Argument for Enlisted Ranks

[Powderhorn]

This originally started as a response to "Boarding Changes Feedback" (my thanks to akd for starting this train of thought) but became distinct enough that I believe it to warrant a separate topic.

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There is, as many are aware, historic precedent for enlisted sailors' ranks as a direct reflection of capability.

A "landsman," someone who was new to the ship, would have no experience sailing, while an "ordinary seaman" is someone with some experience, and an "able seaman" is someone very experienced.

In times of war, the need for skilled sailors far outstripped the available pool, so measures such as impressment were taken. The War of 1812 can be directly attributed to *coughtheUSwantingCanadacough* impressment of American sailors to fuel England's navy in her long-running war.

If sailors and their skill levels are sufficiently difficult to train up, people will conserve them.

This has interesting ancillary effects. In order to save crew, as was the case historically, people would be more willing to strike their colors instead of fighting to the death every time. (This could be heightened by having high combat casualties having direct impact on your ability to recruit and retain skilled sailors.)

Further, a finite pool of sailors could lead to Captains, as was historically the case, being able to be convinced to send their own sailors to other ships, or jealously hoard their own sailors. This would have to be handled carefully, however, or trade in able seamen could become a de facto slave trade.

If the rate of training were, hypothetically, one sailor rank a real world day (so ONE sailor going from landsman to ordinary seaman or ordinary seaman to able seaman), this would also open up a new officer type - a Bosun's Mate (really a petty officer) who might increase rate of training.

This system would add greater depth to the game, and a new mechanic that would naturally guide players to historically authentic age of sail modes of thinking.

[Spacks]

There should be slots available to hire special crew members that give a slight boost to different stats for example

 

Gunnery Officer - +% to accuracy 

 

Sailing Officer - +% to Turning/Sailing Speed 

 

however these officers would have to be expensive since there already are boosts in upgrades 

[Hugh Latham]

So, heavy crew loss in a battle would be replaced by "landsmen" and lower the fighting effectiveness of the ship. Perhaps battle veterans would also be more effective. Both seamanship and veteran effectiveness might take significant time to make them more valuable?

[Paraclete]

The has been discussed before. A system such as Silent Hunter Crew Management would be fun, productive and add a lot of visual appeal.

[Powderhorn]

Spacks, to clarify, "Officers" are set to do as you describe, but have not yet implemented.

 

Hugo - Yes, essentially.  A crew of all landsmen would be very ineffective.  A crew of all "able seamen" would be very effective.  However, the larger the ship, the more difficult it would be to have a crew entirely of "able seamen," again, as is historically the case.  The idea is that they would follow historical rank patterns, from landsman to ordinary seaman to able seaman.  The first crew you have would be a historical mix, a mix I'd have to research a bit more.  After that, you'd be on your own to train your own crew.  In my own suggestion, and these numbers would likely have to be modified to taste, one sailor per real world day would gain one rank.  So a crew of 360 landsmen would take two (real) years without taking a casualty to become able seamen.

[Spacks]

Spacks, to clarify, "Officers" are set to do as you describe, but have not yet implemented.

 

Hugo - Yes, essentially.  A crew of all landsmen would be very ineffective.  A crew of all "able seamen" would be very effective.  However, the larger the ship, the more difficult it would be to have a crew entirely of "able seamen," again, as is historically the case.  The idea is that they would follow historical rank patterns, from landsman to ordinary seaman to able seaman.  The first crew you have would be a historical mix, a mix I'd have to research a bit more.  After that, you'd be on your own to train your own crew.  In my own suggestion, and these numbers would likely have to be modified to taste, one sailor per real world day would gain one rank.  So a crew of 360 landsmen would take two (real) years without taking a casualty to become able seamen.

why not have them gain exp from combat as well as time?

[Powderhorn]

That is a possibility.  This is more of a "broad strokes" outline of an idea with its benefits and losses.

 

The need, in my opinion, for this suggestion to be implemented was just demonstrated this morning in a frigate duel between the Iron Duke and myself.  I came up on him while he was in the opening stages of fighting an NPC Cerberus.  He had taken very little damage, and I got a partial rake on his stern.  (I was moving a touch too fast for it to work the way I wanted it to.)  At this point, the Iron Duke decided to flee, wisely so.  However, he was a bit slower than me, I was starting off very close (as he had not noticed me join the fight until I fired at him, seemingly), I was able to load into my bow chasers chain and knock his sails down to about 94%, before it was clear that I needed to go no further to control the engagement.

 

He would occasionally attempt to squeeze off a broadside of chain at me, but it was never quite effective, as I would slow down and then get right back on his tail.  From there, I raked him repeatedly with double shotted ball from my bow chasers, until his stern was gone.  By now, it was clear that I had won the engagement, yet he sailed on.

 

I swapped to grape, and started raking him from my bow chasers with grape.  After the first shot, being impotent to respond, any sane Captain would have struck their colors.  IF trained crew were a finite resource that could be retained by surrendering, I believe that the Iron Duke would, in fact, have struck his colors.  Instead, he said that he wished he could scuttle his ship, and/or set it on fire.  I reminded him of his ability to surrender, which doing so would have changed nothing except he would have saved himself the time and misery of being slowly shot apart.  Again, IF trained crew were a finite resource here, I believe the Iron Duke WOULD have surrendered, as at that point he would have gained not only time, but also an in game resource.

 

The end result was that of his crew of some 235-odd sailors, I killed 165 through repeated raking grape shot alone, and the rest in a boarding action where I merely attacked once and killed the other 70.  My ship received minimal damage, a few rents in the sails, a couple odd shot in the hull, and a butchers bill of maybe half a dozen sailors.  I point this out to establish the sheer futility of continuing the fight, and yet, with nothing to gain, and nothing to lose, it was continued on in defiance of common humanity and history.

[Pagan Pete]

Pagan Pete likes this. +3

[jodgi]

What are the chances that precious crews would make people run even more than they do today?

[Balsafer]

What are the chances that precious crews would make people run even more than they do today?

 

Maybe not have the crew be a total loss and have to start over? Perhaps this will be a good reason to implement crew training while sailing around? 

[Powderhorn]

To answer the easier question first:

 

With crew training involved, this opens up the possibility for a "Petty Officer" officer type that can be used in the "Officers" section of ship upgrades.  With different damage states for crew (Unwounded, Lightly Wounded, Severely Wounded, Dead), it allows for a Surgeon officer type to recover more of those wounded.  (A surgeon would also be able to, as an option, "Repair Crew" during a battle and treat the "Lightly Wounded" and send them back up to the fray.)

 

jodgi's question is much more difficult to answer, because it is really a lot of questions in one.  I've given it some thought last night, but mostly in just framing the questions.  While the servers are down for maintenance, I want to try to untangle them.  The question jodgi posed is, "What are the chances that precious crews would make people run even more than they do today?"

 

This question can be refined a bit.  I am going to break down players into three groups that I believe includes all players.  There are those who will run from a fight, those who will fight some amount before running, and those who will fight to the end.  Does a finite skilled sailor population decrease the last group (those who will fight to the end)?

 

In order to evaluate this, the questions must be asked, "Why do people run?" and "Why do people fight to the end?"  People seem to run as a form of "Loss aversion."  In my experience, people do not run from fights that they believe they can win.  (This is not a question of objective reality that they can win, but rather their subjective belief of their ability to win a fight.)  If they did so, it seems we would regularly see frigates fleeing from snows, and other such similar flights in the face of lesser power.

 

Why do people fight until the end?  Some people argue that it makes them a better PvPer.  Some people place a lesser value on the hull of the ship, and more upon the fun of the combat.  Some people are forced to through a faster adversary.  It is the second group that I believe we would in fact see some shift.  If the balance is between value of losses and fun of combat, a subjective placement of "fun" will be outweighed in some peoples' minds by objective "value of hull + crew."

 

After working through this a bit, yes, I believe that these changes would shift some players of an unknown quantity (n > 0) from fighting until the end to either fighting and then fleeing, or simply fleeing.

 

However, that is not the end of the tale.  Those who are fleeing now have a force pushing them to "surrender."  As things are now, not only are people averse to loss, reflected by their flight, but people are averse to their adversaries gaining anything from their plight.  As such, a new category must be established.  Those who will flee to the bitter end.  I have heard of no instance of a player striking their colors.  I do not believe that it has happened any more than one out of twenty times, and likely only one out of a hundred, or even less.  (I suspect the development team would have these statistics, and would be curious to see them as they bear on this discussion.)  As such, the subcategory of those who flee to the bitter end I think is largely composed of those who will fight and flee and those who will flee, making a fairly substantial group.  By having a finite skilled sailor pool that is savable only through surrendering your ship, a new scenario opens up:  Instead of where the pursued has (in striking colors) nothing to lose and nothing to gain, and the pursuer has something to gain, the pursued will continue to flee until the bitter end.  There is no objective value gained by striking your colors except for gaining back some play time.  

 

By having a finite crew that you keep on surrendering, there is now objective value to striking your colors.  The pursued now has something to gain and the pursuer has something to gain when colors are struck, and both gain back play time.  A player will balance in their head which is more important in this scenario:  Keeping trained crew, or keeping the hull out of the hands of the enemy.  This balance would be shifted by the scarcity or abundance of trained crew.  (One crew level per day (One sailor gets one promotion one real world day) would create a very scarce trained sailor pool, shifting many players from the "Flee to the bitter end" group to the currently almost if not entirely non-existent group "Players that will strike their colors."

 

This ultimately creates a more refined game that guides people to more appropriately and accurately represent captains in the age of sail.  While some unknown quantity of players would indeed be more compelled to flee, it seems to me that they would be heavily overbalanced by the vast number of players who, on realizing the futility of a flight, would not only strike their colors but do so rapidly in order to minimize loss - instead of doing as is seen currently and fleeing until they are forced to sink or lose all crew, wasting everyone's time and being ahistoric in the process.  I thank you for your time in reading through this, and welcome any further thoughts on the matter.

[Powderhorn]

The next question is "what should ranks for sailors actually do?"

 

A crew full of landsmen would struggle to quickly turn masts, run sails, and fire the guns.  A crew full of able seamen would do these things very efficiently.  There are two potential proposals - a simplified one, and an historically accurate, complicated one.  For a simple implementation, it could be represented by "ordinary seamen" being the "base," so a crew full of ordinary seamen would handle exactly average.  Each landsman could be considered some part of a percentage as a negative towards turning sails, raising and lowering sails, and firing cannons (both in speed and accuracy).  Each able seaman could be a positive in the opposite direction.  Thus, a crew of 1/3 landsmen, 1/3 ordinary seamen, and 1/3 able seamen would function on an "average" level.  A crew of all able seamen would be very efficient, and a crew of all landsmen might leave a Captain cursing for their ineptitude.

 

A more complicated, but historically accurate way of doing this would be to glean average crew manning for vessels, and use that as the average represented within the game.  So if the numbers had 1/4 landsmen, 5/8 ordinary seamen, and 1/8 able seamen, that could be treated as the average, with each extra landsman making the whole more inefficient, and each extra able seaman making the whole more efficient.

 

At a later point, I hope to lay out some different manning levels for different ships, believing in my ability to find those records.

[Puchu]

Thx Powderhorn, for bringing this important topic up again. Ppl like Laik, Henry, Me and some others have alrdy brought this up before because we think it would be a very good step for the game. This topic has never been commented on by admin, so we dont know his opinion on it. 

 

Most of the players are for such a system, since it makes crew and lives valuable. That is both gameplay enhancing and historically accurate.

 

Everybody aggreed upon that the bonuses from those sailors exp could affect everything that is crew focused, e.g. gunnery, sail raising and so on, but again only a very very minor amount of it. e.g. a fully trained crew gives like 2% bonus. (for easy ship balance)

 

There also needs to be a cap, either hard or soft, on the crew+ because we dont want this system to furthermore increase the grind. 

 

Players would not run more, since... well you basically cannot run more as ppl are doing right now. The ones that run now would run again, and the ones that fight now would fight anyways. Actually making the exp fighting focused, you could fight, and when you see that you are loosing, you strike colours and still gained at least crew exp. 

[admin]

We will come back to crew at a later stage.

• Crew levels might be introduced in a historical way. Landsmen, ordinary and able sailors - maybe.
• Officers will be added definitely
• Some form of more precise crew management might be introduced, allowing you to allocate crew to specific tasks based on min, average and maximum performance. 

[Puchu]

NICE!!!!! 

 

Thx for the answer Admin, so we know it make sense to keep talking about this. 

 

Most importantly for crew skill, officers and modules, all bonuses need to be reduced by a lot to make balancing even remotely possible.

[Captiva]

This is all very encouraging and exciting to hear. After reading the various ideas on the value of crew and captain experience, I am convinced that the current "purchasing" of crew ability upgrades is not the way to go in Naval Action.

 

Upgrades to crew abilities be they; speed in raising, lowering, turning of sails; gunnery skills such as, accuracy, speed in reloading of cannon etc., should all be based on the players success in battle and not simply on the ability to purchase the upgrade.

 

The degree to how much bonus is added to the players crew through success in battle could be best determined by the developers so that balance between experienced and non-experienced players is reasonably attained.

 

This idea would add fluid and dynamic consequences to battle, i.e. the more successful the player is in battle, the higher his crew is upgraded in it's seamanship. If the player falls on hard luck in battle, then his crew is downgraded in it's seamanship abilities. But they are never in the upgraded or downgraded state permanently, rather, they have the everlasting ability to increase their skill rating or decrease it by the skill of the player in battle for the life of the ship they are sailing.

[Destraex]

Captiva, once a crew learns something they tend not to unlearn it. Moral being the exception.

[maturin]

 

 

• Crew levels might be introduced in a historical way. Landsmen, ordinary and able sailors - maybe.

Crew skill levels is just about the only way to make an honor system work, for example. Players won't let their best seamen desert.

[planktonette]

Captiva, once a crew learns something they tend not to unlearn it. Moral being the exception.

While that's true, when you lose crew and then have to take on replacements, the previous close-knit well working teams are no longer as close-knit or well working due to inexperience.

If the mechanism for training is purely from battle, without the ability to perform drills, then the next time you go into battle a portion of your crew will still be raw untested recruits learning on the job, which if anything should really apply penalties until they get their butts in gear if we're going for any sort of accuracy.

[Captiva]

While that's true, when you lose crew and then have to take on replacements, the previous close-knit well working teams are no longer as close-knit or well working due to inexperience.

If the mechanism for training is purely from battle, without the ability to perform drills, then the next time you go into battle a portion of your crew will still be raw untested recruits learning on the job, which if anything should really apply penalties until they get their butts in gear if we're going for any sort of accuracy.

Yes, planktonette, you are spot on regarding the inexperience of whatever percentage of crew that is replaced (due to losses in battle), having an overall affect on the skill level of the entire ships crew. The crew skill is then leveled up again by subsequent success in future battles, or further downgraded by losses in battle. 

 

Again, this would make game-play much more fluid and dynamic, as opposed to "purchasing" levels of crew upgrades that remain static for as long as you have the ship.

[Powderhorn]

Very quickly here (I still owe Puchu a well thought out response), a crew that gets better only with successes rewards only those who win. Effectively, those who are already "good" only become "better," increasing the gap that a player has to overcome to earn a victory.

[Konali89]

Very quickly here (I still owe Puchu a well thought out response), a crew that gets better only with successes rewards only those who win. Effectively, those who are already "good" only become "better," increasing the gap that a player has to overcome to earn a victory.

Yes but those that are already ''good'' have spent months of testing the mechanics giving them the ''skill advantage" over new player anyways. That is a gap that will always be visible unless the battle mechanics change drastically.

 

As to the crew issue, i think it is really dependent on the mechanics the devs will put in place. Let's say, your crew will only get better if you win, Well that makes sense right. Because if you loose, you either got slaughtered of did surrender and dead crew does not learn anything anymore.

[Destraex]

Konal he is trying to prevent new players getting seal clubbed. But I think their are already done mechanics to discourage this clubbing from memory.

[Captiva]

Thanks, Powderhorn. Unfortunately, better players are always going to have a gap between themselves and a lesser player no matter which system is employed. Right now, if a lesser player only plays a better player, then he stands more of a chance of losing his ship, while the better player will more times than not, retain his. But the losing player still earns some XP.

 

 I believe that if the idea is thought out correctly, then losing in battle doesn't necessarily mean that your crew will never get better, but that they will reach the next ability level at a slower pace than the winner. This puts the value of skill more in the players hands than by the simple act of "purchasing" a crew skill upgrade. 

 

The loss of crew level ability could be tied to what percentage of crew loss was suffered in battle. If it were say, over 50%, then the player would lose a certain percentage of crew tasks ability that would have to be made up in subsequent battles - and, of course, the player would have to chose his battles wisely, as he does now. So this affects the very good players as well. More than likely they will be battling players of roughly the same ability as themselves, so they too, run the risk of losing not only ship structure due to damage, but also loss of crew ability due to a percentage of crew loss in battle. 

 

Anyway, I appreciate your input and understand your concern regarding the ever present gap between experienced and inexperienced players. I'm just trying to expand on the idea of tying the leveling up of crew abilities, to the ability of the player, instead of the current static act of simply purchasing the upgrade. It just seems that this could be a more dynamic, realistic and ultimately more enjoyable aspect of the game.  

[Powderhorn]

So, I had recalled owing Puchu an answer on here, though now I am unable to find the question.  It came to mind again in regards to the recent poll, so I wanted to try to finalize some thoughts on here.  A workable mechanic mapped out, after all, saves the development team having to work it out themselves, and further streamlines the process.

 

The question that I thought I owed to Puchu is, "How do we balance a slow training of crew against new players," and I think, in this case, we wouldn't, but we could perhaps allow for a more realistic model of crew training.  I had postulated a simple time component, so that crew would be training even while you might be logged off.  I do think it would be good to keep that.  However, it might also be an idea to grant crew experience based off of repairs and cannon balls fired and impacted.  Essentially, the act of repairing sails would cause crew to have to go into the rigging, know their ropes, know their knots, and effectively repair sails.  Repairing hull would be a form of hands-on training in carpentry and hull integrity.  Firing cannons, even as drill into an open ocean, was often done to hone crews, and I think this could be reflected as well by having XP gained for crew just from the act of firing a cannon.  Further XP could be gained for each shot that impacted an enemy hull.

 

What would this mean within "the big picture"?  Even an entirely pacifist trader could train up their crew and gain the same benefits, but the best training would be the crucible of live combat - repairing sails, hulls, and firing cannons and hitting enemy vessels would all add up to grant the fastest path to ranking up your crew.

 

This would create a gap between those players with more time and those with less, BUT it would be bridgeable by new players.

 

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For implementation purposes, I would suggest the following - Each sailor is individually represented (if not graphically).  As such, instead of crew training being a percentage ("Your crew is 75% trained!") I would like to see it broken down into each rank by quantity, so, for example, on a 150 man vessel, "Landsmen:  50.  Ordinary Seamen:  50.  Able Seamen:  50."  As a starting point, I might say no more than 10 sailors promoted out of any fight, but that's something that would have to be tweaked via play-testing.

 

I would not want to have individual sailors as a resource that can be stored.  If you go from a boat of 100 to a ship of 300, I think you should have to either train up or recruit the other 200.  Ideally, each port might only have a very few able and ordinary seamen for recruitment, and the rest landsmen.  This keeps trained sailors an actual finite quantity instead of just a theoretical one (We don't want people to go, "Oh, I just lost 50 sailors, but I have 400 followers over at the Capital, so no big deal.")

 

As far as officers go, this is not the thread for them, but some ideas have been bounced around, and I would like to suggest that officers do THINGS instead of percentages.  The business agent to allow you access your ports from afar was one such idea, the surgeon to allow you to recover crew another such.  This is a topic for a separate thread, however, but I wanted to plant the thought in peoples' minds.

 

As always, feedback is welcome.  Thus far, I do believe this is the best method to handle an improved crew, but I want to make sure that if we do implement an improved crew we do it in the best way, and not necessarily the Powderhorn way.