Unable to enjoy sailing

[Mako]

Recently came back to BDO with dreams of becoming a sailor/sea monster hunter. I found it hard to find up to date information so let me know if I am missing something obvious.

The free ship you receive is completely useless on the ocean and is used a base for an upgrade to a better ship (this is fair) So I started my journey to gather the insane amount of materials for the frigate upgrade so I could begin. After about 4 weeks of playing the game and slowly amounting my materials I got a lucky drop and made enough silver that I could just preorder everything off the market. Even preordering off the market is a long waiting game atm. Just want to say about the coconut node - coconuts are extremely slow to amount and there is no transport option so you have to journey across the desert to even pick them up -_-

Anyway I've finally upgraded to frigate and cant' wait to get back on the water and hunt some sea monsters. I start with a baby Hekuru and ram is doing no damage? So after googling I see that the charge actually does no damage and you have to line up the creature and turn into him as the charge ends and ram begins. This is extremely difficult to do because the charge seems to have different durations and after you hit once then creature starts going random directions and because of wind and current to line up again feels almost impossible to me. Then I realise that I'm actually doing more damage to myself using ram. So I move to cannons. Line up the boat aim my cannon and again this is only doable the first hit. I just want to add here that I am Australian and playing on a 170 ping (not sure if this is why it is so hard) but it seems overly annoying.

I go back to town and upgrade my ships equipment to all +5 because I couldn't kill the low level creatures. Head back out and after an incredible painful encounter I kill 1 baby sea creature. My ship is destroyed and need to head back to wharf to repair or afk for 30 minutes to manually repair my ship. Over the next week I continue to push myself to realise my sea fairing dreams. 1 by 1 hair pulling annoying victories I realise that this 2 BILLION silver ship is almost as useless as the previous. The only difference with upgrading to the next tier is that you actually need sea creature drops to progress. I cannot complete the majority of sea quests that I have aquired. These fights are not worth the frustration of lag + non colision + self damage + incredible amount of time.

I understand that ocean content was previously nerfted but can I suggest nerfing the rewards instead of the enjoyability factor. As a new player coming into the game with an interest in seeing the majoria content and hunting sea creatures, I'll probaby never leave shore again because so far the experience has felt completely unrewarding and just pure frustration at ocean encounters. Please make the ocean fun, I'd suggest adding collision to the creatures or the ability to activate ram during the charge. Tone down the self damage done by ram on the frigate since there is no viable solo option for cannons. decrease the time it takes to repair your ship on the water.

[mana🌎🌍🌏🇺🇸🇳🇱]

This is well written and I agree with a lot of it.

[Yuki]

We could really use a forward cannon. A small one at least...But!

Option to solo with cannons: Upgrade to improved Frigate/sailboat (no sea stuff needed).
Cannons move below deck and can now be activated from the helm.
Done!

Afterwards:
Still get annoyed by the collision system, completely random hitboxes, loot you cant even use or store because its [guild]-if there is any, wind always turning against you (~80% chance), curse all those blocking Velia port with their godlike parking skills (...)

The aiming from the helm is also complete ♥♥♥♥. But at least that is "work in progress".

[Traveler]

Good thing I saw this before touching the ocean.

[[FuFo] Mortucus]

u should have bought the 300 mill sailboat and upgraded it so you can fire the guns without another player

ramming was removed from damaging sea monsters because it was cheesey and required no skill
the silver gains were nerfed as well because they added bartering

read patch notes

[Mako]

Originally posted by Mortucus:

read patch notes

excuse me while i catch up on 4 years of patch notes

[joean8415]

Though it has been a while and maybe too late, I like to share some thought since like you, I encountered most of the problems you mention, and had hard time searching for solutions online.

1. The coconut node. I realized that it's not possible to transport items from the storage in Arehaza port. Use the workers from Valencia or Ankatu to collect the coconut instead. You can transport items from these two places and you won't have to collect the coconuts yourself.
2. The ram damage can be scaled by the cannon equipment. Buy the blue one from market (about 60m) and enhance it to +6. It helps a lot. I think you only need to kill about 6 large sea monsters, then the ooze plus the free material given from Ravinia crow nest quest lines enough to upgrade the frigate to the next tier. I am currently working on upgrade the ship too.