I would like to see sparring swords in Sea of Thieves. I want to do sword duels with other players (including those in my crew), but without the hassle of waiting for respawn on the ship. Here's a basic overview of how I imagine this to work.
At outposts and/or on all ships, players can find a small rack with 2–4 wooden swords. These swords can be picked up just like chests by holding ( X ) on controller, or [ F ] on a keyboard.
Once in hand, a new health bar appears in the bottom right to indicate your "grip" on the wooden sword.
Mechanically, the wooden sword works exactly like your normal sword: You can swing at players, guard, and lunge. However the sword doesn't do any damage to players like a normal sword. But if another player is holding a wooden sword, and is hit by a player with a wooden sword, the "grip" health bar on the bottom right functions just like normal health would if hit by a normal sword. Once the "grip" bar reaches zero, the player drops the wooden sword and it is an object on the ground the player can pick up again. If they do drop and pick it up again, the grip bar resets to full.
If a wooden sword on the ground is not picked up by a player within 5-10 minutes, it despawns and respawns on its home rack (ship or outpost)
This would give players another option for social interaction and could be used for other player organized games. Crewmates can spar with each other on long trips between islands. Rival crews can engage in friendly duels without waiting for respawns.
