It is known by all that infinite loading screens and Beard errors are rampant. Solo ventures are highly risky not only because of how prone we are to PvP (Although those of us skilled enough may triumph in solo PvP,) but because one dropped connection is enough to put your loot into the open sea and a swift end to your voyage (Solo chest of legend's is the hardest chest to obtain, prove me wrong. ;P )
I am reposting this suggestion since my last thread was riddled with this horrible rant that was not necessary, and I have had more time to put into the idea.
Concept: If a player leaves his session by any illegal method (that is to say, they have not clicked "Leave game/ Quit Game" on PC, or used the xbox tray to quit out on xbox and whatever other legitimate quit methods there are on xbox.) then their slot on that ship will be Reserved, as though there is still a player there - perhaps the crew menu would even still show their name as present with the crew. In the case of a solo vessel, the ship will remain as though the crewmember simply jumped overboard.
At this point a timer will begin, at least 7 minutes for people with slow machines to load in, upwards of 10-15 minutes if we want to be particularly generous - where in this time if that user gets to the ship selection screen they will receive a prompt whether they wish to join the last crew they were sailing with. Accepting this prompt would simply reconnect you to the ship, nothing lost, nothing gained. Declining this prompt would immediately drop your reservation, opening the slot for another crew member, or in the case of a solo vessel - immediately causing a scuttle to occur.
Potential drawback's to this system.
I have put a lot of thought into whether or not there would be a drawback to this timer system. In the few days I have only come to ONE potential drawback. Crew Griefing. This is likely only to be a problem in Open crews, however, a sailor might choose to alt+f4 out of their game, or simply power down their Xbox to leave the session and keep their slot reserved. This could be repeated indefinitely - making the crewmember as useless as a brigged crewmember. In order to prevent this, I suggest that any player who is in the brig and also disconnects via a method which would give them this timer, that their slot NOT be reserved. This may be extended to the sloop, where now a crewmember who is on a sloop where the other crewmember is currently under the timer - is now allowed to vote to brig that player. Once brigged, the slot will be opened up for a new joiner and the timer stopped.
The antithesis to this is that a player who isn't receiving the black screens of death may vote to brig an innocent crew-member, thus preventing them from getting their loot - however, in the event that you black screen out with a random crew today is the same scenario but worse since you have NO chance of getting back. With a timer, at least you would have the opportunity.
What is NOT affected by this change:
PvP - if you choose to alt+f4 out of a PvP encounter, you might as well have just jumped ship. Hiding yourself on an island away from your ship and quitting out would not be viable, as every time you reconnect to the session your pirate will spawn in a normal spawn location (On the ship, in the tavern, etc.) Alternatively you might say this can be used to return to the ship, but no matter what the case is you could accomplish this by swimming for a mermaid. If your ship is left alone sailing circles thus making it more difficult to return to the ship, the 5 minutes or so reloading the game would take is, I feel, a fair compensation to not being able to catch a mermaid. 5 minutes is plenty of time for an enemy to catch up and do some damage.
PvE encounters: The skelly ship is going to fire on you whether you're there or not.
Almost all places where it would affect the gameplay in some way can be explained away by this one point: If you aren't on your ship - you aren't on your ship. Whether you are logged off or hiding on an island, the outcome for your ship will remain the same.
Missed info from below post: As a failsafe, ships who lose a crew member who is a part of this timer (they either decline to join or their timer ends) that your ship gets moved up in the "Fill my roster" queue for a quicker join time to get that slot filled since the ship has already waited some time with a missing slot.
==== That is the end of my new post. I will include the contents of my better-prepared response to the old thread below, however, everything mentioned below is explained above, and I am leaving this here mostly for reference. ====
The re-join timer can work such that you have ~7-10 minutes from the point when a disconnect occurred (whether the ship has people on it or not) to rejoin. This timer would only start if the player left the game without clicking either of the "Safe quit" methods (leave game and quit to desktop in the menu on PC, and whatever the 'official' alternatives are on xbox.) This would prevent the problem of not being able to get a new crew member for a while in an open crew if someone chooses to leave. Alt-F4 would still create this problem but I feel like it's a small price to pay.
Once this timer has been initiated, you have that 7-10 minutes to get to the join a crew screen (where you see the three ship types.) At this point a pop-up will occur asking if you wish to rejoin the crew you were last a part of. Declining this message would IMMEDIATELY re-open your slot on the crew and/or scuttle the ship if you were the last member.
After some heavy thought on the topic, and the ways that it might affect PvP for better or for worse - I cannot figure out a single way that this could be abused outside of griefing an open crew that you are a part of. This can be mitigated by perhaps creating a rule that if the individual who has disconnected is in the brig - or is voted to the brig during their absence - that their slot be immediately re-opened and their opportunity to rejoin the crew is lost. If you are an effective member of your crew and disappear for a few minutes, it is not likely that your crew (in their right minds) will brig you since it is likely to take 5-10 minutes for a new crew member to fill your slot anyways.
As a failsafe, ships who lose a crew member who is a part of this timer (they either decline to join or their timer ends) that your ship gets moved up in the "Fill my roster" queue for a quicker join time to get that slot filled since the ship has already waited some time with a missing slot.
All of these idea's in mind it might be important to note that I exclusively want this feature for soloing. I understand that solo is not the intended way to play this game, but you guys have to understand that a lot of us just enjoy solo-ing this game. I do not complain when a player galleon, or even a fleet of allied ships try to get onto me when I'm solo - that is a risk that I take as a solo player. However, I shouldn't be penalized by the game itself in a way that is not a natural part of the game (skelly ships and storms and whatnot are natural, infinite black screen is not) just for being a solo player.
EDIT: Fixed formatting on old post copy-pasta. Also moved a point from the old copy pasta up into the new post portion, since I failed to mention it.
