Hello, everyone!
I'm not much of a forum poster however I randomly came up with an idea recently and shared with some of my crewmates - and they all seem to like it - so I was told to maybe put it here so it could at least plant a seed somewhere!
I came up with a somewhat complete design, and I'll try to describe it on detail, but as usual take it as just random ideas and suggestions, and I guess something in there can be useful.
Motivation
Alright, so first off let's start with the motivation behind the idea. It all started with a chat remembering lost treasures that sunk to the depths, some before our own eyes! When treasure is lost it is lost for good... But what if could still hold some gameplay value to it? What if you could actually find loot that makes you wonder "Oh no, how did they lose this?!" and so on? More on that later...
Lore
There seems to be support for the idea in some in-game books and such. I remember one mentioning that not all mermaids are good - and I think the "First Voyage" has a book explaining how mermaids and the Pirate Lord have a covenant to help pirates that fall on the sea. The idea of this event would be to explore the other mermaids, the ones that are not part of that deal or never agreed with it, and exiled themselves with their clans, hiding... until now.
How it plays
Instead of trying to explain it solely through the mechanics, I'll try to explain how it will feel like. The event would be a random sea event similar to Megs, in which they (the Sirens) have a "hunting ground" and can't be detected otherwise (no clouds, etc.) Whenever a player ship enters the hunting ground, the players will start listening to a distant "siren song", a beautiful voice calling upon the players...
Phase 1: Activation
The song's "volume" will be based on the ship speed. If the ship is going too fast, like full sails, the song will be very distant and dim - enough to know that you've found a Rogue Sirens event but not enough to trigger it. Players will have to slow down their ship to very slow (as if navigating fog) to fully listen to the song. Fog can actually rise a bit in the event area, even (and maybe it could only trigger at night); for the added effect. The idea here is to play around with all the "mermaid stories" from the past.
So, once the player ship is slow enough and inside the hunting ground (song area), a Siren Madonna will come out of the water and the song will sound as if coming from her. To start the event the player ship must get close to her and drop anchor.
Phase 2: Combat
When the anchor is dropped, the Siren Madonna will change from sweet, soft singing to a rageful scream and go under, at which point the main event starts. The event basically has 2 types of Sirens - archers and fighters. Archers will "rise" from the water on top of romanesque pillars and at a certain distance from the ship, and they need to be very well telegraphed (graphically and soundwise) - they will repeatedly charge their huge sea bows and shoot at the ship, damaging the hull. Archers can be defeated by guns or cannons (by destroying the platforms/pillars that are raised beneath them) Once an archer is defeated, it can be replaced - the total amount of archers that need to be defeated for the event to advance phase would be, as expected, based on crew/ship size. That sounds easy enough, but then comes the fighters. Fighters should be cheap melee enemies (similar to skeletons) that spawn far away and come swimming very quickly towards the boat, jumping on the upper deck. They will aim to distract/annoy the players as they try to fight off the archers. I imagine them as somewhat naga-like, giving them a distinct look from the "friendly mermaids", and wearing tridents or spears instead of swords. They could also have some funny surprises up their sleeves like spitting water on the players' faces.
The Siren Madonna could remain on the background, singing/taunting the player - and maybe her singing could have some special effects like making one of the crew members be "dazed" (like a special cannon ball) and "uncontrollably" walk towards the sea, falling from the ship. I'm sure Rare can also come up with some extra fun stuff :)
Phase 3: Boss Fight
Once all the required archers are defeated, all the archer pillars will go down and boss music will start. Siren fighters will keep coming (perhaps in smaller numbers) but the Sire Madonna herself will come and jump on the ship. The crew will then have to fight the Madonna and defeat her to finish the event - the Madonna is no more than a much stronger fighter but perhaps with some additional special powers that can be telegraphed by previous singing or melody, things like: making a player sleep or jump from the ship.
Additionally, the Madonna constantly "pours" water from her body which slowly raises the ship's water level, giving the players different approaches to her fight: either try to damage rush her before it's too late or have some of it fight and some others bucket water out, for example.
Once the madonna is defeated the event ends, and the loot will rise from the bottom around the ship.
Loot
Now, here's the idea I mentioned before as the Motivation... The loot of this event would be completely random, based on a global pool of loot composed by all the things that have "sunk" throughout the game servers. So anything could pop up - not only things that you expect like common chests or mermaid gems but also unexpected things that got lost throughout the game, like broken emissary flags, fortress or skeleton captain skulls/chests, etc... To always make it worth it, the event would have its own specific loot (for example, a special type of chest or variants of the existing gems, like "Corrupted" gems, etc...) and these would represent a "base value" of the event... But then the game could also throw in a random number of items from the previously mentioned global pool of sunken items, the idea being that the Rogue Sirens "capture" our lost items and loot for themselves. This could create unexpected, interesting surprises and I guess it gives some meaning to all that is lost in the Sea of Thieves!
Escaping
Alternatively, if the challenge is too much or time is short, a crew can try escaping/ending the event without completing it. For that, all they need to do is raise the anchor (remember - to start it they had to drop it). Raising the anchor will set the ship in motion again and fighters will stop boarding the ship - however extra archers could spawn behind the ship, giving the players one final "challenge" (repairs) while they escape the area. If triggered and abandoned, the Rogue Sirens event should disappear, not letting players come back to try it again, or maybe just re-roll its position to somewhere else in the server.
Well, that's basically it for my idea!
Thank you for reading this far and I hope it sounds as fun to everyone else as it did to us!
Stay safe while sailing and keep up the good pirating work!
