Boarding Nerfs:

And how do you suppose an enemy is actually supposed to kill you if they can’t refill their ammo? That would give you an unfair advantage because you can use guns and they can’t. Second, PvP is all about hand to hand combat and boarding is an intentional part of the game.

@burnbacon

and for some rare...moment I need to drop it?

You are not dropping anchor mid fight, and its more interesting than just not letting enemies lower your anchor outright

ooh you pour soul, what happens if you fall off your ship and the ship is in a death circle, you keep missing your ship because the ladder is UP! Have to swim out to sea, wait for a mermaid and wait more as you slowly spawn, Only to be Blunderbomb off. :P

That's the drawback to rolling it up, and I see it as more strategy to this boarding simulator of a PvP experience

They already locked Weapons, I think it fine.
If the enemy can reload on your ship they can lock you down effortlessly in a spawncamp as they take your ship down while you spawn die, not a fun experience; locking the crate forces them to return to ship and make their oppression come in waves at best

It a buggy system. Some players avatar spawn in way before there vision does. Meaning they hear everything going on, but they cant see due to Black screen, but the player is spawned in. The very second you do spawn in.....

Yeah no that checks out

You want this, but once you start fighting players who mass collect them. Much like scatter shots :p

I was picturing it as being a rarer item like fireworks and curseballs, and if you find a ton you've earned being a menace for a few fights

@xDragonMan15558

And how do you suppose an enemy is actually supposed to kill you if they can’t refill their ammo? That would give you an unfair advantage because you can use guns and they can’t. Second, PvP is all about hand to hand combat and boarding is an intentional part of the game.

That's the point, you have the advantage on your own ship, and they can at best kill around 2 of your before having to return to their own ship to restock, so they cannot spawncamp, unless you're a sloop
As for it being about "hand to hand combat" they put cannons and cannonballs in for a reason. As for it being an intentional part of the game, sure, maybe as a more minor thing to catch someone offguard and do a bunch of ship damage easily, but not as the fundamental core of PvP. Skeleton ships don't board your ship, nevermind spawncamp you, even though it would be easy to add, especially for a massive studio. They also nerfed boarding over the years already, though it's still the strongest option by far.

• Adding traps you can place at the ladders (Very close to rolling the ladders up altogether)

• Removing the Grapple Gun's ability to grapple mid-air to decks, or grapple to the masts

• Blunderbuss damage nerf to prevent instant spawnkills

• Removing enemy's access to the armory to swap weapons after a wipe

I just don’t see how “nerfing” it is going to make the game any better than it already is.

@miserenz said in Boarding Nerfs::

1 Second Spawn Immunity has mert amd addresses a problem of dying before you can even moving. I would prefer you being invisable until you move, or 2 second passes.

The rest would break the game.

Just throwing this out there, but what if a super skilled player is on the opposing team with a PC or console that allows their vision to spawn in the same time their pirate does? That 1 or 2 seconds is all they need to get the upper hand on you.

I mean that that skilled player could use that 1 second of invincibility to easily kill you while you can’t kill them. Unfair advantage.

From what I'm used to seeing tweaking around with mechanics usually is never any kind of a victory for anybody, its always a trade of some sort and no matter how much alteration to the game the better player will usually win no matter what the mechanics are. And it always creates a new crowd of unhappy people when something is changed.

I have decided to come back and justify a lot of my suggested additions, because this seems unpopular, likely because I framed it as just "Nerfing Boarding"

Of course, these ideas would all add complexity to the game, because I'm actually a game designer myself, and these weren't just spur-of-the moment ideas.

First is that being boarded without being good enough to fight them off feels awful to fight, as you just spawn die, and while you'd likely lose the naval fight anyways, you'd feel better about it, as you'd do damage to their ship too. If a game feels bad to play as an unskilled player, it should work to offset that, so new players feel good about playing, especially in a game with as sparse opportunities to practice or learn as Sea of Thieves.

Number two is that these extra options to avoid boarding create many new strategies and archetypes for combat, which always makes a game better.

If you are good at both Boarding and Naval, you'll want to get close to harpoon aboard, firebomb them, and get away to attack their mast while they worry about the fire.

Bad at naval but good at boarding? Anchorballs, ammo crate, harpoon, firing yourself from the cannon, and the cutlass are all going to be a staple of your strategy

Good at naval but bad at boarding? Anchor lock, roll up the ladders, and visit small islands to find splinterballs and bear traps

Bad, generally? See the above section, but increase the range a few fold

Are you wanting to board but you're a solo-crew? Do you roll up the ladder to keep your ship safe while you wreck shop, or leave it down for you to escape?

Do you often use anchor-drifting to maintain a good shot on fast ships? Do you lock the anchor to avoid boarders dropping it at the wrong time, or do you keep it open for you to quickly adjust angle?

How would the popular anchor key spots develop over time?

A new, powerful, but rare ball would give reason to visit small islands for supplies; a new type of bigger, more damaged hole would leave opportunities to buff or expand the sea creatures, and maybe make megalodons an actual threat; having to hide items on your ship could lead to a reason to add mechanics for that, which could then possibly be expanded into a new loot system, like carrying messages between outposts, or some kind of item that accumulates value the more activity it sees on the seas, or some other treasure with incentive to hide it away on your ship.

@xdragonman15558 That's Kind of the point, if you're close enough to the spawnpoints to be killed within 1 second, you were clearly trying to spawncamp, and deserve what you get, the respawn time on mid-end machines is long enough as is without needing to be doubled or tripled

@tple223rr This game is not only "naval", for boarding you have the mermaid sound, boarding sound when someone grabs your ladder from water(sounds like loud splash, if u can't hear it clearly raise SFX in Audio Settings to max and your general volume + turn off music, at least during hourglass/other fights). Also, ladder guarding is easy even against really good players (2000hg+ levels and/or tdmers level good). U can blunder bomb someone easily off ladder, you can hold ladder from inside windows, from top of the ship, by the sides, you can jump behind enemy to knock him off and grab ladder back... There are just too many ways to defend board and sorry to sound rude but if you can't do it, it's just a skill issue then.

Good crews can't keep their ship repaired 24/7 if you spread your cannons good enough & go for snipes/double snipes with your crew and there are plenty of new annoying things like Bonecallers to help you board even if you are not that skilled combat-wise, because even best players will have hard time defending board when skeletons are attacking them while they bucket and try to hold their ship not sinking.

People nowadays want every mechanic to be "nerfed" instead of just trying to improve and practice that mechanics.

Also why don't you people complain about burning blade then? Climbing up your ladder and boarding you is "op" strategy but having 50 skeletons shooting cannons for you, repairing your ship and attacking every boarder, needing 2 chains to knock down one mast..... is not? Double standards perhaps?