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

[Michiel QPO]

Time is really an issue here. Sailing to missions takes a lot of time, sailing Back to port takes a lot of time, sailing to gather resources takes a lot of time.... You get the point.

Now about to add more features which takes a lot of time.

 

I completely agree with you.

[Tristana]

This looks good, I just want to remind the players, who are concerned with this changes, you can never know unless you tried it.

I am looking forward to test this soon. Great work! 

[Anne Wildcat]

You only lose crew when you lose all dur on a ship. So lost crew replenishes after a battle if you didn't completely lose your ship?

They way I see it is it will only hurt those sailing 1 dur ships around and make port battles more risky. If you get down to 1 dur on a 5 dur ship, just get a new ship.

Edited April 26, 2016 by Anne Wildcat

[Carljcharles]

I am fully behind the Dev's intentions with this latest proposal. Just one query from me that doesn't appear to make sense...

 

    "Crew hire cost includes lifetime salary and insurance"

 

Would it not make more sense for this to be an upkeep cost.

 

It would stop 'Crew hoarding' unless you wanted to maintain it because of a short term campaign. 

You should return un-used crew to the pool when you aren't paying for them and would be incentive to do so because of maintenance cost.

The continuous use and maintenance of 1100 men should not be financially sustainable within the game. You should have to build a cash reserve sufficient to use max crew for a short campaign.

'Buying' all your crew as a one of cost just means you can always sail your Santi/Pavel ALL the time. Ditch the game for two weeks and immediately go sail your Santi again, ZERO cost. You should be encouraged to re-crew from the pool.

 

You should use a top rate for specific purposes and they should be a huge money sink. So I'm currently in favour of maintenance not one off cost for Crew.

This would then also better support simple Crew Experience.

All of which is much more reflective of real life.

[Hethwill]

Time is really an issue here. Sailing to missions takes a lot of time, sailing Back to port takes a lot of time, sailing to gather resources takes a lot of time.... You get the point.

Now about to add more features which takes a lot of time.

 

While I do not disagree with what you say, the system which we will be testing puts that decision in your desk. Instead of being a sterile thing it defers whatever you want to do... to you with due rewards and consequences for failure.

 

You might not have to return to port at all given the crew might be lost only in the last durability so it is hard to understand what the issue is.

 

As jodgi well put, it is a captain's conscious decision to take a ship of the line to do a frigate's job and then pay for it with a disaster forcing him to return to port...or not at all.

[Wyspa]

You only lose crew when you lose all dur on a ship. So lost crew replenishes after a battle if you didn't completely lose your ship?

They way I see it is it will only hurt those sailing 1 dur ships around and make port battles more risky. If you get down to 1 dur on a 5 dur ship, just get a new ship.

Well looking at the system it seems it is not really aimed to punish brig/frigate level ships captains, rather the whole system is created to reduce SOL usage, because it becomes risky/costly.

In that regard the system looks nice since it would be a shame if down the line we will only see big ships sailing around. With this system in place even top player have a reason to maintain some smaller frigates and sail out in SOLs only when it is really needed.

Edited April 26, 2016 by Wyspa

[Bloody 9]

One more demand on labor hours??  Making the bottleneck even smaller?

[Michiel QPO]

If it only affects and punishes 1 dura ships, where then is the purpose of boarding an enemy player sailing a ship anything other then a 1/2 dura SOL?

[Hethwill]

If it only affects and punishes 1 dura ships, where then is the purpose of boarding an enemy player sailing a ship anything other then a 1/2 dura SOL?

 

Up to us to find out. The same dilemma you put up is the same as the "why you use a sloop". NA is quite flexible and is about to become more.

 

I still wish to see crew flocking to successful captains and less to other less...confident ones.

[Dharus]

Personally the suggestion by admin isn't terrible although it is basically a tax on ship loss. I'm not sure how useful it would be overall. It being a national resource is a neat idea although it'll probably be painful if players struggle to crew ships. This could be adjusted of course.

I'm also okay with crew loss in battles as well. The change I'd suggest would be to change "repair" kits to "heal" crew as well. Maybe 1/2 healed per repair that way crew loss is still felt but its negative is reduced quickly. It would also mean extra hammocks could be more tactically helpful.

Otherwise, the idea of crew would just boil down to an occasional gold sink. It'll affect losers of ships and have no affect on winners which also isn't ideal. Sometimes victory has a human cost too.

Edited April 26, 2016 by Dharus

[Quineloe]

Is this mechanic supposed to push players or nations into being completely unable to play / defend themselves because they ran out of crew for the day?

 

 

One more demand on labor hours??  Making the bottleneck even smaller?

 

I think you misunderstood, they're not crafting crew with labor hours, they're just saying you get a fixed amount of crew you can hire per day

Edited April 26, 2016 by Quineloe

[The Spud]

I get this will benefit the smaller nations, but it is a bit too extreme. There are still some things unclear, so I would greatly appreciate it if the devs could give an estimation as to what crew would actualy cost? Or would crew be totaly generated over time just like labour hours and not like purchaseable from a "shop" or something?

 

If the goal is to make crew valuable, more valuable then a ship, why on earth would someone risk say 300k crew sailing a one dura consti, instead of buying an NPC 4 dura one for half that money?

If your combined crew in your ship and in your outpost can't be more than the maximum crew your rank can have, if you can fully crew a santi, and you sink it you are out of ship and out of crew.

If you happen to run out of luck and the port you strand at has no crew left, you are basicaly stuck there?

 

I would much rather see a system that gives you a sailing officer, a gunnery officer and a boarding officer. And these guys gather experience after every battle, accordingly they give you bonusses. Like reload time, rigging speed and boarding bonus. You could see their health bar in your HUD, demasting could wound your rigging officer, exploding cannons your gunnery officer and boarding can cost you your boarding officer. The lower the ship armour the bigger the chance of getting the officer severly wounded that he can no longer opperate and a random chance of getting him killed. Not having an officer crewed could give a penalty. You could make it so you need to purchase them from academy's. So they are not available at every port. And you can choose if you want an officer that improves for example reload or accuracy. etc... Higher educated ones could cost huge amounts, and people could also "sell" their well trained officers.

 

Obviously we would have to nerf or remove the upgrades this way, at least the non perma ones.

[Red Jack Walker]

Definitely a good idea: we had to find a way to make crew a valuable resource in game. That will surely affect one dura/ bigger ships (capped ones and 1st - 2nd rates in particular) and it's a good thing in my opinion. Let's test it also to find out how that change will affect PVP and Port Battles. I also hope that crew losses/replenishment mechanics and changes to Port Battles/new possible War mechanics could be a good chance to implement new specific mechanics for Pirates (obviously with peculiar advantages/disadvantages), in order to make them a more unique faction in game.

Edited April 26, 2016 by Red Jack Walker

[maturin]

 

 

Is this mechanic supposed to push players or nations into being completely unable to play / defend themselves because they ran out of crew for the day?

 

It's supposed to stop the suicide bombing, ramming attacks and blue-on-blue kills by people who don't want their ships captured.

 

If surrendering halves your crew loss, then we will see more captured player ships in the economy, which is fun.

 

 

 

I think some numbers would be helpful with explaining things to the community. What is the maximum crew accrual for a solo player flag captain (no lands or recent PvP victory points) who hasn't played for a few days? How many times can an influential flag captain with several ports under his control replenish an SoL crew in a day?

[Wyspa]

Is this mechanic supposed to push players or nations into being completely unable to play / defend themselves because they ran out of crew for the day?

Since smaller nations would get much bigger reserves (per player) I see it as good thing if balanced properly.

That way Bigger nation can get war exhausted pretty fast if they only rely on zerg tactics.

Dealing with small nations picking only battles they could win and using guerilla tactics can exhaust bigger one.

Edited April 26, 2016 by Wyspa

[Marten van de Voerde]

Time is really an issue here. Sailing to missions takes a lot of time, sailing Back to port takes a lot of time, sailing to gather resources takes a lot of time.... You get the point.

Now about to add more features which takes a lot of time.

Guys, again, you loose crew when you loose ship. Last dura of a ship. If you survive battle, crew replenishesh automaticly as it is now. If you sink, and loose your ship and still have duras, your crew is replenished automaticaly. If you loose last dura of a ship, you spawn in port anyway. And need to purchase a ship and all stuff anyway. Where do you see additional timesink here? Mission runners should be totaly unmoved by the change, as a chance that they will actually loose a crew is close to zero, unless they run missions in Santis.

[Lannes]

The open discussion of the crew is needed to make such decisions. While officers are definitely needed and will bring extra dimension to the game - crew if it considered too complex or tedious will not get done. But at least we will have a good answer why its not done for future players.

 

I have been thinking some more about this and came to this.

1) Officers would be good, as you say, an 'extra dimension to the game.'

2) It is good also that you are listening to players/investors ('investors' because we have paid for the game and are testing it at no cost to you).

3) If we were playing a campaign with thousands of 25mm beautifully painted metal figures--(I have 2,000 representing circa 50,000 men)--then the troop numbers, logistics, lines of communication, et cetera, would be appropriately calculated on an ongoing basis.

I have, however, only ONE ship to play with. At the moment, I return to a national base and replenish via payment of a certain sum of gold. I have the additional complexity of arming and outfitting this one ship, so that it does what I want it to do within its limits. It would be onerous if that one ship of mine would have to be out of commission because of the rules of the game, so that I would not have it available to play with for real days or weeks on end.

Edited April 26, 2016 by Lannes

[OTMatt]

I get this will benefit the smaller nations, but it is a bit too extreme. There are still some things unclear, so I would greatly appreciate it if the devs could give an estimation as to what crew would actualy cost? Or would crew be totaly generated over time just like labour hours and not like purchaseable from a "shop" or something?

 

If the goal is to make crew valuable, more valuable then a ship, why on earth would someone risk say 300k crew sailing a one dura consti, instead of buying an NPC 4 dura one for half that money?

If your combined crew in your ship and in your outpost can't be more than the maximum crew your rank can have, if you can fully crew a santi, and you sink it you are out of ship and out of crew.

If you happen to run out of luck and the port you strand at has no crew left, you are basicaly stuck there?

 

I would much rather see a system that gives you a sailing officer, a gunnery officer and a boarding officer. And these guys gather experience after every battle, accordingly they give you bonusses. Like reload time, rigging speed and boarding bonus. You could see their health bar in your HUD, demasting could wound your rigging officer, exploding cannons your gunnery officer and boarding can cost you your boarding officer. The lower the ship armour the bigger the chance of getting the officer severly wounded that he can no longer opperate and a random chance of getting him killed. Not having an officer crewed could give a penalty. You could make it so you need to purchase them from academy's. So they are not available at every port. And you can choose if you want an officer that improves for example reload or accuracy. etc... Higher educated ones could cost huge amounts, and people could also "sell" their well trained officers.

 

Obviously we would have to nerf or remove the upgrades this way, at least the non perma ones.

But what is your proposal to reduce Trincomalee and 1st rate spam.

[Justme]

Not had time to read the whole thing but how would this impact the use of captured trade ships and captured player warships?

Would it be worth using either now seeing you would lose crew if you lose them because of the single dura?

[Taranis]

There is a game called Age of Pirates 2 which had a crew system similar to what is being proposed.  It worked well.  Adding crew dimension, including food supplies, crew morale, crew training/quality - would add depth to the game.  Finding crew and officers and training them is a mission in itself. 

 

Questions:

1) When a player teleports to an outpost, will the crew have teleported as well, or will that captain have to hire a new local crew?

2) Will nationalities (language) play a role in the crew's quality (ability to communicate effectively)?

3) Will crew have a morale system out of battles?

4) Will there be a food supply system for ocean travel?

5) Will there be a compensation table system?  Will the cost to hire crew be a one time affair, or will we risk losing our crew each time we go to port and another player has some outrageous salary offers in port to hire out crews?

6) Why not have tiered casualties in battles?  During a battle, the crew can sustain casualties composed of both fatalities and wounds - meaning that part of the crew would die but other crew members should recover (particularly if you have a quality doctor as an officer).

7) Are we still envisioning having crew training barracks as buildings?

8) Can we get better blue print drop rates or the chance to buy/trade blueprints?  I agree that this change will put additional pressure on getting crafted ships, as players will want to diminish the chance of loosing their crew in a throw-away grey one.

9) Can we also consider getting not just crew but ship building personnel?  Would be nice if one could upgrade one's shipyard by hiring more/trained builders - thus getting more crafting hours...

[Enraged Ewok]

I would advise players not to focus on the possibility of not being able to sail certain ships based on hypothetical numbers. Numbers can always be tweaked depending on player feedback and statistics from a week or two of playing with the changes. The question is, does this sound like a workable system that fits with the rest of the OW and economy design, what mechanics might need to be changed, and are there better mechanics that could be used?

 

Personally, I'm looking forward to the changes. I've seen far too many SoLs and frigates ram each other in the past few weeks to cause fatal leaking and prevent capture. Less so on the fireships, but it is a problem and this seems like a very good way to resolve it, or at the very least give a dire consequence to recklessly endangering your ship and crew. It may also get some of the lone PVE players to stop sailing alone in their 1st-2nd rates out to missions, as the possibility of getting ganked would mean far more than just the loss of the ship. What I'm not sure of is whether or not it will put a damper on mostly 1st rate PBs. Risk is higher, but with the estate ownership changes from the other thread so is reward, but I don't  think the risk of losing a predominately 1st rate fleet outweighs the risk of losing the port because you brought smaller ships and your opponent didn't.  

[Twig]

• Boarding players will be more important - (impress from enemies). 

I LIKE IT! :'D

 

 

Please don't do that, the game is already economy dependent. Don't make it worse than it is currently with the inflation. 

Further, don't forget alt/spy account are hijacking the economy as it is now. I surely don't want to see some troll hiring all the sailors and leaving me nothing left to hire.

 

Last but not least, how is this important to the game? Why adding something unecessarily? You are basically forcing players to run to port everytime he finish his mission. There's no guarentee that mission stacking is viable. (At least from my understanding that crew stick to captain.... care to elaborate)

 

 

Look, I just want to enjoy the game, I don't want to become a manager of my own crew....

 

Richard, the inflation in the game will change anyway as soon as the new update regarding the landlords comes.

@ Admin, will the Lord of a town benefit from those more than other players? E.g. allowing him to hire more - or a % of the available crew is safed for him? In history, those lords were the first contact to get into the military

[Konali89]

The goal of this game in development always has seemed to be  " Experience the Age of Sail feeling/ era". 

Crew is essential to that. Playing a sailing game just comes with crew simple as that in my eyes.

I like the proposed things and i think it would make sailing a 1 dura SOL more risky and they will become powerhouses when its really needed.

 

Nice.

[deathrow222]

i dont like it, its like wot or wow´s where you need to grind the whole day with low tiers to be able to play a few games in your top tiers

plz dont make this game a grinding game

[Lannes]

And, may I add, on our ships, when are we going to get crew that look military (in uniforms) and not a bunch of civilians manning guns?