It would be awesome if there were more than the two ships we've seen thus-far! I personally love the idea of having a man-o-war or brig in the game.
5 Ship Types for Sea of Thieves (Speculation /Graphic)
This is probably the most realistic iteration of ship sizes and crew sizes that I have seen being posted on these forums. As i sincerely doubt Rare would go beyond a 5, maybe 6 max per crew. As they want players to have to balance tasks, and increasing the amount of players per crew makes balancing voyages as well as ship tasks more difficult.
I ramble. I do really like it, great work!
@shoothere4exp This is a very cool idea, I really want to see a lot of ships as a "war man" and a
many small sloopAy! * takes a puff from the pipe * I would love to host my crew on one of these man o wars , but be careful , we are not the kind of man o war you would want to stumble upon at the open ocean.
By the way , did I ask it before? But.
Do YOU Fear DEATH? Do You Feel like Dark Abyss?We'll meet soon sailor.
@shoothere4exp I have some thoughts on your last wish list post that I want to share
The changes I made were primarily to preserve the current balance that Rare has in place. That being the Galleon having a crew of 4 and a sloop having a crew of 1-2. The way I see it, in both ships Rare has more jobs to do than available people to do them, and I believe this is on purpose. Think about it, if the ships had a full crew, meaning 1 person for every job, this would force players into specific roles instead of having them run around switching between tasks. Who wants to just manage the sails, or just stare at the navigation table? People want to mix things up.
Each ship has 3 main jobs, steering, navigation, and sails. By these rules the sloop would be a 3 man ship, and the galleon a 5 man ship. This keeps all the main stations manned, and people have no need to move around unless combat happens. However what we have now is that in both ships we are 1 man short. I think that is too much of a coincidence to not be a deliberate design choice by Rare.
If we are to follow that design pattern, the Brig becomes a 3 man ship, the Junk becomes a 2 man ship(smaller size makes up for 1 less crew member), and the Man O' War becomes a 4 man ship. Now, the Man O' War having the same crew as the Galleon feels very wrong, the sheer time required to run between stations on that ship demand at least 1 extra person, but we still have the same number of stations. So what do we do? I suggest setting the Man O' War to a crew of 6 and adding an extra sail on the bowsprit. This increases the number of jobs to 6(steering, sails 4x, and navigation), that does deviate from the 1 man short of all jobs design of other ships, but the large size of the ship should be a nice counter balance to that deviation, similar to how the Junk has 1 less crew members than it should because of it's smaller size.
If you made the Man O' War a 5 man ship, you would need to remove one of the cannons, and still need the front sail to fit the 1 man short design, but the size of the ship would make it not very fun to play I think because it would feel like you are being overwhelmed by the tasks that need doing, so this is where the 6th crew member comes in. Personally, I like the sail beneath the bowsprit better than the sail at the tip of it. I think it fits under there nicely if you raised the bowsprit angle by about 10 degrees to keep it out of the water
I hope this feedback helps you bounce some ideas around.
Also, that side internal view of the Man O' War that you made looks awesome, great job!
@cows-n-muffins
I would suggest maybe add the sail as a topsail, you would need to climb rigging to reach the pullies on either side of the mast, these pullies open the top sail however the sail rotation is still manned by the base mast rotation. This could be either for the main mast only, all rigged into one or individually masted.Either way would provide more roles and journey times to complete warrenting that 6 man crew.
@laughsmaniacaly Can you give some pictures of what you are referring to? Is it just a taller mast with more sails on it? The main objective I was going for is for the Man O' War to have the same number of crew as number of jobs to do. The larger size compensates for that in the same way the Junk has 1 less crew members than it should but a smaller size to make up for that.
So your idea could work as an alternative to the bowsprit sail, but I need some more info.
@cows-n-muffins
Sorry but i use my phone for replys so no pics I'm afraid.I'll try to explain.
Each ship is growing in size, there is a clear difference in size of sail between the current sloop and the gallion.
The sloop has one sail the gallion has three tripple stacked sails.
The MOW would logically be bigger again thus a larger sail would be required. As it would be odd to see more than three sails stacked my thought was this.You maintain the standard three masts of the gallion, each pully controlling the length of only TWO of the stacked sails, the third sail has a separate pully located at the height of the second cross beam (i think they're called yardarms) to access this you would need to climb rigging (the nets on the side of the ship up to the crows nest) it would be the same mechanism as climbing a ladder but allows you to reach these suspended pulleys.
I hope this explains it a bit better.
@Cows-n-Muffins @LaughsManiacaly
It seems to me like the Rare artists have opted for simplifying the f**t bow to make it a social space. perhaps it will be a customization option to put sails on, but perhaps we should stick to their standard.What if instead we added more topsails up high to the Man O' War, as well as Crosstrees to split up the masts.
The Topsails would be required to then be manually raised/lowered from the crosstrees, but would turn with the main sails below (I think?). The cross tree would split the ladder, and a second ladder would be used to get up to the crow. Exp. below:This could add more complexity and difficulty to Man'O War as well as more crew tasks. In addition it also provides a firing position from up high, and additional locations to hide treasure aiding game play. Adding rigging to make it difficult to get to the forward cross tree would also be a fun and difficult dynamic.
@shoothere4exp love it, i wasn't sure if the extra sails would look right but i think it suits.
Also remember if you add rigging that when shot you fall off ladders, imagine how that could effect combat situations.The more i see it the more i want it. Although it'd be a nightmare to maintain.
@ShootHere4EXP @LaughsManiacaly The only real downside I see is the sheer size. With that much ship above the waterline, fitting inside Cannon Cove (along with a few others) will be impossible. Here's hoping Rowboats are featured and this post sees some DEV attention. You've all done a fantastic job. This is my favorite thread here by far.
@shoothere4exp @LaughsManiacaly Ahh, I see. ShootHere4EXP made a drawing. I think that would work. It puts a bit more strain on the crew than the single bowsprit sail, but I think it can still be manged by 6 people. Having the rotation be managed from the main sails below would be best. Because if you need 2 people up above rotating the top sails too, that would require 5 people total to rotate all 5 sails separately. Definitely an overload.
@laughsmaniacaly said in 5 Ship Types for Sea of Thieves (Speculation /Graphic):
@shoothere4exp love it, i wasn't sure if the extra sails would look right but i think it suits.
Also remember if you add rigging that when shot you fall off ladders, imagine how that could effect combat situations.The more i see it the more i want it. Although it'd be a nightmare to maintain.
I think thats really the fun trade off of this ship! It's hard to maintain and use but it adds additional challenge to experience players and large crews. It needs to pay off though, there need to be real advantages to this ship if you're able to pull it off.
I think this really adds to endgame value, good crews are going to want more of a sailing challenge than the galleon after a while. It almost becomes the "Raid" ship, its hard to get 6 people together to do it and when you do its a real team challenge, but if you do it right it pays off in power and prestige.
And yes I think it adds more variety to combat! More chances to fight in the masts and fall off
+It adds depth to seeing sailson the horizon... seeing a man O War on the horizon would be so terrifying haha
@shadowstrider-7
Mine too, i love seeing how this has developed.From the 2 ships we know to the 5 ship meta and then the addition of the gunboat for a balanced 6 ship option, something for everyone.
The designs are concise and clear, the images really show the development and differences and there was great annotation on the strengths and weakness of each design alog the way.
There is internal design and reused mecanics that offer variety to gameplay as yet unseen.
There is soo much potential here and it shows, it's also the friendliest thread I've been in.
@Cows-n-Muffins I'm glad you agree! I think it gets at the problem you raised of making sure there is enough of a workload challenge to a crew of Man O' War, making sure it isn't just a bigger more powerful Galleon. It has to be a ship you really commit to working with, but pays off. Feel free to continue to edit my images some more to aid your graphics I have no problem with that!
@LaughsManiacaly Thank you! I think clear visual imagery really helps get everyone focused on an idea. Often on forum boards things get very mixed up between all the different responses, so having an image I think really brings the dialogue deeper. i'm glad you've found it so friendly, I think everyone here has been trying to reach the same goal! I've been having a blast with this
@OrKhun I respectfully disagree, the game world wouldnt need to get any bigger its alrady huge, and any more obsacles that arise due to having a bigger ship become gameplay drama for it's crew. As long as the world doesnt become broken from it it should be fine. THe idea too is that this ship would be rare, your most ocmmon ships would still be Galleon and others.
@ShadowStrider-7 Rowboats would be great! And a neccessity for ships with larger drafts, I'm glad you've liked the thread thanks for all your input!
@shoothere4exp Are you going to adjust the wish list ship positions in the main post? The graphic I posted had different positions for crew size to preserve Rares current game balance with the Galleon(4) and Sloop(1-2), and to hone in on the 1 crew short design I think Rare is using. I noticed you updated the MOW with the top sails, but did not change the ship to crew number positions.
@shoothere4exp Cool SAILS ON THE HORIZON! graphic. You should move that up to the main post as well to help show off the scale. Looks great!
@orkhun said in 5 Ship Types for Sea of Thieves (Speculation /Graphic):
Sloop would be the most agile ship among them but also harder to sail with, and man o war crew limit would be lower as there would be too much confusion and chaos with that many players on the ship and probably they would have to enlarge the game world to include ships that big
As the game stands now, they will enlarge the game world when it goes live. 16 is just too small for a server.
The larger crew is part of the difficulty of running such a powerful ship. It will require a coordinated group of players who can actually work together. Randoms would probably be unlikely to succeed.
The man-o-war has to be this way or it will be horribly OP
@shoothere4exp said in 5 Ship Types for Sea of Thieves (Speculation /Graphic):
@Cows-n-Muffins @LaughsManiacaly
It seems to me like the Rare artists have opted for simplifying the f**t bow to make it a social space. perhaps it will be a customization option to put sails on, but perhaps we should stick to their standard.What if instead we added more topsails up high to the Man O' War, as well as Crosstrees to split up the masts.
The Topsails would be required to then be manually raised/lowered from the crosstrees, but would turn with the main sails below (I think?). The cross tree would split the ladder, and a second ladder would be used to get up to the crow. Exp. below:This could add more complexity and difficulty to Man'O War as well as more crew tasks. In addition it also provides a firing position from up high, and additional locations to hide treasure aiding game play. Adding rigging to make it difficult to get to the forward cross tree would also be a fun and difficult dynamic.
I love this idea! This would make the Man-O-War a real challenge for only the most skilled teams.
@Cows-n-Muffins I'm glad you like the graphic! I've put it up at the top. As far as the player counts go, to be honest I'm still debating it. You've made a good case and I think yours is the ideal condition, however I am tempted to leave it as is now just so there is an option for every player count. Under yours there is no 5 player option, (And I understand that over-mans the Galleon a bit), but I like the idea that there is a ship for every player size and that your crew would have a tactical choice of two ships based on your player count. It also flows so nicely across all numbers as is, and I think its a little less confusing. However, I really do see your point that for some ships it doesnt create enough work or the individual players. Galleon is clearly a 4 not 5 man ship. Maybe more tasks on board are required, and perhaps that's coming with release?
@CaseSugar401098 Good point on the Man O' War, I agree it can work in this world as is it just needs to be difficult to use so its not OP. I'm glad you like the Cross-Tree solution! I was playing AC Black Flag last night and realized how much fun it was to be up on those platforms, and wondered if the SoT MAn O' War couldnt benefit from it.
@Sneakler Thank you! Rare seems like a good self motivated studio I'm sure they've already considered these things. I do think this can be beneficial showing where the community has its heart set, and the great response to this thread I think is a great way of advocating to Rare that this is important to the players. I just hope some of this is on the way for release and not just post-game, but I'll be happy if some form of this makes it in at all.
@shoothere4exp I wasn't originally going to make this post, but given the IGN interview article with the lead designer of SOT that came out today about crew size, I feel that I need to make one more argument regarding the crew size in the designs. Have a read if you have not already, it is pretty cool.
Sea of Thieves Dev Explains Why the Maximum Crew Size Is 4 Players - IGN
Rare's had feedback asking for larger parties, but four is the magic number for now.
Your chart does flow more nicely, I get that. I get where you are coming from in regard to the number of options players have. In that every crew size has 2 ship options to choose from. However, given the content of that article, it seems Rare is very strict with crew sizes, we should be doing the same.
Also, it is also worth pointing out that SOT only has maximum crew sizes, not minimums. So the smaller the crew, the more options it has. You could run a solo Galleon right now if you wanted to, or a 5 man MOW. So the bigger a crew gets the less options they have. That may seem counter-intuitive, but in SOT that actually makes sense. An overmanned ship becomes unsinkable in this game so long as they have supplies to repair.
We both agree that overmanning a ship is worse than under-manning it. The 1 player sloop is technically very undermanned. The only thing that makes up for that is player skill. If 5 people run a MOW, they would definitely need to be on top of their game to manage it, or just pick up 1 random person for the full 6 man crew. Avoiding overmanning was my focus with those modifications.
I know that not having a dedicated 5 player option basically screws over those groups of players to playing the MOW, but when compared the the rest of the player base, that is a small percentage of people. I don't want to hurt a small part of the player base by limiting choice if I can help it, but I will if I think the rest of the player base and the game will benefit. That is not an easy design choice to make, no one WANTS to cut features, so I understand if you want to head in a different direction. Your thread, your rules, I respect that. I'm just giving my perspective and I will not push the issue further.
As for the confusion issue, you're right, the chart I proposed is harder to read. Though I may have a possible solution to that. Take the squiggly lines that exist as dividers for the player count and extend them all the way up the image like so:(sorry if it looks a bit uneven, my paint dot net and gimp skills are not that good. You should get the general idea of it though.)
This provides greater visual indication that those lines serve to split the ships by player count.
I hope that all helps, keep up the great work!
@cows-n-muffins
I read part of the article, specifically the part that metaphored a group of friends at a bar and hace to say I've not heard more subjective nonsense in my life, it basically tries to say that if you had six or eight friends you actually only have two groups of three or four and almost can't work together. Honestly i manage a team of 15 at work, i hosted a stag for 8 with inclusive entertainment for all and we were all involved.
This is literally nothing short of saying I've designed it to be up to 4 players and CBA to make teams bigger. It's a joke but hey that's their choice.It's just a shame that from how devs are set, we may never see the MOW implemented in game.
@laughsmaniacaly Maybe they are fearful of deviating from the 4 man group a lot of games tend to use ever since Left 4 Dead came out. At least that is the first major 4 player co-op game that I can remember. I've run rated battleground in WoW of teams of 10 for years, so I wouldn't mind bigger ships because I could handle managing that many people. Most people can not do that though. The higher the max crew, the lower the odds of them cooperating. It is a lot easier to have 2 random people cooperate on a sloop than 4 random people cooperate on a Galleon.
I feel that if we are going to talk about crew sizes, we need to use Rares current vision as a bench mark.
@cows-n-muffins
I too FEAR that.
It's sad to say, but in rares "vision" smaller is easier (not better) and we wouldn't want to ruin the experience for those social unable to maintain a larger ship.I apologise if i seem a little salty, this recent press release seems to have turned my understanding of this game around and it seems to be sailing more for the inept than for those who want a challenge.
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