Fine Woods for Crafting:

[Yar Matey]

Now that I have had the opportunity to craft a few ships with the new fine wood requirements, I have come to the conclusion that fine wood requirements are bad for the game. 

Firstly, the fine wood requirements have not stopped me from crafting all exceptional ships.  My Bellona is exceptional, my surprise is exceptional, and my soon to be Santisima, will also be exceptional.  The intended purpose of fine woods has only slowed me down slightly in how fast I can build these ships.

But more importantly, the average player just wants to log on, maybe build or buy a ship and then go pvp or pve.  All fine woods have done is cause ships to become more expensive, which means less players can afford to go into their capital and just buy a ship to go pvp/pve with.  To craft ships pre fine wood patch, I had to sail around in a trader and accumulate resources, ship them all to 1 port (usually a free port) and start construction of my ship using labor hours.  With the introduction of fine woods, I now have to sail around looking for fine woods to purchase, and construct level 3 wood farms, then harvest the wood and ship these woods to the specific port where I want a regional bonus.  The amount of sailing around to do trading to get my fine woods is enough to drive most people mad.  Now that I have my fine wood production going at full capacity, I am still forced to sail to and from ports on my trader ships to get these woods to where I need them for crafting.  This means I am spending significantly less time in my warship in open world actively engaging in pvp.

My time is limited, and when I log on to play, I do not mind a little sailing around to accumulate resources to build ships, but with the introduction of fine woods, I need to sail around almost every day to ship them to where I need them to build ships.  I used to spend maybe 1-2 days a week for a 1/2 hour to an 1 hour going around trading to craft my ships.  Now, it has become an every day thing.

I recommend removing fine woods from the game.  Just my opinion. 

 

[Siegfried]

But you are not forced to craft only exceptional ships. Can you craft grey ships with less travel? Enter in battles is not forbidden for basic ships as I know

[IndianaGeoff]

I am fine with the fine woods.  But would have a steep curve for the ships.  crafting gives you a blue.  a moderate amount of fine woods for a  purple and an extreme amount for a gold.

[Wesreidau]

3 hours ago, Siegfried said:

But you are not forced to craft only exceptional ships. Can you craft grey ships with less travel? Enter in battles is not forbidden for basic ships as I know

You are forced to craft only exceptional ships.

Because of the way the devs have plotted the permanent upgrades to only give three permanent upgrades to the exceptional ship type, everyone is 'forced' to get exceptionals if they want to be competitive in PvP.

Furthermore the fine wood requirements are linear, not geometric. If 10 fine wood turns a basic into a common, 20 turn it into a fine and 30 into a mastercraft. Having already spent 30 fine wood, what's another ten to make an exceptional ship?

Until mastercraft and exceptionals are geometricly more expensive to produce than fines and commons, we won't see fines and commons used. If a fine ship was 3/3, for example, many players would be willing to sail a fine ship, especially if a mastercraft actually cost twice as much as a fine. As it should. But not be twice as effective. This creates diminishing returns for ever higher expenses as we craft the high-end ships, and pushes them into rarity.

As it stands, however, linear cost with matching power only encourages going to the end of the scale and making exceptionals. We need costs to curve up toward the end of the scale, and power to nearly level out beyond fine ships.

[Mrdoomed]

Ive still not been able to make a mastercraft or exeptional ship ir fine for that matter since the fine wood started. i dont play very much now because there is no pvp so that hurts but im not a building maker kind of guy i try ad act the part of a pirate.

I dont know if this is good r bad in long run of the game. Can never find pvp so it really dont matter.

[Siegfried]

Yeah, I understand the linear way for crafting now and I support the idea of geometric requeriments.

 

Anyway that is not force you, other thing is the "power gamers" who wants gold 3-5 or nothing. The good scenario would be a ships wipe and all people begin from zero.

[Yar Matey]

43 minutes ago, Mrdoomed said:

Ive still not been able to make a mastercraft or exeptional ship ir fine for that matter since the fine wood started. i dont play very much now because there is no pvp so that hurts but im not a building maker kind of guy i try ad act the part of a pirate.

I dont know if this is good r bad in long run of the game. Can never find pvp so it really dont matter.

The problem with fine woods is it makes it way too hard to be competitive.  Everyone can agree that an exceptional ship is better than a master craft ship which is better than fine ect...  The extra module slots improves your ships performance significantly, even after the module nerfs. 

Let me put this in perspective for you.  On PvP1, I have 3 level 3 Mahogany Wood Farms at Pedernales, I have to harvest my mahogany to get fine mahogany, and rely on RNG to not get compass wood in place of fine mahogany.  I then have to ship this fine mahogany to guayaguayare on a trader ship, from there I have to deliver the fine mahogany to Hat Island from there I have to deliver it to Marigot in open world in a trader ship.  At Gustavia, I have 2 level 3 Oak wood farms.  Again, I have to harvest Oak Logs for a chance to get Fine Oak.  I then have to ship this fine Oak on a trader to Marigot.  This is on top of all the other resources I need such as coal, iron, fir, ect...  They all go to Marigot.  Then after doing all these trade runs I can craft my ship at Margot out of mahogany with build strength and get the northern carpenters bonus.  Every time I harvest mahogany and oak, I am getting a small amount of fine mahogany and fine oak, maybe 20 or so fine oak/mahogany logs, but it is never guaranteed.  There have been times I got all compass wood and no fine logs at all.  Since I am at risk due to piracy in the open world when I do my trade runs, I ship the fine logs in small amounts on a traders lynx.  Every once in a while, an enemy pulls me into combat further increasing my travel time in a trade ship. 

What this all means is I am spending way more time sailing in my trader ship than actually being out in the open world looking for pvp and this may be the reason why your not getting good pvp, because people like me who just want to build ships are spending way too much time sailing our trade ships around with fine woods to craft ships.  On top of all this sailing around trading, I now have to dedicate 5 outposts to fine wood production and shipment, which means, that my outposts that I used to ship my warships to actively look for pvp are gone and this is why I believe that the fine woods need to go ASAP. 

Also, the introduction of fine woods is going to cause the price of good warships to increase significantly.  So people like you who just want to buy a warship and go look for pvp, are going to be out of luck trying to afford a good ship to go pvp with.  If you wanted to buy the 400 fine wood to craft say a victory or santisima, you going to be spending 4 million gold on the fine wood alone assuming the going rate is 10k per log.  Never mind the cost of high grade notes which would set you back 600k gold. 

 

Edited November 14, 2016 by Yar Matey

[Wesreidau]

I PvP in green ships too because they're cheap and disposable. But they're vendor trash, not player crafted. We're trying to make a player crafting system that provides every ship you need from green to gold, a price point that makes sense and a power scale that doesn't skew to the extremes.

[Salty Dog.]

I would suggest that Fine Wood could be crafted from regular logs, maybe 100 logs = 1 Fine log.  This would be a simple fix for the Fine Wood issue.,

[Wesreidau]

I thought as much myself. Turning regular logs into fine logs allows a market balance, and something to do with all these damned normal logs that have flooded the market and nobody will buy.

[Rebel Witch]

I agree, the fine wood requirements are not going to work in the long run. people , crafters will simply just spam the hell out of harvesting those fine woods then you will be right back to square one, this is after you really made things annoying for crafters. What next? make it even more annoying for crafters? will end badly for the game.

 

I think crafting should be costly for big ships but not difficult, the more i see whats going on, they just need to either put limits on how many line ships a player can have or add maintenance costs to them. 

NO easy answer, i really am rooting for the Dev's to find a way that makes the game run smoothly and makes players happy.