Included in Build Too easy to make money now

[Hylie Pistof]

I have a couple dozen of them now. It is so easy to make money in this version that I even buy them from regular stores.

Is anyone else taking a performance hit at sea? My frame rate at sea in 3.4 is about half of what I get in 3.3.

 

[Levis]

I have a couple dozen of them now. It is so easy to make money in this version that I even buy them from regular stores.

Is anyone else taking a performance hit at sea? My frame rate at sea in 3.4 is about half of what I get in 3.3.

I noticed it too. but I believe its only when other ships are around right? Not when you are alone.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I have a couple dozen of them now. It is so easy to make money in this version that I even buy them from regular stores.

Uh? Didn't you report a few weeks back that it was too hard to make money?
It almost sounds like the economic difficulty is going from bad to amazing between updates without us actually making much of any changes to it.
Have you got any clue what seems different since that previous version because I am being quite curious now. Or where do you get the majority of your money from?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

In 3.3 my fleet consists of the Brandenburg frigate and 2 fast galleons and in 3.4 my fleet consists of a fast galleon, the Postillionen 6th rate frigate, and the Wicked Wench.

In 3.3 when sailing alone the frame rate is 50-60 fps. In 3.4 when sailing alone the frame rate is 30-32 fps.

When other ships are around the fps drops to single digits and the action becomes choppy with noticeable jerks and stops in the action. The game becomes almost unplayable.

What I remember about that earlier 3.4 is that it took 2 merchant quests per month just to pay the bills, smuggling was ok, and the first treasure quest I go was too difficult and I could not do it for some time. The result was that I stayed with my starting ship until level 12.

Now merchant runs are profitable, smuggling nets a very good profit, and I hit 5 hugely profitable treasure quests in a row before finding an empty chest. I have been buying ships just to berth them, buying ships and giving them every upgrade just to see how they do and then selling them, and generally acting like royalty buying everything in sight. The game is actually boring.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I am getting the distinct impression that the game has become too complicated.
Chaos theory at work: Make one tiny change that shouldn't impact much of anything and everything changes.

 

[Rei]

In 3.3 my fleet consists of the Brandenburg frigate and 2 fast galleons and in 3.4 my fleet consists of a fast galleon, the Postillionen 6th rate frigate, and the Wicked Wench.

In 3.3 when sailing alone the frame rate is 50-60 fps. In 3.4 when sailing alone the frame rate is 30-32 fps.

When other ships are around the fps drops to single digits and the action becomes choppy with noticeable jerks and stops in the action. The game becomes almost unplayable.

What I remember about that earlier 3.4 is that it took 2 merchant quests per month just to pay the bills, smuggling was ok, and the first treasure quest I go was too difficult and I could not do it for some time. The result was that I stayed with my starting ship until level 12.

Now merchant runs are profitable, smuggling nets a very good profit, and I hit 5 hugely profitable treasure quests in a row before finding an empty chest. I have been buying ships just to berth them, buying ships and giving them every upgrade just to see how they do and then selling them, and generally acting like royalty buying everything in sight. The game is actually boring.

Ditto. Eight hours into the game and I feel like this guy:

 

[Levis]

@Hylie Pistof what do you think makes you to wealthy now? should there be more misfortune? What do you say for example if you are an enemy to a nation but you want to port there you need to bribe the port master first?
Or even worse (on higher difficulty) you need to pay for placing your ship in port? Would those things help?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

What do you say for example if you are an enemy to a nation but you want to port there you need to bribe the port master first?

I think only one port has a harbour master. So that would require a lot of location- and character-adding again.
Our wishes might be getting ahead of our abilities these days. Or at least ahead of our available time....

 

[Levis]

I think only one port has a harbour master. So that would require a lot of location- and character-adding again.
Our wishes might be getting ahead of our abilities these days. Or at least ahead of our available time....

We could just add it in the daily updates right?
instead of consuming food and rum while in port you pay money.... that wouldn't be to much.
The bribing would be harder, but it wouldn't be that hard either to have a character(fantom) walk towards you if you enter the port to ask you to pay or something like that.

I admit there might be better ways to tackle this problem, but this is what came to mind.
Clearly he is not losing enough money .

 

[Pieter Boelen]

instead of consuming food and rum while in port you pay money.... that wouldn't be to much.

I do like the sound of that. Would solve the "consuming rations while in port" complaints at least.
Simplifies things for the player. At the expense of paying some more money....

Clearly he is not losing enough money .

Or he's making more money than ever before. For some mysterious reason.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

@Hylie Pistof what do you think makes you to wealthy now? should there be more misfortune? What do you say for example if you are an enemy to a nation but you want to port there you need to bribe the port master first?
Or even worse (on higher difficulty) you need to pay for placing your ship in port? Would those things help?

Eh? I don't sail into hostile ports so paying to anchor there would not happen. That is a waste of time.

What makes me so wealthy? Maybe going 5-1 in treasure quests is a big part of it plus it seems the treasures themselves are larger. I'm not sure if regular merchant runs are more profitable but smuggling can be quite profitable too. It all adds up. In the early 3.4 game I had no treasure quests at all and was poor. In 3.3 games I had a 35-50% success rate and they felt balanced.

Every game needs a "So you think you're a tuff guy?" level and that is the goal with Swashbuckler. It needs to be a long hard challenging slog with the player just getting by while using every trick in the book, except cheating. But it can't raise the overall level so that players on the normal levels are not having fun. What do the players at those levels think about the economy? Too easy? Too hard? My thinking is that I should just be just getting by so that the other players can have a fun but challenging game.

 

[Levis]

as far as I know we didn't change any parameters for the treasure quests.
The smuggling can be a bit more profitable now with the perks. I could trim the initial price a bit so the perks are needed to get a good profit out of it.

The merchant runs aren't changed also.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

What makes me so wealthy? Maybe going 5-1 in treasure quests is a big part of it plus it seems the treasures themselves are larger. I'm not sure if regular merchant runs are more profitable but smuggling can be quite profitable too. It all adds up. In the early 3.4 game I had no treasure quests at all and was poor. In 3.3 games I had a 35-50% success rate and they felt balanced.

The one thing I did change is the chance for finding treasures. But I changed that already early in the Beta 3.3 development and back then you didn't seem to notice the effect.
Still, that is a change that could give you more money. Though I wouldn't expect it to massively mess up the balancing.

as far as I know we didn't change any parameters for the treasure quests.

Well, actually.... See above.

The smuggling can be a bit more profitable now with the perks. I could trim the initial price a bit so the perks are needed to get a good profit out of it.

That might be a large part of this as well. I know Hylie does a lot of smuggling.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Ok, so I am just getting lucky with the treasure quests.

That sounds like smuggling would have a small profit at first when you have low skills and a small ship, and could lead to huge profits later when you get the perks combined with several large ships. That is what I am already seeing, with small profits at first and then after a certain point the money comes rolling in. I actually stop smuggling then.

Merchant runs are the same? Ok.

EDIT: I actually don't do that much smuggling. It is kind of a way to get extra money when needed. I also believe that smuggling harms the local store so I try to smuggle and then go to the store and make a large purchase of goods. Unless I'm on a hostile island.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

If the treasure quests indeed are what is making things too easy, we can always tone that down a bit.
Possibly even return the Beta 3.2 code for their generation, which wasn't written as I had originally intended it but didn't do any harm other than decreasing the chance of anything being there.

 

[Levis]

I am still planning on adding a "cap" on smuggling, so if you brought enough goods to the island they wont buy it anymore untill there is demand again. That would also make sure you cant exploid smuggling to get to much money. It still should be more profitable then doing normal merchant things cause there is more risk involved...

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Yes smuggling should be more profitable as there is more risk and no taxes.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

@Hylie Pistof and other players, does this still apply in the recent game versions?
Or is there a bit of a challenge still?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

In 3.5 I am up to level 8 with $72,000 crew money in the Hoy. No treasure quests or smuggling or perks yet. Money is not an issue at all.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

So probably still too easy then, is it?

I wonder if the salary modified needs to be increased. That might be the simplest solution.