Semi-review: Navy FIELD, Online WWII Naval combat

[Mesozoic]

Being a brainless crowd-following hack, I read Penny Arcade regularly, where on Thursday there was a quick reference to a free WWII Naval Combat game called Navy FIELD.  It describes itself as Massive – that’s a lie, although battles ranging up to 64v64 are reportedly possible.  It’s a multiplayer online game with persistent character progression instanced a bit more like Diablo 2 or Guild Wars.  Splitting hairs.  Anyway…

I downloaded the game (300 megs, no d/l, install or registration problems on WinXP) last night, and this morning I had a chance to run a couple of training missions. As you start, you have only one ship you can buy, a fleet-neutral Frigate. The tutorial does a good job of guiding you through the process of naming the ship, selecting and naming crewmembers, adding a powerplant, a fire control system, weaponry and ammunition. Choices are wisely limited at this point anyway, so it’s pretty much impossible to go wrong.  Crewmen start with about 15 different stats, so you have to get the men with the best accuracy and reloading stats into the gun spots, etc. I just threw any old jerk into the bridge, not sure what affect the bridge crew has yet. Probably something to do with Fire Control.

I then selected "Training mission" and went solo against a few AI enemies. The game plays out in an isometric view; there is a throttle for speed, and right-clicking on a spot sets your heading. Left-clicking on a ship or location trains the guns on your target; guns must be re-trained rather often to adjust to a moving target, and different guns have different traverse rates. Of course, different ships move and turn at different rates at different speeds; this turns combat into a dance of position and range which was fun even against AI.  Space bar fires, and your crew skills determine chance to hit. I think there's a way to manually adjust firing angles, not sure. Otherwise I got the general hang of it about half-way through the first run.

After playing two missions my crewmen leveled up and I had enough points to upgrade from Crappy Frigate to Mk3 Crappy Frigate. I got better guns, more ammunition options and the opportunity to up-armor the four separate sub-sections of the hull.

Presumably, after enough training missions I will be able to upgrade to a destroyer, which will require me to pick a fleet (Japanese, German, American or British). From there, as your character and crew progress through the levels, new ships become available along a sort of personal tech-tree, starting with destroyers, then cruisers, battleships and ultimately the aircraft carriers.  I've always been partial to the HMS designation and the thick skins of the Royal Fleet, we’ll see how that goes.

Sadly, ships seem to be limited to surface craft (no subs, damnit), but for the uber-catass crowd, there are aircraft carriers with attendant aircraft.  In my limited playtime in the tutorial, I haven’t seen any islands, shallows, minefields, weather effects, etc.  Battles could become tedious if these features aren’t in the actual (PvP) game.  My fingers are firmly crossed.

Just wanted to give a quick head-up on it.  I’ll try to play against actual humans this weekend, where I will doubtlessly get blown out of the water regularly in an attempt to enlighten you all.  Look for a player named “Falsefable” at the helm of the Anita Marie, which will hopefully be at least an Orion-class destroyer by Monday.

[WayAbvPar]

Is it all surface ships, or are there subs and planes as well?

[schild]

Sadly, ships seem to be limited to surface craft (no subs, damnit)

Rtfa? *snicker*

[Murgos]

Sadly, ships seem to be limited to surface craft (no subs, damnit), but for the uber-catass crowd, there are aircraft carriers with attendant aircraft.

C'mon way actually read what the guy posts.

Edit:  Schild beat me to it but I posted anyway because I like to pile on.

[schild]

That's odd, I thought I cut and pasted the whole line. Sigh. Need More Sleep.

Edit: On topic though, as interesting as it sounds, I'm dead sick of anything WWII related. It's possibly more overused than the "fantasy" motif for games, and I just can't have it anymore. I wouldn't mind decent ship combat, but if history serves me correctly, WWII just limits the possibilities and makes it more boring. Like it does with many things.

[WayAbvPar]

I skimmed. Pre-coffee and whatnot. Sue me.

[Mesozoic]

On topic though, as interesting as it sounds, I'm dead sick of anything WWII related. It's possibly more overused than the "fantasy" motif for games, and I just can't have it anymore. I wouldn't mind decent ship combat, but if history serves me correctly, WWII just limits the possibilities and makes it more boring. Like it does with many things.

Not my first choice either.  In my wet dreams this game is sci-fi.  But honestly, all sci-fi capital ship combat seems to be WWII+Z axis anyway, what with massive space-battleships, etc.  As someone else said about WWII FPSs, the time period just fits for a game.  Modern naval combat would be "fire the cruise missile at the radar dot ftw."

[Pococurante]

I wouldn't mind decent ship combat, but if history serves me correctly, WWII just limits the possibilities and makes it more boring. Like it does with many things.

Pre-1943 was always my favorite set of scenarios for the original Silent Service.  Sure it sucked to lay out a good spread and have all fish dud except the one in the farthest destroyer.  But I lived for the pings of death.

[Hoax]

I always liked Man O War (from Gamesworkshop) each race had a really cool flavor that gets lost in WH and WH40K with the endless stat lines.

[Murgos]

Not my first choice either.  In my wet dreams this game is sci-fi.  But honestly, all sci-fi capital ship combat seems to be WWII+Z axis anyway, what with massive space-battleships, etc.

I think a modern sub-sim would make an absolutely amazing translation to a sci-fi format.  Lurking in asteroid fields picking off merchies, keeping an eye on the stealth or else the fleet drops on you, etc..

Playing cat and mouse with another player run ship in 3-d space in an asteroid field could be worth the price of admission alone.

[Merusk]

Speaking of naval combat, I've had an itch for an 1800's sailing sim for a while. Something about watching the Hornblower movies and Master & Commander in the last few months has gotten it under my skin. Plus it's not WW2 or Medieval/ Fantasy , which I agree are both completly played-out in games right now.

[Toast]

WW2 infantry, air, or tank warfare is played out, but WW2 naval combat is certainly not.

[Murgos]

I actually have a real itch to play Gary Grigsby's War in the Pacific.  I have to admit being hooked on a couple of the after action report threads on the matrix games web site, I like to catch up on them once every couple of weeks or so.  I'm just not sure I can dedicate half a year to playing out a PBEM game.

[Flashman]

I actually have a real itch to play Gary Grigsby's War in the Pacific.  I have to admit being hooked on a couple of the after action report threads on the matrix games web site, I like to catch up on them once every couple of weeks or so.  I'm just not sure I can dedicate half a year to playing out a PBEM game.

I have it and its fantastic. However, I think you really have to be a fan of this kind of game to enjoy it  because the amount of detail, the learning curve, the sheer amount of "stuff" in this game could really put people off. Matrix has the difficultly level for this game as "grognard" and that's an understandment. Literally you can manage every ship, plane and man (down to batallion level).

It's definitely a time investment and hard to learn but its incredibly satisfying once you get the hang of it.

One of the best.

[eldaec]

"fire the cruise missile at the radar dot ftw."

Along those lines, does anyone remember 'Omega'? Reasoning that far future combat would be fought entirely by robots, they skipped the entire 'battle-as-game' concept and had you program the damn robot tank with a simple procedural language. I say simple, but the several hundred page reference manual that came with the game says otherwise.

The battles were then entirely automated.

You would spend most of the time trying to work out why your tank just drove around in circles the whole time, and it would typically be becuase of some dumbass syntax error.

So as a guide to just what a career as a programmer or advanced weapons developer is actually like it's probably fairly accurate.

Moby games reference.

[Trippy]

Along those lines, does anyone remember 'Omega'? Reasoning that far future combat would be fought entirely by robots, they skipped the entire 'battle-as-game' concept and had you program the damn robot tank with a simple procedural language. I say simple, but the several hundred page reference manual that came with the game says otherwise.

Yup I had this for my Apple ][+.

[Pococurante]

So as a guide to just what a career as a programmer or advanced weapons developer is actually like it's probably fairly accurate.

So basically it was CRobots with a shelf price and that taught a non-relevant language. ;-)

CRobots rocked.  Sort of a evolutionary missing-link in the "massive non-multiplayer" genre.

[Murgos]

Anyone remember a program where you would write commands in BASIC to move a turtle around a map?  I thought it was called TurtleBASIC but I can't really find any references to in on teh intarweb.  I remember using it back on the Atari 800 to learn BASIC.

[Furiously]

LOGO!

[Viin]

n00b

[Pelias]

In short.
Navyfield is nice game for general crowd.
However, if you were in WWII battleships in the past, Navyfield will case long, shattering multiple orgasms:P

1. You can steer guns manually (controlling angle and range with keyboard, not just by mouse clicking where you want it to hit). Use Aiming fire Control system, instead of auto. You'll understand the true meaning of word hard:P

2. Pros:
-nice 2D graphic (you can't do naval sim in 3d...)
-non-complicated game play, very enjoyable
-fully PvP oriented
-large battles, usually 20+, up to 128persons (now which WoW clone allows for 128 people fight without lagging to death)
-nice variety of real ships (no subs, but you got manually controlled planes, carriers and torpedo whoring japan destroyers:P)
-nothing makes you happier than seeing you full salvo directly hitting that bastard. Or your sneaky torpedo blowing him up just before you would get sunk
3. Cons:
-documentation, lack of
-weird income system*
-grind. thru PvP only, but still a grind**
-will not work with Netlimiter #%@#$^!!!
-game require wise choices at very beginning, which lead to wrong, irreversible choices that will make you cry later***
4. Neutral:
-Lack of fleet balance/anti-team killing policies, it's all handled by players now (battle won't start until everyone will even between 2 sides, if they don't, battle creator will just ban marauders from the room). You can Team-kill a lot. Somehow I don't see any team-killers, but full torpedo salvo could wipe out half of your team in one shot, so maybe I'm just lucky.

*both sides get income from PvP, so to stop abuse,  it is forbidden to create arranged battles. For example, you cannot make clan-only games. GMs actively seek for such games and ban participants:/ weird, isn't it?
**to get a battleship, you need to play a lot. A lot. Retardly lot. Pros is that every battle is pretty balanced in regard to ship classes(many frigs, destroyers, fewer carriers or BB)
You get your exp and cash from PvP, but it's still a grind...
***you can chose nationality at lv12, not knowing a shit about each nationality ships, equipment and traits. And you can't move back from here. Chances are you'll end with lv12 japan torpwhoring dessy, without torp launcher (they require lv16:P). It's a real pain - decision will critically affect your further game play, it's irreversible and you have to take it a long before you will actually get to try different ships and classes.

Game play:
Game is 100% instanced, and consists of 3 areas.
1. Your shipyard when you put the ship together.
2. World map, which is 3D modeled battle list.
3. Instanced battles
Think of how Guild Wars is done, just without towns.

One guy create a battle, people join, they divide themselves between two(3 or 4) teams, and when they're ready battle begins.
It's simple - your  team start at one edge of map and move (to the middle) to sink the enemy team.
Once everyone from enemy team is sink, battle ends and after some stats-screen you're back to world map, where you can create your own battle or join existing one.

No weather effects, no complicated scenarios, terrain or whatsoever. However it's really fun. Combat isn't overcomplicated, but it's not just dumb clicking. Like true naval warfare, it require not only fine aiming, but also clever strategy to keep your enemy in your_optimal range, not his. Especially with bigger battles, where you have to watch entire battlefield, to avoid getting hit by stray torpedo, or sailing into middle of enemy battle group(it happens;-)

You get cash from damaging enemy, you'll also get some cash extra for all the damage you friends do.
Naval artillery is most used weapon, doing moderate dmg (300-1000 per salvo with ships of 6k defense). Torpedoes are unguided, slow and instantly spottable. However when they hit, they deal 4-16k dmg. Which usually mean instant death to anything smaller than a cruiser. You can either outsmart and outmanevoueur  your enemy into sitation where he won't notice your torpedoes until it's too late, or just fire a bunch of them into enemy battle group, in hope that someone will be dumb enough not to evade:P
Planes are launched from carrier, can either be dive bombers or torp bombers. They can and should be manually controlled (speed, attitude, drop moment). bombs do 4k dmg if hit.

[Toast]

Lots of stuff

Thanks for the in depth review!

[Pelias]

Lol, I got late for my calculus final test beacuse of this:P