Naval Action Developer Q&A session

[Ink]

Captains, this is a copy from Q&A session on Game-Labs forums.

What does the pray button do?

We do not have enough information to answer.

Will and when will you merge the servers to increase population, diversify the nations, and drastically increase player based content?

When will you merge the servers? Obviously, the current population of the game does not warrant multiple servers.

You previously expressed some intent for merging PVP servers into one. To accomplish this, what locations are your best prospects for the new / final location?

We have rushed opening new servers after EA launch and will not rush merging the servers before release. We can merge the servers in 1 day but do not know yet if it is a good idea or not. Half of our customers are from USA, half of our customers is from Europe. Most likely there will be two servers.

Can you please clarify that PVP1 EU does not imply that the server should only be EU players and that the EU in the name simply implies that is where the server is located. US players happen to be some of your oldest and most loyal captains...many of whom were early adopters....Hostility towards US players on the server has reached new heights and the base has become more toxic and xenophobic.

RIP system works. Check the reviews - the majority of negative reviews are from people who were banned for toxic and xenophobic statements. Thus: Report, Ignore and toxic players will be Punished.

When will you split the server? - obviously with the current national factions it's impossible to make PBs work without someone getting nightflipped. If above is done, is there any plans towards serverwide PB timers? - or do u recon there's a better option and if so what?

EA servers are for testing and finding pain points. The only real solution is to have EU and US server with respective time zones. Or keep full sandbox like EvE Online.

If you plan on reintroducing PB timers could we please get clarified that the PvP1EU server is in fact located in EU and mostly populated by players from the EU.

EU server is located in the EU and populated both by players from EU and US.

Is your long term intention for global or regional servers ?

In the very long term there will be one server (or two). PVE server will most likely not survive in the long term.

Are you planning to interfere to the whole 'Nightflip' problematic or do you think that it's a thing players should fix/manage on their own?

EvE online does not interfere with time of conquest, POTBS has regional servers. Lots of pain in between of those options.

What is the plan to allow players that currently are only able to play during the hostility lockout, join PBs? (please provide as much detail is possible.)

Question could not be understood.

Are you happy with Port Battle system and time zones? How do you plan to overcome timezone problem and have all battles 25vs25?

Trafalgar was 33v41, Raid for Havana (1762) was 42v9. We don’t plan to have all battles 25v25 in Naval Action OW edition.

I would really like to know the devs plans for fixing our current port battle system that most of the community is unhappy with right now. Devs said they had new mechanics that would fix a lot of the problems we regularly see people complaining about. Can you give us some details?

The community has make hard decision on the timezones. There is no middle ground. More information above.

Is there a consideration to balance RvR?

Its impossible to balance RVR. Its a sandbox and an experience. There are weak nations and strong nations. Because of alliances every nation has access to at least 25 captains required to control zones and win PBs. The only problem with RVR is the timezone problem.

Do you work on a new ROE model that allows reinforcements and larger battles in OW?

Take signalling perk - it allows reinforcements and larger battles.

What are Raids going to look like? (Anything would be appreciated)

How raids will look like? Can we raid capitals? Only pirates can raid?

We have no public information on raids yet.

are u gonna implement some sort of fast placed, balanced and funny lobby based pvp/pve event ? (like fellvred small battle) ; if yes, when?

Are you planning to add a custom-battle-room? Similar to War Thunder

Will there be an arcade or battle mode? I'd love to play ranked matches against other players, or set pieces reenacting historical battles. Open world started fun but turned meh really quickly... NA's strength is its incredible battle system, and only allowing OW doesn't play to that strength at all.

NA could be split into two games. Sitting on two chairs satisfies no-one. Then if you want no time wasting you would go to Arena. And if you want experience (salt on your face and such) you will sail in the Open world.

Plans/progress for the Pacific coast?

When will you make the Bahamas great again? Will you remove the rookie area from there and move it to the Pacific?

Pacific = gulf of mexico. No-one is going to be there. We have no plans to remove rookie area yet. A lot of people who want rookie area removed are veterans.

Will ship kick starter projects will be done by 3rd party designers or by you guys? Any idea when will those start? Any idea on how ships will be picked for a kick starter? Will members be required to provide any ship plans for those ships and of what detail.

Ships will be done by us even if the model will be done by an outsider (freelancer or volunteer).

Are there any plans for player driven town growth, settlers and more player-town interaction or economic gameplay in general?

Player driven town growth will not work in MMO environment, as all cities will be built out to max in 3 months defeating the purpose. The only way to make this system work is to make cities full loot (lost the city = lost everything in it including improvements).

Will the announced kickstarter shippacks be available only for the backers, or for all players?

For all players.

Will the game ever simulate damage to rigging in addition to damage to sails?

Damage to rigging = Demasting. Rigging is such a complex mechanism with so many parts that for sake of simplicity in gameplay environment you can consider it one element replicated by masts and mast sections.

I've seen recent comments since you announced the possibility of a kickstarter for ship packs that people are saying this means you are running out of money and people have fears you won't be able to complete Naval Action. Can you displace these fears?

We have more ships than Euro Truck Simulator has trucks. To make more customers will have to support us. Regarding the completion fears - there is nothing to worry about - The game will be completed and released.

How much longer do you plan to develop Naval Action/estimated release date?

When is the Release date?

can you please give us any clue about all the demands of many other players, without answer, and when the game will be release. Date, approximatelly, month and year. 2018?

We are confident that this will happen in 2017.

Are you currently working on (have teaser screenshots) of any new ships?

What is the current ship roadmap?

We are working on the several ships including Wasa and Hermione.

Is a rising and falling character career of interest to you in your vision for this game? If so, is it feasible to implement?

Careers were never successfully implemented in MMOs The only option is veteran reset. You reset - start fresh for badges or extra points etc.

Do you have an internal business development plan for this project that you can share some with alpha testers? Would include player ideas accepted, rejected, tested, still planned.

There are content plans for the first half of 2017 posted in the developer announcements. The goal is to release the game out of early access with polished UI and localized into several languages that will bring a good number of new players.

When are you going to post the new voting poll for new ships?

Somewhere in February-March.

When do you think (aprox) will be next patch be deployed?

What feature will we see in the next (major) patch? Will it go to the test server first? Ballpark ETA?

Patches are deployed to testbed now. We expect the patch to move to main server as soon as features we are working on now are finished deployed and tested on testbed.

Which things should the players give you more feedback (beside structure) right now?

What can the the player base do to help? What feedback is needed?

Besides structure there are new pirate mechanics, port battle changes (points does not count for first 10 minutes, new coastal defenses), general combat feedback on 6th, 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd and 1st rates.

Have you change your mind after the playerbase negativity to the removal of the hostility system?

Are you going to change how the hostility generation is working? So it becomes more interesting, and not just PvE grinding..

Hostility system was partially proposed by players and was supposed to bring people together in jolly cooperation vs other nations. But it did not. If there are more enemies than you have you don’t engage and enemies pve. same happens against you. Thus hostility points failed. We will try tweaking it one more time but we are very pessimistic about hostility points now.

do you plan some customizing elements? Like naming your ship, colour of sails, etc...

Not in the release version. Paints could be customized on certain vessels on release.

did you decided yet that you will split the pirates

Are you going to introduce the Outlaw class? Will Pirates become a Nation of thieves with their own rebuilt ships and rules?

When will the pirates mechanics start to be seen? We get to see a little in test, but i think it's time they get some more love.

Pirates will be able to sink each other if they attack each other (so called outlaw battle). Outlaw battle will not provide rewards, will be open for 1.30 hours and will be FFA (even forts will shoot at all participants and each other). This is going to be tested on testbed first.

will there be more sinking animation?

Ships are supposed to sink differently with different angles to water. But remember - wooden ships have no compartments - so they usually sink keel down with some angle. http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/12/us/hms-bounty-tall-ship-sinking-investigation/

Do you plan to add more crew to the ships, as in battle, as in the open world? If yes or not why ?

Such features eat a lot of performance unfortunately. We have said in the past – initially there were gun recoil and open/closed port features but we was forced to turn it off to achieve a good performance in 50 ship battle. Same story here.

Given that you are a dev team of a fixed size and we don't know the full list of features you plan to include in the game, how will you ensure that if the ship kickstarter is funded we will not end up with less content in other areas?

Kickstarter will only be for ships and first one will cover a specific community request that we cannot afford doing ourselves: USS Constitution full remake (requested by several TDA members). We will be happy to provide stretch goals in form of other American vessels. If this kickstarter is successful it will do more of them in the future for example rare ship packs - like Victory with original stern (with balconies) or National ship packs (like Dutch ship pack).

Will the Santa Cecilia ever be obtainable again? right now there is literally not a single way to get a new one besides trading for one of the ones that were given as redeemables to the few tournament winners.

The ship line up composition is not final and will change on release. some ships will remain rare.

Not that important but still: When are the paints that are already in the API but not ingame yet (example Surprise paints etc.) going to be added?

We do not know yet but eventually they will be added to the game.

Do you think the sternrakes are finalized or will you still tweak them? (A Carronade fitted Surprise killing 100+ crew off a Frigate in 1 rake)

Stern rakes are not finalized yet – but crew damage is already lower on testbed.

Are you planning to add some sort of BR-limits to Port Battles (seeing 25v25 Agamemnons / 1st rates only is getting a bit boring, imo)

Are there any plans for requiring a mixture of rated ships for shallow and deep water port battles or will they remain clone wars?

BR limits are impossible to enforce unless entry to port battles is done through the lobby. Our goal is to make other 4th rates viable. Aga is OP or other ships are weak (unrealistically weak).

Are you still planning to add a pvp-currency with which rare modules / paints can be bought in a special shop?

Yes – please check Content plans for the first half of 2017 thread.

Can you provide more detail on the Admiralty store?

Not yet, we will post once there are more details.

One of the first things that pulled me towards NA was that a large part of the game was going to be 'skill based'. For the past 6-12 months it seems like the game has slowly been drifting towards a point where the side with numbers will always win in the long term - are there any plans in development for smaller groups, guilds and nations to have just the same chance at advancement as the largest groups/alliances?

Do you plan to bring back ways to get more even PvP's instead of mostly ganks? I think what made NA so unique was the epic fights that could go either way along with the one of a kind combat mechanics. It's kind of a shame to see this game be mostly ganks with such an awesome combat system. It has been very hard to find similar BR fights since the hostility system was brought in.

Is there a consideration to incent/bonus the under populated side of pvp battles?

Getting and keeping nation numbers = is a skill. It is a leadership skill. Number of players come up and down in nations over time (veterans know it) . Skilled players sink others despite the numbers. Of course 3 skilled captains will lose against 15 new players. There are ways to mitigate that though if we do some changes. For example removing the boarding preparation time, which will help those 3 to change ships. Or give the repair resets on kills (like DS3) which will allow those who kill more to fight longer.

When can we expect the crafting changes to be implemented?

When will new ship crafting mechanics come?

Crafting changes are not on the key priorities for 1H. But we might change how ships are made.

Where are the existing PVP1, PVP2 and PVE servers located? City / locality - specific.

Düsseldorf Germany, NJ USA
.

Devs Team size working only on Naval Action? (Not including other games)

10 members: 2.5 coders, 2 designers, 3 artists, 3 QA testers.

Do you plan to introduce player reputation system? Kill specific NPC/Players and earn your standing with Factions/Nations?

Not before release.

Do you plan to Kickstart PvE content? let's say for example 'Junk Loot', 'Treasure Chests' and 'Maps'?

We never focused efforts on PvE.

[Ink]

Were you considering adding 'Hybrid Port Battles' that will have 25vs25 any time all the time? Player/NPC vs Player /NPC?

Did not consider this idea before.

What should PvE crowd expect this year? and how are you going to keep them playing and asking for more?

PVE server was opened based on the request of several veteran players/supporters during testing. They asked us to give them some place where they can just peacefully sink bots without attack of other players. But before that we were never PVE focused and always said that real captains in the age of sail fought other people (our webpage in 2013). What we can assure you our PVE is better than in Rust or DayZ. Raids will be somewhat PVE (with a chance of player invasion).

Can we see UI in the next few months? Is it even in development?

When are we going to see some new images of the user interface, some different design, images of the ships into the menus etc? some UI,new graphics to help us...

When will we expect a more time-period and immersive UI?

Will the new UI be released next month?

UI is work in progress.
Important statement on the time period immersive UI. If time-period UI means rotten wood everywhere partially covered by dirty 200 year old half burned and stained paper - no. we won’t have rotten wood ui. Risks of infection in an enclosed space forced navies to keep their crews and ships extremely clean. Decks were washed multiple times per day. Everything was freshly painted or tarred to avoid rot. Paper was new, and newspapers were freshly printed and white. Age of sail ships were the most modern creation then. Thus UI must be sleek and modern to actually be immersive. sailors were serving on most modern and sleek ships- spaceships of the age of sail.

Are you going to refine group/ clan managing system? Add Clan warehouses, wallets, custom flags and titles?

Will we be getting some clan love ?

Are there plans for clan docks and not just warehouses?

Docks are very expensive database wise. Like really expensive. Clan love is not on the priority list. The goal is to solve the 80% of new players never reaching the brig. If this is solved you wont have time to think about clan flag because of lots of pvp.

Did you hire new employees? and where do you see Game-Labs in next few years?

Yes we do. We work on 2 secret projects in addition to Ultimate General Civil War and Naval Action. We are looking for AI programmers now and great animation specialists.

Are you planning of having cargo weight affect the speed of a ship?

We love that idea but will not implement it. Such feature would punish traders first. Thus we are considering in-game ship speed as a fully loaded. TLDR. No-one will survive at 8 knots loaded. It’s like fine wood squared.

Any plans for variable and risky weather?

Any plans for more varied weather in battles?

Rain and storms happen in battle if you start a battle in rain or storm.

Regarding ROE, have you considered making the outer circle's size dependent on the BR of the player (player' group) - where the bigger the attacker's BR is, the bigger the outer circle is?

Yes

Will presently non-craftable/trainable upgrades become craftable/trainable (ie: Staysails, Marines, Monkeys...)?

Some upgrades will be received in the admiralty. some upgrades will remain rare drops.

What is the rough cost for developing a ship, and is it plausible that someone could potentially fund themselves or perhaps find a deal they could reach with the devs?

The modelling cost is miniscule compared to getting the ship work in game (damage model, colliders, textures, paint schemes, animations, rigging, yards, sails, crew, cannons, waterline, structure, etc).

When will the US players get to do port battles during there prime time (which we have a PvP event during)?

Timezones questions were answered above.

Will RvR regional conquest get a reset so that nations allainces don't fall into a stalemate and no one doing anything?

National alliances were requested by players (persistently). Players want alliances and they will fall into stalemates if players will keep them. Players who don’t want alliances can join pirates and sink everyone.

Why not make Pirates privateers instead of a nation (still do outlaws though)?

Because privateers are not pirates.

are we going to have a wipe any time soon to test new econ mechanics that have came out and changed? We can't test an econ if every one is sitting on tons of stuff.

The next wipe will be ship wipe. We will provide some other solutions to test eco changes.

why don't you mail / message players with news after patches and fixes so that bored / unhappy / frustrated players may return to the game , as some of the issues that made them leave may now be fixed or no longer exist .

We hate spamming and thus don't spam. Many will return when the game will release but the majority of inflow will be from new players. Steam announcements, facebook will inform most of the fans. But remember - for many players games are like books. Read it once and look for a new one.

If the smuggler flag is removed will you allow trade ships of any nation enter a port? If not, how do you plan to help smaller nations get resources?

There are only 2 rare resources available in 2 regions only. The rest can be get through alliances and conquest. Smuggler was supposed to be a risky mechanic. Trade ships under neutral flags (or just trade ships) could enter other nations in history.. we don't see why not.

Any plans to increase max number of outposts?

When might it be possible to have more than 6 ships in a port?

Outposts = ships/items = database entries = cost. We don’t want subscriptions. Maybe there is another way but we have not yet figured it out.

Do you plan on re-balancing ships? (Specifically ones that are Overpowered compared to their counterparts of the same tier)

Do you plan on fixing the thickness/Penetration problem with ships right now? (More specifically thickness stacking with strong hull, regional thickness stiffness +Live Oak or Mahogany)

Do you plan on rebalancing regional bonuses so that more than just 2 are used? (the 2 being pirate refit and strong hull)

Balancing is never complete and will continue.

Will there be something on the order of a Naval Action Training Academy available for new players where they can practice shooting and sailing to their hearts desire, or is the Bahama's rookie zone going to be it?

We do not know yet – but at the moment you can test ships on testbed server (when it is live).

When will the new boarding mechanics be implemented?

We are happy with the prototype but now there are other priorities.

How do you plan to keep the 700+ members of this game occupied until the game is launched? RVR is continually disappointing for most players. PVP is disappointing and the lack of players makes OW pvp scarce. The PVP events are beyond stale.

On average 40 captains join the game EVERY DAY for the last 1-2 months without any marketing. That is 1200 players per month. That’s enough to fill both PVP servers in 2 months. What did you personally do to make them feel at home, happy and willing to stay and fight alongside you? Remember that your negativity spreads and stops them from playing.

Hey it's possible to see in the future , avatar simillard potbs or age of pirate with sword and gun?

No.

Will you add on the spyglass some information ship, sailor number, name of ship?

Spyglass is not a priority.

Do you plan on increasing the marketing for NA? For example, discounts during Steam Summer Sales, Cyber Monday Sales etc to draw in additional players

Not before release.

Is Asian language Chinese?

Chinese is one of Asian languages.

is there any plans to add Portugal?

Initially we did not include Portugal because The Treaty of Tordesillas have placed the Portugal line below the current in game map.

After "Official Release" and patches, do you intend to continue to develop and expand the game? or will the final release be a mostly feature finished game?

Boarding will most likely be updated after release. The game content will continue to improve.

Why are you nerfed the yatch 3/5 to 1/3?

Yacht was not nerfed. report a bug.

Any plans to add more eye-candy to the OW - fishing villages, shipwrecks, remote structures, lighthouse?

Lighthouses and such are theoretically possible. We have plans to come back to this feature in the future. This is a very interesting idea but currently has low priority.

Are you going to bring back demasting? I Think the old combat system was much better, everything was balanced nicely. Demasting, Raking, Chainshot & Hullshooting were all options in a fight. You rarely seen demasting used, it was for the more skilled players. I don't see why it was changed.

Combat is still in tuning. We plan to rebalance ship’s stats.

Are you aware and will you fix it so smaler nations once again can attack larger nations and enter those port battles with 25 players? It's no longer possible because of screenig fleets.

Will you implement a mechanic to help with the unbalance between the different nations player base numbers?

Nelson’s fleet at trafalgar was a screening fleet. He had to stop the combined French fleet from providing support to the invasion fleet of Napoleon and did it by winning the battle of Trafalgar. Screening is part of conquest. But screening should have a counter.

Will you show us live statistic here or in game of how many active player each nation has? Count those active last 2-7 days for example

You can interpolate the % from the alliance votes and then apply that % to average daily online number.

Will you implement something to make it easier for players to switch nation?

We plan to remove the ability to keep XP when deleting players. XP Synchronization was provided for EA only. You won’t be able to change nation in the future without starting completely fresh.

Do devs read all post in the "Suggestion" forum? Could you guys consider posting "read" or something just so we know that posting stuff in there has a purpose.

We do read player suggestions.

Will it ever be possible to have 2 ships board another at the same time? Or to board a ship that is itself boarding a ship?

It will make ganking easier.

Have do you already solved the issue of flags, both national flags, and flags for the clans?

Captain, please put more details or rephrase the question in the next Q&A session.

When are you going to introduce Spanish ships? NA Is supposed to be a game in the Caribbean, at the time where Spanish fleets there still sailing there, but nobody knows why there aren't Spanish or Portuguese ships?

We of course want more ships from more nations. Spain has some beauties. Two of the most prized ships in game are Spanish (fully or partially) Santa Cecilia is spanish as well as Santisima Trinidad (first time in history of sailing computer games this ship was done properly). Also remember that for us ships have no nationality. We love them all equally, thus we just make ships our art director loves or our community proposes. Please bring beautiful spanish vessels to the voting when it happens next.

[=🆆ΛУ🆆⋊г∂=]

oh wow, thanks for posting!

[Green Death]

'Pray'.. the joke that keeps on giving ;)

Trying not to be too cynical, but I don't feel like this gave a lot of new information (if any). Most of the things which people seem to feel to be important issues, such as pirate mechanics, a better boarding system, and ship crafting changes are passed off as 'not a priority' which is disappointing.

[Lord Sluggo]

It's our own fault that players don't stay, all the negative reviews are from players who've been banned, and the people who made the pray button don't know what it does. Bull. Crap

[Ruthless4u]

Originally posted by Lord_Sluggo:

It's our own fault that players don't stay, all the negative reviews are from players who've been banned, and the people who made the pray button don't know what it does. Bull. Crap

I agree on the pray button, should not have been added until they actually could say what it's intended for.

[Green Death]

Originally posted by Ink:

Any plans for variable and risky weather?

Any plans for more varied weather in battles?

Rain and storms happen in battle if you start a battle in rain or storm.

Since when? Last I checked starting a battle in a storm or rain resulted in the battle being fought in bright sunshine

[smellyPVT]

Originally posted by Acid_Penguin:

'Pray'.. the joke that keeps on giving ;)

Trying not to be too cynical, but I don't feel like this gave a lot of new information (if any). Most of the things which people seem to feel to be important issues, such as pirate mechanics, a better boarding system, and ship crafting changes are passed off as 'not a priority' which is disappointing.

+1 this gave no good info whatsoever.
edit: on a side note.. i didnt know Ultimate general civil war was made by same peeps. I recently bought it and have been enjoying it much!

[cwsumner]

I like the "Pray" button, and use it regularly! I have faith that it does something, even if not in the software... ;-)

(What, you can't take a joke?)

[Norfolk nChance]

fyi smellPVT

the Ultimate Gen team is the "Darthmod " Guys from Total War. Napolean re-invented that game totally. He's a genius, maybe he should have a look at NA

Norf.

[eViLoZzy]

The pray button is like a swear jar, click every time youe swear at your crew.

All jokes asside, I was told in-game that it's to offer a break away from the grip from an attaker if you are a trader, and only works in PVP, I'm not sure if this is true but it does sound right.

[=🆆ΛУ🆆⋊г∂=]

Originally posted by Norfolk nChance:

fyi smellPVT

the Ultimate Gen team is the "Darthmod " Guys from Total War. Napolean re-invented that game totally. He's a genius, maybe he should have a look at NA

Norf.

yup, never played empire w'out it !!

[Green Death]

Originally posted by Aussie Lee:

The pray button is like a swear jar, click every time youe swear at your crew.

All jokes asside, I was told in-game that it's to offer a break away from the grip from an attaker if you are a trader, and only works in PVP, I'm not sure if this is true but it does sound right.

This is the one thing the devs have said it categorically is not, and then got all cross because people were saying this... when they haven't given us a clue to the real function (if it even has one).

I tend to give the devs a lot of leeway but the Pray button is a disgrace in that you simply do not treat a player base with that kind of contempt, especially when they are testing ♥♥♥♥ for you.

[smellyPVT]

Originally posted by Norfolk nChance:

fyi smellPVT

the Ultimate Gen team is the "Darthmod " Guys from Total War. Napolean re-invented that game totally. He's a genius, maybe he should have a look at NA

Norf.

i still to this day play empire darth mod. one of my top 5 games all time.

i was just going by this statement in the Q&A

" Yes we do. We work on 2 secret projects in addition to Ultimate General Civil War and Naval Action. We are looking for AI programmers now and great animation specialists. "

[Cap'n_Rocko]

when and where do these Q&A sessions take place?

[Green Death]

@Rabid
They have said they're aware of it and consider it a major issue which needs to be addressed. What they actually do about it is anybody's guess. Nobody seems to offer any decent suggestions and they have not proposed anything themselves as far as I know.