Jump to content
Game-Labs Forum

A Humble Proposal [Testbed]


Recommended Posts

A Humble Proposal [Testbed]

It is my opinion that the present system in Testbed of unlocking upgrades to the vessel's performance provides vastly overpowered benefits for far too little effort that will create an environment of power creep, in nullifying the effectiveness of upgrades and creating a poor environment for simulation and play. 

It is far, far too easy to obtain access to extremely powerful upgrades that can be installed/uninstalled freely with no drawback whatsoever. Anyone that spends an hour, perhaps two in any ship can access a slot very quickly. Upgrades are hugely buffed with major benefits that are honestly shocking. My Cerberus, which has battled only three times ever against traders, now makes 13.70 knots for no cost whatsoever. When sailing the Belle Poule, it took a mere two missions to obtain powder monkeys which caused my guns to reload at an insanely fast rate. I can mindlessly exchange that at the flick of my mouse in port to lightweight ropes in blocks, in which the yards fly at significant speed even with 1/3 on sails. Don't even get me started on optimized rudder, in which I stern-camped a mercury in a bloody Belle Poule! That was really funny, but seriously though...

These upgrades have a huge effect upon performance of the vessel. They can be obtained very easily and exchanged for no drawback whatsoever. With the present testbed system, it is feasible that a 12pdr frigate can outmaneuver a light brig. An Indie could potentially run down an Endymion, an Essex could reload its entire broadside before a Surprise can and a Victory could tack faster than a Bellona. All for relatively little effort. These are speculations, but dear reader, I am sure you get what I'm going at :)

Now, I'm not here to whine about the devs or just report a problem, but to also humbly propose a potential solution. Hence, here is what I envision in a good system.

1: Retain the method for unlocking slots for the upgrades. I think it forces players to prioritize upon trying to amend specific parts of their vessel's performance, and bars captains from fitting overpowered vessels lest they have very significant experience on the vessel.

2: De-buff upgrades from their divine pre-testbed "Gold" level to the "Blue" level.

3: No free upgrades, all upgrades must come from books purchased from the Admiralty.

4: Accumulate experience for the following areas:
-Gunnery: Increased by any/all hits scored, increased gunnery xp translates into better accuracy and lower reload.
-Sailing: Increased by movement of yards (could be improved I know), the more the yards are moved in manual sails the faster they slowly get.
-Boarding: Increased by kills logged in boarding combat, with a "prize" when a vessel is captured. Increases attack and defense modifiers in combat for that crew.

Experience is ship-specific. Experience gained in battle is lost if the vessel is sunk, as is the present way of things.

So essentially, slots are more difficult to unlock over time, and said upgrades serve primarily as small boosts to performance and the ship itself. Experience from firing the guns, tacking and various maneuvers with the sails, and boarding combat improves performance of the crew. Such a system could be difficut to implement, but I think it would be really awesome. You could go out with a new vessel, and train you crew in attacking traders and easier missions as you slowly increase the skills of your crew and gain access to upgrades. Then, with an experienced crew and some help from upgrades, you would then go into more confident battles with a sound ship.

I feel that the system would encourage more people to pick ships and just stick with them, which is what I really love about the game, instead of simply trying to get the best ship on the spreadsheet. Encourage players to become experts with their ships, and be rewarded for it.

Oh, and thank you devs for a wonderful game, and for the excellent progress thus far! 

Edited by _Masterviolin
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, _Masterviolin said:

A Humble Proposal [Testbed]

It is my opinion that the present system in Testbed of unlocking upgrades to the vessel's performance provides vastly overpowered benefits for far too little effort that will create an environment of power creep, in nullifying the effectiveness of upgrades and creating a poor environment for simulation and play. 

It is far, far too easy to obtain access to extremely powerful upgrades that can be installed/uninstalled freely with no drawback whatsoever. Anyone that spends an hour, perhaps two in any ship can access a slot very quickly. Upgrades are hugely buffed with major benefits that are honestly shocking. My Cerberus, which has battled only three times ever against traders, now makes 13.70 knots for no cost whatsoever. When sailing the Belle Poule, it took a mere two missions to obtain powder monkeys which caused my guns to reload at an insanely fast rate. I can mindlessly exchange that at the flick of my mouse in port to lightweight ropes in blocks, in which the yards fly at significant speed even with 1/3 on sails. Don't even get me started on optimized rudder, in which I stern-camped a mercury in a bloody Belle Poule! That was really funny, but seriously though...

These upgrades have a huge effect upon performance of the vessel. They can be obtained very easily and exchanged for no drawback whatsoever. With the present testbed system, it is feasible that a 12pdr frigate can outmaneuver a light brig. An Indie could potentially run down an Endymion, an Essex could reload its entire broadside before a Surprise can and a Victory could tack faster than a Bellona. All for relatively little effort. These are speculations, but dear reader, I am sure you get what I'm going at :)

Now, I'm not here to whine about the devs or just report a problem, but to also humbly propose a potential solution. Hence, here is what I envision in a good system.

1: Retain the method for unlocking slots for the upgrades. I think it forces players to prioritize upon trying to amend specific parts of their vessel's performance, and bars captains from fitting overpowered vessels lest they have very significant experience on the vessel.

2: De-buff upgrades from their divine pre-testbed "Gold" level to the "Blue" level.

3: No free upgrades, all upgrades must come from books purchased from the Admiralty.

4: Accumulate experience for the following areas:
-Gunnery: Increased by any/all hits scored, increased gunnery xp translates into better accuracy and lower reload.
-Sailing: Increased by movement of yards (could be improved I know), the more the yards are moved in manual sails the faster they slowly get.
-Boarding: Increased by kills logged in boarding combat, with a "prize" when a vessel is captured. Increases attack and defense modifiers in combat for that crew.

Experience is ship-specific. Experience gained in battle is lost if the vessel is sunk, as is the present way of things.

So essentially, slots are more difficult to unlock over time, and said upgrades serve primarily as small boosts to performance and the ship itself. Experience from firing the guns, tacking and various maneuvers with the sails, and boarding combat improves performance of the crew. Such a system could be difficut to implement, but I think it would be really awesome. You could go out with a new vessel, and train you crew in attacking traders and easier missions as you slowly increase the skills of your crew and gain access to upgrades. Then, with an experienced crew and some help from upgrades, you would then go into more confident battles with a sound ship.

I feel that the system would encourage more people to pick ships and just stick with them, which is what I really love about the game, instead of simply trying to get the best ship on the spreadsheet. Encourage players to become experts with their ships, and be rewarded for it.

Oh, and thank you devs for a wonderful game, and for the excellent progress thus far! 

And So it begins.  A little early but ok
10% will do what is needed to get max upgrades fast..  The grind is insane.  No money and very hard to get, no xp or marks unless you get the kill on the ship.  

So you already admitting that 10% of the population is going to better geared than you and before you.   This is the trend with this game.  The so call hard core do the work and do the time.....  But in the end they will get the shaft. Why, because the cry babies whine because they don't have the best gear,  They wont admit  they have not put in the time..

I would not worry to much about this mate.  NA has a proven track record of screwing over the hard core players, that do the time.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm dissatisfied with the current system on testbed, but for a different reason:

Besides the absolutely dumb stair-stepped grind they have in place for fourth rates and higher, I think the current system on testbed is ok. Just remove the need to grind the little frigates up to sail the big frigates and SOL's. Let us grind in the ship we want to play in, not some ship that the game forces us to use in order to unlock our desired ship.

Something I may have misunderstood in your post:

1 hour ago, _Masterviolin said:

Experience is ship-specific. Experience gained in battle is lost if the vessel is sunk, as is the present way of things.

You said that experience gained on a ship in combat is lost if the ship is sunk. Maybe I misunderstood, but I don't think that method of xp will work out well. With ships being one durability if you lose it, and you lose all the slots you unlocked, I doubt many people will like that. Besides, it would make no sense to have to re-learn how to sail an Essex all over again because you got sunk.  The replacement Essex you buy/craft/capture should be exactly the same to sail as the one you lost, so you don't need to learn how to turn her sharply or reload fast again.

 

Instead, it would make more sense if you could have some of your knowledge on sailing frigates be applicable to other frigate class ships (as in, sailing a couple fourth or fifth rates and unlocking some slots on them gives you 1 or 2 knowledge slots on all other 4-5th rates. This would work via an xp pool for each class of ship, and would be limited to unlocking 3 slots on every ship in that class. After that, you have to grind the ship you want to use to get the rest of the slots open. I made a suggestion about this in more detail here: http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/19868-a-different-take-on-leveling-up-ships/ 

 

 

As to nerfing upgrades...why? On PvP2, I have a Bellona that will sail at 13.7 knots without gold studdingsails. I have a Victory that can turn about as good as a non-modded Constitution. I don't see a problem here. If you bring a basic ship with no upgrades (or a really weird upgrade setup) why should you stand a chance against beating a reload fit ship I have spent a long time sailing and worked up to peak shooting performance? Maybe I have some mods on there (like the imp. magazine) that increases the risk of fire, so if you can keep my ship burning, I will steadily take damage from the fire. By the same token, if I fit my ship out for turning, then maybe you should consider demasting or chaining my sails to nerf the advantage I have there. Any time there is an upgrade selected, it fills a slot that you could be using for something else. So go ahead and fit out for speed, just don't complain when you can't kill that live oak tank build that de-sailed then demasted you. Upgrades must be chosen wisely, or they will hurt you more than help you.

Lastly, making the upgrades cost more...I think it is ok like it is right now on testbed. The more "general" upgrades are available without paying marks for them; other ones cost marks. When I think about the standard upgrade loadout I run on PvP2 about half or better of the upgrades I use will have to be bought with marks. That seems ok to me. 

Speaking of upgrades, I want to see marines implemented as a slider bar so I'm not bogging down with 30% marines on my ship. On PvP2, I usually only run grey or green marines unless I am going full board-fit. So if I could select the exact number of marines I want on a ship, up to a certain limit, I'd really like that.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think it is still a better system then some people having acces to realy rare upgrades, and the other ones having to do with minor quality ones. Eventualy we will all have acces to the same stuff. These hardcore players might have a ton of XP on their ships after a week, but you'll get there in maybe a month or two months or so.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

Not sure what your Cerberus was made of, but Teak with copper plating is only 12.79.  I think some of your numbers are off a bit.   

Strange, mine's fur-built? I also have noticed that despite the vessel saying it makes 13.7, the ship never exceeds 13.2 in battle. Bug, bad sailing on my part?

11 hours ago, Willis PVP2 said:

Something I may have misunderstood in your post:

You said that experience gained on a ship in combat is lost if the ship is sunk. Maybe I misunderstood, but I don't think that method of xp will work out well. With ships being one durability if you lose it, and you lose all the slots you unlocked, I doubt many people will like that. Besides, it would make no sense to have to re-learn how to sail an Essex all over again because you got sunk.  The replacement Essex you buy/craft/capture should be exactly the same to sail as the one you lost, so you don't need to learn how to turn her sharply or reload fast again.

Sorry for the confusion- I meant if the ship is sunk, the experience from that specific battle isn't gained :P

11 hours ago, Willis PVP2 said:

As to nerfing upgrades...why? On PvP2, I have a Bellona that will sail at 13.7 knots without gold studdingsails. I have a Victory that can turn about as good as a non-modded Constitution. I don't see a problem here. If you bring a basic ship with no upgrades (or a really weird upgrade setup) why should you stand a chance against beating a reload fit ship I have spent a long time sailing and worked up to peak shooting performance? Maybe I have some mods on there (like the imp. magazine) that increases the risk of fire, so if you can keep my ship burning, I will steadily take damage from the fire. By the same token, if I fit my ship out for turning, then maybe you should consider demasting or chaining my sails to nerf the advantage I have there. Any time there is an upgrade selected, it fills a slot that you could be using for something else. So go ahead and fit out for speed, just don't complain when you can't kill that live oak tank build that de-sailed then demasted you. Upgrades must be chosen wisely, or they will hurt you more than help you.

Lastly, making the upgrades cost more...I think it is ok like it is right now on testbed. The more "general" upgrades are available without paying marks for them; other ones cost marks. When I think about the standard upgrade loadout I run on PvP2 about half or better of the upgrades I use will have to be bought with marks. That seems ok to me. 

Speaking of upgrades, I want to see marines implemented as a slider bar so I'm not bogging down with 30% marines on my ship. On PvP2, I usually only run grey or green marines unless I am going full board-fit. So if I could select the exact number of marines I want on a ship, up to a certain limit, I'd really like that.

 

I don't think it's reasonable at all that through the system to have vessels with insane speed/reload/maneuverability well outside of their capabilities. Upgrades should not be so powerful as to provide such incredible benefits to performance. I don't think it is at all reasonable to be able to so modify a first rate to outmaneuver a fourth rate frigate. This was a big problem previously, in which high level crafters that had the money and access to high quality upgrades would have high one-sided engagements against poorer, newer players. New players would ragequit because they would be facing off against players with vastly, vastly superior ships and there was essentially nothing they could do about it until they became very wealthy or a high craft level. A system based off experience is far fairer, as players are rewarded for their playtime, not merely for the size of their coffers. Upgrades should only provide small benefits instead of so significantly boosting a ship's performance- the insane levels of benefits for various upgrades will create huge power creep.

Oh, and I entirely agree with your idea for Marines! 

 

Edited by _Masterviolin
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fir Still doesn't give you an extra 10% to speed, so I don't know where your getting all that extra speed from.  Unless that is with no cannons on?   I'm talking about a ship loaded with guns.  Not to mention a Fir/Speed build maybe, but your saying you sank three traders with a fir built ships?  IF it was LVG which is the only way you could of got that much XP to get the first slot unlocked which is 500xp you would prob be melteed unless you took for ever and keep pulling back and repairing.  Cause I never gotten more than about 20-30xp for any trader britgs I sunk.   I think you had more than three battles.  There was no way you had one battle with the Bell Poul as it takes more xp to unlock too, unless you did a big fleet and brought help.  I'm still saying your numbers or off.  

 

If you sink a ship in combat and get sunked, you still get the xp for the ships you sunk. I was goofing around with a 7 vs 1 and got my frigate sunk to test how hard it was to get back on your feet after loosing a ship. I had 3 sunk and was 4th sinking when I went down (got to cocky) and I got the xp and credits for the three I sanked.   I'm fine with this, but I do think captured ships should still give you combat xp cause it's the same, a kill is a kill.  No matter how you get it.  By the way I was pissed after paying 20K for a Cerberus (player sold so was lower than normal) and than having to pay 120K for Carros to gun my ship.  That would kill any casual player, the guns prices need to be put into check a bit.  They are just way to high a cost on players right now.

 

So I took all my guns off my Teak Cerberus and was able to get a 13.26....so I'm still thinking your speed got to be off or something.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Hyena Privateer is already hitting 14.9 with ease. It suddenly breaks off there and stays.

All fine :), is a Fir, Speed and then added proper Jib strength. Not sure if the 14.9 was with plating or not.

Had the 12 Longs 6 pounder mounted already. Nothing in the cargo hold ( if it even matters )

---

I am on the wagon of the OP.

Half some of the knowledge outputs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, The Red Duke said:

The Hyena Privateer is already hitting 14.9 with ease. It suddenly breaks off there and stays.

All fine :), is a Fir, Speed and then added proper Jib strength. Not sure if the 14.9 was with plating or not.

Had the 12 Longs 6 pounder mounted already. Nothing in the cargo hold ( if it even matters )

---

I am on the wagon of the OP.

Half some of the knowledge outputs.

there be a hard cap of 15

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

Fir Still doesn't give you an extra 10% to speed, so I don't know where your getting all that extra speed from.  Unless that is with no cannons on?   I'm talking about a ship loaded with guns.  Not to mention a Fir/Speed build maybe, but your saying you sank three traders with a fir built ships?  IF it was LVG which is the only way you could of got that much XP to get the first slot unlocked which is 500xp you would prob be melteed unless you took for ever and keep pulling back and repairing.  Cause I never gotten more than about 20-30xp for any trader britgs I sunk.   I think you had more than three battles.  There was no way you had one battle with the Bell Poul as it takes more xp to unlock too, unless you did a big fleet and brought help.  I'm still saying your numbers or off.  

 

If you sink a ship in combat and get sunked, you still get the xp for the ships you sunk. I was goofing around with a 7 vs 1 and got my frigate sunk to test how hard it was to get back on your feet after loosing a ship. I had 3 sunk and was 4th sinking when I went down (got to cocky) and I got the xp and credits for the three I sanked.   I'm fine with this, but I do think captured ships should still give you combat xp cause it's the same, a kill is a kill.  No matter how you get it.  By the way I was pissed after paying 20K for a Cerberus (player sold so was lower than normal) and than having to pay 120K for Carros to gun my ship.  That would kill any casual player, the guns prices need to be put into check a bit.  They are just way to high a cost on players right now.

 

So I took all my guns off my Teak Cerberus and was able to get a 13.26....so I'm still thinking your speed got to be off or something.

Here's the screenshot, my friend. Due to some unknown reason, I was unable to reinstall my guns on the Cerb so the figure you see is based upon a 100% empty ship, with copper plating: 

I took the Cerberus and simply stern-camped three LGVs, destroying all of their cannons twice (before/after repair), dismasting 2/3 times, killing almost their entire crew down to 30-50 men and finally sinking them outright. Here's a screenshot I took for cinematic effect.

The Belle fought against five ships in a fleet battle (brig, navybrig, snow, rattle, cerb) with the use of the great smashers (carronades) in a grind. I assure you, I would not be so vain as to blatantly lie on the forums...

Oh and I completely agree on the cannons, good god how much money I've been forced to spend 

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...