Pirates of the Burning Sea to get revamped avatar combat

by James Egan Oct 15th 2008 at 12:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Historical, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Game mechanics, PvP, News items, PvE

Swordfighting in Pirates of the Burning Sea is going through a major overhaul, not unlike how ship combat has evolved since the game launched. Flying Labs' Isildur has written a dev blog titled, "Avatar Combat Revision" which explains why changes were necessary, and how they envision the new system working.

Ultimately, the changes are intended to bring Pirates of the Burning Sea's combat closer to Isildur's ideal system: "I wanted a system that would let me slice through armies of minions like a hot knife through butter, but that would be tactical and complex in a one-on-one duel between evenly matched opponents." Read on below the cut for a listing of the fundamental changes coming to the game's avatar combat.

Initiative begins at 100 and regenerates constantly.

Initiative is the universal combat currency.

Balance does not affect defense.

Skills, effects and outfitting are all more effective.

There are fewer skills, organized into longer chains.

Almost all skills are area-of-effect.

Enemies have distinct archetypes and a broad skill selection.

Isildur gives background and detail on each of these changes, so if you're a Pirates of the Burning Sea player -- or are one of those gamers who liked the idea of a pirate MMO but not its implementation -- see if "Avatar Combat Revision" paints a different picture of the title for you.

Tags: avatar, avatar-combat, avatars, combat, fantasy, flying-labs, game-mechanics, historical, isildur, pirates, pirates-of-the-burning-sea, potbs, pve, pvp, swordfighting

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Mr Angry said on 12:39PM 10-15-2008

They missed the biggest one off my list unfortunately.

Completely redesign the avatar combat system, so it's not a complete shower of shit.

Seriously, the boat part is fine, but the avatar combat is just so outdated and two dimensional it pulls the rest of the game down. These changes don't go far enough to address the main issue here, that the system is fundamentally flawed.

Sail a bit / cut / fight a bit / explore a bit / sail a bit

B o o o o ring, the jump between each of these parts detracts from the immersion so much, it becomes very hard to consider this a true MMO, just a bunch of sub-games linked to a chat room.

As hard as it is to stomach, the offline version of a 15 year old game still trumps this in terms of gameplay and enjoyment, and it's testament to Sid Meyer that game still holds up so well today.

Aaron said on 4:42PM 10-17-2008

Angry is right. The avatar combat system didn't merely need retooling, it needed to be replaced entirely. That system single-handedly destroyed all interest I had in that game. It was ridiculously boring.

The best swordplay system I've ever seen was in Assassin's Creed. That sort of system can't be replicated in a latency-vulnerable MMO, but Flying Labs should use it as inspiration.