Hethwill, the Red Duke

Very strong patch and good implementations across the board - PBs, crafting, events and combat mechanics - all in good compomise for everyone alike. Thumbs up.

"Social perk will return for testing in another form - allowing entry to the weaker side until the battle is balanced. "

There should be no "enemy". Only Ally or War status. That way there's no one left outside.

As a tester I try to play everything until release. A pyrate can engage any nation and can also be engaged by any nation and they are not sided nor can they side with any nation. The truth is we find too many bends and force a big chunk of suggestions to be channeled trough plugging those gaps. Not pointing fingers, just stating the sad fact that shouldn't exist. We need to play with the rules we have and quickly escalate WARGAME CONQUEST instead of sitting and waiting for something to happen. This situation as described here is a side effect of our willingness to see politics in game and safe kept from "alts exploits". There's no way around it. And even then there's alt exploits. Will point especially a situation that happened during the weekend with a dutch alt being used to draw dutch ships into gank fleets. With the politics driving the possibility of tagging at the very least the ALTs issue is plugged on one front.

95% of mechanics and code and time spent doing it to cover 5% of exploiters and airbenders... *yawn*

A suggestion regarding historical pyracy without any appropriate historical fact and background and specifically written down and tied to game mechanics, because let's pull the historical card when it is convenient... ... right... Please tell me, how many buccaneers were de facto in the sacking of Cartagena ? That's right, over 2000. Please tell me, wasn't Charleston barred from all shipping going in and out of the harbor by three pirate ships ? In a matter of two weeks, in Newfoundland large dozens of ships were prized by a pirate fleet. On top of that most of the cargo was bought by the same officials in Boston which bought from the fishermen, only this time they got it at a 1/9th of the value. Yes. Pyracy has no rules, just opportunities.

I had the same situation past week and went wth, bug or something, IIRC mods confirmed the 5 minutes timer.

5 minutes timer to join missions, no more 30 minutes, IIRC

It is a grand thing that the Devs actually implement our ideas as a whole for us to test. What is also true is that for some reason we forget it was us, as a whole, that suggested them. Well, there we have it. Many of them do not work. We have to appreciate the opportunity given to test our ideas while the game is being developed.

Honestly thank you for the wake up call. It is easy to fall into the trap of measuring game experience by our own playstyles and given the sandbox nature of it we forget how expansive gameplay might be. It is its biggest quality IMO and we must strive to fit all pieces together even when two playstyles literally feed on each other and need each other.

With more and more and more limits being asked we will never see another PB...

Keep the focus on the subject. Tavern talk of "heard something" or "someone told that" is nothing but noise.

Hostility system, as I see it, was created for players to have a sense of achievement in regards of grand strategy and where their actions, whatever playstyle, can influence the evolution of a conflict. We only get massive PvP if players are willing to pvp. I disagree with a AFK generating unrest. It is even worse than a War Supply chain which at least puts players trading, crafting and moving things and effectively opening them, during the time period they need to assembler everything, to trade raids and other counter-offensive strategies. I am not dismissing anything, I am just looking at too many suggestions to limit gameplay instead of expanding space for all of us to participate in war effort.

That seems a correct assessment of the situation. As a test phase wouldn't we expect more nations other than the Danes to do it before it can be flagged as a major issue ?

Wraith's idea is a intriguing one. "defense missions direct you directly to open offensive missions" "offensive missions direct you directly to open defensive missions"

Maybe so. But the screenshots are awesome. So not a single fisherman, mission maker, or whatever ever saw this coming ?

Damn the lookouts were all asleep

Couple hours later I am already getting used to it. Most important thing is that all the left side controls passed to the top bar groups. Custom boards subscriptions have been reset so personal filters have to be rédone, but no big deal.

That is correct, I didn't yet drown myself into the ecstasy of naval constuction but having returned to a national scenario with a organized group I have been "living" the realities that crafters and traders are enduring. Also your pointer towards a Outpost legacy system which should be changed is worth a look.

Welcome to the Naval Action Admin. Regarding your specific question I must say that it contains a uninformed pre-conception, which is - PvP capable ship. 1. Types of PvP There are several types of PvP regardless of ship types you want to choose. - arenas, which you can access through the Port interface in Missions. Team ship types will be balanced by the system so fights will be even and NPC ships added if needed. - Open World PvP, it is free for all and where all ships have their place. - the specific Conquest Port Battles, directly tied to Open World, where massive age of sail battles happen. Looking to those above you can immediately see that for the arenas you can use any type of ship. The system will automatically balance it out. For Open World is requires planning and understanding of each type of ship characteristics. For the Port Battles the usual choice is the massive ships-of-the-line which requires maximum crew attainable by maximum Rank. Right from the start you can use 7th rate ships, like schooners, cutters and sloops - Lynx, Privateer, Pickle, Cutter - can be used in PvP but require more practice overtime to achieve results. They are low cost but require more proficiency to use. After a day or two of playing you may reach rank to fully crew 6th rate ships. A good stepping stone and the first square rigs. Easily handled and good support ships in any PvP encounter alongside bigger models. After a week, say of a mission or two per day, or even one good PvP battle per day, you will be able to enter the 5th rates which present the widest selection of ships, from lightest frigates to the heavy ones - Trincomalee and famous Indefatigable. So in a nutshell after a half dozen hours of arena combat or mission making you can effectively crew a frigate, with average 300 crew and 38 guns.

Coming across a lot of people and trying to understand the whole new workflow of crafting I finally came to understand why it isn't working properly. Let's look at a normal workflow, not considering the real manpower ( hours of playing the game ) Extract resource > sail resource to free port > deliver it to free port > warehouse ( maybe more sailing if not on Freeport ) Take from warehouse > Deliver to Freeport closest to regional trim intended > Sail to crafting port. Just looking at this cycle the issue is clear. The cycle of fight > trade > craft > fight > trade > craft is somewhat broken at the trade > craft link due to the massive logistics at the moment and it is not scarcity of resources but the mandatory necessity of outposts. It is mindblowing. To make the workflow easier but keeping the effort necessary for the best ships I suggest the following radical changes: 1. All regional capitals are Naval Bases. They are automatically usable by an alliance and can park up to 5 ships and have a warehouse. 2. Naval Bases produce nothing and cannot have any production buildings. They have a shop of course. 3. Teleports between Naval Bases same as between outposts. 4. Outposts work as normal as before and are needed for production buildings and added naval bases. Looking to this we can balance the freeports. 1 .Freeports can hold 2 ships in port. 2. Fleet option disabled at Freeport ( to enforce the 2 ships limit ). You either bring your fleet already or you can assemble it. 3. Deliveries only between Freeports of course. And finally looking at the crafting of ships. The big big big issue is the logistics of regional trims, so I suggest a abstract layout. 1. If a region is controlled by a faction / alliance the Regional trim is available at any ship building port. 2. Naval Bases are not ship build capable. 3. (anolytic ) And just to make sure that regions are protected and not taken for granted, if a region has more than 50% hostility its bonus should not be available to crafters in the coalition holding it. This should ensure the continuation of the need of resources, put dynamic in conquest given the trims can be used from anywhere in the controlled territory and still retain the necessity of producing,transporting and trading goods.

A system of rewards that could be thought of is that of Titles. A captain shall be awarded titles according to feats on his area of expertise and if meaningful to "King and Country!" Pertaining time and rewards being brought up by players this could be explored and developed further as an idea or scrapped So Navy and Maritime awards could be devised so to reward all playstyles, from trader/smuggler, ship architect and post navy officers / sea rovers. It would obey certain rules, as awards usually do in military and civilian instances. - Title shall be granted to the Captain and tied to the ship he/she would be using when achieving such honor. - Title shall be optionally displayed as extra information in the OW box and in overhead UI in battle. - Title also awards a special and easily identifiable Ensign to be hoisted atop the masts - Title is lost if durability of ship is lost. aka. Title perma-death - Titles cannot be captured. Examples: - "Hero of Pampatar" - As a ship in the line of battle in the Port conquest for the port. First to board an enemy vessel. Must board three enemy vessels and survive. - "Bay Area King" - Smuggler extraordinaire of mahogany from Honduras. Must smuggle out ( pertains use of smuggler flag ) said wood, consistently, from region at Honduras back to Capital region and sell in the shop ( no contracts ). ______________ captains versus ships ________________ My point regarding that is that ships had, in many point in history, more reputation than the captains. - Indefatigable - Revenge - Clarisse, Confiance - Constitution - etc But is is also captains can have several Awards to different ships now looking to a more game situation. It can be expanded to cover the captain too, something like Naval Architec Extraordinaire for a crafter. ________ unexpected / easter eggs _______________ They shouldn't be lists but dynamically awarded, unexpected, like a fantastic reward and "impossible" to pursure/farm given we can't known the titles there are ( if possible within the code )

That is correct Bach. Arms do not make the Rebels nor the lack of security at sea. Maybe the Raids can be the spark that ignites the barrel ?

No one likes to lose. That's where I am getting. Limiting playstyles is the worst possible route. We need to step back a bit and look. Right now there's no doubt there is way more combat in a PB and surrounding areas than ever before. There's no empty port battles. There's screeners fighting screeners outside. Hell, Savannah had 4 big battle raging including the PB. If that is not fun and full of action I have no idea what we are searching for. What is exactly the issue with War Supplies IF they take a lot of effort to make ? Aren't they a choice as valid as "farming" NPCs ? Aren't they as important as PvP ? A handful of good PvP battles in the region has the same effect of War Supplies. Thing is everyone runs away. Find us all a solution that brings PvP to the PvP server.

I will stop adding to the discussion. It is not going to where I was hoping. Like in E:D the undertaking to produce the supplies output is not light.