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Solved Build 14 Beta 4 Master Plan

All fancy crew, cargo and cannons experiments are now no longer active, so we're back to the "simple" Beta 3.4 state on that.
We can always look into that again after the next public release. But for now I reckon getting the sidequests/Free Play/gameplay styles working will be enough.

So the main things we still need to do:
- Testing, testing, testing!
- Navy promotion rewards for all nations, WIP by @Grey Roger
- American tutorial, To-Do by @pedrwyth
- Look into the Artois and Mendez sidequests and see if I can make them more reliable

Anything else can be considered a bonus.
Am I forgetting anything?
 
So things I can think off before a 3.5 public release:

- Making sure the shipyard interface finally works well
- Check to make sure officer contribute theire skills well too on different ships
- Making sure the ayahuasca is aviable
- Make the indian trader trade indian stuff
- Get EITC officer for the merchant play style
- Add something special to merchant play style
 
Levis said:
- Get EITC officer for the merchant play style
- Add something special to merchant play style
Click to expand...
I'm adding an EITC and WIC character to sell the trade letter to you this evening.
Then at least the functionality works and is available.

The "something special" is that if you have the letter, your crew won't get grumpy when you've got a lot of money.
This is replacing the UNLIMITED_LOOT toggle as I've been wanting to get rid of that and put some actual game logic behind it instead.
 
Levis said:
So things I can think off before a 3.5 public release:

- Making sure the shipyard interface finally works well
- Check to make sure officer contribute theire skills well too on different ships
- Making sure the ayahuasca is aviable (altough I want to improve on this)
- Make the indian trader trade indian stuff
- Get EITC officer for the merchant play style
- Add something special to merchant play style
Click to expand...

Slowly getting there.
Altough I want to add at least 1 more thing:

- Ingame explanation about officer and perk system.
 
 
Beta 3.5 isn't going to be released in August now, is it? We just keep thinking of new stuff.

Let me see....
Levis said:
http://piratesahoy.net/threads/naval-officer-receive-new-ship-after-capsizing.25460/
Click to expand...
Something does indeed need to be place, just in case it happens to players.

Levis said:
http://piratesahoy.net/threads/new-musket-types.25405/
Click to expand...
Already in the game and absolutely needs to be fixed and finished to be operational.

Levis said:
http://piratesahoy.net/threads/change-in-nation-relations-from-player-actions.25514/
http://piratesahoy.net/threads/ingame-explanation-of-nation-relations.25516/
Click to expand...
I do really want to have that feature and already started on it. I'll probably have to keep myself from rewriting too much, instead focusing on doing just enough to make the new functionality ready for testing.
This must include the False Flags correction.

Levis said:
http://piratesahoy.net/threads/making-use-of-more-unique-trader-types.24457/
Click to expand...
At the very least I want that Indian Trader to sell indian items and to be able to sell that Sneaky Trader quest item to such a sneaky trader.
Also (OPTIONAL!) random indians using indian weapons: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/making-better-use-of-indian-weapons.25364/

Levis said:
http://piratesahoy.net/threads/the-curse-of-davy-jones.25022/
Click to expand...
Something is already in place. As long as nobody provides feedback, there is no point continuing developing it.
Need to know what is wanted first.

Levis said:
http://piratesahoy.net/threads/ingame-explanation-officer-system.25340/
Click to expand...
Would be nice, but as far as I'm concerned can wait until later. The system has been rewritten a fair bit; better have some testing for a while as perhaps more changes are needed.
If the explanation would then already been done, you'd risk have to do that a second time. :facepalm

Levis said:
[URL='http://piratesahoy.net/threads/merchant-gameplay-cutler-beckett-and-eitc.25023/[/QUOTE']http://piratesahoy.net/threads/merchant-gameplay-cutler-beckett-and-eitc.25023/[/URL]
Click to expand...
What more do we need to do? Not being a pirate/privateer/navy officer now means you are supposedly an honest player.
If you don't play honest anyway, you'll eventually automatically slide into piracy. This is all part of the Nation Relations changes.
The "merchant letters" are already available for purchase and serve their (very simple) intended purpose.
So at least for now, I would consider this to be functional.
 
Most of the stuff is just testing to see if there is anything wrong with it...
I hope to have the trader type stuff done next week. I guess by then you can have the relation stuff done. So my hope is to have a version which we could say has everything we want round august 1th. Then we can spend another week testing stuff and see if everything works right and release it.
Probably you can focus on the testing while I try to focus a bit on performance increasing...

@Grey Roger could then focus on the period specific stuff to see if everything is right.
 
Levis said:
I hope to have the trader type stuff done next week.
Click to expand...
Anything in specific you have in mind?

Levis said:
I hope to have the trader type stuff done next week. I guess by then you can have the relation stuff done. So my hope is to have a version which we could say has everything we want round august 1th. Then we can spend another week testing stuff and see if everything works right and release it.
Probably you can focus on the testing while I try to focus a bit on performance increasing...

@Grey Roger could then focus on the period specific stuff to see if everything is right.
Click to expand...
Sounds like a tight schedule. I'll be doing some stuff over the weekend, but I cannot make any promises on my effectiveness.
Next week I'll see about doing some stuff in the evenings, but again will have to see how things go on the job.
After that I'll have a three-week holiday, where I'll be 4 days away. But other than that I should be able to do stuff.
I'm hoping to only have to do small tweaks by that time so I can actually do that during some actual playtesting.
 
Pieter Boelen said:
Anything in specific you have in mind?
Click to expand...
Not yet, need to see how it's set up. I'll be back on sunday. I do have some other stuff next week but I should have some hours to look at this...
Sounds like a tight schedule. I'll be doing some stuff over the weekend, but I cannot make any promises on my effectiveness.
Next week I'll see about doing some stuff in the evenings, but again will have to see how things go on the job.
After that I'll have a three-week holiday, where I'll be 4 days away. But other than that I should be able to do stuff.
I'm hoping to only have to do small tweaks by that time so I can actually do that during some actual playtesting.
Click to expand...
We'll see, else we move it up a bit. At least I want to release the 3.5 update before your holiday is over ;) Probably it will be in the last week or so but thats still better than not.
The time you will be doing testing I hope to spend on optimizing and maybe add some explanations etc. Checking things like rumor data and add stuff there and stuff like that. Maye go trough the game tips and remove those which aren't usefull anymore (adding new ons probably has to wait till build 14).
 
Levis said:
Maye go trough the game tips and remove those which aren't usefull anymore (adding new ons probably has to wait till build 14).
Click to expand...
Some corrections on those were already done ages ago by @Baste, but of course by now it would again be out-of-date.... :wp
 
I am still hoping to make some sort of a new EXE tomorrow evening (Thursday). Anything people have for inclusion would be appreciated! :cheers

I cannot make any promises though and unless I manage to sort out some things VERY quickly, the upcoming version will have a fair few rough edges.
But at least it would put everyone back up-to-date with each other, which is certainly worth something as well. :shrug
 
We're getting very close now!
I'd say we should be able to release before november starts :D.
 
Levis said:
We're getting very close now!
I'd say we should be able to release before november starts :D.
Click to expand...
That sounds possible!
Of course we are the ones who thought "by the end of the summer holidays" was possible too.
It is true what they say! You do 80% of the work in 20% of the time. The fine-tuning takes a LOT of extra effort.
We could skip on that... but the release wouldn't be very good if we did. ;)
 
Apart from some quest issues here, I can see NO more bugs on the Bug Tracker that we haven't yet addressed and do still need to fix for the Beta 4 public release.
Of course there is still plenty testing to be done before we can mark all the fixes as being actually successful.

As far as I'm concerned, that's enough done by me for this week.
Next week I'll see about tying up whatever loose ends I can, including the Planned Features that we do need to finish for Beta 4.

We're getting closer to the release at last, but we will need PLENTY TESTING now and a critical eye to things happening that didn't use to and really shouldn't!
The upcoming new EXE should help in giving everybody a stable base to continue from.
 
Well, it seems we have hit rather a snag in development these past two weeks or so.
Real life seems to have caught up with @Levis, so he hasn't been around since early this week.
Unfortunately there are some serious and not-so-serious issues that need to be addressed with his work.
He might be able to deal with those things quite quickly when he finds the time, but as long as he isn't here, that won't be happening.
And as much as I would want to, it is much more time-consuming for me to try and figure those things out than it should be for him.

As it stands, the tremendous added complexity in the Beta 4 base seems to have caused quite a few issues that have a rather huge impact on the game:
Fixed - Missing Ships and Crashes on Encounter Reload from Worldmap to Sea | PiratesAhoy!
Confirmed Bug - Armour Stops Showing on Player Model | PiratesAhoy!
Unconfirmed Bug - Non-Violent/Unarmed Characters | PiratesAhoy!
Unconfirmed Bug - Cannot Save Game | PiratesAhoy!
Fix in Progress - Errors with Blunderbuss | PiratesAhoy!

It isn't quite clear which of these are consistent and real issues, but the ones that are don't seem to be fixable in a hurry.

In the meantime, there are several close-to-but-not-quite-finished features that do definitely need further work:
Awaiting Info - Ingame Explanation of Nation Relations | PiratesAhoy! by me
Confirmed Bug - Sidequests for Additional Storylines | PiratesAhoy! by me
Needs Testing - Leveling: Sudden Huge Amounts of XP Gained | PiratesAhoy! by @Levis (this one has huge impact throughout the code and the gameplay itself)
Needs Testing - Skill System Rewrite to Improve Game Performance | PiratesAhoy! by me
Needs Testing - Realistic Game Mode: Take into account Ship Party Skills to check Fleet Command | PiratesAhoy! by me
WIP - Enhanced Smuggling | PiratesAhoy! by @Levis (could probably be finished by me... later)
WIP - Different Shipyard Sale Prices for Naval Officers/Privateers | PiratesAhoy! by @Levis, to be finished by me

Then there are the brand new features that we just haven't yet had enough feedback on, such as:
Included in Build - Change in Nation Relations from Player Actions | PiratesAhoy!
Included in Build - Distinguish between different playstyles | PiratesAhoy!

This is in addition to a LOT of changes done over the past half year that I do believe are quite stable and ready to play.
No point in listing those right now though, so I'll skip that.

However, all of this functionality in different states of readiness is currently all thrown together, making for a game that bursts with potential but isn't quite fully playable.
As long as there is only one person to tackle the above (me), it really is too much to try and sort out every issue there is with all of the above plus whatever extra stuff always tends to crop up.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

That's the situation. Now I have exactly two days of weekend now to try and bring things back in the right direction.
We have a couple of ways to deal with this, all of which involve kicking out certain functionality and focusing on including and fixing only a few parts at a time.
Depending on how we go about it, this could become a very slow and long-winded process that requires a LOT of testing along the way.

Here are the game versions I am considering returning to:
Beta 4 Base (21 Aug 2015): I think this didn't have any of the current bad issues in it, though did have the Levelling System which even now may not be entirely ready yet
Final Beta 3.5 version (25 Jul 2015): Did not actually have the majority of the Levelling System in it
Beta 3.4 public release version plus internal ZIP fix (20 Jan 2015): Did have an early "Improved Smuggling" and "Locked Abilities" as well as "Fetch Quests"
Beta 3.3 internal WIP version (9 Nov 2014): This is basically the last version that @Hylie Pistof considered playable. It is Beta 3.2 MINUS most of @Levis' work:
Code: 
  . Locked Abilities switched OFF
  . Character Encounter Code returned to Beta 3 state
  . WorldMap Encounter Code returned to Beta 3 state
  . Dynamic Economy returned to Beta 3 state

The further back we go, the more structured and reliable we can make the resulting game with plenty testing inbetween.
However, it also nastily complicated to compare a year old code with that of today and it also becomes extremely time-consuming to test each step properly along the way.

We also want to make a public release pretty much as soon as possible so more people can help in providing feedback on the new functionality.
But we can't throw a release out there that will just frustrate the general public either. So what to do?

I'm hoping you guys can provide some sensible words on this so that I can figure out what to do over the next two days.
To start out, what do you remember of the various versions above? And what are the main issues with each?
Which one did you consider to be the most "publicly playable" without any serious concerns to gameplay?

Please help thinking along with me here as I would really welcome some other people's views on this as well. :doff
 
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For me POTC 3.3 had the very best performance but is missing some new features. Most of which I don't miss, but a few are cool. Everything after that had poor performance until 1-2 weeks ago. The 18 Oct version with a few small addons is working very well for me, but seems to have performance issues for others. So I recommend not going back further than that as those other early version were unplayable.
Do you have any ideas about where the problems others have are coming from?
 
I appear to have been lucky so far in that I have managed to avoid most of the nasty problems that have been plaguing others. ( touch wood ).

As with @Hylie Pistof - the 18 Oct version of Beta 4 is working well for me - ( though I do not use the world map - for anything other than getting from A to B - I avoid all the ships and try to avoid all storms :p ).

I don't know if the problems people have been having are because they play on Realistic mode ( I use Arcade mode ).

I played Beta 3.4 - but only to do the Cartagena Firecracker part of Bartolomeu Story so I don't know how good the rest was.

I did not play any of the Beta 3.5 versions because they were always changing so rapidly.

The Beta 4 version 23 August - I played the Standard Story Quest right through to the end on without I think any serious problems if I remember correctly. Though I could be wrong - since I am going old & senile.


Whichever version you go back to and use as a basis for creating a public release I think you should try to include the following :

- The Gold Bug Story -- this will give the public players a whole new story to play.

- the new Free Play Story Starts ( all the predefined Characters ) - - this will give those who like Free play lots to do and " get their teeth into" - since virtually all the side quests in them now work.

- as much of the new Smuggling - Levelling - Abilities and Nation Relations systems as you feel are reasonably robust and don't impact on game performance - because these are the things that we really do need more feedback on from as large a number of people as possible.

Given all the new content that is being provided ( Gold Bug & Free Play ) if we tell people that some new systems have been introduced (for Abilities - Levelling - Nation Relations - Smuggling ) and they may have bugs, and we would be grateful for as much feedback as possible on bugs that are found, the playability of the new systems and what people think of them.

If that is done then I don't think there can be too many complaints ( you can tell I am an optimist can't you xD ) :yes.



Hope this helps


:drunk
 
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Thanks for the optimism! :cheers

If indeed with yesterday's version, people don't get any of the truly scary errors anymore, then maybe we're in luck.
Then I just have to narrow down that armour thing.
 
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