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Feature Request Shared XP Discussion

But if by "duration of the standard storyline" you mean doing that and only that (no side quests or anything else) then I think he's right.
I'm on free play and played from January 1720 to December 1721. About 25-30 hours or so in game mostly doing naval battles, side quests and exploring the jungles.

@Tingyun

I should try a higher difficulty then, it sounds more "slow" which is good!

Oh that would work too, 33% is slow enough that it wouldn't make it a 10 in a long time.

I'm playing without the automatic leveling system. I though that wouldn't make a difference in XP gain though.
 
The exception is the tavern owner dialogue option "I'm looking for a specific type of officer", which in testing spit out the same high levels as before, but I figure that is basically a cheatcode option anyway, so if you rely on the ones you find at tavern tables and walking around, swashbuckler will give you officers with much more reasonable stats who are farther from the max.
It's not meant to be a cheat, just meant to save you the trouble of some needless searching.

PROGRAM\DIALOGS\tavern.c is responsible for it, by the way.
The level of the officer-for-hire goes up with your Leadership skill because of this:
Code:
CreateOfficerType(OFFIC_TYPE_BOATSWAIN, sti(PChar.skill.Leadership));
Seemed like a good idea at the time.... :cheeky
 
It will make a huge difference in skill gain, but not XP.

Look for program\characters\leveling.c

in it find these lines

#define SKILL_EXPERIENCE_MULTIPLIER 0.8 // FLOAT - Must be a float higher than 0.0 - default is 1.0 - the rate at which the characters gain skill experience: For a 30% increase set to 1.3
#define EXPERIENCE_MULTIPLIER 0.8 // FLOAT - Must be a float higher than 0.0 - default is 1.0 - the rate at which the characters gain experience: For a 30% increase set to 1.3

Try playing on swashbuckler, and setting the EXPERIENCE_MULTIPLIER to 0.4

That should more than half your advancement rate, combined with swashbuckler.

Be careful also changing the Skill_experience_multiplier . I tried doing that, and in testing (with controlled commerce purchases and sales to measure effect) it resulted in a much larger than expected slowing of skill gain. I think the Experience_multiplier and skill_experience_multiplier both operate on skill xp, so lowering both would introduce more change than you'd like.

Anyway, I suggest just turning on swashbuckler, and setting EXPERIENCE_MULTIPLIER to 0.4, and see if that is dramatic enough for you. Skill gain should already slow alot that way.

One more thing: I am making some experimental kind of alterations to some things (weapons, officer skill lists) that would mostly affect new games and might be interesting. If you'll be starting a new campaign at some point, any chance you'd want to try them out? I can tag you for them if you are interested in considering.
 
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Pieter, I like being at the mercy of limited options. It makes sense to me I wouldn't have every skilled type of officer in every port, and I like having to slowly form and change the team over play, often settling for a not so good candidate while I wait for better. So for my personal playstyle, I don't use it (I also am disabling trustworthy, master of boarding, and instant repair). Just the way I like to play, with limited options and constant hard choices. :)

In testing, however, I do use it to quickly generate officers to test changes. Never was much of a difference before, but at swashbuckler, those instant officers are around 50% higher level than the tavern table sitters.
 
Thanks Eskhol, expect some experimental rebalancing files to play with soon. :) (All are personal mods I am also using myself, so I am confident they won't break anything at least ;) )
 
Pieter, I like being at the mercy of limited options. It makes sense to me I wouldn't have every skilled type of officer in every port, and I like having to slowly form and change the team over play, often settling for a not so good candidate while I wait for better. So for my personal playstyle, I don't use it (I also am disabling trustworthy, master of boarding, and instant repair). Just the way I like to play, with limited options and constant hard choices. :)
Fair enough. That's why we didn't remove those random officers.
If you want to use the "specific type" option, you can. And if you don't, then you don't. ;)

In testing, however, I do use it to quickly generate officers to test changes. Never was much of a difference before, but at swashbuckler, those instant officers are around 50% higher level than the tavern table sitters.
You could replace sti(PChar.skill.Leadership) with 0 and see how you like that.
 
@Eskhol one final thing--for new campaigns, change the options to use the automatic leveling system. It is great, and a huge improvement. I think you'll very much enjoy how it helps to create specilist officers. :)

(Also, I think everyone basically does use it, so most of the balancing discussion is focused on that system. You'll find skill gains are much more reasonable)
 
I'm playing without the automatic leveling system. I though that wouldn't make a difference in XP gain though.

It does a lot.
Normally you need exponentional more XP for each skill increase. So if you go from level 1 to level 2 (character) and only got XP in 1 skill it will take this skill from level 1 to level 2.
But if you would go from level 1 to level 2 (character) while this skill is level 9 already it would probably be only 2% or so. But if you use skill assignment you can just level a skill each level.
If you like the non-auto-level system you can look at this define:
Code:
#define ADD_SKILLPOINTS_PERLEVEL        2        // INT - The amount of new skill points added each level up for ALL characters (player and officers)
at the top of leveling.c you can change that to 1 to only get 1 skillpoint per level.
I believe normally a officer should be 10-10 fully if you reach level 50. If you change that one to 1 you should only get to 10-10 full if you reach level 100 (I tried to balance it a little bit round that but I don't know how much of that balance has remained in tact).
 
@Pieter Boelen Changing the interface etc should't be that hard. I think I could get all these things done in a day or so (depens on when I have some time) but at least before the end of the weeked. So I could include it in the new zip I want to post.
 
Changing the interface etc should't be that hard. I think I could get all these things done in a day or so (depens on when I have some time) but at least before the end of the weeked.
That sounds pretty good then!

Maybe before proceeding, we'd need to get a bit more feedback.
Hopefully @Grey Roger has some useful comments on our most recent suggestion so we could determine if it is actually a good idea at all.
(Obviously if it turns out it isn't a good idea, we shouldn't waste time and effort on implementing it.... :wp )

Alternatively, we could also make an overview of the various options we've got and put it in a Poll.
Then anyone can provide feedback even without joining in our admittedly rather in-depth discussions.
 
Sounds good to me. I think you have a better overview of this at the moment so could you make a post (at least) with the current idea we have and maybe some "options" ? then we can see if a poll is needed
 
I'm more concerned about levels, ability points and perks than skills. The player gains XP in all skills so will gain levels more quickly than officers, but should be going up relatively slowly in specific skills while officers go up more quickly in the skills associated with their posts. Nevertheless, in the long term, the player character will probably end up being the main source of skills. What he can't do is provide all the perks. Normally I concentrate on "Professional Fencer", "Sea Wolf", and all the prerequisite perks needed to get them. So what I'll be looking for is, by the time I've got all of those, officers who have been with me right from the start should also have a complete set of perks associated with their posts. The gunner probably won't manage it as he's looking for "Professional Cannoneer" and all its prerequisites, and seems to gain XP more slowly than other types. But I'd expect the boatswain, navigator, carpenter and surgeon to have all the perks associated with their respective jobs. Basically, if the player has all the perks for two jobs (fencer and navigator) then any officer ought to have all the perks for one job. (Shore party officers will also be gaining fencing XP, but then, if you want them to survive as a shore party, you'll be giving them fencing perks as well as their job perks.)

The earlier form of "Shared XP" helps with this; if they're gaining shares of all your XP then they're going up levels faster and have a better chance of gaining those perks. If they're now to get only shares of XP in the skills associated with their posts then they'll need to get a bigger share to compensate. They're only sharing XP from one or two skills instead of all 10.
 
I'm more concerned about levels, ability points and perks than skills. The player gains XP in all skills so will gain levels more quickly than officers, but should be going up relatively slowly in specific skills while officers go up more quickly in the skills associated with their posts.
The Mainplayer will go level up more quickly then officers indeed but if the mainplayer gets XP for say Commerce in most cases the officers should also get this (there are a few cases where XP is only awarded to a certain character but I'm thinking of removing that so all XP gained will always go to the contributing officers also). I do believe thats what you and @Pieter Boelen and others want to see. But in thoses cases the progression of the skill should go at the same speed. And I believe most people at the moment feel that officers should get a little bonus on this XP so they will actually progress quicker then the mainplayer does.

Nevertheless, in the long term, the player character will probably end up being the main source of skills. What he can't do is provide all the perks.
This is intentional indeed, it's to make sure officers actually are usefull. I hope everyone agrees that's good.

Normally I concentrate on "Professional Fencer", "Sea Wolf", and all the prerequisite perks needed to get them. So what I'll be looking for is, by the time I've got all of those, officers who have been with me right from the start should also have a complete set of perks associated with their posts.
Sounds like a good strategy

The gunner probably won't manage it as he's looking for "Professional Cannoneer" and all its prerequisites, and seems to gain XP more slowly than other types.
After your previous feedback I've already upped the XP gained for cannons with 20% so I hope this will make the gunner progress more evenly also. I would still like to get feedback on progression of different skills so we can tweak the values where needed. The idea is that if you are doing all-round things you should progress alround also.

But I'd expect the boatswain, navigator, carpenter and surgeon to have all the perks associated with their respective jobs. Basically, if the player has all the perks for two jobs (fencer and navigator) then any officer ought to have all the perks for one job. (Shore party officers will also be gaining fencing XP, but then, if you want them to survive as a shore party, you'll be giving them fencing perks as well as their job perks.)
So at the moment do you manage to achieve this? From what I've seen it's possible but it does take some time, am I right? If any officer needs to much perks points or other to few let me know too. we might be able to tweak some perk costs or something like that. Or if you feel some officers need certain perks please let me know.

The earlier form of "Shared XP" helps with this; if they're gaining shares of all your XP then they're going up levels faster and have a better chance of gaining those perks. If they're now to get only shares of XP in the skills associated with their posts then they'll need to get a bigger share to compensate. They're only sharing XP from one or two skills instead of all 10.
They will always be getting XP in the skills they contribute which are either 2 or 3 skills (depens on if they contribute a skill half or not). And they will also get XP for fencing already. With the sugested system you would be able to select 1 or 2 (I don't know if we have decided on that yet but I believe it was 1) more skill to gain XP in (and you could change a toggle to make this even more) so it would result in gaining XP in 4 or 5 skills.
So say officers will also get a 25% bonus (altough I think most people want it to be even more) then they should get about 62% of the XP of what the main character gets. purply by the XP sharing. If they do some fencing of their own etc this could be even more.
 
I'm more concerned about levels, ability points and perks than skills. The player gains XP in all skills so will gain levels more quickly than officers, but should be going up relatively slowly in specific skills while officers go up more quickly in the skills associated with their posts. Nevertheless, in the long term, the player character will probably end up being the main source of skills. What he can't do is provide all the perks. Normally I concentrate on "Professional Fencer", "Sea Wolf", and all the prerequisite perks needed to get them. So what I'll be looking for is, by the time I've got all of those, officers who have been with me right from the start should also have a complete set of perks associated with their posts. The gunner probably won't manage it as he's looking for "Professional Cannoneer" and all its prerequisites, and seems to gain XP more slowly than other types. But I'd expect the boatswain, navigator, carpenter and surgeon to have all the perks associated with their respective jobs. Basically, if the player has all the perks for two jobs (fencer and navigator) then any officer ought to have all the perks for one job. (Shore party officers will also be gaining fencing XP, but then, if you want them to survive as a shore party, you'll be giving them fencing perks as well as their job perks.)

The earlier form of "Shared XP" helps with this; if they're gaining shares of all your XP then they're going up levels faster and have a better chance of gaining those perks. If they're now to get only shares of XP in the skills associated with their posts then they'll need to get a bigger share to compensate. They're only sharing XP from one or two skills instead of all 10.
That's some very valid feedback and does suggest something that I'd like to see changed:
Ideally I would wish that the officers gain their own skills fast enough so they go up faster than the player does.
So if you hire a Carpenter at level 1 while at level 1 yourself, then keep on playing, I'd want the Carpenter to hit level 10 well before the player does.

But indeed "gaining XP in more skills" leads to "gaining more XP" which leads to more ability points.
A ridiculously simple (and probably NOT a good) option would be to handle the player the same as the officers.
In other words: Player ONLY gets Fencing XP plus two appropriate skills (currently assumed to be Sailing and Leadership).
Then you'd really truly need your officers for those other skills.
I'm not at all convinced that is actually a good idea though. It would certainly be controversial!

Alternatively, perhaps officers should level-up faster than the player?
The player distributes his XP gain over 10 skills, but officers usually only over 2.
So should officers gain levels 5 times faster than the player to keep them in line?
 
That's some very valid feedback and does suggest something that I'd like to see changed:
Ideally I would wish that the officers gain their own skills fast enough so they go up faster than the player does.
So if you hire a Carpenter at level 1 while at level 1 yourself, then keep on playing, I'd want the Carpenter to hit level 10 well before the player does.

But indeed "gaining XP in more skills" leads to "gaining more XP" which leads to more ability points.
A ridiculously simple (and probably NOT a good) option would be to handle the player the same as the officers.
In other words: Player ONLY gets Fencing XP plus two appropriate skills (currently assumed to be Sailing and Leadership).
Then you'd really truly need your officers for those other skills.
I'm not at all convinced that is actually a good idea though. It would certainly be controversial!

Alternatively, perhaps officers should level-up faster than the player?
The player distributes his XP gain over 10 skills, but officers usually only over 2.
So should officers gain levels 5 times faster than the player to keep them in line?
I don't think it's such a problem if the perk progression goes a bit slower for officers then the main player. The mainplayer probably first focusses on personal perks. if you have some officers which don't go to the shore party you can have them focus on usefull perks instantly. so this would mean they should get theire contributing perks pretty quickly. I would like to have some more feedback on this first before we are going to change that more.
I'd first like to test with the changes we discussed now and then see how that goes and if we need to tweak more.
It might be wise to make an overview of all perks officers can get and the costs of these perks so we can see if the added costs are approxamitly the same (I have to admit when I picked the perks I didn't check that), we could tweak some of those numbers if needed.
 
I don't think it's such a problem if the perk progression goes a bit slower for officers then the main player. The mainplayer probably first focusses on personal perks. if you have some officers which don't go to the shore party you can have them focus on usefull perks instantly. so this would mean they should get theire contributing perks pretty quickly. I would like to have some more feedback on this first before we are going to change that more.
I'd first like to test with the changes we discussed now and then see how that goes and if we need to tweak more.
It might be wise to make an overview of all perks officers can get and the costs of these perks so we can see if the added costs are approxamitly the same (I have to admit when I picked the perks I didn't check that), we could tweak some of those numbers if needed.
This is the bigger issue:
Nevertheless, in the long term, the player character will probably end up being the main source of skills.
Ideally, that should not be the case, right?
 
I agree with Levis for this, and I find it very easy to attain a full set of officers containing all the perks. Ridicluously so actually, so that I've effectively maxed out in every line of perks fairly early (at level 18 I could easily achieve a full set of officer perks for every role on Sea Dog relying on tavern sitters--swahbuckler their levels are lower, but then thst level should be harder, and anyway "hire a specific officer" function were I willing to use it would give the same high level officers since it is difficulty independent).

I do not want officers progressing faster than player on levels, or it will never make sense to hire new guys throughout the game, which is part of the fun.

At lvl 18 on sea dog, I was able to hire a level 22 and a level 19 gunner. The level 19 gunner had good skills across the board, the 3 increase damage gunner perks, and 13 free perk points waiting to be assigned. I could max out all remaining cannon skills for 6 of his stored perk points, meaning that he still has 7 perk points waiting to be assigned after he is done with every single cannon perk. The level 22 guy has wasted most of his perks in combat roles, so I hired him with an aim to being a fighter.

Growing up the officers in-house works fine as well. I hired a navigator at level 8. Combined with starting perks, he could instantly purchase most of the navigation perks, basically only had sea wolf and club hauling left. Sea wolf has a level requirement though, which means eventually I will have to hire a new navigator who is already level 20. I am 100% fine with that--occasionally refreshing the team with more expensive and talented people makes sense as you progress in the game.

But it is only nessecarry to meet the level requirements of certain high end perks like sea wolf (level 20). It is never needed to meet the perk points requirement to purchase perks, provided the player does one simple thing:

Be selective when choosing which officers to hire, paying attention to not hire professionalls who wasted perk points on noncontributing perks or too many combat perks if it is a noncombat role. This is not hard to do if the player takes his time (usually, I achieve it by hiring the first person in a role I see, and then paying attention to future tavern sitters, replacing that person when a better candidate comes along). After interviewing 3 or 4 candidates naturally over time from my normal candidate visits, I'll find one who is perfect for their role, and easily maxes out their line.

In fact, doing this it is far TOO easy to get officers maxing out every perk line, and this was with me playing without shared xp at all. Level 18 for the player was easily sufficient, as most roles can max out at level 13 or so if you carefully select a candidate that used his perk points well. The game has barely started and perk progression is over, which if anything is too soon.

In contrast, an AI captain at level 18 will not have anything close to all the perks, unless I am misunderstanding something. In fact the only reason I have not manually increased perk costs dramatically is that I am afraid it would put the AI captains at an even greater disadvantage, as they can't rely on officers.

The only way that I would have any trouble maxing out perk lists is if I: 1) did not carefully consider whether a particular candidate should be hired or not, and instead just went with the first person regardless of perk selection, and at the same time 2) refused to consider replacing people with new hires later in the game. If I am willing to either screen candidates, or replace later, then maxing out perks is easy.

For some personal modifications for a planned playthrough, I am currently considering decreasing some perk costs, but level locking most perks, to slow down the player so there is real progression throughout the game but allow AI captains to more cheaply purchase the perks they need. Unless I misunderstand something, an AI captain has to purchase all the personal combat perks and seafaring perks his ship needs, and at level 20 he won't even come close. I wish AI captains could be temporailly granted additional perks (the same as their level, so 2x level) thst disappeared upon capture, to reflect the influence of their officers in having perks themselves.
 
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@Pieter Boelen

Forgot to address the skills point in my above post on perks, so will do that now:

In my experience on sea dog officers stayed well ahead of the player in skills with shared xp off (which is close to the system we are discussing in terms of overall gain). Old hires and new hires both were a couple of points ahead of the player in their specialties.

Moreover, when I was testing xp gain rates, I ran controlled experiments on officer vs player xp gain. My character had a commerce of 3, my quatermaster had 5 (so one would expect slower gain because his higher starting score). Still, when I bought/sold 30 silk and 150 sandalwood to measure, the quatermaster gained 8 percentage points towards his next skill increase, and the player only gained 2. Later, I hired a new quatermaster who already had a 6 in commerce.

Bascialy, outside of sailing, leadership, and fencing, I don't have a hope of outpacing my officers and officer candidates, which seems as it should be.
 
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