Content & features suggestions.

[Baptiste Gallouédec]

 

 

I enjoy this game even better after the patch, i love the one dura, the economy, roe, etc.. 

Here is my few suggestions i can imagine to increase the player experience at all level.

 

1-Scout report rewards:

 

When spotting an ennemy player sailing in your national waters, you could have the option when clicking on him (next to send a pm) to "send a report".

Such report would be like the ones we had at the beginning of OW: a letter (item) you can send in the chat saying something like "Baptiste Gallouédec have been spoted near Oranjstad in Renomee.." then the time since when the report have been made and when you read it  ".. 3 minutes ago."

Then the tagged ship would be displayed as such like for the "recently killed" message for some time to prevent spam from multiple players( timer to be adjusted)

The spotter will not be able to send another report for some time too, so he can't flood the chat screen. But if the tagged player get engaged and loose a fight while marked, the scout gets some gold & xp (mark ?).

 

=> I think this could reward teamplay, encourage small ship & low level players to contribute in pvp & Rvr. This could also help everyone in finding potential pvp.

=> This is also part of historical missions of small ships to collect intel, scout and act as messenger.

=> This is already doable by typing in chat windows but gives no reward and don't help players to progress by doing so. This is more clear to read, less confusing with multiple players signaling the same ship with different infos, multiple scouts.

 

___________________________________________________________________

 

2- AI small boats:

 Now that basic cutter is a free pve trainer ship and even trader lynx can have guns (and share same model as the combat counterpart). I had the idea that a few of the ai sailing in ow should be replaced by smaller sized boats, fishing boats, yacht, luggers, gunboats. No super fast boats or ship. Or even a Hms Bounty kind of ship.

 I know you told you delivered more ship than promiced, but ship diversity is a big plus in my opinion. I don't ask for a lot but like one or 2 (gunboat already exist, maybe rework it to make a fishingboat variant, same for yacht, a simple different reskin it, no gun or smaller guns.)

Basic cutter or lynx are quite decent ship and not that small ships, but right now they are the underdog. New players start in the ow and when next to frigates, lineships etc.. they have the feeling their cutter is like a rowboat. Having smaller boats in ow would create a better scale sense, better that than insane 6x santi+3x belo+3xbuc useless fleets..

They could drop few fishmeat, tobacco, sugar, watever trading ressource (never more than basic cutter hold) when catched in open world. 

They could also drop bottles or scouting reports (random enemy player ship location, rare ressource for sell in port + date of the report)

Make them limited to 1vs1 ow fight only (no pull circle) & maybe sub-coast guard missions (as tutorial). Not more than 1 or 2 gun, no marines, no boarding mods most of the time unarmed. This would be like a kind of tutorial of target practice, (even fighting an ai cutter in basic cutter can be very difficult for newcomers).

 

=> Players don't start with the feeling they are useless tiny rowboat and the smallest ship on the ocean.

=> Kind of coastgards target practice. Push low ranks players in OW (linked with the previous scout reports suggestions) without the risk of being jumped-in by some gankers or 

=> Better immersion in open world (OW should have either war fleets, or lone ships, lone ai ships are too few right now and who would tag a lone ai pickle right now ? They are useless for everyone, and too risky for newcomers in basic cutter, better smaller and slower

 

_____________________________________________________________________

 

2bis- Lynx/trader Lynx/Privateer:

 

 On a sidenote i advocate for switching the sail profile between Privateer & Lynx, and make the Lynx the same hull size like the priv as it should, this make no sense the privateer run worse upwind while he got more square sails. Also you could remove trader lynx and give the lynx the same hull space.

This way, privateer and lynx would be more balanced: privateer get overall better combat capacity and speed, Lynx become a privateer/contraband ship with excellent downwind capacity but worse combat capacity.

 

_____________________________________________________________________

 

3- Undergunned ships

 

 If doable, i would be pleased to have the possibility to undergun my ships. I think now you can buy guns per units and loot some, this would be a cool feature. 

 Either to save some weight and speed, or to be able to sail a ship even if short money or undercrewed.

This could also add variety between ships configs you meet in ow.. more strategy choices.

Also , basic cutter players will be able to try other guns with looted 6pd per exemple even if they can't fully fill their ship with. Even a 7th rank ship with just one long per side can be a viable annoying tag/chainshot ship. 

 

_____________________________________________________________________

 

4- Blocade

 

In mission tab, you can pay a good amount of gold/mark to select a port to blocade.

When selected, a large ring appear around the port, and the harbour is marked as such on the ow map for everyone as long as blocade is on (2h, 4h, 24h to be defined).

This can re-use the flag system to set the mission on if easier to code.

Every pvp battle inside the ring can’t be joined after the start to prevent port hide &  jump.

Each ship sunk or captured inside the circle count toward the attacking or the defending nation. When mission timer end, the winning nation's participants get rewards, top 10 from both nation gets tresure chests (leaderboard like the previous pvp event can be used).

(if the game engine can't support multiple pvp events at the same time, make them with a one week cooldown before same nation can rebuy a blocade mission. 

=> This can be used by a nation who know a pb is scheduled at this port, to give reward to screeners from both side

=> This can also be used to increase pvp & rewards  while you flip a region

 

_____________________________________________________________________

 

 

5- OW pvp reward & inducement : Minor victory & Surrender rework

 

(Maybe just for nationals captains as pirates can already have all the easy pvp they want)

 

-If the last combat ship of a side of a battle escape, the other side should receive some kind of rewards and be considered as a minor victory past a minimum amount of dmg deal (for making the other side rout/flee, and as a compensation for the time and risk taken.)

 

=> participation in pvp rewarded

 

-When surrendering, a captain should not be considered as out of combat. Ship raise sails and stop like now, but a window open similar as trade or hold inspection one with 2 options:

 

          A-Complete surrender (like now, crew saved, but leave ship & hold behind you) you can leave the battle immediately. Ship is displayed as abandoned.

          B-Ransom offer : you can offer an amount of gold, if an enemy captain inspect your ship, he can accept, he still can choose to take what is in your hold or not, but can’t use the sink or capture option, if he don't, you become complete surrender, then everything goes like now ) If he accepted your ship stay surrendered until all side leave the instance, from now enemy can't use X on you anymore, but can do anything else like now. When on ransom offer, until someone use X on you, you can switch to complete surrender at any moment.

 If no one check X when instance close you go back to OW like normal with nothing lost. If no one check x but enemy still sink you, you appear at nearest port like in case of complete surrender with the surviving crew you had when leaving instance. 

Maybe if a teammate check X on you before an enemy while on ransom offer, you can take part in battle again, and he can give you some of his repairs & crew , or if too gamebreaking, he can just add your ship in fleet or take control of it.

 

=> With the one dura, ganking is strong and very hard to endure when independant trader. This can be a chance to keep your ship, instead of privateers not able to loot because of ship hold limitation, and ending in sinking your ship & most of your cargo for very few gain.

 

_____________________________________________________________________

 

6- OW winds

 

Meteo should affect ow speed to a certain level, with 2 or 3 wind force status (strong breeze, high wind & strong gale for exemple) then get rid of copper plating & speed bow figure.

 

Winds don’t change ow speed but instead adding malus/boost for some king of ships

 

- The strongest wind would decrease overall max speed from a small %  for the smaller ships (5-6) and upwind sailing for square rigged ships + downwind bonus for rated ships (4-3-2-1)

 

- High wind, no bonus nor malus for any ship

 

- Strong breeze, upwind speed boost for small ships + downwind malus for square rigged ships.

 

=> No ship sure to outrun everything at a set angle everytime.

 

Edited June 19, 2017 by Baptiste Gallouédec

[Baptiste Gallouédec]

 Invisibility when returning to Open World:

 

 - When logging out of a battle, the invisibility timer should be related to the duration of the fight ( until the "battle over" message) So a captain returning to OW after a long battle could safely sail far from revenge/defense fleets but no invis bonus for countertaggers. Invisibility stay like now when leaving combat instance as soon as possible.

 This should be capped so it can't be used to sail accros the map safely while invisible after pve or arranged fight. 2 or 5 minutes invisibility at max per exemple.