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Comments
When it comes to sailing, those who have been doing it a while can generally spot the greenhorns from the seasoned. While that may not always spare them, there was at least a time when they were given a chance, via theatrics and putting a good scare into them, that they could learn from bring unprepared and make a better effort next time.
Hopefully that practice will carry on. New sailors just need to consider their words and actions carefully in such instances, as that will often ruin such a moment of leniency.
And you won't understand the cause of your grief...
...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.
Does the Deckhand perk of increased repair amount only count if the captain in question has the Deckhand aura active (i.e. I have someone in my crew with the Deckhand aura up, but I, myself, am not using it - even though I'm the one ordering repairs, will the ship's crew still get that increased chance)? (I'm assuming that none of the aura effects are actually passive, and require the aura to be activated in order to be useful - looking specifically at the ship XP/morale).
With Helm spec Smart Orders - does this individual have to be captain when this command is activated?
Somewhat related - do the other speed perks (faster rowing, chop penalty) work if the properly-activated-aura'd individual is just part of the crew, or do they need to be captain to fully utilize this perk?
As for seamonsters, I will have more to say about this in a few days after I've done more testing but my initial reaction is I'm very unhappy. Without hullgird the difficulty level is all over the place. I don't know what the devs did exactly in terms of their damage tweak to compensate for the removal of girds, but some monsters seem to now do either virtually no meaningful damage or insane amounts of damage, regardless of their difficulty category. It all feels very random and wonky. I admit, I may be missing something. I tried fighting them with a couple different auras in effect and didn't notice any real meaningful difference... +1 or 2 hull repair per tick means little when you take a burst of 20% hull damage + fire twice in a row. The same can be said for weapon speed. And that was in the kiddie pool. But then the Tapoa critters were even more unpredictable. Overall it was frustrating and not fun, but I understand (or at least hope) that it is a work in progress.
The kiddie pool monsters are way to hard now, except when they are not. The Tapoa critters are way too easy now, except when they are not. I shudder to image what the bigger zones are like.
And you won't understand the cause of your grief...
...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.
However, everyone has Hull Maintenance, now, so you can just use that if you're not the captain or don't want to take command.
Used to be crew perms would allow you to do a lot of questionable things, iirc, such as undocking the ship or changing direction, but not actually giving orders to row and set sails. Of course all of that was fixed a while back when ships kept getting stuck just out of harbour due to people thinking they could sail them with just crew perms.
* Septacean sea monsters are too strong for the kiddie pool since the gird change. They inflict considerable amounts of physical hull damage. Anchored with max level crew constantly repairing they still drop me into the 60-50's range. I feel their attack power should be reduced.
* Sheilei on the other hand inflict trivial amounts of damage. They tend to focus on their special attack which damages the sails and leaves the hull alone. When they do hit, which isn't for very much, the damage seems to be divided between sails and hull. They might need to be tweaked up just slightly.
* Sea Serpents are out of control Gods of Death!!! These things are harder than the pre-change Tapoa monsters used to be. These things are harder than fighting another seastrider with 3 experienced players on it used to be!!! Not only do they inflict waaaayyyy too much physical damage, they light your ship on fire almost constantly! There is also no way to tell just how 'on fire' your ship actually is at any given time. So when they drop you by 10-20%, you might drop another 10-20% almost immediately after... or hardly drop at all. I really could not determine if fire damage is applied uniformly or on an individual timer for each room that is burning... which makes it feel even more random. The rate at which they hit you with fire is also all over the place. Sometimes they machine-gun your ship with incendiary attacks in rapid succession, other times they seem to hardly bother. These things drive me into 30's in terms of hull strength. I shield, repair fully, and then they drive me into the 40's before they finally die. If you have even the slightest bit of lag or your connection rips even briefly, you are as good as sunk.
* Seamonster trophies seem to decay super fast now. I was horrified that I started getting messages that I was losing them after only an hour and a half of real time! That is seriously unacceptable. These things are supposed to last 1 game month. If you leave them on deck you won't even notice how many decayed. The devs already reduced the reward from 7k to 5k so this is a really crummy way to reduce the value further. Skye of the MG did suggest a possible reason for this and I'll copy her message here:
"there's actually a 'decay tick', it hits on the 1st and 13th of every Achaean month. So you see a lot of things that you only just purchased lose a month after it hits the 13th or the 1st. It's a bit random which tick causes the decay timer to go down."
That being said, this feels new. I can remember having one or two decay on me every once in awhile... but not more than one at a time! It was in fact the 13th when it happened though. Perhaps the solution is to extend the life of the trophies to two months like fish? I admit, I am paying closer attention to the small details then I ever have before so maybe this was secretly happening all along and I just didn't notice because I didn't pick up my trophies until I was ready to sell them...
Before anyone tries to argue that "seamonsters should be a challenge", keep in mind that these things now pay only 5k each and this is the kiddie pool we are talking about. Also keep in mind that kiddie pool monsters are on a 20 minute respawn timer. So the income this activity generates is fixed on the low end of the viability spectrum, and must be compared with 10k Tapoa, which might require more moving around and/or player crew, but also pays well enough to justify it without the extra delay tacked on.
I'll take a closer look at the Tapoa monsters as soon as I have another night I can devote.
You can keep track of how on-fire you are by noting which attacks set you on fire and counting those hits. When you get to 2-3, either rainstorm them away or take a moment to bucket douse them.
Agree that trophies shouldn't decay within the same month.
I absolutely agree that the larger monsters require moving around but it is also worth remembering that the larger monsters pay far better. You have already reduced the value of this activity multiple times. First you changed it from 10 minute respawn to 20 minute respawn. Then you reduced the value from 7k to 5k. Then you apparently made trophies decay too fast to ensure that long killing sprees would be subtly undercut. Now you have added in a movement requirement which tacks on additional time and effort and therefore diminishes returns still further and just made the whole activity (in the level one zones anyway) a horrendous experience.
The intention here is clear. You don't want people profiting from the zones. Its not about risk, its about economics. So here is my economic point of view -
Seafaring sucks right now. Yes, the recent changes are GOOD. I like almost all of them. Including the removal of hullgird from ship to ship combat. You hit a home run. But it doesn't matter if nobody leaves port and right now there is no reason to leave port.
Ships are only out on the seas regularly for one or three reasons: Trades, fishing and seamonstering. Decent trades have become so rare they are virtually unheard of and not worth the price of ship maintenance in-between. Fishing is a fixed minimum wage in a world where multi-classing has driven up prices ten to twenty fold since it was first implemented. As for seamonstering, if you make the newbie zones into an experience on par with the higher level zones, nobody is going to do them for any length of time. Nobody does the bigger zones for any length of time because it is an enormous investment of time, energy and risk when you could just bash and earn far more. They are at best an occasional novelty.
You can't reduce seamonstering of lower level areas to a mere novelty, never have any good trades, and expect people to dump tremendous sums of money, gold and time into a system that does not provide adequate rewards. And if ships are never on the water, who exactly are the pirates going to plunder?
I'm going to be honest with you. No drama. I'm at the point where I'm about ready to put my ships into permanent storage and call it quits, which I'm sure will make quite a few people happy. Before the hullgird change I was making far less per real day than a dragon who spends even a fraction of the time bashing, which is an activity I absolutely loathe. The seas of Achaea are the only part of the game I've managed to connect with but with no rewards being offered... they are not worth the price of admission. Right now they present the illusion of an activity, rather than actual activity.
Nothing has changed with the trophies since their implementation, if they're not behaving as they should then we will look into it, they should at minimum last the entire month.
As was said in the announce post where hullgird was removed, we are watching the damages vs ships and seamonsters and once we have a clear picture of things we will adjust if necessary.
Ships are expensive. Seafaring is a skill that must be learned. Ship upkeep is expensive. It is dangerous to be sailing. Being sank (sunk?) Is expensive. It takes a long time to earn gold or to sail to an island to bash (compared to main land).
The rewards for being on a ship just don't justify the investment. Why go sea monster killing to make less gold per hour than I can bash?
These would be where you take a few new hands for a round or two to learn the good habits and get the syntaxes down before you move onto the activity proper where gold earning is more appropriate (since we increased the rewards) for the efforts expended and risks encountered.
Anaria's issue is that she hunts exclusively by anchor-tanking in kiddie pools with a seastrider, generating gold with minimal effort at effectively zero risk, which is why the L1 zones keep getting nerfed. There's plenty of money to be made in fighting monsters that actually matter, but she insists on hunting only in that manner, and it skews her perspective of the system. Complaining that the kiddie pool isn't lucrative enough is like a Dragon complaining that Manara isn't worth bashing anymore. That's the point, there are other places you're supposed to hunt as a Dragon, and other areas you're supposed to hunt in a seastrider.
Monster hunting writ large is very lucrative. With a good crew of 3 in a seastrider, I was pulling 100k/hr in the Phocian, and the payouts have been increased since then. Split 3 ways, 33k/hr might not be great by artefacted Dragon standards, but for an unartefacted level 80 with some Seafaring? That's awesome. Now Hullgird's gone, and some monsters are doing too much damage, that's a legitimate issue that the Garden has said they're working on assessing and fixing. But the inability to make tons of gold by solo'ing kiddie pools in a seastrider at no risk? That's intentional, and thus not going to be "fixed".
That's nothing personal against Anaria. Some of her points are valid, and if she wants to chill and grind the kiddie pools because it's fun or relaxing, that's fine, go nuts. But it doesn't make sense to declare that the whole system is worthless and broken because you insist on hunting below your means.
And you won't understand the cause of your grief...
...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.
Should sea monster gold be on par with hunting? Should crafted items (the main source of income for a lot of players) prices be scaled up to match hunting gains?