release date and current ship combat system

[mrmonocle]

After giving it a fair try, I have to admit that the ship sustainability/combat system introduced in the latest beta patch is NO fun at all.

 

I understand the motivation behind it: they want to limit our exploration by making the players be dependent on the resources. But does this highly PENALTY driven approach make things fun? In the current system you are afraid to embark since you are not sure whether you will be able to replenish your resources for a return travel. They tell us 'you are free to go anywhere you want' meaning a huge NO. 

 

The ship combat is one of the lamest, repetitive and gameplayless systems I've encountered in recent years. I'm terribly sorry if i offend anyone the ship combat leaves the impression as if it was implemented by an undergraduate intern who hates games as a phenomenon. Not only it's repetitive beyond reason, it's also no fun with options so limited as if it was the first ship combat game ever in history. I ran out of cannonballs. What opportunities as a captain am I given? Right: wait patiently while my ship is being sunk. No option to ram the opponent, no option to run away.

 

In general the whole system feels like a HUGE wealth sink and I do hope it will be either revised or modded away by modders, otherwise I'm just going cheat and avoid ship combat as much as possible.

 

That said, I don't see how they are going to redeem it until the release that's only 2 months away.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Perhaps this ship combat will be just as divisive as the Spirit Eater mechanic in NWN2 MoTB? Hopefully, adjustments will make it more smooth and less of a "seablock", a gold sink and a chore.

[Christliar]

I was absolutely sure from the beginning that the ship combat is going to be a tacked on and repetitive mini-game that only wastes your time. And surprise, surprise, a tertiary gameplay system that doesn't have anything to do with the rest of the game (gameplay-wise) turned out to be repetitive and tacked on. It would've been much better had the sea battles been a handful of scripted scenarios where you control your party and manually use cannons and boarding techniques while the ship crew fights the other ship's crew, maybe ending with a party vs party duel with the other captain. Kind of like NWN2's final battle at Crossroad Keep where all the upgrades you've built and people you've come across help out. Anyway, I wish we can opt out of the ship battles entirely.

I also sincerely hope they don't "gate" powerful items or story-related talents behind this thing, yet hope is a cruel mistress. I don't think anyone needs or wants this sort of devilish manipulation, i.e. be forced to grind it so you can have access to them.

Edited February 5, 2018 by Christliar

[AndreaColombo]

I also sincerely hope they don't "gate" powerful items or story-related talents behind this thing, yet hope is a cruel mistress. I don't think anyone needs or wants this sort of devilish manipulation, i.e. be forced to grind it so you can have access to them.

+1

[Wormerine]

I think the system show a lot of promise, but it’s like a rule set hasn’t been implimented yet. Either way the last update stated that:

 

“In a few weeks, we'll be back with an update that will go in-depth into the ship system, so stay tuned for Update 45!”

 

I assume this means this is not a fully developed ship system just yet.

 

I seem to be another spectrum. I expected throwaway scripted interaction, but we got what seems like a legit system intertwined with game economy and party resting system. There is a danger of it becoming more of a chore and waste of resources, but this new beta gave me high hopes. All the foundations are there, but the gameplay needs to be fleshed out.

[theBalthazar]

Obsidian live in a world where there is :

 

Assassin creed 4 black flag 2013 (5 years ago...)

 

Age of wonders 3 - Battleship in sea 2014 (4 years ago...)

https://youtu.be/Fadwt3ZoyGo?t=18m48s

 

-----

 

So if this feature is a little more of anecdotic (main and regular mini-game), players will be disapointed.

 

Problem : this game turn arround sea... So, Obsidian is forced to put a minimum...

 

Textual / Sentences resolutions is often very limited...

Edited February 5, 2018 by theBalthazar

[anfoglia]

After giving it a fair try, I have to admit that the ship sustainability/combat system introduced in the latest beta patch is NO fun at all.

 

I understand the motivation behind it: they want to limit our exploration by making the players be dependent on the resources. But does this highly PENALTY driven approach make things fun? In the current system you are afraid to embark since you are not sure whether you will be able to replenish your resources for a return travel. They tell us 'you are free to go anywhere you want' meaning a huge NO. 

 

The ship combat is one of the lamest, repetitive and gameplayless systems I've encountered in recent years. I'm terribly sorry if i offend anyone the ship combat leaves the impression as if it was implemented by an undergraduate intern who hates games as a phenomenon. Not only it's repetitive beyond reason, it's also no fun with options so limited as if it was the first ship combat game ever in history. I ran out of cannonballs. What opportunities as a captain am I given? Right: wait patiently while my ship is being sunk. No option to ram the opponent, no option to run away.

 

In general the whole system feels like a HUGE wealth sink and I do hope it will be either revised or modded away by modders, otherwise I'm just going cheat and avoid ship combat as much as possible.

 

That said, I don't see how they are going to redeem it until the release that's only 2 months away.

 

I think ship supply is going to be a question of balance. I very much doubt Obsidian wants the supply drain to be so rapid that players are constantly stressed when exploring, but it's worth testing to see how much threat you can introduce to ship travel before it becomes cumbersome rather than interesting. I've also suggested that Obsidian could introduce an option to engage in certain scripted events, mid-travel, in order to rapidly replenish certain resources at the expense of others.

 

As for ship combat, I think there is a consensus that quick options to board or (attempt to) escape would be welcome (note: in the scenario you describe, as long as you've got sail, you *can* keep approaching the enemy ship until you're close enough to board). And I agree the system needs work. There are some good suggestions here: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/95874-ship-to-ship-combat/page-3. 

 

FWIW, "I'm terribly sorry if I offend anyone" followed by a deliberately insulting way of framing your (otherwise polite) criticism of the ship combat is...something.

[Wormerine]

Obsidian live in a world where there is :

 

Assassin creed 4 black flag 2013 (5 years ago...)

 

Age of wonders 3 - Battleship in sea 2014 (4 years ago...)

 

So if this feature is a little more of anecdotic (main and regular mini-game), players will be disapointed.

I think it depends more or marketing than what actually is in the game. It’s a bit like saying “Gwent in Wicher3 will be disappointing because there are much better card games out there”. If witcher were advertised as game card then sure. But it wasn’t, just as Deadfire isn’t advertised and pirate game. The issue is this: will ship2ship combat be as fun and addictive as Gwent? Right now, it is nowhere near it and it is not a skippable as Gwent in W3. We will see what will they show in an update couple weeks from now.

[IndiraLightfoot]

 

Happened to look at the SomethingAwful thread, and Josh has been on one of his more active streaks there over the past day or two, including some AFAIK heretofore unknown lore points.  Here's the thread, but SA sometimes makes stuff non-viewable to non-members, so I'll post the most interesting quotes. 

 

 

 

On ship battles:

 

 

A few things that will likely be changing:

* In the initial contact, the ability to Close to Board, potentially suffering a hailstorm of cannonballs if you just want to go to deck-to-deck combat.

* Removing the Full Sail x1 or Half Sail x2 style moves per round.

* Jibing being an immediate flip with few consequences.

E: There are not currently any wind/directional mechanics related to moving in the ship duels. Gaining advantage at the beginning of a round will allow you to move farther in that round.

 

 

 

One of the biggest elements that can change the flow of ship duels are ship events. In the current backer beta build, I believe the potential events are deck fire, sail fire, loose cargo, sailor overboard, and flooding. These can be triggered randomly by cannon hits and require "Report to..." assignments for crew members to deal with/put out. While crew members are dealing with those events, they aren't doing their normal jobs. The other, most common, thing that can disrupt the operation of your ship in a duel is a crew injury. A crew injury requires assigning the injured crew member to the reserves so the surgeon can patch them up. Otherwise, injured crew members are incapable of doing their assigned jobs.

There are three other actions we're looking at adding: surrender (player and AI), repairing sails, and repairing hull. The latter two would be battlefield (sea?) repairs to allow the player and AI to deal with sail and hull loss in the same way as other ship events. They would be superseded by events like sail fires and deck fires, since you can't really do repairs on things that are actively on fire.

 

 

 

Interesting, the system will be even more fleshed out, and lots of potential stumble blocks are heading our way as we sail around the archipelago, that's for sure.

[Frog Man]

Josh said in one of the articles that they are making it pretty easy to bypass this whole system if you’re not into it. You can just sail up close and board the enemy ship, thus engaging in classic ol’ POE hack and slash combat, which I will certainly be doing.

 

You can also keep the entry level ship the entire game, another feature I’ll likely take advantage of. So fret not dear forum-goers. You can wait out the ship system until it’s improved if you wish.

[Wormerine]

I can't quite figure out how morale gain and loss works. I'm looking at different foods and apparently they have +/- morale but they don't seem to actually affect anything. Plus im losing 4 morale every turn but there is no indication of what is causing it.

Jumped into the game and found some confusing results - they seem to work as intended but with much less impact than I assumed. Is there anything special currently about your ship (injuries, damage etc.) Here are my experimentations and results. For simplicity sake I used water only and only played around with food:

 

Test one - are moral stable when using neutral quality food (rice&water):

 

It seems so. Sailed for couple days like that and moral didn't change

 

Test two - keep the water but use hardtracks (-1 to moral):

 

Again, repeated it couple times over, with the same result. I assumed it will be -1 moral per consumed hardtrack, not total.

 

Test three - mix food (heavily in favour of hardtracks) and see what will happen:

 

While most of sailors ate hardtracks their moral didn't change. Coupld be abused by splitting food in the way that majority of sailors get hardtracks and few get good stuff, to avoid penalty with minimum cost.

Edited February 12, 2018 by Wormerine

[Grotesque]

I hope they make the range of the ship play a major role in player's ability to access certain parts of the map.

 

Sailing range would depend:

 

- on its capacity to hold more food and water;

- crew discipline and morale;

- ship keel type [to withstand larger waves and storms] and speed;

- main character skill in navigation?

 

 

Exploration should be no trivial task but an adventure well thought in advance, expensive (a welcomed game money sink) and risky as hell. 

The reward would be interesting events where characters gain traits (positive or negative) and beefy items only found on distant islands or battle sea monsters in distant parts of the ocean for reputation and trophies. 

 

And of course all that should be optional for those who don't want to venture in search for treasure and  powerful artifacts and want to stick to the main plot.

 

A ship range UI representation would be welcomed so the player would know if the ship would make it to a certain port and restock or to know where/when the point of no return comes.

Edited February 16, 2018 by Grotesque