@Xultanis-Dragon i dont get why you are defending a mechanic and subsequent tactic that coddles these low lvl players as you describe them, rather than force them to learn. Having to use their eyes to see the mermaid and having to use their eyes to check the dock and island with their spyglass are the same thing, one just removes any fun, strategy, and skill from the equation...
there are about 1000 other things that should be done if preventing camping is what rare really wants, such as making the turn ins less campable and all on the docks, or any sort of other suggestion.
The fact that we can name like 5 different unique encounters where the mermaid basically ruins any strategy and turns the sandbox gameplay into a predictable joke, is enough for me to discount the one positive needle in a haystack, that honestly isnt even a positive unless you feel like youve accomplished something by avoiding the only gameplay this game is standing on, player interaction and pvp, by doing nothing, and having a mermaid tell you to pretend you arent a pirate and run away... im not saying running and gunning and waiting for your opportunity are cowardly, im saying the way you guys describe the ultimate need for this mechanic implies that people who always play this way desperately need it to survive, which may be true as they have hit their plateau as you said, and that is their road to success, fair enough and good on them, nobody is against this mechanic because they want to kick a crutch out from under someone who needs it to stand up in this game, its because its genuinely a bad mechanic accross the board as it is designed, conceptually i totally understand the idea though, and am not against that either. Im happy to have them change the game to help give visual cues or like i said direct info through an npc or something.
Keeping the mermaid as is based on these players using it in an unintended way instead of properly designing options and assets for them to use to defend them is just dumb, its like the no child left behind garbage at schools. Yeah lets just throw away the potential some have so that someone else can pretend everyone is equal and the world is perfect, so that someone dosnt “feel bad” when faced with the truth. Obviously education of the next generation is more important than a video game designed to be fun for everyone, but they should design more things for multiple types of players, rather than make a game called sea of thieves with foam padding everywhere. Different servers or actual factions and rules and repercussion in game, etc. the mermaid as is should not be defended as anything except its orignal use, to make alpha sessions that were timed have less wasted time picking up players who fell overboard, and if the death penalty was added players wouldnt use death as the new mermaid. The game needs to grow and evolve not cling to first iterations of mechanics, especially when they are so obviously broken.
If they actually added more systems and facets to the gameplay to solve issues instead of having this “good enough” attitude when designing where they use semantics and the luck of unintended things happening such as the communities dependance on the mermaid becoming a thing, when they orginally said it was a first iteration and then didnt change it because people said they desperately needed it the way it is, we might all be happy with a change.
Let players who dont like combat and have a low plateau to designate their ship a merchant vessel, where they are punished for piracy but rewarded with npc guards and a parrot that can be sent out to detect player movement on the chosen island, sure some players will still camp successfully, but i cant remember a time where ive opportunistically sprung an outpost ambush where we didnt move around and hide etc, this idea is off the top of my head and i dont claim it is the greatest, but the point is there should be more decisions to be made and attached possibilities for emergence, with any mechanic in this game, rather than the predictability and lack of stealth we see from a mechanic that is being defended as needed for something it wasnt designed for.
If they need something to fix the supposed outpost issue (pirate game, with no safe zones, seems intended to me...) then design something to fix the issue, and also fix the mermaid to be the last resort and safety net it was designed to be, rather than the overused teleport and pvp reset and endless suicide boarding joke that it currently is.
