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

[Lannes]

Crew, as is being discussed, is another opportunity for game not being balanced between single players and clans. (This is probably another thread, but I want to mention it here because, in reading the posts on the topic of 'to crew or not to crew', this is what came up.) In ship aquirement and now in crew there is the danger that if you don't belong to a clan you are not going to progress qualitatively, which would be a bias against the single player.

Edited April 30, 2016 by Lannes

[VonBarb]

I think a system like this should be completed with a loyalty / experience system depending on where the crew members were recruited. For instance sailors recruited in Nation capital would start with 100% loyalty 50% experience, crew impressed on AI traders or gang-pressed into service would start at 10% / 10%. Inexperienced crew would be less efficient in all task, but would have the ability to gain xp as you take part in battles. Same with loyalty, with lower loyalty increasing the chance of them deserting in ports. Good/Poor decision making on the part of the Captain and victories / defeats would influence loyalty rating. Officers (or even Captains) would be given bonus / penalty "charisma" or "training" traits to boost loyalty or experience instantly or over time.

 

Wounded crew should be taken into account : not being discounted from total crew numbers, healing over time, faster if you have a doctor, depending on his skill.

 

Food should also be a thing. It certainly was a big one back then. Ships should be provisionned for long trips, maybe in the form of a "buying supplies for X number of days at sea" system similar to what we have for repair kits. Crew with little or nothing to eat would recieve performance and loyalty penalty, also risking disease (counted as "wonded" or "sick" ) culminating with mutiny and desertion in extreme cases.

 

General state of crew could be kept track of via a "satisfaction" system to let you know wether they sing your praise in port taverns or are plotting to murder you in your sleep.

 

You've probably seen a system very much like this one somewhere else, I won't deny it   , but I believe it offers both depth and challenge while adding a few layers of realism and immersion to the "human resources" part of a game like this one.

Edited April 30, 2016 by VonBarb

[Banana_Joe]

Like I said introduce a crew-pack as some kind of "fuel" pack for your ships.

Plan to stay on the sea for 10 game days, buy the appropriate amount of crew/maintenance packs. You rrun out ofvthem, you slowly start losing crew.

If you want to replenish them after battle use them as another kind of repair kit.

The amount needed, the price and the allowed maximum should depend on your ship.

Crew packs could be crafted by barracks.

Edited April 30, 2016 by Banana_Joe

[Ratline]

Like I said introduce a crew-pack as some kind of "fuel" pack for your ships.

Plan to stay on the sea for 10 game days, buy the appropriate amount of crew/maintenance packs. You rrun out ofvthem, you slowly start losing crew.

If you want to replenish them after battle use them as another kind of repair kit.

The amount needed, the price and the allowed maximum should depend on your ship.

Crew packs could be crafted by barracks.

 

Tbh this would bore me to tears, it's just a copy paste of repair packs. Would much rather a more interesting mechanic which adds some diversity to gameplay, whatever we end up with.

[Retrin]

another idea . perhaps said already .. expand as needed ..

 

Best bet would be able to train crew .. repairs, sails, guns, boarding .. etc.. the more skilled that area of crew the better your ship performs in that area ..

 

If you tie this (crew training)  to gold .. then it becomes a gold sink and less gold in game ..

 

Better crew to richer captains (perhaps) but if you tie the crew recruitment to captain reputation the 'better' captain has more crew and most often more gold ..

 

Tie captain reputation to crew recruitment as I have said before based on game stats (battles won/lost, crew killed/lost, distant sailed, ports visited etc)

 

just an idea ..

[Banana_Joe]

Of course I would prefer a system, where I can recruit or press my crew, need to get supplies and maintenance Material. All together with a promotion and experience system for my crew. But being a person who enjoys 2hrs of waiting in Silent Hunter or searching that single plane in Rise of Flight I knowmy wishes would be too hardcore and detailed for the not so sim-enthusiastic player.

So I thought summing up all these costs in one package would be a nice alternative. You could enter Boni and Mali for certain crew qualities etc.

Edited April 30, 2016 by Banana_Joe

[VonVolks]

Good idea and a further way to discourage people constantly sailing about in 1st rates etc

[Chromey]

any chance that crew who win pvp get a type of 'morale ' bonus  so that their crew have more morale in melee or slight % reload  buff? eh??

[meatpukk]

I love this Idea, and if done right I think it can be used as a way to incentivize surrender, or boarding instead of sinking.

I've got some suggestion that I'd like to discss

 

• First off, I think clans should get an allocated part of the nations manpower, based on their size and possibly some other factors.
  This will give clans the option to manage their own resources a little better,
  You could possibly have buildings like academies and barracks, that provide bonuses to crew regeneration and max allocated crew.
   
• Seconsly I think there should be crew loss after every battle. similar to mount and blade, and as other people have suggested in this thread.
  all the "dead people" in a battle is a casualty, a certain % of those will survive, bringing doctors and medical supplies could improve their survival rate
  This would give a reason to bring extra crew to replace losses for longer operations. And give people an incentive to surrender and spare their crew and possibly the ship, like admins suggested mechanic.
  But it will also give a drawback for the attacker, in that it will cost him more to try and sink your ship instead of allowing a surrender, (instead of a surrender button, have the attacker board the enemy vessel without a fight, could allow for some sneaky tactics and getaways).
  It will also add a bleed of manpower for ongoing wars, without necessarily loosing that many ships.
   
• Pirates could have different rew recruitment mechanics. Maybe something based of reputation, crew losses in battle, number of prizes etc.

[Arsilon]

I am not sure I see what this contributes to overall game play other than another time sink -- whether that is to sail around to ports to replenish or waiting for your crew to replenish or whatever.

 

I get the idea of wanting to increase the relative cost of first and second rate ships to force a broader spread of ship types, especially in port battles.  But even then, I'm not sure this accomplishes that objective all that well.  It would appear that it would just encourage the zerg and put the smaller nations at an even bigger disadvantage than they already are.

 

From an individual captain perspective I can see the appeal of more detailed crew management.  But from a broader meta perspective its a detail that doesn't really add much.

 

At least for port battles, could you not accomplish a similar end result by setting overall crew limit for a Port Battle itself?  You could say this is a factor of the size of the port or set it differently for every port.  Or you could allow the attacker or defender to declare the value.

 

Since the new port battle mechanic will allow plenty of advanced notice to prepare, each side could choose how they want to allocate their 'crew points'.  Do they want to bring 25 santis or would they instead prefer to bring 35-40 3rd/4th rates?  Alter the numbers accordingly if there is indeed a hard cap at 25 captains on one side of the battle (max crew could would limit to 10 santis vs. 25 3rd/4th rates for a deepwater battle).

 

There are plenty of other games you could look to for how the mechanic might work to force decisions on makeup of units brought to a given battle.

 

I think people get so caught up in specific details they really forget or can't see the implications for the big picture.

[OTMatt]

 

Since the new port battle mechanic will allow plenty of advanced notice to prepare, each side could choose how they want to allocate their 'crew points'.  Do they want to bring 25 santis or would they instead prefer to bring 35-40 3rd/4th rates?  Alter the numbers accordingly if there is indeed a hard cap at 25 captains on one side of the battle (max crew could would limit to 10 santis vs. 25 3rd/4th rates for a deepwater battle

 

Thats just more forced balancing and less freedom, at least with Admins idea players have the option to bring 25 santis but with extremely high risk. 

[Arsilon]

Thats just more forced balancing and less freedom, at least with Admins idea players have the option to bring 25 santis but with extremely high risk. 

 

What is the added risk?  And is the risk equal for both attacker and defender?  I would argue the risk is larger for a smaller nation.  Without some other balancing mechanic a smaller nation would be less able to absorb the crew loss than a large nation.  Similarly, a smaller nation might not be able to bring a 25 first rate fleet.  How many port battles have you seen where it was 25 santies against not 25 santis where it wasn't a blood bath for the smaller sized side?  Who is going to come out worse for wear on the crew attrition battle?  More often than not, it won't be the larger nation.

[Arsilon]

Another complicating factor with the proposed port ownership changes.  What happens if you don't have access to a port because the lord protector hasn't opened it to you?  

 

Again, the bigger picture interdependencies need to be thought through.  Most of these recommendations sound interesting when looked at in a vacuuum.  It's where they start touching each other that all the problems start to be uncovered.

[Vernon Merrill]

Have you actually read the OP? The devs clearly stated the smaller nations would have a higher RATE of crew replenishment. THAT is the balancing mechanism, or one of them, for smaller nations.

[Arsilon]

 

More populated nations will have less crew per player (total crew pool of 250,000 for 1000 players)

Less populated nation will naturally have more crew per player (total crew pool 100,000 for 100 players)

 

 

 

 

Have you actually read the OP? The devs clearly stated the smaller nations would have a higher RATE of crew replenishment. THAT is the balancing mechanism, or one of them, for smaller nations.

 

 

Have you?

 

He said smaller nations will have less population drawing from a smaller pool (perhaps given a base minimum per port) since smaller nations own less ports.

 

Where does he say smaller nations will replenish faster?

 

And how many other balancing mechanics are required to offset flaws in the base mechanic being proposed vs. just having the base mechanic being proposed set up so that no additional balancing is required?

[Vernon Merrill]

From the OP:

 

"More populated nations will have less crew per player (total crew pool of 250,000 for 1000 players)

Less populated nation will naturally have more crew per player (total crew pool 100,000 for 100 players)"

 Thats 4X 

[Yar987]

From the OP:

 

"More populated nations will have less crew per player (total crew pool of 250,000 for 1000 players)

Less populated nation will naturally have more crew per player (total crew pool 100,000 for 100 players)"

 Thats 4X 

 

That says nothing about replenishment though, just the ratio between players and crew. That shows that the number of crew, at the base line, is static. 

[Vernon Merrill]

Well the assumption is that for the number to remain static, the replenishment and/or availability will be greater.  Regardless, the mechanic is that it'll be easier for smaller nations to obtain crew if they require it.

[Arsilon]

Well the assumption is that for the number to remain static, the replenishment and/or availability will be greater.  Regardless, the mechanic is that it'll be easier for smaller nations to obtain crew if they require it.

 

Not if they are getting ROFLstomped 4x faster by larger nations who have decided to lay on the steamroll.

[Vernon Merrill]

Unless they can take out their 1st rates twice as easily as everyone else...

[Skippy]

I think this is a really bad idea. the crews are ok right now and work just fine. We have nice crew management.  Now by wanted to make agressive new changes like that and also wanting to limit us too much wont do any good. Peopel like using their SOL, i think this is the best stuff that game of to offer   Lets not forget this is a game and a sandbox.  Anyway the way they already have only 1 dura, i dont see why you want to limit them even more. They cost a lot, limited dura, need lot of ressources. I think this is good enough like that and you should not implement a crew replinish feature.

[Arsilon]

The fact that we see in game a port battle with 25x First Rates inside the battle with a 2nd full fleet of 25x First Rates screening outside to keep defenders from joining the battle tells you that first rates definitely do NOT cost a lot.

 

That is the only part of this proposal that I think does have merit, is it makes it that much more "expensive" to field a fleet of 1st rates.  

 

That being said, as with many of the more recent proposals, it overly complicates solution taken in the name of realism that doesn't add anything else fundamental to game play other than the '1st rate tax' element.  There are plenty of other much more simple ways they could tweak availability of first rates that would take a heck of a lot less coding time and take a heck of a lot less effort in balancing than this one if that is the primary goal.

Edited May 2, 2016 by Arsilon

[Teutonic]

I re-read the admin's proposal and I think it's still possibly a good adjustment to the current game.

 

I am concerned though that you won't lose "crew" from your nations pool until the last durability of a ship is "killed." The player will just sell/break up the ship and it's last dura before losing crew, and then purchase a new ship. So all this crew management would "tax" is the 1st rates.

 

If you want to tax all ships, but the bigger ships more, then you need to lose X amount of crew every time you sink or surrender, every time a dura is lost. Granted, 1st Rate creep may slow down, but I'm personally hoping for 1st rates to not be your fleet standard. I'm already hearing the nation "leaders" ask for players to not join port battles unless they have a 1st rate. Holy cow, for arguably the biggest driver to getting PvP, players are being told they can't join unless they're in a 1st rate.

[tiggily]

Wow. Just wow. I would love to see a good crew system. Also i like the idea of making sailing more expensive. But there are some very important steps to do, before you implement those crew settings.

 

But back to topic:

 

Regenerating crew over time is a VERY bad IDEA!!!!! Also bringing it to a cap is a very bad Idea! Cap should be the daily / weekly / monthly hire!

 

E.G.: Bring "Workers" into harbours, so that players need to hire them for their facilities and need them in crafting stations. So to run a business, you will have huge daily cost for getting things crafted. That will make ships more expensive and trading more important! ATM the most traded good in the whole game is the labor hour. This is horrible for a game and feeds the lazy idiots who dont want to do much for earning enough cash for sailing.

 

Bring skills to Sailors and let them be hired everywhere without cap. But the weakest should be hireable in the main capitols otherwise you would feed lazy trolls again. Dont make it complex. So hire a e.G. "Thief" Sailor cost 25g/day but hireing a "Devil" Sailor cost 70g/day - or something similar.

 

I would love to see this kind of system ingame. But get rid of those daily regeneration stuff. Feels a bit like a game, where a monthly fee will enhance those limits in the future. Also use those ideas to enhance the trading aspects of the game. Selling labor h / compass wood cant be all, which the game offer.

 

But there is a really big last point! As everyone can turn into a priate from any nation, pirates should no longer be acting like a nation. Thats a very important part. ATM they are a nation but they should not be fighting for getting ports. They should have 2-3 hideouts like those "Tortuga Islands" and thats all. They should be able to sail with fake flags to get stealth to their target. Also add something like the Criminal timer (eve online could be an example here). Get rid of a pirate nation and make them the bad boys again, which would be more authentic then now. They should be able to hire crew in every harbour and from any nation. They need to be a "pain in the ass" for traders / fleets and more. Not a static nation like they are atm. They just call themselve not "France" or US or whatever. The Nation is called "Pirates" and is atm the most unrealistic part of this beautiful game.

 

Kindest regards

[Banana_Joe]

Pirates should only be possible to craft and consume rum and wine. ;-)

I am completely for a maintenance mechanic. The most expensive part should be to keep your ship working. The bigger the ship, the more you have to pay.

Different crew qualities would be nice effect aswell.

Maybe add national characteristics to the crew. French crew might be better at sailing, British at reloading etc.