On Xbox, there is a level playing field (for the most part) since everyone is running the same hardware. But it's absolutely horrible that players can get penalized on PC for not having better hardware. For the record, I am sporting an i5-4570, a GTX 770, and 8GB of RAM.
My partner and I have been playing together on our computers since launch. My partner plays with a gaming laptop that takes less than half the time to load the world. My PC is fairly old but hits the recommended specs, more or less.
Yesterday we played for about two hours and had 8 items on our sloop. We were heading towards an outpost where a galleon was docked. We realized this is too much of a risk, so we started heading elsewhere, but apparently one of their crew members had boarded our ship. He killed us both almost instantly with a blunderbuss surprise attack.
My partner was back on our ship within about 30 seconds (including Ferry of the Damned waiting time). It took me almost a minute and a half to get back. She had already died again long before I re-spawned. I started hearing sounds from the game world, but the screen was still black. My model must have already been rendered in the world, because as soon as I could see the world, I was one shot killed again. By the time I was back again, the entirety of our loot had been stolen, their galleon was docked next to us, and we were sinking.
This should be a high priority on the already extremely long issues that need to be fixed.
Generally from a design point, I think crews need to have the advantage on their own ship. My suggestion: scrap the Ferry of the Damned altogether (or use it for a different purpose, because it really does look cool). Players who have been killed should stay in the world as ghosts. They would be free to move around, but they would not be able to interact with anything (except ladders). After a set amount of time (however long it currently takes for the door on the Ferry of the Damned to open), they materialize again, and can rejoin the battle. This would not only give them the advantage of choosing where to spawn while being invulnerable and able to follow what is happening, but it would also eliminate the load time issue almost completely.
The issue remains if you die elsewhere (not on your ship) and your ship is not close-by (requires to load a new distant area). Then and only then the game should load you back to the location of your ship. Otherwise it moves your ghost to your ship, with the usual set time, assuming it is already in the scene and no loading is required.
I'm sure other people might have better ideas, but this is something I came up with almost naturally, without giving it too much thought. What do you think?
TL;DR: The game has serious hardware-dependent balance issues. Different hardware results in wildly varying loading times. This is extremely unfair, especially when encountering other players. The re-spawn system needs to be completely revamped to accommodate this.
