Armory Box Suggestion

But I do feel like fights will be entirely one sided, only being able to use one weapon.

That why they said, choose wisely when you board. It not one sided, everyone has to be very careful when in combat.

@burnbacon
yes, I know, boarding is supposed to be difficult, and as I said in the post, I think being able to board with only one weapon is completely fair. But I think once you've been able to take control of their boat, either by killing them, or sneaking aboard, you should then be able to swap your loadout by using a lockpick, or just shooting the lock to remove it.
Then the enemy crew should be able to relock it, or just have the armory box stay open for like 20 seconds.
This wouldn't remove the strategic decision to bring only one weapon, and fights would still be one sided at first, but it would reward crews who can pull off a fight with only one weapon vs one or more people who have two weapons

@alexroblox1533 no, I firmly believe this change is for the better. The boarding meta is already too strong and needs some solid nerfs.

@captain-fob4141 I'm curious why you see this as a good balance? boarding to me has never seemed like a meta, the only situation I see it as "meta" is when going up against a lower skilled crew, or a full galleon boarding a solo slooper. which I don't think this change will benefit either side. numbers will still win, and higher skill will still win. The change I mentioned in the post would benefit equal fights.

@alexroblox1533 in a game where your ship is your life line, naval combat is not the primary focus. Especially among experienced crews the fight often becomes who can get the boarding play to stick first. The meta favors boarding over naval. There is no naval play to counter boarders, there is a boarding play to counter naval. Decreasing the utility that the board has available to them increases the odds of repelling them which means naval becomes stronger in the meta.

Current Meta. Blunder/Pistol & EoY combo.
Board ship from water, Drop anchor, dominate ship and either spawn kill or set fire.
The first two things ALWAYS happen. Never once does a player not go toward the anchor....

But with this change coming.
You board you now have to watch what you bring with you. You can still board normally(but who gonna do that?) so use Harpoon, now you have to use the throwing items or secondary item as main weapon.
It a strategy thinking game, (something a lot of players dont do.) they rather follow the same boring tricks. You also have to worry about the future Traps on players decks :P

It a change. Game needs change from the same old boring meta since D1

@captain-fob4141 you read my post, right? I said I'm not against the change, I just said it should be reworked. Please reread the original post, then reply to that.

@burnbacon I still refuse to see how this relates to my post. I never disagreed with this in my post, please read my post, and reply to the post.

@captain-fob4141 for higher skilled gameplay boarding randomly is pretty much a death sentence. The only time to board is when the opposition has a player dead or has lots of pressure so even if the boarder dies they can't use that advantage.

@alexroblox1533 this change doesn't need the effort of the dev team, it seems like a waste of time. No one will use the harpoon gun for boarding anyway and rarely do you need to change your loadout.

The whole lock the armory decision in the first place is just pointless, its such an unneeded change that does nothing for the meta.

@haughtyfern4707 yes and no, spam boarding can be a death sentence but the punishment for death isn't as great as the reward for one good stick.

There are tons of scenarios where uncovered boarding can create the opportunity for a boarding party that sticks.

@captain-fob4141 hmm, I'm not sure about that tbh. To stick a board is incredibly hard to do when blunderbombs exist. If you manage to kill or knock off the border (which is remarkably easy to do) then you have now made it a fight between 2 crews except one with a smaller crew size. This is a huge advantage that you gain and, if capitalized on, can turn the tide of the battle.

If anything it is a huge risk to board a ship with no pressure because of how easy it is to be denied a board. Of course, If a board is successful it can turn the battle in their favor fairly easily, but its just a gamble.

With solo sloopers, its a bit less risky to board straight away, but they can't sink you very quickly when on your ship, so you have more opportunity to kill them.

Ultimately, I think this is a very balanced mechanic that requires a lot of skill to actually pull off. It's more like gambling an easy win or a straight disadvantage but the odds are heavily stacked against you.

@haughtyfern4707 ignoring fighting up, because that's going to be a significantly different scenario.

Even crews or matching down, a boarder demands a response. If you are good enough to manage your ship down a person, you only lose out on cannon density. If you send a boarder and they miss mermaids spawn so quickly it's as if you didn't go down anyone at all, if they die it's an extra 30-40s where your helm needs to maintain superior positioning, either in a position where cannons aren't a threat or one where the enemy over commits to cannons. There is almost no scenario where going down one crew member will mean you sink on the spot. (The exception at least would be one where you are significantly damaged and in need of repairs, and already boarded.)

A random board attempt means one of the enemy's crew is either dedicated to watching or otherwise keeping you off the ship in addition to any other jobs they have. Depending on who they get to do that it means time where they aren't doing their job, which leads to mistakes and greater advantages.

It certainly takes skill to lock down an entire enemy crew in cqc, but that's not the point of boarding... the point is to distract and demand a response so they make a mistake.

A 1 person response means 1 less person on their ship doing their job for as long as you stick the ladder or otherwise.

A 2 or greater response even more so and those scenarios will result in mistakes and opportunities for incremental advantage.

The issue then, isn't just that boarding is too easy, it's that it's too rewarding. It demands a response every time and one failure on the part of the defense will sink the ship one failure in naval will not.

btw, the crud launch exploit proved this. When boarding was brain dead easy, board spam went up to an insane degree because it was easy and insanely rewarding

Fun idea but I think it still cancels too much the importance of loadout choice. The upcoming way feels balanced enough, once the boarder successfully anchored and controlled a ship, he can change weapon at his own ship once his crew has caught up, or on the ferry if he died.

@captain-fob4141 First off, yes i was only meaning to talk about ships versing with the same crew size because lots of this becomes irrelevant otherwise.

If the boarder misses the board and catches a merm, thats about 30s. This does give the enemy an advantage of 30 seconds and an opportunity to get an ideal position.

As for the helm being engaged taking care of the boarder. I mean, you can blunderbomb them off from pretty much anywhere. And if you for some reason can't do that, with the knock back of the blunder, you can easily knock them off.

For when i mentioned the skill, I really meant to get up on the boat by baiting your opponent or killing them while on the ladder. Also by dodging blunderbombs by predicting them.

The crud launch was only op because of its dolphin launch which allowed players to board far mor easily. Now I don't really want to keep straying from the original post so if you want to msg me anymore about this then you can msg me on discord (gibbon298), I'd be happy to discuss this further

@bloodybil i dont think it cancels out importance of loadout choice, youre still required to take one weapon with you, but once you 'conquer' their boat, you should be able to use their boat as your own, just of course without respawns and everything else. i dont think you should be punished for winning a one sided fight (grapple gun and one weapon). I definitely understand balancing it out so people cant just board then swap weapons, but i do think theres going to be a lot more at play than "oh ill just swap weapons once i board". 99% of the time if you board, theyre going to see you, so trying to swap weapons is a death sentence until you can actually kill the crew for some room to breathe. i mean, ill have to see how it is when it comes out, but i still think its way too punishing, and people will be turned off from using it. i personally would rather miss a board, wait 10-30 seconds for a mermaid, then reboard rather than harpoon onto someones ship, and be at a huge disadvantage with only one weapon

@haughtyfern4707 i do agree with this, even if there was some kinda temporary lock for ONLY the harpoon gun, i think itd be fair. i think being able to board from any angle should have some kinda drawback. maybe instead of locking the armory box, they could just make the harpoon gun louder and maybe a tad bit slower when pulling yourself in, so you know where someone will be boarding the boat. i do think the harpoon gun needs to be balanced, but the way theyre balancing it is way too punishing. i would 100% rather shoot out of the cannon for a board, miss the board, wait 30 seconds for a mermaid, then try to board again, rather than have a guaranteed board but i cant swap weapons even after taking control of the ship so im at a complete disadvantage especially in 1v2+

@alexroblox1533 said in Armory Box Suggestion:

@bloodybil i dont think it cancels out importance of loadout choice, youre still required to take one weapon with you, but once you 'conquer' their boat, you should be able to use their boat as your own, just of course without respawns and everything else. i dont think you should be punished for winning a one sided fight (grapple gun and one weapon). I definitely understand balancing it out so people cant just board then swap weapons, but i do think theres going to be a lot more at play than "oh ill just swap weapons once i board". 99% of the time if you board, theyre going to see you, so trying to swap weapons is a death sentence until you can actually kill the crew for some room to breathe. i mean, ill have to see how it is when it comes out, but i still think its way too punishing, and people will be turned off from using it. i personally would rather miss a board, wait 10-30 seconds for a mermaid, then reboard rather than harpoon onto someones ship, and be at a huge disadvantage with only one weapon

I don't know, frankly it still sounds like the loadout choice don't matter in the end if you can bypass the restriction, ship domination or not, it's the whole point of having to choose carefully what you bring with you on the other ship.

After all, ammo crate ain't locked, barrels aren't locked either; boarders can still grab more ammo and tools via blunderbombs, firebombs etc, traps soon, food to survive...

Boarding will become easier than ever with the new mechanics of stealth, disguises and siren suppression, I feel it's perfectly balanced to compensate the defenders accordingly. It's a pretty fair trade off IMO.

I think this might be one of the best change they have ever thought of, especially with all the new weapons and tools we are getting (knifes,double-barrel, harpoon gun). Being able to change weapons on the enemy ship, takes away not only skill expression but the drawbacks of using certain combos. Considering we already have a heavy board strat meta, where you spawncamp the enemy till they sink, with the addition of the harpoon gun this would get even worse, had they not made this call. Imagine getting boarded by clever use of the harpoon gun, only for the enemy to change into double gun or sword/blunder once they board you.