So I have been seeing the issue of people complaining about how when they are in a battle it is easy for the victors to begin losing supplies while those that died respond with supplies. I feel that an easy fix to this that may add to the game would be to have it that when a ship sinks, not only does it drop their loot but also barrels of the supplies they had. If you sunk a ship that had 20 cannonballs left a barrel filled with 20 cannonballs will float up after the vessel sinks, and then the crew can go and retrieve the cannonballs, bananas, planks just as if they had found random barrels floating in the sea. I feel this makes lots of sence logically, in where you would manage to salvage supplies from player ships as you do from sunken ships. I'd love to hear other thoughts on this concept?

Hello dear pirates,

Today I adress you to make you know the issue(s) I've faced.
a couple of minutes ago, a stronghold-fight ended. In this fight, our ship and crew managed to kill one galleon twice, a sloop three times, and another galleon (the most persevering one) a total of 5 times. We were facing the last wave, when, due to attrition, one of the players of the other ship took the stronghold key and got to the top of the tower and used the "lay down" option to make himself invisible.
After a quarter of an hour we found him and killed him, but not before he could hide the key. Now on the return and fully stocked, his crew with his ship came to fight our ship without resources. We died, lost all the loot on the stronghold and 3:10 hours of our time.

Now I wouldn't have minded losing to them if they won fair and square, but after them having respawned a total of 5 times, this feels completely unfair. They were worse in PvP, worse in navigating the ship, but pure due to eternal respawns and luck, they managed to get all the loot.

This is the third time such a thing has happened.

This isn't balanced.

Tips and tricks to fix this:

• Make death timers increase everytime you die within x amount of hours
• Make your new ship spawn further and further from the island you were at everytime you get a new one
• Open the stronghold immediately once the boss is defeated, no hiding the key, or holding onto it forever. This isn't piratey, it's a fight of attrition.
• Small note: don't make it so that using emotes makes you invisible to other players. This seems like a bug that shouldn't be exploited.

Thanks for reading this, and I hope something will be done with this.

Just spent an hour doing a skeleton fort raid with a sloop of 2, and just as we got to the outpost to turn everything in, a galleon of 4 people with the complete royal sovereign ship set (level 50 required to buy) met us there and killed us on the island and sunk our ship.

We were killed before we could turn in the fort chest or skull, which were the first 2 items we took on shore. Meaning after our hard work and time invested, we received 0 rep and 0 gold.

My crewmate and I put A LOT of time and effort into a raid and were killed by a crew double our size, that only had to put in 5 minutes of work and minimum effort to steal everything we worked so hard for.

I refuse to play this game as long as this is still a possibility, outposts need to be a safe space where PvP is NOT ALLOWED.

Just from the responses here I’ve seen, it seems to me that a large part of the frustration of mixing players preferring PVE and PVP is that, more than the inconvenience of dying, that PVE focused players could have a lot of their time and effort lost because of incidental PVP. But what if your hard-earned loot wasn’t necessarily good and gone just because you were killed and looted by another crew? What if there was a chance to maybe no eliminate, but instead potentially limit, the impact of a random PVP encounter?

I’ve played as an explorer and I’ve played as a pirate, and I personally think a pure server based PVE or PVP experience would take away from the excitement of the game. At least to me, part of what makes the game exciting is not necessarily knowing what’ll happen when I see another ship sailing towards me or encounter another crew on an island. (My opinion. Just stated so you’ll know where I’m coming from.)

My thought/solution would be this:

• Introduce a NPC quest-giver at each outpost for a Bounty Hunter faction, where you can either pick up bounties or report your ship’s last killer (crew) for a bounty.

• The Bounty quest that could be picked up like a voyage (maybe in addition to existing voyages) and would give a moderate amount (internally preset amount or range to avoid manipulation for profit) of gold upon completion.
• After being reported for a bounty by 2 different ships within a certain amount of time, say 20 minutes, a bounty quest would be available through the NPC quest-giver to any third party in the server to eliminate the reported ship/crew.

The need to be reported by two different crews to hopefully weed out vengefully placed, t*t-for-tat, bounties because of an incidental fight loss, as opposed to targeting those who are actually trying to live by the sword (or gun, or cannon, or even ship’s prow I guess).

Every 2 additional reports past when the Bounty quests is created is treated like a new, and additional bounty quest. For example, 4 reports on a particular ship/crew means there would be two separate Bounty Hunter quests and that the reported crew would end up being sunk twice before the they would lose their bounty.

As a result of a crew receiving an actual bounty:

• Crews with a bounty cannot turn in stolen loot for 15 minutes, to give time for recovery. But can still turn in their own exploration-found loot.

Based on replies from in game vendors, the game already seems to know if turned in loot was originally yours or not.

• A Bounty does not expire until crew with bounty is killed by a third party with the bounty hunter quest, or after an hour of no further reports on said crew.
• If they are sunk and stolen loot is recovered and turned in by any third party, both the original crew (even if offline at the time) and the current receive the reward.

As noted above, the game already seems to track who the original owner was.

• If stolen loot is tossed into the sea, if should float for a few extra minutes and occasionally shine, like a message in a bottle. Recovery and turn in by a third party would be the same as above.
• To crews with the Bounty Hunter quest, bountied crew names appear in red, are visible from a longer distance, and are readily visible through a scope or eyeglass.

Bounty Hunter Faction:

• Successful completion of Bounty quests raises rank.
• Crews with high Bounty Hunter ranks (crew average) are more likely to be put in the same servers as more problematic (often reported) crews.

Hopefully resulting in crews who are fighting their way around the map having a greater chance to run into other crews who are likely more capable of fighting them.

Just some thoughts off the top of my head, that hopefully wouldn’t require some kind of massive overhaul to implement. Bounty Hunters could provide a means of justice while also providing a means of help for those losing loot to PVPers, and still also provide a PVP outlet.

Bunch of ideas for balancing PvE/PvP

Visual indicator whether or not ships have loot on board.
Allows players to avoid pointless fights, if someone is coming at you when you have loot and they have none you can just avoid the fight but if you see they have loot at least you know taking the fight will at least get you something. Right now it's pretty much kill on sight, but if teams can see a ship with nothing on it they would be more likely to just leave it alone

Allow players to transport one item with them using mermaid if ship is sunk
So players don't end up putting in time only to come away with absolutely nothing. If I could grab my best chest and bail that would help with the frustration. Would have to only work if a players ship is sunk otherwise people would exploit. Teams sinking the ship would still get most of the loot but at least I could get something for my troubles. When I lose everything I've worked for in one swoop it makes me want to stop, where as if I could salvage one good thing I'd probably keep playing.

Exploration Only Enhancements
Doing exploration requires putting yourself and your ship at risk, you have to anchor down and search the island to complete quests, which makes you something of a sitting duck for other ships to attack. Players who only hunt other ships don't assume any risk by attacking untended ships on island. This could lead to no one wanting to go to islands or a boring experience for some players who have to sit on the boat to be a lookout. I propose that you add usable power ups that players can get by finding them on islands, more powerful cannonballs, b***y traps, something that makes your anchored ship invisible to other players, etc etc. Makes people who have been doing exploration less vulnerable, encourages PvP players to do some exploration thus putting themselves at risk (and hopefully means they will have more loot on board, it's lame to get into a fight where you were at a disadvantage, win and get absolutely nothing for it). Another good one, an item that let's you summon a kraken, because "Summon the Kraken" is fun to say.

Gain Ship Resources when Sunk
When a ship sinks have the planks/bananas/cannonballs float to the top. This would be great especially during skull forts when people can just respawn and charge at you again and again until your stuff is depleted. This coupled with the respawn proximity system just encourages people to cheese.

Even playing field between Sloops and Galleons
I believe the intent of the lack of player progression was to try and keep things on even footing in PvP, so that player level didn't determine outcome. I like this in theory but right now I feel like it's too easy for galleons to bully sloops, they can be faster, have 4 times the firepower (cannons) and twice as many players. I think a way to combat this would be to give the sloops more of a firing radius, maybe an extra cannon or two on the front, so they can fire straight ahead off the front

Another idea would be to add environmental hazards that would effect the galleon but not the sloop such as more areas with treacherous rocks to navigate or shallow reef sections that would damage a galleon but not a sloop.

Or you could give sloop players access to more tools in their inventory, like a grappling hook to go back and forth between ships quickly, or a hammer item to let them put holes in a ship that they are on board, allow them to carry two guns and a sword.

Parlay or Negotiate
Some mechanic that would allow players to negotiate with an attacking ship and give some portion of their loot to another ship quickly and peacefully,

Non-Outpost Rewards
Give players a chance to earn rewards while doing exploration that do not require turning something in at an outpost. Could be a quick quest that instantly gives you coin or a cosmetic item outright. Again try to reduce the chances that players are investing hours of playtime into the game only to come away with nothing to show for it.

Really enjoying the game so far it's been a blast sailing the seas and I'm really looking forward to seeing how the game grows over time, could see playing something like this for years to come.

I just want to say that as a PvE player I find JUST the PvE of this game fun, engaging, entertaining:

• No, I don't find fun the thrill of loosing the enterity of loot I've gained on an hour of gameplay, erasing all my progress and giving it to someone that doesn't deserve it.
• No, it won't get fun for me when I "learn the mechanics and stay wise." It's not that I "don't get" what this game is about, it's that I don't like what it is right now.
• No, a just PvE server won't make it boring for me. I don't find anything of the PvE boring. I do think the grind needs to be scaled down because it's out of proportion right now to get to Legendary, but not having the chance of "non-consensual PvP" won't make it boring for me.
• Regulated PvP won't make it more fun either, I want no stress whatsoever, no less stress. I don't want to deal with killers. If I have to share servers, lets us be in a passive mode like GTA:O. Make it so you and your ship look like in the ferry of the damned, so killers know from afar that they can't fork you up.

I'm just asking, if PvP players can ignore all PvE in the game and still grind for Legendary status (that, by the way, doesn't give any advantages whatsoever over other players and the only thing it unlocks is MORE PVE QUESTS—for the "you don't deserve it" crowd), why can't I opt out of PvP and play at peace? I want to relax, not be in constant tension. I don't find stress fun, I really don't, and taking it out of the game won't bore me, it will keep me from jumping ship to the next PvE friendly game that appears.

Blunderbuss is good power, can one hit at very close range.
But can we get a buff to the Pistol and Rifle? (In PvP, they seem fine against skellies.)
Also, headshots dont seem to do extra damage, (I might be wrong.) But they should.

@marlon-grando6 said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat playstyles:

Bunch of ideas for balancing PvE/PvP

*> Exploration Only Enhancements
Doing exploration requires putting yourself and your ship at risk, you have to anchor down and search the island to complete quests, which makes you something of a sitting duck for other ships to attack.

I feel that Rare will not make any changes to make it easier for solo players. When you select 'Solo only' the message says that the game will be more challenging, so Rare are addressing this up front. I'm not saying they shouldn't look for ways to help Solo pirates, but the risk of sailing alone is something you accept when choosing to sail alone.

Gain Ship Resources when Sunk
When a ship sinks have the planks/bananas/cannonballs float to the top.

Not only does this idea make sense, but the collecting of resources from a destroyed ship adds another layer to the game

Even playing field between Sloops and Galleons

Another idea would be to add environmental hazards that would effect the galleon but not the sloop such as more areas with treacherous rocks to navigate or shallow reef sections that would damage a galleon but not a sloop.

Some of the current rock formations look like they might be usable by Sloops as an escape path. I'm not sure. If these rock formations do exist then we need more of them.

@k1ngbre4ker you can have a little bit of inaccuracy, or you can have a total disaster. Making a pirate game which is still fun and still this popular, but very accurate, would be garbage. Especially in an online only game. I get that they were going for a "fun" type of pirate game, but I feel like they didn't find a good balance between making your own story, and grinding the same dumb quests. From what I've seen, people love grinding quests. I totally get it. I remember the days when I could only have fun with things that set you up with a lot to do. Though, these days, I love video games, so I HATE main stories, I hate cutscenes, I hate missions, I hate direction. Give me a conflict to resolve with no help or tutorials and I'll play that game forever. Like dark souls. Enemies, weapons, conflict. You don't need a stupid story, you make the story. Granted dark souls has a story, but it's irrelevant to all the gameplay. This game did well in making a world where you able the story, but they did little to actually make it feel like another world. At this point, it's just a naval battle demo. I love this game more than a lot of other games, but I will admit to how disapointed I was to see that I bought the beta, with worse service(at first), and very little added content. People aren't wrong in hating. Everything needs conflict to get better. However, I absolutely love this game and almost every aspect is perfect.

Hey after a few more days of testing, I'm very much in favor of PvE and PvP Server.

I get a lot of featbacks from other players who have the same problem. You can not enjoy the game and play because the foursome groups kill the soloists or teams simply for fun or to catch the loot. That is not fair and I can not imagine that this in the sense of the inventor.

Unfortunately, this does not mean that I will buy the game or recommend it.

So please PvE and PvP server then there is the thumbs up and a purchase of the game

@carcinogenetxc Seriously that could eliminate most if not all of the brig abuse issues.

@brassymussel Agreed, and I do see your concern. I still worry it would change the game too much, I mean to take your example but if someone has only 1-2 hours surely they would play something where they are guaranteed to relax and have fun. If they are concerned about experiencing that on SoT then they perhaps need to do something else? For instance if I'm playing a different game and I know I really really want to play a specific character but they're popular and I'm worried someone will get it before I do, I sometimes make the decision to play something else if I have limited time... The VAST majority of the time you don't face PvP players.... it's a very rare occurance for me and even if you see another ship if you are both sailing players will often avoid each other as both want to protect their loot so I don't think it's a massive issue..

PLUS think about your average player... like me, I'm impartial to it, I am very happy to PvE and I love sailing but sometimes I like to PvP as it's a fun part of the game. By creating DIFFERENT servers for PvE and PvP you are forcing people like myself to choose.. and the trouble is if I join a PvP server the chances are fights are going to happen A LOT more often because everyone who wants PvP is on there... and I like PvP being a small part of the game I need to be conscious of, ' on my guard constantly' so to speak... not a major part of the game where every time I see a ship I can expect a fight.

TLDR: It's a pirate game, come on. This isn't minecraft. I'm all in support of trying to balance it to get the best of both worlds but asking for a separate server isn't a good way to deal with it in my opinion and will only create more problems. Plus at this early in the game (released about half a month) it's a bit early to ask for an entirely new server...

@duyzurich

1. Untrue and completely subjective. I personally love sailing and solving riddles to collect my gold.

2. Matchmaking? Seriously? How on earth can you balance a game like this? It would be far too complicated, how would you judge whether a player in a crew is more aggressive than another? Based on how many cannon balls they land on a ship? Based on player kills? What if the kills were only in self defence?... Perhaps having an easy option to leave and join a different server if you think people are too aggressive on your server would be an idea but matchmaking is really not needed in a game like this..

3. Rubbish. This is a pirate game, when you cash in your loot your money is safe, losing money from one voyage is a b****r but that's the pirate life! Either visit outposts more often to hand in, or change your mindset. Don't treat a voyage as guaranteed income, treat it as you will hopefully get income but you have to be on your guard. Plus it really doesn't happen that often.. I've played this game quite a bit and only on a small handful number of voyages have we been attacked... it's not a major issue..

If you are playing solo no wonder you are attacked so much, solo is in its nature a much riskier way to play.

@edward-doe

1. They sink you, they deserve it. It's a pirate life. Don't like it, dont' play a pirate game. (I will say though I agree camping sucks and I think it's a good idea to make outposts a safe zone BUT I couldn't care less if they don't, if you see an enemy ship at the outpost and you're worried, you sail to a different outpost, it's not hard.)

2. You don't like what it is right now? Then leave. I don't mean to sound horrible but a lot of people (myself included) LOVE what the game is now. And don't get me wrong I don't find it fun losing loot but that's the thrill of a pirate game! THE PIRATES! Don't treat it like minecraft, treat it like what it is. Stand guard. Be cautious. Prepare to defend your loot. Run, evade, shoot, do whatever you need to. For heavens sake, this is like trying to remove the guns from CS:GO, or remove mining blocks from sandbox mining games, being in the same ocean as others who want to attack you and pirate you is LITERALLY THE CORE OF THE GAME!

3. What is wrong with having to earn a rank? Legendary should not be easy to achieve, it's a powerful rank. If you get a PvE server yourself I really hope the exp you get is scaled down to 50-60% of what people on a normal server get, because you don't have to defend it or worry about it being stolen.... you wouldn't have to take diversions or avoid ships because you're scared they'll attack, you won't have to leave a player behind to stand guard etc etc. And I don't mind all of that, it's part of the game. But a PvE server is literally an easy way through. Either that or pirate legend should not be achievable on a PvE server, because like I say, what is piratey about sailing around the ocean collecting loot with no threat to you? Perhaps you can become a 'sailor legend' or a 'treasure hoarding legend' but not a pirate legend. That needs to be reserved for those who have sailed in the same ocean as pirates.

TL:DR you are basically saying you don't like what the game is. If you want to grind without threat, go and play minecraft.... don't try to change a PIRATE game into a randomly sailing the seas game, that's not what this game is about, and if you don't like that I feel like this isn't the game for you, especially if you don't find stress fun. Perhaps finding a different PvE game would be wise.

@canthavetesalsa I like quite a few of these ideas. Especially the immunity to new players on the ocean, perhaps for the equivalent of 48 hours game time or something, and a tutorial would be helpful for sure. Nothing extravagant, but explanatory with tips on how to survive and what to do in combat.

I think some sort of solution like yours for PvP is much better than people suggesting a separate server... I mean, to be honest I think PvP players should be able to attack anyone, I don't think ANYONE should be exempt from being attacked, why should they in a pirate game, I don't find players to attack but I don't expect to be sailing without risk in a pirate game. However, your idea of ships also being out there to defend others players is an interesting one and one I like.

@angrycoconut16 said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat playstyles:

@edward-doe

1. They sink you, they deserve it. It's a pirate life. Don't like it, dont' play a pirate game.
2. You don't like what it is right now? Then leave. Perhaps finding a different PvE game would be wise.

This is my favorite summary of the responses.
Players ask for more options to continue playing the game and Stay a Customer.

Forum users tell players to leave, play something else.

GG

@echodoctrine don't even bother engaging, his replies are to other people are just trashing their ideas, gotta love those constructive comments. He's just looking for PvP in the forums l**o

all I'm going to say is that I'm never ever going to play this game again until I can move when someones hitting me with a cutlass the fact your stuck and legit cant even turn and face your opponent just shows how completely no time was spent balancing these weapons I love the game love it absolutely but that is legit the stupidest thing ive ever seen in my life like ever think about it if I hit you with a sword are you really just going to stand there?? why is this even a thing

Regarding combat. 2 concepts:

1- Crews, even 2-player-crews could use combat roles.
2- We all have 2 hands, let's use them.

Each player could choose their role and adapt their character to the role:

-Cutlas + Fire gun - Main config. No change from the actual gameplay.

-2 swords - Fast mele fighter. No range.
-2 pistols - Fast ranged fighter, no mele. More bullets.

Also, characters with guns should have a way of carrying more bullets like a pouch on a slot, and we could play with an extra configuration:

-1 Gun + extra-bullets pouch.

Characters with a hook would not be able to wield a weapon on the off-hand but the hook itself would be a weapon that stunned opponents, for example.

Also the hook would give the sniper a bit less stability.

Obviously, each player should buy a second weapon in order to use it. This way, the items sold are not only cosmetics.

I hope you like the idea.
Regards,

b1g