I just played world of sea battle for the first and probably last time. I hated the sailing (motor boats, no control of sails, reversing etc) and shooting mechanics as well as some of the fanciful ships among other unrealistic things. I did not mind getting around a bit quicker and the quick travel system. I loved that you could fight battles without instances in the open world. However the battles were generally horrible to play. I thought the sea was way too crowded to feel like I was at sea.
However I loved the "peace" flag system, which I thought would be ideal for naval action and possibly help bring the population of traders back. Because it allows the less action inclined to simply do low level trade without needing to have safe areas like we used to have around the capital.
The boarding system was less intricate but more graphical and certainly still not ideal.
Fishing and needing tackle to do it I liked. You cannot just sit their and fish. You need tackle and need to find schools of fish to gather fish.
I liked that an icon over an enemy A.I. ship showed whether they were looking at you with a telescope and a likely eye to chase and attack. This solves the problem of peacefully sailing along in naval action and then realising somebody out of the AI that was of an enemy flag actually meant ill towards you at the last minute.
I liked the quest system that had things like coming across wreckage and drifting life rafts picking up passengers etc. Also the interaction with the coast to randomly search the shore in a kind of mini game.
I did not like the ship selection being from 1500s to late 1800s and seemingly being able to armor things with metal
I liked the captains portrait choice
I hated the idea of throwing 4 powder kegs with wicks that seemed to act like depth charges or the napalm oil on the water ammo. I did not play enough to see all the other fantastical things.
I hated the slow cannon balls.
I have gone back to naval action and still have the odd AI battle. Adding some of the above ideas, which are probably not unique or new ideas anyways might bring some peoples back. What I saw when La Habana fell and people lost everything without even being at sea broke the population. Peace flag types might fix that between compulsory neutral (call them trading ports) ports in at least 50% of regions, no matter who owns them.
The trade raiding economy in this game needs to be dropped imho. It hurts too many players and leaves the hard core PVP players without any graduating quary.
Thought I would post in case anybody is interested in a new age of sail game that a lot of the naval action player base has gone to. Because some can only play so much of a game with only very minor new mechanical additions after 10yrs. I get it. But I still like Naval Action better by a country mile.
However it does have the advantage of being fast and easy to play. You can get a tonne done in an hour in this game.
I liked that this game did not need to login through a third party client.
(https://i.imgur.com/FQr5Og9.jpeg)
(https://i.imgur.com/vcnEgtd.jpeg)
(https://i.imgur.com/auvIARE.jpeg)
(https://i.imgur.com/KfNjU09.jpeg)
The various flags affect the way you play. However the centre of the map negates all flags and everybody is vulnerable
(https://i.imgur.com/4SGQee8.jpeg)
(https://i.imgur.com/qvRJCHk.jpeg)
(https://i.imgur.com/HJ5Z1j1.jpeg)
Battles are quick and easy. It's hard not to hit.
(https://i.imgur.com/RGMwJye.jpeg)
A nice handholding tutorial. A lot of effort seems to have been put into the game here.
(https://i.imgur.com/L25UsgH.png)
A closer look at the more fantastical ships in the game
(https://i.imgur.com/bjN0fXo.jpeg)
This one?
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2948190/World_of_Sea_Battle/
(C'mon man, a link would be nice.)
Yeah that's it. I always figure direct links should be kept to a minimum where people can go direct fairly easily. But yes I should have provided one as some people have steam restrictions etc.