What montization would it require to upgrade the game?

I think it would take interest more than just money.

I think other projects are in the future and they are mainly focusing on enriching the experience of what they currently have to work with.

@tesiccl said in What montization would it require to upgrade the game?:

@sanni a sequel to a live service game? That’s a funny joke, tell another.

• Destiny 2 (cue laugh track)
• Planetside 2 (cue laugh track)
• Helldivers 2 (cue laugh track)
• Counterstrike 2 (cue laugh track)
• DOTA 2 (cue laugh track)
• Final Fantasy 14 (cue roaring applause track)

Thank you, thank you! I'll be here all week.

@tybald For you, mate, I will admit most of those are a stretch. 😏

Helldivers 2 is probably the best example, but Helldivers was such a small popularity blip it didn't show up on many radars. Final Fantasy 14 is an unfair comparison because the other Final Fantasies are single player, not live service games. DOTA 2 is a sequel to a Warcraft 3 custom map, and I never played Destiny so IDK really.

But yea, I'm shocked Planetside 2 is still going strong...

@tybald said in What montization would it require to upgrade the game?:

@sairdontis4317 said in What montization would it require to upgrade the game?:

@knurd9369 Figured as much. Well no harm in asking or putting the question out there. It seemed to me to be more fair to straight up and out to put it up to discussion and/or suggestion. I am not a programmer or game developer and so I do not possess the knowledge needed to recognize the limits on what can and cannot be done with a particular game engine or server set up. Even if I did have some programming knowledge or networking prowess I may not necessarily know the monetary requirements and feasibility of upgrading a game of this nature and scope.

Don't be too beat down, I'm also of the opinion that it might be time to think of a ground-up rebuild of SOT.

I personally feel like S12 will add A LOT to the game. IIRC, Rare said the primary performance blockers are the bespoke version of Unreal they're using to simulate/animate the water and objects floating in the water and/or bobbing with the ship. Adding the sixth ship in S12 goes a long way to making the seas feel less empty again. On top of that, the future addition of the Burning Blade and previewed changes to the islands to accommodate that play loop will blow some fresh air into the seas.

But more toward the original question, it's a matter of feel. There is a island-to-ship ratio that needs to be hit in order for the seas to not feel empty. The larger the map, the more ships you need in that map for organic pirate interactions to occur. So if you couple the sixth ship being added with the changes being made to the islands, the game should feel newer and more populated soon enough.

I don't really feel that's the problem though. With a sixth ship on the server, I think Rare needs to go even further to recapture its magic. The documentary featured a gameplay loop of collecting loot, fighting over loot, and turning in loot. Colloquially, loot is the "ante" that makes PvP meaningful. But the game has been around so long there are pirates that don't care about the loot, and just want to fight. That creates an unbalanced situation in the risk/reward paradigm where one side risks everything to gain nothing while the other side risks nothing to gain everything (or simply let the loot sink).

To fix this, Rare should make more loot like the logbook so every ship has an intrinsic "ante" for PvP. Cannons tangled in rope and hull pieces, sail that can be salvaged as cloth, maybe even the barrels themselves, all that can be collected and sold to the shipwright, and count as loot for any trading company like gams so your emissary grade multiplier is applied. I'd love to see the merchants hand out wood, fruit, and cannonball crates for free so when you sink that enemy ship you can sell their supplies at the end of your session. I feel that is a minor upgrade that would refresh the game a bit. They could remove map board to make room for it...

@sairdontis4317 said in What montization would it require to upgrade the game?:

@lordqulex So instead of a sort of cat and mouse or two cats fighting over a mouse game you are instead suggesting the need for more layers to be added to fight over and more types of winnings to cash in ? I guess my other question would also be how much of that percentage of islands/ships does other types of PvE elements tie in ? More monster/monster/npc types to tangle with and interact with ? I have often wondered as a side note that we have coconuts everywhere, but none in palms or a way if there was to knock them down collect.

There are cats, and there are mice. When you set sail you can choose to be a cat (seek out or at least participate in PvP) or a mouse (attempt to avoid PvP, e.g. running or selling after every voyage). That isn't changing. I'm not "adding loot to fight over," what I'm suggesting is that if you're a lazy cat like me (I'll defend my loot but I'm not going to chase that mouse for 45 minutes) and get attacked by an aggressive cat (the ones that don't collect loot and just set sail to attack other ships), that my risk is rewarded. Often times aggressive cats simply attack again and again and again to whittle down their targets supplies until they inevitably win, and maybe take the loot, maybe not.

Right now, if I get attacked by an empty ship, I risked my loot, but the other ship risked nothing. I'm not adding loot to fight over, I'm adding loot intrinsic to a ship so that when I participate in PvP I get rewarded, instead of being punished by way of the other ship having nothing at all worthwhile onboard and wasting my supplies.

I know Rare seemed to me up to this point to wish the gameplay loop to center around the simple loot, fight, loot, fight type to keep it accessible and pop in and out casual even, however if "more" elements were added to the game would it lean more towards a different direction from this simple formula to a more adventure/rpg (loot types, creatures, weapons, and items) and be less casual while simultaneously being less hardcore pirate fighting pirate on the high seas ?

The much of the game is about risk versus reward. Do I stack more voyages to get Grade 5 and sell all my loot at the 2.5x multiplier? Or do I sell now and not risk losing it? That age old "don't carry more loot than you're willing to lose" idiom. I feel the problem is that the core mechanics of the game (you sink, you get a new ship with fresh supplies) is being abused by pirates whose goal is to "ruin" other pirate's sessions by just sinking them. They don't care about the loot, they just want to sink you and spout toxic gibberish. The solution, IMHO, is to add intrinsic loot to a ship so that when you sink them you get rewarded, and when you get sunk by the same crew 2-3 times in a row you spawn in new seas. That will prevent people from toxic, relentless, and aimless aggressiveness.

One missing element that glared for me in this game was the lack of impact of underling crew in this game. Sure, we have crew (players), but they are not meant to be managed in the traditional crew sense. Crew in this game are all crew captains with the same authority to effect the ship and how it runs just not be able to do it all at the same time individually. Some of the pirate captain captaining a ship of crew is missing, though this sounds like it is intentional to keep it simple.

"All crewmates are equal." Many pirates feel the captain of a ship should have more authority over the ship, but are quickly countered by the pirate code. "Why can't the captain brig or boot toxic players?" Because what if the captain is toxic, find a crew on Discord LFC, gets to Reaper 5, then boots the crew to invite their friends before selling? Yes, I want more authority on my ships as well, but that power can be abused so Rare has decided to simply not implement it.