Grind discussion

[Skully]

48 minutes ago, Slamz said:

You can't raise 60k for a Surprise?

Gold isn't the true currency. Labor hours and real time is.

Given that the blueprints haven't been reduced w.r.t. material requirements your real time investment (hauling etc) remains the same.

Labor hours has literally remained the same.

So in effect a 1 dura (5th) ship is costing 5 times more in time (/ on the clock).

A quick fix might be triple both labor hour regeneration and wallet. It would do nothing however to real time effort and might become an issue if it would need to be changed back again.

[Captain Lust]

7 minutes ago, Skully said:

Gold isn't the true currency. Labor hours and real time is.

Given that the blueprints haven't been reduced w.r.t. material requirements your real time investment (hauling etc) remains the same.

Labor hours has literally remained the same.

So in effect a 1 dura (5th) ship is costing 5 times more in time (/ on the clock).

A surprise doesnt need much material tho and labor hours regenerate passively even when not in game. It's just people being sissies and don't want to risk losing a ship no matter how cheap it is...

[Skully]

17 minutes ago, Captain Lust said:

A surprise doesnt need much material tho and labor hours regenerate passively even when not in game. It's just people being sissies and don't want to risk losing a ship no matter how cheap it is...

Given that we can not change people I fail to read any concrete proposal or constructive counter-argument in your statement.

[Captain Lust]

1 hour ago, Skully said:

Given that we can not change people I fail to read any concrete proposal or constructive counter-argument in your statement.

That's right... as long as people play like mammering elf-skinned malt-worms it doesn't matter how many duras ships have or how cheap you make them... they will always find excuses.

 

~ replaced derogatory term with a more appropriate euphemism ~ the moderation team

[Skully]

1 hour ago, Captain Lust said:

That's right... as long as people play like mammering elf-skinned malt-worms it doesn't matter how many duras ships have or how cheap you make them... they will always find excuses.

Only when all excuses are neutralized would your statement become truth.

So lets start by neutralizing them.

[Captain Lust]

1 minute ago, Skully said:

Only when all excuses are neutralized would your statement become truth.

So lets start by neutralizing them.

That's easy... make all ships free and remove OW so they can't lose anything and don't have to sail a bit to get their fight... so basically NA Legends arena mode. By excuses i mean they make up excuses and blame the game mechanics for their lazy sissy asses.

[Captain Lust]

1 hour ago, Slamz said:

You can't raise 60k for a Surprise?

I agree, ships are cheap enough... even if you dont have the bit of gold to build one you can even cap a NPC one that comes with guns equipped. The real problem is upgrades costing up to tenfold the ship value... copper plate 500k - 1mil if you can find someone selling it at all? just make it craftable again ffs... also all books should be available for Combat Marks ( the rarer ones 500 a pop maybe? ) and pvp should yield at least 10x more marks and ship knowledge...

[Skully]

27 minutes ago, Captain Lust said:

By excuses i mean they make up excuses and blame the game mechanics for their lazy sissy asses.

Sure, but if the choice is having a player and lower barrier to entry or having no player and higher barrier to entry, then I see the obvious choice we need to make.

[Captain Lust]

5 minutes ago, Skully said:

Sure, but if the choice is having a player and lower barrier to entry or having no player and higher barrier to entry, then I see the obvious choice we need to make.

I don't disagree with you but the question is... how much lower does the barrier to entry need to be? At some point sinking a ship doesnt hurt your enemy at all and becomes somewhat meaningless. Then soon we will be back to pre wipe where everyone has 12 Victories and 8 L'Oceans parked in docks... gold is becoming more and more worthless again already due to people generating huge amounts out of thin air with missions and trading... Capping a surprise from AI is basically a free ship... all you paid was a few minutes and some minor repair costs...

Edited August 11, 2017 by Captain Lust

[Hethwill]

Hmmm, good point... maybe "hoarding" shouldn't be a thing in a naval themed MMO based in history ?

There were stocks of supplies but truly rarely stocks of fleets unless in peace time, but that ain't hoarding at all.

[Skully]

2 minutes ago, Captain Lust said:

gold is becoming more and more worthless again already due to people generating huge amounts out of thin air with missions and trading...

Ergo, gold isn't the true currency. The labor hour regeneration and wallet are, and provide equal power to new players and veterans.

If folks want to park a shitload of ships, then so be it. Lower the barrier first, then lets look at incentives to actually sink.

[Captain Lust]

6 minutes ago, Skully said:

If folks want to park a shitload of ships, then so be it

If ships have no value then we might aswell all go play the arena version as soon as its available... i know i will be switching anyways...

[Kanay]

55 minutes ago, Skully said:

Ergo, gold isn't the true currency. The labor hour regeneration and wallet are, and provide equal power to new players and veterans.

If folks want to park a shitload of ships, then so be it. Lower the barrier first, then lets look at incentives to actually sink.

Don't have much time to type and enter in details but LH's are not anymore a thing with how easy it is now to generate 10x Labor contacts of 500hours each in game...  and either make millions selling those to who don't know or craft dozen of ships one after the other when it comes to clans able to grind numerous combat marks ... LH's lost the entire purpose they had before when they made the creation of LC's that easy and cheap ...
 

[shaeberle84]

14 hours ago, Skully said:

Total Gold: 50618 Total Labor: 589

Labour hours have implicit costs as well.

If you look at labour contracts in capitals, for example Gustavia is 75k for 500 LH that cost 50k to make. So it is 25k for 500 LH, making one LH cost about 50g. 

So the real costs of a naked surprise is about 80k gold. I dont know if LH for materials are counted in already. Also, you need to supply cannons as well, and I am not talking about cheap mediums you get from missions, but crafted ones.

So the final price for a 1 durability Surprise is even higher than it was for a 5 durability Suprise before the wipe patch.

This makes the grind really unbearable.

[Demsity]

I though that the grind was horrendous at first, trying to unlock all the slots on all the ships, and make as much money as possible.

Then I had a moment of realization. Why am I grinding? what do I want in this game? I was looking for PVP and grinding the get the best PVP ship possible.

Now when I play, I don´t care as much. I take my ship with only 1 or 2 slots unlocked, with only a gazell figurhead and hunt traders. For me this is fun. I have a set amount of money that I strive to have at all times, around 1 million. If I need money I craft some cannons and put them on contract. I can easily replace my ship, should it sink.

The grind is what you make of it.

 

This game is a MMORPG and it takes time and effort to be the best, as in all MMORPG´s. People seems to forget this and expect to be the best quickly.

 

A side note is that I don´t participate in RVR, other than in a screening fleet.

 

[Malachy]

1 hour ago, Demsity said:

I though that the grind was horrendous at first, trying to unlock all the slots on all the ships, and make as much money as possible.

Then I had a moment of realization. Why am I grinding? what do I want in this game? I was looking for PVP and grinding the get the best PVP ship possible.

Now when I play, I don´t care as much. I take my ship with only 1 or 2 slots unlocked, with only a gazell figurhead and hunt traders. For me this is fun. I have a set amount of money that I strive to have at all times, around 1 million. If I need money I craft some cannons and put them on contract. I can easily replace my ship, should it sink.

The grind is what you make of it.

 

This game is a MMORPG and it takes time and effort to be the best, as in all MMORPG´s. People seems to forget this and expect to be the best quickly.

 

A side note is that I don´t participate in RVR, other than in a screening fleet.

 

That's all well and good if you like sailing shitty little speed boats. I don't and losing a large frigate costs far more with 1 durability than it ever did with 5. The risk vs reward through trading is way out of whack and cannons aren't nearly as profitable as they used to be with all the idiots who sell them at 1 gold above cost now. About the only way to make halfway decent money on a reliable basis is to grind. Grinding for 3 to 5 hours for 2 hours of sailing and a half of an hour of being ganked 5 on 1 isn't my idea of fun. At least when we had cheap cannons and multiple durability it wasn't such a chore to pvp.

Edited August 11, 2017 by Malachy

[Demsity]

1 minute ago, Malachy said:

That's all well and good if you like sailing shitty little speed boats. I don't and losing a large frigate costs far more with 1 durability than it ever did with 5. The risk vs reward through trading is way out of whack and cannons aren't nearly as profitable as they used to be with all the idiots who sell them at 1 gold above cost now. About the only way to make halfway decent money on a reliable basis is to grind. Grinding for 3 hours for 2 hours of sailing and a half of an hour of being ganked 5 on 1 isn't my idea of fun.

Should have mentioned that the ships I sail is surprises, renommee´s, Frigates, Essex etc.

[Malachy]

4 minutes ago, Demsity said:

Should have mentioned that the ships I sail is surprises, renommee´s, Frigates, Essex etc.

All cheap little ships. Try trincs, connies, agamemnons. Ships that require a bunch of combat marks to make and a million gold worth of mods to boot on top of a 500k to 750k cost to construct.

Edited August 11, 2017 by Malachy

[Demsity]

1 minute ago, Malachy said:

All cheap little ships. Try trincs, connies, agamemnons. Ships that require a bunch of combat marks to make and a million gold worth of mods to boot on top of a 500k cost to construct.

So you go out pvping in a aga and complain that you sink?

I´m just portraying my take on the current grind, what Admin asked us to do...

[Malachy]

3 minutes ago, Demsity said:

So you go out pvping in a aga and complain that you sink?

I´m just portraying my take on the current grind, what Admin asked us to do...

In groups for that one, Connie and trinc usually. Not everyone enjoys sailing paper gank ships

[Demsity]

2 minutes ago, Malachy said:

In groups for that one, Connie and trinc usually. Not everyone enjoys sailing paper gank ships

Neither do I.

I use a teak teak surp with gazell (and sometimes other speed mods, but often not) most of the time. Its not super fast but it is fast enough. And the connie is a 4th rate, it should be harder/take more effort to equip and use.

And my point is that you can use whatever ship you want, there is no need to max them out before starting to use them IMO.

[Hethwill]

All ships that exist in NA are here due to a lot of reasons. Different players like different ships for many reasons other than "gank". For some is massive broadside powercreep, for others is a suitable tool for the task. Others like them for the looks, others play them to keep a sensible "historical feeling" to their character.

Comparing ship to ship will simply bring us to the "how much did it cost, during the age of sail, to build a schooner versus a super frigate". And we know the answer to that.

[Slamz]

6 hours ago, Demsity said:

The grind is what you make of it.

This is the realization everyone needs to make. They spend way too much time grinding when they don't need to.

Or they could at least group up and grind contention, which has double benefit.

I actually think missions have done a lot to kill this game: they encourage people to solo, if nothing else. It's good to "support" solo play but when solo missions are superior in every way to grouping up and hunting on the open world then we're sending this game down into a death spiral as groups disintegrate and people find it that much easier to quit playing.

[Pad Seayew]

Well, it's been fun, but once I'm called a sissy ass on a forum for an ostensibly mature game, and the moderators let it slide, I take my sissy ass out of here.  Fair winds and following seas to all of you, Godspeed.

[Slamz]

10 hours ago, Captain Lust said:

The real problem is upgrades costing up to tenfold the ship value

Those are so very optional though.

My PvP ships have had the admiralty speed figure head, the Northern Carpenters (which I make myself and are cheap -- the components are common) and the 3rd mod is usually just whatever I have laying around. Accuracy or reload is nice.

Since the Great Speed Nerf, I find it very questionable to burn up another slot on an additional 1-2% speed. You're talking about a difference that you can make up with a couple of rounds of your chasers firing chain shot.

So this is another "the grind is what you make of it". Yeah sure you CAN grind out tenfold the ship value in mods but it is far from mandatory and is unlikely to make a difference. It's a damn close fight where you could have swung it the other way if only you'd had [insert one or two mods here]. That pretty much never happens.

11 hours ago, Skully said:

Gold isn't the true currency. Labor hours and real time is.

Well, real time is. Labor hours are not, unless you're pumping out 1st rates. For 5th rates, you cannot possibly lose ships fast enough to account for all the labor hours you generate.

The real limiting factor in ship making is just the hauling runs.

In a healthier economy, gold still talks though. Even within France on PvP-Global I've had orders filled for coal, gold ore, teak logs, fir logs, oak logs, etc. I just put up buy orders for what I felt was a reasonably attractive price (higher than any NPC will pay anywhere) and generally someone fills it. I could have saved money and gone to pick up the stuff myself but when I'm sitting on a few million gold, I'm happy to pay someone else to do it if there's a taker.

Point being, I still don't buy this argument that people don't PvP because they can't afford to -- not after a month of gameplay.

Maybe if you're a new player on a team that's hopelessly camped and one-ported -- but, for example, there is no excuse for any British or Pirate player on PvP-Global to say they aren't ready for PvP if they're been here for a month. They're ready. They're just dragging their feet waiting for some pie in the sky ideal that's really just become an excuse to not take a risk.

If someone joined France-Global within the last week then okay, I can get that they are not ready and are have a real hard time getting ready. There is definitely a new player problem that can be addressed here.

But veterans? No excuse except an excess of risk-aversion.