Enemy nametag visibility is an issue

Agree, being able to see the nametag through walls and terrain pretty much makes pvp not fun. It's almost impossible to sneak into someone's ship when they can spot my tag miles away. Rare, please change this mechanic!

there is no reason for this mechanic to be in the game. it only ruins fun. rare plz fix

I see no reason to have visible name tags it takes the fun out of it seeing a player off in the distance because of some magical floating name.

If anything being able to name your pirate (censor filter of course) would add to the roleplay aspect.

@gunnarrsen If you do the "sit" or "sleep" emote, your nametag disappears.

(Well, actually it is still there, just for some reason when you emote it only becomes visible from certain angles and is MUCH higher above you than it would be if you weren't emoting, spaghetti code)

@saffronbog25928 Completely agree, I'd love to name my pirate.

Would be dope to name your pirate, and then choose from a long list of prefixes/suffixes to end up with a name like "Bootstrap Barny" "Peg-Leg Barny" "Barny One-Eye" etc.

Nothing ruins my immersion more than approaching a pirate named "xXDopeFragger420Xx"

agree, name tags ruin rogue combat, it’s all blunderbuss on ladders once the name tags are revealed.

This should've been cleaned out of the game by release, can someone PM Microsoft's dad and tell them that playtesting happens before the release of a game.

Agreed. It only serves to enable meta-gaming, which diminishes the experience.

Agree on this one. Ruins a lot of fun interactions

Agreed barry.

@barny64 I see no issue with this, if when killed, it tells you the gamertag that got you. That way infamy can be spread

100% agree with you. It would be nice that you can only see nametags in very close quarters.

I don't see why you should see the nametags of your enemy at all. Why do we automagically know the name of that pirate? Did they telepathically send it to us? Is there a central pirate database we all have an uplink to?

I agree with this.
Being able to just see players sneaking in the water or on the ship just ruins the suprise. Also the fact that people on streams are able to see the names of the enemy so that they could message them just ruins it completly.

Would make the game so much more fun :/

It really ruins the immersion with all the names over everyones head.

yes i agree i think the nametags should not be there i try to sneak on a mans ship and he not see me but see my name anyway and i am revealed i think it is not fair?

I'm willing to bet it's a decision by Rare to make the game easier for newer players. New players have to learn a ton mechanics at once. The sails, navigating, combat mechanics, fixing a ship, ect. And dealing with actually paying attention to anything more is most definitely taxing on the players.
And since they're receiving a load of new players due to some amount of hype on twitch and coverage by several large influencers on other platforms, it makes sense to try to accommodate these and improve their new player experience.

However it completely kills the stealth aspect of the game. A large part of the current player base enjoys a rather stealthy approach to plunder the seas.
Sure one could make a case for the realism aspect of the game.

You could say there is no way a man would be able to climb upon the ladders unheard.
Hell they could even say a man would never be able to swim fast enough to catch up to a ship. Overboard was just that, over the board.

It could be argued that most pirates simply bombarded their enemies with cannonfire until they reckoned they could plunder without a care and didn't sneak aboard a ship in order to plunder. But here's the thing, pirates/privateers actually did infiltrate ships in order to enrich themselves.
They'd pose as part of the crew until the moment to strike occurred, then they'd murder part of the sleeping crew and signal their true crew.

Also real life doesn't have nametags.

Signed,

Jellymans

This idea is a good one.

@nightmare247365 So... from what I understand... You want a PVP based game to be more PVE?

@nightmare247365 You sir are a special special boy. For one in real life there's no BLACKBEARD name tag above BLACKBEARD'S head. You'd simply be able to tell it's an intimidating pirate based on various upgrades or the way they act. And If you'd like to be more informed, The pirates weren't afraid of the sea, Don't push your personal qualities on the best pirates of history. Heck your mouth and heck your face.

@onboardchalk673 He's completely right though. Most galleon vs sloop battles are not won because the galleon crew is better, they are won because the galleon crew can just constantly send boarders. I agree name tags could possibly be thwarting pvp, but at the same time boarding is far too easy and common.

This all ties into ship combat not being balanced properly and a host of other small yet significant problems that are going to have to be addressed if the game is going to move forward with rewarding play.

@zep-darkwater Just listen out for people boarding, it makes a very loud sound, it's really not hard. If you need nameplates to win you're bad and that's all there is to it.

@barny64 I didn't say I didn't know how to detect or repel boarders. I said its too easy and it is. There is no naval combat at the moment. A crew in battle on a sloop can't watch both ladders sail the ship and retaliate all while baby sitting a ladder.

Boarding is set up to favor the larger crew thats just math. Boarding should be a viable tactic, but its far too easy atm.
At no point did I say that we needed name tags. In fact I said that they very well could be upsetting pvp. I don't know if you got me confused with someone else or what, but no I'm not fighting to keep name tags in the game. Making assumptions can be a bad thing. If someone were def then they might actually need the name tags to even play. I'm still not supporting name tags just saying.

As for it making a "very loud sound", that's highly dependent on the condition of the ocean.

As someone suggested earlier, simply make them invisible from a distance. Most games that have player names above their heads make them invisible until you're fairly close to them (close enough to actually interact). One game I'm currently playing right now that does this is Just Survive; I'm on an RP server, and nobody can see another person's name until they are roughly 10-15 feet away; even then, we act as if we don't even see it (being RP and all), so even being able to see the name right in front of us, we act as if we're struggling to remember the names. As for the PvP aspect, I'll use the same game as an example (as it is a PvP RP server); we may see someone running around, or trying to hide, etc., but we have no idea who they are until they are close enough to see their name. We may be able to tell by their appearance, but that can always change (though many people choose not to change it). For me, that adds tension to the game, because we don't know if the person approaching us is a known hostile player or not until we can see their name. Also, as someone who thoroughly enjoys going all "Navy SEAL" with powder kegs, it kind of sucks when I think I'm being super-sneaky, only to have someone see my name (which stands out like a beacon against the dark water) and start shooting at me from the deck of their ship, before they can even see ME.

@nightmare247365 Here is a wildly fun fact for you, There is little to no proof of pirates ever existing in real life, So none of these stories matter. Also if we're talking about what the theoretical pirates would and wouldn't do I'm sure it wouldn't be fighting skeletons and selling magical skulls. The fact is that if people want to become immersed in the world of this game seeing things like "Darklord221" above someones head is pretty jarring.