Recent game updates

[sXs]

I don’t know where else to put this so move it or delete it if need be.

There have been a lot of changes over the last few months. Most of them seem to be “housekeeping “ updates. Interface changes cleaned up a few things and made them easier, and some things were made more confusing. All will be easier for new players to understand though.

Player development team going through suggestion after suggestion trying to clean up archives. This is probably needed but was never a concern for most people.

Now to my point. During the buildup to plantation rollout CJ, you made a comment that went something like this.

Plantation rollout june 1st July 1st start Flagship.

We also had a huge thread about blockades. I thought blockades were approved. I went out and “acquired” a few MoW’s in anticipation of blockades because it seemed to be one of the priority additions for development.

My question is this.....

“What happened?” Not even a mention of either of these in6-8 months. Some of us were expecting flagships to immediately follow plantations. Then after some infrastructure changes and additions, blockades would follow.

[PFH]

In my opinion, and this may not reflect on most of the development teams view, we are focusing on issues that will help us on the long term first. Cleaning up the forums will help us to better judge incoming suggestions and to organize them accordingly. Fixing the UI will help us attract more players for the incoming features. Those incoming features being flagship and blockade. If we handle the small tasks before taking large steps, we will be a lot better off.

Fixig existing mechanics and updating on the small things really show well in the long term, and this is what i believe is the reasoning for holding off on large updates like those you mention.

Handling these small tasks will really help us lead into these updates. We cannot take large steps everytime, as we leave much behind doing this.

[sXs]

I am looking for the post but it seems to me flagships was supposed to be up and running before August of last year. Made it seem like it was started and fairly progressed at the time. I remember the back and forth between CJ and Jessie about it.

[sXs]

I understand the need for infrastructure and UI improvements for blockades, but flagship rollout at worst should have come with the ship attribute rollout. They kind of go hand in hand.

[Banger]

-Thread Derailing- Content removed, 1 warning issued ~Cpt Jack

[sXs]

In the OLoD thread CJ spoke about lack of pirates and no real pirate based upgrades in awhile. Seems to me flagship would definitely stir the interest up in flying the black again also.

[Captain Jack]

I don’t know where else to put this so move it or delete it if need be.

There have been a lot of changes over the last few months. Most of them seem to be “housekeeping “ updates. Interface changes cleaned up a few things and made them easier, and some things were made more confusing. All will be easier for new players to understand though.

Player development team going through suggestion after suggestion trying to clean up archives. This is probably needed but was never a concern for most people.

Now to my point. During the buildup to plantation rollout CJ, you made a comment that went something like this.

Plantation rollout june 1st July 1st start Flagship.

We also had a huge thread about blockades. I thought blockades were approved. I went out and “acquired” a few MoW’s in anticipation of blockades because it seemed to be one of the priority additions for development.

My question is this.....

“What happened?” Not even a mention of either of these in6-8 months. Some of us were expecting flagships to immediately follow plantations. Then after some infrastructure changes and additions, blockades would follow.

General Discussion is the optimal place for such discussion, so you put it to the right place.

Let me add, that besides "housekeeping features", we also had Ship Traits and Resources players market.

For me, it is quite hard to know which is the concern for most people. You see, most people do not post at the forums regarding development. And those who do post for game development, not always agree with each other.

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It was one of my main objectives to push Flagship as much as possible. I actually did. Things are not like they seem. Let me quickly explain:

1)The only actual suggestion for Flagships, is this one: Pirate Flagship. For reasons you can find there, this was never approved. Still, the development for the Flagship never stopped.

I am not speaking about design here, I am speaking about development. There has been a lot of development for the feature. Let's see which is this development and where are we now.

2)Flagship for all

Instead of a flagship for only pirates, we are at the Flagship for all concept. You won't find a discussion or suggestion that summarizes it all. Feel free to create one using the info here.

There are 3 approved steps for Flagship for all, which however are not yet implemented due to unanswered questions. The three steps are:

1)Ability to name a ship of yours, as your Flagship.
2)Prevent voodoo casting against other players, if you do not have a Flagship.
3)Give extra traits to Flagships (4 in total).

The unanswered questions that prevent implementation are the following:
Which are the criteria for naming a ship. More importantly, how many times you can name a Flagship? Can you change a Flagship then? How frequently? What happens if you lose a Flagship? How long before you can name one and what happens to the flagship you lost?

How traits are gained for the flagship? Are they lost if the ship changes hands or if the owner changes flagship?

3)Flagship design/development after this stage, will be perpetual but still it would be better to clear up more of the open PvP suggestions first. This will allow for a better initial design. So, if we could close the discussion for crew experience, repairing damage, captain and admiral orders, battle formations and all the currently open discussions, we could then have better judgment to decide how to proceed with Flagship.

Ship Traits are the example as we coded them keeping in mind Flagship. So we can now use them on Flagships because of that. So perhaps, Flagships priority should be pushed after these issues are closed.

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Regarding blockades, they will happen in one way or another. The initial discussion was for a system that was a bit too complicated. Much like the Pirate Flagship. While Pirate Flagship suggestion is having a lot of chances to be implemented in some way, after the Flagship for all is on, the proposal as discussed in the Blockades suggestion is probably not going to have the same fate.

Alternatively, we should look to use more of the current system instead of creating a new one. The objective is always to bring the bigger ships out and we are moving towards there already, again, with ship traits. And there are more related ideas, like new reward types like Influence Loss.

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So, this is what happened. If you are eager to see things move faster, feel free to provide feedback at all relative topics or open your own.

[Captain Jack]

In my opinion, and this may not reflect on most of the development teams view, we are focusing on issues that will help us on the long term first. Cleaning up the forums will help us to better judge incoming suggestions and to organize them accordingly. Fixing the UI will help us attract more players for the incoming features. Those incoming features being flagship and blockade. If we handle the small tasks before taking large steps, we will be a lot better off.

Fixig existing mechanics and updating on the small things really show well in the long term, and this is what i believe is the reasoning for holding off on large updates like those you mention.

Handling these small tasks will really help us lead into these updates. We cannot take large steps everytime, as we leave much behind doing this.

While I agree to most, I do not agree to this one:

We cannot take large steps everytime, as we leave much behind doing this.

Some PRETTY BIG steps have been taken during the last year. Never before PG had so many implementations in quantity and quality in such short time. The problem is mostly the anticipation here. We are talking about expansions here. Expansions are harder than you can possibly evaluate if you have not done it yourself before. When you want to move from point A to point B it is not a straight line. It never is when you are building an expansion.

[Captain Jack]

In the OLoD thread CJ spoke about lack of pirates and no real pirate based upgrades in awhile. Seems to me flagship would definitely stir the interest up in flying the black again also.

I disagree. I said that Pirates need perks. I meant the players who carry the black. However, pirate-based upgrades are not only relevant to features for the black. All battle related features, such as ship traits are also pirate-based upgrades. Add to this all the open battle discussion topics that need feedback.

The problem for the players not carrying the black is the difficulty. It pays more to be a privateer. However, from my perspective this is not a problem as this is realistic. Flying the Black in this game, has a different taste and this is what we are trying to do. It's about taste.

[sXs]

Ship based attributes are available to all no matter what flag they fly. So I do not consider them pirate perks. Flagships for all actually as well diminishes the pirate perks as well.

When was the last pirate only upgrade?