SweatyPenguin

It lacks the world map element and the empire building. Which is not something I believe the devs will ever strive to add into any of these titles. But the combat is far better done. Much longer battles emphasizing overall tactics rather than moment to moment micromanagement. Total War for whatever reason incomprehensible to me has decided to balance everything around heavily doctored online gameplay and their single player has massively suffered as a result. These days a Total War battle is a glorified game of rock paper scissors. Lasts about the same time too.

That's really not the right mission to discuss the issue around. The goal is to get Walpole to safety, not defeat the enemy fleet. You are specifically meant to be mounting a desperate defence to keep the enemy to your leeward and allow Walpole to get out of dodge before they can cross her path. I did the same thing you did on one of my playthroughs. Bought a 5th rate, could just about afford to equip it and suddenly I was facing 3. A problem further exacerbated by the fact that to save weight I only mounted 9pds on her gundeck, meaning she was left more or less toothless against ships with that kind of planking. Despite that, I enjoyed the mission a great deal. It forces you to think, to sacrifice, to salvage the best out of a terrible situation. Anyone can get through the first or second naval missions where you are anything but handed the victory... But Priority felt like the first time my skill of commanding a ship was actually challenged, and I enjoyed that very much. I would definitely like to see more of this type of gameplay, for example having to retreat your land forces back onto ships and sailing them out fending off enemy attacks.

I can't fully aggree with that. I find mortars do extremely high damage. But the problem is IF. They will often just flat out refuse to engage with units clearly within their cone of fire. If they do the effects are definitely there but quite often they simply will not shoot. Anyone else having this problem? Should I bug report it?

I aggree. I would like this to be made far more "arcadey" than it is. Use current grapeshot damage as base and start with it a 100 percent decreased against 100 percent armour. Little to no damage against "fresh" ships, devastating effect when hammering ships completely stripped of armour. Shortening the range to no little further than musket shot might also help balance this, forcing players to be still be aggressive and stay close when capturing, rather than just "sniping" the crew out.

I am not quite sure how far they want to go. If we go on all the way to Napoleonic wars, we could possibly see even breech loading rifles and definitely carronades. The latter of which is in the game already, HMS Indefatigable has them on in historical battles. The tech appearance during campaign as far as I know is almost completely RNG based.

You can surrender ships by continuous broadsides of round shot. To achieve that you have to have a superior number of ships nearby and at least one of them has to be super close. This does not work reliably however, or at least I haven't been able to find a way to make it so. Nor have I been able to make any connection to damage dealt to said ship that would corelate with it surrendering. Sometimes they give up in three broadsides, with armour barely scratched, sometimes they'd rather sink. You can also cheese the game by using fully loaded troop ships as boarding vessels.

Bumping this thread. While doing my tests about surrender, thus really dragging out the fight, I managed to get a ship even up to two stars in one battle. But in the harbour this don't seem to be doing anything much in harbour and next battle they will be gone. Quite confused. Is this a bug? A yet unimplemented feature? A simple increase in stats we're all too silly to notice?

No, not all the time. There absolutely needs to be a degree of neccessary aggression and risk associated with capturing ships. Perhaps that is why the devs have so heavily tied it to proximity of enemies. I just want to see it more transparent and consistent. Does not mean there cannot be RNG in it, some ships can be easier, some harder, some can still simply fight to death regardless. But I want to see into it. I want to know for certain, that if a ships flag is flashing and another broadside still did not do the trick, I have to close and take him by boarding or risk sinking him. To be able to reliably make that gameplay decision based on clear criteria. Currently a ship that clearly should surrender does not, and a ship you wouldn't have expected to suddenly strikes.

@pandakraut @WilliamTheIII @Afghanicus I figured I owed you all at least some screenshots to illustrate my point. Gentlemen, I give you *insert drumroll* Ship not surrendering! Do note the in-game time passed, this was not one broadside.

nothing to see here

nothing to see here

@pandakraut Realized I didn't actually finish my answer. Not specifically related to masts. But I think the sum total of damage suffered should have more pronounced influence on the willingness of a ship to surrender. I would like it to sort of add up to a point where I can actually know for certain that if a ships icon is flashing white, the next artillery/rigging shock will push them over the edge. Or that their capability of defending a boarding will be significantly diminished, allowing the ship to be taken even by equal numbers with a favourable ratio of casualties... etc.

I'll happily aggree with that, either muskets are overperforming or canister underperforming, in my opinion a combination of both. That is exactly the kind of use I would like to see for it, a close range weapon of opportunity, not a spammable tool for turning ships into ghost towns. Yes, I think crew casualties from both round shot and canister are severely undertuned, I have seen close range broadsides actually go through the ship, with 12 hits or more, causing massive damages to armour, but for something like this to not take down a single crewman, that just doesn't sit right. Occassionaly the AI would score some kind of critical, I assume a hit right into the gunports, because the shot appeared to hit the hull, dealt no armour dmg, but always killed exactly 3 crewmen. For this to happen, while a full 14 gun broadside misses everyone, that just seems entirely out of tune.

That is what I would expect, but it does not seem to work that way well enough. Perhaps a 2 on 1 is not sufficently bad odds? It ought to be when one has an overwhelming advantage in firepower. A fight must be had, I don't dispute that for a second, but not every fight should be ended either by death or boarding. The lack of clarity in this is what irks me most. I know it is possible to surrender the enemy simply on damage dealt, but why? When? A game needs clearly defined mechanics, I should be able to say with a reasonable degree of certainty at which point and after which criteria I can force a a ship to strike. I did hours of this and it all just felt far too random. Oh gosh, no killing 20-30 man on these smaller ships is out of the question. But what would like to see would the reduction of effectivness of canister to about the musket range and a buff on the deadliness within it, and perhaps some heavier morale effects and debuffs. Say in my ideal world, if I close to point blank and fire canister right before boarding, I would like to see said boarding be more effective due to larger initial shock... Stuff like that. A weapon of opportunity, not something you can just spam and reliably de-crew ships with.

I'm really none too happy about that, and dont understand why we cant convert ships from our own pool for a price. Make that price the same as buying a new ship, I dont care, but remove the unneccessary RNG.

The game features dynamic scaling, same as UGCW, so what the AI brings to the battle will be based on your own forces. I support this feature, because the campaign can quite lengthy and somewhere along the way you'd tip scales long enough to make the rest of it an absolute steamroll. It's not the most immersive thing in the world, but I think it is neccessary. My particular input to the situation you describe is you simply brought far too few men. I did not play the battle with that particular set up myself sadly, I initially did make use of the captured Sloops-of-War only to realize I hated how they handled (They have a tendency to capsize in rough seas, I don't know if this is intentional or not). On another playthrough I simply sent them off and bought a 6th rate instead. This still had me facing off the brigs and for a Cerberus class mounting 9pds they were an absolute non-issue. But if I were forced to make do with the ships you had, I would have topped them up on crew first thing. Since you are given the weather gauge from the start, Alert can board Walpole quick as possible, with little the AI can do about it, (well there is quite a lot it could, but it does not) and after that overwhelming one of the ships as you are tasked should be doable, not easy I dont think, but doable. Depending on the time you have another boarding action I think would guarantee the job done, though perhaps not very efficiently. I do aggree however, more information on the deployment screen would be welcome, in UGCW you could have rough estimates on the enemy troop numbers, I wouldn't be against having a similar thing in this game too.

I had similar thoughts, but I did try the canister out at any situation I could think off. For 20 guns at point blank range to cause 3 casaulties is simply unacceptable regardless of calibre. Point blank talking yardarm to yardarm, boarding distance, with the enemy completely stripped of armour. Not to mention the effects were the same almost regardless of range. I would cause the same number of casualties at musket shot, as I did outside of it. Cannot possibly be correct. The ratios are also off. The men will be clustered around the guns servicing them. So if I rake the ship and take 5 guns yet somehow only 4 crew, then those numbers simply cannot be correct, again, regardless of the calibre of shot fired.

Hi, I recently bought into the EA, following the release of the british campaign, skimming through most of it, but I did play the first mission to the death trying to get the feel for naval combat. As for the experience I am basing this feedback on, I played both UG games, but more importantly I played Naval Action going all the way back to the Sea Trials. Also, unsurprisingly, I am a military history nerd. But to the point. 1) Sailing I find the current implementation of sailing more than servicable. So much so that I do in fact have only major issue with it and that's the ships inertia, changing sail is nearly instant, on which point alright, fine, but the change feels far too quick to affect the ship. Shortening sail from full to almost none will make the ship stop on a dime, and that just doesn't sit right with me. That is, however, a debate on arcade vs sim and I don't know how far you intend to go in either direction, so I am simply gving feedback, hoping to hear back for future reference. Minor annoyances include lack of control over which sails are actually being set (I would at the very least love to see a dedicated option for combat sail and an option to shorten all topsail to reduce list due to wind effects) and the inexplicable enthusiasm of the AI to get itself stranded in the wind. 2) Combat Now I am regrettably not a happy camper in regards to this one. I am impressed by the mechanics regarding ranges and pentration, little can be done to improve that, accuracy of the gunners gets the job done, though at times I find them perhaps too good at their job. Particularly at range. Using Richmond as measure, at a range of 5 or more ships length, absolute majority of the 18 pounders will remain dead on target, which I don't find particularly realistic, considering the size of the ships involved and the level of experience of their crews. My main concern though, lies with the damage model. Like I said, I played the first mission to the death, I tested every angle, every range, every type of shot. First of all what kind of mythical heroes am I playing against here? I have the enemy sloop to my leeward, he's stranded in the wind, armour stripped, I am raking him bow to stern, he lost his mizzenmast, most of his guns, is taking on water and yet he will not strike. While I certainly applaud his bravery, it just seems a little too much. Is this an intentional mechanic to force players into aggressive boarding actions rather than playing it safe with a ranged engagement as a tactic for capturing enemy ships? If so I am certainly no fan of it. If not, it needs significant adjustment. If a ship takes a broadside that shaves away over a quarter of her armour hitpoints, I certainly don't want to see her just sit there and take 8 more like it. More work on the morale meter perhaps, reflecting the overall state of the ship, her crew, her sails and her armamament, as well as the time period in which this damage was dealt to her. Perhaps not to make her outright strike, but to make her susceptible to do so, ie. half-hearted defence of a boarding action, striking after suffering another artillery shock, or striking when suffering further critical damage (losing a mast, taking on water, rudder etc.) In any case, I shouldn't feel like the more predictable result of a gunnery duel is blowing the enemy up rather then surrendering him. Which gets me to, i suppose hitboxes? Or more accurately on hit effects? Now the first hits simply stripping planking I understand, a game mechanic, a good one, it works, I like it. But when the armour chips away there follows a mess. The effect of round shot on ships components is somewhat satisfactory. The damage reflects the angles of impact well and I can say that when I did feel like I've managed a good broadside, I also felt like I was adequately rewarded with good damage. To the ship. The crews, on the other hand, appear to be bulletproof. I'm not expecting to be killing dozens here, but when I pull of a very steeply angled shot, all but raking the enemy ship, with the shot actually going out the other side, so clearly fully penetrating, well when such a broadside takes 5 guns and only 4 enemy crewmembers... something ain't right. When another broadside smashes into the enemy on his uproll, below the waterline, blows a water pump, hits ammo stores, hits a mast, takes out two guns and takes out one crewman, that's just plain wrong. I can take my ship yardarm to yardarm with the battered and now unarmoured AI, load canister, and blast it in from so close his men might as well lean over to try and snuff the fuse, and when that barrage kills a grand total of 0-3 men, something clearly needs to change. This was not a one off. I did this multiple times, tested out different ranges and angles too, different states of armour. The results were always identical. No more than 6 men killed, quite often none. Canister is in fact so ineffective, that the musket fire from the on-board marines does multiple times more damage to crews, and not just over time, but per volley. At point blank ranges, being blasted through with 12 pounders, I would expect the men on those sloops to drop in double digit numbers. Perhaps this is something you deem too extreme for the purpose of the game, in which case I would have to disaggree, perhaps this is something that plays out far smoother on larger ships I have yet to test. At any rate, during my tests in the first battle, these mechanics felt entirely out of tune. 3) Land Combat I haven't done enough of it to comment on mechanics, but one thing I will say is, can we please have more music? Meaning pipes sounding orders, drums for marching, more marching songs... and so on and so forth. I know you already have it present to a degree, but I would like to see it more pronounced over the sound effects ie. the sound of footsteps feels far too loud in comparison to the drum etc. That's about all I have now. I suppose I'll be making more posts as I progress.

The ship speeds in OW are nearly exactly the same, you can work with it in a group of players, but hunting someone down in a simple 1v1 is excessively time consuming and damn near impossible. People aren't stupid, they'll start bee lining it to the nearest port the moment they see you coming, most of the time you get one or two attempts to get them and that's it. And since it's nearly impossible to get close even in a faster ship thanks to the near equality of open world speeds, you'll usuallly start the battle relatively far away, upon which the chased simply gets ideal wind and goes afk. Sure you creep closer and fire some chain after chain after him, but he immediately repairs it so there's no effect whatsoever, apart from the fact that firing those shots means you have to slow down and lose the wind, and you'll never catch him again. And while you're sweating your ass all the enemy is to do is watch the stopwatch and mash escape. Hardly seems balanced. If anything your example only proves that it's far too easy to get away, try hunting some players yourself, then tell me what you think. Could you elaborate?

I'd like to propose a change of combat mechanics to disable players from running away from open world PvP combat indefinitely, thus making the open world a much more dangerous and exciting place. I see multiple ways of doing this: 1) The simplest solution and my personal favourite, introducing a sort of "mandatory combat and staging period" of 10-15 minutes during which no players can leave and other players may join. This would do away with players leaving 3 minutes into the battle before their pursuers barely had a chance to get wind, reach top speed, and perhaps fire one broadside after them. 2) A limit on how many times a player can leave a battle. Let's say you can only dodge a fight once in every 3 minutes. Giving the enemy a short window to lock you into an unavoidable battle after your immunity ends. This would allow players to still keep running through clever use invisibility, whilst at the same time rewarding pursuers who did not get fooled. 3) Proximity based lock. This version would put less emphasis on the timers and base the whole thing on distance. So let's say you are only alllowed to leave the battle when no hostile ship has been within a 100-150m radius of yours for a short period of time. Fairly straightforward, but perhaps too harsh and unpolished.

We sure gave those villains a jolly good thrashing, here's to many more. Huzzah!

I don't see any severely offending behaviour from his side, what I do see is frustrated behaviour entirely provoked by your abysmall sportsmanship. Avoiding a fight and attemtping to get a win at all costs through holding people's time hostage is very dishonourable indeed sir. I suggest next time time you find your courage, be a good sport and I guarantee you won't have to deal with such unpleasant conversations again. And to leave you with a final thought, how would you feel if someone was doing this to you...

Have I not? I have now.

I think a new in-game chat channel labeled crafting and trade might go a long way. Everyone would know what to watch and where to look if they want something. But then again, say you want a tailor-made exceptional 3rd rate and that's a hell of an investment for a long term. That would be best discussed on the forums, since people who can actually make it might not be around at the time and you'd have to keep asking all over again. Ideally I'd like to see an in-game UI mechanic in the lines of a craft order. You put it up, choose all the variables you want and a town you can pick it up in, and then the crafters can list through these orders and claim them, complete the ship and drop it off, then you claim the ship and automatically leave a claim order on the payment in it's place. Lot of work for the devs though, but it seems to me like the perfect solution.

It comes up to about noon here in central europe, if we move it back about 2 hours no one cares cause it's still morning at about 10am, so non-issue. It's within office hours as well, so shouldn't be that hard for the devs, but that's up for them to decide.