Everything with wrong with Skeleton Ships

@lt-swag-johnson I'm hunting for 50, and I have encountered the same problems as you.
There is something I would add to the "They despawn" thing. Many a time, they also despawn right after your ship sinks. Despite them being bombarded by a volcano or you having a rowboat with a poweder keg or there being some other way in which you can take them down without your ship. I've lost about 1/5th of my kills in that way.

With the suddenly-popping-up ones it would be one thing, but also the free roaming ones that I'm actively hunting do this.

@caudipteryxzoui said in Everything with wrong with Skeleton Ships:

@lt-swag-johnson I'm hunting for 50, and I have encountered the same problems as you.
There is something I would add to the "They despawn" thing. Many a time, they also despawn right after your ship sinks. Despite them being bombarded by a volcano or you having a rowboat with a poweder keg or there being some other way in which you can take them down without your ship. I've lost about 1/5th of my kills in that way.

With the suddenly-popping-up ones it would be one thing, but also the free roaming ones that I'm actively hunting do this.

I think it is intentional that they despawn after your ship has sunk. Your ship has to be in the vicinity of the Skeleton Ship for them to spawn and stay above the waves.

@detachedlamb476 said in Everything with wrong with Skeleton Ships:

@lt-swag-johnson the skeleton ships aren’t hard to sink if you are GOOD. I have easily sunk 10 fleets with only a few holes, all toy have to do is steer so your side if facing the back of the ship. Then they can’t attack you, the despair thing only happens when they are not being attacked, so it is not a problem, this also prevents server lag.

You are missing the point here, lad. Agreed, they aren't hard to sink, I have solo'd multiple fleets myself. I am talking about flaws in the Skeleton Ship A.I. and not about the difficulty.

@detachedlamb476 said in Everything with wrong with Skeleton Ships:

@lt-swag-johnson they will disappear if they are sunk, or stuck on land

Yes, I am well aware of that, also not the point.

@lt-swag-johnson

I think it is intentional that they despawn after your ship has sunk. Your ship has to be in the vicinity of the Skeleton Ship for them to spawn and stay above the waves.

I was mostly refering to the ones that are already roaming around. You can see them from a long distance away, so ships don't have to be near for them to roam around, yet more often than not when you sink they disappear. Not always, I managed to find one back after sinking 3 times, but I feel like it's about 70% of the cases?

@detachedlamb476

@caudipteryxzoui have you ever wondered what burnt apple sauce smells like

What do you mean? This adds very little to the discussion. Was it meant as an insult?

I will definitely 2nd the issue with skele ships spamming curse balls. Just spent what seemed like forever trying to sink a skele ship between the wearyball spams it kept spewing at me. I did kill him finally but went through majority of my wood supplies just trying to stay afloat during the rare pauses. I thought they said they'd fixed this but if they even worked on it, it doesn't really show.

@lt-swag-johnson said in Everything with wrong with Skeleton Ships:

They can fire Cursed Cannonballs in rapid succession
Probably one of my biggest pet peeves. The battle is getting heated, there is water in the hull and you are in full broadside of a Skeleton Galleon. As run with your trusted bucket down below you can hit by a Green Cursed Cannonball. Not a big deal, you wait a couple of seconds and the effect will wear off, but that's exactly the moment in which those bone bags just keep spamming them. So there you are, sleeping on the ground for about a minute being completely powerless. In most cases, I managed to survive this ordeal, but every time I sink because of this issue it just ruins the fun.

You're absolutely right about this. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm all for a good challenge, but I hate when my ship sinks due to me and my whole crew being stun lock spammed.

They despawn without notice
You see a Skeleton Ship in the distance and decide to give a chase. As soon as you land a cannonball into their hull they turn and open fire. When conditions are right a battle like this doesn't take long before the Skeleton Ship sinks after being hit, but sometimes they just decide to return to the depths below on their own. What happened? The battle was coming along nicely, you were on the winning hand and your enemy decides to forfeit? This doesn't count as a defeat and it feels rather unfair.

Solution
As long as they are battling a player controlled ship they shouldn't despawn.

Yes this was especially frustrating during the Cursed Sails event. Aside from the limited time window for each area battle pulling the rug out from under you when the clock struck a certain hour, its never really clear what the actual range is that the battle is localized to.

In the heat of the moment its hard to think about "I need to make sure I'm not sailing past a certain point here" Usually I'm the only one in my crews actively thinking about that.

I agree with your solution.

They can be a death trap for solo players
I have seen a lot of complaints from solo players that once a Skeleton Galleon spawns on them, it is pretty much over. Now with some (cursed) cannonballs and some evasive maneuvers, you should be able to outsmart them, but I get that once you are in a tight situation this can all feel a bit unfair. One of the solutions I have seen is "only let Skeleton Ships free roam", but I really like the excitement of a ship bursting out from the waves. So I came up with a different one:

Solution
Let the Skeleton Galleon only spawn on Galleons, the Skeleton Sloop on Sloops and bring in a Skeleton Brigantine for the Brigantine. I think this with even the odds.

Yeah I don't know why they brought skeleton sloops into the game but elected to limit them to the fleet battles, and chose not to scale the forced emergent encounters to the ship size.

I think sloop players would have a more fun and exciting time when a skeleton sloop spawns, rather than exhaling a sigh of discontent when they spawn. Sinking the skeleton galleons in a sloop is doable for sure, it just requires skills, experience, and supplies.

These emergently spawning skeleton ships should serve to enhance our sessions and make the experience more interesting rather than frustrating.

They need to balance the emergent skeleton ship encounters without decreasing the frequency of skeleton ship encounters or dumbing down the A.I. capabilities. Scaling the ship size is the way to go here.

@barnacle-blake said in Everything with wrong with Skeleton Ships:

I wish skellie ships sent boarders. This may feel OP to some but I feel would be cool addition. Cannoning over or diving off onto player ships. We would need to scale down the cured cannon ball volume though.

Not a bad idea, but I think a feature like that can be quite hard to implement.

@chronodusk said in Everything with wrong with Skeleton Ships:

These emergently spawning skeleton ships should serve to enhance our sessions and make the experience more interesting rather than frustrating.

They need to balance the emergent skeleton ship encounters without decreasing the frequency of skeleton ship encounters or dumbing down the A.I. capabilities. Scaling the ship size is the way to go here.

Well-spoken words, mate. I am glad you agree.

I really think galleons spawning on sloops should be a rarity and maybe have Skelly Brigs too. So you have a good chance of getting attacked by a ship in your same class but rare occasions its a bigger class.

More time between shots in general or more time between skelly respawns after you aim directly at the gunners.

Also their ridiculous speed is nuts. they should have to trim the sails a bit and be affected by headwinds etc. I don't know how many times I've sunk and tried to board a sinking skelly ship that was so close to sinking so i could make off with the loot in a rowboat but they kick in the turbo and get out of there as soon as your boat despawns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKvrPUhVivo

I need to freakin rant about stupid skellyboatsss :D aarrrr i try to help the brig but there is skellyboats everywhere i need friends so we can solo sloop together :(

@barnacle-blake said in Everything with wrong with Skeleton Ships:

I wish skellie ships sent boarders. This may feel OP to some but I feel would be cool addition. Cannoning over or diving off onto player ships. We would need to scale down the cured cannon ball volume though.

Same here. Would really be more fun and immersive if the could board our ships. They should also be able to climb up on board when near islands. If they cannot swim, they could take row boats. Sometimes they can be standing in the water beside your ship and all they do is stand there and wait for you to come down the ladder or shoot them like a carnival game.

@ruigtand-nl

We will help you get revenge on the skellies next time we sail together my friend. We will hunt and sink them all!

@x-crowheart-x

Aye captn i try but its not fair when the vid starts i just sink the first then a second spawns on the brig and when i ram it so it stops shooting at the brig i look over me shoulder and a third spawns on the brig.. the brig sinks and on the end i die but i managed to keep floating a little longer but against 2 i sink when the brig returns.. so i hurry back and i sink the last skellyboat then number 4 pops up and we defeat it.. we grab the loot go back sell drink and thank the brig and i logged off..

So i sailed from this outpost fight 4 skellyboats make friends never reached any island or able to do a voyage they just form a skelly naval blockade on this freaky outpost :(

Im in need of vengeance prety bad plus we need to free this outpost from starvation :*

Before I begin I want to say, I have my 500 done.

@lt-swag-johnson said in Everything with wrong with Skeleton Ships:

Recently I started on the Legend of The Sea of Thieves
They can fire Cursed Cannonballs in rapid succession

It's not a problem, you just adjust your tactics based on what they have. The only scary cannon balls are Jig, Sleep, and Ballast (if you're on a galleon) I counter this by ramming them if I am soloing. if I am not soloing I can easily take them down with a gunpowder barrel.

They despawn without notice

They disappear into thin air

Yes, This is a pain and no idea why. They need to fix the despawn thing

They can be a death trap for solo players

Nah, Killed a ton of them solo slooping, they're not hard, they just take longer to kill solo. One of the first guys who got the 500 kills did it all solo slooping. Solo playing is hard mode for everything.

They refuse to drop loot after defeat

Can't recall a time where they didn't drop loot, when they sink sometimes they sink far away under water so you have to follow them.

@zormis said in Everything with wrong with Skeleton Ships:

Recently I started on the Legend of The Sea of Thieves
They can fire Cursed Cannonballs in rapid succession
It's not a problem, you just adjust your tactics based on what they have. The only scary cannon balls are Jig, Sleep, and Ballast (if you're on a galleon) I counter this by ramming them if I am soloing. if I am not soloing I can easily take them down with a gunpowder barrel.

I agree and I use that tactic myself when fighting the fleets solo. It doesn't happen a lot, but when you are stuck in a situation like this you can be completely powerless. Like you said the green Cursed Cannonballs are the ones you need to worry about. Like I said, I am not really sure if this issue has to be fixed, but I still wanted to point it out.

They can be a death trap for solo players
Nah, Killed a ton of them solo slooping, they're not hard, they just take longer to kill solo. One of the first guys who got the 500 kills did it all solo slooping. Solo playing is hard mode for everything.

Same here, mate. I pointed this one out due to some complaints I have read on the forums. I think it can be more fun for everybody if the spawning Skeleton Ship has the same type as the one you are flying yourself.

They refuse to drop loot after defeat
Can't recall a time where they didn't drop loot, when they sink sometimes they sink far away underwater so you have to follow them.

Yes, I am aware of that, but I still had a few situations in which they didn't drop loot even after a very long drag. Apparently, the ship or loot can get stuck underneath the waves.

Skelly ship despawn

The skelly ships de spawn is something to do with Skelton forts been completed I believe to make way for the kraken but even though I can see with with my own eye in this video (if you watch above the skelly ship as it despawns you can see the skull disappear) (and the meg but let's ignore her today)) I still not sure because I have had skelly ships attack me whilst fighting Kraken's as you can see in this image below.
Skelly ship storm and Kraken
I would also love to be boarded by skellys while fighting their ships it could get crazy but I will still go down with my ship with a smile on my face even if I was watching my treasure sink to the bottom of the ocean.

(Sorry for rubbish links but first time replying on here)

Great post Lieutenant!
It would be great if all these issues could be addressed!
Especially the Skeleton Galleons spawning on Sloops.

Not because I find the encounter difficult, but because I just wanna see Skeleton Sloops more!

@barnacle-blake said in Everything with wrong with Skeleton Ships:

I wish skellie ships sent boarders. This may feel OP to some but I feel would be cool addition. Cannoning over or diving off onto player ships. We would need to scale down the cursed cannon ball volume though.

I see the funny mental image of a skeleton getting in the cannon but when fired just a bunch of bone shrapnel comes out. Would be good antipersonnel attack but wouldn't make for a good boarding tactic...

@barnacle-blake said in Everything with wrong with Skeleton Ships:

@m1sterpunch I picture them spilling over the side onto another boat pretty easy.

Well known fact: Skeletons can't swim.

I have encountered another issue during my Skeleton Ship battles and I am wondering if who else faced with this issue.

Cannons firing blanks
You load up the cannon, fire and see the smoke, but nothing happened. The moment you start reloading the cannon you are unloading the cannonball. I have a video posted on twitter in which can see that the cannonball is not properly fired or goes straight through a skeleton ship.

Lt. Swag Johnson on Twitter / X