Hey, sorry if something similar has already been suggested, but I bought the game a few days ago after noticing that a fair bit of stuff had been added since I played in the beta, and I got to thinking...
Currently, there's not much benefit in being friendly to other players. You don't have anything to gain from it and the chance of them betraying you (if they don't shoot you on sight) puts you booty at risk. Similarly, other players have no reason to trust you. Just for a bit of fun I've tried approaching players without giving any signs of aggression and their response has almost always been a few cannonballs heading my way. In a few instances they've even been quite friendly over chat, but why should they risk letting me stick around? Better to kill me and be safe. I think this is worsened by the fact that I've noticed a couple of players shouting "We're friendly!" etc and then attacking when I stop to see what they want. Now this is a fair tactic, we're all dastardly pirates after all, but it further decreases the trust between players. And I think this is a shame, because in most online games a lot of fun is to be had from those moments when you get into some shenanigans with random people you find. At the very least it adds a little variety when you meet someone and they don't immediately shoot you.
Now I should quickly point out that PvP is a big part of the game and it should stay that way. A passive/PvE mode would be boring due to the fact that, save from the Gods of RNG throwing a kraken your way, it would just be repeating voyages with no chance of failure to the point of tedium. So I thought that rather than preventing PvP, it would be good if there was a way to encourage players to be more amicable towards each other, but in a way that fits nicely into the game world. One way to get people to work together is to stick them on the same 'team'. In an online game this is akin to herding cats, but give people a reward for doing so and they'll normally play along. For a while at least.
And so this is where the Trading Companies fit in. At the moment they don't really do anything company-like and serve only as quest-givers. So my suggestion is to allow players to join a company, which would entail the following:
- Players can swap companies as much as they like, but with a small fee and/or cooldown to prevent abuse.
- Being part of a company rewards you with a bonus to reputation earned for their voyages, and if in an alliance with a crew from the same company, the share of loot you receive increases. (I.e. All crews receive 100% of the loot value or something similar).
- Being part of a company gives you access to company only items, such as a ship skin, clothing etc to aid identification. Possibly the company flag could show you map position to other members of the company, similar to the way the Reaper's Mask works. These are separate to the current reputation items, and players would only have access to them only while they are in the company.
- Attacking/sinking a ship of the same company would result in being kicked from the company and/or a fine. Players would not be allowed to immediately rejoin the same company, but can do so after joining another company first (Incurring the cooldown in the process).
- Players can attack different companies and people without a company at will.
I think this idea adds a little extra to the game in addition to trying to get people to cooperate a bit more, but doesn't prevent PvP if that's your thing. You can still attack and steal the loot of a same-company ship if you think it outweighs the penalty, and everyone else is fair game. It also doesn't encourage PvP between the companies, so if you're one of the guys who likes to sail about doing your own thing, you can just sign up for a company and theoretically you're safe from 1/3 of the population, the other 2/3 you can treat the same as before.
The idea could possibly be further expanding up with "territorial waters" of sorts, giving each company a section of the map where some AI vessels would patrol, and come to the aid of friendly company vessels under attack. But that's a little far-fetched so I'll leave it for now. If some drawbacks were needed, the Reaper's Mask could be reworked to show all company ships on the map, in addition to revealing itself, to make hunting them easier.
One problem I can see with this suggestion is balancing the players between the companies. The game could balance it on a per-instance basis, mixing players up to ensure a roughly equal distribution (It seems to move me about plenty anyway), but this would be tricky 80% of the playerbase was in a single company. But I would hope that it would be fairly self-moderating, as if a Merchant player was itching for a fight but there only Merchant ships around, they can switch company at any outpost. Or just attack them anyway, using their company as a ruse to get close before attacking. All's fair in love and war, I suppose.
Well I think I've subjected you to a big enough wall of text, if anyone wants to expand upon it or point out some glaring flaw that I've missed feel free!
