Level Balancing and Difficulty.

[ANÚωÙBIS-6VI6]

I feel like I'm doing nothing but ranting again, which I don't want to do, at all. But I suppose its only because I REALLY want this game to succeed and do well, for it is an Age of Sail Naval Game. But at this rate, this game is going to fall flat on its face and never stand up and out of EA if it carries on like this.

After a long break after "completing" the British Campaign (before it was actually part of the game, only going as far as the end of the War of Independance.) And completing the American campaign (with a sour taste at the end). I have returned! However, all is not as it was. The damage system was changed COMPLETELY, gone are the days of Grape main; capturing and boarding ships galore (which even I will admit was quite broke, but then again quite accurate (I think?)), aiming and de-masting, the entire game has changed dramatically, and I cannot say that I am liking the way it is going. Round shot now has more damage potential, which is good as it was sorely lacking and even outright redundant. But now it does stupid damage, sinking ships with relative ease, trying to de-mast other ships seem to be a greater challenge as well, if not impossible unless by chance (when you weren't actually intending to do so).

But I digress, now onto the main purpose of this discussion as stated in the title, the level balancing and difficulty, is a joke...

After restarting the campaign several times, getting better and getting lucky, I keep turning up at the same two mission which stall me and break me: Fireworks, and Hunter and Prey. Fireworks for a start, I have made a previous discussion of this and it was answered well and kindly, of course between then and now everything has changed. Even though I have to face fewer and weaker ships to begin with, I am not able to de-mast the key ships i want to leave dead in the water, thus dragging the game on into utter tedium, and we have not even gotten to the Arrogante, but when we do (as before) it is an utter nightmare. Now, I know, I should probably burn her and her crew, and keep the rep and money and save me hassle, yet my previous experiences without her were not fun, I struggled, again because the game balancing is not existent (more on that shortly). Thus I NEED her, and when I do control the situation, this single ship can outgun, out manoeuvre, out run, and generally out perform my entire fleet (2:5th's and two Sloops of War), Grape is no-longer effective and I cannot de-mast her for the life of me, even when I surround her and even have her beached, she can get herself out of it when the wind changes, and decimate my ships with one or two broadsides. When a ship is THAT powerful and I have to micromanage every aspect to keep control of the situation (which is a glaring weakness of mine, I admit). *sigh*. What are the devs thinking this is even acceptable? There is no more to say on that before my frustration gets the better of my, now for part two.

Level balancing, the current system they have in place appalling, and I have just experienced what I think the pinnacle of it: Hunter and Prey. In my best performance yet of acquiring 3: 5th Rates, and unable to bring my sloops due to damage and lack of funds to repair, a single 5th Rate should be easy to take down with three. Under normal circumstances I would be correct, however, when it turns out it is actually a THIRD RATE SHIP OF THE LINE!!! I am literally speechless, and again, I give it a go, but again, my three ships outclassed by one superior SOL.

I feel like giving up. Though I guess I am too harsh given the circumstances, and considering they are dividing their time between two game (Sail and Dreadnoughts, the latter I am most looking forward to). They have a lot to manage, however, the current state the game is no longer enjoyable, it is a repetitive, tedious, drawn out experience, with poor balancing mechanics. Which sucks, for while this may be the case, the graphical artwork for each ships is gorgeous, the locations, the immersion of battle, I crave more! But not like this. Not like this.

What are other peoples views? Hints, tips, anything. I'm losing hope for this game.

[Ninjasquirrel]

I don't think you need the Arrogante as much as before with scaling off. Besides the treasure fleet mission which is only available if you take Arrogante, the next couple missions are completely unbalanced if you bring Arrogante, to the point where you can just bring Arrogante alone and solo them easily.

If you really want to take her though, I don't recommend boarding her since as you pointed out she has more crew than your whole fleet. I've always preferred breaking her morale with gunfire. For that you'll have to start investing early into better gun techs. Arrogante is now either a 2nd rate Barfleur or 3rd rate Bellona now so you'll probably want at least 24-pdr or above.

One thing you can exploit is, the ship will anchor to pick up survivors in small boats so you can take advantage of that situation and put a couple raking broadsides into her stern while that's going on. You can send you sloops to sink the small boats on their way.

[Rogalas Dorn]

I've been screaming more or less the same thing for a while now. The devs seem to be happy with it, so I've just not opened the game in over a month. With still no ability to save during battles, and being out of lock down and back to work, I don't have the time to play anyway.

[Malkor2]

Since the Arrogante is now either a Bellona or Barfleur class, capturing the ship isn't worth the trouble anymore, depending on the difficulty you're playing on and wether or not you have adaption on or off. But for me it just isn't worth it anymore. It either makes the following missions way too easy or harder than they should be. And you somehow have to steal enough money to get cannons, a crew and upgrades for the Arrogante. For a Bellona class that is easily around a 100k, for a Barfleur it's even more than that.

About the balancing in general i can't say much right now, because i just started playing two days ago after not having played for months. I'm gonna come back to this once i am further down in my british campaign.

[pandakraut]

Originally posted by Rogalas Dorn:

I've been screaming more or less the same thing for a while now. The devs seem to be happy with it, so I've just not opened the game in over a month. With still no ability to save during battles, and being out of lock down and back to work, I don't have the time to play anyway.

From some comments the devs have made, balancing work is mostly on hold while in game saves are being worked on.

[SpardaSon21]

I'd love to see an end to ships being easier to sink than strike their colors and ships re-raising their colors after already striking them. The devs must surely be aware of what a breach of the laws and customs of war that was and is. Even with an intact mast, sails, and rigging ships could and did strike both when visibly outmatched and when their own crew losses made it impossible to keep going. The vast bulk of a ship's damage would be above the waterline and to its own crew, so sinking should be rare but crew deaths high.

[ANÚωÙBIS-6VI6]

Originally posted by pandakraut:

From some comments the devs have made, balancing work is mostly on hold while in game saves are being worked on. [/quote]

Which is fair I guess, the need for in game saves is a must, and again as I have said I think they rotate between Dreadnoughts and Age of Sail, and currently I would wager they are on Dreadnoughts. Hopefully the next round of updates will fix the balancing issues.

[pandakraut]

Originally posted by aN00Bis-6VI6:

Which is fair I guess, the need for in game saves is a must, and again as I have said I think they rotate between Dreadnoughts and Age of Sail, and currently I would wager they are on Dreadnoughts. Hopefully the next round of updates will fix the balancing issues.

Dreadnaughts and AoS are developed by completely different teams at GameLabs. The same team isn't alternating back and forth.

[ANÚωÙBIS-6VI6]

Oh, fair enough.

[Bernie]

LoL I cannot even get past the naval tutorial, played it 7 times...lost every time, trying different things each time, I figured I just really suck at this game.,,

[Tommy_Cooker]

I'm having a similar problem on the British mission called 'Clash'. I have three 5th Rates against a 5th Rate and a 3rd rate SOL. I've tried about six times and I can't come close to killing it. And I haven't been offered any bigger ships to buy so I'm pretty much at a loss. It would be all well and good on hard mode but this is supposed to be normal difficulty, i.e. for the average skill level. And I have adaptation on so this is scaled to my forces. Why do the devs want to punish the players like this? Is it because their testers are all experts in the game and can't get in the mindset of new players? It's a decent game but give us a fair challenge and it would be even better. Impossible odds are never fun, no matter how good the game is!

[albrightwillie0]

Max out your crews, buy boarding upgrade and muskets with bayonettes. Use grape and taking until the 3rd rate is wavering then board. Voila, you now own your very own SOL.

[A Wild Cole]

I think the point that he was trying to make is we are the British Navy why do I have to steal a SOL for the upcoming battles where in I fight more SOL. Its just so forced and unnecessary. (the first mission I understand you're supposed to burn the ship and I am fine with that)

[Tommy_Cooker]

I get that there are ways of doing it. The problem here is that I have had no opportunity to practice, experiment, see what works and even make mistakes. You are simply expected to play perfectly from mission 1 and whenever you don't the game kicks you in the teeth. If you have to go to the forums to study the game-winning tactics before you can win missions on normal difficulty the game is a failure in my opinion.

[A Wild Cole]

Oh no I agree with you 100 percent like I should at least have the opportunity to have access to the stuff my enemies have.

[Coga]

i think something is wrong with the balance on this game. as it even change when i tried to improve my odds. i'm on the mission to save the romulas. i have 1 5th rate, 3 6th rates and 1 7th, (cant buy of have not found better why playing, shop has nothing but 7th rates) now first time im doing the mission they have 1 5th rate and what i think are 3 6th rates. now i did not see the massive 3rd rate until i had dealt with the other ships then i was like WTF am i supposed to do to that. i have notice grape shot and chain shot are rather week like you did. so i decided to go back to the harbour and increase all my crews to as much as i can not much else i can do as i cant buy better ships. but when i go back into the game they now have 3 5th rates 1 6th and the 3rd, so im now like well that's me done.

nothing i can do against that. now i have the scaling turned off when i started and i am on medium difficulty. i dont mind a challenge and have played strategy games for years but this feels stupidly hard at times as i know if i loose ships and so forth the game makes it hard to recovery and can easily make you fail the campaign.