The Current Frequency of Skeleton Ships / Kraken / Meg is perfect.

  • I've been seeing a lot of feedback about the skeleton ships and Kraken frequency being too high.

    I for one enjoy the current frequency. I enjoy those hazards and I've really seen the world come alive with their presence. I've actually been out hunting the skeleton ships on a solo sloop here and there for two reasons: Skeleton Captain loot commendations and the "Legend of the Sea of Thieves" commendation. Plus, they're just fun to fight and see out in the world doing their own thing.

    I'd hate to see these encounters be reduced. It would make those commendations a lot harder to reach and more importantly I feel like their lack of presence would detract from this great "alive" feeling we have in the world right now.

    I'd like to see some agreement on this so this feedback can gain traction as well, so if you do agree please say so!

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  • I've been having problems finding the Meg, seems like it only shows up when I don't want it to or can't deal with it at the moment.

    Still haven't seen the Kraken at all.

    The skeleton ships are visible and seem to be spawning at the right amount.

    I think the forts pop a bit too often though.

  • @chronodusk

    I too enjoy how alive the world feels, but after the update I think a couple changes would be healthy:

    1. Skeleton Forts: If these popped up every 1.5 hours instead of about every 30 minutes it would help make fort loot special again. When Shrouded Spoils first came out forts were the place to be just like at launch. However, I've already started encountering servers where forts continuously time out because no ships want to bother with them and that is a bit worrying. I feel like three hours was too long, and 30 minutes is too short, but an hour and a half is long enough to make them special without players necessarily feeling like they need to server hop if they want to see forts during their session.
    1. Kraken: I think the skeleton ships and megalodons are spawning at an appropriate rate that makes the world feel alive, but decreasing the kraken spawn rate after the event would be healthy in the long term. The commendation does not require as many kills as the ships or megalodons do (especially if you factor in the Athena's Fortune commendations) so decreasing the kraken rate post-event should not drastically hinder player progress. In addition, this is supposed to be a rare and terrifying creature that strikes fear into the crew unlucky enough to be targeted by it. That feeling of fear and wonder becomes greatly diluted if it makes appearances too often.
  • @golgari-hexmage Skull Fort rate reduction I agree with. It's a little too often at this point for the current value they have. But I understand the spawn rate for now "come take a look at how it works with these different forts!" and I totally expect it to be kicked back to an hour or so pretty soon.

    I have only encountered the Kraken once since the update, and I've had no earthly idea how I'm going to get the 10 kraken commendation at the current rate that I'm encountering it.

    I LOVE the skeleton ships and have been making lots of progress toward the skeleton captain commendations and Legend of the Sea of Thieves commendation, and I'm really disappointed about the negative feedback about their current spawn rate because I know they'll get dialed back due to that mass feedback.

  • @golgari-hexmage I like the current fort rates. I can only play for 2 to 3 hours per session, so once every 1.5 hours would (for me) mean only 1 or 2 possibilities to take on a fort in my whole playsession.

    Given that I sail solo and a fort might take me 20-30 minutes to clear, it's very likely that others will come and claim the fort. It's a huge time investment and if even one other crew goes for the fort, I'm out.

    I didn't use to take on forts because I know I don't stand a chance if anyone else decides to show up. With the current activity rates I'm more likely to give them a go. Exactly because there are more opportunities to take them on. I feel like there's a higher chance that no-one else will show up, and that's enough for me.

  • I'm with you on this. I enjoy the times on all AI's at the current state. The only thing I don't like though is the skeleton ship cloud timer. I get there and gone, it's a fort now. No one there completed it. No one there who started it. So why does it go away?

    I get it there's ships out there sailing, 'go fight them', but that's a different set of loot at the ship cloud vs roaming skeletons. Plus it seems to be the only place for that skelly sloop which I love. Hopefully this timer changes on the cloud, I have to stock more before attempting that fight and everytime I almost get there it disappears.

  • @qtrmaster-zeta Yeah that's a big thing for me as well. The skeleton ship battles are resource intensive and that timer needs to be modified with resource gathering and long distance sailing in consideration.

  • @chronodusk lol yes that long distance gets me everytime. Im in the devils roar it's at smugglers, Im at smugglers it's at devils roar. 70% of the time i'm slooping. Where's my steamboat? jk

  • @ottersteeth said in The Current Frequency of Skeleton Ships / Kraken / Meg is perfect.:

    I feel like there's a higher chance that no-one else will show up, and that's enough for me.

    Having done a fair bit of soloing as well, I can understand your concern and respect your opinion. My sessions often last 2-4 hours so I can also appreciate where you are coming from with the number of opportunities, but in terms of the overall player experience can it really be healthy to have these be something people ignore? Ultimately, quests and events are just a means to get players to interact with each other, and having memorable experiences is key to the game's core vision. If a notable component that enables that becomes ignored, I can't imagine this would be good for the game overall. 1.5 hours was just an arbitrary time point I came up with to try and balance value with risk. Even if it went back to the one hour timer that was present during the gunpowder skeleton event I think that would be healthier than every 30 minutes.

    @Chronodusk

    I have only encountered the Kraken once since the update, and I've had no earthly idea how I'm going to get the 10 kraken commendation at the current rate that I'm encountering it.

    Every ship seems to have some percent chance of encountering the kraken out in the open water, but one thing that may "increase" your chance is being around other ships while out there simply because each vessel has that chance. It doesn't multiply your personal chance of encountering it, just puts more tickets in the lottery if that makes sense. Best of luck taking down the vile beast!

  • @golgari-hexmage Yeah I actually watched a Brigantine sink to the Kraken the other night, I sailed the perimeter and fought the Kraken from outside of it's grip!

  • I think the encounters still need a bit of tweaking. Before the update my crew and I came across the Meg quite often; she even chased us across the entire map once. Since the update, we've had very few encounters and she seems to stop chasing us when we do find her. However, my crew and I ran into the Kraken twice in the two hours we were playing; the first time we were barely out of port and the second as we were finishing up a fight with the Meg (when we finally found her).

    I always thought they should be area specific hazards. Certain areas of the map have the Meg, certain areas have the Kraken. The center of the map is a free for all in regards to what attacks you. It's still random in regards to when you find them, but knowing that you're in the area of the Kraken or Meg would add a bit of suspense to the voyage.

  • @kiethblacklion Wow never had the meg follow me across the map before!

  • @chronodusk Im good with the frequency ive seen. and the kraken fight is soooo good now. i wish the meg had another attack or two.

    skelly ships are fine i think ive not had one pop up next to me yet i heard that happens. not sure thats necessary as i can see them all over naturally and that allows me to choose if i want the encounter.

  • @kiethblacklion i generally just go near an island if meg is too pesky for me to bother with. seems to work for me

  • Personally, I think they're all too frequent. Last night alone, I ran into 4 Megalodons (different times, but a couple were essentially back-to-back), 2 Skellie ships, and the Kraken (keep in mind that I was only playing for about 3 hours, and solo-slooping to boot); that is way too frequent in my opinion.
    I couldn't focus on doing anything constructive because every time I left a location, I was attacked by something. It got old pretty fast.
    These events need to be less frequent to make them feel like they're not just more background noise from the game.

  • @revanjstone Yep! She usually just goes away when you're near an island.

  • @chronodusk said in The Current Frequency of Skeleton Ships / Kraken / Meg is perfect.:

    @kiethblacklion Wow never had the meg follow me across the map before!

    Not only did she follow us across the map, but through a storm as well. All the while, we were being chased by a galleon (my crew and I were on a sloop and so we didn't want to risk combat). It was pretty awesome to watch her, she never attacked just swam around the ship.

  • @revanjstone said in The Current Frequency of Skeleton Ships / Kraken / Meg is perfect.:

    @kiethblacklion i generally just go near an island if meg is too pesky for me to bother with. seems to work for me

    At the time we were being chased by another ship and being out manned and out gunned, didn't want to get into a fight, let alone have the Meg interfere with the fight. But it was fun to watch her follow us, even through a storm.

  • Its Random.

    Sometimes you get a lot of spawns. I have had play sessions of 4-6 hours without seeing a single Kraken. Maybe 1 Meg. And the ships only roaming (not-spawning on me).

    So yeah. I've had a Kraken right off the bat on a solo. It would be years for Rare to try and cater to the frequency feedback. Because I would rather have a lot of it then never really seeing it.

  • @lord-szarvas There's been a lot of feedback, more so from solo players who feel like it's all too punishing. I personally have not felt this way as someone who plays solo frequently when my own crew isn't online.

    With all of that feedback, I can see this stuff being dialed back as an answer to it. I created this thread so that those of us who enjoy these current spawn rates can have our feedback heard so that it doesn't get nerfed TOO much.

  • @chronodusk

    Again, it will take years for Rare to try and cater to frequency feedback because everyone has a different opinion. Some say its too much. Some say its just right. Some report not seeing anything and may form an opinion that they want to see more.

    We can only really give feedback on our personal experiences. I doubt anyone has ever dug into numbers and can come up with a study.

    Example, when the update came out, I never really saw the fog once. I still think the frequency is too small. Sometimes I see the fog a bunch of times in one play session. Other sessions, not once. People report all sorts of things. In my feedback thread, I showed two separate videos of long play sessions without any fog to be found in them.

    Plus Rare plans to add things down the road. It was hard for them to implement the Meg and for a period of time, they had to disable the Kraken. I just did a session last night and we had 100k of loot for hours of play. We were attacked by the Kraken and Meg at the same time. We survived, but some out there probably wouldn't. Being angry, they can come here and complain or give their feedback.

    Game balance is the hardest thing to find. I play Company of Heroes 2 and I can tell you they still don't have it balanced. And the game has been out for 5 years! Balance is critical in an RTS. So if they can't do it, I doubt anyone really can.

  • @chronodusk The kraken gets me like every hour and a half or legit 10 minutes after I spawn. I’m okay with anything else but get that tentacle monster out of my servers lol

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