[Mega Thread] - In Game Customisation

  • Hello there Pirates, old and new!

    Now that we are in the first week of launch we're relaunching (ha!) these Mega Thread Series, to ensure that we get your most relevant and up to date feedback on your gameplay experiences.

    In an attempt to keep all the popular conversation topics in one place, we have made these Mega Threads.

    This topic is focused around Customisation in Sea of Thieves. We'd love to hear your experiences on customisation in the game. From the IPG to character to ship customisation. Discuss below!

    Thank you!


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    Cast your good eye over the Articles here: The Pirate Code


    Mega Thread - Part 2
    Mega Thread - Part 1

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  • @khaleesibot Hi. Just want to say, I love the game. Having so much fun on it right now, with more to be had. Convinced a friend to buy it yesterday to play with me. That being said It's not without its issues.

    In terms of customisation, the options we have are very limited. I assume more will be added, but what is really needed in my opinion is more variety in general, and some single clothing items that do not fit into sets (like the exotic items from Destiny I guess?). And different ship types to work towards, rather than just colours, as this adds variety to each ship you see on the horizon.

    I also think there should be more options on how to get customisation items. A crafting system would be good, and also adds more to the gameplay. Like, a shark hunter outfit that we can only craft after killing X amount of sharks and collecting their teeth (or something).

  • I also think there should be more options on how to get customisation items. A crafting system would be good, and also adds more to the gameplay. Like, a shark hunter outfit that we can only craft after killing X amount of sharks and collecting their teeth (or something).

    I totally agree with you at that point. It would be great if we had other ways of acquiring the cosmetics than just buying it for gold.

  • Hey @khaleesibot !

    I have a few points I'd like to make regarding customization and I'll try to do so in the most concise, structured way possible! :)

    • Infinite Pirate Generator (IPG)

    First and foremost, thank you so, so much for including the 'Save' feature within the IPG. I was one of those vocal critics of the system and even made my own mockup and I was SO happy to see it implemented. I honestly believe that without the save mechanic, we would have had some very angry players in the long run dealing with the whole 'what if?' issue.

    With that said, I still wish there were some fine tuning for the IPG - filters to allow certain body types or gender to only display. I know it's very late at this stage to go back and redo the system but I think given the nature of the IPG, there should have been a tiny bit more control... which leads me to my next point!

    • Barber / Aesthetician

    I believe that there should be an NPC located somewhere on an outpost that serves as a Barber/Aesthetician. Here is where we could see a full blown customization process come into play. What if a players realizes the pirate he/she chose isn't the right fit for them? What if that player is now level 20+ within their Trade Companies - they surely aren't going to delete that character so in essence, they're stuck with their pirate.

    Here is where the Barber/Aesthetician comes into play. Allow players to use those filters as mentioned before to tweak and change their pirate - FOR A PRICE. The more changes you make to your pirate, the higher the overall gold cost to modify them.

    To make it even more interesting, allow this NPC to introduce new hairstyles/ beard types / hair colors and more over time. Give players an incentive to go back and check out this particular NPC!

    • Tattoo Parlor /Scars

    Allow pirates to be able to choose from a selection of tattoos/ scars for their character. These would NOT include tattoos that are only acquired through certain achievements/ in-game events. Again, charge players for the amount of modifications they are making.

    This could be done in a style similar to 'For Honor'. A forearm for example has 'X styles to choose from', while the shoulder blade has 'Y styles to choose from'. This would eliminate players placing tattoos on random parts of their bodies, making for some terribly odd looking characters.

    • Clothing Types/ Outfits/ Skins

    From what we've seen so far (and this is important to remember we've only seen a limited amount thus far) it seems the only options we have are limited to a different color variation for more or less the same piece of clothing/skin.

    I do hope that there are many more skins available to come (I believe/hope most of them are tucked away behind the legend status) as the ones we see at the moment are all similar in style and scope.

    Something I would suggest here that could be added to the previous Barber/ Aesthetician would be the ability to change DYES for clothing.

    This would probably require a new system entirely to allow dye channels to be implemented but I strongly believe this is more in line with 'be the pirate you want to be'. As much as I like the sets we currently have I can't help to think "Oh, that would look better in green.” Or - “I wish that hat were red."

    Allow players the opportunity to either acquire/ purchase actual vials of dye that can then allow even further unique looks for our pirates.

    • Ship Customization

    This is similar to the comment above regarding the available clothing styles. From what we've seen so far, we have a basic set of options to customize (we know there is more such as the Joanna Dark / Banjo-Kazooie Figureheads) but I would love to see some more options. Whether it is the ability to again, change the overall color scheme regardless of what hull/sails we choose would add another layer of personalization to game.

    These are just my two cents - if I think of anything else, I'll add it to this post, cheers!

    ~ Captain Jay
    The Crow's Nest

  • @thewolfman321 yhea we should have more clothes. Maybe even have some outpost specific or region.

  • I think it would be great if there were a lot more low level cosmetic items. More hair styles (especially for women) like dreadlocks, fringe, etc and basic clothing, as well as jewelry.

    I get that there are the 4 main factions which were supposed to work up towards but it’s pretty expensive for each item and unless you play a lot will take a long time to obtain one. Would also like to be able to preview the item on my character before buying it.

    A bunch of new tatty jackets, dresses, bandannas etc would be great for starter customisation. I’d also love some really crude ship customisation. Like a Trident figure head but it looks terrible, like you drunkenly nailed a few planks together with a bad paint job to top.

    We aspire to get the amazing ones, but give us something that’s a bit cheaper (and looks cheap) until we get there

  • Hey @khaleesibot the game is honestly exactly as fantastic as I always hoped it would be, thank you guys for it so far!

    Customization could really benefit from a sail designer in the game, similar to a few recent games where you could pick different colours, logos and parts to make your own emblems. Don't allow overlapping of parts if you don't want people crafting raunchy things!

    Keep the same base sails you have in the game just allow edits to a logo on the sail, add a load of skulls, kraken silhouettes, swords, grog tankards and stuff and let us pick the colours.

    Also obviously ship naming for sure needs to be a thing.

    In general, more options, less pricey. The prices right now make sense since there are so few options but in future as more are added they need to be cheaper so people can experiment.

  • I would really like an option to change hair colour and add tattoos. They could even sell the dye from the clothing vendors.
    As far as the ships go I think the price for their customisation should definitely go down, they are crazy expensive. I think creating unlockables for lower levels would be good too because currently we're stuck with the white ones until level 35 or we have to cash out 75,000 which is a lot of grinding! Are you maybe doing this so people of lower levels will be tempted by microtransactions when you roll that out RARE?

    https://imgur.com/a/gd57Y

  • @chris5626 I agree with you on adding 10 sails or so every patch (hopefully every month) but I think the base amount available at launch should be muuuuuuuuuuuuch greater. I can't remember exactly now, but I feel like there were 5-6 options only. 40 for launch would be perfect and then add 10 every month. In 6 months time, it would be 100.

    @KattTruewalker Hey Katt, with all honesty these mega threads for everything aren't too great. I feel like lot's of stuff get's buried in here and no one really reads it. The most of the "I ain't happy about something" topics get locked and sent away to megathreads. We also need a megathread for "I'm happy" or "thank you Rare" posts just to balance it out :P .

  • On the customization of boats, I believe we have few options, although we have enjoyed quite a few, I do not see a real freedom of choices. We could take for example an Admiral's hull with the current design is the freedom to choose colors, and so on.

  • I just want the customization seen on the ship on the left

    alt text

  • @captain-surgee said in [Mega Thread] - In Game Customisation:

    @chris5626 I agree with you on adding 10 sails or so every patch (hopefully every month) but I think the base amount available at launch should be muuuuuuuuuuuuch greater. I can't remember exactly now, but I feel like there were 5-6 options only. 40 for launch would be perfect and then add 10 every month. In 6 months time, it would be 100.

    @KattTruewalker Hey Katt, with all honesty these mega threads for everything aren't too great. I feel like lot's of stuff get's buried in here and no one really reads it. The most of the "I ain't happy about something" topics get locked and sent away to megathreads. We also need a megathread for "I'm happy" or "thank you Rare" posts just to balance it out :P .

    I agree which is why we do tend to remake them when they get too unwieldy, but it's far easier for staff to read one thread than to search forums and miss what might be some very useful and well reasoned feedback or suggestions.
    With the pace the forum threads are moving at the moment, it's very easy to lose track of little gems.

    And yes! A 'Thank you' thread would be awesome :D

  • @biggishbike1891 Yeah I agree. Like outfits that you can only get at specific outposts. Gives you more of an incentive to explore the map.

  • @saracens-lament I really hope they're careful with the MTX store rollout, if it's handled wrong the community rage will be extremely damaging and give the game's detractors a huge amount of ammunition.

  • @khaleesibot
    Customization Mega Thread, awesome!
    Thanks First off.

    Reading around the forums some good questions were asked.

    -What stops Rate with implementing minimum 30 of each piece of clothing? (Maybe not all sets but some stand alone type clothing)
    -Why limit ship customization to only a handful of options?
    -Why only approx 5 beard, 5 hair style? (Can we say I feel like everyone looks the same I that aspect)
    -Why no color unlocks at cost for gold? (Beard, hair)

    Without listing too much (just basics) you get the point. Giving the people slightly more options would be simple. To implement slightly more could have avoided this thread. 20 options of each at launch is not asking much from a "customization" focused game.

    If you need assistance I'm sure the community wouldn't mind drawing some ideas up for you! They're craving the customization you promised. That "Unique Pirate" in this world.

    "Launch release focused" is no excuse for lack of begining customization items in my opinion. This is a separate from the issues that were guaranteed to come (server issues and or bug fixes).

    I love this game and hope more is implemented soon. I'll stay strong and keep recommending this game. Lots of potential.

  • I can say that I really liked the character generator, I quickly found a cool character and started playing without regrets.
    As for the customization of ships, you have very little to customize, I wish I could customize the sails either through a website or an app, making it truly unique.

  • There is still a need for basic choices for the pirate generator, gender and age. Maybe "injured" should be there too (lots of scars, only a few). Same for tattoos (lots, few). If you actually implement this, you should really give a one time "re-generate current pirate" option to people who did not want to waste time with this.

    Ship customization options are pretty lacking, even though the game progression is basically your skins and your ship's skins....? Where are the old skins even? Only noticed the tankard one I believe. Did you actually just set those assets and reused them as incoming legendary skins already? :)

    I would like to see more customization for ship parts. For the flag atop as well. For the sails: choosing if you want "patched" sails or "neat clean looking" ones.

    Pets are nowhere, but if there will be any, I hope you can choose parrot type and some randomized colors of them too (okay that may be an overshot of useless data to store) different colors of parrot types maybe (male and female frequently differs in feather colors already).

    Color of your gear. I would like to see a DYE shop. With a basic choice of dyes (blue, green, orange, red, purple, yellow, black) let us be fancy and choose our looks as unique as we can.

    More hair styles please. Not much to give for the female pirates at the moment.

    TL;DR: see only bold text. :)

  • @dudeurscoped if hair and clothing dyes are sold as paid for microtransactions it will cause an absolute outrage. People will get over it eventually of course but there will be a lot of cancelled gamepass subscriptions and demands for refunds.

  • I would like to see an opportunity to adjust the captain's hut.
    Consider, for example, furniture trophies and paintings and sculptures.

    Because the ship is actually your home, this would be very cool if this were to become a possibility in the future to be able to adapt it to your own taste.

    also, for example, the rear of the ship. How cool would it be to place large or multiple windows or for example golden statues and other ornaments. This as they used to show how rich they were in the golden age.

  • As a lot of people have mentioned more hair cuts and dyes (for hair and clothes) I think they should add in a Barbers!

    Make this the place you buy and change vanity items

  • IPG is VERY cool. Love it. However, I'd like to use it as a "starting place", and then change my character's specific features. Example: (1) changing hair color. (2) changing eye shadowing (some of the characters are awesome, but look like they have black eyes ... pass).

    Anyway, I was a huge fan of your customization features in Banjo Kazooie so I'm certain there are lots of good things to come. Cheers!

  • i am one of the few people who likes the IPG, i found one in the very first roll and love him since then, but i agree let us change our pirate for a reasonable amount of gold!

  • Can we be told why in a game that may be lacking variety and is built around the progression towards cosmetics, why is there only a handful of customisation options?

    It’s especially disheartening the lack of ship customisation. What ever happened to the banjo kazooie piece we seen in trailers for one example.

    I understand that adding major content takes time, resources etc but come on. Dozens of new emblems on sails shouldnt take a whole team months to achieve.

  • I agree with most of what has been said but have to add one little thing. I would love to be able to change my eyes color. I'm okay with IPG and I have spent 90 minutes selecting my pirate but I noticed only after two days he has blue eyes. It's impossible to see eye color in IPG and I would much rather have green eyes. It might sound ridiculous but it's important to me and there is such a bad lighting in the IPG it's just impossible to see little details like this. Same goes for hair color. I've chosen a bald guy because I liked his face but it was a lottery with the hair color.

    In a long run, I think it would be great to be able to change most things about your pirate. Be it with special potions or a chain quest. Be it a special NPC that you have to find on a random island in the middle of the night. Would be fun to pick an ugly pirate and eventually making him perfect.

  • @khaleesibot We need more ship customization

  • The lack of customization is why half my friends haven’t bought the game. We need more ship customizations (preferably cheaper ones too), more diversity not just pallette swaps (really lazy on that part @Rare).
    I liked the idea I saw about making your own gear by killing x amount of sharks that could bring more players over having crafting to customize.
    Not sure if this would fall into this thread as well but different style ships and weapons too. I’m pretty sure pirates used more than cutlasses, pistols, blunderbusses, sloops and galleons. There’s so many options to add more stuff in for it to be more diverse and custom and still have the game balanced.

  • we neeeeeed Customisable pirate flags man thats like the pirate motto!!!!!!!

  • @katttruewalker i totally support the mega threads idea as i can see how they make your life easier.
    may i suggest to use a feedback specific platform as Discord does?
    https://feedback.discordapp.com/forums/326712-discord-dream-land

    else i'd ask you to enforce a "one idea, one post" rule to prevent flooding and burying:
    we should post just 1 feedback/suggestion per post, and everyone else should stick to just "like" the post to support the idea.

    this would benefit you mods and devs and also us users.

  • One thing about the IPG my boyfriend pointed out is that it would be nice to have a feature to generate male or female pirates only while active. Most of the people will know whether they want to play as male or female and if they don't mind either way, they could just keep it on both. It would cut the time of searching in half for many of us.

  • More! Lol that’s pretty much it o.o

    For a game that’s progression is based around customization we need a bit more or at least some more info on the shops. Like does their stock change? Or will more be added?

  • i'm starting giving the good example for the "one idea, one post" rule.

    what i'd really like to see are Functional Ship Upgrades, not only cosmetic
    as:

    • the "rumored" harpoon
    • reinforced hull (tougher, but slower)
    • slicker hull (faster, but squishier)
    • sails number upgrade ( more speed )
    • sails shape upgrade ( more manoeuvrability )
    • chained cannonballs ( effective vs sails )
    • explosive/hollow cannonballs ( effective vs reinforced hull )
    • lower deck cannon rows ( more fire power on each broadside, but less visibility/mannability )

    i acknowledge these mechanics would require a lot of effort to be implemented, but could be long term goals, and would ensure more depth besides only grinding for cosmetics.

  • @khaleesibot customization, too limited. Not nice. More ship and player customization. Not enough outfits, weapons, sails, figureheads, liveries. And there has to be more types of ship customization. Let’s say, interior design, wheels and flags.

  • After talking with the NPCs in the clothing store, I noticed they mentioned new clothing showing up next week. That, I am excited for. But I would like to mention a good source of inspiration, Rare. I take it some of us remember Pirates of the Caribbean Online? It was quite a fun game. In terms of customization, they sported shops such as Tattoo parlors and Salons for changing up more aspects of the player's appearance. I do believe they could have some good use in this game. Now yes, I know the clothing vendor already sells hair styles, but this could be moved to the Salon owner, in addition to the prospect of hair dying to achieve different colors. The catch would probably be being sent out to certain islands to gather the plants or resources needed to create the dye. As for the tattoo parlor, it would allow players to get and remove tattoos they have gotten with their character selection that they may otherwise find unsavory.

    Aside from that, I would like to see Flags make their way into the game. To give that personal touch for identifying out on the open sea.

    Additionally I would love to see perhaps a fiddle, a drum, and perhaps some form of mandolin/lute make their way in as playable instruments. From one of the devstream regarding the lore characters, I do recall one being shown and mentioned to have been a fiddle player. It would definitely spice up the music sessions on the ships.

  • @khaleesibot also, just thinking about it. We really REALLY need some low level and simply basic customisation items. At the moment, everything is in sets and expensive. If you included some basic customisation items, like a simple colour change, it gives you more things to work towards and also gives you rewards much earlier on that you don't necessarily ant to keep.

    E.g. Basic colour palette: Why can I not just have some red sails? Or black sails? You could have these as early ship unlocks so you're not just sailing around on a basic brown ship with white sails. The full sets that are currently available look more like an endgame thing. Give us some basic colours to use. And more Ship-head figures!
    For clothes on the other hand, give us each item in a variety of colours. May seem lazy to offer the same item a bunch of times but just different, but it does add to the things to unlock and give you options to look a little bit unique early on. And later in the game, it means that while you do have the same outfit as someone else, you also have the option to style it to your own preference. Also early game you would have lots of different pirate running around rather than just everybody in the same sailor outfit.

  • Hi, I really love this game but we need ASAP more items of customisation ! I have now 50000 gold and I don't spent it on anything because I wait for more options :( PLEASE ADD more items in the next patch in next week !

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