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Old 07-24-2013, 08:33 AM
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CarribeanThunder CarribeanThunder is offline
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Boss Battle... "Boss" Battle...

I'm sure some of you have read a few of my other rant threads. This is another of those.
This time, I just have to say...

Why is the Boss Battle so easy?

In the old days, there was challenge in that Boss Battle. It was difficult to get through, even with a good group.
And that was when the Notoriety level cap was 40 and the weapon caps were 25.
Let's analyze the sections of the Boss Battle, shall we?

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Opening Cutscene
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It's a nice cutscene. I like it.
But can't they make the Goliath in the cutscene have her broadside cannons visible? Is it that difficult?
And the Goliath is in motion, too. Why are her sails up?
Seriously?

Another thing that sometimes occurs is that the audio isn't in proper synch with the actual cinematic itself.

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Navy Officers
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Not much to say here.

Except...
Huh. Four officers?
Come on, is that all that's there guarding the Pearl on board?
Yeah yeah, I know what you're saying - "gotta keep it moderate for the players."
But no. That won't slide with me. If they removed servers TWICE for the sole purpose of bringing us "together," then they've got to expect that people are going to group up for the Boss Battle. So four Officers just won't cut it.

That's already one point of easy difficulty there.

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Navy Panthers
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Really? Panthers? Not even at least a Centurion? I know two pairs of Dreadnoughts or Man-O-Wars just wouldn't fit side-by-side through the channel, but seriously, why just Panthers?

It's always been Panthers though, so I'll let that slide. For the most part. But it's always bugged me anyway.

Also, there's apparently a bug where if you shoot the forts during this stage of the Boss Battle, once the Panthers are defeated, the game will not move on to the next stage. If this is true, then...
Seriously? How does something like this go awry? Although it wouldn't be the first bug with the most insane trigger possible.

Still, I know it's a bug, and bugs will always crawl their way into anything. But you'd think that they'd make sure that shooting the forts during this stage wouldn't mess anything up.

But nope, they messed that up.

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The Forts
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Now this is probably the hardest part of the entire boss battle.

But that isn't saying much. It's still easy. Just flying right by the Firebrand forts adds a bit more difficulty, basically allowing them to fire on you from behind as you work on the final pair of forts. But I still don't think it's as difficult as it used to be. With a full group, by this point, you'll probably only have lost a sliver of health, if even that.

In comparison, in the old days, maybe that would have gotten you down to yellow health, or even less.

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The Goliath
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Or... Just Goliath, as she's titled in game.

Seriously? In the cutscene, she's clearly addressed as *THE* Goliath, and in the old days, her name was The Goliath. Was it that big a demand to change it to simply Goliath? I mean, she's an official ship guarding the Black Pearl, and now she sounds a bit more like a generic enemy ship. Why'd they rename her? That just ruins the feel for me. The Goliath makes me feel like I'm up against something important. But just seeing Goliath kills that. Although seeing Lv40 The Goliath down below slightly makes up for it.
But if she's gonna be named Goliath, why not add a second Navy Goliath that appears from the right of the Pearl as well?

Anyway...
In the old days, she used to be a massive War Frigate, about the size of today's Ship of the Line. And believe me, she was no push over. And she was a beauty. She was marvelous.
But then she evolved to a Ship of the Line. Oh goodness, no...
A Ship of the Line? Not a War Frigate, but a Ship of the Line? Man, no wonder why the rest of the Boss Battle was easy. This is what it's all been building up to.
...Right?
No. Not by a long shot. Despite being upgraded to a Ship of the Line, she's easier to sink than the Queen Anne's Revenge. She's easier to sink than her War Frigate counterpart who now sails the seas in limbo in another POTCO dimension unknown to us. Thankfully, she does pump out a little more damage than the Queen Anne's Revenge.
But still, what happened to the high durability that Ships of the Line are supposed to have? I know her ship type isn't officially a Ship of the Line, but she sure looks like one, so why can't she feel like one? I think I've once sunk her within two seconds of the fight starting.
Two second final boss. Yeah.
And that's all that's guarding the Black Pearl. There may as well be a second Goliath hanging around.

Oh, but then they'd need to edit the opening cutscene. And the Goliath Intro cutscene. And we all know how that would probably go.

Speaking of the Goliath Intro cutscene, that's probably the finest cutscene in the game, if you ask me.
That is, if it weren't for the fact that shooting during the cutscene caused the game to lag.
(Although if that's been fixed, please tell me - I've not gotten the chance to try it though, and I don't know if it referred to broadsides or cannons)

What's probably more disappointing is that you're forced to do this with a group. You can't just enter it on your own. Why is this necessary? This just makes it even easier to complete.

Even worse, there are other ships that are more difficult than her. By a lot.
First is of course, the Queen Anne's Revenge. She has much more durability. Although I don't think she deals as much damage. But she has two attributes that the Goliath lacks, and I don't see why.
She can fire for great distances. Not only that, but each cannon fires two shots instead of one. Not including Broadsides.
You'd think that in order to guard the Black Pearl, the Navy would hire spectacular gunners for the Goliath. But of course not.
And what's worse? You can fight the QAR alone. At any level. You don't need a crew to get to her and start shooting her. Sure, if you want to completely deal with her, you absolutely need to be a bit high level and perhaps have a crew. But still. It's a difficult ship that's easy to reach.
The Goliath is easy and requires a crew. Where's the sense?

Next are the Bountyhunters. They're easy to run into given a long enough sailing run. And they hurt more than the Queen Anne's Revenge. And they'll never stop coming until you land your ship.
And they'll start to spawn when... Oh, I forget if it's a specific Sailing level or a specific Notoriety level. But if it's a Sailing level, it's Lv5, I do believe.
But again, no crew required to reach them.

And finally, we have the Navy and EITC Treasure Fleets. The strongest enemy ships in the entire game. And they have probably the best ship AI in the game as well, in my opinion.
They are high level. They are powerful. They're in a nice group. The Navy can do that to protect cargo, but not a supposedly dangerous ship known as the Black Pearl? They must not have cared much then...
Anyway, the Fleets have a few deadly attributes. First, they share the same long-range cannonfire as the QAR (although they were the first to have that sort of range as an enemy ship). But they too have that double-shot, where each cannon fires two cannonballs instead of one.
Add that to their high levels (Lv69-71 for the escort War Frigates and Lv79-81 for the Ship of the Line herself) and you've got a true boss fight going on. It's very difficult to solo one of these, too.
Not like the Goliath.
But the Fleets have one final attribute that the QAR does not have - taking down their sails is near worthless and a waste of ammo. Why?
They can sail without them. Sure, the Bountyhunters can do that too. But not in the same way.
First, taking down a Fleet ship's sails DOES slow them down as it normally would. But what happens when there are no more sails to take down?
The ship will remain immobilized. But not for long, as given a few seconds, they'll begin to move on like nothing ever happened to their pretty colors. The Bountyhunters, like I said, can move without their sails, but they don't move at normal pace. They actually are affected by the loss of their sails. Fleet ships just forget about it after a short while.

So why do I mention this?
Because I honestly don't see why the Goliath doesn't have any of the main three attributes of the special ships. The fight occurs in a massive ocean with nothing in sight. It's not hard to just sail far away, take down her sails and just leave her to rot.
Personally, I would make it so she has ability to fire for long distances, ability to fire two shots per cannon, and ability to move without her sails.
And some explosives. She never had explosives in the history of the game. I don't know why some people think she does. But I honestly think she should have some Explosives, if just for her broadsides. You'd have more than enough health to withstand it anyway.
And besides, with as large an ocean as it is, why does she not have any of those abilities in the first place? It helps the Fleets very well in defending whatever treasure they possess.

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TL;DR
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Boss Battle is a joke. Needs to be easier. Goliath is pathetic. Non-boss ships are more difficult. Has several flaws.

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And that's it for this little rant. Yes, I realized I nitpicked on a lot of small bits and pieces here and there. But to me, those little bits are a huge nuisance. I know coding is a difficult thing (especially with such a minute team of devs... err-hem...), but seriously, I question how some of these things are missed. And there are lots of other bugs I can think of that I should question, whether it's currently still a bug, or was a bug in the game's history. But uh, maybe I'll save that for another time...

And yes, I realize this is a massive post. I applaud you if you actually read the whole thing.