Change is Coming: ShipCom Skills in 2.11

[Rhaegar]

Half-Hitch has just posted a new devlog: Change is Coming: ShipCom Skills in 2.11.

Back in January we laid out our vision for the future of Pirates of the Burning Sea. While 2.10 saw the first steps towards these goals, 2.11 is going to see some giant leaps. Ultimately, we plan to revamp most of our major systems: the economy, the Conquest system, Avatar Combat, Ship Combat, and Port Governance. While we know that some of these systems are more contentious in their current form than others, there is a specific order we need to address these systems in for gameplay and development reasons.

You can read the article here, and then share your comments in this thread.

[Cap'n Morris]

Big changes. Interesting. Will make hold space and cargo selection more important, and also maybe boost low level econ as well for common wood and hemp.

[FlipFlops]

lol wut?

Your going to throw out balancing of 5 years and implement what sounds like a very bland system?

And now your smaller team will have to rebalance it ALL after someone figures it out....

This is a bad decision imo.

[Red Dragon]

heh, im not one for judging something before i have tried it but.........WHAT THE HELL!

[Capitane Jean]

Repair toggles. Makes me wonder why not keep it up all the time while I'm damaged? No disadvantages - apart from the cargo space required. FT's will be scary...

[Barberouge]

Shipcom may be the soul of PotBS, but for many RvR was its heart.

Not sure about throwing too much arcade over board. The toggles system sounds like priv gameplay for everyone. Buffs with drawbacks could bring a bit more historical feeling. Bulky repairs should be fine if they aren't too annoying to replace.

Please set a short range to FTs ally repairs.

Best point is doing away with prerequisites IMO, but the balance will take time and I'd suggest once again that in the future you tune the balance at every single patch. No more OP Mace or OP Hercules for 6 monthes or more. Balancing should be done continuously.

I'm concerned about:

1. Sharp's Blackout Stout that enables to get 20 moral every minute (exchanged by 1 gold and 1 silver goblets). This item is quite OP ATM if you can spam it especially on a priv. It requires lots of farming or lots of MoTs&logistics to get. I'd suggest removing it, nerfing it or best IMO, making it much easier to get.

2. Salvaging Supplies. Not a word about them on the devlog. I didn't forget Mr. Nutty's statement that "We won’t ever sell an item that lets you dominate the PvP game." from his 2010 What does Free to Play mean? devlog. I hope they're gone !

[Tukmbok]

"We intend to ease the learning curve for new players without “dumbing the game down” for veteran players. "

I hate this theory and every new multiplayer game that has tried it, it never works. I'm not looking forward to most of these changes.

STOP NOOBIFYING OUR GAMES! (to all game companies)

[santoser]

Sooo.... you were planning to intruduce 1st rates again for like what? 2 months? but you only warn us that you gonna change the game completely one day before going to tesbed?

Why not say it when you advertise the back of 1st rates?

[JohnnyBlaze]

Sounds to me like a complete new game and i wonder myself why???
It worked well in the past, so why implement a new skillset and all that stuff. Thats just bad imo

[Horatio Wilberforce]

Cripes, last time anything like this was even suggested was P&P which accompanied a lengthy beta period.

With all do respect, it seems a lot of changes are in store, but many seem to be just for the sake of making changes. Considering the way many changes have been implemented on the live servers this scares me. Just look how the OS PvP mechanic has been completely borked now for the past several months. So-called fixes are implemented, but the issue persists. Reinforcing battles remains an issue, proper group strength being displayed remains an issue, griefing is now mechanically supported, etc.

I personally, wish FLS would concentrate on monetizing this product to a maximum extent to ensure its long term viability. Instead of attempting to implement far flung and poorly thought out changes that will have lasting effect on the player base. As by and large a lot of us like the game as is. Could it be better? Hell yeah! Does FLS have the staff to make it better across the board? History of recent patches seems to argue, NO. Therefore why not tinker with the game in minor areas, instead of dramatic changes fraught with peril and errors? Change for the sake of change is never good.

I can think of tons of minor changes that would add a lot to this game and not risk destabilizing. Such as: wind changing in PB, new PB maps, making demasting more difficult, adding new missions(i.e. finish supernatural chain), add new OS NPCs, creating avcom bounties, storing ships in other ports, etc.

Sorry for the length here. I have been holding a lot of this back, but figured I would open the can finally. As the constant talk concerning the litany of changes has me scared we will either never see everything promised or they will be implemented in such a way that will mortally wound the game we have all grown to love.

I just don't understand what you guys are thinking, but then again I post on the forum and submit tickets so I guess I should be ignored.