Discussion Revert the Copperhead Broadside Nerf - Patch v1.21.2

[Charles Warmonk]

This nerf is not very clear to players, so I will enlighten you on how HEAVILY the NERF this upgrade from being the STRONGEST..... to weaker than Firebrand upgrade.

How they "limited" the explosive... was actually lowering the CHANGES of it as well. Normally, [Let's say on a War Galleon] You have 12 individual cannons on one broadside. This means each cannon used to have a 15% chance to shoot a explosive shot. You could get all 12 explosives..... or 0.

Currently, TLOPO's idea of nerfing this is to REMOVE ALL changes from the other 11 cannons [In this case of the War Galleon] and only give 1 cannon a 15% chance to shoot an explosive. This already RIDICULOUSLY low chance to shoot an explosive as become not even WORTH the low [15% at MAX] to upgrade.

Not only is the upgrade now the WORST in the game.... it cost players the MOST TIME and MOST MATERIALS to upgrade.

I think I speak for the entirely community on this one....Revert the change for the copperhead ship or at the VERY LEAST increase it so it is not a waste of resources.

 

[Misha]

I have to disagree. I haven't run specific calculations on the exact figures between Post-tweak Copperhead compared to the other upgrade paths as they stand, but you have to remember that this did not tweak the shot itself, AKA Explosives. They are still very much volatile, and the damage that can be dealt with the single projectile is very much still worth the upgrade path.

It compares to Skull and Bones well while lacking a little bit on consistency, and has even more potent synergies with things such as Steel Cannon Ram for the Round Shot Critical%, as well as both tiers of Priming Rams. The way that it functions now may not be as much of a blatant powerhouse, but saying that it's worse than say, Firestorm, is a bit harsh for such a potent upgrade.

 

[Stephen Teague]

I think I speak for the entirely community on this one....Revert the change for the copperhead ship or at the VERY LEAST increase it so it is not a waste of resources.

I've learned that people who claim to speak for an entire community often are only speaking for a few of their friends. I'm sure you're not aware as you aren't often involved in Privateering; however, the Copperhead "nerf" was highly requested by many people who take part in SvS. At best, you speak for players who don't really privateer. Perhaps nerfing the copperhead isn't the perfect solution, but it's the best solution at the moment as there weren't many viable alternatives. If you can think of any, please suggest them.

Currently, TLOPO's idea of nerfing this is to REMOVE ALL changes from the other 11 cannons [In this case of the War Galleon] and only give 1 cannon a 15% chance to shoot an explosive. This already RIDICULOUSLY low chance to shoot an explosive as become not even WORTH the low [15% at MAX] to upgrade.

Yes. We determined this to be fair as a Copperhead (War Brig/War Frigate) could sink any ship with one broadside and was extremely overpowered. I'm sorry that you can't run your solo loot runs anymore. However, the Stormchaser War Brig is an excellent choice to do a loot run with.

Not only is the upgrade now the WORST in the game....

This is subjective.

Before you claim to "speak for the entire community", pleasure ensure that you actually are gaining the opinions of many different types of players.

EDIT:
Also for clarification, each cannon still has a 15% chance to shoot an explosive, the difference is that they'll stop once one is fired. One Explosive does approximately 6,000 damage which is the equivalent of 4-6 Thunderbolts. What we did is known as "balancing". Copperheads still remain the strongest ships in terms of armor as well.
6480.0 Level 5 explosive shot from broadside
1620.0 Level 5 thunderbolt from broadside

 

[Charles Warmonk]

EDIT:
Also for clarification, each cannon still has a 15% chance to shoot an explosive, the difference is that they'll stop once one is fired. One Explosive does approximately 6,000 damage which is the equivalent of 4-6 Thunderbolts. What we did is known as "balancing". Copperheads still remain the strongest ships in terms of armor as well.
6480.0 Level 5 explosive shot from broadside
1620.0 Level 5 thunderbolt from broadside

Why would someone ever pick Copperhead now? If you have a 15% chance to do near identical damage as a Skull N' Bones or Lightning?

But Lighting and Skull and Bones are more consistence..... AND can potentially hit higher due to the ability to shoot more than 4-5 lightnings/Fury?

The cost/reward is completely imbalanced.

 

[ArabellaDrummond]

I think I speak for the entirely community on this one

No you don't. Claiming to "speak for the entire community" when no one has said "I'm cool with Charles Warmonk speaking for me on matters such as the copperhead broadside nerf" is one of the easiest ways at ruining your credibility.

Get consensus from the community before you presume to speak for people.

 

[Charles Warmonk]

No you don't. Claiming to "speak for the entire community" when no one has said "I'm cool with Charles Warmonk speaking for me on matters such as the copperhead broadside nerf" is one of the easiest ways at ruining your credibility.

Get consensus from the community before you presume to speak for people.

I think you should read things more clearly...
"I think I speak for the entirely community on this one....Revert the change for the copperhead ship or at the VERY LEAST increase it so it is not a waste of resources."

By saying I think it is me believing this a commonly agreed upon topic. It is not a statement of fact, it is my opinion.

You might have had a right to insult my credibility if I said "I SPEAK FOR THE ENTIRE COMMUNITY"

 

[Kate Goldwalker]

I personally think that ship upgrades are completely the matter of opinion and desire of the person who chooses it. It's all subjective, completely subjective. If things will ever get to the way that POTCO intended for them, you could not only have the most armored ship, but also a swift ship because of the rigging... But, time will tell how exactly the combinations of rigging and hull upgrades will end up working.

I'd like to ask you to remember... When an enemy ship shoots an explosive from their broadside, they only ever shoot 1. I dare any of you, if you want to call it that, to go up against a Corsair, or one of the hunters or navy 'boss' ships during a mat run and pay close attention to how many explosives they shoot at you.

It really sounds to me like you, and others like you, are really just upset because you not longer have the strongest ship on the High Seas that can sink an enemy ship in the blink of an eye. Well, quite frankly, I don't see the fun in that. Sailing is meant to be fun and challenging. This so called 'nerf' to me seems to be more of 'logic'.

But, to each his own. Like Steph said, it's all subjective... it's all up to the individual player anyway.

 

[Charles Warmonk]

I personally think that ship upgrades are completely the matter of opinion and desire of the person who chooses it. It's all subjective, completely subjective. If things will ever get to the way that POTCO intended for them, you could not only have the most armored ship, but also a swift ship because of the rigging... But, time will tell how exactly the combinations of rigging and hull upgrades will end up working.

I'd like to ask you to remember... When an enemy ship shoots an explosive from their broadside, they only ever shoot 1. I dare any of you, if you want to call it that, to go up against a Corsair, or one of the hunters or navy 'boss' ships during a mat run and pay close attention to how many explosives they shoot at you.

It really sounds to me like you, and others like you, are really just upset because you not longer have the strongest ship on the High Seas that can sink an enemy ship in the blink of an eye. Well, quite frankly, I don't see the fun in that. Sailing is meant to be fun and challenging. This so called 'nerf' to me seems to be more of 'logic'.

But, to each his own. Like Steph said, it's all subjective... it's all up to the individual player anyway.

Skull & Bones as well as Lighting still one shot anything that isn't a hunter. [With 100% accuracy.]

Copperhead is suppose to be the upgrade for fighting hunters/warships the most effectively. [ That's why it cost the most to upgrade. ]

 

[Kris]

So someone who doesn't like sailing...is all up in arms...about....sailing?

Just needed something to complain about?

 

[Charles Warmonk]

So someone who doesn't like sailing...is all up in arms...about....sailing?

Just needed something to complain about?

I don't like seeing so many people's efforts going to waste. I am sure you have seen a lot of people in Dark Archive work very hard to get nearly 6k iron in order to upgrade their rank 6 copperhead warships.

Now their ships are less damage than Skull N' Bones as well as Lightning. That's not exactly fair in my eyes.

 

[Kris]

I don't like seeing so many people's efforts going to waste. I am sure you have seen a lot of people in Dark Archive work very hard to get nearly 6k iron in order to upgrade their rank 6 copperhead warships.

Now their ships are less damage than Skull N' Bones as well as Lightning. That's not exactly fair in my eyes.

This is beta. The game is still being worked on, tweaked...etc. You are a tester...

 

[Charles Warmonk]

This is beta. The game is still being worked on, tweaked...etc. You are a tester...

Correct, therefore I am a tester giving my opinion on something that I believe should be changed before the full release.

 

[Misha]

I don't like seeing so many people's efforts going to waste. I am sure you have seen a lot of people in Dark Archive work very hard to get nearly 6k iron in order to upgrade their rank 6 copperhead warships.

Now their ships are less damage than Skull N' Bones as well as Lightning. That's not exactly fair in my eyes.

I just wanted to address one part of your argument that @Stephen Teague mentioned earlier that you may've glossed over, @Charles Warmonk. Yes, Copperheads were tweaked to One explosive per broadside, however, the numbers don't accurately represent the actual background factors taking place.

Let's take your example, a 15% chance to fire 1 explosive from a War Galleon's 12 Broadside. Every. Single. Broadside has a chance to fire an explosive, but instead of firing as many as the number generator comes up with, only fires ONE after a single broadside shot calculates and becomes an Explosive. Rather than 15%, this effectively equals a 1 for 1, 1 broadside:1 Explosive everytime.

This doesn't even account increasing the Explosive's damage with skill points, etc.

 

[Kate Goldwalker]

Skull & Bones as well as Lighting still one shot anything that isn't a hunter. [With 100% accuracy.]

Copperhead is suppose to be the upgrade for fighting hunters/warships the most effectively. [ That's why it cost the most to upgrade. ]

You may be right with that statement, but if you look at the enemy ships who fire the fury and lightning with their broadsides, you'll see they fire the same way/number as our ships do. Which this is my whole point. It makes sense that our ships should emulate the enemy ships abilities with broadsides. Lol, and I remember the days in POTCO when our ships could not emulate how the enemy ships fire the specialty ammo. God bless, those were the days!

It makes no sense for a pirate ship to fire an explosive from each broadside at the same time in one 'round' upon an enemy ship. None of the enemy ships shoot at us that way.

To reiterate Steph's argument, this was and EXTREMELY unfair advantage in SvS.

 

[Kris]

Correct, therefore I am a tester giving my opinion on something that I believe should be changed before the full release.

I'll just leave this here;

https://gyazo.com/e5c8233a7979af18156cb0c3b2d0e3bb

 

[Charles Warmonk]

I just wanted to address one part of your argument that @Stephen Teague mentioned earlier that you may've glossed over, @Charles Warmonk. Yes, Copperheads were tweaked to One explosive per broadside, however, the numbers don't accurately represent the actual background factors taking place.

Let's take your example, a 15% chance to fire 1 explosive from a War Galleon's 12 Broadside. Every. Single. Broadside has a chance to fire an explosive, but instead of firing as many as the number generator comes up with, only fires ONE after a single broadside shot calculates and becomes an Explosive. Rather than 15%, this effectively equals a 1 for 1, 1 broadside:1 Explosive everytime.

This doesn't even account increasing the Explosive's damage with skill points, etc.

My point still stands even with the odds being higher than originally explained. So entertain me with a response to the following...

Why would someone ever pick Copperhead now? If you have a 15% chance to do near identical damage as a Skull N' Bones or Lightning?

But Lighting and Skull and Bones are more consistence..... AND can potentially hit higher due to the ability to shoot more than 4-5 lightnings/Fury?

The cost/reward is completely imbalanced.

 

[Ned_Reddavis]

What 'm gonna say is based on testing done in game collected together into this guide as well as a bit of opinion.

I think that copperhead is in a better position than it was previously. It had the most average broadside damage and could absolutely smack on people if you got lucky and connected those couple explosive rounds, as well as boasting hefty armor. The tuning made it so that fewer explosives are allowed to be released out, which did hurt it's damage potential and brings it very close to skull and bones now**.

It does not, however, have a horrendously low 15% chance per broadside to deploy an explosive, it is per cannon. You can find the true rate at which explosives come out by finding how often they won't come out. That happens when all 12 shots from one broadside don't shoot an explosive. The rate at which one will do this is 0.85. Compounding the chances gives (0.85)^12 which is about .14 or 14%. Therefore, the chance at any given broadside producing an explosive is about 86% not 15% for 12 shot broadside ships. So, more often than not you will get that powerful explosive shot out and it will demolish ships.

If you go out in the wild and test this you can find this to hold up. After just 32 tests of hitting all shots without the ship sinking, 26 had an explosive shot in the barrage. A 1 proportion z statistical test with that tested distribution against a 15% rate gives a probability of 0.000000000000000000000773% chance (or 7.7E-22% if you like) that 26/32 accurately represents the true rate. As opposed to a 78% statistical probability that the distribution represents an 86% explosive rate.

If anything I think that Stormchasers could be tuned back since they have the highest average broadside damage at a darn consistent rate while also boasting high speed. Unless of course this ship is meant to be more of a glass cannon, in which case it is sitting nicely.

**Edit: My puny brain thought that each broadside was 24 shots rather than the actual 12 for the highest broadsiding ships. Those ships have an 86% chance at an explosive, but that wasn't reflected properly nor calculated properly in my guide as I used 24. Adjusting for the correct number of shots produces a broadside with nearly identical average damage to stormchasers! Wow! Shameless plug to look at my guide if you want to know more.

 

[Charles Warmonk]

I'll just leave this here;

https://gyazo.com/e5c8233a7979af18156cb0c3b2d0e3bb

This is a discussion, popular opinion is not absolute.

Otherwise, we'd have trading.

 

[Kate Goldwalker]

My point still stands even with the odds being higher than originally explained. So entertain me with a response to the following...

Why would someone ever pick Copperhead now? If you have a 15% chance to do near identical damage as a Skull N' Bones or Lightning?

But Lighting and Skull and Bones are more consistence..... AND can potentially hit higher due to the ability to shoot more than 4-5 lightnings/Fury?

The cost/reward is completely imbalanced.

I'll answer this.

There will be players who choose the Coperhead not for the ammo ability, but for the armor. Why? I'm assuming that some of them will want a strong ship with a tough hull so they wont sink so fast... But, maybe I'm wrong. I mean that is why I thought the armor would go up... make you tougher to sink...

This is a discussion, popular opinion is not absolute.

Otherwise, we'd have trading.

Kris did take a screenshot of YOUR poll from THIS thread. Yes, this is a discussion. You're also correct that popular opinion is not an absolute... BUT, in this case, if the majority of the player base is happy with this change, then why would the developers ever consider making a ship revert to shooting an illogical number of explosives with their broadsides in a single 'round'?

 

[Misha]

My point still stands even with the odds being higher than originally explained. So entertain me with a response to the following...

Why would someone ever pick Copperhead now? If you have a 15% chance to do near identical damage as a Skull N' Bones or Lightning?

But Lighting and Skull and Bones are more consistence..... AND can potentially hit higher due to the ability to shoot more than 4-5 lightnings/Fury?

The cost/reward is completely imbalanced.

Sure, let me entertain you.

Utilizing the calculations from @Ned_Reddavis ' post above, we can figure that 77% of your broadsides sit with a single explosive, and a volley of anywhere from 8-11 Round Shot. Sure, on its own, a single explosive is fairly irrelevant facing the consistency of Fury and Thunderbolt, but lets take in for a second some cannon ram calculations.

Steel Cannon Ram, AKA Round Shot Crit-Ram utilizes a +3 Boost to the typically maxed out +5 Round Shot, boosting the damage by an additional (I believe 12%). Atop of this, there is about a 22.7% chance that each of these individual round shot will leave the broadside as a critical Round Shot, dealing anywhere from 1.5x - 2.0x the damage of a standard shot.

While the same could be said for Skull and Bones, the potential power of a single shot as opposed to 4, 5, or even more of the competitors' ammunition means that at least 40% of the broadside will be utilized purely for the modification such as Fury or Thunderbolt, whereas Copperhead utilizes a SINGLE shot in a broadside to deal the same damage potential.

You can't just look at what numbers mean on paper and think that a change to one mechanic completely drops the potential of something. Sure, Copperhead can't bombard and sink an enemy hunter in ONE broadside anymore, but you are very likely to consistently do it in two, and that's with a relative consistency that makes it invariably lethal against standard warships and below.