Mod too easy?

[omnimirage]

I'm playing on the hardest difficulty and yet, I've found my experience to be boringly easy. I seem to recall in the past this mod was harder.

I seem to be able to win any battle with a man-o-war. I seem to be able to defeat opponents when I'm vastly outnumbered, against superiors classed ships. I've never once came close to being defeated and losing. I'm not sure what it is. I'm not sure if maybe the enemy crew have poor morale, or they have low classed cannons. Or maybe the AI is just really stupid and isn't as clever as myself at lining up their ships to shoot at me.

I've lowered the chances of the enemy of surrendering to me. Can any of you guys comment on this mods difficulty? Did it used to be harder than it is now? Are there any decent ways to make the game actually challenging?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

@omnimirage: I don't remember any intentional changes to make the mod easier, so I'm a bit surprised you notice such a difference.
Maybe you became a lot better at playing the game...?

Mod difficulty is quite hard to define though, since there are so many different elements to the gameplay.
So first question would be: Which parts of the game do you find too easy? Then perhaps we can think of ways to do something about it.
There are plenty of ways to tweak the game experience to your liking, so that should open up some possibilities.

And then for some other questions:
- Which exact version of the mod are you playing? (Upload compile.log from your main game folder if you're unsure)
- Which storyline/character are you playing?
- Which realism setting are you using?
- Are there any (other) settings that you changed from the default?
- How do you play the game? (Pirate, Naval Officer, Privateer, etc.)
- How far along in the game are you? (Rank, type of ship, skills, officers, etc.)

Oh... And the game's AI is definitely pretty stupid at times! It's been like that since the original game.

 

[omnimirage]

Build 14 (21st May 2018)
Savegame Compatibility: 14.941

Maybe I am simply better at the game now. I should have been more specific, as the part of the game that's too easy is naval, sea combat. Fighting on land with sword and firearm is difficult enough, I'm fine with everything in the game really except with how easy it is to best opponents in sea battles.

I'm playing the free play mode, using the default start in the Golden Age of Piracy. Might it be more difficult for me if I choose a different era?

I'm using the realism settings. I'm considering trying Iron Man mode again.

I increased wages of men to 5x. I turned off weapon quality.

I play as a Pirate. I started as a Castaway, roleplaying as a slave who had nothing, with only pirates accepting me without hostilities. It was challenging enough before I got my boat, but as soon as I got my first crappy boat it was easy from there.

I'm late game. I have about 30,000,000 spare gold. I have 13 spare skill points. I have many very experienced officers. I have 2 class one ships and 2 class 2 ships. I and all my companions and weaponslocker has good weapons.

So I'm doing pretty well. The problem is though, it's never been challenging since I got my first boat. I was able to take out merchants with a class 8 ship. A single merchant, got me out of my money issues. Taking a single merchant, allowed me to buy a pretty good class 7 ship. A few more merchants got me fully upgraded in my ship and gear. From there, I could take on class five ships without any issue. Once I've taken a class five ship, I can then take a class 3 ship. Once I've taken a class 3 ship, I can take a class 1 ship. Once I've taken a class 1 ship, I can defeat any fleet, and any fort.

It's just been disappointing. I wanted to have a challenge, I seemed to remember this as being a difficult experience. I'm really enjoying pirating, I'm not sure if I should continue my game, even though nothing seemed to be able to best me quite some time ago, or if I should start a new game. But then I'm not sure how to set it up so it's not so easy again.

I figure there's a few little settings I can change. Like lowering surrender rates. Increasing wages further. Turn off auto loot corpse. Are there any other decent things I can do?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I should have been more specific

No worries there. We're used to asking for more information; we don't mind.

I'm playing the free play mode, using the default start in the Golden Age of Piracy. Might it be more difficult for me if I choose a different era?

Maybe, but different periods are mainly just different. Any influence on difficulty is purely coincidental and probably negligible.
So I doubt that will help you much.

I'm using the realism settings. I'm considering trying Iron Man mode again.

Iron Man definitely adds some substantial challenges, but I'm not sure if it technically makes the game harder.
It just forces you to be more involved and everything takes longer and there's more realistic hand-work required.

I play as a Pirate. I started as a Castaway, roleplaying as a slave who had nothing, with only pirates accepting me without hostilities. It was challenging enough before I got my boat, but as soon as I got my first crappy boat it was easy from there.

As a Pirate, eh? So then you use "Divide the Plunder" too, eh? Hmm, then I don't have to suggest that either.

I'm late game. I have about 30,000,000 spare gold. I have 13 spare skill points. I have many very experienced officers. I have 2 class one ships and 2 class 2 ships. I and all my companions and weaponslocker has good weapons.

So I'm doing pretty well. The problem is though, it's never been challenging since I got my first boat. I was able to take out merchants with a class 8 ship. A single merchant, got me out of my money issues. Taking a single merchant, allowed me to buy a pretty good class 7 ship. A few more merchants got me fully upgraded in my ship and gear. From there, I could take on class five ships without any issue. Once I've taken a class five ship, I can then take a class 3 ship. Once I've taken a class 3 ship, I can take a class 1 ship. Once I've taken a class 1 ship, I can defeat any fleet, and any fort.

One thing you could consider is some self-imposed increased difficulty by, for example, deliberarely NOT getting all the abilities.
Or using less to no officers. Both will definitely make things more complicated.
For example, this person has been having the exact opposite issue you do but he's been playing without officers by choice:
Difficulty balancing?

I figure there's a few little settings I can change. Like lowering surrender rates. Increasing wages further. Turn off auto loot corpse. Are there any other decent things I can do?

Sounds like you've already been doing a fair few good things. Increasing wages further is always an option.
Maybe decrease the rate of experience gain in Levelling.c?
If you haven't done so already, have a look through InternalSettings.h too and see if anything stands out as affecting difficulty.

 

[Grey Roger]

One thing you could consider is some self-imposed increased difficulty by, for example, deliberarely NOT getting all the abilities.
Or using less to no officers. Both will definitely make things more complicated.

Or, when you've captured a ship, only sell it if you're in a friendly port. As a pirate, that means Nevis pirate settlement, Turks Island, or Tortuga (officially French, unofficially pirate).

So you think you can take on a fort. Have you tried attacking Cartagena yet? That has possibly the toughest fort in the game.

But yes, when you've advanced that far and have a couple of tier 1 ships, nothing is going to get in your way and it is going to be very easy. You've made it to the top. Time to start a new game, perhaps?

 

[omnimirage]

I'll have to think of some self governed rules. Another thing I did was turn off needing to unlock leveled up abilities, because I couldn't seem to find a gunsmith and expected I couldn't do so since I turned off weapon quality, which is something I turned off due to finding it so tedious to go through weapon menus full of extra copies of the same item.

I found this in internalsettings:

// Difficulty
#define ENEMYLEVEL_MULT_BASE 0.66 // FLOAT - The base multiplier to level for enemies.
#define ENEMYLEVEL_DIFF_INFL 0.2 // FLOAT - The influence of difficulty on enemy levels.
#define ENEMYLEVEL_RAND_INFL 0.33 // FLOAT - The influence of a random function on enemy levels--will be x(1.0 +/- rand(this))
#define ENEMYLEVEL_LUCK_INFL 0.01 // FLOAT - The influence of your luck on enemy levels. The influence will be _up to_ this x luck.

#define FRIENDLEVEL_MULT_BASE 0.66 // FLOAT - (no description)
#define FRIENDLEVEL_DIFF_INFL 0.2 // FLOAT - (no description)
#define FRIENDLEVEL_RAND_INFL 0.33 // FLOAT - (no description)
#define FRIENDLEVEL_LUCK_INFL 0.01 // FLOAT - (no description)
#define FRIENDLEVEL_LEAD_INFL 0.01 // FLOAT - (no description)

I'm interesting in changing some of this, but not sure what and by how much. Do any of you have a suggestion?



I pretty much just did my business at Nevis or Turks, didn't realise that about Tortuga. I think I will come up with some roleplaying restrictions to play by.

I just took on Cartagena. I was pleased to see that it destroyed me when I was using a single 3rd Battleship. In my Man-O-War though I annihilated it without losing 5% health. Is it realistic for a Man-O-War to be much stronger than everything in the world? I didn't take on the fort with my weaker class 1 ship.

I am wanting to start a new game. Just don't wish it to be as boringly without a challenge like last time. I want there to be actual risk of having my sink shipped and drowning at sea. I want it to be a little stressful with me wondering and fighting to try and pay my men's wage, to pay for ship repairs and new ammunition and food/rum, I want it to be a challenge to defeat enemies at sea when they've outnumbered and outclassed me.

Could it be that my less class ship was outperforming ships that are supposed to be stronger, because I invested in all of the ship upgrades?

 

[Grey Roger]

I've never tried changing those settings, but at a guess, the "ENEMYLEVEL" variables are the ones you want to try. Experiment and see what happens! Another setting you could try is "GOODS_PRICE_SCALAR", which will affect the prices of cargoes. If you reduce that, you won't pay as much for ammunition and supplies, and you also won't get as much for selling your plundered goods. That might make it harder to pay your crew...

One difference with periods is that in "Revolutions" and "Napoleonic", Turks Island is British, not Pirate. That will deprive you of one of your pirate bases.

A 1st rate man of war is indeed the biggest, most powerful type of ship in the game. It's also slow and clumsy - the only time I use one is if I'm planning to hit a fort. Otherwise I prefer to stick with a frigate or fast war galleon.

Ship upgrades can improve the ship's performance. The one which makes it tougher is "Reinforced Hull", which both increases ths ship's HP (making it harder to sink) and allows you heavier cannons. Or, if you put all the upgrades onto a man of war, it isn't as slow and clumsy any more.

I'm surprised you took Cartagena that easily, though. Any time I've tried it, I have to sail to one side of the peninsula, bombard the fort to destroy all guns on that side, then sail round to the other side to get the rest of the guns, and the fort is firing at me the whole time. And that was with a tier 1 man of war, specifically the Sovereign of the Seas which you have to fight near the end of the "Tales of a Sea Hawk" storyline.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Another thing I did was turn off needing to unlock leveled up abilities, because I couldn't seem to find a gunsmith and expected I couldn't do so since I turned off weapon quality, which is something I turned off due to finding it so tedious to go through weapon menus full of extra copies of the same item.

AH! That's a good point, actually.
I wonder if there's a way to have those particular locked perks NOT locked when that mod iss off, because that indeed doesn't make any sense.

I'm interesting in changing some of this, but not sure what and by how much. Do any of you have a suggestion?

Use tip #3 here: Tutorial - Modding Tips & Tricks
Then you can find where those variables are used in the code. Hopefully seeing the formulas will explain to you how you can tweak those numbers.

Could it be that my less class ship was outperforming ships that are supposed to be stronger, because I invested in all of the ship upgrades?

Non-player ships do randomly get upgrades, but chances are that they don't get all of them which does give a potential advantage to the player.
Deliberately not getting upgrades would definitely make things harder on yourself.

I just took on Cartagena. I was pleased to see that it destroyed me when I was using a single 3rd Battleship. In my Man-O-War though I annihilated it without losing 5% health. Is it realistic for a Man-O-War to be much stronger than everything in the world? I didn't take on the fort with my weaker class 1 ship.

I'm surprised you took Cartagena that easily, though. Any time I've tried it, I have to sail to one side of the peninsula, bombard the fort to destroy all guns on that side, then sail round to the other side to get the rest of the guns, and the fort is firing at me the whole time. And that was with a tier 1 man of war, specifically the Sovereign of the Seas which you have to fight near the end of the "Tales of a Sea Hawk" storyline.

Indeed that DOES sound excessively easy.

 

[Grey Roger]

Non-player ships do randomly get upgrades, but chances are that they don't get all of them which does give a potential advantage to the player.

In particular, NPC ships sometimes randomly get the "Reinforced hull" upgrade but don't get the increased cannons. So if I buy "Reinforced hull" or capture a ship which already has it, I never buy cannons heavier than the normal maximum either.

As for locked perks, I always disable that as well. It makes the game too much like an arcade game in which you unlock abilities at various points through the game. It doesn't make the game any more difficult, it just means you have to do the same batch of tasks to unlock the perks every time you play, regardless of whether you want to be a smuggler, pirate, merchant, privateer etc.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

As for locked perks, I always disable that as well. It makes the game too much like an arcade game in which you unlock abilities at various points through the game. It doesn't make the game any more difficult, it just means you have to do the same batch of tasks to unlock the perks every time you play, regardless of whether you want to be a smuggler, pirate, merchant, privateer etc.

In think it was an attempt by @Levis to encourage beginning players to go try out the various more hidden game features.
From that point of view, I reckon it's quite effective. But eventually I can see it becoming annoying, especially for players who already know.
Good thing there's a toggle.

 

[omnimirage]

I ended up changing:

#define ENEMYLEVEL_MULT_BASE 0.66 // FLOAT - The base multiplier to level for enemies.

to .99

It's been noticably more difficult, but with a certain amount of good luck I've been surviving the early game thus far.

I also changed it so that firearms can drop my health down to 0 in a single shot. It's made combat frightening frankly.

I thought about changing GOODS_PRICE_SCALAR, but reasoned that, it might be best to simply increase the wages. I've changed them from 5x, to 15x, and am considering increasing it further, maybe to 18/20/22/25. I paid $9600 in wages for a crew of 23 men and a couple officers, might be on the cheaper side.

What also annoyed me was how I won the man-o-war that enabled me to defeat any enemy. I took on a fleet with a fast galleon, and a bulkier class 3 or 4 ship. They were both fully upgraded. I first fled, allowed the enemy fleet to split up, and then I took on the ships that were closest to me, destroying them and forcing them into surrender. As I was doing so, the man-o-war creeped up on me, which I was fearful of so I tried to flee away from it. I noticed that it had "awful" morale. As I was trying to escape it, for some bizarre reason it surrendered to me. The ship that can defeat anything in the world, surrendered to me as I was trying to flee from it.

I've been experimenting with the surrender rates, and I've currently got it at 0.025. I want it to feel somewhat realistic to aid immersion, but at 0.04, too many enemy ships were surrendering to me and it was rather stupid.

I think I'll self enforce not allowing myself bigger cannons on ships with the reinforced hull, seems like a sensible restriction.

I'm playing on Iron Man Mode now. I've noticed that I have a lot less perks to choose from, which certainly makes it more difficult. Seems having to directsail makes it more difficult as well, as dangerous scenarios sort of come upon me without me being able to evade them as much, and it seems more difficult to find lucrative targets.

The thing that's annoying me, though, is how frequently I'm stumbling across cargo or money in the sea. I liked it at first, it's a fun little thing but it's happening at a extremely high rate. I'm guessing whoever set that rate to be as default, figured people wanted events coming up when at sea to make it less boring, but to me it's immersion breaking and makes it less challenging. If loot was found this frequently, then surely whole industries would be about roaming the seas for all this free loot.

Is there a way to dramatically reduce the chances that I find free gold or cargo? If not, is there a way to turn this feature off?

 

[omnimirage]

I managed to acquire $33,000 to buy a cheap lugger. I then managed to cause a class 7 ship, that had about 2/3 extra hull and crew and more cannons, to surrender to me in battle. I lowered it from 0.025 to 0.018 because of so. Somehow, I managed to do much more damage to them in battle. I don't have much abilities nor any upgrades. Maybe part of the reason why I'm beating superior enemies so easily is that I tend to lower my sails, sit in a position and fire broadside constantly, whereas the AI likes to roam around full sail, giving me broadside and shooting me from the back as it turns around. Maybe this is why I defeated him so easily.

Kinda disappointing nonetheless. Now I have a class 7 I'll be able to take a class 6 and work my way up to a class 1 where I can then defeat anything in the game. Maybe 0.018 is too high for me still. I raised wages to 20x and I might raise it to 25x soon.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Maybe the actual formula for the surrender chance could use some work.
It's always been a tricky one to get that balanced properly.

I wonder if something could be added so that "if player ship tier < enemy ship tier", NEVER surrender.
Would that make sense?

Is there a way to dramatically reduce the chances that I find free gold or cargo? If not, is there a way to turn this feature off?

AGH, I completely forgot to answer that. Even though I had literally switched on my computer to look up the answer yesterday.
Life's just been too hectic lately.

I can't check my files now, but look at PROGRAM\CCCdirectsail.c .
There are definitely ways to change those encounter chances; and with a bit of luck, @CouchcaptainCharles added some clear parameters for it at the top of that file.
Knowing him, he probably did.