SkyKevin

More changes than I expected and some really good ones in there. Especially the changes to kraken/yeti to make them repeatable. I can those becoming some awesome high traffic areas to get the pvp action going!

I think the npc's jumping ship like that is likely considered a 'bug' by all means and isn't the intended use for that mechanic. Once again, you can't kill swivels on a well-built ship from the top of the sails. There are ways to protect the swivels from any type of bow/crossbow/knives and grenades while still having full coverage of your ship deck. Sure you can use cannon tames to plank ships and take out puckles, I don't think anyone is arguing otherwise. But the conversation is about an actual ship boarding meta that currently barely exists. If you we're to take npc's off swivels on boats it would only lend to the pirating experience and take away the easymode secure feeling of sailing a ship by yourself.

If the NPC's can push you off of a ship while its moving grappling to the side of anything less than a galleon would simply delay your boarding effort considering you can't medkit or grenade or regain stamina while grappled. Imagine if players had to defend their ships against other players oooo scary thought. There are ways to even the odds against attackers by using things like windows and doorways or even walls as killboxes and choke points to beat players that outnumber you on a ship. These builds just don't exist right now because the meta is simply to keep a nice big open deck with swivels on either side.

I've been fighting large scale battles against some of the top companies from both NA and China against players geared to the teeth. I think you misunderstand that I'm talking about removing npc manned swivels so boats that are out on the water pvping can be boarded. The difference between boarding a boat thats sitting still in a harbour and out on the water moving is completely different. However, I'll take the assumption your boat is in the harbour. Tell me how someone is going to sink your boat in a harbour defended with puckles and ballista? you mention they'll bring a few cannon tames or use tons of flame arrows.... well deck swivels don't do anything to stop a cannon bear. Flame? That hasn't done more than 10 dmg to a plank since they super nerfed it in season 1! killing random griefers is a daily occurrence for my company 5-10 guys with journeyman+ gear and cannon bears. They have never sunk a single ship in our harbour with those "guerilla tactics" because the anchor buff makes responding to a grief incredibly difficult. You would have to have complete control of someones harbour to stop them from popping planks back onto a ship that you're trying to slowly cannon down with a tame. We're talking a single galleon plank taking like 50 cannonball shots from a tame and then a few minutes later you walk up and drop a replacement plank down and hit it with a hammer. I've done both attacking and defending and defending is 10x easier. The advantage you have to being the one in a harbour with puckles and green anchored boats will be no problem whatsoever. We have deck swivels but we don't rely on them to defend the ships. It doesn't really matter if someone gets on your ship and kills the npc's because players have NO WAY of sinking a green anchored boat without the help of some sort of cannon being shot at the boat. Boarding is and should simply be a meta for disabling a ship from the top deck so that your ship can come by and sink it. players learning to use bows, crossbows and throwing knives? I don't know anyone in any of the top companies that use any of those things because they are literal garbage against a geared player. Lastly, to your point about how to board someone... If you grapple from the top of your large speed sail onto the top of their large speed sail there is still a distance that your character will fall before you can move up the grapple to the top mast. If you are any lower than the first platform on a large speed sail you will be shot by a npc swivel and die before you can climb up even with ships being side by side. BUT lets say you do end up on the top mast of an enemy ship. You then have to use grenades to kill the deck swivels if you want to take over the ship. You can't do that if the swivels are hidden/covered. A proper build makes even that already difficult meta completely useless.

I think you're missing the point entirely, swivels need to be nerfed/taken off of boats. The fact that people rely so heavily on them to defend their boat when there are many other avenues is a clear example of that.

I think what you guys are saying is that if you didn't have swivels to insta kill people on your ship, you would end up losing in a swordfight to higher skilled players. I don't see anything wrong with that.

Very good idea, yes, yes, yes

Any ship Schooner or bigger takes over a day to claim. It's far more likely that someone will just shoot one of your planks and sink your ship that way. The system needs a buff. I would suggest shorten the claim timer for unanchored ships but keep the claim timer duration for green anchored ships OR as Mike said earlier in this thread, allow some way for people to control enemy ships whether its sails/wheel so that you can spend the 2+ days moving the boat somewhere safe that you can claim it. If someone were to steal my schooner, brig or galleon I could simply sail a raft over to where it was left and scuttle it with the current timers the way they are.

I'm sorry but the only "armed crew members" are a few swivels on the ship deck that insta 1 shot you when you jump on board. If you think it should be impossible to board a ship then you wouldn't want this changed. You also don't get a free ship if you board them, you actually have to have some way to sink it once you've boarded and the only way to do that is with another ship or cannon bear nearby. The claiming mechanic is a joke (8 hours for sloop - 3 days for galleon) so there's no way you would be able to actually capture the ship. I agree you could change it so swivels won't work on moving ships, I just know that requires more coding and changes than simply hitting a "disable" button. I disagree about boarding though, Armored NPC's actually take a lot of sword strikes to kill, if you have 10 of them surrounding you in plate armor with swords in their hands in the small confines of a ship deck you will find they can last quite a while. I just think the meta hasn't really realized it because there's no need to put plate armor and weapons on all your npc's when you just have 1 naked npc on a swivel which 1 shots anything it sees.

Yea losing a mythic galleon because a bunch of guys boarded you would suck, but at the same time, there's no reason you should ever have 1 guy manning an entire mythic galleon by himself. I stated in the original post, once this meta becomes a thing it actually means having player crew members ready to defend would become important and you can always lean on gearing up your ship npc's as well to fight on your behalf (thats the N key when your on the captains wheel). I don't think you would have to man a swivel for someone your entire ship battle, just whenever you get boarded you might jump on one. I think it would also affect the way ships are built, you might make more straight hallways as a choke point for people to be easier to shoot. I know that sinking ships using ships is obviously the main meta of the game and they're trying to fix the exploitable way, but they could just simply disable npc's on swivels (the same way they did in season 1 for horse and bear swivel carts) and it would fix everything and make the pvp once again more player-driven.

I don't think it's necessarily broken to be fighting someone on a ship with swords. Good job sinking 4 brigs with a sword and glider because that wouldn't happen if a ship had real swivels. As to your other point, I haven't tried crossbows on NPC's which is interesting, but they make ships with swivels hidden behind doorways so you wouldn't be able to shoot them anyway (same as grenades). So how do you go about any kind of boarding meta when the only way to truly "board" a ship is to erase their entire deck with a boat? I think your last statement is the perfect reason why boarding is necessary, If you're against a mythical gally, the best thing to do may be to board it and kill the captain/crew. Right now it's nearly impossible to do because the swivels can be hidden and cover every inch of the ship.

Carbine's don't work on swivel NPC's anymore, they have to be melee'd or use grenades/canister shot. Additionally, people are able to hide NPC's in doorways that allow them to shoot out but not be shot or grenaded themselves. Npc's already can sit on puckles/balista's/catapults for base defense. There are ways to build a ship that is completely impervious to this sort of thing, you can't get up to someone's top mast with a grappling hook because you will simply be shot by a swivel on the way up. You can try to glide but it's very glitchy and unreliable.

TLDR: Npc's on swivels are broken, disable them to be mounted onto swivels. I've talked to a few people on this subject from different companies now and pretty much everyone agrees, please remove NPC's from being able to sit on swivels. Having a device that can be placed behind a doorway on a boat makes ship boarding difficult if not impossible. It's something that either needs to be policed as a bug (along with putting the captain's wheel inside a box) or taken out of the game. The easiest way to fix this problem would simply be to not allow NPC's to man swivels. That way, you can still defend your ship but you need a player to jump on the swivel if someone boards your ship. I think it would at a much more interesting design to ships in consideration for where you might need a swivel placed to create a "kill box". Additionally, it opens up a myriad of different ways in which you can attack a ship (especially with the new harpoon changes). I could get close to an enemy ship and have a few of my crewmates jump over to the other side to engage the enemy in swordplay on their deck, meanwhile its chaos as the captains are still fighting on the wheel to shoot cannonballs at eachother while the melee breaks out on either or both of the ships. This would lead to a new meta when it comes to NPC's making them more useful for fighting. Now the CODE RED button actually would mean something as if someone jumps on your ship you may decide its time to get your cannoneers to focus on the problems on your deck. This also creates a new meta of actually arming your NPC's with gear and swords. Currently, people just put ncp's on stations without any kind of gear on to save weight. Instead people might keep an extra reserve of npc's with gear on board just in case someone manages to glide on to their ship. Even when it comes to giving your NPC's new stat upgrades it would make a huge difference between fighting a level 100 with a bunch of additional melee damage and an upgraded sword vs the current meta which is simply all npc's are leveled into health as they will never leave their station. At the very least, npc's on swivels should be taken off of ships. I understand the intent especially for using them on another boat, but I think that it would make the game far more interesting and pirate-like to have people grappling over to your side to get in a scrum. Lastly, I wanted to touch on swivels on the ground. This is more of an optional change as I don't want to take away from the main issue which is swivels on ships. In that same right, however, I think that swivels have no place on the ground being manned by NPC's either. When it comes to base defense you can use puckles, catapults, and harpoons for defenses. The reason I find this so irritating is that people are building large bases on top of pillars that even if you manage to climbing pick your way to the top, they have full swivel coverage that stops you from being able to actually do anything. At least with puckles you can tank a few hits and find a position to use your grenades. With swivels, it's 1 shot and you're done. I''m open to any other input people may have regarding this, but I think it would make this game quite a lot better if we were to take NPC's off swivels and let players actually have some pirating fun. I hope the dev's see this as they don't often seem to care about posts on this forum. But hopefully someone will be able to catch their ear!

They literally have skills in the game devoted to instantly using medkits to heal in a pinch as well as making it easier to use them...

A green anchored brig takes over a day to claim. If you have swivels on deck its even harder for them to drop a flag down. If you abhor the tax/protection system then it's your responsibility to defend your boats 24/7. If you don't want people to offline grief you, then claim an island or go live as a tax tribe on another one. There are plenty of vacant islands in the game right now that you can easily claim. You don't get to live on an island that requires 0 upkeep and have the luxury of invulnerable ships for 15+ hours a day. You don't get both. Ai do suck though.