IndianaGeoff

But populations were higher and there were people to hunt. Yes, it hurt a lot if you decided to gank in a busy, defended area, but that is as it should be. In those days there were no safe zones or even towers for that matter. But ganking someone with friends right outside a capital port was a death sentence. I stopped doing defense when it became a waste of time.

Oh, all missions, shooting and trade, need to be tweaked to be fun.

Sorry for the judgmental tone. I want the game to be the game that I loved playing so bad. I do love the game and want it to work. The devs need to keep working on current stuff and then go back and really look at what did and did not work in the past. The need to map out a new player development with multiple paths (fight only, trade, craft) of success. Yes, everyone has to fight, but let the guy who wants to be rich be rich. The guy who wants to be a crafting mavin, be a crating mavin. And yes, the combat only guy can do so. And when they map out that, they need to determine how long they want a player to play to reach a high level in each path (realistic grind for a 1 hour a night player). Then grab those old mechanics that were popular and test new ways to get it in game. This game needs more than a tutorial and a UI. For example, I am a person who loves to build a credible trading network so that I can support a crafting bug. I only sail what I make. After I make it, I used it to support my nation/clan in it's activities. I will actively defend my coasts if I can. I mostly sail in teams, I don't like solo PvP. Probably because I am not that good at it, but mostly because I get no joy ganking people or getting sunk trying to. I will never sail around looking for easy prey to collect marks to build big ships. Never. I have done it. I don't enjoy it. Right now, for various reasons, even though I have warehouses full of craft goods, upgrades and maxxed crafting stations... I see no reason to log in.

Nobody does trade missions. Production buildings? meh. Just another way to sell out of a port. Outposts? I remember those in the 5 dura days. Teleport to capital was there ages ago. More ships but little reason to sail most of them. Now the meta will change when models are tweaked, but it quickly settles down to a new/same meta. Fact is, the game was more playable in the 5 dura, crappy port battle flag era than today. More players, new players every night, people sticking with it action most nights that mattered to players, nations and clans. Clans growing, weak nations being able to do things, big nations beating on each other. Yea (on global) you had the 2 v 1 big nation alliance, but over months it shifted back and forth. Multiple people playing on Twitch (how I decided to get the game). You are not moving forward when you drop in a mechanic (missions) and then make it completely useless and uninteresting. You are not moving forward when you abandon what could be nightly mechanics for conflict (shipwrecks, PvP battle zones with rewards et al). The odds of logging in and seeing a useful shipwreck is so low, nobody "plans" for it. Admins (in game)used to play with the players, I did not see that for months as most of them quit playing. The death of nations has not been good for the game. Face it nationalism is huge for this and any game. The game has devolved into one lame mechanic that is not working. If the dev team thinks they are making progress, they are crazy. They are acting like ADHD teenagers high on Mountain Dew spinning out some new plan that just has to work. When it does not, they don't reflect back on past successes and just come up with some new master plan of questionable design. Often so bad they don't even run it in front of the community for critique before loading it into the game. You have highlighed a vision for the game. I''ll give you that. It is a vision. It is bold. It will also fail so hard as a commercial success. This is a slow game. Everything in it takes time. Therefore the game has to have mutiple, useful slow mechanics. Thus far, all we see are mechanics to quickly gank people outside national ports. That may not have been the intention, but it is the result.

I think that healthy nations make healthy clans.

I could not disagree more.

If the game was playable, I would play. I don't expect anything from the other side. Some would leave for sure. Many left after the Great Wipe just because of the grind to get back into a first rate. But it won't matter, depending on the mechanics. The current slot meta makes such a gulf between those starting and the experienced captains that in a couple weeks, we will be back to where we are now.

Yup. I got lots of help. But the reason is does no good is newbies don't stay more than a month. I can't recall a single newb that stuck after the great wipe. Once I was able, I helped dozens of them. Mostly giving tough Snows or Navy Brigs with Cannons when they could sail it. Or cannon for a ship or carronides for a cutter. That and 50k gets you going off to a great start. I played with them in missions. Maybe I take them out and show them how to cap a ship. Sometimes we would let them fleet with us in a cutter... just for giggles. You learn a lot sailing in much bigger ships trying not to get hit while getting in a little damage. Maybe we would bring one down so they could capture it. But when I realized it was futile, I slowed down and then stopped. But as a rear admiral I realize I should be marching out of Charleston in ships, 3 or 4 a night. Sorry. That sounds like less fun than helping newbies just getting started who won't stick with it. And I 100% get why they don't stick with it.

Bingo. Quote edited for length. There is no reason to help a newbie. None of them make it. And while tutorials will help some, it still won't help them lose the first ship they spent a week saving for. And the next one and the next one. If they make it that far. There are no white knights because when there was population, you could not defend your people. There (for me) was nothing better than when I was sailing my new, shiney Rattlesnake outside Cton. (yes a long time ago). Werewolf jumped me in his ganking Suprise. I called for help, there was help there (Valentine I think). I just had to live, get away. Then we chased him down, I tagged him and slowed him down and Val sank him. Amount the most fun 2 hours/satisfying two hours I have had in gaming. In the post patch mechanics, if I had gotten away, I would not have been able to tag with the battle open long enough for Val to get in. In those days you had defense mechanics (no forts if I remember) and people willing to defend. For months you had zero ability to do the same in any reasonable fashion. You might be able to do it now, but it's too late. Over the next few months WW and I crossed swords. He was the better sailor, but I was always willing to sacrifice to get a team win. That game is gone. The most poignant comments are when elites from many nations pile into a fight and kill a small group. That is this game in a nutshell and why I don't bother anymore.

You can't call Clan v Clan a raging success.

Your quote does not encompass the point he is making. It is possible to find things to agree and disagree with. But the point is, the game ceased being fun for a huge number of players and they left. The game cannot make it until that problem is figured out and fixed. You talk all you want about the sandbox... when said box is full of cat poop and devoid of players it is just a litter box.

This game (if it's not too late) had better prioritize his play style. Those are the huge numbers of players who left. If they can't be steered back or new ones of that type given a track to play... put a fork in her.

Honestly, the game has been so screwed up and so many have left, testing new or old mechanics is a waste. Your comments are right on. I had fun when ships were fairly easy to make, did not demand weeks of grinding to open slots and put the upgrades in them. There were mechanics to defend your coasts, nightly fights (flag era) and you could fight AI off your coast with reasonable safety. This was surrounded by enough players for multiple nations to fight it out. The Hardmode era drove off our Admirals. When they saw months of casual grinding to get back into a first rate that they could not afford to fight... they left. The ability to swap nations with all your stuff concentrated good players into fewer and fewer nations of elite players. The various mechanics to force PvP end up with those players ganging up anyone with marks for dying. Defense of coasts became useless then lack of players moved it to impossible. Zero content other than killing newbies aborted many a new player. Oh and the difficulty of crawling out of a cutter just made sure nobody new stuck with the game. The various antics of the Devs and admins killed these forums. Aborting what good will there could be. So here we are. But it's all good. This is an early release game and if you can't handle the suck STFU newb.

Because most of the players that would have used this months ago have left, given up on the game and moved on. They don't log in. They don't read the forums. Heck, look how dead the forums are now. I am sorry, small incremental fixes to a couple areas won't fix this game. You will not get a critical mass of old players to fill and balance out the game play on the server at this point. You need to build a game that can attract and keep new players and start from scratch. If that works, you might get some old players back. Right now this game is down to the 1% who can't live without it. I consider myself the 5% who would love the game if it was playable. But it is not. So I join the 99% and play something else that has balance and >shock< FUN.

The loss of Tow to Capital was part of this. At least once a day, you could quickly rally a crew that would be home to defend. As it is now, if you are on a far flung patrol or trade mission it's 20 minutes or longer before you can be back home to defend.