Players losing ships is bad, and here is why.

[BlindProphet]

I guess that depends on your definition of punishment. I don't find Dark Souls to be punishing in any way.

 

I am honestly glad you enjoy it.  The people who enjoy it often don't find it at all punishing.  People who enjoy it often don't find repeatedly playing the same sequence over and over again till they finally beat something punishing.  On the other hand the evolution of game design over time has shown those people are not in the majority.  If it was...we'd have more games like that, rather than a few niche titles.

[Justme]

I have no issue with permanent loss per say, but for a slow learning moron like myself the prospect of obtaining a SOL and losing it permanently on my first trip in its an annoying prospect. I would be fine with 2 duras tbh. I lost my snow several times while trying to figure out manual sails. And I still struggle with them at times.

[Bach]

I have no issue with permanent loss per say, but for a slow learning moron like myself the prospect of obtaining a SOL and losing it permanently on my first trip in its an annoying prospect. I would be fine with 2 duras tbh. I lost my snow several times while trying to figure out manual sails. And I still struggle with them at times.

Im not sure why you bother with manual sails. Just leave it on auto.

If you build your first SOL and go out and lose it? Welcome to the club as that is exactly what will probably happen to the rest of us. But it makes that SOL special. Well at least the next one.

[Balsafer]

I think this game is forgiving enough the way it is, and i would like to say you don't have to lose your ship get down to last dura keep it in port use it for pve mainly and buy another ship for pvp.  Problem solved end of discussion.  

[William Doggett]

Another point for PvP.

 

If you never lose ships, then what is PvP and port battles going to look like ?

 

Enemy will just keep returning with ships, over and over and over... cause they lost nothing, and can simply return fully armed. Instead of a battle of attrition, it becomes a battle of whoever gets bored and leaves first.

 

It's like the Pirates in Basic Cutters who just keep returning in their basic ships to wear down enemies (see separate thread).

 

Instead of this only pertaining to Basic Cutters, we propose to make this "feature" available for every ship in the game???

this +1

[Aetrion]

I am honestly glad you enjoy it.  The people who enjoy it often don't find it at all punishing.  People who enjoy it often don't find repeatedly playing the same sequence over and over again till they finally beat something punishing.  On the other hand the evolution of game design over time has shown those people are not in the majority.  If it was...we'd have more games like that, rather than a few niche titles.

 

You're not wrong, Dark Souls is a somewhat niche title that uses a new take on an old formula. It is generally frowned upon to make people learn a game by repetition, since that's associated with the tactics used by coinops to force people to put more money in the game to keep playing. That then morphed into the extra lives systems you'd see in many titles in the 80s and early 90s. When savegames became commonplace across all platforms they basically replaced the use of ingame mechanics as a continue point. Once there was no cost to trying again it gradually became seen as an annoyance to have to try again rather than a challenge to overcome. The next development from there was the "game where you can't die", which was in many ways pioneered by MMOs that had to keep your character around without allowing you to rewind time by loading a savegame. A lot of the most popular games today like GTA5 use a system like that where dying just sends you to a spawn point with some penalty, even in single player. The problem with the death penalty system is that it sets up a fundamental conflict in the game: On the one hand you want to penalize the player for dying so that the player tries their best to stay alive. On the other hand if you want to make the game challenging, there has to always be a threat of death. If you keep the threat of death as well as the death penalty too high people will feel like the game is being unfair to them. If you keep them too low people will feel like the game is much too easy. In the case of a game like Eve where avoiding death is relatively easy but the penalty for dying is relatively high it makes a lot of people feel like they have to be too risk adverse to really have fun. Dark Souls gets around that problem by pretty much entirely doing away with death penalties, and instead building it's progression entirely on what you might term a "survival reward". Dark Souls simply expects you to die, and rewards you for living, rather than expecting you to live and punishing you for dying. 

 

Of course you can criticize Dark Souls for being repetitive and really not a very big game if you take all the dying and redoing out of it, and you'd be right in that. However, I'd argue that's just them being very Japanese and using the entire game as a metaphor. The game is literally about a character who cannot die struggling against a world full of monsters who cannot die, and the only way to truly fail is to give up. In a way the entire thing is a cynical way of codifying the experience of a difficult game into a mythology. There is no reason why a longer or open ended experience wouldn't be able to use the Dark Souls system of survival rewards instead of death penalties to allow for an effective intersection between difficulty and consequence.

Edited February 10, 2016 by Aetrion

[Justme]

So why are do many wanting a 1dura/ economy based game vs a PVP one.

You make it to restrictive on duras then you force players to worry about economics than actually pvp.

I used to love playing higher( 9 and10) in WOT. Problem is it artificially forced players to stay at mid tiers due to the cost of running top tier. If you didn't buy premium time it was made even worse.

So why is it so many want to force players into mid level ships. Why do so want to force an economic game instead of a PVP one?

You say well we don't want to see 100's of victories sailing around. I can understand that to a point but what's the point of working towards a ship when you rarely have an occasion to use it?

Is it sit there and say look, I have a pretty digital boat yay me.

If I wanted that I would build a model. Least with that there is a real sense of accomplishment, with real tangible results I can actually touch.

[Aetrion]

I'm with you there, to me going after that perfect ship is a huge part of the fun in a game, and always having to worry about losing it ruins that. 

 

I do understand why people don't want an entire game full of first rates, but the problem there is more that first rates are currently the only thing to progress toward. If you could dedicate your advancement to truly mastering other ships or tactics I don't think it would be anywhere near as big of a deal. Ultimately I don't think even if everyone had access to a first rate they would use it on account of how incredibly unwieldy those ships are, but that just adds to the disappointment of not having anything to level up into beyond the midrange ships everyone will end up using. 

[Ruthless4u]

I'm with you there, to me going after that perfect ship is a huge part of the fun in a game, and always having to worry about losing it ruins that. 

 

I do understand why people don't want an entire game full of first rates, but the problem there is more that first rates are currently the only thing to progress toward. If you could dedicate your advancement to truly mastering other ships or tactics I don't think it would be anywhere near as big of a deal. Ultimately I don't think even if everyone had access to a first rate they would use it on account of how incredibly unwieldy those ships are, but that just adds to the disappointment of not having anything to level up into beyond the midrange ships everyone will end up using.

I plan on really going no further than frigates, any higher then the game is more about economy than pvp and that's just boring.

[Dedlox]

I'm with you there, to me going after that perfect ship is a huge part of the fun in a game, and always having to worry about losing it ruins that. 

 

 

That's a confusing statement, do you mean you going after that perfect ship and the other losing it ruins it? Or you going for a perfect ship in your perfect ship and you losing yours?

 

Either or, these "perfect" ships should be rare so you can actually have that feeling, without lost they aren't rare at all and it will mean nothing to anyone.

Edited February 11, 2016 by Dedlox

[Aetrion]

I plan on really going no further than frigates, any higher then the game is more about economy than pvp and that's just boring.

 

Yea, that's my exact beef with making how powerful of a ship you can field largely a function of your own personal fortune. 

 

I feel like the people who are most devoted to being a sea captain should be able to confidently captain the most powerful ships.

 

In a game where how good of a ship you can field is down to how much money you have though being the captain of a powerful warship is just a hobby for the rich, not something you have to actually dedicate yourself to to the exclusion of running a business empire.

 

 

That's a confusing statement, do you mean you going after that perfect ship and the other losing it ruins it? Or you going for a perfect ship in your perfect ship and you losing yours?

 

Either or, these "perfect" ships should be rare so you can actually have that feeling, without lost they aren't rare at all and it will mean nothing to anyone.

 

The point is that there is simply no good reason to try and go for that fully gold quality ship with the way the game currently is because even if you're obscenely rich you might not be able to replace it. You have to shoot for something disposable, and that just not as much fun. 

 

Mean nothing to anyone? Hardly true. There are tons of games where you can spend years tweaking and customizing a character or vehicle into your perfect configuration and it's plenty meaningful despite the fact that it doesn't get taken away from you. 

Edited February 11, 2016 by Aetrion

[jodgi]

This last page has been a joy to read. Even those posts I personally don't agree with, thanks, all of you.

I don't care what they do to eco, dura or whatever as long as OW PVP is a thing in this game. I've done silly, silly things in this game to get me some PVP. Turns out a frigate is afraid of a leeward surprise and a trinco runs from a lone frigate if they see that a player controls the little thing. "Documentation" can be found elsewhere within these forums.

Some posters say: "The risk makes it exciting and fun"

Ok, no argument there. But do they run or do they engage in an exciting fight? Does their excitement translate into exciting PVP activity or running?

The economy needs loss, they say. There is no loss in PVE so the economy needs PVP. PVP is heavily impaired by the fear of loss. At what point does the loss mecanic become the economy's biggest enemy?

[Aetrion]

The economy needs loss, they say. There is no loss in PVE so the economy needs PVP. PVP is heavily impaired by the fear of loss. At what point does the loss mecanic become the economy's biggest enemy?

 

Yea, but the idea for the people who say that is "You use up whatever you can afford", not "You avoid losing stuff, period."

 

Unfortunately that way what you can take into a fight purely comes down to your ability to raise money, not your dedication to being an effective warship captain.

[Cossack]

With the latest patch increasing gold by a ton, i have already lost that feeling of risk at the moment due to the fact by the time i lose a 5 dura ship(still hasn't happened to me btw despite pvp pretty much every day) i have far more gold than i can spend right now meaning i can easily buy a brand new ship to replace the lost one. 

 

Thinking about it having no loss at all would really kill this game for me. 

[Aetrion]

Nobody is asking for a game where you never lose anything and gold just infinitely piles up, just a game where ships are part of a progression scheme rather than a consumable that determines 100% of your capabilities.

 

Right now this game is like the equivalent of an MMORPG where your character is eternally a level 1 fighter, and the only way to get stronger is to buy a really really expensive potion that transforms you into a slightly stronger character, and lasts until you've died a few times, and then you're back to being a level 1 fighter unless you've raised enough gold to stockpile more of those potions. From a systems standpoint that's how this game works, and the only reason people find that acceptable here when nobody would find it acceptable in a fantasy MMORPG is because when we're talking about ships and not wizard levels you can argue that it's "realistic". Also people ignore the fact that other MMORPGs manage just fine to have an economy despite having certain things just be permanent.

 

I guess a lot of it comes down to some people wanting their ship to represent them, and wanting to identify with it, the same way that you'd represent yourself through whatever character you created and skills you purchased in an MMORPG. Other people just want to play a wargame where you grind for the privilege to throw disposable units at the enemy. It's not really that outrageous to want a bit of both is it?

Edited February 11, 2016 by Aetrion

[beagleplease]

This same thing happened in PotBS. The casuals wanted the game to be easier and more forgiving, the pvpers were pretty happy with the way things were.

They listened to the casuals.  The game died.

 

The thing is a game like this is all about its hardcore playerbase.  Its those players that make the content for the end game.

Casuals will get to the 1st rate get bored and leave whether they lose it or not.  The RvR end game is what keep this game alive and that only works

if the economy backs it up.  The main reason why PotBS died was they ruined the economy, they wanted to make it easier for casual players you see.

[OldSaintJoe]

Losing ships is good.  Why the hell would you even want to fight if you have no fear of losing a little progress?  (and with the gold patch, we are talking very little)  PvP would be without any fear whatsoever, and I think you'd find this game very lacking if every fight you got into had no risk at all to it.

[Aetrion]

Pirates of the Burning Sea was dying long before they made any changes. The changes were an attempt at pulling the game out of its death spiral, not what caused it despite what you may find to be a convenient narrative. 

 

I mean let's look at a timeline of how that game actually died:

 

The game launchd in January 2008 with a subscription based model. They started closing servers a mere 4 months later, cut down the server list again 6 months after that, reduced the servers further another 4 months down the road in 2009, and one last time down to just two running servers a year after that in 2010. So in the first two years of operation the game had already shed 90% of its user base at least.

 

In November of 2010 the game went free to play, and that's when most of the changes came in to make the economy easier. Ship insurance was added so that you could recover the price of a sinking ship, and raising gold was made easier overall in an attempt to not scare off free customers with an overly steep learning curve, since free to play titles heavily rely on getting players through those first few weeks where they are "just looking" before they really commit to the game.

 

So all of that happened after the game had already lost most of its players and had become economically unsustainable as a subscription title. The free to play model increased interest in the game for a short time, but it didn't really start it on a path to recovery, so the game's contract with SOE was terminated at the end of 2012. The original developers licensed the title and put it back on line in early 2013 and have since revamped it into a minimum sustainable product for their remaining core audience. 

 

So what it really was was a disastrous 2 years of the game hemorrhaging players, then a hasty switch to a free to play model with an easier economy, no subsequent recovery, and then being shuttered. To me that suggests the exact opposite of what you're trying to claim. The game didn't die because it was made easier for casual players, the game had already contracted its player base down to just its absolute core audience, and then tried to court the more casual free to play market with no success.

Edited February 11, 2016 by Aetrion

[beagleplease]

Pirates of the Burning Sea was dying long before they made any changes. The changes were an attempt at pulling the game out of its death spiral, not what caused it despite what you may find to be a convenient narrative. 

 

So all of that happened after the game had already lost most of its players and had become economically unsustainable as a subscription title. The free to play model increased interest in the game for a short time, but it didn't really start it on a path to recovery, so the game's contract with SOE was terminated at the end of 2012. The original developers licensed the title and put it back on line in early 2013 and have since revamped it into a minimum sustainable product for their remaining core audience. 

 

So what it really was was a disastrous 2 years of the game hemorrhaging players, then a hasty switch to a free to play model with an easier economy, no subsequent recovery, and then being shuttered. To me that suggests the exact opposite of what you're trying to claim. The game didn't die because it was made easier for casual players, the game had already contracted its player base down to just its absolute core audience, and then tried to court the more casual free to play market with no success.

 ship insurance and dailies and the first economy revamp were all introduced in the first year of the game, long before it went free to play.  They launched with too many servers and reduced them that does not mean the game was dying it had a perfectly healthy population for a decent time but it slowly died for many reasons, but as i already said the main thing was ruining its economy.  i'm sorry if that doesn't fit your narrative.

 

Does it not occur to you that the reason the game kept hemorrhaging players was because fls constantly catered towards a crowd that was never going to stick around anyway?

Rather than trying to retain and recruit a hardcore playerbase.  I'll just point at eve right now and show you a game that retains a huge hardcore playerbase.  Point me at a game of this genre that retains a huge casual playerbase if you can.

Edited February 11, 2016 by beagleplease

[Aetrion]

Point me at a game of this genre that retains a huge casual playerbase if you can.

 

Just because nobody has actually bothered to make a ship game that treats ships like characters in an RPG and not like disposable items doesn't mean there is no market for it. Quite on the contrary.

 

If you look at MMOs that are actually huge you don't find a single one that emphasizes "economy" over progression and just allowing people to have fun.

 

Eve Online is ultimately simply a poor example, because it's the exception, not the rule. Just like copying WoW led dozens of games to ruin so is copying Eve Online no guarantee for success, as Pirates of the Burning Sea found out.

 

Also, your assumption that any other way of doing things is automatically "casual" is where you're going completely wrong. League of Legends is the biggest PC game in existence, right now, and nobody would say it's exclusively a casual game. There is a huge difference between a game that's casual friendly and a game that's purely casual. 

 

A much better game to measure this one against than Eve Online is World of Warships, because just like World of Warships this game's basic gameplay element is a combat simulation, not an economic simulation. Trying to slap an economic simulation over the top of that rather than a progression system is in all likelihood doing more harm than good, because this games combat system is in many ways superior to WoWS, just not anywhere near as readily accessible.

[Ghroznak]

Besides ship combat the game is really centered around resources.

 

Factions will capture and defend ports to expand their faction

To do so the Factions need resources to build ships.

Traders will run around the map to obtain resources and sell for profit.

Pirates want to hunt traders for profit.

Crafters will buy resources and craft ships and upgrades

Factions buy ships and upgrades to further their agenda.

 

This means trade, crafting and access to resources becomes imperative. You can call it a economic simulation or trade system. Either way, it becomes a focal point in the game and a catalyst which motivates players into different actions (i.e. piracy, defending rich ports etc). Also, depending where they go with the Open World development, being able to own facilities in ports, e.g. build a lumber mill, buy a bakery or whatever, will further improve the resource gameplay.

 

That "click your way to a ship" thing then relies on certain factors such as... is there even a sawmill in the port to take your Oak Logs and turn them into Planks? Is there a fee involved for doing so which then goes to the owner of the sawmill?

 

At the end of the day though... ships need to sink for players to want replacements, for the crafters to have a market.

 

In MMO's where the game is centered around your characters level and his/her equipment it becomes different from a game where resources dictate your capability to maintain a defense, or to push for offensive actions. You do raids and quests simply to level up, then gear up. It's not about trade, resources, defending territory and so forth.

 

Ships are (fairly) easy to replace in Naval Action, which makes them expendable. Losing the sword you spent 14 raids to finally win would make people quit MMO's, as the items in MMO's and the markets in MMO's are not designed to have items deteriorate or get destroyed. And without items deteriorating or becoming destroyed, there is no foundation for an economy gameplay worth mention, which is why most MMOs don't have focus on economy (besides the swamped bazaar/auctionhall system where you find a thousand offers for the same level 7 recipe items since everyone is crafting them but none of the items are destroyed from game over time).

[Ruthless4u]

This same thing happened in PotBS. The casuals wanted the game to be easier and more forgiving, the pvpers were pretty happy with the way things were.

They listened to the casuals. The game died.

The thing is a game like this is all about its hardcore playerbase. Its those players that make the content for the end game.

Casuals will get to the 1st rate get bored and leave whether they lose it or not. The RvR end game is what keep this game alive and that only works

if the economy backs it up. The main reason why PotBS died was they ruined the economy, they wanted to make it easier for casual players you see.

So your saying that you want a primarily economy focused game vs a pvp one.

How many would of bought in to the game if the YouTube videos that are being pumped out showed a 1700's world of trade simulator ( which seemingly the " hardcore" want ) vs all the combat that was featured.

It really boils down to.

What does the game make you spend more time doing,

Sailing around for several hours on end to try and find logs to either sell or build a ship?

Or do you spend several hours hunting other players on the OW to fight them?

I am starting to get the feeling the game is going to be about one or the other.

Which version is the playerbase more interested in?

Edited February 11, 2016 by Ruthless4u

[Ghroznak]

Which version is the playerbase more interested in?

 

Both.

 

Some people prefer the battles and hunting.

Some people prefer sailing around looking for Oak to produce their ships, or simply sell the goods to a crafter.

 

Why should we have to choose one or the other?

 

Is there any reason why the game can't have both of these things at the same time?

[Ruthless4u]

Both.

 

Some people prefer the battles and hunting.

Some people prefer sailing around looking for Oak to produce their ships, or simply sell the goods to a crafter.

 

Why should we have to choose one or the other?

 

Is there any reason why the game can't have both of these things at the same time?

When a pvper has to spend 5x as much time replacing their losses as they do pvping, then it's not a pvp based game. It's an economy game.

[Tremor]

maybe you should be able to "merge" ships.

 

Your brig has dur 3.

No you are buying a brig with dur 5.

Now you can merge the brig with 5 to the brig with 3

that would result in the dur 3 brig becoming a dur 4 brig.

 

That would give a HUGE boost to crafters. (gray ships i am looking at you)

Higher quality of dur 5 ships may give you a chance to get TWO dur.

green 5%

blue 10%

purble 15%

Gold 20%