Ideas to expand and improve the game
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Dear Sea of Thieves developers,
You might consider this as a love letter to your game (well not really) where I explain what I personally think would be great if the game ever had these things implemented.
As a long time SoT player who regards himself as being casual leaning towards hardcore I’m in a strange spot. The crews I play with are most of the time not so experienced but never the less the game remains fun to play. Only PVP generally destroys our evenings of fun, truth be told, I think I gained like 10K gold over the last week of playing where generally I would collect about 200k a week. I blame the latest update for this since it made PVP thirsty players even more tenacious and especially annoying since they don’t seem to stop following you even after a 1 hour or longer chase…
As you can already imagine reading the above, this topic will be PVE focused, though I think PVP is an important part of the game, it should be balanced a bit more so the casual PVE players don’t quit.
Without any further ado I will now dive into the bulk of my vision;1.) Event timings :
One of the things that I found especially annoying recently is the fact that events like skeleton ships, meg and even kraken now trigger way more than ever before.
On its own this is not a bad thing but what really ruins these for me is the timing…
In numerous occasions these events spawned while we were in a PVP battle effectively lowering our chances to win to zero.
This is something I experienced recently and it might be bad luck, but it ruined all the fun for our crew for 3 days straight because of events interrupting PVP situations (which we all lost).
I understand the reaction of an enemy crew capitalizing on these things so they can get extra loot, heck I would most likely do the same.
Personally I would change the event timers so the chances of spawning events when in PVP are lowered.2.) On-touch Reputation gain :
Reputation, the most valuable thing to someone not being a pirate legend or trying to get to 75.
After the recent update and its nerf, reputation grind is still real and thus frustrating for people who don’t have a lot of time to play the game.
Back in the day of solo slooping, the thing I hated the most when getting sunk by PVP or events in the game was the fact I didn’t get any reputation out of my playing experience.
This quickly made me do voyages and sell everything ASAP, so that I gained the reputation I needed, and there was no loot for others to steal or to lose to in-game events.
Personally I would make it that when picking up an item you gain part of the reputation with the respective trading company linked to it.
This process would exclude Mermaid gems, Reaper Bones and Hunter’s Call factions but would include reputation for Gold Hoarders, Order of Souls and Merchant Alliance.
This idea was already long in my head, but seeing the Emissary grade system sparked it again.3.) PVE vs PVP :
I read a lot of posts on the forum that shout out the need for PVE servers…
This is a dangerous thing to talk about but I am willing to touch the subject while I am at it.
Personally I do not encourage the existence of PVE servers, although I myself am a PVE oriented player and generally do not enjoy PVP.
While this might sound strange, I do enjoy the fact that PVP is a constant threat on the Sea of Thieves.
Still I think there are a lot of players who quit the game, didn’t even start the game or simply don’t enjoy the game as much because of PVP.
My suggestion to fix this problem is to enable Single player / Co-Op on local servers that are disconnected from the online world of Sea of Thieves.
Meaning that the commendations, gold, doubloons and even ancient coins are NOT shared between those game modes.
This enables all types of players to have equal amounts of fun.
I also think that if this would ever happen, its important that the developers incentivize players to play online by granting unique cosmetics, upping the rewards during special events/weekends, having a delay in patches for the “offline” game mode, or something else…4.) Legendary Hideout :
One of my most dreamed of additions to Sea of Thieves would be a personalized hideout/fort/island.
A zone in the game where you and your crew start and/or can go to that is customizable by each player individually.
Have you killed a number of megalodons? You gain a trophy to hang on your wall or put on display.
You did a lot of forts? Have another trophy…
You want to have wooden walls or stone walls or something else? Decorate as you wish…
Another floor… maybe different furniture or a lot of cats to run around your hideout…
And of course, how much gold you totally collected would be represented in a treasure hoard (that you can or can’t swim in :P)
Maybe even throw in a pile of skulls to represent how many captains you killed…
And a wall filled with certificates proving how good a merchant you are and how many animals you actually sold…
One important thing to note is that this hideout is not meant as a way to flee with your treasures from other players.
There needs to be a system in check so that this cannot happen.
Hideouts/forts/islands that are player "bases" should also be located in different parts of the world to prevent spawn camping.
You get my idea, and I hope that one day something like this will come to SoT!5.) True ship customization :
The ship is the most important thing to have in Sea of Thieves, it’s your freedom, your way to riches and your most valuable weapon.
The way we can customize ships at the moment is nice but far from perfect and not even close to what I originally imagined the options would be.
First I would really like to see ship names coming to the game, the name tag would be visible while on the sea and looking at another ship with the spyglass.
This also makes a ship so much more personal and people will not want it to sink even more…
Plus the stories you tell outside of the game about your in game adventure would be even cooler!
Second, I would like it if things like Lantern’s, your ship map, voyage table, pet cage, barrels, cooking pot, cosmetic chests, mast, bow, canopy, captains quarter, stairs, ladders, etc… would be customizable.
Also rowboat skins!
Please developers hear my plea…6.) Mermaids :
Mermaids are nice, they are part of Sea of Thieves in so many ways and yet…
They are so annoying when you want to stealth, they are just static “He is here!!!!” signs drifting in the sea.
They are a race that is not a race… And only their statues can damage you…
I do hope that one day, mermaids will be a real living race in the sea of thieves, protecting the shipwrecks.
Roaming the seas in warbands boarding ships to try and get the shiny loot, dragging it back to the depths of the ocean so they can decorate their homes with it.
Mermaids would have ways to live on islands as well, and being an enemy type besides the skeletons that you can run into.
They would be a welcome and logical addition to the other sentient races in the world.
Additionally they wouldn’t all be hostile, you could make some of them friendly traders or whatever!
Mermaids would open a whole new range of possibilities for game changing features, tall tales, treasure, cosmetics and above all, stories to tell…
Also, make the mermaid that transports you back to your ship something you need to call…
So you don’t automatically get exposed when trying to stealthily board an enemy ship…7.) Fauna and Flora :
The islands are filled with beauty but lack some fauna…
Like small critters running around, hiding… Cats are pets, but where are they in the wild?
Monkeys… and the parrots…
Foxes, wolves, alligators, turtles, etc
And in the oceans there is room for Dolphins, whales, etc.
Make the world more alive and add some of these things…
And when it comes to flora…
Where do those banana’s grow?
The coconuts could be in the palm trees…
Same for pineapples, mango’s and pomegranate…
And introduce herbs and other flora to enhance cooking in ways the food has more temporary effects like longer water breathing, better night vision, better vision, better stealth (disappearing nametag) , higher chance to encounter the shrouded ghost (who hates the smell of garlic and wants to kill you for it :P ), etc…8.) Skeletons :
Lastly I’d like to talk about skeletons…
Enable skeleton chickens, pigs, snakes, sharks, kraken and megalodon’s to exist!
Maybe introduce other skeleton creatures and expand their lore even more.
There could be a whole skeleton community out there somewhere living their undead lives…
They already eat banana’s so 😉That’s it for now and maybe more will follow later, not sure yet…
The last thing I want to say is, these are just ideas and some of them might not be possible to integrate (I’m no game dev so I have no idea) but still hope they will all happen in some way or another.
Also every statement in the above is my personal opinion so feel free to comment.Cheers and see you on the Seas!