Release Notes - 2.2.1

Fantastic update!

Lots of great fixes including some for really long standing issues and exploits. Here's hoping that this level of polishing becomes the norm for every release in a post Pirate's Life game.

Keep up the good work!

@swabbie-john This. Exactly. Double gunning had a built-in disadvantage which is running out of bullets and being defenseless without a weapon when used normally. However, with the cancel exploit, you can easily nullify the need for bullets or eating because you take no damage. I have been standing at the ladder with full health, waiting for a board and fire a blunder in their face. It does nothing because they have double fired before my bullets left the weapon and run through me. That split-second second shot, while I am in normal shot mode animation, kills me. Exploits ruin the game. Please don't get me started on aim-botting or rapid-firing cannons.

I am 100% OK with fixing the bucket cancel because it could be used in PvP to keep a ship up under unrealistic circumstances, however... PLEASE UNDO THE SHOVEL FIX!

• Shovel cancelling never unbalanced PvP situations and only serves to speed up the more boring parts of the game. Both your crew and the pirates tucked on your ship waiting for you to dig up the loot are grateful for faster digging.
• When teaching new players the ropes there aren't many definitive skills you can pass on. Ship sailing and combat are not easy lessons that can be passed on as they are very complex beasts to tackle and need experience more than anything to improve. Blocking sword lunges, not keeping kegs anywhere but the crows nest (on not on board at all) and shovel cancelling are the only quick lessons you can impart to a new player. With shovel cancelling being the quickest to learn and easiest to master. (Many new players don't want to give up those kegs :P)
• Lastly playing without shovel cancelling makes it less tense while digging because if skellies spawn when I thunk a chest I KNOW I won't finish the dig before they attack, so I dig 2 times and kill all the skellies before resuming. When there was shovel cancelling I would always gamble and get a small jolt of excitement because if I was quick (and on a sloop) I could potentially get the chest up right as the skellies were attacking me. This created one of the only moments of intensity from PvE these days as I tried to dig and run before I got slashed by 3-5 skellies in the back.

@zayen-draten said in Release Notes - 2.2.1:

I am 100% OK with fixing the bucket cancel because it could be used in PvP to keep a ship up under unrealistic circumstances, however... PLEASE UNDO THE SHOVEL FIX!

• Shovel cancelling never unbalanced PvP situations and only serves to speed up the more boring parts of the game. Both your crew and the pirates tucked on your ship waiting for you to dig up the loot are grateful for faster digging.
• When teaching new players the ropes there aren't many definitive skills you can pass on. Ship sailing and combat are not easy lessons that can be passed on as they are very complex beasts to tackle and need experience more than anything to improve. Blocking sword lunges, not keeping kegs anywhere but the crows nest (on not on board at all) and shovel cancelling are the only quick lessons you can impart to a new player. With shovel cancelling being the quickest to learn and easiest to master. (Many new players don't want to give up those kegs :P)
• Lastly playing without shovel cancelling makes it less tense while digging because if skellies spawn when I thunk a chest I KNOW I won't finish the dig before they attack, so I dig 2 times and kill all the skellies before resuming. When there was shovel cancelling I would always gamble and get a small jolt of excitement because if I was quick (and on a sloop) I could potentially get the chest up right as the skellies were attacking me. This created one of the only moments of intensity from PvE these days as I tried to dig and run before I got slashed by 3-5 skellies in the back.

I am totally fine with the two changes to bucket and shovels.
Teaching exploits to new players is not an argument for a "quick lesson". There is much to be learned when one wants to keep a ship afloat, and there is much trying and training involved. When there is a "secret technique" that makes people more competitive than experience, decisions and skills, then it is likely an exploit.

Cancelling animations is inherently affecting PvP because you cancel an animation that locks you in place; you can dig up stuff a bit faster than others, you can react to threats more quickly than others and that puts you in an advantage. Without the ability to cancel an animation, it does not get more boring, now you have to decide if you really want that animation lock to happen now or later. These changes prevent people from unfairly reversing their mistakes or speeding up their actions in a questionable way.

@mew-schnee

I never said the bucket exploit should be taught or kept in the game.

Technically the blocking-sword-lunge-hop was an exploit until Rare decided to call it a feature. If Rare decided faster digging was available to all then it's not an issue.

Also even STILL after the shovel fix you can cancel the digging animation, you were never locked into anything the fix only prevents you from initiating another dig until the first animation would have finished.

Nothing is unfair if everyone has access to it and the edge case scenarios where you're digging during PvP are just as dangerous with or without fast digging, you're still looking at the ground, unaware of your surroundings and if you commit to the whole dig it'll take a while either way.

@zayen-draten said in Release Notes - 2.2.1:

@mew-schnee

I never said the bucket exploit should be taught or kept in the game.

Technically the blocking-sword-lunge-hop was an exploit until Rare decided to call it a feature. If Rare decided faster digging was available to all then it's not an issue.

Also even STILL after the shovel fix you can cancel the digging animation, you were never locked into anything the fix only prevents you from initiating another dig until the first animation would have finished.

Nothing is unfair if everyone has access to it and the edge case scenarios where you're digging during PvP are just as dangerous with or without fast digging, you're still looking at the ground, unaware of your surroundings and if you commit to the whole dig it'll take a while either way.

You asked for "removing the shovel fix" of an exploit. And you defend exploits by saying "everyone has access to it". Technically, you are right that everyone could use an exploit, but you miss the point that exploits are an unintended functionality, that people are breaking an animation lock that was there by purpose.

So, yes, before people were able to cancel the digging animation, now it should no longer be possible and if you are correct, then you found a way to cancel the animation again, but you try to hide it from the developers by saying "Also even STILL after the shovel fix you can cancel the digging animation".

@mew-schnee You can cancel it but it's not an exploit as you cannot still dig again until the new "dig timer" ends.

Bottom line, if they don't remove the shovel fix they should greatly reduce the time the animation takes because it's just NOT FUN when you're on a Galleon and everyone splits up to dig different chests and it takes 12 digs or something for each person to dig their chest.

Did the lighting also get a bit of an update? night time seems more..nightly and the lanterns at night also seem to look better. Just the lighting in general seems better?

@swabbie-john You're 100% correct, and I've had friends quit playing over it being used so much, whenever I point it out on the xbox feed I get nothing but salt, it's the most toxic ppl on the game abusing it. It's disrespectful to the community in the first place to use glitches to gain pvp advantage, these guys take it to a whole new level. If it doesn't get patched next update I'm out too.

Well... this update seems to have messed the combat up again.

A Pirate's Life update felt more responsive in terms of pvp, but now the sword is just awful and the chainshots hitreg is out of hands. For instance: shooting a still ship from a stacionary cannon... the chainshot goes throught the mast and no damage is made.

Also... rubber hulls. Rammed a ship 3 times agains an island and took no damage at all.

@cpt-slashed it ain't gonna get patched anytime soon most likely so... on your bike I guess.