Testbed Feedback - Battle UI, Localization, Patrols, Delivery quests

[Neads O'Tune]

Historical accuracy is all well and good but you HAVE to consider what makes good gameplay. 

These changes work well on paper but practically applied to the player base that we have in this game it will only reduce the enjoyment for the vast majority of players in the long term. 

You have to take into account the mindset of the experienced players. what you're telling them is this: "Now frigates wont dare to bother you in your line ship because it will be certain suicide for them BUT it will also now be even easier for you to attack THEM"

If you are going to make it harder/more realistic or whatever you want to call it for frigates to attack line ships then you have to consider the OTHER side of the equation. You need to discourage players/ especially those "elite" players from fitting out their Bellonas/Wasas/Buccs etc for speed and going out to with the intent of attacking smaller ships. 

ESPECIALLY if you intend to implement patrol zone ROE (circle of death) to all open world battles as you have previously hinted at. 

Another thing to consider is that it is difficult enough to find a battle in open sea as it is with such low player numbers that surely the last thing we need is even more restrictions on what we can fight. Nowadays if I go out hunting for say two hours I will at best see 3-5 ships in that time. And more often than not the ships I encounter are actually lineships and NOT small ships or frigates. I guess what I am getting at in this point is that you also need to address the issue of players "patrolling" in line ships if you REALLY want to stick to historical accuracy. As I'm guessing 3rd rates and above were not, historically usually sent out alone to patrol an area.

Edited February 11, 2019 by Neads O'Tune

[Gregory Rainsborough]

It's not as if sinking a 1st rate in a frigate is all that common. It's difficult to kill a good player in a 1st rate in a frigate.

Newbies should just become better players before sailing big ships that they don't know how to use.

[Vernon Merrill]

17 minutes ago, admin said:

The problem is that the damage model is working but not for all. It should be supporting the historical patterns and general in game progression.
If it is not supporting the progression it is making average players feel that they are wasting time. 

I personally believe that the combat model is one of the drivers of retention. And should support the historical mental patterns. Of course this is very important for new players as old players (those who are left) are very fine with the current model. But looking at data. 

I will repeat the previous comparison

Old model

• Average player spends up to 30 days to level up to a ship of the line
• Average player spends immense resources and time to get the ship of the line
• Average player takes the ship of the line out
• Average player sinks to 3 frigates and whenever he hits them
• Player then finds out that DPS of light guns is 2x higher than DPS of heavy guns and gets told to learn to play
• Comparing this to the historical mental model (frigates avoided ships of the line) he is disappointed and blames the game

In new model

• Average player will despatch 3 frigates with ease. 
• Average player will still sink to other skilled heavy lineships
• This fits his historical mental model and he will be dissaponted a lot less
• He will feel amazing power of the ship of the line compared to a smaller vessel and will as a result consider his time and money investment worth it

TLDR version
Ships of the line were not kings of the sea in the old damage model. 
But in the mental models they are.
Games must fit the mental models or CANON otherwise they its just pissing against the wind (losing customers) - that's why you wont find shooters on PC that do not use WASD for example. Because its already canon. And you wont find an MMO or any progression based game where DPS progression is reversed. 

Your "new model" bullet points dont address the first 2 bullet points on the "old model".

Will there be any changes to those values?

Thanks.

[Honest]

I'm loving it. Cannonfire, although some may not remember, IS devastating. 

[Bragan Benigaris]

5 minutes ago, Jan van Santen said:

Than why reduce ai density, remove trade opportunities, remove crafting material supply ? Those don't fit mental models and loose customers...

Neiter on live nor on testbed was the ai density reduced. About trade/crafting i didn't look on testbed, but on live server it's even easier than before to get rich and gather crafting ressources...

Don't repeat baseless rumors from hearsay

[Tom Farseer]

20 minutes ago, Gregory Rainsborough said:

It's not as if sinking a 1st rate in a frigate is all that common. It's difficult to kill a good player in a 1st rate in a frigate.

Difficult, yes. But it should be damn near impossible. And it should also be the same for three or four light ships which it currently isn't. I'll go so far as to say that I am above average in Skill with sailing SoLs. Set three good Requin captains against me in an Ocean and the best I can hope for is that they won't manage to turn me into the wind or slow me down enough to board, so I just survive the full 90 minutes. And that in my opinion should change.

The biggest problem I see at the moment is that most currently active players are veterans withh 1000+ hours that have become used to the current system and have found workarounds for most of its problems. The systems as it is on the testbed right now needs adjusting. but with a few important tweaks the it may well be working better than the current one.
 

Edited February 11, 2019 by Tom Farseer

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

31 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

SoL never sail alone.

Check your facts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_of_the_Glorioso

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_of_8_April_1740

 

Catalan vs Mary

 

Stanhope captured by Blas de Lezo

As much a SOL as the HMS Lion  

 

[z4ys]

8 minutes ago, Hethwill said:

As much a SOL as the HMS Lion  

 

Heth you are always posting ganking pics

[Sea Archer]

I think with adjusting the guns to causing a somehow historical damage, the whole damage model has to be adjusted, too, to more historical results.

I understand that most people don't want change the things they are used to, but on testbed we should try.

Now what is the historical result of receiving cannon shots?

The wooden parts of the ships above the waterline are torn to pieces, men are killed and guns dismounted. Only shots close to the waterline and below cause sinking. In my opinion this should be represented in the game. 

On the other hand the top masts might be (more or less) easily shot away while the lower parts of the masts were only to break when the shrouds were gone. I posted earlier an proposal how this might be simulated.

For gameplay reasons i think angling for bouncing balls is necessary and large ships should be slower than small one ( at least at one point of sail), so there ia always the possibility to escape. 

The game will turn with this from a sinking to a boarding game, while sinking ships is still possible.

At the same time surrendering and saving the crew should have a bigger value. I suggest to introduce the sailor categories: landmen (that can be hired in port), ordinary seamen (each needs 20 XP to be promoted from landsman) and able seaman (each needs 50XP to be promoted from ordinary seaman).

Landsmen do the work slowest, able seaman fastest. All were killed during battle, landsman easy to replace, loosing seaman hurts. The result: if the battle is hopeless the wise captain surrenders to save the crew.

For me this would give the game more depth and with it fun to play.

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

Just now, z4ys said:

Heth you are always posting ganking pics

Because the romantic 1v1 never existed ( well maybe once in a daring occasion during the 1812 war jejejej ).

1v1 were chance encounters in the open world.

 

[Custard]

I got bitch slapped some time ago by @maturin for suggesting SOLs didn't sail alone apparantlly they did regularly 

 

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

Those SOLs are 68 guns  , not 90 - 100 - 120

Alas, more powerful than frigates, and were expected, as no frigate was, to stand in a line of battle along with the other ships of the line. Acceptable risk, as put by the Admiralty.

I dare you to stay with a 68 in a PB in the line.

[Corona Lisa]

1 hour ago, admin said:

In new model

• Average player will despatch 3 frigates with ease. 
• Average player will still sink to other skilled heavy lineships

So why should I sail a 5th rate in PvP?

[Bragan Benigaris]

23 minutes ago, Jan van Santen said:

Hearsay ? I play this game since 2016...

And yes, ai density has been reduced substantially in a previous patch, I recommend you read the "Empty Seas" thread on this forum.

 

I don't read any misleading threads, instead of this i play the actual game - and this since August '16 with only 2-3 weeks of a break every year during family vacation.

Every time i leave for example Great Corn, the first AI will show up after 75-90 seconds. True since '16 and never changed. The only thing the devs changed are the nation of AI in your home waters...

 

[z4ys]

4 minutes ago, Ganking Simulator said:

So why should I sail a 5th rate in PvP?

RvR limitations, ultra high cost, rare resources in oder to build sols or Max allowed port slots for sols . Otherwise yes why would anybody sail 5th rates.

Edited February 11, 2019 by z4ys

[admin]

51 minutes ago, Vernon Merrill said:

Your "new model" bullet points dont address the first 2 bullet points on the "old model".

Will there be any changes to those values?

Raw POWER is the missing piece to fix those values.
Because if a ship of the line is somewhat equal to 2 light frigates, players will not pay for such power
If the power is proper then players will pay for such power, will take such ships out (not only to screens and port battles) and will generally understand why they cost so much.

It all comes back to the Trafalgar composition dilemma - which we finally address.
If the frigates were so strong and good and balanced historically, why Nelson did not take 30 frigates, and took 30 ships of the line instead (taking 4 frigates only for signal repeating and messaging). 
 

[admin]

1 hour ago, erde_m said:

So the goal is: Everybody wants to sail first class ships as King of the Seas - this will drive away the last lot of "old" players

 

no you have not read the goals
goals are
remove bow tanking
solve DPS dilemma
solve weight difference dilemma 

Solving this creates the situation where ships of the line power will increase. 
74 will be a main workhorse as it was historically, and every player will no longer be afraid to take 74s for hunting. Frigates will have the role as well in tacking and chasing and sitting on the stern, as stern damage is now higher, more devastating. But they will have to do it with 100% precision as every mistake will send them to the bottom of the sea.

[Vernon Merrill]

2 minutes ago, admin said:

Raw POWER is the missing piece to fix those values.
Because if a ship of the line is somewhat equal to 2 light frigates, players will not pay for such power
If the power is proper then players will pay for such power, will take such ships out (not only to screens and port battles) and will generally understand why they cost so much.

It all comes back to the Trafalgar composition dilemma - which we finally address.
If the frigates were so strong and good and balanced historically, why Nelson did not take 30 frigates, and took 30 ships of the line instead (taking 4 frigates only for signal repeating and messaging). 
 

Fair enough.  But my question is this:  After someone CAN afford a 1st rate, why would anyone sail anything else?

Bigger point:  Do you feel the seas will end up being populated by endless amounts of identically-built L'Oceans?

Its ok, if thats what you envision, but I wanted your take on it....

[jnovotny6]

Admin, when do you think you might deploy the patch? Could you give us some idea of time frame we are looking at?

[Angus MacDuff]

21 minutes ago, Ganking Simulator said:

So why should I sail a 5th rate in PvP?

To hunt other 5th rates and traders.  5th rates won't fade away.  They can avoid any SOL and are way more fun to fight in (IMHO).

[Powderhorn]

11 minutes ago, Vernon Merrill said:

Fair enough.  But my question is this:  After someone CAN afford a 1st rate, why would anyone sail anything else?

From my reading of it, they would not take it out on account of cost.  Big risk to lose, and, too slow to do anything on a hunt(...?)

[admin]

40 minutes ago, van Veen said:

No one cares about the costs for whatever ship. Resources are available without limitation. To make this work you need to fix the economy and inflation. It's just a matter of who affords more alts and more time working them. 

 

16 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Heh, exactly. By not linking production of crafting-related goods, and hence ships to active, in-game time you will only limit ships to highly organized clans and people with alts for a limited period. Doubloons are a good example of how this was attempted. But they are a half measure that were designed to place a limiting resource on end-game content that could only be gathered via in-game activities.  Like so many things that have been tested in the past (region bonuses, fine woods, etc. come to mind) the core idea is great but the implementation and balance of the mechanics surrounding them never get addressed.

Instead of doing the hard work of balancing the economy, RvR, and providing the interesting, engaging content that keeps new and casual players in the game.. boom, we reinvent the damage model because It's more "fun" to work on.  🙄

Discussion of the issues not related to damage feedback must be avoided. 
Only topic that should be discussed here is damage on the testbed. Nothing else.

[Marquês do Bonfim]

We can always make crafting SOLs a lot harder than it is right now, make it that whoever wants to sail a SOL needs to grind their asses off. Make it somehow resources are way more needed than right now, more quantity to craft one. There's plenty of ways to make it so people don't just flood the whole server with SOLs and boatislands like the 1st rates to just simply go in OW hunting smaller ships because they are too hello-kitty to go against ships of their own rate.

Y'all need to stop thinking about how this is going to hello-kitty the entire game and instead, start freaking testing out the server and giving out feedbacks and suggestions so our new suggested damage model can actually work properly and be something that everyone enjoys it. 

I'm one of the guys that usually sails frigates and I'm still thrilled and excited to see that damage model go into our live server because honestly, it was ridiculous to fight against SOLs and too see SOLs hunting solo in OW for smaller ships just because they were the majority around. SOLs, 1st rates, 2nd rates and 3rd rates should be always used in PBs and huge battles that number up to 10v10 players, people need to leave the mentality of hunting w/ SOLs just for the sake of pvp and start using smaller ships to do so. 

Making those bigger ships expensive, difficult to craft would only make them way more valuable at the long run and better ships to defend ports and huge battles. This game is not a hunting simulator, even tho it looks like everyone just likes to do it. This would and will change it, and I believe that.

With this damage model, economy will have to fall in place, other systems that embrace that one will have to fall in place and more systems will have to be compatible with it in order to work, to do that we need everybody testing and reporting back so admin can improve it to make it better for us.

Edited February 11, 2019 by Portuguese Privateer

[Sir Texas Sir]

1 hour ago, Vernon Merrill said:

Fair enough.  But my question is this:  After someone CAN afford a 1st rate, why would anyone sail anything else?

Bigger point:  Do you feel the seas will end up being populated by endless amounts of identically-built L'Oceans?

Its ok, if thats what you envision, but I wanted your take on it....

If folks are so rich they can make so many SOL's than we need to look at other parts of the game.  Honestly I think we need a good wipe and let folks start over from scratch mats wise and see just how many SOL's and such we see pop up suddenly.   Than again this new damage model might work effectively at doing so.  Remember it's not a sure win having a SOL, cause numbers can still out gun you even if they are in smaller ships.

[admin]

2 hours ago, jnovotny6 said:

Admin, when do you think you might deploy the patch? Could you give us some idea of time frame we are looking at?

we are waiting for localization grid bugs to be finished + clan resources to be finished as well.