New tools: Traps

  • Prescafatty
    Commander
    Insider

    I'm mediocre at ship-to-ship combat. I suck at player-to-player. Yet I love Sea of Thieves because, despite these personal failings, I can still get the upper hand. Not through twitch motorskills, but through surprise, cunning, and strategic planning—tactics like tucking, gunpowder barrels, ambushes. These all take time to execute but, to my knowledge, SoT is the only game that rewards this style of play.

    Traps would further reward strategic play, give more Goonies / Indiana Jones vibes, and make for amazing streaming content. Two ideas spring to mind:

    Tripwires — connect them to gunpowder barrels, string them across doorways, the barrels detonate when they're tripped. Cautious players will spot the tripwires and can disarm the trap—hurried players will blow up.

    Pit Traps— so simple, and we already have the shovel. Simply dig your holes a little deeper, then cover the top. Cautious players will spot disturbed ground—hurried players will fall, take some damage, and have to spend precious moments climbing out.

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  • Selgewick
    Master

    Nice. I like it. By the way, have ye ever considered a "Trap Chests"? Looks like a Standard Treasure Chest, but with Explosive Surprise inside).

  • D3ADST1CK
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    These would need to be limited to the point of uselessness to prevent players from stacking traps deep enough that players would be forced to go through them, or trying to trap every square inch of an island.

    With restrictions like that, they'd be extremely situational and are likely to be bypassed completely 95% of the time which will just make it more unlikely that anyone would bother digging and covering a hole on some random island.

    Traps are generally used on common footpaths IRL since people are more likely to use established paths. The problem with games is that players don't need to use paths at all, and they can cross over dense bush and other obstacles just as quickly as using a path. The only place that has reliable pinch points where traps would be effective is on the outposts, and it's unlikely that Rare will want players to trap these spots any more than is already possible with keg placement (which can at least be seen or set off from a distance).

  • Elextrov
    Ship Mate

    @d3adst1ck but it would make for some great moments when it does work

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