feedback Naval Action - a game far from perfect

[Lord Dallas IV]

Open Letter To The Devs Of Naval Action

First of, i apologize for any grammar mistakes i make because english isnt my native tongue.

So i played Naval Action for about 560 hours and want to give out my feeback directly to the community and the developers. The first time i saw this game was about 3 years ago, when i noticed its available on steam i instantly bought it for a proud price of around 37€. I knew it was an early Alpha, and i was aware of that danger, but none the less i bought and installed it.

I was and still am fascinated about the deep and complex system of building a ship, trading, exploring and fighting. The learning curve is great but there are some proplems which i would like to list up. When i started playing about 4000 people played it actively and i had to wait half an hour to get on a server, now the maximum of players is about 500 to 600 people and there are now only 2 servers, one pvp and one pve, which i have no problem with. There are reasons why my friends call this game "Naval No-Action", "Sailing Simulator" or even "Grandpa Action".

Naval Action consumes alot of time which reflects in the player base. In my experience mostly elderly people play this game, which is not a problem, considered they got more time so they use it to get the full potential out of this game. Here is one big problem, Naval Action in fact, consumes so much time i spend real hours on the sea to reach my goal of finding an enemy player or reaching a port. For me as a student, its not really optimal.

Your Input in the game is not greatly rewarding you. If you put hours into the game,  gathering resources, doing missions to get a new ship, it can be taken away from you in no time if you dont be cautious enough, making your whole effort worthless. I dont say its always worthless, but for new players it is. The only way to get started is with help from other players and clans, giving you money and a better ship.

The new missions are a complete disaster! I started with some friends after a long brake on GB once again, so you start some missions as you normally do to get your rank ups, but no. Its not like you sail to your mission and finish it anymore. You now have to sail around the open world finding your target you need to eliminate, i am talking about those Search and Destroy and Hunt Missions. So now you need to spend even more time finding random generated npc fleets on the big open world, great. And if thats not all, NPC dont spawn anywhere, you need to sail to nearby enemy ports to get a chance of encountering some, wasting even more time in the process.

Some of the DLC's are pure money grabs! The Profilic Forger DLC is the most disgusting cash grab i ever saw. 20€ for chaning your name and your nation every 30 days? Some time ago you could change a nation for FREE but limited, and that was fine.

The game has a problem with his sound and atmosphere, dont get me wrong. I love hearing the water, the ship whistles, the men shouting if you shock the enemy ship, the cannonballs hitting your ship, its fantastic. But it the cannon fire doesnt really sound good to me, its sounds weak not really menacing. Music is missing entirely, making the game sound not bad, but just empty.

The graphics are really nice to look at, as well as the ship details but combat doesnt seem to change the appearance heavily. Of course you got your holes in the sails and missing masts, making your ship pretty slow. Then you got fire which burns parts of your ship, leaving burned wood behind. But lets not talk about those cheap texture holes on the hull, they do look good if they spread out and are not in a big number and overlapping each other.

I think now its the time for some ideas to get the game back on route.

make the game a bit more casual - i know this hurts some historical and simulations fans, but if you want the game to survive make it more casual for a younger and larger audience (dont forget, more people = more cash  ) , the learning curve itself is completely fine and should stay that way

if you bring out DLC's, make them cosmetic and ship only - DLC's like the Hercules or the Le Requin are a good idea but be cautious about the balancing please. I heard something about a Flag DLC which is a really good idea to support the devs and the game, keep that up, people always buy cosmetics like crazy

atmospheric enhancements - more and better sounds, i dont care for a large number of crewmen running around the ship (even though it would be awesome) getting blown off it by enemy volleys, take a look at Empire or Napoleon Total War, thats how you make atmospheric sea battles (i know the engine is limited but ideas won't hurt anyone), cannons getting destroyed by impact of enemy cannon balls, whole hull parts get blown out which can be repaired by planks and so on

 |--> less first rates, more frigates - there are way too many first rates its unbelievable, they should be very rare in open world battles as well as in port battles

make the game less time consuming - make the map smaller or increase the open world ship speed, less time consuming --> larger audience

I think that should be enough for now, i know no game is perfect but NA got potential to be one hell of a game, my advice: look at other games like Napoleon/Empire Total War, Port Royale Series, Sea Dogs and so on, it helps!

Thanks for reading!

Greetings, Dallas

Edited November 6, 2018 by Lord Dallas IV

[Teutonic]

I agree with your suggestions man and I hope they don't fall on deaf ears.

The map size is fine if there were more people. Literally the biggest problem is low player count and it could honestly be fixed with some more casual focus and a lot of nonsense decisions reversed.

Edited November 6, 2018 by Teutonic

[Tomasso il Fortunato]

Also the speed is fine 😕 , i really want to decrease the open world speed (to make it easier and more realistic experience).

And some changes too , make the important ports bigger .

Edited November 6, 2018 by CaptainSparkles

[Christendom]

Agree on most points, especially the casual one.  Every single time this game takes a more hardcore stance on things, this patch being an example, they quit.  

The bulk of players who log in and play MMO games like NA are typically made up of casual oriented folks who want to log in for a couple hours after work and mindlessly farm or kill NPCs.  Frustration free.  For a litany of reasons NA seems to be against players doing that and as a result we simply don’t have many players...casual or otherwise.

 

Edited November 6, 2018 by Christendom

[Aster]

I doubt they have the resources but it would be nice to bring back naval action legends in a more complete form. Perhaps it could be a free to play game similar to world of war ships with cosmetic and ship dlcs. It would give the people who don't want/ don't have the time to sit down for hours a way to play and may have the added side effect of getting people interested in naval action boosting the numbers.

[TheHaney]

4 hours ago, Lord Dallas IV said:

make the game less time consuming - make the map smaller or increase the open world ship speed, less time consuming --> larger audience

I agree on most points there, but I firmly dislike this idea.

[Draymoor]

I think your input is fairly rewarded but depends on where you direct your efforts. The new missions aren't a disaster but it takes some learning on how to go about, the simpler missions that point you at one target in a specific point of the map need some tweaking cause those should be the simplest and easiest to complete yet they are far too challenging and unrewarding, with a little adjustment the mission system has definitely improved though. 

The are far more frigates now than ever I think? Since the cost for frigates is minuscule now when you compare it a ship of the line. Otherwise yeah, some very good points. I do very strongly agree the game needs more life in the sound department, some music, specially battle music . 

Edited November 6, 2018 by Draymoor

[TheHaney]

7 minutes ago, Draymoor said:

very strongly agree the game needs more life in the sound department, some music, specially battle music . 

 

[Lord Dallas IV]

4 minutes ago, TheHaney said:

 

doesn't count ^^

[Draymoor]

@TheHaney That's amazing, we definitely need something like that. 

[TheHaney]

9 minutes ago, Draymoor said:

@TheHaney That's amazing, we definitely need something like that. 

Unfortunately Blackwake the game is HORRIBLE, but their soundtrack is definitely great. Wavecutters track is great for frigate battles.

[Jean Ribault]

7 hours ago, Lord Dallas IV said:

...But it the cannon fire doesnt really sound good to me, its sounds weak not really menacing. Music is missing entirely, making the game sound not bad, but just empty.

...

 

Completely agree on the music, there are plenty other threads about music.  No efforts have been made.

However I disagree with you on cannon fire.  I think you need a better system.  Get yourself a surround system and balance it out and pump up the subwoofer, you'd be surprised.  When I play on my laptop, it's not great.  But that's a system limitation, not the game.  Sounds good off my main system in headphones too.

[Lord Dallas IV]

@Jean Ribault i turned the volume for cannon sounds up on max, my specs aren't even that bad, i can feel the base inside my headset! It sounds great dont get me wrong, but there is missing something, i cant really describe what. Maybe its just not my taste, who knows mate  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Guest]

32pds+ have a thunder slap, there’s a gradient of canon fire, well least between 24s and 32s, so I have to disagree with you there, Dev’s could look at more of a gradient of sounds though, like between 9pds and 12pds.

OP, I like fact that you have used the forum, @admin maintains players who play the game and don’t post are all “Happy”, lately there has been a few more new forum users posting whom have played for quite some time.

Happy or not, all feedback is welcome, more the better, its data, of sorts.

[Macjimm]

8 hours ago, Lord Dallas IV said:

make the game less time consuming - make the map smaller or increase the open world ship speed, less time consuming --> larger audience

Devs, 

Please do not decrease the size of the map or increase speeds.  The game allows for long distance travel with a little navigation, on the open sea.  The OW Age of Sail speedboats are fast enough.  Any faster an they would need jet engines, wings and hydrofoils.

Converting NA into a simple competitive combat simulator can be developed later as Naval Action Legends.

Smaller map and more speed = a completely different game.

[Jean Ribault]

7 hours ago, Lord Dallas IV said:

@Jean Ribault i turned the volume for cannon sounds up on max, my specs aren't even that bad, i can feel the base inside my headset! It sounds great dont get me wrong, but there is missing something, i cant really describe what. Maybe its just not my taste, who knows mate  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Some music in the background would make it much more pleasant, wouldn't it?

[RedNeckMilkMan]

Needs more hate towards Dev team.

But really scarcity creates demand we have too many ports and to much open ocean for the player base.

[Capn Rocko]

Anymore, I am just a weekend player and sometimes log on for an hour or 2 after work. With thousands of hours on record, I just want to log in and fight people. I enjoy a good hunt, the challenge of a good battle, and being able to sustain my lifestyle while doing so. Anything the developers do to make things harder on me (either directly by nerfing PvP rewards or indirectly by driving the population numbers down) makes it easier for me to find another game to play. 

It sounds purely selfish but I do want what's best for the game and I think the devs are doing a good job so far. It's just taking a very long time. 

[Njord]

17 hours ago, Lord Dallas IV said:

But it the cannon fire doesnt really sound good to me, its sounds weak not really menacing.

Somewhat true... cannon fire sound needs more bass and "ooomph" to it.