This game can only thrive if they start catering to casual players. Nobody wants to invest (or have the time to) dedicate hours upon hours a week to maintaining or building a base/ship, only to have it destroyed when offline.
Companies need to be nerfed massively - 20 or less people per company, one island per company.
Freeport is being used as a storage station - companies should be able to store one boat per freeport with a gold upkeep cost. How difficult is it? Really? One boat, one company, one freeport.
Need a much better reporting system - I've had several underwater bases (200m+ deep), destroyed by exploding barrel exploits. If you aren't going to try to protect the integrity of the game, it's not worth playing.
Want to improve your game? Start by appealing to casual players. Get rid of the large companies whom do nothing but drive away the player base. You start appealing to the casual base, start making it casual friendly, you can start implementing in-game purchases, cash for gold. If casual players knew they could get on, have meaningful PVP, you'd start to see a turnaround in the sentiment of your game.
