As the suggestions forum is basically just giving Rare ideas for free, I figured I would toss my two cents in and type up what I would like to call an overall proposal of an overhaul to the Hunter's Call. For years now Hunter's Call has been considered a "Trading Company", but so far under in terms of offerings compared to the other trading companies. So, I would like to toss as many ideas as I can under this banner, to Rare, to help them get the creative juice flowing if it wasn't already plan in the future.
What does the Hunter's Call do currently?
A: They exchange rewards in exchange for Fish, Treacherous Plunder (Fished Junk), Cooked Meats, Mermaid Gems, Siren Gems, Breath of the Sea, and Empty Chests.
B: Said rewards are parts of the Killer Whale shipset and equipment.
C: There are now bait chests, recently added!
So what are they missing?
A: A respective "outfit" for their trading company. (Rare recently separated the Gold Hoarder outfit into pieces? So this might be subject to change.)
B: An emissary flag for their trading company.
C: They do not offer any voyages.
D: They do not have emissary voyages.
E: Respective Loot that is worthwhile.
F: Something... More?
G: Something EVEN more?
So I'm going to do my best, and try to put up suggestions for what they currently don't offer.
A: A Respective Outfit
This is probably the toughest thing I've had to come up with an idea for. But I think a lot of inspiration can be drawn from Merrick himself. He has a fairly non-particular outfit, but there is a few details that are notable. Firstly, he has netting and glass floats on his person. Secondly, he has hooks of a few kinds on his person as well. I think for a regular outfit, it should very well lean pretty heavily into the fishing side of things, where the outfit has hooks hooked into a jacket of sorts, glass floats, and netting in some places, much like Merrick does. Perhaps the belt could have the glass floats dangling from it, and the netting can be integrated into part of a jacket. We could perhaps also add something of a spare reel with fishing line somewhere tucked into the jacket. I would say the overall look of the outfit would probably be sea-drenched or sea-soaked, and worn from water, presenting a true fisherman of the Sea of Thieves.
B: An Emissary Flag for their Trading Company
It should stand to reason that if Hunter's Call should be regarded as a true trading company, it should also have it's own Emissary flag that increases the value of fish from fishing, gems, and other loot turned in to the Hunter's Call. But for me, that's not quite enough. I believe the Hunter's Call should have more loot that is considered more worthwhile, which we'll get to, in a later section. But alongside said loot, I believe that Megalodon and Kraken meat in particular should be prized a bit more amongst Hunter's Call, as it's a good hunt.
C: They Do Not Offer any Voyages
This is where things get interesting. If you want to run a real true fishing ship, I think that fishing voyages should become a thing, with a solid payout for doing so. I'll be tossing a few different ideas for this one, as the other trading companies these days have two if not more voyages for themselves.
1: Fishing Voyage: This is a fairly simple idea, wherein, you are given a crate to fill with a set amount of fish. Once the crate is filled, it is delivered to a destination Outpost for a payout in delivery of fish, to fill the bellies of hungry pirates in a great many places on the sea. Although, I think that this type of voyage can be randomized, and sometimes, the request will be Stormfish, which require pirates to fish in the storm. Or sometimes the request will be Wreckers, requiring pirates to find wrecks to fish at. And if the fish is a particular kind of fish such as these, the payout is higher than normal. In addition to the regular fish, there should be two new fish, that can appear anywhere, in any region. These will be rarer fish that can occur, and will fight the fishing line harder than the average trophy fish. Fish such as "Grand Guppy" (Grouper fish) or "Tiresome Tank" (Tuna fish) that may have much higher payouts for loot than the standard fish, for being so large and hard to catch. And lastly, the rarest fish of them all, the "Resplendent Rainbowfish". An incredibly colorful and very Rare catch indeed, worth many thousands. As fish double as meat, these new fish would count as trophy fish for meat, and their value would be cut in half if a pirate happens to snack on the wrong one in their catch crate. As with any fish, if they are cooked, the value is increased.
2: Sea Beast Voyage: A hunting voyage, to boldly go and take on a battle, where one summons a Megalodon or other deep sea titan from the depths to fight. With a potential chance, to spawn the Kraken in particular, and give a rarer, riskier, fight, for a higher payout. This has been done in the past, for an adventure. Summon the Megalodon with flares, and then hunt the Megalodon. This would require potentially more Deep Sea threats than just the Megalodon to give a bit more variety, which I'll detail lower in the post. In addition to getting meat, there should be newer tiers of "loot" that could be acquired from huge sea creatures, such as "Big Bones" or "Large Teeth", each with their own, much higher value. And the Rarest trophy of all, "Kraken Skull" (technically already a model in the game) or "Megalodon Skull", which cannot be carried on board, and must replace the spot where the rowboat sits on the boat. It is attached by either pushing it to the back of the boat, and floating it over, or bringing the boat right over it, and when it is within range of the rowboat ropes, "dock" it the same way one would with a rowboat. When stopping at a nearby Seapost, the skull will prompt the pirate if they wish to sell the skull to the designated vendor there, and it will be removed for a large sum of payout.
3: Hunting Voyage: It's funny that it took me this long to pick up that the Hunter's Call actually do have "Hunting" as their list of things they do, and accept animal meat. And while pigs, chickens, and snakes all are animals that can be hunted, I think that it's time we had one or two actual predators on islands that can spawn in, aside from skeletons and ocean crawlers. And because land predators aren't really a thing in Sea of Thieves, I had to do some research. So I thought it would be interesting if there could be an addition of crocodiles and something more inline with theming, giant crabs. Crocodiles would be ambush enemies, that hide in bodies of water such as ponds, bushes, or near the shores of islands, and wait for unsuspecting pirates. Once seen, they would rapidly accelerate and try to bite and attack pirates. Following shark rules, if they got two bites in, a pirate would drop, but these creatures would be a bit faster to bite than normal. Somewhat statistic-wise to a shark on land, just not moving until prey is nearby. In terms of giant crabs, these would be vaguely half the size of your average pirate, and capable of "sword combat" by using it's claws and hard shell. It would make pinching attacks, and run sideways towards pirates. These hunting voyages on land would send pirates to a location that has these kinds of enemies pre-spawned, and once defeated and looted for their meat, the meat would be brought back to a Seapost to sell for a generous payout. If they happened to get other animals on the same voyage, they would also be paid well for getting those, and overall, their value would also be higher.
These are the three ideas I could come up with without injecting new lore or ideas into the Hunter's Call itself, and wanted to stay true to their identity.
D: They do not have emissary voyages.
See this one is a tough one, because emissary voyages are very often just "more of the same" for each trading company. I think it would be pretty neat to get a variety of different voyages for the emissary voyages, as opposed to four of the same, and the likelihood of getting some rarer loot would be far higher during these as opposed to a regular voyage. That's really all I have for this one, as there's not much to touch on.
E: Respective Loot that is Worthwhile
I think that overall, any of the standard "loot" such as meat, fish, and other such things, cooked, should be held in higher value at the Hunter's Call. It's generally slower going to level up Hunter's Call, and it should be brought closer in line to other trading companies. While it is easier to find animals and fish, I think that the bar was set a little too low, and should be pumped up just a little bit, but not so much that it's exactly in line with the other companies. By adding additional tiers of loot as mentioned above, I think it would be more interesting to work with the Hunter's Call, and more exciting to get a potentially rarer, more valuable fish when fishing in general. I think that there should also be "hot fishing spots" which have a potential for higher payout of particularly rare fish, in places such as jellyfish forests out at sea, which could occur randomly, wherever. The jellyfish acting as a place where the fish feel safer to hide in from predators, and potential pirates trying to fish something up, and accidentally grabbing a jellyfish to get zapped by.
I also wanted to note that the treacherous plunder should be repurposed. I think that there should be "more variety" in the plunder available, and give them a bit more meaning. Maybe a pirate lost his prized compass, or perhaps another lost their family heirloom in a pond. Each plunder item could sell for the original value of 10 gold, unless it was determined based on a few clues of the item's description, who it belonged to. And if returned to the proper owner, the payout would be far higher, and more in the roughly two thousand range of gold for it. They strongly appreciate you returning this lost item of theirs. They thought it lost to the sea ages ago! This would be more interesting, I think, for the experienced pirates of whom know the NPC's and might remember that "This particular speaking trumpet probably belonged to someone very loud" might belong to the particular shipwright who always shouts, only to discover they used it to turn it around to speak more quietly to her patrons.
So as mentioned above, I would revisit "more Sea Beasts" and I wanted to give that it's own section, because there's so many different directions you could feasibly go with this. Different creatures do different things, and that makes the thrill of the Hunt for sea beasts interesting. I would definitely look at the 2022 movie, "The Sea Beast", as points for inspiration, as they had all sorts of fascinating and cool sea creatures in the movie that were a grand variety.
Bonus Section F: More Sea Beasts
Idea 1: The Sea Serpent: While most Beasts at sea have a tendency of dealing damage directly to the ship, I thought it would be interesting to have a large greenish/blue/bioluminescent sea serpent that actually shot water like a pressure washer onto the ship. Instead of putting holes in it, it floods the ship faster than holes will, and so consistent bailing from the crew is key. It does have an attack, where it travels underneath the boat, and bumps it, putting a couple holes down below, before rising again to blast the ship with water. Carriers of the chest of sorrows, beware. It's only other attack is to snap it's jaws at the deck, to try and bite an unfortunate pirate on cannon, with enough time to indicate for the pirate to move or else get bitten.
Idea 2: The Red Baron: Well all those giant crabs had to come from somewhere, right? What looks like a tiny floating island, out at sea, actually turns out to be an enormous red crab, covered in netting and spears, grabs onto the ship if it's close enough, and climbs up the side, dumping three giant red crabs on board for the crew to fight off. Once it's crawling cronies are defeated, it will reach up, and try to pincer either the mast, the wheel, the capstan, or a stray pirate, in an attempt to break them. Slashing or shooting at the crab's claws will weaken it's grip on the side of the ship, and if both claws are weakened within a short amount of time of one another, the crab drops into the sea, and leaves behind loot.
Idea 3 - The Under Dragon: Likely named due to it's origins from the Devil's Roar, this two armed creature with tusks and a long tail, swim through the open sea, to try and catch ships when they least expect it. Gunpowder runners beware, as this creature's primary attack is spraying fire from it's gullet onto the ship. Occasionally, reaching out with it's claws to rake open holes on the side. A dangerous creature, with one extra small attack, to grab a rock from underneath the water, and fling it aboard, with a similar effect to a Wraith ball, blasting huge holes in the ship.
Bonus Section G: Something EVEN more?
If we really wanted to put in a monumental effort to add even more to the Hunter's Call, and really make them something special, I think that, out of all the things that they should offer as services, is also have a vendor on their docks (which there already is) who also sells customization options for your ship.
Well hold up now, shipwrights already exist. Why would they sell customizations? I think that, a Shipwright could be the one to hold all these extra ideas I have here, but they could be bought at the Hunter's Call. And what should they sell? Customizable Harpoons and Lanterns. Yes, I think that Harpoons and Lanterns, as much as they are part of our ship, should also have their own set cosmetics to put on ships. I think they're cool, and with all the cool lanterns we get to run around with in-game, I think they could be used as ship cosmetics as well. Harpoons scream Hunter's Call, and I think they should be customizable too. This is an immense amount of work ontop of everything I mentioned, but I figured that I would pitch as many ideas as I can in one huge post. If nothing else, just having these added to the Shipwright in conjunction with a major overhaul like this would be radical.
In closing...
That's about it. It took a lot of time to type this, please do read through everything. Lastly, and without it's own real category, I think with said overhaul, endemic life should be added to the sea. Just to see things like schools of dolphins leaping, bigger fish swimming alongside the ship, jellyfish forests, crabs on the beach, and minor things like that, just to give a little bit more life to the sea, as it were.
This was my proposal for an overhaul of the Hunter's Call.
Fare thee well, and keep a weather eye on the seas.
EDIT: Post-Initial Post, based on comments below:
Improved Fishing Mechanics:
I don't know how I didn't think of the actual fishing mechanics within Sea of Thieves, and I think it would be a grand addition to make it slightly more interesting or faster, to fish up your sea dwelling loot? As of current, a lot of the controls for fishing are already bound, but if we could work with those controls, I think it could be beneficial for Hunter's Call pirates looking to make a bit of a faster buck.
How does it work currently?:
Currently, fishing works by Left Click is to cast/reel in the fish, and Right Click is to pull the line from the water, and let the fish go. Movement keys are used to fight against the fish in the opposite direction they are swimming.
How could it improve?:
1: Fishing Line Tug: The right click really only serves a purpose of just pulling your line when your pirate needs to cease fishing and do something else on the ship. It is my belief that it could serve a secondary purpose. When you cast your line out, there should be a secondary right click function that's a risk/reward situation. Fish almost always are guaranteed to require to be reeled in a minimum of three times before they're caught. What could be a function is there could be an indicator, very very fast, that lets the pirate know the fish is about to bite the line. In that small window, if they pull the line with Right Click, it will pull the fish closer, and skip one of the times needed to reel in the fish, to make it slightly faster to reel one in. However, if you miss the timing window, that fish is gone.
2: Far Line Cast: As of current, there really is no purpose to casting a line closer or farther away from you, as the result is nearly always the same. I feel it would be far more interesting, if you were rewarded for casting a line further away, vs. closer to you. If you cast a line close to you, then you have the same chance as you normally would for fishing. If you cast your line further away, this allows your pirate to reel in the line every now and then closer to your pirate. By reeling the line every now and again, this will increase the likelihood of a bigger fish to bite your line, as your line seems more like a swimming small fish, and therefore, become more lucrative to use the full cast of your fishing line.
QOL Update for Storage Crate:
Allow storage crates to have an alternative sell function, when filled with meat and fish, cooked or uncooked, to be able to be all sold simultaneously when presented to a Hunter's Call representative. It will make selling fish that much faster, more efficient, and time saving. That's more time spent on the sea, fishing up your next catch.
