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Forums » List all forums » Forum: Game Design » Thread: Big ships we need you |
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Thread Status: Normal Total posts in this thread: 21 |
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Paulisma
Joined: Aug 23, 2011 Posts: 515 Status: Offline |
I've posted something like this before, as I personally really like it together with many others. Puzzle Pirates has turned into a game like TribelWars, where you first build your army for 18 hours (jobbers on a ship) and then you can finally get into some action. With some bad luck all your army can be gone within 30 minutes like in TribelWars, as your ship can hit an ice rock or whatever! Unlike many others, I think this game is great but lost it's core value. ''Back in the days'', a very common saying in every conversation on Puzzle Pirates nowadays, many people played this game because of the diversity of things you could do, the great things you desired to accomplish and the great community. Luckily, we still have the last part, but others have faded together with the active playerbase. Just to sum up a few. *Pillaging, what do you do when you start to play puzzle pirates? Indeed pillaging. Well guess what, not now anymore as there aren't pillages being run. *Any sea monster hunt with big ships, yes we can still load brigs with a crap load of patience, but that's not what this game was designed for. * Flotillas, probably 99% of the playerbase would wish this feature was removed from the game, however, those war frig flotillas weren't that bad back in the day. *Having multiple frigs on a blockade board for each side. Yes today we can still get 3 frigs (if you're lucky) a side maybe, but still nothing compared to what it was a couple of years ago. In 2008 you started out as a greenie, you hit the navy's then hit the pillages, whether it was a sloop or war frig pillage and then you could look for more. There was your first sea monster hunt, you got to appreciate some pirates, made new friends and wanted to become a great sea monster naver like many are in this game. Therefore you kept grinding till you got your first boat, practiced your naving skills and tried to get up to the top of whatever part in the game you was interested in. Right now, 2016, you hit the navy's then look for pillages. Yes, we still have sloop pillages, but the diversity between ships is gone, which is utterly boring to new players. Entering the first sea monster hunt after 3 hours of loading and then being sank within 30 minutes after spending all your well earned pillage money on a badge is not going to motivate you any further to play the game. Becoming a new great sea monster hunter naver, as you do so desire after seeing someone run a succesful one isn't quite that easy anymore. First you need to grind sloop pillages, for hours, days, weeks to afford your first ship. Then there comes the fact that you need ''reputation'' to load a sea monster hunt ship, so quite impossible for any new player. Now you could say it isn't the playerbase fault anyone wouldn't want to run a pillage, because the pay out is not so good or for whatever reasons! However I think things can be changed and as many quotes say ''for every problem there is a solution so also for this one.'' As pointed out before, the diversity of ships being used is gone. No one would notice they removed grand frigs, war frigs and xebecs from the game as if it wasn't for that occasional blockade once a month. A human being doesn't start to play puzzle pirates to beat cutters with sloops, he/she starts to play it to beat grand frigs with his/her own well earned customly designed war frig (example, how many people enjoy being on pegasiswolf's event in july? Maybe because of the presents, but I bet a grand frig pillage once a year is actually quite interesting to be on!). Most important and all beautiful stories aside, here's the idea. White names, yes those you get one or two on your ship now, should be way more common. Peforming better than 'fine' would be a necessary change as well. Obviously with the current number of players we aren't going to fill those big ships to get the game more interesting, therefore the white names should fill in the gap. In this way, war frig sea monster hunts should be possible again, as well as flotillas and pillages. To clarify it a bit more I'll write out two situations here regarding sea monster hunts and blockades. To start off with sea monster hunts. Here it is again, ''back in the days'' war frig sea monster hunts and gand frig CI's would fill within an hour or two. Now they won't within a day. To get this possible again white names will be added. Ships will be filled with 33% of its maximum capacity with white names. Coming to a result of 51 white names on a grand frig, 25 white names on a frig and 15 white names on a xebec. Obviously, filling a grand frig is still going to be a challenge, but how beautiful would it be if we can get that daily war frig back wall going again. If getting 50 jobbers on a war frig is questionable, you could higher the percentage so it should be able to fill. Coming to blockades, the percentages would be a bit lower, as you don't actually fill the ship till the maximum capacity. Therefore 20% of the maximum capacity will be white names during blockades. Resulting in 31 white names on a grand frig, 15 white names on a frig and 9 white names on a xebec. This means a war frig would only need 35-40 jobbers to get it floating instead of 50-55. Some things to I'd like to remark: *Percentages should hold for any size of ship, otherwise smaller ships would be very weak against the big ones. *Percentages in pillages should probably be highest, as there is the fewest animo to pillages, although you don't actually need a full ship to pillage either! *Regarding to blockades, influence of ships should be adjusted. TL;DR There should be more white names on ships, so bigger ships can be used again, whether it's in a pillage, sea monster hunt, flotilla or blockade. White names should also perform better than just fine. The game isn't dead until the nexus has been destroyed! ---------------------------------------- hi im kev #FreeOceancool Pauldancer&Paulisma |
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majestrate
Joined: Feb 18, 2005 Posts: 3958 Status: Offline |
For blockades, the NPPs shouldn't perform any better than fine. Blockades are PvP not P&NPP vs P&NPP. If we're going to change the game in that manner, then blockading should be more similar to Kraken Encounters. Maybe have a toggle that lets you enable/disable auto-generated movement tokens(cannot be changed once on the blockade board). Stipulations if auto-generated movement tokens were allowed in blockades:
Maybe instead of a toggle, the answer is to have a new type of ship in each class. One that is more frail than its counterpart and is weaker in terms of weapons: For example, instead of 10/6.66/5 (s/m/l) to sink this new type of sloop, it would be 7/4/2; Instead of 4 guns, there would be 2 Similar adjustments could be made to each of the various ships You can also make similar adjustments for outside of blockades, to address pillaging/SMH concerns. ---------------------------------------- #TeamEvil
Avatar by the gracious and wonderful Phaerie <3 |
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ForumBoocher
Joined: Jul 28, 2008 Posts: 102 Status: Offline |
I do like the idea of more white names, but I think making a certain puzzle (Sails/rigs) useless in blockades is a bit unbalanced. ---------------------------------------- Alexjustalex Natural Born Chillers Emerald Ocean |
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Paulisma
Joined: Aug 23, 2011 Posts: 515 Status: Offline |
Jobbers are of course the most important people in a blockade, without jobbers no blockade. However blockades are mostly seen as PvP as the core staff of each side exists out of players (i.e. JC/LA, BA and navers). Adding bots to each side, whether performing better than fine or not wouldn't change anything to that. A blockade is basically a PvP pillage battle, where bots can also be involved, but then with flags to cover at the same time.
Yes I do think the diversity of ships being used is a problem, but I do not think the problem is at small ships. Introducing new ships to each size of class wouldn't make the big ships more used, as they still won't be able to fill.
This addition could make it possible that someone decides to put 18 bots on sails on a war frig. However players should still be able to knock the bots away if they prefer to sail. If they do so the officer in charge can command the bot to go to another station. ---------------------------------------- hi im kev #FreeOceancool Pauldancer&Paulisma |
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Gorillabuddy
Joined: Mar 20, 2011 Posts: 321 Status: Offline |
I like the idea of ship variants, although it might take a lot of work from the developers. When ordering a sloop, for example, you could be given 100 points to spend. For starters, let's say the first level of each station costs 5 points and each additional level costs another 5 points. So for the standard sloop, that would be (5 + 10) for bilge, (5 + 10) for carp, (5 + 10 + 15) for sails, (5) for guns, and (5) for nav, for a total of 70 points on stations. You could also spend points on HP and hull space, or maybe even gun level(small, medium, large). This would make it difficult to deviate too far from the norm, but it would make it fun for players to experiment and customize their ships, instead of only using standard templates. ---------------------------------------- Pliskin of Cerulean Avatar by Cattrin |
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majestrate
Joined: Feb 18, 2005 Posts: 3958 Status: Offline |
A blockade is PvP where eights and "politics" can (and should) influence the outcome. To allow large ships to be operated by fewer jobbers is fine, as long as the NPPs don't perform better than the average player.
If you need less players to operate a ship, why wouldn't you be able to fill it? The only difference between what I've posted and your NPP manned ship is that in my scenario when 2 ships have even bilge levels, they will generate tokens at the same rate. In your scenario, having NPPs that perform at above average skill has the possibility of NPPs giving the edge to one player vs the other. NPPs should not be a deciding factor in a blockade. We already have those type of blockades, versus brigand kings.
It doesn't make them useless. There's a trade-off. If you have fewer players jobbing for you, you can still match ship numbers on the board by using weaker ships. Takes less to sink, can't deal out as much damage. If you have the jobber numbers to support it, you can take out a regular vessel, which requires players to puzzle at sails/rigs. ---------------------------------------- #TeamEvil
Avatar by the gracious and wonderful Phaerie <3 |
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Paulisma
Joined: Aug 23, 2011 Posts: 515 Status: Offline |
Not sure why a NPP shouldn't be able to perform better than the average player and I'm not sure if they will do that anyway if they perform 'good'.
NPPs won't be a deciding factor. Both sides will get an equal amount of NPPs when the jobbing numbers are even and the ship choice is the same. If one side is outjobbing one will have an advantage, but they would also have it without NPPs. Of course it isn't the same as brigand king blockades. As you could compare a PvP blockade to a PvP pillage with flags, you could compare a brigand king blockade to a pillage against bots with flags being involved. ---------------------------------------- hi im kev #FreeOceancool Pauldancer&Paulisma |
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majestrate
Joined: Feb 18, 2005 Posts: 3958 Status: Offline |
Bots should be replaced by players due to performance. Players should not be replaced by bots due to performance. "Ugh, you're only average at sails, move so I can get good+". Unacceptable, as now you have NPPs taking a larger role in PvP blockades.
If you're out-jobbing me, it won't matter because when you job players, they're replacing NPPs. And my NPPs are performing better than the average player. So there's a chance that out-jobbing me will cost you points.
Try as you might, you can't compare pillaging to blockades. It's two different things. Sure, both are community activities, but my flag's pillaging doesn't play into ocean politics unless it's PvP. ---------------------------------------- #TeamEvil
Avatar by the gracious and wonderful Phaerie <3 |
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Paulisma
Joined: Aug 23, 2011 Posts: 515 Status: Offline |
I'm not so sure how much you do know about the blockade scene. Nowadays people are happy to fill any ships at all. Navers are very surprised when they get a ship with every station filled. On a frig in a blockade you need 18+18+12+3=51 (just going for 3 gunners here) people to consider it as full stationed. A situation like you mentioned above will only happen if there is more than 51-15=36 (if there would be 15 NPPs on the ship) players on the ship. That situation will probably be quite rare as people would start to load a new ship whenever that 36 mark has been reached. Not even talking about the rarity that someone would actually say to a jobber to move on as he/she would rather have a NPP on that station. However this problem could be easily solved, for each player you get above 36 in a blockade a NPP will leave the ship. NPPs won't return if a player leaves the ship when they are on the board. Therefore people won't be planked as due to lack of performance.
I think you misunderstood the core of my idea. Let me clarify. White names won't replace players, they will be an addition to the crew on the ship. Say it would be an all frig blockade, and one side is overjobbing by 36 people, they would have a whole frig more. There's no way jobbing people would cost you an advantage, a bigger difference in jobbing numbers would only increase your chance to win.
Neither do Brigand Kings. So what's your point? ---------------------------------------- hi im kev #FreeOceancool Pauldancer&Paulisma |
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majestrate
Joined: Feb 18, 2005 Posts: 3958 Status: Offline |
What in the world are you talking about? WFs run fine with 45 (46/47 if you count driver and XO). 6 more people is a sloop that can pointsit. If your jobbers are getting excs/incs, then you can drop to the low 40s, including driver and XO.
I see. I still don't agree with using NPPs to make-up for the lack of players. But that's better than what I was misunderstanding.
My point is that blockades with NPPs exist via brigand kings. ---------------------------------------- #TeamEvil
Avatar by the gracious and wonderful Phaerie <3 |
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Paulisma
Joined: Aug 23, 2011 Posts: 515 Status: Offline |
I do not agree with this however it doesn't even matter. You mentioned before:
I'm not just talking about blockades, it would be to any aspect of the game. Pillages sea monster hunts or flotillas it doesn't matter. Yes this would be a major change, but in my opinion it would be a good one. ---------------------------------------- hi im kev #FreeOceancool Pauldancer&Paulisma |
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Acidash2011
Joined: Jun 25, 2011 Posts: 109 Status: Offline |
Nice idea, i like it. ---------------------------------------- Acidash Jobbing Minorities since 5/24/15 General douchebag I hate Haunted Seas *Graveyards Are Pointless* |
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ForumBoocher
Joined: Jul 28, 2008 Posts: 102 Status: Offline |
[quote][quote] [quote]I do like the idea of more white names, but I think making a certain puzzle (Sails/rigs) useless in blockades is a bit unbalanced.[/quote] It doesn't make them useless. There's a trade-off. If you have fewer players jobbing for you, you can still match ship numbers on the board by using weaker ships. Takes less to sink, can't deal out as much damage. If you have the jobber numbers to support it, you can take out a regular vessel, which requires players to puzzle at sails/rigs.[/quote] You misunderstood what I was talking about I think. Having an option to toggle auto generating moves inherently decreases the value of sailing/rigging, unbalancing the game for people who specialize in that area. I think that that is a separate idea than the issue of bots, which seems to be the main point of the thread... I am all for increasing bots on boats. ---------------------------------------- Alexjustalex Natural Born Chillers Emerald Ocean |
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majestrate
Joined: Feb 18, 2005 Posts: 3958 Status: Offline |
I understood what you were saying. Although auto-generating moves reduces the need for sailors, the salient point is that there should be an enormous trade-off for that "advantage". That point being that the ship is more easily sunk and has less firepower than the sailor/rig required version of the ship. Although my stat doesn't reflect it at the moment, I am a sailor. So I am one of the affected if this were ever implemented. ---------------------------------------- #TeamEvil
Avatar by the gracious and wonderful Phaerie <3 |
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ForumBoocher
Joined: Jul 28, 2008 Posts: 102 Status: Offline |
So you understand that it would lessen the perceived value of a "sailor" over a bilger or a carper..? Ok... That kinda goes against the nature of the entire game - a collective effort where everyone contributing creates something bigger. A change like this would significantly slant the importance of some players away from others, making 3 basic duty puzzles MUCH more valuable than 2 others. The trade off is there yes, but not on an individual level. On an individual level, some people just get de-valued. I just don't think that's going to fly, and shouldn't. Again, this idea is very separate from the initial one proposed... It seems like a more complicated, less balanced way of doing the same thing. ---------------------------------------- Alexjustalex Natural Born Chillers Emerald Ocean |
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bailet
Joined: Apr 15, 2006 Posts: 409 Status: Offline |
Once upon a time, I believe you were able to "hire" better(?) bots onto your ships, however that feature was removed as it took away the social aspect of the game where players could hire ultimate bots on a sloop and never need another player again. If the game continues as it does, the ability to hire extra bots with varying performances may be necessary and an important poe sink. What if we even went so far as the ability to hire extra bots of varying performances, but you could only do it up to half the ships maximum players, meaning you would only need half the players to fill something like a frig or war brig to pillage, which is entirely possible currently. ---------------------------------------- Clotho tells ye, "did you hide the skellies this time?" OM MESSAGE: Complaining the on-duty OM will only result in another flurry of eggs being sent out into the YPP world. Go #TeamPurple! Dalnoth's Favorite Pirate |
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majestrate
Joined: Feb 18, 2005 Posts: 3958 Status: Offline |
When do you think that was an option? The only time I've seen swabbies that were better than average was on the Battle Navigation mission. The only thing I have found to reference what you're saying is this:
But there's nothing that says the skill/performance was ever raised. Granted, I wasn't in the Alpha or the Beta releases, so maybe then? And there was a period of time that I didn't play (2009ish-2013ish), but I'm almost positive it wasn't an option during those years. ---------------------------------------- #TeamEvil
Avatar by the gracious and wonderful Phaerie <3 |
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Gorillabuddy
Joined: Mar 20, 2011 Posts: 321 Status: Offline |
Specifically regarding kades, maybe there could be an auction or draft for different kinds of bots, at a minimum offering ones with different stats in sails/carp/bilge/guns, and potentially offering different skills, powerups, or drawbacks. They could be organized into tiers or groups as well, and one flag could only get a certain amount from each tier, to prevent them from buying up every single bot. For example, let's say the bots are grouped like so: Tier 1: Bot A - Ult Sails, Ren Carp, Ren Bilge, GM Guns - Ability: Can double load cannons, but has a chance to backfire and cause damage to the ship Bot B - Master Sails, Leg Carp, GM Bilge, GM Guns - Ability: Can take wood from the ship to deploy a "marker" on a flag with an influence radius of 1 and an HP of 1. This will count as influencing that flag until it is destroyed. etc. Tier 2: Less good bots, or ones with high risk abilities. Tier 3: Mediocre bots that are mostly there for filler. The number of bots you can purchase could either depend on the size of the island or the current population. For example, you could have 5% of the population for tier 1 bots, 10% for tier 2, and 20% for tier 3. ---------------------------------------- Pliskin of Cerulean Avatar by Cattrin |
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SirCarl67
Joined: Feb 5, 2006 Posts: 2128 Status: Offline |
Filling a grand frig wont be "quite a challenge". A GF has 70 stations excluding guns and navver. Assuming 4 gunners you need 24 humans on board the same as a WB at present. You also don't need every station manned especially when pillaging, if bots take the same jobber cut as humans I would urge my Captain to move to 30% restocking and do solo GF pillages should be able to make 15-20k per battle, Others will do SMHs with just a few friends and agree to split the vessel owner chests this will lead to a huge spike in doub prices. As most of the talk here has been about blockades, yes blockades are more fun when there are more ships on each side, with an ever decreasing player base one option would be to increase the influence diameter of all ships except WF and GFs by 2. This would mean that junks would become the new WBs and WBs would be like WFs. War Frigs would only be used if the number of jobbers on each side is sufficient for all the flags to be covered so it is worth the extra manpower required for a WF sole because of its fire power advantage over a WB. ---------------------------------------- Apollo tells ye "If you're ok for me to do one [bake-off], I'll go with that." |
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bailet
Joined: Apr 15, 2006 Posts: 409 Status: Offline |
I want to say it was a beta feature? Don't quote me as I am not 100% sure. I just remember something like this was either in the game or suggested before and it was shot down due to the social impairment it caused. ---------------------------------------- Clotho tells ye, "did you hide the skellies this time?" OM MESSAGE: Complaining the on-duty OM will only result in another flurry of eggs being sent out into the YPP world. Go #TeamPurple! Dalnoth's Favorite Pirate |
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mackmorrison
Joined: May 29, 2006 Posts: 271 Status: Offline |
Can I get NPPs on my Kracken Hunts so I can sit back & let them gather poe for me! :D ---------------------------------------- Mrm on Cerulean Now more unpredictable than ever. Avatar by Dexla |
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