crafting Crafters Need quality control

[Guest]

Gambling effects are taking hold!

[Slim McSauce]

I don't like it, where there could be a expansive skill/perk system for crafting, where you allocate points for greater chance at certain bonuses, we're instead praying to soulless RNG mechanics to deliver us from the ever encompassing might of the more valuable redeemable ships. I don't think building a ship of quality was a 100% random affair, I'm almost absolutely sure that it depended on the materials and experience of the men building it, and that someone who builds the same ship 50 times over has a greater chance to get better qualities over the completely random chance of crafting one ship and getting a gold.

[Teutonic]

I am not against adding options to "steer" RNG to have certain trims or perks happen more often while you roll the dice, but personally the current crafting is alright.

I have enjoyed the large increase to open ship markets as before you were hard pressed to find any. Many ship crafters would 'trash' or destroy ships they didn't want - now they place them on the market instead.

If we could have crafting perks which allowed for increased chance of trims or maybe even similar to the labor discount perks we have for different rates, I think that would be a step in the right direction.

As far as I am aware, capturable ports all have the same increased chance for better crafted ships, but I am not 100% on that. Maybe some searching into the raw game files can find some differences there.

As @Aster said as well, i wouldn't be against some ports having a further increase crafting chance, as long as the player can easily see that the port has a higher chance. It would be an interesting addition to fighting over certain ports in RvR. I have made threads in the past that somewhat deal with this possibility, but that's another story.

[Slim McSauce]

Just now, Teutonic said:

I am not against adding options to "steer" RNG to have certain trims or perks happen more often while you roll the dice, but personally the current crafting is alright.

I have enjoyed the large increase to open ship markets as before you were hard pressed to find any. Many ship crafters would 'trash' or destroy ships they didn't want - now they place them on the market instead.

If we could have crafting perks which allowed for increased chance of trims or maybe even similar to the labor discount perks we have for different rates, I think that would be a step in the right direction.

As far as I am aware, capturable ports all have the same increased chance for better crafted ships, but I am not 100% on that. Maybe some searching into the raw game files can find some differences there.

As @Aster said as well, i wouldn't be against some ports having a further increase crafting chance, as long as the player can easily see that the port has a higher chance. It would be an interesting addition to fighting over certain ports in RvR. I have made threads in the past that somewhat deal with this possibility, but that's another story.

Regional crafting bonuses return? Not as a solid chance but increased %

Also a separate perk system for crafting levels same as combat skill.

[Liq]

Crafters should be able to customize their ships more, yes.

e.g. trim it for a little more turnability, but also in return get less top speed or something. Everything should have a downside, even if it doesn't always make sense - just for gameplay purpose.

I think they should just remove purple and gold quality. I don't like RNG, and when people are given the option to craft gold ships, they won't craft blue ones - because of human nature and people always want to have the best stuff possible.

(Just like when we had qualities about a year ago - Seeing a ship that wasn't gold ("exceptional") was pretty unusual.)

Edited October 4, 2018 by Liq

[jodgi]

56 minutes ago, Liq said:

Just like when we had qualities about a year ago - Seeing a ship that wasn't gold ("exceptional") was pretty unusual.)

Yup, we had to kinds of ships: Gold and trash. If we get a system like OP hints at or the same by some other grindable mechanic we're back at only top ships.

[Thonys]

5 hours ago, Palatinose said:

25 fir fir t-lynx to make a golden ocean? no way this is what people will do...

made already a hundred of them 

still, my builders make crap ships

i think that we need the master builders craftmanship  shipyard 

it is all to flat atm

but on the other hand, builds are cheap,..to many first rates to go around, and we need more ranks on builders capacity and stretch it more out

i can make 2 Santi a day if i want, so its a bit on the easy side, but perhaps that's what developers want 

Edited October 4, 2018 by Thonys

[Captain Hammered]

I personally agree that upgraded-level ships should be rare, and that rarity should increase based on the level - but I mainly agree with the OP: the current random system is, IMO, very poor and not conducive to good crafting play. 

I completely agree with commenters: 4/5 and 5/5 ships should be exceedingly rare; and other attributes with varying levels of rarity - but a purely random dice roll should not be what determines the result.

My personal thought - and I do understand this would be very difficult to implement; just spitballing here - would be to add a 'modification' slot to the crafting screen. A mod could be added there to provide extra levels - but those mods could be insanely difficult and/or expensive to craft.  I dunno - 'cramped' (for instance) could require 'hammocks' mods to the equivalent of 10% of the ship's crew: 300 men, 30 Hammock mods...or something like that. Just offering ideas. 

I'd personally like to see Fine woods come back - un-produceable with buildings; must be taken from ships as before - and those woods could provide slot upgrades. 

A crafter could possibly require specific training (another XP list) to be able to craft a single upgrade - and be unable to produce others - indicating a specialized Master Craftsman.

These are just ideas; not firm thoughts on what should happen. The point is that there are definitely ways to improve the upgrade system - a random roll just doesn't do a very good job.

Cheers!

[King of Crowns]

14 hours ago, Bubba Smith said:

I'm coping this suggestion here in hope it will get a Developer's attention. 

I can't stress this enough; I and numerous L-50 crafters in our Clan all feel strongly that WE need to be able to craft higher quality purple and gold ships, please consider taking the drop-by-chance out of the mix or increase it. I suggest a recipe of an extra "something" will give the crafter an important satisfaction to making a special ship. Maybe a specialized additional permit from Admiralty stating "This is to be applied to one exceptional quality ship" (purple) and a more expensive permit for Gold quality.  

admin has already stated that rng will stay in crafting. discussions has been closed on the topic in other threads.

[Admiral FeltPen]

Or implement Purple and Gold controlled permits even. The fine woods idea didn't work actually. 

[Bubba Smith]

12 hours ago, Palatinose said:

25 fir fir t-lynx to make a golden ocean? no way this is what people will do...

That sounds rediculous, why would anyone ask for a system like that? I certainly not suggesting a first rate permit reward be handed out for building T-Lynxs; BUT what about 25 - First rate builds for a purple permit and 35-40 builds or more for Gold permit.  Each permit would apply to it's own rate.  The numbers are a suggestion only. 

[Bubba Smith]

9 hours ago, Slim McSauce said:

I don't like it, where there could be a expansive skill/perk system for crafting, where you allocate points for greater chance at certain bonuses, we're instead praying to soulless RNG mechanics to deliver us from the ever encompassing might of the more valuable redeemable ships. I don't think building a ship of quality was a 100% random affair, I'm almost absolutely sure that it depended on the materials and experience of the men building it, and that someone who builds the same ship 50 times over has a greater chance to get better qualities over the completely random chance of crafting one ship and getting a gold.

Now there is at least a thoughtful suggestion. Lets put our heads together and come up something viable at least.  

[Admiral FeltPen]

what we nee to do is find a happy medium everybody is good with that way everyone is happy otherwise were gunna kill the game and there will be no more fun for anyone. Thats just my opinion from looking at this page. there are a lot of people with projected opinions and strong opinions, but what we need is something everyone is cool with.

[Slim McSauce]

27 minutes ago, Bubba Smith said:

Now there is at least a thoughtful suggestion. Lets put our heads together and come up something viable at least.  

aye, lets get the glue and play pin the feature on the NA, shall we?

[jodgi]

4 hours ago, Phaserburn said:

Why not have ports give a higher chance for a CERTAIN trim? 

We had that with regional trims. I don't remember the given reason for it's removal, but I can guess at alt-advantage and frustration over nice things behind an (elitist) RvR wall?

Us low moral fiber types were fine with that and fine woods, I guess, but "normal" and honest players suffered?

[Archaos]

The issue with trying to remove RNG from the crafting of gold ships is that you will most likely end up with a system where all competitive ships have to be gold.

If you have a system where some hard to get item is used to guarantee gold ship crafting then that item will be constantly farmed and have a very high value which would take it out of the reach of the average player. You could have a special item that dropped from epic events that guaranteed gold ship crafting, but then epic events would be constantly farmed and RNG would still be involved regarding the drop.

If you have a system of crafting X number of ships before getting gold then that is what people will do, but all the ships they craft that are not gold will just be recycled or sold to NPC and the resultant will be all gold ships that are very expensive.

You could have a system where crafters could specialize in certain types of ships and they would have an increased chance for getting gold ships, but you would still need RNG involved or you would just get people setting up alts for each ship type they wanted to be gold. 

Personally I think you should be able to decide on the trim of the ship by adding some ingredient to the crafting process, but the additional slots should remain RNG and if we dont want RNG then all ships should be the same number of slots on crafting.

[Fluffy Fishy]

I miss the old system, sure it had faults but you could basically craft what you wanted in the way you wanted it. Players should be able to craft and sail the ship that suits them most. I'd happily do away with the RNG and just have flat ships so everyone is equal and it becomes more skill based again. The current system that relies too much on giving your ship the best bonuses you can stinks and destroys balance because changing a ships stats up to around 30% is near impossible to balance properly.

It would be cool to see some kind of system of diminishing returns going on where it becomes increasingly expensive to create a marginally better ship, and as the more you squeeze out of it the lower the gains but it should be controlled by the crafter, giving a proper sense of quality vs quantity that was there historically.

Crafting notes kind of made sense, to make them work better they just needed to be non tradable so you were forced to make them yourself and spend hours on making them, the idea that you can spend more hours on a ship to make it better makes total sense in a MMO world, and if you stagger them by saying something like 0 notes for a basic ship, 2 notes for green, 5 notes for blue, 10 notes for purple and 16 notes for gold it would probably balance fairly well, you'd have access to the ships you wanted.

One of the main issues with the game economy right now is its missing equilibriums and consumer surplus, it would benefit the game so much to allow players to make more market lead choices as they do in real life, crafting needs these aspects to be a fulfilling task, rather than what it is at the moment which is just asymmetrical RNG favouring middle of nowhere ports, ports that take you away from the community and make the experience more grind ridden as a whole and therefore the game experience worse, in the hope it promotes RVR, which it doesn't.

[Palatinose]

The problem I have with regional trims is, as @jodgi said, RvR elitism. Small nations won't stand a chance, and after a short period of nice RvR we will have a couple of nations to be winners and some to be unable for a long time to get competitive again or their players will switch nation or leave entirely. Yes there is alts and who suffers  from the situation the most? Casuals. 

If we had more customization by adding special ingredients, which would be distributed over the map, what do we get? RvR elitism or tremendously time consuming trade runs = total superiority of alts.

We have customization by choosing woods already, imo that's enough. I could live with @Liq's proposal of getting buffs on one parameter, while being nerfed on another one. Though only if no regional or ingredential requirements are necessary. And propper balancing is needed aswell ofc.

I like RNG in combination with the customization of woods for the reason of loads of good ships - e.g. teak white oak frigates 3/5 plain or minor trim - are available for nearly no money (they get sold in sweden for ~400k, swedish crafters don't even find customers - therefore spread the ships over the caribbean) which also enables casuals to participate in daily action.

[Capn Rocko]

I would like to see regional bonuses come back. Last time it was tested, entire regions were captured in 1 port battle. Now several nations could potentially own ports in a certain region. Will elite clans control the best ports? Maybe, but I would argue that there are 5+ clans spread out among different nations that can compete with each other if they wanted to. If more meaning was brought to RvR (and more port battles occurring), maybe you would see less monopolies. 

[HachiRoku]

On 10/4/2018 at 4:18 PM, Bubba Smith said:

My last 5 ships came out :

3 nothing special 3/5. 

1 strong rig and 1 sturdy. 

 

 

Your problem is that you see a basic ship as useless. They are not. They are about 10%less combat effective as a 4-5 or 5-5. Relative to their prices and the resources wasted to make them they are useless. They are a really good gold/mat sink for economy imo. 

[Guest]

increase rarity of resources or decrease spawn/harvest rate. Make special refit kits e.g. strong hull refit kit requires x amount of lo, wo + iron ingots, you craft it, it weighs x tons to transfer to where the shipyard is. 3slot is 100% resources, 4 slot is 200% resources, 5 slot is 300% resources. 

thoughts?

This would make us craft more  5 slot 3rd rates as losing/crafting 5 slot first rate would be so expensive.

Edited October 5, 2018 by Guest

[Bubba Smith]

7 hours ago, Fluffy Fishy said:

I miss the old system, sure it had faults but you could basically craft what you wanted in the way you wanted it. Players should be able to craft and sail the ship that suits them most. I'd happily do away with the RNG and just have flat ships so everyone is equal and it becomes more skill based again. The current system that relies too much on giving your ship the best bonuses you can stinks and destroys balance because changing a ships stats up to around 30% is near impossible to balance properly.

It would be cool to see some kind of system of diminishing returns going on where it becomes increasingly expensive to create a marginally better ship, and as the more you squeeze out of it the lower the gains but it should be controlled by the crafter, giving a proper sense of quality vs quantity that was there historically.

Crafting notes kind of made sense, to make them work better they just needed to be non tradable so you were forced to make them yourself and spend hours on making them, the idea that you can spend more hours on a ship to make it better makes total sense in a MMO world, and if you stagger them by saying something like 0 notes for a basic ship, 2 notes for green, 5 notes for blue, 10 notes for purple and 16 notes for gold it would probably balance fairly well, you'd have access to the ships you wanted.

One of the main issues with the game economy right now is its missing equilibriums and consumer surplus, it would benefit the game so much to allow players to make more market lead choices as they do in real life, crafting needs these aspects to be a fulfilling task, rather than what it is at the moment which is just asymmetrical RNG favouring middle of nowhere ports, ports that take you away from the community and make the experience more grind ridden as a whole and therefore the game experience worse, in the hope it promotes RVR, which it doesn't.

This is what I'm driving at. I like the idea of generating Notes for the different qualities.  The bar for how many notes or special permits required could be eventually controlled by admiralty in a commodity driven economical environment so, what that means is; for example-  if too many Gold or excellent ships are coming out then the cost or value could be increased. Conversely, if not enough are crafted price/cost may be lowered.  A control similar to the present permit system only those notes/permits will apply within each given catagorical group as Fluffy already alluded to. 

The aforementioned changes, I really believe, will simulate a demand within the economy and give crafters an additional interesting dimension to build ships with.  It will also give clans and members something to work toward and add a very positive new direction to the game. 

Thanks for your ideas and comments. 

 

Edited October 5, 2018 by Bubba Smith

[Hethwill]

Ok. Remove qualities then. Solomon's law. Everyone gets happy.

... and grey...

🤩