First Impressions

[Garbad]

Some of you have asked for more information about Naval Action.  I preordered last week, but they only send out keys every friday 1800 kiev time.  So 1800 kiev I started spamming F5, and soon, my key appeared!

 

BACKGROUND:

 

Its a ~17th century sailing MMO? game, similar to Pirates of the Burning Sea or Sid Myers' Pirates.  Its very early in development, but will likely feature open world pvp, arenas or historical battles perhaps similar to WOT, and an eve style economy.  I believe no boarding or avatar play is contemplated.  Obviously a lot of that is a stretch at this point, but if even some of it pans out it could be a great game.  Cost is $40 to buy into the VERY early beta/preorder, and long term monetization is probably going to be buy the box to play + microtransactions to buy premium ships/customizations, no monthly fee.

 

I don't know much about the Game Developers.  I believe they are a small, new company based in kiev with at least some former WG employees (I forget the guy's name, but perhaps the guy who was in charge of WOT balancing in 2012 who quit after the KV-1S-122 debate with serb?).  My limited impressions are that they have their heads on straight.  There are several very high quality discussion threads open on the NA forums where the devs appear to listen, discuss, and explain on a level almost unheard of in game design.  They seem to be aiming for a good balance in game design (history vs sim) and depth.  For that reason alone, I am inclined to want to support them. 

 

SETUP:

 

You have to install through steam -- and I'm not a huge fan of steam (my ghetto internets hate the always on steam junk, plus it just seems to update slower and less reliable than direct downloads).  But it worked fine, no issues installing.  The game also loaded just fine, even on my very underpowered machine (too weak to run eve or WOT) -- it still clipped along at 45 fps on minimum settings.  So that's kind of nice.  On my much more powerful desktop, it oddly only gets ~60 fps on high settings (not max).  No idea why, perhaps lack of optimization so early.  But it looks fine in any event.

 

GAMEPLAY:

 

The only game mode available is pvp or pve arenas.  You load in with a few allies and fight a few bots or hostile players in roughly equal ships.  Players can switch sides before the match to balance it out.

 

I used auto sail exclusively (you may recall the video tutorial I posted by ramjb? -- it is quite simple to use to gain an edge, but is by no means necessary).  Its simple and easy to figure out.  I was in a 12 gun cutter (a small, agile ship with a style of rigging that's different than a traditional fully rigged ship -- I'll spare you landlubbers the details of this, but it matters).  I note the ship accelerates briskly, turns realistically, and handled well at all points, particularly 90 from the wind.  I could handle extremely close hauled, but it would come to a complete stop and get pushed back if you steered straight into the wind and left it there.  I couldn't exactly figure out wind conditions or current conditions (lots of numbers in the UI I don't really know what mean yet), but it was intuitive enough to not matter.  So far, so obvious.

 

You can have your crew focus on different things as you move along (repair, sailing, gunnery -- being garbad naturally mine have to focus on firepower and then consequently repair pretty much all the time).  A timer to show how long between you when you could switch focuses would be nice.  Gunnery was also easy to figure out, but at first at least I struggled to connect with my target.  I was probably firing at too long range -- no idea how to estimate that kind of thing yet.  So I got within musket range and just ripped into them.

 

The potential for strategic gameplay, similar to POTBS but with more realism, is definitely there.  Even with my clumsy, nooblike self I was able to use basic strategy and tactics to get off more shots than my opponent.  As I grow in skill, this will likely vastly expand, as POTBS did.

 

MY HEROIC FIRST BATTLE:

 

So I load in for a 3v3, but one of my pubbies doesn't load.  Its my 12 gun sloop and a 16 gun brig vs 3 16 gun brigs.  I am much quicker than the brigs, so I decide to strategically flank them....

 

...just kidding.  I was like YOLO and sailed into the middle of all three and started blapping.  It took me a bit to figure out how to shoot straight, plus I lost some crew...most of my armor...and one of my guns.  I was connecting, but doing relatively little damage back.  Then I dimly realized that blue thing creeping up on the inside of my ship status indicator was probably water, and I was about 90% to sinking.  So I cut hard across the wind, outrun the brigs down the yolo with my crew furiously bailing.  Before long, I got things back under control, almost completely patched back up my ship, and returned to the fray...and this time, I had the wind, and the brigs were unable to shake me.  I shanked one right in the poopdeck, happily blazing away.  I Sed back and forth, bringing both decks into play on his helpless rump.  Then he suddenly sank.  I didn't really know how to tell he was dying, but huzzah!

 

The second brig was fighting my buddy, so I walked up and gave him the coup de grace to the bow, and sent him back to hell like the unworthy dutch dog he was.

 

 

Its official.  I'm a hero.

 

MOAR GAMES:

 

Over the next week, I played another ~50 games or so.

 

I unlocked all the way to the Snow (the largest nonfrigate ship, perhaps equivalent to a tier 5 in WOT).  The first few ships appear well balanced.  For example while the brig has more firepower, including access to cannonades, its much slower and less agile upwind than a cutter, plus its larger profile means more hits.  The snow, on the other hand, just seems flat out OP.  It devours all other small ships.  The implications of this are unclear -- in reality, certain ship types WERE op in real life, and in an open world situation this means instant death at the hands of higher level, higher skill gankers in superior ships.  I am not sure how NA will handle this problem (perhaps arenas with balanced ships and open with anything goes, or who knows?).

 

I also learned a good bit more about the game mechanics.  I was also pleased to note that extremely stupid sailing can result in your ship missing stays or even getting stuck sailing into the wind, unable to turn out. Ships do not have HP, directly, instead they have armor.  Once the armor is reduced, the ship begins to take crew/module damage and also get holes punched in it.  As water builds up, you can bail but the ship will sink eventually.  Naturally, shots in the pooper have little armor.  I can see no effect in killing crew, but dismounting guns, smashing sails has an obvious effect.  Angling your ship or adusting the speed as you fire has little effect I can see.  Like PotBS, it appears to be a contest in using the wind/your ships firing characteristics to either force a brawl and knock them out or disable them.  The downside to both is that people can pretty much run and kite at will, denying you the fight or the win no matter what.  Few grief right now, but let's be real -- on release, people will grief constantly if they can, and in open world pvp how can you blame them?

 

As for balance, carronades with double shot seem pretty OP.  You can frequently cripple a ship in one blast, at least with these little ones.  Long guns firing bar to demast their turning sails also seems pretty stronk.  Once you lose your front mast, its practially impossible to keep them off your stern.  Its also easy to lose a mast in a collision -- its pretty hard (for me) to do any real damage sniping due to difficulty in hitting the target and the toughness of ships, but if you get close its pretty common to accidentally ram each other and get masts tangled.  I also found it pretty much impossible to S behind them, using both sides of the ship, unlike PotBS.  That kind of disappointed me -- I would like to see quicker turning, and more of a speed gap in the quick ships and the slow ones.  So in general, although I think the potential is there for pvp depth and balance, a lot will depend on the specific design decisions NA makes in the next few months.

 

EAT IRON STEEDE!

 

Compared to WOWS, I think NA is clearly better.  Although I kind of liked the way WOWS dealt with ranged fire, and the random islands were nice, the game fundamentally seemed to lack any depth.  NA has more, with the mechanics of where you hit the ship, how you manage your sails, and the simple fact that wooden ships/guns have a lot more meaningful variety than steel ones.  And if the open world, pve, and economy is worth a damn it will be far superior to WOWS's bare combat model.  Plus too WOWS seemed like you were throwing orange snowballs at each other instead of shooting guns.  NA feels appropriately smashy when you blast each other and splinters go flying, a mast collapses, and your poor crew yell at each other (which sounds oddly like a group of men standing around a bus stop talking loudly).

 

CONCLUSIONS:

 

Stronk hype brothers.  Its still very early in development, but it could be great fun.  It appears to have very similar gameplay to POTBS, which had a lot of good pvp depth, but more realism.  If other aspects of the game pan out as well, this will be my next game.  I feel like they are striking a good balance in easy to learn, but hard to master (like WOT) and history vs. simulation/balance.

 

Find it here:

http://forum.game-la...al-discussions/

 

TL;DR:  Sailing game highly reminiscent of PotBS.  Very early in development, but appears to have great potential depth combined with a possible good economic/open world pvp type skin.

 

Give it a serious look.

[Balck]

Keep going.  The game gets even better when you reach the frigates and ships of the line.  All and all, nice write up.

[Ligatorswe]

Dont I know you from some kind of game Garbad?

[Garbad]

Dont I know you from some kind of game Garbad?

Probably.  I was a well known writer, pvper, and so on in POTBS -- I wrote the ship of the week threads.  (FLS gave me the title of MVP -- most valuable Pirate).

 

I'm also pretty well known in eve, gw2, and WOT.

[Destraex]

WOW a very detailed and well considered first impression.

 

What distance would you usually S behind people at and in what ship in POTBS? Have you sailed in real life?

I am curious as to whether what you ask for here is realistic without needing a motor boat.

 

As for WOT I really hope naval action takes NOTHING from this horrid game. I tried it for a bit and it was not even remotely close to operating a ww2 tank. I wish they had have chosen a setting and theme in a galaxy far far away for WOT. This would have at least made a little more sense.

 

Boarding is in game and will be improved however I am not really for the devs wasting time getting POTBS style boarding in. Especially the disney cartoon characters they had in game. Naval Action is not that kind of game! 

 

I am curious though as I only tried POTBS for a short time. What kind of griefing happened in POTBS?

[Garbad]

WOW a very detailed and well considered first impression.

 

What distance would you usually S behind people at and in what ship in POTBS? Have you sailed in real life?

I am curious as to whether what you ask for here is realistic without needing a motor boat.

I have sailed a bit, but I didn't get a chance to try to stern camp any frigates last trip out.  But seriously, in POTBS acceleration was a key stat.  Certain small, quick ships like cutters or high performance small frigs could move quickly enough that in a favorable wind they could turn a full 180 in only a few ship lengths.  This allowed them to on occasion use both sides of their ship to attack right after the other, gaining a firepower advantage.  The same can be done in NA, of course, but in NA the ships bleed so much speed after a turn (and don't turn as tightly) that you might get off two broadsides and then find yourself at a crawl, exposed.

 

The reason I think this is important is because it allows quickness to serve as a counter to toughness in some situations.  For example, while a heavy frigate will inevitably overpower a light one if they sail parallel trading shots, this lets the quicker one sometimes get multiple shots and overcome that.  POTBS was balanced somewhat like this (in jet terms):  heavies = energy fighters, boom and zoom.  lighter stuff = maneuver fighters, turn and burn.  I want to emphasize not all ships should do this, and not all winds.  But I think it should be on the table if you are in a quick small ship with the wind, moving fast.  I could explain better with pics if needed.

 

I am curious though as I only tried POTBS for a short time. What kind of griefing happened in POTBS?

Its not just POTBS, its eve or any other open world pvp game.  People hate getting ganked.  They hate losing money even more.  This makes people extremely risk averse, and thus, afraid to have fun fights.  So everyone sits around bored.  If open world pvp is unrestrained, very quickly you will find small groups of elite, high level pvpers in perfect ships.  They will gank anything that they can find and run from anything that could possibly fight back.  Combine this with high loss pvp and you get POTBS pvp -- pvp zones were a death trap for the common player, especially low level players (who typically were in slow ships).

 

It seems to get a general problem with open world pvp.  People would far rather club a noob to death with 50 buddies in super frigates than risk an equal 1v1.

[Destraex]

"I have sailed a bit, but I didn't get a chance to try to stern camp any frigates last trip out. "

 

All I was after was if you knew much about sailing and therefore what an S would be like to pull off. It seems you should. So I will guess that  put a tick in that box and gather your S in POTBS was a fairly large one depending on the vessel and that Naval Actions are unrealistically large in comparison preventing your zig zag approach to enable your broadsides on both sides. I will also put some of this down to more auto skipper than not.

 

As for ganking I completely agree that the other online competitive games I play on generally have an elite that spoils the game for others. Often they would rather farm the noobs than play against each others elite. It's sad and something I have fought against when I am in a position to do so which I was in "war of the roses", Red Orchestra 2, il2 sturmovik, Verdun; but am not as much in "mechwarrior online" where it is much harder to beat the organised gankers. The small MWO population keeping ELO from doing its job. Star Citizen seems to be using a method where the player can use a slider to determine AI to human ratio in the open world but I like this game can only play arena mode currently so cannot see the results.

[Prater]

With sailing ships small != fast. Larger != slower. It depends upon the canvas spread and the type of rigging. That said, all of the small ships are maneuverable and can easily sterncamp frigates IF the frigates are sailed by someone who doesn't know how to deal with sterncamping. If your opponent knows how to deal with it you can still try, you just might have a few more holes than otherwise. This is good, because we don't want a rock paper scissors game. Also, the timeframe is different than Potbs. Most of the ships modeled are 1700s to early 1800s

[surfimp]

With sailing ships small != fast. Larger != slower. It depends upon the canvas spread and the type of rigging.

And for displacemet hulls (such as all of the ships in NA), the longer the waterline, the higher the speed potential. This is the concept of "Hull Speed". All other things being equal (and these ships for the most part all had similar undersides, i.e. long full keels) the longer the hull, the faster the boat/ship. Combine that with the ability to carry significantly more canvas and the big ships are always going to be faster flat-out than the small ships.

 

On the other hand, the fore-and-aft rigged boats - the Yacht, Lynx, and Cutter - can sail upwind much, much better than any of the square riggers. Ultimately that is their "out" if they need to escape... assuming they can get out of range in time

[Koujo]

 

 

Its not just POTBS, its eve or any other open world pvp game.  People hate getting ganked.  They hate losing money even more.  This makes people extremely risk averse, and thus, afraid to have fun fights.  So everyone sits around bored.

 

Weren't you one of the ones claiming ships in PotBS were too cheap?

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

Pretty good review.  A couple of quibbles.

 

All ships can equip carronades.  Check the constructor tab.

 

You're under NDA for WoWs, you may want to strike any details you mentioned there.

[Balsafer]

One nice thing about this game is a frigate can not sink a Victory even stern camping...Unless you have a lot of time on your hands.

[Koujo]

One nice thing about this game is a frigate can not sink a Victory even stern camping...Unless you have a lot of time on your hands.

 

Not sure that's good for gameplay. Why would anyone sail anything but a 1st rate then?

[Balck]

Not sure that's good for gameplay. Why would anyone sail anything but a 1st rate then?

Why were frigates and first rates used in real life?  What where their historical pros and cons?  Those still apply.  It isn't the job of the frigate captain to engage with a first rate, and vice versa.  And no, not everyone will be in first rates.  There's a reason why they were relatively few compared to the overall numbers of ships in any nation's navy at the time.  Something which will be emulated in this game via economy.

[Koujo]

Why were frigates and first rates used in real life?  What where their historical pros and cons?  Those still apply.  It isn't the job of the frigate captain to engage with a first rate, and vice versa.  And no, not everyone will be in first rates.  There's a reason why they were relatively few compared to the overall numbers of ships in any nation's navy at the time.  Something which will be emulated in this game via economy.

 

PotBS tried to regulate first rates with the economy too. It didn't work. They wound up taking them out of the game completely despite all of the tears. You can't make OP stuff rare by making expensive. It just doesn't work.

[Balck]

PotBS tried to regulate first rates with the economy too. It didn't work. They wound up taking them out of the game completely despite all of the tears. You can't make OP stuff rare by making expensive. It just doesn't work.

Different game.  Don't assume because X in PotBS then Y in NA.  

 

Frigates are at a disadvantage when facing fleets of ships of the line.  Their role is not to partake in the line battle.  Have you been in one yet?  One double shot broadside from a Bellona can sink a surprise in seconds.  They serve a purpose but that doesn't include taking on first rates.  Secondly, first rates will not do for all what frigates are good at.  The ships in this game are markedly different in handling and performance than PotBS.  

[Pheasent Plucker]

 

GAMEPLAY:

 

The only game mode available is pvp or pve arenas.  You load in with a few allies and fight a few bots or hostile players in roughly equal ships.  Players can switch sides before the match to balance it out.

 

 

Wait what!? you can switch sides before the match to balance it out? how.

[Balck]

Not any more.

[Balsafer]

Trying to regulate a ship so there isn't many in a game is pointless really when we talk long term, because eventually sometime down the road everyone will have one that started playing the game when it is released.  

[DanielCoffey]

Thanks to the kind Devs who processed the latest batch of PayPal keys yesterday I was able to download NA and get into one quick PvP Light battle yesterday. Despite a few days of enforced forum reading (cheers, PayPal) there were still some game control issues which surprised me, some of which I still do not understand the solution for so I thought I would ask...

 

Firstly there was the new game installation experience. I know the UI is only a placeholder at the moment and that is fine but I noted that there was no Game Icon supplied and that the main executable was simply called Client.exe. This was a surprise only when I wanted to check vsync settings and had to locate the game in the NVidia Control Panel. I would assume that nearer release, the game will be given a sensible name and hopefully a selection of icons (flags, cannon, anchors etc...)?

 

While I was waiting in the Pvp Light lobby I could see that there were about 200 players and 30 battles currently playing but there was only a small message saying there was no Battle Room available. It did not give any feedback as to what was needed to create one (min players) or how long the queue was. New players were popping into the room, pausing and leaving again for around ten minutes until we got a slot. Some sort of more prominent indication that we were in a queue would be appreciated and informative. The large box to the right of the ==> arrow did not seem to serve any visible purpose.

 

Next was vsync. I quickly found the graphics options and love the fact that you can change them on the fly - that is much appreciated. The FPS indicator is fantastic at this stage of development too. Since I have an overclocked 780ti I was reporting about 160FPS at High and around 90-100FPS on Ultra running at 2560x1440. When I created a Custom setting to remove AA from Ultra, I was at about 120FPS. I quickly noted that there was no vsync option and my GPU was running at 100% utilisation, full overclock and full voltage. My watercooling kicked in and kept the temperature steady (41C) but I was aware of the power usage. In the long term I would suggest a vsync option so that players with high end GPUs can conserve power.

 

Once I got into the water, some of the keyboard controls confused me. There are some functions that are mapped to the same key... tab to toggle team/all in chat or tab to view the player list if not chatting. I would have expected those to be on separate keys. There was also the spyglass which is shift... unless you are aiming guns in which case it is alt. This was contrary to my expectations too.

 

The battle got going and I quickly got rammed and sunk by an enemy player. We were both in a Lynx so I felt it was appropriate that since I was hit on my side that I shipped water and sank, even with Survival mode. It was amusing that he sank too. Once my ship was going down, that was where I hit another big new player stumbling block. I was tied to my ship with no indication of what my options were. I slipped under the surface and watched the battle from underneath for a while, completely unsure of how to release the view, leave the battle or what. A query to the room and frantic mashing of Home and mouse buttons finally got me to the surface to watch the fight again but I still have no idea what keys were needed to achieve this. A message box saying how to quit the battle or how to stay and watch is really needed.

 

Even with just that one battle I am hugely impressed. I have seen the videos of course but there is just no replacement for being there yourself. Well done folks!

[ChainsawEcosse]

I had about 4 games last night, mainly PVE and enjoyed it enormously.  Took me a little while to figure out ranging shots and the telescope.  The Alt suggest up above is new to me, not sure I noticed that but will check tonight.  An audible "we're falling short" "we're long sir" or "we're on target, give them hell!" would be useful.  You would have people spotting shots for the gun crews.  Need to work on sailing now...

 

Cheers

 

Alan

[DanielCoffey]

Alan - one thing to watch with the spyglass in gun view - I hear it can shift your aim point if you are not careful.

 

Right mouse for firing mode. Position your gun sights and space for the single shot. Alt-and-hold to switch to spyglass, watch the shot. STOP moving mouse and release Alt to return to gun sights. Adjust your aim and either range or fire all.

 

If you are moving the mouse when you release Alt, you will instantly put off your aiming for the guns.

[Captfluffy]

Probably.  I was a well known writer, pvper, and so on in POTBS -- I wrote the ship of the week threads.  (FLS gave me the title of MVP -- most valuable Pirate).

 

I'm also pretty well known in eve, gw2, and WOT.

 

 

i cant escape you .......... 

[Mirones]

cant recall a single time using periscope put my aim off 

[ChainsawEcosse]

No I get the use of the telescope, figured it out last night and now I use it all the time but I invoke it with the shift key though not the Alt key.  I have also noticed that sometimes my aim is off when I come out of telecope mode.  Maybe due to me moving the mouse but maybe due to sea state and the roll of the ship not figured that out yet!

 

Cheers,

Alan