Thank you all for your extensive feedback and comments. It's good to know I'm not alone in my concerns for the game, and I hope the conversation will contribute to improving things for Naval Action in the future.
I gave up on this game YEARS ago. I started playing when it first came into Open World.. and immediately after that.. it started going downhill fast. I wish it was good.. cause I love the theme.. but.. the devs have been burning it to the ground ever since release.
Agree 100% mate. So sad to the the current state of the game. A game I used to love and have spent 2500hrs in. So many good players have left and the game feels hollow now😕
I also feel sad to see a game we've all enjoyed so much being patched into oblivion. I hope the developers will course correct at some point so we can both feel like making videos again.
@@kairos4486 I doubt they will correct this. The developer who did these changes is not even there now. He's off on some other project. I used to love this game and now it's just a waste of time to log in.
Damn! I loved this game back in the day. Sank thousands of hours into it even making a few videos ^^ but the devs kept on making changes that made the game worse and or more pay to win. But this video only confirms that since I left it has only gotten worse :/ Good video thanks!
Thanks mate for the explanations. I have been playing this game almost every evening during 5 years, ending with 7k+ hours on my main account. I stopped playing some two years ago, simply because my favorite gameplay (sailing mostly light frigates or sloops) was destroyed by developpers. Game started to be set for 3rd rates to 1st rates only. Full stop for me. And what I can see in recent changes won't drag be back in! Anyway, thank you for the explanations and have fair winds! 😄
Almost all of my ships were armor-focused builds; I was a big fan of the gameplay around maneuvering and angling. When that got gutted, I was so profoundly discouraged that I basically dropped the game entirely. I can understand that a small dev team means corners getting cut, but at what point is it just simple mismanagement?
They did a "SWG" on this game. What they should have done is spend some cash on marketing so more players come in, the squeezing of the exciting playerbase is a hallmark for shortsightness. more games have been killed by managers than by griefers.
I agree! Personally I think they should have just done a Steam sale, and then perhaps announced they would start working on some new ships to add to the game. Alas it is not so
Cheers KairoS, thank you for making these videos. As a new player with only about 50 hours on the clock, they truly help me make sense of the patch notes and the finer points of the game I’d like to point out a couple things about from my perspective as a new player. I’ve been watching NA vids on YT for years now, always holding off getting it because of the grind, the toxicity of the community, problems with the dev, DLC policy, etc… So I have a more or less basic idea of how the game used to be 1. Enjoying the game Despite the questionable decisions of the dev and the obvious decay in realism (which is quite a shame) I still find the game enjoyable. I think I enjoy it because I don’t take it seriously at all. I want to be “disconnected” from all the player base vs dev drama as much as possible. If I lose a fight, oh well, here goes my ship but at least I had fun. I’ll just make a trade run and buy a new ship. With this mindset, I don’t feel the urge to perform well, sink an x amount of ships to get x amount of medals or rewards. I don’t get the rewards? That’s fine, I’ll try next time. When I launch the game, I don’t have any self inflicted pressure such as “oh I must go to the PZ and try to do 50k damage tonight”. Nope, I just log in and just sail around. If I feel like it I can either do some trade runs, go in the PZ with the lads, or hunt down intruding enemy players in my nation’s waters also with lads! 2. Community/Nation I joined the French nation because my first language is French. While it seems an obvious choice, it’s far from it. I could have a joined an active nation, like the Dutch, the Pirates, or more recently the Spanish, but the interaction I get with my fellow nation members has been so positive and welcoming that I don’t regret my choice one instant. The older players and clan members are always here to help. “You want to build a shipyard? Here’s 10k doubloons, have fun!”. “Oh you just started out and you only have 150k reales? No worries, here’s 3M, 2 Indiamen, and a few frigates. Enjoy!” I’m not exaggerating those figures either. If I hadn’t joined my “home nation”, I would probably never have been to heartwarmingly received! I think for older players it’s gratifying to help newcomers, giving them a new sense of purpose in the game. It’s definitely something that makes me love the game more so than the actual gameplay. So for any new players, I say you should definitely join your home nation in NA 3. Player/Nation Activity Perhaps it’s something that isn’t discussed enough, but I think that NA was better when there were fewer nations. The original nations were much more active back then with a larger player base (GB, Sweden, and Denmark) because certainly nationalities flocked to those because they lacked their own nation in NA. For example, when nations like Prussia, Russia, or Poland were not present, German players played for Sweden and Russian players for Denmark. Now, it’s all split off amongst nations that quite literally have no business to do in the Caribbean (Prussia, Russia, Poland, and China). I understand that the dev did so to cater to certain demographics, but the trade off isn’t worth it in my opinion When it comes to the French nation, we are probably the weakest of the original nations. Our pool of active players available for PvP and RvR is quite limited. We also lack capabilities to craft decent ships to fight. With the removal of port bonuses, we struggle quite a lot. There has been a small influx of new players from the summer sale (myself included) but it takes time to make these players into fully operational and “profitable” players. For RvR we rely on the Dutch and Swedes to help us out. If there wasn’t so many nations, new players would trickle down into the originals, making them stronger inevitably 4. Opinions and one’s own opinion I think it’s very important for new players to make their own opinions on game mechanics when they can. The general NA community can be very divided on these topics and it’s hard to make sense of it all. For example, after the patch everyone rushed to medium or long guns of low caliber for better DPS. I followed this trend on the advice of others. After trying it out, I didn’t perform so well so I went back to big caliber guns, longs if possible. I find it more useful and better performing in my opinion. It’s a style I prefer. All this to say that advices are good but don’t take them at face value and don’t be afraid to try new things on your own as a new player 5. Content Creators They are perhaps NA’s greatest strength! People like you, KairoS, are extremely useful to us new players. Your guide series was by far the clearest and most concise I could find! There are so many others too out there putting out video tutorials for NA it’s an invaluable source of knowledge and learning! So, here was my rather shallow take on NA. I hope new or prospective players can find my experience useful to them in making their decisions!
I used to love this game... I quit in 2017 when the Devs refused to do anything about the rampant cheating back in that day. What was happening was that people would use additional accounts to lock out battle slots in the 25v25 port battles. For example, Nation A, attacks B, Nation A logs in 5 accounts on Nation B, and never engages the enemy during the battle, essentially making the fight 25v20.
...and when players were using some code to see where their shots would arc so they could leak sink anything from 700M away. Or when the server removed all of the HDF from Mortimer Town so that a giant flotilla could sail safely to Baracoa and completely pass the screeners and win against a clan who was a threat to Russian ports on Haiti. They lost the port, and the Russian clan who won GAVE it to a rival Pirate clan who promptly removed ALL port bonuses and investments and then held it for a while. That was cross-nation cheating with help from the devs who put up instant fog and teleported the fleet to Baracoa. Totally suspicious and totally cheating. I stopped playing PvP after that and went to PvE. Then with this last set of changes they nerfed ALL the fun out of ship crafting, different ship build and different styles of gameplay and each ship's advantages and the 4lb medium is the highest DPS in the game. Total shit now.
I'm thinking of picking up this game despite all the warnings against it simply because there's nothing out there like it. What are your thoughts on new players coming in at this time?
Same after raking cerberus in my endymion he Lost 2 mast there was only 6 mast hits with 32pounder carronades…. They fall easier and quicker than before patch…
ball doesnt damage masts , it damages the hull if the hull is damaged alot then and only then mast will also fall, if you would only hit masts it shouldent demast like the devs said
@@MexicanBatman yeah i check it again you got right hull dammage from stern and mast fall like Russian army but there wasnt any direct hits or info about mast hits….
Thanks for the feedback on that, I'd assumed from the patch notes that no damage at all was supposed to be done to mast with ball. I will have to test this myself soon.
When the game first became available through early access, I was hoping for an Age of Sail sim/Sid Meyer's Pirates hybrid. If I remember correctly, this was also the developer's vision of what the game should turn out to be, with the option of sailing the carribean with other players. While I was more interested in the single player experience, the option of pvp battles didn't bother me much...until the whole game turned into an arms race. The whole dependancy on resource garhering for crafting and clans really ruined it for me.
They killed it. Utter contempt for the existing playerbase, people leaving en-masse and the loss of on-line friendships in clans forged over time. Such a pity. I spent hundreds on dlc, then they completely change it? Not on at all. Over 2,500 hours invested for nothing. I look forward to the release of 'Ahoy' as do many ex NA players, I just hope they have more respect for their customers. Thanks for the video.
Completely agree with what you say mate. Also just a side note, once upon a time, not only you had to be very careful with the amount of repairs you brought with you since you had to repair after the battle was over. You also had to take into consideration that having more repairs, would make your ship slower. How much you were slowed was dependent on the % that was used compared to the total cargo capacity of your ship. An other feature that was removed for "reasons" . I started playing in 2019. Not counting the wind shadow mechanic, the 2019 version was more balanced, more interesting and richer in features, played better and things just made more sense than what we have today...
My dear friend, your video is really well done, and your attempt to find any reason for the changes made to the game with the latest "big" patch by the dev is truly a demonstration of how much you / we loved Naval Action . But the reality is much simpler! Dev on one hand has imagined a game with considerable possibilities of becoming an extraordinary game, and on the other he believes he is infallible and rather than admitting the error he will continue on a road that already caused the dropping of online players (who in the past paid for the game), in the hope that tomorrow it will be repopulated by players (who will play for free). Simply brilliant! Absolute lack of respect for his customers and absolute lack of future for the game! After all it's just a game, it could have become a great game, but it has become crap. Pity
Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad you liked the video. I hope that whatever might be motivating the devs to constantly change things, in future they will bring back the complexity and uniqueness the game used to be known for.
@@kairos4486 this is a bit late after the video: I remember way back in the beta there was a bit of a scandal where the devs were banning people for disagreeing with the direction of the game. Even allegedly people getting banned from the game for writing negative steam reviews (which got reported to Valve and they were forcibly stopped if memory serves me right. It has been some years though).
I don't agree with everything you say but agree with the sentiment and appreciate the effort you put into this video. I remember watching your pre update video and leaving a comment sounding the alarm bells. I never thought it would be this bad though.
The state of the game before the June patch wasn't great - the average playernumbers were less than 500. That's average between 2 servers. The problem stems from the grind you have to do to get a competitive PvP ship (PvE is more stable but that's in part due to the lack of competition on the PvE server), and the time you can lose that ship you've grinded for. Ships should be dirt cheap, easy to craft and effortless to lose and replace. Why? - The only aspect of the game that worked (past tense) was combat. With the June patch devs (again) screwed with combat mechanics (and we've tried it before, when/if the playernumbers increases and we get more competitive port battles we'll get back to seeing chainboardings, due to perks, stacking of universal modules and focus fire rigging shock). Ships crafted became worthless but can be achieved over time - the problem is that NA doesn't have time. The game was NOT in a good state before the june patch and it certainly isn't in a good state after.
I had my issues with the game before (like the fact they took away the repairs at sea), but for me personally it has only been a real problem since the last patch. That was when I really felt the problems starting to mount up.
I used to play all the time I loved having a fast lightly gunned frigate or sloop. I would snatch a few merchant ships close to an enemy port and then the other players could never catch me. Unfortunately the Le Requin was way overpowered and ruined any chances of doing this as soon as it was released. I miss those days.
I played this game almost everyday during a long time. I bought all the dlc far before the patch. I have not played one single time for a month. 3 days after the patch, I just gave up. The new NA is totally unrealistic to me and it is not what I bought. For me this patch is a forgery. NA is NOT in beta then changing the game like the devs did it is breaking the contract the devs had with their paying customers.
I'm sure their incompetence will have left them damage-proof(broke/out of money), so they don't have to care about all the money they would potentially have to pay back.
Hi there! First off, great and informative video. It's sad to hear that long-term players like you find that the game is moving in a direction that raises great concern in the community about the future of the game. I've been browsing around on Steam for something that'll help me cleanse my palate from Sea of Thieves and stumbled upon Naval Action, though the amount of criticism to the recent changes in the game is hard to miss. Have the developers addressed the community about those changes and the thought process behind them? Would you still recommend those on the fence to pick up the game, hold off, or just move on to something else? In case there's no salvation for Naval Action, are there any viable alternatives that members of the community have moved on to?
Wow. Thanx Kairos. I too am a former "avid" Naval Action player. I thought - hey I will check out the game again. While actually downloading to maybe try it out again, I watched your video. Because of this "dumbing down" of the ships, i stopped my download. Shame ... Naval action was such a great game.
I posted a steam review that got 105 likes and many awards offering my thoughts on the state of the game. Needless to say I haven't logged in since the June update and neither have many others. Honestly I doubt the devs will ever listen. They are chasing the free to play model and further monetisation methods of modern gaming. They see us as the old playerbase and are trying to attract the new. Their attitude stinks and I for one will not be rewarding their smug attitude toward the loyal playerbase by spending any money or time in their game anymore. Not unless they backtrack and backtrack quickly. Which they won't.
I really used to love this game and still hope the future for it will be better. Just because there is still no other sailing game out there that was better than early NA.
You made some fair comments. It’s less fun playing after the ‘upgrade’ last June. I played every day, but it dropped down to once a week. Hoping that it has improved in the mean time.
I'm wondering if they lack luster changes started occurring since the company was bought, or due to the war in ukraine or because the next game they are allegedly working on "Sea Legends", is going to start mainly single player and slowly move it over to multiplayer and just drop naval action and forget about it, and are just squeezing it at the moment.
I only recently started playing the game. The first thing I noticed was there was no difference between a 70k ship and a 270k ship. So after grinding to fit out a 500k ship, I noticed that it was pointless spending more than 70k because you got virtually the same. I stopped grinding (I uninstalled the game)
The change to armor/hp is something they kept doing over the years to effectively make your ships useless and make you grind for new ships with new stats. In 1 year hp will be meta again and vice-versa...
its sad to see it change so much ive recently come back to it after around a year and its a completely different game. its a shame that the auto repair happens when a battle ends. and its also a shame to see so few people playing these days as this game is one of a kind. even if they where to lower the pen of the guns along with the armour values its essentially made a carronade meta, i now cant see a reason to run longs unless you really stay at range even then your armour is useless. on the other hand chain shot demasting is realistic and i love that new feature. age of sail was focused on capture more than sink and its a good feature. Thanks for the Video Kiaros love your content! i hope the Devs watch this and implement positive changes. hope to see more NA content soon!
Excellent video, totally agree. I love the game and I feel gutted about the recent changes. The changes made no sense whatsoever to me. Fingers crossed the devs change some things.
The ball mast change hasnt done what they say, ive broadsided multiple sterns and scored multiple mast downs with 0 sail damage/chain shot use. Its actually easier to bs a stern for a demast than it is to chain it
Thanks for the review! I was considering this but now that I've seen comments and the first 1:20 of your video, it is obvious they're going in the wrong direction. I saw this happen with Dual Universe where they only develop new annoying menu systems in the game, got rid of meganodes and planets. Seems like no game dev has half a brain. Is there anything good to play? Doubt it. Maybe I could just make my own then. Server cost is the big game killer for most. A great game needs lots of resources and you cannot pump that across any bandwidth without actually putting all the resources on the server side and streaming a video of the game only as they play. That's what will happen next in gaming, I guarantee within 8 years you'll see it. Games will have tremendous power, speed, and virtually unlimited space to explore. In fact, that would be one hell of a great game. To release a game on such a massively powerful server, not tell anyone what it's about, and just let them explore and build starting as a guy in shorts running on the beach like in Ark, just without prehistoric monsters.... and eventually go to flying a spacecraft faster than light across the galaxy. You know, they found a way to store massive amounts of data in dna items, and graphene dna computing will win as soon as they realize you don't need to grow it on a slide but using something else. That tech runs faster than light, really.
Glad the video helped you out. I've been playing Sea of Thieves with my friends lately instead, that game seems to be comparatively well maintained with less nonesense from the development team. Hopefully though Naval Action will survive and improve in years to come.
I binged your rags to riches series yesterday and today. Looked into the current reviews on the game and was shocked and how the game has changed. I was litterly going to be buying this game today... Now I am not. If the devs want to pursue an arcade game, why not put it to a new server, and leave the original rule set as is? Sorry Game-Labs... you seemed to have had something interesting in the gaming world. You had a game that matured slowly that had good bones.
I'm sorry you didn't get a chance to try the game before the recent update; It was always a joy to play until now. I hope eventually things will improve enough that you'll feel it is worth giving a shot.
The combat was the one thing that was actually pretty solid about the game. They've completely ruined that, so it's not worth even logging in for now. Speaking as a player with over 3K hrs and all but like TWO DLCs... you dodged a bullet here.
10,500 hours in game plus alt accounts... 6 years i've played and watched the decline of the game... is there still hope for its future? HMS Saltpetre LAS clan...
i stop playing i will only come back if they undo these changes but i'll keep watching your channel till i see the changes happen btw you make really good videos
Game would be still alive and kicking if it had the battles like it did in beta…… multiplayer was fantastic now it’s just about who has the most time to literally sail for two hours with no action for trade……
@@kairos4486 there was in beta, it was so much fun in comparison to the open world now it’s not even the same game, you could full on fight other players in battle from port AND without risking your ship you grinded for
I started to get serious about the gane and I wanted to play as the Dutch and focus on trading. Found out that it's not an option and I'm locked into a server that's constantly at war and gets wiped at the end of the war. That's when I quit the game. Looks like it could be an amazing game, but the developers leave mich to be desired.
This game is the best naval game I came across, its so underrated it took some time for me to find it!.. It is way better than Uncharted Waters and is handsdown more rralistik than for example world of warships.. The grind it has should give the game longgevity.. pay to win ships only by a few % is not the best part, it should be cosmetic only.. On the other side now it is free to play I understand when you like it and know what kind of ship you like you can buy that and helps the devs with monetization for updates.. I rather buy one dlc ship than to have to buy subscription or battlepass and or in game microtransactions.. I think its a good model this way.. For me this looks like a fill new and polished game, i do not care less for the few hundred players who are crying they do not like the updates, however it is because of those players the game is not there where it supposed to be (underrated) changes are for the bettet in my opinion, this game has many potential I was already losing hope that sea of thieves would be the only option.. happy to have found this, cheers!
The game died for me when durability got removed. It was obvious then (and especially so when they added the first DLC ships) that the game was going to rapidly go downhill. I dropped the game in 2017 because of this, checked it again in 2019 and found the player base had become incredibly toxic. Fuck the naval action devs, they have ruined the game and i have 0 faith in any of their other projects (Ultimate admiral dreadnoughts / age of sail). I was a fairly big player in the AU/NZ hours in the British faction on the American servers, held a few port flags and even took some places with other members of KIN, looking back at Jeheils videos a while back was a good memory. I produced about 30% of the clans medium and heavy carriages for the ship builders, and spent most of my excess cash helping new players get into the game and understand the mechanics around ship loadouts, weaponry, and other strategies. These days even from 30 feet away you can smell the stench of toxic players and bad community management. Its a sad sight, in my opinion they need to: Reset things back to the old damage system Return the in game economy to as it was in early 2017 Durability brought back Removal of rate limits for PVE missions Return Fleet battles to 16v16 with ai on both sides Return under-crewing to the game Modifications returning to no longer being permanent, and hot swappable as they were in 2016 half the XP requirements for leveling up Old server layout with War and PVE More data on AI fleets when clicking on them Remove the player marker from the map (as it used to be) Player fleet not being limited in ship count beyond how much crew used to be Return damage persistence (and repairs in overworld) Allow ships of all rates to be captured from AI at 1 dura, the return of "Mystery wood" Bring duelling back to the original stakes system (which i think got changed in early 2016) Home port AI protection fleets changes to the rate system that reflect the games balance properly, especially around DLC ships and 4th rates. The things you are complaining about WILL NOT BE ADDRESSED, given my prior experience with the devs. I have been banned from both the discord for the game and the separate forums due to the devs weird obsession with making the players play the game they want people to. They are not open to criticism and are well set in their ways, and have consistently sided with what they call their "hardcore players" who are really just noisy aggressive gankers. These are the people who got AI missions rate limited to force people into PVP and constantly look down on new players, when they added a player marker to the map despite preaching going "hardcore" this all became pretty obvious. I would not be surprised if these same people got repairs at sea changed so they could go out in small fleets far away from their home territories without needing many supplies to bully new players for long periods. If you want a salty old players opinion on the game I'd be happy to show you some of the things we've lost over the years.
Hello,im one of the many new players of the game,since ive started playing ive strted to research about the game and its past since ive probably watched a handful of gameplays of NA,now i have discovered the sad and terrible direction this game is heading and will probably cause the game to “sink” deeper into the void,like the OP DLC’s and the ever shrinking player base,just 3h since the making of this comment ive decided to take a break since i got absolutely reck by most “probably a DLC trics” since it was going at lightning fast straight at me,and litrary rammed and boarded me,i was in a more manuverable ship but to no avail,still got wrecked and lost all my progress,and i can’t even change to a PVE since its now appearantly free but anyway I hope a similar or a better game with the same vision of the original devs from the 2016 era would rise up at some point,but till that happens would probably go back to,world of warships or some thing.😢
I just got the game for 15$ it feels amazing but I got in into a dying game I really want to enjoy it but trading is a joke player base hate devs for not listening to them... I just want to have some good time in maritime mmo used to play UWO and VCO back in the days but other than that theres not many games like that especially not that detailed in combat and sailing mechanics. Please do not sent this game to waste it deserves way more. Max players I saw in my faction ( Commonwealth ) was 4 me included... I'll keep on playing and hope Devs and NA Vets get together and it's all going to end well. See ya around :D
Does this really surprise anyone? Devs say they adding premium, but not to worry, they wont be super big ships. Then later Dev add ships like the HMS Victory to the premium list and ignored all the hate that generated and also the player loss that incurred. This is a dev that probably is trying to struggle to show that their MMO is still profitable (Most companies have foolishly taken the idea of if you are not always growing, you are dying which I do not think necessarily applies to video games), also I think it is said somewhere that the more engagement a MMO has the more likely people will buy things like premium items. Or they know Naval Action is probably not gonna last too much longer and are using it as a slight test bed for "Sea Legends" their up-coming title which they might be trying to kill Naval Action to free up possible players who would buy and play that game so they can close the servers down to free up that capital.
Hello mate. I played the game from start 2016 and had over 2000h in it. I m totaly agree with your opininon. But there are more problems to be solved. Ask yourself: why is crafting ships again reworked? Why has the DEVs removed the Regional and Port specials? Why do they not rework traiding? Why do they support ganking? Whats about Rework of the War and Peace mechaniks? And why do the DEVs not listen to the Community? In my Opinion is this game an uncarved Gem of Sailing experiences. Whit help of the Community, fixing issues, Remove of Russian, China, Prussian nation and a trade a la Port Royale 1-4 it can be a EVE Online in Carribian and Pirate Times. Thats what i wish for. And i m sure, you too. Wish you alltime good winds.
For the quest master season the developers lowered the tier thresholds, but guess what else the underhanded jackasses did? They lowered the star payouts for quests. For example last season you could take kill missions of 2 stars for 2 kills, and 1 star for 1 kill. Those same quests this season are 2 stars for 3 kills and 1 star for 2 kills. So previous season you received 3 stars towards a naval service medal for killing 3 NPC boats. For the same amount of stars this season you have to kill 5. What an utterly underhanded thing to do. I am done with them.
Grinding itself is ok even if they're too lazy to throw in some new content into this game instead. What kills it is that they made all the grinding not worth it when they reduced survivability stats of all the ships. This is to encourage players to buy their DLC which respawn. They kinda stopped developing this game and focused on that new one about sailing they just released, and using this one just to capitalize any way they can which ruins it. The new game is just an updated repeat of this one.
As far as I'm concerned, I'm complain about the fact that it's mandatory to be part of a clan to play. I hate being dependent on others. I heard about communities hazing new players, for example, 5 boats come to sink a noob ; clans leaders acting like tyrans ; sometimes no solidarity between the members of the clans. The devs wanted to give matters to communities, groups, ect, why not. Then, I am surprised about a big place given to trade and crafting into a game of war. When I buy "Naval action", I'm expecting to do privateering, piracy and naval battles/campaigns in group. I'm not here to do trade and craft a ship. The devs wanted made "Naval action" more real and some people love to trade, why not. But the thing which makes me sick is factions/nations which have nothing to do here such as Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, Austria and Russia. What the heck is that ?! In Americas in XVIIIth century, I want to have pirates, France, Britain, Spain, Netherlands. Why the devs have add nations ? And I don't talk about flags added such as flag of Normandy. It's pity because the ship's design are wonderful. The combat systems is good. The map campaign is realistic. I really hesitate between buying the game and going towards another game such as "Buccaneers".
I have kept hearing about NA and it's always been something in my periphery. Despite the video and comments being a little disheartening, I still really want to try it since this game seems to be the only of its kind.
Certainly, give it a try if you feel it's for you. The game is unique, I'm just lamenting the fact it used to be much more unique than it currently is.
@@kairos4486 Sounds good! Work is swamped right now, so at the moment watching videos is all I can do. I really appreciate the in-depth video! I love communities with this level of enthusiasm.
At this point I personally would say it isn't worth it; so many game features have been removed, and nothing new added. But it's really up to you if you want to try it out. I would definitely advise holding off on the DLCs until you're absolutely sure you like the game though.
@@KennethWhiteakaruckusbringa I believe Age of Sail is actually a separate game by the same developer. You might like to try that out too, it should be on Steam.
Keep in mind that the company was sold to Stillfront Group in 2021. And they are not interested to develop the game. And when you have spent money for Sea Legends, then keep in mind that the money is lost too.
Its like social media, its the amount of people that are online and playing that counts. Grinding has ruined some games quite a lot, Elite Dangerous is one. Also DLC in NA is a bit to expensive, its bordering on the cost of DLC for DCS. Money is king as always.
Almost 3K views in less than 3 days. Your video drew more NA players (and potential players) than the game itself has for several years now. If only the developers had a fraction of your understanding and knowledge, they might have not ruined the game so.
I was checking on how this video has been doing these past months and just noticed your comment. Thank you for the very high praise! I hope my content has been helpful.
Just started playing again a week back, not familiar with the patches, happy to hear i've wasted at least three hours of my life shooting masts with ball and doing fuck all to the ship lol, i thought i was just a bad shot.
Someone in the comments here was saying that ball is still doing some (though very little) damage to masts even after the patch, so I may have been wrong about that. But yes, if you want to demast a ship these days, switch to chain shot.
I'm holding on but bearly and am trying to only use DLC ships that I have. I will not buy anymore DLC packs until the game becomes more playable. I'll build up reals and dubs, and wait.
So in short a game that used to be deep and detailed is now a shallow and boring game. Sad to see such degradation. I haven't played this game but I saw some alarming reviews on steam.
Very sad. 4000 hours for me and I don't play anymore and won't likely play again. I loved this game and it essentially consumed my whole life for two years. To have this patch released even though no one really wanted it and then to have our feedback ignored when it was released ( the devs essentially mocked people who criticized it) makes me certain that the devs are trying to set up the game to make you buy DLC and once its free to play to buy in game currency or grind for weeks... no one should fund them and their foolish ideas. Death is sad but this game has definitely been killed.
I am going to have to disagree with you on the instant repairs being bad and making the damage carry over was good. That feature was not fun and it was double unfun when you barely limp away from a fight only for your opponent to Teleport to a port close by and come out with another brand new ship to finish you off. If the Travel times on the overworld map weren't so long then ya maybe that could be fun but the distance combined with the ganking that went on just insta turned off for so many players who tried the game. I think what the devs should have done was cut down on the map size like make it half the current size, Cut down on the factions (there are simply to many for the player base) like make it 5ish (USA, Spain, GB, France, and the Dutch), The factions should been much more player driven with players deciding when the factions go to war, peace, internal/external politics, trade routes/areas etc, the Faction capitals should be unkillable so the players always had somewhere where they could go, the factions should have had some unique faction specific bonuses about them. The Pirates should have never been a player led faction and instead should have just had couple of unattackable ports located around the map that are inaccessible except if you become a pirate by attacking friendly or neutral faction ships.
Originally the Pirates were something like that, besides the ports being inaccessible. They could also attack anyone, including other Pirates. Wish they'd revert to that.
I played in 2016-2017 and the game was so insanely geared towards clans it made it impossible to play as a solo player and I eventually got bored and gave up
I won't purchase another DLC until they revert some of these horrendous changes. I will do what I do in game, but I can't support them with $$$ at this stage.
I mean the amount and quality of high level/quality port battles went from 1 per week at least to 1 in two month Boring nothing to watch anymore on twitch
Such a shame they are ruining their own game. I used to be a trader in the game and it was always a important point to carry repairs incase i got caught but a player. And balls not damaging the mast is completely wrong, balls should do damage but they are just more a challenge to hit, as with good cannons you could knock down masts if you are in a chase.
You must understand Just a simple thing: russian clans and russian PVP players até loving these New things. And they own the right to Tell developers what to do.
I was just getting back into the game. They REALLY f****d up the game with making all the ship the same. So sad to see a belobed game ruined by the devs. And they still didnt implement cannon recoil. Im just disapointed and not coming back. And I might not be alone with my oppinion....
700 players online this weekend. If you don’t like it don’t play it, simples. Amazing how many of you need to have other peoples validation rather than make your own mind up.
Thank you all for your extensive feedback and comments. It's good to know I'm not alone in my concerns for the game, and I hope the conversation will contribute to improving things for Naval Action in the future.
I gave up on this game YEARS ago. I started playing when it first came into Open World.. and immediately after that.. it started going downhill fast. I wish it was good.. cause I love the theme.. but.. the devs have been burning it to the ground ever since release.
Agree 100% mate. So sad to the the current state of the game. A game I used to love and have spent 2500hrs in. So many good players have left and the game feels hollow now😕
I also feel sad to see a game we've all enjoyed so much being patched into oblivion. I hope the developers will course correct at some point so we can both feel like making videos again.
@@kairos4486 amen sir… amen!
@@kairos4486 I doubt they will correct this. The developer who did these changes is not even there now. He's off on some other project.
I used to love this game and now it's just a waste of time to log in.
@@Scott64a I did not know that, but that may explain the change of direction for the game.
So that's why everyone hates it
Damn! I loved this game back in the day. Sank thousands of hours into it even making a few videos ^^ but the devs kept on making changes that made the game worse and or more pay to win. But this video only confirms that since I left it has only gotten worse :/
Good video thanks!
Thanks mate for the explanations.
I have been playing this game almost every evening during 5 years, ending with 7k+ hours on my main account.
I stopped playing some two years ago, simply because my favorite gameplay (sailing mostly light frigates or sloops) was destroyed by developpers. Game started to be set for 3rd rates to 1st rates only. Full stop for me.
And what I can see in recent changes won't drag be back in!
Anyway, thank you for the explanations and have fair winds! 😄
Same boat as you, game is so fucked right now.
Thanks, I'm glad you found the video informative. I hope the game will be brought back to its former glory someday.
What, you don't like the idea of using 4 and 9 pounder mediums on all of your first rates? HAHAHAHA
Almost all of my ships were armor-focused builds; I was a big fan of the gameplay around maneuvering and angling. When that got gutted, I was so profoundly discouraged that I basically dropped the game entirely. I can understand that a small dev team means corners getting cut, but at what point is it just simple mismanagement?
Agreed
They did a "SWG" on this game.
What they should have done is spend some cash on marketing so more players come in, the squeezing of the exciting playerbase is a hallmark for shortsightness.
more games have been killed by managers than by griefers.
I agree! Personally I think they should have just done a Steam sale, and then perhaps announced they would start working on some new ships to add to the game. Alas it is not so
Open world open pvp games where new players are preyed upon would see a horrid new player retention rate.
SWG?
I bought this game a few weeks ago, and am seriously happy that I refunded it when I could.
Cheers KairoS, thank you for making these videos. As a new player with only about 50 hours on the clock, they truly help me make sense of the patch notes and the finer points of the game
I’d like to point out a couple things about from my perspective as a new player. I’ve been watching NA vids on YT for years now, always holding off getting it because of the grind, the toxicity of the community, problems with the dev, DLC policy, etc… So I have a more or less basic idea of how the game used to be
1. Enjoying the game
Despite the questionable decisions of the dev and the obvious decay in realism (which is quite a shame) I still find the game enjoyable. I think I enjoy it because I don’t take it seriously at all. I want to be “disconnected” from all the player base vs dev drama as much as possible. If I lose a fight, oh well, here goes my ship but at least I had fun. I’ll just make a trade run and buy a new ship. With this mindset, I don’t feel the urge to perform well, sink an x amount of ships to get x amount of medals or rewards. I don’t get the rewards? That’s fine, I’ll try next time. When I launch the game, I don’t have any self inflicted pressure such as “oh I must go to the PZ and try to do 50k damage tonight”. Nope, I just log in and just sail around. If I feel like it I can either do some trade runs, go in the PZ with the lads, or hunt down intruding enemy players in my nation’s waters also with lads!
2. Community/Nation
I joined the French nation because my first language is French. While it seems an obvious choice, it’s far from it. I could have a joined an active nation, like the Dutch, the Pirates, or more recently the Spanish, but the interaction I get with my fellow nation members has been so positive and welcoming that I don’t regret my choice one instant. The older players and clan members are always here to help. “You want to build a shipyard? Here’s 10k doubloons, have fun!”. “Oh you just started out and you only have 150k reales? No worries, here’s 3M, 2 Indiamen, and a few frigates. Enjoy!” I’m not exaggerating those figures either. If I hadn’t joined my “home nation”, I would probably never have been to heartwarmingly received! I think for older players it’s gratifying to help newcomers, giving them a new sense of purpose in the game. It’s definitely something that makes me love the game more so than the actual gameplay. So for any new players, I say you should definitely join your home nation in NA
3. Player/Nation Activity
Perhaps it’s something that isn’t discussed enough, but I think that NA was better when there were fewer nations. The original nations were much more active back then with a larger player base (GB, Sweden, and Denmark) because certainly nationalities flocked to those because they lacked their own nation in NA. For example, when nations like Prussia, Russia, or Poland were not present, German players played for Sweden and Russian players for Denmark. Now, it’s all split off amongst nations that quite literally have no business to do in the Caribbean (Prussia, Russia, Poland, and China). I understand that the dev did so to cater to certain demographics, but the trade off isn’t worth it in my opinion
When it comes to the French nation, we are probably the weakest of the original nations. Our pool of active players available for PvP and RvR is quite limited. We also lack capabilities to craft decent ships to fight. With the removal of port bonuses, we struggle quite a lot. There has been a small influx of new players from the summer sale (myself included) but it takes time to make these players into fully operational and “profitable” players. For RvR we rely on the Dutch and Swedes to help us out. If there wasn’t so many nations, new players would trickle down into the originals, making them stronger inevitably
4. Opinions and one’s own opinion
I think it’s very important for new players to make their own opinions on game mechanics when they can. The general NA community can be very divided on these topics and it’s hard to make sense of it all. For example, after the patch everyone rushed to medium or long guns of low caliber for better DPS. I followed this trend on the advice of others. After trying it out, I didn’t perform so well so I went back to big caliber guns, longs if possible. I find it more useful and better performing in my opinion. It’s a style I prefer. All this to say that advices are good but don’t take them at face value and don’t be afraid to try new things on your own as a new player
5. Content Creators
They are perhaps NA’s greatest strength! People like you, KairoS, are extremely useful to us new players. Your guide series was by far the clearest and most concise I could find! There are so many others too out there putting out video tutorials for NA it’s an invaluable source of knowledge and learning!
So, here was my rather shallow take on NA. I hope new or prospective players can find my experience useful to them in making their decisions!
Well said
I started playing this recently literally in the last 2 months. Never knew so many mechanics were taken away 😮
I used to love this game... I quit in 2017 when the Devs refused to do anything about the rampant cheating back in that day. What was happening was that people would use additional accounts to lock out battle slots in the 25v25 port battles. For example, Nation A, attacks B, Nation A logs in 5 accounts on Nation B, and never engages the enemy during the battle, essentially making the fight 25v20.
I never played that far back, but this sounds like the kind of thing I've heard other veterans of the game complain about in the past.
...and when players were using some code to see where their shots would arc so they could leak sink anything from 700M away.
Or when the server removed all of the HDF from Mortimer Town so that a giant flotilla could sail safely to Baracoa and completely pass the screeners and win against a clan who was a threat to Russian ports on Haiti.
They lost the port, and the Russian clan who won GAVE it to a rival Pirate clan who promptly removed ALL port bonuses and investments and then held it for a while.
That was cross-nation cheating with help from the devs who put up instant fog and teleported the fleet to Baracoa.
Totally suspicious and totally cheating.
I stopped playing PvP after that and went to PvE. Then with this last set of changes they nerfed ALL the fun out of ship crafting, different ship build and different styles of gameplay and each ship's advantages and the 4lb medium is the highest DPS in the game.
Total shit now.
I'm thinking of picking up this game despite all the warnings against it simply because there's nothing out there like it. What are your thoughts on new players coming in at this time?
just read rest of the comments
Don't listen to all the haters give ti a go it's free. If it's not for you no money out of pocket
Ball shots do damage to masts, i have demasted ships with balls a couple of times after the patch. They just do A LOT less than chains.
Same after raking cerberus in my endymion he Lost 2 mast there was only 6 mast hits with 32pounder carronades…. They fall easier and quicker than before patch…
ball doesnt damage masts , it damages the hull if the hull is damaged alot then and only then mast will also fall, if you would only hit masts it shouldent demast like the devs said
@@MexicanBatman yeah i check it again you got right hull dammage from stern and mast fall like Russian army but there wasnt any direct hits or info about mast hits….
Thanks for the feedback on that, I'd assumed from the patch notes that no damage at all was supposed to be done to mast with ball. I will have to test this myself soon.
I just really, really, really hope that the developers of this game will watch this!!!
When the game first became available through early access, I was hoping for an Age of Sail sim/Sid Meyer's Pirates hybrid. If I remember correctly, this was also the developer's vision of what the game should turn out to be, with the option of sailing the carribean with other players.
While I was more interested in the single player experience, the option of pvp battles didn't bother me much...until the whole game turned into an arms race.
The whole dependancy on resource garhering for crafting and clans really ruined it for me.
They killed it. Utter contempt for the existing playerbase, people leaving en-masse and the loss of on-line friendships in clans forged over time. Such a pity. I spent hundreds on dlc, then they completely change it? Not on at all. Over 2,500 hours invested for nothing. I look forward to the release of 'Ahoy' as do many ex NA players, I just hope they have more respect for their customers. Thanks for the video.
Wait- what is "Ahoy"
@@kalvinchester4068 It's a game that will release on steam , check it out!
Completely agree with what you say mate. Also just a side note, once upon a time, not only you had to be very careful with the amount of repairs you brought with you since you had to repair after the battle was over. You also had to take into consideration that having more repairs, would make your ship slower. How much you were slowed was dependent on the % that was used compared to the total cargo capacity of your ship. An other feature that was removed for "reasons" . I started playing in 2019. Not counting the wind shadow mechanic, the 2019 version was more balanced, more interesting and richer in features, played better and things just made more sense than what we have today...
Thanks for that info. I wasn't playing back in those day; it's sad to hear game features have been disappearing for so long.
My dear friend, your video is really well done, and your attempt to find any reason for the changes made to the game with the latest "big" patch by the dev is truly a demonstration of how much you / we loved Naval Action . But the reality is much simpler! Dev on one hand has imagined a game with considerable possibilities of becoming an extraordinary game, and on the other he believes he is infallible and rather than admitting the error he will continue on a road that already caused the dropping of online players (who in the past paid for the game), in the hope that tomorrow it will be repopulated by players (who will play for free). Simply brilliant! Absolute lack of respect for his customers and absolute lack of future for the game! After all it's just a game, it could have become a great game, but it has become crap. Pity
Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad you liked the video. I hope that whatever might be motivating the devs to constantly change things, in future they will bring back the complexity and uniqueness the game used to be known for.
@@kairos4486 this is a bit late after the video:
I remember way back in the beta there was a bit of a scandal where the devs were banning people for disagreeing with the direction of the game. Even allegedly people getting banned from the game for writing negative steam reviews (which got reported to Valve and they were forcibly stopped if memory serves me right. It has been some years though).
I don't agree with everything you say but agree with the sentiment and appreciate the effort you put into this video. I remember watching your pre update video and leaving a comment sounding the alarm bells. I never thought it would be this bad though.
Glad you found the videos interesting. I hope the game goes back to being awesome again at some point.
The state of the game before the June patch wasn't great - the average playernumbers were less than 500. That's average between 2 servers. The problem stems from the grind you have to do to get a competitive PvP ship (PvE is more stable but that's in part due to the lack of competition on the PvE server), and the time you can lose that ship you've grinded for. Ships should be dirt cheap, easy to craft and effortless to lose and replace. Why? - The only aspect of the game that worked (past tense) was combat.
With the June patch devs (again) screwed with combat mechanics (and we've tried it before, when/if the playernumbers increases and we get more competitive port battles we'll get back to seeing chainboardings, due to perks, stacking of universal modules and focus fire rigging shock). Ships crafted became worthless but can be achieved over time - the problem is that NA doesn't have time. The game was NOT in a good state before the june patch and it certainly isn't in a good state after.
I had my issues with the game before (like the fact they took away the repairs at sea), but for me personally it has only been a real problem since the last patch. That was when I really felt the problems starting to mount up.
I used to play all the time I loved having a fast lightly gunned frigate or sloop. I would snatch a few merchant ships close to an enemy port and then the other players could never catch me. Unfortunately the Le Requin was way overpowered and ruined any chances of doing this as soon as it was released. I miss those days.
I played this game almost everyday during a long time. I bought all the dlc far before the patch. I have not played one single time for a month. 3 days after the patch, I just gave up. The new NA is totally unrealistic to me and it is not what I bought. For me this patch is a forgery. NA is NOT in beta then changing the game like the devs did it is breaking the contract the devs had with their paying customers.
I'm sure their incompetence will have left them damage-proof(broke/out of money), so they don't have to care about all the money they would potentially have to pay back.
Hi there! First off, great and informative video.
It's sad to hear that long-term players like you find that the game is moving in a direction that raises great concern in the community about the future of the game.
I've been browsing around on Steam for something that'll help me cleanse my palate from Sea of Thieves and stumbled upon Naval Action, though the amount of criticism to the recent changes in the game is hard to miss. Have the developers addressed the community about those changes and the thought process behind them?
Would you still recommend those on the fence to pick up the game, hold off, or just move on to something else? In case there's no salvation for Naval Action, are there any viable alternatives that members of the community have moved on to?
Do not invest in Naval Action. wait for " Ahoy". Naval Action is Dead.
Thank you KairoS, it is very well explained with good intuition and common sense, I hope to see more of your videos
Wow. Thanx Kairos. I too am a former "avid" Naval Action player.
I thought - hey I will check out the game again. While actually downloading to maybe try it out again, I watched your video.
Because of this "dumbing down" of the ships, i stopped my download.
Shame ... Naval action was such a great game.
I posted a steam review that got 105 likes and many awards offering my thoughts on the state of the game. Needless to say I haven't logged in since the June update and neither have many others.
Honestly I doubt the devs will ever listen. They are chasing the free to play model and further monetisation methods of modern gaming.
They see us as the old playerbase and are trying to attract the new.
Their attitude stinks and I for one will not be rewarding their smug attitude toward the loyal playerbase by spending any money or time in their game anymore.
Not unless they backtrack and backtrack quickly. Which they won't.
I really used to love this game and still hope the future for it will be better. Just because there is still no other sailing game out there that was better than early NA.
You made some fair comments. It’s less fun playing after the ‘upgrade’ last June. I played every day, but it dropped down to once a week. Hoping that it has improved in the mean time.
I hope so too. Perhaps it isn't too late to course correct
the skill he uses to dance around saying admirality speaker messed up is admirable
I'm wondering if they lack luster changes started occurring since the company was bought, or due to the war in ukraine or because the next game they are allegedly working on "Sea Legends", is going to start mainly single player and slowly move it over to multiplayer and just drop naval action and forget about it, and are just squeezing it at the moment.
I'm sure it's a combination of those factors. Regardless, the game simply isn't what it once was.
I only recently started playing the game. The first thing I noticed was there was no difference between a 70k ship and a 270k ship. So after grinding to fit out a 500k ship, I noticed that it was pointless spending more than 70k because you got virtually the same. I stopped grinding (I uninstalled the game)
I wasn't always like you described. I really wish they'd go back to how things were before all these updates.
It's free on steam im gonna check it out. Hopefully it's okay
I completelly demasted a ship with ball shots yesterday. I was shooting at the hull. Not sure what is really happening in the background.
Really a wonderful game. Thank you for sharing 🙏
O7
Yeah all you said is true. I can't play this game anymore because it's so dumbed down. Just stupid how they are ruining the game.
It really is a shame how many features are being removed.
The change to armor/hp is something they kept doing over the years to effectively make your ships useless and make you grind for new ships with new stats. In 1 year hp will be meta again and vice-versa...
its sad to see it change so much ive recently come back to it after around a year and its a completely different game. its a shame that the auto repair happens when a battle ends. and its also a shame to see so few people playing these days as this game is one of a kind. even if they where to lower the pen of the guns along with the armour values its essentially made a carronade meta, i now cant see a reason to run longs unless you really stay at range even then your armour is useless.
on the other hand chain shot demasting is realistic and i love that new feature. age of sail was focused on capture more than sink and its a good feature.
Thanks for the Video Kiaros love your content! i hope the Devs watch this and implement positive changes.
hope to see more NA content soon!
How come there are no people's and we can't walk around on our ship's like in other pirate ship games?
Excellent video, totally agree. I love the game and I feel gutted about the recent changes. The changes made no sense whatsoever to me. Fingers crossed the devs change some things.
The ball mast change hasnt done what they say, ive broadsided multiple sterns and scored multiple mast downs with 0 sail damage/chain shot use. Its actually easier to bs a stern for a demast than it is to chain it
100% agree! Hopefully, the devs will hear this and take community's concerns seriously...
Oh, they won't don't worry about that lol
so sad to see this game going backwards
Agreed
Thanks for the review! I was considering this but now that I've seen comments and the first 1:20 of your video, it is obvious they're going in the wrong direction. I saw this happen with Dual Universe where they only develop new annoying menu systems in the game, got rid of meganodes and planets. Seems like no game dev has half a brain. Is there anything good to play? Doubt it. Maybe I could just make my own then. Server cost is the big game killer for most. A great game needs lots of resources and you cannot pump that across any bandwidth without actually putting all the resources on the server side and streaming a video of the game only as they play. That's what will happen next in gaming, I guarantee within 8 years you'll see it. Games will have tremendous power, speed, and virtually unlimited space to explore. In fact, that would be one hell of a great game. To release a game on such a massively powerful server, not tell anyone what it's about, and just let them explore and build starting as a guy in shorts running on the beach like in Ark, just without prehistoric monsters.... and eventually go to flying a spacecraft faster than light across the galaxy. You know, they found a way to store massive amounts of data in dna items, and graphene dna computing will win as soon as they realize you don't need to grow it on a slide but using something else. That tech runs faster than light, really.
Glad the video helped you out. I've been playing Sea of Thieves with my friends lately instead, that game seems to be comparatively well maintained with less nonesense from the development team. Hopefully though Naval Action will survive and improve in years to come.
I binged your rags to riches series yesterday and today.
Looked into the current reviews on the game and was shocked and how the game has changed.
I was litterly going to be buying this game today...
Now I am not.
If the devs want to pursue an arcade game, why not put it to a new server, and leave the original rule set as is?
Sorry Game-Labs... you seemed to have had something interesting in the gaming world. You had a game that matured slowly that had good bones.
I'm sorry you didn't get a chance to try the game before the recent update; It was always a joy to play until now. I hope eventually things will improve enough that you'll feel it is worth giving a shot.
The combat was the one thing that was actually pretty solid about the game. They've completely ruined that, so it's not worth even logging in for now.
Speaking as a player with over 3K hrs and all but like TWO DLCs... you dodged a bullet here.
Thanks for the video. Game is the worst it has been since its inception many years ago...
OMG, did not know this dumb downing, so sad...
I have never played this game. I'm very interested but the criticism I'm seeing is just turning me away. What are similar alternatives?
10,500 hours in game plus alt accounts... 6 years i've played and watched the decline of the game... is there still hope for its future? HMS Saltpetre LAS clan...
i stop playing i will only come back if they undo these changes but i'll keep watching your channel till i see the changes happen btw you make really good videos
I haven't logged in for 3 weeks. Lost hope they would revert the changes. =(
Game would be still alive and kicking if it had the battles like it did in beta…… multiplayer was fantastic now it’s just about who has the most time to literally sail for two hours with no action for trade……
I never played beta, but they should have introduced some kind of a arena mode for people fight with players the same level as them in my opinion.
@@kairos4486 there was in beta, it was so much fun in comparison to the open world now it’s not even the same game, you could full on fight other players in battle from port AND without risking your ship you grinded for
Do not know what was worse the changes or the head Dev saying "my game it is up to me what happens", anyway, gone back to Eve.
I started to get serious about the gane and I wanted to play as the Dutch and focus on trading. Found out that it's not an option and I'm locked into a server that's constantly at war and gets wiped at the end of the war. That's when I quit the game. Looks like it could be an amazing game, but the developers leave mich to be desired.
Wow i haven't played for a while and didn't know about these changes, I was thinking about playing again but now I don't think i want to
This game is the best naval game I came across, its so underrated it took some time for me to find it!.. It is way better than Uncharted Waters and is handsdown more rralistik than for example world of warships.. The grind it has should give the game longgevity.. pay to win ships only by a few % is not the best part, it should be cosmetic only.. On the other side now it is free to play I understand when you like it and know what kind of ship you like you can buy that and helps the devs with monetization for updates.. I rather buy one dlc ship than to have to buy subscription or battlepass and or in game microtransactions.. I think its a good model this way.. For me this looks like a fill new and polished game, i do not care less for the few hundred players who are crying they do not like the updates, however it is because of those players the game is not there where it supposed to be (underrated) changes are for the bettet in my opinion, this game has many potential I was already losing hope that sea of thieves would be the only option.. happy to have found this, cheers!
i recently bought the game... still havent been able to play it since i have a trash setup. hoping the game is still alive when i can finally play it
The game died for me when durability got removed. It was obvious then (and especially so when they added the first DLC ships) that the game was going to rapidly go downhill.
I dropped the game in 2017 because of this, checked it again in 2019 and found the player base had become incredibly toxic.
Fuck the naval action devs, they have ruined the game and i have 0 faith in any of their other projects (Ultimate admiral dreadnoughts / age of sail).
I was a fairly big player in the AU/NZ hours in the British faction on the American servers, held a few port flags and even took some places with other members of KIN, looking back at Jeheils videos a while back was a good memory. I produced about 30% of the clans medium and heavy carriages for the ship builders, and spent most of my excess cash helping new players get into the game and understand the mechanics around ship loadouts, weaponry, and other strategies.
These days even from 30 feet away you can smell the stench of toxic players and bad community management. Its a sad sight, in my opinion they need to:
Reset things back to the old damage system
Return the in game economy to as it was in early 2017
Durability brought back
Removal of rate limits for PVE missions
Return Fleet battles to 16v16 with ai on both sides
Return under-crewing to the game
Modifications returning to no longer being permanent, and hot swappable as they were in 2016
half the XP requirements for leveling up
Old server layout with War and PVE
More data on AI fleets when clicking on them
Remove the player marker from the map (as it used to be)
Player fleet not being limited in ship count beyond how much crew used to be
Return damage persistence (and repairs in overworld)
Allow ships of all rates to be captured from AI at 1 dura, the return of "Mystery wood"
Bring duelling back to the original stakes system (which i think got changed in early 2016)
Home port AI protection fleets
changes to the rate system that reflect the games balance properly, especially around DLC ships and 4th rates.
The things you are complaining about WILL NOT BE ADDRESSED, given my prior experience with the devs. I have been banned from both the discord for the game and the separate forums due to the devs weird obsession with making the players play the game they want people to. They are not open to criticism and are well set in their ways, and have consistently sided with what they call their "hardcore players" who are really just noisy aggressive gankers. These are the people who got AI missions rate limited to force people into PVP and constantly look down on new players, when they added a player marker to the map despite preaching going "hardcore" this all became pretty obvious. I would not be surprised if these same people got repairs at sea changed so they could go out in small fleets far away from their home territories without needing many supplies to bully new players for long periods.
If you want a salty old players opinion on the game I'd be happy to show you some of the things we've lost over the years.
Hello,im one of the many new players of the game,since ive started playing ive strted to research about the game and its past since ive probably watched a handful of gameplays of NA,now i have discovered the sad and terrible direction this game is heading and will probably cause the game to “sink” deeper into the void,like the OP DLC’s and the ever shrinking player base,just 3h since the making of this comment ive decided to take a break since i got absolutely reck by most “probably a DLC trics” since it was going at lightning fast straight at me,and litrary rammed and boarded me,i was in a more manuverable ship but to no avail,still got wrecked and lost all my progress,and i can’t even change to a PVE since its now appearantly free but anyway I hope a similar or a better game with the same vision of the original devs from the 2016 era would rise up at some point,but till that happens would probably go back to,world of warships or some thing.😢
I just got the game for 15$ it feels amazing but I got in into a dying game I really want to enjoy it but trading is a joke player base hate devs for not listening to them...
I just want to have some good time in maritime mmo used to play UWO and VCO back in the days but other than that theres not many games like that especially not that detailed in combat and sailing mechanics.
Please do not sent this game to waste it deserves way more.
Max players I saw in my faction ( Commonwealth ) was 4 me included...
I'll keep on playing and hope Devs and NA Vets get together and it's all going to end well.
See ya around :D
Does this really surprise anyone? Devs say they adding premium, but not to worry, they wont be super big ships. Then later Dev add ships like the HMS Victory to the premium list and ignored all the hate that generated and also the player loss that incurred. This is a dev that probably is trying to struggle to show that their MMO is still profitable (Most companies have foolishly taken the idea of if you are not always growing, you are dying which I do not think necessarily applies to video games), also I think it is said somewhere that the more engagement a MMO has the more likely people will buy things like premium items. Or they know Naval Action is probably not gonna last too much longer and are using it as a slight test bed for "Sea Legends" their up-coming title which they might be trying to kill Naval Action to free up possible players who would buy and play that game so they can close the servers down to free up that capital.
Hello mate. I played the game from start 2016 and had over 2000h in it. I m totaly agree with your opininon.
But there are more problems to be solved. Ask yourself: why is crafting ships again reworked? Why has the DEVs removed the Regional and Port specials? Why do they not rework traiding? Why do they support ganking? Whats about Rework of the War and Peace mechaniks? And why do the DEVs not listen to the Community?
In my Opinion is this game an uncarved Gem of Sailing experiences. Whit help of the Community, fixing issues, Remove of Russian, China, Prussian nation and a trade a la Port Royale 1-4 it can be a EVE Online in Carribian and Pirate Times.
Thats what i wish for.
And i m sure, you too.
Wish you alltime good winds.
For the quest master season the developers lowered the tier thresholds, but guess what else the underhanded jackasses did? They lowered the star payouts for quests. For example last season you could take kill missions of 2 stars for 2 kills, and 1 star for 1 kill. Those same quests this season are 2 stars for 3 kills and 1 star for 2 kills. So previous season you received 3 stars towards a naval service medal for killing 3 NPC boats. For the same amount of stars this season you have to kill 5. What an utterly underhanded thing to do. I am done with them.
It's dumb. Now all you have to do is have a clan mate with alts grind out the ship bonuses and build for the whole clan.
It does feel at this point like they're deliberately making life difficult for everyone, including themselves.
Grinding itself is ok even if they're too lazy to throw in some new content into this game instead. What kills it is that they made all the grinding not worth it when they reduced survivability stats of all the ships. This is to encourage players to buy their DLC which respawn. They kinda stopped developing this game and focused on that new one about sailing they just released, and using this one just to capitalize any way they can which ruins it. The new game is just an updated repeat of this one.
They haven't even released the new sailing game. There haven't been updates to that in over a year.
As far as I'm concerned, I'm complain about the fact that it's mandatory to be part of a clan to play. I hate being dependent on others. I heard about communities hazing new players, for example, 5 boats come to sink a noob ; clans leaders acting like tyrans ; sometimes no solidarity between the members of the clans. The devs wanted to give matters to communities, groups, ect, why not. Then, I am surprised about a big place given to trade and crafting into a game of war. When I buy "Naval action", I'm expecting to do privateering, piracy and naval battles/campaigns in group. I'm not here to do trade and craft a ship. The devs wanted made "Naval action" more real and some people love to trade, why not. But the thing which makes me sick is factions/nations which have nothing to do here such as Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, Austria and Russia. What the heck is that ?! In Americas in XVIIIth century, I want to have pirates, France, Britain, Spain, Netherlands. Why the devs have add nations ? And I don't talk about flags added such as flag of Normandy. It's pity because the ship's design are wonderful. The combat systems is good. The map campaign is realistic. I really hesitate between buying the game and going towards another game such as "Buccaneers".
I have kept hearing about NA and it's always been something in my periphery. Despite the video and comments being a little disheartening, I still really want to try it since this game seems to be the only of its kind.
Certainly, give it a try if you feel it's for you. The game is unique, I'm just lamenting the fact it used to be much more unique than it currently is.
@@kairos4486 Sounds good! Work is swamped right now, so at the moment watching videos is all I can do. I really appreciate the in-depth video! I love communities with this level of enthusiasm.
@@LMMSDeadDuck Thanks, you should also look up my friend 'Norseman_53' if you're after some more Naval Action content.
is this worth getting on steam there are so many negative comments and reviews
At this point I personally would say it isn't worth it; so many game features have been removed, and nothing new added. But it's really up to you if you want to try it out. I would definitely advise holding off on the DLCs until you're absolutely sure you like the game though.
@@kairos4486 thx the last time I played this I think it was call age of sail
@@KennethWhiteakaruckusbringa I believe Age of Sail is actually a separate game by the same developer. You might like to try that out too, it should be on Steam.
I was in from early access. I gave up when the grind got tragic and factions were so unbalanced it was like clubbing seals or being clubbed.
I think its kind of garbage that the DLC ships don't come pre-outfitted with cannons, especially with the price of the ships
Rerolled new character and tried final exam. No way to do it without demasting for me bcoz idk how to aim properly. ♥Alt F4 ♥
Keep in mind that the company was sold to Stillfront Group in 2021. And they are not interested to develop the game. And when you have spent money for Sea Legends, then keep in mind that the money is lost too.
Its like social media, its the amount of people that are online and playing that counts. Grinding has ruined some games quite a lot, Elite Dangerous is one. Also DLC in NA is a bit to expensive, its bordering on the cost of DLC for DCS. Money is king as always.
Almost 3K views in less than 3 days. Your video drew more NA players (and potential players) than the game itself has for several years now. If only the developers had a fraction of your understanding and knowledge, they might have not ruined the game so.
I was checking on how this video has been doing these past months and just noticed your comment. Thank you for the very high praise! I hope my content has been helpful.
i owned the game last year and only stated playing this month
it realy killed the end. was not ready to invest more time. had so may accounts . would be stupid to level them again
What's the ship you see in the beginning?
That ship at the beginning is a Rattvisan.
@@kairos4486 Thank you.
Heard any news when and what new ships they will try to sell us?
Just started playing again a week back, not familiar with the patches, happy to hear i've wasted at least three hours of my life shooting masts with ball and doing fuck all to the ship lol, i thought i was just a bad shot.
Someone in the comments here was saying that ball is still doing some (though very little) damage to masts even after the patch, so I may have been wrong about that. But yes, if you want to demast a ship these days, switch to chain shot.
Just use chain and practice hitting the masts.
I'm holding on but bearly and am trying to only use DLC ships that I have. I will not buy anymore DLC packs until the game becomes more playable.
I'll build up reals and dubs, and wait.
I too have been using the dlcs I already have. I won't be buying any more unless they course correct though
I played back in the day but man I had to drop this years ago...
I wana get into the game I downloaded the game but as a new player it seems so overwhelming
Check out Norseman_53's Core Mechanics series on his CZcams channel; that should help you get started.
And i used to care more for this game :)
It's a tragedy to see such a great game losing its mojo
@@kairos4486 I don t understand why they keep the same events and why they nerf good things.
So in short a game that used to be deep and detailed is now a shallow and boring game. Sad to see such degradation. I haven't played this game but I saw some alarming reviews on steam.
Very sad. 4000 hours for me and I don't play anymore and won't likely play again. I loved this game and it essentially consumed my whole life for two years. To have this patch released even though no one really wanted it and then to have our feedback ignored when it was released ( the devs essentially mocked people who criticized it) makes me certain that the devs are trying to set up the game to make you buy DLC and once its free to play to buy in game currency or grind for weeks... no one should fund them and their foolish ideas. Death is sad but this game has definitely been killed.
I am going to have to disagree with you on the instant repairs being bad and making the damage carry over was good. That feature was not fun and it was double unfun when you barely limp away from a fight only for your opponent to Teleport to a port close by and come out with another brand new ship to finish you off. If the Travel times on the overworld map weren't so long then ya maybe that could be fun but the distance combined with the ganking that went on just insta turned off for so many players who tried the game.
I think what the devs should have done was cut down on the map size like make it half the current size, Cut down on the factions (there are simply to many for the player base) like make it 5ish (USA, Spain, GB, France, and the Dutch), The factions should been much more player driven with players deciding when the factions go to war, peace, internal/external politics, trade routes/areas etc, the Faction capitals should be unkillable so the players always had somewhere where they could go, the factions should have had some unique faction specific bonuses about them. The Pirates should have never been a player led faction and instead should have just had couple of unattackable ports located around the map that are inaccessible except if you become a pirate by attacking friendly or neutral faction ships.
Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate hearing from someone with a different point of view on this topic
Originally the Pirates were something like that, besides the ports being inaccessible. They could also attack anyone, including other Pirates. Wish they'd revert to that.
Yeah, having to wait for a rep cycle to finish before leaving battle was a pain in the ass. It was also very costly.
Great game 👀👍
what ashame, such a great game
Did the game become better again?
i find it funny this has more reviews than people playing the game
I played in 2016-2017 and the game was so insanely geared towards clans it made it impossible to play as a solo player and I eventually got bored and gave up
Perhaps that's why they felt a need to change things up. Thanks for the feedback
Haven’t played the game in years… didn’t realized your damage automatically repaired in the open world!? 😢
I'm afraid so. Hope they'll change it back someday.
I won't purchase another DLC until they revert some of these horrendous changes. I will do what I do in game, but I can't support them with $$$ at this stage.
bro no offense, but your game has been in beta stage for so many years, do you srsly think it still has a future?
This game straightup became free to play, I feel bad for people who bought it for 20 bucks
I mean the amount and quality of high level/quality port battles went from 1 per week at least to 1 in two month
Boring nothing to watch anymore on twitch
I couldn't even play this game when i tried to a few years ago, because i wasn't apart of a Massive clan. Now i can actually stand a chance on my own.
Recently got this game for free no wonder why you dont need to pay for the game anymore
Such a shame they are ruining their own game. I used to be a trader in the game and it was always a important point to carry repairs incase i got caught but a player. And balls not damaging the mast is completely wrong, balls should do damage but they are just more a challenge to hit, as with good cannons you could knock down masts if you are in a chase.
"If they know what's good for the game"
I don't even own this game and even I know that this is recklessly optimistic xD
I hope you're wrong, but fear you may be right!
You must understand Just a simple thing: russian clans and russian PVP players até loving these New things. And they own the right to Tell developers what to do.
I was just getting back into the game. They REALLY f****d up the game with making all the ship the same. So sad to see a belobed game ruined by the devs. And they still didnt implement cannon recoil. Im just disapointed and not coming back. And I might not be alone with my oppinion....
Me who got this yesterday
700 players online this weekend. If you don’t like it don’t play it, simples. Amazing how many of you need to have other peoples validation rather than make your own mind up.