First issue I've noticed is the negative threat passives seem completely worthless. I have a musketeer and swashbuckler and they don't seem to do anything. Twelve fights with amber horde with at least one crossbowman they always go for my character despite being 50 and having extra negative threat via musketeer and swashbuckler training and acting passively without attacking. It could be the mobs but I've had this happen with samoorai archers but haven't gone back to check them ten times in a row (three fights I can only take so much).

Second issue are the inoshishi bandits (pigs with sticks like ju hao). They block just about everything every single time. Ju hao for example despite being level 53 and maxed out gets blocked by these EVERY single time twice in a row per round due to second chance. These mobs are broken or point to how detrimental the current way the companion system works is. I've had the top two rows lined with musketeers besides lucy (she's a beast what can I say) and I still get all melee which happened with these mobs. I decided to pop ju hao to first mate and fight these guys over and over about eleven times and ended up with my melee companions over half the time being all melee (five times). Ju hao was blocked in every fight every round even though he's level 53 and maxed and should have slightly better stats than the same bandits.

Third issue are the lack options for musketeers specifically 45+. The itemization seems poor post 45+ for musketeers that want to maximize damage. Crown shop gear gives will as a secondary which seems fine if someone wants to go witch or privateer but what about swashbuckler? Logically swashbuckler would be a popular choice considering the shared main stat of agility. Why isn't the set in the shop allocated for +damage instead of will and why is accuracy put on everything? The stat although nice is hardly needed in these large amounts due to the plethora of skills the class attains.The only recourse one has as a musketeer is to find the one or two things that might not have accuracy on them and subpar amounts of agility and +damage. The fact that musketeers can use the shooty/stabby/slashy/smashy weapons just like swashbucklers makes this even more of a head scratcher. Musketeers get horrible passives where the large amount of accuracy is even needed. The most used one (quick draw) points back to the problem with the threat passives. High accuracy would be necessary or wanted if we had overwatch and burst fire but that isn't the case.

Last and final issue is the fact that nautical battles seem to be tacked on and not a full fledged feature or play style with the game. The game interests people initially due to the pirate theme and flying ship battles emphasized in your own commercial. It feels hollow and most of the players ignore this aspect until it's made absolutely necessary. Please improve this.

Baconnaise on Jan 29, 2013 wrote:

I wanted to add that it seems odd that a quest to kill four or eight things only to get three out of four even though you might fight four seems disingenuous and arbitrary. Kill these guys get four of these things it always ends up shorting you an item so instead you might have to do two battles or three battles instead of one or two. Why would you do this? Why would you do this to players? They need to be a little more honest in a sense with what your goal is. This happens with all quests from the start of the game.

I've been playing MMO's since 2001 with daoc and eq. Make the battles and drop represent what is actually happening and change the quests accordingly. I have to fight three sets of four to hit my twelve mark etc.

This is the reason my niece stopped trying to complete quests. She'd have to sink/board over a dozen ships to acquire 4 or 6 needed items. She has pretty well given up and when she does log her character on, a level 28 Swashbuckler, she spends her time in Santo Pollo where she collects the gold from the 3 treasure chests that appear there and does the cantina backroom battle. I feel it won't be long until I terminate membership because of her lack of interest in the game. She also had the complaint that when first getting a quest, it was nearly impossible to complete it. The Totem Quest is an example. She was defeated 3 times in a row trying to get the first totem and has now completely given up on it.