Just dropping by to mention that “the worst port battlers” just kicked Spain’s ass and conquered Havana. I guess all of Spain has a stubbed toe now, eh?
edit: And the missions in a conquered port are awesome. I just finished a mission where I had to raid a fort containing rich holdouts. We had to free six pirates, find six cargo containers, duel six merchants and beat them until they yielded their gold, and finally, run up the Jolly Roger on the flagpost. Great stuff, and worth 2500 gold.
As a piwate I just nabbed a lvl 25 polacre last night for my grind plan. The big crew and speed mean I can slide up to most ships quickly, throw some grapeshot at them and board with an easy 2 or 3 to 1 ratio. 250 crew is pretty nice for someone at lvl 25. Only downside is it’s not very tough. I’m tempted to throw on some bow strengthening mods (I never use 'em anyway) to keep me extra alive as I charge in.
It’s a fun wee ship. Had a mission I ran with it last night where there were enemies and friendlies all around, mostly I spun around right clicking (fires cannon) on any ship that got into any arc. Amusing!
So, for those still interested in playing POTBS, but without a home since Stand and Deliver died, I’ve got an offer. The society I’ve now joined, Glastonbury Privateers, would be willing to take on some new crewmembers. They’re a good match for QT3 in temperament, and most of them are long term, multi-game guildmembers. Hell, I’m impressed enough with them that I’ll probably be sticking with them in future games. Bear in mind, however, that they’re a lite RP and light PVP guild. Of course, POTBS is a pretty PVP heavy game already. Anyway, if you’d like to keep playing the game, and you’d like a new home, now that most of the QT3 zerg has moved on, look for Stash Solstar, the guild leader, in game, or his lieutenant, John Hellion. Let them know that you’re friends of Edward Greymane, and that I sent you to talk to 'em.
And Rucker, if you ever get tired of having your tail kicked on the Spanish side, you’d be more than welcome to join us, too. Stash said he’s annoyed that the “ol’ coot” decided to go join Spain instead. Believe me, mate - pirates really do have more fun.
Just seems too easy. Like I was saying to someone over on SWG tonight about PoTBS, I wouldn’t feel nearly as bad about quitting the game as I would switching sides. Vanguardia are good people. If FLS can’t straighten out game balance over there, or at least mellow out the pace of the game some, I’ll probably be heading out. It was a good experience, got my money’s worth, learned a few new things but, eh, nah. Just thinking about logging in over there makes me a tuckered Rucker.
Shit, man, you abandoned US before you joined THEM to begin with. So you wouldn’t be abandoning Spain, you’d just be coming back home.
Not quite how it was, though I appreciate the thought! The Pirate Society (boy, does that bring up odd imagery - hooks at tea time?) never quite gelled so I ended up leaving the pirates all together. I didn’t have many friends on the Pirate side because of that. Here, I’ve got alot of friends that I don’t want to let down. And I’m also not in a huge rush to grind up another character. Been there, done that. Wasn’t terrible but wasn’t as fun as say, oh, about a hundred other games I have laying around neglected.
I may come back down the road and if I do I’ll definitely consider pirate as a low investment alternative. It’s a fair point. Just one I’m not really in the right mindset to entertain right now.
Okay, fair enough. It just seems weird to leave the game because of the frustrating PVP and lack of RP time, when you’ve got a standing invitation to join a bunch of guys who RP all the time, and engage in low stress PVP. (Heck, you could even try to convince your spanish buddies to join you in exile.) Anyway, I can see you’re not going to budge.
Since you are leaving the game, though, how about sharing your Dirty Fighting ideas with us? I’ve come up with some pretty successful variants of the style, and it’d be fun to compare notes.
I’ll tell you the single most important part of it. You’ve heard folks say “balance is life” but what makes up balance? Sort that out and figure out how to maximize it in all ways. People will say, easily, that it’s important for Florentine fighters. But it’s just as important for every style. Seems alot of folks: a) don’t know what balance is, really, and b) seem quick to discount its value for other fighting styles.
I figured as much. That’s the approach that’s worked best for me with fencing as well. In particular, things that give flat bonuses to balance work surprisingly well (e.g. stacking a +balance passive skill with a +balance item). It seems like the penalties for being off balance don’t start kicking in until you’re under a hundred balance, and that extra buffer makes it quite a bit harder for you to start sliding down the penalty spiral of doom.
Raife
790
So I guess being pistol-happy is the wrong way to go in terms of long-term survivability? But it’s so piratey.
At least when using them as an opener in missions you have time to recover your balance before they get to you.
I don’t know. I haven’t paid much attention to dirty fighting or florentine, but they’re better than I expected for fencing. I started picking them up for the passive +15 balance at the end of the chain, after finishing several other chains. That’s still my primary purpose in taking pistol skills, but I’ve found the pistol shots themselves to be handier than I expected, as you’ve recovered most of the balance spent before the shot is actually fired, and it’s handy to open engagements with an edge. I’d also originally written off the +15 balance as not all that useful compared to things like defense/attack bonuses and balance recovery, but after picking up a +18 balance item I’m no longer so sure about that. I haven’t yet got a chance to try stacking the two for +33 balance, but with all the other balance recovery options available, I’d imagine that’s a pretty tough nut to crack.
The main problem I have with pistols is that they take so damn long to shoot, and aren’t much use against Players, who can just dodge the opening shot.
They’re great against players but don’t use them until you’ve beaten him down enough he’s running away to heal. That’s when he’s got a low balance and low health. Also they’re good, I’ve been told, in port battles when everyone fires on the same guy. Enough folks usually hit that he’s either dead or a mess.
In PvE I just treat my pistol like an extra finishing attack, not an opening move, and one that works at range.
Also keep in mind how Balance works. It’s only going to be as good as your other defensive skills (combined). So you have to have some stats in +parry, +block and +dodge. Focus on +parry as that adds into the other two if it fails. If +block fails then the last chance, +dodge, is +parry plus +block plus +dodge x whatever percent your balance is doing for you. 100 Balance is only 90% of the total. 107 is 100%. It may go over that as well the higher you get or it may just be that balance points over 107 are just extra points not multipliers.
We just had a port battle against France, this morning, at 7am. Brilliant fight - 17 pirates against 16 french. The French brought four ships of the line, we brought six. I think that caught them off guard. They were arrayed in a fairly standard line formation, in the middle of Cayo harbor. We stormed the alternate entrance with our top-secret “flying brick” formation, hit them like a ton of said, and utterly demolished their line. They’d been hiding their Fourth Rate’s in the back of the battle line, in fear of us capturing them, and as a consequence, as we destroyed their first few ships, the fourth rates had to chug like mad to try and get to the fight. When they made it to the front, they were enveloped and destroyed. I, in my tiny little level 33 Stralsund Mastercraft, managed to get the killing shot on Henri’s fourth rate. Even better, I somehow survived the entire fight, and the fort battle afterwards. It was bloody great.
Final tally - fourteen dead french, four dead pirates. We utterly demolished them, and ended their string of five victories. Amusingly, their victories had been against the British, usually held to be the dominant faction on our server. This certainly twists the balance of power in interesting directions - and it’s the last time they’ll ever take us lightly.
Great fight! Unfortunately our pirates on Antigua have got bored at the constant Spanish steamrolling and “the lack of a Pirate endgame”.
Oh, the +18 item is the quest chain available from the guy infront of the chuch at Turpitude. I was hovering on 126 balance for a while, good fun, and I’ve been using a -3 balance pistol with +20min +30max damage pistol. Nice hits! And the -3 balance at that level doesn’t matter much.
When your balance is so high it seems that you don’t need to knock down the opponent’s balance much before you can start hitting them. Very handy. Maybe it works like that…
Njal
795
So what’s the current state of QT3 people on Bonny? I just got the game monday and would like to hook up with ya.
Still subscribed but taking an extended break.
Hadn’t played in about two weeks and was about to go in last night but had to patch up and it took forever, so maybe tonight I’ll be on, depending on if my new box comes in…
— Alan
I appear to be the only QT3’r who still plays on Bonny. Jasper briefly played with my new society, but then he vanished as well. Look for Edward Greymane.
Real life caught up to me. I took a look at how much time I was spending playing, measured it against how much work I needed to get done, and decided I was deluding myself.
I’m actually going to see if I can cut of most of my computer/console gaming, and stick with boardgames, PnP RPGs, and game design. It’s a hard habit to break though; hopefully I can stick with my cold turkey!
I’m on Roger with a great British Society.
