Sword Lunge Water Momentum Exploit Makes Boarding Too Easy

@aelis-du-nochd
Yep. And i dont disagree with anything OP says. But i personally like it, so it would be sad to see it go

@nwo-azcrack Game maker ain't gonna take it away because of me. They will take it away because A: It is a bug or B: Public opinion. If they do for either I won't feel an ounce of guilt.

What is your argument anyway? I shouldn't speak a differing opinion lest a witch hunt happens?

@miles-traveler
Oh mate i dont have one. Everything u pointed out is correct. I havnt personally had an issue with it during pvp but i could see what your saying. I just like it to get back to my boat faster. I was joking with u about the whole most hated pirate thing

@nwo-azcrack said in Sword Lunge Water Trick Makes Boarding Too Easy:

@aelis-du-nochd
Yep. And i dont disagree with anything OP says. But i personally like it, so it would be sad to see it go

I personally am simply suggesting that sword lunging into the water be nerfed, no need to remove it entirely, but losing momentum at a reasonable rate would be great.

@nwo-azcrack I don't mind you having a differing opinion. I expect that anywhere, if everyone had the same opinions I would have jumped off a plank long ago, boring.

I think there are better solutions to getting about. Much as I like dashing from the tip of the ship on Galeon's Grave to the sea below. I see a lot of negative effects of it. Others don't. Rare ultimately decides.

@miles-traveler said in Sword Lunge Water Trick Makes Boarding Too Easy:

At first I loved it because it made swimming to shore less painful. But despite that it actually breaks several things in my opinion.

A: It is way too silent. This makes it too easy to sneak up on people/ships super fast in an unintended way.

B: It makes boarding way too easy both due to moving faster than a full wind Galeon and being silent. Makes it hard for solo or duo crews to stand a chance when they can get easily boarded and killed or distracted while a Galeon is still firing on them.

C: Makes launching yourself out of a cannon nearly obsolete. This fun mechanic that was suppose to be the risk reward way of boarding an enemy ship is almost never used. It is easier to accurately, easily, swiftly and silently sword dash through the water.

D: It speeds up processes that were suppose to be slow or risky.

The actual solution is to add a better way to get to shore and back, especially from the large boat. One that doesn't break immersion and physics.

At the moment I completely avoid PvP despite enjoying the sea battles. Because every sea battle is instant boarding then blunderbus one shotting. Especially when sailing with 1-2 people vs 3-4 people. It only takes one boarder to disrupt the entire operation of a ship, which is fine, if they earned getting on your ship through legitimate means such as... the cannons, ramming, sailing beside/by your ship, stealth, risking sharks and swimming.

I never really experience fun cannon battles or high risk ship maneuvers. Almost every PvP fight is just a couple shots fired, then people start sword dashing.

You can hear people swimming in the water, and there is a rather loud water sound that plays whenever ANY player starts climbing up your ships ladders from the water. That's all you need to shot them down before they can get up, even if they climb up on both sides simultaneously, you have enough time to shoot both sides before they get up... If they start eating bananas to heal, you go and reload, and keep this up until they either give up or die.

And that is solo slooping, it's even easier if you are duo slooping.

If you aren't paying attention, you deserve Davy Jones' locker. :3

The whole idea of sea battles is to defeat the other ship to gain their treasure. If you take away the sword lunge you're virtually taking away the possibility of boarding aside from slowly and painfully swimming to the enemy ship. This would make almost every fight a cannon fight whilst at sea. This, as you could imagine, would make mobile fights lackluster due to cannon lag. Aiming with cannons can be completely unreliable as anything fired out of the cannon when you're ship is moving lags behind the aimed shot. 9 out of 10 times you'll land behind the enemy ship. If you can't listen to someone boarding your ship through the sound of them breaching water and climbing up your ladder then that's on you. Sword lunge stays 100% imo.

@miles-traveler
Yes, because boarding is literally the only viable strategy, regardless of how weak and unreliable it is.

Constant suggestions to reduce the "ease" of boarding are made by talentless individuals, which are bad at videogames. These people should not dictate balance in any way, since they are incapable of playing it at a remotely decent level, which is surprising, considering how easy SoT is.

Secondly, spawn killing is the result of ships being far too durable, with players having an incredibly short respawn time. It's almost like killing your opponent over and over again is required, what a shocker. Do people spawn kill players in overwatch as well? I mean, they do have to kill them more than once in a match..!

Not getting scurvy. Surviving ANY gunshot. Surviving a shark bite. Surviving getting shot out of a cannon. Woaw, it's almost like this is a videogame and the rules of reality doesn't apply. 'Immersion breaking' is not an argument as for why it's a bad mechanic.

Something being effective != something being inherently bad for the game.

@sweltering-nick said in Sword Lunge Water Trick Makes Boarding Too Easy:

@miles-traveler said in Sword Lunge Water Trick Makes Boarding Too Easy:

At first I loved it because it made swimming to shore less painful. But despite that it actually breaks several things in my opinion.

A: It is way too silent. This makes it too easy to sneak up on people/ships super fast in an unintended way.

B: It makes boarding way too easy both due to moving faster than a full wind Galeon and being silent. Makes it hard for solo or duo crews to stand a chance when they can get easily boarded and killed or distracted while a Galeon is still firing on them.

C: Makes launching yourself out of a cannon nearly obsolete. This fun mechanic that was suppose to be the risk reward way of boarding an enemy ship is almost never used. It is easier to accurately, easily, swiftly and silently sword dash through the water.

D: It speeds up processes that were suppose to be slow or risky.

The actual solution is to add a better way to get to shore and back, especially from the large boat. One that doesn't break immersion and physics.

At the moment I completely avoid PvP despite enjoying the sea battles. Because every sea battle is instant boarding then blunderbus one shotting. Especially when sailing with 1-2 people vs 3-4 people. It only takes one boarder to disrupt the entire operation of a ship, which is fine, if they earned getting on your ship through legitimate means such as... the cannons, ramming, sailing beside/by your ship, stealth, risking sharks and swimming.

I never really experience fun cannon battles or high risk ship maneuvers. Almost every PvP fight is just a couple shots fired, then people start sword dashing.

You can hear people swimming in the water, and there is a rather loud water sound that plays whenever ANY player starts climbing up your ships ladders from the water. That's all you need to shot them down before they can get up, even if they climb up on both sides simultaneously, you have enough time to shoot both sides before they get up... If they start eating bananas to heal, you go and reload, and keep this up until they either give up or die.

And that is solo slooping, it's even easier if you are duo slooping.

If you aren't paying attention, you deserve Davy Jones' locker. :3

There's an element of 'git gud' in any game, but sword dashing a furlong through the sea is not intended behavior and gives the devs less of a reason to implement more immersive boarding tactics like swinging off a rope.

@lenny2k3 Or... make ships easier to sink legitimately and boarding a risk, thus reduce this being excessively a bunny hop board and shoot game?

@miles-traveler
Yes, ships needs to be easier to sink.

Make boarding a risk? It is already a risk. You are leaving your ship behind. If ships are easier to sink, an unsuccesful boarding is incredibly damaging since you are not able to repair your own.... Since the theoretical chance of a boarding attempt (barring landing directly on the ship from a ramming etc) is essentially zero, boarding would be way more risky.

The reason the game is a "bunny hop and shoot" game, is exactly because you don't have the sword by default. You cannot chase someone down if you pressure them with damage from a ranged weapon, so you are forced to reload and back off.

Let's not forget the fact that the current mobility and design of the cutlass is complete garbage. Slowing your enemeis (why?) and slowing yourself when attacking (why?). Completely unintuitive and boring. Secondly, the lunge attack taking forever to charge and single (1) pellet, completely stopping/cancelling it.

There are underlying issues as to why the pvp is the way it is, and it is not because of boarding.

@xyspacetatoryx said in Sword Lunge Water Trick Makes Boarding Too Easy:

The whole idea of sea battles is to defeat the other ship to gain their treasure. If you take away the sword lunge you're virtually taking away the possibility of boarding aside from slowly and painfully swimming to the enemy ship. This would make almost every fight a cannon fight whilst at sea. This, as you could imagine, would make mobile fights lackluster due to cannon lag. Aiming with cannons can be completely unreliable as anything fired out of the cannon when you're ship is moving lags behind the aimed shot. 9 out of 10 times you'll land behind the enemy ship. If you can't listen to someone boarding your ship through the sound of them breaching water and climbing up your ladder then that's on you. Sword lunge stays 100% imo.

Huh, I don't have any problems aiming the cannons. So we're at an impasse now where you feel that cannons are too unreliable to be the primary method of sea battles (which it was in history), so you need the sword dash through water. Whereas I feel that the cannons work fine but sword dashing through water is a little much right now. Your post seems to indicate that your feelings on the matter are to 'get good' at detecting when someone breaks the water climbing onto your ladder, a sound effect that can easily be overpowered by crashing through the recently consistently monstrous waves, cannon fire, sniper fire. Whereas I could say that you could also just 'get good' at aiming a cannon. There is an element of 'get good' in any game, but it's not a very good argument. Hence, that's why my arguments are based on concepts like 'apparent intended design' and 'realism'.

@aelis-du-nochd
The physics when shooting yourself out of a cannon is bugged when moving. Your character will randomly fail to carry the momentum of the ship, making it unreliable.

@lenny2k3 said in Sword Lunge Water Trick Makes Boarding Too Easy:

@aelis-du-nochd
The physics when shooting yourself out of a cannon is bugged when moving. Your character will randomly fail to carry the momentum of the ship, making it unreliable.

Interesting, it's a bug that should be fixed, along with carrying momentum of a sword thrust through the water.

@lenny2k3 I have no problem with it, if you can't manage it maybe you need to 'git gud' and are 'getting what you deserve'. Wow arguments like this work so well!

If it really is bugged, maybe like all bugs it should be fixed. And maybe the problems with the game design and combat should be fixed instead of relying on an exploited physics bug to make up for poor design and programming choices.

@aelis-du-nochd said in Sword Lunge Water Trick Makes Boarding Too Easy:

@sweltering-nick said in Sword Lunge Water Trick Makes Boarding Too Easy:

@miles-traveler said in Sword Lunge Water Trick Makes Boarding Too Easy:

At first I loved it because it made swimming to shore less painful. But despite that it actually breaks several things in my opinion.

A: It is way too silent. This makes it too easy to sneak up on people/ships super fast in an unintended way.

B: It makes boarding way too easy both due to moving faster than a full wind Galeon and being silent. Makes it hard for solo or duo crews to stand a chance when they can get easily boarded and killed or distracted while a Galeon is still firing on them.

C: Makes launching yourself out of a cannon nearly obsolete. This fun mechanic that was suppose to be the risk reward way of boarding an enemy ship is almost never used. It is easier to accurately, easily, swiftly and silently sword dash through the water.

D: It speeds up processes that were suppose to be slow or risky.

The actual solution is to add a better way to get to shore and back, especially from the large boat. One that doesn't break immersion and physics.

At the moment I completely avoid PvP despite enjoying the sea battles. Because every sea battle is instant boarding then blunderbus one shotting. Especially when sailing with 1-2 people vs 3-4 people. It only takes one boarder to disrupt the entire operation of a ship, which is fine, if they earned getting on your ship through legitimate means such as... the cannons, ramming, sailing beside/by your ship, stealth, risking sharks and swimming.

I never really experience fun cannon battles or high risk ship maneuvers. Almost every PvP fight is just a couple shots fired, then people start sword dashing.

You can hear people swimming in the water, and there is a rather loud water sound that plays whenever ANY player starts climbing up your ships ladders from the water. That's all you need to shot them down before they can get up, even if they climb up on both sides simultaneously, you have enough time to shoot both sides before they get up... If they start eating bananas to heal, you go and reload, and keep this up until they either give up or die.

And that is solo slooping, it's even easier if you are duo slooping.

If you aren't paying attention, you deserve Davy Jones' locker. :3

There's an element of 'git gud' in any game, but sword dashing a furlong through the sea is not intended behavior and gives the devs less of a reason to implement more immersive boarding tactics like swinging off a rope.

Boarding via rope swinging implies you can get close enough to the enemy ship without being completely peppered by cannonballs... I mean i'm all for a feature like that, but it's far less useful than you might think. :P

In any case, given you can HEAR them swimming, preventing them from boarding isn't that hard... So it's also not as much of an issue as OP is making it out to be... Usually, the way i deal with it is to just raise my sails so i cruise around, that way even if they do use sword dash, they're not gonna be able to board easily at all. xD

There's so many ways to handle this that, it's basically a non-issue... It is a cartoon game, so sword dashing across water is just as realistic as shooting yourself out of a cannon... Though the cannon option is superior for distance.

• Complains sword lunge breaks immersion or physics, touts firing people out of a cannon as the legit way........mmmmhmmmm.....

Immersion like skeletons you battle? Oxygen rich bananas? The giant skull cloud at forts? Yeah, this isn't about immersion or physics, this is about you not paying attention an being owned by a boarder. Sucks to suck. Learn to pay better attention to your ladders.

@soopavillain420 said in Sword Lunge Water Trick Makes Boarding Too Easy:

• Complains sword lunge breaks immersion or physics, touts firing people out of a cannon as the legit way........mmmmhmmmm.....

Immersion like skeletons you battle? Oxygen rich bananas? The giant skull could at forts? Yeah, this isn't about immersion or physics, this is about you not paying attention an being owned by a boarder. Sucks to suck. Learn to pay better attention to your ladders.

Much this. xD

@sweltering-nick Uh yes, getting peppered by cannons is the risk of boarding an enemy ship. Cannons are the primary form of naval battle, if you get to board they either made a mistake or surrendered. Sword dash drastically reduces the risk of boarding an enemy ship. I use it all the time to excessive effect. And that is the problem, boarding needs to be a risk of getting hammered as you get close enough. Or you know, you sink them and take the floating water as you blast the swimmers. This is my view of the game, but even if we went with your view where boarding is common, I would still want the sword bug fixed and better solutions for boarding.

@soopavillain420 Lord of the Rings is utter fantasy with absurd stuff, it still shatters immersion and suspension of disbelief when Legolas pulls of some of the silly looking poorly stunts in the movie, especially getting into the hobbit. This is like saying "I can shoot fireballs, it is fantasy, not wearing armor does not effect immersion!"

@sweltering-nick said in Sword Lunge Water Trick Makes Boarding Too Easy:

@aelis-du-nochd said in Sword Lunge Water Trick Makes Boarding Too Easy:

@sweltering-nick said in Sword Lunge Water Trick Makes Boarding Too Easy:

@miles-traveler said in Sword Lunge Water Trick Makes Boarding Too Easy:

At first I loved it because it made swimming to shore less painful. But despite that it actually breaks several things in my opinion.

A: It is way too silent. This makes it too easy to sneak up on people/ships super fast in an unintended way.

B: It makes boarding way too easy both due to moving faster than a full wind Galeon and being silent. Makes it hard for solo or duo crews to stand a chance when they can get easily boarded and killed or distracted while a Galeon is still firing on them.

C: Makes launching yourself out of a cannon nearly obsolete. This fun mechanic that was suppose to be the risk reward way of boarding an enemy ship is almost never used. It is easier to accurately, easily, swiftly and silently sword dash through the water.

D: It speeds up processes that were suppose to be slow or risky.

The actual solution is to add a better way to get to shore and back, especially from the large boat. One that doesn't break immersion and physics.

At the moment I completely avoid PvP despite enjoying the sea battles. Because every sea battle is instant boarding then blunderbus one shotting. Especially when sailing with 1-2 people vs 3-4 people. It only takes one boarder to disrupt the entire operation of a ship, which is fine, if they earned getting on your ship through legitimate means such as... the cannons, ramming, sailing beside/by your ship, stealth, risking sharks and swimming.

I never really experience fun cannon battles or high risk ship maneuvers. Almost every PvP fight is just a couple shots fired, then people start sword dashing.

You can hear people swimming in the water, and there is a rather loud water sound that plays whenever ANY player starts climbing up your ships ladders from the water. That's all you need to shot them down before they can get up, even if they climb up on both sides simultaneously, you have enough time to shoot both sides before they get up... If they start eating bananas to heal, you go and reload, and keep this up until they either give up or die.

And that is solo slooping, it's even easier if you are duo slooping.

If you aren't paying attention, you deserve Davy Jones' locker. :3

There's an element of 'git gud' in any game, but sword dashing a furlong through the sea is not intended behavior and gives the devs less of a reason to implement more immersive boarding tactics like swinging off a rope.

Boarding via rope swinging implies you can get close enough to the enemy ship without being completely peppered by cannonballs... I mean i'm all for a feature like that, but it's far less useful than you might think. :P

In any case, given you can HEAR them swimming, preventing them from boarding isn't that hard... So it's also not as much of an issue as OP is making it out to be... Usually, the way i deal with it is to just raise my sails so i cruise around, that way even if they do use sword dash, they're not gonna be able to board easily at all. xD

There's so many ways to handle this that, it's basically a non-issue... It is a cartoon game, so sword dashing across water is just as realistic as shooting yourself out of a cannon... Though the cannon option is superior for distance.

You'd be surprised how close I can get to a ship without being peppered by cannonballs.

Also it's not that hard to predict a ship's trajectory, sword dash through the water, then swim under the surface, which you can't hear.

Also once again I mention that sounds like people swimming and climbing up ladders are easily masked by just about any other action in the game and even crashing over a wave in the seas that have been unusually rough over the last few days.

@soopavillain420 Actually, from what I've done in game, dashing through the water causes no swimming sound. It's not until you lose that momentum that the swimming begins and the sound starts. So if I was to sword dash off my boat while my crew attempts to fire on you, there would be no indication I was even in the water.

This is a problem with the game and, while I would miss the sword dashing across water, it does need to be removed.

@soopavillain420 said in Sword Lunge Water Trick Makes Boarding Too Easy:

• Complains sword lunge breaks immersion or physics, touts firing people out of a cannon as the legit way........mmmmhmmmm.....

Immersion like skeletons you battle? Oxygen rich bananas? The giant skull cloud at forts? Yeah, this isn't about immersion or physics, this is about you not paying attention an being owned by a boarder. Sucks to suck. Learn to pay better attention to your ladders.

Just because someone brings up some aspects of immersion, doesn't mean they think they need to make the whole game super gritty and realistic. Also, you ignored the other aspect of my argument which was 'apparent design intention', so I appreciate that rather than construct a counter argument for that point, you attack the sub-aspect of immersion, which I can counter with, 'If the devs didn't want you to be immersed, they wouldn't have hand crafted this world with some amazing-looking water, and put so much effort into their dynamic wet textures on the decks of ships.'

To me, it's far more important to note that the game was balanced and designed around people not launching themselves a furlong through the water, and keeping it likely would require changes elsewhere.

@aelis-du-nochd said in Sword Lunge Water Trick Makes Boarding Too Easy:

@xyspacetatoryx said in Sword Lunge Water Trick Makes Boarding Too Easy:

The whole idea of sea battles is to defeat the other ship to gain their treasure. If you take away the sword lunge you're virtually taking away the possibility of boarding aside from slowly and painfully swimming to the enemy ship. This would make almost every fight a cannon fight whilst at sea. This, as you could imagine, would make mobile fights lackluster due to cannon lag. Aiming with cannons can be completely unreliable as anything fired out of the cannon when you're ship is moving lags behind the aimed shot. 9 out of 10 times you'll land behind the enemy ship. If you can't listen to someone boarding your ship through the sound of them breaching water and climbing up your ladder then that's on you. Sword lunge stays 100% imo.

Huh, I don't have any problems aiming the cannons. So we're at an impasse now where you feel that cannons are too unreliable to be the primary method of sea battles (which it was in history), so you need the sword dash through water. Whereas I feel that the cannons work fine but sword dashing through water is a little much right now. Your post seems to indicate that your feelings on the matter are to 'get good' at detecting when someone breaks the water climbing onto your ladder, a sound effect that can easily be overpowered by crashing through the recently consistently monstrous waves, cannon fire, sniper fire. Whereas I could say that you could also just 'get good' at aiming a cannon. There is an element of 'get good' in any game, but it's not a very good argument. Hence, that's why my arguments are based on concepts like 'apparent intended design' and 'realism'.

https://imgur.com/UXQUlb9
I'm not trying to say get good, I'm trying to say that the cannons are quite literally a problem. If you'll excuse my crude drawing you'll see that I've illustrated what I mean via paint. This puts a skill ceiling so high that it pretty much nullifies the possibility of landing on an enemy ship, let alone boarding it from the ocean. I should know since I do it, rarely, but I do it. There's a thin line between realism and game play aspects, right now the cannon needs to be a game play aspect because it's much too hard to use cannons when you've got full billow, or any speed for that matter.

@xyspacetatoryx I have no issues with it, but if such a bug exists, it should be fixed. Along with all other bugs. :)

@miles-traveler "Sword dash drastically reduces the risk of boarding an enemy ship."

Incorrect. The main threat of boarding a ship is climbing the ladder, dealing with the enemy crew. This isn't a realistic pirate simulator, the people you board aren't scared for their lives, they're gonna put of a fight regardless of what kind of advantage you have.

As long as enemy crew is paying attention, you will not be able to climb the ladder to board their ship to begin with as they will shoot and slice you before you can get to the top of the ladder, every time you try.

"And that is the problem, boarding needs to be a risk of getting hammered as you get close enough."

It still is, even WITH sword dash, as i JUST explained.... It's impossible to avoid making the LOUD sound you make when you leave the water to climb the ladder, you will alert ANYONE paying attention of your presence when you do that, the swim distance towards the ladder doesn't matter, you will not succeed in climbing the ladder itself if the enemy ship's crew is paying attention, end of story.

1 single attack, regardless of damage, is enough to knock you off the ladder and back into the water, and every time you try to climb the ladder, everyone nearby is alerted because of the sound you make.

"This is my view of the game"

You feel it's unfair to the victims of those who are boarded... I have explained why it's not.

"but even if we went with your view where boarding is common"

It objectively is common, my view on the matter is irrelevant. :P

"I would still want the sword bug fixed and better solutions for boarding."

What makes you think it's a bug? We can shoot ourselves out of real cannons designed to sink ships, realistically we should be turned into paste from the force of the blast, but we don't even get a bruise... What makes you think sword dashing across water isn't just the noisier and riskier version of boarding ships?

@sweltering-nick It was named as an unintended effect, it is caused by the way the water effects momentum. Therefore it is a bug or exploit.

Love it when people say "end of story" to self proclaim 'victory' in a discussion.

And two people have already addressed how easily that 'loud' sound can be masked. Especially if your 2 man sloop is busy dealing combat and patching from a 4 man Galeon.

@xyspacetatoryx That sounds like the intended effect of momentum on the cannon balls, which a little practice nullifies

I find it hilarious how people call it a "bug" or "glitch"......You would think that if it wasn't intended , it would have been one of the first things dealt with, or mentioned as something they are working on. Yet here we are, many patches later and it is still there, as it was from the beginning. Just another way to board people. Just because you don't like the method doesn't make it a bug or glitch. Again, pay better attention to you ladders and this isn't' a problem. You can hear a climber plain as day, and anything after that is on you for not being aware.

@soopavillain420 This game is loaded with unfixed glitches and bugs, any anything involving physics is the most risky to change. Many more game breaking bugs exist, entire quests or forts spawning enemies underground for example. That is a null argument.

Just because you like it doesn't mean it is an intended effect. Especially since it is an odd and buggy interaction that requires weird positioning to make sure you are on land and carry momentum onto land.

Just because YOU don't like it, doesn't mean it was unintended.

@soopavillain420 Except it is clearly an effect of landing in the water from the land momentum and if you do land to land and water to water it does the normal effect of exhaustion. It was discovered by accident in beta and reported and the devs said it was a bug but basically was not worth their time to fix. This entire post is arguing otherwise. As they said at the time, in beta, it was considered insignificant. And again, this post is to argue otherwise, not to argue if it is a bug, because it is.

@aelis-du-nochd "You'd be surprised how close I can get to a ship without being peppered by cannonballs."

Didn't say you couldn't avoid that... You can avoid that even without sword dash... Argument is irrelevant.

"Also it's not that hard to predict a ship's trajectory, sword dash through the water, then swim under the surface, which you can't hear."

You still have to actually use the ladder, and that produces a rather loud noise, and you can't climb the ladder fast enough to avoid having the ships crew shoot you before you get to the top. :P

The only way to avoid it is if the crew isn't paying attention... Which means it's the crews fault for getting owned.

"Also once again I mention that sounds like people swimming and climbing up ladders are easily masked by just about any other action in the game"

That's called Strategy.

"and even crashing over a wave in the seas that have been unusually rough over the last few days."

If you can successfully board and enemy ship with sword dash whilst both ships are moving at full speed, you deserve to board the ship. My cruising alternative doesn't produce crashing wave noises, as i move just too fast for swimmers to catch up, and anyone successfully boarding my ship makes a noise i can easily hear, and shoot them before they can climb up fully, which launches them into the water, now they can not catch up, nor can they get back to their own ship easily as they are too close to the ship for mermaids...

Leaving me free to plop cannonballs on the enemy's ship until they've sunk.

Even using cannons to shoot yourself on board has less risk, can be easily masked by other noises, and if you miss, you're far enough away from your own ship to just grab the mermaid back and try again. :P

So why is sword dash such an issue when it has it's own downsides? Don't cherry pick your arguments, consider all factors... Easily done if you visualize scenarios and compare them with eachother. Just because it has upsides, doesn't mean it doesn't have downsides. :P