Buffs?

[Charles Caldwell]

Firstly I wish to state now that so far I applaud the outstanding efforts on the part of the devs in developing a game in such a neglected but inspirational period in history. Game Labs have shown that they have a willingness to break the mould of current games and more importantly listen to the very people that are going to buy and make this game a success, us, the gamers.

 

Recently the devs' announced another breakthrough which in my opinion will vastly improve large scale combats between players, the AI and Clans. Fleet actions sound a fantastic addition however.... and this has sent ripples across the water within my clan, and has shown signs of doing the same here in the official community, and thats the use of Buffs or in less respectful terms Magic! 

 

firing at a marked ship will increase your damage and accuracy if you are in range from the command ship.

 

 

For my part unless there is a real world explanation for buffs, why use them. GL bring so much real world physics to the game, and highlight it, why introduce Magic?

 

Naval Action has already introduced several important innovations and “firsts”:  wind backing force, proper tacking, cannonades, long guns, short guns, realistic ballistics, mortars, leaks and many other things that make our game one of the most advanced Naval Warfare games in the world.

 

 

There are of course the exceptions that could be used, morale for one... the sight of an inspirational Commander of course would have a real world effect, sailors fighting with renewed vigour, or suffering at his loss...however not too much I hope after all Nelson fell at Trafalgar but yet the British went on to Win (Not too devastating please GL)

 

Losing commanders in battle will be devastating. 

 

 

And of course there are technological buffs, due to advances that may give you the edge in sailing or battle...they all have a real world explanation.

 

My point is.... you have a unique and groundbreaking game here, one that offers something different, real world physics in a dynamic ever changing world setting, why introduce elements such as buffs (magic) that can only detract from actual player skill and player ability through hard won experience? Why should a deck full of buffs win over a player who has earnt his spurs through hard won playing? And why introduced elements that may discourage the very people you hope to attract unless of course buffs (magic) are only going to increase...and change the game forever.

 

I'm adding a poll to gauge the opinions of the community here..

 

Please those who wish buffs (magic) dont turn this into an argument, lets keep it constructive, its not about hardcore sim fans demanding the world again, its about making the skill of the captain win over a player stocked up on buffs (magic!)

[SerrialKiller]

Verry nice at least some have brains left. I totaly agree Charles buffs and other things cannot be explained love the post.

[Leviathan]

I pretty much agree. If it can't be explained or defended in the realm of reality I personally don't want to see it. As you mentioned morale might be a possibility in that regard.

 

I could see things like cannon reload and accuracy slightly improving over time due to a crew gaining experience (in real life they would become more efficient with practice) but I don't think accuracy should improve just because you are near someone.

 

I don't want to see garbage like in potbs where you can debuff someone to slow them down or decrease their accuracy. If you want to slow someone down use chain shot not fairy dust.

[Pryor]

Have to agree with the previous posters. I would not like to see Buffs, or if they are included they should be 'realistic'.

 

If not handled correctly the acquisition of Buffs can easily become the focus of players gameplay.

[D. Federico de Gravina y N]

i voted No

[nornica]

Yup. Voted no to fairy tales.

[Sir. Cunningham]

Why on earth would the damage of your shot suddenly increase by virtue of being close to a command ship ?! The damage a shot does is and should be directly related to its impact velocity, NOT wether you're close to a command ship or not! Same goes for accuracy, which should be entirely dependant on YOUR aim!

 

Please Game Labs, do NOT incorperate such ridiculous buffs!

 

Why anyone would vote yes for buffs such as these I will never understand...

 

I vote a big NO!

 

Geez... I even got a little angry reading that

[Sir. Cunningham]

I sincerely hope that the devs will listen to and follow the advice of the community on this one, and not thrumph through a magical mechanic such as this just because they thought it a smart little idea!

[Baggywrinkle]

The difficulty here is three-fold:

- there needs, I think it's agreed, to be an incentive for 'good' play

- PvP always exposes, capitalises and ultimately abuses any slight benefit or imbalance to seek gain.

- even historical upgrades and 'buffs', say flintlocks for example, fall into the above problem.

It is not inherently bad for a game to be about which buff/debuff button you click when. It is heartening to see, however, that such a version of NA is not one we're keen to play. For me anything that confers an extra advantage to experienced players (unlockable gun upgrades to keep the example) must actively detract from new or vanilla players' chances. This is not something I can get excited about.

Honestly, I liked the devs proposals...I just wish they hadn't told us, and were making a single player game to put such mechanics in! For multiplayer I'm not so sure...

Baggy

Ps. Voted no of course. I don't even care if the buffs are claimed to be historical. Let it be about player skill, and less us sort it out for ourselves.

[Sir. Cunningham]

I can live with realistic ship upgrades, such as gunlocks, copper plating etc (and actually encourage them), as these are things you will be able to earn up to quickly - that was my idea in regards to realistic gun battery upgrades anyhow, which I propose be purchasable for ingame credits, just as I suppose we'll have to pay for special purpose shot ingame as well.

 

But magic buffs is another matter entirely and would completely ruin the immersion for me and a lot of others.

[Baggywrinkle]

Hold the phone! Have I totally missed the point?! I really want to know about the intended context for fleet battles.

We're all getting upset because to us a battle is ship to ship, and we view the suggested benefits of following orders as fucking with that. What if the real battle is admiral (or squadron commander etc) to admiral, and these big fleet actions are more about proving strategic and situational ability rather than 'just' tactics and sailing ability? In which case I understand more the strong incentives for both players and NPCs to follow orders closely. I haven't convinced myself, and I still don't really agree, but it seems to make a little more sense in such a context. Dear devs, any official word?

Baggy

[nornica]

The biggest buff itself will be those map leader commands. With a good leader even medicore players can make a hell difference in a battle. Look at PB in Potb, eveyone who played saw at least once the battles that have been won by smaller group of players, thanks to good tactics, coordination and stuff.

As for normal buffs? I would try to go in the other way.. No buffs, but weaknesses.

It's only example: no rum in ship cargo = lower morale
Long time on sea without landing in port = slower ship cause nobody was cleaning the underside?
Few battles in a row = lower accuracy of the crew cause they are tired?

I dont know what it will be like with cargo itself, like food ratios etc. but it could be bought in ports, or other players, and the better food they buy the longer morale will stay on normal level before they ran out of the supplies.
And it would be a nice thing for merchant players, who would provide that stuff to nation ports to support they navy friends. And the navy players would have a pretty good reason to protect them from others.
Dunno, just first things that came to my head, just to get You idea what I was thinking of.
 

[Baggywrinkle]

I can live with realistic ship upgrades, such as gunlocks, copper plating etc (and actually encourage them), as these are things you will be able to earn up to quickly - that was my idea in regards to realistic gun battery upgrades anyhow, which I propose be purchasable for ingame credits, just as I suppose we'll have to pay for special purpose shot ingame as well.

Mhmm, I understand and really like that approach...but for a single player game (which I regularly find myself wishing it was). Otherwise everyone will buy such upgrades, it becomes the base line and so pointless. PotBS fittings anyone? Unless you've just started, can't afford or don't know about such upgrades, in which case you just get screwed. Which I think is a bit bollocks.

Baggy

[Edward Vernon]

Please nothing that smacks of or even hints of "magic".

 

However environmental factors providing a buff or nerf is fine IMO, so long as they are not "battle changing" e.g. reload time reduced by 50%.

 

Certainly the ship that practices gunnery more, whose captain buys high quality black powder from his own pocket and higher quality, i.e. rounder, smoother shot, would almost certainly fire a bit quicker and a bit more accurately with maybe a margin of as much as 10% (?). A ship that has seen more action would probably be more effective in battle because of the mutual trust of the crew and in their officers, because of the "practice" they have had under fire. This I know to be true from my own experience. In what we would call a "well worked-up" ship I would pretty much guarantee to come out on top of an identical ship with a new crew.

 

There have been other similarly reasonable suggestions above, a ship not having been in port for several weeks will almost certainly have a general nerf from the reduced amount and quality of rations they are able to have, for example.

 

Anyway that's my two pennorth.

[Freebooter]

Please do not introduce "buffs" nor any of the other stuff that departs from realism.

I would urge the Devs to be mindful of the Law of Unintended Consequences, and bear in mind that in tinkering and adding strange features or mechanisms there will surely be unexpected and often undesirable effects.  Over the course of the game the Devs would then spend a great deal of time making tweaks and changes to sort out the problems caused by fiddling with things in the first place.  This would naturally affect the realism within the game with a consequent loss of authenticity and enjoyment.  People will then "play the rules" rather than "play the game/simulation/adventure", which is less satisfying over all and will lead players to become disillusioned.

To stand out from its competitors (and there are plenty of other ways people can spend their free time) this game should have integrity.  That way I would expect it to have many loyal supporters.
 

[Sir. Cunningham]

Mhmm, I understand and really like that approach...but for a single player game (which I regularly find myself wishing it was). Otherwise everyone will buy such upgrades, it becomes the base line and so pointless. PotBS fittings anyone? Unless you've just started, can't afford or don't know about such upgrades, in which case you just get screwed. Which I think is a bit bollocks.

Baggy

 

Baggy I know exactly where you're coming from, I played POTBS for two years myself and I hated the excessive amount of upgrades in that game as well. Please don't mistake my humble suggestion for anything of that sort however , my suggestion is a lot more simple and by comparison extremely limited in the sense that there wouldn't be a great many upgrades and any that there are will be 100% realistic.

 

So far we're talking about 3-4 possible upgrades to the gun battery, whilst it has already been confirmed that you can customize your ship's load out in terms of gun poundage/size and variant (long gun or carronade). It's all really very limited and most importantly realistic.

[Sir. Cunningham]

Please do not introduce "buffs" nor any of the other stuff that departs from realism.

I would urge the Devs to be mindful of the Law of Unintended Consequences, and bear in mind that in tinkering and adding strange features or mechanisms there will surely be unexpected and often undesirable effects.  Over the course of the game the Devs would then spend a great deal of time making tweaks and changes to sort out the problems caused by fiddling with things in the first place.  This would naturally affect the realism within the game with a consequent loss of authenticity and enjoyment.  People will then "play the rules" rather than "play the game/simulation/adventure", which is less satisfying over all and will lead players to become disillusioned.

To stand out from its competitors (and there are plenty of other ways people can spend their free time) this game should have integrity.  That way I would expect it to have many loyal supporters.

 

 

I agree completely.

 

As I said in another thread: 

 

The mere action of marking a target for others too see and concentrate on is enough of an advantage in itself, there doesn't need to be some sudden magical increase in your accuracy, or even more ridiculous an increase in the damage your guns do! 

 

Such magical buffs would totally break the immersion and kill the enjoyment of fleet battles for me, and to be honest I then wouldn't want to participate.

[Charles Caldwell]

I would urge the Devs to be mindful of the Law of Unintended Consequences, and bear in mind that in tinkering and adding strange features or mechanisms there will surely be unexpected and often undesirable effects.  

 

I think your 'unexpected or unintended consequences' could easily apply to the tinkering with the role of Admiral in a large scale engagement...

 

It has already been suggested that the Admiral in this battle would give numerous buff's not only in morale but accuracy and speed. Its also been highlighted that Admirals will be invaluable, with their loss, according to GL being 'devastating'....

 

So in effect, a battle of two fleets battling it out for supremacy using skill and seamanship, turns quickly into a RUSH to kill the Admirals ship and thus crippling the enemy before the fight even starts. Of course the lose of a flagship would be devastating, that could easily be reflected in a temporary morale drop, but it would be and was overcome by discipline, training and an effective command structure....

 

Magic buffs are a can of worms, requiring constant tweaks, counter buffs, balancers. The list just goes on, and before you know it.... you've got a screen full of coloured icons glowing with timers ticking away.

[Sir. Cunningham]

I completely agree Charles.

 

When I first read about these magical "bonuses" today it made me feel sick to my stomach, then angry, and now desperate. Goddamnit, the devs have got to realize this is NOT the way to go!

[Hyperion74]

I agree with everyone else here. No magic tricks. If a shot hits the rudder then you have no rudder. First the shot needs to hit the rudder. Good shooting, no clicky. About the only thing non psyical that should factor in to this ia a luck factor. Luck is real bit unfortunately I have none so go figgure. Magic should only be instituted in a fantasy game like Skyrim.

[Baggywrinkle]

Congrats on overwhelming agreement gents, long may it last!

[Hawke]

I agree, no magic buffs or fairy dust. The system we have now works fairly well, with crew focus on different aspects (sailing, gunnery etc) And this is the way it should stay. As has been suggested perhaps as your crew is trained, or if you are active in battle you get a slight experience bonus. 

 

As for ship upgrades like coppering or flints on the guns, that's a whole other issue in my opinion, one tied in with economy and Naval Yards, and how all those systems will work. 

[Baggywrinkle]

Do our crew need experience buffs? We, the player, are the crew and through experience we will get better...is anything more required?

I love the attachment improvement-over-time gives a player to their aavatars (eg. XCOM perhaps most famously/recently)...but I'm not so sure about it here.

Baggy

[Chilly Willy]

 

I don't want to see garbage like in potbs where you can debuff someone to slow them down or decrease their accuracy. If you want to slow someone down use chain shot not fairy dust.

Wouldn't STAR Shot be closer to Fairy Dust :/

[Johny Reb]

Do our crew need experience buffs? We, the player, are the crew and through experience we will get better...is anything more required?

I love the attachment improvement-over-time gives a player to their aavatars (eg. XCOM perhaps most famously/recently)...but I'm not so sure about it here.

Baggy

not buffs per se but progression yes. Nothing that would debuff the other player. Progression crew skills could aid in morale, reload, accuracy, repairs and intuition(recognition skill)