Hand thrown blunderbomb balancing, invasion grace period and battle time.

1. nobody had an issue with this before season 8
   What gives?
2. what about other non factions ships? They should be able to still show up “normally” since your just on a normal server where anything can still happen….
   What next, grace period to prevent Meg or skeleton ship from spawning on you?

As a solo-slooper, I think there is probably something to be done about blunderbombs, but I'm not sure what the solution actually is. It's really only a problem in the new PvP game mode because sailing someone out of the circle counts as a win, whereas in any other PvP you can stay below deck and draw the other player down below while you are bailing/repairing to fight by other means. It happened to me where I just couldn't do anything (I'm also a bad shot and bad at PvP) while they were up on my sloop roof continually blunderbombing me whenever I approached and I kept getting knocked off the ship. Yes, I'm sure it's a skill issue, but I feel like maybe knockback should be reduced a bit?

As for the first point...naw. This is an on-demand PvP thing. You opt in for PvP, expect the get PvP'd. No different than any other time in Adventure. Is it unfair when someone sails up when you just defeated the Skelly Fleet solo and have no more supplies? No. You either should have had more supplies or done something to resupply faster. Or board and spawncamp them until they sink. No need for supplies! (Easier said than done, I'm sure, but it's a tactic).

As for "Faction Battle Time"...naw. If it takes you that long to sink a ship, then that's how long it takes. This is meant to be a way to find PvP fast, but not have fast PvP. There's no real reason to do this. If it takes too long, be more aggressive and sink them faster? Sometimes being patient and baiting the opponent into wasting all their supplies is a good strategy, and you're taking that away. "Tools not rules."

@burnbacon said in Hand thrown blunderbomb balancing, invasion grace period and battle time.:

1. nobody had an issue with this before season 8
   What gives?

I think the issue is that before you couldn't really win a fight just be popcorning someone off of their ship and having access to the helm. If someone was below bailing and repairing, you had to address that issue first. Now you can win just be sailing the enemy's ship in a certain direction for like 3 minutes, and as the sloop is so small it is very easy to be denied the helm just be blunderbombs unless you are a double-gunning crack-shot (of which I am not). Throwing blunderbombs toward where they hang out (on the back of the sloop roof) is hard because of so much stuff in the way and hit-reg. Many times I have a "clear shot" to throw and instead the bomb hits the mast or the helm or something and knocks me off my own ship. Yes, it's a skill issue a bit and a very skilled player will have no trouble dealing with it. But for the majority of players it can be an "easy" path to victory AND deny the loser any faction rep because they are labeled as a "deserter".

@burnbacon said in Hand thrown blunderbomb balancing, invasion grace period and battle time.:

1. nobody had an issue with this before season 8
   What gives?

In normal adventure getting instantly knocked off your ship while spawning would just be annoying, but here losing to getting thrown off your ship makes it feel like you had no control over the situation. (Not to mention that in my case I was barely out of the loading screen when I was thrown off.)

2. what about other non factions ships? They should be able to still show up “normally” since your just on a normal server where anything can still happen….

The problem was that another faction ship could spawn right next you after finishing a battle, locking out the possibility of sailing away. Other non faction ships can always sail to you in adventure and its your job to make sure they can't sneak up on you, but you can't do the same with invading faction ships. Also if you are low on supplies and a ship starts attacking you, you can just flee while resupplying, but the same can't be done with invading ships, because of the battle bounds.

What next, grace period to prevent Meg or skeleton ship from spawning on you?

AI threats are something that can be dealt with relative ease in most cases regardless of your supplies.

@d3adst1ck said in Hand thrown blunderbomb balancing, invasion grace period and battle time.:

What exactly do you think should happen here because a 'grace period' is pretty vague?

As I said, it's the time after finishing a faction battle, during which people can't invade you through the use of the war map. It's something that currently only seems to apply to battles created through matchmaking. (As an example: Currently in the game, you can't instantly be invaded after finishing a battle created through matchmaking, meaning all battles with boundaries)

I still don't really understand why we are allowed to purchase blunderbombs but not chainshots. Chains can immobilize your ship. Okay. But the current masses of blunderbomb spams easily either kill the enemy crew or knock many off their ship. We did have blunderbombs in Arena to do those things too: turning your opponent out of cannon angle or trying to regain the broadside. But that was 6 specials of each kind for a whole match. Not a single more.

Imagine just a match of galleon Arena where each crew had 40 blunderbombs. Because thats kind of what it is right now. And that seems to be a bit broken as a naval combat meta.

Fixing the purchase exploit would be a good start but why purchasing blunderbombs and firebombs but not chainshots? I'd actually prefer being able to purchase 50 / 100 normal cannonballs with captaincy but instead getting rid of firebombs and blunderbombs for purchase at all. Looting your outpost will provide you with usually 15-25 blunderbombs anyways.

Special (not cursed) cannonballs do have their purpose but being able to amass those so easily will make every battle a question of "who is able to hit the first blunderbomb" to start the spam. I really can not imagine that Rare planned this to play out like this.