Some ideas that could improve the game

@johnnyganza Great suggestions muh dude. Really like more materials/crafting. This game would be significantly improved if we had merit and material based cosmetics/side-grades. Things like collecting skeleton bones for the bone set, unique hat for sinking X ships in a row without sinking yourself, etc, etc, etc. The way everything is tied to gold is a huge waste and boring. Everything is turned in for gold and everything is bought for gold(dabloons are the only exception but they are really more like gold 2.0. Although, I do appreciate that you get them for doing specific tasks rather than being earned from more endless fetch quest turn in reward) . I also asked for AI crew awhile back. It would be a huge quality of life addition for solo players especially. Even if they just bailed water and repaired it would be a huge and much needed help.

@the-4rmor-k1ng

I really enjoy the fact that the weapons etc are all flat stats with no upgrades etc. it keeps it balanced. Don’t change it.
I would keep it the same for ships.

I must disagree with most of these. I would be fine with some form of progression that resets every new session, but having permanent stat upgrades would completely destroy the balance between new and returning players. Skill should always be the deciding factor. Same for ship upgrades.

We just got NPC ships in the form of the Skeleton Galleons and Sloops. I'm not sure how it would work lore-wise if we suddenly introduced trading ships crewed by other AI. Actually, can we fix Skeleton Ship AI first? Can't have them constantly running themselves aground.

Crafting in the manner that you suggested doesn't fit. How is a Pirate supposed to craft bullets in the middle of an island?

As for hunting and cooking, you might want to check up on the latest teases. Both, plus fishing, are heavily implied to be included in the upcoming mega-update.

AI crew are a heck-no. If you want to play by yourself, you're playing by yourself. It's supposed to be difficult.

@blam320 said in Some ideas that could improve the game:

I must disagree with most of these. I would be fine with some form of progression that resets every new session, but having permanent stat upgrades would completely destroy the balance between new and returning players.

No it wouldn't. tons of games do it and balance is fine. Not saying that they should or shoudn't but if they had an upgrade that let you reload slightly faster or hold more ammo that wouldn't have a huge effect on balance especially since everyone would be able to get it. Also, we already have upgrades in the form of CCB and barrel bombs at the very least. You could also say ships are upgrades. Losing your upgrade progress after each session is fundamentally no different that if it was permanent in regards to balance(accept that permanent upgrades/side-grades would even out over time). Either way more play time = more power. So if one is ok then both are ok.

Skill should always be the deciding factor. Same for ship upgrades.

accept that's not the case currently because we have different ships, higher crew counts, collectible power(CCB's, rowbaots, and bombs), and PC players with M&K fighting xbox players with controllers.

AI crew are a heck-no. If you want to play by yourself, you're playing by yourself. It's supposed to be difficult.

Nice non argument. Ai crews would be a great addition to help solo players especially deal with the more tedious aspects of sailing solo.

Ai crews wouldn't be fair unless they made mistakes. To have computers angle your sails for you and fix your ship wouldn't be fair at all. People should be rewarded for working together in crews, not for playing alone and letting computers do the work for them.

@bonko40 You think someone with essentially a pet skeleton would have an advantage over a crew with all real people? Really?

No one knows how these ai crews would behave, because they don't exist. I do feel like if I was playing solo and didn't have to worry about fixing holes that it wouldnt be the same as having people from open crew with me. Most of the time they don't angle the sails or fix holes or anything helpful.

Of course, I do play with people I actually know when I can and they are helpful, but the random selection you usually get from open crew doesn't do a whole lot.

@johnnyganza basically everything you've said, other people have already asked for this. And for each point, someone has came along and given a perfectly good reason why these should not be in the game

I'll just break down your suggestions to give some feedback:

@johnnyganza said in Some ideas that could improve the game:

So i've been playing this for the past month or so, and I even convinced a friend of mine to buy the game after the Friends for Free thing, and we've put hours and hours on this game. It's truly a unique game with a unique experience, but like many people have said before me, it feels empty, and the lack of progression may deter some from joining. I've talked to a couple of people that played the game (namely the 3 friends i brought for free, and 2 other players I met ingame) and here are some of the things we thought would vastly improve the game, bringing in more player:

• Introduce a profession/specialty system. Some of us want to be merchants, fearsome pirates or even hunters. Let's have a skill tree system that would allow us to be whatever kind of pirate we want to be.

The game was designed not to have these things. All pirates are equal and no grinding is needed to achieve anything that's not purely cosmetic. I agree with the design philosophy Rare has taken here because it's fun to drop in at any time and not feel disadvantaged because you didn't complete X quest to get Y skill everyone is using.

-More NPCs. It just feels empty, have some merchant ships roaming around with treasure, escorted by other ships. Hell you could even make it a quest, to escort merchant ships and defend them against other players or npcs

More NPC's for what? All NPC's currently in game have a purpose. Great design that prevents clutter.

-More materials. Cloth and rope, for example, could be used to fix the ship and sails in many ways.

It's simple: Planks repair ships, food restores health cannonbals damage ships. More clutter is just that, more clutter so that's a no for me.

-Ship upgrades. If we could collect X wood or whatever, we could get and upgrade on the ship's armor.

As in my first statement, no vertical progression.

-Crafting system. Having to go back and forth to the ship to get bullets is annoying. Maybe we could craft bullets on the run, cook something to heal or cure poison, something. The game needs more stuff to do

There's going to be a cooking thing in the game and it will probably not be any kind of crafting system more complicated then: "Cook to eat food"

-Make hunting a thing! Crews could get harpoons and chase the underwater monsters .

What for? We already hunt chickens pigs and snakes to sell at the merchants, but having all kinds of complex mechanics just to sell a shark? Nah too convoluted.

-More players per server. I know the devs like the idea of people travessing the empty ocean, but that very emptiness is something that pushes many people away from the game. From the 3 friends, only 1 bought the game because the other 2 are more PvP focused, and we couldn't find people to fight with.

It's simple math at the moment. 6 ships max for 6 outposts. If they add more safe outposts (marrows peak doesn't count as safe since it's on a vulcano) they can allow more ships.

-AI crew. This is a must. If you want to play this game alone, you're pretty much fcked. Handling the ship, repairing it and firing the cannons at the same time is a very hard task. Have pirates mercenaries or something, something that will bring single players to the game.

No, there's a sloop for solo and duo play.

And off the top of my head, i think that's it. Love the game, hope to see some big changes in the future!

Have you looked into atlass? Everything you ask for is there!
Boring grinding, boring crafting and boring AI crewmates.

If you want to get an Idea of how and why Rare devs do what they do I'd advise you to follow https://twitter.com/Ghoulyboy He gives great insights into a lot of things and even has a top 10 bad features dropped from the game before completion :-)

@betsill said in Some ideas that could improve the game:

No it wouldn't. tons of games do it and balance is fine. Not saying that they should or shouldn't but if they had an upgrade that let you reload slightly faster or hold more ammo that wouldn't have a huge effect on balance especially since everyone would be able to get it. Also, we already have upgrades in the form of CCB and barrel bombs at the very least. You could also say ships are upgrades. Losing your upgrade progress after each session is fundamentally no different that if it was permanent in regards to balance(accept that permanent upgrades/side-grades would even out over time). Either way more play time = more power. So if one is ok then both are ok.

You're naïve if you think permanent upgrades to stats such as reload speed or ammo capacity won't upset balance. The other "upgrades" you mentioned you find in the world at random; it's entirely out of the players' hands if you get a CCB or Powder Barrel or not. On top of that, the upgrades your suggesting are permanent; CCBs and PBs vanish at the end of a session. That is fundamentally different from having permanent upgrades that carry over from session to session. It's like being able to completely stock your ship in one session, log off, then log back in and still have a fully stocked ship; it's an unfair advantage. Also, ships are not upgrades, each has their own advantages and weaknesses. Galleons, for example, are faster when you're sailing with the wind, while Sloops are faster sailing against the wind.

@betsill said in Some ideas that could improve the game:

accept that's not the case currently because we have different ships, higher crew counts, collectible power(CCB's, rowbaots, and bombs), and PC players with M&K fighting xbox players with controllers.

Again, different ships are not upgrades; you can choose whichever one you want from the beginning. As for different crew sizes, well duh, four people are more than two, or even one. But like I said, skill will ultimately be the deciding factor. It is entirely possible to win a 2v1 if you have the better aim and positioning. CCBs you still need to hit, after all; if you're lousy on the cannons that Ballast Ball of yours isn't going to do much good, for instance.

@betsill said in Some ideas that could improve the game:

Nice non argument. Ai crews would be a great addition to help solo players especially deal with the more tedious aspects of sailing solo.

The game is intended to be played with a group. If you don't want to do that, you're handicapping yourself. That's the intention, it's supposed to not be easy to do everything by yourself, that's part of the game's core philosophy. That being said, it's far easier to sail a Sloop solo than it is to sail a Galleon. It's not really that tedious, though the Kraken, Meg and Skele Ship spawns may need to be toned down.

i dont like the idea of a skill tree. but what i do like the idea of is having the world feel less empty. i think instead of having npc ships the game should just allow us to give people gold. if that was implimented people would then be able to just sail around and sell things. you could have people sailing around selling bannana, planks or cannon balls. i like the idea of NPCs on islands but not on the open seas. more mats like cloth and rope sounds cool. ship upgrades is ehhh doesnt sound right to me. maybe if there were different types of ships like multiple sloops, one is stronger but slower one is faster but weaker you know. i think hunting is going to become a thing. i would like the map to grow and i would also like to see more players per server. rn i think 6 ships per server is good. an ai crew doesnt sound too bad but if they would do that they would have to make them weaker than skellies and they would have to make it so the ai crew cant go over the number of open spaces left on the ship. although i do think it would be awsome to fight a crew of 10 on a galleon.

@hynieth how would hunting be convoluted? it really isnt. i feel like you might have used the wrong word?

@blam320 said in Some ideas that could improve the game:

@betsill said in Some ideas that could improve the game:

No it wouldn't. tons of games do it and balance is fine. Not saying that they should or shouldn't but if they had an upgrade that let you reload slightly faster or hold more ammo that wouldn't have a huge effect on balance especially since everyone would be able to get it. Also, we already have upgrades in the form of CCB and barrel bombs at the very least. You could also say ships are upgrades. Losing your upgrade progress after each session is fundamentally no different that if it was permanent in regards to balance(accept that permanent upgrades/side-grades would even out over time). Either way more play time = more power. So if one is ok then both are ok.

You're naïve if you think permanent upgrades to stats such as reload speed or ammo capacity won't upset balance.

Tons of games do it with very little side affect. Planetside 2, all the battlefields, COD, etc, etc. depending on how the upgrades work they can be nothing but an improvement to the game experience like they are in the games I listed and others. I know it's changing, but the people who call upgrades of any kind unbalanced are the same people that say crossplay is fine. If you're not one of them then this point is mute, but to say that small upgrades would unbalance a game when PC to console cross-play is fine is beyond hypocritical.

The other "upgrades" you mentioned you find in the world at random; it's entirely out of the players' hands if you get a CCB or Powder Barrel or not. On top of that, the upgrades your suggesting are permanent; CCBs and PBs vanish at the end of a session. That is fundamentally different from having permanent upgrades that carry over from session to session.

It's only different in how you get the power. The fact that they give power is exactly the same. Saying that one is ok and one isn't is distinction without a difference. Not giving players control is a bad thing in this case not a good one.
"You lost because they had a whole stash of CCB that they found randomly and you didn't!"
"Oh I feel so much better about losing since I know that it was entirely because of RNG..."- says no one ever.
In either case time= power. It may be a design choice, but you can't possibly make the argument that one is fundamentally different(one is good design and one is bad).

It's like being able to completely stock your ship in one session, log off, then log back in and still have a fully stocked ship; it's an unfair advantage.

Again! Your making a distinction without a difference. Either it's ok for players to have more resources or it's not. It doesn't matter if they got it from this session or they got it from last session. The only real difference is that over time the average ship stock will trend towards full which will make things more fair. Right now the resource power is swayed heavily towards players that play often and for long periods at a time. People who have less uninterrupted time to are far worse off when it comes to resources.

Also, ships are not upgrades, each has their own advantages and weaknesses. Galleons, for example, are faster when you're sailing with the wind, while Sloops are faster sailing against the wind.

Yeah, that's BS. The ability to have more players is the biggest upgrade you can possibly get in this game.

@betsill said in Some ideas that could improve the game:

accept that's not the case currently because we have different ships, higher crew counts, collectible power(CCB's, rowbaots, and bombs), and PC players with M&K fighting xbox players with controllers.

Again, different ships are not upgrades; you can choose whichever one you want from the beginning.

ability to chose=/= not an upgrade.

As for different crew sizes, well duh, four people are more than two, or even one. But like I said, skill will ultimately be the deciding factor. It is entirely possible to win a 2v1 if you have the better aim and positioning. CCBs you still need to hit, after all; if you're lousy on the cannons that Ballast Ball of yours isn't going to do much good, for instance.

Did you read this before posting? Saying skill will ultimately win is not just a non-argument(because obviously better players beat worse players), but it's a point that argues MY SIDE! Like really? you say "we can't have unfair advantages/unbalance" then right after say "unfair advantages/unbalance doen't matter because skilled players can beat unskilled players." just wow.

@betsill said in Some ideas that could improve the game:

Nice non argument. Ai crews would be a great addition to help solo players especially deal with the more tedious aspects of sailing solo.

The game is intended to be played with a group.

BS. Rare has said themselves that they INTENDED this game to be played with between 1-4 player crews. Notice that in 1-4 player crews you have the option of ONE which means SOLO. You didn't design this game so don't push your own bias as Rare's "intention". They can speak for themselves.

That being said, ability to chose=/= not an upgrade...

Glad you understand that, because you implied differently above.

@betsill said in Some ideas that could improve the game:

@blam320 said in Some ideas that could improve the game:

@betsill said in Some ideas that could improve the game:

No it wouldn't. tons of games do it and balance is fine. Not saying that they should or shouldn't but if they had an upgrade that let you reload slightly faster or hold more ammo that wouldn't have a huge effect on balance especially since everyone would be able to get it. Also, we already have upgrades in the form of CCB and barrel bombs at the very least. You could also say ships are upgrades. Losing your upgrade progress after each session is fundamentally no different that if it was permanent in regards to balance(accept that permanent upgrades/side-grades would even out over time). Either way more play time = more power. So if one is ok then both are ok.

You're naïve if you think permanent upgrades to stats such as reload speed or ammo capacity won't upset balance.

Tons of games do it with very little side affect. Planetside 2, all the battlefields, COD, etc, etc. depending on how the upgrades work they can be nothing but an improvement to the game experience like they are in the games I listed and others. I know it's changing, but the people who call upgrades of any kind unbalanced are the same people that say crossplay is fine. If you're not one of them then this point is mute, but to say that small upgrades would unbalance a game when PC to console cross-play is fine is beyond hypocritical.

The other "upgrades" you mentioned you find in the world at random; it's entirely out of the players' hands if you get a CCB or Powder Barrel or not. On top of that, the upgrades your suggesting are permanent; CCBs and PBs vanish at the end of a session. That is fundamentally different from having permanent upgrades that carry over from session to session.

It's only different in how you get the power. The fact that they give power is exactly the same. Saying that one is ok and one isn't is distinction without a difference. Not giving players control is a bad thing in this case not a good one.
"You lost because they had a whole stash of CCB that they found randomly and you didn't!"
"Oh I feel so much better about losing since I know that it was entirely because of RNG..."- says no one ever.
In either case time= power. It may be a design choice, but you can't possibly make the argument that one is fundamentally different(one is good design and one is bad).

It's like being able to completely stock your ship in one session, log off, then log back in and still have a fully stocked ship; it's an unfair advantage.

Again! Your making a distinction without a difference. Either it's ok for players to have more resources or it's not. It doesn't matter if they got it from this session or they got it from last session. The only real difference is that over time the average ship stock will trend towards full which will make things more fair. Right now the resource power is swayed heavily towards players that play often and for long periods at a time. People who have less uninterrupted time to are far worse off when it comes to resources.

Also, ships are not upgrades, each has their own advantages and weaknesses. Galleons, for example, are faster when you're sailing with the wind, while Sloops are faster sailing against the wind.

Yeah, that's BS. The ability to have more players is the biggest upgrade you can possibly get in this game.

@betsill said in Some ideas that could improve the game:

accept that's not the case currently because we have different ships, higher crew counts, collectible power(CCB's, rowbaots, and bombs), and PC players with M&K fighting xbox players with controllers.

Again, different ships are not upgrades; you can choose whichever one you want from the beginning.

ability to chose=/= not an upgrade.

As for different crew sizes, well duh, four people are more than two, or even one. But like I said, skill will ultimately be the deciding factor. It is entirely possible to win a 2v1 if you have the better aim and positioning. CCBs you still need to hit, after all; if you're lousy on the cannons that Ballast Ball of yours isn't going to do much good, for instance.

Did you read this before posting? Saying skill will ultimately win is not just a non-argument(because obviously better players beat worse players), but it's a point that argues MY SIDE! Like really? you say "we can't have unfair advantages/unbalance" then right after say "unfair advantages/unbalance doen't matter because skilled players can beat unskilled players." just wow.

@betsill said in Some ideas that could improve the game:

Nice non argument. Ai crews would be a great addition to help solo players especially deal with the more tedious aspects of sailing solo.

The game is intended to be played with a group.

BS. Rare has said themselves that they INTENDED this game to be played with between 1-4 player crews. Notice that in 1-4 player crews you have the option of ONE which means SOLO. You didn't design this game so don't push your own bias as Rare's "intention". They can speak for themselves.

That being said, ability to chose=/= not an upgrade...

Glad you understand that, because you implied differently above.

Okay, someone hasn't done their research.

PlanetSide2 recently reworked the entire cert system so new players can be more competitive with vets without having to deal with the massive grind as much. When was the last time you played, back when Nanoweave offered a flat HP boost?

On top of that, you still don't understand the difference between permanent upgrades that carry over from session to session versus temporary power boosts that disappear when you use them or when you log off.

Let's use your example of faster reloads and carrying more ammo. That directly impacts PvP gameplay. The person who reloads faster can take shots quicker, dealing more damage per second than someone without the upgrade, allowing them to kill faster. The person who carries more ammo can take more shots, forcing people who don't run double-guns to try and charge in with a sword.

Also, for goodness sake being able to play the game with more people is not an upgrade!

You don't magically "upgrade" from a sloop to a galleon mid-session, you make the conscious decision from the start to play with a certain size crew and ship. And again every ship has its own strengths and weaknesses, so bigger ships are not automatically upgrades. Sloops are more maneuverable, Brigs are a balance, Galleons are better in a broadside slugfest, et cetera.

And once again, Solo means Solo. No NPC mercs you can hire; that's another unfair advantage. You made the conscious decision to play by yourself, which from the beginning has been advertised as something only the heartiest of pirates should attempt, and yet your complaints about the tediousness of tasks makes it seem like you just want to take the easy way out, since you apparently can't be bothered to actually get a group of friends to play with you, like Rare wants you to.

I agree with all of this

@xxassassinxx-ac if they do private servers they would have to make them reward you 10 percent of the regular amount of gold or rep you get from normal voyages and things. otherwise it wouldnt be fair for everyone else playing the game who has to work hard