¶ 2012-05
¶ Less Is More
Source
Posted by Half-Hitch | 05/21/2012 | Devlog | Discuss
One of our goals as we move forward is to make Pirates of the Burning Sea more accessible for new players. There is a lot of complexity, which helps create a lot of variation and interesting situations at higher levels, but it can be bewildering at low levels. We want to simplify things a bit without removing the situations that makes PotBS so much fun.The first place we’re going to do this is in basic permanent outfittings. There are fifteen of these* and, across the size classes, twenty versions of each one, for a total of three hundred mods. That’s a lot of descriptions and stats to have to read, and it can be overwhelming. In the first pass of outfitting culling, we are going to reduce that number.
In the 2.10 patch, all numbered versions of a given size class of mod are going to be collapsed into one mod type. For example, Large Speed Rig 1, Large Speed Rig 2, and Large Speed Rig 3, and Large Speed Rig 4 will now all be just Large Speed Rig. The simplified mods will have the stats of the best version of that mod, and the level requirement of the lowest level version. This change will affect all the mods in your inventory, you won’t have to do anything.
These changes should make it a lot easier to choose how to outfit your ship, without removing options from players. A higher numbered outfitting is universally better than a low numbered one, and we feel that picking a higher number over a lower one isn’t really an interesting choice. Though this change affects mods in all size categories, its effects will be felt most strongly in small and medium outfittings. It is our hope that this will help new players get their feet under them more quickly.
The recipes for these new simplified mods are the recipes from previous versions of each mod (tier 3 for small, medium, and large mods, tier 2 for huge and colossal). We know that part of the appeal of the lower level mods was their lower cost, and we don’t want to price new players out of using these simplified modules. If you feel that this is too cheap or too expensive, we would like your feedback.
Recipe books will be collapsed as well. Right now there are Basic Outfitting and Advanced Outfitting books for each size category, and for Hull, Sail, and Gun items. The one exception to this is for tier 6 small outfittings, whose recipes come from The Logistics of Small Ships books. These books and their recipes have not been touched, but tier 6 small outfittings have had their level requirement reduced from 25 to 15.
Please note that due to a quirk in the way the database works with item conversion, some of the converted mods won’t be stackable, but all newly created ones will be. This won’t affect their ability to be equipped.
This change will hit the Test Server later today, so please let us know what you think!
- Armor Planking, Streamlined Hull, Reinforced Hull, Tough Sails, Speed Rig, Nimble Rig, Stealth Sails, Rig Catharpins, Lightweight Halyards, Speed Gun Rig, Accuracy Gun Rig, Wadding, Raider’s Guns, Grappling Cannons, and Perfected Cannons
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