Losing ship after 5 sinkings

[ShiverMyTimber]

I'll try to explain:

 

Let's say you get attacked in your 5 dura Bellona off of Rincon (you are British) and you lose the battle. You will find yourself in a friendly port (likely Bahia Escocesa) with a Bellona with 4 dura's - and back out you go easy peasy.

 

Now let's say you do that in a 1 dura Bellona with insurance - you still end up in Bahia Escocesa - but without a ship. What do you do, file a claim I suppose and then get some gold and then go shopping for another Bellona. What if Bahia Escocesa lacks a Bellona at all? so you grab a free Basic Lynx and sail to where? the last Bellona was purchased at Spanish Town. Do you sail directly there hoping another like it is available? do you hop from port to port trying to find an acceptable Bellona?

 

All doodle daddle to me.

Firstly you could keep a spare ship at an outpost and keep your teleports for emergencies like this.

Secondly, this game should not be call of duty in ships; magical ships that appear in the nearest port are the absolute opposite of what a simulator should embody. Landing in port with either ships you have there or a Lynx is a much more realistic than magical ships with 5 lives.

It would make you prepare before engaging in a fight, think twice before engagaing "because I can just get another one right away in port". It would encourage players to make strategic backup outposts in the eventuality that they end up sunken. As I've already said, it would add strategy and much more depth to the game; players would likely PvP in larger fleets so one loss isn't as big a blow as a big ship sinking in a small skirmish; in other words it would actively encourage teamwork and emergent gameplay an example being log-on traps where a medium fleet of 10 ships attacks a fleet of 3 ships only to have fifteen friends on voice chat log on as soon as the one side engaged the other and there would be many more examples of people playing the game strategically and thinking outside of the box another example being getting a second account with a character from an unfriendly nation and have him ferry you a brand new Bellona while you're still in battle, but know you are going to lose your ship and need to get back on your feet asap personally a combat system like this sounds more like a simulator rather than the happy-go-lucky manner people deal with the game right now. Keeping 5 dura in the testing stages may be helpful for bugcatching, though in the real thing it's just POTBS with manual aim and a fancy physics engine. If you personally don't like losing ships there is one simple cure; once the alpha/beta is over and the game is as bug free as it's going to get simply stop logging on.

No offence but your signature screams carebear; I have a feeling you just want to be able to have as many chances with a ship as possible with minimal loss. If that's the case there is already a ship implemented for those very needs. The Lynx.

It shocks me that some MMO players can't get around the idea of "Oh no; it's gone forever and now I'm going to have to work somewhat harder than normal to fix things"                                

[Alex Connor]

I'll try to explain:

 

Let's say you get attacked in your 5 dura Bellona off of Rincon (you are British) and you lose the battle. You will find yourself in a friendly port (likely Bahia Escocesa) with a Bellona with 4 dura's - and back out you go easy peasy.

 

Now let's say you do that in a 1 dura Bellona with insurance - you still end up in Bahia Escocesa - but without a ship. What do you do, file a claim I suppose and then get some gold and then go shopping for another Bellona. What if Bahia Escocesa lacks a Bellona at all? so you grab a free Basic Lynx and sail to where? the last Bellona was purchased at Spanish Town. Do you sail directly there hoping another like it is available? do you hop from port to port trying to find an acceptable Bellona?

 

All doodle daddle to me.

 

This attitude that you must have a specific ship with certain mods to be able to play...

 

Real captains, real navies, did not fight like this. They fought with what they had, what was available. No Bellona? Well, is there another 3rd rate, or even a 4th rate? What about frigates? An Indiaman you could convert to a makeshift 3rd/4th rate? Whatever there is, take it and go back out.

 

5 dura ships are part of this problem, you view every purchase as not your next ship but your next 5 ships. Which is a much bigger deal, and leads to people shopping around for the best possible ship, ignoring and passing over perfectly serviceable warships in search of that elusive 2 slot ship with 2-3 of your favorite permanent mods. I'm guilty of this too, I'll  shop round 6-12 ports to find the best possible ship, passing over anything with a mod I dislike or even similar ships with good mods that aren't the specific ship I'm looking for.

 

Basically ships are far too easily available to the point of being spoilt for choice, and we treat each purchase too seriously because each purchase is 5 ships and not one. 

 

I'm all for quick turnarounds between fights, but there are other ways we do this than 5 dura ships. Let people sell ships that are completely fitted to fight, cannon, fittings, repair materials. Buy it, go out to fight, no shopping for cannon or modules. Someone had an idea of using another account to ferry ships to the fight? Well, what about doing this legitimately with a same nation/account alt, pass them an order to sail to such-and-such port, and being able to transfer the ship when you get there? Or fight using the alt. Plan in advance, if you're going to fight at a certain area then send up a couple of spare ships to serve as reinforcements and replacements for battle losses.

[LeeUK]

I am all for losing ships, but I believe the multiple durability is a good thing, why? for gameplay sakes. The game can be slow at times and will continue to have those moments regardless, it's just one of those games. Having every ship as only 1 durability ( basically any ship is lost in one sinking/capture ) then we will see even less PvP on a whole and most of the PvP going on will be ganking. Why? because every time someone loses a fight, they will not only lose their ship, they will lose their upgrades, so not only will their losses be pretty big, they then have to use more of their free time going shopping for new ship, equip it out etc, this is all time consuming and boring. When you buy a ship, you are essentially buying 5 of those ships, whilst this isn't realistic, it speeds up gameplay and makes people more willing to PvP as they have a few chances to die before they have to worry about replacing their ship.

 

1 dura ships is a cool thing to think of and that it would make fights more meaningful, but you'd see less fights over all and it massively benefits no-lifers over those who can only play for 2-3 hours every one or two days. As the no-lifers are generally players who have plenty of free time to play a large amount of hours a day, that will happily spend hours of their free time sailing all round the map, getting the best new ships etc because they will also still have plenty of time to farm and PvP with those ships, they will also be the players with a lot of exceptional upgrades. People who don't have much time will soon get fed up of being ganked by these players and having to spend what little free time they have trying to get new ships hoping not to lose it too quickly, what does this promote? passive play and PvP avoidance.

 

With 5 dura ships, people even with far less play time are more willing to jump into PvP, because they know they can lose a few times before they have to think about replacing it all and during that time, inbetween farming and PvPing around the map, they can shop or just plan for their next ship, so at least when they do lose their current ship and don't have a decent replacement, they will have a rough idea of what ports might have the ships they like/want and will save them a lot of time. The ships being sold in ports in the future is going to be NOTHING like it currently is, I think they plan on it being mainly crafted ships, people aren't going to be able to purchase the "perfect" ship everytime and people will have to some times settle for a ship they might not have preferred.

 

If every ship was also 1 durability, they would also only cost 1/5th of the current ships, so all that would happen with durability removal is forcing people to instead buy lots of ships everywhere, if it isn't possible to buy lots of ships then we are going to see stale gameplay, people getting bored and fed up of the games pace because they just lost their new ship they bought 3 hours ago as they got ganked. Whilst I myself enjoy difficult games, PvP heavy games, games where you can lose stuff, there is a line and when you make it too harsh, you cut out a massive number of players and reduce the amount of PvP going on.

 

This isn't EVE online.

Edited August 19, 2015 by LeeUK

[primuspilus]

 I have been playing Naval Action for a couple of months now and I see a possible consumer problem. When I first started playing the game It took me around a month to earn enough gold to purchase a Yacht. It took me less than 5 days to be sunk 5 times and lose the Yacht and start all over from square one in a Lynx. I played another five weeks and earned enough to purchase a Navy Brig. I was sunk two times in the first day, and once again two days later

Im really not trying to be a jerk, but what were you fighting?

 

I would suggest, instead of trying to change the game for your benefit, see what you did wrong and learn from your mistakes. I personally cant see how in the world you get sunk in a Yahcht that fast unless you are trying to either: A) Punch WAY above your weight class or You dont have the basics of combat down.

[jodgi]

i do something called "running away" when the odds are against me... i've been playing a month ish... never lost a ship

You can do that all you like and I hope you will be allowed to continue running, if that's your thing. I might add you're missing out on fighting experience, gold and XP payouts from PVP.

However this game isn't designed around runners, well, look at my sig.

[Alex Connor]

I am all for losing ships, but I believe the multiple durability is a good thing, why? for gameplay sakes. The game can be slow at times and will continue to have those moments regardless, it's just one of those games. Having every ship as only 1 durability ( basically any ship is lost in one sinking/capture ) then we will see even less PvP on a whole and most of the PvP going on will be ganking. Why? because every time someone loses a fight, they will not only lose their ship, they will lose their upgrades, so not only will their losses be pretty big, they then have to use more of their free time going shopping for new ship, equip it out etc, this is all time consuming and boring. When you buy a ship, you are essentially buying 5 of those ships, whilst this isn't realistic, it speeds up gameplay and makes people more willing to PvP as they have a few chances to die before they have to worry about replacing their ship.

Doesn't have to be this way.

 

Make fittings (at least up to common or perhaps fine grade) able to be be made by players, and let shipbuilders fit and sell ships completely ready to fight. Fittings/cannon/repairs, everything, you just buy the ship and set sail. Can still change fittings/cannon if you want, but if the shipbuilder did a decent job then the ship is pvp ready as sold.

 

And I find the opposite is true about what you say on encouraging pvp. When you spend good time searching for the best ship (important when that purchase represents your next 5 ships) you tend to get more attached to the ship in question than you would be to a 1 dura capt boat.

[ShiverMyTimber]

Lots of interesting comments but one dura is the way to go in my book and I'll be sailing too, it's not like I want everyone else to suffer but I want some strategy introduced rather than "Here's your new ship that magically has all the modules still fitted even though you're actually buying 5 ships and those modules are currently at the bottom of the sea"

Yes, losing a 1 dura ship would make you lose your modules, oh dear. Ever heard of flotsam? If you were in a team, group, society, Satan worshipping blood coven, etc then you could potentially have one of your team members sail by and sift through the flotsam and find some or all of your modules. Of course whoever you're fighting (except NPCs) could grab it all up too. If the cost of the modules is a problem drop rates can always be changed and prices reduced by around 2.5x - 4x

 

 

 

This isn't EVE online.

Nor is it my little pony ship princess online either.

Also on the topic of EvE online, when you lose a ship it's gone. When you lose your escape pod you lose all installed learning implants and experience points if you forgot to update your clone.
But it's great that you brought it up, since nearly one million people playing it (I think the single server topped out at 250-300k players once) so clearly they got the formula right. 
As for not being able to get into a new ship and get back into the fight, same goes for nullsec battles in EvE, you might be 20 jumps away from the fight, in nullsec where ships are scarce and only sold at large hubs.
Naturally this game doesn't have that many players but it fills a currently empty niche, players will come to it once it's released and either like it or leave it, however knowing that going into a fight you'll be safely back at port with all your super expensive mods takes the fun out of a fight. It's much more visceral when you go into combat knowing it's all or nothing, for the first few times your heart starts pumping and your hands are shaking due to adrenaline release. If a game can provoke a fight or flight response in a person, it's a good game (ignoring the horror genre) if you hear word of a large battle about to happen, or there is a part of the sea known for it's large brutal PvP battles shoring up a few ships in outposts personally; every available port should be an outpost, you just don't get any teleports there; rather having a "trade winds" fast travel system where your navigational officer would locate them and tell you where they are heading (probably to a number of major locations) you sail in and are spat out in that new location somewhere or transported there very (500kts or so provided it wouldn't cook graphics cards) quickly and able to leave the winds when they start to die down, somewhere in the area of x (I'll have to add trade winds as an addendum to my thread on officers here)
I'm rambling a bit now, but 5 lives feels childish and the only arguments for keeping them are
-I might lose my super expensive modules, oh the humanity!
-I might have to travel or prepare before a fight
-It will make the PvP averse people PvP averse (Which is rather oxymoronic)
 

Edited August 20, 2015 by DavidDavidson

[Detonator]

I also think I remember reading there was something like $200,000 worth of real money content lost in one battle in EVE one time as well.  I know premium ships are going to be a cosmetic thing in this game so something like that should never happen in Naval Action if that's the case.  Some people just don't have the time to continually grind out ships and gear though, I hate loosing my ship at all but if it has to be this way I would rather we did have the 5 chances before you have to get a new one.  There will always be people who argue for and against it  I suppose the durability is a good middle ground.  It at least gives you a chance to gather the resources to get another one before you loose it.

[LeeUK]

Nor is it my little pony ship princess online either.

Also on the topic of EvE online, when you lose a ship it's gone. When you lose your escape pod you lose all installed learning implants and experience points if you forgot to update your clone.

But it's great that you brought it up, since nearly one million people playing it (I think the single server topped out at 250-300k players once) so clearly they got the formula right. 

As for not being able to get into a new ship and get back into the fight, same goes for nullsec battles in EvE, you might be 20 jumps away from the fight, in nullsec where ships are scarce and only sold at large hubs.

Naturally this game doesn't have that many players but it fills a currently empty niche, players will come to it once it's released and either like it or leave it, however knowing that going into a fight you'll be safely back at port with all your super expensive mods takes the fun out of a fight. It's much more visceral when you go into combat knowing it's all or nothing, for the first few times your heart starts pumping and your hands are shaking due to adrenaline release. If a game can provoke a fight or flight response in a person, it's a good game (ignoring the horror genre) if you hear word of a large battle about to happen, or there is a part of the sea known for it's large brutal PvP battles shoring up a few ships in outposts personally; every available port should be an outpost, you just don't get any teleports there; rather having a "trade winds" fast travel system where your navigational officer would locate them and tell you where they are heading (probably to a number of major locations) you sail in and are spat out in that new location somewhere or transported there very (500kts or so provided it wouldn't cook graphics cards) quickly and able to leave the winds when they start to die down, somewhere in the area of x (I'll have to add trade winds as an addendum to my thread on officers here)

I'm rambling a bit now, but 5 lives feels childish and the only arguments for keeping them are

-I might lose my super expensive modules, oh the humanity!

-I might have to travel or prepare before a fight

-It will make the PvP averse people PvP averse (Which is rather oxymoronic)

 

My little pony ship? I like how you have to talk shit just because someone disagrees with you. This game is far from "carebear", you can be attacked anywhere without restriction and even by your own Nation, you will lose your ship one way or another whether it's 1 or 5 dura, the cost of the ships would have to be 5 times less to be worth buying, but if crafting is very time consuming and ships are all 1 dura, it will mean that gameplay becomes slow and punishing for those who don't have 8+hours a day to play.

 

I played EVE online mate, I know the deal and it never reached an average online player count of 250k let alone 1 million players. Currently about 21k on average play daily, that's a nice number but it's nearly half of what the peak of the daily average was, which stood at  about 36k. Subscriber(s) number is different than player count, some people have a ridiculous amount of accounts because they are the no lifers who can use their in game ISK and plex etc to fund all those accounts without spending any real money, most serious players have multiple subscribed accounts.

 

Just because you liked EVE online and its Formula, like I did myself, doesn't mean this game is trying to be the Age of sail EVE Online and that there isn't another formula that can work for a game designed with the basis that PvP is the driving factor.

 

It was easy for me to craft my ships in EVE online and avoid losing them, I doubt either of those are going to be the case in Naval action unless you play insanely passively and don't mind progressing at a horrendously slow rate. In EVE there are a lot of safe® routes of travel and trade where only suicide gankers would rarely interupt you, you can set courses to auto pilot through all the safest routes, in Naval Action the whole map is basically "low sec space" barring right outside of some ports where you have groups of Nation fleet ships and you have to sail it and navigate it all yourself.

 

Naval Action is also a lot less safer in the sense that unless friendly AI is very close to you, you're going to be at high threat of being attacked and sunk/captured with no space police to come flying to save you and your only saving grace could be your Nations players IF any are close enough to help. So yeah, I'd say it's actually pretty unforgiving even compared to Eve Online, regardless of ship durability. Due to the fact of how often you could potentially be attacked in NA due to the PvP anywhere gameplay without AI police flying across the sector to save you like in EVE online, if crafting is time consuming people are going to charge a lot of gold for them and in turn if ships are only 1 dura, not many players are going to risk their decent ships. Whether you agree with me or not this DOES encourage more passive play and it DOES encourage more ganking, because it increases the mentality of "Why would I risk instantly losing my new ship for the sake of a 'fair' PvP fight."

 

Yeah cool in EVE fights were pretty intense some times because of the risk of losing things, but space games are certainly more popular in the first place than Age of Sail games, the dangers and the losses you can sustain in EVE from dying are what make it a niche game. Naval Action is already fairly niche without the hardcore losses like EVE online, I would be surprised if this game ever sees the high of EVEs online daily average even without having the hardcore losses like EVE does. There are other ways to punish players for losing than by them instantly losing their ship in the first fight they are defeated in it. Upgrades don't bother me as much but if they are to be lost upon being sunk/captured they would need to change how they work and their value or again we will only see the no lifers equipping their ships with expensive mods where as the more casual players wont be able to afford to keep modding their ships out.

 

Having multiple durability on a ship does increase the likeliness of PVP and it does decrease the down time of players when they are defeated, this gives the game a faster pace and makes it more enjoyable for the more casual players and those players who don't have the chance to play for many hours every single day.

Edited August 21, 2015 by LeeUK

[ShiverMyTimber]

Stuff

NB I've exceed the max quote limit so some quotes will be highlighted with quote <quotedtexthere>

He said it wasn't EvE online, I told him it wasn't my little pony sailing princess either. I've already said to either lower the costs of the ships or have them come pre-insured, whichever is better. Cheaper ships would suit the strategy of having backup ships in place in case you lose them.

I see you checked the numbers and you are right, usually the game has around 40,000 people online (peak time) but it has 1,000,000 active players or active accounts.

Quote<some people have a ridiculous amount of accounts because they are the no lifers>

You call me out on talking shit then you say something like this, which is you sitting up in your ivory tower saying I'm talking shit because I responded that the game shouldn't be a carebear haven then you call the people who manage to play for free no lifers. Sounds like jealousy to me but I digress. Besides having Naval Action an easier game to play if you have an alt (or a really big corporation/society/clan/etc) who can ferry you ships half way to the battle so you can get back in the action more quickly only helps gamelabs by putting more money in their coffers meaning more ships, less bugs and generally a better game.

Quote<it was easy for me to craft my ships in EVE online and avoid losing them, I doubt either of those are going to be the case in Naval action unless you play insanely passively and don't mind progressing at a horrendously slow rate. In EVE there are a lot of safe® routes of travel and trade where only suicide gankers would rarely interupt you, you can set courses to auto pilot through all the safest routes>

 

So essentially all you really did was stick to the safest areas and try to avoid all risk?

 

in Naval Action the whole map is basically "low sec space" barring right outside of some ports where you have groups of Nation fleet ships and you have to sail it and navigate it all yourself

 

 Yes, that's because it's set in the golden age of piracy, where 'the whole map' was essentially dangerous waters where you could fall prey to pirates. The whole navigating it all yourself using the bug report system and a third party map is because the game is still somewhere between alpha and beta, I'm sure they will add some form of fast travel other than teleports in the final version and navigation will probably be down to a navigational officer.

 

Naval Action is also a lot less safer in the sense that unless friendly AI is very close to you, you're going to be at high threat of being attacked and sunk/captured with no space police to come flying to save you and your only saving grace could be your Nations players IF any are close enough to help. So yeah, I'd say it's actually pretty unforgiving even compared to Eve

 

You have to remember the game is in alpha. Notice when you attack an NPC fleet  with way more BP than they have other ships turn up to help. I'd say that's most likely a test for a similar system for players but since it's in it's early stages they probably don't want it for players as it could be easily abused.

 

 

 

if crafting is time consuming people are going to charge a lot of gold for them and in turn if ships are only 1 dura, not many players are going to risk their decent ships

That's one big  if  and if players are afraid of losing their decent ships that they cannot afford to replace (don't sail what you can't afford to lose​) there are other ships ingame that perform almost as well, being only a few percent worse than mister shiny golden ship with all mastercrafted mods and at the end of the day ships are just pixels and lines of code, it's not like you're staking your kidney in an underground poker game. If losing one gets you all hot and bothered the developers have already put in an amazing feature that allows you to log off from the game.

 

Yeah cool in EVE fights were pretty intense some times because of the risk of losing things, but space games are certainly more popular in the first place than Age of Sail games

 

EvE online started out as a niche game with barely any players, a few good trailers and good reviews about visceral combat and ship permadeath  and the game may take off just like EvE did at the moment there's a huge hole in age of sail games and age of sail movies like Pirates of The Caribbean have given people a renewed interest in age of sail games as well as the more 'arcadey' games like AC4 and AC Rogue. Currently there's a hole in the age of sail genre of games and if done right naval action could fill that hole.

 

There are other ways to punish players for losing than by them instantly losing their ship in the first fight they are defeated in it.

 

Sure, if a naval captain lost their ship in the 1700s due to poor captaincy they would surely be demoted, why not push them back to their previous rank instead?

 

or again we will only see the no lifers equipping their ships with expensive mods where as the more casual players wont be able to afford to keep modding their ships out.

 

You keep going on about 'no lifers', I take it you're the king of the party, with fifty thousand friends on facebook can even lift and have a girlfriend who modelled for channel? Amirite?

Or do you just use "no lifers" for "People who have more spare time than me and may be stuck at home for extended periods due to an injury, mental illness, two siblings playing on the one account because one works days and the other works nights or other unavoidable reasons thus gaining an advantage over you in a videogame" ?

 

Having multiple durability on a ship does increase the likeliness of PVP 

 

I assume you have some sort of numbers to back this up, otherwise that's just like your opinion man.

 

 this gives the game a faster pace and makes it more enjoyable for the more casual players and those players who don't have the chance to play for many hours every single day.

 

So in other words you want the game to be easy for you and see yourself as the majority of players.

 

I also think I remember reading there was something like $200,000 worth of real money content lost in one battle in EVE one time as well.  I know premium ships are going to be a cosmetic thing in this game so something like that should never happen in Naval Action if that's the case. 

You can't buy ships or anything else in EvE, the only thing you can buy is game subscription time, which can then be sold to those rich enough to play by buyomg subscription time with in game currency. Therefore you can extrapolate the value of an item in EvE but you can't just go out and buy everything legitimately that is.

Some ships in EvE take months (though it was shortened from about half a year to three months) to fly, they take much more time to master, it isn't a game where you target and use skills, range, speed (player skills which are earned over time, not through grinding XP) sure you use modules on your ship though you've to manage your capacitor while using them, run out and your guns stop and firing, (except if you're using missiles or are of a certain in game race who still use powder charges in their guns) repairing and essentially fighting back. Then comes overheating to modules, melting your guns down to molten slop isn't the best thing to do mid battle.

The only reason there's a comparison to be drawn from EvE in my mind is because it's highly strategic, involves PvP that is (slightly) unforgiving, has a huge map and different factions as well as piracy (we need an eyepatch emote) anything with piracy is something good, provided the pirates can sail around and gank whatever and whoever they want, they also seem to have a gentleman's agreement where they won't attack each other, mostly.

[Ronan]

I don't see why it took you a whole month of saving up to finally get a yacht. If you are completely new to the game and don't play that much then I can understand why. You should look up tutorials on youtube etc on how to become a better player. Trust me it does help. I suggest youtubers such as ramjb for help.

 

As for making ships have 10 lives; Just no.

5 is already too many lives for a ship. I would say 3 lives is just fine. 4 is still too many and 2 and 1 is too little.

[LeeUK]

He said it wasn't EvE online, I told him it wasn't my little pony sailing princess either. I've already said to either lower the costs of the ships or have them come pre-insured, whichever is better. Cheaper ships would suit the strategy of having backup ships in place in case you lose them.

I see you checked the numbers and you are right, usually the game has around 40,000 people online (peak time) but it has 1,000,000 active players or active accounts.

 

Active accounts doesn't mean much at all, like I said, there are a lot of people who have a lot of accounts, there are also only apparently about 350-400k active accounts.

 

You call me out on talking shit then you say something like this, which is you sitting up in your ivory tower saying I'm talking shit because I responded that the game shouldn't be a carebear haven then you call the people who manage to play for free no lifers. Sounds like jealousy to me but I digress. Besides having Naval Action an easier game to play if you have an alt (or a really big corporation/society/clan/etc) who can ferry you ships half way to the battle so you can get back in the action more quickly only helps gamelabs by putting more money in their coffers meaning more ships, less bugs and generally a better game.

 

I am not using no lifers as an insult, I too have been guilty of no lifing in the past, it is an easy word to use to describe players who have a lot of free time almost every day and dedicate it to mainly one game. If that offends you, so be it, but I sure as hell will have short periods to "no life" Naval Action. That sounds like an idea full of boredom and unnecessary measures which you are claiming would speed up the gameplay if we had 1 dura ships, except that they wouldn't be needed in the first place if we kept ships with multiple durability, because you haven't provided any decent reason why you think ships should ALL be 1 durability other than it makes battles more intense, which is where you kept bringing EVE into it.

 

 

So essentially all you really did was stick to the safest areas and try to avoid all risk?

 

I like how you again are trying to turn this into a slagging match rather than looking at the facts, the fact is you can progress pretty damn well in EVE, even when you stick with the safest routes, which there are plenty of. But FYI I solo pirated, I never traded and I will only do it in Naval Action if I have to and even then it will be kept to a minimum .

 

 Yes, that's because it's set in the golden age of piracy, where 'the whole map' was essentially dangerous waters where you could fall prey to pirates. The whole navigating it all yourself using the bug report system and a third party map is because the game is still somewhere between alpha and beta, I'm sure they will add some form of fast travel other than teleports in the final version and navigation will probably be down to a navigational officer.

 

Yes again that has absolutely nothing to do with my point, I know what time the game is set in, my point was Naval Actions map is far more dangerous on a whole than EVE's because of what I mentioned, no space police to come and save you, only fleets right outside of certain ports and even their aggro range is pretty short.  As far as I am aware will not be adding any more fast travel, I am pretty sure they even stated they will also be removing the teleport feature. If you want to go somewhere, you will have to sail there. So again, my point remains, there will be a constant looming threat of being attacked anywhere, without being able to play it safe like you can in EVE where you will rarely get attacked.

 

That's one big  if  and if players are afraid of losing their decent ships that they cannot afford to replace (don't sail what you can't afford to lose​) there are other ships ingame that perform almost as well, being only a few percent worse than mister shiny golden ship with all mastercrafted mods and at the end of the day ships are just pixels and lines of code, it's not like you're staking your kidney in an underground poker game. If losing one gets you all hot and bothered the developers have already put in an amazing feature that allows you to log off from the game.

 

It's not that of a big if really, it has been mentioned that crafting wont be easy if you want to build anything decent, certainly not as easy as EVE where I could mine whatever I needed quite safely in a fairly short time. But it's nice to see you resorting to shit talking again rather than bringing a decent argument to why you feel 1 durability ships improve the game.

 

EvE online started out as a niche game with barely any players, a few good trailers and good reviews about visceral combat and ship permadeath  and the game may take off just like EvE did at the moment there's a huge hole in age of sail games and age of sail movies like Pirates of The Caribbean have given people a renewed interest in age of sail games as well as the more 'arcadey' games like AC4 and AC Rogue. Currently there's a hole in the age of sail genre of games and if done right naval action could fill that hole.

As niche as EVE is, space/futuristic games are far more popular to begin with which you can see just by looking at all of the recent and upcoming games, Naval Action is definitely going to be far more niche. It also took YEARS for EVE to get their daily population up to the levels it peaked. I am not saying Naval Action CANNOT reach those numbers, I am saying I will be surprised if it does and even if it does it's going to take a lot more time and effort to make it happen when compared to EVE.

 

Sure, if a naval captain lost their ship in the 1700s due to poor captaincy they would surely be demoted, why not push them back to their previous rank instead?

 

Again, this is a game, not a roleplay simulator, we are talking about other ways to punish players and you can only think of being a smart ass with a reply like that. How about the chance to lose guns, mods or cargo? just a basic example that took me seconds to think of, there are many more possibilities of punishment for dying over having 1 durability ships.

 

You keep going on about 'no lifers', I take it you're the king of the party, with fifty thousand friends on facebook can even lift and have a girlfriend who modelled for channel? Amirite?

Or do you just use "no lifers" for "People who have more spare time than me and may be stuck at home for extended periods due to an injury, mental illness, two siblings playing on the one account because one works days and the other works nights or other unavoidable reasons thus gaining an advantage over you in a videogame" ?

 

You seem pretty upset about the no lifer part lol. as I mentioned before, No lifing is just an easy word to use to describe a person who has/had a lot of free time almost every day to dedicate to one single game.  People who can no life games constantly, week in week out, will always be ahead of the players cannot, that is obvious, but again using your precious EVE as an example, it's the king of pro-no lifing and has put a lot of people off of the game because they just don't have the time to compete with many of these players, as they are so far advanced and so far ahead. There are plenty of games where whilst no lifing players will have an advantage, those that aren't able to no life or only no life at times, can still compete and in time reach the same "level" and power of play.

 

I assume you have some sort of numbers to back this up, otherwise that's just like your opinion man.

 

No it is obvious and human decision making, if a player has 3 or so durability left on his ship, he would be more likely to engage in a fair battle or even battle where he may be at a disadvantage compared to when he only has 1 durability, that is simple to understand and doesn't require numbers that don't exist.

 

So in other words you want the game to be easy for you and see yourself as the majority of players.

 

I want the game to be easy for me? Where did I say that? I say that having multiple durability ships gives the game a faster pace and will be more enjoyable over all for those who can't invest a lot of hours every day into the game, how does that make the game "easy" and I don't understand how that implies I consider myself as the majority of players. Again though, I like how you are just trying to attack me rather than bring up any decent counter arguments to support your 1 ship durability "argument", I call it an argument with uncertainty because it seems more like you don't have one and it's just the case of "I WANT ONE DURABILITY SHIPS BECAUSE I LIKED IT IN EVE ONLINE AND BECAUSE I SAID SO"

 

Please, if you're going to reply to me, put some decent arguments to support your 1 durability claim and why it would benefit the game as a whole, including the whole player base , because you have a lot of convincing to do if you want only 1 dura ships in game. If your reply is just another wall made mostly of pointless and dull insults I wont waste my time replying again though as there is nothing to be gained from this for anybodies sake.

Edited August 25, 2015 by LeeUK

[ShiverMyTimber]

I don't see why it took you a whole month of saving up to finally get a yacht. If you are completely new to the game and don't play that much then I can understand why. You should look up tutorials on youtube etc on how to become a better player. Trust me it does help. I suggest youtubers such as ramjb for help.

 

As for making ships have 10 lives; Just no.

5 is already too many lives for a ship. I would say 3 lives is just fine. 4 is still too many and 2 and 1 is too little.

I would personally say 1 is the perfect number. It is a naval simulator after all and captains who lost their ship and returned to dry land usually did so in disgrace (which is where the tradition of the captain going down with the ship comes from), though I agree that <5 is better I think one ship per sailing should be it. You may be paid some sort of insurance money to soften the blow.

If you lose a ship you should lose the ship, it would greatly encourage people to move to gangs of smaller ships in large groups rather than solo PvPing it would also stop people sailing from port to port to buy the best ships and fittings, rather making them go for a 'happy middle', so once player crafting comes out hopefully the costs will be a fraction of the costs of ships currently and there would be a competitive economy going on; making decent ships at prices cheap enough to make a loss more of an inconvenience (if you failed to prepare) than a bank breaking loss.as I've already said, the main reasons to be against it seem to simply be people who don't want to organise in the event of losing their ship, or people who want to fit the most expensive mods to their ship; use that advantage in battle that others may not be able to afford and then not be penalised if they lose the battle with all their shiny items.

Solutions are:

- Have your battle ready ship fitted affordably and work on skill rather than paying for a few percent of 'better'

- Have an expensively fitted ship in PvP used when you know your chances of winning are quite high and you just want to put that final nail in the coffin

- If the price of outposts is lowered to a fixed fee (say 500 gold) then drop off many pre-fitted ships in an area prone to lots of PvP

- Once the game is fully released have an alternate character ferry ships around for you

- Don't sail what you can't afford to lose

I had a full response written out to leeuk but in an attempt to remove the multiquote I accidentally deleted well written responses and now cannot get them back. If a forum moderator can go through all of my edits and fix it I'd be much obliged.

Otherwise I'll write it out again, at some point when I feel like writing about 1000+ words.

Okay, I'll not bother to reply to you quote-to quote but I will bullet point my answers in just because losing 1k words and having to type it out again is never going to happen. I wish we could go through our edits and select the best one just in case something like this happens again.

- If they remove the teleport feature they will have to add in some other 'fast travel' system otherwise certain nations are just going to live out of one port (or one set of very close together ports) like a hive of bees. It also means that people would be less motivated to participate in port battles. Who is going to sail for hours to a port knowing they will probably lose unless they can get everybody to come with them. Especially if there are a number of hostile ports in the area blocking you from setting up a 'backup outpost' for your single loss ship, even with 5 lives people wouldn't be very motivated. If it was a trade motivated thing the traders would probably just get alts, or second accounts in that nation and 'trade' by initiating battle in open seas then surrendering the ship full of trade goods to the other alt.

- Your use of 'no lifers' isn't insulting to me, though one great example would be the EvE player who was a quadriplegic and played EvE using eye tracking and a sip-puff mouse, essentially dedicating all his time to EvE and communicating to others via text was the quality of life he could have. There are no doubt a number of people with physical or psychological conditions who use MMOs (usually one in particular) as their only available outlet to the outside world. I think they would see the whole 'no lifers' thing as pretty damn offensive.

- As for the whole map being a shoot whoever you want without help arriving thing, I doubt it will stay that way. I'm sure you've attacked an NPC only to see a proportional or larger fleet show up to help them fight you off. I'd wager it's the developers testing this out on NPCs so player 'captured ship trading' or any other PvP action such as large vs small or singular fleets goes uninterrupted by NPCs so players can find bugs while the game is still in alpha. I've a feeling that the devs will introduce a something similar to what happens to NPC fleets, however dependent on how many NPC fleets have been destroyed and whether you're in 'enemy waters' (most if not all ports nearby have been captured by the enemy) or not. Essentially making areas safer for players of a certain nation.

- You're right that people like space games; but there are tons of space sims coming out at the moment and only one or two "age of sail" sims currently out, or coming out soon. If you look at any forum discussing age of sail games people have been crying out for a new one for about 4-5 years now, expect it to start to fill up when it comes to full release. Maybe not to EvE's unique standards but a much higher number of players online than there currently are.

 

- Since you're talking about building ships being easy in EvE, this is where I'm starting to laugh at you a little. I guess you didn't build anything other than tech 1 ships? I take ships like the Victory and the Santisma to be the 'titans' of the 17th century and the super-frigates ingame to be 'tech 2' ships.  IIRC to build a titan you first needed to build capital ship parts (or do what most alliances do and build carriers or dreadnoughts then reprocess them for their capital ship parts) then you need to have soverignty over a solar system to set up the correct starbase (POS) that will house your Super capital ship building array. Assuming you mined and didn't buy all of this you would have to be mining for weeks and paying for all the right blueprints to build the capital ship parts then the capital ship itself. As far as T2 ships go, you need not only minerals, but salvage; so you would have to mine and salvage mission loot; again, not as easy as you make 'crafting' sound in EvE and probably as hard as crafting will be in Naval Action.

- As for losing guns, mods or cargo (you already lose cargo) you're basically saying the reverse of what I'm saying. Let the ship be destroyed and then the mods and cargo (which didn't sink to the bottom) be taken either by the quick guy in your fleet who grabs your stuff then escapes the battle to return your stuff to you, or the victors; who can take the stuff as something other than the gold and XP awarded for fighting.

- It's your 'obvious human decision making' which makes me feel that you are obviously very risk averse. If players were forced to stake it all on a battle or run away from their friends they were supposed to be helping it would obviously add more to the game.

 

- Finally if you want your 'decent arguments' I'll put them out right now

1. Forces players to choose whether to enter a battle or run like hell, rather than having players play the game with the 'happy-go-lucky' attitude I see right now. I know personally from sailing a captured privateer that I saw things different, gave certain fleets a wide berth and when fighting ships like merchant snows had a lot more fun knowing that if I didn't get everything right I'd have to go out and capture another ship, thus making combat; even with NPCs much, much more visceral.
2. Players are much more likely to form societies/corporations/brotherhoods/etc so they have the highest numbers and thus are able to take on a much higher number of enemies, rather than running from bigger groups they could scout them and then have a large group dispatched to sink them.
3. It encourages strategic thinking "Has that cutter been following me at max distance to scout me out or is he just headed in the same direction as us?"
4. It encourages strategic game play "Okay, if I'm sunk here I'll likely end up at X, Y or Z so I'll put ships at X, Y or Z; or I'll buy a second account and have my alt move all this stuff for me"
5. Finally; it's a semi-simulator, I don't want it to be POTBS harder mode, it should be something completely different. 
6. It encourages players to find a 'happy middle' with modules rather than going for the best in case they do lose their ships. Ships fitted with all of the best modules and the best permanent modules should be reserved for heavily protected flagships.
7. Oh yeah and it heavily encourages people to work as a team. Take pirates for instance, they are hunted by all other nations; sure a small party of 4 or 5 could go out hunting the other nation's players but with the risk of losing your ship (and potentially your fittings) they may start having 'gentleman's agreements' with other pirates to not pirate other pirates (I currently have a TS server set up for when any pirates wish to use it) and banding up into larger groups forming one major faction containing a number of sub-factions, naturally these sub-factions would be better suited with fighting together as they have more experience so we can have a task force (in the future, when more people play) of maybe 10-20 ships split into smaller groups of 5 or so people, I think I already partially covered this; however I want to cover it fully.

   I've many more reasons, though I have stuff to do now. I'll edit them in when I get around to it.

Edited August 29, 2015 by DavidDavidson