Players losing ships is bad, and here is why.

[Aubrey]

You haven't made any good arguments. All you've done is insinuated over and over that everything I said was purely made up to push an agenda.

I made no good arguments? I called you out for your BS and demanded examples and proof for your claims or assumptions - you weren't able or willing to deliver, so don't blame me for your failure.

When you do not deliver anything, all I can do in the end is to speculate about your reasons and after reading your post carefully, that was the only conclusion I could come to.

By the way, I did explain why your "casual attitude" is wrong or unhealthy for the game, the answer was all over my post.

I am responsible for putting my thoughts on paper - I'm not responsible for you understanding them.

 

Also, I didn't attack your character, I simply pointed out how inconsistent and nonsensical your wall of text was, since literally every point was moot.

I didn't mention you as a person, ever... more claims, as I see.

Edited February 10, 2016 by Aubrey

[Aetrion]

Well, I'm calling you out for your BS, unfounded claims and assumptions too, so I guess we're at an impasse and no longer need to talk to each other, which is what I was doing in the first place. 

 

If you look at everything I'm writing and you see no point whatsoever, and I look at everything you're writing and see no point whatsoever then there is really nothing to discuss is there?

Edited February 10, 2016 by Aetrion

[Aubrey]

Well, I'm calling you out for your BS too, so I guess we're at an impasse and no longer need to talk to each other, which is what I was doing in the first place. 

No, this isn't how it works.

 

YOU made some claims.

I demanded you to back them up.

 

It is called burden of proof, a simple foundation for every discussion.

If you are not even able to keep up with that, I'd strongly suggest you send yourself PM's in the future - that would be just as useful.

[Dedlox]

 

You haven't made any good arguments. All you've done is insinuated over and over that everything I said was purely made up to push an agenda.

 

-For one, you haven't debated it either, just threw your points out and blindly defending them. There fact you keep posting the same thing over and over is the reason why he thinks you are just blowing air to push an agenda, and personally I do to. If you want to debate something, debate it, that's not what you are doing and the main reason no one is really reading what you write anymore.

 

 

 Besides, obviously the 5 durability solution in place right now isn't exactly a great compromise. The really hardcore players aren't happy that ships have lives at all, but at the same time there are lots of people who don't want to deal with ships that can be lost for good in fights they didn't pick, and can't ever be repaired.

 

-you just basically defined compromise and the folks in here that promote one durability said so and moved on, you keep on this tirade that isn't really a factor.

Edited February 10, 2016 by Dedlox

[BlindProphet]

 

Well I disagree. Having 5 durability isn't protection from getting ganked a bunch, it only means you have to get ganked several times before it negatively affects you. Besides, obviously the 5 durability solution in place right now isn't exactly a great compromise. The really hardcore players aren't happy that ships have lives at all, but at the same time there are lots of people who don't want to deal with ships that can be lost for good in fights they didn't pick, and can't ever be repaired.

 

It would make a lot more sense to split rulesets along those lines than by having a PvE server that completely removes the whole reason to have an open world MMO in the first place, which is player generated conflicts. You don't need a PvE server if people can have a PvP server where people aren't afraid of losing ships to fights they didn't want to be in. The notion of a PvE server has always been that it's a system of consensual PvP, not a system of no PvP. 

 

 

I seriously do not understand your logic...  Not having a chance of ship loss doesn't give you protection from getting ganked a bunch either.  None of your proposed changes protect against that.  None of your proposed changes even would give people a reason not to gank.

 

Some players want to have ship loss happen more.  Some don't really want it.  The durability system really is the only compromise between the two.  And while the hardcore players may want more ship loss...they haven't left so...

[Aetrion]

Some players want to have ship loss happen more.  Some don't really want it.  The durability system really is the only compromise between the two.  And while the hardcore players may want more ship loss...they haven't left so...

 

Obviously a good number of people who don't want ship loss haven't left either, otherwise we wouldn't have this conversation. That doesn't mean things can't be better for everyone.

 

 

No, this isn't how it works.

 

YOU made some claims.

I demanded you to back them up.

 

It is called burden of proof, a simple foundation for every discussion.

 

For one, in a debate with two sides both sides have to prove their point. The fact that the game is a certain way doesn't prove that that is the right way.

 

Secondly, there is no point in trying to prove anything to someone who's primed to shoot the goalpost into orbit. 

Edited February 10, 2016 by Aetrion

[Xoosch]

Obviously a good number of people who don't want ship loss haven't left either, otherwise we wouldn't have this conversation. That doesn't mean things can't be better for everyone.

Maybe but i bet here are 100 times more, who want perma loss of ships and want get rid of the durability system. So if you really can live with it... here is still Hello Kitty Online.

[Dedlox]

Obviously a good number of people who don't want ship loss haven't left either, otherwise we wouldn't have this conversation. That doesn't mean things can't be better for everyone.

But what you are doing is not making it better for everyone. You are promoting no ship loss which alienates everyone in here that is in favor of, which greatly outnumbers those against, therefore, making it worse for them by making it better for YOU. That is your problem and why you can't see that 5 durability is a nice middle ground that allows you to make enough money to replace that ship by the time it gets to 1. Higher level ships should cost a lot and require a group effort to create and sail, that's the point of a clan or community and gives everyone roles, even those that don't pvp, i.e. traders and crafters will be valuable clan members, and not just have a clan full of lolpvpmebrah.

[Dutchpower]

I dont understand what this topic is all about.

It is so easy to abtain gold or capture a ship.

 

What do you exspect you get a ship and gold and all the recources and you dont have to do anything for it?

Comon..

 

 

Just deal with it. I have also some things i dont like. But hey thats life the developers cant please everyone.

Edited February 10, 2016 by Dutchpower

[Aubrey]

But what you are doing is not making it better for everyone.

Where did you get that nonsense from in the first place?

You can't make things better for "everyone" in an "either this - or that" matter.

 

Example:

OP wants invincible casual-ships, I want hardcore perma-loss - 5/5 durability (or anything in between) isn't going to make either side happy.

[shunteryin]

So a bit about me first, I just reached the 170 hours mark and reached Post Captain, I'm by no means a veteran so my impressions is from the steam version only, when I heard talks about this issue I didn't imagine it was a thread this big, but I read every post anyway, to be blunt though very few were constructive anyway.

 

I would like to start by perhaps bringing a bit of the outside world "reality" we have to contend with.

I am now aware if this has been posted before anywhere on this forum or if people already know about, but you can see a very rough estimate of how the game is selling through Steamspy. http://steamspy.com/app/311310

Now it will be relevant because it is clear player retention and the long term tendency is one of the major factors on whether or not a change like this one will be made. 

 

We know the game is and will continue to be very niche, so I would not expect to see a population increase in significant number, with the game staying relatively the same, what you want is for population to at least remain stable, so if you look at the concurrent users daily graph hopeful you don't see a decline soon.

 

About ship loss:

I start with this because ultimately I agree with the OP, he has very strong arguments and a very good presentation. As someone who as I said, had put in 150 hours and lost many captured ships I was mostly neutral/not caring. But sitting down and thinking about it, I think we need to look into arguments for "what we want" vs "what we dream of" vs "what we can reasonably expect".

 

I want a game with meaningful progression, where ships matter because they are "rare" in some way, maybe some characteristic, or maybe its cost, or maybe its availability. We will all settle for different definitions of "rare".

 

I dream of a game where I could take such a ship into battle and not have to wrestle with the completely natural and mostly unavoidable fear of loss we all have, you may call it balls, it doesn't matter, what matters is the dream, that moment of fear and satisfaction of taking your rare/unique ship into battle knowing what is at stake, but also not having that be in the back of your mind the entire time... the stress is fun the first few times, but with time you will seek to reduce this risk naturaly, like taking your ship out in rare occasion. I want the "full" dream, not the dream that only happens once per week because any other time it is not worth the risk, if this is the end result, people wont play very often, they can only use their favorite ship once every few days during their clan activities because every other time it is not worth it, and the consequences will be obvious.

 

I can reasonably expect the two are not possible without a compromise, like either insurance, durability, some other similar system, or ultimately being part of a clan that will just shit money in my hands so that I can replace my ship because that is all money is good for(if the crafting system ends up only being about ships), or being someone who can grind 150 hours in less than two weeks because "reasons".

 

My suggestion is that does need to be a way to "tweak" loss in order to be introduced more gently towards new players who are not used to it and make it so it doesn't naturally lead to a population that tries to avoid it 90% of the time.

 

1) For the low levels, perhaps a way to increase durability at an increasing exponential cost, after all maybe these smaller simpler ships are easier to fix anyway, so maybe it is not too hard to keep it in good condition(max durability) for some time, eventually it should be cheaper to buy/build a new one. this could be scaled through the mid tiers.

 

2) For the high levels, my personal solution would be ways to deal with your country, perhaps acquire enough influence with the King/admiralty whatever to have them make a replica, or maybe imperfect replica(some things can't be replicated anyway so you could get it exactly different), perhaps a unique blueprint you could use. Maybe you would need to leave your ship docked for some time in order for them to copy the design regularly.

Whatever system you use though, my point is, some expensive way to restore your ship would eventually be achievable by most people, which means the fear of loss will be there, but only temporarily, while you gather the requirements to replace it. It could be the best of both worlds.

 

The economic side:

 

I am a bit surprised with the outright hyperbole arguments used against the OP. I would have thought that people that want to craft would be more interested in making nicer rarer ships(the historical MMO and RPGs trend of rare crafting being the end goal) than becoming some clan's little private ship factory doing nothing but batches of carbon copy ships on demand because of losses.

 

I think that crafting would be better if it became more geared towards making better, maybe even "unique" ships, and have that be the "goal". A crafter could find himself looking to give his friends the highest quality etc ship and have that take a long time and resources.

 

I don't understand why there is this argument that the economy needs losses, no it doesn't. It needs perpetual activity, but that is not a synonym. An economy needs stuff for people to do, and the trick is people have to do it constantly, well certainly it can't be just one thing. If we find the game can't sustain a ship crafting economy because of low demand than you change the economy to be something else, like war resources, building and replacing cannons, land fortifications, supplies for port invasions, materials for economic buildings etc. there is a LOT you can do with crafting, it doesn't have to depend literally on just building ships. It is like saying 18th century England had no need for any other war equipment or product other than wooden ships?!

 

In general, those that have, and will continue to come here just to post the same argument("but but then crafting wont matter") will unfortunately not achieve anything. You can't have an economy based on one thing anyway(well you can it is just extremely hard and generally rare). 

 

And as I said, the quest to build rare and unique ships should still be long enough to keep crafters busy for months alone, if you were to add other meaningful crafting activities, it wouldn't matter as much. let those other activities be the "sink" and the crafting of rare ships become the ultimate, reachable goal but not necessarily perpetual(in large scale) goal. As I view it, ship loss is not the glue holding the economy together, nor should it ever be. Right now though, it may be understandable because that is the only thing you can do, but that is the problem of a ridiculously shallow crafting system.

 

Those that defend ship losses for the economy should at least concede how shallow the system is and how it wouldn't matter as much if you had anything, likely literally anything other than ships to craft.

 

As an addendum, yes I realize my point does require the economy to change almost entirely, but it is Early Access, and it should become a priority so that your game wont start hemorrhaging players.

 

Conclusion:

 

I think ultimately the masses will call the shot. Initially I pointed out we should be looking out to see how the game is going to keep selling and how word of mouth will impact things. Should the hardcore elements and nature be kept? Yes, but only if they have merit, not just in principle. 

 

We don't need this to be a contest of who will quit first and such threats are pointless, the devs should look at the facts, and if they want a long term success, change accordingly.

 

What I see is at least half the forum is against the OP, but how many of those that are not posting here are in his favor!? Be careful devs! It is common knowledge only the most hardcore tend to post on forums in any game. Keep that in mind.

[FearTheAmish]

I like the game as it is right now, and would probably get bored if you couldn't lose your ship. But at the same time I think the OP's analysis is spot on and I have been convinced since day 1 that this game will be very short lived indeed for the very reasons you give, so I intend to enjoy it as much as possible while it lasts. There is a reason why we don't have these 90s style games anymore.

 

Please advise EVE, DayZ, and DarkSouls of this opinion.....

[The MetaBaron]

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.

 

This makes no sense,

 

Its still proportional, if I play more or less than you I will simply be at a different rank.... that is all. At whatever rank I am I have always had the funds to have the boat I want... and buy upgrades or replacements. The main throttling in this game is rank, money is not hard to get. Not only do you get piles of money for running missions or random PvP/PvE encounters... but if you raid a small handful of traders now and then you can make tons of cash given the inflated prices for materials.

Edited February 10, 2016 by The MetaBaron

[The MetaBaron]

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?!

 

Feeling "punished" adds tremendously to the excitement of the game. This very real and significant impact is one of the big areas this game sets itself apart. Taking the risk to sail a 1 Dur ship with upgrades, or maybe some cargo I chose not to unload before engaging another ship...  is fun! The tension as you sail, as you carefully and constantly scan and reinterpret the battlefield. Is that Cutter going to try and ram my Niagra submarine and flip it? Then trying to do a manual sail turn knowing if I mess up I will lose everything. This tension is what makes this game so fun and exciting.  Maybe next time, I decide to practice just that... my captaining/manual sail control skills BEFORE going into a battle (as I said I did lose a full Dur Niagra as I tested the flow of battle in conjunction with my currant skill at sailing). Knowing your own ability and how aggressively to engage is as I said before a MASSIVE part of tactical gameplay. Learn your lesson the hard way... its really not that punishing even if you have to buy a new boat and lose some upgrades.

[BlindProphet]

Obviously a good number of people who don't want ship loss haven't left either, otherwise we wouldn't have this conversation. That doesn't mean things can't be better for everyone.

 

What constitutes a 'good number of people' out of curiosity?  Because I haven't seen a majority asking for that, or even a sizeable portion of people asking for that.  The conversation we're having currently is really only due to your creation of a thread where you made a number of statements that do not hold up upon inspection and a large number of people coming in to point out how bad your arguments are.

 

Its all made worse by the fact that you repeatedly do not defend your own arguments instead choosing to ignore arguments and points made and go off on tangents with statements that no one can back up.

[Aubrey]

Feeling "punished" adds tremendously to the excitement of the game. This very real and significant impact is one of the big areas this game sets itself apart. Taking the risk to sail a 1 Dur ship with upgrades, or maybe some cargo I chose not to unload before engaging another ship...  is fun! The tension as you sail, as you carefully and constantly scan and reinterpret the battlefield. Is that Cutter going to try and ram my Niagra submarine and flip it? Then trying to do a manual sail turn knowing if I mess up I will lose everything. This tension is what makes this game so fun and exciting.  Maybe next time, I decide to practice just that... my captaining/manual sail control skills BEFORE going into a battle (as I said I did lose a full Dur Niagra as I tested the flow of battle in conjunction with my currant skill at sailing). Knowing your own ability and how aggressively to engage is as I said before a MASSIVE part of tactical gameplay. Learn your lesson the hard way... its really not that punishing even if you have to buy a new boat and lose some upgrades.

This, people, is a living example of common sense, logic and good taste!

 

I unsubscribe from this thread, it has become futile and OP won't ever deliver anything to backup what he claimed on page one.

Others blindly saying "he makes good points!" when he even contradicts himself or is illogical, doesn't add to its value either.

 

Have fun then.

[Slamz]

Ever since that time in UO it's been damn near impossible to run a game that has completely open PvP without having it relegated to niche status and die the slow death of low player numbers.

 

This is the kind of misconception that has crippled the MMORPG industry as a whole.

 

If we look at the bulk of online games, the big money is in PvP. People want to log on and beat other human players. The entire online FPS and MOBA industry is based on this. And next time you play an RTS look at the number of "XvX" match requests compared to "co-op comp stomps". It's like 20:1. The real niche audience is "people who want to log into the internet in order to play against a computer". Do MOBAs even offer single player mode except maybe a lame practice map? They live and die based on the PvP.

 

It can seem like "PvP is niche" because we are playing what we have been forced to play by an MMORPG industry that isn't reading the gaming market correctly. Those of us who love PvP can't play games that don't exist and we quickly tire of "PvP servers" in games that are clearly not designed for PvP and therefore have terrible PvP servers (terrible balance, no real PvP content, PvP bugs that never get fixed, etc).

 

The few attempts to make a real PvP MMORPG have been shoddy by comparison to the PvE games. Shadowbane and Darkfall were not AAA titles by AAA companies (like Blizzard or EA) and it showed. I wanted to love them but technical problems and shoddy implementation kept getting in the way.

 

There have been some solid attempts at MMOFPS games (Planetside being notable) but they are still shallow games where what you do today literally has no impact what-so-ever on the state of the game world tomorrow. I played Planetside way more than any other FPS but in the end the lack of depth just made the game seem repetitive. Nothing to strive for = no sense of investment.

 

 

To this day, we have not seen a AAA PvP MMORPG title made. It's obvious that the market is out there but nobody is jumping on it.

 

Naval Action has a chance to break into a very underserved market, by catering to PvP.

Edited February 10, 2016 by Slamz

[Aetrion]

Please advise EVE, DayZ, and DarkSouls of this opinion.....

 

I think Dark Souls is an example of how a game can be difficult without punishing losses. Dark Souls never takes anything you've already earned away, once souls are invested they stay invested. You just don't get any new souls unless you make it back to the campfire, which is to say, Dark Souls is a game that only rewards you for success, never just for trying. There is no way to fail your way to the top in Dark Souls, but you never go backwards either.

 

I find that to be a very different philosophy to this game, where you can get significant rewards even if you fail, but you can also lose everything that gives your progress meaning.

 

 

I want a game with meaningful progression, where ships matter because they are "rare" in some way, maybe some characteristic, or maybe its cost, or maybe its availability. We will all settle for different definitions of "rare".

 

This hits the nail on the head for me as well. I want to have a sense of progression where having a powerful ship is an achievement, and defines you. Since you do everything in this game through your ship the ship should be like your character in an RPG, not like some disposable item your character uses. If you can lose ships then how good of a ship you can use largely comes down to how much time you can invest into replacing it periodically, and that changes the entire dynamic of the game from looking at powerful ships as achievements to looking at them as liabilities, which simply isn't anywhere near as motivating to me personally, and I think most gamers if the type of crafting and progression system that the most popular games use is any indication.

 

There isn't really a ship game out there that really lets you have your own iconic ship. You just can't ever feel like you're Kirk on the Enterprise in a game where Kirk would have had to have a depot of spare ships somewhere to be able to have three seasons of space adventures.

 

 

This is the kind of misconception that has crippled the MMORPG industry as a whole.

 

If we look at the bulk of online games, the big money is in PvP. People want to log on and beat other human players. The entire online FPS and MOBA industry is based on this. And next time you play an RTS look at the number of "XvX" match requests compared to "co-op comp stomps". It's like 20:1. The real niche audience is "people who want to log into the internet in order to play against a computer". Do MOBAs even offer single player mode except maybe a lame practice map? They live and die based on the PvP.

 

To this day, we have not seen a AAA PvP MMORPG title made. It's obvious that the market is out there but nobody is jumping on it.

 

Naval Action has a chance to break into a very underserved market, by catering to PvP.

 

Yea, but you're just completely ignoring the fact that the PvP games that are so popular are all match and ladder based games that put you in arranged, fair matches. All the popular AAA MMORPGs absolutely include that as a gameplay mode, in the form of battlegrounds and arenas. 

 

WoW, SWTOR, Rift, STO, GW2... all of those games support massive PvP communities through match based PvP in the game. 

 

What you're talking about is open PvP, which is an entirely different animal. There are no MOBAs that support open PvP, the only somwhat popular FPS I can think of that supports open PvP is Planetside 2. Survival games are open PvP when played on open servers, but since they usually allow people to host private servers or play offline it's hard to claim that that's why they are popular.

 

Trying to make open PvP MMOs is not an untapped market, if anything it's something many companies have tried, but usually failed at. Shadowbane, Darkfall, Mortal Online - the games are out there, but none of them are particularly popular and many are already dead. The reason why people keep bringing up Eve if they want to argue for open PvP is because it's pretty much the only one that is steadily growing. Still, if Eve is the WoW of open PvP then trying to clone it is probably just as likely to end in disappointment.

Edited February 10, 2016 by Aetrion

[Tindahbawx]

I often see in games demand to make it harder, then those who make such demands leave the game because they can't hack it. This is not EVE. It does not need to be EVE to be a great game.

Just as a guess what percentage of the population do you think you represent with this view?

 

I'm not demanding they make it harder, I understand a lot of people wouldnt want it, I was meerly saying that I personally would enjoy it more that way.

 

What I am against is making it easier than it is now, as I already find it to cater well enough to people who don't want to lose out by giving them 5 durability on crafted ships. Once they drop to 1 durability, all they need to do is pull all their non-permanent upgrades off the ship, sell that 1 DU Hull on via a personal trade, adding a little extra on for the permanent upgrades its selling with, and then just buy a new hull to carry on with, once again at 5 durability. This alone, along with the gold that the ship should have been earning them through 4 durability points worth of battles should more than cover the cost of a new hull, at the very least.

 

If people are somehow managing to do the above, burning through 4DU of hull points and not at least breaking even on the buying a new hull at the end of all that, then its quite possible that they really need to move back to a lower grade of ship and learn the basic sailing and combat skills all over again.

 

I would be quite against the game being make any easier than it is in its current state, as outlined above, it already significantly caters to people who are loss averse.

[Dedlox]

Where did you get that nonsense from in the first place?

You can't make things better for "everyone" in an "either this - or that" matter.

 

Example:

OP wants invincible casual-ships, I want hardcore perma-loss - 5/5 durability (or anything in between) isn't going to make either side happy.

I was quoting him and telling him exactly that...never mind, don't think you read it.

[Aetrion]

What I am against is making it easier than it is now, as I already find it to cater well enough to people who don't want to lose out by giving them 5 durability on crafted ships. Once they drop to 1 durability, all they need to do is pull all their non-permanent upgrades off the ship, sell that 1 DU Hull on via a personal trade, adding a little extra on for the permanent upgrades its selling with, and then just buy a new hull to carry on with, once again at 5 durability. This alone, along with the gold that the ship should have been earning them through 4 durability points worth of battles should more than cover the cost of a new hull, at the very least.

 

You can't always find a hull with exactly the same upgrades you had before, so if the argument is "durability loss doesn't matter anyways" then why not go that one step further and allow crafters to make an overhaul kit which would simply have the cost of the ship without upgrades and can restore the durability on any ship of the same type?

 

That way at least some semblance of progression in the ships would remain in being able to confidently own one that has your perfect combination of upgrades.

[BlindProphet]

 

I think Dark Souls is an example of how a game can be difficult without punishing losses. Dark Souls never takes anything you've already earned away, once souls are invested they stay invested. You just don't get any new souls unless you make it back to the campfire, which is to say, Dark Souls is a game that only rewards you for success, never just for trying. There is no way to fail your way to the top in Dark Souls, but you never go backwards either.

 

I find that to be a very different philosophy to this game, where you can get significant rewards even if you fail, but you can also lose everything that gives your progress meaning.

 

 

You must have a fundamental lack of understanding of the design decisions and actual mechanics in order to make this argument.

 

Dark Souls is a game designed around punishing the player until he quits, figures things out, or has the mechanical skill to pull it off.  The game will not allow you to advance if you don't have the requisite mechanical skill, or knowledge on how to complete something.  It will make you do it over and over again until you quit or get it right.  It has mechanics designed around the idea (leaving notes).  The entire game is built from the ground up to punish the player.  As thats the case they don't further punish the player on top of that.

 

Dark Souls design is the antithesis of everything you espouse as your goals.  Its not an experience where you can just chill and relax.  The entire experience is based around punishing the player and not allowing them to advance until they get it right.  Its not a game thats newbie friendly.  Its a game thats purpose built to frustrate you till you get it right.

 

On the other side, Naval Action allows you to advance if you don't succeed.  Didn't do enough damage to sink someone and had to run away to survive?  You get rewarded for what you did do.  Got sunk?  Well you get rewarded for what you did do before you were.  You actually succeeded?  Well here's an even larger reward.  And its a game where even if you do fail you don't loose any progress.  No xp, no gold.  If you do get sunk you lose one of 5 possible durability.

 

But yes when you lose that last durability you do lose your ship.  But lets consider the actual impact of that... In order for it to be a great loss of progress this essentially means you are losing quite a lot.  And when you lose you're doing very little in the way of damage.  This means you're not completing missions (as even before this last patch which increased rewards, leveling up via missions meant you had way more gold than needed to get a ship of the next size and completely outfit it).  This means you're not learning at all.

 

Naval Action is not an overly punishing game.  It doesn't put any walls of difficulty in front of you that you must pass in order to advance.  The game is very forgiving with failure, not only rewarding you, but not taking things away either at first.

 

No durability, no possible ship loss, without other mechanics to punish the player, like Dark Souls has in spades, is an utterly terrible idea.  No ship loss?  Well if I have no fear of losing anything theres absolutely no reason i shouldn't just attack another player and just repeatedly ram him over and over again.  I don't actually need to learn how to use manual sails as it doesn't matter if I get on irons and don't know how to get out because theres penalty for me.  And so on and so forth.

[Slamz]

Naval Action is not an overly punishing game.  It doesn't put any walls of difficulty in front of you that you must pass in order to advance.  The game is very forgiving with failure, not only rewarding you, but not taking things away either at first.

 

This is very nicely put.

 

It really highlights how absurd the people here are for asking for ship loss to go away. The game is already exceedingly kind to the people who lose a lot. You always come out of a fight with XP and gold, even if you lost.

 

It's like they put a quarter into the Pac Man machine and lost, so the game gives them a cookie and a blue ribbon for trying but no, they want the cookie, the blue ribbon and they want their quarter back.

[Aetrion]

 

Dark Souls is a game designed around punishing the player 

 

I guess that depends on your definition of punishment. I don't find Dark Souls to be punishing in any way. To me punishment in a game is when you fail in some way and then the game makes you jump through a bunch of hoops before you are allowed to try again. Darksouls doesn't do that. You die, you immediately reappear at your last bonfire and are free to not only try the section of the game that you died in again, but it even gives you the chance to recover all the souls you lost in your last attempt. It also always gives you the option of investing any souls you bring back and never takes any of that progress away from you again. At no point does it punish the player. If you fail the game lets you try again immediately and even earn back everything you lost when you died. You don't lose any time, you don't lose any progress, you don't have to do anything less engaging than facing whatever challenges you again.

 

There is no punishment in that unless you define having to try again as punishment. If the game took your items away and wasted your time by making you trot all the way back to areas you've already mastered to get them again, that would be punishment, but it doesn't do anything like that. It lets you keep your nose to the grindstone and gives you as many attempts at whatever you're trying to get past as you want.

Edited February 10, 2016 by Aetrion

[shunteryin]

You must have a fundamental lack of understanding of the design decisions and actual mechanics in order to make this argument.

 

Dark Souls is a game designed around punishing the player until he quits, figures things out, or has the mechanical skill to pull it off.  The game will not allow you to advance if you don't have the requisite mechanical skill, or knowledge on how to complete something.  It will make you do it over and over again until you quit or get it right.  It has mechanics designed around the idea (leaving notes).  The entire game is built from the ground up to punish the player.  As thats the case they don't further punish the player on top of that.

 

Dark Souls design is the antithesis of everything you espouse as your goals.  Its not an experience where you can just chill and relax.  The entire experience is based around punishing the player and not allowing them to advance until they get it right.  Its not a game thats newbie friendly.  Its a game thats purpose built to frustrate you till you get it right.

 

You don't get it right either. Dark Souls is an example of a punishing game yes, but one where you don't lose your progress significantly and you don't even lose your items, only currency, and only if you don't make it back to the souls. It is similar to the gold cost to resurrect in many RPGs and MMOs.

It is unfair of you to criticize his point by completely misrepresenting it. 

 

Not being able to advance past a checkpoint/boss is not a representation of hardcore full loss, otherwise that would fit the definition of over half the games ever made in history. Dark Souls may not be a perfect support for his point, but it certainly not against his point, otherwise so would Super Mario World.

 

No durability, no possible ship loss, without other mechanics to punish the player, like Dark Souls has in spades, is an utterly terrible idea.  No ship loss?  Well if I have no fear of losing anything theres absolutely no reason i shouldn't just attack another player and just repeatedly ram him over and over again.  I don't actually need to learn how to use manual sails as it doesn't matter if I get on irons and don't know how to get out because theres penalty for me.  And so on and so forth.

 

 

Why are people doing this silly strawman argumentation tactics? I seriously doubt anyone would sail like a moron just because he can't lose his ship, but I take your bet and raise it, what is stopping people from buying low level basic ships and using them in very poor and trolly ways in OW pvp encounters, after all aren't they so cheap that it doesn't matter?

 

Straw mans are bad people, avoid using them. The reason most people would try to play the game at least competently is because you have a goal, that is to win. I would tell you if the game mechanics allow you to ram another ship and win by doing that, the problem is ultimately with the bad combat design, not with the player that used the questionable tactic.

More over lets consider that this tactic isn't actualy effective, the reason you wouldn't play like that is because you will just get sunk by the more competent player, you may not lose your ship, but you will lose your face, maybe that matters more.

 

Oh and not bother to learn manual sails because it doesn't matter? That is their prerogative regardless, if the autosails are effective 80% of the time because nobody is playing good enough for manual sails to matter whose fault is that? Think about that statement for a second.

 

The effectiveness of autosails got just about nothing to do with whether your ship has 1 durability or 5 or infinite. 

First of all it is up to the devs to decide how effective auto sailing is and how viable it should be against manual sails, and second, if someone doesn't want to bother it is their option not to use it. The reason is 100% irrelevant. If you don't like that people may be sailing just as well with auto as you on manual perhaps you should suggest the devs remove that option too. Maybe make it manual sails but only after a certain rank, otherwise you might as well run away with the remaining population there are still here.

 

You seem more concerned that people wont take the game as seriously as you do, therefore they should be punished for it.

My response is, let the results speak for themselves. Lets see a group of lemmings on auto sails trying to ram a group of skilled captains on mid-level or above ships and lets see who wins, otherwise you should stop with the ridiculous straw man arguments.