While you are sailing around the map doing whatever pirate priority you have in your adventure at that time you should be able to come across different sized merchant ships. Just like the same concept the ghostly Skelton ships have but with NPC Merchants instead. Been many of times where I have been sailing just looking for plunder to take and it doesn’t happen very often. Now I’m not saying the megladons don’t make charitable plunder nor the skelly ships. But something that is a little different something that can also keep each pirate on their toes while sailing. The Skelton ships are very distinguishable. With having merchant ships that from a distance has the same silhouette as the ships we use, But with a more merchant type cosmetic. (GOLD HOARDER,Merchant,Order of The Souls) While having that in place the pirates that are looking to take plunder from whoever will not back down to a fight which could in fact lead to them being leveled and/or coming out on top looking for a battle. With the other type of pirates that are just trying to fulfill their voyage and not intended to engage into a fight they will still have their guard up thinking that could potentially be another pirate coming to take their plunder and keep them on their toes. Just a thought really.
It came from an idea that I have been watching some black sails and other pirate shows and have just recently thought why we don’t have NPC merchant sailors riding around. I know pirates do take a lot of that job themselves but still are always some that are willing to go on the sea and take the chance of running into a pirate to make a little gold. Also you could incorporate it into the reapers somehow.
New open sea Adventure instinctive.
It’s not thee intent of them being easy targets at all or even leveling up certain reputation. It’s more of the fact that we have another means of ship combat. Another means of those pirates that aren’t in it for just pvp that sail around being scared to interact in combat with other ships. With a Skelton ship you know it’s one of them and if you have played long enough you know the mechanics that they will not chase you at a distance of interaction. So with creating these same designed ships as our own with different cosmetics it could potentially make these players react different from usual. Which in turn will raise the pvp value of the game up once they think this ship could some type of merchant ship then boom it’s another pirate crew. Now I’m not gonna lie I have been playing this game since it was released and still to this day for some odd reason when I go sail around i don’t see a ship for 30 to an hour. Or while I am sailing from point A to point B with no wind I would enjoy a little incentive. And it’s not like it would effect the rotation of the game in a bad way. I understand what you mean by the other players taking the easy way to it and only fight them. Now I don’t know how much pirate lore you have read or what not. But pirates didn’t only fight pirates it was rarely the case. Granted with the exceptions of Edward Teach and a few other renown pirates. They mainly focused on the merchant ships or empire ships. Which in hind sight that is basically what I’m talking about these ships sail from port to port.
We have Skellie ships, Ghost Ships, and player ships not to mention the Meg and Kraken to engage target practice. One more ship type is not going to revolutionize naval battles. It's just one more AI thing people will be searching for, engage for a bit, then forget about.
I'm adamant about this because there are much more interesting things to recommend than just another AI ship (check out some of my posts ;).
The devs have mentioned in Podcasts that they don't expect a player to discover another ship for about 30-45 mins. so it seems you're having the designed experience. I would check out Arena if you want instantaneous naval engagements.
I believe these types of recommendations distract the players and the devs.
I want to thank you for your feedback.
I don’t mean to dunk on suggestions. Maybe I’ve been around this forum long enough to have seen this type of suggestion one too many times.
I think there is merit in being able to engage in varying naval battles. Maybe the AI itself and not the skin it wears is the real discussion here.
A fair wind to you!
