Damage Assessment as a full gameplay element

[Aetrion]

I think this game would be more interesting if it was significantly harder to tell how damaged an enemy ship is. Right now you have a foolproof readout that tells you exactly how hurt they are, how many crewmen they have left, how much of their sails are intact, how much armor they still have and so forth.

 

That kind of eliminates a lot of the good judgement needed to know whether you should press the attack or retreat. You know exactly where the enemy stands and where you stand. You know exactly how much crew they have for example, so it's very easy to determine whether you are in a good position to board them. But pretending you have fewer crew than you actually do to trick an opponent who outguns you into trying to board instead is one of the oldest pirate movie tricks in the book. 

 

So, I think it would be an improvement to the game is damage assessment was actually something the player has to do, not something that happens automatically. Like, you'd go into your spyglass view and look at the enemy ship and centering the view on the right things reveals their status. Like, if you wanted to know about the enemy rudder you'd have to have your spyglass on it for a few seconds, then the game updates you on whether or not its damaged. If you want to assess their armor you have to look at the appropriate side of the ship for a while, so an enemy could potentially be hiding a lot of damage from you, but could also be hiding a completely undamaged side. Determining active crew would require you to observe the decks for a while, but if the enemy is in Survival mode you will see fewer crewmen than there really are, because they are below decks pumping water and fixing leaks.

 

So, basically the amount of information you get on the status of your opponent is much more limited, and you have to work a bit to get a decent idea of what the status of the enemy ship is. That also means you can develop a variety of strategies around deceiving your opponent though, like for example if one side of your ship is really banged up and the other is just fine you could deliberately sail in such a way that the opponent only sees one of the sides to make them think you're too tough to beat, or to make them think you're an easy target.

[Ned Loe]

In simulator yes, in MMO it's not a good idea. It will destroy many features game already has. 

[Galileus]

When it comes to sails, it's a ... allllllrightish... idea.

 

But we have no visual differentiation of hull status or crew numbers. This is point number one.

 

Point number two is the fact, that battles take a long, long time. As is, new players find themselves lost to why the enemy ship did not sink yet, and making the info unavailable would only make it worse. I would guess that average lifetime of the game for a new player would become 1 battle.

 

Point number three is that it's going deep into busywork realm. Having to manually check for damage all the time would wear off very quickly, and considering the length and pace of the battles novelty of the stress would wear off also. You would fall into judging the battle by class and just go through the motions, not paying any attention to actuall damage - instead just pumping balls wherever.

[Aetrion]

In simulator yes, in MMO it's not a good idea. It will destroy many features game already has. 

 

Like what?

 

 

Point number three is that it's going deep into busywork realm. Having to manually check for damage all the time would wear off very quickly, and considering the length and pace of the battles novelty of the stress would wear off also. You would fall into judging the battle by class and just go through the motions, not paying any attention to actuall damage - instead just pumping balls wherever.

 

You don't have to check it all the time, just when you want the damage readout to update. 

 

I mean you might just as well say having to aim your cannons all the time is busywork.

[Galileus]

You don't have to check it all the time, just when you want the damage readout to update. 

 

I mean you might just as well say having to aim your cannons all the time is busywork.

 

And you could say that you should have no cannon loading readout, no aiming reticule, no status of sails and so on.

 

The difference is - aiming is active, you aim, you take a shot, something happens. Reading something out is gaining information - it's pretty much element of UI. Having to work for your UI to update is busywork.

 

Aiming cannons is busywork sometimes too. But I would much rather have to aim cannons and see things explode than have to decode my UI.

[Aetrion]

The point isn't that you have to work for a UI update, the point is that having an omniscient UI that tells you EXACTLY what the status of your enemy is eliminates good judgement from determining your course of action in relation to how badly your enemy is damaged.  You can't fake someone out into thinking you're more damaged than you really are, nor can you bluff someone into thinking they should run when really they are way ahead.

 

The system I'm proposing isn't there to force you to just go through certain motions to get all the information you have now, it's there to insure that you DON'T get all the information that you get now.

Edited February 3, 2016 by Aetrion