Suggestion: 🏴‍☠️ Cursed Contract Forts – A True Siege Mode for Sea of Thieves

  • Putti Le Puffie
    Seafarer

    Ahoy pirates,
    I’d like to suggest a new high-risk, player-driven activity for Sea of Thieves that transforms abandoned forts into full PvP siege events.
    This would not be another wave-based PvE event.
    This would be commitment.

    ⚓ The Core Concept
    Across the seas are Abandoned Fort Islands with only:

    • A few cannons
    • A small ruined building
    • A Cursed Contract inside

    When a crew accepts the contract:
    💀 Their ship is automatically scuttled.
    🏴‍☠️ They are bound to the island.
    🔥 The fort becomes visible server-wide.

    From that moment, they are defenders.
    No escape ship.
    No easy reset.
    Only survival.

    🗺️ Immediate Visibility (To Prevent Snowballing)

    The moment the contract is activated:

    • The fort appears on the map.
    • A sky beacon rises above the island.
    • It is clearly a live PvP objective.

    This attracts:

    • Solo sloops early before the island develops.
    • Opportunistic crews looking for a quick contract steal.
    • Reapers hunting escalation.

    Early Tier = weak defenses = raid opportunity.

    🧱 Fort Progression System
    Defenders can upgrade the island by:

    • Spending gold (meaningful gold sink)
    • Completing inland missions
    • Performing rituals that temporarily weaken defenses

    Upgrades increase:

    🏰 Walls

    • None
    • Wooden walls (many openings)
    • Stone walls
    • Stone choke-point fortress

    🔥 Cannons

    • More placements
    • Better angles
    • Elevated firing positions

    👻 AI Crew

    • None
    • Small ghost crew
    • Burning Blade–style defenders
    • Full garrison support

    🌊 Offshore Support

    • No ghost ship
    • Ghost Sloop
    • Ghost Brig
    • Ghost Galleon

    🌫️ Tactical Abilities

    • Ocean fog with cooldown
    • Defensive rituals

    But every upgrade:

    ⚠️ Increases visibility
    ⚠️ Increases reward value
    ⚠️ Increases risk
    The stronger the fort becomes… the bigger the target it is.

    💰 Threat-Based Reward Scaling
    To prevent AFK farming:
    Rewards scale based on:

    • Fort Tier
    • Time survived
    • Damage taken
    • Enemy ships entering the area
    • Missions completed

    Low activity = low payout.
    High escalation = high payout.
    Defenders are rewarded for actual conflict, not hiding.

    ⚔️ The Siege & Capture

    Attackers must:

    • Break defenses
    • Reach the contract building
    • Capture the Cursed Contract
    • Return it to their ship’s mission table

    If successful:
    💥 The fort collapses
    💀 AI and defenders are wiped
    💰 The vault opens
    🏆 Loot payout scales based on how strong the fort had become

    The higher the defenders climbed… the greater the reward.

    🏴‍☠️ Why This Would Be Fun

    • Solo sloops can rush weak Tier 1 forts.
    • Large crews can coordinate full land-and-sea sieges.
    • Alliances can form to assault max-tier fortresses.
    • Betrayals become meaningful.
    • Gold finally has strategic value.

    Most importantly:
    The players become the world event.

    Not permanent territory.
    Not safe zones.
    Just pirates building something valuable… and daring the server to take it.
    If Rare ever wanted a true land-based siege experience inside the sandbox of Sea of Thieves, this could be it.

    Curious what other pirates think — what would you add or adjust?

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  • Spectergames706
    Master
    Insider

    Definitely a really cool idea, would love to see something like this in the game in the future.

    I think it would be best if this happened at sea forts or skeleton forts. The vault slowly gaining value as the fort progresses similar to what you said.

  • Europa4033
    Commander
    Insider

    @putti-le-puffie said in Suggestion: 🏴‍☠️ Cursed Contract Forts – A True Siege Mode for Sea of Thieves:

    If successful:
    💥 The fort collapses
    💀 AI and defenders are wiped
    💰 The vault opens
    🏆 Loot payout scales based on how strong the fort had become

    🏴‍☠️ Why This Would Be Fun

    • Solo sloops can rush weak Tier 1 forts.
    • Large crews can coordinate full land-and-sea sieges.
    • Alliances can form to assault max-tier fortresses.

    • I'm at the fort, and have it defended as much as I can. No ships are around, and nobody comes. Now what? Forts are on small islands, so if there's missions to do there, it'll be done quick. How long are we to wait there? When and for how much are we rewarded for our max-tier fortress? If "Defenders are rewarded for actual conflict," yet no one comes to contest us, do we still get rewarded for building a max-tier fortress?

    • If alliances are allowed, what's to stop us from helping another player out by creating this fort, let them destroy it, we sail over, and the loot is split up between us (or we sink them and take it for ourselves)?

    • How many forts around the map can be captured? It pretty much guarantees that a FoF, Reaper, Skull fort won't be spawning at a fort I currently control.

    • We just got a server merge. What happens to our max-tier fortress?

    It just seems like a lot of waiting around hoping players come over and attack. If world events aren't completed by players, they despawn and a new world event pops up. Not so with these. Our ship is gone, so instead of sailing around collecting supplies for what we encounter next, we're at a small island just.....waiting. At that point, we might as well start up a FotD and wait to see if anyone comes over to fight us for it.

  • Putti Le Puffie
    Seafarer

    @europa4033

    You raise very fair concerns — and I agree this system would only work if it avoids becoming a waiting simulator.
    Here’s how I’d address those points:

    ⏳ “What if nobody comes?”

    The fort shouldn’t sit forever.
    If no enemy ships enter the radius within a set time window (for example 20–30 minutes at max tier), the contract destabilizes and forces resolution:

    • Either the defenders can voluntarily cash out at reduced reward.
    • Or an AI raid wave triggers.
    • Or the fort collapses automatically and pays scaled survival rewards.

    This keeps it from becoming endless waiting.

    🤝 Alliance Exploiting

    Easy fix:

    • The crew that captures the contract cannot be in alliance with the defenders.
    • Or alliance members cannot interact with the contract at all.
    • Or alliance status disables fort reward scaling.
      That prevents staged “fake raids.”

    🗺️ How Many Forts?

    I’d say:

    • Only 1 active Cursed Contract Fort per server.
    • It functions similarly to a world event slot.
    • It would not block FoF/Skull Fort spawns — it would rotate in like other event types.

    🔄 Server Merge?

    If a server merge happens:

    • The contract automatically resolves.
    • Defenders receive scaled survival reward.
    • Fort despawns before merge completes.

    No stranded players.

    ⚔️ “Isn’t this just waiting?”

    The goal wouldn’t be passive waiting.
    Upgrading the fort would:

    • Temporarily weaken it.
    • Force inland missions.
    • Trigger visible escalation.

    Meaning defenders are constantly making risk decisions.
    If you want safe gold, there are already safer activities. This would be for players who want tension.

    The intention isn’t to replace world events, but to create a player-triggered siege scenario where commitment and escalation matter.
    If anything, the design would need strong anti-stall mechanics to avoid passive play — but I believe that’s solvable.

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