Sir Robert Calder

As someone who's taken a hiatus from this game for quite a few weeks (and these forums) even I was a little bit surprised to see the EU1 server pop down to 450~ish players in the European primetime. The biggest issue this game (and many other early access games) has is its lack of depth when it comes to anything outside of combat. Crafting complexity is simply "grind X ship to get Y blueprint", gated behind redundant hour timers that only encourage people to buy crafting alt accounts. "Questing" is a complete disaster, with very little time invested into it outside of the AI of the enemy ships that seemingly gets development time devoted to it nearly every other major patch unnecessarily. Long trips across the Caribbean Sea give players almost zero reason to pay attention to their surroundings, especially given that going from Louisiana to the Lesser Antilles can take upwards to 3-4+ hours. I've seen a few implements like "smuggling" and the attention towards diplomacy heading in the right direction, but frankly speaking the devs' direction towards making lasting content for players seems incredibly shallow. My biggest criticism though (and what's partly responsible for my above complaints) is the allocation of dev resources seems to be all over the place at times. Welcome features like Land in Battles are great, but then often times I'd see the devs going back and forth on tweaking combat mechanics for several weeks without any real meaningful addition to the game. Port battles need changes too, but in a grand overhaul fashion where every port is physically/aesthetically different rather than attempting to break up the monotony of our current PBs by adding "victory points". Quality of life changes like the clan bank are great, other changes such as the repeated attempts at perfecting "tagging" seemed to me to be ultimately a waste of time. Tweaking mission AI difficulty never made a ton of sense to me, considering how shallow the mission "quest" is to begin with, which gave me no desire to do the missions in the first place. I hope in the future the devs spend more time working on other aspects of the game, preferably areas that make you feel like every action (PvE or PvP) matters to the overall war effort. Contestable whaling areas, missions that actually push a faction-wide goal, escorting traders, making trading in general an interesting part of the game rather than an alt-tab simulator would be great. Maybe we can see AI fleets that actually have an effect on the OW rather than floating pinatas of XP and Gold? The list goes on and I do check in on this game every once and a while to see if anything meaningful has been added, but for me personally I haven't been intrigued after having experienced the beauty of this game's ship combat to its maximum extent.

Frankly, I can see where the Danes are coming from. I just hope they do not see our nation as incessant trolls/griefers who enjoy watching Danes get up early to retake ports. The ability to set timers for 4-6 generally allows for the next day (or consecutive days) to allow flag purchases to allow for us to keep the presence in a certain territory that we have gained permanently. I won't lie that the tactic is frustrating to deal with, but I hope that my Danish brothers can understand that this tactic is more of a problem with the game that's just being used by the Brits in order to compensate for multi-front wars.

I was excited to hear National News reopened, and then immediately disappointed to see it filled with US/SORRY prick measuring contests. It is further disappointing to see how Vicious's / SORRY's personality contrasts from the forum personality and the one I listened to on Jeheil's clan interview. I want to believe that [sORRY] genuinely gets lambasted by a large amount of this community to an extent that is uncalled for so I can feel sympathy towards them, which would match the vibe I got from Jeheil's point of view, but then I read these bait threads & AARs that range from braggart to downright rude towards opponents. Normally, I can tolerate a level of toxicity from certain individuals to not think much of it, especially when they are isolated incidents in an online community. [sORRY] on the other hand goes out of their way to meticulously count enemies sunk, only to subsequently chide said enemies on the official forums, then post several National News threads that hardly seem qualitative about their victories, which ultimately make me want to avoid any engagements with their clan on the open seas as I know the experience will be terrible regardless of the outcome. If you beat [sORRY] then they will tell you how many 1st Rates they have stored at Mortimer Town to disenfranchise your victory, and if you lose you can be sure your battle will be archived for all eternity to lord over you in a less than gentlemanly way if you dissent against their clan's opinion. The worst part is [sORRY] isn't the only clan that's exhibiting this kind of behavior if this thread is any example, and at this point I'd honestly rather see National News stay locked than see yet another thread about any [sORRY]/US interactions.

Haha, this is why I love the devs of this game. shots fired. To be honest frigates are very viable outside of Port Battles, inside them I really can't see how you could make them stand up against a 25 1st Rate fleet within the confines of the Age of Sail setting. Things like tackling, disabling, stunning, and other MMO status effects would be useful to put on the smaller and more nimble ships like Frigates (and give them a purpose in PBs), but obviously that doesn't work very well here if we're staying true to the setting. I'd considered weather being a factor that benefits smaller ships more (or varying degrees of shallows to give smaller ships more maneuverability) to consider bringing frigates, but those are monumental tasks to undertake and for the moment the upcoming PB changes are sufficient to me. Also laser towers chew up frigates like no tomorrow, which is another huge strike against bringing frigates to PBs at the moment.

As far as I'm aware they're still doing this, but they're announcing it for when the port reset happens. If PvP2 is as you say, then the downtime of PvP1 will actually be more lively then.

I think the clan interviews idea is great and it was interesting seeing [sORRY]'s perspective. When you're fighting against the same handful of clans every single day without talking to them directly --- especially when the language barrier is a thing, it is enjoyable to get some insight from the other side in a "fireside chat" setting. While [sORRY] is certainly notorious for a variety of reasons depending on who you ask, they are still players in our game world and I respect Jeheil for acknowledging that. I hope to see [sLRN]'s perspective in the future.

This is a player population problem, which if I remember correctly you are a PvP2 player. Unless the ports are extremely out of the way, port battles that take place near concentrations of clans or near capitals rarely go uncontested. The devs still realize this as a problem since defenders are such a disadvantage, and it will be changing in the future it seems.

I admire your tenacity, but that would drive me up the wall having 400+ ping. Much respect to Australian players.

Conquering Europe won't fund itself. J'aurais rejoint la France avait mon français pas été si pauvre! Malheureux!

Pardonnez mon pauvre français, mes amis. Je ne parle pas au nom du conseil britannique, mais je voudrais aborder la question des minuteries portuaires que je comprends. Il est vrai que, grâce à la sagesse du conseil, il semblait raisonnable de fixer des minuteries portuaires tard dans la nuit. Il est très difficile de défendre plusieurs ports et de progresser dans une guerre contre votre nation avec le système actuel de mécanique de combat de port. Puisque la France a repris ces ports en dépit de notre stratégie, il semble inefficace et je pense le conseil britannique de réajuster en conséquence. La stratégie ne visait pas à offenser nos honorables adversaires, mais plutôt de nous un exemple de notre mieux pour faire des gains efficaces dans cette guerre. Malgré cependant ces plaintes, je vais préciser que Aves a été mis sur une minuterie pratique pour les deux nations. Nos offensives se produisent régulièrement pendant le fuseau horaire européen, et nous avons pas hésité à repousser la marine française et danoise au Aves. Il devrait être évident maintenant que Aves est au cœur de notre stratégie, et nous avons été juste dans notre fenêtre de bataille du port à Aves. Personnellement, je dois réveiller tôt comme un Louisianais pour combattre mes ennemis, mais je ne me dérange pas que cette guerre entre nos nations a été exceptionnellement amusant. J'espère que vous ne supportez pas les Britanniques pour le réglage des minuteries portuaires tard dans la nuit. Il est clair que la stratégie est inefficace. --- Forgive my poor French, my friends. I do not speak on behalf of the British council, but I wish to address the issue of port timers as I understand it. It is true that through the wisdom of the council it seemed reasonable to set port timers late at night. It is very difficult to defend multiple ports and make progress in a war against your nation with the current port battle mechanics system. Since France has recaptured these ports despite our strategy, it seems ineffective and I expect the British council to readjust accordingly. The strategy was not meant to offend our honorable opponents, but rather an example of us trying our best to make effective gains in this war. Despite these complaints however, I will make it clear that Aves has been on a convenient timer for both nations. Our offensives consistently occur during the European timezone, and we have not been shy at repelling the French and Danish navy at Aves. It should be obvious by now that Aves is central to our strategy, and we have been fair in our port battle window at Aves. Personally, I have to wake up early as a Louisianian to fight my enemies, but I do not mind as this war between our nations has been exceptionally fun. I hope you do not resent the British for setting port timers late at night. It is clear that strategy is ineffective.

If a clan leader isn't responsible enough to ensure that his position will be filled in the case of his absence, I think a complete reorganization of that clan is necessary. My issue with auto-delegation comes from the fact that it's often abused and needlessly causes drama within a clan when someone gets the title of prestige and then goes bonkers with it for selfish reasons.

Auto delegation? No. Allowing a clan leader to pass on his leadership role to another without remaking the entire clan? Yes.

Since the game is borked at the moment, all you need to know is this: Get some cash from missions. Make a Compass Wood factory near a port that consumes it. Buy an Exceptional Speed Trader's Lynx/Trader's Cutter. Buy up all the Compass Wood you make each day and make up to 300,000 gold profit a day by selling it at the consuming port. If you get tagged, just sail upwind after doing a defensive tag*. *Defensive tagging is to tag an enemy player you're keeping speed with just as he comes into range of your attack circle. The enemy player must then choose to either keep speed with you and engage which forces him into a very poor position on the battle map (and your prompt escape), or disengage from your circle entirely on the Overworld map. This is most effective when you're at your best point of sail (going your max MPH). Sarcasm aside, this needs to be fixed after an assets wipe to make trading worthwhile again. Maybe some API changes too to prevent people from knowing a general estimate of what each port has stockpiled/priced simultaneously at a given time.

I am conflicted on putting restrictions on people who sail out of harbor to gank enemies near their ports. On one hand it's frustrating getting ganked, but on the other you sailed near the lion's den and got eaten. Perhaps it is a lesson learned rather than a desire to change mechanics to make things more comfortable for those who don't like being on the bad end of a gank. As it stands there is a small battles system that actively puts evenly matched BR opponents together, so I highly recommend the aforementioned players to utilize this function.

1.5x system is terrible, I'd rather have no circle than the limitation again. If anyone in a 1st Rate fleet makes a mistake by leaving the combat results screen early, there will be nothing my comrades or I can do to help him. Countering screening fleets becomes pointless because players who seek an easy frigate kill or two won't be allowed to stack up 20v1 to clear a path for 1st Rates. Attacking seal clubbers outside your capital becomes impossible. 20v1 ganks still occur as people abuse the BR system yet again by just stacking Yachts and Cutters. There's a good chance I wouldn't even be able to help the people who get "ganked" and then clamor in this thread for BR limits. Why? So they can still be ganked by 3 Trincomalees instead of 10? The result is the same when you sail alone/unprotected and it's naive to assume anything different unless your opponents are incredibly slow in the head.