jmurph

But if the schooner is just worse in all areas, it won't get used. Sure, a full sized loom might not fit, but what about a lighter, compact version that can't make large sails? Same for a smithy and forges- a small forge might make fewer items but would be useful for onboard repairs. Again, the emphasis is supposedly to get players on the water.

It's really symptomatic of adding underdeveloped new features without addressing existing systems. The concept of more ship designs is a good one. The implementation is poor. Hopefully, it will improve in time. Where they could have really focused is adding more customization to components. Letting players tweak sail wind angle/top speed/weight/etc. without needing BPs that are just absolutely better. Get a good modular system going where you can modify the frame for acceleration/maneuver/durability/weight/etc. Heck, separating sails and masts would be a nice step. Larger masts can mount more/different sails, but smaller masts/sails are much quicker to adjust. In battle, masts and sails as separate areas also make different weapons useful (see chainshot). Aim those flaming arrows at the sails! Lighter craft should also be able to navigate shallows/have reduced problems with reef/rock/ etc. NPC Crew should also have more customization in terms of accuracy, reload speed, etc.

Is the problem the speed of breeding or the scale? Hundreds of tames is a problem in multiple ways. Caps fix that. If they use alts, just ban 'em. The problem is there is no enforcement. I agree, a cooldown on breeding would be a solid idea. The females already have a cooldown- implementing it in males should be trivial. Aging would be an interesting mechanic as to mating. Perhaps have aging be relatively slow, but mating speeds it up, reflecting the wear on the animal. So excessive breeding would burn through your tame lifespan/stats. This would have the side effect of new stock being important for breeding animals. Likewise, their should be more problems with not diversifying breed lines. Right now, there is no real reason to seek out new animals if you tame ones with good stats. Breeding lines that are too closely related should risk degradation in the line, making it important to bring in new blood.

You playing on official? Forget about it- they don't care about player complaints. Find yourself a private that has boosted maturation/imprint/mating rates and maybe no gold ships. Play the game you want to play.

This is a bug that seems to have been introduced in the last round of patches. Island beds/claims get broken. There seems to be no real quality control going on with these patches (see also key bindings bug).

This game is really bad about using excessive time sinks to lock content. And not fun time sinks, just long counters. Breeding is kind of a mess, but shortening timers would make it less grindy. As to excessive tames, that is yet another problem of the game- it allows spamming without any meaningful way to mitigate that (the cryopods is a nice example). I like the Taming Overhaul Mod by H20-Melons (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2279458702). It also makes the creatures a bit more reasonably sized. MINIPAN9- that is a really good suggestion. Having trinkets that can reduce breeding time, up maturation speed, etc. adds more things to seek out for tamers. It would also be nice to have items that you can recolor pets with, redistribute points, etc.

The "empty space" between islands is a bit of a drag, but that is part of the genre. As to aggro wildlife, bows make short work of lower level ants/snakes/scorpions. Bears, as mentioned, are non-aggro. Tames help with wolves/tigers. Keep medkits on hand and use your spyglasss to scout before moving in too fast. Most aggro species will attack non-aggro animals, so watch out for dead animals, birds flying in circles, etc.. Also, keep a bed on your ship so if you get mauled and bleed out, you can respawn nearby. Once you get a little more experienced, you will be glad to see scorpions for free organic paste!

This is a great post that shows way more familiarity with PVP design than anything the devs have posted. PVP absolutely relies on an influx of newer players or it stagnates and dies. Griefers and seal clubbers drive newbies away. So do high barriers to content (looking at gold requirements for ships). To get to some sort of equilibrium, you need upward pressure on the bottom (to motivate newer, less skilled players) and downward pressure on the top (to avoid too much consolidation of power/complacency). This is why things like flat costs are generally bad (they are hard on newbies/lowbies) and scaled/ramping costs are better (more expensive for better stuff). PVE is often much easier to balance as adding new animals, furniture, etc. is fairly easy and uses existing systems. Adding those same things in PVP is tougher if they affect the balance of power. The real issue is that maintaining multiple servers is a constant expense, as are dev salaries and the game relies on pushing waves of discounted purchases. A subscription service for official would be a more stable way to get income, but would drive down active numbers and, right now, the broken systems and frequent wipes probably wouldn't sustain subscriptions. It would also pressure them to listen to players or risk losing income, whereas now the players are basically just unpaid beta testers.

Yeah, it would be much simpler, and more efficient, to just for an upgrade path. Farmhouse->warehouse->market. The PvE/PvP bickering is pointless. Some people enjoy the exploration/taming/building and don't want to fight with other players. Trying to wrongfun someone accomplishes nothing.

I would put a team on cleaning up crash/lag/and similar bugs. Before new features roll out, it has to pass this team. For features, I would work on expanding existing functionality before adding new systems. So, work on expanding NPCs as vendors, NPC ships, camps, etc. Pirates, for example, could be spawned in low activity regions to add camps with loot. They could also spawn to attack existing structure, with larger/denser structures drawing more and higher leveled attacks. Around freeports, Imperial navy patrols would assist players against SOTD, offer rescues in storms, etc. This leads directly into factions. Players who warn before attack (allowing opportunity to surrender some gold/items or flee), don't attack Imperials, etc. stay in good standing and can run Imperial quests to gain reputation, hire Imperials, etc.. Players who attack weaker ships, attack without warning, assault Imperials, etc. get lower rep, bounties and, eventually, declared Outlaw. Outlaws can hire Pirate NPCs, trade with them (don't care if goods are stolen/bloody), but are arrested/killed on sight by Imperial. They can also be freely attacked without Rep loss. Each faction has quest givers (and in PVP, that may include collecting rival bounties). Barrels would get a rework. Port harbors would offer offline docking after you are green. Prepay or risk you stuff being seized and sold at auction by the dockmaster. No claim areas around treasure map targets. Stricter, smaller claim areas. Companies can hold larger areas based on membership. All pay upkeep (tax/tribute) based on size and structures. Island "governors" owe taxes to Empire but automatically earn from activity on island. Pirate lords do not pay taxes, but have to manually enforce tribute. Either can be removed by various means, peaceful and not. Faction NPC ships sail and patrol around their controlled islands and between controlled ports. These would be able to be attacked, boarded, captured, etc. More active admins to deal with griefing/exploits/etc. on official. Right now, I feel like the current map/server layout is kind of a problem. You want more players, but fixed land means both servers needed for dead/vacant islands and guaranteed overcrowding and hoarding of key resource areas. Either lean into that and make resource locking a part of the game with some sort of cost that makes it increasingly difficult to hold on to too much for too long, or look at shifting to more limited building or, best of all, instancing where new sectors are created as necessary, with the core world as the golden age and some surrounding that expands out as those areas fill up. Heck, you could probably procedurally generate most of it.

It's a pretty well documented bug with prefab buildings on SP/non-dedicated. Host side stops rendering on zone/load. Seems like it would be an easy fix, but big squashing doesn't seem to be a huge priority. And since it doesn't affect the PVP or PVE servers, don't hold your breath.

It's a bug that seems to consistently pop up on non-dedicated and solo servers. Prefab buildings (farm, warehouse, market) stop rendering on the host after zoning or loading. It's yet another bug that seems to have been overlooked in lieu of adding new, unasked for, features (that add yet more bugs).

Man, a lot of sniping back and forth. Have you considered that you can both be right? Development is a mess, but there are still fun things for some players? I wouldn't recommend official, but there are a number of good customs depending on what you are looking for.

Also be aware that in SP, the prefab structures (farm, warehouse, marketplace) will likely go invisible when you relog or cross into a new zone. They will still be there and function, just the model will not render.

Yeah, it's an odd decision. At the same time they seem to aiming to minimize grinding for resources with farms/markets/etc., they upped the grind for ships radically. And that is after they indicated they wanted people out on the water sooner/more. It all just reeks of lack of planning and completely ignoring of the playerbase's concerns. New player, solos, and small companies really suffer under these changes and they don't address any of the repeated concerns (such as how easy it is to lose a ship to bugs, griefers, etc.). Likewise, it's baffling they the devs aren't aggressively rooting out some of the core bugs and instabilities before adding in whole new systems (that don't work). Wouldn't it be easier to develop some of the existing systems like adding more depth to NPCs (heck they already have NPC pirate boats- work on improving those and making them capturable like the NPC pirate camps)? Heck, you could probably expand out to some basic factions pretty easily (such as Law/Navy/whatever that patrol around freeports and will assist players against SOTDs and pirates, and pirates that periodically spawn and are more than happy to attack players and raid/capture settlements). You could even roll that into player factions where players who attack other players without offering warning (and a chance to flee) get lumped into the pirate faction and lose benefits of the Law faction. Heck, use that to have faction quest givers to supplement treasure maps with tasks (sink X SOTD, bring me X resources, etc.).