Patch 30: Combat and boarding feedback

[Mr Pellew]

Without reading anything of what was said before becuase no time: In my opinion boarding is too strong at the moment. Even without boarding mods all you need is one good stern rake on a equal ship and a boarding to win the fight. Rageboarding  vets will club new players faster than they can get what's happening to them. In my opinion getting someone into boarding should be made harder. Something like same speed +-.5 knots for 30-60 sec and also make boarding from anywhere but broadside to broadside a lot harder. As it seems we are going towards realism atm and boarding another ship up it's now or stern would just doesn't work as well as broadside to broadside you should maybe get penalties for a bad boarding position when attacking, dieting deck guns or muskets if it stays possible to board from wierd angles.

My opinion is based on the fights I had yesterday especially one against Prussian where first Banished boarded Vazco and won in 2-3 rounds than Liam went around and boarded 2 Prussian 1st and one 2nd rate. All with only very few rounds.

I fear new players who don't know how bad it is getting boarded will be very very frustrated if they feel save against a similar sized ship and all of a sudden just die in two round boardings. 

 

 

 

[Darak]

I think increasing the pen of guns (apart from making 18pdr in line with everything) is a mistake. Adding 20% pen at the same time as the damages changes makes it very difficult to see if pen needed to be changed. I also devalues all the woods that have thickness, something we are supposed to value. 

 

 

[Jakob.Kettler]

22 hours ago, admin said:

Captains

Combat model has been significantly updated this patch.

• Damage is now based on weight and area of the cannonball.
• Inverse DPS issues has been fixed (when 4lb guns had higher DPS than 42lb)

It was only forgotten to mention in the calculation:

- Ships that can carry 42 pound cannons have a thickness of armour that a 4 pound cannon cannot penetrate, not even in close proximity. (1)
- Ships that usually carry 4 pounds of cannons have a thickness of armour that is like paper.

(1) This is completely unrealistic - even though Admin sees realism as the impetus for the new Damage model. In fact, the new model is even further away from realism.

Unfortunately, the expectations have been confirmed: Again, things have been worked on that are unnecessary and the actual game killers like

- artificial PVP
- BR limit for OW battles
- Protected areas of the capitals
- Abolition of battletimer
- economy

haven't even begun to look at it. Too bad!

Jakob Kettler

[Meraun]

15 hours ago, Wraith said:

My impression now is the same as it was on testbed: Almost everything about the new system is trash and not an improvement over the old system.  Line ship spam is real. New and less experienced players are and always will be dead after launch, even with the strength of numbers.  Time spent in battle vs. time spent finding a battle now is a recipe for Naval Inaction. This is exacerbated because now you are literally forced to find a fight with equal or lesser rated ships to have a chance, thus reducing PvP opportunities and making players much less likely to fight. This is a recipe for a dead game and was a complete waste of developer time.

Sad.

Correct me if am Wrong,  @Wraith but with the new Trade and Ressource system 1st and 2nd rates shoud become much harder to get. So i hope, these ships become llike the Titans in EvE. You never pull them alone, you use them in RvR (PB) and not alone in OW. Ifm they come hard tom get, people will be afraid to lose them. i woud like taht. Like you wont ever Sail your 1st or 2nd Rate ever without an escort in OW. Because other Clans will use the Change to sink  a single powerfull ship wich is hard to replace to weaken your Clan.

If it works taht way, they can be taht Powerful, they just need to be hard to replace.

in History, a Frigate or a 4th Rate woud never have engaged  second Rate.

[admin]

5 minutes ago, Jakob.Kettler said:

It was only forgotten to mention in the calculation:

- Ships that can carry 42 pound cannons have a thickness of armour that a 4 pound cannon cannot penetrate, not even in close proximity. (1)
- Ships that usually carry 4 pounds of cannons have a thickness of armour that is like paper.

 

All ships that carry 4pounders can carry 6 pounders and many of those can carry 12lb carronades
 

Сurrently

• 4lb penetrate all ships at 100 m - but do not penetrate upgraded first rates.
• 6lb guns penetrate ALL ships at the distance of 200m, and penetrate all ships planking with all upgrades at 100m
• 12lb carronades penetrate all ships at 100m 
   

Your post would go much farther if you give real feedback. 
For example proposing to increase smaller caliber pens at close range. As this is a feedback topic - when stating what is not working - also state how would you change it. 

 

[Sir Max Magic]

15 hours ago, rediii said:

I liked it in a battle today

Aga, US + Christian vs Ocean and trinc mostly, aga joined later

 

I was able to do stuff until I got stuck next to the Ocean with poods, after that I had to go out for a while and fought the trinc that was still able to fight me. The trinc was also a threat to our christian. If we wouldnt have played like shit and concentrated on testing the ocean would have been dead pretty early on tho

Big ships are strong and should be scary. Looking foward to the future  

Like the new damage model too  

...finally we got rid of the stupid "stern-tanking" mechanic because now, damage done to Stern gets directed to structure also like it should +1

Time to adapt some new tactics  

 

Even 4th and 3rd rate AI can now threat 1st Rates because Angling gets much more difficult and pen values are drastically increased !! So even with over 90 cm thickness, you arent immune anymore to lower caliber fire and have to watch your armor and especially your structure well !!!

On the other hand, one perfect broadside can cripple smaller ships badly !!!

 

So, even so short after the change, it looks quite balanced to me:

- 1st Rates can dish out massive damage as it should

- they arent immune to counterfire anymore because of increased pen values and sternrakings

   

 

But regarding your video @rediii, i dont understand why the enemy L'Ocean didnt fired back when all of you got close around 4:30 when he had first chances for a Bow rake or going for mast against any of you...and later, he didnt even shooted back when you were going broadside.to broadside at around 5:00.. ??? 

[Sir Max Magic]

2 hours ago, Draymoor said:

Battles end to fast, feels very arcade sometimes. The feeling of an epic battle is kind of washed down. I think the cannons modified dps is nice but the ships HP is too low for the new damage. I would suggest to increased all HP of all ships and all their parts by an average of 30%. 
Some ships BR is better now, but a few don't make sense. Santisima and L'Ocean have the same BR but the L'Ocean is clearly the superior ship, there should be a clear difference in BR. Same for Wasa and Constitution, Wasa is clearly better so there should be difference in BR. 

Side note: is it possible to add a tool tip that or add it to the stats of a ship, how many repair kits it uses each time we repair in battle? It would be very helpful, specially to new players. 

If there has something to be done to lenghten battle time (and i am not sure about this because we all didnt applied tactics at this time), i would rather increase thickness alot instead of even more HP Pools !!

Because now, even angled ships take either massive bow or broadside damage...the line is very very thin here and on some engagments non existent  

[admin]

10 minutes ago, Sir Max Magic said:

If there has something to be done to lenghten battle time (and i am not sure about this because we all didnt applied tactics at this time), i would rather increase thickness alot instead of even more HP Pools !!

Because now, even angled ships take either massive bow or broadside damage...the line is very very thin here and on some engagments non existent  

we are playing ourselves and watch how other people play do not see significantly shorter battles. In fact we see more dynamic as importance of certain improves the tactical depth. 

The only slight concern is carronades and carronades issue can be solved in two ways. a) increase their costs and resources required to make them OR b) slightly reduce their hull damage keeping high splinter damage. But we will see. 

[LeBoiteux]

35 minutes ago, admin said:

The only slight concern is carronades and carronades issue can be solved in two ways. a) increase their costs and resources required to make them OR b) slightly reduce their hull damage keeping high splinter damage. But we will see. 

History may also help to reconsider the place/the importance of caronades in game :

• Carronade is a very lately used armament (c. 1780-1800 depending on nations ; for example, use in the French navy only after 1795). 
• Lots of in-game ships never had carronades IRL :
  • Early ships such as La Renommée, HMS Cerberus, Le Requin, L'Hermione and many others (wrecked or destroyed before the invention or the use of carronades in their respective navy).
  • Moreover, even when British captured ships after they had invented carronades, it seems they did not systematically use this armament. For example,  La Belle Poule had been sailed by the French before France used caronades and it seems British did not put caronades on her after her capture (according to threedecks.org).
• When used, carronades were only put on the Qd/Fc, never on the Gun deck, right ? 

Thus, a less massive use in game of carronades may be imagined.

 

On the other hand, some swivel guns could be added on some of these ships, as they were used like, for exemple, on La Belle Poule :

 

Edited March 1, 2019 by LeBoiteux

[AeRoTR]

Limiting carros for upper decks only is the way to go? additionaly nerfing some damage? 

Hercules, Suprise etc. should not be carronade monsters. It is killing the shallows. 

[LeBoiteux]

13 minutes ago, AeRoTR said:

Hercules, Suprise etc. should not be carronade monsters. It is killing the shallows. 

HMS Surprise before its capture by the British, that is the French Unité, not only carried only 30 guns (9 and 4-pdr!), but never used carronades.

I for one still think L'Unité would be a nice addition for the shallows (maybe leaving HMS Surprise outside of the shallows).

Edited March 1, 2019 by LeBoiteux

[RedPanther]

26 minutes ago, admin said:

The only slight concern is carronades and carronades issue can be solved in two ways. a) increase their costs and resources required to make them OR b) slightly reduce their hull damage keeping high splinter damage. But we will see. 

Well, Carronades were meant to be fast-reloading, devastating short-range-guns. So basically, if they are short-range monsters, they behave as they should.

So if they seem OP, just give them shorter ranges. They are less danger to captains who stay out of their range, but they are punishments for captains coming too close.

I also think there shouldn't be carronades on ships that vanished before carronades came into being. If you say "but Ingermanland could have been equipped with carros if it lived longer", then i say "concerning weight, some fancy guy could also have been able to equip a l'Ocean with 68lb-Carros on main and lower gun decks...".

[Hethwill]

Another suggestion in view of the new gunnery system

- all stern chasers back to normal dispersion

 

[Angus MacDuff]

1 hour ago, admin said:

The only slight concern is carronades and carronades issue can be solved in two ways. a) increase their costs and resources required to make them OR b) slightly reduce their hull damage keeping high splinter damage. But we will see. 

You could also decrease the amount of Carros that can be carried.  It wasn't until very late in our time period that all carro ships came into existence.  Additionally, for quite a while, only the Brits carried (limited) carros.  Same for Poods. 

[Kejsaren]

Firing point blank broadside during boarding combat is fine, but I think that crew that is occupied manning the guns should not be part of the boarding combat. 

Captain has to make a choice there, fighting with less crew and having the cannons manned or fight with full crew and no crew at guns.

[HamBlower]

Was in a battle on my Belle Poule (32Carros & 6Longs) against 2 Herc's, 1 Req., 1 LGV Refit, (the Bellona and the "US" didn't manage to engage the fight). 

The new penentration modell was impressive!. One of the Herc's passed my broadside from stern to bow on close distance . All 14 Carros and the 5 Longs (with doubles) hit the Hull - Reload shock and the Herc was nearly done. The other Herc used her Longs and penetrated my ship from distance, my carros did nearly no damage on this herc..
The difference in DPS seemed to be now more "explainable", the heavier the ball the more damage, the shorter the barrel the lower the damage on long range.
I think the new Modell needs a new strategy to fight against higher a ship class, but I don't think that 5th rates are much to weak.

But in the battle before the above me and my clan buddy had 3 enemy players and  a 3rd-Rate against us. The AI 3rd-Rate did easily turn out the trinc (Teak/Teak) of my clan mate. The enemy player on the same ship needed nearly double the time for a similar maneuver.

AI maneuverability in conjunction with the new DPSModel sucks!

Edited March 1, 2019 by HamBlower

[Teutonic]

2 hours ago, AeRoTR said:

Limiting carros for upper decks only is the way to go? additionaly nerfing some damage? 

Hercules, Suprise etc. should not be carronade monsters. It is killing the shallows. 

Herc and surprise were the ships i sailed and fought in. They are literally destroying anything that comes their way even in pvp. I had 5 battles last night. I have carronades on the broadsides, and longs in the bow and stern. There was only 1 battle that I thought the enemy player, if they attempted to stern camp, could beat me. Generally though i beat everyone, even an enemy herc in 3 broadsides. Which took maybe 3-5 minutes in total.

I could say some sail handling on my part helped secure the win more easily. But the carros really just assured that I won everything.

So yeah, double decking carros on hetc and surprise is crazy.

1 hour ago, Intrepido said:

Just decrease a bit its damage. They are OP as hell.

 

Make it simple

I feel that 32pd carronades are the worst offender of the shallows at the moment. Carronade damage should be reduced (as i said previously).

1 hour ago, Hethwill said:

Another suggestion in view of the new gunnery system

- all stern chasers back to normal dispersion

 

I agree with this too. Rear carronade setup with that accuracy assures a demast almost all the time.

I'll adjust what i said earlier. I think we need these 2 things both.

1. Carronade damage lowered

2. All ships 4th rates and smaller need a boost in HPs to some degree, i'd argue 6th and 5ths need a 20% buff to their base.

Don't get me wrong, I like that I feel I am doing a lot of damage now, but I also feel that it was a little too much for the shallow water areas.

It's possible that many of the 5th rates shouldn't be allowed to have carronades on both decks...but the carros also tend to be what helps a smaller ship fight a bigger one at this moment.

Edited March 1, 2019 by Teutonic

[Aquillas]

I did not test the new damage model in PvP yet, being busy yesterday evening with La Nouvelle Orleans area.

What I noticed in the hostility missions is that now, a double load broadside from a L'Ocean can one shot sink a Wappen.

This does not sound realistic to me. I ever read the history of some French ships of the line which took 1000 shots in a battle and were still able to fight the day after. This was not exceptional. Also, the crew losses seem exaggerated in game compared to reality (at the battle of the Nile, Le Spartiate lost 64 killed and 150 wounded, being dismated and severely damaged, Aquillon lost 87 killed and 213 wounded, both ships being 74 guns). Refer for instance to "Order of battle at the Battle of the Nile", in Wikipedia.)

[Angus MacDuff]

6 minutes ago, Eleazar de Damas said:

I did not test the new damage model in PvP yet, being busy yesterday evening with La Nouvelle Orleans area.

What I noticed in the hostility missions is that now, a double load broadside from a L'Ocean can one shot sink a Wappen.

This does not sound realistic to me. I ever read the history of some French ships of the line which took 1000 shots in a battle and were still able to fight the day after. This was not exceptional. Also, the crew losses seem exaggerated in game compared to reality (at the battle of the Nile, Le Spartiate lost 64 killed and 150 wounded, being dismated and severely damaged, Aquillon lost 87 killed and 213 wounded, both ships being 74 guns). Refer for instance to "Order of battle at the Battle of the Nile", in Wikipedia.)

Nobody at the Nile had an all carro ship

[SirValer]

I think new DPS is very good! now is better

but:

-Penetration needs a considerable reduction i think, thickness is useless now;

-New damage is ok but the big problem for me (not of this patch but in general) is the CANNON PRECISION. i think that at 300 m must be difficult hit a frigates, and very difficult hit a mast at all range;

-Carronades must be effective only at 100/150 mt i think, at 250 mt  must penetrate only 50 or less

[Aquillas]

21 minutes ago, Angus MacDuff said:

Nobody at the Nile had an all carro ship

Sure!

And L'Ocean is not an all-carro ship tho.

[LeBoiteux]

17 minutes ago, Lieste said:

L'Unite had 24 8livre and 8 4 livre pieces, according to the sources I see.

According to my only source (Boudriot, History of the Corvette), La Fidèle that shared the same plan as L'Unité (and other ships) had 24x8-pdr + 6x4-pdr. Will we argue about 2x4-pdr ? 🙂

 

Edited March 1, 2019 by LeBoiteux

[Draymoor]

4 hours ago, Sir Max Magic said:

If there has something to be done to lenghten battle time (and i am not sure about this because we all didnt applied tactics at this time), i would rather increase thickness alot instead of even more HP Pools !!

Because now, even angled ships take either massive bow or broadside damage...the line is very very thin here and on some engagments non existent  

Disagree, that would make the changes to gun stats less meaningful. Personally I like the new gun stats and find them so far, pretty balanced. 

4 hours ago, admin said:

we are playing ourselves and watch how other people play do not see significantly shorter battles. In fact we see more dynamic as importance of certain improves the tactical depth. 

The only slight concern is carronades and carronades issue can be solved in two ways. a) increase their costs and resources required to make them OR b) slightly reduce their hull damage keeping high splinter damage. But we will see. 

Nah, in my experience battles are indeed shorter. In some cases much shorter. You ask for feedback and then tell people you already know everything that is an issue. Why are you asking for feedback then?

[Draymoor]

I think for carronades, damage is adequate, high damage output is their supposed strongest point. I would suggest lower range effectiveness and increased dispersion. They are too accurate at their max effective range of 250m, specially if you have books. 
I think medium guns and long guns are also too accurate, I would increase dispersion slightly for them as well. Extremely accurate guns feels unrealistic. 

[Sir Max Magic]

4 hours ago, Sir Max Magic said:

If there has something to be done to lenghten battle time (and i am not sure about this because we all didnt applied tactics at this time), i would rather increase thickness alot instead of even more HP Pools !!

Because now, even angled ships take either massive bow or broadside damage...the line is very very thin here and on some engagments non existent  

 

4 hours ago, admin said:

we are playing ourselves and watch how other people play do not see significantly shorter battles. In fact we see more dynamic as importance of certain improves the tactical depth. 

The only slight concern is carronades and carronades issue can be solved in two ways. a) increase their costs and resources required to make them OR b) slightly reduce their hull damage keeping high splinter damage. But we will see. 

 

Absolutely agree on much more tactical depth !!!  (...and about the battle length i was only referring to my foreposter...)

 

In the old model, people were just sailing at very steep angles on their target and the only thing the other one could do, were

a) waiting until the approaching one turns to show his broadside

b) shoot the masts from infront

but when the approaching one was full of masts mods b) also wasnt a viable option  

So Battle may have looked longer but they were artificially lengthened because both captains were just watching each other who would show first his broadside and otherwise sailed away in often straight lines, presenting their soft belly by purpose when realistically they should had tried everything to protect it...  

 

Now Battles looks MUCH more realistically as common sense would expect (...and new players also)...good job @admin so far