Update on the Game

[Garbad]

Hello all,

 

I've had my eye on this game for some time, and was hoping to get an informal update on what's going on, timelines for beta, and so on.  I watched the videos and it looks great -- very reminiscent of PotBS.  Sadly, information is pretty sparse and I gather its still quite early in development.  Can anyone direct me to more information, or perhaps just give me your personal take?

 

Thanks.

 

P.S.  Yes, I'm the Garbad from potbs/wot/eve/gw2.  Good to see you again too!  o7

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

Heya Garbad, Triptyx here from the Wargaming titles.

 

The game is currently in "Sea Trials", an early part of Alpha Testing.  You can get access fairly quickly by pre-ordering the game.  They currently have PvE (players on one team versus bots on the other) and PvP modes implemented, along with a rudimentary progression system for larger ships in place (mainly, I believe, to force testers into some of the smaller ships for balancing data).  The gameplay that is implemented is quite polished and a lot of fun - looks great, plays well as long as you have  DX11 capable video card and OS, and I've personally been enjoying myself immensely.  The developers are extremely responsive to community input as they're a small team, and often ask our help in gathering informational resources, etc.

 

If you take a look on YouTube, you can find tons of gameplay footage.

[ulysse77]

I was also thinking about that, would be nice if we get some kind of devlog even if it was just monthly.

 

BTW This is already one of my favourite titles, as bare bone as it is.

[Grim DeGrim]

Hello Garbad. Good to see you.

A formal update would be wonderful.

[amphore]

omg Grim

[amphore]

Hello all,

 

I've had my eye on this game for some time, and was hoping to get an informal update on what's going on, timelines for beta, and so on.  I watched the videos and it looks great -- very reminiscent of PotBS.  Sadly, information is pretty sparse and I gather its still quite early in development.  Can anyone direct me to more information, or perhaps just give me your personal take?

 

Thanks.

 

P.S.  Yes, I'm the Garbad from potbs/wot/eve/gw2.  Good to see you again too!  o7

 

you should look on facebook and twitter page. they put screenshots and news time to time

[Roadkill]

Having just had my first battle in a storm all I can say is buy this.  As it stands it is a beautiful game but the battle in a storm took my breath away.  For any fans of the age of sail it's a must. 

[BillBrasky]

Somewhat fitting.  This game is currently almost to where WoT was when I started playing it.  There are fewer ships than there were tanks, but it was before there were any Tier tens except heavies, the French line hadn't been added yet, etc.  I would say, given where NA is in it's development cycle, which is to say very early, it's already astonishingly polished.  The combat is well thought out.  The only thing that gives me pause, from a balance point of view, is that there are no real peers to compare ships to currently.  Each "tier" essentially only has one ship at the moment, and the gaps between "tiers" are far too wide.  That said, this is still in the very early stages of alpha testing.  There will be more ships added.  The combat is entertaining, the lobby system is reminiscent of a low population WoT type game currently, but I think the mechanics are more sound, and are actually probably closer to a production level of finish than WoT was well after it was out of open beta. 

 

I think you'd enjoy it, and I think your generally keen eye for mechanics and testing would probably benefit the testing effort should you choose to jump into the preorder and join the sea trials.

 

One additional positive is that the community is not a complete and utter cesspit yet, like WoTs can often be.

 

Bill

[RAMJB]

The only thing that gives me pause, from a balance point of view...

 

 

Give no pause. There are going to be no tiers in this game, and there's going to be no such thing as "balance" .

[BillBrasky]

Give no pause. There are going to be no tiers in this game, and there's going to be no such thing as "balance" .

That's fair...  But given the way the game functions now, despite it being only even released at all for testing purposes, balance is a legit concern for anyone looking to pick it up to play for fun.  I believe I was in a game last night where you yourself were lamenting the unbalanced teams.  It's simply a fact of the game right now that balance isn't there, and given a lobby based instant pvp battle type game, that can be upsetting.

 

You're right though, once it becomes the game it's going to be, open world sandbox, with an economy, the necessity of balance in the current situation disappears.  That said, ships are already kind of put into "tiers" by the number of decks, cannons, displacement, hull design, sail pattern, whatever, I'm not exactly a nautical expert.  They just called them "Frigates", or "cutters" or "xebecs" or "first-fifth rates".  Hence putting "Tiers" in quotes.  I would suggest that the difference between a first rate and a second rate vaguely translates to the difference between first tier and second tier, or inversely (and for comparison to WoT, which is what I used "tiers" for in the first place) tier 10 and tier 9, for gameplay purposes.  

[Balck]

Balance is there but not in the PotBS/WoT/WT sense.  A well handled brig can take a surprise down, ditto surprise vs Trinco.  The ships lower on the totem pole have something the ones a step higher don't, and vice versa.  That's as it should be.  Even within tiers/br in the aforementioned games, you have the same thing but in the other games it is forced, here it is natural.  A snow and a corvette or earlier frigate would bridge the gap even closer between cutter and brig as well as brig and surprise, respectively.  From the surprise up, everything's pretty much spot on, ditto up to the cutter.  There will be more ships, but they will fit within the existing rating system (we are only missing second rates and lighter frigates/corvettes than surprise).  

 

Garbad, get the early access man.  Best $40 I've spent in a long time.  Even if in alpha, the combat is better than just about anything you've ever played in the genre, honestly.  Rough seas sure do make it interesting.  You'll miss critical shots where the other guy doesn't, and the other way around.  Be warned, it's like crack.... 

 

As Bill said, the dev's would really benefit from your testing experience as well.  Hope to see you soon 

[RAMJB]

That's fair...  But given the way the game functions now, despite it being only even released at all for testing purposes, balance is a legit concern for anyone looking to pick it up to play for fun.  I believe I was in a game last night where you yourself were lamenting the unbalanced teams.

 

At the stage we're now balance is important across teams, and not across single ships. There's no way (nor there should be) to "balance" one ship compared with other. They each will have their respective qualities,strenghts, weaknesses, and one will be more powerful than the other in certain areas, and less good in others.

 

That doesn't mean I don't think we need "balance" in the testing - we do. But team balance. not ship balance. When you enter a PVP game you'll expect the ships to be spread in a way where both sides have a reasonable chance to win.

 

In that sense we're already in a good position: Actually I'd say that, excluding one v ones where the matchmaker has nothing to do, in easily 80% of the PVP games I play in NA at the moment I have few or little complains about the balance.

 

Last night I think you're referring to a particular game when we got two constitutions and two surprises vs one constitution, two trincomalees, two surprises and a brig (if memory doesn't fail me). And I wasn't "lamenting" about it, nor complaining, I just remarked the fact that on that particular battle our team simply held no chance to win. Which, in all due honesty, we didn't.

 

But that's a whole different thing. Matchmaker balance is needed indeed. Ship-to-ship "balance" is not. There will be no "tiers" and there will be no artificial "balance" between them. Each ship will be modelled after historical ones, and if a ship was more powerful than other then it should be here .

[RAMJB]

(we are only missing second rates and lighter frigates/corvettes than surprise).  

 

Well we're also missing fourth rates . Unless you want to rank the constitution as one. Which seeing how damned stiff it is and how unmaneouverable compared with preceding frigates I might even agree to

[Balck]

Well we're also missing fourth rates . Unless you want to rank the constitution as one. Which seeing how damned stiff it is and how unmaneouverable compared with preceding frigates I might even agree to

DOH!  Forgot about them!  Constitution is a wanna-be fourth rate 

[Oneironz]

Garbad, are you the same garbad who used to write about ships back in POTB's forums?

 

If yes, I want you to know that I enjoyed reading them Perharps you can keep the legacy in Naval Action!

 

Cheers

[Garbad]

Thanks for the responses, all.  I'm very interested in this game, and have been for a while.  The youtube clips look nice.  I'm interested to see what kind of world they can craft around the ships, but combat itself looks great and good depth.  I'm a bit unclear on sailing, as I couldn't even tell which direction the wind was from in the videos, but hopefully its similar in depth and style to PotBS.  I hope the game trends more towards potbs in general than wot (although some kind of arenas might not be bad).

 

Garbad, are you the same garbad who used to write about ships back in POTB's forums?

 

If yes, I want you to know that I enjoyed reading them Perharps you can keep the legacy in Naval Action!

 

Cheers

I am, and I imagine I will be in this game as well!  In fact the reason I started my Ship of the Week feature back then was I was so hyped to join alpha.  I enjoyed PotBS quite a lot.

 

 

Garbad, get the early access man.  Best $40 I've spent in a long time.  Even if in alpha, the combat is better than just about anything you've ever played in the genre, honestly.  Rough seas sure do make it interesting.  You'll miss critical shots where the other guy doesn't, and the other way around.  Be warned, it's like crack.... 

 

As Bill said, the dev's would really benefit from your testing experience as well.  Hope to see you soon 

I am seriously thinking about it.  I don't like the idea of pay to test, in concept, but I know I'm very likely to buy the game regardless, so...

[Balck]

Thanks for the responses, all.  I'm very interested in this game, and have been for a while.  The youtube clips look nice.  I'm interested to see what kind of world they can craft around the ships, but combat itself looks great and good depth.  I'm a bit unclear on sailing, as I couldn't even tell which direction the wind was from in the videos, but hopefully its similar in depth and style to PotBS.  I hope the game trends more towards potbs in general than wot (although some kind of arenas might not be bad).

Glad you're considering jumping in.  As to sailing and wind, I'll try a quick synopsis.

 

The U.I. is quite simple but with enough information to play the game but not overwhelming the screen.  

 

The wind is shown on the bottom left hand side with the arrow showing direction and the grey areas to either side best angle with the wind.  Your ship is static here, the wind and compass move about the model. You can manually control the yards to turn tighter/faster as well as better tack through the wind or fall back and reverse direction.  It has far more depth than PotBS.  

 

The top left is the current state of your armor and any leaks you might be suffering from.  Red leaks are under the water line and can be catastrophic if not plugged.  Bottom right is the mini-map which has a limited range.  You'll be relying on your eyes for situational and positional awareness.  If you see another ship in the mini-map then you are pretty close.  Mind collisions, they can damage your ship, as well as whoever you ram into.  Careless pilots have taken away bowsprits of fellow captains on more than one occasion.  

 

There are three crew focuses which improve the performance of either sailing, gunnery or survival.  Each takes time to take effect so plan ahead.  The last can be critical at times when you need to pump out water and plug leaks.  You get a limited number of repairs, three, which you can spend on armor, sails and rigging, rudder, pump and magazine.  Then you have the options to load port, bow, starboard and stern guns.  You have solid shot (ball), double shot, chain and grape.  Double does extra damage but has reduced range and is best used at close range.

 

In terms of PotBS vs WoT, I'd assume you mean open world vs instanced battles.  Yes, they are going for open world, more akin to PotBS where you sail on the open sea and instance into a battle then back again.  Still under development though.  Unlike PotBS the ships on the OS won't give full and accurate information as to what you're facing, only a hint.  You'll have to close range to see what you're actually facing 

[RAMJB]

but hopefully its similar in depth and style to PotBS.

 

NA has nothing to do with WoT. And is much more realistic than PoTBS. No magic skills, no conjured buffs and debuffs. Plain old sailing and wits is what wins games. Oh, and the ships too, ofc

[PrezesOi]

Thanks for the responses, all.  I'm very interested in this game, and have been for a while.  The youtube clips look nice.  I'm interested to see what kind of world they can craft around the ships, but combat itself looks great and good depth.  I'm a bit unclear on sailing, as I couldn't even tell which direction the wind was from in the videos, but hopefully its similar in depth and style to PotBS.  I hope the game trends more towards potbs in general than wot (although some kind of arenas might not be bad).

 

I am, and I imagine I will be in this game as well!  In fact the reason I started my Ship of the Week feature back then was I was so hyped to join alpha.  I enjoyed PotBS quite a lot.

 

I am seriously thinking about it.  I don't like the idea of pay to test, in concept, but I know I'm very likely to buy the game regardless, so...

Salute! I loved [prehistoric] burnningsea forums because of high level it presented , mostly thanks to "pillars of community" like you.

And for Naval Action - $ 40 for a game that is not yet properly a game, produced by a company you never heard of? Gameplay about which almost nothing is known?

It sounds silly, but I honestly recommend to buy it :-)

[admin]

Big thank you everyone for the kind words. It is truly a pleasure to have you here, Gentlemen.

[BillBrasky]

Salute! I loved [prehistoric] burnningsea forums because of high level it presented , mostly thanks to "pillars of community" like you.

And for Naval Action - $ 40 for a game that is not yet properly a game, produced by a company you never heard of? Gameplay about which almost nothing is known?

It sounds silly, but I honestly recommend to buy it :-)

 

I'd agree with that.  I think there's enough here now to warrant paying the price.  They've been extremely good at listening to the community thus far, as far as I can tell.  As far as it being like PoTBS...  To say there is no similarity is probably an over statement.  There are similarities in the control scheme.  There aren't, however, MMO like skills and such.  It's like if someone cranked up a "Realism" slider on PoTBS and cranked down the "MMO" slider.  It's not PoTBS-like, but it's probably PoTBS adjacent, given similar subject matter, and again, control scheme.  This control scheme gets more granular, the ships react more realistically, and the gunnery is done in a far superior, more skill based, way.

 

Edit:  Also the graphics are more realistic.  There is some talk of them adding avatars, etc, at some point, but I doubt it will be in the cartoony way it was on PoTBS, and hopefully if there is avatar combat it won't be terrible.  

[RAMJB]

ITo say there is no similarity is probably an over statement.  

 

Well, they're similar in that there are sail ships in there. And that at some point there will be an open world. Any comparison and similarity ends there.

 

 

The control system? it's been decades since the WASD standard was introduced in gaming. That's the only similar control you'll find. And I guess you won't say PoTBS was similar to Doom because they both use WASD, right?.

 

There's simply nothing else that makes both games similar. Not even the ships, the PotBS ones were inventions and creations (based in real life ships, but only based on them, not replicas) that had totally fake handling and behavior. NA on it's side has very accurate replicas of real historical ships and ships that when put against the wind not only stop - they actually move backwards (I.E. ships that actually move and handle like ships and that move because of the wind, not because of...reasons)

 

 

Edit:  Also the graphics are more realistic.  There is some talk of them adding avatars, etc, at some point, but I doubt it will be in the cartoony way it was on PoTBS, and hopefully if there is avatar combat it won't be terrible.

 

 

The only talks I've heard about avatars come for some forum members wishing for them. Not a single word about it from the developers - who've always said that their focus and their intention is to do a sailing game where you control ships, so (I'd say I'm just guessing here but given what we know I think is reasonable to think like this) that avatars are very far from their mind, which I'm glad as I loathe the whole avatar MMO stuff.

 

And hopefully there will be no avatar combat, period. There's no technological marvel that can prevent someone with an outrageous ping abusing whatever avatar combat system is introduced and ruining other player's fun.

[BillBrasky]

Well, they're similar in that there are sail ships in there. And that at some point there will be an open world. Any comparison and similarity ends there.

 

 

The control system? it's been decades since the WASD standard was introduced in gaming. That's the only similar control you'll find. And I guess you won't say PoTBS was similar to Doom because they both use WASD, right?.

 

There's simply nothing else that makes both games similar. Not even the ships, the PotBS ones were inventions and creations (based in real life ships, but only based on them, not replicas) that had totally fake handling and behavior. NA on it's side has very accurate replicas of real historical ships and ships that when put against the wind not only stop - they actually move backwards (I.E. ships that actually move and handle like ships and that move because of the wind, not because of...reasons)

 

 

 

The only talks I've heard about avatars come for some forum members wishing for them. Not a single word about it from the developers - who've always said that their focus and their intention is to do a sailing game where you control ships, so (I'd say I'm just guessing here but given what we know I think is reasonable to think like this) that avatars are very far from their mind, which I'm glad as I loathe the whole avatar MMO stuff.

 

And hopefully there will be no avatar combat, period. There's no technological marvel that can prevent someone with an outrageous ping abusing whatever avatar combat system is introduced and ruining other player's fun.

 

 

There will be 3 iterations of boarding due to current focus on only graphics, combat and optimization

1) simple brute force stat based boarding (he who is stronger and have more people wins)

2) combat tactics mini-game - you will give commands to your crew, enemy will give commands (he who is stronger AND smarter wins)

3) once we have avatars in game (they will be developed last) we will implement (maybe) last iteration - avatar based boarding. 

 

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/162-avatars/?hl=boarding#entry10928

 

 

Outdated info, but it does appear to be someone other than a forum member wishing for them.

 

I would argue that Doom isn't really a very fitting comparison given the lack of mouse control.  I'd say POTBS has more in common with Quake, I guess...  Either way, I can tell I've found a new friend in you!  

[admin]

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/162-avatars/?hl=boarding#entry10928

 

 

Outdated info, but it does appear to be someone other than a forum member wishing for them.

 

I would argue that Doom isn't really a very fitting comparison given the lack of mouse control.  I'd say POTBS has more in common with Quake, I guess...  Either way, I can tell I've found a new friend in you!

That third stage might never happen. But yes I know many would love to dress their virtual doll in historical clothing and uniforms.

[Baggywrinkle]

Big thank you everyone for the kind words. It is truly a pleasure to have you here, Gentlemen.

Credit where it's due