Little things you'd like to see

[Blackjack McGee]

Still relatively new but a couple of observations perhaps suggestions.  First, I love the game.  A lot of money for an alpha but still very enjoyable.  Reminds me of PotBS which it seems to share a lot of code with.  I was a huge fan of PotBS and now a fan of Naval Action.

 

1) The map is huge.  Did I say the map is huge?  Well, it takes forever to sail from one place to another.  Open Sea sailing needs to be streamlined as I doubt the game will last with people sitting around for 30 minutes to an hour just trying to sail from one port to another.  This is a game killer.

 

2) Make it easier to find the missions.  Perhaps a direct link from the port of move them closer to port.  Took over 20 minutes to find one mission during a storm.  Realism is great but we are playing a simulation.  When realism turns to frustration people leave and good games go bye bye.

 

3) I would like to see the ability to jump from one port to another assuming a ship is in the second port.  This might reduce some of the needless Open Sea sailing.

 

4) I am excited about the crafting aspects of the game.  The selling and buying of goods seems a little convoluted.  Perhaps an auction system, like World of Warcraft, would be easier than placing orders.  Just an idea.

 

Great job so far.

[AKPyrate]

Little thing than annoys me more and more: sailing fully rigged into the wind.

Ships would lower square sails when sailing close-hauled, keep only stays and fore-and-aft sails.

Surely its not a huge work to implement?

 

Besides the schooners, no they wouldn't.  A square rigger would not make much headway with stays'ls alone, as many of them were meant more for rig balance than driving force.  The boats would just have to sail farther off the wind than they do in game; that was found to be a major hindrance to gameplay and a concession was made that allows square riggers to sail much closer to the wind than they would have actually been able to do in real life.

[Peter Fouche]

I would like to see the basic cutter only free for first rank players. Currently there is a lot of higher rank players building outposts in free towns near enemies then just sailing in groups of cutters to pvp. There is nothing for them to lose and everything to gain. Most people scout in them too because they don't care if they lose the ship. 

 

 

They're necessary as rent-a-cars.

 

I could see them excluded from PvP after level III, though.

 

You are right, the game does need "rent-a-cars" but I dont think this should be the cutter. Maybe a Dinghy could be implemented for that purpose? No guns, no hull space. Something that could just take a player from point A-B. This should be free, not the Cutter.

 

Edit: Coming to think of it, new players with no gold or no xp, actually need the cutter to be free in order for them to start the game.

Edited February 12, 2016 by Peter Fouche

[Konstantinov]

I would like to see some realistic tweaks to damage, although I suppose it would be difficult to achieve this while making players engaging in pvp be able to pull any weight with smaller / less capable ships. Perhaps only PvE side?
More scheming / political pay available for nations / clans. (like having a false flag but a revealing indicator when the ship is close enough to spot), etc.
Clans rename to fleets. 
More customization in ships, but nothing out of historical context. 
Extremely long cooldown on transport time, even longer than it is. I would like extreme realism, but understand that some form of transport is ideal. 
A tutorial, but let it be brief and apart from the actual game. 
More detailed info on ships, nations etc. 

Although I appreciate some of the humor in the load screens, perhaps some historical figures quotes in the historical context would work well, along with game pointers displayed below that? 

[312_JS]

I'd love to be able to make a "clan" with a tag made out of numbers (312)..

Edited February 13, 2016 by 312_Jura

[Trebien]

I'd like a feature which made it possible it send a captures trader back to one of your outposts with all goods the trader had, but it would cost you some amount of your crew which would sail the ship back to your outpost. Seeing as now you have the send your main ship to an outpost and then sail the trader back yourself. This would make it easier to catch traders but would still limit have many you can capture because after capturing a few traders and sending them back to port you would have to little crew to be able to operate your ship properly.

[d0tl]

As a new player, with no real MMO experience, just as a guy who likes to play naval battles (like NTW), one thing i would like to see is less sailing time for missions. I can totally live with the current grinding, but if i want to play a fast game, this cannot be done in Naval Action because you have to sail at least 10-15 minutes every time. You then also have to hope you find it immediately and that the wind is in your favour. Maybe i am not the right audience for a game like this. but if the devs want people like me to be an audience for this game, it should make it so that you actually spend most time IN battles instead of outside. The big world is awesome for the PVP and nations wars, but when i want to play a fast game, that big world is against me. I rather switch to a casual NTW, or World of Warships nowadays if i only got 30 minutes to spend atm, and that is a shame. I would also not mind if you had a premium option to speed up the grinding, or premium ships.

 

Aside that, if some people from clans didn’t helped me, i would have stopped playing it after 2 hours because it way to hard. A friend of mine actually did that, he bought it, started it, and then never touched it anymore since this moment. The learning curve is insane. 

 

All in all, the game needs to become a lot more casual friendly.

[Will Stryborn]

Some of these most likely posted before.

- Guild flags that can be displayed on ships and ports that are captured

- wild life like birds, Dolphins, whales and etc in the ow

- different gun styles. Decorative for the most part like lion head canons.

- Change sail colors and emblems

- ships having a faction look and feel to them

[Neith]

Honor Points which can be seen when someone clicked on our ship. People from our nation should know who fighting for them and represent them on the Port Battle.

[AKPyrate]

At the end of a battle, it would be nice to see how much damage you did (possibly in relation to other allies, but that's not necessary).  Even better would be breaking down to how much hull, sail and crew damage.  Additionally, it would be nice to see if any of your broadsides took out a rudder, caused a fire, dismasted, holed below the waterline, etc.  Just a little statistical recap of the battle.

[SKurj.]

Conquest List in Map:

 

It would be nice to see all port battles for the day listed including the successfully defended ports.  At present it only displays the captured ports.

 

Also, it would be nice to see the ports that currently have a battle ongoing.

[prreich1]

As this is a suggestions thread I am hoping that offline play will be a full and readily available option.

 

People like myself, an avid history buff, love recreating history in 3D environments for our own pleasure and education.

 

Going aboard a real ship is of course fantastic but we are highly unlikely to be able to take part in a naval sea battle or cutting out expedition in the real world.

 

For this reason  I love any kind of game which allows me the option of setting up a scenario, controlling aspects of all sides, allowing the action to go on without me whilst watching from various camera angles and weighing up the odds of success and testing them in an active environment.

 

Of course sometimes I want to be the Captain or the Admiral and lead my ships into battle and test my skill against the enemy but personally I never want that enemy to be a real person nor do I want to play alongside anyone else in a co-op situation. Call me unsocial if you like but my real world is full of enough cooperation and competition and when I play I want to play alone.

 

I have not seen up till now weather this is to be primarily online or if the offline options will exist but here is my vote for a fully functional offline player experience

This ^^^^

I would love to see an offline function similar to the Total War's Play Battles. Somewhere you can choose your own ship and allies and enemies and just practice or have fun, but wouldn't have any effect on your character progress. Aka you can command ships above your OW rank, have fleets of AI or other players, and battle other players/ AI in a practice match, almost like how NA was before OW. And of course, with offline support so I can practice for those times when I don't have internet access.

[Peter Fouche]

 

As a new player, with no real MMO experience, just as a guy who likes to play naval battles (like NTW), one thing i would like to see is less sailing time for missions. I can totally live with the current grinding, but if i want to play a fast game, this cannot be done in Naval Action because you have to sail at least 10-15 minutes every time. You then also have to hope you find it immediately and that the wind is in your favour. Maybe i am not the right audience for a game like this. but if the devs want people like me to be an audience for this game, it should make it so that you actually spend most time IN battles instead of outside. The big world is awesome for the PVP and nations wars, but when i want to play a fast game, that big world is against me. I rather switch to a casual NTW, or World of Warships nowadays if i only got 30 minutes to spend atm, and that is a shame. I would also not mind if you had a premium option to speed up the grinding, or premium ships.

 

 

Aside that, if some people from clans didn’t helped me, i would have stopped playing it after 2 hours because it way to hard. A friend of mine actually did that, he bought it, started it, and then never touched it anymore since this moment. The learning curve is insane. 

 

 

All in all, the game needs to become a lot more casual friendly.

 

 

I think it is more aimed towards the simulator side, not arcade. If you want a quick battle, why not make use of the small battles?

[d0tl]

I think the simulation should be focussed on the in-game battles. The world map is only a gain to achieve those big epic scaled battles. I gladly spend an hour in those epic massive battles, but i don’t want to spend hours on sailing in the open world map. Again though, i might not be the right audience for this game, i only say that a larger group of people compared to what is currently playing the game, might actually agree with me. In a way the simulation obsession many of you have, which i recognise as a member of the Total War community, is keeping and driving a lot of people away who actually like the battles in naval action, but don’t got the time and patience to sail for hours to get into such an epic battle. 

 

The small and big battles aren’t a solution, because 1) they don’t give enough xp for the grind and 2) most importantly, they don’t have any correlation with the world map. The fact that i prefer the in-game battles doesn’t mean i want meaningless battles, i also want to keep part in the objective on the conquering of ports and trying to dominate with your nation. In NTW I get both, I got a casual friendly world map which is only there to achieve as much epic and good battles as possible.

 

Again, in my opinion the world map, the economy, the ports and conquering should all be a means to achieve as much and epic big naval battles. ATM, as a casual player, it sometimes feels that it’s the other way around, and that is simply not feasible for many players like me. 

[Lord Anson]

Lots of wonderful suggestions. All in all, I think a solid foundation for this game would be more detail aiming at more of a simulator style game experience.

 

Some ideas:

-Waves would push the ships around slightly (esp the smaller ones) making the need to have to counter-steer in stormy conditions during battles.

-More variance in sea conditions (wind driven changes in wave height, more variance in visibility etc-should group flags be visible through limited visibility??)

 

 

[Peter Fouche]

 

I think the simulation should be focussed on the in-game battles. The world map is only a gain to achieve those big epic scaled battles. I gladly spend an hour in those epic massive battles, but i don’t want to spend hours on sailing in the open world map. Again though, i might not be the right audience for this game, i only say that a larger group of people compared to what is currently playing the game, might actually agree with me. In a way the simulation obsession many of you have, which i recognise as a member of the Total War community, is keeping and driving a lot of people away who actually like the battles in naval action, but don’t got the time and patience to sail for hours to get into such an epic battle. 

 

 

The small and big battles aren’t a solution, because 1) they don’t give enough xp for the grind and 2) most importantly, they don’t have any correlation with the world map. The fact that i prefer the in-game battles doesn’t mean i want meaningless battles, i also want to keep part in the objective on the conquering of ports and trying to dominate with your nation. In NTW I get both, I got a casual friendly world map which is only there to achieve as much epic and good battles as possible.

 

 

Again, in my opinion the world map, the economy, the ports and conquering should all be a means to achieve as much and epic big naval battles. ATM, as a casual player, it sometimes feels that it’s the other way around, and that is simply not feasible for many players like me. 

 

 

Once again, I mention that it is not an arcade style game. I like the long sailing time to get somewhere, you set a course and dont have to be online the whole time. You could go afk for a smokebreak or a cuppa or whatever. It also plays a big role in the dynamics of the game regarding port battles etc. If you could not make it back in time for a port battle on the other side of the map, then you dont participate. It requires organisation and structure. It gives a much more immersed game. Also, it gives you the sense of accomplishment when you get something done for example running up and down to different ports to gather recources for building a ship. It is supposed to be hard work. Otherwise everyone would have the best and biggest ships in the game.

 

I do agree that long voyages can get boring sometimes. Would be nice to be able to do something during this time should you wish to, like minigames to determine your position by means of a sextant on a interactive(not gps styled) map for example, or fishing, or drilling gun crews, or cartography, whatever just to get the time by while sailing to your destination.

[d0tl]

Hmm, i really don’t mean it should be an arcade style game, i say and think it should be more focussed on the strong parts, and thus simplifying(/making it slightly more casual) its weak points so it actually starts to amplify the strong points. Many gameplay aspects regarding the world map aren’t in any way reinforcing the core of Naval Combat. For a big group of players it is actually the reason to stop rather than continue. No matter what you might think, the whole world map idea, with trading, making ships, long distance voyages.... it isn’t a simulation of anything. The economy is an extremely simplified version of how economies work, and it actually has more in common with the simple economies shown in games like Anno 1602 (made in 1998!) or even a civilisation game. The only real difference is that here it takes 6 hours to from 1 side of the map to the other, while in those simplified games it takes a 30 minutes max. The economy, the trading, the long distance voyages, they are not the reason why people buy this game..... People like me want a form of simulation in the actual Naval Battles. I think the game could improve a lot if it finds a way to simplify the world map a bit, making it friendlier for casual players to grind and have beginners battles with a purpose, while not making the world map completely obsolete and taking away the tactical options as you described and which i understand. The whole idea to capture and conquer the world map with different nations is fantastic, it gives those individual battles an actual purpose.

 

 

Currently i would classify the game as a hard-core-niche-game. If you can somehow make the game a bit more casual friendly (especially a lot of the aspects regarding the world map and the out-of-combat parts in the world map), it will still be attractive for those hard-core players (those battles should remain as hard-core as they are), but then also normal players at least have a chance in taking part in this amazing game with the most amazing naval battles i have seen so far. That said, I don’t mind if it keeps the way it is currently, but it will only attract the players who are already attracted to the game. I see myself standing the middle between the casual and hard-core, thus I kept playing even while the first 10 hours were a pain. Player wise, the current game will not attract a bigger amount of people who would actually like to play a game about historical naval battles, but don’t want to spend ages to get an actual fight. It’s a choice the developers have to make. If they are happy with the current player base, they should keep it the way it is, as i do believe many of the current players are satisfied of how things are. If they want to have at least double the amount of players they currently have, then the current model isn’t viable, as those players aren’t the hard-core players we see now in Naval Action. They simply have different needs.

Edited February 16, 2016 by d0tl

[PL_Harpoon]

The ability to set gun convergence range manually, for example with numpad keys.

 

For example when you press a single key it will change convergence to that number multiplied by 100  and quickly writing number gives you more precise control.

 

For ex. pressing num5 will set the range to 500, but quickly tapping 55 will set convergence to 550 or tapping 110 will set it to 1100m,

[Gatzweiler]

Clan Bank !!!

[Cossack]

Please make basic cutters free only to first rank new players. The current tactic of groups going round with a couple of their high ranked players in cutters to stern rake you while you fight off the bigger ships is quite frustrating. Not because it isn't a valid tactic, but simply because any damage done to the cutter is utterly meaningless when they instantly respawn a brand new one for free right after. I don't mind higher rank players using small ships for this tactic, but i would rather we all have to pay for these ships since right now it's lose nothing and gain everything sort of trick. 

[prichardgs]

Captain profile as well as perks with leveling.

[Peter Fouche]

 

Hmm, i really don’t mean it should be an arcade style game, i say and think it should be more focussed on the strong parts, and thus simplifying(/making it slightly more casual) its weak points so it actually starts to amplify the strong points. Many gameplay aspects regarding the world map aren’t in any way reinforcing the core of Naval Combat. For a big group of players it is actually the reason to stop rather than continue. No matter what you might think, the whole world map idea, with trading, making ships, long distance voyages.... it isn’t a simulation of anything. The economy is an extremely simplified version of how economies work, and it actually has more in common with the simple economies shown in games like Anno 1602 (made in 1998!) or even a civilisation game. The only real difference is that here it takes 6 hours to from 1 side of the map to the other, while in those simplified games it takes a 30 minutes max. The economy, the trading, the long distance voyages, they are not the reason why people buy this game..... People like me want a form of simulation in the actual Naval Battles. I think the game could improve a lot if it finds a way to simplify the world map a bit, making it friendlier for casual players to grind and have beginners battles with a purpose, while not making the world map completely obsolete and taking away the tactical options as you described and which i understand. The whole idea to capture and conquer the world map with different nations is fantastic, it gives those individual battles an actual purpose.

 

 

Currently i would classify the game as a hard-core-niche-game. If you can somehow make the game a bit more casual friendly (especially a lot of the aspects regarding the world map and the out-of-combat parts in the world map), it will still be attractive for those hard-core players (those battles should remain as hard-core as they are), but then also normal players at least have a chance in taking part in this amazing game with the most amazing naval battles i have seen so far. That said, I don’t mind if it keeps the way it is currently, but it will only attract the players who are already attracted to the game. I see myself standing the middle between the casual and hard-core, thus I kept playing even while the first 10 hours were a pain. Player wise, the current game will not attract a bigger amount of people who would actually like to play a game about historical naval battles, but don’t want to spend ages to get an actual fight. It’s a choice the developers have to make. If they are happy with the current player base, they should keep it the way it is, as i do believe many of the current players are satisfied of how things are. If they want to have at least double the amount of players they currently have, then the current model isn’t viable, as those players aren’t the hard-core players we see now in Naval Action. They simply have different needs.

 

 

Can I remind you that we are still in Beta?

The game are being developed still, and some of the rumours I've heard suggests that the Devs has got great plans for this game for the future.

 

The economy is still work in progress, I dont want to speak for the Devs but I think what we currently have in game is just the skeleton of the economy they intend it to be.

 

Don't judge the game yet. There may still be massive changes to come? Thats what excites me so much of this game! We are in Beta, and it is already awesome!!

[Tiedemann]

I would like to get more materials out of braking up ships and increased chance at getting a blueprint for the ship you brake up. If you take something a part 10-15 times, you are be able to put it back together..  

[NiceFella]

Just this: darker nights. Moonlit nights with brighter stars. Accurate stars and phases may be pushing it... But damn, this game has merit, potential, and momentum now. No competitors at all.

[Piri Reis]

Lighthouses and ability to use spyglasses in open world!