Off-Topic posts and bickering will be removed from now on and further action may be taken.
Thank You.
Hunters call Voyage | Increase hunters call level + Distinction
As a Hunters call main in my early days I completely agree on Hunters call voyages. It seems like an incredible opportunity for growth and expansion in the existing Sea of Thieves universe.
Megs, Kraken, some other third thing, etc.
@dabombtrigga said in Hunters call Voyage | Increase hunters call level + Distinction:
As a Hunters call main in my early days I completely agree on Hunters call voyages. It seems like an incredible opportunity for growth and expansion in the existing Sea of Thieves universe.
Megs, Kraken, some other third thing, etc.
Would love to see other kinds of Kraken!
- Like one that, instead of sucking up Pirates, starts small fires.
- Or one that causes lightening to strike whatever pirates they hit.
- One that throws pirates high into the air, and they have to aim to avoid landing on the ship, because doing so would cause fall damage.
They could also add new Megs to hunt:
- One that, if it hits, has a chance to knock a pirate overboard, if they are near the rails. It could be accompanied by normal sharks, which would make it a danger when falling overboard.
- One that causes the ship to spin if hit.
The devs could add 'Chumming the water' where Pirates could add a fish to their bucket to make chum, which is then thrown in the water to help attract Megs.
@DaBombTrigga I like the idea of adding krakens as well.
--
Glad we're back on topic. I didn't mean to start an argument about spawn rates, in fact I'm saying keep the spawn rate the same, but let us actually attempt to find them. There are people throughout history that dedicate their lives to hunting down legends- loch less, bigfoot, etc. I'm asking for Rare to give us the ability to do the same. If you want to hop on to SoT for the day to try your luck at finding a few megs in the hopes to get lucky and get the big white one, then we should be able to.
All other commendations in the game are achievable or you have the ability to control what content you're grinding for except this one. If I want to spend all day hunting sharks I think we should be allowed and earn some cool new cosmetics/levels too.
--
I was thinking for voyages, perhaps you start the voyage, sail to an island, talk to some people that have seen what you're looking for, head that direction. Sometimes you'll see floating debris and an NPC holding a plank in the water, talk to them they tell you they've been attacked and they tell you which way they saw the shark going last. Other times you'll come across a shipwreck and there's a big chunk taken out the ship with a chance that a giant sharks tooth is left behind which can be sold. Sometimes you'll have to catch a certain fish type and chum the water.. but only a certain fish will do because it's the megalodon's favorite (which would also give you a clue as to which region the meg is roaming). Which means you'll have to catch that fish type to bait the water once you know the general area the meg is at.
There's definitely a lot of variation that Rare can do to turn this into a voyage that people will enjoy and a chance to make megalodons not just completely random. They'll still be random megs (you won't know which one you're going to get until the end), but you can control your session and have the ability to go out and find them.
@burnbacon
Why not? I don't mean to say every voyage has the shrouded. I'm saying you'd do this voyage 700 or 1000 times and you'd maybe get 1 shrouded, or maybe you won't. What's so bad about that?Having a Voyage "Spawn" a very rare item should not count. It basically a shortcut.
I want my "Hunter of The Shrouded Ghost" title by finding it as I been, its a long term goal, take that way just makes the game boring.As for voyages,
New fish types that can only be found by these voyages. We already have a base for how these voyages would work. They made them into a EventMap, Island with a circle and type of bait. They could also add in Time of Day.
@burnbacon "by finding it" which is exactly my point too.
Doing a voyage and literally actively finding it. If you so choose, do thousands of voyages which might lead to you maybe or maybe not finding it. Or still randomly encountering them as you sail the same as it is now. meaning that your gameplay and how you choose to get it won't change.Keep in mind also... you need to find 5 of these shrouded ghosts for the commendation. Not just 1.
@bleu-solo That doesn't even make sense.
How would that work? You just sail around until you find it that one meg your mission calls for?
Plus, there is no point, there are plenty of megs spawning now.
@bleu-solo you need 5 for the LEGENDARY commendation. Just 1 for comm, title, trinket and figurehead.
Is now a good time to mention I've killed the beastie Twice?
Things are everywhere.
@foambreaker
-Vote the voyage for Hunter's Call.
-Use clues to find which region/near which islands the meg is at.
-Once you get to that location the meg appears- not knowing which one you will get until you find it.
-Kill the meg and voyage is complete.It let's you control your session, test your luck, AND the game is missing some hunter's call love.
@bleu-solo you're missing the point of the ghost entirely.
I love the way the ghost is handled.
Players are so desperate to find it Because its so rare.
You are here screaming because it's so rare,
If it becomes more common then it's just another Meg and we lose a veery cool feature from the game and a little bit of the magic too.
As it is now, it's a literal ghost story, to the point, some players don't believe it's real.
A legend, a myth, a story told to little pirates to make them brush their tooth before bed.
Don't cheapen it just because you want a commendation.
Players are so desperate to find it Because its so rare. You are here screaming because it's so rare
I'm not screaming. I'm not saying make it any less rare. I already said.. Keep it the same rarity.
You say, people are desperate to find it but it's something they can't actively look for. So it's wrong to introduce a way to find something that you currently cannot look for?
With a voyage you'd get a better experience of looking for it. You might do this voyage 1000 times and still not find the shrouded ghost. It's still rare.
--
I think the first page on this thread derailed everyone into believing I want to make the odds of finding it higher. This is not the case. Keep the same rarity. I just want to have the opportunity to actually go out and look for megs if you desire.
I feel like it's be a destination like all the others. You get a map or you get a book , it either gives you a destination clue or it gives you a destination.
You go to destination and find .. maybe several megs... ever need to fight 3 megs at once?
You get the idea, keep with the theme of the game and mix it up a bit.
You know fun s-word.
I have a suggestion for hunters call voyages to dove into a meg / kraken encounter from the hunters call part of the quest table and if you do and kill them I drops there meat obviously but drops a bait crate as well as food crates full of fish the fish are random makes it something to break up your fishing with some action but rewards you with more rep towards hunters please spread to rare and see if they like this idea have a good day :)
I'm all for Meg summon voyages, but I have to agree that if you roll the dice on one and it comes up Shrouded it doesn't count towards the commendations.
Hell, it's right there in the language of both the Bilge Rats and Athena's Fortune comms: "Defeat the Shrouded Ghost in a chance encounter." and "Defeat the Shrouded Ghost in a chance encounter 5 times, as a Pirate Legend."
CHANCE ENCOUNTER being the operative phrase. Not summoned by spawning a hunting voyage repeatedly until the law of averages coughs one up in your favor.
Coming late to the party here, and I've read all the comments, but I have to agree with @faintnote798922—a little bit.
I'm not going to state fact or feign knowledge, but I will analyze the numbers. 10,000+ hours and zero shrouded ghosts calculates to zero shrouded ghosts per hour. 10,000 hours is 417 full days, or 1250 eight-hour work days. That's either nearly four full months, or 41 2/3 business months. For a game that has been attracting a casual player base, and is drifting quickly towards more casual play style (sea forts designed to take 20 minutes, nerfing world events, raiding preferred world events, earning less more valuable loot, the list goes on and on), a commendation requiring 50,000+ hours to complete can't be described as 'achievable.'
So to repeat what @faintnote798922 said, why even put it in the game if it's not meant to be achieved? It is a reasonable and plausible hypothesis that this commendation was intended to be achievable, and right now it's not even close to feasible. It does smell like a bug they left in the game akin to sword lunge, but we players and mods can do little but speculate to the merit of either of these cases.
I too wonder why HC was left behind in the last update. Voyages may be a monumental effort to add, but 470 more levels and a few rings couldn't be that hard right? Yea, a location similar to Athena's ship graveyard or missing voyages would suffice, "meg sighted here" or the like would be a nice QoL update for HC, and help with the commendations.
@lordqulex I don't think you can use Boxy's hours directly like that, since a large number of them are spent sitting on other players ships or engaged in activity that won't spawn a megalodon (parked at islands, sunk, etc...).
A lot of players time isn't going to be directly engaged in forcing megalodon spawns, so using total hours is not going to be accurate. You'd need to track hours sailed in open water vs spawned megalodon counts.
@d3adst1ck zero divided by 10,000 is zero. Zero divided by 5,000 is zero. Zero divided by 2,000 is zero.
I understand when something is supposed to be rare. I understand when something is supposed to be difficult. Yes, Legendary Hunter of the Shrouded Ghost should be very rare, and Hunter of the Shrouded Ghost should be rare, but at the moment the both feel impossible. Remember, games are more than a pass-time, they provoke emotions; they are art. The emotions they arouse can be negative because an achievement or goal seems impossible, and that leaves the players asking whether that is a bug or a feature? What we're saying is this feels like a feature, and that is the feedback we're railing against: stop giving us impossible commendations and make the impossible ones possible.
@lordqulex said in Hunters call Voyage | Increase hunters call level + Distinction:
@d3adst1ck zero divided by 10,000 is zero. Zero divided by 5,000 is zero. Zero divided by 2,000 is zero.
5000 hours parked at an island is not the same as 5000 hours sailing open water.
@d3adst1ck said in Hunters call Voyage | Increase hunters call level + Distinction:
@lordqulex said in Hunters call Voyage | Increase hunters call level + Distinction:
@d3adst1ck zero divided by 10,000 is zero. Zero divided by 5,000 is zero. Zero divided by 2,000 is zero.
5000 hours parked at an island is not the same as 5000 hours sailing open water.
So are you denying the existence of good-faith average players that have sailed for 5,000 hours and not seen a shrouded ghost? I have personally sailed 2,000 hours and not seen one. Is your next post going to say "2000 hours parked at an island is not the same as 2000 hours sailing open water?"
@lordqulex said in Hunters call Voyage | Increase hunters call level + Distinction:
@d3adst1ck said in Hunters call Voyage | Increase hunters call level + Distinction:
@lordqulex said in Hunters call Voyage | Increase hunters call level + Distinction:
@d3adst1ck zero divided by 10,000 is zero. Zero divided by 5,000 is zero. Zero divided by 2,000 is zero.
5000 hours parked at an island is not the same as 5000 hours sailing open water.
So are you denying the existence of good-faith average players that have sailed for 5,000 hours and not seen a shrouded ghost? I have personally sailed 2,000 hours and not seen one. Is your next post going to say "2000 hours parked at an island is not the same as 2000 hours sailing open water?"
No, I'm saying that using total account hours as a metric is bad.
It depends a lot on what you are doing with those hours, and most players (me included) are probably not meeting conditions for megalodon spawns. You need to be in open water, you need to have sailed a certain amount of time, and the other ships in your server either have to not meet the spawn conditions or you get randomly chosen from possible ships. On top of that, the meg that spawns is percentage based.
It's very easy to see why a meg with a low spawn chance could be so rare.
...nor is anyone "owed" a chance at finding, fighting or killing one just because they've sunk a not-inconsiderable amount of time into playing this game. It's spawned by RNG for a reason.
You're not owed a lotto jackpot win either just because you buy two tickets a week for 50 years.
It's an EXTREMELY rare spawn that plenty of players have encountered and defeated but the vast majority still hope to encounter. Just because there's a commendation for it doesn't mean everyone who ever plays should eventually be able to achieve it. It's a literal luck of the draw.
I have a friend who runs a Facebook alliance server that had every single commendation in the game except the hourglass ones and the two SG comms. She'd been playing since literally Day One. She finally earned her SG kill last year when one of the folks on the server who had been playing for a MONTH AND HALF had one spawn and he invited her on board to help him kill it.
Seriously. Dude had been playing for six weeks and had one pop. There's no rhyme or reason for chance encounters.
@thegrimpreacher I think you're comparing apples to oranges, and ignoring intent versus impact.
I find it interesting that Rare recently made commendations easier when juxtaposed with the Shrouded Ghost. Want Banisher of the Flame? Go dive for Ashen Winds. Want Veil Seeker? Go dive for Mystic Veils. Want Hunter of the Shrouded Ghost? Go sail around for thousands of hours any maybe you'll see one. One of these things is not like the other ones.
I'm not saying it's bad the Shrouded Ghost is rare. What I'm saying is that for nearly every other commendation you can see the path in front of you. You know how many Mystic Veils you need to do and you know how to find one. You know how many Skeleton Ships you need to sink and you know how to find them. For HotSG, you just have to sail around and pray. Then, what, just quit and rejoin when you get a kraken or an emergent skeleton ship instead of a meg so you don't waste your precious "sailing around in open water" time?
I feel a Hunter's Call voyage to go hunt a meg, of random type keeping the same odds for type, would be a nice addition and large QoL update.
Not all commendations NEED a "path" to see or work towards for completion. Some can and should be just 'luck of the draw'.
I agree with you in principal, but not for Sea of Thieves. Like I've demonstrated above, Sea of Thieves has become a more casual game and whether intentionally or not its ads and content have attracted a casual player base. Look not further than the pirates sailing in Safer Seas and alliance servers exclusively for proof of that. I feel the expectation of contemporary game design for casual games is that commendations be achievable through known effort. This is the case with an overwhelming majority of the commendations. I feel leaving the Shrouded Ghost commendation up to the RNGenie is out of place compared to the other commendations, and that's part of the reason why players want a "Hunt a Megalodon" voyage for hunters call.
I don't personally enjoy fishing, but I do wonder why HC was left in the game and not given 470 more levels along with the other trading companies. Rare must have something planned for it...
¯_(ツ)_/¯
Meh. Agree to disagree. I'm okay with a handful of my game achievements having a bit of 'random drop' requirement built in.
I learned that from the Claptrap Revolution DLC from the original Borderlands where fully half of the 10 cheevs that came with said DLC involved collecting 'X' number of randomly generated and un-guaranteed dropped items from killed enemies. That one took a LOT of grinding and cured me of any future expectations... lol
@d3adst1ck said in Hunters call Voyage | Increase hunters call level + Distinction:
It depends a lot on what you are doing with those hours, and most players (me included) are probably not meeting conditions for megalodon spawns. You need to be in open water, you need to have sailed a certain amount of time, and the other ships in your server either have to not meet the spawn conditions or you get randomly chosen from possible ships. On top of that, the meg that spawns is percentage based.
Is this documented somewhere? I was just pondering why the meg always shows up when I'm trying to go sell, thus leading to my ignoring it if it isn't the ghost. If she appeared at the beginning or middle of my voyage, when I could use the grade boost, I'd stop and hunt it for sure. But I always get attacked by megs when I see the outpost at the far reaches of my LoD and figure, meh, there's no value in hunting her.
@lordqulex said in Hunters call Voyage | Increase hunters call level + Distinction:
@d3adst1ck said in Hunters call Voyage | Increase hunters call level + Distinction:
It depends a lot on what you are doing with those hours, and most players (me included) are probably not meeting conditions for megalodon spawns. You need to be in open water, you need to have sailed a certain amount of time, and the other ships in your server either have to not meet the spawn conditions or you get randomly chosen from possible ships. On top of that, the meg that spawns is percentage based.
Is this documented somewhere? I was just pondering why the meg always shows up when I'm trying to go sell, thus leading to my ignoring it if it isn't the ghost. If she appeared at the beginning or middle of my voyage, when I could use the grade boost, I'd stop and hunt it for sure. But I always get attacked by megs when I see the outpost at the far reaches of my LoD and figure, meh, there's no value in hunting her.
Not anywhere officially, but I believe you need at least 30 minutes of sail time in a boat (this thread claims 1hr - the Shores of Gold / U1 stuff is irrelevant and just used to make sure you aren't near a spawn blocking island or obstacle) before you become an active target for a megalodon spawn. This is why you'll never get attacked when you fresh spawn on a ship and leave the outpost and usually happens later on in the voyage.
I'm not sure if hourglass, portals or diving resets this timer or not. I'm also not sure if having a meg spawn on you results in the timer resetting or if you remain active.
There is also the megalodon spawn map on Merfolk's Lullaby which is trying to map spawn locations. It's very incomplete, but does indicate an emerging trend of some spots that will just never (or very low) chance to allow a megalodon to spawn. This could be due to lack of data or just the fact that there is a lot of stuff in proximity that results in a very small window to allow for a meg to spawn.
It's spawned by RNG for a reason.
And it will still be a RNG meg when spawned with the voyage. You don't get to choose which shark it is and you only find out at the end when you complete the voyage.
--
Just so everyone is aware.. There is actually already a method for farming megalodons it involves sitting at an island for between 1 hour or 1:30 (I forget which it is) and sailing away to one of the meg spawn spots. This is why you don't encounter megs at the beginning of your adventure, only towards the end. If you are a server hopper you may never get a meg because your session was not long enough. There are people that open multiple SoT accounts at the same time, afk at an island for the 1 hour/1:30 required then sail off so they can spawn and "farm" megalodons. Does that sound in the spirit of the game?
Again, throughout history there have been legend hunters. Those that seek out to find evidence of bigfoot, or loch ness monster, and dedicate their lives to it. So if someone wants to dedicate their time to search for the SG they should be given the path to be able to actually find random megs.
Those that have seen the SG, do you actually feel accomplished? You didn't do anything to find it, and some of you, as @TheGrimPreacher has described, have been invited to a boat to help kill it. Doesn't THAT cheapen the experience?
I'd imagine some friends hopping online with the goal: Let's go hunt some megalodons, maybe we'll get lucky this time- is more satisfying. With a voyage you have a journey to the destination that goes beyond "let me just AFK at this island for an hour to force spawn a meg." It's a sandbox game where you can control the content you want, except for this ONE THING unless you're cheesing with AFK.
@bleu-solo said in Hunters call Voyage | Increase hunters call level + Distinction:
And it will still be a RNG meg when spawned with the voyage. You don't get to choose which shark it is and you only find out at the end when you complete the voyage.
I think one thing that isn't being taken into consideration when talking about a Megalodon voyage is how this will affect the emergent spawns. If I recall correctly, the adventure that spawned Megs would prevent emergent spawns from appearing (either while one of them was spawned, or while the voyage was active) since the server can't have more than one meg active at a time for performance reasons which is why only one ship on the server can get hit with one at a time. These ones might have worked differently though since they were triggered and not randomized. The triggered ones could be active at the same though, I guess, since multiple crews were supposed to be collecting the effigies (this adventure was so long ago I don't remember the details).
A Megalodon voyage would presumably need to operate under the same rules, so either it would immediately spawn a meg once voted on (which is crazy farmable and unrealistic), force despawn any other active ones when the voyage triggers a spawn, or it has the potential to restrict emergent spawns and other players wanting to do the voyage indefinitely until that ship cancels the voyage or quits.
I don't know if any of those options is any better than just adjusting the spawn conditions and rates.
If the Megs aren't an impact on server performance, I don't know why they have the 1 active at a time rule.
@d3adst1ck I wouldn't want to take away the emergent spawns either. So no one's gameplay is effected if they prefer to just randomly get megs versus go out and hunt them.
Beyond that we could only speculate if it can or cannot be done.
Well, you did an admirable job of missing not one, but two different points I was making.
The first is: No. It will not still be a RNG when spawned with the voyage. The very appearance itself of a meg is randomly generated with no GUARANTEED way of making ANY meg pop, let alone the Shounded Ghost. There are ways that work slightly more often than others such as the "farming" method you described, but it isn't a guarantee each time. It's a culmination of factors. Which is what "chance" is. You appear to be confusing the randomness of which variety of meg you get with the randomness of ANY meg spawning at all. It's not the same thing.
There already is a "path" to be able to find random megs: you play the damn game for longer periods of time and stick to open seas instead of hugging islands.
Secondly, it is not "some of you". No one you've been speaking to in this thread has achieved their Shrouded Ghost commendation in the manner in which I described. No it doesn't cheapen the experience; it was still a random occurence and she was fortunate enough to be online at the time when our acquaintance found it. We should all be so lucky as to have friends be thoughtful like that.
There's absolutely no CHANCE involved in being able to re-roll a voyage over and over and over and over until the law of probability dumps a Shrouded Ghost into your lap as mathematical law dictates will eventually occur if enough attempts are made.
It's built into the very wording of the commendations: "a CHANCE encounter". The encounter with ANY meg is the chance, not which flavor you get when one DOES appear.
44 out of 75
