5. [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 3

[Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 3

  • Master
    0

    @pugmie
    You know i would agree with you if this was an older game. But as it stands i dont want Rare to stop working on their core game. Pushing content farther away to keep a small group happy. They can barely keep the servers running right now. Maybe if they could repackage the game some day. Make it seperate. Call it Sea of Frinds or whatever. Just not now at launch

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    2

    As far as exploration goes:
    Positives:
    1.)I enjoy exploring the scenery to see what else i can loot or what drawings I can find
    2.) making friends and exploring locations with other galleons or sloops
    3.) getting very drunk off of the brew and trying to make your way around the island

    Negatives:
    1.) no initiative to explore islands
    2.) your ship gets sunk while exploring (happens a lot)
    3.) most ships think you're an enemy

    (My) solution:
    1.) put unique game play (mini games) on some islands
    Example 1: fire that constantly makes you drunk while around it
    Example 2: have cannons lined up and try to shoot yourself into a barrel
    Example 3: Tic Tac Toe in the sand

    etc. The point is to give people a reason to stay on the island and play together (like red dead redemption five finger fillet)

    As far as combat goes:

    Positives:
    1.) high strategy fighting style
    2.) balanced weapons that are each suited for different situations
    3.) cannon physics are completely on point

    Negatives:
    1.) PvP is begging for rewards for killing opposing players (fights sometimes last hours before concluding)
    2.) Galleon v. Sloop mechanics make it incredibly difficult for sloop to compete against the galleon
    3.) Rewards for killing high level NPC's.

    (My) solutions:
    1.) Give new instruments for defeating these legendary beast(s)

    2.) put a (BATTLE COMMENCED) when ships are battling and players only have 1 live to defeat other crew causing defeated team with ship to re spawn in different location while winning team is allowed to re spawn back on to the ship and continue on with their journey

    3.) allow for a "pirates duel" where each player wagers coin on to who will win a PvP, CREWvCREW, or BOATvBOAT duel

    P.S. This is honestly first game in my life where our voices are heard and I want to thank you for this amazing privilage

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    4

    a couple of ideas.
    1: Have merchant voyages that run things like silks or something from one port, to another, making something like trade routes that can be pirated.

    2: Another idea is to put up wanted posters in the taverns of the captain of each ship, that increases based on a metric (like chests turned in)

  •
    7

    @nwo-azcrack said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 3:

    @pugmie
    You know i would agree with you if this was an older game. But as it stands i dont want Rare to stop working on their core game. Pushing content farther away to keep a small group happy. They can barely keep the servers running right now. Maybe if they could repackage the game some day. Make it seperate. Call it Sea of Frinds or whatever. Just not now at launch

    Really the game is already on sale and dropping off the charts. Just go read a few posts on some of the video game forums, lots and lots of people saying they will not play SOT the way it is. I would like SOT to sell well but if Rare keeps it this way I guess they must hate money. From day one I have never had a problem getting on a server, and its fairly quick. You say you support Rare but it sure doesn't look that way when you tell people to just go play a different game!

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    1

    @jwspeed said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 3:

    @nwo-azcrack said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 3:

    @pugmie
    You know i would agree with you if this was an older game. But as it stands i dont want Rare to stop working on their core game. Pushing content farther away to keep a small group happy. They can barely keep the servers running right now. Maybe if they could repackage the game some day. Make it seperate. Call it Sea of Frinds or whatever. Just not now at launch

    Really the game is already on sale and dropping off the charts. Just go read a few posts on some of the video game forums, lots and lots of people saying they will not play SOT the way it is. I would like SOT to sell well but if Rare keeps it this way I guess they must hate money. From day one I have never had a problem getting on a server, and its fairly quick. You say you support Rare but it sure doesn't look that way when you tell people to just go play a different game!

    What charts exactly are you referring to?

    The only numbers i can find tell the exact opposite of what you say.
    (source: Microsoft)

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    4

    @smoke-potion said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 3:

    a couple of ideas.
    1: Have merchant voyages that run things like silks or something from one port, to another, making something like trade routes that can be pirated.

    2: Another idea is to put up wanted posters in the taverns of the captain of each ship, that increases based on a metric (like chests turned in)

    1. I like the idea of trade routes, even filled by AI ships, that can be pirated.

    2. Rare specifically doesn't track stats in this game because it is not meant to become a PvP free-for-all. I personally don't agree with any changes that will heavily skew the game towards PvP, unless Rare is willing to separate PvP and PvE.

  •
    Master
    Insider
    4

    @katttruewalker Something that I'd love to see is random generated islands. Ones that don't show up on your map. If you're lucky enough to spot one and explore it, you might find rare cosmetic loot, unique puzzles to solve, rare pets to capture or even unique world bosses! In fact, I'd even go as far as making a new Trading Company called Explorers Guild. You have to survey the island, create a new map and return the map for rep and gold!

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    3

    @greaseman85 It's a game with PVP built at it's core, but feels like PVP isnt rewarded at all/ unless you want to fight over a skull fort for hours. RARE has said many times over it's a PVP game, and most of it's original branding was to that end. ("Look at how much fun it is to fight 4v4 in a galleon" and "It's rewarding to get the other crews loot" were the themes of much of the early marketing.)

    So im not sure why people keep saying this isn't supposed to be a pvp based game. Can you give me some quotes that back this up, where they state they don;t keep pvp stats, because they don;t want this to be a pvp free-for-all? (Not that the wanted posters would be a free for all, and it is based off metrics they keep already. Chests turned in, voyages completed, distance sailed.) It absolute, 100% needs more pve content. But it absolutely needs to make pvp feel more worthwhile.

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    3

    @smoke-potion They've always said it is a shared world adventure. PvP is supposed to happen organically, and when it does, it is exciting. The game isn't about hunting down other ships to sink for the LULZ. Even ship combat now has devolved into whoever has a powder keg, or whoever has more powder kegs, to explode under the other ship.

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    4

    @khaleesibot said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 3:

    @themilkman-vaec said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 3:

    We need reasons to explore. The Gold banana event was cool and gave people a reason. More live events like that would give people motivation.

    More campaigns are definitely something we're excited about bringing to the world of Sea of Thieves. @zz-emerz-zz is our Live Campaign Producer and she's hard at work!

    I'm likely to avoid the event locations. Most players will flock to them and much PvP will ensue. I'll do what I do now with forts. Do voyages while it's up because nobody will bother to kill me as they are busy with the fort.

    Still looking for some ways that opposing crews will actually want to work together rather than kill each other on sight.

    Zeffin

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    4

    I think I've probably written enough here. What I like to think about, rather than broad brushstrokes, is what opportunities will fit within Sea of Thieves as it is now, in the world which Rare envisage but which will provide enough incentive for pirates to get off their ships and actually walk, swim and fly out into the world for the pure joy of discovering something new and interesting and makes it worth taking that risk to do so.

    This sounds nice. I think to make it work, PvP needs to be toned down. I explore Islands now. But most times my ship will be sunk by every ship that passes by the island I'm on. So if I was lucky to find some treasure, I have to hide it on the island, mermaid to my ship and come back to get it. The exploration aspect I think just won't work unless the kill everyone on sight attitude that prevails is reduced.

    Do you agree with that thought or do you feel that the PvP aspect is about where Rare wants it to be?

    Thanks,

    Zeffin

  •
    Master
    2

    @jwspeed
    I dont like to tell ppl to play a different game. I wish ppl would enjoy the game for what it is and not take their losses in the game so seriously. Im glad we have this forum for feedback. But when that feedback is asking a dev to basically stop working on their vision of the game and make a single player experience, it seems selfish

  •
    1

    @nwo-azcrack I totally agree with this bro, the game is a diamond in the rough and if they start pushing a more 'friendly' or PvE based experienced it becomes just another go fetch quest driven adventure RPG. Which, as another game in the future could be fun, but the PvP is what makes SoT so fun. Just gotta cut back on the trolling and griefing a bit, but just like with GTAO: more content means less boredom. No boring game time leads to less trolling and whatnot.

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    0

    4 man sloop. Stupidest idea I have ever heard. Worse idea than PvE servers. Shame.

  •
    4

    I only scanned the thread so apologies if this was suggested and I missed it.

    To begin with I'd like to address what I think the root of the problem actually is, basically the issue is that outside of Skull Forts, PvP interactions usually boil down to imbalanced risk/reward situations where one ship can potentially lose everything they've worked for if they lose and gain nothing if they win, while the other team gains everything if they win and lose nothing if they lose, the risk reward is not equivalent for both sides.

    That said I think the best way to balance the PvE/PvP would be to add more power-up items like the gunpowder barrel that can only be gained by exploring islands. They can be attacking items like the barrel or defensive/escape items.

    This makes the people who have been doing PvE much more dangerous in a fight or more difficult to attack, which is fair since they have spent more time/effort/assumed more risk.
    If someone comes at you with nothing on board they are easy to dispatch/escape from.

    If people want to have a better chance at winning a fight they have to do exploration so they will have loot on board, which helps with the imbalance I mentioned above. They also have to put themselves in the same sort of risky situations (parking and leaving your boat).

    There are all kinds of items that could be added that would be cool and fit well within the world and all these items should also be things that could be sold off just like the powder kegs.

    Also just wanted to say that there are a lot of people in here saying that they don't want Rare pushing a PvE or friendly experience, keep in mind that if no one is doing the PvE stuff and everyone is just focused on PvP raiding other players then that would pointless as well since no one would ever have any loot. Ideally I think you want nice mix of both elements.

  •
    0

    I can't seem to find this k
    On the forums, though searching on the mobile mames everything harder.

    First I'd like to say I enjoy this game as well as my crew I play with.

    1. The issue I'd like to raise awareness to is firing yourself out of a cannon, at seemingly random times, will fire you in completely the wrong direction. I had a cannon tilted full to the left, I could see the enemy ship through the cannon hole
      That I was intending on boarding, fired myself, and went 90° in the wrong direction. As if the cannon was full right, plus some. I shot almost backwards from my own vessel.

    Now normally I'd chop that up to no big deal, but this was after our cremate, who apparently lagged for half a second and teleported through the ship, with a stronghold chest, into the water behind us which I thought was supposed to be fixed a while ago. Obviously he was eaten almost immediately by sharks ad the stronghold chests seemingly attract sharks by the dozens and the chest was lost. While trying to retrieve him and the chest, we got attacked by another galleon we had sank 3 times already that session while doing the skull fort. Finally overcoming our resources and that we were recovering from trying to retrieve the player/chest and being half crew due to respawns (second crewmember was new and jumped after the guy who lagged through the ship, why....) So obviously we sank and had to give chase to get our own loot back.

    Nearing an outpost, 3 of us lined up a perfect shot to land on or in front of, the enemy ship. All 3 of us shot together and all 3 of us went in different directions. None of us went in the intended direction.

    You win some you lose some, but I'd like to raise awareness to this glitch/hiccup of the cannons. Thank you for readings and congrats to the crew of new players that sunk us after our series of unfortunate events. No salt needed 😃

  •
    0

    Underwater Range of Motion (R.O.M.) needs fixed. It is very annoying to have the game stop you from turning to the up or down while underwater. This makes capsized sunken ships harder then they should be, and is VERY exploitable in PVP. (I cane swim under and behind someone, forcing them to turn and follow me, eventually they wont be able to keep turning, and i will, if i bait it right)

  •
    Master
    Insider
    1

    One problem with exploration/questing versus combar is that if someone wants to force you into combat there's no good way to get away from that. You can try to fight or run. If you are with a small crew/alone and have some treasure on your ship you may just want to make a run for it.

    But then you may end up with the other ship chasing you to the next outpost where you can maybe cash in one or two items before having to fight for the rest, or you let yourself get chasen off to the edge of the map. There is no real way to get rid of someone following you.

    Maybe for that it would be good to have something like bombs or mines that you could throw off the back of your ship and that would explode on impact. That may just be another functionality for the gunpowder barrel.

  •
    Castaway
    1

    Player combat is... fine... But i do see a lot of room for improvement. It works for now, but it needs to be a little more dynamic, smoother animations, more control, less stuns and disruptive elements... Let people properly swashbuckle... It' feels a bit like turn-based combat the way it is now... And i don't feel like that fits the game.

    Suggestions:

    1. Increase movement speed while attacking much more, we slow down too much when swinging our swords, nobody ever stands still when sword fighting, amirite? Just tweak it a smidge higher so that it feels more natural and dynamic... We should slow down a little bit but, not to snail level. xD

    2. You need 6 slices of normal attack with the sword to kill a player if i remember correctly, now, if you remove the 3-slice combo limit and allow us to attack more consistently, i don't think it will reduce the quality of the gameplay, especially considering the other suggestions i'm about to make.

    3. Allow player to move slowly whilst blocking with sword and being under attack... By stunning sword-blocking players when they're under attack, it leaves them with no power of their own situation, they are essentially stuck there until they're dead... If we could be allowed to move slowly whilst under attack when blocking with sword, that would make blocking with the sword a little less tedious, making it feel better, also allow us to sidestep whilst under attack when blocking, it helps to have a chance to escape a sticky situation... Quality of life improvement, more or less.

    4. Remove knockback from normal sword attacks, seeing as the other suggestions gives improvements to mobility, this isn't necessary to distance players anymore... Of course sword power attack could still have a knockback effect.

    5. Remove knockback effect from pistol... Of course it could daze the enemies it hits for a split second, but knocking them back? Eeeh, seems a bit overkill for a simple flintlock pistol. xD

    6. Last but not least, when i'm about to sword slash enemy skeleton for example, and i get hit by a barehanded skeleton slap before the attack lands, it cancels my attack animation and disables my sword controls for a short duration, roughly 2 seconds... This feels clunky, and bad, and frustrating and nobody likes it... Only the most powerful of attacks should interrupt other attacks, for instance sword power attack, or a blunderbuss to the face, or a kraken-slap... It's silly that ANY damage whatsoever completely disrupts the flow of combat like that, i hope you fix this. :)

    Overall, i want more fluidity, mobility and player control and quality of life improvements to combat! :)

    As for exploration, it would be nice if you could add some bonus goodies to the uncharted islands, a stray chest here, a weird easter egg there, maybe island-exclusive events (An NPC that rarely spawns and gives unique voyages, or a boss fight, or maybe just the local animal population singing at night, different from island to island)? They are empty, and, frankly, pointless to explore currently... If you want to give the game some exploration value, give us some unique sights to see, make us WANT to explore! Thought i understand this would take a lot of work. :)

    Hmm, well increasing the chance to find a random free booty when exploring would do wonders to incentivize the community to explore more, just make those booty spawn points in the most hidden locations of the islands and you've got yourself an army of explorers eager explore every nook and cranny of every island! Simpler solution. :D

    Why not make use of both, eventually? :3

  •
    0

    People, this thread is about balancing exploration and combat, not the issues you have with cannons or how you want combat improved or other technical issues with the game.

  •
    Ship Mate
    6

    Really funny when they said in the podcast that what they want for the game is to be always drawing you back at it. How do they want people to be excited about going back to this game when they allow for the worst experiences, and they encourage people ruining other people's playtime?

    They say they focus on the feedback from Reddit. The sea of thieves subreddit is a toxic wasteland, I can't believe the developers of this game, it's just plain ridiculous. It's like they don't want money.

    Everyone that left after their gamepasses trial expired talks so loud about this. It's WILD how they are acting like this won't be the game's downfall. This game is going down because of something very easy to fix, and they just DON'T WANT TO SEE IT.

    PD: 50 minutes into their "post-launch, funny community stories and our future plans for the game" and they've shared a single story, and the rest has been just them saying over and over how they are actually listening to the community without addressing anything, vague-talking, sharing their "philosophy" (that absolutely contrasts with how the game is now)... Wow, this is so ridiculous.

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    The worst servers of any game I’ve ever played absolutely horrible I’m constantly disconnecting, lagging, and losing loot because of these servers. Any other game I play I’m fine fortnite has millions of concurrent players and I don’t disconnect or lag.

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    1

    @greaseman85 there is nothing wrong with hunting players down to exclusively PvP. Sorry. Your argument just isn't valid. The game is working as intended from that aspect.

    You say PVP is all well and good and then you qualify that by saying it isn't well and good if someone is having fun with it.

    I TOO hate to lose. That seems to be what the root of this problem really is.

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    @themalthezzar That's fine if you wanna play that way. I just don't wanna be in a server that allows that. Got it?

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    1

    After several more days of Exploring and Pirating (PvE and PvP) on both the giving and receiving ends, I've found myself still bound to my original opinion: the PvP is fine in the game and should remain a solid part of it as the threat other players offer adds a good deal of spice to the game, but the lack of additional things to do in the game other than Voyages at this time leads the game too far into the mainly-PvP realm which has lead to all the Griefers out there. Exploration challenges/achievements, a PvP Bounty System, additional Voyage types, and Public Quests will help to tone down the overuse of PvP and bring the PvE system more into the light for everyone.

    Granted this will not stop the purely PvP players from attacking and pirating everyone they find (as is proper for a game about pirates) but I feel it will tone it down significantly into acceptable levels for everyone instead of generating so many complaints from more PvE-focused gamers.

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    @knifelife It's not them forcing you to pvp. It's the fact that the voyages give you maps to islands semi close by. So if your in the same area as 4 other ships. Your going to get missions at the islands all near you. Try sailing to the complete opposite corner and then accepting your voyages. Usually a few sides of the map are far more occupied.

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    @greaseman85 Gears of War nor BF are remotely like SOT. You don't enjoy games with open world PVP aka What Sea of thieves is. If you did, you would of said you enjoy hardcover Open world PVP games like GTA Online, Ark, Conan, The Divisions Dark Zone, etc

    Lol and there is nothing toxic about attacking other ships. It's called get better or play something else. It's not the developers job to make the game easier for the casual. I have ZERO issue with people sinking me. Literally none. I only sail sloops too. Out run Galleons with ease.

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    1

    XD When asked about PVE areas Chapman Responded "Never". Let the salt floooooooow! XD.

    PVP is fine. Exploration needs serious help though. You literally could enhance the game a ton. By adding a few small rewards. Need to have rewards in hidden areas that are hard to find or cool. Doesn't need to be crazy. But nothing less than a Captains at least (Seeing as a captains can sell for less than 600, that's not asking much at all). Add little trinkets to grab from the altars that are all over the islands. If your worried about people amassing gold to quick. Simple ADD MORE TO BUY LOL. That really isn't a major programming issue to simply change small things like color and make a bunch of different color options for the same item. Small things like that. Just add more cool stuff to buy. People will grind....

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    0

    @capnswayzjones Sea of Thieves isn't anything like those games you mentioned either. That's why I'm saying everyone thinks it is what they think it is, and want to push that idea on everyone else.

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    @themalthezzar said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 3:

    @greaseman85 there is nothing wrong with hunting players down to exclusively PvP.

    If you do that to a player that only wants to PvE then you chase them away. Is this what you want, less players.

  •
    0

    Please fix this number one unbalancing thing in game. For some reason (only you know why) most powerful combat tactic in whole game is galleon pivotin on spot. Any reason says that huge ship whit sails up would turn slow and be most weakest enemy. But for some reason you can't out run it's turning motion. Before you can line you're cannons for first shot enemy have hit you 20-40 times just by pivotin on spot. Stayng in one spot whit no wind to help you turn shoud be you greatest weakness in sea battle, not to make you nearly invisible. This takes point off specialy when galleon is fake parked in skeleton fort sweet spot. This is even more anoing than fact that sea battle suchest is not about you're skill of controlling you're ship and accuracy of you cannon shot, but you're ability to swim in our opponents ship and cause havoc or accuracy to snipe enemy capten.

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    0

    @logansdadtoo only balance would be more rewards to make it worth the risk. I noticed that best way to get rich whit little risk in short time is only explore clocest sunken ship from out post you start. After that just drop server and repeat. You earn roughly 90 gold peaces in minute and some reputation, but thats boring as F*....

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    2

    @khaleesibot from what I've seen on the game since I started playing is multiple hacks and glitches whenever my friends and I come across PC users. I'm not trying to imply that the PC players are hacking always but from first glance PC players are much more fluent in the controls and can decimate a xbox player based on their platform being superior with its ability to be upgraded whenever they like, but from the experience I've had I can honestly say 9 times out of 10 there has been either a hack going where all four of my team go and blunderbuss a enemy player on PC in the face and they still are alive which is to me a hack. On top of that whenever a PC group comes near our ship the game lags and glitches and at times weird things happen which has been so far; the ship disappears and when we take the mermaid we are stuck on a island with no ship, PC players have been on bottom deck attacking me and the next second they are at top deck and the boats sunk when it hasn't been hit to the point it will sink, other times I've attacked the PC player with my sword as well as my team doing it and they won't go down, also when they use a gunpowder barrel on the ship they don't die from it exploding when they are still holding it. So therefore I ask for a option that many xbox players would appreciate and would be fair , that being a option for xbox player only lobbies and PC player lobbies. This would be fair for users on xbox which can re lay on skill instead of getting hacked and their experience being ruined by a PC player. In saying that not all PC players use hacks as some have been ok and are helpful. Please take this under serious advisement rare. The game has a major potential for greatness but if people experience is tainted by hacks and glitches they will move on to new games.

  •
    Insider
    0

    Hello guys and gals, in this discussion I would like to propose an idea to the developers of the game about adding AI ships. Sea Of Thieves is an amazing game with countless possibilities.
    What I am proposing is AI ships to be added with being a different nationality like for example British, Spanish, and pirate. These different groups are all after different goals in the game and have different terrorities in the game. The British want power and control. The Spanish wealth and finally the pirates to be free and have fun. All these different groups have different people like merchants transporting goods between islands, pirate hunters hunting down enemies of the empires, attack boats to help guard better shipments, do blockades, hold islands and to attack other terrorities.
    This might be a lot to ask for but I believe in a large compromise and to pick and choose along these pieces if players could please comment and begin a debate on this topic to improve and add amazing AI ships to this game it would be amazing. Imagine attacking a escorted merchant ship with friends and other players/ships. Having to run away from 2 large fleets of British and Spanish having a skirmish in the ocean. And having to fight through the British on an island just to dig up the treasure to find a castaway chest on the other side. Please let’s talk about adding AI ships to add a better experience to the game and make Sea Of Thieves the best game anyone can buy.

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    @greaseman85 me and my brother tryed to play whit out any unnessesarily battles. It's realy hard because 99% of players can't accept that other ship is parket on same island whit out attacking. That leads to only solution to try this if you have nothing on you're ship. In other cases you just shot other ship when you have advance to do so. As long as this pirate game have no pirate flags to indicate you're motives, there will be no thrust among thieves. Even that i don't like to sunk ships that are seamingly minding they're own bisness i'm not ready to bet my treasures for 1% chance.

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