Hi everyone,
Here I made a list of all the things that comes to my mind about what this game could have, many things probably aren't new ideas and were probably already discussed by Rare or the community since this game has been out for a very long time. Beside all of the ideas, i made some suggestions also about some existing features or simply new suggestions of ways to play the game.
Might not always sound like great ideas all the times. My opinion here is that, the more way to play a game there is (playstyle), the more kind of people it would bring into the game. Most game in the industry have more than 1 way to experience the game beside the core campaign or main gamemode. I'm not saying thats it is bad to limit everyone to one particular experience but i'm only suggesting a "what if" sea of thieves had something for all those very special people who are looking for a specific gamemode.
🎮
Gameplay/passive elements ideas suggestion
- pressing a button while turning the wheel to make a boost/quick turn/dash to the wheel rotation
- Ability to crouch simply, reduce your hitbox and make you more stealth, sometime you wish you could shoot someone overboard onto the boat's ramp and then take cover while reloading whitout having to walk back on the deck to hide yourself from the other guy shooting back at you. This happen also when 2 boat are parked next to each other and everyone is on the same height.
- Possibility to play music like a minigame where you need to press buttons just like "guitar hero" "rockband" genre of rythm music game, failing a note would make a failed note/sounds that everyone can hear
- Possibility to change ship size at an outpost
- Possibility to have boats and character customization done before you launch a game session
- Ability to view overall game progression/commendations from main menu and compare with friends or public people
- Possibility to toggle all exclusive/time limited/event commendations for viewing
- Possibility to favorite cosmetics for quicker access
- Solo ship maybe (sloop is a duo ship btw)
- Weapons visible on your character at all time, if you have a pistol, you would have a holster to put it in, same goes for the sword and the rest of the weapons
- Possibility to drink from chalice and refill them aswell, could be a new way to celebrate a victory
- More water physics or effects with beach, rocks and ships (waves going up and down on shores, splash collision on rocks)
- Loot on waters being pushed to the shoreline by waves when not too far (can save loot when ship is respawing on other side of world because of an accident with keg)
- Possibility to put some land surface on fire (or just oiled area idk)
- "Part 1" Have different whole map/region outside of the covered area from the map table where you can switch to by leaving the map and crossing a whole empty sea (like a real transition from one map to another) when you are on that empty sea, you lose sight of all islands behind you (which would be the sea of thieves map that you are leaving) the time spent crossing between maps give times to the game to load/unload the map's islands, this could be a way of switching server/map without losing ressources but losing only all onboard loot to prevent steal and switch server exploit)
- "Part 2" Let me explain this better. Sea of thieves map #1 is what we have now, after going north and traveling across the sea (which is the red sea right now) you will eventually get disconnected from the previous server and transit to a new server on the map up north, this map would be sea of thieves map #2 where all the islands are new and different from map #1, new biomes maybe like snow, pines and less palm trees (because we went to the north idk) all of this transition is done behind the scene while sailling to the other region.
- "Part 3 " When launching a new session from main menu, to keep it populated in all the maps, the game will choose where/which map you will spawn on. But after a long session, you can choose to move on to a different map without having to quit or restart the whole boat. Only thing you need to do is to go there as if you wanted to go to a different island.
- "Part 4" This map swapping feature could bring many many new islands and environment to the game because right now, islands gets too repetetive after all the time we spent there and because there haven't been any new islands/map yet.
- I think the best way to add the option to switch servers without having to quit. Is to force all crew member to be present inside the tavern and click/vote something or sleep in beds on the second floor of the tavern. And then we have to wait a moment before switching. Your ship would need to be present and close to the dock also. That waiting time is to let other crew/people the time to react if they were already fighting at this outpost. As soon as your ship is getting hit by something or a player is getting attacked while transitioning to a new server, the process would get interrupted. Switching server would make you lose all the loot you were carrying, only thing you keep are the barrel ressources, rowboat, emissary status is to be discussed (i think emissaries should be lost after a server switch up because people would use it to flee away from a reaper for exemple). People from previous server will see the boat sinking or despawn just like when someone quit.
🏆
Arena Competitive ideas - asuming that arena is the home for pvp activities and competition - i wrote many new gamemode here and suggestions to make things maybe better
- Add Navigation buoy around the map on the water to better indicate the limit/start of the red water
- Add the hitmark "hit location" (hull, mast, wheel, capstan) hitmark to the center or anywhere that is your personal shot/hit, to know exactly what youv'e hit with your canonballs, being 4 players shooting a the same boat at the same time it is hard to track how many hit you landed on their mast or ship hull or capstan by looking in the upper right corner, especially when it shows all 4 players hits together. Could be useful when shooting from very very far distance also.
- Add a spectate option when dead, could be a normal flying camera that follow a player (no need to see exactly what the player is looking at, might feel less competitive with a spectate option because of all the call out that can be made with extra view around the alive player)
- Having the full lettering of the name/gamertag and hud the same color of the team (health bar, ammo, tool's wheel), to avoid quick instant confusion and add more clarity of your team's color.
- Maybe add a map (quest item) that act like a live radar like a portative map table to see ship's position even when you are on a island
- Use door/bridge mechanics on specific map for more diverse strategy when playing attack/defense gamemode
- Add maps for the arena specifically where the islands are designed to be easy to understand movement path and have rivers/creek for boats to take shortcut, have more canons pointing into more direction to give more strategy/traps, maybe add some kegs onto some hanging platform to trap/surprise ships passing by, add ressources in some area/barrels where you can understand what ressource it will be even from far instead of randomized ressources (ex: bunch of crate with blunderbomb inside and on top, mean that there is infinite supplies of blunderbomb here on the island)
- To not be feared of dividing playerbase, simply make a playlist where all gamemodes are rotating, this could act as a filler for the server of people who choosed to play one specific gamemode
- Maybe add harpoons on islands to hold a ship/prevent a ship from moving in specific area/river/lane
---Capture the chest (it exist)---
-5 teams
-1 chest with beam to turn in
-1 turn in location in center
---Capture the flag---
-2 opposing island (fort style + beaches + docks + canons + base)
-Respawn points are inside bases, not too close to flag, on islands
-Flag with beam only if inside home base
-Flag can be returned
-2 sloop respawing for each team at docks
-Flag captured = points
---King of the boat---
-2 or more teams
-1 empty neutral boat in the center
-The team with the most present people on it = points
-Neutral boat cannot sink
-Neutral boat can set sails, shoot and all
---Team deathmatch---
-Small arena on islands, or inside a stone-made fort
-Respawn point depending on other team player position (avoid spawnkilling)
-No ships
-Maybe variant of gamemode with specific weapon loadout, ex: sword only
-kill = points
---Fleet Battle---
-2 team
-2 boats per team at least
-Naval fight focus
-Damages = points
---Hold the skull---
-One skull with beam at all time
-Skull in hands = points over time
---Stronghold raid---
-1 team defending a fort
-1 team attacking with gallion (no ladders?)
-2 rounds for team role rotation (attack/defend)
-Some map elements ex: tower + supply + crates + important objects
-Defense team defend these important objects from the attacking team
-Only the attacking team can score points
-Destroy stucture and targets = points
---Skeleton curse---
-Free for all
-1-2 skeleton player at every round start
-When dead, become skeleton
-Skeletons have swords, low health
-Infection/survival gamemode
-Time survived = points
---Dust collectors---
-Boat carry a pile of silver nuggets and precious dust, somewhere on deck (shouldn't block player movement)
-Bail the dust out of the ship to make the team lose points
-Bail it back to your pile to gain points
-All teams start with ex: 10 000 points, 1 bail/bucket = 150 points
---Silver pouch---
-Stockpiles of silver pouch to grab, many pouch
-When holding a pouch, you can trow like a throwable, pouch drop where it landed, you can simply drop it also
-Throw pouch into your team's basket = points
-Baskets could be on a platform on the sea or on islands
-Defending the oponnent's basket could be a strategy here, similar to the chest arena we have
-Every team has its ship and need to go find silver pouch (similar to old arena chest gamemode)
---Flame domination---
-Everyone spawn with a lantern that has the color of its team
-3 or 5 torches are scattered around the map (similar to the torch that can be light up on top of islands) but now they are on the sea or on specific small islands with canons to help defend
-number of torches captured = number of points scored over time
🌴
Adventure mode ideas - just many suggestion of elements that could be added to the actual known adventure gamemode - trying to keep the general experience untouched as all these ideas are just to spice things up with new simple interactions, objects, tools, things or activity
- handcuffs to restrain player ability to fight, can break free after holding a button for lets say ~45 seconds but can be interrupted by anyone, breaking handcuff make you unable to move
- Dice roll a dice in your hands to have random number between 1 and 6
- Music box for playing music in the background
- Different map marker symbol like arrows, colored circles, simple x, numbers
- Dolphins riding beside boats leading to loot/shipwrecks/castaway sailors
- Hostile wild animals ex: boars, tigre, stingrays, piranhas, crocodiles
- Thief wild animals ex: monkeys that steals small loot and food
- More rare/difficult to find animals ex: crabs, lizard, frogs, turtles
- Underwater areas spawning similar to shipwreck OR similar point of interest like island location but underwater instead
- Underwater air bubbles or air pouch stuck in the deep under wooden whreck or rock formation (allow more deep exploration)
- Plants and underwater ressource common and some rare to collect (perls, special plants, seashell) could be for new recipe or simply new voyage loot requirement
- A different voyage approach, daily task by every factions, they are written on a board at outpost and rewards a lots, a kind of task that would not be done by natural gameplay
- Hunter's call/pirate emporium voyages to capture wild pets (birds or monkeys)
- Kraken Ink barrel to pour into ocean, used to slow down boats behind you
- Water barrel to pour into ships (similar to kraken ink barrel or keg)
- Ice element in game in general ex: deck floor more slippery when in cold zone, could have ice bomb to freeze/slow down players or ships parts like canon/wheel
- Carts with wheels to transport more loot at once on outpost
- Cooking mission given by the tavern where you need to mix specific food combination together in a crate ready to deliver
- Wine as a luxury loot that could be used for drinking, recipe or voyage requirement
🧩
Custom servers ideas - customs server dont have progression enabled, this is for people who are looking for pure fun or specific event and some specific competition - All the settings could be modified only by the host - this mode could bring all players that are looking for practice or for new funny ways to play - goal here is to give the most tools to have infinite fun ways to play or have a very specific kind of game mode/genre - this can easily compare to a "halo : forge/custom games" "fortnite map creator" experience but without the map editing tools but mostly tools to change players and environment behaviors and rules.
- Possibility to make the ship invincible (ex: no holes can be made)
- Possibility to force hud settings (ex: no nameplates can be seen)
- Possiblity to chat/voice chat with the whole server without proximity limitation
- Ability to choose starting ressources on all boats and if start with rowboat on/off (ex: 100 cooked meg meat, 200 grog cursedballs, 0 planks. Make em ram a rock to win)
- Ability to choose starting loot on boat (ex: 3 keg, 1 ashen wind skull, 1 ammo box, 2 captain chest)
- Choose wind condition (ex: always pointing north, no wind adventage at all or just random natural winds)
- Ability to choose the time of the day, if static or not, if storm is on, the location and path, fog location and duration
- Ability to toggle on/off if loot spawn on the map like normal
- Ability to remove from island's barrels ressource specific items ex: food, quest, cursed canonballs, or anything else.
- Ability to toggle on/off skeletons spawns, choose the spawnrate and the skeleton's type ex: golden skeleton only with high spawnrate.
- Ability to toggle world events on/off and if "on" wich one can happen
- Ability to choose player's ship respawn point on map or if they respawn like normal (random)
- Ability to choose the crew size for any ship (can be 8 on a sloop for exemple)
- Ability to remove canons/harpoon/ladders from ships
- Ability to remove map table (the broken map table would be used instead to make sure the collision remain the same (would be fun in a game with fog everywhere!)
- Ability to choose ship's cosmetics and lantern colors before game start (ex: choose from host cosmetics inventory)
- Ability to force alliances between specific ships/crew before game start
- Ability to create custom voyages before game start with text edit, ex: the book would be used and you choose what content is on each pages and what is revealed after each "step of action" (i couldn't wait to see what funny riddle people would make, like a math mission with calculation to do idk)
- Ability to remove tall tales or keep them
- Ability to choose if players skip the ferry of the damned when respawning (like arena)
- Ability to force specific weapons slots (ex: swords only or pistol and sniper only)
- Ability to remove specific tools from players inventory (should be changeable during active session by the host)(ex: 1 player only have shovel, another one have the bucket, another one have only the quest map and compass)
- Ability to add a timer to the game just like arena or a counter "timer" that start from 0:00 when server is launched or when the host is holding the clock in hand, he could start a timer that is visible to everyone in the server
- Add a ammo box with infinite ammo to the loot list for custom games specifically
- Ability to remove the right to pick up specific loot item from other players (that way, they can't cheat by moving this ammo crate in my gamemode for exemple)
- Add smoke flare with different color variation (similar to the mermaid smoke) as a loot object (can be used to mark objective or location for race or checkpoints)
- Ability to save/bookmark a custom set of settings to speed up things when setting up a server again
- Possibility to change player health quantity and if he spawn with health regen already, change ammo capacity above the normal quantity (instead of 5 dots, a number would show up ex 15/15, change planks, food and canonballs capacity limits
- Can turn friendly fire on for crew, friendly fire off with alliances
- Turn off player collision between foreign crews
- Possibility to change any player into god mode, god mode transform you into a parrots that fly, this make you invisible to any treats and you can still move loot around the map but faster, you should be able to lock your height to help moving around when spectating other players, you should be able to switch between fly and walking mode to help moving from one ship to another, teleport above a ship should also be an option when in god mode, walking sound and water splash should be turned off, hands shouldnt be visible this will help those who want to create cinematic content, should have the possibility to erase loot object and spawn new loot object
- God player can trigger a world events on specific crew (ex: megalodon, skeleton ship, kraken)
- Possibility to view a list of all player present in server during session
- Ability to lock the pirate legend hideout access
🐚
Adventure mode with power progression unlocked - a more vertical progression where you can increase in strenght - all factions, existing shops, voyages, world forts activity would remain in this game mode - this isn't a pve mode but a more pve than pvp because of all the emphasis this mode put on playing along npc, story/lore driven mission and roleplaying and personal progression - think of it as a "gta v online" "destiny" "the division dark zone" kind of player interaction where pvp is ON most of the time but isn't the focus here. - goal of this mode is to bring players that embrace rpg games that are about levels and power in less fair environment instead of skills and reflexes in extreme fair environment
- Maybe make a specific whole different map/region for this specific gamemode (another area inside the shroud where the best pirates decided to explore and to not follow the rules where you can become more powerful by cheating over the boat structure modification and firepower upgrades)
- Maybe some survival aspect feature like thirst and hunger, temperature
- Clothing with stats like heat resistance make you less thirsty in heat, cold resistance keep your movement unfrozen in snowy/cold area
- Some Randomized islands shape on the border of the shrouds
- Some quest/voyage that make you go inside the shroud on islands where you won't encounter any player, kind of mission that are solo/coop style (opportunity to make more linear driven mission or path with boat on new island that can't be visited like normal open world area)
- Wild islands where you go to find ressources and hope to find rare ressource for crafting new tools or upgrades tools/weapons or to simply sell to a village town/trade to a friend a missing ressource. These islands aren't populated and dont have barrels or canons anywhere. These islands would be a paradise for finding rare animals. Food could spawn in nature, some wood/fallen trees could be pickable.
- Maybe a collection index progression similar to the commendations tabs, but this one focus on collecting all loot in game at least once, capturing animals, collecting ressources, food, etc. It doesn't focus on a challenge like fishing a fish 50 times but simply discovering it once so you can read more about the lore onto it once discovered.
- npc merchant fleet with naval escort moving in the map from outpost to outpost, could be stolen for ressources
- Having a wanted gauge for every criminal action you've done (ex: steal merchant fleet, steal loot from other crew "giving loot with right click/left trigger is the way to give loot without counting it as a steal", shooting first at other crew). Waiting will reduce the wanted level, tearing apart the public poster of you being wanted will reduce it. Being a criminal wanted makes all royal naval react/attack you
- Being a criminal reward you in some exclusive challenges for some specific unlocks
- Possibility to work as a royal naval forces, with quest that make you hunt for wanted criminals, would be only possible if someone is actually criminal in the session, these mission could make you wear the cosmetics of royal naval maybe? Or simply make you unlock these after some times.
- Having a personal island wich you can upgrade and stack up your collected ressources for craftings, this personal island can be switched to a better bigger island that you have discovered later, you choose where to place the docks and mansion, etc. Multiplayer with everyone's personal could work if there was some already set island's position on the map where personal islands of people will spawn when the owner of it is in the session. The more owner there are, the more personal islands there are. This mean that your island is not always going to be in the same position/spot
- Having a vault of ressources will definitly make this gamemode separated from the normal adventure mode to keep it more fair there
- More variant of unfair ship because here, being fair isnt the focus
- Having to buy ships and possibility to sell old ships
- Existing pets having perks to help
- Possibility of harvesting food/precious stone from nature/plants to create a cargo to sell to a village or town for money making
- Having a different gold account or a shared gold account between adventure and this gamemode, to discuss... to keep motivation whatever gamemode you play, i think it should be shared.
- Ability to unlock more firepower on ships
- Crafting recipe for temporary effect and/or crafting new tools/upgrade for your ship
- Ability to buy/pay/hire npc sailors on your ship, to fill all empty player slot on your crew, they do what you ask them to do as if you were the captain. You would use the pirate chat's wheel to give orders (could be helpful to new players or solo players that need assistance when you dont have friends to play with) it could be a npc crew that you choose and upgrade with time spent/money spent/equipement given. Maybe you could choose their names. They can do many task ex: hold the wheel for you (storm, keep pointing a specific direction against the waves), shoot canons, repair, bail, angle sails, ring bell when spot some danger ahead, drop/raise anchor. When battling against other players, these sailors will stay on the ships and fight with given weapons by the captain, the way they fight could be similar to the skeleton already in-game. When dead, they could just respawn just like any other pirates with that glowy effect.
- Skill/talent/efficiency unlocks for your character that allow better ship handling and task speed.
