When does a game in development lose its way?

[Flip]

In an organic scenario, which I hope that NA tries to hold the line on there is nothing stopping anyone from becoming economic giants.  

 

There is something flawed in a game when the mechanics are skewed towards rewarding those who don't have the knowledge, play time, or raw determination to amass fortunes and/or gain an advantage due to experience.  This is a concept that has plagued another well-known sailing game.  We want intelligent players, we want players that have time to play the game, we want those who are determined to progress in the game.  These are solid types of players.  For the record, I am not a player that has a lot of time to play a game but I like to think that I have raw determination and/or a wee bit of intelligence to help overcome that fact.  

 

To gate the entrance to success in an open world is to not have an open world/sandbox-like game at all.  

 

It is not impossible for new players to climb to the top of a gaming environment.  I have witnessed many players become econ/game wizards not because they became overwhelmed by the journey ahead, but because they embraced the challenge and discovered their route to the so-called top of the game.  The game should not cater to those who are so easily dissuaded from a challenge in a game.  

 

Non-organic interventions lead to distorted organic solutions that the player-base resorts to, which in and of itself leads to a downward spiraling cycle, but one that has an end as can be witnessed by PotBS.  No matter the mechanics created to combat 'unfairness' in a game, players find new and often ludicrous ways to bypass those mechanics.  

 

Indeed but there will always be the top 10% who work the economy to death while others sit chatting, fighting, or fumbling with a small economy. I am not saying to put mechanisms in place to reward people who dont know or use the system but rather not to depend on economics to balance ships, but rather to balance ship stats to some degree that meshes with the economy. A bit of both in other words.

[SueMyChin]

Indeed but there will always be the top 10% who work the economy to death while others sit chatting, fighting, or fumbling with a small economy.

 

Yeh, there will ALWAYS be those who amass wealth and power but in order to do that they will have to be financially prudent and efficient. The minute they stop their wealth will soon fade. It's just the nature of beast.

You can't be the most powerful force at sea when you're contesting with countries backed by massive spending power. You need massive financial backing to pay 300+ wages. That's why merchantmen (the only profession where you're likely to amass 'huge wealth' would only normally carry 50-150 men.

Being economic and powerful at sea are mutually exclusive (and should be in game).

 

 

I am not saying to put mechanisms in place to reward people who dont know or use the system but rather not to depend on economics to balance ships, but rather to balance ship stats to some degree that meshes with the economy. A bit of both in other words.

 

What is the point? Unless you're going to 'balance' the Yacht against the Victory then there will always be disparity between the ships. No one ship has any right to be better than or as good as any other. The only deciding factor should be cost. The 'balance' will be supply (the amount of materials and resources needed to build the ships) and demand (the want for ships due to their effectiveness).

If you artificially balance ships all that you're going to do is level out the cost of ships, take particular skills out of the equation and lessen immersion to those of us that want period accurate ships and period accurate battles.

[Guest raat]

Balancing ships can not be solely dependent on price of said ships. There will always be players and or guilds who are economic giants and rich making the whole economy balance perspective flawed. Whether through knowledge, raw play time, or raw determination they will amass fortunes. They will manufacture/buy/acquire the high end pricey ships that you would put behind a high price tag while solo players or players who do not make the most of the economy will be stuck with inferior products. As the better outfitted players/nations/guilds take over ports and gain more and more economic control or grow their player-bases the cycle repeats.

 

That is unless non organic barriers are put in place, thus making your organically resolving market a null point.

 

And.......your point?  That's how open world free market economies work.  The balance will come from certain ships and wood being so expensive that even the richest could not field a large supply of them or else it would make even them poor.  And if someone could field an expensive fleet, that would drain their finances to the point of making them vulnerable to attack on their ports/trade routes.

 

This world will be big.  No one (or even a handful of) organization(s) will be able to dominate it.  Even though in real life, a handful of nations did control the world's ports and trade...

 

Furthermore, let's even give in to your big, scary mega-organization notion and say that someone has a huge fleet with a lot of players and a lot of cash.  What's the likely organization, player skill, and teamwork of a big clan like that to be able to even protect all their ports?

 

You know as well as I do (as long as you've been playing this game long enough) that a small group of skilled players working together is better than a large mob in this game.  So what are you worrying about?

 

Or are you just looking for an open-world economy that's socialist and holds your hand saying, "Ok, work hard and invest time into the game, but not too much because you're not allowed to have more than anyone else?"