Character Evolution

@the-foxhounded that's going to be a no for me fellow Pirate. Sorry

Reasoning why you wouldn't want it in the game? @smmbrocksamson

I wasn't really thinking of it in a survival approach, more akin to GTA San Andreas. Another aproach could be opting out of it or it or it being an end game mechanic unlocked when you're Legendary and to switch out styles could be done through other activities and not just standard gameplay. @metal-ravage

@the-foxhounded no. /thread

Yes /open thread

@lackbarwastaken

That's not a response. You are here to discuss ideas how about you give reasons on why you don't want it.

Not sure what you mean by TDMer but I understand not wanting to change your character because it's perfect, but perfect is subjective even when it comes to yourself. Tomorrow you might not want to look how you do but as of right now you can't do anything other than start over or pay money to reroll a new face and not just your body. @targasbr

@targasbr

Ok, change his body but keep his face.

You can't right?

The alternative could be having to do minigames to change your body and no benefits outside cosmetics are applied.

The big point is about more content that increases character customization and uniqueness.

So you just want less options? @targasbr

To each there own I guess.

OK, how do you earn clothes on a boat in-between islands.@targasbr

There is no way so that's less content.

What task can you do that gives you clothes that are directly tied into the clothes and isn't either a random reward or bought with money?

There is none. It's all random or paid for.

Also a body type would change every peice of clothing more than adding new clothes as it would make everything have x4 more options.

I was liking the idea to the point where each body would have an advantage or disadvantage, this almost becomes an RPG class system.

There gonna be a lot of thin pirates
Nobody eats a lot or fights. :p

Tuck and die
Run and hide
Die and burn.

I frankly don’t want this because I chose my pirate for a reason and like the way he looks.
Don’t need the game changing him for my actions

@the-foxhounded this concept actually requires a response...

1. Most important rare has a level playing-field cosmetic only progression system. Guns dont upgrade cannons dont upgrade etc. This is in direct contradiction to the vision of the game.

2. This takes development time away from the core gameplay without adding much.

3. This isnt gta san andreas. "copy paste this other video game" is a poor "suggestion"

4. balancing this is a nightmare and a meta will be easily born.

5. If i eat food aka playing the game i dont want to run slower and be fat and not be able to tuck. marrying an activity to a body style to perks and disadvantages is a nightmare. So if I'm a tucker and i fight other players a lot i just get fat and slow which is not what i want. What if im a sword lord that pvps and gets a lot of other people's loot? Now im buff and i cant swing a sword as fast damn i guess i dont get to play the game. Adding a body type with activity minigame is the most needless, constraining awful idea ive heard of in quite some time.

no.

@lackbarwastaken said in Character Evolution:

@the-foxhounded this concept actually requires a response...

1. Most important rare has a level playing-field cosmetic only progression system. Guns dont upgrade cannons dont upgrade etc. This is in direct contradiction to the vision of the game.

2. This takes development time away from the core gameplay without adding much.

3. This isnt gta san andreas. "copy paste this other video game" is a poor "suggestion"

4. balancing this is a nightmare and a meta will be easily born.

5. If i eat food aka playing the game i dont want to run slower and be fat and not be able to tuck. marrying an activity to a body style to perks and disadvantages is a nightmare. So if I'm a tucker and i fight other players a lot i just get fat and slow which is not what i want. What if im a sword lord that pvps and gets a lot of other people's loot? Now im buff and i cant swing a sword as fast damn i guess i dont get to play the game. Adding a body type with activity minigame is the most needless, constraining awful idea ive heard of in quite some time.

no.

1. This isn't true in the slightest. Just because weapons don't level doesn't make it an equal system. How is having a body type any different than Having 1 of 3 boats? How about Player base Skill variation/balance? I can't keep up with Usain Bolt just because I have the same shoes as him. You also wouldn't "level" them up, I said they shift accordingly to how you play.

2. Literally anything new would take development away from the "core gameplay". If you don't want a game to change then you shouldn't play a live service game.

3. Is that all you got from what I said? This is a pretty bad take on what I said as it's not a copy and paste, and saying so is foolish. I said it's more in kin to GTA San Andreas I.E. being something you had to manually work on to make the changes and not forced onto you like a survival game.

4. Maybe a meta for Multiplayer, but that's not the only aspect of this game. Even with what little I said, there was plenty mention in terms of balance and I am one person who came up with the idea on the spot. If it was discussed by a team who implement new content then it would be easy to come up with balances and checks. Also what would be the meta? More Health? More Speed? The Ability to carry two gun powder barrels? They all have glaring weaknesses.

5. Didn't have enough points that actually show how the idea is objectively bad other than personal preference? Speaking of Personal Preference your argument also seems to only have you in mind as it's just me me me me me. You don't like the idea because it would affect how you play the game? Fine, but you are setting a precedence to the game where nothing you haven't played now shouldn't be added if it doesn't work how it's always been.

6. "No" is not a reason/point.

Everything you said was an opinion and/or not a fact.

BUT

I still want to say Thank you for putting more effort into the response over " No, End Thread".

Hard no from me.

These abilities will fundamentally change hand-to-hand combat and completely ruin any form of balance. Pistol no longer being able to 2 tap some characters, DG now being able to run around a ship faster, blunderbuss potentially not 1 shotting anymore...

These changes will have a significant impact on weapon balancing but without others being able to easily identify it.

Overall a design like this seems like it will just introduce more problems than anything else especially with being able to get more health or run around a ship faster.

A dynamic body type would be interesting, though I'd prefer it not to be that way unless it was intentional. You mentioned GTA/SA. In that game, there was a gym and all sorts of stats that went into making CJ how you wanted. However, you really had to try to make your character fat in SA. And it had almost zero positive impact on the game to be fat outside of it just being funny. Conversely, you had to try to be a huge muscle head. If you just played SA normally, you'd just be a standard body type CJ. Your "sex appeal" wouldn't be super high, but you also wouldn't have the negative impacts of being fat (slower, can't climb fences as fast, can't actually do some missions like the one where you have to steal a jetpack).

All-in-all, I wouldn't want how I play SOT to impact my character's body type, I'd want it to have to be intentional similar to SA. It'd be neat, though.

As for the varied body types creating certain attributes. SOT is a session based game about balance. It's about every player coming in equal with no advantage over another outside of just outright skill. If every body type had a different skill set, it would require an incredible amount of balancing to ensure that every 1v1 PvP encounter does not generate any metas. I don't think it's a bad idea, but preventing any meta creation would be absolutely critical. In a (mostly) linear world like SA, where you don't have the potential to compete with other players at every turn, it's easy to apply attributes. In SOT, where PvP can happen at any turn, it would be an immense undertaking to not only balance the attributes associated to each body type, but also make each body type quickly attainable session-by-session based on how you want to play that day.

@the-foxhounded

1. Yes it is in many regards a level playing system if you start this game all of your weapons and equipment will function just as well as mine. You pistol will deal as much damage your spyglass will see as far. This IS the vision for the game. You personally level up in skill and knowledge but your character does not. Some rare exceptions might be the DA sails that let you see better on the helm and the barrel tuck which gives you more stealth options. The only tangible difference is your ship type but you get to pick that every session(bigger ship always wins kekw).

2. the core gameplay is you go out into this sandbox with a boat and supplies and do some pvp and/or some pve. Literally every update to the game pretty much falls in line with this idea. Last season we got shrines which add to the pve activities you can do, by extension pvp activities as well. Many people don't care for this update because its the first to not really add to the core gameplay, its super flavorful though, shooting fireworks above a crew that is hard bailing their ship is wonderfully toxic.

3. yea its copy paste as an idea. These forums always get these posts, "Make it like X video game" ,there was one post a while back where someone wanted to add Devil Fruit which is something from some anime One Piece. "Add anime super powers" is the laziest most detrimental "suggestion". Here lets do some more "suggestions"

"Rare change arena so a steampunk ship flies over the map and 100 people jump out on the map and the last player alive wins. O and the shroud closes in slowly. And if you could build walls that would be cool!"

"Rare make it so i can crouch while i walk and depending on lighting I can become more and more hidden. Also let me name my character Garrett"

"Rare add dragons into the game and we can like learn their dragon language, powerful phrases that have magical effects. You could say DA RO FOOS and that would knock people back i think its about time rare added this"

"Rare let me upgrade my boat with metal i can mine with a pickaxe. Also what if you could actually dig into the ground and take out cubes of dirt and make a base in an island. Also add redstone"

"Rare add automatic weapons and laser sights to guns. It could still be piratey it would be like a red mermaid gem tied to a spyglass. Add daggers to the game and make them a one hit kill in the back. Kunai are cool add those. What do you mean you will have to update hitboxes to have a front and a back and hitreg/backtracking is already a massive problem that doesn't need more complications? I like kunai let me be naruto believe it!"

4. Like i said balancing this is a nightmare. I dont know what i can say to convince you that hasn't already been said. If you get a single more point of health then you are now invincible to the blunderbuss one shot. Carrying two gunpowder barrels is a joke of an ability. Swinging your sword slower is the worst for a sword user or completely irrelevant for a double gunner. You want a team of people to figure out cool perks and disadvantages, cause you sure as hell haven't come up with a single interesting perk or disadvantage. Then you want them to implement this and then come back to this and re-balance it every so often cause there is no way a balance team could know how this will exactly affect the game until it goes live for a while. What is all this work adding to the game? "Hey Billy can you handle ALL of the loot cause i don't want to be buff cause i like X and Y perks. I'm going to go sleep in the bed cause i don't want to eat and get fat"

5. This is not me simply talking about my personal preferences. Tying an activity to body types to perks/weakness is terrible game design. However you implement this it will have problems. You are going to have some girl who wants a skinny conventionally attractive pirate who now doesn't want to eat food because their character will get fat. O speaking of which did you know that women have statistically higher rates of eating disorders than men? We are going to have people complaining that their anxiety around food is becoming part of the game. O if you eat worms you throw up maybe your pirate could get skinnier lol. What an actual nightmare you want to inflict on the playerbase. Rare had to create an option to get rid of rats because some people have discomfort around rats, lets add self image disorders and eating disorders to the game. Yea dude this is just me talking about me me me just what affects me lol, you got me there.

6. You are right "no" is not a good reason or point. Saying all the reasons why this is literally the worst idea i have ever heard suggested about this game bar none is an exhaustive process and I didn't want to take the time/effort to do that. Also saying no is much kinder than saying all of this.

/thread

@lackbarwastaken said in Character Evolution:

@the-foxhounded

1. Yes it is in many regards a level playing system if you start this game all of your weapons and equipment will function just as well as mine. You pistol will deal as much damage your spyglass will see as far. This IS the vision for the game. You personally level up in skill and knowledge but your character does not. Some rare exceptions might be the DA sails that let you see better on the helm and the barrel tuck which gives you more stealth options. The only tangible difference is your ship type but you get to pick that every session(bigger ship always wins kekw).

2. the core gameplay is you go out into this sandbox with a boat and supplies and do some pvp and/or some pve. Literally every update to the game pretty much falls in line with this idea. Last season we got shrines which add to the pve activities you can do, by extension pvp activities as well. Many people don't care for this update because its the first to not really add to the core gameplay, its super flavorful though, shooting fireworks above a crew that is hard bailing their ship is wonderfully toxic.

3. yea its copy paste as an idea. These forums always get these posts, "Make it like X video game" ,there was one post a while back where someone wanted to add Devil Fruit which is something from some anime One Piece. "Add anime super powers" is the laziest most detrimental "suggestion". Here lets do some more "suggestions"

"Rare change arena so a steampunk ship flies over the map and 100 people jump out on the map and the last player alive wins. O and the shroud closes in slowly. And if you could build walls that would be cool!"

"Rare make it so i can crouch while i walk and depending on lighting I can become more and more hidden. Also let me name my character Garrett"

"Rare add dragons into the game and we can like learn their dragon language, powerful phrases that have magical effects. You could say DA RO FOOS and that would knock people back i think its about time rare added this"

"Rare let me upgrade my boat with metal i can mine with a pickaxe. Also what if you could actually dig into the ground and take out cubes of dirt and make a base in an island. Also add redstone"

"Rare add automatic weapons and laser sights to guns. It could still be piratey it would be like a red mermaid gem tied to a spyglass. Add daggers to the game and make them a one hit kill in the back. Kunai are cool add those. What do you mean you will have to update hitboxes to have a front and a back and hitreg/backtracking is already a massive problem that doesn't need more complications? I like kunai let me be naruto believe it!"

4. Like i said balancing this is a nightmare. I dont know what i can say to convince you that hasn't already been said. If you get a single more point of health then you are now invincible to the blunderbuss one shot. Carrying two gunpowder barrels is a joke of an ability. Swinging your sword slower is the worst for a sword user or completely irrelevant for a double gunner. You want a team of people to figure out cool perks and disadvantages, cause you sure as hell haven't come up with a single interesting perk or disadvantage. Then you want them to implement this and then come back to this and re-balance it every so often cause there is no way a balance team could know how this will exactly affect the game until it goes live for a while. What is all this work adding to the game? "Hey Billy can you handle ALL of the loot cause i don't want to be buff cause i like X and Y perks. I'm going to go sleep in the bed cause i don't want to eat and get fat"

5. This is not me simply talking about my personal preferences. Tying an activity to body types to perks/weakness is terrible game design. However you implement this it will have problems. You are going to have some girl who wants a skinny conventionally attractive pirate who now doesn't want to eat food because their character will get fat. O speaking of which did you know that women have statistically higher rates of eating disorders than men? We are going to have people complaining that their anxiety around food is becoming part of the game. O if you eat worms you throw up maybe your pirate could get skinnier lol. What an actual nightmare you want to inflict on the playerbase. Rare had to create an option to get rid of rats because some people have discomfort around rats, lets add self image disorders and eating disorders to the game. Yea dude this is just me talking about me me me just what affects me lol, you got me there.

6. You are right "no" is not a good reason or point. Saying all the reasons why this is literally the worst idea i have ever heard suggested about this game bar none is an exhaustive process and I didn't want to take the time/effort to do that. Also saying no is much kinder than saying all of this.

/thread

I disagree with only 2 things you said here.

1. This post is a lot more informative than writing "No" and shows that you are truly thinking about the game and the implementation of the suggestion. You spoke about the community and not just how it would negatively affect you. I find this to be a lot kinder than writing no and saying it's the end of a thread.

2. Every example you listed of copy and pasting an idea is a core aspect of the respective title. CJ changing his body type was just a small feature in a massive game. There are plenty of other games that also allows the player to adjust their bodies (Mostly sports games).

If I'm being honest here, I don't really want the skill aspect of it or care about it. I just want to be able to change how my character looks to give more customization options without having to sacrifice my character's face to change his body, but just as we can't change our clothing anywhere I think a small activity on the boat that ca. Change our bodies would be fun. The only reason I mentioned abilities to go with it is because 9 times out of 10 someone will come in and say "I don't care about character customization" or "Why do you care if this is a 1st person game" and I always use the same reasoning. "Fortnite and GTA make billions every year selling cosmetics so plenty of people care about it even if you don't."

So I want to say thank you again for taking the time to respond.
The passion you had shown in regards to balancing I can see that you truly care about the game and that my half baked idea needs to be more thought out so it doesn't rub anyone the wrong wrong way. The idea was balanced only for PVE when I thought about it and it's obviously not for everyone.

Also thank you again for not arguing with the cosmetic aspect of it.

@schwammlgott said in Character Evolution:

@the-foxhounded after reading your posts and a little chat with someone, I suggest you to play the game "Atlas"...seems to be a game that better fits your taste than Sea of Thieves

It looks pretty. I'll take a look at it.

Thank you for the suggestion as I'm always keeping an eye out for a new game and this one went under my radar.

@schwammlgott said in Character Evolution:

@the-foxhounded sagte in Character Evolution:

@lackbarwastaken said in Character Evolution:

1. This isn't true in the slightest. Just because weapons don't level doesn't make it an equal system. How is having a body type any different than Having 1 of 3 boats? How about Player base Skill variation/balance? I can't keep up with Usain Bolt just because I have the same shoes as him. You also wouldn't "level" them up, I said they shift accordingly to how you play.

Your comparison just shows, that you don't have a clue or just say something against this, just so you can say something...same tools for everyone, everyone IS THE SAME...has the same tools, no perks, same ships (almost perfect balanced ship types)
Skill and experience is beside the cosmetics we earned and wear the only difference from each other...

Fair enought. I mean I don't think my comparison was bad but you are right that I just said something to say something. It is a fact that the game is balanced in terms of everyone being on equal footing, and me bringing up how good players vs bad players was a strawman fallacy.

@sweetsandman said in Character Evolution:

A dynamic body type would be interesting, though I'd prefer it not to be that way unless it was intentional. You mentioned GTA/SA. In that game, there was a gym and all sorts of stats that went into making CJ how you wanted. However, you really had to try to make your character fat in SA. And it had almost zero positive impact on the game to be fat outside of it just being funny. Conversely, you had to try to be a huge muscle head. If you just played SA normally, you'd just be a standard body type CJ. Your "sex appeal" wouldn't be super high, but you also wouldn't have the negative impacts of being fat (slower, can't climb fences as fast, can't actually do some missions like the one where you have to steal a jetpack).

All-in-all, I wouldn't want how I play SOT to impact my character's body type, I'd want it to have to be intentional similar to SA. It'd be neat, though.

As for the varied body types creating certain attributes. SOT is a session based game about balance. It's about every player coming in equal with no advantage over another outside of just outright skill. If every body type had a different skill set, it would require an incredible amount of balancing to ensure that every 1v1 PvP encounter does not generate any metas. I don't think it's a bad idea, but preventing any meta creation would be absolutely critical. In a (mostly) linear world like SA, where you don't have the potential to compete with other players at every turn, it's easy to apply attributes. In SOT, where PvP can happen at any turn, it would be an immense undertaking to not only balance the attributes associated to each body type, but also make each body type quickly attainable session-by-session based on how you want to play that day.

I mentioned it only a moment ago but me personally I'd like it only for the cosmetic aspect of it as well.

I was thinking there could be activities on the boat that change how you look that isn't instantaneous.

Like eating at a table by shoving lots of food in your mouth for fat.

Grabbing a keg and doing squats for muscle.

For skinny, maybe the player attaches a rope to their body, ties it to the boat and "swims" behind the boat.

All of it being a mechanic that makes changing your body completly optional.

@targasbr said in Character Evolution:

@the-foxhounded said in Character Evolution:

OK, how do you earn clothes on a boat in-between islands.@targasbr

There is no way so that's less content.

What task can you do that gives you clothes that are directly tied into the clothes and isn't either a random reward or bought with money?

There is none. It's all random or paid for.

Also a body type would change every peice of clothing more than adding new clothes as it would make everything have x4 more options.

I really don't understand what you want. I don't want my character to change, but if you want that for yours, just buy the potion, you have the option, you just don't want to use it.

I want the ability to do tasks on the ship in-between islands that let me slowly change the shape of my body.

Every single item that can be earned is randomly given to you. The item itself isn't what's random, it's the purpose of the reward. "Oh you saved us from FlameHeart, how can we ever repay you? Oh I know, have a boot."
I want the ability to do a task on the ship that changes the shape my character is. Eat Food Non-stop at a table: Get Fatter Grabing a barrel and squating: Get More Muscle Tie rope to waist, dragged from boat and swimming behind it: Get skinny. Those tasks reward you with what you were going for. Nothing random about it.

I don't care if you don't want to change how you look. I'm happy that you are fine with what you have had but that's not the point of my idea. The feature isn't for people who don't want it, it's there for the people who do. You wouldn't be forced to do it; I've changed the idea a few times in this post saying that you can either opt out of it or that it could be optional as you could do the activity to change it or not do it to stay the same.

Now in regards to the "Just buy the potion, you have the option, you just don't want to use it."

1. Charging money to change how you look is scummy and not something anyone should support in general, but in a game where you randomly select your pirate and have to pay to randomly select again? That's creating the problem just to sell you the solution except the solution is to gamble and hope you find a pirate you like.

2. The potion just lets you randomly select a new pirate from a random selection of pirates. This is no longer your pirate; it's a new character rather than altering your personally picked Pirate. This isn't what I asked for in the slightest and I think you knew that already but still chose to bring up the worthless potion.