Things I Question About This Game

[CarribeanThunder]

Topic One:
Galleons VS Brigs

Once upon a time, the only three ships we could choose from were Sloops, Galleons and Frigates. Sloops were about speed and maneuverability, Frigates were about power, and Galleons were about cargo and endurance. All three were nice. 'Course, they all had their downsides.
Sloops, while being fast, sacrificed hull strength, cannon and cargo space.
Galleons, carrying all that cargo and broadside strength, were slow as a result. And they were a bulky, easy to hit target.
Frigates were pretty much in between.

Then came the Brig, the fourth ship class we could purchase. It pretty much combined all three prior ship classes, having the Sloop's speed, the Galleon's broadsides and one more pair of deck cannons than it, and the Frigate's hull power and cargo space. It's also about the same size as a War Frigate.

So with the Brig in existence, why would you ever want to buy a Galleon? The Brig has a better number in nearly all statistics than the Galleon except for the cargo. So really, unless you for some reason just really need two more cargo slots, you don't need to buy a War Galleon instead of a War Brig.
(Throughout this, I'll use the War versions as a main example, as I have more experience with them than the Medium versions.)

But that's just my opinion. I hope it doesn't sound insensitive, I'm sure there are people out there who love the War Galleon more than the War Brig. Of course, the War Brig is more expensive than the War Galleon, so you'll have to hold out for longer. But in the end, it is worth it.

Still though, if that's not enough, what about ship upgrades? Copperhead, for example. The War Galleon is slow enough, but give it Copperhead and it's more like a slug. Sure, 12 broadside cannons per side gives you a nice chance to fire a few Explosives. Except that the War Brig is faster and has more health, so it'll benefit more, as even though Copperhead lowers its speed, it'll still be faster than a War Galleon with Copperhead, for the same chance of Explosives being fired and with more health to keep it going.

Storm Chaser and Skull & Bones make a pair of good examples. The same applies as with Copperhead, but neither ruin your speed. In fact, while Skull & Bones doesn't alter your Speed much, Storm Chaser simply adds on to your speed. Skull & Bones gives you more health to survive. And both give you really good broadside bonuses - Storm Chaser giving Thunderbolt and Skull & Bones granting Fury. In both cases, I'm pretty sure no stats go down. So why put that on a lesser ship when you can put it on a greater ship to get a higher benefit out of it? I'm pretty sure the stat boosts are multipliers rather than additives.

Honestly, I know people have their preferences. But I wouldn't even buy a War Galleon, because the Brig is definitely a better choice. But if you really, really want one, unless you really want explosives and don't mind having an insanely slow giant bullseye, don't put Copperhead on it. Go with Storm Chaser. Please.

For added evidence, here are the stats for both the War Galleon and War Brig:
War Galleon:
Armor: 10,800
Sails: 10,000
Cannons: 10
Broadsides: 24
Cargo: 18
Crew: 10
Cost: 40,000 gold
Resale Value : 20,000 gold

War Brig:
Armor: 12,000
Sails: 11,000
Cannons: 12
Broadsides: 24
Cargo: 16 <--- The only statistic that the War Galleon has over the War Brig.
Crew: 12 <
Cost: 80,000 gold
Resale Value: 40,000 gold <--- Heh, it even sells for more.

Edit: I think perhaps there's some confusion. I'm not actually saying they should remove the Galleon completely. That is not at all my intention. If anything, more variety is a good thing. And yes, Galleons do look as close to a real life ship as any of the ship classes in POTCO do (other than the Ship of the Line, if a bit smaller than a normal one would be).
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Topic Two:
Defense Skills
Feint and Hex Ward

Feint and Hex Ward are nice skills, right? When they're ready to be used, they'll block a Melee attack or a Voodoo attack. That's less damage for you to take, so why might I be questioning this worthiness?

Well, considering the length of the animation when Feint or Hex Ward is used, in the time the animation goes on, I could be doing damage to the enemy, killing it sooner. So even though I just blocked a hit, I can't return damage. So why even bother use Feint in the first place? Sure, it may deflect a killing shot if you are that low on health, but if the enemy is also low on health, you're better off switching to another weapon and killing it before Feint activates, otherwise you'll go down anyway.

Although considering the game's lag, it may work in your favor anyway.

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Topic Three:
Life Drain... "Immunity"?

Now, I know what you're thinking. But I don't see it having any visible effect. What does it do? How does it work? How do I activate it?
I've used several weapons with Life Drain Immunity. I'm not sure what it does. Does it stop Life Drain from being used at all on you? Does it stop the enemy from getting health from the attack?

Does it even work?

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Topic Four:
Land Enemy AI

Now, honestly, I find this game to be too easy as far as combat on land. Sure, there are ways to make it challenging. But it feels like enemies have no strategy. El Patron maybe spawns his little helpers every now and then. But that's as intelligent as it gets. Every other enemy is a hack and slash. Honestly, if I were an AI developer, I would make EITC Mercenaries save their Bladestorms for either an insta-kill on a low enough level player that gets too close (not to sound harsh or anything, but you get the idea), or save it for when a player fighting them is low on health. Or, when the Mercenary himself is low on health, he could start using harder hitting attacks as a last ditch effort.

Although maybe this little topic isn't as great an argument. But really, there's not much to say about the AI for landlubbers. It's simple, from what I can see. Or maybe it's some sort of limitation Disney has. I don't know, I'm not an expert with these things.

Although one thing I could see needing work is enemies being broken (invincible and unresponsive to attacks) and them falling through the ground.

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Topic Five:
Flaming Skull and Pestilence
The Torch Goes Out?

Now, this has been a problem for me for an eternity. I remember always leveling my Staff in the old days, loving Flaming Skull, even though it ate Voodoo very quickly. The burn it left was nice. Same thing with Pestilence. Combining the two was very handy for some bigger enemies when leveling the Staff.

However, one day, I had noticed something peculiar. Why wasn't that Urchinfist being burned when I used Pestilence? Flaming Skull left a burn, so why not Pestilence?
Maybe closing the game and coming back would help.
Nope.

And further on in time, Flaming Skull's burn effect disappeared as well. And to this day, neither of them leave their intended effects.
And interestingly enough, my secondary pirate doesn't suffer from the same dilemma. At least not yet, because he isn't as high a level.

I've even asked people about it, but I've never been told that they've had, have or know someone who has had the issue or is currently suffering from the issue. I know I make it sound like a disease in this context, but it may as well be. Pestilence and Flaming Skull's Acid and Burn effects should not be missing in action.

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Perhaps that is all I will talk about for now. Maybe I'll add on to this some other time, but right now this is really all I can think of. If you see through to my points, that is fine. If not, that is also fine.

I do not mean to make this post sound like an entire rant or anything bad. Just showing my thoughts on some of the things in this game. I hope no one takes offense.

[Platinum Pirate]

Well written and thought out. Kudos!

About the five topics, my thoughts are as follows:

• Topic One
  It has never made sense to have the Galleon class ever since the Brig class debut. POTCO must have kept it in order for those who purchased them to keep them. I still have my Light Galleon that I started with and those precious memories of those adventures I had with it is why I've kept it. If POTCO eliminated the Galleon type, I'd be mad and let them know it. It's not just preference why players like them, it's also for sentimental reasons.
  
  There is also one key difference the War Galleon has that the War Brig won't ever have: Rear Cannons. They shoot forward of course like the Frigate. The Brig can only shoot sideways. No cannons are mounted at the front or rear that can shoot forward. Is is still worth having, yes. If you know how to sail, you can sail any ship and command the seas easily. Most complain because they have yet to master those skills on their own. They depend on other factors instead (i.e., having a full crew; more firepower; large ship health by default; sailing in a Full server; etc).
  
• Topic Two
  I see what you mean. It's not practical as you pointed out. I like them and I'm glad POTCO made them available. Like I pointed out about mastering the sea, a player should know how to fight with such grace. The battle is won before it even started. Most players just click fast, rather hurriedly, and depend on others to win the battle. The worst types are those who need to glitch for convenience/fun or hack to show off. They simply have no respect for the game because they have no respect for themselves. Enough said.
  
• Topic Three LOL! Means you stay alive when your health dwindles to 1. Gypsies can still use their Life Drain, they just can't wipe you out. Poor Jolly. Oops Did I give that away? rofl and you sorry types need to God-Glitch...
  
• Topic Four
  All enemies, at land and at sea, use to be very aggressive and attacked as soon as you were within range. I love those days. POTCO changed it. Probably to make it more kiddie friendly which according to those God-Glitchers, they're still too difficult to battle. ROFL
  
  Land enemies are designed to attack based on your weakness, weapon or notoriety. They can overwhelm you in large numbers during round ups which are fun doing. Only time will tell if POTCO decides to end that round up practice seeing how they have a tendency to drop into the terrain. They drop in there anyway on their own. Kinda fun to hunt those, especially, during Invasions.
  
  As for those with no health, I finally saw it happened and submitted a Bug Report. There is a work around. Short of a server reset, player needs to log out, log back in, tp to that place if a crewmate is there, and resume the quest. They usually happen during a quest. Player rushes to search before the enemy spawns into action. Some line of code was simply skipped when the program kicked in while the server was still spawning the enemy at a set time. Bad timing I suppose.
  
• Topic Five
  I thought it was just my computer's Nvidia that was causing that Pestilence glitch. It was working fine. Then one day, the icon didn't show up. Relogging and clearing cache didn't fix it either. Yet, unable to tell whether it was doing anymore damage or not, from my alt on another computer, I can see those icons and damage working fine. Can't see it at my end but can from my alt's in other words.
  
  As for the Flaming Skull, works fine. The graphics are fine too. Love them in fact.

Thanks again, CarribeanThunder, for sharing your thoughts with us.

[CarribeanThunder]

Originally Posted by Platinum Pirate

Well written and thought out. Kudos!

About the five topics, my thoughts are as follows:
/snip
Thanks again, CarribeanThunder, for sharing your thoughts with us.

1: Hmm, yeah, I guess that's fair. But as someone who doesn't do SvS and usually goes solo against the high-tier enemy ships - the Fleets and Bountyhunters, in other words - those front cannons don't benefit me.

Don't get me wrong. I never said I wanted to see the Galleon go, haha. I like the way it looks. Probably the most accurate looking ship to a real life counterpart for this game's standards. It's the same deal with the Test Server and those who ended up buying the Ships of the Line and the one Kingfisher. Disney wouldn't remove them because that'd be wasted gold.

I've sailed more with the faster ships to know how they work anyway. War Galleons never really fit my style. And soloing Fleets definitely isn't something a Galleon could work for.

2: I'm not sure I understand where this got off at. I think the only thing I related to my own post was the first sentence. Sorry, if you could elaborate, that'd be much appreciated.

3: ...Where's this god-glitching topic coming from?
So wait, Life Drain Immunity stops you from being knocked out if Life Drain would otherwise be the killing attack? Well, I guess in the slim chances the circumstances are right, I guess that's useful. But I don't think I'd come around to that often enough to find it too useful.

4: Again with god-glitching? I never spoke a thing about people using glitches or hacks to their advantage.
Aye, I remember when enemies would attack when you got within a specific radius of them. They still do if you're at a lower level than they are. Even then, they may still attack. Lv14 Sergeants still bug my Lv22 pirate. I remember once on Test, they made it so that attacking one enemy while it was close to another would alert the other guy. While that was rather annoying when leveling in Tormenta, I thought it added a bit of challenge. That's the kind of thing I'd like to see.

As far as the guys that drop through the floor, if it is an enemy that you are attacking that does it, what I usually do is just go interact with an NPC. Causes the enemy to disengage and eventually he'll wander to his spawn point.

The broken enemy thing seems like it affects certain spawn points, although that's just a guess. I've seen broken enemies in the same spots. Like the one spot in the graveyard on Port Royal where an Undead Bandit can also spawn. I've commonly seen broken Undead Bandits lingering there. It's never actually happened to me, but yeah.

Although one thing the game also needs is better enemy pathfinding.

5: It is definitely neither a graphics card glitch or just a random thing. I went to Tormenta with my main and an alt account pirate. Neither of them showed either the Acid/Burn debuff icon or any signs of lowering health. I mean it when I say Pestilence and Flaming Skull do not leave a burn. It's such a shame, really. They're really nice Staff skills.

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Well, thanks for the input! The first two points, I can't argue with. Though the second one kinda throws me off, as I'm not sure what you're talking about after the first sentence. Sorry .

[Klamath]

Interesting questions. I don't hold too much knowledge on these subjects, but I can give some input.



Topic one: When comparing Galleon vs. Brig, one will usually choose the brig. The brig outshines the galleon in most aspects. The galleon may not be useful in comparison to the brig, but it can still be useful. POTCO wouldn't remove the galleon ship from the game, probably because it would upset some players who prefer the galleon to anything else. If anything, having four types of ships gives the game a little more variety, and will cater to different modes of gameplay. Galleons in this game also look the most realistic (the brig and sloop look OK, but the frigate is just very funky-looking--but hey, it's a fantasy game...). I like sailing galleons on my little pirates from time to time because they look nice (I love historical ships, and the galleon is one of my favorites), so they're not completely useless.

Topic two: automatic-defense weapon skills are up to your preference. I personally like them, and carry a nice blunderbuss with Hex Ward on it to defeat Voodoo-wielding enemies, because it has come in handy at times. I play Pirates at a slower rate than most players, so I don't mind an extra second in shielding an attack. Some people don't prefer that, and that is fine. Hex Ward is also great at shielding grenade attacks, which is great against Spineskull and various grenadiers. Use is limited in automatic-defense weapon skills, but I like them for what they can do.

Topic three: Life Drain Immunity is a passive skill that prevents the pirate from being knocked out by the enemy when it uses a Life Drain attack. Seems handy when you're at low health, since it prevents you from dying to a Life Drain attack, and instead keeps your health at 1 HP. There are passive skills in other games that give a "second-chance" by keeping 1 HP left on the player, but in POTCO, use is very specific to Life Drain, so it's not too useful, but nevertheless can be. Again, personal preference.

Topic four: Yes, sometimes land combat can be too easy. I think that is made so younger players won't have such a hard time when fighting AI, since this game is catered to a younger demographic. It would be nice for some upper-level (40+) AI to have more complex fighting techniques, not just for more advanced gamers but also to encourage teamwork (not so great when the server is quiet). I hope the "broken/fallen-enemy" glitch gets some fixing...

Topic five: I just got my Voodoo staff last week, so I haven't taken a detailed look at it yet. However, I do like the spell animations!



Thank you for sharing, CarribeanThunder! Happy plundering.

[Bubbazeke707]

I completely agree with the Galleon being slow and a huge target. Can somebody explain to me, how a Galleon was a Spanish merchant ship for transporting gold from South America to Spain? It was made to be big so that it could hold a lot of gold at a time and didn't always have the full cannons it could, because it was probably too weighed down from the gold. But how did a ship that was plundered by pirates, turn into a pirate vessel? And I do see more of a ship pirates used on the Brig.

[ruisen2000]

Topic 1:

I think it makes sense that the War Galleon should be slightly weaker than the Brig, maybe not such a huge difference that currently exists, but given that The war Brig costs 40,000 more gold than the war Galleon, it should be a bit better.

Topic 4:
I agree that land AI's are rather easy. Perhaps, create some bosses that require a more difficult strategy, but leave regular enemies as they are now, since this game is marketed towards younger players, after all. The current bosses really are just too simple, and die in less than 1 second after they spawn. I'd definately like to see stronger, level 50 bosses that are much more difficult and aimed towards an older playerbase.

[Platinum Pirate]

lol if a 10 year old and his/ her parents have no trouble watching World War Z or any violently graphic film, I'm sure they have the stomach to fight a more difficult enemy in Pirates. Also Disney no longer produces clean cut family movies and TV series. So using that argument doesn't fly anymore. Best to be consistent and make these enemies more challenging as they should be. Have to be 10 years of age or older. If a parent throws a stink about it because they allowed their 7 year old kid to play, Member Services don't need to feel guilty. Member Services should simply ban the kid's account immediately until he/ she is old enough to play. In the meantime, play Infinity instead where they can really fight the Kraken as Captain Jack Sparrow!

Of course, why should POTCO do anything anyway when you have players who will not be content playing normally with the new stuff. They busy themselves searching for a way to glitch, even hack, for self-gain. I'd love bosses to be more challenging and all, but when those little so-call innocent kids are trashing the game and POTCO just does nothing really about it, the game will meet its demise sooner rather than later.

[CarribeanThunder]

Originally Posted by ruisen2000

Topic 1:

I think it makes sense that the War Galleon should be slightly weaker than the Brig, maybe not such a huge difference that currently exists, but given that The war Brig costs 40,000 more gold than the war Galleon, it should be a bit better.

Yes, it does make sense that the Brig be more expensive than the Galleon because it is stronger. In general - through all three forms, Light, Merchant and Warship - the Brig is better. But my original point was that if you have the Brig available as a choice, why would you get the Galleon when the Brig is better? Save the gold you have now and work on getting more to get the Brig.

I've known people who purchased a Galleon for the purpose of getting gold to get a Frigate (back in the days before the Brig, and even after). I honestly never saw how this worked, as I would just hold the 40k gold and work on getting 20k more if I wanted a War Frigate, THEN work on getting gold for the War Galleon.

[Davy_Mcwrecker]

@CT - I literally find mostly aces and face cards in loot. Just play blackjack, bet the maximum 500 and 9/10 you'll get an ace or a face card. Then switch to get Blackjack abd get loads of Gold for next to no effort. I got the War Galleon and Frigate in one or two days from that.

[tayseth]

I have a question...
When did enemies start glitching through ships and terrain? I remember they NEVER used to do that for ships, and they rarely went through terrain.

Soo... when did this start?

[CarribeanThunder]

When did that whole falling-through-the-ground mess start? Hmm, that's hard for me to remember.

I wanna say it's always been around, but in the old days it wasn't as common.
As far as for how serious it's been now, I think it just pretty much began at around the same time the game's server lag started to become far more severe.

[ukebec]

Carribean Thunder - you're one of the reasons I miss this game!

The only thing I can say, in answer to all of your excellent questions, is that Life Drain Immunity has saved my bacon more than once. I'm a supporter.