Endurance and Final exams - How to pass them (in new damage model)

[Angus MacDuff]

3 minutes ago, jodgi said:

<Swallows nervously> Please don't take away the xp skip too.

LOL, we are all counting on that to survive the big wipe!

[Liq]

3 hours ago, Slim McSauce said:

Impressive but broken, this is exactly what people talk about when they describe demasting being borked and cannon accuracy too high.

Yeah was sort of the point

[van Veen]

3 hours ago, admin said:

the xp skip was considered a good idea initially to give the player the opportunity to jump straight to pvp

And I think the rationale is still valid. Do not make progress slower on the low ranks.

New players want to have a big ship fast and a 5th rate under full sail is quite impressive and also valuable for PVP/RVR. 

[Angus MacDuff]

1 minute ago, van Veen said:

And I think the rationale is still valid. Do not make progress slower on the low ranks.

New players want to have a big ship fast and a 5th rate under full sail is quite impressive and also valuable for PVP/RVR. 

Where they die right away....easy meat

[Aerospace]

48 minutes ago, van Veen said:

And I think the rationale is still valid. Do not make progress slower on the low ranks.

New players want to have a big ship fast and a 5th rate under full sail is quite impressive and also valuable for PVP/RVR. 

It should be slow, faster if you can pass the exam

At least excluding final exam, any player should finish tutorial, only way to become M&C rank. This should be the rule at War Server. 

[Hullabaloo]

21 hours ago, BloodyRaven said:

Hmmm in my game Exam in under tutorial button, so.... 

Right or wrong is not the point. Fact is there is confusion. I have heard soooo many players bemoaning that they 'cannot even complete the beginners tutorial'

I completed exam this morning. I tried to do it the way @admin suggested (which was the way I had done it before the new damage model) but I have to say, it was much harder. I failed 3 times but i can see it is doable.

the mast sniping works then (if you are liq)
another tactic is long range upwind so the ai is heeling too much to reach you
The other is the hugging exploit, which i resorted to on try 4.  
I've never actually done it before, not even in game, but even doing it really badly was enough to pass the exam

If anyone doesn't know about hugging I recorded what I did and posted it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrgGr7aSDkQ&feature=youtu.be

It's pretty horrible viewing, I was making it up as i went along.

Even though plenty of people are passing the exam, I suspect the vast majority are using these tactics and a lot of players who are above average skill level,  but trying to do it 'properly' will struggle and get frustrated. The bar is either too high or it is more an exam on how well you know AI behaviour and are able to dictate/predict and exploit it, rather than your actual sailing and gunnery skills. 

Also, the successful hugging run I did, still involved sailing away for 20 minutes to rep. I just went afk and made a coffee and a sandwich! and then had to go again for another. I completed in 52 mins (exactly average) but that means almost two thirds of the exam was spent AFK! Is that good advert for the game?

I'm not sure how to get round this. My only suggestion is maybe reduce the repair time cool down. It doesn't confer a great deal of advantage as you still only have x reps, but at least cuts out some of the monotony of sailing away. Increasing the thickness so you get rewarded more for angling perhaps? I'm not sure. But try somehow to make it more an exercise in gunnery/sailing skill rather than your ability to exploit/manipulate AI behaviour if that's possible? and I think it needs to be made clearer that passing the Final Exam indicates the player has achieved a 'high' level of expertise.

[Slim McSauce]

6 minutes ago, Aerospace said:

At least excluding final exam, any player should finish tutorial, only way to become M&C rank. This should be the rule at War Server. 

That's a nice turn on it's head. You can't skip rank using the tutorial, but you can't advance past captain without it. I agree skipping ranks using a tutorial is counter to the idea, but using the final exam as the bar to advance beyond the rank of captain is fair and consistent. Skips should not be a thing, and should not be a tool of expert players to speedrun the game, because that's ignoring that the intention of a tutorial is to help new players learn, not the other way around. You'll get very poor results trying to subvert tutorials to cater to veteran players, even if unintentional!.

Edited March 12, 2019 by Slim McSauce

[jodgi]

Pfft, if these mythical noobs can pass the exam, they're ready.

[HachiRoku]

I really don't get the big deal about it. If it's to hard the newbie will go do something that is more fun. There have been plenty of games where I have destroyed my controller over the years. 

[Angus MacDuff]

So is the exam just too hard?  As Hulla says, it's about manipulating the AI behaviour, not about quality fighting ability.  Maybe the exam needs to be a more realistic test.   What is it we want to accomplish with this?  It does not prepare a noob for PVP.  That is certain.  Could we say that fighting one of the Cerbs is appropriate?  What about a Connie against two 5th rates?  There is no reason that I can see to make the exam overly difficult.

[Aerospace]

40 minutes ago, Angus MacDuff said:

So is the exam just too hard?  As Hulla says, it's about manipulating the AI behaviour, not about quality fighting ability.  Maybe the exam needs to be a more realistic test.   What is it we want to accomplish with this?  It does not prepare a noob for PVP.  That is certain.  Could we say that fighting one of the Cerbs is appropriate?  What about a Connie against two 5th rates?  There is no reason that I can see to make the exam overly difficult.

Yes it does prepare  

As I told before it is painful to see Rear Admirals stuck in the wind with 1st rates during port battle. It is painful when during pvp some teammates getting stuck in wind, sails with auto-sail all the time. Guess what happens they lose the ship, they got sunk, they got boarded, keep showin the weak side etc. Now you would say teach them, I did it many times, but at some point this is not my job, I play this game for fun.

So even fight against the slighter difficult ai, you have to protect your weakside, you have to repair at and around correct time, you have to , you must, use manuel sailing at good level. Need to know you get boarded when below certain speed. These seem like small things, but when you add them, it is a big thing. Of course in real pvp, these are already mandatory bare minimums, you can not win with these minimums, but you will be floating a bit longer. But only after these bare minimums are handled, you can keep getting better. 

What I purpose at least tutorials are needed. Final exam is difficult that is a shortcut to M&C, mostly for veterans. But other than final exam, other stuff are basic to mediorce difficulty, but I see it has been skipped and still can not manual sail  your Agamemnon/Bellona.  It is too easy to rank up in this game, ranks means nothing except you have the ability to lose bigger ships ! 

So this is how I see the game, this how I see as a correct approach. Many can think much different, I respect that. I am sure admin does not give a heck what we all think , so just talking.

[Aquillas]

It is the role of clan officers to check captains skill (sailing, gunnery, wind placement) before sending them to PB's. Not of a software. 

[Angus MacDuff]

28 minutes ago, Aerospace said:

Yes it does prepare  

As I told before it is painful to see Rear Admirals stuck in the wind with 1st rates during port battle. It is painful when during pvp some teammates getting stuck in wind, sails with auto-sail all the time.

The tutorial teaches these things, but not the final exam.  Rear Admirals get stuck in the wind because they lack experience, which no tutorial can give.  To pass the final exam, a noob simply needs to follow the very good instructions found here on forums for how to beat these particular AI. That prepares them for nothing real on the War Server.  That's why i'm saying that maybe the exam is too hard.  If we want to prepare a noob to fight an AI 5th rate with his own 5th rate, that should be the exam.  There is really nothing else that you can accomplish with this tutorial. 

[Aerospace]

29 minutes ago, Angus MacDuff said:

The tutorial teaches these things, but not the final exam.  Rear Admirals get stuck in the wind because they lack experience, which no tutorial can give.  To pass the final exam, a noob simply needs to follow the very good instructions found here on forums for how to beat these particular AI. That prepares them for nothing real on the War Server.  That's why i'm saying that maybe the exam is too hard.  If we want to prepare a noob to fight an AI 5th rate with his own 5th rate, that should be the exam.  There is really nothing else that you can accomplish with this tutorial. 

I will not post on this subject anymore cause I have listed the reasons why it does prepare you for pvp, which is in my opinion. Btw tutorial teaches you how to manual sail including reversing, so it does definitly teach you how to get out of getting stuck in the wind, may be you did not do it recently and you do not remember. You may have more experience in pvp, may be you know better.

The reasons I have posted as below, bare minimum for pvp.

1 hour ago, Aerospace said:

So even fight against the slighter difficult ai, you have to protect your weakside, you have to repair at and around correct time, you have to , you must, use manuel sailing at good level. Need to know you get boarded when below certain speed. These seem like small things, but when you add them, it is a big thing. Of course in real pvp, these are already mandatory bare minimums, you can not win with these minimums, but you will be floating a bit longer. But only after these bare minimums are handled, you can keep getting better. 

@Eleazar de Damas software gives them the rank, so it should check. If I was the commanding officer to promote some other officers as I was assigned by admirality, I would not promote them if they are lacking some basic skills.

Edited March 12, 2019 by Aerospace

[Barbancourt]

4 hours ago, Hullabaloo said:

But try somehow to make it more an exercise in gunnery/sailing skill rather than your ability to exploit/manipulate AI behaviour if that's possible?

Unfortunately most encounters with the AI in this game turn into exploiting the inadequacies programmed into them.  They are unrealistic opponents.  They have superships with laser cannons and upgrades, so we have to use exploits in an even strength battle.  They run when they should fight.  They fight when they should run.  They can't repair.  They don't switch shot properly.  They are fatally predictable in boarding.  (aided by the nature of the boarding minigame)  They allow you to kite them to death for as long as the battle instance is open.  Fighting the AI almost always devolves into exploiting one of their simple weaknesses so you don't waste repairs on the battle. That's all the final exam is - showing that you've identified one of the many ways the AI commits suicide which no player would do, and trying to exploit it within 90 minutes. 

Edited March 12, 2019 by Barbancourt

[Njord]

11 hours ago, Slim McSauce said:

Impressive but broken, this is exactly what people talk about when they describe demasting being borked and cannon accuracy too high.

I agree with the accuracy of the guns being too high. Mast sniping isn't even hard at all, you just have to put enough time in practicing with the ship you want to use to get a feel for the gun positions. Even tho many people think high accuracy mast sniping is a sick skill, sadly it's easy AF due to the high gun accuracy.

[Barbancourt]

44 minutes ago, Sovereign said:

I agree with the accuracy of the guns being too high. Mast sniping isn't even hard at all, you just have to put enough time in practicing with the ship you want to use to get a feel for the gun positions. Even tho many people think high accuracy mast sniping is a sick skill, sadly it's easy AF due to the high gun accuracy.

Depends on your ping a bit.  Sometimes I whiff an entire stern rake on a frigate size ship because the packets decide to route through Mongolia and Botswana before getting to the server. I rarely ever attempt shooting at masts.

Edited March 13, 2019 by Barbancourt

[Slim McSauce]

11 minutes ago, Sovereign said:

I agree with the accuracy of the guns being too high. Mast sniping isn't even hard at all, you just have to put enough time in practicing with the ship you want to use to get a feel for the gun positions. Even tho many people think high accuracy mast sniping is a sick skill, sadly it's easy AF due to the high gun accuracy.

Gunnery suffers from massive aim assist, there's more skill in the common FPS than there is in NA gunnery, the rest is mods and superships. NA is an action MMO that likes to pretend it's a tab-target game, you don't tune your ship, you make it a large % better using the mods, negating even more skill. No, building a 5/5 monster with cart, copper, invinsible masts and 25% turn buff is not a skill, skill what you do with your ship, not what you did to it.

[VirtuallyIdiotic]

12 hours ago, admin said:

the xp skip was considered a good idea initially to give the player the opportunity to jump straight to pvp
but in reality it takes time to practice the combat model and by the time he can pass it he is a M&C already and the only benefit for him is rare upgrade and ships. 
we do not have a solution yet but are working on one . 

I think the first xp reward is fine from the challenges. (if I recall there being one). It isnt a huge jump since getting to that rank usually takes a day or two. Removing the XP reward for completing the final exam I do see as a good idea. Rewarding them say with a few permits or more reals would be nice. 

[Sir Texas Sir]

16 hours ago, admin said:

the xp skip was considered a good idea initially to give the player the opportunity to jump straight to pvp
but in reality it takes time to practice the combat model and by the time he can pass it he is a M&C already and the only benefit for him is rare upgrade and ships. 
we do not have a solution yet but are working on one . 

I just wish the rank rewards stacked with any so you might of gotten any before doing the exams.

[HachiRoku]

13 hours ago, Angus MacDuff said:

So is the exam just too hard?  As Hulla says, it's about manipulating the AI behaviour, not about quality fighting ability.  Maybe the exam needs to be a more realistic test.   What is it we want to accomplish with this?  It does not prepare a noob for PVP.  That is certain.  Could we say that fighting one of the Cerbs is appropriate?  What about a Connie against two 5th rates?  There is no reason that I can see to make the exam overly difficult.

No amount of time fighting an ai will prepare you for fighting a human being. The only way to learn pvp is go out and do it. There is no other way. The only thing a tutorial needs to do is explain how to sail and how to manage crew repairs etc. The more advanced things come from experience. Players that want to pvp will pvp. No tutorial will make a bad gamer a better one. Good players have a natural talent and I assure you that all the elite players in naval action are pretty good players in other games. 

[Barbancourt]

1 hour ago, HachiRoku said:

No amount of time fighting an ai will prepare you for fighting a human being.

It would be far closer if the AI simply repaired at sensible times, didn't have predictable boarding actions, switched shot better, and either pressed the attack or escaped at the appropriate times.  The AI would be better than a lot of players with some simple changes. 

[van Veen]

7 hours ago, Velhelm Von Marrius said:

Removing the XP reward for completing the final exam I do see as a good idea. Rewarding them say with a few permits or more reals would be nice.

But why? For a new player the jump in rank is a very big motivator. Why would you not grant this? Seriously, I think this is one of the greatest motivators in the game for new players. 

Already Aristoteles (and many before him) complained about the inability of the youth. Seniors always think they know better what is best for the juniors and complain about their failings. Unless you give some good reason to reduce player motivation, I will take you for one of those lamenting seniors  

 

I totally agree that the exam does not prepare for hard PVP action. But anyway, I think players should be promoted to M&C after passing the exam, so they can more quickly start proper on-the-job training with a boost in motivation. The following grind is hard enough. 

[admin]

16 hours ago, Liq said:

Yeah was sort of the point

Bots do not run the mast protection mods that a very important in pvp  
But demasting is harder now than before (i think). It is easier to demast by raking.

[admin]

15 hours ago, Aerospace said:

At least excluding final exam, any player should finish tutorial, only way to become M&C rank. This should be the rule at War Server. 

It WAS a rule in the royal navy. Midshipmen who could not pass the lieutenant exam remained midshipmen and were never assigned to commandeering duties.