Naval Action

I can't comprehend why they wiped the War server. What a joke. Hundreds of hours to waste.

That game is basically a scam, do not waste a dime in it.

I have never written a review for this game, but I would like to as I cross a rubicon of hours that no other game has sucked me in to do so.

If you are looking for the best attempt at a recreation simulator of naval combat with some iconic age of sail ships of the past, then look no further, the physics engine and level of thought that has gone into making Naval Action what it is today is a testament to their small team and utter investment in the end result, the experience is almost entirely player driven and it is seldom seen in this day and age where a game forces you to come together as either small communities or solo groups.

The game doesn't spoonfeed you, and you will have to work to progress, but believe me, you'll meet some fellow Age-of-Sail lovers along the way, and probably learn a thing or two about becoming a sea captain.

Fly under the British, French, Spanish flags or perhaps, take up the black skull and crossbones of the pirate nation, either way, you'll find yourself embroiled in a persistant war of domination and control of the ports in the 'New World'

See you on the seven seas Captains!

Very complicated

Naval Action recently got new Devs. They are reverting the game back to the good old days. Play the BETA version! This will bring back a lot of old players! Cant wait to see what they'll do.

This game has been plagued by horrible development choices for years however at its core it can still be fun. The reason this game will always remain dead is the player base . You cant mix players playing for a decade who have not done anything new in years all they end up doing is making the game miserable for new and inexperienced players. Tried picking up the game again only to be attacked by 3 rank 1 ships with my rank 5. This is one game I will never touch again good riddance.

It's a good thing! :-)

Dev PoV

-Make game called Naval Action
-Make PvP server
-Make players lose money when PvPing
-Make going AFK while trading the most profitable way to play
-Make not PvPing the only way to PvP on a PvP server

Profit????

I mean, realistically it is a really fun game. It has a little bit of a learning curve when you first start playin but not too terrible. It has a decent realism feel especially with the naval battles. And honestly for a free game it’s not bad at all.

It's a Good niche game

Liking the new changes so far. Keep up the good work.

I've followed this game since the very beginning, having been looking for something to replace an old age of sail MMO I played quite a lot.

As soon as I could pre order/gain alpha beta access, I was in. It was a huge step up from the previous games in the genre, physics were great and graphics were beautiful. The base game was rather polished, and there honestly wasn't much for game breaking bugs that I ever witnessed.

PvP is where I usually hung around, and after 500 some hours I was enjoying my top of the line connie dubbed The Crimson Jewel. There wasn't much that could beat me. Small ships had to be perfect on their timing, and larger ships stood no chance in 1v1. 2v1 I still could usually kite them down and finish the fight. It is a game that really does reward you for honing your skills and purpose building your ships and you feel like a badass pirate captain.

Then, they wiped the server. Said they needed to clear the board because too many people became rich due to 'bugs'. Okay, fine. So we all restarted. And made our money the exact same way we did previously. The issue is the levelling system that reduces your crew. I believe they had gifted the older players with some starting cash and/or their original level, but I can't quite remember. Long story short, I retried and kind've enjoyed the buildup again but honestly never made it back to where I was initially.

Then, I came back for a third time to find that I had been reset again. Okay, fuck that. I started just doing PvE because they kept resetting the PvP servers over the years. Once again, built myself up to about mid level enough to crew some shabby 5th class ship and lost interest.

Just now, I figured hey, got more time now might take another crack at it. Should be starting where I was before since I was on PvE.

And I'm met with the dreaded player creation screen. I've been playing since 2016 and I need to yet again restart. Absolutely no coins, ships, or levels. Nothing to show for 715 hrs on record.

It's a great game, the devs obviously have some horrible strategies in managing their playerbases. I think seasonal pvp was a decent idea, but resetting pve AGAIN? How does that make ANY sense?

End of the day, player counts are the telling factor. I wouldn't expect the servers to stay up too much longer anyways. And as a result, I won't be buying anything from the developers of Naval Action in the future. They ruined what was a very fun, informative, and beautifully crafted game with a passionate audience. The gritty nature of the carribean and seeing an unknown ship in the distance and the feeling of despair (or a juicy target) goes hand in hand with letting things progress naturally. But they couldn't keep their grubby fingers off of it.

I'm currently on a cycle of revisiting nostalgic games for myself, and unfortunately this one if not one I'm going to waste anymore time and money on.

This game hasn't just died; It's been murdered by its developers. It used to be an extremely fun and realistic 18th century naval warfare simulator. Now it's just a crafting and trading sim. When you loose a battle, you loose your ship and everything on it. Given how f-ing grindy this game is, that's just not fun. You work for hours and hours to get to the stage where you get access to ships of the line, to get to the stage of the game that you really came for, being the line battles, and then when you loose one single time you get to start all over again. Also; The battles are bonkers. I laid my ship of the line alongside an AI one and scored more hits than he did. I had 10 more guns per side. Heavier guns too. And yet he did more than twice the amount of damage to me compared to what i did to him. And so i lost my ship and have to start over again. I'm done with this game, and i'm not going to play it again.

Oh, and what a charming f you from the devs towards all the players who actually bought this game; To now make if free to play and hide the actual fun mechanics which we were promised in development behind DLC. Scumbags.

Awesome game! Once you get past the initial grind/learn the game, it is very fun.

Use to play the game in PVE, just played to have fun with friends against AI. They changed the game so once your ship died it was gone forever. Lost my ship after years of playing and never went back. The missions also changed in the game so they werent as fun, and more chances of death. In the end they took a game to just jump in and have fun with no risks to "hey you die you lose everything" dont have the time for that kind of game especially against AI

Shit game atm and Shit Devs :D dont waste ya time people
Admirality and ink have no respect for the playerbase

This used to be a good game some time back. But the developers did not do any justice to the potential it had. No new content or improvements were added as requested by the players. Once the player base hit rock bottom they just scooted. So I do not recommend this game to any one with current status.

The Dev is a fucking liar and don't give a fuck about the player base... Introducing Gunpowder and Ammo now makes your DLC a complete waste of money.

Imported DLC ships are perfect if you just want to jump into action quickly, ignoring hauling of resources, just buy guns, repairs and you are good to go. DLC will appear in your redeemable list after you dock to any port.

Complete utter bullshit now

Alright. Im gonna get lengthy with this one so strap in, ill try to split this into sub headings of importance for myself personally, and why some things are good and why others are bad.

Gameplay
Alright, i have around 80 hours in the game, i bought it before it was FTP. I think this is a fairly unloved game (atleast until now) and has been neglected by devs and creators. I think the gameplay is unique, easy to learn and doesn't require you to be a tryhard nerd at it (This is before the update which changes balance of battles and repairs, trading and building). It is easy to get into a game, fight a few cutters for your first 5k dobloons which will allow you to quickly buy a Cerb - aka the quick way to big ships. The wind accuracy, the fighting and boarding mechanics, group battles all require adjustments, but their core is perfect i think.
Visuals
This game is 2GB, anyone that dares saying its not beautiful needs to give their head a wobble. its stunning, seeing my 30 odd cannons fire from an ingermanland is phenomenal, i remember i used to zoom in on empire total war to see the same thing. Epic and im the one controling it.
Story?
There is none. Jump into a server (as pirate for example) accept your mission to hunt rank 7 ships, fight said ships, collect reward, rank up rinse and repeat with higher next levels. (There are more features, but im talking about the easy way)
PVP
Haven't had much experience, everyone ran away from me the moment i got off a navy brig (pink).
PVE
Epic. EPIC EPIC EPIC. More natural, i feel like i play a really good SP game when solo fighting 2 ships. No do overs, to try again, either win or sink.
trading
players are friendly, everyone likes to help and often offers cheaper ships. Its epic af.
groups
grouping system is broken (will be fixed in the next patch as far as i know) but when it works its fun, taking on bigger ships, or just ones you wanna capture and keep. Epic.
what to expect
Expect delays, little to no communication from devs dlc ships which heavily help at the start of the game, but countless hours adventuring through the open sees looking for specific ships for missions, or trying your very best to 1v1 a ship with higher BR than you just to collect more XP. Fucking love this game.

Impatiently waiting for more.

I know this game gets a lot of hate, i was one that would throw stones at the devs for not communicating with their player base, but i love this game, and with a little more tweaking and love from them itll be perfect.

It's not good

The game looks like it would be awesome but, new players will be relentlessly hunted and destroyed by much higher level people, and there is simply nothing that you can do about it. the developers have designed the game, in a way, that rewards people for being jerks. this ruins the enjoyment for new players. and therefor will just inevitable cause the game to die in time. and by the looks of it, it is well on its way to this fate.

Game Devs are morons

Game goes free to play.
New players cant join the regular servers just the seasonal one.
Hmmmm why does no one play on the regular server anymore.
Delete the main server.
Imagine spending 1k+ hours on this game just for it to get deleted.

Most autistic game devs in the history of gaming. The original devs should be banned from ever being able to develop and create video games again in this market. Way to destroy a game with so much possibility.

not easy to learn but super fun will take all day to do anything so dont think u will be on and off like other games

one of the best naval simulation games

Excited to see where BCC take the game. Already pointed things the community has been complaining about for years. No more wipes will be the first major step into giving this game life again. I miss the days of 1000s of ships roaming the seas. People not having all their hard work destroyed any longer will make a world of difference.

For those complaining about pay wall etc. Learn the game and you'll quickly realize once you are set up and on your feet, most certainly if you are with a good clan, you will have the ability to fuel your pvp/pve desires. The issue prior was the game has grind (which i love personally) and your loses matter mostly. With your work being reserved you can easily build up the ability to support yourself and absorb those blows EVEN without DLC ships. DLC ships save you time and nothing more.

Also note: Those DLC ships still need to be fitted, upgraded, booked, etc so it's not as simple as buying a ship and now you are OP. You still need to be successful at the rest of the game to paint that picture.

So BCC Thank you for giving this game a chance at life again. I for one will be looking forward to giving this game a solid go again. I've missed good age of sail combat.

EDIT: Yeah this game is a lost cause. Sad to see it go but it's time. Can't recommend after playing the new update on the test server. It's an absolute joke.

I bought this game when it was pay to play. Back then you could get some ships and help from the community. Then the devs did a reset of the servers and lost a good bunch of players.
Then they added one durability to the ships. It made PvP more of a risk.

Since the devs fucked over the playerbase they needed more money. So they added DLC ships. They didnt sell enough, so they made shipbuildning more annoying. Now i saw the DLC page, and half of the ships you could build is now DLC ships that you can get for free. Wont be suprised if they make all ships like that soon.

So unless you pay a ton of money for extra ships, or are unemployed and ready to spend a full time on this game dont bother.

I wouldnt recomend supporting developers who behave like this either.

It was very good, But it is crap now, Don,t Buy it
Thanks to the crapist devs ever.

It could be such a great game. Good job developers! :(

Great game lots of potential a gem in this genre it just needs cheaper dlcs,a easyer way for smaler groups or even single players that put 24/24h per day into the game to at least set up an atack on enemy ports,a tool to measure distances and pinpoint locations on the map in open world in case someone needs to call for reinforcments if atacked or iniciated atack on enemys in open world like for example triangulation from known ports with course and distance or latitude and longitude,an easyer way to switch between servers once in game instead of exiting the game just to switch servers or to check whats the population on each server,more nations maybe india or italy or something else,bigger map like worldwide map,fixing the godamn wind going in circles:) and thats all imo call me crazy but the game is great recomend 9/10

bought it back then for 30 bucks. Now it is for free...

Can't recommend the game in its current state. It's just too much of a grind and there isn't enough support for it to be worth it.

The actual ship combat is pretty fun in the beginning. It is a fun challenge to try and sink other ships. I have no idea if it is historically accurate but the wind actually really matters and you can spend a lot of time just trying to get in position. The ship models are also pretty cool. At times you do genuinely feel like an admiral.

But those times are fleeting. The rest of the game is a slow, confusing grind. And, once you reach a certain tier of ship, it becomes nearly impossible to advance. You cannot really board and take a ship that's bigger than a 4th rate without a ship of that size or a lot of experience in the game. I for one am not an experienced player, so the idea of capturing ships to advance in the game is just fanciful.

And if you decide that you want to just build the ships, that's impossible (practically speaking; we're talking hundreds of hours solo) just to get one of the bigger and cooler ships. Instead, you need to join a clan and get help. But the big clans are all very cliquey, and aside from that there just isn't even enough players to actually be able to accomplish anything. And even if you did, there's a dizzying amount of resources and systems that don't even make sense.

So, you're practically locked in at the smaller ships, unless you pay these outrageous DLC prices. Seriously; it's over $60 for a digital ship model!

It's really a shame. I played this game several years ago and remembered it being more fun. But now, it's a dead game.

waste of time. they deleting factions so u get fewer choices and usa is gone

is just as good as Russian roads... which is to say terrible.

Naval Action was once a brilliant game, but it’s now plagued by technical issues and poor support. It’s heartbreaking to see a game fall apart like this. Until these problems are resolved, I cannot recommend it to anyone.

its kinda fun and really the only game of its type but its simply a dead game. cant really recommend it for this reason

great game, great people

Change of roadmap i hope! Back in the game! NEW OWNER! LETS GO.. please listen to the players

Not unless you know someone who plays, not a beginner friendly game. you got Virgins with Alt accounts watching Nations main ports looking for new players to slay as soon as they leave. Devs are actually really bad these days. dont do anything to timescale when given and mostly dont give timescales for important info the player base actually wants. Slowly dying game think most ive seen on is 280 players and about 30% of that figure is alt accounts 5% new players trying the game other 65% are long term old school players. The Alt Accounts and Devs are killing the game. so unless you have friends and a clan ready to set up in id prolly avoid this game

The developers murdered this game like the Menendez brothers murdered their parents.

Look i love the idea of a sail game but here my biggest gripe the game takes a while to get good at let alone master. the major part of the players well have been around for some time. not meaning its impossible but it does factor in to making the game harder now the tutorial used to give u a really good and useful reward repair and a light frigate and the level needed to crew it. now what i feel they did over the years is smaller ships are now useless to any sort of pvp cause big ships are as fast as frigates got more guns and hp and thickness (the more thick your hull is the harder it is to pen from angels and impossible for small 6pd 9pd guns aka 7th or 6th rated ships. now i understand that big ships are cool but my problem is if you don't got one your useless in any meaningful pvp and not just port battles but even open world fights is makes me sad that 1 its a skill game for new players to overcome and 2 a if you don't got a clan or alts you can never really do much. but also if you like frigates or smaller ships well i guess thought luck get bigger and the majority of ships in the game are 5th rate aka frigates we got we got 8 7th rates (minus the yacht) 13 6th rates / 18 5th rates / 8 4th rates / 6 3rd rates / 4 2nd rates 5 1st rates. so in the total of the game we got 62 ships (not including the yacht) in 47/62 ships are 4th rate and under and 15/62 are 3rd to 1st (ships of the line) 4th rates are like the USS constitution 54 guns like a frigate or 64 not really ships of the line whit in this time were 74 guns + which are 3rd rate and up. now the point i am making is if your not in the big ships you are well outclassed but WAIT THERE IS MORE ships are not the only factor guns + modules are in affect but i do have to say insurance is nice to have now a days it balances the dlc ships power of 1 every day for free and dlc's well you can pay 77.99 Canadian dollars and get 1 1st rate ship of the line. i can get sea of thieves for that or call of duty or gta 5 like 2 or 3 times for that so back to canons and modules for the uninformed or news you got normal guns like basic medium or basic cannonades or long guns to but hey you want a long gun whit more damage and better spread well here are really rare navy guns that are like 10x the price of the normal ones and only clans can afford and don't get me started on modules like mods that's give you speed like 1 or 2 % there cheap like 20k reals or less now you can get mods that are better and good but cost 2 mill. now i love the idea of better mods cost more but this is 20 to 2 million is a big jump and in the games economy you can buy a ok ship like 2+ times for that much. so again makes the noobs well have less skill and get less good gear cause most the time its the top 10% of players that can afford those mods or clans pay for em to there top players again i know you can say its progression but tell me would a clan but navy guns to there best to there noobs no they would not but we can agree its a touchy thing here also port battle or RVR well if you got 100 players that want to participate on 1 team well then you got to select the top ones and say better luck next time to the others. so then again be good or be out of the fun so how fun for bob 1 month in got decent at the game and wanted to feel a cool important fight so what i got to say the game feels like be good or get lost witch it ok if you want to stay at 200 players and be small and one day the game will fade to forgotten. if y'all want that be my guest i am just a player that remembers the days of 1000 players online on alpha and port battles being a nation effort in the scene of trying to intercept the battle fleet before it got the port and fought to capture it we would try and stop it in the ocean as it made its way to port so yes you can make a game for you and 300 of the players that play but just be aware games do die or get forgotten, and i would hate to loose a game that brought me joy and friends over the years i miss having noobs and seeing then grow and become good and better than you sometimes it was refreshing now its feels like stale water not moving and getting more and more hard to shake up and make new things happen. now that i said 20% of what i could or want to say ill leave here on the note of thanks to the devs for trying thanks the the community for making a amazing RVR scene over the years and i only wish that i can see this game thrive again not just on making the game lost its soul. But on cool things that makes us feel like were nelson on HMS victory or captain luck jack on the HMS surprise or any of your sail captain icons. now god speed and may the seas be kind to you fellow captains.

I used to enjoy this game but it looks like the developers are trying to kill it by making it non-user-friendly. Much hype about 'special events', but when you get there, quests are unrealistic/impossible for lower-level players.

Something different to do everyday, good friendly community

I really appreciate the realism in this game. I am like Nelson, dying on the journey home because it takes so long to do anything. They should rename this game: Naval Inaction.

Very good game, but very bad developers, that's why it urgently needs a savior. Very fun and challenging, and even if I had to get used to the constant changes, sometimes even stupid ones, I still like it :)

I used to love playing this game a few years ago but i stopped now im back after a few years and put simply its bad. The once player driven trading and economy is dead and from my understanding its from a change the devs made a while back. The accuracy system now feels more like RNG ive seen some of my cannon shots fly out of the boundary the game gives you. Cant find hardly anything in most ports. The game looks nice and still plays pretty similar despite the accuracy changes. but by god its a pain in the ass to get started and without a clan its gonna be almost impossible to get to the late game ships. Which also used to be not a problem before. You didnt need a clan to get them but now you do.

Nearly a dead game but its fun if your just discovering this game sorry but you cant enjoy long term cari wipes every six months and the other servers are locked for people who bought it before it was free.

This is a game that felt like it had captured lightning in a bottle, but has suffered from a developer that's just pushed it further and further toward being a no-lifer unfun timesink of an MMO.

Critique of that course saw said developer chimp out, chastise his own community and outright just ban people for constructive criticism.

I don't much care how the game is now, there's no point playing a title they killed long ago. Just look at the Steam Charts.

Once this was one of my favorite games.

The only reason i would recommend it is if you want a game where you can sail around with a beautiful ship and enjoy the views, since this game has quite nice graphics.

The only other possible reason i would recommend this game is if you would like a pretty realistic age of sail battle simulation - and you also have a friend who also likes the age of sail and wants to play with you, since the PVE is not that interesting. I mean it's kind of interesting the first times, but after a while - the bots behave in a very similar pattern every time, depending on whether it's a trading ship, or a warship, and at some point the PVE battles get kind of the same.

I personally enjoyed trading and sailing around, couple of years ago - back when frequent trading was actually possible.
Many months ago - the developer released an update which, as far as i understand it - made it so in most ports - there are things you can buy only if other players have previously sold them there, and only very small number of ports produce goods you can buy. The problem with that idea is that there are not enough players to trade so that this system can work, but the devs never reverted back to the old system, even though there were a lot of people complaining about it in the steam discussions.
The result and the current situation is that - you enter a port and there is nothing to buy, you enter the next port and there is nothing to buy, you enter the next port and there are like 20 things to buy, - you fill your ship with like two types of goods and sail to a somewhat far away port, but still reasonably close and sell them. In that port there is nothing to buy, so you sail to the next one and nothing, then the next - and nothing, then the next, and the next, and the next - and still nothing - and at some point when you have wasted like like an hour and 15 minutes searching for a port where you can buy at least one thing - you start losing your sanity a little bit and you start questioning yourself - why am i wasting my time with this game that has a developer that seems uninterested in making the game better for the players by listening to the player feedback in the discussions on steam and on the forums.

Now the dev has released some updates that have improved the game, like the recent updates that gave you the ability to rename your ship, which makes it easier to differentiate ships that are the same type but have some detailed properties and characteristics that are different.
Or the update that gave you the ability to insure your ship for a day.
Or the addition of the new gameplay mechanic - ship races, where players try to individually complete a course for the shortest amount of time.
But the core of the game is the most important thing and this currently needs serious fixing.

And there are also other areas where the dev kind of shows a lack of interest in making the game more accessible to new players or players in general - like the lack of information. In this game there are quite a lot of mechanics and items and upgrades, which are very loosely explained, and it's not very clear exactly what they do, so you have to search a topic where some player has asked the veteran players what that item does exactly, and they explained it to him. And sometimes, even the veteran players don't agree on what an item does exactly. There is no wiki for the game which contains detailed information about all the items, or all the ships, or exactly how all the mechanics work. There are some wiki's for the game, one fandom and one official wiki, but none of them has detailed information about the things i listed. They both have information about some of the items, or some information about the mechanics, or some information about most or all ships but that information is often not updated with the game updates so some of the stats there are wrong.
I would think that a dev who is interested in his game would have the passion to write a lot of these things, since they are the only one who actually know them, since they made them, and i would think - they would want to make the game as much interesting and easy to access for all new players as possible, but for some reason that doesn't seem to be the case here, unfortunately.

________________________________________


Now i know that the dev said that they are currently working on a big update that would change many of the mechanics of the game, and i am very interesting in seeing how the game would be when this update is released, but unfortunately for me - the dev doesn't publish a lot information on the progress or their plans. There was like one post long ago after the original announcement, and that's it, which is unfortunate for me, since i'm very interested in the idea of this game being improved, since once, not that long ago - this game was very dear to my heart, and i very much wish for it to be playable and interesting again.

(Also another thing i have to point our about the battle system. The battle system is very realistic, but there is one aspect of it which was very important in the real life age of sail, and which is missing from this game - in this game you cannot control the raising or folding of each individual sail - the game works on a percentage system which raises or folds a certain percentage of all the sails together, even though visually some sails gets raised first while other stay folded - gameplay wise - the ship doesn't react as if those specific sails shown to be raised or folded are raised or folded - but like some percent of all the sails are raised or folded, in other words no matter how exactly the individual sails are shown - the ship practically just raises it's speed by a certain percentage, without changing it'd direction of sail, as it would be in real life, or again in other words - the raised and folded sails are just visuals, the percentage of raised sails is what has influence on the gameplay.

Now there are other detailed sail controls which this game does have, and which give you the ability to change the direction of the ship by changing the configuration of the sails - and that is done in this game (as in real life) by changing the sails orientation relative to the wind direction. And this mechanic does add a nice aspect of realism to the simulation of sailing an age of sail ship.)

(I currently have very negative feelings towards this game, precisely because i loved it so much and i really, really wish that it was actually playable for a player who likes mostly sailing and trading like me, like it was, not that long time ago. I also sometimes fight with the bot ships, since that is now the only way to acquire items to sell and make a profit, but as i said earlier - that gets quite repetitive very fast.
And also i'm greatly anticipating for this new big update, and i'm really hoping that it improves the game enough so that it's at least playable in some way.)

The game feels very dead. And there are not many ways to make money in order to get better ships in order to do more missions.