This will be a long post and is intended for the devs. That's my warning to fellow community members who don't have time to read a long one. I'm numbering my feedback points so it can be easily glanced over. Further description of the point follows after the "title" of it.
OK devs, here's my feedback as of the close of the beta.
Firstly, great game. We had so many good times. We are looking forward to the full content release.
Points:
- Game modes - The 1 and 2 players sloops seem to be exactly the same. If they are to remain the same, it would be good if you could invite a friend to the 1 player sloop. Reason being I found myself playing alone a few times and then a friend would come online, so I had to abandon my ship to load in to a game with another that was exactly the same, but with default resources (cannon balls, planks, bananas). If this doesn't happen, then it would be good for the 2 player ship to be a frigate that's a little bigger than a sloop and has 2 cannons on each side. A good balance between sloop and galleon.
- Huge ship customisation - I'm talking total themes of ships to decide the first step of customisation, and then different styles within that theme. Different look for each. Different barrels. Different sails. Different plank... different layout even. I watched the Jason Mamoa Conan film again the other day and paid attention to the ship they use in there. The style is really good and would look excellent in SoT. You could have the classic ship feel that we have now, but then a lot of other perhaps more fantasy type too. Players could potentially have visual unlock paths to pursue and achievements when a path is completed. This would give us something to put all that hard earned gold in to. It would also make gold more valuable, which would increase the pressure when shipping it home. I could honestly talk for a long time about this idea as I'm very passionate about it. I do love a good progression system :D
- Consistent quality content releases - To draw on another game's success to illustrate my point, Fortnite (Epic Games) releases new playable content every week. This is, in my opinion, one of the major contributing factors to their success. Their game has a similar thematic feel to SoT too in style. The content injects new life blood in to the game so frequently that players are constantly hungry for what's coming next. I think that Sea of Thieves will need this too. We don't want to fall in to the same grind for rep all the time.
- Benefits for non-aggressive players - We tried to squeeze in as many play styles as we could during the beta. We pillaged, plundered, quested, murdered, traded, protected and... played music. Of course most people just want to obliterate other pirates, but my brother had the idea of offering our services as protectors to people. It was great and opened a whole new feel to the game!! Seriously. There was one guy on a sloop that was hesitant when we first approached. My brother told him, a nice American chap, that we come in peace and we want to follow you on your voyages to protect you at the cost of one chest per voyage. It was really fun and we got to engage in a whole bunch of nice dialogue with a person that we'd have missed if we'd just sailed up and smashed him to pieces (or who knows, maybe he'd have smashed us..). This was fine for the beta because all progress got wiped out at the end, but I couldn't help but feel that in the full game, it wouldn't be worth it. If we follow someone on their voyages and are going to spend that time, then we may as well just do voyages ourselves. We'd get all the chests instead of 1. I'm not sure how this would play out in reality, but I'm sure with some focused thought and brainstorming, a really cool and fun system of reward could be put in place for the different play styles.
- Capturing enemy players - It would be cool to be able to put enemy players in the brig. It would be bad if there was no way out, so this is another thought that needs some developing. The brig may need some work currently so perhaps this idea isn't good for now, but something to think about.
- Combat balancing - Combat seems weird. Sometimes I blunderbuss someone in the chest and they die, another time I'll hit them full force and they'll just chop me up. Sword fights, parries and attacks, need some clarification or enhancing as it's a bit awkward at the moment. Would love a strong combat system for this game.
- Weapon and clothing themes - Similar to the ship themes I mentioned above, we would love enhanced visual themes all around. I'd love working towards an epic looking suit, but it would be good for there to be a lot of choice so that everyone didn't have the same stuff. This applies to instruments too. The community love what you've done with the instruments, but we're hungry for more.
- More songs - On the subject of instruments, more songs please! You've hit the nail on the head with the instruments. You've added a little something extra with them that made the game that much more fun to play... we just want more... sorry.
- Choice of pirate - I want to be able to choose which pirate I am... I lose more fights when I'm a big, fat, easy to shoot pirate.
- Sharks - Balance them please. They are cool and useful, but need work I think.
- Mini games - Not my idea. Saw it on another forum post and really liked it. No need to elaborate.
- Enemy player gamertags less visible - Sneaking around is fun. It's really easy to see someone under the water.. Perhaps if they are close to the surface then their tag should show, but maybe it should be obscured if they go down far enough. Sneaking around and infiltrating enemy ships is really fun.
- Sponson cannons next to the wheel? - Perhaps, perhaps not. Addition of extra hardware changes balancing. Could be cool.
To be honest, I have a bunch more but this post is getting longer and longer, so I'll hold off for now.
Like I said, the game is great. I can see us spending a lot of time on it. My whole group will be buying it on release. This is the game we've been waiting for.
Thanks for bringing us this gaming experience.
Regards,
Faramous
