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Forthcoming shipbuilding changes [Heavily Moderated]


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You have just made a pretty enormous change to the entire shipbuilding aspect of this game.  The fine woods requirements (and relative scarcity), regional bonuses, competing demands for LH (e.g., War Supplies), and re-introducing varying quality in captured AI ships, each on their own merits would've significantly altered the crafting environment.  Taken all together at once, and you've shifted the trade/craft gameplay to such an extent that the playerbase hasn't yet fully adjusted to it; folks are still trying to figure out "the new normal".  And I don't think we will fully reach that state until pre-patch gold ships are mostly attrited out of the players' collective inventory.  That might take a while.

 

I think how the playerbase eventually evolved to meet the new environment might've been pretty interesting.  As one example, I think quite a few players are learning that middling-quality ships aren't necessarily quite so bad after all.  Your 9.96 changes were clearly meant to make Exceptional ships, well, "exceptional"rather than "minimum acceptable".   And from my perspective, we were slowly headed toward begrudging acceptance among the playerbase of that new reality.   Your observation "...not used and thus are useless. Nobody makes them and nobody buys them."  was certainly true very recently, and still valid for many today.  I think if you had let this process continue, however, for another few weeks, this statement would've become increasingly obsolete.

 

Yet now you've announced another seismic shift in the shipbuilding aspect of this game...before allowing the current paradigm to fully establish itself.  The mere fact that you've announced these changes is going to affect how the 9.96 changes play out.

 

I really don't understand the timing of the announcement, following so closely on the heels of 9.96.

I agree !!!!!

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Except for one thing, I have always thought you should be able to arm the ship's "en-flute", getting rid of guns would add cargo space for cannon weight, cannon balls, ammo, etc. so that you could have a "pirate galleon" in the old style, lots of cargo space and lots of guns, but all the guns small caliber.

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As a developer, if the reason is a DB change that can not support the new format, then everything in the DB will need to be purged. If it's the ships tables, then say goodbye to ALL ships.

Thank you for putting that more succinctly than I was able too. That is exactly what I anticipate will happen.

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You have just made a pretty enormous change to the entire shipbuilding aspect of this game.  The fine woods requirements (and relative scarcity), regional bonuses, competing demands for LH (e.g., War Supplies), and re-introducing varying quality in captured AI ships, each on their own merits would've significantly altered the crafting environment.  Taken all together at once, and you've shifted the trade/craft gameplay to such an extent that the playerbase hasn't yet fully adjusted to it; folks are still trying to figure out "the new normal".  And I don't think we will fully reach that state until pre-patch gold ships are mostly attrited out of the players' collective inventory.  That might take a while.

 

I think how the playerbase eventually evolved to meet the new environment might've been pretty interesting.  As one example, I think quite a few players are learning that middling-quality ships aren't necessarily quite so bad after all.  Your 9.96 changes were clearly meant to make Exceptional ships, well, "exceptional"rather than "minimum acceptable".   And from my perspective, we were slowly headed toward begrudging acceptance among the playerbase of that new reality.   Your observation "...not used and thus are useless. Nobody makes them and nobody buys them."  was certainly true very recently, and still valid for many today.  I think if you had let this process continue, however, for another few weeks, this statement would've become increasingly obsolete.

 

Yet now you've announced another seismic shift in the shipbuilding aspect of this game...before allowing the current paradigm to fully establish itself.  The mere fact that you've announced these changes is going to affect how the 9.96 changes play out.

 

I really don't understand the timing of the announcement, following so closely on the heels of 9.96.

Timing is very simple to explain. They haven't tested any significant stuff since february but now when the release is intended for decemebr we're rushing unexplainable bullshit out in a 5mins intervals. It feels quite a bit like panic developing - remidns me of writing essays - dont do shit for 4 weeks then write it all in the last 3 days.

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The premise of the OP is wrong.  The new system is making people build and use lower grades of ships, and the system hasn't been implemented long enough to have any sort of a clue of how it's going to affect gameplay.

 

Testing is great and I like doing it, but we've barely started testing this system.  Trashing it in favor of something else is a little premature.

 

I agree and keep telling folks that the patch hasn't even been out but what like a week?  I mean give it time folks and let things just work it out.  One week is hardly any time to play things out.   I have since the Patch built 2 Bellona's, Rennon, Rattler, Bell Poule, LVG and Mercury with a good dozen or two trade ships  So it's not that you can't get these items, you just need to look for them and do a little trading and willing and dealing.

 

When Texas is right he is right.

 

When the EU server went down for 5 hours, the devs gave out Bucentaurs to EVERYONE.   When the US server went down for damned near a day, we got nothing.  

 

When the PVE server went down nothing again.

 

I understand catering to the larger server but the only way to promote growth on BOTH servers is to treat them equally.  

 

Not exactly true PvE went down a while back and they gave them all LVG's.  Like the only ship I have over there other than a basic cutter until I sold my Buc and bought something bigger just for testing cause I wasn't level to crew it at the time.   I don't expect extra goodies when the servers go down but something like labor contract to make up for lost game time would of been cool.  Though the tournaments and giving out ships only on one server except a few events we tested isn't exactly being fair to all servers.

 

Will find the crafters and beg for a special one :)

 

To bad there is no one on PvP2 that could of gotten it or even the chance other than luck when the BP was accidently released.   I'm just lucky I have some clan mates with the Aug and L'Ocean.  Though only one person in nation has the HEavy rattlers, but other two large pop nations have several folks with it.  Yah real fair there when it's pretty much the only ship being used in shallow water.  For a noob it's certain death if you run across an experienced player in one.

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Main post updated to answer some of the questions raised in the topic:

[*]Wood types will remain and will affect ships stats, what will change is how the ship general stats and upgrade slots and other elements are determined during crafting, giving more options to a crafter to build the ship just for him (or for his buyers)

What would you think if only the wood type and regional bonus were the only things in the craft process of the ship?

Upgrades slots were standard for all ships, an increase to the number of permanent slots then reducing the regular slots. Make trims and modules be the features to configuring the ships afterwards allowing players to experiment with what kind of build they want to achieve for their needs, this would allow far more flexibility plus a supply and demand structure on all kinds of modules and upgrades.

And as for the event, tournament and rare items they should not be available as prizes, everything in game should be available via admiralty points, players then can grind how ever they please and save up for blueprints, color schemes, modules, cash or any real items they prefer, via doing it this way it keeps balance and even for all and those really wanting to put in the time will gain them faster then those who are more casual.

Edited by Ronald Speirs
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when you guys make this huge change can you also test out scrapping the multi durability mechanic and just have ships be 1 dura. I never understood why this game , if it wants to be catering to pvp, goes with the multi dura mechanic because that takes soooo much away from the thrill of pvp and possibility of losing a beloved ship. Its like EVE Online, one of the reasons EVE Online became so popular is because of its amazing pvp, the real danger of losing a ship you worked hard for. That is not a crutch that is a huge plus for gaming. sure you may not want to lose that ship at the time but later you realize the thrill of losing the ship was far more real than knowing you can just rinse and repeat with 4 more durability. 

 

so i am all for your changes if you scrap the durability mechanic. 

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Hello Сaptains!

 

We will abandon the 5 color grades for upgrades and ships. Fine (blue), Mastercraft (purple), Common (green) are not used and thus are useless. Nobody makes them and nobody buys them. 

 

As a result of testing the final ship quality and shipbuilding system will look like this.

  • Captured - captured (grey) will be assigned to all ships captured (except for ships captured from player fleets) 
  • Сrafted (yellow) - ships built by players
  • Special - events, rewards, tournament vessels, or maybe extremely rare and hard to craft (months of effort required)
Instead of quality (who would try to make a bad ship) players will select things they want they their ship to have sacrificing other elements if they want to improve one of the characteristics

 

Definitely will be done

  • For example if a shipbuilder wants to increase speed it will increase ship cost AND will have to sacrifice the hull quality
  • If they want to have additional slots for upgrades they will have to sacrifice space or increase weight
  • If you take more crew you might need to reduce hold
  • Cannons and ammo and powder supply will affect cargo hold and will reduce ship performance if you overgun it
Under consideration
  • If you want to take 200 shots per gun instead of normal supply to battle you might need to sacrifice some space (this will solve cases of light ships unloading 10000 rounds in a battle into a first rate)
  • You can determine the number of repair kits you can take for the vessel and affect the weight.
  • Unstable designs - add to much sails (to increase speed) your ship might capsize in some cases
  • Other experimental ideas like 1 durability ships and other changes
Same treatment will be applied to upgrades. 

 

Once this system is coded in all old ships and some upgrades will become unusable due to database changes and will have to be removed from the game. 

 

discuss

 

Update to answer some of the questions raised in the topic:

  • Regional bonuses will remain and NPC ships as well will have them too 
  • Regions and map will not change thus your repositioning to new areas will remain valid
  • ETA for the changes is somewhere between end december - end january. We will first add land in port battles and some other previously promised things.
  • Wood types will remain and will affect ships stats, what will change is how the ship general stats and upgrade slots and other elements are determined during crafting, giving more options to a crafter to build the ship just for him (or for his buyers)
  • The current proposal is a proposal and might change based on what is found during the design stage. 

 

Fine (blue), Mastercraft (purple), Common (green) are not used and thus are useless. Nobody makes them and nobody buys them.

The reason they are not used is because there is not that much difference between crafting green or gold. Just number of resources. Making crafting materials more complex and different will fix this problem, e.g. Green Marines require common cotton (for uniform) which is way easier to get than Fine Satin for Gold Marine's uniform, thus making green marines a valuable option. Right now the difference is only in quantity of the material, but if you already got your hands on the material getting quantity is easy, hence why no one is crafting lower quality.

 

Instead of quality (who would try to make a bad ship) players will select things they want they their ship to have sacrificing other elements if they want to improve one of the characteristics

No one. But the quality should be dictated by resource availability. The higher upgrades should require different higher quality resources/materials.

Once ship is built from poorer quality it should be able to be upgraded to a better quality later. This way people will be able to craft what they can at the time and sail what they could craft and upgrade later as materials become available.

I support the idea of removing colors. Instead I propose to introduce Ship Rating. As you keep upgrading your ship its rating gets higher. The rating of your ship should be visible in the open and in battle to others. No point of having a "wow effect" of a golden ship when its only yourself who can appreciate that.

 

For example if a shipbuilder wants to increase speed it will increase ship cost AND will have to sacrifice the hull quality

You mean durability? Why can't speed have its own quality measure? Bad quality - slower speed

 

 

Cannons and ammo and powder supply will affect cargo hold and will reduce ship performance if you overgun it

I read this as installing upgrades going to make your cargo space smaller. Why not make items / upgrades simply have their own volume parameter. More you add of those items, more space it takes in your cargo. They will be dynamic values, remove them and it frees the space.

 

 

Unstable designs - add to much sails (to increase speed) your ship might capsize in some cases

Bad rigging balance should affect Turn/Speed rate making it unbalanced and show poor maneuverability and agility. Capsizing a ship was done mainly due to human actions like exposing too much sail in stormy weather. Having said that the rigging on such wind would have much higher chances to break before ship would capsize. So this leads to another question:

Will there be something done about manual sailing in the open world when we have to set right sails combination for given Point of Sail in order to gain best cruise speed?

 

 

Other experimental ideas like 1 durability ships and other changes

Awesome! Introduction of 1 dura ships will also increase usage of lower quality ships that simply easier and less expensive to build. People will stop sailing what they can't afford to lose. This leads us back to ship qualities. Historically all ships were of a different quality. One better than the other. If you remove colors, would you consider a dynamic Ship Rating, the figure that is changes when ship is upgraded.

 

 

Once this system is coded in all old ships and some upgrades will become unusable due to database changes and will have to be removed from the game.

Understand that you have to do it. But this will make people again less active TODAY. Who is going to invest time gathering hard to get resources, sail to far distances to craft ships in certain regions if they all gonna be taken away? You will create another player drop due to inactivity. Neither you or us would want that. Will you consider simple replacing those ships with the equivalent new models? Or offer some other type of remedy so our gameplay today is not pointless?

 

 

Regional bonuses will remain and NPC ships as well will have them too

Don't know where to write about this, but honestly this makes no sense to me. Are you saying that same parameter ships were not built in different places? Ships characteristics are dependent on the ship builder, the quality and size of the shipyard and the materials used.

 

I understand that you want to make some provinces more important than the other and you already done that by giving those provinces Fine Wood Types. But what if Regional Bonus will not depend where the ship is made, but where certain type of wood is from? Instead of building at Baracoa to gain Regional Built Strength Bonus, why not get there Baracoa Oak Logs for that region's bonus and build somewhere else? This will also give smaller nations a better chance. They can't conquer some regions, but at least they can smuggle or buy from other players required resources to have that bonus.

 

As for shipyards. You already have hostility level. Its good, just need polishing. Once region is captured nation should continue building influence in the area. Higher the influence - higher level buildings can be made there.

Nation's capital can only have level 1 shipyard so it is essential that nation attempts to conquer more territories.

Remove labor hours completely. Instead add timer to build anything. Higher level shipyard less it takes to build anything hence why players would want to travel and build elsewhere and keep working on regions. Also level 1 Shipyard should accommodate maximum 10 jobs at the time, which means only 10 players can craft at the given time. Each level Shipyard gives additional 5 slots for more players and faster crafting. This will really push nation to extend territories.

 

 

Great game. Please keep up the good work. One more suggestion if I may. You are getting further with the development. The game is forming and getting into shape. It is really a time to introduce a Community Manager. A professional who will deal with issues, write update notes, keep public informed. You guys doing an amazing work on programing this beauty. Very professional work. Please trust another professional to do the community work for you. Maybe there will be volunteers or people that agree to work for a future reward. You will never know until you ask.

 

You are getting into the stage when you can't afford to mess with the community any longer. You can be very right on the subject, but your job is to keep the person in the game (customer for you and a fellow player for us), so being dismissive will not help to achieve this. And trust me I know how frustrating it is to run multinational communities.

 

Your presence will no longer be taken as "that cool developer dude who talks to us", but rather non professional approach. Community needs updates on forum of upcoming patches prior the patch.

You said earlier - wait before crafting anything. We gonna remove RNG. People logged into the game and saw that it was down for update not just maintenance. What would they think? Of course they tried to craft straight away and got pretty annoyed. Your comment appeared too late for them to see. It needs to be done at least day earlier.

 

 

With respect and best wishes,

 

 

[bLACK] Koltes

Edited by koltes
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This is stupid

Uh, my description is entirely valid and not vulgar. It *IS* an insanely stupid idea. That is my opinion and I am free to express it, unless Gamelabs wants to be thought police.

Do not change the quality system

 

Do an asset wipe. With the changes you've made to crafting, people will be sailing in basic ships for a while and it is much harder to keep up a fleet of exceptionals.

 

This is yet another example of you admins over reacting and making a massive unnecessary change rather than making small adjustments.

 

Back before Exceptionals became commonplace, I sailed basics, and common, fine, or mastercraft was a big deal. We can still go back to that.

 

 

Edit rescinded

Edited by Æthlstan
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This is stupid

 

Do not change the quality system

 

Do an asset wipe. With the changes you've made to crafting, people will be sailing in basic ships for a while and it is much harder to keep up a fleet of exceptionals.

 

This is yet another example of you admins over reacting and making a massive unnecessary change rather than making small adjustments.

 

Back before Exceptionals became commonplace, I sailed basics, and common, fine, or mastercraft was a big deal. We can still go back to that.

 

I've never understood why people complain about there being so many exceptional ships. Surely if just about everyone has them then it's creating a fairly level playing field where results in battle come down more to the skill of the player or group of players in the battle, which is a good thing.

As I said in my previous post on this thread I personally feel Mastercraft ships are pretty much redundant but if NPC are going to continue to churn out Basic & Common ships in the shop then there is an argument for keeping Fine ships craftable for that first rung on the ladder for new players, for fleet ships etc. 

 

At the end of the day, we will adjust and if we have Basic/Common from NPC and/or captures, and Gold from player crafting it will be fine as the majority of players will be wanting to sail Gold ships as they do now. If on top of that the devs do bring in additional ways to trim your ship build during crafting, there will be opportunities for players to have some level of customization on top of the trims/wood type/regional bonus we have now which I think will work well.

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As a dedicated crafted I say that - basically - the new quality system it's a good idea.

 

But the problem is that, now (since the fine wood thing stepped in), in order to craft (and therefore test) a top notch ship it takes - really - OR a lot of time OR a lot of gold.

 

So, if you wipe the ships, you should award to people owning gold ships - as a reedemable - a quantity of fine woods (in proportion to the tier and number of the owned gold ships) that will allow them to craft (or have crafted) new ones. This way you will take two bird with a stone: test new crafting immediately and have quickly new high tier ships available to players for testing end-game contents.

Edited by victor
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go go go devs :D  i really like it. wipe if needed , the more changes the better. lets try it out , if it doesn't work , you always go back. i know it's a lot of work for you guys but the only way to finding out what works is trying it. we can debate bout it all we want but basically we don't know how it will work out if we don't test it. 

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ONLY way to test what we just got is to reduce all current ships to green or blue.... NOW

Then we can test how that really affects gameplay and crafting.

 

Next is to test another system - but maybe consider other options first???

 

Your comments here and arrogant dismissal with the remark on a server for real testers.... please.....If you do not let us test concepts to the full extent and then dismiss it the next day it is really taking the p... on us!!

I suggest a different system that would actually give room for all levels of players and give us what most want - TINKERING

We all want to tune ships to our own liking so why these half hearted tests - try out some radically different systems!

 

My suggestion is this:

Slots and slotted upgrades to be removed

 

I see it this way:

Material crafting follows current model with crafting hours

 

Ships crafting is separated into a Shipyard with 1 to 3 slots depending on crafting level or perhaps Rank

These slots can be used for

1 building ships (you can ONLY build a basic ship)

2 modifying ships  (change a trader to carry only aft guns or add chasers to another vessel - tradeoffs needed - one size smaller broadside guns for larger chasers??)

3 improving ships (2, 4, 8 day upgrades to finer qualities and only one quality level per time)

4 rebuilding durability (Ships have durability 1 but the wreck will be delivered to your yard and you can rebuild it)

5 Research (ALL blueprints are earned by researching a captured vessel - this takes time but NO drop rates and you need to capture or buy a ship first - NPC should only sell the basic ships)

 

to get a spread in ships qualities cost in materials and time to build MUST be exponential (2, 4, 8, 16..) - a linear spread makes the cost too easy to overcome and you will see grey golden only.

 

For time cost to build make it depending on crafting level, rank and ship rating. Basically making it impossible for a new player to build a 1st rate. Time requirements can be modified as the spread in ships become apparent.

To implement you HAVE to reduce ALL ships in game to grey and green. Then if it takes a week to make a golden people will settle for a blue - knowing that option 3 in the yard allows for a 3 day upgrade to purple later.

 

Modifying a ship with Marine quarters would downgrade a choice of other options f.ex. speed, hold or cannon size

 

This method will both accommodate new and casual players AND the big hardcore clans - remember - diversity in population will be the only way to make this world perpetuate!!!!

 

I think this solves many of the current issues in one fell swoop :-)

 

 

Edit: readability / font size. ~the Moderation Team~

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This is yet another example of you admins over reacting and making a massive unnecessary change rather than making small adjustments.

Not really, some of these changes has been hinted at by admin and quietly asked for by players since OW was released, even before crafting and EA. Now is the time for massive changes, like admin has stated many times; They can't do that after release.

Back before Exceptionals became commonplace

Noone I know has used anything but golden ships, again, since before EA and by a stretch even crafting. These guys may not represent the so called "normal" player, though. This is why these changes are good, to narrow the equipment gap between the powergamers/big clans and "normal" players. I'm not so worried that "normal" players will get discouraged and leave the game after being slapped by powergamers in top of the line equipment.
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 ...

 

Regional bonuses will remain and NPC ships as well will have them too

Don't know where to write about this, but honestly this makes no sense to me. Are you saying that same parameter ships were not built in different places? Ships characteristics are dependent on the ship builder, the quality and size of the shipyard and the materials used.

 

I understand that you want to make some provinces more important than the other and you already done that by giving those provinces Fine Wood Types. But what if Regional Bonus will not depend where the ship is made, but where certain type of wood is from? Instead of building at Baracoa to gain Regional Built Strength Bonus, why not get there Baracoa Oak Logs for that region's bonus and build somewhere else? This will also give smaller nations a better chance. They can't conquer some regions, but at least they can smuggle or buy from other players required resources to have that bonus.

 

...

100% agreed

 

For much players is crafting here a gaming goal. Not funny for them to keep always in mind that they never can build the ship characteristics they want. Its no problem when its difficult, but its a problem when it´s impossible at all.

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You have just made a pretty enormous change to the entire shipbuilding aspect of this game.  The fine woods requirements (and relative scarcity), regional bonuses, competing demands for LH (e.g., War Supplies), and re-introducing varying quality in captured AI ships, each on their own merits would've significantly altered the crafting environment.  Taken all together at once, and you've shifted the trade/craft gameplay to such an extent that the playerbase hasn't yet fully adjusted to it; folks are still trying to figure out "the new normal".  And I don't think we will fully reach that state until pre-patch gold ships are mostly attrited out of the players' collective inventory.  That might take a while.

 

I think how the playerbase eventually evolved to meet the new environment might've been pretty interesting.  As one example, I think quite a few players are learning that middling-quality ships aren't necessarily quite so bad after all.  Your 9.96 changes were clearly meant to make Exceptional ships, well, "exceptional"rather than "minimum acceptable".   And from my perspective, we were slowly headed toward begrudging acceptance among the playerbase of that new reality.   Your observation "...not used and thus are useless. Nobody makes them and nobody buys them."  was certainly true very recently, and still valid for many today.  I think if you had let this process continue, however, for another few weeks, this statement would've become increasingly obsolete.

 

Yet now you've announced another seismic shift in the shipbuilding aspect of this game...before allowing the current paradigm to fully establish itself.  The mere fact that you've announced these changes is going to affect how the 9.96 changes play out.

 

I really don't understand the timing of the announcement, following so closely on the heels of 9.96.

 

Lot of that what you say i can agree. But the problem with common and fine ships at the moment is that they require fine wood and the jump from common to fine is just 20 more. For new players its hard to get all that stuff. Better would be to take out fine wood (maybe also less material requirement) of common and fine ships and instead calling it FINE change the name to SOLIDE.

 

They have to reconsider this update that you are planing because im sure it will kill the game. make a fair vote were you can sort out what people want. i know the devs have plan but sometimes plans change or have to change for better.

 

One more thing lots of people in this game love ships obivisous isnt it? What you guys need really to do is start creating more ships instead of messing arround with other stuff most of the people were happy with what we had of course optimizing is always good.

 

Sincerely Captain Sir Benjamin

TCC founder

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Noone I know has used anything but golden ships, again, since before EA and by a stretch even crafting. These guys may not represent the so called "normal" player, though. This is why these changes are good, to narrow the equipment gap between the powergamers/big clans and "normal" players. I'm not so worried that "normal" players will get discouraged and leave the game after being slapped by powergamers in top of the line equipment.

 

Throw in the guys that have collected insane amounts of resources and gold through exploiting bad crafting/trade changes over time.  Lets not forget the guys sitting on tons of 1st rates and such they aren't using.  I know this will hit some folks even in my own clan.  If some of the others on PvP2 actually know how many ships some of our guys are sitting on from either crafting or capturing they would freak out.   I think we are way over do for a wipe and clean slate to put every one on an even playing field to work on the game mechanics and better test them.

 

 

Yes a lot of folks will leave and lots have all ready, but than again where those folks really here to help test the game?

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NPC "Last Resort Vendor Trash":  Basic 1/1

It floats and has guns, its found everywhere and it removes gold from the economy. Any player-crafted ship is a better alternative. About 2/3rd of all NPC captures.

 

Player-Crafted, 0 Notes: Com 2/2

Double the upgrade slots for a 100% improvement over the basic, plus customization options. Common is a big step up over vendored ships. Maybe 1/3rd of ships captured.

 

Player-Crafted, 3 Notes: Fine 3/3

Only a 50% improvement over Common ships, at a premium of three notes. This needs to be at a steep premium over a fine ship, so that the notes double the cost of the ship to the crafter. That will depend on how we price notes in labor hours. Very rarely captured.

 

Player-Crafted, 9 Notes: MC 4/3

Only one more standard upgrade slot than a Fine, this is a very small improvement in effectiveness over a Fine ship. But the price is tremendous, if 3 notes doubled the cost, then 9 notes quadruple the cost to the crafter. A fine frigate that sold for 250,000 means its Mastercraft is 1,000,000. Only captured in epic events or server events.

 

Player-Crafted, 18 Notes + Rare Combat Trophy/Shipwreck Drop/Event Drop: EX 5/3

EIGHTEEN CRAFTING NOTES for only ONE MORE UPGRADE SLOT. Exceptional ships become end-game content. Including the trophy in crafting (see signature) will make the pursuit of trophies from combat a driving force for open world PvP among players who have reached the end of game progression. For which, they will use Mastercraft ships, (or heck guys, lets save our notes for the Exceptional and just sail Fines.) I'd expect to see Exceptionals only in port battles and tournaments, when that small edge over a Mastercraft justifies the risk.

 

I don't know about you, but sinking six more notes into a ship for one more upgrade slot would make me sail a Fine instead of a Mastercraft for my usual cruising. I'd also like all the crafters to be able to build Common quality without needing notes, and just remove the Basic quality from player crafting altogether. Basic ships should only be captured NPC ships or the ships you buy from the NPC. This keeps everyone buying player crafted ships, while there's still NPC sold Greys for the guy who lost his command in distant waters.

 

And stop giving us "fine" basic cutters for free. How are we to make ships for the newbies come release if the 0 gold basic cutter isn't a grey basic?

Edited by Wesreidau
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Hy everybody,

 

by the time i first read the developers plan i thought “ oh my good what are they planning now….”

But when I think about a little bit longer it is not so bad.

 

Developers want to make a realistic game und this change will help to achieve this goal.

 

But in my opinion they have to keep pushing this forward.

 

I would say why don’t remove upgrades completely out of the game when every ship characteristics will be defined at the crafting?

Instead of the Upgrades they could every upgrade benefits who is not a ship characteristic into officer perks. And this perks will grow in the benefit how longer the officer will use this perk. If the player remove a perk from an officer he have to start with this perk from the beginning.

 

Maybe it should be able to hire more than one officer (depend on players rank?) and put also more than one on board of one ship (depends on ship class?). With such a system Player could really personalize his fleet.

Also I would suggest to implement an crew experience system. e.g. a crew with a higher experience will reload guns or change Battle stations faster. Crew casualties will have negative impact on the crew experience.

 

With best regards

 

Akir

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And stop giving us "fine" basic cutters for free. How are we to make ships for the newbies come release if the 0 gold basic cutter isn't a grey basic?

 

Most folks grow out of the basic cutter pretty fast but it's the only ship they can sail other than the Lynx at that level.  Most folks want to get into ships they can use all there crews by time they get to level 2/3 and those are the ships you can sail them.

 

Maybe it should be able to hire more than one officer (depend on players rank?) and put also more than one on board of one ship (depends on ship class?). With such a system Player could really personalize his fleet.

Also I would suggest to implement an crew experience system. e.g. a crew with a higher experience will reload guns or change Battle stations faster. Crew casualties will have negative impact on the crew experience.

 

 

I have suggested that we make the officer tied to each ship.  So you earn experience for that officer and that ships crew  The longer the ship stays around and the more fights it's in the better the perks it can have.   This will work great when they go to a 1 dura system if they ever do.  So it will give even basic ships the reason to keep around cause it has better crew than say a brand new green crewed exceptional.  This will also give the game more of a feel we are the Admirals of our fleets and not the exact captain of every boat.  

Edited by Sir Texas SIr
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Not really, some of these changes has been hinted at by admin and quietly asked for by players since OW was released, even before crafting and EA. Now is the time for massive changes, like admin has stated many times; They can't do that after release.

Noone I know has used anything but golden ships, again, since before EA and by a stretch even crafting. These guys may not represent the so called "normal" player, though. This is why these changes are good, to narrow the equipment gap between the powergamers/big clans and "normal" players. I'm not so worried that "normal" players will get discouraged and leave the game after being slapped by powergamers in top of the line equipment.

When I first started, I played largely with basic. My captured NPC (or player) fine, common, and mastercraft were awesome (at the time) and I loved them. I felt no need to use exceptionals. and the guys I was playing with felt no need to use exceptionals (my entire nation actually). Hell, we felt no real need to use upgrades either.

 

It wasn't until we started attempting to defeat our massive opponent did we start crafting exceptional ships to use in port battles, and even then we still had guys entering with common, fine, and mastercraft. 

 

If this game ever gets back to PvP centric gameplay, like it was in February, that, combined with the amount of resources it takes to build exceptionals, will put common, fine, and mastercraft back on the map as good PvP ships.

 

Overall PvP skill on this server has gone way down over the past several months because good fights have become so uncommon. Back in the old days, we fought opponents who had exceptional ships in our basic-mastercraft ships, and we won, because we were more skilled than our enemies

 

If my enemies are terrible at PvP, I wont risk being ganged up on while in an exceptional. I'd take a fine or common out to go solo PvP. Id keep my exceptionals for RvR screening, hostility missions, and port battles.

Edited by Æthlstan
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Yes a lot of folks will leave and lots have all ready, but than again where those folks really here to help test the game?

I was always here to test the game-  but at some point you start to feel as if people and devs are just taking the piss. I have over 1000 hours and several topics on the forum yet in every single one of them you get completely swarmed by the yes sayers and those that want the mechanics they abuse not fixed and every solution you provide is fought and I never saw a positive reaction (from the admins/mods/devs) towards any of the main issues that were psoted on this forum. At this point my clan of over 100 people ahd to kick nearly 30 who once extremely active have left the game for a month or longer now and currently we see only about 10-20 of the remaining 100 online as more and more useful testers are simply fed up with the development and the direction this game takes. In addition I ahve seen entire clans of PvP1 just vanish such as FTS or DMENT (though a very few plan to return now). I don't see an influx anywhere and especially not one that would counter the amount of people leaving. So at some point you gotta start asking yourself how much more of the playerbase you are willing/can afford to lose?!

Edited by JollyRoger1516
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I was always here to test the game-  but at some point you start to feel as if people and devs are just taking the piss. I have over 1000 hours and several topics on the forum yet in every single one of them you get completely swarmed by the yes sayers and those that want the mechanics they abuse not fixed and every solution you provide is fought and I never saw a positive reaction (from the admins/mods/devs) towards any of the main issues that were psoted on this forum. At this point my clan of over 100 people ahd to kick nearly 30 who once extremely active have left the game for a month or longer now and currently we see only about 10-20 of the remaining 100 online as more and more useful testers are simply fed up with the development and the direction this game takes. I don't see an influx anywhere and especially not one that would counter the amount of people leaving. So at some point you gotta start asking yourself how much more of the playerbase you are willing/can afford to lose?!

I know that I have not had fun testing this game in several months. Its been more of a chore every day. My efforts to bring in new players and help my nation be able to fight at all hours have been sabotaged by huge player bleed off. People leave the game. They don't really leave my clan. I'd be OK with them just leaving my clan, but no. They leave the game. 

 

Most of my old PvP 2 clan no longer plays because we stopped being active when we were told there was a server merge coming. We went to PvP1 to get a lay of the land and prepare, but the merge kept on being delayed or reconsidered. They were left hanging, so they didnt come back.

 

We also lost a significant part of the playerbase solely over the 2 minute timer change. We complained and offered alternatives, but we were ignored and the system remained in place for 6 months. 

 

I tried taking new players under my wing, even if they didnt join the clan, just to make sure they had someone to ask questions to and help them out if needed. Most those players dropped off the face of the earth after complaining about the 2 minute timer or various other problems they saw, coming on here, seeing people had addressed the issue multiple times in multiple threads for months, and deciding that the game wasn't worth wasting their time on.

 

I've stuck around because I really enjoyed playing this game, and I would like to enjoy playing it again. But I've gotten more and more disheartened with every passing day and each month of steamcharts reports showing a continued downwards spiral.

If this game was moving in the right direction, we would see an upwards spiral, not a downwards spiral. There is no way you can justify the downward trend after February without deluding yourselves.

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Another possible dura model.

 

Ok, I was just checking out another games (Crowfall), handling of item damage/decay, that has a very similar problem to NA regarding ship loss, and the had a different solution that could be used in NA.

 

Adapted to NA, instead of DURA, give ships a lifetime repair limit.  What this would mean is that a second value for a ship is kept, that tracks all damage sustained, and when that reaches zero, the ship can no longer be repaired.

 

Loss of a ship in combat would split the total life damage between the two ships, and if below a minimum threshold, would indicate only the captured ship remains, or as with a 1 dura system, every capture is a total ship loss, while being sunk may only remove a full ships worth of total life damage.

 

This could be tuned for more granular control than simple dura, and would insure that no matter how careful one was with their ship, eventually it would simply wear out.

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I don't think this new shipbuilding system is a bad thing overall. The problem I have mirrors what others have also said.. Why did you waste the time to bring about the big changes to the current system, then decide a short time after that the wheel needed to be re-invented... again. It's just wasting development time and it's also using a sledgehammer to balance when you should maybe be tapping away with a light ball-peen instead.

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