Emergency Hotfix Idea

[dudebro]

 double XP across the board 3x for PvP OW,small,Large battles and 4x for port battles

 

Please devs you are losing good people. Two of my friends already request refunds due to grind. Basically all of the negative steam reviews/word of mouth are due to the insane and boring mission grind.

[Tief N Tote]

it's early access they are still testing cash and xp balance in the game

[SteelSandwich]

Ok, i have been wondering, i had a chat with someone the other day who said the grind was insane.

 

So, i wondered, what is it you are doing? 'I did 12 missions and still not ranked up'.

Well, since he wasnt the only one who made a statement along that line, i started to wonder. 12 mission, if correct, would yield 600xp and 24k gold alone.

Obviously you have recieved xp in the battles itself as well, normally ranging between 30 and 40 per battle, yielding another 400xp.

For the first rank, as well as the second, you only need 1000xp a piece.

 

Therefore, and this is without pvp fights, you can rank up in a few hours time. The battles normally don't last longer than 15 minutes a piece(often are shorter).

With that said, the second rank goes even faster because you can fight bigger ships(and kill them) which results in more xp due to more damage done.

 

So after a few hours one can sail a ship bigger than the starting ship, admittedly this doesnt seem to steep, does it?

 

Well, then we have the pvp experience. Yesterday i joined my first small battle event post-wipe. In a battle that lasted 30 minutes, which was 12v12(or something), i yielded 175 xp. I didnt have the best of games, due to carrying carronades which didn't benefit me in the range in which the battle was fought.

 

So, if you mix and match these 2 possibilities to rank up, where is it that the devs have made a critical error in not facilitating in an interesting 'grind'?

[dudebro]

There is an optimal way to farm xp from the npc that isn't clear at first. Your estimates are about the very high end max gain from a mission, 15 minutes is also about optimal completion. Maybe you are playing the bugged pirate mission spawns right outside the harbor but most take from 5-20 minutes to get to. So lets say 20 minutes sailing 20 minutes mission complete time. Even using your ridiculous low estimates for a new player completion time you are looking at 8 hours.

 

Even doing nothing but grinding missions the most efficient way to gain xp you could easily be looking at 10 hours to get the next "level" and that doesn't unlock anything interesting besides marginal upgrades/variations of the cutter, and the cutter is free so why risk using a pickle or privateer or whatever.

 

Playing the small/large battles, random PvP on the map is much less efficient then missions even though they are much more fun. This is one of the main problems with this game and about every complaint/bad review that is a simple fix.

Edited January 24, 2016 by dudebro

[Prater]

 

 

 Your estimates are about the very high end max gain from a mission,

 

Actually, his estimates are the very minimum, only that which you get for completing the missions themselves.  Kill the ships in them, and that is another 600 xp

 

 

 

5-20 minutes to get to

 

I don't think any of mine have been more than 10 minutes away.  

 

 

 

Playing the small/large battles, random PvP on the map is much less efficient then missions even though they are much more fun.

 

With sailing a cutter, I can get 250xp and 8-10k gold from a small battle, which is a lot more I can get from a mission.

 

 

Also, although WoWs has more ships, the grind is longer.  I do agree we need more small ships for the starting player experience, and we need more ranks that go quicker at the beginning so that people are under the impression they are gaining something.

[Ruthless4u]

 

 

With sailing a cutter, I can get 250xp and 8-10k gold from a small battle, which is a lot more I can get from a mission.

 

 .

Going to play devils advocate with you prater.

How long did it take for you to be good enough with fighting to be able to do that. I'm not the best player and I'm no where near what you get in small battles. Give me a couple weeks and I'm sure I'll be fine. How many are willing to say that?

Also consider there is no in game tutorial, so unless players ask or look it up it can be rather difficult. Even asking can get you an interesting selection of answers that are not always correct.

I feel an issue with the long time testers is some may have forgotten how daunting this can be for new players who have not been doing this for months on end already.

[dudebro]

Each mission is 50 xp base you can get out around another average 50 for the battle knowing what you are doing but quick completion usually gives you 30-40 but we will say 100xp a mission. That is ten missions at least. Each mission takes 5-20 minutes to get to and 15 minutes to complete. I see how you can say a "few hours" but realistically for someone who knows what they are doing its going to be 3-5 hours. Now your new player might not even be able to win his battles at first much less find his missions or even how to get missions. Max exp while min travel time repair at sea etc. Someone who is competent but new to the systems is probably looking at 10-11 hours someone who is new to this style of game or lost could probably spend 20+ hours before getting the first level.

 

The kicker is that first level unlocks stone nothing useful. Incremental steps and reasons to use the non-rated ships besides the cutter/yacht are absolutely vital to this games success.

 

Otherwise you are just going to see a huge chain of refunds and/or one time players.

 

And this is all just doing the most efficient mind numbingly boring missions.

 

Yes you can get good rewards from the small battles and it is way more fun it is just much less efficient. A good game I can get 100xp plus easily but there are so many variables including if someone runs the edge of the map taking up the whole battle timer. A string of 3x missions beats that out. If you play the PvP battles you will end up far behind the people that are grinding missions.

Edited January 24, 2016 by dudebro