Okay, this is a very simple thing, maybe not important to some of you... but it's always bothered me.
Quite often skellies are just lazily shuffling along the shores of islands, not noticing a ship pulling up. They are oblivious and seem not to care less, until you jump off your ship and swim or walk up to them. Then suddenly it's like, where did you come from?!
Now, on occasion I have sailed close to the shore of an island and been sniped - which is exactly what I expect should happen. But that is rare. Yes, it makes me curse. But I like that. I've been known to stop and snipe them right back simply because they ticked me off at that moment. Nonetheless, I admired that skelly's hubris. I also admired his life-like awareness of his surroundings.
When a ship approaches an island, and there are skellies walking around in plain sight, they should be reacting to the ship's possible arrival, and preparing for attack, or attacking right away.
I should expect to look through my spyglass and see quick reactions like skellies running around and taking cover, snipers preparing to shoot at the ship. Skellie keggers taking position, or running right up to the hull, or as close as possible, and detonating.
Seriously. Getting off my ship should not be a cake walk. Anchoring too close to shore should be punishable by death, or major hull damage.
Skellie keggers can be a disappointment for just this reason. All too often they run up close to the ship, after having chased me, and just stand there. Then slowly, dejectedly, walk away, giving up the fight entirely because I got on my ship before they could kamikazie me.
Heh. No. That shouldn't happen. That skellie should be saying to himself, okay, I couldn't get you, but here's a big hole I'm about to put in your hull, just because you had the audacity to escape me... TAKE THAT!!! SSSssss...Kabooom!
When we pirates pull up to an island in our ships, we should be an obvious, visible and immediate threat. This should be a skellie Red Alert. If a boat is anchored too close, it becomes a target for sinking, not just it's occupants.
But..., perhaps skellies won't always immediately attack all the time. Sometimes they may quickly hide, to ambush and take us by surprise too - that would be great if that happened - but I'd like to see evidence of that through my spyglass, in advance.
Even if I'm in a rowboat, I should be seen well in advance of arriving at the shore, unless the skellies are quite a distance away, or on the opposite side of the island. But if the shore I am approaching has skellies roaming around, they should detect me and react accordingly.
What do you think?
