Pirates of the Burning Sea

So I have always been interested in this game but I hear there are some serious problems with the game so I have kept my distance. But now I decided to maybe get the game but I have some questions about it first.

1) what are the classes? How do they work? Are they all combat classes? Are there classes for ships and players?

2) How do proffesions work? How does the economy affect the overall game?

3) How is pvp? are there battle grounds? Can you take over ports? Is there like land pvp and ship pvp?

4) how are the quests designed? Are they fun?

5) What is the level cap? Is it hard to reach it?

6) are there instances?

7) how is the sword fighting? any fun?

8) how big is the world?

Originally posted by Duilyon

So I have always been interested in this game but I hear there are some serious problems with the game so I have kept my distance. But now I decided to maybe get the game but I have some questions about it first.

 

1) what are the classes? How do they work? Are they all combat classes? Are there classes for ships and players?

 

2) How do proffesions work? How does the economy affect the overall game?

 

3) How is pvp? are there battle grounds? Can you take over ports? Is there like land pvp and ship pvp?

 

 

4) how are the quests designed? Are they fun?

5) What is the level cap? Is it hard to reach it?

 

6) are there instances?

7) how is the sword fighting? any fun?

8) how big is the world?

1) Nationals (British, French, Spanish) have Freetraders, Naval Officers and Privateers.  Pirates have Cutthroats and Buccaneers (sort of a pirate freetrader class).  I can't comment about the pirate side, having never played it, but Freetraders have no ostensible advantage in trading since everybody's a crafter.  There are some class-specific ships, such as ships of the line for Naval Officers, which have the greatest firepower in the game.  As the game stands right now, the purpose of every class is to go PvP.

2) Apart from what I mentioned in #1, professions really have no difference between them.  Ship loss is the only way to sustain the economy, but of late the societies (PotBS's term for guiids) tend to produce everything in-house and the economic players have mostly been driven off the game by a combination of market collapse (due to said in-house production), lack of a genuine trader class, and the superiority complex of the hardcore PvP crowd which considers everyone else (either PvE or econ) as their inferiors.  Recent comments by devs may or may not keep said crowd in its place, so caveat lector.

3) I never PvP'd much, but if you know anything about the game you must have heard of the rampant ganking, i.e. optimized 6-ship squads attacking lowbies just for kicks.  Any complaint of people using such tactics will give you a retort that "a lowbie could be someone else's alt carrying lineship bundles", which is a valid complaint considering how those giving you that response are probably those using the tactic anyway.  The devs have promised to clamp down on that, but to be honest, regardless of good intentions, I don't think this will amount to much.  Not with what is left of the player base and with the game mechanics already in place.

All the PvP (unless you choose to have yourself flagged for PvP everywhere on the map) takes place inside red circles after players create unrest in some ports.

You can take over ports, but that's all there is to it.  No port governance (though the devs have something on the backburner for this), and worse still, when one of the factions gets a certain number of points, all ports revert to their original nations.  In the case of pirate ports, the situation is worse: They revert back to pirates in 2 days, and when pirates take a national port, it's also reverting back to that nation in two days.  Hence the general attitude for nationals is to not show up to port battles against pirates because it's uselessly risking perfectly good ships to do so.

Until recently, port battles were the purview of a small elite which relentlessly asked everyone else to decline your own invitation so it would get its own ships in the battle. (Besides, anything below a level-50 ship is basically useless anyway.) But nowadays, some factions have problems putting together a full complement of 24 ships.  So you're stuck with two less-than-ideal scenarios: a full 24 where more experienced players ask you to pass, or less than 24 ships where all those who choose to attend are basically going to their deaths.

PvP on land exists strictly in the context of port battles, and only if certain conditions are met.  I myself have never seen a single case of land-based PvP in five months' play, but I know it exists.

4) I think I have counted 3 basic quest types: a) Sink stuff, with or without NPC (or player) allies, with or without ships to protect.; b) blockade running / get to the exit point; c) defend or take a fort; d) land missions, which will ask you either to retrieve an item, free a captive or free foes.  All these take place in instances.  In addition, you have one extended story line, and a few other quests which vary from the mold mentioned above.  The writing of missions is good and imaginative, but it seems mostly in place to make the routine pattern of missions easier to swallow.

Most of the game involves an unhealthy amount of grind on the open sea, and until recently players would make their money taking missions, failing them while farming the ships, cancelling it, and taking it again.  Places such as Bridgetown and Santo Domingo were crawling with people just for that reason.

5) Level cap is 50.  I heard someone dedicated enough could achieve it in a couple of months at a leisurely pace.  I myself have made it to 45 in five months, but that's because I tired of levelling.  Furthermore, the amount of XP for sinking ships in missions (which is in addition to the amount of XP you get for completing the quest) is cut in half, which tends to make levelling longer.

6) Instances are everywhere. Every battle at sea is an instance, so is every mission.

7) Avatar combat (or "avcom") is considered one of the weakest points of the game, because it was tacked on late in its development.  To be honest, I have seen worse, even though it's mostly button mashing with little strategy involved (but hey, Age of Conan is just as bad on this front, if you ask me).

8) The world map takes about 45 minutes from end to end (hence the battle instancing), which is also a weak point of the game.  The map isn't large enough to sustain a healthy PvP environment separated by distance, and the red circles make it worse.  Furthermore, it takes away from realism and basically throws out any need for logistical considerations (such as "if sailing from Grenville to Bartica takes 6 hours in all, what am I shipping this week?  right now it might take 20 minutes with favourable winds).  On top of that, ships don't need supplies, and immediately repair themselves to full capacity after a battle instance -- I've seen better realism in, of all places, Puzzle Pirates.  Cities are cookie-cutter (maybe 5 or 6 patterns in all, except for capitals), though it does not really matter, because there is no sense of exploration in this game (another major problem).

Hope this helps, and sorry for the rather negative outlook.

Wow, that was a great little explination :D though i am sadden to hear the game isn't as good as I thought it would be : /

perhaps I shall just wait till they add the free trial in July...that'll save me some money and i'll get to test the game out : D

Is there a way that players can hand out trials?

You could ask for a buddy key.  I believe there is a thread to this effect.

Oh, and one last question!

how are the updates? How often do they add new content?

I currently play Lord of the rings Online and they update every 2-3 months with massive amounts of quality content. Can  I expect the same from POTBS ?

Updates are about once a month.  Sometimes they add new content, but most of the time it's just tweaking skills and classes. Release 1.5 will add insurance to soften the blow of ship loss.  The core mechanics of the game still require major work, if you ask me.

1) Nationals (British, French, Spanish) have Freetraders, Naval Officers and Privateers.  Pirates have Cutthroats and Buccaneers (sort of a pirate freetrader class).  I can't comment about the pirate side, having never played it, but Freetraders have no ostensible advantage in trading since everybody's a crafter.  There are some class-specific ships, such as ships of the line for Naval Officers, which have the greatest firepower in the game.  As the game stands right now, the purpose of every class is to go PvP.

- Well, freetraders do have a bit of an advantage when it comes to the advanced freetrader recipes and advanced freetrader only structures, but it's not much of an advantage, true.  They do have access to bigger haulers than at least the NOs and Privateers. 

2) Apart from what I mentioned in #1, professions really have no difference between them.  Ship loss is the only way to sustain the economy, but of late the societies (PotBS's term for guiids) tend to produce everything in-house and the economic players have mostly been driven off the game by a combination of market collapse (due to said in-house production), lack of a genuine trader class, and the superiority complex of the hardcore PvP crowd which considers everyone else (either PvE or econ) as their inferiors.  Recent comments by devs may or may not keep said crowd in its place, so caveat lector.

- The main difference between the classes is the difference in skills really, which can make for a rather different style of playing depending on what your build is aimed at. Regarding the economy, I myself have never really had much of an issue selling stuff, but I guess YMMV.  The fact that come 1.5 everyone's going to have more disposable income should in theory play into the hands of the economically minded player, but it remains to be seen if that's the case.

3) I never PvP'd much, but if you know anything about the game you must have heard of the rampant ganking, i.e. optimized 6-ship squads attacking lowbies just for kicks.  Any complaint of people using such tactics will give you a retort that "a lowbie could be someone else's alt carrying lineship bundles", which is a valid complaint considering how those giving you that response are probably those using the tactic anyway.  The devs have promised to clamp down on that, but to be honest, regardless of good intentions, I don't think this will amount to much.  Not with what is left of the player base and with the game mechanics already in place.

- I too am wary as to how much can actually be done to combat ganking.. while I appreciate the devs statement of intent I think we really need a bit more information as to how they expect to reduce ganking because right now all we are hearing is good intentions at the moment.

4) I think I have counted 3 basic quest types: a) Sink stuff, with or without NPC (or player) allies, with or without ships to protect.; b) blockade running / get to the exit point; c) defend or take a fort; d) land missions, which will ask you either to retrieve an item, free a captive or free foes.  All these take place in instances.  In addition, you have one extended story line, and a few other quests which vary from the mold mentioned above.  The writing of missions is good and imaginative, but it seems mostly in place to make the routine pattern of missions easier to swallow.

- While a lot of missions do unfortunately seem to fit the predefined moulds you mention, there are a few notable exceptions.  I particularly enjoyed playtesting the most recent epic mission - and agree that we do need a lot more than that.

Most of the game involves an unhealthy amount of grind on the open sea, and until recently players would make their money taking missions, failing them while farming the ships, cancelling it, and taking it again.  Places such as Bridgetown and Santo Domingo were crawling with people just for that reason.

- Well, a lot of that depends on the player really; I dislike grinding and therefore just don't do it.  Some people feel that they NEED to be at the top and MUST get money as fast as possible no matter what, so they grind.

5) Level cap is 50.  I heard someone dedicated enough could achieve it in a couple of months at a leisurely pace.  I myself have made it to 45 in five months, but that's because I tired of levelling.  Furthermore, the amount of XP for sinking ships in missions (which is in addition to the amount of XP you get for completing the quest) is cut in half, which tends to make levelling longer.

- Yeah levelling can go as fast as you yourself intend it to.  Faster if you decide you want to grind or whatever.

6) Instances are everywhere. Every battle at sea is an instance, so is every mission.

- Yup.  A shame really.  I understand the reasoning for battles at sea but I really want to see more non-instanced areas and will continue banging this drum ;D

7) Avatar combat (or "avcom") is considered one of the weakest points of the game, because it was tacked on late in its development.  To be honest, I have seen worse, even though it's mostly button mashing with little strategy involved (but hey, Age of Conan is just as bad on this front, if you ask me).

- Yeah avcom is definitely the worst part of the game, but in a few circumstances it can work really well and you find yourself so surprised at how well a swordfight flowed; if all avcom was as good as Fortaleza da Luz then it'd be fantastic.  Certainly more work needs to be done, and there is a learning curve issue which doesn't help.

8) The world map takes about 45 minutes from end to end (hence the battle instancing), which is also a weak point of the game.  The map isn't large enough to sustain a healthy PvP environment separated by distance, and the red circles make it worse.  Furthermore, it takes away from realism and basically throws out any need for logistical considerations (such as "if sailing from Grenville to Bartica takes 6 hours in all, what am I shipping this week?  right now it might take 20 minutes with favourable winds). 

- While I do think the map is possibly a little smaller than it could be, I strongly believeIf that if sailing from port to port took six hours then most people would just give up now.

On top of that, ships don't need supplies, and immediately repair themselves to full capacity after a battle instance -- I've seen better realism in, of all places, Puzzle Pirates. 

- Yeah that is a shame, but in reality (1) supplying ships isn't really all that fun, wouldn't have been handled by the captain, and wasn't really much of an issue in the Caribbean unless you were going to the Old World and (2) everyone would probably just sit in a battle instance till they'd repaired fully.

Cities are cookie-cutter (maybe 5 or 6 patterns in all, except for capitals), though it does not really matter, because there is no sense of exploration in this game (another major problem).

- Yeah, I miss exploring.. and It's a real shame that there are so few town layouts.

Hope this helps, and sorry for the rather negative outlook.

- Heh, no worries, hope you don't mind my comments. :)