Fargo

Markets are dead right now nevertheless, just ignore that. We have lots of resources, but most of them are used for the same purpose. Imagine we had professions, there wouldnt be much choice. But forget about it, its really not important or worth to discuss.

I dont think the general idea is so bad. With different types of food you could compile different proviants that could have different (slight) effects on your crew. Would also be good for economy that needs different people producing different goods and enough money sinks. Just dont make it another resource that simply needs to be refilled, or that just more expensive food provides better boni. Crew should consume proviants very slowly, so people are not afraight of loosing money by sailing around for fun. However right now there are more important problems.

Hi, did you try low graphic settings? Anti aliasing has much impact on fps in NA.

Please tell me. I think distance based ROE would be very plausible... if it works and it can be realized. This is the question.

I thought about this mainly with defensive tagging and screening issues (small ships wasting larger ships time) in mind. This idea is to open battle instances when ships get into cannon range, because thats when a real battle would have started. This might save a lot of sailing time in the battle instance and bring screening fleets into more danger. BR limit is a resonable restriction to solve screening issues, but it is an restriction and will be annoying in some situations. This could be a natural solution that would remove devensive tagging tactics in addition. The basic problem: People starting battles for the only purpose to escape it again, as fast as possible, or after a certain time. Battle instances are opening, without any combat taking place. What is causing this within the actual ROE system: Ships can start battles at far distances. Ships can prevent escaping over far distances. No additional restrictions to leave the battle instance for the attacker. No mechanics to force the attacker into combat. Proposal: ROE dependant on distance: Open world: After starting the tag timer, the attacker needs to close distance, represented by a smaller circle. Circle size represents effective cannon range. As soon as an enemy contacts the circle, the battle starts. No specific enemy needs to be selected. When the timer runs out, nothing happens. When attack started and enemy is within the circle, battle starts immediately. Larger circle to pull allies, as usual. Battle instance: Opponents always spawn at the same distance within cannon range (~500m), and loaded. Allies spawn depending on ow position. Area control as general mechanic, area size larger than spawning distance. Removed tag mechanic, or damage to sails doesnt prevent enemies from escaping (reasoning: our cannons are much more accurate than rl cannons). Maybe additional escape mechanics, e.g. your bow needs to point away from the enemy, or a short timer after area control is left. Pros: Less pure sailing time in the battle instances, especially for pursuits. Better immersion/realism when colliding with an enemy, instead of crossing each other while waiting for the timer. Defensive tagging not possible. Open world sailing and positioning more important, enemies cant sail through eachother. No enemies spawning / escaping right next to each other. Bow chasers less essential, more use for stern chasers. Screening atleast more risky and difficult. No restrictions/prohibitions. Requirements: Speed boni and sailing profiles need to work in the OW (atleast studding sails/extra staysails wasnt last time i checked). Regarding screening the thought is that ships need to stay so close to the enemies, that these can actually damage their hulls. The attacker is forced into combat, if he doesnt want the enemy to escape. In addition the closest ship would find itself spawning in front of a few loaded SOLs. Optional: The battle instance appearing in the open world could work similar: Instance appears as swords with circle. (~half the size of the actual large circle) For ~1min each ship colliding with the circle joins the battle. Ships spawn depending on open world position with a distance penalty (ca. 200m). Perfect would be a penalty increasing with time, but thats optional. The thought is that the OW position remains important, while players gain more freedom to choose if and what battle they want to join.

Assumed that everything is balanced in the same way for both cases, the only real difference is that palyers are interacting with other players more often when they need to buy three 1 dura ships instead of one 3 dura ship. Thats a really good thing (E.g. more ships on the market results in more competition). Besides that, one dura is realistic. Two good pros. The question is what are the pros to have multiple duras? And if there arent any, why dont go for 1 dura?! You wont find a positive aspect. We got used to have duras, thats the only reason there is a discussion about it. From a rational view its simply stupid. When i want to make ships better accessable, why ever would i invent multiple duras instead of just decreasing the material cost?! Thats like increasing gravity to decrease cannon range. Statements like "1 dura isnt working" are simply wrong, because that is only for actual balancing, including lots of parameters. When you want to change the actual balancing, there are multiple ways to do it. When you only want to change single parameters you have to adjust the others. I also wonder how this was tested with 20 players on the test server

I just dont like the way fleets are used. When attacking a trader with fleet i want to take down the fleet and finally beeing able to cap the trader if successfull. But what i have to do is ignore the fleet and just try to cap the trader asap (fleet surrenders). So in the end the fleet ships are only used to shoot sails, the trader will escape asap. Then have fun hunting the AI ships set to escape. When fighting battleships with fleet you will focus on the player, for gankers its just a tool to slow down enemies as well. Fleets dont improve gameplay in any way, and i dont think we can change this, other than prohibit traders with fleet to escape e.g.

Typical dev statement. Work on balancing: make bad ships better, increase mats for good ships. The improvement for spending more gold needs to decrease exponentially. Like buying a good camera. At some point twice the price equals only a few percent improvement. A good reason for different quality ships is that at the same time everybody can have easy access to competetive ships, and there is a motivation to work for the perfect ship. Can also work for mods, if they become consumption goods.

I want to point out how overall balancing is missing for wood, crafting boni, modules, regional boni and perks. This table shows some actual balancing issues. With resonable balancing the value of stats, e.g. for each wood type, would be very similar. https://1drv.ms/x/s!ApKoyZ6EWUMSgQ7EO_c5dfJ_dkO5 The references are imbalanced as well. Three, probably four wood types out of six are unnecessary. They could add 10 more wood types, without proper balancing, this wouldnt add much to the game. Decisions make these features fun, but these require options. I dont understand why nobody realises. I mean, they invest time and money to implement stuff, that is actually doin nothing in terms of improved gameplay. When everybody is using the same wood, mods, boni and perks, all these features have no meaning. The only result, they become necessary to be competetive, they are annoying. How balancing could look like based on a concept: The difficulty: finding the right references (1% speed = x% hull = y% armour = ...). The woods, trims and perks themselfes can be shaped how you want them to be with a simple table like this. For this i propose: More depth for wood types including less heel and less leaking for heavier woods, more acceleration and turning speed for light woods. Also speed could be devided in up- and downwind (heavy woods with higher penalty upwind). Boni in percentage for everything effecting different rated ships. Wood boni having 3-4 times more impact compared with other boni. The payoffs for tanky and fast ships could not be negated by upgrades that easy anymore. That means high quality mods and ships become less important, the wood would define the main characteristics of the ship. Here a simple balancing tool. Use the right table (main sheet) to define the boni, then adjust the references. Note: armour is in percent here. https://1drv.ms/x/s!ApKoyZ6EWUMSgRROpo5UOlW8nF_J I hope this can be helpful somehow. Have fun testing around, post your opinion how this balancing should look like, and feel free to post your setup if you found a good one.

Important problems to be solved Remove artificial restrictions for port battles and shipbuilding. Its irrational that players cant craft everything in their capital, or some ships cant be crafted in general. Hostility makes no sense. If there is no better idea for port battles, return to the flag+timer system: simple, effective, reasonable. Increase total XP again. Make high ranks (and first rates) special, mid ranks valuable again. Balancing of crafting/shipbuilding. Material cost for ships still isnt related to durability (ships are 2-5 times cheaper than they would be). Crafters shouldnt be able to produce 5 durability ships each day (who shall sink all these duras?!). The connection between the amount of ships sinking, player income and ship cost is missing. Crafted rep kits are still useless, etc. Balancing of shipboni, mods and perks. Mods, crafting boni, regional boni and perks shouldnt be able to completely outclass the basic ship/wood characteristics. Then competetive PVP could be possible without golden ships, mods and perfect officer builds. Maybe remove mods, or change how they work. Also balancing for wood types should be improved. Realize what type of game you want. "OW is currently torn between being a bad matchmaker and a gritty sandbox, don't try to merge the two into a bad compromise."(Aegir). We need a clear concept when thinking about new ideas, problem solving, or development priorities. Discussions are not productive when two factions are arguing with different types of game in mind. It says realistic sandbox in the description, is this still what we are aiming for?! Features (additions or cutting) Cut irrational perks (signaling, thrifty, etc.) Make area control and prepared default mechanics. Cut ow ai fleets (we have forts, fleets take away lots of immersion) Change regional boni, so when your nation has access to it, it can be crafted everywhere. Add crafting specialisations. Remove alt. accounts

Nobody can tell what will happen, especially when multiple things are going to change at the same time... The point is these 25 first rates might face 250 3rd rates crafted in the same time for the same mats. If 25 ships can fight 250 ships because of tow times, there might be something wrong with it. Its not like a nation decides what ships will be crafted. If crafters can sell 3rd rates for better profit than 1st rates, there would be more 3rd rates around. You cant really predict this, the price development alone is quite complex. Well, then set BR limits that favour mixed fleets... But restrictions like this contradict the sandbox style of NA. If you have 25 first rates availiable, you should be allowed to bring them as the strongest fleet possible in deep water. Simply because there is no plausible reasoning why you shouldnt. I mean if i restrict it in this simple way, i accept that economy has no meaning for conquest.

You mean the best mix to win a battle, but this mix might be worse when its about winning a war... Another fact is that at some point all these stored ships, gold and mats will be gone. If then 1st and second rates are very inefficient to craft, it would become more important to gather full 3rd rate fleets. The first rate only nation would get outnumbered very quickly. 3rd rates could become the efficient and sufficient ships to fight port battles, if they are valuable enough to keep crafters busy over time. There is no need to bring full 1st rate fleets when the enemy doesnt. If "inefficient" here would mean 30+ days to craft one first rate, then yes its extreme, but it is an possible option. Even if there was high demand for first rates, the availiable amount of labour/mats in the nation would limit the production. ...any changes before a wipe are not worth thinking about. Arguing with broken mechanics or their results is very short minded while the goal is a game that is working and balanced.

I think it does matter, at some point people wont be able to keep up the production. There is also the option to go away from insta-crafting. A first rate atm takes about 7 days to craft in total, but one crafter can produce one ship in less than 2 days if all mats are stored. A crafting duration of 7 days would be completely different. I dont see the difference of your proposal and BR limitation. For example define Frigate BR = 1 Slot, total BR = 25 x Frigate BR.

I think any kind of restrictions are bad, not adressing the cause of the problem. Having less first and second rates around in general would be best, making them expensive and the crafting time consuming. So maybe wait for the upcoming changes in crafting. Another idea is to increase xp/time needed for high ranks again. Im thinking about the time after steam release. Grinding ranks took much longer, but as a player you felt important sailing brigs and frigates, cause there were no larger ships and npc fleets around. OW felt more plausible in general. If 3rd rates would be sufficient for portbattles, achievable for all casual gamers, the upper ranks could be some kind of late game motivation for the more hard core players.

2-3 month ago before 9.97 you had to craft or buy them from players. 40-50k was a good price for both sides btw.

I would assume its a mistake. When i played last you could buy/sell for 40-50k. The npc price was 75k i think, so no reduction at all. Maybe somebody just forgot a 0?! If this really is a known problem, why is there no simple solution yet? Hints in the loading screen, simple Information windows when you click something the first time. Some basic starting suggestions linked in the sign in window, just something?!

What im asking for is the definition of "profitable" and "decent profit", thats the point. If they dont know how to find med kits, they will get to know that, its not that hidden. The majority is using med kits and the reason for crew cost was to make running larger ships expensive. If you balance npc crew to achieve this, med kits will negate the effect or end useless. Its pointless to have med kits when you dont treat them as a core mechanic. If low rank rewards are too low, change the fixed mission rewards. Crew cost needs to be related to high rank combat.

Use npc medkits right now and its only x 72. With player crafted prices it was x 300 some time ago. Why not use med kits? I guess buying crew in harbours is ment as a last resort in case there are no medkits availiable. The problem is if you balance general crew cost, medkits will become imbalanced, not worth to craft. Players crafting stuff drives economy, players buying npc crew does nothing. "180363-143500=36.863 For spending 50 mins, with 5 kills made and 1.5k damage etc... " What would be a fair reward?! Nobody can answer this right away. You have to see this in relation to prices etc., how much time it takes to buy a new ship of your rank, the actual numbers cant say much. And talking about new players we should test with lower ranked missions. Your example using player crafted medkits would result in 95k profit. A new Bucket would be about 2mio, about 17 hours of pure pve in your case. With labour hours you could make 200k profit/day in addition. When you play about 4 hours/day its 8 days for a new bucket. This could be discussed for example. And it wont make sense to adjust mission rewards to actual inflation prices, this should be done with the economy update and asset wipe.

You dont get my point. Lets assume you are able to land all shots that close on full speed, try it with battle sails then, going upwind, or when the enemy stern is turning with your ship... close raking is not an option.

I said "close", and i mean really close. Its technically impossible to get all hits in, no matter of your skill (unless the enemy turns in your favour). You can land a good amount of hits, but not straight and only if your ship goes fast enough.

Auto fire seems stupid, but it would be helpful if you could change the broadside speed. Its always unloading in 5 seconds and for larger ships its just not possible to reach this speed (~20kn) to get a close rake in.

The large amounts of millions are the problem here, not the larger count of contracts. Trading and crafting with the aim to make profit is one of the basic conditions for a working market, freedom of trade is another one.