Testbed Feedback - Battle UI, Localization, Patrols, Delivery quests

[HachiRoku]

2 minutes ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

Maybe not 4th rates, but if your a light frigate or 6/7th rate you should be dead. I'm so sick of Hecs and ships taking first rate broad sides to run and heal up.  If you shot something pretty much into the structure with one broad side they should be in a world of hurt if any thing.

I don't think it works both ways though. Its one or the other. Its way to extreme as it is now anyway. A suprise will probably destroy a snow with one broadside. We dont have enough ships types to test. 

[Sir Texas Sir]

1 hour ago, Capn Rocko said:

Sums it up pretty good. Its sad to see the devs cater to the "solo 1st rate" crowd at the expense of taking all strategy and player skill out of the game. Also, 2v1 or 3v1 will not be possible now.

Its becoming more and more clear that the devs have no vision for this game and are making it up as they go. The "Development plans update: 1 half of 2019" thread says nothing about damage model being a problem or even being an area of interest. I finally thought the damage model was fine and balanced after seeing adjustments being made over the last 3 years. Today they threw out all of their previous hard work (and time we spent waiting for new damage models) to remove all strategy from the game just so players can feel safe sailing their 1st rates alone in a sandbox MMO 

1st rates should be hard to kill, if it's solo though and you have a group than you just stay out of it's broad side and keep working it's sails and stern.  That are leave it alone if you didn't bring big enough guns to the fight.

[jnovotny6]

WHO IS DOING ALL THIS TESTING? sry caps. There is only 13 players on the testbed

[PG Monkey]

we had to green on green to test pvp  maybe the testbed needs outlaw battles ?

[Hethwill]

7 minutes ago, jnovotny6 said:

WHO IS DOING ALL THIS TESTING? sry caps. There is only 13 players on the testbed

Was nicely filled earlier on, during prime EU afternoon. Is midnight now, time for the US fellows to start their shift. Give them a shout  

[Cecil Selous]

I want to ask something since we kind of loosely throw the words historical and realistic around here. What exactly is HP for you? What does it mean? What does it represent regarding the damage that a ship can take and the damage that is done by cannon balls. What kind of damage is done by a broadside, that immediately sinks another ship? Also again: How does the weight of the solid shot exactly translate into damage. How can those parameters be tweaked to still get the general characteristics we have now on the testbed but with a better feeling without oneshotting frigates or in general ships, that are two classes below your ship. I still think the relation between HP and damage is not quite there yet.

Edited February 9, 2019 by Cecil Selous

[Sir Texas Sir]

7 minutes ago, Hethwill said:

Was nicely filled earlier on, during prime EU afternoon. Is midnight now, time for the US fellows to start their shift. Give them a shout  

It's up to 17 and I'm one of them.  Just took on a L'Herm, Indefat and Surprise with my Victory running 24/24/12/12....Took little damage and pretty much demolished all three ships with no problems.  Most shots where taken in 250-300m rang so pretty much anything would pen.  That poor Indefatable went down fast.  I can see how some folks might complain, but a 1st rate felt like it should against smaller frigates that took full broad sides.   I demasted the suprise with one broad side (all three mast) and boarded it.  It was very interesting using my lower two decks to hit with ball and than grape.  Oh and your Sail/Gunner tabs need to be turned off or on, they stay on during boarding but didn't seem to effect your actions/prep.  I turned off sailing to not effect my gunnery and I had a repair going at that time.

[OjK]

Experienced no reduction of used repairs during battle, however they were gone from hold AFTER the battle.

Similar to what we used to have in Fleet Practice.

Intended, or bug?

[OjK]

Also - can we get few 3rd Rates and Bucentaure to redeem for testing?

Also - what happened here?
Carronade hits main mast from +-300 meters.
Surprisingly, not only demasts, but it demasts the other mast then it actually hit...?

 

Edited February 9, 2019 by OjK

[Guest]

@admin do i have to redo my kills if i delete my character and create new one in other nation or is it connected to my steam account?

[Guest]

43 minutes ago, OjK said:

Also - can we get few 3rd Rates and Bucentaure to redeem for testing?

Also - what happened here?
Carronade hits main mast from +-300 meters.
Surprisingly, not only demasts, but it demasts the other mast then it actually hit...?

 

hitting main mast so hard that the mizzen mast falls  

[Iroquois Confederacy]

So, just had a chance to do a little testing of the new damage model.  Took a Herc out to play in the Bahamas, and had two good fights I wanted to test:  2 smaller ships (Navy Brig & Mercury) v. Herc, and 1 larger (Renomee v. Herc).  Herc was Mahogany / Mahogany.

The two smaller ships were able to land quite a hammering on the Herc, but not enough to outlast its heavier guns.  However, I have high hopes that similar vessels controlled by players would be able to really challenge a lone Herc.  The Reno beat me about like a red-headed step child.  After getting about half of its structure down via stern rakes, no more structure went away.  Not sure if that was as intended, operator error, or simply a hard cap.  That Reno really put a hurting on the Herc though, making me hopeful that the Herc becomes less of a powerhouse in the game.

I am, however, concerned about the AI.  With how "damaging" damage is in this iteration, missing broadsides, or individual shots, is very noticeable in combat.  I think this is a great thing, personally.  However, AI... don't miss.  It's one of their "cheats."  That might be a problem for newer, or even moderately or less skilled players.

With the addition of battles that remain always open for the "weaker" side, anyone attacking AI, trying to compensate for the skill of AI with heavier ships, will always be vulnerable to people jumping in and smoking them.  This I suspect will be a problem compounded by the strength of damage.

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, Iroquois Confederacy said:

I am, however, concerned about the AI.  With how "damaging" damage is in this iteration, missing broadsides, or individual shots, is very noticeable in combat.  I think this is a great thing, personally.  However, AI... don't miss.  It's one of their "cheats."  That might be a problem for newer, or even moderately or less skilled players.

remember AI shoot broadsides at terrible angles though and dont shoot if you hug them which would compensate. But i agree they shoot at 45* angles with their cannons etc.

[Cecil Selous]

1 hour ago, Intrepido said:

Dont exaggerate things. 

You can one shot frigates only if you do a perfect broadside with Victory, a ship 5 classes superior to frigates.

Still I agree the damage and pen should be a bit lower, around 15% less.

Exaggerate? Did you test it?

If you can get a good tag (or a good position when you get tagged) and the poor guy lies right next to you, he is done before he can raise his sails. In a bigger battle it is also not far fetched, that you get the opportunity to deliver a perfect broadside. For the smaller frigates you don't even need to hit with every cannon.

This may have the positive effect, that lone  or a just a small number of frigates don't tag SOLs from now on but still I don't like it. I needed 5 broadsides to sink stupid AI Surprise, L'Hermione and an Indefatigable. Imho a first rate should never sink a 5th rate with one broadside despite all La serieuse dreams.

I am fine with the penetration though.

Edited February 9, 2019 by Cecil Selous

[Guest]

tested wo wo victory with longs and 42pd on deck vs lo wo pavel and aga. All shots penetrated and hit

normal ball to the aga brought it down 60% side armour and 25% structure, dont know if its ok since its a 4th rate, maybe the hp should be a bit higher since its a ship of the line.

Double ball on pavel brougth it down 4 bars on armour and 1 bar on structure, normal ball on opposite side brought it down 3 bars side armour and 1/2 bar structure, felt balanced allthough i didnt manage to reload shock the pavel which i must admit was abit suprising, but it makes the 2nd rates not to far off from 1st rate.

On those 2 broadsides i had taken away abit above 100 crew from the pavel. 

 

[AeRoTR]

Victory Teak/White Oak ,  Longs/Longs/Mediums/42 Carros.

Engaged 10 5th rate.

Close range focused broadside sank smaller 5th rates, well placed broadsides crew shocked all the 5th rates. As I am using very mixed cannons types, if it was all medium+carro or long+carro setup, the broadsides would be more devastating. It was great to see 5th rate ships getting dismasted due to focused close range broadside from 1st rate which also removed most or all armour from side including some or half structure damage.

It took me 20 minutes to finish them all. Victory sustained moderate to heavy damage, lost 400 crew, OW repairing hull required 155 hull repairs which I repaired at port.

Less Red Rudder, mediorce yellow rudder which was very good, may be due to increased hp.

Damage felt okay, could be reduced slightly, also hope to see single shot accuracy to be reduced.

I started to like the new boarding mini game. It feels better for me, just would request BIGGER BOLDER FONTS on Firepower and Attack and Defence numbers which are deciding factors on these new boarding game. Can even be RED colour, if it is being changed. Only problem is new players will have big problems.

*** THE IMPORTANT PART ****

My victory in ow required 155 hull repairs after battle, was about %40 overal hull hp. When I reached the port, I repaired costing me 3200 reals, hire more crew costing me 1700 reals. Total maintenance cost was about 5000 Reals

Now the interesting part, from the battle I earned 40500 Reals and 3500 Xp. 

1) 40500 Reals income and 5000 Reals maintenance costs seems too good. While I can still earn 40500 reals !, my maintenance cost should be 4-5 times or even more. Why would I sail any other class ship ? Even if income is buffed 2 times due to being test bed, still earning 20k reals and maintenance of 5k reals is too good. I would prefer 10k maintenance cost at least, may be even more.

*** INCREASE MAINTENANCE COSTS FOR BIGGER SHIPS ***

2) While 3500 Xp seems okay, considering to unlock a skillbook slot, for 1st rate ship, first one is about 4500 xp, total ship can be 64000 XP or more, which means I have to sink 200 5th rate ships, that is really too many. As a captain who is already commanding a 1st Rate ship, has lots of xp on SOLs, being unlocked the slots. So if I have unlocked a similar class ship before, please make my ship xp gathering double (2x), if I have fully unlocked slots on more than one same class ship, at least 2 ships, please tripple (3x) my ship xp gain. Current grinding is unnecessary, will push players away.

*** MY EXPERIENCE GAIN SHOULD BE DOUBLE OR TRIPPLE IF I HAVE FULLY UNLOCKED SIMILIAR CLASS SHIP BEFORE ***

 

 

Edited February 9, 2019 by AeRoTR

[Sir Texas Sir]

2 hours ago, Iroquois Confederacy said:

So, just had a chance to do a little testing of the new damage model.  Took a Herc out to play in the Bahamas, and had two good fights I wanted to test:  2 smaller ships (Navy Brig & Mercury) v. Herc, and 1 larger (Renomee v. Herc).  Herc was Mahogany / Mahogany.

 

You prob would of lasted a bit better against the Reno with a stronger build.  Mah/Mah isn't exactly what we would call a strong build.

31 minutes ago, JG14_Cuzn said:

Ummm @admin  careful what your looking to achieve here.  

You don’t want to discourage frigates from sailing and getting into battle with SOL’s

They can still have there uses, but they can't go broad side to broad side with a 1st rate.  It hurts for them to do so. I didn't fight any 4-2nds yet to see how they fair.   

@AeRoTR I wish our XP once we hit RA actually went some where. Like doubles up xp on unlocking ships or something?   Just seems like we should get an extra boost towards that or do as you said something like if you unlocked a similar class ships one slot is auto open for you on the other ships or something.

[van der Clam]

 

7 hours ago, z4ys said:

@admin can we get outlaw battles for all nations on testbed to make testing easier?

Indeed. I believe once the "No Escape" patch is implemented, there should be no reason not to have outlaw battles back. The reason it was removed was because of dirty rats exploiting it to get away from revenge ganks. All nations should've been able to join those battles on one side or the other or as a third party. With this planned patch they'd have to fight it to the death amongst themselves. Granted....I bet they'd just capture the ships and trade them back...but at least they'd have to waste a perk on fleet.

[derekticus]

On 1/23/2019 at 12:05 PM, Abram Svensson said:

while in boarding all symbols bugged out.

Was boarding a Cerb with a Vic

I saw this same corrupted graphics during a Battle Instance on Testbed server.  Some of the corruption was fixable -  ie:  when I chose a new "R" for range or "V" for firing mode...

And, I agree with the calls for "Switch Bow cannons to 3 and Stern to 4" as they are in the regular Server.

Also, curiously, no matter which Melee action I choose, the AI always chooses the ideal action to counter me.  I guess I need to wait longer so the AI picks first, or do the old "last second" switch out.

 

Edited February 9, 2019 by derekticus
added detail

[Teutonic]

A thought:
Testbed - broadside damage 5,000 and 20 crew die to being hit by cannonballs

What if we reduced the damage of cannons, but increased the likelihood of crew dying so a broadside may look like this

3,500 damage but 30-50 crew would die.

I feel we can fine tune a system where warships in the lineship catagory should still do a lot of damage through hull AND crew. I feel larger crew loss would help create a battle environment that could do a few things

Less crew =
1. prolonged fights due to every action taking longer.
2. the player having to make important decisions - do i focus more on cannonfire? do I add my crew to sails? or should I repair now in hopes to come back late? or should i go for boarding?

Granted this would need to include a more in depth mechanic for crew allocation to different jobs on your ship - it may add some complexity.... but it could be more rewarding.

Further thoughts ----

I think the idea I want to portray is that a lot of players dislike how anyone can take damage and lose crew only to just repair all the damage and get all the crew back over the course of a battle. I would heavily support something in our damage model that would create "permanent" damage. After a ship loses X amount of armor or crew, there should be a limit to how much you can get back (as your new maximum). all the effort and time a player took to damage an enemy is nearly instantly gone and it's almost like you have to restart - that shouldn't happen.

If i was to lose 50% of my HPs and loss 200 out of 500 crew. I could only repairs back up to 70% as my new maximum HPs and only be able to fully repair my crew back to 400 for example.

[admin]

4 hours ago, Cecil Selous said:

I needed 5 broadsides to sink stupid AI Surprise, L'Hermione and an Indefatigable. Imho a first rate should never sink a 5th rate with one broadside despite all La serieuse dreams.

 

What is supposed to happen with Surprise after a HMS Victory broadside in your mental historical pattern/model?

[Slim McSauce]

you should remove double ball and charge, it's not really needed in  this dmg model.

[VirtuallyIdiotic]

So I went and did the 25 kills and 5 boards last night. In doing so I got to play around with the Victory and Trincomelee a great deal. This is my first actual playing on the testbed during this patch run so basically this is what I thought about it.

1. The UI just seems half finished. Much of it looks half finished and could use some colour. Just really feels half done and dull. The boarding UI on the other hand looks very nice just the minor stuff mentioned previously by others. 

2. Have not done delivery missions but from what I say looking at them they do seem like a nice way to spend an evening when you really just need to earn some doubloons. 

3. The new trading material seems very interesting. Wish to see how that works out.

4. The cannons just feel wonky to put it plainly. Fights did not seem like they took very long and I never felt like 11 5th rates were a threat. 11 5th rates should have definitely been somewhat threatening to my Victory but it was really just me sweeping them away. As if I was going up against a collection of 7th rates. Apart from the damage the mediums did feel a bit better than what they were before. Did not seem like I was aiming up into the sky just to get a moderate shot off at some range. My suggest is reduce the demasting effects of a broadside just a little bit and a bit of the damage overall. 

[z4ys]

2 hours ago, admin said:

What is supposed to happen with Surprise after a HMS Victory broadside in your mental historical pattern/model?

Will now every part of the game historical or just the battle related stuff?

[admin]

49 minutes ago, z4ys said:

Will now every part of the game historical or just the battle related stuff?

If you quote a question maybe it would be nice to answer question first before asking a new one.