Black Powder barrels ruined the game

Just don't be near it? There's no reason to hate on EVERY SINGLE season (season 15 hated for being hunters call, season 13 the burning blade being op (got nerfed) season 14 LITERALLY got so many rants for no reason season 17 sure isn't the best but sure ain't bad, ofc they could've made some barriers for how to deliver them instead of second hand merchant runs but the barrels are nothing to worry about, if you stand beside the barrel ofc its gonna kill ya and sink your boat but simple if they place it under the front or middle (example on galleon) stand on the helm, if we're talking sloop have THE barrel in the captains quarters you'll gain 2 tier 3 holes thats it.

@priet-praat6806

I've heard a rumor that the barrels were primarily so streamers could have their fun with unsuspecting crews, but in reality, who knows? As for the damage they cause, I wouldn't be surprised if after the season is over, they're nerfed. If you'd like to, you can join the Insiders forums, and read the feedback testers submitted. Everything is archived, so nothing is hidden.

There are no more normal sea battles.

When has any Sea battle...been normal. Curse balls that can devastate you in a quick shot. :p

Whenever you approach another boat, there's someone in the water with a barrel.

Black Kegs or Normal/Mega Kegs? Either way they always do this.

Even when you win a battle, you might still lose due to barrels floating up and hitting your boat.

:/

As a crew you can simply start the game, spend half an hour to get a dozen barrels and that's all you need to do.

Well prepared crew with dangerous cargo..one small mistake, they are screwed themselves. It a double edge sword.

but due to the range of the explosion your boat is still gone.

Well played crew can, and have survived a Keg explosion. Even black kegs, as long someone is alive or both dup and you bucket!

Both Flameheart and the huge megalodons were great additions to the game. But this seasaon is utter failure.

Let not forget, BB can be an annoying ship vs solo crews or even newbie crews. Ancient Megs are also a pain if you aren't prepared or well informed how to deal with them. Saying this season is a failure..because your sinking by kegs. Silly.

Sorry to ask, but what were design and testing team doing?

"How can we make the game more exciting and move away from the old meta....EXPLOSIONS!"

So our suggestion: take those barrels out of the game asap. You are going to lose a lot of players if you don't. If you don't believe me, just read Steam of Reddit fora.

Might as well ask to have Curse balls removed, Firebombs removed, Bonecallers, Normal and Mega Kegs.
They are pretty much the same annoying thing...but players love them :P

Those Steam and Reddit posts are all the same, Bots/Alts of same person making complaints on a matter. Its Season 17 Act 1, they up the spawning of things. By Act 2? They will nerf them, sad but maybe.
Nobody gonna quit a game because of a feature makes everyone else laugh and enjoy the game again.

Just sounds like salty big ships crying.

How many small ships/solos have you stomped on doing world events or sailing about?

On the bright side if someone is in the water with the keg they don't have a grappling gun.

The good way to survive black keg is to be aware if its coming, and if you see its inevitable jump off your ship at full speed. And touch your mermaid the moment explosion happened. Only this way you will be able to survive.

@itzsage123 said in Black Powder barrels ruined the game:

season 14 LITERALLY got so many rants for no reason

Did you forget the part where they had to disable 2/3rds of the new content because of bugs

Honestly I'd say the keg is a great equalizer.

This game had been stagnant for a while and the new keg play has been shaking up that experience. I have had many times where I got too cocky after hunting a dozen of ships and paying the price of my hubris when I was chasing a noob ship and they had a blackpowder keg.

On the other side, even if your skill is low, at least now you can fight back against stronger players and bigger ships especially when they got overconfident.

As someone who primarily sloops, either solo or occasionally duo, I find that the black powder barrels are a fantastic equalizer.

I've lost count of how many times I've had a sweaty full crewed brig or galleon come at me hurling homophobic/racist insults and being toxic as all hell because they know a three or four on one fight is something that's easy for them.

One of my most recent fun things to do is to wear the merchant alliance or gold hoarder ship set, or something shiny from the emporium, put a merchant alliance or gold hoarder emissary up, and go sailing with a couple of barrels on board.

Bait sloops are amazing, and it tends to be like sharks to blood in the water. When the toxic ones come who know they outnumber you, there's nothing more satisfying than hearing them whine on voice when you introduce them to thermonuclear black powder.

In the face.

I’ve never had more fun with kegs, being blown up and getting to blow ships up, than with the new ones from this season! They’re so much fun and nuking everything is always so satisfying.

Sounds like you’re getting your tilted playing field evened out a little and you don’t like it. Tough, they’re fun and they’re here to stay!

@priet-praat6806

So we started a chase....We logged out andd decided to play less SoT until Season 17 finishes. It's no longer a game of practicing skills

Chase smarter - that is a skill you could practice!

Clearly the solution to this is keep a lateral distance from the track of the runner and yourself.
If you have the benefit of a crew ensure you have a bowsprit lookout scanning the seas. If a keg swimmer is spotted you can even anchor to ensure the paths don't cross.

Here you are blaming the tools when you ain't playing effectively.

we decided to go into an even matched fight with another Briggy. We had 30 minuten of old-fashioned fun. After about 30 mjnutes they dediced to run. Perhaps out of materials? So we started a chase. They circled some islands, found a black power barrel. Bye bye for us. No more ship.
We logged out andd decided to play less SoT until Season 17 finishes. It's no longer a game of practicing skills

See. It this that annoys me. You had a good fight almost one sided, so the enemy team decides to get creative or lucky and use a black keg to turn the tide and cause you to loose. Now your upset because “tools not rules” turned against you

1. you chased. That your fault.
2. it could of been worse. Maybe you got kraken and they turned and still won.

Stuff happens. It silly you blame the game, and when was there ever skill? Board/drop anchor/spawn kill. Skill? That the meta

@priet-praat6806 said in Black Powder barrels ruined the game:

So our suggestion: take those barrels out of the game asap. You are going to lose a lot of players if you don't. If you don't believe me, just read Steam of Reddit fora.

I feel they'll likely end up being rarer to find, similar to your traditional nuke. Then it wouldn't be an issue. Once that happens the seas will return to the regular.
For now tho, I'm enjoying the spicy gameplay and need to reconsider tactics.

Just experienced an epic moment

Two ships? Solo captains
Somehow, both had a black keg and sneaked to the other ship, used keg and blew up each ship…
Met on a small island and just look at each other XD

Kegs bring back the glory days of D1

@kethriss

The idea that a solo player should get an instant "I win" button that removes any and all balance between the ship classes as "revenge" for experiencing the exact risk:reward the ship classes are meant to provide is just silly.

There is no risk/reward in choosing a sloop - you choose to sail solo and as a result accept the risk. There is no reward to counterbalance that - other than it is more manageable than the larger ships which isn't a reward but a necessity.

With the boarding meta exacerbated by Grappling Gun cheez the life of a solo is made all the more hazardous.

Rather than crying about new tools big ships can adapt : chase smarter/don't chase, accept that parking at a stationary world events can be hazardous and keep their eyes open(or just sail round the event).

You Are Not Supposed To Be Able To Easily 1v4 A Coordinated Galleon As a Solo Slooper. Nothing in the game should exist that allows this. Not a single thing.

And even before the new kegs. Solo players were coming up with ways to easily take on. 4 man crew. Why?
Who today. Maybe the crew wasn’t ready, prepared for the unknown poorly managed. Solo ships took advantage of it.

“Not suppose too” . But we can and do.

@okustartalon said in Black Powder barrels ruined the game:

You Are Not Supposed To Be Able To Easily 1v4 A Coordinated Galleon As a Solo Slooper.

Yes you are. And not because of the blackpowder barrels.

PvP in this game is ship vs ship, crew vs crew.
Not individuals sailors vs individual sailors.

In any 1v1 situation, which means 1 ship vs 1 ship, 1 crew vs 1 crew, both sides should have an equal chance at victory. It doesn't matter which ships they are, or what the crew sizes are.

The game can only be considered balanced when a solo sloop is equally as likely to win against a 4 man gally as the 4 man gally is to win against the sloop.

@itzsage123 "jUsT dOn'T bE NeAr iT" If someone swims out to your boat with it and they are underwater deep enough to not be seen, and have eaten a merfruit, you have no way to know theyre there. Adding an instant loss button has been kinda detrimental to the game in my opinion. If I am anchored and someone kegrams me with the giga keg, my boat is sunk before I get back from the ferry because the explosive range of the new keg is larger than even a galleon. If it goes off on the ladder or the center of the ship, there is nowhere you can stand on any boat to survive the blast, and even if you could you would be flung off the boat, only potentially coming back in time to save it if you have a grapple gun. I am a veteran player, ally 465+, both PvP curses, 2000 hours played, 70% game completion. Every single encounter I have had with a giga keg has resulted in an instant loss with no chance to recover.

I could not agree more, the black powder barrels are too powerful for how abundant they are. The whole issue is that they do so much damage to a ship, kill practically everyone aboard said ship, and leave it demobilized due to taking down masts as well. If someone boards with one of those things which can be found EVERYWHERE, there is very little chance of actually saving the ship no matter the size. The reason why this is a problem is because this season is TERRIBLE and this was the only "new" thing Rare added and made it the central gimmick of the whole season, meaning they added them everywhere on small and big islands, on skelly ships, and you can spawn them on demand with the Smuggler's Run (read: reskinned Merchant Cargo Run). It is awful that these things are just a permanent part of the game now.

@solobrig5954 That won't fix the problem because you can just get one automatically doing the "new" voyage, you can't get stronghold or Athena kegs on demand but this gimmicky piece of bilge rat droppings is apparently the exception.

@the-old-soul800 Why, exactly, should the game be balanced around solo players? Why should solo players have an "equal" chance of winning against a ship 3 times their size?

@ajora6314

Ask yourself what are big ships doing to make themselves vulnerable to getting kegged?

Chasing directly behind a ship? Chase smarter. Or don't chase.
Sitting stationary at a world event? Maybe don't do that.

Big ships crying because they can't adapt to the KEQualiser and can't stomp smaller ships quite so consistently.

I kegged a Reaper galleon tonight that seemed to be quite happy to park by an Ashen Wind as I sailed by despite the fact we had been combating the last 30 minutes and they had happily pursued me from the event originally - no interest in completing the event of course, just chasing me for those 30 minutes.

Great fun!

Big ships can equally board the small ships with kegs.

ADAPT

@ajora6314 said in Black Powder barrels ruined the game:

@the-old-soul800 Why, exactly, should the game be balanced around solo players? Why should solo players have an "equal" chance of winning against a ship 3 times their size?

It's not balancing around solo players. It's balancing ships. It's accepting that one player unit is not one player, but the entire ship and its crew, and making sure they are balanced. Equal. One ship should not have an advantage over another ship, for any reason. A larger crew size would be an advantage, so something has to make up for it until the ships are equal.
The 4 man ship, the 3 man ship, the 2 man ship, and the 1 man ship should all be equally likely to win in a 1v1 (again, thats 1 ship vs 1 ship, 1 crew vs 1 crew), no matter which other ship + crew is being fought.
There is no basis for thinking you should be more likely to win just because your ship has more people on it than the enemy ship, and the game can't be called balanced or well designed if you are.

@huibuh34

Is the Black Keg in the room with us now?

bigger ship you dont deserve the win bc you won out if luck not out of skill

Au contraire, there was a shipwreck right next to the Ashen Winds that they had chased me from originally.
Game sense told there was kegs within it.
They could have taken them instead of chasing me for 30 minutes
I harpooned the pursing Galleon into the aptly named Galleons Grave outpost using the Sovvy harpoon (guess this was luck too) and used the time gained to retrieve the kegs from the aforementioned shipwreck.

If a 4 man crew wants to turn their ship into a sitting duck then that is a skill deficit.