Remove/ adjust harpoon aimbot on players

tools not rules

I do think harpooning players is a bit too easy. You don't have to be very accurate at all.

It's a cheap way to counter good naval.

Hardly a good naval tool. Since 1/10 players will even do it, 9/10 it leave boat and board with guns.

You wouldn't have to worry about the harpoon if you 1: have a wall of crates on your sloop (I know you're on a sloop lol) to block successful harpoon shots and learn to get further away from your enemy, or 2: only play long range so the harpoon is useless.

The major complaints of the original "turkey wall" was that in it's unmodified state, it was capable of absorbing damage to an exploitative degree, but in reality, sweaty hourglass/arena veteran/competitive players used it because players started putting their good aim to the harpoons - which wasn't actually modified for catching players, it was always that strong against players, and rewards good aiming on the opponent's bad positioning, something that could be fixed on your end.

Harpoon is in a pretty good state, it's got its kinks in some areas when grabbing loot on land, but it is a tool with a risk/reward mechanic built into it, and you just so happened to get grossly outplayed by players with insanely good aim taking acceptable advantage of your bad positioning.

@captaintibbz Harpoon only damaging players is actually a really interesting idea

@nex-stargaze

Turkey wall is a must once you have the crates for it, of course. Otherwise you'd never be on your boat lol. I do keep my distance where I can but sometimes islands and rocks make it that you have to creep closer if you want to keep them pinched, as well as a bunch of other variables, like helm breaking being a big one in recent months.

It's getting to the point where out in adventure mode people will sail real close to you to go for harpoon over cannons. Take that in for a second! People are prioritizing going for harpoon grabs rather than shooting cannons, I think that's absurd.

Good positioning and accurate cannon shots is exactly how you get in a situation where you have them de-masted and in a death spin, so not sure what point you're trying to make there.

With the harpoon, you get grabbed, you get stun locked, opponent takes a step back, waits for you to appear on their screen and they have first shot before you can jump. Even if you get lucky and can jump before the one blunder, the back track will likely get ya!

If you read what I originally wrote, you will see that I'm arguing the point that the harpoon is made so that you can lob it in their general direction and it will latch on. You're hardly adding to the case of good aim, because the devs had to increase harpoon hit scan so people can hit their shots with them (again, primarily for looting purposes), and now it's too giving in a PVP scenario.

Thank you for your input, enjoy the aimbot while it's here, I hope it gets nerfed

@captaintibbz

I do like grabbing people out of the water with harpoon, whether your own crew who has a fort key or valuable treasure, or even an opponent for catching them off guard as they go for boards.

Even from another boat, but yeah in its current iteration it's super easy to take someone out of the equation with a lazy harpoon shot.

I also found your point about putting everything in a radial menu very relatable! Everything is in radials haha!

@mferr11 said in Remove/ adjust harpoon aimbot on players:

I do think harpooning players is a bit too easy. You don't have to be very accurate at all.

I would have to agree .

@nex-stargaze said in Remove/ adjust harpoon aimbot on players:

You wouldn't have to worry about the harpoon if you 1: have a wall of crates on your sloop (I know you're on a sloop lol) to block successful harpoon shots and learn to get further away from your enemy, or 2: only play long range so the harpoon is useless.

The major complaints of the original "turkey wall" was that in it's unmodified state, it was capable of absorbing damage to an exploitative degree, but in reality, sweaty hourglass/arena veteran/competitive players used it because players started putting their good aim to the harpoons - which wasn't actually modified for catching players, it was always that strong against players, and rewards good aiming on the opponent's bad positioning, something that could be fixed on your end.

Harpoon is in a pretty good state, it's got its kinks in some areas when grabbing loot on land, but it is a tool with a risk/reward mechanic built into it, and you just so happened to get grossly outplayed by players with insanely good aim taking acceptable advantage of your bad positioning.

A wall of crates should not be necessary.

@domonkosh play at longer ranges, you can also stack crates on sides to protect from harpoon. If you're in range to be harpooned they can be at risk of oneballed. It's a risk reward play and can backfire so I don't think it should be nerfed/removed

@personalc0ffee said in Remove/ adjust harpoon aimbot on players:

@nex-stargaze said in Remove/ adjust harpoon aimbot on players:

You wouldn't have to worry about the harpoon if you 1: have a wall of crates on your sloop (I know you're on a sloop lol) to block successful harpoon shots and learn to get further away from your enemy, or 2: only play long range so the harpoon is useless.

The major complaints of the original "turkey wall" was that in it's unmodified state, it was capable of absorbing damage to an exploitative degree, but in reality, sweaty hourglass/arena veteran/competitive players used it because players started putting their good aim to the harpoons - which wasn't actually modified for catching players, it was always that strong against players, and rewards good aiming on the opponent's bad positioning, something that could be fixed on your end.

Harpoon is in a pretty good state, it's got its kinks in some areas when grabbing loot on land, but it is a tool with a risk/reward mechanic built into it, and you just so happened to get grossly outplayed by players with insanely good aim taking acceptable advantage of your bad positioning.

Walls is cheating.

I expect them to fix that right quick.

Knock that off.

Average mild coffee take I see

They've patched the main issues with wall crates, you're not invulnerable with a bunch of crates on board like before, and it has still been a strategy used to deter annoying close range harpoons mid-combat, especially when the cannoneer is relying on the cannonballs to not only hit in the correct area around the enemy, but to do enough lethal damage they head to the ferry, the wall crates slightly mitigate that worry, but since it can be harpooned off, increases the chances of getting harpooned off of top deck. Almost like a barrier function in a fighting game, it's only temporary, but allows room for protection and potential counterplay, which is something the lesser skilled crews could use if they like winning parallel broadsides.

I'm not that good at the game, but I learn things by interacting with more people than sword purists, perhaps you could learn more about the fundamentals of PvP by interacting with polite, knowledgeable marauders? Instead of calling a fixed exploit a cheat.

@personalc0ffee said in Remove/ adjust harpoon aimbot on players:

This is just the anchor mushroom all over again in another form.
It is honestly going to get to the point where we are just not going to be able to place any loot on the pieces of the boat.

And my stance is just as neutral as there. It's a tools, not rules kind of game, and I don't think wall crates are enough to defy the logistics of the game like the anchor mushroom, where placing crates and chests on the anchor was inconsistent with placing items on the wheel, cannon, and map table. Wall crates on the other hand, are placed on the fairly wide top of the side walls of the sloop's top deck, and like anything on a ship's top deck, it can be harpooned off. You can harpoon a chest of fortune, a player, and even gunpowder barrels off of someone's top deck if your aim is solid enough in the head of the moment.

Why are we not allowed to do this again exactly? It's not unfair, as you can now instantly harpoon items onto your top deck, you can still stay glued to the harpoon and keep aiming for the player on the cannons, maybe the enemy might realize you're using the harpoons and get down below deck to prevent you from grabbing them, but that makes it a good time to prepare another cannonball for them in the same broadside.

There's no way you're going to villainize any PvP related strategy you don't do, that is horrifically close minded.

@personalc0ffee said in Remove/ adjust harpoon aimbot on players:

I also look at this as unfair play because you are preventing damage and skillful aim.

Ah, misinformation! Gunshots will hit through items now, as well as cannonballs. Skillful aim usually comes with skillful planning, which means if you see that wall, maybe you shouldn't resort to the harpoon in a parallel broadside, or do so! It's your risk and if you're seeking the reward, you ought to have good foresight in your plan.

Perhaps they need to change the harpoon auto lock on to players, so that players stop doing this to counter it. Again, this was not a problem until content creators started doing it on stream.

Content creators were doing this well before Season 8 went live, it wasn't as common place because ships fought at unequal parameters very often. Sloops fighting competent brigantine and galleon crews wouldn't risk their lives on their harpoon, especially if the crew had high awareness and skill. Often, you'd see brigantines and galleons use the harpoon in PvP, not to grab loot or players (intentionally), it was to grab a ship (usually sloops) and catch up to it, or put it right in their broadside and demolish it with their cannons.

Hourglass caused several crews to start creating more metas for PvP, as a result of fighting crews their skill level or better. A combat game is going to have metas, and the combat remains as the meat this game will serve. That being said, there is no harpoon auto lock for players, maybe a larger than wanted grabbing range, but if you miss your harpoon on a player, you're gonna know you missed.

Lock on changes only applied to items on land, as several times beforehand, the harpoon grabbing items on land was very inconsistent, and made little sense why items couldn't be grabbed when the harpoon was aimed and shot directly at the item. Since then, the only other change the harpoon got was Season 9's harpoon parity change, where loot items, no matter where they are, will land directly behind the harpoon that grabbed it, allowing for faster loot collection, working similar to how players are harpooned.

Now, care to still believe there is something wrong with being bad at avoiding harpoons? Or do you believe more players should be like the average playerbase?

@domonkosh

(reply to initial post)

If you remove the aim assist or big hitbox of Harpoon you will find it never hits anything. Hit Registration is and always has been terrible. A moving ship trying to harpoon a moving player on another moving ship with high waves is already a pain to do, you'll shoot directly through them and it won't hit. If you remove the aim assist any more it will actually just be a worthless concept to harpoon other players.

I can't be the only one who feels it's majorly unbalanced being able to vaguely aim a harpoon and delete someone off their boat. It's a cheap way to counter good naval.

Personally, I play this game for the helm and cannon plays, not for looking for ways to remove the naval element from the game, harpoon aimbot does exactly that.

This reads as someone who likes one aspect of the game, and as such dislikes other people have the option to do something else. You play the game for helm and naval, not to find ways to remove naval. Great, other people may choose to, why restrict them. Boarding someone to anchor them and kill them on their boat ALSO removes the naval element from the game, your logic here should suggest you advocate for the removal of boarding, via a suggestion like raising your ladders or something. Harpoon has limited range and the angles it can hit require the enemy ship and subsequently the players on to be in a specific spot.

You even say >The need to improve with naval is nullified when you can sit there with a broken mast, bucket, patch a few, and wait for the opportune moment to harpoon the opponent for a cheesy win.

Okay so you think the need to improve at an aspect of the game (naval) is nullified by Harpoon. Can't you reverse that and it still makes sense? You are good at Cannons but Harpoon beats Cannon so it should be removed, because you don't want to learn how to counter it. A Smart player will recognise they are Infront of a harpoon and try to duck into cover while EoR/Blundering/Cannoning the harpoon to prevent them from doing it, knock the Harpooner off, or kill them. If you don't want to learn this then fine, but don't take it away from other people.

Originally, I imagine the feature was intended to make harpooning loot out of the water easier. While that may be the case, the subsequent impact on PVP is damaging (at least from this pirate's perspective), I'm sure people who aren't great at naval might disagree.

You're again just banking on ''I'm good at naval and don't want to learn how to counter this so please remove it''.

So like if im great at naval but terrible at hand to hand pvp and preventing boards, I should advocate to remove boarding as it counters good naval.

@domonkosh

(reply to your first reply to @Nex-Stargaze)

Turkey wall is a must once you have the crates for it, of course. Otherwise you'd never be on your boat lol. I do keep my distance where I can but sometimes islands and rocks make it that you have to creep closer if you want to keep them pinched, as well as a bunch of other variables, like helm breaking being a big one in recent months.

Its weird that someone may advocate for something such as turkey walling, which would be classified as a ''cheese'' not too dissimilar from Anchor Tree (Putting loot on anchor to prevent boarders getting the lower anchor prompt quickly). Yet you dislike that Harpoon functions in the intended way.

It's getting to the point where out in adventure mode people will sail real close to you to go for harpoon over cannons. Take that in for a second! People are prioritizing going for harpoon grabs rather than shooting cannons, I think that's absurd.

Harpooning an unsuspecting player can shut down a fight before it begins, if that enemy is solo then their ship is now defenceless and they cannot do anything against your cannons. If the crew is duo then you immediately kill 50% of the crew and that last guy is alone to deal with the entire fight. If its a 3/4 person crew then they go into that fight at a disadvantage and cannot properly run the fight with a full crew, this may mean they need to turn out quicker and have less opportunity to be aggressive from the get-go. Getting a fast kill creates immense pressure and its the reason I run blunderbuss Sword. If I can get a oneblunder on a player (bonus if they are unsuspecting) then that means 1 less player, the rest of the crew need to scramble to find me and look for a Res. Likewise, I may not be going into the fight at a good angle and as such I don't have cannon angle, but I DO have harpoon angle, this means before we start to cannon it would be prudent to first attempt to harpoon someone, even it if fails it should mean the enemy crew know my play and as such need to play in cover more, which will affect their capability to fight. Harpooning someone (specifically Harpoon into a one blunder) is an incredibly useful tactic.

Good positioning and accurate cannon shots is exactly how you get in a situation where you have them de-masted and in a death spin, so not sure what point you're trying to make there.

That's one way of doing it. Alternatively you can

• Shoot cannon line going for one balls then send a boarder
• Send multiple boarders early to create pressure and get an anchor into a spawnlock so your crew can fire cannons for free
• Harpoon one or multiple people off of their ship preventing them from cannoning or repairing

You like cannons and helm, therefore you think ''Good positioning (helm) and accurate cannons are how to do it. No, that's ONE way to do it. Isn't this thread about how harpoon is op, but now you're saying its not an effective way of creating a death spin.

With the harpoon, you get grabbed, you get stun locked, opponent takes a step back, waits for you to appear on their screen and they have first shot before you can jump. Even if you get lucky and can jump before the one blunder, the back track will likely get ya!

depending on the distance harpooned you very much can jump and have enough time to react, but yes at short range you have little time to react. Often when I try harpooning an enemy I ask for a teammate to sit behind me with a blunderbuss just to further guarantee the kill. Though MANY times I have been harpooned onto an enemy ship, they whiffed the kill, I kill them, anchor them, and we get a free hold because of their risky play having backfired. ''The back track will likely get ya!'' and just as likely the reg will save your life. If you factor in bugs you cant just acknowledge bugs that benefit them, you need to acknowledge bugs that benefit you, otherwise you are intentionally being facetious.

If you read what I originally wrote, you will see that I'm arguing the point that the harpoon is made so that you can lob it in their general direction and it will latch on. You're hardly adding to the case of good aim, because the devs had to increase harpoon hit scan so people can hit their shots with them (again, primarily for looting purposes), and now it's too giving in a PVP scenario.

Again the point of the wide hitbox is because of how bad hit reg is in this game, if the hitbox was small and you attempt to shoot a player who's moving on their boat, while their boat is moving, while your boat is moving, and on high waves, its just never gonna hit. I don't mind how the harpoon hitbox currently works. Likewise I don't think you actually know if people are hitting you or not, You cannot see if they actually hit you with the harpoon or if the assist gave it to them. You're just assuming everyone missed and they got given the free grab, unless you somehow have your enemies POV. I don't think the issue is nearly as bad as you're making it out to be.

@Frogfish12 @PersonalC0ffee

As a solo player, being off your ship is the single worst thing that can happen. Blackscreens or mermaid timings and the RNG tied to them can greatly impact your time back to the boat, adding more delay to getting back on one's ship. In that time you can so easily sink. Harpooning players are simply detrimental to the playability of naval combat. Not to mention it validates players who only play for the gunplay, which should be a secondary component to boat plays.

In what scenario should a blunderbuss/ eye of reach (enabled by a harpoon) trump a whole a** boat?

My biggest concern is not the feature itself, it's the update that came around the same time as Legend of the Veil; harpoon aim assist snapping onto targets that are miles away. You'll shoot the harpoon and see it grab something at a 15 degree angle, that doesn't feel very balanced, nor skill based.

There's no aim assist whatsoever for a controller player, yet there's a super buffed aim assist for the harpoon, which is a major game changer.

turkey walling is a must if you want to continue using your boat (like the wheel and cannons lol). Or simply, don't you dare approach the enemy ship after you've de-masted them, you must remain max distance and be pin point accurate with every shot otherwise they get an easy reset, simple right?

The mushroom capstan analogy: The mushroom removed the ability to drop an anchor. The harpoon (in its current iteration) removes the ability for someone to get on their wheel, sails, cannons or even the harpoon. The turkey wall is a necessary defense, not a cheese.

Instead of nerfing boards (which I'm not necessarily saying they need to do as there's something to be said about a good cannon shot out for a clean board), they've introduced something much worse, an easy and cheesy way to yoink people off their boats as it sinks.

You may have bested them in naval, and are working on closing the deal and getting them sunk, but you are one cheesy harpoon away from losing the entire fight.

Nice sailing, nevermind.

@personalc0ffee Turkey wall shouldn't be allowed, or harpoon aim assist?

@frogfish12

I like this response, I respect the balanced take.

I may not be going into the fight at a good angle and as such I don't have cannon angle, but I DO have harpoon angle, this means before we start to cannon it would be prudent to first attempt to harpoon someone, even it if fails it should mean the enemy crew know my play and as such need to play in cover more, which will affect their capability to fight.

So in this scenario, you are now nosing the opponent, you have placed your boat in a suboptimal position opening a window of opportunity for the opponent to capitalize on, yet you have the means to completely negate this crucial error, with a hook at the front of your boat which has the ability to yoink the opponent off their cannons, completely eliminating the danger.

We say it's a risk reward situation. How many times would you say that harpooning a player ends in you killing them vs them killing you? 50/50? 80/20? 90/10?

I'm a self-proclaimed pretty good double gunner, yet if I'm getting harpooned, I would guesstimate the ratio to be 90/10.

This is exactly why they need to remove it, so you learn how to present your boat in an engagement with a broadside, instead of enabling a sloppy and careless approach to naval.

Harpooning someone (specifically Harpoon into a one blunder) is an incredibly useful tactic.

It damn well is, I'll tell you what, it's broken xD

''The back track will likely get ya!'' and just as likely the reg will save your life.

Touche.

if the hitbox was small and you attempt to shoot a player who's moving on their boat, while their boat is moving, while your boat is moving, and on high waves, its just never gonna hit.

You have to lead sniper shots, pistol shots, cannon shots. You now (since LotV) no longer have to lead harpoon shots. Like I said, loosely aim it, and bish bash bosh, the opposing danger is no more.

Enjoy!

@frogfish12

if the hitbox was small and you attempt to shoot a player who's moving on their boat, while their boat is moving, while your boat is moving, and on high waves, its just never gonna hit.

Aimbot is fun I bet, might I refer you to an ESP?

@frogfish12

I rest my case: Link to Twtch clip