Enemies visible damage Yes or No (Health Bars)?

[Charles Caldwell]

I thought I'd throw this out there.... just to see if I am alone in this, way off the mark or actually onto something. I am talking about the visibility of the damage inflicted on the enemy, and other glues as to their seaworthiness and ability to fight.

 

After watching numerous videos its quite apparent that the visual information on the enemy has a huge impact on the engagement and the tactics employed. I'll say it, I feel uncomfortable with the idea of having such accurate info on my enemy. Surely this brings into play an unrealistic mechanism that removes any element of risk or skill on the part of the Captain fighting the engagement, and his/hers ability to judge whether they are winning by visual clues and hard won experience....

 

By removing the enemy damage indicator, the Captain would have to rely on his assessment of the enemy ship, its speed, its maneuverability and its visual damage. Whether also its Broadside weight and gunnery is lacking due to damage inflicted. I also note in one engagement that the Captain of 1 ship knew how many repair counts the enemy ship had left and had used!!!!

 

It may be too hardcore but should the damage inflicted be more vague? 

 

Your valued thoughts and opinions Gentlemen?

[D. Federico de Gravina y N]

I voted NO

[Chilly Willy]

If you're talking about the image top right of the screen showing the targeted ships damage it is here for testing purposes only

I believe it has been mentioned it will be removed when the game goes live as in my response to that

If you want to see how much damage he has taken sail up and ask him

[Charles Caldwell]

Thank you Chilly, that puts my mind at ease.

[Leviathan]

Are you sure they said that Chilly? The only thing I remember them saying was that the last UI was temporary and only for testing purposes. I can't remember them saying the damage indicator would be completely removed. However, I haven't had my allotted amount of coffee for the day so I may be wrong.

[Charles Caldwell]

Hmmmm now I'm concerned again... perhaps a Dev could clarify?

[Chilly Willy]

Hmmmm now I'm concerned again... perhaps a Dev could clarify?

He's saying that to make me spend. Hours looking up the thread

BASTARD

[Leviathan]

You're welcome! I'll get some coffee and check back for your results lol

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

In real life, you could use your telescope and get an ok idea of how the other ship lay. Stove in gunports, parts of the rigging missing or dangling, how high she lay in the water and handled the seas, blood pouring from her scuppers - a million observable details that helped the officers make decisions. The nature of polygons and damage modeling makes this level of detail nearly impossible in a game of this nature.

So the question really is more along the lines of "how can damage be displayed in such a manner as to provide a realistic level of information about the state of your ship and the other ship, while still being technically possible to implement given the level of technology we have to work with?"

Most games use health bars and other gauges to accomplish this mechanic. They're ugly and anti-immersive, but they serve an important purpose.

[Charles Caldwell]

Valid points my friend, but from what I've seen the devs could achieve enough visual clues to allow us to draw a sensible conclusion to the state of the enemy...

 

Tattered sails [in from what I've seen]

Lying low in the water [in also]

Listing [Not observed yet]

Broken and shattered masts [No seen in a video yet]

Hull damage, shot and splintered holes [in]

 

With other clues, poor or slow turn rates [clear rudder damage]

low broadside weight [gun station damage]

 

All of the above would allow a Captain observing through his spyglass the ability to assess and conclude that the vessel was in trouble. All without a garish 'Health bar' in sight!

 

Edit: Forgot 'Fire' onboard, the clearest indication that the vessel was in dire straits.

[Leviathan]

Listing and demasting visuals are in already. The current UI doesn't show if the enemies rudder, pump, or magazine are damaged. It is only visible for your own ship. Everything else you mentioned you can observe in game.

*edit* fire is not currently in game but the devs are planning on it.

[Charles Caldwell]

Listing and demasting visuals are in already. The current UI doesn't show if the enemies rudder, pump, or magazine are damaged. It is only visible for your own ship. Everything else you mentioned you can observe in game.

 

Excellent, thank you Leviathan... then without that accursed health bar, a well rounded Captain COULD gauge the state of the enemy purely by visual means!

[Leviathan]

I wouldn't say it would be an easy task, especially against a much larger ship, but it is possible. Would also depend a lot on range and viewing angle. There would be a lot more 'gray' area. The health bar more accurately depicts the armor or structure integrity. You can easily sink with a decent amount of health bar remaining if you have enough leaks taking on water.

[Saintduiex]

Excellent, thank you Leviathan... then without that accursed health bar, a well rounded Captain COULD gauge the state of the enemy purely by visual means!

Well, sort of.

 

For example, you have been hammering away and have blown several holes into the port side. You can use the spy glass and see that as well as perhaps the ship sitting lower.

Then the player uses one of his repair for the hull. The current version does not show you that through the glass.

If you take out a mast or shred their sails and they use a repair on them that is easily observed.

 

The other thing that current visual sighting does not give you is how many crew they have aboard, which could be a key indicator as to if you might press an engagement with a another (larger?) ship. Perhaps your enemy only has a skeleton prize crew aboard but the ship was bigger than mine?  If I could see that the deck was not swarming with men I might risk a couple of hits to get along side of them to board. So, I would argue that you need a mechanism, visual or an indicator on the UI, to give you an idea of how many men are aboard and NOT the percentage of men remaining against the count of a normally full crew.

 

In any case, I am sure that all these tweaks will come in time as the higher priority development gets done.

[BungeeLemming]

Until we can CLEARLY see the damage on our foe's ship we must have the indicator.

Right now we can not estimate the cannons our enemy has left. We can not see if the leaks are bad or not. When we see the enemy sinking its practically too late. We will only realize that it is too late for him.

 

So:

UNTIL we have good vision on the target ship and until we can not see the damage. I vote for YES.

I say this becasue I fear the devs may see this as an immediate test to implement in future builds

[akd]

Yup, crew size is vital info that in real life could be deduced from observation.

[Chilly Willy]

You're welcome! I'll get some coffee and check back for your results lol

Swine   it was one of my own idea unconfirmed by admin  did find the thread thou 

 

Is there enough to do in sailing and fighting the ships in this game?

Started by Destraex, Aug 17 2014 02:08 AM

 

under testing forums

[AKPyrate]

I agree that it would be great to just see the damage (if close enough) and estimate the enemy's damage, but until I see how that actually works, I can't vote for it.  How good will it be to someone who has the visual settings set on the minimum?  Will you have an advantage just because your graphics are better?  Would another way be to give approximate indicators for certain aspects such as crew, hull, sails, guns, rudder, etc. in a greed/yellow/red font depending on damage, but only when you're inspecting the enemy through the glass?  That way, while sailing and aiming broadsides, you wouldn't have the constant damage bar, but could access the information when 'inspecting' the enemy.  

[Destraex]

we have a few things at work here.

 

1) simulated crew feedback

2) Damage to ships may never be shown in enough detaail... Bbuutt ccooouldd i guss

3) As long as the damaggee bars shhow eennough. Ddeail you still hhhhave tto. Interrprrret. Itt!!!!!!

FFOORR IINNSANNNCEE. WHEEWWWW ITT MAAAYY MAAAP UNDDEEWWAEE. SHHOTS..

 

I. BEELIEVE THHHATT. TTTHE. BARRSS ARE NECEEESSARYB. for. Peooolple tto larrn tteeccvniiqueees and limittattiiiionsn of. The. Games...

 

 

 

 

bbloodyy phonnee!!

 

 

 

 

II

 

 

 

 

 

2)

[Johny Reb]

I voted yes. Indeed, it is more immersive to not know the state of the enemy ship but for a few reasons I would like to be able to know the state of the enemy. First, as I have said in other posts, these battles take a while to finish already. Taking away those damage visuals will only mean the fight will take another ten minutes to finish as you continue to fire your broadsides into a ship whos fate has already been sealed. What could possibly change this though would be the future addition of a surrender mechanic. This way you won't be spending all your time shooting at a sinking ship. Hopeful that player will understand his predicament and surrender before all is lost. But for now keep the visual.

 

Second, alot of those things you want to be seen can be but in a simple hull bashing fight all we really have to go on for quite some time is the shot damage on the side of the boat. Surely, it will eventually start to sit lower in the water but for a long time it wont. we can see the gun ports stove in and of course no blood from the scuppers so our visuals are pretty weak imho. The visuals make up for it.

 

Also, in rl Captains didn't care so much I'd bet. They hammered them until they surrendered and barring a mast going down, the best indication of the state of the other ships fighting capability was its rate of fire.

[BrutishVulgarian]

No, sir. In fact I cannot fathom the inner workings of those who would want health bars. This game is banking all on ship to ship, skill based combat, part of skill is looking through a spyglass and measuring your opponent's status.

I would like to see fleet battles decided by what Capitains see, not some statistic bar. If we go with bars and graphs and mini maps why even bother creating the beautiful graphics?

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

Because a true to reality deformation/destruction based model is not economically or technologically sound given today's technology. Again, the real life cues can be difficult to do well enough to give a reasonable accounting of damage that we be easy to see in real life. While we don't need accurate to the single HP health bars and floating damage numbers above ships when they hit, a certain amount of HUD may be necessary to convey an adequate amount of status information to allow the Captain a realistic decision making process.

[Destraex]

No, sir. In fact I cannot fathom the inner workings of those who would want health bars. This game is banking all on ship to ship, skill based combat, part of skill is looking through a spyglass and measuring your opponent's status.

I would like to see fleet battles decided by what Capitains see, not some statistic bar. If we go with bars and graphs and mini maps why even bother creating the beautiful graphics?

 

OK. Sorry about my post with my phone earlier. I put a film on it to stop scratching which buggered the touch screen sensitivity up.

 

In principle I agree that the hourglass should bee enough

 

A few points:

 

(i) In real life you have crew and officers to give feedback. You also do not have to aim the guns yourself. You can keep looking through the spyglass and analysing the enemy ship.

In game this does not always happen because of the chaos at some shorter ranges

(ii) Damage is often hard to see and the damage models not detailed enough to show through the spyglass how bad below the waterline, or even the end or side of the ship is damaged. 

Things do not cave in or show real holes in the side of ships that I have seen. If this improved then fine. Take the abstraction of health bars away.

(iii) The ship should NOT be sinking anyways and therefore no real damage model is going to be accurate. Ships strike colours they do not sink!

[Charles Caldwell]

I appreciate that I currently have no hands-on experience, I'm purely basing my opinion on the various videos on youtube but I'm hearing that the current build doesn't allow or give enough detail to remove a 'Health bar' and that some of you think that you need to have further information on  enemy crew stats, gun stats to allow for sensible gameplay. Hmmm for me thats actually taking something away from the game, a certain level of skill. Perhaps we should just compare stats at the beginning of the engagement and declare a winner there and then (joking of course).

 

However with regard to not enough detail in game, and this is from a current tester the following are in, and are in enough detail to be seen well enough with the Captains spyglass.

 

[in -game] Tattered sails

[in -game] Lying low in the water 

[in -game] Listing 

[in -game] Broken and shattered masts 

[in -game] Hull damage, shot and splintered holes 

 

Rudder damage [ Can be judged surely on the lack of maneuverability of the enemy ship]

Gun station damage [ simple calculation: is the enemy firing a full broadside, partial or a non existent broadside?]

 

All are in game currently and dont require extra detail, though I imagine that as the build progresses the detail will improve. I'm yet to be convinced that a 'show all' health bars add anything to the game other than unrealism and screen UI clutter.

[Destraex]

An additional thing that health bars do is let NEW players understand what exactly can be shot up and to what level of detail.

Without this you may as well assume that like a lot of dumber games that their is one giant health bar for the whole ship and that shots from any angle are cumulative as a whole.

 

 

I believe you need tangible feedback or nobody will just assume that you can hit below the waterline and cause leaks or destroy guns above the waterline.

Well I guess you have your own damage model and feedback from that to give you that detail