OMG! Ship Needs

[Dezmeria]

While there is a topic on, "Ship Combat," I wanted to turn attention to the needs of the crew.

 

Now, I understand the crew needs stuff: food, water etc. But here is the issue: they are too needy.

 

I pop in, get my crew what they need (which damn near ran me broke). So, I sail a little ways and what happens? A huge list of all the items the crew just used and now they are angry. I am on my way to do a quest and get more cash and all they are doing along the way is complaining. Its flashbacks to Fallout 4's settlement buildings- "We need this and that." Is this babysitting part 2?

 

Daily wages? Check I can deal with it.

 

But the rest of the stuff seems a bit too much so soon.

 

So my suggestion would be as follows:

 

Allow the player to purchase individual items for the crew ( as is now) but also allow the player to purchase items in bulk. Want a barrel of water? Check. Want a crate of rice? Check. Need a crate full of medical supplies? Check. Each barrel/crate holds 50 supplies. And since its in bulk, its cheaper then buying one at a time.

 

Instead of accumulating food and water consumption everyday, allow it to be weekly or even monthly. I just don't need a report everyday that my ship mates ate some hardtack and drank some rum. Furthermore, allowing a weekly or monthly tally would give the player time to acquire gold to purchase the supplies needed.

 

Why not toss in side-quests the player's companions can take part in off-screen. Such as, getting a quest opportunity to have one of your companions go raid a certain ship that is docked for goods etc .  

 

Between trying to pay for my groups needs and my ships needs, I was scrambling to get funds. Its too much dumped on the player at once.

 

I am all for giving the player to more reasons to spend gold, but it should be done with some form of moderation.

 

As of now, I feel like that parent constantly on a road trip yelling at the kids too, "Shut the heck up."

 

 

 

[Wormerine]

Interesting but I think you might be blowing it out of the proportions a bit, though it is difficult to say as its all matter of balance. I used console commands to get plenty of cash so I didn't run into this issue. Now let's see:

 

basic items:

50x cannonballs cost: 475

50x repair tools cost: 475

50x medical supplies cost: 475

 

food:

50x water cost: 570

50x Hardtrack cost (-1 to morale): 238

50x Rice: 665

 

 

Lets say you buy a solid supply of 100 rice&water which will cost 2470. If Deadfire economy will be anything like PoE it is not much and it should be enough to finish entire beta with. An experience cook can make saving food easier (once I leveled him up they consume 25% less).

 

Keep in mind you get access to a fully equipped ship. I imagine you will start with a skeletal crew. I personally like the constant drain of resources - it makes traveling feel like a real expedition, and I like getting messages that life on my ship goes on while I am adventuring. Making it happen weekly or (lol) monthly wouldn't cut it, unless they would consume much more food - it would completely nullify effect this system has and I think that the very point of it is to not allow you to sail from one corner of the world to another without stopping in a port. I think it would be cool if you could assign tasks to companions who are left behind on the ship - gather food, water, look for resources - but I don't think it's necessary. I wonder if there there should be some ways to make some money if needed- raiding ships, bounties etc.

 

Overall, I am not worried about it at all. In PoE you hoarded a lot of gold, which you had little use for. If there is a balance issue, it can be easily solved by adjusting cost of basic food. In beta you start with very little money, and a fully manned ship, so it might be the reason why it might seem like a harsh system.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

There does seem to be something weird with Morale. At first I didn't realize I had to move food over to the like "actively using" box, so I bought a bunch of food then sailed around ship hunting and before too long I was at base-value 1 morale; even switching over to only +morale or +0 morale food/drink, I still kept getting morale hits, often significant ones. It feels like with a full crew you burn through food very fast. I like the idea of bulk purchasing, I'm never gonna buy one unit of water.

[Wormerine]

I didnt notice anything odd with it. Keep in mind that hardtracks give -1 morale. I didn't double check it, but I think that means -11 morale per day, if you feed everyone with hardtracks. I don't think there is "nothing is happening" penalty as there was in Pirates!. 

 

Yes, you need to move food from your stash to ship - that way you can prevent sailors to eat food you keep for your own.

 

EDIT: I think it might be more useful if they also show for how many more days you can travel, aside food/water stats.

Edited February 3, 2018 by Wormerine

[anfoglia]

I like your side quest idea. It would be nice to have options to greatly restore some resource (morale, water, food) at the expense of other resources and the possibility of a negative event. So, for example, if you're down to 1 morale, you could "throw a party" for some huge cost of food/water/drugs, with the risk of a pirate attack. If you're low on repair, you could sacrifice morale to "whip the crew" into cutting timber or whatever. If you're low on medicine, you can send your surgeon onto an island to look for useful herbs.

[khango]

I didnt notice anything odd with it. Keep in mind that hardtracks give -1 morale. I didn't double check it, but I think that means -11 morale per day, if you feed everyone with hardtracks. I don't think there is "nothing is happening" penalty as there was in Pirates!. 

 

Yes, you need to move food from your stash to ship - that way you can prevent sailors to eat food you keep for your own.

 

EDIT: I think it might be more useful if they also show for how many more days you can travel, aside food/water stats.

 

Ah, I was confused by this I think. Had no idea why my moral was constantly dropping. So is rice pretty much the "basic" standard crew food?

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

I think injuries may also give a morale penalty.

 

And you can only carry a maximum of 50 medicine at any one time which seems low given the rate it's consumed.

[Wormerine]

I might be making things up, but won’t you be able to fund crew visit to brothel etc. to boost morale? It’s been a while since I watched streams, so I might be hallucinating.

 

If drain on resources would turn out to be too much, food&water could be automated - ship can carry certain amounts of supplies and will get automatically replenished when visiting a city with a port. To be honest that’s what I was expecting when Josh mentioned supplies a while ago. I do like interaction between party food and crew food, and I like economies in games, so hopefully it will be balanced well and will remain as it is.

[Cdiaz]

Great write up! We appreciate the feedback a ton!

 

You the best,

 

-Caleb

[Dezmeria]

Interesting but I think you might be blowing it out of the proportions a bit, though it is difficult to say as its all matter of balance. I used console commands to get plenty of cash so I didn't run into this issue. Now let's see:

 

basic items:

50x cannonballs cost: 475

50x repair tools cost: 475

50x medical supplies cost: 475

 

food:

50x water cost: 570

50x Hardtrack cost (-1 to morale): 238

50x Rice: 665

 

 

Lets say you buy a solid supply of 100 rice&water which will cost 2470. If Deadfire economy will be anything like PoE it is not much and it should be enough to finish entire beta with. An experience cook can make saving food easier (once I leveled him up they consume 25% less).

 

Keep in mind you get access to a fully equipped ship. I imagine you will start with a skeletal crew. I personally like the constant drain of resources - it makes traveling feel like a real expedition, and I like getting messages that life on my ship goes on while I am adventuring. Making it happen weekly or (lol) monthly wouldn't cut it, unless they would consume much more food - it would completely nullify effect this system has and I think that the very point of it is to not allow you to sail from one corner of the world to another without stopping in a port. I think it would be cool if you could assign tasks to companions who are left behind on the ship - gather food, water, look for resources - but I don't think it's necessary. I wonder if there there should be some ways to make some money if needed- raiding ships, bounties etc.

 

Overall, I am not worried about it at all. In PoE you hoarded a lot of gold, which you had little use for. If there is a balance issue, it can be easily solved by adjusting cost of basic food. In beta you start with very little money, and a fully manned ship, so it might be the reason why it might seem like a harsh system.

 

First and Foremost, I did not use console commands. This of course is BETA and I am trying to test things the legitimate way. IF I had used console commands then the above post would never have been made.

 

Furthermore, you are missing my point. I am all for the needs. My point was to structure them in such a fashion your not getting a long list of items of what is going on with the crew every 5mins or so. Once a week/month, in its own crew itinerary window would be fine. And finally, uses should be tallied weekly/monthly not daily.

 

So? How hard is it to tally 1 week of needs at the end of the week? Not very hard. All it does it makes the system neat.

 

(Shakes head) I'm not trying to "destroy" the system, I am simply trying to make the system better and less of a clustered mess.

[Ophiuchus]

I also found the micromanagement of ship needs to be offputting, as managing Caed Nua was my least favorite aspect of PoE1 because of the notifications. Playing the Deadfire beta, I often found the loud notification noises irritating, and startling in some cases, especially when exploring the world map or sneaking in a dungeon. I get it's important the player knows when resources are being consumed, but I wish there were an option to disable or subdue the effect.

[Mannock]

Great write up! We appreciate the feedback a ton!

 

You the best,

 

-Caleb

I hate it when there's some timer stressing me when playing a RPG. Like the devour function in NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer. So please keep these ship functions slowly paced. My dream RPG doesn't really consist of me scrounging for rice for some deckhand.

[IndiraLightfoot]

 

Great write up! We appreciate the feedback a ton!

 

You the best,

 

-Caleb

I hate it when there's some timer stressing me when playing a RPG. Like the devour function in NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer. So please keep these ship functions slowly paced. My dream RPG doesn't really consist of me scrounging for rice for some deckhand.

 

Once, usually when you comfortable with a system, you're ready to handicap yourself, as it were. Perhaps some of this more "hardcore" stuff would be great for a toggle == Salty Dog Mode, with an achievement and all, for really avoiding scurvy and what not.

[FreeKaner]

I disagree that there is anything wrong with timers, it adds to value of your actions by putting the 4th dimension of repercussion, the scale upon which your choices versus their consequences can be weighted. 

 

However though I would agree that it should be less frequent and obstructive, weekly accounting of supplies as well as morale changes would probably be better while the supply consumption could still be daily. So for example if first 3 days of the week the crew ate well and rest of the 4 they had nothing to eat at the end of the week this would reflect to morale while reminding you there is no supplies left.

[Wormerine]

However though I would agree that it should be less frequent and obstructive, weekly accounting of supplies as well as morale changes would probably be better while the supply consumption could still be daily. So for example if first 3 days of the week the crew ate well and rest of the 4 they had nothing to eat at the end of the week this would reflect to morale while reminding you there is no supplies left.

Wouldn’t that be potentially worse? Right now the simplest solution is to improve a rather rough pop up notification. I could imagine it being much softer, until you reach a critical point (running out of supplies) at which point game alerts you to the problem.

 

Consuming supplies on a daily rate, while notifying and accounting you on weekly or monthly basis could have catastrophic results. You would loose hundered or hundereds of supplies at once, potentially jumping from 100 moral to 0 moral in a matter of one morning. You would need to do calculation on how much food will be consumed. With daily accounting it’s easy to see how far you can travel and when you need to seek out a port. While daily supplies are consumed fairly rapidly in the world map, it’s where you travel long distances - majority of the game will be spend on land where time flows much slowly. Consuming supplies monthly just seem absurd. You could beat current beta content couple times over, and not once reach a supply consumption.

[Mannock]

I disagree that there is anything wrong with timers, it adds to value of your actions by putting the 4th dimension of repercussion, the scale upon which your choices versus their consequences can be weighted. 

 

However though I would agree that it should be less frequent and obstructive, weekly accounting of supplies as well as morale changes would probably be better while the supply consumption could still be daily. So for example if first 3 days of the week the crew ate well and rest of the 4 they had nothing to eat at the end of the week this would reflect to morale while reminding you there is no supplies left.

To me such game systems fit better into a Ship manager sim. So tread gently, is all I say.

[theBalthazar]

The only important thing with battleship is fun. Ship manager sim style, gwent style or anything else [...] The only question is :

 

Is the current system is fun ?

 

- No.

 

Why ?

 

- The feeling of only move on textual description before the 0 m of distance (with a true fight after that, but it is classical part of pillars).

 

How change, how improve current system ?

 

- Add passives ability to each crew members. To participate better than simple functions checked (if I understand right the system)

- Add active ability to each crew members once per encounter.

- Add special and stronger active ability for leader of the ship (Watcher for us)

- If I use less cannons (unchecked), my accuracy is increased for remaining cannon(s).

 

With that, you INCREASE the pleasure of a tactical battle. And you not only rush 100 m by 100 m.

 

Frankly, If it was anecdotal in the game, I would have less "forced", I will have "shouted" less, but it looks pretty important. So it seems necessary to warn Obsidian that these phases do not look thrilling.

 

Maybe they have not shown everything, in this case I take back what I said, But if that's all there is going to be, it may be... light.

Edited February 7, 2018 by theBalthazar

[Mannock]

The only important thing with battleship is fun. Ship manager sim style, gwent style or anything else [...]

By that logic, throw in laser sword combat, a roulette wheel and 2D helicopter action combat. As long as it's fun, it has a place in the game, right?

 

Wrong.

 

Different genres have different pillars of which it is built upon. A core formula. I'm not saying that a ship sim of sorts will never fit into a RPG, but you have to handle it very carefully and have it in the background, cause it's not part of the core of the genre.

 

Comparing it to Gwent is not valid either since you could ignore Gwent completely in the Witcher 3 and still finish the game. I don't think you will be able to ignore the ship in its entirety during Deadfire and still finish the game.

 

I also fear that there will be a bunch of people trying out the ship part of the game and bashing on it for not being "realistic enough". Then even more resources will be spent on that part of the game, which could have been devoted elsewhere.

[theBalthazar]

 that logic, throw in laser sword combat, a roulette wheel and 2D helicopter action combat. As long as it's fun, it has a place in the game, right?

 

 

Too much abuse of your exaggeration... : p

 

Gwent is a card game. No direct link with Witchers.

 

And I was not say put a complete 'without link' mini-game oriented.

 

But I talked more of differents type of approach. Action - Tactical RPG (square like Fire emblem) - Hazard (Poker Dice) - Hazard + Cards (Pazaak) collection + strategy + cards (Gwent)

 

ETC ETC. I talked more about kind of mini-game witch is relatively unimportant if there is fun. Obviously the background must be consistent with the main game.

 

Comparing it to Gwent is not valid either since you could ignore Gwent completely in the Witcher 3 and still finish the game. I don't think you will be able to ignore the ship in its entirety during Deadfire and still finish the game.

 

 

So we are agree. If I can't avoid battleship, this mini-game is yet more important than gwent in TW3. So, It must extremely fun and interresting !^^....

Edited February 7, 2018 by theBalthazar

[Wormerine]

There is already topic on ship2ship combat. OP goal was to create thread regarding exploration and resource consumption. Let’s not merge these two together as it anly makes conversation move difficult, with need of repeating oneselves etc.

[FreeKaner]

 

However though I would agree that it should be less frequent and obstructive, weekly accounting of supplies as well as morale changes would probably be better while the supply consumption could still be daily. So for example if first 3 days of the week the crew ate well and rest of the 4 they had nothing to eat at the end of the week this would reflect to morale while reminding you there is no supplies left.

Wouldn’t that be potentially worse? Right now the simplest solution is to improve a rather rough pop up notification. I could imagine it being much softer, until you reach a critical point (running out of supplies) at which point game alerts you to the problem.

 

Consuming supplies on a daily rate, while notifying and accounting you on weekly or monthly basis could have catastrophic results. You would loose hundered or hundereds of supplies at once, potentially jumping from 100 moral to 0 moral in a matter of one morning. You would need to do calculation on how much food will be consumed. With daily accounting it’s easy to see how far you can travel and when you need to seek out a port. While daily supplies are consumed fairly rapidly in the world map, it’s where you travel long distances - majority of the game will be spend on land where time flows much slowly. Consuming supplies monthly just seem absurd. You could beat current beta content couple times over, and not once reach a supply consumption.

 

 

I meant that morale is also accounted weekly, so for example a crew that ate most of the week could be ok with it, while a crew that ate well every day could get a boost in morale, while a crew that didn't eat anything whole week would drop in morale. So it would be like daily morale system exactly, except that it's weekly. 

 

I realise now that I have not worded that well, that's my mistake.

Edited February 7, 2018 by FreeKaner

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

My galaxy-brain take is starting to be that morale should play a bigger role in the actual ship combat. Historically, skill of the crew was the #1 factor and morale the #2. Ships were rarely, if ever, actually sunk in combat -- it happened but not frequently at all. 

[Wormerine]

My galaxy-brain take is starting to be that morale should play a bigger role in the actual ship combat. Historically, skill of the crew was the #1 factor and morale the #2. Ships were rarely, if ever, actually sunk in combat -- it happened but not frequently at all. 

Josh mentioned somewhere they want to add "surrender" to shipcombat. Maybe that will have something to do with it? Or be tied to damage.

[dunehunter]

Not mean to post an Ads here, but has anyone played FLT here? Link http://store.steampowered.com/app/212680/FTL_Faster_Than_Light/

 

I find the spacecraft fighting in that game is very entertaining, and the ship fight in POE2 is kind similar to the spacecraft fights there in FLT. If the Devs can spend sometime playing that game, they might have some idea about how to make the ship development and fight more interesting

Edited February 8, 2018 by dunehunter

[Wormerine]

Not mean to post an Ads here, but has anyone played FLT here? Link http://store.steampowered.com/app/212680/FTL_Faster_Than_Light/

 

I find the spacecraft fighting in that game is very entertaining, and the ship fight in POE2 is kind similar to the spacecraft fights there in FLT. If the Devs can spend sometime playing that game, they might have some idea about how to make the ship development and fight more interesting

Of course. My pernament tablet game. Josh mentioned in recent interview they had a look at FTL when designing the system.