How long should battles last?

[Marion van Ghent]

In your ideal game of Naval Action, how long should battles last?

 

Take into consideration that battle sizes could vary, from ship-on-ship duels to large fleet actions of perhaps 10 or 20 ships per side. And obviously no two battles would be exactly alike. So consider how long you'd like to see a few different scenarios to last -- e.g. should a ship-on-ship duel take on average 5 minutes or 50? What about a 6v6 battle? 10v10?

 

Let's discuss what you, as a player, would like to see

[Scottx125]

There is no way to determine the length of a battle, i would say it lasts until either:

1. You run away out of range of enemy guns.
2. Sink the enemy.
3. Capture their ship.

Though in general terms battling with a ship of equal prowess i would wish battles to last anywhere from 5-15 mins.

 

Fleet battles on the other hand (at least 10v10 upwards) , should at least last 60 mins with time getting exponentially greater as more ships are present until one side has caused the other side to retreat or has completely obliterated them.

My idea of fleet battle times (average minimum time of battles, this will vary in situations such as 10v25)

1. 10v10 - 60 mins
2. 15v15 -80 mins
3. 20v20 - 100 mins

[Ink]

In general I would like to see 10-15 min for a duel, about 1h-1.5h for a battle like 10 vs 10 and about 2h-2.5h for a battle like 20 vs 20

[admin]

Bigger engagement will not increase the time significantly, unless HP is tweaked. To the contrary it might reduce the battle time. 

If it takes 10 mins to sink 1 ship in a duel, it will actually be destroyed faster in a group combat, due to focus fire. 

Assembling in a good position will take longer, but once fleets are in firing distance, it will actually be more hectic and fast than in a duel. 

[Brigand]

Bigger engagement will not increase the time significantly, unless HP is tweaked. To the contrary it might reduce the battle time. 

If it takes 10 mins to sink 1 ship in a duel, it will actually be destroyed faster in a group combat, due to focus fire. 

Assembling in a good position will take longer, but once fleets are in firing distance, it will actually be more hectic and fast than in a duel. 

 

Still, the entire engagement should last longer. Forming up the lines and getting into position are part of that engagement and will require time. If an engagement is limited at, say, 10 minutes, you will notice people starting change their battle tactics because otherwise the 10 minute battle will end, without a shot fired.

 

Why not let the players select time limits themselves in the lobby? Give them a choice of anything between 10 minutes and 2 hours and see what the testers like best for the various fleet sizes?

 

Cheers,

Brigand

[Bobbydylan]

If assembling takes the most time, I'd imagine that once the game goes public, it'll be a moshpit of cannon fire. 

 

LEEeeEEroyyyyy.....  Jeeeeeenkiiiins!!!!

[tater]

10 minutes would have been epically shot for an enemy to strike, much less sink.

[Scottx125]

10 minutes would have been epically shot for an enemy to strike, much less sink.

Aye, but then you have to balance it between time for people who want to play realistic, arcade or people who want to casually play.

[davidallan]

Même 10 mn, trop rapide pour 1/1.

Je dirais 20 mn, pour ce mettre en place et la bataille.

Moins si; 1/3,ce rendre sans combat, mais perdre la marchandise où donner de l'argent.

[Mirones]

i would go with the warthunder system  simply 60min at the start of each round if they are not long enough we can make em longer anyway and this will also help people explore the coast and find errors there

[William the Drake]

Obviously we want it to be short enough to where we are getting the engagement done while not feeling like we are being dragged around, completing the same actions over and over again with no clear upper hand being gained. But we also want them to be long enough so that they feel as epic as the ships that are fighting them. And to say ship fights where always short is not exactly true. "They fought from one in the mornin' till it was six at night!" (0:57-1:03)

 

I agree that smaller group engagements (1v1-8v8) should last at minimum 10 minutes, maximum 30 minutes. Medium groups (9v9-12v12) should take some more time to coordinate and keep everyone on the same page; Minimum 25 minutes, maximum 1 hour. Lastly, large scale engagements (usually with equally large vessels) should take quite some time to get everyone set up and to keep them following orders. Minimum: 40 minutes,Maximum 2 Hours.

 

I agree though, times are subject to the players' style of fighting, how well they fight, as well as other independent variables, such as wind change or lucky shots and ,etc.

 

However I thing there should be considerable distance to be covered before even engaging the enemy so as to be able to form whatever formation deemed fit. I foresee that Forming up will be 60% of the overall battle whereas fighting will be around 40%. But that's just me. 

[Marion van Ghent]

First off, thanks for the responses so far. I'd like to hear more

 

Obviously there's no "cookie cutter" formula for timing battles. Some, as in history, will be lightning fast and almost over before they start, due to imbalanced sides or player skills -- that's the nature of the game and that was the nature of war in this period.

 

What I'm after are ballpark preferences. E.g. "if, on average, an X v Y battle takes N minutes, that will feel about right to me." That can help Game Labs tune a lot of in-game metrics, particularly if a lot of people want similar time commitments.

 

For my part: I think a good calibration point would be about 5 minutes real-time per ship. That yields about 10 minutes for a ship-on-ship duel, about an hour for a 3v3 battle, and up to about two hours for larger engagements (which won't scale linearly; more on that below). But anything much longer than about 2h would be too long, IMO.

 

Bigger engagement will not increase the time significantly, unless HP is tweaked. To the contrary it might reduce the battle time. 

If it takes 10 mins to sink 1 ship in a duel, it will actually be destroyed faster in a group combat, due to focus fire. 

Assembling in a good position will take longer, but once fleets are in firing distance, it will actually be more hectic and fast than in a duel. 

 

This is true to a point, but if focusing fire is too easy and effective, IMO there's something wrong with the balance between ship manoeverability and reload times. And if battles are all about sinking as many enemy vessels as possible, I personally would be disappointed. Take ships out of action, capture prizes, compel them to surrender or flee -- all of these are golden. But sinking ships should have much less reward than capturing them.

 

What does all that mean to gameplay? Here's my take:

1. Ships should not have huge effective arcs of fire. While on paper (particularly late in the period) you could train a gun about 23 degrees fore or aft of dead abeam, this took a lot of time, effort, and manpower: far easier to steer the ship to bring guns to bear than to coax the guns themselves about. (It would be more useful in a chase scenario, where the ships are changing relative position more slowly.) This puts an emphasis on sailing ability, judging the wind, judging your ship, and judging the enemy's intentions -- or, in short, puts more emphasis on strategy. I believe that is appropriate.
    
2. As a consequence, it should be hard -- and in many situations impossible -- to form what in AoSII we used to call a "banana line" to focus fire on one particular enemy vessel. On a downwind chase against slower opponents, sure -- but not close-hauled, or with wind abeam for any length of time. Again, this puts an emphasis on careful sailing and overall strategy rather than an individual ship's firepower -- pull out of line and take cover to make repairs if you're taking too heavy a beating; shorten up the line without running afoul of your teammates to hammer hard a tough target.
    
3. If a ship strikes or is otherwise disabled, it can become an obstacle to teammates. This magnifies the effect of "losing" a ship: not only do you have less firepower to bring to bear as a group, you have to not run afoul of ships dead in the water. That means, on average, that once a battle starts to swing in one direction one side will start gaining momentum almost exponentially. This in turn shortens the "time value" of remaining ships, speeding a battle towards a faster conclusion otherwise.

Perhaps these are the effects that admin is talking about; I hope so In any case, I generally am hoping battles will take significant time to resolve, up to a couple hours for epic engagements. As others have said, I hope that manoeuvre is a significant part of the action, as it was historically -- even if I don't want to see battles play out literally at realtime speeds. There are only so many hours in a day, after all!

[Samuel Adams]

I don't think they should take all day but it would be nice to speed it up a little.I have seen some of the youtube vids and it could be a little more faster pace.I love how the game makes you feel like your in the battle great job on that.

[Scottx125]

First off, thanks for the responses so far. I'd like to hear more

 

Obviously there's no "cookie cutter" formula for timing battles. Some, as in history, will be lightning fast and almost over before they start, due to imbalanced sides or player skills -- that's the nature of the game and that was the nature of war in this period.

 

What I'm after are ballpark preferences. E.g. "if, on average, an X v Y battle takes N minutes, that will feel about right to me." That can help Game Labs tune a lot of in-game metrics, particularly if a lot of people want similar time commitments.

 

For my part: I think a good calibration point would be about 5 minutes real-time per ship. That yields about 10 minutes for a ship-on-ship duel, about an hour for a 3v3 battle, and up to about two hours for larger engagements (which won't scale linearly; more on that below). But anything much longer than about 2h would be too long, IMO.

 

 

This is true to a point, but if focusing fire is too easy and effective, IMO there's something wrong with the balance between ship manoeverability and reload times. And if battles are all about sinking as many enemy vessels as possible, I personally would be disappointed. Take ships out of action, capture prizes, compel them to surrender or flee -- all of these are golden. But sinking ships should have much less reward than capturing them.

 

What does all that mean to gameplay? Here's my take:

1. Ships should not have huge effective arcs of fire. While on paper (particularly late in the period) you could train a gun about 23 degrees fore or aft of dead abeam, this took a lot of time, effort, and manpower: far easier to steer the ship to bring guns to bear than to coax the guns themselves about. (It would be more useful in a chase scenario, where the ships are changing relative position more slowly.) This puts an emphasis on sailing ability, judging the wind, judging your ship, and judging the enemy's intentions -- or, in short, puts more emphasis on strategy. I believe that is appropriate.

    

2. As a consequence, it should be hard -- and in many situations impossible -- to form what in AoSII we used to call a "banana line" to focus fire on one particular enemy vessel. On a downwind chase against slower opponents, sure -- but not close-hauled, or with wind abeam for any length of time. Again, this puts an emphasis on careful sailing and overall strategy rather than an individual ship's firepower -- pull out of line and take cover to make repairs if you're taking too heavy a beating; shorten up the line without running afoul of your teammates to hammer hard a tough target.

    

3. If a ship strikes or is otherwise disabled, it can become an obstacle to teammates. This magnifies the effect of "losing" a ship: not only do you have less firepower to bring to bear as a group, you have to not run afoul of ships dead in the water. That means, on average, that once a battle starts to swing in one direction one side will start gaining momentum almost exponentially. This in turn shortens the "time value" of remaining ships, speeding a battle towards a faster conclusion otherwise.

Perhaps these are the effects that admin is talking about; I hope so In any case, I generally am hoping battles will take significant time to resolve, up to a couple hours for epic engagements. As others have said, I hope that manoeuvre is a significant part of the action, as it was historically -- even if I don't want to see battles play out literally at realtime speeds. There are only so many hours in a day, after all!

No, what the admin is talking about is that if a 1v1 takes 10 mins, then a battle such as 10v10 will take around the same time excluding positioning (which will increase it by about 20 mins depending on how many ships are moving into position, the larger the fleet the longer it will take). Due to the fact that you have the chance of firing on 2 ships at once per ship, whilst also having allies which will be able to focus fire on one ship decreasing the amount of time required to destroy a ship.

[Baggywrinkle]

Timings depend very much on how battles start - dead in the water facing each other a mile apart ready to go guns blazing, through to starting in your 'as spotted' sail configuration and course at the distance spotted, say 12 miles.

Personally, I'd rather the latter and would happily spend half a battle of 20-30 minutes really sailing to execute whatever tactical decisions I've made. So for 1v1 10-15 mins sail into contact, 10-15 mins at the great guns. Larger engagements I see the initial stage taking longer, if not the shooting bit too.

If we start near guns range then I'm sure 10 minutes an engagement will be plenty - I'll be missing a fair whack of immersion and probably won't want to invest much more time.

Baggy

[MrPiggi]

From what I gather, the gunning mechanics aren't going to be straightforward. So I wouldn't really think spending 10 or 15 minutes sailing into range or whatever in a 1on1 or 2on2 is viable. I can definitely see that amount of time being needed for a 5on5+, but if its just a duel I don't want to be sailing for 15 minutes just to get in range.

 

Up to an hour I think is a decent amount of time for a large engagement (including time spent positioning). Anything more and it gets a little ridiculous, people would have to hesitate before playing the game incase they have to leave in an hour or 2 and don't want to bail mid-battle. Although I too suspect it would take about 30 minutes, all inclusive, for a decent engagement to conclude.

[Morgan]

Unless there are no things like following (video is random picked, check around 0:35),

 

 

i guess times would be nice to have a "reallity philosophy" combined with "game philosophy".

I agree with MrPiggi, we should not forget that this a game and people won't spend a whole day to prep and fight (at least the majority).

And if we consider the votes in this post, http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/506-arcade-or-simulation-the-poll/ that also point to a direction of the pace (6th and 5th are the most voted),

we understand that battles also, can't be so much close to simulation (at least when it comes to time factor).

[FLGibsonJr]

I think there should be no time limits.  In some battles the squadrons will play cat and mouse with each other for some time, trying to gain the wind guage, which could take considerable time, at other times both sides may think they have an advantage and decide to attack quickly.  My hope is that enough time will be given to all phases of the battle.

[Morgan]

I also agree there shouldn't be a pre-defined time limit.

But, (I might be wrong) I think the topic in question isn't about time limit. Is more about the pace of the game.

How much time the game will give to players to set and prepare, how easy would be to sink a ship 1v1,5v5,10v10 (dps, deffenses) etc.

Generally how long a battle can last in normal situations (pace).

[Thomas Blackwell]

The reasoning behind a timer I believe is so it becomes less possible to troll. Getting into a sloop and outrunning the enemy never letting them catch you. Demasting your enemy, sitting on their stern shooting grape the length of their ship. Etc, etc.

[Morgan]

Getting into a sloop and outrunning the enemy never letting them catch you.

 

For this one, in PotsBS there was a safety design. If, for a specific time, a participant was out of battle (didn't participate at all), he was able to "click out" of the battle. So, a sloop couldn't keep a bigger ship

in battle for more than 2 minutes by griefing and running away, unless commit to battle.

 

Demasting your enemy, sitting on their stern shooting grape the length of their ship. Etc, etc.

 

I really don't see any reason trolling an enemy like that. Since you can demast and keep on stern, you can also sink him without any trouble. If someone is doing that to provoke/irritate an enemy, I also don't see any trolling here. Might be bit nasty, but so is every naval battle (especially  the old centuries). Psychological factor was No 1 strategy to win a fight and a make a point to the enemy that you are superior than him.

[Flip]

There should be no 'ideal' time. In the end it comes down to the mechanics the dev's employ, which in turn will determine the strategy, and therefore duration of battles. 

 

My ideal time would be 5-10 minutes of 'firing' in a 1 v 1 and 30 - 40 of firing in a 20 v 20. Let the manoeuvring take as long as people want, but at some point you must engage, and as the game ages I'd expect this time to decrease.

[Samuel Adams]

I agree I don't want them taking forever. But there should be some thing not for the battles to take forever.

[Stan Laguna]

I agree with Flip

[Clinch]

There should be no 'ideal' time. In the end it comes down to the mechanics the dev's employ, which in turn will determine the strategy, and therefore duration of battles. 

 

My ideal time would be 5-10 minutes of 'firing' in a 1 v 1 and 30 - 40 of firing in a 20 v 20. Let the manoeuvring take as long as people want, but at some point you must engage, and as the game ages I'd expect this time to decrease.

Hopefully we can get historical battles with predetermined positions and wind direction