Crew management update - discussion

[Captain Red]

500 gold coins per crew, are we buying every dude a villa or what?

[shaeberle84]

500 gold coins per crew, are we buying every dude a villa or what?

 

It is more like this:

 

In economics, present value, also known as present discounted value, is the value of an expected income stream determined as of the date of valuation.

 

We buy the guy including all his further expenses such as wages, food, supplies, clothing, etc. for the rest of his life.

[BungeeLemming]

we buy a sailor's lifetime salary, provisions, clothing.. all that comes along with hiring a seaman for a ship's service time.

[Vernon Merrill]

Don't get them killed so quickly and you'll get more bang for your buck. Literally.

[The MetaBaron]

Gameplay decisions are being made based of steam reviews? This is not a good direction for a niche game to take.

[Cmdr RideZ]

The thread seems to straggle a bit...

 

Crew is ok, just make sure that the people are able to do PvE.  For many it is the place to learn the ropes, and as in other mmo games, it is also the place to level.  In NA you do not really need to level up to cap, but I am sure many will do it anyway.

 

I hope you understand btw. that the crew is only an additional penalty for the losing side.  So the new players, they are the ones suffering from this.

Also in constant PvE, someone wants to get the next rank, these are the guys suffering from the crew as well, probably most.

The players who have max rank and they know the ropes -> They could not care less if there is a crew to take care, because they do not lose them in numbers that it would be meaningful.

 

 

I think there are 3 kind of PvP in this game.

1. Capturing the traders

2. Port Battles

3. OW PvP, just because

 

The first 2 are the most important, and probably should have no AI fleets, at least not on PvP servers.

 

Traders with AI escorts, just does not fit in a PvP game that has pirates, or the economy that NA has atm.  I understand perfectly why Pagan Pete is against those.

Also the economy is player driven, so it is an important area in the game.  The idea that you cannot craft ships without a trader transferring goods, this is a good one.  It creates interesting PvP scenario, and economy as well.  Ruining that with the fleets, is probably not the best idea.

Deliveries between Free Towns, I understand that this would need server resources, if every time you deliver, an AI fleet is sent to actually do the delivery.  Still, it is slightly breaking the scenario where you actually have to transport goods to craft.  So I suppose, there should not be magic deliveries at all, or then there should be AI traders.

 

Port Battles, I think you will have a patch for this, which probably will fix the issues people have pointed out.  It is rather obvious that there should not be AI fleets here, right?  The same way the traders should not have AI fleets, right?

 

OW PvP, this is for psychos who just want to sink and kill people, and for escorts, and for screens defending the port.  If we want to hazzle the AI fleets on PvP servers, I suppose this would be it.  I admit that this is the most fun for me, and am not really interested to shoot AI fleets, but there is another reason why I think this could be ok...

One player with 2 AI fleet ships + another with a trader -> 3 combat ships + 1 trader, and you need just 1 friend to do that.  For escort "missions", it can be hard to find people, so I think this could make sense.

[Skully]

I think there are 3 kind of PvP in this game.

1. Capturing the traders

2. Port Battles

3. OW PvP, just because

 

The first 2 are the most important, and probably should have no AI fleets, at least not on PvP servers.

You are forgetting economic warfare.

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15088-no-more-taxes/?p=280243

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15345-x-files-the-price-of-crew/

And which is the more important is a matter of taste and style.

[kadrin]

500 gold coins per crew, are we buying every dude a villa or what?

Yeah, 500 gold per crew is far too much. 

 

They've literally killed the game for me and my group of friends.  None of us want to spend hours farming gold to buy ships AND crew, just the ships was enough, especially because it means hours of farming gold to pvp once or twice, blow all my gold replacing all the crew I lost pvping, then needing to go farm missions again.  Not too mention the cost if we had to replace the ship we lose too.

 

I lost a Trincomalee and had to pay some 162000 gold to replace that crew, that was twice gold I spent buying the ship.  For some people that's chump change, for us who don't play nearly as much, that's crippling.  I play on the PVP server to PVP, not to farm AI fleets for hours and then PVP once in a while because I can finally afford it.  If I wanted to just sink AI ships all day I'd play on the PVE server.

[Skully]

Yeah, 500 gold per crew is far too much. 

 

They've literally killed the game for me and my group of friends.  None of us want to spend hours farming gold to buy ships AND crew, just the ships was enough, especially because it means hours of farming gold to pvp once or twice, blow all my gold replacing all the crew I lost pvping, then needing to go farm missions again.  Not too mention the cost if we had to replace the ship we lose too.

 

I lost a Trincomalee and had to pay some 162000 gold to replace that crew, that was twice gold I spent buying the ship.  For some people that's chump change, for us who don't play nearly as much, that's crippling.  I play on the PVP server to PVP, not to farm AI fleets for hours and then PVP once in a while because I can finally afford it.  If I wanted to just sink AI ships all day I'd play on the PVE server.

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15026-pvp1-july-tobbies-tobacco-imperium/?p=288833

Tobbies offers crew at $250/crew, which means you lost 648 of your Trincomalee.

You must have had Awesome Hammocks.

[akd]

I fear the massive Bucentaure giveaway is distorting the crew cost issue. Yesterday I helped separate and capture a Bucentaure from a big pirate fleet. This Bucentaure:

-was very undercrewed because of lower player rank, which means player had 100% of his crew on board

-didn't surrender and let me board him

-was carrying 5x small medkits in his hold

Don't undercrew larger ships, investing all of your crew on something you are more likely to lose. Don't carry medkits in your hold for PvP. When you need them most is when you are going to lose them if they are in your hold. And finally, use surrender if continueing to fight is going to make no difference to the outcome for you or your team.

We can see how things work out over time, but I currently have zero sympathy for people whining about crew cost. Too many are refusing to adapt how they play. Pointless (not glorious) suicides are still routine. Medkits market is still developing, but should have much greater participation (use those labor hours).

[ajffighter86]

I fear the massive Bucentaure giveaway is distorting the crew cost issue. Yesterday I helped separate and capture a Bucentaure from a big pirate fleet. This Bucentaure:

-was very undercrewed because of lower player rank, which means player had 100% of his crew on board

-didn't surrender and let me board him

-was carrying 5x small medkits in his hold

Don't undercrew larger ships, investing all of your crew on something you are more likely to lose. Don't carry medkits in your hold for PvP. When you need them most is when you are going to lose them if they are in your hold. And finally, use surrender if continueing to fight is going to make no difference to the outcome for you or your team.

We can see how things work out over time, but I currently have zero sympathy for people whining about crew cost. Too many are refusing to adapt how they play. Pointless (not glorious) suicides are still routine. Medkits market is still developing, but should have much greater participation (use those labor hours).

 

I agree with constructing med kits. Even if you don't get the best prices on materials you can usually build them for cheaper than you can hire new crew.

 

I bought 20 large med kits in KPR because they were priced at 50K (which is not even the cheapest people will sell them for), but it was a third less than the cost of hiring all that crew.

 

Granted, it was very risky to haul them back to cayman brac to store them in my warehouse. Fortunately no one could catch my trader lynx. If they did they would have gotten 1 million gold worth of loot.

Edited August 1, 2016 by ajffighter86

[ajffighter86]

If this was on the USPVP2 server, I thank you for your business.

 

PVP1 but yeah I'm sure the guy who made them was like, "These will never sell " and then "Contract Fulfilled"

Edited August 1, 2016 by ajffighter86

[kadrin]

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15026-pvp1-july-tobbies-tobacco-imperium/?p=288833

Tobbies offers crew at $250/crew, which means you lost 648 of your Trincomalee.

You must have had Awesome Hammocks.

 

I don't know what to tell you, his math is wrong or my game is screwed.

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/46177663/math%20says%20500.png

 

That says 500 gold per crew member.

[kadrin]

So you lost 324 men on one ship?   That is well on you and bad choices as a captain.   If I realize that the situation is out of hand I will surrender to save the crew.   I run around 75% of the time in a Romnee with 252men on it, or on a Navy Brig with 146 men on it.  I rarely replace more than a handful of men after (a week in game time) of hunting.     But I also make medkits mediums and smalls. 

 

I average 200k a day in profit so a loss of 165k is nothing when I think about it.   But I still try not to lose that many men as I like to have back up ships.

 

But I know nothing because I am just a person who likes to sail around in ships smaller than my rank would normally sail in.  I like brigs and 6th rates, I like having a ship that is able to sail, and fight anywhere, shallow water, deep water, it doesn't matter. 

 

But I also will surrender if the fight looks like I cant win or escape.  

I don't claim to be a good captain, and they cannot expect everyone who plays to be one as well.  The vast majority of players will not be the best, and taking losses like this will kill the game.  And not everyone is going to want to bother with the crafting system, I myself was just barely starting to craft and noticing how expensive it is to make stuff and level up, and now on top of crafting and buying ships, I also need to replace dead crew?  Yeah, no thanks, I literally do not have the time, nor would I want to spend the time, grinding AI fleets to pvp only once in a while in a pvp game.

[akd]

I don't know what to tell you, his math is wrong or my game is screwed.

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/46177663/math%20says%20500.png

 

That says 500 gold per crew member.

He is saying it is only 500 gold if you are lazy and refuse to participate in developing medkits market.

BTW, bottles are now routinely dropping rum and tobacco, and we all have nearly unlimited food supplies from massive amounts of collected fish meat (fish meat + cheap salt = food supplies). There is really no excuse for players not to make their own medkits now and then. From 3-4 bottles in last 2 days I have everything I need to make 2x large medkits (300x crew for free).

[kadrin]

He is saying it is only 500 gold if you are lazy and refuse to participate in developing medkits market.

BTW, bottles are now routinely dropping rum and tobacco, and we all have nearly unlimited food supplies from massive amounts of collected fish meat (fish meat + cheap salt = food supplies). There is really no excuse for players not to make their own medkits now and then. From 3-4 bottles in last 2 days I have everything I need to make 2x large medkits (300x crew for free).

Ah, so crafting is being forced on the player if they don't want to pay out the ass.  And if all the supplies for medkits are going to be so abundant, why even have the need to replace crew losses as a thing?  Why even give players the option to pay a ridiculous amount of gold to replace crew?  That's a serious noob trap, the kind that hurts games.  You punish players who don't understand the mechanics or don't want to craft in a naval combat game, and those who like crafting (or at least don't mind) pay no cost for crew losses.  It's a terrible design decision.

Edited August 3, 2016 by kadrin

[Hethwill]

Ah, so crafting is being forced on the player if they don't want to pay out the ass.  And if all the supplies for medkits are going to be so abundant, why even have the need to replace crew losses as a thing?  Why even give players the option to pay a ridiculous amount of gold to replace crew?  That's a serious noob trap, the kind that hurts games.  You punish players who don't understand the mechanics or don't want to craft in a naval combat game, and those who like crafting (or at least don't mind) pay no cost for crew losses.  It's a terrible design decision.

 

Don't abuse ships that use too much crew. It is not a punishment. It is a consequence.

 

I.E. Using a 600 crew ship to do a job that can be done with a 300 crew ship might have consequences. Double.

[akd]

Ah, so crafting is being forced on the player if they don't want to pay out the ass.

Buy medkits from players (prices are creeping downward). Turn heaps and heaps of accumulated fish meat into food supplies and give to crafters for even deeper discounts on medkits.

[Daliscar]

I've always felt death in MMOs should be a little more costly.

 

Makes you really want to fight to stay alive and gets your adrenaline going when things arnt going well. 

 

Nonetheless, the way things are now, i still think pvp is profitable even with the crew losses ocassionally if you take calculated risks. 

 

Buying medkits also boosts the economy, now crafting players have an extra source of income.

[kadrin]

Don't abuse ships that use too much crew. It is not a punishment. It is a consequence.

 

I.E. Using a 600 crew ship to do a job that can be done with a 300 crew ship might have consequences. Double.

Don't abuse ships that use too much crew?  Using a 600 crew ship for a 300 crew ship job?  I don't even know what you're trying to say.  The ship I'm using for my mission is often on the opposing team in that very same mission, I'm using a level appropriate ship.  Unless you're trying to tell me that I should be using a worse ship than what I'm going up against, in which case that's absolutely insane, I should be able to match what I'm going up against.  Heck, I should be able to use a better ship than what I'm facing to make things easy and quicker.

 

Buy medkits from players (prices are creeping downward). Turn heaps and heaps of accumulated fish meat into food supplies and give to crafters for even deeper discounts on medkits.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/46177663/Medkits.jpg

Yeap, all those medkits for sale from other players on the US PVP server.  There probably is some in a different port, but I'm not gonna be assed to spend the time sailing around looking to see which port people are selling medkits in, as far as I'm concerned, if it's not in the nations capital (what should be the central hub of the nation) there's no point looking for it.

 

Can't make my own either, played for about 5 hours and got a whopping 24 fish meat.  Unless I want to buy more off the market, but then looking at the price to make just one medkit it's not even an option.  500 gold per crew is cheaper than buying the materials to craft a medkit, and this is only a medium medkit, I can't craft large ones yet.

 

The last mission I did was a 152, got 68k gold, plus the 5k from the mission for 73k.  Lost 39 crew for 19500 gold, used a repair kit during the battle to stay alive for 6.8k gold, had to repair my ship when I got to port for another 7.3k gold.  So I actually only earned 39400 gold.  And I did pretty well that mission, with about 500 hull hits, 6 kills and 2 assists, which took 40 minutes.  39000 gold for 40 minutes.  Almost half of what I earn goes into just maintaining the ship I'm in now, at this rate it'd take me 33 hours to make 2 million gold, and be able to afford a nice exceptional quality constitution or something, and that's only assuming I have literally no other expenses in the meantime like losing a ship in PVP, which on a PVP server is going to happen because I WANT TO PVP.  Grinding endlessly in PVE just to PVP every now and then is not acceptable.

[admin]

 

 

The last mission I did was a 152, got 68k gold, plus the 5k from the mission for 73k.  Lost 39 crew for 19500 gold, used a repair kit during the battle to stay alive for 6.8k gold, had to repair my ship when I got to port for another 7.3k gold.  So I actually only earned 39400 gold.  And I did pretty well that mission, with about 500 hull hits, 6 kills and 2 assists, which took 40 minutes.  39000 gold for 40 minutes.  Almost half of what I earn goes into just maintaining the ship I'm in now, at this rate it'd take me 33 hours to make 2 million gold, and be able to afford a nice exceptional quality constitution or something, and that's only assuming I have literally no other expenses in the meantime like losing a ship in PVP, which on a PVP server is going to happen because I WANT TO PVP.  Grinding endlessly in PVE just to PVP every now and then is not acceptable.

 

 

pvp rewards were increase last hot fix

in addition to that new perk doctor will significantly reduce crew costs if you stay alive in battle recovering part of the casualties. 

[Hethwill]

Maybe it was my way of explaining it, sorry.

 

Maybe you are going to "tasks" that require a ship with a crew complement bigger than what you can afford. There is no rush to anything, plenty of players do only pvp. No missions, no AI.

[Vernon Merrill]

Don't abuse ships that use too much crew?  Using a 600 crew ship for a 300 crew ship job?  I don't even know what you're trying to say.  The ship I'm using for my mission is often on the opposing team in that very same mission, I'm using a level appropriate ship.  Unless you're trying to tell me that I should be using a worse ship than what I'm going up against, in which case that's absolutely insane, I should be able to match what I'm going up against.  Heck, I should be able to use a better ship than what I'm facing to make things easy and quicker.

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/46177663/Medkits.jpg

Yeap, all those medkits for sale from other players on the US PVP server.  There probably is some in a different port, but I'm not gonna be assed to spend the time sailing around looking to see which port people are selling medkits in, as far as I'm concerned, if it's not in the nations capital (what should be the central hub of the nation) there's no point looking for it.

 

Can't make my own either, played for about 5 hours and got a whopping 24 fish meat.  Unless I want to buy more off the market, but then looking at the price to make just one medkit it's not even an option.  500 gold per crew is cheaper than buying the materials to craft a medkit, and this is only a medium medkit, I can't craft large ones yet.

 

The last mission I did was a 152, got 68k gold, plus the 5k from the mission for 73k.  Lost 39 crew for 19500 gold, used a repair kit during the battle to stay alive for 6.8k gold, had to repair my ship when I got to port for another 7.3k gold.  So I actually only earned 39400 gold.  And I did pretty well that mission, with about 500 hull hits, 6 kills and 2 assists, which took 40 minutes.  39000 gold for 40 minutes.  Almost half of what I earn goes into just maintaining the ship I'm in now, at this rate it'd take me 33 hours to make 2 million gold, and be able to afford a nice exceptional quality constitution or something, and that's only assuming I have literally no other expenses in the meantime like losing a ship in PVP, which on a PVP server is going to happen because I WANT TO PVP.  Grinding endlessly in PVE just to PVP every now and then is not acceptable.

 

 

1)Build a tobacco or sugar plantation.  

2) Spend 30 mins every 3 days selling your stock

3)Collect ~750,000 gold

4)Continue on your merry ways....  A minimal amount of economic play is required.

[akd]

Yeap, all those medkits for sale from other players on the US PVP server.  There probably is some in a different port, but I'm not gonna be assed to spend the time sailing around looking to see which port people are selling medkits in, as far as I'm concerned, if it's not in the nations capital (what should be the central hub of the nation) there's no point looking for it.

Market needs time to develop. People on both side have not yet figured out the balance, and the first crafters to market are often the least clever / most greedy who see no competition and think they can charge whatever they want. For example, there is an idiot selling small medkits in Charleston for 4999 gold. Very clever! (We will just hire crew direct from port and you will be sitting on that stock for a long time.) On other hand, some players are already selling kits at 50% below port prices, and are likely raking in profits.

It is far too early to cut prices across the board, unless devs decide they don't want crew to be part of player economy.

[kadrin]

pvp rewards were increase last hot fix

in addition to that new perk doctor will significantly reduce crew costs if you stay alive in battle recovering part of the casualties. 

The last mission I did was about an hour before my last post.  I really wanted to give everyone the benefit of the doubt that I was screwing up and making everything cost more than it should.  I even cherry picked a mission I did well on with the least crew losses.  My average crew losses were around 55, while my average performance was around 350-400 hull hits and 3 or 4 kills.

 

Again I don't claim to be good at this game, and no one should expect the average player to be good either.

 

Maybe it was my way of explaining it, sorry.

 

Maybe you are going to "tasks" that require a ship with a crew complement bigger than what you can afford. There is no rush to anything, plenty of players do only pvp. No missions, no AI.

I'd say after a hundred hours in the game, being able to play the Constitution or Trincomalee isn't rushing anything.  As for the players who only do pvp, they must have a nice cash reserve, do economy stuff, or are amazing at this game and don't lose battles very often to be able to afford to pvp only.