#Don'tKillTheFineWood

[Daguse]

10 minutes ago, Sea Archer said:

Non-exceptional ships work quite good, but in the end I always craft exceptionals. The problem with fine wood was that it was unpredictable when it would drop.

It was ment to reduce the only exceptionals, but as players are, they want exceptionals, no matter the cost.

I like it, that fine wood is gone. But I would like to see some rare material needed for 4th rate upwards. Some kind of special material, that cannot be crafted, but must be capped from ai traders.

I could get behind that. There is a need for a rare resource, it's just a matter of finding a balance. 

[Cmdr RideZ]

Fine Wood did not bring anything new to the table really.  The economy is broken atm. and you try to fix it with Fine Wood?  After everyone has big wares of Fine Wood, maybe we add Exceptional Wood?

Also it was forcing everyone to produce wood, and that was simply stupid.

Naval Action is now a casual game?  I do not believe so.

[Daguse]

12 minutes ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

Fine Wood did not bring anything new to the table really. 

I beg to differ, I think it added an element to crafting that was need. However it needed management, or balance to ensure it did require everyone to build a forest. 

[Cmdr RideZ]

9 minutes ago, Daguse said:

I beg to differ, I think it added an element to crafting that was need. However it needed management, or balance to ensure it did require everyone to build a forest. 

Which was this new element that was needed?

[Daguse]

26 minutes ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

Which was this new element that was needed?

Rare resources. The fine wood. 

[Cmdr RideZ]

1 hour ago, Daguse said:

Rare resources. The fine wood. 

What means rare resource in game mechanism?  How Fine Wood will create this game mechanism?  Is the Fine Wood the only way to create this game mechanism?

Another thing..  Fine Wood will force people to produce wood.  Is this really a good thing?

 

edit..

I was thinking that maybe my questions were a bit cryptic, or could be so I will add...

For example labor hours are limiting what we can craft per day.  Fine Wood is limiting what we can craft per day as well?  So basically from this part it is a duplicate mechanism to limit what we can craft per day.  In the previous patch Fine Wood was limiting a lot, so that the labor hours lost their value.

Rare materials are valuable?  Well, we could handle this by just adding a gold payment for ship production.

If we want something more expensive to be sailed over seas, we could simply increase the prices for old products.  We have a lot of those.

etc.

Edited December 6, 2016 by Cmdr RideZ

[Daguse]

7 hours ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

What means rare resource in game mechanism?  How Fine Wood will create this game mechanism?  Is the Fine Wood the only way to create this game mechanism?

Another thing..  Fine Wood will force people to produce wood.  Is this really a good thing?

 

edit..

I was thinking that maybe my questions were a bit cryptic, or could be so I will add...

For example labor hours are limiting what we can craft per day.  Fine Wood is limiting what we can craft per day as well?  So basically from this part it is a duplicate mechanism to limit what we can craft per day.  In the previous patch Fine Wood was limiting a lot, so that the labor hours lost their value.

Rare materials are valuable?  Well, we could handle this by just adding a gold payment for ship production.

If we want something more expensive to be sailed over seas, we could simply increase the prices for old products.  We have a lot of those.

etc.

Well I was thinking of a rare resource mechanism that ensured additional time/cost for building bigger ships. In short not every person should be able to craft any ship any day. The mechanic could be a resource that is harvested or player base. One of the best crafting mmo IMHO was star wars galaxies, in the first iteration. In swg to craft a house/ship/droid of any higher quality,  you need pre crafted parts from other professions. 

I would and I think a lot of crafters would 100% back a profession crafting based system. One guy does all the wood working, one guy does all the meatel work, one the sails, then another assembles the ship. The would cut out the need for fine wood.

Edited December 7, 2016 by Daguse

[Yar Matey]

Fine woods would be fine, but ONLY for special trim options.  Keep the normal ones with no fine wood requirement and add some new ones that require a specific fine wood to craft.  

 

[Koltes]

11 hours ago, JonSnowLetsGo said:

Imo it was just unnecessary ballast to the game which made crafting harder so people were scared of losing their ships. I think his was one of the reasons why PvP died and players left the game.

While some unbalanced mechanics (including the Fine Woods) certainly had its chip-in to server population drop, the main reason why pvp died was because OW is all about 2 things:
1. Looking for fights (chasing traders, ganging, ambushing etc);
2. Conquest territories and(or) fighting in missive PVP battles.

The first is broken because:
a.) There was (and mostly still is) no conflict zones that attract player activities (recent PVP events is a test to create such conflict zone) so you have to look for targets around the entire Caribbean;
b.) Unbalanced speed difference in ship setups in OW. Fast ships are catching slower ships way too slow in OW. The speed ships travel in OW allows to make it to a port even across 2 square sectors on the map. No matter how faster your ship in the battle, but in OW it struggles to catch up before pursued player reaches the port.
The above made SOLO pvp nearly non-existent in NA.

The second is broken because:
a.) In order to even start the PORT BATTLE you have to do enormous amount of PVE;
b.) Due to above the amount of PBs have had a huge drop, thus driving people off the game
c.) Freedom of choice is removed from PB. You no longer could just do as you will. PBs were often a spontaneous decision which had a good drive for community.
You can't force PVP player to do PVE and hope he will stick with the game. It is ridicules when PVE players winning on PVP server because game mechanics made it so.


As for the Fine Woods. The problem is not in the material. Problem is in the crafting itself. It is too linear and simple. They tried to bring more complex mechanic into a simple mechanics and it become an anchor. Everything else in crafting needs to be tuned up first. Removing Fine Woods simply tells us that they walking away from complex crafting and making it a simple one. I recon one thing at the time. Get OW pvp sorted first. Then work on crafting

Edited December 7, 2016 by koltes

[Blaatand]

11 hours ago, Wesreidau said:

Nope, kill it dead.

In the future I hope the mechanic of Fine Wood controlling ship quality levels is replaced with some ingredient bought and paid for using the PVP currency. It is fun to grind for PvP currency, since pvp combat is the most engaging part of the game. It is not fun to grind for random resource collection drops, since crafting resources out of labor hours is the least engaging part of the game.

because PVP is the only way of playing and everyone else are noobs and fools..........

 

Deep sigh

[Cmdr RideZ]

9 hours ago, Daguse said:

Well I was thinking of a rare resource mechanism that ensured additional time/cost for building bigger ships. In short not every person should be able to craft any ship any day. The mechanic could be a resource that is harvested or player base. One of the best crafting mmo IMHO was star wars galaxies, in the first iteration. In swg to craft a house/ship/droid of any higher quality,  you need pre crafted parts from other professions. 

I would and I think a lot of crafters would 100% back a profession crafting based system. One guy does all the wood working, one guy does all the meatel work, one the sails, then another assembles the ship. The would cut out the need for fine wood.

I suppose 1st rates could be like Titans in EVE.  I do not have personally anything against this, but not sure if I have real reasons to really support this idea.  It is not bad and one way I really like it.  Still, not sure if those are similar power houses as Titans are in EVE.  So not sure if that actually fits in the game.

Professional crafting based system etc.  This is pretty much in every MMO that is there.  I am not a big fan of this system personally.  Reason, I like PvP more than crafting.  This mechanism is really popular in games, so it can be that I belong to minority in this.

 

I am personally probably leaning towards...

Make 1st rates to be more expensive.  I have said couple times in different threads to add gold payment to rent a shipyard and workers.  If 1st rate needs 10m gold investment, it will make it a much more rare.  Tho not sure if 10m would be the right amount.  Could be also some dynamic number based on something.  Gold can be earned multiple ways, so none is forced to do some specific thing.  This is actually against different crafting professions true.  I understand that people who like economies in games and crafting, they probably would love to take that profession based system.  Not saying that would be wrong, just me who likes more fighting and less crafting.  But I do like that there is some crafting.

Also, port battles should be BR limited or rate limited.  For example only one 1st rate per battle.  Or even combination of both systems.  This would also make it a bit more special to actually sail the flagship in a PB, and not just one from 25.

[Sir William Hargood]

Kill Fine Wood dead...stone dead...rather add seasoned timbers to add time factor to exceptional ships...limit the amount of first rates each player may have or give a max tonnage limit per player...then add gradual degradation of ships thus requiring refitting and rebuilding in docks: More Battle time spent = Ship gradually degrades from exceptional Gold to Purple, then to Blue, then to Green. Refitting or rebuilding will be required to get the ship back to exceptional which takes time and resources. thus requires players to rotate the ships they use...bearing in mind limit on total tonnage. So some ships are in refit others active, maybe add ships in the ordinary (moth-balled).

 

[Rebel Witch]

Fine woods never solved anything long term , it only solved the problem for a few months. Because crafters just switch to amassing fine woods and within a year you are right back to the problem you had in the first place. Then the DEv's would have to add another layer to crafting, which again pisses off the crafter whom just starting amassing the new layer.

 

[vazco]

Fine wood didn't add a lot of depth or strategy, just complexity, randomness and time consuming trading. Complexity is not a good game design.

Sure, making crafting 1st rates harder makes sense. You don't need fine wood for this though. You can do this with mechanics that are easier to understand by new players.

Edited December 8, 2016 by vazco

[Wesreidau]

Fine wood had huge economic consequences as the masses churned out worthless normal wood trying to get fine wood. I spent a few thousand labor hours before I just quit. Giving. A. Damn. The only economic decision worth making for most players was mass-producing forests to get fine wood. I'd originally proposed a labor-hour/fine wood conversion route to destroy regular wood to get fine wood, but they didn't go that route. Fine by me, really. Before my economic playtime was an adventure in finding market demand for rum, tobacco and medkits. Now its updating sell contracts for my bermuda cedar mountain.

The PvP currency being spent for exceptional ship ingredients will tie, of course, into whatever measures the devs have to make PvP currency available on PvE servers. Somehow I think a PvE player on a PvE server would still be happy enough with a 3/4 Mastercraft ship, and a PvE player on a PvP server could just pony up sufficient cash to buy that magic ingredient from a PvPer.

In doing this, we have the core intention of fine wood, making exceptionals exceptionally expensive, without the tremendous market disruptions that grinding fine wood produced. The big desirable element is the exceptional ingredient, which is bought through PvP currency or traded for with gold, and so everyone is out sinking ships in the name of building ships.

[Pagan Pete]

Pagan Pete says;

Fine tune the Fine woods… but ONLY after they fix the battle and tagging mechanics!

Edit:

Do Not try to derail from the topic. Also refresh yourself on the forum rules. - Moderator Team

[monk33y]

What we all need to remember is we have been for ages and have a headstart on the launch noobies. I honestly think that ship creating will get very hard. (normally alpha and beta gameplay is easy as he'll for testing then gets real on launch).

Unfortunately the mentally of the new (younger) gamers is I want it all now and I want it for free. (think how wow dumbs down its game for noobies) 

Making items and in our case ships harder to get is a good thing. I honestly like fine woods. Why is it that the immersion freaks cry about everything apart from how easy it is to get the matts for a 1St rate. Sol's should be bloody hard to get. (on a side note there should only be 3 or 4 ports in game that you can craft 1St rates etc)

Stop dumbing down our game devs

 

**edit** this msg is my own and not a sponsored announcement from toxic clan or the British empire. The views are my own 

Edited, avoid insults to other users while giving your own opinion - Moderator Team

 

[Wesreidau]

There's dumbing down, and then there's just dumbing. Fine wood, as implemented, had serious unintended economic consequences. I want exceptionals to be the kind of ship you can't get unless you're a hardcore player, perhaps to the degree that my own playtime investment isn't enough to get one. But I don't want to crush the game's economic play with something as broken as fine wood.

Consider that I'm still offloading Bermuda Cedar weeks after the patch at a mere 150 gold, the price I've seen worthless pine logs command. The fine wood market was like strip mining gold out of a mountain of food, dumping that food on the market or burning it there in the mountains, driving all the farmers out of business while ...

Look analogies fail me. That's how bad it was.