Heya all.
Well, this thread's title kind of about sums it up. I decided to do the weekly for the ship design and jeezy petes. Before patch 1.1.4, I'd sail around the Aegean Sea sometimes and blow up ships for the heck of it. Each ship gave somewhere around 1,250 to 2,000 drachmae, 300+ wood, and then an assortment of gems/obsidian that made it pretty worthwhile. Yeah, you had to deal with the tedious Bounty Hunter system, but it didn't really matter. You'd inexplicably get bounty points for killing soldiers in front of other soldiers in the MIDDLE OF THE SEA with NO WAY for them to report your crimes to anyone and then you'd get additional bounty for sinking a ship in the middle of the sea with NO WITNESSES WHATSOEVER. However, a level one bounty only cost 1,000 or so drachmae to remove and you earned 1,250 to 2,000. Whatever. Took two ships to equal one bounty level, and then you'd wind up spending 1k of 2.5 to 4k of winnings. The math worked out.
I just sank around 20 ships to complete a slew of contracts and the weekly... and ugh. Most ships gave me zero gold and a few gave about 250. Each ship also contained about 140 to 160 wood and around 7 to 23 of a secondary resource. 7 to 23. I didn't miss any zeroes there. 7 to 23. Oh, and the Bounty System is 50% more expensive now, so I had to pay 1,500 gold out of my nothing earnings.
Which leaves me to wonder... why would anyone willingly engage in naval combat anymore after this patch? There's no incentive. None. I'd have earned more money and resources doing a daily on the land while picking up every wood/iron node and skewering any critter along the way. A lot more (7 leather. 7 leather for sinking a trireme. A single wolf gives 35+). The only reason to go out to sea is if you pick up a few contracts to sink ships, and even then... the drachmae award has fallen from 23 to 38k range to a new 12k to 18k range. Considering the time it can take to round up five ships as you slowly meander across the water... you're still probably better off staying on land.
I don't get this change. Lowering the contract drachmae to adjust the in-game cash economy? Okay, but why nerf the drachmae and crafting materials earned from sinking ships at the same time? It feels like an odd design choice. What reason does the player have to engage with this system now? *shrug*![]()
Yeah, pretty much. :-D As is, I'm only going to engage in naval combat if I have a few contracts lined up so that I can earn XP for ability points (had two Spartan trireme and 2 pirate ship contracts along with an Athenian orichalcum contract, so the incentives stacked up in my favor)... and otherwise I'll ignore the whole naval combat system because it offers no rewards or meaningful incentives in of itself. That does not seem designed as intended, but oh well. It's a strange balancing choice. I frankly don't get it.Originally Posted by Gallaki Go to original post
I board nearly all my ships, so I get a whole lot of weapons that I resell at Blacksmiths and they add up to a lot of $$.
When Mercs come after me & I take their ships down, it helps me gain tier levels with less work one on one on land.
They've added other loot as salvage pick ups around the water - gems, leather, iron, weapons,..
I also LOVE Naval Battles & recruiting Lieutenants for fighting/ship perks.
I have alot of incentive to continue Naval combat.
This^^Originally Posted by ProdiGurl Go to original post
This game is never more fun or more profitable than living the five star wanted level out at sea....the best loot brings itself to you.
^ Yep. I just took out 3 Merc ships awhile ago & it's money galore. Ya, I really don't care if I don't get a huge dump truck of Drac from the Ship itself.
And what's more fun than watching grown men fly off the deck with a Ring of Chaos blast - it just never gets old
As to the OP's complaint, I think they changed this due to players saying they were swimming in so much $$ and resources later in the game so I think they just reigned some of it in?
They are listening to player input and tweaking the game imo.
I'm not quite on the same boat, no pun intended. I disenchant every weapon and armor piece I get because every month and a half they introduce some new level cap or ship tier that costs an arm and a leg, so this loot being on the ship isn't much of a plus money-wise. I was already at max tier before this expansion, so bounty hunters were just a hindrance invoked via the arbitrary bounty system to delay my contract completion. As for the floating salvage, they've upped it from 7 oak a container to... around 35 to 40. Considering I needed 740 oak to upgrade my bow to level 71 and oak saplings on land give 35 to 40 each and require a lot less effort to farm... I don't see the point here.Originally Posted by ProdiGurl Go to original post
I guess when I'm level 99 and fairly sure that the ship upgrades and additional level cap boosts are done and done, I can just sell the weapons. However, that doesn't change the questionable loss of drachmae and resources from each ship you sink. It's a steep earnings nerf, high enough that I can't muster the same nautical glow that you have. I'm glad you don't mind it, but I've gone from "okay, yeah... let's do some crazy ship combat!" to "eh... when I get three or four contracts and am looking at 600k to 800k xp total, then it'll be worth my while. Until then, it's a money and time sink."
Edit addition: I feel like they're listening to the player input of the aficionados with hundreds upon hundreds of hours in the game, which is fine in a way. However, I wouldn't want to buy the game and start from scratch TODAY. The people who bought the game back in October are grandfathered in with all their historical earnings; I still have 50k to 70k of each resource and 2.1 million after spending 3.2 million and using 60k of each resource on my boat and gear. A new player is going to earn less than half the gold I earned for the past two months and get paltry gold and resources from a lot of activities. They'll also have double the level cap to slog through. It'll be a brutal grind for anyone new. I'm not sure this is the way to go at all.
You know I feel like there is way too much focus on the cost of the new upgrades but they are really not that much of a problem....the limiting factors are obsidian glass and the green gems but all you have to do is sell loot and buy those resoures in bulk if you're trying to rush them like I did and even then 100 to 200k every now and then are no problem. These are meant to be game long problems or only achievable without grind in NG+ because the reality is you won't need them until the very high levels. My pre 1.1.4 Andrestia still destroyed mercenary and legendary ships with relative ease at level 70 after the new patch and now that I have them all no ship really poses a challange out at sea....these upgrades are likely intended for level 90+ ships and even then you can probably do without. It's really not a problem.