Moronic boarding battles

[Sordid]

Okay, so I'm doing the Bluebird quest again and I've managed to whittle down its crew to the minimum, to the point where I don't have to lift a finger during the first stage of the boarding battle; however, it appears the authors saw fit to make the captain of this ship a complete maniac who refuses to surrender even when impossibly outnumbered. And since they also saw fit to make him uber tough and equip him with a very powerful sword <i>and</i> disable saving during boarding battles, I am growing somewhat frustrated with this fellow.
So let us pause and examine the logic behind the boarding scenario for a moment, shall we? Firstly, the enemy captain always remains holed up in his cabin. Doesn't matter whether it's you or him who attacks, it's always you who has to leap into the fray. Given that, why then does he even fight at all once his crew are all dead? What exactly does he hope to accomplish, given that now he's all alone on a ship crawling with your soldiers? If he is defeated he dies on your sword, if he manages to best you he dies on theirs. True, occasionally captains will give up once you slaughter their crew, but more oftan than not they won't and given the way the scenario is set up they should surrender almost always, save for the occasional psycho.
Furthermore, the whole concept of captains' duel defeats the point of hiring fighters. The whole point of fighters is to have somebody with you so that you don't have to fight alone. But guess what, they don't come with you into this area, for no reason other than to make it more of a challenge. Fake difficulty at its 'finest'.
So, having finished my rant, I ask for your advice. Any tips on this fight? Any way to enable saving during boarding battles?

 

[cerebus23]

the game auto saves before you board, so you got unlimited redos.

the fighters are a help when you got a bounty on your head, and in town invasions if you gear them well they can help alot in those instances, they will be as good as two or three of your "scrubs". but when your bounty gets to be really high look out your going to lose fighters or trying to take towns with huge garrisons.

 

[vassock]

<!--quoteo(post=323188:date=May 27 2009, 11:15 PM:name=Cerebus23)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Cerebus23 @ May 27 2009, 11:15 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=323188"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->the game auto saves before you board, so you got unlimited redos.

the fighters are a help when you got a bounty on your head, and in town invasions if you gear them well they can help alot in those instances, they will be as good as two or three of your "scrubs". but when your bounty gets to be really high look out your going to lose fighters or trying to take towns with huge garrisons.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Also, why don't they just make the battles bigger? Like Rome Total War? Surely we have progressed enough technologically where adding big battles to AoP won't be difficult. Instead you fight with 4-6 men vs. 1-2 on a ship model that can't even fit the 100 that you actually have. I'm thinking Silent Hunter III with hand-to-hand combat.

 

[wolfsrain]

On the Captain difficulty, I've managed to reduce the crew to its bare minimum. Still had to board ship. And then: Surprise! From over 300 men, I've lost two thirds (despite them being armored to the teeth and being led by a specialised boarding officer ). How the hell 20 men managed to kill 200 and some of my men is beyond me. And my casualties were slightly reduced by the fact that i've had a doctor. Oblivion's way of doing things at its finest...<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="sad.gif" />
I'm only hoping that we will see a patch to balance things, tweaking the combat behavior and the officers. With my non cheating characters, boarding it's still a real pain in the arse...And the salaries paid for everyone, sheesh... So unrealistical. Back in the pirates era, when a common sailor would see a large amount of loot, was like....extremely rare. The captain had the largest share and then he divided the loot in shares, with officers taking a larger share, then the cook, and then the sailors (which received more like scraps). In a strange and twisted way, the pirate society had as many rules, as the normal society. The loss of an eye was paid by the captain with a 100 piasters, loss of the leg with 600, loss of an arm with 300. And there were many things that a pirate captain had to do. But sharing ridiculous amounts of money wasn't exactly one of them.

 

[Valeriyan]

Captains of quest ships not surrender.
A few tips:
1. The high morale team - fewer losses.
2. Volleys shot.
3. Three officers, one quest musketer, give them more healing potions.
4. Botsman with boarding perks, especially the "musket volley" or your own perks.
5. Doctor with perks or your own perks.
6. Fencing skills. Parry and feint.
7. Play without "charging pistols" options.

My seventeen years old daughter boarded Blue Birds at sloop, on the impossible level.

 

[Oldtimer]

<!--quoteo(post=323212:date=May 28 2009, 09:32 AM:name=Valeriyan)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Valeriyan @ May 28 2009, 09:32 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=323212"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Captains of quest ships not surrender.
A few tips:
1. The high morale team - fewer losses.
2. Volleys shot.
3. Three officers, one quest musketer, give them more healing potions.
4. Botsman with boarding perks, especially the "musket volley" or your own perks.
5. Doctor with perks or your own perks.
6. Fencing skills. Parry and feint.
7. Play without "charging pistols" options.

My seventeen years old daughter boarded Blue Birds at sloop, on the impossible level.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hi Valeriyan,

let`s face it, CoAS is gravely unbalanced this way:

- you get missions which are to difficult for your current lvl. You will now say that the player has to slowly lvl up to the challenge and I agree. It`s not particularly gratifying, however, having to die "n" times before realizing that.
Easy way to do this is making triggers so that missions, or parts of them, become available when the player is up to them. It`s been done for other games and improves satisfaction and immersion.

- difficulty of sea vs land encounters is unbalanced meaning that on a given lvl it´s much easier to succeed at sea. What`s the sense in pitting a lvl 1 default merchant vs a lvl 25 hitman? Or two hitmen, if in dungeon...

- a grave flaw is illogical sea AI when all factions that are hostile to the player gang up on him regardless of the relations between them. It`s kinda ridiculous seeing Spaniards and Pirates in cordial cooperation.

BTW, don`t tell me that I can tweak PIRATES points and whatnot. If the devs created default player chars, these chars should be able to complete the entire game as they are, with normal leveling..

Frankly, POTC BUILD is a more satisfying game to play as of now, because it`s more logical with a realistic sea and fort AI. It is also more immersive, becuse of better dialogues(often funny, and background voices nice), better artillery sounds(CoAS forts plain ridiculous), better music choices and more.
CoAS is very playable and has lots of potential and has a leveling system that is pure genius, very well designed missions(unfortunately flawed by unbalancing as yet) but it still needs work, lots of work.

Regards, Oldtimer

 

[Sordid]

<!--quoteo(post=323188:date=May 28 2009, 04:15 AM:name=Cerebus23)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Cerebus23 @ May 28 2009, 04:15 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=323188"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->the game auto saves before you board, so you got unlimited redos.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, but it still requires me to do the captain fight in its entirety. He has a boatload of hp, a sword that takes 3/4 of my health in a single jab, and that perk giving him a chance to punch through my block. If I could save I'd just savescum my way though it, but I can't.
As Oldtimer says, the game is horribly unbalanced. On the one hand stuff <i>you</i> can buy is scaled to your level, so you can't buy decent weapons until you're very high level, and on the other you can take this Bluebird quest whenever you want, and of course <i>it</i> and its captain are not scaled. And you're not told in any way that it's going to be super difficult, on the contrary the conversations describing the Bluebird avoiding direct combat and instead luring its pursuers onto reefs seem to imply that it's fast but weak. Well not quite. I like challenging gameplay, but this is just a trap for the player.

How about a way to mod the captain to at least have no healing potions?

 

[Oldtimer]

Hi all,

a way to save CoAS would be to make the game world weighted random, meaning that all kinds of items and char lvls are available from day one. Probability of encountering them is weighted by their lvl, meaning lvl 100 sword will be 100 times harder to find then lvl 1 sword.

I`m not sure abt. looting, it seems that it could be scaled to enemy lvl, partially at least. I killed 3 baddies in a cave(save my friend gone down this well mission), got LOTS of money and some OKish items but no good weapons. All loot MUST be scaled to enemy lvl, not player lvl. If not done, needs to be done.

I suggest that all people interested in modding play some vanilla OBLIVION which has an absurdly player centered game world and then play it with one of the big overhaul mods, preferably Francesco`s or T.I.E.
You will then understand what CoAS needs.

Yeah, vanilla OBLIVION is crap, with overhauls it`s a marvel.

Regards, Oldtimer

 

[Sordid]

My sentiments precisely. What I'd also really like to see is for enemies to drop <i>all</i> their items. I'm so not a fan of swords evaporating at the moment of their owner's death...

Edit: Okay, and moronic Isabella quest too (spoilers ahoy). You dispose of Salvatore's goons and then what do you do? You go after him, telling your guys "wait here boys"? Aaaaand they just stand around as a whole bloody squad of extra strong Spaniard guards march right in after you. Hm. Whoever wrote these quests was a total hack. I like challenging, I don't like unfair, and I <i>hate</i> unfair and ridiculous. Really, the whole situation flies right in the face of common sense. Is it so difficult to put a modicum of thought into the work? Well is it? *sigh*

 

[LordDrow]

My personal view is this installment of the game, even if having some issues now, is well worth switching to for development of the build mod.

Remember, build mod has 6 years of non-stop work put into it. Many times doing things that the original developers didn't believe was possible.

Even then, if you pay attention, many things that are in CoAS were originally done in the Build mod, and from what I've seen of the discussions, some of the build mod code was borrowed without it so much as changed one little bit.

So we SHOULD be able to do for CoAS everything that was done for PotC, and a lot more with all the new features that have been added.

With 6 years of modding on CoAS, added to the 6 years of experience with PotC, all I can say is CoAS could wind up every bit as phenomenal. And because we have a basic jumpstart in the way of an existing reference code-base in the build mod, it should be relatively easy and fast to do a lot of what already exists in the build mod.

One of the first things I'd like to see moved over is the new AI system. Enemies should be enemies, whether or not they just happen to both catch you at the same time.

Just my thoughts here.

Cap'n Drow

 

[Oldtimer]

Cap`n Drow,

IMHO releasing a final FINAL POTC BUILD where everything WADs and FIRST THEN switching over to CoAS is the right approach. I feel this will actually facilitate your work on the CoAS.

Most CoAS features are actually better than those in BUILD already, only not the really important ones.

Regards, Oldtimer

 

[Pieter Boelen]

That's pretty much what we're considering right now, though we're not yet 100% if and when we'd move to CoAS.
In any case, we're all pretty much agreed that we want to finish Build 14 first. And most of us also consider CoAS a good platform to move on to after that.

 

[LordDrow]

<!--quoteo(post=323374:date=May 28 2009, 01:56 PM:name=Oldtimer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Oldtimer @ May 28 2009, 01:56 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=323374"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Cap`n Drow,

IMHO releasing a final FINAL POTC BUILD where everything WADs and FIRST THEN switching over to CoAS is the right approach. I feel this will actually facilitate your work on the CoAS.

Most CoAS features are actually better than those in BUILD already, only not the really important ones.

Regards, Oldtimer<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->


I completely agree with you there, Oldtimer. Build needs to have a FINAL version completed for PotC, then serious work can go forward towards converting to CoAS. As it is, there has been some background work of that nature being discussed here and there on the forums and amongst the various modders.

Mostly the big question being, SHOULD we even switch to CoAS. My personal experience with the game in the original russian has indicated a 100% yes all along, but now it goes to all the other modders and the growing fan base to TELL US. Do you all feel it would be worth it for us to make the jump, finalize the build mod on PotC and move to the CoAS for future build development.

If there is not enough support in the way of players wanting that move, along with the support of the modders, it will only happen partially or possibly not at all. Myself, I am committed to helping get this done as much as I can, but I have a prior commitment currently to completing the english language translation of the Secrets of Far Seas mod. That is still in the process of being done and I feel once completed will make additional ideas and an additional base of code on which to draw for things to add to CoAS.

Anyhow, that is again just a bit of my views on this.

Cap'n Drow

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I would imagine that your translation effort would take less time than finishing the Build mod anyway.
So by the time Build 14 would be done, you could help with whatever we decide to do too.
And we might even have some more knowledge on the SoFS mod too, so we could decide what to use from which game/modpack.

 

[wolfsrain]

Like I've stated before: Gamebryo engine it's very robust and highly versatile in the hands of capable developers or moders. Civ4 and its myriad of mods is an excellent example. Vanilla Fo3 and Oblivion are what not to do as a developer, while the mods done by the fans surpass whatever the devs put in those games.
Unfortunately, vanilla COAS doesn't feel right. But I'm pretty sure that it can be done right by enthusiastical modders.
And Valeryian, when I've boarded that bloody ship, my crew had heroic morale, loads of weapons to use, one expert bosuns with all the boarding skills and I've decimated the crew up to its bare minimum. And yet, when I've boarded the bloody pirate, I've lost 2/3 of my crew....Also I've had my doctor skills (both of them) and an extra fighter armed tot the teeth and with as many potions I could put on him. Yet, he ended up, despite the fact that he had maxed fencing skills, the life and the energy of a mastodont, cuirass and somewhere around 60 potions. The thing is, the enemy levels with you just like in Oblivion. And you might remember how hard was beating high level goblins in Oblivion. Despite the many things done right in COAS, the AI and the balance aren't exactly on that list.

P.S.: when I say maxed fencing skills, I include the perks too.