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Mods and Game Difficulty

Thanks very much! Better costs would be most welcome! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/w00t.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":woot" border="0" alt="w00t.gif" />
Also we'll need to find where the random amounts of money are given to characters. This will need to be toned down.
 
Down, or up ... depending on the overall results of the rescale.

I'll not touch prices until I have a better idea where they are going.

One study said that, in the 1700's, a good sword cost a year's wages for a naval officer. It didn't say exactly what rank or what kind of sword.

On that note, let's balance out the difference between officer and crew salary. How come one officer costs more than 300 crewmen? That can't be right.
 
I'll just fly top cover on this and let you all handle the details because it sounds like you're already on some promising tracks.

But in my experience mucking around with Build 12, where the prices are much more toned down for loot and personal gear, that's the biggie right there. You get prices back in line and suddenly other elements fall back in too. Less cash to bribe crew morale, fewer fancy weapons and gear for everyone and so forth. Another strong feature in Build 12 is the lack of a "Toughness" skill so you end up using up all those healing potions or having to ration them carefully. And the prices for healing potions is much higher, comparative to other items, than in Build 13 so just buying them up isn't an option (at least right off).

I think realistic prices should be handled with some caution. What you want are proportionate, relative, prices. Reality, and the costs associated, are going to be very hard to model properly. For example, truly good blades are probably very rare and all imported. Maintaining them in a ocean environment probably takes a good deal of work. Blades will probably degrade quickly. How many capable weaponsmiths, outside of colonial military forces, really existed in the Caribbean? Wouldn't they charge more than usual? And I'm already finding, from a gameplay perspective, some decisions - like seperate items along the lines of balls, powder and having to maintain weaponry is generally more of a drag to gameplay than an asset. It may be realistic but it fits better in games where scarcity of basic items is a key dramatic factor (tactical military shooters or survivial horror games) rather than one in which swashbuckling and action should be a key component. An unreliable firearm is a dramatic element, whether it's because of malfunction or lack of ammo, but having to juggle group logistics at every turn isn't good dramatics.

And a variety of weapons with different stats may or may not really effect gameplay. I'm still a bit skeptical about that one. Generally speaking players will probably go for the most balanced (piercing/blocking) blade with the most damage potential. Will there really be a variety of tactical situations that call for different weapons? Or is there one basic tactical situation where a particular blade is going to be the usual best call? PoTC tends to the latter.
 
Well, I would favor the high damage blade, even if the blocking potential was poor. That's because I practice with the katana, personally ... so hard blocks are not as much in my natural vocabulary as footwork and a quick, clean kill.

Seriously, I turn off both the personal ammo and bladedamage mods ... I find them annoying.

And maintaining a good blade is just a question of a sharpening stone and a little bit of cooking oil. A little bit of soap and steel wool will do wonders for a rusty one too, but be sure to get all the soap off of it before you oil it. That I would know ... as mentioned, I keep real blades.

(They didn't have steel wool at the time ... but you could polish them with shark skin. That's what famous Japanese swordsmiths did.)

But as for different tactical situations ... right now there is only the latter (one situation repeated). I propose creating the other - throwing out the current model and starting over, building a model where each conflict was unique. Then whatever weapon you use, you would need to learn how to use it against the strengths and weaknesses of other types of blades. A new weapon could require completely rethinking the game. Creation is an act of sheer will... the plan is to create what we want.

And I keep saying reality was balanced. The closer we get to it, the better the game will naturally balance for us. The more we try to balance arbitrarily, the more we create endless cycles of tweaking this and that.

But I'll get the damage stats. Just figure out what crew and officers actually got paid, and add that to the realistic prices list. Give me a price range on the swords, based on whatever coinage we're using, and I'll type them in too.
 
There actually is a difference in item/ship prices between Build 12.1 and Build 13? I wonder what the reasoning was behind that change. We could try to simply restore the Build 12.1 values.

As for the blades: It would be nice if we could somehow rework the actual fighting system to add more different moves, fast attacks, slow attacks, heavy attacks, etc. Not sure how to handle that with this game though. We'd need to assign different keys to different attacks and we'd need to make sure enemies would use them as well. Preferrably there should also be new animations, otherwise you wouldn't even see a difference between the different attacks. But we can't make new animations. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/modding.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":modding" border="0" alt="modding.gif" />
 
actually, there already are three different fighting animations. left, right, and from above. thay just need to be assigned to controls. no new animations required. the problem is though, how to handle the blocking and parrying? if you can just block like you do now three different attacks would still be no good. one improtant thing is that if there would be three different kinds of blocking, limiting the time that you can block would no longer be nessesary.
 
Ron, the last thing I'd like to do is discourage experimentation. Experimentation got us alot of things in these mods that, according to what I've read, seemed impossible but ended up wonderfully.

Just keep in mind that what this engine can do well can be improved with effort. What this engine isn't really built for will take alot more effort to create. An accurate simulation of reality on the level of individual duelling characters is probably asking for too much. I could be wrong. However figuring out how to make it a little more interesting, and varied, without getting too difficult or fiddly would be nice.

Keep in mind that the more complex the options are for the player the more the AI's going to have to do as well, beyond just potentially making new models. And creating a more varied battlefield might require reworking alot of stuff including maps and animations and figuring in modifiers that make use of, say, fatigue or elevation or melee range.

To the extent that's even possible it also needs to be intuitive. It has to work the way it should, and feel right, without too much fiddling on the part of a player. And if different weapons do have huge advantages in different tactical situations - are we to switch between weapons in the middle of a fight? How will that work? Should we limit player inventories and model weight as well so we have realistic encumbrances? Should fatigue figure in?

And what about weapon breakage? Wouldn't heavier weapons break weaker ones?

This is a road that potentially could have great benefits or it could end up a very convoluted quagmire.

Edit: The two best swordfighting games I've come across (in terms of both fun gameplay and some degree of realism, good balances if you will) are <i>Mount & Blade</i> for the PC and <i>Way of The Samurai</i> for the PS2.

Mount and Blade does a very good job modelling the kinetic feel of older medieval weapons. It works a bit like PoTC with a very basic system of blocking and striking, though you can vary right and left/high and low attacks, but the weight and nature of the weapon heavily influences how and when you'll use it. Bigger weapons do more damage but are slower and clumsier, some weapons have better reach, some defeat shields through battering them to bits or "swinging around" them, some weapons do more damage against some armor types than others (but we shouldn't overdo armor in a Pirates! game) and there's even mounted combat including very convincing couched lance attacks and mounted archery.

Way of The Samurai takes a very different tack, a bit more like a traditional fighting game with combos and the like, but the attacks are keyed to the types of sword. And each sword has its own unique styles and, in fact, varied stances that can be used. This is a good way of modelling more classic fencing. There's much more give and take, trapping blades, unbalancing opponents, feinting, dirty tricks (throwing sand in the eyes) and the like depending on what weapon you're using. It's not incredibly realistic but it feels good, each blade captures a unique style and approach, and the AI makes good use of its blades and techniques as well.
 
switching blades through the inventory during battle how it is now is really tricky. you have to get out of trouble, put your sword away, bring up the interface, select your new sword, and then get your sword back out before you get hacked to bits. the only way i see this would be possible is making it possible for the player to assign hotkeys to weapons himself, switching swords when he likes, taking very little time. i think this would give the problem that you would get a sword looking like the saber but actually being the rapier (having it's stats) after you've swapped weapons, though. (having swapped from saber to rapier, i mean) the same things happens with swapping ships at sea. as with the ships, i think the bug would then dissapear after you go to another location.
 
Pieter, I guess you don't like the idea of having player get the same range of cash (loot) form enemy and ships, whether on easy, adventurer, or swashbuckler level, right?
 
What really strikes me everytime I start a new game regardless mod version, is the fact that really expensive weapons are just laying around back yards and bushes as if nobody but the main character is aware of their value.
It kinds of ruins the idea of difficult stormy starts because all you have to do is to walk about a bit and look see... and soon enough you would find weaponry giving a substantial income.
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dunno.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":shrug" border="0" alt="dunno.gif" /> Raising merchantvalues for the swords and guns is a good start in the pursuit of reality but it would only make this side income even more robust to a point where <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":rolleyes:" border="0" alt="rolleyes.gif" /> quest offers like a couple of thousands in return seem not worthy the while.
In this respect the stock game had a more realistic difficulty in finding the really good weapons.
My thought would be to apply some simple standards to the obtaining of the weapons. Let them be found in the dungeons, let them be given as a gift of gratitude by the encountered walkers instead of indian artifacts, let them be conquered by looting quest characters you need to fight and who are speciffically equiped with them for the purpose.
This could give for instance a whole new purpose to the "Assasin" quest. Reward for loss of reputation would not only be money but maybe the only chance to get the real top of the line in weapons.
Or let them only be carried by quest officers like Fred Bob with his Bosuns choice which he would so eagerly hand over when he becomes an officer.

Just a thought you know!
 
OddjobXL:
Apparently my reputation has not preceded me. You mentioned Mount & Blade. I designed the "Realistic Combat Model" (RCM) used in at least a dozen of the bigger mods of Mount and Blade, including the now quite well known Japanese mod "Onin-no-Ran" (which even the M&B developers have repeatedly posted that they eagerly await new versions). There's nobody in M&B modding who hasn't heard my name.

And that engine really didn't have much potential, originally ... all of the weapons had basically the same speed and damage stats, all way too low, and the armor was apparently made of paper. However, by starting over from zero, a few of us made something out of it.

That's why I say we can't fix the blades piecemeal. We'll have to start over from zero.

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

But as for changing weapons, I advise you get good with one. If you use a light weapon, get good at blocking, and make sure not to let someone with a heavy blade hit you. If you use a heavy blade, learn to time your openings so that the first swing will be the last, and don't let your enemy draw out the fight.

But no, heavy weapons will usually not break a lighter one, because human arms are not that solid. Odds are, if your sword was hit that hard, you would drop it before the steel took more than a scratch. I practice full-contact with wood bokken (Japanese-type wood practice swords), and seldom break a stick, because human arms absorb a lot of shock... and steel is harder and more flexible.

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

And as for finding stuff, the idea here is that no one weapon would make you uber. Might give certain advantages over a lesser weapon of similar type, but it would still have the basic weaknesses of weapons in its class. Then it would not matter so much that you got a "top-of-the-line" blade ... you would still have to learn to use it.
 
<!--quoteo(post=227966:date=Dec 27 2007, 12:14 AM:name=Ron Losey)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ron Losey @ Dec 27 2007, 12:14 AM) [snapback]227966[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->OddjobXL:
Apparently my reputation has not preceded me. You mentioned Mount & Blade. I designed the "Realistic Combat Model" (RCM) used in at least a dozen of the bigger mods of Mount and Blade, including the now quite well known Japanese mod "Onin-no-Ran" (which even the M&B developers have repeatedly posted that they eagerly await new versions). There's nobody in M&B modding who hasn't heard my name.

And that engine really didn't have much potential, originally ... all of the weapons had basically the same speed and damage stats, all way too low, and the armor was apparently made of paper. However, by starting over from zero, a few of us made something out of it.

That's why I say we can't fix the blades piecemeal. We'll have to start over from zero.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

I wasn't involved much with M&B mods. Just played the vanilla version for a while (and am installing the latest build as we speak). The strategic element was lacking but I always enjoyed the tactical game. What I wonder is whether PoTC can really support a meaningful mod along these lines. The basics were already in place in vanilla M&B and just required tweaking I suspect. Here you'd be trying to create a real chimera, grafting on elements that don't really exist yet (at least for the tactical decisions to be meaningful).
 
Ron Losey:

No matter what blade you use in PotC, it only blocks a certain amount of the hit (listed in the blades preferences in PROGRAM/ITEMS/InitItems.c)

As far as I understand things, a rapier has a 15 hp block, that means your player gets hurt with at least 25 hp if the enemy is striking you with a 40-55 hp Bosun´s Choice, even if you manage to block. Only the Solingen Rapier is blocking with 100 hp.


I know its complicated. Maybe I am not right either, and the guys will correct me.
 
I think the block thing is a "percentage effective" measure. Block 80% means that, by blocking, you will catch 80% of incoming swings, minus pierce value of the attacking weapon, modified by melee skill.

Somebody added a "block damage" mod that made even effective blocks result in minor damage ... which seems very odd to me, but I'm sure we can work around that.

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

And Oddjob:
Try the Onin-no-Ran mod for M&B. Watch the way combat damage goes. It's astounding how much you can change the game by just re-arranging all of the stats. (Tweaking a few stats would have done nothing except serve to un-balance the game further.)
 
I'm still skeptical that rearranging the deck chairs in PoTC's arsenal is going to have a meaningful effect. Tactical situations in M&B are much more varied and the AI and its weaponry operates differently. Mounts, armor, assorted missle and thrown eapons, terrain, morale, encumberance/strength limits and more factor into a battle and what you're going to be using. But I've been wrong before and you've clearly had more experience than I here. *crosses fingers for you*

After beating the tar out of river pirates and sea raiders tonight I can't help but think how close PoTC with the crew landing party mod and M&B come at least in party sizes and the concepts around character and his officers/heroes and regular troops. If someone could genesplice these two games together somehow...
 
Well, yeah, if we were building a whole new game .... patching together the map and land combat from some other game (like M&B) with the sea battle sequence from POTC would be optimal. (The two already have very similar interfaces for towns.)

However, that is probably beyond the scope of a mod project ... especially considering that the code from the two is entirely dissimilar.

But I'm not talking about re-arranging the deck chairs. I'm talking about dismantling the deck chairs and using the wood to build bookshelves.

We'll see what I can come up with. (Next week... still got tests to grade, wasted too much time already.)
 
<!--quoteo(post=227913:date=Dec 26 2007, 06:21 PM:name=Morgan Terror)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Morgan Terror @ Dec 26 2007, 06:21 PM) [snapback]227913[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->i think this would give the problem that you would get a sword looking like the saber but actually being the rapier (having it's stats) after you've swapped weapons, though. (having swapped from saber to rapier, i mean) the same things happens with swapping ships at sea. as with the ships, i think the bug would then dissapear after you go to another location.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->I don't think so. Did you ever use the quick-equip keys for equipping some of the special weapons? The weapon change is immediate and it even shows on your model straight away. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/yes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":yes" border="0" alt="yes.gif" />

<!--quoteo(post=227928:date=Dec 26 2007, 08:03 PM:name=Petros)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Petros @ Dec 26 2007, 08:03 PM) [snapback]227928[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Pieter, I guess you don't like the idea of having player get the same range of cash (loot) form enemy and ships, whether on easy, adventurer, or swashbuckler level, right?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Not at all; I would have nothing against that. But we'd need to find the code that handles that. Of course I never did play on higher difficulties, so I can't say a sensible word on the matter, really. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/unsure.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":?" border="0" alt="unsure.gif" />

<!--quoteo(post=227960:date=Dec 27 2007, 02:19 AM:name=Julian)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Julian @ Dec 27 2007, 02:19 AM) [snapback]227960[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It kinds of ruins the idea of difficult stormy starts because all you have to do is to walk about a bit and look see... and soon enough you would find weaponry giving a substantial income.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->I thought IncredibleHat did some work on that so that you don't find super high-end blades lying around anymore, at least not in the beginning of the game. And we were considering decreasing the values of blades, not increasing them.

<!--quoteo(post=227974:date=Dec 27 2007, 05:20 AM:name=Ron Losey)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ron Losey @ Dec 27 2007, 05:20 AM) [snapback]227974[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Somebody added a "block damage" mod that made even effective blocks result in minor damage ... which seems very odd to me, but I'm sure we can work around that.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->I did that, then HawkerT did some improving of it. The reason was to, at least somewhat, counter the infinite blocking in the game. I find it really bothersome that you can just keep the <i>Ctrl</i> button pressed and you get hardly any damage, even when you're just using an ordinary saber. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wacko.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":wacko:" border="0" alt="wacko.gif" />
 
The problem with the block damage was that pretty much every weapon had similar block/pierce attributes - slightly increased with weapon quality, but not dissimilar. Therefore, if your melee skill was higher, you would be pretty much assured a working block.

The solution is to put dramatically different block/pierce values into different weapons. Then certain weapons would be effective against others in one aspect but not in other ways ... i.e. one blade would be good at piercing other's blocks, but poor at blocking in return (because it was nose-heavy), while another lacked in some other category. That will mix things up.

But I'll test that when I get to it. Meanwhile, the block damage thing was exactly what I was talking about, trying to balance the game without a frame of reference (i.e. reality or what is reasonable), and so creating even more strangeness. It creates game balance in a totally illogical and counter-intuitive way. (Same with the ammo thing ... you can carry 20+ swords but only 5 musket balls. Who thought this was a good idea, again?) This seems to be the thing we would want to avoid.
 
the point in being able to carry only a small amount of ammo is that the amount becomes of importance. otherwise you can just buy a few thousand bullets and keep on shooting forever. however, 6 musket bullets or 12 pistol bullets is indeed pretty little. (and that's WITH an ammunition bag) personally, i would prefer the other ammunition items back in the game.

each blade having it's own characteristics seems very interesting to me. i'm already discovering things like this with the ships when using realistic sailing mode. each ship has it's own characteristics. you'll notice them if you look carefully and experiment a bit. for instance, some ships are quick to respond all-round. some aren't, and some respond quickly in the first instance, but once they're turning, are very hard to bring on a different course. they also move differently on the waves depending on their shape. and then there's of course the angle at which they can sail to the wind and what kind of wind they prefer, which is very realistically done in most cases. for instance, the pirate corvette: it's closest angle to the wind is 45 degrees, although it does struggle with it. the wind tends to miss the sails if it shifts past that critical angle. with the wind on the beam, it sails fairly well, but a lot of the driving force is lost. if the wind is coming from behind at an angle of 30 to 10 degrees, it sails at it's optimum speed, however, anywhere within those 10 degrees and it loses some speed because some of it's sails get starved from wind by the ones behind them.
 
<!--quoteo(post=228003:date=Dec 27 2007, 02:05 PM:name=Ron Losey)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ron Losey @ Dec 27 2007, 02:05 PM) [snapback]228003[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->But I'll test that when I get to it. Meanwhile, the block damage thing was exactly what I was talking about, trying to balance the game without a frame of reference (i.e. reality or what is reasonable), and so creating even more strangeness. It creates game balance in a totally illogical and counter-intuitive way.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Point taken. I suppose it is the "right versus easy" dilemma. Unfortunately the "right" way is REALLY not easy. We'll need to come up with a theory that we could actually translate into code, taking into account the limitations of the game engine.

We could, for example, give each blade a "type" attribute, such as "heavy", "light", "quick", etc. Then depending on which blade is fighting which, there are different damage statistics. Better ideas would be welcome.
 
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