Ares' Sea of War: a battle royale concept

  • Before I begin this post is not a debate on whether a battle royale mode should or shouldn’t be added into the game is it a concept for a battle royale mode so please keep the comments to discussions about the concept and not whether it should be added.

    The battle royale game mode style would be an excellent addition to SoT for those with more bloodlust or those who just really enjoy the PvP ship combat. Using the resources already in the game a simple battle royale mode could be added and will be described as a completely separate mode with no effect on the base game. Additions to the game to make the battle royale and base game improved will be mentioned at the end.

    The Concept
    Battle royale would work best in sea of thieves by using when your ship is sunk as the point where you lose as opposed to when your character dies as seen in other battle royale games. There could be 4 different modes: Galleon, brigantine, duo sloop, and solo sloop. As in other battle royale games, a circle will appear and those caught outside the circle will slowly die. The red sea makes perfect sense for this purpose.

    The game would start all players on the ferry of the damned and eventually the doors will open randomly spawning crews around the map based on the time in which the first player of a crew exited the ferry. Leaving earlier would spawn a player and their ship closer to the middle of the map making staying within the circle easier but likely requiring a lot more early fighting for resources. Leaving later would spawn players closer to the outer edge of the map decreasing the chances of an early fight but requiring more time sailing to the circle.

    After spawning, players must gather resources and loot. Loot will spawn randomly on islands and resource barrels will spawn whenever you sink another ship. Loot can be turned in at outpost like normal, however, this will leave your ship vulnerable and slow you down. Your crew is eliminated if your boat sinks. This will immediately return you and your crew to the ferry of the damned at which point you can quit.

    Outside the circle will be the red sea and the circle will decrease in size. This will be shown on the ship’s map and after a set time a sound notification like the kraken's groan or something will sound, signifying the circle is going to shrink. The smaller circle that the play area is going to shrink to would also be displayed on the map. The circle will become smaller and smaller as the game progresses narrowing to a random spot on the map. At the smallest circle that epic music that plays when fighting the skeleton ship captains will play and the game continues until there is only 1 ship left afloat.

    When all other ships have sunk a bunch of high level loot will float up from the center of the circle and a merchant will appear on your ship congratulating you. Then you can turn in all the loot you have to him.

    Additions
    Ares’ chest and Ares’s favor: a chest and ranking system similar to Athena’s chest and fortune but specifically for the battle royale mode. The chest would float up from the center of the circle after the last ship sunk.

    weapons and equipment
    The grappling hook: a throwable equipment that allows a player to climb the sides of cliffs or hulls

    The boarding ax: deals high damage to players but is slow and easily blocked with a sword. It can remove planks over patched holes.

    Throwing knife: a throwable weapon that if it misses the target will get stuck into objects and can be picked up again

    Musket: an unscoped eye of reach with range in between the pistol and eye of reach. It has a bayonet mounted on the front. Holding the shoot button down enables melee mode and use of the bayonet. Pressing the aim button while in melee mode performs a stab. Holding the aim button while in melee mode performs a bayonet charge.

    Pistol update: allow the pistol to be used as a club when out of ammo

    Harpoon: a cannon ammunition type that deals more damage to the kraken and meg. If fired at another ship will get stuck in the ship allowing you to slow them down and pull them closer. Rope attached to harpoon can be cut to release a ship.

    Grapeshot: a cannon ammunition type that fires many tiny cannon balls. Will deal damage to exposed player on the top deck, knocking them off helm and cannons, but no damage to the ship

    Conclusion and TLDR
    A battle royale type of game mode can be added using the already present mechanics and resources available in the game. The game mode will bring a part of the player base that want a more competitive pvp oriented playstyle a way to live out their bloodlust fantasy while still keeping to the core of the game of getting loot and treasure to become a pirate legend.

    The Start: start on ferry of the damned. The longer you wait to spawn the farther from center of map your ship's starting island will be.
    The Circle: outside is the red sea. It narrows randomly to a small area of the map
    The Loss: Immediately when your ship is sunk all your crew dies and goes to the ferry of the damned.
    The Win: Be the last ship standing. A bunch of loot floats up in the center of the circle. Merchant appears on your boat to sell loot to.

    Criticisms and compliments welcome.

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  • @i-am-lost-77 being honest, if rare does what you ask, this game would be called be of thugs, if the players who like the pure pve were denied the possibility of having servers pve, which rare do this you ask real in my opinion will that finds a leak of pve players, seeing that pvp players are told more than pve players.

  • @bardahcazo i don’t really understand what your trying to say. But this would be completely separate from the main game. The game mode would be chosen by players to willingly play this mode. It will have no effect on the main game

  • I think this could work I just don’t think there are enough ships currently for it.

    If they did do this it would be cool if dependant on the circle the conditions to win would change, sometimes it would forced players to leave their ship for an island for the last circle which would make it last man/crew standing rather than last ship.

  • @a-cranky-eskimo I’m not sure of the games limitations but I was thinking in the realm of 50 ships. I think to keep the game unique to other battle royale games it should be based on last ship standing as opposed to last player.

  • If a battle royal was ever implemented then you should never leave the ship. All combat is ship to ship with no boarding whatsoever. It keep the pvp to a skilled playing level. Supplies can be picked up by sailing over the barrels in the water. There should be no loot till the end. That’s my 2 cents.

  • @inboundbomb I get what your saying (I also prefer the ship to ship as opposed to hand to hand combat) but boarding is a pretty important aspect of naval combat, without it the game becomes a war of attrition, and preventing people from leaving the ship doesn’t really feel like it would fit this game. Perhaps disabling the mermaid would be a good way to balance risk vs reward of boarding attempts?

  • @i-am-lost-77
    Again this will be the only way to put skill to the test without having so many variables. A battle royal for this game should be ship to ship only. It keeps the game on an even playing ground for all just like Rare wants.

  • @inboundbomb everyone has access to the same tools so the playing field is level. Your suggestion would put players who stay far from the action and rarely fight a huge advantage over the players who have engaged in combat. Other battle royale games balance this by giving the players who engage in more combat the best weapons as they collect them from their fallen advasaries. Instead of having this the players who engage in more combat will likely just be lower and lower on resources so no player would ever want to attack another. Boarding provides a quick way to sink a ship without exhausting all your resources thus giving you an increase in reasources and the loot that those ships might be carrying would be an incentive to attack.

  • @i-am-lost-77 Then there is no need for a battle royal then. All they have to do is allow more ships on the existing server and I can go at it all day long. Spawn, hit a fort and fill resources and start hunting. For a battle royal to be worth anything in my eyes it has to be different and not the same thing as everything else.

     They still have to find a way to even allow more than 6 ships on a server at this point in time.
    
  • They still are not even able to get past 6 ships on a server soooo...... not much of a battle royal. Here’s to hoping but if it’s not limited to ship combat only then there is no reason for me to play it. Sorry.

  • @inboundbomb I respect you opinion but being forced to stay on your ship shooting cannon balls at another ship for hours until you run out would get boring very quickly. Any decent crew can keep a ship afloat indefiatly if they aren’t boarded, even without planks. Having the boarding mechanic would keep the combat engaging, fun, and unpredictable. Only ship to ship would get stale.

  • @i-am-lost-77 I respect yours as well and then we will have to agree to disagree. This mode wouldn’t suit my taste due it still being the same game except you have circular death cloud closing in around you forcing you to a central spot on the map. Nothing has changed except for that one little thing.

  • @inboundbomb well that was a major point of this post, I wanted to show the simplicity of making a BR game mode using the gameplay mechanics and resources already available since many think a BR mode will take a vast amount of development time and resources to achieve. I was trying to show how easy it would be to manipulate the current game into a functioning BR game mode that would also still fit in the current progression of the main game. Yes it would be basically the main game with a shrinking Red Sea but the goal, mindset, and interactions between players would be completely different to which i would argue that just adding more ships would not achieve.

  • @i-am-lost-77 I wish it was that simple but they will have to put resources and time into it to balance and checks on everything. Servers will have to allocated to these type of games as well with the coding to have the Red Sea to continuously close in on the map and there is a lot to be done and maintained. We are still getting updates to fix known bugs that add even more bugs at times..... plus just having 6 ships on a server does not Make a battle royal.

  • @i-am-lost-77 I agree they should be able to do what you had mentioned with what they have but the question is why would they? Why would Rare do this? Maybe in a year or so they will implement this after they run out of original ideas to keep the player of the core game happy.

  • Before I begin this post is not a debate on whether a battle royale mode should or shouldn’t be added into the game is it a concept for a battle royale mode so please keep the comments to discussions about the concept and not whether it should be added.

    In other words: Please let us all pretend that argument FOR a Battle Royale mode has been won; and a fait accompli, and discuss how it will work.

    No. Please, let's us NOT pretend that.

  • @i-am-lost-77
    I generally like your idea, especially the way you presented it.
    I think I would enjoy a BR mode like this. Maybe there could still be random drops of loot as well, so everyone could carry loot. Seems more fun than only having loot float up after the game was won..

    However, you're making a mistake in assuming that because a system is already present, it would be easy to adapt or change it to a new purpose.
    The red sea for example is likely just a post process volume with a heavy red tint, and a volume that damages the ships. Having it expand to a random circle on the map every few minutes would be very different. So would be having 50 ships (that would be up to 200 people) on a server instead of 6.

    Either way, I do like the concept you presented in general and believe many people would enjoy it. But that could have an adverse effect on the base game if too many players choose to play BR over the base game (I think LoL removed their ARAM mode because of that?)

    Oh and it seems some people are not capable of discussing the concept separate from the base game, but I guess you anticipated that. :D

  • @nebenkuh Capable of discussion of the game type if implemented correctly. So far nothing has been shown or discussed how it could be different from the core game. I would try it if is done completely from the standard FPS battle royals that our now a standard in today’s games.

  • @surveyorpete not at all. the inclusion of a BR mode is Rares decision alone so it’s pointless to argue at its inclusion. There is plenty of BR debate threads and I don’t want this to be one of them. I simply wanted to showcase how it could look. I am not a fan of standard BR game I found it gets boring quickly when that’s all there is but luckily there is the base game of sot that I find very enjoyable and this will compliment it not replace it. The concept I outlined imo fits very well with the game and provides a dedicated PvP expirence without affecting the main game. If you read it and disagree that is one thing but don’t hate on it Bc it’s modeled similarly to BR. The BR model is just a great way to force PvP since it forces players into a smaller and smaller area with the only way to win is by being the last man (or in this case ship) standing. Skull forts are the only PvP I usually find in this game and while there are some great PvP moments they are rare.

    One of my favorite moments in this game was being in a galleon and fighting 2 other galleons over like 3 seafarers chests. No one cared about the loot it was just an epic slugfest of cannonballs, gp barrels, ramming, and boarding. But the problem I have is that this only ever happened to me once. This mode simply allows those who want to fight not have to spend so much time looking for ships that might just run away. It gives a competitive PvP mode that will attract new players and allow a change of pace from the main game.

  • @nebenkuh thank you. You make valid points. I did mention there would still be loot in the game so ships could be carrying some as well as still being able to earn something, even if they don’t win by turning, it in to outpost during the game.

    For the Red Sea and other assumptions I do not know how these work within the game or how easy they would be to modify so it could possibly be more difficult then I assume.

    I wouldn’t expect more than 100 ppl per server so 25 galleons 33 brigantines or 50 sloops. Not sure if those numbers are achievable but perhaps disabling other assets for this mode for example animals, skeletons, fort, meg, kraken, and shopkeepers may make this possible but again I don’t know.

    As for it affecting the main game I don’t think it will cause problems. Many people are loyal and thoroughly enjoy the main game, myself included, and both would provide very different expirences. My brother doesn’t like sot Bc he thinks it’s too slow and he really only enjoys the combat. I figure he’s not the only one and sometimes when I log on I want to just blow ships to splitters and have some epic battles which is very hard and rare in the main game. I feel like a PvP focused mode will bring in a mostly new group of players that have more of the mindset of my bother. Once again thanks for your input.

  • @i-am-lost-77 simply that would be another way to fragment the community, if it was bad to make pve servers by the fragmentation of community, doing a battle royale would have the same effect, it is difficult to predict the result that this option would have, in any case it would be interesting

  • @bardahcazo This thread is not about PvE servers. If rare wanted to make PvE servers that would be at their discretion but I doubt they ever will since they have been so adamant about safe zones within the game. Conserns about splitting the community is well grounded but I don’t think it will be a concern. From what I have seen many ppl don’t want the BR mode but that just means if it is added they won’t play it. I think the BR mode will bring in a lot of new players or players who didn’t really like the main games grindiness and just wanted a more competitive PvP. But as I said it’s up to Rare to decide what’s best for their game this is just the simplist concept I can come up with for a BR mode using the resources currently available

  • @i-am-lost-77 personally I have nothing against the suggestions that make this game more global, from the pve to the pvp, I am of the opinion that the more we are better for everyone, about the battle royale mode, it would be great to integrate , but that is a rare decision.

    PD: do not take me for who I am not, or what kind of game I like, I just want to contribute my opinion.

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