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Demasting too easy?


Kloothommel

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Is demasting now too easy? Or is everybody now highly skilled?

The demasting meta seems a bit over the top, replacing exchanging broadsides. 

I do get that historically demasting was a valid option, but now in OW PVP it seems like the only option. Masts need a buff. It's just too easy now.

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7 minutes ago, Hodo said:

People demasted before the wipe.  I used to do it, hell the WHOLE Ocean clan did it, several clans did it.  It isnt any different.  people used to call it a "no skill tactic" I loved those people because their tears fed my cannons with chain shot and ball to wreck those toothpick masts on those cedar ships.

I know this but right now its simple too easy - a few broadsides  from stern or front and few sniper shoots is enough to break thick masts by skilled captain. There were different usefull tactics before wipe as well like: stern rake and side lock but now only one right is demast.

Edited by Bart Smith
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The major issue I have with demasting is that, yes - it did happen irl historically.. And yes it was debilitating for the ship that got demasted (often fatally so). But it was the exception - never the rule. And at NO TIME EVER, did a ship repair it's mast in open seas and most definately NOT in battle. It's just not possible.

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Of course it's too easy.....way too easy. Said that as soon as the patch came out but too many folks were like "no it's realistic now brah" blah blah blah. You literally could train a NASA space chimp to knock down masts in this game....if people consider this a measure of in game skill I beg to differ. It is way harder to hit a moving target with a sniper rifle in a lot of shooters than it is to snipe a mast with a cannonball in this age of sail "simulator". Been complaining about mast sniping forever and mostly comes down to people who use it as a crutch and those who don't pvp enough against anyone who knows how to do it.

The argument usually goes "look at the paintings of old ship fights they have no masts must be realz"! Yeah, might be....might also be because they were pounding each other with an absolute crap load of cannonballs from extremely close range....I believe most damage to masts were either due to extreme volumes of fire with some lucky shots landing or actual damage to rigging that produced stresses or actual ships being so close that they became entangled. You might have been able to generally aim for the rigging but there was no way in hell johnny "sniper" gunner was single shooting masts. 

Masts are too weak.....the multiple repair system is stupid (we had already tested this plenty of times in the past....no idea why they brought it back but I have no idea why we are doing a lot of things we have already done). Flame away..... 

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Just now, Baptiste Gallouédec said:

Aiming accuratly is too easy, masts hp & thickness are ok.

Essentially this is correct. We have quite a few aiming aids in game not to mention mods that further increase accuracy. However, re-working cannon accuracy or doing away with accuracy mods is probably a lot more work than the other option of adjusting mast thickness or hp's. It would seem like the easiest solution is to adjust the thickness and/or hp's of masts to achieve a situation where you indeed need to be much closer to a similar rated enemy in order to bring masts down. For anyone who is not really aware at how vulnerable masts currently are I'd suggest watching some youtube videos....or to those who doubt what people are claiming.

I'm sure some of you remember back when the masts didn't have thickness only hp's right? Battles were pretty much just an affair of who could bring the other guys masts down first....these fights were often at longer ranges and quite boring in my opinion. The current pendulum has not swung quite so far in that direction but it is a lot closer to those days then at any other I can remember. 

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If you want the priority of  frigates that enter any battle to snipe masts first then it's perfect, personally i think it's to much. I don't mind the historical debate of ships losing masts often but it should take skill or luck like in the tournament,now as it is any tom ,dick or harry can do it without even trying.

We have had the meta of chain, meta of tanking hull, and now we have the massacre of masts first pretty much every time in my experience.

As an example.

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1 hour ago, Tac said:

it should take skill or luck like in the tournament

Masts were the weakest part that time as well.  Sure, some people are better at that than others, but there can be many things in this game where people can be good.  Now those who have been just mast sniping want that it would be the only thing that matters.  It is simply stupid.

Combat in this game has so much potential, so much versatility and things that could need skill.  And everyone wants to just shoot masts?  Or rake I suppose.

You are actually asking all the time devs to simplify the combat, again and again.  Fast victories through raking and mast sniping, so you do not have to think nor learn the rest.

Lets make a scenario, we remove mast and rake damage.  So what happens to skill in this game?  Does it vanish, or can you still be a good player?

When I suggested that grapes should cause high rake crew damage and round shots should do clearly less.  People were against this?  I asked higher skill cap for this game, and which also would be pretty realistic, and still no?  I think the reason is that it would be too difficult for you?  You do not want to think at all.  You just want to sail with your round shots and shoot everything.  Easier the better.  You do not want to plan things beforehand, as what if you miss your perfect moment and you have grapes loaded when you should have had rounds?  Then enemy turns his broadside towards you and fires you with round shots, and you have still your grapes and that is not fun?

Naval Action combat can be tactical, have depth and also that "aim & fire".  You guys are pushing this game all the time towards "aim & fire" only.

Please do not make this Naval Action For Dummies.

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1 hour ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

Masts were the weakest part that time as well.  Sure, some people are better at that than others, but there can be many things in this game where people can be good.  Now those who have been just mast sniping want that it would be the only thing that matters.  It is simply stupid.

Combat in this game has so much potential, so much versatility and things that could need skill.  And everyone wants to just shoot masts?  Or rake I suppose.

You are actually asking all the time devs to simplify the combat, again and again.  Fast victories through raking and mast sniping, so you do not have to think nor learn the rest.

Lets make a scenario, we remove mast and rake damage.  So what happens to skill in this game?  Does it vanish, or can you still be a good player?

When I suggested that grapes should cause high rake crew damage and round shots should do clearly less.  People were against this?  I asked higher skill cap for this game, and which also would be pretty realistic, and still no?  I think the reason is that it would be too difficult for you?  You do not want to think at all.  You just want to sail with your round shots and shoot everything.  Easier the better.  You do not want to plan things beforehand, as what if you miss your perfect moment and you have grapes loaded when you should have had rounds?  Then enemy turns his broadside towards you and fires you with round shots, and you have still your grapes and that is not fun?

Naval Action combat can be tactical, have depth and also that "aim & fire".  You guys are pushing this game all the time towards "aim & fire" only.

Please do not make this Naval Action For Dummies.

I am simply stating that in most of the battles i face it is the de-masting that is deciding the battles and little else and therefore for me de-masting at the moment is to powerful,not sure what the rest of your post is about tbh in regards to mine.

I like to keep things simple.

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A HP buff would be cool, now that you can repair your sails / masts every 10 minutes it could be challenging to commit to demasting with a HP buff. And thats how it should be IMO, a challenge, if you fail, you loose. Right now it's a bit too easy, I agree.

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6 minutes ago, Hodo said:

People demasted before the wipe.  I used to do it, hell the WHOLE Ocean clan did it, several clans did it.  It isnt any different.  people used to call it a "no skill tactic" I loved those people because their tears fed my cannons with chain shot and ball to wreck those toothpick masts on those cedar ships.

The major difference is, before the patch you had to go close to get into pen range but the thickness recived a major nerf. Now you can just spray into the masts from far away and pen them from up to 500m distance. Before it was skill now it's just spray and pray.

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What about decreasing the hitbox size, atleast in height, basically deviding the mast into more segments? So to demanst i need to focus on a shorter mast section, it remains a valid option but requires more aim skill. Just an idea.

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the fact is not that the mast are weak , but that the hello kitty cannons are way too accurate and u cant put 10/15 shots in the mast just pressing the spacebar. i am for using real dmg on the hull and masts but also real cannon precision (something like seatrials but with more spread)

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Yep, waaaay too easy now, especially at range. Not a fan of it at all when demasting takes precedence over each and every other method.

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14 minutes ago, Aegir said:

Yep, waaaay too easy now, especially at range. Not a fan of it at all when demasting takes precedence over each and every other method.

Exactly. When only 1 tactics is viable in a game it needs some tlc.

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1 hour ago, Blackjack Morgan said:

Of course it's too easy.....way too easy. Said that as soon as the patch came out but too many folks were like "no it's realistic now brah" blah blah blah. You literally could train a NASA space chimp to knock down masts in this game....if people consider this a measure of in game skill I beg to differ. It is way harder to hit a moving target with a sniper rifle in a lot of shooters than it is to snipe a mast with a cannonball in this age of sail "simulator". Been complaining about mast sniping forever and mostly comes down to people who use it as a crutch and those who don't pvp enough against anyone who knows how to do it.

The argument usually goes "look at the paintings of old ship fights they have no masts must be realz"! Yeah, might be....might also be because they were pounding each other with an absolute crap load of cannonballs from extremely close range....I believe most damage to masts were either due to extreme volumes of fire with some lucky shots landing or actual damage to rigging that produced stresses or actual ships being so close that they became entangled. You might have been able to generally aim for the rigging but there was no way in hell johnny "sniper" gunner was single shooting masts. 

Masts are too weak.....the multiple repair system is stupid (we had already tested this plenty of times in the past....no idea why they brought it back but I have no idea why we are doing a lot of things we have already done). Flame away..... 

I agree with most points here. We shouldn't be able to "snipe" masts, at least not nearly as accurately as now. Downing masts should be done with broadsides. As for felling masts IRL you are right there too. Generally it was done with chain and ball shot to tear off the standing rigging so that uneven stresses on the masts snap them off. Of course some lucky shots to the mast itself could be the critical component, but seeing ships have been able to sail with really rotten masts that still remained standing it'd take one hell of a hit to crack a mast with ball.

The last point I'm not entirely sure of as I'm yet not convinced that one type of system is better than the other, but they certainly affect the whole dismasting-system and require very different balancing.

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1 hour ago, Baptiste Gallouédec said:

Aiming accuratly is too easy, masts hp & thickness are ok.

 

59 minutes ago, Hodo said:

This is the truth.

Clearly it is not.  Fixing accuracy does nothing for Spray n Pray.

 

They have to increase thickness and HP.  Thickness more or less the same as before the wipe, and HP has to be higher than before the wipe.

Edited by Cmdr RideZ
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The guns are more accurate than the cones.  Almost every time the shot goes straight.

And they sure have to make masts more thick + HP.  The game is incredibly stupid at the moment.

No idea why they even decreased mast thickness and HP.  If you have 3 different weapons in FPS, from which one is the meta -> OP.  You make a megapatch and you make that one weapon to be even better?  Like WTF?!  Are you guys serious?

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If anyone goes and looks up age of sail battle photos. You'll notice that many ships are missing masts. In my opinions masts are not easy enough to tear apart yet. At full sail if they get hit at all they should fall over. Give battle sails a purpose..

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10 hours ago, maturin said:

Did the HP of lower masts even change since the wipe?

 

Thank god the topmasts and topgallantmasts are valid targets now!

Exactly. More often you would have the upper masts damaged or fall then the whole mast. Too often I see the entire mast fall and then of course get repaired which is another issue itself - lol. 

Masts fell because the supporting rigging was shot away or it got entangled with the enemy ship (See Constitution vs. Gurriere). The lower masts were hard to bring down  simply by hitting it with ball shot (in game accuracy effects this ofc). Ships returned from battle with gouges in standing masts from grazing hits. 

So in game we don't model hits to rigging - just masts and sails, so how is this accounted for - by having mast hit boxes I suppose. Considering how this is modeled then hitting masts should be one of balance. Maybe the lower masts need a buff at this point.

I for one would like to see more fallen t'gallant masts (spars too but that's is not modeled in game). That would make it harder for the dismasting meta. 

Ask this question - In Naval Action would Nelson have made it to the Franco-Spanish line without being dismasted? 

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