How you have managed this is, frankly, beyond me. This game has been around for more than a decade now and it has been dying. Rather quickly, lately.
Do not get me wrong, this game has it's good sides. It is rather unique and has a lot of charm to it. But now you want to unleash this niche game onto a wider audience without improving any of the actual issues that are present. I know this will not change anything, I will still waste my time and write down a few points that I personally think needs to be changed.
Finding a game:
The room system, while nice, is probably not the newbie-friendliest way to present it. Making a room is certainly a rather big undertaking for somebody who doesn't understand it. A simple "Quick Play" Button that throws you either into a room that exists or creates one with a defined set of rules would helpful. If you still wanna fuck around with custom room creation, be my guest. I never saw the benefit to it.
Matchmaking:
The game as it stands right now is separated into two parts: 1 to 60 and 61 to 120. While the grind from 1 to 60 is actually bearable, due to a managed powercreep; as soon as you hit 61, your matches will be about as pleasant as a badly-temperated violet-bath that you add a plugged-in toaster before getting it.
The power creep from a 61 ship to a 120 is absolutely insane. There is no fun to be had anywhere. Fixing this problem is certainly a more difficult question. You could just split the entire thing into 3 or 4 level sections, or maybe just reduce the power-creep of high-tier battleships and give them somewhat comparable range to lower level ships. You're not playing the same game against them. They might as well slug it out in a private room with target practice.
Wiki-Knowledge:
So very much information in this game is hidden, buried deep within a few dedicated forum posts. What does this increase in accuracy get me? What does AAW do? How much more damage do I do? These things should be clear and obvious to the player and shouldn't require me to google through pages only to find out.
"Pay 2 Win":
This game is only P2W if you don't understand the system. A new player might look at the shop and see "What, you can just buy these sailors with super stats?" Until you realize there is a hard cap on most abilities, and then you just fuck people over at that point?
There is plenty of ways for money to be made by you, without relying on these garbage things you can buy. Skins for ships? More premium vessels maybe? Is it really worth alienating 50% of the players for a little more money, instead of...you know, making a good game and incentivizing people to give you dollars because they enjoy it?
I don't expect anybody to read this so it's just wild rambling. I can't wait for the steam-release to arrive and this game to die yet again.
Sad times indeed.
