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Warspectre

SoD fleets are a bad idea that needs to go away

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Ever been sailing along, minding your own business, when all the sudden you're hit by fog or zone and you're faced with multiple SoD galleons, brigs, and schooners? Ever been blown to pieces by such an encounter, because there was no way to avoid it or react in time? Well, I have, and it sucks. 

Even before this happened I knew this whole SoD fleet thing was a bad idea. Individual SoDs were annoying as it was, but fleets have kicked that up way beyond annoying to the point where I got so pissed I had to log off for a while. Seriously, what was my unarmed schooner supposed to do in this scenario? Even if it was armed, it was still extremely out gunned and out numbered. 

About the only saving grace in this whole debacle is that schooners are easy to rebuild on 2x weekends, but it's still frustrating for a casual player like me that only plays maybe a few hours a week. 

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Whenever I decide to go sailing, if it hasn't rained for quite a while I often hold off until it rains and then head out afterwards to reduce the chance of hitting rain, although the doesn't make much difference when crossing grids.

Fog I absolutely hate because it cuts visibility so much, but you know the SoD AI will still see you regardless i'm sure of it. Also the cold front can also be just as bad as fog.

I've crossed grids on several occasions where I appear on the other side suddenly in front of loads of SoD's. I didn't think they spawn along the edge, but maybe they were agroed there by someone else.

If i'm traveling several grids I normally travel along the edge for several reasons, 1) not much will/should spawn along the very edge, 2) You only have to pay attention to one side for SoD spawns.

Since I got an NPC on the sails it is so much better to avoid situations, but even when I crossed grids and appeared right in front of 5 ships, they still got a few hits on me before I turned, turned sails and sped away.

But yeah over all absolutely hate it.

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Overall the fleet mechanic is good for the game and it keeps you on your toes!

unfortunate that you ran head on into them but it does happen!

do what the poster above told you and travel the phase lines!

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There are way less sotd spawns now as compared to pre wipe and fleet mechanic makes sure that you are not surrounded by sotd.

But due to the render distance its impossible to get the galleon to avoid the sotd so I just force my way through. On brigs and schooner its quite easy. In case of fog/coldfront which occurs every 5 mins in tundra and polar just sail and hope for the best.

I crossed server from J13 to J12 and after crossing, first I saw dmg number and then my ship and sotd, 2 planks of my brig were gone and my 120% dinghy dock also gone. This is the worst case scenario. Sotd just hanging around the edge is really dangerous. If it was a red galleon in my case then my ship would have sank but I was lucky.

There are more sotd on region border now as compared to pre wipe from my experience.

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23 minutes ago, Vegetto said:

I crossed server from J13 to J12 and after crossing, first I saw dmg number and then my ship and sotd, 2 planks of my brig were gone and my 120% dinghy dock also gone. This is the worst case scenario. Sotd just hanging around the edge is really dangerous. If it was a red galleon in my case then my ship would have sank but I was lucky.

 

Thats not worst case scenario...

Worst case is travelling to next grid with your galli. Spawning and instant stuck in a red galli. Since your sails are fully open, you drive like in a circle and the sotd gally bugged to your front. You cant press A or D bc your front is stucked in the sotd galli and nothing happens. Only option is to close your complete sails, drive a few meters back and then open sails again and drive away.

I was in that situation... Survived with a few hundreds of life else a fully loaded galli with only gold would be gone....

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Change the pack spawn of SoTD to back to single spawn, give players a 30 second immunity buff when zoning to a new grid, or a way to see what's on the other side before zoning (I think the buff would be easer)

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I like the Fleet mechanic, the seas Dont Seem Dangerous at all. Tho i Must say that After the 75% spawntime reduction i See way more sotds in Other grids too. But with over 6 knots u can outrun them easlily enough

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I mainly just hate picking up the loot afterwards. I have a gally 252 resist and the rest damage and it just eats sotd but turning around for the loot takes forever and i have had people pick up loot from my golden age gally kills a few times. Either make it so only the person who kills it gets the loot or enable loot on kill like yeti kills.

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22 minutes ago, seruum said:

I mainly just hate picking up the loot afterwards. I have a gally 252 resist and the rest damage and it just eats sotd but turning around for the loot takes forever and i have had people pick up loot from my golden age gally kills a few times. Either make it so only the person who kills it gets the loot or enable loot on kill like yeti kills.

Yeah picking up loot Takes longer than killing stuff. Can understand the Frustration if u run a Cargo Gall tho. I helped myself with just using 10 Cannons on Cargo galls for those situations. And i rather have 1k less weight but a way safer travell, than loose everything because i took that 2 extra stacks Metall with me

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I totally agree with this  I don't know what they were thinking adding this into the game when they want more people to return.

If they really wanted it then put it in golden regions only but not every grid.

I have lost count at how many times I've ran into a fleet of them with galleons and if a galleon gets a hit on you it can be game over in smaller ships.

I'd be happy if there was none at all to be honest and rework how you get planks, cannons etc.

When the fog comes in I stop immediately until its gone but if i have heavy weight i go along the server wall if i can.

To many of these ships in the game, they are supposed to be rare not have fleets of them. 

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you need the sotd to keep you on your toes otherwise peole will just watch youtube vids while sailing. tho a 20-30 sec invul when crossing grids would be nice as ive lost a ship like this

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They were asked to remove the fogs - they did every hour. They were asked to remove typhoons - now typhoons are just in front of the ship, you cannot turn, the hero dies. Our administrator always conducts a survey before making changes.

Edited by Konvar

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On 6/17/2019 at 4:40 PM, Warspectre said:

Ever been sailing along, minding your own business, when all the sudden you're hit by fog or zone and you're faced with multiple SoD galleons, brigs, and schooners? Ever been blown to pieces by such an encounter, because there was no way to avoid it or react in time? Well, I have, and it sucks. 

Even before this happened I knew this whole SoD fleet thing was a bad idea. Individual SoDs were annoying as it was, but fleets have kicked that up way beyond annoying to the point where I got so pissed I had to log off for a while. Seriously, what was my unarmed schooner supposed to do in this scenario? Even if it was armed, it was still extremely out gunned and out numbered. 

About the only saving grace in this whole debacle is that schooners are easy to rebuild on 2x weekends, but it's still frustrating for a casual player like me that only plays maybe a few hours a week. 

I disagree.

Atm the sotd fleets get "bored" of you so fast, you have to literally stop and swivel on the spot to keep them aggro'd on you.  Unless you're afk sailing, sotd are absolutely no threat to you. 

Upgrade your ships planks for better defense.  Stay at the wheel to evade.

I will admit, that hitting a sotd fleet zoning in can be bad, last night I zoned into 2 galleons and 3 brigs, with 2 more brigs about 200m in.  All of them pumping hot iron at me and they did about 3k damage to my planks.  5k to one or two.

I just hit V on zoning.. and calmly turned full with the wind and sailed away.  The stopped at an island and repaired.. then carried on.

This is how bad it actually is now.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1773647042

I am fully stopped in the water and the sotd have lost aggro.  And they are literally just out of max cannon range for medium cannons.  If I could place large cannons on my chasers.. I could sink them whilst they were sailing "away" from me.

Edited by Martyn
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So, going to add a counter point here, specifically regarding the armed Schooner versus SotD and the fact I don't think it's actually that out matched. I have built a Schooner with 10 gunports and medium cannons only in gunports (1 large handling sail & 1 small speed sail). A majority of the items are ~110-115% quality (which is not difficult to obtain with gray & green blueprints). The ship is not "armored" up with a ton of ceilings/roofs, other than a hump in the middle of the deck. As the ship leveled up, I only put points into Damage and Resistance. I think it's sitting at about level 32 right now with ~140% resistance and ~225% damage (from memory).

I started out taking on fleets of SotD in my home grid and worked my way into a powerstone grid once I got 25+ levels on the ship. Keep in mind, I was solo with full NPC cannon crew. I have never lost a plank, a sail, or even a single one of my ceiling tiles. The only loss I've had so far was my NPC wheelman dying to cannon fire.

By no means am I an expert Captain and have definitely screwed up turns or other stupid stuff like forgetting to open your gunports... With that being said, agility is very valuable in avoiding cannon fire from SotD. By adjusting your direction and speed constantly (easier with a handling sail) you can avoid 75% or more of the incoming fire.

I'm sure there will be a point where the SotD levels are just to high for me to handle in just a lonely Schooner, but I've gotten a hella of a lot of mileage out of it so far. I do like the fleet mechanic because it is definitely more challenging and more loot drops from one engagement.

Resistance is a fantastic stat to invest in, even for your hauler ships. You will take drastically less damage from SotD when you do run into them (honestly they lose interest really quickly). I do also think that you should get a 30-45 second buff upon zoning that would prevent distance SotD aggro (cancelled if you fire upon them) just because loading lag is a fact of life.

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Sotd do seem to hang around on the boarders a lot. Enter a new zone at a 45 degree or less, at least you can escape back in to the zone you came from. Carry extra planks, plenty of mats in the resources box and make sure you have a repair hammer. oh and if your carrying animals make sure they are on passive, funny watching you elephant charge of you ship after a sotd...

Edited by eddy
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So what now, you are never supposed to lose anything in this game? A schooner takes no time to build, and is practically free.

Maybe you should not be sporting a name like WARSPECTRE :anchor:

If this game dies it will be because of snowflake posts like this.

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19 hours ago, Nutcutt3r said:

So what now, you are never supposed to lose anything in this game? A schooner takes no time to build, and is practically free.

Maybe you should not be sporting a name like WARSPECTRE :anchor:

If this game dies it will be because of snowflake posts like this.

You flatter me, snowflakes are intricate, complex, and beautiful, but I have a gf so don't be hitting on me any more, she might get jealous. As for the rest of your post, you seem to be indulging in hyperbole. 

Just to clarify though, my issues with SoD fleets are:

A) Most players don't sail around with fleets that I've noticed unless they happen to be in large companies, so why does it make sense to have SoD fleets? It is intrinsically unbalanced. The only purpose this could possibly serve is to encourage players to make cheese builds and use cheese tactics, or to grief players. 

B) I don't find fighting SoD particularly satisfying, they don't obey natural laws and aren't beholden to wind direction like players are, have 360 degree firing arcs, and you can't board their ships. But if I do fight them I'd prefer 1 v 1 if I'm in anything smaller than a galleon. In an Age of Sails type game I want to exchange proper broadsides with other sailing vessels.  

C) I get that I will sometimes lose things, it makes me angry sometimes but I deal with it. But if I am going to lose things I prefer it happen because I made a mistake, rather than I simply zoned, found myself surrounded and destroyed, and there was nothing I could do about it. That's not fun for me, there was no point to it other than to waste my time and resources. Games are supposed to be fun, and this ain't it.

 I would like to see SoD returned to single encounters, or at most 2 or 3 in a general area, not 6. If they want to put whole fleets in put them in areas that are indicated to be higher difficulty areas like the golden age ruins. I don't think that's unreasonable at all. 

I would also like to see proper NPC sailing ships that I can exchange broadsides with and fight the way actual ships fought historically. I get it's a fantasy game but SoD just aren't that interesting to fight for me. 

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Honestly fleets of sods arent an issue. As noted between agro dropoff and resistance they arent hard to handle.

The 30sec immunity at server crossings is a great idea though.

 

Would also love an easy way to pick up loot. At this point it is such a pita with a gally i just leave it all behind (bc lets be honest most of the time its useless anyways)

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A 30-45 sec timer where you are not attacked after crossing a zone would be ideal. Many fleets end up getting kitted to the edge of a zone naturally so having a grace period where you are not a target would be nice. 

My close call came on my brig after entering a golden age ruin zone and was flanked by two red galleys and a mixture of red and yellow brigs and schooners. I took HEAVY fire from the galleys and lost about 1/3 of my ceilings on my deck and countless hand rails and misc pieces. Luckily the ceiling my steering wheel was on held in there with a few hundred life and I ended up not loosing but 1 or 2 planks somehow. Although overall damage was massive but spread out just enough that I escaped to sail another day. 

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I still think its crazy when I'm doing a run for salt in an unarmed sloop to be mobbed by sotd,I think they should have an aggro meter that only kicks in if the passing ships are armed.

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17 minutes ago, Whitehawk said:

I still think its crazy when I'm doing a run for salt in an unarmed sloop to be mobbed by sotd,I think they should have an aggro meter that only kicks in if the passing ships are armed.

But that would mean anyone on PvE would be able to easily sail the seas without a care in the world. Pretty sure the Damned don't care if you're armed or not.

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Easy fix. Play with freinds. Or make friends. Have a freind you play with or make in game repair your things. 

Carry things that help your new freind repair your things. 

If you still lose those things rebuild them on 2x with your new freind.

This game is fun with freinds.

Edited by Polar Express

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