Personality

[Davakar]

Is the best way still to reveal crew members personalities to stress them out by diving real deep or has that been changed?

[delnorin]

I have never seen a personality revealed. In regards to the column in the crew list.

[Dewgle]

The discipline system got a rework in B129. There is now 'discipline' and 'stress'.

In the old system, discipline would steadily decline during combat. Being depth charged or at great depths would drop discipline even faster. And when it reached 0% the game would choose one of your 18 sailors at random and perform a 'vibe check'.

During this check, your crewmen's hidden personality trait would be revealed. They had a 1 in 3 chance of being a coward prone to panic attacks, an invalid prone to heart attacks or a stoic sea wolf. If they were revealed to be a stoic sea wolf, nothing would happen which is was the best outcome.

But now under this new system, discipline dropping isn't enough. Now there is a second meter called 'stress'. And if discipline gets too low then your men become more susceptible to stress. And if stress reaches 100%? Then and only then will the game pick a sailor at random to reveal their hidden personality trait.

I've dumped hundreds of hours into b129 unstable and b129 stable and I have yet to get the crew's stress level to 100% despite my best efforts. Getting depth charged or even getting into a deck gun duel with another warship, my men are rock-solid sailors of the Kriegsmarine. I find it painfully boring and hope the discipline system gets another rework.

I'm convinced the only reasons the devs changed it in the first place is because of the vocal minority of players who were flooding the forums with "My discipline bar keeps dropping, literally unplayable 0/10, uninstalling".

But imo they were afraid of a game mechanic that they just didn't understand.

No I'm not sore about it I swear :P

[VipreRX]

The new system needs tweaking but the old was just an exploitable mess. The vocal reaction based on lack of understanding of the new system when B129P1 dropped resulted in what was probably a major overcorrection by the devs regarding the fatigue penalty. It now seems to require serious neglect or an absurd amount of time at sea to put a dent in Discipline.

[PafunaMT]

Originally posted by VipreRX:

The new system needs tweaking but the old was just an exploitable mess. The vocal reaction based on lack of understanding of the new system when B129P1 dropped resulted in what was probably a major overcorrection by the devs regarding the fatigue penalty. It now seems to require serious neglect or an absurd amount of time at sea to put a dent in Discipline.

About 30-35, or when fatigue reaches around 18-20 is when you start to see discipline levels falling. Around 50 days is when cards, music, and other activities no longer stem the drop and it will keep falling until 0.

At least that's what I've experienced.

[VipreRX]

My point exactly. If you're at sea for 35-50 days you're either screwing off or really bad at your "job", possible exception for missions to the Caribbean. By the time it ever gets around to becoming an issue you should be well back in port and on or back from vacation. I speak of the generic "you" of course not you specifically.

Patrols rarely run me more than 16 days, 30-31 if I go down near Freetown. By the time Discipline even thinks of dipping I'm nearly back to port with 30k worth of shipping sunk.

[Tanker D18]

Originally posted by McDewgle:

I'm convinced the only reasons the devs changed it in the first place is because of the vocal minority of players who were flooding the forums with "My discipline bar keeps dropping, literally unplayable 0/10, uninstalling".

But imo they were afraid of a game mechanic that they just didn't understand.

No I'm not sore about it I swear :P

I think you got it exactly right and I'm with you 100%. People were going bonkers over it the first one or two B129 previews and then they went and nerfed it way down. I hadn't even had a chance to push a crewman over the edge by that point and that was just by utilizing good management, plenty of extra rations during a long patrol and playing some music on the way to a convoy!

I don't think the devs communicated well enough when the B129 unstable dropped that bottoming out your discipline wasn't going to result in your crew going totally insane, it was only that it would make it more likely for a sailor to have a nervous breakdown during a fight. Skippers just couldn't handle seeing that bar bottomed out... The old system wasn't very well communicated by the UI either, I remember being terrified of having someone go nuts while I was underwater until it happened then Fritz got choked out and it was no big deal.

I really, sincerely hope they tune it back up to where discipline and mental breaks are actually a threat. Right now it's only an issue on the longest patrols where you've been out for 45 days, resupplied, and didn't let the crew take a vacation because the previous patrol only took 4 days.

[Dewgle]

Well on the subject I might as well link an old thread I started about it. https://steamcommunity.com/app/494840/discussions/0/3112530528202086434/

[Team Triss]

The new system was a bit stress happy, though I'm surprised to find this one isn't. As soon as I give the order for 50m, I'm instantly losing 17 "from depth." Come on guys, it's not that deep. It seems I have a giant pool of discipline, though, that I haven't ever really used.

Come to think of it, I also haven't seen any crew issues like layabouts who are in dire need of head scrubbing duty.

[delnorin]

Originally posted by LoR Team Triss:

The new system was a bit stress happy, though I'm surprised to find this one isn't. As soon as I give the order for 50m, I'm instantly losing 17 "from depth." Come on guys, it's not that deep. It seems I have a giant pool of discipline, though, that I haven't ever really used.

Come to think of it, I also haven't seen any crew issues like layabouts who are in dire need of head scrubbing duty.

I think an easy way to code it would be all fine at the depth (green), small effect at the depth (yellow) and your most serious effect (in the red)? ?

[davidt_man]

Originally posted by McDewgle:

The discipline system got a rework in B129. There is now 'discipline' and 'stress'.

In the old system, discipline would steadily decline during combat. Being depth charged or at great depths would drop discipline even faster. And when it reached 0% the game would choose one of your 18 sailors at random and perform a 'vibe check'.

During this check, your crewmen's hidden personality trait would be revealed. They had a 1 in 3 chance of being a coward prone to panic attacks, an invalid prone to heart attacks or a stoic sea wolf. If they were revealed to be a stoic sea wolf, nothing would happen which is was the best outcome.

But now under this new system, discipline dropping isn't enough. Now there is a second meter called 'stress'. And if discipline gets too low then your men become more susceptible to stress. And if stress reaches 100%? Then and only then will the game pick a sailor at random to reveal their hidden personality trait.

I've dumped hundreds of hours into b129 unstable and b129 stable and I have yet to get the crew's stress level to 100% despite my best efforts. Getting depth charged or even getting into a deck gun duel with another warship, my men are rock-solid sailors of the Kriegsmarine. I find it painfully boring and hope the discipline system gets another rework.

I'm convinced the only reasons the devs changed it in the first place is because of the vocal minority of players who were flooding the forums with "My discipline bar keeps dropping, literally unplayable 0/10, uninstalling".

But imo they were afraid of a game mechanic that they just didn't understand.

No I'm not sore about it I swear :P

I do not mind the old discipline system, but the heart attacks definitely had to go.

[RimmerA]

The new discipline system would work fine if combat stress was buffed a bit. And maybe have discipline fall off a *little* faster than it does now.

[Jim (VG)]

Originally posted by McDewgle:

The discipline system got a rework in B129.
I've dumped hundreds of hours into b129 unstable and b129 stable and I have yet to get the crew's stress level to 100% despite my best efforts. Getting depth charged or even getting into a deck gun duel with another warship, my men are rock-solid sailors of the Kriegsmarine. I find it painfully boring and hope the discipline system gets another rework.

So far, I've had one patrol in B129 stable when a several of the crew reached maximum stress during a very deep dive whilst being hunted by destroyer escorts. Discipline was close to 0, two crew members needed to be "calmed down" by an officer, one had a heart attack and needed a medic, and one attained the "Sea wolf" status (tobacco pipe symbol). If I remember correctly, this happened because I forgot to give the crew a vacation after several previous patrols, so the Fatigue factor was very high (around -20 I think).

I'd thought the Personality Trait column in the Crew screen had become redundant in B129, but it seem it isn't:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2613529586
I'm sure in B128 that the coward, heart attack and sea wolf symbols had a tooltip to explain their meaning. That's no longer the case in B129.

[bartz]

I gotta say I miss old system. Now I never-ever hit the personality check.