Feature Request More need to rest after battle

[Levis]

also @Grey Roger the numbers I called are just arbitrary at the moment. I don't think boarding a "normal size" ship should give you any penalty. but boarding two ships in a row maybe should. I mean if you where to do that in real life you wouldn't be very fit either right?
I was thinking for boarding maybe only apply the penalty once the boarding is over, because the hardest part is at the end normally.
What you could still do offcourse it keep out of fight yourself during the first boarding action so you don't get a penalty and let your officers do the work for you. then change your party for the next boarding so you got fresh officers again. I think that sounds pretty realistic.
Same goes for jungle exploration etc.
Maybe the amount of damage you need to receive to get the penalty shouldn't be a absolute number but it should be a percentage of your HP (say for example if you received 3 times you HP in damage in 1 day you will get -1 on melee. And for every 2 time you HP extra you get -1 again).
I think it would work and it would add to the gameplay and it would give resting more use in the game.
We could tie certain perks to this aswell. Say for example toughness would make sure the penalty comes a bit later (for example only after 4 times your HP you get the first penalty). And for example profesional fencer could also help.

It would also be possible to add an item which would temporarly remove the penalty for you (something like adrenaline but then from that era) where you have a certain time or just 1 location where the penalty is removed. So say you where going back to town after a night of jungle exploration and you are "tired" (so you have 2 penalties for example) and then you are ambushed by an assassin or something like that you could use this item to save yourself. it wouldn't be something you use often but it would be something you can use to get from risky situations.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I think there should be a difference TIMESCALAR for in towns and outside towns.

Yep.

It seems to be measuring time passing within each scene, and then only updating with that number when you change scenes, but the change of scenes itself has no influence on how much time passed

How can that be? The "block update" is enabled by default and what you describe sounds like the other setting.

 

[Tingyun]

Pieter,

I think I got confused and expressed myself poorly, let me try laying everything out:

What I would suggest: 2 hours pass everytime a jungle scene change. If you sit in a given scene though, time passes normally, and slowly, so you aren't rushed in doing things. The 2 hours on scene change restricts your ability to cover great distances unrealistically fast, or keep changing scenes to have tons of encounters.

What I tested: changed the value from 10 to 120 as below:
int TIMESCALAR_SEA = 5; // INT - how many seconds of gametime one second of realtime is at sea
#define TIMESCALAR_LAND 120 // INT - same but for land
#define TIMEUPDATE_BLOCK_LAND 1 // BOOL - whether time updates per minute or on location change (i.e. in blocks)

What happened: time passed faster inside scenes, minutes passed for real world seconds, but I could still change scenes many times in an ingame hour, because the scene changes had nothing to do with how much time had passed, they only caused the time to update.

What I would like: a function adds a definite 2 hours everytime you enter or exit a jugle scene.

 

[Levis]

I don't know if that is a good idea because it could screw up people who are looking for a certain location.

 

[Tingyun]

But it taking many hours to search in the jungle for a location certainly feels sensible.

Are there a lot of time limits that would be operating for stuff people do on land? I haven't played very far, so I just know hunting for bandits...

 

[Levis]

But it taking many hours to search in the jungle for a location certainly feels sensible.

Are there a lot of time limits that would be operating for stuff people do on land? I haven't played very far, so I just know hunting for bandits...

there are a few quests I believe where there is a time limit. also this should be split out in "outside town" and "inside town", because spending 2 hours to go from one part of the town to the next isn't right.

 

[Tingyun]

You are certainly right. This would only make sense if it were possible to limit it to scene changes outside.

 

[Grey Roger]

also @Grey Roger the numbers I called are just arbitrary at the moment. I don't think boarding a "normal size" ship should give you any penalty. but boarding two ships in a row maybe should. I mean if you where to do that in real life you wouldn't be very fit either right?

So you can forget about ever again trying to take on a group of ships. And that would also foul up part of my storyline, as well as any other storyline or quest which requires you to take on several ships.

I was thinking for boarding maybe only apply the penalty once the boarding is over, because the hardest part is at the end normally.
What you could still do offcourse it keep out of fight yourself during the first boarding action so you don't get a penalty and let your officers do the work for you. then change your party for the next boarding so you got fresh officers again. I think that sounds pretty realistic.

It sounds pretty boring - stand back and let everyone else do the work. It also won't work because AI officers aren't as good in combat as a player, so they'll probably get killed and then you need to do all the fighting yourself instead of joining in and making a difference while they and your crew are still standing.

This is yet another case where there has to be a balance between realism and gameplay. For exactly the same reason, several islands which weren't colonised in the 16th century are still open in "Early Explorers" because otherwise a lot of side quests would have to be disabled in that period. Making the game realistic in some ways would also make it considerably less fun.

Same goes for jungle exploration etc.
Maybe the amount of damage you need to receive to get the penalty shouldn't be a absolute number but it should be a percentage of your HP (say for example if you received 3 times you HP in damage in 1 day you will get -1 on melee. And for every 2 time you HP extra you get -1 again).
I think it would work and it would add to the gameplay and it would give resting more use in the game.

So, you fight your way past a couple of groups of highwaymen and are probably down to -1 melee by the time you get to the Barbados cave. Then you fight your way through the cave and are probably down to -2. Good luck getting past the highwaymen on the way back to town. And then you need to waste time rather than getting on with the game.

 

[Tingyun]

I have been testing out a self-enforced version of Levis's rule, where when I reach 5x max HP damage in one day I force myself to disengage and go rest in a tavern. (personally, I prefer the time added between jungle scenes solution, and I share some of Grey Roger's concerns, but I wanted to provide some feedback for Levis).

Here are the results (playing on sea dog difficulty), measured over my first castaway night of a new playthrough jungle hunting. Of course, I haven't gotten to boardings yet, but I will keep enforcing this 5x HP rule on myself throughout the playthrough, and should have feedback on boardings soon.

First, highwaymen aren't difficult to avoid when you don't want to get fatigued, I sneak past them whenever I want. When I reached 5x HP damage and was roleplaying fatigue, I just snuck past the bands between me and the town. Even the patrolling ones are easy to avoid.

Second, I found I relied more on stealth tactics, and the items to knock out, poison, etc. Basically, the threat of HP fatigue made it more costly to take damage, and I found myself using stealth items on groups of patrolling bandits to take out at least a couple of them to even the odds.

Third, I found I liked solo play a great deal more, and didn't bother to get officers yet. In my previous playthrough, officers and me tomahawking the enemy to death, then bandaging, was the quick and easy way. But this time, I prefered solo, carefully positioning myself at start of fight to have plenty of room behind, and liberally dodging backwards to make the enemy form a line and cut them down before they could swing at me.

Forth, I really liked armor, and found it much more valuable (took a loan from the loanshark to buy).

Fifth, and this is perhaps the unfrotunate part. The rule actually didn't restrict what I could do that much. I still ended up killing and looting around 5 natives and 30 highwaymen in one night, and that was a solo character below level 5 starting with just a cutlas and leather cuiris and upgrading as he went. So I had the same unrealistic amount of progress in one night.

So, so far my opinion is self-enforcing this rule on land is leading me to play smarter, though maybe alot of that is more about me not relying on officers or early powerful weapons, and I think all of you experienced players already would be doing all of the tactical stuff anyway. So it might just be me learning.

But it isn't restricting my ability to have lots of battles in a single night, at least not yet. I will have further feedback going forward.

One thought: if the rule applies to officers as well, it might become somewhat difficult, as they aren't as capable as the player at avoiding damage. Already it is making me hesitent to take on officers, as I am better able to control the battlefield and avoid damage when alone.

 

[Tingyun]

Update: after continuing to play with this self-enforced rule for several more hours, I think @Grey Roger is right that such a feature wouldn't be fun.

In levels 5-8 of jungle hunting, it did operate as more of a restriction, mainly because good firearms became prevalent on the enemies, and they would always get a few shots connecting with me (I am still solo hunting). I could usually still slay some 30 enemies before getting to x5 hp damage, with some stealth kills, so I could still do a great deal. And it didn't really matter in game effect--a an extra day or two.

But I would be enjoying the game, and then it would be time to walk all the way back to the tavern. It rather broke up the fun with what amounted to a tedious task. Just my personal impression though, others might enjoy it more.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

As a simple thing to try, I wonder what would happen if regular health items are vastly reduced in their power and potions made more rare.

Or have "current HP/max HP" influence your fighting skill to some extent?

 

[Tingyun]

Pieter,

I like potions being rare. I am not sure about weakening regular health items, as if they are made much weaker, people will just rely on natural healing, and if they are made slower in their effects, people will just start using them at the very beginning of battle to have them operate sort of like a regeneration potion.

Maybe natural healing should be removed altogether, so that you must use bandages and such to heal yourself? That would be realistic, and then people would rely on bandages even if they couldn't be used in combat.

Could natural healing be removed? I would be happy to playtest this if you could point me to the right file.

I don't like current hp/max hp influencing combat too much, as it would make the situation where the enemy bandits get a nice opening volley of gunfire, or you get surprised, into a likely death. The problem isn't the death itself, but rather that such situations are somewhat random, based on what firearms your opponents randomly get and such, and random deaths aren't fun. Also, since your officers don't understand how to protect their own lives well, it would make it harder to defend them from getting themselves killed, often because of AI stupidity, which would be frustrating.

 

[Eskhol]

The thing with bandages is that they are very cheap and you can just buy lots of them. The only way I can actually die now is if I rush into a fort and everyone shoots me or while boarding a big ship and getting in the front so all the enemies shoot me instead of my crew. (Muskets kill me in two or three shots even with gold plate armor, 10 combat and all the defensive perks). My officers seem to take a lot more damage than me and still survive even without gold plate armor just expensive plate armor, maybe because they use bandages a lot.

But if I only fight with swords and they just shoot at me once every 10 seconds or so I can spam bandages and just stay there looking at them, I already have 500 bandages on me!
Maybe a limit to the maximum bandages you can carry? 10 when you're starting and 1 more for every two levels or something like that.

 

[Tingyun]

Eskhol,

I'd personally like to see the spamming bandages thing fixed by preventing their use with the sword drawn. Limiting the number you can carry is also going to restrict it too much for its realistic purpose (healing after battles).

If natural healing were set to 0, and bandages were unusable in combat, what would you think? It seems right to me.

 

[Eskhol]

Tingyun,

I like both ideas (healing set to 0 and no bandages during combat) but not together. I think it would make it annoying. If three guys with pistols are on you during a boarding and they start shooting you, you're basically dead with no chance of escaping (even backing up or trying to run) because if you can't kill them fast enough they will shoot and kill you. The same applies to all kinds of situations where they use pistols/muskets and surprise you dealing tons of damage. This would be especially annoying when you're low level and their attacks pierce through your block like it's nothing.

So I think it's either one or the other but I think both are too much.

 

[Tingyun]

Eskhol,

Good point. I agree.

 

[Eskhol]

Tingyun,

There could also be a toggle for each one so if you want both you can just activate both and suffer!

 

[imado552]

Tingyun,

I like both ideas (healing set to 0 and no bandages during combat) but not together. I think it would make it annoying. If three guys with pistols are on you during a boarding and they start shooting you, you're basically dead with no chance of escaping (even backing up or trying to run) because if you can't kill them fast enough they will shoot and kill you. The same applies to all kinds of situations where they use pistols/muskets and surprise you dealing tons of damage. This would be especially annoying when you're low level and their attacks pierce through your block like it's nothing.

So I think it's either one or the other but I think both are too much.

lol i laughed so hard that a great point dude XD

Eskhol,

I'd personally like to see the spamming bandages thing fixed by preventing their use with the sword drawn. Limiting the number you can carry is also going to restrict it too much for its realistic purpose (healing after battles).

If natural healing were set to 0, and bandages were unusable in combat, what would you think? It seems right to me.

i'de agree as well but maybe add them to Iron man mod Pieter Boelen since i like to play on that mod a lot while i'm just playing not testing or such i would really love to see both it would be amazing to me trying maybe (if we can add that , that would be amazing ) if you hide behind something the ball will not hit you or its damage will be reduced since you are taking cover
i would really love to see this with 2 hours jungle travel feature (idea) Tingyun !!
hope you agree!! Pieter Boelen ,Tingyun ,Eskhol !!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Regular health items only working with sword not drawn does make sense to me.

I'm not entirely sure where "natural healing" is in the game code.
When exactly does your HP go up? I don't quite remember...

 

[imado552]

Regular health items only working with sword not drawn does make sense to me.

I'm not entirely sure where "natural healing" is in the game code.
When exactly does your HP go up? I don't quite remember...

its when you are doing nothing like walking or just standing there without your swords in your hand your hp will be back on its own which is inrealistic you can't get healed on your own from a gun shot XD
hope we can see it in iron man mod !!!