Season 12 and 14 will probably kill off solo players for good.

@wolfmanbush

If you are referring to the gimped and underwhelming experience that cuts you off from progression that is also called "Safer Seas", then yes. If not, what do you mean?

What opportunities to get things done without PvP pressure? If you are referring to diving, I mostly use it to escape heavily Reaper-populated servers. However, ships have been appearing out of the ocean pretty much right next to me when I am going for a sell lately (2 out of 4 sessions). Seems very unfair and totally sucks.

I feel like there is too much PvP already. I get attacked way too often. Or chased around the map for 15-20 minutes, which is tremendously boring.

And maybe I am wrong, but I have noticed that quests and voyages very, very often take you to already populated areas or in the same direction as someone else. I suspect that there is a design in there somewhere that tries to crowd players together. But like I said, I could be wrong.

Anyway, now is the perfect time to raise concerns. It is common practice to conduct user research and evaluate designs and ideas before spending a great budget on implementing things in a way most users don't want.

I agree this could very much be an issue.

You did not even mention the multi-ball cannon, which adds like 3-4 holes with one shot, or the wind horn, which enables you to sail faster.
Both these additions are handable with multicrew, but very hard for solo sloopers.
The multi cannon: Solo sloop faces 3-4 holes to repair with every shot, even if they are small, they add up. This is not so big with multiple crewmembers as the holes will be fixed fast, but for only one person having to navigate, shot, and repair, this will be hell.
And the horn: Multicrew can use it easy to speed up while still navigating, but solo sloop can not navigate/adjust sails while blowing horn, so it will not be as useful. Whats even more: Sloop will not be able to escape against the wind anymore, as other sloops/ships with horn will be able to keep up.

I like both additions generally speaking, its an interesting idea, but, I truly fear for solo sloop too

Well Rare went with one of my suggestions to a certain extent which is to add AI to assist with ships.
-If that will be in the game, why not also make it available to all ships when sailing solo and have a crew of AI with their difficulty be according to that of the player or players that attacks you?

I actually agree with you that the ability to board more easily is a larger more existential threat to solo play than mast damage or revives were (pre nerf). Don't think it will kill solo play but it will reintroduce threads about ship balance.

TLDR: they need to make boarding less of a go-to as an opening move and more of a strategic opportunity with costs for failure.

Solo play is all about prevention, and it becomes increasingly difficult to mitigate or recover once you are killed or mast fully knocked down. Being boarded more easily makes the recovery even more challenging.

For solutions, overall idea is that boarding should be a higher risk strategy if we are going to give tools to make it more possible to pull off

Idea 1: Mermaid balance

I would like to see mermaids be balanced around crew size. First mermaid respawn over a few min period is quick, but each subsequent mermaid takes longer for larger crews meaning you may need to actually go pick them up. I would say knock back from cannons and weapons could need to be looked at as part of this, but I would think there would be a way to identify if the source of being off ship was intentional or not, i.e jumping, cannonshotting, or blunderbomb knocking yourself off the ship is penalized while getting blunderbombed by another crew is less or not at all penalized.

Drawbacks, mermaids would be affected across even non pve scenarios so would take some figuring out.

Idea 2: semi-permanent ship damage

I also think a form of semi-permenant ship damage could help as well in which areas of the ship hit multiple times can't be fully repaired and will leak water slowly until that area of the ship is free of damage for x period of time. The scattershot could be key to this if implemented. This further makes boarding a risky play and encourages more counterplay to boarding attempts by giving crews the ability to take advantage of weakened areas of the hull when they have less crew. I would make the damage scale with number of cannons on each ship, i.e. single cannon from sloop to gally contributes faster than single cannon from gally to sloop.

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I could see this shaking up the meta enough that attempting to board often becomes a bad strategy, but crews are more likely to succeed when they do attempt because of the new tools.

Think this helps everyone. Less frustration that boarding is the ONLY way to win against good crews and so you have to attempt often since they are good. AND less frustration from smaller crews who get boarding attempts constantly who can now use failed attempts to their advantage.

@gipperseadog said in Season 12 and 14 will probably kill off solo players for good.:

Hmm, not sure about all the things coming up...Let's see:
I'm sailing in my sloop with best friend,
Ship full of bloodthirsty pirates sail in and
throws skelly-bombs and fire bombs in while ship puts in a few Grapeshots that turn my hull to swiss cheese.

Me and my friend are franticly trying to fix holes, fight skellies, and put out fires while trying to get away, then we hear the boarding harpoon lines, double-gun pistols receiving knives thrown at us as if the skellies didn't succeed...
Sigh. life span 1-2 minutes maximum
Yea, sounds real fun.
"Yo ho, Yo ho, it's safer seas for me"

If a ship throws skeles fires and cannons at you, then you can do the same back to them to give them something to deal with while you solve the issue. The sloop is the slowest ship to sink, so often times only 1 person has to actually bucket and fix, and the other guy can pull the ship away and deal with boarders.

Every advantage you claimed that the new features gives gives bigger ships over you, are advantages that you can also use against those bigger ships that are more easily overwhelmed than the sloop.

I have been running solo for years, and even when my ship is both on fire and has most possible holes, i have recovered and won the fights because if you stay calm and prioritize, the sloop is difficult to sink.

@shaixys said in Season 12 and 14 will probably kill off solo players for good.:

Hello, the 2024 presentation video has just finished and 2 of the new features worry me greatly...

First with Season 12 you add the Harpoon which allows you to move from boat to boat, a solo player who must manage his entire sloop (Hole/Navigation/Cannon) will not be able to manage in addition someone who try to board your boat.

Season 14 with the Portable Harpoon will just take the final blow to finish off solo players...

I don't know if Rare realizes the difficulty of playing Solo against Multicrew every day, adding this kind of tool will make it even easier to attack solo players.

React now and make servers only for solo players otherwise you will lose a major part of solo player with this 2 season.

And as for what asks if I play at least PvP and not full Escape, I generally play PvP currently in the defensive I very rarely attack in 1st, and many of my PvP against Multicrew generally end badly despite the fact that I often the upper hand on them, except that the number allows them to carry out more tasks than I can do alone.

Solo Vs Solo PvP is much more pleasant for me because we are equal.

The rare times when I have a friend with me opens up a lot of possibilities that I don't have when I'm solo and attacking Brigantine and Galion even in a Duo sloop is doable just because I have a teammate who I can entrust the boat while I board, or someone who repairs while I fire the cannon.

However, my friends very rarely play the game and for me, Sea Of Thieves is one of my main games. I very often find myself solo over a long period of the year.

I hope that some will understand my fears regarding these 2 new tools, I want to continue enjoying the aspect of the PvE and PvP of the game but I don't want to be just a Free Farm for all the multicrew and just end up uninstalling because I can't do anything anymore.

Honestly some of the things you have mentioned are non factors and this is looking at it from mainly being a solo/duo sloop player 90% of the time. so lets dig in give answers and maybe give you the real things to worry about more.

The harpoon rope walk- Honestly while i absolutely love feature i really and i mean REALLY don't see it being a big factor in PVP and here's why.

1. There is a mini game balancing on the rope shown in the video. So it's not going to be easy to get over and if you are really close sword lunge or jump over will still be king like now.
2. You can't use weapons from the rope walk either. So you will be firing on the rope walkers and they can't do anything back.
   These two things alone nullify this being extremely useful in pvp as long as you are paying attention. I am sure people will use it in PVP but the effectiveness of it honestly i think would need to be seen but i bet it will not be high.

The harpoon rifle- Again another feature i think will be amazing to get around islands and honestly will be useful in PVP HOWEVER this will have an extremely obvious drawback.

1. Stealing anything off a boat will be the same except with more class. I am sure we will see sigy flying through the air and stealing a chest with this thing.
2. Yes this will affect the meta for boarding i think as now if you over/undershoot it can help correct but many solos cannon board too. So again swings both ways. This can also change fighting but again on ships this is still the same as using the harpoon to rip people off cannons etc. now you just have to worry about more angles of attack.
   3)The extremely obvious drawback here is....... You are loosing a weapon. So you are loosing a bit of damage for utility. So now you either have one gun for damage or a sword/knife.
   I could be wrong I am sure we will see people use this but i am sure it will not be super wide spread. Like everything when it first comes out everyone will use it and i am sure it will fall off. But when it's back to normal you will still see it but not everyday. Then i am sure you will see it as a tactic with brigs or galleons with at least 2 people boarding with them. However now this is where it gets fun and this is the stuff you should be worrying about come in. I love the stuff down here to but i do have my concerns and feel we need more info.

1)The horn of winds- This thing right here should be one of the bigger worry of sloop player. Tell me how does one on a sloop outrun any ship? now you have no safety going against the wind. Now i am going to assume the horn is on a cool down timer. However the timer/reload is going to be the clincher on this and if you can have 3/4 people rotate the cooldowns to catch up well that could be game over. We need more info here.

2)The skeley bomb- This thing alone will be a great boon and detriment to everyone. This thing right here also nullifies people harpoon walking you. You see someone doing this and can't get them wait till the last second chuck this and have a small army to give you a hand this also help with people boarding you in general. However the reverse applies to they can use it on you to. Now the problem is how are skeleys limited if they are? Can only 4 exist per a crew or per a person? Or is it as many as you/ your team can chuck down? How often will we find these? This again like the horn needs more info as this one right here can be game breaking or ruin the game for some players.

3)The scatter shot cannon ball- Yes they are short range-ish. But if the one video is true the holes from these cap at level 2 holes. Well You can see where this is going and making multiple holes at once. this can be painful to say the least. Getting death spiraled from this does not seem like a good chance of survival just saying. Again more info is needed here like spawn rates and if the tier 2 hole thing is true.

4)The dual pistol and the throwing knife.- The video clearly shows two shots killing from the gun so it should be safe to assume(big word here) that if you do the charged shot that if both hit you're dead. As well the throwing knife has melee and higher damage from behind that may come into play. However i noticed in the video the throw is a one shot and i would assume(again a big word here) that it's only in a certain range. Think about how many people board the sloop and jump down to deck and snipe or pistol shoot you and hits. Now think about that with the knife. See what i mean? Again we need more info.

Just for the record I love everything coming down the line for the game they announced. But i do wonder and maybe worry a little about the balance on some of these things. The horn, skeley bomb, and scatter shot is the ones i worry about balance on the most however i am excited to see them and can't wait to use them. The dual pistol and knife i love it and honestly to me if the video is portrayed right will at this point it's no different then getting killed by a dual gunner or bunderbuss so to me it's just a tuesday.

@valor-omega I never said it was a bad thing. In fact I'm all for variety part of the reason I'm against forcing Cutlass only.

I'm sure we'll still have a double gun meta I just think it'll be blunderbuss/Eor and Double barrel/throwing knives.

The EOR or Blunder is good for initial damage and the throwing knives and double barrel will be good for mopping up provided they do more than 30 damage per shot and their slow projectiles aren't ruined by hitreg.

like anyone is going to get/let you get within current harpoon/blunderbomb range to actually find out. lol.

i solo sloop alot aswell..
not cus i dont have friends. but cus i find it enjoyable and challenging.
But i also worry that these updates will effect solo alot.
People are already pretty good at deck shots.. and now they will be able to p00n themselves onto the ships deck from the air after over shooting a deckshot.
#1 rule on a solo sloop for me is dont let people board.. it almost always ends in my demise. Spawn killed & sailed outta bounds in HG (cheapest way 2 win imo)
But.. ive been worried about additions in the past and SOT has always found a way to balance things out.. So, hopefully thats the case here aswell.

Sloop just needs a few buffs to make it more competitive w the other ships. Not sure what though..
Ladder pulls, speed boost, front facing (small) cannon, a 120hp outboard

i gotta admit.. cant wait to use the horn on a rowie.