Barberouge

Also about 1v1 graphics, don't forget smoke Lots of smoke !

1. Assassin's Creed 3 is not a naval combat game. It's naval combat is speedboat vs speedboat with machine guns xD 2. Interesting subject. All the approach should be done in the navigation view. If a fleet has the possibility to attack another one (faction at war), catch it (similar top speeds) and beat it (similar or better strength), then it can engage it. This subject also brings up questions about what will be displayed about a ship in the navigation view ? Ship type, ship outfittings, ship damage, ship name, player name, faction, guild ? Will that be more realistic than in PotBS ? I like simulating false colors with specific ranges. When you sight a ship you only see a sail, then a ship type, then its displayed colors, then its true colors. However, the true colors should be most of the time revealed before closing to engagement range. Otherwise, each fleet should have to be checked in an encounter instance. Look-outs usually had enough knowledge to determine a ship's faction (ship type, hull paintings, cannons disposition...). - Though the true colors range could be be shortened, but with limitators: a ship could fake only one faction at a time, and some parts of the "colors" couldn't be changed after leaving the port (ship paintings, as opposed to flags or crew disguise). If a player would discover a fake, he would give the information to its allies in the same area. The more ships sailing together, the easier it is to discover a fake. - And it could be extended aswell: a faction (or only a guild ?) could use a secret flag message to recognize its members. Also if some players would decide to show their faction, guild and personnal colors, those who wouldn't would become more suspect. Navy players couldn't hide their true colors of course. - Maybe, when all the conditions would be met, the true colors range could be shortened to the engagement range. Then the prey would see a red flag hoisted inside the encounter instance (we lack fun smileys BTW) I'm not a historical professional, and the use of Team Speak-like programs shouldn't be forgotten, but it could lead to a more exciting navigation gameplay. And it could be linked to ship management: paying for painting a ship, hiring skilled look-outs ? 3. BTW, maybe the best fakes could decrease the spawning range ? On subject, PotBS tried the 2 possibilities: making the spawn look like in the navigation view for all the ships, or making the spawn look like in the navigation view for the 2 ships that engaged (gathering the fleets around those 2 ships). The second solution was way better, because with the first one, if both fleets sailed tightly, a single millimeter would make for fleets scattered several miles away. Fights with each full fleet at one spawn point were also usually more interesting. Maybe there's a possible third solution: if a group of ships is sailing tightly enough, it is considered as a fleet that can't be scattered in the encounter. This could be represented as a circle around the admiral ship. If a ship is sailing out of this circle, it could spawn far away from the others. Also what is very important, is to make the reinforcements spawn on the same side as their faction. Another solution would be to represent a fleet as one item in the navigation view (a bigger ship, or multiple sails but linked together). Then only the admiral would be able to navigate. It's less immersive, but to be honest sailing tightly wasn't the most interesting part of PotBS. It also depends on the maximum number of ships in one encounter. Trafalgar was 30v37. That's a lot of ships in a navigation view. 4. Sounds fun Greek fire FTW ! 5. A captain can't die (am I right ?). If a ship is destroyed, it is transformed into a wreckage where the captain is holding on. If he is rescued by another team mate, the captain jumps into this player's view. If this player captures another ship, the captain can take it. If the player doesn't, the captain has to wait for a port to get a new ship. If he isn't rescued by one of his team mates, he is rescued by the opponents. Then he has to pay a ransom, and is transported into the nearest allied port. If he is a pirate, he escapes from jail and steals a launch from the nearest port of the opponents faction. If he isn't rescued by either, he builds a raft out of the wreckages and sets sails (rows ?) in the navigation view xD If a ship is captured, one should be able to take the risk of towing it into an allied port, or just get the cargo and the crew and scuttle the ship. A towed ship would be represented as an NPC with no fighting capabilities, following the main ship. It would decrease the speed of course. A towed ship could be scuttled during a battle. I don't know about commanding 2 ships at the same time. It would be very interesting of course, especially using the second one as a fire ship or using a launch to board, like you described. But giving it more fighting capabilities might be overpowered. Will there be galleys in the game ?

I saw 5 different game modes players would like: 1. No world. Encounters with all parameters chosen by a player (map, goal, number of players, initial positions, ships, weather conditions). This is the mode described by those only interested in fighting in a known environment. "Hey, what if Nelson had 2 less ships ?" 2. No world. Encounters with most parameters randomly chosen by the AI. This is the mode like WoWP. "Hey, let's choose a ship and fight anywhere against anything balanced" 3. A mix of 1. and 2., players choosing more parameters. "Hey, let's team up and fight a 15 vs 15 in a bay against Les Enfants du Roy" 4. A world with no navigation view. Encounters with some parameters chosen by players, some parameters randomly chosen by the AI, and some parameters chosen by the AI depending on what happens in the world. This is the mode Adair described in post #1. In this mode, if a player is in Bristol he can choose amongst pre-determined possible action types: privateer in the Channel, attack Cayo de Marquis in the Antilles or trade to Amsterdam. There is no actual travelling: to trade from Bristol to Amsterdam, a battle is created. 5. A world with a navigation view, and encounters with all parameters chosen by AI depending on what happens in the navigation view. This is a mode like PotBS. In this mode there is no pre-determined possible actions, the player can choose anything. There is actual travelling: to privateer in the Channel, the player sets sails in Bristol in navigation view. I'd be inclined to play 3. and 5., but all modes could be interesting of course. Also Admin mentioned the possibility of gaining money from "Faction Warfare" and using it in the "Open World" to buy a ship. Since features aren't well defined yet, I think the money shouldn't be transferable from one mode to another (otherwise, the economy might be screwed). I'd rather see a system where a player can gain experience, that would be shared in all modes. In the Open World, Navy ships would be free: each country would keep a few unconquerable ports with an arsenal (for example, Brest and Toulon for France). For that to be possible, the economy shouldn't be aimed at building only ships (otherwise all players would play Navy), but ultimately at building ports as strongholds and/or economical power houses. Owning economical power houses would give political and diplomatical power, and strongholds with an arsenal would benefit to the Navy (more strategical bases like Gibraltar or Havana). It could be great to be able to fortify our ports in order to shape the conquest encounters. We could build walls to protect the outport, forts on the heights to protect the harbor, or even on the sea:

That was more about the minimap maneuvers than the rest of the image(s?).

"map" still refers to a representation of something else. That's why PotBS used "open sea", which is also wrong since it means a zone far from the coast. There could be 3 representations of an open world: the world map (whole conquest and economy map) navigation view (with a zooming world minimap) encounter view (with a zooming encounter minimap) I think the term "sandbox environment" was used here (post #15) to speak about a sandbox game, not a sandbox mode. But you're right about the definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbox_game

There is a misunderstanding about "open sea" (post #7). Admin's "open sea" is the open world, as Adair's "open sea" is inside a battle instance. Adair's Spanish frigates chase for 20min on the open world, and Adair's 74 waits around the harbor inside a battle instance. Which of course seems very strange. "open sea" as you may know is the PotBS name of what Naval Action calls "open world". Also, "sandbox" is usually used in opposition to "theme park", describing a player-driven world, not battle instances with settings made by players.

Ah, good memories ! I get the point, and discovering the game would indeed make for a good playing time. Still whether the world will be real or not is an important feature. You're a new player trying the open world. After the newbie zone, you decide to go to Bristol and choose a contract for privateering in the Channel with friends. After some days of privateering around french coasts with a 12 guns schooner, and trading between London and Amsterdam with a sloop, you have enough experience to choose more distant contracts. You find an AI trading contract to the East Indies, and are given the command of a 24 guns 700 tonnes Indiaman with a cargo of fabric. You sail with your friends as a convoy. Now take a sheet and a pen, and draw the East Indies from India to Japan and New Zealand (without model) As AI shippers are cheap, they couldn't give you maps for the full travel. But one of your friends knows where is an archipelago with a dutch trading post selling cloves. Your shipper gave you a map to the british port of Madras. On your East Indies draw, put a point in the south of India. Here you are, sailing without any map. You're heading to some dutch trading post in the middle of Indonesia, in Ambon, Moluccas archipelago... Doesn't that sound like the experience you described ? Still it is the real world.

Here is a battle illustrating the effects that land and wind can have on SoL vs SoL tactics. Wind is from E, the player fleet is attacking a port but can't land troops yet , fleets are mostly composed of 4th rates. The player fleet manage to get a better fighting position at the start (until 0:20). Then land is shaping the battle. And from 7:50, we can see the effect of wind and some possible fleet fighting maneuvers.

Interesting original post. I don't agree with everything, but reading it again I feel the main point is about how fights are created. Basically there is no open map ("2D map"), but every ship move is represented by missions. The description gave me a better understanding of what devs would call "faction warfare". As I see the problem solved here (lack of immediately available balanced fights), I also feel the lack of sailing freedom as kind of immersion breaking. From my point of view, conquest rimes with real time strategical moves. You criticize an open sea map, but a desertic one. 5 groups of each nation fighting around a port (+ pirates) were ones of the best moments I spent in PotBS: everyone could fight against balanced opponents, and we could play battle after battle. PotBS open sea map failed because the game failed at bringing a sustained amount of PvPers into the red zones, which represented only 10% of the map on lucky days. What if with a system of contracts (free ships with a cool down timer) and an improved territorial conquest system, the game creates entire areas (war zones or trade routes) with many players ? Also an open map helps a lot with the surprise effect when hauling or hunting. If there would be no sailing map, then simulating the travels with missions would be the best way to go (sailing map is more complex). But devs seem to be willing to have a sailing map. Maybe the game could include both types: missions in the homeland, actual travel in the open world. But then how to link the 2 worlds ? Would economy be part of both ? In an open world with homelands and colonies included, some important companies could invest money into the develoment of ports (defenses to have more walls and guns during the port attacks, arsenals to give strategical bases to Navies, proposing trading or privateering contracts to increase the port wealth). Diverse strategies could be viable depending on the diplomatic relations and the wealth of the faction: investing in trade with colonies or fortifying the homeland coasts, waging conquest wars in distant empires or organizing the harassment of coastal lines. I like adding some sort of representation of the inland to the conquest design. The military supply lines could be interesting. Each port region would include the contiental defenses of the port itself and the inland (representing a production of goods and a potential market). Garrisons would require little supply as opposed to armies. I'd prefer however a more persistant world than a succession of campaigns. Where long term plans would matter, and achievements would create specific server history. There shouldn't be any PvE grind. Cash should be generated by prices differences and captures. Where did you get that name from ? Also I agree with OP, exploration could hardly be a main feature. I'd prefer a 18th century conquest game than a 16th century discovering experience. Shallow water ports and building new ports sounds cool though. Should we really have NPCs on the open sea ?

After a few months of gaming, a player should know all the possible combinations of a frigate vs frigate chess game, and just link the maneuvers that would give him the upper hand (mistakes or luck sometimes changing the best tactic). A frigate fleet vs frigate fleet battle would offer a lot more possible combinations.

Your descriptions sound like sailing a PotBS first rate I'm fine with some movie feeling as long as we don't have to spend most of the time looking at the scenery once a ship is in range of fire. I also like the feeling of everything being anticipated, thought out, waiting for the real events to happen - which fits well with SoL fleets battles. However, a frigate vs frigate fight should be more about reflexes than thought: once a player has learned to recognize the possible situations, he should have to concentrate on a succession of the best tactical choices. Speaking about surrenders, being able to tow a captured ship to bring it back to a port would be a great addition. Speaking about seabeds, maybe there could be an indicator showing the risks of shoals or reefs. Knowing the coast would give a more precise approximation.

What you name "faction warfare" seems to me like "clan warfare", i.e. customisable battles fought one after one, with random players or full clan fleets. I don't think it should be linked to the open world (territorial conquest in the 2D map). The open world (with territorial conquest, guild owned ports, goods production, ship crafting, trade) could gather the players who aren't interested in economy (free ships used for global conquest) and those who are: military mode and civil mode. A character could alternate the modes as he wishes. It would be supported by a contract system: - the military contracts are generated by AI: the Navy captain is given a ship that is owned and armed by the state, and some funds (linked to the ship) to resupply it in allied ports during its campaign. The player himself doesn't gain or loose money. The use of the military contracts would be limited by cool-down timers (like in World of Warplanes). - the civil contracts are generated by AI or players (guilds): the civil captain is given a ship that is owned and armed by AI or a guild. Those contracts could be about trading (bring the ship with its cargo from X to Y in Z duration) or privateering (hunt or protect convoys). The captain would gain money for himself, either with a salary or with share parts of the benefits (goods sells, takings and ransoms). Once he would have earned a little capital with civil contracts, a player could become shipper and generate civil contracts (for himself or through a guild). The AI/players contracts would be tied to a tax system: the AI propose high tax contracts as the players can propose low tax contracts. The revenues would be decided by a simple %, for example 10% for the state, 30% for the captain, 10% for the crew, 50% for the shipper. The civil player (or his guild) could become raw producer (buying fictive lands, producing raw materials), craftsman (buying factories and raw materials, producing all sorts of goods), ship builder (same as craftsman but producing ships), or shipper (arming ships and proposing civil contratcs). Guilds could specialyze into specifics economical activities or diversify. Captains could decide to arm their own ships and run campaigns for their full own benefits (except state taxes). As players could alternate military and civil contracts, free Navy ships could be used for the guild interests. Players who would prefer military contracts, when their contracts cool down timers would be on, could choose to either have a try at some civil activities, or just quit the open world and join the clan warfare mode to train their combat skill. A lot more could be discussed, especially the links between guilds, ports owning, taxes, ports development, factions wealth, diplomacy and conquest - but that's it for today Do you think gathering the battle players and the economic players on the open world with such contract system could work ?

PotBS had one excellent aspect: its combat gameplay. Tactics, knowledge, experience (and communication) were all needed to get the upper hand in 1v1 to 6v6 and 24v24 battles. Skills timing had a share of this, but the sailing physics made for a good basis. 1. That's inherent to any sailing combat. A ship is faster when sailing downwind, and speed is needed for quick maneuvers. A jibe will naturally put a ship more downwind than a tack would put it upwind. As bearing arcs or protecting a side quickly is very important, players will more often rely on jibing tactics than tacking. The only case when a combat could overall not go downwind, would be if both sides actively try to get the wind, either as a pre-combat positioning tactic, or as an in-combat mainly used tactic. The latter could happen more often in 1v1, but the bigger the fleet (numbers and sizes) the more difficult it is to execute tacks. A situation where 2 lines would fight for a long time sailing upwind (or at beam reach) at the same speed would be rare, because most of the time the windward line or the fastest line would try to use their advantage. 2. Tacking should be a valid tactic (to increase the number of interesting situations), but an unforgiving one if badly timed or performed (without enough speed for example). Agile small ships should tack almost as quick as they could jibe, but ships of the line (SoL) should require knowledge of the sailing caracteristics, anticipation and an appropriate situation. 3. In a line vs line battle (i.e. bearing more arcs than the opponents and protecting the damaged ships), slow turns and using speed would be the basic in-fight "maneuvers". Bigger turns could be used to quickly change the distance (for fire accuracy optimization), to disengage, to re-position, to engage a "break the line" or a "cross the T" approach. Turns would be performed "in line" (one after the other) or "as one" (all at the same time), by the whole line or only parts of it. Badly thought or badly performed maneuvers (i.e. mistakes) should lead to bad consequences. In a 1 vs 1 battle, SoL vs SoL would be like a slower sloop vs sloop with more fire rate. Thus the fight is more about gun management than maneuvering, but there is more time to think about maneuvers. PotBS had a good adage: "scout: easy to learn, hard to master - warship: hard to learn, easy to master". 4. What about a flooding system ? The hull could be more or less scratched, leading to more or less water inlet flow, leading to more or less sailing caracteristics decrease, eventually leading to a sink. This way, draft would be important to sail around reefs. Pumps could counter the water flow up to a point. Ships shouldn't be able to survive sailing directly into a coast or a shoal. Collisions should scratch the hull (send the carpenters), and entangle the rigging (send men with axes, or grappling irons). 5. Coast or islands bring novelty. Land shouldn't disable space for turning, but should shape the battles to enable more interesting tactics. Open sea battles sometimes become boring especially in a fleet vs fleet situation. All PotBS port battle maps included land, but some of them also had large open areas. Land diversity is the key. I think players should be able to send crew aloft and change the sails areas during fights, for gameplay purposes. A faster fleet could choose to disengage, but a leeward fleet should be able to fight with reasonable chances, or too much time would be spent fleeing/chasing and sailing on the 2D map.

Weathered/tatttered flags would be great. PotBS used an excellent player-made flags and sail decals system. Also the PotBS experience looked more like this:

It depends on the power entities: states, big companies, shippers, ship owners ? Would there be homeland and colonies ? Could players or guilds/clans setup new places or govern places ? What would be AI controlled, what would be players controlled ? Would the world be permanent or would there be some sort of game reset when some goals would have been reached ? What system would be used to decide who controls a place, who conquers a place ? How would one gain basic economic power: materials producing, ship building, trading, smuggling, privateering, pillaging ? How would one use an economical power: build his own ships, arm ships for his own campaigns, lend his ships, control places ? In the game historical period, the power entities were the states (monarchy, federation...), the companies, the shipowners, the shippers. - States had specific ministers in charge of the state naval forces (Royal Navy, Marine Royale...), who decided where to build arsenals, how to supply them, how many and which ships would be built. The states negociated peace treaties, bought territories, set taxes. - The states sometimes gave trade monopolies to big companies (East India Company, Compagnie des Indes Orientales...). Those societies could set taxes, fortify strongholds, build drydocks and arm ships for war. - Shipowners and shippers (smaller companies) could operate in the regions where a monopol wasn't given. If they would run the risk, they could smuggle. If nations were at war, they could also arm ships for privateering. Since their common goal was to see their nation succeed, the lines weren't always clear between the 3 entity types: the states delegated their diplomacy to companies and lended ships to privateers, companies built arsenals in the colonies and helped to wage war in the homeland, and shippers were potential candidates to become important companies. From my point of view, a good age of sail conquest game should try to include historical elements in order to create an immersive atmosphere and distinguish itself from the dwarf/sci-fi games. But it shouldn't fear to take some distance from reality in order to create an interesting strategical gameplay for guilds/clans. Conquest rimes with economy, war and politics. There should be faction vs faction, guild vs guild from different factions and guild vs guild from same faction (internal struggle). The more is controlled by players, the better: game controlled entities should be built as a tool to shape the game, not as a convenience to escape endgame complexity. Also the less grind, the better

A good 1v1 is interesting gameplay and good players. A wide range of tactics should be exploitable but depending on ship types, outfittings or weather conditions, one of the tactics could be more viable. Each tactic should require knowledge and experience to be well run. Get the wind or engage downwind ? Target the sails to board or load red cannonballs and set fire ? Turn now or wait for the batteries to be reloaded ? Keep the distance or try to setup the combat range closer ? Hit with one battery or wait for the full broadside ? Put some men on the pumps or keep the best rate of fire ? Keep the wind or maneuver to shoot a broadside on the stern ? Maneuver to protect a damaged flank or just plug the leaks ? Shoot another grapeshot or throw the grappling irons ? Most of the opponents characteristics and the chances of a random effect to happen should be known, to avoid critical rock/paper effects and keep the gameplay based on knowledge and tactical choices. As for the duration I'd say between 10 and 20 minutes, sailing included.

A little luck makes for a spiced up gameplay, but a lot of luck makes for randomized combat outcomes. Luck is IMO a good idea as long as it doesn't overwhelm skill. For that to happen, luck has to be somehow controlled: let the players know the chances, know the effects and make the chances vary depending on the combination of environment conditions, ships characteristics, crew experience... So that the luck factor is a tradeoff rather than a divine punishment. For example, a frigate sailing with full sails in a wind force of 6 has 1% chances to break 15% of its rigging every minute. Sailing parallel to the swell increases the chances by 1%, but reducing the sail area decreases the chances by 0.5% and outfitting the ship with reinforced rigging decreases the damage by 10%. That way, a captain entering a rough weather zone is aware of the risks he takes for the benefits he gets. As another example, damaging a rudder would depend on the shot type, the distance, the gunners experience, the swell and the shot angle. It could decrease the turning acceleration or the maximum rotation. It could be repaired up to a point, more or less quickly by a skilled carpenter. That way, showing a stern to the enemy would be risky but wouldn't unluckily make the ship totally unmaneuverable until the end of the fight.

In reality it couldn't, but in game it could if the cutter was the smallest ship. Depends on the compromise between realism and gameplay.

True, once the production lines were setup, there wasn't much novelty, everyone just hauled their stuff out of the red zones - except when a port was taken, in which case the crafters had to buy more on the market or shift their production ports. The biggest problem of PotBS was IMO the game inability to make the servers grow in population: the endgame was restricted to a few players maximum every day but the open sea needed a lot more, not to mention it was possible to attack a nation when it wasn't able to defend itself. The game failed attempt at mixing the PvE population and the PvP one also helped it dying.

Since the ships will be partly customisable, why not include weather-worn options ?

Three games into one ? Sounds interesting. I think PotBS got already the 3 products: 1. PvE ( less hardcore though) 2. "Skirmish" PvP 3. Economy, Open Sea PvP and Port Battles.

I was mentioning PS2 because they had to re-work their game (mostly the world) in order to implement an end-game. They thought the first-hand world could have supported an end-game, but it couldn't. One year without anything strategical to do (despite awsome battles) was just too long. And I was mentioning PotBS because what they actually implemented was contradictory to what they announced. I will for sure have a look at Ultimate General, especially since the guy is an excellent modder of the Total War series.

The description looks very promising. The list includes many features one could imagine about an age of sail game: naval combat, economy, conquest, exploration. Character view (boardings, taverns...) is one missing. As a PotBS player, I've been looking for a good replacement for a few years. I've been experiencing player feedback development in PlanetSide 2 and it didn't end up very well: instead of the 3 months delay initially announced, the endgame will be developped one year after the game was released. The classic development of PotBS, despite the same features as Naval Action, didn't either give convincing results. I'm especially interested into how dynamic the combat will feel and how far you will go with the conquest system.