Morale

[admin]

What are your thoughts on crew and officer morale?

 

Should it be in game and what are your thoughts on ideal uses?

 

 

 

[Chunx]

I think it would be a good thing, people get demoralised. I just think there should be certain debuffs but also ways of picking their moral back up so that it doesn't just become a downwards spiral when they start feeling sorry for themselves. So you give them longer loading times or a hit to performance in boarding combat but say if they return a rather nasty broadside then their moral can pick back up.

 

As long as it is balanced and not a HUGE factor to how the game is played I think it would be good. Otherwise you will see too many frigates winning over a Ship of the Line.

[BungeeLemming]

Morale should be a crucial game mechanic towards surrendering.

 

If you go ahead and change the damage model and therefore the winning system over a more realistic one you will have to consider Morale as a very important factor.

What I mean is this:

Side damage should only deal damage to shipparts like crew, cannons and other stuff that lies around on the decks.

And then we may have the underwater hits wich actually makes the ship sink if not repaired.  Slowly but surely.

 

All the damage inflicted on a ship affects morale. So when I get damaged a lot above the waterline I loose crew, cannons and my rigging gets damaged. My overall fighting capabilitie is beeing reduced. My crew is fed up. He does not like getting slaugtered and I will eventually be forced to surrender.

But my ship will not sink unless its being hit underwater/between wind and water.

 

Crew morale should represent a ships battle value. High morale gives you some sort of boost in reloading, sailing maneuvers and all that good stuff.

Bad morale will make you slower in some situations. It should however not affect the survivability-"skill".

 

 

Maybe we are able to drill the crew. So in a fight my men are cold blooded. Damage and casualties will affect them less than a newly recruited crew.

Morale should be influenced but many circumsttances: - am I in an even fight? - how is the fight going? - what sort of base morale do I have?

 

 

I totally adore the way you already approached this feature:

 

We have base morale + bonuses\cap`s given by previous dids (losing or winning, battle eskape), how long you have this ship\crew, how many teammates are in some radius, number of enemy ships in radius & so on.

 

Taking wind, nice broadside, disabling masts, destroying guns\ruder\etc boosts morale.

 

1 frig vs lineship - you have penalty to morale, but if you overmaneure lineship, you'll have nice boost.

2 frig vs lineship - like before, but have bonus from nearby ally.

 

Trafalgar - outnumbered by ally french-spanish fleet, but they have lower morale bonus because they are not of the same nation. That just about morale aspects of Trafalgar.

[maturin]

From what I've read, It's generally assumed by forumers that there would be a division of morale and 'fighting spirit.'

 

So morale represents whether your crew is content with their working conditions and leadership generally. And that level of morale contributes to some sort of battle instance dynamic HP bar that determines how many hits your crew is willing to take and keep fighting.

 

Ideally, there would be other factors and modifiers. So you could have the jolliest band of pirates ever to roam the straits of Madagascar, but once naval 12 pounders start beating down the bulwarks, they'd rather cut and run. Or a pissed-off naval crew that hasn't had decent fare or leave in weeks, yet will still fight tooth and nail rather than surrender.

 

I don't especially feel the inclination to babysit all my officers and feed them compliments, and it's the collective spirit of gun crew and able seamen that should really count. But if you do model officer capabilities, I think it would be very realistic to make performance a combination of not just 'skill,' but motivation and inclination to work. So instead of somehow getting our officers to grind skills, it's more a question of keeping them active. No idea how you turn that into gameplay, though.

[Chunx]

Morale should be a crucial game mechanic towards surrendering.

 

If you go ahead and change the damage model and therefore the winning system over a more realistic one you will have to consider Morale as a very important factor.

What I mean is this:

Side damage should only deal damage to shipparts like crew, cannons and other stuff that lies around on the decks.

And then we may have the underwater hits wich actually makes the ship sink if not repaired.  Slowly but surely.

 

All the damage inflicted on a ship affects morale. So when I get damaged a lot above the waterline I loose crew, cannons and my rigging gets damaged. My overall fighting capabilitie is beeing reduced. My crew is fed up. He does not like getting slaugtered and I will eventually be forced to surrender.

But my ship will not sink unless its being hit underwater/between wind and water.

 

Crew morale should represent a ships battle value. High morale gives you some sort of boost in reloading, sailing maneuvers and all that good stuff.

Bad morale will make you slower in some situations. It should however not affect the survivability-"skill".

 

 

Maybe we are able to drill the crew. So in a fight my men are cold blooded. Damage and casualties will affect them less than a newly recruited crew.

Morale should be influenced but many circumsttances: - am I in an even fight? - how is the fight going? - what sort of base morale do I have?

 

 

 

This.

 

 

Pardon my previous post

>.>

 

 

<.<

Edited May 6, 2014 by Chunx

[maturin]

On the Russian forum there was a post opposing morale features that I don't agree with, but it raised one good point.

 

'So if we are in an unwinnable fight we are going to get slapped with additional penalties?!'

 

While most people seem to strongly believe that taking hits should lower morale (or fighting spirit, whatever), perhaps we should go easy on morale as a penalty. A frigate will lose against a ship of the line anyways, right? In this situation, I think that both gameplay and realism would be better served by using morale as a bonus. Historically, no crew of a lineship would ever submit to a disgraceful surrender against a frigate. So instead of a lucky/skillfull frigate sterncamping (I hope this tactic goes away entirely) and defeating a vulnerable lineship, the best he can do is disable the enemy and then stalk it, waiting for more heavily-armed backup. Personally, I think that this would create much more interesting gameplay, with this costly prize potentially being shuffled around the sea by two competing navies. The lineship would surrender to a fleet of frigates, so it's a question of who can get enough ships on station for a capture or a rescue. And you know that the stricken player's society mates would be rushing all their fast 74-gunners to the scene. So much more than a gank.

[admin]

We will never take control away from the player. There were cases when crew revolted in RL but we are not sure it is useful in the gameplay environment. 

[maturin]

What do you mean by 'control' and 'revolt?'

 

I can understand not including TW-type auto-surrenders (I wouldn't want them either).

 

But it will be a sink-or-board game if the gun crews don't flee into the hold or stop firing at low morale levels after taking casualties. What is your opinion on ships being essentially disabled through crew loss? They can still be sailed, but will only let off a few ragged shots every couple minutes. Is that taking too much control away from the player?

 

The main thing is making sure that vessels in such a state can be easily captured, and not allow the butthurt captains to force a sinking.

[admin]

besides immediate applications during boarding combat there are other uses for morale

here are the directions/example for thought to streamline the discussion

 

1. morale can be used for realistic skills - for example certain fleet commander orders, or special orders for the crew requiring extra performance giving short term bonuses under whip

2. morale can to a certain extent influence overall performance for the crew. Over time at sea morale degrades, so on the long journey or fleet duty away from your home port your ship will be a bit less effective

3. high base morale caused by experience or your renown can allow for certain heroic feats like boarding a 300men xebec with only 140 experienced crew and winning. 

4. what else?  all ideas are welcome. 

 

 

but yes. ship will not surrender because of morale - we think its ultimately a captain decision

[Chunx]

Keeping sails at full while sailing through a storm. Sorry to quote a movie here that people may or may not like but Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World when the Surprise was chasing the Acheron around Cape Horn most of the crew were holed up below decks saying how "Lucky Jack" would get them through this... amongst their cursing a certain midshipman.

You could try adapting something like that. A high base moral might let you do certain things in the world that you might not otherwise be able to do.

[Alex Connor]

I don't know how far you want to go into PotBS style morale and skills, but they are not altogether unrealistic.

 

For example, if you charge into the enemy line of battle like Nelson at Trafalgar, you are being fired on and cannot fire back, morale will suffer, men will be hiding behind bulwarks, less ready to fight when you reach the enemy. But with high enough morale you can give that signal "England Expects", the crews are inspired, they will stand firm under fire.

 

Someone mentioned that having morale penalties for being outnumbered would be bad, but how about the other way round? You are alone and attacked by 2 enemies, you badly damage the first one and it limps away, now your crew has very high morale, they feel invincible. Meanwhile the second enemy has seen what you did to the first, they are shaken and have low morale for their attack.

 

Of course, the weaker side is protected from morale loss and the stronger does not gain morale from doing more damage because that is only the normal outcome of the fight.

 

Another thing could be that winning an even battle gives a morale bonus, but ganking or defeating much weaker enemies does not. So if I have won 3 even fights in a row I'll have very high morale, but if I get ganked by 2 people who have won 3 ganks in a row they will only have normal morale. So my crew will fight better, and if I can damage one of the gankers badly then that morale difference will get even bigger and I have a good chance to win.

[PIerrick de Badas]

Moral could be a key to solve bad action of players.

Ganking decrease yrou abilitie to be follow by your crew. They don't respect you because you're not respecting the flag and the honor code except if you are a pirate and you don't gt the same moral way.

Sunking ships, refusing surrenders may decrease the crew morale too.

 

A low morale crew is more ready to auto surrender if the ship is badly damage, it's not reloading as fast as it can and the sails are not sailed as fast as they could.

If the morale is too bad, bonus ofofficier are decrease or rising 0 effects.

 

For pirate, morale is not working the same way. Your crew want blood and money. Ganking is not bad but loosing too many crew memebrs into a fight is bad for the crew morale. Taking damage is bad too because it means repair and cost for that.

 

Morale may solve many actions by forcing people to play as people would like to see them play

[BrutishVulgarian]

Oh boy, idk, without some kind of auto surrender, i'm forseeing ships fighting to the last man and sinking, all the time.   Leaving surrender up to some game player who respawns in 5 seconds, feels no fear or pain and who probably won't lose that much, will be a real immersion killer.   

 

Instead of capturing prizes and getting them safely to port, I'm starting to visualize sinking prizes and watching a big +155 exp magically float over my ship.  

 

P.S.   I like the idea of crew morale slightly effecting almost every task they take part in.

[Chunx]

Well I mean auto surrender wouldn't really be auto surrender. I'm guessing there were probably plenty of times where the captain sure as hell wanted to keep fighting but his crew didn't

I think there really isn't going to be any easy way to implement this that everyone is going to like but I mean for instance most captains sailing for a nation would rather scuttle their own ship rather than let it be captured. So maybe the only way to capture the ship of another nation is to actually board her. If you try and shoot her into submission I'm fairly sure you would just end up sinking her.

 

TLDR: I think moral should really be focused around boarding actions and a few buffs or debuffs to crew performance.

[Ned Loe]

What are your thoughts on crew and officer morale?

 

Should it be in game and what are your thoughts on ideal uses?

 

Before answering this question, I need to ask what type of skill system do we use? Is it the same type of click skills like in POTBS? or something else? can you give us an example plz.

[BungeeLemming]

I think, Wind you pretty much see the "skillsystem" NA is going for.

There will be no skill like potbs. You have the crew focuses and maybe some other commands to tyour crew.

No BS invince and extra dmage skills/spikes.

 

I think that the surrender should give "some" sort of benefit compared to let you sink totally. There should be a reason for the player to choose the surrender option.

Maybe a surrender affects the way certain nations are respecting you. Same for the crew you hire next. If you fight to the last man with no way of winning a fight your base morale for the next crew you hired is lower.

[Alex Connor]

I think that the surrender should give "some" sort of benefit compared to let you sink totally. There should be a reason for the player to choose the surrender option.

Maybe a surrender affects the way certain nations are respecting you. Same for the crew you hire next. If you fight to the last man with no way of winning a fight your base morale for the next crew you hired is lower.

Going off-topic here but IMO the way to get people to surrender is simply to make crew valuable.

 

Have crew level up from 50% skilled raw recruits to 100% skilled able seamen, and crew lost in battle must be replaced with these raw recruits. IE, you have a 100% skill crew, you lose half and replace them with 50% crew, now your crews skill level is 75%.

 

If crew take some time to level up and make a significant difference to how the ship performs that is a good incentive to surrender in a hopeless fight and keep them alive.

[maturin]

An alternative to auto surrender is that when your crew is combat ineffective, you no longer have sharpshooters or marines laying down fire, and your dumbass captain gets mowed down on the quarterdeck. Player character KO.

 

So for the player the experience will be similar to sinking, and they will be keen to cut and run to avoid it.

[Ned Loe]

(not advertising any games, just giving ideas..gosh)

 

Morale can be used to charge elite skills.

 

Every broadside on enemy ship produces one battle morale point. (Not talking about boarding morale) There are 4 stages for each line of (defense, offence, sailing). It is up to a player to stay in combat and try to put as much broadsides on a ship as possible in order to unlock elite skill in a specific line. Player can select on what line he wants to focus (offence, defense, sailing) Not sure if you guys played BF4, but there is a skill tree you have to unlock in battle to get the best boost for that class. SO, we can use similar system here and think it will work out great. Players will be encouraged to fight get rewarded with extra offence, defense or sailing bonuses. 

 

Ex.

(Offence)

Level 1

+5% reload 

Level 2 

+10% damage (crew uses double shot)

Level 3

+10% accuracy 

Level 4

+ 20% damage 

 

Images are only used as an Example:

 

 

 

Boarding morale should be different from battle morale and only appear in boarding combat.

[Morgan]

I think, Wind you pretty much see the "skillsystem" NA is going for.

There will be no skill like potbs. You have the crew focuses and maybe some other commands to tyour crew.

No BS invince and extra dmage skills/spikes.

 

I think that the surrender should give "some" sort of benefit compared to let you sink totally. There should be a reason for the player to choose the surrender option.

Maybe a surrender affects the way certain nations are respecting you. Same for the crew you hire next. If you fight to the last man with no way of winning a fight your base morale for the next crew you hired is lower.

 

I mostly agree with no ridicilous old-school skills like invince etc.

But players should have some skills. And important ones imho.

Is a game = the best player/team should have a strong advantage.

If 90% of the gameplay is based on the type of ship you play, then is mostly an auto-fire = Biggest ship wins, always.

Wouldn't like to see such a thing.

Also is historical proven that great strategies and commands, overcame power and won crucial battles.

Same for pirates, who used the ellement of surprise and weather conditions. Could attack n destroy/win/plunder much bigger ships with just a sloop.

Ofc i don't mean that sloop can win a 1st rate, but ... u know.

Skills>Gear.

[Chunx]

I'm really quite excited to see some of that *crud I wasn't expecting THAT to happen D:* stuff as well

[BrutishVulgarian]

Grog was an important morale booster for sailors back in the day.    If you are unlucky enough to get attacked, right after serving out grog, your sailors might be a bit tipsy for a while.. 

 

Letting bumboat women visit the ship would boost morale but cause disease later.

 

The biggest morale booster of all would be prize money.   I bet a crew would be willing to stay at sea a long time if the prizes kept rolling in.

 

I think the longer you keep your crew alive and happy, the more loyal they should be to you.   In Uncharted Waters Online you can hire low wage crewmen but if you keep them from dying and keep up their morale they become as good as high wage crewmen.

[Johny Reb]

Just joining the conversation.. where to start?

 

Morale was something the crew had before a ship ever engaged in combat. Their trust in the Captain, length at sea, their own perceived skill, the nation they were fighting for. The game should reflect this morale as something that exists as part of the ship before any encounter. That would be a base stat.

During a fight I doubt that morale continually went up and down that much. When the balls started flying there was probably a drop in morale on both sides but not much. Once the work commenced I bet there wasn't much time to think about how well the fight was going and with all the smoke it was probably quite difficult for the gunners to see how their shot landed unless a mast toppled which would definately increase morale IMO.

 

I would imagine that morale either rose or decreased like a bell curve. Early successes had little effect on morale but as the battle progressed and direction of the fight was becoming more certain than the morale would increase exponentially. But including this into the game means that once you start to loose the fight it will be very difficult to turn the fight around since your crew is becoming rapidly demoralized. Only a lucky mast strike or rudder shot could possibly raise the morale. I don't think this would be a good dynamic.

 

So I think the bulk of morale should be decided before the fight and only minor changes occur during battle giving small boosts or debuffs. I think you need to avoid, at least, a steep bell curve that makes it impossible to recover and by no means have a auto surrender mechanic unless below the minimum crew to sail the ship, and that number should be quite low.

 

Other ideas about using morale points are worth discussing as a game play mechanic but I'm still thinking it through.

You can have morale allow you to boost certain "focuses" for a short period of time (probably most accurate).

Or you could have morale build to a point that allows you to apply a permanent buff to a focus which you would use according to your strategy. To sailing if you plan on running, gunnery for an added advantage or to boarding because you plan on boarding.

[Reki]

Morale change should be result of captain handling the ship, as I see it. It shouldn't depend from things that usually happens during fight: damage, dead crew, demast, sinking someone etc. In that case morale will be like one more nail to coffin for side, that already had problem, besides of morale. So i think it should be result of things, that not always happen in fight: bad captain choices/moves or good captain choises/moves. It should represent how exactly player plays, and then it will be his own responsibility.

 

For example of bad choice/move: Captain let his ship to be attacked from stern, Captain let his ship to strand (if I use correct word... anyway I mean if your ship get to the see-bed whit his keel and can't move), captain had impact with his own ally ship, friendly fire, etc.

 

Example of good move is nice synchronized team cannon-shooting. Guess, you should more or less understand conception.

[Charles Vader]

A Pirate captain who doesnt have some nice plunder for a certain period of time may cause drop the crew morale  or even mutiny against him. But i always choose gameplay instead of realism so if morale element is not going to implemented properly then we better not have it all.