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Captain Wuzz

Captain Wuzz

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I've had a re-read through on sanots*to's recommendation.

While you do have some good ideas, (some of which I've been wanting a long time such as more underwater integration), I'm still not getting the whole skill feel.

Firstly, crippling solo players seems quite bad. yes it's an MMOR** but skills are something different to general play.

what's the point in someone who gets little time online or sporadic login times getting up to the point where only 3man+ boats would be possible.
Even a simple suggestion such as hired crewmembers would help mitigate that.

maybe you pay them with doubloons from salvage missions? (meaning someone solo needs to do more salvage missions than a team but not so much as to make it an unviable method)

The main things I hated about dungeoneering were:
Team benefits (more people getting more exp in quicker times than solo)
Floor selling/leeching.

I'd rather see this nipped in the bud. If you had such a hiring system I'd be more inclined to agree with it, even if the hired crew couldn't go in the wilderness sea.

24-Apr-2015 04:18:53

Sanotsuto
Mar Member 2014

Sanotsuto

Posts: 5,938 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Captain Wuzz said :


Glad to see you here! As a typically solo player myself, I can see the issues you may have. I'd support a system, much like construction's butlers, where one could hire deckhands, maybe at a fee per trip, slightly increasing based work done.

I'm also weary of joint play due to being unable to gauge how well others play. Sailing could offer a rating (like a k/d in FPS) which would incentivize people to participate and not leech. There could be a measure of how many expeditions you've been on compared to how many times the ship has sunk, and it could be separated for the wilderness aspect. This may result in lower skilled people being ostracized, but if such is the case, I'd say it's a sign that said person needs to sail on lower level boats by themselves for a bit to increase their score while gaining an understanding of skill mechanics in an effort to be a viable team member. I'd also like to see, if not sheerly for fun, statistics on things like "holes patched", "ropes untangled", "x type of fish caught", much like a boss log on a slayer helm.

25-Apr-2015 03:11:34

San
Jul Member 2023

San

Posts: 4,259 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Captain Wuzz said :
I've had a re-read through on sanots*to's recommendation.

Thanks for your post. And please do forgive the late reply; I've been away from my computer for the past couple weeks and my phone isn't great for making long replies. In any case, it gave me time to think through my stance on the multiplayer aspect of sailing. Anyways.

The best way to summarise is that I consider the high end sailing resource islands to be to skilling what high end bosses are to pvm. That is, stuff like corp or nex are among the strongest bosses going, and generally require a team to kill them. They're exceptionally dangerous, require great skill/ teamwork/ equipment, and in return, they have the best rewards.

The high end resource islands of sailing are also very dangerous. Or, at least, getting to them is. Getting to them requires great skill/ teamwork/ equipment. But in return they have the best rewards.

It's also important to look at exactly what having a team does to the mechanic of bossing, and from that it's easier to understand how it is analogous to sailing.

Having a team in PVM does a few things. It increases the total HP of the attacking party. It increases the longevity of the party. It increases the DPS of the party. It also, however, decreases the value for each participant of each drop.

In sailing, though, these attributes are transferred to the boat, rather than the players, however it's done in such a way that they can essentially be considered equivalent: since an increase in players increases the boat that can be used, which in turn increases those attributes. Sailing

28-Apr-2015 21:00:19

San
Jul Member 2023

San

Posts: 4,259 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
So, having it such that only up to tier 3 boats can be used solo isn't really depriving solo players of content, it's just making it so that the team play mechanic can be implemented. A solo player with a tier 3 boat is still perfectly free to try to make it to the high level resources, and if they're skilled enough, they'll probably be able to do so. Also, since you mentioned it briefly: a high sailing level player isn't forced to use boats that require a team - they can still use the lower tier boats.

Add to that, there are the upgradeable hotspots which would allow the player(s) to further increase the ability of the boat to withstand dangers. That can be considered analogous to how a player in better armour is better able to kill a boss.

Furthermore, being in a team may actually be detrimental in some cases, since items placed into the cargo are shared between players. I'd say most of sailing is more effective as single player, really. Just the high end resource islands, bosses and PVP are a bit easier (and possibly, in some very high cases required, like nex was). A lot like mainland runescape is, I suppose.

Finally, to touch upon the subject Sanots*to brought up of gauging how well others can play, I think it shouldn't be too much of an issue, for reasons I'll explain in a bit. I can definitely see why you'd bring that up as a concern. I've played enough barbarian assault in my time to know how much of an annoyance uncooperative/uninformed players can be!

I think the main cause of that annoyance, especially at barbarian assault, is that there's no forced interactive introduction. There's that whole thing where you have to go through cutscenes or something, but do people really pay attention to those? I don't think so. I think a new player just skips through that and then is thrown in the deep end expected to be able to work as part of a team. Sailing

28-Apr-2015 21:00:24 - Last edited on 28-Apr-2015 21:29:35 by San

San
Jul Member 2023

San

Posts: 4,259 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Sailing can help with that by making it such that only solo content is available at the start. So essentially, the first 15 levels before tier 2 (the first multiplayer) boats are unlocked serve as a kind of forced, interactive introduction to the mechanics of sailing. With that in place, completely clueless folk shouldn't be a problem like they are in BA.

Next, there is the fact that sailing exp is only really gained by interactive means. Since exploring a square is a kind of one off chunk of exp, the most consistent sailing exp comes from:
-Adding items to the cargo (requires input from the player)
-Hunting pirates (afk player will just end up dying)

If they're not afk, but are rather just leeching, they can be kicked by the captain. The captain can't be afking since they're the one controlling where the boat goes.

Therefore, that means that a high sailing level is indeed an indicator of how able the player is at operating boats, since they aren't able to just afk/ leech to train the skill.

That helps somewhat with mitigating the issue dungeoneering had with "selling" floors, since unlike dungeoneering, a buyer won't just receive the same exp at the end as if they had been participating. They will have to participate actively to get the sailing exp. That also means that a player must actively participate if they are to unlock new content: not participating means no sailing exp, which means not getting the levels required for the content. Whereas, of course, in dungoneering somebody could just buy all the floors, still get the exp, and continually unlock new content along with that.

Plus, even if they don't care about getting exp, there's not really any incentive to be selling a trip just for the rewards, unlike dungeoneering. It's somewhat pointless, since an extra player also reduces the cut to each player of what was in the cargo hold. So you might be getting money for selling the trip, but you lose out on resources. Sailing

28-Apr-2015 21:00:31 - Last edited on 28-Apr-2015 22:06:46 by San

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