Though I do enjoy the PvP in this game, there are a lot of issues I wish to address.
Griefing. I know in the March 26 developer update this was touched on by one of the devs, so I won't go much into it. But I will say that after just wanting to explore and complete voyages and racking up a ton of loot, and then getting finally getting to an Outpost to trade in all my plunder subsequently getting ambushed by a four-man crew and losing all of it is one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered. It is actually making me not want to play this game. Also, a few days ago I was with a group of friends and we were finally doing the skull island raid. We had finally completed all the waves of skeletons, and then another fou-man ship comes in and starts attacking. That's all well and good, it's part of the game and I was good with a little more extra challenge to get our hard-earned loot. We had the key, we finally sunk their ship, so we should be good right? WRONG. They attack again. And again. And again. We were running out of resources, and they were getting more every time we sunk their ship and they came back. Finally, after wasting two hours of our time fighting the skeletons and the same crew a million times, they finally all kill us, the key is lost, and everything that we did was wasted.
All in all, my crew and I have had long discussions about what should be done about this. We obviously can't avoid it at this point in the game, so we all agree to lay low until this griefing and trolling PvP system is more secure. So here are the options we have discussed, not exclusively at the same time or in the same place but just ideas:
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PvP and PvE specific servers (which sounds pretty game-ruining but hear me out) but there are higher rewards in PvP for completing voyages and rewards added in for taking out other players and their ships to give an incentive for playing in a PvP environment. Such as, more quests to gather certain objects from players (hats, eyepatches, peglegs, all copies of the items, of course) and turning them in for gold and reputation. Or just gaining gold and rep when killing another player or sinking a ship (I also think we just need these rewards in the game in general).
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When a ship sinks, those players who own the ship can no longer have another ship in that server until they die, then their crew and their ship are transferred to another server to play in. Alternatively, when the ship sinks, all players instantly die and are transferred to a new server. This would fix the problem with the same people attacking the same crew over and over again.
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Creating a "safe mode" where players have the option to opt out of PvP on that server and can't interact with other players unless that mode is turned off. The rewards listed above is another incentive to have this "safe mode" turned off.
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Improving the pirate-to-pirate combat, such as swordfighting and gun fights. The ship based fights are really what makes this game and it works very well, but the rest is absolute garbage. The swings on the sword feel clunky, the charged swing is inconsistent, the blunderbuss is probably the most OP weapon in the game, and sniper head shots do the same amount of damage as any other body shot and pistol shot. If I land a head shot on someone, from my rocking ship, onto their rocking ship, which a gun that had a cracked lens for a scope, I expect to have some significant damage done to that person, even if it wasn't a headshot. That's a pretty hard shot to hit, especially for console players. Maybe giving players the option to upgrade their weapons instead of just cosmetic skins.
Anyway, these are just some ideas that me and my friends have all suggested to perhaps make this game and the PvP a little more fun and enjoyable, and hopefully not make me and my crew rage quit after 2 hours of gameplay. And, with this being a discussion forum, I would like to know more ideas, more feedback, more comments. These options, after all, aren't absolute and are just opinions, but I want to know what the community thinks.
