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William Death

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Everything posted by William Death

  1. +1 Also, could give the old Constitution one of the old paints (I prefer 'Sicily,' because I think it looks the best) to further differentiate it from the Constitution Classic (which should be re-named Constitution). Honestly, I'd like to hear a definitive answer from devs regarding their vision for current "rare" ships like gunboat, Santa Cecilia, Diana, Constitution Classic, and Christian. I read one of @admin posts that implied they wanted to keep these ships 'rare.' What does that mean? Like...epic event drop levels of rare? Expensive to build/redeem rare (see L'Hermione, Wasa, LGV Refit)? Or??? IMO, it seems a waste to have such nice ships not get used because they're almost un-replaceable. Better to have them just be more expensive (in terms of doubloons or something) to craft than other comparable ships (Endymion takes no doubloons to craft, make Diana take 1,000 doubloons to craft = you'll see fewer Dianas). At any rate, as others say, having two Constitutions in the game with identical stats but one being better than the other isn't good. Make the old Connie faster but less HP, or more HP but slower, or something along those lines.
  2. Wood type doesn't affect mast HP, IIRC. Its tied to the base HP of the ship. Heavy wood types do add a small amount of thickness, but there is no woodtype that gives negatives to masts. And thats the way it should be--Mast HP and thickness should not depend on wood type of the hull. Tommy Shelby had a nice spreadsheet tool that compared mast HP values with cannon damage output, calculating the number of shots you needed to take the mast down. Rule of thumb is about 7-12 mast hits with same caliber cannon as the ship's largest battery for 6th-4th rates; 10-20 hits for 3rd-1st rates. Thats for the lower mast, and assumes no mast HP mods. That also assumes you're within range to pen the mast (rule of thumb is ~250-300m when using cannons the same size as the largest battery of the target ship). Topmasts and topgallantmasts take fewer hits (less HP) and they have less thickness too. Honestly, I thought it was about 5-10 hits with the right size cannon for the topmasts and topgallantmasts of most frigates...but its been a while since I've gone for upper masts, since they're too easy to repair and as a result aren't worth my time. Better to take the lower mast that'll really cripple the enemy, even if it takes me 2-3x as long to do it. People do still go for topmasts and topgallants, but its less common because the lower mast is easier to hit, and if you have the pen...go for it. However, if you need to take a mast down and you don't have the pen for it (he's got mast thickness mods or you are in a ship with small cannons), you can aim for the upper masts and get one of those. This was a fight I had about a month ago or so. Long 24s and 32 carronades on my ship. I was in a lightly built Diana, and after trading some ranged shots, I realized my enemy was in a sturdier ship with all long cannons. Also, I noticed he was very agile (after capturing it, I realized it was a speed/turning spec purple ship with a Clock and Elite British Refit and Sailing Combat Reports). So...I either had to demast him or run away. So I started firing charged 24s at roughly 300m, lobbing carronades into the rigging to add just a little more sail damage. Of those 68 mast hits, the majority were 24s, but some was a bit of chain or carros that didn't pen at range. I think I ended up taking mainmast 1x, mizzen 1x, and foremast 2x (I just remember that I had to take one mast down twice). Anyways, I got pretty damaged doing all this (perks of a light build, and all that). But unlimited hull reps and enough speed kept me in good enough shape to win the fight (perks of a light build, and all that ). I think masts are finally in a somewhat decent spot. Well, as decent as we'll ever get them. Back in the old days (before thickness was a thing), masts simply had very high HP so it took a reasonable amount of large-caliber shots, or a whole bunch of small-caliber shots to take a mast down. I liked that better but too many people complained. Then right after the Unity patch we had a similar system with paper masts and people complained. So we got iron masts, and enough of us demasters complained and we compromised here. This compromise amounts to: run regular French Rig on all standard brawling ships, Elite French Rig (or Kiritimati) is necessary if you want to duel a player who has any reasonable skill. Most hunting ships don't carry mast mods, or only the regular French Rig, so going for masts in random OW engagements is a viable tactic. But most PB ships and lineships will have invulnerable masts (at least the lower portions). To put this in perspective, back in the old days a good demaster could take 1 mast (sometimes 2 or even 3) off of a first rate in one broadside. Here's Anolytic's video of one of my clanmates (same guy who taught me how to demast) taking his foremast in the opening broadside of their duel. (I really miss the duel room....) Re: rest of the @Slim McSauce's suggestions: Emergency repair is fine as it is, I think. Certainly shouldn't repair masts or sails. However, if it helped with leaks, that might be well received by the players who consistently get leaked out in certain ships (*cough* Pavel/Victory haters *cough*). Fires do damage sails, but only when you begin approaching fireshock. Would be nice to see fires cause sail damage even if your crew is getting it under control. Forcing a reduction to battle sails (or sacrificing sail HP and remaining at full) would be an interesting added layer to combat. Repairs in general: limit their use in battle, no need to adjust weight, I think (I posted a long explanation of my views on it in the main repair thread).
  3. Used to be even worse...there was almost no blurriness underwater (I think it was even in tribunal or something at one point....). At least its somewhat blurred now. But I agree with @Polish Privateer, until the storms actually have meaning, like requiring you to sail slower/go around; produce large waves in battle instance, encouraging lineships to keep lower gundecks closed or risk flooding; produce winds strong enough to make lineships the fastest sailors and 6th rates slow and in peril of sinking at all times.... until this happens, I don't really care that we can see through storms just a little bit by using the submersible. You still can't see as far in the storm as you can in clear weather. Better to work on NA's other issues, but when devs do get around to fixing this, I hope they consider finding a way to add storms in battle again (I know they've said its not possible).
  4. Simplified: Gold marines were an issue, I'm understanding that muskets are gold marines v3.0 (counting the old super-buffed book of five rings as v2.0). Nerf them. Long-winded explanation: I dislike boarding. It doesn't take skill and it doesn't require good tactics. Its a cheap way to win a fight. I think everyone, on some level, knows this...some just refuse to admit it. I board a lot, but I admit its not showcasing my skill. Its just a quick way to end a battle before I use too many repairs or the counter-gank shows up. Avoiding boarding is not the issue here, neither is fitting out to disengage from boarding. I did a lot of duels in the duel room. I still do the occasional arranged duel with folks, and I pretty much never worry about boarding because in a 1v1 in dueling ships, its usually avoidable. It becomes less avoidable in 1v2+ battles...but I suppose that comes with the territory of fighting uphill. No issues here. No...the real issue here is what Hachi has been pointing out: give a player who knows what buttons to push in boarding a boarding-modded ship and he becomes superman in battles. Ask that same player to perform a complicated sailing maneuver with the fleet, or expect that player to be able to land a broadside that pens a LO first rate...well then you see he's really just a noob that can only spam a ping-dependent minigame. I'm not bothered even that one "tactic" (I dislike calling NA boarding a tactic since its so simple) makes a player able to win. In the old days, raking made me a "good" player. I could consistently get 15-30+% of a ship's crew in one rake when I was on my game. But raking is a complex part of NA's combat model that is 100% skill-dependent (mods have little to do with your ability to rake someone [sterncamping likes turning mods, but a single rake is all about positioning and wind]). Boarding, on the other hand, is an un-polished minigame that is 100% mod-dependent (assuming you have good ping and memorize or print out a boarding flow chart). The only part of boarding that takes some skill is the pushing maneuvers to initiate the boarding...and even that isn't hard to do. Adding in more mods that make boarding even stronger/more appealing is bad. The "whining" here is not that we (the "salty 'pros'") don't like getting boarded or don't want to run anti-boarding mods, its the fact that new mods have placed a further emphasis on the weakest part of combat in NA, making it more prevalent than what feels balanced to us. So, my "balanced boarding" fight (believe it or not, combat in NA used to be like this, way back when...was actually close to this just a few months ago before Requin was introduced): Starts off with the ships maybe throwing some ball around, ranging shots at the hull and stern to feel out your enemy. The weather-gauge ship decides if he wants the fight or not Assuming a fight is to be had, the ships move in close and begin pounding hull, masts, sails, or stern raking When one ship is well and truly beaten up, already missing crew, the other prepares boarding and loads grape Makes a raking pass or two with grape to reduce enemy numbers to roughly 50-70% and turns to pull the enemy for boarding Boarding ensues, doesn't matter if the raked ship had 100% boarding mods, he's lost 30% crew and a lot of morale already, unless the attacker is dumb, the fight is his and he either sinks or captures the ship after the boarding. What happens now: Starts off with the ships throwing some shots around, ranging shots at the hull and stern to feel out your enemy. The weather-gauge ship decides if he wants the fight or not Assuming a fight is to be had, the ships move in close and while one begins pounding hull, masts, or stern raking, the other continues a course to ram the enemy upwind (maybe he rakes once or twice first). The ramming ship, no matter how beaten up, will win the boarding because muskets vs steel toolbox only ends one way. Seem like a good system? Not to me. Implement a proper boarding minigame where I have full control of my ship during boarding and I'll have no problems. Good luck staying grappled to me when I'm pouring double shotted 24pd longs and 32pd grapeshot into your ship, whilst turning downwind at 10 knots. You'd have to actually be good at the game to demast or chain someone enough to even hold them in boarding if they can still control their ship. On top of that, a demasted ship that still has crew and cannons isn't safe to approach, you gotta learn how to rake while I'm re-growing masts too (thanks unlimited repairs). Give me THAT boarding system, and you can make boarding mods as effective as you like. But pushing upwind to play rock-paper-musket volley-last second attack is not skill. Don't pretend like it is.
  5. +1 to a tournament/practice/duel room. Duels were one of the best parts of NA, I think. Even when we had those rooms, all the duelists I know of also sailed in OW to hunt and RvR so I don't think you'll "lose" players to duel rooms. Rather, I think new/less experienced players might stick around longer and progress through the game if other players have a way to show them what to do and not to do in combat, rather than just tell them. I can tell a noob to angle his ship and hold his broadside till he gets a good shot....or I can just show him in duel room, explaining what I'm doing and not doing. I learned demasting tactics from duelists in the duel room. I showed some how to properly stern rake in the duel room. Taught another how to aim for leaks. Its a valuable tool, in addition to being a fun test of skill without worry of losing anything good. Also, if all us salty veteran players hole up in the duel rooms in our 5/5 ships most of the time...that means we're not out in OW "clubbing seals"...soooooo....isn't that a *good* thing? Let the less experienced players go farm PvP for a bit?
  6. Well, I think your suggestion would work, but I also like this one: -Increase doubloon drop from PvP kills (what you get in the battle report screen). Scale them in line with the scaling used on navy hull refits (40 doubloons = 1 PvP mark). So sinking a L'Ocean (35? PvP marks...been a while) would be 35 x 40 = 1400 doubloons straight to chest once you exit battle. -Leave the current hold loot mechanic (whatever you loot you have to take back to port safely if you want to keep it). Do this, and all of a sudden PvP seems more attractive again (I mean real PvP where you fight even if you're not sure you'll win). Then you'll be able to replace any ship after a few successful fights with it. Right now you have to make it back to port, which is incentive not to sink. Which is incentive to fight only battles you know you can win, which is incentive to gank. And/or it is incentive to sail fast builds and run away from fights (that you're not sure you can win) a lot. Currently, if I'm with a small group and get ganked and know we're gonna sink, I'd rather have my friends sink me and destroy the doubloons in-battle rather than reward the enemy for a gank. Until then, like others have suggested, I've been thinking of an alt in a fir/fir failfit speed Requin with loodsman to haul my doubloons around for me... such a sad time when mechanics are so bad you have to consider such crap as that. +1 on increased invisibility (maybe even make it so it doesn't start ticking down until 30s in, or you raise sails/whichever comes first [meant to allow you to change heading]).
  7. 5th rates aren't too expensive to craft. In fact you should be able to harvest pretty much everything you need, except the wood for the ship itself (assuming you want something other than fir or oak). And you can capture the fancy woods in traders. Furthermore, when it sinks you get a nice amount of insurance. I got something like 40 or 50k reals from sinking one of my disposable Wapens yesterday in the patrol zone. Granted thats a 4th rate, but still; insurance will apply to 5th and 6th rates too.
  8. ~30kn +, actually. (but who knows really how fast that is, OW knotmeter is bouncy and unreliable for super-accurate readings). I don't need the uber books to carry decent reps and hit ~30kn OW speed. I can take my fir frigates with just straight speed mods (bought from the Tortue shop) and go 30+ in OW. Yeah, you need the good stuff to do it with teak builds. But you can drop to a fir build to make up the difference. Thing is, if I drop to a fir build AND use my super books, I'll be faster still. But there's gotta be some upside to using expensive stuff and a paper boat at the same time. I don't get the gear envy, at least not for the stuff you can buy with PvP marks. It was just as challenging for me to get 300 PvP marks for loodsman as it is for you. I don't have a magic win button I press. Go. Earn. Marks. I do, however, understand the gear envy for the RNG stuff. That is a dumb system we have, that we already tested and found to be bad, yet we still have it... Moving on and dealing with it: grind AI and you'll get books...but thats boring. So buy the books--people in global chat are advertising books for sale all the time...but maybe gold or marks is the issue, in which case, "git gud" applies. I stay perpetually broke (in terms of gold) from buying mods. But I have plenty of marks and purple and gold ships to show for my efforts so #worthit. Yeah, I do dump reps if I want more speed. Nothing wrong with that. Better to have more than I need and dump them than have too few, get caught, and then not have reps to fight the battle with. For example, my Connie that does ~27kn a little south of beam reach in OW with 100+ hull reps in the hold will go even faster when I destroy some reps. I think this is a case of "If it seems stupid but works, then its not stupid." Whatever minor cost in reps I may dump is well worth the ability to hunt longer. You keep laughing at it and sailing with too-few repairs, and I'll keep doing it and sinking players without fear of running out of reps. But far be it from me, if you like to handicap yourself with fewer reps, more power to ya and an easier target for me. You do you: *sails ship with 3 reps* *gets in 1 battle and uses 1-2 reps to win the battle* *repairs some damage in OW and then has none left* *gets caught and sunk because has no reps* Priceless. I'll remember this comment next time we're hunting and you ask if anyone can spare a few hull reps. I'm gonna say, "No, I've got extra but I'ma hang onto them so I can destroy them later for the speed boost." In all seriousness though, it works and I won't be changing my strategy till it ceases to work. Admittedly, I used to carry fewer reps (5x hull and 5x sails), but once they changed the loot system so sunken ships don't yield all their cargo, I had to change strategy because I'm not about to play "deck guns-attack-last second defend" to end every battle.
  9. Its ok, apparently we're all incompetent noobs for carrying enough repairs to stick and stay and get some fighting done. From the line of thought in this thread, pros can get by with 3-4 of each rep for an all-day PvP journey. I aspire to this level of greatness some day. Seriously though, half the time someone mentions repairs to me I tell them how much to carry (minimum 5x of each type) and they go "Ohh man, thats too much, too slow!" Yet I pretty much never get caught and have never, ever, since they introduced multi-reps, ran out. I've come close, but never run out.
  10. Last time I fought a decent player in a Hercules with my Surprise, I vowed to never do it again. My very light teak/cedar Surprise was only a tiny bit faster than his teak/wo?? (felt like that) Hercules, and he was at 80% sails while I was 100%. The entire fight consisted of me taking his main mast (rather challenging, given his toothpick-thin masts), him taking my foremast (5 hits with carros is easy to do on masts as big as Surprise's), me ramming off his bowsprit, throwing a broadside or two from range (I had long 9s he had 32 carros) and pulling away to repair, taking pot shots at masts as I could. Then I'd move back in, ram off his bowsprit again, another broadside or two and pull away. To be at a range where my long 9s would pen, I was still in the pen-range of his 32s. Thats thanks herpaderp Hercules hull thickness + turn rate that makes landing hits at range a joke. So it was his repairs vs mine. His reps did a little more than mine did, but not by much. Fortunately, I never sail with less than 1 full battle's worth of reps, plus a little extra, so I could play the repair spam as long as we wanted to. Finally, after about 45 minutes or so, I decided to just leave because there was no point in staying. I either stay, maybe win and get 9 PvP marks and an unremarkable screenshot and he loses nothing of value; or I stay and end up losing a very nice 4/5 Surprise because eventually he's gonna wise-up and snap a mast with one broadside and finish the last bit of my weak side with his other broadside. Either outcome is a lose/lose for me (I don't need the marks). Fortunately for me, Surprise's 90° profile came through and I *just* managed to pull away (he was missing his bowsprit). He was kind enough to not bother constant tagging with ball at max range and we sailed away with a salute. His HP wasn't much better than mine for much of the fight, but broadside-for-broadside, he did more damage than I could. Note my missing foretopgallant and royal, courtesy of my mast being taken and then repaired. All that said and done, as much as I enjoy Surprise, I have a hard time justifying sailing her (or any other 9pd frigate these days [unless its a disposable build]) because the masts are just so flimsy. Look at them wrong and they fall overboard. Now, if I can manage to get a 5/5 Surprise, I can double-stack Elite French Rig and Kiritimati Masts and then she'd be viable for PvP, but at that point, the other 3 slots have to go to speed, and the build is already gonna have to be pretty light so I'm not a slow tub. So, much as it Surprises (hehe puns ) me, I agree with @Banished Privateer here. #buffSurprise A note, I'm not salty I couldn't beat the guy in this fight; I'll admit, I tagged him expecting an easy mark farm off some noob who bought the DLC, but instead I got a fun little fight, even if it did point out some glaring issues regarding what was my once-favorite little frigate.
  11. Point-by-point analysis: We've already tried 1 repair per type, and it worked. Demasting was a tactic used then, but it was countered by giving masts low thickness but high HP (takes a while to demast). Also, now you can buff masts so they cannot be shot down by a similar ship, so absolutely no room for complaining about masts. Chain is limited, so repairs should be limited to. I do carry up to 10x (sometimes even more than that) of hull and rig when I go hunting. But maybe I'm not a good player (but I do pretend to be one sometimes). And my ships go over 30kn in OW. I make a point to use proper builds, and proper upgrades. I have my hold set up a certain way, with stacks split so I can destroy some if I need extra speed in OW at non-optimal points of sail. This is the hold of one of my hunting frigates: I've got roughly 10x hull reps and 7x sail reps here) Repair stacking is an issue. But its not the main issue as people assume it to be. The main issue, is that even a base repair of 25% can be done every 12 minutes. Furthermore, I almost never stack anything more than 1 repair mod + the perk. And thats over 30% repair every 12 minutes. Agreed that weight should not be increased (extra weight = less speed is dumb anyways, as I explained in an earlier post in this thread). This is NA, we don't do slow and deliberate changes. All or nothing. Buff ships to OP or nerf them to uselessness .
  12. Regarding demasting, it was historical. It was done intentionally by captains seeking to disable their enemy. Look at major fleet actions like Trafalgar. Look at smaller engagements like Constitution vs Java. Take a look at the paintings of naval battles, many feature demasted ships, or ships with significant rigging damage. It was a simple tactic: use your cannonballs to cut away enough of the enemy's rigging that the stress of a press of canvas is enough to make the mast fall. Or the mast falls under its own weight without the support of the shrouds. Or it falls because it lost shroud support and was hit by a few well-aimed cannonballs. But in NA, we don't have hitboxes for rigging and actual rigging damage. We have sail damage and mast damage. So shooting the masts themselves with ball and hitting their hitboxes is representative of hitting the rigging of a ship IRL. Also, historically each gun would have a gun captain that would aim it individually. We don't have that in NA: when you fire a rolling broadside, your cannons are aimed via a sector focus, either at a point 100m, 250m; or attempt to converge somewhere around a point you aim for; or fire at roughly 90° from the ship's centerline. Closest approximation we have to a gun captain aiming his cannon individually at the rigging is you (the captain/fleet admiral/cabin boy/royal marine/guncaptain/powdermonkey/clerk/boatswain/sailmaker/chaplain/carpenter/cook) aiming the cannons individually and "sniping" the mast. Can we make demasting a better/more realistic feeling tactic? Yeah. But there are way bigger issues in NA that need addressing before an entirely new damage model is implemented yet again. To make historical "hitboxes" (shrouds, chainplates, backstays, forestays, etc.) work, we'll need to implement actual rigging damage with new, custom hitboxes for each ship. Then balance these hitboxes so each battle isn't spamming ball to masts. Then, come up with a system that allows us to have an AI as skilled as we are at aiming cannons individually and firing at precisely the right time in rolling fire mode to converge in the rigging hitboxes and cut rigging away...and that'll be historical. No more sniping. Just gun captains aiming for the rigging and masts coming down as a result. I can't think of any way to make that work without having every battle end in demasting (which I'm fine with because its historical and I enjoy it, but I've understood that other players prefer to have other results). A short-term "solution" (its not really) is to have chain damage and overall sail health affect chances to demast. Basically making sail HP tied to mast HP so when you take sail damage your mast's HP goes down too. This would represent the rigging being cut. But there are major flaws here, like chain damage being hurr durr high and gank fleets loving the ability to demast in a very short amount of time. So I don't see a way to make that work. Regardless of all this, there are no less than 5 permanent upgrades that provide an increase in mast thickness and HP. It is possible to buff the masts so much on a ship that the largest cannons that ship carries can no longer pen the mast. I have a hard time finding sympathy for players who got demasted. "Run a mast mod you silly noob." Sorry to be blunt, but they're not expensive (French rig is available in most major free ports for less than 500k gold), and they work well (even if you don't get un-pennable masts, your enemy will still have to come in closer and it will take him longer to make your mast fall).
  13. Something I posted in the repair balancing thread...
  14. I agree with the second part, repairs are too easy and too effective. But I disagree with the first part: I think repairs are actually less important now than they used to be. Again, as above I don't think there is any skill in repairing with the unlimited repairs. Regarding importance: repair timing has always been as important as how you well you can sail and shoot. But now its less so. You just repair as often as you can. The only time there is some skill, is knowing when to pop the first repair. After that, you keep spamming them unless you're full health (then you wait till you get beat up again then spam more reps). You get one every 12 minutes--so if you screw up, all you have to do is keep distance while also keeping the enemy tagged at range, then repair and come back. Before, you couldn't do that. If you engaged close against a determined enemy, there was no "pulling away to repair" unless you were already fighting better than he was (beating him at the HP game, or you've demasted him, chained him after his repair, etc.). What irks me is that people look at fights where small enemies defeated a larger enemy, and they think, "Oh how skilled those few are, and look at the noobs that got wrecked by a couple Bellonas!" There is some skill, sure (it is, after all, mostly players who are already good that benefit the most from spamming reps and clubbing the seals). But mostly it is that these players know what gear to use and how to properly spam repairs. Its not a tactic that I should hit hull rep every 12 minutes if my hull has damage but sails are good. Its not a tactic to know to hit sail rep every 12 minutes if enemy is chaining me and trying to catch me. Its common sense. What IS a tactic is deciding to use my one hull rep early on to preserve thickness and HP, or bank on it later for a boost of HP when my ship is weak but my enemy's is weaker. Or repairing sails early to keep my masts a bit longer, or hope the enemy gives up before they fall and then I'll have the repair in case he sneakily chains me later on. But maybe I'm just a salty vet talking about the glory days of NA...
  15. We have them already. You don't see them graphically though. Check out skillbooks: Studdingsails, Treatise on Square Sails Trim; and upgrades: Spanish Rig Refit, Elite Spanish Rig Refit. They increase square sail force, making you faster downwind, while decreasing staysail force, making you slower upwind. I wish there was an option to turn them on/off in battle, maybe with a few minutes timer before setting them again after you furl them.... They do not affect OW speed, only instance speed.
  16. There is little skill in there mate. Routinely fleets come to Mortimer to do that. Routinely we go with a fleet to Charleston to do that. Same thing at KPR, random OW engagements... It is not skill. It is a clever fleet composition and good repair strategy vs a lot of less-skilled players. I enjoy it, it makes some AWESOME screenshots. "Look at me we won 4 vs 18 aren't we pros!" But its not good for the game. Its not fun for the other side. It doesn't represent anything historical. It. Should. Not. Happen. It rarely happened when we had 1/1 repairs. If it did then, then you knew that fleet had some skill to pull that off. And/or the other side were complete noobs. Now anyone with access to proper ships and a fleet that can work together can do it. I even posted earlier, in this very thread, a comparison of small fleet vs large fleet fights of 2 years ago, and what happens today. Something changed along the way, and not all of it is increased skill from experience We need to separate clever tactics, group fighting, focused fire, etc. from spamming repairs and kiting around till you win. The first is true NA skill. The second is perceived skill. Thats not to say that all of the players able to pull of a 3v20 today aren't skilled. Far from it, usually. Just that a large, large part of the reason they're able to do it is because of unlimited repairs.
  17. You said, quote "No one at all, moans about this in game except gankers. Oh how the gankers would love this idea." In your post where you quoted Hachi. He complains about repair system, you say only gankers complain about repair system. Ergo, he is a ganker by your logic? But moving on past silly name-calling (which was far from the point of my post). Where do you get your data that nobody in-game is bothered by current repairs? Please, share this data. Because I log in and play almost daily (and I have done so since 2016 when I bought the game), and I don't like the current repair system, and nearly everyone I've spoken with who's played since the old repair system doesn't like it either. I've done RvR, PvP, Duels, you name it. Listen to the skilled players when we tell you: current repair system does not balance tactics. It forces players to use one tactic: carry super repair mods and spam a rep every 12 minutes. If you get beat up, kite away for 12 minutes and come back. Oh yes, much skill. Keep your opinion that you like multi reps if you must, every player is certainly entitled to make his own judgement on what mechanics he likes and dislikes, but from what I've seen in numerous threads about the subject, majority of posters in those threads dislike unlimited reps, or at the very least wish for slightly different repair mechanics. If you'd ever like to test it, perhaps you'd agree to two duels with me. Winner/loser of the duels doesn't matter; we'd just be looking at the type of tactics/choices made in the two duels. The first will be using as close an approximation as we can to the old repair system. We'll each have one hull rep and one rig rep, no rum (unfortunately there will be a 12 minute timer between the hull and rig rep, but there's nothing we can do about that). Then we'll have a second duel. Same ships, but unlimited repairs. I will be wholly surprised if you come away from that thinking you had to make harder, more tactical choices with multi-reps than with 1/1 repairs. Oh, and no comment on the rest of that post you quoted from me? Any explanation for how a large fleet was wrecked by a small fleet with current repair system, but in the old system when a small fleet got caught by a large fleet the small fleet sank? What about the similar post @Teutonic made, substantiating that with further evidence?
  18. Heh, see thing is, we used to have 1/1 repairs. And guess what? People still ganked. You just had to actually think ahead and plan whether you should use your one shot at a repair now, or later. Gankers will find a way. Why should you stand a chance 5+vs1? What makes you think you're entitled to repair sails and run away from that? Everyone ganks, everyone gets ganked. Lets focus on discussing mechanics as they apply to combat where actual fighting occurs, like OW feet engagements, 1v1, 1v2, 1v3, PBs, etc. Also, its a bit funny you call @HachiRoku a ganker. I've actually seen him to be a skilled player who can best most other captains in a duel. Both times I ran into him in OW, he was alone or with only one or two other players. He ran from my fleet when he was outgunned and he fought me and won when it was 1vs1. And whether he logs in often or not, he still knows his stuff when it comes to the state of combat. (oh I can imagine his head is growing bigger as I type this ) Sorry, but its mighty hard to gank 1v1. (actually its impossible) See, I think you're just being a little bit salty toward the PvP crowd, calling any type of PvP you don't want to engage in a 'gank.' Let me ask you something, is this a gank? or this?: (both battles had odds against us almost the entire duration and in the second battle, enemy chose to engage our fleet, btw). I don't think anyone would say we were ganking with those fleets, fighting 20v4 and 18v4 . If anything, my fleet was ganked but managed to win. And both times, the timer ran out before we could sink more of them. The great battle results thread is full of screenshots like that (small fleet destroys massive fleet of casual players, "hurr durr look how skilled I am"). And you know what? Those battles are NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE without unlimited repairs. Seeing battles like this is commonplace today, because frankly its pretty easy to do. But back in the times of only one type of repair you rarely saw something like this. And if you did it was a sure sign of skill (or a massive lack thereof on the other side) Granted, there is some amount of skill involved anytime you fight outnumbered, but its become oh so much easier with unlimited repairs. All you have to do is string the enemy out, sink the lead ships before they can turn back to repair, you spam repairs and keep on trucking away from the enemy fleet. Unless the enemy fleet is well commanded they can't do much to counter that. Is it fun to do it? I think so. But is it good for the game when unlimited repairs allow such battles to happen? Ehh...I think not. See, this is what *should* happen when a small but skilled fleet engages a larger (but less skilled) fleet instead of fleeing: (OG NA player screenshots incoming, war stories etc, nobody get TrIgGeRed) Notice that in both battles, the outnumbered team still managed to sink some of the larger fleet before they got sunk themselves. Some even made it out alive. That is how PvP battles where a skilled fleet engages a larger, more numerous (but less skilled) fleet. Look at my crew count, sail percentage, hull health. Choices had to be made based on ship health and the previous decisions you made that got you there, not on how long till your repair timer is up. Notice how crew management is important because you need crew in survival to stem the flow of water through your damaged bow. No necromancer raising the dead every 25 minutes. Combat had so much more depth back then, even with the old penetration/damage model and no leeway model. But by all means, continue thinking multiple repairs are better. I can happily meta game and mark farm, but I feel like I'd have more fun and battles would be a better test of skill if we had our old 1/1 repair system back. Or at least a similar compromise.
  19. I can agree with most of that, but I still feel 3x hull and 3x rig at 33% is too much. But I mean, anything is better than what we have now LOL. Say you repair hull 5x in a fight now, and you have 30% repair value. Thats 150% repaired. I think your 100% repair is too much, but its a far sight better than 150% at least. There was a time, back in sea trials, when they had 3x repairs. That worked (but I don't remember how much each repair covered...not as much as they do now I don't think). I believe 2x 25% (base) repairs would work too. After sea trials we had 1x repair (don't remember percentage, but again, seemed less than the 25% we have now) and that worked. When we had just the 1 repair, much as you say, you could pop the repair when you were beat up, but you did have the egg shells approach to fighting after that. Perhaps a compromise between unlimited repairs and single repairs? 3x 25% repairs, but that covers both hull and rig and you can only use 2x repairs (1x hull, 1x rig, or 2x hull or 2x rig) at a time (cooldown timer of 24 minutes starts at the first repair and lets you repair again at any time during the timer, but if you want to use your last repair, you have to wait till after the timer). That way you can repair a fair amount of hull or rig, but we don't have ships running off and coming back nearly full health again in a few minutes after literally obliterating one of their sides. I'm still partial to 1x repair of each type, but I can understand the appeal of multiple repairs. Just...too much of a good thing, at times
  20. Agreed. People will go out, do one or two battles and sail back to port because they can't afford the speed nerf to carry enough repairs to stick around and fight, and they don't loot enough repairs because nobody is carrying extra (because it kills your speed and speed = life for OW PvP). And the best part? All these "historical references" getting thrown around lately...but nobody wants to talk about the silliness that is more weight = slower ship. In reality, ships have to carry enough weight (either in cargo or in ballast) to get to an acceptable waterline range. Too little weight and the ship floats too high and has lower stability, in extreme cases even risking capsizing. This is why ships carried rock ballast (beyond keeping them upright when empty). When fully loaded with cannons, supplies, cargo, etc for a voyage, if a ship didn't reach the desired waterline, ballast rocks would be loaded to bring her to an acceptable draft. Hence, the creation of literal miniature islands made of discarded ballast rocks. You would, of course, gain some extra speed by being lighter...but a warship wouldn't make a habit of sailing from port without being ballasted properly. That is why pumping the water over the side and scuttling cannons was a last resort trick for extra speed: not only will your crew be without supplies and your ship defenseless, you're also risking your ship's ability to stay upright (but better for a captain to risk it all and lose, then to not do everything possible and subsequently be executed at the ruling of a court martial). Hence, why repairs should be in 'kit' form as they used to be. Every ship gets maybe 10 slots built in for kits. You fill that up from any port. If you want extra repairs above that, you can carry kits in your hold, which can provide a small decrease in speed. Maximum speed decrease for full hull vs empty hull should be less than .75kn, IMO. Need to stop punishing players for wanting to carry enough repairs to make a long voyage. Stop punishing traders for carrying their designed cargo capacity. But, whether repairs are weightless or super heavy, and whether repair mods can stack or not; it doesn't change the fact that unlimited repairs in battle is BAD for the game. Even with no repair mods, you can get most of a mast back, or 25% of your ship health every 12 minutes. And seriously, what noob out there is sailing in a combat-fitted ship without the carpentry perk for +4% repair? And don't even start with the rum repairs that let you repair more crew in the battle than your ship has (somewhere I saw a screenshot where a person had raked more than 650 crew off of a Bellona, but the Bellona still had a fair amount of crew left). The necromancer was working overtime on that ship.
  21. 1 repair of each per battle. No rum (or only 30% recover 1 time). Repairs carried on the ship, kits filled up in port the way it used to be. Extra repair kits in the hold for longer cruises. Combat was much, much, much more immersive without unlimited repairs. And before someone comes along to say it, repair mods are not the issue. Its the fact you can pull away from battle and come back in 24 minutes with a practically brand new ship, with or without repair mods. Kiting and waiting on your repair is considered a 'tactic' now....in reality there are no more real repair tactics where a skipper has to make the choice between an early repair to keep his structure or masts intact, or bank on a later repair benefiting him more. No more hard choices for PB commanders: do I send one of my best guys over there to deal with those ships, knowing he's already used his hull rep, or do I trust this less-experienced captain with a healthy ship and a repair up his sleeve to get the job done? New repair system was unneeded and created more issues than it ever solved (goal of repairs was a money/resource sink? LOL).
  22. I love it when people think a ship is useless. Just because *you* don't like the strong points of it, doesn't mean it can't do well in the hands of someone that knows how to use it. There are only a handful of useless ships for OW PvP in NA, and almost all of them are fifth rates or smaller. How to use it: Wapen turns great, has a decent speed, masts, toughness, and the hull shape is great (not much tumblehome but a good fore-and-aft curvature). It wrecks any 5th rate 1v1 that doesn't run away, and handles 2 and 3+v1 battles with fifth rates, provided its sailed properly. And fighting fourth rates? Wapen is the only ship that consistently scares me in my dueling Ingermanland. Its the one ship I can't out-turn, barely out-damage in a broadside exchange, and it has 4 heavy bow chasers. And, when equipped properly for OW PvP, Wapen can reach the speed cap, or at least a high speed. And don't forget the turn rate. For a duelist, turn rate and mast thickness is life. So make a fast build, run down fifth and fourth rates, sink them, and use your speed to escape anything you can't outfight. Find a noob in a 1st-3rd rate alone? You can handle him, believe in yourself. Mind your angles, and even a fir ship will bounce L'Ocean broadsides. You've got enough HP for one slip-up. Enough mast thickness to survive a number of volleys aimed by the average noob. And, if things go south when fighting that bigger ship, just use your mainsail thrusters to speed away downwind. Or do what others said, take a reasonably tough build like teak/wo and go wreck some fifth rates. Just accept that you're eventually gonna get caught by a fleet with enough fast ships to keep you in, and enough big ships to sink you before you can do anything (but that goes for any slow PvP build, not just a slow Wapen build). Now, you imply that its useless in PBs, and I agree with you. But thats not the ship's fault. Thats the fault of our *wonderful and perfectly balanced* BR system that we have. Really, Wapen is just a ship that excels in areas that not many players value. When is the last time you were sailing a fourth rate, looking for other fourth rates in OW to sink? When is the last time you bothered to use a large number of small guns combined with high turn rate to take down one side of a ship, using both broadsides of your own ship? You don't see Wapen much because not many players fight battles the way a Wapen wants her skipper to fight the battle. But when you run across a Wapen captain who knows what he's about, you're gonna get wrecked if you can't escape. Makes me wonder if the people who say Wapen is such garbage actually bother to sail it or they just pass it off as crap because they don't like the looks and have only fought noobs that sailed Wapen. I think L'Ocean is garbage, but I don't deny its the perfect first rate for some players. Horses for courses. If Wapen doesn't suit your playstyle, surely one of the other fourth rates will.
  23. Why the high crew count? Because most Indiaman players are easy enough to sink as-is. No need to further handicap them by lowering crew. Also, I'd say if a good skipper is capable of using his large crew and heavy cannons to fight off an enemy whilst in his trade ship, I'd applaud him. As it is, Indiaman can fight some. I mean, should a trade ship represent free PvP marks when sailing around? Is that what we want? Because thats what you get when you start a slow, flimsy, poor-handling 18pd frigate off in a battle with 120 crew. I'd argue in the other direction. I think trade ships should be able to open all 5 knowledge slots. Then we'll get crafty players in "helpless trade ships" that are really combat fitted and manned by cutthroat sailors armed to the teeth. Also, as an aside, you can't just go by 'gun count' when comparing ships. Caliber is important too. Example: Trincomalee is a 50 gun ship, so it should be equal to Constitution which only has 54 guns, right?? Indiaman is closer to a light 18pd frigate than a 9pd post ship like Cerberus. Same thing with ship ratings. Do away with the idea that '4th rate' and '5th rate' mean anything in NA. They don't. Its just a broad grouping of ships that serve similar purposes. Its far better to think of ships by cannon class: 9pd, 12pd, 18pd, 24, etc. Otherwise you'll find yourself asking weird questions like how Cerberus and Endymion have the same rate but one is way more powerful...
  24. Legacy ship from the last big shipwipe. They gave out free Surprise, Indefatigables, Trader Brigs, and Pickles to every player. Each one had a default wood combination. For some reason, they still get that extra wood type and bonus, even if you redeemed them later as something else (which you couldn't do at the time they gave them to us, but could if you waited till they changed the process of redeeming ships). So you'll see (respectively) an extra /Cedar /WO /Cedar /WO on those ships sometimes. EX: I've got a LO/WO/WO Indefatigable that is fun in small fleet battles. And a Teak/Cedar/Cedar Surprise that would be useful if it didn't have paper masts..... No Pirate Hax this time
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