The Fix For Exceptional Ship Spam And Worthless Quality 2-4 Ships

[Wesreidau]

At present, labor hours determine ship quality. Put more labor hours in, and a better ship comes out. Everyone gets labor hours, including alts which sit in harbor all day cranking out carriages and fine live oak logs.

 

According to Naval Action Craft (now out-of-date due to the Fine Wood addition, but still a guide)...

 

6,031 labor hours make a grey Victory. 7,271 make an exceptional Victory.

 

Thus exceptional ships were only very marginally more expensive than grey ships, from the crafter's perspective. Crafters accordingly farmed out all the level 0 shipbuilding jobs to create materials and frame parts, and just made the notes and ships. If they didn't farm out the notes too.

 

Fine wood didn't solve this question of cost. Fine wood is just another form of notes; a labor hour surcharge for increased quality. While that's fundamentally sound, the difference between 1, 2, 3 and 4 notes is the same as 16, 24, 32 and 40 fine wood. Only since fine wood is a random drop from farming normal wood, we see serious market distortions from people farming wood, dumping it to whatever source they can and only pursuing fine and compass wood.

 

The solution is three fold.

 

First, allow fine wood to be produced by a higher-level crafting recipe that consumes a large amount of normal wood. This lets people decide how to spend their labor hours; normal wood with a chance of fine wood, or fine wood destroying my normal wood. This economic choice will normalize behavior away from farming a huge normal wood surplus.

 

Second, the cost-to-quality increase needs to be geometric, not linear. Rather than 1, 2, 3, and 4 notes? 1, 2, 4, 8 notes. Rather than 16, 24, 32 and 40 fine wood, 16, 32, 64 and 124 fine wood. Now exceptional ships cost a very severe premium compared to fine ships, and one or two more upgrade slots over a Mastercraft may no longer be worthwhile to a buyer.

 

 

 

 

 

Third. If we want truely rare exceptional ships, we need to require something other than labor hours to produce them. Remember how most MMO's have big raids and dungeons where you can gather rare crafting materials needed to produce the best player-crafted weapons? There was a reason for this. By requiring players to engage the primary content of the game, combat, to produce the gear they needed for combat, they created a positive feedback loop to engage in the primary content, rather than remain in the secondary content of crafting.

 

Now I'm not suggesting raids and dungeons against AIs (although shipwrecks might remain as a PvE source for the following), but we need to add a crafting material, a finishing touch, that is required for all exceptional ships.

 

In sword-and-shield MMOs, you slay a dragon, acquire one of its claws, have it carved into an awe-inspiring sword and know you've faced great peril, overcome a tremendous challenge, and now have the finest weapon to do battle with. Everyone who sees you know's you've killed dragons.

 

Here there are no dragons, but sea captains still faced battle and brought home trophies. We need such a trophy. Something you only gain through difficult odds. Something you, as a sea captain, would strive to gain anyway. Something glorious, a badge of honor. A sign you faced great odds and overcame it.

 

Is there anything more glorious than capturing an enemy ship's colours, or the enemy captain's sword?

 

Would anything else signify that this man presenting this trophy of battle deserves the finest ship we can make?

 

 

 

For the purposes of the proposal, I'm going to call it a "Trophy". However, I have the idea that the trophy will be specifically a ship's colors, or the captain's sword, or some other thematic item. There will be seven grades of trophies, tied to the grade of the ship killed.

 

1st Rate Captain's Sword, or 1st Rate Colours, or 3rd Rate Captain's Sword, or 3rd Rate Colours, or "Flag Captain's Sword", "Midshipman's Sword"... however. Seven grades, for the seven ship ranks they'll be needed for.

 

When fighting in PvP (perhaps PvE for the PvE server -only-) you may rarely be awarded a trophy for a kill, or very rarely for an assist. To prevent farming, it needs to be PvP or hostility mission PvE only, to prevent ganking, it needs to have BR requirements for "fairness". And I'm thinking reduced odds for a hostility mission PvE, but there are some PvE players, I suppose.

 

If you are facing even BR odds (within, say, 5-10% range), you are eligible to receive a battle trophy for every player you receive kill credit for, and to a lesser degree for assist credit. The odds of a trophy are very slim, but increase as your BR odds become more and more against you. Thus, being ganked but managing to kill one of your attackers gives you a better chance of winning a trophy than if the enemy had fought on even odds. Being attacked by a larger fleet is now an opportunity to die well. Trophies are still rewarded to players who die in the battle at half odds.

 

Players in PVP are now encouraged to fight within 5-10% BR 'fairness', as it gives them a chance for trophies. They may not care to win trophies but only want kills; that's fine. But the target of uneven odds now has incentive to fight like hell and overcome for the better chance of a trophy he has.

 

Also, since trophies are rated based on the rank of the killed player, 1st rate trophies will be rather hard to get, and accordingly exceptional first rates will be very rare. However, there is a lot more action among lower ship ratings. Thus lower-rank ships will be easier to earn an exceptional trophy for. And since the chance to receive a trophy is a hidden percentage, it can be tuned silently if exceptional ships become too common, even on a rating-by-rating or player by player basis.

 

Captains who only play PvE will still have shipwrecks, themselves bearing trophies of their own ranks. A 6th rate shipwreck produces a 6th rate trophy.

 

Captains who play a lot of PvP may sell their unused trophies on the market. Farming trophies for money requires engaging in fair or uneven fights with enemy players or doing PvP-seeding hostility missions, so go ahead and fight fair all day long.

 

But above all, trophies cannot be acquired through purely PvE content unless it involves shipwrecks and events, both of which open the player up to PvP. If a player can grind AI ships for trophies, never facing PvP, they can farm trophies and exceptional ships will become worthless once again.

 

Captured vessels will not have a higher chance of producing a trophy than a sunk vessel to avoid influencing combat choices.

 

Dying in battle will not exclude you from winning a trophy, but may halve your chances. Otherwise gank victims will have no hope to win a trophy, as they tend to die. But encouraged by a trophy chance, they'll die well. With higher BR odds improving your chance for a trophy, killing a ganker and dying may still have better odds for a trophy than winning a single combat at fair odds.

 

 

Between these three points:

 

1. Mastercraft and below ships can be created entirely through labor hours, with the labor hour price (notes and fine wood) increasing very steeply for higher grades.

2. Lower grade ships in PvP can be used to gain the ingredient needed for the Exceptional ship.

3. Exceptional ships require a crafting ingredient that cannot be gained through labor hours but require activity in the game's primary content at fair odds.

4. Players that find themselves in unfavorable odds are encouraged to face them bravely by the possibility of gaining exceptional ship ingredients at a better chance than fair odds would have given them. 

5. Exceptional ships can only be created through combat with ships of the same class as the desired ship, some of which will themselves be exceptional, and lose durabilities.

Edited October 30, 2016 by Wesreidau

[Mrdoomed]

I would like to see a system with a mix of old and new.

If you want to make an exeptional ship do it much like before exept where the fine wood is concerned.

Instead make the amount of fine wood used to creat the ship determine the % that the ship turns out exeptional. Use the full amount required and its 100% guaranteed you get the exceptional ship. Use less and less you get smaller and smaller chamce of being an exceptional ship but instead a lesser quality.

This way large clans with endless resorces get thier perfect ships but solo and casual players can still roll the dice at getting a exceptional ship with the smaller amount of fine wood found and if not get the gold they still get a decent ship of moderate quality.

Even with your system the hard core gamers will still crank out the best ships. NO sytem will stop that.

Right now and with your system it basically says only try hards get gold ships and nobody else can.

I want something where casual players at least have a chance at something.

Edited October 29, 2016 by Mrdoomed

[Sea Archer]

I would do it like this:

 

forests give a certain percentage of wood in basic, common, fine, mastercraft and exceptional quality. You would need the right one for your ship. This would bring all qualities in the game, since no one would save the fine wood only for exceptional ships.

 

The low quality percentage is higher then the good ones and we have to learn, that not only the perfect ship is sail-able. It won't be the all or nothing attitude we have now.

[Wesreidau]

Hardcore gamers and casual players will both have the same drop rate for trophies, hardcore gamers will just roll the dice more often.

 

However since the drop rate is hidden, it could be increased under certain circumstances so casual players get a trophy once in a while.

 

Sea Archer, what you propose will break up wood generation into even more sub-categories, and I promise you people will grind out 'exceptional wood' just as they currently grind for fine wood.

[Sea Archer]

Hardcore gamers and casual players will both have the same drop rate for trophies, hardcore gamers will just roll the dice more often.

 

However since the drop rate is hidden, it could be increased under certain circumstances so casual players get a trophy once in a while.

 

Sea Archer, what you propose will break up wood generation into even more sub-categories, and I promise you people will grind out 'exceptional wood' just as they currently grind for fine wood.

 

I know, but with the waste wood (not exceptional), they might build ships for the market, which at least new players would buy. They cannot craft anything else with it.

There will of course be a storage problem with the current warehouse, but that should be easy to fix.

[Wesreidau]

Its easier to throw away the non-exceptional wood and save all the iron, hemp, tar, blocks, vitae, copper, silver, gold, etc etc etc for your next exceptional than to make a grey ship that consumes all your carriages etc.

[DragonfireActual]

EVE. CCP got it right. Rare is found.  Making crafted ships rare by restricting through the time required to acquire materials alone means almost nothing. To make it worse even if rare there is no way to brag,you pointed out in your analogy regarding a sword,indeed in games like that carrying a rare sword that stands out says something of the player. In this game there is no way to brag,say you have an Exceptional Victory among a fleet of normal quality...how exactly does that Exceptional ship inspire oooh and aaaah? The quality is rare but by all outward appearances it's all the same. Rare has little meaning in NA,the Santa Cecilia is rare,the Agamemnon is rare.

 

In EVE no one goes ooooh and aaaah over the Armageddon battleship a pilot is flying. They do however respect the Bhaalgorn (geddon class hull) the next pilot is flying,the stats aren't outrageously better than it's standard counterpart but the added cost involved suggests the pilot means business and garners the attention and respect of the enemy. What everyone ooohs and aaaahs over is the pilot who undocks his ultra rare Armageddon Imperial Issue he won in the Alliance Tournament. That turns heads,it's a statement the pilot and his team are top notch and that ship is without doubt outfitted with THE BEST OF THE BEST money (in game or otherwise) can buy.

 

I'm on board with rare ships either being found or earned but ship quality shouldn't be a rare thing,it should be difficult and the slot layout being so massively varied from Basic to Exceptional was the wrong approach. I would bet you an exceptional Victory if I offered you an Exceptional L'Ocean with 1 upgrade slot or a Basic with 4 you'd take the Basic every time. Quality should be a stat based system not slot based. Give all ships a 3/5 layout and let the player decide if the added expense is worth the slight improvement to stats. Test it! This is EA is it not?

Edited October 29, 2016 by (NPG) DragonfireActual

[Wesreidau]

After discussing it on Nation chat, the idea of battle trophies to build exceptional ships met some initial resistance on the matter of realism or PvE fairness, but were overcome by...

 

1. Explaining that so long as labor hours alone create exceptional ships, we'll have a flood of exceptional ships as players have economized labor hour exchange.

 

2. PvE players could still earn tokens doing hostility missions, if at a reduced rate, since those carry a risk of PvP and seed larger PvP engagements.

[Edward Canaday]

After discussing it on Nation chat, the idea of battle trophies to build exceptional ships met some initial resistance on the matter of realism or PvE fairness, but were overcome by...

 

1. Explaining that so long as labor hours alone create exceptional ships, we'll have a flood of exceptional ships as players have economized labor hour exchange.

 

2. PvE players could still earn tokens doing hostility missions, if at a reduced rate, since those carry a risk of PvP and seed larger PvP engagements.

 

I am about 90% in agreement with you, but what about the PVE server players?  I no longer play there, but there are plenty of people that do and enjoy it.  You're making the game yet more pointless for them.  I'm not especially competitive, and don't feel a need to show everyone how big my...ship...is, but moved to a PVP server for the conquest possibilities that drive the game forward, with the understanding that I would have to deal with those groups of people that do DO want to show everyone how big their ship is, and PVP would be a necessity. 

 

I know this is a game designed by PVP minded folks, but put something in it to drive the game forward from a PVE perspective.  As it stands, people on PVE basically have no reason to play once they have acquired riches and amazing ships.  Put in end game missions and let those have some rare drops.  I know PVP is life for a lot of you, but some of us just want to enjoy a beautiful game.

[Paulus de Boskabouter]

Why cant we sail all on excp ships and be happy with it? 

[admin]

the problem is this. The color grade system became a fake feature.

in ea we have decided to provide all levels of ships for all players, with relaxed funds (easy to make money) and several tools to make testing easier. 

Players have got used to that (anchoring effect). 

 

As a result 3 quality levels became fake features.

You only sail grey or green ships that you buy or capture from NPCs

or you sail a Exceptional vessel. 

 

Blue and Purple level of quality is a fake feature - it exists but no-one uses it. 

For example medkits are not a fake feature - some people might not like it but many use it. Smuggler is not a fake feature, everyone uses it from time to time. 

Blue and purple ships became a fake feature and most likely have to be removed as all attempts to make it work will still make players chase the exceptional ship.

[Cmdr RideZ]

Blues and MC, some ideas.

 

AI could sail.

We could buy from Vendor.

Crafting exceptional should be exponentially more expensive that MC and Blue.

Blue&MC used to level

 

 

Remember that economy also affects what we sail.  If MC Victory needs 10 Fine Live Oak logs and exceptional needs 1000 Fine Live Oak logs...  Well, do you want 1 Exceptional for your clan or decrease the quality a bit and get 100 MC?

[Edward Canaday]

Blues and MC, some ideas.

 

AI could sail.

We could buy from Vendor.

Crafting exceptional should be exponentially more expensive that MC and Blue.

Blue&MC used to level

 

 

Remember that economy also affects what we sail.  If MC Victory needs 10 Fine Live Oak logs and exceptional needs 1000 Fine Live Oak logs...  Well, do you want 1 Exceptional for your clan or decrease the quality a bit and get 100 MC?

 

Put some of these better ships out there in AI.  I occasionally find a blue merchant vessel, but if I knew that I could cap a MC, even rarely, I would cap more of them.  

[Alex Connor]

the problem is this. The color grade system became a fake feature.

in ea we have decided to provide all levels of ships for all players, with relaxed funds (easy to make money) and several tools to make testing easier. 

Players have got used to that (anchoring effect). 

 

As a result 3 quality levels became fake features.

You only sail grey or green ships that you buy or capture from NPCs

or you sail a Exceptional vessel. 

 

Blue and Purple level of quality is a fake feature - it exists but no-one uses it. 

For example medkits are not a fake feature - some people might not like it but many use it. Smuggler is not a fake feature, everyone uses it from time to time. 

Blue and purple ships became a fake feature and most likely have to be removed as all attempts to make it work will still make players chase the exceptional ship.

 

Green + gold player made ships and grey NPC ships? Or green + blue etc.

 

Important that player built ships are better than NPC shop, no one will build what they can buy for much less effort. With 2 levels of shipbuilding, could have a meaningful choice, lets say green is 2+4 slots and gold 3+5 with small stats increase and 2x labor cost.

[ulysse77]

well then make jsut two categories, regular and well crafted. Regular have no bonuses and less upgrade slot... Crafted have bonuses and more but random quantities of slots... I would not colour coded them at all, you can only add the name of the crafter to the crafted one. Of course, regular could also be crafted. And why not add a type of mission that you would need to craft regular ship for the AI to use. I think it`s nice to have PVE incorporated in Conquest, now we can  add more crafting to conquest (i know supply missions are there)

Edited November 1, 2016 by ulysse77

[Yar Matey]

I don't mind the abundance of exceptional ships, it levels the playing field.  If we have a battle and we are in fine ships and our enemy is in exceptional ships, then we feel like we are at a disadvantage and there is no way we can win anyway.  What I do mind though is port battles being filled with 25 vs 25 first rate ships.  I want to see port battles, ideally, with 1-2 first rates, 2-3 second rates, and the rest 3rd rate ships.  At this point the only way I ever see this happening is if first rates maneuverability is significantly reduced to make them basically floating point defenses.  In real life, it took a very long time to turn these behemoths and it makes little sense to me that these ships can turn so easily on a dime.  Both first rates and second rates. 

Edited November 1, 2016 by Yar Matey

[Wesreidau]

I absolutely agree that the middle quality levels are 'fake features', but not because people won't use them. They simply have no reason to settle for them, because the difference in cost between a crafted grey and a crafted blue ship is the same as the difference between a crafted blue and a crafted yellow. Making a yellow ship is only a ~20% premium in labor hours over making a grey ship.

 

If the labor hour premium for green was 10%, the premium for blue was 25%, the premium for mastercraft was 50%, and the premium for yellow was 100%, or similar, we'd see people start making these compromises.

 

By making combat trophies required for exceptionals, we push exceptional ship crafting requirements beyond labor hour generation and into combat actions. High-end content being required for high-end gear (the big dungeons in most MMOs) is a proven means of preventing a flood of high-end gear. Over time very high end gear has become common in the oldest of these games by virtue of the items being indestructable. We have limited durabilities for all ships, so we'll see exceptional ships destroyed.

 

I would go so far as to suggest more common trophies for Mastercraft ships as well if it worked with Exceptionals. But so long as ships are made from labor hours only, we'll just save up our labor hours and fight less to make sure we have the best ships. If exceptionals require combat, well have to go out fighting, and to mitigate our risk, we'll use mastercraft ships so we don't lose our exceptional ship trying to earn a new token for its replacement.

 

As for the PvE player; shipwrecks, events, the hostility missions and copious amounts of money could all provide trophies.

[Wesreidau]

I don't mind the abundance of exceptional ships, it levels the playing field. 

 

Not even chess has a level playing field. It can't be done and removing granularity and depth from a game to try and achieve it removes the counter-play that allows the nominally weaker player to overcome.

 

The worst game of chess I've endured was facing a player who'd removed all his back row pieces save the king and both knights. I had sixteen pieces to worry about, he had two, and they went on a tear of forking attacks. Likewise some of my best fights have been the most uphill. A fore-and-aft rigged ship that refuses to surrender its upwind position and brutalizes a 6th or 5th rates is playing an unlevel field.

[Anne Wildcat]

As said before, if there are exceptional ships everyone will want them. Get rid of different qualities altogether.

[Wesreidau]

While we're at it, get rid of all mods and upgrades, reduce trade goods to one good called "stuff", and lets start making all the ships identical. Its not fair some people have this fast Renomee that outruns my slow Belle Poule. Its just not a fair fight. And wood types! This guy's in live oak, and my fir ship is losing what should be a fair fight. Its not fair. Remove all choice and make us all play with exactly one ship. And this other guy's gunnery is more accurate than mine because of this still aiming thing. We should all be aiming automatically. 

[Alex Connor]

PvP rewards needed to build exceptional ships? Sure, that could work, but we still don't need 5 levels of shipbuilding.

[Wesreidau]

We aren't using five levels now, because the difference between level 1 and level 5 is simply 20% more labor hours. Everyone saves up to get that extra 20%, and we all sail in level 5s. With combat trophies and no other changes, we'll use level 4 and 5. If a level 4 costs twice as much as a level 3, and I know I'll lose five or even ten durabilities before I win my combat trophy, I might economize and get a level 3. Its not so much a "false feature" as it is cost/benefit decision that isn't properly steep.

 

Right now its as cheap to go from a grey to a green as it is from a purple to a yellow when we craft a ship. We simply aren't paying enough of a premium for each step in the quality scale, and the highest step in the quality scale needs to be beyond the price of mere labor hours. Because that also presents a choice.

 

Consider if I'm tight on funds and win a 4th rate trophy. I can't afford an exceptional 4th rate right now because I'm broke, and even without trophies exceptional ships (by this suggestion) cost 8 mid-grade notes compared to a mastercraft's 4 mid-grade notes. I'd have to save up for a while. But I could sell my 4th rate trophy to a PvE crafter who wants an exceptional Indiaman and use that money to get an exceptional 5th rate, or spend the money on a mastercraft 4th rate.

 

This is a meaningful player choice, one we don't have enough of in ship buying.

Edited November 1, 2016 by Wesreidau

[Wesreidau]

Slamz had an interesting suggestion which tied the value of a combat trophy like what I was suggesting to how effective the victim was.

 

I think that's very interesting indeed. Kill an AI and you have a very low chance of getting a combat trophy drop, kill a player who tends to lose and you have a low chance of getting a combat trophy drop... kill a player who's sporting a 10:1 win to lose ratio and you have a much better chance to get a combat trophy drop.

 

Very interesting indeed. There's a lot of ways this system can be tweaked to encourage desired behaviors.

Edited November 1, 2016 by Wesreidau

[Sea Archer]

the problem is this. The color grade system became a fake feature.

in ea we have decided to provide all levels of ships for all players, with relaxed funds (easy to make money) and several tools to make testing easier.

Players have got used to that (anchoring effect).

As a result 3 quality levels became fake features.

You only sail grey or green ships that you buy or capture from NPCs

or you sail a Exceptional vessel.

Blue and Purple level of quality is a fake feature - it exists but no-one uses it.

For example medkits are not a fake feature - some people might not like it but many use it. Smuggler is not a fake feature, everyone uses it from time to time.

Blue and purple ships became a fake feature and most likely have to be removed as all attempts to make it work will still make players chase the exceptional ship.

The problem with the intermediate level ships is that they need the same material as the exceptionals. Of course the basis materials are the same, but if you would need different mats for creating quality, more intermediate level ships would be build.

The materials for exceptional ships should be very rare, maybe not craftable but must be capped. The lower the level gets, the more available the rare mats must get.

[Wesreidau]

They are so stuck on this "fake feature" mentality that they aren't asking why. Its so easy to get an exceptional because its just one more note. Fifth-tier gear in most MMOs is... hundreds of hours of investment. Here its just another note. No wonder its everywhere.