TESTBED - Port User Interface Feedback.

[Guest]

42 minutes ago, Thonys said:

good one 

and also tell s you what coordinates it is, just to spread around to the fleet .

it would be great.

now navigation in the officers' room becomes relevant..

that would be the short therm fix for it, long therm it would be fun if the player himself has to aim towards the sun and the horizon to do the whole technique himself

[Angus MacDuff]

On ‎10‎/‎7‎/‎2018 at 7:15 PM, John Grimes said:

 

A limit to shot and powder would be welcome and more realistic.

Finally, Pirates should be Pirates, not just another Nation.  Pirates should be allowed to "overcrew" or even "up-gun" a ship, perhaps at cargo space cost, and should receive perhaps Preparation or Morale perks going into a boarding, but Pirates should be limited to one Outpost per player, and no harvesting or mining possible.  Pirates should be able to board and capture any vessel with no limit to class, but should not be able to craft ships.  Pirates should be able to "Raid" ports but not conquer them.  Pirates should have no Admiralty.  Pirates should not be able to form Clans.  In this way, Pirates would operate alone for the most part or joined together only briefly to prey upon weaker merchant vessels while being forced to steal ships and modify them or crew them to their own goals.  The Pirate player would live and work as a Pirate did, and so more realism is added.  Single Pirate's, instead of Pirate clans, would become infamous, and be the threat to Merchant vessels that fled from Nations Naval forces as they did.

 

 

Wow Grimes, that was a surprisingly non-toxic and well placed commentary! 

I have to respectfully disagree with you on the shot/powder comment, however.  While you are correct that it would be realistic to limit shot/powder, I believe that for gameplay purposes, this would be a very large dissatisfier.  Many players cruise for long distances to hunt and if shot/powder were to be limited, they would have to go back to port after every battle.  This is one of those occasions where gameplay considerations should overrule realism. 

The Pirate issue has had many discussions regarding how that faction should be played.  Your suggestion here may be a little too hard-core for most.  Certainly, most current Pirates seem content to act as just another nation, but sailing under a Jolly Roger.  I personally feel that they should still be a nation (with an Admiralty) for gameplay reasons, but have many of the limitations/perks that you mention.  There are countless discussions on other threads about this issue. 

[Sir Texas Sir]

20 hours ago, Slim McSauce said:

Fleet perk 1 being required to take a prize ship, also the inability to capture 4th rates and above even though captured ships are always really bad compared to crafted and redeemed ships.

In it's place I'd rather have a major perk that lets you capture 4th rates and above maybe costing something like 8 points so it's one of the only perks you can fit if that's what you want to do.

Perks system needs a total rework.  Combat perks like Double Ball/Charge really should be gained along with the fleet perk as you level up.  Maybe get Fleet perk 1 when you make MC and can crew a shallow ship and a trader?  The rest of the combat perks can be gained off perk points you gain every two levels (go back to 1 a level or every other for only 5 since there are less perks).

@admin double Ball and Charge are limited like chain is why don't we all have it auto just like AI has all them.  When it runs out for a battle than your out.

All crafting perks should be related to your crafting level.  Use to when you rank up in crafting it was exciting, not it's bland as hell.  You use to be happy when you can make MC ships or the gold mods.  Now we really don't get anything different from being level 35-45 (think max you need to do SOL) and 50.  Why not give the crafting perks out as you level up for the ship types building.  Examples would be:   Light Ship Master when you reach level 25 (when you can build frigates).   Frigate Ship Master when you reach level 35 (when you can build SOL/3rds).  SOL Ship Master at level 50.   The reest of the crafting perks not mention can be bought with your crafting perks you gain so that you can add in more labor hours per hours, more pool, more fleet ships or bigger cargo hull.  The points go off your crafting Rank.   

I would keep the 10 point system but make it a combine of 5 points from Combat Rank and 5 Poinst from Crafting Rank.  They could keep the points sperated to type of perks (combat/crafting) or you can pool them and use them for either type of perks.   This would give ranks and crafting level a reason. Some one might just want to be a crafter and they can only rank up a few levels to run trade ships and craft and not worry about combat or they can be a combat char only and never touch crafting.   Than you have the folks that do both and if they can have the perks for both without the use of a dedicated crafting alt it would make more casual/solo players stick around.

20 hours ago, Sven Silberbart said:

Random Fire Mode

..it is always a pain for me. Since i am playing i never found a useful case for that option and often activate it by misclick. (If not removed, maybe an option in game settings to auto switch over it)

If your side by side with a ship use it instead of forward/backward and it will spread the damage out on the ship and the hit box's causing you to actually get more crew and cannon hits.  Though don't forget to switch it back. lol

17 hours ago, Hethwill the Harmless said:

that is great.

Now think mechanic for "everyone". 

Not every one is RA after all. I still have a few newer players that haven't ranked all the way up, we still have casuals that aren't even RA yet and well your one of those that prides himself on not ranking up when we test things do you not?   

 

As for things you can probably quickly fix...>SHIP KNOWLEDGE FOR OW SAILING XP<   This way trade ships that get xp from long runs go towards the ship and not to the player.  I don't need any more xp, but I do need ship knowledge on the trade ships and it might be that little extra boost players need to open up one most slot on a ship. I don't get why it doesn't go towards ships knowledge @admin?  I know ya'll mention cause it might be abused, but if you make the xp only off what the distance from one port to the next is and you can only get it if you sale to that port (no OW teleportation) than it really can't be abused and if it's stays small around they have to do a lot of afk sailing to get anything worth a dang open that way.  Not to mention AFK sailing ship are nice easy targets and the reward isn't how long you been at sea, it's distance from point A to B.

Edited October 9, 2018 by Sir Texas Sir

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

Correct. Will wipe with the new update to properly test the economy myself.

Cannot test it with slots full of ships and warehouses full of stuff, now, can I ?

 

 

Regarding port UI... the purpose of the thread

- the best thing, IMO, would be to "drag and drop" guns from the store into the ship guns slot and auto-buy.

 

[Sir Texas Sir]

2 hours ago, admin said:

I have no idea man - are they so annoying?.. a lot of people complain in private and F11 that they need the acknowledgement pop ups on actions otherwise they dont know what they did. We added it on player feedback.    Like deleting the player has 3 acknowledgements now, to protect players from themselves.

I don't think he's talking those acknowledgement screens.  The ones for delete players, ports and doing other things like that are fine.  I think he's talking about the ones like for crafting.  Though I would make the one for closing ports you have to type the name of the port instead of "CLOSE"  cause you can still click on the wrong port an delete if your rushing.

Have you tried to play the game from some where other than the office next to the server or more being on a different continent than the server is on?

I know it's worse for our SEA/AU players but maybe some one can do a video of the delay we get every time we do stuff like craft and I"m a US player with around 125 ping.  If I don't do the esc trick to make the window go away it can be several seconds before the acknowledgement screen pops up after we do an action like crafting.  I don't know if it's an UI issue or just server location but it lags out bad, specily when the server is acting up that it can take you for ever to properly craft stuff if you don't use the ESC trick to make it go away fast.

[GreasyMnky]

5 hours ago, admin said:

I have no idea man - are they so annoying?.. a lot of people complain in private and F11 that they need the acknowledgement pop ups on actions otherwise they dont know what they did. We added it on player feedback.    Like deleting the player has 3 acknowledgements now, to protect players from themselves.

Is it possible to have a setting in options to chose not to have confirmation windows?

Have them on by default, let the player know it is safer for him to have them on, but a more experienced/confident user will be able to opt out of the extra click windows.

[Atreides]

As an example:

Select buy cannons.

Click 

Pause

You have bought cannons click OK

click

Pause

Select hull repairs click

Pause

You have bought hull repairs click OK.

Click

Pause

Select rig repairs and click to buy

Pause

You have bought rig repairs click OK

Click

Pause

Select rum and click to buy 

Pause

You have bought rum. Click OK

Click

Pause

This is what I mean, the unnecessary pauses to tell me I bought rum after I bought rum is unnecessary and annoying with the pauses.

Thank you

Pause

You have said thank you, click ok

Click 

[Slim McSauce]

5 hours ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

If your side by side with a ship use it instead of forward/backward and it will spread the damage out on the ship and the hit box's causing you to actually get more crew and cannon hits.  Though don't forget to switch it back. lol

[citation needed]

[Barbancourt]

7 hours ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

I don't think he's talking those acknowledgement screens.  The ones for delete players, ports and doing other things like that are fine.  I think he's talking about the ones like for crafting. 

The ones for purchasing - those "You have bought 10 cannons for 50 guineas.  (OK)" pop-ups are redundant, since the action has already occured and the window offers no option to change that action.  It adds time to every action with the inventories. 

Overall I was hoping the long pauses while the warehouse/shop/hold lists are redrawn would be gone with the new interface, but it doesn't seem like they changed at all.  The entire inventory of all those lists is only a tiny amount of information by modern standards, but the game can take more than a second to render these short lists of items.  There is a lot of pause, pause, pause, with every action involving the inventories.  I can even watch it render these lists item by item, like they're being transmitted by a 1970's modem. 

 

Edited October 9, 2018 by Barbancourt

[MumpingVillain]

not sure if already addressed, but here's a few issues:

Trading -  Cant seem to trade any items or goods other than ships from player to player.

Rum - ludicrously expensive to craft. each single rum uses 670 oak log and 10 sugar but that shouldn't really be the case or repairing crew will become absolutely impossibly expensive. 

weird little graphic glitch on rattle, not sure if it's on other ships too, but they appear to have floating pulleys w/out being on ropes

Last item - Didn't get a screenshot but in battle a basic cutter lost its bowsprit, used rig repair and wasn't able to repair any rig at all. 

 

[litle]

The first! sorry for my English)
Second! I did not find a section on the test server.
Third! Changing quests has led to the fact that you have to swing on mobs in the open sea, and Bermuda has 3 cripples there every 3 hours, or add old quests, or add fleets of different ranks to Bermuda.

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

13 minutes ago, litle said:

The first! sorry for my English)
Second! I did not find a section on the test server.
Third! Changing quests has led to the fact that you have to swing on mobs in the open sea, and Bermuda has 3 cripples there every 3 hours, or add old quests, or add fleets of different ranks to Bermuda.

Kill Missions are the equal to old style Combat Missions - Sail to Swords, enter mission.

 

[Tiedemann]

In the old UI we got the click "Ok" message box after crafting something and after trading with another player for example. I'm sure there are more of these unnecessarily not informative message boxes and they should get removed if possible to streamline the UI experience. If they are there to force us to wait for server response then at the very least change them to show useful info. With new UI we don't craft materials anymore except for provisions. So it will be less of an issue. But now I have to go and find the ship I just crafted in the docks to check if it got a bonus. Would be nice to get a ship crafting report in sted showing build, slots and if it got a bonus. 

I totally get the need for warnings even multiple times because I often try to delete a ship, gold chest or my character etc.

Would be nice if the warning we get when deleting an outpost could include the stuff we have in the outpost, like ships and the content of the warehouse.

For setting sail with out cannons, rigg repairs, hull repairs or rum I would like to see 1 gathered "Sail report" warning for all those so I just need to click confirm  once. Each report element should get its own line in the report,  with a healthy distance between them and with a red X at the end of the line if something is missing. That way when we get used to it we can just see it for a splitt second an get all the information we need with out having to actually read it.

[litle]

42 minutes ago, Hethwill the Harmless said:

Kill Missions are the equal to old style Combat Missions - Sail to Swords, enter mission.

 

Yes, I could take them many times, and the level that I needed, at the moment they are generated randomly. For 6 hours of playing on the test server, I did not get the mission I needed by rank.
 

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

Need or Want... ?

Anyway, I did it differently and fairly fast ( given the rewards are, by devs words, inflated ). I took Hunt and Search and Destroy missions. Sailed out and attacked NPC fleets sailing the OW. Used only Herc and Surprise. Missions were to hunt a mix of 4th and 5th rates.

Kill Missions of 4th rates while sailing a 5th rate are nice and challenging and can be dangerous at points if the player does too many mistakes.

I understand your place of choice to be Bermuda. That can be challenging to find fleets ( but if you sail SE towards Treasure Island you will find more than hugging bermuda ).

 

[Thonys]

17 hours ago, Atreides said:

As an example:

Select buy cannons.

Click 

Pause

You have bought cannons click OK

click

Pause

Select hull repairs click

Pause

You have bought hull repairs click OK.

Click

Pause

Select rig repairs and click to buy

Pause

You have bought rig repairs click OK

Click

Pause

Select rum and click to buy 

Pause

You have bought rum. Click OK

Click

Pause

This is what I mean, the unnecessary pauses to tell me I bought rum after I bought rum is unnecessary and annoying with the pauses.

Thank you

Pause

You have said thank you, click ok

Click 

yes 

a box with don,t show again, is needed for some messages 

 

its     OK        to have such a box

Edited October 10, 2018 by Thonys

[Archaos]

1 hour ago, Hethwill the Harmless said:

( but if you sail SE towards Treasure Island you will find more than hugging bermuda )

I think you mean SW, SE from Bermuda takes you to the end of the world.

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

Just now, Archaos said:

I think you mean SW, SE from Bermuda takes you to the end of the world.

Yes...

Someone left the map upside down again... 🤨

[Archaos]

On 10/4/2018 at 11:41 AM, admin said:

i think tutorial should give a M&C rank; if its not broken then you can do a tutorial to get reps and money but still have to get 10000xp in combat gaining next rank. Are you sure final exam gives a rank above mc?

 

I have asked previously but not seen a response, but can you please clarify goal 1 for the testbed server, is it achieve 1 rank or get 10000xp?

Achieving 1 rank can be done by doing the tutorial first before redeeming XP, while if you redeem XP first and then do the tutorial you still remain at M&C rank.

I ask just to prevent complaints from people if they do not receive the promised ship because the rules were not clear.

[Barbancourt]

9 hours ago, Archaos said:

 

Achieving 1 rank can be done by doing the tutorial first before redeeming XP, while if you redeem XP first and then do the tutorial you still remain at M&C rank.

Both - I redeemed XP and then did the Tutorial and ranked up. 

 

Edited October 10, 2018 by Barbancourt

[Archaos]

1 minute ago, Barbancourt said:

No, I redeemed and then did the Tutorial and ranked up. 

 

Either way they need to confirm the requirements.

[Angus MacDuff]

Okay, @admin, I have finished my requirements and left the testbed.  Now I miss it terribly.  When will you be putting it on the regular servers??  I don't want to go back to it as the population is too low, but im hating the old UI. 

[John Jacob Astor]

On 10/9/2018 at 5:27 AM, Hethwill the Harmless said:

Correct. Will wipe with the new update to properly test the economy myself.

Cannot test it with slots full of ships and warehouses full of stuff, now, can I ?

 

 

Regarding port UI... the purpose of the thread

- the best thing, IMO, would be to "drag and drop" guns from the store into the ship guns slot and auto-buy.

 

@Hethwill the Harmless, if you are serious about this play it as a merchant.  PvPers view this as grinding but economic players actually like this stuff.  And no we are not all looking for risk-free PvE.

My point is that if you can't make money in player-to-player transactions selling what you buy/produce, then the economy is jacked up at a structural level and the other aspects of the game are merely layered on top of that.

AND.  I don't know that you do, but if you have an alt, shelve that.  If the economy doesn't work for a single-account player it doesn't really work at all.  Playing alts in the economy is like dealing poker hands and playing them all yourself.  What they tell you about real economic behavior is very, very superficial.

Edited October 10, 2018 by John Jacob Astor

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

I don't alt. Only 1 account. 

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Angus MacDuff said:

Okay, @admin, I have finished my requirements and left the testbed.  Now I miss it terribly.  When will you be putting it on the regular servers??  I don't want to go back to it as the population is too low, but im hating the old UI. 

^^This

Edited October 10, 2018 by Guest