Elite ships

[Captain Hammered]

Folks, can we chin-wag a bit about the new Elite vessels? Apart from the Patch 32 post; which includes all sorts of other goodies.

I'll start, and come out in overwhelming support:

I LOVE THESE GUYS! WOOHOOO!!!

At last - a 1-on-1 equal-ship challenge in PvE that's a real challenge!

I was cruising in my Bellona up the coast of Hispanola heading from Spanish Town to St. Vic when I spotted a solo Bellona with a skull icon. Poifect - I'd been wanting to try one of these Elites; the wind was onshore, giving me the advantage of beaching him if needed. 

Nothing beats a duel among equal ships for testing, so I turned and attacked.

The next 45 minutes were one of the hardest duels I've ever fought; and that includes against players. The Elite Bellona hit like a sledgehammer, turned (seemingly) on a dime, my balls just bounced off. More than once I was forced to dive for the shore to get away, only to have to pull him away from the rocks once I was able to repair. 

It was BRUTAL!

I loved it!

Devs, THANK YOU for these Elite ships!

Now - the PvE crash happened later, and I lost my lovely purple Elite Bellona I gained from that fight. I'll just have to find another.

But - those are my thoughts. In 1-on-1 duels, these Elite warships are grand! It's nice to go into a battle with a great deal of trepidation and cracking knuckles. 

Cheers!

Edited May 23, 2019 by Captain Hammered

[Barbancourt]

26 minutes ago, Captain Hammered said:

At last - a 1-on-1 equal-ship challenge in PvE that's a real challenge!

 

The AI is always a challenge in equal ships...except when you stop battling normally and exploit their built-in weaknesses.  Do these elite AI repair?  escape?  avoid kiting?  Or do they just turn and reload faster but make the same predictable mistakes?

 

[Tom Farseer]

59 minutes ago, Barbancourt said:

The AI is always a challenge in equal ships...except when you stop battling normally and exploit their built-in weaknesses.  Do these elite AI repair?  escape?  avoid kiting?  Or do they just turn and reload faster but make the same predictable mistakes?

 

To be fair, buffing AI up to increase the challenge is a much easier way than redoing "AI" scripting. (Not much to do with actual Artificial Intelligence). Good AI with sound tactics that is decently balanced against human players is something that in my gaming experience in never truly got achieved. Tall order for a small Indy development team :/

[Aster]

Just sail near land works every time 😎

[Barbancourt]

29 minutes ago, Tom Farseer said:

To be fair, buffing AI up to increase the challenge is a much easier way than redoing "AI" scripting. (Not much to do with actual Artificial Intelligence). Good AI with sound tactics that is decently balanced against human players is something that in my gaming experience in never truly got achieved. Tall order for a small Indy development team 😕

There are VERY simple changes that would make the AI battle far better.  Using repairs.  Changing shot.  Escaping a losing battle.  Not allowing themselves to be kited to death.  AI Traders fleeting with warships and being aggressive instead of passive.  The "buffing up AI" does nothing to change their fundamental faults - they are still bad opponents. 

[James Thomson]

Wait? So now Elite AI is good because you can beat it by using bugs to beach them to have time to repair and rake em? I think using bugs to beat anything is thin line from using cheat....

I dont think we should need use NPC bugs/weaknesses to beat them. Or have i messed the memo of how to use loopholes as game mechanics?

[Potemkin]

I love how someone enjoys an addition to the game and people immediately throw shade on him for it. 

[James Thomson]

55 minutes ago, Potemkin said:

I love how someone enjoys an addition to the game and people immediately throw shade on him for it. 

I never said elite addition is bad. I like the idea! More group content, love it. Just needs fixing. 

[redbear]

may i all so point a small problem that mite happen at rest.

so game rest and everything is wipe day 2-3 few like mined players get together (low rank rank 5-6) about 15 player let say and they find a 3-2 rate elite AI on it own so the 15 player attack it  with a bunch of small herc / pandor free ship in a way and they lose alot off player but they kill this 2nd or 3rd rate and a note drops. now they have a player to go get a trade ship that can carry it and take it back to port and open this note on the 3rd day and a 2nd rate with port bounes drop lvl 3-4 and the wood is ok now there a ship in the game when crew will wreck anything in the 1st week if some player get the xp i dont no if this has been thought about but it cud be a problem on rest off fast grabing elite high rate ships with swam of player to get amzing ship with out haveing bounes ports or shipyard anyone  have a thoughts on this

[jnovotny6]

I havent played in a bit, how can you tell an AI ship is elite? Before engaging I mean 😀

[Angus MacDuff]

1 minute ago, jnovotny6 said:

I havent played in a bit, how can you tell an AI ship is elite? Before engaging I mean 😀

When you see it in OW it will have a little skull on the card.

[jnovotny6]

thank you

[admin]

22 hours ago, Captain Hammered said:

 

It was BRUTAL!

I loved it!

Devs, THANK YOU for these Elite ships!

 

Cheers!

thank you for the kind words - the team needed it!)))

new loot for ELITES will be added next week and will include new gun types

Obtusiers - French short range guns
Blomfield Pattern Guns
Congreve Pattern short guns
Navy Guns 

Doubloons and real reward for kills will also be improved for All kills (pvp and pve) as promised before (but got delayed)

[Teutonic]

1 hour ago, admin said:

thank you for the kind words - the team needed it!)))

new loot for ELITES will be added next week and will include new gun types

Obtusiers - French short range guns
Blomfield Pattern Guns
Congreve Pattern short guns
Navy Guns 

Doubloons and real reward for kills will also be improved for All kills (pvp and eve) as promised before (but got delayed)

Good to hear.

Will we have any indication of how these Guns will act differently from what we currently have?

what may be their perk compared to long guns or medium guns?

Also nice to hear that you're still working on getting a patch out quickly.

Could you give us any example of how Real and Doubloon rewards will look like after the patch?

[HachiRoku]

11 hours ago, Wraith said:

but it would be so much easier to program better sailing and fighting AI

you know what the funniest thing about good AI is? Good ai is actually stupid predictable AI. Some developers intentionally dumb down ai to make it seem smarter than it is. I do not agree with you that programming better sailing ai is an easy. AIs main weakness is that it doesn't know how to position itself. 

[HachiRoku]

4 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Come on.. just because you don't know how to do it doesn't make it difficult.

It's not that hard to make AI in a game as slow as Naval Action that's as good or better than an average player without having to resort to ridiculous buffs to make it "hard." As decent players you and I could sketch out here a much better set of algorithms than what the current AI seemingly use (shoot/chase mindlessly the nearest player with least armor and put whatever loaded guns it has on target) in probably 10-20 instructions, salted with a bit of random variation in manual sailing and shooting efficiency, and it would "feel" much more like real players.

Players hate to feel like they're being cheesed, and by constraining AI from doing things, or letting it do things that players can't do (double on carros, for example), is just cheesy. As is being able to absolutely flummox even "Elite" AI by simply sailing up wind or inducing them to beach themselves.

 

yeah but if they don't know how to use the wind it will still not change much. Explain what you mean by random variation in sailing? I cannot see anything random about it. The accuracy is way to high I agree and its more annoying than a challenge. The main issue with ai is it cannot predict what the player is going to do. Age of sail combat is more about predicting than reacting. 

[Guest]

The elite ships seems to despawn if they arent beaten in the battle is this correct?

[Angus MacDuff]

2 minutes ago, Wraith said:

They don't do anything random at the moment, at least as far as I can tell. What I was saying is that you could easily make them sail perfectly in terms of manual sailing and choosing points off the wind, etc., but you could implement variability in AI "skill" by adding "error" both in sail setting and angle choice, but also in aiming, etc.

And as far as predicting.. heh, I'd say that fully 90% of the game for most players the sailing and positioning is purely deterministic. And computers are nothing if not better than humans at pattern recognition.  I have no doubt that you could create a 1v1 AI in Naval Action that would rival any player, if only because it can recognize a player's action and respond much faster than we as players can because the AI could snoop on player inputs.

I think programming smarter fleet action would be more complex, but certainly could be done in a smart and variable way that makes battle against AI much more interesting than just fighting the dumbest of superbuffed NPCs.

Imagine an AI fleet that "formed line of battle" and kept the wind gauge.

[Teutonic]

1 minute ago, Angus MacDuff said:

Imagine an AI fleet that "formed line of battle" and kept the wind gauge.

Then remember that a majority of players don't follow line tactics and wouldn't care - instead just blobbing.

I think it would be a nice thing to see, but currently you just need to tone down the AI reload/damage and I think folks would be content with how they are for the time being.

 

[Capitalism]

I think for non-Elite NPCs we should make them as smart and player-like as possible, but when they lose substantial crew or are below half health they surrender... We should increase the speed at which grinding AI takes place in other words and, while not only being more historical, it would reduce the worst and cheesiest part of AI battles, boarding...

[Guest]

3 hours ago, admin said:

Obtusiers - French short range guns
Blomfield Pattern Guns
Congreve Pattern short guns
Navy Guns 

Will these be equipable guns? and are you moving to the direction were ships can equip cannons they historically had? e.g. French and spanish sols limited to 36pd longs while the british 1st and 2nd rates can equip up to 42pd cannons? 

[Audacious]

I just hope more solo elite npcs are sailing out there, not just group fights. Solo content should be a priority as well. 

[Jan van Santen]

4 hours ago, admin said:

thank you for the kind words - the team needed it!)))

new loot for ELITES will be added next week and will include new gun types

Obtusiers - French short range guns
Blomfield Pattern Guns
Congreve Pattern short guns
Navy Guns 

Doubloons and real reward for kills will also be improved for All kills (pvp and pve) as promised before (but got delayed)

Great !

2 more suggestions: (on top of the one to have sd/hunt missions for elites).
 

1.) can they be highlighted somehow in ships list ? Hard to spot them in auctions eg.

2) killing them should give better points for the weeklies than killing the normal ones.

Also: A list what the port boni do would be nice, we can't check them on PvE.

 

And before I forget: had my own epic fight w them...

I wanted to sail an elite Pavel to auction in LaNavasse  and since the route went thru patrol, I armed it and also took the redeemed Christian in fleet to sail back.

On the way i saw the next elite Pavel and went for it.

All 3 beached unfortunately and the elite NPC boarded my fleet Christian...

30 mins later still all beached, but I was able due to some shift to "X" my Christian,swap ships and fight/board the elite NPC from there (a la Nelson bridge)

Result: second elite Pavel for me

Edited May 24, 2019 by Jan van Santen

[Captain Hammered]

12 hours ago, James Thomson said:

Wait? So now Elite AI is good because you can beat it by using bugs to beach them to have time to repair and rake em? I think using bugs to beat anything is thin line from using cheat....

I dont think we should need use NPC bugs/weaknesses to beat them. Or have i messed the memo of how to use loopholes as game mechanics?

Well; speaking for myself I'm not familiar with any 'bugs' past the AI's unfortunate tendency to beach themselves - which could be bloody useful in times of stress (chuckle). In my particular case it looked like my enemy Bellona was heading for a certain beaching; he turned at the last minute and actively close-hauled away; I was rather impressed.

Beyond that, if anyone can define why using an enemy's weakness against them isn't a basic principle in combat, I'd love to hear it.

Anyhoo; whatever people who want to complain about what isn't instead of enjoying what is will say; I enjoyed myself immensely. 

Here's a video of the duel; hope you like it:

 

Cheers!

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

Indeed, the new elite ships are great.

I hit upon guys telling me "there is no difference between regular ships and elite ships" - but this thread and my own experience tell different.

News about new loot types coming up like new cannons sound intriguing.

We are still wondering  on PvE Peace Server, if groups with the elite (skull) marker on the tag window mean that all ships in NPC group are elite or just the leader?

According to my impression, all of them are buffed opponents...