better rank up a Better Rank Up System

[AeRoTR]

Hi guys, I have been thinking this for a long time, I have mentioned in many unrelated threads. I know many has similiar ideas.

As new ranks has been introduced, which is very welcome addition because players kind of rushed to much bigger ships without learning vital game mechanics like manuel sailing, which ended up with lots of pain, rage cause they were losing their valuable/bigger ships to other players and to npcs! Time to time even effecting group battles.

I really think this new rank system should get proper improvements and changes to fit the purpose.

AIM: Change leveling up from mindless grinding of thousands of generic bots into something enjoyful and useful. A captain who gains rank, should be gaining real experience in a meaningful and enjoyable journey.

HOW: Change how players rank up, set a final goal, define sub goals/missions, give true rewards and let captains feel the accomplishment.

RESULT: Players see ranking up as a real rewarding accomplishment, they become more confident and more competent on the long journey.

EXAMPLE: ( all numbers are made up just to give an idea)

POST CAPTAIN RANK requirements:

1) 100K experience is needed.

2) 5 times patrol zone completed. 25K xp granted. (patrol related stuff can be optional but it should accelerate xp gain)

3) 5 player 5th rates or above hunted, assists counts as 0,25 kills. 35K xp granted. (pvp related stuff can be optional but it should accelerate xp gain)

RANKING UP results:

1) A ranking up captain recieves a nice sealed handwritten letter from Admirality for his success.(not the ugly in game email)

2) He is given a ship permit fitting his new rank. A nice prize. ( Lower level captains should recieve ship note up to light frigates, wow!, make the note teak/wo fixed, I hate to see new guys redeeming fir/crew ships)

3) A small chest is earned! Includes a random ship upgrade.

4) Some Reals / Dobloons and small amount of Repairs are given by admirality for the effort.

*** Isn’t it a nice result, what an accomplishment with great loot at the end.

 

* Tutorials give big experience for initial ranks.( I would instead love to see scripted start campaign for the new players including the tutorial. At the end of the campaign details of nations map, and selection of where they will start, very encouraging easy nations according to low population to be recommended.)

* Lower ranks should include missions like building farms/mines, doing some trade and delivery missions. Attending patrol zone event, establishing outposts etc.

* Highest ranks may require RVR attendance with contested port battles. May require more pvp kills etc. but these should never be exessive not to block and lock progression due high difficulty.

* Optional crafter / trader goals can be added for xp boost.

* Unlocking same rate similiar rigger ship to full should give accelerated unlock for same class, or unlock 3 slots instead. I know this will be very important when game will be released.

Thank you very much guys for spending your time and reading my purposal. We all love the game, hope it becomes much better, more fun for all of us.

 This kind of ranking up or similiar approach is surely needed, will be a great addition to Naval Action.

Edited May 24, 2019 by AeRoTR
optional pvp and patrol accelerates xp gain

[Zlatkowar]

A nice suggestion with good intentions. Thank you.

I'm not 100% with you on the terms which grant you your new rank, but I like the idea overall. The bland XP grindfest is a weak excuse for content. Tweaking it and adding certain conditions to pass your rank would feel much better indeed. I was more thinking of some sort of balanced, formal exam along the lines of what we currently have ingame, but this time with a purpose.

I also agree on the reward part, but not necessarily with the "getting a new ship for each rank" as I fear this might cripple the economy. The reward should be different from one rank through another, and I would see it come in a form of help to getting the ship you want, be it in mats, reals, dubs, permits, etc, with the occasional free ship every X ranks. 

I was also thinking of having the 1st passage reward you with a shipyard lvl 1, 2nd passage rewarding you with mats to craft a ship, 3rd with a trade ship, etc... This would encourage people to at least TRY crafting, or trading, and if it's just not what they are looking for they can still sell the goods or whatever. But it would add some interaction with other aspects of the game, which is a good thing. How to implement that and how the rewards distribution should take place is up for debate.

[Sento de Benimaclet]

2 hours ago, AeRoTR said:

POST CAPTAIN RANK requirements:

1) 100K experience is needed.

2) 5 times patrol zone completed. 15K xp granted.

3) 5 player 5th rates or above hunted, assists counts as 0,25 kills. 25K xp granted.

In this I do not agree. Do not force anyone to go through the patrol zone to continue ascending in the rank. It is enough with the amount of Xp required for each one, either doing PVE, PVP or browsing without further.

[Isaac J Smith]

I'm sorry, but in a game as harsh as this, forcing players to PvP to progress will only result in people leaving. Not everyone can be Luciano(sp?) or Privateer and wreck in PvP. Myself, I'm a perfect example. In fleet actions I'm not bad, but put me in a 1v1 of equal tier and I'll probably lose 19 times out of 20. Being forced to PvP so I can run trade ships or even crew ships which can do reliable fleet action? Sorry, I do not agree.

 

I do think rewards for ranks would be nice eg: a Real/Doubloon "stipend" paid out by the admiralty as a sign-on bonus for each rank. Perhaps you could even "gate" these rewards behind PvP, but this is a combined server and not everyone is comfortable with PvP and should be forced into doing so.

Edited May 22, 2019 by Isaac J Smith

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Sento de Benimaclet said:

In this I do not agree. Do not force anyone to go through the patrol zone to continue ascending in the rank. It is enough with the amount of Xp required for each one, either doing PVE, PVP or browsing without further.

i can agree, maybe add so you either kill 5 elite npcs in ship rank 5 with ship rank 4 or something for the pve'ers

[AeRoTR]

This is just an idea, all numbers, everything is made up.

Basic idea is level up is your goal. 

Your goal has sub missions and you are clearly rewarded for completing the goal.

Mission can be optional but may be to accelerate the grind. Guys are bored of flat grind can choose to finish sub tasks or missions. 

For PVE/PVP/PATROL ZONES, I do disagree because developers decided WAR Server to be pvp only server. I wish it was the other way. 

Cause you have to pvp at some point, you can not run forever, yes you can avoid, but it needs lots of knowledge and experience of the game. So make some experience happen in patrol, instead of losing a Christian or 3 indiaman full of cargo. Pay less for the experience, yes it can be optional. Your choice... 

This idea is just generic idea which already exist in many pc or mobile game. Level ups can include all game aspects which is needed in WAR Server, from ship crafting to trade to pvp to ai battles time to time and all can be optional which intention to let player see everything about server, help accelerate grind and turn it into some fun with sub tasks plus rewards. 

Thank you all for valuable inputs. 

Edited May 22, 2019 by AeRoTR

[Angus MacDuff]

7 minutes ago, AeRoTR said:

This idea is just generic idea which already exist in many pc or mobile game. Level ups can include all game aspects which is needed in WAR Server, from ship crafting to trade to pvp to ai battles time to time and all can be optional which intention to let player see everything about server, help accelerate grind and turn it into some fun with sub tasks plus rewards.

I like this a lot.  I reject the premise that the War server is PVP only. It has many aspects and as such, you should accomplish many tasks if you want to accelerate the so called grind. In the end though, you shouldn't be forced into anything in order to eventually rank up. I'm okay with max rank players who aren't proficient in their ships...it's their game.  So either rank up by straight grind or use AeRoTR's  idea and have some incentive tasks.  Personally I don't overly care about ranking up as I enjoy playing all aspects and I know I'll get there eventually as I play.

[Guest]

i believe it would be more better for the ones thats gonna hate the XP wipe on release, you could choose either to do your rank up "exam" or just keep on grinding until you hit the next rank, but obviously the "Exam" should give an immediate rank up.

btw you should advertise for the thread ingame, most people dont read the forums

Edited May 23, 2019 by Guest

[--Privateer--]

1 minute ago, Wyy said:

i believe it would be more better for the ones thats gonna hate the XP wipe on release, you could choose either to do your rank up "exam" or just keep on grinding until you hit the next rank, but obviously the "Exam" should give an immediate rank up

^ I like this idea. ^

I am/was fine with the xp wipe when it was just 120k xp to max rank, but with the new ranks it seems like it will be way more than that. Some people who have been playing for a long time are no longer at the highest rank. I won't quit playing if/when the xp is wiped, but I don't think I'll spend the time to grind pve fleets until I'm back to Curse either. It would be nice if skill or real experience could be taken into account. 

[Busterbloodvessel]

Nice suggestion, a variation on the tutorial idea but for the OW. 

My additional suggestion would be that players are issued with an on demand redeemable ship. The design of the on-demand ship is matched with rank achievements (i.e. you only ever get one on-demand redeemable ship). 

If the player wants any other ship design he has to build or DLC it including cannons, upgrades and reps for preferred play and RvR.

This way a 'care bear' captain always has something to fight with.

Buster (Soooo rank)

 

Edited May 23, 2019 by Busterbloodvessel

[Farrago]

9 hours ago, --Privateer-- said:

^ I like this idea. ^

I am/was fine with the xp wipe when it was just 120k xp to max rank, but with the new ranks it seems like it will be way more than that. Some people who have been playing for a long time are no longer at the highest rank. I won't quit playing if/when the xp is wiped, but I don't think I'll spend the time to grind pve fleets until I'm back to Curse either. It would be nice if skill or real experience could be taken into account. 

I agree. I am amazed when some experienced captains and the devs claim how quickly we’ll all simple rank up after an XP wipe. I just don’t think that’s true. There is a lot that players need to do in this game that gives little to no XP. Now imagine doing it all in light 5ths and smaller ships. Hell, even imagine doing it in heavier 5ths and 4th rates. Even once you can crew them, they are rare and almost all difficult to get. One may not be able to casually throw it into the abyss of 1 v 5 AI grind like we used to do with heavy Indefatigables to gain rank.

I used to say that it didn’t matter if XP got wiped and did understand the merits of a level playing field at start. Not anymore. My own progression was made far more enjoyable by being able to sail with equipped, experienced, high ranking captains. I ended up learning more, learning more quickly, and sailing nicer stuff. It was fun.

[Barbancourt]

An alternative goal/achievement based rank ladder, alongside normal XP-based rank ladder, could indeed be interesting.  It would have to be well thought-out and designed to prevent easy exploitation/metacrap/altabuse/farming. 

[AeRoTR]

Another suggestion bites the dust  

[Koltes]

I like your ideas, but honestly dont know if its a good thing to change a working mechanic now when we are past “experimental age”. It might bring more unbalances to the game that I would not want to risk having.

The most important thing to note is that there are some hardcore PVPers that will not want to do any of PVE stuff to level up. If you are good PVPer then you can pretty much do all that anyway. Like in the past my clan and I were leveling pretty much on pvp only. I would prefer to level that way rather then do some pve missions. Final Exam is different. Its a challenge that grants you have of your levels back.

I think they need to increase xp rewards from pvp. Right now it is not comparable to pve

[AeRoTR]

@koltes

The idea is to have some goals which gives a bit faster level up, can be pvp, pvr, crafting, and there should be rewards. So whole proccess is not reaching next rank quickly, but with some additional goodies. Current leveling up is blend and uninteresting. 

I never ment it would be pvp or pve. General idea is even pushing pve mass into pvp with some rewards and goals. If was Admin...