To all who have given their opinions and discussion ideas in this thread, thank you. I am glad some have as I had/have added examples to their points. I wish more of those who have viewed this thread would have shared their opinions as well, but I understand also why they did not and I don't blame them. If the thread is still going I may add more examples to go with the others, but till then see you on the seas!

People would break their anchor so it couldn't be dropped

Pass

Dude.

The salient point, here, is that you put forward an idea. You've obviously put a lot of thought into it based on the fact that you've continually restated the same couple of points in your replies to virtually everyone's who's taken the time to comment on this thread explaining, sometimes in great detail and sometimes not, the many and varied reasons why it's not a popular or really even feasible idea. All based on a great deal of experiences from a wide variety of playstyles that all agree on the same point:

Anchoring your enemy is a foundational keystone strategy for PvP combat in this game and preventing your enemy from being able to do so by removing the anchor mechanic from your own ship would ONLY be a benefit and NEVER a drawback.

To say nothing of the fact that all the back and forth in this thread is academic anyway as THERE IS NO ANCHOR BENEATH THE SHIP that is resting on the sea floor and attached with a length of chain/rope to sever in the first place. To even entertain the idea to begin with would require the devs to put a truly ridiculous amount of work into overhauling the entire capstan/anchor/braking system upon which the game is built. There isn't even a sea floor at all out in the open sea between the islands for the anchor to catch on, so how would they even put a physical anchor mechanic into the game to begin with??

@tybald said in Please allow us to be able to cut anchors from ships:

@ghutar

At this point, it's clear that the OP is focused on this and is not listening to what everyone is saying. Nothing we can say is being taken in. I'm not sure further responses to this thread do anything other than push more important threads down the pit of no return.

You do realize all but the last sentence of this and the OP of course can be said of most if not all of the posters in this thread ? Now I know you are making the mistake of assuming that I am not listening, I am, I simply do not agree with you as it is obvious you do not me . This is ok, btw , this is a discussion and agreement is not required. Just one thing to keep in mind, though, more voices doesn't make you correct in your statements than anyone else so the "everyone" carries no weight in this instance. The "everyone" itself is also incorrect as the OP (original post) has upvotes so clearly "everyone" isn't saying or thinking as you or others do. Also, remember not all who view forum threads do not post replies. There has been far more views than posts to prove this and only a relatively small amount of upvotes to any posts in this thread compared to those view numbers.

What has not changed is that the examples and reasoning I have given is valid if not popular, but that is ok as popularity was not required nor was it required to be allowed for the feedback/suggestion to be given.

@ghutar

At this point, it's clear that the OP is focused on this and is not listening to what everyone is saying. Nothing we can say is being taken in. I'm not sure further responses to this thread do anything other than push more important threads down the pit of no return.

@capt-pilotes yep all 2-3-4 players and then rais all 1-2-3 sails XD²

But.....but.....droping the anchor is the only possible option sometimes to stop a ship you are facing in battle or following you.

How am I supposed to stop them if they cut their anchor and they are following me? I kill all of them and then I raise their sails and spawn camp them?

@sairdontis4317 buuuuut oppurtinity to denay other crews way to drop anchor was allready tested...

Not literaly but not so long ago there was bug that allow players stock all possible chests on capstan.

As it easy to guess soon most of capstans look like muchsrooms.

For me it's quite good analogy how would end possibilty to cut the anchor.

If everyone believed that way some have said that many problems could be solved and questions answered.

Too bad this idea (topic) could be tested on a test server without disrupting other game development to see where it could be tweaked to not be as important to the fight (adding other mechanics to the battle could help with this too, but that again would be a topic for a whole new thread).

"unless you can prove something with unwavering certainty then really no one knows anything, not a single claim can be put forth ever single stance is just as good as any other stance."

@nex-stargaze Thank you for your opinion and respectfully disagree that I did not make enough supporting reasons to and for my feedback. You of course are welcome to your opinion as am I . Also, ideas can be modified as the Devs see fit to not over or under balance the game. I gave my feedback with examples in the Feedback Discussion forums. I said before I didn't expect everyone or anyone for that matter to agree with me, as that was not a requirement as far as I know to post on the forum, am I mistaken in this ?

And again it is up to the Devs to decide if. "This one, unfortunately isn't it." for my feedback and suggestions.

Not your comment but, I saw this comment from another poster and just wanted to post a response here to keep from making a bunch of posts:

"But the other 99.99999998% of the playerbase thinks that's the most boring thing since boredom was invented.", This is not possible to know unless you could poll that percentage of the playerbase and get a response. I think Rare would give much to have that perfect of information on the playerbase on any aspect of this game as I would assume this would be extremely valuable to know.

I mean, there's a reason the UNIVERSAL process for boarding during a fight in this game starts with lowering the capstan. Every single time.

Literally the WHOLE point of combat in this game is sinking the other ship. It is always best if this is done as quickly as possible while using the least amount of resources and the first rule of EVERY kind of combat in video games/movies/real life is that a stationary target is easier to take out than a moving one. It's common friggin' sense.

If you like the "challenge" of only sinking another ship while the two of you circle each other around and around and around and around for hours lobbing cannonballs at each other until one of you runs out, bully for you mate. But the other 99.99999998% of the playerbase thinks that's the most boring thing since boredom was invented.

As a side-note, the frequent reasoning in this thread of "it's not how they do it in historical naval battles or movies" is the most ridiculous thing I've heard. There's no parallel to be drawn here between the two. If ANY enemy in ANY movie or real-life conflict had the ability to halt an enemy in place in order to kill them there'd be no other way a fight would ever end than with an immobilized and helpless enemy being executed. EVER. Full stop.

@sairdontis4317 I think literally everyone uses cannonballs to put holes in ships....so you said i didnt know how you sink ships and then you reveal that i in fact do know how you sink ships....."You do realize that you have no idea my tactics or those I crew with's tactics or success rate at sinking other ships and not being sunk ?"

Apparently everyone does know your tactics. This is terrible story telling, just a dreadful pay off.

@sairdontis4317 said in Please allow us to be able to cut anchors from ships:

"Is there a single person other than you in this thread who thinks that this is a good idea?"

That is precisely the point of this thread for those who have thoughts about the subject will add to the discussion. I don't see that posters are required to agree with anyone in order be allowed to post their thoughts and ideas on the subject.

In case I didn't state this clearly I am sorry for the misunderstanding.

Yeah no this is just a flawed idea that most forumgoers don't understand or see reason to support. You're removing the ability to anchor a vessel for... reasons.

We can be creative with this idea, but this simultaneously has a negative and positive effect on players' playstyles, even for casuals that don't like PvP.

Tactical usage is just cutting your own anchor and "sacrifice anchor turning" for the ability to be unstoppable, making the only, and most frustrating way to stop a ship, is by knocking down the mast(s). It would be wise to not default players to that option, even if it is the most sufficient way to stop a boat.

SandMan said it best, you're trying to push a point of this being an offensive tactic, like you shouldn't have your anchor cut, when really, this is more of a defensive tactic, as to never get anchored, and rely on the enemy crew's good aim to knock down your mast, making fights much more dragged out as shots are going to miss and boats will never stop moving no matter what.

If someone does agree with this general idea, we are still awaiting their response and thoughts, but overall this idea is just purely flawed, not enough thought was put into it, and you haven't helped make enough supporting reasons behind this idea other than "no anchor turning". I'm sorry, but I'm sure you can come up with a much better suggestion in the future that might gain a little more positive discussion. This one, unfortunately, just isn't it.

@lackbarwastaken said in Please allow us to be able to cut anchors from ships:

@sairdontis4317 I wait on baited breathe for the single person to agree with you, this thread has been out for a bit and not a single voice thinks that this is a good idea. Quite remarkable really I don't think in my 292 days on this forum I've ever seen the entire community agree on something universally.

So how do you sink ships? whats the secret?

How do I sink ships ? I use cannonballs and hit (shoot) them with them until the ship sinks.

I don't need them to agree with me and like I said it not like its a requirement that they do. You do know that many forum readers never reply to the posts they read even if they agree with as they might not a have any comment they want make beyond what was already written. I don't see "likes" or flowery endorsements of my ideas nor "dislikes" or counter points having different values when discussion of the topic is what is important.

The point also was to put the idea out there for discussion and thought. I don't see a score system to "win" the discussion.

Thank you for adding to the discussion, though, if I have not said that yet (tired, long day).

@sairdontis4317 I wait on baited breathe for the single person to agree with you, this thread has been out for a bit and not a single voice thinks that this is a good idea. Quite remarkable really I don't think in my 292 days on this forum I've ever seen the entire community agree on something universally.

So how do you sink ships? whats the secret?

"Is there a single person other than you in this thread who thinks that this is a good idea?"

That is precisely the point of this thread for those who have thoughts about the subject will add to the discussion. I don't see that posters are required to agree with anyone in order be allowed to post their thoughts and ideas on the subject.

In case I didn't state this clearly I am sorry for the misunderstanding.

Good players or bad players of this game all can add value to the discussion and I hope they do.

@sairdontis4317 said in Please allow us to be able to cut anchors from ships:

@sweetsandman said in Please allow us to be able to cut anchors from ships:

@sairdontis4317 Most of the discussions on these forums are based on anecdotal information as there is very little situational data that is released by Rare.

What I can tell you is that, in the 3k+ hours I have and thousands of battles, I've never once thought "I sure wish I could prevent them from anchor turning at the expense of not being able to bring them to a halt if I got onboard" Never. Not once.

I reckon if you poled the playerbase to ask them if they'd take the trade off as an offensive tactic, that would get zero votes. None.

_
Now, if you had approached this as the honest defensive buff that it actually is, you'd probably have a lot of different responses than the ones that have come up.

Instead, you're debating with people that have thousands upon thousands of hours in the game trying to position it as some sort of offensive buff. In no world would this actually be used as an offensive tactic. It just wouldn't. There's probably no convincing any tenured player otherwise.

Never used the word(s) buffs of any sort. Those are yours and you are welcome to them just don't try to put them into my mouth, thank you.

@Lackbarwastaken Nope, not going to and have said this before respond to obvious attempt(s) at a git gud bad player bait. Sorry, I did state this already. If you don't like my examples, fine.

So you are going to bring up this strategy, how i don't know about it, and then when i ask what it is you are going to refuse to elaborate? Its a bold move cotton lets see how it plays out. Is there a single person other than you in this thread who thinks that this is a good idea?

As a show of good faith I can go first and describe how I sink ships and you can critique it if you want?

Ok so you edited your post above to answer my post below yours? That's a WILDLY confusing way to communicate with someone that relies on them rereading the thread for some reason. Its not too complicated how ship combat usually goes, create pressure from various means such as shooting down masts, killing players through cannonballs eor shots or harpoons, putting holes in the ship, fire. Board perhaps anchor and kill people bilging. Anchoring is especially useful because it allows one person on your ship to do a death spiral and then man the cannons and if they've managed their spiral correctly then there is no need for a helm. This frees up a player and allows you to exert more pressure on their ship. Fairly straightforward.

@sweetsandman said in Please allow us to be able to cut anchors from ships:

@sairdontis4317 Most of the discussions on these forums are based on anecdotal information as there is very little situational data that is released by Rare.

What I can tell you is that, in the 3k+ hours I have and thousands of battles, I've never once thought "I sure wish I could prevent them from anchor turning at the expense of not being able to bring them to a halt if I got onboard" Never. Not once.

I reckon if you poled the playerbase to ask them if they'd take the trade off as an offensive tactic, that would get zero votes. None.

_
Now, if you had approached this as the honest defensive buff that it actually is, you'd probably have a lot of different responses than the ones that have come up.

Instead, you're debating with people that have thousands upon thousands of hours in the game trying to position it as some sort of offensive buff. In no world would this actually be used as an offensive tactic. It just wouldn't. There's probably no convincing any tenured player otherwise.

Never used the word(s) buffs of any sort. Those are yours and you are welcome to them just don't try to put them into my mouth, thank you.

@Lackbarwastaken Nope, not going to and have said this before respond to obvious attempt(s) at a git gud bad player bait. Sorry, I did state this already. If you don't like my examples, that is fine. I see below that you said you would like to add some examples and scenarios below by all means do so as I have never said you couldn't (not my call) nor would I attempt to.

Also, I am sorry if upset players who need anchoring to sink their opponent(s) ships. Perhaps the Cursed Cannonball approach suggested above would be the better way to go. Maybe a reverse Curse bomb that could be thrown on your own ship that locks temporarily locks a capstan for a set about of time.

@sweetsandman said in Please allow us to be able to cut anchors from ships:

@sairdontis Most of the discussions on these forums are based on anecdotal information as there is very little situational data that is released by Rare.

What I can tell you is that, in the 3k+ hours I have and thousands of battles, I've never once thought "I sure wish I could prevent them from anchor turning at the expense of not being able to bring them to a halt if I got onboard" Never. Not once.

I reckon if you poled the playerbase to ask them if they'd take the trade off as an offensive tactic, that would get zero votes. None.

_
Now, if you had approached this as the honest defensive buff that it actually is, you'd probably have a lot of different responses than the ones that have come up.

Instead, you're debating with people that have thousands upon thousands of hours in the game trying to position it as some sort of offensive buff. In no world would this actually be used as an offensive tactic. It just wouldn't. There's probably no convincing any tenured player otherwise.

Silly you don't have official stats, just every single player with 300+ days at sea on the forum and thousands of hours in the game saying that its a bad idea. That's not PROOF! Silly goose. My man has 42 days at sea and he knows whats up!

@sairdontis4317 said in Please allow us to be able to cut anchors from ships:

@lackbarwastaken said in Please allow us to be able to cut anchors from ships:

@captain-coel said in Please allow us to be able to cut anchors from ships:

@sairdontis4317 lol, you just dont understand. anchoring is not a crutch. it is a weakness you have on your own boat. you need to protect that weakness. anchoring prevents peiople from peeling out and resetting. it forces the encounter to a close.

im done with this thread and this terrible idea.

You simpleton you don't realize that you want a crutch to win you must need this crutch. I however don't ever board and I just lose only cause of people like you who use this crutch.

That is all you have an attempted personal git gud last line there ? You do realize that you have no idea my tactics or those I crew with's tactics or success rate at sinking other ships and not being sunk ? Brilliant ! But, by all means ignore all examples I have given and not address any of them directly it is much better to just type out a git gud line. Why? If you don't think it is a good idea ? Fine. Please, give examples of your view of why you think the way you do as I have done (examples) in above posts. This types of responses with a @ mention at me to say effectively nothing on the topic of the thread just get glossed over by many readers who can easily spot a git gud phrased line and have no interest in reading anymore. Is that what you want, to be ignored?

Understand, the only reason I am responded to this post at all is because you yourself @ mentioned me and so I read your words because they were directly addressing me , false words of address as they were, mind you. Other readers, however, having even forgotten yours words as they never even bothered to read them further than the obvious git gud mantra.

Best of luck to you and sorry you won't discuss the topic

Lol I have discussed this topic ad nauseam. I've said all my points as have everyone else who disagrees with your suggestion, I agree with their critiques as well there hasn't been a single critique i didn't agree with. If you put holes in a single side of a vessel it is extraordinarily easy to simply bucket and stay afloat, circling the boat and doing a death spiral is the way combat comes to a close.

Ok I'll bite: whats your personal strategy for sinking ships? whats your success rate? Gosh if you had mentioned your personal tactics and their success rate and how they don't involve dropping the anchor and how they are actually so much more effective than sending boarders to drop the anchor wouldnt that have been a great argument for your suggestion? I guess i sorta assumed you would have mentioned this amazing point if it actually existed.

@sairdontis4317 said in Please allow us to be able to cut anchors from ships:

Cutting away an opponents anchor makes it is so they can not perform quick turns via the anchor and makes porting for some players difficult. Would makes things interesting.

...Not being able to use the anchor is a bad thing?

Like logically speaking from a gameplay perspective, why should I remove the enemy's capability to stop in place with their boat when my goal is to easily hit them with cannonballs and sink them? Like yeah, I don't need to anchor a boat to sink it, but the anchor does allow some room for error because a crew will be occupied on trying to move their boat again, instead of focusing on cannons or repairs.

Wouldn't most really good crews not want their boat anchored so it isn't an easy target for another ship? Combat shakeups lead to interesting discussion, but you have to consider what kinds of players you're going to be put against, you've got the toughest of pros to the simplest of casuals. They may play differently, but have the same kit at their disposal, and contextual usage of these tools are not enough for a tool to be used in the world, you gotta have a very good reason to do it, and most players, don't have a good reason to do it, unless you have a particularly good reason past "anchor turning".

@sairdontis4317 Most of the discussions on these forums are based on anecdotal information as there is very little situational data that is released by Rare.

What I can tell you is that, in the 3k+ hours I have and thousands of battles, I've never once thought "I sure wish I could prevent them from anchor turning at the expense of not being able to bring them to a halt if I got onboard" Never. Not once.

I reckon if you poled the playerbase to ask them if they'd take the trade off as an offensive tactic, that would get zero votes. None.

_
Now, if you had approached this as the honest defensive buff that it actually is, you'd probably have a lot of different responses than the ones that have come up.

Instead, you're debating with people that have thousands upon thousands of hours in the game trying to position it as some sort of offensive buff. In no world would this actually be used as an offensive tactic. It just wouldn't. There's probably no convincing any tenured player otherwise.

@sweetsandman said in Please allow us to be able to cut anchors from ships:

@sairdontis4317 said in Please allow us to be able to cut anchors from ships:

But, by all means ignore all examples I have given and not address any of them directly it is much better to just type out a git gud line.

The examples you provided that I can find are below (apologies if I missed any)...I'll address them individually

-Makes fast about face turns with the anchor impossible. Also, prevents anchoring quickly and raising quickly (with a good crew this is even faster) after being blunder redirected or if you make a mistake and are heading for a rock or another ship unintendedly.

You're talking about a highly rare need for the anchor. Nobody is going to cut the anchor of their opponent to prevent some highly rare need for it anyways...especially in the heat of battle...especially after you've already boarded your opponent.

-Player(s) ship gets anchored or they choose to anchor for the before mentioned reasons, but not limited only to these mind you, so they must make a choice : Cut away to quickly move again and not be able to quick turn and raise or be able to quickly stop if they need to in the future of the fight. Opponents ship comes aboard and cuts the anchor so they can't quick turn and then jumps off and blunder bombs them turning them into rock, port, other ship, etc.

You've effectively presented the same strawman argument. If you're boarding your opponent's ship, there's very rare occurrences when you wouldn't want the ability to anchor them.

_
All this would wind up doing is draw out battles even more and introduce yet another meta-gaming defensive tactic. Think turkey-wall on steroids...

Thank you for taking the time to provide discussion on and response to my examples. I will also address them individually with the same apologies you listed:

1. First, "highly rare" is a subjective term and there is no way to prove how often this need could/ would come up. Only Rare would have the numbers to declare rarity of any event in the game, unless you are suggesting you have the official numbers ? Now to the scenario I provided, you are going to tell me that if you too close to turn away from hitting an object (rock, other ship, port, etc) that using a mechanic that would allow you to stop almost instantly would not be useful ? Which would you prefer during a fight stopping by hitting an object and taking damage to your ship while at the same time stopping your ship abruptly and providing a stationary target to your opponent to blast with cannon balls easily or stopping abruptly while also being able to turn your entire ship quickly and maybe deny your opponent's ship a perfect target to shoot at with no damage ?

Provided with the last option you are still anchored and would need to raise anchor quickly to begin moving again, but at least you won't need to repair damage causes by the stopping with the impact method. Both options suck, but at least anchoring would not cause damage on its own. Now would denying your opponent the option of stopping their ship in this scenario not be useful ?

2. Again, with that unprovable "rare occurance" statement. You have not proof how rare this happening without being a server admin or being provided this information from someone who is. I may be splitting hairs but, I do feel that this needs to be pointed out as to not allow for authority that is not present being attached to a statement in the attempt to lend it more creditability than it normally would have had otherwise. With that out of the way back to the statement: Quick turning is very useful in fights though risky and anchor and quick raising (more than one crew member) though it does stop your ship from moving again until the anchor is raised, again why I said risky. This is an advanced move and not maybe not often needed or used, but when used could turn the tide of a battle.

I provided this advanced maneuver example as many here on the forums and this thread being no exception have made statements and qualified these statements with the air that they are highly experienced players who would have the skill to attempt more often these types of tactics.

Now we are again at crux of the issue that I have addressed already and will provide the full statement again if you do want to read it written previously in thread on my other posts. This issue is of course that of time or more to the point the need for a quick victory. All I can say to this that I have not already said before is that unless Rare of course again corrects me, the time required to sink an opponent's ship is not guaranteed to be convenient or held to some hidden stopwatch to be concluded satisfactory within a defined amount of time. No such time table exists that I have seen and if I have missed this time table somewhere by all means sincerely point me to it.

I am not meaning to be insulting, but the old saying still lingers on this subject : Do not start at task unless you willing to take the time to finish it. And if you are not willing to finish the task do not expect a reward at the end. An easy quick win in short is not guaranteed or implied in anyway that I have seen written in anyway in official statements. Now this may also be seen as a "strawman" statement in the attempt to deflect the truth of it and the inconvenience of this fact let me assure you that this is not the case.