The Brig : How to make it useful and give it importance in gameplay (POLL into some ideas)

  • Hello there !

    I already made different threads to talk about Skeleton Fort or the Merchant Alliance voyages.

    Today I wanted to talk about something which make people debate for a long time now : the Brig.

    Since the beginning of the game, the Brig is used to punish people players didn't want in their crew. Sometimes it's just trolling, sometimes it's because a friend will come later, but in the end, I never saw the Brig being used by people because a player wanted to troll a crew.

    So instead of use the Brig against members of our crew, I suggest we could use it against enemies. Here in some points, how it could work :

    • When an enemy wants to spawn kill and camp in the ship, if he get killed, he will automatically respawn inside your Brig
    • Inside the Brig, the prisoner doesn't have his weapons
    • If an ally of the prisoner is on the ship, he can release his friend instantly by pressing X to open the door from outside of the Brig
    • A new setting would be accessible to your crew. It would be called "Prisoners" and presents the list of prisoners you have inside your Brig
    • You can vote to release a prisoner just as we can do it right now. The prisoner will be teleported outside of the ship without his supplies
    • To prevent players to troll, after 5 minutes, the prisoner will be automatically teleport outside of the ship without his supplies
    • When the prisoner is released (by voting or automatically) : POLL The prisoner get back to his ship without his supplies (3 votes)
    • If the prisoner wants to troll again or get his revenge and is killed in the ship one more time, he will be teleported into the Brig again
    • If the prisoner is killed when he's in the Brig, he will be sent back to his ship at respawn after a moment on the Ferry of the Damned
    • If the ship, where people are jailed into the Brig, is sinking, all the prisoners are released and teleported back to their own ship
    • When a prisoner is automatically released or released by the crew, sharks will spawn around the prisoner who has been teleported outside of the ship
      - TO NOT MAKE THE PRISONER INACTIVE : When a prisoner is jailed in the Brig, he will have the possibility to escape with a mini-game where you have to PICK THE LOCK.
    • If the prisoner successfully picked the lock and escaped the Brig, the door will open and he will be totally free to strike back, steal treasures, sabotage the ship etc. to surprise his enemies
    • When a prisoner escape the Brig, he will automatically recover his weapons but will have to take ammo in the ammo crate

    Pick the lock : When you're inside the Brig, you can press X beside the door to begin the mini-game. You'll have your character trying to pick the lock, moving each hand depending on which joystick you're moving (on PC, press your directionnal button to control the left hand, and use your mouse to control the right hand).
    Example without the hands from Skyrim : text alternatif
    While you're moving independently each joystick, by pressing RT you interact with your right hand and LT with your left hand. When you find the correct position to each hook by pressing the trigger (or left or right click on PC), you'll have a sound (click from the lock) which will warn you you finished the first step of the mini-game (with trigger, you'll also have a vibration in the trigger you'll press while it's in the correct position of each hook). Complete 4 steps to escape the Brig.

    First, the goal here is to force players to think twice before they come aboard an enemy ship. It must be a more dangerous moment where people think it will be better to attack the ship with a crewmate and not alone.

    Then, time limit prevent players to be forgotten inside the Brig and punishes them enough to make the navigation and the assault a little more difficult for the crew of the prisoner for a moment during a fight.

    Also, by teleporting the prisoners outside of the ship, it will reinforce the role play by allowing the crew to watch the prisoners being attacked by sharks while he's looking for the mermaid.

    At least, the goal of the Pick the Lock mini-game is to allow people to escape and be released faster than if they wait until the end of the 5 minutes while allowing the prisoners to not be inactive inside the Brig. It would also allow people to surprise the crew and maybe wreck their ship for a revenge ! FInally, it will encourage the crew of the ship to release the prisoners by themselves to be sure they will be teleported outside of the ship and not try to strike back.

    I strongly think this could work in this way and could finally make the Brig really useful because except to try to make people leave the game or to make a joke to a friend, at this moment, the Brig is completely useless.

    Tell me in comments what you think about this and if you have any idea to improve this way to make the Brig more important and useful in the game. Feel free to upvote if you agree, and thank you for your time !

    POLL : When the prisoner is released (thanks for voting with a comment with the number you want)

    1. The prisoner get back to his ship without ressources : 3 votes
    2. The prisoner is dropped in the sea and have to wait 1 minute for the mermaid. Sharks spawn at the same time he's released : 0 vote
    3. The prisoner is dropped in the sea : 1 vote
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  • "To make it a little more punishing, it will be impossible for the prisoner to get back to his ship with a mermaid before the countdown of 4 minutes is over"

    That's overkill.

    "First, the goal here is to force players to think twice before they come aboard an enemy ship. It must be a more dangerous moment where people think it will be better to attack the ship with a crewmate and not alone."

    That is brilliant, at first I was very skeptical of the idea, now I think I can get behind it, very good job.

    Some observations:

    • What happens if I blow a gunpower barrel inside the enemy ship, does it count as a kill for the brig?
    • Make sure you only get sent to the brig by getting killed in the enemy ship itself (standing on the solid model of the ship), getting killed around the enemy ship may be exploitable. (Also check for jumping)
    • Removing weapons from players may cause unintended interactions, instead deplete their ammo.
    • What about solo players? Should they get brigged or be immune?
  • @urihamrayne a dit dans The Brig : How to make it useful and give it importance in gameplay :

    "To make it a little more punishing, it will be impossible for the prisoner to get back to his ship with a mermaid before the countdown of 4 minutes is over"

    That's overkill.

    Maybe, but if you could take the mermaid immediatly after being released, then there's 2 solutions :

    • Allow the prisoner to choose to get back to the mermaid immediatly or get back into the enemy ship to try to get his revenge
    • Immediatly respawn the prisoner into his ship BUT in this case, you'll respawn without your ressources (cannonballs, bananas, wooden planks)

    Another possibility, keeping the first idea of a countdown, is to reduce the spawn of the mermaid to 1 minute, BUT 2 sharks spawn at the same time the prisoner is released. It would not be that difficult to survive 1 minute with sharks.

    About your 3 points :

    • Of course, it does. So the player will be sent back to the Ferry of the Damned and then respawn on his ship. But you made me realize I didn't speak about one point, thank you, I'll edit my post ;)
    • At this time, the ship is flooded by the Cursed Chest of Sorrow, so we could just imagine that the area where the ship is affected by the power of the chest would be the same for this feature
    • Remove the weapons is to be sure he will have nothing to attack a player from the enemy crew. If you just deplete his ammo, he could attack players with a cutlass. What kind of interactions are you thinking about ?
  • @grievous32

    "What kind of interactions are you thinking about ?"

    We already have a really hard time dealing with people spawning without the ability to use their weapons, or they can't change them, may be spagetti code, but if you were to implement this in the current game build you'd probably have a few unwanted glitches. Depleting ammo is safer, also the cutlass doesn't have that much range, not that much of a big deal, though I know that you intended for players to not be able to attack, its just a problem with the game's build itself.

    "At this time, the ship is flooded by the Cursed Chest of Sorrow, so we could just imagine that the area where the ship is affected by the power of the chest would be the same for this feature"

    Weird wording, but I think I get it. So every floodable area of the ship is the area considered for this brig feature? That means that the top deck with the cannons, the captain's quarters, the masts and the crows nest will not send you to the brig if you die standing in them, correct?

    "Of course, it does. So the player will be sent back to the Ferry of the Damned and then respawn on his ship."

    So you mean that if you kill yourself with a barrel inside the enemy ship you won't be brigged, instead you spawn on your own boat?

    And another thing, drop this mermaid punishment idea, it's already obnoxious that you have to be teleported out of the ship and then you also have to deal with another teleport through the mermaid, just have the guy tp back to his ship after the 5 minutes expires, as if he just respawned.

  • @urihamrayne

    If it's just a problem with the programmation, I think even if it would create unintended things, it's just a programmation... The fact is if there's a hole beside the Brig, I'm afraid the prisoner could attack a guy who's repair the ship. Also, if 2 crews attack a ship at the same time, and 1 member from 2 different crews get killed on the same 3rd enemy ship, then they could fight each other into the Brig.

    Yep, sorry, I'm french, I do my best to be clear, that's not always very easy =') Also, no, I talk about the area where the Chest of Sorrow affects a ship with its curse. So everywhere on the ship, except the 2 ladders on the sides.

    Nop sorry, I didn't understand first and when I answered you, I thought I deleted everything I answered before... =') So no, if you kill yourself with a barrel, you'll die inside the ship, if the ship is not sinking when you respawn, then you're inside the Brig. It will be a good way to force people to play smarter than currently. Because when you're inside a ship with a gunpowder barrel, you have the possibility to make it explode without diying. If you want to die with the explosion, then you'll just have to drop the barrel under the ship (I didn't test it yet, but I think the 1.0.4 make the gunpowder barrels deadly even underwater now right ?).

    Why not, I understand your point of view, and I count your vote to number 1. I think it's important people lose their ressources sometimes. When you die, I don't understand that you steal keep all your ressources so if death steal you all your bananas, cannonballs and wooden planks, then as you have to die before being sent into the Brig, you'll have your ressources lost. But if this feature is not implanted yet, then I think it's important to make it.

  • @grievous32 Much clearer now.

    I always think about game limitations first, its very upseting to deal with glitches, so I wanted to avoid anything involving odd interactions, in any case, I agree that the brigged pirate can't attack people, annoying to deal with it while the ship needs repairs.

    "I meant any area where the Chest of Sorrow would affect a ship with its curse"
    "If you kill yourself with a barrel [...] then you're sent to the Brig."

    Yep that is good, I'm on board with this.

    Now about solo people, this is quite important, they are at an inherent disadvantage, getting killed is already a big deal when dealing with 4 man crews, I don't think they need even less reason to pick a fight with a galleon. Maybe the brig imprisonment would only affect galleon crews? Or solos/duos never get sent to the enemy brig? Or you just go screw it, brig everyone?

  • @urihamrayne I think if a solo player or a member from a crew of 2 guys (or even both guys from a sloop) is/are attacking another ship and get killed because he/they was/were aboard the enemy ship, they took a risk knowing the consequences.

    If I play solo, it's just my point of view, but you're insider, you'll probably think like me, I will NEVER go aboard an enemy ship, or maybe "just" to drop their anchor because they follow me, but I will certainly never try to fight the enemy crew. I'll certainly die trying this, it's too rare to win a 1 vs morethan1.

    This is just like the pirate code at the tavern. Everyone is concerned by this code, but no one is forced to respect everything on it (I mean, we all met insulting people, trolls etc.) if you're on a galleon, nothing will prevent you to attack a solo player, as if you're a solo player, nothing will prevent you to attack a galleon. But if you're a solo player, nothing force you to come aboard the enemy ship if you're attacked by another ship, but if you kill one of the enemy who come on YOUR ship, then as a solo player, you'll have a prisoner in your Brig (and damn, now I think about it, what a gooood feeling it must be =') ).

  • @grievous32 Fair enough, I'll be hoping to see these ideas take shape and maybe in the future Rare could apply them.

  • @grievous32 said in The Brig : How to make it useful and give it importance in gameplay (POLL into some ideas):

    I never saw the Brig being used by people because a player wanted to troll a crew.

    You need to get out more, I use the brig exclusively for this.

  • @grievous32 Hmm, this has a lot of merit to it.

    What if we tweak your suggestion so that the prisoner (solo or not) is teleported to the brig of his or her own ship and has to wait the minimal brig time before they are simply released automatically.

    This would be much easier from a programming stand point. Rather than teleport several times after the "Ferry of the Damned" you are sent to your own brig and released in time. Simple. :o)

    edit: This could also be applied to live stow-aways on your ship by a single crew vote.

  • @lotrmith we didn't be in the same crew together. How can I know ? =o

    Anyway, I do it too, but it's really rare.

    @Admiral-RRRSole I agree, but all the roleplay side would be left then. Also when you're a solo player, if you're not in your ship, you don't know what happened to it. You can't be sure you'll find it still floating in the sea when you'll come back.

    The fact is if you are inside the Brig of YOUR ship, you'll be teleported anyway when you'll be released. So if you're teleported from your Brig to your ship... then it would not change anything if you're teleported from an enemy crew's Brig to your ship.

    Also, by making a prisoner into an enemy Brig, it allows enemy crew to kill you if they want, to release you when they want, and for a solo player, the feeling to see an enemy pirate in your Brig must be really satisfying. Finally, if you are a friend of a prisoner, then you could release him by yourself but then we'll need to have an animation for the door.

  • @grievous32 You're an evil one aren't you? lol

    Sorry but your way involves two teleports, three if you count the Ferry of the Damned.
    As a programmer that is a lot of work to ensure all conditions are met before the next phase when it could all be summed up a lot shorter which will be more reliant in terms of code stability.

  • @grievous32 If your ship sinks before your freedom is returned it will be the same as your ship sinking whilst you are re-spawning (at the Ferry) anyway.
    You and your ship will spawn at an island.

  • @admiral-rrrsole then maybe instead of spawn into the Ferry of the Damned, if you get killed inside an enemy ship, you'll respawn directly inside the Brig after the download ?

    This is not that difficult, you can abuse a lot of time of the mermaid to spawn somewhere. I don't think this is so difficult to do. I mean... They made the most beautiful water in a video game, and the programmation is perfect to make the ships sailing on the sea. I don't think a teleportation system is really a big problem.

    I'm not so evil, but I had so much people wanting to sink my ship and fought me on my board I'd love to see some of them inside my Brig just to remind them they are too the wrong side of the bars =')

    Also the Brig takes space in the ship while we could have a table to play some Poker instead, but if nobody use the Brig, then why should we keep it ? Rare will soon allow players to create private ship so...

  • @grievous32 No, I think that you are on the right path to extend the time before respawn and freedom is restored, otherwise it's just like dying normally.
    I just think that having them spawn in their own ship's brig makes it a lot easier to implement.
    As somebody else (it may have been @UrihamRayne who) pointed out, it is too much teleporting and I agree. It's over kill.

    Yes, the water is breath taking but that's credit to the art department. The programming here is lack luster. Sorry to sound so negative but all bugs tend to come from the programming of the game. Any game!

    I am a programmer myself and although I won't say that I am any better than these guys, I just don't think that they can handle anything too complicated without even more bugs developing. It's always best to simplify things. :o)

  • 1

    I think some minor tweaks could be applied to your offerings but the idea of:

    A) Taking prisoners in a way that isn't easy to accommodate griefing. Some means to "knockout" a player instead of kill, and drag them down to the brig slowly enough that other crew mates might stop the action. While also preventing players from being rendered useless by "knockout" instead of kills would be engaging.

    B) Allowing other team members to release the prisoner IMO is essential as well. As long as any of this can be applied in the spirit of fair play, I'm totally down for it.

    Finally

    C) The key ingredient to any prisoner system IMO is assurance that you can't be brigged uselessly, over repetitively, or in a way that griefs a player. It needs to assure that even the player in the brig can have some kind of fun.


    I'm also big on an in game bounty system being applied with some means to assure tracking of which player killed which player and how (a lower left of screen notice comes to mind)

    Edit to add
    I don't believe brigging a prisoner should not be a vote action. It should be a whole new action similar to chest stealing, you grab the player, drag them unconscious to your brig, lock them up, and are likely very slow in the dragging.

  • @admiral-rrrsole I understand your point of view, but I still think respawn into your Brig or respawn into the Brig of the enemy ship you were doesn't change anything. Maybe the only problem would be to program something to make the game respawn you inside this particular Brig, but... I don't know, it doesn't seem too difficult I think, they already make you spawn on your ship in the middle of the sea when you come at a mermaid, you sometimes respawn on an island when your ship has sunk... Don't sure it's too difficult.

    The real problem is clearly the time you wait on the loading screen, indeed. Then if the Brig is not useful, when private match will come, I just hope to see something else instead.

  • @grievous32 Maybe I misunderstood your initial post.
    I thought you said...
    If a player is killed on your ship they get teleported to the brig of your ship after the ferry of the damned.
    Then after some time (or if they are killed in your brig) they get teleported again to their ship as a free man/woman.

    This to me was one too many teleports in concession.

    Die and get teleported to Ferry of the damned
    Teleport from there to enemy brig
    Teleport yet again from there to your own ship.

    It has all of the elements a programmer's nightmares are made of. lol

  • The ferry of the damned should be cut out entirely, as previously mentioned. When your health is depleted on an enemy ship you could spawn directly in the brig.

    As for the poll, I'd vote 1. The player is teleported to their ship when the time expires.

    If they'd like to take it a step further, allow the crew to have some control over the captive's release. You can't force them to teleport back to their ship, but you can "release from brig" and have them stay on the ship or "walk the plank" which throws them overboard.

  • @admiral-rrrsole

    "Die and get teleported to Ferry of the damned
    Teleport from there to enemy brig
    Teleport yet again from there to your own ship."

    I'm running on a low end PC here and I never had any trouble coming from the overworld to the ferry, the only worrying tp would be from the enemy brig to outside the enemy ship, that would just create an extra teleport from outside to the original ship. The way it should be is exacly as I quoted above, it is pretty straightfoward, doesn't have much in terms of programming problems.

  • @urihamrayne I too have a low-end (barely scrapes in) PC.

    Going by the initial op ideas posted, it will add even more teleports when / if the intruder is killed in the brig.

    • Die and get teleported to Ferry of the damned.
    • Teleport from there / re-spawn to enemy brig.
    • (if still alive) Teleport yet again from there to your own ship (end if).
    • (if killed in brig) get teleported to Ferry of the damned.
    • Teleport from there / re-spawn to your ship (end if).

    What might seem easy and straight forward is a lot of kerfuffle aligning planets in order for it to work.

    What I suggested..

    • Die and get teleported to Ferry of the damned.
    • Teleport from there / re-spawn to you own brig.
    • Teleport from there / re-spawn to your ship, as a free person.

    This not only cuts down on the program coding required, they are all events that are already in the game.

    Die and spawn on ferry
    Get thrown in brig.
    Get released from brig.

    Fair winds and happy sailing. :o)

  • @admiral-rrrsole

    "Teleport from there / re-spawn to you own brig."

    you missed the point of OP's post entirely.

  • @urihamrayne No I didn't miss he point he was making at all. He wants to taunt the prisoner, I get it.
    I simply stated how difficult it would be and offered a simpler solution to his great idea.

  • @admiral-rrrsole you sent the guy back to his ship to his own brig, there is no interaction there, OP wants them to be on the enemy ship, and that is what this post is for, mainly to make more use of the brig, but not sending him to be locked as a prisoner for you is entirely missing the point of the whole prisioner mechanics op mentioned.

    1. But the respawn for the mermaid should be the same as everything else to reduce the complication for the programmers.

    Also, if the ship is ever sunk and the prisoners are in the brig, they drown... that's how they'll get released. lol

  • @grievous32

    I saw elsewhere on the thread someone mentioning a downed state, as in once your health hits zero you fall to the ground and would have to be picked up by a crew mate or you would bleed out after a short time.

    I think this would work well with your idea. If someone is downed, not only could allied crew pick them up, but an enemy crew member could capture them and send them to the brig. This would make it a little more interactive and also allow you to either brig them or just kill them outright if you wanted.

    Solid idea though. I like it.

  • @ttargetpractice a dit dans The Brig : How to make it useful and give it importance in gameplay (POLL into some ideas) :

    The ferry of the damned should be cut out entirely, as previously mentioned. When your health is depleted on an enemy ship you could spawn directly in the brig.

    As for the poll, I'd vote 1. The player is teleported to their ship when the time expires.

    If they'd like to take it a step further, allow the crew to have some control over the captive's release. You can't force them to teleport back to their ship, but you can "release from brig" and have them stay on the ship or "walk the plank" which throws them overboard.

    I thought about that but if you do it, and if the enemy is killed again, he should be sent back into the Brig so... That's why I wanted to make him spawn in the water, to give this RP moment where the crew release a prisoner and watch him get eaten by sharks.

    @admiral-rrrsole a dit dans The Brig : How to make it useful and give it importance in gameplay (POLL into some ideas) :

    @grievous32 Maybe I misunderstood your initial post.
    I thought you said...
    If a player is killed on your ship they get teleported to the brig of your ship after the ferry of the damned.
    Then after some time (or if they are killed in your brig) they get teleported again to their ship as a free man/woman.

    This to me was one too many teleports in concession.

    Die and get teleported to Ferry of the damned
    Teleport from there to enemy brig
    Teleport yet again from there to your own ship.

    It has all of the elements a programmer's nightmares are made of. lol

    I don't think it's a real problem. At the beginning of the Alpha, when you died, you were teleported to the Ferry of the Damn, then teleported beside the mermaid if your ship sunk, and finally teleported in your ship or to the island where your ship has respawned. Now, if your ship is sinking while you're on the Ferry of the Damned, you'll be teleported directly to your ship and not beside the mermaid. It has been changed not because of too many teleportation, but to prevent spawn kills. I don't think that's a real problem. The only problem here is to make a guy spawn into the good Brig which is not the Brig of his own ship, I think it's the challenge but nothing more.

  • @subaqueousreach I like the idea of having " a downed state" and have always thought that your crew should be able to revive you by sharing their bananas. This is more so to compete against the skeleton's 100% accuracy. Most times you have bananas in your inventory but just don't get a chance to stop fighting long enough to select one to eat. Even when running away you still need to stop to use the radial dial.
    A downed state would make the Skeletons stop shooting but will allow you to revive yourself or allow a team mate to revive you.

    As you said, if there was a downed state this would suit @Grievous32 's plans for the brig.
    Something like "Squad" which also uses the U4 engine, where you can be revived by either the medic or yourself, depending on your inventory. Just substitute the "medic" for anyone in your crew.
    With Squad you have the option to either wait for help to arrive or to accept death, during the downed state.
    I think that option should be removed or at least not available for the first 5 - 10 seconds of a downed state. After a given time you simply bleed out and die sending you to the Ferry..

    The more I think about this the more I like it and the OP's idea, as it could possibly remove at least one of the teleports to the Ferry of the Damned.

    However, by having a prisoner held hostage on your ("good") ship will only entice the attacking crew to continue the chase and battle. Although leaving the attackers one man down, this is still a negative outcome for the crew of the "good" ship.

  • @grievous32 You do the only thing that needs to be don.

    A) Add private groups
    B) Abolish the brig entirely.

  • Hi Grievous32

    Good Suggestions here friend, I think a few tweaks it could really be something.

    I made an alternative post regarding Fist Fighting, one of the suggestions made was that with fists you could knock a player unconscious with enough hits or by attacking landing a punch when they are of low health. Perhaps rather than go to the brig upon being killed you could drag an unconscious player, then if you choose to take them down to the Brig you can lock them in there for a short period of time as you suggested.
    (Can only knock them out once - if they recover from being unconscious taking another hit that would normally render them conscious must kill them)

    My suggestion on fist fighting:
    https://www.seaofthieves.com/forum/topic/53842/punching-combat-and-mini-game

  • I find the prisoner idea cool, but instead of having a player respawn in your ships brig. What about having an option of wether or not to put the player in the brig after they die?

  • @regegamega125 why not, but in a fight, how would you do that ? Even if the game is slow, compared to other FPS, the combats are really nervous. If you have to choose this in the settings, it will be too long and you'll be vulnerable.

  • I like this idea. Also for the poll, option 1 is the best..
    Though 3 doesn't sound bad. I think 2 is a bit too much.

  • Interesting idea. It would actually give a purpose to the brig on a sloop, because right now the brig is meant for imprisoning fellow crew mates by way of a vote, but the most you can have on a sloop is 2, which makes it impossible to vote someone into the brig, so the sloop brig serves absolutely no purpose. With this idea it could actually be used.

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