Too many 1st rates!?

[Navalus Magnus]

Recently there has been some arguing in this forum about 1st rates being used a way too much.

Thier sheer number has been deemed unrealistic.

 

I agree to that and thus suggest to implement a mechanic that regulates the numbers of 1st rates in NA:

 

1.       Point of reference – how was the relation of 1st rates to other ships that participated in battles in the age of sail?

Taking the Battle of Trafalgar as an example wikipedia states the following numbers:

 

Type of ship*	Numbers	Percentage**
1st rate	7	9,5 %
2nd rate	11	15 %
3rd rate	38	52 %
4th rate	4	5,5 %
5th rate	9	12 %
6th rate	4	5,5 %
Altogether	73	100 %

 

*I’m using the ingame rating of NA here: 100+ canons = 1st rate, 80+ canons = 2nd rate, ...

** Values rounded and thus not exact.

 

2.       Suggested mechanic:

I’d implement a limit of how many 1st, 2nd and 3rd rates a player could own depending on his / her dockspace.

This limit could be tied to the above mentioned percentage of ships in the Battle of Trafalgar for example.

This would lead to the following restrictions (numbers not rounded):

 

Dockspace	Allowed 1st rates	Allowed 2nd rates	Allowed 3rd rates
5	0	0	2
8	0	1	4
11	1	1	5
14	1	2	7
17	1	2	8
20	1	3	10

 

With just one tow per day it would be impossible for all to get 1st rates out to sea wherever they want!

And 3rd rates would actually become what they've been - sort of the backbone of the navy.

 

Please comment and suggest other ideas of how to address the problem!

Edited April 23, 2018 by Navalus Magnus

[Corona Lisa]

The problem is 1st rates are too strong thats why everyone is using them.

Solution: Make 5th rates stronger, remove determined defender

Edited April 23, 2018 by Jon Snow lets go

[Madjohn]

remove rng ?

[The Ghost of Sir Edward]

One of the pleasures of Naval Action is crafting and sailing the different ship types. If you restrict the number of 1st rates a player can own at one time you restrict one of the games more interesting features. The realism factor, important as it is, is more threatened by other game mechanics currently in place such as the teleport feature, extensive in battle repairs and fleet ships that disappear in patrol zones just to name a few.

[Elric]

The issue really goes back to the PB changes.  It used to require 4th rates or smaller for many of the battles - now most 4th rates are gathering dust.  If port battles and hostility missions were mixed to use the different ships it would be a better spread of ships.

• Shallows hostility missions should only have shallow ships
• 2500 PB hostility and PB's themselves could be 5th rate max
• 5000 PB could be 4th rate max
• 8,000 PB could be 3rd rate max
• 10,000 PB  2nd rates
• 12000 PB 1st rates

[Navalus Magnus]

13 minutes ago, ElricTheTwo said:

The issue really goes back to the PB changes.  It used to require 4th rates or smaller for many of the battles - now most 4th rates are gathering dust.  If port battles and hostility missions were mixed to use the different ships it would be a better spread of ships.

• Shallows hostility missions should only have shallow ships
• 2500 PB hostility and PB's themselves could be 5th rate max
• 5000 PB could be 4th rate max
• 8,000 PB could be 3rd rate max
• 10,000 PB  2nd rates
• 12000 PB 1st rates

I like that too!

But 1st rate ganking fleets inside of PvP zones wouldn’t be touched by that.

26 minutes ago, Jon Snow lets go said:

The problem is 1st rates are too strong thats why everyone is using them.

Yes, that’s true!

A thickness nerf of them would be a start imo:

All 1st rates back to the level of the Victory for example.

Or an even further reduction, so that the thickness from a 3rd to a 2nd rate and from a 2nd to a 1st rate just increases by one point each.

 

On the other hand: You couldn’t nerf 1st rates that much in a reasonable way, that a (ganking) fleet of them wouldn’t be superior to any other fleet composition, when battle instances include a shrinking circle of death!

Edited April 23, 2018 by Navalus Magnus

[Jesper Dahl]

It doesn't help to cap 1st rate amounts in docks. First of all you hit crafters. Secondly people can just instant craft another. And for the third it just penalizes people that didn´t open more dock slots.

[Jesper Dahl]

16 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Agreed. Determined defender is cancer.

Now is it? We can see the demast/turn and board group isn't doing so well. If boarding wasn't so stupid and overpowered we could maybe talk about it.

We have captured countless 1st rates via boarding from smaller ship and it´s not much of a skill effort.

[Jesper Dahl]

The problem is much deeper than just 1st rates. Its the entire fleet composition.

Even if we got the inflation hit 1st rates stopped, it would just move down. 25 bucs etc instead of 25 oceans.

Maybe the battles themselves should be limited in slot types, PBs also reworked. Say a battle could only contain 2 first rates from each side, maybe 3 or 4 2nd rates and so on. 3rd 1st rate trying to join the battle gets left outside.

[Cmdr RideZ]

Port battles with rate limits.

New mast balance is not good for 5th rates.

Chain patch is good for 5th rates? Probably not.

And the rest of the reason that have been listed here on forum that made smaller ships clearly less useful than those were before.

Defender Perk, I think this should be standard for all. Boarding is too easy right now.

[Guest]

The problem is the current ingame meta that basically favors larger ships with more thickness and more armor hp + thicker masts. Why don't ppl sail the surp anymore (well hardly anyone)? - It get's demasted easily. Why does ppl sail 3rd rates for PvP hunting (whoever can be bothered with it)? - best overall compromise between survivability and firepower considering the likelyhood that you come up against a countergank of +10 players.

 

If u want to talk realism? - The bristish royal navy had 230+ 5th rates and below in the 7 years war of 1756-1763. This is even taking into consideration that the british battlefleet were about 70 SoL strong and the fact that britains focus were on their battlefleet whilst the french had focussed on the guerre de course and therefore should've had a larger percentage of 5th rates and below (though I don't have the numbers for the french navy so can't say for certain). In short - we should sail far more in a fifth rate than a 3rd-1st rate. Why don't we? - the gameplay doesn't allow it.

 

EDIT: Just for the sake of the argument. At the moment you could save a lot of servertime by simply removing all ships that has become redundant:

All 7th rates. Most 6th rates and all 5th rates except the endymion and the trincomallee.. Most fourth rates as well (tho I doubt anyone would miss the god awfull Wapen von hurt my eyes!)... What's left? - Not a game anywhere near a realistic game.

Edited April 23, 2018 by Guest

[John Jacob Astor]

35 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Agreed. Determined defender is cancer.

A lone first rate is still vulnerable to multiple smaller ships... but two first rates working together are death to all but the largest mixed fleet of non-line ships, and any fleet without first rates will have a very, very rough time against 2+ first rates. Determined defender is a huge contributor to this since you can't go in and chain board nearly as easily...

But like all things it's a balance. I'd prefer no restrictions on the numbers you can own and even keeping them as dominant as they are but decrease the motivation to use them every day by implementing per-sailing-day maintenance and provisioning costs. Basically, if you make 1st rates prohibitively expensive to take out of the docks for anything other than well-planned RvR and the most lucrative of missions, Epics you'd lower the frequency of their use.  Using them to cash in on open world fleets or to PvP in should be a significant money sink.  If clans could only afford to field one or two first rates at a time, they would be clan supported property, and only the best captains in the clan would be nominated to sail and take care of them.

Make 3rd rates and below great again by keeping them relatively inexpensive to use for general PvP, grinding, etc. and you could generate ratios of ships much like you see above.

The absence of ongoing expenses to sail and maintain ships has never made much sense to me.  Even furled sails rot if left damp and unattended.

I currently have 11 dock slots.  Keeping them all filled for extended periods ought to cost something.  And the bigger the ship the bigger the expense.

[Fluffy Fishy]

There's an old topic we made a while back looking at the total composition of navies you might find interesting and useful for this chat, here's the link

1 hour ago, Jon Snow lets go said:

The problem is 1st rates are too strong thats why everyone is using them.

Solution: Make 5th rates stronger, remove determined defender

The problem isn't that first rates are too strong, the problem is that first rates are too cheap, 2nds are too cheap too, there should be much more of an economic barrier to making 1st rates more difficult to obtain and run, there is a reason why only 5 navies ever managed to produce them in this timeframe (England, Spain, Russia, Ottomans and France)

Edited April 23, 2018 by Fluffy Fishy

[Navalus Magnus]

1. In reality it was an economic problem, granted!

But this is a game and I don‘t know if there would be enough players that would invest so much time to be able to afford a close-to-reality maintenance of a 1st rate. What I do think is that many of them would like to have one though. This problem might lead to another loss of players and could be avoided by a simple limit like the one I mentioned above imo.

2. I completely agree, that this game is out of ballance concerning the use of 5th rates and below. A nerf of determined defender and the thickness of the big boats is also needed imo.

Edited April 24, 2018 by Navalus Magnus

[asuspiciousbear]

I'm wondering why there is so much hate on first rates, seems to me that they are balanced pretty well. My only complaint is how much can be repaired but that goes for all the ships in the game anyway. Looking at these forums it seems that most people are upset about the port battles with everyone in 1st rates, but dont seem to realize that a fleet of 1st rates would have fewer ships in it than a fleet of 3rd rates. That difference of guns can easily change the battle.

Edited April 24, 2018 by asuspiciousbear

[Nelsons Barrel]

IMHO the 'problem' is the result of 5ths speed slowed down too much. Nobody will use a 5th that is just 0.5kn faster than a SOL with lots more of guns and crew.

[Navalus Magnus]

5 hours ago, asuspiciousbear said:

I'm wondering why there is so much hate on first rates, seems to me that they are balanced pretty well. 

I don‘t hate 1st rates, I really like them!

But i‘d prefer to keep them special, because they were special. Right now there are just too many of them imo. That’s one reason why I think the ships in game are still a way from being well ballanced.

[Navalus Magnus]

5 hours ago, asuspiciousbear said:

Looking at these forums it seems that most people are upset about the port battles with everyone in 1st rates, but dont seem to realize that a fleet of 1st rates would have fewer ships in it than a fleet of 3rd rates. That difference of guns can easily change the battle.

No, mate!

If you have more ships with more speed and better sailing profiles you can win a PB, because of circles captured and points gained. But you can’t withstand an organized 1st rate fleet with lower rated ships in a battle where captured or sunken ships dictate the result!

Edited April 24, 2018 by Navalus Magnus