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Skull and Bones is Ubisoft's latest high seas action adventure. It's a multiplayer live service game which encompasses seasons, a cash shop and maybe future expansions.  INTRODUCTION The game starts with your character being rescued by 2 other pirates after a failed raid. After arriving that the nearest pirate stronghold the local kingpin takes you under his wing and you can start doing various quests and mission, or you simply go out on your own exploring the waters, raiding settlements and plundering merchant ships.   Skull and Bones plays sometime in the late 17th century, during the Golden Age of Piracy. It is set in a fantasy version of the Indian Ocean, that roughly resembles the region from the east coast of Africa, to Madagascar and then to SE Asia. Here's a map from the beta, with a good chunk of the North still unexplored:  The main "character" of the game is your ship, your actual captain does not have any rpg-like skills and mostly serves as a mannequin to show off various outfits, some of which come from in-game rewards, while others are from the shop. You can also completely edit your captain in towns including face and gender. While rising through the ranks you can build better and larger ships, each with it's individual strengths and weaknesses and upgrade them with various pieces of equipment - some of these come from crafting, but those of greater rarity seem to be loot drops or mission rewards.  Piracy is relatively simple: you sail the open world and attack the npc ships you can take on. Be careful of the level difference, a level 7 merchant vessel can easily sink a level 3 pirate, judging from beta a gap of only a few levels can make a massive difference. When you shoot a ship often enough the ship becomes vulnerable to a boarding action, at which point you shoot grappling hooks over their railing and hope that some of them stick, aim too high or too low and they will miss or bounce off. Once you successfully grappled a ship your seadogs board it during a short cutscene and you get whatever loot it had onboard. There is no melee combat and your captain does not fight.  Attacking settlements works somewhat similar, you have to destroy some fortification with gunfire, while your crew plunders the settlement over multiple stages. There's a progress bar that slowly fills up and after every quarter additional ships will arrive and you have to sink them. Once the progress bar is full you receive your loot. It seems you can also abandon such a raid earlier and make off with a smaller share. (pirates and privateers are not the only dangers at sea)  There's also trading in the mold of "Buy low at one port, sell high at another port", but this does not seem to make much profit when it comes to time investment. Supposedly the late game is to become a regional pirate kingpin, with control over some means of production and then engage in various endgame activities like hunting ghost ships, sea monsters, pvp, treasure hunting and more. How this will play out no one can say, cause the beta limited players to rank 6. RED FLAGS The game was stuck in development hell for something like 10 years. Supposedly it started as a DLC for AC Black Flag and then somehow became it's own thing, with the people in charge not knowing what they wanted or what kind of game it will be. The long development cycle really shows at times. The npcs and settlements looked dated, like games from early PS4 days. On the other hand the ships, water, weather effects and sailing as a whole can look quite nice. And at least the game has DLSS, Hdr and ultra-wide support, a proper fov slider and other expected standards right out of the box (looking at you, Starfield). Big question is: will this really be a new franchise for Ubisoft, or is it just an attempt to grab some cash off a failed project? After everything I read about the game's development I did not intend to touch it. But then the beta weekend came along and somehow the game scratched the old "Sid Meier's Pirates!" itch. The sailing, shooting, exploring was kinda fun and combined with the chase for the next bigger ship with bigger guns it made for a somewhat rewarding dopamine cycle. THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM The Pirate Round https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Round had it's place in history and I'm sure that the region also spawned it's share of famous freebooters, like this lady for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_Yi_Sao. But setting the game in the Indian Ocean means no Caribbean, no Port Royal, Tortuga, Cartagena, Barbados and all the other places made famous by pirate movies and pop culture. A very odd choice in my opinion, which ofc gives them more freedom in story telling, but it also fails to draw in players by using familiar locations and names. At least the region also offers sandy beaches, palm trees and exotic locations, but you won't be chasing the treasure fleet or the silver train. FINAL THOUGHTS Would I recommend this game? No, simply because the risk of Ubisoft abandoning it is too great. But the Beta weekend at least made it look like not a total disaster and was more fun than it should have been. So if you really loved Black Flag and other pirate games and can live without fencing and melee and are not dead set on a Caribbean campaign and have some disposable income to piss away then it might be worth a look. Finally some impressions: Sailing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INKxE-sCUS0 Boarding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GNxCzVxtN8 Sea to land transition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzjZ-xrzYkA Hammerstein fucked around with this message at 15:12 on Feb 20, 2024 |
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Feb 12, 2024 20:35
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Reserved for a ship gazzetta (if I stay interested)
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Feb 12, 2024 20:35
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(reserved for various infos) *TIPS AND TRICKS* Farm those wrecks you find along the coast, they contain silver, sometimes commodities and all the basic resources to craft cannon balls and repair kits. This saves you thousands of silver in the long run. Legendary treasure map cheese. When an opponent is about to kill you, better drop the map by going to the map menu and cancelling out of the event. Heal up and follow them (they can't hit you, cause you're no longer part of the map hunt), then accept the event again and attack at an opportune moment. If you get the Helm Wager check the list of other players in your instance. If you played the beta and early access there's a good chance you are currently the top dog, in that case take the Helm Wager, it will be easy Eights since no one can touch you. In my current instance I was over 100K in points and the next player was at 12k. *THE ENDGAME* It's thursday, official launch is tomorrow. I hit the endgame 2 days ago and it seems to be about 3 currencies. Silver: Your standard currency to buy from most npcs, fuel your factories and use fast travel Pieces of Eights: Endgame currency to buy the best equipment from The Helm. Some season currency, which can also be used ot buy equipment (Edit: found out these are called Sovereigns)  This is the Le Pont Muet bar in Sainte-Anne, the forefront of The Helm, which is an organization of smugglers in the Indian Ocean. Behind the big barrel on the right is your hideout, the bartender on the left offers access to the black Market and sells equipment, blueprings and cosmetics for Pieces of Eight. Eights are the currency you gain by doing endgame activities, mostly running rum and opium, but also taking over settlements and have them automatically grind Eights, as long as you provide enough silver, you can also boost the production rate by delivering sugar cane or poppy seed to those settlements. A glimpse of the Black Market. The armor in the picture is bought with another endgame currency (the name of which eludes me) ((Edit: Sovereigns)). That currency comes from your season ranking, depending on how many Eights you grinded out.   This here is your office - you get 2 of these, one in Sainte-Anne for rum and one in Telok Penjarah in the East Indies for opium  To the right is the distillery, in Telok it will be the opium production. To get rum you dump sugar cane into it, which you will either buy from smuggler contracts, sometimes find on ships, or steal in raids. The rum goes into your warehouse from where you can sell it for silver, but the greater value is as follows: The next station is the Order Registry, in here you find your daily delivery tasks for rum and opium. Fulfill these, while chased by npc ships and you get more Eights.  Next is the supply network, in there you find the mission to buy or steal raw materials for your production. The missions in there are separated in liaisons (buying) and attacks (stealing), ofc stealing is more fun.  And finally the most important part: near your desk you find the Empire overview, which you can also access from the Codex. This shows all the bases you have taken over and which are producing Pieces of Eights for you. The bases become yours by winning pvp and pve events which pop up relatively often. Once a base is yours you don't need to defend it all the time, it seems you keep it for the duration of the season (or is it weekly, not sure yet). There are 3 regions to unlock, the first unlock near Madagascar is free, the others cost 5000 Eights. The more production places you have, the more currency you can grind. Once a factory is full you must sail there to pick up your coins and return them to a pirate haven while chased by npcs. Once in a while a mission can pop up that will double your profits if you managed to reach a certain destination with your ship, but that is pvp and I would not recommend it, cause some tryhards will always chase you with maxed out ships. On the map you can click on your bases and feed them silver to stay active (raw mats must be delivered by ship). You can also upgrade them using Eights, which increaes production and storage, but this gets expensive rather quickly, for now I only got them to level 2 and rather spent the Eights on ship upgrades. There are also global upgrades which you can buy at your desk (like 4% more production efficiency) but these are also just seasonal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLDF1zDaFv0 So to sum it up: Reach endgame by leveling Buy or steal sugar cane and/or poppy to turn it into rum&opium for delivery contracts to get Pieces of Eight Take over bases and feed them silver (boost with raw mats is optional) to get more Eights Haul Eights from bases to a pirate base every 2 hours or so Buy stuff from the Black Market Rinse, repeat... More info to follow....sorry for some of the overbright screenshots, hdr issues when taking them. Hammerstein fucked around with this message at 14:08 on Feb 16, 2024 |
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Feb 12, 2024 20:35
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Man, I really want this to be a good game, but the open beta left me feeling like it still needs a ton of time in development to make it actually fun to play. The foundation of a really good pirate game is absolutely there, but the combat, and ship traveling just felt really boring and lifeless. And then there is the main quests and dialog, all of it felt like it was fed into ChatGPT, just so uninteresting, zero engagement to care or get you into the world. The worst possible type of tutorial hiding behind being a storyline that i've seen. UBISoft said that they have a lot of quality of life features planned throughout the first year of the games release. So my thought was to wait for the first year to come and go and then see where the game is, and if its on heavy discount (it should be pretty quickly) then buy it and hopefully its a good game by then. UBISoft is adding things like setting up your own colony, and NPCs that ship between settlements for you, lots of business stuff being added in future updates and seasons. So that is cool! Really hoping we get an expansion that adds ground combat, and being able to board ships like you could in Assassin's Creed Black Flag. But still, this really could have just been a single player offline game, and it would have been so much better if it was. It would have allowed for a seamless open world, instead of the loading screens we get to go between ship and land. That part is so annoying. Starfield was bad enough about this, but to see it in a game like this in 2024 is inexcusable.
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Feb 12, 2024 20:50
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I'm in for the base game, played about 15 hrs of beta. Visuals of sailing around are relaxing as all hell and the mechanics are simple enough to grok. As long as youre blowing up stuff from point a to point b you're always gearing up and making money and getting resources and there's plenty to spend it on too. Past that the endgame economic game seems to have enough numbers to make go up too, so as long as youre hooked on the sailing around aspect I'd recommend it. Everyone that has liked the beta has uttered the word Pirates! at some point while explaining what they liked about it so as long as the devs understand that and lean into some additional stuff like fleet fights/escorts itll be fun for a few months at least. To recap: if you REALLY loved AC black flag and Rogue for the botes or like low stakes little structure co op pve semi sandboxy open world deals, you'll probably like this game at launch. Otherwise, see if it's dead in 3 months.
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Feb 13, 2024 00:18
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Thanks for the thread! Played a ton of the beta, found it surprisingly engaging - enough so that I did all the beta unlockable stuff (infamy tier 6, world event, craft up the medium ship, etc). Might just have a broken brain but the grind to craft stuff was really addicting, each new ship was fun to mess with and hunting stuff on specific trade routes for what I needed felt rewarding. I will say that I just mashed skip on all the story stuff, didn't feel any need to engage there. The on-foot stuff is very meh, at best it is something to build on. All the fun/satisfaction is sailing around, blowing up other ships and acquiring the mats you need to craft something new. I didn't do the PVP event, but did do one of the elite captain things with some other players. It was fun enough to just hammer the elite down, although not particularly challenging. Kinda hoping for more Destiny 2 public event style things you can just roll into with whoever is sailing around. Didn't try any trading, did just a bit of the black market stuff but not really enough to get a good feel for it. Overall I'm looking forward to playing at release, the game is definitely pretty repetitive but the loop is satisfying. Hopefully they do actually keep supporting it with content, could see it being a go-to for easy dopamine hits for a long time.
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Feb 13, 2024 01:27
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20 min maintenance - some more impressions. I just unlocked The Helm, which is an organization of smugglers and rum runners. Feeding sugar cane into the system allows you to crank out way more refined goods than simply buying them. When you have enough rum you accept a delivery mission while being chased by npcs. At lower levels the rewards don't seem to be worth it, compared to just sailing around and murdering everything, but maybe it gets better later on.  I got lucky and won one of the cutthroat pvp events, where you pick up a legendary treasure map and have to sail to a certain destination. I won cause I was the only person competing  . The reward was, among other things, some tier 4 long cannons which hit other stuff for 1400-1500 damage making the content around my level a breeze. I also had a story mission bug out, namely the one where you gotta plunder a Fara settlement while using the French sails. The box for the sails got a checkmark, but the box for plundering did not complete, despite doing all stages. Gonna try again after maintenance.
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Feb 13, 2024 03:16
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Played a good chunk more yesterday up to cuthroat rank, mostly progressing through the story but a little bit of jumping around trying to gather mats to craft up better armor and weapons. I'm using the Padewakang, first medium ship I think you get access to, with a mortar 1, fire bombard 2s (I think) side and back with some long rang cannons at the front. It feels like cheating a bit, ship is level 7 but I've fought level 9s successfully. I just mortar from incredible range as I'm sailing closer, wait a few seconds and unload front guns to hit at the same time as mortar. Then sail by just whaling on em with bombards, feels great. The better food in the game has been pretty useful to keep stamina recharging quickly, and draining more slowly along with other useful benefits. Gonna target unlocking one of the other, faster ships then outfitting it with furniture that increases acceleration. Seems like a solid strat is to just move quickly and unpredictably enough that the most powerful weapons, like mortar/torpedoes/etc just are too slow to bullseye you. Did another one of those elite captain fights in the upper left of the map with a pubbie, those things are tanks. We got it down to like 10% health when the timer expired, at which point it just sails away with invincible status. Really annoying. Hammerstein posted:I also had a story mission bug out, namely the one where you gotta plunder a Fara settlement while using the French sails. The box for the sails got a checkmark, but the box for plundering did not complete, despite doing all stages. Gonna try again after maintenance. I read a few people having this problem, seemed to work OK on the second try. Really hope they have a release day patch though, I still get regular bugged pop up messages about the helm wanting me dead, then deciding a whole bunch more times that they don't care anymore, which can be pretty disruptive.
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Feb 15, 2024 15:30
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I played maybe about 8 hours of the open beta last weekend and for some reason I can't describe, I'm really tempted to pick this up. It has so many warning signs (specifically Ubi dropping it after it fails to meet expectations, I guess we'll see once the review embargo is up tomorrow), but it also feels like it has potential to be pretty good after awhile if it gets the right kind of support it needs. But I'm not holding my breath on it. Either way I heard somewhere that it'll be free for another 8 hours or something once launch hits properly tomorrow, so I'll give it another go and see what to do after. Getting Ubisoft+ for a month feels like a decent way to play for awhile, see all there is to currently see in the game, and then go into hiatus until the first actual new content comes out.
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Feb 15, 2024 16:38
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I played Sea of Thieves a few years back and while I liked the gameplay it didn't hold my attention for too long as all the ship parts and items you could buy were basically just cosmetic. Does Skull and Bones have items and skills that actually increase your strength/abilities or is it also mainly balanced for multiplayer? Vakal fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Feb 15, 2024 |
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Feb 15, 2024 16:52
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Yes, there’s varying tiers of equipment that have stats. The ships have certain pros and cons, some have more room for weaponry and some have a bigger hold. The first medium ship you get has 5 weapon slots: front guns, back guns, left guns, right guns, and a slot in the middle that can shoot mortars that take a few seconds to come down. When firing the mortar, you move a big circle around and do a devastating area of effect hit that takes a few seconds to reload. There’s also an armor slot for your hull. Different ones offer different damage resist types. Then there are furniture slots, which are perks. Stuff like reload certain weapon types faster, increase areas of effect, increase acceleration, increase the amount of resources you harvest, etc. Ships have classes. Dps/tank/support. I liked the support one when I could only use small ships, it’s got a passive heal and a passive stamina regen that was super useful for accidents and trimming the sails for a good while. Eating meals provides a buff that has a stamina regen, and other buffs depending on the dish. Grilled ingredients are basically stamina potions with short cooldowns. Good for outrunning stuff and bracing, both use lots of stamina. Chuds McGreedy fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Feb 15, 2024 |
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Feb 15, 2024 17:58
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I added some endgame info into a placeholder post above. Also found out something that should be of help: This armor is the Royal Custodian. You get it from from raiding the French colonial shipment event that pops up around Madagascar. The ships are only level 7 and with my level 9-10 ship I was able to solo it, with a group it would be even easier. I boarded one of the ships and sunk another and got 2 of these armors which protect against piercing and explosive (and a little against flooding and fire), the most common damage types when fighting npcs. You also get an armor buff for 15 seconds after using a repair kit. This armor is not listed in the Codex. 
Hammerstein fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Feb 15, 2024 |
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Feb 15, 2024 23:29
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This game really clicked with me and I've been having a blast. I have a few more tips for the endgame Helm stuff: - There are two "tracks" to get Pieces of Eight, the endgame currency. There's the more active supply missions>process the supplies>sell the processed supplies loop or the take over settlements>pay silver to fund manufacturing>pick up your currency and bring it home loop. I feel like if you try to do both of them to the max you'll get overwhelmed as they can both keep you pretty busy, especially if you get a lot of settlements running. I started doing the supply missions but then switched my focus to settlement management once I had a few going. It can generate some pieces while you're offline and lets you create currency while you do other things. It also has higher earning potential once you're invested in it a bit with multiple settlements and a few upgrades - I'm somewhere around 550 pieces/hr with the starting area settlements. - One exception is the "Attack" supply missions where you have to sink a Rogue cargo ship. I like doing these because the ships can drop one of the rare materials (Wyrm's Breath, etc) that you usually have to buy with Pieces of Eight and are needed to craft a lot of the highest-tier gear. You can get 1-2 per mission usually so it's kind of like getting 1.5-3k worth of Pieces of Eight for these missions. - You can take over settlements with either a PvE heist event or a PvPvE event. There seems to be only one PvE event that spawns each round so jump on it quick since there are only 3 spots! - The PvE heist requires you to sink a ship carrying a chest that is then randomly given to one of the participants. That person then has to bring the chest back home while the others escort and run interference on a bunch of ships that spawn. I point this out because someone I was with thought we were done after sinking the ship and sat there launching fireworks when they had the chest. The spawned ships swarmed him and we lost (lol). The person carrying the chest only gets one chance so if they die you don't get the settlement! -For the PvPvE event, I've found if you wait until the last few seconds to join you'll usually be able to do them without other players interfering if they hadn't joined previously. I'll usually sail near the one I want to do and track the event without joining. If no one else is nearby and the event hasn't been joined with 10-15 seconds left I'll sign up and have it to myself. This is good if you want the settlement but don't feel like PvPing. A lot of NPC ships spawn that give you capture points and some silver so it's actually a fun and hectic event without other players. - There's no penalty for picking up your currency early from settlements, and you can still get the "double or nothing" PvP option even if they're not full if you're so inclined. So what I'll usually do is wait until one is full (or near full) then grab the currency from there and any other nearby settlements along the way to or from. I saw it recommended to wait until they're full but that seems like a bad idea since you'll be playing whack-a-mole with full settlements. - If you noticed a trend, everything you do requires a lot of sailing back and forth. I highly recommend fitting out the Brigantine as it's the fastest ship in the game and makes all these runs considerably faster. It's also good for outrunning and evading the ships that spawn to kill you when you're doing all these Helm deliveries, which is usually the best option. The ones that spawn after settlement pickup don't drop loot like the ones from the supply/delivery missions so they're kind of a waste of time. Hakarne fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Feb 17, 2024 |
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Feb 17, 2024 21:21
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Thanks for all the informative posts, I’m really digging into this game, too. I managed to snag a Royal Custodian which jumped my brigantine’s rank to 11, so it seems to be telling that if you spot another rank 11 ship, they’ve got the 400 strength armor. Good to know before you square up with someone if you PvP. In fact, I got a second Royal Custodian after doing two PvE legendary heists that reward you a manufactory. I like those better than the hostile takeover. I guess if anyone needs one, I can trade for it? Dunno how rare they are, I only started looking today and found two. Speaking of rare, I fought the Maangodin ship, from the contract Oceans Apart, at The Oubliette found in the zone Port I’llermine. It dropped the epic Sea Fire weapon, which I think is a rare drop, according to what I searched online about it. It’s called Blue Specter, it’s the same blue flamethrower weapon from the Maangodin fight, which is kind of a challenging fight. You have to destroy the weak points on the front of the ship before you can damage it, otherwise it’s immune. Blue Specter even glows when you’re not using it, which is neat! I read the Maangodin also drops the sails and all the other cool cosmetics it has. The contract is repeatable. Gonna mess around with that tonight and keep doing the PvE legendary heists that reward you with a manufactory every time. Based on observation and the layout of the manufactories in Red Isle, it looks like they want you to do a big loop and scoop up all the Pieces of Eight at once, starting at La Bastide and going clockwise? That means the first thing to focus on is expansion, I need every manufactory to make running that loop worthwhile. The end game has me hooked and is really fun, there’s so much to invest these pieces of eight in. Gotta get those manufactories… Season 1 “Raging Tides” hasn’t started yet, either. No date mentioned online, just that people are looking at the Helm Empire Overview, in the upgrades tab, it says, “All upgrades will be reset at the end of the season” and a countdown that ends on Feb 25th. Edit: oh yeah! I should mention that I defeated the Maangodin by boarding it, which gives you more loot and better odds at drops. Chuds McGreedy fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Feb 18, 2024 |
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Feb 18, 2024 04:58
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Chuds McGreedy posted:Thanks for all the informative posts, I’m really digging into this game, too. I managed to snag a Royal Custodian which jumped my brigantine’s rank to 11, so it seems to be telling that if you spot another rank 11 ship, they’ve got the 400 strength armor. Good to know before you square up with someone if you PvP. Mangoodin can be farmed if you have a buddy who has the quest. You sail to the spot and have him log out, if you also have the quest you can take turns. The Seafire has the lowest dps of all weapons, no idea if the spooky version is better. Some tips about crafting: Don't buy this stuff from the Black Market, you can also get it from the various factions as drops, especially when you do supply raids for sugar/poppy.  Silver tips: Brandy, Gin, Wine and Paintings can be flipped for a profit ranging from x2 to x3.5. You do this by checking with Rogue Traders, when hovering over an outpost symbol you can check which faction has people there. The best one is probably the Dutchman's camp in the lower right corner. But you will say: "Hammer you fool, these people only sell 4-5 units of each", well usually they do, but the Rogue Traders are different and will sell you 15-20 units and sometimes have all 4 commodities in store. After buying everything log out and back in to reset the vendor. Then check the map at 2x zoom and go to a region which offers good prices. Brandy and Gin can be sold for up to 340-360 silver. Paintings and wine around 200. You will need that silver to keep your factories running if you go all in and have 15+ of them online. They eat 14-1600 silver every 2 hours and that will accumulate over time, especially because you will be busy running sugar cane/poppy missions and collecting coins in the endgame, instead of actually doing piracy. I would recommend doing this and just watch a movie while you grind through the buy/sell sequences. After 2-3 hours you should be able to squirrel away a million silver and then you're set for the near future. Game's story is kinda funny when you think about it, all the anti-corpo and freedom babble from the quest npcs is just hogwash. In the end you build your own rum&opium megacorp, while getting paid in company scrip by the invisible powers that be. You're no pirate but a glorified drug baron. Hammerstein fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Feb 18, 2024 |
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Feb 18, 2024 10:08
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I'd be interested in grouping up with others for some group pirating. I play on PS5 (same name as here) most nights from about 5-11pm EST and sometimes during the day to if I am WFH. I don't know if there is a friends list or anything in game that would allow grouping with people not on PS5 easier. I am Kingpin already and getting into the Helm stuff. Just looking to get a few of the ships I don't have and some better weapons and armor now. Edit: Hopefully someone who is ok using voice chat also as it would be hard to use text chat in game even if it worked, which it currently does not. Trastion fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Feb 19, 2024 |
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Feb 19, 2024 16:14
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I finally got the Pyro ship that requires 5000 Pieces of Eight and holy lol it does crazy amounts of damage. I outfitted it with the Blue Specter flame from the Mangoodin and Zamzama IIIs on the broadsides and it just deletes things when you get close. For furniture I run +10% front weapon damage, + Sea Fire elemental damage, +10% damage to targets with ablaze, +10% crew attack charge rate, and the furniture that heals you on a crew attack. If they aren't killed by the Blue Specter, they'll be ablaze as you swing around for a broadside and the zamas will just chunk their health. If they're still not dead they'll be open to a crew attack which also heals you, at which point your zamas and Specter are ready to go again. Only downside is the lower health, it'll take maybe 3 direct broadsides max if you don't brace, and your brace isn't all that resilient. I've almost been burst to death on the approach so you really have to be careful working your way to your target. But once you're up in their business, they're dead.
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Feb 19, 2024 22:10
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Been wondering how that ship is. I don't have the Brig yet so I've been putting around in the Snow which owns for being v hard to kill. As long as you have stamina, your brace is the very aegis of god. I'm not quite as far along but I sent you a friend request Trastion (from EffEmmEll)
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Feb 19, 2024 22:28
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How is this future AAAAbandonware to actually play?
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Feb 20, 2024 01:07
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Worf posted:How is this future AAAAbandonware to actually play? Fun as AC Black Flag can be in tyool 2024.
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Feb 20, 2024 04:30
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OxMan posted:Fun as AC Black Flag can be in tyool 2024. If it wasn't live service, and it had ground combat, it could have been great.
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Feb 20, 2024 05:51
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when this game is fully recognized as a commercial disaster i cant wait for ubisofts takeaway to be that "people arent interested in pirates" vs "ppl wanted a good game" elite:dangerous on the water would def be a cool game
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Feb 20, 2024 06:37
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Worf posted:How is this future AAAAbandonware to actually play? Honeymoon phase is over for me. The sailing and shooting was fun in beta and the first days, then you hit endgame and notice there is nothing to do but feed silver/poppy/sugar cane into your factories. At least you only need to do a coin haul every 10 hours or so once you upgraded your bases to level 7+. It's very sobering to notice that there is nothing to work towards once you got your Dardanelles gun from the shop and maybe the Black Prince armor. The worst part, for me, is that once you get the Brigantine that was it in terms of ships. Once in a blue moon you see a player in a Snow or a Sambuk (which I don't want cause it's slower) but 90% of the playerbase are now in the same ship, killing any sense of individual progress or variety. I'm gonna keep farming my daily coins til season 1 (which needs to begin soon before I burn out), but if the season does not come with a massive content and quality of life upgrade then it's over for me. There are also smaller things that irk me: for example using the word "Kingpin", English is not my native language, but a quick Google says that this term was not around in the 17th century and it makes me think of mobsters and not pirates. Same for megacorporation, instead of trading company. And every time I return to the pirate base I wish I could be in Port Royal or Tortuga. In the meantime, have a list of base upgrades: some of the values can vary depending on Empire upgrades. level 2 - 100 - storage 60 - time 1 hour (??? not sure) level 3 - 200 - storage 80 - time 1h level 4 - 400 - storage 110 - time 2h level 5 - 500 - storage 150 - time 3h level 6 - 1000 - storage 300 - time 4h level 7 - 2000 - storage 800 - time 10h level 8 - 3000 - storage 1400 - time 15h level 9 - 4000 - storage 3000 - time 30h level 10 - 5000 - storage 4500 - time 50h Also it's less work to sell Goldskull Rum to Scurlock and Opium to Rahma, than flipping Brandy/Gin. Raiding sugar cane convoys or a fort is less boring, even buying the sugar cane from land bases smugglers still nets a decent profit once you deduct purchase and production costs. Anyway, gonna do my coin route and then play more Helldivers 2... Hammerstein fucked around with this message at 10:33 on Feb 20, 2024 |
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Feb 20, 2024 09:54
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Lmao the Helm Wager/PvP is trash when people can just keep loving teleporting in front of you or directly at your destination. Feels great to kill someone only for them to be waiting for you at the dock area where you need to drop things off. And it's not like you can just evade them to dock either. Great design, definitely AAAA implementation
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Feb 20, 2024 09:59
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Hakarne posted:Lmao the Helm Wager/PvP is trash when people can just keep loving teleporting in front of you or directly at your destination. Feels great to kill someone only for them to be waiting for you at the dock area where you need to drop things off. And it's not like you can just evade them to dock either. Great design, definitely AAAA implementation It's garbage. But you can cheese it, if you find a low level buddy and then join them. Hopefully you get into a low level server and then you can run Helm without risk. On the normal servers full of kingpins you will get ganked if you try to do Helm wagers.
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Feb 20, 2024 10:08
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Hammerstein posted:It's garbage. But you can cheese it, if you find a low level buddy and then join them. Hopefully you get into a low level server and then you can run Helm without risk. On the normal servers full of kingpins you will get ganked if you try to do Helm wagers. Yeah I server hopped until only a few dudes were there but no luck. Guy came up and we had a good fight and I killed him, but then he respawned right after and killed me. Fortunately he was going through a river so I was able to catch up and kill him to get it back. He turned away and I thought it was clear sailing but then I saw he had just gone to a port so he could teleport to the drop-off point after repairing  . I had non-repairable hull damage, he didn't, I put up a good fight but the deck was stacked.That's when I realized the pro strat is to wait until they're pointed at the destination dock then just TP there and gank them which is dumb as poo poo
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Feb 20, 2024 10:22
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Trastion posted:I'd be interested in grouping up with others for some group pirating. I play on PS5 (same name as here) most nights from about 5-11pm EST and sometimes during the day to if I am WFH. I don't know if there is a friends list or anything in game that would allow grouping with people not on PS5 easier. I'm a Euro so I play at different times and the goon discord that I'm on has shown zero interest in the game. Best bet is probably to check for players in the larger Skull and Bones communities, I doubt we have the player numbers to get a goon clan off the ground. Hammerstein fucked around with this message at 11:27 on Feb 20, 2024 |
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Feb 20, 2024 11:08
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Which discord is that? I'm playing in Euro timezone as well, some of the elites look like fun events, but you need their materials to get the best guns, except you can't kill them solo without the best guns, I'm stuck in a chicken and egg situation.
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Feb 20, 2024 12:17
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Dravs posted:Which discord is that? I'm playing in Euro timezone as well, some of the elites look like fun events, but you need their materials to get the best guns, except you can't kill them solo without the best guns, I'm stuck in a chicken and egg situation. ICR's old Marvel Heroes community is where I usually hang out: https://discord.gg/eBpxBmmw Hammerstein fucked around with this message at 12:23 on Feb 20, 2024 |
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Feb 20, 2024 12:19
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Hakarne posted:Yeah I server hopped until only a few dudes were there but no luck. Guy came up and we had a good fight and I killed him, but then he respawned right after and killed me. Fortunately he was going through a river so I was able to catch up and kill him to get it back. He turned away and I thought it was clear sailing but then I saw he had just gone to a port so he could teleport to the drop-off point after repairing you need to get the to chase you, then circle around using water barrels to increase your speed. You also need to have some of the helm upgrades that let you unload the chest sooner so they can't just destroy you when you reach the final destination. Helm wagers are trash.
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Feb 21, 2024 05:05
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Hammerstein posted:Mangoodin can be farmed if you have a buddy who has the quest. You sail to the spot and have him log out, if you also have the quest you can take turns. The Seafire has the lowest dps of all weapons, no idea if the spooky version is better. Mangoodin does not need the contract - has five spawn points, the one by Oubliette and then 4 in the east indies. It spawns in one of those each night, but the quest forces a spawn by Oubliette when you go there. You also get "better" rewards if you are grouped (more spectral flames was the only difference I ever noted). Also worth mentioning that the DMC trade convoy and the Mega-ship all drop legendary chests, which have the chance of giving you purple or t3 blues. The Mega-Ship can also straight up drop the Mortar or Leopold level 3's. Meta is Brig because it's fast, with 4 dardanelle's, black prince, and a leopold. You can do more dps with the rockets but they're significantly harder to hit with. You can also do more damage with fire, but once again harder to hit with. Furniture varies a little, but the "meta' on this is mostly stuff that only comes from legendary chests - 10% damage to vulnerable spots from the legendary chest) then the major piece that marks things if you hit them at 320 meters and the one that increases vulnerable damage at 320. These two make taking down towers a breeze, and you should be marking things with the leopold/mortar as they come in ship wise. The last piece is either bigger bombard aoe or extra bombard elemental damage. If you don't have the 10% to vulnerable people recommend the 10% aux weapon damage for your mortar. That said, it's meta because it's universal. Fire builds can absolutely destroy a ship with that build, provided they can dodge the dardanelle's coming in. I have a friend who uses Scurlocks Long Nines with the Capstan as his major (+15% damage, -25% damage taken while anchored) and he just shreds their sails as they come in, then anchors and kills them at ridiculous ranges. Loves fighting brigs because they have an 80% reduced time for shredded sails, so he can just keep targeting the sails and getting the bonus damage from the long nines. Ouroborous is going to change the meta because of it's damage mitigation factors and constant healing. One of things going for the Dardanelle's is that the black prince is fairly spread even when it comes to DR so I think the only thing that really doesn't get extra mitigation is the final torpedo and I've yet to see anyone use them late game as fire does more damage faster, applies a better debuff, is easier to hit with, and synergizes with both the brigs desire to ram itself into things and the fire ships desire to set things on fire. All that said, I actually expect quite a bit in the first season. The NW section of the map is obviously another zone, with hopefully a new pirate den. There should be a bigger questiline as well as the new world boss. I don't know if we will get more ranks, but the large ships are already in the game as part of the DMC, and they have guns separated as top deck only and any deck, which is probably why culverins and demi-cannons are just straight worse than the other guns in most situations - we'll likely get slots for those exclusively come first season. We should also see the legendary version of the big fish, and hopefully some kind of territory automation (although many people think that's what the second season addition will be). They say 12 weeks a season, so my guess is next week when the timer for your helm upgrades (the book ones, not the empire ones) goes off. That would put 84 days left on the empire timer, which would be a full season. EDIT: also, when you are in takeover mode - get either the 4 sea people by St. Anne's or the 4 French spots by Oubliette, then get the two french spots right next to St. Anne's. Don't do takeover for any others, always do the heist if you can. It's doable solo, just focus the cargo ship and then use water barrels to get away, as you get a legendary chest as well and I think it has a much higher drop rate than the others (equal to cutthroat cargo chest, maybe even a little bit better than that one). TheAnomaly fucked around with this message at 05:24 on Feb 21, 2024 |
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Feb 21, 2024 05:21
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Season 1 starts next tuesday. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_j0vBUqArk
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Feb 22, 2024 17:48
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Finished all the missions i think, just have the level 14 fort plunder for the final Freeman mystery left. Will probably be on this friday thru weekend trying to get some of these fancy boss drops to raise my level from 10 while doing po8 grinds I wonder if that microsoft pirate game is going to be the final nail in this coffin. Game seems to be dying bad I'm barely getting started with the po8 grind and I'm already way higher in rank than a game with a healthy pop would be... AAAA content lmao Edit: Probably in that hour and a half stream they did yesterday. The UI better be right about 80 days tho... vvvvvv OxMan fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Feb 23, 2024 |
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Feb 22, 2024 21:51
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Have they said if all your owned helm territories are going to be reset/wiped for the new season?
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Feb 22, 2024 23:26
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Nosthula posted:Have they said if all your owned helm territories are going to be reset/wiped for the new season? yes, no reset until the end of season 1. They've said it several times now.
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Feb 23, 2024 04:55
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TheAnomaly posted:yes, no reset until the end of season 1. They've said it several times now. 
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Feb 23, 2024 05:41
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Is there a place I can sell provisions?
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Feb 29, 2024 04:02
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Lysandus posted:Is there a place I can sell provisions? Don't think so. Although you can sell those to other players. But I would recommend to just store and use up all the food and cannonballs, except for Repair Kit 1 most provisions are useful.
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Mar 3, 2024 14:15
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I like this game. Does anyone have a discord or is there already a good discord? I would be happy to host one.
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Mar 9, 2024 23:36
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Hammerstein was using ICAs old Marvel Heroes discord, but i'm not sure what channel he was using for it. https://discord.gg/6r53aS6v
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Mar 11, 2024 00:06
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