Balance the Boarding Tactic

@sot-snorelonn nobody said it was an issue. NOr that its OP.

The Issue is the silliness that is a dude standing in a complete hail fire of cannon shots while we are fighting him and the water and the cannons. If you arent firing then this will not have any effect on yoru playstyle will it? Seems like you already treat cannons like that are dangerous and you should hold your ammo and board after you send a couple balls their way.

Its for when you have boarders and they are still firing that the mechanic shows its silliness. When a guy has a cannon ball fly through him to hit you.

@geobiwan Exactly. And this is an extreme help to Sloops who are already almost always within the AOE of splash damage and Blow back, They will have more than enough to do when fighting to stay afloat.

If you already board without firing cannons at the same time, this will have zero effect on you. If you board while your team is shooting, you will have to tell them to let you get on board, or hold off til you get below deck.

No more guarding the upper stairs while cannons land all around you. Using the cannons for a flack shield is what we are talking about. Not that boarding as a tactic in itsself is op. That boarding combined with Cannon fire is a little silly.. okay, very silly.

@a-cranky-eskimo I dont remember it honestly. Ive been playing since the game was released.

Wonder why that was removed in the first place.Adds so much more realism to the world.

We love this game, we really do, but sometimes we are just left wondering why something was done a certain way when we all hop in.

@a-cranky-eskimo you make many great points. I don't think I ever experienced the FF. I think it should be a part of the game, the ones who don't want it are probably ppl exploiting it. Ive never played as a sloop, but seems like Geobiwan got the short end of the stick in his experience, and there is no real way to combat it. @WestStormborn @Nabberwar how would you suggest a sloop combat this?

I'm all for this because

1. Realism
2. Promotes skilled cannoneers and communication. Good shots with coordinated crews will still be able to have boarder/s sent while maintaining fire, but always a risk of it going wrong.

@jdge439
agreed
and on the mention of realism - i also think a little more is needed - ie a smaller ship rams a larger ship then yes the larger ship would take some damage but the smaller one would take more, a good example is when then larger ship rides straight over the row boat in a certain film and it splinters - its realistic and is what would happen - of course the damage would be in proportion to size.

@cpt-tempestus baby steps. I originally only stated knockback. But I truly want full on ff on so the game has a need for more crew coordination.

Its going to be especially noticeable in the upcoming arena. Massive battles going on and a boarder is impervious to the same canon shot that killed you while you were fighting him away from the anchor

@jdge439
My cure for the problem is a simple one. Let players pull the rope ladders so other players will be forced to learn to fight a decent sea battle. The endless boarding game completely negates any chances of of a cannon battle.

@winter-fritz44 after playing the arena for hours last night. The ladder subject isn't really what I'm thinking. The friendly fire and knock back will force a much higher level of communication between crews when attacking.

The ladder just removes the tactic entirely

So ive been in the arena and blowing the competition away with my crew of scallywags.

won 50 already, 90 something stolen chests turned in. etc etc.

I say this not to say I'm good but to show I'm experienced.

The thing I've heard quite often these past days was, "Give me support on the ladder".
This is as our boarder is climbing the ladder, He's asking for Artillery support to knck back the defender, but it wont effect him. It's within Direct opposition with what I imagine should be going on here.

While it's nice for us, that he can request that, It should be, that he can't make it up the ladder to get on the boat by us aiming at the ladder and making sure he can get on.

Every time, HE says okay I'm there, and we nail that ladder and the defender is either dead or blown off the other side, at least, he can't stop the boarder.

Which is exactly why I believe the No FF can be OP, you can't stop a boarder when he's requesting artillery support for boarding, you may know he's coming, you may go to the ladder to stop him, but, that's one of your men off the cannon and all three of us are aiming at your ladder to ensure he makes it. I leave the helm sometimes to add more firepower to the boarders flak shield.

I use this tactic and its soooooo easy.

I might even go a step further, beyond disabling Friendly Fire protection.

It would be more immersive if in order to communicate, even with your own team, you'd have to pull out the ol' trumpet.

Players would automatically default to discord or xbox chat or anything but in game chat....as is already the case.
But it would be much cooler and far more immersive.
It's always been a double-edged sword that you could be on an island on the other side of the map easily chatting with your crew.

but I say this while flinching from the inevitable whaAAambulance!!! 🤣😂😢

Yep, I think turning on friendly fire is a good idea. Hell, why not? The only reason why anyone would argue against this suggestion is they use the "Flak shield" as a current strategy, it's a pretty dull strategy requiring little finesse.
Yeah, it would make life harder giving covering fire during OOS missions, but you'd just need better co-ordination between the pirate on the island and the pirate on the cannon same when trying to sink someone.
Turning Friendly fire on, would result in crews having to work closer together.
I'm all for this suggestion.

I guess the only other argument against it would be when others are looking to cause grief on your ship and start randomly attacking their team mates. but really every game out there has friendly fire off while explosions are indiscriminate, doesn't matter who throws a grenade for example (this should be added to sea of thieves) anyone in the blast radius is affected.

With the removal of anchor drop from cannon fire bringing back tune board board board meta, i am even more for this being implemented.