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#4090688 - 03/11/15 03:25 PM Navyfield 2 MMO  
Joined: Aug 2012
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I probably shouldn't start with an excuse for posting about it, but as there is already a World of Warships (WoWS) thread here, we can just as well have a Navyfield 2 thread.
I played the original Navyfield 1 (NF1) for several months (or year(s)?) many years ago, and the latest talk and videos about WoWS drew my interest to this genre again.

Navyfield 2 (NF2) is a Free-to-Play MMO from a Korean (South, I assume) developer and it has been released on Steam about a week ago. And that's probably already the best part of it - if you have an interest in this genre, you can already play NF2 now, instead of waiting for WoWS later this year (maybe). I got it via Steam (incl. a registration issue...), it might also be available directly from their NF2 webpage linked above.
It might be worth noting that this is a re-release of more or less the same game that had been released and failed ~2years ago (but I didn't try it back then, so I can't comment on potential changes since).

Well, the first line might already indicate that this isn't about a simulation - yes, it is an MMO with ships that have the names and some graphical resemblance with historic counterparts (or sometimes just concepts as well), but that's as close as it gets. Ship characteristics are more or less creative variations of the real thing, e.g. I am currently in a "stock" Leander class CL, which comes with 4 triple 6" turrets, instead of 4 twin 6" of the real Leander class. So ship characteristics are more dictated by whatever someone might consider balance - in fact, ship/game balance still seems to be a major subject in pretty much each patch, as far as I have looked into past patch notes.

The game currently covers the navies of Germany, UK, USA and Japan (it is said that there are more planned: Russia, Italy, France). As ships classes there are DD - CL - CA - BB - SS - CV - APA. Here is a list of the different ships for the different nations: NF2 Wiki (not much more info in that wiki...).
As you can see, it covers ships from Pre-Dreadnought era to the end of WW2. Main weapons are guns and torpedoes, but there are also mines, depth charges, torpedo and dive bombers, ...

You start with hiring a captain for a certain navy, and this captain can take command of any ship of that navy as you progress through the ship tree. Those ship trees are structured in a way that you have general branches for the various ship classes, but every now and then there are links into the other branches, e.g. I just went from J-Class destroyer to Leander class CL (can't link to pictures of those trees, but you can check them out on their webpage).
The progress in the ship tree is also structured in tiers, ranging from tier T1 to T11. Sometimes the order of the ships in the tech tree seems to be kind of arbitrary, definately not following the chronological order as the ships were historically build.
To note is also that there are gaps in the tech trees, so that you might have to "work" through multiple tiers to progress to the next ship. E.g. from the T6 J class DD to the T8 N class DD it is >200k exp, to the T7 Leander CL ~92k exp.
You can have multiple captains as well, so you can advance through the different navies as it pleases you.

Battles are fought in a number of maps in up to 16vs16 engagements lasting 15 minutes. Some maps are primary open sea, others are fairly cluttered with islands. On some of these islands are bases that can be captured to give some benefits to your team (radar, airstrikes, teleporter(!),...).
The teams are a mix across the full range of navies, classes and player experience.
As the battle ends you are awarded with credits as well as experience, more precisely ship experience and general experience.
Experience is used to advance technologies of your ships like better engines, guns, etc. Ship experience is bound to the specific ship in which you earned it, general experience can be used for the tech of any ship. As you unlock the various advanced parts of your ship, you also unlock access to the next tier of ships.
The credits are used to actually buy those parts or the new ships. Credits can also be used to buy other enhancements, crews, ...

You also have to manage the crew of your ship, represented as officers for weapons, support, special functions and air operations. These crew members level up with experience, and can improve certain performance parameters of your ship (reload speed, gun accuracy, engine speed, battle repair, sonar, ...).
Similarly, the captain levels up, which allows you to unlock more crew slots.

Here are some youtube videos showing the game "in action" (not from me):
Destroyer action
Carrier action

As you can see, graphics are at best described as mediocre, also compared to the WoWS videos shown in the thread linked at the beginning.
Gameplay-wise it is also anything but realistic, ships on speed as well, but it is "interesting" to see pre-dreadnoughts slug it out with Yamatos and Iowas, and it can still be fun.

As to the Free-to-Play aspect, progress is pretty fast in the early stages, and in about 10h your captain may already be level 20+ and you are in a tier IV BB or tier V CV. However, progress requirements (in experience and even more critical credits) seems to be almost in a exponential scale, and eventually, maybe starting with tier V, you will start to feel the grind. Your battle earnings barely scale with the better ships you get, so that ultimately progress is mostly defined by the numbers of battles that you fight. As such you will rarely see the battle described above, Pre-dreads vs. Yamato & Iowa, as the latter are fairly rare sights.

Thinking of Pay-to-win, you can buy gold coins - I have yet to get any gold, so I assume these are really just for paying customers.
The gold can be used to buy premium accounts, various improvements, credits, convert ship experience to general, get more and better crew, ... What is "interesting" with that is, that some such improvements are still just temporal. E.g. you can buy armor for your ship, but that will be gone again after seven days...
Essentially, you will quickly notice many "questionable" experience and credits sinks, like researching the same ship tech multiple times at an increasing cost (e.g. ship guns). There are also other invests that only pay off if you invest a lot of time. E.g. an Aide to the captain that increases credits income by 5% costs >2000cr. If you made 1000cr per battle (which would be very optimistic in my case), this officer pays off after >40 battles - the problem is, this officer leaves again after two days!

After ~30h in less than a week, my conclusion is that for people who have been stirred by the WoWS previews, Navyfield 2 might serve as a substitute to bridge the time until the other becomes available. Navyfield 2 certainly has a number of shortcomings, questionable "features", and other issues (most notably battle income), but by just comparing the videos you may already see the similarities in the evolving battles. If you ignore the grind and just play the battles in your current ship(s) you can already get a fair variety of experiences pretty fast (gun club, subs, CVs), without a lot of time and/or money invest.
There is surely more that could be mentioned (partially configurable controls keyboard+mouse, crew morale), and details that I may not have even noticed, but overall this might give you an idea what it is and what not, and if you are interested you can give it a try.
I don't see me ever investing real money in this one.

If you are looking for a naval combat simulation - well, why have you even read this far, I told you already in the first paragraphs that this is not for you neaner

Finally, such a long post about a game with ships is not complete without
ahoy

Inline advert (2nd and 3rd post)

#4100141 - 04/01/15 12:00 PM Re: Navyfield 2 MMO [Re: WhoCares]  
Joined: Apr 2008
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Chucky Online sosad
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Looks like it's just been released on Steam,I'm off to try it out.


EV's are the Devils matchbox.
#4100250 - 04/01/15 02:38 PM Re: Navyfield 2 MMO [Re: WhoCares]  
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It was released on Steam about a month ago, but you can also get the client directly from their page. There is also an issue with the registration email via steam, but the game login works anyway, also via steam.

Note that there is currently an event going for free gold - it is a little hidden in the banners on their main page:
Daily 30 Gold Event
Every day, after you logged into the game client you can grab 30 gold when you login to that page.

Most likely I will drop it when I get my hands on a WoWS key - I just have no luck with the lotteries on various pages. I guess I will have to wait for the open beta...

A little hint with respect to the crew: you get one man per function, and you can fill two more slots - you should do that as fast as possible to train those officers, they are cheap, 50 credits per officer.
Over time, as your captain levels up, you can also unlock further slots. It makes sense to also level up officers for those slots from the beginning as well, e.g. with a continuous rotation in the available slots. Which slots to unlock and which specialization you train your officers in is up to the branch you aim to play, gunships, subs, torpedo ships, carriers, ...
NF2 wiki: Officers

#4100279 - 04/01/15 03:17 PM Re: Navyfield 2 MMO [Re: WhoCares]  
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 12,105
Chucky Online sosad
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Chucky  Online Sosad
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Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 12,105
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Ah,I thought it was just released,I didn't see it before.


EV's are the Devils matchbox.

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