PvE - AI Fleet Captains Proposal

[JJWolf]

As much of a controversial topic it may be for the hardcore PvP fans and gank-lovers, this topic is not for the PvP server, this is a suggestion for improving the PvE experience.

 

What would improve the fleet experience particularly for solo players is to limit access to employ more powerful ships as you get higher in the ranks to support you in missions and on the OW. I propose the following:

1. Change the 'Hire' section from just buying a ship for your fleet, into hiring 'Captains' at the base rank of Midshipman
2. Fleet captains earn experience just as your character gains it to rank up
3. Fleet captains must meet the appropriate rank to crew specific vessels up to a max of 3rd or 4th rates (balance depending)
4. Fleet captains are equipped with ships that you must build or buy and once lost must be replaced if the durability runs out
5. Fleet captain spots start at 1 and can only be increased by ranking up with every 5th rank (or whatever works to balance this to prevent too large of a fleet too early on) adding another spot for hiring an additional captain with a scaling cost to balance it and a limit to say 5 captains at the highest ranks.
6. Missions at higher levels when entered are calculated based on the BR of the entire player fleet or group of players (no AI when in a player group) that enter
7. Add basic formation commands of Line Abreast, Line Astern, and Roam Mode rather than just 'follow me' (Caribbean: Blood & Gold does it with more primitive AI) and form them up with player taking lead role and AI playing follow the leader in order of largest to smallest
8. Fleet captains made unavailable for Pirates (let's face it, pirates may have worked together from time to time, but in general they weren't in fleets generally)
9. Adversary NPC fleets chase/attack players within their territorial waters surrounding their ports up to a certain distance from the port
10. *Edit: AI Captains can never be higher than the rank below the player

I don't feel there is a need to tweak the battle AI at this time aside from formations, I believe the AI is actually quite intelligent in this game. I have seen them actively avoiding me when I purposely have swerved into their path as a test, they also actively try to turn their damaged sides away from their opponents and protect their rear, and the enemy AI even tried to board when it has superior crew numbers when you get in close brawling. (was going to strike this out but the Devs have fixed the AI problem of not slowing down)

 

What this change would most importantly provide is focus for PvE battle focused players, provide another aspect for captains to manage and drive the economy further for ship building.

(And before I get pointed to the 'Official thread', is it not a slap in the face of the AI Fleet supporters for the original/1st post in that thread to be all about how fleets shouldn't be in the game. The first post should be a collection of differing ideas and suggestions, not a biased anti-Fleet speech.)

 

Thoughts?

 

EDIT: Updated to latest patch and opinion.

Edited January 29, 2016 by JJWolf

[LeBoiteux]

Some thoughts :

1-6. To me, your fleet captain feature doesn't add much more (refinements ?), is quite complicated and might be quite time and money-consuming (in terms de development). Just my opinion...

7. Any extra AI command is interesting.

8. AI fleet must be available for Pirates. We're talking about very small AI fleets : 2-3 ships, not 25 ships.

9. Why only "within their territorial waters surrounding their ports" ? Enemy Bots must attack / chase players wherever they (and you) are. I hope/guess it'll be implemented. Bot aggressiveness has recently been disabled on players' request.

 

AI has to get harder and harder, smarter and smarter.

 

See you at sea.

Edited January 9, 2016 by LeBoiteux

[JJWolf]

In response to your thoughts, 1-6 would remove the ability for a player to just hire the 'biggest and best available' at any time - e.g. Snowgate. The initial redesign of interface would take a small bit of work to change and then the coding to add the extra function for AI captains to gain XP can be replicated off the back of player XP that is already being calculated after battle. It wouldn't be anymore complicated than it is now to add several new trackers/flags/variables to a player for AI captains experience replicating the tracking of a players rank. 

7 – This is a missing feature that really needs to be looked at.

8 – I concede the point, very small AI fleets might work for pirates

9 – Within their territorial waters would be easy to implement to prevent kiting an enemy into an ambush unless they program the aggressiveness of NPCs to assess when a player is trying to kite them into a much larger overwhelming fleet and for the NPC to disengage. Using a set distance from port would use a definitive distance and simplify it if they chase a player, alternatively it could be simply based on distance from player if we want them to chase a player down across the map.

[LeBoiteux]

9 – Within their territorial waters would be easy to implement to prevent kiting an enemy into an ambush unless they program the aggressiveness of NPCs to assess when a player is trying to kite them into a much larger overwhelming fleet and for the NPC to disengage. Using a set distance from port would use a definitive distance and simplify it if they chase a player, alternatively it could be simply based on distance from player if we want them to chase a player down across the map.

 

Bots follow given routes crossing the Caribbean. They don't sail around their friendly ports. So there are lots of AI warships far away from their ports. You must be able to attack them and (fear to) be attacked and chased by them wherever you are. I don't want enemy Bots becoming passive when in the middle of the sea. But I like the idea of warship Bots being able to know when to attack and when to flee in the OW (depending on your AI fleet and other potential support). And being able to know when trying to flee in OW could also apply to AI traders.

 

However, I don't know if before Bot aggressiveness has been disabled, you really could kite any Bot into an ambush. They quickly gave up attacking you and resume their route, didn't they ? 

 

Have fun. 

[JJWolf]

Raising this again for the Devs/Admin to consider since post-Rank 3 on PvE is rather mundane and without port conquests, the ability to be involved in larger scale battles of higher tier vessels is very limited!

[LeeUK]

I would suggest to remove the link of XP between PvP and PvE servers then if this idea was implemented ( unless that has already been done without me realising lol ). Because higher rank on PvE will be able to bring big fleet ships to help them grind missions/AI ships, meaning they can take on bigger ships for more XP, so they have the luxury of Ranking up faster vs PvP player without AI fleet ships.

Edited January 29, 2016 by LeeUK

[JJWolf]

I would suggest to remove the link of XP between PvP and PvE servers then if this idea was implemented ( unless that has already been done without me realising lol ). Because higher rank on PvE will be able to bring big fleet ships to help them grind missions/AI ships, meaning they can take on bigger ships for more XP, so they have the luxury of Ranking up faster vs PvP player without AI fleet ships.

 

Oh how I would love for that to happen, it seriously does need to. I don't think it is fair at all nor is it helpful when one logs from one server with a fully crewed Cerb only to be forced to sail a Basic cutter in 1LT missions or go trading until they have enough to buy a ship worth sailing... :'(

 

Players should be tied to one character per server, not per account. I should have to create and train completely separate characters on each of the servers to give players more options to explore different game styles.

Edited January 29, 2016 by JJWolf

[LeeUK]

I was just talking about the PvE server, all PvP servers should remain synced where XP is concerned because of server queues and encouraging people to play the less popualted PvP servers. But no XP should be shared between PvP server and PvE server if on the PvE server you can grind missions easier because you have an AI fleet with big ships to use at higher ranks.

[Valetudin Arian]

I agree with all of the OP's suggestions, the pve server is being run/ruined by pvp mechanics, and is suffering because of it imo.

As an update to my opinion I will add if we have fleets with their own captains who level as well then this could tie in with shared group xp if it ever eventuates. You share your xp with your fleet, they level and get better, you level slower but this makes for a situation where it could be worked so the xp still gets shared across servers if you level slower here than on pvp due to using fleets while still retaining the same xp overall for the same missions across servers.

Edited January 30, 2016 by Valetudin Arian

[Valetudin Arian]

Updating a comment should reset the comment date too I think, otherwise it seems nothing was updated.

[Jason]

pvp and pve server should be seperated.

but all pvp should be sharing one character (if one is full) and all pve server should share one character.

 

In exchange you should keep your money and ships if you play on an other server.

[Tremor]

I like the orinial poster ideas +1