Rubber Banding

[fogmind]

I don't know where to report this so appologies in advance for miscategorization.

Ultimate general had issues with rubber banding forcing players to gimp their armies and play in very specific ways or the AI would summon massive armies out of thin air. I've just played the alpha build for age of sail and it's even worse. i.e. if you sell your fleet before the fist mission and buy a 6th rate with all of the money the Spanish AI will magically have TWO of those. Please disable rubber banding or at least give us a setting to do so.

[WilliamTheIII]

Scaling is an integral part of the game and is needed for balance. Currently, there are ~4 sea battles where scaling works differently and it shows. For example, on one map you can have a 3rd rate go up against 2 porcupines and 2 snows where you have the 3rd rate just one shot them. When the game is this easy, it is boring and more busy work then actually having to use strategy and tactics to win the various games. As the missions and game develops, scaling will change to which is why I don't want to make a full guide on all difficulty levels of how scaling works yet. However, I did do one through chapter 2 on hard difficulty to give you an idea of what to expect. 

 

[pandakraut]

While I would agree that scaling in AoS can be a bit sudden, if it were removed entirely then the game would become incredibly easy unless players were much more restricted in the ships they could buy and capture. 

The scaling in UGCW is pretty much a solved problem at this point. The optimal way to play on legendary currently is to Max out AI scaling to farm as much xp and weapons as possible. There are only a few battles where scaling even sort of keeps up with this. If you'd like to continue that discussion I'd recommend heading over to this thread and reading my write up of what the impact the apparent rubber banding actually has. 

 

[ColonelHenry]

imo, there should be scaling but to a point, it becomes ridiculous. For example, if you manage to capture the 3rd rate on the Firework mission, the later chapters will spawn third rates up your ass... And larger ship combat is completely different than frigate skirmishes. But when you have 2 third rates to worry about and then manage the smaller ships, it becomes impossible to actually do anything. The AI mechanic is still very clunky and kinda unclear for the player what the AI can actually do.

[WilliamTheIII]

5 hours ago, ColonelHenry said:

the later chapters will spawn third rates up your ass...

I believe on Ontario, there will only be one 3rd rate which is doable. I haven'y been able to test the scaling much in Chapter 3 but I believe you only face off against the 2 3rd rates in the major sea battle near the end correct? You should also be able to capture the second 3rd rate in Ontario to help with that mission. However, it is certainly doable to win the battle with less 3rd rates. In fact, I believe the mission Inconveniences and Fireworks in the battle section will result in you having less 3rd rates to work with if you want to practice being outnumbered in those battles. Finally, I have confirmed that POI's result in the assigned ships not being taken into account for scaling. If you would like to avoid 3rd rate upscale but still use it in other missions where scaling doesn't quite work the same, I would recommend putting it in the POI slot during these large see battles.

[ColonelHenry]

I'm fine with fighting larger ships but it's the smaller ships that I also have to worry about that makes it nearly impossible to play a mission. Because this isn't Total War, you can't sail against the wind nor does your weapons have consistent range unless you are stationary so managing ships positioning is key to victory... how can I manage position of 3 different ships doing wildly different things at the same time, let alone 5. I really think the give unit to AI needs a little bit more options or at least explanation about what it can do because I want them to focus on one target but they seem to do whatever they like... (they didn't sink themselves but that's because I gave them against weaker ships)