Dear Developers.

[HachiRoku]

Dear Devs

I know these are not the best times in the world to make a topic like this but until I get an argument that crushes mine I cannot and will not stop fighting for what I believe is the only way to save this game. I will be blunt. You have dug yourself a grave with DLC ships being noncraftable. The issue you have created is that you cannot ever sell a dlc ship again unless it is balanced in the combat instance. If you release a ship like the Rattvisan and it is nerfed by design very few will buy the ship. If you make the Rattvisen balanced to other 4th rates like the aggy it will become overpowered in the economy because it doesn't need to be crafted. There are many players that are disappointed that you changed your mine about ship of the line dlcs. Personally I love the idea of ship of the line but unless they become craftable you are breaking your own game mechanics. When the community asked for a sandbox you said yes. When the community asked to be able to craft ships and you said yes. When you released 30 ships instead of the 10 ships that were promised noone thanked you for the extra ships. NOONE  made a steam violation tread saying you released 20 more ships than promised. They did however go completely insane when you decided to release 1 4th rate as DLC. I know the world is not fair but some of us do know what you have done for us and we are grateful. So grateful to have a sailing game that is one of a kind with NO competition. Not many developers can say that about their games. This is however the problem. You spent years trying to make sandbox work in a very very difficult genre. No developer has ever done this before in a sailing game and you took the risks. The idea about your instanced battles in an open world is genius if you ask me. The 20min timers not :p  I just don't understand why you are trowing all that hard work away with the completely broken DLC ships. DLC ships by design go against everything that crafting and eco is about. I know there are many players that dislike eco including myself but the game is eco focused. At its core trading and shipbuilding are just as important as the combat model. DLC ships bypassing crafting is a major issue that needs to be reverted or it will become such a major problem that you will have way bigger issues down the line. I want 1st rates as dlc. I want 2nd rates and 3rd rates as DLC. If all DLC ships are craftable it can work. It doesn't matter what you "promised" What matters to me and the majority of the community(I hope community agree) is that the game works. We want an economy that works. We want DLC that work. Both of these things can exist together but you are the only ones that have the power to make it work.

First step in solving an issue is accepting there is one admin. You need to accept that DLC ships are gamebreaking. They break the fundamental core mechanics of Naval Action sandbox. That is Crafting and Trading. I implore you to change your mind. I do not know how many players like the current DLC model but liking has nothing to do with it. Game mechanics are MORE IMPORTANT than anyones convenience. 

By craftable i mean you get a ship permit when you redeem. (No free DLC ships!.)

 

Edited April 7, 2019 by HachiRoku

[Teutonic]

I didn't read all your post which I k ow is wrong.

But what I took away and agree with most is that DLC ships should be craftable too.

[HachiRoku]

I would like to ask moderators to delete any post that mentions cost of ships on steam. I want this topic to be about in game economy. 

[HachiRoku]

13 minutes ago, Koveras said:

I completely disagree with the final lines of your post. DLC ships as redeemable permits won't be sold and I want the game to actually exist in 10 years from now.

Why won't DLC permits be sold? Are you seriously asking a developer to make you free DLC for ten years? Who is going to pay for the server upkeep? Who is going to pay for the developers food and housing? You must be kidding. Nothing would change. The DLC ships would still be broken and the game will be dead in a year. I cannot believe you seriously expect free content. 

BTW you completly missed the point of this whole topic. 

Edited April 6, 2019 by HachiRoku

[Kejsaren]

Now this is what I call constructive feedback.

 

Kind of beats "are you guys on drugs?".

 

Well put Hachi.

[HachiRoku]

Just now, Koveras said:

I haven't said free content, DLC's won't be free of charge and if you're thinking of ingame crafting then I have to say - the reason why ppl would buy a DLC ship is because of the convenience, so basically make all ships into a shitload of a grind (like now) to get and ppl will buy the DLCs but still be able to get that one 1st rate they need for a PB through crafting, or if they are involved in multiple PBs then they can buy a DLC.. Another way to balance it is through the redeemable period, making it longer the larger the ship.

However the DLC train has passed. Devs can't renege on the ability to redeem already sold DLCs as they are literally sold as redeemable every 24 hours. I don't see how the introduction of more DLC ships will change that.

I edited my reply to you to clarify. The whole point of this topic is that DLC ships that are not crafted are game breaking by design. Redeeming a NOTE will KILL the game. 

[HachiRoku]

Just now, Koveras said:

You can't turn back the clock. Work with what you are given or don't work at all.

Its alpha. I think by law they can change it. If the change is to fix the game I am sure many players will be ok and if there are some people that still don't want the change refunding the previous dlc might be the only solution. I am certain the overall health of the game will improve and a better game has more players to buy dlc. 

[Socialism]

This issue I have is I think the design inside the game is intentionally forcing players into using DLC ships.

Crazy permit wall.  Some of them are RNG which is absurd.  Good woods are more difficult to get.  All roads point towards DLC ships being the mainstay of the game, which I think is by design.  Making them craftable via permits just creates a product that you had to pay to get and yet still grind or expend significant in-game energy to craft.  Assuming you want to sail in anything other than oak and fir.

I decent solution to your idea would to have a "Base" DLC wood / trim type.  Lets say like oak + something.  You can either redeem 1 of those once a day OR you can redeem a permit to make a customized version.  Redeemable can only be that wood type and a base 3/5  

[HachiRoku]

Just now, Koveras said:

DLC is not sold as EA, it is sold as is. There is no cave-at clause in the DLC and as such cannot be changed. They can change general mechanics (like the damagemodel that severely reduced the playability of the herc) but they cannot (unless they want to refund ppl that bought the DLC) change the ingame asset since it is sold as ingame asset.

I don't care really. All I know that the game is broken until it changes. If they do not accept it you will all sail the current and future DLC against eachother for the rest of you lives because the sandbox and DLC are IMPOSSIBLE to coexist together as they are. As I said. Its up to the devs if they want to fix it or not. I didn't say it was easy. I said it was necessary. 

[Corona Lisa]

Another solution could be to let players redeem normal ships like they can redeem DLC ships. Once you craft a ship, you unlocked this ship in the specific wood/trim in which you crafted it.

This would obviously break the entire economy as you only need to craft ships once, but like hachi said as long as there is such a difference between normal ships and dlc ships no matter how strong they are it is p2w and gamebreaking for me at least.

[HachiRoku]

1 minute ago, Koveras said:

I don't disagree, but that doesn't mean that it will be changed and asking devs to basically offer every player that has bought the DLCs a refund by changing the product contrary to the product description, days after one of the largest shitstorms that I have witnessed on forums, is a bit of a stretch. I'd wager every player banned would jump at the chance to get some of their money back and I don't see the game benefitting from that.

I don't know man. I really don't know.

[HachiRoku]

2 minutes ago, Father of Dragons said:

Another solution could be to let players redeem normal ships like they can redeem DLC ships. Once you craft a ship, you unlocked this ship in the specific wood/trim in which you crafted it.

This would obviously break the entire economy as you only need to craft ships once, but like hachi said as long as there is such a difference between normal ships and dlc ships no matter how strong they are it is p2w and gamebreaking for me at least.

compromises dude. I get what you mean but is this what we have to do? Really? I cannot accept that  

[Wilhelm von Seydlitz]

20 minutes ago, Socialism said:

I decent solution to your idea would to have a "Base" DLC wood / trim type.  Lets say like oak + something.  You can either redeem 1 of those once a day OR you can redeem a permit to make a customized version.  Redeemable can only be that wood type and a base 3/5  

very interesting idea

[Corona Lisa]

3 minutes ago, HachiRoku said:

compromises dude. I get what you mean but is this what we have to do? Really? I cannot accept that  

Well I dont think DLCs will get changed into permits and so if they cant change them they have to change all other ships

[HachiRoku]

19 minutes ago, Socialism said:

This issue I have is I think the design inside the game is intentionally forcing players into using DLC ships.

Crazy permit wall.  Some of them are RNG which is absurd.  Good woods are more difficult to get.  All roads point towards DLC ships being the mainstay of the game, which I think is by design.  Making them craftable via permits just creates a product that you had to pay to get and yet still grind or expend significant in-game energy to craft.  Assuming you want to sail in anything other than oak and fir.

I decent solution to your idea would to have a "Base" DLC wood / trim type.  Lets say like oak + something.  You can either redeem 1 of those once a day OR you can redeem a permit to make a customized version.  Redeemable can only be that wood type and a base 3/5  

You are right but ingame craftable permits can be argued another time. Thing about your DLC option is that it is a compromise. Compromises = Bad game design. I know you know that so don't accept compromises. 

[HachiRoku]

1 minute ago, Koveras said:

Except this can't be done with the existing DLCs.. The sales page states 'You will be able to request the frame and planking wood type when ordering a ship.

There's no restrictions imbedded.

you a law expert?

 

[Barbarosa]

I am sure developers are very well aware of what you are talking about. The choice was made deliberately.

20 Euro for prolific forger. Almost none complained, you can buy a game with that money but many bought it to support development.

Admiralty connections, none complained. Flags, painter 12.5 euro, none complained. Economy requiring alts, people just bought the game for x2, x5, x10 times. Was never a big problem.

However with DLC ships things went crazy. For the very obvious reasons you and many others already explained.

They simply don't want to put too much effort to design working economy and RvR. There is a huge possibility that it might not worth the effort and resources considering their previous development strategy. Naval battle enthusiasts already bought the game. The other gamers were diverted back by negative reviews, (it is quite a skill to able to turn your supporters to adversaries in such scale).

The statement made by developers that economy will remain "basic", just as an additional feature to acquire some ships blaze a trail to DLC ships and prove it is deliberate decision.

Working on a new game might bring much better profit than trying to fix something broken.

They had to rush the release and this is the way it will happen.

Recent purging of players is not a coincidence or anger out of passion.

[HachiRoku]

5 minutes ago, Father of Dragons said:

Well I dont think DLCs will get changed into permits and so if they cant change them they have to change all other ships

dont say that to me ever again. Have faith bra. If I have to I will get a kickstarter, raise all the money I need. Refund all DLC ships to people and start the selling DLC as craftable permits again. I will bitchslap Gabe Newell himself If I have to. 

[toblerone]

@HachiRoku I give you my impression about the DLC thing.

- since some time Game Labs is in need for money (for developing further this game, for developing other games, or for whatever other reasons we do not know).

- it is unlikely that such money will come from sales of new copies of the game at launch: the game after three years of development in Alpha is quite old and did not age very well. Plus steam reviews are not very good.

- a "permit only" DLC for ships - as you suggest - will vanquish half the value of DLC for players, since crafting decent ships is now so difficult due to the restriction to the access to RARE WOODS and PERMITS. You are a pro player, so you probably do not struggle in getting those Woods and permits and do not loose a ship a day, but your kind of player is not the target of the DLCs. The average players in war server, cornered by unforgiving game mechanics, will probabily buy DLCs ships to be able to play. 

- the launch of those DLCs have been being "prepared" quite some long ago: the ever increasing austerity plus the hardcore OS PVP have created the perfect market for paid "click ready" ships: the weak PVP player that is not able to self sustain his PVP with craft, marks, permits and so on.

You say that this move will kill the game? Maybe … but that would be the price to pay for having turned a MMO game in a super hard, grindy and unforgiving game for the average player.

I am an average player that likse PVP (but sucks at it) and is quite good at PVE, and I had to drop war server to migrate to peace server because I do not want to buy DLC ships and cannot afford the new permit/rare Woods system as it is now in war server. If I had bought DLCs, I still could play on war server. So this is the scenario behind the DLCs. And that's also the reason why I doubt it will change, until the average joes will buy the DLCs.

Edited April 6, 2019 by toblerone

[HachiRoku]

Just now, Barbarosa said:

I am sure developers are very well aware of what you are talking about. The choice was made deliberately.

20 Euro for prolific forger. Almost none complained, you can buy a game with that money but many bought it to support development.

Admiralty connections, none complained. Flags, painter 12.5 euro, none complained. Economy requiring alts, people just bought the game for x2, x5, x10 times. Was never a big problem.

However with DLC ships things went crazy. For the very obvious reasons you and many others already explained.

They simply don't want to put too much effort to design working economy and RvR. There is a huge possibility that it might not worth the effort and resources considering their previous development strategy. Naval battle enthusiasts already bought the game. The other gamers were diverted back by negative reviews, (it is quite a skill to able to turn your supporters to adversaries in such scale).

The statement made by developers that economy will remain "basic", just as an additional feature to acquire some ships blaze a trail to DLC ships and prove it is deliberate decision.

Working on a new game might bring much better profit than trying to fix something broken.

They had to rush the release and this is the way it will happen.

Recent purging of players is not a coincidence or anger out of passion.

If you are right about this then we as a community should all accept that naval action is dead before it was released. I don't see a point anymore really. 

[HachiRoku]

1 minute ago, Koveras said:

When it comes to arguing consumer rights then yes - I've won before. It doesn't matter wether I like DLC ships or not - the fact is that they are sold as described. Any changes to the asset ingame that runs contrary to the description gives the consumer (within the EU) a right to refund. This, after the latest shitstorm, makes any changes to the DLCs unlikely. Who here really believes that after the veritable flood of permabans, bans, warnings etc. that ppl who has backed this game with time, effort and in most cases alts, and bought the DLCs on their alts, won't jump at the chance to recap some of those money? If nothing else then just from pure spite. I can't blame them and I don't believe devs should give them any legal way to do so.

because if they want to make money they need a playerbase. I cannot accept this is a cashgrab because there was no point in developing past sea trials. The game means more to the devs than you might think. Maybe I really am delusional but I just cannot play this game anymore if it goes down this path. This is my last fight for the game. 

[Slim McSauce]

The tragic thing is that some of us probably anticipated this, how far down a line of thought do you need to go to realize that a. non-craftable, redeemable free ships every day will undercut the economy of whatever rate they're in and b. eventually, if the trend continues you'll dig out the entire ship economy from under the  games feet in order to sell something, that's only temporarily priced but last forever?

Where did the devs go wrong? They underestimated what p2w does to a game, there is no ifs involving it. A microtransaction that effects the power play of the game IS p2w and WILL effect negatively across the board nearly every time. You can pretty much consider it a law of nature at this point that selling such content takes life out of your game, and people will react so.
Where they wen't horribly wrong, they undervalued the real DLC which is flags and paints, which they sold all for a 1 time price instead of opening a mini-store for them. Now what will happen is you just buy all the paints and that's it, you'll never spend money again on them. Assuming every paint took time to make, you're selling each one at less than 10c a pop, not only that but all future paints as well so you're basically working for free to add more.

In a market where games are sold completely on their vanity and cosmetic items, this was a huge miss step. The economy on skins in games like CS:GO, league, all those games is crazy. That should show just how much people prefer cosmetics over other items, because I think deep down people know buying the DLC ships is sort of the end of the NA experience. You're basically buying your way through the game, killing all possible fun to be had on the way. No more building up your clan/nation, or working with others in the grand MMO scheme, you become self sufficient, but not in a productive way which spreads but a welfare sort of way where you leech on free ships for repeated pvp. It can't be good for the player.
It's definitely not good for the economy or MMO aspect of NA.

Hopefully some patches can be made but my honest opinion, NA is being laid to rest and will stagnate as it has been 6 months to a year after release, with less than 500 or so players average which pretty much is a ded game. The worse thing about NA's situation is it has no competition, no one to truly kick it's ass or learn mistakes from. Kicking your own ass isn't easy but I can't excuse the lack of foresight from the developers, in 4 years if there's another age of sail game, NA will be seen as the beta test for the genre and the same mistakes won't be made ( best case scenario ). Worse case scenario is people year down the line look at NA and will think age of sail can't be done or is not worth doing due to poor reception of the first.
I hope that's not the case, this genre, specially the MMO side of it is something unique, and in a landscape where all MMO's look the same a realistic, historical driven game world is exactly what could bring back the magic MMO's use to have on people, fantasy crap is overdone, it's lost it's touch. A game like NA2 could be the counterpart to timeless E.V.E done right. alas, the technology needs to be there for sailing, and it will take many years to brew up as a concept, as these things tend to do.

[Bubba Smith]

For our clan crafting any ships has stopped. The bottleneck is very restrictive for resources like live oak, teak, white oak (most wood) and of course permits far too difficult to make crafting an option, at this point.  Paying 10,000 Dubs for 1000 logs of wood is prohibitive for any ship construction. The previous system of buying wood in ports that produce it and very few permits worked much better. 

[HachiRoku]

@Everyone 

Its funny though. Up until now everyone has agreed with me this time. To bad you all had to buy the Herc and requin  If you all had any brains at all you would have seen it then. Maybe you did and if so it makes you even worse.... I don't really want to comment about the issue here anymore. I just hope the devs have learned and change their mindset for naval action 2. All I know is I am proud I boycotted all DLC ships because I was one of the few that cared.  I might log in now and then to sail the aggy, trinco and connie but I don't think there is a future here in this game. When the game is released in its current state I will give it a negative review. A potential great game with fundamental core mechanics problems is by definition a badly designed game. Its still alpha so at release I will give the developers of naval action and the players that are considering buying it a proper constructive review like I have always done. @admin once told me I always had really good constructive feedback.

Maybe this was the most important time to listen to me. I really would like to insult staun right now but since I was warned for the 9th time last night I think its a bit to early. I deserved it. 

 

 

Edited April 6, 2019 by HachiRoku

[Njord]

It is very sad... I really loved this game.