A detailed [SUGGESTION] for a smuggling (bounty-ish) quest, that should be easy to implement in current game (I think...)

@gulasj83 Sounds like an exciting idea! Hopefully Rare would check this out, and give it a try, because I would really like to try this!!!!!
I think this mission will bring a lot of good tension-filled moments for the players who smuggle the diamond, and a good hunt for the other players.
Doesn't sound like a difficult idea to implement in the game either (but I also don't know anything about programming games... :)

@loopct said in Please add a "Mad Max Fury Road"-type quest!:

Nice idea, the reward price may need to be adjusted once it has been played a while and we see how challenging it really is.

As an opposing ship, would we have any clues as to where the diamond currently is if it is not visible within eyesight distance? Otherwise it might be difficult for ships to find it considering it could be anywhere out there... maybe the ships map could show an indicator of where it was picked up once the mission has commenced, or a “last spotted here” marker that showed where it was maybe 2 minutes ago. This would make for some more strategy on what course you would need to take, as going strait for the destination would be a givaway for waiting pirates.

I agree with a possible adjustment of the reward price (after seeing how this quest plays out - if it's easy or difficult to complete), but I also think it's important that the reward should be high enough to entice players to undertake this quest, and also to entice other players to bother looking for this smuggler ship. Because if the reward is to low, than players probably won't undertake this quest at all (especially those who prefer PvE - mostly sloops - and then most likely will hesitate to do a quest that is more or less putting them in the center of a potentially huge PvP chase/hunt). And this is the most important aspect of the quest's viablity; enticing players to undertake the quest, and that's why I also think it is important to give the smuggler the upperhand. In my opinion it should be easier to smuggle the diamond, than it is to hunt the smuggler down (which would involve a bit of luck of being at the right place at the right time, but also being in a galleon with a speed advantage and more scouting eyes), which is why I don't think a marker is a good idea. I have pondered this idea myself, but I was thinking more of a marker in form of a "silverlining/ray of light" that marks the island where the diamond was picked up, for everyone on the map to see (where one can't see exactly which island when you're far away, but just the general direction - in the same manners as skeleton fort raid events), but I was afraid that would make the delivery destination to easy to calculate for the hunters. Maybe you're idea; a "last spotted marker"would work better in that regard, but I think the best is to not have any markers of any sorts, because as I've already said; the most important thing is to entice players to undertake this quest. I will also say that the smugglers experience is the most important under this quest (the tensionfilled sailing with a precious cargo, while always scanning the horizon for ships, hiding behind islands etc.) For the other players on the map it will only be a little bonus excitement on top of what they already are doing. They will have the option of either go actively out and search for the smuggler, or just be lucky and spot the smuggler while doing another quest.

I have been taking some test-sails across the map by the way, just to test out how many ships I would encounter in a potential smuggle quest. And I always encounter a couple of ships (mostly sloops), but this vary, and it's the reason why I said in my first post that the server should be full or nearly full before this quest is available to undertake, and perhaps there should be at least two or three galleons on the server, because only galleons are really able to stop the smuggler (because of their speed). The sloop is only able to stop the smuggler with some good navigating or predictions of the smugglers route - or if they are lucky and a galleon pressures the smuggler to take another route which cross theirs.

One good strategy for hunters is to patrol the middle of the map under this quest, because all the routes (at least the shortest routes) will go across this area. So the hunters will know that their best chance of getting a smuggler is to patrol the middle of the map when the event is taking place. But this is not a guarantee, because the smuggler can always decide to take a longer route - like for example going around the whole map - but this is not neccessarily a bulletproof decision for the smuggler either, because the smuggler can always encounter ships that aren't watching the middle of the map. And if the smuggler decides to take the long route, then perhaps he/she deserves the reward for the long travel and time put in (which also will most likely contain a lot of tension, and second guessing his or her decision to take the long route, because if they should lose the treasure after a extra long and time-consuming travel, then it will possible sting even more...)

If players on galleons think it is unfair that they cannot do this quest or feel left out because the smuggler has a potential upperhand (in the form of no one knowing where he or she is, or is going), and it is perhaps difficult to find the smuggler, than it's not worse than picking up a sloop the next time and try the quest from the smugglers point of view. But I also genuinely think this quest will bring the potential hunters some excitement also. For people that play Diablo 3, I would describe the spotting of a smuggler ship as something similar as finding a treasure goblin in Diablo 3, which is not often, but when it happens it is always exciting, even though you don't always manage to kill it and get all of it's treasure. But failing to kill the treasure goblin doesn't stop you from playing Diablo 3 alltogether, it just make you keep a better lookout for it the next time, and ponder a better plan on how to take it out - all while you keep playing the regular gameplay. And I would say the same for this quest in Sea of Thieves. It is just a little bonus quest to spice up the world and grinding of Sea of Thieves, and the more varied quests we have the more exciting it will be to play Sea of Thieves, at least that is what I think.

Does no one like this idea? (considering only 2 upvotes out of 82 views) Or is it just too much to read?
By the way; I maybe think that this quest would be more feasible when they introduce the three-man ship (which I suppose is faster than the sloop?) and the cursed cannonballs (which allegedly can make the anchor drop down or sail go up when hitting a ship), which can make it a bit easier for the hunters to stop the smuggler when they come across it.

Just had another idea at the top of my head now (so it may not be any good). What if other ships become equipped with some kind of flaregun (or that time period's equivalent - fireworks?) when the quest is active, which they can fire up to signal other ships the whereabouts of the smuggler (sort of same way as in Mad Max Fury road when Immortan Joe/War Boys signals the Bulletfarm and Gas Town for help).
This is of course optional, and probably is something only sloops would benefit from because they need the help from other ships to pressure the smuggler off course or similar, to have any hope of catching up with it (or just damn good sail work/cursed cannonballs). This firework will no doubt be misused (for example to trick people), and I don't know if this would be a bad thing or a good thing (perhaps it should be a maximum of one firework/flaregun per ship, or only sloops should be equipped with it?).

What do you think? Any feedback is much appreciated, to help me improve this idea. It will also make it easier for Rare to implement this idea, if we (the players) has already done the groundwork for them. That is, if you actually think this quest belongs in Sea of Thieves. At least I don't see the harm of having such a quest in the game, because players still have the option to undertake it or not. Or am I missing something? Will this quest in fact affect the Sea of Thieves universe negatively? Commence debate!

@a13xa4d3r
How so? What exactly do you think is not easy to implement?
Personally I think the delivery destination would be the hardest to implement; that is the spawning of a guy to deliver it to and at the right time (as described in the first post), which can perhaps be a bit buggy/glitchy in the same manners as when the skeletons wouldn't spawn under a couple of the Order of the Souls quest - and this would be a real gamebreaker if one isn't able to deliver the diamond when one wants/needs to, in light of being chased by other ships/players (one can't exactly just sail away and back again to trigger the "island intro"/spawning - which was a proposed solution to this particular problem/glitch under some Souls of Order quests - when being chased by all the other ships), so perhaps it should be delivered to one of the outposts, but this could also result in people camping the outposts (since it is so few of them). So what would be the solution to this? Any suggestions?

@a13xa4d3r said in A detailed [SUGGESTION] for a smuggling (bounty-ish) quest, that should be easy to implement in current game (I think...):

I don't think this would be easy to implement.

I don't seem to get any constructive feedback from this person (or maybe he/she just hasn't had the time, so I will not jump to any conclusions).
So is there anyone else that could explain to me why this isn't easy to implement in the game? And by the way, when I say "easy", I don't mean that it can be done in a couple of hours, but rather days because the idea is more or less based on already existing mechanics, except the delivery destination, which is my opinion the biggest challenge with this idea.
So if I propose that it should be delivered to an outpost, would this make this idea more easy to implement in the game, seeing that it mostly put to use already existing mechanics?

How many ships is it per server? Have read that it is maximum of 6 ships per server. Is that correct?
Because that is maybe to few to make this quest feasible, or is it? (I'm not sure)
Only 5 ships to hunt 1 ship down will perhaps make it a bit to easy for the smuggler, especially if a majority of these 5 hunters are sloops.
So in light of that, the hunter should be given something that will make the hunt a bit easier, for example a flaregun/firework (as mentioned in an earlier post) to signal other ships the whereabouts of the smuggler (also the smuggler should be equipped with this, so they also can signal other ship as a last "F*" in the event of someone stealing their diamond).
This will of course make the competition more fierce for the battle of the diamond (in the case of the smuggler being sunk/killed by multiple ships), but this is probably the only way to stop the smuggler (especially for sloops).
Or instead of flareguns/firework to make it easier for the hunters, then maybe the ship (that being both sloops or galleons, where the latter is the result of it having stoled the diamond from the original smuggler, which always should be a sloop) that carries the diamond should be slowed down some? To make it easier for other ships to catch up with it, so the smuggler has to be a bit careful not to be spotted.
Any other ideas?

Either way I think this whole quest idea has to be put on ice until Rare introduce the three-man ship, so we can see what that's all about. Is it faster than sloops? If yes, then there is probably no reason to put a speed penalty on the smuggler, because then it is a bigger chance of there being a lot of fast hunters that can catch up with the smuggler-sloop anyway.
Then flareguns/fireworks is probably the better way to go, which most likely will demand more time and resources to implement in the game.
So in other words; not a easy quest to implement any longer (or maybe never was? What do I know... I'm just a simple man that likes to play Sea of Thieves in my free time)