Simplify levelling, not skills

[The Dragonfly]

As bungeelemming91 correctly pointed out, this really belongs in here, not the feedback section.

Assumption: Most people will try the game out as F2P, so when they level up:

• no insurrance
• only two dockyard slots
• no ship storage

To simplify the levelling

• at any level under 50 let them respec for free at any time.
  The current skills are complex, granted, but that's a big part of the appeal. However, being stuck with a skill that sounded good, but turns out not having the suggested impact, that's off putting. You have to gain 2 more levels before you can get the next skill.
  Additionally, keep the free choice of any current skill.
  
• Instead of a separate heavy, sleek or MC deed, have heavy, sleek and MC Upgrade Packs. For example:
  
  • Lvl 21: you get a postillionen frigate (and park your van hoorn snow, scuttle anything else, your fallback most likely). Rig the frigate with the experience gathered so far and lvl 22 will come quite easy.
    
  • Lvl 23: you buy a postillionen heavy frigate Upgrade Pack, right click on the item in your inventory like on the deed and select "Apply Upgrade" (you have to be in your postillion of course). Voila, you now have the heavy frigate, all rigged and ready to continue. And level 24 will be that little bit faster, making it worth the doubloons for the Upgrade Pack.
    
  • Lvl 26: you now buy the MC Upgrade Pack, same procedure, you loose a bit of hull strength, but way more firepower that will get you at a stretch even to 37, where you can go for a defiant and skip the stralsund, if you want. No scuttling more ships and riggings in between, no sailing around three times to find permanent riggings, way more enjoyable. And the defiant upgraded to a sleek at 46 should easily get you to 50.

Most important point for the new player to stay interested that bit more,

• easier to find the skills that work for you, complex or not
• loads of time saved sourcing riggings when upgrading ships
• able to upgrade to level appropriate ships more often and hence level that bit better

Ignore the doubloon costs or savings, the missions throw off plenty of those.


As for the production side of Upgrade Packs, simply change the recipe from "ship deed + other things => ship MC deed" to "other things => ship MC Upgrade Pack". Just give it a related icons and leave it in the ship deeds category in the AH and inventory. Done.

Any thoughts?

[Capitane Jean]

I fully agree.

Also, the starter ships are painfully boring to sail - I suggest upping the lowest ship tier to say, a van hoorn or similar.

[CaptBarbossa93]

Sounds ok for me, just keep the thingy where you can choose any skill you want, instead of unlocking earlier skills before you can get the one you want

[holdentorana74]

I like this idea I remember starting as a new player....it was the most boring thing in my life. You either had to try and conquer missions on your own because only a few 50's would help, or you would have to try and find a fleet (which is also hard when all you see is "*location* Fleet 50's Only x up" on Nation chat).

Maybe make it if you hit a small fleet (like an NPC fleet of 3 low level ships) there is a small chance that a bonus xp book will be dropped? That will give new players a bonus for attacking low level ships AS WELL as help them enhance their tactics in ship combat

[Capitane Jean]

On second thought, "simplify" leveling is not the right word. Make it more fun is not like making it simpler. Rather, it's too one-sided atm, or in some aspects, too simple. Too repetitive.

[The Dragonfly]

Simplify, speed up, make more fun - whatever you want to call it, just make them do it. To that end add more suggestions. E.g. double or tripple the XPs gained from solo PvE, and may be quintuple XPs or higher for PvP between two <50 levels (including half the XP for the looser). Stuff like this is what they and we should come up with, what it is called is irrelevant.

PS: if there was a really comprehensive set of tutorials, levels and levelling could be disposed of completely (although I'd have to ponder the possible abuses of this a bit more, e.g. making it to easy to create throw-away alts on the fly for single use, etc.)