Skills & Ship XP

[mikawa]

As I understood the ship XP was intended to be a central mechanic to make sailing a specific ship more interesting -

but momentarily it fails this predicate completely, due to several reasons, mainly the fact that ship XP only unlocks minor enhancements, the major enhancements are given by a great deal of random. This is very bad gameplay experience.

I suggest to focus XP on a specific ship, meaning to give carpenter skill not for 6-7th rates or 5th rates etc. but for one specific ship. Lets name this "ACHIEVEMENTS"

Let players get more & more experienced on a specific ship type so that they have a long term motivation if they want to achieve this for several ship types. It also lets players specialize their own playing style, and encourages players to find their own style.

If learning skill achievement can be easily exploited (things which can be easily done repeatedly, for example changing cannon loads), deal them with skill books that can be found in ship wreck areas, announced once or twice weekly in hours when servers are most populated.

If other players are defeated, you might learn one skill book he has for his ship and use it on a ship type of your choice. The defeated player keeps his skill, but the victorious player can learn this skill from the officers of the enemy ship. Lets say you can pick up an officer from a sinking ship or after boarding, arrest him in a cell and learn a special skill form him.

Small Example:

Player A loves Surprise, so he sails her whenever possible. He often caps traders so he trains shooting sails and demasting. After a certain amount of sail damage he gets the achievement "rigging damage +5" means that he makes now 5% more sail damage. He also gets "demasting +5" means that the get 5% more penetration to masts. The two skills together result in the "sail damage specialist skill +10". Overall important is the balancing so that the advantages never become overwhelming but they should be significant. With his playstyle he has got a specialist on mast & sail damage on the Surprise. This skill helps him in the next PVP battle against another player in a Endy who does not have this skill, so maybe he can escape though his ship is slower.

Player B loves sinking enemy ships in his Frigate in front of a capital, so he trains shooting leaks in PVE battles. After a certain amount of leaks done he gets the achievement "leaking shot +5" means that he makes now 5% more penetration on hull in a frigate. He also has got the skill "sailing speed +10" which he has found in a ship wreck and used while on his frigate, so he can escape more easy when facing a ship of similar speed.

Player C is a specialist in "changing cannon loads +50" in his Belle Poule (skill book from other player, who he has defeated recently and which he used while on his Belle Poule) so he can change loads from balls to chain in half the time, which gives him an advantage in PVP batttles, because changing loads is way quicker for him.

It is hard to explain but I hope you read carefully and understand what I mean.

Ship skill should be a long term motivation for the players and should heat PVP (because you can profit from skills of other players) and sometimes should be randomly spread but should also be aquired by frequently practicing.

Edited September 4, 2017 by mikawa

[RaimundoJoe]

I like you're suggestion, i am afraid thow, that it will be ignored allong with manny other good suggestions.

[Rychu Karas]

Also the bonuses, should be at lower lvl, not 5-10 but more like 1-2%.

[mikawa]

35 minutes ago, AxIslander said:

I like you're suggestion, i am afraid thow, that it will be ignored allong with manny other good suggestions.

[PIerrick de Badas]

It has been propose by devs first but player were ready to burn the game masts from hull so they make it softer allowing the skills to be per rank. The slots remains per ships.

The more people add magic trick like fits, skills or this kind of magic stuff into the game and the less random player will accept to fight due of fight beeing unbalance by this magic.
I will not fight in a 1v1 a man with 5 bonus i can't get. I will neitehr make a pb against a fleet with such advantage. More you add unbalance and however you introduce it and more you will see people like me playing others games

[mikawa]

24 minutes ago, PIerrick de Badas said:

I will not fight in a 1v1 a man with 5 bonus i can't get. I will neitehr make a pb against a fleet with such advantage. More you add unbalance and however you introduce it and more you will see people like me playing others games

Why? Just improve ship skills and you'll get the bonuses. In every serious PVP game you can improve your char / weapons / skills / etc. It is however important not to make them too big, so that they give a slight but senseful bonus ... That's why I state we must finetune the game ...

[Cmdr RideZ]

I think ship specific skills are not the best possible idea.  Before we were able to sail multiple ship, be competitive, have more variety how we play.  Ships specific XP/Skills are locking us to one specific kind of ship or even playstyle.

Ranks alone are providing enough XP grind.  You can sail different ships and that makes leveling more enjoyable.  You can do that without skills for sure, but for many PvP players that is not true.

If ships specific skills are here to stay, then I agree that bonuses should be very small.  If you have those, you get very minor bonuses here and there, but it still leaves good change for new players to sink bad veteran players.  Veteran players do not need bonuses vs new players.  These big bonuses feel like a mechanism for PvE players.

[Baptiste Gallouédec]

The starting idea was to remove ship crafting quality(colors) and instead let slots number related to captain experience in a class of ships. The idea is good, pve rng loot +insane xp requirement made it bad, it can still be solved easily. 

 Slot grind also increase the gap between noob and hardcore grinder, more than the books themselves. Make it easier to get 5 slots, because it looks like a work right now and players are forced to stay focused on the same ship and have less reasons to give a chance to other models.

book stack is another potential problem, this could be solved by locking each knowledge category to one active book max : so if you have only one slot you can choose optimized ballast, but when you will get a second slot, you will not be able to select another "sailing" knowledge, so you can pick a "gunnery" one for exemple.

 

situational  book drop chance in pvp ( penetration via leaks, accuracy via masts, reload via shock,  toolbox or pump via repairs) would be a great thing.