Crew management update - discussion

[Quineloe]

All I am getting from this is grind, grind, grind. A huge money sink after you've nerfed one of the more reasonable PVP incomes for no reason I can understand - if one side makes a lot of money, the other side lost a lot of ships. It's perfect.

This is not going to be a PVP game in the long run.

 

What exactly is the goal of this system from a gameplay perspective? Is the crew cheap or expensive, ie is it a money sink or is it not? Will I walk away from a battle I barely survived with a loss anyways because of repairs and crew cost? 

or is it intended to be some sort of zerg-enabling system, attack someone over and over with fresh ships until they have no crew to fight on?

Is it intended to make people dock after every 1-2 fights again? We've been there before when you needed 4 repair kits and they were a lot more expensive (relatively to our income).

 

As for the removal of teleport to outpost, I'm very much in favor of this. There should be no ship teleportation at all. Player teleport without cooldown is nice, because it allows people to play the game without affecting their opponents too much.  However, ships magically appearing in your backyard that weren't sailed there is a big problem.

 

This should make players a lot more stationary, which of course requires a healthy population.

One thing I'd like to know: Can fleet ships carry cargo? I think it would be simply awesome to have a trader ship in tow that carries our loot for us as we raid trader after trader, and the longer you stay out, the higher the risk becomes, but the more profit you make.

Edited June 2, 2016 by Quineloe

[Neptune]

I do like the proposed changes. They will be quite interesting.

Though the issue I do have is this will create more "grinding" and sort of a time sink effect. We need less of grinding for mods & ships to compete (now crew coming) as well as sailing & PVE.

 

What we need is more mechanics to promote PvP and less grinding / mechanics stopping people from PvPing because of the loss associated with sinking or being capped will now be even worse. Also you will need to sail more because you can't send ships to PvP/PB spots which also creates a lot less PvP. We already see a good number of players are afraid to lose a durability, I don't think adding to that is a good idea imho.

[Musuko42]

A small suggestion for this update: allow the option to send captured ships sailing under AI control back to a port of your choosing, with your prize crew onboard. The ship would sail on the open world, in real time, in just the same way as AI fleets currently do.

 

This way, you won't have to return to port yourself with every capture, but you risk your AI-controlled captured ship being intercepted and taken/sunk while it's sailing on the open world. This gives you a choice; look after the ship on its return yourself, or let it sail itself at greater risk of losing it.

 

Perhaps when officers are introduced, you would need to assign an officer to command the ship in order to have it sail under AI control?

[Shrez]

Make all ship upgrades craftable,and and a new BP System would be good.

[Ronald Speirs]

Yes no more ship tp's to outposts, makes it alot easier to notice a pb fleet getting ready around areas, this worked fine for POTBS having to sail ships to your outposts, more danger plus PB took far longer to flip into port battles giving everyone time to get there or investigate, PB will still need more work and hopefully the removal of flags all together, though having said this there are more important things to worry about and improving before this crew requirements come into game.

More important issues before more ship and combat tweaking, we already have nice ship combat we need other features to add some more player excitement

Pirates

Crafting

UI

Further PB improvements, Land, Player Investment, Taking longer to instigate a port flip

More mission Variety

More clan infrastructure, clan dockyards, clan taxes, more clan options

Skirmish Room, player lobby where they can setup practice or clan fights with no loss or rewards.

These things need to be given greater attention rather then more ship combat tuning and tweaking otherwise the content patches dont really add anything new to spark player interest.

[BallsOfSteel]

If TP of ships will no longer be possible a rework of the cost of outposts will be required.

 

All for testing this new feature as long as the infrastructure in place to also make it workable

[Fastidius]

i think this is a waste of time and detrimental to the core of the game.

[OTMatt]

provisions should be added to crafting 

the reasoning is simple - ships were well supplied for 4-6 months of travel. In game time it means that you most likely have lost your ship by then. 

 

Ok but the crew transfer thing would still be good for fleets out at sea. I'd like to think maybe the Gros Ventre and Indiaman could have a use in fleet support by supplying men to other ships in the open world and in battle. It would lessen the number of trips back to port for the main fleet. It could be a good compromise for guys here that think this will reduce pvp gaming.

[Michael Frost]

Current view is this: we dont want 3rd rates and up capturable from NPCs - in reality a captured lineships will be taken over by the government anyway. 

 

in regard of features that someone things will be breaking the game we have changed our position.

 

The best way to improve the game is to focus on suggesting the features you already love so we can add more on them. Fleets were loved by a large group of players, just like ship capture. If we continue removing the features that you hate and someone loves we will eventually start removing features that you love. If this continues eventually all features will be removed in this way. 

 

perfect words!

[Michael Frost]

It looks fantastic, much more realistic, however:

 

1 - acquisition fleets must have a limit, only to larger vessel support (one Bellona + two frigates to support or Trincomalee + one Mercury)

 

2 - will be difficult to return to port at the end of each battle. Perhaps better tune the role of crew morale, to obtain the captured crew to operate the ship captured.

 

3 - I believe that now is the time to use the slots of officers to control the crew.

 

4 - should be possible to transfer the crew. If you are attacked on the way back to the port, you can transfer the ship's crew captured for your ship and go to fight with the complete crew. You may lose the captured ship, but will have greater chances of keeping his own ship.

 

5 - want to keep the captured ship? take it back to port. Not to sail to the port? Give it to the admiralty and miss the ship (only receive a reward).

 

 

On the issue of having its own fleet, they are thinking only of the PVP and forget the PVE. Have you ever thought how bad face four frigates with your Bellona in PVE without any support, taking broadsides in the ass all the time?

 

Some date forecast of this new patch?

 

Again sorry for the horrible English

[Lannes]

Balance the game. Do not make it too complicated and onerous. Sailing on the OW can be fun for very short periods, but boring when it is imposed upon us for lengths of time because of the crew or other mechanics of the game, e.g. when one cannot find an inaccurately placed crossed swords. This must continue to be a game which one can play alone, PvE, or with mates, PvP. There have been many objections to these proposed changes. It is worth testing quickly and deciding just as quickly to keep or dump the changes.

I like the idea of a core crew (is that what 'persistent' means in Naval Action?) which increases in quality from raw to trained to veteran and to elite. I like the idea of officers which increase the morale, handling and gunnery in a ship.

Edited June 3, 2016 by Lannes

[BungeeLemming]

I do like the ideas and change.

 

 

When capturing ships what about this?:

 

you send a prizecrew of minimum required men. They sail the ship (invisibly) to an outpost of your choice.

With a time needed just as we need time to ship good between free towns.

basically copy the way deliveries work for prizes.

 

The ship will not be on the OS.

The crew is taken from your ship and blocked for you until the crew arrives at her destination.

Once they are back in port they are available for hire again. (they are already hired so they are in your crew - pool)

 

 

that way we retain the ability to port ships.

but we have to plan the "teleport" a lot more.

[Talbaron]

This looks ok to me but we will need to send ships from outpost  to outpost should cost gold and have a delivery time. and would need to be in before changes. 

[Guest]

What happens to my own ship while I'm sailing my prize through the OW to a friendly port?

[BungeeLemming]

you dont sail your prize in admin's suggestion.

You add the prize to your fleet and sail off with two vessels. On the OS you still only see one vessel, just like NPC fleets appear.

 

You command the ship you choose to and allocate a prize crew to the other.

when someone attacks your fleet you will be able to give your prizeship orders. like "flee", "attack", "follow" etc

 

The system is logically and realistic (to an extend, since prizecrews were send off on their own in most cases)

[B4N4N4J0E]

I do like the ideas and change.

 

 

When capturing ships what about this?:

 

you send a prizecrew of minimum required men. They sail the ship (invisibly) to an outpost of your choice.

With a time needed just as we need time to ship good between free towns.

basically copy the way deliveries work for prizes.

 

The ship will not be on the OS.

The crew is taken from your ship and blocked for you until the crew arrives at her destination.

Once they are back in port they are available for hire again. (they are already hired so they are in your crew - pool)

 

 

that way we retain the ability to port ships.

but we have to plan the "teleport" a lot more.

 

I like this one.

I think, that the crews of NPC-traders should surrende relatively quickly and due to low morale. Some of the crew will join yours, so I you cap a trader you only have to sacrifice a few man for fighting and sailing it. So NPC-traders should (in most cases) not have marines on board.

On the other hand, if a crew has marines it will be more likely they will fight until the end.

 

I think it would be great if one would be able to fill up his crew by Allies on OW. Like one has a LGV and transfers some crewmembers to his friend who lost several...

[mikawa]

A small example:

 

I sail out to capture trading ships to refill my warehouse. I capture the first one, lose 30 of my 120 men, have to split the crew between my ship and the trader, then sail as fleet back to my outpost port, there I have to repair my ship, have to refill my crew, then sail out again to capture another trader. If crew is now a restricted resource, how would it affect my gameplay? Do I have to wait until crew is available again? Do I have to pay for the crew? You should adjust gold income slightly in this case. Overall sounds quite ok, I guess.

[Guest]

you dont sail your prize in admin's suggestion.

You add the prize to your fleet and sail off with two vessels. On the OS you still only see one vessel, just like NPC fleets appear.

 

You command the ship you choose to and allocate a prize crew to the other.

when someone attacks your fleet you will be able to give your prizeship orders. like "flee", "attack", "follow" etc

 

The system is logically and realistic (to an extend, since prizecrews were send off on their own in most cases)

This makes sense. Thank you for clarifying

[Drake_Arden]

I couldn't type out a full response so i made a video. Sorry it's half an hour long i do hope my comments are helpful though.

 

[Guest]

I like this one.

I think, that the crews of NPC-traders should surrende relatively quickly and due to low morale.

+1

 

I find it somewhat unrealistic in current game that every trader ship (especially when they are carrying contraband) has a bunch of Marines on board. Show me one smuggler in history who has hired Marines

[Captain]

This will reduce time sinks and downtime and with the increased mobility for ships and the bigger incentives for fighting and capturing enemy ships will lead to more action and make the game more fun. A+

 

The crew management has always been the main issue facing the game and it is high time we saw big changes like this to fix it. 

Edited June 3, 2016 by Captain

[Fastidius]

This will reduce time sinks and downtime and with the increased mobility for ships and the bigger incentives for fighting and capturing enemy ships will lead to more action and make the game more fun. A+

 

The crew management has always been the main issue facing the game and it is high time we saw big changes like this to fix it. 

satire? surely the 380K gold for a 2 -4 click fight is the incentive.  currently we cap 8/10 ships in a fleet....the only reason 2 die is because we get AI on our side for no reason i can think of.

 

Have a very hard time finding PVP....we had a fight 1 night this week but i think we suprised them.....people avoid fights not look for them mostly

 

to expand upon my previous statement if you implement this with the current population you will make the game even more of a waste of time than it is now.  atm we can't even find a battle now you want us to farm AI in PVP to earn crew?   atmthe only way to get combat is to teleport ships or sail half the damn day trying to avoid combat to get  to your destination.  the best thing that has happened in recent time is removing the timers on teleports......it is unrealistic but it make the game far more playable.   if you take away the ability to move ships between ports fast then you lose more than half my game time to avoiding combat to actually get to my destination....

 

If you make me farm AI then you make me sad.  If you make capturing ships a thing again you make wars go on forever with no winners.....already duros is bad design now you want to introduce a system which forces people to grind...this is bad design.  Make fun content not ways to stop it.  realism is bollocks in these kind of things. THE BATTLE IS TO GET PEOPLE TO FIGHT not how many ways can we stop them.  equal fights are good, why bring a new mechanic it to make it uneven?

 

I am all for you guys mucking aorund with ideas after your core game is functional and working but seriously Damage penetration changes are a bad thing to burn time on when the community says you have fires to fight elsewhere.   Ram damage, leaks, Damage penetration....WTF are you doing this stuff when people sail to 25 port battles and get no defence......look at the issues not the feature at this moment then add fluff.

Edited June 3, 2016 by Fastidius

[God Emperor Trump / Alan]

Seems like a lot of "PVPers" are getting rustled they can no longer capture 1st/2nd/3rd rates at leisure and use magic teleport button to get them to safety.

I like this.

[Chimera]

Having a hard time to find PVP might be more related to everybody switching to the same nation.

As a British captain I don't have a hard time finding PVP at all.

[Crankey]

I like the implimentaion of active viable crews and look forward to testing.

 

 

For prizes I would like to see a couple of options.

 

Option 1, Ship stays with you as an AI vessel with its minimal crew, therefore unable to do more than recieve an escape order should a new battle start before arriving in an outpost. You own ship crew level being reduced accordingly until entering port. If the prize is lost so then is your prize crew.

 

Option 2, Ship is sent to an outpost of your choice as an independant AI vessel on the OW map. Your ships crew is reduced accordingly until you can retrieve your crew from the same outpost. The AI ship would act as a trader in trying to escape an enemy vessel should it be encountered in PVP en route to its target port. If the prize is lost so then is your prize crew.

 

Crew replacement, medical officers, crewmen with minor injuries return to compliment inside battle victory screen, crewmen with major injuries return to active duty on return to a port.

 

Pressed men/volunteers from enemy fleets (You may get a minimal of volunteers from enemy fleets). My preference is to follow historical policy. Each nation would 'pool' its foreign captive seamen and officers. It would then exchange prisoners often with the value of 1 nations seamen being worth more than another, but perhaps a simpler 1 for 1  system could be used and a small transaction fee to cover passage etc.

 

 

For ship morale

 

I would like to see this implimented into the battle mechanics above and beyond the current usage in boarding. Morale is a fickle thing, and different events within the battle as well as perhaps officer skills/quality should stimulate positive and negative effects on morale numbers as a battle develops.

 

For example, 

 

Ship reaching the point where 100% crew are needed for survival should automatically strike if enemy ships are more of a threat locally than saviours  (Say 400 yards) especially if under fire.

 

Fleet strength over-all vs local superiority of enemy and friendly ships. Damage taken, crew losses, Officer bonuses, crew quality bonuses etc etc.