So... What does everyone think of ship XP?

[Slamz]

tl;dr: Would you still be grinding 1st rate missions if there was no ship knowledge XP?

In my mind, ship XP was always a good idea, to prevent flavor of the month and hopping from ship to ship. In RPG style, spending time with a ship made you better at using it, at least a little bit. A little customization.

But every day it seems like half the people logged in are grinding 1st rate missions instead of, well, playing the rest of the game.

So what's the deal?

Do you need money? Is that what you're grinding for?
Is it literally just a lack of other things to do? You're grinding missions while waiting for someone else to organize something more fun?
Are you really doing all this to grind XP [on a ship you might be lucky to get into a real fight with once a month]?

I feel like mission grinding is distracting too many players in too many cubby holes and I would like to better understand why people do so much of it.

[Guest]

Knowledge xp rewards you for sailing a ship and gives you progression.

But it also discourages trying new ships before grinding them out. So its good and bad. 

Honestly the first two slots should be free or some kind of free xp system is needed where you can earn free xp on ships youve already grinded out to use on new ships. 

[Guest]

I like it the way it is.. I've unlocked the 4 slots on the Reno from purely PvP and grinded PvE for the 5 slots on the surp.. There should be a reward in specialising in a specific ship.

[Slamz]

6 minutes ago, Flinch said:

Honestly the first two slots should be free or some kind of free xp system is needed where you can earn free xp on ships youve already grinded out to use on new ships. 

Yeah, one of my ideas back when this was talked about was a sort of progressing tree where XP would bleed over into similar ships.

Like maybe you get a Bucentare for the first time and find out you already have 3 slots unlocked because the formula is something like:

Ship knowledge XP = [knowledge gained for this ship] + [knowledge gained in the Bellona / 4]  + [knowledge gained in the Frigate / 6] + [knowledge gained in the Brig / 12]....

And since you had knowledge in those previous ships, you get some credit in the higher rank one.

I wonder if this would stop people from wasting so much time grinding for slots.

But then, I don't really understand why people grind as much as they do. If they're trying for slot unlocks or some completely different reason.

[Archaos]

I guess its a mixture of unlocking slots, earning gold and farming drops.

[Slim McSauce]

It makes me feel good when I unlock a slot for a ship. It means another bit of personal flavor I can add to it to make it do what I want.

I'd just like to see more consistent XP requirements for similar rated ships. Pirate frigate requires 2x the XP to level up compared to the Surprise

[Captain Lust]

You know the solution is so easy ( yet again )... just give 5x+ knowledge xp for pvp battles...

[z4ys]

I still dont know why we still have perma mods.

Shipknowledge was introduced because it was hard to get certain mods and the crafted mods required a lot of LH which made them mostly more expensive and valuable than the hole ship.

 

I would like to see that perma mods go away or get in a way into shipknowledge or are included into the chocie of crafting.

 

[Kanay]

29 minutes ago, Slim Jimmerson said:

It makes me feel good when I unlock a slot for a ship. It means another bit of personal flavor I can add to it to make it do what I want.

I'd just like to see more consistent XP requirements for similar rated ships. Pirate frigate requires 2x the XP to level up compared to the Surprise

Wait until you see the XP needed for an Essex compared to the pirate Frigate ...

1st slot 2250xp for the Essex, 1500 for the Pirate frigate

2nd slot 9050xp for the Essex, 6050 for the  Pirate frigate

3rd slot 18100xp for the Essex, 12150 for the  Pirate frigate

4th slot 29450xp for the Essex, 19750 for the  Pirate frigate

5th slot 45300xp for the Essex, not unlocked yet for the  Pirate frigate

Sailing this pirate ship now and leveling it up seems like a piece of cake compared to the Essex, it's superior to the Essex in almost all domains, better speed, way better turn rate ( and no issue at all to turn against the wind in a blink and still keep a nice speed unlike the crippled Essex unable to turn against the wind correctly now ) , bit more HP for the pirate frigate, same thickness as the Essex, only one less gun per side but having chasers instead ... 315 crew for the Essex vs 300 on frigate, but 130 crew needed for sails vs 110 only in the frigate ... same HP for sails

Battle rate 180 for the pirate frigate, 225 for the Essex and this huge difference of XP needed for knowledge slots ... makes no sense at all... another half baked feature of this game ...

 

Edited July 27, 2017 by Kanay

[Captain Lust]

20 minutes ago, z4ys said:

I still dont know why we still have perma mods.

Shipknowledge was introduced because it was hard to get certain mods and the crafted mods required a lot of LH which made them mostly more expensive and valuable than the hole ship.

 

I would like to see that perma mods go away or get in a way into shipknowledge or are included into the chocie of crafting.

Can we all just take a moment and appreciate + upvote this? 

[z4ys]

8 minutes ago, Slim Jimmerson said:

 

Because its against the intention while we have shipknowledge.

[William Death]

Short answer:

No, I wouldn't bother grinding stupid AI fleets or missions if it wasn't for XP. I would be doing the same thing I was pre-wipe: sailing out looking for PvP. I absolutely hate grinding AI. I paid my dues to the bots when I was grinding my rank up and I don't like doing it again to open ship slots. 

I probably wouldn't bother too much at all with grinding AI if PvP XP was significantly high enough that I earn the same or more xp doing PvP as grinding AI in the protected zone.

Why grind AI:

To open slots and get those rare skillbooks of course! Sure, you can make some money doing it, but there are other ways to make money in the game too. But if you want to be at the top of your game, you *need* those slots open so you can throw in your super mods that you pick up off of AI grinding. Good luck getting a PvP kill to drop "Art of Proper Cargo Distribution" for you.

What I think should happen:

I like the idea of ship knowledge slots alright, but I don't like the massive XP requirements on some ships. XP requirements should be significantly reduced for most ships, and I'd like to see something of a carry-over XP pool for each ship class (I've proposed this numerous times but I'll type a summary of it again):

4-5th rate pool:

10,000 xp on any 4-5th rate unlocks the 1st slot on all 4-5th rates.

20,000 xp on any 4-5th rate unlocks the 2nd slot on all 4-5th rates.

30,000 xp on any 4-5th rate unlocks the 3rd slot on all 4-5th rates

After the pool fills to 30,000 XP from grinding on any 4-5th rate ships, the pool goes away. The last two slots on each 4-5th rate have to be unlocked by grinding that particular ship. So, I might sail the Endymion and the Ingermanland a lot and open all the slots on those by grinding; during that grind, the xp not only opened the slots on those ship, but also filled the xp pool so I can hop into any other 4-5th rate and have 3 knowledge slots unlocked. Under this system, it rewards captains for not only staying with one particular ship, but the entire ship class (after all, Constitution is not too different from Trincomalee or Indefatigable or Belle Poule, so it would make sense that some knowledge from sailing those frigates would transfer to the Constitution as well, and the other way around too).

In this system, XP requirements for the slots on ships should still be significantly reduced.

Lastly, make all upgrades/skillbooks craftable!  

NO MORE GOLD MARINES! NO MORE GOLD CARPENTER'S TEAMS! 

RNG is bad. Do away with it.

[z4ys]

1 minute ago, Willis PVP2 said:

Why grind AI:

To open slots and get those rare skillbooks of course! Sure, you can make some money doing it, but there are other ways to make money in the game too. But if you want to be at the top of your game, you *need* those slots open so you can throw in your super mods that you pick up off of AI grinding. Good luck getting a PvP kill to drop "Art of Proper Cargo Distribution" for you.

Yep PvE is more rewarding as PvP thats a problem as well

[Slim McSauce]

4 minutes ago, z4ys said:

Yep PvE is more rewarding as PvP thats a problem as well

capturing a ship and sinking it from the hold menu still gives no rewards

[Nelsons Barrel]

I would like to see the game completely without any upgrades. Just flawless skill based PvP.

 

The whole knowledge grind is going the opposite direction than what it feels logical. You start with the hardest part, without any advantages against enemies that might have all slots unlocked and using the best books, who knows? Have you a chance against somebody who actually knows his ship and uses the best upgrades on his boat? yeah, maybe... but probably you don't. Do you want to engage that enemy? Probably not... So you grind... and grind... and after that you grind the next ship... caught in the endless pve-loop to get the best things and still hope for RNG-god to be on your side while looting npc wrecks... This is how i like my pvp game... not.

Edited July 27, 2017 by Eleven

[Barbancourt]

I don't grind.  It's too time consuming and too boring. 

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Eleven said:

I would like to see the game completely without any upgrades. Just flawless skill based PvP.

 

The whole knowledge grind is going the opposite direction than what it feels logical. You start with the hardest part, without any advantages against enemies that might have all slots unlocked and using the best books, who knows? Have you a chance against somebody who actually knows his ship and uses the best upgrades on his boat? yeah, maybe... but probably you don't. Do you want to engage that enemy? Probably not... So you grind... and grind... and after that you grind the next ship... caught in the endless pve-loop to get the best things and still hope for RNG-god to be on your side while looting npc wrecks... This is how i like my pvp game... not.

I feel the opposite. Building your ship to specialize is strategic and thoughtful. If everything was purely battle skill then you  could never outwit someone more skilled than you. 

That being said. Rng based modules is pretty bad.

[Hodo]

What I dont understand is why copper plating which was a common fitting for many ships of the time isnt craftable in game.

At least let them be unlocked through the admiralty store and expensive to make.  

 

Right now they are worth more than most of the ships out there.

[Rhodry Heidenrich]

I like the concept of being rewarded for finding a ship you like, and spending a lot of time sailing it. Gives a little flavor of progression, and that's fine with me. That said, I'm not a fan of RNG interfering with getting skill books/upgrades with which to fill the slots I open. RNGesus has not, by any scope of the imagination been kind to me when it comes to book drops, and it's actually quite irritating. Skill books should definitely be craftable and readily available to anyone who wants to spend the mats or gold. 

No point in having 5 slots open on my favorite ship if I can't fill them with anything worthwhile. 

 

 

[CaptVonGunn]

5 hours ago, Slim Jimmerson said:

capturing a ship and sinking it from the hold menu still gives no rewards

I just did missions to get the Knowledge boxes then just do PvP for fun and stealing stuff

[HarryButpain]

well,

why even care about that? They grind to unlock slots but that's only temporary when we assume that that is to unlock all 5 knowledge slots..

Inna month from now the majority of ppl will have their slots on their favored ships, so why be concerned with that during the process of it?

[AlteSocken]

To answer the OP, I grinded Missions when:

• I was (very) low-level, to get some money to invest
• I got a new ship to check handling of it and open at least 2-3 knowledge-slots
• I don't have much time to play (hunting) go get into easy action

And of course for hostility reasons.

[Kanay]

I know now the xp needed for the last slot on the Pirate Frigate :

How is that justified when it's a better ship than the Essex in all domains and it is not crippled with made up stats to make it a sitting duck when turning against the wind on top of this ?

 

This alone pretty much sums up the XP knowledge system and battle ratings in game, irrational, half backed , making no sense at all ...

[CaptVonGunn]

I still think it should be by Rate...  ie all combat knowledge XP earned n a 5th rate works toward opening the boxes on ALL 5th rates.. A Frigate is a Frigate in the end. Same skill set applies to them all.  You will still need actual practice in a ship to be good at it. But a Captain that has a certain Knowledge of Sailing can easily apply it to another ship slightly smaller or bigger with same overall setup of rigging and guns..  Granted this would have meant the over all grind per box would be More XP.. but it would also mean you could try different ships for different jobs and not be reinventing the wheel.