Too Much Hand Holding

[Powderhorn]

One of the most common complaints of the game today is that sailing is boring.  It prevents people from wanting to go into the open world, which is a large part of the game.  In one review I recall from a year or two ago, the lack of coordinates was lauded as immersive.  You would sail by direction and map.  I myself used to keep a map on hand of the Caribbean to make sure I could chart my courses.

Now, of course, we see people complain that sailing is boring.  It used to not be this way.  Though at that time people would complain that it was too hard to sail.  There is, however, a middle ground:  A module for a clock.  Allow for the map to show latitude at last noon sighting (which should be in degrees and minutes, instead of degrees and decimals) and longitude at last noon sighting if a clock is installed.  (This allows for varying grades of clock, which might only show longitude to the nearest 5 degrees, 1 degree, 30 minutes, 15 minutes, 1 minute.)  By using the in game time, people will look for their noon sightings to be updated on their map, and have a healthy mix of sailing by charting and updated information during long sails.

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This is not the only area of the game where we simply have too much information, however.  Our Damage Reports on our ships are accurate as they ought to be, with officers giving reports on the state of the hull, the water in the well, the number of men left aboard, etc. etc. etc.  However, it is amazing the amount of information we have on the other vessels.

Simply put, we should not have so much information on our enemies, or even our allies.  Why should we know how much crew is left to the nearest man?  (The nearest 20 men would be more appropriate.)  Why should we know exactly what % their sails are at, when we have visual indicators?  Why should we know the status of their hull, when we again have visual indicators?

Currently, we have no indicators for mast integrity, and that makes for better game play.  People will break off a fight if they feel they cannot demast before being demasted or sunk.  People have to use their intuition, with the more bold captains often triumphing.

Don't we want that for the rest of the ship too?  Favor those with the skill to read the feedback given, rather than handing it to us on a silver platter.

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This information is already coded in.  My proposal is not to ax it entirely, rather, to turn it into a toggle for the PvE server.  The PvP side, however, should hold skill above all else - and that includes the art of navigation and the skill of reading a vessel.

[Christendom]

I like hiding the crew and damage, maybe have masts visibly show damage.  Or maybe have like ships deteriorate during the battle.  Blocks and spars on deck, a sail hanging off.  Damaged cannons are overturned.  This, of course, would be a graphical overhaul.  

The sailing thing however is a comfort of life issue and making the map more complex and navigating that much more difficult would hurt the game.  Unless there are some sort of explorer missions or something along those lines you would simply be making the game more of an annoyance.  lets also think about how it would impact new players joining.  If i'm joe schmoe who just bought NA from a steam sale and I have to get out a clock and use google maps to navigate I'm not playing for long

Edited January 29, 2017 by Christendom

[Grundal]

There needs to be a balance for sure between no grids and gps grids.  I liked getting lost when captain Pringleton was navigating our journeys.  

[Prater]

+1 return to more "immersive" sailing and to come up with more ways to make it more interesting.  Though, it isn't that I don't like the coordinates.  And maybe the coordinates really are needed?  I don't know.  But one of the focuses should be on coming up with more ideas to make sailing more interesting.  Admin said they might be able to use manual sails on the OW.  That would make things more interesting.  Surely there are more ideas that won't make sailing a chore.

+1 to hiding crew count.

Edited January 29, 2017 by Prater

[Cmdr RideZ]

Coordinates are known by client.  This means that people are able to make "cheating" applications and see their location like GPS.

Kinda is fair that if this is the case, that the "good guys" know as well where they are.

[LeBoiteux]

15 minutes ago, Prater said:

+1 return to more "immersive" sailing and to come up with more ways to make it more interesting.  Though, it isn't that I don't like the coordinates.  And maybe the coordinates really are needed?  I don't know.  But one of the focuses should be on coming up with more ideas to make sailing more interesting.  Admin said they might be able to use manual sails on the OW.  That would make things more interesting.  Surely there are more ideas that won't make sailing a chore.

You'll also make OW sailing more immersive by adding dangers in the broad sense in the OW (climatic ones such as fog, navigational ones, enemies...).

Edited January 29, 2017 by LeBoiteux

[Niagara]

2 hours ago, Powderhorn said:

One of the most common complaints of the game today is that sailing is boring.  It prevents people from wanting to go into the open world, which is a large part of the game.  In one review I recall from a year or two ago, the lack of coordinates was lauded as immersive.  You would sail by direction and map.  I myself used to keep a map on hand of the Caribbean to make sure I could chart my courses.

I agree, this would also force newer players to sail close to land until they feel comfortable enough to venture out. This allows for a much higher level of immersion and also teaches you navigation much better. As you said, being able to look at map and plot a general course is great and sometimes you need some trial and error to get good at it.

There should be a middle ground between how it was and how it is now to make the game much better. In fact one of the many good things I found about this game in the start was the fact that it was hard to learn things and once I learned things I felt like I had achieved something. We should not rob newer players of the chance to feel that.

[Powderhorn]

The compromise / middle ground here is very conveniently the historical truth:  Only knowing your location as of the last noon sighting.  Off hand, I'm not sure how long a Naval Action "day" is, but you'd have coordinate updates that often.

[Anne Wildcat]

I loved when first starting out, getting lost, sailing close to a port to see the port name, and the using my map to figure out where to go. Imo, coordinates are only helpful in finding shipwrecks.

Edited January 29, 2017 by Anne Wildcat

[Chijohnaok]

3 minutes ago, Anne Wildcat said:

I loved when first starting out, getting lost, sailing close to a port to see the port name, and the using my map to figure out where to go. Imo, coordinates are only helpful in finding treasure chests. 

They are also useful if a scout ship happens to spot an enemy fleet and calls out the sighting/location in nation chat (or team speak chat..which might be considered another sometimes 'non-immersive' aspect to the game). 

[Vernon Merrill]

An easy compromise would be a little mini-game of shooting a sun sighting to get a general idea of location...

 

Man, if they can find the magic sweet-spot to combine the story-telling and immersive ability of Sid Meier and the visual  beauty of Game Labs, they'd strike gold...

 

They need to contract a "story-teller"...  

[Powderhorn]

With treasure chests, realize that making them harder to find makes it possible to increase the quality of loot.

In regards to calling out locations, I'd argue anything that jams the satnav communications is a net gain in an Age of Sail game

[Kloothommel]

Again, there is the tightrope between hardcore and casual playstyles.

Hardcore would prefer the steep curve, casual would be scared off. It all depends on how you are willing to risk playability for your audiance.

[Guest]

Agreed. Less information = More interesting gameplay. While reducing navigation info might annoy people, I don't see why applying combat changes would be a problem at all, and it is indeed quite dull to have such perfect knowledge of everything that is going on.

[Hethwill]

Moving some of the game aspects towards a more "dark souls / exanima" aspect is not comparable to a hardcore vs casual situation, and not having the information pasted all across the screen is definitely not a move towards hardcore. It is simply transfering the responsability to the player of worrying about his own ship while not knowing about the enemy ship.

The things NA misses the most at all levels is mandatory decision making. At the moment we have it all without any exclusivity of choices - chose one forfeiting others.

[Guest]

Heard! HEARD!!

[Neverdead Ned]

They can get rid of crew stats when they start showing graphics of blood running out the scuppers.

[The Spud]

Some months ago I thought the same about the crew stats, and how it would make boarding a bit more of a risk not knowing how much crew your oponent exactly has. But I think that it would receive allot of comments and people would not like it, and now I wouldn't even want it myself. Same as with the coordinates, dispite being unrealistic, it prevents a ton of frustration and it increases the "quality of life" within the game. We don't want to be wasting time running in circles around a wreck or an island, figuring out if we're too much south, not south enough etc. people wanted faster gameplay, and the coordinates are a way to cut sailingtimes and cut frustration in general.

I also believe that new players allready have a steep learning curve to deal with, and to make it more difficult would probably be a bad idea.

I have said this in other threads, it would be a great idea for the devs to open up a "realism" server at release, where they could implement these idea's as wel as many other suggested idea's that increase the realism of the game. Remove the TP's, one dura ships, maybe different damage model, etc... it would remove a bit of stress towards the constant balancing between realism and gameplay we have somewhat been struggeling with over the last months.

[Powderhorn]

14 hours ago, The Spud said:

I have said this in other threads, it would be a great idea for the devs to open up a "realism" server at release, where they could implement these idea's as wel as many other suggested idea's that increase the realism of the game. Remove the TP's, one dura ships, maybe different damage model, etc... it would remove a bit of stress towards the constant balancing between realism and gameplay we have somewhat been struggeling with over the last months.

The PvE server is perfect for the non-realism stuff, as a toggle-able option.  Bots don't care.

[The Spud]

8 hours ago, Powderhorn said:

The PvE server is perfect for the non-realism stuff, as a toggle-able option.  Bots don't care.

True, although if population was enough I feel that a PvP server with a more slow paced realistic rule seet would attract many Age of Sail purists. It could give all these great idea's that don't seem to fit on a more competitive based server a place to be appreciated.