Wipe/Patch - impressions

[Werewolf]

07 all,

 

   First of all.... man. I would like to congratulate the devs on a patch very, very well done. It has its hiccups, but after spending several hours on it, I gotta say guys, I am highly, highly impressed.

I LOVE the new difficulty level. Having to buy X amount of cannons, sailing trade manually, navigating manually again..... I am simply loving it! 

The 1 dura thing really brings a fear of death. It makes you think twice, and then think three times. The game has become more of a chess match, much like the real thing.

The new voice effects that are dependent on how the battle is going are very immersive, and a very nice touch!

I love being able to loot the holds of ships in a battle.... perhaps a setting to "release" the ship when you are done looting, so whoever helped you can take their share is needed? We figured out you can select "sink ship" and the other person can loot, but they must be ready before you hit the button. Any way to let ships in an instance pull alongside and trade?

You no longer become a millionaire overnight. I see SOOOO much bitching about this, but I know it's because we were spoiled with an easy moneymaking system. This new level of difficulty gives tons of replayability, as well as requiring you to do your research via trader tool.

The ship perks are extremely well done... I love the menu you get to select upgrades. It makes life so much easier! Same thing with the former "officer" perks. I love that they are now tied to the captain and not a pixel 1st officer that does nothing other than die and make you re-grind an officer.

No teleport. This brings a tremendous amount of content, especially for pirates and privateers. Now that traders HAVE to sail the open world, as well as people stocking their shipyards, many MANY more chances to do the pirate thing. Tonight, me and a friend chased countless traders, most of them full of delicious loot. I love how you can tell if they are loaded or not by how fast they go in battle, a much needed addition.

 

Guys, I am so impressed. Seriously, great job.... this is how it should be! There are still a few bugs and glitches here and there, but hey.... I have confidence now that you will squash these issues before release. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Now, the big, stinky elephants in the room. First, the clan wipe.... I do think there is a lot of legitimacy behind wiping clans. At this point, it might be too late, and will need to be wiped at release, seeing as how people are already regrouping, etc. but it definitely needs to happen before release.

 

The big, big one. Folks that haven't played in a while, the ones that missed the announcements on how to preserve your rank. Is there anything that can be done to help these folks out? At first, I was like waaah, suck it up.... until I started seeing just how many captains were affected by this, and how deeply. I can understand their frustration. Not sure how to solve this one, but that's one of many reasons why I am not a game developer. How can we help these folks out, which will lead to higher player numbers, higher retention? A surprising number of captains were inactive now for several months and have now come back to check out the new patch, but are highly discouraged by their tremendous losses in rank.

 

All in all, very solid patch, devs. I commend you on the hard choices made. Someone will always bitch no matter what you do, but I will say this... since release, I have NEVER seen 280+ people online in the USA server at midnight EST, not ever. And this is just the first day. Figure out the rank issues for long dormant players, and you will almost double that number.

 

GREAT work, devs!

 

And of course, thanks to all of our great testbed users. I didn't ever join it, because I knew what the environment was like, constant changes and whatnot. Hats off to you guys for busting your asses for FREE to bring us a better game. Salute!

Edited May 25, 2017 by Werewolf

[Ser_Slack]

If you've got time to play 8-10 hours a day it's great! That's my first impression.

[Challenge]

I made about 2500 in an hour and a half on line -- and I wasn't really working at it. I was looking for ports to set up outposts in (for when I get some doubloons) and spotting a Brit smuggler. He wasn't worth much, but the salt he had mad a nice contribution. I wouldn't expect to get much more than that unless I put some serious effort or time in. Not sure that's a good thing or a bad thing -- just my observation.

[Ser_Slack]

23 minutes ago, Challenge said:

I made about 2500 in an hour and a half on line -- and I wasn't really working at it. I was looking for ports to set up outposts in (for when I get some doubloons) and spotting a Brit smuggler. He wasn't worth much, but the salt he had mad a nice contribution. I wouldn't expect to get much more than that unless I put some serious effort or time in. Not sure that's a good thing or a bad thing -- just my observation.

I made about 100k in 4-5 hours. I lucked out and got a trader that had some national goods. The first bit of seed money is always the hardest and I've just barely started. To be quite honest they are going to have to do something for genuine new people. I think it's to much for them.

[HoneyBaddger]

I don't agree that the grid lines should have been pulled. I think every map including back them had the grid lines. Other than that, I am enjoying my time on the new servers.

[Ahoy H.R. Matey]

"If you'd like the game to replace your life, if you LOVE LOVE LOVE grind and inconvenience, this is the patch for YOU!"

[Neptune]

"Patch 10.0 brings full time Naval Captain to life." 10/10

 

Edited May 29, 2017 by Neptune

[Rhodry Heidenrich]

Don't think the new patch is awful, but I also don't think it's an "11/10 would wait for several more months" patch.

It's a bit  more "grindy" than I like. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a challenging game but grinding is not equal to hard. Grinding is just a time sink and I do feel kind of sorry for people who aren't poop-sockers who have a pile of free time to spend on the game.