@captain-kyi Very nice post. Your opening premise is similar to one i proposed for given loot more gamplay value. However a few sunggestion you mad like having skelly spawn on player ship might prove difficult. Anyway would you like yor post to be added to the Community Idea's Master List? I am glad to here that you were inspired by other post to write down your idea's i hope your post will inspire others to do the same.

@captain-kyi said in Scholars of Curses - New Trading Company / Loot Concept:

@enf0rcer I'm glad you liked some of my ideas, I'm new to the forums (and reddit), I decided to go on them after Shrouded Spoils as I was a huge fan of the update, and wanted to see what others were saying. That was then when I realised players were sharing their ideas and I had a few of my own. Rather than post the odd things I wanted to see how ideas could be written as a content update so held off posting. Now I have a book with about 4 "updates" I'm working on, however I imagine some ideas other have already thought of.

I'm gald to here that and Welcome to the forums i await to see the rest of your idea's which is why i Created the Master List in the frist place as i to am working on an idea of adding a Loot Hoarding Objective to the game in the format of a Content Update which is called Rogue Wave. Which is my project i been working on for a while and is still in development.
Infact i have an entire catorgory on the Master dedicated to such post. If you wish to have any of your update post listed simply add a link to the post as a reply to the Master List.

As for the skelly spawn on ship idea, I know yourself and @Galactic-Geek said this might be difficult. I guess as a primarily solo player I didn't really think about the human element in play. The way I imagined them working wasn't a constant horde. But one every now and then, (scaled depending on crew size). The spawn is would be indicated kind of like the chest is charging up (my idea was the chest had something that looked like a villainous skull on it, that glowed brighter closer to spawn).

While gamebalance is a Factor as @Galactic-Geek pointed out. My issue lies more with the technical limitation that would have to be overcome to do such things. one issue that comes to mind would be how this would effect server merging and respawning as the ship is the center element to both these systems.

The spawn could then be hindered by the player, for example Chest of Bones (renamed) can be shot at, Thorns slashed, Nightmares shone upon, Midas I wasn't to sure as water effects the chest itself. But that way delegating another pirate to check the chests will hinder spawns.

Regardless if you can interrupt the spawn it's taking up resourses.

Mechanically I thought if the skellys have been programmed to be able to wonder their ships they might be able to get the similar treatment on ships they spawn on. Also there could be a max skelly spawn limit, and possibly no spawning unless a player is on the ship. (Although thought it would interesting if they could use your cannons and it could kind of be a defense for solo players who leave their ship)

Well a limit would have to be imposed purely based on the limits of memory and how many objects can be drawn and tracked on screen at once in a small enviroment.

@captain-kyi Your post has been added to the Master List under Cat 1. Thankyou for your contribution. Any further updates to this post or future request please annonce them with a link and info as a reply to the Master List post.

@captain-kyi Great update I like some of the changes however i do see some issues.

The Chest of bones- Due to the fact that chest are counted as static objects in the game physics engine they lact the ability to move on there own as they become one with the ground. However it's if they could get it to work it be a very fun chest.

The Chest of nightmares - Agian it's a great concept but all lights in the game are static meaning they are ethier on of off. They could do more dynamic lighting be this would consume alot of resources.

Skull of Curses - While i like where this idea is going i see many issue with balancing. Also you have to elaborate a bit futher on how a cannonball is consumed and how a player extracts the CCB.

Create of Lost Maps and Travellers beacon both need to be explianed a bit more for me to make a proper assessment of them.

Otherwise all other idea's are great and are quite creative. Keep up the good work and feel free to post your updates as a reply to the Master List.

@ultmateragnarok said in Scholars of Curses - New Trading Company / Loot Concept:

@captain-kyi
@ENF0RCER @Galactic-Geek

It being a less powerful form of hallucinations (or really a form with a consciously changed purpose) is a good thing, as the full hallucination effect I made is a bit extreme in some respects. (side note: The Orb of Confusion also uses specialized effects of hallucination [I assume])

I like these new chest ideas, although a skeleton spawner would be nice to see (to me at least) as an incredibly rare drop from a skeleton captain, or even possibly at strongholds or skeleton fleet battles. Having skeleton spawners is not necessarily a bad thing if balanced properly, but several common types of skeleton spawners is not going to be taken well by the community.

I would really like to see these chests, crates and trinkets effects on skeleton ships as well (the Chest of Nightmares could just decrease accuracy and awareness alongside dousing the lights), similar to the Chest of Sorrow. They could also make for a very interesting PvP aspect alongside the PvE.

Some good idea's here as i said before i would also like to see skelliton spawners but i simply don't think it's technicaly feaseable and would cause many issues. Althou i do see many PvP oportunities with these idea's.

@ultmateragnarok said in Scholars of Curses - New Trading Company / Loot Concept:

@enf0rcer
@Captain-Kyi @Galactic-Geek

I'm not saying there should be all of these random skeleton spawning chests at every turn, but instead a very rare skull which could do it (the skull version of a cursed chest). There are also many PvP ideas to be had.

It doesn't if you spawn on or a dozen the act of adding a moveable spawn point on top of another moveable spawn point is a recipe for trouble. Not to mention all conflicts with other systems such as migration. I not agians't the idea in theory gamplay wise, but as a technical nightmare for very little gain. Not to metion the fact how to program the A.I pathing from a random starting point.

The Chest of Nightmares would douse the lights of the ship and then apply dimming only to pirates (skeletons too?). A crawling chest would just be one which shifts position repeatedly and has an animation to do so. It may be difficult to pick up though.

If it simply applies a status effect to player vision and a blind debuff to NPCs then i have no issue with the nighmare chest. The crawling chest however still posses an issue as if the object merely telports to a location and then an animation plays to make it appear it has moved comes with it's own set of issues.

The Skull of Curses was partially elaborated on, it takes from barrels and inventories, leaving at most 10 cannonballs alone (may need to be altered based on how many were there to begin with to prevent being unable to do damage). I assume the cannonball is stored either in the skull or back in the inventory which it was taken from.

Thankyou for further clarifying. I see a minor issue with the skull taking the CBs straight from the barrel as it is a multilayer contianer which refreshes a list upon opening this may effect player being able to access the barrel if not outright crashing the client. As we already had happen. There is also a balancing issue at play here. Thats more of a issue with CCbs then the skull though.

@ultmateragnarok said in Scholars of Curses - New Trading Company / Loot Concept:

@enf0rcer
@Captain-Kyi

Movement shouldn't bee too difficult for the ships (it's quite a simple movement map on the skeleton ships), and would add skeleton boarding as a future option. Spawning on a mobile point works for the skeleton ships already after all. As for server migrations, they should just keep the amount on board recorded and spawn them immediately.

The reason why it works on skelliton ships is because they are all scripted as the encounter can happens under controled conditions which do not change much. The spawn zones a rates are set in place where as a object base spawn mechanic where the zone for spwaning is a set radius around the object causes issues as the system would need a large set of rules on how and when to spawn a skellition that is always changing so the system would constantly have to make checks on all those conditions. I am not saying it can't be done it would just be a major feat to tackle programming wise.

The Chest of Bone's issues would be picking it up and some issues with ship movement I assume, but they could be fixed pretty easily mostly. For instance, moving the pickup point and hitbox for the chest with the model without moving the chest itself.

I dont know what you mean by this. If the chest movement is handled by the physics engine then it would have to be made a dynamic object which is completly out of line with the rest of the loot. If you merely want to fake the movement then animation clipping thru the ship is only a minor concern the real diffculty would be cordinate mapping. Unless the chest itself has set location where it appears on the ship which mean points will have to be added to all shiptypes. Agian this all could be done but the concern is how it will effect all other systems as most of the major gamplay elements are tied directly to players ships. So having to edit and add mechnics to the ships theselves becomes a tricky propersition.

The issues with cursed cannonballs are the reason for my suggestion of the skull leaving an amount proportional to the original amount. Crashes could be an issue, but there would probably be a fix. Rare is good at working out these things.

I'm sure it could be work out I'm intrigued in adding such features as it does open up more avenues for unique gameplay experiences. This however would need to be throughly tested and tweaked as it also greatly impacts the current gamplay META.

@captain-kyi said in Scholars of Curses - New Trading Company / Loot Concept:

@enf0rcer @UltmateRagnarok hello again, sorry for long response. To clarify and adjust some things so they could possibly work.

Chest of Bones

Currently objects have 3 states if I'm correct, static, being carried and floating in water. To keep these rules in mind, when the chest is in land it will be able to change into a "being carried" state. Like a reverse of gunpowder skellies. This in itself acts as a mob that runs away from the players needing to be shot to stop.

Thats not completly accurate to say they have 3 different states. They are still static objects no matter where they are as they are not subjective to the physic engine. There merely objects that hold different properties depending on the context there in. It is not the chest that moves it is the object the loot connects to that is whats moving. The player moves. The Npcs move and the water moves. When it on land or the deck of a ship it doesn't move cause the land and deck don't move. However when they are in the sunken state they get the added property to move up or down. So they can move in a single direction and made to stop. This is part of corrdinate maping. You can have a object travel to simulate things such as gravity but you need to have that prescripted. Meaning you have to account for all varibles. Since this chest would be in different spots on the deck when drop there would be no way to script pathing on the ship without being able to control the starting point. Not to mention having any kind of collision detection while its moving as this also would invole the use of the physic engine.

Similarly a floating state has been proven the objects have physics that allow them to move on X, Z axis (there's a video of people stacking loot and them knocking each other away). When the chest is in water it has the ability to "swim away" where again it will try run from the player.

This is do to the fact that the water is tied to the physic engine and to give the object the ablity to move in a single direction and stop is real easy. But no loot has no collision zones in water. They do not have them at all.

Finally when the chest is on the ship to save complications with movement and tracking (like the skellies would've had). It is static but occasionally attacks the player and parts of the ship it can reach.

This is perfectly fine.

Chest of Nightmares

The lanterns on the ship don't dim they'll change from on to off. The effect on the player will be similar to that of Kraken ink, but slowly getting more intense until the player is far enough from the chest or has lit it.

So the lights get turned off and while your in the dark your Character has a DoT status effect applied? Did i understand that correctly? Thats is an interesting idea if that is the case.

Skull of Curses

How exactly do crates work when multiple players are looking in them? Or is that not a thing? As mentioned I play solo so don't have a clue. If the case is this then it could be it only consumes balls in players inventory. This would stop players keeping all their cursed balls in their invent as well.

Barrels are a set of stack contianers with a object list. When you open one your client system sends a request to the server to ask for that list and to make adjustments. Multiple player can access the same barrel simultaneously. Having and object that or manipulate supplies in the barrel will need to be controled by the server. This may prevent a client from acessing a server for a request which will lead to a client disconnect or crash as the client would not know what to do. This could be done but it's a server side issue.

I hope this clearfies a few things. Although i do not have access to the source code so i can't say for certian what can or can't be done. These are just my technical concerns based on eduated guess from the information released so far as well as personal testing and basic game design knowlage.

@ultmateragnarok said in Scholars of Curses - New Trading Company / Loot Concept:

@enf0rcer
@Captain-Kyi

Chests move up and down to stay level with the waves (they seem to be locked to the bit of water they are considered to be floating on). They get locked to the ship and land in the same way, which is why they can get stuck on slopes pirates cannot climb. They are simply removed from being attached to the water when they sink, and then slowly drift down. Giving a chest pathing similar to skeletons on ships (which is the closest example) should be easy, as the skeletons can go to the cannons, or the player, or the helm, or holes in the hull when in random areas on the ship. A chest like this should be able to do the same, just not pathing to holes or cannons and instead to staircases and spots on deck. It would account for all variables by clipping through other placed items like everything else, stopping in the event of sinking, and some other things such as attacks. It would stay locked to the ship, just shifting to different spots on board rather than using collision detection or whatever else it could do.

Your partially correct the loot does indeed get locked to a section of the surface of the water when floating. However when the loot is in the sinking state it does move up and down to till it meets and endpoint. You can see this happen at certian times after a migration has happened as it causes loot to float striaght up into the sky as it failed to detect it's endpoint. Which means the loot was set on a vector till it hit somthing.

I would say that the barrels could be used like that by just kicking you out of the interface when it takes the cannonball and putting you back into it when it is gone (showing a fake interface when it switches). It probably could be done better, but that is one possible solutions (unless you take something as soon as it kicks you out, but things like taking damage should already work in that way).

@captain-kyi said in Scholars of Curses - New Trading Company / Loot Concept:

@codgush66 said in Scholars of Curses - New Trading Company / Loot Concept:

Also, we should be able to purchase crates of resources instead of spending endless hours obtaining them

I used to think this was a good idea, but then it breaks one of the first rules of Sea of Thieves, all players have equal advantage. And shouldn't be able to buy an advantage in anyway.

@ENF0RCER I can't find the exact clip but I'll try replicate it at some point. Gunpowder barrels have different properties compared to other loot in water (saw this in a YT vid). When you place a barrel on top of another barrel they will actually move along the X+Z axis with true floating properties.

I belive the clip you were refering to was part of a tech demo and has since been removed if it ever made it to release at all. Collision detection meshes however kegs do indeed detect the haul of a ship. So yes some loot does have individual properties. But what you suggest for your chest to achive the effect you frist laid out required alot of A.I. Scripting for both pathing and obeject detection. This would be alot to have happen on the ship when so much is already going on. There is alot of ways things could go horribly wrong. I'm not saying your idea is bad or it's impossible to do but rather it's a lot of work with high risk for very little gain. As it require a lot of technical issues that would have to be addressed. They already made alot of cuts to the physX to save on performence like the dynamic splashing of water on the front and sides of the ships.

@ultmateragnarok said in Scholars of Curses - New Trading Company / Loot Concept:

@enf0rcer

There are many video clips of gunpowder kegs doing this. I saw it in a stream by Hitbotc about two weeks ago, in various sinking ships in PvP videos, and even my own experiences battling the skeleton fleets, ranging from Cursed Sails to now.

I use GPs all the time i never once had them collide with eachother. I can see how they might appear to collide by the way the water makes them move but they don't. Recently GB gained the ablity to disperce in the water. This happens when you have GP on a boat that sinks but other then that there's interaction with collision. Although i belive that 2 objects cannot share the same spot on the water as i never seen loot stacked on the Ocean surface. I'm not sure about this though but could explian why they would appear to collide.

@ultmateragnarok said in Scholars of Curses - New Trading Company / Loot Concept:

@enf0rcer

I don't mean gunpowder kegs appearing to drift into each other when being placed nearby, I mean things such as when two kegs are placed inside of each other (the stream had that, they were blowing up a mermaid statue), but mostly when a ship sinks and they fall out of the crows nest. The barrels then disperse somewhat, creating quite an effective non chain reacting minefield.

Oh sorry if i miss understood your post. You are indeed correct sir. I think this is more of a glitch with the physX engine then an intend effect as i don't belive it can account for 2 objects on the same surface of water.

@ultmateragnarok said in Scholars of Curses - New Trading Company / Loot Concept:

@enf0rcer

I wasn't too clear, so that's understandable. I'll try to explain what I mean next time something like this arises (which it surely will).

It fine its sometimes hard to keep track of the context of each post in these long threads. But i belive that when the 2 GP are inside eachother there movement is more of a glitch then an intened effect do to the limitations of the PhysX engine.

CC: @Captain-Kyi