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Pirates of the Burning Sea

Gameplay Fundamentals

The gameplay of Pirates of the Burning Sea initially follows many of the basic conventions of MMORPG games. Character-based combat is distinctly familiar - target an opponent, hit some special attack keys, and watch the hit point bars go down. Powerful attacks require initiative, which is generated by preparatory attacks that often do little damage on their own. The unique twist is the concept of balance, which acts as a huge defensive bonus - it's very hard to get any damage through as long as your target is in balance; they just block, parry and evade the bulk of the swings. Some attacks specifically reduce balance, some do big damage while costing some of your own balance, and some abilities restore it. Overall, the system is pretty conventional, but the balance concept brings some tactical options for each of the three available combat styles (Florentine, Fencing and Dirty Fighting). All combat styles are available to all careers and experimenting is also fairly easy, as it's possible to switch styles by reassigning your swashbuckling skill points, for a reasonable cost.

Adventuring on Land

Melee combat skills are used while boarding ships and in missions set on land. In terra, PotBS is very much a fish out of water, and these sections are mostly a side-dish. Missions are completely instanced, and set in a number of re-used bits of Caribbean landscape - all you do is get to the correct port and select the mission from a list at the docks. The game tosses you to the specific instance area, supposedly somewhere nearby, and off you go. Land-based missions are mostly about whacking a number of NPCs, finding a mission objective item and/or killing a specific NPC, but most of the storylines are remarkably well written and the limited mechanics are milked for all their worth. Such missions, though, are also the weakest link, by far, of PotBS. Thankfully most of them are very short - maybe ten minutes for a quick hack'n'slash to the objective - and there are enough unique twists to keep the interest afloat, if just barely.

The main weakness with land-based adventuring is the presentation. Character animation ranges from poor to horrible, and the models are unable to plant their feet down. Yep, the dreaded ice skating effect makes an appearance and the movement of the characters is often completely unrelated to the animation. Maps are very basic, and you just have to accept that invisible fences limit you to the designated area for adventuring. There are also major issues with characters warping around or sliding back and forth to readjust the client view of the action to whatever server decided to do with the game state. Melee combat also feels unresponsive, and sometimes it's hard to see solid reaction to the attacks you make. I admit that the client-server syncing is a hard issue for MMO game developers, and very few games get it to look just right, but PotBS isn't really even trying.

Same character animation issues also hurt the gameplay in ports, but in that regard it's mostly a cosmetic flaw. All you can really do in ports is visit the auction house, train skills, manage your structures and deal with the NPCs that offer missions. Any port-related land combat always occurs in a separately instanced playfield, similar to land missions. What saves PotBS in this regard is the fact that melee combat is not really a big part of the game. For the real meat you need to cast off with a ship, and that's a whole different story.

Sailing the High Seas

As soon as you board your vessel, automatically pre-armed with a crew, set of guns and an infinite supply of basic ammo, your character assumes the position of the captain. Out of combat you sail on the "world map", covering the Caribbean of that time. Sea lanes are crowded both by players and NPC ships, and movement is affected by your ship type, fittings, ocean currents, direction of the wind and any sailing-related special abilities of your character. You start out with a very basic "fallback" ship, and if you happen to get sunk and run out of durability and backup ships, you always get a free replacement of your "fallback" ship. While it may sound cool to have a ship you can't lose, it should be noted that this basic ship is no good for anything beyond basic mission running - it's only there so you can scrape up the money for a better one.

Sailing on the main map: land areas look fairly crude, but they are just window dressing anyway.

Sea-based mission starting, with friendly NPCs assisting.

If you run across NPCs you wish to send to the bottom of the ocean, you just sail up close and hit a button, and the action moves to an instanced piece of the ocean. Your group can come along, if they wish, and you can choose to call other friendly ships to join in, but otherwise nobody can interrupt your battle from the map view once it starts. Missions can also send you to the seas, and ship-based missions are far superior when compared to the swashbuckling. These quests mimic open sea battles, mentioned above, as you end up in an instance with other ships and duke it out. PotBS performs instanced sea missions very well, and there are numerous different objectives and mission types.

Sometimes you have to board a specific ship, protect friendly NPC ships, collect some floating crates, prevent enemies from escaping, capture enemy commander - the range of objectives is remarkable. Some special missions also go beyond the quick skirmishes, offering longer battles for larger groups of players. The difficulty level of any mission can be adjusted at a friendly port, and non-group missions scale accordingly if you choose to tackle them as a group. Soloing is fine, but if you have friends, you can always play with them.

Page 1: IntroductionPage 2: Factions and CareersPage 3: Gameplay FundamentalsPage 4: Gameplay - Sea BattlesPage 5: Gameplay - EconomicsPage 6: Gameplay - Faction PvPPage 7: Issues & ComplaintsPage 8: Technology, User Generated ContentPage 9: Final Thoughts and Scoring

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