Patch 26. Spanish Frigate Diana, BR rebalance - Diana is a timed reward.

[Licinio Chiavari]

2 hours ago, Liq said:

Okay so after testing the changes today, I must say I dont like it at all

Faced a requin in my herc. 300 ish crew vs 200 on my herc. The changes gave me three options

• Do as you proposed and go 180°, run away and deny a fight (boooring)
• Decide to "fight" the Requin at beam reach, don't turn at all - basically broadside vs broadside, guess who's gonna win the DPS battle? 32s carros on a Requin sitting low in the water or 12pd mediums? Aka. getting hugged,
• Try fighting properly with turns included, which is extremely dangerous. Any turn to about beam reach or a little further result in getting below 8 knots --> get boarded, game over. (The requin won't turn off your side while you performing the turns.)

So overall first day of testing has me not liking the changes.

Sorry Sir,

Requin-Hercules side to side is usually a suicide for the Requin.

The fact a requin is carro fitted means that having a medium/longs fitted Hercules you'll want distance, kiting (downwind) working him.
The same done (usually better from upwind in this case) always as a requin long fitted vs a carro one: the longs one will try to keep distance and kite the carro hitting him without being (almost) hit.

A medium/longs Hercules has a huge edge over medium/longs Requin; broadside weight, thickenss and armor HP speak clearly.

A carro fitted Hercules simply dismantles a Requin, any. And really fast.

What's counter-intuitive, fighting a Requin, is that you have and you want to stay downwind; so keeping a speed advantage to extend as needed and to counter any push to board or (now) the risk being slowed down.
Now the previously preferred boarder position (downwind) is still preferred by requins (being able to push and especially to ban the downwind escape route to squarerigged) but not anymore needed by other squarerigged: this, IMO, is the real boarding tactic change. But for squarerigged boarders, not the Requin.

I understand the annoying situation the requin kept upwind, if damaged, will simply turn to wind and farewell you.
Still the first point in any battle (= survive) is easily attainable.
If you want to kill her... you have to trick the requin captain into being overconfident, making mistakes, or getting abruptly hard hit so to be unable to escape. Still it's your choise to risk to kill him: you can always (almost) save yours.

Someway this remembers the Renomee-Surprise matches (last for me is quite old): the "problem" of opposite profiles.
Aside big errors, big gear gap or sizable skill difference, rarely a Surp could catch a similar Renomee turning downwind to 135°... as a Renomee had zero chances to catch Surprise turning upwind.

So similar choises: the Renomee, if wanted to be keep the escape route open, often could prefer the downwind side... as Surprise simply always the upwind one (both nicely remembering the French and British standard tactics of the time respectively).

Edited September 20, 2018 by Licinio Chiavari

[Dibbler (Retired)]

New boarding is great.

Make it so can board at any speed up to max 15.5 knts, just speed difference matters.

In fact after ships appear on loading enter battle, just cut the crap and go straight into boarding screen. Cut out that useless stuff like sailing and guns.

Tested it and not as bad as i thought but is kinda silly now. If we going to go this path though may as well go the whole way .

 

 

Edited September 20, 2018 by Dibbler

[Sir Malachy Karrde]

43 minutes ago, Dibbler said:

New boarding is great.

Make it so can board at any speed up to max 15.5 knts, just speed difference matters.

In fact after ships appear on loading enter battle, just cut the crap and go straight into boarding screen. Cut out that useless stuff like sailing and guns.

Tested it and not as bad as i thought but is kinda silly now. If we going to go this path though may as well go the whole way .

 

 

I agree, may as well just go to boarding screen and stop wasting time. While I'm pretty good at boarding, I actually like ship combat and consider boarding in this game to be too cheesy to subject myself or my opponent to. If I wanted to play chess, I'd go play chess. 

This new change took even more action out of naval action.

[Raf Van Boom]

People voted with their feet - population drop from the average (EST) 30%.

[IceBurg]

tacking with a bigger ship in the battle is death now, a 4th rate against a 2nd rate is an easy win for the second rate,

its now a book of five rings meta

 

[z4ys]

I read a lot: "people are bad in the boarding game" - I want to counter: " some are bad in long range gunnery duels"

[Barbancourt]

2 minutes ago, z4ys said:

I read a lot: "people are bad in the boarding game" - I want to counter: " some are bad in long range gunnery duels"

I consider my badness "well rounded" 

[Licinio Chiavari]

17 minutes ago, IceBurg said:

tacking with a bigger ship in the battle is death now, a 4th rate against a 2nd rate is an easy win for the second rate,

its now a book of five rings meta

a) a real 2nd rate v 4th should usually (in truth) an easy win for the first.

b) even before tacking on a 4th rate close to a 2nd (if boarding prepped) was a suicide: no 4th rate (aside Constitution Classic) tacks with speed over 3 kts.

c) I keep agreeing 8kts physics wise looks too high... But I would point out that our ships have super sailing qualities (both speed and turning): in reality nobody entered combat with full sails and battle speed was usually around 4 kts, with barely few manouvers.

d) in the end is: do we want the push into the wind the only way to start a boarding? Isnt it highly unreal?

PS: five rings is overrated.

[Sven Silberbart]

 

24 minutes ago, IceBurg said:

tacking with a bigger ship in the battle is death now, a 4th rate against a 2nd rate is an easy win for the second rate,

its now a book of five rings meta

 

right. This patch is one more push to using lineships and makes frigates (against bigger ships) more useless once more.

Additionally it moves the whole fight to boarding. I dont like the boarding system in naval action but i am forced to be boarding fitted now. :-(

Edited September 20, 2018 by Sven Silberbart

[Licinio Chiavari]

3 minutes ago, Sven Silberbart said:

right. This patch is one more push to using lineships and makes frigates (ageinst bigger ships) more useless once more.

Additionally it moves the whole fight to boarding. I dont like the boarding system in naval action but i am forced to be boarding fitted now. 😞

Frigates were useless facing SoLs.

Indeed frigates were never espected to face twodeckers.

All Age of Sail ships were boarding fitted (marines)... Because boarding battles were an highly probable outcome.

Edited September 20, 2018 by Licinio Chiavari

[admin]

13 hours ago, Wraith said:

Agreed on the approach creating far more problems that it solves, and the shortsightedness involved.

But I disagree about the stopping of a ship. What we are simulating here is not just the effect of hand ropes and grapples but of the catastrophic entanglement of yards and rigging that would occur at less than half a ship length in distance.  So there's that to consider in the "accuracy" department (of which I'd say we really shouldn't be all that concerned with since we're playing a sailing game sitting behind a monitor with Netflix on in the background, not standing at the capstan with teeth falling out from scurvy and decks awash with the blood of our comrades...).

The goal was to reduce the hugging by available means without programming time (just by tweaking speeds) but higher speed reduces tactical depth of combat.
We want to increase the tactical depth and coordination, not decrease it.

As a result we will reduce the max allowed speed back to 3.5 knots from 8, but will keep the lower speed difference. All other changes will remain.

Hugging and stern camping will have to be solved by musket fire. This will require programming time and cannot be expected until localization is finished (or during localization). One option is to just add another slot to cannons and allow the players to aim them in combat (but adding another cannon slot will require full ship wipe thus can be done only before release of the game).

[Havelock]

4 minutes ago, admin said:

The goal was to reduce the hugging by available means without programming time (just by tweaking speeds) but higher speed reduces tactical depth of combat.
We want to increase the tactical depth and coordination, not decrease it.

As a result we will reduce the max allowed speed back to 3.5 knots from 8, but will keep the lower speed difference. All other changes will remain.

Hugging and stern camping will have to be solved by musket fire. This will require programming time and cannot be expected until localization is finished (or during localization). One option is to just add another slot to cannons and allow the players to aim them in combat (but adding another cannon slot will require full ship wipe thus can be done only before release of the game).

I think you should give us at least a week testing it properly tbh... and if its still to much move down to 6kn, then 5kn and so on. No need to revert after 1 day.

[Jack Jones]

49 minutes ago, IceBurg said:

its now a book of five rings meta

1 person in my clan has 5 rings.

You guys talk and make suggestions based on extreme mods all the time.

Normal players do not have these mods.

[admin]

17 minutes ago, Havelock said:

I think you should give us at least a week testing it properly tbh... and if its still to much move down to 6kn, then 5kn and so on. No need to revert after 1 day.

Boarding at higher speed on the parallel course should be possible - but it will only increase tactical depth if ships continue on their way if they started boarding at 8knots. 
If ships board each other on 8 knots - they must entangle and continue on their way at 8 knots in their direction.
In addition to that - captain should be able to use [ ] (point blank fire) during boarding. 
If ships continue on their way - this will drastically increase depth and coordination required for others to help during boarding. And will completely remove the option (hey i boarded - now stern rake it for me)

We cannot allocate the programming time to that because we want to finish kill, hunt, search and destroy mission improvements and deliver port UI to players. 
So it is better to revert until we can remove stoppage. 

[Sir Texas Sir]

9 minutes ago, Flash Jack said:

1 person in my clan has 5 rings.

You guys talk and make suggestions based on extreme mods all the time.

Normal players do not have these mods.

Currently I think im the only active player to have it in mine and I’m one book shy of having a second copy for an alt I play mainly in shallows.  My main is the only one with cargo distribution and gunnery too out of my alts.  Most folks don’t have those either.  Just the rich and old school vets and die hards.  Hell I know folks that don’t even have all the barricades.  Lucky I had some extra to hand out. 

[Sir Texas Sir]

18 minutes ago, Havelock said:

I think you should give us at least a week testing it properly tbh... and if its still to much move down to 6kn, then 5kn and so on. No need to revert after 1 day.

Yah I think most folks just want it lowered to below max speed of 1st rates so they aren’t instant boarded.  

[AeRoTR]

I would say increase grappling time, instant grapple and pull is so silly.

Edited September 20, 2018 by AeRoTR
Correction

[Christoph]

1 hour ago, admin said:

The goal was to reduce the hugging by available means without programming time (just by tweaking speeds) but higher speed reduces tactical depth of combat.
We want to increase the tactical depth and coordination, not decrease it.

As a result we will reduce the max allowed speed back to 3.5 knots from 8, but will keep the lower speed difference. All other changes will remain.

Hugging and stern camping will have to be solved by musket fire. This will require programming time and cannot be expected until localization is finished (or during localization). One option is to just add another slot to cannons and allow the players to aim them in combat (but adding another cannon slot will require full ship wipe thus can be done only before release of the game).

Remove this stupid Determined defender perk and all is fine

[Dibbler (Retired)]

13 minutes ago, Christoph said:

Remove this stupid Determined defender perk and all is fine

 

No need to remove it now,  many have just dropped the perk.

 

 

Edited September 20, 2018 by Dibbler

[Bluetooth]

So now.....After a whole 24 hour testing.🙄

We are left with the one true raider in the game as one of the weakest ships in the game 'Le Nerfed'.

All the crew mods have been nerfed.

Cramped bonuses nerfed.

Extra crew trim nerfed.

All anti-boarding mods have been buffed. 

AI has been buffed to silly levels. (Rear admirals for Le Nerfed and Herc).

The reinforcement zones remain huge.

However @admin this will make no difference to the players crying the loudest.

They have constantly failed to adapt or even try to change their tactics.

They are poor players and you cant fix poor players with 24 hour hot-fixes.

The boarding game requires them, to put thought an effort into how to defend against it and use mods, which they simply wont do.

They will continue to cry. 😭😭😭

I just hope for the sake of the game you stop wiping their tears.

 

 

[Angus MacDuff]

2 hours ago, admin said:

The goal was to reduce the hugging by available means without programming time (just by tweaking speeds) but higher speed reduces tactical depth of combat.
We want to increase the tactical depth and coordination, not decrease it.

As a result we will reduce the max allowed speed back to 3.5 knots from 8, but will keep the lower speed difference. All other changes will remain.

Hugging and stern camping will have to be solved by musket fire. This will require programming time and cannot be expected until localization is finished (or during localization). One option is to just add another slot to cannons and allow the players to aim them in combat (but adding another cannon slot will require full ship wipe thus can be done only before release of the game).

You made a major leap in solving the hugging problem just by nerfing DD.  It will be easier for a larger ship to board a smaller ship now.  Good Captains already know how to counter the hugging tactic and bad Captains will always find a way to lose their ships, getting hugged is only one of them.  I have only played this game a short time and don't have any experience from when you received lots of collision damage, but I saw a suggestion about damage to smaller ships that are rubbing against a larger ship.  This would be a great hugging deterrent.

[Dibbler (Retired)]

7 minutes ago, Crow said:

So now.....After a whole 24 hour testing.🙄

We are left with the one true raider in the game as one of the weakest ships in the game 'Le Nerfed'.

All the crew mods have been nerfed.

Cramped bonuses nerfed.

Extra crew trim nerfed.

All anti-boarding mods have been buffed. 

AI has been buffed to silly levels. (Rear admirals for Le Nerfed and Herc).

The reinforcement zones remain huge.

However @admin this will make no difference to the players crying the loudest.

They have constantly failed to adapt or even try to change their tactics.

They are poor players and you cant fix poor players with 24 hour hot-fixes.

The boarding game requires them, to put thought an effort into how to defend against it and use mods, which they simply wont do.

They will continue to cry. 😭😭😭

I just hope for the sake of the game you stop wiping their tears.

 

 

 

 As usual in life the answer is probably somewhere in the middle.

 

 

[Madjohn]

2 hours ago, admin said:

Boarding at higher speed on the parallel course should be possible - but it will only increase tactical depth if ships continue on their way if they started boarding at 8knots. 
If ships board each other on 8 knots - they must entangle and continue on their way at 8 knots in their direction.
In addition to that - captain should be able to use [ ] (point blank fire) during boarding. 
If ships continue on their way - this will drastically increase depth and coordination required for others to help during boarding. And will completely remove the option (hey i boarded - now stern rake it for me)

Hi dev,

With that you'll still have the full boarding meta, and this will certainly not improved tactical depth. This too wont prevent "hey i boarded - now stern rake it for me", stern rake at 8 kn is still possible, just a bit more difficult to achieve, and even easier in some cases (if stern rakers have smaller and faster ships than the one boarded) . You'll end with "all go for boarding" fights (as yesterday ), no more naval tactics (keeping the wind), no more team coordination.
Sure the stern camping thing is bad when boarded ship is stopped, but why not keeping the  slow 3.4kn during boarding, with in addition the eventual rotation the ships had just before boarding, with even a possible interruption of boarding if the grapple was not made correctly. (not perfectly parrallel course with ennemy ship at the moment of grapple), this would improve tactical depth and stern rake is more difficult on turning ships.

regards,

[Angus MacDuff]

There is nothing wrong with stern raking a boarded ship.  If its 1 v 3 and the 1 gets boarded, the other two ships should still continue combat.  Realistically, they would have joined in the boarding, but I guess we can't have that in game.  Don't get outnumbered or don't expect to survive if you are outnumbered.  C'est la guerre.

[Eduard L'Aquila]

2 hours ago, admin said:

Hugging and stern camping will have to be solved by musket fire. This will require programming time and cannot be expected until localization is finished (or during localization). One option is to just add another slot to cannons and allow the players to aim them in combat (but adding another cannon slot will require full ship wipe thus can be done only before release of the game).

I think musket fire is very reasonable - crew damage at a timed rate based on crew size and the further away both ships the less damage, lessening exponentially - and it can wait, after all we're still testing the game.