Season 8 - Supply Science

  • SweetSandMan
    Commander
    Insider

    Supply Science...Supplience?

    Anyways...

    Between here, reddit, and other places, the number of "long fight" topics and posts piling up is hilarious. Sea of Bones has almost immediately become Sea of who-has-more-time-to-gather-supplies. Whether that's abusing Tall Tales or just island hopping, it's silly how many supplies people have.

    Players are coming into battle with a comical number of supplies. But, which ones are dragging out fights and making them take so long? PLANKS. Because defense has been made so easy, resetting a fight repeatedly is now pretty much commonplace in these battles as SBMM settles. These exhaustive hour+ battles of plank-attrition have begun to make this content an eyeroll.

    With that, I'm abandoning the supply meta in the name of science to see where the maximum amount of fun-per-minute can be had in these battles. I went into this testing with the mindset that I would try everything in my power to win...and if I lose, it's GGs and onto the next one.

    As a solo, I'm going into battle with one pocketfull of the best supplies the outpost will give me, the captains cannonballs, and THAT'S IT.

    80 Cannonballs
    13 Throwables (typically 9 Blunderbombs and 4 Firebombs)
    9 Chainshots (or less)
    21 Heals (16 bananas and 5 of the best RNG I get)
    20 planks

    In my science so far, 20 planks as a solo slooper might be the perfect amount to make the fights short and fun. Fights have taken no more than 18 minutes (average is ~13 minutes) and it has forced me to play way more aggressively. Might be because I'm playing more aggressively, but my winning % is quite high using this method. Only once in 5 matches have I had to concede due to running out of supplies (that was the 17 minute one and I ran out of cannonballs because I forgot to buy the captains cannonballs). The rest have been wins. One even came down to the absolute wire where I had one plank left, my mast was down, and I was still able to edge out a W.

    I do hope we see some general supply-nerfs be put on this content. This is supposed to be skill-based-matchmaking...not supply-based-matchmaking. Stocking up is not a skill for the purposes of this content. It's just having more free time.

    _
    All-in-all, this playstyle has made this content way more fun for me. Hopefully this ongoing science helps Rare should they choose to do some supply-related-changes...but if not, I think I've found the sweet spot for fun-per-minute for me.

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  • WolfManbush
    Lord

    It's what I have been doing for years

    When I solo fleets, do whatever, I always start with default supplies and just grab what drops, even before storage crates dropping from skelly ships was a thing, I used to use the rng fleet water barrels

    The time that people spend supping has never been worth it to me.

    I'd rather take the challenge and more sinks than make things easier and more drawn out.

    I think it's made me a better cannon shot as spamming supps was never really a part of my play, I rarely have more chainshots than the default.

  • SweetSandMan
    Commander
    Insider

    @WolfManbush

    It's what I have been doing for years

    You're a long-timer...would you say Barrels 1.0 was better from a capacity perspective?

    All that barrels 2.0 seems to have done is artificially lengthen the play-session.

  • WolfManbush
    Lord

    @sweetsandman said in Season 8 - Supply Science:

    @WolfManbush

    It's what I have been doing for years

    You're a long-timer...would you say Barrels 1.0 was better from a capacity perspective?

    All that barrels 2.0 seems to have done is artificially lengthen the play-session.

    yeah

    lower supplies and closing in red sea (or whatever version of this they wanted to design) would probably be higher quality fights and would keep people moving along for more fights and generally a smooth grind to 100 and 1000+

    I consider supping a valid strat but in competitive gameplay (especially skill based) there is a case for equal footing and a design to move fights along

  • D3ADST1CK
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    I don't think supplies are a problem, it's lack of urgency. You reset because you can, and there's no time limit so you can do it as many times as you want. The amount of supplies just increases the number of times you can do this. Your science already proves that playing with aggressiveness can shorten fights, so shouldn't the solution be to implement a time limit of some sort?

    It would be a lot simpler than trying to muck around with ship inventory between getting invaded, doing the invading, and post invasion removal/restoration.

  • SweetSandMan
    Commander
    Insider

    @d3adst1ck I'd be OK with a time limit, but I wouldn't want it to just result in a "draw" after 'X' amount of time if nobody sinks.

    Maybe if there were a points based system like Arena that measured how much offense you dealt out during the battle and that determined the winner in the event that nobody sinks after the time limit.

    That said, I still think a plank limit is the better solution. It would be an effective time limit but also a skill limit. "Running" in this mode is only easy because people have a million planks. If there was a limit, eventually you'd run out of planks...but when crews have 200+ planks, that "eventually" takes foooorever.

  • a10dr4651
    Captain
    Insider

    I've always been behind a supply cap before this update. Seems like season 8 is highlighting a lot of gameplay issues even more with the game now PvP is in the spotlight.

  • SweetSandMan
    Commander
    Insider

    Small update... probably going to abandon this method for now.

    While this method does keep losses shorter, it only seems to lengthen the time between matches because I'm having to stock back up before I want to dive again...and since seemingly 90% of my matches seem to occur north of Smuggler's Bay, it takes forever to go back south and get supplies.

    Maybe if the floating barrels consistently had substantial artillery in them...or if my opponent's ship dropped supplies after it sunk or something...either of those would make this method totally viable and make this content enjoyable...but unfortunately it just shifts the stocking up from all before the matches to between matches.

    Oh well. The win/loss ratio still favors wins and the time-per-match is averaging under 15 mins. The only thing that limiting my planks has proven is that they are the main reason that fights drag out when it's two equally matched crews.

  • a10dr4651
    Captain
    Insider

    I hope Rare may consider increasing the amount of locations invader vs invader battles can take place. I'm not sure if there is a technical reason but from a gameplay perspective, area's such as around Devils Ridge, Mermaids Hideaway and Thieves Heaven would reduce the sailing time to an outpost for restocks. Would also just add some variety to battle locations and reducing known locations for people to camp and wait for easy Allegience.

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