Patch 27 - New Economy feedback.

[Powderhorn]

5 minutes ago, vazco said:

It's very simple - if I sink while fighting a guy who sank a trader, I will have to replace my ship by doing PvE. If I sink him, I will get only slightly more than just by sinking an AI trader, which is risk-free in comparison.


In terms of incentives, new system gives me incentive only to gank with a fleet which is able to return doublons safely to harbour. It's discouraging people from taking risks and fighting against odds. If this is the case, total number of battles will lower, as noone will want to fight against the odds. Old system was giving more rewards for such fights.

Of course I don't know this for sure - we'll see this in a few days.

Old system gave virtually nothing for a loss.  There were incentives to go PvP in the form of PvP only rewards.  Now people need to choose to hunt AI in dangerous waters, or other players in dangerous waters.  Either way, those who want to PvP for the sake of PvP will find it - if they spend some time looking.  No instant battles, but neither is everyone always protected.  (Except merchants plying home waters, but maybe in time they'll be forced into the wild too  )

If you are just looking for a "next goal" to chase, I'm not sure this patch offers it.  I do think it does a better job of intermingling different player types into the same patches of water.

[Guest]

Ai rewards are insanely high. Pvp rewards are garbage.

You took everyone's hard earned pvp marks, devalued them then converted them 1 to 1 to dubloons. 

Edited November 1, 2018 by Guest
Removed unnecessary language and abuse. Watch your tone please sir.

[Powderhorn]

Have some perspective, Flinch:  Everyone says, "Do what I say or the game is doomed!"  Except the I tends to be a hundred different voices demanding contradictory things.

[Msk]

@Ink @admin I created a contract for parisian furnitureon my alt. Put the contract in and attempted to place it, clicked the button and the UI refreshed to the old cost of 101,000 reals(old gold cost for minimum port buy cost). The reals from my contract was taken from my character. I already created an f11 report. Can we please get both the cost corrected, as well as a refund to for my reals that were lost, we can sort this in PM if needed but wanted to make sure you were aware of the f11 that was crated as well as post the bug here for everyone.

Edited November 1, 2018 by Msk

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Powderhorn said:

Have some perspective, Flinch:  Everyone says, "Do what I say or the game is doomed!"  Except the I tends to be a hundred different voices demanding contradictory things.

There seems to be some points that there is always consensus on (teleportation tax)

Yet the admins are banning people on the forums to silence criticism. 

Edited November 1, 2018 by Guest

[Powderhorn]

Just now, Flinch said:

There seems to be some points that there is always consensus on (teleportation tax)

Yet the admins are banning people on the forums to silence criticism. 

No they're not.  They're banning them for being off-topic repeatedly, or trolling repeatedly.

[Sir Texas Sir]

1 hour ago, admin said:

PVP against noobs in capital waters?
Port battles against lineships?
Which pvp is unprofitable? 

We don't give fixed rewards from no on.. That was bad design.
In pvp you get everything that pvp player had + some crew pay and fixed prize money. 

A while back Christ Roberson was asked why they will have 80% AI in the SC game.  He pretty much said this.  "When you have PvP there is going to be winners and looser.  A lot of times the same guys are always the looser.  It's not fun to loose all the time.  When you loose all the time you stop playing, we don't want that to happen.  That is why we are going to have 80% of the game filled with AI so it's not just PvP."   

I bring this up more about the part where if you loose over and over and over you don't win and it's not fun.  Than you leave the game and the numbers drop, than more leave.....it becomes a cycle where only the winners are left (We call them the Sharks/Wolves.)  You seem to think folks will win the majority of there fights.  Some might, but for every one they win some one lost a fight.    

I bet if you look at the mark system before this patch you will find that it was certain folks that have tons and tons of marks while others had very little and normally had to pay for most them cause they got no rewards from sinking.  If you make it harder for them to make ships and get back into the fight than they will just stop playing.  We been over this over and over....you need to make the game to fill it with casual players not the small amount of hard core players.  Other wise you will have a very dead game shortly.

So I ask you who is winning all these fights?  Why is a crafter or trader forced to PvP or grind AI if all he wants to do is enjoy sailing and making his trade run or crafting for folks.  Forceing folks to PvP will not bring you more numbers, it will do the oppisite and that is what this mechanic is doing.  I'm trying to be positive and have told a lot of guys to give it a chance, but the track record hasn't been very good about how you treat the casuals over the hardcore guys that won't have a probelm getting doubloons or ships.

[Belamy]

Well the Devs have done it this time. Made it more difficult especially for traders and far more difficult for those who want to rank up or open ship slots. As far as compensation for buildings such as Shipyards and Workshops, what a load of crock. I had 2 level 3 shipyards and you require 1000 doubloons just to upgrade to level 2 for one shipyard. So where are all the rest of the Doubloons I should have been compensated for? Also there is no way to convert Reals to Doubloons. You have now made the game very time consuming and for those people who do not have many hours to spare too bloody difficult to get anywhere or do anything. As far as the graphics for the port screen, just a complete overkill which now forces some players with basic computers not to be able to load the game easily or not at all. What a complete failure.

[TheHaney]

I had to capture 4 LGV's to pay for one frigate tow. What the hello kitty.

[Sir Texas Sir]

Oh out of 10 ships I sunk today testing things and this include over half trade ships. I got 159 Douhloons out of a first rate (76 for the mission) Than 76 from another misison and no more.  I even got an empty trade ship, but one score was 450 WO wood, the rest was basic mats.  The chest I got from both missions gave me pretty much generic mods I all ready had or knowledge I learned.  Except the Boarding Pike mod, which I wonder if it stacks with the Axe's mod (can't remember what it's named now).  Going have to test this out soon.

[TheHaney]

20 minutes ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

A while back Christ Roberson was asked why they will have 80% AI in the SC game.  He pretty much said this.  "When you have PvP there is going to be winners and looser.  A lot of times the same guys are always the looser.  It's not fun to loose all the time.  When you loose all the time you stop playing, we don't want that to happen.  That is why we are going to have 80% of the game filled with AI so it's not just PvP."   

I've been lucky this evening so far with NPC shipping, but all I can think about is how it would take one player to find my weak ass and sink me, and the entire evening's worth of NPC farming is gone. I couldn't afford to replace what I'd lose even after all this farming.

[MolonLabe13966]

Copy Pasted from patch notes

 

Going to use bullet points and be straight forward in my criticism.

Things that I like and why:

Port UI, gives a feeling of actually being in port and isn't boring to look at whenever I am in port

Crafting: ships are easier to craft and cheaper as well, quality of life improvement

Resources: buildings are more efficient and produce more, another quality of life improvement

Fish now convert directly into provisions, gives new life and meaning into fishing.

 

_____________________________________

Things that are okay:

 

Doubloons. I like how PVP and PVE marks are combined I guess.

Less enemy AI in nation waters: the only negative thing I can guess can come out of this is I need to travel further to cap a trader.

 

_____________________________________

Things that I do not like:

Teleport fee: It is tolerable at a fee of 10 doubloons, but I would rather see this go away. I would rather not have to sail 30 minutes one way just to hope to buy a trade good that may or may not be there. and sell it another 30 minutes away at some port. It is boring as hell and a major downside. Speaking of, I have been to 7 different ports around Mortimer looking for 32lb carronades, and only found 7. I would craft them myself, but I don't have a forge and can't afford it. 

 

Currency: This "reals" thing needs to be reverted. I understand why it was implemented, but it is a little confusing and it seems the prices for things are way too much, such as admiralty ships, I saw a navy brig on sale for 40k from the Admiralty, while an LGV that was crafted by a player was on sale for 42k. It might be inflation, but still.

 

Building wipe compensation: alot of players have been saying they are not seeing the full 100% compensation for level 3 buildings that they had before the wipe, where they only got 8k doubloons max, and hardly enough reals to rebuild. I saw you reply that it should be in the redeemables, but all they got was the doubloons,  which is hardly enough for a complete rebuild. 

[Greysteak]

I think the teleport fees are fine.  No problem there, just might have to sail instead.  It would be more interesting if they were a little less when the destination is close and a little more for far away ports.

[Fargo]

1 minute ago, Powderhorn said:

it's a question of "How does the economy fit into the above picture?"

Economy could do what just PvP marks or Dubloons can't. It could promote complex RvR gameplay and PvP naturally. It could make unfamiliar players work together and take risks. It could connect trading, PvP and RvR. It could make all this gameplay meaningful. 

With dubloons for example, why should you help allies instead of letting them die, to kill and loot the enemy afterwards? Or when multiple allies are hunting one trader, why should they work together against appearing enemies? Why should you take risks? "Ganking" (=pick and choosing weak targets) is heavily promoted when its all about pure rewards.

Its all about rewards/dubloons again. What about the resource value of ships? Redundant. If sinking enemy resources would actually effect their economy, this would be meaningful and fun for many players. And it would be quite easy to balance this by making 6th-5th rates very cheap, 4-3rd rates affordable, and 2-1 rates really expensive. Inflation would be super easy to handle with large ships beeing an ultimate money and labour sink.

So what is the purpose of multiple currencies?! It seems it just makes balancing very difficult. When dubloons are the bottleneck in production, everything else inflates and becomes redundant. Economy cannot work with dubloons or victory marks interfering with the resource system. To make the crafting economy work it needs to become a bottleneck, then dubloons and marks would be redundant. Right now you could get rid of resources, labour and crafting all together like you did with materials, and nobody would miss anything of the current system. 

[Psycho3630]

1 hour ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

So I ask you who is winning all these fights?  Why is a crafter or trader forced to PvP or grind AI if all he wants to do is enjoy sailing and making his trade run or crafting for folks.  Forceing folks to PvP will not bring you more numbers, it will do the oppisite and that is what this mechanic is doing.  I'm trying to be positive and have told a lot of guys to give it a chance, but the track record hasn't been very good about how you treat the casuals over the hardcore guys that won't have a probelm getting doubloons or ships.

I would argue that even the hardcore guys are looking at this and thinking they cannot go out and pvp or rvr because they now have to spend most of their time getting Doubloons for crafting so they can replace the major ships they have. No one wins from ships being more expensive to produce. If they devs want to get people out of port, you make ships easier to get and give larger objectives to sail to and to use the ships. 

 

I agree with your conclusions about the casual player. If someone wants to build a 1st rate now, its going to take many hours to get the Doubloons necessary and many people just are not willing to put that much time into it. Yes, players can attack other players for them, but that is assuming you're good enough to win, and not only just win, but win more than you lose. 

 

Positive incentives to get out of port will create content. I fear that this update is only negative, almost punishing players who are more comfortable crafting or casually playing, such as those who only log in for a couple hours, kill some pve fleets, and log off for a couple days. There is a big difference between encouragement with incentives and forcing someone to fight for a significant amount of time with very high risk and a reward mostly contingent on RNG for drops. Add on top of that the requirement to sail to unfriendly places to do so and it becomes an uphill battle to get players online, let alone willingness to risk ships.

 

This almost ignores the fact that our engagement in this process is for entertainment. It is an escape and to do something we all enjoy. Beyond the in-game feelings among players and the internal politics, we are all hear for the enjoyment of tall ships and historical naval combat. The requirement to grind resources with a heavy burden when compared to rewards makes working to obtain larger, rarer ships a chore more than enjoyment. As fun as a relaxing PvE session can be, after your 8th or 10th fleet, most people will have had enough. The burden to reward ratio is off, and it is going to cause problems in any player base. 

Edited November 1, 2018 by Psycho3630
Added thought rather than creating new post to save forum space.

[Sir Texas Sir]

21 minutes ago, Greysteak said:

I think the teleport fees are fine.  No problem there, just might have to sail instead.  It would be more interesting if they were a little less when the destination is close and a little more for far away ports.

Capitals should be free to return to no matter what.

[Raf Van Boom]

8 hours ago, admin said:

Here was our thinking  - do not mean to offend anyone. so apologies in advance

Part 1
PvP players kill players. If you kill poor players you get poor rewards. If you kill rich players you get amazing rewards in form of their ships and holds.
Maybe you should stop hunting poor players and attack rich players in pvp? 

If this thinking is correct - noobs will be happier (Useless target) and rich pvp players will focus on rich pvp players.
 

Part 2
You have based on your feedback you have not killed any players after patch. Because if you did kill someone - you would not ask such questions. PVP drops doubloons (sailor salaries and pay + all loot from previous battles). 

 

 

How do I know who's rich and who is not?

[Psycho3630]

1 minute ago, Le Raf Boom said:

How do I know who's rich and who is not?

You won't know until you tag, and at that point who is going to sail away? If I go to French waters looking for you or KoC and I happen to tag a different player that I think I can kill, its not like I am going to just sail away because they may not be "rich". 

[Barbancourt]

32 minutes ago, Greysteak said:

I think the teleport fees are fine.  No problem there, just might have to sail instead. 

1-4 hours of AFK sailing, instead of being involved in productive activities. 

 

[Ruby Rose]

this patch is a fiasco, aside from crippling ships building they made 1st rate practically unreplaceable, lowering the chance to see 1st rates anywhere else except out in reinforcement zones around capitals, its too risky to sail out with anything but dlc ships. its now a money grab for dlc ships. i offically and litterally hate this game now its not worth my time to spend 4+ hours sailing around trying to get enough dubloons to replace ships, its 9000 to replace a bellona its got nothing on first rates. and rewards from pve combat is absolutely useless now so no real point there. this patch practically turned the pvp server into who can grind the most pve to get dubs for pvp.  way to go devs u killed the game.

[Corona Lisa]

I dont know why killing a fking PvE no gun trader ship is more worth than killing actual enemies. At the same time revenge ganking gets encouraged even more as if there wasnt enough of that already.

We are back to "trader hunting", its just boring for both sides involved 95% of the time. Didnt work in patch 10, but hey lets test it again

 

Meanwhile there is no time since a year or so to fix PvP zone RoE, something the community actually asked for in contrast to this useless currency change. I still dont understand why you removed PvP marks anyways, was at least a stable and not completely inflated currency. Now we have 2 hyperinflated currencies.

Edited November 1, 2018 by Jon Snow lets go

[Aster]

Not sure if its been reported but I don't think ports are spawning resources.

[LIONOFWALES]

Lets remember that we the players will be responsible for all resources and ships in game.... no more easy NPC grinding, buckle up and get ready for the ride guys its gonna be good.

P>S> Punish the AFK

Edited November 1, 2018 by LIONOFWALES

[LIONOFWALES]

oh also... give the players a chance to redevelop before casting under developed judgement on new game mechanics please. 

Lets give this a few weeks and see what happens, this game would be boring if all the ships could be replaced like paper.

[Ruby Rose]

6 hours ago, admin said:

We want lineships to be more expensive. And valuable. We want captains taking captured line ships home instead of sinking them. And we would love revenge fleets trying not only to get their ships back but also taking all gold doubloons back and more. 

ok so admins want this but do the majority of the players want this