While I love the Hourglass, Competitive Voyages are going to add that true sandbox feeling back into the game. The number of decisions that crews are going to have to make based on their environment is going to make for some very unique experiences.
Competitive Voyages look like a hoot.
@jumbie7311 said in Competitive Voyages look like a hoot.:
While I love the Hourglass, Competitive Voyages are going to add that true sandbox feeling back into the game. The number of decisions that crews are going to have to make based on their environment is going to make for some very unique experiences.
This I have to agree with. finally read the news lol
It's gonna be another thing that gets attention I can use as a distraction to go grab that first FoF lol.
It does look great, and they are a great logical next step for SoT, bringing what was great about arena into the sandbox. I hope they continue with this trend, but find a way to create an economy around these new voyages to make them into something larger and more foundational to sea of thieves.
Rather than just having them be another way to earn a very specific set of cosmetics or reputation, have the completion or participating in these competitive voyages be the currency to take on a greater challenge, something like instanced dungeons using the portals that can be competitive or cooperative voyages, but offer a very challenging scenario with higher stakes (high cost of admission, no coming back, etc). These instanced dungeons also require sacrificing loot of specific combinations that changes every season to bring focus to specific world events or factions.
This is what I feel is needed to create a gameplay loop, something that Sea of Thieves doesn't do very well because all ways to earn gold are interchangeable, meaning PvP in any specific server over any specific event is either seen as just a waste of time, or not rewarding enough when it is winner takes all. And that has been true since the game launched. Why fight at all over something that just spawned, and why work on an event if someone is just going to come later and take it?
It sounds like these voyages will be winner takes all, which isn't problematic really, but it can reduce participation, which will reduce their appeal as "chaotic and unpredictable." I think Rare needs to think about how they can increase the appeal of these competitive voyages, and the way I think they need to do that is to make these be a precursor to something bigger, offering a non-gold reward throughout the competitive voyage and then to the winner that encourages people to participate from the start. It doesn't matter how they do it really, but the point is that the participants feel they got something more than just gold or one-time cosmetics. They got a chance at something greater that continues to evolve and so doing more of these competitive voyages now will give them more chances in the future. That means they will go to this every time they see it up, unlike say Reaper's chests, FoFs, or FoTDs which have historically only offered gold and reputation (even if they now added the chest to FoF).
I really like the mechanics of the competitive voyage when evaluated independently. Slowing down the fleeing ship, and encouraging two items that need to be combined together that each crew might have is exactly what I have wanted to see Rare experiment with.
But I think they do need to think about the grand design as well of how to ensure participation. After all, world events are technically competitive voyages that offer unique rewards, yet they don't always get the participation they deserve.
1 out of 4
