DragonDai
Posts: 12
2/28/2015
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In short, after the newest patch, Zee Beasts are no longer worth fighting unless absolutely necessary. Monsters attack more often, for similar or more damage, and move faster than you. Stealth is now the only option for ALL Zee Beasts other than the very weakest, unless you absolutely must get something they carry (like Flukes).
The long:
I have tested this on a large variety of Zee Beasts. Most beasts can attack me once every 2-3 seconds. In other words, they attack more often than I do. They can do this while I am behind them, and they now almost always get out of my forward gun arc after every attack, as well as sometimes (more than 50% of the time) get out of my deck gun's arc after an attack. Outside of the very easiest Zee Beasts (basically bats and tiny crabs), the rewards are no longer worth the damage that you will, inevitably, get to your ship. Monsters also move much faster than you when charging, so trying to "dodge" the charge seems to be impossible. I've been trying to do it since I got the game and unless I go Full Power to Engines, I have never ever successfully dodged a charge attack. And if expected that every single charge should be dodged by going Full Power to Engines, well, that's a bit ludicrous.
I get that Zee Beasts were a total joke before this. But now, they aren't worth the rewards. Nothing like taking 100+ hull damage just to kill a single Zee Beast that drops <100 fragments and some hunting trophies. Basically, 1 fight with a Zee Beast means you need to repair next time you hit London. 2 fights means you better be super careful not to get into any more fights with anything. And 3 means you're likely to be dead. And getting the better ships really don't help that much. Another 200 hull is another 2-3 Zee Beasts, at best, before death. In short, killing Zee Beasts went from being too good to totally not worth it. It's ALWAYS a smarter move to just avoid them. The rewards just aren't worth it.
Anyway, I am sure there will be plenty of people who disagree with me, but this is seriously a huge problem. Combat is sometimes unavoidable, and even if it was always avoidable, this change has DRASTICALLY decreased the "fun" of combat. It's just constant hull smashing from the Zee Beast and a repair bill everytime I put into port, no matter how careful I am. I get that the game needs something other than what it had, but this is not the right solution.
EDIT: Also, not sure if this was part of the patch or a bug, but I now always start combat with my Blue Scintillack on cooldown. No more double shot opening salvos. 
edited by DragonDai on 2/28/2015
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MisterGone
Posts: 139
2/28/2015
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See, now there's a thing that'd be interesting to add - flank attacks.
I mean the only issue right now is that you can turn WAY faster, so flanking would probably be less than useful for zee beasts.
Though I still hope they can make it so that diving Zee beasts can essentially use that as a quasi-teleport, moving at double speed and behind you or to your blind spot unless you counter with a strange catch quickly enough.
Hell, I really wish that certain beasts, if getting attacks without knowing where they were coming from, would immediately dive, and search for the player underwater, only surfacing once they've hit the "!" (Spotted) state.
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If you'd ever like to enjoy a good round of pugilism or discussing the higher mysteries, Reginald Drownheart may be the dapper gentleman for you!
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DragonDai
Posts: 12
3/1/2015
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EnglishInfidel wrote:
Unless you're in the starter ship, I don't understand this "not profitable" business...
You also have to factor in the time spent killing a zee beast. Before, with the "butt hugging" method, I could drop down to speed 1, hug the butt, and blast them to bits. They were always in my light (so I acquired a targeting solution quicker) and always inside both my front and deck gun's firing arcs. Now they are rarely, if ever, in my front gun's arc, and sometimes aren't even in my deck guns arc. And since the light has about the same arc as a front gun, they are rarely in that as well. On top of this, you have to maneuver more and I often found myself need to speed up to 2 (either in reverse or normal) to get a good firing solution. So the cost in both fuel and food is much higher. The extra 100 Echos in repairs is just added annoyance.
And yeah, in a Frigate or Destroyer you're likely going to be able to turn a profit on killing zee beasts, as long as you factor in fragments (which you should). But even then, I think the profit margins on the Frigate are gana be pretty low. And, remember, while I think you're estimate of 10 beasts in a Frigate is a bit much, I said 2 beasts in base ship, plus 2-3 (likely 3) per upgrade, so that'd be like 7-8 in the Frigate. So we're pretty close in agreement there.
Mica wrote:
I have never seen this happen. But then, I haven't butt hugged a megalops for a while. But I'm sure that Lilfebergs, Mt.nomad, Morays and the Sharks are still prone to butt hugging.
I tried the butt hugging method with all the monsters listed in my first post under the Frigate section. I did not try to kill Lifebergs or Mt. Nomad, but I "butt hugged" sharks and morays and got rammed by them while "butt hugging" (the nose of my ship against the tip of their tail) if my ships nose ever stopped touching their tail for even the briefest moments. Crabs were way way worse, often I was sure I hadn't stopped touching them but was rammed anyway.
The point being, all of these monsters seem to be able to turn on a dime mid-charge (and only mid-charge). They can start facing 180 degrees away from me (aka traveling in the exact same direction I am headed), and turn and charge me with a single charge, hitting the back half to 1/4th of my ship in the charge (meaning they are always out of front gun firing arc and sometimes even out of deck gun firing arc).
Our mismatching accounts lead me to believe the is not intended behavior, but it's frustrating none the less.
The big thing here is that if fights take significantly longer (and they do) AND I am taking significantly more damage (and I am) than fighting isn't profitable. Getting 30 fragments and 2 hunting trophies doesn't make up for 50-100 hull damage and a wasted fuel and food. Not even close. Now fighting monsters is always a bad idea. Sometimes you have to do it anyway (because you need a Fluke Core or something), but if it can be avoided, and you don't absolutely positively need the drops right then, you're almost always better served picking up the item you want from a port instead of fighting for it.
Something important to point out is that this only applies to zee beasts. Ships are as profitable (or not profitable) as they ever where. Nothing seems to have changed for ships, and if you get behind one that doesn't have an aft attack, you win, easy, with little fuel investment (cause you can turn your engines to 1 or even off completely a lot of the time) and minimal supply investment (since the good ships have 90 hp or less). A good example is compare the rewards for killing a 90hp Pirate Frigate to a 75 hp Jillyfleur.
The Jillyfleur will either give you 1 supply (20 Echoes), 1 strange catch (25 echos), or 1 Zee Story and 15 fragments (cost variable, but you can just go from London to Light Boat for a Zee Story, so not much). It is VERY likely to do hull damage (at 8 damage per hit), and is somewhat likely to hit you at least twice (more if you don't have a front mounted gun).
On the other hand, the Pirate Frigate is unlikely to get any hits in. It MIGHT get 1 hit off, but only if you screw up your approach. I believe the hit does about 12 damage (can't remember off the top of my head and the wiki doesn't have stats for many of the ships). But again, you only get hit if you mess up the approach. That's on you. As a reward, you get a guaranteed 1 fuel and 1 supply (30 Echos), but possibly as much as 2 of each (60 echos) AND a Cache of Curiosities. To top it off, you probably used less fuel and supplies to kill the Pirate Frigate than you did the Jillyfleur, even though it has more hps.
But what is even more telling is comparing a more powerful zee beast to a more powerful ship. And to do this, all one has to do is answer a simple question. Do you fight any of the ships with > 200 hps? I know I sure don't I have never killed anything tougher than a rat barge or an Unfinished Pirate. Well, not more than once anyway. Why? The cost far outweighs the rewards. And they don't drop anything I can't get somewhere else for far less money and time cost. The same didn't used to be true of buffer zee beasts, but now, it is.
As it stands, I'll only kill zee beasts for Fluke Cores or Monstrous Trophies anymore unless I can kill it with a single volley. And since I always seem to have TONS of Trophies lying around even without killing zee beasts, Flukes, Bats, and Auroral Megalops are the only things worth killing anymore.
edited by DragonDai on 3/1/2015
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