Dynamic Bounty/Bonus system (PVP)

  • PauIDavis

    Implement a system that gives a crew a stacking buff for the next item (or N-number-of items turned in) for each ship they sink or potentially player they kill. It would work something like this. Each time you sink a ship, your crew gets a 50% bonus on their next treasure turn in. Each time somebody on the crew kills another player, they add another 5% bonus to the stack. The crews current bounty bonus should be displayed above their ship. If somebody manages to sink that ship, they inherit that bonus. Once an item is turned in, the bonus is applied to gold and rep gains and the stack goes to zero.

    So, for example, some crew goes out and sinks a couple other ships and gets up to a 230% turn in bonus for their next item, but another ship sees that nice juicy bonus and comes for them. They sink that ship and take the bonus over for themselves. They rush to turn in a captains chest they had on board and that bonus gets applied giving them 3000+ gold and rep.

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  • Wero Flamingo

    I think the mechanic sounds fun, but it also doesn't make sense.

    Now, I'm not saying that every aspect of the game needs to make sense. I know this is a game with a kraken, resurrection, and giant angry clouds that pop up over skeleton forts.

    However, the kraken is a mythical beast, the resurrection ties in with the ship of the damned, the angry clouds are some sort of bad omen. It all "makes sense" even though it's fictional.

    How would killing other pirates make treasure more valuable? It makes sense that we could kill other pirates and steal their treasure, but why would simply sinking a ship or killing a pirate boost the value of the chest I already have? It seems kind of immersion-breaking.

    That's not to say that I don't like the idea, just that it needs some sort of lore tie-in. It needs a way to make sense, just like how they made the respawn system make sense.

    I think there are two better ways of increasing PVP rewards:

    • Their barrels of supplies float to the surface (and perhaps even their voyage scrolls). This makes even more sense than treasure chests floating, so it fits.

    • You get Pirate Faction reputation. This reputation would be the stories people tell of this fearsome pirate ship roaming the seas, so it fits. Perhaps the higher your Pirate Faction reputation, the more respect/fear you get from vendors, and so they pay you more for the same chest—you negotiate a better deal, you could say. However, this would be something that presumably carries on from session to session. (Although you could lose pirate faction by getting killing by another pirate.)

    I too want PVP to be more rewarding. I've fleshed out this "Pirate Faction" idea here: https://www.seaofthieves.com/forum/topic/49688/pirate-faction-for-pvp

  • PauIDavis

    @wero-flamingo
    It is true that there is not precedent in the game for an abstracted out "bounty" score like I suggested. I do like the idea of a pvp centered faction, and I think I have seen them say they have plans for something like that. The way you suggested that working seems like a good idea.

    I do worry about them being able to get enough depth in the gameplay while keeping everything so focused on physical objects in the world. I would like to see some dramatic indicator for high value ships that have been preying on the weak. Like a bounty cloud over those predatorial ships or even have their location indicated on the ship map, but like you said, they seem to have intentionally designed away from those abstractions.

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