Please don't make us sink everything

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

 

 

Welcome Mazarredo!  I know your English is far better than my Spanish.  Stay constructive and respectful, which is very different than trying to communicate in a language you're not familiar with, and no one will take offense.  I value directness, I do not value disrespect, and your first post is excellent.

[Mirones]

 

This statement concerns me admin. It seems to indicate that once you own a ship you will own it forever and that after a battle you simply need to "repair" it even if it sunk. If this is the case I think its going in the wrong direction. I'm with you in that I hope the loss of a ship isn't as harsh as in Potbs but their must be a true loss mechanic and not just a repair cost. Remove the loss and you remove the emotional high you get from a win and that is what drawls people back to the fight. Thats the problem with WoT. You never loose anything so you never feel that exhilaration with a win. At least not like the exhilaration after a hard fought and won 6v6 in Potbs.

 

My second concern is the economy. What is it based on if not on building ships?

 

Also, the motivation to surrender (as been discussed over and over by the community) can easily be wrapped around the crew and its officers. Surrender, your officers get paroled. Sink, and you loose them to Davy Jones.

repair cost for the later co existing matchplay(our currently sea trials)  not open world

[Mazarredo]

Get ready to live with it mate. I've had to for 15 years now. Our spaniard directness and straightforwardness doesn't mix well with foreign cultures as they are much less direct. I can tell you . You're not the first spaniard commenting on this problem (and more than probably won't be the last ). We come across as arrogant and rude, when it's just that we're used to speak openly and directly not indending any rudeness at all. And for me even while I tried to correct it and work on it, it still happens .

 

However about this dude, first language or not being english, to come and say "If this game is to be good you must do as I say"...that's not language barrier. At least I don't think it is. Because that's not something one can mistake for arrogant. That -IS- arrogant .

 

 

 

 

Welcome Mazarredo!  I know your English is far better than my Spanish.  Stay constructive and respectful, which is very different than trying to communicate in a language you're not familiar with, and no one will take offense.  I value directness, I do not value disrespect, and your first post is excellent.

Gracias RAMJB and  Thank you Henry (very funny video) 

[Freebooter]

Glad to see there are Spaniards here.  It wouldn't be the Age of Sail without them.

[Prater]

Thinking about why a player would decide to surrender rather than sink....

 

Like Johny Reb, I also do not like the reason for surrendering to be lower repair costs.  But why would a player choose to surrender over fighting to the death?  Someone mentioned to keep officers.  I like that idea.  Perhaps you get to keep your crew as well and it is hard to "level up" your crew and officers?  Perhaps your "relation" or "standing" within your nation doesn't go down as much as well?  So you still have access to the same "level" of ship (say Constitution) if you strike your flag before you sink.  If you sink you could get closer to getting "bumped down" to Trincomole or even lower or something like that.  There are many ways that we could make surrender more preferable than straight up fighting till you sink.

 

And If my ship does get sunk, it should be sunk.  It should be like in Eve where when a ship blows up, it is gone and has to be replaced (but ships should not be the main driving factor of the economy).  There should be no higher "repair" cost.  The cost is to get a new ship, crew, and officers.  If players are given ships instead of "buying" them with their own money, then the player will have to convince the admiralty to give them a decent ship, costing "prestige" or "reputation."  Perhaps the admiralty gives me a smaller ship instead of that super sweet frigate that I foolishly lost. 

 

That said, there should be a very strong appeal for people to take prizes.  It should be the main way of making money and increasing reputation for those in the navy.  And also, if my ship gets captured, it should now be given to the enemy nation who captured my ship and placed in a pool of available ships.  I shouldn't get it back.  My nation shouldn't get it back unless there is some kind of trade.  1st rates should be rare, and it should be the desire of every person to capture a first rate instead of sink it, even if you yourself don't directly get it, the bonus to your nation and the prestige and prize money you get from it should be considerable.

A way to fix part of the issue of sinking has to do with armor and water intake.  Leaks should be the primary thing that cause a ship to take water (outside of storms and collisions of course).  Hitting the top part of the side of a ship until all the armor is gone shouldnt cause a ship to sink. It should cause more gun damage and crew damage.  Ships will still sink.  I can't count the amount of times I have sunk because of leaks.  I even sunk once or twice so fast in the victory that I still had 2 repairs left.  If shot dispersion is increased, some shots will go high, damaging sails and masts.  With the loss of guns, rigging and crew, the sinking of ships should be less common.  This can even be implemented in the current team deathmatch games and still be fun.  There have been a few times in the current pvp system where I have lost and I just want to hit "strike flag" and surrender so the match doesn't have to draw out for 2 minutes while the enemy has to sink me.

 

All this said, it is still a game.  It might not be "realistic" for ships to sink often in battle, but neither is the amount of battles we are having, the speed of ships, reload rates, time within battles, etc.  There has to be concessions to game play over "realism" someplace and ships sinking should still be quite possible for gameplay reasons.  I do however think we will see ships being captured in open world rather than sunk if prizes are a major way to make money and prestige.
 

[Edward Vernon]

Get ready to live with it mate. I've had to for 15 years now. Our spaniard directness and straightforwardness doesn't mix well with foreign cultures as they are much less direct. I can tell you . You're not the first spaniard commenting on this problem (and more than probably won't be the last ). We come across as arrogant and rude, when it's just that we're used to speak openly and directly not indending any rudeness at all. And for me even while I tried to correct it and work on it, it still happens .

 

However about this dude, first language or not being english, to come and say "If this game is to be good you must do as I say"...that's not language barrier. At least I don't think it is. Because that's not something one can mistake for arrogant. That -IS- arrogant .

RAM...English is not your first language ?  Coulda fooled me, you are not the first non-native speaker here whose English is superior to a good number of the native speakers. Well done my friend.

[totalspoon]

Hi Johny Reb,

 

Sir, from the War of Austrian Succession to Trafalgar, I count 17 major naval battles between the British, French, Spanish & Dutch fleets in which at least one SOLT was lost by any cause. If I have forgotten any, please point them out and I'll add them.

 

                                                                 TOTAL ENGAGED                                  NUMBER CAPTURED OR LOST

Battle of Toulon 1744                                     57 SOTL                                               1 Captured

1st Battle of Cape Finisterre 1747                 18 SOTL                                                4 Captured

2nd Battle of Cape Finisterre 1747                22 SOTL                                                6 Captured

Battle of Lagos 1759                                      26 SOTL                                                2 Aground & Burnt, 3 Capt

Battle of Quiberon Bay 1759                         45 SOTL                                                8 Wrecked, 1 Capt

Battle of Cape St Vincent 1780                     27 SOTL                                                1 Exploded, 4 Capt

Battle of Dogger Bank 1781                          14 SOTL                                                0 but 1 (Holland) SANK that night due to flooding

Battle of Chesapeake Bay 1781                    43 SOTL                                                0 but 1 (Terrible) Scuttled after battle due to flooding

Battle of St Kitts                1782                     48 SOTL                                                1 Captured

Battle of the Saints 1782                               69 SOTL                                                1 Burnt, 4 Captured

Glorious 1st June 1794                                 51 SOTL                                                1 SANK (Vengeur), 6 Captured

Battle of St Vincent 1797                               39 SOTL                                                4 Captured

Battle of Camperdown 1797                          25 SOTL                                                7 Captured (1 (Delft) sank 6 days later)

Battle of the Nile 1798                                   26 SOTL                                                9 Capt, 1 Burnt/Exp, 1 aground/burnt

Battle of Copenhagen 1801                          19 SOTL                                                7 Capt

Battle of Cape Finisterre 1805                      29 SOTL                                                2 Capt

Battle of Trafalgar 1805                                60 SOTL                                                21 Capt, 1 Burnt/Exp

 

Of the 4 that sank

 

  --  Holland escaped from the battle but sank that night from damage taken.

 

  --  HMS Terrible was decrepit and in such bad shape that BEFORE the battle that her pumps were running flat out just to keep her afloat. After the battle, the extra flooding from gunfire was too much and the    

      order was given to scuttle her.

 

  -- Vengeur was a dismasted hulk by 12.45pm and out of the fight. She struck her colours and asked for assistance at 2pm as she was sinking, finally slipping beneath the waves at 6-6:30pm.

 

  -- Delft sank six days after the battle on her way to England from the effects of flooding caused by gunfire

 

So in 17 Battles, in which 618 SOTL were involved, 98 ships were captured or lost. Of these...

 

80 SOTL were captured

11 SOTL were wrecked or aground & burnt

4 SOTL Burnt or Exploded from gunfire

3 SOTL Sank from flooding caused by gunfire AFTER the BATTLE

1 SOTL Sank from flooding caused by gunfire DURING the BATTLE

 

I believe the facts demonstrate that sinking a SOTL in combat with gunfire was a very rare occurrence (1 in 98?) and that your accusation of 'intellectual dishonesty' is false.

 

Spoon

 

P.S. This is purely a discussion of historical facts. I am not in any way implying anything about the game or changes to it.

[Johny Reb]

repair cost for the later co existing matchplay(our currently sea trials)  not open world

I hope you are right. You probably are. You give me hope with your perspective.

 

 

This seems completely workable.

Give the player a clearly-defined threshold at which to surrender, or keep fighting for 30 seconds, until reaching the point of no return.

Sort of like bankruptcy protection for buoyancy. When you surrender you can devote all manpower to saving the ship.

But if you have lots of active leaks, a damaged pump, a fire or heavy losses, maybe you will sink anyway.

I know I would never choose to sink. I don't like sinking, and the game is taking away my choice and control by forcing it.

Thoughts?

I think his idea is a good compromise. If there is to be one then this should be it but I still don't like it. I guess I want the timing of the decision to strike to be mine. Do I try to get out one more broadside to help the fleet yet risk my crew or do I take no chances, save the crew for another day and surrender as soon as I know I will sink. Having these decisions to make brings depth and variety to each player you encounter. The conservative player will always strike early whereas your ambitious players try to eek a little more life out of their doomed ship. There is skill in learning the psychology of your enemy. For instance, if I know you will strike before sinking everytime then it will often be in my best interest not to strike until the very last second because there is a good chance you will beat me to the punch but in a fleet battle, where one spike from multiple ships will sink my ship before I have the chance to strike then I may strike early. Its another level of skill. How well you are at psyching out your opponent.

[Johny Reb]

Hi Johny Reb,

 

Sir, from the War of Austrian Succession to Trafalgar, I count 17 major naval battles between the British, French, Spanish & Dutch fleets in which at least one SOLT was lost by any cause. If I have forgotten any, please point them out and I'll add them.

I concede to you. After rereading your post I realize you were more balanced than in your summation but initially I thought you were arguing to get rid of sinking altogether. I personally like the surrender idea but I am very passionate that it remains in the control of the player and not a B.S. function of the computer. I believe in incentives and it doesn't seem difficult to program in reasonable incentives for a Captain to not let his ship sink that would be similar to history.

 

We often talk about immersion in these discussions and taking the surrender out of the Captain's hand ruins immersion for me. Its simple really. If your crew and officers can be trained up to perform better and by sinking you loose most of this crew but by surrendering they get paroled and you keep them then that would be incentive enough to surrender for most. Now add in the need to recruit crew and tie in your ability to do so with a reputation you have for letting your men die in multiple sinkings and I'd be surprised if anyone ever let their ship sink.

[thomas aagaard]

 I guess I want the timing of the decision to strike to be mine. 

I agree that it would be best if the player have the decision... but if the damage you can take is the same, then nothing is really changed for the player who "loose". he is out of the battle.

 

For the winner, he now have to decide if he want to slow down and use tim and crew on putting a prizecrew aboard or nif he is too bussy with the battle.

[Johny Reb]

I agree that it would be best if the player have the decision... but if the damage you can take is the same, then nothing is really changed for the player who "loose". he is out of the battle.

 

For the winner, he now have to decide if he want to slow down and use tim and crew on putting a prizecrew aboard or nif he is too bussy with the battle.

well yes. if the battle ends in sinking or forced surrender it is ultimately the same. You lost. But many of us believe it is more fun to sink your opponent then watch his fag drop or change to white so its necessary that watching your opponent strike is as fun as watching him sink. Keeping the decision in the hand of the player whether to strike or not, not only brings more depth to combat but also maintains that exhilaration that forced that opponent to acknowledge actively that you beat him.

 

In "little things you like to see" thread I suggested that Captains have swords that must be handed over while the victor has the ability to allow the Captain to keep his sword in honor of a good fight. This would bring even more enjoyment to the surrendering of your opponent imho.

 

As for prize crew.... I think it would be great if the victor had to send over a portion of his crew in a long boat to take possession of his prize before it actually becomes his and that surrendered ships could change hands multiple times in a large fleet battle as happened at trafalgar where one ship exchanged hands 4 times.

[maturin]

I submit that watching your opponent sink has absolutely no value if it happens every. single. time.

Especially when I never once aimed at the waterline. Where's the fun in uniformity and preductable outcomes?

[Aksark]

I'm a bit surprised aswell by the very serious consequences. But I can't say I'm dismayed about it. Maybe it's been too extreme a measure but I think a signal warning to let everyone know that criticism is welcome as long as is constructive, but that "I want it my way, or else" approaches will be met with dire measures is never bad. Sets the tone for future forums behavior, and if I have to be honest I'd rather have a forum where a relatively small slip will get you kicked than one where everything goes.

Also it happens this early in development. The sooner the flag's up for everyone to understand that this forums aren't WoT's or WT's, the better. But that's my 0.02$s

I agree 110% !!!

[Johny Reb]

I submit that watching your opponent sink has absolutely no value if it happens every. single. time.

Especially when I never once aimed at the waterline. Where's the fun in uniformity and preductable outcomes?

Then you must be liking my overall idea that there are powerful pressures to strike but ultimately its up to the Captain. This provides variety. Most of the time players will be smart enough to strike, at times you will sink the ship out from under them. Add in the unlikely event of a ship explosion and we have a soup of possible outcomes.

 

I'm getting my self excited.

[Prater]

Just as long as people have a very strong reason to strike.  Why strike if it doesn't really matter?  That's why I propose keeping crew and officers if you strike, and not losing as much standing with your nation.

[SeethDark]

What if all ship types will have some official prize for capture, than if you win the ship in boarding combat youll get the prize and opponent will lose his ship. If your opponent will surrender he will pay the same amount as the prize to you, but still keep his ship. If the prize to pay will be lets say 50% of the new ship, players will consider to surrender to keep atleast some less cost for loosing. If we will add that the more damaged ship is worth less in prize to winner but more to repair for looser we can see that surrenders will be considered to offer and accept maybe more often that ship sinking from gunfire.

 

To asure player will have enough cash to pay the prize on surrender, there can be a compulsory insurance requirment bfor sailing. If your ship sunked or captured yoll get insurance cash back, if u surrender youll have to buy new insurance bfor leavin port. And maybe some more insurance value if ship is carring some valuable cargo. Paid in port, than if marshant ship surrender the winer get more prize from cargo insurance, if marshant ship will get to the port of call, the cargo insurance cash will be given back to him.

[maturin]

Then you must be liking my overall idea that there are powerful pressures to strike but ultimately its up to the Captain. This provides variety. Most of the time players will be smart enough to strike, at times you will sink the ship out from under them. Add in the unlikely event of a ship explosion and we have a soup of possible outcomes.

I'm getting my self excited.

If I were developing the game, I would never force the player to strike.

But eventually I would have the gunners flee below decks, and have all the officers catch some grapeshot. Defiance has its practical limits.

[Destraex]

i prefer if you don't strike your colours and sink you have to buy a new ship rather than having it returned under parole.

[totalspoon]

Hi Gents,

 

As everyone knows, ship battles backing in the age of sail didn't end in the loosing fleet slipping beneath the waves, but with the loosing ships dis-masted, battered and having struck their flags. It would be nice if at the end of battles in Naval Action it was like this. However, I know Game Labs experimented with a damage model to try and achieve this but found both sides just battered each other to pulp and there was no winners. They have spent a lot of time on the current damage system and it does work well.

 

What I was wondering is if the current damage model could be changed so that, once your armour was shot off, instead of the ship just begin to sink rapidly, instead, all subsequent salvos did huge amounts of damage to cannons, men and masts. Under this system, combat would remain exactly the same until you had destroyed all the enemy's armour on the side you're shooting at. Then, three or four subsequent volleys into that unprotected side, would leave the enemy with most masts down, most guns dismounted and most men casualties.  Damage beyond a certain limit would lead to an automatic striking of the flag. The game play would be pretty much the same as it is now but the end of the battle would look much more realistic.

 

This would also encourage captains to strike their flags. Once your armour is gone and the enemy has put a salvo or two into you, knocking down a mast or two and taking our a good amount of your guns/crew, is there any point going on?  Why not strike and save your virtual men when defeat is inevitable in a few more salvos?

 

Thankyou for your consideration,

 

Totalspoon

 

P.S. This is merely a suggestion, nothing more. Game Labs knows far more the mechanics of this game that I do.

 

My appologies if this has already been suggested

[Racketman]

I feel like anything that takes choice away from the player in such an immersive game is counter-productive. Id much rather see the player incentivized to strike colors due to crew casualties and morale effects then the game say "hey your done GG". This will be viable if player failure has meaning. If that means a penalty for dieing outside simply having to re buy your ship. This would have to be a cost/benefit type tradeoff.

A Captain might willingly lose their ship regardless of morale penalties (making further resistance futile) just to spite the other player because they can afford the loss. To combat that you need a death penalty, unfortunately that can penalize players who made the right call to sacrifice themselves (and their crew). Perhaps you can go down the Archeage jury route and have court marshals with high ranking captains. Found guilty? you get the death penalty (whatever that is). Found innocent? No death penalty. Found innocent and performed to exemplary standards? Get a commendation (ie some kind of reward)

tldr: don't take such a important decision out of players hands, make it have a real cost to the decision, get the person invested in the drama of the moment.

 

[admin]

Sinking will be improved. More options will appear after we test and balance fire and explosions.

[maturin]

I feel like anything that takes choice away from the player in such an immersive game is counter-productive.

How come no one ever defends my choice not to sink?

Being underwater is even more boring than being dismasted.

[admin]

How come no one ever defends my choice not to sink?

Being underwater is even more boring than being dismasted.

 

Your proposals are duly noted and we will experiment once open world connection is finished. We are going to post on the plans soon.

[Megiddo]

Ships not sinking but surrendered become a sailing obstacle and defense (can't fire until he passes the hulk).

Ships burning to the waterline... All good things.

[Totoche]

A ship/boat that lost more than 50% of his capacity or/and 10% of his crew could strike his colors. It was also a question of moral of crew and command. More "victories" more moral?! More battles less moral. More time for less battles more moral.

More than often a ship/boat that struck his colors did regain his liberty because his ennemy could not capture him and he go away. But during a battle with ships of the line the ships how struck colors where more rare due to the "dishonor" effect if a captain did.