What if we make Boarding Combat 3v3?

[NameTry2468]

I've seen a lot of complaints on this forum about several issues that plague boarding combat in this game. This includes...
- The battle is too heavily dependent on AI, and not on player skill
- It's too hard to control your crew
- Performance dips severely during boarding encounters
- The boarding maps tend to be too small for the crew numbers
- The crew is bland, and uncustomizeable
- The combat is too fast-paced, and it's hard to tell what's going on
- There is no penalty for losing if you initiate boarding
- It's near impossible to keep track of all the models and who you're fighting on the ship
- and much more...

Well I agree, and I'll be blunt here. FLS is in denial if they think boarding combat doesn't need to be reworked from the ground up. I think they need to get away from the notion that boarding combat has to involve tons of crew members to be action-packed. To me, it would be more epic to go into the battle with just 2 of my closest crewmates (I would be allowed to design their appearances, give them names, and even choose their fighting styles) and have a 3v3 with the opposing captain and his two allies than the 9v9 zergfest that it is now.

Not only would this allow for more up-front confrontations between players (most of the time, I win or lose without ever fighting the captain of the opposing ship directly), but it would also help reduce the lagfest that happens with 20 avatars in an enclosed space all doing animations every 2 seconds having to be rendered at once. My computer can run the game on quality textures and full Avatar LOD for the whole game, but I have to turn it down to minimum on both of those just in case I get into boarding combat. Additionally, 3v3 battles with 2 strong allies instead of 8 weak ones would place a greater emphasis on those "Give X initiative to your ally" or "Push your ally out of harm's way" skills, which most of the time I don't even put on my hotbars. This would reduce the dependence of boarding combat on AI, and would give a chance for swashbucklers to really use their skills. Right now, boarding is a complete mindf***, which feels waaaaay too fast paced, because while you're busy trying to fight the enemy in front of you, you're trying to control a 9 person crew with 2 ham-handed commands ("defend" and "rape 1 target while ignoring everything else") that are nothing more than a poor excuse for "tactical" combat.

3v3 battles would make the Attack Target (or IWIN) button much more meaningful, and players would actually think twice about trying to win their battles by just blindly mashing it. It would also alleviate the pacing problem that happens in boarding combat now, where a player must multitask so much that even with a 2-second global cooldown, swashbuckling still feels awfully fast-paced. It would ALSO address the complaint that the boarding combat maps are much too small to accommodate 12 and 18 person battles. Better yet, having each boarding party be 3 people makes multiple boards (the ones that will be implemented in the future) much more manageable. Instead of having 9 more players to render when a third player joins the fun, three players come out from the side, and behold, the map is still big enough to comfortably hold all the combatants!

As for Crew numbers, and how that could be reflected in a 3v3 boarding combat system, well, they could just be left alone, and still represent the number of waves/lives that you are given. After all, the more able fighting crew you have on hand, the faster they are able to get you and your 2 comrades some medical attention and get you back into the fray.

Or it could be reflected in some additional way. We could kill 2 birds with one stone by making it so that you have to have more crew than your opponent in order to actually sink them if you win boarding combat, no matter who initiates it. Right now, the game gives the "Upper Hand Advantage" to the initiator of boarding combat, regardless of the situation. I would change it and give the upper hand advantage to the player with higher crew numbers. For example....

If Player A has less crew than player B, player A cannot sink player B even if he wins boarding combat. Even if Player A initiates the board, he cannot sink or capture the ship, since Player B has more Crew. If Boarding Combat does occur, regardless of who started it, Player A can either lose his ship, or win the combat and cut Player B's crew number in half. If the underdog (Player A) is soooo excited about sinking Player B's ship through boarding combat, he must first reduce his crew size either through antipersonnel shot, or by initiating boarding combat twice (once to halve B's crew numbers, and once again to go for the win). This would make those grapple-happy players think twice before boarding all willy-nilly like there's no consequences for their actions.

(For a little more brainstorming how to keep the "Tactical" essence of your crew in this version of boarding combat, see the post I made 2 posts below this one. Discussion, critique, and suggestions are always welcome.. More space reserved here to further rant about the benefits of 3v3. Conclusion below!)

Almost every time we go on land missions, the player is given 2 random crewmates, and is usually fighting groups of 3 enemies. Clearly FLS has found a sweet spot here, so why deviate from it in the aspect of the game where Swashbuckling has so much impact on the outcome? 3v3 is the optimal combat style for swashbuckling (except maybe when it comes to fort raids). And how cool would it be to do land missions with your 2 customized cohorts, instead of the two random clones they sometimes give you? How about it? Would you rather keep the same-ole Clone-Wars-style combat, where you struggle to manage an unruly crew, through horrible framerates, and have your battle decided by bad AI and a cheap IWIN button, or would you prefer to swing straight into battle against the opposing ship's captain, with your trusty (and customized) first mate and leading lady by your side, knowing that stakes for victory are higher than ever before? I've made my choice...how about you?

[Joseph Fletcher]

I agree with a lot of your points here. Boarding should be about the whole crew, but with the currently there is little room for tactical control and so little point in having the crew there.

Also at some point in the future it would be nice to have two ships in the instance and boarding from one onto the other.

[Mustis]

I like the idea - I noticed that while doing missions (Yes, I know it isn't PVP) that with smaller amounts of NPCs engaged in combat it felt smoother and had a better flow - again I think this goes back to your point about AVCombat feeling more like a zergfest rather than sophisticated swordfighting.

I think this idea has potential - you'd still have the NPC factor, with two allies, and yet it'd make people think more, also you wouldn't have to "slow" down the combat because I think the speed flows well and is fairly realistic to the speed you'd see in real life, it'd just be more manageable being that it's simply you plus your two NPCs.

Hopefully the devs agree with the idea and give it a shot, or have another solution. Either way AVCombat definitely has a ton of potential, just needs some ironing out.

[NameTry2468]

There could certainly be other ways to still keep the "tactical" crew management system if 3v3 makes it seem like the rest of the ship is slacking off doing nothing. While you and your 2 comrades are fighting, you could issue crew commands to affect the situation in other ways. I'm just brainstorming here, but for example, each boarding action should have a timer, and when it runs out, you force-disengage a draw. Then you would have crew commands to where you could sacrifice 1 wave/rez to command your crew to...

Cut or reinforce the grappled lines, forcing a preemptive disengagement by subtracting time for a clock (good for defending against a board) or adding time to the clock to maintain the boarding action (if you're really sure you want to stay, or if you're looking to draw the battle out).

Or maybe a sacrifice command to reinforce the ship's defenses, and reduce the damage your ship takes from enemy cannon fire during the boarding action (to counter those times when someone tries to be cheap and trap you while their buddies gang-bang you), and the converse, a command to weaken the enemy ship's defenses and make it take bonus damage from outside cannon fire (To do exactly that).

Each command would have its counter, but it would depend on how willing a captain is to sacrifice those crew waves. This would make crew numbers matter a little bit more significantly, and still keep that "tactical" feeling in place without combat necessarily being a zergfest. I'm sure the devs could think of better crew commands than I could at this hour, but if we kept boarding avatar combat down to just 3v3, and made it so that your crew number affects 3 things:

- Your initial grapple chance
- Your "Advantage" status that decides whether a win means sinking the ship, or just temporarily repelling your opponent
- The number of Crew commands available to you during the action (Commands would be Rez me, Wave of 2 allies, Cut lines, Reinforce lines, Bolster defenses, Sabotage armor, etc...)

it wouldn't be so much different than the system we have now really...

[NameTry2468]

eep! getting shoved to the back already? =/

[Danicia]

Moved to Ideas for the Future.

[cavebutter]

I agree with the first half of what the OP said. Whole-heartedly. But I have to insist that the initiative and advantage *do* lie with the boarders. My understanding is that, historically, small boarding parties very often captured ships using fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency (and fanatical loyalty to the Pope) to carry the day.

[Kamui]

Well, look at the average crew of the average sailing ship. Some were farmers or other sailors pressed into duty and thus with no loyalty to the ship. Others may have signed on, but they signed on to sail. Now look at the pirate crew....bloodthirsty fatherless dogs, each and every one. Men who have made the conciouse decision to live by their own rules. And they've JUST BOARDED YOUR SHIP. They have arms, they have grenades, they have bloodlust in their eyes. I'd say that was pretty intimidating, wouldn't you? Especially if you've just finished loading a cannon, looked up, and saw this grinning devil with a cutlass comin at ya....

[NameTry2468]

Originally Posted by Kamui Well, look at the average crew of the average sailing ship. Some were farmers or other sailors pressed into duty and thus with no loyalty to the ship. Others may have signed on, but they signed on to sail. Now look at the pirate crew....bloodthirsty fatherless dogs, each and every one. Men who have made the conciouse decision to live by their own rules. And they've JUST BOARDED YOUR SHIP. They have arms, they have grenades, they have bloodlust in their eyes. I'd say that was pretty intimidating, wouldn't you? Especially if you've just finished loading a cannon, looked up, and saw this grinning devil with a cutlass comin at ya....

What exactly does that have to do with the ruleset though. I mean, basically, it works in reverse too.

The way it is now, as long as the lame farmers and pansy sailors throw the grapples before the bloodthirsty pirates, the farmers have the advantage, regardless of other conditions.

Anyways, we should assume that no one ship's crew is more ready to fight than another's. It should be such that the ship that is outnumbered has to prove that they can overcome the odds against them before making the final grab. The underdogs must first decimate the crew of the ship they're boarding, then they must go a step further to seal the deal. A ship that boarded with bigger numbers and lost should be allowed to retreat with what little crew they have left, while a ship that boarded with fewer crew and lost should pretty much be slaughtered and sunk.

[Wicked]

I don't really yet have an opinion on attack advantage or not (though as it requires some effort to board, I am inclined to favor it), but I highly agree with the comments on reducing the crew size.

3v3 would be far better. I feel a little guilty using the "Attack target" button as things currently stand, and there is little more ridiculous then when the entire enemy side is the same color as you and your crew isn't (I've been lost in a sea of red before when attacking British as a Spanish FT wearing a slick red outfit).

AvCom has a great basis, but it needs a little work.