Re-thinking demasting

[Koltes]

Just looking at tow sides of the coin. First is historical naval battles and the second is balanced fun game battles.
Both kinda disagree with the current demasting mechanics.

Things to consider:
1. In historical naval combat demasting happened due to lucky shots, not because they used specific aiming or some demasting tactics. In short this was not done on purpose and happened due to some lucky shots;
2. In NA combat when you meet experienced players demasting is a must thing. You cant sink them fast enough before they will demast you. This makes fighting quite one sided. Soon as ships meet in the Battle Instance their only tactic lately is to proceed with demasting;

Two things come to mind that we could have in NA combat tuned (pick either or, but the second option have less affect on other combat mechanics):
1. We could make cannons MUCH less accurate so precision shooting will no longer be possible (which is historical right?) however broadside to broadside still pretty accurate as most shots will be landing within the enemy board width;
2. Or we could go away from mast having HP parameter all together. We could say this, if mast gets penetrated then its a small chance based - like 1% that mast will break (chance % of course needs to be tested).

Any of the above means that it will not become a must have tactic for ship fights. I know what some of you Master Demasters will say. But think how most battles fought today. We no longer go for hulls or angling our armor, calculating time and wind and positioning. We just go for masts or crew and thats it...
Its kinda lame dont you think? It makes naval combat less involved and realistic.

Just my opinion. Please discuss. Prove me wrong, but before you do FYI I know how to demast ships and while not best at it I'm pretty decent so its not a personal issue. Just the way I see battles

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

Bear in mind that often, masts were lost not because of direct hits to the mast itself, but damage to the shrouds and stays.  This is an element of battle that I think is still under represented. 

[Kloothommel]

So reduce sails with chain shot first, and only make masts "destructible" after a certain % sail is shot down? 

[William Death]

Get ready, long post ahead, but it may be worth the read I hope 

To say that masts were not targeted on purpose, I don't think is right. USS Constitution demasted HMS Java quite severely in about 55 minutes (keep in mind, broadsides take way longer to reload in real life than in game). From the logbooks (found https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/u/uss-constitutions-battle-record0/uss-constitution-vs-hms-java-1812.html ): 

At 3	The Head of the enemies Bowsprit & Jib boom shot away by us
At 3.5	Shot away the enemies foremast by the board
At 3.15	Shot away The enemies Main Top mast just above the Cap
At 3.40	Shot away Gafft and Spunker boom
At 3.55	Shot his mizen mast nearly by the board

That is just one example, it was fairly common, from what I have read, for a captain to tell his crew to aim for the mast of a ship if they were within range to hit it with a reasonable certainty. 

I do agree, there was no way for the cannons to be super-accurate like in game now, but some things have to be sacrificed for gameplay I think.

I would also agree with what @Henry d'Esterre Darby said about the masts falling due to rigging damage. Chain shot could cut away enough shrouds to cause a mast to fall. Also, chain shot could snap a yard (that is already under stress by a sail), which is something not put in Naval Action.

My suggestion would be this:

1. Fix the ridiculous mast thicknesses. Some ships (notably, certain 5th & 4 rates) have masts that cannot be penetrated by the caliber guns they carry outside of 100m, unless you have double charge. This needs a change, see next point:

2. Make it so that a standard round ball, fired out of an 18 pound cannon, can penetrate and demast all ships, but adjust HP to make it balance (number of shots varying by the ship [it will take only 6 or 7 direct hits to demast a Surprise, while taking about 15 to demast a Constitution, and about 26 to demast a Victory]). Smaller cannons, such as 12 pound cannons, can demast up to a third rate, 9 pounders up to a fourth rate, 6 pounders to a fifth rate. Furthermore, even if the shot you hit the mast with did not have the penetration to fully harm it (think a 9pd ball into a Bellona's mast), it will at least weaken it a little bit and you (hopefully) hit some rigging with it before it hit the mast (see next point). This would solve the issue of "I just fired a heavy iron ball into that wooden post and saw splinters fly off, yet I have done nothing," while still giving the skipper of a Bellona ample time to demast or sink the 12pdr frigate that is attempting to demast him. The numbers may need some tweaking, but I think it will work.

3. Make chainshot (or ball, just not as easily) able to demast if you hit enough rigging (would require rigging hitboxes). However, LIMIT the amount of chainshot that can be carried on a ship. Limit it to say....3 rounds per gun. That is six broadsides total: seems reasonable. The amount of chain needed per shrouds hitbox would have to be tweaked, and we certainly can't have a Surprise demasting a first rate by single-shotting chainshot into his shrouds...unless the first rate is carrying a full press of canvas... LIMIT the range of chainshot to about 150 meters. This will stop all of the "I'll just kite his sails at range the whole battle while the AI kills him."

4. If a player shoots 3 broadsides of chain into a ships rigging, and then swaps to shoot ball to the masts themselves, he can demast the ship easier because the rigging supporting the masts is weak. This means that the mast only needs to be weakened a smaller amount to knock it down (so maybe it reduces the number of shots per mast by 10-20%).

5. Introduce pressure damage to masts: if the opponent knows his masts are getting weak, he should reduce sails. To keep going with a full press of canvas on a weak mast is simply dumb. You can try it, but you may de-mast yourself in the process. If you are sailing with a full press of canvas, demasting will take less shots, whether you shoot ball to masts directly, or chain in shrouds. This will stop people from fighting at full sails all the time, and encourage the use of battle sails and other configurations.

Sorry about the long post, but as a de-master myself (though no where near the best at it), I feel there is a need to balance it a bit to make it available to all who want to do it, but not super easy, or impossible in some cases. Also there should be other valid strategies to counter demasting, I think the method I proposed allows for the use of other methods to counter a demaster. If you come across a "master demaster" chances are, you will lose a mast, but you stand a chance of making him hurt too, if you can fight your ship well.

[Duncan McFail]

I don't see demasting as being OP. It's pretty tough to demast a ship. In the time you spend trying to demast someone you can end up losing the fight due to ship damage or even getting chained way down. 4th rates seem to have problems at any decent range with those 24 pounders without charge. If you're in a smaller ship vs. bigger ship it can be nearly impossible to take down a mast. After a mast goes down if you repair before the next one goes you usually get a full 100% in bigger ships. And it's yet another way to keep a small ship from stern camping a large ship.

I think in the next patch it's going to still be stern rakes as the meta. Less crew loss, but easiest way to get to internal structure. Masts will fall with enough stern rakes. Currently the few people that are good at demasting have a great skill in their pocket. With the new patch they're pretty much getting rid of board fit. I'd like to see a variety of ways to win a battle other than sinking a ship outright.

[Guest]

Back in the day when demasting was done from long ranges it was just dealt with by using reinforced mast upgrade, which was then considered to be a must-have on almost every ship. And removing the entire skill element of demasting by either having wide uncontrollable gun arcs or RNG-ing their effect doesn't seem to be a good way to go about doing it, I bet alot of OW PvPers would absolutely shun this option.

Ideally, at least from a game perspective, the various ways to defeating a ship (crew loss, demasting, broadside damage, leaks, sail cutting) should from the outset be fairly equal, and then the ship types, perks, upgrades and playstyle may push those to favour or counter one over another.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Guest

[Sven Silberbart]

Dont know how it was the real history, i prefer to look at a good, balanced and fun gameplay.

I dont think the base mechanic should be reworked. It works and it gives an interesting gameplay. I think this is just a question of finding the right settings to the Mast HP an Shot damage. Just find the right balance to Damage/HP and everything is fine

 

[Cmdr RideZ]

Removing accuracy modules/perks might help a bit in this, and make cannons a tiny bit less accurate than those are now.  Issue here is that then mast sniping will be luck based instead of skill based.  I kinda hate it, but maybe something to consider.

Chains shots are accurate for long distances.  So this needs accuracy nerf as well.  Still many good players just aim masts, which would mean that masts should be maybe even stronger.

If masts snap easily, if sails are easy to shred, stern rakes kill easily crew and destroy cannons, and hull sides can take major hammering.

 

1. One way to fix this could be to simply decrease hull HP.  Thickness should still be there, so that angling is important.  To counter weaker ships, increasing thickness could be considered.

2. Decrease chain accuracy, and make masts stronger

[SteelSandwich]

I just wanted to touch on your point regarding if it was historically correct.

Well, certain nations trained according to a different principle. The british tended to shoot on the down roll of the ship, whilst for example the dutch fired on the up roll.

The effect of this is that the brits often inflicted a large amount of hull and waterline damage. Their shots would hit the hull or fall short.

The dutch however hit thr rigging of their opponent with what otherwise would be the british falling short shots. Whilst the damagr to the hull was more limited, the rigging suffered greatly from the quantity of shots.

 

With that said, i havnt played recently enough to participate in the discussion, i just wanted to add this historical footnote.

[Hethwill]

If you talk about the present, new, in the live servers...Going for masts pays off for the time invested in learning it. The accuracy of the black gunpowder weaponry we use in game attests to that particular skill usage.

I would say a 1v1, same ships in the testbed feels totally different as going for masts and going for planks are both totally same level risk/reward.

Does not happen at the moment in the Live server BUT the live is not the mainstay for updates.

 

[Cmdr RideZ]

1 hour ago, Forphuxakes said:

The accuracy modules/perks arent the problem man. The problem is no one runs the Reinforced Masts/strong rigging bonus because they either have modules for other bonuses... 

Every ship out there has a weakness and its up to the enemy to find the weakness of that ship and alot of the times its the masts...

Constitution vs Constitution.  atm. I think meta is that you go for masts.

So for equal fights, you need already reinforced masts.  This kind of modules stay on testbed as well?  Or will be removed?

Reinforced masts are too important atm.  To counter meta you actually have to use reinforced masts.

[Cmdr RideZ]

1 hour ago, Hethwill said:

I would say a 1v1, same ships in the testbed feels totally different as going for masts and going for planks are both totally same level risk/reward.

More difficult to cut masts?  Or hull got weaker?

[Hethwill]

8 minutes ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

More difficult to cut masts?  Or hull got weaker?

Neither. You can sense the broadsides project power. They carry the shot weight energy. They will shatter the weak planks of light ships.

It is not just a matter of 1 or 0 binary penetration. It surely feels way more complete in the outcome.

[Guest]

Is it possible that the issue lies in that there's few ways to avoid getting demasted?

Apart from upgrades, most other types of damage can be avoided in one way or another - e.g angling hull to avoid broadside damage, angling sails or using battlesails to avoid chain damage, bracing or avoiding getting raked to prevent crew loss. But against single-shot demasting? Just staying at long range?

Edited April 12, 2017 by Guest

[elite92]

i am for reduce accuracy and improve cannon ball damage on all ships. i like also the idea of the chain shots that reduce rigging and sails hp and then ball can demast easily. something like:

100% sails - 0% chance to demast per ball of max caliber u can carry( eg:conni-24pd)

90% sails - 5%

50% sails - 25%

obviusly lower caliber have less chance , but can still demast a 1st rate if it was chained a lot before. seems realistic.

in this way demasting become a more random thing, and can happen a lucky shot were the first volley demast (1%) but it will be harder to win if u focus only on demasting because u have to chain enemy down to low sails hp and then change to ball. maybe in mean time u already sunk

thoughts?

[elite92]

16 minutes ago, Hethwill said:

Neither. You can sense the broadsides project power. They carry the shot weight energy. They will shatter the weak planks of light ships.

It is not just a matter of 1 or 0 binary penetration. It surely feels way more complete in the outcome.

damage of cannons is buffed in testbed and ships hp nerfed.

[Hethwill]

4 minutes ago, elite92 said:

damage of cannons is buffed in testbed and ships hp nerfed.

I will be wearing my eye patch and refuse to see it that way, one eye open, one eye blind , simply because even without penetration the planks do shatter under the weight of shot, is not a did pen = dmg hp / not pen = no dmg.

Rigging damage, as a sterile change, will do nothing to benefit combat as a whole. We will return to the 4 pounder machine guns.

Precision in aiming, speed on training the guns and wind. This affect all and not give any specific venues of "new metas".

Let a 42 pounder be a 42 pounder. Let a 6 pounder act like it should.

 

[elite92]

1 minute ago, Hethwill said:

I will be wearing my eye patch and refuse to see it that way, one eye open, one eye blind , simply because even without penetration the planks do shatter under the weight of shot, is not a did pen = dmg hp / not pen = no dmg.

Rigging damage, as a sterile change, will do nothing to benefit combat as a whole. We will return to the 4 pounder machine guns.

Precision in aiming, speed on training the guns and wind. This affect all and not give any specific venues of "new metas".

Let a 42 pounder be a 42 pounder. Let a 6 pounder act like it should.

 

in my wet dream a line ship destroy a frigate in one good broadside volley, but this a game? no?

[Hethwill]

One Ship of the line will keep a frigate in constant reload and crew shock in testbed IF the frigate makes too many mistakes.

On the legcay live ? Nope. Not even a schooner feels it. A Lynx bounces 24 pounders... c'mon

[Sir Texas Sir]

2 hours ago, Hethwill said:

If you talk about the present, new, in the live servers...Going for masts pays off for the time invested in learning it. The accuracy of the black gunpowder weaponry we use in game attests to that particular skill usage.

I would say a 1v1, same ships in the testbed feels totally different as going for masts and going for planks are both totally same level risk/reward.

Does not happen at the moment in the Live server BUT the live is not the mainstay for updates.

 

I would like to know when they announced this that live is dead and test bed is the only updates until they make them to the live servers?   Shouldn't this just mean every one should for the most part be playing on the testbeds?  Though I think the problem is we have to many servers and tetbed I would be on more testing, but they shouldn't take 5 months to patch a live server in this stage of development.  I can see them doing this when the game is released haveing your expermental test server up.  Look at every game out there that has something like this, it goes up for a month with the patch at most and than the patch goes live and it's closed until the next update.   Not 5 freaking months.  So basicly what they are doing this week with the testbed server and than releaseing the patch at the end of the month is how it's suppose to work.  Not FIVE MONTHS LATER going to live.   No wonder all the numbers are dropping so freaking low right.

Now back on topic.   I found that on testbed with AI so far I get pretty tore up if I go for demasting equal war ships.   Though that ship might have zero hull damage by time the mast drops and it's dead in the water.   All the while I have most of my armor gone on one side and a little structure or it's spread out on both sides.  It's a trade off and I think part of the problem is that I'm using ships they give me and not what I would build to do the job.   I really wish they gave us crafting levels on testbed cause I would love to craft some ships the way I would play them and test things like.....demasting.    So I'm waiting for the next patch to come and see if we can get them to bump up our crafting while we test cause we can't test new econ if we can't craft.

Also ping makes a big difference when your doing demasting.  I can do it on PvP2 easly in most ships, but I go over to PvP1 or Test and i have problems placing my shots cause of the slight delay in the ping.  In small fights no problem, but than I get the lag in bigger fights/fleet missions and that goes out the window, but in those fights I'm going for broad sides any way.

What I found is a sure death of some one in a 2 vs 1, 2, 3 is if those two guys work on one ship at a time they can do quick work of the other team.  One goes for hulls/sterns and the other demast.   Did this a while back in shallows in a 2 vs 3. Where I demasted two ships while the other guy basicly sunk one of the ones I was demasting.  You leave a ship dead in the water and go work on another.  In that case what he did was move to anouther while I boarded the demasted ship and than I came to help him. Keeping my distances every time so my weaker cedar ship wouldn't be beat up so bad.  H.Rattler/Niagria vs 3 H. Rattler and we capped two and sunk one.   So it's a usefull methoed in a fight.  Used the same thing in a 3 vs 6 in deep water ships (mostly 4/5th rates with one 6).  The only guy that could catch our rennon/trincs was there Rattler.  I demasted him while letter my other two guys escape and went right thorugh the middle of there ships.  By time they turned to chase me I was at full speed and out running them.   That little rattler which was there speed tagger couldn't get high enough mast back to get speed to catch me and I was the slowest ship of the the three on our side.   So yes things like this can turn the fight.  We could of stayed and fight, but they had us way out gun with the other 4 ships and there was a big fleet that got pulled heading our way to join the fight.  

For the average player you hardly see any one demast folks, it's us more hard core elite (I still call my self avarege) players that do it.

[Fargo]

We should think more about accuracy in general, also for general gun balancing. Assume we had more powerful guns with less accuracy. The difference is that damage decreases steadily with distance/smaller target shape. More punch close range and less punch with distance would give tactical opportunities. Dodging damage also becomes much harder close range, increasing the risk. Effective demasting and raking would only be possible close range (<100m) on the other hand.

The problem to balance hulldamage, demasting and raking is that these are 3 seperate victory conditions. When aiming for hull you ignore good raking/mast shooting opportunities, because its not helping enough. Those would need to become so powerful, that raking/demasting alone would be op. To fix the issue we need to connect those conditions/spread damage. When hull damage kills enough crew aswell, raking becomes more useful automatically. When aiming for hull weakens the masts aswell, this also gets connected. Less accuracy is a good way to spread damage on medium distances and to enable high risk high reward tactics close range.

 

Edited April 12, 2017 by Fargo

[Hethwill]

We all love the age of sail combat that NA provides

What I want to pass is - knowing that there's always a best move (as it true of puzzles) is quite different than having to decide among uncertain alternatives, as in a typical war game; combat dynamics should be problem-solving far more than puzzle-solving ( always a linear best move). There should exist rarely an always-correct solution in combat therefore multiple valid and equivalent solutions to the same problem - sinking/capturing.

Focus on mast damage is puzzle solving, sorry to say.
 

[maturin]

Quote

1. In historical naval combat demasting happened due to lucky shots, not because they used specific aiming or some demasting tactics. In short this was not done on purpose and 

That couldn't be farther from the truth.

Entire fleets would aim at the enemy's rigging with the express purpose of taking down masts with repeated 'lucky shots'. Most shot would hit nothing but air, but probability would guarantee at least some hits.

It's hard to imagine pointing a gun at a particular part of a particular mast with a confident expectation of success, except at the closest ranges and in the calmest seas. However, that doesn't mean that gunners did not aim carefully at certain points in the rigging (such as the topmast cast on the downroll) to maximize their chances.

It's like trying to drop a mortar round into a slit trench. The target is so small and the precision of the weapon is so low that you can never rely on a hit with a given round. But you still do the math so that a theoretically perfect shot will hit.

 

Also, chase guns were employed in the hope that a lucky shot would knock away an important spar. Spars are not trivial pieces of timber, so this tells you that individual shot can seriously threaten topmasts and topgallantmasts (which almost never come down in-game).

[Blackjack Morgan]

I think this is a pretty tough mechanic to get "right". The goal I'm sure for most would be one that leans more toward realism with a nod to overall fun factor as well. Personally speaking I'm not a huge fan of mast sniping, as with practice it can become very easy for someone to snipe them using individual shots. However, I also don't want to see masts that are virtually indestructible in game either. Masts over the course of NA development have ranged from being virtual matchsticks to nearly indestructible towers and everywhere in between. 

What I'd prefer to see is a system that encourages the use of battle sails while actually in battle. To further explain: As a ships sails become more damaged from chain shot the likely hood of a mast failing while under full sails is increased. This would try to emulate the increased chances of damage being taken to the rigging and the increased stresses applied by using full sails. The intended end result of this type of mechanic would be to encourage the use of battle sails, give a risk/reward choice for captain when deciding how to manage their sail/speed/maneuverability that would add a richer layer to combat.

Every other possible suggestion I can think of, or tested, seems to never quite feel right because they are trying to use artificial mechanics to strike a balance. The wiser solution I think is to take one that encourages people to use battle sails because it offers a sound strategy in combat. Sure, there are times when battle sails are used now but those times are way more situational and more limited then they should be. A system that encourages their use because it makes "sense" quite often is infinitely better than one where we are discussing needing to rework accuracy of ball or mast hp's or penetration/thickness values.

 

[Tiedemann]

Hold your horses until we get to test the new damage model, but I do agree. Demasting and boarding is the way to efficient atm.