19 mln vs 60 thousand - the cost of crew - moderated

[Vernon Merrill]

Because, what this MAY do, if you go back and read the OP more carefully, is allow the smaller nations to be better balanced by the OPPORTUNITY to use their first and second rates more liberally.  The stated goal of this mechanic is to balance the factions, which is sorely needed.

[Baron Von WeisenCracker]

You should lose your crew if you lose your ship in battle. Everyone sails Trincomalee, it will be weeks before we can see this gameplay mechanic occur. Rarely will anyone lose all their duras.

Also people who say this is too complex are just unwilling to see the long term goals. With crew costs we see less emphasis on using heavier crew demanding ships and people might actually play with the less popular ships ingame like Cerberus or belles.

So what you are really saying is that you "want to punish those who have played the longest and rose up to the higher ranks, and achieved the higher ships", correct?

 

I would rather see something implemented regarding training/skill levels for crews that survive from battle to battle.

 

The numbers of able-bodied sailors, per nation - I believe is not a good one, for an INTERNET game -- that might see a BOOM in players! Maybe if you have less than 10K players world wide .. but what IF --- it spikes over 50K? what are you going to do when no one has enough crew to man a CUTTER, much less a 1st rate?

[Enraged Ewok]

So what you are really saying is that you "want to punish those who have played the longest and rose up to the higher ranks, and achieved the higher ships", correct?

 

I would rather see something implemented regarding training/skill levels for crews that survive from battle to battle.

 

The numbers of able-bodied sailors, per nation - I believe is not a good one, for an INTERNET game -- that might see a BOOM in players! Maybe if you have less than 10K players world wide .. but what IF --- it spikes over 50K? what are you going to do when no one has enough crew to man a CUTTER, much less a 1st rate?

 

The total pool available can always be tweaked, or even be designed to be dependent on the faction with the most players. I don't think the Devs are going to force all the Brits/Americans/Pirates to sail cutters while letting the Swedes, French, and Danes sail unlimited first rates. The raw numbers are not what deserve our thought and attention here, the assumption is that those will be tuned according  to our testing.

[Baron Von WeisenCracker]

The way I read admin's OP it is a way to make big ships more expensive, just like what happened when they introduced carriages.

And unless you're a 1-dura fool it sounded like an one-off thing.

 

Sounds like all those "Free 3rd rates" on PVP just became un-expendable, or maybe intentionally disposable -via break up!! Or maybe this was their way of dealing with the mass accumulation of them (3rd rates) prior to the latest change (No cap AI warships).

[Musuko42]

Make all crew losses carry over to the open world, exactly like hull damage; lose crew in a battle, you're down that number of crew in the open world until you replenish.

Make crew replenishment work similarl hull repair; you can sail to port and hire new crew, or you can use a more expensive "crew repair kit" out at sea (which would basically just be a shortcut, pretending you've sailed to port and back, but not actually having done so).

Alternatively to the "crew repair kit", allow players to hire crew (at a greater cost) from friendly AI ships in the open world.

 

To mitigate this a little; when you lose crew, but still have the ship, you can get most of them back instantly (wounded crew getting healed by your doctor). So if you lose 100 crew in a battle, you may return to the open world with only a 10-50 crew loss, depending on the capabilities of your doctor (can be tweaked with upgrades, perhaps...or later, with officers).

[Baron Von WeisenCracker]

You don't have 2 minutes to sail to port to refill your crew? Don't make people laugh funny sir. 

With all due respect ... WHAT Port? lets say I am in a part of the map where my nearest "friendly" port is 30 minutes way -- hmmm?

 

And I don't know of many places where I will encounter an enemy, that is relatively close to one I can enter! at least not in 2 minutes .... especially if you are referring to the "wuss out" teleport mechanism. I might have used that option already to get to the battle area to begin with! Some of us like to stray far from home!

Sailing 1 dura ship is risky, do you like risk? If no, then don't sail one and use it for PvE. 

So, is this a PvP server ONLY proposed change?

[Long Beard]

Maybe just make this applicable to 2nd and 1st rates?

[Baron Von WeisenCracker]

Officers - We should have officers and they should give bonuses much like Modules.

 

Yes ... why are there slots on every one of my ships, to include officers.. yet there are no options to fill them? Why don't y'all fix that void first, before adding more complexity and time-dependent issues to the "Game"?

 

I would like something along the lines of "Costs" (Ie Gold - to replenish, at battle result screen ) for crew loss -- but not in - Now you must wait 3 days to recrew your other boats, while we clone you more sailors! 

 

So do we "bank" a certain number of crew for ourselves. IE each person stocks up to their command level. If so, in respect, as a Pirate, at Demon level, I can cmd 650 personnel -- I sail a Connie, and lose it (Last dura) -- now I am out 450 (lets disregard an "extra" crew space build or Hammocks upgrade" which will put that ship at over 500 crew) - I digress.. but if so... now I am out 450 out of my 650 command! leaving me with 200 crew available. For what? a Cerberus, or something <200 crew? SO I go from SOL battles to trawler raiding? And, for several days while my crew "re-builds" or the port replenishes? OR cease playing the game, while it replenishes .. cause lord knows I don't want to lose every ship of mine, and have NO crew at all!

 

Up until the last MAJOR patch - I could cap Warships (I am pirate, its what Pirates do -- not build or farm -- we capture and TAKE!) So nearly every ship of mine is 1 Dura. This creates an issue already! In that, every ship is a potential loss of play time due to rebuilding crew or replenishing crew. Sounds like potentially more sparsely populated servers to me.

[mikawa]

Yes I understand the need of somehow balancing nations with a lot of people against nations with only few people.

But the crew management is likely not the right thing to do that.

 

Let's say I have agreed to participate in a scheduled port battle (see other proposals) taking place in two days. Does that mean, that I must pause this game for two days, because I might lose my crew so that I could not participate in port battle with my 1st rate? What happens if other players had consumed up all available crew? Must I go out in my cutter then? Sorry guys, this is not the right way to handle that. Even worse if a lost boarding means lost crew. This simply destroys PVP completely. Then I do PVE where I'm quite safe not to lose my ship and my crew. If that is what you want, fine. But do not complain about dying PVP.

[Enraged Ewok]

I would like something along the lines of "Costs" (Ie Gold - to replenish, at battle result screen ) for crew loss -- but not in - Now you must wait 3 days to recrew your other boats, while we clone you more sailors! 

 

 

Currently planned implementation is  that you only lose crew if you lose a 1 dura ship. Whether or not you take that risk is on you.

 

 

So do we "bank" a certain number of crew for ourselves. IE each person stocks up to their command level. If so, in respect, as a Pirate, at Demon level, I can cmd 650 personnel -- I sail a Connie, and lose it (Last dura) -- now I am out 450 (lets disregard an "extra" crew space build or Hammocks upgrade" which will put that ship at over 500 crew) - I digress.. but if so... now I am out 450 out of my 650 command! leaving me with 200 crew available. For what? a Cerberus, or something <200 crew? SO I go from SOL battles to trawler raiding? And, for several days while my crew "re-builds" or the port replenishes? OR cease playing the game, while it replenishes .. cause lord knows I don't want to lose every ship of mine, and have NO crew at all!

 

 

 

Answered in the OP post. Crew banks to the max you can command, crew not needed for your ship wait in barracks ashore. If you lose a 1 dura ship and lose the crew on it, sail something smaller with your remaining crew until they replenish. With the wind force changes coming, it may be a better idea to sail that Mercury instead of a Trincomalee anyways dependent on the weather. 

 

 

Up until the last MAJOR patch - I could cap Warships (I am pirate, its what Pirates do -- not build or farm -- we capture and TAKE!) So nearly every ship of mine is 1 Dura. This creates an issue already! In that, every ship is a potential loss of play time due to rebuilding crew or replenishing crew. Sounds like potentially more sparsely populated servers to me.

 

There's really no excuse to not have a 5 dura 5th rate. Exceptional frigates are selling for less than 150k in MT, so no reason not to buy a couple. Basic ships up to Constitution are also available from NPCs, and I've never seen an NPC ship costing over 150k.

 

 

 

Yes I understand the need of somehow balancing nations with a lot of people against nations with only few people.

But the crew management is likely not the right thing to do that.

 

Let's say I have agreed to participate in a scheduled port battle (see other proposals) taking place in two days. Does that mean, that I must pause this game for two days, because I might lose my crew so that I could not participate in port battle with my 1st rate? What happens if other players had consumed up all available crew? Must I go out in my cutter then? Sorry guys, this is not the right way to handle that. Even worse if a lost boarding means lost crew. This simply destroys PVP completely. Then I do PVE where I'm quite safe not to lose my ship and my crew. If that is what you want, fine. But do not complain about dying PVP.

 

Then sail smaller ships, or sail ships with multiple durabilities. Why sail a 1st or 2nd rate with all the risk that entails (even in our current game version)? Regarding being forced into a cutter, once again, I think its highly unlikely it will ever come to that. Should it come to that, the solution is tweaking the numbers and not throwing out the entire system. I honestly think that if your nation manages to lose that many Santisimas with the slower port battle tempo, you have much larger problems at hand than your next PB. 

 

Regarding dead PVP. Please stop this doomsaying. People said PVP would die when AI ships could no longer be captured. I've gotten more PVP post patch than I ever had before it. People said 1.5x BR rule would kill PVP. I was getting more fights, and often got more fun fights, with it than before. The crew mechanic is not going to kill PVP. It's going to be a wakeup call to the idiots that sail alone in their Santisimas and Victorys for PVE to not do that, in addition to giving an actual consequence to green on green ramming to prevent ship capture and fireshipping.

[Musuko42]

In addition to my previous post; I don't think crew should be a limited resource. There should always be crew available, so you're never stuck being unable to man your ship (which is a "turn off the game and do something else for a while" problem, if encountered).

 

What COULD be limited is the quality of the crew, if such a thing is implemented. Every port would have an unlimited supply of really awful, untrained, unruly landlubbers, and a limited supply of good-quality crew, who are faster at reloading cannons, setting sails, etc, and whose morale is higher. How limited is something that can be controlled to help balance nations. Maybe a nation on the back foot in the caribbean sends more trained sailors over there (presumably weakening their strength in Europe and elsewhere, but we're not concerned with that).

 

It wouldn't be the whole answer to the balance issue, but it could be part of it.

[Hethwill]

I think many are forgeting the ( quite historical ) surrender way out to save the crew. Boils down yet to more options to the captain.

[Baron Von WeisenCracker]

PvE1 server:

 

@ enraged Ewok... I understand about the 5th rates Dura 5 availability in NPC shops -- I have BP's -- I can craft my own, if need be. BUT I took several Surprises and other ships as prizes before the last content patch. ALL of them are 1 dura however.

 

Connies are 157K , just slightly over the 150K criteria you eluded to. BUT I get your point. However ... My main issue, is MOST of my ships are 1 dura..anh, its the life of a Pirate! So I would risk the loss of all those crew every time I set sail.

 

Its all about the wait time too. I lose my Connie (450) crew - out of 650 -- actually mine is carrying 472 currently -- and now I only have 168 crew left to set sail in something else! That puts me way down in a Mercury! (respectfully speaking, of course). And they have NOT even disclosed and potential replenishment rates yet.

 

For replenishing, how many crew per hour/day? Is it REAL time hours/days, or game time hours/days?

 

Along that line... I really don't like BASIC builds from the NPC store...especially not the frigates and higher -- I don't care for Fir or Teak wood builds in those higher class ships. Especially if I am going to get into doing missions and fleet battles! Demon and higher rated. And now --- with talk about crew loss for losing your BOAT, that ONE last (or only) time ... arrrgg!

 

Cheers,

-Yank

[Volcanus]

 

You don't have 2 minutes to sail to port to refill your crew? Don't make people laugh funny sir. 

 

You are kidding right? Have you not played Admiral missions or anything near or after the Flag captian level mission?

Those are 15 minutes out from port alone. The only way they are viable is if you do multiple missions in a chain with friends. With this system you will have to return to port every battle if they don't add some system of restoring after battle your men. Now lets talk about PvP. You lose some men to a battle or a few battles, now you have to go 40 minutes out to a friendly port in unfriendly waters to restock men which will be scarce in those ports close to the front line because of people of your nation already taking the crew already at that port. Then you have to go to a further out port possibly traveling in head wind and avoiding crazy huge shallow regions only to restock crew. Then you notice you have wasted 1 or more hours sailing, only to have to sail back another 1 hour for a small 20-30 minute engagement. 

All this does it make it more accessible to players who can invest a lot more time. Alienating more casual player base or people who work most the day. I am lucky i have a lot of time to play games compared to others and even i don't want this silly crew stuff added. It is enough to add officers who will take some of your earned gold while giving you some sorts of buffs but adding crew management to the point you have to pay or hire them at a limited stock is just stupid and won't work in this game ever.
 

 

 

 

For replenishing, how many crew per hour/day? Is it REAL time hours/days, or game time hours/days?

 

Yeah this. If it is as bad as port resource replenishment i am totally against it. 

Trading already is horrible for making a profit as it is right now. Adding another huge gold sink to the game which is on a time based system and also an attrition system.. I don't think i would ever PvP again with that kind of system. Even the harder PvP players will get more carebear and won't want to trade 3rd-2nd or 1st rates anymore. Too damn risky.

Edited April 27, 2016 by Volcanus

[Nordtman]

It is funny how some players can not see the "Inflation" in things. We start in a basic cutter, struggeling hard every day to finely reach the moment when we can sail around in a victory or a satismo. The problem is: All the players are sailing around in these ships. There is no limit in things (and why would it be?).

Im at the Point where I can buy anything I wish for. But I have returned to only sail basic ships, not being affraid of loosing my golden monkeys in a 1 dura ship.

 

My Money stash only grewing higher and higher and I am getting to lazy to trade, the game  is loosing challange and with this for sure, also players

Making it EXPENSIVE to own and sail a BIG ship, with crew and supplies etc, is a way to lower my Money stash or make me sail a smaller, cheaper one.

 

(A cutter or a Lynx with a couple of 100 crew and full boarding-gear, making deck-guns useless and all comes down to skill in Close-combat......)

[The Spud]

Yes I understand the need of somehow balancing nations with a lot of people against nations with only few people.

But the crew management is likely not the right thing to do that.

 

Let's say I have agreed to participate in a scheduled port battle (see other proposals) taking place in two days. Does that mean, that I must pause this game for two days, because I might lose my crew so that I could not participate in port battle with my 1st rate? What happens if other players had consumed up all available crew? Must I go out in my cutter then? Sorry guys, this is not the right way to handle that. Even worse if a lost boarding means lost crew. This simply destroys PVP completely. Then I do PVE where I'm quite safe not to lose my ship and my crew. If that is what you want, fine. But do not complain about dying PVP.

I don't think the devs will implement a feature that will limit you from playing the game for some days, if you need to play another game for a couple of days, the chances are very high that you won't return to the game. The only games that limit progress by timers are these free2play games where they just want you to do microtransactions to speed things up.

 

Labour hours are to be regenerated, because they would unbalance the game otherwise, and they don't prevent you from playing the game. Only viable system I could agree on is taking on rations for your trip, and having to dock up after X amount of days at sea, so your crew doesn't starve to death.

[OTMatt]

It is funny how some players can not see the "Inflation" in things. We start in a basic cutter, struggeling hard every day to finely reach the moment when we can sail around in a victory or a satismo. The problem is: All the players are sailing around in these ships. There is no limit in things (and why would it be?).

Im at the Point where I can buy anything I wish for. But I have returned to only sail basic ships, not being affraid of loosing my golden monkeys in a 1 dura ship.

 

My Money stash only grewing higher and higher and I am getting to lazy to trade, the game  is loosing challange and with this for sure, also players

Making it EXPENSIVE to own and sail a BIG ship, with crew and supplies etc, is a way to lower my Money stash or make me sail a smaller, cheaper one.

 

(A cutter or a Lynx with a couple of 100 crew and full boarding-gear, making deck-guns useless and all comes down to skill in Close-combat......)

Yes half the players are rejecting this proposal and they do not offer a decent solution to reduce superfrigate and SOL spam. This past weekend I've been sailing around in nothing but trincomalees and 3rd rates and it only took me 2 months to get both.

[Rouleur]

Anything that prevents a player from sailing a specific ship type a player has the rank to when they want to do it will result in people giving up playing, If I cant participate in a PB through lack of crew despite having a SOL in my inventory means I can't play in the way I would like to, that is a problematic game mechanic, In reality, a nation can just conscript what it needed at the end of the day. There are very very few examples where a whole ships complement are lost when a ship is lost - more likely to happen by accident than in a battle and this means the dura system is even more absurd. Either all ships have some or none as you can suicide a dura ship without losing crew and only sailing a first rate creates crew lose risk (apart from explosion) which is rather silly.

 

Also you can't generally press sailors from a nation you are at war with - they tend to become POWs and cost money to keep until exchanged during the next peace. Impressment was far more likely to impact the crews of trading vessels.

[Musuko42]

Yes half the players are rejecting this proposal and they do not offer a decent solution to reduce superfrigate and SOL spam.

 

1: Crew costs, as discussed here.

2: A constant cost to own the ship, even docked (needs maintainance, etc).

3: We gain XP and rank in the game...we should also be able to lose it too; lose a ship, for whatever reason, and you will lose XP. Lose a big ship and you lose a LOT of xp. Sinking a victory should be grounds for demotion.

 

The bigger ships should be expensive to own, to run, to sail, and be more damaging to your reputation and rank if you lose them, and sensible captains should think carefully about bringing them out, reserving them only for the roles they were designed for; big fleet battles. Like, as I imagine, in my uneducated guesswork kind of way, they were in real life.

[akd]

This sounds great! A few specific comments below.

 

 

Changes to crew

• Crew is a limited resource in ports (cannot be crafted). 
• Crew has to be hired in ports or impressed from enemies by means of boarding
• Crew is provided in certain number per day (a-la labor hours)
• Crew hire cost includes lifetime salary and insurance

???

• You lose crew when you lose the ship (all durabilities)

I don't think there is any need to punish all single durability ships so harshly.  If you are focusing this on making 1st rate loss more meaningful, there are different ways to accomplish this goal.

• You lose crew completely even if did not lose durabilities if you explode

Great, but this exacerbates a current problem: if they can't blow up, everyone sinks themselves intentionally.  If my loss is the same regardless, and the enemy gains something through fighting a hard fought battle that ends in boarding (i.e. how battles were really fought), I will just let myself sink or ram and sink the moment I think the battle has turned against me (or as soon as I think I can't escape if in a trader with goods).  This leads to crappy gameplay for everyone (e.g. forcing players to only shoot at masts).  Crew should be lost completely if you blow up or sink.  Or alternatively, crew and officers are lost if you blow up (suicide bombing should come with great sacrifice) and crew is lost if you sink.

• You don't lose crew if you surrender (maybe - not sure)

I'd suggest you keep a portion of crew if you are captured in boarding or surrender, perhaps more for the latter (and surrender option should be added to boarding combat).  However, if not in boarding combat, surrender should be on a countdown or something so that people don't just surrender seconds before sinking / exploding (or alternatively you cannot surrender while flooding or on fire).

[Ned Loe]

With all due respect ... WHAT Port? lets say I am in a part of the map where my nearest "friendly" port is 30 minutes way -- hmmm?

 

And I don't know of many places where I will encounter an enemy, that is relatively close to one I can enter! at least not in 2 minutes .... especially if you are referring to the "wuss out" teleport mechanism. I might have used that option already to get to the battle area to begin with! Some of us like to stray far from home!

So, is this a PvP server ONLY proposed change?

You don't loose crew if you have dura and you got killed. You do loose crew and last dura + teleport to nearest friendly port. Please read more carefully.

[Ned Loe]

 

 

 

You are kidding right? Have you not played Admiral missions or anything near or after the Flag captian level mission?

Those are 15 minutes out from port alone. The only way they are viable is if you do multiple missions in a chain with friends. With this system you will have to return to port every battle if they don't add some system of restoring after battle your men. Now lets talk about PvP. You lose some men to a battle or a few battles, now you have to go 40 minutes out to a friendly port in unfriendly waters to restock men which will be scarce in those ports close to the front line because of people of your nation already taking the crew already at that port. Then you have to go to a further out port possibly traveling in head wind and avoiding crazy huge shallow regions only to restock crew. Then you notice you have wasted 1 or more hours sailing, only to have to sail back another 1 hour for a small 20-30 minute engagement. 

All this does it make it more accessible to players who can invest a lot more time. Alienating more casual player base or people who work most the day. I am lucky i have a lot of time to play games compared to others and even i don't want this silly crew stuff added. It is enough to add officers who will take some of your earned gold while giving you some sorts of buffs but adding crew management to the point you have to pay or hire them at a limited stock is just stupid and won't work in this game ever.

 

 

 

Yeah this. If it is as bad as port resource replenishment i am totally against it. 

Trading already is horrible for making a profit as it is right now. Adding another huge gold sink to the game which is on a time based system and also an attrition system.. I don't think i would ever PvP again with that kind of system. Even the harder PvP players will get more carebear and won't want to trade 3rd-2nd or 1st rates anymore. Too damn risky.

 

 Then you have to go to a further out port possibly traveling in head wind and avoiding crazy huge shallow regions only to restock crew. 

 

Please re read dev post, you don't loose crew after battle, only when you loose your last dura. It doesn't change anything. Only effects brand new ship that recently got built and needs crew or last dura ship that sunk and all the crew with it. I might be wrong , but devs also said you can board ships to replenish crew numbers and store them in barracks if you have extra. Why starting this public cry? When you got no idea what devs talking about. 

 

• You lose crew when you lose the ship (all durabilities) <--- last dura
• You lose crew completely even if did not lose durabilities if you explode <--- explosion only

[Ned Loe]

Yes half the players are rejecting this proposal and they do not offer a decent solution to reduce superfrigate and SOL spam. This past weekend I've been sailing around in nothing but trincomalees and 3rd rates and it only took me 2 months to get both.

Half of the players can't read and imagine things from their heads and quickly post here and cry about something that doesn't even exist. I can't find words for this, can someone help me?

 

How about place a question and get an answer thing?

[maturin]

I think surrendering should halve crew loss. It's high time we incentivized this.

[Ned Loe]

I think surrendering should halve crew loss. It's high time we incentivized this.

Not all 100%, 50% would be enough. Due to defeat and morale loss, some crew will join other side.