Patch 29. Sextant, shallow water changes, improvements in the User interface.

[LeBoiteux]

IMHO, the most important thing to do in order to balance ships in shallows would be to reduce the differences in speed profiles of the fore-and-aft-rigged vessels (LRQ, Prince de Neuchâtel) and of the square-rigged vessels (Rattlesnake, Cerberus, Niagara...) from 0-90° into the wind.

 

Edited December 28, 2018 by LeBoiteux

[Licinio Chiavari]

13 minutes ago, LeBoiteux said:

IMHO, the most important thing to do in order to balance ships in shallows would be to reduce the differences in speed profiles of the fore-and-aft-rigged vessels (LRQ, Prince de Neuchâtel) and of the square-rigged vessels (Rattlesnake, Cerberus, Niagara...) from 0-90° into the wind.

 

Square rigged are already close hauling in a total unreal way.

As it's total unreal that ANY sailing boat close haul speed is higher than her broad reach one.

[Sir Loorkon]

8 hours ago, Slim McSauce said:

Surprise is a surprisingly even match for the herc. Those two ships should really be balanced against each other

If you look at the dmg stats, yes. But a decent captain will dismast the Surprise with two broadsides. Try it yourself. Vice versa it is fare more difficult. There are some other important differences, the lenghts e.g.

Edited December 28, 2018 by Sir Loorkon

[Slim McSauce]

11 minutes ago, rediii said:

Surprise is not a even match with the herc since the herc has a way better mast, turns a lot better and is not as long. Also its ~0.5kn faster

herc should not be the fastest frigate the game that's for sure.

Edited December 29, 2018 by Slim McSauce

[William Death]

Hercules > Surprise in pretty much every category that matters.

Fix Surprise's masts and change all sailing profiles back to the way they used to be, also maybe a tiny speed buff and the balance would be better. As it is, Hercules has the best profile, guns, masts, turn rate, and speed of any of the 4 square rigged choices to take into shallow battles (Cerb/Renom/Surprise/Herc).

I personally dislike the Hercules because its poorly balanced and screams cheap/no-skill wins (I know thats not always the case...but its like when Wasa was super OP and all of a sudden anyone who had a clue about PvP could farm noobs against all sorts of uneven odds)....so I sail Surprise or Renommee instead...but I'm also one of those crazy salty veteran players who still sometimes sails Pavel, Wapen, Victory, and Ingermanland despite there being clearly better alternatives available for most uses.

[Slim McSauce]

I personally think the shallow ships including the surprise, renommee and cerberus are quite a match for the 7th rate ships. Now it's clear they very much belong in a class together, even though a surprise out guns a niagara, a niagara and a lynx or pickle can take on a single surprise captain, favoring the surprise more if it they were newer players, the tag team if they were experienced. 2v1 carries a much deeper advantage than just number of guns. It's two heads versus one which is deadly. Maybe even grape should be limited because of this? Another topic.

What I'd want to see from here is swivels being the fill in the gaps for shallow ships. I think that's all they're missing to be competitive without the headache balancing. Just give every shallow water ship a fit of swivels guns. Crew killing BELONGS IN SHALLOW FIGHTS, it belongs. That's where it all started so that's where they should go and they should be the mainstay of shallow water fights, being quick and action oriented.

 

[LeBoiteux]

12 hours ago, Licinio Chiavari said:

Square rigged are already close hauling in a total unreal way.

As it's total unreal that ANY sailing boat close haul speed is higher than her broad reach one.

Anyway, IMO, in game, square-rigged (Surprise, Rattlesnake...) that meet fore-and-aft-rigged vessels (LRQ, Prince de Neuchâtel...) in shallows suffer a comparative disadvantage due to their sailing profiles that I feel is too big.

[Licinio Chiavari]

2 hours ago, LeBoiteux said:

Anyway, IMO, in game, square-rigged (Surprise, Rattlesnake...) that meet fore-and-aft-rigged vessels (LRQ, Prince de Neuchâtel...) in shallows suffer a comparative disadvantage due to their sailing profiles that I feel is too big.

I'll repeat: a sail profile disadvantage smaller than in reality.

[LeBoiteux]

16 minutes ago, Licinio Chiavari said:

I'll repeat: a sail profile disadvantage smaller than in reality.

I'll repeat : a sail profile disadvantage too big in game.

(that mixes, in the same shallows, schooners of 1812 and square-rigged frigates of 1744)

Edited December 29, 2018 by LeBoiteux

[Licinio Chiavari]

1 hour ago, LeBoiteux said:

I'll repeat : a sail profile disadvantage too big in game.

(that mixes, in the same shallows, schooners of 1812 and square-rigged frigates of 1744)

I could reply: would you hunt a Privateer with a Renomee?
Why should you (in general) hunt a Prince or a Requin with an Indef?

To hunt a fore-aft you need a fore-aft. Pretty simple. Like you should use a SoL to hunt a SoL.
It's a game balance issue you could ever think to attack a SoL with a frigate.

[LeBoiteux]

27 minutes ago, Licinio Chiavari said:

I could reply: would you hunt a Privateer with a Renomee?
Why should you (in general) hunt a Prince or a Requin with an Indef?

To hunt a fore-aft you need a fore-aft. Pretty simple. Like you should use a SoL to hunt a SoL.
It's a game balance issue you could ever think to attack a SoL with a frigate.

I'm not talking about realism. I'm not talking about 12-pdr or bigger frigates or even Sols.

I'm talking about the gameplay of the shallows in NA where some square-rigged vessels and the fore-and-aft-rigged ships are meant to meet and fight, such as the Rattlesnake or the Cerberus vs LRQ or the Prince de Neuchâtel. IMO, the sail profile disadvantage into the wind (0-90°) of the square-rigged ships of the shallows is too big in game to have fun sailing with them.

27 minutes ago, Licinio Chiavari said:

To hunt a fore-aft you need a fore-aft. Pretty simple.

There's no fore-aft vs fore-aft only among the RoE. One fight everything in shallows.

Edited December 29, 2018 by LeBoiteux

[Licinio Chiavari]

10 minutes ago, LeBoiteux said:

I'm not talking about realism. I'm not talking about 12-pdr or bigger frigates or even Sols.

I'm talking about the gameplay of the shallows in NA where some square-rigged vessels and the fore-and-aft-rigged ships are meant to meet and fight, such as the Rattlesnake or the Cerberus vs LRQ or the Prince de Neuchâtel. IMO, the sail profile disadvantage into the wind (0-90°) of the square-rigged ships of the shallows is too big in game to have fun sailing with them.

And fore-aft vs fore-aft only are not among the RoE.

Ok.

I could reply it's terrible to hunt a rattlesnake running downwind with a Requin. Simply impossible. There's no fun: or I got a nicely close leeward tag, or any fast squarerigged will run downwind.

But I'll not reply that: I like differences in ships... also because, in war, there's nothing close to "fair" fight. And in NA neither.
If you fight an "opposite profile" ship, you know he can run as you can. If you really want to push the fight you need to keep proper position AND work his sails... letting him getting an advantage working your hull.

[LeBoiteux]

@Licinio Chiavari I've never said speed profiles should be identical for all ships. I never said there shouldn't be differences in ships. No need to be extreme.

I just said I'd like to see the gap in speed when into the wind (0-90°) reduced between square-rigged and fore-and-aft-rigged ships of the shallows. I think the extent of this gap can be discussed. This gap is a matter of gameplay, not a dry historical data or a taboo, especially in a game that mixes ships from different periods. The current gap could be reduced without killing all differences. 

Right now, LRQ is the 6th-rate that is the most used. There are several reasons for that. Being redeemable is one. But her sailing profile is another. Make the Rattlesnake a DLC and I'm not that sure the Rattle would become as used as LRQ. I'm sure the Prince is more used than the Rattle. Shallow water square-rigged ships (Rattle, Surprise, Cerberus, Renommée...) need to be funnier to sail.

It is not killing every difference.

Edited December 29, 2018 by LeBoiteux

[Licinio Chiavari]

1 hour ago, LeBoiteux said:

@Licinio Chiavari I've never said speed profiles should be identical for all ships. I never said there shouldn't be differences in ships. No need to be extreme.

I just said I'd like to see the gap in speed when into the wind (0-90°) reduced between square-rigged and fore-and-aft-rigged ships of the shallows. I think the extent of this gap can be discussed. This gap is a matter of gameplay, not a dry historical data or a taboo, especially in a game that mixes ships from different periods. The current gap could be reduced without killing all differences. 

Right now, LRQ is the 6th-rate that is the most used. There are several reasons for that. Being redeemable is one. But her sailing profile is another. Make the Rattlesnake a DLC and I'm not that sure the Rattle would become as used as LRQ. I'm sure the Prince is more used than the Rattle. Shallow water square-rigged ships (Rattle, Surprise, Cerberus, Renommée...) need to be funnier to sail.

It is not killing every difference.

Prince was used as today Requin. And she's still used missing the DLC or to hunt the Requin herself. And she is capable of.

Corvette vs corvette fights are funny (even if I do not like them being the most unreal due to incredible nimbleness of such ship in respect of real ones).

Simply a corvette or light frigate is not suited to hunt a fore-aft; aside in particular tactical situations.

Only solution should have all sail profiles more real... nerfing all upwind speeds, making a ship STOPPING as close hauling more than her closest point. Making a tack being a true pain on a square rigged.
And having no ship being faster at close haul than at broad reach. Even Xebecs, Schooners or Herm-Brig like Prince.

 

In place to make square rigged sailing profile MORE unreal (making them able to chase a fore-aft), add more fore-aft ships or buff those already ingame.

I repeated, for example, often that 7th rate crews are unbalanced, game wise, for example.
In any rate, the biggest ship, especially if with buffed crew, can be a match for the smallest of higher rate (Bucetaure same as Victory; Bellona pushed to 700 being close to S.Pavel; Agamennon being close to Wasa; Indef being close to a Connie; aside the huge Requin crew - historical in any xebec, still H.Rattle buffed crew makes her close to a Cerberus).

Only exception are 7th rates: Privateer even buffed pre-hammock nerf was unable to hit 100. Now sitting at best around 80... so no match for 110+ 6th rates.

[Baptiste Gallouédec]

fore & aft rigged  ships only point right now is smuggling ( is it still even a thing with all the alts and open ports ?) and counter smuggling, if a change should come it should be boosting schooners downwind, it makes no sense to be slower at broad beam than at close haul... they should be the privateer / pirate choice but any square rigged trader just have to sail downwind to escape + have enough firepower to dismast or crew shock easily a privateer.

7th rates only card is the ability to escape from any fight it can t win, meaning nearly any fight, make corvettes able to catch them upwind ? For what ? Curb stomp them from 98% useless to 100% ? As if xebec was not sufficient as a threat ? Where the power creep will stop in the shallow ?

Boost the 7th rates ability to fight and take punishment + boost their speed at large and downwind, not the other way around. 

 

Edited December 29, 2018 by Baptiste Gallouédec

[LeBoiteux]

8 hours ago, Licinio Chiavari said:

Prince was used as today Requin. And she's still used missing the DLC or to hunt the Requin herself. And she is capable of.

We agree, Prince, like LRQ, is used because of its sailing profile.

8 hours ago, Licinio Chiavari said:

Corvette vs corvette fights are funny (even if I do not like them being the most unreal due to incredible nimbleness of such ship in respect of real ones).

Simply a corvette or light frigate is not suited to hunt a fore-aft; aside in particular tactical situations.

Indeed, IRL, LRQ xebec was meant to fight against xebecs. And IRL, most square-rigged light frigates / corvettes available in game certainly fought mainly other square-rigged ships.

Unfortunately, in OW NA, there's no arranged corvette vs corvette fight or xebecs vs xebecs fight. I'd fully support that and would enjoy their differences in sailing profiles.

But in NA, there are fights mixing all the ships available in NA from several periods. However, while square-rigged 12-pdr frigates and bigger ships will mainly meet  square-rigged frigates/Sol, the square-rigged shallow ships are meant to meet 'fore and aft' LRQ or Prince in shallows.

IMO, something could be done for those square-rigged shallow ships in term of gameplay to make them funnier/more used in NA. However, I perfectly get your opposite point of view, even if it gives no hint to make NA square-rigged shallow ships more interesting.

8 hours ago, Licinio Chiavari said:

In place to make square rigged sailing profile MORE unreal (making them able to chase a fore-aft), add more fore-aft ships or buff those already ingame.

Once again, no need to be extreme. I've never said a square rigged should be able to chase a fore-and-aft. I said the gap in speed during a fight while 'into the wind' (0-90°) could be reduced to make it funnier to maneuver a square-rigged shallow ship against a Prince/LRQ....

 Exemple of this gap, at 30° :  

• 2 kt for a square-rigged shallow ship (Rattlesnake, Cerberus...) 
• 9 kt for the Prince
• 11 kt for a LRQ.

This reducing could be done either by buffing square-rigged shallow ships and/or nerfing LRQ/Prince/...

Or not.

 

Edited December 30, 2018 by LeBoiteux

[Licinio Chiavari]

1 hour ago, LeBoiteux said:

...

 

Good points.

Still. In truth no sailing boat moves at 30°. None. Not even America Cup starships.
Closest angle is around 45 usually, 35-40° may be. Closing more doesnt mean you'll slowly slow down. It means you'll stop. Period.

Square rigged real closest angle was around 70°... and going VERY slowly mainly with jibs/spankers and with a lot of leeway.
Foreaft were able to close up to 50-60°... so simply in a direction other ships do not go. For this reason schooners were so used by pirates: able to out run any battleship upwind AND super loaded with angry swordsman... to board an crapply prepared trader.
And this to remember that any ship top speed is around broad reach. For any.

So I could accept your proposal... when a Schooner (or lateen rigged ship) top speed will be at broad reach (more or less)... and slower the slower I close haul. BUT slowing far less than square rigged. This way you'll get a smaller differential closehaul... but you'll have to face foreaft ships pretty fast also downwind.

The fact frigates and corvettes even think to engage bigger square rigged ship is another realism issue of the game: real ships were a) far less nimble (a frigate could tack in like 15 minutes) and b) SoL real broadside damage was enormously higher on a lighter ship.

Having sailed, and having sailed even a squarerigged, I'd like a full realism game... still I understand it can work... and could end being pretty straight forward: 2 ships make a couple slow manouvers, then go side to side and dismantle each other with a boarding in the meantime: this was XVIII-XIX naval combat.

Now we have NA, that gives a nice feeling, far away from realism, still a feeling of sailing, of combat, with a mix (to be still balanced) of skill, experience (more imo) and gear.

[Slim McSauce]

Probably not the best time to say this but I have to be open and honest. I do not like the current feel of pvp. I do not like how most battles are some form of gank, whether it be BR or raw numbers. I do not like repairs extending these chases and people escaping from battle that they could fight.. Why can't we have fights where the expectation going in is to compete with the enemy in a straight up battle? How come we don't even up the brs and work on ship and mod balance? Why ignore balance just because this is an MMO? Not everything is solved with a gank.

Edited December 30, 2018 by Slim McSauce

[staun]

In short I think the answer is, this is a war game in regard to gank. Personally I don’t care about ganks. But devs have said there will be a hole patrolezone where ppl can go if they want duels. 

Regarding repairs personally I am fine as they are right now. Sometime you have a short fight others you have a tough. Personally like the last most. And I proberbly lose more than I win.

Why ppl run insted of fighting. Think there is 2 reasons that matter skil and expensive ships. NA is a skill based game, as it should be. So I know when I fight a lot of guys I am not going to win, so best chance to save my ship is to run. Why would I try to save my ship insted of having a fight. Ships are expensive, so if I lose it, I will have to spend lots of time sailing to get new ressources. High demand on skill and   expensiv ship would be my guess.

To even up the br does not even up a fight. Skill and Wood and upgrades matters. Just an example would you say a trader in general would have a balanced fight against war ship of same br. Limited Br will just cause even more trouble. But just make devs change it, then we test it. But my guess on what happens is.

- The elites k/d goes skyhigh

- Traders get free to kill

- Nobody will try to help a new guy that have been attacked, proberbly only guys that they know are good enough. And never ever against the best players. Best to only lose one ship.

- Ppl will stay in habor until the hunters are gone again. 

@Slim McSauce a ballanced game is not just all abouth br. Skills, Wood and upgrades matter but skill is proberbly the most important thing. So if you want balanced fight based on br, then I think you at same time have to nerf the value of skill. Could easy be done. Positiv k/D you get a negativ bonus, a negativ k/d you get a positive buff. But are we really ready to pay that price to get balanced fights? 

I say no.

 

Edited December 30, 2018 by staun

[Slim McSauce]

17 minutes ago, staun said:

In short I think the answer is, this is a war game in regard to gank. Personally I don’t care about ganks. But devs have said there will be a hole patrolezone where ppl can go if they want duels. 

Regarding repairs personally I am fine as they are right now. Sometime you have a short fight others you have a tough. Personally like the last most. And I proberbly lose more than I win.

Why ppl run insted of fighting. Think there is 2 reasons that matter skil and expensive ships. NA is a skill based game, as it should be. So I know when I fight a lot of guys I am not going to win, so best chance to save my ship is to run. Why would I try to save my ship insted of having a fight. Ships are expensive, so if I lose it, I will have to spend lots if time sailing to get new ressources. High demand on skill and   expensiv ship would be my guess.

To even up the br does not even up a fight. Skill and Wood and upgrades matters. Just an example would you say a trader in general would have a balanced fight against war ship of same br. Limited Br will just cause even more trouble. But just make devs change it, then we test it. But my guess on what happens is.

- The elites k/d goes skyhigh

- Traders get free to kill

- Nobody will try to help a new guy that have been attacked, proberbly only guys that the know are good enough. And never ever against the best players. Best to only lose one ship.

- Ppl will stay in habor until the hunters are gone again. 

@Slim McSauce a ballanced game is not just all abouth br. Skills, Wood and upgrades matter but skill is proberbly the most important thing. So if you want balanced fight based on br, then I think you at same time have to nerf the value of skill. Could easy be done. Positiv k/D you get a negativ bonus, a negativ k/d you get a positive buff. But are we really ready to pay that price to get balanced fights? 

I say NO, HELL NO.

 

I think you raise the counterpoint pretty well, but I just don't see the use in not trying to tune battles for a more competitive approach, more willingness to pvp and better battles in general with less filler.

You create all these bonuses that have's benefit from more than have nots, so much so that balance is completely tipped off and you can't even recreate a even battle anymore because it takes like 40 noobs to take out 15 good players because that's how far mods and repairs have taken us from center balance of 1:1 being even up to 1.5x which is the general force required for an attack to take place against a defense. Instead it takes like 5.0x to attack properly, that's why ganks exists, out of necessity.

So ganks aren't the problem, they're actually the result of poor balancing. If the game was properly balanced it would follow the natural rules of law. (a single dominant Chimpanzee can be taken out by 3 chimps, each 1/3rd of his the alpha's strength, or for better example 2 chimps with half his strength)

So surmise from that. If a group of 3 dominant players in NA are winning more than 65% of battles against 6 much less dominant, maybe even carebearish players, then you have a balance issue on your hands, likely caused by the gap between a good ship and a bad ship increasing with the more mods, ship types, and now ship qualities.

 

Edited December 30, 2018 by Slim McSauce

[staun]

Yes we have a balance problem, but limited BR will not work unless you get a prober balance in the game. As long as skill is so important I have a hard time to see how you would fix it. Plus I am not fan of a system that might ruin grp play. I like when we go out in a small grp 2-4 players. Would hate a game that made it impossible.

[LeBoiteux]

13 hours ago, Licinio Chiavari said:

when a Schooner (or lateen rigged ship) top speed will be at broad reach (more or less)... and slower the slower I close haul. BUT slowing far less than square rigged. This way you'll get a smaller differential closehaul... but you'll have to face foreaft ships pretty fast also downwind.

Currently, some examples at 135° :

• fore-and-aft-rigged / lateen rigged ships
  • LRQ : 10,67 kt
  • Prince : 11,9 kt
  • Privateer : 12,04 kt
• square-rigged shallow ships
  • Surprise : 12,13 kt
  • Rattlesnake heavy : 12, 68 kt

Source

 

Edited December 30, 2018 by LeBoiteux

[z4ys]

@admin is it possible to remove salt because its now an annoying fishing drop. 😄

[William Death]

12 hours ago, Slim McSauce said:

So ganks aren't the problem, they're actually the result of poor balancing. If the game was properly balanced it would follow the natural rules of law. (a single dominant Chimpanzee can be taken out by 3 chimps, each 1/3rd of his the alpha's strength, or for better example 2 chimps with half his strength)

So surmise from that. If a group of 3 dominant players in NA are winning more than 65% of battles against 6 much less dominant, maybe even carebearish players, then you have a balance issue on your hands, likely caused by the gap between a good ship and a bad ship increasing with the more mods, ship types, and now ship qualities.

You're making a common mistake here, ignoring (or downplaying) the factor that skill has. 3 very good players (as long as they don't make a careless mistake) will always win against 6 carebear/noob players. Thats 2:1 odds and very much fightable. The misplaced-assumption here is that the mods and repairs have made the good players good....well thats only partially correct. Put a good player in an average ship and a bad player in a great ship and the good player will still win, even though he's at a disadvantage because of ships.

Evidence of this can be found in our old version of NA. When everyone was sailing a gold ship with all the best mods (talking about before the implementation of RNG gold light carriages and carpenters). Even then, noobs still lost 2 and 3v1 against good players. Surely you've watched some of Liquicity's videos of his Surprise wrecking some noobs in larger ships. Even myself, an average player at the time, was able to get some pretty nice victories back then against less-skilled but well-equipped players. 

But sometimes, even now, players have a choice to sail better gear, but choose not to. I've sunk several Hercules and Requins that were built with combinations of oak, mahogany, and crewspace.  That player made a deliberate choice to sail garbage. Didn't buy it that way, didn't craft that because thats all they had....no....they scrolled through a list of all the woods and picked that. If they chose that because they didn't know better, then thats OK. Its a shame we don't have an in-game comparison tool for those players who don't know there are outside resources to do that. But there is another reason why the player chose those crappy builds, and this is the main point I'm getting at:

The player chose to sail a sub-par ship because he thought he knew better. I've seen it dozens of times in US nation chat: "build with mahogany for the crew protection! that way you'll retain crew better during the fight!" or something like "Use Diagaonal Riders to make your ship tougher!"
Bad advice is more dangerous than no advice. When a player has managed a few PvP kills, maybe even a bit of successful solo hunting, he often becomes overconfident. Thinks he knows all the best builds, tactics, tricks, etc. Naturally, being the nice player he is, he tries to help out his nation by spreading the advice. This problem was so rampant in US nation that while I was there, I tried to help out by offering advice on ship types, tactics, and how to safely supply your clan with teak and white oak. I was told I was wrong and had no clue.  
Like, I was literally sinking you with impunity a few weeks ago now you're gonna tell me I have no idea....oooooookay.

Anyways, that kind of attitude is a large reason why you so often see a fleet of noobs wrecked by good players. Too many Admirals with the wrong idea about how to do PvP, making the wrong choices in wood types, upgrades, etc. spreading bad information and tactics wherever they sail.

All that wall of text is how the skill gap plays a part ^

 

How much effect does gear and repairs have?

A lot. I've posted plenty of times about how unlimited repairs and the gear gap has made lopsided battles easier to win than ever before. Looking through screenshots proves this. 2016 NA if you saw a 4v18 (the 18 having some large ships and small ships) and the 4 won....you were astounded. Some major skill there. Now anyone can do it if they have 4 players who fight well together and the right gear. Just sail in a tight group, maintaining the wind and spamming 5 1 till you win.

 

So you're not wrong in saying that gear and unlimited reps have upset the quality of combat in NA, but thats not quite the whole story. For as long as there is a choice in how you build and equip your ships, there will be some unbalance in combat. Someone will always make the wrong choice in gear. Thats a skill-deficiency (not being skilled enough to know what to pick from the list of acceptable mods and woods).

That kind of brings up the topic of meta choices and the benefits/negatives of having metas in a game like NA....but thats a discussion for another post and I've rambled far enough off-topic as it is.

[Slim McSauce]

5 hours ago, William Death said:

You're making a common mistake here, ignoring (or downplaying) the factor that skill has. 3 very good players (as long as they don't make a careless mistake) will always win against 6 carebear/noob players. Thats 2:1 odds and very much fightable. The misplaced-assumption here is that the mods and repairs have made the good players good....well thats only partially correct. Put a good player in an average ship and a bad player in a great ship and the good player will still win, even though he's at a disadvantage because of ships.

Evidence of this can be found in our old version of NA. When everyone was sailing a gold ship with all the best mods (talking about before the implementation of RNG gold light carriages and carpenters). Even then, noobs still lost 2 and 3v1 against good players. Surely you've watched some of Liquicity's videos of his Surprise wrecking some noobs in larger ships. Even myself, an average player at the time, was able to get some pretty nice victories back then against less-skilled but well-equipped players. 

Exactly my point. 3 good players ALWAYS smash 6th noobs. THAT'S HOW YOU KNOW IT'S UNBALANCED.  In REAL LIFE a 3v1 is more often than not a death sentence. If this number is does not reflect the game, then it's not real life that's the problem. You see what I mean?

I'm not disregarding skill, I'm saying skill was already enough. You confuse skill with just knowing what to do, what woods and mods to put on. That's not skill. Skill is how you sail a ship and if things were decided on skill alone (before gold ships and mods) it's Sea Trials, where all ships were the same woods, same mods,  same number of repairs for EVERYONE, completely equal footing nothing but you 

Remember when battles were only 3 repairs and you never saw a fleet battle where one side didn't have loses? That's because fights were closer when all there was was sailing and not gearing. That's what the game should go back to, because an action game has to be balanced or the action isn't fun.