Are skeletons buffed suddenly?

Haven’t the skeletons ALWAYS been using an OP autoaim? Seems about the same to me so far.

What's not to love about a pale firing squad? I too, love my deaths quick and accurate.

We refer to the Skeleton accuracy as "gamebot™" and it is incredibly ridiculous when your on a sloop at a fort. The other night I was hit 83 times by skeleton cannon balls. Even with our Galleon crew they still pummel the daylights out of us. Could always be worse I suppose.

Island skeleton gold crews with pistols are guaranteed death if you are out of cannon range on a large island (yes I also suicide / kill them with the GP when available). No hiding spots and no objects they aren't able to shoot you through.

I don't get upset over it, just laugh about it really because it is a game and I still have fun playing it.

@duelricemaster said in Are skeletons buffed suddenly?:

Been playing since launch, veteran galleon killer. Suddenly skull fort skeletons are 200% more accurate and more dangerous. They used to be perfect balance of enough nuisance in cannons to harass enemies and us a fair but now they feel like we lost to auto aiming bots. Not fun. If the skeleton AI or accuracy or damage got buffed, please revert. It used to be fun but there's definitely something odd about today's fort fight. I can't use barrels or even get bananas from the island without army of autoaims on me.

Fort fight used to be fun, now it's unbearable because of overly skilled skeletons. (guys srsly, never had had problems with skeletons before)

I solo cleared a fort this morning.

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal.

@tedakin said in Are skeletons buffed suddenly?:

Their cannonballs are definitely way buffed now. I think they're worse than they were at launch. My friend and I had 4 balls hit as at one time heading to a fort. Then we almondbearded.

Seeing as how forts can have up to 3-4 cannons firing at you from certain angles it should come as no surprise that you took multiple hits.

On a galleon this morning I had one skellie at Devil's Ridge fire and miss a dozen times before landing a half dozen hits in a row. I could hazard a wild guess that skeleton cannons now start off being inaccurate then hone in over time, but the most likely answer is that random is as random does.

Seems like people are having different experiences with this.
Far as I know, the skeletons themselves have never been nerfed or buffed. I thought the only thing they changed ever so far in regard to skeletons was their accuracy while using cannons.

That being said, last night My buddy and me rolled up onto a skull fort, it started firing at us at what seemed like twice the normal distance away, and we got lit the F up! We both were like wth is going on? even getting closer to the forts it seemed like the skellies couldn't miss if they tried. Another sloop swam by and got lit up pretty good as well. I DID have a thought wondering if the skull fort accuracy change had been reversed when the other update were removed..
Maybe, maybe not

@duelricemaster im throwing a theory but as we all know skelly are getting stronger when u grow up ur gold hoarder , oos and merchant rank so maybe higher rank u are stronger and more skilled cannonner skelly are but its only a guess

@needsmokes said in Are skeletons buffed suddenly?:

Ps: No matter how much i attempt to side step or dodge a skeletons aim, i get hit with what seems full damage. And yet if i aim so wide of the target like them, nothing!

Dodging and sidestepping have little effect. The best method is to put another skelly between you and the shooter whenever possible.

@ionei-falcon said in Are skeletons buffed suddenly?:

@duelricemaster Hmm, I haven't noticed a difference personally. Last night my wife and I did a fort in about 15 minutes by ourselves. It felt normal as usual. Maybe we get lucky with the waves. I will pay more attention next time, especially if we get some flintlock rounds.

Excluding skeleton forts where once I am close range, they will start to hit me, and the sheer number of cannons can and will be venomous at times....

Since they NERFED them, they barely touch me.

I think some of the server sided mechanic changes over the last few patches (maybe a lot of them) have been or are being messed with by the dev team right now to isolate the problems the game is suffering from right now!?! A few patches back, the skeletos were unfairly OP. Then they seemed to dumbed down a bit. Until, this last patch (the banana patch) they seemed to really get nerfed. The pistol skeletos were definitely easier and their pistols sounded different. I’d give it a bit then the devs will probably rebalance them.

skellies with pistols have always been crackshots, a real pain when a whole wave has pistols but that rarely seems to happen at forts, more of a prob with high level OoS quests, just don't purchase promotions until legendary status earned.
They did debuff accuracy of skelly cannons but not pistols that i'm aware of, should have been other way round imho.
When you're approaching a fort the amount of cannons that can shot at you depends on the direction you approach from.

It seems there is some confusion regarding this topic, I notice a lot of verbiage related to the pistol skeletons.

The nerf only affected cannon skeletons.

Pistol skeletons aren't referenced by my reading of the OP. They also were not affected by the patches referenced. Pistoleers suck melons - always have - should definitely be adjusted for shorter range versus the random shoot you halfway across the map sometimes.