Crew and officer system - could this be where the real game lies?

[Destraex]

I know that we are not getting first person swash buckler action. I know that actual on ship crew shown in game is limited. This topic is not about any of that. Not at all.

I was reading a book the other day and thinking to myself how no matter how many ships we have most are going to be very similar in sail and.hull layout and give very similar hull configuration and layout. That is not something the player can work on very much. At least for now it is not something the player can affect much, can play. The player may be able to add some perks here and there and eventually a few extra types of sails to deploy.

The main part of the game at the moment is learning to sail in combat. Perfect and I love this as the core game mechanic. But apart from the players own sailing ability is not the main factor crew training and experience or officer training and experience? I remember vaguely that the developers had some sort of crew abilities system.on their list of things to do. I don't remember it being mentioned recently though.

I am imagining a system sort of.like a skill tree where you can recruit a captain, master, bosun and navigator. General sailors, general gunners who all get points towards traits or skills that can be used in the open world or battle. A tree that the player can work.

These skills would not affect hull physical capabilities obviously but are to do with how quickly a crew works sails, guns, how fast they pipe to quarters, how much more they can trim the sails, whether they are good at storms and such.

The crew system should also involve a silent hunter iii style crew management system. For instance I would see.icons of.the crew in a special panel. This would allow me.to set which officers were on which watches and what alert status they were at. Which would in turn affect crew fatigue in battle.

The crew would have names and come with a whole life history. You could in battle or in the open world perhaps at the extreme use some of their ability. I distinctly remember some ideas around fleet admirals affecting fleet moral somehow.

Crew could be drawn upon from captured ships if they were willing.

I would dearly love to see this kind of system added to give the player something more to do than just collecting ship recipes. It would also give the game a much less sanitary feel than it has now, a human element.

having to assign specific crew and crew numbers to duties would also make the ship sail very differently or fire differently etc. Players could customise and determine their own balance for duties.

[OlavDeng2]

Can i just say, Please for the love of god no more things to affect in battle performance, the modules allready are bad enough(and some of them need to be nerfed more), i have no issue with open world performance being affected, but if it is in battle we get more of the modules/skills matter more than your skill, which i am highly against.

[Captiva]

Before we dismiss this idea from the get-go, I believe that it should at least be thought over and discussed among the members of this forum. I'm all for improving the sense of alienation and sterility that I perceive within the game as it is now.

 

Why not, after winning x number of battles, have the crew increase it's ability in raising and lowering sails due to their success in battles? Or, increase it's gun accuracy for the same reason? And what's so wrong with having a tree management page that shows the various crew (as in Silent Hunter, shown above) and their level of seamanship in whatever capacity they are assigned?

 

If the player suffers x amount of damage during battle, then that is reflected in the tree by showing a loss of ability of the corresponding crew. These abilities are then again built up by future successes in battle.

 

I believe this could add to the immersion aspect of the game, plus help the player identify with their crew on a more, perceived, personal level. 

 

This, I believe, is worthy of discussion on this forum.

[jodgi]

Yes, you can go crazy with crew but modifiers should be very, very slight. Then there's the loss dudes who wants to kill your crew after you've spent time grinding them up, I dunno, not like we need anything more to make people run from a fight.

Anyhoo, if we get the crew I want one of those zombies on my ships.

[OlavDeng2]

Yes, you can go crazy with crew but modifiers should be very, very slight. Then there's the loss dudes who wants to kill your crew after you've spent time grinding them up, I dunno, not like we need anything more to make people run from a fight.

Anyhoo, if we get the crew I want one of those zombies on my ships.

This, i dont know how bad it is now but like before the patch, everyone was running boarding modules and speed upgrades and rage boarding, which is what i fear, we have a meta where skill almost does not matter, if we were to have in battle effects i would say the best of the best crew only increases performance by like 2-3% or something, so it gives you a slight performance increase but isnt like world of tanks where the difference between a 50% crew and a 100% crew is huge.

[jodgi]

Boarding parties:

[4535jacks]

I like the idea of a crew gaining experience and becoming faster and more accurate as their experience grows. If you were to lose you crew experience everytime you were sunk or captured then this would add more incentivise to pick your battles wisely. Crew experience could also be a factor is boarding since in reality a better trained yet smaller crew could beat a larger poorly trained and less organised one.

[Malachi]

I´m with Olav, no need for another non-skill based thing that would have a huge influence on combat. Historically, crew and officier experience made all the difference in naval conflicts but I don´t think this should be reflected in the game. The navies got the vast majority of their good seamen (i.e. the guys who really made a ship work and started their naval careers at the age of 9 or 10) from merchant vessels, anyway.

 

And even if we could train crews, it shouldn´t be possible to keep them for a longer period of time. Here are some figures for the Royal Navy from the Seven Years War: out of ~184.000 seamen and marines, 1.500 were killed in action or died of their wounds, 40.000 deserted, 30.000 were demobilized and 60.000 died of diseases or were discharged as unfit for service. And that´s the winning side.

Edited November 18, 2015 by Malachi

[maturin]

I'm all for moving the bulk of module and repair effects to Officer Skills.

 

But the game should remain skill-based.

 

If NA was a singleplayer RPG, this idea would have its day in the sun.

[planktonette]

That makes far more sense to me than equipping a book to a ship and thereby getting an arbitrary effect. Success in battle and crew training should result in better efficiency in future battles from the increase in morale and testing of mettle.

 

We already start out in a crap boat and work up from there, I don't see why it would be a hardship to incorporate some sort of skill tree application to take advantage of the existing XP and allow people a little more control over the behaviors/abilities of their crew.

[admin]

Can i just say, Please for the love of god no more things to affect in battle performance, the modules allready are bad enough(and some of them need to be nerfed more), i have no issue with open world performance being affected, but if it is in battle we get more of the modules/skills matter more than your skill, which i am highly against.

 

I am almost back! wohoo.

 

I think you are wrong Olav. They are not bad at all and we think they actually increase depth. They bring important life like differences to vessels. So when you see trincomalee ship its a leda class vessel and some are faster, some are stronger. etc. In real life captain could shorten masts, change ballast, install extra pumps, etc.

 

In addition to that everyone can have them - they are not level based, they are not hard to get, you can craft almost ANY upgrade.

Because of that  - it actually takes skill and experience to pick the good fit-out to the situation. 

 

If you think some upgrades are too strong post it in the upgrades section:)

 

 

Regardging crews. Officers are planned after Early access. Crew we are not sure. It works in silent hunter because you have 40 kriegsmarines.

When you have 1000 crew they all turn into one face. Even though people say Nelson knew everyone by name. We doubt it. 

[Llewellyn Jones RN]

Not many here will have played a game called Scourge of war Gettysburg or for that matter a multiplayer mod that allowed us to have our own divisions there in. The creator of the mod had a quite basic skill tree in that as you fought a battle your regiments gained experiance as a result of the battle an amount were dead, wounded or missing. When back in you barracks or between battles we could run a turn in that turn we were randomly assigned a number of recruits which would dilute the experianced gained in the last battle. Some of the wounded would be stuck in hospital or would be invalided out some of the missing might return all effecting the experianced of your troops.

This small changes in regiment quality could be seen in various ways, morale, firearms, marksmanship, melee which would effect the regiments ability to fight. The officer in charge of those regiment had thier own set of skills that would effect how the troops responded to given situations. All things things made the whole game experiance so much more enjoyable for all in volved as the management of the regiments in battle and out of battle could greatly affect the battle overall.

[OlavDeng2]

I am almost back! wohoo.

 

I think you are wrong Olav. They are not bad at all and we think they actually increase depth. They bring important life like differences to vessels. So when you see trincomalee ship its a leda class vessel and some are faster, some are stronger. etc. In real life captain could shorten masts, change ballast, install extra pumps, etc.

 

In addition to that everyone can have them - they are not level based, they are not hard to get, you can craft almost ANY upgrade.

Because of that  - it actually takes skill and experience to pick the good fit-out to the situation. 

 

If you think some upgrades are too strong post it in the upgrades section:)

 

 

Regardging crews. Officers are planned after Early access. Crew we are not sure. It works in silent hunter because you have 40 kriegsmarines.

When you have 1000 crew they all turn into one face. Even though people say Nelson knew everyone by name. We doubt it. 

I see where you are getting at and sure they affect the handling of the ships and now, it is not too bad but i think at times it has been too bad, as some have mentioned you can have people with exceptional upgrades vs one with common upgrades, the one with exceptional will win hands down, i guess i dont have an issue with the system, i have more of an issue with how large of a difference there can be within a series.

 

edit: assuming same skill and same short of upgrades.

 

edit2: one thing, which would make me feel better about upgrades being so good is if simply they had one durability(or even better, ships had 1 durability, but that is a different discussion), meaning there is large risk in putting your best upgrades on your ship and you need to think about it, will post these suggestions in the upgrades section  (on that topic, where can i find it?)

Edited November 18, 2015 by OlavDeng2

[Captiva]

It seems to me that if you were awarded "upgrades" to various crew skills by your ability and success in battle, then that would be much more realistic than "purchasing"  crew upgrades or "crafting" crew upgrades that remain a constant as long as you have the ship. To be clear, I'm talking about crew ability upgrades, not ship structure upgrades.

 

For me, it would be more fluid and dynamic if besides taking ship damage during battle, your crew also was degraded, not just in numbers, but in their ability as to how fast they can raise or lower sails, or their speed and accuracy in gunnery skills. The more success the player has, then  these abilities are increased. So there is this constant back and forth as to how good your crew is at performing various tasks based upon the players ability in battle.

 

And I still like the idea of having the ability to press a keyboard button to bring up a cross-section of the tall ship you are currently sailing (as in the Silent Hunter example) showing the interior of the ship and compartments that represent the various crew and their percentage of losses from or during battle.

Edited November 18, 2015 by Captiva

[Powderhorn]

Had what I think was a very good discussion on this a few weeks ago, which can be found here:

 

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/7454-argument-for-enlisted-ranks/

 

Puchu had an interesting question at the end which I had not fully contemplated, and still have not.  (Nor, I suspect, will I get the chance to until after the Holidays.)