Sorry for long post but these cursed cannonballs need to be addressed ,
I seem to remember the devs saying something about cursed cannonballs being a rare find in sea of thieves. Obviously with a huge advantage like that rarity is essential to avoid totally breaking pvp ship combat. Why in the name of sanity then are cursed cannonballs common as bananas? There will be at least one on every single island you visit, and often there are even 3 or more on the same island, sometimes even in the same barrel, I had a friend find 7 on one island in three minutes... why would the developers say these would be rare, then make them extremely easy to find?
The issues with an overabundance of cursed cannonballs are all fairly obvious. Even fighting AI skeleton ships the issue of getting locked into a dance emote or sleep emote was pretty bad (Getting hit with a jig ball then getting hit with another right as you come out of it). Now that players have access to an overly abundant source of these, skilled crews can essentially stock up on jig balls, and continuously fire them at an enemy ship, preventing any form of retaliation whatsoever. From the enemies perspective, they get hit by one cursed cannonball, and then they are dancing right through the fight until their boat is sunk.
PvP ship combat has been devolved into a simple game of "Who can hit the other ship with a jig ball first" and once you get hit, you might as well scuttle ship, because if you're fighting a good crew you won't be able to play the game again until your boat is sunk, regardless of how skilled you might be. It's just not fun to play like this and takes all the intensity and action out of the PvP combat.
When encountering a docked ship, you can literally 1:Fire an anchor ball to raise their anchor, and 2:Fire a sails ball to lower their sails, then their ship is literally sailing away into the distance. In the past the sound of a cannonball would cue you to return to your ship and begin repairs, but now your boat could be sailing away within seconds of hearing the first shot. Only solution would be keeping a cremate on the boat at all times, which just isn't fun for the person stuck there, and impossible for a solo player. The game has never been ideal for solo players but now they may as well scuttle ship upon getting engaged.
I don't have any issue with using the cursed cannonballs to develop strategies that ensure your crews victory, it actually adds and interesting and dynamic element to the game, but when they are so common you can find 7 on one island, they stop being unique strategies and situations and turn into repetitive griefing. I've already been in a few encounters where I've been hit by jig ball after jig ball and been unable to play the game until our boat was sunk, and I've already been on ships where we do the same to other crews. Since the cursed balls are so common I would bet a huge percentage of PvP battles are just going to be games of "Who got hit first?" and being attacked while you are on an island is essentially now a death sentence.
Cursed cannonballs need to be rare, and the ones that cause the enemy crew to dance/sleep need to be even MORE rare if not removed entirely. Anchor balls should only drop anchor on a sailing ship and should not raise anchor on a docked ship, same thing with the sail balls as this makes solo play nearly impossible when it was already difficult in the first place.
In my opinion PvP is effectively ruined until these issues are fixed, which is a shame because PvP was the main reason I bought the game in the first place.
P.S: Lots of people are comparing the cursed cannonballs to powder kegs, which is simply not an accurate comparison as powder kegs cannot be fired from a canon and need to be brought directly to the enemy ship to use. Also powder kegs, despite being fairly common, are still harder to find than the abundant cursed cannonballs (Which will spawn at outposts).
Overall I love the PvP ship combat in this game and I hate to see poor design decisions turn it into a boring broken mess, hence why I wrote an entire damn essay on the subject haha.