It's every time the same:
Sail to the raid without getting hit.
Kill every wave without dieing.
Take your loot and sell it.
How it should be:
Sail to the raid and get hit many times.
Struggle at every wave.
Get a very hard boss.
Take loot and beware of others.
The raids nowadays are boring and give new players stuff to easy.
The stronghold battles haven't changed (other than the cannoneer skeletons being less effective at range). The skeletons retain the same health pools and damage values they always have, you're just more experienced at fighting them and they seem to go by faster due to you knowing what to do - it's not a new experience for you. Little can be done about this, as the stronghold events are still quite challenging for newcomers who do not yet know the tactics used against and by skeletons. If the timer were to be raised back to perhaps an hour or half hour between fleet/stronghold spawns, it would revitalize the contested nature cloud events were meant to have, making them more challenging and daunting tasks for all.
Serverhopping is just something we have to deal with. It'll happen regardless, people do it for uncontested or contested strongholds, skeleton fleets, reaper's chests, reaper's mark ships, legendary voyages on other ships, etc. It shouldn't be as long as it was before, if it is lengthened, so you could simply wait between battles if you wanted to, as another server isn't guaranteed of having what you want either.
@etysia Have you ever been to Keel Haul Fort and not get hit haha. But I do agree, would be nice to have some difficulty variations.
People still do it, just not as commonly. It'll never really leave unless they do something specifically against it, like locking you to a specific server or something. And as I said, strongholds aren't the only reason to serverhop for some.
Mostly the FotD is the main reason people serverhop, yes. That's not something that will change, though, due to how the FotD is set up, its start times are entirely based on player decisions and as such are as random as you can get.
The point of it was to be a rare event with a big reward, like strongholds used to be when people had far less money and strongholds had 3 hour timers. It was a step back to what strongholds were intended to be: widely contested server-wide events. This means you'll encounter more players at it over other strongholds, which is kind of the point of it having a huge cloud visible across the map.
The intent wasn't serverhopping, but those who fought in the several hour long battles at active strongholds liked having such a variety of crews back then. Now, with the amount of people sneaking around anything involving clouds and skeletons, the overall opinion on serverhopping has gone down quite a bit. The game has changed, and the community with it. The FotD is for those who want a challenge like the old strongholds, while the current iteration of normal/ashen strongholds are for those who want a slightly more relaxed time on a less contested server event.
Yes, not everyone was happy with it, but a lot of people were and overall it seemed like most of the people enjoyed having huge ship-to-ship battles. It's different now, people are more skilled, use different tactics, have different weapons and the game plays differently too. It's at least not a real problem for normal strongholds anymore.
You see, they could definitely do this (and probably would like to) but then they'd get a ton of feedback like...
"Rare why you make game so hard? Why can't I beat fort solo? Change it or I will QUIT the game!!11!!1"
Aaaannddd then they bow down to that kind of feedback unfortunately, which is why the seas are oversaturated with the best loot for very little effort/skill.
@etysia sagte in Make the skull forts hard again!:
It's every time the same:
Sail to the raid without getting hit.
Kill every wave without dieing.
Take your loot and sell it.How it should be:
Sail to the raid and get hit many times.
Struggle at every wave.
Get a very hard boss.
Take loot and beware of others.The raids nowadays are boring and give new players stuff to easy.
What do you mean by "nowadays"? The forts never were hard. Have they been different during Alpha or what am I mising here?
What made forts hard previously is scarcity.
The scarcity attracted other players, and ultimately battles with other players made forts more difficult. Nowadays you can do forts unbothered.
Rare shot themselves in the foot by making forts spawn every five minutes.
@crimsonraziel The forts had sometimes no boom bones and sometimes they had sniper skeletons. And the pistol skeletons aimed better.
@chronodusk Can you say me, what is interesting in a game when you can do everything with looking at it?
@ultmateragnarok I know, that I am more experienced, but that wasn't my experience. It was the experience of a beginner (9 hours playtime)
@chronodusk sagte in Make the skull forts hard again!:
What made forts hard previously is scarcity.
The scarcity attracted other players, and ultimately battles with other players made forts more difficult. Nowadays you can do forts unbothered.
Rare shot themselves in the foot by making forts spawn every five minutes.
So it never was the fort that was hard, that's the point.
@etysia They are not difficult its true but they are not easier then before and if you want a challenge what about the Fort of the Damned?
Everyone will storm it as soon as the skull with eyes will pop up.
And normal forts are the same even slightly harder (they are still easy) with the skeleton lords.
Really dont think you should make it "harder", maybe get the cannons to hit more.
But think the forts should be put back to the 3 hr timer.
That would make it a lot rare, an hopefully more will players will go for it.
This would maybe bring back the server hoppers, but it also make it harder for all those Dicord servers, to make bank.
Forts every 3 hours was WAY, WAY better.
Now there are just forts everywhere and no one seems to really care now. It's no big deal. Used to, you didn't want to miss the fort. You would have to wait another 3 hours OR leave the server, join a server, and hope there is a fort. You would look for a fort. If there wasn't a fort, you would leave and join a new server. You would do this over and over, to finally get a fort. ...OR just not have the time to wait and play until you left the game, without getting a fort. If you did server hop and you did find a fort, you would have to quickly gather some supplies and head over there, with only a small amount of supplies.
Also, since it was every 3 hours, it was a pretty big event. Forts caught the eyes of all the ships on the server. You almost always had to fight for the fort. That's how it should still be.
Now, if you miss a fort, you don't care. You just wait a few minutes and just catch the next fort. Also, since there are non-stop forts, players don't flock to them. Now, you almost never get a chance to fight over a fort.
@sandaledpond889 said in Make the skull forts hard again!:
Nah, they would have been way better but the game doesn't significantly punish anyone for losing, so instead it turns into a boring slog of killing players to see them spawn within sight and sail back with fresh supplies over and over and over. It wasnt a contest of skill or daring, just a matter of who got bored first.
Server hopping is bad for the game. Its choosing not to participate in the game unless a fort exists. Making the forts more common was good in that it addressed server hopping, and made it less of a problem, meaning that there were more ships participating in the worlds instead of only particpating by sailing to active forts.
I'm not sure if you're just playing at off times or something but we regularly kick players off forts, maybe YOU just wait for the next one, but you dont have to and we dont.
I don't do forts now. That's why I don't. They are too easy. I probably have ~400 forts done.
One FAVORITE memory EVER, while playing SoT, was doing a 6 hour fort. We fought 2 other ships. We fought and fought and fought and fought. It was so much fun. Now, there is no fighting, fort cannons have been nerfed and skeletons run around with barrels now, SO, forts are just too easy.
@sandaledpond889 said in Make the skull forts hard again!:
@dislex-fx said in Make the skull forts hard again!:
@sandaledpond889 said in Make the skull forts hard again!:
Nah, they would have been way better but the game doesn't significantly punish anyone for losing, so instead it turns into a boring slog of killing players to see them spawn within sight and sail back with fresh supplies over and over and over. It wasnt a contest of skill or daring, just a matter of who got bored first.
Server hopping is bad for the game. Its choosing not to participate in the game unless a fort exists. Making the forts more common was good in that it addressed server hopping, and made it less of a problem, meaning that there were more ships participating in the worlds instead of only particpating by sailing to active forts.
I'm not sure if you're just playing at off times or something but we regularly kick players off forts, maybe YOU just wait for the next one, but you dont have to and we dont.
I don't do forts now. That's why I don't. They are too easy. I probably have ~400 forts done.
One FAVORITE memory EVER, while playing SoT, was doing a 6 hour fort. We fought 2 other ships. We fought and fought and fought and fought. It was so much fun. Now, there is no fighting, fort cannons have been nerfed and skeletons run around with barrels now, SO, forts are just too easy.
All this tells me is you're easily amused.
A 6 hour fort, no sir, I'd sail away, its not worth that kind of time lol.
If I sent people packing for 6 hours and they cant take the hint that they've lost and the game doesnt make any of those victories mean anything I'm not continuing to play at that point.
"If I sent people packing..."
Are you assuming my crew lost over and over?
O.G. Pirate Legend here. I am from the first batch of PLs and M.S.T. don't lose.
Sure, that was a bit of a brag, but my point is, I have seen where forts have been and I see where they are now. Now, they are easy and there is almost 0 challenge.
@sandaledpond889 said in Make the skull forts hard again!:
@dislex-fx said in Make the skull forts hard again!:
@sandaledpond889 said in Make the skull forts hard again!:
@dislex-fx said in Make the skull forts hard again!:
@sandaledpond889 said in Make the skull forts hard again!:
Nah, they would have been way better but the game doesn't significantly punish anyone for losing, so instead it turns into a boring slog of killing players to see them spawn within sight and sail back with fresh supplies over and over and over. It wasnt a contest of skill or daring, just a matter of who got bored first.
Server hopping is bad for the game. Its choosing not to participate in the game unless a fort exists. Making the forts more common was good in that it addressed server hopping, and made it less of a problem, meaning that there were more ships participating in the worlds instead of only particpating by sailing to active forts.
I'm not sure if you're just playing at off times or something but we regularly kick players off forts, maybe YOU just wait for the next one, but you dont have to and we dont.
I don't do forts now. That's why I don't. They are too easy. I probably have ~400 forts done.
One FAVORITE memory EVER, while playing SoT, was doing a 6 hour fort. We fought 2 other ships. We fought and fought and fought and fought. It was so much fun. Now, there is no fighting, fort cannons have been nerfed and skeletons run around with barrels now, SO, forts are just too easy.
All this tells me is you're easily amused.
A 6 hour fort, no sir, I'd sail away, its not worth that kind of time lol.
If I sent people packing for 6 hours and they cant take the hint that they've lost and the game doesnt make any of those victories mean anything I'm not continuing to play at that point."If I sent people packing..."
Are you assuming my crew lost over and over?
O.G. Pirate Legend here. I am from the first batch of PLs and M.S.T. don't lose.
Sure, that was a bit of a brag, but my point is, I have seen where forts have been and I see where they are now. Now, they are easy and there is almost 0 challenge.
lol stop thumping your chest, I didnt say you lost.
I was speaking from my own experience as I stated above, where we spent hours and hours sending scrubs packing only to see them respawn in sight and sale back immediately, and it wasn't fun. it was boring. They were no challenge, other than to test our willpower to even bother wasting time on them. Its basically trolling via being bad at the game. Where the bad players get sunk, and decide that well if I cant win I sure can waste their time some more!!I mean, good on ya that you dont have enough real life obligations that you can spend 6 hours on one fort but thats just not realistic for most players.
Forts are better now than they were and the game is better without people only hopping into servers with active forts.
I'll probably server hop later. Care to join?
When the game first came out, an the timer was 3 hr.
I was staying on the same server for like 12 hr, with some breaks here an there, an some other crew members join in, taken over my/other crew mates spot.
But the point is that every fort on the server was ours, If someone got the fort first, we would not fight over it, cause of wasted time,
But do some voyage close by, an then attack when they was done.
If we came there first, we sometime ran into some epic long fight where they came back over an over again, An yeah, they spawn pretty close, but that has somewhat being fix.
But you do not see all ships on the server colliding against each other over the same fort, what I think is a same.
But it's still better than now, where the forts has lost there value because of the 5 min timer before a new fort/event.
I personally only do the fort right now to kill the skeleton lord, but will leave the loot behind if Im solo, maybe take the stronghold keg.
@sandaledpond889 they did make you spawn futher away,
But you can "cheat" it. by shuttle you ship before it sink to get a close spawn.
That they make the fort's more common was not that ship was comming back, but that players was server hopping.
@sandaledpond889 although you are right in your what you think is a "fix".
I dont see it as fix, that you maybe stop server hoppers, by breaking the forts value, Bringing players to the same location to fight over something.
There is no reason to fight over a fort, an you dont see 4-6 ship fighting over the same fort, because why should you, there will be another one in 5 min.
An if there is someone who want to fight you over the fort, you can simply just join another server an do forts there.
@sandaledpond889 Okay as a fellow PL here that only do the forts for commendation, I fell yeah.
For the Gold value of the fort has increased, every day one player knows that ;) but the fort as a hole, had decreased in "value" where value is really to bring ships together to fight over something, an in that regard I think the FotD is kinda perfect, It's in the middle of the map more or less, has it's own speciel skull that signal to every one what you are doing, that you can do it over an over without breaks is the only "problem" I see with it.(still need to do the FotD 9 more times)
But I could think of many ways other than reducing all fort timers.
for me it's not a solution, a least not a good one to reduce the timer to prevent server hopping.
as I said you could do a lot more that would work better.
The only reason I could see someone "server hop" is if they get trolled or meet some of the less friendly speaking crew.
An just dont wanna play on the same server an deal with it.
Rare they could put a ½-1 hr timers, before you would get to another server.
just one idea of the top of my head, It's not perfect, but It would stop people from checking a server, go out in main menu an try again.
@sandaledpond889 I have never said I would like to server hop or get it back, I even gave exsample of me staying on the same server for 12 hr.
Yes i would rather have the forts spawn every 3 hr, but maybe 3 hr is a bit much.
An Im not talking about 3-5 hr's do a fort, dont really understand how it can take so long even if you have to fight, if I can do a fort in 15-20 min solo.
I would rather have the fort to be a thing you can do just now an again, than something you can do all the time.
An of cause Im oppose people that only want pve servers, but that dont really has anything to do with this.
I always try to see it from others point of view, but since you brought it up that exsamble.
To only want PVE servers an demand them to make it, because you are a paying customer, is like asking FPS game to make into farming simulator.
Witch is just pulling people from other thing they could work on.
same reason Im oppose the opt out cross play, not in case of in-balance with M/K an controller, but because they could use that time to make something to the game.
But what how dos that have anything to do with forts an making them great again??
@sandaledpond889 said in Make the skull forts hard again!:
@dislex-fx said in Make the skull forts hard again!:
@sandaledpond889 said in Make the skull forts hard again!:
@dislex-fx said in Make the skull forts hard again!:
@sandaledpond889 said in Make the skull forts hard again!:
Nah, they would have been way better but the game doesn't significantly punish anyone for losing, so instead it turns into a boring slog of killing players to see them spawn within sight and sail back with fresh supplies over and over and over. It wasnt a contest of skill or daring, just a matter of who got bored first.
Server hopping is bad for the game. Its choosing not to participate in the game unless a fort exists. Making the forts more common was good in that it addressed server hopping, and made it less of a problem, meaning that there were more ships participating in the worlds instead of only particpating by sailing to active forts.
I'm not sure if you're just playing at off times or something but we regularly kick players off forts, maybe YOU just wait for the next one, but you dont have to and we dont.
I don't do forts now. That's why I don't. They are too easy. I probably have ~400 forts done.
One FAVORITE memory EVER, while playing SoT, was doing a 6 hour fort. We fought 2 other ships. We fought and fought and fought and fought. It was so much fun. Now, there is no fighting, fort cannons have been nerfed and skeletons run around with barrels now, SO, forts are just too easy.
All this tells me is you're easily amused.
A 6 hour fort, no sir, I'd sail away, its not worth that kind of time lol.
If I sent people packing for 6 hours and they cant take the hint that they've lost and the game doesnt make any of those victories mean anything I'm not continuing to play at that point."If I sent people packing..."
Are you assuming my crew lost over and over?
O.G. Pirate Legend here. I am from the first batch of PLs and M.S.T. don't lose.
Sure, that was a bit of a brag, but my point is, I have seen where forts have been and I see where they are now. Now, they are easy and there is almost 0 challenge.
lol stop thumping your chest, I didnt say you lost.
I was speaking from my own experience as I stated above, where we spent hours and hours sending scrubs packing only to see them respawn in sight and sale back immediately, and it wasn't fun. it was boring. They were no challenge, other than to test our willpower to even bother wasting time on them. Its basically trolling via being bad at the game. Where the bad players get sunk, and decide that well if I cant win I sure can waste their time some more!!I mean, good on ya that you dont have enough real life obligations that you can spend 6 hours on one fort but thats just not realistic for most players.
Forts are better now than they were and the game is better without people only hopping into servers with active forts.
Think this is all a matter of opinion.
Perseverance is a great pvp trait that those with lesser pvp skills may have. Keep coming back until those who continuously beat you are tired. Isn't this why we love Rocky and Rudy in film? "You keep getting hit and keep moving forward that's how winning is done." Heck, it's the whole point of the rope a dope.
I don't have the time to do it, but just as the bunny hopping, sword dashes, and double gun don't bother me, neither does those who won't give up. Good on them. If I have the time, I would love to have that big fort battle.
Gameplay is not better than it was 2 years ago for me. I don't finish voyages as there is no need anymore. I have no incentive. Heck, I found toys for astroneer more than I dug up gifts for the reapers hideout. It's the same thing I have already done with a new skin face.
Forts are boring. I play alot of open crew to help new players and jump off after when my time is done without turning in. Two weeks ago, on an open crew, we activated the fort of the damned and finished it off without any conflict whatsoever.
It is nothing like the thrill it was when everyone competed for it. The occasional free from conflict fort was a special occasion, but we still checked the horizon just in case.
Just my thoughts, I don't give the game the same attention I used to. It's fun to sail and take on a few obstacles, but I am bored doing the same things. I miss the interactions. Definitely wouldn't say the game is better than it was.
Actually... This is how they should be : https://www.seaofthieves.com/forum/topic/49585/skeleton-forts-how-to-make-the-experience-less-repetitive-and-more-unique-and-dynamic-update-11-09-18/74
I feel like this is somewhat circumventing 'thread bumping', but it's not directly against the rules to bring up old suggestions, I suppose (I've done it myself, and I'm still here). As for the idea itself, that would work quite well, I remember the simple suggestion during a developer stream to make the stronghold captain a mini skeleton lord which this fits quite well: special moves and abilities which change what the captain does, and how they're fought.
@d-jaguar said in Make the skull forts hard again!:
It is nothing like the thrill it was when everyone competed for it. The occasional free from conflict fort was a special occasion, but we still checked the horizon just in case.
This! This X 1,000!
..and most people (from what I could tell) didn't care where the other ships came from. So, server hoping was never a big deal. It still isn't.
@sandaledpond889 said in Make the skull forts hard again!:
@d-jaguar Nah the game is better, you're just past appreciating it because you've been at it so long.
Perseverance is great, but the game actually making victory and or defeat mean something would be better.
Why do you think you know me better than I know myself? I am pretty sure I used to play as I had an incentive to do things. Now the heart rate rarely increases.
Victory was turning in the loot. Defeat was not able to turn it in. What else is there?
Getting the fort key was not the end of the fort. You had to deliver the loot. That was the most fun in game. Now that there is no incentive for fort loot, why fight for it? We get the same loot by sinking a skeleton ship, meg, or killing a Kraken.
If victory and defeat means those who died are penalized, then we would be penalizing players who like to PvE in the shared world. Doesnt seem to fit the game.
Let's make them harder all together.
1 - fort becomes active ( even FOTD ) have the water boil around it like a hit water spring that is around the island that causes damage just like in the DR.
2 - like in the Beta let the forts always have skelly gunners active even if the fort isn't.
3 - if you don't like the boiling water then have a devil's shroud pop up at a circle around the fort damaging all sips that enter till they get past the circle.
I can go on but I got work to do.
@sandaledpond889 as forts were the quickest and only way to guarantee high level loot in year 1 until cursed sails, we did it for the glory, the story, the rep, and loot. It helped us avoid hunting for animals for the merchant alliance.
Now, the glory has diminished. The rep and gold are easier to get with everything else. The attractions of forts have definitely fallen. There is no incentive to compete for them. All PvE events have been made easier.
I'd argue that the oversimplification of the Seas has made me and my family lose interest. Even the hard mode was made easy. The Devil's Roar is no longer as difficult. Overcoming challenges is what helps make the story and the game fun.
