I'm level 21 and ship battles have suddenly become ridiculously difficult and/or ridiculously long and tedious. Here are the two main problems I'm seeing:

1) Broadside combat has become virtually impossible solo. I'm doing the Ho-Yo Silver quest which requires defeating 10 Darkmoor ships. I spent $10 in the crown shop on the best ship parts I can buy and still can't come close to sinking one of these dudes solo. Since there are no other players around, that leaves deckside combat, which leads to the next problem...

2) If we have to resort to deckside combat, the rewards for these "Defeat XXX Ships" quests don't match the time required to complete them. At ~15 minutes per deckside battle, this quest will take two and a half hours to complete... that's three times longer than your average dungeon... and it's merely a stepping stone quest.

Am having the same problems myself, have the level 18 light bison ship at the moment bought from a vendor with standard upgrades also from a vendor. I can fight level 15/16 ships with a bit of difficulty, level 17 ships are harder, usually ending with me on yellow health and level 18 ships are very difficult many times ending with me being boarded.

My main character is level 21 with level 16 at nautical.

Broadside combat has been difficult right from the start, when fighting the level 3-5 cutthroat ships with your extra light skiff. There doesn't seem to be enough heal regenerated when you heal, with a long wait to heal again. I also don't seem to do extra damage compared to who I am fighting, for example fighting a level 15 red shash boat in Cooper's Roost I will do approx 13 damage while the boat will do 9 damage on me. Using the special attacks my boat has it still takes a while to destroy an enemy ship.

It does get frustrating during broadside combat, especially when enemy ships are so close together, so after getting an enemy ship down to yellow health another may join in and I will have to make a run for the slipstream (sorry forgot correct name for it).

Just seems that broadside combat is rather difficult compared to the rewards, and I can see some people giving up with it, which I don't want to see as I love this game overall.

Hope it is tweaked eventually to make ship combat more enjoyable.

Servo103 on Oct 13, 2012 wrote:

I'm level 21 and ship battles have suddenly become ridiculously difficult and/or ridiculously long and tedious. Here are the two main problems I'm seeing:

1) Broadside combat has become virtually impossible solo. I'm doing the Ho-Yo Silver quest which requires defeating 10 Darkmoor ships. I spent $10 in the crown shop on the best ship parts I can buy and still can't come close to sinking one of these dudes solo. Since there are no other players around, that leaves deckside combat, which leads to the next problem...

2) If we have to resort to deckside combat, the rewards for these "Defeat XXX Ships" quests don't match the time required to complete them. At ~15 minutes per deckside battle, this quest will take two and a half hours to complete... that's three times longer than your average dungeon... and it's merely a stepping stone quest.

I do understand your frustration!

What Nautical level are you? What type of ship do you have? These are important factors when trying to help you with your questions/problems.

I find that the best ship to start with for Cool Ranch is the Bison Frigate (not the skiff), which you can get at Bison Village. The vendor items to equip it are sufficient to get you started, until you battle ships for better drops for it. If someone decides they want to spend crowns on ship gear, then I would recommend a Horn and Figurehead, as these have the attacks you need to get the job done.

In the first half of Beta, ships were not difficult at all. The second half of Beta, the ships were extremely difficult and tedious. I did try to explain to KI that people would get frustrated very quickly with ship battles the way they were. Unfortunately, the only thing that changed, was that the health for our ships got worse.

The best things I can recommend are: Bison Frigate. And, in regards to Nautical level (if yours is 20 or below), is to fight lower level ships to raise your nautical so you can equip better items for your ship. Not too low a level ships, as the lower the Nautical level of the enemy ship, the less nautical you will receive when you defeat them.

I avoid deckside combat no matter what. If I can't defeat the ship, then I run to the windlane to regenerate health and try again.

If you have ANY friends that play, ask them to help with ship battles. Even if they are a lower level player, the nautical will benefit you as well as your friend(s).

Most of the time, I fight ships solo, however, I do have a few friends and we'll get together and gang up on enemy ships. Not only for quests we all might have, but to also raise our nautical as high as we can.

I hope I helped a little!

Lazy Lenora Leech
Buccaneer L25
Nautical L27