More ship customization, not just cosmetics

@ironuzuka said in More ship customization, not just cosmetics:

@aenima123 So the beta was PVP, what's the meta then ?

MOBAS: League has issues with balance, so much that it is taking up all of their time, same goes for competitors. NOT BALANCED
MMOs: World of W, and others which have a pvp aspect to them usually have a class or a combination of classes that beat any other comp when played at the same level. NOT BALANCED
RTS: Some races are far better than others, take SC2. NOT BALANCED.
FPS: don't even get me started on the weapons choice xD look at OW which claimed to be only skilled based. Meta changes every other month. NOT BALANCED.

Never said they were perfectly balanced, i just said a meta wasn't that big of deal, and i would say more, most of the fun is often to find the meta until changes are made, and people have to find the new meta, and so on.

Those games have so much success precisely because there is so much gameplay diversity and tactics, because they have a lot of combinations, being classes (MMO), or heros skills (MOBAS), weapon types (FPS), etc.

@its-s****. Certain things will give you functional advantages depending on the situation you are in. And this idea will likely be passed on to legendary ships and higher level customization's nearer the endgame.

So you're not really wrong, but I think it can be confusing when you use definate's in a game that's not been fully released or if you've not done the research to know what they have planned.

@ethnine said in More ship customization, not just cosmetics:

@its-s****. Certain things will give you functional advantages depending on the situation you are in. And this idea will likely be passed on to legendary ships and higher level customization's nearer the endgame.

So you're not really wrong, but I think it can be confusing when you use definate's in a game that's not been fully released or if you've not done the research to know what they have planned.

I'm only sharing information I have been given from the Developer videos and from News and Updates from the Development team.
I cannot guarantee what we will get in the future, but I can state that the Rare Development team have said they do not want a game based around stats and physical advantages for players so that new players can join their friends after months of game play and not worry if they have 1 Days experience or 1 Years experience as they can learn the game and not worry about who's cannon is bigger than whos.

@ironuzuka said in More ship customization, not just cosmetics:

@aenima123 true true, but the fun in this game, at least how I understood it, is to explore the actual environment and work your way up to become a legend.
Theory crafting or meta exploring will be left out since this would increase disparities between players strength. This is the stance Rare took and I keep repeating it since I feel like it is not going through.

I do love figuring out the meta, or the perfect gear for a specific encounter.
I am not saying these aren't fun, I am saying they do not fit the game's philosophy.

Look, the game is in beta, and they are ASKING for people feedbacks, so really, you can't just say "you don't get what the game is about guys, stop asking for things".

A lot of us feels that cosmetic only isn't enough to give the game the longevity it deserves. And so we are expressing our concerns on the matter. Because we don't want the game to fail.

Failure in the game industry isn't something exceptionnal, look at Destiny 2, look at Star Wars Battlefront. I feel Rare could lose a lot of its playerbase because of the lack of gameplay diversity.

Most of the game will be PVP and naval battles, if naval battles are redundant, people will lose interest fast.

@ironuzuka By not wanting game feedback, They mean "experiencing lag" or "connectivity issues", If you find a glitch, like you fall off the map or you have an idea that could be added in the future of sea of thieves, they are all ears. ;)

@its-s****. Yes, but you're not sharing the whole story. It would be like me saying they don't have the color red in the game for customization's. Just because the developers have talked about customization's and not actually told us we're getting the color red, doesn't mean it won't be there.

My point is, we already see functional advantages in the weapons we can use. For instance, you wouldn't use a Blunderbuss to try and snipe out a person in the crows nest, even though its possible its not ideal. The Eye of Reach has an advantage in this situation, so you would normally try and use it.

You are right, there will be no stat advantages in this game. But there are numbers going on behind the scenes that we cannot see that do give weapons a advantage depending on the situation they are being used in. This idea naturally would flow into certain ship customization's. Which is where I believe the legendary ship and its customization's come into play concerning this discussion. Seeing as Rare has already said that there will be certain customization's that will effect your ships functionality, I imagine that those would apply to the ship you owned. See Gregg Mayles interview for information concerning this.

When Mike Chapman says: "A Cutlass is just a Cutlass..." He's right. But a Rapier is just a Rapier, and a Blunderbuss is just a Blunderbuss. It doesn't mean that those weapons do not have functional advantages over one another though. And if you apply that same train of thought to ship customization, you will see there are indeed some things that will give you an advantage depending on the play style you choose and the situation you are in.

@ethnine This is true, but this is getting very deep into "what defines and advantage" lol.

@ironuzuka said in More ship customization, not just cosmetics:

@its-s****. Ok my bad.
@Aenima123 sincere apologies for failing to see the bigger picture!

No problem.

Thing is, most of the people i use to play with (it's a french community counting roughly 50 members) are not interested to play SoT for the same reason, all i hear is the same thing "Only cosmetics ? Count me out".
Because a cosmetic-only driven game is seen as "childish", "laking depth", etc.
It would be a console game only, i would understand, but for a PC game ? I fear it's a bit light to be honest. And it worries me.

@its-s****. Haha! I mean its true. I think that is why I try to limit my absolutes when it comes to a games development. In other words, I won't know for sure until I try it for myself in the game.

@univalvewolf976 said in More ship customization, not just cosmetics:

@ryuuzakki
I don't want to call names but progression by farming seems to be the only thing that drives gamer nowadays but it lacks of really fun gameplay mechanics.

Don't fool yourself, SoT isn't really that different, you'll have to farm your progression, the sole difference will be what you obtain from it.
Take any level driven MMO, take away vertical progression, take away equipment and statistics, just leave items that changes how you look : There you go.
So it's not really different, it's just less really.
P.S : Let me be clear : I don't ask for vertical progression.

I think they use the wrong terminology a lot when talking to the public, a good example was calling the beta test a beta test. The public have associated the term with a final test of a full game which is not Rares fault but it's the fault of the gaming industry as a whole. The terminology need to be changed, they would have had far less complaints by calling it a server test and I think they learned that by calling last weekend test a scale test. Technically it was still a beta as that is what beta are for but gamers don't seem to recognise that anymore.

Sorry for wall of text. It's really hard to post on my phone.

Even side progression could mess with things like matchmaking. Even if the advantages/disadvantages keep things technically balanced, people are going to have a preferred play style; a "loadout" they view as better.

This could create problems when teaming up with random players who may start arguing over ship loadouts, leading to even more instances of team quitting and uncalled for brigging than there already are.

I'm not saying that such a system couldn't work; it could. But it's never been a part of Rare's plans for the game, so the work involved to MAKE it fit seems like an unnecessary complication.

@ironuzuka said in More ship customization, not just cosmetics:

@aenima123 Well if you think about it what matters is the display of achievements.
Be it having a legendary gear in WoW (which has a special skin) or a rank in OW, what tells people you are strong is the display of your source of power.
Wow = titles like gladiator for PVP or Of the firelands PVE and gears
OW = your rank.

These are displays which means they are cosmetic. Being at a diamond level in LoL doesn't necessarily mean you are that strong. But it does show that you have reached this rank or defeated this Boss.

As players will reach the legend title, it wont show how bad-a*s you are at killing other pirates, it'll show that you have reached the end game content and you have been acknowledge by the game. The result will be the same without creating inequality just by having played longer.

Look at the current situation: people are already complaining about griefing when they have the same tools to attack and defend as their aggressors, can you imagine if you give more power to players with more /timeplayed ?

Displaying achievements is one thing. But that's not what all this is about.
In Wow, you can play as a warrior, as a warlock, as a mage, as a rogue, etc. Every class brings its own unique gameplay. Offering a lot of "replayability".
In Dota/LoL, it's the same thing, there is a lot of heroes to choose from, each one with a different gameplay.
In Overwatch, same thing, etc.
That brings replayability, gameplay diversity.
You can add all the cosmetics in the world, that wouldn't change a thing to how quick you'll eventually be bored of PVP encounters if naval battles are too "basics".

@kampp322

Well, you'd still have to do it at the shipwright. Allowing you to customize such things on the open sea would be a bit much I think.

And I still think you'd get people rage quitting at the docks because the rest of the crew won't go with their "superior" loadout. Or just passive-aggressively trolling their teammates until brigged.

I'm certainly not against Rare looking into the idea for future updates. I personally don't need it, cosmetics and just the fun of sailing are enough for me. But this game isn't made only for me, so I'm not going to gripe about it.

However, I don't think it fits right now. Too many additional tweaks would have to be done to make it work well. Trying to do it now would just result in a clunky system or a delayed release.

Down the line, by all means, look into it and test out ideas. Rare has actually made me enjoy interacting with people online in a PvP setting. I'll try anything they put in front of me at least once.

@ironuzuka said in More ship customization, not just cosmetics:

@aenima123 So the beta was PVP, what's the meta then ?

I think you misunderstand the meaning of game meta. A game's meta isn't stratagem created due to imbalanced mechanics. The game's meta is stratagem created due to the mechanics. period. A game can't NOT have a meta.

@nefrit-od said in More ship customization, not just cosmetics:

There is one thing i know for sure this game needed - different types of canon balls: Chain-shot, buckshot, etc.
^__^ I want to destroy sails

Chain shot would wreck the meta. Ship battles are much more interesting when all ships involved are mobile. With Chain shot, the game would devolve into galleons or gangs of ships chain shotting everyone, boarding, and swarm killing.

@ironuzuka said in More ship customization, not just cosmetics:

@lucid-stew Metagaming is any strategy, action or method used in a game which transcends a prescribed ruleset. From the wikipedia page.

How am I misunderstanding what meta means ?

Because you had to look it up on Wikipedia and still don't get it.

@ironuzuka said in More ship customization, not just cosmetics:

@lucid-stew Metagaming is any strategy, action or method used in a game which transcends a prescribed ruleset.
How am I misunderstanding what meta means ?

You've misapplied this definition to an inappropriate situation. If you look further down in that same article, under "Adaptation to a specific gaming environment" and "Computer games", you will find the term "meta" is used slightly differently in video games.