Latest batch of seafaring changes!

Tahquil

You can if you make comms ridiculous prices, which would also buff those who make their profit from mining.

Point is, not every way to make gold should be expected to match the other ways to make gold. They are (mostly) independant systems to give people choices in alternative play styles.

Tahquil

Also if you really think seamonster gold should match bashing gold, an alternative could be to decrease bashing gold to match.

So be careful what your wishing for
 @nicola @makarios

Kiet

You can't make comms ridiculous prices since the players set the prices....

Tahquil

You realise your pointing to my purposefully ridiculous points and yelling " but thats ridiculous!"?

I am, in fact, trying to point out that it is indeed ridiculous to expect ever profit gathering method to match each other.

Skye

Kiet said:

You can't actually make crafted items sell for more gold, though. You can, however, buff gold given straight from in-game activities that involve no trading.

You can if you make crafted items a necessity rather than an optional #hypothermia

Kiet

Tahquil said:

You realise your pointing to my purposefully ridiculous points and yelling " but thats ridiculous!"?

I am, in fact, trying to point out that it is indeed ridiculous to expect ever profit gathering method to match each other.

It is not ridiculous for two activities with roughly the same overall scheme (hit npcs, get gold) to be on par.

Tahquil

It is if your only looking at it like they are the same thing.

Sea monster hunting =/= bashing.

Antonius

How is sea monster hunting not just bashing using a ship?

Czanthria

With the recent changes, I had hoped that ship bearings would provide more detailed location information for our VIP players.  For those of you, like me, that can look; it's easy to get docked.  For someone that is a VIP, docking can be difficult.  With the current ship bearings system you lose the directional information when you get within 10 tiles of the harbor.  I'm curious if there are any plans in the future to change this?

Cooper

@Aerek 100k an hour split over 3 people isn't dragon or artefacted hunting. High level, sure. But I can pull almost 100k an hour myself in dragon form with just a level 1 pendant and str gauntlets.

There are over 300 active dragons right now. Why would any of those dragons want to spend time on a ship when they can make gold faster and easier bashing?

That only shows how bad the rewards for sailing are!

Nicola

Gold from seamonster bashing isn't affected by the gold generation limitations that you'll encounter from bashing and gold drops!

Tahquil

Sitting next to a monster plugging away at it isnt the best strategy for starters. You can't kill out a zone and have to move else where. You can't garuntee what will arise, different sea monsters need different tactics to kill instead of setting a script running and watching youtube. To do it well you need a group of people taking different roles and doing them well to be efficient.

May seem controversial but i would liken it more like raiding mechanics wise. You need to be on your toes, you need to be with a goos crew that has you back but instead of defenders your just being wailled on by the city guardian and you goal is to murder it for phat loots.

Shirszae

Tahquil said:

Sitting next to a monster plugging away at it isnt the best strategy for starters. You can't kill out a zone and have to move else where. You can't garuntee what will arise, different sea monsters need different tactics to kill instead of setting a script running and watching youtube. To do it well you need a group of people taking different roles and doing them well to be efficient.

May seem controversial but i would liken it more like raiding mechanics wise. You need to be on your toes, you need to be with a goos crew that has you back but instead of defenders your just being wailled on by the city guardian and you goal is to murder it for phat loots.

So, uh... Why exactly should it not at least have the same gold rewards as bashing? Nothing of what you said addresses that. In fact, if anything you've pointed out it is harder than regular bashing, which is even more of a reason to have at least the same rewards, not less.

Tahquil

It is harder than regular bashing. The point is, it's not bashing. It is its own system that provides an alternative gold gathering route. If your in it just for gold, go bash. If you like a challenge, like to feel the wind in you hair and dont really care about maximising profits, go sea monster hunting. Noone is forcing anyone to use seamonsters as their only source of income.

Actually, can anyone name another gold generating system that is on par with bashing returns?

Kiet

If I just want a challenge for no reason I'm going to pk or learn fencing irl, I'm not going to engage in pve. The industry standard is for pve to have meaningful rewards.

That said, I haven't even seamonster hunted since the gold changes, so maybe it's good now!

Ahmet

Kiet said:

industry standard

I feel like these two words should never be put together when referring to Achaea.

Tahquil

Kiet said:

If I just want a challenge for no reason I'm going to pk or learn fencing irl, I'm not going to engage in pve. The industry standard is for pve to have meaningful rewards.

That said, I haven't even seamonster hunted since the gold changes, so maybe it's good now!

That's what you prefer, so be it. Different strokes for different blokes.

There is nothing like the rush of adrenaline sailing circles around a sea monster and popping away at it in  my opinion. That's why I did most of my hunting on a windcutter. Was it the most effective method? No. Did I get boss gloating rights for doing something everyone thought impossible? Yes. Did I get massive ecstatic boosts every time I killed something in a level 2 area? Ohhh you god damn bet I did. I imagine the rush and giddy glee of surviving is similiar to what people feel when they are getting into PvP.

I don't think I can really say anything new for this argument that I haven't already said. Not all meaningful rewards are xp or money. Sea monster hunting (though similiar in some aspects) is not land based bashing. If you're only looking for maximising gold generation, sea monster hunting may not be your jam. We can argue in circles but in the end it's Mak and Nicola's choice and I guess we just wait and see their verdict because as I;ve been told before : OH GOD, YOU REALISE YOU'RE ARGUING WITH KIET RIGHT? ABANDON SHIP.

Kinilan

Dark Souls Vs God Of War.

Aerek

@Cooper You misread my statement. I said monstering isn't comparable to artefacted/dragon bashing. Not much is going to compare to Dragons looping Catacombs/Annwyn. But if you're not artefacted/dragon, it's some of the best money you can make. If gold is all you care about, then no, sea monstering isn't your thing. It's not a bashing replacement, and it's harder than bashing to begin with. But if you enjoy sailing or like team-based PvE, the rewards are comparable to what I'd say are average bashing earnings. (And far above average if you can't bash the "good" places yet)

Like Tahquil, I enjoy the thrill of sea monsters more than the repetition of actual bashing. That's why there's 1 Windcutter in the top 20 of the monster rankings, and why the Durande has the highest AVG level in the top 20. It was more fun by far than hunting, and I still made enough gold to feel it was worth my time. If anything, that is my one complaint about the kiddie pool nerfs: because folks in seastriders and galleys kept grinding them, the L1 zones had to be adjusted, and now there's nowhere a windcutter can go hunt and get that thrill. 20 minutes between monster spawns is long and boring.

Tahquil

Oh pffffft, We were doing Tapoa fiiiiiiine. However, RIP seahag dream.

Aerek

We need something to do while we recharge the figurehead!

Anaria

Nicola said:

It's worth noting that tier one zones are designed as training zones, they have had their cooldowns increased and their gold reduced because they're not meant to be lucrative.

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.

Perhaps you could explain what part of seafaring is meant to be lucrative, since no part of it currently is?

The vast majority of us sail solo. Getting a crew together is not something that can happen on a regular or reliable basis for most us. You have already acknowledged this in some of your comments regarding the auras change. Leaving that aside...

If you require 2 people for a level 2 zone, your split is 5000. Identical to the kiddie pool.
If you require 3 people for a level 3 zone, your split is 5000. Identical to the kiddie pool.
If you require... you get the idea.

I'm not saying seafaring income needs to be equal with end game dragon bashing. I was unhappily content with the income I was generating prior to the hullgird change. That being said, asking players to invest millions of gold and/or real money into a system that generates chicken scratch in a world where we see more and more 18-year old dragons fully capable of bashing out insane returns per hour is ludicrous. 

The level one zones are accessible and were fun for everybody, whereas the the higher level zones are not. Calling them "training zones" that are not meant to be lucrative is pretty much saying solo seafaring is not meant to be lucrative, which is pretty much saying: seafaring is not meant to be lucrative.

Mindshell

Fade to black...

Melodie

Anaria said:

Nicola said:

It's worth noting that tier one zones are designed as training zones, they have had their cooldowns increased and their gold reduced because they're not meant to be lucrative.

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.

Perhaps you could explain what part of seafaring is meant to be lucrative, since no part of it currently is?

The vast majority of us sail solo. Getting a crew together is not something that can happen on a regular or reliable basis for most us. You have already acknowledged this in some of your comments regarding the auras change. Leaving that aside...

If you require 2 people for a level 2 zone, your split is 5000. Identical to the kiddie pool.
If you require 3 people for a level 3 zone, your split is 5000. Identical to the kiddie pool.
If you require... you get the idea.

I'm not saying seafaring income needs to be equal with end game dragon bashing. I was unhappily content with the income I was generating prior to the hullgird change, and I know others were content with their Tapoa income (which ended up being about the same). 

Asking players to invest millions of gold and/or real money into a system that generates chicken scratch in a world where we see more and more 18-year old dragons fully capable of bashing out insane returns per hour is ludicrous. 

The level one zones are accessible and were fun for everybody, whereas the the higher level zones are not. Calling them "training zones" that are not meant to be lucrative is pretty much saying solo seafaring is not meant to be lucrative, which is pretty much saying: seafaring is not meant to be lucrative.

The bolded is untrue (and sort of undermines a large portion of your post). In fact, I very rarely sail without at least one other person these days, because then at least if we stroll onto someone, they can clear rigging while I do the rest. I know the majority of Mhaldor also adopts this pose, and I would like to believe the rest of the cities are similar, from what I've encountered. I've also hunted sea monsters before with just myself and one other, and while it is definitely not the most ideal situation, it was doable. People find 1-2 buddies to do small group fighting with all of the time - seafaring really isn't any different (other than the barrier to entry, which I would agree is a point I feel should be addressed in general), just people with different interests.

Aerek

Where L1 zone monster spawns are capped 20 minutes apart, L2 and L3 zones spawn essentially as fast as you can kill them. It was not uncommon to kill a sea hag, and have another spawn immediately. The faster you kill one, the faster you get another, the more you make per hour. That's a big difference, and that's where the money is.

Taraus

You know, I'm pretty sure Tahquil hit the nail on the head with describing the BIGGEST payoff that comes from seafaring.

Why should seafaring be overly lucrative? I sure as shit never got into seafaring thinking "WHOA I'M GONNA GO MAKE SOME MONEY NOW." And I'm fairly certain, with as many boats as I've bought and tricked out over the years, I've spent more at it than I've made.

If it helps, have a nice, healthy dose of realism: anyone who's ever owned a boat IRL will tell you that it's a hole in the water you just throw money into.

Seamonstering is, in my opinion, just a nice side addition to the main course.

You want an easy route to making gold at sea you don't have to share? Go fish somewhere.

Just, you know. Watch out for pirates.

Anaria

Aerek said:

Where L1 zone monster spawns are capped 20 minutes apart, L2 and L3 zones spawn essentially as fast as you can kill them. It was not uncommon to kill a sea hag, and have another spawn immediately. The faster you kill one, the faster you get another, the more you make per hour. That's a big difference, and that's where the money is.

The assumption here is that you can retain extra players for meaningful lengths of time. 

For example: If you spend 8 hours killing monsters in a L2 zone with two players, you will make meaningfully more money after the split then you would spending 8 hours alone killing monsters in an L1 zone. But for the difference to be meaningful, the time spent has to be considerable.

Leaving aside the difficulty of finding even one player with trans seafaring who is willing to hunt with you as a crewmate on a regular basis, finding players who have the willingness and the free time to invest large chunks of hunting time and who share your schedule is virtually impossible for the vast majority of us. To earn an income from ANY leveling of seamonstering that is even remotely satisfying or competitive, a great deal of time has to be sunk into the activity, and this must be done on a regular basis. Right now, that is essentially impossible for almost all of us. 

Antonius

Taraus said:

Why should seafaring be overly lucrative?

Why shouldn't it be? I honestly don't understand why a few people seem to be so attached to the rewards continuing to be underwhelming. If they were comparable to what a high level player could make bashing in the same timeframe, more high level players may actually choose to spend their time out on the seas rather than bashing. Personally I don't like Seafaring, and I don't think the rewards are ever going to be high enough to make it an attractive alternative to bashing, so it doesn't matter to me in the least, but it seems like an odd position to take.

Aerek

It doesn't make sense for Seafaring to not be lucrative, but no one (that I've read) is saying that. What people are saying is that Seafaring isn't a bashing replacement, and isn't intended to be. If all you want to do is generate gold, there are always going to be cheaper/more efficient ways to do that. Monster hunting is group PVE, an exciting team activity that brings folks together in a unique setting that ALSO happens to pay in gold if you're good at it.

Now, I have zero issue with raising the payout for monsters even further than they already have. It could be be better, and that'd be great for me. The only reason I keep posting is because people are blowing the issue wildly out of proportion. The only people in this thread who are saying monster hunting isn't lucrative are A. artefacted Dragons who loop Annwyn and represent the extreme end of the gold-earning spectrum, and B. people who only want to solo-grind the L1 zones, which represents the lowest possible end of the monster-hunting spectrum. Those are two opposite extremes that don't represent the average, and thus the perspectives of Seafaring from those extremes are skewed.

I am a lightly artefacted Dragon who can't easily hunt DKs/Annwyn/etc. I can make about 30k/hr bashing things that I can easily handle, or I can make 30k/hr seamonster hunting. For me, 30k/hr is worth it, plus I find the thrill of monsters more fun. Every midbie that I've taken out sea hunting has been blown away by the earning potential, and wants to do it more. If 30-40k/hr is not enough gold for you, I'd say you have very high expectations, and that a Seafaring faucet that could pour out the kind of money you want (100k/hr per person?) is not a reasonable expectation. If you think 15k/hr from grinding L1 zones is too low, I agree with you! But instead of saying that L1 zones need to be better so you can continue to anchor-tank monsters that (should, once fixed) have no risk of killing you, I'd say that 15k/hr is reasonable for the low amount of risk you're taking, and if you want more, you should gather a crew and go fight real monsters like you're supposed to.

The system is not perfect, but it's not as broken as people are making it sound.

Aerek

Anaria said:

The assumption here is that you can retain extra players for meaningful lengths of time. 

For example: If you spend 8 hours killing monsters in a L2 zone with two players, you will make meaningfully more money after the split then you would spending 8 hours alone killing monsters in an L1 zone. But for the difference to be meaningful, the time spent has to be considerable.

You spend 1 hour, alone, in a kiddie pool, kill 1 monster every 20 min because spawns are capped at every 20 min, 5k per, and make 15k. I spend 1hr in the Phocian with 3, I can kill 1 monster about every 5-10min because they have no spawn cap, 15k per, and make 90k-120k total, 30k-40k per person. I make 200%-260% your earnings, in the same amount of time.

Difficulty finding crew is valid, I don't get to go out every day. Difficulty dealing with higher damage post-Hullgird is valid, I probably can't kill Phocian critters in 10min anymore, until the rebalancing is done. But limiting yourself to the L1 zones because there's no risk to you, solo, in a strider, is still your problem, the system is not meant to be gamed in the way you're gaming it. If parking a ship in the kiddie pool and plugging away is the only way you liked monster hunting, it's fair to say the system is not really designed for you. I don't get why you would like that sort of repetitive action and not regular hunting.