A suggestion about sailing

BelThorne · Nov 7, 2006

Hi all,

Here's my 2 cents worth on officer skills.

1. Use passenger slots for officers, this allows for having one of each officer type. (not just 3)
(Not sure what you'd do about your companions ships)

2. Allow roles to be assigned. (so when you pick up that doctor with 10 sailing, you can give him a proper job)
Also, only allow one of each officer type. (for simplicities sake, no multiple gunners, etc) all other passengers, get assigned a job position of "passenger" or similar.

3. Effective skill (eg navigation) is the officers (navigators) skill plus half the players skill.

4. If no officer assigned, effective skill is a percentage of the players skill based on the class of ship.
Eg. In a class 6 or 7, use all players skill. (so no officers required.)
In a class 1 ship, use 10% of his skill (Ship too big to manage without officers.)

5. Perks available/applied are Players + relevant class perks for officers. (eg, gunnery bonus perks have to be owned by player or gunner to be effective.)

6. Make it MUCH harder to find high level officers. I'm running across lots of level 20 - 40 officers while only level 15 myself.

Not sure how hard all this would be, but, along with a bit more officer interaction, would make the ships much more fun!

Black Bart · Nov 7, 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jonathan Aldridge @ Nov 7 2006, 01:12 AM) [snapback]170216[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'>
..........

6. Make it MUCH harder to find high level officers. I'm running across lots of level 20 - 40 officers while only level 15 myself.
</div>

Yeah its odd that - the level of Officer available seems to rise faster than the players level(i think luck has something to do with it, maybe some other stuff also?). Still its not to the players advantage really. The best time to get officers is when you are level 1 i.e at game start.

I always get atleast 8 core officers from Oxbay tavern while still level 1(it helped me find the double char bug among others). The reason is that you can better shape the officers into being better at the tasks you want them to perform.
With a self-made level 5 officer(for example) they might have some odd skill selections, things that dont actualy help them be better at boarding/cannons etc.

So in a perverse way all these quickly available higher level Officers actualy hinder the players pwnage of the game, which is where for me most of this games issues lie; its never been a well balanced game providing a gradual improvement as you put the time in, thus you never get a great sense of player endevour=worthy reward. It all comes a bit quick and kind of falls in your lap.

So imperfect high level oficers, while not ideal, have a place currently? maybe.

Most of my suggestions for changes(all though not all) in future builds generaly come from the viewpoint i want to stretch the game out, make the player work longer/harder for the better rewards.
Still its not a currently in-vogue theme in game-design, where its all about instant player gratification for most of the mainstream releases.
Thats why most modern games are pretty short love-affairs - they are designed that way to keep the player finishing more quickly so they go out and buy another. And its why younger players in particular, generaly have the attitude of rushing to the 'cheat' or getting the best items as quickly as possible.

Its not thier fault - its what they've grown up accustomed to. make it easy, make it fast, make it as short as we can get away with. ultimately make them buy more games.

I count myself as being lucky i've been around to take part in the birth(more or less) of the medium, and so i've seen a different approach, a more generous one if you like. Its why i was suprised when i got hold of PotC for the first time. Here was a console game(i got it on xbox) that even though disguised as some awful disney thing movie tie-in(not a bad movie actualy), which should have automaticly made it rubbish(as are the new games based on the new PotC movies); somehow it retained 'its soul' and underneath was a game based on the old-school design principles of making a game as good and as generous as can be.

I put hundreds of hours into the xbox game, never finishing due to various flaws/bugs and simply because this really was one of those games(like Elite/Pirates/Civ etc) that wasn't all about the finishing(and buying a new game) - it was about replayability and doing your own thing. A sadly much neglected factor in modern gaming.

Anyway, why this little story? I'm not sure - it just seemed to flow while thinking on your post and point 6 in particular <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="

" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

BelThorne · Nov 7, 2006

I see what you mean about getting high level officers with not so useful perks/skills ballancing out against one's you build up yourself.
My problem though was that I'd spent some time building up my officers, picking custom skins, getting a bit attached to them and then - BAM - came accross a level 44 officer who (after assiging free skil points) had a perfect 10 in every stat. Pretty much made everyone else redundant. (I did have 10 luck at this point)

On a related note, I'd sugest putting in a check so you can only find an officer every three or so days. Making them more of a rare and valuable find. No more bouncing in and out of taverns...

On the other topic, I'm all in favor of lengthing out a game. One thing I thought of was to add a small empire building side to the game:
Something that would be fun is if you could go visit the land grants you get from the governers. And having that, you could change the building mod so that you could only build things on your own land. Thus giving you "Your estate" to develop. (Rather then plunking random buildings down in the middle of town/jungle)
Add pirate attacks to test your fortifications and you have a whole new area of character growth.

Black Bart · Nov 7, 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jonathan Aldridge @ Nov 7 2006, 01:27 PM) [snapback]170251[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'>
I see what you mean about getting high level officers with not so useful perks/skills ballancing out against one's you build up yourself.
My problem though was that I'd spent some time building up my officers, picking custom skins, getting a bit attached to them and then - BAM - came accross a level 44 officer who (after assiging free skil points) had a perfect 10 in every stat. Pretty much made everyone else redundant. (I did have 10 luck at this point)</div>

That does indeed sound a bit off - some tweaking of some algorythm somewhere could address this kind of thing i suspect.

Infact today i remembered something i'd forgotten to mention on this kind of thing in the game. How about doing away with the players luck effecting what type/level of officer they can find altogether - open it right up, make it completey random. I think the maths is off and can cause the effect you mentioned. Also how come once your above level 2 you can never find 'unexperienced' officers anymore? It makes sense that you would still find officers of different abilities all through the game. This would be an easy 'fix' to resolve some of the oddities surrounding hireable officers. You would have to search harder to find the exact officers you wanted?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jonathan Aldridge @ Nov 7 2006, 01:27 PM) [snapback]170251[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'>
On a related note, I'd sugest putting in a check so you can only find an officer every three or so days. Making them more of a rare and valuable find. No more bouncing in and out of taverns...</div>

well i've been pleasantly surprised with build beta7 today. my usual tactic of running in and out of the tavern untill i had my 8 start officers was much tougher than usual. not only were they harder to come by, but they wouldn't share any of their money with me - the rotters! It made game start more interesting with much more running around and 'adventuring'.
Still it is still possible to barter down most hireable officers to a few hundred gold(something that will be worked on in a later build).

ref that officer rareity thing(every few days) - i've been thinking along the lines of when you go to the shipyard or a blacksmith etc and you want to use their services that will take time to complete(repair of ship/sword etc). Instead of having a text update in the log that says "it takes 2 days to fix your ship" etc and 2 days pass in the game for you. I'd quite like to see a variation on this, where by the guy in the shipyard/balcksmith(etc) would tell you how long that particular job would take to finish, and to come back in X days to collect your ship/sword etc.
So time wont skip and you can go off/take shore leave(might be a nice feature to explore for your crew and/or officers also) do what ever while waiting for the task to complete. This is a long term aim that would go alongside adding all the many new town services shops/things to do on land i've posted about in length in my 'new ideas' thread.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jonathan Aldridge @ Nov 7 2006, 01:27 PM) [snapback]170251[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'>
On the other topic, I'm all in favor of lengthing out a game. One thing I thought of was to add a small empire building side to the game:
Something that would be fun is if you could go visit the land grants you get from the governers. And having that, you could change the building mod so that you could only build things on your own land. Thus giving you "Your estate" to develop. (Rather then plunking random buildings down in the middle of town/jungle)
Add pirate attacks to test your fortifications and you have a whole new area of character growth.
</div>

This kind of thing has been discussed i'm sure, and i'm all for developing what the buildmod and the new land ownership can bring to the game once fully developed and realised, so yeah i'm with you on that <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="

" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

BelThorne · Nov 7, 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Black Bart @ Nov 8 2006, 07:35 AM) [snapback]170327[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'>
... How about doing away with the players luck effecting what type/level of officer they can find altogether - open it right up, make it completely random. I think the maths is off and can cause the effect you mentioned. Also how come once your above level 2 you can never find 'unexperienced' officers anymore? It makes sense that you would still find officers of different abilities all through the game. This would be an easy 'fix' to resolve some of the oddities surrounding hireable officers. You would have to search harder to find the exact officers you wanted?
</div>

Getting rid of, or at least reducing the luck effect would be good; maybe make the officers you find in taverns always low level, high ones can only be found by capturing ships, and then only rarely. This would make sense as it would usually be the not so good officers who were still hanging out it bars looking for work. I'd also like to increase the cost of officers salary. (currently I only pay 1/5 their salary to them per month).

Talking of luck, it way needs reducing in the Dice game; with 10 luck I never lose a single roll. A high luck should make you win <b>on average</b>, not every roll.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Black Bart @ Nov 8 2006, 07:35 AM) [snapback]170327[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'>
Still it is still possible to barter down most hireable officers to a few hundred gold(something that will be worked on in a later build).
</div>

Never tried this! I've always had enough money so far to just hire them all (Though I haven't tried right at the start)

Talking of money, is it just me or is selling contraband way too profitable? Start with 20,000 and after just a few runs selling contraband (with a couple of big cargo holds) you can get half a million. Apparently there's a coastguard or something, but I've never run into them.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Black Bart @ Nov 8 2006, 07:35 AM) [snapback]170327[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'>
ref that officer rarity thing(every few days) - I've been thinking along the lines of when you go to the shipyard or a blacksmith etc and you want to use their services that will take time to complete(repair of ship/sword etc). Instead of having a text update in the log that says "it takes 2 days to fix your ship" etc and 2 days pass in the game for you. I'd quite like to see a variation on this, where by the guy in the shipyard/blacksmith(etc) would tell you how long that particular job would take to finish, and to come back in X days to collect your ship/sword etc.
</div>

Yeah, that was bugging me too. Those days feel like wasted time when you could be out doing things. Same for the loading cargo. While we're wishing for new things, it'd be fun to set it that while they're still loading cargo, fill the end of the dock with crates and barrles, and a few crew standing about (having a cigarette break <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/flower.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":ty" border="0" alt="flower.gif" /> ), thus indicating loading still going on and preventing you from getting to the ship.

Getting back to officers briefly, akella obviously had some of the same thoughts as us, thus the way they work in Age of Pirates with a slot for each officer type, thugs for combat, and the rest passenger/captive slots, though they avoided the whole issue of officers (other then captain) on the other ships by just not having them.

Pity we can't merge some of the good stuff with that game back into this. Officer interface and the sword fighting in particular.

Talking about sword fighting. Is it just me, or does it get way too easy when you have melee up to 10 and a good weapon? Playing with melee skill 10 and an excellent cardinals guard and all the fighting perks, I can pretty much take a fort single handed...

Oh, one more thing that just occured to me. (how many different thoughts can I stuff into one post?) Going back to the officer stuff: In the officer capturing dialog on a ship, it'd be good for the officers to explicitly offer to be ransomed.... as it currently is it's not clear what option you pick to just capture him for that.

Black Bart · Nov 8, 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jonathan Aldridge @ Nov 7 2006, 11:37 PM) [snapback]170346[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'>

Getting rid of, or at least reducing the luck effect would be good; maybe make the officers you find in taverns always low level, high ones can only be found by capturing ships, and then only rarely. This would make sense as it would usually be the not so good officers who were still hanging out it bars looking for work. I'd also like to increase the cost of officers salary. (currently I only pay 1/5 their salary to them per month)....

.......Talking of luck, it way needs reducing in the Dice game; with 10 luck I never lose a single roll. A high luck should make you win <b>on average</b>, not every roll.</div>

yeah i think overall Luck is probably over powerfull in its effects.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jonathan Aldridge @ Nov 7 2006, 11:37 PM) [snapback]170346[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'>
Talking of money, is it just me or is selling contraband way too profitable? Start with 20,000 and after just a few runs selling contraband (with a couple of big cargo holds) you can get half a million. Apparently there's a coastguard or something, but I've never run into them.</div>

Yes again i'm keen to completely relook at how we can handle contraband, specificaly the 'trustworthy lad' trait and how that effects trade of such goods in normal stores. I think the 'hassal' of meeting with the smugglers is good enough to make the player balance up the choice of trading in illegal goods or not.

So i'm thinking make it an exclusive thing involved with the smugglers(and the later to be introduced smuggler/thief guild) - the buying of such goods and the selling. you shouldn't imho be able to trade illegal goods in a normal crown affiliated town(pirates islands is ok). Infact the whole classification of what constitutes an illegal good/contraband could do with an overhaul, and hopefully this is something for a later build as i've already started plotting various ideas on these issues.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jonathan Aldridge @ Nov 7 2006, 11:37 PM) [snapback]170346[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'>

Yeah, that was bugging me too. Those days feel like wasted time when you could be out doing things. Same for the loading cargo. While we're wishing for new things, it'd be fun to set it that while they're still loading cargo, fill the end of the dock with crates and barrles, and a few crew standing about (having a cigarette break <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/flower.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":ty" border="0" alt="flower.gif" /> ), thus indicating loading still going on and preventing you from getting to the ship.

Getting back to officers briefly, akella obviously had some of the same thoughts as us, thus the way they work in Age of Pirates with a slot for each officer type, thugs for combat, and the rest passenger/captive slots, though they avoided the whole issue of officers (other then captain) on the other ships by just not having them.

Pity we can't merge some of the good stuff with that game back into this. Officer interface and the sword fighting in particular.

Talking about sword fighting. Is it just me, or does it get way too easy when you have melee up to 10 and a good weapon? Playing with melee skill 10 and an excellent cardinals guard and all the fighting perks, I can pretty much take a fort single handed...

Oh, one more thing that just occured to me. (how many different thoughts can I stuff into one post?) Going back to the officer stuff: In the officer capturing dialog on a ship, it'd be good for the officers to explicitly offer to be ransomed.... as it currently is it's not clear what option you pick to just capture him for that.
</div>

Well unfortunately the buildmod buildings wont act as physical barriers - you can walk right through them, except the strategicaly placed ones that cover an already solid part of the game world. Its a bit of graphical work also - might be just as effective to 'lock' the boarding ship action, give the player a "your crew are still busy loading your ship, it will take x more days/hrs" message and have done with it?

A few things in build13 have come from AoP, ship models, the blaze and whatshername models etc, plus the plans for officer overhaul in the next build seem to have some derivative from AoP system? So i think in short we can borrow the best bits of AoP when needed <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="

" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

ref sword fighting and high level/good weapon, its a tricky one isnt it - we do have damage and blade breakage currently in the game, it seems to effect enemy npcs more than the player and player officers from what i can tell, but i have had a couple of blades break on me and cause a small panic. Still its not a feature I(or others i suspect) would like to see happen too often - that would just get annoying i think? Sword fighting has always been very simple in PotC, and the npcs/party officers have always been pretty bad at it.

I reackon if we could speed it up some, make it a gradual speedup as the player levels, that might put a bit more spice back into the game on that side? by speed it up i mean make the enemies attacks faster compared to the player - on a leveled scale as you progress, then the faster on average(but not always) your enemyies become? something along those lines. I find its the hesitation of the enemy npcs that cause them, in single encounters to be not so tuff?

And yeah i agree the whole oficer surrender dialogue thing is a little confusing - you are often guessing the outcome of your selection as its not apparant in the text dialogue(then you get used to it and know what does what - but its needs some clarification work for sure).

BelThorne · Nov 8, 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Black Bart @ Nov 8 2006, 11:16 AM) [snapback]170350[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'>
... I think the 'hassal' of meeting with the smugglers is good enough to make the player balance up the choice of trading in illegal goods or not.
</div>

Hmm, the returns for me were way too good to pass up for the little bit of sailing required. Approximately 500% return on my investment. I'd sugest lowering this or making the coastguard (that I've never seen yet) more common?

Actually, what would work is give the smuglers limited money.... so you could sell 50,000 - 100,000 gold worth of goods, but they wouldn't buy any more then that, so no more getting half a million per transaction.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Black Bart @ Nov 8 2006, 11:16 AM) [snapback]170350[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'>
... Infact the whole classification of what constitutes an illegal good/contraband could do with an overhaul...
</div>

Yeah, I was a bit puzzled why bricks were reguarded as contraband at one of the islands. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dunno.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=" :shrug

" border="0" alt="dunno.gif" />
(All those naughty people in town who'd built brick/stone houses! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="

" border="0" alt="icon_wink.gif" /> )

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Black Bart @ Nov 8 2006, 11:16 AM) [snapback]170350[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'>
...Sword fighting has always been very simple in PotC, and the npcs/party officers have always been pretty bad at it.
</div>
Hmm, that's odd. my party all has melee of 9 or 10, most of the fighting perks, good swords and armour, and they kick ass.
I just wondered around the battlefield on Saint Martin looting the dozens of corpses of lots of pretty good weapons while my three officers just killed the wave after wave of incomming soldiers. (I think I leveled up twice from 18 - 20 mostly just looting and killing off a few straglers.)

It'd be nice (if probably completely impossible) to bring in the "parry" effect, and the slow but unblockable hit from AOP and the stamina. Wonder if I could just grab the appropriate DLL from AOP and drop it over the POTC one?
(I'm sure that would completely bork my game <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=" :rolleyes:

" border="0" alt="rolleyes.gif" /> )

Pieter Boelen · Nov 8, 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Black Bart @ Nov 7 2006, 09:35 PM) [snapback]170327[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'>
well i've been pleasantly surprised with build beta7 today. my usual tactic of running in and out of the tavern untill i had my 8 start officers was much tougher than usual. not only were they harder to come by, but they wouldn't share any of their money with me - the rotters! It made game start more interesting with much more running around and 'adventuring'.
</div>
Nothing was changed in Beta 7 to the frequency of encountering officers. But we did make it so that you can't steal their money anymore, because that seems a bit of a cheat and shouldn't really be possible.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Black Bart @ Nov 7 2006, 09:35 PM) [snapback]170327[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'>
ref that officer rareity thing(every few days) - i've been thinking along the lines of when you go to the shipyard or a blacksmith etc and you want to use their services that will take time to complete(repair of ship/sword etc). Instead of having a text update in the log that says "it takes 2 days to fix your ship" etc and 2 days pass in the game for you. I'd quite like to see a variation on this, where by the guy in the shipyard/balcksmith(etc) would tell you how long that particular job would take to finish, and to come back in X days to collect your ship/sword etc.
</div>
I've been having the exact same idea. The ideal blacksmith functionality would, I think, be to talk to the blacksmith and then an "itemsbox" interface opens and you give him all items you want to have repaired to the requested quality. Then the blacksmith will tell you how long it'll take and what the price will be. Then you'll have to wait until that time and after you pay him, you get all the repaired blades, which can be put automatically into the weapon's locker if that is requested by the player.

To Black Bart: I have no idea how the officer system works in AoP, so all my ideas are not based on that.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Black Bart @ Nov 8 2006, 01:16 AM) [snapback]170350[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'>
ref sword fighting and high level/good weapon, its a tricky one isnt it - we do have damage and blade breakage currently in the game, it seems to effect enemy npcs more than the player and player officers from what i can tell, but i have had a couple of blades break on me and cause a small panic. Still its not a feature I(or others i suspect) would like to see happen too often - that would just get annoying i think?
</div>
HAHAHA! That is EXACTLY my intent with that mod! It shouldn't happen often, only occasionally and it should still happen on high levels as well, so if you don't take care of your blades, you might accidentally end up with a broken one in the middle of a fight, causing quite a sudden problem for the player. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/whippa.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=" :whipa

" border="0" alt="whippa.gif" />

Using AoP DLLs doesn't work.

I had the idea to make your current health scale the sworddamage. So if you're hurt pretty badly, fighting becomes much harder. I coded this in, but it doesn't seem to work, so I took it out again. I still have the code so that we can look at it for Build 14.

LarryHookins · Nov 8, 2006

If you're finding melee combat too easy, play at a higher difficulty. I've had my character killed with max melee skill, all the perks (including toughness), gold armor and a solingen rapier when boarding a larger ship a lot more often than I'd care to admit. It's not lack of experience; I estimate I've done near 1000 boardings by now with all the tests of the boarding code.

If I were playing with weapon damage on I'd probably have to stop boarding altogether. Then there's the mod that limits how often you can block. I don't even want to think about that.

Hook

Pieter Boelen · Nov 8, 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Hook @ Nov 8 2006, 06:32 PM) [snapback]170423[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'>
If I were playing with weapon damage on I'd probably have to stop boarding altogether. Then there's the mod that limits how often you can block. I don't even want to think about that.
</div>
That was just an idea, but I won't try to do this anymore due to a lack of interest. I thought perhaps it'd increase the realism and interest, but you're right: It might very well make the game unplayable. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/unsure.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":?" border="0" alt="unsure.gif" />

Black Bart · Nov 8, 2006

Yes hooks right about the difficulty level making combat pretty lethal i'd say. In my current game i'm one difficulty level above 'normal'(i think Journeyman or adventurer?), and as a lowish level char i have to be very very carefull - its quite dicey now compared to what i've been used to.

limiting blocks! that sounds damn scary imho! although i like pieters 'loss of combat effectiveness' thing - definately worth a look for build14, in conjunction with a properly realised Doctor officer class and other healing options for the player.

oh and ref hooks comments of getting killed with a maxed out char - is it due to the numbers of enemy you encounter? I find my crew can die pretty quickly in a boarding action(might be related to not having enough/decent weapons in the crew weapon box?) and that leaves me alone to kill scores of enemies, usualy 3 on 1 for most of the combat. Is that the kind of scenario you get?

BelThorne · Nov 8, 2006

Yes, I must say that the easy time I was having of it was on the second easiest difficulty setting. I'm starting again at max difficulty (starting with the smallest ship) to see how it goes.

Thinking further on Officers and Perks:
At least for the active ship perks such as Instant boarding, 180 degree turn etc. it looks like the main character has to have this and there's no point giving it to your officers.

Would we want to change this? (I've just been poking through battleinterface.c and trying to see how we'd change it.)

It would mean you could get all the special abilities much faster if you could use them off your Officers, which is probably undesirable. But I'd think it would be more realistic.
Maybe we could make them harder to get to compensate? add level requirements or something?
(Just throwing ideas around)

LarryHookins · Nov 9, 2006

I'm boarding large ships with a sloop. I've got decent weapons in my weapons locker, and usually silver armor as well. But I'm taking 7 crew against 13 most of the time, which is where I've maxed the odds for boarding in the code. Sometimes my entire crew die fast, leaving me to face 13 high HP enemies alone. Forget taking officers along, they never last long enough to matter.

I've got a screen shot where I got trapped by all 13 enemy in the middle of the deck. There's a ring of dead enemy bodies around where I was standing. It was a tough fight.

I've even faced enemy boarders who appear to have the toughness perk. Their HP keeps going up, with me just barely keeping ahead of it.

And all this on difficulty level 3. Forget about difficulty 4! Adventurer is bad enough. Swashbuckler must be really nasty.

None of the timed perks can be used if an officer has them and the player doesn't. I've looked into fixing this, but I doubt if it is going to be done. As far as I know, the rest of the perks can be used if only an officer has them, but I might be wrong. I've never investigated it.

Hook

LordDrow · Nov 9, 2006

I can vouch for that, Hook. Swashbuckler is a killer. As often as not, you run into enemies with toughness and its all you can do to whittle thier HP down. Any pauses in attacking them, and they are back up to full HP in no time at all.

Just trying to get enough cash to fill out my hold for the trip to redmond, I went into the Oxbay dungeon. Must have died down there a dozen times or more just trying to fight past the main door. TOUGH.

Cap'n Drow

Black Bart · Nov 9, 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Hook @ Nov 9 2006, 08:34 AM) [snapback]170508[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'>
I'm boarding large ships with a sloop. I've got decent weapons in my weapons locker, and usually silver armor as well. But I'm taking 7 crew against 13 most of the time, which is where I've maxed the odds for boarding in the code. Sometimes my entire crew die fast, leaving me to face 13 high HP enemies alone. <b>Forget taking officers along, they never last long enough to matter.</b>

I've got a screen shot where I got trapped by all 13 enemy in the middle of the deck. There's a ring of dead enemy bodies around where I was standing. It was a tough fight.

.................
Hook
</div>

So my question to everyone is has it always been the case? In my xbox gaming days of PotC i dont think they were virtualy gauranteed to die in a boarding action(so this must be something introduced by mods?). They were never great at personal combat and i'd make sure they also had a supply of magic potions, but i'm pretty sure they wouldn't fall like wheat under the flail. So what could have changed here?I think this could do with some balancing up for a later build?

The main crux of personal combat in PotC seems to come down to this on average difficulty:

1. in 1v1 the player is almost always going to win
2. in multiple enemy encounters(like boarding/taking a fort) the player has a hard time/his officers will die(if taken along).

does that seem a fair summery?

kblack · Nov 9, 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Black Bart @ Nov 9 2006, 02:48 PM) [snapback]170528[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'>
The main crux of personal combat in PotC seems to come down to this on average difficulty:

1. in 1v1 the player is almost always going to win
2. in multiple enemy encounters(like boarding/taking a fort) the player has a hard time/his officers will die(if taken along).

does that seem a fair summery?
</div>

I agree

LarryHookins · Nov 9, 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Black Bart @ Nov 9 2006, 07:48 AM) [snapback]170528[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'>
So my question to everyone is has it always been the case? In my xbox gaming days of PotC i dont think they were virtualy gauranteed to die in a boarding action(so this must be something introduced by mods?). They were never great at personal combat and i'd make sure they also had a supply of magic potions, but i'm pretty sure they wouldn't fall like wheat under the flail. So what could have changed here?I think this could do with some balancing up for a later build?
</div>
Game difficulty was added by the mods. In the stock game there was only one "difficulty level" and the officers would survive a boarding. Also, before my new boarding code, all fights were one on one, with equal numbers of friendly and enemy boarders. With the new boarding code you can have odds up to 2:1.

Any "balancing" you'd do to keep officers alive would simply remove the value of having a difficulty level. Anyway, my officers are too valuable to risk taking them along on boardings.

Hook

Black Bart · Nov 9, 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Hook @ Nov 9 2006, 08:06 PM) [snapback]170569[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'>
.........

Any "balancing" you'd do to keep officers alive would simply remove the value of having a difficulty level. <i>Anyway, my officers are too valuable to risk taking them along on boardings.</i>

Hook
</div>

Actually this would fit in very well with the mod thats been talked about on improving officers importance in the game overall(giving them more specific jobs/needing more of them for larger ships etc). Still would your boatswain have been of the officer class typicaly? he should be involved in boarding? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dunno.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=" :shrug

" border="0" alt="dunno.gif" />

hmmm......on the boarding screen you always start on the poop deck(i think thats the expression?) with your crew and the enemy below fighting/doing the boarding action. even if you take your officers with you as active party officers they dont appear behind you as if you were on land.........so why not....and maybe then you could offer them some protection by blocking the path - or just have them stand there waiting for the enemy(role play: giving orders to their men below) etc.....not sure. it just seems a bit odd they have to sit out the action if you want to keep them alive(very un-navy like "ok sirs your orders are to all stay here, lock the door and when its over one of the men will come and get you?"). I'm sure we could come up with a good way to sort this?

A suggestion about sailing

BelThorne

Freebooter

Black Bart

Corsair

BelThorne

Freebooter

Black Bart

Corsair

BelThorne

Freebooter

Black Bart

Corsair

BelThorne

Freebooter

Pieter Boelen

Navigation Officer

LarryHookins

Buccaneer

Pieter Boelen

Navigation Officer

Black Bart

Corsair

BelThorne

Freebooter

LarryHookins

Buccaneer

LordDrow

Pirate Geek Extraordinaire

Black Bart

Corsair

kblack

Landlubber

LarryHookins

Buccaneer

Black Bart

Corsair