After watching the livestream and hearing the potential changes for sailing combat, I can’t help but think that focusing on enemy hp, or balance between cannons and shaodw etc. is missing the main point - in its current state, sailing combat just isn’t interesting enough. Ship combat, whether attacking a basic tench or a high level kraken, boils down to: monster auto attacks boat, and the cannons + player auto attacks the monster. Both enemies lock on, do not pray against the other, and just wait for damage to happen. If the monster does damage to you, heal your boat. Since OSRS has been released, devs have moved towards more and more engaging fights, whether that be requiring gear switches, prayer flicking, or specific movement mechanics, and to have a completely new combat system in the game which doesn’t incorporate any of these systems, or indeed anything new to create some interesting skill expression for the players, to me it is unsurprising that people don’t want to do sailing combat. Proposal From an attacking perspective, having boat cannons in the game feels like the perfect opportunity to attempt to create combat around non lock on (skill based aiming) attack options. A combat system which requires the use of cannons as the only source of damage, but requires the player to ensure that they are aiming cannons correctly, or firing in the right timing window. This would give ship movement an important role in combat (which in my opinion has been the most successful part of sailing, being necessary mechanics for both barracuda trials and trawling), as well as giving both the player and crew a role in combat (the player at either the helm or at the cannon and instructing crew members at the right times to perform the other role). From a defensive perspective, this could go hand in hand - damage could be avoidable or dampened by dodging or ‘bracing for impact’ respectively, requiring players to manouevre their boat to avoid damage, or instructing the crew to brace at the right time so that the boat takes less damage. I think the main benefit from something like this, which avoids half of the diagreement from players and today’s Q and A, is that cannons can be used as the primary weapon, and the combat can be separated from other forms of combat in the game. Cannons could be the big hitting weapon that most players envisioned as using them now requires skill expression, rather than acting as a ‘ship thrall’, sea enemies and cannon damage would only have to be balanced against each other rather than also against all other damage weapons and enemies in the game. Whilst we all know there is spaghetti code holding the game together and this may be difficult to implement, i feel like this would give sailing combat a purpose that feels distinct, a very easy way to make enemies feel unique (i.e. low level enemies may be stationary and die in few hits, high level enemies may move around more or only come up above the water in certain timing windows), and ways to build in high level mechanics in future that isn’t completely different to the main combat mechanics. These thoughts have just come into my head since watching the stream, so may not be perfect, but I think a major overhaul like this (or something else that brings in some skill expression), even if it takes a long time, is much more worthwhile for the long term of sailing combat than tweaks to the current system. From, a sailing enjoyer that has 0 interest in the current combat system. submitted by /u/SamLav7
Originally posted by u/SamLav7 on r/2007scape
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