Naval Combat is EXTREMELY Slow

[Vorir]

DISCLAIMER: I understand this is pre-alpha and meant to be as realistic as possible.

It seems like the Naval combat is painfully slow at the moment. Our group really wanted to focus on naval combat, but handling ships right now is just sluggish to the point that we just couldn't get into it. We had a 20 minute round timer set and it seemed that every single naval battlefield round ended with the timer. Once you finally get to the other boats you might get a couple broadsides where gunners shoot aimlessly with no feedback if they land shots (audio or visual) until your captain has to start turning. If they hit your rudder/sails, you're basically done for the rest of the round. We found ourselves just changing the map to siege mode because that was better paced.

My group typically plays Blackwake (which we play competitively) which has much more of an arcade feel to naval combat so maybe I am just not looking at it through the right lens but here are a couple things that just seem to really need help.

1. Repairable Masts. This is very important because when your mast goes down you're basically out for the fight. This should obviously take a while to fix to allow players to approach the ships.
   
2. Faster handling ships We really need to be able to turn faster. I spent literally 3 minutes trying to turn my ship fast enough to fire on an enemy with the entire crew just waiting at the guns for them to get in range
   
3. Ability to ram other ships right now if you sail into another ship, it just awkwardly pushes them. A captain should be able to make the tactical decision to ram his ship into an enemy
   
4. Grappling hooks When you pass a ship you should be able to grapple on to them to start a boarding battle. Right now the only reliable way to get on an enemy ship is with a rowboat
   
5. Audio cues when you land a cannonball right now when you land a shot there is little feedback on if your shot actually hit the target. If there was maybe a client-side wood spintering sound or sail ripping it would go a very long way.
   
6. Points for landing shots on the enemy ship Right now you only get points for killing other people with cannons. This means the musician only gets points when you kill someone too. This is such a rare occurrence that most naval battleground rounds end with most of the team with negative/zero score. If you just gave a small number of points (e.g. 10 for shots landed, 5 for musician assist) it would make it a lot more palatable. This could also replace the need for audio cues as you would then have a visual cue of the points when you land your shot.[/olist]
   
   I understood that this was going to be slower than Blackwake, and maybe my expectation of 20 minutes per round is too short for what your vision is. We did really enjoy playing the other game modes, but we had to move our server from being completely naval focused to only having 3/10 maps in the rotation as naval battleground maps.
   
   tl;dr; If you want to have intense fast-paced naval combat Blackwake is the game for you. It's like the difference between Napoleonic Wars and Quake 3. Sometimes you just want to run and gun.
   cross-posting on the forums

[-SIBERIANWOLF-]

hmm dint test it but yes 20 min is really short bro 3min for turn ? lets hope for 2min :-) but i think it was really slow combat back then also the hooks i dont know its a pirates thing soldiers just kill the people on deck back then no need for cap but it sure happen somme times and after battle hmmm lets wait and see i think there is much to happen in this game its just an alpha (sadly)

[Zenith]

I found the Brig's rudder to be extremely random, and very unresponsive to my inputs. I wanted to initiate a turn to starboard, but the damned thing just kept going port instead, taking me way off coarse, which then took me into the wind and made things even slower. Not a fun experience.

[Vorir]

Zenith I had the same general experience with the brig (that's the one specifically that took me forever to turn). Someone said that maybe the rudder got hit by a cannonball but if that is true then we REALLY need to have the carpenter able to fix it. When you have 16 people on a boat that can't move/turn at all it does not give a good experience :(.

I'm just not sure how much of this is intended either because I'm used to Blackwake which compared to this feels like handling a F1 car :D. Granted BW doesn't have wind but I'd rather be able to sail reliably than have a wind mechanic.

[Zenith]

No, it was that way from the start of the round, totally unresponsive. If it were a Man O' War, then fair enough, but a bloody Brig for goodness sake!

[Sonicshard]

I find the Naval Battles really enjoyable. It is true that they need a lot of improvement like getting points for landing shots, team balancing and few more things.

However, they already have this realistic feeling of being part of a crew trying to sink the enemy ship before yours become a bunch of wet planks.

[TheRegulator]

I captured a few french ships and in that content.... You must be able to strike the french colours, and raise the British flag. Its a MUST to get it implemented.

The turning of the ships is very realistic ... You must consider the wind direction when manuvering at all times. The fregat can turn quick if you got the wind right, if not you will lay dead in the water up against the wind for a min or 2.

[FireBall1]

i played captain and our side won in part due to my handling of the ship but recieved no points.

[Doc]

I agree that fully taking a ship by raising your own flag should be a thing. And give larger ships more flags to make them harder to take and easier to identify.

[JoJo]

Well, I guess the Carpenter will be good for something eventually, so ships last longer and can actually recover and repair damaged parts. Paired with a scoring system with points for damage this could workd out.