The forum seems to contain a lot of suggestions, I don't know if the following already has been suggested...
People are complaining about being killed by people without wanting to engage in PvP battles. They try to make it clear by pointing the ship cannons up, flashing the lights, playing music and jumping around, but they still get blown up or grieved.
To halt this, a classes system could benefit both parties: those who want to engage in PvP and those who just want to sail in peace and mind their own business.
At the same time this would fill in multiple hugely popular demands on this forum: more ships, ship customization and more activities in the game.
Here are the classes:
- Merchants
- Pirates
- Adventurers
-
Merchant class: They can buy goods at a certain price from NPC's on any island, stock them in their ship and go sell them on a different island for a higher price. They can also buy ship equipment at a lower price from NPC's on any given island and can sell them at a negotiable price, or gift them to Adventurers. Since they get huge profit from sales, money is not an immediate issue for them.
-
Pirate class: They enjoy harassing other ships. They can't stand the friendliness and the positive atmosphere some players are bringing to the seas. They have to be sent to the bottom of the ocean, but not before the Pirates can steal anything valuable off their ships. If they manage to loot from other players, they can sell this on the black markets, located on dedicated Pirate islands (Skeleton fortresses maybe?). However... If a Pirate attacks a Merchant or an Adventurer, he becomes notorious and is visible on the map for any other Adventurer and Merchant on the server. This means he can be hunted, or avoided. If a Pirate is notorious, he is not welcome on any island other than Pirate islands, however he can sneak onto other islands during the nights when guards are sleeping. When a Pirate is caught on an island by the guards, he is sent to the brig for a given amount of time, or he needs to pay bail. When a Pirate doesn't have the notorious status, he cannot be attacked by an Adventurer. If an Adventurer chooses to attack a non-notorious Pirate, this Adventurer becomes visible to all Pirates on the server.
-
Adventurer class: They are the guardians of the seas. They can be paid by merchants to escort them on trips, protecting them from any possible threat. This includes player Pirates, skeletons on islands, ... . When not escorting Merchants, they can check a bulletin board on the islands if there are notorious pirates on the server. Should they choose so, they can hunt down the Pirates and punish them for their committed crimes.
All three classes can also choose to do voyages like we can do today. For example: If someone chooses to be a Pirate but doesn't attack anyone, he cannot be attacked by Adventurers since he is not Notorious. This Pirate then can just go on and complete voyages.
Every class starts with a basic ship customized to their class:
- Merchant has a rather slow ship with lots of cargo space and 1 cannon on either side. The valuable goods are locked behind a door that can only be opened by the Merchant crew. This door however can be destroyed by Pirates, in case they succeed in boarding the ship.
- Pirate has a rather fast, agile but weak ship with a few cannons and better possibilities to board other ships
- Adventurer has a ship with medium speed and quite agile, but when well coordinated by the crew, they can keep up with any pirate ship however they are never faster than Pirates. Their hull is very strong, enabling the Adventurer to protect the Merchant by sailing between him and the Pirate. The adventurer also has the most cannons on board, enabling them to do a lot of burst damage to scare off Pirates.
All three classes can buy different ships, but only within their own chosen class. These ships, no matter how expensive or which level, always have the same advantages and disadvantages relative to other classes' ships.
Any suggestions, remarks or additions are welcome.
Hopefully a @Rare-Employee could take this kind of thing into consideration.
@OpticalMatrix & @khaleesibot I see you are fairly active on the forum. It would be nice just to know a Rare employee noticed this post since a lot of new topics are made, reducing visibility of any and all suggestions..
