How would you enhance "Island Hopping"?

Island hopping has been my preferred way to play from the beginning. It's pretty nailed down and profitable. Especially since the addition of King's Loot.

Bottle quest that sends you to a Seafort like shrines, also with a special loot. As a general suggestion.

Otherwise it just turns back into handholding.

@tybald Skeleton Orders that send you to other islands as well. Something to link Point A and Point B. I'm also with thr ideas posted above.

@pithyrumble

I think more than just more bottles/skeletons.

I put in another thread it would be neat to stumble upon a compass on a large-island beach that pointed you to a micro-vault guarded by enemies that had to be killed. It would have an amount of treasure equal to a dived "Raid on a sea fort".

The whole "Stumble upon an epic voyage" would be another way to spice up the island hopping.

Basically, things that add more variety, more reason to visit the larger islands without it just being another x marks the spot map. Just more island centric emergent activities the same way that a kraken, meg, or skelly ship is.

The goal is to sort of let the game go wherever the wind carries it. Bottle quests, skelly captains, ashen guardians, washed up loot etc.

So from the Outpost, which ever the Wind points you go that direction until you hit an island. If you find a Bottle you do said voyage. Rinse and repeat. (What happens if the wind points you toward the Red Sea?)

The only problem. As it's less focused, there's not alot to carry you forward.

I dont get this. You just said the Wind is carrying you forward and the voyages you find tell you what to do.
While on the island, explore it. Read the paintings. Loot every resource barrel.

Sometimes Ashen or normal Captains spawn up that drop voyages to complete.

@burnbacon

You are misunderstanding an idiom. Wherever the wind blows isn't literally, its just a turn of phrase.

Island hopping is more just following whatever happens to happen and lead you to somewhere else

More things like "message in a bottle," but not message in a bottle. An example would be a Skeleton Skit—you stumble upon skeletons digging up a Chest of Fortune and transferring it onto their parked skeleton ship.

Small, emergent adventures that are in-progress when you stumble upon them.

Do small island voyages. They are currently taking you to close by island. Dig up a few chests, collect bottles, vote down a new voyage repeat.

Basically you just go to the island, shipwreck, fort, etc closest to you, and if you have a map for something good go there.

No need to enhance anything! Its basically what I do when im not chasing down other pirates.

@reverend-toast
I know how to island hop. I basically asking what you might like to see. What extra stuff might you like to stumble upon to add extra spice to it?

I think one of the greatest joys of a game like Sea of Thieves is seeing an opportunity to capitalize on something and planning around it.

It's one of the reasons why tucking with a rowboat has been so popular—you see an occupied crew and start plotting how you'll get close without noticing. It's why burying something when you're in a pinch and retrieving it after things have cooled down feels good. Sometimes there is PvE, like skeleton captains, but I only do them because the loot has been buffed recently and there is a chance for a PvP storage crate (with chains and curses).

There are a number of reasons to stop at an island, and the stuff I mentioned above involve doing just that — of course, gathering loot is at the top of the list for many crews, too.

But for me, the most important reason to stop is to gather supplies and increase the number of tools at your disposal.

Sadly, this is very boring as almost everything in barrels are by chance. It would be wonderful if the game had a bit more decision making along those lines.

Players should be finding out which islands have what supplies and resources throughout the course of a session either via NPCs, plain old discovery, other players, mysterious notes or voyages that explicitly reward them.

I'm really hoping that Rare makes these new throwables and wind skull something that players can actually plan to get instead of it just falling on their lap half the time.

@jumbie7311 the idea that certain rare items (chainshot, cursed balls, meat, grapeshot) could be found in higher concentrations on specific islands is very interesting. Rare could designate a small cluster of islands to give a higher percentage chance of finding valuable gear, then provide in-game clues to point players to which islands are richer in supplies.

Then they could switch out these abundant island clusters each day, at random, so players are always on the hunt for where to find "the goods."

@prescafatty

Very much agreed!

@wolfmanbush Sounds like fun.

@wolfmanbush

Crafting is an interesting idea, but it has to be implemented right. I've had ideas on it in the past, I'll have to see if I can dig up an old thread and bring the ideas forward again.