Boarding is a staple of pvp in almost every party game but it’s been taken too far in Sea Of Thieves especially with the new grappling gun coming out in later seasons I believe something needs to be done about it. My best suggestion would be to make being shot out of cannons deal damage. It would make the game more real and also make it where once you board an enemy ship you won’t immediately be at full health. Another thing that could help this problem would be to add some debuffs of being shot into water or falling into water from a high distance. Some dubuffs that would be great for this is add damage to hitting water instead of only taking damage from hitting ground. That would add realism and also make people on a lower health when getting on ships ladders. I would also like to recommend making vision black out for a few seconds when hitting water with a lot of speed which would make it harder to board and also be realistic showing how all the water is rushing into your body, eyes, and brain. If you read this I would like to thank you for your time and support. Rare please consider adding these features to Sea Of Thieves because this has become a drastic problem making pvp more of boarding the enemy and killing them instead of actually naval combat with cannons.
Nerf Boarding
@logan321606947 I think letting scattershot make T3 holes would do the trick.
Or making mermaids have a 1min timer with an additional way to summon them as a findable item. That way people can't just board spam and take the merm back to their ship. If every attempt meant you were down a crew for a minute you'd have to think twice about boarding.
What really makes boarding unpleasant is the stuff that shouldn't happen.
Boards that don't make sounds
Bugs that give opposite side sounds
Exploits, like so many doing the launching ones
Bigger crews exploiting against solos/smaller crews while spam boarding
Naval reg turning into such a thing
Bugs in general.I'm a solo and most of the crews I fight are bigger, they have always spam boarded me and they will always spam board me and that's just a part of playing solo in a game with larger and different sized crews.
Spam boarding is also the way to sink someone like me. My tdm is low, my cannon shots are accurate, and my experience is high. That makes for a long drawn out fight because I can survive a long time and they often will run/reset and then come back over and over and I can't do anything about it. Spam boarding isn't fun for me or any solo really but it's also a way to end a fight, and ending fights quicker is (imo) better than drawn out fights where the larger crews are resetting.
If anything would make the solo/smaller crew less unpleasant against boarding it would be to fix the bugs and clean up the exploits. They are always going to spam board against smaller crews/solos/sloops.
@wolfmanbush the unfortunate truth is no matter how good you are if they do a true board spam, especially with crud launching, they will eventually get on board. It'll only get worse when the harpoon gun is added too
@captain-fob4141 said in Nerf Boarding:
@logan321606947 I think letting scattershot make T3 holes would do the trick.
This would kind of make it trivial to sink Galleons.
I mostly agree with Wolfmanbush on this. Mostly. I do think the risk/rr wrd balance of boarding is a little off. It's very low risk, and very high reward, so spamming is actively working encouraged. Defenders have to successfully guard ladders every attempt. Attackers only have to successfully board once. And the bugs really make that possible too easily, throwing off the balance off way more.
Priority 1 needs to be patching out the bugs and exploits.
After that, to bring the rest into balance, I think one or two things would help.
I'd like to see spamming be slightly higher risks. Perhaps a longer time before a merm is would do that. If you successfully repel, the opposing ship is down a man longer. So them leaving ship to board becomes an actual risk/reward decision.
Or similarly, increase the timer on the drop anchor interact on opposing ships, much like revive is disabled in any ship not your own. Nobody should be able to drop an anchor while jumping over it. Make them stand still and be vulnerable. Even if the interact is only a second. They will then HAVE to dispatch crew first. For most TDM crews, this will literally not change the outcome of a battle. They can kill a crew and then still dorp anchor. And that's the point this doesn't lower skill gaps. But IT DOES eliminate one of the more frustrating ways spam boarding rewards spamming. Even a lucky board can immobilize a ship and good crews can feel robbed by hitreg alone. Now dropping anchor would be an act that can be defended and a bad play sends a boarder to the ferry, leaving the enemy ship at a disadvantage while the ferry timer runs it's course.
I say this as someone who does a fair amount of boarding. It is strange to me that I, as an attacker, can jump my way to the anchor, start mashing x, and get a drop without ever giving up mobility. Once I hear it start dropping, I turn around and Chuck a blunderbomb to knock anybody off who "caught" the anchor. Because even catching it makes a defender commit to limited mobility, unlike dropping it. Something I never had to do to drop it. And if in a brig/galleon, it's easy to keep momentum, go right off the front of the ship, kiting defenders away from the ladders, that I can recatch. The ease of dropping is just too easy compared to the ease of raising or catching.. And I say that as someone who benefits from it.
How to fix the boarding meta:
- Remove crud launching.
- Remove dolphin diving.
- Punish people who have been using these exploits.
Do that, and suddenly people will have to be close & accurate with canon shots (which make noise), or have to use the ladders (which make noise).
Of course, all of that will go out the window when the supposed grappling hook is added.@guildar9194 the problem is s14 introduces the harpoon gun and as we saw in the trailer it will become a joke to be able to board any ship you want. If you think crud launching is bad just wait till they can change directions instantly instead of slowly.
Boarding is just part of the game unfortunately. There are deterrents and sometimes they don’t work, but if a player gets on board and successfully shuts your ship down, then that’s on you not being able to kill the player quick enough. Someone will be better than you, that’s the reality of PvP fighting, it’s how you stop them from crushing you completely you need to figure out.
@tesiccl
So it's on a Solo Slooper who has to repair, bucket, ensure angle and speed while applying pressure to be able to stop a board with no audio cue, dolphin dive with no merm?
I guess I just have to improve...
Keep in mind, exploiting is a form of cheating to gain an unfair advantage. Rare has tried to patch some of these things and have been unsuccessful. I report all players that exploit, whether it's punishable or not. Currently, there is a new report feature that includes 'movement exploits' and I deem it worthy of a report when I see Pirates abuse these unintended 'features'
It really doesnt need nerfed that badly. Everyone is worried about the grapple just from very early demo footage, but considering it will more than likely take up a much needed weapon slot so you cant do damage, it will make boarding with it a bit more risky. As well they talked about possible traps you could lay at the tops of ladders.
Most people who try boarding tend to already fail over half their attempts, be it cause they missed, or you knock them off, and when they try to get the board it tends to be at weird times that doesnt give them the advantage. I say based on the sounds of what they are planning, and seeing where boarding is currently, things are and will continue to be in favor of the defending ship.
@captain-fob4141 said in Nerf Boarding:
@goldsmen the harpoon gun was enough of a worry to justify a blunderbus nerf
Blunder needed rebalances long before.
I do believe boarding is a bit to powerfull. It often also makes cursed cannonballs irrelevant, since often the sink will already be secured with boarding. I can't even remember the last time i or the enemy crew used, let alone needed a cursed cannonball to be able to sink the other.
Boarding is now to often fully pinning down an enemy crew and not just disrupting them.But there is one giant problem with boarding: if someone gets boarded (yes they could have done a better job guarding obviously), the problem isn't just that you have a fair one-on-one fight with the enemy player, but it is discriminating against the defending player. This because the defending player also gets damage from incoming cannonballs, but the boarder does not. This makes it significantly harder to fight a boarder, since you have to do more then the boarder to get the kill.
So 1 change is definitely needed to make it at least fair: if you are on an enemy ship (and only then), you should take damage from 'friendly' cannonballs.
I also do agree the time for the prompt to lower the anchor should increase. This also makes it more relevant to demast an enemy ship rather then to board and quickly lower the anchor before they kill you.
Other things you could do to increase the risk for boarding:
- Make the ammo and weapon crate on sloops only available for the crew of that ship. However, attackers can use those grey moveable ammo crates if those are on board. This would make this item a bit more valuable, because once you have boarded and ancored a ship, a 2nd player can bring one of those to refill their ammo and keep pressure.
Yes, this does make the boarder eventually run out of ammo if they board a sloop (unless they bring that grey ammo crate), but do realise that the boarder already has the advantage once they killed the enemy player. The respawning defender first have to see where he respawned and then also has to find the boarder. This while the boarder can easily position himself so that he either can see the respawn position or that the respawning player has to go through a funnel (the stairs) and the boarder can easily pre-aim and get a shot in before the defender can even see the boarder (it's easier and quicker to spot someone if you only have to watch a small area the size of a door then if you have to watch an area the size of the entire deck). I think this option isn't needed for brigs or galleons, since boarders are (almost) always outnumbered anyways, something that often isn't the case on sloops (especially when facing a bigger ship).
- Give players a respawn timer penalty if they got killed on an enemy ship (this includes being on the ladders), so respawning takes longer. This way you have to make it count or your crew will face the consequences of having one player less for a certain amount of time.
@goldsmen yes, but the point is that from the dev's perspective it represents a large enough issue that the blunderbus finally is getting a nerf.
@captain-fob4141 said in Nerf Boarding:
@goldsmen yes, but the point is that from the dev's perspective it represents a large enough issue that the blunderbus finally is getting a nerf.
I dont disagree, just wild it took some new feature that would make the blunder more broken than ever for them to finally rework it after years of people asking for a rework.
