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Forums » List all forums » Forum: Game Design » Thread: Shorten battles |
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Thread Status: Normal Total posts in this thread: 17 |
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Gorillabuddy
Joined: Mar 20, 2011 Posts: 321 Status: Offline |
Pillaging is quite fun for the most part, but in my opinion, there is one big problem with it, which is that battles frequently take forever. Battles are fun when they take 8-12 turns. Not so much when it's 20+. The efforts by players to max-0, even if it takes 20+ turns, has a detrimental effect on the fun of pillying. It lengthens the Bnav portion to an un-fun level and makes the SF/rumble quick and trivial, with little tension. Battles are more fun when Bnav is a reasonable length and SFs/Rumbles are sort of close. So I believe this should be changed by shortening the bnav portion of the battle. There are many ways battles could be shortened, but one idea I had was to allow players to spend moves to start the battle (or possibly escape). Next to the slots for movement, the player could add moves to a meter. These moves would show up as a different color than movement so that it's clear to the other ship what you're doing. Once this meter fills up, the battle just starts, without the need for grappling. Perhaps actually grappling could now give you a bonus, while this starts fights normally. ---------------------------------------- Pliskin of Cerulean Avatar by Cattrin |
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Snuby
Joined: Jan 30, 2006 Posts: 273 Status: Offline |
We exchange time for a better chance at winning. Works fine in my opinion, 5-10 min bnav is not long at all. ---------------------------------------- Snuby. Current avatar by Phillite |
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Bryceagrimm
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Re: Shorten battles TLDR the Battle navigation puzzle is well balanced after years of tweaking and needs no modification. I understand your frustration with respect to Bnav time. Over the years I have struggled to reduce this time and often risk a could shots to position myself to max them sooner. I think the build up of a battle start feature would 1) take away from the realism or battle nav and 2) make it so that people could exploit the system (pvp mainly) to rush to battle. With that being said, If someone is taking 20+ turns to max in a pillage they probably need to reduce the difficulty of the brigs until they get better or optimize their boat choice. That's a lot of turns... I know there are elite runs where the ship moves like a bat out of hell the entire nav and sometimes a max-0 is necessary to win but these conditions are rewarded with huge booty results that justify the time spent. One bad aspect of running elite pillages nowadays is kraken blood has been hyper deflated and no longer offers the same large bump to booty total. The effort spent to win these battles is often more than a typical green run given the time/benefit ratio. An example on boat optimization, a fanchuan maxes a sloop/cutter/dhow in 4 hits as long as you can avoid getting hit and smartly menouver with 1 less turn per round. It's similar for junk or baglah or longship runs as well. Another thing to consider is that pillage booty just got raised so you no longer need to run elite pillages to make decent money. Run green routes with easy ships and invite new players. Bnav time is significantly reduced and new players are enjoying their taste of this great game. This kind of stuff revitalizes the ocean and encourages new players to come back. Best of luck with future pillages. BGrimm Emerald nowadays |
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Gorillabuddy
Joined: Mar 20, 2011 Posts: 321 Status: Offline |
I think this trade off is fair, but only up to a certain point. After a while, you're also exchanging fun for a better chance at winning, which is flawed game design, imo.
This is what I do. I have a very aggressive style because I don't like long bnavs. I believe it makes for more fun pillaging, but unfortunately it's not really a viable strategy for elite pillies. The correct strategy for elite pillies is very boring to me. You stay at a distance and never risk the other ship hitting you, even if this means the battle takes an eternity. If you like bnavving like that then you should be able to, but I believe aggressive styles should be viable too. I understand that Bnav has been around a long time and is one of the most popular puzzles, and people generally like it. That doesn't mean it's perfect. I could be wrong, but I think a lot of people have the same problem I have with it. The idea I mentioned for fixing this is just one option. Some others: 1. Having cannon shots causing the bilge to fill up in addition to their damage, slowing the other ship down. 2. Having the battle start after a set number of turns 3. Having the other ship start with SF damage which slowly heals, encouraging early grapples but still allowing the traditional strategy 4. Having some (maybe half) CB damage "stick" during the battle 5. Shrinking the battle board 6. Making the outer part of the board require extra moves to traverse, to encourage players to stay in the center 7. Requiring extra moves to traverse areas a certain distance away from the other player, encouraging you to stay near each other 8. Introduce fatigue if battle goes on too long, meaning extra SF/Rumble damage and/or reduced puzzling efficiency 9. If CBs land 1 space away from other ship, it splashes the crew, clearing a move from the movepool 10. Reducing the turn timer Maybe these things could be configurable on the voyage panel as well, leaving them up to the player. ---------------------------------------- Pliskin of Cerulean Avatar by Cattrin |
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Bryceagrimm
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Definitely some great additional suggestions! I have always found it unfair that brigs seem to have unlimited moves even when Ive hit them 20+ times. Sticking dmg to them or losing moves or really anything you've mentioned to get them to slow down once I've hit them say 5 or 6 times but still stays with the core of the puzzle would be a great boon to bnav times. |
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RonenOsden
Joined: Jan 9, 2009 Posts: 1123 Status: Offline |
To me these 3 suggestions would be totally awesome, especially #9. ---------------------------------------- Cptnronen Born And Raised On The Cobalt Ocean Status : Preparing for the end. Avatar created by the amazing Cattrin. |
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Snuby
Joined: Jan 30, 2006 Posts: 273 Status: Offline |
I guess I'd see a -shorten turn time by 20-30% -increase move generation by 20-30% Ignoring the less time to fill guns, it might work. ---------------------------------------- Snuby. Current avatar by Phillite |
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jlh0605
Joined: May 1, 2007 Posts: 2243 Status: Offline |
Of what's been said, I support: *20 moves is too long (on a regular basis). It happens to everyone on occasion, but if it's happening all the time, the navver is probably either being far too cautious, or navigating above their level. *Bnav is fairly well balanced, as a whole. I wasn't around until 2006, but it seems like this was one of the main focal points of very early game development. *Small amount of bilge insta-added when being shot. Limit it to no more than about 5% bilge per shot, and 20% per turn (being shot 4 vs. 8 times makes no difference). The downside to this one is griefing; if a ship is trying to run from another (player) ship, the other ship can harass the ship far more effectively if bilge is also high. *Max turn limit. Currently, the rule is that either side can disengage after 10 turns, with that number increasing by 2 turns every time they take damage directly from the other ship. I would like to see this change to 6 turns after last taken damage (no matter how much damage was taken then), and at 12 turns, auto-disengage. This would help prevent super-long battles, and would make it so ships who are obviously trying to run (trade runs, for example) don't have to waste just shy of 6 minutes driving in circles waiting for the disengage button. *Shrinking the battle board. I don't want it as small as the Imperial Outpost board, but perhaps only about a 20 x 20 square? I disagree with: *Shortening turn times. Shortening turn times would disproportionately harm newer/lower ranked navvers, without substantial benefit to mid-level or higher-ranked navvers. Additionally, the importance of time to load guns, especially on a 4-shot ship (sloop/fanch/junk are very common pillaging ships), cannot be overstated. I am a decently good, but not top-of-the-ocean gunner (I have been Ultimate, but am not currently), but I can only consistently load 3 per turn (sometimes even 1-2 depending on the boards I get). Shrinking the turn time will further emphasize existing problems ships have with a lack of gunners. *Requiring extra moves based on board position/relative position to other ship. I cannot see a way that this could be easy to understand quickly, and the mechanics get really complicated. How does "extra moves" work? Do you have to spend two forward moves to go forward once? How about spending a forward and a left move? What if you move into that area during the turn? One suggestion that could work with this is to have something kind of like CI fog - if you get too close to the edges, your damage and bilge raise slightly, and raise more the longer you stay in it. *Bot ships starting with SF damage. This would encourage largely kamikaze runs straight to grapple as quickly as possible, with a fray benefit. Perhaps their carpentry skills could increase throughout the battle instead? You still have to shoot them, but they get better at fixing shots later in the game. (That would almost require a max turn limit to work, though, or it would just exacerbate the existing problem of full-damage bots running.) *Increased move generation. In my experience (and I could be biased here), when battles go long, it's almost never due to a lack of moves, unless damage and/or bilge are also high. Additional suggestions: *If a ship has taken twice the max battle damage, auto-start fray. Anything beyond that is just griefing at that point. *Mentioned, but emphasizing: If auto-grapple is implemented, give a (sizable) bnav scoring bonus to "traditional" grappling. *A suggestion was made that if a shot lands one shy, it should clear a move. I am (strongly) against the idea of losing a move, but it would be fine with me if it instead created a small amount of bilge (and that's thematically somewhat appropriate). *The idea of battle fatigue intrigues me. I'm not sure how I'd like to see it implemented (details), but I like the concept. Have a minor version of fatigue start around 10-12 turns, getting significantly worse as the battles goes longer. And possibly make it so if the battle isn't "boring" (i.e. shots are being traded, ships are close together, something like that), the "fatigue" grows more slowly. Edits to fix formatting and clarify ideas. ---------------------------------------- ~Jamesh on Emerald Avatar by PixelPixie Galene tells ye, "You are awesome." ---------------------------------------- [Edit 1 times, last edit by jlh0605 at Oct 12, 2016 6:41:39 AM] |
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Snuby
Joined: Jan 30, 2006 Posts: 273 Status: Offline |
Or we can look it at a different angle. Lower the booty ramp and greedy rank penalty for losing a battle and people wont be so cautious. If the price to pay for faster battles is just a loss and not the entire pillage I wont mind risking losses. Currently I often just port after a loss because the ramp goes nuts and greedies start showing alone or not even at all. ---------------------------------------- Snuby. Current avatar by Phillite |
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Jcmorgan6
 Joined: Feb 5, 2015 Posts: 413 Status: Offline |
+1 Specifically to greedy ramp, with the increased pay I don't think it matters quite as much for booty ramp. ---------------------------------------- Jjc & Jice on Emerald CI booty division stats ---------------------------------------- [Edit 1 times, last edit by Jcmorgan6 at Oct 12, 2016 7:14:56 AM] |
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JamesStGeorg
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Absolutely not. Long battles are much better for the puzzling crew. Why the rush? To have to do a fight? Go play against bots one on one. Short puzzle spells are not good. Look at the attractiveness of Blockades, smhs, puzzle non stop for hours with no silly sf breaking it up. ---------------------------------------- Jstgeorge of Emerald. |
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TexasBeesh
Joined: Oct 14, 2005 Posts: 1754 Status: Offline |
I have to say, I think the length of battles is just fine. Often when I solo, I need the time, and I see "may dismiss in x moves". I do kind of feel bad when I take so long when others are jobbing for me, but no one has ever said anything. I would rather a naver take the time and get more shot in than a fast grapple with a sure loss. ---------------------------------------- Seatexan - on the Midnight side of Cerulean LOW RACK PRICES AT DRESSED TO KILL - NAMATH Always looking for Pollack Sloops! |
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LJAmethyst
 Joined: Jul 19, 2007 Posts: 4141 Status: Offline |
Some people care about poe per hour. In a pillage, that means the more battles you complete, the better. In blockades and SMH pirates are paid by the segment. So that explains the incentive for extended battle time. ---------------------------------------- Retired as of August 2015. Sic transit gloria mundi. ---------------------------------------- [Edit 1 times, last edit by LJAmethyst at Oct 20, 2016 11:58:23 AM] |
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Dooku9
Joined: Feb 12, 2010 Posts: 191 Status: Offline |
I've never had a problem with the amount of time a battle takes unless my ship is under fairly heavy damage. But recently doing a couple of War Frig pillies on Cerulean last month, a few battles did take a bit too long but it's just a part of the game. We had 1 battle for what felt like 30 minutes and another battle lasted 30 seconds (both won) so it pretty much depends on the navver, the situation/damage control, and the size of the ship. The only thing that would really be on the bright side of a long battle would be if ya won, ya get a bigger and much more hefty loot cause most the crew had to sit there and puzzle away for a good 10-20 mins (depending on the size of the ship) to get damage down to sail up and board ---------------------------------------- Blackbeard(d) Captain of Blackbeard's Infamous King of Davy Jones' Locker "--he showed me his Junk and I swear my pants were on a second ago!" Join my crew and I on our Grandest of All Pilly! Info can be found in the Cerulean events |
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Jcmorgan6
Joined: Feb 5, 2015 Posts: 413 Status: Offline |
This doesn't reward good Battle Navigation as the game should, and would encourage delaying grappling time even once you have maxed the ship. ---------------------------------------- Jjc & Jice on Emerald CI booty division stats |
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Dooku9
Joined: Feb 12, 2010 Posts: 191 Status: Offline |
That's true but as it is already it's apparently hard enough to rank up in bnav. You can max a ship in under 3-4 mins and have the stat not move an inch where as you do (say on a Brig) 8-5 in 10ish minutes and it drops. It's ridiculous ---------------------------------------- Blackbeard(d) Captain of Blackbeard's Infamous King of Davy Jones' Locker "--he showed me his Junk and I swear my pants were on a second ago!" Join my crew and I on our Grandest of All Pilly! Info can be found in the Cerulean events |
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Gunnerfreak
 Joined: Jun 12, 2011 Posts: 436 Status: Offline |
Aye, mate.... I've done SEVERAL battles with max-0 and such and I'm STILL at full Distin..... After reviewing my Portraits, I've noticed I used to be full Master.... Blah, lol..... ---------------------------------------- Gunnerfreak on Cerulean <- Home ocean. AKA Gunnerfreak on Obsidian (new ocean!), Ice, Emerald, Opal, and Jade, Gunnerfreak-East on Emerald, Gunnerfreak-West on Cerulean, and Gunnergunner on Meridian. Also a Respe-ranked YPPedia-wiki freak. |
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