Boarding prototyping

[admin]

We have been working in parallel to update boarding to its final version. 

The boarding could be a turn based game based on scaled units representing ship crews. First experiments show that even basic positional unit based game is 10x better than button commands because it gives a lot more tactical variety and allows for a lot more interesting gameplay. 

The multiplayer prototype currently runs as a separate application and our current goal is to find an efficient method to integrate it into the main game within the battle instance.  

[Siegfried]

I see good idea here, at least better than actual button pressing of Stone, scissors and paper.

I hope you can overcome all difficulties for a good implementation.

Have you thinking about different positions of the ships? with different tactical advantages of course. Boarding from the stern is more difficult in high stern ships, From the bow or stern you create a bottleneck and is more difficult to fight. The ship crossed in the bow or stern can to shoot more muskets/cannons... etc.

Edited December 7, 2016 by Siegfried

[Rychu Karas]

PLEASE add it as a mission skirmish(duel) to test before release instead of a current boarding system.

Edited December 7, 2016 by Rychu Karas

[elite92]

something like this:

 

or more deep and dynamic?

[admin]

10 minutes ago, Siegfried said:

 

Have you thinking about different positions of the ships? with different tactical advantages of course. Boarding from the stern is more difficult in high stern ships, From the bow or stern you create a bottleneck and is more difficult to fight. The ship crossed in the bow or stern can to shoot more muskets/cannons... etc.

[Siegfried]

Well... hehe I spoke too early I think hehehe sorry admin. GLUP  

Good job!!!

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

Thank you for sharing.

Intriguing to say the least but anything, ANYTHING, is better than the simplistic system we have now.

Now the major major MAJOR interrogation remains regarding boarding - relative ships positions  Thank you, just saw your post.

Simply because boarding is a bloody business if done wrong and in that there's no grey area.

Eager, oh so eager, to test this.

[Twig]

Now THIS is something I did not expect but totaly appreciate. Cant wait to see it - Great job here devs! Lovin it already

This is letting my poor boarding heart beat a lot faster

Edited December 7, 2016 by Twig
feelings must be shared ^^

[pietjenoob]

and i think this would be pretty nice if have this because then u also need to know how to position your ship. Even back in the day some captains did on purpose showed their bow or stern to an (superior) enemy to negate their numbers in sailors and/or marines.

it would give the game a game in a game and also make it more in depth instead of the 'balanced' sides were everthing except crew and moral is equal

[Liq]

looks great, cant wait to test it

[Cmdr RideZ]

I was thinking that maybe 3d representation takes lot of power to run with the sea combat around you.  I suppose this kind of turn based could work well.  But this looks like a pretty good idea.  Are there multiple decks to fight btw?

 

edit...

One more thing..  The sea combat is pretty good in the game, even tho we argue about some details still.

It is hard to get boarding on the same level, but I really do hope you succeed in that 

Edited December 7, 2016 by Cmdr RideZ

[Ned Loe]

Looks great, but those boards that connect ships need to be replaced by 

For Ships are the same height use wooden beams. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

If 1 ship is higher than another one use ladder and ropes with hooks. Such boarding is more difficult and will result in more casualties. 

[UberAegis]

Looks exciting, would modules such as barricades be modelled.

 

[SteelSandwich]

my main question is:

Will we have swivel guns?

[pietjenoob]

and sharpshooters?

[Twig]

will there also be snipers placed in the crows nest?

[Vernon Merrill]

Is that Awkward Davies swinging across on the sprit???

Edited December 7, 2016 by Vernon Merrill

[Sir William Hargood]

I would most certainly remove the "Bridges" shown...the ships should be brought hull to hull, gunwale to gunwale...crew would swarm over the gunwales.

 

 

Edited December 7, 2016 by Sir William Hargood

[Eneil le Sublime]

Wahou, gonna be fun and interesting, i see many things from "Pirates of burning sea" adapted in Naval Action step by step.

[van der Clam]

Devs, do your best to mimic this and ppl will be elated, make sure not to lose the rolling waves and makes the sounds of wood smashing together...remember immersion is what we are wanting. GL

2 hours ago, elite92 said:

something like this:

 

or more deep and dynamic?

 

[Bart Smith]

Just bring it on ! 

 

[Vaan De Vries]

How interaction with ongoing battle will be implemented? 

If someone will rake one of the boarding ships - how it will be reflected in boarding app? Crew hp will suddenly go down? Some animation will be played?

 

P.S. Overall not that necessery feature. Fix a LOT of small problems first, pls. Like stupid uncraftable (for some reason) upgrades, broken eco, 20 seconds tag in OW, insane amounts of AI fleets, towers distribution, hostility generation with blocades, crafting rework, ability to put loaded traders into players fleet, admiralty reward for all PVP, not just inside some "PVP zones"(which are completely ahistorical and immersion-killing now), etc

Boarding is ok to stay as it is for now. It's one of the things that (suprisingly) doesn't feel "unfinished" now. Unlike buttload of all other features. I think current working, simple and effecient boarding system will be 100 tmes better than some wow but unfinished feature..

Edited December 7, 2016 by Vaan De Vries

[Ned Loe]

Make boarding go into loading screen/instance. Make players in boarding immune to outside attacks with swords over their ships spinning while boarding is active. 

[Elouda]

Agreed with Vaan de Vries above - current boarding, while not 'pretty', is functional enough and interesting if you end up fighting another player without a massive advantage on either side.

Substituting it with a new system prototype when there's a whole lot of other things that should probably be prioritized first, probably isn't the best idea.

While the concept itself looks interesting, it looks very 'disconnected' in a way, with the oversized crew models and whatnot. I'd honestly prefer a refinement of the current system, with more details relating to positioning and deck heights, etc. being visible to the participants.

4 minutes ago, Wind said:

Make boarding go into loading screen/instance. Make players in boarding immune to outside attacks with swords over their ships spinning while boarding is active. 

Yes, because that's totally immersive and not prone to abuse...

Edited December 7, 2016 by Elouda

[akd]

1. This has amazing potential for depth in gameplay.  That is also its weakness.  A good ship-to-ship boarding game is really everything about 18th C. warfare packed into a small space.  It could easily be a full-featured tactical game on its own.

2. Turn-based. Great!  WeGo style would be best.

3. Separation of ships and resulting "bridges" needed.  AFAIK the separation between ships seen in movies is often related to movie-making, not reality.  Many (most?) direct boarding actions brought ships into direct contact and allowed boarding directly from one ship to another. Vertical separation of top decks could then be handled more elegantly with ropes / ladders.

4. Complete absence of masts and rigging.  Perhaps this is related to prototype, but fighting tops were very important elements in boarding combat.  The fighting top is the "high ground" that gives huge advantages.  Ships also look deeply unsatisfying as stripped hulls.  Perhaps models with masts in place, and rigging / sails shown with transparency? Of course the big challenge would be translating battle damage into the boarding instance.

5. Crew numbers.  Is this a resource issue or a UI issue?  If resource-based, could sprites be utilized instead to control men as a similar number of units rather than individuals?