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

[mikawa]

When you sail in your 5 dura frigate you can sink 5 times until you have to recruit new men

I didn't quite get the point, I guess. What is if I sell my ship before losing the last dura?

[Widdlemoe]

Economic models inside this game fascinate me.

 

Short Version:  Salary Per Voyage / Provisions is more economically stable in this situation because it does not penalize any group of players over the other (alt makers, eco-players, pve, or pvpers), it rightfully places the expense of the ship on a per voyage bases, and it doesn't introduce a mechanic that could be exploited by the hardcore to the detriment of the casual.

 

Long Version:

 

By using crew as a resource it would be more historically accurate.  Certain ports were known for their ability to muster men; this has merit.  Nevertheless, as the theory is proposed the resource would be a finite renewable resource with battle / sailing effectiveness consequences.  

 

So before I go into why adding a voyage cost creates the desired affect without the negative consequences, let me ask some questions?

 

How many crew can be banked in a Barracks?

How many Barracks can a player have?

Does it require an outpost to Barracks crew?

Would players have to consider positioning a barracks in their building slots?

Would players be given their full compliment of crew (based on rank) per day, or would it be smaller?

What would the refresh rate be?

 

As one sails through the day, based on the answers to these questions, a captain may choose not to participate in a Defense of a Port even though they have a ship in the area and are familiar with port battles / pvp inclined due to their desire to bank or prepare resources for their clan's operations. 

 

One may choose to barracks crew in a non strategic location and be penalized as they try to re-position their barracks. (When the outpost mechanic already has this affect, why introduce another?)

 

I like some of the concepts shared, e.g. skilled-crew are a renewable resource but base crew are everywhere...

 

But really the OP makes it sound like this change is driven at realism of cost and not intended to penalize players for playing risky or making strategic decisions that don't pan out because of timing / ganking / placement / resource renewal rate / blah / blah / blah....

 

So instead of introducing a finite renewable resource, why not make voyages cost money?  Mission and PVP rewards would need to be re calibrated, but before leaving port you simply pay a crew fee based on the intended journey.  Each time you press the sail button a panel comes up asking you to pick a Voyage type.

 

For example:

Manifest: Transport - Crew cost 200 gold pieces

Trait: 2% faster open world speeds

 

Manifest: Trade Route - Crew cost 500 gold pieces

Trait: 5% lower prices on one resource at destination port

 

Manifest: Combat Route - Crew cost 1500 gold pieces  

Trait: 2% improved reload speed

 

Manifest: Port Battle - Crew cost 50% of Spoils no upfront payment

Trait: 2% increased damage to Siege Targets

 

With this system you introduce an expense that promotes planning, rewards players, and doesn't penalize those who don't farm up or position resources.  It treats casual and hardcore players equally.  It's all carrot and no stick, except the costs should GO UP for larger crews on bigger ships.  This portion of the mechanic would be control by a query when you press the sail button to determine crew make up (officers / upgrades: hammocks, marines, etc.) and ship type.  

 

Another incentive could be added where if you sail a ship over and over, theoretically keeping the same crew, the cost gradually reduces.  Five back to back voyages with a Cutter may reduce your expenses by half, because of engendered loyalty.  Or perhaps the first voyage on a new ship requires a premium crew rate in order to staff the ship with the basic crew?

 

I don't know, but adding a finite renewable resource that ticks on the hour which affects game play effectiveness negatively is a mistake and will drive less hardcore players away.  

[ITFHunter]

I didn't quite get the point, I guess. What is if I sell my ship before losing the last dura?

you won't lose Crew. so a frig is only a real 4 dura ship, a consti only 3 dura ship and so on

You did not read the OP careful enough..

 

You loose your crew only if you loose your last dura

 

When you sail in your 5 dura frigate you can sink 5 times until you have to recruit new men

that doesn'T really matter, the only goal which can be reached with that implementation is that the Player has to spend much more time on OW for traveling which is currently already a big Problem.

Edith:

potbs had no crew buy system (not the 5 years I played ) you had them. It regenerated during battle

you had to go into diffrent ports to get your full Crew back, that's what is planned here. But with a "Map" which is much "bigger". so again, you spend to much time for stupid things which doesn'T even have something to do with fun or Action.

Edited April 27, 2016 by ITFHunter

[Jupe]

OK you have to switch ships when you are down to 1 dura. What's the point to have 5 Duras when you really can (or will)use only 4?

[NoShipSailsForever]

we should be unable to get crew from the AI.

 

Cause if thats the case it is indeed just another burden to PvP and RvR.

 

But if they implement it the way I understand it, the main PB ship may once again be a 3rd rate and just a few 1st rate.

At least the opposing nation has the option to exhaust another nation's 1st rate fleet.

 

That way crew becomes a strategic factor.

 

and that would be another reason for me to stick to the PvE server...

that way i don't have to look out for stupid gank fleets (because those guys can't handle fighting 1:1 mostly),

and if i want to  PvP i just join a small / large battle and get a mostly fair battle...which is what i want to do in PvP fights anyway

 

EDIT:

crew doesn't really become a strategic factor then...

people will prolly just stick to 2nd and 3rds until they have only 1 dura left, sell the ship and start from before...no loss of crew that way

Edited April 27, 2016 by NoShipSailsForever

[mikawa]

Sorry, but that doesn't make any sense. Why crew management when one can bypass the whole mechanism by selling a ship with 1 dura? That is ridiculous. Either I have misunderstood the plans the devs have, or we are moving away from "naval action" towads "naval management". In this case I feel like I had better not spent money to buy the early access version.

[Hugo van Grojt]

Economic models inside this game fascinate me.

 

Short Version:  Salary Per Voyage / Provisions is more economically stable in this situation because it does not penalize any group of players over the other (alt makers, eco-players, pve, or pvpers), it rightfully places the expense of the ship on a per voyage bases, and it doesn't introduce a mechanic that could be exploited by the hardcore to the detriment of the casual.

 

Long Version:

 

With this system you introduce an expense that promotes planning, rewards players, and doesn't penalize those who don't farm up or position resources.  It treats casual and hardcore players equally.  It's all carrot and no stick, except the costs should GO UP for larger crews on bigger ships.  This portion of the mechanic would be control by a query when you press the sail button to determine crew make up (officers / upgrades: hammocks, marines, etc.) and ship type.  

 

Another incentive could be added where if you sail a ship over and over, theoretically keeping the same crew, the cost gradually reduces.  Five back to back voyages with a Cutter may reduce your expenses by half, because of engendered loyalty.  Or perhaps the first voyage on a new ship requires a premium crew rate in order to staff the ship with the basic crew?

 

I don't know, but adding a finite renewable resource that ticks on the hour which affects game play effectiveness negatively is a mistake and will drive less hardcore players away.  

 

I love where you are going with this

 

Ultimately, we need to look at crew maintenance from two perspectives, though - and maybe not mix them up in our reasoning:

 

1. crew maintenance cost for balancing the game against 1st Rate creep and providing an additional money sink to counter inflation

2. crew maintenance as an additional strategic layer to customize your ship for its task.

 

These two are closely intertwined, of course - and that is the reason why the economy is so important to PvP as well. But overall - your ideas are awesome

[Captain]

If crew is something like a gold sink, where you can spend gold to get better crew, or even just an additional repair cost called 'hire more crew,' then that is fine. The game could use more gold sinks. 

 

I've given some more thought to the OP.

 

If the idea is to create a cooldown on sailing a first rate again if your first rate is sunk, I guess that's OK. I don't know why it is an issue though, first rates are already very expensive and are not expendable for anyone in the game. So it fixes a problem that as far as I know does not exist. 

 

I don't like the way it interacts with the dura mechanic, it doesn't make sense to me.  If the aim of the crew system is to make the game more historically realistic... ships did not have 'duras' in real life.

 

An honest question:

 

In terms of crew: why should sinking in a one-dura ship, such as a ship captured from an enemy player, be penalized very severely, while sinking in a two, three, four, or five dura ship not be penalized at all? 

 

Your ship sinking is your ship sinking. 

 

One-dura ships already incur a serious penalty - you lose any upgrades you have slotted in them if you sink. Why have a double-penalty?

 

If sinking is going to incur crew penalty, I don't understand why it should only apply when you sink with 1 dura. 

 

If the aim is to make losing first-rates more punishing than it already is, or to create a timed lockout on being able to sail a first-rate again if you sink in one, perhaps an alternative could be used which wouldnt have the same serious effect on people sailing 1-dura captured prizes, or other 1-dura ships. 

 

Maybe if you sink in a first rate, you're put on court martial for a period of time. They did court martial people who lose ships under their command in order to investigate and record the circumstances. 

Edited April 27, 2016 by Captain

[The Spud]

Ok, I will be straight. Do you want to make a game that is fun to Play or is your Goal to make a game that someone has to sail (and do nothing) for several ours?

Now I'll explain my question.

IF you make that Change, what you proposed here, you will have no real oppertunity to have fun within the game since currently you have to travel nearly 50% of your time and do nothing. with that Change you increase that time to more than 80%. Here a example.

you made an outpost in a free habor near an enemy and have some ships there (Basic which are port there, or some other wie "send to outpost"). Then you port to that habour to make some PvP. You go into your first battle, los your ship and more than 50% of your Crew is gone (or maybe all) Then you sitting in that stupid habour and can'T do anything anymore. So you have to buy a cutter and drive home to the nearest port of your Nation and hope that you can refill your Crew. you'll find no Crew there, so you drive to the next, there is still nothing (yeah, ist near a combat Zone) and so on. So for one fight (30 min) you need more than 2 hours to refill your Crew to make the enxt fight. If your Goal is that your playerbase should die because they are bored like hell, that's the way to go. But you could also disable every teleport possibility, that would increase the waste of time for every player. they will travel for 5-6h for a fight and refill. Naval ACTION would then be only Naval sailing.

What you could do is following. If you lose Crew, the Crew is lost and will only be refilled if you go to a habour. In a habour of your Nation you will pay 100% for one Crew (define your price), in a antoher Nation habour (allied) you pay 150% and in a free habour you pay 200%. But the crew can be refilled every time, as Long as you have Money.

Antoher Option. Look at Potbs. you can buy crew in any habour (or was it only where you have an outpost?), make OW Speed faster that you need max 2h to drive from east of the map to the west. It doesnt matter if it's realsitic. Most of the played time in NA is driving on OW and that is boring, since driving on OW doesnt have anything to do with "ACTION"

 

I think if you combine all the proposed changes (diplomacy, wars, PB, etc...) the crew thingy will be less of an issue. The PvP will be more coordinated, port battles are announced a couple of days in advance. So you don't need to sail out to sit in front of a port for two hours just in case the enemy decides to attack that port.

 

If they implement the "Wars" and give point for every PvP fight done, there will be allot less random "just for fun" battles. People will team up to do PvP, so they stand a bigger chance to win a battle. I think the amount of battles you will fight will be less, but they will be bigger and more fun.

[Lannes]

Seamen didn't wear uniforms

 

Look up history of naval uniforms. (I can't copy and paste here. I wish it were possible. It would make life easier.)

[Nordtman]

I like this idea.

(Sadly most of the implemassions in the game are based on the British system of defence.

Sweden (My nation here and also where i live) had a total unique system of holding sailors.

But i will talk/inform more about this later)

 

Warning, this may be slightly off topic, but it is a comment to all the new implemations posted last Days.

 

Time to set things straight: Define what is what, who is who. (If you only want to read about sugestion about the crewsystem, skip this italic text and go to the end of this post)

 

 

Navy (National defence forces)

A Naval officer is paid by the Crown/state to do service in the fleet, often yearly paid.

Prices/goods taken by him: might be bought by the Crown/state, but actully already belong to Crown/state,

as he is their paid servant. He might recive higher rank or other benefits/decorations

Ship for duty is provided by the Crown/state.

Crew is provided by the Crown/state (or hired on their expenses, not on the captains expenses).

Supplies, arment etc: provided by the Crown/state. (or bought on their expenses, not on the captains expenses).

He is not allowed to use Crown/state ship to do privat buisness, no trade what so ever. Only supplies, repairs and arment

that could not be re-sold

 

 

 

Privat Enterprises (Privateer)

This is a privat person, hired by the Crown/state to either bring up enemy ships or take part in operations/battles.

Prices/goods taken by him: is put on auction for sale. Either the cut is made by hands or the Privateer takes all by himself.

Most likely he is part of an Enterprise that financed his ship and crew, of course the owner of this buisness expect a return of

investment, major cut of Money goes to them

Ship for duty is provided by the privatter (or his consorstium) or could be hired from the Crown/state

Crew is provided/hired by the privatter (or his consorstium) or could be put on duty there by the Crown/state

Supplies, arment etc: provided by the privatter (or his consorstium), but could also be supplied and armed by Crown/state

The captain must hold a LETTER of MARQUE, to not be concidered a Pirate, that gives him the right to attack ships from various countries (specified)

A Enterprise does not hold a LETTER of MARQUE,  this must be issued to the Commander/captain of the ship.

 

Pirates (Robbers, highjackers, smugglers)

They have noone to answer to, except God, the Captain and crew are all doing unlegal actions that will get them all killed if captured

As they are all partners in crime, the share is cut in peices: Captain, Officers, Crew and the Boat (maintance etc) get a share from the lot.

the Boat and supplies takes more then 50% of the cut.

 

 

So with this: Conclusion is very clear: all players are Privateers in their nations service. (Hired guns, with other Words).

They are still Naval officers and have the same benifits as such.

However: No one can order them do go beyond their commison: Their letter of Marque, as they will be regarded as Pirates, even by their own Nation. (attacking AI of allied)

They will maybe, non the less, be reguarded as Pirates by other nations, even with the Letter of Marque. (attacking AI of neutral)

 

 

 

What has this "Ranting" to do with crew system?

As follows

A privateer has the following options to crew his ship

 

1.With his own well-trained crew (original crew) High performance and gets a cut of the lot

2.With a trained crew provided by the Crown/state (limited to each player over a time period) regular performance, pays cut to the nation

3.With a radomly hired crew (limited in each harbour) low performance, one time pay.

4.with a drafted or pressed crew (Unlimited crew) very low performance, no pay

 

A won battle will upgrade a % of category 3 and 4 crews: Pressed crew (4) to hired crew (3) and Hired crew (3) to original crew (1)

Category 2 Always remain the same and does not upgrade.

 

One should be able to mix crews in % of each category

 

Captured crew could be paid ransome for to be retrived from the caping player (set ransome), A captured Player should be ransomed (% of his assets) with forced delivery to the caping player (Money, goods, ships ) depending on his Rank, but also in regard to land and position in Nation. With other Words, a high ranked player with position in parliment that is captured by enemy, might loose all he owns (except land , rank,  position) as his family is doing Everything to get him out of prison!

SECOND EDIT: To avoid bankcrupcy, etate: land might have to be sold to the Crown/state for a set price.

 

EDIT:

In case of an attack

In case of an attack on a National port, all captains within certain ranks, are called to duty. If the player does not hold their own ship of the line in his possesion, such ship will be provided, with full supplies, crew and arment by Crown/state. The ship can not be used to attack AI or to trade with, and is re-called by admirality as soon as it reaches a nation port  (or a free town) after the Port battle is finished.

END EDIT

Edited April 27, 2016 by Nordtman

[mikawa]

 

If the idea is to create a cooldown on sailing a first rate again if your first rate is sunk, I guess that's OK. I don't know why it is an issue though, first rates are already very expensive and are not expendable for anyone in the game. So it fixes a problem that as far as I know does not exist.

I totally agree. If I would see hundreds of 1st rates flooding the seas then this might be an argument -- but actually I do not see many of them. So they are expensive and rare. And you'll think twice to sail them out, because they have only 1 dura. So why implementing a game mechanic to solve a problem which does simply not exist? The crew loss at ship loss only affects 1st rates because all other ships have more than one dura.

 

It's written that ships were rather cheap and crew rather expensive. We have expensive ships (with different qualities) and crew for free so what's wrong about that, despite the historical incorrectness? For gamplay's sake you sometimes have to be incorrect.

 

Limited crew per nation only leads to rivalry inside the nations ("oh, I must go online because there are only 150 men left today" -- I find this rather silly) instead of uniting the forces to fight the enemies. I guess this will make the already shaken PVP mode even more unattractive. I could imagine that any loss of XP (and therefore loss of crew and rank) would contribute more to the subject than the proposed national crew management.

[mikawa]

 

1.With his own well-trained crew (original crew) High performance and gets a cut of the lot

2.With a trained crew provided by the Crown/state (limited to each player over a time period) regular performance, pays cut to the nation

3.With a radomly hired crew (limited in each harbour) low performance, one time pay.

4.with a drafted or pressed crew (Unlimited crew) very low performance, no pay

And that is exactly what I fear.

Not the fighting and sailing abilities of the player are responsible for victory or loss, but the personal monetary situation. Do this and turn the beautiful combat game into a stock market game.

[Kloothommel]

I disagree with the OP. It would tip the game too much towards the larger nations, since they have more harbours to visit to get crew.

[Nordtman]

And that is exactly what I fear.

Not the fighting and sailing abilities of the player are responsible for victory or loss, but the personal monetary situation. Do this and turn the beautiful combat game into a stock market game.

 

 

Its about taking risks and gain or lose doing it. Not about "stock market" and trade. U will have ur own amount of trained crew, originaly delivered with the ship. If the original members are killed in battle or captured, u need to either hire or press new crewmembers, to complete it or take crew from Another of ur ships (will be then be regular, until returned to original ship). Option to undercrew.

A small amount of crew could also be given by Crown/state (regular) each day/week, ticking like the Craft xp, with a limit connected to rank. Crew could not be sold or otherwise traded with.

Selling a ship second hand, will not inclued original crew. It has to be trained from Hired or pressed, to come to full knowledge of the ship and its characteristics.

The pressed crew is for free, but can be trained over time as they learn to become sailors and learn about the ship itself.

The hired crew are trained as sailors, but does not know about the specific ship.

 

Edit: If you are a good captain and care about your crew, the crew will performe better. But ok, as for now, u just need to go and buy or Craft an upgrade to get the same. This is "Stock-market" and trade, if any.

Edited April 27, 2016 by Nordtman

[mikawa]

 

Its about taking risks and gain or lose doing it.

Hmm, introducing new mechanics only makes sense if the gameplay has some benefits from it. What gain or benefit do you expect from over-complicated crew rules?

Edited April 27, 2016 by mikawa

[Marten van de Voerde]

As for the crew XP proposals giving bonuses I`m against it. Bonuses, if any, should go from officers.

 

And as nation cap on crew is biggest issue I see in topic maybe instead we should stick to crew increasing like labor hours, with recharge rate connected with faction size in order to balance stuff a bit. Plus, it would deal with risk of clans siphoning all crew for themselves.

 

Plus, base recharge time big enough to be able to crew ships up to 5th rate (or undercrew 4th rate) without waiting time (rate could slow down after certain threshold is met). That should keep OW PVPers happy while adding strategic value in RvR.

 

And for the casual players - as you play only a few hours a day as you say, it woulb be impossible to loose all your crew, coz while you aint playing they regenerate. It could actually be a problem to those "hardcore" players, playing non stop and in constant risk of loosing ships. PVPers basing on capped ships, they indeed can have a problem, unless recharge rate is balanced well. But casuals? Nope.

[Nordtman]

Hmm, introducing new mechanics only makes sense if the gameplay has some benefits from it. What gain or benefit do you expect from over-complicated crew rules?

 

Over complicated crew-rules? In a battle, there is a gain and there is a lost. Even if u win a battle you might have lost some men. U can repair ur ship, but u can not get a reinforcment of crew, if you do not have the ability to resurect dead. Enemy crew from a sunken boat might have saved themselfs unto your ship and you can take them into service?

At a Point, when you know the battle is lost and the enemy is going to overcome you and sink you, even capture you. The option to surrender should be given a second thought, as the remaining crew still could live to fight Another day and you are set free without ransome, only loosing a dura on your ship.

[Marten van de Voerde]

Over complicated crew-rules? In a battle, there is a gain and there is a lost. Even if u win a battle you might have lost some men. U can repair ur ship, but u can not get a reinforcment of crew, if you do not have the ability to resurect dead. Enemy crew from a sunken boat might have saved themselfs unto your ship and you can take them into service?

At a Point, when you know the battle is lost and the enemy is going to overcome you and sink you, even capture you. The option to surrender should be given a second thought, as the remaining crew still could live to fight Another day and you are set free without ransome, only loosing a dura on your ship.

Loosing a crew after each battle or each dura loss would be to punishing, actually creating additional timesinks (which we dont need) not goldsinks (which we need badly), unless we threw all crew limits away as long as you have gold to recruit them (loosing all balance value of the crew, with current abundance of coin). This is the reason we have repair packs for example - u save time by buying them. Option to surrender ship and save the crew would be still a thing to consider in RvR (keep ability to sail SoL while giving away one to enemies).

[Lobottomie]

I think that a crew cost for the game is really good.

 

I just have one remark for any system in whatever way they want to implement it.

 

The system needs to assure that the loss of ships and thereby the loss of crew for each player needs to be relative between whatever ship u loose.

 

It would be very unfair to a player that has one dura because he is in an santi to loose 1080 crew while a 5 dura snow (already sunk 4 times = 480 crew) only looses 120 crew.

 

The loss for both need to be in relation to each other.

 

Also a full ranked player can play all day in snows and loose 1100 divided by 120 times 5 = 45.8 battles (times sunk)

 

A player on rank with 120 crew can only loose 5 battles and he is done for a certain time.

 

I think the proposed system should be checked so that this won't be the case.

Edited April 27, 2016 by Lobottomie

[mikawa]

 

It would be very unfair to a player that has one dura because he is in an santi to loose 1080 crew while a 5 dura snow (already sunk 4 times = 480 crew) only looses 120 crew.

You are wrong. A player with a snow never looses crew because he won't be so stupid to sail out with 1 dura. He will dismount any removeable upgrades from his ship and sell it and buy a new snow. Pointless.

[Vernon Merrill]

Hmm, introducing new mechanics only makes sense if the gameplay has some benefits from it. What gain or benefit do you expect from over-complicated crew rules?

 

There is absolutely NOTHING complicated about it...  You are assuming its going to complicated.  And yes, first-rate creep is ALREADY a problem..

 

Just because YOU dont see it, does not mean its not occurring.

 

How about we actually TEST and try the suggested developments before rejecting them out of hand?

[Marten van de Voerde]

You are wrong. A player with a snow never looses crew because he won't be so stupid to sail out with 1 dura. He will dismount any removeable upgrades from his ship and sell it and buy a new snow. Pointless.

Only if aquiring a new ship would be easier than waiting for a crew recharge. While it could be true for a Snow (or a Frigate in current market realities) it could change drasticly for other ships (exceptional quality of course).

[Nordtman]

Loosing a crew after each battle or each dura loss would be to punishing, actually creating additional timesinks (which we dont need) not goldsinks (which we need badly), unless we threw all crew limits away as long as you have gold to recruit them (loosing all balance value of the crew, with current abundance of coin). This is the reason we have repair packs for example - u save time by buying them. Option to surrender ship and save the crew would be still a thing to consider in RvR (keep ability to sail SoL while giving away one to enemies).

 

 

Well add crew to the repair-pack,, but only pressed (low performance) and there will be no timesink. Instant crew, only dipp in water....

[Long Beard]

Does this not mean that you will have guys going out in their 1st rates and using up the nation's pool thus nerfing everyone elses ability to get crew?