Larger buyable ships, ship customizations and hirable crew

  • ladarius SOT
    Ship Mate

    A great addition to the game would be the ability to hire a sailor. Back to my roaming NPC ships there should be roaming NPCs on outposts that you can hire to do a certain job on your ship. Depending on experience they would cost anywhere from 150 GOLD TO 2,000 Gold. To hire them you would walk up to them and talk to them through game chat, like in GTAV while on your ship you could assign them to do different tasks(through game chat), such as lowering and adjusting sails and anchor. The NPCs can only be hired on the Galleon or a bigger ship.

    If you want to buy a bigger ship with your gold, costing from 100,000 to 1 million gold you should be able to do it from the select a ship screen, or at the docks at outposts. These ships would be customizable, such as numbers of decks and numbers of sails, lower deck cannons, upper deck cannons and more.

    If you want to you should be able to buy a solid hull color, such as solid black, blue or orange, an there should be an option to add a tattered sail customization to your ship.

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  • CaudipteryxZoui
    Ship Mate
    Insider

    @mcgarnaglewolf I think both those ideas go against the horizontal progression. Some people have more money than they care about and are bored. They would have no problem filling a galleon with a full crew while solo sailing and attacking everyone on the seas.

    And with paid-for bigger ships I assume you would also get bigger crews? (that is the main reason I've seen for people wanting bigger ships, so apologies if that is not what you meant).
    The bigger the crew is, the easier it is to board other ships, kill all other players and spawn-kill untill their ship sinks. This, again, would only be available to the people who have too much money and are most likely to be bored.
    With a galleon you can already send 3 players to the other ship to kill the crew and have one person on the galleon shooting one (you don't need more) cannonball and sail.

    I know many games do have features like this, but SoT works quite differently. I think the devs want to keep it that way.

  • DetachedLamb476

    @caudipteryxzoui this is mcgnarglewolfs backup
    yes it may go against the progression but the NPCs would only raise, lower sails and drop anchor and would not be able to fight or fire cannonballs at enemy ships or steer the ship or do repairs, that is all for the actual players.

    The bigger ships would require you to spend money on the experienced NPCs only or the larger ships would sink, though they will still only have 4 real players, preventing spawn camping, but if the crews were to be bigger, it wouldn’t matter. I have had a lot of experience playing by myself. The I am suddenly boarded by a whole galleon crew and I am spawn camped until I sink and lose everything. There is no way to prevent this when there is a smaller ship. Having bigger ships and NPC crews would not change the overall game, but it would make sticking up on the outpost easier(yes the NPCs would only get stuff from barrels on the island you are parked at). To balance the small advantage gained by richer players, you would continuously have to pay them. If players want more customizable ships than just cosmetics this would help the community grow. I know a few friends who stopped playing because they wanted more use for their gold other than just cosmetics.

  • CaudipteryxZoui
    Ship Mate
    Insider

    @detachedlamb476 The whole game is about manually doing everything. That is one of the great plusses of Sea of Thieves. You have to manually raise, lower and angle the sails, manually control each oar of the rowboat, manually bring loot to your ship and bring it to whoever buys it. One at a time. There are no QTEs or 'press W to go foreward'.

    I will not deny that having an NPC (even just one NPC) on board a galleon would make life easier/faster. But (and I admit I'm speaking for myself here) what's the use of doing things on board the ship faster? Part of the appeal of soloing a galleon is that you have to think way ahead. You better make sure you have enough sail reefed when closing in on an island, since you cannot steer and furl the sails at the same time.

    Having NPCs would only serve to allow small crews to sail large ships more efficiently, making larger ships like the galleon unbalanced. Being able to controll the sails on a galleon as quickly as a solo-slooper (or maybe a two-man crew on a big) without even having to leave the wheel will be a great imbalance.
    If you'd introduce NPCs anywhere, I'd say do it for sloops, and then only for low level players. Having that little extra advantage might help them get away from a harassing crew.

    Also, you say that to combat the fact that rich crews have an advantage, you would have people pay for NPCs continuously. That would make the problem worse rather than better. Some people have over a million gold. Several million perhaps. They bought all the cosmetics. They can start with a full NPC crew on a large ship, take down other people easilly since they only have to shoot cannons and not worry about repair, hand in other people's loot and get even more gold. Someone with little money might be able to affort an inexperienced NPC for an hour or so and then run out of money.
    It's usually the people with lots of money who need the NPCs the least.

    As for the larger ships: I still think it shouldn't be a buyable option. Maybe something you unlock after a milestone like PL might be good? But definitely something you unlock for good once you have it. And if it is not available to everyone at the start, it shouldn't give any gameplay advantage like bigger crews. It would be hard to balance.

  • EvilTortoise
    Master
    Insider

    @mcgarnaglewolf
    I personally wouldn't mind filling out 1 or 2 crew spots with skellies, they do a better job then most pirates out there :)

    On the other hand, they were probably seasoned sailers at one point so why be suprised xD

  • Lleorb
    Champion
    Insider
    Founder

    I made a post on another way to add ships in the game

    https://www.seaofthieves.com/forum/topic/87936/new-ships-give-your-opinion

  • CaudipteryxZoui
    Ship Mate
    Insider

    @lleorb I like that idea. I'd be in for some viking longboat styles, or as you said, a Chinese one.

  • Schwammlgott
    Champion

    @mcgarnaglewolf first: this is not gta
    second: hire a npc to help IS pay2win

  • Schwammlgott
    Champion

    @mcgarnaglewolf I don't think we need bigger ships/crews
    But different ships in the same classes as the current ones are would be nice

  • DetachedLamb476

    @caudipteryxzoui I agree with most but the NPCs wouldn’t repair and should only be available to lower level crews, possibly for free. But some players, including myself have bought most cosmetics and still hav 2 or 3 million gold, I would like to spend that on a fully customizable ship.

  • DetachedLamb476

    @schwammlgott bigger ships would include larger crews so the servers could be bigger and you would have more pvp in adventure mode.

  • DetachedLamb476

    @schwammlgott they cost gold and you use the system that is in GTA that allows you to talk to NPCs through game chat.

  • Schwammlgott
    Champion

    @detachedlamb476 sagte in Larger buyable ships, ship customizations and hirable crew:

    @schwammlgott they cost gold and you use the system that is in GTA that allows you to talk to NPCs through game chat.

    Even with just ingame money IT IS pay2win...what does someone who spent all the money on cosmetics?

  • Schwammlgott
    Champion

    @detachedlamb476 sagte in Larger buyable ships, ship customizations and hirable crew:

    @schwammlgott bigger ships would include larger crews so the servers could be bigger and you would have more pvp in adventure mode.

    No need for more ships on server, no need for more pvp

  • DetachedLamb476

    @schwammlgott definition if Pay to Win: using REAL MONEY to give yourself an advantage over everyone else. The buyable NPCs would cost in game money therefore making it not pay to win, because you can’t buy gold with money.

  • DetachedLamb476

    @schwammlgott you can only have 16 people on the giant map per server.

  • Schwammlgott
    Champion

    @detachedlamb476 no, 24 people...6 ships per server, if they are all galleons it's 24

    Then don't call it pay2win, but it's the exact same thing, just with no real money...and you can't buy anything in this game to have an advantage over someone else, and that's what a byuable NPC is...an advantage to byu

  • DetachedLamb476

    @schwammlgott the NPCs can’t fight real air or fire cannonballs and would give no advantage to combat because they can easily be killed and cannot defend themselves so it is not pay to win in any way

  • Goedecke Michel
    Marauder

    Those are the worst ideas since the invention of fatless fried potatoes.

    You want to play without playing? Then just watch a movie.
    Your big ship is too big to manage? Then take a smaller one.
    You want to buy bigger ships? You can buy jewelry and a nice nightgown, but the equipment is the same for all.

  • Goedecke Michel
    Marauder

    @detachedlamb476 sagte in Larger buyable ships, ship customizations and hirable crew:

    @schwammlgott the NPCs can’t fight real air or fire cannonballs and would give no advantage to combat because they can easily be killed and cannot defend themselves so it is not pay to win in any way

    It is. You pay for a helping hand = You pay for win. O.B.d.A. Q.E.D.

  • Schwammlgott
    Champion

    @detachedlamb476 call it what you want, IT IS AN ADVANTAGE, no matter how small this advantage would be

  • CaudipteryxZoui
    Ship Mate
    Insider

    some players, including myself have bought most cosmetics and still hav 2 or 3 million gold, I would like to spend that on a fully customizable ship.

    This is why people are asking for more extremely expensive cosmetics. Or Lleorb's idea of new ship types that are only visually different from the ones we have, but functionally the same. And new parts of the ship to customize, such as interiour colours, lanterns etc.

    bigger ships would include larger crews so the servers could be bigger and you would have more pvp in adventure mode.

    I've already argued why bigger crews might not be a good idea. And Mcgarnaglewolf said that their idea is not to have bigger crews on the bigger ships.

    the NPCs can’t fight real air or fire cannonballs and would give no advantage to combat because they can easily be killed and cannot defend themselves

    No-one said they can't defend themselves... But even if you were to add that to the NPCs, saying that they have no advantage in PvP (or combat in general) is not true, unless they do absolutely nothing (including repairs & manning the sails) during combat. Have you ever tried to fight anything while solo-sailing a galleon? I have, and I can tell you this:
    If you have to repair, shoot, bail, manage the sails, steer the ship and keep track of what is going on, you are bound to hit a rock or sail off the map. Right now, the best I can do is sail in circles or anchor when a fight breaks out. Even if the only thing you don't have to worry about is patching, that would make combat soooooo much more easy.

  • DetachedLamb476

    @schwammlgott but these would only available to lower level players, onece they reach a certain level that cannot hire the sailors, only practice combat skills with them by challenging them. The hireable sailors would help the newer players get a better feel for the game and help them learn how to catch the wind and when to raise sails when approaching an island.

  • DetachedLamb476

    @caudipteryxzoui never did I say that the bigger ships wouldn’t have bigger crews nor did I say that they would. So you can’t assume that that was what is was saying.

  • DetachedLamb476

    @schwammlgott wouldn’t it me nice to use your gold that you spent hours working for that would give you an advantage?

  • Schwammlgott
    Champion

    @detachedlamb476 no, wouldn't be

    Why wanting a bigger ship but not a bigger crew? Doesn't make sense at all...
    Some 4-man-crews can't even handle the galleon, what they do with a bigger ship then?
    And I said before: no to bigger ships, but different ships in the same classes as the current ones would be nice...maybe you meant something like that?

  • DetachedLamb476

    @schwammlgott bigger ships with bigger crews or more buyable customizations such as sail number:
    Advantage: faster
    Disadvantage: longer to come to full stop by raising sails, more vulnerable to beaching
    Lower deck cannons, we already have the hatches, it’s weird not moving the cannons there
    Advantage: better shots on lower deck
    Disadvantage: harder to aim and see

    All these customizations would have disadvantages and advantages making them balanced, the sail number would be more available to skilled crews, but lower level players will be able to buy them if they want. This would help the crew practice more teamwork to raise the sails fast enough. (More sails would be those triangular sails facing the front of the ship so they could catch wind coming into the side.

  • CaudipteryxZoui
    Ship Mate
    Insider

    @detachedlamb476
    Your idea sounds a lot like the ATLAS ship building mechanics. I'm not necessarily against such a system, but it should not be hidden behind pay walls (whether that be in-game or real world money).
    And I'm not sure if they should be bigger. Being able to adapt the three existing types could already work. If you could decide which sail type to put on a sloop, and mix and match sail types on brigs and galleons, that would already create more diversity. The same goes for other customization options.

    (For those not familiar with ATLAS, there are 3 different sail types, speed sails, handling sails and weight sails. Weight sails would have no function here. Speed sails make you go fast, but only work well with the wind. Handling sails don't allow you to go as fast, but will catch wind from sharper angles. In SoT terms it's like the galleon has speed sails, the sloop has a handling sail and the brig has one of both.)

    This would require a complete ship overhaul though, and I'd prefer to see more things to do first.

  • DetachedLamb476

    @caudipteryxzoui good point but what about moving cannons to lower deck

  • DetachedLamb476

    @goedecke-michel this has offended me I’m reporting this comment, you have pretty much called me stupid

  • Goedecke Michel
    Marauder

    @detachedlamb476 Calling an idea a bad idea is different from calling someone stupid. I know a lot of very clever people, who nevertheless had very bad ideas. If you share your idea in a forum, you should not be surprised when they are judged there.

  • DetachedLamb476

    @goedecke-michel said in Larger buyable ships, ship customizations and hirable crew:

    Those are the worst ideas since the invention of fatless fried potatoes.

    You want to play without playing? Then just watch a movie.
    Your big ship is too big to manage? Then take a smaller one.
    You want to buy bigger ships? You can buy jewelry and a nice nightgown, but the equipment is the same for all.

    Calling it the worst is offensive it’s too lake to take back the report

  • Goedecke Michel
    Marauder

    @detachedlamb476 I don't want to take it back... those ideas are still the worst I read so far, imho.
    🤗

  • DetachedLamb476

    @goedecke-michel look at the changing the height of the sails of the galleon because the captain can’t see around them

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