Rowboats are useless.

  • Capt Bubba Joe
    Master
    Insider

    Maybe I'm in the minority, but I don't see myself ever using them.

    There's no point in using them on normal islands, as there's no risk to just pulling up right next to the island. In order to effectively use them on the volcano islands, you would have to park far away, outside of cannon range. Meaning that if you take the rowboat over and die there's no convenient way to get back to the island.

    They are also very awkward to drive. If the rowboat is facing towards the beach then it takes forever to get it turned around back towards your boat. Similarly, it can be very difficult to connect the boat to your ship given how difficult it is to position your self correctly. I've tried using the brakes but it doesn't seem to change how wide the turn radius is.

    Finally, the rowboats are way too fragile. I row all the way over to an island and place all my loot on the rowboat to keep my ship safe, but then the rowboat just gets destroyed by the island as soon as a rock or a geyser hits it. And there's no way to repair it with planks. It defeats the point of using a rowboat as now I'm going to have to sail my ship over.

    With all of these difficulties, it's easier and takes less time to just get up and close to the volcano islands with your ship, rendering the rowboats useless. The volcanoes give plenty of warning to get the hell out of there. If you leave one person on the ship ready to hightail it you shouldn't have a problem.

    In order to make the rowboats practical, Rare should increase their hitpoints or add the ability to repair them with planks, improve their maneuverability, and create some way of spawning at them. Otherwise, I don't see myself ever bothering with them.

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  • MarsMayflower
    Captain
    Insider

    i can see using one at night to sneak on to someone else's ship to steal their loot.

  • Kondrites
    Marauder

    @capn-scourge They are not for everyone and can see the frustration, but I love these things. I use it a lot after I got use to it for loading up stuff on the normal islands and have used it to get to 5 active volcanoes now without getting hit yet.
    I know my time will come but so far so good, I just keep it a couple feet away from the beach and can still run up to it and dump cargo into it. Just takes a little practice.

  • spyderhat
    Marauder

    I had a scenario where the rowboat saved my play session. I had a small amount of time to play so I collected some loot and had found 2 chests of sorrow. I kept the chests of sorrow on the rowboat in the back to keep from filling up the sloop. Then a megaladon decided it was time for lunch and went to work on me. One bite and I had to repair the hull. Then suddenly it came from behind and took a giant bite and now there were too many holes in my sloop. I don’t know how it happened but I realized the sloop was a goner. Panic set in as the sloop began sinking. This was my first time sinking with a rowboat attached. When I popped up from underwater there she was ... a beautiful floating rowboat with the 2 chests of sorrow safely aboard. My other loot popped out of the water, I loaded up the rowboat and rowed rowed rowed my boat gently to the outpost to turn in my loot. It was an awesome moment. The rowboat is not useless =)

  • Strinder
    Master
    Insider

    Spyderhat has the idea. A rowboat is of marginal usefulness in normal play to me... but as a lifeboat, it is invaluable and can save your bacon.

    Pro Tip: Using a rowboat during a skeleton ship battle will let you get the loot from all the ships you sink while still having the rest of the crew fight the ship.

  • ENF0RCER
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    @capn-scourge I wouldn't go as far as saying their useless their useful ness in the Devil Roar is undermind due to some poor design choices as they were made both disposible and a limited resource. I agree it would be best to have made them repairable like every other ship in the game as well as made them a bi sturdier with some kind of rope or theather system to be able to retrive your your rowboat from an active volcano. The other poor design flaw was the clunky push mechnic. A more reboust grab and drag mechnic would solve alot of issues. Also rowboats should only be lost if sunk in water giving a reason to beach your rowboat as it could always be repaired.

  • CreepingDeathBK
    Marauder

    How about if we could choose to spawn on the ship or the rowboat when we die?Then if we parked the ship out of volcano range, we could spawn in the rowboat and not have to swim back to the island in the hot water that slowly kills us.

  • Slave2theSAvE
    Master
    Insider

    I saw an excellent use of the rowboat by one member in my community.

    He rowed up behind a sloop with gunpowder on board, docked to the back of it, ran inside the sloop and detonated the gunpowder, loaded the rowboat with their treasure and waved goodbye as it sank.

    Fantastic use of the rowboat.

  • Strinder
    Master
    Insider

    @creepingdeathbk That... is actually a good idea assuming that the "ownership" of a rowboat is tracked somehow in the game for some reason. Bravo.

  • IcarusInundated
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    Rowboats are so excellent tou just gotta embrace them and get creative.

    Me and a friend has a nice session of SoT and were just chilling then we decided to hope in a row boat and just row around talking. We went all the way from Liars backbone to the big island in the top left of map (smugglers bay?) Took us like an hour but along the way we stoped at a few islands finished a riddle quest. We braved through a storm in that little rowboat and when we were nearly done we stopped at sanctuary outpost and sunk 2 sloops that were coming back from a skelly fort took their loot and turned it in. It was a crazy experience surviving and navigating the world of sea of thieves in just a rowboat. Barebones adventuring. No map no cannons or sails. Only one life. Only can get ammo from finding it on islands or bording enemy ships.

    We had such a good time and laughed our butts off after we took out those sloops. It was such an adventure and i will never forget it. Officially made the rowboat one of my favorite additions to the game.

  • daantjebNL

    yeh they are a gimmick but a fun addition.
    can't argue with a addition to the game..i think tge game is a 100% back on track and i love it again.

  • FishSt1ck
    Master
    Insider
    Boatswain
    Founder

    @Capn-Scourge
    I disagee, the rowboat definitely has it's uses. We use it to:

    • Gather all the resources from floating barrels or even on specific parts on an island
    • Split up the crew for seperate tasks like looting a sunken ship while the rest does something else
    • Pick up treasures from skelly ship battles
    • Recover our own treasures when our ship went under
    • Quickly unload all the treasures at an outpost without the back and forth climbing on the ship
    • Have rowboat races with the crew or other ways to fool around with them

    The only thing we actually hardly use them for is for "safe" passage to the Devil's Roar islands as they're just slow and vulnerable. So we prefer just having the ship closer.

    The controls aren't even that bad. You can turn the camera all the way around and you have 2 buttons to move the left and right oar and 2 buttons to brake with the left or right oar. Using the right combination of braking and going forward makes turns a lot easier.

    @strinder said in Rowboats are useless.:

    @creepingdeathbk That... is actually a good idea assuming that the "ownership" of a rowboat is tracked somehow in the game for some reason. Bravo.

    Even if the ownership is tracked, it would be too easy to abuse. You could hide your rowboat to have infinite respawns on a skullfort without having the need of keeping your ship afloat or you can basically spawn your entire crew onto the back of an enemy ship after you attached it to theirs and continue spawning their as there's no easy way for them to destroy it.

    Spawning on player controlled locations apart from your ship that's clearly visible is just bound to be abused, the added ease of use it'll give doesn't outweigh the problems it'll cause.

  • Genuine Heather
    Captain
    Insider

    I've gotten quite a bit of use out of them.

  • Tedakin
    Lord
    Insider
    Founder

    I thought they were useless, but now I love them. We unloaded our entire boat full of treasure way faster with a rowboat because we were able to beach it right next to the gold hoarder and order of souls tents. Also the fact that if you have one and your boat sinks you can save all of your booty is nice.

  • Da German420
    Legend
    Insider
    Founder

    it can be usefull for merchant voyages,the best thing to do is takin down skelliships with the rowboat,skellis dont aim the rowboat with cannons.but ye in the most cases on the old isles bringing the chests to the rowboat ,n then row to your ship isnt faster ,i takes longer.

  • Goedecke Michel
    Marauder

    @spyderhat nice story with the chests of sorrow on the rowboat. Will try that but doubt it, as the chest filled our sloop even if as it was dropped just next to our sloop, in a greater distance then the rowboat will be.

  • Kunda
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    I use them a lot...
    To carry a lot of resource to and from the boat
    To load and unload chests
    To reach islands in Devil's Roar during a volcano explosion
    To save my precious when the boat sink
    To infiltrate in other ships
    To talk with another crew mantaining the ships at a safe distance
    And so on...

  • One Eye Ethan
    Marauder
    Insider

    I can't even tell you how many times I load a keg onto that thing and pretend to just drive the ship by someone. Especially works on skelly forts.

  • Qui3tCool
    Master
    Insider

    Rowboats are not useless as several posters here have listed. They are flawed being a disposable resource. A sneeze can sink one. They are a bit of a gimmick, but a fun one. They are not a requirement in the Devil’s Roar as it was implied.

    It would have been better to make them more durable by making them steadier and repairable. Should have just included them as a standard part of the ship when it set sail. Then they could match the ship’s hull. Could still have rowboats scattered about to replace them when destroyed. The mechanics could be smoothed out more.

    Rowboats belong in the game. There are many uses for them, especially when creative. Good for immersion and playing the pirate life. Just need to be able stick around longer to get more out of them.

  • Lord Spark 0
    Commander
    Insider

    Rowboats can be useful in a skull ship event.

    We sunk twice doing it solo on a brig and we managed to get all the loot from every single ship because of the rowboat.

    Heck even right after the event a kraken came and sank us. But our rowboat survived. We couldn't have done that without the rowboat.

    So find uses for it. Sneak on to ships. Be careful with them in the Roar.

  • xBluezy
    Master
    Insider

    I used a rowboat last night to sneak onto a sloop that was busy doing OOS quests in the Devil's Roar. It is very easy to do because they don't see your mast and sail approaching in the distance. I literally rowed up to the sloop, docked and unloaded all of their cargo onto my rowboat, then undocked and hightailed.
    They never knew I was there. They were probably just noobs who were very unaware but it worked lol.

  • spyderhat
    Marauder

    @goedecke-michel let me know what happens. My sloop wasn’t getting filled when the chests were crying but the megaladon attacked so fast that I’m not 100% sure to be honest.

  • IOnEI Falcon
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Moderator
    Founder
    Deckhand

    I have been loving them. I have found them most useful when our main ship sinks and we are in the middle of our ocean with a bunch of floating treasure. Before it would be a hassle not to be killed by sharks as we wait for a crew mate to return and load up the treasure. Now we can just load it all into the rowboat and be much safer while not having to worry about sinking treasure.

    Also, not sure if people know this but you can hold left or right bumper while peddling with the opposite trigger for tighter turns in the rowboat.

  • NikInJapan
    Master
    Insider

    When I solo merchant voyages I always use the rowboat to carry all the pigs, when they squeal you can just turn and feed them rather than worrying about getting back to the ship in time in case they’re getting hungry again.

  • Goedecke Michel
    Marauder

    @spyderhat the chest of sorrows immediately filled the boat, therefore it will not do the trick.

  • Goedecke Michel
    Marauder

    @jonaldinho how sneaky and evil you are! And they haven't heard your squeaky oars? I am impressed. Cheers!

  • xxX1RA1Xxx
    Marauder
    Insider

    The funny but sad at the same time thing is that there was a lot of hype for these simple rowboats.

  • xxX1RA1Xxx
    Marauder
    Insider

    @personalc0ffee dijo en Rowboats are useless.:

    Rowboats are vitally useful.

    They are a new mechanic.

    They are not bad but people acted like if these things would actually evolve the game

  • xxX1RA1Xxx
    Marauder
    Insider

    @personalc0ffee dijo en Rowboats are useless.:

    @xxx1ra1xxx said in Rowboats are useless.:

    @personalc0ffee dijo en Rowboats are useless.:

    Rowboats are vitally useful.

    They are a new mechanic.

    They are not bad but people acted like if these things would actually evolve the game

    The rowboats are vitally useful for so many scenarios, not just evasiion but also treasure boating, etc but perhaps one needs to evolve their mindset, first.

    Before continuing, I want to thank you for the last thing you said as it made me laugh real good. Well, I like the rowboats, but what I mean is that this should be treated like a simple and easy to develop feature. But what it disappoints me is that I think for devs rowboats is like a giant feature which is worth it to wait for months. Rowboats are good, but sadly, is a small feature that gets treated like a big one.

  • Genuine Heather
    Captain
    Insider

    @personalc0ffee

    I hid my ship behind an island one night and did a bunch of voyages in a rowboat. It was fun and felt really "piratey." Of course, I picked islands that were close together and not far from an outpost. I learned a few things along the way. One of the big advantages of a rowboat is it can go pretty much unnoticed on the seas. You can carry around plenty of supplies, along with yourself and your loot. Unloading at the outpost was stress-free, since my ship was anchored far away and out of sight.

    Last night my crew and I used the rowboat to attack skeleton ships, hauling a few kegs of gunpowder over. It also let us pick up some extra loot from the sinking ships.

    I wish the rowboat had an ammo chest for dealing with pesky skeletons while adventuring. Being able to use a compass or telescope while seated would be useful, as well. Sometimes rowing can be a bit wonky. I wish it were possible to return to your rowboat instead of your ship when you die. But the worst fate for rowboats is the dreaded server merge. If you leave your rowboat unattended, a server merge can make it vanish. We lost some loot that way.

    So clearly there's room for improvement. But overall rowboats are great and welcome additions to the game, and anything but useless.

  • VmasterRecon
    Marauder

    I have to disagree that the rowboat is useless. Whilst we were restocking the sloop, my wife loaded the rowboat with a gunpowder barrel and rowed to where the cursed ship was (skeletons don't attack the rowboats) and successfully climbed aboard and detonated the barrel she was holding.

    Another time, whilst doing a fort raid, she parked the sloop just out of range of the towers cannon fire and I rowed to the towers to neutralize them. Once all the skeletons had been taken care of she brought the sloop safely to the towers without getting pelted by cannonballs.

  • spyderhat
    Marauder

    @goedecke-michel thanks mate. Appears I wasn’t playing close attention. And when the megaladon attacked I must have already had water flooding below deck hence the super fast sinking after the shark bite. Makes sense now.

  • Friedwilly
    Commander
    Insider

    My first use of the rowboat was frustrating and I was not a fan.

    One shall never give up and always seek experience through diversity.

    With that said, I have become very efficient with the rowboat. If I am in a crew, I always get stuck as the rowboat pilot because I have become so skilled at navigating the rowboat.

  • Uhndeth
    Marauder

    Having a rowboat is also helpful for emptying barrels and sunken ships at sea for supplies. Simply have one person drop off the back with the rowboat, fill up, and meet you at your next destination
    It also speeds up turn-ins by a large margin. You can load up all your treasure and beach it much closer to the vendors. You can even have someone, again, drop off on their own as you sail on

  • Taaaamas
    Legend
    Boatswain

    i find them VERY useful for cargo runs, you cant get to close to islands to get or drop off silks because then bottles with smash, and if your too far away, bottles are safe but with a rowboat you can transport things like those silks in prime condition to the island

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