Patch 9.7 - Land sighted

[Destraex]

there is no point playing the game imho if your only reason for doing so is grinding levels. It is a one off payment and should be about sailing the ships.

i said that even BEFORE the patch... it was already WAY to easy... and additional to the xp requirement nerf, u will get a lot of more xp with the new fleets and the ability to grind higher missions

 

but its not about not letting casual gamers try the big ships, that is fine... its about giving the hardcore players still something to do... thats why we need another system like crew/officer lvling or pvp ranks or stuff like that, where every upgrade only gives u a tiny improvment... 

[Jeheil]

Such alot of content in this patch, massive amount of work, there are some really big changes in here, you can certainty see the emergence of the player crafter/trader becoming such a key element.

 

A small qualification on the Blueprints change (duplicate BP won't drop if you know one).

 

I am level 29, so I am crafting exceptional Frigates to get the 'red' blueprints for my later ships.

 

If I get lets say a Trinc BP, but I don't use it, could I sell it (for immediate gain) and potentially get it again ?

 

Does 'known' mean it has 'dropped for me' or 'I have USED the dropped BP' ?

[Fastidius]

OK so my take,   Less people on the game today since the patch seems to have created too much danger it seems.  we normally have 20 + on at this time and we have 6, 3 of which are crafting only. May not be the cause but i think it is worth looking at fixing a couple of things FAST.

 

Rank xp changes seems a bit overly broken.   it was only 75 battles from post to flag,  dropping that to say 50 or 45 would be ok but you basically removed a whole ranks worth.  in testing i think that helps you see what happens end game but if you make everyone a rear admiral in a  few weeks  (it is likely for some clans to have lots of max rank members) then there better be some way to scoreboard them. 

 

Leaks are too extreme - penetrating a ship and doing 4+ leaks = 20 seconds till it sinks...this needs to be scaled back by about 60 %.  also ramming a sinking ship sinks you too....just masts showing. this is partially shock from the sudden change but reality is the AI cutters you fleet with at low levels for instance are more dangerous than the enemy.  Scaling "LEAK EFFECT" by 50% shouls eb an easy hot fix to see if we can find a better middle ground.Ramming damage is over the top but i think it is the right direction...i never cared about leaks in my ship, now i fear ships sailing near me like indy fears snakes. again this is probably only the leaks thing but "rubbing is racing" and it will happen.

 

Scaling of the ships models vs land is a bit crazy, ships need to scale down a lot more in actual battles.  It just is way out of scale.

 

AI Fleets.  Well big ones are good but it feels a bit   Massive fleets vs 4 ship fleets to me,  minimal sailing around the map but might just wanna keep an ear to the ground on making fleets of various sizes and not crazy santi fleets.  they also seem to not appear in areas there used to be fleets.

 

niagara, ventre and stuff being around is good but again mostly friendly only which is a bit rubbish.

 

AI Accuracy/Pen - ai is better on sailing,  accuracy is OP and pen with smaller guns seems broken.

[Destraex]

Scale is very important for the tactical battles. The tactical battles were the real deal and looked and felt realistic. The open world was always abstract but good enough for travel and other functions.

However the new land patch now brings that sense of compression, scale abstraction and general lack of immersion into the tactical battles. It's strange to sail across an entire bay in a tactical battle in 5 seconds. It feels like I am in a small bay sailing a lazer rather than actually sailing in an ocean. Some have pointed out the problems with entire headlands being only a few ship lengths across and 7km wide in real life.

 

This is how I feel right now in tactical battles. A giant ship looking at minature land and sea features. A model boat that is large against the pond it is sailing in.

I feel like gulliver would have felt. A giant ship.

[OTMatt]

 

Rank xp changes seems a bit overly broken.   it was only 75 battles from post to flag,  dropping that to say 50 or 45 would be ok but you basically removed a whole ranks worth.  in testing i think that helps you see what happens end game but if you make everyone a rear admiral in a  few weeks  (it is likely for some clans to have lots of max rank members) then there better be some way to scoreboard them. 

 

I appreciate being bumped from Captain to Flag Captain but Fastidius makes sense. I basically unlocked 80% of the ships in a two month period.

 

But theres something to consider here, theres not a lot of ships in the game currently so it makes sense to put grind on hyperdrive just to keep players from becoming bored. Maybe in the future when theres more ships they can bring the grind back to its original state.

 

Maybe they can compensate for the massive grind by including crew unlocks. Like Captain I unlocks 350 crew, Captain II unlocks 380 Crew, and so on that helps making undercrewing larger ships possible.

[John SIlver]

Scale is very important for the tactical battles. The tactical battles were the real deal and looked and felt realistic. The open world was always abstract but good enough for travel and other functions.

However the new land patch now brings that sense of compression, scale abstraction and general lack of immersion into the tactical battles. It's strange to sail across an entire bay in a tactical battle in 5 seconds. It feels like I am in a small bay sailing a lazer rather than actually sailing in an ocean. Some have pointed out the problems with entire headlands being only a few ship lengths across and 7km wide in real life.

 

This is how I feel right now in tactical battles. A giant ship looking at minature land and sea features. A model boat that is large against the pond it is sailing in.

I feel like gulliver would have felt. A giant ship.

 

 

Myself and my group of 19 friends feel the complete opposite. The game feels incredibly more immersive now that the battles take place where you actually started them in the open world. Just being at open sea in battle, like it was before, was completely dull and immersion breaking and created a repetitive experience.

 

Unless you've actually been to Mortimer Town/Port Royal etc. I don't see how you could complain about the scale of it all.

Edited April 14, 2016 by John SIlver

[Master Earl]

Need More trader NPCs turned on like before.  

 

Ramming Speeeeed!

[Migui]

Scale is very important for the tactical battles. The tactical battles were the real deal and looked and felt realistic. The open world was always abstract but good enough for travel and other functions.

However the new land patch now brings that sense of compression, scale abstraction and general lack of immersion into the tactical battles. It's strange to sail across an entire bay in a tactical battle in 5 seconds. It feels like I am in a small bay sailing a lazer rather than actually sailing in an ocean. Some have pointed out the problems with entire headlands being only a few ship lengths across and 7km wide in real life.

 

This is how I feel right now in tactical battles. A giant ship looking at minature land and sea features. A model boat that is large against the pond it is sailing in.

I feel like gulliver would have felt. A giant ship.

Yeah i wonder wy La Habana doesn't have its bay while Port Royal does

[Blackjack Morgan]

Another thing I don't like and makes ZERO sense: Battles starting with no guns loaded! WTF?!

 

How does it make any sense at all that I spot a sail on the horizon....begin chase....time spent chasing the enemy could be the equivalent to half a day....and as I finally get to engagement range my crew has not loaded the cannons? They would have to be the biggest contingent of incompetent fools not to begin making ready for battle as we closed. Why did you change this? Again, don't recall an outcry of testers complaining about this dynamic....

 

You guys have done an amazing job but starting to suffer from over tweaking stuff that doesn't need to be "fixed". 

[Destraex]

Myself and my group of 19 friends feel the complete opposite. The game feels incredibly more immersive now that the battles take place where you actually started them in the open world. Just being at open sea in battle, like it was before, was completely dull and immersion breaking and created a repetitive experience.

 

Unless you've actually been to Mortimer Town/Port Royal etc. I don't see how you could complain about the scale of it all.

I don't want land removed. I just want scale applied when zooming into battle so that bays and towns etc even islands in tactical battles are not tiny dots.

I would say anybody would understand who has ever been in a harbour how big they should be and how big beaches and trees and towns should be.

How small a ship is in real life compared to land and how large real life inlets usually are that ships actually use.... 

What you are saying is a little like saying the person in my picture should not know she should be smaller because she has never seen this particular villiage..

[Bert Beard]

I thought the dev's said they reduced the grind by reducing the XP thresholds.

 

What actually happened was my existing xp was reduced by about 20 % and the threshold remained the same........now it will take longer to reach the next level.

[Ehutchin78]

I read constantly but seldom post...that said.....

I logged in today with much excitement but I have to agree with the other posters in terms of scale. It's just about game breaking for me at least. And yes, this is just my opinion only. Going into battle now takes out all of the immersion and at first look it seems or feels as the the ocean is the open world ocean and not the higher quality we seemed to receive before. Also the lack of AI ships leaves the world feeling VERY empty.

I know we are still in alpha but it almost makes me wish the entire world was drawn to real life scale even though I know it would take longer to travel and most people don't have the time for that. If RPG elements were added like food, water and rations that could have worked but I understand it wasn't the aim of the developers.

The scale kills the game for me. I truly hate to say that and at this point I hope they will roll the patch back. I say that with the utmost respect to the developers who have taken so much time working on this but unless your willing to draw to true scale what you would actually see in the battle instance I think they/ we are going to find that this won't work for the game.

Best wishes to the programmers as I know some of these opinions might be tough to hear. I've got some time off out of the country so I won't be playing until I see what happens.

Take care everyone.

Eric

"HUTCH78" on PVP2

Over 250 hours logged.

Also ..becoming a post captain when I haven't earned it was a let down as well. I was halfway there and felt that that kind of broke the game for me as well.

[Bert Beard]

Sorry.......I need to retract my last post.

 

My experience points had gone down from before the patch but what I didn't first notice was that my crew size went way up........from 250 to 350.

 

So......I now have a larger crew.......that is a good thing.

Edited April 14, 2016 by Bert Beard

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

Another thing I don't like and makes ZERO sense: Battles starting with no guns loaded! WTF?!

 

How does it make any sense at all that I spot a sail on the horizon....begin chase....time spent chasing the enemy could be the equivalent to half a day....and as I finally get to engagement range my crew has not loaded the cannons? They would have to be the biggest contingent of incompetent fools not to begin making ready for battle as we closed. Why did you change this? Again, don't recall an outcry of testers complaining about this dynamic....

 

You guys have done an amazing job but starting to suffer from over tweaking stuff that doesn't need to be "fixed".

Before, you always started at a good distance from the enemy. After patch, you can start within a biscuit toss of the enemy. I believe the loading of guns gives everyone a moment to get sails up and start maneuvers.

  

I thought the dev's said they reduced the grind by reducing the XP thresholds.

 

What actually happened was my existing xp was reduced by about 20 % and the threshold remained the same........now it will take longer to reach the next level.

You gained at least one rank. They lowered the XP requirements for each rank so your existing rank increased.

[Quineloe]

Can we please stop with these "Play on a PVE Server" cheap shots already?

 

There's many people who like most kinds of PVP, but not the 10vs1 gank. Their opinion is as valid as yours.

[Ligatorswe]

"Leaks - Completely out of hand. needs a hotfix asap. this makes suicide ships a very viable tactic (use a small ship to suicide sink a big ship via ram). "
Agree. According to my understanding this game is about 17th and 18th and 19th century warfare. Ramming was a part of roman strategy. :-) This really needs to be fixed.

Capturing ships should be possible in PVP. 

[Ledinis]

"Leaks - Completely out of hand. needs a hotfix asap. this makes suicide ships a very viable tactic (use a small ship to suicide sink a big ship via ram). "

Agree. According to my understanding this game is about 17th and 18th and 19th century warfare. Ramming was a part of roman strategy. :-) This really needs to be fixed.

Capturing ships should be possible in PVP. 

Tweak would be a better word for it. It seems a bit excessive at the moment, but before the patch i used to stop Line ships by going in front of them and doing a hard turn to their bow to make them ram me head on and suffered close to no damage in my Frigates, while in reality i would assume i would have 2 frigates instead of one after doing that  

 

Other than that the patch is awesome.

[Conde]

Ramming was a part of roman strategy.

 

It actually was Carthage that did the ramming, During the punic wars Carthage held mediterranean dominance. by using hit-and-run tactics with their Triremes/Quinqueremes specifically made for ramming they pretty much trashed the weaker Roman navy, Until the romans copied the Carthaginian ship designs and invested a lot more on their navy.

 

Carthaginians were pretty good sailors but not so good on melee, unlike the romans which ended up countering the ramming tactics with boarding. Using instruments like this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvus_%28boarding_device%29

In the end they managed to overpower the Carthaginians in hand-to-hand combat and conquered them in the long run. (Carthage also had an average army composed of mercenaries unlike the romans)

Edited April 14, 2016 by Conde

[DarkspaceII]

Am I the only one that just loves the patch ?

Not tested anything including Ais though..

1. More leaks - great!! Finally a good counter for demasting, carros are way more effective(open more leaks)

2. BR diff. Now at last i see people realize how useless is a live oak ship in OS... Usually you waste yours, and others time coming with your live oak/stiff ship.. you never gonna hit anything unless your "tacklers" demast your enemies..

3. No capped ships? Great! See 2...

The only thing that needs a little tweak imo, is the amount of leaking. 

[snackbar]

Can we please stop with these "Play on a PVE Server" cheap shots already?

 

There's many people who like most kinds of PVP, but not the 10vs1 gank. Their opinion is as valid as yours.

Fail to see how it's a cheap shot. I believe the pve server exists for a reason and my opinion is just as valid as theirs. However, I am a pvp player. If you only want certain types of pvp then perhaps a completely open pvp server isn't the best option for you.

Anti-gank measures are a bad idea for any pvp game especially one like this considering ganking adds a lot of content to the game since it can be used as a mean to many ends. I.e. stirring up a fight, blockading a port, establishing a presence in an area, personal vendettas, privateering, etc. This is why removing AI reinforcements was a great change. Now we can actually blockade ports and harass traders. I can actually be a pirate/privateer etc. This is what a sandbox game is all about. The freedom to make my own content. That doesn't mean everyone will like what everyone does. 

If this isn't removed and/or more "anti-gank" measures are added I will be quitting for sure. I'm sure many people will feel the same way. I don't enjoy the 10v1 gank. It's really boring for both sides. However, that doesn't mean they are without purpose. Furthermore, any competent player can defensively tag and avoid almost all ganks.

If you want to fix something how about fixing invis/invurnerable timers so you can't hide in ports and bait. Or how about fixing baiting while people hide in battles.

Edited April 14, 2016 by snackbar

[Slamz]

Over the last month 800 people participated in the port battles out of 20,000 players who logged even once.

 

Which seems like good evidence of the problem(s).

 

We would like to do more (and have more of them be real fights) but there is not enough reason to be active on the front lines and lots of people troll with the timers by setting most ports to very off-peak hours. If you have the stats for it, I wonder what percentage of port battles were worse than 2:1 odds in the fight (e.g., 20 attackers versus 10 or fewer defenders). I would bet there are more off-balance port battles than good ones.

 

The present system is more about ways to avoid fighting the enemy. Players do it because they want to "win" but they end up boring themselves out of the game because it's a dumb way to play (no fun).

[Peiper]

Getting a lot of reports from my guildies that the NPC's are chewing them up way too fast - they don't miss a shot, they're super-NPC's!  That has been my experience as well.

[Admiral_Of_The_Fleet]

Well I am easily pleased with the new changes that the DEVS have made, new changes and tweaks bring more enjoyment into the game.

 

This Alpha version is pretty well darn good so far and I look forward to more changes and improvements.

 

I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE FINAL RELEASE OF THIS GAME.

[iR_Willow]

Coming here to read the forums while I go play the crash infested AoP CT to run around living the hard pirate life in a schooner.

 

Anti-gank =/= sandbox pvp

Anti-gank = matchmaker pvp

[Enraged Ewok]

I've had a chance to get my feet wet with the patch now, so my 2 cent:

 

To get started I bought a grey Mercury from Portillo (PVP1) and left for Jamaica. To my surprise, I found a spanish Renomee right outside port which I attacked. He sank me, but not before I got him down to around half side armor. Having the land so close (as I had tagged close to shore) was really neat, though unfortunately I didn't get to make much use of it tactically. I did end up sinking, as I made a mistake and showed my low side, which he destroyed the remaining armor on and I was not able to repair before I flooded and sank.

 

After getting farther south to Jamaica, I engaged a British brig that ended in a stalemate, nothing interesting here other than finding out how the join circle works for in-progress battles (I jumped into his mission). I was also rammed by an AI basic cutter, which aside from requiring 36 of my 109 remaining men to plug leaks, did nothing to hurt my combat effectiveness.

 

After leaving the brig, I ran into a British frigate which I engaged. Still far enough out from Jamaica that land was not tactically useful, but it looked absolutely beautiful in the background of the battle. I did get a love tap from the frigate, where when trying to pass ahead of him he rammed my stern. He was probably between 7-8 knts speed, though the angle was closer the 30* than the 90* perpendicular hit. From previous comments in this thread I thought my mercury was done for, but to my surprise I didn't spring a single leak. He escaped from me later with 20% armor and ran for port.

 

I chased him to the north side of Jamaica, where I encountered the brig from before heading to the same town as the frigate. The frigate I judged would make port before I could tag him, so I tagged the brig instead. Wind was in my favor, and turning from the west to the south, meaning the brig was trapped between me and the land and his best point of sail was going to put him ashore. He tried to chain my sails to escape as before, but since I was a lot closer (tag instead of mission join) I was able to hole his waterline enough with the 24pd carros to sink him through leaks. He had nearly full front, left, and back armor, and around 50% on his right side. I was happy to see him sink though, as I really didn't want him to escape from me again.

 

I haven't had the opportunity to test the fleet missions or the massive AI fleets (though I did see a 9 vic, 6 pavel, 6 3rd rate, + some bellonas fleet of Jamaica while PVPing) so I can't comment on those. Reports in this thread of AIs being more retarded than usual seems wrong. They seem just as stupid as they always have been with the AI cutter ramming me while I engaged the brig. Additionally, leaks from ramming don't seem bad at all (the cutter T-boned my mercury, and the collision with the frigate was closer to |\ on my stern. Neither caused immense flooding as I feared it would from feedback here. I can only assume it was due to speed, angle, and the size of the ships involved that I got off lightly. I'll be taking the Belle Poule out tomorrow to see how that one works.

 

One last thing, I'm very glad that the port display now shows how a ships armament impacts its speed. It's a small thing in a huge patch, but it has major implications both for groups determining what ships to use when grouping for PVP and for the solo player measuring his chances of escaping ganks or larger ships. Thanks for the hard work Devs.