

 

Like, to me, that's the best game-design possible. Slapping my hands with artificial limitations, on the other hand, is to be avoided at all costs.

 

 

And yes, if the player went down with his ship the character certainly could be dead.  Why not?  Have his son inherit his savings and any ships he may have in his dock.

 

This, as much, I wholeheartedly agree with. I'm not going to ask for a refund over it (taking your ball and going home is always a childish move, and it probably wouldn't work anyway), but it's something I think the game would only benefit from.

[AlabastarEpic]

As this game ramps up and more and more "noise" is added to the development stages and more and more diverse and conflicting ideas come to the fore. There is a good chance that the original game plan will change and turn from its original intent turning the original community against it.

I have just been reading how this happened to POTBS.... a lot of the BETA and original crew thought they were getting one thing and as the wider community joined the game turned much more arcade like.

I believe it is important to stay true to what the games original intent is and be very very careful about turning it away from it's original script. The temptation is that it will not be realised what harm some of these seemingly harmless ideas can do to a community.

I point to nothing in particular but am seeing a rise in people asking for a game more on the side of a disney adventure than a game with real mechanics and an open world. This game should be like no other. Achieve what no other has and stay true to it's historical base.

* I don't want a stats based MMO. I don't want to careen my vessel and have it give +10% speed. I want to be able to careen and try it out after to see how much faster it makes me. I basically do not want the starcraft boys making excel spreadsheets to work out the best builds. Leave things human and the stats hidden.

* I don't want to win battles single handedly with my sword when boarding

* I don't want to see ridiculous colour schemes

* I don't want to see fantasy and magic

* I don't want to see pirates in first rates

* I do not want to see cartoon like avatars

* I do not want to see +1 and +2 floating up from my ship while the crew aim the guns for me

* I do not feel the need to walk into town and tell stories about gold and how tough I am

*

* I do want it to be fun

* I do want to see the thousands of possible historical ships

* I do want to see realistic customisation and options

* I do want to see organised navies

* I do want as many sailing mechanics as possible

* I do want to see diverse maps that include storms, rocks, tides, depth soundings and varied bottom depths

* I do want to see varied wind maps, gusts, speed increases and decreases etc

* I can handle a little compromise WHERE NECESSARY for current technology and the base level of player skill but expect the most basic things to be kept in game. I would hate it for instance if being taken aback was taken out because of players not understanding it. It is encumbant on the player to understand things that make sailing, well, sailing. Players must be willing to do more than expect to drive a car in the sea as in black flag. Otherwise the core player base will most likely move away because the game becomes just another "theme" based game like world of tanks with no base in reality and thus no point playing. May as well play something else that is not just skinned with a theme but plays like any other experience and could have a space ship skin just as easily.

* I would like to see lookouts and crew repeat orders back so you know they are understood.

* I want to be able to have my crew managed and become more experienced.

* I want to be able to choose how many of each type of crew is in my ship - gunners, topmen, waisters etc and what proportion I have stationed where in the ship.

* I want to be able to include marines in the crew and have them fire muskets

There are basically two schools of thought here on the forums.

The earlier more technical schools of though focussed on sailing mechanics and battle realism and the later population that has more of a proportion or role players and more character focussed play who like to dress things and run off on their own. I like a game with a feeling that you and your crew are human but personally do not feel the need to be portrayed as the centre of attention - i.e. a hero.

Don't get me wrong. I like a human element. But I personally at least do not want the game to get out of control in that direction and leave the main part of the game, sailing, to rot.

Just some random thoughts as I see the population now creating a lot of noise in a lot of directions with a lot of different expectations. It is easy to lose your way in this sea of noise and end up with an arcade game as I am told POTBS was - even though it seems like it was the only game in town forcing many to play it.

What do we want to bring away from the game. What will we say when we finish putting hours of game time in? I learnt something, that was different, that was fun or just another MMO like all the others. Level ups and upgrades grinding with a fun party theme?

I agree with everything you said, except Pirates in First Rates.Pirates are pirates.They capture ships if its better than their current ones.So Pirates should be in First Rates if they capture one.And Pirates should be allowed to purchase up to a third rate.

As history shows, there are shipwrights that build and sell second hand third and below rates to trading companies and rich businessmen.

First and Second Rates are only built by National Shipwrights for National Navies.

Thus Pirates buying them would be a wee bit unrealistic.

And honestly maintenance costs comes AFTER the purchase of a ship.U'd usually hire a temp skeleton crew to sail your ship till you recruited actual men.And if you did not maintain your ship, caulking etc....your hull would leak, wood rot, etc and you sink thus loosing your ship.So maintenance costs comes after (shoot me if you like)

[SirThawkz]

I'd be hoping to see a lot of player created content and and a game where the developers are happy to stick to their core idea's, even in the face of the mass market pressure to dumb things down.

 

I'm sure many here will have played EVE Online, and love it or hate it (I love it), it's fundamentally a game driven by it's core support where they have explicitly tried to avoid dumbing things down, even in the face of criticism from players who want things easy.  There are plenty of games like that, WoT, War Thunder....this should be different.

 

-SirThawkz-

[DraigUK]

If you want to see how a potentially great game recently got ruined by going soft for the masses when they arrived on release just look at Elite Dangerous.

I still play it occasionally (rarely), but the best time I had in ED was during Beta when everyone was forced together online and it was dog eat dog with player killing, pirating and everyne eking out a living the best they could.

 

Step by gradual step it got ruined by catering to the masses of unwashed who screamed and whined about being killed, pirated, about it being too hard and so on.

 

It became easy. It lost it's way. I hope NA doesn't.

[Lt_Snyder]

As this game ramps up and l .......................................

 

I agree absolut. I startet PotbS with the Beta. And I hope Naval Action will not walk the same way to please everybody.

[Brigand]

I'm sure many here will have played EVE Online, and love it or hate it (I love it), it's fundamentally a game driven by it's core support where they have explicitly tried to avoid dumbing things down, even in the face of criticism from players who want things easy.

I quite playing EVE because it was dumbed down beyond the point where I still enjoyed playing the game. They called it 'streamlining the experience'. Just to show that sometimes the development studio doesn't even realise it themselves.

~Brigand

[Hethwill]

A game in development loses its course when it does not consider the unknown amount of human factor.

 

We will always find ways of perverting the mechanics and therefore the so called "re ballancing" happens.

 

What developers must do is to make clear that some ships are offensive, others defensive, others are indeed ships for war and others simply merchants with guns for self defense.

 

For example, some voices already clamoring for a review of the Brig when in truth it is NOT a ship tailored for fighting.

 

When this kind of BS happens and developers start to doubt their own game, that's when everything goes off course.

 

My two cents.

[Rutger Van Hoorn]

So is the question "when does a game turn away so much from its core values that it turns away a large part of its player base"?

 

Well, sad to say that this is something the developers will always have to take into account.

Take note that any change by a gaming company will almost always find criticism in some group, resulting in complaints and subscription cancellations.

It is always a balancing act for any MMO developer to keep introducing enough change to keep the game interesting, while at the same time avoiding things that will turn off too many players.

 

But any game has to have core values that should not be moved away from.

So what are this game's core values? Have these been established, and if so have they been well communicated?

I think they've been established only in part (ship vs. ship high level of authenticity), and the entire reason for this forum is to help establish the rest.

So in my humble opinion I think the question "when does a game in development lose its way" is a bit unfair, unless you say they are already moving away from their few preset core values.

[Grim DeGrim]

I should think there is a core development path, and that deviations from that will be few and far between.  Without that, the game will never progress forward in an efficient manner.  and if it does, it will be akin to John Chas's "One-Piece-at-a -Time".  For those of you too young, that's the story of him building a Cadillac, taking the pieces from the factory over the years.  All similar, all for a type of car, but the pieces don't go together well as each were for different model years.

 

Maybe a stretch...  I suppose Frankenstein would be better.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4pAwosnIQE

[RAMJB]

I'm absolutely paranoid about this game turning into yet another dumbed down wasted potential piece of entertaining software, one more of a list that grows bigger by the day.

However, I've had the chance to chat with the devs of this game several times (in fact it's regular contact through skype). And each time we have a conversation, my conviction grows that this will be THE game that will finally break the lineage of games which promised to be skill based and ended up in being tailored for the masses of the braindead.

 

I'm very very skeptical about developers in general. And that has grown into almost paranoid levels, specially after my personal experience with Gaijin/War Thunder (at every level, from that of being a simple player to the top level of being for almost a full year the biggest dedicated youtube channel about the game, going through briefly being part of the alpha testing group). After coming out of WT I just thought I'd never trust a developer ever again. But this guys are forcing me to believe, and they're doing it by the book .

 

My expectations about Naval Action are sky-high, only because the devs seem to really care about making a piece of art of a game where skill matters. In a world where almost every dev out there is all about making a moneygrinding piece of wasted software, this guys are all about making the game -THEY- want to play. And it just happens the game THEY want to play is the game I've always wanted to play too. So, hey, what a fortunate coincidence

 

Ironically (and thankfully) I think that taking that path they're also going to make a crapload of money. As many millions of braindead players out there there might be, there are is also a huge audience who is looking for something that challenges them, and requires skill to get good at. And that audience usually doesn't have too much trouble opening their wallets to support a developer that FINALLY delivers what they want, and not what the legions of CoD brain dissected 14 year olds demand.

 

 

All in all I for one am confident that this game will be every bit of what we've promised it'll be. And coming from someone who, again, is absolutely paranoid about lying developers, I guess that means something .

[Wetworth]

I think the problem comes in for a game like this when people start crying about "BALANCE". 

 

I want balance. My dream is to sink Victorys in my Lynx 

[ajffighter86]

Ditto Raatha's comment about 'balance'.

 

I played a good bit of another game, which I won't name, but involves WW2 planes where in the early stages of the game, Japan had the worst win/loss ratio of all the nations. Players complained about how hard it was to play as Japanese planes (i.e.. probably not flying them correctly), so the developers gave them unrealistic flying characteristics which aren't true to their historical specs. It completely turned 180 degrees. Lo and behold, EVERYONE and their uncle started flying Japanese planes. Not because they were fun to fly, but because they were suddenly invincible (which I guess is fun to some people, I think it would get boring at some point).

 

The best player is always the one who knows all the ins-and-outs of his plane (or ship, in Naval Action's case) and how to properly use it. Relying on someone to come along and change a few values in coding to compensate for a player who doesn't know what his vessel will or won't do (or should or shouldn't do), well, it's just a form of cheating in my opinion.

 

LEARN YOUR SHIP. It also helps to learn their ship as well. Knowing what they can't do, but what you can do, is what will give you an upper-hand. What makes it fun, is that they're also judging YOUR capability at the same time, and they're also trying to use their strengths and exploit your weaknesses as well. This is where knowledge and skill determines outcome, not game-coding. Otherwise, we're going to end up with a bunch of ships that are only different in regard to their name.

 

For example, I'm in my snow, and I know the enemy trincomalee has no rear guns. If I can't get behind the trincomalee, then I know I'm gonna have a tough fight on my hands. The captain of the trincomalee ALSO knows he has no rear guns. So he's gonna be trying to position his ship to keep me from getting behind him and use his greater firepower to his advantage before I can sweep behind him. The lame way to solve this 'problem', or what most game-developers would do, is to simply give the trincomalee rear guns because some people started crying, but see, now, we've ruined the game. The proper way to solve the 'problem' is . . . knowing your ship. By the way, the trincomalee is wicked fast, it needs a nerf!

 

—Just kidding. I know I need to use chain shot. Why? I know his ship and what I need to do to neutralize his advantage. I rest my case. It's all about knowing your ship.

 

In the case of the game I mention, the developers spend a lot of time changing things based on the disappointment of a few people, which ruins gameplay for the majority of folks.

 

I just hope naval action doesn't start unnecessarily changing things that they're doing right, so they don't suffer the same fate.

[Joe]

Next to "hysterical realitiez" is obviously the next crowd favorite, the "Do it my way or I want a refund!" argument.

 

Sigh. Guys, are we mature enough to have a discussion maybe?

This has been really mild and we'll run compared to the POTBS board. Just wait until some of those players find their way here.....UGLY it will be.

[Charles Caldwell]

Agree 100%, great post!

[marecek05]

As I said in another thread, NA would be much better at being fun in a dark souls way, not Call of duty way.

 

There will be balancing issues, there will be issues with gameplay that will seriously detract from the game experience of all, however, they will have to be dealt in a fair way, keeping in mind the historical realism, skill based gameplay etc.

 

The balancing should be done, only if there are clear and reasonble arguments that are important enough to detract from realism of the game.

[Mirones]

Dark Souls?

why cant i get the pictures of a Victory Barrelrolling itselft through the waves to avoid an enemy boardside creating lots of splashes and squal like foamy winds that brings your hardware kneeling down begging for mercy

[Salty Dog (Xabaras)]

Sailing itself should be a big part of the game. Even today ships have tough time at some seas/weather. I don't want to sail through Drake passage like it's no big deal.

[D'Orleans]

Agree with the OP 100% on this one. 

 

Although I am new to this forum I have been an avid fan of naval games/sims for many years,especially for age of sail. I've been a member of an on-line group dedicated to this since 2003. Ever since AoS2 and PB have always been searching for that age of sail game to take it's place. To be fair there have been a number of AoS style games over the years, but none of them quite had it...they were all missing things. Yes I tried my hand at PoTBS for a short while, but that missed the mark too, for me. 

 

Finally a company comes along with this, Naval Action. This game looks and feels like "the one". It has "the feel". Something I haven't experienced since the old AoS2 days and NA can/will offer even more. Will there be changes? Of course there will be. Game Labs please hold your course with Naval Action. There's already enough like Assassin's Creed Black Flag.

[Kpt Beowulf aka Kpt Ahab]

I agree with the OP, but I still have some hope about the current community. Current being the key word, full release can't come soon enough, but it also worries me. So. Many. Idiots. Out. There.

The game has over 16,000 likes on Facebook, that's awesome and that's also scary. There is probably less than 2,000 of those that would agree with everything you said and 14,000 that will complain until it becomes AC Black Flag. 

 

I really hope I'm very wrong about that and if I'm not I hope GL will stick to the true vision.

 

The second I see +2 floating above a ship I'm out.

absolutely - as i come from War Thunder, like RamJB and Bismarck. I can tell what an increasing arcade minded player base can cause to the quality of a game.

 

The game was extremely promising when it started - although I only played it from 1.33 on - and with the flooding of ppl that just look on stats k/d ratio and such + having those players always crying for "Balance" in the forum the Devs decided to follow these guys needs and messed up the game totally for players that joined it for the Realistic and Simulator Mode. To make it more worse WT is a free to play game and as such the developer has to make money from gadget stuff. If you don´t have Devs that are resilient to going for the easy way, you get what that game has become now - a monster of selfishness and greed.

 

When RamJB came up with advertising Naval Action on youtube I was really happy because it seems that there is/could be a game out there that is as promising as War Thunder was in the beginning + it is NO Free To Play title. My hope is that this does´t turn into just another title that gets corrupted by the massive count of idiots out there that only care for fast action, grinding, upgrading and behaving stupid and against a team without consequences.

 

As this game is in Alpha and we are mostly here to provide data for getting the physics and gameplay right I understand this can´t be treated as the real game but... what i see now is masses of new players joining in because of the news spread out by the youtubers. And a lot these players just don´t care for the topic of this game which is SAILING and team playing. They refuse to learn the game and their ships by using them in PvP light but go straight into PvP or PvE to gather dmg points in order to get the next big thing. The result of that is that we have loads of idiots who throw their big ships into PvP without knowing anything about their role, how to behave or caring what´s going on around them.

 

Every ship from Surprise up should basically know what to do! What I see more and more often is players messing the team up by ramming full sails into friendlies in search for a good shot, blocking bigger ships and so on. When you call these guys what they are you get put on the Tribunal here - as it happened to me - and shitstormed. And the Devs cover that kind of behavior and tell you you have to accept it - not really understandable.

 

I REALLY hope that this development stops in a not so far future and that this title will not turn into another game aiming for the lowest of intentions and no-will-to -learn of it´s player base.

[Steelfury]

Actually I wouldn't care if pirates could make first rates: as long as the first rate would be as useless for piracy as it should be: visible for miles around and too slow to catch anything easily, useless at running away from a national fleet sent to hunt it down and too big to hide and so expensive to maintain that the pirates are soon going to just sell it to the next nation they can.

[Kpt Beowulf aka Kpt Ahab]

you maybe?

[Kpt Beowulf aka Kpt Ahab]

I'm absolutely paranoid about this game turning into yet another dumbed down wasted potential piece of entertaining software, one more of a list that grows bigger by the day.

However, I've had the chance to chat with the devs of this game several times (in fact it's regular contact through skype). And each time we have a conversation, my conviction grows that this will be THE game that will finally break the lineage of games which promised to be skill based and ended up in being tailored for the masses of the braindead.

 

I'm very very skeptical about developers in general. And that has grown into almost paranoid levels, specially after my personal experience with Gaijin/War Thunder (at every level, from that of being a simple player to the top level of being for almost a full year the biggest dedicated youtube channel about the game, going through briefly being part of the alpha testing group). After coming out of WT I just thought I'd never trust a developer ever again. But this guys are forcing me to believe, and they're doing it by the book .

 

My expectations about Naval Action are sky-high, only because the devs seem to really care about making a piece of art of a game where skill matters. In a world where almost every dev out there is all about making a moneygrinding piece of wasted software, this guys are all about making the game -THEY- want to play. And it just happens the game THEY want to play is the game I've always wanted to play too. So, hey, what a fortunate coincidence

 

Ironically (and thankfully) I think that taking that path they're also going to make a crapload of money. As many millions of braindead players out there there might be, there are is also a huge audience who is looking for something that challenges them, and requires skill to get good at. And that audience usually doesn't have too much trouble opening their wallets to support a developer that FINALLY delivers what they want, and not what the legions of CoD brain dissected 14 year olds demand.

 

 

All in all I for one am confident that this game will be every bit of what we've promised it'll be. And coming from someone who, again, is absolutely paranoid about lying developers, I guess that means something .

period...

[Leviathan]

This is why I hope (and think) the developers have the cannonballs to stick with their original vision and not bend under pressure. What they have created thus far has attracted many players on it's own.

Sometimes I think it's best if we let everyone fill their role. Let the developers develop...let the testers/players test...give feedback when appropriate. Ultimately, not everyone will like the end product, but if you try to cater to everyone the game will lose it's identity.

[Kpt Beowulf aka Kpt Ahab]

This is why I hope (and think) the developers have the cannonballs to stick with their original vision and not bend under pressure. What they have created thus far has attracted many players on it's own.

Sometimes I think it's best if we let everyone fill their role. Let the developers develop...let the testers/players test...give feedback when appropriate. Ultimately, not everyone will like the end product, but if you try to cater to everyone the game will lose it's identity.

Pls crater the part of the community that wants to have a high standard game. We are willing to pay money for it!!! And - you can´t have a game that fits for 12year olds and let´s say 25/30+

[Robert Danforth]

Absolutely agreed.