Lost 50m Shipment by Failing Boss I guess?

I know, I know, I took the risk, so I suffer the consequences. Wall of text incoming, so if you find other people's sorrow amusing, continue reading.

I never played during settlers and so I want to find out what the fuss was about by engaging with the now permanent league mechanic. I followed a guide on what was touted as a low risk high investment strategy, the 50m shipment. I put together the atlas, farmed the 8 mods, made the gold, recruited all level 5 shippers and farmers, spent the week growing wheat and corn, dusted like a madman, and finally sent off my shipment of 25m crops and 25m dust to Ngakanu. Basically I followed the guide to a T. Everything seemed fine so I logged for the night. When I logged in the next day, pirates or w/e were trying to rob my ship. My first instinct was the pay a ransom, but I read on the forums you lose all your stuff if you do that, so I engaged with the boss. I read up on the boss fight (no mention of this in the 50m guide I followed btw!) and it seems easy enough, so I give it a try. This is a late game character and just walks through 8 mods and T17s, so I figured it would be trivial. Of course I then disconnect on the boss fight (my computer isn't great, and I think it was the uncached wave rendering that kicked me out). Relog, and now my only option is to abandon. Well shit... So I guess that's it.

Anyways, I can now say that I engaged with Kingsmarch. Not only did I not enjoy the gameplay loop of farming gold and dusting, but discovered how incredibly punishing it is. Obviously, I will NOT be engaging with this mechanic ever again and man did I ever dodge a bullet by skipping that league! So bad lol...

Hopefully my pain helps someone else avoid this horrible league mechanic!

Yeeah imo the shipments and pirate bosses are designed in a wayyy too punishing way. Feels like they're taken straight out of PoE 2. And wouldn't be surprised either, since Kingsmarch is in the campaign in that game.

That disconnect is super unlucky, and so is the pirate boss attacking your ship. Usually they attack my shipments with a bit of crops and dust for divines that I send to Kalguur.

They really need to revisit these pirate bosses and make it so you get to keep all your rewards if you pay off the ransom, you're already paying a cost of 50k gold and skipping a boss that can drop loot, so there is no need to punish the player further by deleting their shipment lol

And the whole 1-portal thing for these bosses also feels like its copy-pasted from PoE 2, how about they just make them 6 portals like every other encounter in this game? That would completely fix all the unlucky disconnects and people missclicking the portal the moment they zone in problems.

You're right it is too punishing, especially for a 50m shipment that takes 1 week+ to gather up. If you just care about mirror shards I think a 17,01 mil shipment(315,000 wheat+315,000 corn+8,505,000 dust or whatever the value of the wheat and corn is so you double it to 17 mil) is the most efficient for that goal. In case you ever try out Kingsmarch again, hopefully they make it less pointlessly punishing than it is now, because it seriously disrespects people's time investment.

Yeah, I've not been keen on hard-fail mechanics that punish you for disconnects. I always dread that happening when I get the notification that a shipment has been overtaken.

Things that empower disconnects (or the opposite: logging out) are IMO bad mechanics that should be fixed or purged.

Here there is a bit of potential counterplay: First send a bunch of small shipments until the Admiral grabs one. Do not fight Admiral then. When you got 25M + 25M you first fight the Admiral on the small shipment. And if it goes well you send the 25M + 25M, do not do anything to mess with Shader cache or such, wait for completion.

"

Zrevnur#2026 wrote:

Things that empower disconnects (or the opposite: logging out) are IMO bad mechanics that should be fixed or purged.

Here there is a bit of potential counterplay: First send a bunch of small shipments until the Admiral grabs one. Do not fight Admiral then. When you got 25M + 25M you first fight the Admiral on the small shipment. And if it goes well you send the 25M + 25M, do not do anything to mess with Shader cache or such, wait for completion.

That sounds like a good idea lol

cant u get a good player to kill pirate boss?

Tacky thing you can do to protect an expensive shipment if you want: send out boats with minimum loads of stuff you don't care about (ie 100 value of crimson iron) until one of them gets taken. Once a boat is taken and waiting for result, send out the valuable boat.

Pirates McGee can't show again up while there is a boat at sea that has been attacked, including if there is an unresolved encounter.

"

Bigwilleh#1842 wrote:

Tacky thing you can do to protect an expensive shipment if you want: send out boats with minimum loads of stuff you don't care about (ie 100 value of crimson iron) until one of them gets taken. Once a boat is taken and waiting for result, send out the valuable boat.

Pirates McGee can't show again up while there is a boat at sea that has been attacked, including if there is an unresolved encounter.

Does that actually work? Last I remember (from Settlers league) the Pirate blocks new ship sendings.

Can't honestly say for sure, haven't actually deliberately used the hypothetical idea meself since I've never struggled with pirate beyond internet/power outages.

Assuming you can send ships while somebody is kidnapped though no other reason it shouldn't.

"

Bigwilleh#1842 wrote:

Can't honestly say for sure, haven't actually deliberately used the hypothetical idea meself since I've never struggled with pirate beyond internet/power outages.

Assuming you can send ships while somebody is kidnapped though no other reason it shouldn't.

well you cant