4 man Sloop crew confirmed by Joe Neate

We don't need more players on a ship, because there's not so much to do on the ship at the moment. Especially the sloop has only one cannon on each side, 4 people on the ship make almost no sense... Okay, a three-man crew still makes sense, then someone can fix the ship. But I think the ships need more features and special effects to distinguish themselves from other ships.

-> https://www.seaofthieves.com/forum/topic/50990/ship-battles

@ianckoen said in 4 man Sloop crew confirmed by Joe Neate:

4 play sloop feels just right.
a galleon is just too big for only 4 players.

The sloops feels perfect solo! WTH are 4 players needed for?

Not only will it be game breaking it will also be boring to be a part of.

Maybe there's a point to a 4 man sloop Rare haven't told us about - or maybe it's another example that Microsoft should have used a proper company to deveop this game.

@biter-wylie
one for steering the ship.
2 for cannons/boarding.
One for the nest/repairs.

The Galleon on the other makes everything harder to manage only because you can have two more players on it.

So you have 3 sails for 4 players to manage, unlike the 1 sail for 2.

And pulling up anchor takes too long.

Everything is farther.

@swoxie420 not always, tried this the other night and the galleon was so much faster against the wind than us it was laughable.. sadly

@capn-stabn
Someone stated that having lots of loot on board slows down your ship, if this is true this might have been the case.
I cannot confirm this.

@swoxie420 would make sense if true, but we only had a skull fort key onboard that was it.

Honestly no idea how they were so much faster than us, it was laughable at the time

3 man sloops and 6 man galleons sound like a better idea to me - I am too lazy to follow the link, does it state a reason for the change?

@x1-two said in 4 man Sloop crew confirmed by Joe Neate:

@karmpsych said in 4 man Sloop crew confirmed by Joe Neate:

This time I agree with everyone else. A interesting but odd solution. The reason they are trying this is because it is a cheap way of testing it. They can switch off the amount of player requirement in the code easily, thus keeping us busy and test if it works or not. As actually designing a new ship for 1 player, or more players would take longer (doesn't mean they aren't doing it now). For all we know they want us to test the weaknesses, write in the forum so they know what not to do for a new ship they are making. Either way, we should just try it out and then give them feedback. Like the Death Tax, if everyone plays Sloop then they will naturally remove this idea.

They have pioneers for a reason. There is no reason for abusing paying customers as test subjects for ideas that everyone with a little common sense knows is a bad idea in every way. Put pioneers to the test (and an open test afterwards, because pioneers are not the greatest griefers). Don't just put every stupid new idea into the game without first adding all the good ideas.

That is also a valid point, which I can counter back in saying. Doesn't that mean Pioneers are supporting this? Or are they really testing and giving feedback on this? Why is this happening, if Pioneers agree with the idea being "bad". Or are they actually the ones suggesting this is a good idea?

If you're worried about 4 man sloops you just need to learn to play. Or, to put it more nicely, take a step back, look at the facts and maybe evaluate your combat tactics.
Solo and duo sloops already face 4 man crews, nothing new is being added to the game.
Why is everyone suddenly afraid of 4 people?

Before anybody responds, spare me the "muh sloop is more efficient" or "3 people can board at all times" arguments. I've heard them all, and they all fail to take into consideration that ultimately it will still be a 1v2,3 or 4, that the galleon vastly outguns the sloop etc.

It will just take a change in tactics to beat a 4 man sloop. If all your tactics amount to sailing in circles around each other and shooting cannons until one ship runs out of boards, I can see how a 4 man sloop would scare you. But there are a lot more ways to skin a cat. So please stop crying and actually give this change a try.

@nebenkuh I think a big issue with a 4 man sloop compared to a galleon is that 1 person can successfully operate a sloop while the other 3 can spam themselves from the canon to board other ships. Plus, if you are a solo player, it's pretty much game over as getting away from another sloop is a bit more difficult than getting away from a galleon. I'd rather see a middle tier ship that can hold 3 people but still have some negative effects to it such as speed, but still have it to where its better for turning. Keep it in between galleon and sloop performance wise.

@nyadc85 To be fair. . .
I think that this change has less to do with PVP and more to do with the party system. They are doing it so you can create a private party and have friends come and go without having to back out and re-start the game.
I personally would love to be able to do this as I have friends that come and go at different times. Although I do agree that it will be a little OP, but I am willing to see how OP it is before I start screaming for Rare's heads. The game is set-up for small incremental changes. If they fix one problem and create another they will -HOPEFULLY -key word here- look at that and try and balance any issues it causes.
Heck it wouldn't be hard to balance. If you have more people on a ship just increase the time it takes to do things on the ship by the number of people on-board. i.e. cannon loading, turn time, sail adj time, patch hole, anchor raising etc.

Why not do something that makes a hell of a lot more sense, and just model a a slightly larger two sail ship so you have a proper progression in size in relation to crew size. I mean, just saying the sloop can now hold 1 to 4 people and good luck is plain laziness. Simple as that.

In lieu of the terrible idea of 4 man sloops, I think this idea from the ship types thread is ultimately the way to go, along with the in game ability to change ships/add crew when you have more people to play with.

@reelxmullins
I think it is better that there is more variety of boats with different characteristics and that covers our needs

@corrupt-fellow Sloops are easier to sink (one deck full of water rather than 2), and can only have one cannon set to bear on a target as opposed to four.

Boarding actions remain exactly the same with or without a 4-man sloop, and still represent the best chance to sink a ship. You either face 4 people on a sloop, or 4 people on a galleon, that doesn't change. Only a 4-person sloop against a galleon should be easier to defeat since one crew wipe will almost certainly sink them.

Sloop anchors can still only be used by two people at a time, two people on sails is only marginally faster than alone, and one person boarding up the ship is still only able to do it so quickly (and again, the sloop sinks much faster, and mid-deck damage contributes to water leakage). Sloop crews are also far more exposed to opposing fire than galleon crews.

The meta doesn't really change with 4 man sloops. One way or another, you'll be facing a 4-man crew, just in a different, more fragile, less-armed ship as opposed to one that a solo player has almost no chance against. This won't be game breaking.

@supersomething said in 4 man Sloop crew confirmed by Joe Neate:

No reason to play as the galleon now. Sloops will be vastly superior with a four man crew and you will actually put yourself at a massive disadvantage with a galleon.

Galleons can outrun sloops with the wind at their backs, and can out-gun sloops in a slug-out. Galleon is not at any kind of massive disadvantage against a sloop, even with 4 people.

4 player sloops will mean the end of Solo slooping.
Not because of the game mechanichs, but due to the mentality when bigger crews sees a small prey. That is why so many galleon crews try hunt down solo sloops.. just to show their power.. Even 2 player sloops have way higher rate of tendency to attack a solo sloop then other solo captains, cause since they are two vs one they "feel" the need to show muscles and defeat that lonely sailor.
Im at 32-29-25 ranks at factions so ive played some time since 99% of this is from solo sloop. Only done a few hours with some friends on a Galleon, and althoug they are all the nicest persons in the world the mentality when we see another ship is to sink it.. loot or not.
Only time ive had friendly encounters in this game is when facing other solo captains out on an adventure.
Only thing that will happen with a 4 player sloop is a super agressive crew attacking everything that floats at any time.. It WILL ruin the game .. that is for sure.

@xklix said in 4 man Sloop crew confirmed by Joe Neate:

Only thing that will happen with a 4 player sloop is a super agressive crew attacking everything that floats at any time.. It WILL ruin the game .. that is for sure.

How would that be different than that same crew rolling in a galleon? Only instead of 1 cannon, you're dealing with 4 pelting your ship.

A solo player will always be at a disadvantage against 4 players, regardless of the type of ship they're sailing. The only difference is one will be more fragile and will deal far more manageable damage than the other.

@radjinwolf said in 4 man Sloop crew confirmed by Joe Neate:

@xklix said in 4 man Sloop crew confirmed by Joe Neate:

Only thing that will happen with a 4 player sloop is a super agressive crew attacking everything that floats at any time.. It WILL ruin the game .. that is for sure.

How would that be different than that same crew rolling in a galleon? Only instead of 1 cannon, you're dealing with 4 pelting your ship.

A solo player will always be at a disadvantage against 4 players, regardless of the type of ship they're sailing. The only difference is one will be more fragile and will deal far more manageable damage than the other.

Cause in a sloop you have manouverbility against a galleon, more people on galleon also occupied to make the ship function..opperating sails, anchors and stuff.. on a sloop 1-2 man can do that job while the 2-3 others do nothing but trying to board you.. there just aint enough bullets in your gun/blunderbuss to fend them off.

@conconcotter said in 4 man Sloop crew confirmed by Joe Neate:

@karmpsych
Im a pioneer and they have not done anything with us post launch, they closed the fourms and don't tell us or as us any thing more then you. Its really disappointing because those we the best timss i had in the game with friendly people all in game chat. I was never more excited to play a game before. Stayed up till 4 to get in the server and after 3hrs everything content wise has happened, every quest type, kraken, outpost. All things i have been doing in betas, even the "rough unpolished kraken" they tested was exactly as it was before except it moved around. Now i have little to no intrest in playing the game very much because i hear legendary is just as disappointing as everything else.

I've sailed with some of the best and the worst and i love the social aspect of this game, the best experience being with other crews who are not violent. Unfortunately since the launch i have not experienced this. I hate the way they are treated these issues and not focused on making those interactions more likely.

I hate the hate that this game is getting because i love it and just want it to succeed. But its like getting invited to be the first customer in a new restaurant and saying oh we not open yet so we only have hamburgers and water,and its a good hamburger. So you except the limited menu, dispite the displays of fried chicken wings and mountain dew. But you love the atmosphere and get to know the cook and the manager and love the other people around. You Get really excited because you hear its opening. Then the store opens and you find that it still only serves hamburger and water...

Thats how i feel

Then my hypothesis might stay true. That they are testing it live, rather than with pioneer or the technical tester which I think I saw they had access to, and according to official source they test with these early technical testers. Even so, I suspect they are treating the game as any other live game, test, implement, iterate and see how it goes. In many ways, that is one of the ways they have to approach the game now. That or have a technical test server, where people can willingly join and test features before officially adding it.

@xklix said in 4 man Sloop crew confirmed by Joe Neate:

@radjinwolf said in 4 man Sloop crew confirmed by Joe Neate:

@xklix said in 4 man Sloop crew confirmed by Joe Neate:

Only thing that will happen with a 4 player sloop is a super agressive crew attacking everything that floats at any time.. It WILL ruin the game .. that is for sure.

How would that be different than that same crew rolling in a galleon? Only instead of 1 cannon, you're dealing with 4 pelting your ship.

A solo player will always be at a disadvantage against 4 players, regardless of the type of ship they're sailing. The only difference is one will be more fragile and will deal far more manageable damage than the other.

Cause in a sloop you have manouverbility against a galleon, more people on galleon also occupied to make the ship function..opperating sails, anchors and stuff.. on a sloop 1-2 man can do that job while the 2-3 others do nothing but trying to board you.. there just aint enough bullets in your gun/blunderbuss to fend them off.

That's true, but a good galleon crew isn't concerned with managing sails during an actual brawl. Speed at that point isn't as important as maneuverability, and a galleon is more maneuverable without wind in the sails.

A galleon can already launch two players at a sloop while one steers/shoots and another repairs. Or, one repair, one shoots, one steers, one boards. It doesn't really change. Conversely, one good barrage by a galleon can wipe out an entire sloop's crew since they're all exposed.

A bad galleon crew will still be a bad sloop crew. A 4-man sloop against a solo player will still have the advantages that a 4-man galleon would against a solo sloop, but without all the firepower and tankiness up front.

The only part of a 4-man sloop crew that I don't like is not knowing whether the ship on the horizon has 1 player or 4, but that's more of a selfish issue where I want to feel secure knowing that I have the definitive clear advantage. That's more my issue than the game's.