Balancing AI encounters based on average crew level

Just yesterday while waiting for my crew on 2 separate occassions, I was attacked by an Emergent Skelleon why soloing a Brigantine. I was able to sink them with minimal effort, and I do not think that should be the case...

I have been posting a similar idea around, but with a different set of numbers and whatnot. Here is the original message below.

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The game has been getting easier and easier, which makes sense considering new players are getting slaughtered in PVE and PVP, but this also pulls some of the fun away from veteran players who know how to play.

Please consider scaling difficulty based on Crew Experience rather than just on Ship Type and/or Crew Size.

Crew Experience would be based on a calculation against the entire crews' specific faction reputations averaged and weighted by ship type, perhaps even manipulated by playtime or meters sailed. Below is a very quick rundown of what I am referring to... The final difficulty would determine the type of danger that can/will spawn and how difficult the encounter will be. Sloops would mostly encounter Skeleton Sloops (Skloop), but have an increased chance at a Skeleton Galleon (Skelleon) if their difficulty calculations are up there.

Again, this is a very rough set of scenarios. Please consider the concept and not so much my implementation :)

Ship Modifiers:

• Sloop: 1
• Brigantine: 1.1
• Galleon: 1.2

Solo Sloop: (Newbie)

• GH: 0
• OoS: 0
• MA: 0
• A: 0
• Total XP: 0 / 160
• Crew XP: 0 / 160
• ShipModifier: 1
• Difficulty: 0

Solo Sloop: (Moderate)

• GH: 15
• OoS: 15
• MA: 15
• A: 2
• Total XP: 47 / 160
• Crew XP: 47 / 160
• ShipModifier: 1
• Difficulty: 47

Solo Slooper: (PL10)

• GH: 50
• OoS: 50
• MA: 50
• A: 10
• Total XP: 160 / 160
• Crew XP: 160 / 160
• ShipModifier: 1
• Difficulty: 100

Duo Sloop: (Newbie + PL10)

• GH: 0, 50
• OoS: 0, 50
• MA: 0, 50
• A: 0, 10
• Total XP: 160 / 320
• Crew XP: 160
• ShipModifier: 1
• Difficulty: 160

Duo Sloop: (PL10 + PL10)

• GH: 50, 50
• OoS: 50, 50
• MA: 50, 50
• A: 10, 10
• Total XP: 320 / 320
• Crew XP: 320
• ShipModifier: 1
• Difficulty: 320

Duo Brigantine: (PL10 + PL10)

• GH: 50, 50
• OoS: 50, 50
• MA: 50, 50
• A: 10, 10
• Total XP: 320 / 320
• Crew XP: 320
• ShipModifier: 1.1
• Difficulty: 352

@realstyli said in Balancing AI encounters based on average crew level:

(...) Next it looks at the ship size and crew number. It assigns a "weighted" value of 25 to each empty crew slot, plus one additional weighted value of 25.

30 is the current difficulty of encounters on that particular ship type and it scales up or down from there.

Disagree with this - sailing on a boat that's supposed to have a larger crew should not make it easier to defeat a Kraken or Skellie ship.

I think the basis of scaling based on type of boat is fine.

what is the difficulty when a newbie core destroys me

I agree, there shouldn't be scaling. However, they have opted to scale everything to bring in new players and keep those that prefer the solo experience. I can understand their reasoning behind it, but I do not fully agree with it.

The amount of variety they have in their playerbase is crazy and they cannot please everyone. Since I do not believe scaling will go anywhere, there are only so many options to make things better for everyone. They could implement a Difficulty Preference for their servers, but this is a horribe idea that would tick off a lot of people due to Rep/Gold/Commendation gains.

If I have to deal with the scaling, it needs to be implemented better. As I mentioned above, I shouldn't be able to easily solo the PvE bosses on a Brigantine. The Kraken can be a challenge while solo on a Brigantine, but the Megaladon, emergent Skelleons and even the Fleets aren't that difficult as they are now.

With proper scaling, things could be better for everyone, and I think reputation should play a factor in that. If players ground out their levels quickly or were carried through Athenas to get to PL and lack the experience, that is on them. Getting to PL10 should have been a time consuming task with which to gain experience and allow players to handle whatever the SoT has to throw at them and not always come out on top.

PvP should not be scaled in any way.

@bugaboo-bill
IMHO there should be some scaling, if it would take a solo slooper 4-6 times it takes a galleon to take down a Kraken, not only would it be tedious for the slooper, other ships will wait a long time for the next fort or skellie fleet.

It could use some raising of the difficulty though, like you actually have to plug some holes when encountering Meg, Kraken or Skloop.

@lem0n-curry said in Balancing AI encounters based on average crew level:

@realstyli said in Balancing AI encounters based on average crew level:

(...) Next it looks at the ship size and crew number. It assigns a "weighted" value of 25 to each empty crew slot, plus one additional weighted value of 25.

30 is the current difficulty of encounters on that particular ship type and it scales up or down from there.

Disagree with this - sailing on a boat that's supposed to have a larger crew should not make it easier to defeat a Kraken or Skellie ship.

I think the basis of scaling based on type of boat is fine.

Except it's not easier. The ship difficulty is taken into account. The fact you are not fully crewed is also a disadvantage. The "weighted" figures I suggest to fill in the empty spots plus add an additional phantom crew member, will for the most part balance this out. If you're a solo PL playing on a Galleon, you'll be fighting AI threats of "30" on the scale. Essentially, you'd be fighting a galleon level Kraken/Meg/Skalleon at the difficulty they are now.

@d3adst1ck said in Balancing AI encounters based on average crew level:

Once you start scaling based on crew levels, people will just start logging out of main accounts and into family share newb accounts just to game the system when the likelihood of spawning an AI threat is high.

If people do this, they're also doing themselves out of better loot, as the loot scales with the difficulty. I'm also not suggesting that the level 20 AI are extremely easier, just easier than the current level (in this case, given the 30 value) - the difficulties would have to be balanced per level, of course.

@bumbumbac said in Balancing AI encounters based on average crew level:

@realstyli said in Balancing AI encounters based on average crew level:

While I do think it can be very bad RNG to encounter multiple AI at once (and that's a separate topic maybe), fighting any one of them alone is basically going through the motions for a lot of experienced players.

Professionals go through motions just as much as beginners do, the only difference between the two is that beginners don't know all the correct motions yet,... the sequence, procedure, process... why don't you take pride in skills you have acquired? Doing things well, and thus seemingly easily, is a matter worth of your pride, sir. \o/

I'm far from the most skillful player on SoT... I'm an absolute joke in PvP, but I do find the PvE threats (particularly on the sea), a little underwhelming challenge-wise and I know I'm not the only one who feels that way. Yesterday, I fought off a Skelly Sloop and Kraken solo and the only thing that frustrated me was losing my Skoop loot because it sank so fast. It took time to kill the Kraken but at no point did I feel like I was going to sink. It's experience sure, but I would love the game to scale with me, instead of me getting beyond it.

@d3adst1ck said in Balancing AI encounters based on average crew level:

@realstyli The ones doing this are going to be the ones that don't care about the loot - they would be doing it to get an easier kraken/meg/skeleton ship spawn to blow through if they know that the odds of one popping on them are high. This would be most beneficial if you are trying to get to a recently completed fort before the ship packs up and leaves.

If they are after loot, they are going to be doing forts which offer better payouts and doing as much as possible to avoid the AI threats which have a wider range of loot possibility and the loot for time investment is not as great.

True. But what is the advantage of doing that on an alt account? To get to PvP quicker? If you ask me, they're just grinding alt accounts for nothing, they can't be up to much if they want to waste time on that instead of facing a challenge.

@d3adst1ck said in Balancing AI encounters based on average crew level:

@realstyli

Complete a fort, switch to alt and load treasure (in either order) and then leave the fort. If the Kraken spawns, its much easier to deal with now because you have low level players on your crew. Once its spawned or you are reasonably safe, switch back to mains and cash in.

Even if you stagger your crew relogs, you benefit by getting a lower overall crew skill level and chance of much easier AI threats.

Yeah, this is a possibility for sure but it's a lot of effort to avoid a Kraken that is not always guaranteed to spawn on the ship that completed the fort. The time taken to switch everyone over (because you would have to to lower the AI level in any meaningful way) would leave the ship open to attack from other players anyway. I'm sure some would do it, but I feel the effort would be pointless for many.

@bugaboo-bill
No Kraken for sloop in the good old days was scaling of some sort though.

I do agree with you strongly that nowadays Kraken is a laugh and so are most other AI/PvE elements; there should be a considerable chance of getting sunk from an encounter when you're not a full crew (that's why I disagree with scaling difficulty on crew size).

Yesterday a Skloop showed up, I only got two shots in, then it changed course to collide with my sloop. After I closed the two holes and got back on the upper deck it was already belly-up.

Krakens and Megs go down frequently without causing damage when I'm on a crew of two on a sloop; I cheer when there appears more than two holes in the hull.

It shouldn't be that hard it takes half an hour - risking other threats, PvP and a few a session will get tedious and an annoyance. Though I guess they could try to balance a higher difficulty with lower frequency.

I can also agree in the number of crew members itself not directly affecting scaling, which is what the OP was also mentioning with adding the weighted 25 for each open crew slot. This would give a perceived full crew in regards to the difficulty, and not actually reduce it much if at all.

I didn't even think about it in my original post either, which I have reposted a couple of times. I will adjust it in another comment later on when I get a chance :)

Problem with the OP is that becoming legend is meaningless. I find many of the people I see in random crews etc that are complaining about difficulty are those that got to legend too quickly. I don't know if there is a way to alter difficulty based on skill at the moment. The only suggestion I have is basing it on world location. Make the shores of plenty for example an easier area with less valuable loot, and increase the difficulty through ancient isles, then wilds, then devils roar with increasing value.