Captaincy/Ship Ownership & Rewarding Endgame Ideas Discussion

@pambonian same reply as last time. Why do we need to multiply our treasure. Gold and doubloons are quickly becoming worthless. As an example I'm at about 17mil gold and 22k doubloons with nothing to spend it on.

Also things should not carry over from 1 session to another. It gives extra benefit to standard crews and make it's harder for people who rely on the forums, discord, reddit, and the xbox lfg to make their crews.

Rewards for a voyage this epic should be unique. New cosmetics that you can only get this way.

My 2 cents.

@captain-coel

Fantastic points, and i'm sorry if when I deleted the original post I inadvertently trashed your insight! Scouts honor, it was not my intent to censor you.

Let's see if I can speak to each issue you mention with what I first posted:

Why do we need to multiply our treasure?

Let's say you and your established crew are now the proud owners of a vessel all your own. In this instance, a crew of four players controls a Galleon, we'll say they named it The Disreputable Rogue.

I can think of two ways treasure (doubloons, gold) could evolve to increase the value of such currency in the future as well as add depth to the treasure system as a whole following the implementation of ship ownership.

The ship itself is now a "character" in lore of the Sea of Thieves universe.

Imagine other players recognizing your ship and it's reputation purely by name.

Worldwide leaderboards based on a ship's reputation. The ship's reputation is entirely dependent upon the combined efforts of it's crew. Obviously the way the ships would be measured against the rankings could be done in a many different ways. I would be very, very shocked to not see gold/silver/doubloons as a metric.

But examining it locally - I'd imagine the ship's reputation would be very similar to the commendation/title structure for pirate characters. Titles purchased for gold with trading companies/factions - commendations for the ship earned through crew collaborative effort.

If we're looking to spend more gold - consistent crews could purchase exclusive cosmetic items for their personalized ships - using either/or, doubloons/gold. These cosmetics would be impractically expensive for (maybe not you with 17 million in the bank lol) the majority of individual players - but as a crew, these purchases would be within reach.

The ever-changing availability of Sea of Thieves players could actually benefit the ship-ownership argument - an opportunity to introduce a new level of dynamic crew management into the game.

Say one of the founding members of The Disreputable Rogue has stopped logging into the crew for months - they need to replace him.

No problem - time to head to the enlistment table and vote to start the new crew-mate search process.

The server will now circulate random open-crew pirates into the Disreputable Rogue lineup - if the Rogue's crew wants to dismiss a candidate - they vote them out in crew management. The server repeats the process - eventually, they all agree they like the most recent pirate. They decide to offer him a permanent role on The Disreputable Rogue.

(could potentially take this idea further and talk about using gold/doubloons for hiring on expensive but skilled free-agents or pay less for intermediate-level yet cheaper pirates when you need to fill a roster - but that would obviously be another discussion entirely)

Why should adventures could cross-over between sessions?

Would raise the stakes for the next session and keep the story alive even after you end a session. Unlocks tools for even more emergent, player-driven stories.

Provides the opportunity for a break from the game, but when players return they are walking back into their own story.

How many times have you loaded into an empty tavern?

How can the ultimate reward for this quest be as epic as it deserves?

I think customizing your crew's ship with a name, a group-selected cosmetic arrangement, title, accessories... there is so much potential content and combinations of selections from that content (which is continually updated) in that line of thinking I don't know what else I need to say on that.

@pambonian

Multi session voyages are not what I can stand behind.

Especially if you also want to link your crew roster to it. ... ever considered open crews, looking for groups, etc. I am usually a plus one found through open crews... your entire mechanic would force me to do these solo, get booted from every group as they don't know me and don't care. The whole concept is just in favor of those with steady crews, which already have the advantage.

Unlike tall tales you want to have a scaling rewards for no real reason other than conflict among the team. If one part wants to sell, but the other wants to continue and again would be amplified by the crew limitations.

The hardcore mode, is also not really inline with the game theme where pirates can simply end your voyage with a single kill? I could get if it is bound to your ship, but a single pirate death seems over the top... that coming from someone that played as a mercenary for hire on peoples ships before the alliance system came out and someone that often ends up with at least a single crew member that is newish.

I am in search of the Athena voyages being true end game content, but I don't think that this is the way to go. A rivalry voyage on the same server seems interesting though, maybe for the reapers?

@cotu42

Keep in mind i'm not saying any of the semantics of this are set in stone - I don't see how it's productive to dismiss outright everything I posted above because the proposal runs into technical challenges.

Rather this conversation is a creative process, so the act of imagining solutions to those challenges and issues is constructive towards my goal: which is to discuss big-picture elements which could be added to this game on top of what it already is - not replacing or fixing, but enhancing.

I have no interest in "fixing the game", it isn't broken!

Since the game is not a destination but a process (they call it a service) - I think these proposed mechanics could be groundbreaking towards the pursuit of developing upon an already fantastic experience and finding new ways to make it connect with the audience even more than it already does.

You said: Multi session voyages are not what I can stand behind.

You must have been miserable when they released Tall Tales! Lol

Tall Tale checkpoints are literally multi-session voyages, and now that the precedent for multi-session voyages has been established in the universe, we should take advantage of that and create new and vibrant content that gives the player even more freedom of choice by adding new aspects and features to the game which develop the world rather than continue to restrict the potential development of the world by resting on it's laurels

You said: I am usually a plus one

I can guarantee by developing this endgame concept there is a viable outcome where you would not be forced into doing it solo - whether that means making what I proposed as to the crew roster to be more lenient and not necessarily require exactly the same roster, OR/AND separately developing a separate resource for cases like yours, where pirates could identify their goals for their adventure experience and get matched into a crew together.

Whatever the case - ship ownership encourages more community building. Indisputably, pirates would be given an unspoken game mechanic incentive to seek out other pirates and play in a collaborative way even more than they already do that now.

This would also make it desirable to keep a crew going in future sessions if you all worked well together - that results in true magical game-play experiences. If a solid vision of the Captaincy ideas could be drawn up and implemented in the most effective outcome - I struggle to think of another IP where you as an individual would have so much liberty to approach it's universe.

This concept would incentivize players to care for their team, where currently - the vast majority of random crews are disposable.

(Sorry you're usually a plus one, I also do a lot of random crews & solo mode if you ever want to get sailing!)

You said you see no reason for scaling rewards other than conflict among the team

The conflict you described concerning turn-in decisions is a great reason for the hypothetical loot system I described (which again, is just a proof of concept example Quest necessary to build the social value of earning a ship of your own.)

If we take away important decisions from the player, where is the adventure? You're just a glorified errand boy in the absence of such decisions.

That "conflict" is already what the game is! That is the nature of Adventure mode - you as a player have to have those conversations either internally as an individual, or your crew, or other crews (alliances or not) - you are rewarded for that problem solving if you successfully navigate the situation both in loot you earn as well as the soft-skills/experience you accumulate as a player - by experience I don't mean earning another commendation or an achievement - I mean you literally become a better player.

Scaling Rewards:

We just got scaling rewards recently with the Emissaries architecture, so this already exists in the game. and, it's really cool/popular!

Since it's already been successfully created , it could be done again with another infrastructure - such as the epic progression pipeline system towards earning a ship captaincy.

Second point on this: the loot multiplier I described can be adapted to fit the world in the most effective way - it does not literally need to be as I wrote it above, dismissing it wholesale is a failure to see past the semantics here.

The Hardcore Mode

I do think you are right about the level of difficulty, it probably wouldn't be a good idea to make it so unforgiving to players, I don't want anyone feeling miserable if they repeatedly fail to the point of abandoning the venture entirely.

There irrefutably should be a sense of "pride and accomplishment" (god, can't believe I just wrote that Lol) - in whatever necessary progression it takes to achieve ship ownership.

Everyone and their uncle criticizes the Pirate Legend substance ("it's meaningless!!" etc.), but in reality - it's executed exactly as it should be.

When players see a pirate legend, they immediately understand the skill floor that player probably has. The community recognizes what it means to be a pirate legend. New players respect the name as they work to earn it for themselves. It is one of the defining elements of the social structure of the game.

Sure, veterans such as yourself get tired of it years after they've earned it - and there are a ton of cool ways it could be developed further to add more substance to the role; but the effort to achieve it and the feeling of significance it gives the player is fundamental to this game and it's success.

That is exactly how it should be with ship ownership and captaincy

Thank you for your response @CotU42 , I wouldn't be able to think this through without dialogue like this

Would really like to hear your thoughts in reply

Sorry I think I inadvertently deleted your reply to my topic before I deleted the original @ClosingHare208 !

Really agree with what you said about pet names/ship naming system - I have a theory the pet naming system also served to prepare Rare to be able to do a ship-naming feature. Hopefully the pet naming system helps make that possible - I have seen some pretty awful (like, really really not okay) pet names out there, obviously a big concern with ship names as well.

But - if the name is a group decision I also think that would reduce the amount of moderation needed to manage inappropriate names, since crews would be less likely to pick something that would probably be rejected by Rare

@pambonian said in Captaincy/Ship Ownership & Rewarding Endgame Ideas Discussion:

@cotu42

Keep in mind i'm not saying any of the semantics of this are set in stone - I don't see how it's productive to dismiss outright everything I posted above because the proposal runs into technical challenges.

Rather this conversation is a creative process, so the act of imagining solutions to those challenges and issues is constructive towards my goal: which is to discuss big-picture elements which could be added to this game on top of what it already is - not replacing or fixing, but enhancing.

I have no interest in "fixing the game", it isn't broken!

Since the game is not a destination but a process (they call it a service) - I think these proposed mechanics could be groundbreaking towards the pursuit of developing upon an already fantastic experience and finding new ways to make it connect with the audience even more than it already does.

I actually didn't go into the technical aspects at all, because if I would I would have talked about the storage dilemma's of having different stashes at different levels of value that could possibly be the case and all that. Like if you want me to go into the technical aspects I can, but I don't really think that is a concern you should be bothered with.

The main criticisms I had were regarding the social implications and requirements that you would place on it.

You said: Multi session voyages are not what I can stand behind.

You must have been miserable when they released Tall Tales! Lol

The tall tales at its initial stage were clear separated fairly static voyages, no true issues with that. If you are trying to tell a specific story in a game, it will just become a bit static even if you add a couple of variants like what island the skeletons guard it are or having a couple of vaults that could be used. The moment it gets more intrinsic like the trap puzzles it limits the generation part and is just logical.

Tall Tale checkpoints are literally multi-session voyages, and now that the precedent for multi-session voyages has been established in the universe, we should take advantage of that and create new and vibrant content that gives the player even more freedom of choice by adding new aspects and features to the game which develop the world rather than continue to restrict the potential development of the world by resting on it's laurels

The checkpoints have their issues, yet it is just like the different chapters just again now separated more static voyages that one can embark on. Yet we already have the issue that people are stacking gold hoarder skulls and all that... I personally was a bit disappointed in this, as it removed much of the potential failure that one could have while on these voyages and I do believe that failure is a key part in games as a valid outcome.

Yet as you are proposing end-game content, I would like it that the potential failure within a session would be far greater from the get go, which you to a bit to the extreme also implemented in your idea - so kudos on including that.

You said: I am usually a plus one

I can guarantee by developing this endgame concept there is a viable outcome where you would not be forced into doing it solo - whether that means making what I proposed as to the crew roster to be more lenient and not necessarily require exactly the same roster, OR/AND separately developing a separate resource for cases like yours, where pirates could identify their goals for their adventure experience and get matched into a crew together.

And this is where we head into the issues of what we call stacking of rewards, that people are also doing with the tall tales. If you account for having check-points which by definition are safety nets and hand them out on an individual level, as would be required... it means that crews can cheese it fairly easily, especially when like with the Gold Hoarders skull the treasure is tangible and not awarded at the completion.

Give it to a group and being able to deny it to others of that group that initiated it... the effort of others can be handed to other people, people will abuse it to give it to their friends. These type of things need to at the most be limited to voluntarily handing over their rewards, not people being able to kick people from rosters to hand it to their buddies instead.

Nobody cares about that random guy on their roster once their buddy comes along.

Whatever the case - ship ownership encourages more community building. Indisputably, pirates would be given an unspoken game mechanic incentive to seek out other pirates and play in a collaborative way even more than they already do that now.

This would also make it desirable to keep a crew going in future sessions if you all worked well together - that results in true magical game-play experiences. If a solid vision of the Captaincy ideas could be drawn up and implemented in the most effective outcome - I struggle to think of another IP where you as an individual would have so much liberty to approach it's universe.

Aah and here we have where players like me hit issues. You want to keep people together over multiple sessions and yet to play together with a stable crew one usually needs to have a stable time frame to play in. I have a couple of people I hit up at times when I notice they are playing to see if they have a spot. Often enough they are already mid session, as my time frames of playing tend to all over the place. To the point that I even have people across oceans that I play with with the downside of playing at higher pings to increase my options of some stable groups and even they sometimes are already in a party...

I am an adult, I have real life commitments and responsibilities and I play when I can. I am no longer in a position that I can be online at X on day Y or ensure I can play for specific duration during those times. Yet I do still play long sessions at times as I am a gamer at heart and I have an amazing partner that lets me still enjoy my passion for games. I play the majority of time alone and yet I also head into crews, mainly open crews due to their accessibility. It isn't optimal, but it is what it is.

This concept would incentivize players to care for their team, where currently - the vast majority of random crews are disposable.

To me I care about my team, during the sessions of that I am in. If we really get along, I might add someone to my friends list to try again some other time, but as explained above who knows when that is.

(Sorry you're usually a plus one, I also do a lot of random crews & solo mode if you ever want to get sailing!)

I am not sorry that I am usually the plus one, it is just the stage in my life and frankly I have over the years become quite accustomed to playing solo in multiplayer games.

Yet it is also why I enjoy the seas, sometimes I can play more, sometimes I can play less... a session based system works wonderfully for me. I have played hardcore games and RPGs where you were on 3 to 5 evenings at X to Y to play along with the guild, group, etc. that you were a part of so you could progress!

I don't have that luxury anymore and is why I love the seas.

You said you see no reason for scaling rewards other than conflict among the team

The conflict you described concerning turn-in decisions is a great reason for the hypothetical loot system I described (which again, is just a proof of concept example Quest necessary to build the social value of earning a ship of your own.)

If we take away important decisions from the player, where is the adventure? You're just a glorified errand boy in the absence of such decisions.

That "conflict" is already what the game is! That is the nature of Adventure mode - you as a player have to have those conversations either internally as an individual, or your crew, or other crews (alliances or not) - you are rewarded for that problem solving if you successfully navigate the situation both in loot you earn as well as the soft-skills/experience you accumulate as a player - by experience I don't mean earning another commendation or an achievement - I mean you literally become a better player.

Yet if you move those decisions to the real life time frame of shall we meet again at some point in time... the decisions no longer are based on in-game restrictions and those within the game. You are now asking me to commit to something where real life commitments that have significantly more value come into play. As I stated before I play when I can, I am not going to bind myself to a specific time-frame to spend 3.5 hours of my life... I have bigger things to worry about. Will I play the game again for a 3.5h or even longer time frames... sure but when... when I get the chance!

You are moving the conflict of the game, into my life... I would rather that it stays in the game. We aren't errant boys as a crew makes valuable decisions; what activity are we going to do, when will we sell in that session, how are we going to respond to those sails over there or that activity that pops up...

The decision to play again together is a totally different type of decision than what are we going to do now on the seas. Playing together means you need to have a date set, a time frame etc. where everyone is online... if you cannot you will want to cash in now instead of have them take the spoils, hand it over to their friend or someone else while your 3.5 hours of work now goes unrewarded.

Scaling Rewards:

We just got scaling rewards recently with the Emissaries architecture, so this already exists in the game. and, it's really cool/popular!

Yes and once again it is within the same session. At the end of the session it is lost and rebuilt. That is the beauty of it... you generate a scale that you must protect and cherish during that session. It is why I like the Seas... it is a session based game.

Since it's already been successfully created , it could be done again with another infrastructure - such as the epic progression pipeline system towards earning a ship captaincy.

Sure... if it is session based go ahead I would like to see the proposals. Yet you want me to commit to things within the game while having to consider my real life restraints and simply said my real life will always be more important. Being an adult has its downsides...

Second point on this: the loot multiplier I described can be adapted to fit the world in the most effective way - it does not literally need to be as I wrote it above, dismissing it wholesale is a failure to see past the semantics here.

The Hardcore Mode

I do think you are right about the level of difficulty, it probably wouldn't be a good idea to make it so unforgiving to players, I don't want anyone feeling miserable if they repeatedly fail to the point of abandoning the venture entirely.

There irrefutably should be a sense of "pride and accomplishment" (god, can't believe I just wrote that Lol) - in whatever necessary progression it takes to achieve ship ownership.

Ship pride is something I agree with, I think the emissary system did a pretty fine job of that. You care about the flag it carries and therefore you care about its well being. As I stated before, having it be based on the ship floating... sounds reasonable to me. Sink and you lose your progress... binding it to the life of each pirate, though some might enjoy it immensely will be seen as to hardcore for most.

Everyone and their uncle criticizes the Pirate Legend substance ("it's meaningless!!" etc.), but in reality - it's executed exactly as it should be.

When players see a pirate legend, they immediately understand the skill floor that player probably has. The community recognizes what it means to be a pirate legend. New players respect the name as they work to earn it for themselves. It is one of the defining elements of the social structure of the game.

Ooh really... you and I have very different views of a legend. The title means little to me to be fair. I have been a legend for a long time and was an Athena 10 before the shrouded update hit the shores.

Pirate Legend title just is an indication of not being new. Just makes me feel less inclined to go easy on that crew if they turn out to not play very well. Legend doesn't mean you have a specific skill level, just that you sold enough treasure. I fight people that are far better pirates that haven't hit legend than some of the legends I have encountered.

I judge a pirate on their actions, composure and positioning. A lot can be said about a players skill in the game based on how they move. A true legendary pirate is one based on how they play and how they act, not on a title they have above their head.

Sure, veterans such as yourself get tired of it years after they've earned it - and there are a ton of cool ways it could be developed further to add more substance to the role; but the effort to achieve it and the feeling of significance it gives the player is fundamental to this game and it's success.

That is exactly how it should be with ship ownership and captaincy

To be fair, all I care about in end-game is replay-ability, challenge and fun game play, actions we have to do. Feeling of significance, grand achievement and rewards... not that important.

I would be fine with no title, no special cosmetics or anything as long as it is fun to do and actually challenges those that do it; allow the game to beat me at times... I have done skeleton fleets consistently when I was able to play before they introduced the sloops, as a solo. Just because it was fun and multi galleon with cursed ball barrages... oof sometimes put you in difficult situations.

Thank you for your response @CotU42 , I wouldn't be able to think this through without dialogue like this

Would really like to hear your thoughts in reply