Testbed: Content patch - 9.98 deployed

[Sir Texas Sir]

4 hours ago, Jesters-Ink said:

Nope, not in PvE, only the person who clicks attack gets in, I will re test today, but thats how it was the last time I was in PvE.

Sounds like your in the ROOKIE ROE area of the shallows maybe?  I had no problem dragging in other AI around me testing things out in the deep water areas.

On 2/17/2017 at 3:37 PM, admin said:

Hello Captains

Patch have been deployed to testbed. Here is a brief description.

• Challenges: PVE challenges now provide the ship for you. No need to purchase the ship anymore to participate in challenges. Have the devs even play tested these match ups?  They are nothing like the current missions and I think the match up against higher BR ships means no one but the elite players are going to be able to do these and get them done.  So it will prob be the same folks over and over winning.   I have yet to see anyone win one of these other than the Kills one.   Cutters vs Brigs or Essex vs  2 Trincs in the demast?  I can't even get off more than one stern rack before my sides is melted (no clue what ship we get for free.)  These need to be adjusted big time.  Maybe make the Demast like the Kills one where it's one ship at a time.  They should be equal BR match up too not steps above.
• 1 durability for ships of the line did not achieve its required goal and is removed. It did not have any effect on rich veterans and was just punishing casuals who left the game instead of converting into pvp/conquest players because they lost the ships they worked so hard on. All linesips now have 3 durabilities with the corresponding increase of required resources. What is wrong with the current system?  I'm sorry if your getting sunk to much in the OW and in your SOL you should either not be out SOL or not run in those hot spot areas.  You keep changing things to make the PvE guys happy but your not giving the PvPers any love.  
• You can now use the hold of your fleet ships. Love this so far except one thing.  Can't put cargo into a ship while in the battle screen. You have to be in port.  So you can't capture a trader and put it and the cargo into your fleet to go capture more traders.
• Admiralty store has been added for testing. The content is not final, prices are not final and what is sold in stores is mostly for testing the systems. The following rewards were added (names are temporary and might not survive)
  • City Key - for raids or port attacks or defences
  • Battle Ensign - PVP reward
  • Short Pennant - PVE reward
  • Trading Manifest - reward for trader ships or trading missions etc. 
  • Each reward can be used for exclusive content in admiralty stores (test content to test systems provided in testbed).
  • All rewards are given in the end of battle based on battle kills and damage. If 10 people sink 1 ship rewards are split for 10 people based on damage, kills and assists. I noticed the Nationals (only logged into a Dane) has way more options than pirates.   I'm fine with that kinda, but would be nice if we had some other optiosn too that is equal in rewards but more geared for pirates.  That and is there anything special for the Navy Aggy?   Would be cool if they are a special skinned version of the ships.  The only problem I have is you get some random trim most likely.  So that reward might just turn into a crap ship and wasn't worth the grind.
• Officers. Officers had one problem, they punished you if you played actively (and sank a lot). As a result officers were removed from the game and all perks have been moved to a player. You get 1 point per rank. The system is not final and will continue development. Officers in their traditional sense might come back in the future. This was I think in a good move so we can just set and change them as needed.  Only thing is what the hell are we going to do with our redeemable XP now if we are maxed out rank?   I use to use the XP I got from ships I crafted to rank up my officer to 5-10 rank instantly after his last life is sunk.  Though this brings something else up.  Sorry if your PvP all the time and sinking and loosing your officer life than your getting plenty of XP to get it back to max in no time.  If anything we do a fleet mission or two and bang level 10 again.  Once again sounds like your doing this for the PvEers but this one turns out to be handy for both sides.
• Pirate vs Pirate - outlaw battles. Pirates can now attack each other. The battle created by pirates vs pirates is always open and has FFA rules (free for all). You can sink anyone you see. Signalling perk does not work in the battle. Battle cannot be created in the capital protected waters. This is going to be fun chaos when it's put into game. I got a feeling my clan will prob spend a week just hunting and killing each other down for the hell of it.  Might have to make a kill board for clan members lol.   Though there can be some issues with griefing and tagging I can see with this current options. Would be nice if we can see some more Pirate love or details.  I'm sorry making us nothing but a nation with no alliance and can kill each other isn't going to cut it down the road for pirates mechanics.
• Recently killed tracker added to game. Players who recently lost the battle (sank or surrendered) no longer give rewards for 1 hour. This solves huge number of problems for a minor price. I understand the reason for this so some things are abused, but it hurts the active PvPers that come out and will fight over and over.  We have flipped regions just on the PvP we did.  If you can't get any rewards or points for an hour what the point of sinking them again if they come right back out?  Well other than just for sinking fun.
• Ship paints can now be stored in clan warehouses. 
• Forts and towers were significantly buffed (large fort will destroy a ship in approximately 5 minutes under constant fire). We hope this feature will help players to vary their fleets a bit and bring mortar vessels to battles (who can destroy a fort in 10 mins. If this damage is too big we will lower it, but we were not really satisfied with the forts uselessness in battles. 
• Chain shot damage fall off from distance implemented and added to game. Good and can we make notes and paints stackable for like ones?
• All instances are now immediately closing when last player leaves the instance. A good % of instances were wasted for bot vs bot entertainment Hope this fix the exploit issues that came up this week of fleet missions and such.

Discuss.

Please avoid off topic in this thread and discuss the substance matter after you have tested the content and if you really have something constructive to say. 

N.B.:  You can find directions to join the test bed server here.

Well I been playing around with test the last few days and figure I'll update my view on the patch we are testing. I just hope they get some of this stuff and some other new stuff in the game soon as it's needing a bit of a up lift to it in something new patch wise.

[Jesters-Ink]

Nope Tex, i was close to Charlestown, and don't forget, I'm talking about PvE for this particular problem.

[Guest]

...

Why do 1st rate ships, the cream of the crop, have to be adjusted for easy access and prolific use for casual players?

Not to mention that 1st rates are the only ships worth capturing at the moment, but that'll be largely gone too now.

[God Emperor Trump / Alan]

Make all ships 1 dura and re-do how upgrades work.

Right now any captured ship that is not a 1st rate is completely worthless, if all ships are 1 dura capturing ships will be a bigger thing than it is now, as people have pointed out.

As people have also suggested, move the durabilities to the upgrades, maybe offer to repair or renew them somehow after duras lost for a high cost?

[Jesters-Ink]

Why oh why are people so upset about first rates being so common?

Make um common, then everyone sails and fights, make hard to get and the little guy spends his days endlessly scratching around for mats. Then eventually gets one and loses it on its first day out.

TBH, the only people complaining about this are those who have too many of them already.

[Sir Texas Sir]

54 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

another test.

-Trinco vs Santiisima.

-What happened:

The goal of this test was to see if the crew losses to stern raking was decreased (I read somewhere that it was). Well, the thing is, despite I never sail the trinco, I was able to kill 300 guys even doing some very bad rakes. Trinc has one of the worse turn rate so surprise you where able to get that many.

-my thoughts:

A lonely SoL like the santisima could be easily done by 2-3 frigates. Even if the Santisima go for dismast, the repair sail kit (combined with perks and modules) will probably recover the lost mast. I'm sorry a solo SOL like a 1st rate should be dead if it's attacked by a few good frigates.  You should not be out solo in a 1st rate.  They had escorts for a reason.  On a note I was coming back from a grind a few weeks back in a note l'Ocean.  Got tagged by a trinc and two connies.  I'll admit they where not good players.  The trinc keep me tagged in and only shot my sails while the first Connie caught up.  When he went to give me a broad of chian I turned and gave him a broad of ball.   Almost melted his side.  Than the same happen on the other side to the other connie.  They fell back enough for me to pull ahead and stay there.  I ran the server clock out before maintance, but if you don't know what your doing you can get hurt bad.  Frigates in no way are going to easly demast a 1st rate cuase there gun pen and the mast thickness.  Now if they where smart and stern raked my crew down (had to get me slow enough to do that) than I would of been dead for sure.  It was my own fault for being solo, but hay I'm average player not a potatoe. If you demast the frigates correctly even the repair kits won't bring them back up to speed if you save your own.  

-my proposal:

Tweak the Brace feature: Decrease the time of preparation by 5 seconds (if you watched "master and comander" the order was inmediately executed (first battle against the Acheron)) and decrease the cooldown time to 4 minutes.

Decrease the max. killed per ball a bit more.

Decrease some (not a lot please) cm the mast thickness of small-medium vessels.

Here is an even better solution...>DON"T GO OUT SOLO IN  A 1ST RATE<   Oh and my clan has caught tons of 1st rates out on OW this way and only used smaller ships to capture them.  The funny thing is a few times they have friends that just leave them behind for us to over take and capture the 1st rates.

[Sir Texas Sir]

2 hours ago, Jesters-Ink said:

Nope Tex, i was close to Charlestown, and don't forget, I'm talking about PvE for this particular problem.

contraband goods trader maybe?   There is way to many things that could cause it.

[Jesters-Ink]

If you one dura all ships then ports are going to have to be 25 to cover the loss of duras. Naaah.

[The Spud]

Allright, played the testbed yesterday. Flag cap fleet missions in the Vic (I know easy mode).

First missions nothing out of the ordinary felt like the damage output has increased, but might be just me thinking that or the other ships being fir, dunno.

Second mission I had no less then 4 AI ships (out of 16 or so) fireshock and explode?? They still had plenty of crew to put the fire out, but somehow they just went into fireshock. It was a funny sight, especialy if the AI flocks around it like seaguls on a piece of bread.

Bought myself a "Bowfigure - Whale", perma upgrade, gives 5% pump bailing which I found to be funny. Does not change the actual bow figure, as expected. Sorry if this is allready been posted elsewhere in this thread.

I probably did something wrong, but I couldn't join any of the PvE Events (demast, kill,...) I thought it was supposed to give you the ship so it would be skill based only not who has the best ship?

All in all so far I like the new stuff, admiralty store is great, would be fun if there would be a bit of rotation in the stuff you can buy. Maybe make some stuff exclusive to some capitals. With the PvE to PvP exchange rate, its allot more profitable to do PvP, 10 PvE points give one PvP point I believe.

[fox2run]

3 hours ago, Jesters-Ink said:

If you one dura all ships then ports are going to have to be 25 to cover the loss of duras. Naaah.

Indeed. It's all about immersion. If you have this very expensive one dura ship, you won't take any chances with it. You will avoid any risk and even fights. This turns the OW to a dull place in the end. If you have 5 dura ships you can take some chances and a defeat is not a total blow for your time and in-game economy. It's a bit like giving parachutes to fighter pilots. 

For many reaching top ranks is a goal itself. Once you go there you find yourself stucked in port with all these nice 1st rates that are piling up.

Lets use them in OW! 

We need tools for bringing common players together in small fleets. This game is best in PvP mode.

[qw569😳]

On 18.02.2017 at 3:21 AM, admin said:

They are already everywhere. Also we see no difference between 10000 resource 1 dura ship and 30000 resource 3 dura ship

 

1 durability Exceptional Victory require 7328 Labor Hours.

3 durability Exceptional Victory require 7328*3=21984 Labor Hours.

1 Victory per 21984/41/24=22 days

Is it correct?

 

[Lannes]

One durability ships won't work for anyone for all the reasons listed above. There is no way anyone would risk a 1 dura. ship, without having a ready replacement first and even then not. Three durabiity ships should be the minimum. 3 to 5 durability is okay.

[Fargo]

1 hour ago, qw569 said:

1 durability Exceptional Victory require 7328 Labor Hours.

3 durability Exceptional Victory require 7328*3=21984 Labor Hours.

1 Victory per 21984/41/24=22 days

Is it correct?

 

No, the crafting itself cant cost more than 2k LH (=2 days) unless they change the cap. 22k LH over 2 days means you need 10 players to craft for you to achieve the maximum production rate. If this can be achieved, first rates will be produced 3 times faster than now.

 

1 hour ago, fox2run said:

Indeed. It's all about immersion. If you have this very expensive one dura ship, you won't take any chances with it. You will avoid any risk and even fights. This turns the OW to a dull place in the end. If you have 5 dura ships you can take some chances and a defeat is not a total blow for your time and in-game economy. It's a bit like giving parachutes to fighter pilots. 

1 minute ago, Lannes said:

One durability ships won't work for anyone for all the reasons listed above. There is no way anyone would risk a 1 dura. ship, without having a ready replacement first and even then not. Three durabiity ships should be the minimum. 3 to 5 durability is okay.

Have you read any post here?! It got explained multiple times now in multiple topics that less durability has nothing to do with expensive ships.

[Grundgemunkey]

14 hours ago, Jesters-Ink said:

Why oh why are people so upset about first rates being so common?

Make um common, then everyone sails and fights, make hard to get and the little guy spends his days endlessly scratching around for mats. Then eventually gets one and loses it on its first day out.

TBH, the only people complaining about this are those who have too many of them already.

who is this little guy ?   to craft a a first rate he needs to have lots of time in game to

1. have had the 1st rate Bp drop 

2, have the xp to have the crew to sail it

3. have the ports available to get the mats

if hes been in the game long enough to build a 1st rate ... he wouldnt be scratching around for mats ,,, and he wouldnt be so inexperienced that he would lose it on 1st day unless it was a PB

the people complaining about the multi dura lineships are those that want to play the whole  game .... the only reason i can see why anyone would want a multi dura is that they only have to build  once every 3 losses rather than after every loss ...therefore don't have to craft ..don't have to trade ,, don't have to gather mats ... .. multi dura ships = lazy  = no one sailing around open world ..in anything other than a lineship

i would rather see all ships over 5th rate single dura but give the upgrades and paints dura instead ,,,, give 5th rate and lower multi dura to help new players

[Grundgemunkey]

2 hours ago, fox2run said:

Indeed. It's all about immersion. If you have this very expensive one dura ship, you won't take any chances with it. You will avoid any risk and even fights. This turns the OW to a dull place in the end. If you have 5 dura ships you can take some chances and a defeat is not a total blow for your time and in-game economy. It's a bit like giving parachutes to fighter pilots. 

For many reaching top ranks is a goal itself. Once you go there you find yourself stucked in port with all these nice 1st rates that are piling up.

Lets use them in OW! 

We need tools for bringing common players together in small fleets. This game is best in PvP mode.

thats not immersion ,,, its just the opposite ,,,, why dont we take your option to the extreme and if you die ..you respawn back at the battle starting point ... just have arena battles and do away with crafting and trading altogether

[Hethwill]

Lots of time meaning what exactly ? I support a more sim-like version from combat to economics but lots of time can be compressed in playing non stop 16 hours a day ( like some streamers I've seen ) or doing the same 16 hours across two weeks. Is there any difference regarding the end result ?

Question is regardless of Durabilities which personally I would like to see done in three steps:

1. Change the exit battle to Teleport to nearest Outpost ( not friendly port ) so a player always has a ship at hand and not be forced to sail back to grab a ship

2. Fuse Modules into ship crafting or Specialist crew / weaponry ( marines, extra muskets, swivels, etc ) and remove the "need, want" rare card in exchange for asking crafters for more specific builds.

3. Wipe all assets. Test 1 durability over a clean world.

[z4ys]

49 minutes ago, Hethwill said:

Lots of time meaning what exactly ? I support a more sim-like version from combat to economics but lots of time can be compressed in playing non stop 16 hours a day ( like some streamers I've seen ) or doing the same 16 hours across two weeks. Is there any difference regarding the end result ?

Question is regardless of Durabilities which personally I would like to see done in three steps:

1. Change the exit battle to Teleport to nearest Outpost ( not friendly port ) so a player always has a ship at hand and not be forced to sail back to grab a ship

2. Fuse Modules into ship crafting or Specialist crew / weaponry ( marines, extra muskets, swivels, etc ) and remove the "need, want" rare card in exchange for asking crafters for more specific builds.

3. Wipe all assets. Test 1 durability over a clean world.

to 1: 3 options: Leave to ow or Leave to next friendly port or leave to next outpost

to 2: The part of the game I dont like most (hate) is to equip a ship with mods and to get the shipinbuilds I want. So when we go for one Dura I would love to see a system that makes it much more easier for captains to get back into fights soon. So crafter just build generic ships the only difference between them is the wood typ.(its much easier to find a ship with only the right wood instead of the right wood + the right inbuilds) Its Up to the captain to modify the ship to his needs. But not with the current mod system. In every port the Player is able to buy ship modifications. Modifcations just have one tier. (so no green blue etc all are just yellow) Therefore the port has to be supplied. To supply a port players have to deliever goods (give trade missions a purpose). Raiding a port decreases the supply lvl of the port.

3. We should use the testserver.

Edited February 21, 2017 by z4ys

[elite92]

17 minutes ago, Hethwill said:

Lots of time meaning what exactly ? I support a more sim-like version from combat to economics but lots of time can be compressed in playing non stop 16 hours a day ( like some streamers I've seen ) or doing the same 16 hours across two weeks. Is there any difference regarding the end result ?

Question is regardless of Durabilities which personally I would like to see done in three steps:

1. Change the exit battle to Teleport to nearest Outpost ( not friendly port ) so a player always has a ship at hand and not be forced to sail back to grab a ship

2. Fuse Modules into ship crafting or Specialist crew / weaponry ( marines, extra muskets, swivels, etc ) and remove the "need, want" rare card in exchange for asking crafters for more specific builds.

3. Wipe all assets. Test 1 durability over a clean world.

totally agree on all 3 points, this is perfect.

the teleport to nearest port would be in the mojority of cases an enemy port, so u shouldnt be able to use the port to replenish crew or repair ship or trade stuff, u should be able to only undock or logout. but this would would open more PvP for sure that teleport to friendly port , and will also exclude the trader exploit that move stuff between friendly ports

[Fargo]

23 minutes ago, Hethwill said:

Lots of time meaning what exactly ? I support a more sim-like version from combat to economics but lots of time can be compressed in playing non stop 16 hours a day ( like some streamers I've seen ) or doing the same 16 hours across two weeks. Is there any difference regarding the end result ?

Question is regardless of Durabilities which personally I would like to see done in three steps:

1. Change the exit battle to Teleport to nearest Outpost ( not friendly port ) so a player always has a ship at hand and not be forced to sail back to grab a ship

2. Fuse Modules into ship crafting or Specialist crew / weaponry ( marines, extra muskets, swivels, etc ) and remove the "need, want" rare card in exchange for asking crafters for more specific builds.

3. Wipe all assets. Test 1 durability over a clean world.

The more time it needs to craft/buy something, the higher the value. But as long as the time per durability is the same it wont increase the value per dura. Maybe call it less flexibility, because you are forced to buy 3 ships at once. Assumed that 3 dura would cost you 16 hours of income you would be able to buy a one dura ship after ~5 hours. Playing 16 hours accross two weeks you would have access to a first rate 9 days earlier. The end result wouldnt be the same if you dont want to spend 16 hours on three first rates.

[Hethwill]

Exactly. The time value of a ship depends on the time investment done by a player. One of the investments is to have a ship at hand to use and not necessarily if it is a 1st rate or a Brig - totally dependent on player preference

[Anne Wildcat]

3 hours ago, fox2run said:

Indeed. It's all about immersion. If you have this very expensive one dura ship, you won't take any chances with it. You will avoid any risk and even fights. This turns the OW to a dull place in the end. If you have 5 dura ships you can take some chances and a defeat is not a total blow for your time and in-game economy. It's a bit like giving parachutes to fighter pilots. 

We need tools for bringing common players together in small fleets. This game is best in PvP mode.

Amen.

 

Omg, @fox2run, I think that's the first time I liked a post of yours. ?

Edited February 21, 2017 by Anne Wildcat

[Smithy]

the rationale against some of these changes is ridiculous. Clearly the current mechanics don't work well enough so stuff has to change. end of.

[elite92]

44 minutes ago, Hethwill said:

Exactly. The time value of a ship depends on the time investment done by a player. One of the investments is to have a ship at hand to use and not necessarily if it is a 1st rate or a Brig - totally dependent on player preference

i was thinking: is there a possibility that admin could do a public poll on the forum to ask for 1 dura or multidura?

[z4ys]

3 minutes ago, elite92 said:

i was thinking: is there a possibility that admin could do a public poll on the forum to ask for 1 dura or multidura?

 Wouldn't work. Most vets are for 1 dura and these are the guys showing up here in the forum. So guess what the result would be.

[Fargo]

23 minutes ago, z4ys said:

 Wouldn't work. Most vets are for 1 dura and these are the guys showing up here in the forum. So guess what the result would be.

Maybe give us some points in favour of multiple duras that cant be refuted instantly, instead of continuously posting meaningless opinions?!

The only problem with one dura is that other mechanics need to be adjusted, but that is going to happen for economy nevertheless, probably for mods as well. 

Edited February 21, 2017 by Fargo