Fargo

You have to look at both sides of the coin. First rates are quite expensive, but PB ships also dont sink currently. Our nation had maybe 1 PB each 3 days, not a single one was defended, not a single ship was lost in the PB itself. Only when you loose so many PB ships, that it becomes too inefficient to keep up a first rate production, 3rd and second rates would be produced. People just got all time to build an aga fleet, and a first rate fleet afterwards. All those artificial restrictions will never be a good solution. Even the devision between 4th rate and 1st rate battles was supposed to be only temporary (to test 4th rates) and should be removed again. Suggestion: Improve hostility/use another PB system, to increase the amount of PBs happening. Remove 4th rate PBs, so more 1st rates are used and lost. Maybe change the three circles, and make it the major goal again to destroy the enemy fleet or port defenses. When the PB frequency stays low, firstrates need to be even more expensive. When PBs allowing first rates happen only once a week, then a firstrate might need to consume a week of labour. Cost needs to be balanced after losses to keep those ships special and rare. If possible make loosing a port, or RvR in general more meaningful, so nations have better reasons especially to defend. With an ROE that results in a battle after an ow attack happens, we wouldnt even need strict BR limitations. Some 4th rates attacking a first rate fleet would just result in the loss of those 4th rates. On the other side a larger screening fleet would be able to take down a few firstrates, to send in a few fire ships or to delay the fight long enough. -> More defense opportunities for nations with less powerful fleets. Repairs are limited, especially on the ow, so even damaging the enemy fleet means something. Agree. Line ships should have high upkeep cost, to make grinding PVE not that much more profitable than it probably is. I think repair cost is the only possible variable, and it could increase massively for those ships. When you earn 200k per fleet loosing half your hull, 100k to repair in the harbour, 120k to repair with hullrepairs.

Were all making assumptions, but i mostly ground them on facts. When you say low rate ships need to be cheaper, you assume they are too expensive. Based on what? Can we evaluate this already after 3 weeks within a mediocre economy, and players currently using many resources to build up larger ship fleets? How is "expensive" defined? Facts are: Players need motivation to play. Owning anything/having no goals provides no motivation. That owning 50+ duras of golden ships +max rank +incredible amounts of gold +not owning anything special reduced player motivation and made them stop playing is an assumption, but its highly likely based on facts. Im not saying the motivation to achieve something alone is enough to keep people playing, im saying that it has the potential to make people stop playing when its missing.

So you want to make them "throwaway" ships? I dont think thats the intention of the devs. Look what happened in the past when 5 dura ships were 3-5 times cheaper/dura than now. People finally left the game, cause easy access to everything removed the motivation to play. People came back to the game, cause its challenging=motivating again. Many people dont even use 3rd rates and higher. We need to balance everything for every rank, not only high rate ships. A medium to high rank player can easily afford a frigate right now once he got started. Why make ships cheaper for those guys, instead of just making it easier to "get started" for lower rank players?! Also keep in mind that we had a special after wipe situation with high rank players starting in cutters. This was really annoying and time consuming, but should not effect any balancing decisions. The cost for outfitting a ship is already higher than the ship cost itself for 5th rates and below, maybe this should be addressed instead. Craftable upgrades e.g. could help with that. Copperplating and bovenwind goes for ~200k atm in sweden. 4 pvp marks for bowfigure = ~280k. PVP activity is affected by lots of things. All combat, rewards, ROE and escape mechanics, ship balancing, etc. I think alot of those are far off from beeing perfect. The meta of uncatchable surprises e.g. is really annoying. Personally i usually dont take a 1v1 vs those, cause i dont want to risk a valuable belle or essex against an imbalanced npc/fir ship. They dont mind going suicide mode to sink a value ship, in the best case for you they escape. You cant win anything, you dont PVP. Also when you sink someone, you want to affect him, not make him simply use the next throwaway ship stored in dozens in his docks. Ofcouse it is difficult to find the best compromise between meaningful PvP and affordable ships, but thats what we should aim for.

But it affects all players... Increasing low rank income would be the way to go then. Its dangerous to balance ship cost after low rank income, while some players grind 200k/30min in larger ships. Inflation would really be bad for new players, increasing ship prices but not the fixed combat income. To make lower rated ships valuable for all ranks, incomes must not differ that much, larger ships need higher repair/upkeep cost e.g.

I think it would help alot when trading wasnt seperated from player economy. Trading with player goods makes no sense, unless its your intention to support the player market. Too less profit/weight and time. Every item should have a use, and should be produced by someone, somewhere. Then it becomes dynamic, and devs dont have to balance all the npc prices and production rates. When something is demanded, more people will produce it. To aim for a global trade of player goods, we shouldnt let only britain produce iron, but it should be a good amount cheaper to produce there. Trading player goods needs to be profitable. Trading for x hours should gain more profit than spending this time e.g. for missions (on average, acting smart). But each nation should always have access to basic resources. Contract fees are a problem, reducing trade margins by much more than 5%. Its also promoting self supply, clan economy, or avoiding economy in any way. Also helpful could be the restriction of trade ships, e.g. by perks. More people would sell in production ports or craft there, and more people would set buy contracts in capitals. More trading possibilities and profit/trader. It would even make sense to devide players into different professions, so nobody can produce resources, materials, cannons, repair kits and ships at the same time. Denying self supply is not favouring clans, but a busy player economy. Maybe another option to support trading is to promote production further away from the capital. It could effect production rates e.g., when lots of people are producing at the same port. As a side effect it becomes an advantage to own more ports, and traders can buy goods further away from enemy capitals. Less populated nations producing more efficient would gain a little economic advantage against large nations with player count advantage. Just a few thoughts. Are low rate ships so expensive? A 30min kapten fleet rewards you with 60-80k + loot of 4-5 ships. Is spending 1,5 hours playing to afford a 5th rate living for days too much? And your LH income etc adds to this. I got 5 pvp marks yesterday, alone worth a brand new ship. A busy economy also would result in lower prices, fixed rewards would increase relatively. Also people that can afford upgrades for 200k for sure could afford a 300k ship. Ai ships are a problem for shipbuilders, and without shipbuilding, no material market, etc. I think we should try getting rid of ai frigates, before lowering ship cost unnecessarily.

Youre missing that a 2 dura ship would cost twice as much, unless youre changing balancing aswell, but thats a different talk. So nothing would change, just the access to ships would be more difficult, cause i always need to buy two ships at once. We can discuss about ship cost balancing, but thats hard to tell just 2 weeks after wipe.

What about decreasing the hitbox size, atleast in height, basically deviding the mast into more segments? So to demanst i need to focus on a shorter mast section, it remains a valid option but requires more aim skill. Just an idea.

That sounds nice. The less repairs the better:)

Ofcourse, but reality shows that most people are not doing it. The majority is placing contracts based on other contracts, no matter how bad those are. Skully once calculated labour values for all markets and all materials. The spread reached from negative values to more than 1k charged per LH. Or in times of stiffness people were selling good ships below value, because they based prices on trash ship prices, instead of doing the math. We resold about 25 5th rates for about twice its original price this time, trying to show people what those ships are worth. With not enough people competing to form fair stable prices for everything, we need to inform people about fair prices, and weird npc prices are not helpful with that.

Definitely crafted. Im just asking for the purpose of those cheap npc ships and materials. Nobody is going to use the ships, or they become a problem for the player market. The amount of npc materials seems negligibly low. Depending on inflation/labour value, fixed prices are always either too cheap or too expensive. I would either get rid of npcs selling mats, or make them sell expensive as you did it with cannons. I would make npcs only buy mats and this for resource cost, to show players the lowest possible price. Its all random now and confusing. When a material buy price is below resource cost, what is the purpose?! Thats an useless offer and a trap for new or careless palyers.

They probably wont be a huge problem, but those prices are confusing players. E.g. in gustavia someone is selling a crafted pickle for 19k. This guy is loosing money. Or people wont buy your tar because they think 60 is a good price.

Keep in mind that most players are just starting to build up a basic existence. You can stack lots of materials for example, but there are not enough shipbuilders ready to buy yet. Im also still on my way to shipyard level 2, until ill start buying materials. When more gold gets into the market after some time, you will earn more gold by selling materials. Fixed costs like buildings become relatively cheaper with growing inflation. This is why i dont think we can say much about cost/income balancing yet. Repairs seem to be just very expensive. A fair hull repair price is about 1,2k. Repairs 100 hulldamage. 12k to repair 1k hull. The problem with npc prices as far as i can tell is that they mostly ignore labour. Therefore you cant compete as a player. All ships sold by npcs are 3-4 times cheaper than you could sell it as a player without loosing money. Tar e.g. uses lots of labour and should cost about 400 gold, while npcs sell it for 60 gold. For cannons they did it right and made npc cannons expensive. A fair price e.g. for medium 6 pd is about 1,3k. Npc price is about twice as high. Looks good, and again this means with time cannons become cheaper when more people start to supply the cannon market.

Its not about fair fights, but the "abuse" of time compression. Finding good compromises for transitions in and out of real time battles is probably on of the most difficult problems in NA. I think we absolutely need teleports after battle, either to friendly port or to random spawns in the OW. Revenge ganks are neither realistic, nor fun gamplaywise, so whats the point to allow it? Its not even fun for the revengegankers, having to wait up to 1hour+ infront of a battle. It sounds weird that teleports are most realistic here, but thats how it is.

The game determines production cost for resources, not the gold value. This is highly dependant on player income/playtime and playstyle. No inflation is simply caused when people sink less ships/money out of the market than income generates. Its usually a slow process and always happening. To prevent high inflation, you need optional money sinks. Like offering paints or other cosmetic items for gold. Sellers can only demand rediculous prices, when enough people are willing to pay rediculous prices. This requires enough people to own rediculous amounts of money, inflation. Then when people demand resources/material instead of money, why should they suddenly offer fair deals and not rediculous prices?! It makes no sense. Its no difference to demand 100gold, or resources worth 100gold. Its has no advantage to safe gold, but to give away items of the same value instead. The only purpose of gold is to buy stuff.

What exacty are the reasons 1 dura isnt going to work? As often made clear in the 1 dura discussion: Its not a change of ship cost balancing. When ships turn out to be too expensive, we can decrease costs/increase incomes. The only issue i see is ship transport/removal of ship delivery. In the past we could transport up to 5 ships at once, even more with fleets. I think ship deliveries are necessary between outposts with 1 dura ships, but i might be wrong. But thats no reason to increase durabilities either, only to eable deliveries again..

Are you talking about the live server and gold exploits?! Forget about it, money will be valuable again. If i have to choose between 50 carriages and 100k gold, i look at the market. It tells me the actual labour value, then i can determine a fair price for carriages and make a decision. No sellers dont determine the prices directly. Yes you can set your prices however you want, even give stuff away for free or super expensive. But if you act sensible aiming for profit, you need to stick to the market. Each nation has its own market, different access to resources means different supply and different prices. But thats not allowing sellers to determine prices?! It enables long trade runs to be profitable, while you might be able to buy stuff cheap that has low supply in your home market. All resources are produced using gold, unless i missed something. For other currencies, like marks, there will be an exchange rate.

Nice argumentation... the question was why is it limiting you when you can "only" demand money for your stuff? Ofcourse it does, how should it be restrictive?! With money i can buy/sell everything, with items i need to find a trade partner offering exactly what i need, demanding exactly what i offer. This is restricting. Probably people wouldnt even use the direct offer/demand contracts unless you remove money, because its so much easier to find someone to trade. Thats my point, you look at the pure numbers and it tells you nothing. 50 large carriages have roughly the same value as 180 barrels (for testbed), the trade would be totally fair. And what is the point not to use one uniform currency instead?!

Dont think this is a good idea. Just imagine a market with not only dozens of items, but in addition dozens of different offers per item... We have gold, or money in reality, because it makes trading less complicated. When it was hard to find buyers in the past sometimes, with specified offers it would be much harder. Also works against competition. When someone puts a expensive contract selling x, you dont have to go cheaper, just choose another "currency". You would basically need to know the actual values for everything to keep an overview. For example someone is selling 50 large carriages for 180 Barrels, and another guy 50 carriages for 1700 Wooden fittings. You own both, now find out whats the better deal. How? You finally calculate the gold value, cause everything uses the same fixed production, and more or less fixed labour costs. You sound like money is limiting your trading options, but thats not true. Where is the limitation when i sell my barrels for money, to buy the 50 carriages for money? I need to set more contracts, but this means more competition. When contracts are limiting, ask for mor contracts.

Dont forget that waters become more save on the other hand. Also when more traders are traveling the same routes, its easier to organise fleets and escorts. Just two LGVs not made of fir will beat a Surprise or Frigate quite easily. We want more to do in the OW, uncatchable traders dont help with that. Giving traders saver routes instead of motorboats should be the way to go. Its a big difference between beeing able to attack a trader with a risk (balancing), or not beeing allowed to attack (restriction). Instead of denying either trading or hunting in general, we should favour trading in home waters and hunting in less secured waters. Btw. thats also the general problem when all ships are able to sail on speed cap using speed mods, nobody can catch anything.

I think multiple repairs are probably a problem. Not because of multiple repairs, but because it has no real drawback. Yes it needs crew so you cant shoot and repair at the same time, but you can just turn away from the enemy and repair without the need to shoot. Battles are going to be protracted unnecessarily. Imagine a 1v1 situation, one ship missed its first two broadsides and got a disadvantage. He is going to turn away and repair, both ships full hp again. Now the other ship got disadvantage and does the same, etc. If repair is on cooldown, they can even turn away until its ready. Simple drawback idea: Repair only possible in battle sails.

Wait for the new eco balancing. With less income, no gold exploits and reworked ship cost balancing, maybe were going to have a nice 3rd rate meta. For those still not understanding that artificial restrictions are bad for this game, they really are. Restrict first rates from entering ports and the first rate fleets will sit infront of the ports. Restrict the amount of ships per player and people will stack resources instead of ships. This is not solving anything, just shifting the problem.

Sounds like a good compromise. No whole fleets teleporting into your nations area makes much sense. Maybe its a better option for privateers to remove "send ship to outpost" for free ports instead?! They capture ships in this area so they dont really need to send ships. For others the effect should be similar. Removing all "magical" teleports in general would make no sense, as long as "invisible" ships can be delivered. It would bring more ships in the OW, but only free afk sailing cutters. For more OW action ship deliveries need to be removed instead (not saying its a good idea).

The leveling concept isnt a barrier or just ment for learning. A rank also is an achievement. Why important? Because it motivates players. When there is nothing else to do you are always motivated to just open a group to just "grind". Cutting leveling time by half already removed most motivation, but thats not a reason to get rid of leveling, but to make it harsher again. A slow paced sandbox like this needs some long term goals/achievements. The meta is important. With lots of 6th rates around e.g. your brig becomes much more useful. Look at first rates for example and why you need to grind max rank atm. Because nearly everybody is max rank and first rates are the PB meta. You could remove XP completely, but the meta would be really boring. The XP system defines a rank distribution, what together with eco defines the possible ship meta. Aiming for diversity of ships/a good meta, a well balanced XP system is key. "Grinding" isnt a problem. If grinding means playing the pve part of the game, nobody is forced into it, pvp also grants XP. If grinding means playing the game below max rank, someones understanding of the game is wrong.

We should think more about accuracy in general, also for general gun balancing. Assume we had more powerful guns with less accuracy. The difference is that damage decreases steadily with distance/smaller target shape. More punch close range and less punch with distance would give tactical opportunities. Dodging damage also becomes much harder close range, increasing the risk. Effective demasting and raking would only be possible close range (<100m) on the other hand. The problem to balance hulldamage, demasting and raking is that these are 3 seperate victory conditions. When aiming for hull you ignore good raking/mast shooting opportunities, because its not helping enough. Those would need to become so powerful, that raking/demasting alone would be op. To fix the issue we need to connect those conditions/spread damage. When hull damage kills enough crew aswell, raking becomes more useful automatically. When aiming for hull weakens the masts aswell, this also gets connected. Less accuracy is a good way to spread damage on medium distances and to enable high risk high reward tactics close range.