OW options suggestion

[Raekur]

I could not locate any posts regarding these ideas so I thought I would toss them out and see if anyone likes the ideas.

The first option is from a old game I played called Freelancer. In this game there was occasions where a large group of ships would gather to assault an enemy base and since the distances could be fairly far there was an option to click on the lead (or slowest ship) and select "Match target speed". This would make it much easier for groups to travel together without having to constantly raise/lower sails which can get rather tedious at times over long distances.

The second option is not quite as important but can be used if someone needs to step away for a brief time while a fleet is on the move. The option is Follow Target, and when this is used with the option above can allow groups to move from one place to another a little easier.

The one thing that needs to be kept in mind with using these features is that if the player steps away from keyboard and the "leader" isnt paying attention the entire fleet can find itself stuck in the shallows or stuck on beach. So there is a possible downside and the benefit is towards allowing someone to reference something if needed without having to constantly alt-tabbing.

[Slim McSauce]

I wouldn't mind this, OW sailing doesn't take skill like battle sailing. Out of a crew off 100s I'm sure I can delegate one to the helm for a bit.

[RedNeckMilkMan]

I would just troll and lead everyone to shallows XD

But I like the idea maybe only people in a group could follow each other, so alts and randoms can't tag along.

[Draymoor]

+1 it's a good idea. Similar thing was present in Mount and Blade if anyone has played that. You could click on 'follow' to auto-follow an allied army. 

Edited December 1, 2018 by Draymoor

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

Anything that puts more "discomfort" on alt usage is a plus for me. Hence I cannot, personally, agree with this "auto follow".

[RedNeckMilkMan]

10 minutes ago, Hethwill the Red Duke said:

Anything that puts more "discomfort" on alt usage is a plus for me. Hence I cannot, personally, agree with this "auto follow".

That's why you only let group members follow.

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

1 minute ago, RedNeckMilkMan said:

That's why you only let group members follow.

Like 9 other accounts that are in my group that are all mine ? 

[RedNeckMilkMan]

Just now, Hethwill the Red Duke said:

Like 9 other accounts that are in my group that are all mine ? 

Let's be honest, the majority of players that use alts have 1 or 2 max (usually in a different nation). The king of alts @Msk has 150 accounts and not even he has 9 in the same nation. 

Most players don't want to take 1 ship out of port let alone 9. And killing those 9 would be like taking a port from the US.

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

I was the most honest i could. Anything that provokes "discomfort" on alt usage is a plus for me.

If they managed until now, they can live without auto-follow  ; same as with any player.

Chaos in a line of battle is great, imo.

 

[Durin]

This would slow your travel down. Example: The lead ship is an Aggamennon and i set my Ingermanland to follow, given the same ship speed, bacause of  different sailing profiles, i would be faster downwind while that agga would be faster on angles against the wind or with beam reach. So the leadship would have to reduce its speed from time to time to not make me fall behind. Without the follow thing, you can compansate this by sailing ahead when the wind is better for you and be catched up when it isnt. And this example is with the ships of the same rate and the same basic speed, would be even worse with mixed fleets.

[Slim McSauce]

1 hour ago, Hethwill the Red Duke said:

Like 9 other accounts that are in my group that are all mine ? 

9 accounts easily banned if you ask me 

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

5 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

9 accounts easily banned if you ask me 

Been discussed to the grave. Let's get over it.

[Cecil Selous]

Sounds like a good quality of life feature.

And in general regarding alts. Is it a reasonable practice to reject good ideas just because it could also help players with alt accounts? In the end this can lead to a frustrated player base that don't get certain features that could improve gameplay. Players with alts simply won't care.

[RedNeckMilkMan]

1 hour ago, Durin said:

This would slow your travel down. Example: The lead ship is an Aggamennon and i set my Ingermanland to follow, given the same ship speed, bacause of  different sailing profiles, i would be faster downwind while that agga would be faster on angles against the wind or with beam reach. So the leadship would have to reduce its speed from time to time to not make me fall behind. Without the follow thing, you can compansate this by sailing ahead when the wind is better for you and be catched up when it isnt. And this example is with the ships of the same rate and the same basic speed, would be even worse with mixed fleets.

I think you should have to be in a group and could only follow the group leader. Group leaders could set the speed of the fleet and it would be capped at the slowest ships max speed?

[p i t]

Knowing Raekur and his wife, and having been a clanmate of both of them, he just wants this function so his wife can auto sail, maybe while she preoccupies herself with other tasks.

use your imagination lads.

Edited December 2, 2018 by pit

[RedNeckMilkMan]

Just now, pit said:

Knowing Raekur and his wife, and having been a clanmate of both of them, he just wants this function so his wife can follow him easier, maybe while she preoccupies herself with other tasks.

use your imagination lads.

That's sexist. Sandwich making doesn't even take that long.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, RedNeckMilkMan said:

I think you should have to be in a group and could only follow the group leader. Group leaders could set the speed of the fleet and it would be capped at the slowest ships max speed?

nah i think you should be able to follow a friendly player by any means. Its just a qol mechanic that should be added to the game. basically any other mmo has that mechanic

[RedNeckMilkMan]

1 hour ago, Wyy said:

nah i think you should be able to follow a friendly player by any means. Its just a qol mechanic that should be added to the game. basically any other mmo has that mechanic

That's just gonna lead to alt spies following fleets on auto pilot. And that is cancer.

[Raekur]

The main option I want is the auto speed adjustment. The lead ship can drop his speed if it exceeds the max speed of the slowest ship. Since there is no fine tuning of speed just yet this option I think is the best sort of band-aid that is possible.

Auto-Follow - Towards the alt spies using this to follow a group, not really that much of an issue and if they are it could be used to lead the spy into a trap if the fleet just comes to a stop or reverses direction since the spy in that case would just stay in one spot. The proposed ideas will not make it easier or prevent enemy ships from shadowing a fleet.

Regarding alt accounts, any feature or addition that helps players in any way will automatically aid in the use of alt accounts. There will never be anything that will affect an alt account without having some effect on a main account to the point on being an annoyance. When it comes right down to it, use of alt accounts is a minor thing and (as someone who has tried in Freelancer) has no beneficial effect in combat and actually is problematic due to having to issue commands to multiple ships which causes a delay. But this is a topic that has been beat to death and yet keeps getting resurrected more than Jesus it seems.

The point of this was that I hate having to constantly speed up / slow down when escorting either line ships or traders since there is no fine tuning of speed that permits me to match speed manually.

[Macjimm]

If we could manually sail in OW, you could tweak your speed, and I would enjoy sailing more.

[Raekur]

I am not sure how adjusting your sails in OW would help other than losing speed since you can turn even when at 0% sail.

While that would in effect achieve the idea I have, it could present other issues where as having more speed settings or match speed would be easier to implement.

[Custard]

Good idea +1

[Capn Rocko]

To be fair, I was surprised to find out this feature was not in the game when I first joined Naval Action years ago. Now that im used to it, it doesn't really matter to me. 

[Sir Texas Sir]

On 12/1/2018 at 4:09 PM, RedNeckMilkMan said:

Let's be honest, the majority of players that use alts have 1 or 2 max (usually in a different nation). The king of alts @Msk has 150 accounts and not even he has 9 in the same nation. 

Most players don't want to take 1 ship out of port let alone 9. And killing those 9 would be like taking a port from the US.

I have 5 and all but one of them are in the same nation.  When we moved from Russia to US though I'll be honest I had 3 of them in convoy's at time's hauling stuff from Bermuda to the the US coast.   I have three Monitors so it wasn't to hard to do.  Back on PvP2 days before the wipe I have been in many port battles with US/GB as BLACK with two chars in the battle fighting them. That is why they always thought we had 50 players. I never lied when I said you where only fighting 15-20 guys and later 10-15 as our numbers shrunk even though we always had 20-25 ships in PB's....a few of us where dual boxing.

 

As for the OP though I would more want a auto speed than a follow.  Since not every ship is built the same even if they are the same type of ships, but when you say all go battle sails and that means I'm going 10 knts, the guy next to me is going 6 and the guy behind him  8 we are all going different speeds.  Would be nice to click on the leader and match speed with the leader more than a follow command.