The Grind

[Caelum]

I know there are several complaints in reference to the grind, but today I was truly appalled at the realization of facts that came before me.

 

If you don't put 200 hours into this game, you cannot play the PVP reasonably.

 

Now, you may be asking "But, what do you mean, Caelum? Anyone in a cutter can go out and do some damage!" Wrong. The past few days have made it abundantly clear that only those who have dedicated hundreds of hours into this game have any chance in the PVP.

 

Lets take for example, the US coast as it currently stands. I'm not an average US player. Far from it, actually, you will find most of my career was spent in Great Britain, with a small snap of Dutch in there before moving to PVP1 EU. The other day, I was in a captured frigate. Nothing special about it, but I felt like I wanted to help protect the ports and battle. There weren't many players on, so I thought, why not?

 

I'm on my way to the port to defend it, when I suddenly get a message in chat: "Don't join battles unless you are connie or higher". I wish I could say I was making this up, but this was the truth. At first, I didn't understand. Did they not want my assistance? Any ship from a niagara or above should be able to join a deep water port battle, and they clearly needed forces... But no- Apparently, anything below a connie is completely useless in the current state of the game. 

 

Now,  I thought this was just rancid hatred or some sort of bullox, and that smaller ships could see some usage in these tiers. I was dreadfully wrong. The nation we are currently up against, goes up and down the coast with several first-third rates, with trincs being the lowest you will see. Hordes of massive 4 deck ships will attack on sight anything, including smaller ships. Even in a frigate, you stand no chance in hell against these "death groups" that go up and down the coast. So your only option is to grind. Grind or throw yourself pointlessly against a ship several times your size. Its a sad realization, but a realization none the less.

 

And it only gets worse when you consider the facts: The grind is far, far, far to wide. I consider myself a casual player- A good player at best. I spend anywhere from an hour to two hours a day on the game, and I have docked in around 175 hours in total on the game. I'm barely on a surprise. Most players I see in this game are rocking 300, 400, or even 500 hours, and just barely getting the ranks required for things like Third Rates, which are just the very BASIC ships you can use to take on these massive fleets of first rate monsters. Is this really the kind of gaming you want to encourage? Anyone who has not spend 300 hours in your game is not relevant to fighting? Not to mention this "grind" is hardly an experience. Your grind is spent literally 1 of 2 ways- Fleet grinding, where you get in a huge battle with other players stomping AIs and just sit there shooting for an hour for your 100-800 EXP, or missions, where you spend literally up to 30 minutes fighting another ship for 300 exp, only to realize you need 17,000 more to get to the next level (Which is still in this Trinc territory, mind you.)

 

Even a port wipe wouldn't fix this, because you would still be stuck with the same exact issue- People would craft a few first rates, get in a huge monster group, and go about stomping down anything below a 3rd rate. In the current state of the game, it makes it hard, if not impossible, unless you invest a rediculous amount of time and effort, just to get to anywhere close to being competitive. The fact that the lower tier ships have so little use doesn't help this at all. 

 

Are you in a frigate? A reno? A trinc? Consider yourself dead or running if you ever see a St Pavel or Victory, or even a connie or third rate. You are nothing compared to a good player in a 3rd rate. The only meta that these ships have in the game is to seal the gap between shallow port battles and your heavy battlecruisers. 

 

These are just a few of the problems I think plague the game- And as it's still in alpha, I believe these can be fixed.

 

Does anyone agree with me? Disagree? Idle on the stance? Thanks for your comments ahead of time.

[Destraex]

I have mixed feelings about this. I want the larger ships to be dominant but I also want everybody to be able to join in. You should be afraid of a 3rd rate or a connie. These are monsters of the game and there is a reason they are referred to as super frigates or ships of the line in real life. The frigates and such can be taken into deep water port battles and do their part. However you should not expect them to perform well unless you are very careful about the way you maneuver. You will indeed have to play the game to be easily effective in stand up battles between Ships of the Line of battle. It's part of the games flavour and does give something for people to aim for. In real life their was a code in large battles that SOLs did not shoot at frigates... this code was broken by a frigate at the battle of the nile. That frigate was shattered and dashed against the rocks shortly after firing on a SOL. Very brave but very stupid without command of the wind.

Frigates and medium sized ships are large targets and should be used for chases, raids, patrols and pirate hunting and organised PVP for their efficiency. 

 

Additionally you can choose the pre-made instant battles from the port menu. The devs will hopefully eventually work on these to perhaps allow people to choose to go up against equals.

Their used to be missions you could propose against humans and meet them somewhere iirc?

[Ruthless4u]

If I had a nickel for every time I've been told to go babysit Walkers Cay lol, not even wanted in a screening force for defense.

[OTMatt]

The lack of downsides to SOLs and 25 player limits are the true cause for all this grinding.

 

I know a WWII mmo that has similar problems where right now they can only have 36 guys max fighting in capitals. The devs plan to solve this issue is to divide up the battle into a series of separate maps that are basically sectors of the city.

 

If the port battle was divided up into sectors with different types of missions that suit shallow, frigates, and SOLs then maybe it will be much more enjoyable.

[Fastidius]

maybe they should create Something between deep and shallow?

[SphinX]

maybe they should create Something between deep and shallow?

 

There's an even better solution than that, that has been suggested before. Depth limits on ports.

 

Most ports weren't deep enough to sail a ship of the line into, so to create ship diversity, the devs could set an arbitrary limit to ports.

 

Regional capitals + the couple of ports beside them could support 3rd+ rates, as you get further from the regional capitals only shallower water ships are supported for the sake of PBs. Now obviously changes would have to be made to the port battles themselves, smaller ships can't take the beating from towers like a 3rd rate can, so if the port supports up to say the Frigate / Belle Poule, there could be fewer towers or less heavily armed towers.

 

For extra ease of gameplay, 1st rates could still enter the ports themselves, but would be locked out of port battles.

 

Even on PvP2 if there's more than 25 people heading towards a port battle (it doesn't happen very often) everyone in something smaller than a Trincomalee is asked to wait until the larger ships have joined, then are free to join after that. It's not great to have to ask people to stand aside and wait, but if a defense force does show up everyone prefers the bigger ships are in the port battle rather than trying to screen.

[Migui]

Blockade fleets on smaller ships are a thing but it's true that if you are smaller than a frig you will likely die pretty soon.

[Jeheil]

Well firstly I don't think your clan is thinking too smart (or whoever said "don't play if your not in a connie or more").

 

I am Post Captain, so for PvP A fully crewed Trinc (for AI or missions an undercrewed Connie...and I pay the price if ganked !!).

 

This weekend alone :

6 Port battles, 3 shallow, 3 deep.

3 Screen fleets

1 Enemy Flag Capture

1 Enemy 2nd rate capture working with 4 other lowbie ships.

 

The screens and the enemy flag capture allowed the 3 clans we were working with to defend SIX simultaneous port assualts.

The shallow waters battles were all  15 v 15 or more.

 

So you only need to be able to crew a Merc or Brig to play in the shallows.

 

Screening fleets and flag interupts...and chasing port 'runners' made my weekend sooooooooooo much fun.

 

I played for 3 days and realised I hadn't even checked my EXP !!

 

Chat with your clan-mates...find a role.

 

To be honest when a deep water port is under attack, if your nation has enough 1st, 2nd and 3rd rates to fill the 25 slots....then they SHOULD.

 

I understand that the nature of port battles is going to be reworked however so the course grained split between shallow and deep (or upto Merc versus 3rd rates and above) will be addressed.

 

If your clan / nation can facilitate better use of all captains, you win more...and more importantly make players feel more worthy.

[The Spud]

On the grind, I played about 220 - 240 hours, and I am at 25k xp from being flag captain. I enjoyed every second of this game, and I still do. I do missions, help my clan out with screening etc., do some missions with friends, and only started crafting this week.

 

What I found out for myself is that when doing missions or go up against AI fleet or participate in some ganking, there is no danger in undercrewing a ship that preferably suits the next rank. I sailed a frig when I should have sailed a surprise, and now i undercrew a conni. As XP is awarded for damage done, and kills/assists, the higher fire power will come to your advantage. I do flag captain missions in my live oak conni, and have no trouble sinking any ship in the flag captain missions. This generaly lands me 750 to 1000xp. Especialy undercrewing the conni is a must, the live oak conni has more armour than a basic 3rd rate 7762 vs 7700 (if I am not mistaken), whereas the trinc i use for PvP is only +-4000 i think. I have seen Post Captains sail 3rd rates into AI fleet fighting, but I can't imagine that working very well.

 

On the other hand I noticed this weekend that only very few players responded to a call to defend bone cay and bugle bay in shallow water ships, we had a hard time getting 25 ships in those battles. While these ports are the closest shallow water ports near jamaica, one would expect a massive fleet of lower level players to head that way. But this didn't happen. These however offer massive XP and gold. So they missed out on a nice opportunity there.

 

This weekend I sailed a live oak brig into a random event against an AI frigate. I am not the greatest captain out there, but non the less i managed to stern rake the frig until he was at 60 crew, before i capped it.

Thats a 8 cannon 6 pounder a side ship vs a 19 guns a side frig at more than twice my crew. Someone said in chat that he had seen an experienced player cap an AI 3rd rate in a Pickle.

These are all AI, so thats totaly different compared to PvP. But if you are experienced enough and you can pull of a couple of stern rakes, the fight can turn in your favour very quickly.

I think nothing is more fun than just flat out outmanouver your opponent and make him run for the horizon during a very uneven fight.

[Migui]

Also, the grind seems huge because currently is not very well designed as the crew numbers artificially put you down to lesser ships.

 

If they gave you, lets say, 25 members of crew every 5k XP after rank 5, staying within the same rank until you reach the required XP for the next. That way you would feel your progress because you would be able to fully crew better ships within your rank.

[The Spud]

Also, the grind seems huge because currently is not very well designed as the crew numbers artificially put you down to lesser ships.

 

If they gave you, lets say, 25 members of crew every 5k XP after rank 5, staying within the same rank until you reach the required XP for the next. That way you would feel your progress because you would be able to fully crew better ships within your rank.

 

Thats also something I mentioned in another thread as being a good idea, I think this is indeed a good way to make it feel less like a drag.

If people can try some new ships faster, they might take it out to do PvP more often, instead of just doing that last 25% of the grind to the next level.

 

It would also make people thing twice before they attack someone in a ship above his rank, as the undercrew might be very small.

[Babble]

I have to disagree.  

 

A snow can take out a 3rd rate. 

 

24 cutters can do some serious damage.

 

You can pvp very early in this game.

 

That said, i firmly believe they should make it so its impossible to capture anything larger then a frigate from a NPC.  Doing that will make the 3rds you see player made.  And sinking one economic warfare.

[Mrdoomed]

I started playing the weekend of EA and have just under 300 hours of play ( ery demanding job) and can sail frigates if i want to but usually dont. Ive played in a few PB but i prefer open sea battles.

Ive never had a grind for one moment yet so im not able to understand the grind part. I think it comes down to the person playing the game, it has to be that because how can some hate this grind while others dont experience it?

Try just playing and having fun doing whatever you can do because ship size realy isnt that important

[Caelum]

I'm glad everyone spoke of this responsibly as adults- I'll admit my first post was rather hostile towards the topic at first but looking back on it I can see how it'd come off as mean spirited.

 

I think you all bring up very good points, though I for one would like to see more "varied" missions, as least to assist in the grind. Currently, the only missions we have are go to X and kill Y, no meaning or otherwise. I think it would be a good idea from a gameplay standpoint to give PVP related missions, or missions where you raid various places/areas/convoys, which would damage the defenses of a port and allow for an easier port battle. This way, smaller ships like Frigates and Surprises still have a place in the meta- They are faster, quicker, hit and run ships that can damage trade lines and reinforcements from other ports and make it easier for the larger ships to capture them.

 

I'm not sure- I'd love to hear more ideas or opinions. I like how we're all coming together with ideas here, it's very refreshing from the usual forums I wander.

[Enraged Ewok]

I'd like to point out that XP/rank does not lock you out of PVP, unless your only definition of PVP is a massive fleet action in a 25v25 Port Battle (I can somewhat understand the misconception, given that for the past 2 weeks the US east coast PBs have been 90% deep water ports with a full pirate rated SoL fleet hitting them). That being said, there is still PVP available in  the screening fleet before the battle actually starts, not to mention that you can find a friend and hit ships sailing up and down the coast outside of PB primetime. 5th rates and lower are actually better for that small scale PVP  than rated SoLs, as they will have no trouble getting away from a bunch of SoLs.

[Mrdoomed]

I'm glad everyone spoke of this responsibly as adults- I'll admit my first post was rather hostile towards the topic at first but looking back on it I can see how it'd come off as mean spirited.

I think you all bring up very good points, though I for one would like to see more "varied" missions, as least to assist in the grind. Currently, the only missions we have are go to X and kill Y, no meaning or otherwise. I think it would be a good idea from a gameplay standpoint to give PVP related missions, or missions where you raid various places/areas/convoys, which would damage the defenses of a port and allow for an easier port battle. This way, smaller ships like Frigates and Surprises still have a place in the meta- They are faster, quicker, hit and run ships that can damage trade lines and reinforcements from other ports and make it easier for the larger ships to capture them.

I'm not sure- I'd love to hear more ideas or opinions. I like how we're all coming together with ideas here, it's very refreshing from the usual forums I wander.

I never sail anything larger than a suprise or a Cerb and believe me they are useful in the game. Just last night my friend and i took on a connie and belle in our two Suprise. The battle lasted the entire timer till it expired and was one of the best battles we had. We had the Belle sinking and the connie aas partially demasted and beat up bad.

Now the difference could be that we play just to have fun and not worry about how fast we level or what size ship we are in, in fact im not even sure what my rank is lol. I think the key to any game from checkers to NA is to just have fun and to not worry about xp ranks etc.

Find a friend and make your own missions and your own fun. Make challenges for yourself for the day and try to finish them etc. Good luck.

[The Spud]

There is always fun to be had, especialy when you don't realy care if you lose a dura or not, wich is prety doable if you sail surprises or frigs you can buy from NPC for cheap, or just a capped one. Because in a more or less fair fights, you might tend to run from a situation that might just need one more broadside to turn the tides in your favour. There are alot of variables in this game, and a case is never realy lost.

 

A NPC surprise or frig, even if you sink it 5 battles in a row, will most likely have made you more money than the cost of the ship.

[Mrdoomed]

Thats how i play. Ill make an exeptional ship and use it till its down to 1 durability then take the mods off it and either sell it or sail it on the cheap till it sinks.

The couple of us that play together all have a short window of time to play most days ao we give ourselves missions. Ine day it may be to patrol our "home waters" and sink trade ships or players who get to close, and other days we may decide to go kill a certain number of player ships of a certain class. Sometimes we say today where gonna take on a 3rd rate or two connies etc knowing a win is unlikely but we want to see how much pain we can inflict and then get away....or sink.

[Porpoise]

I won my first PVP engagement after 2 days in the game. Ships like Pickle or Privateer and Snow are easy to get and really enjoyable in the small ships PVP. Grind to 200 crew takes cca. 20 hours and allows you to sail smaller frigates easily. PVP is not only about line battles for ports.

[Babble]

The snow is hands down my favorite ship in the game.

 

Super easy to cap one from an NPC and sail it for free.

 

 

 

Ask the rats near Tourtuga how the the snow storm has been treating them the past few days if you have any doubts about its viability in battle.

[Ink]

Some changes in PB will also aid ships bellow 4-th rank, ports will be split into 3 groups in a patch or two:

• Shallow water - up to brigs
• Normal ports - all frigates
• Regional Capitals - ships of the line

[Mrdoomed]

The snow is hands down my favorite ship in the game.

Super easy to cap one from an NPC and sail it for free.

Ask the rats near Tourtuga how the the snow storm has been treating them the past few days if you have any doubts about its viability in battle.

More people need this attitude. Every ship in this game is viable and has a use and can disrupt an enemys ability to advance. I also like the small ships and my small clan usual decides whem we log in what ship sizes we want to use that day and then go after appropriate targets or use several small ships tontake down a large one. We used a brig and privateer to sink a cerb and suprise in same battle. Battles like that are sooooooo much fun even if you have to run or get sank, sunk , sinkeded.

[Blood Eagle]

The problem is that all we have is swallow + deep water battles. Deep water is to board, they need a mid tier for port battles. What I think they should do is have a 3rd tier for regional port battles which is 3rd and above only. Then have deep water cerb to Trin only.

[Blood Eagle]

Some changes in PB will also aid ships bellow 4-th rank, ports will be split into 3 groups in a patch or two:

• Shallow water - up to brigs
• Normal ports - all frigates
• Regional Capitals - ships of the line

 

 

 

Praise god, this will be a very huge positive for the game.

[Prater]

There are two issues. The first one is a game mechanics issue that so far no one has been able to come up with a fix for.

 

#1  The game pushes you towards larger and larger ships.  Progression is faster once you get to larger ships because you gain more xp and gold.  SOL creep is a major problem.  There aren't that many disadvantages with using a larger ship, and once you get one, you can farm gold, perhaps making 1 million gold in a single port battle.

 

To counter sol creep, many of us proposed that xp requirements be increased.  But that obviously has not been a good suggestion and I myself admit that I was wrong to be one of the many people who suggested this.  Some other mechanic has to be thought up to slow sol creep.  My suggestion would be to make 1-2 rates travel 25% slower on the Open Sea.  Have 3rd rates travel 5-10% slower on the Open Sea.  But I don't know if this is a good idea.  Back to the increased amount requirement for xp, this leads into #2.

 

#2  A large amount of the players were able to level up faster through an enemy reinforcement bug/exploit with alt accounts.  This was disabled, but left the rest of us not able to reap the benefits like these players.

 

Thankfully the game is resilient to hacking since it isn't client based, but it has become exploit central with alts lately.  Either you have alts messing with flag mechanics, spying, pulling others into battles, econ exploits, moving ships exploits, or alts being used to level up players faster.  And what can you do about that?  Probably nothing.