Playing since release on Xbox, it's likely that every player not just me has found the combat often frustrating and unfair more than fun.
It feels more of a chore than a pleasant experience, to battle skeleton crews and enemy pirates should be fun and exciting but is often translated in game play by; Spamming your cutlass or running around rocks so you don't end up full of seemingly unavoidable holes.
To taking turns to shoot at one another with the blunderbuss in the hopes that you instantly kill them before they do you - it's just a role of the dice.
Several of my friends have quit the game because the combat greatly infuriates them.
I've comprised some ideas to make the combat more enjoyable based on what I've been told and have experienced, it's likely these suggestions have already been made.
Being currently the only enemy NPC in the game outside of sharks, the Kraken and hilariously snakes, I find Skeletons overwhelmingly frustrating to deal with most of the time especially in large groups and even more so when they have guns.
Skeletons can hit you through Cutlass combo chains.
Simply adding more "hit stun" to the Cutlass when used on Skeletons should prevent them from randomly attacking you through the combo.
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Skeletons and Guns.
Is it just me? Or are Skeletons crack shots and almost never miss with their guns? This is especially true for the pistol skeletons that can do an absurd amount of damage from an absurd distance.
Delaying the tracking ranged Skeletons have will mean they're easier to dodge whilst still posing as a threat. Another option would be to reduce the damage these skeletons can do as they are ranged based.
Or alternatively, add a hit box functionality that if the player hits the skeleton on their arm/hand enough times the skeleton will drop the weapon and will resort to melee strikes.
Fleeing Skeletons
Admittedly, seeing a skeleton flee for their "life"(?) for the first few times was amusing but as I got more absorbed by the game this became pretty annoying especially when that skeleton was part of a bounty.
A fleeing skeleton can run from one side of an island to the other often without you noticing during a bounty which can leave you confused and assuming the game is broken. The lush shrubbery islands boast doesn't help with this annoying little issue.
Simply reducing how far a Skeleton can/will run or prevent bounty skeletons from fleeing would in my eyes make it a much more pleasant experience. Not having to chase after a skeleton for ten minutes or be left confused as one little of those little b*****s decided it was time for a holiday at the other end of the island.
https://www.pcgamesn.com/sites/default/files/sea of thieves shadow skeleton tips.jpg
Shadow Skeletons
By far the most interesting skeleton type in the game, shadow skeletons seem to have a weird animation issue when they are stunned by lantern light.
You can try this for yourself! When you find a shadow skeleton with a gun, wait for them to start aiming at you then stun them. You'll find that even though they're stunned they still fire at you! This will even happen if you're close enough to the melee variants - they'll still hit you even if they're stunned!
This is obviously a bug and has likely already been brought to light but I thought I'd mention it.
https://topsyturvygamer.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/skeletons.jpeg?w=1024
Fighting masses of Skeletons
Skeletons are at their deadliest when they're numerous. Whilst fighting groups of them isn't particularly problematic (depends on the type), melee skeletons seem to have adopted the strategy of walking inside a player's model or circle around you.
Whilst the circling part could be down to AI coding and is entirely intentional, the "walking inside the player model" hopefully isn't. This strangely enough only seems to happen in masses, whilst I'm dealing with two or more skeletons at a time it's not unlikely that a skeleton from behind or in front will simply walk seemingly inside my model and will attack me which will make them very difficult to see let alone hit.
Hopefully another bug that may or may not have been brought up.
https://cdn.gamer-network.net/2018/usgamer/sea-of-thieves-skeleton-captain.jpg
Boss skeletons and displaying skeleton HP.
If you've played the game for any amount of time, you've likely noticed there's no way to tell how much HP a skeleton has left. This often leaves you perplexed when a seemingly weak looking skeleton can take well over 10 hits to actually kill.
This is especially true when it comes to boss skeletons, who take plentiful amounts of hits to take down which strangely enough doesn't seem to vary depending on what skull they will drop.
Displaying HP;
You likely have noticed amongst the clouds in the game, a skull cloud. This cloud's eyes flash green, yellow or orange randomly as to my understanding the colour of the eyes seems to have no relation to the status of the skull fort.
Why not employ a similar mechanic to skeletons, or at the very least the boss skeletons? Have their eyes glow depending on how much HP they have left.
For example; Green for over half. Yellow for half and red for under half.
Such a mechanic could be fitted very easily to the shadow skeletons.
https://news.xbox.com/en-us/wp-content/uploads/SeaOfThieves_SwordFighting_940x528-1-hero.jpg
Player versus player
Arguably the most important aspect of the game, the player versus player combat is lacking pretty heavily due to various things which are always apparent in a PvP game.
Most of these "issues" I'd feel more comfortable referring to them as growing pains, simple decisions that at the time seemed great but when in practice are rather dampening.
Weapons
Let's***t the biggest frog in the face first with this one. The weapons as of now are rather unbalanced which as mentioned are always apparent in a PvP game.
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The Eye of Reach
Arguably the most useless weapon in the game, it can be extremely difficult to land a shot with this gun due to how fast ships can go and it being basically useless on land against both skeletons and players.
This weapon is only ever used from my experience by that one crew member who remains on the ship whilst the rest of the crew go on land to score the bounty or find treasure.
This weapons need some love and scrub to become remotely viable like the other two weapons:
Remove the need to scope out when reloading the gun.
Increase the draw distance when scoped in.
Remove the bullet drop.
Increase the projectile speed.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/In3dPSIcMuY/maxresdefault.jpg
The Pistol
This pistol remains a versatile firearm despite the games teething pains. High damage, decent accuracy and the ability to knock enemy pirates off ship make me believe this weapon is actually balanced.
However I wouldn't mention it otherwise:
Slightly decrease the projectile speed.
The Blunderbuss
The strongest and most notorious weapon in the game. Capable of instantly killing players and skeletons in one shot.
Remove the random spread the gun has, and instead give it a set spread.
Significantly reduce its damage.
Add the ability to load the weapon with multiple pellets which will increase its damage.
By loading the gun with multiple pellets, the player will essentially fire multiple salvos of bullets with one shot. This will take longer than simply reloading the weapon and firing.
This idea is intended to remove the unfair random instant kill the Blunderbuss "can" do right now and instead allow the players to understand when it can instant kill and that it's possible to prevent and avoid.
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The Cutlass
By far the most interesting weapon in the game, the Cutlass is at the forefront of PvP combat when it comes to player interactivity in combat but is overshadowed by the Blunderbuss.
I feel like the Cutlass has a lot of potential to make the combat in Sea of Thieves truly amazing, they have all the right ingredients they just need to figure out how to cook.
Remove the movement penalty from attacking.
Remove the movement penalty from blocking attacks.
Add a penalty for hitting a blocking foe.
Add a parry mechanic.
Add a "Jab/Kick" attack to the sword.
Add a "Shove" blocking mechanic.
The ability to block even when being struck
Penalising the attacker who tries to strike a blocker.
Constant strikes against a blocking foe will reduce the attacker's movement speed for a very short duration.
A parry? Tapping block when an enemy sword attack makes contact with you causes your character to parry; deflecting the strike then hitting the attacker once.
The Jab/Kick. A foe only blocking? Try jabbing and/or kicking! "Jabbing" is very quick thrust attack that goes through blocks and causes light damage.
This attack does not interrupt other Cutlass attacks.
This can be assigned to a button when the Cutlass is drawn.
Kicking a foe will break their block entirely and cause them to stagger slightly giving you an opportunity to strike them.
The kick attack is a lot slower than the "Jab".
The kick does no damage.
This can be assigned to a button when the Cutlass is drawn.
I'm curious to see what the community and Rare thinks of these ideas and whether or not any of them would be viable or possible to implement.
Thanks for making this far!
