With the introduction of the Reaper's Mark, I think it would be cool to have another in-game item that plays with visibility on the map. Enter the "Reaper's Chest" (or "Dead Man's Chest"). This item would be a high-value, exceptionally rare chest (only 1 on a server at any given time).
The Repear's Chest is an ornate chest with a skull on its face. When the chest is picked up (NOT dug up), the eyes light up bright red and can be seen from far away (similar to the reaper's mark) and your crew will receive a notification (similar to an Alliance notification, but much more ominous):
"BEWARE: This treasure is cursed. The location of this chest will be known to all."
Once the chest is activated, it CANNOT be deactivated.
All other players on the server will also receive a notification:
"An ancient evil has awoken..."
The chest's location will be visible at all times (as a Sea of Thieves skull coin on the map) to all players until it is turned in.
Players will be able to use this chest in a lot of different ways to create interesting gameplay scenarios:
- You can race to the nearest outpost and turn it in
- You can use it as bait for a trap
- You can use it to attract other players if you want to engage in PvP
- You can use it to misdirect players. Load up all the skull fort loot then pick up the reaper's chest at the last second, leave it at the skull fort, and sail away. Other players will come to the fort and leave your ship (with all the treasure) alone.
- PvE players can simply leave the chest behind if they don't want to mess with other players, or if they're being pursued and they're scared, just throw the chest overboard. Think of it as a get-out-of-jail-free card.
- The chest could create awesome, multi-ship FFA battles as players fight over it
- Throw it into the red sea and laugh as other players try and get it
- Other things I'm sure I haven't thought of
What do you guys think?
EDIT: Another cool feature for this chest could be a built-in risk/reward mechanic. The longer you hold onto the chest, the more money it is worth. This could be communicated by the eye color of the chest / Skull coin (green, yellow, red). The chest could change eye color every 10 minutes or so and would cap out in value once the eyes turned red (something like green = 1k, yellow = 2k, red = 4k). All players in the game would also receive a notification as the chest value increases:
"The evil power grows..."
This way, the chest would remain in play longer (for those who choose to use it that way), and create more awesome player stories :)
EDIT 2: A couple more things I think could be cool for this chest...
Because the chest will bring a lot of players in close proximity to each other, it's going to be important to know who has the chest at all times. It should really be visually obvious and light up like a Christmas tree. This would also make it very hard for players to hide the chest on random islands, etc.
Finally, it MIGHT be cool for the chest to have special rules while in an Alliance (it might be better without special rules too, I'm not sure). Nothing complicated, but maybe something like this...
If a crew in your Alliance turns the chest in, you will get the turn-in pop-up on your screen as normal, but ONLY receive 1 gold (the crew that turns in gets full credit), not the normal 50%. This would prevent players from just forming one big alliance whenever someone gets the chest. Also, similar to how the Chest of 1000 Grogs and Chest of Sorrows have audio stingers when turned in, the Chest of Endless Greed (my favorite name at the moment), could have an audio stinger where it lets out an evil cackle. I think getting 1 gold while the chest laughs at you would be a nice touch lol, and educate players how it works while in an Alliance.
