Gripes I have about the current, plus suggestions on how to fix them

[kitsunelegend]

Gonna make this quick because I'm very tired and grumpy after sailing for 3.5 hours down from Charlston SC to Las Tortugas at the tip of the Florida keys.

 

First. Currently, there is no way to switch to a trader ship in your fleet while in OW. You need to dock up at a port where you have an outpost in order to switch ships.

-Simple solution, allow a way for captains to switch back and forth to one of their fleet ships while docked in in a nation, freetown or neutral port, without needing an outpost in said port.

 

Second. All ports pull directly from the same central port, aka if you have 5 slots in your port, and are using 5 of them, none of your other ports, whether they're down in Kingston/Port Royal or Charlston, can hold any more ships. This make literally 0 sense logically, even game wise.

-Simple solution, limit port slots to 3 per out post, with the ability to expand by single slots for say, 20k or 30k gold each per port. If you end up closing an outpost, you lose those slots, including the ones you bought at that port.

 

Third. Cannon cost is WAY WAY too high. Its so bad it ends up being prohibitively for anyone outside a large clan to outfit any of their ships beyond the basic cutter and anything bigger than a Pickle with 6pd medium cannons. This will only serve to chase people away from the game, because the newb progression is near impossible to get started. The other issue is that after you actually get going, the gold starts flowing and the econ gets a lot easier especially for clans, but this is completely backwards to what you stated you wanted. You said you don't want players sailing around in big 1st rate SoL after a week or two, but making the early game extremely punishing is NOT the way to go. I've already seen massive clans sailing around in Connies just last night. Three of them, all from the same clan, going out to do fleet missions with a bunch of Indef and other big ships. Meanwhile, I'm still tooting about in my redeemable Indef, Surprise and Pickle barely trying to make ends meet, with only enough cash to buy enough 6pd medium cannons to outfit one ship at a time.

-Simple solution, cut ALL cannon costs, and ALL resource costs in half. Allow single crafting of cannons (ie, the ability to craft a single cannon at a time) as well as the ability to craft a single mat at a time from the base resources. Then, adjust the pricing and mats required of all ships to promote better pvp, and a better economy. Basically, you want more ships being sunk by pvp, but at the same time you want to allow players to bounce back in a short while, all of which will greatly booster the economy and allow craftsmen to a better source of revenue and more stable economy.

=Increase the cost of 1st rates by 45% or 50%

=Increase the cost of 2nd and 3nd rates by 35%

=Leave 4th rates the same

=Decrease the costs of 5th rates by 20%

=Decrease costs of 6th rates by 30%

=Decrease the costs of 7th rates by 40%.

This will allow beginner players to progress at a decent rate, and make losing the ship in a bad PvP match not nearly as painful as it currently is right now. At the same time, big clans will still be able to use the big SoLs like the Victories, the Santis, ect, while the small casual players and solo players will most likely never go above ships like the Essex, the Connie, the Indef, ect. This not only promotes pvp but actually makes the early game fun, enjoyable, yet still dangerous for new players who just joined the game, all while stimulating the economy. Make 4th, 5th and 6th rates the bread and butter of ship builders, while leaving the 3rd rates and up for bigger, and more veteran players. If a solo player SOMEHOW gets a hold of a Santi or a Vic, chances are, he'll be fighting players out of his league, and will most likely lose that ship. SoLs should be rare, and what I stated above should greatly help with that.

 

Fourth. Combat missions need to come back all the way up to captain and maybe even flag captain. The way you have it currently set is simply just....dumb. It keeps players from playing the missions they want to play, and forces very long, and sometimes fruitless voyages in search of good battles with the AI. I understand you want more people in the OW, but limiting the missions like this was not the way to go. Especially for casual players who just want to jump on, grab a mission or two, and go out and fight. They don't want to spend the time searching for a fight, they want to fight. Like me, they might be wanting to take part in the econ part of the game as well, but maybe they don't have the time to sit down and search for battles as well. Maybe they want to sit down, grab a quick battle, and earn a little coin to help with their trading. And no, Naval Action Legends is NOT the answer. It'll only serve to split the already tiny community.

-Simple solution, allow players to get combat missions above captain or flag captain. Maybe put a cap on the number of mission you can fight per day, say two or three per day for those people who want to just grab a quick battle before work. And to promote more OW players, for the higher mission, send the location further out. Its ok for a little sailing, but make it so the player has a set goal and a set place to go to for that battle. Searching is fine for those players who like that, but not everyone has the time to do so. People have jobs and lives, and families they need to spend time with, so spending hours trying to find a single battle is not going to work.

 

Fifth. The map and navigation. Right now, the map and navigation is very difficult, time consuming, and has almost no player interaction beyond pointing your ship in a direction and pressing W until you're at full sails. This becomes extremely tiresome, boring, and frustrating for players, especially traders and will makes them want to throw their computers out the window when they miss they're stop by a country mile. As much as I do like the protractor, the map still lacks basic functionality that most if not all captains would have had back in the time period.

-Simple solution. Number one, add the ability to write and draw on the in game map. This alone will help with keeping track of rough location, triangulation, rough distance needed to travel, and other such important things a captain would need to use for navigation. This also adds a layer of depth and interaction for navigation, creating a sort of pseudo minigame to the map. (After all, I'm pretty sure every captain worth his salt would carry around at least basic writing instruments right?) Next, add in a sextant that players can purchase for gold in shops (for maybe 1500 gold?), or craft themselves using a couple gold ingots, some coal, and some iron fittings.

This will allow players to get a rough location of where they are, marked by a small oval on the map that vanishes after a minute or two. You can even make it so player can only take a reading from the sextant during daylight hours right after sunrise and right before sunset. This can give players a rough idea of where they are when they get lost at sea, but ONLY if they have the sextant with them. You can then make a dedicated slot for the sextant, like an upgrade for the captain, but have a very small chance for it to be lost if your ship sinks (to replicate it getting lost during the sinking or your captain being killed or whatever). All of this combined will make long travels not as boring or frustrating, make the trips interactive (meaning less afk sailing) and something else for craftsmen to sell and boost the ingame economy.

 

Sixth. Fleet missions. Taking out the friendly AI from fleet missions, in my opinion, was a VERY bad move. I personally used those missions for the times I wanted to take part in a BIG battle, but couldn't find anyone to join me. I had tons of fun, got bloodied, made other ships regret the day they set sail, and just had over all blast (pun intended! ) The AI wasn't the smartest, no, but it took a lot of heat off me that I otherwise would have had, had they not been there. I even had some AI steal a couple kills out from under me! lol

-VERY simple solution. Bring back the friendly AI in fleet missions. Its just that simple. They were fun, entertaining, and a way for solo players to enjoy pseudo port battles.

 

So yeah, these are my thoughts, suggestions, and gripes about the current game as it stands. Let me know what your thoughts are, and devs, please, for the LOVE of god, don't make this game harder than it needs to be. Games like these, NEED players to thrive, especially when it has an economy such as this.. This includes casual players, and players who can't spend hours upon hours in game. It needs to be a lot of fun fit into an hour or two's worth of time, and not as much as a time sink as it currently is, I hope you understand that.

 

[Nvm, this ended up WAAAAY longer than I wanted to lol. Guess I'm more passionate about this game than I originally thought. Oh well, if you made it this far, I hope you like my ideas and suggestions, and devs, I hope you take these and other player's suggestions to heart. We want this game to succeed, probably just as much as you do. Please, don't screw it up.]

[Mrdoomed]

The only thing i agree with is #3 . They need to have some kind of " basic" cannon that comes with a ship. Make them weaker, shorter range or breakable but at least make it so a casual player can suffer a loss and be able to get back into the action in a reasonable time.

Im just a casual player and have started from scratch and can tell it'sgonna take me forever to break the initial threshold in order to start making money. Players in big clans or who can play for hours and hours a day wont have problems keeping themselves in ships but casuals and new players better just love the basicfree cutter cuz its gonna be thier mainstay.