Suggestion for Ship Durability

[John Page]

Small suggestion for ship durability.

 

Instead of ships being completely destroyed after durability is brought to zero, penalize the player by giving negative stats to his "sunk" ship until durability is refilled. This allows the player to keep his ship, allowing him to sail it if necessary, but with some type of disadvantage until durability can be refilled.

 

Negative consequences can be things like: slower speed, ship starts battle with less structure / armor, longer reload speed, etc. Or maybe even set it as a "basic" ship with no advantages until durability is refilled.

 

 

Obviously, this would require some changes to the current durability system. As of now, there is no way to "refill" durability on an existing ship other than just buying a new ship. It might be challenging if the same wood type, selectable bonus (speed, build strength, crew space) and regional bonus were required to refill you durability for the same type of ship since there can be many different combinations. However, that might encourage variety for crafters. Maybe allow same type of ship with different qualities refill another? Scratch that, it could be exploited if cheap ships were just used to refill exceptional, so something like that should not be possible. Anyone have ideas to find a solution to this?

 

 

Should not affect crafting or ship building in any way as new ships would be needed to keep durability filled.

 

This would encourage more players to participate in PvP, especially casual players. I cannot see it changing anything else (let me know if you catch something?).

 

Sincerely,

[Taranis]

Interesting thought.  The single biggest concern I have over ship dura is the possibility of losing regular upgrades.  I think that if that were addressed, many players would be more open to the possibility of losing a ship (and thus the idea of moving all ships to 1 dura).

[Slamz]

I dunno, I think I prefer where (I believe) admin is going: make gold ships rare. Make grey ships be what most people sail in most of the time.

 

That would also encourage people to PvP more, I think. Right now people seem to not want to PvP unless they can do it in a gold ship. It's the expected baseline. Gold ship, full load of gold upgrades. That's what most people PvP in so if you don't have that then you're at a disadvantage almost all the time.

 

If gold ships with 3/5 upgrades were rare then going out to pewpew in a gray ship would just be the usual thing everyone does. No big deal if you sink. If you build up enough money you'll take out your gold ship with all the gold fixings but maybe the downside of gold ships is they only have 1 durability so you risk everything every time you go out there.

 

 

So I'm seeing something more like a choice players get:

Gray ships with 1/1 slots that have 5 durability and maybe even can be refilled as per your proposed system. But this is the "cheap man's road to casual PvP".

 

Gold ships with 3/5 slots are all built with 1 durability. Cannot be refilled. All upgrades go down with the ship. It's a better ship but exorbitantly more expensive. This is a risky road. People will use these ships for safe-mode PvE and for important battles but mostly not for casual PvP due to the risk.

 

 

I think this does solve the bottom line problem, which is people think baseline PvP requires expensive gold ships. We would flip that around and normal PvP would be done in gray ships. (green - purple would not exist)

[themule08]

Well make the ships cost less..really the difference between grey and gold is not much..

Just get rid of the colors

[Taranis]

[...]

 

I would be in favor of (1) making all ships 1 dura, (2) dropping the color coding system, (3) allowing crafters to tweak / specify ships as they like.  Crafter level sets the number of built in "trims" / modules - but allow players to possibly retain some of their upgrades.

 

Now, i think the problem is less with the ships and more with the upgrades actually.  I think more upgrades should be like marines - where there is a certain cost/benefit tradeoff.  If you want to put gold marines on, you should not expect being able to play the range shootout part well.

[Rramsha]

There are way too many (colors / qualities). People only build the lowest or highest, why would you ever bother to build the middle ships. There should only be two tiers of ships lets say Common and Fine.

Edited November 2, 2016 by Rramsha

[Rychu Karas]

There are way too many (colors / qualities). People only build the lowest or highest, why would you ever bother to build the middle ships. There should only be two tiers of ships lets say Common and Fine.

especially that the crafter need put only a little bit more effort to craft gold instead of purple for example.

Edited November 2, 2016 by Rychu Karas

[Fenris]

Small suggestion for ship durability.

 

Instead of ships being completely destroyed after durability is brought to zero, penalize the player by giving negative stats to his "sunk" ship until durability is refilled. This allows the player to keep his ship, allowing him to sail it if necessary, but with some type of disadvantage until durability can be refilled.

 

Negative consequences can be things like: slower speed, ship starts battle with less structure / armor, longer reload speed, etc. Or maybe even set it as a "basic" ship with no advantages until durability is refilled.

 

 

Obviously, this would require some changes to the current durability system. As of now, there is no way to "refill" durability on an existing ship other than just buying a new ship. It might be challenging if the same wood type, selectable bonus (speed, build strength, crew space) and regional bonus were required to refill you durability for the same type of ship since there can be many different combinations. However, that might encourage variety for crafters. Maybe allow same type of ship with different qualities refill another? Scratch that, it could be exploited if cheap ships were just used to refill exceptional, so something like that should not be possible. Anyone have ideas to find a solution to this?

 

 

Should not affect crafting or ship building in any way as new ships would be needed to keep durability filled.

 

This would encourage more players to participate in PvP, especially casual players. I cannot see it changing anything else (let me know if you catch something?).

 

Sincerely,

With all due respect,this is ridiculous.

All we need is more of such ideas,maybe we should create a topic"how to keep my precious pixel safe".

[John Page]

I dunno, I think I prefer where (I believe) admin is going: make gold ships rare. Make grey ships be what most people sail in most of the time.

 

That would also encourage people to PvP more, I think. Right now people seem to not want to PvP unless they can do it in a gold ship. It's the expected baseline. Gold ship, full load of gold upgrades. That's what most people PvP in so if you don't have that then you're at a disadvantage almost all the time.

 

If gold ships with 3/5 upgrades were rare then going out to pewpew in a gray ship would just be the usual thing everyone does. No big deal if you sink. If you build up enough money you'll take out your gold ship with all the gold fixings but maybe the downside of gold ships is they only have 1 durability so you risk everything every time you go out there.

 

I agree, the developers are taking this in a good direction, but I don't think it will completely solve the problem.

 

A player (or clan for that matter) who is hardcore will always have the best ships and upgrades, regardless of cost. If we just make gold ships so ridiculously expensive that they will indeed be rare, a few players are still going to have them, and everyone else will want to have them. Hardcore players will still PvP in gold ships.

 

 

Well make the ships cost less..really the difference between grey and gold is not much..

Just get rid of the colors

 

Getting rid of the tiered color system could also work. Probably simpler too.

 

 

With all due respect,this is ridiculous.

All we need is more of such ideas,maybe we should create a topic"how to keep my precious pixel safe".

 

I am glad you think it is ridiculous. It is just an idea. Do you have anything constructive to add or discuss?

 

 

This is a multiplayer game, there will always be a hardcore crowd and a more casual crowd. The intention behind the idea was to encourage more of the casual players to participate where traditionally the hardcore players dominate. We are not trying keep ships "safe." We are trying to make the experience more fun for as many people as possible. Granted you cannot please everyone, but you can try to improve game play. Players will stop playing a game when they deem it is not fun anymore (or should stop, since the purpose of a game is to have fun). If PvP becomes too frustrating for casual players I see one of two things happening: 1) they will stop participating in PvP, or 2) they will quit the game.

[Blaatand]

I like some of what you start out with here so at the risk of repeating myself....

 

I Like addition of balanced properties and captured grey only.....

Slots and slotted upgrades to be removed

 

I see it this way:

Material crafting follows current model with crafting hours

 

Ships crafting is separated into a Shipyard with 1 to 3 slots depending on crafting level or perhaps Rank

These slots can be used for

1 building ships (you can ONLY build a basic ship)

2 modifying ships  (change a trader to carry only aft guns or add chasers to another vessel - tradeoffs needed - one size smaller broadside guns for larger chasers??)

3 improving ships (2, 4, 8 day upgrades to finer qualities and only one quality level per time)

4 rebuilding durability (Ships have durability 1 but the wreck will be delivered to your yard and you can rebuild it)

5 Research (ALL blueprints are earned by researching a captured vessel - this takes time but NO drop rates and you need to capture or buy a ship first - NPC should only sell the basic ships)

 

to get a spread in ships qualities cost in materials and time to build MUST be exponential (2, 4, 8, 16..) - a linear spread makes the cost too easy to overcome and you will see grey golden only.

 

For time cost to build make it depending on crafting level, rank and ship rating. Basically making it impossible for a new player to build a 1st rate. Time requirements can be modified as the spread in ships become apparent.

To implement you HAVE to reduce ALL ships in game to grey and green. Then if it takes a week to make a golden people will settle for a blue - knowing that option 3 in the yard allows for a 3 day upgrade to purple later.

 

Modifying a ship with Marine quarters would downgrade a choice of other options f.ex. speed, hold or cannon size

 

This method will both accommodate new and casual players AND the big hardcore clans - remember - diversity in population will be the only way to make this world perpetuate!!!!

 

I think this solves many of the current issues in one fell swoop :-)

 

Blaatand