Frequency of the skeleton ship event (cloud) is way too low now

  • FreddyKrug
    Commander
    Insider
    Founder

    I know this feedback is a little late since the patch that changed that stuff is already a couple weeks ago but I do believe this need some tweaking. Before the last big patch, the rotation of events in most server was always stuck at the skeleton ship because clearly, not many people wanted to go for them. I believe they were too long and needed too much supplies for people to randomly try to complete them. I personally really enjoyed that they were always up because I really like to go for those events since they were challenging and also granted great rewards.

    But now, every single time I want to do one of those, it's either never active for many hours and when it is, by the time I get supplied and I get there, the cloud is gone. Many times with no player ship around to justify it being done. I suspect that not only are they much more rare in the event rotation, I believe they now have a timeout so the rotation is not stuck there "forever".

    For me this is an issue and bad balancing because I've been actively trying to do those for couple weeks and I play almost everyday and I managed to get there in time only once out of dozen of attempts. I could be wrong in the way they work but for me the current state of those event is bad because I simply can't get do them anymore even when I'm actively trying to unless all the planets aligned with me being close to the cloud with full supply.

    Personally, I don't think those event should event be part of the same rotation as the forts. I believe they could have their own cooldown timer and be active at the same time as a fort. The reason they were always up in the previous patch is that they do not appeal to the same persons or play style and needed more preparation to accomplish. But now the current balance make it impossible to prepare for it before it's over. Maybe they are just too easy now and people complete them in no time but I don't know because I can't seem to be able to do any of them anymore...

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  • Skulliah
    Legend
    Insider
    Boatswain
    Founder

    There is a timer now that will despawn an event if no player interact with it. This is indeed really frustrating for those who want to defeat them as most of the time now when I try to go there I'm just wasting time. The cloud despawn right in front of me even if I sailed the entire map for it. This is so sad, I love the Skeleton Ship event more than the Skeleton Fort event and I'm really struggling to be able to do them now.

    This significantly needs more time before an event is removed or at least the system needs to detect the ships that are sailing to this area.

  • WalperR
    Captain
    Insider

    Skeleton ships are freely wandering the ocean now and always seem to be around.

    They usually easy pickings too, the frequency of skeleton cloud being lower makes sense.

  • Kzoo Kid
    Marauder
    Insider

    Disagree with the title. In my opinion the skeleton cloud should be removed altogether. Most people are not interested, especially since the existence of the skeleton ship cloud means no active fort. As mentioned already, the skeleton ships appear throughout the SoT and this leads to much more interesting encounters, as well as the freedom of choice amongst players.

  • SevereBonsai982
    Castaway

    I agree that the timing for the skeleton ship cloud is a bit off, currently.

    Of course, we can clear out the skeleton forts in order to make the ship cloud spawn, but, yes, the de-spawn timer for the ship clouds can be problematic, when a crew stocks up on supplies and sails across the map - just to have it disappear before arriving.

    Do the clouds need a bit longer of period before they de-spawn?
    Could the skeleton ships and the skeleton forts be active at the same time?
    Should there be some other way of informing the server/game that you are on your way to take on those ships (so don't de-spawn them, please!)?

    I don't know. It's not horrible in its current form - but I don't disagree that there could be room for improvement.

  • FreddyKrug
    Commander
    Insider
    Founder

    @kzoo-kid You just mentioned freedom of choice yet you said they should just remove it... The random mostly passive ship in the world is not the same as the actual event... I proposed they should let those two events type not be tied to one another so they have their own rotations and could be up at the same time as fort so they do not interfere with them. That way they don't need to put timeout that make it really frustrating for people who do love those events. That is freedom of choices. Your suggestion is do more of what you like so I can **** *** with what I like...?

  • FreddyKrug
    Commander
    Insider
    Founder

    @walperr The random ship are easy like you said, they are nothing like the actual event cloud that need much more effort and organization. I sink a random ship in 30 sec with a keg. I needed a good crew, lot of supply and over 30 min to go through the event. One does not replace the other and the way they are balanced now make it so I can't event reach them most of the time before they timeout, let alone take time to resupply before it...

  • RTCoaster1
    Marauder
    Insider

    To me, I think that most of not all are more focus on the skull forts, not because three spawn back to back, but they seem to be more easy and has new items to turn in. The balancing does seem to have a favoritism with 3/1, but most of the time, most really don’t take interest in the ships. I’ve seen it where it’s there, but about 9/10 chances there is anyone doing it.

  • Kzoo Kid
    Marauder
    Insider

    @freddykrug said in Frequency of the skeleton ship event (cloud) is way too low now:

    @kzoo-kid You just mentioned freedom of choice yet you said they should just remove it... The random mostly passive ship in the world is not the same as the actual event... I proposed they should let those two events type not be tied to one another so they have their own rotations and could be up at the same time as fort so they do not interfere with them. That way they don't need to put timeout that make it really frustrating for people who do love those events. That is freedom of choices. Your suggestion is do more of what you like so I can f**k off with what I like...?

    The event isn't that much different from the ships around the sea. And if you attack them they aren't passive; that's not much different than sailing to the cloud for a fight.

    Of course, the best solution would be to have fort clouds and ship clouds separate from each other. I didn't suggest this because I figured everybody knew that this would be an obvious best-case-scenario solution but the entire reason that it isn't like that right now is because their servers can't handle it, which the devs have mentioned in the past.

    And I didn't say duck off with what you like so I can have more of what I like, I said most people don't like the ship cloud event and most people prefer the fort cloud event.

  • Genuine Heather
    Captain
    Insider

    @freddykrug I agree completely. I wish ship battles were independent from skull forts. I believe at this time the servers simply can’t handle both skull forts and ship battles happening at the same time, especially with all the other AI threats. Hopefully sometime in the future they’ll work that out. In the meantime, just as you said...the stars really need to align to be able to engage in the ship battles. Before Shrouded Spoils, the ship battles were our number one favorite thing to do. Now we almost never get to do them.

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