out of gold = game over ?

[elvismolotov]

ahoy captains
i m playing the game for several month now . i like pvp best and try to grind the gold from missions.when the crew costs were inplemented i had saved 2,5 mio gold over the time.
after one week with crewcosts (sailing on 3drate or lower) all my savings are spent on crew.
some of u might say "your just a too bad player with low skill",which is kinda true .BUT does it really make sense to have a game where players can only be succsessfull if they win significantly more battles than they lose?
do the math !
i can only hope that this will be changed until final release ,but as is ,it means game over for me
:-(

Edited July 4, 2016 by elvismolotov

[Ellis]

If you surrender you don't lose any crew, also i've played with you before you're a decent guy pm me if you get back on and i'll get you back started with gold.

[The Spud]

This game is still in Early Acces, and allot of implemented features get tweaked over time. Usualy it takes about a week to find out if something works or doesn't work, and they'll tweak it if needed.

At this time the crew features are only a couple of days old, so it is too soon to adjust it.

 

There is nothing wrong with not being the best player out there, but it is obvious that a player who tends to get sunk or capped allot will have a harder time moneywise.

The devs stated that the idea of the crew mechanic was to make sailing SoL's more risky, so frigates get used more.

 

Now another thing is that you can always surrender your ship when you know the battle is lost, it will prevent you from losing allot of crew (Pro Tip).

 

Good luck captain!

[Hethwill]

The major crew meat grinder is the Boarding system. It is not correctly implemented.

 

It only needs, at this stage, to be tweaked to use the crew numbered focused on boarding and make it work from there.

 

This will translate into effective historical setups. A frigate will have about 90 ( standard would be 48 marines plus officers and other crew ) or so men fighting for decks control instead of 350 which makes no sense at all and eats away the crew.

 

Plus Firepower is rarely used by the players ( for the reason I explain ahead )but it eats away Morale faster than it does to enemy crew numbers ... but it will bounce on the 1 morale and stays there for eternity which is really annoying sometimes.

 

So while I like the whole wind and position combat, and yes one has to pay for mistakes, the Boarding is where most crew is lost and needs revision really urgent.

 

I support keeping the costs as they are at the moment for the player ship and crew. NPC Fleet crews should pay double (!) if they are here to stay.

[mikawa]

The whole money system was broken a few patches ago.

When I began playing this game in April, I could always affor the appropriate ship according to my level ingame. Now it's not the case anymore. I am Commodore and I never sailed a ship above Constitution, because I simply can't afford it and the point where I can craft one for myself is months away, as I am lvl 25 crafter now. I am a freelancer and I don't want to join a clan.

[Jonnydread]

Now it's not the case anymore. I am Commodore and I never sailed a ship above Constitution, because I simply can't afford it 

What did you do with all your money? Ships are cheaper than ever, e.g. you can buy a crafted 3rd-Rate for 400k in Willemstad. If you do a 152-Fleet-Mission in your Consti you can get up to 100k for a single fleet-mission. 

[Karpfanger]

hi @ all,

 

this shouldn't be a wining post ... only a realistic calculation.

 

At last weekend .. I tried a Admirality fleet order for Flag captain 152 XP with my Bellona. (alone)

 

Our side : my Bellona, one NPC Frigate

Other side: 3 Renommes, 3 Belle Poules (I believe)

 

After our victory my NPC mate had 1 and I had 5 kills (1 assist). -> 60k Gold 1k XP, cant remember the repair costs

 

but I had lost 134 men of my crew ->   -67k Gold ... (without any boarding attempt)

 

Question to the Devs: Is this the purpose for future PVE battles? It seems not to be profitable to do PVE missions and would be verry expensive if I would need it to make XP for level up.

 

It should be balanced as soon as possible pls.

 

Regards

Berend

[Jonnydread]

You don't have to. But you need a lot of XP to reach the rank commodore, so you also should get more than enough gold.

[Anne Wildcat]

One post admin made was that they were planning on getting rid of gold earned for damage. Hopefully with crew costs, they rethink that. Although working on my crafting level and getting shipyards set up in free towns, for when you can no longer tp ships, I'm always poor lol. Like you I stay away from pve, it's a boring time sink. (Although I should do more to work on my aim & such) The only PVE I might regularly do is sink ai traders in enemy waters for fun, since it's quick and I can get mats for ship building and other stuff to sell.

[Skully]

One post admin made was that they were planning on getting rid of gold earned for damage. Hopefully with crew costs, they rethink that. Although working on my crafting level and getting shipyards set up in free towns, for when you can no longer tp ships, I'm always poor lol. Like you I stay away from pve, it's a boring time sink. (Although I should do more to work on my aim & such) The only PVE I might regularly do is sink ai traders in enemy waters for fun, since it's quick and I can get mats for ship building and other stuff to sell.

Do you have a link?

 

I'm actually thinking combat damage earnings should be increased a little. Note that we still haven't seen the true cost of crew as crafting of medkits and the fish market crash outstanding is lagging behind.

 

As for making money, you could always ensure you have a couple of production buildings at hand, then just trade out the goods.

[HardyKnox]

One of the things I personally like about NA is that one can enjoy sailing a trader, perhaps an armed trader, and gathering resources and crafting and reselling things like Notes or Carriages, or just shifting valuables like Compass Wood and Lignam Vitae from a port where they are cheap to a port where they are dear.  That money is then used to buy the relatively cheap ships offered by those who capped them and those who crafted them just for the xp.

 

Then, fleet up and sail off in a mission or hunting baddies or smugglers.

 

So, if you are interested only in fighting, and not trading, you need to ally with a financier who will fund your expensive hobby, or "get a job" in the form of doing some crafting and trading and learning how to use the contracts system knowledgeably.  As a simulation, this simulates the reality that many warship captains ended up "on the beach" when peace breaks out, or knocked on the head and buried at sea, or just old men with bad livers.  Very very few ended up wealthy, unless they had "interest" (financially and politically connected patrons).

 

~ HK ~

[The Spud]

It just seems odd that crew is equaly expensive, as I would imagine that sailing crew would be easier/cheaper to replace as compared to gunnery crew.

 

I would split up Sailing crew, gunnery crew and marines. With sailing crew being the cheapest, marines most expensive and gunnery crew inbetween.

I don't know how this is done at this moment, but this would probably require to detect if the crew loss was a sailing, gunnery or marines crew when hit with cannon shots.

 

This way we can also remove the marines upgrades from the game, as these are way to powerfull as compared to other boarding upgrades, and they are much to rare.

And it kinda looks strange that you need to hire crew for your ship whenever you lose crew, very realistic, but slap on a marines upgrade and you have "free" boarding crew.

Or do you need to hire crew and the marines will just be a percentage off crew "converted" to marines?

 

Could be this is something they'll fine tune later on, but its kinda strange.

 

As for the cost goes in general, I think most of the higher ranked players have a high stack of cash, but for some of the starting player saving up for bigger ships, production buildings etc.

Money might be an issue if the cost of missions is almost equal as the gains, the only thing to make up for that are fishing and sealed bottles, and I don't know if that is enough

[Hethwill]

Training Marines costs money. Training artillery men costs money. Training sea men costs money.

 

On top of that it takes years of salaries for them to reach form.

 

On top of that it takes supplies throughout those years.

 

Once they enter service they are entitled to prize shares, salaries and supplies.

 

All is included into the abstract value of 500 per man for the time, training, equipment, salaries, prizes and supplies.

[The Spud]

Every training takes time, but I think the training of marines was harder and longer as compared to sailing crew and gunnery crew. Sailing crew would need to know the different knots they need to use, and need to know what the commands were that were shoutet at them. Where I know gunnery crew was regularly trained on board, to fire the guns as fast as they could. That is why I am assuming that at that time sailinger crew was easier to come by as compared to gunnery crew and certainly marines. That is why it looks strange to me that they cost the same.

 

No doubt that they have to cost money, and we can't do it for one gold. But I much rather have them implement the foodsupplies in the ships crafting table, as it was proposed in a dev post. So as to say, have a higher production cost of ships and lower the cost of crew. As it doesn't make sence you would need to pay for one crew (including his food supplies, the prize money he will get and his salaries) if the guy only survives on day at sea?

 

Much more logical would be, make the supplies to be crafted in the ship (or a refillable consumable) and lower the crew cost. Its not like you're hiring a guy, and he's bringing his own food on the trip.

[mikawa]

 

Training Marines costs money. Training artillery men costs money. Training sea men costs money.

This means every captain who ever sailed on seas for his nation (we speak of officers) must have been a millionaire? Surely not. The admiralty would have come up with most of the expenses, or I am dazed and confused.

[Hethwill]

This means every captain who ever sailed on seas for his nation (we speak of officers) must have been a millionaire? Surely not. The admiralty would have come up with most of the expenses, or I am dazed and confused.

 

Exactly. Was given a commission in a ship NOT entirely of his choice. And could not achieve Post Captain without a show of gallantry and bravery facing odds. ( I enjoy so much this last one... would be great to have it game )

 

So we have a compromise in the game We all can be millionaires and we don't have to go through a Naval Board to get a commission. Oh and we also to get to hire crew and have a full company of marines in our trader ships

 

All about compromise.

[mikawa]

 

( I enjoy so much this last one... would be great to have it game )

This is exatly what lacks since April. A system which rewards a brave player, not simple XP and gold grinding ... Why should everyone be able to sail a 1st rate, only because he gathered enough gold to buy one? Gold to buy, yes, permission to sail only, if he has proven to be a brave fighter for his nation. This would adjust 1st rate hype without the need of burdening this game with more and more nitpickings ...

[Hethwill]

This is exatly what lacks since April. A system which rewards a brave player, not simple XP and gold grinding ... Why should everyone be able to sail a 1st rate, only because he gathered enough gold to buy one? Gold to buy, yes, permission to sail only, if he has proven to be a brave fighter for his nation. This would adjust 1st rate hype without the need of burdening this game with more and more nitpickings ...

 

Interesting enough loooong ago there were lots of ideas regarding the Admiralty focusing exactly of this but I can see where it ends given the mechanics aim always for the average scenario.

 

Maybe Pirates can be changed to work that way somehow and made a hard difficulty faction for those wanting a more challenging gameplay where reputation counts per looted riches and crew flocks to the infamous captains.

 

If the experiment would work ( if ever tried out ) it could find its way to other Nations

[mikawa]

Compromises are good in general. And I like to enjoy mixed playstyles, trading, crafting, fighting and not to be fixed in place on one style. So I would not recommend to divide them strictly. On the other hand I like simplicity. The best games are very simple in their concept. You can explain them in a few sentences. This is not true for the game in it's current state.

[Mrdoomed]

I must be doing something wrong i pvp only and have captured and ingermanland and lots of smaller ships and still make money.

[Hethwill]

I must be doing something wrong i pvp only and have captured and ingermanland and lots of smaller ships and still make money.

 

Yes !!! Stop playing properly and join the flagellants and "grind whine grind"...

[Jean LaPointe]

The whole money system was broken a few patches ago.

When I began playing this game in April, I could always affor the appropriate ship according to my level ingame. Now it's not the case anymore. I am Commodore and I never sailed a ship above Constitution, because I simply can't afford it and the point where I can craft one for myself is months away, as I am lvl 25 crafter now. I am a freelancer and I don't want to join a clan.

Mikawa, you are not alone with this.It takes time and if you can remain patient it stays a good game. If you rush it will become a grind. I stated back in early December and it wasn't until last month I was able to both build and sail a 3rd rate. Still, taking the time, opening other business and work back and forth among crafter, producer and sailor has keep it very enjoyable.

The stategy has signifcantly changed. The new expansion of the market, and oddly enough what you can get with the fish, and the crafting of the food and medical are other areas of experience to move the game forward. I feel we have been thrown some more building blocks towards the ultimate design. Some make sense some won't until all have come together in some later date patch.

Right now, while playing around with the new aspects of the game, if you have taken a huge hit on crew and are short on or really do not want to spend the amount of gold to get back to normal, then take 24 hours off from either sailing a ship or playing the game. Take a break and try again a day later with a full crew and the purse intact. After a while you will be able to judge just what you are willing to risk and how you want to go about paying for it.

The game, after all, provides strategic choices.

[Mirones]

i had a bellona explode next to me and a vic instant 400crew gone and a 200k fine

[Jeheil]

In essence I like the idea that crew costs are your major money sink. I helped a clanny with a 152xp (fleet) mission (I was in my Ingie) and even with 7 assists (remember I am helping here) I netted in the end about a $3k profit, 70k mission gold - crew - repairs. Now If I had been a less armoured ship...thats alot more damage and crew loss.

 

So fundamentally the Gold rewards from missions (port battles and PvP) need to be bumped (and include surrenders as kill/assists) or crew costs need to come down, imho between 25-50%

 

I do think the mission complete reward should scale with the order (and be more perhaps for fleet) too as should PB victory rewards.

 

2.5mill is alot to lose, I am assuming you had to rebuy a few ships in that equation too.

 

Crafting and resource selling are my main ways to make money in game up until RA.

 

At RA the money rewards from a good mission are 200k without capping a ship and much more if you do cap a 1st and this means earning up some needed cash is far more possible.

Oh and PS...I am sure there are plenty of cashed up captains who would lend you a $ to let you have some fun, consider selling your crafting hours, building ship components or making notes.

[Fastidius]

I hate the crew patch and think it is a move in the wrong direction at this stage so im not unbiased however crafted medipacks are the way to go cost wise and even those are over the right price at the moment which admin has agreed.  There will be a hotfix hopefully tonight (because that is what they have to do if they implement broken shit) which will fix at least ingredient pricings.

 

Also bear in mind that the first 5 days of fishing will fill up the shops and make prices go to the trade market which in theory will be super contested because fishing is the number 1 most funnest thing ever implemented in this game according to many.

 

I have said openly almost everything in this particular patch sucks for the game but even I realise that they have to tweak it.