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Posted

So, Iv been reading the forums over the last few days to get an Idea of the game. Iv seen a lot of post on the opinions of players stating why they feel other new players are quitting the game. I thought Well, I'm a new player so I guess maybe I should put my  2cents in.

I'll start off by stating that I purchased this game about a year ago, When I first jumped in I had Absolutely NO idea of what the hell I was suppose to do. There is no guide in the game to explain to me what the heck I am to do.  Realistically I shouldn't have to turn to the internet to figure out what I'm suppose to do.

The first thing I ended up doing was leaving port and at that time I guess the player base was much higher and I would see all these event battles outside of the port area. Of course being new, I Clicked enter on them to Only find I got placed in a HUGE battle with massive ships essentially killing myself. I did this a few times till I realized that I must be doing something wrong and was most likely not suppose to be clicking on them. After visiting ports over the next little while, I still was unsure of what to do and in the end I quit the game.

Fast forward to a year later, I decided well heck I'm feeling like a boat game so Imma give this game a solid try this time around. So without checking the internet for a guide of how to play (which I really should have done at this point) I felt maybe the game after a year of development might be a little more noob friendly. Well I was wrong and its very much the same as how I left it a Year ago, but this time I am Determined to give this game a solid try.  So While In port I look for Mission which I find and I'm provided with 2 options. Trade and Combat. I think well Trade should be easy enough, Lets give that a go. Now i'm faced with having to Find and Purchase with No money the supply's I need to trade with. Well, The shop in the port that I accept this mission from does not have the supply's that I am required to Trade ( Which Honestly I understand why this might be a thing but from a gameplay stand point if a port is giving you a supply quest, It should provide you with the supply's) Keep in mind I am a NEW player  who doesn't know where to find anything. I'm now suck with these quests and no idea where to go from there, I mean I don't even know how to navigate still at this point. so I'm thinking to myself Well F this ......Lets give the combat missions a try, Well to my success these missions are pretty easy! They give a decent amount of exp and enough gold to make the time it takes feel worth it (Atleast for me) So at this point I hit around 20 hrs of solid playing ( spend my entire weekend giving this game a solid shot) and after a long battle of trying to board and steal myself a ship, I'v finally Done it! I stole my first ship, I honestly felt sooooooo good at this point. I mean Its pretty tough stuff trying to get your ship along side the other with the right winds and being able to get them to slow down enough to board. I felt like I achieved something great.

Then...I decide to take my new shiny boat out for a test battle , cuz who doesn't want to test out there bran new ship. I crank up the difficulty of the missions to 2 teirs higher So I can try facing a bigger ship. I went in expecting to die but I just wanted to see what the medium sized combat felt like. Well as you may have expected, my ship sank and I returned to port no longer having the ship I stole in my possession. I was to say the least, PISSED. I was soooo ready to quit the game once again. I thought to myself , Why the HELL does it not say in plain site that my ship can be lost. So at this point, I take to the guides to properly find out how to play. Now not a lot of truly useful guide were found by myself , I didn't give it the full effort so that's my fault, luckly enough the player community it quite helpful and just by reading some of the questions other new players had I was able to get a better grasp of the game this way. I mean Heck I found out how to do trading once someone stated that if you open up the map and go to trade then type in what you want, It will show a list of ports. With in this list there are stars in 3 columns (Now I still don't fully know what all the letters mean) but from what the one player stated P means the port produces that Item. This is quite helpful information...The kind of information that maybe should be advised to the players through a tutorial of some sort at the start of the game

I think what Im getting at really is that the game needs to have at least a Tutorial of some sort that explains everything, so the new players have an Idea of where to start. At its current state, that new player friendly experience is just not there. I have since been helped out by the in game community on a few occasions now, they have pointed me in the right direction and I am now happily sailing a surprise. I still don't know where I'm to go at this point but, Im having fun doing what ever it is that im doing. I will be starting the trade portion of the game tonight and hopefully I find success.

I'm sorry for the long post / Gram / running sentences. Just wanted to give my little bit of feedback.

Regards, Okies

  • Like 7
Posted

Thanks Wraith :), Now that Im sailing a combat ship that Im interested in  and Experiencing the close to PERFECT combat, I don't foresee myself quitting this game again. The ball is rolling, Just gotta keep the momentum going :)

  • Like 3
Posted
31 minutes ago, Wraith said:

What ship are you in now?  The first thing you should do to ease your missions is to upgrade your cannons to carronades. This will speed things along when you're fighting AI. Also, invest in an Officer as soon as you can and start leveling him up. That's a new mechanic since you probably played last, and can help a lot for certain tasks (Carronade Master perk for example).

I'm currently under crewing a Surprise, I saw the ship in the store and a rate that I could afford so I jumped on it. Im crewing it with currently 120 crew. So it does run a little slow, I do have a mercury aswell ( which is a beautiful ship) I did purchase a Officer, but didn't know what it was for. Also I purchased an outpost thinking I could  store more ships but that didn't do anything , So not sure what I spend $5000 on. I haven't done a deep dive into upgrades yet. I purchased the standard Cannons on the shop for my Mercury and surprise.

Posted

The best way to get the hang of this game is asking for a clan in nation chat and joining their TS. The community is very helpful and will probably explain you a lot and help you out to get started.

  • Like 2
Posted (edited)
3 minutes ago, Davos Seasworth said:

Could be worse. Could be trying to learn how to play Elite Dangerous 

So this^ is a thing lol I jumped in with a x55 and oh my god did I quit that game so fast. Spent 2 hrs trying to learn how to land on a space station and then I shot out into space by mistake and couldn't figure out how to stop and once I did, I had no clue  how to get back to the start loloololol. Im clearly not one for  Going online and looking up instruction. For some reason the control layout in Elite didn't do a good job of telling me the controls for the joystick. I'm pretty scrubby. Wish I could get into elite, But im holding out for StarCitizen. -- Funny thing though, I found EVE online easier then Elite, most likely because it forced me though an hr long tutorial.

Edited by OkIES
Posted

I think many new players enter this game with the notion that this will be just one more game where you check off a couple video/sound/performance options, then go browse the keystroke commands a bit, and then just play till you get the feel for it and improve rapidly.  That's many other games, but it's not NA.  New players are in for hitting a brick wall at the outset, as you found out a year ago.

So many games today are created for instant gratification gameplay.  I like that NA is not one of those, but I bet this game loses a lot of players at the outset because of it.  Players who don't have the fortitude to stick with it and break through that wall like you did.  Kudos to you, captain, and much luck to you in this game.  ;)

  • Like 3
Posted (edited)

As an old PotbS Player (wich has a much similar game design) i started the game and immediately joined  a clan. I never had any starting problems in this game. But because of this post I realized wich problems a new player could have. I agree a simple "Getting started"-Tutorial should answer much questions and prevent the motivation loss in the first game hours. Hope the DEVs realize this thread like i did.

 

Edited by Sven Silberbart
  • Like 1
Posted (edited)

Well, I have to say I had a pretty amazing first experience last night with trading in my LGV . I was leaving Port La Nav (being a new play, I didn't know this was a dangerous place) As I was leaving I see in the Nation Chat: "Pirates at La Nav" I was like OMG Im at La Nav and then in the chat I read " They are Chasing a LGV" My heart started to beat so fast, I was looking all around trying to spot this pirate. I tell them In chat, Im in and LGV that just left la nav and they state" RUN LIKE HELL" Now during this time it was raining, I finally do a full 360 look around and I spot the sails of the priate behind me in the distance (Kinda felt like the scene in Master and Commander/or maybe it was priates of the Caribbean,  where they spot the sails In the dense fog) At this point I am just bookin it as fast as I can, Pointing my sails to get maximum wind coverage. I was successful in losing him in the fog and I made it to the port to trade my good and make a pretty penny doing so. I have to say, Experiences like this compel me to dive even more into this game :P 

Edited by OkIES
  • Like 5
Posted (edited)

yeah was PVP2 after the servers went back online around 4:20 AM EST. If it was you, Im happy I got away, I would have lost a lot of money if you caught me :(

Edited by OkIES
Posted
4 minutes ago, MidnightLight said:

Yeah that fog came and i had seen you on your LGV and then you where gone

 

Haha, Fog FTW! :D I may sacrifice some of my Surprise ships lives tonight and hang around La nav and see if I get find some 1v1s.

Posted
Just now, OkIES said:

Haha, Fog FTW! :D I may sacrifice some of my Surprise ships lives tonight and hang around La nav and see if I get find some 1v1s.

you want me to come out on a Buck and show you a good time then?
 

Posted (edited)

:P Possibly! I'm still at work for a few hrs, So it will be awhile before you see me hanging around the Island. I'll be an easy fight since Im undercrewing my surpise with only 120 crew atm.

Edited by OkIES
Posted (edited)

At 120 crew, may I suggest try the Mercury?  Full crew 135 last I checked unless it's been changed, and has enough firepower, speed and agility to compete in most small battles.  Another Surprise will be quite a challenge if you're in a Mercury (but doable, I have won such battles), but if you're undercrewed in your own Surprise you'll probably get wiped out anyway.  I made a ton of XP and gold in my Mercury for quite some time.

Edited by Jean Ribault
Posted (edited)

Perhaps.  But there was no Rattlesnake a while ago when I was all over the Mercury.  It's a great little ship.

Edited by Jean Ribault
  • Like 1

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