Seamonstering changes?

Antonius

Shirszae said:

Every other argument aside, achaea has an unfortunate habit of 'fixing' things simply by making them not worth doing, and this is another example of that. 

Is it that they're not actually worth doing any more or that people just don't feel like they're worth doing now that they don't generate millions of gold in a day?

If a level 4 seamonster is worth 50k on a 10 minute timer it's possible to make 300k per hour (with no diminishing returns, and no cap).

How many people, spread across how many ships, do you actually need to hunt those areas with relatively low risk?

Aldare

You have to think if you are at the ATM and it starts spitting out 100s instead of 20s that there might be a problem with it and the bank is going to get their money back. ATMs have been around forever and yet mistakes still happen and you can't say ohhhh well I didn't agree to having to report to you that your machine gave me too much money. 

Keorin

Antonius said:

Shirszae said:

Every other argument aside, achaea has an unfortunate habit of 'fixing' things simply by making them not worth doing, and this is another example of that. 

Is it that they're not actually worth doing any more or that people just don't feel like they're worth doing now that they don't generate millions of gold in a day?

If a level 4 seamonster is worth 50k on a 10 minute timer it's possible to make 300k per hour (with no diminishing returns, and no cap).

How many people, spread across how many ships, do you actually need to hunt those areas with relatively low risk?

It sounds like the issues are less the changes to the level four zones (which sound to be very clearly needed) so much as the issues with the lower level ones, which were fine and are now pretty worthless.

Antonius

Keorin said:

Antonius said:

Shirszae said:

Every other argument aside, achaea has an unfortunate habit of 'fixing' things simply by making them not worth doing, and this is another example of that. 

Is it that they're not actually worth doing any more or that people just don't feel like they're worth doing now that they don't generate millions of gold in a day?

If a level 4 seamonster is worth 50k on a 10 minute timer it's possible to make 300k per hour (with no diminishing returns, and no cap).

How many people, spread across how many ships, do you actually need to hunt those areas with relatively low risk?

It sounds like the issues are less the changes to the level four zones (which sound to be very clearly needed) so much as the issues with the lower level ones, which were fine and are now pretty worthless.

What are the gold values for the lower level zones? How many people and ships do you need to hunt in them?

Armali

For a level 1-2, you only need one person in a strider if you want to put in some work, and two people in a galley for almost complete safety and effortlessness.
Payout is 5000 for a level 1 monster, 7500 for a level 2. Level 2 nests (of which there's only one as far as I know) have a chance to spawn a level 3 (Kashari raider), which can be kind of hairy and you may need to run from it if you're solo in a strider.

For a level 3, for safety you want two people in a galley. Payout is 15,000. Level 3 nests have a chance to spawn a leviathan (a level 5), which you generally will want to run away from.

For a level 4 nest, for safety you generally want about 4 people, over at least 2 galleys. The more the better of course, but I've done 2 per galley easily with minimal effort. They also have a chance to spawn a leviathan. Payout is 50,000 per. I've seen a level 4 done with two people in two galleys, but not with any real consistency. There's still a decent risk you'll get sunk or need to bail and lose the spawn.

For a level 5 nest, I wouldn't want to tackle it reliably without at least 6 people and two galleys, and even then it can get dicey. The more galleys you have, of course, the safer it'll get since you won't be knocking each other's fire rates. Payout it 100,000 per.

Something I've noticed is that the level 5 nests have a much longer timer (an hour) vs the lower ones, which seem consistently to be 10 minutes.

Astarod

Armali said:

For a level 1-2, you only need one person in a strider if you want to put in some work, and two people in a galley for almost complete safety and effortlessness.
Payout is 5000 for a level 1 monster, 7500 for a level 2. Level 2 nests (of which there's only one as far as I know) have a chance to spawn a level 3 (Kashari raider), which can be kind of hairy and you may need to run from it if you're solo in a strider.

For a level 3, for safety you want two people in a galley. Payout is 15,000. Level 3 nests have a chance to spawn a leviathan (a level 5), which you generally will want to run away from.

For a level 4 nest, for safety you generally want about 4 people, over at least 2 galleys. The more the better of course, but I've done 2 per galley easily with minimal effort. They also have a chance to spawn a leviathan. Payout is 50,000 per. I've seen a level 4 done with two people in two galleys, but not with any real consistency. There's still a decent risk you'll get sunk or need to bail and lose the spawn.

For a level 5 nest, I wouldn't want to tackle it reliably without at least 6 people and two galleys, and even then it can get dicey. The more galleys you have, of course, the safer it'll get since you won't be knocking each other's fire rates. Payout it 100,000 per.

Something I've noticed is that the level 5 nests have a much longer timer (an hour) vs the lower ones, which seem consistently to be 10 minutes.

I would say this is completely correct. 

So you can have 30,000 max hourly payout or 45,000 with one person on a galley if they get a pool to themself, then with L3s, you can have 45,000 split between two people. L4s you kind of want 4 people, two galleys, so 75,000 per hour. 

Armali

For those of you too lazy to look back:

Let's say you have six ships and you pulled as soon as your timer was up.
Assuming perfect rotations (unlikely, sometimes the monsters don't play ball) and no time wastage during killing (very possible if you only have one person per ship to maximize fire rate), in a 10 minute spawn nest that pays out 50,000 per (a typical level 4 nest - there's more than one, Zanzi is just the easiest to get to), you earn 300,000 across the group every 10 minutes, or 1.8 million over an hour.
I'm assuming there's some hyperbole involved in the news post, and we shouldn't quibble that specific number, but if you DO want to quibble, this is how much gold you might plausibly make at a maximum.
EDIT: There's a quirk with most nests above two where there's a low chance (let's say 10%) to spawn a leviathan, worth 100,000 gold per. Judging by the above numbers, let's say you've pulled 3 leviathans. You can add 150,000 to your hourly total, to get 1.95 million.

You can just keep adding ships to spawn MORE monsters, but the payout per person caps at around 300 to 400,000 per hour. For example, you could have 60 ships to kill 60 monsters per 10 minutes, killing 360 total, but that would still only net you 360,000 per hour per person. This is almost the same as in the above scenario, where the pay out is 325,000 per hour per person.

Of course, that was under the old paradigm. But it's a good point of comparison to see where it was and where it is now.

Akri

Armali said:

For a level 1-2, you only need one person in a strider if you want to put in some work, and two people in a galley for almost complete safety and effortlessness.
Payout is 5000 for a level 1 monster, 7500 for a level 2. Level 2 nests (of which there's only one as far as I know) have a chance to spawn a level 3 (Kashari raider), which can be kind of hairy and you may need to run from it if you're solo in a strider.

For a level 3, for safety you want two people in a galley. Payout is 15,000. Level 3 nests have a chance to spawn a leviathan (a level 5), which you generally will want to run away from.

For a level 4 nest, for safety you generally want about 4 people, over at least 2 galleys. The more the better of course, but I've done 2 per galley easily with minimal effort. They also have a chance to spawn a leviathan. Payout is 50,000 per. I've seen a level 4 done with two people in two galleys, but not with any real consistency. There's still a decent risk you'll get sunk or need to bail and lose the spawn.

For a level 5 nest, I wouldn't want to tackle it reliably without at least 6 people and two galleys, and even then it can get dicey. The more galleys you have, of course, the safer it'll get since you won't be knocking each other's fire rates. Payout it 100,000 per.

Something I've noticed is that the level 5 nests have a much longer timer (an hour) vs the lower ones, which seem consistently to be 10 minutes.

Agreed with level 1-2. But one person on a galley can also hunt these with nearly zero risk (the exception being hostile players).

Level 3 and 4, two people on a strider with good crew can take these down and especially the latter is pretty good gold then. Minor risk, not as fast as with two galleys, but the timer also becomes a near non-issue. For safety, the above is probably true. 

Personally I feel restricting this change to level 4 and 5 nests, mayyybe level 3 nests, would have been enough. The payout makes these worth doing still, as this change doesn't affect a single ship taking on level 4's. But letting people murder all the 7500 gold monsters to level up crew or fill figureheads or just practice isn't really going to break the economy, especially as the amount of trophies paid for are limited. 

Tahquil

Raise diving output k thx.

The true high risk occupation.

Lissuria

Akri said:

Armali said:

For a level 1-2, you only need one person in a strider if you want to put in some work, and two people in a galley for almost complete safety and effortlessness.
Payout is 5000 for a level 1 monster, 7500 for a level 2. Level 2 nests (of which there's only one as far as I know) have a chance to spawn a level 3 (Kashari raider), which can be kind of hairy and you may need to run from it if you're solo in a strider.

For a level 3, for safety you want two people in a galley. Payout is 15,000. Level 3 nests have a chance to spawn a leviathan (a level 5), which you generally will want to run away from.

For a level 4 nest, for safety you generally want about 4 people, over at least 2 galleys. The more the better of course, but I've done 2 per galley easily with minimal effort. They also have a chance to spawn a leviathan. Payout is 50,000 per. I've seen a level 4 done with two people in two galleys, but not with any real consistency. There's still a decent risk you'll get sunk or need to bail and lose the spawn.

For a level 5 nest, I wouldn't want to tackle it reliably without at least 6 people and two galleys, and even then it can get dicey. The more galleys you have, of course, the safer it'll get since you won't be knocking each other's fire rates. Payout it 100,000 per.

Something I've noticed is that the level 5 nests have a much longer timer (an hour) vs the lower ones, which seem consistently to be 10 minutes.

Agreed with level 1-2. But one person on a galley can also hunt these with nearly zero risk (the exception being hostile players).

Level 3 and 4, two people on a strider with good crew can take these down and especially the latter is pretty good gold then. Minor risk, not as fast as with two galleys, but the timer also becomes a near non-issue. For safety, the above is probably true. 

Personally I feel restricting this change to level 4 and 5 nests, mayyybe level 3 nests, would have been enough. The payout makes these worth doing still, as this change doesn't affect a single ship taking on level 4's. But letting people murder all the 7500 gold monsters to level up crew or fill figureheads or just practice isn't really going to break the economy, especially as the amount of trophies paid for are limited. 

I can say from personal experience, sailing with Tofi, that with us on a Strider, me on the ballista, her on the other two, and hunting the nest near Sapphire, that we were just fine. Yes, we'd have to stop and repair once in awhile.  Yes we'd have to run like heck from a Levi or something huge like that, but we were fine.

Also, if anyone wants to sell their galley because they are pissed about the nerfing, I'll buy a used galley at 1/4 value. 

Armali

For a level three, I just use two people on ONE galley. There may have been a misunderstanding there in thinking I meant two people each on their own galley.

Paux

I just do a thong and if I make more gold doing that thing than other things,  I do that more. 

I never question "are black rats dropping 45 gold instead of the 32 in used to? Is this a bug? Let me stop doing this because it pays well."

Cobault

The obvious solution here was/is to make nests so that any other ship in range that fires on the monster that is already being fought boosts its health and damage output a la forays to scale to group size.

This opens it up to not only make it impossible to overcome as a group activity, but an active field for trolls to frolic and boost the saltiness of the sea!

Sarcasm aside: Seafaring has been getting patched and patched and patched ever since it was released. Almost every time [that I've seen,] it has been a change that made it "flat out not worth doing" --

I think the entire act of seafaring needs an overhaul of some kind. Even if the overhaul is something as simple as a global gold cap to go with the hunting cap, it needs some kind of limiters in place. The middle ground I always see Achaea struggle to find is how they balance the "I PLAY 16+ HOURS A DAY" folks from the casual folks that play when they have the time to spare for some Achaea. The former will always ruin gameplay mechanics for the latter, the same can really be said for any game that has any kind of grindable economy.

Thaisen

I think there should be a random chance of a "swam" of angry seamonsters livid about you hunting them that scales based on ships (count and type) within like 300 spots from the nest (so you can't just game it by sitting outside the nest)...

If you survive the swarm (that they themselves offer no trophies) you can continue on hunting and making money....otherwise get to salvaging...

Accipiter

Remove nests and have monsters spawn randomly.

Kresslack

Accipiter said:

Remove nests and have monsters spawn randomly.

I'm somewhat on board with this. Instead of removing nests and having them spawn randomly, just increase the areas by large swathes in which they have a chance to spawn. Within these large areas could also be actual 'nests' that change location every so often and that if stumbled upon will potentially provoke the ire of a protective set of parents.

It would also kinda be interesting to see Seafaring forays associated with this such as finding certain nests, wounding the protector(s) of it (or killing them outright if possible) and then recovering eggs or some sort of valuable material that isn't a trophy in and of itself, and returning it to a vendor.

Completing these could reward those in the foray group a 'chit' that could be redeemed for certain things, like those ship furniture crates you get from some of the trade deals.

Kuriel

I know that I'm six months late to this...party?...but I need to express my utter anguish that @Endryn and others called out the pirates for not policing them but failed to mention how I SELFLESSLY and for the GREATER GOOD of Achaea PERSONALLY policed those six-ship hunts by sailing solo right into them like a maniac:



I did this at least once a month, sunk one of you (almost) every time, and frequently broke up the entire seamonster hunt. I demand credit!!

Laedha

Kuriel said:

I know that I'm six months late to this...party?...but I need to express my utter anguish that @Endryn and others called out the pirates for not policing them but failed to mention how I SELFLESSLY and for the GREATER GOOD of Achaea PERSONALLY policed those six-ship hunts by sailing solo right into them like a maniac:



I did this at least once a month, sunk one of you (almost) every time, and frequently broke up the entire seamonster hunt. I demand credit!!

I guess you just didn't sink enough of them and the admin had to step in. Poor show! Try harder. 

Senoske

Not sure why this hasn't been suggested, but why not make the seamonsters scale with the amount of ships hitting it? Allow it to hit multiple ships if x amount is within the area. Or allow it to call friends. Nothing like one mob turning suddenly into 8 to make ships full of people poop themselves and run away imo. OR make more interesting seamonsters, maybe the Leviathan can now puke on ships and babies begin running rampant on the ship, hungry for the people aboard? That'd be fun and interesting. *pewpew* *PLECH* Oh shit.

There's a lot of ways to fix it.

As an additional thing, ya'll are DAMN lucky. When this type of abuse happened with Seafaring trades they took all the gold and shrubbed the people involved. Quit yer bitchin'.
As an additional to my additional, the fact that this was pretty obviously ignored by the admins is kind of sad.

Blame belongs on both sides, as it has with every other seafaring issue. But seriously, there's a lot of ways this can be resolved and make things interesting.