Learning curve is already steep, why make it even more difficult?

[AngryPanCake]

Let me start with: this is an awesome game, I've loved it since I bought it 3-4 months ago. This is also a hard game, which requires patience, dedication and perseverance. The majority of the reviews talk about how steep the learning curve is and we all know that. But why are some aspects of it so hard, so discouraging? why does it  have to be so complicated?

My most recent experience was about capturing a ship. 30 min of sailing around looking for the perfect "victim", then 30 min of battle, won the boarding, I looked for the [X] to initiate the capture, search cargo...etc, didn't see it, got the "Click ESC to leave the battle", clicked it and end up in the OW, captured ship lost, who knows what cargo was in it and a whole hour of gameplay for practically nothing!

Sure the whole sailing, fighting was designed to be as realistic as possible, which is great. This is not an arcade game, which is great too. With no coordinates on the map, you have no idea where you are, that's fine too. But, why is there a drive or desire to make other basic aspects of this game complicated? How hard is it to have a pop up menu that shows up automatically when a battle is won?

Everyone has at least once left a port where he/she didn't have an outpost after spending a fortune in purchased goods and then realized they were not loaded into the ship and were therefore lost. We get a pop up when we leave port with a ship without guns, but we don't get one to warn us goods are not in the hold. The after battle is so frikkin un-intuitive, it takes a psychic to figure out what to do. Tons of new features are added to make the game more fun, but how fun is it if you can't figure them out.

I mean seriously, veterans are debating TP, durability, conquest, trade goods, timers, alliances, exploits...stuff newbies can't even fathom, while new players are literally trying to stay afloat, trying to figure out the very basic stuff and I'm not talking about sailing, maneuvering in battle per se, but the everyday basic functions/interactions that help us navigate between the tasks we want to complete.

There is hard as in challenging and there is hard as in frustrating and this is becoming the latter. Challenge attracts players, frustration discourages them.

Anyway, sorry for the rant, I just got very frustrated. I was really having high hopes for my first big patch and I feel the basic functions have not much improved.

[ironhammer500]

I think the old loot screen is needed since i didnt know u had to loot npc wrecks till it was mentioned in a patch note, then tried it and found it not very practical in a battle at all. Ok maybe the after battle screen had bugs but what we have now is not really that good since its super hard to stop a ship before the guy sinks, loot him while being shot at..

Most times u cant loot cause ur camera is not looking in the correct place to. So for newbies i can imagine this a frustrating, the whole capturing thing is also a pain after, you gotta remember to transfer crew and all that.

I think sometimes the devs listen to the whiners who want the game to be so hard u need to class it as a 2nd job  not an actual game, while forgetting new players are faced with a massive wall.

Hell even Eve Online helps the new player into a massive game with a huge learning curve.