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Comments
On a more detailed level:
Seeing a lot of combatant perspectives. Well, as you all are keenly aware, I'm not a combatant, so here's my thoughts on the matter. I'll address the major issues I've seen and then add my own two cents on changes I would like to see.
1) Wavecall - Oddly enough, I have this ability. Mostly I use it to get to Tuar quickly when I have the Snowhunter. I do use it to get away from other ships I see (which is rare) just in case they are pirates. Ship isn't mine, it belongs to the Sentinels, so I can't really afford to have it be sunk. Not exactly in the best standing as is. 8 is a bit extreme when it comes to utilizing it to escape combat, but I think the previous suggestion of 3 is far too little. Perhaps a happy medium of maxxing out at 5 squares would be a good comprimise. Far enough to get out of range for us non-coms, but not far enough to get out of sight from the pirates.
2) Chops - Holy shit change those mazes. Tears I can get why it is the way it is, but really, there isn't much fun in navigating through 15 minutes of maze or longer depending on where you are going, to get to an island. Some of them need simplified, others like the path from Aalen to Tuar should just be done away with. (It's not difficult, just irritating).
3) Harbour-hiding - Some form of harbour authorities booting afk'ing folk either off the ship or booting said ship out of the harbour would be good. Ships are perfect fortresses when in harbour, I'd say even better than a bed is. Though I'm not too sure how a bed room works in terms of combat in reference to the area.
4) Ship Trades - Really, 90% of these things aren't worth it. Huge waste of time/gold/effort. Making them somewhat more profitable, would be nice to see.
5) Pricing - I've been saving up to try and get a ship for a long time. Granted I get distracted, and don't hunt the nicely profitable places (Annwyn, UW). I have nowhere near the amount of gold needed to get a ship. I'm trans Seafaring, lv 5 Weaponry; lv 5 Watch; lv 1 Command; lv 1 Helm. Pretty much the only Weaponsmaster in Eleusis too. 2.5 mil for a starting boat, no weapons, no crew, just the boat, is extremely difficult for someone who isn't a creditwhore, a hugely successful shop owner, or a dragon to manage. Smaller ships would be nice, but the disadvantage to them would be really easy targets for pirates. Weapons are still expensive as heck too.
6) Speed - Some form of engine would be nice. Having some use for coal other than forging would stimulate economic situations. It would have to be some form of highly expensive I think, either in creation costs, or in utilization, so that everyone isn't just motorboating everywhere like Speedy Gonzolas. There'd need to be some disadvantages to them as well. Balanced out of course, maybe a new heat level, that increases as you use the engine, and if it reaches a certain level a fire breaks out on board, or at even higher levels, the engine explodes/breaks.
Those were the big six subjects I noticed. They also covered all of my thoughts on the matter as well.
@Greys I realize, that's the change I'm proposing. If docked ships were counted in the same area as the harbour, (like subdivisions are to cities) they would cease to be saferooms where people could hide or afk without consequences.
A few more thoughts this morning:
Regarding the (seemingly) collective mentality that the barrier for entry is too high (in a monetary sense), I don't entirely agree with the sentiment - but I have a feeling I'm in the scant minority here. The way I view it is the same as any other "thing" you want to accomplish in Achaea - with no sense of entitlement, you have to sacrifice, and you have to work to earn it.
If you look at the rough numbers, being fully vested in a ship/seafaring is well beneath, say, owning a veil. Using the current gold value of credits -- 12,600,000m for a veil vs. 8,900,000m for a ship (7m for fully stocked Strider, 1.9m for the credits to trans).
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Agreed with most that's been said about chop mazes (though, admittedly, if these are removed, I will sorely miss the series of hysterical tells I get from @Kinilan damning me, my mother and my gods when he rocks into another dead end at 0wind).
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Regarding skills used - all weapon related are used frequently (fire, load, aim, enhance - and I did use repair, before my weapons were nondecay; maybe another compensation regarding cost could be to lessen the amount of commodities necessary to repair a decaying weapon?). Scan, warning and cloak are invaluable for stalking. Cooking is great for the morale (though, if there was a method to be able to turn what we, as players, cook, into fine stores, that'd be nice - maybe something in your inventory or something somehow tied into the cooking miniskill, to improve the fare). Mast, bearings and spyglass are fantastic for navigation, I use sails/hullgird when I'm sailing a cutter, rainstorm and windboost invaluable. Don't think I've ever used barrier/anticipate. I KNOW I've never used etch.
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Also, don't remove wind! That'll take a huge chunk out of the 'realism' of sailing, to say nothing of what it takes away from the knowledge of experienced captains - those who know what to do when sailing into a headwind vs. those who don't. And I know other captains who will take a certain route because the wind in a particular spot is going in a specific direction.
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I think we all know how I feel about forceboarding. IT COST ME THE Y650 ARENA EVENT, FUCK YOU STRATA, I WANT IT (AND POSSIBLY HIM) DELETED. I love the flavour and idea behind it, but it turns ship vs. ship into standard PK.
I think Forceboarding, as a magical teleportation onto an opposing ship from range, might be too strong, but I hope we'd still be able to "force board" a ship if you could catch it and grapple it.
Everything but these three things I like/agree with to some degree.
Wind direction and the local geography of islands and chops as well as your position relative to the nearest harbour are all things that need to be considered in a ship fight. Turning into the wind on a large ship gives you a smaller turn radius because of the drop in speed. The favourable route wind direction provides combined with the attraction of a harbour makes people predictable when running. Snarrling the sails with spidershot slows a ship down and speed is a facotr in weapon accuracy. If your target is moving slow they are easier to hit. Slow speed also makes it easier to get in front of a ship to stall them and grapple which leads to boarding as well as the best conditions (for both sides) in weapon accuracy so your hits are reliable. I think some of the travel times are exagerated. It doesn't for example take 20 minutes to sail from Tasur'ke to Umbrin. But there are the beginings of a terrible chops maze between the two points. The issue with wind is that the directions are statit within a given latitude and for the most part the directions they flow in don't match well with the local geography. For example heading south from Thraasi the wind comes from the southeast. The continent and the positions of Polyargos and Shala-Khulia force you to head southeast. Windcutters can get some speed going sse or ese but larger ships have to go south then east straight to Poly then towards the Aalen so you have to go a longer route with slower speeds. Or things like heading south towards Meropis. The chops path (it is a path not a maze, it is one of the good ones for the most part) heads south and the winds come from the south so you're going into the wind the whole way, and when you're going towards Sapience you rocket along until you start smashing into chops after chops in the tighter sections of the path, which can be frustrating. You get the same thing going north past Tasur'ke/Rheodad with the wind coming from the northeast and the chops forcing you northeast. if You're going all the way north to Ilyrean/Suliel the wind switches to the south and you start to rocket along, smashing into chops. and when you come back south it's a slow crawl.
Oh and something to note on speed a lot of ships I've run into never have a full compliment of shipmates and crewmates. The lack of crewmates means slower handling and rowing speed. I think that setup combined with the huge gap in performance between a new crew on a low morale ship with that of a years old crew that is finally elite (and it does take years to get crew xp that high) on a fanatical ship gives people the impression that ships are slow, when really their ship is just...crap.
My solution would be to re-evaluate the wind directions and average strength (or buff windboost) after chops have been reworked. or create "trade winds" bands of high strength winds that flow in directions from one point of interest to another. Giving people a quick way to where they want to go. It would also create more predictable routes and still give people the option to get off the route and avoid other ships.
Specialization is ok it's just the position and cost of abilities within the trees that needs some work. For example Anticipate is a rank V watch abilitiy, it costs 15 SSP and can only be used from the crows nest. While you're using anticipate in the nest you can't use wavecall or cloak, or any other seapells you might have, or helm abilties, or even give commands to the crew if you're captain. or Weapinenhancement, rank 4 weapons ability. you use it 5 times on a single weapon in it's lifetime and that's it. I'd say do away with the specialization trees. Assign abilities a cost based on their usefulness and let people pick and choose what they want whith some abilities being either/or like you can't take cloak with shield or wavescythe but no forceboard. Similar to how major traits can't be selected together.
Ships are already easily handled by solo captains, at least in terms of defensiveness and navigation. The fact that most people do sail alone is proof of that. Crew count really matters in ship combat though and even just having one other person with the right specs makes a huuuuge difference. Their added abilities plus having the extra balance available to load/fire almost doubles your potential dps because balance is taken on loading and then firing and the weapon itself also has it's own balance on firing. So right now you need 2 people per weapon to use it poroperly. That's part of the reason why war galleys are useless. You'd need so many extra bodies to make use of the extra weapons.
Sailing with a crew is part of the experience and I'd hate to see that go in favour of some sort of automated firing system or whatever. Having people around to joke with, chat with, share your experience with and later reminisce with adds to the enjoyment. I'd like to think that if there was more of a reason to be involved in things like ship combat, a reason to sail with more than just yourself more people would want to get involved and it will be easier for others to find a crew. Like I said all it takes is one other person to really raise your offensive ability and I can't throw a rock in Ashtan without hitting at least one person that would want to work as crew. Once the interest is there the people will show up and want to be involved.
I think the winds as an immersion is actually interesting and fun from a non-com perspective as there is a bit of a thrill to catch the wind and have your ship suddenly start moving. Its just we need something when against the wind so not just crawling along. I think an increase in the max rowing speed might be the right balance (crew can row faster at greater fatigue rates).
Everything Kinilan said about sailing with a crew. I'm really torn about the feasibility of finding a full crew complement (I also reiterate what he said about very large crews being quite unrealistic period), but I'd really almost say retool everything to make it completely impractical to sail alone, not make it easier. It's already easy, until you run into pirates, which is why people do it. Too many captains, not enough crew. Some SPPs are already easy to shift around. Make it even easier so that his idea of a "crew wanted" board would allow people to shift their SPPs to work with whoever they end up sailing with that day. Of course, it's always best to have a sort of regular crew, but even then, I personally like shifting my SPPs around to see what it's like to be the weapons guy, or the helm guy anyway.
If Wavecall is removed entirely, won't the increased use of ships by would-be attackers be negated by the decreased use of ships by would-be defenders (the latter of which I assume is a much larger population)? At least, that's what I see happening unless forceboarding is removed or heavily reworked, as well.
Don't remove winds.
And no surprise that something purposefully put in as an annoyance or hindrance (chops) is being complained about. But is it that bad? I don't even mind the Ilyrean chops. Do people complain about this even if they use scripts to highlight chops in a way that make the sailing paths clear? (Chops as black-background squares, not background-camouflaged blue carets?) Definitely a major source of pride for me when I get to show off my skill in getting through choppy areas mostly uninterrupted, haha.
Either by moving all specialists somewhere accesable from mainland or letting us go back to being able to change SPP ay any time. Except when you're already on a ship. Then one person could do everything/anything and that would be silly.
Blupikachu had a good point about ships being more or an org thing with Houses and cities footing the bill. And let's face it Houses and cities aren't spending their gold on anything else. lowering the price tag on ships and fixing how the pos war galley handles are good but making it easier for one person to do everything on their own is bad. Seafaring or at least ship combat is the only real group activity in Achaea and I'd hate to see that changed.
I use white on black highlights with ships balck on red, helps a lot but there is no way you're taking anything but a cutter from Tasur'ke to Ilyrean without hitting something and even then a bit of luck is involved. And you'd never make it through with a war galley.
Large paths, about 50% to 75% the width of that you can see on the map with occasional obsticales in the middle or choke points like the circle thingy northwest of Meropis are nice. Short bits like the east-west routes through the sea of screamed prayers with multiple passages are nice. Challenging but short. Features like the giant swirl in Nocturne's Reach or the block east of New Hope or the midwall east of Riparium add variety and can play a role in ship combat and escape. The horse shit that is everything north of Rheodad/Tasur'ke with tight winding passages and routes that run counter to your desidred course with winds that work against you most of the way aren't a challenge they just add to the already drawn out investemnt of time it takes to get somewhere.
Features, SHORT tight mazes around things WORTH sailing to, wider passages and spaces of open water with desierable winds that create natural paths you want to take at the risk of being spotted while giving the option to break off from that path, go a bit slower and have less risk of running into someone/something.
Yeah, making SPPs shifts even more streamlined does assume total buy-in to the idea of making sailing alone more impractical than it is right now, so that it really would be in the service of outfitting a crew complement. I lean strongly in that direction, but worry somewhat that if people don't start organizing themselves into crews, seafaring would languish. Of course, it actually *is* impractical to sail alone right now (unless you're a dragon with Wavecall), but because people hope they just won't meet you guys on the seas, they do it anyway.
Another part of the whole ship combat/pirates/affraid to get attacked thing and I think i mentioned this earlier is that ship combat isn't something you can react to. It's not like a raid where everyone groups up and goes. Either you have a ship in the area ready to support with a crew or you don't. So the only option is to get out there and smash everyone else before they can smash you. And it works....for one side. probably too well given how hard it seems for be for any other city to find support for navy type things.
Some sort of ship earring type thing would be bad, anything that leads to an escalation of force, bringing more ships more people more weapons to overpower instead out out play someone would be terrible. Of course that's sort of what forceboard is now so that will need to go or be rewoekd. Maybe into some sort of NPC vs NPC thing? Not really sure but I do know a lot of the Ashtani sailors like the cage match fightingand so the people that are into seafaring for THAT will be disappointed and perhaps quit seafaring over it's removeal.
Windcutters do need an option other than running away though. They CAN board they CAN do hull damage. They can't hit sails, start fires AND do damage at the same time or traget the sails in any way. It IS possible for windcutters to fight but as Jules pointed out a lot of people spec Command/Watch and sail on their own unprepared and unable to forceboard or deal with a hostile boarding party and I've never never never ever seen a windcutter fire dics at me. That said when 2Hirst first took up the piratey ways all he had was a Windcutter and he was able to board and sink ships with it. And he did.
So how much of a Windcutter's inability to fight is the unwillingness or cutter captains to get a crew and not sail alone and fight back and how much of it is the inability for a cutter to do so effectively? I've never compared the damage of a ballista Vs an arm in ship Vs ship game of shot for shot. Maybe just giving the arm a better rate of fire would raise the DPS to make it WORTH using, along with accuracy tweaks and removal of loading balance like I suggested in the last classleads.
This seems like a perfectly simple solution.
As an addition to this, a simple way to ensure meaningful engagement with forceboarding would be to make one room (Cabin?) a saferoom in which attacks can't be made in room or LoS. That way, if being boarded, the Captain and crew could go to the cabin because they don't want to be slaughtered. They can token away if they want, but anything left on the deck, in the cabin, in the bait tank or what-have-you is forfeit to the pirates that boarded.
I'm very much behind forceboarding. I don't like it as a 'board the ship to smash anyone and everyone on board just because lolimapirate' - but more so for the roleplay value. I still revert back to that time @Hirst boarded a Cyrenian ship and held a poor girl hostage. Even had her contact Cyrene for a ransom of gold. They sent her a token instead of the gold, she got away safely. All in all, the ship got sunk and ended up costing more than the ransom to be brought back up. I think it's more meaningful to have interactions like this. They get away safely, don't get smashed to hell, but still have that experience for another time. The pirate gets his glory for sinking a ship and taking whatever might be on the ship. All are better for it, in the end.
Agree. First thing I thought of when people started complaining about that issue was "why aren't ships in the same "area" as the dock, for the purposes of game mechanics?
Seems simple enough.
@Sarapis I inquired to a ton of people about buying a ship recently and the cost completely turned me off, and I'm completely not the type to balk at the idea of buying credits/artefacts.
I think one of the biggest problems was not the raw price, but the fact that if I was going to pay so much to get a ship and utilize it, the idea that I then had to sit around raising morale and doing all these other things sidelined the "impulse buy" excitement of it.
Doesn't have to be both, but definitely one or the other needs to be tuned. Maybe decrease the cost of ships to those who have a certain amount of favor/status with a seafaring guild or something? Trainer missions? Don't know exactly, not a game designer obviously, just some thoughts.
The only thing is, we actually don't really need more people buying ships. We need more people sailing in groups on the ships that exist.
There are a few things that could be outright removed from seafaring.
Weather, sea conditions. The rougher the seas the slower you row. I'm sure it was supposed to add to the simulation feeling of seafaring but it just slows you down and has no impact beyond that.
Crew endurance. The hell even is this? I think you're supposed to go slower or your ship handles worse when crew endurance is low but I've never really noticed it and if it does slow you down then it's just like the weather system.
Crew experience gain needs to be looked at. Either it should go up or there needs to be more ways to gain it faster, the trade deal isn't worth it and the gain over time is so slow but there is a huge difference between a lubber and an elite crew and it takes months to years to get a crew that high and crew experience loss is the biggest hit you take when a ship is sunk. In line with that, as Suladan mentioned, losing trade goods when getting sunk not only has a gold value but a time value that is reminiscent of the old player XP loss on death in terms of the time investment lost and there isn't even a gain to be had from the attackers in this beyond laughing at the fact that someone lost X ammount of hours of work.
Sealegs yes it is the basic seafaring skill, but it is not that easy to get. You need a marque which means someone has to sail you somewhere and the whole time you're just tripping and puking and off balance. The whole thing is a giant "fuck you" to anyone on a ship without seafaring.
Sounding. It was useful in the early days when everyone had it and nobody knew the rules for diving/fishing areas. Now everyone knows the rule of thumb (with many exceptions) is that if you can see the shore you can't fish/dive there. So why us wounding a rank 3 (mayve 4?) ability in Deckhand the harded to get spec? Oh and the waters around Meropis need to be fixed. Both in the position they show when flares are fired from it appearing to be from the far ne of Sapience when it's to the south. And the fact that you can't fish/dive there. The waters NW of Meropis and N or Orilla would be great places for any expanded diving, sea monster or mission system. Right now they just exist as a place to move through and as pretty as it is the ASCII image in the chops goes pretty much unoticed.
And you won't understand the cause of your grief...
...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.
Someone (I think maybe it's Delph's link earlier in this thread) talked about sea storms being a thing over chops. I loved that, and it'll make sea weather more of a thing too. Lots of ways to implement this, especially for the southern seas (hai Notia).
I'm really 50/50 on forceboarding. I think it had a lot of good intention originally, but as always, leaving things in the hands of the player to do "responsibly" never ends up very well. For every good interaction Hirst has, he has ten bad ones, both on and off the sea. I can't really speak of many others, but I do know my only two sinkings have been because I was forceboarded and slaughtered, and unfortunately it turns it into a PK thing. Even with Kross' idea, I hesitate to say it would make it a lot richer. If people can abuse it... they will.
I don't have a lot else to contribute right this moment, a lot of what has been on my mind for ships has already been very much mentioned here, which is great. Probably my only (biased) contribution would be "please bring back Neraeos so he can interact with people via whatever means on the sea to make it 10x more interesting, along with all the static changes hopefully to come". But, that's me being biased, and obviously I know you can't exactly code in a God.
Really looking forward to where ships go. I miss them having more of an interesting purpose!
That love soon might end You are unbreaking
And be known in its aching Though quaking
Shown in this shaking Though crazy
Lately of my wasteland, baby That's just wasteland, baby
Ships are too pricey, as entry level and maintenance.
I would like access to small row boats, or solo sailing boats, to move around and explore Sapience.
I'd rather keep the wind system.
Just my two cents.
I'm not going to be very important, but I feel that I should say something.
I personally don't care much about the skills and SPPs and all that, sure, there could be some re-works, but I don't care either way, I'll adjust.
My problem is people not liking that people can hide/afk on ships. Firstly, I have a chest on my ship for my extra primes, and for my friend's primes as well. Second, and I'm speaking as a mom, but I do shipreturn and AFK on my ship to deal with my kids or my husband or even to research something for designing. My friend takes the ship out and sails and he knows if he sinks it, he has to raise it up, just like if I do. But I shouldn't have to feel like I should sell basically the only thing 'expensive' that my character has, and that's what this thread is making me feel.
Note: yes, I got the ship because Selene got killed off and everyone in the Order already had a ship, and I took care of it, so I do consider it mine.
/end rantyness
This isn't actually true. It's a bug. If you look at SHIP INFO after you use a helm ability, it wont be listed as working without you standing on the quarter deck. I had @shirszae once meld and try to use her helm abilities and it wouldn't let her. She CAN start them on the quarterdeck and then move onto the bow to meld, but the Helm ability turns off.
Keep wind.
You guys, none of that stuff even matters unless ship logs are fixed.
Okay only joking but on a real note mine only retains the log for the current month. I thought once I read that they were fixed but seemingly not.![:\](https://forums.achaea.com/resources/emoji/confused.png ":\")
If I can't "CAPTAINS LOG Stardate 43125.8 ..." and reference it later, all my dreams are crushed.
@Blujixapug, regarding PTV you can't do it from the outer islands, or ships parked at outer islands. You can do it from the wilderness if you enter the ocean with the use of a transoceanic orb, or you castoff with your ship and leave it undocked, risking it getting sunk by passing people.
It doesn't really stop people parking at islands like Prin, and using a token to return to the mainland and using shipreturn to return to the islands though. For someone like myself who has access to some islands through my wings, I do use shipreturn to return to the mainland and it's a nice convenience that I wouldn't want to lose, so any changes to shipreturn could be interesting to say the least.
I sometimes go fishing or diving, and sometimes I go and raise shrines on islands for people but that's the extent of my sailing. It's quite minuscule compared to the amount of time that other people spend sailing. I've always wanted to do trades because they sound immensely fun, but figuring them out (and the routes) has always been very daunting for someone that doesn't sail as often, and the amount of time involved, especially if you make mistakes is probably the most off putting aspect for me.
can i have a small boat with a single mast+sail and two oars please? I will call it lookfar and draw eyes on the sides of the front. I will also need an ability called windcall.
Get Jarrod's (I swear it's Jarrod but I keep forgetting if that's actually right) Strade thingy if you're Kyrra, or in the same boat as Kyrra on the purchase sequencing of trade deals. It lays out all of your purchase options in order, with harbour fees. But yes, without something like that, it would be a real pain. Does the trade sequence need to be as complicated as the supply chain for our "made in so many sweatshops the brand owner can't be held responsible" jeans? If nothing else, something like Strade should probably be a command in game.