Demasting

[Jean Pual Vilvenue]

When will demasting be a slightly more viable option ?

After patch and hotfix you went from it being far too easy (granted) to very much not worth it on the same rated class of ship. 144 thickness for a 1st  rate is excessive and negates any permanents mods and skillbooks that I would have put on my ship to prevent being demasted myself with the earlier easier mechanic you introduced.

Now it seems all these mast thickness mods and hp mods are useless or taken care of automatically in the thickness buff...

When will you expect to revamp hp/thickness values of masts between ships ?

 

[Jarlath Morrow]

I'd also like to know when the thickness will be changed. Hopefully sooner rather than later?

Right now, fighting in 6th rates is lots of fun for me - a big part of that is that they can still reasonably demast each other (the mast buff was only for higher rates). I'd love to be able to demast bigger ships again and I know I'm not the only one.

[William Death]

I agree. The mast thickness values before the big patch were fine (on most ships, at least), but with the new damage model and structure, demasting became too easy. The proper fix for this would have been to buff the HP by a significant amount (50% to start with and adjust from there).

Any time demasting needs tweaking, HP should be the stat buffed or nerfed. Revert mast thickness to reasonable amounts (discussed below) and DON'T MESS WITH MAST THICKNESS AGAIN! When thickness is buffed or nerfed, it throws everything out of balance. 

The masts on a ship should ALWAYS be able to penetrated at 250m by the same class guns that ship carries. For example, at 250 meters, Indefatigable should be able to demast the lower masts of any 24pd ship (Constitution, Endymion, Agamemnon, Wapen, Indefatigable, Third Rate) or smaller.

In my opinion, captains should only have ONE mast repair per fight (it would be the same as sail repair and consume the same number of sail repairs). After using your first sail repair after being demasted, you can continue to use sail repairs in the future, but you won't regain any more lost masts by using the sail repair again. If you use a sail repair and have not been demasted, you will still be able to repair a mast, should you lose one later in the fight. Ramming and loss of a bowsprit counts as a loss of a mast. 

Furthermore, to prevent demasting from becoming rampant as it was a few weeks ago (although, honestly, I didn't have too much of a problem with that, it looked realistic seing lots of demasted ships in every fight, but it seems others had problems with it so we do need to sacrifice some realism for gameplay) HP values can be adjusted to make the lower masts somewhat harder to destroy than the upper masts, as this would promote partial-demasting as a very valid tactic for any enterprising captain, while still providing hefty reward for the skipper who masters the art of taking out the tough lower masts.

[CaptVonGunn]

I would love to see chain actually doing its intended job which is tearing out the lines helping keep the mast up and destroying rigging and spars... But I know that is a dream

[Rychu Karas]

I find the current demasting model in the right place. This tactic is horrific and shouldn't be at first pick to do. IMO demasting should be way harder than hull fight. because previously demaster was in favor against someone who went for hull fight. Only sophisticated and very well calculated fight should be focused at demasting. But the main weight should be put on hull fights which are more equal and gives the same chance for both captains.

[Sir Lancelot Holland]

1 hour ago, Rychu Karas said:

I find the current demasting model in the right place. This tactic is horrific and shouldn't be at first pick to do. IMO demasting should be way harder than hull fight. because previously demaster was in favor against someone who went for hull fight. Only sophisticated and very well calculated fight should be focused at demasting. But the main weight should be put on hull fights which are more equal and gives the same chance for both captains.

Horrific? Dismasting? Absolutely not, Naval Captains in general and Pirates in particular would deliberately attempt to dismast, they wanted to board and claim the prize money for the ship and cargo from the Admiralty Courts, The Pirates  simply wanted the cargo unless the ship was worth converting as another Pirate ship. Both Seraphis and Bonne Homme Richarde were dismasted before that famous boarding action. HMS Victory had lost her foremast before she even fired a single broadside at Trafalgar, Having been aboard her I could only wonder at the accuracy of the gunners aboard the French ships. As for fair, war is not fair, The Captain of HMS Seraphis did not run to 'the Devs' crying that it was not fair he was dismasted, that he fought for hours only to have victory snatched from him by the Continental Navy using an exploit to get another ship into the fight! He did face a board of inquiry as to how he lost his ship, Fortunately for him the Admiralty decided it was the fortunes of war, a Courts Martial would have hanged him, now that would of been unfair.

[Jean Pual Vilvenue]

6 hours ago, Rychu Karas said:

I find the current demasting model in the right place. This tactic is horrific and shouldn't be at first pick to do. IMO demasting should be way harder than hull fight. because previously demaster was in favor against someone who went for hull fight. Only sophisticated and very well calculated fight should be focused at demasting. But the main weight should be put on hull fights which are more equal and gives the same chance for both captains.

I  disagree with you to a certain extent. At this stage, mast mods are completely useless, You can repair masts every 10 minutes for as many rig repairs as you have. With rigging specialist, you can repair from 50% sails to about 80% and depending on other mods, whereas hull modifiers are far lower and can repair up to 10-20% based on certain mods and officer perks.

I think there is an imbalance here favoring hull over masts to the point where now, demasting is too hard, or just not worth it... I have only tested against AI and I presume they use Teak ships ? Have yet to attempt to demast a Live Oak, White Oak 1st rate... most likely impossible. P.S. When I refer to demasting, I am not implying 250+ metres, but even 50-100 metres is ineffective ...

[Capn Rocko]

14 hours ago, Jean Pual Vilvenue said:

144 thickness for a 1st  rate is excessive and negates any permanents mods and skillbooks that I would have put on my ship to prevent being demasted myself with the earlier easier mechanic you introduced.

I can't speak for 1st rates, but mast HP mods are still viable options for certain 5th and 6th rates. I still see plenty of demasting in the frigate and brig classes despite the buff.

[Cmdr RideZ]

I remember long time ago when masts were made weaker, and dismasting came more popular.  Admin was interested because he heard that "skilled" people were able to get 1vs2 or even 1vs3 victories.  Before that people were able to get 1vs2 victories, but it took time and I would say more skill.  When guys noticed that they can get easy and fast victories through dismasting, they were like "Omg, I am a god in Naval Action".  They were not thinking that maybe something went wrong in horrible way here.

[Hodo]

The thickness was fine previously, the HP needed to be boosted.

[William Death]

3 minutes ago, Hodo said:

The thickness was fine previously, the HP needed to be boosted.

This EXACTLY! 

Thickness values cannot be adjusted without throwing off the balance. HP is what you want to adjust when you wish to make demasting easier or harder. There should also be NO MODS or build types that increase mast thickness. Increasing HP via mast mods is well and good, touching the mast thickness is a very bad idea.

 

Demasting should be viable in ALL same-ship engagements at 250 meters. As I explained earlier, the masts of any ship should be readily penetrated by the same class long guns that ship carries at 250 meters. So if you have  a cannon with 100 penetration at 250 meters, any ship that carries that cannon as its primary armament should have a lower mast thickness of around 94-96 (just making up some numbers to show the general idea).

[Cmdr RideZ]

29 minutes ago, Hodo said:

The thickness was fine previously, the HP needed to be boosted.

It was not ok.

I am sure you did not calculate how much that affected to things.  If you had calculated how much easier it was to dismast, you would not say anything like this.  I AM SURE.

[Hodo]

22 minutes ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

It was not ok.

I am sure you did not calculate how much that affected to things.  If you had calculated how much easier it was to dismast, you would not say anything like this.  I AM SURE.

The hit points was to low.  You could take the mast off of a Navy Brig with another Navy Brig in 2 broadsides.  It wasnt because of the thickness it was the HP.  If you increased the HP but kept the thickness the same it would be harder to take down mast but you could still do it.   

[Cmdr RideZ]

4 minutes ago, Hodo said:

The hit points was to low.  You could take the mast off of a Navy Brig with another Navy Brig in 2 broadsides.  It wasnt because of the thickness it was the HP.  If you increased the HP but kept the thickness the same it would be harder to take down mast but you could still do it.   

You have a 3 decker.  Your biggest cannons can take down masts.  You decrease thickness, all your cannons can take down masts.  Now you can actually have Carronades.

I am pretty sure that people throwing values like, HP + 50%, did not calculate or think about the subject at all.  Now we should trust in this magic number, right.

Masts are maybe even too weak now.  The game will also suck if you can skip 90% from what there is to learn, and you just focus to snipe masts.  Dismasting is the easy mode.

You guys are also crying after revenge fleets.  How horrible these situations would be if masts were weak?

Constitution vs Surprise -> Dismasting should be a viable option for Constitution

Constitution vs Constitution -> Every aspect of combat should be in the game.

I would even make it so that 1vs1 with the same ships should never end to dismasting.  Dismasting is too easy and also slightly luck based.  When masts were weak, I sailed from behind a ship, had Carronades, I did not miss a shot when I was sniping and the ship had no masts after.  I really did not feel that I had skill, as I do not have, but instead I was thinking that it is F*ing stupid.  It was because I had lucky shots there, lucky streak.  No PvP fight should end like this.

[Hodo]

32 minutes ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

You have a 3 decker.  Your biggest cannons can take down masts.  You decrease thickness, all your cannons can take down masts.  Now you can actually have Carronades.

I am pretty sure that people throwing values like, HP + 50%, did not calculate or think about the subject at all.  Now we should trust in this magic number, right.

Masts are maybe even too weak now.  The game will also suck if you can skip 90% from what there is to learn, and you just focus to snipe masts.  Dismasting is the easy mode.

You guys are also crying after revenge fleets.  How horrible these situations would be if masts were weak?

Constitution vs Surprise -> Dismasting should be a viable option for Constitution

Constitution vs Constitution -> Every aspect of combat should be in the game.

I would even make it so that 1vs1 with the same ships should never end to dismasting.  Dismasting is too easy and also slightly luck based.  When masts were weak, I sailed from behind a ship, had Carronades, I did not miss a shot when I was sniping and the ship had no masts after.  I really did not feel that I had skill, as I do not have, but instead I was thinking that it is F*ing stupid.  It was because I had lucky shots there, lucky streak.  No PvP fight should end like this.

I dont complain about revenge fleets because well, I sail ships that can easily lose them.  But with the increased thickness to the level of steel I-Beams we cant penetrate the mast of a 4th rate with the 24lb longs on another 4th rate at any range over 50m.  

[Cmdr RideZ]

4 minutes ago, Hodo said:

I dont complain about revenge fleets because well, I sail ships that can easily lose them.  But with the increased thickness to the level of steel I-Beams we cant penetrate the mast of a 4th rate with the 24lb longs on another 4th rate at any range over 50m.  

Cannons are way more accurate in game than those were in real life. Also ball and mast hit boxes are huge, sometimes it feels like that you simply cannot miss. Think extra strong masts as a fix for this. It must have been pretty once in a life time shot to dismast a ship from 500m anyway. Strong masts are simulating this.

...

Probably actually even more rare than once in a life time.

Edited June 29, 2017 by Cmdr RideZ

[Hodo]

37 minutes ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

Cannons are way more accurate in game than those were in real life. Also ball and mast hit boxes are huge, sometimes it feels like that you simply cannot miss. Think extra strong masts as a fix for this. It must have been pretty once in a life time shot to dismast a ship from 500m anyway. Strong masts are simulating this.

...

Probably actually even more rare than once in a life time.

I have been a bigger fan of reducing the accuracy and increasing the HP while reducing the thickness of the masts.  But I have already gone over this in another thread.

[William Death]

1 hour ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

You have a 3 decker.  Your biggest cannons can take down masts.  You decrease thickness, all your cannons can take down masts.  Now you can actually have Carronades.

I am pretty sure that people throwing values like, HP + 50%, did not calculate or think about the subject at all.  Now we should trust in this magic number, right.

Masts are maybe even too weak now.  The game will also suck if you can skip 90% from what there is to learn, and you just focus to snipe masts.  Dismasting is the easy mode.

You guys are also crying after revenge fleets.  How horrible these situations would be if masts were weak?

Constitution vs Surprise -> Dismasting should be a viable option for Constitution

Constitution vs Constitution -> Every aspect of combat should be in the game.

I would even make it so that 1vs1 with the same ships should never end to dismasting.  Dismasting is too easy and also slightly luck based.  When masts were weak, I sailed from behind a ship, had Carronades, I did not miss a shot when I was sniping and the ship had no masts after.  I really did not feel that I had skill, as I do not have, but instead I was thinking that it is F*ing stupid.  It was because I had lucky shots there, lucky streak.  No PvP fight should end like this.

No. Let me try another explanation:

Problem:

Mast thickness was fine before the big patch (10.0 I think the number was). The new HP and structure system allowed for easier demasting because structure tied into demasting: take down structure just a tiny bit and masts would fall left and right. Now lower masts are so thick that you cannot penetrate them with the same cannons the ship carries; that is a problem. Not to mention the mast thickness mods (which should be replaced with mast HP mods) which guarantee you to have iron masts (at least the lower portions) in battles. 

Solution:

Revert thickness to pre-patch levels and increase mast HP. Problem solved.

Logic:

1v1 similar ship in real life would very often contain some amount of demasting (and we've been over this before, myself and several others have given numerous examples of demastings in battles), since we need to sacrifice some realism for gameplay because people are unhappy with being demasted all the time (or rather, some people are incapable of keeping their masts aboard their ships long enough to sink their enemy), we can meet in the middle between realistic (masts falling in almost every fight) and iron masts (like we have now).

This middle ground will allow anyone who can properly fire a broadside to take out the topmasts of their enemy in a few broadsides; while still making the lower masts a hard target for the average skipper. However, when you engage a superior skipper who has practiced demasting, you may find yourself losing your lower masts if you allow him to have his range on you. That seems balanced to me: demasting within reach of everyone, highly rewarding for those who  have mastered it, and still possible to win without demasting.

 

Some further explanation:

In case you were unaware: mast thickness is what will prevent you from being demasted in the first place: if your masts are too thick to be penetrated by the guns the enemy is shooting at them, he will do *almost* no damage to them; if your masts are thinner than the penetration value of the cannons he is using at that range, your masts are being damaged and will fall eventually. How long it takes for your masts to fall is determined by the HP: the more HP your masts have, the more shots he will have to place into your masts to weaken them enough to fall. 

So, from that, we know that once we find a thickness value that works (like pre-wipe), we stick with that and we do not allow it to change. No module, build type, perk, permanent upgrade, ship knowledge, random drop, or super special knowledge book should EVER touch the mast thickness values. Modules that buff HP are acceptable, so long as there is a hard-cap for masts at 80% HP increase over base (and significant negatives on some of the larger-mast HP buff modules).

[Cmdr RideZ]

30 minutes ago, Hodo said:

I have been a bigger fan of reducing the accuracy and increasing the HP while reducing the thickness of the masts.  But I have already gone over this in another thread.

Reduced accuracy = Luck based PvP = I am not as good as my opponent, but lets see if I get a lucky shot.  Fun to win or lose because you had a bad dice roll?

Increased HP = You have to increase probably more than 50%.  DPS is very high when all decks can penetrate + carronades + you can shoot those from long distances.

[Cmdr RideZ]

7 minutes ago, Willis PVP2 said:

Logic:

A: we can meet in the middle between realistic (masts falling in almost every fight) and iron masts (like we have now).

B: That seems balanced to me: demasting within reach of everyone, highly rewarding for those who  have mastered it, and still possible to win without demasting.

A: Realistic for you is that mast fall in 5 minutes.  I do not know, I understood that these battles lasted hours.

B: It is removing meaning of skill from every other part of NA combat.  These other aspects have higher skill cap than mast sniping, also more difficult to learn than mast sniping.  So why to introduce something that needs less skill, and on top of that make that to be the meta?  Which is probably meta still at the moment.  If I remember correctly, HP amount has been higher than what it is today.

Wind, positioning and maneuvering should have impact to combat, and dismasting is decreasing skill in this area.  We are playing age of sail game, wind should be in very important role.  Dismasting unfortunately can be done from every possible position with ease.  If you are very accurate sniper, you do not have to l2p, just snipe masts.  I really would like to see that NA has a bit better combat than that.

[Cmdr RideZ]

Why dismasting is easy mode?

1vs2, all in same ships.

1. Dismasting as a very strong meta, as you guys want.  What are you going to do when you are 1vs2?  You are going to dismast, right?  Very easy to define what you are thinking and going to do.

2. Lets make a scenario where masts do not take damage.  What are you going to do when you are 1vs2?  You are going to rake, right?  Very easy to define what you are thinking and going to do.

3. Lets make another scenario where masts and rake damage are set to 0.  What are you going to do when you are 1vs2? Yes, what are you gong to do when this kind of weak points are removed?  How are you winning 1vs2?  You go to shoot them, they shoot back.  Hull Bashing is probably the most difficult way to win in NA.

Please do not try to lower the skill cap in NA.

[Hodo]

35 minutes ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

Reduced accuracy = Luck based PvP = I am not as good as my opponent, but lets see if I get a lucky shot.  Fun to win or lose because you had a bad dice roll?

Increased HP = You have to increase probably more than 50%.  DPS is very high when all decks can penetrate + carronades + you can shoot those from long distances.

When you look at a real cannon, most of the shots at anything over 100m was pretty much luck.   Not like these were rifled barreled cannons with fin stabilized sabot rounds.  

[Cmdr RideZ]

I also tried to say that lets decrease ball rake damage, especially vs crew.  This was because I would like to make Grapes to be more useful.  Would make gameplay more interesting, more rewarding.  You have to plan that you are going to rake, you have to sail so that you get that rake in, while you have grapes, you cannot just shoot something else.  All has to be calculated.  This would take skill cap higher.

Instead guys here want easy mode

Edited June 29, 2017 by Cmdr RideZ

[Hodo]

2 minutes ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

I also tried to say that lets decrease ball rake damage, especially vs crew.  This was because I would like to make Grapes to be more useful.  Would make gameplay more interesting, more rewarding.  You have to plan that you are going to rake, you have to sail so that you get that rake in, while you have grapes, you cannot just shoot something else.  All has to be calculated.  This would take skill cap higher.

Instead guys here want easy mode

Actually grape is FAR more devastating vs crew on a rake than ball.  

I can rake a LGV with a basic Cutter, using ball, and get maybe 10 men.  If I do a rake using grape on the same LGV I can take out 20-40men easy.  

[William Death]

Demasting is not easy mode. It took me longer to learn to demast than it took me to learn how to do all of the following:

• sink ships in 1 broadside (leaks, yes you can still do it: I've sunk first and second rates in fleet missions in a single broadside) if they are not paying attention
• stern rake and take significant amounts of crew 
• stern rake and take significant amounts of cannon
• angle armor and bounce shots reliably
• manual sail well enough to reliably tack a first rate without reversing

That is all the "basic skills" I can think of at the moment, but of all the skills I ever set about to learn in Naval Action, demasting has been one of the most difficult. It is not enough to be able to demast the AI easily with single shot: you have to be good enough to demast while you have players shooting at you, focusing on your weak side, trying to rake you, constantly running, chaining, attempting to board, etc. You can't just demast a couple ships and call it easy: try dueling a decent player in the same ship as you, you go for masts, tell him to do anything but shoot masts and see who wins (hint: right now he is almost a guaranteed win since the thickness won't allow demasting, but revert to the thickness values for masts pre-wipe and you'll have a more even fight).

And I'm still not an expert at demasting, I dueled a few of the PvP1 demasters and was astounded at their speed and efficiency, I've gotten much better since then, but that is beside the point.

You are so concerned with the lack of balance, what I think you have not realized yet is that the current thickness of masts is broken. For some ships, there is no demasting of the lower masts with the cannons the ship carries, you cannot do it: thickness values are too high to allow it.