Please, Devs Listen To This, Your Success Depends On It

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

I agree. It should be a commission. But a commission you could keep for use in the royal navy. i.e. it stays in your stable but is only usable when playing for that navy.

If you capture an enemy nations first rate while in that navy it is also added to your stable of owned ships. But by owned I mean playable by the navy you are playing for.

 

I do not want to have my ships taken from my stable and this would enable me to keep them for use in the navy and still kit them out etc without fear of them being taken away.

 

Disagree on this.  If I capture an enemy ship as a Captain in a National Navy, it's not my ship - it's the Admiralty's.  If the ship is salvageable, the Admiralty may choose to bring it into the service, and I'll get some prize money for it, but it's not my ship.  I don't get to keep it.  If the Admiralty doesn't bring it into the service (let's say instead of a First Rate, it's a sloop), I might choose to purchase it out of pocket for the prize price (if you wanted to stay true to history here, you could put it on the Auction Block for that nation's members to bid upon it), but I wouldn't see this happening much with Rates.

[Don Alvarez]

Disagree on this.  If I capture an enemy ship as a Captain in a National Navy, it's not my ship - it's the Admiralty's.  If the ship is salvageable, the Admiralty may choose to bring it into the service, and I'll get some prize money for it, but it's not my ship.  I don't get to keep it.  If the Admiralty doesn't bring it into the service (let's say instead of a First Rate, it's a sloop), I might choose to purchase it out of pocket for the prize price (if you wanted to stay true to history here, you could put it on the Auction Block for that nation's members to bid upon it), but I wouldn't see this happening much with Rates.

 

There are good ideas here. Personally I like the idea of Lineships belonging to a national navy. I started my thread about it over in the suggestions forum HERE

[RAMJB]

However, for the sake of being objective I must interject that if Player A, who doesn't know a jib boom from a spanker, pays x amount of dollars for a game, and Player B, who is Black Sam incarnate, pays x amount of dollars for the same, they have the right to expect identical opportunity for access to all facets of that same game

 

Player A and PLayer B start out with exactly identical opportunity for access all facets of the game. If player A is a lazy-ass player who doesn't bother with learning the ropes of the game and player B puts time, interest and dedication to learn how to be succesfull at it, rewarding player A with the same rewards as players B just because both spent the same time in the game (one derping, other doing worthy stuff because he has learned how to be better) is, plainly stated, wrong mechanics at it's best.

 

That kind of thing may have a place in a cater-for-the-braindead F2P game where if you sink enough hours sucking at it you get a top tier piece of equipment anyway. But it has no place in a good game however. That you pay money doesn't mean the game must lob stuff at you even if you don't try. Reward skill and you'll have a skilled playerbase that will make the game immersive, challenging, entertaining and fun. Reward being braindead and you'll have a game full of derps with all the consequences.

 

I'll have the skilled version please

[Magnum]

Player A and PLayer B start out with exactly identical opportunity for access all facets of the game. If player A is a lazy-ass player who doesn't bother with learning the ropes of the game and player B puts time, interest and dedication to learn how to be succesfull at it, rewarding player A with the same rewards as players B just because both spent the same time in the game (one derping, other doing worthy stuff because he has learned how to be better) is, plainly stated, wrong mechanics at it's best.

 

That kind of thing may have a place in a cater-for-the-braindead F2P game where if you sink enough hours sucking at it you get a top tier piece of equipment anyway. But it has no place in a good game however. That you pay money doesn't mean the game must lob stuff at you even if you don't try. Reward skill and you'll have a skilled playerbase that will make the game immersive, challenging, entertaining and fun. Reward being braindead and you'll have a game full of derps with all the consequences.

 

I'll have the skilled version please

 

+1 = except there WERE bad Captains in the RN - not all were Lord Nelson!

 

I'm just an old lump of coal but I'll be a Frigate Captain soon!

[Magnum]

I'm sorry but no. A single guy who doesn't know how to tack against the wind with a Ship of the Line, nor knows how to handle his sails to properly keep stations with his fellow teammates compromises a whole battle. His lack of maneouvering skills will put a whole line of battle cohesion at risk. In this game a single bad player in a ship he should not be sailing based on his skill level can ruin a whole battle for the unlucky dozen players who are fighting alongside him, leading to the loss of massively expensive ships, ships that in an open world environment will be extremely hard to replace.

 

A single guy who has a big ship yet has no clue on how to use it shouldn't be using it. If I'm in a lumbering merchant and I contract a couple of escort ships I want them to be at least proficient. Because if they are not and we get attacked I'll be the one paying the biggest consequences of their lack of skill.

 

A guy who has not the skill required to use a ship shouldn't be using it in the open world. Endgame content will still be available in the TDM mode if they want to enjoy it. But giving ships to people who don't know how to use them in a sandbox game rebounds and has a notable effect on other players who are forced to put up with their derps and messups. And while I don't care about that in an one-off TDM game, I'm going to be bloody mad if that happens in the open sea, causing the loss of my ship because the guy sailing in front of me which I'm supposed to sail in formation with keeps on dropping his sails to fire constantly because he can't even aim his guns on the move, leading to me and whoever is trailing me in formation to lose cohesion with the ships he has in front, splitting our line in two and gifting the enemy with a crushing victory as a result, just because he doesn't know how to fight in his ship.

 

Sorry, but no deal. Not on this end at least.

 

 

 

on top of that a system that allows everyone to have the biggest ships in due time means a system that makes using small ships irrelevant, thus leading to the official extinction in-game of the historically most common ships in the sea, ruining the whole immersive experience for everyone. It's called power creep, and it's a sandbox game experience killer. POTBS was infested by it, and in that game 2/3 of the whole ship selection would never be seen in the open sea (when they should've been the most common) because everyone was in a lvl50 big ship. That must never happen here. Which instantly means that endgame ships must be very hard to achieve and command and be achievable only if you're skilled enough and make enough merits to do so.

 

As for players wanting endgame content to be happy and play a game, that's easy to refute as false. How many players have used anything bigger than a Battleship in EVE online?. How many players ever got a hand on a Titan in EVE online?. How many players play EVE online and is it a succesful game?.

 

Think of 1st rates as NA's Titans. A dozen of them at the most per faction. EVE's been years by now proving that having the biggest meanest fighting machines in the game being extremely limited in numbers has nothing to do with in-game player numbers. I don't see why it shouldn't be the case here aswell.

 

Since we now have a duel room - couldn't we have a "line of battle" room where say 20 guys who want to can go in and play with the big boys toys CAN - but they don't "have" to be in the open world do they - or do they?

[RAMJB]

Since we now have a duel room - couldn't we have a "line of battle" room where say 20 guys who want to can go in and play with the big boys toys CAN - but they don't "have" to be in the open world do they - or do they?

 

I'm guessing there'll be a training/sparring gamemode when open world is launched where you can sail whatever ships you want. I don't have a problem with that at all (all the opposite, will be nice to have people trying out all ships, as experience in them teaches how to fight against them too). But the open world mechanics should prevent power creep and keep things at check.