Decisive vs undecisive battles and alternative repair system

[Laik]

In the Glorious first of June several british ships were severely damaged, and repaired 3-4km from the enemy line, in the visibility range of the french line. French did not pursue because station keeping and staying in formation was key for survival of the fleet. With new repairs it became like that - staying close to friendlies keeps you alive. If you separate and if enemy is aggressive you die. 

 

This post (or rather part of the post) got me thinking about Admin’s vision for battles. Namely, battles being undecisive, with negligible losses for both sides, unless bold, decisive action is taken. The current system might work well enough for group battles (mentioned ‘Battle of Plymouth’) but it completely ruins equal 1v1 combat. Evenly skilled players simply can’t damage each other enough in 10 minutes to put one another on repair deficit. This effectively means that every time the repair becomes available, the duel restarts (and this is the issue, not length, but feeling of pointlessness).

So how do you accomodate the two? How do you make a system that allows big battles to be indecisive as well as letting 1v1s being decisive almost every time (like they were in reality)?

 

Repairs:

-       Survival mode - repairing over time instead of clicking a consumable. Requires survival mode to be more ‘punishing’. Reduction in speed (say, by 2 knots), reload time and most importantly, yard turning. This means people can’t repair under fire without consequence and need to look for a ‘safe spot’.

-       Ability to restore only 30% of damage at one time and 90% in total. (numbers not set in stone, just and idea). How would that work? Let me give example. A ship gets reduced to 70% hull strength by trading fire in line fight. He retreats, repairs back to 100% (+30%). Other ship gets separated and gets reduced to 20% hull strength before he can retreat or friends come to the rescue. Now he can only repair up to 50%. This means that long range fighting can prove indecisive (as the timer ends before people run out of reps) while focused fire has a lasting effect on the course of battle (player reduced to 20% can’t come back in a brand new ship 5 minutes later). This simulates lightly damaged ship being easier to repair, while heavily damaged one being unable to come back to 100% fighting strength. Same can be applied to mast/rigging damage but it gets more tricky (much easier chases for the attacker, so could be left without ‘cap’ for ‘game purposes’).

-       Repair materials split to hull and sails. Survival repairs both, rigging and hull, but draws separate supplies. Say someone has 30% mas damage and 10% hull damage, he can repair both to 100%, but then he has total of 60% and 80% repairs left respectively for the rest of the battle.

-       Instant OW repairs with repair button. Drawing on supplies, repairing instantly since the time is compressed.

-       Maintance costs. Repair materials (cloth/planks) costing money. On top of that crew upkeep (say, weekly) is a must. Third maintance factor is a refit. Say, after 6 months at sea, ships start to degrade (speed, hull strength etc.) and require port to refit. Refit is costly (more so for the ‘elite’ ships) and without too much time without you lose a dura. Refit requires appropriate port, which adds strategic level to port control. Crafters could be able to do a refit cheaper (stimulating economy).

 

Battles:

It was very difficult to sink a ship in age of sail. Also it was hugely undesirable for both sides, as that meant loss of life and lack of prize. So how to simulate this?

-       Even more ship HP. Obvious. Single ship action barely ever ended in a ship sinking. It should take focused fire to bring down the ship. So instead of number of reps and cooldowns, simple give ship more hp. Of course it’s a game and it should be doable (say, in 40+ minutes for a 1v1). So if it so difficult to sink then..

-       How to make people strike colors. Why did captain even strike colors? There is only one answer. TO PRESERVE LOSS OF LIFE. Why? Becaue the crew was the most valuable part of the ship. This needs to be simulated in the game. Therefore experienced crew should be a valuable resource. This can be achieved by…

1.    Crew experience. How does it work? The more battles you fight, the more experienced your crew gets. The bigger the crew loss in the battle, the lesser exp they get (even negative). More experienced crew = better reload, less dispersion, faster ‘zero’ing’, faster yard movement, more speed, better boarding, less casualties sustained etc. Of course not huge difference, but a painful to lose, say up to 5%.

-       So how does that apply? Easy. You sink, you lose your experienced crew along with officers and are back to 0XP crew, you lose your dura and hold. You strike, you keep officers and crew XP but lose dura and hold.

2.    Striking colors. Striking colors doesn’t equal losing a ship immediately or even being put out of battle. A ship that struck can ‘unstrike’ if it is some distance from the enemy. If enemy wants to prevent it, he needs to ‘board’ the ship that struck, and give up some of his crew as ‘prize crew’ (10-15% of the ‘guarded’ crew). This effectively means that if someone strikes, then if his team loses, he loses the ship, if his team wins, he keeps the ship (even with ‘prize crew’ as ‘they get quickly overwhelmed by friendly ships).

-       Little ship vs Big ship. When little ship strikes against big ship, he doesn’t lose a dura or crew, only hold (he’s acquitted at court martial and issued a new ship). This is something that can reduce resentment for new players after being ganked. Let’s say it applies to a Rated vs Unrated ships with minimum BR difference (100-150? for Mercury vs Cerberus situation). Note that this applies only to 1v1, anything else is handled by BR system/Honor system/Whatever.

 

This ideas are obviously mostly a compilation of other people’s proposals I read throught the forums augemented by my own. Hopefully it won’t get totally ignored like my last ‘big’ thread and will spark some discussion as it seems to be a hot issue now.

I also ask moderators to not merge this thread with other ‘repair thread’ as that one is feedback, while this one is a suggestion, not exlusively on topic of repairs.

Edited July 24, 2015 by Laik

[Puchu]

I really like these Ideas!

 

Repairs: 

 

The repair system also simulates the fact that on the sea during battles, you would only be able to partially and imperfectly patch up your ship. Improvised planking and so on. 

 

Maybe repairmode would needed to be a new mode for battles. 

 

Just to make sure i understand this right: Reps would work like this now:

 

You switch on survival mode. This immediately consumes resources per tick healed. During a battle you can rep a max of 90% hull and 90% sails. (maybe also 90% modules) 

Damage taken of more than 30% would be critical, meaning that from that point on you could never rep back up to full. 

 

I like it. That way you could retreat properly in a group fight and in duels you could actually kill each other again. (not have 60min fights with both coming out at 100% like we usually do )

 

Crew:

 

I also strongly support the striking colours reason. To make it more historically accurate, crew should be more valuable than ship. This system simulates that very well. 

 

I would actually go even further and introduce a morale system, because basically, the crew would hang their captain if he got raked 3x in a row with a crew loss of 50% and he didnt strike colours. But that's something for another topic.

 

Regarding the crew exp bonuses. Like you said the bonuses should be small, but still worth striking for. In addition to that i would reduce the bonuses gained from modules, especially the inbuild ones. e.g. with a fully skilled crew and a 100% reload specialised ship, you should maybe gain a max of 15% reload bonus. These things should give you a slight edge in battles, but still leave the focus on skilled sailing. (if you just add crew exp bonuses, we would end up with ridiculous superships)

Edited July 21, 2015 by Puchu

[Hussar]

This sounds promising!

[Guest raat]

I like everything except "unstriking" when far enough away.  You would have people striking constantly as a ruse.

 

I don't mind though if when you "strike colors" in the first place, your ship has to come to a complete stop and must stay that way.  No sailing off.  That way the attacker has the choice to board or leave you behind.  That would eliminate people "striking" only as a way to get away from the enemy unharmed, then "unstriking" once repaired or whatever and coming back to the battle.

 

Also, depending on how much hull HP is granted to the ships, 2 30% hull repairs is probably better than 3 30% repairs in the interest of the 60 min. battle timer.

Edited July 21, 2015 by Raatha

[Laik]

I like everything except "unstriking" when far enough away.  You would have people striking constantly as a ruse.

 

I don't mind though if when you "strike colors" in the first place, your ship has to come to a complete stop and must stay that way.  No sailing off.  That way the attacker has the choice to board or leave you behind.  That would eliminate people "striking" only as a way to get away from the enemy unharmed, then "unstriking" once repaired or whatever and coming back to the battle.

 

Also, depending on how much hull HP is granted to the ships, 2 30% hull repairs is probably better than 3 30% repairs in the interest of the 60 min. battle timer.

 

About striking thing, yes, 'unstiking' is probably bad idea. Still, the outcome of the battle should determine if you keep the ship. The problem is, determinining who won the battle (game mechanics-wise). Or maybe, the 'prize crew' would determine which ships you take home with you. That would add a new layer to fights. Someone strikes, then the battle ensues with friendlies trying to deny the prize and save the ship for their buddy. Or when the prize crew gets on board and if afterwards the ship that took the prize sinks, they player who struck keeps their ships. There are many ways, but I strongly believe surrender should be at the core of the game.

 

Also, please don't look at this like 3x 30% repair. The idea is that you have '90%' pool to use. 30% is the top amount you can repair. So you can lose 10% armor, and repair to full, you have 80% remaining in the pool. Then you get spiked, your armor drops to 40%.You repair, but only up to 70%. So you have 50% left in the pool. And so on. This requires the game to keep track of the lowest point your armor was at throught the game, but this is very much doable I believe. The numbers are obviously adjustable. I just brought them up, because this is very much how they were in Sea Trials, and they add up nicely.

 

The reason for this is:

battles require aggressive bold action, focus fire, and daring maneuvers otherwise they end inconclusive. 

based on the feedback it seems like it is a bad thing.. )) 

i personally like it.. 

 

I was part of the 'unfavourable feedback' not because the 'cooldown system' doesn't work in the grand scale, but because it cannot work both in the big scale and in the small scale. With the above mentioned idea, if people decided to just shoot ball at each other from 800 meters, they could just keep repairing this bits of damage until the timer ends, and if you feel like you are getting damaged too much, it's easier to 'hide' from distance, behind a friendly for example. However, seperating a ship from the formation would be a huge blow, even if he manages to get back, since he likely would no longer be able to come back to 100% battle strength. So, for a decisive victory, you need to take a decisive action and seperate someone. I understand, this is very much like it is now, but current system cannot be translated onto an enjoyable 1v1.

 

Again, with cooldowns, the duel very much 'restarts' every time the repair is up. So even with 3 repairs, first 30 minutes are pointless. Players who have idea what they are doing will be both at 100% the moment those 30 minutes are up. So it is a waste of time. With the above mentioned system, damage over time as well as burst damage would both be of importance. Damage over time to wear down repairs, burst damage to 'lock' armor at lower % (to cause flooding, increased damage to crew through broadside, etc.). It would encourage tactical use of survival (instead of just 'drinking a potion'), which I believe could add another layer to small scale combat. You could have a very quick, decisive duel with both sides pumping out damage quickly, or patient, drawn out fight, with player wearing one another slowly, using survival every now and then to repair that one bit of armor/sails.

[Chustler]

I agree with most of what you wrote here OP, and I would love to test it. I would change a small thing. I would have survival have big negative effects on ship performance, as you said but not in the raw speed of the ship. I know why you propose it and I get it, but I would rather see it effect reload rates, and the ability to change sail setups. The only reason I say that is that once everything is set up on a ship, keeping it at the same speed in a straight line takes very minimal crew effort. Reloading a broadside of guns, and changing sail setups takes a whole lot of crew effort. I know that has gameplay ramifications, but I like things that "feel realistic" when it comes to these things.

[akd]

I agree with most of what you wrote here OP, and I would love to test it. I would change a small thing. I would have survival have big negative effects on ship performance, as you said but not in the raw speed of the ship. I know why you propose it and I get it, but I would rather see it effect reload rates, and the ability to change sail setups. The only reason I say that is that once everything is set up on a ship, keeping it at the same speed in a straight line takes very minimal crew effort. Reloading a broadside of guns, and changing sail setups takes a whole lot of crew effort. I know that has gameplay ramifications, but I like things that "feel realistic" when it comes to these things.

It's logical for sail repair, however. Even if you only have 5% damage due to holes in one sail, that whole sail is going to have to come down to be replaced by a new one, which means some temporary loss of power greater than the 5% damage.

[Jack Feathersword]

I really like this system of repairs.

 

Some short thoughts:

 

* - I still think the crew need to be looked at, repairing crew to 100% is terrible.

* - I would even be happy with a mix of repair kits that are popped in battle that repair 10% of a certain item (hull, sails) and are limited to 2 of each type  and the survival mode repairs mentioned in the OP. 

* - If sinking is going to be much more difficult than other conditions for ending a battle need to exist to end a battle. Right now, its Spike  > dps until sunk.

[Laik]

I agree with most of what you wrote here OP, and I would love to test it. I would change a small thing. I would have survival have big negative effects on ship performance, as you said but not in the raw speed of the ship. I know why you propose it and I get it, but I would rather see it effect reload rates, and the ability to change sail setups. The only reason I say that is that once everything is set up on a ship, keeping it at the same speed in a straight line takes very minimal crew effort. Reloading a broadside of guns, and changing sail setups takes a whole lot of crew effort. I know that has gameplay ramifications, but I like things that "feel realistic" when it comes to these things.

What Akd wrote is very much how I justified it for myself. Such a hit to speed could add a new level of proficency required for line fighting. No longer you would need to coordinate your speed only at the start, but you would need to adjust for ships taking damage. A tactical choice of slowing down the entire line or letting the ship drift towards the end of it (or maybe even leaving him behind altogether). Keeping cohesion and coordination throught the battle would be even more of a skill.

 

But yes, this 'speed penalty' is mostly for gameplay reasons. And for a small scale combat mostly too. It's to prevent people running downwind forever, repairing little bits of damage. You would need to time your survival, for example, sail away when enemy is tacking to get the most of it, but you can only do it so much as he will catch up to you eventually if you stay in survival. The bigger problem for me is, this would change chase dynamics dramatically, notably make it much easier for the attacker and a 2v1 chase would be likely a death sentence for to '1' side. So 2 knots might be too much, maybe 0,5-1 would work better. Or just scrap speed penalty altogether. But yeah, so far it's all 'what ifs' .

Edited July 22, 2015 by Laik

[Laik]

* - I still think the crew need to be looked at, repairing crew to 100% is terrible.

* - I would even be happy with a mix of repair kits that are popped in battle that repair 10% of a certain item (hull, sails) and are limited to 2 of each type  and the survival mode repairs mentioned in the OP. 

* - If sinking is going to be much more difficult than other conditions for ending a battle need to exist to end a battle. Right now, its Spike  > dps until sunk.

 

Yes, I missed crew repair. I personally would scrap it altogether. However, I would love to see crew (and crew quality to be pricise) having much more importance, therefore I can understand why some would want to have crew regeneration. Something similar to what I proposed above could work, but crew regen would be passive over course of the battle, without need for survival mode (maybe survival speeding it up a bit), with only some % above the lowest state possible to regenerate. Say, 20% (over the course of 10-15 minutes or so). So again, game needs to keep track of the lowest point your crew was at.

 

Well these '10% repair kits' could be an interesting for emergency situations. They should be very costly though.

 

Yes, sinking should be in. Ships should be sunk if the captain refuses to strike. But really almost every fight ended in one side surrendering or being boarded. These should be the two primary means of ending a battle. Making players use them is the difficult part .

[Puchu]

For the crew repairs, we had a different idea, which might work, but which also might be a bit more difficult to code.

 

Crew damage could be separated into "Killed" and "wounded". This could maybe be just % based. let's say that 25% of crew damage is "killed" and 75% are "wounded".

 

"Killed" crew cannot be regenerated. So some of the crew damage done will allways be persistant.

"Wounded" crew can be regenerated. - There would be 2 ideas for this. Either by going to survival mode, or crew could also just regenerate automatically. Maybe based on the surgeon's level, crew exp and so on.

 

This would mean, that long range hits, which now kill 1 crew, would do almost nothing, since that 1 guy would basically allways be just wounded and would be regenerated. But grape rake hits through damaged armor would be very devastating due to the amout of sailors getting actually killed. This fits the "we need decisive action" theme. 

 

I dont like the 10% rep kits. Feels very artificial.

 

The speed debuff would be a very critical change. I think this needs a proper decision of the devs. If they want more fights to actually happen, then the speed debuff would accomplish that. If they want ppl to be able to run from battle, then the debuff should not be introduced. This maybe would need some testing to see how changes ow behaviour. Basically with the speed debuff: If you get tagged on the ow within gunrange by a ship that somewhat matches your speed, you have to fight!

[Jack Feathersword]

^^ The 10% would be a compromise to help aid the less skilled players last longer. Make them the same cost of the current repairs and keep the cool down on them even make it 5 mins with a limit of 3. That way anyone with the skill will not need to use them unless something had gone wrong.

 

For the Crew:

Take the % of killed vs wounded from actually battles, keep a count on the wounded like  current system for hull leaks; Once in survival mode these crew slowly return to service. 

Edited July 22, 2015 by Jack Feathersword

[Chromey]

hopefully when the devs think were mature enough they will make the repair system like this instead of magical cooldowns. Would be worth a shot to test asap!

[Robert Danforth]

I like everything in your proposal! I'd change one thing and only somewhat, though:

 

 

 

 Survival mode - repairing over time instead of clicking a consumable. Requires survival mode to be more ‘punishing’. Reduction in speed (say, 2 knots), reload time and most importantly, yard turning. This means people can’t repair under fire without consequence and need to look for a ‘safe spot’.

 

 

 

Rather than make this a hard-and-fast type rule, going in to Survival should require 'x' amount of crew (based on the ship or damage or both). So if you have a full crew, there's no reason repairs can't be made without a major reduction in sailability or even manning some guns. But if you've also been de-crewed a bit, you have to make a tactical decision on where to put your crew.

[yamms]

Love these ideas!

[SerrialKiller]

Ive just read the explination about the repairing it aint an bad idea but it aint perfect do 30% while youre sailing away and retreat into an fight at 20% the ship might alreaddy just sink slowly at this moment like everyone knows. the system whit the cooldowns that we are using now i think that up to 30 repairs is an litllebit overdone and the cooldown timer is funny to see. the old way was not to bad to have at al but fully repairing youre ship is an no to me either patchign it up yeah thats sounds properlly or go into an bay and let the ship run well into the shallows wat low wather it could gain prpper repairs like mast and all stuff liek in the old days.

[Puchu]

Sry serial killer, i have no idea what you are trying to say. could you please clarify your concerns?