Greetings.
I would like to give some feedback after numerous hours in the BETA and after a few hours in the release version.
I do love this game. I play with my brother and we are having a great time. We love sailing on the sea hunting for treasure and whatnot.
But there is one thing that is really killing the experience for us thus far. And that's how inbalanced the game feels when you are being forced into a confrontation with a Galleon.
As there is no progression in terms of character strength or anything there is nothing setting players a part from each other other than skill level. Which is a great idea. But this will of course make it so that a team of four players will always have a advantage on a team of three, and a team of three will have a advantage on teams of two and a team of two will have a advantage on a team of one etc..
That's not the problem. My problem is how the Galleon is compared to the Sloop. Team of 1-2 players are stuck with a Sloop, while teams of 3-4 players get the Galleon. This is where things start to get ugly. Not only do they have the benefit of having more players so they get a advantage in terms of sheer numbers. But they also get a ship with some obvious benefits. The Galleon features four cannons on each side, while the Sloop only features a single one. This means the Galleon has the potential of firing four times the amount of cannon balls as onces compared to the Sloop. Its also awkward how the Galleon has one cannon per team member on each side, while the Sloop has a limiting amount of cannons when you are a team of two players. As there is only a single cannon on each side you can't have to players firing at the same time. You get limited by the amount of cannons, not by the amount of players you dedicate for cannons.
The Galleon doesn't only have the advantage of having that much more fire-power, but it also seems like it can withstand a additional amount of holes before it sinks and it takes longer for it to take in water. So not only is it that much more powerful, but it can take more damage at the same time.
The major problem is that a single Sloop can't deal out enough damage due to the lack of cannons. They can fix holes faster than you are able to create new ones. Its next to impossible to bring it down by shooting. Boarding is really difficult as there is only two ladders and with four players and knockback from the blunderbus they will just camp the ladders and you won't be able to scale them.
Even in situations where we had some crazy luck and was able to kill all four members, they just re-spawn 15 seconds later and the Sloop is not able to do enough damage in this time frame so the just re-spawn and fix it right up. Its just insane.
We are simply forced to flee when we see a Galleon and thats not really fun. Especially not with forge invasions etc that takes a lot of time and after spending 15 minutes killing skelletons it feels really bad to spot a Galleon and your only option is to flee and let them take over from where you left...
Why make the PvP work in such a way? If you really feel this is the way to do it why not make Sloops being put into their own sessions and have Galleons going into their own?
