Power Creep is a Problem:

[Yar Matey]

Back when we just had the St. Pavel as our 2nd rate ship, it was a pretty decent ship that got used a lot.  Then the Bucentaure was released and completely decommissioned the St. Pavel and I was actually quite sad, because I really enjoyed using this ship.  Since the stats on the Bucenture are strictly better than that of the Pavel, you never see them anymore out on open world.  The Bucentaure is faster, has the same turn rate, more structure, has thicker armor, and has a larger broadside weight, and more crew, so why would anyone ever build a Pavel anymore?

Then we had the Rattlesnake heavy, which completely decommissioned the mercury.  Shallow water port battles went from being a Mercury vs Mercury battles to Rattlesnake heavy battles, but to make things worse, since I cannot build a Rattlesnake Heavy and must rely on the inferior Mercury, I stopped participating in shallow water port battles.  I still do not have a decent Rattlesnake heavy from doing events, but I have a lot of crappy ones I broke down due to the RNG randomness of the ship box rewards.

Then we had the release of the Agamemnon, which completely decommissioned the Constitution and the Ingermanland.  4th Rate port battles are now nothing but an Agamemnon vs Agamemnon battle, yet since again the BP is rare, only the privileged who can get their hands on one can participate in port battles.  Its not even close here, the Agamemnon has 600 more hp, 3 cm thicker armor!, due to how tanky this ship is, it makes if far superior to the connie in port battles despite the extra 4 24pd'ers on the bottom deck, but overall, the Agamemnon has a larger cannon broadside weight, thus, the Agamemnon will always be the go to ship now for 4th rate port battles. 

Then we got the L'Ocean, while the L'Ocean is a very power ship, it is more in line with the other 1st rate ships, the Victory and the Santisima.  Thus, port battles in regional capitals still have variety.  But port battles for the shallows and 4th rates has become stale.  Especially in 4th rate port battles due to how unbelievably tanky the Agamemnon is.  

Please bring ships like the rattlesnake heavy and Agamemnon in line with their counterparts at the same class.  Shallow water port battles should consist of brigs, mercury's, Rattlesnake Heavy's, ect...  If in port battles, only one type of ship is being used, then there is a problem and its obvious that the ship is superior to the others of its class and should be fixed somehow.  

In my personal opinion, the rattlesnake heavy needs a structure/hp nerf to slightly lower values of the mercury.  The Agamemnon needs a serious structure nerf, and the Constitution could use a buff to turn rate.  Thickness on all of these ships could use a serious nerf as well so that our upper deck long cannons can actually do damage to these ships.  These ships are so tanky now with the thickness stacking, that so many of our shots just bounce off.  And lastly, the Victory could use a small HP buff to give it some redeeming quality over the Santisima and L'Ocean.   

I know that balancing ships is difficult and will become more difficult when more ships are released and put into the game, but there is blatant power creep when newly released ships are superior in almost every aspect to their counterparts.  

Edited January 9, 2017 by Yar Matey

[_Masterviolin]

I am in total agreement. In addition to the above stated points, the fact that everyone just got two very heavy frigates has virtually nullified just about every frigate out there spare for the Master and Commander ships (Surprise and Ren). The "18pdr" ships are useless with these new 24-pdr frigates. The insane speed of the Endymion also means it renders the light frigates completely null and void as commerce raiders; Endy is just as fast, but ridiculously armed. Ren could be slightly faster, but it is far lighter and inferior in every aspect spare for tun rate. 

I think Connie shouldn't get turn rate buff; historically, the ship relied upon its extraordinary speed, armor and armament to overwhelm other frigates. I think that said factors- build strength, speed and armor should be tuned up instead of turn rate. Though the Connie is already a very beefy ship, it would fit her historical persona.

Inger went from being the favorite 4th rate to a virtually useless ship as its armor is way too light for port battles. Wappen outlcasses the Inger in just about every quality- and look, now everyone has one. I just watched a Wappen demolish an AI Endymion without taking virtually no damage in a broadside-broadside engagement.

All the ships should be craftable after the next wipe. The fact that Aggie can only be obtained via a very rare blueprint drop really does make 4th rate portbattles very uneven and difficult to compete with. 

 

 

[Yar Matey]

10 minutes ago, _Masterviolin said:

All the ships should be craftable after the next wipe. The fact that Aggie can only be obtained via a very rare blueprint drop really does make 4th rate portbattles very uneven and difficult to compete with. 

I dont mind ships being rare and hard to get.  I mind rare ships that are strictly better than other ships, thus giving the person or people that can craft them a huge advantage over others who cannot.  The Santa Cecilia is a perfectly balanced ship and is rare.  The L'Ocean is rare but is in line with the Victory and Santi, maybe slightly more powerful, but not as blatantly bad as the Rattlesnake Heavy and the Agamemnon.  

[SirSamuelHood]

I, too, would like to see a greater assortment of ships in battles, rather than them just being dominated by one ship vastly superior to everything else in its class. 

[dagdriver]

I have been wondering about this too.

There are definately a thing with "latest fashion" ships.

I would like to see more diversity as well, with every ship in game having a purpose.

You hardly ever see a player "Belle Poule", "Bellona" or "Snow" anymore.

And come to think of it, I cannot recall ever seeing a player controlled brig or Navybrig.

 

[BungeeLemming]

Yes the powercreep is real.

No the Wapen does not outperform Ingermanland - who said that? ever? They are situational: wapen is the better brawl machine, Ingermanland will rip you apart from mid to long ranges. Tis is actually a very good example of vessels which strangely appear kinda fitting in their role. Theoretically at least.

Agamemnon needs a armor nerf. Badly. She has the greatest spike potential with the 13x 24s and 18s above. But why she also has such insane armor is bejond me. No we cannot know historical real armor values. Thats the greatest point of attack for ingame balancing. That and sailing capabilities.

Ingermanland needs her 18s removed and should gain something different like armor or whatever. Wapen is totally off the charts ingame. she needs 24s/ 12s/ 6s/6s as guns. Why she got the ingame armament? because of the current state of the game. powercreep.

But if that vicious cycle isnt broken at some point there is no reason to ever talk about historically performing vessels (in regards to armament at least) Not only a few ship but a lot vessels need serious rebalancing.

 

Shall I scare you? What if the Wasa gets ingame as a 4th rate? (62 gunner: 32s* on the main and 24s on the mid gundeck - 13 each) She is reported to have exellent sailing capabilities. That vessel might very well be the pinnacle of ingame 4th rates if done extreme. (* 32pd cause inRL she had swedish 36s which are about 33,x british pd)

[God Emperor Trump / Alan]

I've tried to get devs attention before about this issue, but no success.

 

What I'd like to see is a change to how blueprint system works, ships will be assorted by rarity and quality.

For example, really good ships such as the heavy rattle and agamemnon, should be rare and expensive, if you think about EvE Online, they would be sort of like T2 ships.

Here is what I propose:

 

• Blueprints are 1 time use for all ships
• Blueprints are acquired through PVE and PVP, random drop
• Different blueprints have different drop rates, frigates = common, trincomalee = rare, Agamemnon = very rare, etc

Of course this is a very rough draft, but something like this and more fleshed out is what I think would work well

This way we would see an end to PB where there is only Heavy Rattles and Agamemnon being used, and people would use what they can actually get their hands on. It would also add a sense of value to ships, because right now they are cranked out as if it was a factory.

Also multi dura ships need to go, devs should make upgrades easier to craft and acquire instead.

[BungeeLemming]

Well.. economical balances surely have to be a thing. But eventually players will figure out how to mass produce even the biggest/ most powerful ships ingame.

POTBS for example: it was a massive effort to produce 2nd to 1st rates. However societies which were into RVR (PBs and such) simply distributed their economy to every player. Player one only produces raw oak, the next does raw ores etc. A few shipbuilders would be able to klick big ships as soon as the labour was ready.

It became an arms race. Once a nation was suffering in their economy and could not refill their lost 1st rates in PBs a domino effect would dry out one nation's fleet.

I beliefe this can be done in Naval Action just as effective.

 

What I imagiine of a good balanced ship lineup is vessels which are better at certain aspects. Ship A having better sailing capabilities than ship B. Which is already done. In return ship B will have better armor or greater armament. Just for a simple example. Take the inger vs Aggy: inger could be the long range vessel, Aggy more the medium range. Fiddling around in PB to get the correct range would be the aim for a PB commander.

[BungeeLemming]

See.. Theoretically the Inger already is more of a long range type. 32s on the main gundeck is immense for a 4th rate. But the Aggy is just plain better in DPS and armor.

If they reduced the Aggys armor thickness we would see a more dedicated brawler against the inger. Inger would be able to rip holes at longer range, aggy could start working the inger over once at ideal range. The issue is simply imbalance. Its pathetic to have a ship objectively better than the other. In every aspect mind you (but a few I guess but if a vessel is 80% better than the other (in the key features) - why ever bother taking the minor vessel)

Also when talking about long ranges the game is blurry. I dont expect huge dmge at 1km. I however expect the game to have sweetspots for certain fighting styles.

We actually had that bevore the dmge model upgrade.

[SirSamuelHood]

3 hours ago, BungeeLemming said:

Agamemnon needs a armor nerf

The devs erred here. Agamemnon is a 64 gun ship, which by British standards is a third rate. Rating her as a 4th and making her historically accurate just makes every other 4th rate inadequate by comparison. 

[akd]

8 minutes ago, SirSamuelHood said:

The devs erred here. Agamemnon is a 64 gun ship, which by British standards is a third rate. Rating her as a 4th and making her historically accurate just makes every other 4th rate inadequate by comparison. 

But she isn't historically accurate.  There is no historical reason for her hull or masts to be thicker than Constitution's, and it is on its face absurd that her hull thickness varies from Indefatigible since it is literally the same hull.

 

[SirSamuelHood]

3 minutes ago, akd said:

But she isn't historically accurate.  There is no historical reason for her hull or masts to be thicker than Constitution's, and it is on its face absurd that her hull thickness varies from Indefatigible since it is literally the same hull.

 

Exactly. If making her historically accurate would have her outshoot, outgun, outmaneuver, outtank or perform all four against a 4th rate, then the monster in-game is far too powerful. 

Edited January 9, 2017 by SirSamuelHood

[Prater]

None of this has to do with historical values but the tier system we have.  If we had historical values, a lot of the ships would be closer in line with each other and we wouldn't have this problem.  The tier system says we need different tiers.  Tiers at higher levels must have better stats.  Therefore, all 4ths rate pbs will mostly be agis.  All shallow pbs will mostly be HRs.  All because of tiers.

Another issue is one that I know I have suffered from myself in the past.  When creating newer things that we have spent a lot of hard work on, because of the time we have spent on them and the dedication they have required, must be better than the previous stuff we have done because it is so shiny and new and we want to use it.

Edited January 9, 2017 by Prater

[maturin]

Quote

But the Constitutions turn rate should be better, much better, than the Agamemnon and the Inger.  It is a frigate built to 4th rate standards. 

Calling it a frigate doesn't make it turn like a frigate.

Why should a longer ship with similar draft and beam turn faster?

 

[akd]

9 minutes ago, Hodo said:

I agree the Agamemnon makes no sense in its armor thickness vs the Indi, seeing as they are the same hull.  

But the Constitutions turn rate should be better, much better, than the Agamemnon and the Inger.  It is a frigate built to 4th rate standards.  

As Maturin points out, not at all.  

9 minutes ago, Hodo said:

Hell lets look at the Ballona vs the 3rd rate (74).  The 3rd rate 74 should be an exact copy of the Ballona as the British 74 was modeled off of the captured Ballona.   But the Ballona is FAR better than the 74, for no other reason than the devs like it more.

The generic 74 is just the older 3D model of the Bellona (her stern and skin were reworked for current model) serving as a bridge between 4th rates and Bellona, carrying the armament of a "worn-out" 74 or the many 74s in various navies that carried 24s instead of 32s.  Arguably, with Agamemnon in game, it no longer has much purpose.  It would serve zero purpose in game if identical to Bellona.

[Prater]

Well, besides a different reskin.  But I think the 74 has purpose.  Lighter guns means it can carry less crew.  It is slightly cheaper.  It used to take longer to learn the BP and so had more purpose previously.

[maturin]

Quote

Sail plan, rudder position, mass. 

The sailplan and rudder position are essentially the same. And Constitution weighs more than Agamemnon (a 3rd Rate). So, same question.

[Blackjack Morgan]

What I'd like to know is why does the Constitution suffer from 103 thickness masts while all the other 4th rates are sitting at 111? A trinc  has a higher mast thickness at 108 even. I do not have the mast hp numbers in front of me but I'm pretty sure it has unusually lower mast hp's as well. Then we have the whole issue of virtually flat hull sides modeled on it in game which seem to be quite different from pictures I've seen of it. This might be only my opinion but it seems like this ship needs a definite review. 

[Snoopy]

Yeah Connie is in a terrible state right now. It needs more armor, hp, mast thickness, and if those things are in place and done generously maybe a turn rate nerf.

The Constitution is such a heavy ship that it doesn't make any sense for her to have thinner armor than her peers. It is so big in fact that her spar deck guns sit higher(!) than the aftercastle(!) arrangement on the Ingermanland and the 24pd main battery is at the level of the Inger's 18s for crying out loud.

When 42pdr nades were competitive the Connie was competitive in PBs. This was when the Ingermanland was seen as the only viable option for PBs but back then she was just as good in the hands of a competent captain. She held an DPS advantage at close range due to the nades but was at a disadvantage at longer ranges. A similar balancing is needed now.