Seafaring Related Suggestions

Kinilan

Katzchen said:

Chops do give some situational benefit to a cutter over the larger vessels... I've never tried sailing through them in anything larger, but I'm sure it's horrible.

Thaumas said:

I like sailing through chops in a cutter and I like to be near them in case some fat ship attacks me. Not everything has to be simplified and dumbed down for your convenience.

Chops won't save you. Their safety is an illusion, Striders don't turn nearly as slow as people think. Over the years only 4 ships have made it from the open into chops and escaped from me. I've caught far more either already in chops or people that made the choice to run into the chops, hit something and got caught.

Iocun said:

points and things

If you're acting as a captain yes this is true. That's a choice you have to make, You've got to set some time aside and plan accordingly. Acting as crew is another matter all together. People come and go off ships I'm commanding all the time.Sometimes we pass a point where we don't have the right crew mix to keep going properly but those are usually long trips anyways.

I interact with fishers and divers all the time! When I started the MoB in Mhaldor I didn't provide much of an experience for that sort of thing, fishing/diving. People that don't want to take part in ship combat make a choice not to be involved and so there is no place for them in a "navy" Plenty of people in the MoB when I started it liked to fish and dive. We just didn't do it as a group. We sank ships as a group. That was our focus.

NFI who you're fighting or where you're getting your information from but I've always tried to board a ship rather than just sink it. The problem is ship weapon accuracy is garbage and you can't just fling decks like you would spidershot or darts. There is a very small window of opportunity when it comes to landing a deck with any reasonable chance. so most of the time is spent slowing down/stopping a ship and getting close. I know @Dunn only sails BECAUSE he can board. He calls ship combat a cage match. Boarding has always been the best option.

As for the lack of faction-vs-faction I have NFI about that. I've been trying for years now. Hashan brought their strider out once or twice to "fight" but they just wanted to circle and waste ammo. Cyrene raised over 6 million for a Strider and then never used it. That was disappointing. Never had an Eleusian or forestal ship fight back. I've seen nothing from Targossas except them asking Artanis to save them even when we sit in front of their harbour. even when we board ships in front of their harbour. The only time someone ever sent another ship after me was Ashtan with special mention to Artanis who at least tries but never seemed to have any sort of crew support from Hashan. As for yelling I've always trained people not to do that. People see the wrong name and they scurry to harbours leading to very uneventful trips.

You can't really script ship Vs ship encounters though. Otherwise it turns into a contest of who brought more bodies hich is half the reason I'll sail solo at times. I'm probably not going to manage to sink a ship before they make it to harbour and there is plenty of time for a city to send help but they never do.

Dunn

Boarding rustles my jimmies properly. It's like a UFC match with no tap outs.

Zulah

Chops also prevent automated sailing to an extent. I always enjoyed using chops to separate skill among captains as evident in some of the tighter ship racing tracks. They also provide great ambush points in sea battles if you know which ones to use.

In the past I've put out a lot of ship suggestions to counter some of the problems players consistently bring up about sailing.

Problem 1: The biggest one: (I'm locked into sailing and unable to instantly leave Achaea in case of an emergency like I would be able to on the mainland.)
Solution 1: I suggested a "stasis" for ships. The Ship must have been out of combat for at least X amount of minutes. After X amount of minutes waiting a Ship enters "stasis" at which point it takes a flat X amount of dmg to hull and sails, the crew morale decays at a higher rate, and the crew uses double the current ration/pay allotment for "hazard pay" until the ship is removed from stasis on the players return.

There are various ways to penalize or incur charges to prevent this being abused without making it unreasonable to use if you want to leave Achaea. Since currently there is no way to leave the game without leaving your ship to sink in the open ocean.


Originally I recall chatting with Clementus and Maya it was mentioned wanting ship trade to include city harbours. City harbours (When I built shipwreck cove) were going to be attackable and defendable. The concept was harbour cannons / lighthouses (for spotting incoming ships from a distance) and a few other buildings that would cost the city to build and could be destroyed. There was a concept where a ship forced into an enemy dock could be used as a staging point for a city attack. The defending city would have ways to force board an enemy ship at the docks as well as directly attack the ship itself via these structures. This causes a city vs city interaction on the seas as an attacking group would have to sail to the enemy city. The benefit would be a perfect room or set of rooms (the attacking ship) to stage your attack on the city from.

I suggested a side concept to this where a cities comm market could be "plundered" this way. An attacking ship whence it had secured the docks could send in a group of "npc invaders" that would need to be protected and could plunder the commodity market of the city and load them back on the ship much like the current ship trade system. The comms couldn't be directly interacted with by the attacking players until the ship holding them returned to it's home city docks. Amount stolen would depend on ship cargo hold size and time spent sending and defending the npc raiding party.

Also sea creatures need to be automated not divine controlled and give appropriate rewards based on their difficulty level.

The first "attack" by Phocia on Sapience was a great precursor to how seafaring could be used as a world event that would pull people together rather then separate them. At one point there was a need for several cities to work together to sink a fleet of galley's when the first ever galley was spotted in Achaea. We had 5 ships from various organizations defending and it was a great time for everyone involved. Through events and some new mechanics seafaring could be a great way to encourage organizations to come together as a unit rather then left untouched in its current form where people complain it does the opposite.


Edit: Side note. When I ran the PoM we didn't hail ships we didn't know. We snuck up on them with cloak, grappled and boarded then took out their means of escape before bantering. The best experience I had was we actually kidnapped a newer player and locked her in our ships hold (ship housing) and used her for ransom back to Shallam. I recall her msging me after thanking me for a wonderful interaction. Theres more than one way to enjoy player interaction on the seas!

Anaidiana

I'm on the fence about chops, honestly. 

I use them to help find my way when going places - I use them for navigation between New Hope and Zanzibaar (follow the squigglies), and i know that when I round the Rose chops/Nocturne's reach, it's pretty much straight ssw to Tapoa from points east. I also see the logic in preventing autosailing. 

That being said....

I know of several blind players to whom chops are the main reason they've not really been able to enjoy sailing to the extend that sighted people do. Yes, it's possible to sail, but it's a royal pain in the ass. I could do without the huge  mazes pretty much blocking off the northern islands. It's already annoyingly far to have to go up to Illyrean to spec in Deckhand, but it's adding insult to injury to have those tight mazes. 

Kresslack

To clarify, I never mentioned PoM members hail ships, nor should one really expect it. Although these days few people board, in General, people use to hail each other all the time when they encountered another ship. These days, people are reluctant to reveal themselves to unknown vessels.

Rinzai

Couple of thoughts that I have had from these posts and they are just working ideas, so be nice!

1) no swashbucklers in the cabin. I feel like I am being punished by creating a nice RP environment for Rinzai's strider, because it hands down reduces their ability to be effective. One could argue that it's not 100% needed but pirates always bring a crew, I at times only have just one with me, if that.

2) Removing Chops. I think they serve a purpose, but I think I would rather have the current chops and the tediousness of say going to Ilyrean, to be say instead of Chops, maybe treat this area like a lesser whirlpool. You can sail through them but with a great cost in speed, this would definitely help with the "oh crap I took a wrong turn... turn around, waste 10 minutes" aspect.

3) Others posted about PVE and a actual point of conflict. Part of this makes me think that two portions of the ocean could be created, one the PoM defends, and the Mariners or someone would attack, and then vice versa. One the Mariners would defend, and the PoM would attack. And yes I have absolutely no idea who this would fit into Neraeos realm, so someone smarter than I can maybe pitch in on that.

Blujixapug

Chops are fine in theory. If the entire ocean was just blank space to sail through, that would be weird. They work in the Sea of Screamed Prayers or the route to Meropis, where the passages through them are wide.

In areas like the route to Umbrin/Colchis, or the northeastern route to Ilyrean/Suliel, where there are very large sections of extremely narrow, winding, one- or two-tile-wide mazes, where you're constantly turning back and forth, unable to sail at speed because you lose momentum any time you hit a chop, they're  tedious and frustrating.

Jonathin

Don't forget sailing into the wind in those tiny pathways.

Blujixapug

Jonathin said:

Don't forget sailing into the wind in those tiny pathways.

IF ONLY I COULD FORGET.

Chops are very pretty. Kudos to whoever designed all the spirals and curves. They look nice. They are just horrid to sail through.

Zulah

I find single room wavecalls work great at getting through those areas. If you plan ahead you don't have to stop sails or rowing. Look for the most common direction, Set sails and rowing that direction, then use your wavecalls with 1,2,3 rooms at a time and you can usually fly though chops that look tight just as fast as sailing through open water.

Kinilan

Rinzai said:

1) no swashbucklers in the cabin. I feel like I am being punished by creating a nice RP environment for Rinzai's strider, because it hands down reduces their ability to be effective. One could argue that it's not 100% needed but pirates always bring a crew, I at times only have just one with me, if that.

SBs not getting into the cabin is fine. People lock themselves in their cabin and die anyways. What's unacceptable is being allowed to control the placement and/or movement of SBs to create something akin to the old guard stacks.

Rinzai said:

2) Removing Chops. I think they serve a purpose, but I think I would rather have the current chops and the tediousness of say going to Ilyrean, to be say instead of Chops, maybe treat this area like a lesser whirlpool. You can sail through them but with a great cost in speed, this would definitely help with the "oh crap I took a wrong turn... turn around, waste 10 minutes" aspect.

 I'll admit the chops of the SoSP or most of the Meropis path aren't that bad. A well maintained Strider can sail through them in either direction just fine, throw in wavecall or put yourself on a Cutter and the level of frustration they provide is minimal. The real issues are the chops on either side of the continent that lead up north that are way too narrow, have multiple dead ends you can't see even from in the nest until it's too late, paths that lead into the wind so you are forced down to a crawl and the winding nature of the paths that take the longest trip and make it even longer. Plus the fact that it's easier to walk to Valho or Tenwat and take a ferry to Minos then sail to them. Colchis, Umbrin and Lothos aren't that far into the chops but only Lothos could be said (by people that are terrible) to deserve that level of travel extension time.  Then to a lesser extent is the clusterfuck around Ashtan and Mhaldor. There is no reason for that level of chops over that much area compared to the limited amount of use any harbour north of Thraasi sees. Also Taur. WTF path to one stupid little island. the band out along the east coast and the pocket to the NE and the giant whirl to the Sw and the whateverthehell east New Hope are cool, they add something to an otherwise screen of blue and are fine but stupid chops mazes are god damn stupid.

Rinzai said:

3) Others posted about PVE and a actual point of conflict. Part of this makes me think that two portions of the ocean could be created, one the PoM defends, and the Mariners or someone would attack, and then vice versa. One the Mariners would defend, and the PoM would attack. And yes I have absolutely no idea who this would fit into Neraeos realm, so someone smarter than I can maybe pitch in on that.

If the Mariners guild did anything other than just scream like howler moneys every time an Ashtani or Mhaldorian ship cast off maybe that would amount to something but right now anything along those lines would wind up like Landmarks with one side constantly dominating if just through sheer numbers let alone experience.

A better approach would be to add content that both gets people onto the water AND forces them to act as a crew with rewards that match the effort and costs required. Being able to fish and trade and dive solo with rewards that only pay out well if you do things alone is the biggest problem with seafaring. You don't need a crew to do anything but sink other ships.

Rinzai

Don't feel like quoting but to Kinilan:

One of the problems i have with sailing is the time commitment. man I would love that ship in a bottle just for the times that I think "do I have the free time to sail or not" and then a wrong turn, it can be a huge time sink, which takes insane free time, wrong turns on chops, just a mess.

For the cabin, agreed I don't want to place them, I just don't want to be punished for expanding my cabin. Even if they don't open doors, I think mine are still all over the place.

And the Mariners... you have it all wrong. We don't get that... what we get is "Hey Kinilan and Dunn are here, I think they brought me a present"  .... "Hay it's not a present!!!" queue deathsight.....and Elllodin and myself just bang our heads saying why.. WHY!!!. There is no focal point to the Mariners other than, teaching people to sail, it is not the Yin to the PoMs yang.

Kinilan

In their defence sometimes I DO yell that I have presents for them.

The time thing I never understood. From Tasur'ke to SLC there are harbours no more than 4 minutes apart, even in the worst conditions. once you get through the SoSP it's the same thing up to Thraasi. Harbous all over the damn place. Now if you're  trying to sail up north, or down to Meropis the travel time issue is because of chops, and chops are the Hittler of the seas. The only other way you'd be so far removed from a harbour that it would take more than a few minutes to get somewhere to dock is if you went to Tapoa or one of the corners of the map. Plan accordingly and don't sail alone.

Also the first paragraph of help marinersguild is a god damn lie. Someone in there with some sense needs to take over and train those kids how to sail all proper like. I tried to send some people in to do it but apparently there is a blanket ban on Ashtani now. If the clan wants to be official Team Blue they should at least offer a counterpoint to the PoM.

Kresslack

Follow that Seafaring Event, one big suggestion I have is this:

- Allow ships to set a way to add certain other ships to a list which removes them from showing up on shipwarning. For instance, if two or more ships are sailing together towards a destination, instead of spamming each other with shipwarning, they can add their respective shipnames to a list which would keep that ship from hitting shipwarning while it's on the list.

SHIP RELAX SHIPWARNING <ship name>

SHIP AWARE SHIPWARNING <shipname>

or some other syntax if there is a better one.

- As a side suggestion, is there a way to allow 'pieces of fish' to be cookable for ship crews, as a group? There would have to be a ratio of how many pieces of ship equal to one fish, but seems as if they should be cookable in some fashion.

- Also, in regards to how ships are displayed on the sea (not sure how complicated this would be), but  what about ship ally/enemy highlighting? Say you add a ship to a ship ally list, instead of showing up as the same golden square it would change to blue or green, while ships added to a ship enemy list would appear as red.

Jonathin

Kresslack said:

Yes, don't care, yes.

Sarapis

Kresslack said:

Follow that Seafaring Event, one big suggestion I have is this:

- Allow ships to set a way to add certain other ships to a list which removes them from showing up on shipwarning. For instance, if two or more ships are sailing together towards a destination, instead of spamming each other with shipwarning, they can add their respective shipnames to a list which would keep that ship from hitting shipwarning while it's on the list.

SHIP RELAX SHIPWARNING <ship name>

SHIP AWARE SHIPWARNING <shipname>

or some other syntax if there is a better one.

- As a side suggestion, is there a way to allow 'pieces of fish' to be cookable for ship crews, as a group? There would have to be a ratio of how many pieces of ship equal to one fish, but seems as if they should be cookable in some fashion.

- Also, in regards to how ships are displayed on the sea (not sure how complicated this would be), but  what about ship ally/enemy highlighting? Say you add a ship to a ship ally list, instead of showing up as the same golden square it would change to blue or green, while ships added to a ship enemy list would appear as red.

When we actually have time to work on ships (not in the near future alas), the 1st and 3rd, for sure. 

Arianis

While it's true that most of the time, you're never more than 5 or 10 minutes of sailing away from a harbour, that's still dangerous. 

If I have to respond to something ASAP while hunting, I can journal. Hell, even during raid defence, if something immediate comes up, I can excuse myself and run to a safe spot in under 30 seconds, or die (but dying during a raid is infinitely easier than having your ship sunk). Sometimes, you don't get 10 minutes to sail, especially if you're caught up in chops. 

I don't know about others, but I honestly can't respond to RL (phone calls, roommates, people) and navigate chops at once. Maybe that's me being dumb. I don't care. It's painful, especially if you're in a hurry to dock.

Kinilan

1 Chops are stupid as all hell

B There is a wonderful organization in game that will protect your ship and help you out in situations like that for a low yearly fee. contact me in game for more information!

Kresslack

It also is helpful to, while realizing that level of commitment and time it takes, plan your sailing trips according to when you have some downtime in real life when you expect minimal disruptions. 

Arianis

Kresslack said:

It also is helpful to, while realizing that level of commitment and time it takes, plan your sailing trips according to when you have some downtime in real life when you expect minimal disruptions. 

While that would be ideal, sometimes my downtime transforms into panictime with a single email from my professor (or group member or phone call or etc). It's just usually hard to account for everything. Usually those interruptions are bad news to begin with, and adding the fear of a ship sinking only compounds it.

Edited because for some reason quoting isn't working right.

Kresslack

Not sure how others would feel about this, but to give spyglasses a bit more functionality, what about allowing you to get the harbour ship list while within a certain range on the harbour? You can already get the harbour info using a spyglass in a similar fashion.

Kresslack

Another small, but helpful, idea:

Include Meals Commissioned in the shiplogs for a each vessel. 

Rispok

Before doing that, how about fixing shiplogs to work how they are supposed to.

Kresslack

Rispok said:

Before doing that, how about fixing shiplogs to work how they are supposed to.

If you've suggestions on how to make that work better, feel free to post them.

Eld

Kresslack said:

Before doing that, how about fixing shiplogs to work how they are supposed to.

If you've suggestions on how to make that work better, feel free to post them.

http://forums.achaea.com/discussion/comment/73684

Zulah

ISSUE WITH: Not being able to leave in an emergency
DETAILS OF ISSUE: (Still the single largest complaint players make)
SUGGESTED FIX: Ship Stasis
Command:
ship enter stasis -

• You the captain must be the only one aboard
• The ship can not have an active forceboard on it
• Another ship can not be within (x rooms away)
• (You must not have wavecalled for X amount of minutes)
• After (X minutes) of your ship taking no damage it will enter stasis.
• Logs you out of Achaea and your ship enters "Stasis mode"
• A ship in stasis mode is no longer viewable to other players
• When entering stasis hull and sails take (x amount of damage)
• Crew Morale and Experience decays at a MUCH higher rate until removed from stasis
• Logging back into Achaea removes your ship from stasis and places you on board

Posted by Zulah, Kinilan, Lisbethae in 2010:

ISSUE WITH: Sea monsters
DETAILS OF ISSUE: Not enough/no reward.
SUGGESTED FIX: Create a few pockets in the open water whey they have a chance to spawn and give a morale boost, gold, or perhaps even some special rewards for captains (Talismans??) for killing them that is balanced by the crazy cost of the number of darts to put one down. Perhaps a denizen can take their bodies or parts in exchange for gold, perhaps the crew would have to haul up parts of it out of the sea. Ideally it would be free roaming sea monsters that are worth enough that it pays to have 4 people on a ship and for them to search the oceans until they got the ones that spawned perhaps for that month. This would work as a patrolling for auto-fisher sea monsters as well.

Posted by Kinilan in 2010:

ISSUE WITH: ship arena

DETAILS OF ISSUE: Having to sail to a specific just to start an event is just plain terrible. It IS close to shore and easy to get to IF you're one of the 150+ people that only sail around the east coast but what about those of us on the other side of the continent?

SUGGESTED FIX: A second or even third ship arena island set up on the west and south coast oooor just give maritime ministers the ability to start the arena.

ISSUE WITH: Wavescythe
DETAILS OF ISSUE: Wavescythe's effective range of one square is too short to use against a moving target or one that simply wavecalls a single room when the enemy gets close.
SUGGESTED FIX: increase the effective range of wavecall. make it a targeted spell with an increasing cost over distance up to 5 squares and and a 50/50 chance of working 6+ rooms out up to visible range.

ISSUE WITH: Multiple weapon use
DETAILS OF ISSUE: Firing a weapon takes crew balance making the use of multiple weapons by larger crew impossible and prolongs engagments in a system that already favours the defenders.
SUGGESTED FIX: Give weapons their own firing balance while still needing personal balance to load, aim and fire. Lage crews can still man all their weapons without turning a single weapon into a gattling gun.

ISSUE WITH: Grapple/Disengage
DETAILS OF ISSUE: Grapple takes 6 SPP to learn and disengage can be done by any captain with 1 point in command with the same crew balance it takes to grapple in the first place. So ships can grapple/disengage over and over and over with neither side gaining an advantage.
SUGGESTED FIX: The disengage order should be able to be given by anyone onboard with crew perms and grapple in weapons. It should take a few seconds to complete an the ship that initiated the grapple should be effected by a cooldown that limits their ability to grapple again right after their lines are cut. The disengage order given by a captain without the grapple ability should have a chance to fail similar to commands given under the effects of stupidity.

ISSUE WITH: Whirlpool
DETAILS OF ISSUE: Whirlpool creates a single barrier next to the ship that cast it making it only slightly effective to those being chased and useless to those doing the chasing. Only somone right behind their target is going to run into one and if you're infront of your target you're just plain doing it wrong to begin with unless you're blocking a harbour in which case whirlpool is somewhat effective.
SUGGESTED FIX: Make Whirlpool a targeted spell up to 3-4 rooms out that slows down the target or throws them off course, raise the figurehead costto 1000-2000.

ISSUE WITH: Wavecall
DETAILS OF ISSUE: Wavecall can be used to hop over Whirlpools, break grappling lines (with a nice bug that leaves the ship that did the grappling unable to move until they disenagge from the ship that is now halfway across the map) and it ruins the day of just about every captain without the ability.
SUGGESTED FIX: lots of ideas on this one! Raise the hull damage from use A LOT, Raise the endurance and figurehead cost A LOT. Make it impossible to wavecall while grappled. Make wavecall do more damage/impossible when going over whirlpools. Shorten the max distance to 4-5 squares.

----------------

3 Years later and these are still an issue and valid requests.

Jules

Kinilan said:

1 Chops are stupid as all hell

B There is a wonderful organization in game that will protect your ship and help you out in situations like that for a low yearly fee. contact me in game for more information!

If I were Ashtani I'd totally hire pirate protection.  Maybe even if I were Hashani, although I'm not sure if that's actually appropriate for a citizen there or not, having never lived there.  

Kinilan

Jules said:

Kinilan said:

1 Chops are stupid as all hell

B There is a wonderful organization in game that will protect your ship and help you out in situations like that for a low yearly fee. contact me in game for more information!

If I were Ashtani I'd totally hire pirate protection.  Maybe even if I were Hashani, although I'm not sure if that's actually appropriate for a citizen there or not, having never lived there.  

We tried to fold in Hashani into the PoM to make it less "Team Red" and by extension give protection to all Hashani but they never wanted to contribute in any way so they got the boot.

Jules

Ah... well, it still might make sense for individual captains to hire pirates (or not)?  Hashan is so exotic... 

Kresslack

I've mentioned the sea creature thing in the past and they said they'd work on it. It's been added to the list, as well as Whaling, but when it happens is anyone's guess. You may even be able to cook parts of some for the crew. I think they fixed the wavecall issue already, haven't checked recently.