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

[admin]

2 hours ago, NethrosDefectus said:

In the same way this piano just needs tuning? 

 

Guys we would like to remind everyone that feedback topics require content in posts. Nonsense like the quote i linked above is not welcome on this forum. We want to have a proper on topic discussion.  Captains who waste time on nonsense posts IN FEEDBACK TOPICS will be shadow banned with no warnings and points. Models and numbers will change here and there, and sometimes back and forth so maybe there is no point to overreact on things. 

If you feel like you want to say unrelated things - post them in tavern  

[van der Clam]

9 minutes ago, OjK said:

Don't change the game from engaging and complex combat into "Who shoots first, and with bigger guns" slugfest.
This can be tweaked and will be, I'm sure. As is, it makes tagging way too important. Maybe OW position shouldn't coincide with battle instance? Or maybe not so close.

There is Skull and Bones coming from Ubisoft very shortly - and no way NA can compete with this AAA game aimed for casual ship slugfesting.
Beautiful looking game, but very fantasy oriented and I don't think it's mmo. If it is, then it looks only to be arena style, not conquest OW. NA will hold strong when people want a historical gameplay.

Lets keep Naval Action where is it now, with just small fixes, not makeovers...
Small fixes to this new model should bring this back to a reasonable gameplay.

 

[admin]

37 minutes ago, OjK said:

 

Why can't we just stay with current system (which worked properly for quite a time) with just small adjustments to fix few issues (dps paradox, hugging, etc) and launch the game?

 

We have time now, and we promised to address rebalance issues with modules and ships long ago

Current system is great but clearly the balance is not working. Best balanced efficiency is only given to 5th rate captains operating in groups. Why i say so:
Reason - time and reals and effort to get 1st rate is a incomparable with the 5th rate. Yet battle performance is somewhat comparable. 

If this balance was true - trafalgar would be fought in 5th rates (because why not - nelson was skilled and such). But if you look at the order of battle. You see only 9 frigates out of 74 warships for both sides. 

The game must fix 2 herculeses sinking a first rate problem before release. It is a mental model problem. And in reality 2 frigates would not have a single chance against a 1st rate ship of the line. 

[OjK]

5 minutes ago, admin said:

We have time now but clearly the system is not working. It retains 5th rate captains operating in groups.
Reason - time and reals and effort to get 1st rate is a incomparable with the 5th rate. Yet battle performance is a-historical and questionable by ANYONE Coming from the outside after reading the patrick obrien. 

And I totally agree!
But let's not kill all 4th and 3rds in the process as well...

I had one battle against 74 on testbed... It felt like I my son would be able to kill it.

I hope we can avoid situation, where most used ship of that age, will be obsolete. Please.


EDIT: Can we get few 3rds, Bellonas, Bucs and Santis redeems for testing as well?

Edited February 9, 2019 by OjK

[Hethwill]

28 minutes ago, greybuscat said:

I don't know what kind off MMOs or arcades you've been playing

none  that's why.

But i'm good with NA so far.

[admin]

1 minute ago, OjK said:

And I totally agree!
But let's not kill all 4th and 3rds in the process as well...

I had one battle against 74 on testbed... It felt like I my son would be able to kill it.

I hope we can avoid situation, where most used ship of that age, will be obsolete. Please.

3rd and 4th will be addressed. We are still calculating hull thickness and it did not update this Friday. It will be deployed on monday.

[admin]

4 minutes ago, Hethwill said:

none  that's why.

But i'm good with NA so far.

We need a separate post on other issues you and some other captains named (on sailing, masts etc)

But in terms of sailing close to the wind - ships have realistic comparable performance close to the wind between classes and sail groups. We just move the base slightly closer to wind for more comfort. 

[OjK]

@admin Looking forward next iteration.

Please provide all other SOLs if possible - we'd like to do some various comparisons, Vic and Aggie is not much of a choice for that.
They could be also non limited... I'd like to see and check the effects of the wood as well.

(not sure did You notice edit of previous post, that's why I repeated request for other ships redeems on testbed)

 

[Njord]

29 minutes ago, admin said:

Current system is great but clearly the balance is not working. Best balanced efficiency is only given to 5th rate captains operating in groups. Why i say so:
Reason - time and reals and effort to get 1st rate is a incomparable with the 5th rate. Yet battle performance is somewhat comparable. 

If this balance was true - trafalgar would be fought in 5th rates (because why not - nelson was skilled and such). But if you look at the order of battle. You see only 9 frigates out of 74 warships for both sides. 

The game must fix 2 herculeses sinking a first rate problem before release. It is a mental model problem. And in reality 2 frigates would not have a single chance against a 1st rate ship of the line. 

I completely agree. Also even if the 2 herculeses would lose the fight due to mistakes, they can simply repair and sail away with the SOL being unable to catch them, it just doesn't seem right. I am very glad you are working on this revamp.

[greybuscat]

40 minutes ago, admin said:

We have time now, and we promised to address rebalance issues with modules and ships long ago

Current system is great but clearly the balance is not working. Best balanced efficiency is only given to 5th rate captains operating in groups. Why i say so:
Reason - time and reals and effort to get 1st rate is a incomparable with the 5th rate. Yet battle performance is somewhat comparable. 

If this balance was true - trafalgar would be fought in 5th rates (because why not - nelson was skilled and such). But if you look at the order of battle. You see only 9 frigates out of 74 warships for both sides. 

The game must fix 2 herculeses sinking a first rate problem before release. It is a mental model problem. And in reality 2 frigates would not have a single chance against a 1st rate ship of the line. 

Perhaps this would be easier to wrap our minds around if you gave us a better idea of what your vision looks like? Should any amount of 5th rates be able to overcome a 1st rate? What about a poorly sailed 1st rate and exceptional 5th rate captains? 5th rates are also, by far, the broadest class in the game. What about Connies, as opposed to Hercs?

You say 3rd and 4th rates need to be adjusted too, but what's the goal for that? Should a team of 5th rates be able to take down a Bellona or an Aggie? Where do we draw the line?

And I question the value of relying too much on history for balancing the game. Sure, Trafalgar wasn't fought in frigates, but on the other hand, there are examples in history of very light ships causing huge problems for unescorted, poorly coordinated ships of the line.

[OjK]

@greybuscat Quoting Your link:

• 22 hull breaches
• 133 sail plan breaches

That's "huge problems"?

"By official information, neither Turkish ships lost crew as the brig's main objective during the battle was to damage their spars and rigging."

He was just trying to escape. And to do so, he had to manouver like crazy and cripple the enemy.

Which is not the point, because we're talking stern-rake-to-death, killing crew, and sinking the ship, with all skill needed to run away is currently "turn and full sails"
Sound like complete opposite to what happened to Mercury, and what it had to do to survive.

Edited February 9, 2019 by OjK

[admin]

13 minutes ago, greybuscat said:

 

And I question the value of relying too much on history for balancing the game. Sure, Trafalgar wasn't fought in frigates, but on the other hand, there are examples in history of very light ships causing huge problems for unescorted, poorly coordinated ships of the line.

mercury did not sink Turkish ships of the line. Mercury escaped with honor in very unfavorable conditions (turkish wanted to capture it). 
His name was chosen because of another russian Mercury - Cutter - which captured a swedish frigate Venus - designed by Chapman. Using rowing in full calm cutter sailed to stern of the frigate and camped for couple of hours until Venus surrendered. So it is possible to use light ships historically and win against heavy vessels in proper conditions. 

[Njord]

@admin Would it be possible to add more and larger shallow areas to the map after this weight=hp and lower calibre=lower damage revamp? Small ships should not perform as well compared to SOLs as their do now but they also should have more area to their own to remain viable and enjoyable.

More shallows for new, casual and poor players ( cheaper ships and fewer crew / repairs needed + DLC ships ) to have a better chance would be great. I think for the amount of shallow ships we have, there is too little shallow area.

[Vernon Merrill]

5 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

Exceptions can not be made the rule.

People do not come to the game thinking the biggest ship ingame can be sunk or captured by such small ships.

 

To sum up:

If a third rate captures or sinks a first rate is ok and accepted. It happened in the most famous battles.

If a ship like the mercury is able to f.uck a third rate people just gets mad and quit.

To sum up:

People in this game can sail a third rate and know f.uck all...  and basically be terrible.

A mercury can beat a third rate because we're not all real naval officers who have to prove competence to get a command.

[greybuscat]

21 minutes ago, OjK said:

@greybuscat Quoting Your link:

• 22 hull breaches
• 133 sail plan breaches

That's "huge problems"?

"By official information, neither Turkish ships lost crew as the brig's main objective during the battle was to damage their spars and rigging."

He was just trying to escape. And to do so, he had to manouver like crazy and cripple the enemy.

Which is not the point, because we're talking stern-rake-to-death, killing crew, and sinking the ship, with all skill needed to run away is currently "turn and full sails"
Sound like complete opposite to what happened to Mercury, and what it had to do to survive.

I really don't see what's gained by quibbling over my use of the word "huge." The ships were successfully disabled, which to the captains in charge off those ships, were certainly "huge" problems that were not foreseen going into the battle. That's not even really feasible with the current damage model, thanks to how heavily abstracted sail damage is.

18 minutes ago, admin said:

mercury did not sink Turkish ships of the line. Mercury escaped (turkish wanted to capture it). 
His name was chosen because of another Mercury - Cutter - which captured a swedish frigate Venus - designed by Chapman. Using rowing in full calm cutter sailed to stern of the frigate and camped for couple of hours until Venus surrendered. So it is possible to use light ships historically and win against heavy vessels in proper conditions. 

I wasn't suggesting that Mercury sank the lineships, but it was able to control the engagement for a time. I only brought up Mercury to point out that you can try to make the game more "historical" in one narrow aspect, but that still leaves other historical aspects of naval combat flapping in the wind.

But I don't want to argue with you about this since that's a waste of everyone's time, so I concede the point and retract the bit about Mercury. What I would really appreciate is if you could respond to the rest of my post:

31 minutes ago, greybuscat said:

Perhaps this would be easier to wrap our minds around if you gave us a better idea of what your vision looks like? Should any amount of 5th rates be able to overcome a 1st rate? What about a poorly sailed 1st rate and exceptional 5th rate captains? 5th rates are also, by far, the broadest class in the game. What about Connies, as opposed to Hercs?

You say 3rd and 4th rates need to be adjusted too, but what's the goal for that? Should a team of 5th rates be able to take down a Bellona or an Aggie? Where do we draw the line?

Contrary to what you might think, I want this to be productive. I want to understand what your goals are so I can provide more useful and detailed feedback. If I don't know what the final product is supposed to look like, all I can do is say subjective things like "this feels too squishy," or "that change wasn't fun."

Edited February 9, 2019 by greybuscat

[Marquês do Bonfim]

I don't get it. If a player is sailing a 3rd rate and gets sunk by a Mercury, that proves completely that the 3rd rate captain is just plain-simple f.ucking incompetent. Same goes for all SOLs.

I get that people are trying to get rid of the fact that 6th/5th and 4th rates are faster and outmaneuver the bigger ships, but let's be honest about it, that's freaking life dude. SOLs, specially big boats were usually sailed under certain circumstances, they didn't simply sail around the globe hunting down smaller ships, they have frigates to do that. You guys are quoting major battles like that was some random encounter, but it doesn't work like that.

I only wish the frigates get a revamped bonuses on this new damage model to give smaller ships a purpose to be sailed in-game. I'm a frigate-guy myself, I prefer smaller ships than sailing SOLs and 1st rates because they're expensive to repair and takes too much time to maneuver and counter-attack. They are OP right now and rightfully deserve to be so, but frigates aren't papers either, there were stories of frigates going up against bigger ships and won.

 

If you have a frigate that is superior in structure hp and thickness, a inferior frigate would be easy to take down, specially if you have better cannons or carronades, we just need to find that sweet spot so gameplay doesn't go south quicker than expected.

Edited February 9, 2019 by Portuguese Privateer

[greybuscat]

16 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

Exceptions can not be made the rule.

People do not come to the game thinking the biggest ship ingame can be sunk or captured by such small ships.

 

To sum up:

If a third rate captures or sinks a first rate is ok and accepted. It happened in the most famous battles.

If a ship like the mercury is able to f.uck a third rate people just gets mad and quit.

 

 

Fair enough, but I wonder what those new players chock full of expectations are going to think the first time they get hugged to death by a coordinated attack from a couple of Requins, which will still happen if they don't know how to properly sail or aim in their first 3rd rate. You can adjust damage all you want, but it won't matter if you can't hit the thing.

But now we're just getting wildly off-topic.

[HachiRoku]

46 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

Tune down penetration a bit. Im still registrering hull hits at 75º after an evening of testing.

Now thickness matters zero. It is all HP, which is dumbing down the game.

I have tested this and get bounces at bad angles. Ships still have armour according to stats.

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, Portuguese Privateer said:

I don't get it. If a player is sailing a 3rd rate and gets sunk by a Mercury, that proves completely that the 3rd rate captain is just plain-simple f.ucking incompetent. Same goes for all SOLs.

I get that people are trying to get rid of the fact that 6th/5th and 4th rates are faster and outmaneuver the bigger ships, but let's be honest about it, that's freaking life dude. SOLs, specially big boats were usually sailed under certain circumstances, they didn't simply sail around the globe hunting down smaller ships, they have frigates to do that. You guys are quoting major battles like that was some random encounter, but it doesn't work like that.

I only wish the frigates get a revamped bonuses on this new damage model to give smaller ships a purpose to be sailed in-game. I'm a frigate-guy myself, I prefer smaller ships than sailing SOLs and 1st rates because they're expensive to repair and takes too much time to maneuver and counter-attack. They are OP right now and rightfully deserve to be so, but frigates aren't papers either, there were stories of frigates going up against bigger ships and won.

 

If you have a frigate that is superior in structure hp and thickness, a inferior frigate would be easy to take down, specially if you have better cannons or carronades, we just need to find that sweet spot so gameplay doesn't go south quicker than expected.

@admin test it with making 2 crew pools, 1 crew pool learned to sail 4th rates and below which costs reals to hire, the other crew pool is trained to sail Sols which are hired by doubloons.

The only thing i think would have to be sorted out is what would happen when you want to transfer crew from a 4th rate fleet ship over to a bigger sol ship

Edited February 9, 2019 by Guest

[Marquês do Bonfim]

Anyways, I've been testing out some 7th/6th rate ship battles since I don't have the redeemables to get the xp and sail bigger ships. I've sailed around on the Cutter and I went against a Privateer +Cutter North of Martimer Town and I sunk both w/ struggle but it was a well balanced battle.

I took out the cutter with no problem, maneuvering her and taking few broadsides, but the few broadsides that I took, I got my structure and side armour to around 55% in a few minutes of battle (the privateer was also firing at me, so that might be something to do with it). Sunk the cutter, than focused strictly in the privateer, which by the way, wasn't a problem at all to battle. Did some maneuvering and took a few broadsides, good god the Cutter is a small ship, so most of the cannonballs actually went into the water. The few broadsides he took, it did some pretty good damage, I got to sink him aswell, but unfortunetly I crashed/froze and had to relog, so when I came back,  he was getting out of the wind and I was stuck, and I got sunk before him.

Overall, that was a pretty good battle and well-balanced one, I thought I was going to get hello-kitty going up against 2 ships at once, but it surprised me that I was able to work around and get the job done.

[Guest]

50 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

Tune down penetration a bit. Im still registrering hull hits at 75º after an evening of testing.

Now thickness matters zero. It is all HP, which is dumbing down the game.

1 minute ago, HachiRoku said:

I have tested this and get bounces at bad angles. Ships still have armour according to stats.

 

yeah they changed only damage and hull hp, maybe it feels like it doesent bounce because when you get hit in the stern and bow it feels like you take more damage to you

[HachiRoku]

the bow and stern tanking did need to go but to be honest most players did not use it. They would angle at just the correct angle to deny ranks and pens. This was imo the most anoying thing about the system. Certain ships only needed to turn away 10 degrees. 

[Carlos_Condell]

i think if you fix de "demasting META" and make the mast more strong against Ball and weaker to Chains, as a result you will get a nice balanced combat, cause now... demasting is really easy. sometimes you dont have the chance to even had a proper fight, cause Speed mods+kitting and shooting mast is the way to play.

i love fighting agains the odds but, if you dont fix this, all your work on new model and such it will not work as intented in the Live server... 

Also i would love to see implemented ships with NO Speed mods at all... just skill books for trim or Rigging Upgrades like the Spanish and pirate rigs... but "magical speed boost" i doesn't feel right, you still had 3rd rates with engines fighting against 5th rates at normal speed... is not realistic, and if you are aiming for historical and realistic aproach, this is another thing to consider too.

proposal: Speed boost for any ship just related to his crafting woods. so if you want a faster ship u need to sacrifice Thickness, mast strengh and Splinter resistance. 
this also affect combat, when u had tanky build sailing as a light builds (teak/WO ships sailing faster that fir/fir ones)

[AeRoTR]

People talk like, 1st rates will sail around and hunt smaller ships. 

It will not gonna catch smaller ships. To make sure SOLs can be restricted to heavier woods, base being TEAK/OAK/SAB/CAG/LO/WO only to be selected for crafting. 

[van der Clam]

Ppl keep b1tching about mid rate ships not having a purpose in this new dmg model, yet they are the ones who have made SoLs have no purpose other than PBs because they all would easy-gank SoLs in their mid rates and p2w dlc ships. They also are the ones calling themselves "pros" then calling anyone f.ucking incompetent who loses a SoL to mid rates.

If self anointed pros are so damn good in their mid rates then they will never be broadside to broadside with a SoL and won't have to worry about getting one or two shot by them.

Mid rates will always have a purpose in PBs no matter the dmg model. Also, once all the SoLs sink because of this dmg model it will mean everyone is in a mid rate soon enough.

This dmg model is on the right track and is probably easier on coding for tweaks.