DoctorRockzo

Good for you. I am glad to hear that you have the time and patience to replay the same game several times. The thrill of sailing a basic cutter the first time was enough to satisfy me. I'm done.

I could "test" for WarGaming without ever spending a nickel, and that would be a fair exchange. Why should I pay $40 for the privilege of working for a game developer? This experience has soured my perception of the "early access" business model. There is no real difference between "early access" and "release" besides the ability of developers to excuse their failures. The game is buggy? Early access. Promised features are missing? Early access. Players get shafted by poorly implemented ideas? Early access. The games I play do not stop evolving after "release"; they continue to be updated, bugs are fixed, and features are continually added. It is not my intention to complain about the $40 I wasted; It is my intention to inform others of the current state of the game. It is never mentioned on the Steam store page that early access means progress is temporary. If they had made it clear that players are wasting their time because progress is regularly nullified, many of us would not have bought it.

Yes, I intend to inform potential buyers of this game's "current state", which changes dramatically for the worse each week. I'll let them know that they should only purchase early access if they are willing to pay $40 to perform the tasks that should be executed by professional game testers while the developers clumsily implement wild changes that erase any sense of progress.

It is a shame to see this game take such a sharp turn away from fun. The game had been very playable for the last couple of weeks, but the volatility created by a "let's take a shot in the dark" development strategy has rendered the game unplayable. I paid $40 with the reasonable expectation to play a game that has moved past the concept stage of development. If the steam community truly has this kind of influence, I suppose I will take my perspective there to warn others not to waste their time and post an appropriate review.

This patch did not go far enough. In the game's current state, we are suffering from a 1st rate crisis. There are no ports with exceptional 1st rates for sale, especially at a reasonable price. Playing for a week with no 1st rate is way too grindy for my taste. Clearly, the game is broken. I don't like games that creates winners and losers. My battles never result in a victory for both sides, and that makes me a sad panda. Everyone, at least, deserves a participation trophy, a mountain of gold, and 2000 oak logs.

At this point, does XP stand for anything other than crew size? I don't find the static crew size appealing, and I think crewing up could be improved in a number of ways. Ideally, I would like the ability to raise a crew influenced by XP, yet still possible for a new player to gradually accumulate a large crew over time with careful decisions. If you are defeated in battle, you respawn with a default crew size. Crewmen could be captured in battle, or hired in ports with a contract specifying the percentage of plunder crewmen will share with the captain. If crewmen are not well paid, overworked, or demoralized, they desert or mutiny.

This post exemplifies the argument I joined this forum to combat; a few unskilled players come here to make vague and bogus threats of a mass exodus if their own bad ideas are not implemented. If you are the fun expert and respected economist that you think you are, you should make your own video game where no one competes with each other for resources - you could also incorporate some kind of "auto-win" button so no one gets their feelers hurt. I am sure you will sell millions.

I don't believe that you have a clear understanding of free market economics. I regret to hear that you are not having fun playing this game; maybe Elite Dangerous is more your cup of tea. In that game, you can wander all over the galaxy trading with mindless bots until your eyes bleed. Don't make the mistake of believing that you represent a "majority" of players. Complainers are always louder than content players.

I put in the time to gather resources, which does require plenty of sailing, exploring, and trading in order to be successful. Because I put in the required time, I am not here demanding that changes be made to accomodate me and reverse my heartbreaking stories of lost contracts. If hoarding all of the resources is so easy, why are you complaining about how difficult it is for you to acquire resources? This entire line of reasoning reeks of sore-loserness; you haven't been a successful trader, so you would rather change the rules than change your strategy.

Again, I am sorry if I outbid your contract. This does not indicate a problem with contracts, but points instead to your ineffective trading strategy. If you don't want to be outbid, you should not raise your bid by a single gold unit. If you aren't getting any oak at 101, it does not mean that contracts are the problem - it simply means that oak is worth more than 101. If your bid more closely resembled oak's actual value, you would not need to worry about being outbid. In other words, don't bid 101 on oak; bid 200. I am concerned by the pestilent demands by some on this forum for plentiful and cheap goods. The oak is out there, you just aren't willing to pay what it is worth. Prices are gradually settling into their natural values. Just because you saw oak for sale last week at 80 gold does not necessarily mean that it is worth 80 gold this week. You will need to become comfortable with the fact that oak is worth much more - which is totally fine in the context of gameplay.

This is probably the fifth time I've read on this forum that a mysterious "small group" of players are conspiring to restrict access to specific resources, and that you are powerless against those evil traders with an imaginary monopoly. I believe I will dispel this myth with a video tutorial that provides step-by-step instructions on how to properly outbid the competition.

Production is never "blocked". In fact, production is unaffected by contracts. If a port produces 250 oak logs, it doesn't matter if there are no contracts or one thousand contracts - it will produce 250 oak logs. It appears that you expect to be able to sail into any port, at any time, and see a plentiful stock of all goods for sale. A game with scarce resources is not "unbelievably broken"; a game with scarce resources is "fun". Some of us are drawn to a game of free market competition, and others would rather eliminate a player driven economy in favor of trading with AI. If I were not a particularly skilled negotiator, I might also be inclined to advocate instead of play the game. I'm sorry if I outbid your contracts. If it helps, I had planned to allow you buy your next ship on a payment plan with special new introductory interest rates.

Grimbeard, any suggestion you have just proposed would ruin gameplay. What is the point of having a dynamic economy if resources are always plentiful and prices are always low? As the economy shifts into its natural state, there will be short periods of uncomfortable price gouging and artificial scarcity - but, with patience, it will level out and prices will become palatable again.

Personally, I am not pleased by these changes. Gathering these resources in sufficient quantites was a challenge, but not impossible. I appreciate the challenge to overcome resource scarcity, and I enjoyed my time as a trader dealing in valued resources. Resource scarcity limits the number and quality of ships produced by crafters, which in turn adds value to desirable and rare ships. This update has unfairly affected traders and crafters who have put in the time to gather resources and produce ships when those tasks were still a challenge. I believe that exceptional ships will not be exceptional any longer, now that virtually everyone can produce an endless supply of gold ships for minimal cost. Complaints are always the loudest from those who loathe a challenge, and those of us who were pleased with the former economic model did not come here to express our satisfaction. I'm beginning to notice a pattern where game developers are routinely influenced by popular complaints in their forums, which does not necessarily lead to optimal gameplay.