Outposts are tiny islands on the waves... they're Not some actual outpost part of the mainland.
Why does everyone think that it means you have to be on the water to kill others? You realize pirates ran the outposts in real life right? Meaning if that pirate saw you doing something they didn't like they could kill you where you stood.
Meaning if a pirate decides they want to control that outpost, they can decide what to do on it.
Nobody is arguing that the sail by and drop loot, then mermaid back to the ship is a bad tactic. It’s an efficient use of game mechanics and you’re playing by the rules.
But, I am all about there being a balance to the game and there should be a risk vs reward for each action you take.
Let’s get away from the dropping loot off at an outpost angle for a bit and talk about the same strategy when used on floating barrels.
When sailing by floating barrels you can have your entire crew jump overboard and fill up on resources before mermaid teleporting back onto the ship to store the resources. This is on the high seas and nobody is camping the location. There is literally no risk to doing this and I think that’s a balancing problem. The idea is that you should have to make a choice; how much are those resources worth? Do I risk dropping anchor and leaving my ship vunerable while collecting resources, or do I keep sailing because either I don’t need them or it’s not worth me stopping because that would leave me vunerable.
By not having to stop and drop anchor to resupply my ship I am not having to undertake a risk. There is not supposed to be reward without risk.
For this reason I think the mermaid spawning is a bad gameplay element.
I’d be much happier with the system if you lost your entire resource inventory by using the mermaid. It already doesn’t let you travel with held items. Simple fix to balance this out is to also not be able to teleport with any planks, CBs, and bananas.
@mysticdragon297 said in abusing re-spawns to turn in loot effortlessly via mermaid. pass by an outpost, jump off without dropping anchor, turn in, return to ship via mermaid, repeat.:
(edited because comments used ad hominem)
players are going from outpost to outpost without stopping, drop a few men off, turn in their reward, travel back to their boat via mermaid, repeat. deny it or not, this is not how mermaids are meant to be used.
i feel as if sharks should spawn more often near outposts or directly make some changes to how players use mermaid re-spawn.
seggestions so far.
- mermaids should only spawn while your ship is anchored. players can still use the tactic once for a more limited amount of reward (such as the number of crewmates [one chest per crewmate]), but they'll need to scuttle their ship if they want to get it back, or if they have more loot than their crew can carry, they'll need to actually dock their ship.
- mermaids should fine players for their services. players can still use the tactic multiple times, but doing so will give them less reward than they could have by actually docking their ship.
So if I fall of my ship in a fight and my anchor is up the mermaid cant spawn so I never can get back up? Stupid Idea. And this post is also stupid.
@mysticdragon297 said in abusing re-spawns to turn in loot effortlessly via mermaid. pass by an outpost, jump off without dropping anchor, turn in, return to ship via mermaid, repeat.:
my point is that it is not risky at all. not as much as actually docking a ship and turning in the entire reward. plus it is clearly taking advantage of game mechanics that are clearly not supposed to be used in such ways.
Why do you feel that the game mechanics shouldn't be used that way? I can understand certain mindsets, like saying griefing isn't good for the game, but this just seems like regular strategy. It's using the game to your advantage. Like, I don't personally like that larger groups of people will wait at Outposts to rob other players completing missions, but if that's what they find fun, then they can do it. I don't find it fun, as it's rare for me to run into other ships at Outposts, but waiting around for long periods of time doing nothing doesn't sound fun to me either, and obviously being on the receiving end doesn't feel great. That said, people are allowed to do it, and whatever they find fun, I guess. I will give you that I think death or scuttling shouldn't be meaningless. I think you should have to pay to scuttle your ship or if you die, unless you're scuttling your ship or respawning because of a PvP-related event. For example, if your ship is being fired upon by an enemy ship, or if you died because another person killed you, then there should be no penalty. However, if you rammed your ship into the side of an island yourself or died fighting a skeleton or just by doing something dumb, then you would have to pay up. I don't know how I feel about paying mermaids. Maybe if you only had to pay them at Outposts, it would work, but as they're almost necessary to get back onto your ship in some cases, I don't think it should apply all the time.
TL;DR:
I don't agree that is abusing the game. I do think that death is meaningless, and should have a tangible repercussion on the player as long as was not caused by PvP-related events.
@jakeguy59 if im on the edge of the boat and fall off ... when i get a certain distance from the boat i get a mermaid ... thats it; thats as far as the programming got for rare i think lol... as far as jumping ship and as your boat keeps on going ;selling a item then getting back on the boat when the mermaid appears ... thats just how it was programmed... someone got off the boat ... to far from it ... mermaids appears; now figuring out how to differentiate the two ... i have no idea; i know i have exploited it a few times in my sloop.. being chased down by a galleon . perhaps having a distinction between being in the water falling off or on the island as the ship leaves you or on a outpost while your ship leaves ... there could be time difference between the three... the mermaid has saved me from other players holding gunpowder taking it towards my ship ...lol; id rather them not mess with my guardian mermaids and mermen though. lol
@ghostpaw said in abusing re-spawns to turn in loot effortlessly via mermaid. pass by an outpost, jump off without dropping anchor, turn in, return to ship via mermaid, repeat.:
@gau-the-lesser What were you up to when you came across this five month old thread?
Considering the issue still exists in the game and rare hasn’t addressed it, would be nice if instead of this getting locked because of a dumb forum rule that rare would actually speak on the topic of endless mermaid usage along with endless suicide ladder boarding with mermaid backup....
Rather than this get locked and the guy who revived it getting discouraged and not making another thread, there is already plenty to discuss right here.
I don't understand this discussion at all. This is not an exploit. An exploit was getting a ton of chicken crates and farming chickens to get your merchant higher. That was clearly not how the missions were intended to work. But letting your ship continue to sail while you disembark and return is not an exploit, its a mechanic. The devs have said MULTIPLE times that one of the things they enjoy the most about this game is how people come up with creative solutions and ways to play. Calling this an exploit is akin to calling the chest of sorrows on a skelly ship an exploit. Or saying that bailing water from your ship to an opponents is an exploit. Being clever is not the same as exploiting. This strategy is completely legitimate and believing RARE should punish players for losing their ship is completely contrary to what we all want. Unless some of you want a death tax, too.
@tw-dizzy said in abusing re-spawns to turn in loot effortlessly via mermaid. pass by an outpost, jump off without dropping anchor, turn in, return to ship via mermaid, repeat.:
I don't understand this discussion at all. This is not an exploit. An exploit was getting a ton of chicken crates and farming chickens to get your merchant higher. That was clearly not how the missions were intended to work. But letting your ship continue to sail while you disembark and return is not an exploit, its a mechanic. The devs have said MULTIPLE times that one of the things they enjoy the most about this game is how people come up with creative solutions and ways to play. Calling this an exploit is akin to calling the chest of sorrows on a skelly ship an exploit. Or saying that bailing water from your ship to an opponents is an exploit. Being clever is not the same as exploiting. This strategy is completely legitimate and believing RARE should punish players for losing their ship is completely contrary to what we all want. Unless some of you want a death tax, too.
You could be this vague and defensive of anything a human has ever done in video games that you agree with. People are allowed to have the opinion that this is an exploit regardless of what you compare it to.
Having a teleporter mechanic with no limit that allows you to use that teleport to avoid Having to dock or sink anyone to turn in loot with no penalty, or that allows players who run an infiNite number of attempts to board a chasing ship is at the very least a poorly thought out way to let players who are lost at sea get back to their ship without the ship turning around.
Beyond that never once has rare said that everyone jumping overboard and allowIng your ship to sail unattended for a time only to take a teleporter back there is an intended gameplay loop... in fact it was pretty much unanimously thought (and pretty sure told to us by rare that it would be updated) that the mermaid was just to help players test in the short windows we had and that they were going to limit its use in some way for the full game.
They literally Haven’t changed it since.
Anyone defending this mechanic either wasn’t here when the game was coming together in alpha or just dosnt know what they are talking about when it comes to fair and fun game design.
@gau-the-lesser Please don't resurrect old threads, it is against the forum rules. This thread will now be locked.
