Ahoy Friends & Foes Alike,
To start off, I would like to let everyone know I am an absolute super fan of Sea of Thieves. I have played since the Alpha, and I'm sinking in dozens of hours a week into this game. Every moment on the seas has been worth every second and the memories created from these play sessions have been priceless.
These suggestions and feature requests are a culmination of over a 1,000 hours on the seas and from a place of love. I believe Sea of Thieves is, and always will be, a place where stories are born and legends are formed, friends and rivalries are created, and adventure awaits any pirate looking to seek it. Please, if you agree with these feature requests, give it an "up-vote" so we can get these features in front of the devs. Even if these aren't all chosen to be added, just getting some of these ideas seen by the developers can give them an understanding that there is a demand and they can accept them or adapt them however they see fit. Also, please let me know what you think! Let me know if you have any ideas to add and we can all work towards creating a great mega thread of our desired feature. So lets jump right in!
ARENA FEATURES
The Arena has become an absolutely wonderful addition to the game, and I have become obsessed with the current state of it. I completely understand that there is still more to be added to this mode so I look forward to what may come. If I could add any concepts to the pool of ideas that are circling around the developers right now, regarding what they should add next, these are my suggestions...
- LAND BASED MODES: This is an idea that I have heard many pirates call out for. This idea means that when an Arena match starts, all crews will start on their ships like normal but each ship is locked into place surrounding an island. Then all the fighting will take place on land, giving way to epic sword battles and classed based tactics. The objectives could be endless! Imagine a mode where its just first team to 50 Kills, or every one gets the same map for that island to dig up treasure and bring it back to their ship for points, or a King of the Hill mode where every team is given a lantern color at the start and the objective is to hold a beacon on the island with your lantern color and first team to 120 seconds wins. The options are limitless. I think land based modes could really open some options for the developers and should be considered.
- OCEAN COMBAT ONLY: Don't get me wrong, I love the X marks the spot formula right now, but only focusing on ship combat to claim victory would be epic. If in the cycle of Arena matches there was one that was just focused on ship-to-ship combat that would really allow for some crazy Arena sessions. Especially if the zone was circled around areas with big rock or weather like the storm and fog.
- SPECIAL ARENA MODES: Special Arena Modes could be treated like limited time events and could be thrown into the mix every once and a while. Think about Iron Banner for Destiny how that happens for a limited time every now and again. The Special Mode could offer limited time loot just like it too! Some special modes I could think of are...
Megalodon Madness: Multiple Megs are in the small arena zone and you can gain points for your team by landing shots on the Meg or other crews. Megs can even be seen on the Main Map table!
Mega Keg Race: Tons of mega kegs are floating in the water just like resource barrels, so watch out! Teams must race from checkpoint to checkpoint and get to the final location first!
Skeleton Ship War: Skeleton ship are roaming the Arena zone and player must work TOGETHER to take them all out before time expires. The waves begins with just skeleton sloops, but as waves get completed more and more galleons will appear from the depths. The goal is to complete 10 waves of ships before the time expires. If all waves are completed then every team is awarded the 1st place award. If all waves aren't completed then all teams will receive the same penalty to their rewards.
ADVENTURE FEATURES
Adventure has been brought to life with each expansion to the game, and even more so with the addition of the Tall Tales and Hunters Call. These requested features are ideas that can expand upon these new addition as well as the old features. Here are my ideas for how to improve the Adventure mode...
- SHIP CHANGE IN GAME: The title explains it all! Allowing a crew to change their ship type in game would allow for smoother transitions when more friends want to join or when you need more help taking down an objective.
- NEW ENEMIES: I think that the addition of new enemies as well as expanding upon already created enemies will really liven up the PvE. For example, I think that for the already established skellys they should add new types like small, single hit, skellys that can spawn in large numbers to make killing large hordes of skellys fun. I also think there could be a new witch skelly that can summon things like waves of snakes or more skellys, heal surrounding skellys, or launch fire balls from its wand.
Some new enemy types could be something like Ghosts that spawn around grave yards at night. Islands like Lone Cove have large graveyards which could be used to spawn these cool new enemy types.
Even if these specific enemies aren't added, I do believe that new skellys and new enemies in general like animals who want you dead (boars, bears, jaguar) should be added as well as special variants to each enemy to keep combat fresh.
- GAMBLING: I think the addition of gambling would be fun and fitting. Right now the only thing you can spend your hard earned money on are quests and cosmetics. How great would it be to sit down at a tavern and play a few round of liars dice, or karnath while you wait for your crew to form up. Or have a gambling table in each ship where you and your crew could wager a few bets while you travel from island to island. This could be a great way to kill time if you dont want to be on the sea doing a quest or if you're on your way to one.
- LEGENDARY FISH: I think one fun addition would be Legendary Fish. Every 10 levels reached in The Hunters Call would give you access to a new Legendary Fish to go hunt. These fish would take a lot of skill to reel in successfully. These fish would require bait, but rather than the worms we see now, it would require meat like a pork leg or chicken leg to draw the attention of these large fish! Imagine trying to reel in a hammerhead shark, a massive octopus, or huge anglerfish. To reel them in players will have to fight the fish like we do now, but snapping the line could be more frequent if not careful. Also, in addition to fighting the fish players would have to mash a button that is displayed over the fighting fish. This would make fishing for these creatures harder and more rewarding. As a reward, each fish is worth a lot of money but catching multiple of them could reward players a set of clothing and equipment that is unique to each Legendary Fish.
- MORE SEA LIFE: With the addition of the Hunters Call now is a great time to add more life to the oceans to hunt and be hunted by. Imagine new breeds of shark like hammerheads that only spawn in the Shores of Plenty, or reef sharks that swim around coral reefs! They could even add dolphins to the world that swim up next to your boat when you have all your sails in the wind. With the bioluminescent fish that are now in the game, how awesome would it be to see a swarm of jelly fish glowing in the water at night. If you see them you can jump in them, taking sting damage while you swim around looking for the loot that they are protecting. Or even a pod of large humpback whale to try and harpoon or just watch as they peacefully swim by. All these new additions would breath new life into the open ocean and could also be hunted for meat and to sell to Hunters Call reps.
- HARVESTING LOOT FROM CORAL REEFS: Every time I swim through a coral reef I wonder about how awesome it would be to see those massive clams, break one open and see if there might be a huge shiny pearl inside. How great would it be to be able to make money from harvesting components and resources/food from coral reefs like pearls or sea urchins? It would serve as a fun way to make money and give purpose, other than eye candy, to the coral reefs.
- FRUIT FROM TREES: Imaging running along a beach and seeing coconuts and bananas hanging from the palm trees and being able to slice at the bass of the tree with your sword to get them to drop. Or running through a densely wooded island and see apples and oranges hanging from the branches of trees for you to pick off. This idea would make resource harvesting even more natural (no pun intended) and allow you to find food while on the run without having to look around for barrels.
- PROFESSIONS: A recent idea I've been toying with is the idea of professions. I imagine each profession would give you a unique grind to match what your desired playstyle is. So far I came up with Blacksmith, Cook and Merchant. These professions would give you daily and weekly missions to complete as well as things to craft and sell for XP. As you level up your profession the items that you craft will require more resources for gathering but are worth more money.
For Blacksmithing you would make weapons from mining minerals found around each region and brought back to the forge found at each outpost. Then you could either sell them to the weapons vendor for quick money and XP or take them directly to a buyer for bonus gold and XP. The buyers would be the npc's that are found on certain islands now. You could even keep your weapon or trade it with another player!
The grind would be similar for the Cook profession. You would get orders for meals from the tavern keeper. You would then need to go out and collect the required ingredients (fish, meat, fruits and new items found from plants) then cook them to sell at the tavern. You could also sell the food to npc's found on other islands for additional money and xp. Just like the Blacksmith, you could also keep this food or give it to other players for a huge health buff!
For the Merchant profession, this would be similar to the current MA mission grind which requires you to sail from island to island delivering goods. The differences would be when you accept these missions you're given another ship to sail along side (sailed by npc's) and you need to stay within a certain radius of this ship or you'll fail. You're also required to fly a merchant sail and stay along a designated, doted line route on the main map or you'll fail the mission. The npc ship will sail along this path you and you must sail along with it to keep it safe to make its delivery. This dotted line route is also marked on other peoples maps for them to see. However they don't know where you might be along that route. When you make stops and deliver the cargo you gain money and XP. You can earn money with each consecutive delivery and the more you turn in the more each delivery is worth. This could be a fun way to feel like you're living the merchant life while staying visible to player threats.
- THROWABLE WEAPONS: Throwable weapons like a dagger or hand grenades could really spice up PvP and PvE. Every player already has a dagger as seen by us using one to cast our vote for quests. These daggers could be similar to Destiny's daggers for the Hunter class as something you can throw one time then need to wait 30 seconds for it to cool down and get it back. They could do a lot of damage but take lots of precision to land.
For the hand grenades, I imagine these as items you can find rarely, like cursed cannonballs, or they can be forged by someone on your crew in the Blacksmith profession. These would be little black powder grenades that once RT is clicked, the fuze gets lit and the grenade is tossed. There would be a 2 or 3 second timer before it detonates. These would be mostly used for crowd control and wouldn't do much damage to ships. It would send players flying a few feet to either side if they're in the blast radius or kill them if they're already low on health
- PvE WEAPON BURNS: Every player should remain equal I believe in terms of weapons and weapon damage. I love that a Pirate Legend such as myself can be thrust into an epic battle with players who are still new to the game and I might not win. However; I think one fun thing to add and to grind for would be special weapons that grant bonus damage or effects against npc's ONLY. Imagine the Ashen Sword applying a flaming burn to skellys, or the Kraken Sword applying a layer of ink to skelly's causing them to wipe their eyes and have reduced accuracy. Maybe there could be a sniper that if the final shot landed on a skelly is a headshot, the bullet explodes like a powder keg! There could be a pistol that returns any bullets to the reserve it you nail a headshot with it. Or maybe a blunderbuss that can turn skellys to gold, freezing them in their place for a few seconds, for crowd control. There are so many awesome ideas that could change day to day PvE tactics if there were the same weapons but with PvE only burns on them. These weapons could be something that would require players to do a lot of an activity to receive them. For example, the flame sword would require players to complete the Molten Sands Fortress without anyone on their crew dying. Things like this will add a level dedication to the game that lets players look for the things they want most and grind for them. But if casual players dont try for these items they're not screwed because the weapon burns are PvE only!
- OVERHAUL SKELETON CAPTAINS: I think that skeleton captains in OOS missions and fort boss battles shouldn't be regular skellys with more health and cool clothes. I think when a captain finally spawns it should be an opportunity for the combat and your tactics to change. This is why I think every 10 level you rank up in OOS, the captain fight should get harder by the captains using new moves on you similar to the moves in the Captain Briggsy fight. These captains wouldn't use all the moves that Briggsy had but maybe just one randomly selected for each Captain. The higher rank you are the more difficult and challenging the fight would become as the pool of moves would grow every 10 levels. These special moves could include the ground slam that sends players flying, the ability to teleport players to a random spot around the island if you get to close, or the ability to inflict burns on you with is sword if it lands a hit. Even if you're already lvl 50, this would change your day to day grind as maxed out players could take on bounties and the target would have all the moves in its pool to select from. Also, the fort boss that spawns should be equal to a level 50 OOS boss fight. The boss that spawns in a fort should be random and you never know what burns and abilities the fort boss will have when it spawns.
- DAILY AND WEEKLY MISSIONS: One thing that always keeps me coming back to certain games are daily and weekly missions that can offer unique rewards for their completion. The rewards for the daily mission would be significantly less than the weekly one obviously. With the introduction of Tall Tales I think that daily and weekly missions could easily be added. The daily mission could be one of the tall tales exactly how we saw it in the original release, but the weekly mission could be one of the tall tales but altered to make it harder. These missions could also be for the already established factions! For example there could be a Gold Hoarders Weekly Mission that requires players to dig up chests and turn them in before a timer expires, but on the island they're sent to there's nothing but waves of bomber skellys spawning for them! Whether or not the daily and weekly missions are structured like this, I think bringing people back on a daily and weekly basis is important for online games.
- ROGUE WAVES: Imagine while sailing on the open sea, its calm and beautiful. Then the music changes suddenly to a panicked orchestra. You know that sound, its the sound of an incoming rogue wave! You have only a few moments to look all around your ship and locate the rogue wave and turn to face it head on. If you sail straight into it you'll sail over it just fine. If you're parallel to the wave it'll flip your ship over and do a complete barrel roll in the water. You'll be flung from your ship and when the ship finishing flipping over the masts will be broken and there will be holes in your lower deck that force you to repair it all before you sink. Image the terror!
- NEW MEG AND KRAKEN ATTACKS: With the introduction of detailed ship destruction I think adding new moves to the beasts of the world would make these fights more intense. There should be a move for the Kraken that wraps around a mass and your crew needs to slice it off before it snaps the mast in half. There should also be a move for the Meg that makes it so when it bites the ship, it doesn't just bite and swim under. There should be a move that makes it so when the Meg bites the ship it holds on and all crew mates need to run up to the beast and shoot/slice it off the ship. I also think there should be a move for the Meg that when she swims by she can occasionally wack the ship with her tail putting holes in the side of the ship.
- LIVEN UP THE OUTPOSTS: The outposts are in desperate need of some fresh faces and commotion. While I think that no outpost should be safe from PvP engagement, I do think that there should be some more life to be seen at the outposts. More npc's walking around, fishing off the docks, laughing and drinking at the tavern or sitting around camp fires sharing stories. I don't think that you even have to interact with these npc's. I would just like to see more commotion at these outposts to make the ocean feel more open and free from urbanization and population. Some of these npc's could provide daily missions for you however sometime down the road. I would just like to see more life at the outposts even if its not real players.
- COMMUNITY EVENTS: At each outpost there should be a new booth that hosts a community events representative that talks about current and upcoming community events happening around the open world! These events could be completed together with rival crews to receive your rewards or some events could require you to compete against rival crews! One event could be "Community Fishing Day" and all pirates are called to fish off the docks at a selected Sea Post and turn in a certain amount of fish before the event ends. One event could be a Mega Megalodon that needs multiple crews to kill and the host will tell you where to be and when. Another community event could be a pop-up shooting range that has opened up next to the booth at the outpost and you can compete against your own crew or against rival crews to shoot as many targets as possible before the time expires.
Again, whether or not the community event are these specifically or not I think that giving the Sea of Thieves player base a sense of community (More than we already feel) will keep players around longer!
- LARGE ISLANDS (CONTINENTS): One addition I really think could offer a lot of change to gameplay, and bring countless new features down the road, would be the creation of continents. Imagine a continent with a few large cities built on it, giving players a place to buy new items, gamble, forge new items, accept quests and then venture out into the wildness. These cities could also serve as bustling ports for players to dock their boat and display them proudly to other players. There could be large prey lurking in the jungles outiside the towns like wild cats, boars and bear. There could be beautiful meadows, high mountain ranges to climb and massive caves to explore. I imagine little shanty towns and camps sprinkled around the continent that could offer new quests from friendly npc's, a place to spawn or serve as enemy camps to raid for loot. I think one great change this could make for the game is to give players an expansion to ground based PvE and PvP, allowing players to fall into the rolls of their desired class/rolls (Sniper, close quarters fighter, map reader, navigator). The amount of good this could bring to the game is insane! I think it could open the door for a lot of Tall Tales down the road too.
WE'VE REACHED THE END
Well, this about wraps up my comprehensive list of features I would love to see added to the game. I know people have posted some of these ideas as individual requests. I just felt the need to gather all my own thoughts onto one thread. If you guys enjoyed what you read, please up-vote it! If you have additions or critiques also please let me know. I really look forward to hearing what you guys have to say and add. I hope that this can inspire some additions down the road from the developers, or if some of these are already in development, then it can show them they're already on the right track. Thank you all for reading, and happy sailing!
Cheers,
Stryker Osiris
