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Development plans update - First half of 2020


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3 hours ago, admin said:

Hello Captains!

We have achieved a lot last year: new ships, new missions, trading improvements, thousands of bugs fixed and finally launch of the game. 2019 was better than 2018. Naval Action has been placed into a Steam's Best of 2019 Hall of Fame by Valve and was named one of the best releases from Early Access (by revenue)

PusBeea.png

This could only happen because of you Captains! Thank You. We wont let you down. 

Of course some grumpy landlubbers will still complain it was all alts, but who cares ;). Please ask those "alts", really ask them to get us on the steam top sellers list in 2020 again.
 

Here are the plans for the next 1st Half of 2020.
Please propose things that you consider critical that fill the new content rules described below or edit your old posts and link them there. 

Under way

  • Transferred from 2019 2H. New player mission
    • New player experience is finishing its development.
      This mission will rework the starting couple of hours for all new players and will show some of the best features from the start (including large line fights in heavy ships) as it was happening in the early sea trials.
  • New ships
    1. Redoutable - Imported ship
      • (this month subject to Valve Approval)
    2. Implacable - crafted ship
      • (this month)
    3. Wrecker - crafted ship
      • (February)
    4. HMS Victory Classic Edition  - Admiralty Gift ship
      • 1st half of 2020
    5. Rotterdam - Combat Indiaman
      • 1st half of 2020
    6. Gross ventre refit will return this or next month 
    7. Pandora will become available on Steam for purchase
  • Low cost edition
    • Low cost edition is long overdue and will be developed and shipped in 2020. It bring a lot of new faces into the game and will increase gameplay quality for all owners.
  • Upgrades, Combat model, damage and penetrations tuning
    • New upgrades (crafted and looted)
    • Cannon, upgrades
    • Battle sails and wind curve rebalance
    • Hull leeway which will make looting much easier 
  • New rewards for main battle activities
    • PVP Leaderboard rewards
    • Better patrol rewards
    • Solo patrol rewards improved 
    • Port battle missions with rewards

On skills and progression and rules for new content (promised in 2h of 2019)

  • We have cancelled work on changes in progression, current skill book rework, and perks for the following reason
    • Changing anything players already have causes immense negativity as it is taking something away from them.
    • Features made for new players can feel that they are done at the expense of old players, who feel they are unfair to the existing community (people who supported the game before), So even if the new progression is amazing it could feel like a robbery for old players even if it is better.
    • Thus...
  • We will only add new content if it fulfills the following rules
    1. It must solve a specific problem of the majority or reduce negative outcome for the majority.
    2. It must be beneficial for both new and old players
    3. It must not take anything away that players worked hard to get. 
    • One example for a skill tree that fulfills the above mentioned rules could be a Bravery Skill Tree
      • Bravery skill tree gives benefits and bonuses to crew when fighting outnumbered
      • Bravery skill tree levels up when fighting outnumbered
      • These two things reduce negativity for the majority as everyone is ganked from time to time and everyone would love to get higher chance to sink someone in those situations

On new content

Overall we feel like our hands are tied with the current content.
Even positive changes like the PVP 20 Min balancer was very hated, really hated by many initially. Now - many months later it is universally accepted by most pvp players. Its not perfect, not the best but a lot better than anything we had before. Such changes cause a state of uneasiness and beta feel and should not happen when the game is already released. 

As a result our focus will only be on to following priorities

  • New ships
  • New missions, events, rewards, and activities
  • Quality of life improvements
  • Removal of toxicity from community communication
  • Some improvements in AI

On moderation

Moderation systems in game will need to change drastically to promote friendly community. Current system of in game chat moderation is slow and inadequate.

  • Developer's assigned moderators were causing claims of bias and negativity. As a result moderation will probably move to the community.
  • Moderation could be done by
    • voted player representatives who will moderate their nation in all chats (help, nation and global)
    • clan leaders and officers who will be able to moderate their clan members in all chats
    • reports on players will come to player representatives and clan leaders by mail
    • clan leaders will receive some motivation for taking action on the reports on their members
    • The systems are going to be worked on this year. meanwhile please use report and ignore for people whose style you do not like

On AI

One important area neglected for a very long time will be Artificial Intelligence. The NPC Ships will learn new tricks and skills

  • Will position better for broadsides 
  • Will learn to chase and escape better (useful for player fleets and auto-escapes during disconnects)
  • Will choose targets better and focus fire better
  • Will sail better closer to land 
  • And some other improvements like better operation as a group

AI improvements become possible as Game Labs as a company continues work on Ultimate Admiral: Age of Sail strategy game, and this year will also start work on a new single player focused game with first person view from deck - Sea Legends - about smugglers and privateers in the Mediterranean and North sea. This research will be shared and will greatly benefit the improvements of quality of PVE combat in Naval Action.

 

Overall - we have a great 2020 ahead of us. If you want something added to the plan feel free to do it in comments. Please stay on topic when discussing issues. Remember that all feature proposals and changes proposals must fit the 3 point framework

  1. It must solve a specific problem of the majority or reduce negative outcome for the majority.
  2. It must be beneficial for both new and old players
  3. It must not take anything away that players worked hard to get. 

Will this Rotterdam  indiamen be craftable?

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thats all look so interenting changes, thx for ur work!

But moderation needs to put in hands of experimented and high reputation players. I know leaders clan and officers members more tolls than their own members.

Edited by Despe
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I don't agree with everything in the post.

BUT

I commend, encourage, and congratulate @admin for a well worded and detailed post on what's to come, why it's coming, and why some things have changed.

We would have a LOT less troll/toxic posting if topic of patch notes and coming content were like this (including myself).

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Just One point I would heavily encourage some discussion on:

Shallow Water ports really should Not have Forts as defense, and all Forts should instead be Towers.

so any Shallow regional capital would have 4 Towers instead of 2 Towers and 2 forts.
Regional shallow ports would have 3 Towers instead of 2 towers and 1 Fort.

It's honestly the last sticking point for many players that I talk to in regards to why shallow water port battles "don't" happen. because the defender has such a huge advantage, it's not worth someone's time to attack.

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No mention of hard-coded international diplomacy mechanics here. Myself and many other players do believe that this would improve the game significantly for everyone, both within RvR and without. Is there anything preventing a rework and reimplementation of the old clan diplomacy mechanics? 

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Clan Docks please!

1. Makes everything ship related so much easier: Lost your firstrate in pb and the crafter is not online? Take one of those in clan docks. Want to trade a ship from clan crafter to clan member in a different timezone? Send to clan docks. Want to roll the dice but your docks are full? Send ships to clandocks to have room for more!

2. It will benefit both old and new players, as the old players can take their ships from the officer clan dock, while the new player can take his snows and trincos from the member clan dock.

3. doesnt take anyhting away :)

4. Perhaps an entire new and complex system for clan management with options like more then 2 ranks, different sections and access levels in the Clan Warehouse and many other things can be implemented in time. But until then, clan docks would do for me :)

5. Clan Shop?

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13 minutes ago, Sea Fox said:

Sugestion is making at least one DLC trade ship! 

Been saying this for ever, could of done it with the LGV Refit and still have random notes in the chest also.  Though I would like to see a fully dedicated Trade Ship DLC, not just a Refit of fighting merchant man.

39 minutes ago, Despe said:

With all DLC ships i have a problem with my space in docks, maybe it will be a good idea that any DLC you buy, includes one extra docks space.

There  is currently 6 DLC ships, how is that filling up all your dock space?   Maybe clean out some of the ships your not using or the 20 trade ships you use for trade runs?  I mean maxed out it's something like what 30 something slots or more?

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6 hours ago, admin said:

As a result our focus will only be on to following priorities

 

  • New missions, events, rewards, and activities

 

  1. It must be beneficial for both new and old players

Maybe I represent a minority in this, but I really enjoyed the "Fleet Combat" missions that used to exist where you could take one of these missions and fight an AI NPC fleet with a number of friendly NPCs with you (I believe the player's side was always outnumbered, but for any decent player this was not a problem). I don't recall exactly when this was removed as I took a hiatus from the game for a while, but I suspect it was related to the looting mechanics of ships and I recognize there could be a belief that it would give a player a potentially unfair way to loot a bunch of ships at once. I thought those missions were incredibly fun, from cutters all the way to line ships.

 

I would like to see these types of missions return. and if looting of the sinking ships is a problem would there be a way to remove loot from NPC ships in these battles? Unlike an OW NPC fleet, I would imagine these would be much more randomly generated.

 

For solo players or small clans, it can be very difficult to have a battle with more than one or two ships and very hard to find an appropriate NPC fleet to attack in the OW, so it would be bringing back a feature to the playerbase that is now missing. For me personally, I rarely have the time to try to find people who would go OW hunting all over the map to find an appropriate NPC fleet. 

 

Please consider this when adding new mission content.

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6 hours ago, admin said:
    1. Pandora will become available on Steam for purchase

Can you add the yacht and gunboat to this list, as well? Always hated that there was no other way to get those vessels (although yachts were transferable during early release, at least).

Also, and this is a bit more a serious ask @admin, can you allow crafting XP to be gained by other crafting activities (workshop, forge) so that clans don't need to have everyone in the clan build expensive and otherwise pointless shipyards to gain crafting XP. Tie crafting XP to labour hours cost at a ratio of 1 XP per 5 LH spent (basing this off the current XP awarded for crafting Tlynx, Mercury, and Prince). 

Edited by GrubbyZebra
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7 hours ago, admin said:

On AI

One important area neglected for a very long time will be Artificial Intelligence. The NPC Ships will learn new tricks and skills

  • Will position better for broadsides 
  • Will learn to chase and escape better (useful for player fleets and auto-escapes during disconnects)
  • Will choose targets better and focus fire better
  • Will sail better closer to land 
  • And some other improvements like better operation as a group

AI improvements become possible as Game Labs as a company continues work on Ultimate Admiral: Age of Sail strategy game, and this year will also start work on a new single player focused game with first person view from deck - Sea Legends - about smugglers and privateers in the Mediterranean and North sea. This research will be shared and will greatly benefit the improvements of quality of PVE combat in Naval Action.

@admin

Regarding AI, how do you feel about the implemetation of AI port battles on the PVP server?  Have they had the desired effects listed as the reasoning behind the implementation?

No defending fleets have been successfully screened out by another nation.  No ports that have gone neutral were taken by a different nation.  Which I think was the main objective of the AI battles.  To my knowledge anyway.  I would say that so far they've been a PVE related burden to players with no real benefits to the game or RVR as a whole outside of seasoned wood permits which could very easily be distributed in chests during actual RVR port battles which would actually be a benefit and an incentive. 

If the majority of the community seems to not be in favor of these would you consider removing them?
 

Edited by Mouth of Sauron
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7 hours ago, admin said:

this year will also start work on a new single player focused game with first person view from deck - Sea Legends - about smugglers and privateers in the Mediterranean and North sea. 

Really nice! Actual whole first post is nice and promising. Really cant wait for the chat improvements and new ships :)

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pls add steam or ingame achivements like:

Has caught every species of fish in the West indies

Found a bottle

Sunk his first player

won a battle with less than half the BR on his side (pve/pvp)

Fought in a Portbattle

Has done a successful raid

etc

Edited by z4ys
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