Fleet commander gameplay

[Johny Reb]

In real battles morale was always important and had an effect!

 

Of course not on the damage, as neither the guns nor the balls had any morale.

Accuracy increase is also an improbable result of an admiral being near, as adrenaline rarely improves brain power.

 

So what is improved by adrenaline which is released by the captain's cry "don't let the admiral down!"? 

 

Bodily strength!

 

And what game mechanic would this improve?

-reload rate

-execution of sailing commands

-fighting power in boarding/defending boarders

-waterpump speed

 

Also i like Maturin's idea of crew going more and more below deck as a result of low morale. I think if the flagship is in sight, more crewmembers would stay on deck to have an occasional look at it and being reassured by its noble appearance.

 

This is no magic at all but simple psychology and leaving this out would be extremely unrealistic and unimmersive! (They are not 300 robots on your frigate!)I

I only take issue with your last sentence.  By making the disappearance of crew linked to morale you are in fact making them robots. You can't model accurately human emotions in a game like this. You create a code that says if.. you have x amount of morale then x number of men will run below. All it is is a formula. It is very robotic and therefore unrealistic and to think that this cowering seamen in the hold is gonna just run back to their stations because someone says "hey look its the admiral" then you live in a fantasy. He would never hear that cry to begin with hunkering down in a dark space.

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

I only take issue with your last sentence.  By making the disappearance of crew linked to morale you are in fact making them robots. You can't model accurately human emotions in a game like this. You create a code that says if.. you have x amount of morale then x number of men will run below. All it is is a formula. It is very robotic and therefore unrealistic and to think that this cowering seamen in the hold is gonna just run back to their stations because someone says "hey look its the admiral" then you live in a fantasy. He would never hear that cry to begin with hunkering down in a dark space.

 

They haven't modeled the aiming of many different cannon by many different people true to life, nor did they allow the guns to move with the ship.  You have to design mechanics that will work for gameplay.  Nobody said if they were all cowering in the forecastle the sudden appearance of an Admiral would get them back out again, they just enumerated a few items that would be affected by higher morale.  This whole game is a formula, that doesn't make this whole game robotic and unrealistic.

[Johny Reb]

No, your right but there is a difference imho between modeling guns vs emotions. Guns are relatively simple but people's emotions are hopelessly impossible and that why I believe the mechanic (admiral in range type mechanic) makes robots out the men. And alot of people are saying this in one way or another, "all cowering in the forecastle the sudden appearance of an Admiral would get them back out again." but upon rereading your post i see that you are not saying that. Rather you are saying that less men will leave their station when the admiral is within range which is much more reasonable then the previous idea.

 

Maybe if morale was designed around the idea of a meter. Like one with a needle that swings back and forth according to what its measuring. Designed this way the needle representing crew morale is centered and as the fight continues on the crew takes hits or gives them, if the admiral is close by, if the other ship is closing or moving away etc, the needle moves to the left or the right and that effects those parameters you listed a couple posts ago. But if a ship gets fired on by a vastly superior ship and the needle drops because of it, then it will return to normal after some time if the other ship never fires on you again. Either way full deflection to the left does not mean instastrike and full deflection to the right doesn't mean God mode. Well, this is just a brainstorm so its not fine tuned.

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

No, your right but there is a difference imho between modeling guns vs emotions. Guns are relatively simple but people's emotions are hopelessly impossible and that why I believe the mechanic (admiral in range type mechanic) makes robots out the men. And alot of people are saying this in one way or another, "all cowering in the forecastle the sudden appearance of an Admiral would get them back out again." but upon rereading your post i see that you are not saying that. Rather you are saying that less men will leave their station when the admiral is within range which is much more reasonable then the previous idea.

 

Maybe if morale was designed around the idea of a meter. Like one with a needle that swings back and forth according to what its measuring. Designed this way the needle representing crew morale is centered and as the fight continues on the crew takes hits or gives them, if the admiral is close by, if the other ship is closing or moving away etc, the needle moves to the left or the right and that effects those parameters you listed a couple posts ago. But if a ship gets fired on by a vastly superior ship and the needle drops because of it, then it will return to normal after some time if the other ship never fires on you again. Either way full deflection to the left does not mean instastrike and full deflection to the right doesn't mean God mode. Well, this is just a brainstorm so its not fine tuned.

 

And there we're very much agreed.  That morale "needle" could cause a positive and negative effect on the "realistic" list above.  I'm not a fan of auto-striking either.

[Edward Vernon]

My 2 cents worth is definitely on the side of NO AI/scripted Auto Strike....but as has already been very eloquently expressed earlier in this thread, a set of "consequences" that would encourage the vast majority of captains to strike when it is appropriate. Then part of the skill will be choosing when and if the ship is, at the point of choosing to strike, already, irretrievably doomed to sink, then the strike option should no longer be available.

[admin]

Feature is in prototyping and will be rolled out after a new damage model comes out.

Let's discuss rewards for getting orders done, making and how to make orders meaningful.

From what I have seen over last 3 weeks people take a lot of initiative and do make better decisions than I orders I would give them. For AI this system is a savior. For players it maybe needs to be less heavy handed.

[Kaos]

Fulfilling orders should not have anykind of magical buffs to ''motivate'' players to fulfill them because increasing your win chance due to discipline and solid commander should be enough of motivation as in more wins = more profit for all , win - win situation for the fleet. The game (Admiralty) will automatically pick the most potential commander according to his service record/rank against other PLAYERS. This means PVP and PVE statistics will be seperate to avoid inflating your statistics by killing/leading bots and to prevent fake PvE carebears 'commanding' pvp people because these will be 2 totally different worlds and mindsets. It would probably need to be seperated by ship type as well due to obvious differences in gameplay (Winning in beginner ships much easier to inflate statistics/ranks etc.)

The feature itself has so much potential if done right and I really want to see it succeed. For the game itself, it would be self-sufficient to let older players teach the new ones the flow and tactics of battle via this instead of wasting time on making tutorials. For experienced players and potential commanders it will give motivation to win by using this feature when they discover themselves in the fleet of statistically inferior players instead of wanting to alt+f4 after seeing the composition of their fleet.
 

[Balck]

Feature is in prototyping and will be rolled out after a new damage model comes out.

Let's discuss rewards for getting orders done, making and how to make orders meaningful.

From what I have seen over last 3 weeks people take a lot of initiative and do make better decisions than I orders I would give them. For AI this system is a savior. For players it maybe needs to be less heavy handed.

Open ended orders.  Assign goal/target/objective then leave it to the player to achieve it in any manner they wish.  For AI you'd need to script it given their behavior is dependent on coding.  

[ulysse77]

I think the easiest way is reward based on the results. I have no idea how the rewards will be called but just for sake of exemple let`s call it reputation. Let`s say the commander can assign you to follow a certain ship. You follow it in a perfect line. At the end of the battle you get 100 reputation for the victory and another 10 for following the order. If you didn;t follow order but your side was victorious you get the 100 points. I assume the orders will be fairly simple, like target, follow, escort and maybe position.

[Saintduiex]

Let's discuss rewards for getting orders done, making and how to make orders meaningful.

Ok, first point then is the quantity of "currencies". I think there should be 3 - 4 reward currencies available. Less than that limits the individuality of players that multiple currencies would permit and too many may dilute the value of them if rewards were spread across 6>. Not a major point for me but one that I'm sure GL is considering.

In Ulyesse77 example above, you would get reputation points. But since it was due to sailing a perfect line you might also get "sailing" or "navigation" points. If your orders/mission were to transport a cargo hold full of Banannas from Jamica to Spain in x days, you might get economic points as well as sailing/navigation points. If your mission were to map a portion of the Mexican coastline you might get exploration and reputation points, etc.

So that brings us to the "so what? What do I do with these points / rewards?" Well, perhaps once you reach x reputation points plus x navigation points you get access to more skilled officers which may slightly improve your overall sailing, shooting or negotiating skills or perhaps once you earn x rep + x Econ points you get access to larger shipping contracts.

Is that the direction you are asking about?

[BrutishVulgarian]

It's a sandbox. There are no classes. There will be no privateer fleet or a pirate fleet. It's just a player fleet.

Because it's a sandbox you can go out and show them who is the boss if they are sailing ships you don't think they should be sailing.

Hunt them, sink them, burn their cities and hear lamentations of their women

The fact that you devs understand what is best in life is what gives me so much faith in Naval Action.

"Let's discuss rewards for getting orders done, making and how to make orders meaningful.

From what I have seen over last 3 weeks people take a lot of initiative and do make better decisions than I orders I would give them. For AI this system is a savior. For players it maybe needs to be less heavy handed. "

I assume most folks in a big organized battle are following some military career, I would reward them with some kind of career advancement points. Permission to sail the #1 ship is a big motivator and status symbol.

[huliotkd]

MORALE

 

we can use the Empire Total War ''fear'' system.

in this game, you fight in 17-18th century land battles and you command many regiments...these regiments remain in line until they suffer too many losses,then run away and you can not select or control them until they go away and regain reason.

 

also in NA we can use the ''fear'' system...and we need a ei. 0-100 indicator .

 

1)    do you have a ship with 600 man?ok you suffer too many damages or crew loss (grape shots) and remains with only ie. 60-80 men, so you can't fire more (maybe graphically we can see a white flag flashing on the cannons icon) and can only select sail repair and survival crew-focus until you stop receiving shots for a while or you moved away enough and your crew calms down.

e.i. during this phase your moral indicator fall from 100 to less than 20,now you have to flee until indicator rise to 20 and let you to re-take command of you ship and continues to rise (20-21-22-25-30 ecc ecc) as long as you do not receive more serious damage like a broadside...if you receive heavy damages again (1 or 2 broadsides when still 20morale), you indicator goes under 10 permanently and you can only run away to escape point and leave battle area or istance...or be sunk

100-20 fight, 20- 10 run away and re-up, under 10 permanently flee/escape

 

 

2)  this system can resolve also the ''lynx VS victory 1-0'' issue.

when you go into battle, the difference between ships rates decreases your morale indicator: so if i'm a lynx, i'll start from 20 morale against a Victory or other superior classes (e.i. lynx morale is 100 vs lynx and cutter,80 vs brig,60 surp,40 trinco,20 const bellona Vict).  This fact means that I can still fight a Vic but if I get a low blow or a whole broadside into the water around my ship (just to make noise), then automatically go down to 20 and returns to step 1...raise to 20-21-22-23 or flee ecc ecc...

imagine the scene ''ehi Cap what are you doing??we have only 8 guns and Vic 110!!''...the crew have to obey...but only once, due to the difference of morale/rate/class/guns ecc ecc, then they want only run away.

 

 

 

 

 

ORDERS

 

to give orders, i think to a scrolling menù based on ship-rates and coloured icons.

 

1) e.i. Commander will press 'enter' and chose between ''light ships, frigates, heavy ships (constitution should be here)''

light ships orders : snipe from distance, get close and rip sails

frigate orders : snipe from distance, rip sails or demast, get close and double shots damage

heavy ships orders : destroy everything

 

2)  e.i. Commander will click on a target ship and chose between ''light ships, frigates, heavy ships (constitution should be here)'' menù

the same of step 1) but based on each enemy ships instead of general orders

 

 

formation:

Commander select 1 player for each inferior class, as vice-commander...so Commander press ''formation button'' for heavy ships formation, VC for frigate class , and VC for small ships class.

formations are: Line, Flanked or Melee (maybe for when getting close to enemy) e.i yellow icon

 

conclusion:

Huliotkd has a Surprise and sees on an enemy trinco, a red-aim icon that indicates this is his target (icons can be numered for more than only one target), a green icon for what to destroy (sail, hull, crew) and a white or transparent icon that indicates orders of other ally ships on the same target (just to know what allies are doing with my same target). Over the VC-Frigates ship, he will sees the yellow icon for the formation

 

i know this is a rainbow solution, but is just to explain the idea

 

 

 

 

[NorthernWolves]

1) e.i. Commander will press 'enter' and chose between ''light ships, frigates, heavy ships (constitution should be here)''

light ships orders : snipe from distance, get close and rip sails

frigate orders : snipe from distance, rip sails or demast, get close and double shots damage

heavy ships orders : destroy everything

 

This is a good idea, especially if you are playing with people you can't TS with, the chat typing function drives me nuts as it is, I just hate stopping to type out orders.

 

If the commander had a menu to assign a role and/or initial instruction to each ship prior to battle it would useful. Rough example

Squadron:

Ship                          Order given by drop down menu

Victory                                     Commander/NA

Bellona                           In line with Commander/Follow

Constitution               Operate with Trin/Target ship X then Y

Trincomalee              Operate with Con/Target ship X then Y

Surprise                     Support frigates/follow Con and Trin

Brig                              Escort capitals/protect stern

Snow                            Escort capitals/protect stern

Snow                            Escort capitals/protect stern

[Horatio Hornblower]

No, your right but there is a difference imho between modeling guns vs emotions. Guns are relatively simple but people's emotions are hopelessly impossible and that why I believe the mechanic (admiral in range type mechanic) makes robots out the men. And alot of people are saying this in one way or another, "all cowering in the forecastle the sudden appearance of an Admiral would get them back out again." but upon rereading your post i see that you are not saying that. Rather you are saying that less men will leave their station when the admiral is within range which is much more reasonable then the previous idea.

You´re right, that was what I meant.

I also like your ´model´of a meter.

 

What my sentence about robots should say:

NA should have some mechanic where morale effects your ships performance somehow. I wanted to contradict previous posts who said that morale effects would be magic. Surely a morale formula would not be completely realistic, but at least more realistic than having none altogether!

 

Until I see better ideas, I advertise the morale effects I listed earlier.

And none of these mean "Autostrike"! Even the crew-hide-in-Fo´c´sle-formula would always leave a small crew of hardened veterans on deck to operate the ship at severely reduced effectiveness.

[Horatio Hornblower]

@ huliotkd

 

I dislike your morale concept, because it includes too much 'auto' for me.

 

But I VERY much like your orders concept. Had you put it in a different post, you would have earned a 'like' from me for that!

[Plak]

I love the command arrows idea.

Those arrows could be enhanced with the dropdown order attached to the arrow idea by NorthernWolves.

The commander could choose to not use arrows and just go with some generic orders for ship clases or specific ships and leave the rest to the captains of those ships or to just give a basic order to the fleet (flee, line, melee...).

 

The incentive to following orders should be an increase in your "loyalty" skill independent of the fact if following the order makes sense or not.

The "reputation" skill would be some calculated number that puts in all other information (loyalty, rank in navy, win/loss, prize money, sailing, navigation, gunnery....).

This reputation skill could allow you to lessen the cost of ignoring orders (the hit to loyalty would be less for renowned captains when they are successfull).

 

Reputation might have a lasting effect on your crew morale.

 

Crew morale might affect several stats that are "crew operated" as already pointed out by Horatio Hornblower

-reload rate

-execution of sailing commands

-fighting power in boarding/defending boarders

-waterpump speed

[Voodeux]

This sounds magnifique!

 

EDIT: Wait what? Privateer fleets? Don't tell me privateers have trafalgar sized fleets?

Privateers should never be one or max two vessels?

 

Why would Privateers who are faced with an overwhelming enemy be denied the chance to join together in coalitions?

[BustyLove]

Anything that can encourage teamwork in an arena combat mechanic is very important I feel. If not done people tend to default to being selfish and less focused on winning a match, than they are reaching their personal goals.

[Arvenski]

So, sorry for replying to an old thread that might be out of date, but this is the first time I'd read this. Anyway, I can't say I'm overly thrilled with some of what I read in the OP. 

 

1.) 

"Every battle (depending on size) will have 1-4 squadrons commanders. Commanders will be automatically assigned based on their win/loss ratios, battle rating and rank. All players will be allocated to commanders (unless they are already in a group)." 

 

Does this apply to random battles, too? Because if that's the case, what happens if I get a commander who's a complete moron? I'm sure anybody who's played WoT a bit can tell you that sometimes the people with the best stats are actually the biggest jerks. And another thing, won't clans/guilds want to appoint their own commanders? 

 

2.) 

Orders will provide bonuses. Of course players will be able to take initiative, but fulfilling the order would be ideal course of action. Following a path drawn by admiral will provide a speed boost, firing at a marked ship will increase your damage and accuracy if you are in range from the command ship. Losing commanders in battle will be devastating. 

 

What the actual fuck. Well, goodbye to realism, if that's the case. 

 

--

Perhaps you (Admin) have addressed these points already; I'll have to read the whole thread to find out. I just wanted to say this now. 

[Månis]

Nice feature. Leading port battles in PotBS (sorry again but its natural that many of us will compare NA to PotBS - its natural ) was BIG problem from mamy reasons - people didint join TS or vent, language barrier, no will to cooperate or just acting as traitors by accept invites and clicking out or open defenders town guns allow defenders to hide in town and win PB with help of npcs.

Visualisiation of tatctics should be clear for everybody in battle no matter what language they speak!. Big plus for that but i think voice comms will be as well very important. Bonuses as well its good idea maybe this cause people start listen oreders of commander(admiral) of the fleet if this will be only way to progress your character. 

I like this ideas as well i got concerns - like in real life - nobody like listen orders:) especially if you think they are not best:) or just simply from personal reasons - you dont like Admiral or want take his place:) But i keep fingercross for this feature which may bring something new and important to gameplay

No doubt in developers skills ofc but this maybe a bit complicated as well im right?

Well language in pb's doesnt have to be that big of problem. For example, in potbs, in France we had some really good PB leaders like Ubert, Cous, Pierrick and a russian guy who name i cant remember :-(   Anyhow, the way most Pb were fought was to deligate leadership. For example, if Ubert lead the PB, he made sure to assign group leadership to people he knew can handle it. So the PB leader didnt had to lead the entire fleet, just the Group Leaders.  

 

And when it comes to language, all i can say is one word.... Pierrick.   A true master and commander  when it comes to this. Not only is he a really awesome PB-leader. He also manage to keep track of the entire fleet and give orders to everyone. Not just only in English but also in French. The only thing he couldnt do in a PB was to stop HMK from jumping at the door  

 

So if you need inspiration and advice when it comes to PB, i know who i would talk to...

[Jack Freedom]

So if you are following orders and firing on the targetted ship...in addition to your entire fleet/squadron firing on them..they are also taking magical bonus damage....

 

ummm Please no...

 

I mean ships moving faster...to a degree I can understand this (Tho I would ask you keep in mind wind can be stolen from ships and that was something you had to be mindful of in formations)

 

but extra damage seems a bit too...arcadey

 

It could be that if you follow the arrows to a degree you get points for it but other than that the mechanism should not hinder or limit players in any way. If anything it should encourage teamplay and communication.

[BustyLove]

I agree with the sentiment about the bonus damage for firing on marked ships. The teamwork and fighting effectively in it's self would be enough of a bonus in combat.

[Thonar]

The problem I have is:

Fleet Commander starting to micro-manage a "Melee".

 

Thus I propose following changes:

1. Limited Number of drawable arrows (a maximum of 5, maybe even "skillable" from 2 to 6, maybe even different arrow "pots" for "Light Ships", Frigates and SoL)
2. Unlimited number of assigning a own ship to an enemy (maybe also "skillable" from 5 to unlimited)

3. Drawing a single "Engagement Area" up to a defined maximum size or smaller (maybe skillable up to the size from 1/10 to 1/4 of an instance) to mark "Melee-Zones" which grant bonuses for doing damage to enemy ships while being in "double range".

4. Ship groupings: Limited number of ship groupings (1-4)

5. Limited number of "follow this ship orders" (maybe skillable from 5-10)

6. Maybe different orders for Frigates/ SoL

 

Why doing so?
As soon as a commander starts to order single ships how to turn in a melee, it gets annoying for the players, because they know the wind and their ships best.

When then a Player gets orders that either:

A) Doesn't fit the ship

Doesn't fit the playstyle

or

C) Doesn't fit the Situation (wind/ enemy/...)

 

Players will get annoyed by commanders orders which causes bad blood. Especially when they need to NOT follow orders, for good reasons, but getting punished for doing the right thing for the team.

Also it helps to remain a bit of chaos and responsibility for the captains, while you have a "learning curve" for commanders.

Thus a "new" commander will not be able to give unlimited orders and dooming the own team by starting to micro-manage. They will have to learn to trust their fellow captains in certain situations and learn their Limits of orders.

 

What I, personally, doesn't want to see are speed or damage buffs but getting more "honor points" (or whatsoever) are fine, especially when they are so much that they make a difference for the players (unlike in Battlefield).

Edited April 8, 2015 by Thonar

[Arvenski]

Thonar just mentioned another concern I have, which I only skimmed the surface of in my first post: That is, what if your commander isn't very good? A commander like that could doom a bunch of the team when they try to follow his orders, and the players that realize in time that they have to ignore his orders won't get rewarded, even if they manage to win the battle when the commander would've lost it.

[Pullie]

Exactly what I have been wishing for.