Patch 9.9 - Officers, Fishing, Provisions and other things

[Jeheil]

I am sorry you are all missing the point.

 

The Seagulls now Squak. Everything else is simply tinkering.

 

The other additions are all (so far) really good, obviously more perks and officers with different skillsets to come...and much tweaking to be done....but on the whole....I am very happy with the patch...wait...hang on...the seagulls also poop !

[Ledinis]

Patch 9.8 - The assassination of Abraham Economy 

 

And endless supply of money funneling into ships while sailing via fishing and ship wrecks that contain so far up to 2000 labor hours in them (anyone found more than 4 of those in a single wreck maybe ? ) i know it's going to get fine tuned, but with some luck and sailing around i can now more or less build a Santisima in a single day ?  

[maturin]

I'm waiting for the "greek fire" mod....

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_fire

 

 

Just kidding!!!  

Still a better mod than Twilight Fireship.

[squedage]

Sure, and those crews won combat against disadvantaged crews with tactics and decisions by the captain in battle making very little difference in the outcome. The interesting (from our perspective) fights were the one where factors like ship strength and reload were more evenly matched and the captains had to outwit their opponents. Which should NA be about? Historical determinism (national bonuses), upgrades and PvE crew XP farming decide outcomes, or former factors are mostly equalized (with penalties off-setting bonuses, so choices are about trade-offs rather than raw advantage) and player skill as captain is dominant factor?

Maybe if player has achieved 3 to 1 advantage with gear, other player should just be forced to immediately surrender, as that would be much more historical.

 

and i guess captains sailed ships by them selves. The only reason those captains could "outwit" their opponents was because they had to crew that could keep up and was trained to be proficient at crewing the ship. IMO its like all military endeavors were the officer gets all the credit and the grunt does all the work

[VonBarb]

Cannot say I'm too happy about the price of crew, but I really like the new budding exploration gameplay. Please though, please get rid of the incredibly annoying AI helpers in lower lvl missions. Please.

[Kronans]

Ok, it's very clear now that this game is not about PvP anymore, and I m only mentionning thoses 2 perks.

 

A usefull concept is called "nuance". It means if you think something is too much, you may carefully reorient mechanics to regulate it. Example, if you want to make things harder for PvP aggressors, you may add those officers:

-Determined defender – Gives you the option to use the defend command for free (during boarding) (still interessting and without that meaningless crew ratio)

-Coward – Officer loves to run from battle and knows how to do it. Exit timer is 18% shorter (NOT 50% !!!)

 

Waiting for correction asap, I will probably go fishing simulator 2016... No, just kidding, let's be honnest, this feature is "fun" the firsts 10 minutes.

and all takes them??? dont think so. so still pvp and I believe this can be a good patch over all

[Aria]

Damage model change...again.

 

Ships return to be undemastable.

[Anvil 36]

Thank you Dev's!  I am looking forward to testing out the latest updates to the game.  I am sure that the addition of officers will continue to evolve adding multiple options for personalizing each of our styles of play.

[Rackham the Red]

Oooh im intrigued! May I be so curious to ask what the new sounds might be? I can almoust smell the fresh fish.... Yummy! 

[Cecil Selous]

and thats totally not about people quitting the game after the initial hype. nope you're of course totally right...oh wait.

Well if sending ships is getting rid off, we will see where it leads. I expect pre-Early Access population in that case. Which would be really sad

 

It is time that the players and mainly crafters of a nation start to scatter around their territory (and maybe freeports for independent crafters)  and build other crafting/trading hubs instead of just concentrating on the capital.  

[Mrdoomed]

It is time that the players and mainly crafters of a nation start to scatter around their territory (and maybe freeports for independent crafters) and build other crafting/trading hubs instead of just concentrating on the capital.

This would require players to acually care abut the gaming environment as a whole and how he can help the faction or do his part to build a working game world, instead of just logging in wanting to click a mouse button a few times and try and "win" or get his "item" then logging off.

If these forums are any indication of players then there is no hope of that.

[Alanxo]

Great patch on many points ! Thanks to devs

 

But i have a light problem : Before the patch, I had an escort fleet of three cutters available when I wanted in any port.

 

After the patch, if I want to activate, I have a message telling me that these ships are not in this port.

 

I understand that this is more realistic and we must know where our escort ships are.

 

But these ships escorts are only displayed in the "Fleet" window, where this information is not, so it is today impossible to know where are these damned ships.

[Ned Loe]

Don't forget about secret shipwrecks and great rewards. Look for sealed bottles when fishing

[SeaMist]

Coward officer - surely that should be Strategic Withdrawal officer. lol. It's not being a coward to escape a larger opponent. 

Don't forget about secret shipwrecks and great rewards. Look for sealed bottles when fishing

I found one but it says if I open it the information will be lost. I've tried to peer through the glass but it all opaque....

[CatSwift]

Determined defender – Officer knows how to prepare the organized defence on boarding. Your ship can only be boarded if the attacker has 40% higher crew. It also gives you the option to use the defend command for free (during boarding) 

 

 

Thank you devs, I anticipate this one perk solving many of the issues I have seen with 1v1 PvP.  Before this the prevailing tactic was to just load up on OP boarding mods and try to rageboard.   Being a combat rigged frigate trying to fight that was extremely difficult because the threshold for messing up once and getting boarded was too high (one bad turn through the wind and instant grabble, 2 wave boarding and death).  Now the boarding rigged ships of equivalent sized ships needs to stern camp and grape a little first, and this allows for the combat rigged ship to consider using maneuvers which can drop their speed lower than 3.5 knts.  More combat strategy is always better.

 

All in all, I am extremely excited to test this out in PvP!

Edited June 29, 2016 by CatSwift

[elvismolotov]

the officers will surely change game play ...personaly i like fair even and ballanced fights in a game ...now that every player has an officer tagged on him this option of a fair fight is further away than ever. because now players will have to find an opponent not only with the same shipclass ,it needs the same officerstrengh too .

i am not saying that every battle in a game should be ballanced but i do think that in every game there should be a way to get a fair fight ...

maybe the devs are planning on "selling gameitems" after release and need a gamemechanic that always promotes the captain with the most items(money).....

[Taranis]

This would require players to acually care abut the gaming environment as a whole and how he can help the faction or do his part to build a working game world, instead of just logging in wanting to click a mouse button a few times and try and "win" or get his "item" then logging off.

If these forums are any indication of players then there is no hope of that.

 

Try crafting.  The congregation has to do with game dynamics and where a critical mass of resources are gathered (and players are located at a given time).  If you want to allow for distribution of construction sites: (1) allow players / clans to set their own capitals, (2) allow players to create a "demand" in a port which AI tradeships ("supply") actually responds to, (3) allow players greater flexibility in what they can trade (eg: crafting hours in particular could be bought/sold like other resources).

[Ned Loe]

Coward officer - surely that should be Strategic Withdrawal officer. lol. It's not being a coward to escape a larger opponent. 

I found one but it says if I open it the information will be lost. I've tried to peer through the glass but it all opaque....

This means if you have one already opened it will be canceled and replaced by a new one.

[Iluadra]

Determined defender – Officer knows how to prepare the organized defence on boarding. Your ship can only be boarded if the attacker has 40% higher crew. It also gives you the option to use the defend command for free (during boarding) 

What the hell with this % ? Do you have tested it before ? I have the feelings the 40% higher crew needed for boarding is a random value without any feedback. Same things for the "Cowards" Officer, 2x reduction for leaving battle ? wtf ?

I'm happy to see a new patch, with a lot of good thing and stuff, but now, the officer are just broken, compared to the upgrade system which was worked fine and well balanced... it's like playing pokemon cards...

[_X_Apophis_X_]

Can't wait to try this out, a lot of changes. Keep up the good work Fan Boy One. Just glad being British they did  not create Icelandic nation. One cutter taking down 11 of our Santi's / Vic's could be embarrassing.

[TheSlickOne]

I noticed that captured ships now don't show the wood type. Is this a bug? The ones I captured pre-patch are still showing the type of wood they're made of.

[Prater]

Ever since modules were introduced way back when, there has been a steady slide towards magic and over powered modules.  20% buffs and 1 kt buffs and such are just way too OP.  Look back to when modules were added.  We had overpowered exceptional buffs and such, and then there was a move away from those to balance out the game, but sadly, some of that has returned.  Also, lets talk about marines.  The general rule of thumb is 1 marine per gun.  A Renomee isn't ever going to carry 100 marines.  More like 30.  When marines were made into a module, the percentages were way over the top.

 

What happens when I add exceptional copper plating, exceptional speed trim, exceptional built in speed, and now an officer that gives +1 kt?  The stack is starting to look oftly similar to being able to stack 5 exceptional powder monkeys to get 18lbers that shoot every 5 seconds.  Wish I could remember what we used to call Tommy's machine gun setup.  Now we have an officer that gives 20% bonus.  We have 2 modules that give large bonuses as well.  What is the max stacked reload bonus currently?

 

 

I'm missing officer nationality bonuses.

 

Things like:

Dutch Officers - Trade bonus (born traders).

English Officers - More reload shock resistance (good ol English morale).

Swedish Officers - Better boarding offence (Vikings herritage!).

Danish Officers - Better boarding defence (Vikings herritage!).

French Officers - Better food... uhm More cannon accuracy?

Spanish Officers - More cannon damage (they just had everything bigger in those days ).

 

I'm sure I forgot something, but just saying that giving nations unique perks would be fun. Balancing hell for dev, but fun.

 

Please no.

[KrakkenSmacken]

Preliminary Patch notes 9.9

 

What's new:

 

 

 

Crew Management.

• Every rank has its limit of free crew provided by the admiralty. For example a first ranked newbie has 40 free crew, so he does not have to pay for crew if he loses the ship. At higher levels the free limit will be enough to jump into a basic frigate. Lineships will be more expensive to maintain. 

Player can add any ship to their fleet provided he has enough crew to man those vessels. 

 

 

 

Originally described here.

 

If the fleet thing works this time, have you given consideration to changing the leveling system to match these new mechanics?

 

I suggested that they be changed so that they could go up to 50, you get 40 more crew per level as a cap, and that people who have already hit max would start at level 28, the current crew limit equivalent. This is not FREE crew, but rather Total crew you can command, including all "Fleet" and captured ships.

 

It would do several things.

 

Give a more stable +40/level increase, to a total cap of 2000 for a total of 50 levels with rank titles coming every 5 levels. That would have a much less steep curve on some of the progressions. A player would feel progress more regularly.

Right now crew gain is +40,  +20, +60, +30, +50, +50, +100, +300, +250, +300.

This way as you move into a new ship range, you have to decide if you want to leave extra crew room for capture/fleet use.

Would match the crafting level model in levels.  1-9 vs 1-50 just makes my OCD head hurt.

 

Just curious, as it seems the initial model was to tie rank/level/crew.  

 

Is that really a necessary union now given the new crew model?

Edited June 29, 2016 by KrakkenSmacken

[KrakkenSmacken]

the officers will surely change game play ...personaly i like fair even and ballanced fights in a game ...now that every player has an officer tagged on him this option of a fair fight is further away than ever. because now players will have to find an opponent not only with the same shipclass ,it needs the same officerstrengh too .

i am not saying that every battle in a game should be ballanced but i do think that in every game there should be a way to get a fair fight ...

maybe the devs are planning on "selling gameitems" after release and need a gamemechanic that always promotes the captain with the most items(money).....

It does open up a far more Rock/Paper/Scissors kind of play in the end game however.  

 

In the end game you can choose any set up you like, as you have effectively unlimited resources to pick the best of all items.

With a wild card like the officer, where X can counter Y, can counter Z, even identical and maxed ships will have to make a choice as to preference.

 

This allows for an end game meta to develop based on what is the best officer VS what you expect the other guy will bring to the table.

[Cragger]

Making officer bonuses for pirates without defining the ultimate role of pirates and just treating them as a nation is once again a fool's step. It means having to change and remake things and dealing with the windfall of such changes. First define the nations and the ultimate role of pirates before spending time on giving them their own 'flavor'.  The overall development of Naval Action at this point feels to me like someone building a house and is starting on the trim work before all the framing is even done. 

 

"Magic" abilities are also getting a bit silly. Instead of giving abilities that give blanket bonuses that make neither historical nor physical sense give them abilities that do. For example instead of a blanket 1 knot increase make their knowledge and experience be about how to trim a ship at certain points of sail. Instead of giving blanket reload increase make it improve under specific criteria such as partial loading to improve synchronization or random fire setting etc.