Idea
Introduce the option to pull out your fists rather than an actual weapon.
Why? It would introduce a whole lot of potential for content creators, open-world role-playing, give hard core PVP-players the option to challenge themselves when fighting newer players, and for the fun of it!
Future potential could also include fighting pits and titles / accommodations (E.g. 200 fist kills in open-world to get a pair of gloves).
Mechanics
Idea: Copy-paste the sword mechanics and replace the sword by the player's fist / hook.
Quick-attack: Instead of 3 x 25 slash damage, do 3 x 15.
Strong-attack: Instead of 1 x 60 lunge damage, do 1 x 40. Landing a strong attack will knock-back the opponent just like the sword - but less of a distance.
Blocking: Convert the right-click parrying from swords to blocking. However, the blocking does not work against swords etc., only against fists. Hence, if you block 3 fist punches in a row the opponents get knocked back with a short cooldown before they can punch again.
Killing: Upon an opponent gets to 0 health by being punched, the player gets knocked out and can be finished by doing an extra 50 dmg by whatever means. When knocked out, the player will "sit down" as when killed. However, the player will revive if 50dmg has not been caused to them during an extended revive window. (Imagine knocking a whole galleon down and ending their knockout period with a keg :D ).
Furthermore, as opposed to being killed by weapons, the player cannot go directly to the ferry. Hence, a skilled crew could (when played efficiently) keep the players dead for a little bit longer than usual (Very high risk, fair rewards).
Note that a player cannot be knocked out again right after being revived from a knockout. A cooldown of 5 minutes etc. could be introduced.
In-crew fighting
Why not give the crew something to do while sailing from one end of the map to another?
Give the crew an option to vote for in-crew fist fighting. Once everyone votes yes, it will be allowed. In order to cancel, only a single player must vote it off.
