Development plans update - First half of 2020

[TheDread]

16 hours ago, Mouth of Sauron said:

@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?
 

This post needs more attention.   Perhaps frontline system needs to have an exception for ANY netural port, whereby any nation can do hostility on it?   That would make it possible  to take an enemy port after an AI raider attack, and create some danger to doing neutral handovers within your nation as well, since the enemy could swoop in and use the time the port was neutral to open a new front in the middle of your territory. 

 

Speaking of handovers - and this is an old topic - there needs to be some way for a nation to take ports from it's own clans.   Sometimes ports that have been held for ages by an inactive clan suddenly become strategically relevant, but there's no way to 'reclaim' the port so someone who actually plays the game can manage the friends list.  Other times a clan goes rogue.  Other times a clan defects to another nation but refuses to release their ports.  There should be a way to police your own without having to beg a foreign power to take your port and hope they give it back...  and that's not even always an option with the changes to the frontline mechanic...  now you may have to flip 8 or 10 ports to gain hostility on certain ports.  

[Destraex]

A couple of questions:

1. Has there been any work on changing the boarding system to 3d animated combat that would also have the benefit of being less ping reliant? The reason I ask is that your new single player game sounds like it may incorporate such a system that I hope could be ported in some form?

2. I take it officer and crew progression is now discontinued because it would br a form of progression? I guess as you say, this is for the best.  

3. Does the bew single player sea legends game mean no naval action 2 is on the cards? Med and north sea would have been a great next theatre for na2?

If so would you consider making sea legends coop? I find it hard to put time into games which I cannot enjoy with friends in some way.

[Never]

19 minutes ago, Destraex said:

2. I take it officer and crew progression is now discontinued because it would br a form of progression? I guess as you say, this is for the best.  

How is this for the best though?
In most games of this kind, changes are made to progression all the time. As long as nothing already achieved is deleted or reset, it should be fine to make additions or modifications. Level caps get increased, skills get changed, perks get modified; these kind of things are commonplace. 

 

[Destraex]

8 minutes ago, Never said:

How is this for the best though?
In most games of this kind, changes are made to progression all the time. As long as nothing already achieved is deleted or reset, it should be fine to make additions or modifications. Level caps get increased, skills get changed, perks get modified; these kind of things are commonplace. 

I am just going off what admin said about any progression causing outrage over having to grind again, which is what officer or crew progresssion would do. It would cause some sort of new grind to stay competitive.

I’d love it which is why I asked.

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

I wish there was a way to conquer ports for one-man-clans or small clans who are at cross with their nation(s big clans and their behavior). Either by inviting foreign clans into your port battles (was proposed earlier, never got answered) or (and that is my new idea as you ask for ideas for next development) let people hire NPC fleets as mercenaries. Say you pay a big chunk of doubloons (per First Rate, per Second Rate, etc) and you get an expeditionary force from your Admiralty back home in Europe to help you in hostility missions and/or port battles, in competition to player clans of any kind, own nation or foreign.

[Destraex]

19 hours ago, The Geth said:

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? 

Love this idea. It would mean alliances change depending on player numbers in each faction at any given time? If so that would solve a lot of op faction issues.

It could even use rank and pvp kill stats for inline players to determine alliances.

[Never]

35 minutes ago, Destraex said:

I am just going off what admin said about any progression causing outrage over having to grind again, which is what officer or crew progresssion would do. It would cause some sort of new grind to stay competitive.

I’d love it which is why I asked.

Yeah I would like it as well, just wondered why it was thought of as 'for the best' to discard the possibility of it. I think at the very least some kind of poll could be made and see what people actually think of it before throwing the chance for it overboard entirely. 

I think there would be outrage if exp for ranks was reset again but adding an whole new system might have a completely different reaction if there are well thought out ideas behind it. That plus if we are going to discard possible great additions to the game over some group complaining about it, then nothing could be added, including DLC ships. 

Edited January 14, 2020 by Never

[erelkivtuadrater]

i think the right way to approach boarding is to have some kind of 3D Teamfight tactics or Hearthstone Battleground approach. Dont know if you would like to spend time on it, but it would solve ping problems, and would be alot more immersive then this rock, paper, scissors game where you can tell what the other player is chosing through prep, firepower and melee

[Bonus]

Premium Membership for Cosmetics

Basicly gamelabs is interested in making money and have a happy community, and the players like to have a game where they can spent time in.

So might think about a Premium Membership where you can spend 5-10 euro for 1- 2 months of pure sailcoloring- shippainting and flagchanging time. (Maybe even non historical flags and paints but not to unrealistic?)

[Bubba Smith]

Good news, thanks for posting this. I enjoy the game and look forward to the improvements coming down the pipe. 

 

[Sir Texas Sir]

2 hours ago, Cetric de Cornusiac said:

I wish there was a way to conquer ports for one-man-clans or small clans who are at cross with their nation(s big clans and their behavior). Either by inviting foreign clans into your port battles (was proposed earlier, never got answered) or (and that is my new idea as you ask for ideas for next development) let people hire NPC fleets as mercenaries. Say you pay a big chunk of doubloons (per First Rate, per Second Rate, etc) and you get an expeditionary force from your Admiralty back home in Europe to help you in hostility missions and/or port battles, in competition to player clans of any kind, own nation or foreign.

Cause RVR is not solo play, other games have group/clan actions too.   If you want RvR and that stuff get a friends and do it.  Aren't you on PvE any ways?  If so that brings up something else, it would be nice if ya'll had a way to flip ports instead of waiting for a raid and it to go neutral, but only for AI owned poirts.  The issue with your solo one man thing is that can be used big time and abused by alts and folks pissed off at a nation.  No one man can or should hold a port they can't defend themselves.  So if you can't flip a port, beat the AI and capture the circles yourself than you don't deserve the team/group play it's made for.   Not saying it can't be done as I flipped ports and won port battles with two players before (mama duck and some one else cap circles).

A solution's for PvE server is to have them be more aggressive on the raids of AI owned ports so they turn neutral.  The problems is ya'll have no PvP/RvR to let ports exchange hands so that port will be forever in a players hands no matter what.   Honestly PvE needs map resets every quarter or year or something (not resources just port owners) or it's going to get stale and no one will be able to own any ports that players stopped playing owned and such.   A solution would make inactive clans loose a port after no clan members log on (prefer Officer or diplomates/creater) a set time it reverts to neutral.   Also there should be a way for a Nation to hand off ports to other clans take a port from a dead/inactive or bad clan(alts/spy/traitors switching nation) on both servers.

[Sir Texas Sir]

Also @admin any patch notes for todays update?  Or more I should say this mornings?  That wasn't just some little hot patch by the size of it.

[Celtic]

The Current tutorials and exams need a serious rework, currently the best advice on how to complete the final exam is to cheese the AI with the boarding trick, as well as dealing with the fact that in the Final the AI is given what amount to Hacks with unlimited Double Shot. I've had multiple people buy the game and the straight out refuse to play after completing the tutorials and then attempting the final exam.   There are multiple threads on the Steam forum saying much the same thing about how they return the game after attempting the tutorials or final exam. 

I understand part of the difficulty is because the player who completes them is being given a lot of good gear...which would be okay if it wasn't tacitly implied that one needs to complete the Final exam in order to "be ready" to play in the open world.  I believe a better solution would be to remove a lot of the gear and such that are being given to the player, and scale the difficulty back to a level that a new player can be reasonably expected to complete.  As it stands the final exam is not a test of skill so much as luck, and knowledge of how to exploit weaknesses in the game mechanics. I don't think I've heard anyone say they feel accomplished after completing the exam, so much as they're glad its over. 

Difficulty is good, and I think the final *should* be a challenge however, that doesn't mean it should be this ridiculous  exercise in exploiting AI weaknesses or run -  repair - run - repair. 

There is so much to love about Naval Action, but players are being turned away by a gateway that isn't even representative of the actual game. 

[GrubbyZebra]

nm, was already answered.

Edited January 15, 2020 by GrubbyZebra

[GrubbyZebra]

7 hours ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

Where you in sea trials and pod by PayPal before steam EA release?  That how you get the yatch DLC.  I miss it by a day cause I was down in Brazil working and got back the day after and it went to steam.

though I still think pandora should not be a dlc folks can buy.  It should be a special ship for EA testers only.

Oh, I like the idea of having the yacht and pandora being special ships only available to certain early adopters. My post was more that since they are going to make the Pandora available to everyone, do the same for the yacht. 

[GrubbyZebra]

6 hours ago, Callaghan92 said:

The Yacht is a bonus for players who played before the game was available on steam (sea trials)   So i highly doubt it will ever be a DLC and tbh, if it was it may be unfair to some of those who got it due to paying for the game before steam, some who potentially bought in because of the extra 'bonus ship' As for the gunboat its just a fun ship really, Easily obtainable out of gold chests 

I know how the yacht was given, it just seems that since the devs are intent on not having ships in game that are not available to everyone, I wouldn't mind them including the yacht in this (so I don't have to beg it off folks that have it). 

As for the gunboat, it is a fun ship, but I have never gotten a gold chest in this game in almost 3k hours of playing. Mission chests, silver chests, epic chests, deadmans chests, sure, but never a gold chest, and never a gunboat. I'd pay a couple bucks for a gunboat DLC.

[Mad Dog Morgan]

Yes received the yacht and it's useless.  Should of at least been some sort of half decent 6th rate.

[Sea Archer]

To add more ships diversity to the game, please add real water depth and ships draft.

Give the small ship a purpose, as well as the medium frigates. 

Real water depth in portbattles would increase the ships diversity, too. So other ships than L'Oceans and Christians would be used.

[qw569😳]

14 hours ago, Liq said:

Make your own statistics  Know a couple that are tracking theirs themselves

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DsKo3llCC80GhOqeRu_5CDET0tbZq_jhxv3fOIspRm8/edit#gid=0

I meant the general statistics by War server. Something like this.

Edited January 15, 2020 by qw569

[Genevieve Malfleurs]

4 hours ago, Mad Dog Morgan said:

Yes received the yacht and it's useless.  Should of at least been some sort of half decent 6th rate.

The Yacht is probably useless to your playstyle. Others are happy with that gifted ship.

[Medniy Sandal]

The yacht was useful when all the players started the game on the links, with 4 guns. Then the yacht became a decorative element in the game. Up to the 3rd level, earlier in the game, it was more profitable to fight on a basic cutter.

After introducing the exams, small ships became practically unnecessary in the game (((.
And everyone who writes that the final exam is difficult, I want to remind you that it does not have to finish. Complicated? Go straight to sea on a small ship. However, the new player will have even more questions and less experience.
Paradox, but most of those who pass these exams do not even really read the text explaining the mechanics of the game ))).

(Translated with Translator)

[BoatyMcBoatFace]

I dont get the whole push to do the stupid exams. One will learn a lot more by literally just basic cuttering around the map for 50 hours.... 

[Thonys]

1 minute ago, BoatyMcBoatFace said:

I dont get the whole push to do the stupid exams. One will learn a lot more by literally just basic cuttering around the map for 50 hours.... 

and you will fail eventually.....

tutorial is a need to do first  (period)

exams is not a tutorial 

[Vivus]

Quote

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

Please bear in mind that a similar system was introduced in eve online that pretty much killed off solo roaming/ganking.

They introduced a system where if you jumped into someone's mission, the npc's would aggress the new player entering, which meant that you'd have to be able to tank the npc's and the player you were attacking. This pretty much killed the art of the gank.

Ganking is an essential part of pvp, the games economy and enforces the risk/reward gameplay. While no one likes been ganked, boosting peoples chances to kill a ganker is not the way to go about it. People need to weigh the risk of travelling in a slow ship alone vs grouping up or taking something faster, not be handed a silver spoon because they decided to take the risk.

[Lukas]

thx u for ur work. I hope that these things will improve online :з