Repair Balancing

[Blackjack Morgan]

I don't play NA anymore but I still like to monitor the forums to see how it is progressing ( or not ). I was very heavily invested from the time before it came to Steam up to slightly after the 10.0 patch. Game just went in a completely different direction with grind, gear, magic healing....wasn't for me so stopped playing. I don't expect them to revert back to the old days of NA even if I wish they would. However, on this topic I'd like to ask a simple question:

Why? What was the purpose of multi repairs? We tested this game for a few years before they decided to go with the multiple repair kits and I don't remember a single tester ever asking for it. In fact I remember testing when we had 3 repairs and people thought that was too many. Yet for some reason this change was brought about which actually ran counter to what the original hardcore fans wanted. The only reason I recall reading was a money sink for the economy. A money sink. The single most important aspect and mechanic of NA was to create a realistic age of sail game and this change was made for a money sink? Something to spend resources on? Does anyone besides me find that to be a completely flawed thought process? This wasn't instituted after months and months, or years, of player feedback and testing calling for this change as a way to improve the PvP experience.....nope this was because they wanted something for the players to spend resources on. 

Not only do you put multiple repairs in the game you introduced magic gear and abilities that work to exponentially make those heals even more powerful? The whole premise is asinine. It isn't historical....it isn't realistic....it's DUMB. NA is way closer to magic than it used to be. Magic heals....magic gear....magic books....it's all crap. Somehow grinding out NPC's for gear or books was meant to placate the PVE crowd by giving them the 10 year old "magic on a stick" generic blueprint of how to build an MMO. Anyone who thinks NA should follow the old blueprint of MMO'ing with a niche crowd that NA attracts I think is mistaken. Simple fact of the matter is this game still doesn't know what it wants to be....that or it has no idea how to get there. 

I remember very early statements from devs when they said NA was meant to be a PvP focused game. That simple mundane things like repairs, ammo, crew replenishment were not to be focused on because they took away from what was fun....yep PVP. I wish I had saved those early posts and responses from them. Well to be honest I'm not sure the original team is even still working on this game....it's changed so radically I have a hard time believing someone new didn't come in with a new direction to take. I sincerely hope for the best for NA. I will also say that if it ever moves closer to what it used to be I would happily return. I don't expect that to happen though. 

[Stars and Stripes]

1 hour ago, Blackjack Morgan said:

I don't play NA anymore

Ok.

 

1 hour ago, Blackjack Morgan said:

Game just went in a completely different direction with grind, gear, magic healing....wasn't for me so stopped playing.

Ok

1 hour ago, Blackjack Morgan said:

The whole premise is asinine. It isn't historical....it isn't realistic....it's DUMB.

Mmmm....

1 hour ago, Blackjack Morgan said:

Anyone who thinks NA should follow the old blueprint of MMO'ing with a niche crowd that NA attracts I think is mistaken.

Right....

 

1 hour ago, Blackjack Morgan said:

I sincerely hope for the best for NA. I will also say that if it ever moves closer to what it used to be I would happily return. I don't expect that to happen though. 

Ok. Thanks.🙄

Edited October 25, 2018 by Stars and Stripes
spelling

[Cmdr RideZ]

49 minutes ago, Stars and Stripes said:

Ok.

 

Ok

Mmmm....

Right....

 

Ok. Thanks.🙄

Admin processing feedback?

[Cmdr RideZ]

15 hours ago, Liq said:

Multi Repair in smaller, especially even battles, can be a good thing and reward agressive play.

However, as battles get more ganky, the more the unbalanced-ness gets amplified. 6v2, 6 ships recover 600 hp in the time 2 recover 200.

But in the end I like it better with multirep (given we now have shared cooldown between hull and rig reps, which gives it another tactical dimension).

Solo hunter who likes more multireps?

Notice that it is pretty much only rewarding aggressive play. All other tactics have been removed.

Multireps only supporting ganking. You wanted more even fights, some other builds to be valid than fast or very fast? Versatility maybe?

If you love ganks then multireps are good for you, if you want competitive pvp multireps are bad.

[Cmdr RideZ]

Damage has been scaled up because we can repair so much.

If repair kits are limited to for example 1 of each, they have to of course scale damage down as well. Massive chain damage wont be a "stopper".

 

Lets simplify your options:

1. You want gank pvp, bigger fleets, long battles, less tactical option (aggressive), skill means less, fast or very fast ships, depend on gear, limited build options for ow pvp -> Multireps please

2. You want competitive pvp, more tactical options, skill means more, better survivability for non-gank oriented fleets, more build options than fast or very fast, less gear oriented -> No Multireps please

 

Multireps is the worst feature in NA. Nothing good came out of it, expect maybe a money sink if that was needed. It is not even more realistic, which way you ever put it, it simply is not realistic to repair your ship in perfect shape in midcombat. It is realism killer.

[Hethwill]

5 minutes ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

it simply is not realistic to repair your ship in perfect shape in midcombat. It is realism killer.

 

[Palatinose]

On 10/23/2018 at 8:24 PM, Batman said:

These days, it doesn't matter if I dismast my enemy or can knock out his crew. Playing smart is not rewarded and mistakes are not punished.

 

I've had battles where an enemy would just start sailing upwind because "rep ready in 5 minutes". Great skill and tactics.

Imo you obviously didn't play smart when you let your enemy escape -provided he has the same speed or is even slower. If you give up the wind the penalty is a longer fight. 

If we had one rep each, mast HP/Thickness aswell as chain damage had to be reworked. Otherwise, thanks for the 5 minute fights..We'll demast the shit out of every opponent. Yupp great skill ...

[Angus MacDuff]

1 hour ago, Palatinose said:

Imo you obviously didn't play smart when you let your enemy escape -provided he has the same speed or is even slower. If you give up the wind the penalty is a longer fight. 

If we had one rep each, mast HP/Thickness aswell as chain damage had to be reworked. Otherwise, thanks for the 5 minute fights..We'll demast the shit out of every opponent. Yupp great skill ...

The problem there is canon accuracy.  The players who set out to dismast an opponent are not playing realistically.  No actual Captain set out to dismast his opponent with single shot.  Masts generally came down in the real world due to volume of fire or a lucky accident.  No Captain would direct his gun crews to aim for the mast, because that would mean most shots would hit nothing. 

[Capn Rocko]

1 hour ago, Angus MacDuff said:

The problem there is canon accuracy.  The players who set out to dismast an opponent are not playing realistically.  No actual Captain set out to dismast his opponent with single shot.  Masts generally came down in the real world due to volume of fire or a lucky accident.  No Captain would direct his gun crews to aim for the mast, because that would mean most shots would hit nothing. 

Jack Aubrey did 😉

Jack and the Surprise is the reason I downloaded this game in the first place. Too bad the Surprise sucks. (Okay back on topic) 

3 hours ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

Solo hunter who likes more multireps?

Notice that it is pretty much only rewarding aggressive play. All other tactics have been removed.

Multireps only supporting ganking. You wanted more even fights, some other builds to be valid than fast or very fast? Versatility maybe?

If you love ganks then multireps are good for you, if you want competitive pvp multireps are bad.

Multireps can be a good or bad thing to the solo hunter, but they mainly help when the player wants to play aggressive in a 1v2 or 1v3 scenario. To be fair, you have a lower chance at winning a battle like this if you are sailing speed ships which is why I (and many others) OW hunt in tankier ships. This is versatility. Just because you only sail fast ships doesn't mean that is what everyone else is doing. 

 

[Cmdr RideZ]

23 minutes ago, Capn Rocko said:

To be fair, you have a lower chance at winning a battle like this if you are sailing speed ships which is why I (and many others) OW hunt in tankier ships.

If you have the gear you can do it. If you now try to say that it is not about gear..  I have to say l2p.

[Capn Rocko]

7 minutes ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

If you have the gear you can do it. If you now try to say that it is not about gear..  I have to say l2p.

Every ship has 5 knowledge slots and at least 3 permanent slots. If you don't use them, then you are at a slight disadvantage. But assuming everyone is using their upgrade slots, then what is the issue? Am I missing your point? 

[Palatinose]

10 hours ago, Angus MacDuff said:

The problem there is canon accuracy.  The players who set out to dismast an opponent are not playing realistically.  No actual Captain set out to dismast his opponent with single shot.  Masts generally came down in the real world due to volume of fire or a lucky accident.  No Captain would direct his gun crews to aim for the mast, because that would mean most shots would hit nothing. 

You're right. Though you know there's a certain taste coming along with the realism argument. What's even worse than mast sniping imo is people spraying some balls into the masts and bringing it down by luck. In that case thanks for the realism and gg to the winner with the bigger guns but less skill.

[Old Crusty]

12 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

Aren't you guys a bit tired of extreme changes and relearning the game?

Do you know that extreme changes will require proper balancing of many things (hp, thickness, damage...) after?

We have one dura ships now so losing ships very fast in one battle is not going to be good for the playerbase. 

But neither is repairing so much that battles are dragged out past the 90 minutes 

[William Death]

Regarding demasting, it was historical. It was done intentionally by captains seeking to disable their enemy.

Look at major fleet actions like Trafalgar.
Look at smaller engagements like Constitution vs Java.
Take a look at the paintings of naval battles, many feature demasted ships, or ships with significant rigging damage.

It was a simple tactic: use your cannonballs to cut away enough of the enemy's rigging that the stress of a press of canvas is enough to make the mast fall. Or the mast falls under its own weight without the support of the shrouds. Or it falls because it lost shroud support and was hit by a few well-aimed cannonballs.

 

But in NA, we don't have hitboxes for rigging and actual rigging damage. We have sail damage and mast damage. So shooting the masts themselves with ball and hitting their hitboxes is representative of hitting the rigging of a ship IRL. 

Also, historically each gun would have a gun captain that would aim it individually. We don't have that in NA: when you fire a rolling broadside, your cannons are aimed via a sector focus, either at a point 100m, 250m; or attempt to converge somewhere around a point you aim for; or fire at roughly 90° from the ship's centerline. Closest approximation we have to a gun captain aiming his cannon individually at the rigging is you (the captain/fleet admiral/cabin boy/royal marine/guncaptain/powdermonkey/clerk/boatswain/sailmaker/chaplain/carpenter/cook) aiming the cannons individually and "sniping" the mast.

 

Can we make demasting a better/more realistic feeling tactic? Yeah. But there are way bigger issues in NA that need addressing before an entirely new damage model is implemented yet again.

To make historical "hitboxes" (shrouds, chainplates, backstays, forestays, etc.) work, we'll need to implement actual rigging damage with new, custom hitboxes for each ship. Then balance these hitboxes so each battle isn't spamming ball to masts.

Then, come up with a system that allows us to have an AI as skilled as we are at aiming cannons individually and firing at precisely the right time in rolling fire mode to converge in the rigging hitboxes and cut rigging away...and that'll be historical. No more sniping. Just gun captains aiming for the rigging and masts coming down as a result. I can't think of any way to make that work without having every battle end in demasting (which I'm fine with because its historical and I enjoy it, but I've understood that other players prefer to have other results).

 

A short-term "solution" (its not really) is to have chain damage and overall sail health affect chances to demast. Basically making sail HP tied to mast HP so when you take sail damage your mast's HP goes down too. This would represent the rigging being cut. But there are major flaws here, like chain damage being hurr durr high and gank fleets loving the ability to demast in a very short amount of time. So I don't see a way to make that work.

 

Regardless of all this, there are no less than 5 permanent upgrades that provide an increase in mast thickness and HP. It is possible to buff the masts so much on a ship that the largest cannons that ship carries can no longer pen the mast.

I have a hard time finding sympathy for players who got demasted. "Run a mast mod you silly noob." Sorry to be blunt, but they're not expensive (French rig is available in most major free ports for less than 500k gold), and they work well (even if you don't get un-pennable masts, your enemy will still have to come in closer and it will take him longer to make your mast fall).

[Hethwill]

I like long battles.

I didn't come to NA expecting 15 minutes arena shows.

I plan for 90 minutes battles, if they take less it is okay as well.

What do you do ? Expect all battles to last 15 minutes world of age of sail !?...

Pffff....

[Slim McSauce]

3 hours ago, Hethwill the Red Duke said:

I like long battles.

I didn't come to NA expecting 15 minutes arena shows.

I plan for 90 minutes battles, if they take less it is okay as well.

What do you do ? Expect all battles to last 15 minutes world of age of sail !?...

Pffff....

90 minutes isnt enough time when you have 10 sets of repairs you can go through at 45% each every 8 minutes. The battle ends when repairs run out.

[Sir Loorkon]

10 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

90 minutes isnt enough time when you have 10 sets of repairs you can go through at 45% each every 8 minutes. The battle ends when repairs run out.

As Palatinose and me pointed out, with the actual chain damage and the mast sniping you can end a battle within 5—10 minutes. When mast sniping and chain damage get nerfed, there might be more room for a limitation of repairs. Atm the reduction of repairs will lead to very short fights and - more likely - running or ganking.

You statement with 10 repairsets is pure theorie. No good player will carry so much repairs because it will slow down the ship so OW hunting will be impossible.

I think the system will get better when the stacking of repairmods ends and I hope admin will not increase the weight of the repairsets simultaniously. 

We are talking about a main part of the fighting system. Any change should be done slowly and deliberate.

[Old Crusty]

3 hours ago, Hethwill the Red Duke said:

I like long battles.

I didn't come to NA expecting 15 minutes arena shows.

I plan for 90 minutes battles, if they take less it is okay as well.

What do you do ? Expect all battles to last 15 minutes world of age of sail !?...

Pffff....

There is a hell of a lot of time between 15 minutes and 90 minutes. Over an hour that you casually cut out of the conversation. Really??

i expect more than 15 minutes but I also expect that by an hour we can start coming to a conclusion. I don’t know you so I don’t know if you have a job or any life outside of games but I do.

[Angus MacDuff]

Casual/new players already die fast.  Limiting repairs won't change that.  It's the exceptional players that can drag out a battle with repairs.  They would still be exceptional with limited repairs and would simply modify their tactics.

[Slim McSauce]

26 minutes ago, Angus MacDuff said:

Casual/new players already die fast.  Limiting repairs won't change that.  It's the exceptional players that can drag out a battle with repairs.  They would still be exceptional with limited repairs and would simply modify their tactics.

exactly, thank you for saying so I wouldn't have to again.

3 repairs is enough to win any battle if you use them wisely. any more is a crutch and a drag.

Edited October 26, 2018 by Slim McSauce

[William Death]

2 hours ago, Sir Loorkon said:

As Palatinose and me pointed out, with the actual chain damage and the mast sniping you can end a battle within 5—10 minutes. When mast sniping and chain damage get nerfed, there might be more room for a limitation of repairs. Atm the reduction of repairs will lead to very short fights and - more likely - running or ganking.

You statement with 10 repairsets is pure theorie. No good player will carry so much repairs because it will slow down the ship so OW hunting will be impossible.

I think the system will get better when the stacking of repairmods ends and I hope admin will not increase the weight of the repairsets simultaniously. 

We are talking about a main part of the fighting system. Any change should be done slowly and deliberate.

Point-by-point analysis:

• We've already tried 1 repair per type, and it worked. Demasting was a tactic used then, but it was countered by giving masts low thickness but high HP (takes a while to demast). Also, now you can buff masts so they cannot be shot down by a similar ship, so absolutely no room for complaining about masts.

Chain is limited, so repairs should be limited to.

 

• I do carry up to 10x (sometimes even more than that) of hull and rig when I go hunting. But maybe I'm not a good player (but I do pretend to be one sometimes). And my ships go over 30kn in OW. I make a point to use proper builds, and proper upgrades. I have my hold set up a certain way, with stacks split so I can destroy some if I need extra speed in OW at non-optimal points of sail.

This is the hold of one of my hunting frigates: I've got roughly 10x hull reps and 7x sail reps here)

 

• Repair stacking is an issue. But its not the main issue as people assume it to be. The main issue, is that even a base repair of 25% can be done every 12 minutes. Furthermore, I almost never stack anything more than 1 repair mod + the perk. And thats over 30% repair every 12 minutes. 

 

• Agreed that weight should not be increased (extra weight = less speed is dumb anyways, as I explained in an earlier post in this thread).

 

• This is NA, we don't do slow and deliberate changes. All or nothing. Buff ships to OP or nerf them to uselessness .

[Hethwill]

Sorry Crusty, no idea what you talking about when you bring RL into a game discussion.

Managing how many repairs you will take is part of the game.

I bet most take 5 cycles for a cruise. 3 for a pitched good battle, the rest for any eventualities.

5 cycles of each is more than 90 minutes.

[Slim McSauce]

1 hour ago, William Death said:

Point-by-point analysis:

• We've already tried 1 repair per type, and it worked. Demasting was a tactic used then, but it was countered by giving masts low thickness but high HP (takes a while to demast). Also, now you can buff masts so they cannot be shot down by a similar ship, so absolutely no room for complaining about masts.

Chain is limited, so repairs should be limited to.

 

• I do carry up to 10x (sometimes even more than that) of hull and rig when I go hunting. But maybe I'm not a good player (but I do pretend to be one sometimes). And my ships go over 30kn in OW. I make a point to use proper builds, and proper upgrades. I have my hold set up a certain way, with stacks split so I can destroy some if I need extra speed in OW at non-optimal points of sail.

This is the hold of one of my hunting frigates: I've got roughly 10x hull reps and 7x sail reps here)

 

• Repair stacking is an issue. But its not the main issue as people assume it to be. The main issue, is that even a base repair of 25% can be done every 12 minutes. Furthermore, I almost never stack anything more than 1 repair mod + the perk. And thats over 30% repair every 12 minutes. 

 

• Agreed that weight should not be increased (extra weight = less speed is dumb anyways, as I explained in an earlier post in this thread).

 

• This is NA, we don't do slow and deliberate changes. All or nothing. Buff ships to OP or nerf them to uselessness .

good points here, the way I see it is there was nothing originally wrong with 1 repair because ships were balanced around it, same with tactics.

I still sit roughly in the middle, 3 repairs being enough for any given battle.

[Old Crusty]

10 hours ago, Hethwill the Red Duke said:

Sorry Crusty, no idea what you talking about when you bring RL into a game discussion.

Managing how many repairs you will take is part of the game.

I bet most take 5 cycles for a cruise. 3 for a pitched good battle, the rest for any eventualities.

5 cycles of each is more than 90 minutes.

It is just that your statement of “do you expect battles to last only 15 minutes” is just off track.  Going an hour and a half with nobody sunk and then players outside the battle waiting to tag when the enemy as they come out is getting old. In these scenarios a battle can last 3 hours. It’s not lasting that long because players are skilled at battle, its lasting that long because players are getting skilled at running and repairing. 

It is simply wrong.

[Slim McSauce]

7 minutes ago, Old Crusty said:

It is just that your statement of “do you expect battles to last only 15 minutes” is just off track.  Going an hour and a half with nobody sunk and then players outside the battle waiting to tag when the enemy as they come out is getting old. In these scenarios a battle can last 3 hours. It’s not lasting that long because players are skilled at battle, its lasting that long because players are getting skilled at running and repairing. 

It is simply wrong.

It is wrong. You can get boarded and lose in a handful of rounds with 0 repairs, doesn't mean it's the norm.