Things the MUST be implimented

[Lucinator]

With the game being "released" I feel like I have to speak up about the state of the game.  Frankly its borderline unplayable.  I really want to like the game but hearing that the Dev's plan to stop working on the game in a few months is kinda a slap in the face.  Here are the things that need to be implemented with 1-3 being things that MUST be implemented/fixed or I'm gonna file a formal complaint to steam for false advertising.  I also know a executive at VALVE and will also email him about how this game has been handled.

1.Fixed Pathfinding: It should not be the case that ships run into each other, go the opposite direction you tell them to, randomly stop...How the dev's think this is acceptable is unfathomable to me.

2.Unit placement:  There needs to be a way for player to place the ships before a battle.  Having ships in the same division on opposite sides of the fleet formation is ludicrous.  Being able to place the ships to fit your battleplan is a must, especially with the poor pathfinding, I spend almost as much time to assigning ships to new divisions that I do fighting.

3.Mod Support: Frankly there is no way the dev's are gonna be able to get the game to the level it needs to be and need to spend ALL their time working on the first two parts of this, along with bugs.  New content really needs to end.  To fill that gap player content and work is gonna be a good way to get new hulls, other ship parts, A.I. improvements...  I find it crazy that I still cant make a Nagato or Nelson Class for example.

While not critical I think that to make the game successful these features would be nice to have or at least have a framework in place so modders can choose to add.them.

4, PIP: A picture in picture option would be nice so you can either focus your camera on the enemy while being able to see the angle of your ship in a smaller window or the reverse would help a ton in long range late game battles.

5.Carriers: It is kinda hard to get a warship game of this age without aircraft carriers.  AA defenses are a large part of ship design from the 20's on and need to be represented, moreover the need for smaller secondaries in battles that your shooting at targets over 10k is almost non existent.  The reason ships past the mid 30's packed a bunch of sub 5in guns was mostly aircraft.  The coding framework at a minimum should be added so modders can implement this.

6.Subs: submarines need to be more fleshed out with the ability to design them and a deeper gameplay needs to be developed.  As with aircraft submarines are very important to 20th century naval warfare and should be better represented than what we have,

7.Better Control of Engagements: When doing things like convoy missions task forces, raids,,,, what ships get dragged in makes no sense and seems close to random,  I'm sick of the AI forcing a fight with a 1v1 with DD;s (which they promptly spend the whole battle running)  You should be able to keep ships in their task force for battles and not have a fraction dragged off.

8,Better Nation Control: If army units are gonna be in the campaign then there needs to be (from a enjoyable gameplay experience) a way to control and upgrade them.  Similarly there needs to be a way to control when or if neutral countries are attacked even if its the same system as we have for major powers.

9.The Ottoman Empire/Turkey as a major power: How they are a minor power but China (which had a almost non existent navy) is makes no sense with similar but weaker arguments that if Austriahungry is but brazil isnt also makes little sense.

10.Ship Displacement:  The maz tonnage for ships is almost universally far greater than any ship built in the timeframe that tonnage becomes available.

[PhoenixLP44]

noone ever said that development is gonna stop in a few months

 

[Panzergraf]

2 is a good point, I would also like to have the ability to deploy ships in the formations I like before the battle starts, similar to how it works in Total War.

[Marques]

"I am a naval action player, and although I haven't played in the last 3 years, I have picked up the game again and wanted to share my opinion and some other opinions about the latest wipe. Here are the complaints:

1. Too many green zones, which forces PvP concentration on only two islands, San Juan and Santo Domingo. This reduces the opportunities for PvP in other areas.

2. Excessive hull toughness and low damage between shots. This makes battles very long and boring for experienced players. Please increase the damage, it should be at least double the current amount. For example, cannons with 24 damage should be increased to 34, and so on for all cannons.

3. The ships are excessively tough, leading to never-ending battles.

4. Increase the experience gain. It's impossible for mid-ranking players such as ensigns, lieutenants, or captains to rank up because battles provide very little experience.

5. While green zones are a good idea to protect novice players from ganking, please reduce the size of these zones to encourage PvP in other areas.

6. Have only one server, eliminate the peace server, and work towards finalizing the game. Constant changes frustrate players. We believe that four nations (England, Spain, France, and the Netherlands), along with a reduced pirate faction, should be sufficient to simplify the game. There could be scattered cities from other nations such as the USA, Sweden, or Denmark, but historical accuracy regarding the nations in the Caribbean should be maintained.

7. More variety in the distribution and gifting of DLC (Downloadable Content). It doesn't make sense to have hundreds of 'Trincomales' in the game while lacking other ship models.

8. Reduce the availability of high-tier ships like First Rates, Victorys, and Santisimas, as these overwhelm new players and prolong the learning process. The game is still slow, and transportation should be accelerated or made easier.

9. Prices for DLC in Steam, are excessive, although I understand the need to sell them. Releasing a finished game would hold more value than leaving it unfinished with constant and drastic changes every five months. Such frequent changes frustrate players and cause them to quit for a while.

10. Nations like China or Prussia don't contribute much to the game. These players should be able to join the main nations without having to remove their flags.

I hope you can address these suggestions and finally complete the game. By the way, you should consider reviving the Naval Action Europa project for battles during the Napoleonic era and have partial maps of Europe for those historical battles. Thank you."

As a simple Captain on the game, I don't have experience as a leader of CLAN. However, based on the comments it seems that the players has some concerns and suggestions regarding various aspects of the game Naval Action. They address issues such as PvP concentration, bad changes in battle mechanics, less experience gain, the number of nations and ship variety, DLC distribution and price, game progression that never finished, and bad historical accuracy. The player expresses a desire for a more balanced and enjoyable gameplay experience, with fewer frustrations and a focus on completing the game. 

Congralutions anyway for your game.  Well done and await you could improve.

 

[PhoenixLP44]

10 hours ago, Marques said:

"I am a naval action player, and although I haven't played in the last 3 years, I have picked up the game again and wanted to share my opinion and some other opinions about the latest wipe. Here are the complaints:

1. Too many green zones, which forces PvP concentration on only two islands, San Juan and Santo Domingo. This reduces the opportunities for PvP in other areas.

2. Excessive hull toughness and low damage between shots. This makes battles very long and boring for experienced players. Please increase the damage, it should be at least double the current amount. For example, cannons with 24 damage should be increased to 34, and so on for all cannons.

3. The ships are excessively tough, leading to never-ending battles.

4. Increase the experience gain. It's impossible for mid-ranking players such as ensigns, lieutenants, or captains to rank up because battles provide very little experience.

5. While green zones are a good idea to protect novice players from ganking, please reduce the size of these zones to encourage PvP in other areas.

6. Have only one server, eliminate the peace server, and work towards finalizing the game. Constant changes frustrate players. We believe that four nations (England, Spain, France, and the Netherlands), along with a reduced pirate faction, should be sufficient to simplify the game. There could be scattered cities from other nations such as the USA, Sweden, or Denmark, but historical accuracy regarding the nations in the Caribbean should be maintained.

7. More variety in the distribution and gifting of DLC (Downloadable Content). It doesn't make sense to have hundreds of 'Trincomales' in the game while lacking other ship models.

8. Reduce the availability of high-tier ships like First Rates, Victorys, and Santisimas, as these overwhelm new players and prolong the learning process. The game is still slow, and transportation should be accelerated or made easier.

9. Prices for DLC in Steam, are excessive, although I understand the need to sell them. Releasing a finished game would hold more value than leaving it unfinished with constant and drastic changes every five months. Such frequent changes frustrate players and cause them to quit for a while.

10. Nations like China or Prussia don't contribute much to the game. These players should be able to join the main nations without having to remove their flags.

I hope you can address these suggestions and finally complete the game. By the way, you should consider reviving the Naval Action Europa project for battles during the Napoleonic era and have partial maps of Europe for those historical battles. Thank you."

As a simple Captain on the game, I don't have experience as a leader of CLAN. However, based on the comments it seems that the players has some concerns and suggestions regarding various aspects of the game Naval Action. They address issues such as PvP concentration, bad changes in battle mechanics, less experience gain, the number of nations and ship variety, DLC distribution and price, game progression that never finished, and bad historical accuracy. The player expresses a desire for a more balanced and enjoyable gameplay experience, with fewer frustrations and a focus on completing the game. 

Congralutions anyway for your game.  Well done and await you could improve.

 

Wrong forum

[doasky]

to be honest with you I'm just waiting for point 3 to play this game make custom crazy ass battles crazy ships crazy guns freaking star wars laser beam bro there is so much potential but its not there yet I don't know how much people is working on this game but it seem to me that its been in my Wishlist for a hell of a long time and then its in my library for pretty much the same thing and don't remember much changing every time I reinstall it:/ anyway I'm no game dev but I'm following an other indie game and I'm a closed tester for the game the man is alone doing all the work alone and damn its coming out faster than this whaatt he even talked about changer to ue5 when the game is on unity. 

[Norbert Sattler]

The ability to navally invade neutral countries and the areas left uncontrolled after a nation collapses. It's just so frustrating to see how other nations can just sail up to the coast of a recently dissolved nation and take their territory, and when I send my ships there, the only thing that happens is the neighboring countries getting pissed over my naval presence...

[Deadpan_Alpaca]

2 hours ago, Norbert Sattler said:

The ability to navally invade neutral countries and the areas left uncontrolled after a nation collapses. It's just so frustrating to see how other nations can just sail up to the coast of a recently dissolved nation and take their territory, and when I send my ships there, the only thing that happens is the neighboring countries getting pissed over my naval presence...

We just need an update focused not around battle mechanics (IMHO, they are quite solid and new hulls can be added by modders), but on the campaign map and using naval prestige for:

- securing land gains during peace talks to remove RNG factor;

- creating a pretense to invade minor nation, like, let's say, sacrificing an obsolete ship being sunk by "sudden" explosion in the neutral port (looking at Maine incident);

- pushing our government to ally minor nations - it is great for economic and creates a market to sell own ships so our interest as head of Navy is understandable;

- controlling political drift - either exchanging naval prestige for support of certain party or pushing government into reform of the regime or revolution.

--

Current RNG systems in the campaign are quite poor gamedesign - player should have some control over what happens with the state he plays as.

 

[Norbert Sattler]

- Being able to regain lost core terrotories in peace treaties.

As Austria-Hungary I have lost Slovenia to Russia in a land-invasion, and it never showed up in the list of reparations in peace deals, not for the war in which I lost it (which I won) nor in later wars I won against them.

[Norbert Sattler]

- Splitting of certain provinces to allow accurate borders to the period of the game start.

In particular I noticed the lack of South Tyrol, which is currently part of the single province of North Italy and Transylvania, which is part of the sinlge province Romania. As a consequence, the game has ahistorical borders. Unless you start post WW-1, in which case Austria still has ahistorical borders, since it lost it's sea-access and shouldn't even be a playable faction anymore as a consequence in the 1920+ starts.

[Norbert Sattler]

- Being able to build refitted designs directly.

[Suribachi]

On 7/1/2023 at 9:47 AM, Norbert Sattler said:

- Being able to build refitted designs directly.

I figured out a way around this.  If you have a class of ship, for this example the "Ocean" class, and you refit the design where the game automatically calls it the "Ocean (year) -2" class, you can then copy the design and build that directly.  For my playthroughs, I usually rename this copied design to "Refit", so to fit with our example, it becomes "Ocean Refit" class.

I used to be worried that I would I now have 2 separate class names to represent the same thing, like "Ocean (year) -2" and "Ocean Refit" from above.  But here is where it gets interesting.  Turns out, the game is smart enough, at least in my testing, to know that these two classes are in fact the same.  This means that we I go to refit the -2 class again, say into the "Ocean (year) -3" class, I can upgrade the "Ocean Refit" ships into -3's.  Now all of the ships are unified in name again without having to also refit the "Ocean Refit" class separately.

Kind of bonkers, but it works somehow!

[Norbert Sattler]

On 7/2/2023 at 11:09 PM, Suribachi said:

I figured out a way around this.  If you have a class of ship, for this example the "Ocean" class, and you refit the design where the game automatically calls it the "Ocean (year) -2" class, you can then copy the design and build that directly.  For my playthroughs, I usually rename this copied design to "Refit", so to fit with our example, it becomes "Ocean Refit" class.

I used to be worried that I would I now have 2 separate class names to represent the same thing, like "Ocean (year) -2" and "Ocean Refit" from above.  But here is where it gets interesting.  Turns out, the game is smart enough, at least in my testing, to know that these two classes are in fact the same.  This means that we I go to refit the -2 class again, say into the "Ocean (year) -3" class, I can upgrade the "Ocean Refit" ships into -3's.  Now all of the ships are unified in name again without having to also refit the "Ocean Refit" class separately.

Kind of bonkers, but it works somehow!

Oh hey, I didn't notice this works now. I haven't checked it in ... quite a few patches actually.

Thanks.

Edit: Unfortunately, that makes it a completely new line of ships, so if you still have some of the original template, you'll need to carry on two refit templates to keep them up to date, which isn't exactly ideal either.

Edited July 5, 2023 by Norbert Sattler

[Suribachi]

1 hour ago, Norbert Sattler said:

Oh hey, I didn't notice this works now. I haven't checked it in ... quite a few patches actually.

Thanks.

Edit: Unfortunately, that makes it a completely new line of ships, so if you still have some of the original template, you'll need to carry on two refit templates to keep them up to date, which isn't exactly ideal either.

In my testing, the game was smart enough to merge the two refit trees after a generation, creating a single line again.  Sorry, I just probably did not explain that very well.  I can try and reproduce it again with images if I have time.