Pirate Raids Are Way Overtuned

[QuartzBeam]

Let me start off by saying that this content update, as a whole, has been absolutely bananas so far and I'm loving all of the stuff it's added.

With one not so teeny tiny exception: Pirate Raids. They're a great idea on paper and I love all the little details it's got going for it, but the execution is eeeh.

 

Issue 1: Pirate Raids have no spawn limit and no cooldown. That means you can, theoretically, get ambushed by infinite pirate boats one after another. That is, of course, fairly unlikely due to the RNG involved in spawning the pirates, but something like getting ambushed by 2 pirate boats at once is much more probable.

 

Issue 2: Having to fight 5 mobs on one (maybe two) small platforms is pretty overwhelming, especially since most boats don't have 5 players on them to fend the monkeys off. Solo players have it especially bad because their only way to kill the pirates is to facetank them. Hound waves were removed from the ocean because of that exact problem, so having pirate raids send 5 mobs that do more damage and have more health that hounds to attack a solitary sailor feels like a big step backwards. Plus, if you do manage to fend the pirates off, there is, as I said, no cooldown whatsoever, so you can burn through a suit or two of armor trying to defeat one raid only to run into another raid seconds later.

 

So, my suggestions are:

• The pirate spawn timer should have a lower limit. One that is not zero, I mean. This way you won't get multiple pirate raids at the same time or one immediately after the other.
• If you do manage to kill the pirates, you should get a grace period of a few days before they spawn again. This would give the player the chance to kill a pirate raid, then fight Malbatross/Crab King without worrying that a bunch of monkeys will randomly pop into existence and ruin everything.
• The number of Powder Monkeys should scale with the number of players on the boat the raid targets. I think even 1 Powder Monkey per player would be pretty balanced, as the Prime Mate's presence will always ensure the players are slightly outnumbered. (Plus, no one wants 4 Bandanas.) Additionally, the (presumably) reduced rowing speed from having fewer Prime Mates would give sailors a chance to actually use their cannons.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

7 minutes ago, QuartzBeam said:

I think even 1 Powder Monkey per player would be pretty balanced

they are kinda over but this nerf will make them a joke

i think a cooldown is okey so, if they add a coold down, nerfing them into the ground would make 0 sense

maybe the number could scalate per days suvived and players so we start by getting 2+primal in the start of the world and end up with the numbers we get now after 1 or 2 in game years + one additional monkey per player

[chaosmonkey]

The main tuning I'd like to see with the monkeys is making the full raid (ie, prime mate plus 4 monkeys) more of a late game thing. Early game, encountering a Raid with 5 mobs is really intense. Some sort of progression like hounds would go a long way.

I also second the cooldown on the raids. I was cleaning up the boat from one raid and got a second raid at the same time. Less of an issue late game, but again early game really suffers from this.

[QuartzBeam]

2 minutes ago, chaosmonkey said:

The main tuning I'd like to see with the monkeys is making the full raid (ie, prime mate plus 4 monkeys) more of a late game thing. Early game, encountering a Raid with 5 mobs is really intense. Some sort of progression like hounds would go a long way.

I'm not against the pirate raids scaling with time altogether, but I don't think it quite solves the problem. Reaching the late game won't make you better able to actually fight off 5 mobs in a small platform, it will just give you a couple more options to cheese them. (And I really don't think "you can just use a panflute" is a great defense.)

As for the analogy with hounds, Hounds just had a QoL update that made them more manageable in the late game. Before that update, if hounds came for you when you were far from base, you were basically force to incur some pretty hefty damage to your armor and health because they were next to impossible to kite. There's still a chance for that to happen now, of course, but with late game hounds often being condensed into Varglets, you can now minimize or even completely avoid that hefty damage if you're skilled enough. (That has always been the case for Depth Worms too, since a skilled player could just sync them and kill them all without incurring any damage.)

And I would just like to see Pirate Raids get the same treatment. Right now, it's either bribe them, scare them (good luck on that with how awful cannons are), facetank them or cheese them with a panflute.

[hhh2]

I think the raids are way to strong. So far the only way i've beaten one is with a panflute and getting lucky the prime ape was stunlocked.

Maybe the raids can vary in strength based on your loot you have on your boat.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

18 minutes ago, QuartzBeam said:

I'm not against the pirate raids scaling with time altogether, but I don't think it quite solves the problem. Reaching the late game won't make you better able to actually fight off 5 mobs in a small platform, it will just give you a couple more options to cheese them. (And I really don't think "you can just use a panflute" is a great defense.)

in late game you have bone armor and/thulecite gear plus more time to get darts or other ranged weapons like staffs

they are a danger that only appears in a small portion of the ocean, the only real problem is getting raid while fighting CK is more a problem with how little room for **** lets CK than the raid itself

raids are basically killing few spiders and a 50 damage weak mob

i prefer to have something to fear honestly, outside of optional bosses, this is the 1st time we get a real danger in many time. Ofc they should have time scale like hounds and maybe a cooldown (im not super fan, needing to wait so much to recover my stolen stuff or wanting to farm more battle paddles isnt atractive) so new people dont get hard ***ed when trying to go sail

hounds were already nerfed to a ridiculous point, lets dont make the same mistake again

edit: and lets not forget that they flee if you use cannons against them, if klei improve them will be easier to deal with raids

[Primalflower]

I think having them scale with the player like that would be nice. I don't have any particular feelings towards a cooldown. I think killing the pirates is way too difficult, especially for characters with a smaller health pool, I think having 1 powder monkey + 1 prime mate is still going to rip chunks out of a player but it'd be fair enough.

[QuartzBeam]

1 minute ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

in a small portion of the ocean

Yeah, just one itty bitty quarter of the entire map.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

Just now, QuartzBeam said:

Yeah, just one itty bitty quarter of the entire map.

exactly

1 minute ago, Primalflower said:

I think having 1 powder monkey + 1 prime mate is still going to rip chunks out of a player but it'd be fair enough.

2 enemies, one of them killed by 3 hits

[lakhnish]

In addition to what @QuartzBeam said, there should be like a few tiles around the island where Pirate Raids shouldn't happen.

I've had occurrences where I'm done doing what I need to do on the island and a Pirate raid happens and I'm not even on the boat.

[Primalflower]

  

8 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

raids are basically killing few spiders and a 50 damage weak mob

this is a little disingenuous. Its fighting about 4 powder monkeys whom all do 27.2 damage with short attack cooldown and all have... I wanna say 150 health.., and are fought in a space where its nigh impossible to kite them. Thats a pretty big threat, not even touching the prime mate whom attacks ridiculously fast and does 51 damage each time. I've been in pubs where people with marble suits have been absolutely shredded and killed.

6 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

2 enemies, one of them killed by 3 hits

the ocean is something you can and are halfway encouraged to be in before you even have reliable spears. You're thinking about numbers that only apply when you have glass cutters or dark swords, and in a position where you wont get stunlocked by them under usual circumstances.

[QuartzBeam]

12 minutes ago, lakhnish said:

In addition to what @QuartzBeam said, there should be like a few tiles around the island where Pirate Raids shouldn't happen.

I've had occurrences where I'm done doing what I need to do on the island and a Pirate raid happens and I'm not even on the boat.

Also, you probably shouldn't get pirate raids while the Monkey Queen's Grace is active.

Imagine going to the Moon Quay Island to rid yourself of the trinkets, only to get attacked by pirates and cursed again just as you are about to leave the pirate raid radius.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

6 minutes ago, Primalflower said:

I've been in pubs where people with marble suits have been absolutely shredded and killed.

how? is 95% armor, i face tanked many (2 raids plus cleaning the island) with 90% of armor and only lost arround 75% hp as wonkey

7 minutes ago, Primalflower said:

the ocean is something you can and are halfway encouraged to be in before you even have reliable spears. You're thinking about numbers that only apply when you have glass cutters or dark swords, and in a position where you wont get stunlocked by them under usual circumstances.

and for that im saying that scaling over time should be a thing because there are unskilled people wanting to experience the ocean content and wont be able to do it with spears (hambat exists and getting dark swords is easier with grotto biome for experience players but that is another topic...) and log suits if they encounter monkeys

[ShadowDuelist]

What I said in a different topic is that maybe pirates over time (past day 100) should fight differently, perhaps come with a kelp armored boat and cannons themselves, and try to shoot you before engaging. Perhaps while they position themselves to shoot, you get some time to do stuff, show your boating skills, or damage their boat with cannons yourself.
Giving a grace period between encounters is fair and reasonable: the way it is now is probably an oversight.

What I just hope is that they don't make them a joke, and everyone avoids the pirates easily.

I really like the idea of another sentient mob that hunts you at the sea, it would be a shame if it becomes way too easy.
2 ash monkeys per player on the boat sounds like a decent number to tone them down too (maybe scaling to 3-4 after certain days)  

[Primalflower]

7 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

how? is 95% armor, i face tanked many (2 raids plus cleaning the island) with 90% of armor and only lost arround 75% hp as wonkey

wonkey is a character with 150 hp, as far as I can remember. Thats much higher than some characters in the game. And based off of what you've said in this thread, It's likely that you had an incredibly powerful weapon, and were also wonkey, so they weren't immediately aggressive, and you had time to think. I don't know what to tell you. It's way too much.

7 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

and for that im saying that scaling over time should be a thing because there are unskilled people wanting to experience the ocean content and wont be able to do it with spears (hambat exists and getting dark swords is easier with grotto biome for experience players but that is another topic...) and log suits if they encounter monkeys

what you are stating here is that players will not be able to experience the ocean as well because of the pirate raids being too powerful for usual equipment. I agree with this, and I think they should be toned down.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

11 minutes ago, Primalflower said:

wonkey is a character with 150 hp, as far as I can remember. Thats much higher than some characters in the game. And based off of what you've said in this thread, It's likely that you had an incredibly powerful weapon, and were also wonkey, so they weren't immediately aggressive, and you had time to think. I don't know what to tell you. It's way too much.

wonkey has 125, only wes, maxwell, walter and wanda have less. If someone has problems with raids shouldnt be playing some of these characters

incredible powerful weapon? dark sword... raids are immediately aggressive even to wonkey and i was fighting later in the island so the aggro of many were on me in the moment i hit one of them, for that im surprised of your example because, even with my poor performance in the island tanking many of them cuz yolo, i didnt lose more than 100hp with an armor that protects less than marble one. maybe that player you mentioned was simply too unexperience

11 minutes ago, Primalflower said:

what you are stating here is that players will not be able to experience the ocean as well because of the pirate raids being too powerful for usual equipment. I agree with this, and I think they should be toned down.

what im saying is that noobs cant get better armor and weapons than log suit and spear or a rotten hambat.

someone with more experience will have a non difficult time getting some marble suits/thulecite gear and some hambat ingredients/dark swords/glass cutters so, since noob players dont survive for long enough, maybe the raids should scalate like hounds (what i mentioned is the reason behind hounds and worms wave scaling based on days surivived)

[chaosmonkey]

43 minutes ago, QuartzBeam said:

And I really don't think "you can just use a panflute" is a great defense.

Huh? I don't understand what you're arguing for. Do you want to be able to survive pirate raids with no gear?. If you go out into the ocean with a spear and a log suit in the late game you're going to have a bad time, and that's not a bad thing. Expecting a little preparation by way of a pan flute (accessible day 1) or something else doesn't seem unreasonable.

Unrelated to what's been discussed so far but a contributor to the difficulty of pirate raids is the fact that the accursed trinkets stun the character. Fixing this would actually help quite a bit. The trinkets not being dodgeable and stun locking is pretty extreme and prevents use of good fighting tactics.

[Primalflower]

4 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

what im saying is that noobs cant get better armor and weapons than log suit and spear or a rotten hambat.

someone with more experience will have a non difficult time getting some marble suits/thulecite gear and some hambat ingredients/dark swords/glass cutters so, since noob players dont survive for long enough, maybe the raids should scalate like hounds (what i mentioned is the reason behind hounds and worms wave scaling based on days surivived)

I think it is incredibly bad to expect the player to have a marble suit + dark sword before going out to sea, lest they die to pirates. It may be how you play to ignore the ocean until you've gone to the ruins/constructed a shadow manipulator/found appropriate amounts of marble, but It's poor gameplay for any other scenario.

5 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

If someone has problems with raids shouldnt be playing some of these characters

Weaker characters shouldn't be excluded from existing in 25% of the ocean

 

6 minutes ago, chaosmonkey said:

by way of a pan flute (accessible day 1)

accessible to exactly one player

Absolutely ridiculous. This shouldn't be how it is.

[chaosmonkey]

10 minutes ago, Primalflower said:

accessible to exactly one player

• There are additional mandrakes in the world if 3-4 people feel the need to go on the ocean alone
• You boat together which reduces the threat overall and lets the prebuilt panflute scale to multiple players

12 minutes ago, Primalflower said:

Absolutely ridiculous. This shouldn't be how it is.

Agreed; the threat should be reduced in early game and scale with some dimension like players or world age.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

2 hours ago, Primalflower said:

I think it is incredibly bad to expect the player to have a marble suit + dark sword before going out to sea, lest they die to pirates. It may be how you play to ignore the ocean until you've gone to the ruins/constructed a shadow manipulator/found appropriate amounts of marble, but It's poor gameplay for any other scenario.

idk if i didnt make it clear or you dont want to understand. Im saying that they should scale over time like hounds!!!!

2 hours ago, Primalflower said:

Weaker characters shouldn't be excluded from existing in 25% of the ocean

 

who is saying that? if you dont have enough experience to play wes or maxwell just learn the game

2 hours ago, Primalflower said:

accessible to exactly one player

the less pan flutes you can have i think are 3... 1 at glommer statue and minimum 2 mandrakes

2 hours ago, Primalflower said:

Absolutely ridiculous. This shouldn't be how it is.

yep, absolutely ridiculous but not the raid.

skill issue

 Why the hell are you near the primal monkey?  they dont jump onto your boat but you moved near him so he can reach you

do you know that new players know how to craft hambats? do you know that head armor exists? you died cuz armor durability run out

[chaosmonkey]

Also like, build a ham bat. You can get one after hammering a couple of pig houses and finding a few gold.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

6 minutes ago, chaosmonkey said:

Also like, build a ham bat. You can get one after hammering a couple of pig houses and finding a few gold.

not even needing to hammer resources, just killing few spiders and feeding a pig... but people saying that 1 monkey and 1 primal is already a danger...

[HowlVoid]

A bit overtuned, but I hope they don't get nerfed to the ground. I like content that challenges me a bit as every mob in the game is a joke and just a small inconvenience on my way to the loot.

I was worried, as a solo player, that my only choice would be to tank the monkeys (not too difficult). I think beside the Captain staying behind, other monkeys could too and invade your boat in waves (2,2,1). I think if Klei puts in that work now, maybe later on they can add bigger boats with chests brimming with loot (bigger pirate crew). Maybe even a rare chance at a unique boat.

Bigger player groups could still invade the enemy ship to take them all on at once.

[Primalflower]

19 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

idk if i didnt make it clear or you dont want to understand. Im saying that they should scale over time like hounds!!

I understood, and i dont think it would help much, it would just push the problem further back. I think it shouldnt be expected of you to have to have these weapons and armor on you at all times on the ocean,  it still wouldnt feel really good, especially if they come during the night.

19 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

the less pan flutes you can have i think are 3... 1 at glommer statue and minimum 2 mandrakes

The other person was referring to the pan flute you get a glommer, and thats the one im acknowledging, because its doesnt require magic, i dont think magic should be necessary either. I think its simply not great to rely on stunning enemies entirely to get by, and i think thats compounded when its such a limited resource. Realistically, theres going to be more than one group of players that want to boat seperately to eachother in a lot of circumstances in this video game.

19 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

who is saying that? if you dont have enough experience to play wes or maxwell just learn the game

skill issue

You are. What you've said before describes "if you dont want to deal with raids, dont play this character". Which is exclusionary. It simply is. 

19 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

do you know that new players know how to craft hambats? do you know that head armor exists? you died cuz durability running out

My gameplay was to showcase how the equipment featured, which is honestly high end for what you would be expecting from jumping onto the ocean in the first few days of the world, is even then not even really close to good enough, and again, it shouldnt be expected to have this kind of gear all of the time, and to have wilson health pool.

I ran a few more tests before that one, in which I stayed away from the prime mate, and the marble suit ended with ~50 to 40% durability in all of them, and incredibly heavy health loss. As much as my gameplay above isn't like, the best case scenario for performance in a raid, it doesnt get much better than that, honestly.

[MondayNight]

Early-game (1st year or 1st 1-2 seasons) perhaps going close to Moon Quay Island should spawn Pirate Boats with solely 3 Powder Monkeys? Mid-game 1 Prime Mate + 3 Powder Monkeys, while Late-game (over 100 in-game days) 1 Prime Mate + 5 Powder Monkeys?! To have a sense of progression and be fair with bulk player-base players that may venture at seas (albeit, very low numbers). Newbies/Noobs/Casuals for sure aren't making enough armor & healing (if any) to tackle current Beta numbers of Pirate Monkeys, and prevail over these raids. Also yes for spawn limits and cooldowns - from my knowledge all mobs have them, hence Pirate Raids should as well.