Players losing ships is bad, and here is why.

[Grongash]

Can no loss of ships be done, of course it can, but you revamp the entire economy, your completely change the feel of PvP and RvR, you completely change the game.

 

Imagine if Eve had no ship loss, it would be a completely different game.

 

If you don't like ship loss I suggest you go find another game, I would bet my life on the fact that it isn't going away.

 

There is no economy to revamp. Having ports throw out (ever increasing) Resources with a fixed sink per day somewhere else isn't really called an economy. Right now that part of the game is a gimmicky minigame at best.

[tarkin1980]

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.

[Meraun]

Not losing the Ships woud take the Aspect wich makes my hands and Forhead sweat in battle out of the game.

 

So no. I believe this is one of the main aspects why this game is so Intense and good.

If we do not lose ships, why woud i ever retreat? Why woud i ever NOT attack a bigger ship?

 

No, you woud kill the game taht way. EvE is a great example.

 

I do craft smaller ships alot. who woud byu them? Waht woud keep the economy going?

 

Plus, i have yet to lose a 5 Durabilitys ona  Ship.

 

If lost 2 Durability on my Mercury, but i earned the 65K i paid a looooonnnggg time ago.

 

i dont think you have tought this trough...

 

Every player is going to quit playing a game sooner or later, it's inevitable. Every game is going to shut down sooner or later, that's also inevitable. There is nothing wrong with designing a game in such a way that there is a meaningful progression through the game that leaves you feeling like your work is done if you ever get to the end, rather than trying to design a game that never ends, but ultimately drives people away much more quickly because the grind and repetition simply wasn't as interesting as the progress.

 

You do know the 13 Years old EvE dont you?

 

 

but it doesn't ever take away the levels you already bought,

 

Neither does Naval Action.

 

 

Excellent post and very true in my view and experience. the Dev's need to read this!!.

 

So... were woud the excitiment come from in this Game?

 

 

The only way to find a Middle Ground between woud be a well implemented Surrender mechanic wich allows you to keep the ship if you surrender.

Edited February 8, 2016 by Meraun

[kumisz]

Not losing a ship would be, as stated above, pretty much render port battler, or large fleet battles useless. Primarily, we fight these battles not only to get (or defend) the port, but to weaken the enemy by destroying their high value ships.

 

On the week, we (on PvP3) started a deep water port attack against a neutral port, with cerberuses, surprises, renomée-s, 2 constitutions and a single 3rd rate. Most of these were captured, because you can buy AI-produced ships only up to a certain class, and we cannot produce them yet. I imagine, producing a 3rd rate (let alone a 1st rate) would take more than 4-5 days for all our crafters. We almost lost the 3rd rate, and lost multiple Surprises and Renomées. These losses really weakened us. They made losses actually matter!

 

That's a reason to keep ships destroyable, althrough I doubt the developers even thought about making them immortal.

[Fuzzyhead12]

In every single MMO I have ever played, the issue of items not perishing, ergo weapons wearing down, armor getting destroyed, you end up with the same situtation.

 

Inflation.

Flooded markets.

Impossible to make profit on low-entry crafting.

 

I've played MMO's since 1999, and seen all sorts of attempts at preventing inflation and flooded markets. The only things that worked is making items either Bind on Pickup, ergo once you loot it then it can never be sold, and you have to destroy it eventually when you get an upgrade, or they make the items perishable so they eventually become destroyed.

 

If ships are never lost in this game, then the market WILL be flooded with ships for sale, and it WILL cause problems for low-entry crafters.

 

Also, if you never have to buy new ships, and upgrades that sink with the ship, then what are you going to spend gold on? Trading to make more gold?

 

With nothing to spend the gold on, you end up creating inflation where everyone ends up sitting on huge piles of gold with nothing to spend them on.

 

Every player created economy needs money sinks. Ships are the focal point of the game and should be the focal point when it comes to a money sink. Ships sinking means players need to buy new ones. That means they are spending money, which goes to crafters, which in turn spends it on resources and components to build more ships for those that lost them.

 

If you want to never lose your ship then the easy solution is to play on PvE server and only pick fights you can win.

+1 

 

simple Capitalism law, if it dont break you cant sell another one.  so yea inflation will destroy the markets, the whole econemy and all fun of tha game loosing a ship. 

also called market saturation, thats why ford nearly gone bankrupt in the 20s, their cars simply did not broke down.

also MB had the same problem and other carbrands who standed for quality gone through that time of market saturation. (Porsche and Mercedes)

now all cars will break down between 5 and 13 years depending on the brand.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism

[Foidewall]

Not losing a ship would be, as stated above, pretty much render port battler, or large fleet battles useless. Primarily, we fight these battles not only to get (or defend) the port, but to weaken the enemy by destroying their high value ships.

 

On the week, we (on PvP3) started a deep water port attack against a neutral port, with cerberuses, surprises, renomée-s, 2 constitutions and a single 3rd rate. Most of these were captured, because you can buy AI-produced ships only up to a certain class, and we cannot produce them yet. I imagine, producing a 3rd rate (let alone a 1st rate) would take more than 4-5 days for all our crafters. We almost lost the 3rd rate, and lost multiple Surprises and Renomées. These losses really weakened us. They made losses actually matter!

 

That's a reason to keep ships destroyable, althrough I doubt the developers even thought about making them immortal.

Would a cooldown system no do the same, where if a ship is sunk you can´t use that ship for a certain amount of time, the larger the ship the longer the cooldown.  Like a 1. Class ship get on a 1 week cooldown or something like that, this would significant weaken you fraction, and create am opportunity for other faction to act against you faction.  And maybe make pvp instances true the missionscreen for the more cassualplayers where there is no punishment for being sunk, but lover the xp and gold reward from those instances.  

[MaliceA4Thought]

No just no.   IF you loose your ship at lower levels, all you loose is 1 imprint of it already..  the enhancements and the ship itself are returned to you.. EVEN if it is captured.

 

A realistic environment would be every ship was 1 dura  and if you lost a battle then you would get demoted and experience taken away from you that you had to re-earn.

 

Except in a port battle, I fail to see how you can actually loose a ship anyway with regularity..  the occaisional battle perhaps, but not 5 in a row..  and at surprise level 5 battles gives you enough cash to pretty much buy another as it stands if you are playing well.

 

This would totally destroy the existing economy meaning a total rework..  ships would be unaffordable..  an exceptional frigate wouldn't cost 300k it would cost  in the millions as once got it would never be replaced.

 

It would also require a rule that ships, once bought, could not be resold, otherwise the upcoming market would never buy a ship, they would just use hand me downs with no market for replacement and a rule that ONLY player made ships were in the shop to provide any semblance of a market.

 

It would also need to drasticaly reduce the amount og gold you earnt in battles to protect the rest of the sandbox that is not fighting.

 

This is typical of the proposals in all games from those that only see one very small segment of the game through blinkers.

 

It sounds like you should be on a PvE server..  I understand that they don't loose ships there because the only battles are against the easy AI which don't demand a loss.

 

Malice

[Slamz]

There are two ways a game can go:

 

Endless economy.

Endless content.

 

WOW is an example of endless content. Nothing is ever lost so the alternative is to just keep putting new things in front of you. Whatever awesome level and amazing armor and uber weapon you have today will be literally vendor junk a year later as the next expansion comes out with all new levels, armor and weapons. Year after year, expansion after expansion, the game is always putting new things in front of you (and old content becomes vendor junk and "fly over country").

 

That's not really possible for a specific naval era simulation like this game. We can't give you endless content unless we turn it into a sci-fi game. There's nothing after the 1st rate. Cannons only get so good. You can't upgrade your ships with mithril armor or the Dragon Breath Ramming Prow of +20 Dexterity. We could create an endless level grind and PvE quest content but what would be the reward? Given the above two choices of endless economy or endless content, we must go with endless economy.

 

 

The other option is that you get bored and quit the game. With no challenges ahead (even the challenge of economic status quo), there will be nothing to do, no reason to log in and you will quit.

 

We can find a niche group of gamers willing to play a game that has endless economy. I do not think we will find a niche that is actually willing to play a game that has no economy and no content. You think it's what you want, but you'd quit within 6 months.

[Mighty Bouff]

How am I going to harvest tears if they don't lose anything when I sink them?

 

Every in-game economy needs gold sinks, otherwise with the faucets always open you get hyper inflation. Even in EvE which as stated has ship and module loss prices have moved about with inflation (low end deflation as more can craft, high end inflation for valuable mods/ships). Its already happening here with reports of exceptional powder monkeys trading for 500k+ Gold.

 

If there is no ship loss what do the crafters do after they have supplied everybody, ie I've just bought an exceptional surprise. I'm going to use it in pvp which means eventually I'm going to lose it, no matter how good I may be. I'll then need to buy another. With no ship loss the crafters can never sell me another one, and the rate of my gold earning means that in a relatively short period (I'e played EvE so 12 years so you kind of have to view it on that timescale) I'll have an exceptional version of every ship.

[LeeUK]

No.

 

Small ships have 5 Dura, the biggest have 1. This isn't just for the sake of the economy, which it DOES effect regardless of how you skew it, but this also effects gameplay massively. 1st rates are very expensive and valuable, you get sunk/captured once it's gone. This method helps to stop the game being saturated with 1st/2nd/3rd rates and helps us see a more varied class of ship on the seas. 

 

IMO even the Frigate Class ships are all easily replaced with gold, I don't understand why people are so scared of losing a durability on a ship, what else are they going to spend their gold on? it adds attrition, you can't sail your perfect ship forever, you'll need to replace it. I'd hate to see the durability go away.

[Rubble]

Hmm, first map location markers and now neverending ships.

 

I see a pattern forming

[maturin]

Hmm, first map location markers and now neverending ships.

 

I see a pattern forming

It comes in waves.

 

A year ago there was a constant request for auto-targeted fire without player input.

[jodgi]

In my experience, if you don't go seeking out solo PvP in hotspots (where you will be ganked regardless of loss and risk mechanics), the chance of losing a dura to another player in minimal.

I'm sure many of the old hands have made the same observation.

There is almost no loss outside of portbattles (I wonder how much loss is happening even there, enough to be statistically significant?) in this game, if we filter out new guys still learning the game. In order to have loss at all we need to encourage PVP and to do that we might have to dress up loss differently.

There are tons of ways to make RvR work without forcing loss on players. Ship cooldowns and/or port battle cooldown would take care of constant PB spam, just to start the list.

I don't like loss because it has almost killed off PVP in the open world (observation, not opinion). In a manner of speaking loss is it's own worst enemy; The fear of loss makes people adjust their play so they incur no risk and no loss. This is something I've never seen the pro loss guys deal with. We have an OW where people play PVE in parallel and the PVP part, where all potential loss exists, is insignificantly small. You say you don't want a no loss OW economy? Sorry, honey, you're living it right now.

EVE is always brought up in these discussions, but I suspect the pro EVE/pro loss guys haven't followed through with the thinking. EVE has a working economy, good for them. As things stand now, we can't have that in Naval Action with the split servers. We won't have enough volume, not even close. So until we can unify the playerbase somehow and somewhere in the future we need to set realistic goals of what the economy could be with our limitations. The upshot is that EVE has shit fighting mechanics and we have some of the best I've seen. Eco is pretty much all there is to do in EVE because the fighting is lulzy at best.

I Naval Action PVP is more important than the economy. (Qualified opinion)

[kumisz]

It comes in waves.

 

A year ago there was a constant request for auto-targeted fire without player input.

 

At that point, they might as well put in automatic maneuvering and let the AI play the game with itself.

[SirLeitet]

Well read, original poster.

 

It's a shame absolutely nothing of this will be read by the developers.

[jodgi]

Well read, original poster.

 

It's a shame absolutely nothing of this will be read by the developers.

Have faith, they read.

[kumisz]

Would a cooldown system no do the same, where if a ship is sunk you can´t use that ship for a certain amount of time, the larger the ship the longer the cooldown.  Like a 1. Class ship get on a 1 week cooldown or something like that, this would significant weaken you fraction, and create am opportunity for other faction to act against you faction.  And maybe make pvp instances true the missionscreen for the more cassualplayers where there is no punishment for being sunk, but lover the xp and gold reward from those instances.  

 

Honestly, it would not be the same. For example, after that particular battle, we were doing missions in groups, and capturing frigates exactly to replace the lost ones. If we could craft them, they would take up not only game time (like cooldown) but a LOT of resources, thus, money. With cooldown, we should not even have to log in to the game, just wait a few days. Now, it actually took work, and risk, if we would have lost one of the big guys.

 

(considering there were next to no defending ships in the port, the losses were all caused by the forts, these were pretty light losses)

 

If they would have defeated us, it would have been much, much more work to replace the lost ships. Cooldown will never cause such consequences.

[Slamz]

I don't like loss because it has almost killed off PVP in the open world (observation, not opinion).

 

[citation needed]

 

Also, I would bet that the quickest way to lose durability is through Small Battles and people are still lining up to play those. Most of the time when I join one it's 10-20 players present, with 2-4 non-Cutters on each side.

 

Personally I think I've gained at least 50% of my XP (now rank 5) through Small Battles, with quite a lot of that being in a Navy Brig. I make more money doing the battles than it costs to replace the ship.

 

 

Ironically, I would suggest that if anything kills off open world PvP, it's that players are really hard to actually catch and kill. Most of my OW PvP battles result in most or all players escaping when they want to. In-combat sail repairs are frankly overpowered and with no POTBS style "magical snare" it's hard to stop runners without both outnumbering them and being faster at all wind angles. Extra true if it's been a hard fight and both sides are down on crew. I need to keep tagging you to keep you in combat and when you're running away and I'm at 50% crew, that's going to be tough.

[Fletch]

I love the fact you can loose your ship. It gives some meaning and consequence to PVP that would otherwise be no where near exciting/

[Mrdoomed]

Hmm, first map location markers and now neverending ships.

I see a pattern forming

Yup. They want to keep changing it till it becomes another paint by numbers boring game that fails. Eve is harcore and you have to pay to play and its been around forever. Potbs ships died and was lost and it was subscription for a long time then f2p and the nail in the coffin for it was sony security breach which shut ut down for weeks and most people never came back.

There are lots if hardcore sandbox games that are out and do fine.NA isnt even that hardcore and people complain lol. The only thing i can think is go play AC or something and let the people who like this style game play.

Just go away and play what you like and dont change what others like just to suit you.

[Remo]

[citation needed]

 

Also, I would bet that the quickest way to lose durability is through Small Battles and people are still lining up to play those. Most of the time when I join one it's 10-20 players present, with 2-4 non-Cutters on each side.

 

Personally I think I've gained at least 50% of my XP (now rank 5) through Small Battles, with quite a lot of that being in a Navy Brig. I make more money doing the battles than it costs to replace the ship.

 

 

Ironically, I would suggest that if anything kills off open world PvP, it's that players are really hard to actually catch and kill. Most of my OW PvP battles result in most or all players escaping when they want to. In-combat sail repairs are frankly overpowered and with no POTBS style "magical snare" it's hard to stop runners without both outnumbering them and being faster at all wind angles. Extra true if it's been a hard fight and both sides are down on crew. I need to keep tagging you to keep you in combat and when you're running away and I'm at 50% crew, that's going to be tough.

 

Now we are getting to the more pressing issue. Sail Repairs are incredibly unrealistic for a game like this. I truly think repairing sails mid-battle should be removed entirely. Repairing the ship itself during a battle was possible, repairing the sails during a battle as far as I know was not. This is absolutely the most ridiculous thing in the game and is the #1 reason why PvP is hurting. People get shot with chain-shot, they slow down a bit, they get to about 80% sails, repair while you were broadside and then shoot up to 100% sails and outrun you while you're turning moving out of range in the process.

 

Remove sails repair and I guarantee you will see an overall improvement in open world PvP. This will also increase the importance of sail modules which currently are useless IMO.

[kingck]

at first i was skeptical, but i completely agree, it makes PVP more engaging as a player. I personally avoid using any of my major ships in battles against other players because of the risk of losing them, however for other MMOs such as World of warships and war thunder for example as a player i am able to learn new equipment and new playstyles makes it more open to challenge friends to battles and testing your skills as a captain. 

[Foidewall]

Honestly, it would not be the same. For example, after that particular battle, we were doing missions in groups, and capturing frigates exactly to replace the lost ones. If we could craft them, they would take up not only game time (like cooldown) but a LOT of resources, thus, money. With cooldown, we should not even have to log in to the game, just wait a few days. Now, it actually took work, and risk, if we would have lost one of the big guys.

 

(considering there were next to no defending ships in the port, the losses were all caused by the forts, these were pretty light losses)

 

If they would have defeated us, it would have been much, much more work to replace the lost ships. Cooldown will never cause such consequences.

I´m not sure i follow you, you argument was that immortal ships would make portbattle pointless, a cooldown system would do this just as much as what we have now, possible even more so.

But no it would not be the same obviously it’s different system, but it could be used to create some other dynamics in the game like putting a cooldown on newly captured ships, so you would not be able to just replace lost ships with newly captured once, I would even say that this would be more historic correct, you would not take a newly captured ship in battle the same day you took her as a price. I would suggest that a newly captured ship should stay in a harbor for a certain amount of time before being able to fight in her. As suck you would not be able to have large portbattle all the time you would have to recover and resupply you ships. Nothing in this would stop you from having medium sized battles but large fleetbattles and portbattles would need some times in between, as the population increased this might actually be important to prevent the map becoming to fluctuating. This would not be the same system as what we have now, but it would be a system where you won’t risk losing you ship for good but you would face significant penalty for getting you ship sunk, because you would have to use another ship in you lineup until the sunken ship get of cooldown. This might make some of the risk averse players more willing to commit to pvp battles, and therefore make the game more active and more enjoyable for everyone.

[Mrdoomed]

Now we are getting to the more pressing issue. Sail Repairs are incredibly unrealistic for a game like this. I truly think repairing sails mid-battle should be removed entirely. Repairing the ship itself during a battle was possible, repairing the sails during a battle as far as I know was not. This is absolutely the most ridiculous thing in the game and is the #1 reason why PvP is hurting. People get shot with chain-shot, they slow down a bit, they get to about 80% sails, repair while you were broadside and then shoot up to 100% sails and outrun you while you're turning moving out of range in the process.

Remove sails repair and I guarantee you will see an overall improvement in open world PvP. This will also increase the importance of sail modules which currently are useless IMO.

Repairs on sails took place in combat ( so to speak ) . No there wasnt little old seamstresses up in the rigging sewing them up BUT if certain sails , rigging or mast were damaged they could put up a spare sail or patchwork fix in sails rigging and ropes etc. Masts could be " rigged " with chains ropes etc to somewhat work.

Obviously all this was emergency fixes and was limited in performance but repairing was done.

[Bach]

To the OP-

Your arguments are logically based on material issues. Which in a PVE game are all you have so that works out fine. In PVP you have to account for the psycological as well. Like two sports teams meeting on the field. The statistic from previous games may show one team the clear and logical favorite. But if the opposing team has the psycological rivalry aspect going then anything may happen. Such is the nature of competition. So how does this feed into the " what if we never lost any items argument"?

Psychologically that whole argument is one sided. You've based it almost purely from the point of view of the person losing the items.

Winners need to feel they have won something. Losers need to lose something. Give everyone a trophy and winning or losing means less and less. Why strive harder to win if the next contest is just destined to look exactly like the previous one? Why try harder not to lose if you can just walk away half way through a competition and start over exactly where you left off? There needs to be a stake in the contest to heighten the level of competition and the thrill of victory or agony of defeat. The "no one ever loses anything" option kind if removes all of that.

Again, if you applied your idea to a PVE server I think it would work just fine. No one in there is looking for any serious competition. But if you applied to a PVP environment I think you would water down the competitive spirit until you were left with more of the "first person shooter" crowd. I'm not saying some won't like it. Some will. But in the end you will no longer be offering serious hard core competition. It will be a more vanilla competition and you will create a shorter lived game as serious players tend too simply try it and pass on rather than stick around.

Edited February 8, 2016 by Bach