How to prevent aquatic mounts from making ships obsolete?

Considering how fast aquatic mounts seems to be, Im afraid wasting money and resources on ships would be pointless

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I think they are confirmed to have lower carrying capacities, lower movement speed and less utility such as combat mechanics with cannons and such.
Ships are also probably necessarily for high sea fishing and maybe for some underwater dungeons that might require air supply or some items that need to be transported by ship

Kionashi

arsnn wrote: »

I think they are confirmed to have lower carrying capacities, lower movement speed and less utility such as combat mechanics with cannons and such.
Ships are also probably necessarily for high sea fishing and maybe for some underwater dungeons that might require air supply or some items that need to be transported by ship

I believe is confirmed that caravans can go trough water as well, so what is the difference between caravans and ships?

arsnn

Kionashi wrote: »

I believe is confirmed that caravans can go trough water as well, so what is the difference between caravans and ships?

I was under the impression the caravan system woud utilize the ships. You sort of onload the ship with the contents of the caravan, similar how arche age did it with their trade packs.

But i think there is no confirmed info on that.

Asgerr

Kionashi wrote: »

I believe is confirmed that caravans can go trough water as well, so what is the difference between caravans and ships?

@Kionashi is correct. A caravan will automatically "transform" into a naval caravan once it reaches a body of water like a river or a sea/ocean.

Ships will have to be built by artisans and come in different sizes. These will of course be much more capient and faster than a regular aquatic mount.

So unless you're very cheap or don't have any guild putting efforts into shipwrighting, then you'll have to resort to aquatic mounts.

I fully expect some guilds to start running ferry services between the continents or areas of the same one.

Noaani

I fail to see how people could think mounts would make ships irrelevent.

The point of ships will largely be combat. You are not fighting against individual players, but against other ships manned by a number of players each.

Riding a mount up to a ship to attack it is literally the same as bringing a knife to a gun fight.

Dargron

Kionashi wrote: »

Considering how fast aquatic mounts seems to be, Im afraid wasting money and resources on ships would be pointless

We don't yet know how much money and resources would be involved in acquiring an aquatic mount. For all we know at this stage, it might be cheaper and require less resources to build/acquire a little fishing boat. Likely it will all depend on what resources are readily available in any given area, and how many players are dedicated to making use of them. More players dedicated to breeding aquatic mounts, and they will be the cheaper/easier option, but more players dedicated to harvesting wood and building boats, and the boats become the cheaper/easier option.

For larger ships, you might as well ask "why waste resources on a caravan considering how fast regular mounts seem"? The answer is that ships will presumably cater to other needs that aquatic mounts can't - fishing, carrying cargo, warfare, perhaps even a nautical base of operations.

daveywavey

Kionashi wrote: »

arsnn wrote: »

I think they are confirmed to have lower carrying capacities, lower movement speed and less utility such as combat mechanics with cannons and such.
Ships are also probably necessarily for high sea fishing and maybe for some underwater dungeons that might require air supply or some items that need to be transported by ship

I believe is confirmed that caravans can go trough water as well, so what is the difference between caravans and ships?

You need to pay your resources every single time for each caravan, whereas once you've built the ship, it's yours. The ships will likely have much greater offensive capabilities. The ships will likely look much cooler.

George_Black

I dont like the aqua mounts for this excact reason.
Also land mounts without summoning/unsummoning conditions make the open world experience feel rushed.

I understand that mount skins create major money for a company, but what if aqua mounts where only summoner abilities?
How great would be the naval content and how unique 1 out of the 8 classes would feel?
Sometimes it's best to promote exclusivity instead of convenience.
Quality over quantity.

daveywavey

George Black wrote: »

How great would be the naval content and how unique 1 out of the 8 classes would feel?

And how dull and disappointing for the 7 out of the 8 archetypes.

Noaani

George Black wrote: »

I dont like the aqua mounts for this excact reason.

I still don't understand the issue.

Naval combat will be more like sieges at sea than anything, and if you rock up to a siege without some sort of siege equipment, you aren't going to be that useful.

Appearing in a naval battle on a mount, you are not going to be able to do anything. You are unlikely to be able to board an enemy ship, you will have no way of damaging one, you will likely be a one shot kill for anyone that bothers.

Sure, you will be able to travel around the ocean faster than someone that can swim, but to what extent? You won't be able to carry much (as players can't carry much anyway), you won't be a threat to a caravan. All you can do is explore, and even that is likely to be slower than it would be if you were in a small fast boat.

After spending a few years in Archeage with their naval content and ocean mounts, my concern is more along the lines of whether Intrepid will be able to make a place at all for ocean mounts, not the other way around.

Kionashi

Noaani wrote: »

George Black wrote: »

I dont like the aqua mounts for this excact reason.

I still don't understand the issue.

Naval combat will be more like sieges at sea than anything, and if you rock up to a siege without some sort of siege equipment, you aren't going to be that useful.

Appearing in a naval battle on a mount, you are not going to be able to do anything. You are unlikely to be able to board an enemy ship, you will have no way of damaging one, you will likely be a one shot kill for anyone that bothers.

Sure, you will be able to travel around the ocean faster than someone that can swim, but to what extent? You won't be able to carry much (as players can't carry much anyway), you won't be a threat to a caravan. All you can do is explore, and even that is likely to be slower than it would be if you were in a small fast boat.

After spending a few years in Archeage with their naval content and ocean mounts, my concern is more along the lines of whether Intrepid will be able to make a place at all for ocean mounts, not the other way around.

So Aquatic mounts are for individual transportation and caravans (since you need a mount to move your caravan) and ships are for battling.... wait a second....since you can't really fight while mounted, that means a caravan would probably need ships to defend itself while traveling at sea? that would make sense....

WhitneyHagasMatsumoto

This is just a guess on my part, but George Black-san believe that the mounts included in the cosmetics are available at the start of the game?

If I understand correctly, what can be purchased are skins that can be used for mounts, so there should be nothing to worry about, as players should eventually need to get their own mounts.

I'm sorry if I'm wrong.

💦

Noaani

Kionashi wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

George Black wrote: »

I dont like the aqua mounts for this excact reason.

I still don't understand the issue.

Naval combat will be more like sieges at sea than anything, and if you rock up to a siege without some sort of siege equipment, you aren't going to be that useful.

Appearing in a naval battle on a mount, you are not going to be able to do anything. You are unlikely to be able to board an enemy ship, you will have no way of damaging one, you will likely be a one shot kill for anyone that bothers.

Sure, you will be able to travel around the ocean faster than someone that can swim, but to what extent? You won't be able to carry much (as players can't carry much anyway), you won't be a threat to a caravan. All you can do is explore, and even that is likely to be slower than it would be if you were in a small fast boat.

After spending a few years in Archeage with their naval content and ocean mounts, my concern is more along the lines of whether Intrepid will be able to make a place at all for ocean mounts, not the other way around.

So Aquatic mounts are for individual transportation and caravans (since you need a mount to move your caravan) and ships are for battling.... wait a second....since you can't really fight while mounted, that means a caravan would probably need ships to defend itself while traveling at sea? that would make sense....

Just because there is a need for mounts over land, that does not mean there is automatically a need for them in the ocean.

And yes, caravans will need ships to defend them at sea, since it will be ships attacking them at sea.

Voidwalkers

I suppose you can also differentiate ships & mounts by speed.

e.g. let ships get a slower acceleration, but higher top speed.

Also while mounts are purely for traveling, ships could see uses as a base of operation - for fishing etc.
And who knows if they don't have krakens etc. that require a group of players on a ship to fight?

Noaani

Voidwalkers wrote: »

I suppose you can also differentiate ships & mounts by speed.

e.g. let ships get a slower acceleration, but higher top speed.

Also while mounts are purely for traveling, ships could see uses as a base of operation - for fishing etc.
And who knows if they don't have krakens etc. that require a group of players on a ship to fight?

Indeed.

If we work on the assumption that caravans in the ocean are ships, then this is how I see it.

If you want to transport goods from one location to another - ship.

If you want to attack an ocean caravan - ship.

If you want to defend an ocean caravan against those other ships - ship.

If you want to just cause chaos on the ocean - ship.

If you want to fish in the ocean - ship.

If you want to hunt fishing ships - ship.

If you want to defend fishing ships - ship.

If you want to take on naval combat - ship.

If you dont want to do any of the above, and want to transit from one location to another across water - probably still a ship, but a mount could work in a pinch.

This is why I *REALLY* dont see the issue of mounts making ships obsolete.

Frostshot1

I would expect that aquatic mounts would have very limited cargo space compared to pretty much any sea faring vessel. That should be enough to keep ships preferred as a form of transit. And probably speed too, based on the videos we have seen so far.

bigepeen

I remember Steven saying that he really liked ship combat in Archeage. So I think AoC would have a similar system. I don't think he would let water mounts replace ships, because that would be kinda lame. I agree though, I want to see people fighting on ships, not water mounts.

Jam21

Noaani wrote: »

I fail to see how people could think mounts would make ships irrelevent.
The point of ships will largely be combat. You are not fighting against individual players, but against other ships manned by a number of players each.
Riding a mount up to a ship to attack it is literally the same as bringing a knife to a gun fight.

Why are you so sure of that? Already tried it on closed beta?

I haven't played AoC yet but I can judge by a similar experience from ArcheAge. Ships, especially big ones, are always pretty weak to assaults by individual players. If the mounts are faster, they will not completely make ships useless - but will pretty much limit their use to "ship-only" tasks. E.g. carrying cargo or fighting sea monsters in PvE.

Basically it will make the fact of building a ship and sailing it by solo player or a few players a "LOL NOOB" moment. Because all the players will just ride pink dolphins into battle or something.

daveywavey

Jam21 wrote: »

Basically it will make the fact of building a ship and sailing it by solo player or a few players a "LOL NOOB" moment. Because all the players will just ride pink dolphins into battle or something.

Would you be able to crew a masted sail-ship solo? Or would you need a crew to help you sail it?

Speed-wise, if a dolphin can keep pace with a motorised boat (which you can see on the nature shows!), then I can easily see it outpacing a sail ship. Why should it not be faster in-game? If you give all the benefits to the boats, then aquatic mounts become irrelevant.

Instead of just looking at it from a Shipbuilding-only point of view, try to think about how it can blend with Animal Husbandry. They're both important.

Jam21

daveywavey wrote: »

. Why should it not be faster in-game? If you give all the benefits to the boats, then aquatic mounts become irrelevant.
.

Because Archeage already shown how this (mounts/summoned single pilot "rides" being better than the ships) can break the game balance. Why build ship when you can just all ride mounts?

They mounts should be slower than ships - and don't worry, they will still be used. Because solo players or new players also want to travel the seas. There is no reason they should have to save for a ship to do so - but there is also no reason for their mounts to be faster than ships.

In Archeage, at start people used donkeys and boats to solo travel and move cargo even when they hadn't had a trimaran ship. That was a slow way, but in encouraged people to save res and build their ships. But then devs there added various "aquatic premium mounts", such as Jetski, Motorboat and Dolphin. And this basically killed usage of normal ships.

This may have been justifable in AA, at that stage an old game with shrinking playerbase. But in AoC, at start, there would be plenty of players to man even big ships. No reason to make water mounts OP and discourage shipbuilding.

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