PvP Re-Balancing - The good and bad and what's next.

@d3adst1ck I like that idea! So you don't actually lose control of your character, which is frustrating, but you're still penalized for senselessly spamming.

@d3adst1ck said in PvP Re-Balancing - The good and bad and what's next.:

I think that without the slow down, the sword attacking loses a bit of finesse and becomes more spammy. However, the slowdown made the control feel clunky. What I would do instead is add a cooldown after a missed swing, but still allow you to move freely. This would bring back the importance of swinging at opportune times only and add some separation between skilled sword users and people who just spam the attack button.

I haven't run into the blocking issue too much yet, but I don't doubt it exists. The question is whether it is due to the sword attack speed, or the fact that players can move a lot more while swinging which could be getting them around the block detection arc in front of your character.

I am not sure I understand the cooldown. For me, if I miss an attack now, I can still move away, but my sword is "frozen" for a second or two. Is that no always the case?

Sorry, somehow hit submit before I was done.

This might be an animation issue, but in the cases I am referring to, you can see the pirate in front of you, the only movement they show is the swing of the sword and the usual follow up to that movement. They don't appear to be moving around you or side to side. Maybe I am wrong though.

@d3adst1ck Having scrolled through a video of someone who complained about the swordplay, I think it may be the latter. They didn't speed up the swings themselves, they just removed the slow movement speed when swinging and adjusted the movement speed when a swing is missed.

I agree that a slight cooldown when you miss a swing may be in order. I agree that this would decrease the spammy nature some folks are complaining about.

I think the guns are in a good spot. I have to think about what weapons I carry now whereas I didn't have to before... that's a good thing. I've not had an issue with the sprint to fire time - I drop into a run first which raises the weapon anyway, so there won't be any delay and I keep moving over the very short time it takes for the animation to complete. I think this is an issue that requires more adaptation and adjusted timing than a fix by the devs.

@nofears-fun said in PvP Re-Balancing - The good and bad and what's next.:

• Blocking now seems to be broken. I saw a suggestion from someone that suggested it could be because sword attacks are now faster, faster than you are able to block and this makes a great deal of sense to me. It seems as though when attacks were adjusted, blocks were not adjusted to coincide with them. I personally have experienced several occasions where I was blocking, head on with another pirate, but taking hits every other swing.

I can't agree more with you on the new sword mechanics. It does feel a little clunky now. It seems they made adjustments to the attacking and movement portion, but still did not fix the blocking aspect. And I say still not fixed blocking, because since release 1.4.0 blocking has not worked properly. It's very clear even when you fight the skellies. Run up to a skelly and just try to block there attacks, you will find blocking only works about 30% of the time.

The second topic I would like to discuss is the Eye of Reach. Since release 1.4.3, they have nerfed this gun drastically and I do understand why. As it was OP and was a great menace whilst in PvP mode. I like what they did to the hip fire method, but they nerfed the power of this gun too much. It has now become ineffective to killing skellies at a distance too. Since this release, I have been more effective with my pistol.

These are just my observations.

@friedwilly I guess I really didn't notice the change before. Quite honestly, I was not very good at using my block before the latest update, even against skellies. But you are not the only one that mentioned it has been broken for a bit now. I will leave it on the list as it is something that needs to be addressed no matter when the problem was introduced.

@friedwilly I'll second your thoughts on the EoR. The hip-fire RNG alone was enough to make it more or less useless in close combat (which is great); I'd love it if the damage were un-nerfed back to 80 (or even buffed to 85/90?) to really reward players like me who love sniping :)

@friedwilly Your second topic I want to discuss a bit further. I agree the damage seems to be way off now from before. They mentioned they removed something that they claim was there all along that interfered with damage being reduced at distance. But what I am seeing seems to suggest the opposite, that they added this as a feature. In other words, I never noticed reduced damage thanks to distance from say the EoR. I got the same damage no matter distance before this update. But now, it does seem to make a difference. Because they adjusted the speed of the bullets themselves, you would think that the damage would not make a difference, after all the speed of the projectile is as much a factor in damage as anything else.

I have heard some people mention hit markers as part of the problem for this as well. Not sure if I understand what they are saying, but I have seen it. You can now shoot a skelly from your ship 5-9 times before killing them, and each time get a hit marker, and even see them react and hear them take the hit. But they don't die, and not because they are spamming bananas. In fact, I now need to reload just to kill one skelly more often than not. Definitely seems as if there is a problem here. Not sure if it is that you are getting bad indicators showing a hit that doesn't actually happen, or damage at distance is greatly reduced. Either way this seems to be an issue.

OK, so for those stating the sword fighting is a bit clunky. I do get it. What suggestions do you have to help correct this?

@nofears-fun Yeah, I am not sure what the issues is with the EoR. Hit markers or amount of damage per hit? All I can say is, hitting skellies at distance now requires more shots on target. Especially gold skellies, before in water it would take about 4 positive hits to eliminate the target. Now it takes about 8 positive hits on target.

@friedwilly With regard to the EoR, I have noticed that it's easier to kill skellies from a greater distance now, so I'm noticing the impact of the lack of distance falloff. I remember being annoyed that it would take so many shots to kill skellies at greater distances before. Not so now, in my experience.

They only dropped the damage by 10%. Again, I haven't noticed it as an issue... but, that may be due to my being used to level 50 skellies at this point. I'll have to test this on my lower level alt to check.

@nofears-fun I haven't had a good chance to test out the new swordplay, but if there's a full-character freeze on a missed slash, they should switch it to just an attack-cooldown; so you can move your character but you can't attack. I also think they should buff the block speed so that if you're blocking you can't get hit by a sufficiently fast slash.

Potentially unpopular idea: to make sword combat much more immersive and skill-requiring, I would LOVE a function where a perfectly timed block performs a riposte that maybe damages the attacker, maybe just pushes them away without damage. This would make attacking with the sword more of a strategic decision, as you actually have something to lose. But maybe that just doesn't fit in the game

I'll say the EOR was much more fun with the hip fire. From a logical and practical perspective, the EOR fix makes sense as a pure long range weapon. However, it is not near as fun if I am honest. Anyone else feel that way? The animations are a tad bit funny but don't bother me too much. The hit markers probably need to be patched a little. Haven't really tried the sword block but I will say that with all the changes as is versus what was before, things are about the same but overall more freedom is better and more fun and I feel like things are a little restricting now. Honestly, I think RARE kinduv struck out on this one, but the old system was by no means that great either just a little less restrictive.

@NoFears-Fun I want to just thank you for creating constructive feedback. I thought it a long lost art but people cans till do this. Thank you!

As for my feedback:

• PvP Damage for Eye of reach feels allright, I like that I can eat a banana now and live trough a second shot. So that's ok.
• PvE damage for eye of reach is less ok right now. I feel like I need 3 shots to kill an athena skeleton carrying a Gunpowder barrel and we used to need 2 shots. This makes it harder to kill them when they are for example close to the ship.
• I love the hip fire inaccuracy for the Eye of reach, I feel that somehow the other weapons get the same effect making blunderbuss hipfire (especially against skeletons) really bad.
• Weapon delay for sprinting and jumping seems like a side effect that's tied to the draw animation. For EoR I can understand it, for Blunderbuss it's kinda annoying, I get shot by skeletons with blunderbusses before I can pull off a shot myself.
• Sword combat seems fine but I have to admit I'm usually the guy who hops around everyone slashing a sword while the dual gunners trie desperately to shoot me, so eh yeah maybe not the right person to give feedback on this ^_^
• Bullet Travel time seems to be the same while it should have been buffed. I keep missing skeletons because of the long travel time in correlation with the ships movement, I get leading your shots and all but it's currently rediculous.

@hynieth I added some of what you posted. Some I already had, and some are more individual to you it seems (like the bunny hop attack, lol) Let me know if I should add something I didn't.

@hynieth Odd. I find I have to lead my shots with the EoR less now than before.

@ultmateragnarok really? If so, that sounds pretty dumb and should probably be fixed.

Blocking needs to be looked into as its not working the way it was intended at least imo.. The mechanics used to force you to do a sword lunge if someone is in a constant block. This needs to come back. Right now you can hit through blocks with slashes so the meta is to just spam slash.

Also the fact you can do the 3 slash combo without hitting anyone/anything needs to be removed as people are starting their slash from a distance while walking forward and this just doesn't feel like clean sword play also imo.

Gun animation delay after running or in any other instance like this Needs to be removed.

If the animation delay needs to stay (it really shouldn't) you also need to add the delay to the sword that should get unsheathed in that delay. Right now you can switch from a gun to the sword just as fast as you were able to switch to a gun b4 the update and with the guns withdraw delay you have to add the same delay to the sword otherwise its hypocritical..

Honestly i'm only playing SoT right now because its super snowy up in Wa state right now and I've had an entire week off work I'm losing my mind bored. I honestly wouldn't be playing otherwise. this update is horrible.

@clumsy-george said in PvP Re-Balancing - The good and bad and what's next.:

" The Good , the Bad and what's next?"...Really , do they never teach these young Pirates what great classic Movies have been made in the past??? ...AAargh...The Ugly , that's whats' next...( * And our Moron is once again making an Epic failure, what a dufus ,hey?)

LOL, I was going to go with that, but I was worried if I added ugly then some would see that as an excuse to turn this into another rant thread. LOL

@vderickv Thank you for the feedback. I have not been able to start a three swipe attack on anyone with my sword if I don't hit them or something the first swing. I will do some more playing around tonight to verify this. But I am pretty sure if you miss and only hit air, then you can still walk freely, but your sword freezes for a second or two.

Have you tried it and been able to do it as you suggest? I am wondering if this is a sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't type of thing.

@nofears-fun said in PvP Re-Balancing - The good and bad and what's next.:

@vderickv Thank you for the feedback. I have not been able to start a three swipe attack on anyone with my sword if I don't hit them or something the first swing. I will do some more playing around tonight to verify this. But I am pretty sure if you miss and only hit air, then you can still walk freely, but your sword freezes for a second or two.

Have you tried it and been able to do it as you suggest? I am wondering if this is a sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't type of thing.

was definitely able to redo this... you can also aim at the ground and slash the ground to start the 3 slash.

https://twitter.com/DerickMcAfee/status/1095760678046978048

Personally, I find Blunderbuss in a bad place. At least in higher tier playing. You will always see new people using it, but I think the more you understand the game, the less you will want to use it. Right now with the most recent patch, it was buffed. It wasn't buffed in numbers, but the fact that all the other weapons excluding the sword got nerfed elevated its value a bit.

Here are some positives of the weapon:

1. Great for Gold Skeletons when water is unavailable.
2. One of two weapons now able to dislodge boarders.
3. Still has knockback
4. Can potentially kill a full health opponent.

Now for the Negatives:

1. Inconsistent damage no matter the range. Even point blank shots unreliable kill an opponent.
2. Outclassed by nearly all other weapons for dealing with skeletons, excluding Golds.
3. Unreliable for dealing with GP Skeletons.
4. Useless dealing with emergent threats (Kraken and Meg)

The major problems I have with this weapon, is its way to niche in value. While also having minimal value in PvP encounter (my opinion). How would I adjust this to make it valuable to use, without reverting it to the previously destructive state?

Potentially, lowering the weapon spread of the bullets might have an effect. At least give the weapon some consistent damage at certain range. Right now there is no reliable way to determine if you hit a good shot. What about having the knockback scale with the damage done. This would give the player an idea of how much damage they did. At least with the other weapons, I know exactly how much damage I do. This gives me the benefit to know how much damage you need to follow up with a kill. Having more knockback scaled with damage could give this weapon a stronger defensive PvP niche use. Better chance of knocking boarders over the rails of the ship.

Ok so my feedback is mostly if it's not broke don't fix it and why but here we go start off with swordplay it has become a spamfeast of just swinging nobody can deny this (you can see my post on the mega thread in combat rebalance about the new state of meta swordplay and nobody has rebutted it so it seems pretty solid) so here's how to fix it just bring back the old system the new sword system takes all the skill and timing away from sword play and boils it down to swing swing and swing some more you should be slowed when you miss it feels natural and makes it more rewarding when you do land that blow. You should feel a little clunky when you miss i mean you missed after all feels natural. Now onto delayed aiming after sprinting this is another thing that was not broken and didn't need fixing this makes movement super awkward and leaves you scratching your head like is your controller messed up or am I lagging it just feels unnatural and super awkward i dont think i will ever get used to it nor would i want to. Also it give advantages to stationary people and is never a good thing you should reward the more agile person who's able to outmaneuver his opponent not who can stand still and wait for it only using his ability to aim and not move and aim
Besides this i like the changes all good swap between weapons reduced hipfire accuracy

Ill add more later thanks

Another broken sword mechanic video. here ya go.
https://twitter.com/DerickMcAfee/status/1095766889597300736

@vderickv so it seems that the problem you're pointing out was also here before the patch -- because it still works the same way, in that if you don't hit anything with your sword, your combo ends and there's a brief cooldown; but what you're pointing out in that video is that you can get away from that by hitting the ground while moving, and that will maintain your combo. Am I understanding you correctly?

@vorondil1

Basically i'm just saying fine tuning in general around the sword needs to be done. and especially with all these gun nerfs. This is definitely an exploit in my eyes.