Muskets need to go

[Slim McSauce]

The nature of boarding it's all mods. There's very little tactic involved which is why it draws the most salt. I still think we need to make boarding a close range side by side thing where you get close, shoot a volley of muskets and split off. Grappling should be reserved for melee attacks because locking someone up mid battle to shoot muskets at them isn't realistic nor IMO fun because clicking menus is not what I play NA for. I don't mind boarding, I use it for utility but I don't base a ship around it unless it's for traders. I would be fine with getting boarded if it made more sense in a real time and not having to stop fighting just to get musketed.

[Jack Jones]

46 minutes ago, HachiRoku said:

Now that is the reply I was waiting on. Next time you come and argue try come up with an actual argument

There is none as blind as those that want to be.

It may help you to watch a stream of some great players Reverse, Moscalb etc.

Captain reverse for instance always uses rig mods on his Ships to help negate mast sniping.

I said use the combat mod to help disengage from a rage boarder.

I cannot put it any simpler than that.

It does not matter how powerful the mods are you can negate them to a large degree and that's the wonderful diversity of this game.

The exception is the musket mod. It is and was to powerful however it has and will be nerfed again.

I do like it though that the devs keep trying new things. It's what makes this game great.

Edited November 22, 2018 by Flash Jack

[Slim McSauce]

3 minutes ago, Flash Jack said:

There is none as blind as those that want to be.

It may help you to watch a stream of some great players Reverse, Moscalb etc.

Captain reverse for instance always uses rig mods on his Ships to help negate mast sniping.

I said use the combat mod to help disengage from a rage boarder.

I cannot put it any simpler than that.

It does not matter how powerful the mods are you can negate them to a large degree and that's the wonderful diversity of this game.

The exception is the musket mod. It is and was to powerful however it has and will be nerfed again.

I do like it though that the devs keep trying new things. It's what makes this game great.

You're basically saying the mod meta is real and even more powerful than the regular player would expect.

I NEED mast mods to not get demasted off the bat. I NEED boarding mods to not lose boarding. I NEED speed mods not to get boarded period.

Well guess what I'm out of mod slots now and my ship isn't fitted to defend against a well rounded PvPer with his 5/5 ship.

Mods need to be pushed aside and skill needs to return

[William Death]

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.

[Jack Jones]

55 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

You're basically saying the mod meta is real and even more powerful than the regular player would expect.

I NEED mast mods to not get demasted off the bat. I NEED boarding mods to not lose boarding. I NEED speed mods not to get boarded period.

Well guess what I'm out of mod slots now and my ship isn't fitted to defend against a well rounded PvPer with his 5/5 ship.

Mods need to be pushed aside and skill needs to return

No, I am saying that the whole boarding outcry is based on the I can't win at boarding crowd because  my ship is fitted for sniping masts, speed, ganking etc.

I do not board.

I am no good at it but I hardly ever get boarded and when I do I disengage in 2 rounds giving the board fitted ship a nice broadside.

You can say what you like about mods but mods and counter mods are a basic in this game use them or don't it's your choice.

The others on here see no problem with mods that suit their play style. It's the ones that don't suit them they want to change.

This game is in development and the devs try new things. That's a good thing.

[Slim McSauce]

13 minutes ago, Flash Jack said:

No, I am saying that the whole boarding outcry is based on the I can't win at boarding crowd because  my ship is fitted for sniping masts, speed, ganking etc.

I do not board.

I am no good at it but I hardly ever get boarded and when I do I disengage in 2 rounds giving the board fitted ship a nice broadside.

You can say what you like about mods but mods and counter mods are a basic in this game use them or don't it's your choice.

The others on here see no problem with mods that suit their play style. It's the ones that don't suit them they want to change.

This game is in development and the devs try new things. That's a good thing.

The average ship HAS to be fitted with mast mods, speed mods, and boarding mods or your susceptible to being immediately boarded/dismasted without a chance to fight back.

That's just to survive and every day encounter, lets not even get into what you need to put on a ship to make it niche. Just throw marines and muskets and you're good to win just about any fight in a few minutes, as appose to other play styles that require you have some competence in sailing/gunnery, endurance also to pull off

Edited November 22, 2018 by Slim McSauce

[HachiRoku]

1 hour ago, Flash Jack said:

It may help you to watch a stream of some great players Reverse, Moscalb etc.

If you watched all their streams you might find them dueling me. Once you watch them come back and try giving me advice again on what to to do.

[Jack Jones]

All navy ships carried marin

3 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

The average ship HAS to be fitted with mast mods, speed mods, and boarding mods or your susceptible to being immediately boarded/dismasted without a chance to fight back.

That's just to survive and every day encounter, lets not even get into what you need to put on a ship to make it niche. Just throw marines and muskets and you're good to win just about any fight.

No ship HAS to be fitted with anything.

Build your ship how you like.

Snipe masts if you want, board, reload, tank whatever. It's what makes N A individual.

You will always meet someone with a better/different build. This is a good thing.

As soon as I enter combat if the other guy starts mast sniping I leave.

I don't play other players games.

 

[HachiRoku]

1 hour ago, William Death said:

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. 

I don't get what they mean by crying  since I wasn't even boarded. Last time I was boarded(two weeks ago)  was in a 3v1 against a requin that I completely forgot about. He stealth boarded me. Hehe I would have lost to dps anyway 

Edited November 22, 2018 by HachiRoku

[Aster]

I think everyone can agree that we would like more to boarding then the mini game we have. Unfortunately I do not see that being a thing any time soon.

[HachiRoku]

22 minutes ago, Aster said:

I think everyone can agree that we would like more to boarding then the mini game we have. Unfortunately I do not see that being a thing any time soon.

You could remove the player interaction and let the cpu calculate the winner. It's less interactive and bad in a sense but maybe better than rock paper scissors

[Thonys]

well... i like the boarding system.

i do not know how rock paper scissors go...

but if i may make a little example,.... it only needs more possibilities for instance  ....  - a blow-up!.  / -  boarded by a second vessel /-  or no boarding at all [ha... we already have that ] ... hahaha ..Uche Uche.

i bet i make some furious now! 

when boarding is in progress you can all go down with the ship, for the same money/reason/whatever. in the future, ...when it changes in the way it is now ... so

be  careful  where  you  all  ask  for.

 

Edited November 22, 2018 by Thonys

[huliotkd]

muskets are already got nerfed.

maybe do you need to learn how to counter a boarding? as suggested before, best counter-boarding is fast disengage. it's necessary only 1 book if you prefer , handcombat (old boarding axes)...if you don't have any knwoledge on how boarding works, it's your fault not mods musket.

a lot of player use counter-attack on an attack or fire grenades on attack...really no clues on what they are doing.

 

 

[Thonys]

On 11/19/2018 at 8:32 PM, admin said:

I wanted to add more dynamism for boarding and allow captains to resolve the boarding quicker against defensive or last click boarders.
I did not like the low casualties from grenades cannons and muskets (sometimes they felt useless). 
You had 250-300 muskets on a first rate it felt silly to kill such low number of people in a volley from 50 meters
 

We have interesting good long term ideas on marines and muskets (as equitable items instead of %) 
Thus the variety of muskets and their strength. I think they were nerfed one more time today patch. 

We also plan to update the deck guns and grenades.

excellent idea s

More unexpected tactics on the ship are needed to beat the captain from the field. (then you should have known who you are hijacking!)

Более неожиданные тактики на корабле необходимы, чтобы избить капитана с поля. (тогда вы должны были знать, кого вы угонели!)

 

i even want to go further than muskets and pistols and grenades what

about... an 10 turn fire Fuse? (perk 8 points)    {instead... of the determined defender [ and denial of boarding what we have now] ]}

kaboom!

lol someone brought a lamp of oil to the powder room..... Fiiiiiiiiiiiirrrreee!! 

https://vandaagindegeschiedenis.nl/5-februari/

 

Edited November 22, 2018 by Thonys

[Bluetooth]

26 minutes ago, Thonys said:

 

i even want to go further than muskets and pistols and grenades what

about... an 10 turn fire Fuse? (perk 8 points)    {instead... of the determined defender [ and denial of boarding what we have now] ]}

kaboom

Haha now that's an idea worth looking at. 😁

[Njord]

On 11/19/2018 at 8:32 PM, admin said:

I wanted to add more dynamism for boarding and allow captains to resolve the boarding quicker against defensive or last click boarders.
I did not like the low casualties from grenades cannons and muskets (sometimes they felt useless). 
You had 250-300 muskets on a first rate it felt silly to kill such low number of people in a volley from 50 meters
 

We have interesting good long term ideas on marines and muskets (as equitable items instead of %) 
Thus the variety of muskets and their strength. I think they were nerfed one more time today patch. 

We also plan to update the deck guns and grenades.

This is great. I would appreciate some kind of guide or more detailed info on how the different stats affect boarding, if possible. What's the best build for maximum musket damage for example? More muskets or more marines with higher musket accuracy? Would be nice to know the math behind it. 

[Njord]

On 11/19/2018 at 3:35 PM, Polish Privateer said:

Elite Spanish/Pirate give 20%, Grenades for shallow giref-boats gives 50% bonus, barricades give 30-40% bonuses, Reinforced Sail 20-25%, Reinforced Stern 150%, Planking 25%, Pump mods 50-70%,... NA is full of 1% to 900% modules and books. 

Yeah, definitely needs a lot of balancing. On the other side there are also many books that are somewhat garbage and obsolete due to dozens of better options. I am not saying every mod and skillbook should have the same value and power but the best need some nerf and the worst some buff, in my opinion.  

Maybe we would also get less people blaming their lack of skill on books and mods then. 

I wish there would be a wider variety of valid mods and books that are more easily available to everyone and their combination would be what makes them strong not simply having the best ones and using them 24/7. 

Especially with mods like copper plating, musket mods or cartagena, having them and being able to use them on every ship compared to some poor casual players who run with garbage like +2% penetration or some Pump mod is just wrong and sad. At least with books you can unlock them once and keep them, so the balance issue isn't that big.

More balance across all mods and books would be nice.

[HachiRoku]

6 hours ago, Thonys said:

i do not know how rock paper scissors go

Rock beats scissors 

Scissors beats paper 

Paper beats rock

Its a game you play with your hands. I'm sure you have seen it somewhere. 

[traitorous mctraitoro]

With muskets as they are now rock paper siscors goes -

Rock beats siscors

Rock beats paper

Rock beats rock

 

Edited November 22, 2018 by traitorous mctraitoro

[Baptiste Gallouédec]

Boarding changes i would like now that muskets have been nerfed is 

1- Calculate the speed limit  for grapple in relative speed between the two ships,  not in sailing speed.

2-  If succesfully grappled, both ships switch into depowered + battle sails (if not already less sails) + rudder and mast turn locked, not 0% sails. Both ships become stuck together until the boarding is interrupted. 

3- If there is still crew assigned to guns during boarding, you can still fire broadsides and reload.

4- Collision damages cause leaks to the weaker hull and masts damages depending on the force of the impact.

5- Multiple simultaneous boarding possible (up to 4), if more than one boarding occurs at the same time , multiple boarding windows open  on you screen (you can still look around and use your broadsides and move the boarding windows around like for the new UI) Round timers for each fight are relative to the start of each so defender can stil have a chance for last second clic game.

6- Morale should play a bigger role, a crew from a ship taking leaks will tend to be more efficient for attack, end less in brace/defend,  A defending crew against larger enemy will defend better and take less casualties while bracing, than they will be willing to charge.  Attack is very innefective if both ships moves at more than 2 - 3 knots.

 

I think this would brake the frustrating rageboard meta, and make boarding much more dynamics and spectacular.

 

 

Edited November 22, 2018 by Baptiste Gallouédec

[Draymoor]

6 minutes ago, Baptiste Gallouédec said:

Boarding changes i would like now that muskets have been nerfed is 

1- Calculate the speed limit  for grapple in relative speed between the two ships,  not in sailing speed.

2-  If succesfully grappled, both ships switch into depowered + battle sails (if not already less sails) + rudder an mast turn locked, not 0% sails. Both ships become stuck until the boarding is interrupted. 

3- If there is still crew assigned to guns during boarding, you can still fire broadsides as you like.

4- Collision damages cause leaks to the weaker hull and masts damages to the weaker masted ship

5- Multiple simultaneous boarding possible (up to 4), if more than one boarding occurs at the same time , multiple boarding windows open  on you screen (you can still look around and use your broadsides and move the boarding windows around like for the new UI) Round timers for each fight are relative to the start of each so defender can stil have a chance for last second clic game.

6- Morale should play a bigger role, a crew from a ship taking leaks will tend to be more efficient for attack, end less in brace/defend,  A defending crew against larger enemy will defend better and take less casualties while bracing, than they will be willing to charge.  Attack is very innefective if both ships moves at more than 2 - 3 knots.

 

I think this would brake the frustrating rageboard meta, and make boarding much more dynamics and spectacular.

 

 

1. Would make boarding way too easy. 2. Same as 1. 3. This is I like. 4. Good as well. 5. No thanks, would be a massive headache to manage. 6. Seems rather over complicated. 
I don't think boarding should get much attention while it remains an overly simple 1970's mini game. The real gameplay of NA is not in boarding. Making the possibility of boarding harder to attain would be better, for example, no boarding until a ship is at least at 50% crew. If we get some actual proper boarding gameplay then that would be a different story. 

[William Death]

7 hours ago, Polish Privateer said:

*Bigger rock beats smaller rock. In translation: Bigger musket beats smaller musket. 📊

MOAR MUSKET MODS pls! 

[Baptiste Gallouédec]

19 hours ago, Draymoor said:

1. Would make boarding way too easy. 2. Same as 1. 3. This is I like. 4. Good as well. 5. No thanks, would be a massive headache to manage. 6. Seems rather over complicated. 
I don't think boarding should get much attention while it remains an overly simple 1970's mini game. The real gameplay of NA is not in boarding. Making the possibility of boarding harder to attain would be better, for example, no boarding until a ship is at least at 50% crew. If we get some actual proper boarding gameplay then that would be a different story. 

Maybe too easy for the (1) you are right, but the actual requirement of both ships under 3kn is too few right now imo, under 5 or 6 would be less frustrating as under 3 kn require demast or push.

My (2) make the boarding combat in movement (leeway, sailforce) making it harder to park behing the stern of a ship locked in combat for rake support. The (3) would give headhache but limit the chainboardings while outnumbered, but this would make it possible for a group of small ship to defeat a much larger ship (if more than one manage to graple it, as it will still move even after 1st grapple.  

[AeRoTR]

Musket mods after nerf, still very very OP. That same Le Broken hit me like 30 crew with my brace, than around 130 on my defence and like 30 on my attack  Le Req vs Le Req fight, I had barricades. I had more crew than him  This is Madness... Le Broken is made Le Greater with musket mods, avoid boarding as hell. Indef lost in 1-2 rounds, indef was fully boarding fitted, the guys thought there was some kind of cheat  . Can we call this cheat introduced by devs ?

[Hethwill]

Mod stacking / Books does this madness. Same with Speeds, same with Reload, same with everything.

 

Regarding Muskets, yep, if getting into boarding and stacking up all Firepower they do devastate morale. Firepower always did that, since forever.

This new Muskets and similar stacked with some Books and exacerbated with marines firepower will devastate morale in a single blow, no matter if your melee if stronger. If you miss a round, that's it.

Doesn't need to be in a Le Requin.

Module stacking or entire system ( not only muskets ) needs to be reduced to marginal gains.