Ship to ship combat needs love

  • doctorfork
    Master

    One of the things I loved about the game from the beginning was ship to ship combat. It's on all the trailers, and it really calls to mind epic sea battles. But...the sad reality is that ship to ship battles where a ship is sunk by another ship from any distance are exceptionally rare and only seem to ever occur in solo sloop vs solo sloop fights.

    Anecdotally, I'd say about 3/4 of most ship to ship fights end with an anchor drop. Tactically, it makes perfect sense. If you manage to launch a pirate or two near the other ship, they can drop the anchor and then your ship is subject to cannons when your attackers return or when they spawn camp your crew on respawn. Effectively, in most fights, the anchor being dropped ends it. The attackers can then turn the fight into a melee(which can turn into just spawn camping) while the attacking crewmates pepper the prone ship with cannons. Boarding a ship is low risk/high reward, so it makes sense it's the most common tactic.

    This is a huge problem, as it turns cannon attacks from a distance into a complete waste of time unless the ship has been boarded. Now that two attackers can theoretically keep reviving each other, it makes it even easier to simply sit on top of a crew that's trying to fight onboard a sinking ship when their attacker already has the jump on them during spawn.

    The other portion of this problem is that every crew has enough boards to plug any hole, so cannon shots from a distance are of no consequence at all. Extremely rare now is the crew that runs out of supplies, since they're everywhere. This takes away any motivation to try and hit a ship without immobilizing it in some way first since an average crew can have the whole ship patched up and bailed in under 2 minutes if only one person is steering them out of harm's way.

    What I propose are two fixes.

    1. When an attacker is defeated while they're waiting to go back to the ship of the damned the defending crew can interrupt before they despawn and send them to the brig where they remain until they can break out with a 60 second timed action or are shot to the death by the crew again. (Second death is an auto send to SotD)

    2. Cannon shots after the 4th hit in the same spot before patching can still be repaired, but going forward that spot has a minor leak(think second deck style leak) that cannot be fixed by anything but an outpost's shipwright for a minor fee.

    The two of these fixes together would

    1. add some degree of tangible risk to a boarding attempt
    2. institute a real sense of emergency when the ship takes damage of any sort

    Should boarding and anchor dropping still be a valid attack? Of course, but it should be balanced with other forms of attack so ship to ship combat is somewhat multi-dimensional.

    I'd love to hear thoughts on this. I've been playing since launch and I was really hoping emissary would change this, but it's only made the problem worse.

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  • dyfrin
    Master
    Insider
    Founder

    Realism in sailing/maneuverability is not present, instead giving players more control of the vessel, thus creating instances where battles like in trailer are only really done with the skele ships that actually want to go broadside with you.
    They aren't shooting for realism, or completely abstract fantasy, they use this "fantastical" term to mean, playable, fantasy, semi realistic game. I think that is their order of importance, keeping it a playable game, in this pirate fantasy setting, and making it as realistic as gameplay allows.

  • Nabberwar
    Lord
    Insider

    If Sea of Thieves wants to incentivize more ship v ship combat, they would have an easier time encouraging it by making people want to stay on their boat. That being said, if we look at the state of the game since Day 1, being able to sink a ship without actually leaving your ship is so much easier than it was back then. So this idea of Ship v Ship combat not getting love is somewhat untrue. Every new munition type is another step closer to this, especially chain-shot. I'd even argue that Revive has also encouraged people to remain as well, if you die on their ship you can't return to the fight as quick as you would had you died on your own ship with teammates nearby.

    If we want a Meta shift, I think we would have an easier time with nerfing Repairs and bucketing. I've been saying this since day 1, it is way to easy to keep a ship afloat. Since bucketing and patching are relatively easy to do, it makes boarding pretty much required to interrupt that process. In my entire career of playing this game, no competent crew I've faced has gone done to cannons alone. So the suggestions I would present are the following

    1. Buckets haul less water.
    2. Patching takes longer.
    3. Water flows faster through holes.

    These three simple changes will have drastic effects. Making it so trading fire with a ship has more consequences will make people second guess that boarding attempt. Now boarding and having 1 less person aboard has tangible consequences. This also rewards better ship positioning and aim. Having a better cannon trade is just more rewarding.

    To comment on your proposed changes, I'm not really for them. The brig suggestion falls flat, because people don't like their autonomy taken. It would be different if they voluntarily did it like some RP server, but people rarely want to spend time idle when they could be adventuring. The other change with the slow leak just sounds like an annoying mechanic. It again goes into autonomy removal, having to go out of your way just to fix something just sounds annoying. If I just won a fight over a Fort, for example, the last thing I want to do is stop clearing the fort just to go to an outpost. All that does is give more time to the loser in that fight to return back and contest again. Mechanics like this just add annoyance rather than improvements in my opinion.

  • Taternuggets
    Master
    Insider

    @nabberwar So you want every kraken, meg, and skelly ship encounter to be fatal? Because that's what your suggested changes would result in.

  • Nabberwar
    Lord
    Insider

    @taternuggets

    @nabberwar So you want every kraken, meg, and skelly ship encounter to be fatal? Because that's what your suggested changes would result in.

    Nothing of the sorts, these encounters are already a breeze to begin with. These encounters also already scale with ship type. The type of people would sink to these encounters, are the type of people would would sink to just cannon-fire alone. Competent crews don't sink to environmental threats.

    Edit: Also, having the water flow and repairing nerfed, has an equal effect on Skeleton ships. Meg can be ignored by just going near shore. Kraken would be the only threat that gets a buff over this.

  • D3ADST1CK
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    I find it kind of odd that there is a focus on attackers being revived, but nothing said of defenders being revived. Defenders being revived makes it much quicker to get people back on bailing and repair actions, which makes it even harder to sink ships. There seems to be an ulterior motive here.

    @Nabberwar is right - the reason people board is because unless you interrupt the bailing and repair cycle, you will never sink a competent crew unless they manage to run out of supplies. A single bucket removes a ton of water (in fact, it removes more from a ship than you can gather from bucketing in the sea).

    Fights would take hours.

    If it took longer to repair and bail, people would be less inclined to leave the ships because they need to be there to keep up with bailing and repair, and damage to a ship would have real potential to sink it.

  • doctorfork
    Master

    @d3adst1ck said in Ship to ship combat needs love:

    I find it kind of odd that there is a focus on attackers being revived, but nothing said of defenders being revived. Defenders being revived makes it much quicker to get people back on bailing and repair actions, which makes it even harder to sink ships. There seems to be an ulterior motive here.

    @Nabberwar is right - the reason people board is because unless you interrupt the bailing and repair cycle, you will never sink a competent crew unless they manage to run out of supplies. A single bucket removes a ton of water (in fact, it removes more from a ship than you can gather from bucketing in the sea).

    Fights would take hours.

    If it took longer to repair and bail, people would be less inclined to leave the ships because they need to be there to keep up with bailing and repair, and damage to a ship would have real potential to sink it.

    The ulterior motive is not that ulterior-it's to discourage boarding as a be-all end-all of naval combat, by making it harder to end combat by getting onboard a ship and dropping the anchor. Since there's no penalty for being killed onboard a defender's ship it makes it so there's no reason NOT to board. eg, if you get killed, you're just returned back to your ship where you can do other ship tasks or start the boarding process again. I've also thought that maybe making the action to drop an anchor be a little longer than a single button tap, as that's comically easy.

    The way I see it, boarding + anchor drop should be much less than 25% of the way most combats end, and unfortunately it's the exact opposite. The vast majority should be a result of cannonfire and good sailing / crew coordination.

  • D3ADST1CK
    Vanguard
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    @doctorfork said in Ship to ship combat needs love:

    The ulterior motive is not that ulterior-it's to discourage boarding as a be-all end-all of naval combat, by making it harder to end combat by getting onboard a ship and dropping the anchor. Since there's no penalty for being killed onboard a defender's ship it makes it so there's no reason NOT to board. eg, if you get killed, you're just returned back to your ship where you can do other ship tasks or start the boarding process again. I've also thought that maybe making the action to drop an anchor be a little longer than a single button tap, as that's comically easy.

    The way I see it, boarding + anchor drop should be much less than 25% of the way most combats end, and unfortunately it's the exact opposite. The vast majority should be a result of cannonfire and good sailing / crew coordination.

    You're ignoring the entire reason people board other ships. It's not possible to sink a ship without interrupting the bailing and repairing because these actions are way too effective.

    Why don't you have any problem with defenders reviving each other on their own ships; that only makes it harder to sink ships and thus makes boarding even more necessary? Why haven't you looked at the amount of water you can bail out by yourself, or how quickly you can repair holes? Surely these should be the main contributing factors to sinking a ship and not whether another player is on board or not.

    If you want to incentivize players to stay on their own ships, you don't do that by adding additional rules and features. You look at why they are leaving their ships in the first place. The answer is simple - it's way too easy to keep ships afloat without outside interference.

    The reason for this is likely to keep the game somewhat beginner friendly. Rare has taken steps to make it much easier to sink another ship without boarding them at all; cursed cannonballs, firebombs, and chainshot are all part of that initiative. I think ship combat is currently fine as-is.

  • doctorfork
    Master

    @nabberwar said in Ship to ship combat needs love:

    So the suggestions I would present are the following

    1. Buckets haul less water.
    2. Patching takes longer.
    3. Water flows faster through holes.

    These three simple changes will have drastic effects. Making it so trading fire with a ship has more consequences will make people second guess that boarding attempt. Now boarding and having 1 less person aboard has tangible consequences. This also rewards better ship positioning and aim. Having a better cannon trade is just more rewarding.

    To comment on your proposed changes, I'm not really for them. The brig suggestion falls flat, because people don't like their autonomy taken. It would be different if they voluntarily did it like some RP server, but people rarely want to spend time idle when they could be adventuring. The other change with the slow leak just sounds like an annoying mechanic. It again goes into autonomy removal, having to go out of your way just to fix something just sounds annoying. If I just won a fight over a Fort, for example, the last thing I want to do is stop clearing the fort just to go to an outpost. All that does is give more time to the loser in that fight to return back and contest again. Mechanics like this just add annoyance rather than improvements in my opinion.

    I like these ideas. As for taking away autonomy, I agree to an extent, but to another degree-that's the risk. If people didn't want to lose their autonomy, they'd stay away from combat entirely for fear of being sent to the SotD.

    I think the thing about water flowing faster(and this was a patch from maybe a year ago, I think) is the first, second, third shots to the same spot. That's why I was thinking about a fourth shot having a permanent effect. The real reason I was thinking a permanent effect is that it would encourage a fight to continue instead of creating a scenario where one ship just sails away after trading a few shots with no satisfactory ending.

    Also, I should point out that I've been leveled quickly and effectively by a ship from a short distance that used chain shot and fire shot to cripple us almost immediately. We gave that crew a round of applause from the deck of our sinking ship when we spawned back in. So yeah, there are new mechanics that are helping.

  • doctorfork
    Master

    @d3adst1ck said in Ship to ship combat needs love:

    @doctorfork said in Ship to ship combat needs love:

    The ulterior motive is not that ulterior-it's to discourage boarding as a be-all end-all of naval combat, by making it harder to end combat by getting onboard a ship and dropping the anchor. Since there's no penalty for being killed onboard a defender's ship it makes it so there's no reason NOT to board. eg, if you get killed, you're just returned back to your ship where you can do other ship tasks or start the boarding process again. I've also thought that maybe making the action to drop an anchor be a little longer than a single button tap, as that's comically easy.

    The way I see it, boarding + anchor drop should be much less than 25% of the way most combats end, and unfortunately it's the exact opposite. The vast majority should be a result of cannonfire and good sailing / crew coordination.

    You're ignoring the entire reason people board other ships. It's not possible to sink a ship without interrupting the bailing and repairing because these actions are way too effective.

    I agree with this. This is why I paired the idea with a passive leak for damaged hulls, but I like the tweaks @Nabberwar suggested re: modifying patch/bail rates.

    Why don't you have any problem with defenders reviving each other on their own ships; that only makes it harder to sink ships and thus makes boarding even more necessary? Why haven't you looked at the amount of water you can bail out by yourself, or how quickly you can repair holes? Surely these should be the main contributing factors to sinking a ship and not whether another player is on board or not.

    Both ships play the role of "attacking" and "defending" in ship to ship combat. It's only if you're on the other ship. But the reason I think it's a problem is because there's no risk in terms of time lost by launching a boarder, which is far easier to do from a distance than hitting with a cannon shot. From long range, it's much easier to send a crew member or two over and into the water to board and then perform an anchor drop, which leads to a ship being crippled. And if they fail in their mission? No harm, no foul-they're just back on their boat and able to launch over again.

    If you want to incentivize players to stay on their own ships, you don't do that by adding additional rules and features. You look at why they are leaving their ships in the first place. The answer is simple - it's way too easy to keep ships afloat without outside interference.

    The reason for this is likely to keep the game somewhat beginner friendly. Rare has taken steps to make it much easier to sink another ship without boarding them at all; cursed cannonballs, firebombs, and chainshot are all part of that initiative. I think ship combat is currently fine as-is.

    I can see that argument that's it gotten easier, but I still see boarding as an overwhelming end to most combats. Tweaking the bail/repair cycle would help as well, but a few holes in the ship shouldn't be a death sentence either. A successful anchor drop is often a fatal blow.

  • D3ADST1CK
    Vanguard
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    Founder

    @doctorfork said in Ship to ship combat needs love:

    Both ships play the role of "attacking" and "defending" in ship to ship combat. It's only if you're on the other ship. But the reason I think it's a problem is because there's no risk in terms of time lost by launching a boarder, which is far easier to do from a distance than hitting with a cannon shot. From long range, it's much easier to send a crew member or two over and into the water to board and then perform an anchor drop, which leads to a ship being crippled. And if they fail in their mission? No harm, no foul-they're just back on their boat and able to launch over again.

    This is a bit disingenuous. There is definitely time lost by a failed board; if you get killed you need to wait to respawn and if you miss the board completely you need to grab a mermaid. During this time your ship is shorthanded so that's one less person able to bail, repair or shoot cannonballs. That's an opportunity that should be capitalized on.

  • dyfrin
    Master
    Insider
    Founder

    I feel the overall reason people do not engage in combat, is one side has treasure they put time into obtaining, that they don't want to lose. People with loot don't go looking for a fight, rather to avoid and do drop offs to sell what they can.

    If a non emissary ship comes attacking, there is no gain from your risk to fight back, hoping to sink them.

    There should be some compensation for fending off an attack by sinking the attacker.

    The flags were a good idea, but it's not present on all ships, perhaps every ship should have one?

  • Nabberwar
    Lord
    Insider

    @dyfrin
    Yes, you keep the loot. Here is the compensation you are looking for. You are already compensated as a Emissary with the multiplier you receive. Attacking as a non-emissary is lower risk, but they don't get the multiplier like you do. They also risk their ship in the attack, and a supplied ship is quite the valuable commodity. Sinking a ship with low supplies shouldn't be a struggle anyways. Its low risk, but it also has a low chance of succeeding considering how easy it is to sink a no supplies ship.

  • Xxarchangel13xX
    Seafarer
    Insider

    I like this thread so much it made me log in to reply. I have been playing since launch but I play casually with my friends. We enjoy the game and the combat and everything but getting into a fight with people who just board with an explosive barrel is super annoying. In the beginning, there was a need to come up with strategy on the fly which kept it fun and interesting. Ship battles took longer than 5 seconds but not hours and hours. I like the suggestions about making the repair process a little longer and the water in the buckets not being as much - I think with some tweaking and discussion it could really be fine tuned. But what about taking the boarding process itself and making it a little harder? Jumping into the water and grabbing onto a ladder is super easy, making it super easy to bring an explosive barrel, drop anchor, taking resources, etc. what about the ability to pull up the ladders? This would make it much more difficult to board a ship, i.e. having to get right up next to it and jumping on, perhaps adding a rope swing option from crows nest and trying to time a swing perfectly, maybe crippling the ships mast with a chain shot then having a board that a crew member has to drop onto the opposing ships deck to board, and lastly, using the harpoon in an attempt to get lucky and pull the rope ladder off in order TO board from the water. This would make ship on ship battles MUCH more prevalent with awesome tactics and strategy to get to the point where you could board. Pairing that with these special cannon balls could make things interesting. Then, pvp would be more for land battles and only when another ship is crippled and the whole enemy team has boarded, then team vs team. You could add an option like AC Odyssey where once a ship is crippled you hold the X button to board, setting up the team vs team battle. This would be a last ditch effort for the loser of the ship battle to defend. Their reward would be time to separate the attacking ship, repair their own, heal up etc.

    Also, I love the idea about using the brig. Why even have it if you don't use it. At launch, we thought it funny to put our team mate in it like one time, now who even uses them? Using my last suggestion and the suggestion of someone else in the thread, say the defending team DOES defeat the attackers when they board. Then, the have the option to send them to the brig to delay them going to the SotD thus rewarding them with more time to fix up their ship. The attackers could have the same option - sending the defenders to their brig - giving more time to search and take loot, disengage, and leave the losing boat behind.

  • Nabberwar
    Lord
    Insider

    @xxarchangel13xx

    umping into the water and grabbing onto a ladder is super easy, making it super easy to bring an explosive barrel, drop anchor, taking resources, etc. what about the ability to pull up the ladders?

    Adding retractable ladders opens a can of worms. It brings many other problems in the game. Having easy access to the ship is still necesary in this game.

    First, the game's current state requires interfering with the Repair and Bail cycle. Without this, you risk fights going stagnate with no crew getting a ship into a position to properly sink.

    Second, the ladders are a great tool for a variety of strategies. Giving a crew the ability to lift them pretty much means they will never lower them, thus removing stealth almost entirely from the game. Stealth is an important aspect that can sometimes be the equalizer for small ships taking on bigger ones. By having them always up, you essentially create a ship that only the crew has access to. Stealth is fun and I wish to preserve it.

    Third, is your removing a process without replacing it with something. Boarding without ladders is hard excluding a ram strategy. Boarding via cannons is completely unreliable. Its just silly to take away a process without implementing something to replace it or counter it.

    Fourth, getting knocked of your own ship with no method besides a mermaid to get back on is absolutely horrible. Now with Blunder bombs, imagine an Anchored ship with the crew knocked off. What more can you do besides swim away from your ship to trigger a mermaid?

  • Xxarchangel13xX
    Seafarer
    Insider

    @nabberwar all good counters! I think that is why there needs to be some discussion.

    I agree to it possibly opening a can of worms. But I think something also needs to be done to enhance ship v ship battles and this kind of discussion could be a starting point for that.

    I was thinking about the ladder risks that you mentioned on my drive home. Maybe make it so an enemy can interact with it, like hold the X button down to lower it or something. So during ship combat it would make it impossible to pull down from the water, but if the ship is docked at an island or something then an enemy would still have the ability to board, still preserving stealth aspect. I agree with you 100% that stealth needs to be preserved as I use it a lot too. I like the combat, but in my group I'm less helpful when it comes to fighting so I need to rely on mainly on my stealth. I feel like adding retractable ladders would simply add an element to help with ship battles, making them a bigger part of the game rather than just a few minute thing if one team is better at climbing up than the other. I also agree that aside from ramming the enemy there wouldn't be a real way to board. That's why I also suggested adding in mast ropes for swinging or something to that effect. This would make one ship have to get closer to the other to attempt a board, making for a risky maneuver, similar with ramming. I would think that this would be more challenging than just leaving a guy in the water to climb a ladder. It would help offset the risk/reward that someone mentioned before where it is very low risk to try and send someone to the other ship but if they get it then they can essentially cripple the other team by hitting one button to drop anchor or explode the ship and crew with a barrel. With such high reward, there SHOULD be a bit more risk involved. Making it a bit harder to get on board another ship while it is moving would add to that risk: if I miss, will my team or ship be hurt by my absence? If so, I should stay and help fight. If not, then I'll attempt it. If I miss, maybe try again. If the ship gets too close, will there be more cannon damage than we can sustain? If so, maybe find another strategy.

    It sounded to me like people boarding ships was one of the more...annoying features mentioned at the start of this thread. If you take that particular aspect of the game now and change it in someway, such as retractable ladders, more damage from cannons, less bail-ability from buckets, then you can deter people from using that over and over again and adopt new tactics.

  • dyfrin
    Master
    Insider
    Founder

    @nabberwar said in Ship to ship combat needs love:

    @dyfrin
    Yes, you keep the loot. Here is the compensation you are looking for. You are already compensated as a Emissary with the multiplier you receive.

    I am missing where a non reaper bones emissary grade 2+ with loot has reason to turn and fight a ship chasing. You risk flag, loot, for what?

  • Ultimate Powa
    Master
    Insider
    Founder

    @doctorfork
    Hit them below the waterline.

    Do this with 4 cannons in a broadside, with one cannon aiming for the other cannons, and the ship will sink within 20-30 seconds.

  • Accatitippi
    Rogue

    Bailing is repetitive and boring, in my opinion it would be bad to nerf it.
    Repairing taking a bit longer otoh feels very reasonable, maybe also adding a fourth level hole that takes some real effort to patch.

    And lastly I hate to say it because it's one of the most characteristic and exhilarating things in SoT, but reducing the cannon shooting distance for pirates might help too. Doesn't need to be much, maybe 25%, but even half of what is possible now would be a reasonable distance. Considering that pirate shooting doesn't need to be super accurate to commence a boarding (though accuracy helps), right now for long distances it's easier to engage a ship by shooting boarders in its path than it is by hitting it with cannons.

  • doctorfork
    Master

    @ultimate-powa said in Ship to ship combat needs love:

    @doctorfork
    Hit them below the waterline.

    Do this with 4 cannons in a broadside, with one cannon aiming for the other cannons, and the ship will sink within 20-30 seconds.

    Well...that assumes nobody is actively repairing/bailing, which means you're sinking the noobiest of noob ships(or one that's completely abandoned). I'm talking about actual two way ship combat.

    The key issue is that if you're not able to line up good shots and interrupt the repair cycle the board/anchor drop combination is far and away the most effective way to cripple a ship from any distance within cannon range so you can then line up easy shots. A moderately skilled crew can patch and bail faster than damage can be inflicted, even if sailing in a perfectly parallel broadside.

  • A Ravens Cry
    Marauder
    Insider

    Here's a bit of a crazy idea.

    What about adding a 'lock' to the anchor? The ship crew can lock/unlock the anchor as they see fit. While it's locked, the anchor cannot be dropped. It would take a few seconds for the crew to actually lock/unlock it, so as not to spam it. Whatever time it takes, boarders would need double the time to break the lock. Say, if it takes four seconds to lock the anchor, a boarder would need eight. Time can vary. And when a lock is broken, it would need to be repaired.

    In this way, one person can't necessarily sabotage an entire fight by making it across and dropping anchor. Boarding would still be a thing, but more strategy and skill would be required. Say, actually landing cannon shots on the capstan to break it. One person guarding, while another breaks the lock to drop anchor.

  • Accatitippi
    Rogue

    @ghost-of-rhyza
    That's definitely another area one can look at. Maybe a simple increase in time needed to drop anchor would be sufficient.

  • DiabeuZPiekla
    Seafarer

    @accatitippi @Ghost-of-Rhyza Actually even simpler implementation would be to let ship move if the anchor is raised at least a bit. That way the ship remains grounded only as long as the anchor is actively guarded by the boarder.

    It would also contribute to realism as it's pretty silly the anchor must be raised completely for a ship to move.

  • doctorfork
    Master

    Another thought:

    What about a new item in the same vein to discourage the boarding cycle-a chum bucket. You throw chum in the water and 2-3 sharks appear near where it was thrown. For each successive use in a short period of time it increases a chance to spawn a meg(assuming you're in open water)

  • Vaca Hombre
    Champion
    Boatswain
    Founder

    @doctorfork said

    Ship to ship combat needs love

    I agree!

    We should be able to fire flowers and chocolates over to the other ship. Hugging should be the new aim of boarders. Glitter bombs to glam each other up and really.....

    Oh. You didn't mean that kinda love, did you?

    Nevermind.

  • Captain Fejk
    Ship Mate
    Insider

    There is nothing Rare can do to increase range between ships fighting each other. That might be a shocking news, but it's just how it works. Smaller distance = more precise cannons + faster boarding. There is nothing that could change it

  • ViperishEmu2992
    Marauder

    Ship to Ship does need more love. It's what sets this game apart from so many other similar games. 90% of Ship Fights are decided by boarding. That detracts from actual sailing-tactics, teamwork and cannoning skills. Just get a few of your guys on their ship before they do the same and VICTORY is yours.

    Retractable ladders would make boarding more skill based and less common, leading to more cannon battles. Smaller crews would also be more likely to engage in a fight (rather than running away) with larger crews.

  • Stundorn
    Castaway
    Insider
    Founder

    @doctorfork
    Tractable ladders would end the boarding meta and it would make boarding a maneuver and skillfull by shooting yourself on anothers deck or you have to come nearby or ram (what imho is allways a bad move what leads not to winning, but sinking if the other crew knows what to do).
    Sinking a ship then would be way more depend on ship combat and maneuver skills, rather than boarding skills.
    Boarding would also require more and other kind of skill.

    i dont see any can of worms it would open?
    the idea to be able to let the ladder down from below but needs around 5seconds would prevent you from not beeing able to get on your ship again if you forgot about the ladders aree retracted, but make it impossible to do while the ship is going and it would give defenders of a stationary ship the possibility to defend that more easy.

    so what can of worms?

  • COMBATxKITTY
    Commander
    Insider

    @nabberwar said in Ship to ship combat needs love:

    If Sea of Thieves wants to incentivize more ship v ship combat, they would have an easier time encouraging it by making people want to stay on their boat. That being said, if we look at the state of the game since Day 1, being able to sink a ship without actually leaving your ship is so much easier than it was back then. So this idea of Ship v Ship combat not getting love is somewhat untrue. Every new munition type is another step closer to this, especially chain-shot. I'd even argue that Revive has also encouraged people to remain as well, if you die on their ship you can't return to the fight as quick as you would had you died on your own ship with teammates nearby.

    If we want a Meta shift, I think we would have an easier time with nerfing Repairs and bucketing. I've been saying this since day 1, it is way to easy to keep a ship afloat. Since bucketing and patching are relatively easy to do, it makes boarding pretty much required to interrupt that process. In my entire career of playing this game, no competent crew I've faced has gone done to cannons alone. So the suggestions I would present are the following

    1. Buckets haul less water.
    2. Patching takes longer.
    3. Water flows faster through holes.

    These three simple changes will have drastic effects. Making it so trading fire with a ship has more consequences will make people second guess that boarding attempt. Now boarding and having 1 less person aboard has tangible consequences. This also rewards better ship positioning and aim. Having a better cannon trade is just more rewarding.

    To comment on your proposed changes, I'm not really for them. The brig suggestion falls flat, because people don't like their autonomy taken. It would be different if they voluntarily did it like some RP server, but people rarely want to spend time idle when they could be adventuring. The other change with the slow leak just sounds like an annoying mechanic. It again goes into autonomy removal, having to go out of your way just to fix something just sounds annoying. If I just won a fight over a Fort, for example, the last thing I want to do is stop clearing the fort just to go to an outpost. All that does is give more time to the loser in that fight to return back and contest again. Mechanics like this just add annoyance rather than improvements in my opinion.

    I like your suggestions. I think it could really make ship to ship combat more common. I will say while I feel hand to hand combat falls flat in this game for me personally I actually have enjoyed the times I have had a good ship to ship battle. Of course those are few and far in between because most people do just want to board it seems.

  • TehStepford
    Master
    Insider

    initially i thought this thread might have merit, but having reached the end its pretty clear that a large segment of the base simply wants rare to help them keep boarders off their deck and keep their anchor from being dropped.
    imo the best suggestions regarding naval combat were those related to a bucket/repair nerf of some nature.

  • Boxcar Squidy
    Captain
    Insider

    @ultimate-powa said in Ship to ship combat needs love:

    @doctorfork
    Hit them below the waterline.

    Do this with 4 cannons in a broadside, with one cannon aiming for the other cannons, and the ship will sink within 20-30 seconds.

    Depends on the ship, but yeah, this, more or less. You can also do one/two firebombs on the cannons, then focus on below waterline holes if you're solo or in a brig.

    I sink lots of ships without setting a foot off my boat. You need to be good at juking boarding attempts and watching ladders though.

    I can't say I agree with the premise that Ship versus Ship needs work. I think it's in a good place. Maybe the crews the OP fights focus on boarding, but tbh, if they're successfully boarding you regularly, then you need to work on your technique.

  • Stundorn
    Castaway
    Insider
    Founder

    @tehstepford sagte in Ship to ship combat needs love:

    its pretty clear that a large segment of the base simply wants rare to help them keep boarders off their deck and keep their anchor from being dropped.

    seems pretty clear you dont want boarding be skill based and rely on boarding to sink someone.

    I want more diversity.
    It should need some maneuvering skills to board someone.
    It should be possible to sink someone without boarding (is possible, but 1000 times easier to baord and spawnkill - what is lame and need no skill).

    All talking about skill, but what they really do is asking to favor their playstyle and many want SoT to be an FPS game!
    LAME!!!

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