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Laik

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Everything posted by Laik

  1. Challenge to a duel. Can challenge both friendly and enemy. Can challenge only in a very small area around free port (same area that you can click enter port) to prevent exploiting. No gain of exp. No loss of ship when concluded.
  2. This is not an issue of mast-to-hull hp ratio. Current 'demasting meta' comes from 2 things. First of all, there is no damage fall off at distance against masts while there is against hull. So, at distance it's easier to hit masts and you can do this at 100% efficiency. Secondly, removal of double-shot made the fights mostly long range, since there is no efficient way to spike someone quickly up close (you can do the same from medium or even long distance) Therefore, imo, tweaks to masts/hull hp won't fix the issue. What I would love to see is most importantly damage fall off against masts at distance, some form of double shot reimplemented, as well as repairs for sails when out of combat (you're not tagged - you hit survival - you repair sails).
  3. It used to be like this in the game. There is a reason it's not anymore.
  4. This is a terrible idea. A fight took place, was finished, why should the participant be forced to fight the people who didn't make it in time anyway? It defeats the purpose of timers. You have one try to defeat someone, if you cannot do it once, then it shouldn't be possible to force him into fight again and again and again. Camping instances en mass shouldn't be encouraged, quite the contrary.
  5. I'm sure the victims will appreciate such a show of solidarity. /sarcasmoff
  6. Just put an open world timer (preferably shortened one) on the missions and the problem is solved.
  7. As far as I can see, one of the biggest problem for spanish nation was the fact that they had abundance of ports with no time windows which allowed other nations to rapidly conquer multiple ports at once (sort of like neutrals). Another basic solution (or rather a band-aid) to low population and different timezones - port battle should start 24 hours after delivering the flag. This way nation can actually organize a defense.
  8. Removing neutrals is crucial because otherwise people will use them (even if they have to buy second copy of the game) to buy resources from every port they wish (like they did before the wipe). By having people required to buy a new copy + choose a nation you limit it (granted not completely but considerably). I would support the idea of having 2 characters of nation/pirate but only if the pirates get a dedicated and unique gameplay which limits their interaction with nationals considerably (or makes it works at completely different terms). Unfortunately right now Pirates work exactly like a nation with ability to attack each other and inability to enter neutral ports. That is by far not enough. Trouble with multiple national characters is you could be in few places at once, bypassing the teleport cooldown and thus defeating it's purpose. From economy perspective you can 'cover' twice as many ports and deny resources to other people from your nation (and we know very well how selfish people in online games are). From PvP perspective you could place 2-3 characters in different areas of the map and bypass need for strategic movements. I am afraid most people won't treat those characters like you do, as completely seperate, but will abuse them as much as they can, exactly like it was happening up to now. Having multiple types of gameplay for one player could be handled by proper teleport system. I really liked the idea of no-cooldown teleportation, however it would need to come with 2 limitations (apart from what we have now). Firstly, there should be a cooldown on 'economy activities' after teleporting to prevent hoarding of resources. Secondly there should be a limit of ships of the same type you can own (or have 'active') to prevent people placing 5 1st rates in 5 different places to be in all of them at once. This would also force people to sail different ship types and 'prioritize' areas where they put their best ones.
  9. And all the guncrews at the same time are tending to the wounded? Can they not take care of them 5 seconds later? I am talking from the gameplay perspective and I find it very annoying when my enemy reloads 2 seconds earlier than me and puts me on reload shocks 1 second before I can fire at him. There are already plenty of liberties taken, necessary from gameplay perspective, when it comes to guncrews (like slowing down the reload with loss of crew instead of making less guns operational). So why not apply it like this here? Instead of simulating, say, half of the guncrews 'taking care of the wounded' just put a unified reload penalty, instead of stopping reload completely.
  10. And it still happens relatively often in a single combat even without double shot. You can also get it if you ram someone. You get it almost every time you hit a ship that is one class smaller (often from the bow or stern too). I don't think the odd chance of reload shocks helping out the outnumbered side is worth this trade-off. Also it really will help them while plenty of conditions are fullfiled - like enemy being very incompetent and completely split and unable to regroup for a long time. And if you manage to split incompetent enemy from the larger force you don't really need reload shocks to make it count. More often than not it will help the larger force. I am not totally against reload shocks (rigging and crew shocks are fine). I just don't think they are handled well the way they are. They shouldn't stop reload completely (so that it doesn't prevent someone who was 99% reloaded from shooting) but slow it down by like 75%. They should also be more difficult to score (at least requiring 2 ships vs 1).
  11. Allow me to chuckle on this one. While crew shock is useful and rigging shock pretty much non-factor, reload shock is a horrible, horrible feature. It gives even more advantage to the bigger ship and the bigger force (contrary to it's original purpose). A bigger ship can consitentlyl reload-shock his opponent from the stern or the front or get reload shocks with top deck only (when double get's reintroduced). Reload shocks not only stop reloading completely, even if it was 1 second away, it also does this for all sides, regardless of which one was hit. It's implementation of damage to planking + rng is also bad. I've had reload shocks happen to me by ramming another ship with my bow. Reload shock should be ditched completely while crew shock can remain, since raking isn't that effective anyway, so that's at least some reason to go for it.
  12. I don't think tweaks to mast or hull hp alone can ever create balance in the long run. One approach will always be superior and it will just be a never-ending loof of buff/nerf. Hence my point about effective range being of more importance than hp itself. And even with less hull hp going for masts is still the safer approach because you leave yourself an opportunity to disenge, should you need it, and you deny the same to your enemy. With mast hp>hull hp people will just stay at bigger distances for longer.
  13. If the developers want to do additional coding then I personally would prefer that they resolved it this way: (of course some sort of timer should also be implemented there to prevent players sailing 10 minutes to get their ship of the line and come back or alternatively the moment you go outside of the visual range of the instance it is closed for good - that should also include ports until we get information of what ships are in the port)
  14. Building on previous suggestion plus more. De-masting currently: Clearly the most efficient default approach to a fight. Enemy needs to respond with the same or the fight will end inconclusively at best (because the de-masting side can always sail away due to having sail-dmg advantage). Countering with chain-shot isn’t efficient either due to cannonball range being clearly superior (plus chainshot can be defended against and ball does damage to sails also). This leads to ‘de-masting’ duels at ranges often exceeding 800 meters which is extremely boring for both sides. How to prevent this kind of gameplay while keeping de-masting an important part of the game as well as adding the skill aspect to it? Make extremely steep damage fall-off from cannonball versus masts. Cannon balls should only do non-negligable damage to masts at range lower than effective chain-shot range. What this means? Demasting is still present in the game (no changes to mast hp) and is still the only efficient way of making a ship completely stop. However, now de-masting as the default tactics is not risk-free anymore because you need to be in the range where you can suffer both burst-dmg to sail through chain, or effective damage to hull. But, both chain and hull dmg can be countered by showing bow and proper use of yards/depower. Therefore, a skilled player who wants to commit to de-masting can still succeed, yet he will need to accept a decisive outcome, one way or another. To prevent gimping de-masting a reinforced masts module should be severely nerfed (maybe to 30%, with accompanying penalties to yard turning and sail setting). ‘Crew-sinking’ Change focus from sinking through armor removal to sinking through loss of crew and pump coupled with leaks exclusively. A ship sinks when it gets more leaks than the crew can fix in time. Importance of armor changes, from basically hp-bar, to a ‘crew protection’. When armor gets shot away, crew casualties and gun loss become massive. What this achieves? Preserves hull-bashing as it is now with almost no change. If you shoot hull long enough, a ship will sink, you just need to shoot it couple more times after armor goes down to 0 to remove crew (should be easy even with ball). Makes it possible to actually sink ship by focusing crew. First you remove crew and afterwards you shoot at the waterline to create red leaks. This is the skill-aspect that could be the equalizer in a 1vs2 situation. And shooting at the waterline actually becomes useful (and adds to the importance of the weather gauge), because right now it’s preferable to shoot at the gundeck due to gun/crew loss and damage is the same. Quality of fire vs quantity of fire. Raking becomes the desirable firing solution. However, sufficient amount of firepower focused on broadside is still effective when unable to rake. Therefore shooting bigger target (broadside) is easier and can be done consistently, but takes longer to win. Shooting small, moving target (stern) requires proper positioning and broadside being properly-rolled in at the right angle, which makes it difficult, is appropriately rewarded. Hopefully in the future we will get some sort of importance attached to crew which would mean that ships which get their armor shot away don’t sink, but strike colors to preserve their crew. Something for the history nazis. Last but not least. All mechanics required to achieve this are already in the game. Removing (or greatly reducing) structural leaks, making red leaks even more deadly, increasing importance of crew on water pumping and crew loss at 0 armor. Additional ways of increasing skill-cap without gimping the game’s accessibility: Removing information about enemy guns being reloaded. Paying attention to when and how many guns the enemy has fired actually pays off and gives opportunity for some neat tricks like firing top-deck only to trick enemy into thinking it was entire broadside. Giving ability to ‘focus’ reload on one side. While at full complement reloading both sides should be relatively easy. However as the crew is killed, reload should suffer greatly (as it is now). Having ability to tell the guncrews to man only one side to boost it’s reload at the expense of another would be useful. View from deck-only. While I personally am not a fan of it, it clearly would considerably incrase the importance of situational awareness and make it one of the game-winning traits.
  15. Timer dependant on distance at which person was tagged. For example, up to 500m, 5 minute timer. At medium ranges, 500-1000m, 2 minute timer. At long ranges, above 1km, 30 seconds. These are just some arbitrary numbers to illustrate the idea. This serves double purpose. First, it allows ships with no chasers to actually have a chance at running down the enemy without having to attack from leeward. For example, with 5 minute timer a Renommee could actually succesfully chase after someone, turning once every few minutes to fire a broadside and using rest of the time to make up lost distance with it's superior speed. Right now it needs to turn almost every minute to shoot and in the process bleeds so much speed that it can barely catch anyone. Second, at extreme ranges, chases often come down to 2 outcomes (if the chasing party can consitently hit with chasers). Either a chased person gets slowly worn down by chasers and eventually killed after hour-long chase or the person manages to run down the timer and click out. Both cases aren't precisely fun for either of sides. With a 30 second timer at such a distance, it would mean that the chasing party would need to hit almost every chaser shot to keep enemy in the instance which is no small feat and thus gives the 'victim' bigger chance of getting away (when tagged poorly on the OS) and saving both sides' time. Additional, just as important, effect of a short timer at extreme ranges is curtailing of a situation like the one mentioned in the Tribunal. Short timer + huge damage fall-off at extreme distances would mean that the 'griefed' player could just cut sails and wait for enemy to miss or get a 0 dmg hit and click out.
  16. An idea which I think did appear on the forums more than once. Make ship sinking almost exclusively dependant on crew numbers and leaks. This means that ship sinks when there is not enough crew left to fix the leaks and pump water. So what's the point of armor then? When armor gets shot away the crew loss and gun loss from regular cannon fire should be devastating and much more leaks appear. This way you can actually sink a ship by removing most of his crew through raking fire and then creating leaks despite armor being present. What this achieves? A gameplay that is more crew-focused than hp-focused. A skilled player, who can rake very well, can win against 2 players who are not as proficient at raking. While they shoot his hull, he can remove crew of at least one of them and virtually put him out of the fight (because he will need to fight both huge water intake and long reload). This way focus would switch from increasing volume of fire to 'quality' of fire with raking being the desirable firing solution (right now it's totally opposite). Proper rake is much more difficult to pull off (compared to hull bashing) and thus should be rewarded accordingly. A thought which I had in my mind for a while which I can expand upon if it gathers interest.
  17. Indeed we are still active. Add Mr. Doran on steam and talk to him about joining and he will explain everything you need/want to know to you. http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198014028214
  18. When I say permanent I mean the way permanent modules are handled right now. So you can destroy a module and put another in it's place. You still retain ability to replace the modules if you find that you don't need/want them anymore. I also don't mind the inherent characteristics that are applied during crafting process. The idea is simply to remove the fear of losing modules from the game in two ways. Firstly - by making them modifications rather than upgrades - which makes them less vital to success. Secondly to take away fear of losing them by simply making it impossible to save them. I don't hear anyone comlplaining about losing their inherent golden build strength. This is because they can't move it to the other ship anyway so they don't care.
  19. As for the not all mods making 'sense' being permanent like the ones you named. I realize that and for me there are some ways around it. Making them permanent regardless (which I don't mind at all). Renaming them/ditching 'clone mods' (for example no need for powder monkeys which give the same bonus as mag access). Basically having strategic mods like powder monkeys non-permanent undermines entire idea of wholly-permanent modules. Things like rum/grog rations could alternatively be made into some sort of consumable (though that would require more coding I suppose). As for Marines - I think they should be gone altogether. For one - because I think marines are (or should be) included in the complement of the warship. I the future, when we get hinted career paths like navy captain/privateer having Marine complement could be an exclusive perk for Navy captains (at the cost of cons somewhere else). As for the Ropes and blocks, that was my mistake. Idea was to have them like they are now but with -sail hp. I will fix it. These are just hastily thought examples to illustrate the point, if the idea gathers some support I invite you to post your own ideas for modules. If we are ever to have a system like this, then we will need much more mods in general to make it work (and much more specialized). EDIT: Also think of it other way, for example Marines. Making them permanent may seem unrealistic. But if we have them as regulars then the very same Marines complement can be moved from a Lynx to a Santisima and magically multiply by 30. Likewise a 1st rate would need many more Powder monkeys as well as much bigger stack of Rum or Grog rations. So having it all represented as one module with exactly the same cost is not realistic either . Yes this is the idea which I have long supported. It should be mentioned in the opening post, I will add this. Only ships captured from players should be able to be taken comand of. It is necessary if this modules thing is to work but it is, in my opnion, even more necessary from the crafting and economy perspective.
  20. Right now modules work very much like gear. If you want to be competitive, you need to have the 'must haves' like the Reinforced masts and reload mods or else you are severly handicapped. Therefore I want to suggest a slight rework to what we already have. The basic principle is to have every module come with a downside. On top of that every module should be permanent and a captured ship should come with the modules it had installed. So onto the first part: No module should grant 'clean' bonus. Every module comes with a downside. This provides two advantages for the gameplay. You have a choice - either specialize towards one playstyle (say speed at the expense of hull hp) or remain a jack of all trades without modules. Both approaches become viable and a ship with 1 module slot is just as useful as the one with 5. It also makes nerfing overpowered mods easier (because you can reduce the bonus/increase the penalty) and makes the unmodded ships viable. Captured ships should be captured with modules and thus all modules should be permanent. This effectively means that captured one dura ships are just as viable as multiple dura ships. When you cannot remove the modules from the ship, the primary fear of sailing a one-dura ship (that is losing modules) goes away. This, coupled with the above mechanic makes captured ships perfectly viable and allows players to live solely off captured ships (instead of crafting). Good example of what I have in mind is the current Speed trim, Turning trim, Extra planking. Here are also some examples of how the current modules could be reworked. Reinforced masts: +mast hp/+sail raising time, yard turning time, (possibly speed) Lightweight ropes and blocks: -sail raising time, yard turning time/-sail hp Magazine access: -reload/+chance of fire, +crew casualties, -hp Rum rations: -reload/+dispersion, -sail raising speed, yard turning Pellew sights: -dispersion/+reload So for example you have a 3 slot ship. You want to make it reload based so you choose to install Rum rations and Magazine access which come at their respective expenses. You can use the third slot to nullify some of the penalties, for example nullifying hp penalty from Magazine access with Extra planking if you think you don't need the speed. The tiering of modules remains but now it represents the extent of the modification not the quality of it. Same for ships, their tier represents how much the ship can be modified (instead of how much better it is). (Edit) One additional mechanic is necessary to make it all work: A captured ship can be taken command of only if it was captured from a player. This serves two purposes. First, to make what was mentioned above work. Secondly and more importantly, to make crafting and economy even more fundamental part of gameplay. It would also allow NPC like 1st rates to come back on the OS without hurting the economy. And importantly pretty much all of the changes which I propose here are within the framework of currently existing game mechanics. As for the clean bonuses... They should come from the upcoming Officers. However this needs to be balanced out, for example by risk of losing them in every battle. You sink - you lose all of the officers. You strike colours - you keep them. This way we finally get a decent incentive for surrender. Also officers could have a corresponding hit-box on the damage model so that they can be killed by cannon-fire. During the boarding the chance of losing officers should rise with the % of crew lost, so one player can strike-colours mid-boarding if he is clearly losing to prevent losing his officers.
  21. Alternatively give choice to people when they create characters of where to spawn. Provide a 'PvE spawn' in a city far away from other nations so they can peacfully farm and a 'PvP spawn' in the Bahamas for people who wish to level up by fighting other players.
  22. What he said. No need to make a complex durability system for modules. Just make ALL of them permanent (and nerf them). This way you can't 'save' your modules on a multiple dura ship, but they last as long as the ship lasts. This way SoL captains don't need to feel 'cheated'.
  23. Why not couple player hauling with 'automatic' hauling? Everyone gets a certain amount of cargo they can send daily by pressing buttons but it is MUCH more efficient to haul yourself. This way people who don't want to bother hauling, don't need to do it and will still get resources (albeit at a slower rate) and people who actually do the hauling can supply themselves and others. As for attacking traders - it doesn't happen because there are no real rewards as Kaos said. You are not guaranteed to get the cargo even if you capture them. I think capturing a trader should always result in capturing 100% of the cargo while sinking one would yield a % of cargo.
  24. Circle was introduced because people ran away from a fight to not lose their precious durability. Why not simply introduce a battle timer in the events like one in the open world? Possibly with longer duration (5 minutes?). I think this alone would solve a lot of problems without the need to introduce complicated and possibly flawed systems. I don't think this is the way to go. Why deny people a chance to achieve a total victory (like sinking all of the enemies?). Running issues are very much exclusive to the losing side, therefore it's the winning side that suffers the frustration. Better way to handle a system like this would be, in my opinion, to allow only the victorious side to leave without penalty (like losing the prizes) after the victory is declared (to save time in the instance of someone purposefuly running to frustrate opposition) or remain in battle and try to finish the job (battle timers included, to prevent people staying in battle then leaving when they are about to sink). What about people who get demasted and are left far behind the fight? These is potentially frustating and easy to game I'm afraid.
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