Abandoned Rebalance Item Skill Contributions, especially Sailing

[morgan terror]

Sorry for the topic spam guys, i have quite the list.

As i am aware, there is a limit to the amount of extra skillpoints you can give yourself through items. This is sensible. There is a problem though:

The game's navigational equipment is a fun thing to have, since not that many games have the actual UI change by buying upgrades. This UI, especially the ability to see where you are on the map, is pretty damn important though, and i can hardly imagine people not taking those instruments with them, especially when using directsail. This means that, since 3 of these items give a bonus to sailing, you're almost right up to the skill bonus cap from wanting to use a UI alone. This needs to change. I'd honestly not be adverse to removing the sailing bonuses from those items, since you could consider a UI improvement a 'sailing bonus' in itself. There's plenty of other items available to improve that skill, and it levels up pretty fast anyway. The sextant would need an adjustment to it's item discription to inform the player that's it's for the UI though. Right now you can only find out you need the sextant by looking at the discription for the chronometer.

As an aside, the player is never informed of this cap. I happen to know of it because i was there when it was introduced, but i can imagine this being a source of bug reports.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The GUI link applies in Realistic Game Mode only though. I think there is a very brief hint about it in the Options menu.

If they contribute no skills at all, they'd be useless on Arcade.
Unless we make the skill contributions work only on Arcade Game Mode.

 

[morgan terror]

Fair point, or we could make the navigational items not spawn in arcade, keeping the rest of the skill items with their bonuses. Like i said, there's several books that increase sailing skill already, like Hook's Book (+2). Depends on what's easier. I saw that you've coded the shotgun to not appear in realistic already.

 

[Levis]

Maybe a bit of balancing can be done here and we can tweak the numbers and maybe even remove the sailing book?

 

[morgan terror]

The sailing book isn't the problem. It would in fact be perfect for picking up the slack left by removing the sailing bonuses on the nav equipment. The problem is that the navigational instruments take up all of the bonus points. You've always got them with you, meaning all the other skill items in the game are made completely useless, since there is no way you can get their bonuses without hugely inconveniencing yourself (by not taking navigational equipment). I honestly think my above solution would work better: Remove the sailing bonuses from the nav items, and don't make them spawn in arcade mode. It sounds easier.

To clarify: the cap is set over the bonuses you get to all of your skills, collectively, meaning that if you use all of your room for bonuses on sailing, you won't be able to get a bonus to any other skill.

Alternatively, you could raise the cap. It lessens the problem a bit, but it's definitely not removed. You've still got a huge chunk of your points taken up by the nav equipment, which you can't alleviate unless you go into arcade mode.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Not true. You can gain a maximum of 4 points per skill from items.
There is a setting for it in InternalSettings.h .
I added that years back because I figured it is silly to gain +10 skills from items alone.

Having extra sailing plus points from items above that limit of 4 should do absolutely no harm.

 

[morgan terror]

I see. Then there's no problem. I guess this was just a case of confirmation bias on my part; i was so convinced the cap worked that way that i stopped trying to get more than +4 total, meaning i had no upportunity to see otherwise. I guess it's fixed then.

Knowing that though, a rebalance might be worth looking at. I wouldn't want to lose Hook's Book though. It's nice to have those member tributes in the game.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I don't want to lose ANYTHING. It's all good stuff.

That being said, some toning down might be in order.
Are there any items that give +2 sailing? Those could be +1 for example.

But even then, you simply don't need every skill item in the game.
And you can store them in your ships chest as well so they'll still work but not clutter up the Inventory.
Which makes it quite harmless even for serious collectors.

 

[morgan terror]

I'm thinking it should be done in such a way that you can raise all your skills by +4 if you manage to collect all items, meaning that the items can provide no more, and no less, in total. (which would make your cap pointless, actually... it's not perfect. Maybe something more refined is required?) I'll make a list of the current situation. See what needs adjusting. If i do end up having to modify book discriptions, i'll stay within the spirit of the original.

EDIT: actually, come to think of it, weren't you guys working on equipment weight? That could provide an interesting factor in choosing skill items.

 

[Levis]

EDIT: actually, come to think of it, weren't you guys working on equipment weight? That could provide an interesting factor in choosing skill items.

That will be for build 15 probably

 

[Pieter Boelen]

There has been half an unfinished Weight Mod in the game code for years.
But we don't have time to finish it.

Anyway, since skill items work also from your ships chest, it would make no difference here.

I see no particular issue here. You CAN get enough items to give you more than +4 skill bonus.
But above 4, they simply don't take effect. That is exactly the purpose of that ancient mod of mine.

Different skill items show up at different times in the game.
Maybe you can get the +4 from books. And best time from the navigational items.
If you have too many items contributing, then you might as well sell some.

But it doesn't do any harm; it's just a waste of money.
And that's the player's responsibility.

 

[Levis]

Also you could give them to your officers instead or Captains of other ships you command so theire skills are actually boosted instead of yours.
I'm not sure about the GUI but maybe this is also triggered if an officer of you has this item?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The GUI only checks the player.
Checking all officers requires some more looping.
But maybe a Check Party Item function could be added for that purpose?
Should not actually be difficult to do.

 

[Levis]

The GUI only checks the player.
Checking all officers requires some more looping.
But maybe a Check Party Item function could be added for that purpose?
Should not actually be difficult to do.

is it called for at the interface init or the whole time during runtime?
I expect during the init right? In that case I don't mind. Isn't there such a function already anyways?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I don't know when it's called; would need to check, which I cannot do now.

As far as I remember, such a function does not yet exist. It was never needed.

 

[Levis]

Thinking about this some more I'd say its to much of a hassle and feels counter intuitive.
You should have the navigation equipment equiped for it to work.
So any other sailing skill increase things you find you can just pass to your other captains or sell them again.
I will make a note in the officer tutorial where it will say that you can't boost your skill with more then 4. So I think we can close this then?
All sailing equipment only boost +1. Besides that there is Hooks book which boosts by 2. We could change this to boost only 1 and lower the price a bit. But I'd say for now its not needed.

 

[morgan terror]

Thinking about this some more I'd say its to much of a hassle and feels counter intuitive.
You should have the navigation equipment equiped for it to work.
So any other sailing skill increase things you find you can just pass to your other captains or sell them again.
I will make a note in the officer tutorial where it will say that you can't boost your skill with more then 4. So I think we can close this then?
All sailing equipment only boost +1. Besides that there is Hooks book which boosts by 2. We could change this to boost only 1 and lower the price a bit. But I'd say for now its not needed.

Yeah, it works okay as-is. This whole thing started because i didn't know you can have 4+ per skill, not in total. At most, i could look at which skills are lacking in items to boost them up a bit, but it's not a high priority.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I will make a note in the officer tutorial where it will say that you can't boost your skill with more then 4. So I think we can close this then?

If you do that, you might want to display the actual value of the MAX_SKILL_INCREASE setting there.
So if players change that, the explanation does too.

Yeah, it works okay as-is. This whole thing started because i didn't know you can have 4+ per skill, not in total. At most, i could look at which skills are lacking in items to boost them up a bit, but it's not a high priority.

If I see correctly, there is:
Normal & Enhanced Compass give + 1, but you can use only one at a time
Chronometer & Sextant give +1, and you'll need both
Hook's book gives +2
Pirating With Petros gives +1 (also +1 Grapple)

Large pearl gives +1
Markuchankatu Mask gives +1
Chrysoberyl gives + 1
Rock Crystal gives +1

So with normal skill items, you can get up to +5. Which is one more than you can actually use.
Not necessarily a problem though.

If I see correctly, ALL skills have more items than you can actually put to use.
And of course with some realism settings, only SOME of them work.

Sounds to me like it is not worth the effort to make (m)any changes to this.
Marked as "Abandoned" for now; will be archived later, unless somebody has any clever ideas here of things we SHOULD do with it.