[Mega Thread] Update 2.0.14 - Ships of Fortune Discussion / Feedback

I didn’t mind the adjustment at first to the level system when it was only level 50 but level 75 and I can only buy one level a month is absurd and I was wondering if you could make it at least 5 a month or even make it so I can purchase as many as I want I have so many doubloons and nothing to spend them on

Why do I not see anyone talking about the Kraken and Skeleton spawn problems. I have been seeing the Kraken every 40 Minutes. And even when its not on me, every time it comes with a Skeleton ship, sometimes also a Megalodon. It feels like a all at once spawn on any ship is over kill. I think it is way to often and to much all at once. I have been playing this game since day one and love it. But the fun of the game is being destroyed when the game is smashing you until you have no supplies or hope. I know bringing in new players is part of the reason leveling is sooooo much easier then before, but this leaves new and legacy players overwhelmed. Please fix this.

Also, the Kraken loot drop is horrible, we use up all our supplies for very little reward. If you can manage to get it out of the water during the fight.

On a last note, I feel like the only thing i have that new players can't get is the day one eye patch. No real reward for loyalty and sticking it out for the bumpy start.

@musicaipen said in [Mega Thread] Update 2.0.14 - Ships of Fortune Discussion / Feedback:

Players sailing for the Reaper's emissary should not be rewarded in any kind for attacking/sinking a ship not representing a faction. Players doing the TTs w/ the lore your team is supposedly so very fond of should be able to do them without being trolled and harrassed by Reaper's representatives.

Tall tale players can still have loot, and often do. There is incentive for players to approach you and engage in combat. Imagine how clunky the gameplay would be if you expected reaper players to approach a tall tale ship, board, note that they're on a tall tale, see that they have no loot, and then sail away, expecting the tall tale players to never engage in a fight either. Makes no sense to me. You can be sunk without someone knowing you have loot or that you have a tall tale. Ship combat is a thing, it's not just boarding.

Reaper's representatives should be penalized for shooting up a newly-spawned ship that hasn't put any meters down.

There's no way for people to know this. Again, you're requiring that someone goes up to a ship at an outpost, boards, and sees that the ship is a fresh spawn, and then the reaper player sails away. This makes no sense at all, and would be so unintuitive. You can't expect a casual player to understand this and avoid whatever penalty you're imagining.

That's not pvp, that's just trolling. You've already put a much bigger pvp spin on adventure, stop making it easier for pvpers to troll players. Give these pvpers some real consequences that affect their status in Reapers for doing trollish actions.

There is just no way to pull this off at all. You're expecting reaper players to know before they're within combat range that they're approaching someone on a tall tale or with no loot or that's a fresh spawn. I don't get why some people in this game act like they can't just fight back against pvp players. If someone is coming towards you, fight them lol.

Help them become better players for the game in general by focusing their attention and energy on real Reapers quests that are more likely to propel them higher on the roster than their usual trolling habits.

There is no such thing as "Reapers quests"

Just got done playing some Arena matches today (since thats part of the campaign for some cosmetics).

The loading screens are a drag.

The hit reg is still terrible.

You get thrown into a match without adding those cosmetics to your ship first.

The tavern is a drag.

Having 1 chest in the match is meaningless. Ships that spend more time shooting cannons at other ships earn way more points than those sailing, running, and trying to turn-in 1 chest worth 1000 points. (And because they have to commit people off the boat, it is more likely they lose that 1000 points due to sinking.)

These issues were brought up in Insiders and largely ignored. The biggest change to Arena 2.0 is the match timer at 15 minutes and we get 1 glowy chest.

This mode has the potential for so much more...

I know it's been said already but just to add another voice: being forced to have a pegleg/hook/eyepatch etc with a costume is extremely offputting. I was so excited to get the Order of Souls costume but will never actually wear it because I don't want a pegleg, darn it. Please give us a toggle.

arena wait times are currently longer than the games/ separate open and closed crews and this will improve this.

also a feature for adventure, a world of warcraft style dueling for crew mates. one wants to do skull fort the other an Athena quest? fight for the right to be the captain and decide what your crew does. disagreement on who's outfit looks better? fight it out. the system would be both emote to duel, 3-second countdown, and the loser has a small portion of health after it is finished. perfect for discerning who has the best fighting skills in the crew.

@dutchdeadschot yea that’s how I ended up getting pl but now for the new levels it’s so annoying

The new arena is awesome! However it could use few small tweaks:

• Remove the island banners, or at least give option to make them transparent. Knowing island names in arena don't help at all, it just makes it impossible to see if your cannon is loaded or not while you're fighting, or how much hp you've got.

• Merms seem like super difficult to get on arena. In 4-man arena it may not make much difference but in sloop arena waiting for 40 sec for a merm is bad.

the new arena mode need a hard update in my mind.

-remove emtpy ships instant please.

-update your ....... merge system in the lobby. for sloops, it's not a big problem, but for gallis, it's horrible. you see 2 full ships and 3 crews with 2 people....
why don't merge them? or if it's a private crew, then kick them out, they can open it again, if they are 3 people at least. but it not fun, if you play now 15minutes and waiting over 30 minutes...

Brig arena please

@raxamongin I agree- not only that but it would give crews more options out on the sea than just getting wasted and playing banjos. I liked collaborating with my friends... but I also like blowing them up. As of now there is little to no way to challenge you friends to any type of combat... how am I supposed to “settle my disagreements on the waves” if there’s no convenient way to duke it out with my friends? Without the existence of custom lobbies- I will never really be able to battle it out sloop to sloop with my four man friend group. I like the idea of the arenas- and I hope there are ways to coordinate more pirate infighting in the future.

Suggestions for Combat / PvP:

1. Remove all knock-back/stun effects on basic sword strikes and revert damage to 20 from 25 for PLAYERS ONLY, but allow basic hits to interrupt food.

2. Add a slight stun from actions (either stun for .5s or just counter the ability to use sword for 1s) on sword vs sword counters. If you parry their sword hit there shouldn't be a big knock-back effecting both players. The one who landed a successful block should be rewarded by gaining an advantage, while still allowing the other player to feel like they have a chance if played correctly.

3. Possibly adding a quick attack on successful parries. If you can properly block and press attack at the right time you should be rewarded with a sword hit. After a sword hit it would reset back to the first hit of the combo, giving the enemy player the chance to escape still, but haven taken 1-2 hits. If the sword was only doing 20 damage again, this would feel okay.

Thoughts on these suggested changes:

This would allow for a bit more strategic and immersive sword game-play even in sword vs sword situations, and I'll explain why I think that way. It's not hard to get chain hit and instantly killed by 4 people running around spamming sword now without any delay for missing, because all it takes is 1 connection to basically seal the end your life with the knock-back interactions. The removal of delay on top of the added damage was too much. There is still a player knock-back / stun that happens when hit by sword hits that stops you from doing anything. If you intend for there to be almost always sword chosen or at least have a few members with it, then I think improving blocking by adding a slight stun to the enemy player on a successfully timed block and also give you the ability to do a quick strike afterwards would be interesting for 1v1 sword situations. More skill involved than blindly swinging. The delay felt on miss felt bad in some situations, but there needs to be a punishment for players who blindly swing vs. someone who can place a well timed counter. With the current changes made to sword i think improving Block/Counter with a slight stun could allow skilled players to even pull out there gun if fast enough or start to charge up a lunge, and the enemy player could if reacting quick enough possibly still get away if there was no knock-back on standard sword hits.

The whole point of the emissary system is that it's meant to be high risk, high reward. But, at this moment, there's not very much risk. The Reaper's Bones emissaries are meant to be that risk, but they aren't very much of one.

The main problem is that you can't find emissary ships very easily, not until you reach Grade 5. But, it takes longer for a Reaper's Bones emissary to reach Grade 5 than anyone else, in my experience.

I think that killing emissary players, steal their loot, and handing it in should increase your Reaper's Bones emissary grade a lot faster than it currently does. Also, fighting world events like krakens, megalodons, emergent skeleton captains, and finishing forts, should grant emissary grade, just like it does every other trading company. Let Reaper's Bones get rewarded for playing the game too.

It just feels like Reaper's Bones emissaries are constantly fighting an uphill battle.

@bloodredtyrant 90% of the time we are able to get to grade 5 Reapers Bones after sinking just one ship.

The reason there aren't a lot of emissaries out there is because of the risks calling out what you are doing and painting a target on your back... people don't want to deal with it... putting the flag up basically says you are okay having a target on your back... and a lot of people who enjoy doing voyages don't want to bother with pvp. (That is why a lot of players try to get in alliances... cuz they just don't want to fight).

Time wise: get to grade 5 Athena, you most likely will need to start a second voyage, I am assuming the same is true for the other emissaries. So you are easily going to need to be playing for over an hour (unless you were speed running and skipping the non Athena loot) to get to grade 5 and the Emissary quest. It really only take a bout 45 min for a solid Reaper crew to isolate an Athena crew, and engage.

If a person is just trying to get to Athena 10 or rise up to 20, it is definitely more efficient to have the multiplier... just as long as you don't sink and not just lose the multiplier, but also your Athena Chests getting no rep for the time you invested... so a lot of people are not bothering.

If a person is just trying to get the turn in counts on the Villainous Skulls and Athena Kegs so they can get the Ghost Ship cosmetics, they only need to get to grade 5 to get the emissary quests, then they can lower their flag to not risk losing that keg.

If anything, for Reapers Bones to have more targets, there needs to be more reason for other players to have emissary flags... either there being a larger reward for the longer you are able to hold onto your grade 5 flag (like over time its value increases... keeping it up for an hour is worth more than lowering it immeditely), or there being some rep/gold rewarded for when you sink so it doesn't feel like a total loss and give reason to put it up again.

Emissary rewards:

I totally understand the decision to lower the rep/gold reward for lowering a grade 5 emissary flag, people were turning it in, starting a new one, getting it up to 5, turning it in, etc. However, it does kind of suck having a grade 5, keeping it up for a while, and then not getting a lot for lowering it... especially if you fought off of a Reaper trying to take it, when they would have gotten 5 times the value.

I suggest a slightly different revamp, this would both prevent the grade 5 emissary chaining, and prevent people from just turning in grade 5 flags over and over.

Once a ship has a company's emissary flag lowered (Sinking would not affect this) you can't raise that company's flag again on that server... or at least there be a cooldown on that table before you could raise it again (Like an ingame day)

Another suggestion would be to have the value of the grade 5 turn in increase over time. So it would start at 5000g like it is currently... but over each X amount of time it is flown, its value would increase by 5000, up to 25,000 to match the value of Grade 5 Reapers turning in a Grade 5 Flag.

To give an added incentive for people to fly Emissary flags, maybe have there be a little bit of a rep reward if your ship is sunk while it is flying. Like it being worth a fraction of what it would have been if you just lowered the flag. I know it isn't necessarily thematic, but it would be an incentive to always have one flying, which would be beneficial for everyone.

So I'd like to address a few issues; the water bucket has a serious bug that is a real nuisance. The bug prevents you from picking up water from the water pump. Another issue (IMO) is that the sword buff, whilst making the sword useful once again, seems now to powerful when me and others use it. There has to be some compromise with the range and slowdown. I think that a suitable fix for the sword would be to stop the slowdown effect but keep it at the range as that was a really good buff.

Another thing i'd like to kind of address is the fact of pvp combat. I feel that it isn't rewarding enough for players and that it doesn't require skill. I understand that all the weapons may be very basic to use for a reason but i believe it lowers the skill to successfully kill overall. I feel like the sword could do with more complexity or something that will reward players for practising a lot and mastering the sword. I also think the sniper needs to fit into its intended role and suggest for it to have reduced damage at LONG ranges.

They are just a few things i'd like to addressed in someway and hope to see others agree with this. Keep it up though Rare. Loving the support for the game!

Great update SOT team. keep it up.

I personally don’t like the ships of fortune update. I don’t think that sinking more ships and taking flags is fun. It’s kind of annoying.

Currently, 6 ship alliance servers receive WAY too much gold, reputation, and commendations.

1. Make commendations crew specific not alliance wide. Only earn commendations for you and your crew !!!!!!!

2. Reduce the amount of gold and reputation gained in alliances to always equal 1 ship no matter how many ships are in the alliance. This has become an abused system only used to create friendly servers or troll new players. Genuine alliances are so rare that this feature, while cool, will hardly be missed.

These changes will balance it to allow players to create their alliance servers still if they choose, but never earn too much.

@lord-prowen said in [Mega Thread] Update 2.0.14 - Ships of Fortune Discussion / Feedback:

Why do I not see anyone talking about the Kraken and Skeleton spawn problems.... every time it comes with a Skeleton ship, sometimes also a Megalodon. It feels like a all at once spawn on any ship is over kill.

Also, the Kraken loot drop is horrible, we use up all our supplies for very little reward. If you can manage to get it out of the water during the fight.

I have found this too. I think they have increased the spawn rate of the Kraken and the Skeleton Ships, however, it seems bugged as they nearly always spawn two at a time now.

I used to go a week or two without seeing a Kraken. This past week I think I've had it three times and on two of those occasions it also spawned a Skeleton ship at the same time and I got wiped out.

The loot buff in the last update is nice as it now gives more of an incentive to fight a Meg or a Skeleton ship. It's nice that these events are a little less rare. The double spawning of these events together need to be fixed though.

WHEN i press RELOAD the cannons i want to reload and not cancel it.
This have happend to many times, fix that garbage.

@i-enjoy-corn

You know this is an old thread right?

I gave my feedback before the update and low and behold, people are farming AFK ships in the Arena. The chest is meaningless...

Go figure..

@xultanis-dragon
My friend, you say arena is not PvP???

During earlier days of the game, content was finished fast or it was to repetetive for players. to stay engaged with the game, you went for PvP. i heard that aventure became to hard because lots of people just sank everyone they came across, even tall talers. thats why they made arena, to cure the sea of thieves from too many homing bloodthisty ships. if you think glorious sea dog is a title for those who run from battle and dig up chests, then thats okay i guess, but i disagree. i only miss the old mode a bit because ships where more scattered, and people didnt get sandwitched so easily.

"Arena was suppose to be a super condensed version of Adventure, at least thats what Rare keep saying." yeah well, it is like a speedy version of aventure, but it is because PvP in adventure takes to much time, and people just run, so arena solves that by keeping ships from escaping. you can say that the question was how do you make more PvP on the seas without bothering tall talers, and the awnser was a condensed version of the game.
to make it simple, they made a condensed version of adventure to force PvP. thats how i understood it anyway.

for the rest of you on the mega thread seeing this comment: this game wasnt meant to grind voyages either, you arent a pirate if you dont battle people, thats how the name pirate legend was spurned, and glorious sea dog became a thing. people cant even be true reapers because they dont get resistance, what happened to peoples thirst for battle :,(

@xultanis-dragon

This is my view and opinion on the matter. When i say PvP, i mean ship-combat and sword/gun fighting. I am sorry if im making it look like pure facts, cause this is more like a statement based Game discussion, Comments and Experience.
I also back up my opinion from the official description on Arena, and from youtube videos from the official channel. https://www.seaofthieves.com/arena

From my perspective, PvP is a strong focus in Arena. If you click the link you will see that the main site hints to skill being a key feature. Skill and PvP is two different things, but i would say that there is little skill in the work you do around the chests other than ways to make the trip more efficient. When a crew use to lead by digging up more chests, the other crews best alternativ would be to stop them, forcing PvP. The way Silver Coins were controlled in the old arena in combat also explains how much impact battling had, and how you can change the battle by stealing chests from people. In the new Arena, you get more Silver for battling, wich i think confirms that the intention with Arena is to bring more PvP based Gameplay to the players.

When i say i want people to battle more, i mean that players should try battle more because many of the core values in the game is connected to player interaction. The game has alot of fantastic ship features that sufaces best i ship combat. Emissarys are also very few of on EU servers, and i think people are missing the tension and exitement you get from them. Im not a very good player myself, but i love fighting back when someone is approching us. i did not mean to offend anyone, i was trying to encourage people to battle. I never said i wanted people to be better at the game, but that would be nice and cause more thrilled battles.

@Xultanis-Dragon

Btw, i don't disagree on that the mode is suited for people with less time to do SoT. It seems reasonable to make arena partly for that.