Sea of Thieves Shortcommings and Ship Mechanic Ideas

  • DatPhat
    Captain
    Founder

    Ahoy there

    I haven't posted in a long time.
    Just to clarify things, I was one of the original 1000 insiders over a year ago. I've supported and defended Sea of Thieves for even longer. That all changed 6 months ago when Rare announced a release date for Sea of Thieves. Let me explain my position.

    Like I stated above, I was part of the original 1000 people to test Sea of Thieves for the Tech alpha. Testing went on for a almost a year and along the way Rare added in more and more things for insiders to test. It was slow going but I always thought "It's slowly improving, we'll eventually have a full, extremely enjoyable game to play here." Unfortunately, Rare announced the games release date and my dreams were shattered. It was simply too early...It took them a year just to implement all the things that were in the alpha from beginning to now. I'm not talking about content so much as just game mechanics. Sea of Thieves is severely lacking mechanics. SoT also has mechanics that it DOESN'T need.

    For instance: To anyone who has played the Beta ask yourself these questions and answer them honestly.

    How many times have you needed to show someone else the quest map or compass/what is the purpose?

    Have you ever wanted to have a larger crew than just 4 people?

    Where are the rowboats from the concept art/ cinematic trailer?

    What else is their to do in Sea of Thieves?

    Ive asked people these questions while I've played the Beta and Alpha.

    The responses I got in the alpha were usually "I bet they'll change it a bit or work on it more." I was in agreement with them as I also believed that since it was so early in development, that things were going to be changed quite a bit as time went on.

    The Current Game Objective

    So far, the current objective of Sea of Thieves is to just sail around and grab treasure chests and give them to whoever you want to rank up your pirate in a certain class. That, or deliver goods to a location acting as a transporter.

    This current system wouldn't be a problem if these things were more like side quests. Cause thats what they feel like. At no point in the game do players experience more than they what they can already have in one hour of gameplay. That is: find a chest, deliver chest, buy cosmetics, hunt players, and shoot skeletons. Just maybe, MAYBE fight the kraken, but we havent even seen that yet.

    Yes, I know, I know. The player is supposed to reach the rank of "Pirate Legend", but what does the player do after they reach that thats any different then what they are doing at the start of the game?
    So far, theirs a serious lack of In-Game objective that give the player a sense of accomplishment or keeps them wanting to play.

    The Game Mechanics and lack of Ship Mechanics

    What was your answer to the question above about the map and compass? For anyone I asked during the Beta it was usually "I don't show other people my map, cause they have their own." I even had responses like "You can turn your map and compass around? Why?" That is how useless the mechanic was (at least for the Beta). It served no purpose.

    As for Ship mechanics...

    The player spends most of their time in this game on a ship (duh pirate game). While this is certainly not a bad thing as this is what was expected, their is a serious lack of ship dynamics.

    One example: During a fight, a ship can only have a certain number of holes in them. Those holes are all the same size. There is no such thing as a "big hole" in the ship. 2 holes can't be right next to each other on the ship either. I understand that asking for perfect physics and realism for a video game is impossible, but for a game centered around sailing a ship, I'd expect a bit more.

    Another example: Masts aren't destructable. Theirs no way to truly cripple a ship for very long or slow it down. Sure, you can try and drop their anchor but that requires a crew member to leave the ship. The point of destructable masts is that it atleast offers another target for cannon fire along with giving a visual que that a ship has been damaged and is now slower others. Overall, it just adds more.

    Another example: Raising the/your colors. For Sea of Thieves, the sails (at the moment) seem to serve as the flag/colors of others. I'll explain a possible purpose for an ability to raise the colors farther down.

    Crews are too small

    This is one thing that has been talked about more than anything when I have played. The crews need to be larger. Having a larger crew has so many benefits and opens up so many options in the game that (in my eyes) have been overlooked.

    (lets say for now a galleon now has at least 6 people instead of 4):

    Now ship battles become more manageable as 4 people can be on cannons and still have a driver and one left for managing sails/repairing/or trying to board an enemy ship. The battles are now smoother as more effort can be put in trying to sail the ship properly than just scrambling to get a few hits on the enemy's lower deck.

    Ship Commandeering

    Having a larger crew opens up the opportunity to install a "ship stealing" mechanic. Something that everyone wants to be able to do in Sea of Thieves is steal a ship. Unfortunately, thats impossible with the current game mechanics. The only option for the crew is to leave the enemy ship alone, or sink it.
    You may be asking "How would you implement a ship capture mechanic in the game properly?"

    Let me explain my idea: After you board a ship and kill everyone, you have a window of about 15 seconds (give or take) before the first person you killed spawns back on their ship.

    If a crew wished to steal, err... "commandeer" an enemy ship they must go through these steps:

    1st. Raise their colors on the enemy ship.

    This process works like raising the anchor.(Except raising the colors takes much longer) If the enemy raising their colors is interrupted, the flag goes back down. If the enemy successfully raises their flag, an alert goes out to the enemy crew that their ship is being captured.

    (The crew who currently owns the ship will be able to raise their colors faster than an enemy. This allows it to be easier to keep a ship than to steal one.)

    2nd. Time warning for crew memebers

    After the initial warning is given to the crew whos ship is being captured, they are given (just for example purposes) 2 minutes to recapture their ship from the enemy. If the crew manages to subdue the attacking crew, and reclaim their ship, the timer stops.

    (If a crew is able to thwart an attack from an enemy crew and reclaim their ship inside the time limit, then a cooldown is issued before the enemy crew can try and commandeer the ship again)

    3rd. After time expires

    If time expires then that means that the enemy crew was successful in capturing the ship. That ship no longer belongs to original crew and doesn't serve as a spawn point for them any longer.

    (This is the part where a crew might be forced to walk the plank. Again, this is just speculation for this part)

    Now, what is the purpose of capturing a ship? Obviously, this means that the large crew that I talked about earlier would be split (most likely in half) These two crews would still be together, just on different ships. This is the part where a player can actually feel like they've accomplished something. Their pirate status goes up, their power over the sea goes up because they now have 2 ships to use.
    (If the captured ship gets sunk it doesn't respawn + their is a limit to how many ships can be owned by one crew at any given point)

    Achievements can be earned for capturing/defending ships. The crew can now do multiple voyages at a time. It adds power and it adds a reason. Basically, this puts the "thieves" in sea of thieves.

    At the moment, Sea of Thieves feels empty and without any given direction as to what the player is trying to accomplish. What little their is implemented, simply isn't deep enough to keep a player playing for more than a couple weeks.

    All I ever wanted was for this game to be amazing. I hope what I saw in the Beta wasn't what the final game was going to be in a nutshell.

    Please post your thoughts and ideas below. I know the multiple ships to 1 crew would be difficult to implement, but I find that its a "Must-Have" for a game like this.

    Thanks for reading...

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  • scarletshimmer
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    I'm sorry you find the game so disappointing. I've not had so much fun in a game in a long time. Literally laughed till I cried with my crew.

    Regarding switching the map round to show it to people I've used it on multiple occasions. Sometimes when someone is looking for a island on the map it's just quicker to hold it so they look up and back down again. Also we have had other crews use the function so we can help look for an island or to look for a particular place on an island or riddle. It's very useful for that.

  • A13XA4D3R
    Marauder
    Insider

    Yes I've tried showing the map or compass to other crew members that are not using a mic, and might be sailing the wrong way!
    I'm happy with 4 crew max.
    I'm happy without row boats.
    The lack of content is my biggest beef, but updates dlc. And the sailing is so much fun ill look past content for only 60$

    I think they are planning new kinds of damage to ships in dlc. I think if you had a crew of 5 or 6 on a gallon, and they all knew what they were doing, it would be over powered.

    When it comes to commandeering another ship, what happens to the crew without a ship? How long do you have to wait just to play again? If you get another ship, a different one, this mechanic could be exploited by players.

    The game is not about the end goal, its about the moments you have in game with other players, whether that's your own crew or other pirates!

  • MuAmmar6488
    Master
    Founder

    @datphat a dit dans Sea of Thieves Shortcommings and Ship Mechanic Ideas :

    Crews are too small

    This is one thing that has been talked about more than anything when I have played. The crews need to be larger. Having a larger crew has so many benefits and opens up so many options in the game that (in my eyes) have been overlooked.

    (lets say for now a galleon now has at least 6 people instead of 4):

    Now ship battles become more manageable as 4 people can be on cannons and still have a driver and one left for managing sails/repairing/or trying to board an enemy ship. The battles are now smoother as more effort can be put in trying to sail the ship properly than just scrambling to get a few hits on the enemy's lower deck.

    It's also been suggested to death.
    Things is, you're not supposed to have everything manned at once, you're supposed to manage your crew better than the other guys.
    Otherwise it basically just becomes about who's got more cannonballs/planks than the other.
    That's not only not an oversight, but that's even the very point of having a 4 man crew and 4 cannons on a galleon.
    If all 4 people are trying to just be on the cannons and shoot, not caring about repairing or steering, they should just lose and get sunk by the better organized crew.

  • LoboFH
    Marauder
    Insider
    Founder

    Some of your complains are nitpicking of the worst kind, like the map thing. Others are clearly showing that you want the game to be something that it doesn't want to be, this is a 100% arcade game, not a simulator, nobody is lieing here, except perhaps you to yourself.

    You sound like all those guys that accuse Overwatch of lack of content, this was even arguable in release, but actually is simply not true. SoT is a marathon, not 100m.

  • BodhiSlam

    @DatPhat
    Hello! :)

    As much as I would have liked to be, I was not in the alpha so I can't comment on what features were promised or what features have been removed. I am, however, a professional Game Developer, so hopefully I can shed some light on some of the issues you currently have with the state of the game.

    Completion Dates & Scope

    The main little tidbit here I want to relate to you has to do with your main concern about setting a launch date. During the development of all games it's important to set certain goals / dates. Those dates may be first playable / vertical slice, alpha, beta, "gold" - all important milestones to hit and work towards.

    As you move closer to these dates, "scope" plays a huge role. Scope basically equates to the time you have left vs the amount of work left to do. There are always moments in the development of a project where features are cut or "back-burnered" due to scope. You have to hone in on what's most important, what's most crucial to the game. You have to look at every mechanic, every piece of art, and hold it against the core mission statement of the game and ask, "Does this align with what we are setting out to make? Does this support our goals?" If it doesn't, it'll probably get cut.

    Additionally, Players are not the only ones that the developers have a responsibility to - there are many stakeholders in game development; the people who pay for the development of your game, people who need to game to launch at a certain time to coincide with other launches, marketers, third-party support. All of these people have a vested interest in getting the game out and to see it become a success. No one wants to rush anything, yet at the end of the day everything always feels rushed.

    I promise you this is par the course with every game that has ever been made ever. It's always chaotic, there is always mechanics that get cut, and there is always the desire to prevent feature creep - aka new features being thrown in as you are trying to reduce scope.

    I hope you can understand that this is the main issue why mechanics get cut and it has nothing to do with being deceitful.

    Concept Art & Pre-Production

    Where are the rowboats from the concept art/ cinematic trailer?

    So during a game development cycle, the first part of development is called Pre-Production or R&D (Research & Development). It is during this time that artists churn out hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces of art to express the mood, tone, and feel of the game. Sometimes these feature mechanics that make it into the game, but more often than not they are used to express "what the game should feel like". Often these pieces of concept art are used by other artists to make 3d art or textures, and they are also often used to express ideas to a large group.

    For example, if a good piece of art conveyed the feel of the game (Pirates! Yay!) and was worth sharing early on in a projects development cycle, the concept art doesn't represent a promise of mechanics but a promise of "game feel". Hence why it is called "Concept" art.

    The Current Game Objective

    What else is their to do in Sea of Thieves?

    So far, the current objective of Sea of Thieves is to just sail around and grab treasure chests and give them to whoever you want to rank up your pirate in a certain class. That, or deliver goods to a location acting as a transporter.

    This current system wouldn't be a problem if these things were more like side quests. Cause thats what they feel like. At no point in the game do players experience more than they what they can already have in one hour of gameplay.

    what does the player do after they reach that thats any different then what they are doing at the start of the game?

    So far, theirs a serious lack of In-Game objective that give the player a sense of accomplishment or keeps them wanting to play.

    At the moment, Sea of Thieves feels empty and without any given direction as to what the player is trying to accomplish.

    This, I feel, is the biggest issue with how you feel about Sea of Thieves. You are totally looking at the game through the wrong lens.

    Sea of Thieves is not a game about being told what to do, nor is it a game with sweeping quest lines, or narrative exposition that fills 80hours of content simply by "following the main story". Sea of Thieves is also not a game that necessarily even has main-quests.

    As you said the activities in the game feel like side-quests - and they are! They are side-quests to the "main-quest", which is to create your own adventures and to play pretend pirates. It isn't a hardcore competitive shooter or sailing sim. Sea of Thieves is a game that gives you an array of simple tools, offers you some simple objectives to give you purpose, and sends you on your way.

    I equate the experience of playing Sea of Thieves very much to LARPing, or playing Dungeons & Dragons. The story and the quests are there not so much to tell you exactly what to do, but to facilitate the players from one social experience to another.

    Sea of Thieves is a social game - it is about developing friendships, making enemies, and become renown. It's about making your mark on the game world, obtaining epic pirate loot, and fulfilling that fantasy that kids often have of becoming a pirate legend.

    There are heaps of activites to do in Sea of Thieves, more than enough to last for years. It's about making your own fun, not expecting it to be made for you.

    Mechanics

    How many times have you needed to show someone else the quest map or compass/what is the purpose?

    It was mentioned this feature was removed / tweaked because of balancing issues. They felt it was unfair if only one player had a version of the map (and have to show other players) because it could lead to easy griefing. In the future, I foresee the backsides of maps being used and this mechanic making a comeback.

    One example: During a fight, a ship can only have a certain number of holes in them. Those holes are all the same size. There is no such thing as a "big hole" in the ship. 2 holes can't be right next to each other on the ship either. I understand that asking for perfect physics and realism for a video game is impossible, but for a game centered around sailing a ship, I'd expect a bit more.

    This mostly has to do with both art and technical limitations. The ships can only be so big, and there are only so many fesible spots on the interior of ships to add easily-accesible holes.

    Further, having different size holes may add depth, but they don't add to the general experience. The purpose of the "hole" mechanic is:

    • Fill your ship with water, which makes it sink
    • A way to prevent Pirates from easily removing water from their ship
    • A health-bar

    Don't think of holes as a realistic version of ship damage, but as a representation of your ships overall health. Also as far as I know holes can be pretty close together (a matter of feet).

    Another example: Masts aren't destructable. Theirs no way to truly cripple a ship for very long or slow it down. Sure, you can try and drop their anchor but that requires a crew member to leave the ship. The point of destructable masts is that it atleast offers another target for cannon fire along with giving a visual que that a ship has been damaged and is now slower others. Overall, it just adds more.

    This again has to do with time and scope. Maybe in the future, but it isn't crucial to the overall gameplay experience to have masts be destructable. I can see why it was a cuttable feature (if at all).

    As a note, I'm pretty sure (?) your ship is slower if it's filled with water.

    Crews are too small

    6v4 (Snipped for brevity)

    You have clearly thought a lot about this, but many of your points focus only on the aspect that you want more people on a ship but not any sound reason to do so. Coordinating on a galleon with 4 people should have a level of difficulty to it, and when working together you can absolutely feel the difference in efficiency. The 4 cannons on the side of the ship are not a demand that all 4 be fired at once, but an option to do so. Having only 4 people on a galleon makes it so sloops can be more effective if sailed correctly (speed vs strength, classic trade-off). Having even 1 more person on a galleon would make it exponentially easier.

    Ship Commandeering

    SNIP

    This, if it was ever a mechanic, I'm sure was cut because it didn't lend itself towards the main objective of Sea of Thieves and is a huge system that would need to be designed and implemented. There are so, so many questions that would need to be answered by having this be a thing;

    • what happens if you own every ship on your server?
    • If there's a limit to the amount of ships, what if everyone has 2? -
    • Doesn't that immediately give an advantage to those players over players with 1?
    • How do you work out splitting crews?
    • Why even capture ships?
    • What is the main point other than "it would be cool"?
    • What design does it lend itself to, and how does it further the goal of "making friends through laughter"?

    There are so many questions that would need answering, from a game development perspective, given the time they had, it's easy to see why this idea would be shelved - and please do not go through each of these and break-down ways they could be solved - I am neither an employee nor game designer at Rare so you don't need to sell this to me. I'm simply showing that it's not as cut & dry as "do this thing!"

    All I ever wanted was for this game to be amazing. I hope what I saw in the Beta wasn't what the final game was going to be in a nutshell.

    Please post your thoughts and ideas below. I know the multiple ships to 1 crew would be difficult to implement, but I find that its a "Must-Have" for a game like this.

    Honestly, after going through all your points and considering your point of view, it just sounds like this game isn't for you - or at least not yet. I, and I know many other people here, absolutely loved the beta and feel as though we finally found "the game we have been waiting for".

    As a Player, I am absolutely over the moon at the casual sandbox nature of the game and the horizontal progression. As a game developer I am so, so, so pleased at the simplistic design, the clean aesthetics, the respect for player choice, and the confidence and courage to take a step in a new direction for online games.

    I really hope you are able to find something that makes you happy in this game come launch and are able to see what others are able to see.

    Best regards!

  • Rainesom

    @bodhislam Thanks for explaining this stuff! Insightful! :)

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