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Hugo van Grojt

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Everything posted by Hugo van Grojt

  1. I can only repeat myself: giving political power to players based on their in game battle performance or economic prowess while ignoring any community opinions (clans, charismatic leaders that people actually LIKE) is bad game design and will most likely not create loyalty towards the "parliament" This is not meant as one of the typical whining posts. Just honest feedback.
  2. UNLESS the attacker is allowed to bring more ships to the party - static defense versus dynamic attack. The proposed layout would work if the attacker is allowed to bring an extra ship for each tower/fort the defending port has....
  3. The "no more captured 3rd Rate" patch is not out for very long - but we see a war of attrition mechanic working already (slowly but surely). As wars become more protracted, more 1st Rates will be lost than can be replaced by a nation's labour hour pool. In the medium to long term, we would therefore see more mixed fleets as Santissimas become more scarce for some nations. In the current game system, I strongly believe that the 3rd Rate has a place. We just haven't played the war economy game long enough to see the effects. I would also suggest to make 3rd Rates usable in normal deep water PBs - there should be some tactical reasons, however, to also bring 5-10 Frigates and Mortar Brigs to the fight for tactical maneuverability on the battlefield. A line of Constitutions / Ingermanlands only does not sound sexy and very immersive to me. Just the 2 Cents of a Bellona-lover ... Sincerely Yours, Hugo van Grojt
  4. Well, it comes down to whether you want to have a gaming community or represent real life in the 18th century in Naval Action. Don't forget that this is a game first and foremost, not "Absolutism simulator 1806".
  5. Exactly! Merits should not be handed out statically, they should be dynamic. Political power of any given player should deteriotate slightly (negative interest) over time if he/she is not active for a while. The proposed system by admin has no solution to the dilemma of veteran players becoming inactive while still holding power. Additionally, the chance to "buy power with money" will only work, if the ingame economy is well balanced. In its current state, I would fiercy reject any option to buy power with gold simply because this would automatically give too much influence to some industrialists/monopolists who are not necessarily the most liked people in their nation. The political system needs a way for players to elect/confirm the actual leaders and respected individuals in their nation and community!
  6. Can we please stay on topic? This thread is about WIND SPEED and (to a limited extent) addition/removal of bow chasers.
  7. I love where you are going with this Ultimately, we need to look at crew maintenance from two perspectives, though - and maybe not mix them up in our reasoning: 1. crew maintenance cost for balancing the game against 1st Rate creep and providing an additional money sink to counter inflation 2. crew maintenance as an additional strategic layer to customize your ship for its task. These two are closely intertwined, of course - and that is the reason why the economy is so important to PvP as well. But overall - your ideas are awesome
  8. Awesome idea! This will make sailing a more tactical and skill based experience! I am all for it! 1. maybe the "strong wind" and "light breeze" should not affect the battle too much (top speeds in low wind still reach a least 8 knots, top speeds in strong winds do not exceed 13.5 knots for the most effective ship in that wind class) 2. Wood types still should probably still have a more significant impact on ship speed overall than wind speed - this may be less historically accurate but gives the players some control over what they want to specialise their ship for. 3. Alternatively, officers or experienced crew could later have an impact on the "efficiency of sails on ship" - adding another tacticaly layer of speed tuning and reflecting what Wind said - experienced crew making the best out of the sails and tuning, while less experienced crew might be less efficient operating the sails 4. I also like the idea of "global wind trends" to have sort of wind highways for trader traffic and more dynamic changes in wind direction. But I can understand if the current counterclockwise wind turning mechanic stays to make the game a little more predictable for players. I vision that the wind compass rose ingame will then give you a "trend marker (little green and red arrows?) that give the captain an idea whether wind is picking up in the next 20 minutes, and which way wind is turning in the next 20 minutes. Hooray to dynamic wind! All hail the dynamic wind!
  9. I like this idea very much - your vote being a combination of several factors that make an able captain in the Caribbean. However, many of the "achievements" you have listed are static requirements that will be reached by the majority of players: 1. Captain Rank - as XP is static and does not deteriorate, everybody (except alt accounts of people) wll reach Rear Admiral Rank eventually. 2. Crafting rank - same as captain rank 3. Number of buildings - static as well So, eventually, these votes will level out in the player base. But I like your approach to have certain ranks as "entry level conditions" and then have active playstyle (RvR and PvP activity) as the more decisive influencing factor. Maybe. there can be another "PvP rank" for players that measures their activity and achievement over the last month dynamically (resulting from the "heroic PvP feats that admin mentioned)? This would be better because absent captains (veterans) that participated in the initial "land grabbing" will not have their political power by right anymore while more active players have a better chance to rise up in the ranks. I am strongly in favour of measuring dynamic player activity over static player privilege when it comes to the relevance of your vote. You should probably also include a factored vote based on clan membership and relative size of the clan in comparison to the nation size. It may not be a significant factor, but should be included anyway - just because the larger clans tend to be involved in RvR and nation management more than smaller ones with their own agenda. This should not force players to join the larger clans, but it should encourage those that are really into the national RvR gam to do so. Anyway, I like this approach much more than only relying on "grindable achievements" such as x damage done (damage farming for politics), x amount of money spent (monopolies for political influence) - we need a more dynamic approach to your vote. Cheers, Hugo P.S. - Yes to BR limits for Port Battles. But, this may prevent players from joining a more ragtag and unorganised assault fleet/defense fleet - Imagine you show up for a hastily organised port battle fleet in a larger ship only to find out that you cannot enter the fight because the BR is already reached? That would be not fun for the player, so the system would need a little more work such as "battle commander" deciding in advance what ship classes are needed?
  10. Exactly, it has been my firm belief for weeks now that the Bellona is not only the most beautiful ship out there but that it also will/should become the "standard" large scale battle ship with rare Pavels/Victories only filling the line as super weapon. 3 Durabilities = more use out of your installed upgrades + more use out of 1 set of crew before you lose your last durability. Makes sense. With crew maintenance cost and other tactical options, the "ultimate" 25 ship fleet setup would then look like this (and I am sure this is what the devs are looking for, as well): 5x Light Frigates (Mortar Brigs, screen for main battle line?) 5x Heavy Frigates (to counter mortar brigs? To counter other frigates? Capture secondary targets?) 10x 3rd Rates (main battle line, pinning force) 5x 2nd/1st rates (heavy hitters, core of the fleet) Any system that brings us closer to seeing fleets like this is a good system in my eyes
  11. AND! Admin did not say anything about replenishment rates for crew, yet. It is quite possible that replenishment rates for will be so high that everyone can always sail a port-bought 5 dura Surprise/Mercury and can afford to lose that regularly. I am sure we will see that. So, crew limitations only come into play from, let's say, Trincomalee/Essex and up. And the favouring larger nations problem has been addressed by admin proposing the introducting of a coefficient to national crew availability that balances out the larger a nation gets. This means, that it is quite possible that a smaller nation can field bigger and better crewed ships regularly, while a large Empire can field more ships in total, but not necessarily 50 1st rates all the time. Sounds good to me. Now we need to see the same balancing system according to empire size introduced for other things (flag craft cost?) as well and we will have a nice stable RvR
  12. While I understand your concern, I think the devs NEED to introduce crew management/maintenance cost to balance the game and prevent the Santissima creep we see already somehow. - Player Ranks do not work in the long run, because gaining rank is static. Once you have reached max rank - what prevents you from sailing the biggest and most badass ship? - Crafting Ranks do not work either, once you reach max rank in crafting you can make your own stream of Santissimas (only limited by labour hours - which is a good thing already, but not the final solution) So, we need a system of ship maintenance cost that will force players to make a conscious decision on what ship to sail in Open World. Right now, there is littel incentive to sail a Frigate/Belle Poule when I can sail a Trincomalee/Essex which is the more powerful ship. With crew maintenance cost, sailing Frigates/Belle Poules/Surprise may be significanlty more cost effective. So you make a choice: badass but expensive or cost effective but not the meanest ship in the ocean? This is a very much needed feature, the question is: how can we make it as simple as possible and less of a micromanagement nightmare? Cheers, Hugo
  13. I think this is a very good step in the direction of balancing larger and smaller empires. If you are coding this feature for the crew mechanic, please also consider coding it for "purchase cost of port attack flag" as well. I would like to see that empire expansion becomes more costly as you get more ports, thereby offsetting your advantages you get from more crew/resources from ports. Once a single nation has conquered half of the map, there should be an increasingly high cost in conquering the rest - either by the available crew mechanic or by increasing gold cost for attacking yet another port. Good thinking to protect the smaller nations from zerg mechanics! Keep it up!
  14. So, you are asking people to give their LABOUR HOURS and RESOURCES to you, the crafter, in exchange for a free ship. How is this different from me asking people to give their LABOUR HOURS and RESOURCES to me, the crafter, in exchange of a free ship? I fail to see how your system is more efficient. And by the way, people can also choose to pay for their entire ship in the form of large/medium carriages, if they are too lazy to go looking for pine or red wood...
  15. I detest this accusation, please assume that EVERYONE in this thread has the ability to read. Thank you. But on topic: The worry of the posters that you quote is that the suggested gathering of political power is very tightly connected to "grinding your way to the top", giving the 24/7 players political power on top of the already hefty gold/xp rewards. The critics you quote just fear that the proposed system, as we understand it, can be VERY vulnerable to abuse, because players in sandbox games always find a way to "game the game". All proposed roads of gaining political power in the game are very closely associated with grinding ("elite port battle team", "elite gank squad", "economic monopolist with 10 alt accounts") and do not have enough of a human (community vote) factor. Grindable land ownership (through PvP / buying power with gold) can be an ENTRY threshhold to the political system - "you need to be an active player in order to vote" - but it should not be the only deciding factor in making decisions for your nation - which is a living community that should not be governed only by the richest meta-gamers. This is a valid concern and I am optimistic that the devs will find a way to mitigate the problem and introduce more community-based tools for politcs. Hugo
  16. Dear Admin, my apologies for not elaborating on my point in more detail. I did read the notes. So, please let me clarify: When it comes to the RvR aspect of the game and especially larger scale PvP, there are many heroic actions taken by captains that do not get registered as a success by the game. Currently, only the amount of damage done is being calculated by the game and "kills" and "assists" are the only basis for the current reward system for gold and XP. To me, your initial suggestion reads like you now want to also grant political power to hose with the most "kills" and "assists" in addition to the gold/XP rewards. And this is where my criticism came in: In PvP, most of the time, I am the guy that is shooting down the sails of enemies, keeping them tagged so others with slower ships (or unfavourable wind) can catch up and kill the enemy. Being a smart captain is rewarding by itself, so previously I did not mind leaving most PvP engagements with only 20 XP and barely enough Gold to pay for the repairs. After all, we won the battle, right? I deliberately choose to be in screening fleets instead of the port battle fleet - but your suggested land ownership reward systems means that I would be stupid to do so (in game terms), if I want to become a member of parliament (which I do). I read your proposal as suggesting that players that do anything else but "deal damage" / "be part of the 25 man team in a port battle" will now be additionally handicapped by reduced political power in the nation. So, whatever merits you base that gathering of political power on - you need to keep in mind that you will encourage/push players into playing a certain way based on the rewards you give them. And this means that you have to be very careful in defining those rewards. I hope I was more clear this time around. Politics are a very sensitive topic and I believe that you cannot properly implement a true political system based on measuringf ingame stats (damage dealt, port battle participation). You need to introduce a human factor (for example pressing "like" on an enemy captain that has performed well in battle, automatically grant more "land" to clan leaders/officers that manage larger ingame communities (clans), have "political parties" implemented that players can choose in addition to their clan membership or mechanics like that ...) Sincerely Yours, Hugo van Grojt
  17. I agree with the crtitcism of putting too much power in the hands of those that might not be the actual contributors to national unity? What about arranged port flipping between clans of different nations to scew the power balance in the direction of a rogue clan instead of the actualy majority clans? Why is that contribution only measured in attendance of port battles? Why is there no other means of contributing to national wars? I personally consider myself a frigate captain and sail in screening fleets rather than port battle fleets - a port-battle-only merit system will mean that my useful service will not translate in to having a say in political matters... And don't forget that only 25 people can ever be in a port battle, while many more than those 25 people are involved in the national war effort. IF the same 25 people (such as the dedicated [RUS] clan in Denmark on PvP1, for example) always fight in port battles, does that mean they automatically have more power over the entire Danish nation by doing so? And other clans need to wage even more war just to try to compete? I AGREE that merit for the nation (PvP activity) should grant more say in political affairs than being a passive citizen. But it should affect voting rights, not lead to direct decision making power. If you want to implement politics properly, make clans either into political parties that one can join - or introduce "NPC political parties" that each citizen can join in addition to their clan to reflect their political stance. If most citizens join the "PVE Carebear Party" then the leader will know that their nation is maybe not the big war monger. If most people join the "I hate Nation X" party, then war with that nation might be more useful to declaring a war to another one that has less popularity in the citizenry. A political system needs two things: A way of decision-making for the people that represent the nation - and a toolset for these leaders to figure out what the majority of the playerbase in that nation actually wants. I am not convinced right now, the suggested "port loyalty" system for ports changing hands seems a much more fleshed out approach that could incorporate ways of earning merit with more than just participating in a port battle. - Please give the port loyalty suggestion a better look. Sincerely Yours, Hugo van Grojt
  18. Could I get a (possibly unbiased) explanation why the positional reinforcement thing is bad and needs to be fixed? Are there bugs with land? Or do people dislike the possibility of a superior force to surround a smaller one? Please enlighten a crafter who spent too much time in Willemstad Crafters Guild meetings. Cheers, Hugo
  19. Das ist meins - aber gerade im Umbau - zum Vergleich einmal unsere alten (50G per labour hour) und die Compass-Wood-angepassten Preise (500G per labour hour) HIER HASTE Gruss, Hugo
  20. --- HUGO REPUBLIC SHIPYARDS FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY --- To whom it may concern, today, the day of our Lord April 23, 1716 marks a dark day for HUGO REPUBLIC SHIPYARDS and many of the companies associated with the Willemstad Crafters Guild. It is with sadness that I, Hugo van Grojt, must yet again admit defeat. The pricing system of the Willemstad Crafters Guild has failed and collapsed. In what can only be the doing of evil Capt Bubbles and his despicable DAS minions, the market of the United Provinces has been flooded with ever increasing amounts of cheap Gulden. As a result, we were forced to pay ever increasing salaries to our dock workers and artisans, while the Dutch Navy Admiralty demanded we deliver the ships ordered at the same price stated by the government contracts - at the threat of imprisonment or worse. For this reason, HUGO REPUBLIC SHIPYARD hereby declares bankruptcy and suspends all money-related activities until further notice. All outsanding debt to private citizens shall nonetheless be paid in full and outstanding private ship orders shall be met - we are respected gentlemen, after all. Ship crafting shall continue at the Willemstad docks, however. In an attempt to prevent the bankers of the Bank of Amsterdam and government debt collectors from ruining our livelihoods, we shall not touch a single Gulden from now on. ALL CUSTOMERS ARE HEREBY ASKED TO DELIVER THE SHIP COMPONENTS NECESSARY FOR SHIP MANUFACTURE ON THEIR OWN ACCORD (BYOM - Bring Your Own Materials). COMPENSATION FOR OUR LABOUR SHALL BE PAID IN AMOUNTS OF SHIP COMPONENTS WITH THE IDENTICAL LABOUR COST (HIGH GRADE NOTES , MID GRADE NOTES, CANNON CARRIAGES OF ALL SIZES AND THE LIKE). Your humble and desperate servant, Hugo van Grojt Proprietor of Hugo Republic Shipyards (under liquidation)
  21. I disagree and agree with the video in the OP - you defeat the trolls and flame warriors by not giving them a stage. National News was closed because the hate and flame started spilling over into the rest of the forum and mods were spending 90% of their time/resources on policing NN instead of moderating the rest of the forum and more usefull content and suggestions by players. Putting the trolls on ignore both ingame and on forums is the best countermeasure, really. Open and unmoderated comms just get us closer to World of Tanks chat which I am sure most of us do not want Naval Action to devolve into
  22. Mal davon abgesehen, dass Wirtschaft in einem richtigen Realm-versus-Realm Spiel natürlich eine Rolle spielen sollte und dafür auch fein ausbalanciert werden muss. Beispiel: Die paar hunderttausend die es kostet, eine Flagge für einen gegnerischen Hafen zu craften sollten mal ein Anreiz sein, nur diejenigen Flaggen zu kaufen, die die Nation/der Clan auch tatsächlich für Eroberung nutzen will. Heute: "600.000 für eine Flagge? Ach da mache ich mit meinen zwei Kumpels 1-2 Missionen und crafte gleich zwei!" Wirtschaft und großangelegtes PvP, das dauerhaft Spass macht sind nicht von einander getrennt zu betrachten und müssen zusammenpassen. Das ist hier kein Beschwerde-mimimi-Thread, es geht nur darum die aktuellen Fehlentwicklungen aufzuzeigen und zu diskutieren, damit wir am Ende alle ein besseres Spiel unter die Nägel bekommen
  23. Die Windprofile auf Navalactioncraft.com basieren nur auf den manuellen (und zum Teil sehr veralteten) manuellen Tests von Jodgi - die sind mit harten Zahlen aus der Datenbank nicht zu vergleichen.
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