hey devs: remember when pvp wasnt rock paper scissors? can we have that back?

[cheatos503]

i remember playing this game when pvp didnt mean rock paper scissors. you know WHEN THE GAME WAS ABOUT NAVAL ACTION, nowadays ppl have gravitated to the easiest way to win..

 

with 4 mods (and thanks to you taking out ramming leaks) this game goes from a game of skill to a simple push button combat reminiscent of the days of playing lemonade on a commie 64.

 

WHY?

this game was filled with promise, and good combat. it wasn't easy, and it wasn't meant to be.

so why are you ****ing this game up now?

 

 

It would be nice if boarding combat was something like a 5% chance to achieve, because think about all of you who crave your reality in the game, you try hooking in a ship and boarding it while still moving? realistic that it should happen every time right?

 

and make it so that it took time to retry like 1 min per try

make it a 15% chance if the target is stationary

make it 50% if both ships are stationary.

 

simply put the boarding mini game is becoming the game, is that what you, the devs, want?

 

all i know is that if somebody was trying to board my ship, i wouldnt just lower my sails and say "ok, lets rock paper scissors for it"

 

[CaptVonGunn]

Just don't slow down and the broken boarding mechanic with the Gold Boarding setup win button isn't an issue:)

[Skully]

Just keep your speed above 3.5 knots and your are okay.

 

For the OP-ness of boarding itself we already have http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14774-boarding-op-or-not/

[admin]

i remember playing this game when pvp didnt mean rock paper scissors. you know WHEN THE GAME WAS ABOUT NAVAL ACTION, nowadays ppl have gravitated to the easiest way to win..

 

with 4 mods (and thanks to you taking out ramming leaks) this game goes from a game of skill to a simple push button combat reminiscent of the days of playing lemonade on a commie 64.

 

 

Are you talking about the combat in general or boarding itself (as an easy way to win with full boarded set up?)

[CeltiberoCaesar]

Rock-paper-scissors is basic in a balances aproach of any kind of combat... why should that change?

[Kanay]

I hear the don't drop speed under 3.5Kn to not get boarded but like the OP said it without the ramming leaks being much important now it is possible with a tiny ship to bump into a bigger one and reduce his speed enough for boarding, or like i did not so long ago with a rattlesnake able to get in front of a trincomalee at 90° and decrease his speed under 3.5Kn to then board it , the only risk is getting flipped over in the small ship, it happens sometimes if unlucky... Hitting the sails and reducing them with chains is probably safer tho but many just get a fast fir wood made ship, quickly ram and bump into the opponent and board with a full setup of gold upgrades before having the time to get much damaged in the weaker fir made wood ship... 

 

 

Biggest problem with boarding right now is the random drops for the upgrades and marines, the clans who do a lot of PB's got a lot of those, worse than this are the clans who like we see often do ports swapping, attacking and switching ports without any fights just to get a lot of nice drops without even having to fight for them which is a shame...

 

Other players can just cross them fingers expecting a nice drop in mission or combat that may never happen for many of them or will need to pay 3 to 5M for an upgrade when they pop out for sale and this happens rarely ....

 

 

The boarding is OP and easy with fast ships ramming and bumping others with almost no risks no matter the speed, but what makes it OP are the best upgrades that are not craftable, and those are for most of them in the hands of the same players and totally inaccessible for many other players, with crew hiring coming soon and if i understood correctly a few weeks later the possibility to hire marines too this will change a bit i hope.

[Anolytic]

There is a lot of skill involved in combat currently. Boarding is easy to avoid if you are on the lookout. Winning combat with even ships is all about manoeuvring the ship to be at an angle when the opponent shoots, while you shoot back when the enemy is not properly angled. 

 

Btw, I've been in hundreds of Port Battles, and I've never had a golden mod drop.

[Ned Loe]

Boarding is bad. Sailing is awesome. In sailing you need to press 6 keys just to make ship turn and that is not an easy gameplay like he says. 

[CeltiberoCaesar]

Bc there is no rock. Boarding modules is unbalanced among themselve. Grenades, muskets, fire deck guns, doesn't perform equal to attack.

p.s, I am one of happy users of gold boarding specs, yep

It is, indeed, some boarding options better against others and weak against some others, you have to find out which is which against what. But of course an attack will be always be more efective than muskets or granades... but you can defend and the attack will be repealed... or do you expect to repeal a 10vs1 attack?

AND what I said is that a rock-paper-scissor philosophy is not bad but good aproach.

Edited June 22, 2016 by CeltiberoCaesar

[cheatos503]

Are you talking about the combat in general or boarding itself (as an easy way to win with full boarded set up?)

what i'm talking about is when boarding was a minor component to overall combat, now, in pvp that minor component, has grown to be the entirety of the experience.

 

yes im talking about how combat in pvp has been bypassed for boarding. somebody fully boarded  in the game can now ram you, slow you and board/kill you in no time at all and with little skill, is that what the devs intended?

 

the actual naval combat had been replaced with this, mini game now. Thats not what I would imagine the devs had intended, but that is in fact whats happened. Before when it was small battles, people didn't coral you into a mess of ships and slow you by only ramming into you, along with the rest of the ppl fighting you, so you 'll go slow enough that that they can board you and kill you off. that's the new "meta" for pvp now. And thats what I'm trying to get across. There is no skill in hitting attack 1/2 sec before the round is over, yet Aiming, proper tacing, trimming, aiming, and planning have been effectively taken out of the experience by pressing one button with 4 mods. You don't have to know anything  about sailing or this game. or naval combat. 4 mods now makes you viable a pvp threat.

[Mrdoomed]

This combined with the more difficult time smaller ships has demasting a larger ship basically kills any chance a skilled captai in a small ship has against a larger ship.

This is another reason everyone wants to only use big ships. Just demast the small ship and autowin/board him.

[Llewellyn Jones RN]

I remember the days in Sid Miers pirates when the low swipe was the way to go. Here we have people complaining about the rock, paper, scissors approach that we have now so it's quite simple really.

1:Keep your speed above 3.5 knots.

2:Make sure you have boarding mods too! Even having just Blue Marines will make it harder for your opponent in boarding.

3:Make sure you can shoot sails effectively so the enemy can't get to you in the first place.

4:Know the signs these are usually he has more crew than is standard for the ship he is sailing so if you see a Connie with anything over 450 crew it most likely means he is speed/boarding rigged which probably means he is less manoverable than normal.

What I am saying is there are things you can do to stop these boarding monsters but it's down to you to be prepared to deal with it.

[cheatos503]

I remember the days in Sid Miers pirates when the low swipe was the way to go. Here we have people complaining about the rock, paper, scissors approach that we have now so it's quite simple really.

1:Keep your speed above 3.5 knots.

2:Make sure you have boarding mods too! Even having just Blue Marines will make it harder for your opponent in boarding.

3:Make sure you can shoot sails effectively so the enemy can't get to you in the first place.

4:Know the signs these are usually he has more crew than is standard for the ship he is sailing so if you see a Connie with anything over 450 crew it most likely means he is speed/boarding rigged which probably means he is less manoverable than normal.

What I am saying is there are things you can do to stop these boarding monsters but it's down to you to be prepared to deal with it.

yes yes common sense, though its impossible now to stay above 3.5 knots with 5 ships firing chain at you. and no, having boarding mods is not how this game started off, that's the meta change, where you are forced to have boarding mods on to be competitive, to play that *****ing mini game. do you have something to actually contribute to this discussion or copy pasting a guide the jist of it. The bigger question im trying to bring up here is, do the devs ever imagine having naval action in their naval action, because its missing that, and being bypassed with boarding which takes little skill in comparison to the rest of the game at large.

Edited June 22, 2016 by cheatos503

[Ser_Slack]

I actually enjoy the boarding aspect. It MEANS something to take another's ship as a prize. Not to mention you completely nerf your ships reload/sail/repair capability when you are board fit. Takes alot of juggling.

And as someone's pointed out you can usually figure out soon enough which opponents are looking to board. Those are the ones you shoot for leaks cause there goes they're combat effectiveness.

Although it seems to me chain is still OP. One decent stern pass with chain can devastate sails.

[Skully]

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14774-boarding-op-or-not/?p=274206

boarding is OP and is a "I Win button" with proper fittings

It will be addressed because I Win buttons must not exist.

I think we are done here, not?

[Bach]

I'm not in agreement with the entire post.

But the OP does have a point on ramming being to easy of a combat tactic now to get a successful.

A few things I see these days. Boarding rigged ships that simply ram another ship at high speed in the front quarter to stop and board it. That kind of impact should have at least one of those ships sinking.

Players using ramming to broadside lock more nimble opponents that can turn better. Arm you tric/frig with Coronades, ram the othe ship to broadside lock it and rip it appart with the corros.

I don't think either of these as a real life tactic crews and ship owners would approve of.

[cheatos503]

I actually enjoy the boarding aspect. It MEANS something to take another's ship as a prize.

don't get me wrong im all for taking a prize, but historically the crew that was losing mutinied and killed their captain then surrendered because they didn't want to die because of some snobby captain's idiotic notion of pride.

 

actually you gave me an idea, taking a prize without boarding via the moral mechanic IN boarding. too many missed shots or you are crashing into things, the moral on your boat dips, dip it enough and the say "we have decided on new management" and kick you as capt. You'd lose a dur and all of that not, actually lose the entire ship (unless its a first)

 

and on the opposite side of that coin, if you shock, set fire, demast or anything else that makes you crew cheer, then your moral goes up. maybe even give slight (and i do mean SLIGHT) performance boosts to reload or raising sails, or dmg control etc. nothing too huge as to unbalance the game again but at least then you are rewarded for actually being good at piloting and accuracy.

 

I dont know, any thoughts? help me flesh this out a bit

[Enraged Ewok]

yes yes common sense, though its impossible now to stay above 3.5 knots with 5 ships firing chain at you. and no, having boarding mods is not how this game started off, that's the meta change, where you are forced to have boarding mods on to be competitive, to play that *****ing mini game. do you have something to actually contribute to this discussion or copy pasting a guide the jist of it. The bigger question im trying to bring up here is, do the devs ever imagine having naval action in their naval action, because its missing that, and being bypassed with boarding which takes little skill in comparison to the rest of the game at large.

 

If 5 ships are firing chain at you, then you have messed up hard somewhere before the situation you describe and you have little or no chance of escaping whether they board you or not. In a 1v1 situation, what stops you from chaining the would-be boarder and graping his stern while if you're in a smaller ship? A Trincomalee or Constitution can't do much when a Frigate or even a rattlesnake is playing the stern rake game correctly.

[cheatos503]

If 5 ships are firing chain at you, then you have messed up hard somewhere before the situation you describe and you have little or no chance of escaping whether they board you or not. In a 1v1 situation, what stops you from chaining the would-be boarder and graping his stern while if you're in a smaller ship? A Trincomalee or Constitution can't do much when a Frigate or even a rattlesnake is playing the stern rake game correctly.

if it was actual combat, and not consequence free bumper boats i would have finished off the 2 that were really hurt, i hadnt popped my repair yet,m so i still had options

 

i was only down 1/3 on one side and 1/4 on the opther, yes i was down crew, back to 650. more than enough of a problem, had i the chance to actually finish the battle 2 or 3 of them would have sunk.

 

hell these guy were so bad that they couldn't even help but crash into each other, and once i just hit the breaks to watch them sail past me and t-bone into themselves. these guys, with no discernible skill at all in the game can take out somebody who knows what they are doing in 20 secs with 4 mods and pressing a  button.

 

did i think i was going to make it out alive? no, but from experience i know that at the very least 3 of them would have gone with me. but between no leak ramming and board mods and how effective the chain shot is now, its a tad over the top. the primary problem being that pvp  combat

 

boarding wasn't the primary means of pvp, but it has however devolved to that

[la Touche-Treville]

Yes, get Gold Marines and you will rule.

 

That's the current problem. I understand that there was some abuse introduced with the ramming = leaks = sunk ship but maybe that wasn't a bad idea after all?

A ship fitted for boarded will be hell to maneuver so someone seeing death approach can at least help his team by sacrificing his ship and sinking the foe by ramming him. Think of it like a fireship.

However the other issue here is that no matter how many leaks you have, once you enter boarding, your crew will disobey you and all go in survival  mode till boarding is finished

 

This in itself makes no sense.

[Llewellyn Jones RN]

yes yes common sense, though its impossible now to stay above 3.5 knots with 5 ships firing chain at you. and no, having boarding mods is not how this game started off, that's the meta change, where you are forced to have boarding mods on to be competitive, to play that *****ing mini game. do you have something to actually contribute to this discussion or copy pasting a guide the jist of it. The bigger question im trying to bring up here is, do the devs ever imagine having naval action in their naval action, because its missing that, and being bypassed with boarding which takes little skill in comparison to the rest of the game at large.

Now as a long time serving Captain I try to make sure I am tactically aware an example of this was last week.

Situation was I missed getting into the port battle at Peurto Escondido so was sat outside looking to restrict the number of Spanish getting in, I am Attacked by a Connie and a rattlesnake, I myself am in a Connie with no boarding mods except for Barricades.

The rattlesnake was sitting at distance spitting and hissing at me not really dining any damage to me. The Connie and I exchanged several broadsides before I managed to get on his stern. A stern chase ensued which in which as the chaser I was raping his masts shot after shot hitting his mizzen mast. After a period the Spaniard attempted to break the stern chase and for his effort received a full broadside of ball along his masts taking down his mizzen. I was then able to camp his stern reducing his crew suffiently enough for me to board him.

On inspection the Spanish Connie was a shop bought but he did have Marines in the boarding action where I did not but as it happened it was a numbers game in the end and better seamanship that won the day not the rig.

All this time the rattler was sitting off shooting my sails but he ran away as soon as he did see all was lost.

As a previous poster said you are never going to win 5v1 but 2v1 it's possible to extricate yourself and 1v1 it's down to your own skills/decisions in battle that will either win or lies you the day.

Ultimately if you want to win in boarding you need to get the parts that you need to comptete it's the same in every PVP game I know there will always be a group that finds the ultimate setup regardless of what the devs do.

[Potemkin]

If the enemy is carrying MC or gold marines he has 40-50% fewer crew and will be trying to get in close. If you have high caliber longs/carros and you aim for leaks when he heels you can sink him quickly or at the very least force your opponent to break off for a bit to repair the leaks giving you ample time to work his sails which makes it more difficult for him to maneuver back into position to turn you into the wind. I do agree with OP to an extent mostly because i have always enjoyed the traditional stand up brawl opposed to just ram n board.

Edited June 24, 2016 by Potemkin

[Ser_Slack]

Now as a long time serving Captain I try to make sure I am tactically aware an example of this was last week.

Situation was I missed getting into the port battle at Peurto Escondido so was sat outside looking to restrict the number of Spanish getting in, I am Attacked by a Connie and a rattlesnake, I myself am in a Connie with no boarding mods except for Barricades.

The rattlesnake was sitting at distance spitting and hissing at me not really dining any damage to me. The Connie and I exchanged several broadsides before I managed to get on his stern. A stern chase ensued which in which as the chaser I was raping his masts shot after shot hitting his mizzen mast. After a period the Spaniard attempted to break the stern chase and for his effort received a full broadside of ball along his masts taking down his mizzen. I was then able to camp his stern reducing his crew suffiently enough for me to board him.

On inspection the Spanish Connie was a shop bought but he did have Marines in the boarding action where I did not but as it happened it was a numbers game in the end and better seamanship that won the day not the rig.

All this time the rattler was sitting off shooting my sails but he ran away as soon as he did see all was lost.

As a previous poster said you are never going to win 5v1 but 2v1 it's possible to extricate yourself and 1v1 it's down to your own skills/decisions in battle that will either win or lies you the day.

Ultimately if you want to win in boarding you need to get the parts that you need to comptete it's the same in every PVP game I know there will always be a group that finds the ultimate setup regardless of what the devs do.

Yup, barricades go on every boat I craft

[Cmdr RideZ]

There should not be mandatory upgrades.

 

I have a feeling that at this moment the devs know that the boarding is not ok.  The admin already said that will be fixed.  Not sure if redone, but they should probably redo it as well.

 

RPS system, that is not skill based like the rest of the game.  I would not mind even if that would be completely removed from the game, if no better boarding mechanism is invented.

 

I really do hope a skill based mechanism for boarding as well.

[cheatos503]

There should not be mandatory upgrades.

 

I have a feeling that at this moment the devs know that the boarding is not ok.  The admin already said that will be fixed.  Not sure if redone, but they should probably redo it as well.

 

RPS system, that is not skill based like the rest of the game.  I would not mind even if that would be completely removed from the game, if no better boarding mechanism is invented.

 

I really do hope a skill based mechanism for boarding as well.

currently im im agreement. but i do think some of the aspects of tking traders and such which is vital for new players, should continue. The boarding does not in any way mesh up with the rest of the game currently. and I hope a better solution is found, because while historically boarding actions while A): the battle hasn't been decided , and B)ships were still moving were rare. BUT>>> They did happen