(PvE) What's Driving Players Away? (Suggested Improvements)

@oceanwanders said in (PvE) What's Driving Players Away? (Suggested Improvements):

Anything that happens in the game that takes control out of the players hands, regardless of the level of skill they bring to the table will lead to potential frustrations.

This is a continuation from my last post where players who used to play with me have left the game and when I ask them why, they give me reasons that I want to share, along with some suggested improvements.

Whats driving players away (PvE) (With suggested improvements)
-Skeleton ships should not spawn on you, they should roam or even patrol a series of islands that can be avoided with careful captaincy. This is the only event in the game that you CANNOT escape.

I disagree, these help to break up the stretches of just sailing, they give you pretty good loot, and they are generally pretty easy to deal with (especially on a Sloop).

-Sharks should have a much lower spawn rate or should potentially only spawn if there is blood in the water (I.E. a player takes damage in the water) Or perhaps have sharks that spawn near you but are not immediately aggro'd to you, visible by Shark fins that occasionally surface out of the water, if you notice it in time you should be able to swim carefully away. Perhaps even having Sharks patrol inside certain shipwrecks as a fun an interesting event for shipwrecks.

I can swim for ages without seeing anything spawn in the water, sharks included. If they lower the spawn chance of these they may as well just remove them from the game. That is not a great idea - there needs to be a threat for spending loads of time in the water.

-Krakens are too easy to defeat on a sloop! A legendary monster such as the Kraken should not run from losing 2 arms, Personally I would love to see the Kraken be the same for all ships. It should be challenging and there should be disadvantages to choosing the sloop as well as advantages. Additionally, Kraken spawns should account better for ALL ships and attack ALL ships within range effectively. Swimming in Kraken Ink should likewise slow players.

This is counter to all of the above things, where it seems the intent is to make things easier, now we suddenly want something harder. The Kraken used to be a lot tougher, but was adjusted because people complained endlessly about it.

-Sirens, this event should also not be aggro'd onto a player directly. Instead you should hear a siren song (near rocky places for immersion might be a plus). If you hear the Siren Song and drift into it, you are attacked by Sirens. Additionally, its really sad to see this enemy just attack you, they should attempt to drown you in the sea by pulling you deeper unless the Sirens are successfully hit by an attack while dragging you into the depths.

This adds diversity to what can happen in the water, and if you want to lower sharks this should not change. It seems the goal here is to make there be no consequence to just deciding to swim in the ocean forever.

Digging takes far too long, and should be reworked to either have random dig amounts OR just less digging overall. Its a chore in its current state.

The point is things are supposed to take a bit of time so that the odds of you encountering other players increases as you try to get things done. You are meant to run into people, and for those people to potentially contest you for your loot or decide to work with you.

-PvE combat feels horrible!
-Skeletons should take 3 sword strikes, 1 blunder, 1 snipe or 2 flintlock strikes.
-Phantoms should die in 3 strikes of a sword, 1 blunder, 1 snipe, or 2 flintlock strikes consistently.
-Sharks should take 3 strikes of a sword, 1 blunder, 1 snipe, or 2 flintlock strikes.
-Sirens should take 3 strikes of a sword, 1 blunder, 1 snipe, or 2 flintlock strikes (unless its a siren leader).
-Sapphire Ocean Crawlers should take 3 strikes of a sword, 1 blunder, 1 snipe, or 2 flintlock strikes.
-Emerald Ocean Crawlers should take 6 strikes of a sword, 2 blunders, 2 snipes, or 4 flintlock strikes.
-Ruby Ocean Crawlers should take 9 strikes of a sword, 3 blunders, 3 snipes, or 6 flintlock strikes.

I personally don't mind there being difference in how much it takes to kill enemies. I wouldn't care a ton if they were consistent, but the AI in this game is very basic, and more complex AI would strain servers more. So having them be bullet sponges sometimes is the best answer we have at the moment.

All shipwrecks should have air geysers, not just Veil shipwrecks!

I don't see why this is needed at a single Ship. Again, things are meant to take time so you have a chance to be pushed into an encounter with other people who find you in the middle of things. The Veil gets it because you aren't dealing with just one wreck.

Geysers in the devils roar are needlessly annoying in design, these should take much longer to deploy and just spray hot water on players instead of flinging them.

I could stand to see their frequency toned down a little bit. Other than that I think their design is fine and even amusing.

Volcano eruptions are extremely annoying in design and should be reworked. Either make eruptions last less time to waste less of the players time or perhaps make eruption meteors set the ship ablaze when it strikes the ship / player after its initial eruption. The initial eruption could still contain meteors that subside into volcanic projectiles that just light the ship ablaze?

The point is that the environment is a greater threat in this area. The volcanos are actually easy enough to avoid, and if you want a PvE experience the Roar is fantastic for that since people seem to think it is impossible to do stuff here. It just takes more thought and planning to avoid the dangers better, while still leaving room for catastrophe. I could accept a small reduction in frequency, but otherwise I find them just fine.

-Skeleton Ship combat sucks! Shooting them endlessly until they die is boring and their movement is Janky! Instead you should have to shoot and disable parts of their ship and watch it break apart as it sinks into the Sea! Additionally, this would create more strategy if encountering them along with PvP. You could attempt to disable a skelly mast to buy yourself some space to fight another pirate as an example.

I wouldn't mind having Chainshot actually work on these, just to give a proper PvE use for the munition instead of being a PvP only option. But you do have more options in how you approach taking them out. Get creative. Board them. Put a Chest of Sorrow on them. Keg them. You don't have to just shoot at them.

-Skeletons should not have unlimited ammo! If a skeleton has a gun they should fire a couple shots and then switch to melee combat!

Eh, I am fine with their unlimited ammo. This keeps them diverse and doesn't devolve things into spam click melee fights with the AI all the time. You need to be more aware of the composition of the spawned enemies.

-Skeleton Captains should take triple the amount a skelly takes to kill, but they should hide behind minions and be generally better programmed rather than just having beefed health pools. Maybe they could refill Skeletons ammo nearby rather than having all skeletons with unlimited ammo? Making them more useful and making attacking them first more necessary or strategic.

They are fine to me, and I think trying to get more complex AI around the world is going to hurt the servers. They are already strained, that much is obvious, and the enemies are meant to be easy to understand for a casual player.

-Skeleton Lords or Ashen Lords combat is horrendous, it feels awful to just cannon, trident, or slash them 1000 times until they die. This combat should involve an additional mechanic to deal damage that's more involved such as using an anchor trap to deal damage to them, not spamming them to death for 30 minutes. Perhaps you have to drop the anchor or trap on them and recock the trap while managing their aggro? AND stop making them summon hundreds of smaller skeletons! Instead, using the meteor ability on the Ashen Lord is less gimmicky and feels more appropriate once the waves of lesser skeletons are defeated.

Bosses are the one area where I think some enhanced AI might be ok. They are not terribly common, so they would strain the server less overall. And I agree that at the boss level the bullet sponges factor is tedious, because they have to be ramped up so much due to their highly basic AI to compensate. Since they are generally rare, I would be ok with more AI here and less health.

I attempted to summarize the complaints I've heard over the years and proposed solutions into the same lines, looking forward to hearing what other pirates think.

Sincerely,
OceanWanders

Overall, I really don't like the majority of these ideas and certainly don't see them as improvements. Many are a step backwards if anything in my perspective.

Appreciate you sharing, but hard pass on almost all of this for me.

@oceanwanders said in (PvE) What's Driving Players Away? (Suggested Improvements):

-Skeleton ships should not spawn on you, they should roam or even patrol a series of islands that can be avoided with careful captaincy. This is the only event in the game that you CANNOT escape.

They're super easy to sink and give plenty of loot... what's the issue? In a PVP scenario they're just as likely to shoot the enemy as they are you. Not to mention it makes fighting more chaotic and sometimes more fun.

-Sharks should have a much lower spawn rate or should potentially only spawn if there is blood in the water (I.E. a player takes damage in the water) Or perhaps have sharks that spawn near you but are not immediately aggro'd to you, visible by Shark fins that occasionally surface out of the water, if you notice it in time you should be able to swim carefully away. Perhaps even having Sharks patrol inside certain shipwrecks as a fun an interesting event for shipwrecks.

Sharks already aren't that common and can be easily killed. I don't see why anything needs to be done to them.

-Krakens are too easy to defeat on a sloop! A legendary monster such as the Kraken should not run from losing 2 arms, Personally I would love to see the Kraken be the same for all ships. It should be challenging and there should be disadvantages to choosing the sloop as well as advantages. Additionally, Kraken spawns should account better for ALL ships and attack ALL ships within range effectively. Swimming in Kraken Ink should likewise slow players.

Harder on sloop? Maybe. But same as the others? No. The Kraken already attacks all ships in the ink. But personally the whole "epic fight" of the Kraken wears off after the first like two fights. I'd prefer to keep it where it is :)

-Sirens, this event should also not be aggro'd onto a player directly. Instead you should hear a siren song (near rocky places for immersion might be a plus). If you hear the Siren Song and drift into it, you are attacked by Sirens. Additionally, its really sad to see this enemy just attack you, they should attempt to drown you in the sea by pulling you deeper unless the Sirens are successfully hit by an attack while dragging you into the depths.

New siren attacks would be interesting. But the song gives you plenty of warning to get out of the water, and again, they are even less common than sharks.

Digging takes far too long, and should be reworked to either have random dig amounts OR just less digging overall. Its a chore in its current state.

Yes.

-PvE combat feels horrible!
-Skeletons should take 3 sword strikes, 1 blunder, 1 snipe or 2 flintlock strikes.
-Phantoms should die in 3 strikes of a sword, 1 blunder, 1 snipe, or 2 flintlock strikes consistently.
-Sharks should take 3 strikes of a sword, 1 blunder, 1 snipe, or 2 flintlock strikes.
-Sirens should take 3 strikes of a sword, 1 blunder, 1 snipe, or 2 flintlock strikes (unless its a siren leader).
-Sapphire Ocean Crawlers should take 3 strikes of a sword, 1 blunder, 1 snipe, or 2 flintlock strikes.
-Emerald Ocean Crawlers should take 6 strikes of a sword, 2 blunders, 2 snipes, or 4 flintlock strikes.
-Ruby Ocean Crawlers should take 9 strikes of a sword, 3 blunders, 3 snipes, or 6 flintlock strikes.

The number of sword swings is a little awkward, but not really that big of a deal. Besides, some skeletons are 3 hits and some are like 10000 it just depends.

All shipwrecks should have air geysers, not just Veil shipwrecks!

Perhaps a new type of shipwreck "claimed" by the sirens that could be redesigned and have the siren air things, but regular shipwrecks no. It's underwater... why would there be air?

Geysers in the devils roar are needlessly annoying in design, these should take much longer to deploy and just spray hot water on players instead of flinging them.

Yes... but you also get double gold for ashen items. So there's your trade off. Too annoying? Go to the main area.

Volcano eruptions are extremely annoying in design and should be reworked. Either make eruptions last less time to waste less of the players time or perhaps make eruption meteors set the ship ablaze when it strikes the ship / player after its initial eruption. The initial eruption could still contain meteors that subside into volcanic projectiles that just light the ship ablaze?

Again, the price you pay for double gold.

-Skeleton Ship combat sucks! Shooting them endlessly until they die is boring and their movement is Janky! Instead you should have to shoot and disable parts of their ship and watch it break apart as it sinks into the Sea! Additionally, this would create more strategy if encountering them along with PvP. You could attempt to disable a skelly mast to buy yourself some space to fight another pirate as an example.

I think you vastly underestimate the about of dev resources that would go into something like this for a mechanic that really works fine as is. Snapping masts would be cool, but also kind of too OP.

-Skeletons should not have unlimited ammo! If a skeleton has a gun they should fire a couple shots and then switch to melee combat!

I mean if a skeleton has enough time to shoot multiple times you're doing something wrong. But also, the whole multi-weapon thing is kind of the phatoms' whole shitck. But adding it to skeletons wouldn't be completely awful.

-Skeleton Captains should take triple the amount a skelly takes to kill, but they should hide behind minions and be generally better programmed rather than just having beefed health pools. Maybe they could refill Skeletons ammo nearby rather than having all skeletons with unlimited ammo? Making them more useful and making attacking them first more necessary or strategic.

I would love to see more strategic captains, but I figure that would be a bit of dev work to rework the whole bot system since now skeletons interact with each other. Again, seems like a lot of work just for players to go "oh that's cool" and then just hack and slash at the skeletons the same as they've always done.

-Skeleton Lords or Ashen Lords combat is horrendous, it feels awful to just cannon, trident, or slash them 1000 times until they die. This combat should involve an additional mechanic to deal damage that's more involved such as using an anchor trap to deal damage to them, not spamming them to death for 30 minutes. Perhaps you have to drop the anchor or trap on them and recock the trap while managing their aggro? AND stop making them summon hundreds of smaller skeletons! Instead, using the meteor ability on the Ashen Lord is less gimmicky and feels more appropriate once the waves of lesser skeletons are defeated.

Skeleton lords? Yes. Ashen Lords are a bit more fun, but I also see your point. But I see this as a if it ain't broke don't fix it. This isn't meant to be a dark souls game. Bosses don't need to be super complex, the fun of the game comes from the threat of other players. Some small tweaks to make it more unique each fight would be good though.

The two posts reception says a lot about the state of SoT

@oceanwanders said in (PvE) What's Driving Players Away? (Suggested Improvements):

Anything that happens in the game that takes control out of the players hands, regardless of the level of skill they bring to the table will lead to potential frustrations.

Sure, but sometimes taking away player control is exactly what a mechanic should do, and makes the game better for it.

-Skeleton ships should not spawn on you, they should roam or even patrol a series of islands that can be avoided with careful captaincy. This is the only event in the game that you CANNOT escape.

Yes you can. In fact, outside of fleet battles, skele ships generally don't attack first.
Heck, just yesterday, I came back up from doing an underwater shrine (solo slooping), and there was a skele ship just sailing in a circle next to my ship. Not attacking. Just existing for me to choose to attack it.
I didn't like the idea of spending even more time over the shrine light after people could have seen my unmanned ship so I just picked up my shrine loot and left. When I got far enough away the skele ship starting patrolling, as you say, instead of following me.

Personally I would love to see the Kraken be the same for all ships.

This part no. Making such events different is part of ship balancing. Meeting gally requirements on a sloop with less crew and cannons would be an excessive increase in difficulty. Meeting sloop reqs on a gally would be too trivial.

It should be challenging and there should be disadvantages to choosing the sloop as well as advantages.

There are. Kraken just isn't meant to be one of those differences. Nor any of the other PvE spawns. So efforts were made to equalize.

Additionally, Kraken spawns should account better for ALL ships and attack ALL ships within range effectively.

This part yes. Kraken should be indiscriminate in terms of who it attacks, so if a 2nd ship sails upon a Kraken attack that should mean they are both subject to the Kraken attack. Making it either a 1v2 Kraken vs ships, or 1v1v1 if those crews remain enemies (don't up and work together). As opposed to basically amounting to 1v2 original ship vs Kraken + new ship.

-PvE combat feels horrible!

If you say so. Can't relate.

All shipwrecks should have air geysers, not just Veil shipwrecks!

Or veils shouldn't. Where am I supposed to think that air comes from.
At any rate veils only get that because they expect you to stay under much longer, to search multiple ships. It's basically just a time-saver QoL update, courtesy of the shred of kindness hiding the back of Rare's heart.

Geysers in the devils roar are needlessly annoying in design, these should take much longer to deploy and just spray hot water on players instead of flinging them. Volcano eruptions are extremely annoying in design and should be reworked. Either make eruptions last less time to waste less of the players time or perhaps make eruption meteors set the ship ablaze when it strikes the ship / player after its initial eruption. The initial eruption could still contain meteors that subside into volcanic projectiles that just light the ship ablaze?

Hey man, that distate so many have for Roar's mechanics is what makes it the calm zone, playerwise.
Honestly I think that might actually have been the point. Rare might have intentionally made a region where PvE is more annoying so that PvPers wouldn't want to bother going there, so PvEers could play there alone, and get a little extra PvE challenge to compensate for the reduced PvP risk.
If that is in fact their intended goal, then yea make it annoying.

-Skeleton Ship combat sucks! Shooting them endlessly until they die is boring

and also not how you fight them. Skele ships have a big crew and endless fast respawns. You aren't supposed to just keep shooting them, you're supposed to board them and stop them from repairing.
If you thought boarding was an important and pointedly needed/intended part of PvP ship battles, amplify that thought and feeling for skele ship battles. Rare wants you to board.
Skeleton crews don't bail water by they way, every drop you get in stays in until they sink.
Skele ship combat is fine, as long as you actually engage with the full of naval combat, which includes boarding. Don't shoot endlessly, shoot a little and keep those holes open.

-Skeletons should not have unlimited ammo! If a skeleton has a gun they should fire a couple shots and then switch to melee combat!

If you're fighting a skele it should be dead before you can tell it has infinite ammo.

-Skeleton Lords or Ashen Lords combat is horrendous, it feels awful to just cannon, trident, or slash them 1000 times until they die. This combat should involve an additional mechanic to deal damage that's more involved

Bullet sponges were never what I could call good enemy design, I give you that.
Harder enemies should actually be mechanically harder, not just more tedious via hp, I agree.

Auto Google translated the post above:

I propose to make the function of buying a boat at an outpost. 10,000 normal, 50,000 with a harpoon, 100,000 with a cannon.
It has often become noticeable that many do not go through the Fort of Fortune and other events because of the rat players who are waiting for the last moment and swim up, sink the ship and take everything. I propose the following mechanics. Make riddles and cards with a cross on the fort, namely, the player receives the key to the tomb not from the final boss, but, for example, from some assistant captain in the form of a card with a cross, where after the end of the fort the player will dig up the key and if he sails and destroys the rat player, then his work on passing the fort will not be in vain and he will be able to return and dig out the key if random is on his side.
Treasure maps - make at least some mark on the map about what fraction of the loot. Because often you dig up some fireworks. It will be more interesting if the crosses on the map are of different colors and you can roughly understand which fraction of the loot:
yellow cross - gold holder; red - the order of souls; blue - trade union; green - Treasures of Athena.
Make harpoons at the Death Haven, like the Rulers.
Remove the Dead Man's Bones tables from all outposts, because this is a hostile faction for everyone and does not belong in a regular outpost.
Make Bones Agent - An NPC that will spawn on any island or outpost and can be looted in the same way as for Dead Man's Bones, but for half the cost.
Remove armada or change it. It is difficult to loot after each sinking, not very interesting. Bring back the Burning Heart.
Sunken treasure chests and kingdoms are a very bad idea. Anyone can swim up and take your ship or loot .. You can do this: when you enter the treasury, your ship either becomes invisible or not vulnerable until someone arrives on the ship.
Make a skeletal brig.
The ability to create your own ship is difficult to fight when the galleon has a bunch of guns, and the sloop has one. Make a ship editor. For example, more guns, slower ship.

@d3adst1ck i agree majority of these seem pretty nitpicky. I do think the krakens being too easy on sloop complaint though is valid 100% its always over so fast

@oceanwanders the only thing that's stopping me playing this game regularly is there is no new content for long term players. Game needs more content for long term players.

@the-old-soul800 i disagree with your statement saying that just pummeling skelly ships with cannonballs is "not how you do it" sure it isnt the fastest way, and it cwn get boring if its the only way you sink them of course! but if you really like shooting cannons it can be a perfectly fun way to just shoot them until they sink and not have have to worry about them bailing 🤷‍♀️

Something ive been thinking with people talming about the skeleton ai.. im fairly certain ive noticed the ai being better for skellies on athena voyages compared to random spawns so there is at least some level of scaling I think. Maybe just not noticable enough for some or maybe im imagining things lol idk. Just my thoughts

I would proactively disagree with a lot of your suggestions here. Sounds like you're trying to balance the game to make it much easier for brand new players. This would likely drive seasoned players away by reducing the challenge even more so.
I want skelly ships to spawn on me, sloop can usually be sunk with one handful of cannons with little issue. The Meg spawn rates already seem ridiculously low and for someone who wants to kill them they often end up fleeing and you have to chase to stay engaged.
They recently nerfed skellys at islands so they feel so much easier. Please don't try to balance the whole game for new players as once they get efficient at all these things it will be boring for them.
I remember being insanely proud the first time I killed a Meg solo, now I get krakened and I'm yawning as I kill it and thats seemingly with a recent buff

I was looking back through old clips and I had one where I was doing flame heart and while fighting ghost ships I had a skelly gally spawn on one side and a Meg on the other. Bring that back, I love the hectic pressure of being krakened while in a pvp fight and having to multitask

@oceanwanders yeah i got the feeling that you, yourself may not agree with all or any of the complaints listed since theyre not even your complaints lol but the majority of them are sort of just wanting the game to have its difficulty toned down which wouldnt be good imo. I think what the game really needs to retain more pve players is to do something about that inherent emotional burn that beginners feel all to often when they lose their hard earned booty wipes tears not really sure what that would be though i cant really think of anything. I see a suggestion for insurance but idk about that because that kinda feels like it could eliminate too much risk and upset the balance

@oceanwanders thanks for excluding me in this, but just like the devs I've lost interest in this game. I think the best thing Rare could do with this I.P. is make it a stand alone story driven game with online co-op. That way we could have a proper narrative story driven game with meaningful character and ship progression. Instead of this 5 minute shallow place holder stories that we have been subjected to since what? The pirates life update? Games only good for new players.

@oceanwanders I am an insider. What's coming dosent fix the game

@oceanwanders the devs need criticism. And they need to take it on board. I've been playing this game and been on these forums from the start. Same problems, same subjects different years. I love this game and actually paid for it pre-order at the very beginning. My enthusiasm has long since sunk. I'll be back for season 8. I'll be hanging about till the whole game is scuttled. But I'm not holding out much hope for this leaking ship.

My concern is that the creation of seperate pve and pvp servers would kill the population for the servers of those who want the full pvpve experience with the population being divided 3 ways (even though i understand these people have grouped themselves already and dont really like eachother in the first place LOL. Not that it wouldnt be great for those who want it if its implemented in a way that doesnt kill the original vision of the game. But it just seems like a tricky tightrope for the devs to walk.. which is why theyve banned a certain subject lol hopefully this comment isnt crossing a line on that subject or i will remove :p

@qu1etone tbh its crazy seeing forum posts 4 years old with complaints that are still relevant. Sad really

@oceanwanders

Wow... you play with some really whiny people huh?

Kraken should be more trouble. I can injure it faster than getting out of the ink.

Also, significantly more difficult than it used to be but skellies that spawn on you can still occasionally be shook. I was trying to lead one to a Sea Fort and it either caught on to what I was doing or glitched but it wandered off and despawned. So unless I happened to be RIGHT EXACTLY where a patrol style ship was spawning it could still be done as of abt 2 months ago.

Again... the rest of it? Toss it overboard. Maybe SoT just wasn't for them. I've stopped playing a lot of games because I wanted to move on. Castlevania HD lol. 1 maxed account, 1 nearly maxed Shanoa on another... I can only try for the sonic boots so many times lololol