Discussion Sailing needs some sort of rework

Honestly my main concern for a person who basically only sails is that the AI for normal ships and Hunters/warships needs to be looked at. Normal ships have the speed of what Hunters/Warships did in POTCO and Warships/Hunters now have turbo speed, this sometimes makes it hard to kill warships and hunters. I would suggest for now reducing the speed of enemy ships quite a bit to bring them into a more balance and to bring back the original Potco feel
 
Davy Goldsteel said:
Honestly my main concern for a person who basically only sails is that the AI for normal ships and Hunters/warships needs to be looked at. Normal ships have the speed of what Hunters/Warships did in POTCO and Warships/Hunters now have turbo speed, this sometimes makes it hard to kill warships and hunters. I would suggest for now reducing the speed of enemy ships quite a bit to bring them into a more balance and to bring back the original Potco feel
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I can definitely agree on this, it's random sometimes though one warship will be normal speed and the other can chase you down with ease.
 
:2 cents: I have to say overall I'm happy with the levelling speed in TLoPO.
I like levelling stuff up and I have been known to abandon maxed toons in games just because I've started a new one and I'm enjoying the levelling up process again.
Of course I regularly grumble to myself about it, but when I look at all the games I've played and how many amazing characters I've abandoned in them it's pretty obvious that it's the levelling up that I enjoy most. In TLoPO I find it goes fast enough that I don't get frustrated with it, but not so fast that I'll be needing a new toon too quickly :)
 
Dreadful said:
This is not necessarily true. While you may get more xp per kill if you use lower level items, you will get kills significantly slower. It's like this - if I can get gas that will allow me to drive 25 miles/gallon but costs $5.00/gallon, it's not really any more fuel efficient than if I use gas that gets me 15 miles/gallon but costs $3.00/gallon, because after driving 75 miles I'll still have spent $15 on that gas. This is why leveling with grenades isn't always unbearably slow despite the low amount of hits per kill - you get a higher quantity of enemies defeated, so while your xp/kill goes down, your amount of kills goes up due to the high damage of the grenade as well as its AoE type damage. It is also what makes leveling with broadswords go so quickly - you get pretty good marks in all the categories. High damage, high amounts of hits/kill, and AoE damage so a high amount of kills overall.

As for sailing leveling slowly, I would agree that it's not the quickest thing to level. However, personally, I think that it balances out at least a little. You see, when you're on land, your rep is split between 6 different weapon types - or if it's not, then for every weapon you're not using, you're not gaining any levels for that weapon, which still hurts you in the long run. And while land combat is arguably most of the game's content, or at least 50% of it, the other huge chunk of content is purely sea combat. Sea combat is split into just two weapon classes, sailing and cannon. So you may be leveling individual weapons pretty quickly in comparison to sailing, but leveling the 6 weapons overall will happen at a pretty comparable speed to leveling sailing and cannon. Still, though, sailing does level much slower than cannon, for sure, as cannon can get in tons more hits than sailing. I'm not sure if your sailing rep is affected by anything more than broadsides and the type of ship you sink, though, so other skills might also play into it unless someone can confirm they do not. But in my mind the major inequality is mostly the difference between the leveling speeds of cannon and sailing, not sailing and land combat skills.


Hope all that made sense.
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It still is true on a kill by kill basis. Given that it caps out at 115 rep, there is probably a sweet spot between damage value and number of hits for max efficiency. But that still leads to the fact that using your highest damage weapon + maxing out damage skills in that skill category is not the best for leveling because the formula itself only takes into account number of hits.

For instance for sailing, it is actually in your best interest for leveling to not put any skill points into your broadsides, as a 4-5 skill point broadside can one shot most non-bounty hunter ships. Using a light sloop with only the 3 broadside cannons + 1 skill point in broadsides will likely net you the full 115 rep from most ships. The same goes for a sweet spot for this as well. It would not be in your best interest to be using a fully upgraded war class ship for leveling. On the contrary it would likely be better using a non-upgraded medium class ship with level one broadsides.

I personally do not find this leveling system very intuitive, even though it is the exact same as it was in POTCO.
 
Bart Gunshot said:
It still is true on a kill by kill basis. Given that it caps out at 115 rep, there is probably a sweet spot between damage value and number of hits for max efficiency. But that still leads to the fact that using your highest damage weapon + maxing out damage skills in that skill category is not the best for leveling because the formula itself only takes into account number of hits.

For instance for sailing, it is actually in your best interest for leveling to not put any skill points into your broadsides, as a 4-5 skill point broadside can one shot most non-bounty hunter ships. Using a light sloop with only the 3 broadside cannons + 1 skill point in broadsides will likely net you the full 115 rep from most ships. The same goes for a sweet spot for this as well. It would not be in your best interest to be using a fully upgraded war class ship for leveling. On the contrary it would likely be better using a non-upgraded medium class ship with level one broadsides.

I personally do not find this leveling system very intuitive, even though it is the exact same as it was in POTCO.
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Aye, that's exactly how it is. I actually retrained my cannons while I was leveling many months back to set my round shot back to rank 1 and then just max out the fire speed and reload speed, made for much faster leveling. As for sailing, sinking ships as fast as you can is honestly more efficient (as fast as you can with broadsides that is, no crew).
 
Yea I agree , sinking as fast as possible is the best way to level. I leveled my sailing very fast to reach war ships and all I did was use my friends war brig with max broadsides and max round shot.
 
Davy Goldsteel said:
Honestly my main concern for a person who basically only sails is that the AI for normal ships and Hunters/warships needs to be looked at. Normal ships have the speed of what Hunters/Warships did in POTCO and Warships/Hunters now have turbo speed, this sometimes makes it hard to kill warships and hunters. I would suggest for now reducing the speed of enemy ships quite a bit to bring them into a more balance and to bring back the original Potco feel
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See, I was previously going around with pitchfork in hand to argue against the new ship AI in favor of having it be just like POTCO. Some part of me still wants that. However, I've come to see a side of the community that also enjoys the more aggressive ship AI, so I'd happily settle for a middle ground where we slow down the current non Bounty Hunter/Warship ships a couple of knots to a level between POTCO and current beta (as of this post) so that they are a bit more aggressive and reactive than POTCO, but a bit more relaxing than they are now. I can't speak of the Warships and Bounty Hunters since I don't fight those regularly yet, though I believe those should remain challenging so that those who enjoy challenging naval combat can fight those and be entertained.

TL;DR I wouldn't mind seeing them recreated exactly like POTCO (afterall, I'm here since I loved POTCO lol), and I find them a teeny bit much at the moment, but I wouldn't mind settling for a compromise for normal ship AI somewhere between POTCO and the current beta.

As for the reputation and looting at sea, the staff are probably still working on it. I'm sure they'll get it nailed down and refined as time goes by.

EDIT: https://tlopo.com/releases/ 6-23-2017
  • "Fixed a bug where the hunters would sail at hyperspeed."
It's your lucky day Davy!
 
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Since I've been sailing, it has evolved into at least 4 different modes or patterns. Pay attention and adapt. I love sailing and it's because the AI patterns are so easy to observe and adapt to. It's a game, and like all games, there's a pattern to it. It might not be easy at first, but it's doable.
Sailing is possibly may favorite aspect of the game, especially solo.
 
I'm a level 29 pirate, and mastered my sailing at level 27. It's definitely doable, but I get then OP's argument as well. My biggest gripe, is the rep being tallied by number of hits, this means if I have a fantastic crew, who sinks the ship before I can hit it with a broadside, I don't get any rep. I don't feel I should be punished, for lack of better words, because I have a great crew. I feel, when aboard a ship, the entire crew should get the same amount of rep, and then if you are all in the same crew, the crew bonus adds to that. I also think there should be a "captains bonus" or something, that's just a small 5% extra on top of all that, to the person operating the ship, since sailing is, in my opinion one of the slowest skills to train. I love it to death, but the rep rewards are tough.
 
LesPaulObsession said:
I'm a level 29 pirate, and mastered my sailing at level 27. It's definitely doable, but I get then OP's argument as well. My biggest gripe, is the rep being tallied by number of hits, this means if I have a fantastic crew, who sinks the ship before I can hit it with a broadside, I don't get any rep. I don't feel I should be punished, for lack of better words, because I have a great crew. I feel, when aboard a ship, the entire crew should get the same amount of rep, and then if you are all in the same crew, the crew bonus adds to that. I also think there should be a "captains bonus" or something, that's just a small 5% extra on top of all that, to the person operating the ship, since sailing is, in my opinion one of the slowest skills to train. I love it to death, but the rep rewards are tough.
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When did you start playing? Sailing was super easy at the beginning of beta.
 
I've noticed while sailing that Open Fire and Take Cover don't work when there is more than just you on your ship but it does work when your alone, also i think Treasure sense at rank 5 doesn't feel like it is rank 5, so Treasure Sense needs buffed please, and lastly sailing Charms, Globes, Charts, Rams do not work or affect your current sailing skills whatsoever
 
Sailing charts, etc. are disabled and have been since before I joined. I imagine we will get to test them before game goes live.
 
Davy Goldsteel said:
I've noticed while sailing that Open Fire and Take Cover don't work when there is more than just you on your ship but it does work when your alone, also i think Treasure sense at rank 5 doesn't feel like it is rank 5, so Treasure Sense needs buffed please, and lastly sailing Charms, Globes, Charts, Rams do not work or affect your current sailing skills whatsoever
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you mean there is a actual ram weapon in this game? Ramming with the ship?
 
I havnt been to General Darkhart yet. Is he fully functional. I really miss him. He was the coolest of all the undead and very generous
 
I have a friend who i s trying to play the game using her old PC. but she gets an error message.. something about the wrong 32 bit of windows whatever that means
 
I love the sailing more than any other part of the game by far. I've found it to be the easiest skill to master, undoubtedly because I love it so much and like to sail a lot. It is true that sailing is not quite the way it was in potco but I think it's better even though there are a couple of moves that I liked to use in potco that simply won't work in tlopo, the AI is a little faster and more agile than it was in potco. I believe there are many of us that like it better this way. I remember well when they changed the sailing mechanics in potco and how it took some getting used to but in the end it was certain that the new mechanics were a huge improvement. I am torn as to whether the Sailing AI should be put back to the way it was in potco or left the way it is. Of course the future will hopefully hold complete overhauls of sailing and land battle that improves it's realism but no, I don't think sailing needs a big overhaul anytime soon. Come sailing with me sometime Bort, you'll see.
 
I think sailing is one of the best aspects of the game.
But much like the re working of the loot, maybe the devs can create some special ocean on one of the servers where all a pirate has to do is pull up next to the enemies and shoot the cannons once or twice and their ships will instantly be full of Skulls and mat chests...
Yeah!
 
I sail lots, sail more than doing land stuff since for me. Sailing is easy. Bounty hunter/war ship hyper speed still exists. Just lower the digits for speed on them.

Sure, its somewhat challenging but hyper speeds is still there. I sail the tide runner, wicked mongrel and renegade knight ships. All fortune hunter. It seems however that the games overall interest waned since at peak hours, abassa mat frenzy is not very busy at all. (Maybe people got sick and tired of afk people so they simply dropped sailing?)

But what I mastered sailing fastest than any of the other skills since the sheer power you have when sailing a war ship at the start of level 15. I just grabbed a war galleon and went sinking left and right. Often participated in the Abassa mat frenzy to help me level up too. As is, it's still pretty well. Just them hyper speeds and weird broadside aims.
 
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