Fixed Standard Storyline: Second task too hard?

[Morkar]

Killing the french captain was easy (he was drunk after all). The guards tried to join in (I guess that's scripted as well), but you can easily run away from them and your officers will follow you. I think just running away makes sense here because there's no gain storywise to fight them because you already have what you need.
Arriving in St. Pierre and doing the quests there went smoothly and bugfree so far. I managed to arrive unrecognized at port under french flag. There were a couple of ships and a fight was going on between french ships and two pirate ships. The pirates got sunk easily before I could even intervene. I will report how the capturing of the vessel will turn out. What I would be interested to know is if there is a chance to get recognized sailing under false flag or is that scripted to work everytime for the storyline?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

What I would be interested to know is if there is a chance to get recognized sailing under false flag or is that scripted to work everytime for the storyline?

You can indeed be recognized, but for storyline purposes that functionality can be temporarily overridden so you'll be always/never recognized.
I can't remember if that is actually the case for those particular quest scenes though, but probably it is.
Which means that you normally CAN be detected. But not when the story sends you to Martinique.

 

[Morkar]

Oh, that's perfect! At least on lower difficulties that's how it should be imho.

I tried to capture the Oisseau on apprentice level and I have to say she has quite the advantage: 2 more cannons for a broadside, more crew but most importantly 4 upgrades in the form of copper plates, cotton sails, additional mast and I think bronze cannons. With the upgrades installed on the ship he could outmaneuver me as well. His crew was quite tough, basically unbeatable for my inexperienced crew and 3 officers.

I captured it by luring it near the fort of Bridgetown and basically let others do the fighting. The duel against the captain was easy on that occasion (his crew was already decimated from the fort cannonballs).

On my several tries changing from world map to open sea to attack the Oisseau sometimes my english flag was already set, sometimes not. Could be kind of a bug but nothing that should be a problem I think.

EDIT: Just tried to practice with my crew: they can defeat me with one successful blow, too.

 

[Levis]

The level of the boarding crew is based on the class of the ship. I don't know from the top of my head what class the oisseau is again.
Again I think doing this instantly shouldn't be the case. There should be some time in between for you to get to know the caribbean a bit better.

 

[Morkar]

See my edit above. The Oisseau is a class 7 vessel (European barque), my own is class 8. Though regarding to that they should be fairly easy?

If you want to keep the difficulty that high on apprentice level I would recommend to let the story campaign start later. Maybe let Nathaniel Hawk start at Jamaica and the campaign triggers only when he is first visiting Speightstown?

 

[Levis]

I think you are just very bad at this sword fighting .
I took the level 7 character from the savegame you posted and tried to do the fencing training on deck and I have no problem with it.
2 hits is enough indeed but they almost never go past my block. But he is not the same as the ones created for boarding

 

[Levis]

Also he is inteded to be pretty strong for the highest level of sword training.

 

[Morkar]

Since parry is just holding the key and everything else gets handled by numbers it isn't really in my own hands in a one to one duel to decide how good I am I had no problem to win against the one crewmember while training with him (walloon sword). I just think it's odd that a normal crew member from you can one hit you. That's better than your officers. I should make him my man-at-arms then But if it's a scripted char and not the strength of a typical crew member it's no problem.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

It just hit me that you are only level 2 at melee. Didn't you train with Malcolm in the tutorial? I'm always at level 3 or 4 by the time I manage to beat him.

The Walloon is a great sword for early in the game and actually only becomes bad late in the game because it doesn't do enough damage.

 

[Levis]

So I think we want to have a little delay between the first and second task so you can work on your character.
Should be simple in the dialog where you first exit it with the governor saying you should train a bit and only after you talk to him again will you get the new task.
We could even add a real delay of a week for example.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Upgrades on the NPC ship are probably completely random. They're not intentionally there.

There are ways to play through this part of the story without having any fight at all.

You also aren't required to stick to your starting ship. But a Tier 8 vs. Tier 7 fight should not be so hugely difficult.
Not entirely evenly balanced, so you will need some trickery to tip the scales in your favour.
Ideally it should be somewhat challenging and require some creative thought perhaps, but not be all that impossible.

Anyway, the proposed changes to Boarding Difficulty could make quite a difference on this too:
Fix in Progress - Level of boarding enemies | PiratesAhoy!
But we won't know until that is done.

 

[morgan terror]

There are much easier ways of finishing this quest. You could just kill the captain while he's still standing in the harbor, for example. He's even got quite a bit of money on him (or he used to, anyway). Alternatively, arrange an accident for his ship. One of the more comical, though unintentional, methods is to raise your own flag once you've got enough distance from the fort. The fort will then sink him for you. Fighting the barque yourself is not something you typically want to do in a lugger.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

You could just kill the captain while he's still standing in the harbor, for example. He's even got quite a bit of money on him (or he used to, anyway).

Hmm.... That sounds like a bit too much of a cheat. Maybe we should enable godmode for him.

One of the more comical, though unintentional, methods is to raise your own flag once you've got enough distance from the fort. The fort will then sink him for you.

Is that based on recent experience? I think that may have changed now. I think he is an "unremovable" companion and those keep their own flags now.
That also means they should keep their own nation relations to forts and ships (only exceptions is to the player and other companions).
So the Martinique fort should see that he's friendly and not fire on them.

It could be that enemies of France would be willing to sink him for you though.
While not quite intentional, it looks like I put no code in place to prevent such a situation.

Tricky, this one! I'd like to prevent any and all such exploits.
But what is done for this quest also affects Escort Quests because they use the same logic.
Which means that if nations friendly to you AND nations friendly to him don't attack him, he's got a bonus in survival.

So if you encounter a ship that is hostile to him and not you, you'll be attack and he'll be left alone.
And if the ship is hostile to him and not you, then he'd be safe because he is with you.
Which removes some of the challenge of an Escort Quest.

 

[Talisman]

Simple solution - sail close to Port Royale fort - players flag automatically changes to English when you go from World Map the 3D sailing - His flag remains French - Port Royale fort fires on him & does most the work of sinking him.

Also if there are any English ships around they will join in and help.

There are much easier ways of finishing this quest. You could just kill the captain while he's still standing in the harbor, for example. He's even got quite a bit of money on him (or he used to, anyway).

That does not fit with the story - attacking the Captain in the Port would give away that you are an English Spy flying false colours - the town guards and citizens should then attack you ( for killing the Captain) and when you set sail the Fort should fire on you.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Simple solution - sail close to Port Royale fort - players flag automatically changes to English when you go from World Map the 3D sailing - His flag remains French - Port Royale fort fires on him & does most the work of sinking him.

Also if there are any English ships around they will join in and help.

Indeed I think that will work just fine.
Though if your flag changes to English, he should turn hostile to you, no?

That does not fit with the story - attacking the Captain in the Port would give away that you are an English Spy flying false colours - the town guards and citizens should then attack you ( for killing the Captain) and when you set sail the Fort should fire on you.

Ideally they should, yes. But did they ever actually do that?

 

[morgan terror]

Simple solution - sail close to Port Royale fort - players flag automatically changes to English when you go from World Map the 3D sailing - His flag remains French - Port Royale fort fires on him & does most the work of sinking him.

Also if there are any English ships around they will join in and help.

I thought that if you used directsail he'd eventually automatically turn hostile though.

That does not fit with the story - attacking the Captain in the Port would give away that you are an English Spy flying false colours - the town guards and citizens should then attack you ( for killing the Captain) and when you set sail the Fort should fire on you.

I dunno. I've always liked the multitude of solutions that this quest has. I'd rather keep this option in some way. A far better solution than 'we'll just make him impossible to stab' (which is kind of cheap, IMO. I'd rather reward inventiveness) would be to spawn a patrol of guards. It's quite common for the player to still have their ship at oyster beach at this point, meaning that you'd have to run back through the town, to your ship, while spawning guards. It would still be quite difficult to get out of the town alive.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I dunno. I've always liked the multitude of solutions that this quest has. I'd rather keep this option in some way.

For sure I'd want to keep all reasonable options open.

A far better solution than 'we'll just make him impossible to stab' (which is kind of cheap, IMO. I'd rather reward inventiveness) would be to spawn a patrol of guards.

True. But "far better solutions" can also mean "less simple to accomplish".
One thing that may work is to make the game believe that he's a town guard.
Killing a town guard is VERY dangerous!

 

[morgan terror]

Ideally they should, yes. But did they ever actually do that?

No, they don't. I suppose it would be okay if they did though. You can still avoid the fort by landing at the beach first instead, which requires some planning ahead, and if the player DID plan ahead, i see no reason not to reward that forethought.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

You can still avoid the fort by landing at the beach first instead, which requires some planning ahead, and if the player DID plan ahead, i see no reason not to reward that forethought.

Definitely. I like the idea that players using the beach rather than the port would get a bonus of some kind.
Of course if false flags aren't detected during those scenes for quest purposes, either way would be equally safe.

 

[Talisman]

Indeed I think that will work just fine.
Though if your flag changes to English, he should turn hostile to you, no?

That is what happens when sailing with the Oiseau - when you leave the World Map ( wherever you are ) the player's flag is changed to English and Oiseau turns hostile to the player automatically.