Feature Request Discussion about captain and crew bonusses

[Tingyun]

Sorry, it DOES read a bit like some dramatic exit. Sorry for that @Cassadar , you guys have been too cool to deserve anything but my admiration and goodwill.

Sadly, you guys have yet to put me on salary (rather stingy with your buried treasure I'd say), so off I must go to fullfill the demands of those who have for now.

 

[Redbeard]

Build Beta 4.1 - New Game

I just had to fight a merchant captain with over 200HP while I was level 3 with 70HP!! Something definitly needs to change here!

As someone who has never played the original vanilla game, I can kind of agree with this. To an extent anyway.

Here's the experience of someone who only got into the build mod with the 4.1 beta WIP.

Combat below 100 hp shouldn't even be attempted. The weaponry in this game does way too much damage, and fellow officers simply can't do anything to help you. A few hits on a level 13 officer with 5 in Melee and good weapons STILL goes down in under 30 seconds 1-on-1. I lost alot of tavern navigators to bandits in the jungle with 45 hp (ish) early on. Add in pistols and you are basically going to die, bandages or no.

Now that I'm level 15 or so with alot of perks, and a frightening amount of good equipment and skills... I still frequently get destroyed while boarding and such. Captains have 400+ hp and I can only do about 40 or so damage per swing. I've learned that early game you will accomplish nothing but death if you plan on doing any sort of combat. Its better to do charter missions or campaign/side missions until you hit at least level 10. As a new player, sword fights, with a level 5 or below and starter equipment, you are pretty much dead. Bandages help, but only so much.

However, now that I've leveled, and my boarding crew now has great weapons and my officers are killing machines, the game is alot easier. Captains don't really pose a threat with my armor, bandages, and excellent sword. It takes a while, but they simply cant get through my defenses. Anything less than 400HP and they would be a push over.

I believe that is what this mod is going for? As I understand Levis in relation to his posts in both this thread and the boarding thread, I feel like boarding ships, fighting, etc, should be done later in the game. It seems to me that the mod is in a good place for what the developers intend. Does it stray from the original? Most certainly, but I think it gives the game alot more longevity. I spent my first 20 or so hours in the campaign just trying to equip myself so I could SURVIVE a fight. Then I spent more hours getting a ship capable of surviving combat. All of this has lead to a rather satisfying journey, where I went from a nobody who could barely best one man in combat, to a true terror of the high seas. I barely even bother with officers during boarding. They just clutter up the deck and get in the way of my wanton slaughter.

Where it easier in the early game, I'm not sure it would be as appealing. The story certainly isn't driving me along, its the pursuit of bettering myself, and the mod really reflects that. It also gives the game a more long term, hardcore appeal than similar sailing games.

Just my opinion, but I feel things are doable where they are at. Just avoid taking ships early on. After all, there are many ways to make money.

 

[Grey Roger]

Enemies have always had higher HP than you. If you have poor Melee skill then you probably won't survive boarding, though bandits in jungles and dungeons were toned down a few updates ago - raiding a dungeon is a good way to earn some Melee experience and probably get a decent sword.

My own experiences, using 28th July installer plus @Levis' 27th September zip update, have been rather better during boarding. After I'd earned a couple of levels of Melee skill, I was able to take merchant ships without too much trouble. A recent action against a navy ship was rather tougher - crew had about 300HP each, even though my crew outnumbered the enemy and I'd grapeshotted them down to "Treacherous" morale. The captain had 1000 HP! But basically, don't try to attack naval ships until you're really tough. This is fair enough, the proper reaction of a pirate when faced with a navy ship should be to try to run away! What I would say is that whatever bonus navy ships get, you should get as well if you're playing as a naval officer. Whether it's justified by better training, better discipline or watered-down rum, something is wrong if you're the only navy ship in the Caribbean with an untrained, undisciplined or drunk crew.

 

[Tingyun]

@Grey Roger I think the navy player should get the same guard template for his crew, so they should be determined the same as AI navy crews (should get the better skills, perk assignments, +10 level, and +150 hp)

@Redbeard I really like the way you put this. I had a similar experience in my castaway playthrough.

As a level 1 castaway, I ran around the jungle slaughtering enemies with stealth. Cobblestones, poison knives, and ether. If I fought an enemy that wasn't unconcious, it was using the "backstep" rather than block, so I'd swing as he came into range, then do a backstep so he never even got a chance to pierce an ineffective low level block.

When I hit level 8 or so and had the fencing perks, I started actually fighting fair, and the block-counterattack combo meant I was basically invincible against any 1-1 fight with the AI. Still used stealth to narrow down the odds sometimes. Later, added some AI officers to back me up when they became competent to survive, and then anything could be handled directly, and it was realy fun seeing the progression as you describe.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Nicely said, @Redbeard!
Indeed the sort of progression in the game is exactly what I would want to accomplish with the game.

I think the navy player should get the same guard template for his crew, so they should be determined the same as AI navy crews (should get the better skills, perk assignments, +10 level, and +150 hp)

If AI Naval Officers get Guards and, Merchants get Sailors and Pirates get Pirate sailors, should ALL of that apply to the player too?
I suppose that does make sense. Until the player switches from the one to the other and their crew suddenly becomes far more/less effective.

 

[Tingyun]

If the player switches to Navy, given the model change, he is taking on a force of Marine Guards to be the vanguard of his boarding, so he should get stronger. Same for losing navy status.

Merchants get Randchar, normal captains and privateers get sailors, Pirates get pirates.

The differences among those categories aren't very large. Most of the merchant penalty is in their boarding morale being set lower, not in the characters themselves, just a slight level reduction. The small differences in those classes of crew can easily be explained by a shift in attitude by the player's crew under different circumstances--IE, the crew goes pirate, they become a little more desperate, they go merchant, they become a little more complacent.

Personally, I'd prefer to just give merchants the same sailor template as normal captains, and let the merchant morale reduction mechanic handle their weaker crews in a unified fashion.

I also worry a bit about the large noncontribute chance assigned to Pirate template--I really wonder whether it doesn't distract pirate crews too much from picking combat perks and result in them being weaker than normal sailor crews. I'd more prefer the crews be kept in line with oneanother, except for very defined and predictable differences, like hp bonuses. Especially since what crew templates pick as their non combat perks is 100% irrelevant from a gameplay perspective, and is never shown to the player in any way, so it doesn't really add immersion or roleplaying.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Shouldn't Pirate Sailors specifically focus MORE on fencing than anything else?

 

[Tingyun]

They do have a higher fencing importance, but agreed, I'd prefer the noncontribute chance for pirates made the same as normal sailors. Otherwise it is very hard to reliably predict that they won't pick less fencing perks, because it changes at any given level range because the base skills going into perk catagory weight are always changing (ie, level 5 level 10 level 15 will all pick perks differently, you'd have to test every one of them extensively).

I understand Levis's idea in giving them a high 30 in noncontribute (he had me make the change to make them a ragtag bunch with varied skills), but in the end it doesn't matter. The player never sees the noncombat perks of enemies, they never change the game, so there is no roleplaying value. Better to simplify the differences between sailor categories I think, then the gameplay result for combat perks becomes predictable.

 

[Levis]

I haven't read everything in here but I'm glad to hear people are enjoying the way it's set up now. The whole idea of adding costs to perks etc was to make the journey longer and make it more entertaining and more of a reward when you finally capture your first ship. Eventually you should be able to even take on navy ships, and when you finally capture one I guess it will be quite the archievement!

I've tought about the crew of the player too but for now I'm really not sure what to do with them. I believe they do level with the player so they should become stronger and stronger. One thing I was thinking about indeed is enabling multiple types of boarding crew for the player but if you have navy crew we should first expand on the navy playstyle I think before we give it to the player because it will make you a lot stronger very quick.
1 thing I was thinking about it having different types of crew for hire at different places. A navy character could for example hire navy crew somewhere (at a navy base or so). you can hire pirate crew in pirate tavers and find normaly crew in normal taverns. The game has a count of how many from each you have and generates the boarding crew based on that.
Personally I think that would make for interesting gameplay, especially if higher types of crew ask higher salaries (guards for example would demand way more pay then normal sailors). It would add some micromanagement to your ship, but in most cases once you got your self up and running a bit you will just get crew from one specific type anyways.
But it would require interface tweaks etc so I want to wait with that untill build 15 if people don't mind.

The pirate officertype might need a bit more tweaking. You can now use the tavern dialog with debug function (if you installed my fixes) by enabling it in leveling.c to see how characters created for different officertypes would look, so you could create a few sailors and a few pirates and see if they look alright.

 

[Tingyun]

@Levis In that case I was mistaken above--I thought the player already got the benefit of a navy crew if he was a navy officer. I would personally say we could enable that without too much of a problem--if the player gets soldier models in boarding, they should have the benefits, especially since a navy player will often be fighting other navies, they should have equally competent crew. The other crew differences are small enough it shouldn't matter too much. A low leve3l navy player will already have low level crew, that should be enough to keep it from being too overpowered against enemy navies (and merchants should be pushovers for a navy character).

I am afraid I won't have time to do tests on Pirate sailor crew officertypes for quite some time, what with the work project. I'd favor just standardizing them anyway, to just eliminate the uncertainty, by making both sailor and pirate crew types have a 10 as noncontribute. At least until something is implemented that makes a crew's non combat skills matter, might as well just standardize their amounts and eliminate the need for testing all the different levels.Because otherwise you'd have to test them many times at many diferent levels, since skills are changing as they go up in level and so relative perk weights will change. Simply too complicated and too much work to be worth it (I'd imagine we'd have to do 50 tests across 5 different level ranges otherwise better to just standardize at 10 noncontribute, and then if perks change in the future everything remains solid).

But I agree you have done a great job with the overall balancing, and making a long interesting journey for the player to progress!

Anyway, Thanks for all the hard work you have done, time for me to disappear back to work again.

 

[Levis]

Hmmm your crew is already determined by this:

officertype = GetBoardingCrewType(mchr);

So depending on the officertype the player is it will assign a certain boarding crew.
Now I believe the officertype in the interfaces are actually faked and the player has a normal captain officertype but I don't know for sure. Could some try out different scenarios (so a pirate player and a navy player) and do a DumpAttributes(pchar); to see what his quest.officertype value is?
Edit: moved the topic to brainstorming and changed the title

 

[Tingyun]

Ah, yes that's what I thought should happen. Provided it isn't faked like you said.

Will have to leave it to someone else to test, leaving now. Thanks again Levis!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I've tought about the crew of the player too but for now I'm really not sure what to do with them. I believe they do level with the player so they should become stronger and stronger. One thing I was thinking about indeed is enabling multiple types of boarding crew for the player but if you have navy crew we should first expand on the navy playstyle I think before we give it to the player because it will make you a lot stronger very quick.
1 thing I was thinking about it having different types of crew for hire at different places. A navy character could for example hire navy crew somewhere (at a navy base or so). you can hire pirate crew in pirate tavers and find normaly crew in normal taverns. The game has a count of how many from each you have and generates the boarding crew based on that.
Personally I think that would make for interesting gameplay, especially if higher types of crew ask higher salaries (guards for example would demand way more pay then normal sailors). It would add some micromanagement to your ship, but in most cases once you got your self up and running a bit you will just get crew from one specific type anyways.
But it would require interface tweaks etc so I want to wait with that untill build 15 if people don't mind.

Build 15 indeed! Not before. Pretty please....

Now I believe the officertype in the interfaces are actually faked and the player has a normal captain officertype but I don't know for sure.

Assuming the player has no navy/privateer rank, the captain type is displayed TWICE in F2>Character.
One is the REAL up-to-date captain type as determined "on the fly" by this function (this always shows at the BOTTOM):

string GetCaptainType(ref chr)
{
   string CaptainType = OFFIC_TYPE_REGCAP;
   if (IsCompanion(chr))
   {
     if (HasMerchantPassport(GetMainCharacter()))     CaptainType = OFFIC_TYPE_CAPMERCHANT;
     if (IsMainCharacter(chr))
     {
       if (CheckAttribute(chr, "isnotcaptain"))     CaptainType = OFFIC_TYPE_NAVIGATOR;
     }
     if (GetLetterOfMarqueQuantity() > 0)         CaptainType = OFFIC_TYPE_CAPPRIVATEER;
     if (HaveLetterOfMarque(ProfessionalNavyNation()))   CaptainType = OFFIC_TYPE_CAPNAVY;
     if (GetServedNation() == PIRATE)           CaptainType = OFFIC_TYPE_CAPPIRATE;
   }

The other reads the quest.officertype attribute, which is set for players at game start.
This shows at the top, but only if you don't have a Title that overrides it.

This was originally added by me purely for debugging purposes, so that we could see the players' current situation AND their starting situation.
Of course that does mean that the quest.officertype for the player was never intended to be updated in mid-game.
But if the 'GetCaptainType' is what is actually used, then that doesn't matter because that never does actually look at the attribute.

 

[Levis]

The getboardingcrew looks at the officertype which is set to the character I think. But we could change it so it uses the GetCaptainType instead so we know for sure the right captain type is picked ... I think that should work right?

Or wouldn't it work for encounters? they don't have LOM's etc so maybe it won't work, I'm not 100% sure.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

But we could change it so it uses the GetCaptainType instead so we know for sure the right captain type is picked ... I think that should work right?

I think that should indeed be fine.

Or wouldn't it work for encounters? they don't have LOM's etc so maybe it won't work, I'm not 100% sure.

Should work. I didn't quote it in my post above, but I did deliberately add an alternate section to the 'GetCaptainType' function so that it can be used for all NPCs as well.