[2019] When do the developers take a step back and objectively see the state of the game?

Originally posted by Hikqe

This game has so much potential, but internally I feel like it's the Fyre Festival of games. My own voiced concerns, my peers, have fallen on deaf ears. Even this wonderful community which has no short of constructive criticism, is dwindling in players now.

So let me ask you, are you aware on a player basis, the game IS dying?
Visit steam charts Atlas page.

Are you aware it wasn't just the patches, but the defiance to even acknowledge how unreasonable the costs and imbalances are, that drove the majority of us out?

There was a lot fixed in the first week that players needed immediate addressing, after that It sort of felt like everything was resolved around the personal interest of the developers rather than what was needed to improve the players' experience... And the sad part is that it still functions this way.

Even a moderate display of neutrality towards players when discussing patches would be great, rather than dumping the 'next wave' on us and expecting to sit with.

So many great ideas in the game have gone to waste, so many outside will too, it all depends on the audience. If they're to play a third act for a soon to be empty theatre, let them know it was the content of their performance that sent us running, not the cost of tickets.

Originally posted by Jatheish

It's something we recognize and are going to be working towards it in the months ahead. Content patches are usually planned quite a while in advance, and instead of having the team stop working on the large February update, we made some slight adjustments and plan to release it accordingly.

Following that will begin most of our design rework. We spoke about this in an announcement post previously, some of the things we'd like to address:

• Making sure that solo players and smaller groups feel safer when logging off, or that after they’ve taken a break they can come back and know that it won’t be such a difficult feat to get out on the seas again.
• Allowing players to experience the ‘piracy’ side of the game immediately, whilst not trivializing the content.
• Incentivize companies to neutralize their territories, inviting others to make use of their land so that both can benefit.
• More MMO aspects: player markets, player-specified automatic trade routes, additional quests, and daily missions
• Continuous focus on bug/exploit squashing, stability, and performance.
• Relevant QOL and Content additions to meet game and community needs

This isn't everything that we'd like to do, there will be more and we are open to making some pretty big overall design changes, it's just not something that can occur overnight.

Originally posted by Jatheish

It's something we recognize and are going to be working towards it in the months ahead. Content patches are usually planned quite a while in advance, and instead of having the team stop working on the large February update, we made some slight adjustments and plan to release it accordingly.

Following that will begin most of our design rework. We spoke about this in an announcement post previously, some of the things we'd like to address:

• Making sure that solo players and smaller groups feel safer when logging off, or that after they’ve taken a break they can come back and know that it won’t be such a difficult feat to get out on the seas again.
• Allowing players to experience the ‘piracy’ side of the game immediately, whilst not trivializing the content.
• Incentivize companies to neutralize their territories, inviting others to make use of their land so that both can benefit.
• More MMO aspects: player markets, player-specified automatic trade routes, additional quests, and daily missions
• Continuous focus on bug/exploit squashing, stability, and performance.
• Relevant QOL and Content additions to meet game and community needs

This isn't everything that we'd like to do, there will be more and we are open to making some pretty big overall design changes, it's just not something that can occur overnight.