I am currently still in the first stage of grief over the end of closed beta so here we go with another suggestion post!
Sword Fighting
I've been looking over the forms and I've seen a lot of people express opinions about this, and I agree with them. I think it's ridiculous that a sword hit locks another player in position, and the only real way to counter it is with a blunderbuss. Now I wouldn't consider that a big issue, except my play style of using the blunderbuss up close for those head-shot goals leads to me getting in a position where I don't have time to reload, I'll die. I don't have time to shoot them with something else, I'll die first. Hitting them with a sword will have the same effect. The only real solution is to try and block with my sword, but even then there's hardly any time for me to do so. I've noticed this with other people, and it becomes way too easy to get on a ship and slaughter everyone. The simply solution is just disable to locking and auto-aim mechanic. On top of that, one way sword fighting -a huge part of pirate games- could be more dynamic and skill based is with the implementation of directional attacking and blocking. The most relevant example of this is probably "For Honor," except rather than picking a stance and locking on to someone, you move the sword in the direction you want to attack or block. Check out Mount and Blade, that is exactly what I'm talking about.
Stealth
Please remove player names for enemies unless they're right in your face. They especially shouldn't be able to see your name if they're under water and you're not, or if they're behind something. This will make sneaking up on unaware players much more fair. They should've had someone keep to the crows nest anyways.
Death and Spawn-Camping
First off, if you're someone who spawn-camps because it's fun, and not because you're looting their ship, feel free to hop in a cannon and launch yourself into the red waters of the map border. That being said I have spawn camped myself because my crew and I were looting the ship, but we never hung around in one place pointing our guns where we thought there were going to respawn, we ran around the boat looking for anyone else and always being on the lookout. I love the idea of going on the ghost ship when you die, it gives me something pretty to look at while I calmly lodge my monitor in my ceiling. However, this feature doesn't do much to push for the "pirate legend" promise. I mean, how can you become afraid of someone if you don't even know who they are? There's a way to solve the issue of spawn-camping and this at the same time: ghosts. When you die, you could have a small window of time in which you can walk around invisible and unable to interact with anything. This could last for just a few seconds before you're sent to the deep, but it'll allow you the chance to move your character from a typical spawn place, and let you find out who killed you. Obviously the timer would have to be fairly short to avoid excessive ghosting, but I feel it'd be a good counter to spawn-campers, and even people to play properly wouldn't have the bias of knowing the general area where someone was going to come back. This feature would NOT however, allow you to chose where you spawn right before you spawn as that would be very unfair. It would just allow you to chose within a few seconds from when you died, so you still wouldn't know what you're getting back to. Also, this could be worked to act as an extension of the respawn timer, with the option to skip being a ghost by pressing a button. That way you can avoid delaying your respawn if you don't think there's a need to float around for a little bit.
Naval Combat
I'm going to post a more in-depth opinion on ships at a later date, but this will just cover the basics involving big vs small ship combat. To start, anyone who complains about how unfair it is to go against a 4-man group with only 2 people, I feel you, but I disagree with you. If you see a galleon, and you're in a sloop, you do not fight unless 1. You have to 2. You want to or 3. You're a legend. Dainty little boats are not meant to stand a chance against a galleon, even with maneuverability the galleon should logically always win. That's why the sloop has maneuverability, so it can get away. In my eyes the small boats is a ship for fleeing, as un-pirate as that may sound. However, the galleon's faster speed make this a real challenge, even with better steering for the small ship. I understand why many people believe this is balanced with sail-area and what not, but I assure you it's not. I could go into the detailed mathematics of it, but I have a math test tomorrow so I'm saving that side of my brain for the moment. The basic principle is that while the scale of sail:boat may be similar, it would still take more to push the galleon, and I'd even argue that the sails aren't currently proportional. I mean it's got three levels it's a beast! That being said, I do believe a galleon should be able to out-run a small boat when going directly with the wind, and the sails being fully utilized. When going into the wind or at a certain maximum angle from it, that small boat should have an advantage. While this technically isn't accurate with the current small boat sail design, it would be much more accurate if the small boat's sail was similar to that of a modern sail boat, running parallel to the keel and in a triangle shape. This would give the small boat a huge advantage when travelling even moderately against the wind, and it would result in single and duo players having to turn the sails less. If would also make tacking (for those of you who are familiar with sailing) a much more viable tactic, that would let the small boat blow away the galleon when it's crewed by capable pirates. These changes would ideally keep galleon combat between galleons, and sloop combat between sloops. It could also encourage players to team up with a sloop to have them skirt around an enemy galleon, popping shots and distracting them while the main galleon takes the other one out.
Skelingtons
Honestly they just need to be stronger, smarter, and more coordinated. I don't have a whole lot to offer here. A swarm of skeletons trying to take your freshly discovered chest would add a lot more thrill if you weren't able to simply hop around them and get out of there.
"Safe" Zones
This is another topic I've seen a lot of people discussing, and with a pretty big array of opinions. I personally am not in favor of non-pvp areas, because that's a huge stickler to the immersion for me. I do however like the idea of social areas for player, and I think outposts are the perfect place for this. So how do you create a safe-social space without making a scripted pvp-area? GUARDS! That's right, neutral guards at outposts would be AMAZING. Here's how they'd work: npcs patrol outposts by walking through the streets, outside shops and taverns, and watch the dock. There could also be a few cannons setup that'd be manned by more neutrals. They would only target ships or people that open fire and actually hit: ships, npcs, or other players. This would cause them to engage that player and attempt to take them down. They would then not engage the attacked player if they fight to defend themselves, even if they hit an attacking player. The key to this is making sure the whole crew is targeted at once, and that the defending players aren't penalized for defending themselves. This would require and improved AI, like how I mentioned with skeletons, so that taking someone out once they get to an outpost isn't impossible, but it certainly isn't as easy. It would also essentially eliminated anyone from camping outpost, since the second you attack someone you'll have to fight through guards to escape with the booty and your ship. Ship targeting should also be specific to the ship that's firing to prevent people exploiting by using someone else's ship. This would encourage players to not enter port with their cannons fully loaded and ready to pop, but rather in a more peaceful manner. I really like this, and it reminds me of the system used in ArcheAge to protect traders. It wasn't a perfect system that offered 100% protection, but it did make it so you'd have to be geared and ready for a fight to take out a player at port. To top it off, if doors and locks were implemented (I also talk about them in my other post), then the helm and anchor could be padlocked, and once it's shot open (attracting the guard's attention), or picked up (which takes more time and could be noticed by guards), you can feel more safe leaving your ship, your resources, and maybe even your loot as you go off to party with your fellow pirates in the inn.
Anyways those are some of my ideas for basic combat mechanics in the game. If you want to see me discuss wildlife (basically just sharks), then head on over to my previous suggestion thread. As always, thanks for reading and feel free to post any opinions you have below!
