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

[Levis]

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

Are these comments about leveling about the latest build?
Because they have only changed since beta4 and only since the latest bugfixes (latest zip) should they be working correctly and they are toned down a bit more also.
Also please not your difficulty because that does affect your leveling.

Again you need to be able to get the first few levels relativly quickly because you would need to be able to get some perks. After that it should become harder quickly.

 

[Black Bart]

Yeah the gaining 5 levels just from sailing in Direct Sail from Speightstown to Jamaice was in the latest Beta 4 (and the one time it worked without any CTD's). I've been unable to test Beta 3.4 even that much due to some CTD's related to ships losing masts (and errors associated with their flags, i put a bit more detail of that in the Beta 3.4 thread), but like i said XP gain has nearly always been too fast in the Build Mod IF you like a more 'natural' pace to a game set in the Age of Sail

 

[Pieter Boelen]

like i said XP gain has nearly always been too fast in the Build Mod IF you like a more 'natural' pace to a game set in the Age of Sail

Well, there ARE settings now that can tone it all the way down in Beta 4.

 

[Black Bart]

sadly Beta 4 just won't sail right for me Pieter, which is a shame, but i AM on an old OS and rig (performance was not an issue when it would run for me).

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I wouldn't expect Beta 3.4 to require a lot more system resources though, so that's quite surprising.
If you really want to try an earlier version, maybe somebody here could recommend a good one?
If I do need to upload that, I'd rather not upload ALL of them.

 

[Black Bart]

I wouldn't expect Beta 3.4 to require a lot more system resources though, so that's quite surprising.

I don't think i said that (if that was a reply to me?). General performance between Beta 3.4 and Beta 4 are about on par, if i go on the amount of K that ENGINE.exe is using, or the amount of GPU Ram being used, they are pretty similar. What is different is the game smoothness, as we know Beta 3.4 had some pretty heavy at Sea fps issues and micro stutter, and Beta 4 had none of that.

Putting a cap on FPS (Via the combined MSI afterburner and RivaTunerStatisiticsServer fix) did smooth out Beta 3.4 for me to be completely playable (20-40fps at sea depending/50-99fps(cap is 100fps) in towns/on land/in menus), and i don't have to set ENGINE.exe to be W98/ME compatible (which i had to for Beta 4), BUT it also has CTD issues at sea even if they are not related problems.

Beta 4 is a better overall performance improvement than Beta 3.4 for sure, not huge, but noticeable

I'm sort of wondering which was the last truly stable (as in none/very rare CTD's during direct sail trips between islands) Build? Beta 3.4 and Beta 4 both CTD too much to be truly playable, atleast if you like to Direct Sail AND are not running Windows 7/8/10.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

That is why I'm surprised. I'd expect Beta 3.4 to have BETTER performance.
Apart from the 1-second stutter at sea.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

No beta 3.4 is a pig and I gave up on POTC and switched to GOF2 while that was all there was to play. Well, not all the time as I still have beta 3.3 that works pretty well.

 

[Black Bart]

a 'pretty' pig perhaps (don't want to hurt her feelings do we!)

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Err, sometimes it seems I'm really good at hurting feelings unintentionally. How about calling beta 3.4 Miss Piggy?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

But that was BECAUSE OF that 1 second stutter, no?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

That too. It was bad period.

 

[Black Bart]

But that was BECAUSE OF that 1 second stutter, no?

It was the first thing i noticed about Beta 3.4, and after the experiment to limit fps it was more or less resolved in Beta 3.4 for me (not 100% gone, but no where near as obvious), even just adding 2x antialising (which was the first thing i did to get rid of the jaggies on the rigging) seemed to help (which makes sense if one of the main engine issues is too many fps). But yeah those reproducable CTD's in direct sail mode sort of signalled the end of her reign. Poor Miss Piggy

Oh and maybe i can put this here as i first noticed it in Beta 4, but you know those tavern 'sitters' sitting in the wrong places (facing the wrong way clipping into tables etc).

Well that goes all the way back to Beta 3.1 (and maybe earlier? but not as early as Beta 1 Patch 7!) i'm currently testing, and it a much more severe issue in both Beta 3.1 and 3.4, as in it happens more often than it did in Beta 4 (and that was already too often). So yeah i'm going to pick some folks brains over what was causing that, as it really needs to be completely fixed up, it looks too weird

 

[Pieter Boelen]

It was the first thing i noticed about Beta 3.4, and after the experiment to limit fps it was more or less resolved in Beta 3.4 for me (not 100% gone, but no where near as obvious), even just adding 2x antialising (which was the first thing i did to get rid of the jaggies on the rigging) seemed to help (which makes sense if one of the main engine issues is too many fps).

I know exactly the reason for that 1-second stutter as I was the one who eventually fixed it.
It turned out to be sloppy coding with the same function being called far too many times. For every skill and every ship on every second.
My original fix didn't require a huge lot of changes, but it took forever to narrow it down and required some serious thought on how to improve efficiency.
And then there ended up being some oversights that caused skills not to update when they should, which had to be fixed later.
I'm not 100% sure that is completely covered even now, but at least the stutter is gone.

Oh and maybe i can put this here as i first noticed it in Beta 4, but you know those tavern 'sitters' sitting in the wrong places (facing the wrong way clipping into tables etc).

Well that goes all the way back to Beta 3.1 (and maybe earlier? but not as early as Beta 1 Patch 7!) i'm currently testing, and it a much more severe issue in both Beta 3.1 and 3.4, as in it happens more often than it did in Beta 4 (and that was already too often). So yeah i'm going to pick some folks brains over what was causing that, as it really needs to be completely fixed up, it looks too weird

They might be due to the "Extra Atmosphere" mod that @Levis added in Beta 3.2 .
Hopefully @pedrwyth's fix worked though. That one is included now in here for Beta 4:
Notice - Build 14 Beta 4: To-Do List | Page 3 | PiratesAhoy!

 

[Black Bart]

I like all the player choices for game start in realtion to your 'occupation' or char background (Merchant, Corsair, Social Climber etc), but might there be an issue in relation to having so many choices and the 'bonus' starting items you start with depending on your choice.

I feel that as a new 'merchant' having the average compass (i think it is called that, the one above the 'basic compass') is maybe a bit over-powered for a 'free' gift, a free expensive gift. I also started as an 'Adventurer' and had a rather good sword, possibly too good for game start?

Also the value of trade goods seems to have increased a lot vs 3.1 and earlier. Selling the starting game cargo of 100 leather and 100/50 choclate etc gives a whole bunch of money (maybe 10x as much?!), Officers are also dirt cheap to hire (a few hundred vs a thousand or so gold) so i presume cheap per month as part of your running costs?

So you start a Beta 4 game with decent equipement AND a whole bunch of cash. makes the early game and early game items a bit easy/pointless perhaps?

Just reporting my thoughts on those changes. I feel, even if it means starting items are less unique between the many starting professions/backgrounds we now have, they should be limited to the very basic versions of the item type, as this allows the most fun progression of your char in the game, good free items early cheapens the percieved 'value' of the item while also making all the lower tier items worthless to the player.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I feel that as a new 'merchant' having the average compass (i think it is called that, the one above the 'basic compass') is maybe a bit over-powered for a 'free' gift, a free expensive gift. I also started as an 'Adventurer' and had a rather good sword, possibly too good for game start?

If you have any specific suggestions for changing that stuff, please let me know. It is all in PROGRAM\Character\characters_init.c .
Originally that mod was made by someone who I think got a bit tired of playing the early game over and over and set them up sort-of as "jump-starts".
That is also why the Free Play storyline starts at Level 5 instead of Level 1.

But of course, if you WANT a challenging start, the Beta 4 "Castaway" player type does pretty much the exact opposite.
That is a TOUGH start!

Also the value of trade goods seems to have increased a lot vs 3.1 and earlier. Selling the starting game cargo of 100 leather and 100/50 choclate etc gives a whole bunch of money (maybe 10x as much?!)

I don't remember the value of trade goods being massively changed. Maybe @Levis does remember what has been changed?

Officers are also dirt cheap to hire (a few hundred vs a thousand or so gold) so i presume cheap per month as part of your running costs?

We've been going back and forth a LOT on that. One second it is too expensive, then again too cheap.
It is Difficulty-dependent too, of course; just to make it simple.

One key difference is that price now increases when officers level up. I think that didn't really use to happen before.
Did it...? I don't remember now.

Just reporting my thoughts on those changes. I feel, even if it means starting items are less unique between the many starting professions/backgrounds we now have, they should be limited to the very basic versions of the item type, as this allows the most fun progression of your char in the game, good free items early cheapens the percieved 'value' of the item while also making all the lower tier items worthless to the player.

I think it may depend on whether you, as player, WANT to play through the early game. Some people do, some don't.
There are some custom starts that basically give you AWESOME stuff. Try Blackbeard, for example! His sword AND ship are very good.
You can now even start the game as a Naval Admiral with a fleet already if you choose to do so.

Ideally, the custom starts should allow BOTH type of players to get what they want.
So some characters/careers may be easy starts and some not. I'd definitely appreciate feedback on that, since this is a BRAND NEW feature and very much experimental.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

The prices for some goods seems to have changed while others seems to be about the same.

The officers used to cost more to hire and their pay scale rose slowly as the advanced. Now they cost less to hire at the start and their pay scale increases dramatically until they cost more than the Captain. Then there is Voisey......

 

[Black Bart]

ok well maybe the cheap starting officers is not a big issue. I know it was always a battle in the Build Mod to reduce player cash as often as possible to try to reduce the glut of cash you nearly always end up with. It does seem the officers are all pretty low level in Beta 4 (like lv 1-3, not seen any level 10 to hire at game start (like in Beta 3.1 for example)) and if their 'pay' increases a lot in game that is probably fine.

Ah it is because of the change from Chocolate to Silk perhaps (as starting cargo to sell)? I get about 15,000 for that starting cargo in Beta 3.1 and twice that in Beta 4, probably due to the Silk change. maybe we need this money in Beta 4? I've not compared ships/ship repair/upkeeps to know in detail.

I think that for the standard storyline (so Nathial Hawk) it is probably good to keep starting equipement basic, it's always been fine to start with pretty much nothing. And if you then want a different experience with higher starting items you have all the other storylines to explore? Anyway for certain in my game i will restrict the 'Merchant' option to the most basic items, maybe a merchants scale would be more appropriate even? Stuff to think on. In Beta 3.1 you have none of that so it won't really effect me long-term (as i build that version up with fixes).

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Now they cost less to hire at the start and their pay scale increases dramatically until they cost more than the Captain. Then there is Voisey......

That was supposed to have been fixed. If not, please post here so we can reopen the issue:
Fixed - Quest Officer Salaries | PiratesAhoy!

Ah it is because of the change from Chocolate to Silk perhaps (as starting cargo to sell)? I get about 15,000 for that starting cargo in Beta 3.1 and twice that in Beta 4, probably due to the Silk change. maybe we need this money in Beta 4? I've not compared ships/ship repair/upkeeps to know in detail.

The starting goods are random import goods now based on the town where you arrive.
So sometimes you may be lucky and sometimes less so.

I think that for the standard storyline (so Nathial Hawk) it is probably good to keep starting equipement basic, it's always been fine to start with pretty much nothing. And if you then want a different experience with higher starting items you have all the other storylines to explore? Anyway for certain in my game i will restrict the 'Merchant' option to the most basic items, maybe a merchants scale would be more appropriate even? Stuff to think on. In Beta 3.1 you have none of that so it won't really effect me long-term (as i build that version up with fixes).

The merchant also gets the "Merchant License" which is a REALLY nice item.
So indeed they don't need bonus extra stuff.

Please make a new Bug Tracker thread with specific suggestions for more reasonable balancing on this.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I started a new game so now have no data to share.