Short sessions and the supply game

  • ZeTheNormal1
    Legend
    Insider

    My feedback on the Season 11 news. I like the extended factions progression, being able to unlock cosmetic rewards for distinctions, etc; I like that Rare is trying to make it possible to have meaningful sessions when we have just a short time to play SoT. Are dives an answer to that? It helps a bit with time, but not sure if it's the correct answer.

    Sailing is one of the most satisfying aspects of this game and, for me, the "supply game" is the worst enemy for short sessions. The concern of not having enough supplies and/or good enough is what makes me spend more time than "needed" for a session. And this supply game is not fun at all! I don't see a reason, I can't understand why, when starting a server I don't have in my sloop barrels 200 cannonballs, 20 chains, 6 pineapples, 80 planks etc; This would allow me to raise anchor and sail straight away without the concern that I won't have enough supplies if I meet PvP or if I'll have a long HG battle against a good opponent.

    My suggestion is that, at the beginning of a server (when you boot up the game or if you sink during an HG battle), you start with a very good quantity and quality of supplies. Nothing would be more satisfying than just raise anchor and start without the concern of the quantity and quality of supplies. Then, if you are playing normal Adventure and you sink, your boat would start with basic supplies, to make it fair and "obligate" you to supply up if you want to go to a revenge fight against another player boat.

    This change would also have a big positive impact in Hourglass. There's nothing more boring atm, when doing HG, than the supplying up phase at the beginning or when we sink. Being able to almost instantly dive again to an HG battle because that "supply issue" is solved, would have, imo, a big positive impact on the number of players playing HG and make it REALY possible to go for a short fight if I only have 15 or 20 min to spare. Not possible atm if you don't care about losing if you want to dive with starting supplies or close to that.

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  • Phantaxus
    Legend
    Insider
    Founder

    Use a captaincy ship, buy supplies

  • ZeTheNormal1
    Legend
    Insider

    Of course I do (despite atm, there's a big issue with those). But you cannot buy chains, which are a must have supply in PvP and 4 chains, are a joke.
    Not saying this to "brag" but it might be important to say that this feedback is coming from a player that has 6.8k hours and plays since 2018.

  • LittleMatJab
    Rogue

    @phantaxus a dit dans Short sessions and the supply game :

    Use a captaincy ship, buy supplies

    Nice lazy response, He's upset about not having enough supplies, and you think buying supps especially the absence of chain balls for purchase help? which are essential in PvP. Also, losing HG sometimes makes you respawn on an island instead of an outpost, tell me how is it not a severe disrespect to the player's time investment?

  • Ghutar
    Legend
    Insider
    Founder

    @capt-steals for me before some bug fixes HG suffered from inflation of supplices, there is not so much skill involved in shoot and spreed tons of chainshots ;)

    Diving TO first stop is superb idea, when you see ship saling it means that there is loot on board with is fine for sandbox loop.
    And you dive only for fist stop so there is a lott of sailing still.

  • Phantaxus
    Legend
    Insider
    Founder

    @littlematjab If he respawns at an island that is just bad luck, but he should be making use of the facilities he has to resupply his ship, captaincy supplies, buying commodities from the merchant, buying a storage crate and looting the island.

    The proposed solution is exploitable:

    • load in
    • vote hourglass
    • sink boat
    • free supplies
    • put in storage crate
    • repeat until you have a storage crate at each outpost
    • Sail round and collect supplies
  • NeedSmokes
    Commander

    There are already far too many supplies at the start of a session.

    As a solo slooper I used to have a chance of fending off larger ships quite newly spawned as they would often be low on supplies and have to make their attacks count.

    But imagine if they had hundreds of cannonballs, chainshots, wood and fireballs etc, I would be overwhelmed and even a useless crew would get a lucky hit in with 40+ shots per minute coming at me.

    I miss the days before barrels of plenty, being able to stock captained ships and even storage crates making cleaning up islands effortless.

    More supplies constantly is great for larger ships, but makes solo play much harder.

  • ZeTheNormal1
    Legend
    Insider

    @phantaxus I already buy fruit, grab 4 pineapples and 1 mango, 10 cannons, 5 planks, 5 chains and scuttle and change seas. Then I buy everything and loot all barrels with the storage crate. Every single time, specially if I'm going to do HG or sink from it.

    BUT, it's exactly this kind of "need" that I'm complaining about and offering a suggestion to fix it. It's just silly, a waste of time, goes against the "short session" goal and, most importantly, it's not fun at all.

  • ZeTheNormal1
    Legend
    Insider

    @needsmokes Funny how we all think differently. I'm also a solo slooper who loves PvP. 99,999% of my time is playing solo.

  • LittleMatJab
    Rogue

    @phantaxus a dit dans Short sessions and the supply game :

    @littlematjab If he respawns at an island that is just bad luck, but he should be making use of the facilities he has to resupply his ship, captaincy supplies, buying commodities from the merchant, buying a storage crate and looting the island.

    As a solo slooper, The idea is that each time you enter a session or between each lost HG combat, you have to spend about 10 minutes "refilling my barrels not filled with cr*p" – yeah, it's long and frustrating (not to mention the moments when the game spawns you on a deserted island, obviously). We want a system that helps us just play PvP without spending so much time gathering supplies. The game is not called Supplies of Thieves.

  • Phantaxus
    Legend
    Insider
    Founder

    @capt-steals and your proposed solution is open to exploitation. Chain shots are scarce because they are powerful, same for the cursed balls.

  • ZeTheNormal1
    Legend
    Insider

    @ghutar I'm not opposed to the idea of diving to the first stop at all. I think it's a good idea. I just think that, if the goal of that idea is to make meaningful short sessions possible, the current "supply game" is a more important factor and should be addressed too, imho.

  • Ghutar
    Legend
    Insider
    Founder

    @capt-steals solo sloopers take the topic!

    Ok joke aside I think that it is biased look toward your's gamplay loop.

    As most of players will just dive, hope to the island, do their stuff and then proceed to sell it.

    Im opposed of adding more supplices as it:

    • throws a lott again new players as they will be targetet by spamable chainshots.

    • sucks for solo slooper for same reason, there is near 0 fun to be spamed with them.

    • make looting islands obsolete and it is fine part of gameplay loop (not dive dive dive for HG but to be honest most times on streak I was able to loot from oponents more then i needed).

    • suplices are losing on "value" why think how and when shoot if you had ton of it?

    • make HG battles slog. If there is no skill gap and plank guys are good the battle will last long.

    Of course this above are my bias.

    I think that for shortening the sessions supplice number (now) dosean't matter.

    If somebody don't care about supplices (and for most of adventures their are enough) he will just sail for adventure.

    Here dive change lenght of session. Sailing to first point is mandatory now, suppling no so cuting time of first one is real deal.

  • SweetSandMan
    Lord
    Insider

    Chains are an incredibly powerful tool. One that, like you said, is virtually a must have when it's a good PvP matchup.

    I also completely agree with you that the initial supply-up is tedious and has inconsistent yields. I've mastered the pathing of running a storage crate most efficiently at each outpost and it's about a 2 min process (little longer at Port FPS Drop Merrick). While that doesn't seem like much time, I do wish that you could just raise anchor, drop sail(s) and know that you're prepared for whatever comes your way.

    I do have a solution to this that would actually make gold more useful while discouraging server hopping. Here goes...

    Make a pre-server lobby where you can buy supplies for your Captained ship. Right after you select your Captain ship, you enter a store similar to what you encounter at the shipwright, but the supplies available are somewhat more specific. This list could be expanded, but I'll touch on the main ones.

    Cannonballs:
    10 = 1000 gold
    5% (50 gold) cost increase with every purchase

    Wood Planks:
    10 = 500 gold
    10% (50 gold) cost increase with every purchase

    Pineapples:
    1 = 2000 gold
    20% (400 gold) cost increase with every purchase

    Blunderbombs:
    1 = 1000 gold
    20% (200 gold) cost increase with every purchase

    Firebombs:
    1 = 500 gold
    20% (100 gold) cost increase with every purchase

    Chainshots:
    1 = 2000 gold
    20% (400 gold) cost increase with every purchase

    The key here to balancing it is the multi-purchase multipliers. The initial prices and multipliers could be tweaked, but as I laid them out, here's what the cost would look like for the following:

    200 cannonballs would cost you 22,750 gold
    100 planks would cost you 7,750 gold
    5 pineapples would cost you 14,000 gold
    5 blunderbombs would cost you 7,000 gold
    5 chainshots would cost you 14,000 gold

    All of that would cost you 65,500 gold. For comparison, Captaincy supplies today (minus bait and raw meat) costs 13,000 gold and yields far less cannonballs and planks.

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