I had a fun experience today, but it was also a frustrating one. Basically, there was a galleon crew of 3 teams total at a fort, and we all hastily put together an "alliance" which, as you might guess, went south pretty quickly with one of the three teams going rogue on us.
To be honest, I like the unpredictability of this, but it got me thinking: it's far, far easier to just lean towards lying or attacking in this game than it is to make arrangements to work together; basically, I think it should be as easy to work together as it is to fight against each other, and it would be interesting to think up ways that the game can "reasonably" support that notion.
Like, think some kind of impromptu "alliance" mechanic, wherein, players who sign a pact gain invulnerability from each other for a set time. I know the gut reaction of most players is going to be "Not a chance", but hear me out: at any point, players could break the contract. The difference here is that other players will know that the contract has been broken -- say, the contract is an item in your inventory, and you have to keep checking it to see if it has a blood mark on it to let you know that, in some way, the contract has been broken by a player on the other team dumping the item in some way.
The contract itself also has a time limit; so you'll be pulling up your clock watching the seconds tick by as you realize that after it's over you either need to re-up on the contract, or be prepared for everything to get really crazy.
This would actually add complexity to encounters; players who are hesitant to engage in a contract might be untrustworthy allies, causing a scuffle anyway. But! Players who genuinely want to work together now have a much easier way to (temporarily) assure some level of protection, but only if they are carefully peeking at this contract every half-minute or so to make sure the status-quo hasn't changed.
Keep in mind, this isn't coming from a place of complaint; I PvP far more than I PvE in this game, and I've come to realize that I think the game would just be a bit more fun overall if every encounter with another ship didn't always start with a cannonball. This kind of idea would just lead to more socially complicated encounters I think, and add to some of the stress for the untrustworthy, but reduce some of the stress for more genuine "Men of their word" on the seas.
But, topic is ideas for working together, so I'd love to hear concepts others have for making "interesting" ways for players to work together that still retain the heart and soul of "deception" in a piratey way.
