401

Have you tried it?

Levelling via taking down higher-level NPCs is probably the quickest way to go, but you make a lot of money from missions. Most missions are ship-based, though.

402

What is the “30 minutes before entering the port” rule mentioned? As described, it makes it sound pretty easy to stall a battle…

Also, do you have any idea what the average ship level was?

403

We really should get our own server up. Trying to organize by chat while sailing doesn’t work so well. Anyone know of an existing server we can use?

404

Well, if you want to go about it that way, the song with that phrase is ‘Goody Two Shoes’ and that’s not much for a pirate society. Maybe for the Frenchies =)

And images of Adama leading our fleet is a nice one thankyouverymuch!

405

Yes I was in beta until about a week before launch. It’s definitely the part of the game I could not stand.

Levelling via taking down higher-level NPCs is probably the quickest way to go, but you make a lot of money from missions. Most missions are ship-based, though.

Is there an easy way to tell now which missions are ship based and which are avatar?

If I neglect avatar combat development will I be screwed in pvp?

406

I’ll put up a Vent server. v2.1 due to the retarded licensing, but ventrilomix is a fine client so it shouldn’t be a problem.

Edit for Soapy:

The mission descriptions usually give it away. The avatar missions so far have been 90% short and easy, and there’s no risk attached to just dying and giving up as far as I can tell.

PVP - You’ll want to be able to board ships or defend yourself, those fights are definitely short and sweet. You’ll get Swashbuckling skillpoints purely because of levelling so you wont be gimping yourself, but if you have no idea what you’re doing with your avatar you’ll be at a disadvantage in boarding.

407

JM I have an old server I could retask from WoW. It’s a 3.0 hosted at ventrilo.org. If you’re interested I’ll see about a hostname change for it to get it going.

408

Sweet! That’d be just thing.

Also, can we get Adam Ant music playing in the background? ;-P

409

It’s tedious to figure out which missions are swashbuckling, as they’re not marked clearly. You essentially have to read the descriptions, typically after you accept the quest.

Also, I’m not sure why you didn’t like Avatar combat, nor how long you played beta, but it does get more interesting around level 20 or so. The opponents start actually fight back, appear to use skills the same way you do, and you get much better results if you adjust to changing circumstances rather than do the same thing repeatedly. Hmmm, although this is less true for actual avatar missions where you’re alone and face groups enemies 2 and 3 at a time, and most true for boarding. I wish more avatar missions had you take crew.

I haven’t tried it, but I don’t think you’ll be gimped in PvP by avoiding avatar combat. Just pick skills and upgrades that focus on cannon exchange, and probably a few anti-boarding abilities. Boarding is much riskier in PvP than for missions, as other players may pound you during the fight, and have more time to do so. Not to mention that you risk getting singled out and being the victim of combined fire if you close. Not that it cant’ be done, but it’s by no means a mainstay tactic, and my gut feeling is that it’ll only occasionally be effective.

I’ve set Amilcar up with speed and boarding in mind, but may well switch to more damage; a friend of mine (Der Dutchman) just switched to maxing out reload rate (Rum, Rum, Rum!), and I’m waiting to see how that goes for him. Plus I already used my free respec. :-/

Actually, I suggest everyone switch to maxing out their reload rate. Make sure to buy ammo at Matthew’s Town! Conveniently located near Irish Point…

410

Whatever’s easiest for people, really. I already run 2.1 for my WoW guild and another instance is no problem - what benefits do we get from 3.0?

Jasper: I REFUSE TO BUY MORE AMMO FROM YOU. The last lot barely scratched them :(

411

You’re supposed to put the powder into the cannon before the shot.

412

Mostly becuase it was quite boring, clumsy, badly animated, boring, involved running around when I’d rather be on the quarter deck of a ship, boring, looked bad compared to every other game out there, also it was boring and kinda lame, but I guess there is no accounting for taste!! :)

In the Beta the level cap was 20 I beleive so thats as far as I went. Honestly the avatar combat was no challenge, at any point. It just sucked up play time I’d rather be sailing my ship.

That sums it up I suppose. I would take your word for it that it gets more interesting after level 20 but I admit I don’t care that much… I really had the feeling it was tacked on, superfluous.

413

The thing that gets me about avatar combat is that I pretty much have my hotkey bar full of needed commands right off the bat.

I’ve only invested in one swashbuckling skill so far, and I’m level 10 (hip shot so I could use my pistol).

I assume that if I save up my points until level 15, I can invest all of them in one of the upper-tier fighting styles? Or should I invest all the points before 15 into dirty fighting?

414

There are a few ways you might get gimped by avoiding avatar missions: if some career missions are avatar based you miss out on skills, you’d miss out on some quest reward gear that might be good for when you get boarded, and general inexperience when you are boarded.

There’s three things that’d help remedy that, +def vs grappling enhancements so you’re less likely to be boarded, practice boarding occasionally, and buying personal gear people find during missions off the auction house.

The avatar combat definitely needs some fine tuning. Movement is pretty floaty. However, I’m just now beginning to see some of the tactics. I think NPCs are generally pretty weak, just so it’s not overwhelming. Also, the number of npcs (6+captain for each side) adds to the confusion in combat.

Honestly, there’s enough avatar combat that you’d probably be annoyed fairly often, unless they mark avatar missions in the future, you rarely do missions, or you play only the economic aspects of the game and grind out levels on npc/pvp ships.

415

flyingj: You can respec your Swashbucking skills (or your Career skills) pretty easily. It costs 10k credits or, for nationals, 10 pennants turned in at our capital.

Not sure if pirates have a similar route to respeccing for free but I’d be surprised if they didn’t.

I did experiment with some of the “top tier” skills and wasn’t very impressed. Respecced into the full Intimidation line, or whatever it’s called, and while there’s some marginal edge to some of the skills they don’t remotely compare - for day to day swashbuckling - with the core fighting skills of your class.

Maybe in groups of players for the “raid” instances down the road it’ll be more useful.

As for the battle, I think the biggest ship was an NO’s level 40 SoL on the Spanish side. Levels ranged from the low 20’s to the mid 30’s otherwise on our side.

Not sure about the rationale for the timer but some group missions have the same thing. My offhand guess is that this gives privateers something to do. SoLs and heavy merchantmen meet and duke it out while Privateers race in to land and clear a beachhead before the timer runs out. I can’t say this is actually what happens in practice though.

Otherwise those tiny ships and their boarding function aren’t much use. As has been pointed out boarding during a big battle is just painting a big target symbol on your unmoving vessel.

Taking it into the fort or the town for a fight, though, takes your ship off the map.

That’s just a guess.

PS: And what’s with this tiny-ass quick response box we have now?

416

No advantage to it at all (very little anyway). And I’d have to steal mine back from my old WoW guild. If I can leave it in place I will. If you already have a tasked machine for it, I say just fire up another instance on a second port.

417

Soapy, I get that feeling from avatar combat too, and I’m at 23 now. Sure I click different buttons, but it reminds me of a big mass of crappy battle AI thrown into a small clipping environment. Either I win or lose but my relative skills mean little if I’m getting raped by 4+ at once or they can mean a lot if I’m one on one in a small landing party mission. In other words, unlike the ship combat, it’s not consistently an awesome experience.

That doesn’t deter me from enjoying the game though, it’s a very fresh break from WoW and I love the feeling that I’m playing in a live, breathing game of Pirates!

418

Fired you a PM with the details. Feel free to add it to our MOTD and pass out info.

Edit: Seems to all work here. Just play around and let me know any problems, I’m off to bed though.

419

If you’re getting jumped by many NPCs you need some incapacitating ability (Dirty Fighting is strong in crowd control and AoE) or pick up some skills that help you shed aggro (all fighting styles have one or more of these).

Also, “target enemy captain” might work sometimes but if all your crew rushes past the enemy crew without engaging them that leaves the enemy crew free to do the same to you.

420

Added to the MOTD, thanks for the host JM.