Leaving Notes at the Tavern: A Server Wide Communication Feature

  • One of the biggest complaints about The Hungering Deep has been how difficult it has been to fill out a full team of 5 people to take on the shark. The "flag" feature had the right idea in mind (viewing the other ships flags from afar to see what their intentions were), but in execution, the distance that it takes to see what is on the flag made it less useful as a tool.

    One way this, and other future server events could be helped is if players could leave "notes" at the tavern, which are replicated across all taverns in the server.

    For people who have access to keyboards these would be short, no more than 150 character blurbs that they can input via free-text. Otherwise, it could be selected via an in game dialog message, something like:

    First Question: "Meeting Type"
    Options:

    • "Shark Hunting"
    • "Trading"
    • "Let's Fight!"
    • "Skull Forts"
    • "Voyaging"
    • (And so on...)

    Second Question: Meet at,
    Options:

    • (List of all outposts here)

    What this would accomplish is, as you join a server, or in between voyage turn-ins, you would have a reason to go to the tavern and see if anybody has left a message. You may find that during your travels, somebody has left a message indicating they want to work together with Skull Forts at Plunder Outpost, so you could sail over there, meet up, and work together the next time it pops up! Just like anything in SoT, the groundwork for deception is there: Maybe a group of pirates wants to lure unsuspecting people to the outpost to plunder them, or leaves a message wanting to team up, but plans to double cross in the end.

    I think this could have the potential solve a lot of the issues with forming "groups" with other ships in your server, while leaving the UI-light aesthetics of SoT and doing so in a cool, thematic way.

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  • I like this idea but I can see all the new 'outpost camper' threads popping up were it implemented.

    I like lounging and spending time in outposts so anything to that end works with me and the potential to find help/be helpful or the excitement of sailing into a trap is appealing. I think some form such as this to communicate server wide in some way is needed moving forward.

  • @elem08
    I quite like the idea, it would at least give you the means to meet up with other ships in a more organized way than just looking for them.

    The list of things to do and places to meet can be a limited list, but it would give people at least more options to communicate and it would give visting the tavern a reason. As with all things in Sea of Thieves, you still have the option to lure people and betray but I think that's a good thing. It still beats sailing without seeing anyone.

    I think THD's biggest problem is that the incentive to do it again is almost immediately gone after you killed the meg once, not so much that people couldn't meet up. The meetup spot at Merrick seemed to be crowded the first couple of days, but now it's quite a challenge to gather enough people.

  • @john-hatter
    Well if they would implement this, it would be easy to counter. Just check the tavern which outposts to avoid :)

  • Upon further thinking I would also add that such a system would open up the potential for community 'events' within a server. If you are able to type your own message then you could write a riddle and post it and wait at the solution spot with some loot as prize. There is so much we could do if we could just communicate with our current server in some way. I think this type of system would work wonderfully as it wouldn't be as intrusive as a global chat type of thing.

  • @john-hatter Exactly! The devs talk about how they like to add tools and then let the community use them in unexpected ways, so your example is just one of many ways that this feature could be used outside of the main use case

  • @john-hatter
    I think it would definitely help get people together and at the same time it would be easy to avoid when you don't feel like it. Adding options to write your own notes is as always a double edged sword, because it would mean possible moderation for whatever is being posted, but could offer interesting community driven things like riddles or bounties.

  • One of the things I've always had a desire to see, since playing was the tavern being changed.

    So when you would log in, you would be inside the tavern, like it is now, but the tavern insides be a server of its own. This way All PLAYERS could be spawned inside the same tavern, creating interaction (kill the PvP on spawn in only/inside THIS tavern).

    You could chat with others, see people you might have played with before...a giant social hub.

    So once you are ready to leave the Tavern, exiting through the door would spawn you to a random Outpost as it does upon login now, on a server like current.

    Once you left the starting tavern, you wouldn't be able to re-enter though without leaving the game and logging back in. It would just be a login thing. A way to start a group, find a group and so forth.

    I imagine this would take a lot of programming and back-end to make it work though so not sure how feasible this actually is.

  • @elem08
    such a good idea and after three days it's still not implemented... Shame :)

  • This and the ideas that others have posted on this thread are good ones. Let's hope the developers are watching. I think it's become clear that the players want better ways to communicate with other players even if there inherent risks to establishing that communication. I also think that almost everyone wants a central hub where they can meet, talk, play social games, show off their new "pirate" garb etc.

  • @elem08 sagte in Leaving Notes at the Tavern: A Server Wide Communication Feature:

    One of the biggest complaints about The Hungering Deep has been how difficult it has been to fill out a full team of 5 people to take on the shark. The "flag" feature had the right idea in mind (viewing the other ships flags from afar to see what their intentions were), but in execution, the distance that it takes to see what is on the flag made it less useful as a tool.

    One way this, and other future server events could be helped is if players could leave "notes" at the tavern, which are replicated across all taverns in the server.

    For people who have access to keyboards these would be short, no more than 150 character blurbs that they can input via free-text. Otherwise, it could be selected via an in game dialog message, something like:

    First Question: "Meeting Type"
    Options:

    • "Shark Hunting"
    • "Trading"
    • "Let's Fight!"
    • "Skull Forts"
    • "Voyaging"
    • (And so on...)

    Second Question: Meet at,
    Options:

    • (List of all outposts here)

    What this would accomplish is, as you join a server, or in between voyage turn-ins, you would have a reason to go to the tavern and see if anybody has left a message. You may find that during your travels, somebody has left a message indicating they want to work together with Skull Forts at Plunder Outpost, so you could sail over there, meet up, and work together the next time it pops up! Just like anything in SoT, the groundwork for deception is there: Maybe a group of pirates wants to lure unsuspecting people to the outpost to plunder them, or leaves a message wanting to team up, but plans to double cross in the end.

    I think this could have the potential solve a lot of the issues with forming "groups" with other ships in your server, while leaving the UI-light aesthetics of SoT and doing so in a cool, thematic way.

    Personal i didn't think that it is too difficult to find and get 5 players together to be able to summon the megalodon and to kill him .
    But i support your idea ! Maybe on the note into the tavern could be a little button and if you click on it then you would appear with your ship in front of the Players they was writing the note. Or on the note would be a "accept button" or "join button" and if you click on it then the note writer and his ship will be marked on your map so that you can find him. And he would get a message that you accept his invite and offer .

  • @elem08 Interesting idea for sure... I'm really not sure how much this would help though... I think there needs to be a system for essentially moving servers. What if you spawn on a server and a lot of people are doing the skull fort which has just spawned? Even if you use this mechanic you are still stuck for finding people. Obviously if you find that to be the case you could relog and change server but to be quite frank I think whatever system is implemented, it needs to be effective without the player needing to constantly relog or change server until you find one with players who might be interested...

    There are literally SO many players who play the game yet we are exposed to such a minority of them it's insane, there are easily hundreds of players most likely more, who are playing the game at the exact same time as you and want to help you do your skull fort, or defeat the megalodon etc... yet it's impossible to find them. The current system relies fully on landing in the same server as these people. What's even more frustrating is when you have met people in the game, or on the forums, and you want to do an objective with them, a couple of your friends, perhaps a couple of their friends, but there is no way in hell you can join them in the same server.

    Essentially if I was to meet a really good crew and have a blast with them one evening, that would be the last time I could play with them as two crews.... I think that's really sad. I understand that inviting extra crews to the same server could be abused but I think there is definitely a way to implement it whilst minimising any abuse.

    Your idea is definitely worth considering though and I love the simplicity of it!

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