WIP Black Barts Playtesting thread for Build 14 Beta 4 WIP (ver:18 Jan 2016)

[Armada]

Sorry I'm late, I must have missed the notifications.

@Black Bart, I've attached the lock icon with alpha channel that I used for the perks. Feel free to shrink it and put it in the corner of each image, or something similar.

 

[Black Bart]

There was some confusion going on bteween "officers without a role" and "Master at Arms".
I think the "no role" option is no longer used and it defaults to "fighter" if you remove a character from their position.
Again, hopefully @Levis can clarify.

Well using the 'remove from post' option can cycle between a number of other positions you are not able to select directly in the menu. 'Fighter' seems the most common, but you can also get 'Master at Arms' or 'Commrade at Arms', it seems a bit pot luck and seems to pick the title at least partially based on that characters stats?

So is there a hard limit on how many titles can be shown in that menu?

I rebalanced the guns a few years back to avoid the "one shot kill" problems, so it should make some measure of sense now.
But I didn't at all consider the effectiveness (or lack thereof) for armour. So is it that the guns are too strong or the armour too weak?

Gun damage is fine (as was the occasional one-shot if it happened (not seen so far in this current test)), it is more the protection that the game 'armours' give vs the gun damage. e.g.

Gorget = 5% (chance to stop) and 90% (damage taken if not stopped)
Leather Jerkin = 10% (chance to stop) and 80% (damge taken if not stopped)
Leather Cuirass= 15% (chance to stop) and 70% (damage taken if not stopped)
Plate brest plate (iirc the name) was also maybe too good at reducing gun fire?

For many of these armours the sword damage is reduced more or less the same as the gun damage. Just looking at the numbers in the text description it feels like we could maybe reduce the effectiveness vs gun a bit and increase the effectiveness vs sword damage, as the armours are expensive so need to keep that value.

I'm going to playtest with these kind of values for gun damage to see if it plays ok and will report back:

Gorget = 1% (chance to stop) and 100% (damage taken if not stopped)
Leather Jerkin = 3% (chance to stop) and 98% (damage taken if not stopped)
Leather Cuirass = 5% (chance to stop) and 90% (damage taken if not stopped)
Plate brest plate = 10% (chance to stop) and 80% (damage taken if not stopped)

And increase the effectiveness vs swords/blades a little to counter that. Physical armour was just not very effective vs even basic early gunpowder weapons, not at close quarters.

Are you using Crew Members on Shore? Those captains are part of that mod and that mod isn't very well-considered at the moment.
There is a feature request to improve on that here: WIP - Improve the Crewmembers on Shore Mod | PiratesAhoy!

If they say that, they really DO appear as an enemy once you reload to 3D sailing mode. Should only happen when you got caught as being an enemy.

Is it a 'realism' section of the current Build 14 test (i ask as i have most of the realism settings on)? I have not added any mods on those base two files you gave to download for the testing.

But i do see a whole range of new and interesting npc's in taverns now, from the normal recruitable officers, to those selling goods, or wanting to chat (and maybe pick your pocket), or asking to be part of your normal crew, or just telling you to not bother them (because they are off duty soldiers, or just grumpy normal folk), or asking if you have come across any smuggled goods that might help the colony, or these occasional very angry captains that offer to dual you at sea if you want their table!

So they seem to be part of the normal variety of people at taverns now, no extra mod added as far as i can tell.

I'm afraid that one is on the Engine Limitation - List of Known Bugs that Cannot be Fixed | PiratesAhoy!

Well atleast it is not a constant bug, and it seemed that if i hit the 'o' key (letter not number) that normally toggles the graphic grid background thing, it seemed to get rid of it more quickly? I'd need to test that a bit more to be sure.

 

[Black Bart]

@ Armada thank you and i'll mess around with it a little.

ok two methods below for others to see what they think. I prefer the smaller icon in the top right approach, but either option makes it a little easier to see what is behind the lock symbol. So feel free to pick one (or not!).

 

[Levis]

That DOES sound confusing. @Levis, care to enlighten us?

This text is added to let the user know again the officer won't contribute this perk. I could add a newline symbol after it so the next part of the text starts on a new line... Would that help?

@Black Bart please try the following things:

- Update your video dirvers
> does that solve the ctd's?
- Check if the game is actually using your video card and not your onboard card (often hidden i nvidia settings for 3d settings)
> does that solve teh problem?
- Install ENB
> does that solve the problem?
- Try running on a lower resolution for a while and check if this helps or not.
> did that help?

 

[Black Bart]

Video card is being used (GPU-Z memory usage as mentioned etc), no on-board graphics on this rig.

Updating video card drivers is a bit of a mine field often, the current ones i do have are old, but not old for the GPU itself. I'm pretty keen on this stuff and pay attention to the guru 3D website for most thing driver related (their driversweeper software for example), even used custom drivers in the old days looking for that sweet spot to play modded morrowind on my older 7600GT card. But in general, especially these days as driver software has become more prone to break stuff (overheating GPU's etc from a year or so ago!) as much as fix things, i don't just update drivers to the latest for no reason at all. This may be a reason here, with the CTD's on Build 14 Beta 4 WIP (with the zip patch fixes now installed) specifically, or it may not be

I'll test out Build 3.4 first and exhaust other options before looking at driver updates, because this is just one version (so far!) of one game that is giving me trouble.

I've never needed ENB before, from what i can remember was that not related to laptops and bad graphics performance from their weak on board graphics? Build mod 14 Beta 1 patch 7 works perfectly fine without ENB.........i can try it, but will read up on ENB a bit first as i don't want to cripple my 9600GT!

I could try lower res, that is a decent suggestion, even if the memory usage on the GPU and general system ram has not been close to taxing the systems resources, it can't hurt anything to try. I'm currently running at 1280x1024 32bit in a window (so not fullscreen....hmm maybe i could try fullscreen?) on my 1920x1200 screen.

Thanks for the suggestions btw I DID get a clean run the yesterday so it does seem possible it won't CTD when sailing in direct sail mode, just that has been the exception to the rule so far sadly

I'm sure we will find something that works

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Well using the 'remove from post' option can cycle between a number of other positions you are not able to select directly in the menu. 'Fighter' seems the most common, but you can also get 'Master at Arms' or 'Commrade at Arms', it seems a bit pot luck and seems to pick the title at least partially based on that characters stats?

So is there a hard limit on how many titles can be shown in that menu?

Technically there is no limit (other than that imposed by room available). But it is a bit pointless to have too many officer types listed.
The current set is fine by me. Just the "Remove from Role" situation should ideally make some measure of sense.

If I recall, officers removed from role, but still IN your shore party are shown with a different role than officers who are removed and NOT in your short party.
Could that explain the seeming confusion?

Gun damage is fine (as was the occasional one-shot if it happened (not seen so far in this current test)), it is more the protection that the game 'armours' give vs the gun damage. e.g.

Gorget = 5% (chance to stop) and 90% (damage taken if not stopped)
Leather Jerkin = 10% (chance to stop) and 80% (damge taken if not stopped)
Leather Cuirass= 15% (chance to stop) and 70% (damage taken if not stopped)
Plate brest plate (iirc the name) was also maybe too good at reducing gun fire?

For many of these armours the sword damage is reduced more or less the same as the gun damage. Just looking at the numbers in the text description it feels like we could maybe reduce the effectiveness vs gun a bit and increase the effectiveness vs sword damage, as the armours are expensive so need to keep that value.

I'm going to playtest with these kind of values for gun damage to see if it plays ok and will report back:

Gorget = 1% (chance to stop) and 100% (damage taken if not stopped)
Leather Jerkin = 3% (chance to stop) and 98% (damage taken if not stopped)
Leather Cuirass = 5% (chance to stop) and 90% (damage taken if not stopped)
Plate brest plate = 10% (chance to stop) and 80% (damage taken if not stopped)

And increase the effectiveness vs swords/blades a little to counter that. Physical armour was just not very effective vs even basic early gunpowder weapons, not at close quarters.

Are there actually specific numbers that define "effectiveness against blades" and "effectiveness against guns"?
I don't remember that being the case....

Is it a 'realism' section of the current Build 14 test (i ask as i have most of the realism settings on)? I have not added any mods on those base two files you gave to download for the testing.

But i do see a whole range of new and interesting npc's in taverns now, from the normal recruitable officers, to those selling goods, or wanting to chat (and maybe pick your pocket), or asking to be part of your normal crew, or just telling you to not bother them (because they are off duty soldiers, or just grumpy normal folk), or asking if you have come across any smuggled goods that might help the colony, or these occasional very angry captains that offer to dual you at sea if you want their table!

So they seem to be part of the normal variety of people at taverns now, no extra mod added as far as i can tell.

Crewmembers on Shore is activated by asking crewmembers on deck to follow you ashore while in the game.
That basically serves as an ingame toggle for that mod. When enabled, you get a whole bunch of extra encounters.

Well atleast it is not a constant bug, and it seemed that if i hit the 'o' key (letter not number) that normally toggles the graphic grid background thing, it seemed to get rid of it more quickly? I'd need to test that a bit more to be sure.

[O] shows an interface for characters you face while ashore. [F9] hides the "battle interface" overlay on the screen.

- Install ENB
> does that solve the problem?

With @Black Bart using an old computer, I'd expect ENB to make things worse, not better.
But you never do know....

ok two methods below for others to see what they think. I prefer the smaller icon in the top right approach, but either option makes it a little easier to see what is behind the lock symbol. So feel free to pick one (or not!).

Any chance for some examples where you actually applied those? It is difficult for me to imagine how they would when in use in the game.

 

[Black Bart]

A couple of those options i was thinking about for the 'locked' abilities icons, these would need to be made for each ability (about 30 approx) so i would need a bit of time to do that IF people think these are an improvement for readability of the icons etc!

They are full colour and then greyscale versions of the two options, the first two are the normal sized lock with 60% opacity vs the current one, then the second two are with the lock even smaller and shifted to the top right of the ability icon. I had been leaning towards the small top right version, but i'm not sure now! Both seem to do the trick well enough and perhaps the grey-scale version works best to really show which are blocked the most clearly.

So what do people think, does this improve icon readability and if so which do you prefer so i can make them for all the ability icons. I had to refresh myself with that convertorTX program....i thought i'd lost it for a while!

 

[Black Bart]

Technically there is no limit (other than that imposed by room available). But it is a bit pointless to have too many officer types listed.
The current set is fine by me. Just the "Remove from Role" situation should ideally make some measure of sense.

If I recall, officers removed from role, but still IN your shore party are shown with a different role than officers who are removed and NOT in your short party.
Could that explain the seeming confusion?

That might explain the commrade-in-arms/Master-at-arms perhaps? Still i think just adding 'Master-at-arms' in the list would not be adding too many roles, and you still have the generic 'fighter' role for those you wish to remove from a specific ship role. I'd thought we always had Master-at-arms as a choice (for a long while atleast) so i was surprised to suddenly find it not there, especially as it is a role the recruit-able officers in the tavern often offer themselves as!

Are there actually specific numbers that define "effectiveness against blades" and "effectiveness against guns"?
I don't remember that being the case....

It gives stats for both in game, but off the top of my head i'm not sure if these are actually used or an unused feature?

Crewmembers on Shore is activated by asking crewmembers on deck to follow you ashore while in the game.
That basically serves as an ingame toggle for that mod. When enabled, you get a whole bunch of extra encounters.

Ok well i definitely have never done that, i always arrange my officers in the 'passengers' menu, but certainly never have asked anyone on deck to follow me, so it is not that mod running.

[O] shows an interface for characters you face while ashore.

It does 'something' else when at sea (in direct sail mode), it seems to 'toggle' some kind of white grid thing, but not over the whole screen, just parts of it, it also seemed when i was getting the graphical mess issue the other day, to stop that....or maybe toggle it if it is a toggle type key in the sailing mode? I will look into that more once i get back to sea, because currently in the latest build, the sea now looks terrible and i don't really want to be on it!

Any chance for some examples where you actually applied those? It is difficult for me to imagine how they would when in use in the game.

Sure i posted some examples to compare with the current large lock icon in the game to get an idea of what i was talking about etc

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Are the locked icons in grey scale at the moment? Can't remember.
Technically that would make the most sense because abilities that you don't have yet should be grey.
But that might not help with being able to see what icon it is.

Anyway, it does make sense to me too change this.
The solid luck in the corner seems best to me. A transparent lock is a bit unnatural to me.

The Master at Arms button never existed, because that is a role that doesn't contribute any skills.

If there are armour stats against blades and guns separately, I assume that is indeed used.
I just couldn't remember.

Ah, now I remember that [O] key thing you mention.
Probably some odd game engine thing for some reason.
Well, if it seems to help, you won't hear me complain.

 

[Armada]

So what do people think, does this improve icon readability and if so which do you prefer so i can make them for all the ability icons.

I quite like the greyscale version with the lock in the top corner. It does make it easier to see the perk icon, and I think the greyscale emphasises the locked status.

 

[Black Bart]

ok well unless someone jumps in and say they hate the grey-themed small lock in top right corner change, i will have a go over this weekend to run those icons out. My PotC modding skills are sooo rusty, i'm bludering around all over the tavern floor, spilling beer etc. Atleast once i got my bearings i know Photoshop well enough to make the pretties

On these ability themes they were actually more readable (the locked pre-requisites) in the Beta 3.4-3.5 version, although i understand that the look of the lock was a bit modern so a more olde world style one (that the games uses iirc) was prefered?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Yep, that's exactly it.
Grey with small lock in corner sounds good.

 

[Black Bart]

Just thought i'd put this here as i don't want to mess up Hylies thread too much!

That is quite odd. I thought @pedrwyth fixed them sitting the wrong way?
But that fix might have been in the ZIP that you didn't install?

I have added the zip fixes to Beta 4, and pedrwyth's fix does seem to fix an recruitable officer sitting at that top table, BUT not any of the other types of npcs that now also sit at that top table (sea crew wanting to join your ship, the insulted captian challanging you to a dual for his table etc).

Not sure what "balance" you mean there? Apart from the VERY annoying Confirmed Bug - DirectSail and WorldMap island transfer inconsistencies | PiratesAhoy!, I am not aware of any other issues with it.

Well in Beta 4 the time i got Direct Sailing to work (as in none of those specific to my rig CTD's on town/sea transitions) and made the journey the whole way (more or less, i did enter the world map mode at some point to check my bearings), by the time i had reached Jamaica my char was level 8. He got to level 2 or 3 on land in Speightstown before sailing in 3D direct sail mode, so he made 5 levels just from sailing to Jamaica!

I know there are/were some issues with the XP sharing amongst officers, but that is too fast a progress imho, a few trips back and forth and in a few hours gaming my char would be around level 30 or more! So that is just a balance issue related to XP gained. And this is an old problem in some ways, i've mentioned it before in the older builds too (and on the bug tracker iirc)

That should still be there, but when it plays depends on how you start the game.
If you start the Standard Storyline on default settings, it should still play as soon as you enter the worldmap.
Pretty sure it still does for me.... But you do have to wait until midnight before it plays, I think.

Well i am only playing the Nathaniel Hawk standard starting quest choice, all default settings (i think i may change the starting ship sometimes), and until i put the code back into standard.c it was firing for me, even after the trip all the way to Jamaica. I'll keep an eye on it and see if this is something i see in Beta 3.5 as well (as the code is not in standard.c in that one either).

But in general, as always, i'm finding the progress of the Build Mod excellent overall and really am just here to point out stuff that sticks out to me. We need more playtesting for sure, and this is what that is all about, and i'm happy to take part in that while i have some time to do so

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Well in Beta 4 the time i got Direct Sailing to work (as in none of those specific to my rig CTD's on town/sea transitions) and made the journey the whole way (more or less, i did enter the world map mode at some point to check my bearings), by the time i had reached Jamaica my char was level 8. He got to level 2 or 3 on land in Speightstown before sailing in 3D direct sail mode, so he made 5 levels just from sailing to Jamaica!

I know there are/were some issues with the XP sharing amongst officers, but that is too fast a progress imho, a few trips back and forth and in a few hours gaming my char would be around level 30 or more! So that is just a balance issue related to XP gained. And this is an old problem in some ways, i've mentioned it before in the older builds too (and on the bug tracker iirc)

Ah, so your surprise isn't specifically related to DirectSail itself, but more to the balancing of the Levelling.
That has been in constant state of flux for the past half a year anyway, so that isn't much of a surprise.

Well i am only playing the Nathaniel Hawk standard starting quest choice, all default settings (i think i may change the starting ship sometimes), and until i put the code back into standard.c it was firing for me, even after the trip all the way to Jamaica. I'll keep an eye on it and see if this is something i see in Beta 3.5 as well (as the code is not in standard.c in that one either).

What code did you have to put back?

But in general, as always, i'm finding the progress of the Build Mod excellent overall and really am just here to point out stuff that sticks out to me. We need more playtesting for sure, and this is what that is all about, and i'm happy to take part in that while i have some time to do so

Indeed your comments are much appreciated!

 

[Talisman]

Well in Beta 4 the time i got Direct Sailing to work (as in none of those specific to my rig CTD's on town/sea transitions) and made the journey the whole way (more or less, i did enter the world map mode at some point to check my bearings), by the time i had reached Jamaica my char was level 8. He got to level 2 or 3 on land in Speightstown before sailing in 3D direct sail mode, so he made 5 levels just from sailing to Jamaica!

I know there are/were some issues with the XP sharing amongst officers, but that is too fast a progress imho, a few trips back and forth and in a few hours gaming my char would be around level 30 or more! So that is just a balance issue related to XP gained. And this is an old problem in some ways, i've mentioned it before in the older builds too (and on the bug tracker iirc)

The levelling system has changed dramatically.

Previously the XP progression was arithmetic, but this has now been changed to geometric. So although it is relatively easy to level up early in the game ( levels 1-10 ) as you get to the higher levels the player needs much more XP for each level - so although is appears that :

a few trips back and forth and in a few hours gaming my char would be around level 30 or more!

could happen - it is not very likely. ( I hope)

 

[Pieter Boelen]

So although it is relatively easy to level up early in the game ( levels 1-10 ) as you get to the higher levels the player needs much more XP for each level

It was originally sort-of like that already; your first five level-ups should have gone VERY fast, but after that not so much anymore.
But now that is indeed quite different.

 

[Black Bart]

Ah, so your surprise isn't specifically related to DirectSail itself, but more to the balancing of the Levelling.
That has been in constant state of flux for the past half a year anyway, so that isn't much of a surprise.

Well i'm not that much of a fan on the added 'time jump' thing that happens during Direct Sailing around, but i understand why it has been done. I'd prefer a less obtrusive method personally speaking (as a 3D direct sailing mode player) to better ensure the time spent sailing in direct mode matched more closely with that done on the map navigation screen.

Did you try to maybe add it all as a lump at the end of the voyage (like when next landfall is made perhaps?) or is that maybe just impossible to keep track off? (let me think on that a bit).

What code did you have to put back?

From standard.c in the PROGRAM\Storylines folder. After not getting the Oxbay attack video in either Beta 4 or 3.5 i went into that file and saw some lines had gone compared to Beta 1 and before, in particular:

AddstorylineVar(n, "PLAY_INVASION_MOVIE", "1");

and two others about 'Allow oxbay trading during ocupation '0' and 'Evil Stormy Start', so i added the three lines back, and in my last 'escape' from Speightstown in 3.4 got the Oxbay attack video when i entered the Map navigation screen for the first time.

I also remember that in Beta 1 we had talked about the issue with getting the Oxbay Attack video to run when just using 3D direct sailing only, as it used to then only happen once you arrived at a destination, which was a bit out of sync with things, and you managed to get it to fire while in direct sailing without having to go into the map navigation mode. Correct me if i'm wrong on that as it was a longtime ago!

I can go back to the Beta 1 (patch 7) install and check that, but you might remember this too.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Well i'm not that much of a fan on the added 'time jump' thing that happens during Direct Sailing around, but i understand why it has been done. I'd prefer a less obtrusive method personally speaking (as a 3D direct sailing mode player) to better ensure the time spent sailing in direct mode matched more closely with that done on the map navigation screen.

You mean the "add one day every hour" thing? That is the price we must pay for a "small" worldmap.
With Open Sea Mod ON, it doesn't happen.

From standard.c in the PROGRAM\Storylines folder. After not getting the Oxbay attack video in either Beta 4 or 3.5 i went into that file and saw some lines had gone compared to Beta 1 and before, in particular:

AddstorylineVar(n, "PLAY_INVASION_MOVIE", "1");

and two others about 'Allow oxbay trading during ocupation '0' and 'Evil Stormy Start', so i added the three lines back, and in my last 'escape' from Speightstown in 3.4 got the Oxbay attack video when i entered the Map navigation screen for the first time.

Those settings were removed because they no longer exist. The video is now coded to ALWAYS play.
Allow trade is always OFF and Evil Stormy Start got linked to "Swashbuckler" game mode.
Actually, that changed now too because that has been DELETED altogether and that functionality is now moved to the "Castaway" player type in Free Play.
See here: Medium Priority - Change Evil Stormy Start into Free Play Opening Scenario Choice | PiratesAhoy!

 

[Black Bart]

The levelling system has changed dramatically.

Previously the XP progression was arithmetic, but this has now been changed to geometric. So although it is relatively easy to level up early in the game ( levels 1-10 ) as you get to the higher levels the player needs much more XP for each level - so although is appears that :


could happen - it is not very likely. ( I hope)

Well it definately feels way to quick on the current setting, even if it pans out over the long run getting MUCH slower. 5 levels just from doing 'nothing' (i'm not even meant to be the one sailing the ship!) in that one trip from Speightstown to jamaica just does not feel well balanced.

To put it another way, if i spend time doing stuff around Speightstown for a couple of hours game time, and get to level 3 or 4 maybe, then to suddenly in the same amount of time (roughly) gain 5 levels just letting my ship sail itself (more or less) feels odd.

And don't worry this was always a pet issue for me in the various Builds, we always (nearly) seemed to have a default situation where levels rushed by at break neck speed, as if there was this massive rush to hit level 100 (or whatever). It was very inappropriate for a game about the Age of Sail, when speed was the very last thing most people were going to experience!

I've tried tweaking something somewhere related to skills experience and experience gain (reducing the multiplier numbers iirc) and will test those new figures to see how it feels.

Edit: @Pieter, ok reference your new last post. I will get back to you on these things as i'm currently play-testing 3 versions of the Build!!! So i will make sure to pay close attention on the specific situations

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Well it definately feels way to quick on the current setting, even if it pans out over the long run getting MUCH slower. 5 levels just from doing 'nothing' (i'm not even meant to be the one sailing the ship!) in that one trip from Speightstown to jamaica just does not feel well balanced.

To put it another way, if i spend time doing stuff around Speightstown for a couple of hours game time, and get to level 3 or 4 maybe, then to suddenly in the same amount of time (roughly) gain 5 levels just letting my ship sail itself (more or less) feels odd.

And don't worry this was always a pet issue for me in the various Builds, we always (nearly) seemed to have a default situation where levels rushed by at break neck speed, as if there was this massive rush to hit level 100 (or whatever). It was very inappropriate for a game about the Age of Sail, when speed was the very last thing most people were going to experience!

I've tried tweaking something somewhere related to skills experience and experience gain (reducing the multiplier numbers iirc) and will test those new figures to see how it feels.

@Levis, I do believe the above is for your attention.
Maybe you and @Black Bart together can figure out some of this balancing business?