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Feature Request More need to rest after battle

Tingyun

Corsair
Storm Modder
Levis:

I love the ideas you mentioned. In particular, your proposals of morale boost made based on accumulated xp of officers while in service, and HP bonus for officers based on past damage suffered (certainly a "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" approach). Those sound great! I also like the modifer to starting salary based on island economy.

To answer your question:

I am playing at Sea dog difficulty, x5 salaries. I am planning to switch to x10 or x15, just haven't decided which.

Part of the issue might be I started as a castaway, and since I didn't want to try sailing in the tiny castaway ship, I've been hunting the jungle for 3 nights with my officer team. Now we all have tomahawks, which at 26-40 damage are about twice as good as the swords generally appearing at my level (9). Meaning we slaughter everyone in a few seconds.

One group of natives is about 2-5k in loot, depending on how many natives, one group of Highwayman usually is around 2k. At night nearly every jungle scene has enemies, and each group dies very quickly (we are all stocked up with bandages in case). Meaning at x5 my officer salaries are paid with one jungle scene with a minute of work, and in a night we make 40k or so now that we are well equipped. Which is why I am going to raise salaries, as it seems unfair they are paid so little.

So my perception of the ease of making money might be unique to hunting on land, where time passes slowly. It might also have something to do with the relative power of tomahawks at early levels--lately I have been seeing occasional bandits carrying better swords, and once one of my officers only had 3HP left after a fight (they usually only lose 1/4 of their HP at most), and sure enough his opponent's corpse had one of those better swords that are starting to appear on it. I am going to keep this up a little longer to buy a good ship (spent all my current savings on armor, skills books, and such), and then I will go to sea.

Also, towards morning last night I started having this weird thing, like invisible attackers and then when my officers would kill them an explosion of white dust would occur all over the screen. Really confused by that, maybe ghosts?

I may discover the economy works totally different at sea and salaries are more substantial, I don't know. On land you can do so much in a single game night, it may be I just don't understand how it works at sea.
 
hmmm.....you are level 9 in only 3 days (ingame) play?
you started at level 1 right?

That doesn't sound right ... you shouldn't level that quick ....
having the tomahawks indeed helps...

the loot might be a bit to high also ... the encounters is still something I want to look into
 
@Tingyun do you play with autolevel or did you change anything in the internal settings concerning XP?
 
Hi Levis,

Yep, started as lvl 1, didn't use any cheats. I did reload a couple of times though when I was stupid or inattentive, though soon I had armor, tomahawks, and an endless supply of bandages, and nothing poses any danger anymore. I'm about 1000 xp away from lvl 10 now.

What I did was this: talked to people in town over and over to gain some leadership (and a couple of levels), picked locks on chests in town over and over, switching scenes to reset them, to get a bit of luck. While talking to people, I would switch between docks and town constantly to reset the people, and keep an eye out for those selling the illicit goods that can be used to knock out opponents and such. Wanted those and throwing stones especially to do some initial hunting on my own, and made enough money to hire some officers, and got some basic equipment for us (money also came from selling the spyglas castaways start with, I could have also sold my boat, or just used starting cobblestones, had this not been an option, I never even got around to using my ether yet). Then, we spend the nights hunting (daytime isn't worth it, too few enemies and no natives). It was mildly risky at first, but with borgia blades we quickly killed the first couple of groups of natoves, but after we got tomahawks, and everything started dying. I prioritized combat perks for all my officers and myself. Earlier I used the blunderbuss to soften groups, but some time after we got the tomahawks I and all my officers started using the fine dualing pistols we would find on the better highwaymen.

And like that, levels started coming quickly, and money even quicker. ;)

Still, it may have only been a few in-game days, but it was also a few real days of playing time (usually taking a coupke of hours per in game day). Hunting the jugle is very fast for the chatacter, but probably slower for the real-life player's time. I do feel like I worked hard for those levels, and they didn't feel too fast at all.

However, the money might be a bit too fast, especially for natives. You usually get around 1-2k of stuff per native, if you sell in a store. And natives come in groups often, and aren't especially dangerous, so you can make crazy money if you get lucky and roll up a couple of native groups. I would say the best solution isn't to reduce the price for native stuff (the current prices seem reasonable), but rather to reduce the frequency that they have the really valuable artifacts, like the idols and skill boosting golden masks and such. If they were only half as likely to appear as now, so the cheaper native loot was more common, then the reward for slaying natives versus the danger involved would be more in line with the highwaymen.

EDIT: to respond to recent question, I did use the autoskill system, and have not changed internal settings beyond enabling sidestep. In real life time I think I have played around 10 hours or so, maybe a bit more, since I spend a lot of time in the menus sorting officer inventories to recharge bullets and bandages and such. So it has been about one level for an hour of playing time. Also, about 3 of the levels came quickly talking to people, but those were early levels.

Mostly the pace has felt right for leveling honestly.
 
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Hi Levis,

Yep, started as lvl 1, didn't use any cheats. I did reload a couple of times though when I was stupid or inattentive, though soon I had armor, tomahawks, and an endless supply of bandages, and nothing poses any danger anymore. I'm about 1000 xp away from lvl 10 now.

What I did was this: talked to people in town over and over to gain some leadership (and a couple of levels), picked locks on chests in town over and over, switching scenes to reset them, to get a bit of luck. While talking to people, I would switch between docks and town constantly to reset the people, and keep an eye out for those selling the illicit goods that can be used to knock out opponents and such. Wanted those and throwing stones especially to do some initial hunting on my own, and made enough money to hire some officers, and got some basic equipment for us (money also came from selling the spyglas castaways start with, I could have also sold my boat, or just used starting cobblestones, had this not been an option, I never even got around to using my ether yet). Then, we spend the nights hunting (daytime isn't worth it, too few enemies and no natives). It was mildly risky at first, but with borgia blades we quickly killed the first couple of groups of natoves, but after we got tomahawks, and everything started dying. I prioritized combat perks for all my officers and myself. Earlier I used the blunderbuss to soften groups, but some time after we got the tomahawks I and all my officers started using the fine dualing pistols we would find on the better highwaymen.

And like that, levels started coming quickly, and money even quicker. ;)

Still, it may have only been a few in-game days, but it was also a few real days of playing time (usually taking a coupke of hours per in game day). Hunting the jugle is very fast for the chatacter, but probably slower for the real-life player's time. I do feel like I worked hard for those levels, and they didn't feel too fast at all.

However, the money might be a bit too fast, especially for natives. You usually get around 1-2k of stuff per native, if you sell in a store. And natives come in groups often, and aren't especially dangerous, so you can make crazy money if you get lucky and roll up a couple of native groups. I would say the best solution isn't to reduce the price for native stuff (the current prices seem reasonable), but rather to reduce the frequency that they have the really valuable artifacts, like the idols and skill boosting golden masks and such. If they were only half as likely to appear as now, so the cheaper native loot was more common, then the reward for slaying natives versus the danger involved would be more in line with the highwaymen.

EDIT: to respond to recent question, I did use the autoskill system, and have not changed internal settings beyond enabling sidestep. In real life time I think I have played around 10 hours or so, maybe a bit more, since I spend a lot of time in the menus sorting officer inventories to recharge bullets and bandages and such. So it has been about one level for an hour of playing time. Also, about 3 of the levels came quickly talking to people, but those were early levels.

Mostly the pace has felt right for leveling honestly.
ok good to hear. The whole idea of rewriting the leveling system was to make sure people have a nice experience early in game and later in game and things feel balanced. I hope this is still the case.
I agree on the equipment of the natives. Maybe @Jack Rackham wants to say something about it too, but I saw an idea earlier from you about maybe adding a weapon before the tomahawk (not as strong) so you don't get that one that soon (or easy) and I like that idea too. Also giving natives a bit less loot on avarage sounds good. We might be able to give some of them flaming and or poisonous arrows to annoy you a bit more ;).

the first 5 levels or so should come pretty easy indeed, after that it should become harder.

Something which I was thinking about for a while already was to take a look at healing items. some items you could use during battle but they only heal a little bit. if you want to heal properly you need to have better healing items and you can only use those when you are out of battle and they would make the time pass a little bit too. what do you think about that? would it enhance the game experience or only annoy people?
Another idea I was thinking about instead of this also has something todo with the total damage you get. the system would also have a counter for damage accumlated in a certain time (say 1 day) if you passed a certain damage thresshold (say 500 damage) you would get a penalty to your melee skill because you start to get exhausted. You first need to take some rest before you can go on (this doesn't have to be in a tavern or so, just walking or being on your ship would help). After a day has passed the penalty would be removed again. This would prevent people to do the grinding you are now doing which isn't realistic that much ;). if you still want to do it you can but it becomes a bit harder the more you do it. offcourse at one point a day is passed and the penalties start to dissapair again.
 
Yes, the current leveling system feels perfect in terms of pace.

I like all the ideas you posted about natives.

I also like having to rest at taverns or ships after too much accumulated damage in a day makes perfect sense. I would enjoy that a great deal, and then I could have the same fun play experience, just with some tavern naps, so it stretches out over a realistic couple of weeks or so of game time. I would say also add an option in taverns to sleep for several hours in a restful room, and make that remove the penalty faster than just waiting.

For healing items, I think you shouldn't be able to use any of the current ones with your sword drawn. Bandages and cauterizations kits should not be usable in battle at all because it doesn't make sense. And even drinking a potion is pretty much impossible while deflecting your opponents blows in a sword fight.

I think if you included a toggle "healing items cannot be used while sword is drawn" it would not annoy people, because it is their choice. And they could always run away if needed, put away the sword, and use them.

I also like the idea of bandages and cauterization kits passing extra time, though potions should be instant I think. Though if the officers use healing items on their own, thst might pass extra time when you don't want it, so maybe it would be bothersome. I don't think weak healing items usable in battle are needed, because the player probably won't distract himself from fencing anyway to use a weak healing item.

However, antidote potions should be usable in battle. Whatever the realism concerns, poison is so fast and deadly that you need to be able to counter it. And also officers won't be smart enough to run away and use their antidote potions, so they need to be usable with sword drawn, especially since officers sometimes keep their swords drawn even when battle is over for a few seconds.
 
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Adding a toggle might be a good idea. We could also tie it to realistic mode where you wont be able to use bandages etc. in battle. I think healing potions and antidotes should be able to be used in battle for gameplay sake. it might require some rebalancing of the prices of potions etc, but thats no problem.

I do like the idea to have the penalty be removed when sleeping in a tavern.
This all shouldn't be that hard to make so if @Pieter Boelen and @Grey Roger and @Jack Rackham wont complain to much I'm thinking of at least adding the penalty when fighting to much in a timespan. We could also add a toggle for this. I think it should be tied to realistic gameplay, so in arcademode you can just grind away if you want.
 
That makes sense. I look forward to trying the new system! In the meantime, I think I will voluntarily start stopping after several fights and resting--you are right about my current approach being very unrealistic, ;)

EDIT: I also like your idea of having it tied to HP loss very much, would also incentivize me to use stealth items when possible. I have a lot of ether and stinkpots and grenades,but I haven't yet had a reason to use them.
 
I'm fine with any weapons for the natives. My only role there was to make the Bow and arrows
work. Bartolomeu imported the models. Yes and I also added the tomahawk, because it was
easy and fun.
 
I think the tomahawk is very fun as well. I guess the danger of having natives armed with lesser weapons at lower levels would also be that they would then be very easy targets, because they travel in smaller groups. Right now only the tomahawk really makes them dangerous.

Mostly the tomahawk becomes very powerful for the player from lvls 1-10, by lvl 9 I'm already starting to see a few comparable swords I could arm my team with from the better highwayman. Any unbalancing effect is mostly just limited to the castaway start I think, and my specific strategy to it.

Basically, on second thought I think my initial complain about the tomahawk might have been wrong, as I'm not sure it makes sense to weaken natives by making the tomahawk rarer for such a limited influence on game balance that is confined to low levels, and I worry that making natives weaker at low levels will make them too easy as a source of gold.

EDIT: One odd thing, which might actually be good, is natives don't seem to get a tomahawk unless they have a chance to swing their weapon at you. So stealth killing natives at the beginning of the game won't get the player a tomahawk, you actually have to face them in melee, which is death until you are prepared, around lvl 5 or so I think it was for me. Though it is a bit unrealistic, it actually seems to preserve a kind of balance.

Maybe though the tomahawk could be made a weaker weapon, and the native stats increased to compensate, to preserve the danger while not allowing the player the strength of the weapon?
 
Another idea I was thinking about instead of this also has something todo with the total damage you get. the system would also have a counter for damage accumlated in a certain time (say 1 day) if you passed a certain damage thresshold (say 500 damage) you would get a penalty to your melee skill because you start to get exhausted. You first need to take some rest before you can go on (this doesn't have to be in a tavern or so, just walking or being on your ship would help). After a day has passed the penalty would be removed again. This would prevent people to do the grinding you are now doing which isn't realistic that much ;). if you still want to do it you can but it becomes a bit harder the more you do it. offcourse at one point a day is passed and the penalties start to dissapair again.
This is not a good idea. Problem 1 is if you're trying to walk across an island and there are highwaymen or bandits at every point. Problem 2 is if you're trying to board a large ship with lots of decks. Problem 3 is that 500 damage is massive for low level characters and trivial for higher levels. So basically, you're stuffed if you try to walk from Barbados to Speightstown, or if you try to capture a battleship, or if you try to capture several ships in an enemy group, or if you're high level and take the threshold damage in a few hits.

Adding a toggle might be a good idea. We could also tie it to realistic mode where you wont be able to use bandages etc. in battle. I think healing potions and antidotes should be able to be used in battle for gameplay sake. it might require some rebalancing of the prices of potions etc, but thats no problem.

I do like the idea to have the penalty be removed when sleeping in a tavern.
This all shouldn't be that hard to make so if @Pieter Boelen and @Grey Roger and @Jack Rackham wont complain to much I'm thinking of at least adding the penalty when fighting to much in a timespan. We could also add a toggle for this. I think it should be tied to realistic gameplay, so in arcademode you can just grind away if you want.
Perhaps tie it to "Iron Man" mode, not to "Realistic".

If potions can be used in battle and bandages can not, then anyone who gets into fights will ignore bandages and stock up on potions. In the middle of battle, when you're seriously down on HP and need an immediate boost if you're going to survive, that's when medicaments are going to be needed. After the fight, or when you've cleared a deck and have yet to proceed to the next, you can stop, maybe press "R" a few times to speed things up, wait until your health is back up, and then continue.
 
What if everytime you switched scenes in a jungle (so any scene changes between jungle, outskirts, plantation, and shore, but not between towns and one of those), 2 hours are added to the time?

It would be realistic, as it is silly you can walk across islands so fast, and faster than you can sail I think, and it would ensure at most 6 chances to encounter enemies per night, effectivelly solving the unrealistic rest problem, without creating any additional problems.

On the medical items issue, I would actually still use bandages and such very often, as I would find using R to speed up time or waiting between decks too unrealistic. Actually, in my current game I only use bandages for my character after battles are over, though I let my AI officers have them so they use them during.

EDIT: If the hours added for jungle scene changes were done, then at least the castaway start would need to start with a unit of food (and possiblly rum) in the hold, so he doesn't get starvation or morale problems before he can reach a town (actually, I think that is not a bad idea anyway, and replacing the smuggled goods with that would make sense. The small amount of money the smuggled would bring isn't worth the trouble for 2 units, and there are much easier ways to get money. Also, it is silly the castaway has to wait in a store for his 1 imaginary sailor to load provisions aboard a ship he may not have found yet (and it takes a long time). As a side point, maybe the castaway shouldn't start with a free spyglass, it makes it very easy for him to make an initial 500)
 
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Barbados to Speightstown in reality is about 20km = 12.5 miles, though in the PoTC time period it would probably be a bit longer as the route would not be as direct as present day roads. So, call it 16 miles.

In game, you go from Barbados town exit through two jungle locations to Speightstown town exit, therefore four outdoor locations in total. Each one is therefore about 4 miles. They have clear paths but not exactly high class pavements, so 2 mph walking speed is reasonable.

Bottom line: 2 hours per jungle scene is entirely reasonable. :onya
 
There is a toggle already to control how much time passes per location.
Might be nice if there were different values for towns and jungle areas though.

I'm certainly interested in tweaking the HP system to be more realistic, but I recommend against doing that any time soon as it'll require some substantial thinking through.

If the equip code could be tweaked to take into account officer type, there could be an "Indian officer type" with different levels of weapons defined.
That way they could get better weapons as the game progresses, similar to other enemies.

Alternatively, reduce the tomahawk strength as well as the Loot you get from enemies so it'll be less lucrative and more like pocket money.
Enemies might not be so much of a challenge then after a while, but at least not much of an exploit either.
 
Pieter,

Is the toggle you speak of for how fast time is passing while in a land location, or is there one that adds time when switching scenes by moving between locations? I think the best approach would be to add time upon moving between scenes, not while inside of a given scene. That way, it doesn't get unrealistically rushed if you do things in one location, while it still takes a lot of time to go to new locations (and also then you are limited to less encounters in a given space of time, since encounters are rolled on each switch of scenes). I checked Time Scalers in internal settings, and could only find one for time passing while within a scene (defaults to 10).

On the tomahawks, I think I am just going to voluntarilly not use tomahawks in my new campaign. I am not sure the whole thing matters much to fix otherwise--it pretty much is just an exploit for the castaway class during the early levels, and not worth nerfing natives throughout the game. Much more fun to have them be significant challanges I think. :)
 
The time update I refer to is already between locations.
Look in InternalSettings.h for something about "time update block" or some such setting.
 
Pieter,

Thanks for the guidance! So it is the third line

int TIMESCALAR_SEA = 5; // INT - how many seconds of gametime one second of realtime is at sea
#define TIMESCALAR_LAND 10 // INT - same but for land
#define TIMEUPDATE_BLOCK_LAND 1 // BOOL - whether time updates per minute or on location change (i.e. in blocks)

So if I wanted to make it so that, say, two hours pass when changing scene, how would I change these settings?
 
Increase that time scalar land value.
I'm not certain of the units. Assuming it is in minutes, try a value of 120 and see what happens.
Should work immediately on an existing savegame after restarting the game.
 
Hi Pieter,

Tested it, I think it actually works very differently than what we would want. The TIMEUPDATE setting just controls when the displayed time is updated, and time still passes based on actual time within the scene. So, with setting to 120, here is what happens:

If I switch immediatly betwen scenes, over and over again, very little time passes. Only a couple of minutes per scene change.

If I sit in a scene doing nothing for a minute of real time, then switch scenes, hours have passed from the one scene change.

It seems to be measuring time passing within each scene, and then only updating with that number when you change scenes, but the change of scenes itself has no influence on how much time passed.
 
I think there should be a difference TIMESCALAR for in towns and outside towns.
 
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