In games it's called "simulator sickness" and, unlike when you're in a car or on a boat it's not triggered by actual movement. Instead, it's caused by the discrepancy between your eyes and inner ear. Essentially when you are super into a game you are sitting down and playing it's the auditory stimuli that is causing part of the conflict (the sounds of movement of the sea and ship, etc). Your eyes also have a part in it, because your body is stationary but your eyes may be on the screen for a long period of time it can confuse your brain enough.
The Borden Institute for Military Medical Research and Education estimates that roughly 33% of Americans suffer from motion sickness (traditional kind). The ESA said in 2017 that 65% of American households play video games, so the percent of people who are susceptible to the simulation sickness might be higher than I thought. That's why I'm doing some research on options.
Solutions (for players to take):
-Don't play with headphones. Headphones exacerbate the problem by giving you direct audio and cancelling or muffling out the static sounds around you. I've seen a big difference when playing with and without headphones.
-Don't smoke, drink, or eat before playing (especially caffeine, nicotine, or alcohol make it worse). These all can make the queasiness worse. It's best to play on an empty stomach from what I've been reading, but some people recommend drinking a lot of water and that may help, but may give you the burps (it gave me pretty consistent burps but didn't increase my nausea).
-Change your FOV. You can change your Field of View in the game settings. I've seen this help a fair amount with my gaming sessions and I recommend it to everyone.
-Play on a galleon with 4 players. The galleons are known to have less sway (I think) and I've observed feeling better on larger ships. You also have a better chance of joining them mid-way through their journey when you join them and therefore you can finish a quest faster than if you did it by yourself. 4 player galleons also have more space below deck, and if you need to take a break in-game but don't want to quit the game and get attacked then you can go below deck, take a breather, look at the map, while other players are still sailing the ship and keeping look out.
-Avoid storms and drinking in-game. The waves created by storms make the ship move much more, and drinking of course is just going to make you throw up if you do it too many times. If you happen upon a drunk chest, take it, then drop it every once in a while and take a breather. An alternative to the chests is squinting. If you squint while carrying a drunken chest it makes the experience a bit easier to deal with.
-Take breaks and look out your window. I've been testing out playing and looking out my window at the ground, trees, and sky, and this has been effective in making longer play sessions more bearable.
-Eat/drink/consume ginger. There's not really any hard proof that ginger helps with motion or simulation sickness, but many people claim it does help. Even gingerale is known to help people who play VR games (myself included) so it's worth a try. Dramamine is also worth a try as it's very affordable and easy to get.
-Do 1 or 2 chests at a time, then stop playing. This is basically just saying cut down your play sessions, but if you're on a long journey that has like 5 maps, then you're basically required to finish the quest otherwise you end up losing it if you quit (every time I quit mid-way through a journey I ALWAYS lose it when I log back into the game, maybe this is a glitch and it doesn't affect other players but for me it does). The way to handle this is join a 2 man ship with someone who has short missions. I'd say just purchase shorter missions but there's no way to tell how long they will be except the "half a day, a full day, more than a full day" description each job lists when you buy them. Try for half a day if possible, but if you're level 10 or up you probably can't buy those anymore.
-Get that white circle thingy you put behind your ears. @Raphael-Bahauss recommended this and I haven't tried it yet but it's worth a shot.
-Get the wrist thingies. They're designed mostly for people who get sick during flying, but they're super cheap and I used to have one for VR. I can't attest to it's effectiveness but it might work for some.
-PC Players: Try playing with a mouse. I can confirm using a keyboard/mouse instead of a controller feels better and is now my preferred way of playing. Possibly because the amount of movement using a mouse varies up the visual problems that come with the simulation sickness.
-Use a smaller screen or play on a TV that is far away from your face. I play on my computer, so my screen is very close to me compared to a TV. I don't have the ability to play on a TV but it may help those who are sitting close to their monitor.
-Motioneaze. I've seen this mentioned on a few websites but have never ever heard of it until now. Apparently it's a liquid you drop behind your earlobe and it makes you feel better (sounds super sketchy and dumb to me but hey what do I know).
If I've forgotten to mention anything, please check the rest of this topic to see what other people have recommended. I'll try to keep updating this once in a while.
Original Post:
I'm sure this has been talked about to death but jeez after a couple of hours of busting on the high seas I feel AWFUL. Haven't felt this bad since I got my Oculus VR.
It's worst when you're drunk and also if you encounter storms for long periods of time.
I know not everyone gets affected the same way but I would super appreciate it if the devs were able to implement a "steady-head" setting or something that could ease the motion stuff in the game, or at least a setting that eased up on the swaying in the ships. I find myself doing short bursts more often than long journeying and that's not always even possible to do if I have a multi chapter quest.
Love the game, having lots of fun, but if I'm not the only one who gets the sea sickness then please let me know what you guys do to alleviate it :) I'm quickly running out of Dramamine.
