George Catcher

I personally dropped the game because of this. It just takes too long. I mean. I played like 800+ hours. About 750 hours were just mindless border sailing with nothing but waters around (borders are safe paths through the ocean btw). It's like I prepare for treasure journey for 20 minutes. I sail for 2 hours. I fight and dig for another 10 minutes. And I sail back for 2 hours. It's 4.5 hours of game and 30 minutes of actual playing. I listened all TES OST, and some more of Jeremy Soule in Youtube during the sailing. Then I just found that it bother me. That the game is for those who have just all time in the world and who ready to waste in with no regrets. I wrote a lot about it when I was in the game. I see two ways to solve this. 1st - Journeys must be way shorter. IMAO - the longest and unluckiest way within just ONE HOUR (the map must be compressed and speed rebalanced for this). 2nd - Or there must be rewarding activities in seas. Drifting icebergs, snowstorms, sandstorms, seaweeds zones, some mystery death or sirens zones, friendly NPCs, escorting missions and so on so on so on, and we have to get actually rewards for successfully pass through each danger. At least let it be some "fame" currency that can be exchanged for powerful rewards or something like this (I'm now thinking I would so much things make different ways, jeez : ) ).

I dropped the game because it's just ate so much time with no purpose. It was like this - 800 hours of game. 700 hours of pure calm sailing along the border. I went youtube, search some atmosphere music and listen for it (all those Jeremy Soule, TES OST etc) and I listened like all of it available, while sailing. I really enjoyed the idea and for some point - atmosphere of game, I wrote here my suggestions and buggs reports alot, but... 20 minutes prep for journey... 3 hours of nothing, but ocean... 5 minutes of treasure hunt... 3 more hours of nothing but ocean... It's just not for me... So I keep my visits here, see some news about game improvements, and hope - one day it will be changed enough for me to join the party again. Even with a lot of useless time wasted - I keep my memories about hours here and some adventures (especially in the beginning) with warmth in my heart... So 'm looking forward to 2nd phase.

I was on my journey today and found myself enjoying to pass this. So maybe more of those asteroid belts riffs and rocks lines in open areas, which we will be forced to avoid - increase our sailing experience (in addition to all other stuff I mentioned above). For example - once per couple of grids?

Same with ships related skills. How do they works? I have reduced sinking time skill, reduced debuff time skill, my crew eats less, and has longer pay period - all by skills. So what should I do to make them work? Should I be just in some radius from ship? Should I be at the ship? Should I be at steering wheel?

Yesterday I faced 5 SotdS with 3 of them were above lvl-30. I was to lazy for real maneuvering so I decided to tank them. They took 3 planks from my Brig. After that I decided to finish my battle as is, and only then - went for maintenance. I spent couple of minutes with 3 planks gone and my Brig flooded by 20-30%. So... as for me, all is fine at the moment (150% sturdiness and -30% sinking time in captaining).

You can destroy it as regular flotsam by the way : )) Just accidentally sail over it, and it's gone : ) Jeez DEVs should changes alot related to SotD loot! : ) It's rule N1 actually : )) Extra steering wheel would be nice (I once lost one) And right now I'm thinking about x-tra sail, because I already twice returned to base by just 2 sails : )) (Once, btw, my neighbors were departured from their island and kite away all damned ships so I could get home safe) : )

I just repeat what I said in my feedback thread (and few post above): Right now it's totally wrong because wind just slowly rotates clockwise and rise and cut it strength. The problem with long half-atlas sailing - during your long journey it will cut it strength to calm. And will turn to a counter-wind. No mater from where you start. To were you sail. You will anyway experience calm and counter-wind. Should we ANYWAY experience these? I'm not sure. Should we enjoy this kind of game experience? Well... from start it might be cool in some ways. Imagine you spent 9 hours playing: - 20 minutes for voyage prep. - 5 minutes for 1st treasure. - 10 minutes for 2nd treasure. - 15 minutes for 3rd treasure. - 8 hours and 10 minutes of pure sailing. You just sitting and watching ocean and push few buttons occasionally (my bro, for example, watching twitch on 2nd display). Now imagine you spent 800 hours playing. 90 of these for things in game (treasure digging, base/ship building etc), and 710 hours - just watching ocean? 710 hours of nothing! If I would do the game - I personally would compress all map by up to 33%. Long journey must be here, and long water distances as well as some space for sea battles. But decrease one way traveling time from 3 hours to 2 hours (from 2 hours to 1 hour 20 minutes, from 1 hour to 40 minutes) - would be really great! Wind must NOT rotate. I would love to see it blows just one way for some time. After that - it randomly changes it direction to some amount (small turns will happen more often then big ones. And limit big ones to some angle... for example 70 degrees). So you see it direction and plan your journey knowing - it will be somewhere this way. Calms and hurricanes should lands occasionally. Most of time wind strength should be average. And of course - something must be in the ocean. Right now we have just few samples of random weather, SqotDs, Whales and few traders ships. There must me way-way more. - More living world. Some traffic, military squadrons, trading convoys, even NPC pirates! Maybe small quests in the sea (like escort or pick passengers from shipwreck to closest island). - More nature - maybe some triangle formation birds. st. Elmos fires before storms. Water streams. I would came with more ideas if there was not too late in my city (1.am atm).

From F to J - there is just one line of tundra and three lines of desert. As for "H" - that's just EA stuff. Before they redesigned eastern tundra - "H" button showed all tundra as "western" whether you've been to "A" tundra or even "O".

Yeah. Im on my way there. All high lvl SotD's are in Golden Age so I guess DEVs idea was so we head there for high quality blueprints. I'll try them out after I get my +2 lvl and finally finish my captaining skills with this overdrive skill which will help me a lot : ) Some say - elephants are the way to do it. Or you bring 2-3 bears with you. One you ride, 2 just supports you : )

Got like 100 of them already by just solo Brig with 6 gunport and 4 x-tra guns on deck. No louvers. No shotguns. No kiting tactics. Just regular boardside fight. Highest one so far was Galley of Damned lvl-32 IMAO - Squads made things far more interesting than before - you need to think right, to approach and engage them right etc : ) The only thing I don't really like (beside to fight schooners - they just waste of time and cannonballs) - is DEVs dramatically decreased loot quality and amount of EXP from them. I never saw anything better than journeyman from schooners even lvl-36. This lvl-32 Galley just dropped me masterworks catapult. Before wipe even SotD lvl-26 occasionally gave me Mythic BPs. And EXP... well After I got this huge fleet of lvl-32 Galley, lvl-36 brig, lvl-23 brig and lvl-36 schooner I just got around 5% of lvl exp... : ( And yeah... this morning I saw this : )) Took them all. Pretty routine fight it was actually : ))

38) - cheat TP I15 -346262 -38752 11122 I there. I fall there when suddenly my climbing pick didn't hit any walls. I cannot perform any action there. Climbing pick doesn't work. I cannot jump. I cannot seat or crouch. Stamina doesn't refill there. There is no way out. The only thing left for me now - is just to die, leave all my stuff there, stop my mission I was in the middle of and go to base to create new stuff. P.S - the worst thing is THE PLACE is actually below discovery and mountain with crystals. UPD: Just got some of my stuff back. I was keep jumping in to trap tying to lure my corpses. After another death, I found my corpse in to another part of island. You see how buggy the spot is!

Before next one I wanna show you screenshot. Pretty cool and scary-epic, huh? 37) - On the screen below these purples - what's left of them and some flotsam as well. I need to guess - which of them my loot, and which - just regular flotsam. My point is - SotD's leftovers must looks different from those floating chests. Different colors in the night and different way they looks like. (I personally would love to see more shipwrecks style).

This will be long one : )) 31) - We have saddles for tames but anyway - have you ever saw and Elephant in to snowy tundra? It's pain to look at him - because he is totally naked walking through the snow (I'm not saying anything about this carpet covered like 20% of his body). What I'm trying to say - maybe some cosmetics covers to tames will be good, so we would turn our tames to different look and be able to protect elephant from snow (I know biomes doesn't affect tames at all, but anyway : )) 32) - It's pain right now to check which islands we did landfalls and which we didn't. Any signs on the map would be great. 33) - Dark Blue text on dark grey area is bad idea. I can barely reads what bp I've got. 34) - Now this is important. There is huge problems with UI Text. Sometimes I can't see if I need to repair my half-stairs because frame with text - off screen (so I need to look - where is this frame). Sometimes text is hidden behind bottom icons: Some text behind direction scale of sextant buff: My suggestion here - you should put text to chat-like window somewhere (below chat window for example) with auto-hide feature like chat. So no matter where your object - all information about it will appear it this window. It's better this way. 35) - You see long straight line down there? It's the way HYDRA FUR armor, worn by crew, glitching like that. Happened with me twice today. Both with crew on stations (one - cannon, another one - sail). The way to fix it - is get close to crew member so LOD will turn to normal model (my guessing - it's somehow related to LOD of hydra fur armor). 36) - When I play repairment mini-game with my FEMALE pathfinder, she screams WOW like a woman when I success and do - uh-uh with bass male voice when I fail.

I once had this one (well not with guns but with stern ballistas) but it turned out - I forgot to select right groups : ))

30) - Let me speak about weather. Well... mostly about the wind. I DON'T LIKE HOW IT WORKS NOW. Right now it's just slowly rotates clockwise. It's raise and cut it's strength from full to calm and back. The problem is it's not just about wind is simple and predictable. It's also work the way, if you go far "half-atlas" sailing - you will ANYWAY spend part of your travel counter-wind. And part of your travel through calm. It's like that: So imagine - I sometimes don't wanna travel far because I know I'll be there in calm and counter-wind. I'LL BE THERE NO MATTER WHAT. And I have to use my battle ship because I need to lvl it up, and it's not that fast - just 13-14 knots full wind and falls to 7 knots through calm. It's around 25-30 minutes per grid with this speed. And guess what? We don't necessary need to experience all those adverse conditions each travel. My suggestions is here. We need to speed up our traveling. (If I would do THE GAME - I would actually compress whole world by 33%. It's just no point of pure sailing this long. I have like 800 hours in game and I guess 700 of those hours I was just sitting and didn't do anything, waiting of when my ship gets there - central parts of renewed arctic region where you have to maneuver between islands are really good example of how things should be in game everywhere Please don't advice me to try private sever with couple of grids. I'm not talking about how to save the time - If that's would be the question, the solution would be simple. Abandon the game and save all time! I'm now talking about how game designed and how to improve game experience). Anyway. To speed it up - we need wind rework. We actually need to be able to plan our far voyage - so there will be effective wind angle whole way (maybe we sail 2 extra grids but with help of wind - it will take us less time). Now about the wind. The changes I'd love to see: - It doesn't needs to rotate - just normal straight wind stays for some time. Then it change it's direction and strength. - The changes are random but small turns are way more often then big ones. And limit max turns to... for example 75... well maybe 90 degrees. So there would not be the situation of - you sail tailwind, next minute - it's counter-wind. - Most of the time it should blows average strength. Hurricanes and calms - should lands OCCASIONALLY. - And... well it's not necessary, but you do know that in real Earth wind actually mostly blows from west to east and when you, for example, fly from Europe to US flight will lasts couple of hours longer than if you fly back?

It's always works for me within my pier in base, but once I saw guy stucked there - he couldn't escape and "S" didn't work. Last day I stuck in shallow "П"-like waters and my "S" didn't work as well. But I was able to escape by holding "A" and wait until my ship will slowly turns and gliding through the bottom backward a bit. And yeah. There is also the way - you put you crew on wheel and order him to sail from the trap. Then you "fast travel" to another region and while there is no one around areas - all in game (structures forms, geometry etc) simplifies. You do some business after fast travel and then - you back and see your ship free : ))

I, personally, would love to see it completely random! Because right now it makes game very predictable. You get high quality map - you sail half atlas. With totally predictable wind (it slowly rotates clockwise, raising and then cut it's straight) you'll get: - Half way with full wind - Half way with calm. - Half way with tail wind. - Half way with counter wind. And it's always the same. During last x2 weekend I was up to my current lvl-cap, and guess what? I spent: - 20 minutes for my voyage preparation. - Around 10 minuntes for 1st treasure. - Around 5 minutes for 2nd treasure - Around 15 minutes for 3rd really high treasure (my bear had her hard days during last one). 50 minutes of actually playing. - Around 9 hours of pure sailing. 9 hours of watching the ocean and occasionally pressing few buttons. With so exited game experience like that - I guess we need 2nd display so we could watch some tv-series or do something else : ))

Right now its 35-34 DP per lvl (It means 17-18 landfalls : ))

You know what I found really weird? Today I crossed border from O4 to A4. My sextant buff was active and before cross I saw my longitude 99.99 and after cross it was -99.99. So it's 13.33 per grid and goes from -6.6 to 0 to 6.6 at "H" grid (from west to east). I don't know if it goes the same with Latitude but I guess - it is : )) And If you need specific location - you can put marker on map...

Light doesn't mean fast. At least this was the way in old Russian pirate game (called Corsairs). There were around 25-30 ships in the game all separated to 6 classes. From smallest 6th to huge linen ships 1ts class. And guess what? The fastest ship was actually in the middle. If I remember it right - it was 3rd class and ship called "Corvette". This one was pretty well armed and incredibly fast. (I personally wish to see this one in a game. 10 gunports and fast travel. This one was my favorite in Corsairs) To think about it. It's not just about size and weight. It's about compromise between size, weigh and rig (sails equipment). Most efficient compromise must be somewhere in the middle. Because lighter boats have weaker sails, and heavier - just to heavy : )

What do you put in stats after lvl up?

29) - I've been thinking of ships leveling. It's long now (I MEAN LO-O-O-O-NG). I still didn't max my ship level btw. Last day with x2, I sail for about 7 hours and only got around 30% of ship's level (it's 38 now). And if I get better shipyard and wish to create better ship, with even longer leveling what then? Start over? And then I'll get even better shipyard? It will take and eternity. So my suggestion here is simple. Let level cap be 41 anyway. Whether your boat came from just common shipyard or mythic one. The numbers you get each level must be different up to 50% more. So each lvl your Brig: - Gets 5% more damage from common shipyard or 7.5% more from mythic one. - Gets 8% more resistance from common shipyard or 12% more from mythic one. - Adds 200 more weight from common shipyard or 300 more weight from mythic one. ...etc.

I personally would love to give "small territories" system a chance. The system that we came up to before wipe. Each island have 10-30 (depends of island size) small territories on shore. And one guy or a small company can claim 1 territory. Bigger company - few territories. Megas - (well... the very-very MEGA) maybe half of island. And central part of island is "lawless" rule with rapid decay. And see - what will happen there.

BTW I keep forgetting to use it before departure. It's like that - I spend alot of time to gather food, resources, get tames from pen etc. Then all ready, I raise my anchor, set sails and after that I'm like: "WFT where is my map, speed and direction in degrees numbers? Oh, yeah, I forgot to climb a top of mast and use the minigame. Again. As usual! : ))" There are 11 stars you can find so far. After that minigame ends anyway and you get 7500 sec of buff : )

Because unfortunately (or luckily) I have all points in my necessary skills + tames. - All tools, because sometimes I die with no way to get my corpse, and I need to create all my instruments. - Basic of weapon and armor - same reason. - Buildings up to wooden ones. Because from time to time I building something, or I need ceilings for my ship. - Ship construction up to Brig because I building planks and sails (few days ago I faced 7 SotD's at once and got back to my base with just 2 sails). - TAMES. Most of my points are there. Because they help me to get gold and food for my crew, gather resources for ship repairs, gather resources for cannonballs (helping me to deliver metal to my base, because there are just 5 spawns in my island and they a bit far). I'm on my way to 50lvl Galley of damned. For that I need good cannons and planks, max lvl of my ship and ALL IN CAPTAINING. So right now - I do just maxing my lvl-cap, lvl-up and put all in to captaining. So... it's just no points of put anything in some different skills. Unfortunately - it's not +5 lvl per treasure. Last weekend I had lvl-22.9 treasure, I got to new island with xp-boost and got just +1 lvl (from lvl-52 to lvl-53) and half of exp-bar fulfilled. And yeah. DEVs also dramatically increased time we need for our ship lvl ups. I got my Brig from lvl-36 to lvl-37 and for that I had to kill 22 damned ships and sail for 4 pure hours...).