So far, my relations have remained correct in terms of who is hostile and who is friendly, though actual values haven't been reset. Spain and Portugal are high enough that they've gone green, meaning the governors would love to give me a LoM and a promotion or two except that commissioned officers aren't allowed LoM's. Holland has become hostile after Britain and Holland went to war, but that's because their declaration of war opened up Dutch ships as a new source of targets, so the reason Holland doesn't like me is I've been attacking them. I've yet to try breaking the relations system seriously by attacking something Spanish or Portuguese... The main problem now is that relations are only supposed to reset when international relations change, which they don't do very often, so even if I do make an enemy of Spain, it will likely be some time before my relations with Spain are reset to the same as Britain's.
As for what changes I'd like to see regarding naval officers, I agree with @Red Back Dude - have escort, cargo and ship-hunting missions from naval HQ, or failing that, from governors of your nation. Such missions should not be available from other governors (possibly have allied governors give them, not neutrals and definitely not hostiles!) and they should be compulsory - they're not an offer of a job from someone wanting to hire you, they're orders. That's the big difference between a commissioned officer and a privateer, the officer has to do what he's told whereas the privateer is his own master.
Beyond that, and fixing the remaining few bugs, I'm actually quite happy with the game as it is and am more worried about future changes harming the way I play rather than looking forward to anything! I wouldn't mind fetch quests being made less frequent and put further down the dialog lists of their respective givers so that they're not the first thing you select by default, and I'd quite like the restriction on which perks you can give to which officers being removed.
As for what changes I'd like to see regarding naval officers, I agree with @Red Back Dude - have escort, cargo and ship-hunting missions from naval HQ, or failing that, from governors of your nation. Such missions should not be available from other governors (possibly have allied governors give them, not neutrals and definitely not hostiles!) and they should be compulsory - they're not an offer of a job from someone wanting to hire you, they're orders. That's the big difference between a commissioned officer and a privateer, the officer has to do what he's told whereas the privateer is his own master.
Beyond that, and fixing the remaining few bugs, I'm actually quite happy with the game as it is and am more worried about future changes harming the way I play rather than looking forward to anything! I wouldn't mind fetch quests being made less frequent and put further down the dialog lists of their respective givers so that they're not the first thing you select by default, and I'd quite like the restriction on which perks you can give to which officers being removed.