Summaries
- PvE content should give a sense of PvP experience.
- Flameheart is a successful case of PvP-tutoring PvE content, hence I regard it as a reference.
- Add skeleton boarding event where players should defend their deck with close-combat skills.
- Add an agile skeleton variation that reacts to a player's action cunningly, so players should master their combat skills.
- Add new gunpowder heist voyage that encourages anchor assasults and chain shot.
I've seen a lot of quarrels around PvP elements in adventure mode. On one side, some users demand PvE only sessions in which no hostile user interrupts during Tall Tales or some narrative-oriented content. On the other side, the skeptics of PvE only sessions assert that the integration between PvP and PvE is the quintessence of the game "Sea of Thieves," and, without such essence, the overall gameplay will be as tedious as ever.
I am neutral on this issue or even don't care about it at all. But constant complaints about PvPvE may indicate a shortcoming in the design of Sea of Thieves. What I suspect is that the game is lacking tutoring experience that guides PvE players to adapt PvP gameplay. I assume the overall PvE content should be not only the beginning of chase among human players but also some minor representation of PvP content. "The Fleets of Flameheart" is the most successful case of PvP demonstration from PvE content, which teaches you how to shoot cannons towards the opponent's ship properly. Yet, there are many missed opportunities where we could have practiced PvP fights that include executing close-quarter combats, boarding vessels to neutralize them, or defending against boarding.
Of course, we have skeletons and skeleton ships that let us perform some of the PvP skills. But they are not as threateningly smart as motivating us to hone our performance. Moreover, we cannot encounter any occurrence to battle over our deck during PvE gameplay. Considering that combat boarding is the most crucial tactic to end opponent human players, those who tend to enjoy PvE mostly won't have a spontaneous event to practice essential combat skills against human players. Eventually, they are not prepared to resist against expert PvP users.
So I suggested some ideas of PvE content that may encourage players to feel a similar (but not same because of systematic difference) experience in PvP. I adopt some previous suggestions from the past topics written by other fellows in this forum that may suit my notion.
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Skeleton Boarding
In addition to the original skeleton ship encounters, the submerging ship of the damned will send infiltrators first from the bottom of players' vessel before ascending from water. The damned crews will climb up a hull and disrupt players from responding to the further attacks from skeleton ships. Perhaps they will prioritize lowering the anchor of players' vessel to immobilize it and make it vulnerable to cannon barrage, so players should be aware of the significance of defending their anchor. -
Skeleton Swashbuckler
Associated with Skeleton Boarding, there will be an elite-variation of the damned infiltrators, who have agile movement distinct from ordinary grunts. They move faster and smarter as they actively do guard hopping around space to expose and catch mistakes done by players. For instance, for those who wasted slash combos in the wrong direction, the elite skeleton will wait until a player gets a delay between combos and then leap to the player to land its slashes afterward. In other cases, it will chase or quickdraw its pistol at the dying player who attempts to run away and consume fruits. Overall, a skeleton swashbuckler will react (relatively) immediately based on the players' actions and frequently leap to close or extend the gap between a player and a swashbuckler. As a sort of guest instructor, a skeleton swashbuckler will challenge a player to perform better close combat skills against enemies.
The caveat of this suggestion is the requirement of a new AI mechanism, which leads the developers to modify some code in the game. They didn't code Doom Eternal when they initiate Sea of Thieves, so the AI improvement is something we may not expect in the monthly content update.
https://www.seaofthieves.com/forum/topic/124642/new-enemy-types-concepts-new-throwable-and-placeable
- Gunpowder Heist
This suggestion will seem irrelevant to two previous ideas because it is about a new voyage for Merchant Alliance. Yet, in the end, this voyage encourages players to immobilize opponent vessels in several methods.
By accepting this voyage, a unique skeletal galleon will appear near a random island. It loads multiple barrels of special gunpowder, which are as explosive as the original ones discovered in forts but have distinctive appearance since they were used to be exclusive merchandise of the alliance. You have to retrieve those gunpowder barrels safely to Merchant Alliance from the damned ship.
Yet players should not fire cannonballs to their hull or ram directly to the vessel because the gunpowder will explode from the shock, and all the loots will vanish with the sunken skeleton ship. So boarding is mandatory on this voyage to obtain barrels intact. Unlike other skeleton ships, this robbers' vessel will have an anchor that functions as same as the players' one. Therefore you can stop it from floating around different places. If a player can accurately aim their chain shot to an opponent's sails, it is also a decent option to break their sails without hitting a hull.
If the players somehow succeed to immobilize the vessel, they should clean up skeletons on the deck before carrying gunpowders from it. The skeleton crews won't respawn in this ship, but they may attack gunpowder mistakenly, so players should be precautious about dealing with them.
The ship will be sunken after a few minutes since a player steps into the vessel. Just as the vaults of Gold Hoarders, it has a time limit. Unlike the tight timer in the GH voyage, the gunpowder voyage will give sufficient time to transfer. The time limit during this voyage is nothing more than a method that triggers the end of a voyage event. Players may sell the gunpowder barrels in the outpost at more price than the original barrels.
For those who may worry about balance as the voyage may provide gunpowder barrels easier, this voyage required more procedures compared to gathering the ones spreading around the yard in the random forts. The only difference, again, between the original and these barrels is a base gold reward, perhaps around 2000 golds for each barrel without an emissary. The exclusive merchandise will have the same explosiveness as the original to prevent explosive-exploit.
https://www.seaofthieves.com/forum/topic/124654/new-merchant-quests
https://www.seaofthieves.com/forum/topic/125310/new-merchant-voyages-cursed-cargo-crate
So these are some suggestions, inspired by the topics linked below each item, that may help users to get a sense of general PvP skills to execute or defend boarding that neutralizes crews and vessels. Regardless of my suggestions, I welcome any form of new content that helps players adapt to current combat customs.
