International Talk Like a Pirate Day is quickly coming up, so we guess it's about time we got some updates on Flying Lab's Pirates of the Burning Sea. These updates come courtesy of an MMORPG.com interview with game designer Drew Clowery at this year's Penny Arcade Expo (PAX).

The interview focuses on the whole avatar combat system in Pirates of the Burning Sea. While it was originally planned to be released as a later addition after the final game hit retail, community support for the avatar combat system was enough to persuade the game's developers to flesh it out and include it in the game's final build.

Clowery explains a few of the avatar combat system's key points in the interview. One of these is Balance. "Balance is our mechanic that determines how well your attacks will land on your opponents and how well you defend against your opponents' attacks," says Clowery.

Balance is one of the cornerstones of duelling in Pirates of the Burning Sea. It directly affects how well a player can defend against attacks. There are also skills that target an opponent's balance directly as well as skills that let a player recover balance when in a pinch.

According to the interview, the Balance mechanic currently shows up on a player character's status bar. The development team is still adding a few tweaks here and there to further refine the Balance mechanic, and Clowery says that "the only things missing right now are the results - the numbers - that lets users know when balance is lost".

Clowery also talks about the three schools of combat available to players - Dirty Fighting, Fencing and Florentine - as well as the three passive skills - Dodge, Parry and Block - that each of them specialize in. You can learn more about the different aspects of avatar combat by clicking on the Read link below.