Dear Devs (structured analysis and solution to current situation)

[Lord Vicious]

Lets analyze the last patch and why many things are wrong, is a chain reaction that you clearly not predicted, that bring the game to have 5x less pvp, pvp occasions and opportunity. Is a mix between forts-towers+roe+craft+new pb system + nerf on pvp/pve xp/gold gain +  nerf on resource gain(inaccesibility of  most important resource for pb/pvp ships material = liveoak)

 

I tryed to condensate in one single flawchat the main issues that are dispersed in many single threads, and the solutions proposed by many ppl, so some are mine and some are stuff that i read in the forums made by others such as Jeheil Tommy shelby and more

 

I play this game since february 2015, In bad and in good i contributed a lot with suggestions, "vitality of the server" often exposing my clan to be the bad guys and creating content when server was content less, by creating wars, "someone must be the villain you now? "  Overall i master 6000+ hours in the game  and even if majority of nations in game dont like me, Expecial in the test private forum even my worst enemies always gave me credit for be very impartial about my point of view. Most recently my concern about the placement of noobzone that was going to damage USA (and all know how low i like USA)

 

So this is my last attempt to waste my time to help improve this game, i grow my clan over and over to have 25-30ppl online, for then see my work destroyed by a patch that make ppl unwilling to play the game becouse and i am quoting "i am not having fun anymore"        I have players in clan with 10+ accounts and now they barely log in, so very hardcore dedicated players who got big hope into the game.

Another issue is how alliance system work, as Jeheil proofed they can drop alliance, conquer eachother ports,  also pirates still work as nation beside we have no administration tool, so  coalitions can defend each other ports while we cant,

Pirates politics should work at clan levels, pirates should be enemy to each other as default,  while clans  declare friendship between them so clan x clan be allied with clan y z etc form a coalition wich is enemy to all nations and all other pirates.

That will allow nations to "vote" also for  be allied wich certain pirate clans, maybe adding money on top of it  so alliance last only 1 week, 

example: spain propose to sorry alliance for a week for 1 gold or 100ml gold then is up to clanleaders to accept it or not, this will allow pirates to work as "privateers" join pb, join same fights, etc.  Making the politics much more interesting. Adding a lot to the deep of the game.

Wich can be easly implemented since is a system that already exist in the game,  simply pirate clans big enought? 30+? 50+? is treated as another alliance option in the list,    WHere nation can propose them alliance, not vice versa. by default you are enemy with all

 

perks: since you wanna re-introduce the social perk, wich is a terrible idea, imho will  better if you remove the free reset, and simply give us 2-3 5? officer slotso ppl "train" different officer for different perk setups,  the crafter one, the light ship one etc etc, that will not allow ppl to adapt istantly to every situation simply by docking resetting get social perk and swarm becouse the battle will be open

Ships:  Ppl complained about tournament becouse you gave bp, for ships that are impossible to obtain, since there is no more events, so they are exclusive, and very game breaking since agamennon is the most powerful ship for 4th rate battle and ocean is one of best for capital battle,    

So why dont release to all ocean agamennon cecilia heavy rattlesnaken, endymion and indifatigable?  there is already not many ships in game so why deprive us of all this wonderful ships, if you wanna "give good prizes" make unique skins for tournament like give to winners an unique 5 dura ocean with an unique skin, instead an unbalanced bp. thats why ppl complained.

The current endymion-indifatigable also got nerfed too much considering you can craft them and they turn like a brick their only advantage was the speed.

MAKE NA GREAT  AGAIN!

 

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Edited November 16, 2016 by Lord Vicious

[Timbo]

 Never thought I would say this, but I must agree with Vicious. 

[Salzi]

Sorry to state this but personally I have issues reading your charts (the bright colours and white writting I blame my stupid eyes hehe(Dyslexic me nothing to do with the size of the images)) - but from another perspective I also know a lot fo people mentioning how its not fun but I also have people ask what has changed and if they should come back once released. Honestly I am not sure at this point seems the games adding more restrictions than freedom of play.

But this is things that player requested feedback has asked for and some work and other do not, that said making a blanced system in a game like this is rather hard to do.

Personally I would like more details from the devs reguarding the upcoming changes and hotfixes but we cant get everything right. ^^

On another I have also have a Mechanic review in the works however the upcoming patch details added a delay in me finishing them plus being busy.

From Salzi - Neko king, Lord of Pickles.

Edited November 16, 2016 by Salzi

[Corona Lisa]

Just wait for the next patch.

 

Devs have their own stats and and have to be aware that playtime and fighting dropped like crazy since last patch.

Edited November 16, 2016 by JonSnowLetsGo

[Lord Vicious]

15 minutes ago, Salzi said:

Sorry to state this but personally I have issues reading your charts (the bright colours and white writting I blame my stupid eyes hehe(Dyslexic me nothing to do with the size of the images)) - but from another perspective I also know a lot fo people mentioning how its not fun but I also have people ask what has changed and if they should come back once released. Honestly I am not sure at this point seems the games adding more restrictions than freedom of play.

But this is things that player requested feedback has asked for and some work and other do not, that said making a blanced system in a game like this is rather hard to do.

Personally I would like more details from the devs reguarding the upcoming changes and hotfixes but we cant get everything right. ^^

On another I have also have a Mechanic review in the works however the upcoming patch details added a delay in me finishing them plus being busy.

From Salzi - Neko king, Lord of Pickles.

 

I  made text better try now

[Kloothommel]

It surprises me as well but I also agree with Lord Visjes. Good points and fun sounding solutions!

[Bountyhunter]

10 minutes ago, JonSnowLetsGo said:

Just wait for the next patch.

 

Devs have their own stats and and have to be aware that playtime and fighting dropped like crazy since last patch.

Its the last 3-4 patches! we have all been continuing to play while waiting for the next patch and I think the core guys are starting to leave due to the lack of improvement as many wont keep waiting for the next patch, devs need to listen to player base and mainly big clan leaders because they are the ones trying to create content to keep their guys happy.

Nice post Lord V (your still a noob)

 

[Cmdr RideZ]

If I understood correctly the community asked many features, which now look bad.  So I would say that the community is partly guilty from the fact that the last patch failed.

I think that often when feature "A" has been asked, everyone forgets to think things that are related to this specific feature.

Also, not sure, but there is a high change at least.  People are thinking the game they want to play, and not the game that will make servers full.  I think the devs are in this same pit.  Most people who already left the game, like months ago (year ago?), they never wrote to this forum.  So the next time you ask a feature A that you think is awesome, and 90% from casuals would hate.  Well, that is a shitty idea.

[Edward Canaday]

So first, I play PVP2 so my experiences obviously differ from OP's.  My first reaction to the "my work" comment was annoyance.  It's a game, stop taking it so seriously.  Beyond that, because I really don't want this to be yet another attack feed.

 

Ship Building - I feel like this is yet another complaint about how "hard" things are.  They are different, and some variety is required in the game.  I know there must be a line between realism and fun, but the US really were the only ones to have Live Oak.  Learn how to use the other woods effectively.  I would have thought that Bermuda would be hotly contested for the speed benefits.

 

ROE - I agree almost completely.  I do prefer the two circle system, but that's because I sail solo almost exclusively, and wouldn't "radio" in support as that seems too much out of character.  The scale difference between OW and BS is dramatic, so it seems ridiculous that someone could sail a hundred miles in two minutes and pop into the battle right next to me. (I'm anti-gank and ambush tactics, obviously)  But I will say I think towers and AI should be reduced, asnd the gold/xp gains should be raised - particularly for PVP.  I really must reiterate here that most people that hate the 2 circle system seem to have belonged to these super-fleets of players that loved preying on the lone or small group sailors.  I understand that this makes hunting more difficult for you, but for me it's improved my ability to expect a victorious outcome.  I know that I may be a minority, but getting gang raped by 15 ships - 9 of which are SOLs - is incredibly unsatisfying.  That's not fun for me, or anyone that plays like me.  It's only fun for the group of 15.

 

Crew losses - Sterns are weak points.  Stop showing yours to the enemy.  I like seeing more 5th rates on the ocean, instead of all these SOLs flying solo expecting uncontested dominance.  This goes back to variety in the battlefield.  If everyone sails the same ships (read SOLs) then it becomes a matter of who has the best Mod combo, and not who the better sailor is.  SOLs are massive gun platforms and not much else.  

 

PVE - I would also like to see more enemy ships, I dislike having to sail forever just to find AI prey.  

 

I won't put any input into the Port Battle stuff, because I could care less about that system.  I hope they fix whatever the problem is because I'm sick of everyone complaining about it.   Obviously I'm biased towards open water sailing and combat.  

 

Overall, I tend to somewhat agree and disagree with OP on this topic.  I like some aspects and dislike others of the new patch.  But I really do think it's just a matter of how much was changed so quickly.  People generally dislike change, and this was a lot to swallow for everyone.  I'm not as experienced as most of you (certianly not Vicious - 6000 hours?! get a life guy!) so maybe that's what made this change easier to digest.  

[TommyShelby]

Good analysis, i agree with everything in it. 
While Devs might already have plans for what to do i'm sure this will help them. 
+1.

PS. Paparazzi managed to take a picture of the bean that is Lord Vicious.
 

Edited November 16, 2016 by TommyShelby

[Red Jack Walker]

That's great posting, Vicious. Thank you!

[Stilgar]

I agree, there is definitely less PvP, let alone good PvP, and it does seem to be a result of stacking of various factors. Aside from some contribution of new ROE, forts, and economy, the conquest/alliance system seems the main offender. Alliances should be short-lived (3-4 weeks is ok), with one primary ally (that can join PB on ech other side) and no benefit  of producing in allied port (making outpost and trading freely is all right). As for conquest, hostility generation should be done via PvP for as much as possible.

It is tempting to ask for some sort of revival of flag mechanics, e.g., for port raiding, and in this way creating PvP events for hostility generation, but let me remind everyone about the senseless flag pulling exploits. So, hope a robust solution can be found.

[Cmdr RideZ]

Well, I do not really agree with all either.  Did Like it as it is mostly ok.

 

About the ROE:

I do not think it is cool that a fast ship goes to tag, and big ships follow slowly in the battle.  The big ships did not catch the target, so no reason for them to be in there either.

BR equalizer, should take things to right direction.  At least would be really interested to know why it would not work.  Smaller circle as well, it should go well with the "equalizer".  I can already see some exploitable situations, and as our playerbase is FULL of gents who love exploiting...  But will see.

[Jeheil]

Excellent post LV.

I agree very much with the key pain points and in the most part their associated suggestion.

I think we need to recognise the Dev's work at a slower timescale than our needs as players and its constructive feedback like this that I think can really help them.

The areas I vary in, are in the Crafting / Fine Wood. I would as I have said, simply introduce a process to create 'seasoned' wood from regular...a process that takes time and money...I like the fact the cost of ships makes them worth crafting. I would and I have expanded on this elsewhere like to see each resource have attributes FROM the region and you can build the ships ANYWHERE and inherit those attributes. BP drops need to be reworked if high end quality ships are retained as (I believe they should be) hard to build.

I think the hostility 'idea' is very good, however it needs alot of work, I do need to see and understand raids before I personally bury the hostility systems as a bad idea (rather than a bad implementation). But I agree 100% with how you define the problem.

I love some of your ideas to incentivise things.

One of the better posts I have seen on the forums for a while, o7

[vazco]

I don't agree with return of flags, as they were a huge timesink - you had to organize defensive fleets, which mostly sat in ports defending against fake flags. I think current system could be better once properly fixed.

I don't agree with limiting rake damage, as it's a realistic and interesting tactical option. It could be however fixed by making AI snipe your ass less in battles.

All other points are mostly ok.

[Lord Vicious]

4 hours ago, vazco said:

I don't agree with return of flags, as they were a huge timesink - you had to organize defensive fleets, which mostly sat in ports defending against fake flags. I think current system could be better once properly fixed.

I don't agree with limiting rake damage, as it's a realistic and interesting tactical option. It could be however fixed by making AI snipe your ass less in battles.

All other points are mostly ok.

they either fix current or return to a less problematic more fun system as before, we in test phase so thing can work or not, clearly the old system was more fun then ccurrent

[Kloothommel]

18 minutes ago, Lord Vicious said:

they either fix current or return to a less problematic more fun system as before, we in test phase so thing can work or not, clearly the old system was more fun then ccurrent

Including Lord protector and more timezone blocking? At least now you have 2 days to prepare now.

[Lord Vicious]

17 minutes ago, Kloothommel said:

Including Lord protector and more timezone blocking? At least now you have 2 days to prepare now.

 

You have no control over it, every random just log out there and join, before you could plan a pb with various clans etc.     flag system could be fixed and gave much more pvp opportunity between escort flag, screening then current pb system

 

And the timezone blocking could be fixed with other ideas, i understand you never got a clan field 25 ppl so for you is normal to fill a pb with 10 clans from your nation or more nations combined so you not understand the issues that an organized clan have now with the system it simply not allow us to join pb as cohesive force, cause randoms interference, even if we do all the work for cause the pb, and no log out in front  is not a solution

Edited November 17, 2016 by Lord Vicious

[Lord Vicious]

7 hours ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

Well, I do not really agree with all either.  Did Like it as it is mostly ok.

 

About the ROE:

I do not think it is cool that a fast ship goes to tag, and big ships follow slowly in the battle.  The big ships did not catch the target, so no reason for them to be in there either.

BR equalizer, should take things to right direction.  At least would be really interested to know why it would not work.  Smaller circle as well, it should go well with the "equalizer".  I can already see some exploitable situations, and as our playerbase is FULL of gents who love exploiting...  But will see.

Yeah beside an immaginary closed battle where ships "vanish" is realistic, i proposed a different approach

 

where ships tag with told double circle system and battle stay open 10 mins, but every 30 sec the spawn point get further away from the original spawn points 

 

so the original spawn point for the attacker is the tag guy position

and the original spawn point for defenders is the  guy that got tagged position

 

everyone that join starting from 30 sec later, they spawn 100? 200? 300?mt away from such positions      in opposite direction     <-------A         D---------> 

this system allow more realism, allow the role of tacklers , and give equal chance for defenders and attackers to get more ppl in, avoiding also the issue of ships vanishing from OW.

[akd]

Why should the "role"of tackler be enabled?  It just stacks things in favor of groups versus solo players.  Why should the slow heavy ships get a warp forward from the horizon to 300m away?  Also, how do you deal with land with a progressive distance system that spawns reinforcements onto one side or the other as in old ROE?

New ROE is the best we've had so far.  If anything, leave battles open for entry for 1 min from the edge of the outer circle (entering relative to position on circle).  A group won't be split down the middle, but that shouldn't be sufficient time to exploit OW to gain better wind or cut someone off.

[Teutonic]

Probably the first time I'm agreeing with absolutely everything LV has said.
I have not played Naval action for a good 2 weeks now...LV's proposed would be ideal for short term fixing. Everyone's experience may differ, but the most recent patch really did kill all the enthusiasm I had to play.

[Lord Vicious]

5 minutes ago, akd said:

Why should the "role"of tackler be enabled?  It just stacks things in favor of groups versus solo players.  Why should the slow heavy ships get a warp forward from the horizon to 300m away?  Also, how do you deal with land with a progressive distance system that spawns reinforcements onto one side or the other as in old ROE?

New ROE is the best we've had so far.  If anything, leave battles open for entry for 1 min from the edge of the outer circle (entering relative to position on circle).  A group won't be split down the middle, but that shouldn't be sufficient time to exploit OW to gain better wind or cut someone off.

land could be counted as limit, so the spawn point cant go too faar away if there is land involved, system favour defenders also since attackers spawn behind and need to chase while defenderrs get reinforcement probably in front of them  faar away where they could run to and regroup.

Is just an idea, still better then what we have now

 

[Black Spawn]

I definitely agree your points and sugestions to fix them in the most part.

But I think that some points are extremely time-intensive from a developers stance. For example your point on pirate politics.

Quote

Pirates politics should work at clan levels, pirates should be enemy to each other as default,  while clans  declare friendship between them so clan x clan be allied with clan y z etc form a coalition wich is enemy to all nations and all other pirates.

That will allow nations to "vote" also for  be allied wich certain pirate clans, maybe adding money on top of it  so alliance last only 1 week, 

example: spain propose to sorry alliance for a week for 1 gold or 100ml gold then is up to clanleaders to accept it or not, this will allow pirates to work as "privateers" join pb, join same fights, etc.  Making the politics much more interesting. Adding a lot to the deep of the game.

Wich can be easly implemented since is a system that already exist in the game,  simply pirate clans big enought? 30+? 50+? is treated as another alliance option in the list,   WHere nation can propose them alliance, not vice versa. by default you are enemy with all

I think the mechanics do not allow single groups or clans to act in the way you are proposing and i think it requires major change and therefore a lot of effort. As far as i comprehend we got the "players" acting as the toplevel object with "nations" as attribute beeing assigned to them. The given mechanic is either players with the same "nation" are either hostile or friendly entirely. With the alliances added nation to nation relations. For the mechanic you are supposing we would be looking into clan to nation relations - simplified - which i guess is rather tricky to implement regarding the database and its entity-relationship-modell. So i think workwise pirate mechanics will devour a whole patch itself and have few benefit for most players.

Looking at the devs agenda their are priorizing things that take relatively few time but have great impacts for now - efficent content if you will - since the mechanics are already in the game and therefore "only" need adjustment or implementing by using given tools.

I fully support your ideas of the provided chart which mostly "just" require tweaking of variables in my eyes, but most of the playerbase atm just sees the greater cause but not necessarily the workefford put in it. I guess what i am trying to say is that you should try to see things from a devs perspective as well...

Cudos for your collection of suggestions.

Edited November 17, 2016 by Black Spawn

[vazco]

2 hours ago, Lord Vicious said:

You have no control over it, every random just log out there and join, before you could plan a pb with various clans etc.     flag system could be fixed and gave much more pvp opportunity between escort flag, screening then current pb system

My experience was that in last 8 PB's we had only 1PB where randoms joined. This was battle just outside our capital. It was the same with a flag system, especially when defending. Maybe experience is different between nations.

Yes, a way to control who can go into the battle would be nice. Maybe higher ranks could vote-kick smaller ranks from battle... Still, I don't see this problem with Dutch nation.

 

Your idea about ROE circle is interesting, however breaks when there's a land. Shrinking outer circle by 30%, allowing people to join 1-2 minutes after battle started, and making joiners spawn on the outer circle regardless of wher they are in OW,  is a more reliable system I think. It should work well and create more PvP, as opposed to PvE...

[vazco]

btw, forts could be eg. only in regional capitals, with maybe a single tower in other cities.