Diving NEEDS a rework - Some Suggestions

  • Dorgi3
    Ship Mate
    Insider

    Whilst diving is a great feature that I'm sure everyone utilises in every session, it creates a huge issue that undermines one of sots core principles - player interaction. I've heard cries for more ships per server which, don't get me wrong, would be great however we know there are technical limitations holing back a ship increase and I think these cries can alll be summarised to: "Servers feel too empty" which is true - with everyone constantly cycling servers, it can make 6 ships feel like 2.

    So if what would be the best ways to address this feedback? Here I will suggest a few changes, some that won't even directly affect diving but will help solve this issue that is making the game feel like a shell of its former self.

    SUGGESTION 1 - PAY TO DIVE:
    The most simple approach to this that is in all honesty likely to not be that effective. Making diving cost money would hopefully prevent new players from diving too much and help provide a way for the wealthy among us to spend their hard-stolen gold.

    SUGGESTION 2 - ENCOURAGE SAILING:
    This suggestion is really just a group of a bunch of smaller suggestions that would encourage players to not dive.

    1. Allow sailing to the following Raids: Sea Forts, Skeleton Camps, Shrines, and Treasuries. Since these events can be sailed to on demand anyway, why not let us sail to them for a faction.
    2. Voyage Mega Stashes. When sailing to a voyage have there be a chance for the loot you find to be much greater than normal.
    3. Make sailing more enjoyable. Everyone hates sailing North West, through storms, and against wind. I think a few things could help this feel better: Decrease drifting when sailing North West, make storms still hard to navigate but not mess with the wheel as much. I also think increasing every ships speeds by around 15% would be nice and cut down on sailing times massively (this would probably require a 15% decrease in slowing down).

    SUGGESTION 3 - REWORK RAIDS:
    I guess point 1 from suggestion 2 is also included here. Faction World Event raids should go, completing a whole world event and getting undesirable loot just because a ship that was there decided to dive to it sucks and this issue is extremely prevalent with Reaper Forts. Instead all raid voyages should be in one place in the quest table (I would say Reapers but I believe that goes against the lore) lets say a new Dark Brethren tab, diving for these world events would not only net the same loot as if you were to sail there but other players would be able to dive to contested events. This would not only make world events more of a threat to complete, it would also make them more consistent. The only issue with this is Faction World Event Hero Items, which the best fix would probably be always having one in every event but the faction is random.

    SUGGESTION 4 - IMPROVE TUCKING:
    Please don't let ships dive when an enemy player is aboard and alert any non-crewmate on board about the crew attempting to dive either through a popup or VFX/SFX on the ship when it is attempting to dive.

    SUGGESTION 5 - ENCOURAGE STACKING:
    Emissaries are one of the greatest features in Sea of Thieves, they could be so much more by encouraging people to stack loot. I propose an Emissary expansion. This expansion would reward players with more than a gold boost for stacking loot and greatly encourages that risk vs reward gameplay that drives thrill in this game. This system would be Emissary Prestiging where at Grade 5, you would be able to complete an activity to allow you to vote to prestige, doing this would mark you on the map and progress you to Grade 6 where you can level up to Grade 10. Since this prestige can be voted on, at grade 6 the multiplier should lower, however at Grade 10, the multiplier would be higher than Grade 5. Emissaries should also grant perks as you progress, one at Grade 5 and one at Grade 10.
    MULTIPLIERS PER GRADE:

    • Grade 6 - 1.2x (Guild : 1.1x)
    • Grade 7 - 1.7x (Guild : 1.4x)
    • Grade 8 - 2.2x (Guild : 1.9x)
    • Grade 9 - 2.7x (Guild : 2.4x)
    • Grade 10 - 3.2x (Guild : 2.9x)

    COMPANY PROGRESSION EXAMPLES:
    I really wanted to think this system through hence I've provided some examples of how a session might work for each flag.

    Gold Hoarders: Progress to G5 - Perk: Visibly see digs with a 'X' in world - Complete Emissary Voyage - Prestige - Progress to G10 Perk: Run faster holding loot

    Merchant Alliance: Progress to G5 - Perk: Cargo on your ship is stronger - Complete Emissary Voyage - Prestige - Progress to G10 Perk: Emergent encounters won't spawn

    Order Of Souls: Progress to G5 - Perk: Deal more damage to PvE - Complete Emissary Voyage - Prestige - Progress to G10 Perk: Any Skelly killed can randomly drop a skull

    Hunters Call: Progress to G5 - Perk: Can see ancient Megs - Complete Emissary Voyage - Prestige - Progress to G10 Perk: Animals will never attack first

    Athena's Fortune: Progress to G5 - Perk: Any keg detonated could have an Athena blast - Complete Emissary Voyage - Prestige - Progress to G10 Perk: Damaging enemies heals you

    Guild: Progress to G5 - Perk: Stolen loot will sell for more - Complete World Event - Prestige - Progress to G10 Perk: You slowly restock supplies while at an outpost

    Reaper's Bones: Progress to G5 - Perk: Can see any emissary - Sink another ship - Prestige - Progress to G10 Perk: You gain the perks of any emissary flag you have onboard

    Thank you for reading, just wanted to express my thoughts and share some suggestions with you. I would appreciate if any of these are even considered.

    If anyone would like so oppose this or think anything said here is stupid, please respond. I would rather know.

    Anyways Happy Sailing All.

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  • BurnBacon
    Vanguard
    Insider

    it creates a huge issue that undermines one of sots core principles - player interaction. I've heard cries for more ships per server

    Sadly I’ve heard a much bigger cry of players encountering players to much and want less.
    (Which they are doing with the new system to force players to switch servers).

    If anything needs changing. Remove normal voyages to be dived too. Only raids and special ones.
    Along with make it so, they can’t simply dive and sail away from the first island.
    Increase timer between diving or least until the current voyage/raid is finished.
    Even if you quit and login. The timer remains.

  • PotatoSord
    Marauder
    Insider

    Pay to dive doesn't really work to prevent anyone. You can get enough gold to have a captained ship off of 3 smugglers shipwrecks.

    I like the idea of encouraging more sailing. I'm not too sure about them switching sea forts and that stuff to faction loot. It might end up making a player who is closer get to it first and then have the problem you mentioned later of having the wrong loot, as well as potentially overwriting mega stashes or rare loot. I think there absolutely should be a chance for all world events to have mega stashes. Naturally spawned, or voyages, all world events and raid events should have a chance for a mega stash. That would incentivise people to try doing more world events on the same server before they would want to dive. I like decreasing NW drift, that is the most annoying direction to sail. I don't mind bad wind, that is a tactic, and I don't think all ships should go faster. They go plenty fast, it doesn't take nearly as long to get places as people seem to think with good sail work.

    I'm confused now actually. You want to be able to overwrite the loot at a world event location, but then don't want people abandoning faction loot because it's not a mega stash? Wouldn't this incentivise people to ditch world events if they don't have a mega stash? You want to be able to overwrite a normal raid with faction raid loot, but don't want faction raid loot pools to be abandoned? If people aren't diving, just sailing, they could spam world events all over the place and cancel them over and over to just re-roll loot pools.

    If they made that a mechanic then someone could tuck on a ship and force them to not be able to dive, and if they don't find the tucker, they could have a crew bring their ship over. It would make diving almost unusable just because someone is near enough to your boat.

    I actually really like this. Maybe it shouldn't always mark you on the map, but I definitely do agree with having emissary prestige. Maybe a 3 tier system instead of just 2 where tier 3 marks you on the map, but I do see how going too high could be abused in alliance servers to break the economy even more. The downside of adding a higher multiplier is that the gold economy is already so messed up, making people able to obtain even more gold might ruin it further.

  • Ghutar
    Legend
    Insider
    Founder

    @burnbacon dive only to raid voyage is really good idea.

    Overall ability to swap serves that came with Pirate Life update and the with introduction of worse voyage system was big mistake.

  • MR SPX SS
    Marauder

    They are unwilling to completely separate the PVE function.
    Because they have always emphasized that this is a PVPVE game.

    The number of online players in the Sea of Thieves is decreasing.
    Why? Because many new players have just joined the game and have not yet learned how to play. They were attacked by other players.

    Pirates in the real world do not harbor hostility towards everyone. Because life only comes once.
    When encountering unfamiliar ships, they will not engage in battle unless they know that the other party's ship really has a large amount of valuable goods on board.
    But in the game, death becomes less terrifying, and anyone I see in the game can attack him. I just need to prepare the shells after each voyage.
    I failed. What losses do I have? No.
    I succeeded, if there is no cargo on the other party's ship either. I just wasted time fighting a battle.
    If the other party has goods on board, I win the goods.
    This makes people in the game unable to communicate and start a war when they discover others. Death is not scary.

    You get close to those who are doing world events in the game. You get closer to them. Do you want to tell them that you want an alliance?
    You form an alliance with them, and when they sell goods, you will receive 50% of the gold coins they receive. They have no losses.
    This is a win-win approach, but they won't give you time to get closer. But directly engage in battle.
    Because they are doing world events, in their eyes, you are here to seize the fruits of their labor.
    Perhaps you will refute me by saying, 'Hey, I once successfully formed an alliance.'.
    But how many times have you successfully formed an alliance? How many times have you failed?

    You're complaining that the ocean seems empty and you can't see anyone else. Do you think it's due to the diving function.
    But you haven't seen a large number of players just entering the game. Because they have been constantly robbed by others. And thus left the game forever.

  • Dorgi3
    Ship Mate
    Insider

    @mr-spx-ss
    "They are unwilling to completely separate the PVE function." I don't quite know what you are saying here are you proposing that there be a separate PVE only mode? You can't be because safer seas exists.

    I agree, this game is bleeding players but I wouldn't say PvP for the majority is the cause - arguably the complete lack of meaningful fresh content that we've had for a while now and the abhorrent performance issues and bugs are. I have many swabbies attempt to fight me first, they want to be their vision of pirates and steal. For those who don't want the risk of player interaction, Safer Seas exists.

    I don't understand what you are arguing here. "Death is not scary." Do you wish for respawning to be removed? I also don't understand why you compare pirates that shoot themselves out of cannons in a game full of undead threats, sea beasts, and magic to real life pirates - you can literally eat an entire pineapple in 2 seconds in sot.

    Yet again I don't understand what you are asking. When I get close to a world event ingame and there's players there, I'm left with an exciting choice: Attempt to alliance and either stay faithful or betray (depending on what happens), pull up and sink them, tuck on them, or leave. I personally don't care what's most beneficial for the most of us, I care about what's most beneficial or fun for me - I'm a selfish, greedy pirate - often the fight is the most fun.

    I still don't really get why you commented this, there is no feedback whatsoever no hateful no constructive, none. Your final point is also false because of the nature of this game, servers can have players constantly cycle, it can even have multiple servers merge into one almost seamlessly, as a result servers are almost always full even if 4ish of the 6 ships are constantly cycling. If the game had less players there would only be less servers not less full, this can be seen with smaller regions like OCE, its only that the vast majority of the players in those servers are shaking at the thought of player interaction and will dive if even on the same server as a reaper.

    Tldr:
    If you do not wish to PVP in a PVEVP game, play the MF PVE MODE!

  • Dorgi3
    Ship Mate
    Insider

    @burnbacon I somewhat agree but unfortunately i think there are some issues with commendations by doing this. I tried to keep my options from tampering too much with that. I'm not 100% tho

    When it comes to timers, I am pretty certain you can't dive until the voyage is complete anyway or at least you have to wait 5 years if not. I think its a bit harsh to have the timer persist between sessions tbh and don't really see the benefit in that.

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