What is Pirates of the Burning Sea like?
That's right, with the lift of the NDA, we're allowed to talk to you all we want about this game and oh my god this game ROCKS!!!
I've got no other way to describe it... however, in my own fantastic way I'll give it a try. A note here is that all screenshots (unless taken otherwise) as images taken by me from within the game... that's my current graphics, with only a 128Mb graphics card I might add!!!
Swashbuckling
Swashbuckling is the person to person combat system within the game. It's split into 3 groups; Dirty Fighting, Florentine and Fencing. Each one of those has their own moves, strengths and weaknesses and it's a challenge in itself to try to find the right balance. The combat styles work all in a similar way though, it will be you fighting an opponent. That being said, I have often found myself knee-deep in Pirates (I tested through Spanish Navy) and then the combat gets a little bit more complex as you can do more elaborate swashbuckling moves to hit more than one opponent at once and equally there's no limit to the number of opponents that can attack you... it's intense. Yet, it's not impossible, which gives you a real sense of achievement if you manage to defeat a big group of enemy players or npc's.
There's 3 things you need to keep in mind when fighting. Your health, your initiative and your balance. If you're low on health, you're going to have issues fighting off a large number of hostiles. Your initiative always you to use special abilities to give you that vital advantage that could mean the difference between victory or death. Your balance is vital in order for you to dodge all those wild saber swings from those dirty fighting pirates. If your balance is low, you're going to get hit a whole lot more. Out of all three, balance is the most critical to survival, and you get a visual around your avitar to show that. Green means you've got good balance, red means you need to get yourself out of there fast!
Ship to Ship Combat
Probably the most insane fun you'll ever have in your life!!! Nothing is more satisfying than blasting another ship out of the water, with only your skill and what you have on your own ship. The key thing about PotBS is that the ships behave like a real ship would. The big ships take a long time to turn their guns to a target but pack a punch when they do (Ships of the Line with 105 guns) whereas the smaller ships are more nippy but are less powerful.
There's realistic armour settings, giving the player a chance with their ship to specifically target a ships hull, its crew or its sails. Equally, the main hull armour is split up into core (if you loose all of this, your ship sinks) and then the traditional Stern, port, aft,starboard.
The player gets to see wind direction, which affects overall speed of the ship, how far that the player has the sails set to sail (again affecting speed) and then the firing arcs of the main guns.
(apologies, this one is in low detail... we were stressing the servers and I wanted less lag hehe)
As a captain of a ship, you also get to learn skills that help you, your ship and your crew become much harder to kill in ship combat. Skills to rapidly repair damage, cause extra damage yourself, faster reload time, better maneuverability, higher to speed... the list goes on. Just like the swashbuckling, there's plenty of abilities to choose from, making each Captain as unique as the next.
If you don't want to destroy a ship, you can attempt to board it, which in itself is an experience. If you are victorious in that close-combat encounter (it's a test of your crew against your enemies in swashbuckling combat) you will find that you get more useful items that aren't destroyed when you sink a ship.
That being said, you've got to blow the odd on up every now and again...
