Players losing ships is bad, and here is why.

[Mrdoomed]

Are we playing the same game?

The whole economy in this game works because of ship building.

Ship building works because their is a demand.

The demand is there because ships can be lost.

I would even prefer that ships that sink, are gone. Forever.

No magic "5/5 durability" and such things.

You lose it, it is gone - deal with it.

Get better at fighting, or evaluating risks.

Well said ! I also think resources should be lost ! Say if the npc ships comming and going transporting the good via the trade routs , if that ship is attacked and the loot taken them its outa that nations inventory and put into the economy of the nation that took it !

Imagine the trade routs value and ports value then !

[Aubrey]

Well said ! I also think resources should be lost ! Say if the npc ships comming and going transporting the good via the trade routs , if that ship is attacked and the loot taken them its outa that nations inventory and put into the economy of the nation that took it !

Imagine the trade routs value and ports value then !

Is that not the case yet?

That is an absolute must, otherwise a very important aspect of war would be ignored.

I love the thought of stressing a nations economy by disrupting trade - forcing nations to actively protect their trade routes.

[Dedlox]

Is that so bad?

 

Are lower rated ships supposed to be useless content that we all play through once and then never use again? You don't want to see a game 1 year from now where people still sail Navy Brigs and Snows just because they are actually cost effective?

 

I think that should be the goal.

 

I think 1st rates should be rare elephants that people save up for and use for special occasions. They can turn the tide of an important port battle but they're not something you just log on solo and go for a trade run in. I think the future of the game is a lot of people sailing 4th - 6th rate ships on the regular, with 1st - 3rd rate ships being pretty rare.

Exactly, I hate to keep comparing to EVE but pvp based game is a pvp based game. People solo pvp all the time in mid tier ships, you just choose your battles carefully and some are really successful. Then they mine or do missions to make some money, other aspects of the game ya know, and refit and go at it again, because it's fun. If you want to pvp freely in 3rd rates and up then you need a group of people to help support that which I see nothing wrong with in an mmo....

 

And for all the wot examples, what do you do when you get a tier 10? Do you just play that over and over? Of course not, you play lower tier ships to make money so you can play the tier 10 cause of, guess what, loss....

[Slamz]

Just to play "Loss Fear Advocate", there is one way I could see this game working without ship loss:

 

If literally every fight was related to the map strategy game.

 

You lose a fight in the middle of the ocean, this hurts your team somehow, a little bit. Maybe the morale goes down a little bit at the nearest port for your team and this morale drop makes it easier to take over the port. Maybe morale drops more if a 1st rate is sunk rather than a Cutter but losing 10 Cutters is bad too.

 

This might be a third type of game: "Objective Based". We want to take over the world, you are in our way, killing you advances our strategic game regardless of where this occurs. What you, personally, lost become irrelevant. The fact that your ship didn't lose durability isn't as important as the fact that your port lost morale.

 

 

But to be clear, that is pretty far from the present state of the game.

 

If we want a game that does not involve ship loss, then the strategic game needs a lot more work done to it first. We can shift the loss, but we can't simply remove it. If we remove it then we are left with a game of "PvP for funsies". I like the ship combat but I'm pretty sure I'd be bored of it pretty quick if it meant nothing.

[Bach]

Also, in NA, we see that certain ports produce critical resources.  Consequently, one way of winning the game (at a national level) is to monopolize that resource (iron for example).  The game is in ALFA - perhaps a next level of game play will allow for an end/reset of the map once one nation has been "successful".  I put success in quotes because in this case, the nations start in very different places in terms of resources

EVE does not reset maps. The play area is so large that when one group becomes dominant in a region the losing group can go elsewhere and rebuild.

potbs had cyclic maps. What we saw there was that once a map becomes one sided the losing team just quits till the pre-planned reset. Then the winning team gets bored and only half plays till the planned reset.

As to resources, ports will not remain critical in a game without material losses. Once we are all sailing 1st rates that never sink, or whatever ship we're happy with, the resources of the game will become unimportant.

[jodgi]

Why would I ever, ever fight you on the open world in a lossless game? Especially at higher ranks where I won't even care about XP anymore and have no use for the money.

Because you wonder if you have what it takes to beat me, if you best me you have the bragging rights of having beaten a raker in a fair fight. Maybe you learn a thing or two. People here pretend they learn something from bullying bots, you're better than that. Because you like to have fun trying to outwit an actual person instead of letting your brain rot clicking at bots.

You're not looking at the long view. Ideas such as this thread might seem like great fun right now, today, but a year later you'd be sitting by yourself in your first rate looking at the screen that says "Online: 1".

Now you're just being mean for the sake of it. If you ever see me in a big ship it's because someone is forcing me or "my country needs it".

(Full disclosure: You might find me grinding gold in a big ship. It's the most efficient way of gathering currency, crazy... I know. I hope they change that and make mid to low level ships the sweetspot of the money grind.)

 

with 1st - 3rd rate ships being pretty rare.

You're in for a surprise, buddy. Never underestimate the powergrinders.

[The MetaBaron]

Simply no... and having read your whole post I find it sort of funny that you base your entire premise on debunking reasons not to do it......  instead of saying what it would BRING and ADD to the gameplay.

 

I also don't understand where the problem is. I have Capt rank, I only ever lost one ship that came with full durability.... and that was because it was the Squishy Niagra and I was having fun brawling with Carronades. Heck despite how aggressively I play I only ever sunk once in my Cutter, then once in my Snow after that! I focus on big fights and PvP.

 

I'm sorry you like the concept of the game, and that when it comes time to playing it you are not as good as you imagined yourself to be. This game is not for everyone, dont try to make it easier, the durability mechanic is already VERY friendly. Heck if anything I would be happy for them to make every ship only have 1 Durability.

[Benass]

I think Constitution have 4 durability. 

 

Second rate Pavel  have 1 durability. 

 

Victory and Trinidad 1 durability.

 

Third rates. I don't know. either 1 or 3.

 

 

I might be wrong, but Devs made that clear before launch.

[jodgi]

...instead of saying what it would BRING and ADD to the gameplay...

But you said you read it all?!

If you do something clever with how players perceive loss, making it so they don't run by default unless they know they can beat their opponent, making it so they don't feel like they're being punished for losing against a player and so on...

Well, then we run the risk of having more (ok, semi-)consentual and fun PVP in the open world. What better thing to BRING and ADD to this game is there?!

[Justme]

Simply no... and having read your whole post I find it sort of funny that you base your entire premise on debunking reasons not to do it......  instead of saying what it would BRING and ADD to the gameplay.

 

I also don't understand where the problem is. I have Capt rank, I only ever lost one ship that came with full durability.... and that was because it was the Squishy Niagra and I was having fun brawling with Carronades. Heck despite how aggressively I play I only ever sunk once in my Cutter, then once in my Snow after that! I focus on big fights and PvP.

 

I'm sorry you like the concept of the game, and that when it comes time to playing it you are not as good as you imagined yourself to be. This game is not for everyone, dont try to make it easier, the durability mechanic is already VERY friendly. Heck if anything I would be happy for them to make every ship only have 1 Durability.

Question.

What's it like spending all your time gaming where losses don't matter simply due to the sheer amount of time you play.

I have a life out side gaming, losing things in game I work for stings a bit more. But that's the price I pay I guess for enjoying things like family and having a career.

[Kaos]

Because you wonder if you have what it takes to beat me, if you best me you have the bragging rights of having beaten a raker in a fair fight. Maybe you learn a thing or two. People here pretend they learn something from bullying bots, you're better than that. Because you like to have fun trying to outwit an actual person instead of letting your brain rot clicking at bots.

 

Wishful thinking...if game doesn't punish you for mistakes then in reality all you will ever see is people mindlessly derping around carefree because they know they can just respawn, you played world of tanks you should know that. Why would anyone learn anything if the game will just handhold you throughout your mistakes up until the biggest ships? Besides we already know what happens when people pvp without ship loss from sea trials, redeemable prewipe era and now small battles. They still run in basic cutters and not fight even if they don't lose anything besides wasting their own and opponent's time. Potbs had skirmish room, it was basically sea trials style lobby/practice room where you could arrange teams and it had no loss. It was empty most of the times because everyone was busy hunting in open sea where you could actually lose your stuff and your actions had consequences.

Can we keep open world so that players actually have responsibility for their actions and consequences for fucking up so they would you know...actually benefit from improving themselves?

 

If they ever add loss-free version of small battles I am fairly sure it will share the same fate with potbs skirmish room.

[Mrdoomed]

Because you wonder if you have what it takes to beat me, if you best me you have the bragging rights of having beaten a raker in a fair fight. Maybe you learn a thing or two. People here pretend they learn something from bullying bots, you're better than that. Because you like to have fun trying to outwit an actual person instead of letting your brain rot clicking at bots.

Now you're just being mean for the sake of it. If you ever see me in a big ship it's because someone is forcing me or "my country needs it".

(Full disclosure: You might find me grinding gold in a big ship. It's the most efficient way of gathering currency, crazy... I know. I hope they change that and make mid to low level ships the sweetspot of the money grind.)

You're in for a surprise, buddy. Never underestimate the powergrinders.

Im sorry but youre not looking for a game like this you are looking for dota with ships or maybe wows but you made a stupid choice to buy this game if you read wjat it wad. If you didnt read it then thats still on you. Everything you say points to you just wanting an arena clickfest with ships.

[Sylven1]

Question.

What's it like spending all your time gaming where losses don't matter simply due to the sheer amount of time you play.

I have a life out side gaming, losing things in game I work for stings a bit more. But that's the price I pay I guess for enjoying things like family and having a career.

I have a wife, kids, job and all that stuff. I love the fact this game has loss. Makes me pay attention and actually not watch TV or read a book while I play.

Also if you want to play the game with little to no risk of loss, play the PvE server.

Edited February 8, 2016 by Sylven1

[Aetrion]

EVE can breed loyal players that stay for years due to what they build and rebuild together as teams. Guild Wars can entertain an individual for a few months before they own everything they need and the competition becomes to repetitive. That's what material loses mean to a contest.

 

I think it's a completely absurd assertion that there is nobody who stays loyal to Guild Wars for years, and at the same time Eve doesn't feel grindy and repetitive to a lot of people. 

 

Bringing up Eve Online is always popular with people who want everything to be more hardcore, more cutthroat, and require more grind from people just to be able to engage in the good parts of the game. Reality is though, Eve is the exception, not the rule. Not even CCP could make lightning strike twice when they released Dust415, which in many ways should have been the superior game, since unlike Eve Online the combat system wasn't a half-assed afterthought in it.

 

However, it turns out slapping all that economy jazz on a shooter just drives away people who actually want to play a shooter. Meanwhile there are dozens of shooters that don't have any kind of economy that are doing perfectly fine just because people like to play shooters. Team Fortress 2 has a dedicated player base for 8 years now with only the most rudimentary of hat based economies. Counterstrike has existed and attracted players for so so long that there are now people playing it who weren't even born when it made it debut in the 90s. Oh, and of course there is the evil empire that is Call of Duty, which not only has millions of devoted fans playing it every day, but even has them buy the game again every year.

 

If Eve Online is so brilliant then how do you explain that when the same principles that you claim make Eve Online so great are applied to another genre the game utterly fails? If not even CCP can take the thing that you say is the best thing that can possibly happen to a game and put it into another game without killing it then I don't think you have a very good case for why developers should try to gamble their entire game on the off chance that is develops a stable community like Eve.

 

 

None of this works in play money poker as people will carelessly jam all in with any Ace rag hand under the gun or reraise all in with the same. It's almost impossible to put anyone on a legitimate range of hands as they don't care what they are doing of if they lose. It simply becomes a crapshoot where almost all skill is completely taken out of the game and you have 7 people all in preflop every hand.

 

Poker also doesn't work when you play it between a billionaire and a guy on minimum wage with infinite buy-ins. The assumption that loss makes people act a certain way is only valid as long as you disregard the fact that loss doesn't actually mean the same to every player. To the consummate no-lifer who spends 12 hours a day in the game, at least 4-6 of which are spent just grinding for more stuff the loss system is absolutely no obstacle. To someone who can only play on weekends it's a system that can set them back to nothing and completely ruin their fun.

 

If you want people to take losing seriously then pinning it on how much time they have to grind for gold and materials outside of PvP is a completely atrocious way to try to get them to care, because not only do different players have different amounts of time to devote to that, but they also have different levels of tolerance for repetitive grind. A system that is meant to make losing bad for everyone is just an utter failure if in reality it makes losing a deal breaker on the whole game for some people, and a minor inconvenience to others. 

 

Like I said before, if you want people to care about keeping their ship alive make it like Darksouls and have all the gold and experience you earn during a voyage only be yours to keep if you make it back to port safely. That's ample reason not to get killed that stays valid even when someone is running a basic cutter.

Edited February 8, 2016 by Aetrion

[Kurshuk]

I think this is better for new user experience. Like a better topic for it, not a better idea for it. Everything I've seen/read/heard says the economy gets way easier after you get a ways into it. But all the topics I've seen, new players feel trapped in the starter ships and feel like this game is all grind to progress. Coupled with ship loss understandably sees some people walk away very disappointed in the purchase.

 

I agreed, hence the negative review on steam saying that this is an amazing game, but recommend new players avoid unless they really like grinding for hours on end to get a start in the game.

 

I don't really care what the solution is, but after 20 hours I was ready to call it quits. After 40 hours I see what people are talking about in regards to the economy, but have still been completely unable to get my feet under me and now that I'm in higher level missions find my own ship + fleet being sunk regularly against multiple opponents a class above me. Now I'm stuck in a whole new way where I have to group to progress. If I can't find someone to group I'm just stuck.

 

So I started trying to learn how to work trading, just having no success.

 

So I started trying to cap trade ships, but never really finding them. I think I've capped one to date and it had 30 fir logs and 60 pine logs so it was a bit of a bust.

 

Still sticking with it, but feel like this is a total grind, but now without the ability to run missions solo, ramping up the time demand even further and requiring cooperation of other players. I made a group exactly 1 time so far, went into mission, and the group-mate declined to join and went about his merry, one more dura off me and the fleet.

 

Now I've got some feelers out to some of the in game groups, but really can't spare the time commitment for a formal clan with any requirements of participation.

 

tl;dr: New user experience was dreadful for me, would not be surprised to see people walk away from it. Now that I've leveled up some I'm running into a new group of problems that I can't tackle solo making the grind feel that much worse.

[jodgi]

Kaos.

I am running on a wish and a thought for NA PVP. I don't pretend to know all the answers, of all my sins that is not one.

My heart is not as broken as yours, because I've seen great PVP in Aces High. AH gameplay is more related to NA than tanks. There was a very low ratio of derp in AH, I just assume OW ratio of derp will be below the threshold of pain. Besides, pubbies and derps are there to be farmed, just like we did in tanks.

Anyway, it's not about taking away all consequence. We know how it is now, non-stop running, ganking and pvp aversion. How can we make it a little better, maybe quite a bit better? How can we remove the timidness and enable people to take a fight they might lose?

Come, Kaos! Take my hand and let us run naked through a field of timothy and whisper words of hope and PVP to eachother.

[Remo]

Somthing else unsinkable ships will lead to ( which i think is whats really going on ) is basically since there are no WOW style levels so that these kids can level up and be mr ubercomelately and bragg about thier gear this style player is looking for away around that.

Basically over time every player will be sailing around in the best most powerful ships available and 90% of the ships and equipment in game will be usless. New players will have nobody to pvp cuz they all have small ships and it will take them months to get thier own. ( they will quit ) Then it will be like every other mmorpg, all the top players in guilds doing daily grinds and raids ( port battles) amd collect the cool gear and log off.

All we are missing is health packs and power ups on the battlefield and clicky spells and power spells lol.

This WILL be a great niche game for a sizable crowd of players and it will last for a long long time IF they leavr it alone and dont carebare special snowflake it up. This game is still in alpha so i cant wait to see even more hardcore stuff like players governing the ports and taxes etc and war between nations that have OW consequences.

This game has huge potential if softies dont ruin it.

 

I disagree with this. Every ship class has its use, to say everyone will be sailing around in 1st Rates is absolutely positively false. Not only will they be far too expensive to constantly lose, they also get outclassed by smaller vessels in a lot of ways. This didn't happen in PotBS(The version of it that didn't suck, not the current version), people were primarily in things like Hercules Frigates and other medium ships, as they were efficient for the job. Smaller faster ships will always be needed in proper PvP for tackling, its true in this game as soon as they add a fast small ship with bow guns, you will see that ship in every single PvP fleet, 100% guaranteed.

 

One of the biggest problems with this games community is that most players want the best ship possible, even though they are completely ignoring the fact that all ships fill a role, no ship is good at everything. This is an issue with current gaming and it's something that does not fit into this game.

[Blood Eagle]

I would lose interest if there were not risk vs reward. If you can't lose ships it will change the dynamic of pvp and make it less interesting.

[Aubrey]

Can we keep open world so that players actually have responsibility for their actions and consequences for fucking up so they would you know...actually benefit from improving themselves?

Self-responsibility is rare these days, especially in video games. Many players got used to be spoon-fed and hand-held, while schools indoctrinate them with PC-BS and implant a "everybody is a winner!" attitude into them.

Results are threads that asks for not losing ships anymore in a game about sinking ships.

[Remo]

Self-responsibility is rare these days, especially in video games. Many players got used to be spoon-fed and hand-held, while schools indoctrinate them with PC-BS and implant a "everybody is a winner!" attitude into them.

Results are threads that asks for not losing ships anymore in a game about sinking ships.

 

I doubt the developers would make the mistake of taking away durability in this game. Surefire way of killing it, I know I wouldn't play it if losing ships had no meaning. I would be deeply saddened by any attempt to make this game easier, in fact there are some things that need to be harder. They need to resist the casual crowd as much as possible, that same crowd is what has turned PotBS into the complete joke that it is today.

[jodgi]

They did a test with some ships being only available as 1 dura ships a while back, noone wanted to use them. Look at my sig for an official statement of what the server numbers told the developers. Then they made all the big ships have 1 dura - outcry on the forums. Making the biggest ships in game have 1 dura curbed their use as casual grinding machines, this is good, the SOL fever was silly.

So there are actual numbers that reflect player choices in regards to the fear of loss. Yet here we are in a thread filled with big words about the greatness of loss. The loudmouths still run like little girls at the prospect of losing their shit, like the rest of us.

I'm just wondering if a better balance can be achieved between the glory of the loss mechanic and enabling PVP?

And now we have threads popping up about new and creative ways of abusing bots... Yes, loss is grand. I get it.

[Aetrion]

One of the biggest problems with this games community is that most players want the best ship possible, even though they are completely ignoring the fact that all ships fill a role, no ship is good at everything. This is an issue with current gaming and it's something that does not fit into this game.

 

That's all a matter of presentation with this game though. If you really want to play a tackler in a Snow who just goes around popping 4 pound chainshots into peoples sails to stop them from disengaging XP and Gold are essentially worth nothing to you. The entire primary reward system of the game simply breaks down if you happen to prefer small ships.

 

So I think it's perfectly understandable that when the game presents first rates the only thing to build up to then people are going to do just that.

 

 

The way to get people to use an even spread of all the available machines in the game is to make it so that they all have their own unique advancement options and are all equally desirable. You can look at a game like World of Warships, and of course they are taking liberties with how effective a destroyer actually is in that game, because in reality the secondary batteries on a battleship would absolutely shred a destroyer that ventures close enough to fire torpedoes. However, by bending the historicity of their game just a little bit they managed to create a game where people are happy to captain destroyers and cruisers and not only battleships.

Edited February 8, 2016 by Aetrion

[Mrdoomed]

I disagree with this. Every ship class has its use, to say everyone will be sailing around in 1st Rates is absolutely positively false. Not only will they be far too expensive to constantly lose, they also get outclassed by smaller vessels in a lot of ways. This didn't happen in PotBS(The version of it that didn't suck, not the current version), people were primarily in things like Hercules Frigates and other medium ships, as they were efficient for the job. Smaller faster ships will always be needed in proper PvP for tackling, its true in this game as soon as they add a fast small ship with bow guns, you will see that ship in every single PvP fleet, 100% guaranteed.

One of the biggest problems with this games community is that most players want the best ship possible, even though they are completely ignoring the fact that all ships fill a role, no ship is good at everything. This is an issue with current gaming and it's something that does not fit into this game.

You say you disagree with my premise but then you close with a statement that agrees with what i said. Thats exactly what im saying is that all this new breed of gamers wants only the big ships amd they are primarily the ones complaining.

[Mrdoomed]

Ok this thread is derailed. Every person who wants to change it point to games like aces high warbirds ( a community of about 40 people ) world of tanks and warships.

GUYS ALL THESE GAMES ARE NOTHING LIKE NAVAL ACTION AND THEY ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE ! Get it ? Go play all these other games that are what you like and leave this game alone because we all know after you ruin it you will move on to the next game.

Good luck guys who support this game as its INTENDED to be against the mobs of clicky button kids who love LOL and wot bit for some reason are here. I cant follow this thread anymore.

[Kaos]

Kaos.

I am running on a wish and a thought for NA PVP. I don't pretend to know all the answers, of all my sins that is not one.

My heart is not as broken as yours, because I've seen great PVP in Aces High. AH gameplay is more related to NA than tanks. There was a very low ratio of derp in AH, I just assume OW ratio of derp will be below the threshold of pain. Besides, pubbies and derps are there to be farmed, just like we did in tanks.

Anyway, it's not about taking away all consequence. We know how it is now, non-stop running, ganking and pvp aversion. How can we make it a little better, maybe quite a bit better? How can we remove the timidness and enable people to take a fight they might lose?

Come, Kaos! Take my hand and let us run naked through a field of timothy and whisper words of hope and PVP to eachother.

Sea trials was full of Santisimas who didn't even care to use manual sails as an example. Not to mention these guys who decided to run in fore-and-aft in sea trials no-loss enviroment and even circle couldn't stop their running.

People using the option to run if they can is logical result of open world where no boundary or magical circle stops them and it's one of the last things in the list of pvp problems for me so you can keep your clothes on.

Even in a hypothetical scenario of game-labs deciding to sell this game to some chinese investors next week I can say I've had my fun and great pvp battles in this and other games so why would I be heartbroken? If people running away is such a problem for you then you need to step up your tagging and catching skills or invest into speed gear to prevent it.