A talent tree to diversify gameplay

[monstermp]

Ahoy! fellow captains !

 

Here are a few suggestions to add some RPG elements to Naval Action Gameplay through the addition of character sheets, a talent tree and other minor changes. The main idea behind this proposition is to encourage player to specialize in a variety of gameplays going from trading, exploring, crafting, scouting and of course fighting ! I have been working on this with a friend, we are both quite new to the game so maybe some of the propositions are not suited for end-game gameplay. Also keep in mind that the numerical values that are mentioned are only here to serve as indications.

 

First a few changes to the actual game :

 

Boat position :

When the game starts the player is not able to get his position on the map, however going through the explorer tree allows him position himself with better and better accuracy (think of using sextants, better compass,...)

 

Days at sea are limited by default : (< 10 days)

Crew diminishes by 10% every additional day, if the number drops to 0 then the ship is lost and the player is teleported back to the nearest outpost.

 

Fog of war :

By default seas are uncharted for new players (they may have the local map around their starting area).

 

Meteorological events :

Cyclones, hurricanes may randomly appear damaging the ship and diminishing the crew by 10%. They can be seens and avoided and especially by player having the meteorologist talent (see below). If you hire a battle in a hurricane area, the fight will take place on a storm map.

 

Recruiting crew :

It is necessary to recruit crew members in ports in order to replace the ones lost at sea.

 

Port fortification :

You can increase your port defense with fortification building. A fortified port is hard to capture but requires a resource supply to remain active. Trader should import resource to keep it functional.

 

Mission type :

Several types of missions could be available like

• sink or capture ship

• escort flee mission

• attack a fortified island

• win a boarding battle and get ressources

• Bring a commodity in a port

• Explore zone (navigate on a river or through the reefs to discover 100% of the instanced map, pirates can attack you during your expedition) (explore mission)

 

Hidden and secret zones :

Building (temple etc.) or secret places (waterfall, ark, etc.) are hidden in open world lands. Player can find them and discover artefacts in these places. Keep your eyes open when you sail near the coast.

 

Charisma :

The charisma of the captain allows to decrease the crew number required to sail a ship

It decreases the cost of crew and officers and increase their efficiency.

The charisma is improved by pets or ship customization. (more on this below)

 

Achievements :

Lot of achievements can be possible.

Battle achievement like number of damage on ship, on building, number of kill, assist etc.

Explorer achievement like number of hidden zone discovered etc.

Crafter achievement like number of craft, number of blueprint etc.

Trader achievement like accumulated gold etc.

 

Pets :

Exotic animals increase the player’s charisma.

They are sold in town by the explorer who discovered them during their exploration.

Example of pet : Parrot, monkey, spider, rat, dog, cat, etc.

 

 

Now the captain’s logbook (aka the character sheet).

We’ve been thinking of three tabs.

Character tab :

• Avatar : Generated at the character creation

• Levels : We have thought of 21 levels each one giving a talent point that can be invested in the talent tree presented below.

• Controlled ships

• Charisma

Talent tree :

• Battle

• Craft

• Explore

• Trade

• Scout

Feats of Strength :

• Character history

• Achievements

• Pets (more on this below)

 

The talent tree :

We have thought of 5 specializations available to the player each one giving bonus to a specific gameplay : Battle, Craft, Trade, Explore and Scout.

Each specialization is divided into 5 Tiers. The first one is accessible to every player but to access a superior tier the player has to unlock the previous tier plus 4 additional points. That is to unlock Tier 2 the player has to put 4 points into tier 1 to unlock it. Only a player that puts each and every one of his 21 points in one branch can expect to unlock tier 5.

Talent tree can be reset for 100 000 gold.

 

Battle

If you wish to inspire fear into the heart of your foes, that is the branch for you. Every talent is designed to make your ships more deadly and to increase its damage and resistance in the midst of battle.

 

 

Battle damage : Increase damage done by X%

Resistance : Increase ship resistance by X%

Commandement : Increase crew efficiency by X%

Boarding efficiency : Increase boarding efficiency by X%

Destroy : Increase building damage done by 5%

Booty: Increase chance to find material or update by 5%

Crew armor : Increase the crew resistance by 10%

Cannon master : Increase the cannon number by 5%

Battle ship : Unlock the Sovereign of the Seas

 

 

Craft

If you want to become a naval architect to create best ships or best updates. This branch is for you. Every talent increase your crafting skill and allows the specialized crafter to create unique figurehead and stern.

 

 

Optimize : Decrease material number needed to craft by X%

Recycle : Increase number of material recovered after break up by X%

Labor efficiency : Decrease the labor hour needed to craft by X%

Labor recovery : Increase number of labor hour recovery by day by X%

Rigor : Increase chance to find blueprint by 10%

Durability : Increase your crafted ship durability to 8

Custom craft : Player can craft a figurehead and stern to “pimp” his ship (new PB)

Custom figurehead and stern increase charisma by X% (depend quality)

Cabinetmaker : Increase number of available update slot by 2 on your crafted ship

Crafter ship : Unlock the Vasa

 

 

Trading

If you want to become rich and famous as the East India Company and if for you, gold must be obtained (more or less) honestly. This branch is for you. All talents are design to save money and time.

 

 

Dealer : Increase your selling price by X%

Negotiate : Decrease your buying price by X%

Navigation : Increase ship speed by X% in OW

Hold: Increase ship’s hold size by X%

Celerity : Decrease teleportation cooldown to 1h

Building : Increase your production building efficiency by 10%

Trading post: Outpost limit increased by 5 and outpost price reduced by 20%

Ubiquity : You can teleport to your outposts

Trader ship : Unlock the Batavia

Exploration

If you want to discover the secrets and the Caribbean , bringing back rare artifacts or creatures of your long journey. If you want to discover new lands or leave your name in the history books. New gameplay is available for explorer. You could travel through the caribbean alone or with other explorer to discover the Naval Action map. Sail beyond the horizon.

 

 

Medicine : Increase number of days at sea possible by X

Astrology : Increase map positioning efficiency by X%

Archeology : Increase chance to find rare artifacts during your explore mission or in a secret zone by X%

Discovery : Increase chance to find rare materials during your explore mission or in a secret zone by X%

Meteorology : Player can see storm on map

Treasure : Increase price of artefact by 50%

Biology : Increase chance to find animal species during your explore mission or in a secret zone by 10%

Sharing knowledge : Group member has the same medicine, astrology, Archeology and Discovery bonus

Explorer ship : Unlock La Boussole and l'Astrolabe

Rare materials and rare artifacts are required for high level craft.

 

Scout

Naval action is a conquest game. To increase his chances of victory, a strategist must know his enemy. The best way to take advantage is to scout the enemy floats and find weaknesses in the enemy’s defense

 

 

Agility : Increase gyration by X%

Speed : Increase combat speed by X%

Approach : Decrease range at which you can be targeted in open world by X%

Escape : Decrease time to flee battle by X%

Sneak : Place a spy on a ship, allows to know the position of the ship for 1 hour (3h cooldown)

Trickery : Pretends to be an enemy ship in the eyes of opponents for 1 hour (3h cooldown)

Precision : Increase chance to damage rudder by 10%

Thief : Steal a random hold item in the targeted ship in OW. (3h cooldown)

Scout ship : Unlock Le requin

 

 

Profession’s ship :

The Sovereign of the Seas (battle)

Ships in the Sovereign of the Seas group gain “increase damage done by 1%”.

102 cannons

The Vasa (craft)

Ships in the Vasa’s group gain “increase repair kit efficiency by 10%”.

48 cannons

 

 

The Batavia (trade)

Ships in the Batavia’s group gain “increase ship speed by 5%”.

24 cannons

The Boussole (explore)

Ships in the Boussole’s group gain “increase chance to find rare artefacts by 5%”

12 cannons

The Astrolabe (explore)

Ships in the Astrolabe’s group gain “increase chance to find rare materials by 5%”

16 cannons

If the Boussole  and the Astrolabe are in the same group, the group gain “increase chance to find exotic animals by 50%”.

The Shark (Scout)

Super fast and maneuverable boat, it has 5 combat marine mines by fight. (cooldown 3min between 2 mines)

24 cannons

 

 

 

So it was just suggestions. 

I am not satisfied with all talents but I think that you can have better ideas than mine.

I'm waiting your feedback.

 

 

 

[victor]

wow, you deserve a chapeau at least for the effort

[maturin]

Sounds like you've got plenty of ideas for developing your own seafaring RPG.

[ShavedAlpaca]

I admire the wall of text, I agree with some things, I do not with most. Character abilities, talents and stuff like that don't really fit in Naval Action as I see it. To each his own I guess. To be honest, the game is already complicated enough for new players, the additional stress because you need to pick talents would be a bit much.

Fog of war would be null and void because of 3rd party maps.

Crew recruiting is too hardcore I think.

Port fortification - yes

Mission type - yes

Hidden and secret zones (exploration in general) - yes

Achievements - yes and use pennants and ensigns on your ship to display them.(this has been discussed before, we got a statement thats almost a promise from the devs that this is in the plan)
Charisma- nah

 

Talents- Nope, too complicated, difficult to implement and hard to balance. As far as I understand game development.  Also Im not a fan of it. The ships have their own characteristics and you can build them to suit your needs and wants, then the captains own skill comes into effect. If a Commodore and a Midshipman fight it out in basic cutters its a fair game, keeps the skill of sailing and gunnery relevant. If the Comm has +10% to damage from skills its not. This rewards grinding and we all know the game has enough of that as it is

 

A for effort tho.

 

Edited March 11, 2016 by ShavedAlpaca

[victor]

More than talents, maybe there could be an option to choose - when you reach a certain rank (a low one, 2 or 3 i'd say) - to become a "professional merchant", which hinders your combat capabilities (either in term of stats or ship command) but allows you - i.e. - to carry more cargo in your ships and to enter and trade in other nations ports and to appear neutral to one or more factions.

 

I.e., if I am a spanish player, by becoming a pro-trader I can choose to be neutral with one (or more) other nation (let's say the EE UU) and then I will be allowed to enter in their ports and deal with them; they cannot attack me (or they will turn into pirates) and I cannot attack them (or I will turn into pirate).

Edited March 11, 2016 by victor

[xAzDKr]

Talents do not have a place in this game. It will nullify the actual skill required to play the game. A good captain in an under crewed frigate can sink a bad captain in a fully crewed frigate, even though the fully crewed preforms better on paper. If anything, this game needs more systems to make gameplay MORE skill based, not systems that reward mindless grinding and no PVP. The only place your suggestions may have a chance are in PVE servers. Maybe.

The idea of missions and events has been discussed and is already in development, although rare in server at the moment.

Like I said, skills and whatnot have 0 place in this game, it will take away from the realistic aspect of the game, make it too arcadey much like WoWS and will push out a large majority of this games player base.

Edited March 11, 2016 by xAzDKr

[ShavedAlpaca]

^+1
On a PvE server, go ahead, try it out. Should be interesting.

[Lestan de Lioncourt]

Please no ! No talent, no don't make the game a fraking RPG. We need a game based on personnal skills, not on character's statistic !

[Francis Tabernac]

While I can appreciate the effort you put into your post, I wouldn't want to see the game go in that direction simply because it's so "game-y". I get the appeal, and I thoroughly enjoy games like that as well, but it just doesn't feel like NA needs to be that kind of game. To each their own, though.

[Musuko42]

Apologies if these were mentioned and I missed them.

 

Add to crew recruitment the abity to impress crew off of captured vessels to replenish your own.

The requirement to feed and pay your crew, and to set how much you pay, and what quality of rations you provide, affecting morale and performance.

Run out of rations on a long journey and you'll have problems.

Run low on morale and some crew might jump ship in port, requiring you to hire more to replace them.

Having marines, or guards, or certain scary officers on board, would mitigate this.

So you can choose; be a nice captain, or a tyrant.

Edited March 11, 2016 by Musuko42

[William the Drake]

This is some splendid stuff my good sir! Like others, while I do not agree with a few things presented here, I must commend you for your thoroughness of thought and presentation! Very well done.

Now, for brevity I'll simply address the things that I think could do with a bit more tweaking. Please don't take this as me simply disagreeing with everything.
 

Days at sea are limited by default : (< 10 days)

Crew diminishes by 10% every additional day, if the number drops to 0 then the ship is lost and the player is teleported back to the nearest outpost.

 

This I find a bit limiting. The game is ultimately meant to be played as a sandbox, meaning players should feel free to play anyway they want. If they want to waste a couple real-life hours sailing to Somerset, then let them. Limiting how long one can sail arbitrarily is very restrictive. However, this mechanic could find some solid ground if things like crew morale, provisions, and mutiny mechanics were introduced. A crew who is low on provisions would definitely begin to drop off and be more keen to mutiny, thus resulting in the player losing their ship. Both Mutinies and provision mechanics have been suggested before, but never in great detail.

 

Mission type :

Several types of missions could be available like

 

I do believe more missions will come. For now, the current mission mechanic is just like the other newer mechanics; more functional than dynamic at the moment. It is simply providing for its primary function and little else: being another source of XP.

 

Hidden and secret zones :

Building (temple etc.) or secret places (waterfall, ark, etc.) are hidden in open world lands. Player can find them and discover artefacts in these places. Keep your eyes open when you sail near the coast.

 

There are some whispers that this may actually be the case. I even think the devs have hinted at this in one of the loading screens. One that I believe reads: "There are no secret islands...or perhaps..."

 

Now comes the big stuff. For starters, the skill trees. While I personally do like how you've mapped it out, and the overall concept, I cannot the support the fact that the skills themselves offer bonuses (especially in combat).

 

The issue is that in the end you should have players ultimately playing on the same field. While ships can vary in module and build, ultimately every player has access to them. But if you bring in inherited bonuses based on these skills, then ultimately you start to make players themselves unbalanced. in the end, in my opinion, it should be pure player skill that wins the day, not inherited bonuses.

 

I had suggested a while back a similar form of skill tree, though as noted, I ensured that the skills I suggested did not directly affect player performance. I would be very interested in any input you may have there:

• Skills, Specializations and How the Player Plays

Profession's Ship

 

I'm a bit confused here, do you mean these are somewhat like patron ships? Again the issue here is the inherited values and bonuses from the choice that doesn't sit well with me. If this is meant to be the ship the player starts with, then i take major issue with starting with the SotS (regardless of the fact that she is a beautiful ship) players need to work their way up. 

Lastly, I am going to be completely shameless and ask you to take a look at some of my other suggestions, but only because I see many similarities here and would very much like your input:

 

Boat position :

When the game starts the player is not able to get his position on the map, however going through the explorer tree allows him position himself with better and better accuracy (think of using sextants, better compass,...)

Meteorological events :

Cyclones, hurricanes may randomly appear damaging the ship and diminishing the crew by 10%. They can be seens and avoided and especially by player having the meteorologist talent (see below). If you hire a battle in a hurricane area, the fight will take place on a storm map.

 

• The Case Against a Live Open World Map

Recruiting crew :

It is necessary to recruit crew members in ports in order to replace the ones lost at sea.

 

I feel like having to replace crew after every engagement is a bit much. However, having crew to be replaced or even moved from ship to ship seems more doable:

• Crew/Marines: Size, Experience, and Morale

Port fortification :

You can increase your port defense with fortification building. A fortified port is hard to capture but requires a resource supply to remain active. Trader should import resource to keep it functional.

 

Yes, but a port should only be able to construct fortifications based on its size, importance, and income. No reason to have a heavily fortified port that has no tactical or economic importance.

• Pirate Havens, Port Security, and Trade Regulations (You want to look mainly at port security here)
   

Feats of Strength :

• Character history

 

You didn't really appear to go into this or what it means, however it could have some big implications. This could be used to determine how the player starts the game, as well as having them geared towards a profession they may want later in the game:

• Character Profile: Nationality vs. Player's Nation

 

Like I said there's a lot here that is interesting to contemplate, and my response is simply the things I felt could use a second look. Cheers!

Edited March 11, 2016 by William the Drake

[eriks]

The Wasa sailed a few miles on its maiden voyage then foundered and sank.

[monstermp]

The Wasa sailed a few miles on its maiden voyage then foundered and sank.

 

Yes, it's a joke. Best crafter had the worst ship

[BluewaterMP]

OP - This was an excellent and well thought out post.  This is the kind of constructive contributions that help drive the game forward.  Haters gonna hate of course, because internet.

 

In general, most of your suggestions are around ways to make the game more varied, interesting, and fun.  The Realism Police that run these forums aren't going to be receptive to alot of them, and will likely just point to a bunch of broken mechanics that in theory should do the things that your suggestions hope to do.    But I I generally support them

 

My two cents on some of the concepts you brought up and the initial responses:

 

Crew Hiring / Crew depletion while at sea -   The problem with this is that the undercrewed penalties are so steep in this game, if you don't auto regen crew you basically have to go back to port after every battle.  That is no fun.  My vote is that this is one area we keep the unrealistic assumption in support of keeping the game fun.

 

Mission Types Variety - This is a critical, necessary upgrade.    I grind missions for XP like a lot of people.  And as much as I love the actual combat in this game, man it gets old doing the same damn search and destroy mission hundreds of times in a row.   Want to stop the hemorrhaging of the player base? Mission Variety is one of the first 3 or 4 changes that need to be implemented ASAP

 

Hidden and Secret Zones - I feel like the Realism Police aren't going to go for this one, but to some extent it is a good idea.  Right now I have almost zero incentive to explore the map.   There is this massive, gorgeous Carribean overworld to play in, but as a rational player it makes the most sense to just grind missions around the same port I do all my crafting. 

 

There needs to be more incentive, then is currently in place, to explore the map.  The economy / trading is not enough at all right now to make it worth me driving a few hours to other ports.  I think there should be "Floating Treasure", "Hidden zones" or other random boons spawning across the OW that would give me some kind of reason to go out and explore.   I want to sail around this map so bad, but there just is no reason now. 

 

Captains Log Book -  YEAH.  This game needs consolidated stat keeping.  I should be able to go to a Captain summary page and see a detailed list of all my kills / assists, shooting %, and all kinds of other interesting metrics.  This is so easy from a programming perspective, all these variables already exist, they are just not being stored / reported out explicitly.  And they really should be.

 

Talent Tree - Why not??  People above me seem to be freaking out about this taking away from the "Skill" component.  That does not have to be the case at all.  You just make the benefits of specialization / talent trees a little less powerful.  They aren't more heavily weighted then Skill in combat, but does give tiny little advantages in the areas that you specify.    The trick is just don't make the Tier benefits overly powerful, and boom, you have a fun system

[Vllad]

This always sounds like a good idea then they spend years trying to balance it rather than just working on parts the game that need real help.

 

I am not for this at all. I would rather have all players equal and not worrying about balancing or people crying on the boards about balancing and just have the developers working on making a better game.

[Aetrion]

I generally agree the game would be a lot more fun if it had some systems for allowing you to specialize and find your own niche and play style, but I think these suggestions are way too specific to simply agree with. A lot of the profession ships are from an entirely wrong time period and would be woefully outclassed by anything in the game already.

[monstermp]

This always sounds like a good idea then they spend years trying to balance it rather than just working on parts the game that need real help.

 

I am not for this at all. I would rather have all players equal and not worrying about balancing or people crying on the boards about balancing and just have the developers working on making a better game.

 

I think that the balance issue is a "fake" issue.For sure, it is a pvp problem. But if I want to play PVP, I chose Battle branch and all players have the same branch so the same ship and talent.

Trader or Explorer branches are not for fighting so it's normal if I lose a fight. It's already the case, I can't win against a third rate with my trader brig.

 

As I said, all talents are just suggestions, you can propose other skill or reduce significatly the value of bonus. 0.1% instead of 1%. It was just exemple. Profession's ship proposition are just a goal to reward a player. But yes all ships are in wrong period. It's just because they are beautifull.

 

In fact, I want to diversify the gameplay. Sink ship again and again is not fun and lot of people quit the game after few month because it's repetitive.

 

To clarify my suggestions. I propose 5 archetypes of gameplay :

 

- Battle is the current gameplay (sink ship and pvp fighting)

- Trading is for player who want to play with the economy of the game. (not just sail on trader ship)

- Crafting is for player who want to craft unique item to help his nation with better ships.

- Explore. It's for PVE player who want to sail in open world with goal to discover some hidden secret and help Nation without fighting. Bring back precious wood to craft best ship.

- Scout is a gamplay to help nation before a nation fight. When a nation decide to take a port, the other nation chat ask "WHERE ARE THEY ?" to prepare defense. Scout are here to win a fight before it starts.

 

I would like to explore the OW but currently I take a mission and kill ship again and again. Fighting is fun but it will not be enough for me.

The last patch is good but for me the crew management is an adjustment, not a feature and it's not a renewal.

 

@William the Drake, I need to read your post thanks a lot.

[Vllad]

I think that the balance issue is a "fake" issue.

 

Then apparently you have never played any PVP class based MMO over the last 20 years. You do sound like someone who may have played POTBS but that system was un-balanced as well. They spent more time screwing around with it and less actually improving the game.

[monstermp]

Then apparently you have never played any PVP class based MMO over the last 20 years. You do sound like someone who may have played POTBS but that system was un-balanced as well. They spent more time screwing around with it and less actually improving the game.

In fact my english is not good enough to explain my opinion. I don't want to say that balance is a fake issue in pvp. It's the main issue and everybody knows that. I would like to say that talent tree is not uncompatible with pvp. If the talents does not affect the character power during pvp fight, there is no problem. I just want a talent tree or something like that to add pve element and add diversity in pvp fight. I hope i am clear