Hotfix 5 for testbed patch 9.99

[JobaSet]

So remove 2 woods to add how many more.  I not sure I like this, and will hold of from getting on test for a bit....  What it looks like to me is Fine woods 2.2 and the 1st ver made me quit 1 week into it and didn't come back for a while.   Looks like you making it hard to pvp "again" and someone that pvp's a lot.  I will lose ships daily already making 1dura ships with 5 dura resources "IS" fine woods 2.0 and will take its toll fast on live server...Making us have to get permits to build anything/everything was ver 2.1..Now this"again".  To much work to get back into Ships, for what I am here to do PVP. I will be back after next hot fix. if it looks better.  

The grind for upgrades I can live with once you have done the work you got it.  This shit is over the top way to much work for PVP because you always have to do it over and over and over and over.   NO ONE IS GOING TO PVP AFTER A WEEK JUST LIKE LAST TIME.

Edited May 4, 2017 by JobaSet

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

7 minutes ago, Jean Pual Vilvenue said:

Delete my comment because you devs are too lazy to optimize the game ? Is this the case ? Because I am highly offended by your silencing tactics... 

Not related to the Hotfix 5 discussion. I am sure optimization was already pointed that will be down the roadmap. We players all expect it to happen. Some have already a FPS increase in testbed when compared to live servers in equal circumstances.

Any further posts that do not comply, can be and surely will be removed.

13. Off-topic posting is prohibited.

Off-topic posting is permitted within reason. Deliberate attempts to derail a discussion may result in deletion of comments.

[Jean Pual Vilvenue]

Just now, The Red Duke said:

Not related to the Hotfix 5 discussion. I am sure optimization was already pointed that will be down the roadmap. We players all expect it to happen. Some have already a FPS increase in testbed when compared to live servers in equal circumstances.

Any further posts that do not comply can and surely will be removed.

13. Off-topic posting is prohibited.

Off-topic posting is permitted within reason. Deliberate attempts to derail a discussion may result in deletion of comments.

Ok appreciate the clarification

[VirtuallyIdiotic]

5 hours ago, admin said:

Hello Captains.

Hotfix is being deployed to test bed

Rumors

Rumors of National government takeovers of special woods production started circulating in the Caribbean trading circles including live oak and some other trims. Some captains with the connections to the West Indies company and Casa de Contratacion reported that several new woods are being research for use in the ship building. Use of new woods in planking and frame construction is also being considered. Shipyard masters are hesitant to allow making ships with old trims until more information is unveiled . (details)

Fixes

• Important: It now takes some time to destroy stacks of resources in your cargo (current time is 10 sec per stack - it will be increased in the next patch)
• Important: Cargo will now affect speed in the open world (properly) - bugs causing slowdowns eliminated. 
• Alliances tab disabled temporarily until alliance rework
• Victorious port battle defenders now properly receive conquest marks. To receive conquest marks you have to damage any enemy ship (any ship even one ship) above a certain threshold. Empty port battles will not give conquest marks. Conquest mark distribution. 3 for lineship ports, 2 for frigate ports, 1 for shallow ports.
• Several instance crashes bugs fixed
• Repair cool down increased from 10 mins to 15 mins
• Minimal crew requirement lowered on all traders
• Several minor bugs fixed

Quite pleased with this hotfix. Especially changes to crafting and distribution of woods, miminum crews for trade ships, reduced speeds do to cargo weight, and increase cool down for repairs.

[Bach]

3 hours ago, JobaSet said:

So remove 2 woods to add how many more.  I not sure I like this, and will hold of from getting on test for a bit....  What it looks like to me is Fine woods 2.2 and the 1st ver made me quit 1 week into it and didn't come back for a while.   Looks like you making it hard to pvp "again" and someone that pvp's a lot.  I will lose ships daily already making 1dura ships with 5 dura resources "IS" fine woods 2.0 and will take its toll fast on live server...Making us have to get permits to build anything/everything was ver 2.1..Now this"again".  To much work to get back into Ships, for what I am here to do PVP. I will be back after next hot fix. if it looks better.  

The grind for upgrades I can live with once you have done the work you got it.  This shit is over the top way to much work for PVP because you always have to do it over and over and over and over.   NO ONE IS GOING TO PVP AFTER A WEEK JUST LIKE LAST TIME.

This new wood change I have not tested yet. I have my own reservations on some parts of it but we will see in the testing.

Im not sure if you are on the test bed or not. But as to PvP ship availability I'm finding that we should be just fine.  The production of buildings was increased and labor for component constructions were decreased. So though the BP requirements stayed the same the raw mats and time available were increased.

Permits only effect ships larger than Tricomelee. The new system has geared to 5th rates being the most efficient and practical OW ships. I have found I can build x2 non-elite 5ths per day. More if I gain access to labor contracts.  Building an elite 5th or 4th per day is also achievable but you will need x15-25 PvP marks.  The days of running around in disposable Line ships are over.

Player built cannons are far far cheaper than npc mediums.

if you join a nation that uses Econ hubs your ability to build ships faster is increased. If you plan to solo build everything and play inside your nation like a hermit then yes you are screwed. The game just got a lot slower and labor intensive for the non-team players. So join a team and you will still PvP all you want.

Plenty of us will be pvp'n after week one. But we will have had to plan ahead to do so.

Edited May 4, 2017 by Bach

[Kiithnaras]

O_O...alliance rework? *gets excited, see politics revision in sig for hopes/dreams*

[VirtuallyIdiotic]

14 minutes ago, Kiithnaras said:

O_O...alliance rework? *gets excited, see politics revision in sig for hopes/dreams*

If they do anything I do want to see a distinction between neutral and enemy. In the current form they are the same thing. 

[DeRuyter]

Nice hotfix - I like the reduction in minimum crew for traders. 14 minimum crew for a Trader Lynx was too high, frankly IRL 5 experienced crew could sail that ship.

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

IIRC the present Captain of the Lynx says 9 including the Captain but definitely 5 sun scorched hardy marines might.

Waiting to see some posts with tests of tonnage of cargo  / OW speeds / Instance speeds in the light of the changes  

 

 

[maturin]

Well with 9 crew she's supposed to be safe to operate. With less crew things just get slower and slower, which means you take a risk or carry sail very conservatively in changeable conditions.

[Stilgar]

8 hours ago, admin said:

• Victorious port battle defenders now properly receive conquest marks. To receive conquest marks you have to damage any enemy ship (any ship even one ship) above a certain threshold. Empty port battles will not give conquest marks.

Finally! Fighting and not just show-up should be rewarded.

Edited May 4, 2017 by Stilgar

[shaeberle84]

8 hours ago, admin said:

Rumors of National government takeovers of special woods production started circulating in the Caribbean trading circles including live oak and some other trims. Some captains with the connections to the West Indies company and Casa de Contratacion reported that several new woods are being research for use in the ship building. Use of new woods in planking and frame construction is also being considered. Shipyard masters are hesitant to allow making ships with old trims until more information is unveiled . (details)

Please devs make up your mind. Player-driven economy or not. But having the bad sides from both options is the worst you can come up with.

Elaboration:

NPC production is (at least at the moment) not capable of reacting to population growth and supply and demand. NPC prices are fixed. People with lots of time and lots of alts will camp NPC production and then control the market. As prices increase, only the wealthy can buy the best ships. NPC production will be limited and results in a shortfall of ships.

In contrast:

NPC production can work for the cheap and day-to-day ressources like coal, iron etc.

[William Death]

8 hours ago, admin said:

• Important: It now takes some time to destroy stacks of resources in your cargo (current time is 10 sec per stack - it will be increased in the next patch)
• Important: Cargo will now affect speed in the open world (properly) - bugs causing slowdowns eliminated. 
• Alliances tab disabled temporarily until alliance rework
• Victorious port battle defenders now properly receive conquest marks. To receive conquest marks you have to damage any enemy ship (any ship even one ship) above a certain threshold. Empty port battles will not give conquest marks. Conquest mark distribution. 3 for lineship ports, 2 for frigate ports, 1 for shallow ports.
• Several instance crashes bugs fixed
• Repair cool down increased from 10 mins to 15 mins
• Minimal crew requirement lowered on all traders
• Several minor bugs fixed

This all sounds good (all except the woods which sound an awful lot like fine woods 2.0, but I'll test before I commit to that feeling) but I am worried about the port battle marks distribution system.

First, an aside: to capture a port, is it the old system where each port is independent? Or are regions and regional capitals still a thing (like on main servers, you capture regions, not ports)? I hope it is individual ports that you capture, using the old flag system where you can buy a flag and take the port as soon as you plant it. If the port is important to the enemy, they will have ships stationed within defending distance of it. 

Now consider this example of what would happen with the current system where non-defended ports give no conquest marks:

U.S. attacks Remedios, Spanish players look at the time of the port battle and conclude that they will most likely not be able to mount a proper defense fleet. They attempt to screen the US outside the PB in a last-ditch effort to hold the port. Spain realizes that the US fleet that remains after screening is still to large to face in the port battle, so the Spanish decide not to even enter the PB, thus denying the enemy any marks from the PB (and in the process, limiting the enemy's supply of lineships that require conquest marks to build). Seems like a possible exploit/abuse of mechanics to me.

I would therefore suggest that, if the enemy does not show up, not only is the port the reward, but the attackers also each receive 1 conquest mark. Furthermore, I would propose that the region that the port is in becomes a "conquest region" from the time the flag is bought until it expires or the PB is over. Any PvP that occurs in the region is "conquest PvP" and rewards conquest marks instead of PvP marks. This makes screening and all the other PvP that occurs in the PB vicinity very rewarding, encouraging screeners to do more than simply kite sails at range.  Maybe some tweaking would be needed to prevent exploits and such, but I think it could work.

[Duncan McFail]

Ok, so I can't build any ships because they require new planks and the woods aren't even in yet. Unless I want to do crew space. Wouldn't it have made more sense to have this all rolled out at once or are you guys trying to anger us?

[Sir Texas Sir]

12 minutes ago, shaeberle84 said:

NPC production can work for the cheap and day-to-day ressources like coal, iron etc.

I all ways thought a little bit of resources seeded in ports like that was a good thing so that the little guy that might just need 10 extra iron pieces to make something can get a few from the shop.  I also think when this goes live they devs should seed the shops with some resources to start things out.  Remember we are on a test bed with like 30-90 players now make that 300-900 players and there won't be anythign in the shops in seconds.

11 minutes ago, Willis PVP2 said:

blah blah blah

Isn't that like just giving a trophy for not scoring?  Might as well give every one a conquest point than that show up and than the winner gets the extra on a win.   Your reward is the port/region and it's resources if no one shows up for the fight.   Though I kinda understand the meaning.  That is why I said give every one the 1 conquest for showing and than give the winners the extra points depending on the type.  Though the only if you do damage thing might hurt some folks.  Like if you send team 1 over to circle B and no one comes to take it, but they defend it the whole game without firing a shot, they still did work.   So they need some type of reward.  Are we still getting the ship and paint reward for winning battles too?   Are is the conquest points the only reward now?

3 minutes ago, Duncan McFail said:

Ok, so I can't build any ships because they require new planks and the woods aren't even in yet. Unless I want to do crew space. Wouldn't it have made more sense to have this all rolled out at once or are you guys trying to anger us?

You would think so?   Well guess we will have to wait for another week for them to get the rest of the stuff not put into the game. on testbed for us.

[Sir Texas Sir]

1 minute ago, Intrepido said:

A big no for the old flag system to conquer ports.

Due to the lack of warning before launching an attack and the fact that the defenders have to sail there, we should have the current hostility mechanic (with improvements to make it more fun) which will allow both sides to fill the PB. 

A PB full, lots of marks for everyone. People happy because they had both the chance to fight and the rewards for it.

Flag system would make a great 12 vs 12 raid system on ports while we still have the current conqest system and a good raid can bring big agro on a region.   

[William Death]

9 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

lack of warning before launching an attack and the fact that the defenders have to sail there

If the defenders care about the port, or the area the port is in, then they should have outposts there and it will be no problem for them to simply go to one of their national outposts and hit the TP button to take them there. If they truly care about the region, they will have a ship stationed in an outpost there, ready to fight. Flag system allows for a nation to attack when it has the fleet ready to go. If the nation that is being attacked can't mount a defense for the area, then maybe they shouldn't have been spread out so much. From the time a nation buys a flag, till the time the flag is planted should be plenty of time to hit the TP button and get to the fight. The hostility grind and 2 day wait for a PB is annoying and very boring. Defenders should not get a 2 day heads up before getting attacked. The warning for them would be seeing the enemy fleet sailing over the horizon and getting the message about the flag being bought.

As to @Sir Texas Sir's suggestion for the 1 conquest mark for showing and more for fighting, that should work I would think.

[Ned Low]

Now that's what I am talking about. Great work! Keep it up! 

I like how nice and clean every wood type is explained, we need more of this for everything in this game. 

Edited May 4, 2017 by Ned Low

[Sir Texas Sir]

15 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

I think you still dont realize that we arent going to have all our outposts filled with PB fleets. Have you seen the requirements for crafting an agamenon or a bellona? How many PB ships do you think a nation with an average playerbase is going to have? Let me answer: if lucky, one at a time.

And lets not even think of the cost to add ship dock space.  I have only expanded one chars docks space twice and stopped.  It's going to be killed.  What is it like 26 miillion for the second to last unlock.  I remember it about killed me to pay 1 million to get my 8th out post.  Yah I can prob make that pretty fast, but I"m not a new player.   I know what things I can tweek and get away with.  Oh and La Tort has been locked out of being able to sale pirate goods to it for a good while now.  So can't even make money doing trade runs.  This is only 40-90 players.  What will it be like with 400-900 players?

[Jarlath Morrow]

17 minutes ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

And lets not even think of the cost to add ship dock space.  I have only expanded one chars docks space twice and stopped.  It's going to be killed.  What is it like 26 miillion for the second to last unlock.  I remember it about killed me to pay 1 million to get my 8th out post.  Yah I can prob make that pretty fast, but I"m not a new player.   I know what things I can tweek and get away with.  Oh and La Tort has been locked out of being able to sale pirate goods to it for a good while now.  So can't even make money doing trade runs.  This is only 40-90 players.  What will it be like with 400-900 players?

I like the idea of the limited dock space. I think it is an idea that has good potential, but it might be too limited right now.

It costs 250k to expand to have 8 ships, right? 8 dura of ships for fighting, crafting, and trading isn't a whole lot. In the old system (assuming you owned 4th and 5th rates), we used to have dozens of dura in our outposts - way too much in my opinion.

But 5 or 8 ships is feeling a little bit too restricted. And like Texas and others keep pointing out, we are the ones who have a good idea of how to make money - a new player who freshly installs the game will find these hurdles much bigger.

Edited to add post by Intrepido:

6 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

The current prices for adding slots is just insane. Insane costs for the storage of ONE dura ships, I would understand higher prices for multiple dura ships but one dura? I really dont see the logic behind there.

Combine this with a slower and harder crafting and economy, and you have the ingredients for a Fine woods patch 2.0.

Yeah, the change to 1 dura was a big change. Fresh character used to have 5 port slots + five fleet slots right? I think there is a good argument for opening up more slots and/or lowering the prices for the slots.

Cheers.

Edited May 4, 2017 by Jarlath Morrow
Added post by intrepido + reply

[victor]

3 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

The current prices for adding slots is just insane. Insane costs for the storage of ONE dura ships, I would understand higher prices for multiple dura ships but one dura? I really dont see the logic behind there.

Combine this with a slower and harder crafting and economy, and you have the ingredients for a Fine woods patch 2.0.

So it seems.

It seems also that the Devs think that just making the same old things insanely difficult to acheive will magically make naval action a blockbuster that will attract new players and will induce the old ones to come back.

It seems also that the Devs think that making crafting, trading and pve a boring, slow paced and less rewarding activity will induce people to flood the OS in search of PVP

Well, let's say that ... I hope that Devs are right. 

[Sir Texas Sir]

8 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

The current prices for adding slots is just insane. Insane costs for the storage of ONE dura ships, I would understand higher prices for multiple dura ships but one dura? I really dont see the logic behind there.

Combine this with a slower and harder crafting and economy, and you have the ingredients for a Fine woods patch 2.0.

I mean if they gave us all the crafting stuff finsihed at once than we might understand it better, but right now what I'm seeing and hearing is it really is looking like the game is slowly turning into Fine Woods 2.0.

 

Don't get me wrong I love the wood trim concept and it's going to make making ships interesting and slightly different than one another.  As my example on the other thread my Mohog Oak Plan,king ship is faster and turns better than my Mahog Speed I built last week.  Though it has less armor and HP.    My only issue is the means to get these resources. If they did an awsome job of spreading all these resources out so that players can have multi combos, but maybe not all the wood types than that would work out great and if they don't have to fight over folks that are on 24/7 with  endless money snagging up all the resources than I won't have a problem with it.  But shouldn't I be able to produce it myself?   So i can make some of that profit too if I want to on the side?

Here is a concept one building call Lumber Mill.  You can use it to produce wood that that port produces no matter if it's teak, oak, fir, etc as long as that port produces it.  Than you pick according to your labor hours what you want to produce that time out of that port.   So if I want to produce a bunch of Teak logs one day and than I can make a bunch of fir logs the next day.  As long as that port produces that wood.

[Sir Texas Sir]

Something like this

 

Lumber Camp - Produce any wood of that port that it produces at the camp depending on labor hours.

Mining Camp - Produce any metal ore at that port that it produces depending on your labor hours.

Farm - Produces any Cotton, Hemp, Sugar, Tobacco (do we still need that?) at a port that produces that them.

Shipyard - We all can figure what these do, but would love to limit them to ships of only that port (shallow water ports only produce shallow ships so can only have a level 1.  Deep water can produce any Frigates and below.  The line ship ports (all capitals should be this) can produce every thing. 

Workshop - Make it for every thing that isn't a raw material you need a workshop in that port to convert it. 

 

You have 5 slots so you can actually produce more in more ports if you want by having only one building for more than one resource, but remember each resource is limited to your Labor Hours on how much it can be produced.  Have the buildings take mats to build and upgrade like the workshop and shipyard (though maybe a bit less as that is a lot of mats they took).   Shipyards and work shops can be put in any port you have an out post in (including freetowns). 

[Sir Texas Sir]

Just F11 on my char "Big Texas" a bug we found.   If you are looking at a ship and are in a ship, it counts the cargo as for that ship your looking at either in the shop or in your dock speed according to the cargo you have in the ship your currently sitting in.   So if I have a ship with cargo and I"m looking at a Frigate in the shop it told me the speed is 11.80.  But when I was in an empty ship it says 12.30 for it's base speed.

[Bach]

1 hour ago, Willis PVP2 said:

If the defenders care about the port, or the area the port is in, then they should have outposts there and it will be no problem for them to simply go to one of their national outposts and hit the TP button to take them there. If they truly care about the region, they will have a ship stationed in an outpost there, ready to fight. Flag system allows for a nation to attack when it has the fleet ready to go. If the nation that is being attacked can't mount a defense for the area, then maybe they shouldn't have been spread out so much. From the time a nation buys a flag, till the time the flag is planted should be plenty of time to hit the TP button and get to the fight. The hostility grind and 2 day wait for a PB is annoying and very boring. Defenders should not get a 2 day heads up before getting attacked. The warning for them would be seeing the enemy fleet sailing over the horizon and getting the message about the flag being bought.

As to @Sir Texas Sir's suggestion for the 1 conquest mark for showing and more for fighting, that should work I would think.

That quick reactionary response with prestaged ships just isn't practical no matter how much they care about a region.  Under the old system we had x10 outposts and each could dock x5 ships. So we could rock x50 ships spread out. Under the new patch you start with only x5 dock slots.  You can reasonably upgrade to 8 slots but after that it's very expensive.  So realistically in the new system players will have X1 Cargo hauler, x1 Line Ship & x1 4th Rate & x1 Shallow boat for PBs and x1 5th Rate for OW PvP. That's x5 ships right there. In there best case scenario they won't be able to pre-stock more than two outposts with ships.  Response times to port flip are now in hour and days. No more teleporting around to defend much beyond the capital and one war front.  

So under the Flag system, once we know where the enemy ships are at a small group of 2-3 players could buy a flag and pretty much flip any other lower priority ports undefended.  There just isn't anyway to respond other than dividing your team out amoung all your ports.  This then allows the aggressive enemy the option of overwhelming one area. Flags will just give way to much advantage to the attackers and generate a lot if empty port battles or conquest farms.

Edited May 4, 2017 by Bach