So anyone think this quest needs a bit of change considering how the combat system works and all that?
I also find it weird that I dock my ship at it, send out a prize crew and then the Nocturne just sits there, waiting to be attacked by the Lorne-Fluke when I could easily use my nearby Frigate as an escort or something to help take the heat off the Fluke or even destroy it. Does my crew just sit there, twiddling their thumbs or something while I’m gone? Can’t I give the First Officer some orders like "If trouble pops up around the wreck, start shooting"
I think the quest would work better if it was part of the Saviour’s Rocks thing so you don’t get that disconnect of "Why isn’t my ship participating?"
I had similar feelings when I first played that storyline, and after some thought I think the issue here is one of gameplay and story segregation. From a story point of view, the game world is much larger than we see it. Distances are bigger and journeys take longer. So while we perceive the Wreck of the Nocturne as a minute or two from Savior’s Rocks, story-wise it’s many hours or even a day away. The other issue is the game engine won’t let us temporarily control another ship for a quest so from our perspective we’re just sitting in one place, though the story involves sailing hours away.
So during the Nocturne quest we the players see a static landmark and read the story about sailing this ship a short distance to Savior’s Rocks. Then there’s some combat as allowed by the story engine, and a reason explaining why the game world doesn’t change and the landmark doesn’t actually move. But things are completely different from the characters’ perspectives. They have to sail this beat-up ship a fair distance over many hours, and several hours in, the ship gets attacked while far away from your own ship. Then there’s a harrowing battle and the ship is damaged enough they don’t bother finishing the journey and take the ship back where it started.
Of course, from a design point of view your own ship can’t participate because it would drastically complicate writing the story. After all, the player’s ship could be the one-health ship with only five hold slots, and be completely incapable of taking down even weak enemies. On the other hand, the player’s ship could be the dreadnaught with Icarus in Black and max stats. One way the combat is just as dangerous and the other way it’s trivial. The player’s ship thus stays behind and is too far away to help so only one story is necessary.
edited by Optimatum on 11/6/2016