Crew cost is obviously too expensive or...

[Ned Loe]

Commodore Mission - 5000 Gold. 

Using Bucentaure and Endymion NPC. Battle starts, I order NPC to run and I start the fight. I then spend about 40-50 mins in fleet battle, kill everyone and get out. I get rewarded with 175363 Gold + 5000 mission gold, I lost 287 crew on my 2nd rate. 

Let's look at the numbers

No Officer Skills

175363+5000=180363

180363-143500=36.863 For spending 50 mins, with 5 kills made and 1.5k damage etc... 

Rear admiral with no officer skills. 

With Officer Skills

Doctor (Recovers 70%) or saves me 100450, 

Medkit+Surgeon Skill + 10%. - maybe another 30-40k, but you have to craft them or purchase them. 

This means new players must invest tons of time to make a coin and lvl up Officer before they can benefit from missions. Isn't it dangerous? where half of them will just say **** it it takes too long and quit. I suggest you to make gold reward at low lvl greater and decrease it as player rank rises. Reward players with more gold per damage done at low lvl if you want them to stay. 

or

Make First 2 officer promotions cheap as hell. Maybe 1st - 100xp, 2nd - 250xp,  3rd - 1000xp, 4th - 2000xp?...

 

 

 

Edited January 18, 2017 by Ned Low

[Makrian]

Ahoy! 

That's why the most use "MediKits". They are much cheaper. 

But I agree, that this is not the best way to ceep guys ingame, if they do not know the MediKits.

[GeneralPas]

maybe you should make gold from something else then missions ?

For clans its still way to cheap
Maybe scale  crew cost to rank

Edited January 15, 2017 by GeneralPas

[Ned Loe]

1 minute ago, GeneralPas said:

maybe you should make gold from something else then missions ?

For clans its still way to cheap
Maybe scale  crew cost to rank

I am just testing it. I do make gold from something else. 

[Mike the Mongel]

Considering the loss to crews with raking fire (even after its been adjusted) this cost does put a hole in the pocket

[GeneralPas]

well if they have issues its not a wast
Why should it all work the same for all the players , you have no argument there wind

[Fluffy Fishy]

I personally don't find crew costs too bad for general combat but they are extortionate for boarding, I used to enjoy a good game of underdog rock paper scissors back in the days of free crew but now its horrible, when you compare the value of the ship you capture is much lower than the value of sinking a ship thanks to damage its just unsustainable, it makes no sense historically or in gameplay terms to incentivise sinking a ship over capturing it. Although having balanced but worthwhile ship capturing may be a hard tightrope to walk in terms of design.

[Ned Loe]

Just now, Fluffy Fishy said:

I personally don't find crew costs too bad for general combat but they are extortionate for boarding, I used to enjoy a good game of underdog rock paper scissors back in the days of free crew but now its horrible, when you compare the value of the ship you capture is much lower than the value of sinking a ship thanks to damage its just unsustainable, it makes no sense historically or in gameplay terms to incentivise sinking a ship over capturing it. Although having balanced but worthwhile ship capturing may be a hard tightrope to walk in terms of design.

For us high ranks it's ok, but think about new guys without officer skills. 

[Fluffy Fishy]

Just now, Wind said:

For us high ranks it's ok, but think about new guys without officer skills. 

Even saying that, the current state of the incredibly broken economy helps to mean the new people almost have an easier ride in a lot of ways now than we did when we were going through the initial levelling up a year ago, although there is no sensible long term solution there, I'd still say the proportional cost isnt too bad apart from boarding like I said above, but then I don't often get intimate with fishes these days, but you make a good point, I can imagine if you are continually having to bankroll crew sign ups when you are trying to learn the game it could be incredibly frustrating especially if you are continually coming across some of the incredibly skilled captains we now have knocking about. 

I'd like to see splitting crew between ordinary and able seamen, where larger ships rely much more on higher percentile of expensive able seamen to operate efficiently, even slightly against historical values, meaning that newer players and players controlling smaller ships get an easier ride but also limits the first rate spamming a bit.

Say for example a brig needing 5-10% of the crew as able seamen for peak efficiency, a frigate can have something like 20-25% and a SOL somewhere around 40%, this gives a fairly nice staggered effect but also means new people can enjoy cheaper crews and gives some historical values too

[Liq]

in KPR you can buy large medkits at 6419 each, they recover 150 crew, thats a crew cost of 43ish gold per crew, more than 10x as cheap as buying crew from port

Edited January 15, 2017 by Liquicity

[Yar Matey]

There are plenty of ways around paying the exorbitant 500 gold per crew member cost.  You can buy small medkits and spam them for 10 min until you are full on crew and it costs like 50 gold per crew member.  Or if you choose press gang perk and have the right boarding setup and do a few missions, you can get plenty cash to buy crew that way as well.  

Edited January 15, 2017 by Yar Matey

[Ned Loe]

11 minutes ago, Yar Matey said:

There are plenty of ways around paying the exorbitant 500 gold per crew member cost.  You can buy small medkits and spam them for 10 min until you are full on crew and it costs like 50 gold per crew member.  Or if you choose press gang perk and have the right boarding setup and do a few missions, you can get plenty cash to buy crew that way as well.  

How long does it take for a new player to get 2 officer skills? I am talking rank 1. Or how many battles? Let's say we can't purchase Medkits at certain ports. Do you think devs should introduce NPC that would exchange something for Medkits if Shop got 0 on sale?

 

[Hethwill]

60 crew are always free if nothing has changed !? ( or was it 40.. ) So up to navy third rank the player is pretty much covered if not rushing to the next shiny thing and sticks to the guns and learn.

I do not think the system achieves what was supposed to - acting as a logistics mechanic - so I trust there's ideas on it other than simply removing it, so I half agree with the proposal.

Crew needs to work differently. As a reward, as a nation population balancer ( was a good initial idea for crew imo )...

Regarding Officer skills, as a I don't grind mine I can tell you right away that 2 cool battles give you 5 points.

 

[Destraex]

1 hour ago, Yar Matey said:

There are plenty of ways around paying the exorbitant 500 gold per crew member cost.  You can buy small medkits and spam them for 10 min until you are full on crew and it costs like 50 gold per crew member.  Or if you choose press gang perk and have the right boarding setup and do a few missions, you can get plenty cash to buy crew that way as well.  

Officer Perks will not be able to be reset so easily for new perks in the final game I don't think.

[Yar Matey]

I will agree with wind on the fact that getting started as a new nation, as in starting from nothing, no ships, no gold;  It is extremely difficult to get back on your feet again since the introduction of the new crew mechanics, because I had to do it when I switched from America to Sweden on PvP1.  But I think the fix is not in changing the crew mechanics, but making it so boats sell for more money, especially captured ships as well as more gold given to players who sink smaller ships and making lower level missions pay out more for completing them.  

Edited January 16, 2017 by Yar Matey

[Pagan Pete]

I just scare the bastards into joining my crew! 

[VirtuallyIdiotic]

11 minutes ago, Pagan Pete said:

I just scare the bastards into joining my crew! 

Historically majority of the crew was made up of men doing an alternative to prison time or people kidnapped off the streets at night.

 

I do understand that a few perks on an officer and medkits reduce the cost significantly. I do not believe that should be the only way however. Maybe create a rank system for crews which will reduce sail maneuvering and reload time the more experienced the crew is. 

Edited January 16, 2017 by PolishMartyr

[DeRuyter]

6 hours ago, Fluffy Fishy said:

Even saying that, the current state of the incredibly broken economy helps to mean the new people almost have an easier ride in a lot of ways now than we did when we were going through the initial levelling up a year ago, although there is no sensible long term solution there, I'd still say the proportional cost isnt too bad apart from boarding like I said above, but then I don't often get intimate with fishes these days, but you make a good point, I can imagine if you are continually having to bankroll crew sign ups when you are trying to learn the game it could be incredibly frustrating especially if you are continually coming across some of the incredibly skilled captains we now have knocking about. 

I'd like to see splitting crew between ordinary and able seamen, where larger ships rely much more on higher percentile of expensive able seamen to operate efficiently, even slightly against historical values, meaning that newer players and players controlling smaller ships get an easier ride but also limits the first rate spamming a bit.

Say for example a brig needing 5-10% of the crew as able seamen for peak efficiency, a frigate can have something like 20-25% and a SOL somewhere around 40%, this gives a fairly nice staggered effect but also means new people can enjoy cheaper crews and gives some historical values too

This is a great idea to balance costs for lower ranks. Maybe even add landsmen for really cheap crew but they give penalties to reload/yard and sail management. 

That said I think the example is quite extreme - new players aren't going to solo a fleet mission.

You can also try to minimize crew loss in the mission - an opposite example sailing; in Buc with one other player in Commodore fleet mission - only lost about 70 crew. 

[Wesreidau]

Players used to make a good living crafting and selling medkits before the NPCs dumped them on the market. Also players need to learn to use the damn things.

Really it all comes down to medkits. The way to restore crew is medkits. A tutorial should demonstrate this to everyone, and make it clear that hiring new crew is a last resort. If you aren't using medkits when medkits are for sale in the port, frankly, you're paying for your own laziness. It takes no perks, no special skills, no cargo hold or outpost. You just buy a medkit and use it. Its simple and it produces economic activity for actual players.

May you all go broke because you don't buy your own medkits.

Edited January 16, 2017 by Wesreidau

[The Spud]

We could just make missions auto replenish lost crew if the captain is below Rear Admiral. So to speak as a "bonus" from the admiralty for succesfully completing one of their orders?

Additionaly, just a random thought, it might be something to disencourage or change ganking (wether or not ganking is bad, I'm gona leave in the middle), if someone gets ganked and BR is  x times higher then their own BR. They also don't lose crew at the end, as a form of "bonus" by the admiralty for bravery.

This might reduce the frustration for people getting ganked, it might make the victim actualy fight a battle and try to do as much crew damage as he possibly can, cause the other guy needs to pay for its crew.

Concerning the cost of crew, unless you are participating in a battle where you dictate how the battle goes (superior numbers, superior ships), you're not going to realy make money out of it, unless you use MedKits. And if we look at the cost of puchasing outposts, a vital part of effectively participating in RvR and Crafting, you realy need the extra gold when ranking up. So replenishing crew on mission below Rear Admiral might be a good start for that.

Edited January 16, 2017 by The Spud

[Fletch]

Run smaller mission, the one just before the Comadore mission is great for a bucc, you loose less crew and get most the kills in a fleet mission. Taking a mission the same level as yourself will always result in a lot of crew lost, always go one or two below.

[Cmdr RideZ]

Vendor sold medkits are really cheap, but I suppose we are meant to be crafting those, so probably let to be like that or a bug.

Death penalty is penalizing new players and "n00bs", and it does not affect to experienced players at all.  It is just the opposite from what it should be, and it has been like this for a long time.

"Should be" is based on a fact that this is a computer game.  In real life, losers will lose it all, they lose their life as well for real.  So they should think the death penalty system again.  Punish end game players, and help new guys.

I have been writing about this couple times, but no reactions.  Not sure if devs understand this even.

Edited January 16, 2017 by Cmdr RideZ

[Ravern]

Wasn't so long ago people wanted line ships to be rare and expensive, only thing preventing that right now is we all have 100's of millions gold and crew cost means nothing.  Maybe all we needed was an asset wipe to test crew costs and not the fine woods that made everyone billionaires.

 

[The Spud]

What we should do as a better comparison, i'll try to do it myself too, is for the next 20 battles write down your crew loss and the money you made. Preferably not 20 missions, just PvP, screening and PvE combined (maybe not PB's), the battles you would normaly do. And then at the end make a comparison. If we take crew lost x 500 and compare to your earnings, we'll get a better average of how many money you can make from doing PvP.

Obviously if you focus on making money like capping traders AI or player your profits should be nice.

[Ned Loe]

On 1/16/2017 at 5:47 AM, The Spud said:

What we should do as a better comparison, i'll try to do it myself too, is for the next 20 battles write down your crew loss and the money you made. Preferably not 20 missions, just PvP, screening and PvE combined (maybe not PB's), the battles you would normaly do. And then at the end make a comparison. If we take crew lost x 500 and compare to your earnings, we'll get a better average of how many money you can make from doing PvP.

Obviously if you focus on making money like capping traders AI or player your profits should be nice.

The best way to test this is to start New Character with 0 gold and xp and see how long it takes before you get Officer Skills and 2 first perks (Doctor+Surgeon). After that show us how much gold you have just from those missions. 

In other games I was able to start making good money at low lvl in first 1-2 hours of game play. Same should be here. For new guys it should be an easy ride in 1st 2 ranks, before it gets more difficult. 

In game Tutorial is a must if Devs want to keep healthy player base. Something like they have on mobile games, guided click here and explain tutorial. Quick and Easy. 

In PvP it's a different story. If you are fighting an opponent who has better turn rate, you will get raked and it will cost you. This will force you to go pvp in same ships or sail as a groups. Sadly Devs did nothing to stop this or add skills that could counter stern camping. This resulted in half of their ships becoming obsolete and no one is sailing them. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For example here how to easily win in PvP. Massive crew cost is unavoidable - Players will PvP less after this. Eventually you will see no PvP at all. Crew cost is the Foundation of the problem, mods come next. 

Get a gold mod for Raise Sails speed, Get Gold Mods for turn, Gold mod for Sail HP.. etc..

Get Prepared perk, so you can do +1 broadside and get yourself a head start. Load Chain in stern and front guns. Load ball on sides, when you get close switch to all chain. Tag them with favorable wind position, so you have a clear shot from the start. 

Drop it all on Surprise with speed. Add Marines+Muskets. Now, here is a trick - start demasting people in ships with less turn rate and camp their stern. Before they fire hide your canvas, 80% of their damage will be wasted on your sails with only 20% hitting. Since they do not use the gold mod for Sail Raise speed they are doomed. It's all about time now. You can flip on a dime and do x2 broadsides to their 1( 80% less since you hide canvas) and do pure damage to their sails while they try to do the same, in this case you already won the game. Eventually you will be able to eat through any ships sails, rake them push them into the wind and board them. Use Marines and Muskets to quickly sweep the deck. You just caused the Guy 150-200k in crew damage for Frigates and double that for Sols. 

 

Edited January 18, 2017 by Ned Low