Poll Your Preferred Gameplay Style

[Pieter Boelen]

A lot of our recent discussions on the forum are about different ways of playing the game and making these more unique and interesting.
So how about we start one thread here where you can describe freely the way you would wish to play the game?

I'd like very much to hear from the people who actually play the game HOW they generally play.
And also what they like/don't like about that, along with any dreams on how this could be better.

We cannot make any promises here on making any of the wishes posts here come true.
But at least if we know what you would like in an "ideal world", then we have a better idea of what to work towards.
And perhaps we'll manage to slip some of your suggestions into the various features we are now discussing.

 

[KillPhil]

Well my way is usually always the same - I start with a nice pinnace to haul a lot of those store quests until I can afford a Sloop-of-war or something like that (or if I am lucky, I capture a single one from pirates). Then I choose my nation to serve (usually England, as I mostly play standard storyline) and then I start the life of a privateer.. Boarding and sinking ships of enemy nations just to find the biggest loot and raise my money. The first problem here is: Besides better ships, money, and some ranks, that don't actually give you some advantage (That tiny sum you make with your land is nothing compared to the loot I make when plundering and capturing merchant ships) there is nothing to do.. so maybe an idea would be to make random sidequests where you actually have to help your nation to gain power/stay powerfull in the archipelago.. This could be done by e.g. sinking x merchant ships of an enemy nation or making a port blockade.. Maybe not possible, but I am asking summarized for a more 'living world' here.. besides nations changing relations and some (sometimes senseless) fights on the worldmap.. there's not really happening anything.. Also those tavern rumors.. those rumors like 'silver found in x' .. would be nice to actually be able to plunder those explorations.. this is by far the thing I miss the most in our nice little world^^

 

[andyandy]

mug a street merchant when you need cash and gears...minimal hit on reputation...

Oh, preferred style: helping a nation to grow rich and powerful. perhaps as a merchant i can contribute to military expenses and improvement of national fleets, as a privateer sink ships and block ports and do economic damage to enemy towns.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Indeed it seems that a more living game world that goes about its business but that the player could influence would easily be the largest difference we could make to gameplay.

 

[Grey Roger]

Preferred play style: extreme violence. Never pay for ships - start with a small ship, find something a bit better and capture it, continue until I have a good frigate. Never pay for cargo - the sort of ships I keep need most of their hold for supplies and ammo, so any cargo I sell came from a ship I captured, and then I sell the ship as well. Loot dungeons, kill highwaymen, help ladies in danger. Get a letter of marque as soon as I can afford it. Get all the fencing perks as soon as possible.

All of which is secondary to whichever storyline I've chosen to play. Preferred stories are those with few fantasy elements, preferably none. So far that's meant "Tales of a Sea Hawk", "Assassin" and "Horatio Hornblower". Once the story is played through, I may continue free play for a while, but then it's time to end that game and start another with a different story.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

@ Grey Roger: Sounds like fun!

You might want to give the Bartolomeu storyline a try. It has some slight fantasy elements, but I think that is limited to only one giant and the Flying Dutchman appearing once.
Other than that, there is a lot of realism-based stuff, along with very piratey things. Made by the same person who made the Assassin one, so that should tell you what you can expect.

In fact, even the Jack Sparrow story doesn't go very far into the supernatural at all. Apart from one Flying Dutchman encounter and the skeletons from the first film everything else is quite realistic.

 

[KillPhil]

I also always have one profile with the Flying Dutchman and Davy Jones as character - just because its fun sometimes being the evilest thing in the whole carribbean and just attacking ships/towns/people because I feel like it

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I know. In fact, I was planning to play "Bartolomeu" next for precisely that reason. Then someone decided to release a new version of Beta 3 and I promised to test out the new "Nelson" storyline.

LOL! Of course the Nelson one is pure free play anyway; I just wanted to know if I accidentally made the various sidequests work or not.
The coding behind it is a proper mess though!

Now that the Bartolomeu storyline finally has its Cartagena part finished, this would be an excellent time to start on it.

I've already faced the Flying Dutchman as it's one of the side quests available from "Tales of a Sea Hawk". As I said, my preferred game style is extreme violence. Which is why this happened:

Ah, I remember you mentioning that! Impressive feat indeed.
We could set the Dutchman to be immortal. But to be fair, allowing the player to actually do that is much more fun.

Huehue.. You couldn't do that with the unbalanced Dutchman cannons Your nice Manowar would be a tiny little piece of wood after a few shots of her

With the Navarone Cannons? ANY ship is a danger with those. I installed them on a Barque before which made all battles REAL short.
I don't think any NPCs should ever get them though. Unless you as the player gives them to your companion ships.

 

[HellSailor]

My style of gameplay depends very much on the storyline. If I can take the example of the Standard Storyline, I normally use the stock heavy lugger at the start (Since I want to play and grow up myself, I don't like too much cheating right at the start). Then I usually start taking escort and store quests as near as possible in order to increase my money quickly... Before sailing away from Speighstown, I usually do my own tips and tricks that I learned (See my posts on POTC gameplays and tips), with that I grow up my money a bit easy...
Also I don't forget to talk to any citizen which gives me luck and leadership until I get at least level 7 on both of them. This is important in any stroyline for me.

Then I can go to two ways: Like a merchant/some smuggling or a Privateer at the service of England.

• If I play as a merchant, I try to get ships with more cargo capacity and do the trading rute of exporting/importing gold and silver from Bridgetown to Sao Jorge. With that way I can get huge profits quickly. Once I get enough money, I buy military ships (Normally warships of tier V or IV like heavy brigs or frigates) to protect my fleet. Once I reach an enormous amount of money, I continue with the second way.
• The second way is basically being a privateer at the service of England, sinking or capturing French ships and getting bigger and bigger warships. Once I have a powerful fleet, I search the French warship fleets.

With other storylines, I adapt my basic strategy to what I have and what I should do to grow up quickly.

 

[Flannery]

I pretty much follow the same type of play as @HellSailor

Just started a new one though - and had a major strike of luck.

I came in at Sao Jorge, and docked as I had a delivery job there. When I jumped back into the old trusty Heavy Lugger and started preparing to leave the Harbour - a whole Armada of French ships rolled up and the fort started pounding them.

Now... I was playing merchant - so I do not know why I did this - but I joined the battle and lured the ships back and fourth into the range of the fort. Resulting in 3 sunken frigates and 1 surrendered 2'nd rate Trinity class ship of the line

I went and picked up the cargo from the sunken frigates - then boarded the 2'nd rate Trinity class ship of the line... And won the duel... hehehe

This was on my first trip, so I had no officers yet, leading me to choose to sink or swap to the ship of the line.

I figured I would gain more by taking it, and selling it - buying a new Heavy Lugger, as I would loose my current one...

And be hold - after selling off cargo, and ship - AND buying a new Heavy Lugger, I was about 390.000,- richer!! :-D

The French weren't too happy about it... But... Meh... Who cares...

I think I probably will play the storylines again someday - but for now I am endulged in staying a free bird on the open seas...

Maybe too free as I am currently somewhere between Aruba and the Cayman Islands.. But as I do not have a working sextant - cause my watch is still to inferior - I am not 100% sure exactly where I am... And it is starting to worry me sincerely....

I'f I am not in the Cayman Islands by 2 weeks... Send out search parties please folks...

**edit: No need for panic... Just as I shipped this message off in a empty rum bottle, the Cayman Islands grew out of the horizon
And lucky was that, cause I was being caught up by three French frigates as well... Hehehe...

 

[Hylie Pistof]

The French weren't too happy about it... But... Meh... Who cares...

And lucky was that, cause I was being caught up by three French frigates as well... Hehehe...

Being a free bird is fun, but it looks like sometimes one can end up having too much fun!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

@Flannery: That is quite a story! What difficulty do you play at?

 

[Flannery]

@Pieter Boelen

Iron Man all the way, baby....

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Iron Man all the way, baby....

That's the spirit! Oh, if only I had the time to play like that!

Though "Iron Man" is a realism mode. Difficulty would be Apprentice/Journeyman/Adventurer/Swashbuckler.

 

[Flannery]

Oh sorry

Adventurer

**edit - normally Swashbuckler, but I have not played PotC for a loooong time now, so needed to get back into the saddle.... Or cabin... Or eh... You know what I mean...

 

[Bartolomeu o Portugues]

Iron Man and Swashbuckler, we are Pirates

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Adventurer

So you managed that feat even on such a high difficulty setting. And that is BEFORE you got back in the saddle again?
I don't think I could manage that one even on Journeyman or Apprentice! So I salute you.

 

[Flannery]

I think the lady of Fortune and luck was smiling on me - and after all... Never underestimate the value of fighting dirty

 

[Black Bart]

Interesting question (although i don't see any poll options to vote on, maybe the forum does not mean that by 'Poll'?).

I like realism, so most of the realism settings are set to on. I also like to feel i'm in the world the game is set in, so that means as little 'fast travel' as possible, which also means speed x1 direct sailing for most of my sea travels, and on the bigger map by setting that in internalSettings.h (this should be (if it is not) an in game menu selection?) or whichever file it is i need to get that

I don't play Ironman mode simply because due to a possible bug or some such i might need to access the world map for navigation (like to trigger the Oxbay attack video if it does not by iteslf) so the only non-realism settings i keep are in InternalSettings.h:

#define WORLDMAP_DISABLED 0
#define SAILTO_DISABLED 0
#define ONSEA_DATA_DISABLED 0

The first two are just failsafes due to potential bugs, and the last is because it's a game and the graphics are not that good, and my knowledge of the ship in game neither, that i need the spyglass to give me something!

I like a slow progression to XP gain for my Char and Officers, nothing breaks immersion (this is Age of Sail 1690!) more than speeding through the ranks like it's a arcade game!

I like the games default music, i think they really nailed it for the different parts of the game those played in, the new music is also decent, but the caribbean flavour of the original scores (espeically on land) were excellent.

I like dialog that is also realistic to the settings, with decent grammer suitable for the period! Again this is ALL about immersion into the games settings and world.

I like having difficulty making lots of cash, because of realism - i'm not a millionaire in real life either, and most people of the period in the games settings were not either.

I like combat to be lethal, because of realism, and having a foot or two of steel between the ribs, or a solid ball of unhygenic lead pass through you is going to spoil your day, as it should! So healing should only come from first-aid/bandages/rest....and (grumble) maybe some kind of healing potion (healing brew sounds better to me!).....because this is just a game, and having to spend 4 weeks in bed at the tavern might test even my desire for total realism! I do reduce the amount of HP gain you get via resting, the default setting is just way to fast! So in my game i really need those bandages and healing brews.

But mostly i love to sail................in 3D sailing mode and take my time to enjoy riding the wind for the best speed possible in the direction i'm hoping to go! The sounds and sights of this part of the game are great, even today, maybe the best of it's kind of game out there (the newer ones all become too 'gamey' or arcade like for my tastes)....all it is missing is being able to create the smell of the sea and the feel of the wind and sun on your skin

So in short, SLOW gameplay suited to the period, REALISM as much as possible. Those are the greatest strengths of the Build Mod to my mind, there are plenty of arcadey pirate shoot-em-up games (all constant battles and speed-boats pace) out there, there is only one Build Mod

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Interesting question (although i don't see any poll options to vote on, maybe the forum does not mean that by 'Poll'?).

I called it "Poll" because I wanted feedback. But I never did actually add an actual poll.

I like realism, so most of the realism settings are set to on. I also like to feel i'm in the world the game is set in, so that means as little 'fast travel' as possible, which also means speed x1 direct sailing for most of my sea travels, and on the bigger map by setting that in internalSettings.h (this should be (if it is not) an in game menu selection?) or whichever file it is i need to get that

At the moment Open Sea Mod is linked to Iron Man Mode. But maybe it could be linked to Realistic Game Mode instead?

i might need to access the world map for navigation (like to trigger the Oxbay attack video if it does not by iteslf)

Technically that should work in DirectSail as well.

I like dialog that is also realistic to the settings, with decent grammer suitable for the period! Again this is ALL about immersion into the games settings and world.

If you run into any dialog that could do with improving on that account, please let us know.
That is easily done by anyone and, as you say, does help with immersion.

I like combat to be lethal, because of realism, and having a foot or two of steel between the ribs, or a solid ball of unhygenic lead pass through you is going to spoil your day, as it should! So healing should only come from first-aid/bandages/rest....and (grumble) maybe some kind of healing potion (healing brew sounds better to me!).....because this is just a game, and having to spend 4 weeks in bed at the tavern might test even my desire for total realism! I do reduce the amount of HP gain you get via resting, the default setting is just way to fast! So in my game i really need those bandages and healing brews.

If you have some modified settings that help with that, please let me know; we might be able to add that into the game by default.
I like what you describe.

as little 'fast travel' as possible, which also means speed x1 direct sailing for most of my sea travels, and on the bigger map by setting that in internalSettings.h

You must have incredible patience! I salute you.
I'd like to do the same too, but never have the time. Though I VERY much enjoyed doing it in real life when I still made a living by doing just that.