Feedback for version 2.11.51.0

[Otsego]

I think they are included in remus' ships skills and outfittings. Dunno where he got the values from. But there are many stats that are not shown in the deeds.

There was once a spreadsheet from fls with all the stats but it was never updated.

[elessaria]

Originally Posted by Remus Others have pointed out that the new NO Final Defense is not final defense at all. Of course since you are that close to sinking you probably have few guns left, but I wonder if anyone has actually tested this skill. On the face of it it looks useless, but then I read the stats. Reload Rate +9 for 5 seconds?!! Better be quick in control-clicking Attack. Then either repeatedly tab or else pick out an enemy in each of your arcs. But be quick!

Enemy ship in PB:

HAHA THAT NOOB VICTORY HAS LAST RESORT MANEUVER ON HE HAS 10% STRUCTURE AND FULL ARMOR!

Victory in PB:

Clicks Strat Pos, Last Stand, Stout, URR, Final Defense, Salvage Supplies, Lucys, Focus Fire, Desperate Shot, Structure Brace, Carpenter, Emergency Repairs...

Enemy in PB:

OMGWTF! HE JUST DID 7,500 DAMAGE AT 650Y IN 10 SECONDS AND HAS FULL HEALTH AGAIN HAXXORZ!

Victory in PB:

Lulz!

[Capitane Jean]

Oh, **** reload +9! Breaking the cap! That sounds like a fun skill, but it's not defence, it should be renamed to "We fight to the last shell, long live the King!"

Actually, I'm only worried now that 10% might mean it's never getting used, but I've yet to see how reaload plus 9 works in practise. The skill idea isn't half bad.

Could anyone patch Jean d'Ammunition (only one "A") on testbed?

[Maryart]

Originally Posted by The Dragonfly I hear you, but I have even greater concerns for PBs. Once there are a good number of 1st raters amongst the players, you'll see several of them coming at you in a PB. Unless you have a few on your side as well, there will be just one thing left to do, go into port and hope to beat them in the streets instead. That'll be great battles!!! If anyone turns up of course. It is hard enough already these days to fill the 24 places in some nations, often the map winner just "sits out" the next map (or plays a different nation alt), e.g. Spain at the moment. After a while there will be calls to balance PBs somehow. I'd like the idea of fireships, where you'd sacrifise your boat, any boat, build up speed and sail at the biggest ship you can find, then set fire to it and jump broad. Then, if there is not enough cover to shot it down (a fireship may even survive a broadside from a Victory head on), the Victory might be sunk, if the fireship gets to within a 100 yards, may be even two at the same time! There would be a new role for FTs and new use for the nerfed Khan !-) Just image the great feeling of having sunk a Victory that way. Oh, and there's even some realism to it, even better. Or may be you allow FTs to join a militia in the attacked Port, e.g. the defenders get say 48 militia invites, who just will be at the port waiting for the attacker to land and then fight them hand to hand. And to make it worth to FTs (and others) to do that, if the port is lost, the warehouses will be raided and say 50% of the content is lost, all your structures would be burned to the ground and any ships anchored in the port are destroyed or captured. Now that would be an incentive. And it would be realistic. Naturally port conquests would be harder and maps would take longer. Of course, nobody would want to do any eco anymore, if you actually had to fight for your livelyhood. But I digress. Enough crazy ideas, I'm very concerned, lets just leave it at that.

Well if we go forward with wild suggestions and historical accuracy there is one more "historically acurate" thing we could incorporate in the game at this point to control the zerg of three-deckers.

There was that loose classification in three classes the guns had at that time, namely culverins, cannons and pedreros/mortars. First class was Culverins that gave the longest range and accuracy while having the cap of ball weight somewhere above 40 pounds. Second class guns then called Cannons had less range but had the maximum weight of balls as much as 80 pounds while also weighting more than culverins. Third class where light guns not so important for the current discussion.

Historicians may correct me on numbers but the principle remains of the guns with the highest damage having less range and more weight than their longer-range relatives.
Therefore giving those big shinies a smaller range would not hurt the historical accuracy and would give the other PB side the much needed range advantage to even things out while introducing more need for tactics of how to bring the floating forts close enough to put those deadly broadsides to work.

Edit: this division is from 16th century, to be precise. The article I took this from was a bit lacking on information about 1720. Hope things do not differ too much.

[elessaria]

Originally Posted by Maryart Edit: this division is from 16th century, to be precise. The article I took this from was a bit lacking on information about 1720. Hope things do not differ too much.

Quite dramatically I'm afraid. The end of the 16th century saw quantum leaps in metallurgy that for the first time made it possible to produce a "matched set" of guns for naval use. It was in large part this standardisation of armament by the Elizabethan navy that completed the move from boarding to gunnery, since for the first time ships could carry one size of ammunition for all their guns, one size of charge, have identical load times for coordinated broadsides etc. Previously every cannon on board would have individual characteristics and required its own size of shot, even if the were nominally the same weight. In fact, the reason 42lb guns no longer featured in warships by the 18th century was because navies were reluctant neither to reduce the range by cutting the barrel length, nor manhandle 6-ton full-length artillery pieces around the gundecks. From that point of view the game's cap on base range at 650y for 24lbers and above is pretty much where it needs to be; although historically this is woefully short of the actual range it is a decent approximation for effective range...

[Horatio Wilberforce]

Originally Posted by elessaria I pray for the mental fortitude to log in and assess the changes in detail, but motivation is difficult when the changes seem so pointless, random and ill-conceived...

I think this is a fair point. I know a lot of people have been praising FLS about their about face and the speed in which they pushed this new patch. Quite frankly it scares the crap out of me. As it is now clear ship and skill changes can be instituted with relative ease and are not time consuming (i.e. spreadsheet imported). The thing that takes time is balancing and testing the skills and ship changes to understand their overall effect on the shipcom gameplay. FLS seems less concerned about this facet than ever before.

When is the last time we saw a wholesale ship skill change in the game? I know it has been about a year since they touched anything on the NO (offense/defense doctrine timers). I don't play the other classes as much so my memory is a bit foggy regarding alterations in their respective skillsets.

Therefore in summation, I think it is fair to assume that the first 2.11 patch was as rushed and hastily thought out as the current patch. Therefore, we appear to be entering into an almost laughable period of "throw **** up against the wall to see what works". I have long pined for FLS to develop a long term sustainable plan for the success of this game. It seems they have decided to go the opposite direction.

I'm willing to accept the new changes. I will not accept the bugs, exploits, and imbalances they create though.

[Desertwind]

To be honest I never found anything wrong with the current ships. Nothing was that crappy, or that overpowered. This whole nerf every ship in the game, to me seems like a money scam. Make every ship crap until people buy our first rates.

Pointless Patch..
Edit: And if hull sizes are the reason for the chopping of ship stats because there's not enough gun ports on the model, draw more on there lots of them that have the room. E.g. Khan it looks like someone started to do gun ports on it got fed up and left it as is.

Edit 2: Love the nerf to the abaddon.. 18lbers, stripped of guns, and its a colossal so its modifications will do pretty much nothing. Awesome /sarcasm.

LEAVE THE SHIPS AS IS!

[Remus]

Originally Posted by Grutte Pier Since Elle and Remus are both here, what about CRP(cannon resist penetration) with all the nerfs to guns well lose a bit of CRP only the naval officer will keep the big guns it seem and as such will have CRP trough the roof... i would love to see CRP go, or visible on f1, becus invisible stats are not newbe friendly or helpfull

Originally Posted by elessaria It's a stupid mechanic designed to counter another stupid mechanic instead of just removing the first stupid mechanic. What is worse is that it is completely invisible to the new or even experienced-casual player and the number of people who could accurately describe how it works, with numbers, without going to look it up is probably zero. It's a classic example of someone at FLS trying to make the game simpler by making it more complicated.

I am not nearly as averse as ele to resistance and I don't really have any trouble with CRP either, although it does suggests to me the devs of the time (Lum primarily, iirc) were dissatisfied with res but not willing to embrace DR as the main watchamacallit for reducing incoming damage (sorry, I'm not very good with gaming terms).

The skills changes in this patch (and as promised I will look at the DR/Res changes shortly) point to the current devs wishing to continue using resistance for skills - and on the face of it this seems reasonable enough to me (but I may change my mind tomorrow). It therefore makes sense to me for CRP to continue. Yes, I know nobody understands it except perhaps ele and myself, but this does not make it a bad thing.

Don't be worried about the new line of battle ships; CRP maxes out with 26 pounders.

Originally Posted by Andromedar I would also like to see the curent crew regeneration rate and the modifier for gun loss on every ship.

So would I.
Actually I would like to see the gun loss mechanism published. Every so often when I'm bored I have another go at trying to work it out, but so far I have been flummoxed. Taelorn's

Originally Posted by Taelorn Gun Loss Guns take constant damage. The rate at which guns are destroyed is a ratio of the structure + armor on a side. Most ships are reduced to 45% of their guns on a side when they have no structure and no armor remaining for a facing.

is, as far as I can tell, correct as far as it goes, but it does not appear to be the whole story. Structure damage and armour damage appear to cause gun loss at different rates, and gun damage from each hit is assigned randomly to one of the batteries, much like sails damage is assigned (more or less) randomly to one of the masts. Unfortunately while individual mast damage shows up in the log telling you which mast was hit (which does not actually matter in any case), gun damage does not appear in the log.

Originally Posted by Otsego I think they are included in remus' ships skills and outfittings. Dunno where he got the values from. But there are many stats that are not shown in the deeds. There was once a spreadsheet from fls with all the stats but it was never updated.

CRP rates were published here but were updated in build 1.23. Unfortunately the release notes did not say what the new values were. I guessed. Because of damage rounding it would be very difficlut to test.
The other set of hidden values FLS published were ship OS and polar speeds. The most recent published spreadsheet is here but it is riddled with errors. These are the values I use in Ships Skills and Outfitting but I have incorporated all subsequent changes published in release notes, and for a few ships I have done my own testing. I am slowly working my way through the line of battle ships now, but it takes about an hour per ship so is a slow business.

Originally Posted by elessaria Enemy ship in PB: HAHA THAT NOOB VICTORY HAS LAST RESORT MANEUVER ON HE HAS 10% STRUCTURE AND FULL ARMOR! Victory in PB: Clicks Strat Pos, Last Stand, Stout, URR, Final Defense, Salvage Supplies, Lucys, Focus Fire, Desperate Shot, Structure Brace, Carpenter, Emergency Repairs... Enemy in PB: OMGWTF! HE JUST DID 7,500 DAMAGE AT 650Y IN 10 SECONDS AND HAS FULL HEALTH AGAIN HAXXORZ! Victory in PB: Lulz!

Yes, I was thinking along those lines myself. But I need to get my hands on the skill to test how it actually works. Even so, it will be quite a tricky one to use and, unless testing reveals any nasties, as things stand I would be happy enough for it to go Live. It could be adjusted in future patches in light of experience.
It does not really fit in with the removal of magic skills though, does it?

[Capitane Jean]

Originally Posted by Remus Yes, I was thinking along those lines myself. But I need to get my hands on the skill to test how it actually works. Even so, it will be quite a tricky one to use and, unless testing reveals any nasties, as things stand I would be happy enough for it to go Live. It could be adjusted in future patches in light of experience. It does not really fit in with the removal of magic skills though, does it?

Shh! Magic is what makes the game so much more fun. Compare to SH3 with no magic, and you realize why MMOS have much more players and why SH3 has a 1024x time compressor...

[Josh_Brown]

Originally Posted by elessaria Enemy ship in PB: HAHA THAT NOOB VICTORY HAS LAST RESORT MANEUVER ON HE HAS 10% STRUCTURE AND FULL ARMOR! Victory in PB: Clicks Strat Pos, Last Stand, Stout, URR, Final Defense, Salvage Supplies, Lucys, Focus Fire, Desperate Shot, Structure Brace, Carpenter, Emergency Repairs... Enemy in PB: OMGWTF! HE JUST DID 7,500 DAMAGE AT 650Y IN 10 SECONDS AND HAS FULL HEALTH AGAIN HAXXORZ! Victory in PB: Lulz!

I'd say the cure to this would be 3x Concentrated Fire when the structure hits 15%, but the PT doesn't have anything with the gundecks to reach that Victory anymore...

That said, isn't the Victory going to be down to about half it's guncount when it hits 10% structure? I'm wondering if a Spare Guns isn't preferable to a Structure Brace in that sequence...

Originally Posted by Horatio Wilberforce I think this is a fair point. I know a lot of people have been praising FLS about their about face and the speed in which they pushed this new patch. Quite frankly it scares the crap out of me. As it is now clear ship and skill changes can be instituted with relative ease and are not time consuming (i.e. spreadsheet imported). The thing that takes time is balancing and testing the skills and ship changes to understand their overall effect on the shipcom gameplay. FLS seems less concerned about this facet than ever before. When is the last time we saw a wholesale ship skill change in the game? I know it has been about a year since they touched anything on the NO (offense/defense doctrine timers). I don't play the other classes as much so my memory is a bit foggy regarding alterations in their respective skillsets. Therefore in summation, I think it is fair to assume that the first 2.11 patch was as rushed and hastily thought out as the current patch. Therefore, we appear to be entering into an almost laughable period of "throw **** up against the wall to see what works". I have long pined for FLS to develop a long term sustainable plan for the success of this game. It seems they have decided to go the opposite direction. I'm willing to accept the new changes. I will not accept the bugs, exploits, and imbalances they create though.

I am glad to see FLS is still listening to us; however, the content of 2.11.45.0 did not elicit a strong vote of confidence.

My impression is that the changes are being done with a mind to completely revamp the endgame; I think that opens up interesting possibilities from a content perspective, but...

We're seeing class skill and ship changes in this patch, which, by the assurance we received, is not going to be rushed. However, it sounds like these changes are really supporting larger changes to RvR and the economy that are coming out in subsequent patches... meaning that in all likelihood, the roles of each class and how they interact is going to be different, in the overall vision, than now. Which is fine, except that it means we're in for kind of a rocky interim period. Class strength and balance won't be correct coming out of this patch, because it will be based on a future-state of the game coming 4-6 months later, and until then, we won't be able to fully begin balancing out the classes in the grand scheme of things. I think it can be done, but it's a huge undertaking, and I have to wonder if the rewards will be worth it in the end - particularly given how much effort has been put into getting the game to the state of relative stability and class balance it is in currently.

But a lot beyond that is falling into utter speculation on my part... I wish I knew a little more detail about what is planned in further changes, because what's been revealed so far is pretty much the view from 30,000 feet.