Putting the 'Thieves' back in Sea of Thieves

@wilbymagicbear said in Putting the 'Thieves' back in Sea of Thieves:

To encourage piracy, hoarding loot, and actually fighting attackers, I suggest this:

1. As many have suggested, treasure should gain value the longer it's on a ship. This will encourage hoarding loot, which makes the game more exciting for everyone. I'd also like a Golden Flag, which marks you on the map, gives off a brilliant mark, and makes the treasure gain value faster.

I think allowing players to take a higher risk and higher reward would be a nice touch. A nice neutral layer of cause and effect added to enhance the player's choices. But I could see this being abused in full alliance servers where it would not work as intended and would only serve to farm stuff at a higher rate.

2. Ships should drop a nameplate when sunk. The nameplate can be sold to any faction, the amount it's worth is equal to 10 times the total level of everyone on the ship combined. This encourages fighting your attackers, ensures there's always a reward for winning, and it encourages players to attack experinced ships, not new players. It could be absurd though, so some careful balancing is a must.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all about some PvP. But equally I understand that it's not the sole purpose of the game. This particular suggestion I feel gives the player too much encouragement to behave in a hostile way, where the game should actually never influence the way we choose to interact with another player.

The Seas would be wrought with hostility because the game design is telling them to, and also there would be allied ships taking turns sinking eachother to farm nameplates. Giving ships inherent value to being sunk is not a good idea I don't think.

3. Ships leave a wake that makes any other ships that sail into it go 50% faster. This discorgaes running away, and it adds an extra depth to ship combat. Imagine baiting your enemies into smashing into a rock by making them go faster.

But why should a ship be penalized for running away? Again, just as I get to choose to attack another player if I want to, they should be able to choose to make their escape from that conflict if they want and not be penalized for that. It is a Shared World of tools, not rules (or influence)

4. Fix the number of ships per server. It's supposed to be 6, but it's not. It should be 8, what with the Roar, but if there were always 6 ships that would still be good enough. Right now it takes about 45 minutes of searching to find anyone, which is way too long.

I'm not sure about this, maybe once the map gets larger they should look into it, but I think ship count is fine for now.

This whole post makes it sound like you just want everything to fall in favor of PvP. It should not because the game thrives on a balance of unpredictable hostile and friendly player interactions, which should not influenced by the game design in any way.

I would say the same sort of things to someone requesting PvE servers. This game was not marketed as a PvP or PvE only game. It is an unpredictable blend of both.

Any ship sunk should drop some loot, perhaps random loot like a skele ship but based on the average rep le el of the crew. And I like the nameplate idea. But the chase is part of piracy, there is no reason to give a speed advantage to an attacker. Either you can outsail your opponent and deserve the loot or you can't and they do.

@wilbymagicbear Ghost ships have everything you ask for. Drop loot, don't run away and are easy to find. :)

@bumbumbac this is an excellent idea,

Perhaps before leaving port you have to signal what your intentions will be during the event, e.g. Escort Ship or Attacker... and get different Reputation and cosmetic awards based which we choose and succeed at. Would be an Amazing Adventure especially if it is a group of two or three NPCs that are sailing. Would also be nice if the Event wasn’t so frequent... I truly miss the Skull fort hoppers of olde Win Forts were every 3 hours or so and. That had crews hopping servers to find a fort making it almost an endless chain of Galleons on the horizon to defend your fort claim against... it was truly glorious.

I'm with @Chronodusk on their response.

I find that both the nameplate and wake ideas would be not good for the game, and this is coming from a fully pro-Aventure Mode PvP pirate. If you want to guarantee to steal treasure from a ship, you should either scout it or stalk it first so you know is has something worth your time. Introducing systems to simply reward players for blind hostility only does disservice to the game.

The same thing with 'running away'. Players who know they can't compete in a fight or have something serious to lose are of course going to flee and that should always be a plausible option for everyone. Pirates don't need or deserve an in-game system to help them catch ships that are fleeing. They should have to outsail or zone them to catch them. The one thing I can think of that I would like to see them add that could help with a chase is making tacking an actually effective way to sail faster. Right now it doesn't really give a benefit and actually slows you down if you're not flawless at it. Crews that can tack well (whether chasing or fleeing) should be able to sail faster than those who can't. The thing to be careful about is preserving the sloops ability to sail dead upwind faster than the other ships. A well tacking ship should be able to slowly catch up to a ship one size smaller, but a galleon should never be able to gain on a sloop sailing dead upwind and a well tacking sloop should never be out paced dead upwind except by an even better tacking sloop.

The only thing I would possibly disagree with @Chronodusk on is the server ship count. Server resources permitting, I would like to see that upped to 8 on the current map as to increase the rate of player encounters, and then possibly see it increase even further once it expands.

EDIT: Allowing Tall Tale items to be cashed in by thieves for some amount less than the Tall Tale reward (without giving Tale progress or rep) would be a reasonable way to increase the plausibility of piracy

@wilbymagicbear Eunning is boring to you. I think the search for and chase of prey is one of the best parts of the game, and one of the things that is so lacking is arena. You are not obligated to let pve players go, but likewise they are not obligated to stay and fight you. If you wanr them, hunt them. They shouldent be put at a disadvantage just because you don't want to invest the time to capture them.

@wilbymagicbear if you don't think giving a speed boost to a pursuer puts the chase at a disadvantage than I suggest you go look the word up in a dictionary. And they are not obligated to fight you if you can't catch them, so as I said, there is no reason to put them at a disadvantage.

I find that disabling a ship and stealing bait / fish can be quite lucrative.

@wilbymagicbear that's what tacking is supposed to solve and it does it better than some catch-up mechanic that literally forces people to fight. Simply waiting until you are artificially boosted up to the other ship isn't outsailing. Even as things are now, anytime that the wind changes (which should be more often imo) or they have to turn to avoid an island, you have an opportunity to gain on them or zone them out.

@wilbymagicbear not only is it less organic than tacking, but it also puts the emphasis on the fleeing crew to outsail the pursuing crew. And beyond that, the ability to use it defensively relies on the attacking crew making a rather rookie mistake. It's actually detrimental (allowing the attackers to gain distance) unless the attackers make that mistake. That emphasis should be reversed. If an attacker crew wasn't able to produce a favorable initiation or otherwise prevent the fleeing crew from taking off, then it should be on them to salvage the situation.

@wilbymagicbear right, because going in a streight line isnt outsailing them. Attack from a direction in which you will have the wind advantage. Tack for a speed advantage before resuming course. Attack from a direction where they wont have much room to run, or where they will have to eun past you if they want to get to an outpost. Cut closer to rocks and islands than they do. Pay better attention to keeping your sails trimmed than they do. I have never ran into another crew where one or the other of us were not better sailers. If you are just pointing your ship at them and waiting to catch up of course you are not outsailing them. And if you want a fight without a chase that us pretty much the only thing Arena is good for, so go there. But there is no reason to screw up the hunter/hunted balance just because it dosen't suit your interest or attention span.

i like your first concept in the case that it is optional and voids out pvp from pve to certain areas of the map, like skull forts where you are more likely to meet another crew. this is only in the case that all ships do not passively have their loot rewards increase for hoarding. rather, loot rewards only increase when the flag is equipped, which would be a nice addition for the reapers mark.

but players have a role of just being one of the many encounters of the game in adventure mode. there is nothing saying that one needs to hunt other players and there is nothing that says how often you should encounter these players. there is no guaranteed reward for winning fights and there is no in-game achievements for doing so. the game just reminds you that players are forever present and that they have as much freedom as you do in the world.

this is just one of the core aspects of adventure mode. its just easier to call it "PvP" than what i have just explained.

@wilbymagicbear said in Putting the 'Thieves' back in Sea of Thieves:

@mysticdragon297 Sure, but my and many others play style is getting obliterated. It's not fun to spend north of an hour finding and chasing down some people to have a 2 minute fight and find out they had nothing. It makes me want to stop playing.

if you want to spend many minuets chasing other players, than that is on your time. if other players want to spend theirs finding treasure, defeating monsters, sinking skeleton ships, trading goods, or simply explore, that is on their time.

its called sea of thieves, but why do you think they called it adventure mode? maybe its just not you mode.

@wilbymagicbear said in Putting the 'Thieves' back in Sea of Thieves:

@triheadedmonkey Exactly. If I were chasing you, we would both be bored. That's a system in need of improvement.

It's only in need of improvement if you are the "chaser" not the "chasee." Your presumption is that you must have a way to catch a ship that has already out-sailed you and is rightfully getting away. But that wouldn't be fair to crews who competently avoid pursuers. As it stands, a ship with a competent crew can get away from a pursuer, as long as they don't make any mistakes and nothing goes unexpectedly wrong (kraken, meg, etc.). Likewise, a pursuer can almost always catch a less experienced crew that makes mistakes. Escape must always be possible. It should never be a foregone conclusion that if you pursue a vessel long enough you'll eventually catch them. That would tip the game in favor of the pursuer.

There's already plenty of strategy involved in these types of chases. It's already possible to outmaneuver pursuers and run them aground, without adding any type of wake mechanic. And since the Anniversary Update, you already have new tools at your disposal, like the harpoon guns. The new ship damage system can also be used to advantage (by either party).

I think the game is fairly well balanced already. If anything, I think it may be tipped a bit in favor of the PvP-oriented folks, since most players don't have the skills needed to avoid them.

I think your ideas are creative and well-intended, but I don't think they're needed.

@wilbymagicbear you are correct that there should be some form of loot dropped from every ship.