TheHaney

It's getting gobbled up by players intercepting the AI trader shipments.

I'm not too worried about that, there's a dozen ways to prevent such behavior. Could be as simple as not allowing players in the starting zone to advance beyond Master and Commander (tutorial finish rank). That being said, I generally lean towards doing something with capital waters. A new-player area has been done very well in a variety of games (EQ2's starter island did well), but generally works best if integrated into the overall gameplay. Doing a separate new-player area justice would eat up far too much development time compared to just instituting something simple around capitals, as you've suggested.

I'd want regional chat eventually but right now the population is so small I think it would be a bad plan. Unless you mean cross-faction regional chat, which is just gross.

I dislike the concept of "safe zones" in general but the more time I spend in-game again, the more I think something of the sort is necessary. I make a lot of comparisons to EVE for this game, as it's attempting a similar loop, and EVE very much supports safe zones to a certain degree ("safe" is very casually used here). Primarily I think there should be some type of area where newly-joined players can experience base-level missions, trading and player interaction without getting chain killed within minutes of leaving port. That might be something as simple as making capital missions more abundant and making them only spawn in safe waters, or something as complex as introducing a "starter area" that new spawns of all nations begin the game at until they choose to leave. Another simple mechanic that would inhibit this type of behavior is adding a mechanic where sinking a ship in their reinforcement zone prevents it from dropping any inventory or counting towards any mission/leaderboard.

NPC's now travel between ports of the same flag. You traveled between areas of three different flags.

Not really an issue anymore given the new gameplay loop mechanics. Generally like the concept but I'd simplify it even more: 3 repairs total, and Urgent Repair also replaces any lost masts.

I don't generally see them on the market. Given labor hours are the highest-value currency and shipbuilding for sale simply turns doubloons into reals, the ship market has suffered.

I think the intended open-world tutorial arc the devs have asked for feedback on will directly address this. That being said, the Admiralty really should have trader ships to purchase on the regular.

I'm okay with basic cutters. My problem is the max-rank guys that start whining in battle chat when I tag them, droning on about how dare I tag a cutter, that's bad etiquette or some other nonsense.

This is an important point. Outposts, or more specifically the ability to spontaneously pop into existence at any one of them, directly encourages gank squads and unbalanced PvP. Personally I vote for more outposts, more dockspace, the aforementioned "trade wind" travel speed buff and the ability to interact with docks, buildings and contracts remotely, but in exchange put teleporting on a timer. Like a serious one. At least an hour.

Adjusted for post-doubloon patch: "What did he drop?" "Um, oh, nothing. Just a basic light sail."

Oh, sorry, I thought we were comparing suggestions on how to promote PvP. All the PvP'ers are bitching about doubloons. That's kind of the point, the entire series of recent patches has drastically increased players' motivation for OW travel. I don't see a need, yet, for another mechanic that has every chance of turning into a boring slog from port to port. It's like a crappy trade route.

Increase doubloon drops from players.

Nope, no significant enemy trade around friendly ports. You can do missions or you can set up an outpost at a free port near enemy territory if you want to do coffee-break patrols.

oh Lord Jesus I can't unsee that