Headshots.

It's rough enough to have a Blunderbuss be a one-hit-kill making it about impossible to defend yourself against an invading party. Being able to achieve kills with headshots would probably make things a lot less enjoyable and the PvP seem more of an imbalanced mess.

@kalgert

But you would have all the time in the world to deliver OHK before they even get to you. This would counter balance the blunderbuss as it would only be good for close range, and if you can deliver a headshot with a pistol you would not need blunderbuss anymore.

In my opinion this would naturally help to improve gun balance in the game.

Would you mind to explain how do you find current state of gun play balanced and having counter measure in balanced?

The only gun that can instant kill is Blunder buss, other guns do not have quicker reloading time, they deal less damage. That is why everyone is using it. Do you know any other game where people would say that gun play is balanced, but only one weapon is used by everyone?

If you have headshots, all weapons all of a sudden become really viable for PVP as you can stand you ground with anything and don't need the shotgun.

I should clarify: An imbalanced mess because there are far too many players with crack-shot shooting skills, so you'd end up getting floored even from a distance without them even needing to get up close with the shotty.

@kalgert said in Headshots.:

I should clarify: An imbalanced mess because there are far too many players with crack-shot shooting skills, so you'd end up getting floored even from a distance without them even needing to get up close with the shotty.

That is true, but imo skill should be rewarded. Running up to someone's face and pressing MB1 is not really a skill. Movement is. So a player who is good in both would be very hard to stop. Imo this is how online multiplayer fps should work or at least they have been for the past 20+ years?

@scurvywoof said in Headshots.:

Then hit reg becomes more unstable and headshots don't belong in this game

But is this a speculation or official statement from Rare regarding headshots?

I'm not disagreeing with you, this is rather obvious as I have mentioned in the opening statement. But since they say that they are constantly working to improve it, have they ever mentioned any plans for adding headshots, or do they have another reason why they would not add it?

@galactic-geek said in Headshots.:

@zig-zag-ltu Another reason; won't be added. Not that kind of game.

Make sense, but then there should not be a OHK weapon either, would you not agree?
If sword is 25% damage
Flintlock 50%
Eye of the reach 75%
Blunderbuss should not be 100%.
Should be more like 85-90%. Every other weapon requires a reload or going to the secondary option - sword or another gun.
Blunderbuss just needs to reload to kill again.

I apologize if I am becoming annoying, but I truly don't understand the thought process of this so called 'balance'. Does not make sense to me.

If blunderbuss only had 1 shot or 2-3 in the clip and at least twice as long reload time then at least there would be something. Now all you need to do is jump around and eat pineapples, I might make it seem easier than it sounds, but please compare the skill levels of some good streamers dispatching the whole crew with any weapon vs blunderbuss.

Not necessarily demanding a change if majority of community would be against it, but would love to see some constructive feedback of -why they think that the gun play is balanced?

The devs stated they didn't want to do head shots, and that the entire pirate is one hit box, that is the same for every sized pirate.

It is a design choice. I like it. Gun damages and roles do not need tweaking.

@galactic-geek Thank you for correcting me on the numbers, wasn't far off tho.

But regarding the close quarter combat.

Let's say you have blunderbuss and I use a flintlock.

You miss your 1hk, and I'm left with 20%hp.

I shoot a bullseye, you are left with 45% hp.

Reload time is not that different, taking out swords for both of us will take the same amount of time.

I believe blunderbuss power leaves you with advantage right there.

Why would you be against it dealing 90% damage and having less punishment on missing pellets?

Would making it 50%-90% in your opinion make it obsolete?

@galactic-geek said in Headshots.:

@zig-zag-ltu said in Headshots.:

@galactic-geek Thank you for correcting me on the numbers, wasn't far off tho.

But regarding the close quarter combat.

Let's say you have blunderbuss and I use a flintlock.

You miss your 1hk, and I'm left with 20%hp.

I shoot a bullseye, you are left with 45% hp.

Reload time is not that different, taking out swords for both of us will take the same amount of time.

I believe blunderbuss power leaves you with advantage right there.

Why would you be against it dealing 90% damage and having less punishment on missing pellets?

Would making it 50%-90% in your opinion make it obsolete?

Your test is flawed because you're not accounting for range, which is 1 of the biggest factors regarding all of the firearms (blunderbuss = close; Flintlock = mid; EoR = far).

Assuming we don't pull out a 2nd weapon, and just reload, Flintlock still wins because it has the fastest reload of all of the firearms. Even if we do draw swords, I still wouldn't have the advantage because we'd be in neutral until we attack, and since we both have swords, if 1 attacks, the other can block.

Hmm, interesting. The range I had in mind is a sloop. You seem to be a seasoned player in SOT, day 1 by any chance?

But then how come everyone is using it over any other weapon? Can't recall this being the case in 2020 when I started.

Would see all kinds of weapons being used by new and seasoned players.

Now its only the shotgun. It can't be that people just like blunderbuss which is useless medium/long range if other weapons are even better due to reload time, range etc. (Obviously this is not 100% of the time, but it really feels that way on the seas)

I'm not asking this to prove a point, just honestly curious, for me EOR seems to be superior overall until you let them come close.

Another suggestion I would have is to allow quick preset change on the ammo box. So next Reload button you would have a second option (like with a storage crate and barrels) to change to another preset of weapons.

P.S. I know you are way more experienced in SOT, but I believe you assessment is slightly flawed as well. You would not die to a blunder bomb or a bit of fire damage with 45% hp, where as I would with 10-20%?

I'm guessing they didn't add headshots because it was never meant to be a hardcore combat-forward game. It was meant to be a cartoon Pirate adventure game with PvP elements. I believe at one point the devs even expressed how surprised they were at how "sweaty" the game had become.

I would say adding headshots to PvE enemies would be good, as well as maybe weak points on the Ashen Lords (that glowing red target in their chest is just BEGGING to be shot). However, unless hitreg was extremely rare, I doubt it would be a welcome edition to PvP. People would endlessly complain that the game had registered a HS when there wasn't one (on themselves) or hadn't registered one when they did hit (on enemy players). Also, for more inexperienced pirates it's going to feel very unwelcoming getting HS-ed over and over, not even being able to use cannons or return fire as they are one-shotted from enemy ships.

@maximusarael020 Well if it is not meant to be a hardcore PVP game, they could certainly look into it and change the balance. But it's what it is and it's current state begs for improvement in that aspect.

If there was punishment for engaging PVP all the time instead of focusing on PVE first, things would be different.

At the same time, the game lacks depth and difficulty to be PVE only it also lacks balancing, better hit reg and stability to be a hardcore PVP game. So I believe some tweaks in current state could help to change pirates focus.

And to be honest you have a brilliant idea, they could start introducing headshots vs PVE enemies and I'm assuming they would gather data and statistics from which they could decide if such addition would be worth in PVP(or if it would work at all).

The whole argument against headshots is a bit funny to me. You can't just spam your cannonballs into a galleon as a sloop on its upper deck and sink it. You need to fight off 4 pirates, who have 4 cannons and your only hope is hitting below deck, shuffling cannon balls/curse balls/chain shots, the level of speed and quick thinking required is as difficult or even more than landing a headshot. Since there are no official guides from Rare only from streamers who I am reluctant to watch due to them trying to appease very young audience, I honestly had no idea about this until maybe 100-200hrs in game. I would be spamming my shots at any part of the ship as I thought it works the same as PVP combat.

I would also like to see a player doing this consistently when the waves are rocking your ship like a lowrider and you are literally shooting a hot pea in an arch instead of a bullet. The physics are cartoony ^^

I dont think adding more oneshot kills is a good idea at all. Personally I would like the blunder to be osk to the back only.

@galactic-geek Are you trying to argue some sort of realism here or what?

The fact is, blunderbus being 1 shot kill bundled together with the hitreg issues other weapons face makes it always the best option. Everyone who plays this game enough knows playing with a pistol is inferior to playing with a blunderbus. That is why I think it deserves a nerf to make it more of an equal option rather than better choice at all times.

One way to nerf it would be to keep the one shot kill when shooting at unaware players (ie. shooting them in the back). This would keep it as a great option to one shot unaware players on cannons etc, but nerf its overall effectiveness in combat to promote the other weapons as equal options. This, of course would have to be together with fixing the hitreg issues that plague pistol / eye of the reach.

@i-jusa-i I like this idea, reminds me of the knife in counter strike. Where a light attack from front would deal like 20% damage and a heavy one about 50% (cant remember exactly as you just don't even try it).
Where as if you catch someone from the back, the light attack will deal 50% damage and the heavy attack would be an instant kill.

I think the only way to make everyone happy would be to make every weapon 1hk close range (EOR still does same damage long range)
And to buff blunderbuss where each pellet would do 20% damage, so you could have an overkill and a very easy 1hk anyway.

Now everyone is on equal footing, pirate with best aim wins and all the experienced pirates will find 50 ways to move and kill everyone with blunderbuss anyway :P?

@galactic-geek

Being able to move away from blunderbus is not a resolution to it being over powered over any of the other options. And the fact is blunderbus suffers far less from any sort of hitreg as it fires many more projectiles. No idea why youre arguing againts my opinion, youre free to have yours. But most if not all the experienced players I've talked to and palyed with and watched streams of agree that the blunderbus is simply the best option at all times, making choosing any of the otehr weapons feel like a downgrade.

Something being overall better than everything else is not balanced, no matter what you yourself think about it.

Just look at anyone good at the game and see how they always have the blunder and never have anything else that replaces the blunder.

@mintharp184509 You need to remember sword can be used to hit multiple people with 1 swing.