My top 9 problems in SoT, and my thoughts on them

I'll just pick my favourite point, number 1. The ships really feel like a cheap tool you can use and discard as suits you. The new respawn has helped a lot with this, but I think there could be more done. Firstly, i think an explosion on the ram or in the crows nest should transfer damage own to the ships hull, because it seems too much like a dominant strat to have a bomb a hand since the damage is minimized if its not near the hull.

I'd also like it if repaired holes leaked very, very slowly, so that you have to eventually get the ship properly repaired at an outpost. This makes the ship a bit more sacred in the long run.

But that's a really good point.So far the ships feel throw away. It would be nice to see some cosmetic changes based on how long a ship has been afloat too. wear and tear that identifies the ship as a veteran.

@nightmare247365 said in My top 9 problems in SoT, and my thoughts on them:

1. Ship Persistence - This is a game. Ultimately too many people prefer to take the competitive advantage over the story. They will use all resources in the world to win. This could be changed if a death mechanic was more punishing or if ships respawned with the same items and characteristics the old ship had. The devs could make it that a trip to a Shipmaster could repair the ship (for a cost) at one of the outposts, but I understand your concern.
2. Horizontal progression - it does not need upgrades to ship or upgrades at all for that matter. Everyone should be on the exact same footing. Any differences to upgrades = advantage in some form or fashion. Everyone should get the exact same cookie-cutter materials from the get-go. The only things different should be clothes and titles. They have the stories to look forward to. If you need more this game is not for you.
3. Auto-Aim/Lock is a situation that needs to be addressed, but it also needs to be balanced enough that PC players are not gaining such a huge advantage over the limitations of controllers. As a PC player I am fine with an advantage, but I want everyone to be included.
4. Ship combat should be adjusted, but again this should not be a player's choosing. This is something that should be included right from the start for all players and all ships. Maybe loading the ammo is different so it still requires people to collect items or run out of things. This makes strategy important versus who ran out of items first. Do we target the ship to cause them to take on water or target their mast to try to slow them down. That I can agree with if it is standard for everyone.
5. I agree entirely.
6. I think ships are on the horizon (no pun intended) and there should be, however, the beta had no customization options for you ship so when that comes it will make a huge difference as well. Also naming your ship will allow you to know which is yours.
7. Right now, 6 ships is max, but the map is not done growing. In the future updates the map is supposed to get larger. That would allow for more ships. I think the ships are just right. They are trying to mitigate as much PVP so PVE players don't have to engage in battles. I would think IRL unless you were next to a port it could be days to weeks to months before you would see another vessel on the waters. I know this is a game, but you discussed ship persistence and that was historical in nature, so why not this.
8. I think this is a great idea, but you want small single players or players who are just joining in to be able to captain a ship in a short period of time. If it is difficult then you will be set into roles of captain, first mate, deckhand etc and it does not allow you to sail without a large amount of time. This is not EVE where it takes years to earn the knowledge to do so.
9. Again this will change as the maps grow from launch.

1. I know its a game, but ships should mean something, being able to buy resources and pay for repairs at an outpost would add a goldsink (which adds to the life of the game)
2. everyone can be on the same footing and still have gameplay options. I'm not saying one gun should be better then the other, I'm saying it should cater to a different playstyle, this is the type of thing that makes a game last, if you're going to have the exact same experience every time you log in, the game will not last.
3. I see a ton of Xbox players complaining about the sword auto-aim, if anything, I think it's worse for them then it is for us PC users, we can flick the mouse back, they can't.
4. definitely, these options I mentioned need to be something every ship has, but right now, if one ship wants to disengage from combat, there is no way of stopping it, nothing can slow it down, and there is very little tactics involved in the sea battles.
   7 and 9. 6 ships is very few for an ocean, honestly, but would a bigger map increase that limit? because that's what i feel the game needs.
5. knowing how to sail more effectively upwind and other tricks like that wouldn't stop a newer captain from sailing his ship, but it would make a difference between an experienced one and a new one, and i don't think thats a problem.

@inbred-chimera an explosion on the crow's nest should damage and cripple the sail in my opinion, would be awesome to see.
the small leak idea is pretty good too, especially since after a couple battles, the inside of the hull is so full of holes that new damage just blasts the plank out of an old hole, having them leak slightly would encourage going to the dock for repairs and refits.

Very interesting points, fully agree with most!
I really hope Rare is aware of these "issues" and are preparing fixes.

Hugs 'n' kisses
Cpt. Lancia

Definitely. Definitely increase player count per server. If the focus was more on treasure hunting I would say no, but it isn't.

@solemagician506 as I said before, the game isn't called Sea of Friendly Treasure Hunters. :)

@sir-rhavi I agree with most of your points, especially the first one, but it seems like the focus of the game is on the fun in the moment, both with the changing small servers, the disposable ships, and the form of progression they've gone with, so a lot of these things will probably never be changed.

@cpt-kazuto Im glad you actually managed to test that, I was going by gut feeling of speed, and on the sloop it's clearly faster to sail into the wind, thus every trajectory is a straight line, which it shouldn't be on sailing vessels. Ofcourse it should be POSSIBLE, (it isn't IRL), to make the game fun, but right now, it doesn't seem to matter who's at the helm, a novice or a skilled player.

@starquest My problem with the windows app store is how little management you have in it. I have no idea where SoT was installed, no idea how to change it, and it doesn't even link with the xbox app for friends list... Not to mention every gamer out there already has steam installed, why bother trying to create a new eco-system... 50% of the games i buy are because i see people on my steam friends list playing it, but oh well, that's not going to happen.

That's the thing, starting with a fresh ship every login means the ship is disposible. If when it sinks it starts with 0 cannonballs then that will just mean everytime is ink i'll remake the party and restart the game.
SoT already determines one person to be the party leader anyway, why not have it use "their" ship? Have it have persistant resource cargo and supplies be bought at the shipwright on the dock. Low on money? Sail somebody else's ship.

and right now, I don't see a very high skill cap, besides the one that comes with every FPS game (better aim = better player). Right now, a high-rank Rainbow Six Siege or CS:GO player can walk into SoT and destroy every engagement, without prior knowledge of the game, simply because they are better marksmen. Sailing skills or sea tactics mean very little at the moment.

@tutorialchimp 570 votes now :-P

@lobofh said in My top 9 problems in SoT, and my thoughts on them:

About 1.

Why do we get stocked ships on respawn?, just spawn them with no resources and this will mitigate the issue.

The problem with doing just doing that only on RESPAWN is what I commented above, without ship persistence, it would mean everytime your ship sank you would hit alt+f4 and remake the group... Though, it would be nice if when you sank an enemy ship, their cannonballs, bananas and planks floated up along with (if)any treasure.

@sir-rhavi I'm hoping they add sail damage the ships. Fire will be toughter i think because the ships are small, even the galleon. Fire will be deadly.

@Inbred-Chimera They don't have to spread that fast hehehe, I just thought it would be easy to implement, we already have buckets, add a barrel of water in the hold and boom, you have a fire-fighting mechanic.

Okay, to be honest, I really don't understand people who try to make lists to point out what the game needs to be "fixed". I mean really people what you really want is a game to fit just you and you alone. Game are made to appeal to greatest possible player base. Nit picking over little obtuse issues that will only appeal to under 1% of players is just ridiculous.

As an old pen and paper guy from the mid 70's, I wrote and designed a game I would like. It failed miserably at publishing. Because I only thought about what my friends would want. They told me what was "bad" and I didn't ignore them. So the game was built around a very small group. The original concept wasn't kept. A game can't appeal to specific populations and grow. It must appeal to broadest possible amount of people.

That being said as a potential game designer you must accept perceived flaws in games. It really builds the character of the game. I mean how many pirates in the 16th/17th and 18th centuries got to "lock on" to a person. Real battles are clunky, chaotic, and confusing. I was in SCA in my younger days. I went to two Pensic (sp) Wars. Trust me I couldn't believe how many blows I failed to hit. You are just in a confused state of trying to hit without being hit. It is not movie choreographed type of thing. It is at best CLUNKY.

Well off the soapbox. But I love the premise of the game. The game has character. Every flaw is a feature, and any Errors are just unfound bugs. Enjoy the creation of so many hard working people trying to bring Joy to so many.

Yo Ho Yo Ho a Pirates life for ME !! ( Bananas included )

@sir-rhavi I suppose it would just act like another version of sinking that doesnt apply in the rain and can cause explosions. The bucket would still be the solution.

@starquest said in My top 9 problems in SoT, and my thoughts on them:

@sir-rhavi

I have an IT background so maybe that's why I don't mind it. There's actually an option to select where the games are installed within settings and it's not too hard to find. You can even tell Windows to migrate your programs to a new drive easily if it's installed in the wrong place.

There is steam but there is also Origin, Blizzards online service, Uplay. That's just to name a few and origin/uplay are way worse. Windows store is built right into Windows and while it may be an annoyance you can just pin the game to your start menu and launch it without bothering with the store.

Disbanding your crew after a loss wouldn't help unless you get into a game that's already set sail and collected things. Maybe they will allow you to buy some starting supplies when you set off which would add a small gold sink for people who want to buy supplies. I think waiting to be captain by progression is cool and ads something to work towards.

There is a skill gap for aiming a weapon yes but what about swords, teamwork skills, leadership skills, sailing and knowing to raise sails to turn sharper, judging when a turn is doable or not. I've seen plenty bad sailers crash a lot or rely on the anchor when a good sailer doesn't crash ever. That is a skill gap. There are plenty that don't know how sword combat even works which makes that a skill to learn. I see most people try to flail wildly with the sword and then lose easily. There is also cannon aiming skills, I have definitely seen myself improve over the course of tests. Some crews can't even hit anything with the cannon while another guy is landing shot after shot. The skill gap is much deeper than csgo and that game does just fine. Im sure they will expand on it as time goes on and hopefully sailing does get even better as it progresses. I especially love the no hud aproach though and wish more games had that.

Let me clear it up real quick: I'm a game dev by trade and IT guy by experience, and yes I can get the windows store app to install in the right place, but it is a bad interface, and it shouldn't require the skill that we both have to properly work it. (and yes, i know uplay is terrible too, but at least uplay works along with steam! why couldnt Rare do the same? :( )

And I wasn't saying SoT doesn't require high skill to sail like a well oiled machine, I'm just saying the skill ceiling doesn't seem that high, and that feels problematic for a game that I want to last years and years to come.

@Program-024 What you're talking about is how sails are technically acting like wings most of the time, and acting like parachutes only when sailing downwind, but I think we can overlook that bit, or the complexity will scare new players :-P

Yeah i agree w/ @Sir Rhavi. I do like being able to sail around and PVP but I also love the idea of having a more serious mode, where I truly care about my ship. I think the idea of having skeleton ships, or NPC merchant ship sailing around is great. Maybe they could create different modes, arcade, quick match ect. I do think this game has potential but for $60 i need the game to offer me more than what I saw in the beta.

@urihamrayne said in My top 9 problems in SoT, and my thoughts on them:

@sir-rhavi

1. Ships shouldn't change much, its what you get for your ship that should feel rewarding to have, its about finding new rare supplies and loading the ship with stacks of them, or rare adornments you find in quests, not the ones you buy from the shipwright those are permanent. If you lose the ship you lose what was found for it, your goods, your bling.
2. Agreed, but it does show your rank in certain voyage companies.
3. It's supposed to be a balance compromise for console players, it is bad tho.
4. See 1.
5. Agreed
6. New ships would be nice, but I don't miss them.
7. This can only work if the map increases in size, or else everything will fall apart due to how ships respawn after combat.
8. There is micro involved in sailing a ship, I don't think you are experienced enough to know about it.
9. The distance is good enough, the map needs to increase for more players to exist in it, and I have found the same player more than thrice, due to the odd respawn mechanics.

Overall, the only decent gripes here are about micro store, meaningful horizontal progresssion, more ship supplies and map size increase.

1. What you're saying here only really applies to people that have hours upon hours of continuous gameplay available to them, not to all of us.

2. Well, that was rude, I don't think you're qualified to tell me how experienced I am or not. I didn't say there wasn't micro involved in sailing a ship, what I specifically said is that having skill or knowledge of how sailing boats should act in crosswind/upwind configurations because sailing in a straight line to your target is always the fastest way to get there, regardless of wind direction, which is NOT how sailing boats work.

3. You missed my point, yes, I have also met the same pirate more than thrice on the open ocean, but only because it was THE SAME play session. What I meant here was that because the servers are so small, and the player base so high, even if I tell you that every day at 9 PM I like to kick back on the top of Galleon's Grave Outpost and play some tunes, you will NEVER find me, because of the chance of you falling in the same 16~ man server as me are near none.

@starquest I basically just graduated, still Indie, though I do use Unreal Engine (same as SoT), you have no idea how much my mind was blown when I first saw the ocean Rare made hehe,
and I know it's not up to rare, and I know we will never see SoT in the steam store, but hey, Ubisoft caved in, and they are arguably a bigger game company then the current Microsoft Studios, we can dream, right?