Deadfire Errata: Ship Boarding Gives More Loot Than Sinking

[guildwriter]

So I've been doing some testing over the days on this and I can confirm that this is the case now.  Here are some shots of the aftermath of boarding ships to get us started:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Default Ship loot starts with the flag of the ship and the follows with money and so on.  When you board a ship the extra loot you obtain comes at the start generally.  As you can see in the screenshots, the amount of extra loot you can obtain can be significantly higher than what you get from sinking the ship.

 

But many people report that they get random amounts of loot from sinking or boarding ships.  So what explains the discrepancy?  

 

I believe what happens is that ship boarding will grant you the extra loot that is dropped by NPCs you kill during combat.  This is confirmed by the fact that in many of the instances I found significant extra loot, there was also a lot of pickups spawned by dead enemies.  There are cases where some ships don't spawn any loot on the people who are killed.  In fact, all Huana ship NPCs don't drop any extra loot at all ever!  The only time I've managed to get a Huana Ship NPC to spawn loot on death was with the Huana Vengeance ship.

 

That being said boarding ships that have Captains of level less than 8-10 is generally not worth it.  Those Captains only drop normal loot.  Once you get past 10 everyone starts dropping Exceptional or higher.  This is a bit more relevant now that ships spawn infinitely.  Early on I'd reccomend just blowing everyone out of the water anyways because the loot is poor, the xp is better for crew with sinking, and it's just quicker once you know what to do.

[uuuhhii]

the three pirate ship appear near the starting island only give few loot and no equipment after boarding fight

[guildwriter]

Yeah I've found that some ships just have crew with nothing on them.  Real cheapo captains!

Edited December 29, 2018 by guildwriter

[Frak]

I KNEW IT!

 

Well, I had an inkling that it might be the case. Nice testing!

[brasilgringo]

Well, boarding is kind of more effort/risk so maybe working as intended? Plus you have the Infamous Captain bug hamstringing you at combat start

[Boeroer]

I also think it's just the rel. unspectacular loot of the fighting crew.

 

On the other side you get much sailor XP when sinking ships. And unique loot will drop 100% while there are still issues with unique loot when killing the enemy captain via boarding.

Edited December 29, 2018 by Boeroer

[Zymos]

Well, boarding is kind of more effort/risk so maybe working as intended? Plus you have the Infamous Captain bug hamstringing you at combat start

Infamous captain bug?

[brasilgringo]

 

Well, boarding is kind of more effort/risk so maybe working as intended? Plus you have the Infamous Captain bug hamstringing you at combat start

Infamous captain bug?

 

I had read somewhere that the fact that you can't act for a relatively long period when ship combat starts -- all the mobs rush you and you can't do anything -- is due to the Infamous Captain achievement or Berath's Blessing.

[guildwriter]

It's a case where Infamous Captain fires at the start of combat and when you start ship boarding you are already in combat.  Typically the enemy sailors are stuck in some sort of emote sequence that is timed to end as the camera panning stops.  Infamous Captain seems to short circuit this causing the emote sequence to break.  As the fear generated by Infamous Captain isn't long and the camera panning takes something like 10-15 seconds, it's enough time for the enemy to exit the fear and start taking combat actions.  It's not uncommon for the enemy crew to be able to finish 1-2 spells/attacks before the player can assume control.

 

For party play this isn't much of an issue to be honest unless the enemy ship dramatically outlevels you.  The real trouble happens if you're solo and playing something that relies on self buffing or some other non passive form of self defense.  I've been killed before I can perform a single action before as a result.

 

Infamous Captain also will break stealth at the start of combat for the main character as it counts as a hit calculation.  If an enemy cipher has Psychic Backlash you can end up stunning yourself immediately.  Honestly for some characters I don't think it's even close to worth it.

Edited December 29, 2018 by guildwriter