Dear Devs - Please give us your overview of what you WANT us to be doing

[maturin]

 

 

Now about the weather gauge, a simplified example.  You have it, and you both are sailing 90 degrees from the wind, side by side.  You have the benefit to make leaks and most of the time easier time to shoot, but the enemy has easy time to just spam grapes on your deck.  Unfortunately you will run out of crew way before the enemy will sink to leaks or lose the hull.

Among others things you've posted, your concerns seem to be the exact opposite of most other people on the forum.

 

Maybe a case of 'your mileage may vary?'

 

Especially with all the overpowered perks that give real choices, there is a lot of diversity in play styles right now, with room for ten kinds of rock beating ten different scissors.

[Elric]

"We are working on the test version of the new boarding (with units on deck and deeper positioning) but do not know if it will work yet. Once we do it it will become less a gear check - you will be able to barricade on quarterdeck fighting against overwhelming forces easier."

 

The time it takes to complete a boarding action versus the time to pound and sink the ship has to be somewhat comparable.  The boarding process today seems to take too long compared to the rest of the battle. 

 

It would also be nice to have multiple ships board their victim at the same time - one from either side - where it is a ship or tower.

Edited August 31, 2016 by ElricTheTwo

[Cmdr RideZ]

Among others things you've posted, your concerns seem to be the exact opposite of most other people on the forum.

 

Maybe a case of 'your mileage may vary?'

 

Especially with all the overpowered perks that give real choices, there is a lot of diversity in play styles right now, with room for ten kinds of rock beating ten different scissors.

 

Hmm...  Have you run a duel or two, and tested the grapes, before you came to reason?

 

What makes you to assume that "most other people" think the opposite?

 

True, I do like games that are skill based.  Skill based actually do not use the rocks and scissors at all.  It would be a shame if NA would be based on 10 different rocks and scissors.  Much better if you can slightly bend the things the way you like, but none will be "I win" vs any other "builds".

 

Yes, it can be that the NA devs decide to go with World Of Warcraft.  That is fine.  I will probably just look for another game after that.

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

Too much focus on perks and mods from what I read on that wall of text.

 

No. No. No. Totally opposite from my POV.

 

I see a priority sequence:

 

1. What the player aim for: trader, shipwright, navy. All three require specific playstyles in the OW

 

2. What OW playstyle is required.

 

3. How to involve the other 2 as a help to my playstyle.

 

Perks and other junk, sorry, completely dilute any focus and you end in doing nothing good and doing everything mediocre.

[maturin]

 

 

What makes you to assume that "most other people" think the opposite?

Reading the forum.

 

I haven't seen any grape at all (at least not against broadsides) in the 3v3 tournaments with some of the top players. Barely any boarding, either.

[maturin]

In real life a crew could not put up a new mast and fix all the sails in a matter of minutes.  The loss of a mast in combat was the death of the ship.   Fact is most of the combat back then was targeting the masts and sails to prevent them from escaping or getting into a position to fire back effectively. 

"Most" of the combat?

 

Most of the world's warships were in the hands of the British, Dutch and Americans, who preferred to aim low.

 

Hitting the hull should endanger the masts too.

 

Anyways, the reason ships sink is because sinking them is fifty times easier than in reality. This is a conscious gameplay decision on the part of the devs, because sinking things is fun, and being dismasted in every battle isn't. In no way is the current outcome unintended.

[Cmdr RideZ]

Reading the forum...

 

I believe the conversation is turning to waste of time so...  I agree to disagree.

[Fastidius]

Too much focus on perks and mods from what I read on that wall of text.

 

No. No. No. Totally opposite from my POV.

 

I see a priority sequence:

 

1. What the player aim for: trader, shipwright, navy. All three require specific playstyles in the OW

 

2. What OW playstyle is required.

 

3. How to involve the other 2 as a help to my playstyle.

 

Perks and other junk, sorry, completely dilute any focus and you end in doing nothing good and doing everything mediocre.

i dont want more i want them in the right areas and unable to be stacked badly....ie finishing the stuff they started and fixing the issues they caused.

 

I am not asking for anything new just to refocus everything into the right places so it function rather than breaking it even further......its gone from functional to stacking perks breaking the only parts of the game that worked really well, combat.

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

Great ! A return to 9.8 combat style with wooden walls and iron men please alongside the 2 circles RoE to test. Perks giving character but not being the decisive factor.

 

We agree on many points then.

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

every 4 of them maybe...duros fail to help crafters.

Would you rather build 5 times the ships, with 5 times the clicks, 5 times the materials gathering, at 1/20th of the profit, for 1/20th of the XP? As a player, would you rather spend a week moving 5x the ships around to where you need them, collecting 5 times the modules, 5 times the fitting, etc. etc. etc.

Durability is there for a reason.

[Powderhorn]

Honestly, I'm kinda thinking I might like to see 1 dura vessels.  Might encourage people to sail vessels that are not fully exceptional.  Might see more greens, blues, captured types, etc. etc.  Less focus on the mods sine they're all gone each time you sink?  Dunno.  Just spitballing some thoughts that I was having between patients today.

[maturin]

1 dura ships can have their niche. I would love to sail vessels that the admiralty handed out for specific tasks.

[Fastidius]

Duros had its place for the first few months while crafters got themselves some levels and production buildings got done....ships were hard to build but now they are significantly easier to build and crafter competitions is actually being hurt by them.

 

All mods (that look like equipment) should be craftable and then you can flavour your ships.   Crafting notes = module slots so they still have a premium but mods themselves disappear when ships sink so there is really a crafting market. at the moment the crafters sell 1 of each mod at best to each person and maybe 1 of a few permanents only,  copper bums, speed trims   rudders and thats about it so only those mods are an ongoing churn.   Resources are underpriced in general because there is limited use for them unless ships are being turned over.

 

Ships themselves become more valuable alive because there are permanent modules coming accross and there is no temperary modules...those became perks in a skill tree because a skill tree is the only real way to handle the math.....thats why EVERY GAME has some form of a skill progression be it offline or online.  It is a testing corridor.

 

the reality is that people need to get an affinity to their ships.

 

Also Duros also opens up expliots.

 

The whole systems is a mess but it isn't fundamentally broken it just needs to have temp modules replaced by officers and have the perks having dependancies....and maybe negatives also.

 

I think there is 80% of it right and the last 20% needs a bit of input and TLC testing thus the idea of having a testing rank which has overiding variable numbers that can be tweaked.......its testing and we are testers give us some avenues to make things right with what we have rather than saying it needs replacing and we cant do it for a few months.

[maturin]

Durability points aren't there because of crafting. If there was no crafting, there probably wouldn't be loss at all.

 

Durability is there so you can get sunk four times in an evening and still keep playing the game.

[Cecil Selous]

1 dura ships can have their niche. I would love to sail vessels that the admiralty handed out for specific tasks.

 

Like a real navy career path. Exceptional ships are only available for navy captains. Crafters build them for the admiralty and get paid for that. The admiralty provides the navy captains with ships according to their rank and reputation. they also get a daily pay. These ships have 1 dura and of course names that suits them. Only navy ships can participate in port battles. Current captains of ships and  the ships themselves are listed in something like a naval chronicle. Beside their usual individual playstyle, navy officers can get combat missions (PVP) from the admiralty (or other players/clans)

 

Other ships (maybe up to 5th rate) which aren't exceptional can be purchased by players who aren't enlisted in the national navy like it is now. This opens other career paths beside navy officer like trader, privateer or other neutral ones. Maybe career path can be changed weekly if you want.

 

I have to think this through far more but one can dream can't he?

Edited September 1, 2016 by Cecil Selous

[Fastidius]

Durability points aren't there because of crafting. If there was no crafting, there probably wouldn't be loss at all.

 

Durability is there so you can get sunk four times in an evening and still keep playing the game.

 

umm.....not really sure how to respond to that...what you have described what they do not why they exist.

 

In the beginning there was no crafters that could build ships and no way to get resources in bulk. you had to trade with ports & making notes etc was isolated to the people who were actually of that rank so everything was super expensive.   As time has gone on now the crafting hours are more available as the market became more saturated.

 

Buying a 4th rate now is only 400-1 mill depending on nation and days.   You earn 100K + in PVE fleets each battle in those ships.  production is available for those ships  and in fact there is competition in the market for people to sell ships because they are crafting for BPs etc.    Greys are also available in ports.......explain to me exactly why a ship has 4 or 5 lives when replacements are available and affordable.

 

The only mechanic that depends on durability is temporary mod loss which i have said should all be permanents for the benefit of the economy  at the moment very very few high end  temporary mods are lost ever.

 

by removing durability you build focus on the importance of ships and crafting.  by leaving duros in all you do is stifle production and make it all about pve shooting to farm gold rather than a rounded game where profit exists for traders and crafters.

 

Think about it the other way......if all military ships had 1 duro and all you lost were the permanent mods........how would you argue for the implementation of Duros?

[Tonnerre de Brest]

 

Hitting the hull should endanger the masts too.

Hitting the hull can destroy the shrouds and effectively either take down a mast or make a mast unable to be under load from sails which is/should be basically the end of the fight. Either you surrender, or, depending where the fight is, you die starving before you make it to any port.

 

Sinking an enemy ship was rare and was not desirable. Everything had value from crew to weaponry, and especially any intelligence not thrown overboard, etc...

[maturin]

umm.....not really sure how to respond to that..

I paraphrased what the devs gave as their explanation for durabilities. It has nothing to do with crafting. There was durability in this game before there was crafting.

[Fastidius]

I paraphrased what the devs gave as their explanation for durabilities. It has nothing to do with crafting. There was durability in this game before there was crafting.

 

which is unhelpful and not addressing the issue but being evasive

[Skully]

Think about it the other way......if all military ships had 1 duro and all you lost were the permanent mods........how would you argue for the implementation of Duros?

Ship duras are needed, because this is primary a combat game. Players need to get into the fight as soon as possible, without feeling a significant initial loss.

However it bars the economic churn to some point, unless:

 

The real question is, why is player consumption so low? Why is there so little demand for certain items?

I see two things:

1. Ships and Upgrades do not sink fast enough. Why? Surrender mechanic and no duras on Upgrades.

2. The market friction is very high, so resources do not flow fast enough into Davy Jones' Locker.

The market mechanics need to be fixed up so we can have perfect competition in principal. Once that works we can see how we can offset the balance via for example sales tax.

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15098-economics-patch-proposal/

Surrender needs to be fixed, so ship sink again:

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15399-strike-colours-ruse-de-guerre-surrender-while-sinking-patch-proposal/

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/16087-do-not-surrender-here-comes-the-money-sink/

Regular Upgrades need to have a 20 dura or something like that.

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15434-bottles-and-boarding-destroying-economy/?p=287274

Make the bloody economy churn and make it churn fast.

Edited September 1, 2016 by Skully

[IndianaGeoff]

My thoughts....

 

Chain.  It should (on a hit) have an immediate big effect.  But if you have a full sail crew, they should be able to repair some of it back, somewhat quickly.  Ropes get repaired, sails hemmed up and broken things jury rigged.  That way if a ship is getting hammered by chain, they won't recover.  But if they get some time then some of the damage will be repaired.  Also, if you eat a full chain broadside, it should be hard to turn the ship or sail it until the sail crew is up there a bit.

 

Grape.  If the ship is being actively sailed, grape should be devastating.  If the ship is in survival mode the damage should be minimal.  If the guns are manned and being loaded, moderate damage.  If the guns are loaded and ready to fire, minimal damage.  Range should be very short obviously.  It would be good to see a possible grape coming and to turn off sailing and turn on survivial to minimize the damage.

[IndianaGeoff]

I would love to see chain and bar shot having more of an effect on crew also.   Sorry but it is a bolo round that should sever limbs, maim crew, and cause devastating injuries to those hit by it.

I agree.  If you chain the sails while the crew us up there... it should be deadly.  Don't raise/lower sails in the face of a chain barrage.

[maturin]

I agree.  If you chain the sails while the crew us up there... it should be deadly.  Don't raise/lower sails in the face of a chain barrage.

The crew doesn't have to go aloft to douse and set sail.

[IndianaGeoff]

The crew doesn't have to go aloft to douse and set sail.

Not direction, but they do have to go aloft to increase or decrease main sails.  They stay up there if the ship is doing heavy maneuvers.

[Sir Texas Sir]

"We are working on the test version of the new boarding (with units on deck and deeper positioning) but do not know if it will work yet. Once we do it it will become less a gear check - you will be able to barricade on quarterdeck fighting against overwhelming forces easier."

 

The time it takes to complete a boarding action versus the time to pound and sink the ship has to be somewhat comparable.  The boarding process today seems to take too long compared to the rest of the battle. 

 

It would also be nice to have multiple ships board their victim at the same time - one from either side - where it is a ship or tower.

 

If it takes you the same amount of time to board some one as it does to sink them than they are either extremely soft built ship or your taking way to long to kill them in boarding.

 

Though I agree on the multi ship boarding for things like towers and bigger ships.  This would allow say a pack of smaller ships to take on a larger ship and be able to win against them by there numbers.   Same goes with towers.

 

I would love to see this.  You would see more surrendering, and less out right ship destruction.   People may actually try and take prize ships and capture them.  And a loss of a ship to sinking will be an expensive loss.

 

To be honest they need to tweek the surrender option that will allow you to keep your ship and crew if you surrender to some one, but you offer say half or even 1/3 or 1/4 of your cargo to them or even a slight ransom of credits.  This way you keep your cargo and your ship dura.  You would prob see more people surrendering this way.  This will also let you give the little guys a chance to live if they get caught in a trader in the wrong waters.