New Ship Class and Modified Galleon

@whitewolfscout Galleons were originally designed for 5 and reduced to 4. The 5th person gave it too much freedom. There was always someone to do something.

I think its fine at 4. Sure there is a learning curve. But of a 5 man galley can roll up on a sloop or brig it's just over.

@whitewolfscout no thanks

My main concern here would be gameplay balance related (something I find to be shaky at best presently between the 3 Ships we have and may be due for an overhaul to reasses some things based on changes that have happened with gameplay over time). That is to say they are roughly based around:

(Small) Sloop = Nimble, Shallow, Fast Reaction, Combat Weak, Fastest in Headwind, Balanced around 2 Crew
(Medium) Brig = Lumbering, Shallow, Moderate Reaction, Moderate Combat, Fastest in Crosswind, Balanced around 3 Crew
(Large) Galleon = Lumbering, Deep, Slow Reaction, Combat Strong, Fastest Tailwind, Balanced around 4 Crew

And that...is about the lengths of the areas that things are balanced around. It is admittedly a bit more complex than that, but these are the primary points at a broad perspective level (you can get fairly granular on some of those categories, much less so on others). As such, I am hard pressed to see where another Ship Class falls in here. I can see make additional Ships that are variants in some way of the existing Classes by having some modifications to layout and horizon profile, though even this I see being a stretch to make sure all the existing Cosmetics work with this kind of thing.

Also, bumping the Galleon up to 5 players would just be a bit too much. I don't think the largest Ship potentially on the Map should be able to have any more than double the Crew of what will likely be the smallest Ship on the Map in any given server (from a perspective based around what these Ships are Balanced for in regards to Crew size, as going with less than a full Crew on any Ship is asking for things to be harder, and I say this as a solo primary). That is already a tall order for many people to deal with, so knowing there could be someone out there with more than that is just daunting.

Now, that all said, I don't think your opinion is unpopular really. A lot of people would love to have larger Crews to play with more friends, and I'm sure no one would actually complain about having more Ship types to choose from. It is more just concern about how to make that all work from a gameplay perspective that doesn't potentially damage the precarious balance that the game has (and probably could stand to have a step back taken, looking at the whole of what the game has become, and then reassess some of the balancing factors a bit to get things more in line again to what we had at launch - just with more content in play). Even with that, though, I would still be hard pressed to try and slot anything else in that wasn't essentially just a cosmetic variation of the existing Ship classes.

@whitewolfscout said in New Ship Class and Modified Galleon:

Galleons are crazy chaotic because they have a lot going on unless you have a full experienced crew they fall apart really fast in a fight, thus the extra guy to lighten the per crew stress load.

This is where the problem comes in, a full experienced crew with an additional member to lessen the load?

I sail with some extremely experienced pirates, even when we win the captain will complain about some of the misplays that happen... mainly my faults, as a primary solo pirate my communication on a galleon needs some work 🙊. Give us a 5th man and we won't sink to anything other than a full galleon crew at that point. As it is now, there is room for errors to happen, in the chaos of battle and mistakes can be our downfall, if we have an additional member... that lightening of the stress load would mean our 2nd deck wouldn't ever see water again.

Ships cannot be balanced around ineffective crews, because then coordinated ones will be way to powerful. The larger the ship the more teamwork is required, but if played well... they can be the most fearsome vessel on the seas.

@whitewolfscout I totally agree, we almost never play in the galleon but almost always in the brig and the difference in size is enormous, even if only for the extra floor of the galleon. Think, just one more player but to remove the water you have to do 2 floors, as I see it every time I find myself thinking "hey the galleon is not balanced at all!" 5 players on the gally in my opinion would be more correct (which in my opinion should also be updated and revised). We need a 3-4 player ship, (then give 4 years of play and only 3 ship models!?!?!) Exactly as you described it would be fantastic, you can even take as a model the black pearl already present in the game in story n ° 5 of a pirate's life (clearly shorter). Everything can be done and do not tell me that as it is now it is balanced please! Many times then we have needed to say no to a 5th player because you are limited to 4! Furthermore, I do not think that it would change their lives for solo sloops to know that there is a 5-player ship rather than a 4-player ship, among other things we must forbid ourselves to have fun with more people because some like to play alone or otherwise play alone? And I repeat in my opinion there is a solution to everything. Plus it would finally add something new to the gameplay, this addition serves as the bucket while you're sinking!

Devil's advocate. With a 5th person on a galleon, it would require some additional balancing to the galleon. Whether that's a faster water fill rate when there's holes, or slower mast raising when they are downed, or a slower turning speed for the wheel, or an even slower anchor raise (and a 5th handle added), or any combination of those things.

A skilled 4 man galleon is insanely powerful. A 5th crew member would be unsinkable without some additional rebalancing. But, with that rebalancing, it'd be interesting.

@sweetsandman actually, slowing a few things down doesn't seem that bad of idea. Not the handling because it's already slow but slower sails and maybe narrowed gun arcs. In my experience a Sloop can smash a Galleon if it's smart about how they go about it and more often than not its about staying out of those gun arcs and not sailing directly behind it to avoid boarding swarms. What if we bumped what a Galleon is already good at but also bumped its weaknesses? Which would be it's superior firepower and crew size but be harder to bring those guns around and be harder and general maneuverability stuff?

@whitewolfscout realizing I just contradictid myself there. Oops, ignore that first bit.

The issue with larger crew size is balance for people that don't have the ability to have those large numbers for playing.

I'm even seeing it in this thread, this kind of topic ONLY interests people with a lot of friends who sail on larger vessels like the brigantine or the galleon, which excel greatly in combat compared to the sloop, which suffers some game-ending weaknesses. Encouraging larger crews or not, we should remind ourselves that the balance is set so that even a single person on a sloop can battle and sink a 4 player galleon only by skill differences.

I do like the idea of less well armed but faster ships. But they should be alongside the other ships instead. Yes, there should be a solution if you have a crew of 5 or more, but I'd also like more ship variety, which is easier to achieve.

@mrat13 that could be it then if this is checked. Perhaps the Frigate could just be an alternative take on the Brigantine? Still three crew, maybe bump the sails back to two but have that extra cannon instead of that high speed? I know there would be more balancing than that, I don't know. I always found it odd that there is an extreme size difference between the Brigantine and the Galleon without any middle choices. Sloop to Brigantine size makes sense though.

@whitewolfscout I was thinking the opposite. Have the new ship be a fast alternative to the Galleon with less firepower, and do the same with the other ships. A Brig with only 1 gun per side, and a Sloop with only a forward facing gun, for example.

@galactic-geek these might be rehashed sure, but also still the idea of more variety in ships. Some players don't mind having worse equipment for better style. I really wouldn't mind an under gunned ship or even an odd ball ship with no unique strengths or even underperfomanc compared to others. Pistols are a great example of this, some models block their targets but look really cool. And vice versa, some are very simple with even an iron sight. Function vs style. Right now we have Funtioning ships that are balanced. But why not weird ones that don't make the most functional sense, but are fun.

I personally think what should happen is where players could choose a modified version of each ship. Instead of adding new ships, we could get upgrades for the ships like an extra sail on the front part of a ship that makes the ship slightly faster. I wish our ships were more unique than just cosmetics and really felt like our ship.