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More Late Game, Get Rid of 1st Rate Swarms


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1st Rate Problem

The Premise here is simple, there are too many 1st rates to be historically accurate, but more importantly too many 1st rates for them to be fun or to look forward to. 

  • Historically fleets were comprised of way more 3rd rates than 1st rates. They were there, but the ratio from 3rd rates to 1st rates in fleet composition was 9:1 i believe? (Read something somewhere a year ago, nautical warfare expert facts to confirm or deny would be great)
    • Why? Because 1st rates were national TREASURES. They were expensive as all hell to build, maintain, crew, and arm. It wasnt cheap, and every nation, of all wealth felt it. Think of a carrier in todays world.
  • 1st Rates in game are so numerous in fact, that no one looks forward to getting them anymore. The newbies do, sure, but when people just offer them up freely because thats how easy they are to obtain, that excitement goes away as they sail with them, face a whole horde of other 1st rates, lose them, get more, etc. 
    • This also takes out a lot of excitement of being the most bad ass in the ocean. In fact, you probably arent, having a 1st rate MEANS NOTHING in game. Which is sad. Having a 1st rate, regardless of build should be an incredible feat, 

1st Rate Solution

In order to make 1st rates be a late game component themselves, as they should be, acquiring them needs to be completely reworked, and when you do, they must be an awesome ship indeed. 

  • Admiralty awarding 1st rate building permits. I believe this is the right track, but not there yet. This feature in game an be exploited by alts to an insane degree, and anyone with victory marks can pool them and give out 1st rate permits and thus 1st rates to whoever and whenever they wish. 
    • Permits must be made much harder to get. In fact an upper government, not of player control (call it your actual government admiralty from Europe or trade company), should reward these permits based only on killed predetermined targets on other pvp players. Essentially players get marked based off of their performance in pvp combat, the task is to then kill pvp players to earn this permit from your admiralty as you have become a national hero. If you can't do it, you dont deserve a 1st rate of great quality. You can sail a 2nd rate or 3rd rate of any quality of your choosing.
      • But what about the pve players you might ask, the traders, the non PVP players? Simple. They can go kill X amount of AI of X quality, such as other 1st rates, they can get a 1st rate permit that limits their build type to oak oak, something that is exactly base line.Nothing terrible, but nothing great. Or just add a generic 1st rate to the game that is smaller than all the rest cannon wise and health wise, but just above a 2nd rate.
    • This then creates a larger amount of players sailing on 3rd and 2nd rated ships. 2nd rate ships however should be made twice as expensive to craft as they currently are in game, as they are extremely competitive with the 1st rates, at least the buc is. 
      • The OVERALL affect of this. 1st rates become a true warship as they wade through a sea of 3rd rates and 2nd rates. Delivering the force of pure shock and awe with every broadside. But with their rarity, they will become massive targets as everyone will want to capture it and make it their own. The 1st rates will become their own late game, and become a true motivator for pvp combat, and fun terrorizing combat when/if you can meet the demands of your admiralty. 
  • Once the permit has been obtained you can craft said 1st rate of the quality you are allowed to craft. 
  • Once crafted the 1st rate may be traded ONE time before it is "bound" to that person and may not be traded again. It must be captured. Why would the admiralty give nelson control of HMS Victory if he was to give it to some junior admiral? 

Crafting Problem

Crafting in game is a joke. Its more basic than starbucks' overall clientele. lv50 crafters are so bored our ports have run out of rum! (seriously though, where has the rum gone?):lol:

Crafting Solution

If you thought my 1st rate solution was game changing, wait till you read this proposal. Essentially lv50 crafting will mean nothing as it currently does, up to lv50 i am proposing to KEEP the current system. But wait, there is more, all the way to lv100. 

  • An open world sandbox game, built around the age of sail. What could be more immersive than actually crafting your own ship built idea yourself?  Designing your own hull, cannon loadout, rig and sail loadout, etc. 
  • What is to stop people from building the most op ships on the 7 seas? 
    • Their own stupidity, a better physics engine, and by rate. If you are crafting a 7th rate it has to be under a certain dimension and under x amount of cannon broadside weight. If that means you put 3 42 pound cannons on it, then so be it. But you only have 3 cannon slots and that reload time is going to suck.
    • The Main limiter: Crafting level. Essentially each crafting level AFTER LEVEL 50 allow you to add more to your ship. Every level will allow you to add a bit more base hull hp, armor, and broadside weight. And every 10 levels you can start to build a new rate. So lv 50-60 you may craft custom 7th, 6th and 5th rates. 60-70: 4th rates. 70-80: 3rd rates. 80-90: 2nd rates. 90-100: first rates (will require a permit of special quality designating that you are not only a lv90-100 crafter, but also can perform in combat beyond Admiralty expectation.) Essentially the admiralty can only afford to trust you to outfit a ship based on your reputation and experience creating ships and in combat.
      • This will of course create epic ships that truly define naval warfare. Within bounds of reason and physical capabilities. But what is to stop everyone from acquiring these ships, especially 7th-2nd rates, and seal clubbing everyone? The crafting limitations are one, but they should be more powerful than the standard ships if built correctly. But also of course each crafting level after 50 isnt some walk in the park to get. You can get to 51 the same way as you get to 50. But after this the only way to level is to craft custom ships. These ships must then perform well in combat. Like in the old days when your crafted ships earned xp towards the craft when they were used in combat, it goes to crafting xp. The jump between level to level can be linear. But at say 59-60, (every ten level jump that allows creating a new rated ship) it is parabolic in nature of craft xp. 
        • Essentially there will only be a handful of these ships per hundreds of players. 
    • More expensive overall to craft. Each custom ship built will require a good amount more material than their counterpart prebuilt ships. In gold currency, say a 4th rate takes 500k to build if you buy all the mats. A custom built 4th rate would cost 2 million. 
      • This adds more value to currency gold. 
      • Generates more open world traffic ferrying resources.
  • This creates a massive late game for the abused crafters. Something to really look forward to, and of course these powerful ships shouldnt be shy of battle, as they are (hopefully) built well enough to be better than the standard ship of that rate. (unless of course someone got carried away with the sails and you capsize in battle, haha.)

TL;DR? you are going to have to read, this was as short as i could make it. sorry

As far as this not being possible to do? All of these things have at least in one game or anther been a thing, perhaps not all together at one time. But I know it is possible, and with our current engine it may take several years to do, but I do recognize that, and just believe it would be an incredible thing to implement for a more expanded late game for everyone.

Ideas and thoughts are of course welcome, and perhaps i left some things out, as these were shower thoughts, and hastily put together. 

o7 captains, and Godspeed all.

Edited by OneEyedSnake
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We already tried limited 1st rates and people hated it... also you make it sound like 1st rates are the hello kittying deathstar... Victory is just a buc on steroids and it already costs like 3x the resources to build + VM. I like your idea for x amount of PvP kills needed to sail y SOL but just wait for the agonizing moaning of the carebears...

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1 minute ago, Landsman said:

We already tried limited 1st rates and people hated it... also you make it sound like 1st rates are the hello kittying deathstar... Victory is just a buc on steroids and it already costs like 3x the resources to build + VM. I like your idea for x amount of PvP kills needed to sail y SOL but just wait for the agonizing moaning of the carebears...

i want 1st rates to be deathstars. they arent now. sorry if that wasnt clear. thats what they should be. and with how hard it would be to obtain them, it would be balanced. 

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but yes, the carebears, that is what i was hoping to address with the PVE 1st rate reward. I mean oak oak is more than enough to allow for variability in the ship to become a good ship. and if they only pve anyway, thats more than enough though in my opinion. but it is just an opinion, and I certainly acknowledge those players and your point with that. 

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The idea is great, if this game was layered in that way. What u are proposing now its just more scarcity and grinding for the casuals.The devs say this is a sandbox MMO, and players aparently like to sail the biggest ships. The only way to limit this is to hard code limitations for the battles (eg. events, patrols, pb's).

MHO!

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I think highest level crafter, should build better ships if he has already built many of them. So if gold ship is %1 percent chance, he will have more chance compared to other crafters. Every hundred ship increases the chance for that ship class ?

So a level 50 crafter, building 20 frigate class ships become able frigate crafter, 50 ships good frigate crafter, 100 ships master frigate crafter.

able crafter + random refit

good crafter + 1 luck

master crafter +1 luck (total becomes +2 to base) + selected refit

This is just an example which is not complicated, but can make crafting better.

conclusion: crafting is so primitive, needs improvements.

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1 hour ago, OneEyedSnake said:

i want 1st rates to be deathstars. they arent now. sorry if that wasnt clear. thats what they should be. and with how hard it would be to obtain them, it would be balanced. 

The problem with making 1st rates deathstars and restricting their availability as in your first post is that once one side has then they become undefeatable. The side that does not have 1st rates may as well not show up to the battle. 

Look at it in terms of a fresh start, the team that is more aggressive and wins most PvP battles first can start fielding 1st rates, who would be able to win against them if you are making them so OP.

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36 minutes ago, Archaos said:

The problem with making 1st rates deathstars and restricting their availability as in your first post is that once one side has then they become undefeatable. The side that does not have 1st rates may as well not show up to the battle. 

Look at it in terms of a fresh start, the team that is more aggressive and wins most PvP battles first can start fielding 1st rates, who would be able to win against them if you are making them so OP.

i think if the 1st rate's br was adjusted then this wouldnt be a problem. say 800? that way the otherside with no 1st rate outnumbers the side with a 1st rate by a good few players. 1st rates need crew, and without crew they dont function well. so those extra players could be the difference in the stern rakes. 

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Even though I understand that you ahve clearly put some thought into the matter i must say what I ahve said before and will now again: These attempts at limiting first rates are what goes us in this lack of playerbase mess since the first economy change in Nov 2016...! Honestly people just wanna play and they want to do so with a big boom and as little chance as possible to suddenly be massively overwhelmed.

It is the same reason people grind for the Tier Xs in WoWs and WoTs and the Tier 5, 6s in War Thunder - stops the uptier. Unfortuantely NA now suffers from exactly the same problem as those games. THe top tier economy in an effort to get people out of their earned big boy toys is terrible yet people have worked hard for them and now feel let down. Hence they leave and frankly there is little alternative - there is only so many times you can go out in a mid tier (frigate) or things you can do to shake things up until you really wanna be in the top league again.

The goal will therefore always be the Lineships, this just wont change. You only change how annoying it is to get there and frankly people who pay for a game don#t want to go through the same grind as in a F2P game. If they have to it ends in bad reviews and empty servers.

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3 hours ago, JollyRoger1516 said:

THe top tier economy in an effort to get people out of their earned big boy toys is terrible yet people have worked hard for them and now feel let down.

Huh? I ran my 10s usually with profit. 

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First rates are not OP and don't need to be limited further than they are now. The game REALLY needs some better end game content when it comes to the PVE side. I don't know what form that would take, I'm not a carebear, but something should be there.

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16 hours ago, Flinch said:

First rates are not OP and don't need to be limited further than they are now. The game REALLY needs some better end game content when it comes to the PVE side. I don't know what form that would take, I'm not a carebear, but something should be there.

I agree, and I think part of the solution to that is simple. More open world missions. The open world should be filled up to the point where you can’t go more than 10 minutes and not see some unique events that are rewarding. 

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1 hour ago, OneEyedSnake said:

The open world should be filled up to the point where you can’t go more than 10 minutes and not see some unique events that are rewarding. 

You could grind bots in the patrol zone if you feel PvP marks are worth it. Don't expect to get out alive but you will keep the reward.

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37 minutes ago, jodgi said:

You could grind bots in the patrol zone if you feel PvP marks are worth it. Don't expect to get out alive but you will keep the reward.

Did that yesterday in a cheap Vic. Resulted in a hell of a lot of fun actually! Got jumped by every bellows and their friend. Was forced out of the zone, and died to the timer. Had them on the run though haha

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37 minutes ago, jodgi said:

Huh, "cheap Vic"... I didn't know that was a thing. Glad you had fun 

teak sabicu. cheap enough since we stored up teak when we had it. could crank out 20 cheap 1st rates a day. the only ones we struggle with is live oak, white oak, cedar, I think we have a mahog port. but yes, cheap. iron is no problem, coal, oak, fir, etc. all the basic building woods and metals are easy to acquire in mass quanities. ie 10 stacks. labor hour contracts are not a problem either. 

 

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