How shall the game be balanced?

[Sea Archer]

I am asking myself, what the vision for the final version of this game is.

When I started playing in 2016 not everything was perfect, but to a high degree skill based. I liked that very much, even if I got sunk in the beginning in nearly every PvP battle. But It got better and at some point there was a good balance between sinking someone and being sunk. Ships where somehow balanced, you could add little extras (like extra planking) and choose your wood.

When I look at the game now, you have books and mods, can stack them (some are even only positive without any disadvantages) and create a ship, that can only be beaten by a similar one (assuming that the captains have equal skill). In addition you can repair several times a very high amount of the ships structure, which in some cases leads to the fact that ships were faster repaired than damaged.

The players owning the good books and mods are usually the veterans, with thousands of hours spend in the game, usually very skilled persons. New players do not have the mods nor the skills, which opens a gap between the two that is difficult, or impossible to close. Even a skilled player, without the big mods, can barely win. The new (s) wood still widen the gap, altough I understand that the devs want to create some money sink for those who have everything else.

Now the devs allow very big carronades on small ships, without any penalty, as long as they fit geometrically in the model.

In my opinion every pro has to have con. Put big guns on out upper deck, but expect heavy heel and a rolling ship (maybe even capsize), make your ship tanky, but expect it to be slow and less agile. The balance in that got lost, especially in battle repairs and boarding.

The question is how to balance the game. One option can be to eleminate all mods, books and in battle repairs (you can repair after battle, if you suvived), which would be my favourite. Less drastic would be to limit mods and books to one per ship, and in battle repairs to one of each kind, but with less impact than now. Remember: mods and repairs favour the vet players, not the new ones.

A different approach might be to reduce the number of books, mods and repairs with the promotions a player gets. The new player, up to 5th rank might fill all mod and book slots, then those will decrease with every rank a player rises. This can help to close the gap between vets and new players.

 

At least for me the mods and books stacking is quite frustrating, @admin what is your vision of the game and game balance?

 

[Beeekonda]

Pretty poor description of skill and skill based.

Is fir/fir speedy trincomalee is just too much and needs to be nerfed so people can tag me on few wasas and ratts chain me down to 40% and kill?

 

[Koveras]

Game is released, balance is an illusion.

And the game has never been skill based, I remember how easy boarding became with gold marines. Or how easy PvP'ing got when I got laser accuracy on my guns and could rep everything from a virtually dying ship to full health in just a couple of cycles... oh wait, the last two examples are from recent build.. Well apparently equipment is a "skill" and it's a "skill" to lock down vital equipment so that every kill you get with your super ship against any noob is "skill" based.

[Never]

Some patches and changes to the game which are announced to be on their way will have an effect on balance, so maybe wait for those?

[Kejsaren]

15 minutes ago, Beeekonda said:

Pretty poor description of skill and skill based.

Is fir/fir speedy trincomalee is just too much and needs to be nerfed so people can tag me on few wasas and ratts chain me down to 40% and kill?

 

Well, with his suggestion of 1 repair/battle you can rep sail once. Should be fine😂

[Liq]

Can't really go back now to 1 rep per battle with the new damage model. People tend to forget riccochéing used to be way more effective, plus broadsides took out less HP % in general. Now you can take out 1/3 of the structure in one rake

[Sea Archer]

1 hour ago, Liq said:

Can't really go back now to 1 rep per battle with the new damage model. People tend to forget riccochéing used to be way more effective, plus broadsides took out less HP % in general. Now you can take out 1/3 of the structure in one rake

Technically that is easy to solve, just increase the hitpoints. 

[Slim McSauce]

Balance? Vision? You're talking about NA2.

[Stars and Stripes]

Stop whining.😫

The game was completely wiped. Everyone started from a blank canvas!!

There are no veterans with lots of mods.

Just players who put more time and effort in to get the good stuff. (The vets) are just players who put more effort in !!!

Stop going on about balance, everyone has the same opportunity as every one else.

Everyone can do and get what everyone else can do and get. 

Play more. Grind more = better mods and better ships. You cant balance EFFORT.

 

[Celtic]

10 minutes ago, Stars and Stripes said:

Stop whining.😫

The game was completely wiped. Everyone started from a blank canvas!!

There are no veterans with lots of mods.

Just players who put more time and effort in to get the good stuff. (The vets) are just players who put more effort in !!!

Stop going on about balance, everyone has the same opportunity as every one else.

Everyone can do and get what everyone else can do and get. 

Play more. Grind more = better mods and better ships. You cant balance EFFORT.

 

This has to be trolling right? Veterans, have a significant advantage over new players for 2 different reasons.

1. High Base skill level. They're quite simply better at the game than a new player. This is in no way a problem. This is a good thing
2. Access to better ships, better mods, and more money.

This latter pointis where it becomes problematic. Because they have the ability to reliably get better ships, you can enter a battle against them in what very well may be the same hull, but be utterly outclassed due to the various modules, port bonuses, and woods.  While I think everyone is okay with different wood combinations giving different bonus, and I'll even go so far as to say (S) woods and gold/purple/green ships aren't necessarily an issue. When combined with a port bonus, high dollar mods, and various other things that a 'noob' has simply not got access to. It stops being a skill based fight, and it starts being a "my ship is simply better" That's not effort, that's not skill. It's quite simply facing the fact that you won't be able to fight this person. It stops being fun for the underdog. 

Edited January 26, 2020 by Celtic

[Stars and Stripes]

2 minutes ago, Celtic said:

This has to be trolling right? Veterans, have a significant advantage over new players for 2 different reasons.

No.

I was a new player.

I put in the time and effort to get better.

I have worked at getting better.

I now have better mods.

I now have better ships.

This is life.

Stop trying to get everything for nothing.

Put in the time and effort and you can be a vet with the goodies to!! That's how Life and MMO games work.

 

[Celtic]

33 minutes ago, Stars and Stripes said:

No.

I was a new player.

I put in the time and effort to get better.

I have worked at getting better.

I now have better mods.

I now have better ships.

This is life.

Stop trying to get everything for nothing.

Put in the time and effort and you can be a vet with the goodies to!! That's how Life and MMO games work.

 

I'm not suggesting people get things for nothing, HOWEVER as someone who has been playing is game since before it was even on steam. I'm watching new players stop playing because what was always a difficult game trend towards something that isn't fun. It IS NOT FUN for new players to get into fights with ships that even when they do things right, they lose to because that ship had 5 million reals worth of mods they've never even heard of that negate any disadvantage that a specific hull type. 

In properly balanced MMO's new players have places in which they can learn the mechanics, and have opportunities to get a base skill level and gear enough to go forward into PvP.  In Naval action - new players sail 5 minutes out of their starting port and get ganked by Gold Princes and Requins when they dare to sail something better than a basic cutter. They do this repeatedly, they finally get into a a proper fighting ship, and then they find out that they're still woefully outclassed because the ships they are able to buy are still worse than anything that is actually been used for PvP.   When a new player has no ability to take part in meaningful PvP and actually learn what does and does not work because they're going to be utterly outclassed by ships that BR says they are 'better' than. They start losing the ability to bridge the skill gap before they eventually become frustrated and stop playing. 

Mods don't adjust BR - BR is our main "balance" in Naval action. Should a  gold  seasoned wood ship with 5 million reals in mods, port bonus, and all the skill books have a higher BR than a blue variant made out of standard wood and no mods...Absolutely.  This would at least give people an opportunity to realise that a fight isn't worth attempting on their part because the ship is well above "standard" BR. 

Edited January 26, 2020 by Celtic

[Beeekonda]

5 hours ago, Celtic said:

 It IS NOT FUN for new players to get into fights with ships that even when they do things right, they lose to because that ship had 5 million reals worth of mods they've never even heard of that negate any disadvantage that a specific hull type. 

 

1. New players dont do thinks right, even if you disregard 2nd point

2. Negating disadvantages of a specific hull type with mods and books IS A RIGHT THING.

 

[Sea Archer]

My expectation is a semi historical game. With ships and ship upgrades, if any, that are somehow historical. 

I even would be happy, if you could just choose your guns (within a reasonable historical range for a certain ship) and wood, marines and rig are given from the descriptions in history books.

Your task as a captain is to fight with your King's ships. 

[Earl of Grey]

Always the same complains ...

My Points:

1. Its very easy to become all (Important) books and good mods. Make the exams, do some missions for gold chests and make a few trade runs ... you get some books and medium mods out of the Gold chests and trading gives you the money to buy missing books ... (Books are pretty cheap now because many already got all of them).

2. the "shiny" ships i know (outside of PB) are almost ever speed fitted and that is no big advantage in Battle, but is mandatory because you have to escape the revenge fleet ... 

Its very funny when a guy is shooting  in a 160 degrees Angle at your fir/fir ship and then complaining how super-hard your op-ship is ...

3. The unbalance i See are the expierienced hunter groups in combination with the RoE, so that a team of good players can be sure the enemy cant outnumber them in battle

[Bonus]

There will always be veterans who will like to answer the questions of new players.

 

Balance is everywhere, that tells us ying & yang, dark and light, death and life.

But polish nation is an exception, they deserve to have only 1 port :')

[MrOkieDokie]

Everyone got hit by the wipe. I have watched a lot of new players join and quickly start getting nice books, mods, and ships. If you are watching players quit it's not the games fault. YOU need to make more of an effort to help them learn the ropes. Our clan goes out of it's way to support new players. We do it to strengthen our nation, clan, and the games community. This is the way.

[Teutonic]

On 1/25/2020 at 5:35 AM, Liq said:

Can't really go back now to 1 rep per battle with the new damage model. People tend to forget riccochéing used to be way more effective, plus broadsides took out less HP % in general. Now you can take out 1/3 of the structure in one rake

not to mention no thickness.

varying degree of ship rarity from gray, green, blue, purple, gold. OH and you could spend these "Notes" to increase the rarity when you were going to craft the ship. (low-grade, mid-grade, high-grade)

rarity also was on ALL Mods and books. someone could have a Green Marine mod, giving you 8% marines, while another person could have a Gold Marine mod giving you 20% Marines.